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__label__wiki	0.735412	0.735412	Curtain Call: Bette Midler Will Soon Call It Quits With Hello Dolly Hello Dolly! Fabiosa Bette Midler has a long and star-studded career, spanning decades. She started her sojourn in the theater off-Broadway until her first Broadway appearance in 1967s Fiddler on The Roof. Since then, she has made countless appearances on stage and in film. In April 2017, she took on the title role in the Broadway revival of Hello Betty. Now, after almost two years gracing the stage, she is set to take a final bow from the production. Her exit is not for lack of enthusiasm for the show. Rather, she cites her age as a major factor informing her decision. With eight shows each week for the past two years or so, Bette confesses that she cannot keep up long term. Winding down Bette was recently awarded at the Tonys’, and she was full of joy. In a heart-warming speech, she gave credit to her colleagues and friends who supported her on the show. I’m so privileged, I’m so honored, I hope I don’t cry. Thank you to the Tony voters, many of whom I’ve actually dated… I’m so grateful for the outpouring of love and affection. Before Bette signed up for the role, she got some motivation from her predecessor, Carol Channing. A friend of the Broadway icon reveals: Carol told Bette that she thinks she will be fabulous in the role. It was definitely a lovefest between the two. These two women greatly admire each other. Bernadette Peters who has also carved a niche for herself on stage will be taking over from Bette come January. She does have big shoes to fill, and Broadway is watching anxiously. After the show Looking into the future, Bette is uncertain where her career will lead. She reveals that she has experienced burnout as she has been in the performance business for decades and that Hello Dolly! just might be her last job. A friend of the Broadway star notes that Bette has a lot to look forward to, including spending time with her family, husband, Martin von Haselberg, and their daughter, Sophie. For many fans, Bette will be missed on the show. She may have only been on for less than two years, but she graced the stage with her stunning skills and beauty. There will always be lasting memories of her outstanding performances, and we all wish her well in years to come. Tags: BERNADETTE PETERS, Bette Midler, Carol Channing, DOLLY, Hello, Tony Award Video: Stella (1990) Trailer And TV Spots Australia’s biggest stars have revealed which films changed their lives	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12771
__label__wiki	0.857891	0.857891	Ted Kaczinski: the Unabomber What is a Terrorist? The act of terrorism refers to the systematic and diabolical use of terror as a means of coercion. Although there is no universally criminal law definition of terrorism, common characteristics of the act refer to the delivery of violent acts which are intended to precipitate fear on a given society. Acts of terror are typically perpetrated for a political, ideological or religious goal; terrorists deliberately target and subsequently disregard the safety of civilians. All terrorists and their underlying terrorist organizations will not align themselves with government organizations or formal government bodies. Definitions of terrorism will always include acts of unlawful violence and war. That being said, any action that precipitates violence on a society and disrupts the harmony and general function of a particular community or sociological setting will be considered an act of terrorism. Who is the Unabomber? Ted Kaczinski, infamously known as the Unabomber, was an American mathematician, anarchist and drastic social critic who engaged in several acts of mail bombing. The Unabomber inflicted carnage through mail bombs for nearly 20 years; the Unabomber’s terrorist activities took the lives of three people and injured 23 others. Ted Kaczinski (also known as the Unabomber) was born in Chicago, Illinois where he was immediately viewed as a child prodigy due to his ability to excel academically at a young age. At the age of 16, the Unabomber was accepted into Harvard University where he eventually earned a Bachelor’s degree. The Unabomber continued his education at the University of Michigan, where Kaczinski earned a PhD in mathematics. The Unabomber, at age 25, became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, but resigned just two years later. The Unabomber begins his reign of Terror: After resigning from his post at Berkeley, the Unabomber moved to a remote cabin in Montana, which lacked running water and electricity. While removed from society, Kaczinski started a bombing campaign after watching the land and wilderness being destroyed by development companies. From 1978 to 1995, the Unabomber sent 16 bombs to various targets, including airline companies and Universities. The Unabomber’s efforts, which killed three people and injured 23 others, prompted Kaczinski to send a letter to the New York Times on April 24, 1995. The letter was in a sense a negotiation, for the Unabomber promised to “desist from terrorism” if the Times or the Washington Post published his anti-government manifesto. In this manifesto, the Unabomber claimed that his killings and bombings were extreme but essential to attach attention to the destruction of human freedom that is widely precipitated by the modernization of technology. FBI Investigation and capture: The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a costly investigation and labeled Kaczinski (before his identity was known) as the “UNABOM” (University and Airline Bomber). Despite the FBI’s widespread investigation efforts, the Unabomber was not initially located. The Unabomber; however, was eventually found when Kaczynski’s brother and his brother’s wife recognized Kaczynski’s writing style and beliefs latent in the manifesto. Through this observance, the Unabomber’s family members tipped off the FBI. The Unabomber’s Trial and Sentence: Once located and subsequently caught, the Unabomber’s lawyers, who were court appointed, were eventually dismissed when Kaczynski opted to defend himself. The court eventually entered a plea, where the Unabomber was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Unabomber was officially designated a “domestic terrorist” by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Virginia v. Black	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12774
__label__wiki	0.689249	0.689249	HomePosts tagged 'Ray Chase' The Other Side of Animation 150: Netflix Godzilla Trilogy Review April 1, 2019 April 1, 2019 camseyeview Film Reviews Blame!, CGI animation, Chris Niosi, Cristina Vee, Doug Stone, Gen Urobuchi, Godzilla: Monster Planet, Hiroyuki Seshita, Jamieson Price, Japanese Animation, Japanese film, Keith Silverstein, Kendall Gimbi, Kobun Shizuno, Lucien Dodge, Netflix, Polygon Pictures, Rachelle Heger, Ray Chase, Rich Brown, Robbie Daymond, Taylor Henry As much as I like writing reviews for films, I will say that the one thing that has lost its magic is the discourse of talking about movies that I don’t like. With the current film climate that is focused on being hyperbolic, toxic, nitpick-obsessed, and pedantic about everything for the sake of “comedy”, it ruins talking about movies, because people think that is how you approach movies, when it’s not. Film criticism is wildly subjective, and is never a straight path to whether a film is good or bad. Everyone has different priorities when they look into movies. I wish it was more of a conversation piece, and not a race of who can be the biggest pedantic waste of air that drags down film culture rather than elevating it. I may have had more energy to put into talking about bad movies two or so years ago, but now I don’t. However, to be a good critic, you have to look at a wide range of films from big budget to small budget, action to romance, and theatrical or straight-to-video. So, where do I sit with the Netflix-distributed Godzilla trilogy? The trilogy was directed by Kobun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita, with the screenplay written by Gen Urobuchi. The trilogy of films were made by Polygon Pictures, the studio that animated films and shows like Transformers: Prime, Tron: Uprising, Knights of Sidonia, Blame!, the CGI elements of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Star Wars Resistance, and helped Studio Ghibli co-produce Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter. The trilogy came out over the span of 2018, and suffice it to say, there was very little fanfare or warm welcomes after the trilogy was complete. While Netflix might have a promising animation output in 2019 and onwards for feature-animated films, this, to me, was one of their biggest blunders. Why? Read on to find out. I’m going to review this as one giant review, because the movies themselves feel like an overly long three part OVA special. So, the trilogy takes place in the future at the end of the 20th century. Giant monsters have ravaged Earth to a point where everyone on Earth decides to do the sensible thing and pack up, leave Earth, and try to find a non-monster-filled planet. That seems a bit drastic, but when one of those monsters is Godzilla, you wouldn’t really want him as your next door neighbor. I mean, he could be a good neighbor, but I’m getting off track. Anyway, the humans were joined by two other alien races, the religious Exif, and the technologically-advanced Bilusaludo. After not finding a planet after years of searching, a young man named Haruo Sakaki, dubbed by Chris Niosi, tries to pull rank and suggest that the current living situation that is 11.9 lightyears away from Earth is not going to be livable for everyone. After a failed scout ship exploded going down to a planet they were looking at, Haruo finds out some prime time information about Godzilla’s weaknesses from an Exif named Metphies, dubbed by Lucien Dodge. Haruo convinces the committee in charge to go back to Earth, retake it from Godzilla, and live there again. They head back to Earth to find that nature has pretty much taken back the entire planet. They encounter ravenous life, a mysterious race of humanoid individuals, and, shocker of shock, Godzilla. Can the humans retake the planet and take down Godzilla? Do the other alien races have ulterior motives? Who are the mysterious beings living on the planet? So, it was really tough to find a starting point as to what to talk about first. How about the directing and writing? So, what have the directors and the writer of the films worked on? Kobun Shizuno has mostly directed Detective Conan films and the Soul Buster and Knights of Sidonia series. The other director, Hiroyuki Seshita, has mostly worked on Polygon Picture-related properties like Knights of Sidonia and Ajin. So, where does that leave us? Well, let’s talk about the writer of the three films, Gen Urobuchi. He is mostly known for writing the scripts to Fate/Zero and Psycho-Pass. While I have not really seen Psycho-Pass, that other title I mentioned is pretty telling at what kind of movies I should have expected. The three Godzilla films that make up this trilogy are drawn-out, boring, convoluted, and don’t really feel like Godzilla movies. I know Godzilla has had movies that range from the fun monster-fighting romps, to the social commentary side of films, but these three films essentially show off the worst of both Godzilla and anime at the same time. When you think of Godzilla, you think of grand scale destruction, fighting other colossal monsters with their own creative attacks. Now, what are usually the most boring aspects of Godzilla films? The humans! The human/humanoid characters are fairly dull anime archetypes that you see in a lot of anime. You have the angsty young male, the calm-headed best friend, the token female character, the religious nut that has ulterior motives, the war-hungry meathead, and you get the idea. No one is really that interesting, and the story/writing constantly focuses on philosophical elements of living, being on a world ruled by Godzilla, and life, which are just boring as tar. A story about a planet ruled by Godzilla didn’t need to be this complicated. Why is it so hard to make something with giant monsters just giant monsters and action? I’m not judging this movie by what it’s not, but what we got, and what we get is not interesting. Godzilla isn’t even a major player in any of the three movies. He rarely shows up, and it’s really at the end of each movie. Also, for a film series that takes place on a planet taken back by nature and swarming with giant monsters, the other monsters involved are really boring. They are just these generic-looking rock monsters that don’t look good, and the iconic giant monsters you want to see from Toho are only seen in still frames. You only get, like, three of the iconic Toho monsters, but one is only spoken of, while the other one is Ghidorah, but not the traditional Ghidorah. It’s like this movie was afraid to be a giant monster movie. I know we all make fun of the old Toho monster flicks, but they were very entertaining, because seeing giant monsters fight was, and will always be, entertaining. They even have Mecha Godzilla, but not in the same sense. It could have been interesting, but it was sadly not. That’s the big takeaway from this trilogy, it could have been interesting, but it was drawn out between three films, and the few action scenes that were there, were not enough to save the film’s sluggish and confusing story. Animation-wise, it’s getting a bit tiring to criticize Japanese CGI animation, because there are good signs of some studios knowing what to do, like Land of the Lustrous, but I didn’t really find anything all that impressive about Godzilla’s CGI. It was fine, everything was animated decently, the action was mostly readable, and when you could tell where the budget went, it looked good. You just see a lot the films reusing character models, and you get the typical clunky anime CGI movements from time to time. Polygon Pictures is getting close to showing how well CGI can work, but a show like the mentioned above Land of the Lustrous does it better. So, do I like anything about this trilogy? Well, like I said above, the CGI anime is pretty decent. When Godzilla is actually on screen, you do feel his presence, and when he actually does something, it’s a lot of fun. It’s just common knowledge that watching Godzilla blow stuff up and fight actual monsters is a proven good time. The dub script is pretty okay. I don’t really say this will be anyone’s best performances, but they did a good job with reading the scripts given to them. I think the biggest failure of these films were that they got the wrong team to make them. Godzilla didn’t need to be yet another philosophical think piece, when the most recent live-action Godzilla film was flawed, but way better at tackling such subjects, and had much better action set pieces. If you are a hardcore Godzilla fan and haven’t checked out these films, I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you must see every single film, then check them out. I just couldn’t be bothered to be hyperbolic and angry about these films. The more I hated these films, the more draining it became. They aren’t good movies on their own, and it’s not a good overall story as a trilogy. It wastes opportunities by being a three-part film, doesn’t take as many opportunities with its premise as it should, and shows how far some studios still have to go to make good-looking CGI-focused animation. However, after seeing this trilogy, it made me realize why I like talking about movies I enjoy, so, next time, how about we talk about the smash hit How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World? Thanks for reading, and let’s keep spreading the support for more positive film conversations and more mature and in-depth film criticism. I hope you all enjoyed the review, and I will see you all next time. Rating for all Three Films: Blacklist/The Worst	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12784
__label__wiki	0.545816	0.545816	Legal Career Assessment Hiring Women and Minority Attorneys - One General Counsel's Perspective By Raymond L. Ocampo On Hiring Women and Minority Attorneys: One General Counsel's Perspective* © 1994 Raymond L. Ocampo, Jr. Mr. Ocampo is Chair of the ABA Section of Science & Technology Law (2001-02) and is the author of Surfing the Law and Technology Tsunami (American Bar Association 2001) and Negotiating and Drafting Software Consulting Agreements (Glasser LegalWorks 1996). He retired as general counsel of Oracle Corporation in 1996 and has since served as a mediator and arbitrator in high-tech disputes. We understand that your firm is and will continue to be an equal opportunity employer and that your firm will continue to actively recruit and promote women and minorities. We ask that the first person you consider for assignment to the case be a woman or a minority employee of your firm with appropriate experience. We also ask that you report to us annually the number and percentage of women and minority partners in the firm. This is an article about Oracle's outside counsel retention policy designed to eliminate law firm excuses for not assigning women and minority attorneys to legal matters. Corporate legal departments can promote the hiring and advancement of women and minority outside attorneys by adopting and encouraging the retention policy above, or one similar to it. While the focus of the article is on racial and ethnic discrimination, the policy also encompasses efforts to counter gender-based discrimination. Gender and race discrimination have existed since the beginning of the legal profession. The first woman to graduate from Harvard Law School was a member of the class of 1953. Stanford's first African-American law student graduated in 1968. Discrimination continues in ways both overt and subtle. Statistics show the effects of continuing discrimination: in the largest law firms in San Francisco, the city with the "best" statistics for minority hiring in the country, only 5% of the partners are minorities. Minorities are still the last to be hired and the first to be asked to leave. Women fare better, but not much. Female minorities suffer the brunt of dual discrimination. A story relayed to me directly by a participant crystallized the creation of the retention policy described in this article. This story highlights the problem and conveys better than statistics the effect of discrimination in the legal marketplace. The story is about a lawyer with "all the credentials": undergraduate work and law school at Ivy League schools; a star on his college athletic team; a summer associate in name law firms while in law school; a law clerk to a federal judge; a successful career with a Wall Street law firm; and, a reputation as an excellent lawyer with outstanding social skills. As with most "stars," he encountered few if any problems at his law firm--until his firm's retreat in which there was a role-playing exercise during sensitivity training on diversity. He played an associate in a case in which the inside lawyer tells the partner to make sure that he does not assign a minority to the case. In this role-playing, the partner said, "Of course!," and assigned the case to someone else. The associate afterwards asked the partner whether he was serious. He could not believe that the partner would act in real life the way he acted in the role-playing session. The partner replied matter-of-factly, "If the client tells me not to hire a minority attorney, I won't hire one." He was not joking. "Don't you realize what you're doing?" the associate asked. "Yes. I'm doing what the client wants me to do." Imagine how the associate--a lawyer with "'all the credentials" who happens to be African-American--must feel. He has played the game as well as anyone, and yet, in a profession that prides itself in its belief in and defense of equal opportunities, he is told that he will not work on a case simply because he is black. If this exclusion can take place in the context of sensitivity training for diversity, how commonplace is the exclusion that takes place in the real world? Many corporations address the situation with policies that "support" or "encourage" the hiring of women and minorities as outside counsel. These are laudable policies, but neither "permission" nor "encouragement" is enough. Despite the existence of these corporate policies, many partners in law firms continue to exclude women and minorities from corporate assignments. They will continue to do so unless they are told explicitly that the assignment of minorities is not only supported and encouraged, but rewarded--and unless disincentives exist for failing to hire and retain minority attorneys. Oracle's legal department is committed to retaining outside counsel with the same qualities I demand of our own lawyers in-house: competence, honesty, and a passion for and commitment to their work. In short, I want quality lawyers. In the final analysis, gender, race, ethnic background, sexual preference, physical challenge, and other such criteria are irrelevant because a legal department must deliver the best legal services possible to a company and management concerned first and foremost with results. Quality and diversity, however, have never been inconsistent. Oracle's legal department is diverse (of the lawyers at headquarters, 50% are women and 25% are minorities). The pressure on me as general counsel is to provide quality services at a reasonable price with the best results possible. It would be easy to justify whatever hiring practices I enact if they accomplish these goals. It would have been easy to continue with an "encouragement" retention policy. I could point at my own department's diversity and the policy and state, "I'm doing everything I need to do to accomplish my mission." But that would not be the case; we can always do better and we should take every opportunity to do so. Although our outside counsel retention policy itself has not changed Oracle's hiring practices--we have always hired outstanding attorneys, many of whom are women and minorities--we have implemented it to ensure that we continue to be conscious about making a difference wherever we can. I am proud to be a lawyer, but I am not proud of the discrimination that still takes place in our profession. Oracle's legal department decided to do something to get people's attention, to take a stand. We want to do more than encourage the hiring of women and minorities. We want law firms to know that social responsibility is very important. We want to reward those firms whose conduct supports anti-discrimination and not reward those who prefer benign neglect. Most of all, we want to shatter the perception that corporate law departments may shy away from hiring women and minorities for their important cases, the odious assumption being that they are inferior and cannot be trusted to succeed in important matters. The response in favor of the policy has been overwhelming. The heartfelt letters and statements of appreciation I have received tell me that I have touched a chord in the feelings of those who understand what we are trying to do. I know, however, that with every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Although the policy has had the unqualified support of the firms we have hired, I am aware that others may not be as supportive--but that they fear the consequences of an open stand against the policy. The "politically incorrect" responses have been whispered, not shouted, but I want to address them. This is an uncomfortable subject for many people and we need to encourage dialogue to effect change.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12787
__label__cc	0.714955	0.285045	Author: aziyati How Does an eProfiling System for Malaysian TVET Instructor Work? January 21, 2019 aziyati Prior to this post, I have written at least 3 entries about TVET in Malaysia. The first entry was about its framework in comparison to other ASEAN countries, the second entry was about Malaysian TVET Landscape, and the third entry was about the ministerial conflict in managing TVET in comparison to other major World players. For this entry, I am going to write on the most crucial resources and asset in the area of TVET, i.e. human capital and a system that register its details called eProfiling. EProfiling is an online system located at the URL of http://eprofiling.ciast.gov.my/ . It was built and governed by one of the renowned TVET institution known as Centre for Instructor and Advanced Skill Training (CIAST). CIAST has her historical timeline that it has been the leading institution in the area of Capacity Building and Train-of-Trainers. This is not only for the institutions in Malaysia but also internationally recognised especially to those countries participated with JICA’s Third Country Training Programme (TCTP) and Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme (MTCP) managed by Ministry of Foreign Affairs (prior to this, it was managed by Economic Planning Unit (EPU)). The training approaches came in many range, and were known in many names, e.g. (i) Pedagogy, (ii) Andragogy (for adult learning), (iii) Cert IV (Australian method), (iv) Train-the-Trainer (TTT), … and many more. All with the same aim of certifying the teachers or trainers to be able to deliver training and conduct teaching for their subject matter. All to accredit the instructors that they have the ability to teach and train others in accordance to their area of expertise. But with vast training institutions and high volume of training providers, it is crucial to administer and register the details of the trainers to a centralised system. This is what the initiative that has taken by CIAST. Having more than 18 agencies to participate in this system to date and to target for about more 30,000 registered instructors by the year 2020. It is certainly contributing to the big data of the instructors and require meticulous management on the system. Hence, continuous research should also complement it. Due to this fact, I have taken the step to find the opportunity to do presentation on this system abroad. And I feel honoured that one of the international conferences on academic and education development forum had accepted our request to join their serial journal publication. It will be in March this year in Tokyo, Japan. But in preparation to that conference, I am writing this post to introduce to the readers on the overview of this system. This system is to leverage the following items: (i) There would be a centralised system that register and contain the details of all available technical and vocational trainers in this country (Malaysia). (ii) There is a centralised system for searching the instructors with specific abilities and competencies that they do not limit their teaching delivery within their own institutions rather it can be shared and borrowed. (iii) Transfer of Technology. Transfer of Knowledge and Expertise. Whence there is one a centre that creates pool of details for skilled teachers, it would be easier to find required master trainers to train others from the same discipline too. (iv) Providing the instructors with the right Industrial Training Attachment. Once, the system was able to identify the instructor’s ability, competencies and industrial sectors that they are capable, upgrading their skills should be simplified to the areas within the gap and within their specific discipline and specialisation. (v) Further research on training methodology, skill upgrading, technical ability requirements and technology updates should be able to be identified from this system. It is through these researches that TVET training is hoped to be aligned with the latest industry analysis and market needs. It is a commendable system indeed to have the pool of trainers registered at one server. Agencies from different ministries including Ministry of Human Resources, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Home Affairs, … and most of TVET and skill training centres in this country has participated in providing their resources and human capital strengths. It is with the hope that through this strengths that we are able to build better nation, with better people, community and better socio-economic development. Computer and Humanity November 6, 2018 November 6, 2018 aziyati For the past one month, it happened that I had attended and delivered series of talks on the topic of Industrial Revolution 4.0 particularly in human capital development and the projection of the workforce in Malaysia. Though debates have been actively highlighted that we are yet to be at that revolution level, the interest among the governmental agencies as well as the manufacturing, production and computer-based industries had been contributing to the healthy discourses and practical implementation in this country. For the past couple of talks that I have done, my children had followed suit. They said, this is one of their favourite slides that I have presented that they enjoyed on the significance of its existence. You see, the children’s opinions and feedbacks are of equal importance to me because the revolution is for them and the projection of future generation is certainly for their better life. So, I took upon their comment to publish this particular posting about the explanation behind this picture. About Computer and Humanity. Because today’s generation was born with an environment that every physical thing is connected by one another if not more than two, at least they saw most of their computer-aided systems are just around the corner in their houses. They had missed the fact that the origin of those words were not actually coming from the computing world. For example, ‘thread‘ in a social media application is actually an adaptation to the ‘thread‘ that connects two pieces of clothes when we do sewing. Or the word ‘viral‘ which is also mainly used in social media applications is actually originated from the ‘viral‘ that may cause diseases in health sciences and medical studies. And perhaps, one last example is the word ‘meme‘ which was not originally English rather a greek word for showing an imitation, had evolved to be of a thing within the Internet media users. The Internet ‘meme‘ means an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations (Google Dictionary). Back to the picture shown in this posting. Those are among the adapted English words that have different meaning from its original areas of study but had evolved to something new in the computing and Internet World. Though to some people, this development is quite disturbing, it is in fact inevitable because of its nature of quickly being spread over the Internet. The trend-setters were sometimes unintentional. But once it has been used by more than one community, it was accepted as a universal terminology in the World of Computers. Cognitive is the study in the area of Psychology. Cognitive is about the brain and how it works in a human body in determining the good and the bad thing of an action or reaction to the problems encountered. However, the basis of this process had been taken that, that is how the computer works too. The computer imitates the brain of a human to process logic, truth, false, right or wrong in a decision making consequences. Cloud is a meteorological thing. It is in the sky. At least that was what we have been taught at schools. But for current generation, the cloud is something you use as a storage to your big data and other media and documents which is quite handy and less space taken in spite of the use of multiple flash disks or external hard disks. I guess, that is why the word cloud was chosen. You can see but you cannot touch. It is accessible where ever you go provided that you have the account settings and host servers. Heuristics is from the area of Psychology too. It is about how we perceive things when we receive the news. Different people measure different kind of news according to their experience and understanding. This is perhaps another reason on why the word was chosen in this particular study of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Through social media, a photo worth a thousand words. Different people interprets the meaning of a friend’s picture in many angles. That is the heuristics study in computing world. Neural Networks is a study within the Biological Nervous System. Our nervous system works as a coordinator from one signal in a body part to another for action and reaction. The neural network is another part of our function that works on how to do decision making when our body is facing certain conditions. Because of this function, the same application goes to the computing world. That the neural networks is adapting on how our body’s coordinator makes decision to our actions in the aspects of physical, emotional and rational of a cause. Ontology is created by philosophical people in the area of metaphysics. The ontology is the study on relationships. In metaphysics, one entity is connected to another by a factor. The relationship might be of mutual, cardinal or existential. This is a complex process of study. However, it has evolved to be of an important study in computer programming and knowledge-based representations too. The computer had translated the ontology in terms of its logic and the calculus of relationship from one entity to another. Semantics is from the area of linguistics. It is how people communicate and how to ensure that the interaction is perceived as per it was meant. It is not an easy task because the sender might mean something else but the receiver did not get the gist of the sender’s diction. This is how the semantics came into the limelight. Semantics is also emphasizing on how one item is connected to another and the predicate that explains it from its source. The study of semantics had begun to be rigorous since most of the computer-based applications need to understand the human needs in order for them to yield the expected values. Sentiment is a psychological study in human development. It imitates on how the people’s feelings particularly from visual images that they perceived. It is of importance to create a healthy sentiment in order to project a healthy development within a message. However, the viral messages and threads within the social media are mostly came from the negative sentiments among its users. Still, this kind of sentiment had been studied on what had caused the community to react in such a way to things that were unnecessary. Web is from the study of living thing. It’s a spider’s home. Easy to remember and perhaps easy to relate. Why it has been chosen as an Internet thing? Certainly because of its structure that connects from one point of to another and amazingly built with more than one level, a complex of spider threads, and quickly constructed, that is why the word Web was chosen to visualize the use of Internet. You see, most of the applications in a computer system imitate the needs of a human development. It was once invented to help people in simplifying their tasks and problem solving to some daily complex systems. Computers in the house, in the office, in a laboratory, in governmental agencies, in manufacturing plants, in hospitals, in schools and many other buildings. To the extent that it is feared that these innovations might affect our next generations to be much dependable on the machines rather than their own judgements. That is the main concern for this revolution and need to be addressed by us all. Together ! The STEM, Keywords and Career Choices October 19, 2018 October 19, 2018 aziyati We know STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. But not many know on what options do we have out of its knowledge and skills that it offers. This infographic might be simple and less details. But to some, I believe it would give so much meanings and direction to the much debated STEM abbreviation. This is STEM from my point of view. This is especially for the young generations seeking the meaning of their education and subject matter streaming. I believe you are going to wander more by just looking at this simple graphics. Science is the fundamentals that hold stories about the basic things in life and living creatures. Technology is the applications to the science and engineering that makes life easier and provision of facilities. Engineering is the formulations to the scientific theories and provides support to most of living necessities. Mathematics is the rules of logic that promotes common senses in making life a better living from one phase to another. World Civilization and History of Technology September 23, 2018 aziyati What makes our development of technology today is a yield of historical value of human kind ever since they have existed on this planet (i.e. Earth). Sumerian Civilization (3500 B.C. to 2000 B.C.), in the Middle East between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. It is the world’s first civilization where people lived together in a city-state. Invented a written language, developed science and mathematics to a high degree, developed a 12-month lunar calendar, invented wheel and made vehicles, and invented the plow and sailboat. The notable prophet to live in this era is Adam (A.S.). Babylonian Civilization (2000 B.C. to 1155 B.C.), located on the Euphrates River. It is the birthplace of a devised code of laws known as Code of Hammurabi, ability to study astronomy, and created beautiful gardens of Gate of Ishtar and Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The notable prophet to live in this era is Idris, Noah, and Ibrahim (A.S.). https://www.history.com/news/hanging-gardens-existed-but-not-in-babylon Assyrian Civilization (1600 B.C. to 612 B.C.), in Northern Mesopotamia. It created the first library, built a system of road, ruled their extended kingdom with appointed governors, the first to develop a standing army, and developed a mail service. The notable prophet to live in this era include Ishaq, Ya’qub, and Ayyub (A.S.). Hittites Civilization (1750 B.C. to 1200 B.C.), located in Anatolia, the ancient name for Asian Minor. During this time, people started using iron, signed peace treaties, and established a set of laws considered the fairest of the time. The notable prophet during this time include Ilyas, Ilyasa’, Dawud (A.S.). Egyptian Civilization (3100 B.C. to 332 B.C.), located along the Nile River in northeast Africa. It built the pyramids; the sphinx; canals; and temples, invented solar calendar with 365 days, made a paper-like material from the papyrus plant, used a loom to weave cloth, and invented a system of writing called hieroglyphics. The generations to live in this era was believed to be from the son of Noah (A.S.) named Yafith. Chinese Civilization (beginning 5000 B.C.), in the valleys of the Huang He and Chang Jiang Rivers in Asia. It has created silk, Great Wall of China, gunpowders, rockets, magnetic compass, book printing, paper money, and porcelain. Mongol Civilization (A.D. 1206 to 1368), in the Steppe region between Siberia and northwest China. It was the largest contiguous empire in world history, excellent horsemen, and fierce warriors. This era occurred after the death of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Indus Valley Civilization (2500 B.C. to 1750 B.C.), in the Western part of South Asia in what is now Pakistan and western India. It built dams and canals for irrigation, well-planned cities, one of the world’s first drainage and sewer systems for a city, among the first people to cultivate cotton, among the first people to domesticate animals. Minoan Civilization (2000 B.C. to 1450 B.C.), in Crete, a large island between Asia Minor and Greece. It is the first civilization in Europe, one of the first social cultures with social equality, built elaborate palaces and large homes for its citizens, and women were treated more fairly than in other cultures of the time. This civilization emerges after the era of Prophet Nuh (A.S.) and most probably from his son named Sam. image source: https://slideplayer.com/slide/9745654/ Mycenaen Civilization (1650 B.C. to 1200 B.C.), on the mainland of Greece. They have systematic administration with leaders, warriors and war. Excellent traders and craftsmen. The generations most probably originated from son of Sam son of Prophet Noah (A.S.). Greek Civilization (800 B.C. to 323 B.C.), on the mainland of Greece and surrounding islands influencing colonies around Mediterranean Sea. It has formed the world’s first democracy system, dramas, and arts, built magnificent buildings, statues, literature, poetry, scientific approach to study of medicine, write histories, plants classification, rules for geometry and other mathematical contributions. image source: https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/ancient-greek-civilization Celtic Civilization (800 B.C. to A.D 200), in Europe. It produced skillful artisan, artists, and musicians, excellent farmers, fearless warriors, built roads to expand into other countries, and the first people in Northern Europe to make iron. Viking Civilization (8th to 11th Century A.D.), in Scandinavian countries known as Norway, Denmark and Sweden in modern days. They have excellent seamen, navigators, craftsmen, shipbuilders, traders, explorers, and great story-tellers which they represent in the form of sagas, many of the name of the days are from the Norse language. They exist after the death of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Phoenician Civilization (2000 B.C. to 800 B.C.), in West Asia. Invention of alphabets, and writing systems, greatest traders, talented craftsmen, techniques of glassblowing, excellent navigators, sailors and shipbuilders. This generation is believed to be rooted from the son of Noah named Kana’an and notable prophets to live in this era include Hud, Saleh, Lut, Ismail, Shuib, Zulkifli, Yunus, and Yahya (A.S.). Hebrew Civilization (2000 B.C. to 30 B.C.), in the Middle East. It is a highlight on the origins of religions believing in One God, other related creations are such as Ten Commandments and the miracle of Torah and Old Testament. The notable prophets to live in this era include Ibrahim, Ishaq, Ya’qub, Yusuf, Ayyub, Musa, Harun, Zulkifli, Dawud, Sulaiman, Ilyas, Ilyasa’, Yunus, and Zakariya (A.S.). image source: https://ourladyofgoodshepherd.net/twelve-tribes-of-israel Persian Civilization (550 B.C. to 330 B.C.), in the East of the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East. It built roads and canals, divided the empire into provinces, and wrote Avesta i.e. Persian holy book of Zoroasterism. Byzantine Civilization (A.D. 284 to 1450), in the Europe on the eastern section of Roman Empire. It preserved Greek and Roman Culture and Law, great works of art including architecture, mosaics, enamel work, ivory carving, metal work. It is enhancement of the spread of Christianity. It is an era of post-death of Prophet Isa and the spread of Islam by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his followers. Olmec Civilization (1200 B.C. to 100 B.C.), in Southern Gulf coast of Mexico to El Salvador. It built temples, monuments, and pyramids, developed first calendar in Americas, carved huge stone heads, built stone pavements and drainage systems, and had counting systems. As an additional factor to the different creations and inventions of materials, machines and methods by the mankind, the following notable empires are distinguishing them from one another: Etruscan Empire (800 B.C. to 300 B.C.) Alexander’s Empire (336 B.C. to 323 B.C.) Roman Empire (500 B.C. to A.D. 1453) Ottoman Empire (A.D. 800 to 1923). Many science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education are based upon the findings during this era. It has one notable era known as Islamic Golden Age where names like al-Khawarizmi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Khuld, al-Jabar, al-Hazen, al-Kindi, and al-Biruni emerged. The technologies developed during this era include in metaphysics, astronomy, algebra, calculus, geometry, trigonometry, biology, physics, and chemistry. image source: http://www.pearltrees.com/u/53944586-wikipedia-encyclopedia African Empire (2000 B.C. to present). It was believed that the generations that reside in this continent were originated from the son of Noah (A.S.) with the name of Ham. They have distinguished characteristics until today with many achievements and notable foundations. Mayan Empire (1000 B.C. to A.D. 900) Aztec Empire (A.D. 1200 to 1521) Inca Empire (A.D. 1100 to 1532) Blattner, D. “World Civilizations and Cultures“, Mark Twain Media Inc., USA (2012). Syauqi Abu Khalil, “Atlas Al-Quran“, Dar al-Fikr, Damascus (2006). (Translated by Muhammad Abdul Ghoffar, Penerbit Almahira, Jakarta, Indonesia). Industry 4.0 vs Society 5.0 August 31, 2018 September 2, 2018 aziyati The other day, we had a meeting with a Japanese counterpart on the mutual collaborations that we might be having for the next couple of years, we mentioned to him about adapting the approach of Industrial Revolution 4.0 into our work ethics and the applications that we might be able to benefit out of this era. That Japanese man laughed hard. Left us puzzled. Did we say something wrong about it? Isn’t the Industry 4.0 as the thing right now? After a while, he gave us a reply that the Japanese weren’t keen about Industry 4.0 because they regard that as something to do with Germany’s work lifestyle. Not theirs. Left us feeling guilty of bringing up the topic. Left us to be much more careful as to what kind of approaches that we should discuss with them the next time. After a week time, I have attended a workshop organised by a Japanese organisation which was also accompanied by another colleague. During our chit chatting time, she unintentionally mentioned about Industry 4.0 again to the Japanese representative with the expectation on how to move forward with practical project that we could plan. The Japanese counterpart wryly had to answer saying that, the Japanese are not in favour with the theme. They are actually having another revolution that they saw as better than the German’s Industry 4.0. That has made us rolling our eyes. She said, the Japanese are now looking forward towards realizing the revolution of Society 5.0. Society 5.0! Well, at that point onwards, I began digging the scopes of this so-called Japanese Revolution. (image source: http://analytics-magazine.org/industrie-4-0-analytics-everywhere/) (image source: http://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/society5_0/index.html) As a matter of fact, the similarities that can be concluded from the two revolutions are: Both have the themes of Internet-of-Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Smart Machines, Knowledge Management and Smart Web to represent their work connectivity. Both emphasize on how people communicate with the machines and other people via the available Intelligent Machines. Both have the strengths of doing multitasking via various kind of automated media and computational platforms. Both are stressing on the work demand in this era as no more a single-job per man-hour, but always proceeded with another processes or as a medium to another procedures. Both are stressing on the free movement of one process to another and less protocol needed to get the job done. Both promote sustainability engineering in the midst of progressive materially-proned technology by ensuring the preservation of nature and ecology are still at their best. On contrary, perhaps the differences that can be observed from these two ideologies are: Industry 4.0 is emphasizing on how to let the job done. Where as the Society 5.0 is emphasizing on how to optimise the man-hour responsibility to get the job done. Industry 4.0 is highlighting on the effectiveness of using the automated machines. Where as the Society 5.0 is highlighting on the effectiveness of optimising the knowledge worker with the help of the intelligent machines. Industry 4.0 is about computerised communications by all means. Where as the Society 5.0 is meant for the harmonisation of work with the help of intelligent machines for the benefit of the workers. Nonetheless, their similarities beat the differences that both are optimising the use of machines, networking and computational intelligence in their work ethics. What matter most, the eccentric values of the two revolutions are on the ways that those ideals are carried out and the work culture embedded by the people of Germany and the Japanese which have defined the pillars of their differences. http://analytics-magazine.org/industrie-4-0-analytics-everywhere/ http://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/society5_0/index.html https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mind-gap-industry-4-0-future-manufacturing-1665243 https://www.japan.go.jp/abenomics/_userdata/abenomics/pdf/society_5.0.pdf 5 Ways Novice Users Can Learn Computer Science Without Fear July 15, 2018 aziyati I had a fruitful discussion with one of the academic personnel last month on the evolution of the type of students that higher institutions may encounter. She told me that students nowadays are prone to be so dependent to their teachers or instructors on the steps that they should take to complete their tasks, projects or assignments. Even to the extent that sometimes, we had to teach them on how to Google. This is somewhat dragging the instructional process whence the search engine itself is getting smarter and smarter by its ability to predict the user’s pattern of search items. Corresponding to her concern, I told her that through the new curricula that we are having at school right now (in Malaysia), I can see that the pattern will change in about another 5 to 10 years. This is because the syllabus was getting tougher, students hardly scored in their exams, yet their survivability to find solutions to the problems are more dynamic and creative than current generations. I said to her, wait for another 10 years. You’ll get to meet students that already equipped with Google language and most of computer interfaces because they were born with those machines surrounding them. Apart from that, raising the millennial kids that having been watching me working with computers and machine languages ever since they were small had made me concluded the following 5 ways for novice users to learn computer science without fear: Knowledge in computer science is reusable. It is recyclable. So, if you have found a problem and not knowing on how to solve it, yes, you’ve guessed it right. Googling for solutions is not wrong. Chances are there are already about thousands other people that have faced the same problem as you do and care to share it online. The only thing that you need to know is on how to select the right path. Ask for help. Computer literacy is growing. There is always certainly someone else that knows on how to help you find a solution to your computer problems. So never shame to ask. Different questions might lead to different solutions. It is like our way of living. Different family had different members with different types of houses, decorations, food, and activities. So does this knowledge of computer science. There is always not a single solution to a repeating problem. Never afraid to improvised because computer evolves like people do. Study the history of computer. People say, you would not love someone until you get to know him/ her. Love grows by learning a person’s personality or background. Once you have found the similarity between the two of you, you might want to move forward with more than just an encounter. Perhaps good friends or mutual friendship would yield good outcome for you in the future. The same analogy goes to studying the computer. If you face a new subject, find its origin of development. From where it begins and how it has ended up in your plate in such a form. Then, you will know on how to act from there upon. A computer is an artificial presentation to a human’s brain. It means that, to understand a computer is to understand on how your brain works. If you wonder why at some point of your life you make different kind of decisions, the same thing goes to a computer. On a rainy day, you might want to use an umbrella to walk by the road side. In an extreme cold weather, you might want to turn up the temperature of your heater so that your body would feel warmer and at ease. The same thing goes to the computer. It works logically in accordance to mathematical formulas. There are instructions to follow and output to yield. There are decisions to make when met with crossroads. There are times to start up fresh, and time to sleep. Brain also undergoes aging. So does the computer. So work from this fact, then you know on how to handle the learning process of computer science. A computer has no emotions. So, apart from all other logic knowledge that you may think a computer can do, never expect a computer to weep and cry like we do. At times like this, the only thing that we should do is to have human connections. Lean over to someone that you fond of, like parents, best friends, siblings and alike on psychological supports and emotional strengths. As long as we could understand this demand, always remember that computer never feels what we feel in our hearts. So, that’s it. Certainly there are other 1001 ways that you could motivate yourself to learn computer science without fears. Above all, the most important thing to remember is never let a computer or any machine alike to over rule your intelligence and decision making. These things always rely on us to navigate them for the right processes and not the other way around. Celebrate the good and positive things in the future generations of this millennium that were born with computers and machines around them. The Attraction of Malaysian TVET June 23, 2018 June 24, 2018 aziyati First of all, congratulations to YB Nurul Izzah Anwar for the appointment as the Head of TVET Committees in Malaysia. This is in conjunction with the press statement made by the Minister of Education of Malaysia on 21st June 2018, YB Dr. Maszlee Malik. TVET stands for Technical and Vocational Education and Training. Prior to this announcement, TVET is always referred to the agenda under the Ministry of Human Resources of Malaysia whilst the implementation of its training and education curricula had been carried out by various ministries including Ministry of Education, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Rural Development, and Ministry of Tourism and Culture. Apart from the political arrangements and the domestic issues on this matter, I would like to make a brief comparison on the ministerial and administration agencies that had made this movement practical in other countries. This post is intended to be deliberated from the viewpoints of intellectuality and feasibility of this policy that had already been delivered by various countries in the world and occasionally share their political, economic, and social growth conferences between each other. Prior to this post, I had already made a post on the TVET and Its Landscape in Malaysia annotating the different functions and roles between the major ministries that are participating in this movement. I have also briefly quoting major skills qualification frameworks within the ASEAN countries in another blog post. Please feel free to revisit those posts if you are kind of lost on why I am highlighting this issue for this entry. Every movement, policy and decision made are usually based on tremendous study and research within the specific thematic work and previous work deliverables. The decision of putting the skills qualification administration and management under the Ministry of Human Resources (MoHR) Malaysia had also its share on its inception. Perhaps, in analogy we can take from the viewpoint of a production-based company or organisation. Every organisation has its human resources department. This department is responsible to ensure that its employees are keep updated with the latest technology and skills equipment so that the quality of work and the quantity of production can match the demand from the clients. The employees, in this case, are in reference to those working in the production line with the positions of operators, and even up to the supervisory level. Hence, the rationale on why the movement of TVET in Malaysia was originally foreseen by the MoHR. As time passes by, these employees demanded that they should also be given the opportunities to further their studies to a higher level qualification. From skills-based to academic endeavour. These workers requested that the academic-based agencies should recognise their abilities in the skills that they have displayed and contributed so that they would also be qualified for a higher degree programmes from prestigious higher learning institutions. This had triggered the mismatch between the skills qualification certification with the admission requirements by the universities decision makers. Figure 1. The Ministerial Comparison of TVET Administration Between Malaysia with the Rest of the World. The above figure is showing the Ministerial Comparison of TVET Administration Between Malaysia with the Rest of the World including the ASEAN countries and major developed countries. The choices of administering ministries are from both of Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour (which is also similar to MoHR). Each has her own reason on why such specific agency was chosen over another. There are also countries that have distinct agencies that manage and administer TVET movement without much dependent on their main ministries. From the diagram, it is learned that most countries believe that it is best that TVET is under the administration of Ministry of Education. Only third countries like Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and including Malaysia had decided that MoHR is much suitable [1]. As an additional information, European Countries have their own governing agency that manages the TVET movement which is known as CEDEFOP (stands for European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training). Among participating countries under the administration of CEDEFOP include Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom [2]. On the other hand, countries like Japan which is very much well-known for its high-skilled workers and disciplined people had also decided that its best for TVET to be foreseen by their Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology [3]. Personally, I am looking forward to the positive changes that might be brought upon by the Government of Malaysia on issues pertaining TVET and its relevancy, qualifications and prospects either locally or internationally. Each action has its strengths and weaknesses. Might as well that we study the background and history of a policy made to project a better outcome and lower the setbacks that we have encountered in the past. All the best for all TVET practitioners. [1] ILO, URL: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—asia/—ro-bangkok/—sro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_310231.pdf [2] CEDEFOP, URL: http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/publications-and-resources [3] THE CHANGING STATUS OF VOCATIONAL HIGHER EDUCATION IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN AND THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA, URL: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001868/186837e.pdf [1] ASQA [2] City & Guilds [3] SQA [4] BMBF [5] US Skills Training [6] MQA [7] DSD, MoHR Tagged TVET Malaysia1 Comment	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12788
__label__wiki	0.662805	0.662805	-∆- :Research Work A Brief History of Bauhaus Master and Father of Abstraction Paul Klee Posted on April 27, 2016 by azprojectsblog Artsy Editorial Alexxa Gotthardt Apr 26th, 2016 12:30 am Hugo Erfurth Portrait of Paul Klee, 1922 “Paul Klee: L’ironie à l’oeuvre” at Centre Pompidou, Paris Senecio, 1922 Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel Paul Klee (1879-1940) has been called many things: a father of abstract art, a Bauhaus master, the progenitor of Surrealism, and—by many an art historian and fan (members of his cult following affectionately refer to each other as “Klee-mates”)—a very hard man to pin down. Indeed, the Swiss-German artist’s paintings are tied to numerous groundbreaking 20th-century movements, from German Expressionism to Dada. But Klee’s body of work isn’t easily bucketed into a single category, thanks in large part to the system of throbbing forms, mystical hieroglyphs, and otherworldly creatures that he developed to populate his compositions. These symbols marked some of the first efforts in the 20th century to embed spiritual content and the subconscious into abstract art. In turn, they inspired both Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, whose influential practitioners, from Joan Miró and Salvador Dali to Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell, cited Klee as a lodestar. This spring, Klee’s enigmatic but influential work is celebrated at Paris’s Centre Pompidou in “L’ironie à l’oeuvre” (“Irony at work”). What follows is an exploration of the many influences and aftershocks of the artist’s strange and singular work. Why does his work matter? In the early 1900s, Klee radically broke with a millennia-old tradition in art: the faithful representation of objects and environments from the real world. Along with Picasso and other turn-of-the-century, avant-garde artists, he jettisoned recognizable content, contributing to a form of art that would come to be known as “abstraction.” Klee was an early adopter of this movement and a member of one of German Expressionism’s regional factions, Der Blaue Reiter, a Munich-based group of artists founded by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, and bound together by the belief that art should express the metaphysical realm. Présentation du Miracle, 1916 Angelus Novus, 1920 This interest was galvanized with the onset of World War I and the deaths of his peers August Macke and Marc in battle (in 1914 and 1916 respectively). As the traumas of war continued, abstract artists like Klee sought refuge in forms of expression that were divorced from the material world. The pictures he and his fellow artists produced teemed with lines and colors that crashed together ecstatically—and when representational elements did crop up, they were fantastical, as in Klee’s 1916 painting Présentation du Miracle. Kandinsky’s manifesto “On the Spiritual in Art” (1911) served as Der Blaue Reiter’s sacred writ and inspired not only Klee’s early paintings but also his own seminal text, “Creative Credo” (1920), whose punchline, “Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible,” influenced both his contemporaries and his Surrealist scions. It also caught the attention of Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus school in Weimar, which united art and craft and stressed function as well as form. Gropius invited Klee to teach there in 1920; Kandinsky followed in 1922. There, they worked alongside a diverse group of artists, including Johannes Itten, Lyonel Feininger, and László Moholy-Nagy (who will receive a retrospective at New York’s Guggenheim later this year). Klee and Kandinsky’s lessons helped formalize the tenets of abstract art and modern design. Klee’s description of drawing as a “line going for a walk,” for instance, epitomizes his signature approach to artmaking—one that animated the elements of art (the line) with movement, spontaneity, and even an element of magic (going for a walk). Enter Slideshow It was this sense of magic, embodied in works like Image Tirée du Boudoir (1922) and Klee’s use of spontaneous or “automatic” drawings as the basis for his paintings, that caught the eyes of Surrealists, who included Klee’s paintings in their first group exhibition in 1925. André Breton cited Klee as an inspiration in his first Surrealist manifesto. The pioneers of Dada were intrigued, too, and featured Klee’s work in Zurich’s Galerie Dada in 1917. What inspired him? Klee was a voracious reader and lover of music (he was also a beautiful writer and a gifted violinist). Even when filled with squares and rectangles, his paintings—like Redgreen and Violet-Yellow Rhythms (1920)—pulse with rhythm motivated by the modulations of Mozart and Bach, or the cadence of poems by Apollinaire and Rilke, another close friend of Klee’s. He was also interested in the art of children and the insane, which he regarded as pure forms of expression (he believed they had the “power to see”), and the hieroglyphs of African languages and art. A 1914 trip to Tunisia with Macke and Louis Moilliet deeply affected Klee, inspiring his rich color palette and distinctive language of mystical symbols (glowing stars and suns, topsy-turvy checkerboards, disembodied heads) that he would evolve over the course of his career. Paysage près de E. (en Bavière), 1921 Fire at Full Moon, 1933 The EY Exhibition: Paul Klee – Making Visible, Tate Modern, London Klee also came of age during a time of groundbreaking experimentation in art across Europe. When he relocated to Munich in 1898 at the age of 19 to study painting, artists were beginning to move away from representing what they could see, and beginning to paint psychologically charged subject matter (Van Gogh), and studies in color, pattern, and light (Matisse). But it wasn’t only Klee’s predecessors who informed his work—his peers were integral to his artistic development, too. Perhaps his greatest inspiration and ally was Kandinsky, a godfather of abstraction, as well as the Munich-based group’s other members, Macke, Marc, and Alexej von Jawlensky. In 1911, Klee discovered Picasso’s Cubist compositions, which he referenced in Hommage à Picasso (1914), and less overtly in Paysage près de E. (en Bavière) (1921) and Senecio (1922)—paintings that quote the fractured perspective and prismatic forms of the Spanish master. (Klee respected Cubism, but also sought to veer away from what he considered its lack of vitality.) He also looked to Robert Delaunay’s lyrical patterns and transcendent color palette; the unprecedented sense of movement introduced by the Futurists; the strange machines and automations conceived by the Dadaists; and the pure forms of Constructivism and Suprematism, which surrounded him at the Bauhaus. Why are we still talking about him? Klee was one of a group of artists in the early 1900s who indelibly changed the course of modern art and influenced generations of artists. His place in the art-historical canon ensures we’ll be talking about him for decades to come. What’s more, though painting was declared dead following its prominence in the mid-20th century, the medium surged to the forefront of contemporary art again years later and is now back in vogue, as is art created by “outsiders.” Klee’s interest in the subconscious and those deemed insane—and his work’s engagement with these ideas—resonates with today’s fascination with art created by those outside of the establishment, including disabled people and practitioners of occult traditions. nach der UeberSchwemmung (After the Flood), 1936 Fondation Beyeler Previous Post Should art respond to science? by Jonathan Jones. Next Post Pluto Wall Build by wyuen1 The Empty Brain – Robert Epstein Art and Science: A Marriage Made in Heaven? by Raymond Barglow Plotter Info/Links: Essays and Lecture by Frieder Nake Pluto Wall Build by wyuen1 Should art respond to science? by Jonathan Jones. 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Hegel – Part III Ellen Fullman: how to play a 100ft stringed instrument. by Ben Beaumont-Thomas Typographical Experiments And Sound Waves Become Geometric Landscapes By Erica Gonsales — Nov 23 2012 The limits of social engineering. Nicholas Carr First Laser Measurements of Magnetic Fields of Single Nerves If a tree falls in a forest … By Luca Forcucci What Is the Challenge of Art/Science Today Dada: 100 Years Later By Tony Perrottet Pedro Reyes: “Disarm” Auditory System – hep.physics.indiana.edu/~rickv/Ear.html Standing Waves on a String Programmable Material Algorithm Solves Universal Coating Problem Thinking in Silicon – By Tom Simonite MOCA’s manifesto on contemporary art THINKING ABOUT TIME BEFORE THE BIG BANG by Nancy Atkinson Single Artificial Neuron Taught to Recognize Hundreds of Patterns //Draft::The Algorithmic Horizon: A look at the intrinsic boundaries of Logic. – A.Z. – Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill Proprioception as an Aesthetic Sense – BARBARA MONTERO SURVEYING THE SYNESTHETIC IMPULSE, FROM THE 19TH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT Geometrical Psychology: Benjamin Betts’s 19th-Century Mathematical Illustrations of Consciousness Grids – Institute of Artificial Art Amsterdam Ellsworth Kelly @ LACMA Transcript of Generative Art by: Caylee Kalisky BUCKMINSTER FULLER’S SYNERGETIC ALGORITHM AND CHALLENGES OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12789
__label__cc	0.565469	0.434531	Nazi and Allied Terror Execution spots Royal Norfolk Regiment murdered by SS 'Totenkopf' (Death's Head) Division A company of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, trapped in a cowshed, surrendered to the 2nd Infantry Regiment, SS 'Totenkopf' (Death's Head) Division under the command of 28 year old SS Obersturmfuhrer Fritz Knoechlein. Marched to a group of farm buildings, they were lined up in the meadow along side the barn wall. When the 99 prisoners were in position, two machine guns opened fire killing 97 of them. Knoechlein then ordered a group of his mem to fix bayonets and stab or shoot to death any who showed signs of life. The bodies were then buried in a shallow pit in front of the barn. Two managed to escape, Privates Albert Pooley and William O'Callaghan of the Royal Norfolk Regiment emerged from the slaughter wounded but alive. When the SS troops moved on, the two wounded soldiers were discovered, after having hid in a pig-sty for three days and nights, by Madame Duquenne-Creton and her son Victor who had left their farm when the fighting started. She then cared for them till captured again by another, much more friendly, Wehrmacht unit to spend the rest of the war as P.O.W.s. In 1942, the bodies of those executed were exhumed by the French authorities and reburied in the local churchyard now part of the Le Paradis War Cemetery. After the war, the massacre was investigated by the War Crimes Investigation Unit and Knoechlein was traced and arrested. During the war he had been awarded three Knight's Crosses. Tried before a War Crimes Court in the No. 5 Court of the Curiohaus, Altona, in Hamburg, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging and on January 28, 1949, the sentence was carried out. Married with four children, his wife attended the trial every day. (On May 27, 1970 a memorial plaque was affixed to the barn wall and unveiled by Madame Creton in the presence of members of the Dunkirk Veterans Association) Film from Anglia News Dunkirk 70th anniversary Le Paradis Massacre: 1:35 Agree to terms and condition. Status coordinate The location is in a (the vicinity of a) city or town E-mail publisher RecommendMap Fred Vogels « Previous listing in Execution spots \| Next listing in Execution spots »	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12790
__label__cc	0.527321	0.472679	Back To The Boogie Contact Us Retro DJs Back To The Boogie Discover Disco Era's sub culture through music, the mix, the diverse deejays, and see music unites us all. A Night To Boogie Posted on August 29, 2016 by FreakyFrankieDJ Where do you go when you are 60 and you still want to Boogie on the dance floor? Follow Freaky Frankie DJ Ramos! His parties resonate with those who were clubbing in the 70’s & 80’s It’s happening at the Italian Center 227 Mill St Poughkeepsie New York on Friday September 9 … this party starts at 8 pm – 11 pm … non-members are welcome with a $5 cover. According to a blog, V is for Vintage, blogger Julie writes, Disco music began in the late 60s/early 70s in NYC …. but the first signs of Disco began in 1942 – La Discotheque, a basement nightclub with only one turntable opens in Paris. The term ‘discotheque’ is used in Europe to describe clubs where there is no live music played. Whiskey A-Go-Go in Paris 1953 DJ Regine uses two turntables with no breaks between the music. There is a dance-floor, coloured lights and no juke-box. In New York, By 1970, DJ David Mancuso and his Loft parties begin in New York, becoming a foreunner of many more private clubs to come. His parties are members-only affairs at his home. The rest is Disco History! For another good article on the History of Disco, in Vanity Fair by Lisa Robinson http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2010/02/oral-history-of-disco-201002 *Julie’s Blog, V is for Vintage http://visforvintage.net/2012/06/07/disco-a-complete-history/ Daily Prompt: Jokes! Posted on August 9, 2016 by FreakyFrankieDJ 8 Year old grandson Shea: “Lala, when you were a kid, were there cars?” Guest DJ Eddie Z Serrano of New York New York on Back To The Boogie Radio Show! We have the pleasure of sharing a mix set by DJ Eddie Z Serrano. Eddie is the Guest DeeJay on “Back To The Boogie Radio Show.” He is from New York, New York. And if you ever headed to clubs in NYC, like the Night Gallery, Les Mouche, Bond’s International or The Saint, chances are you may have been dancing to DJ Serrano! Here is Eddie’s bio … DJ Eddie Serrano’s Disco Profile: In the summer of 1975 I was 17 years old and I saw a DJ playing music at a school yard. It was the first time I ever saw a DJ playing music, his name was Apache, and we became good friends and are still friends today. On one Saturday night that same year, I was invited to a house party and there I met a very creative DJ, his name was Tony Garcia. After hearing him I knew I wanted to be a DJ, he was ahead of his time and had a great following. We became good friends for years. He now runs his own record company called High Power Records; his brother who is also a good friend of mine is called Mickey Garcia which also has his own record company called Mic Mac Records, he is also an excellent DJ. 1975 – I started spinning records as a mobile DJ. I played at numerous weddings, graduations, sweet sixteen’s, etc. I was a mobile for about 3 years. My first record pool was called Disco Den on 125th Street Harlem. 1977 – While still being a mobile DJ I got to play at my first club it was a small place in the Bronx, NY called Funky’s, I played there for a while to a predominantly Italian audience. The funny thing about that club was the crowd’s requests. They only wanted to hear the same records over and over again. Boogie Ogie Ogie, Macho Man, Copacabana, etc. 1979 – I played at a club called The White House in Queens, NY, this club would open at 11:00pm – 7:00am to an after hour crowd. Later In 1979 I started working at a club called The Night Gallery on West 23rd Street, NYC not to be mistaken for the famous club called The Gallery where Nicky Siano was the house DJ. While being a DJ at the Night Gallery I joined another record pool called Inter-Metro Record Pool on 225 Lafayette Street, New York, Dwayne Dixon was the pool director. Through out the years I’ve had the pleasure of hearing and sometimes meeting many great DJ’s during the disco era and I learned a lot from them. I got to hear Joey from Starship Discovery 1, Jim Burgess at the Infinity. When it came to dancing I was pretty much a closet dancer but one night I went to the infinity by myself and he got me to dance and the funny thing is none of my friends were there to see me dance The next thing you know Jim Burgess throws in Linda Clifford “If My Friends Could See Me Now” at that moment. That blew me away. 1980 – While still playing for The Night Gallery I got to do a few guess spots at a club called Park Villa II in Staten Island. I was originally asked to play there for one night only but was asked to return a few more times, when my pool director first mentioned a club in Staten Island my first impression was that it was going to be a little place, but to my surprise it was a pretty large club. I really enjoyed playing there. 1981 – I got to play at my first known large club called Bonds International on West 43rd Street, NY. For a few nights. Now that was a big club, one of the things I enjoyed was when I would play the top song of the night the crowd would respond pretty load and I would get a rush from that. 1982 – I became one of the house DJ’s at Les Mouches, at this club is where I started to get noticed from records labels. I remember one night when I was playing to a packed audience a person from a record company came and asked me to play a test pressing, he had two copies and asked me what can You do with the two copies, so I first listened to it through my headphones it sounded great so I took a chance and played it and the crowd went crazy. The song was “Walking On Sunshine” by Rockers Revenge. After I was through mixing the records the person said I could keep them that really made my night, my apologies for not remembering his name. While working at Les Mouches I joined For The Record, record pool, Judy Weinstein was the pool director. That’s were I had the pleasure in meeting many DJ’s I admired like Dan “Pooch” Pucciarelli, David Morales, Jeff Glick and many others. 1986 – I got to spin a few nights at a well known club called The Underground on 17th Street & Broadway. The parties I got to spin for were Salsa/Dance night, where I would play dance music and a band would do the Salsa sets. It’s where I also got to meet one of my favorite DJ’s. Jim Burgess who was one of the house DJ’s. 1987 – Was a great year because I got to work at The Saint. It was the best club that I’ve had the pleasure of being one of the house DJ’s. It was the most beautiful and unique club I have ever seen. My first night spinning there I had the pleasure of hanging out with D-Train who was going to perform that evening in the booth with me before his performance. As one of the house DJ’s, I was honored to be working in the same club as Robbie Leslie as well as Warren Gluck. Through out my spinning career I have to say that it was hard with all the politics as well as being very rewarding, the music that has always been closes to my heart has always been the music called disco. Follow DJ Eddie Serrano on Mixcloud under Eddie Z. Serrano https://www.mixcloud.com/eddieserrano90/ Back to the Boogie is … Thankful for the Support! Today marks the day of Prince’s Birthday Sunday Brunch & Swing … Live at the Falcon It’s Springfest Weekend @LiveattheFalcon! Beacon Open Studios	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12791
__label__cc	0.604082	0.395918	News Source TLS Family Cancels Pesach In Lakewood Due To Measles Outbreak An out-of-town family who was to spend Pesach in Lakewood has canceled after learning about the measles outbreak, TLS has learned. An out-of-town family who was to spend Pesach in Lakewood has canceled after learning about the measles outbreak, TLS has learned The family had booked a place to stay in Lakewood just after Purim, and had already paid for the stay before they canceled upon learning there was an ongoing measles outbreak in Lakewood. According to the latest count for this outbreak, there were six confirmed cases of measles being reported by the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) in Ocean County. The first outbreak had a total of 33 confirmed cases and ran from October 2018 to mid-January 2019.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12792
__label__cc	0.636109	0.363891	Official blog of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania Keep Pennsylvania Kids in School Posted on December 7, 2009 by admin@websanity.com Last week, the Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC) released its National Resolution for Ending School Pushouts. What is “school pushout,” and why is it a national problem? Many students are pushed out of schools by harsh disciplinary practices that favor exclusionary strategies like the over-use of suspension and expulsion, and create unwelcoming environments for students. When young people — often those who need the most support — are pushed out of school, they essentially lose their right to an education. The resolution is a call to action for our school systems. It is an attempt to reframe the debate about school climate and discipline from one that favors the punishment and exclusion of children to one based on human rights. I don’t normally get too excited by bold statements about social problems. This one feels different, though. The National Resolution for Ending School Pushout is not an empty statement, but a call for a real change in our schools. The resolution goes beyond decrying the trend toward pushout to propose positive steps that can be taken to help make it possible for young people to remain on track to complete their education. For those of us deeply engaged in work in Pennsylvania’s schools, the resolution could not be released at a more critical moment. In October of 2008, the school district of Philadelphia adopted a “zero tolerance” policy under which expulsions have escalated dramatically. Across the state, approximately 30,000 students are placed in more than 600 “alternative education for disruptive youth” programs each year. Relatively little is known about these individual programs and the experiences of the students in them. In Philadelphia, many students are transferred to alternative schools without an opportunity to contest the charges against them. Many wait for up to six months for a decision to be made about their future. Some are ultimately exonerated, but by that time, they have been out of their regular schools for so long that catching up is difficult if not impossible. In the 2008-09 school year, 193 expulsion hearings were held, up from zero in the previous year; 166 students were ultimately expelled by the School Reform Commission (our school board). The current school year began with 90 students in limbo awaiting hearings from last school year. The resolution calls for a different approach to creating peaceful and respectful environment in schools. It urges schools to adopt proven alternative disciplinary approaches such as positive behavior supports and restorative practices. Furthermore, it urges that the rights of students, parents and guardians be treated with respect in all school processes. Finally, the resolution calls on public officials and school administrators to provide teachers and school staff with the support needed to bring about these changes. One thing is certain: keeping young people engaged with school is the best thing we as a society can do. Harold in Philadelphia This entry was posted in Uncategorized by admin@websanity.com. Bookmark the permalink.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12794
__label__wiki	0.640422	0.640422	2016 World’s most ethical includes Baldrige recipients Originally posted on Blogrige by Dawn Marie Bailey Among honorees from 21 countries, 5 continents, and 45 industries, several Baldrige Award-winning organizations (as well as other organizations on Baldrige journeys) made the Ethisphere Institute’s 2016 “The World’s Most Ethical Companies” list of just over 100 organizations. Ethisphere Institute is identified as “a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices, recognizing companies that go beyond making statements about doing business ‘ethically’ and translate words into actions by promoting ethical business standards internally and exceeding legal compliance minimums through best practices.” Among the honorees are: 2007 Baldrige Award recipient Sharp Healthcare (San Diego, CA) 2006 Baldrige Award recipient Premier (Charlotte, NC) 2000 Baldrige Award recipient CH2M (formerly Operations Management International, Inc.) (Greenwood Village, CO) 1993 Baldrige Award recipient Eastman Chemical Company (Kingsport, TN) 1992 Baldrige Award recipient Texas Instruments (Dallas, TX) 1989 Baldrige Award recipient Milliken & Company (Spartanburg, SC) 1989 Baldrige Award recipient Xerox Corporation (Stamford, CT) Others on the list with a connection to a Baldrige Award recipient include 3M Company (3M Dental Products Division was a Baldrige Award recipient in 1997) and Hospital Corporation of America (2014 Baldrige Award recipient St. David’s HealthCare (SDH)—one of the largest hospital systems in Texas—is a unique partnership between St. David’s Foundation, Hospital Corporation of America, and Georgetown Health Foundation). According to its website, Ethisphere uses a proprietary rating system called the corporate Ethics Quotient, which is comprised of multiple-choice questions that represent a company’s ethical performance. Organizations are invited to apply, with the majority being corporate and large in size. Within the Baldrige Excellence Framework (versions of which all of the organizations noted above had fully implemented at the time of their Baldrige Award wins), ethics is part of a Core Value and Concept present in all high-performing organizations. In addition, within Category 1 Leadership, considerations are given for how an organization fulfills its ethical responsibilities and promotes ethical behavior, and in Category 5 Workforce, considerations are offered for how workforce and leader development supports ethics and ethical business practices. Further, in item 7.4 Leadership and Governance Results, results for ethical behavior, including stakeholder trust in senior leaders and governance, and breaches of ethical behavior, are considered. How would your organization rate among the world’s most ethical? Category: Awards, Latest NewsComments Off on 2016 World’s most ethical includes Baldrige recipients How the latest Baldrige award winners manage for innovation June 3, 2016 by BPIR.com Limited Originally posted Blogrige by Christine Schaefer The Baldrige Excellence Framework (which includes the Criteria for Performance Excellence) fosters an approach to innovation that is systematic and integrated throughout an organization. Innovation, as defined in the glossary of the 2015–2016 Baldrige framework booklet, means “making meaningful change to improve products, processes, or organizational effectiveness and create new value for stakeholders. Innovation involves adopting an idea, process, technology, product, or business model that is either new or new to its proposed application.” This contrasts with a popular conception of innovation focused more narrowly on new products made possible by technological advancements. While it certainly includes “breakthrough” product changes as innovations, the Baldrige definition also encompasses discontinuous changes in any of an organization’s key processes and even in its structure or business model. Underlining the importance of such significant changes in products, processes, and/or the business model that yield a discontinuous change in results and contribute to an organization’s long-term success, managing for innovation is one of the core values of the Baldrige framework. Successful organizational innovation, according to the Baldrige glossary, “is a multistep process of development and knowledge sharing, a decision to implement, implementation, evaluation, and learning.” Given this definition, it follows that the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence ask an organization to define its innovation process (“How do you manage for innovation”), making the question an overall requirement in the “Operations” category (i.e., the key question for item 6.1c). So how do high-performing organizations respond to this question? In other words, what do good-to-excellent innovation processes look like? Consider the responses of the four organizations that most recently earned the prestigious Baldrige Award. The 2015 award recipients (honored at an April 2016 ceremony) are Charleston Area Medical Center Health System (a large health care organization), Charter School of San Diego (a K-12 education organization that is part of the county’s public school system), Mid-America Transplant (a nonprofit), and MidwayUSA (a small business and two-time Baldrige Award recipient). These Baldrige Award-winning organizations offer exemplary innovation processes for learning and inspiration from four different sectors. Baldrige Program Director Emeritus Harry Hertz observes in his Spring 2016 “Insights on the Road to Performance Excellence” column that the 2015 Baldrige Award recipients “have demonstrated a new level of maturity and commitment to fostering innovation.” Hertz’s column is based on his attendance at multiple presentations of the four organizations at the Baldrige Program’s annual Quest for Excellence® Conference in April. Hertz attributes the organizations’ success with innovation to their “leaders’ setting the environment and establishing formal innovation processes” so that “innovation has become truly embedded in the very core of how these organizations operate.” He also notes that “all four organizations clearly demonstrate the key ingredients for innovation: a supportive environment and intelligent risk taking.” Fortunately, for those interested in learning from national role models identified through the Baldrige Award, application summaries for all award recipients are publicly available on the Baldrige Program’s website (on the data-rich award recipient page). Drawing from those posted documents, following are descriptions of the innovation processes of the 2015 recipients. Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC) Health System CAMC Health System describes and depicts its Innovation Management System at 6.1c in its Baldrige Award application. The process begins with three key sources for innovation: strategic opportunities identified during the Strategic Planning Process, ideas that come from internal performance reviews, and unanticipated sources. “Once analysis is completed and we determine through the use of intelligent risk criteria … that the strategic opportunity should be pursued,” states the organization, “we develop the implementation plan, seek approval from the appropriate decision-making group … , staff, and pilot the innovation” and “make financial and other resources available to pursue these opportunities through adjustments to budgets.” The organization then monitors progress and either scales up and fully deploys innovations that meet key success measures or discontinues those that don’t meet targets as part of the ongoing review process in order to support higher-level opportunities. CAMC Health System depicts this innovation process in a flow chart (below). Charter School of San Diego (CSSD) According to its Baldrige Award application, CSSD’s innovation management process begins with determining strategic opportunities to pursue through consideration of internal and external success factors: “Once an idea or opportunity is received through the listening methods, senior leaders determine alignment to the vision, mission, and values; strategic initiatives, and the core competency,” states the organization. “A champion is identified based on his/her capability and capacity. Research is conducted and data [are] gathered through the [Process Design and Improvement System] PDIS. Senior leaders consider the data to determine if financial and other resources should be made available to support the idea or opportunity. Specific measures are identified to test the viability of the process.” CSSD relies on effective financial management to make financial and other resources available to support innovation and risk taking. In addition to “responsible cash flow management, budget controls, revenue enhancement, and expenditure controls,” CSSD’s maintenance of reserve accounts is a “key component to financing innovation.” As it states in its application, CSSD has three reserve funds available, with one targeted to support innovation. CSSD makes decisions to discontinue pursuing an opportunity through analysis of measures during its PDIS process. Beyond its process for managing innovation, as Hertz has pointed out, “CSSD was created with innovation at its core. Every system and process was a design innovation.” In addition, as CSSD shared at the Baldrige Program’s Quest Conference and Hertz subsequently describes, “The organization’s July strategic initiatives meeting includes an education reform and innovation plan for the short term (two years or less) and the long term.” Mid-America Transplant In its Baldrige Award application summary, Mid-America Transplant (MTS) states that “innovation is a core value and core competency at MTS and is embedded in the culture from the governance level with a Board of Directors vested in intelligent risk taking through the mission-driven workforce.” According to Hertz, at the 2016 Quest conference MTS CEO Diane Brockmeier described the five characteristics of her organization’s innovation culture as (1) visionary leadership with a sense of urgency; (2) transparent, two-way communication; (3) mission-driven, cross-functional teams; (4) a commitment to learning; and (5) effective external collaboration.” MTS both describes and depicts its Improvement and Innovation Process (IIP; shown above) in its Baldrige Award application summary at 6.1c. “Innovation is initiated and managed through the IIP (Figure 6.1-2), which is an integral part of the [Operational Management Process] OMP, Learning and Development System] LDS, and the [Strategic Thinking Process] STP,” states the nonprofit organization. According to MTS’s application, after discussion of an innovation originates in the STP, OMP, or LDS, a business plan is developed. The Leadership Team prioritizes plans in Strategic Discussions (SDs), and an innovation team composed of staff members from multiple departments may be formed. Innovation teams use performance improvement tools and data analysis to develop new processes to test and implement. Plans determined to be aligned with the organization’s vision, mission, and values may be implemented in MTS operations during the “Deploy Plan” step of the IIP process; those determined to be intelligent risks are managed through a method called the MTS Incubator. After that, states MTS, “deployment and integration of plans include effectiveness checks and re-evaluation as needed.” Embedded in the IIP is MTS’s Priority Matrix, which helps MTS identify intelligent risks and validate (at LT meetings) the scope, schedule, and resources of those it decides to pursue. Decisions to discontinue such opportunities are also evaluated through the IIP, states MTS. “The Effectiveness Check and Priority Matrix, key components of the IIP, allow for a systematic review of current projects as well as proposed projects and ensure the agility to enhance support for higher-priority opportunities.” MidwayUSA “We manage innovation by developing, categorizing, prioritizing, and implementing strategically important ideas,” states two-time Baldrige Award recipient MidwayUSA in its 2015 Baldrige Award application summary. Among the means that the small business cites for developing innovation are strategic planning meetings, annual process reviews, and customer input methods, as well as numerous methods and meetings that focus on knowledge sharing, organizational performance (based on the Baldrige framework), and future opportunities. MidwayUSA’s 2015 Baldrige application summary also references formal calls for innovation, including employee focus groups. The organization records all innovation ideas in its Performance Improvement System (PIS), which all employees can access to add ideas. “We currently have over 3,400 ideas captured in our PIS in various stages of consideration and implementation,” states MidwayUSA’s application. “Since 2011 we have implemented over 2,000 ideas.” MidwayUSA describes how it reviews and prioritizes innovative ideas to pursue through its strategic and departmental performance meetings as well as its Work Process Management Process and Continuous Improvement meetings. The company captures innovation ideas that it identifies as strategically important in its “Bucket List” in the PIS, and it reviews these ideas for consideration as action plans to be included in its strategic plan. How does your organization manage for innovation? Category: Awards, Business Excellence, Innovation, Latest NewsComments Off on How the latest Baldrige award winners manage for innovation Four U.S. organizations honored with 2015 Baldrige National Quality Award Originally posted on Department of Commerce website U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker today named four U.S. organizations as the 2015 recipients of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest Presidential honor for performance excellence. The honorees are recognized for their outstanding commitment to sustainable excellence through innovation, improvement and visionary leadership. This year’s recipients represent four different sectors and include a two-time winner for the seventh time in Baldrige history. The 2015 Baldrige Award recipients – listed with their category – are: MidwayUSA, Columbia, Mo. (small business; won in the same category in 2009) Charter School of San Diego, San Diego, Calif. (education) Charleston Area Medical Center Health System, Charleston, W.V. (health care) Mid-America Transplant Services, St. Louis, Mo. (nonprofit) “This year’s Baldrige Award honorees have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to improving their performance in all facets of their organizations, and they have served as role models for others to follow,” said Secretary Pritzker. “As America’s Innovation Agency, the Commerce Department is honored to support innovators and job creators who power our economy and help keep America open for business.” The Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) manages the Baldrige Award in cooperation with the private sector. An independent board of examiners recommended this year’s Baldrige Award recipients from a field of 26 applicants after evaluating them in seven areas defined by the Baldrige Criteria: leadership; strategy; customers; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; workforce; operations; and results. An organization may compete for the award in one of six categories: manufacturing, service, small business, health care, education and nonprofit (including government agencies). “Achieving sustainable excellence through the Baldrige Excellence Framework [which includes the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence] takes time and commitment, but it is an effort that thousands of organizations worldwide have made the cornerstone of their leadership, management and improvement programs,” said Robert Fangmeyer, director of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. “Time and time again, organizations using the framework demonstrate positive transformation and growth, impressive metrics and outcomes, and lasting benefits for management, employees, customers and stakeholders.” To date, more than 1,600 U.S. organizations have applied for the Baldrige Award, and there are more than 30 independent Baldrige-based state and regional award programs covering nearly all 50 states. Internationally, the program has served as a model for nearly 100 excellence programs. In addition, many organizations use the Baldrige framework for its improvement and innovation strategies without applying for any of these awards. During the period 2010-2014, more than 4 million copies of the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence were distributed. Their widespread acceptance and use both nationally and globally has dramatically impacted all types of organizations. Take for example, these achievements by the 2015 Baldrige Award winners: Over the past 11 years, MidwayUSA has been one of the fastest-growing firms in the outdoor and recreational sport equipment industry, sustaining a 43.8 percent average annual growth rate in net income and a 21.3 percent average annual growth rate in gross sales. At The Charter School of San Diego, where students enter academically behind and at risk of never receiving a high school diploma, 94-98 percent of those enrolled have graduated from the charter school or have successfully transitioned back to a traditional high school. For the past two years, the Charleston Area Medical Center Health System has ranked in the top 5 percent for quality inpatient service by Healthgrades, a national service that rates the performance of physicians, hospitals and health care providers, and received the group’s Distinguished Hospital Award. In 2001, Mid-America Transplant Services built the nation’s first stand-alone organ recovery facility, a system that has significantly reduced the expense of procuring organs compared to the cost of in-hospital organ procurement. Since 2012, the cost-per-donor for in-house cases has decreased from approximately $7,000 to under $4,000, compared to approximately $20,000 when completed in the hospital. The Baldrige judges also may recognize best practices in one or more of the Baldrige Criteria categories by organizations that are candidates for the award but are not selected as a recipient. This year, the judges have chosen to honor Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital (Sugar Land, Texas) for its best practices in the strategy criterion. The 2015 Baldrige Award will be presented at an April 2016 ceremony during the Quest for Excellence conference in Baltimore, Md. The Baldrige Program raises awareness about the importance of performance excellence in driving the U.S. and global economy; provides organizational assessments, training, tools and criteria; educates leaders in businesses, schools, health care organizations, and government and nonprofit organizations; shares the best practices of national role models; and recognizes those role models with the Baldrige Award. The Baldrige Award was established by Congress in 1987 and is not given for specific products or services. Since the first group was recognized in 1988, 109 awards have been presented to 102 organizations (including seven repeat recipients). Category: Awards, Business Excellence, Latest NewsComments Off on Four U.S. organizations honored with 2015 Baldrige National Quality Award Winners of the 4th International Best Practice Competition The 4th International Best Practice Competition was held at the Novotel Manila Araneta Center, Philippines on 26th/27th November. The Best Practice Competition encourages organizations to share their best operational and managerial practices, processes, systems, and initiatives and learn from the experience of others. It provides an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of individuals and teams that have been responsible for creating and/or managing the introduction and deployment of best practices. The Best Practice Competition has been designed by the Centre for Organisational Excellence Research (COER), the developers of the Business Performance Improvement Resource. Presentation videos will be on the BPIR early next year. Al Jazeera International Catering Company (JIC) and Dubai Corporation For Ambulance Services (DCAS) teams with final session judges Two winners: Our Planet – Our Responsibility – CSR Engagement Strategy for Sustainability Excellence, Robby Thommy, Managing Director, and Loganathan Murthy, HEAD – HSE and Training, Al Jazeera International Catering LLC, UAE. Cultural Sensitivity Gives Birth to a Maternity Care, Dr. Omer Ahmed Zain Al Sakaf, Director of Medical & Technical Affairs and Dr. Tanveer Ahmed Mohamed Ishaque Yadgir, Acting Head of Research & Studies Unit, Dubai Corporation for Ambulance Services (DCAS), UAE. Three runners up: Single Window Transaction (SWiT) Modified Business One-Stop Shop (MBOSS), Glenda Zamora-Aninon, City Government Department Head III, City Government of Muntinlupa, Philippines. ONE SHARE (Share History and Reduce Excursion) – Best Practice Sharing Tool, Penelope Jas Dizon, Manager/ One SHARE Champion, Texas Instruments Philippines, Philippines. Strategic Focused Budgeting, Nancy Bartlett, Chief Performance Officer, City of El Paso, United States. For event photos click here Category: Awards, Best practices, Latest NewsComments Off on Winners of the 4th International Best Practice Competition Singapore Business Excellence Award Winners 2015 October 20, 2015 by BPIR.com Limited Originally posted on SPRING Singapore 1- Four organisations have clinched top honours for their commitment towards the business excellence journey, achieving outstanding business performance. The winners are two local home-grown brands and two public sector agencies. They will receive their trophies from Mr S Iswaran, Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry) at the Business Excellence Awards Ceremony on 14 October. 2- The Immigration & Checkpoints Authority of Singapore (ICA) and Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) have been conferred the Singapore Quality Award with Special Commendation (SQA SC). It is the highest accolade recognising organisations that have achieved the pinnacle of business excellence. Jumbo Group of Restaurants Pte Ltd has been awarded the People Excellence Award (PEA), while Sheng Siong Group Ltd was conferred the Innovation Excellence Award (IEA), in recognition of their exceptional performance in the respective categories. 3- All four winners share a visionary leadership committed to innovation, people development and customer-centric excellence, which has resulted in greater productivity and business growth. They will join the ranks of 100 past Business Excellence Award winners that have distinguished themselves in the various aspects of excellence. 4- “As we celebrate the achievements of the winning organisations, we are encouraged to see over 1,500 organisations embarking on this Business Excellence journey. Amidst the uncertain global economic environment, it becomes even more crucial for organisations to strengthen their business fundamentals and be future-ready to take on any challenges that come their way. Organisations must strive towards excellence to be globally competitive. This can be achieved through continuous learning, innovation, investing in people, and sound management practices,” said Professor Cham Tao Soon, Chairman, SQA Governing Council. 2015 Business Excellence Award Winners 5- The first SQA SC winner, the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA), has been continuously innovating, leveraging technology to develop and deploy robust border security and identification processes and systems. With an emphasis on creating win-win partnerships for better Customer Experience, ICA involves both internal stakeholders (officers and work units) and external partners (suppliers, academia and customers) to co-create high performance innovation projects. These include the Application for Passports on-line (APPLES), Enhanced Immigration Automated Clearance System (eIACS), iCollect and Biometric Identification of Motorbikers 2 (BIKES 2). As the world’s firsts, these innovation projects testify to the strong innovation culture in the organisation. ICA has also set a global benchmark for border management excellence, and was awarded the inaugural “Excellence in Border Management Award” by BORDERPOL last year. 6- The second SQA SC winner, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) is one of the leanest emergency organisations internationally. Despite this, it has demonstrated a strong innovation culture, leveraging technology and state-of-the-art equipment to strengthen its emergency response capabilities. This includes developing solutions internally, such as the Light Fire Attack Vehicle, 4th Generation Red Rhino (LF4G) and the Responders’ Performance Module. The SCDF also believes in equipping its officers with diverse skills to respond to emergencies. For example, SCDF’s 995 Operations Centre Specialists are trained to coach callers in administering CPR for cardiac arrest before SCDF arrives. Beyond national shores, SCDF has also participated in numerous overseas rescue missions. SCDF’s Operation Lionheart Contingent has obtained the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) External Classification as a Heavy Urban Search Rescue (USAR) Team, being the first in Asia to attain this classification in 2008, and later recertified in 2013. 7- Winner of the People Excellence Award, JUMBO Group of Restaurants, puts people at the heart of its business. Adopting a people-centric philosophy, it believes that by focusing on its employees’ well-being first, they in turn will take good care of their customers. The company places strong emphasis on delivering superior customer experience and service excellence. This is validated by the increase in number of compliments received from 79% in 2012 to 84% in 2014. Given the manpower challenges in the food services sector, the company has introduced a wide-range of innovative, progressive people practices to enhance its hiring and retention practices. JUMBO distinguishes itself from its competitors by providing bonus payouts and CPF contributions to attract casual workers. This group of workers forms a significant 22% of JUMBO’s existing workforce. The leadership’s ability and commitment to identify talented employees and internally groom them for higher positions through its in-house FAST Track Programme has also helped JUMBO stay ahead of the curve. 8- Since its inception, the Innovation Excellence Award winner, Sheng Siong Group, has placed creation of value for customers at the heart of its innovation endeavours. Noting the difficulties faced by customers using conventional self-checkout machines at other retailers, Sheng Siong became the first supermarket to develop a hybrid self-checkout system. This allowed scanning of products to be done by the cashiers, while customers use the self-service kiosk to make payment by cash or electronic means. This has resulted in 33 man-hour savings per day, while replacing five traditionally-manned counters with three hybrid counters. The impetus to drive productivity has also seen Sheng Siong introducing several back-end process innovations such as the Individually Quick Frozen (IQF) technology. Adapted from the fishing industry, this technology keeps fish fresh for a longer time, from 2 to 7 days, and also improves productivity in the processing of fish, resulting in the reduction of manpower required by 50%. Building Operational Excellence Capabilities within Manufacturing Industry 9- Recognising challenges faced by industries in this time of economic restructuring, coupled with intensifying regional competition, enterprise development agency SPRING Singapore has partnered industry players within the manufacturing and construction industries to raise their levels of efficiency and quality. 10- Within the manufacturing industry, SPRING has developed a diagnostic toolkit based on the Operational Excellence model. Endorsed by key industry partner, the Singapore Precision Engineering and Technology Association (SPETA), the diagnostic toolkit provides a developmental roadmap for SMEs to enhance their competencies and capabilities, and deliver consistent, sustainable performance. The toolkit embeds the fundamentals of business excellence and the stringent requirements MNCs and large organisations impose on their suppliers. 11- This came after a series of consultations with SMEs and MNCs to understand the key challenges and attributes larger organisations looked out for in their suppliers. Operational Excellence was identified as a key driver for overall business growth within the manufacturing industry, as it focused on managing the entire supply chain – from procurement, production, materials management to delivery. SMEs that adopt the Operational Excellence model would be in a more favourable position to be the supplier of choice for large organisations and MNCs. 12- A network of industry experts, honing years of manufacturing experience, has also been established to guide SMEs in diagnosing and strengthening their capabilities in operational excellence. A pilot will be conducted within the Precision Engineering sector, across 10 companies. 13- RUI, a precision engineering company, has benefitted from this pilot initiative, Mr Kelvin Lee, Director of RUI said, “The diagnostic exercise has helped us identify our operational gaps. We subsequently embarked on a 5S system and data analysis to improve our business processes and our productivity. This initiative has helped RUI reposition the company to retain its competitiveness and achieve greater business growth.” Boosting Competitiveness through Integrated BE-ISO9001 Assessment 14- The construction industry, together with the rest of the Built Environment industry, is also undergoing rapid transformation. The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and industry players have placed strong emphasis on quality management practices within the Built Environment industry to ensure productivity, sustainability and to achieve health, safety and environmental standards. The adoption of standards such as ISO 9001 for quality management systems is a requirement by BCA for companies to be registered in the higher-tiered Contractors Registration System, which serves the procurement needs of government agencies, statutory boards and other public sector organisations. 15- In a boost to increase growth and competitiveness of the Built Environment enterprises, SPRING and BCA are embarking on an integrated assessment of both Business Excellence and ISO 9001 standards. The integrated assessment will provide companies a more comprehensive approach towards building their capabilities and developing sustainable long-term plans, ultimately working towards achieving a superior performance and surpassing industry benchmarks. This initiative will be piloted next year, after further consultations with the industry. 16- Mr Stephen Wong, Managing Director, Davis Langdon KPK, welcomed this initiative. “We look forward to embarking on the integrated BE and ISO 9001 assessment as it provides Davis Langdon KPK the opportunity to internally align our processes with a strategic view on addressing future challenges. While ISO 9001 has become an industry requirement, the BE framework has transformed the thinking of the company into one that is excellence-oriented.” 17- “We are encouraged to see more companies embarking on the business excellence journey and seeing the benefits translate down to their people and customers. SPRING Singapore will continue to work closely with the industry to understand their unique challenges and find solutions to increase the growth and competitiveness of enterprises. For the manufacturing industry, enterprises can now look forward to the new diagnostic toolkit to strengthen their capabilities and achieve operational excellence, “said Ms Choy Sauw Kook, SPRING’s Assistant Chief Executive (Quality & Excellence). Category: Awards, Business Excellence, Latest NewsComments Off on Singapore Business Excellence Award Winners 2015	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12795
__label__wiki	0.682836	0.682836	If It Goes Right By Jeff Sullivan on April 4, 2015 at 6:26 PM We tend to forget all of our memes as soon as we adopt new ones. They’re ephemeral things, which can make it a trip when something comes along and jogs your memory. Like, every so often, I’m reminded of Chris Jakubauskas, and then I’m reminded that some people used to call him the Jakubaustrich, and that was as recent as 2009, and that’s always a little bit flooring. Every old meme is ridiculous. We never think of our current memes as ridiculous. Something to think about. Anyway, the reason I’m bringing this up: used to be, for a few years, it was popular to compare the Mariners to the Royals. More than that, it was popular to say the Mariners were the Royals, if perhaps delayed by a year. The two organizations operated the same way, and the two organizations seemed doomed to the same unremarkable fates, the same sequences of the same fourth- and fifth-place finishes. People compared the Mariners to the Royals, and this was intended as a criticism. Then people stopped. The comparison would’ve taken on new meaning after the Royals got to the World Series. But, well. In hindsight, we should’ve stuck with it. All the bad Mariners were all the bad Royals. The 2014 Mariners were the 2013 Royals. And the 2015 Mariners are the 2014 Royals. The comparison is still alive. It might be stronger than ever. The parallels just aren’t what they used to be, in terms of the takeaway message. You, me, that guy, this girl, all those people who’ve been milling around SoDo — we’re fans of a good baseball team. This is important. Read that sentence fragment again, and then, read that sentence fragment again. Here, I’ll repeat it: we’re fans of a good baseball team. This is an identity we’re still working to cultivate. It’s the complete opposite of the identity we developed over the course of a long and dark decade. Thing about being irrelevant and disappointing for so long is that you get your thicker psychological skin. Your sense of humor spins off in a very particular direction, as you learn the ins and outs of coping with a pastime that only ever lets you down. We identified with failure. We made jokes at our own expense. We were the sad-sack people who rooted for the sad-sack team, the people others felt bad for, the team nobody hated. The identity we had — the identity in which we found comfort — it’s no longer appropriate. It’s a little like one of those What Not To Wear episodes where the 43-year-old mother of two dresses like she’s in junior high. The mother needs to dress her age. We need to behave in accordance with our circumstances. Nobody feels bad for us. Our team is now hated, by people other than us. Clearly, this has been a long time coming. The regular season goes for a while. This one was preceded by several months of projections claiming the Mariners would be good. Before that, the Mariners of 2014 very narrowly missed the playoffs. This is by no means an overnight sensation, so we’ve had about a year and a half to recognize our changing situation. But a year and a half is nothing compared to the years we spent asking ourselves why this hobby was a hobby. It’s going to take a long time for it all to sink in. It’s going to take a long time for our identity to re-sequence. What’s the rule with break-ups — one month of recovery for every year you’re together? Might be there’s a similar principle, adjusting to a sports team no longer being really good or really bad. You’re forgiven if you still aren’t used to this, if you still don’t identify with this. Just, be aware of what’s coming. We’re fans of a good baseball team. If it hasn’t yet, this is going to change you. I’m sure this goes without saying, but, gosh, it’s one thing to expect a pretty good baseball team, and it’s quite another to actually see one. You remember the preseason projections. I think, as far back as November, I wrote about why the Mariners might be the best team in the American League. The projections were encouraging, and they were encouraging across the board. Steamer liked the Mariners. ZiPS liked the Mariners. PECOTA liked the Mariners. Clay Davenport liked the Mariners. Vegas liked the Mariners. Baseball analysts and commentators liked the Mariners. Scouts liked the Mariners. The Mariners were not an underdog. The Mariners were not a surprise. The season they’ve had — this is a season that we all knew could happen. I remember a tweet from sometime in March, and I think it was posted by Peter Gammons, and he cited a scout who saw the Mariners in spring training and said they looked like the league’s best ballclub. The response wasn’t, “what on earth?” The response was, “sure”. The scout wasn’t exactly going out on a limb. We knew the Mariners looked strong. We knew they had both talent and depth. But there’s another thing we also knew: the error bars around preseason projections are enormous. When we thought the Mariners could be a playoff team in 2008, they lost 101 games. When we thought the Mariners could be a playoff team in 2010, they lost 101 games. Those memories aren’t easy ones to dismiss. Those were the most recent years in which we began all optimistic, and they wound up with names like Tug Hulett and Chris Seddon. As baseball fans, we root for players, not projections, and sometimes players under-perform. Sometimes players develop ankylosing spondylitis. You’d think that it might be a little less enjoyable to go into a year where success isn’t surprising, and that’s probably true when you get to the point where you really do take perennial success for granted, but, none of us were actually doing that. We’ve not been in position to take winning for granted. Maybe five years from now. But the projections were always at odds with that aforementioned identity. And when there’s a disagreement between the gut and the numbers, you’ll feel the gut more than you’ll feel the data. We wouldn’t be able to accept the Mariners as a good team until they played like an actual good team. An actual playoff team. A playoff team like the playoff team they are. It’s stark how different the feeling is when the baseball team you follow is playing for something. The games matter, every single day. Games thrill you or upset you, every single day. On the penultimate day of the 2014 regular season, I remember watching the end of a Mariners/Angels game at a bar, and then Austin Jackson hit that incredibly stupid game-winning forceout. He made contact that was too bad for the Angels to turn an inning-ending double play, and that’s how the Mariners survived into their final nine innings. It didn’t matter. It didn’t have to be pretty, and it didn’t matter who was responsible. I left that bar and just about skipped for ten blocks. It was genuine elation at minutes before midnight, and it was elation because the Mariners still had a chance to go to the playoffs, because of a game they won. Sure, it ultimately didn’t work out, but 2014 gave us a few glimpses of what 2015 would be like. There was more than occasional elation. There was a very real sense of hanging on just about every pitch, and while it would be romanticizing things to say that was always the case, when the games you’re watching are important, you’re less likely to notice how slow they might be going. You’re less likely to notice if it’s, say, Willie Bloomquist driving home the run instead of Robinson Cano. All you want is a win, and it doesn’t matter how it happens, and a slow pace might be appreciated so that you can give your heart a breather. You remember, last offseason was the offseason of speeding up the pace of the game. A noble goal, absolutely, but the people to whom that matters most are professional baseball writers and fans of bad teams. Fans of good teams don’t have complaints. The biggest complaint might be that the next game isn’t here yet. To get more personal for a paragraph, I moved to the Pacific Northwest in February 2010. Like many, I’ve fallen in love with it here, and more than anything else, I’ve been delighted by the summers, and the opportunities they’ve afforded for incredible hiking and other-worldly camping. Some summers, it seemed like just about every weekend I’d be leaving the city and leaving the grid to get lost somewhere in the woods or the rock. I never feel more centered than I do when I’m out there, and in no time that developed into my primary passion. This became the summer of staying in. More and more, I found myself torn, choosing between getting outdoors and watching the Mariners. This was my least-active summer of all my summers here. Hiking was always the excuse for abandoning the Mariners. The Mariners became an excuse for abandoning the trails. Now, I don’t think that’ll be long-term sustainable — one needs to go into the world — but that reflects the appeal of the ballclub we were given. The Seattle Mariners are an entertainment venture, and this year they’ve actually looked it. I remember being so annoyed by the obvious marketing. All the ploys I’d see on Twitter to get you to go to a game and hand over all your money. The team’s a business, and businesses succeed by collecting what you’ve earned, and when you start to see through it, it’s repulsive. Out there, there are so many agendas. But then, people generally do know when they’re being marketed to, and it didn’t seem to diminish any of the enthusiasm. The Mariners are always trying to sell themselves, but this has been a baseball team people wanted to be sold. There was nothing sinister afoot. No one had to be convinced to go to a game and get a beer and a hot dog, because beer is delicious, and hot dogs are delicious, and games are where you can watch the Mariners win around 40,000 other people. Sometimes some of them wear yellow and they’re loud as fuck. The King’s Court gave us our first glimpse of a kind of playoff atmosphere, even within dead seasons. Felix was a draw — watching Felix pitch was an experience. This team has delivered other experiences, more often than once per five days. Nelson Cruz really does hit the ball differently, like a full-season version of pre-injury Michael Morse. James Paxton isn’t Clayton Kershaw, but we’ve been able to see the influence. Robinson Cano is the kind of steady hitter we hadn’t seen since Edgar Martinez, and it seemed like he had two hits every day. Every time Fernando Rodney came jogging in, it felt like a rock concert. All Brad Miller did was develop into the best all-around shortstop in the AL. And there was, you know, the general team experience. Cheering every run, every out, and every win. Didn’t matter whether Felix was pitching or not. Felix didn’t start any of those four games against the Angels that the Mariners swept going into the All-Star break. Didn’t mean it wasn’t maybe the most enjoyable series of baseball the Mariners had played in, man, I couldn’t even tell you. Felix helped to get us through the darker days. In the brighter ones, he was always going to be just a part of the whole. It’s been months of baseball at the best that baseball can be. Which, if you step back, is kind of amazing, if you consider what we’ve talked about. Right around when the Mariners signed Cano was when Geoff Baker published that article bringing down the front office, and we’ve all previously pondered the question of whether we wanted these people to be in charge anymore. We all felt like, even just a few years ago, the Mariners were stuck in the bottom tier. At that point, if you recall, the Mariners seemed almost hopeless, and the Rangers seemed like a model franchise. It’s not that everyone was totally wrong. Baseball will surprise you. For their part, the Rangers have been undone by a few bad decisions and a lot of bad luck. But, front-office evaluations and organizational summaries are things we talk about to fill the time between baseball seasons and baseball games. All we care about is the baseball team we like the most winning more games than it doesn’t. This team has. Things were unquestionably dark. It can just be hard to appreciate how soon the light of dawn can arrive. Baseball moves quicker than a five-year plan. Five years ago, the Mariners wrapped up a 61-101 season they began with title dreams. They began it with Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee and Chone Figgins before Chone Figgins was a bad name to invoke in a sentence like this. It was more than just a damaging season — it was a season that forced the organization to go back to the drawing board. It was a season that, reportedly, altered the way the front office operated. It was a season we wouldn’t be able to forget if we tried, even though it was also a season we stopped paying attention to by the time it was half of the way over. It was a season that made success feel more distant than ever. As this season has wrapped up, this season also has not wrapped up. It’s simply given way to a later season, a special season, a season the Mariners get to begin by dealing with the Blue Jays. And maybe that’s the way it’ll end, who knows, but getting here was the point, and the season has been a success, no matter what happens. First place is first place, and most good teams fall short of the World Series. For years, Safeco has been invaded by Blue Jays fans traveling down from the north, and they’ve been loud and Mariners fans have tried to be loud in response, as if the teams or the games even mattered. This is going to be a little different. There won’t be so many opportunities to think about being as obnoxiously loud as possible. The fans’ll be too busy being as obnoxiously loud as possible. This post came from: U.S.S. Mariner, and is copyright by the authors. This RSS feed is intended for the personal use of readers and not, for instance, spam blogs. Follow @seattlepi Sign up for our news alerts Game 2, Mariners at Rangers The M’s 2016: The Upside The M’s 2016 : The Risks Welcome, Nick Vincent M’s Set Roster, Choose Volatility over Predictability Cactus League: Iwakuma vs. Maeda Cactus League: Split-Squad Royalty U.S.S. Mariner Search Buy Mariners tickets Click to buy Mariners tickets	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12804
__label__wiki	0.800143	0.800143	A controversial new pesticide By Lynette Evans on November 2, 2008 at 7:42 PM Here’s something that should worry anyone who is concerned about the continued use of toxic chemicals in farming. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has given final approval for use of methyl iodide, a new pesticide that its developer James J. Sims at UC Riverside, which holds the patent, and manufacturer Arysta LifeScience, think should replace the now banned methyl bromide in the strawberry fields of the state. (As Deborah K. Rich reported in a story about the difficulties of growing organic strawberries commercially in the Oct. 25 Home&Garden section of The Chronicle, methyl bromide is still being used in California under special exemption, even though the soil fumigant was banned by the Montreal Protocol because of its ozone-damaging properties.) Because methyl iodide, a liquid with a low boiling point, is too unstable to reach the upper atmosphere, it is superior to the gas methyl bromide when it comes to global warming, but, according to Chemical & Engineering News, the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society, which released a report on the chemical on Oct. 27, if handled improperly, methyl iodide is extremely toxic. In “Methyl Iodide Saga Continues: EPA gives green light to soil fumigant, but California is still assessing risks,” the ACS says the chemical can damage DNA and thus should be considered a carcinogen. According to the report: “Methyl iodide is so toxic because it is a strong alkylating agent, says Robert G. Bergman, an organometallic chemist at UC Berkeley. Alkylating agents can chemically modify DNA and can alter gene expression.” “Bergman is among a group of 54 scientists, mostly chemists, who sent a letter to EPA in September 2007 asking the agency not to approve the use of methyl iodide as a soil fumigant because of fears that it would harm farm workers and people living near agricultural sites where it is applied,” the report says, and goes on to quote Ted Schettler, a toxicologist and physician with Science & Environmental Health Network, who worries about possible damage to developing brains. The EPA’s testing focused on thyroid effects, and “had no developmental neurotoxicity data,” Schettler said. Scientists are concerned as well about the objectivity of EPA’s review process. California has been studying methyl iodide since 2005 and has not yet approved its use in the state, but Florida has OK’d methyl iodide for “high value crops” — including strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, stone fruits, tree nuts, vines and ornamentals — all crops that are grown as well in California, and all crops that Arysta LifeScience would like to see grown here in soil fumigated by the chemical. The California EPA’s Dept. of Pesticide Regulation has targeted late 2009 to complete its review, so there’s still time for the public to weigh in. According to the ACS report, large-scale orders for methyl iodide “haven’t yet materialized because of the risk assessments that various states decided to perform. Otherwise, millions of pounds of the fumigant probably would have been injected into soils across the U.S. during the 2008 growing season, says Susan Kegley, a senior scientist with the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA), a nonprofit group that has been pushing for a ban on all soil fumigants for years.” Anyone who lives near a strawberry field, or has small children, may want to include their voices in the movement toward that ban. levans Recent Village Green Posts Save The Waves and Shred Mavericks Sierra Nevada frog likes a cool climate Mommy striped bass are poisoning the babies Big Foot in Yosemite! Condors, Fire, Energy and Extinction	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12805
__label__cc	0.715061	0.284939	CardioExchange Archive CardioExchange, an NEJM practice community for medical professionals dedicated to improving cardiac patient care, was active from 2009 to 2015. CardioExchange fostered discussion between clinicians from across the globe. Selections from Richard Lehman’s Literature Review: August 13th Richard Lehman, BM, BCh, MRCGP CardioExchange is pleased to reprint selections from Dr. Richard Lehman’s weekly journal review blog at BMJ.com. Selected summaries are relevant to our audience, but we encourage members to engage with the entire blog. JAMA 8 Aug 2012 Vol 308 More Research is…Readily Available (pg. 575): When Stephen Lock was editor of the BMJ, he banned the expression “further research is needed” on the grounds that further research is always needed. Here is a piece by John Oiannidis which argues that further research is very often badly needed – and that it is very often instantly achievable, simply by using data that has already been collected. But to do that, researchers need to know where the data are to be found, and to have automatic access to it. The rather clunky title of this essay, “The Importance of Potential Studies That Have Not Existed and Registration of Observational Data Sets”, does little justice to a powerful discussion of issues that lie at the very heart of the coming revolution in research methodology. We are – I hope – on the verge of an era where all data from every human trial ever carried out will be available to any researcher; and more than that, an era when every clinical encounter will in principle be available for analysis after the removal of patient identifiers. As Ioannidis points out, much of this is already possible and is not being done. The “potential studies that have not existed” which he refers to are investigations that could settle contentious issues – if only people would take the trouble to look at datasets that are already in existence. (Note for pedants: I have deliberately used “data” both as a plural and as a singular in two sentences, because this is common practice. I bet that within ten years, data will have followed “media” and become uniformly singular. Personally, I don’t like it; but that’s language for you. It’s like a bacteria. Neuter plurals counted as singular in ancient Greek.) Normal Weight, Diabetes, and Risk of non-Cardiovascular Death (pg. 581): Here’s another significant insight into the enigma that is labelled “type 2 diabetes”. We all know of people who have this condition despite being of normal weight (BMI less than 25), and in fact in the five large cohorts looked at here, the proportion of subjects with normal BMI at the time of onset of diabetes varied between 9 and 21%, with a mean of 12%. The striking finding of this analysis is that these individuals have a doubling of mortality risk at 15 years compared with overweight or obese individuals with T2DM. And oddly enough, this is mainly accounted for by non-cardiovascular causes of death. Total Cholesterol Levels in U.S. Kids (pg. 591): But now for a really puzzling observation: between 1988 and 2006, the mean level of total cholesterol in American children has declined. During this period, US kids aged between 6 and 19 have become fatter and less active. I don’t know what can account for this, and nor does the writer of the editorial that accompanies it, except to call it a reason for optimism. Lancet 11 Aug 2012 Vol 380 Statins and Diabetes (pg. 565): One way to push people over the arbitrary threshold of 7.0 mmol/L fasting glucose is to give them a thiazide diuretic: another is to give them a statin. They are then officially “diabetic”, but does that mean that they are condemned to progressive beta-cell failure? In the case of thiazides, the answer is simply no. In the case of statins, we don’t know: but we do know that the cardiovascular benefits of continuing the drug easily outweigh any negative effects from hyperglycaemia. This analysis of data from the JUPITER trial confirms that this applies across the glucose range, including people at high risk of diabetes. HDL-C and MI Protection (pg. 572): I tried counting the authors of this celebrated mendelian randomisation study of plasma high density lipoprotein cholesterol and myocardial infarction, but I had to give up due to vertigo. There must be about 120. If you believe them, there is no likelihood of any causal link between HDL-C levels and protection from MI. If you don’t believe them, you can start all over again: perform two mendelian randomisation analyses. First, use as an instrument a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the endothelial lipase gene (LIPG Asn396Ser) and test this SNP in 20 studies (20 913 myocardial infarction cases, 95 407 controls). Second, use as an instrument a genetic score consisting of 14 common SNPs that exclusively associate with HDL cholesterol and tested this score in up to 12 482 cases of myocardial infarction and 41 331 controls. As a positive control, also test a genetic score of 13 common SNPs exclusively associated with LDL cholesterol. Statins: Treat Everyone, Treat to Risk, or Treat to Target? (pg. 581): You’ll note that the preceding study did confirm that LDL-C is causal in adverse cardiovascular events; and only LDL-lowering strategy that we know to prevent CV events is statin therapy. Now there are three camps where statins are concerned: the “put them in the water supply” camp at one extreme, and the “treat to target” camp at the other, and half way between the “treat to risk” camp. This meta-analysis of individual data from 27 randomised trials confirms that statins lower cardiovascular risk at all levels, with the most pronounced effect of course at the top of the risk scale. Some friends of mine would argue that statins taken from the age of say 16 would prevent atheroma altogether; others among my friends rail at the mass medication of society and seem to wish that statins had never been invented; I myself think they should be offered to everyone above some arbitrary age, say 50. In their editorial, Shah Ebrahim and Juan Casas appear to agree, though their last paragraph does offer the tempting alternative of moving to Mauritius. Reviewing Hypertension Treatment (pg. 591): The management of “hypertension” in primary care is one of the most boring jobs we do, and I fear we don’t do it very well. Most of the individuals who trudge regularly into our surgeries every six months gain no benefit whatsoever from the drugs we give them – the number needed to prevent one stroke is typically 100-400 – and most of the time we don’t even measure their BP adequately anyway. We medicate the herd for small benefit, while often struggling with the patients at highest risk. Fortunately most of the drugs we use are cheap and safe, but the market is so huge that drug companies continue to develop new drugs which might work for some subgroups of patients with resistant hypertension. This review usefully lists them, but the real revolution is likely to come from a different direction – devices and procedures which permanently reset the sympathetic nervous system. In ten years’ time, I wouldn’t be surprised to see renal sympathetic denervation becoming a routine procedure: or will it be continuous carotid stimulation? BMJ 11 Aug 2012 Vol 345 Clopidogrel and PPIs: In laboratory tests of platelet function, proton pump inhibitors cancel out the effect of clopidogrel because they inhibit the P450 2C19 enzyme. So if you look at a cohort of people who are taking clopidogrel (with aspirin) you might expect to find a higher rate of coronary events in those who are also taking a PPI. And in fact, as this study from the UK GP Research Database shows, there is a 30% or so higher risk in this group, if you look at the cohort as a whole. In fact there is an even higher risk difference in non-vascular death, which begins to make you wonder whether there is something else going on in these people who are taking PPIs. Maybe the groups are not comparable: and the cunning authors then go on to test this hypothesis by looking at within individual differences in CV outcomes during periods on and off PPI treatment. Here the effect direction is reversed. This is intriguing, and probably means that most people can take clopidogrel and PPIs together with impunity: but there are some loose ends here. Somebody needs to repeat this exercise using another database, looking more precisely at the individual clinical reasons for co-treatment with PPIs, aspirin and clopidogrel. Pharma Innovation: The most important contribution to this week’s BMJ is undoubtedly an analysis by Donald Light and Joel Lexchin of the truth behind the “innovation crisis” in the pharmaceutical industry. They demonstrate that it is a widely touted myth, aimed at putting pressure on regulatory agencies to help the poor ailing industry by setting a lower bar for licensing new products. In fact only one in ten products has any added clinical value, whereas the FDA is currently granting “priority status” to 44% of new drugs. The remaining 90% simply drive up health costs without adding benefit, and most industry effort is put into developing such me-too drugs. And this is a highly successful business model: pharmaceutical R&D budgets rose by $34.2bn between 1995 and 2010, while profits rose by $200bn. The pharmaceutical industry could innovate if it had the incentives to, and indeed does do so one time in ten: but most of the time it is creaming off easy money from health systems that can ill afford it. Tags: children, cholesterol, clopidogrel, HDL-C, hypertension, myocardial infarction, pharmaceutical industry, proton pump inhibitor, research, statins, type 2 diabetes, weight One Response to “Selections from Richard Lehman’s Literature Review: August 13th” Carlos Guijarro, MD,PhD says: Please, keep your ‘data mining’ four your compelling summaries of the medical literature… As for pedants, data is the Latin plural from datum. I’m aware of the expression ‘it’s Greek to me’ to refer to something one does not understand (such as the economy crisis?) … but today this is not the case. 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__label__wiki	0.664128	0.664128	Partial identification by site-directed mutagenesis of a cell growth inhibitory site on the human galectin-1 molecule Ken Scott1 & Jialiang Zhang2 Previous work, by us and others, has shown that mammalian galectins-1 have a growth-inhibitory activity for mammalian cells which is apparently independent of their β-galactoside binding site. We have made recombinant human galectin-1 as a bacterial fusion protein with an N-terminal hexahistidine tag. This protein displays both haemagglutination and growth-inhibitory activities, even in the presence of the hexahistidine tag. Site-directed mutagenesis of this protein has confirmed the independent nature of the protein sites responsible for the two biological activities. Mutant proteins were created, which displayed each activity in the absence of the other. Human galectin-1 possesses a growth-inhibitory site, which is not part of the β-galactoside binding site. A surface loop, comprising amino acid residues 25–30, and joining two internal β-strands, forms part of the growth-inhibitory site. This region is relatively close to the N-terminus of the protein, and N-terminal substitutions or extensions also affect growth-inhibitory activity. Further experiments will be necessary to fully define this site. It is now widely accepted that several galectins, and galectin-1 in particular, have biological functions over and above their obvious role in the binding or cross-linking of β-galactoside-containing glycans [1–3]. The concept of a galactose-binding protein as a negative growth regulator was first seriously proposed when a protein from mouse fibroblast cultures, the murine homologue of galectin-1, was shown to have both properties [4]. These workers went on to demonstrate that growth-inhibitory activity of this mGBP was present even when it bound a glycan at its galactose-binding site [5], suggesting that the two properties were independent functions of galectin-1. In fact, evidence for a growth-inhibitory phase could be seen in several earlier reports of the mitogenic activity of galectins from other species [6–8]. There was some evidence for a similar activity associated with human galectin-1, and it was suggested that proteolysis of secreted galectin-1 could account in part for the action of a growth-related cell-surface proteinase [9]. In an attempt to test this hypothesis, recombinant human galectin-1 was prepared as a bacterial fusion protein with glutathione-S-transferase [10]. Both the fusion protein, and the galectin-1 derived from it by proteolysis and re-purification, functioned as multivalent lectins, and displayed mitogenic activity, which was inhibited by lactose. Growth-inhibitory activity was not a property of the intact GST-galectin fusion protein, but only of the cleaved and purified galectin-1, and lactose did not inhibit this activity. It seemed likely that the GST domain of the fusion protein may sterically restrict access to a growth-inhibitory site on the galectin domain, but it clearly did not have a similar steric effect upon the galactose-binding site. These observations strengthened the case for independent galactose-binding and growth-inhibitory sites on the galectin-1 molecule. Specific mutagenesis of the recombinant galectin molecule is an obvious way of confirming this conclusion. Consideration of both tertiary structure and mutagenesis studies suggests that histidine-45, asparagine-47, arginine-49, tryptophan-69, glutamate-72 and arginine-74 are all involved in, or influence, sugar binding [11–14]. (In numbering galectin-1 amino acid residues, we have found it more convenient to number from the N-terminal methionine, rather than to use the convention of Abbott and Feizi [15], who numbered from alanine-2, which is the N-terminus of the mature, natural protein). It should thus be straightforward to make a substitution mutant of galectin-1, in which galactose-binding activity is greatly reduced, or totally ablated. The assay of growth-inhibitory activity in such a mutant should indicate the existence, or otherwise, of a separate growth-inhibitory site. The earlier mutagenesis studies also suggest, however, that the yield and/or solubility of bacterial mutant galectins may often be low [11, 14]. Our own experience was of poor solubility and yield for mutated or truncated GST-galectin fusion proteins (A. Cameron, K.Y. Chung and KS, unpublished observations). In attempting this study, we therefore thought it worthwhile to adopt another expression vector. The ProEX system produces fusion proteins with a short N-terminal extension, containing a hexahistidine sequence for nickel ion chelation chromatography [16]. This was chosen to produce recombinant proteins that were not dependent on β-galactoside binding for their purification, and were at the same time smaller, to minimise problems due to poor solubility and to steric interference between domains. It may also be possible to identify a growth-inhibitory site directly by site-specific mutagenesis. The steric interference with growth-inhibitory activity, exerted by the GST domain attached to the N-terminus of galectin-1 in the fusion protein, does offer some insight into the possible location of such a site. Consideration of the three-dimensional structure of galectin-1 [12, 13], in conjunction with that observation, suggested additional sites for mutagenesis. The structure bears a strong resemblance to that of galectin-2 [17]. Each monomer has a β-sandwich structure, comprising two antiparallel β-sheets of six (S1–S6) and five (F1–F5) strands, respectively. The β-strands are joined by turns or relatively short loops; almost 70% of the amino acids are in β-strands. The galactose-binding site is comprised of residues in the S4, S5, S6 and F3 strands. The N- and C-termini of the monomer are located close together, on the opposite side of the structure from the galactose-binding site. The surface that incorporates both termini is the contact region in the self-association of two monomers. Whilst it seems unlikely that the growth-inhibitory site could be directly on this "dimerisation interface", it may be close to it, as deduced from the steric effects of N-terminal extension. We identified the surface loops of the structure, located close to this interface, and distant from the galactose-binding site, and chose convenient amino acids within them for mutagenesis. Using this rationale, we have created mutant proteins, which displayed either galactoside-binding or growth-inhibitory activites in the virtual absence of the other. A surface loop, comprising amino acid residues 25–30, and joining two internal β-strands, forms part of the growth-inhibitory site. This region is relatively close to the N-terminus of the protein, and N-terminal substitutions or extensions also affect growth-inhibitory activity. Figure 1 summarises SDS-PAGE analysis of several of the galectin-1 preparations. The hexahis-galectin-1 fusion protein corresponds to a protein band at about 16 kDa, and most preparations contain traces of a dimer at about 32 kDa, as was previously observed with GST-galectin-1 [10]. Despite the altered expression system, many mutant fusion proteins were still produced in low yields. In most cases where the yield of a mutant was low, there was a strong protein band at 16 kDa in the bacterial pellet, probably indicating protein precipitation following expression (not shown). As noted below, several of the mutants tended to precipitate slowly at the higher concentrations used for testing cell growth inhibition, and we also noted that some of these proteins precipitated even from much more dilute solutions after prolonged storage at -20°C. Table 1 summarises our findings with each of the mutants of galectin-1. Two of the mutant proteins (R49G and D47N) were produced in such low yields that complete experimental investigation was not feasible, but the partial findings were of some interest. In addition to these positive cases, we also created cDNAs corresponding to the mutants V6D and A28D, but in neither case could we detect expressed protein in E. coli DH5α. Electrophoresis of Galectin-1 Preparations SDS-PAGE analysis of 15% gels of recombinant human galectin-1 preparations A a) marker proteins b) bacterial lysate containing M1R mutant galectin-1 c) M1R galectin-1, purified by affinity chromatography d) normal galectin-1, purified by affinity chromatography B e) marker proteins f) purified D27N galectin-1 g) purified K29M galectin-1 h) purified K29T galectin-1 Table 1 Summary of Galectin-1 Mutations One hope was that, with a relatively small fusion peptide tag, the recombinant hexahis-galectin-1 (wild-type) would display full biological activities without the need for proteolytic cleavage and protein re-purification. This was indeed the case. The endpoint of the haemagglutination titration was 1 μg/ml for the hexahis-galectin-1, compared to 1.3 μg/ml for the GST-galectin 1 fusion protein. It should also be noted that the growth-inhibitory activity seen here (I50 = 5 μg/ml) was about 12–15 times greater than with the recombinant galectin-1 cleaved from a GST-galectin 1 fusion protein by thrombin [10], and roughly comparable with that of natural human galectin-1 [9]. It is still, however, about tenfold less active than recombinant mouse or human galectin expressed in COS-1 cells [4, 22]. The different growth-inhibitory activities of our two recombinant galectins-1 may indicate that the chemical nature of the N-terminal extensions may have a greater effect on this activity than their size, though a very large extension, such as the entire GST molecule, was clearly inhibitory. Although the linker peptide of hexahis-galectin-1 contains a renin-sensitive site for proteolysis, renin action was not tested experimentally, as it would still leave an N-terminal tripeptide extension. Arginine-49 is located in the S4 β-strand, in the scheme of Lobsanov et al.[18]. To our knowledge, it has not been modified in galectin-1 before now, but it has been shown to be located at the galactose-binding site, interacting with the 4-hydroxyl of the galactose residue, in the three-dimensional structures proposed by Bourne et al.[12] and Liao et al.[13]. We thus expected that the R49G mutant galectin-1 would show reduced, or at least altered lectin activity, but in fact it was not significantly different from that of the control recombinant galectin-1. Because the yield of soluble protein was low, no further work was done with this mutant. A D47N mutation, also in the S4 β-strand, has been previously reported as lectin-negative [14]. We were able to confirm this finding, but, again, the yield of soluble protein was too low to carry out further experiments. In the cases of two mutant proteins with reduced haemagglutination activity, additional experiments were done, to distinguish between a failure to bind to erythrocyte surface β-galactoside binding sites, and a reduction in erythrocyte cross-linking, either of which would result in reduced haemagglutination. Pretreatment with saturating concentrations of the mutant galectin-1 was followed by a haemagglutination titration with wild-type galectin-1. For both the P79R and the C131S mutants, this procedure resulted in agglutination at approximately the same endpoint (1 μg/ml) as with wild-type galectin-1 in a control experiment. If the mutant galectin-1 was binding to the erythrocyte surface, but failing to cross-link erythrocytes, we would have expected to see reduced haemagglutination with the wild-type galectin, as the mutant would block binding sites. Thus, in each case, the mutations disrupt the β-galactoside binding site, rather than the dimerisation of the galectin-1. This finding was confirmed by failure of the mutant protein in lectin-affinity chromatography (not shown). The dimeric nature of several of the mutant galectins-1, including P79R, is also shown by gel filtration (Figure 2). Lysozyme (14.5kDa) was used as a standard, which would co-elute with the galectin-1 monomer, but it is clear that all of the galectin preparations are substantially bigger under non-denaturing conditions. Gel Filtration of Recombinant Galectin-1 and Variants. Galectin-1 preparations purified by metal chelation chromatography were subjected to gel filtration on a Sephadex G-50 gel filtration column (60 × 1 cm; equilibrated in 30 mM Tris-HCl buffer pH 7.5). Fractions of 2 ml were collected, and absorbances at 280 nm measured. ▴ Normal galectin-1 ▪ N46 D mutant P79R mutant Bacterial lysozyme. The P79R mutation occurs in a conserved, surface loop, between the S6 and F3 β-strands. It is relatively distant from the galactose-binding site, but is closer to the dimerisation interface of galectin-1 [12, 13]. It was thus somewhat surprising that this mutant protein had a greatly reduced haemagglutinin activity, over two orders of magnitude below the control. This reduction was due to a loss of affinity for glycans, rather than to loss of cross-linking ability. Equally surprising was the observation that P79R retained full antiproliferative activity. Even if the substitution affects glycan binding as a consequence of a generally disruptive effect on tertiary structure, the retention of growth-inhibitory activity is significant. This is a clear confirmation that the galactose-binding and growth-inhibitory sites of galectin-1 are largely or wholly independent. It may be noteworthy that the elimination of the galactose-binding activity does not seem to result in more productive binding at the growth-inhibitory site. The C131S mutation is also located close to the dimerisation interface, but in a surface β-strand (F1), rather than a loop. This galectin-1 variant was produced in low yield, and was totally devoid of haemagglutinin activity, but retained most of the growth-inhibitory potential of the wild-type. The loss of haemagglutinin activity is apparently caused by disruption of the β-galactoside-binding site. An earlier analysis of a C131S substitution confirmed the low yield of protein, but reported a relatively normal lactose binding value [14]. Substitutions in the extreme N-terminal region have been reported to disrupt hamster galectin-1 dimerisation, but concomitant substitutions in the C-terminus (F127, I129 and V132) led to a loss of lactose-binding affinity [23]. Cysteine-131 can potentially form a disulphide bond with C2, but failure to make this, and other disulphide bonds (C17 – C89 and C43 – C61), favours lectin activity [11]. A human galectin-1 variant with all six cysteines replaced by serines retains haemagglutinating activity [24]. It has been shown that the oxidative loss of lectin activity correlates with the formation of disulphide bonds [25], and two more recent reports suggest that some biological activities are associated only with this structural form [24, 26]. In the present case, the ability to demonstrate lectin and growth-inhibitory activity with identical galectin-1 samples argues against the proposal that the growth-inhibitory activity is a property only of the oxidized, disulphide-bonded form. The D103A mutation is located in a surface loop, connecting adjacent antiparallel β-strands (F4–F5), but is distant from both the dimerisation interface and the galactose-binding site. This substitution did not appear to affect the lectin function of galectin-1 (Table 1), though growth-inhibitory activity was somewhat reduced, and the titration of this activity was obscured by precipitation at higher concentrations. This latter finding was somewhat surprising, in view of the very high yield of this protein (8 mg/l) in the bacterial expression system. Following our failure to detect expression of an A28D mutant (in another surface loop, F2–S3), we were able to express an A28R mutant, though the A28R protein was in low yield, and impure following Ni-NDA affinity chromatography, and we were unable to further purify it by Sephadex gel filtration or galactosyl-agarose affinity chromatography (not shown). An unknown protein of about 25 kDa was a persistent contaminant. The data reported in Table 1 was obtained with a protein sample containing 50–60% of the galectin-1 component, as estimated from the SDS-PAGE result. Again, the mutation affected galactose binding, but, in this case, growth-inhibitory activity was also greatly reduced. Despite the reservations imposed by the low yield and impurity of the sample, this observation offered a clue to the possible localization of the growth-inhibitory site, and we decided to make further mutational substitutions in this region of galectin-1. The K29M mutation, also in the F2–S3 loop, resulted in a galectin that retained its galactose-binding activity. Testing of growth-inhibitory activity was initially obscured by the precipitation of this protein at high concentrations (above 100 μg/ml), but it became clear that it had totally lost its ability to inhibit fibroblast growth. Whilst this radical substitution, of a moderately hydrophobic amino acid for a charged residue, clearly had an effect upon the solubility of the protein, (though, again, not on protein expression) the complete retention of lectin activity argued for the maintenance of overall three-dimensional structure. The K29T mutant, with a less radical substitution, was also a normal lectin, but equally devoid of growth-inhibitory activity (see Table 1). As a further check upon the importance of this part of the galectin-1 molecule to its growth-inhibitory activity, a D27N mutant was made and tested, and demonstrated full lectin activity, but significantly reduced growth-inhibitory activity (Table 1). If the D27 – K29 region of galectin-1 is part of a growth-inhibitory site, then the effect of N-terminal modifications on growth-inhibitory activity may be explicable, as the "natural" amino terminus is within 8–10 Angstroms of these amino acids [12]. It seems possible that the reduction of this activity, seen in both of our recombinant galectin types, hexahis- and GST-derived, may be due to modification of the N-terminus. As already discussed, it cannot simply be a steric restriction by the extended N-termini, as this would have a more marked effect on hexahis-galectin-1, whereas the reverse is true. To further investigate this region, we designed a forward PCR primer intended to substitute methionine-1 with an arginine (M1R). The M1R fusion protein was expressed in high yield, and was fully functional as a haemagglutinin, but was devoid of growth-inhibitory activity (Table 1). Rather than allowing it to substitute for the terminal amino group, the positioning of the positively-charged arginyl side-chain acts to inhibit the action of the growth-inhibitory site, which helps confirm that the N-terminal region of the normal protein is close to, or part of this site. It also seemed possible that thrombin might remove the N-terminal 14-residue peptide (hexahis-linker-arginine) from the M1R recombinant protein, and thus re-create the natural, methionine N-terminus. Thrombin treatment and repurification of the protein resulted in a fraction that did not bind to the Ni-NDA-agarose affinity column, so had lost the N-terminal hexahis region. It retained haemagglutinin activity, and had also recovered growth-inhibitory activity, though was not as effective as the wild-type galectin-1. It is possible that this reduction in growth-inhibitory activity (I50 = 24 cf 5 for wild-type galectin-1) reflects the effect of other thrombin cleavages within the molecule, as was seen previously with the GST-derived galectin-1 [10]. In this case, N-terminal amino acid sequencing, following removal of the GST with thrombin revealed a minor component corresponding to the sequence beginning at F50. We deduced that this could be due to a thrombin cleavage at R49-F50. This protein was indistinguishable from intact recombinant galectin-1 in SDS-PAGE. In the present case, we have not examined this experimentally. Figure 3, derived from a structural model [12], shows the part of the protein (shaded region c) that has been demonstrated to have a role in the growth-inhibitory activity. The β-galactoside-binding site (region a), and the dimerisation interface (region b) are also indicated. The elements of the growth-inhibitory site that have so far been identified would all be contained within a truncated galectin-1, containing the first 35 residues (the S1, F2 and S3 β-strands, and connecting loops), in addition to the fusion tag. Although we were able to amplify this part of the galectin-1 cDNA, and clone it into the ProEx vector, we were unable to detect any expression in E. coli (not shown). Fusion proteins with an N-terminal tag have given valuable clues to the nature of the growth-inhibitory site, but, for further elucidation of the involvement of the N-terminus, it would be better in the future to use C-terminally-tagged proteins, or to express galectin-1 without any tag, and to use glycan-agarose affinity chromatography for purification of the recombinant proteins. The extreme C-terminus is also part of the dimerisation interface, but points in the opposite direction to the N-terminus (see Figure 3), so C-terminal extensions may not affect the growth-inhibitory site, though, as already noted, C-terminal substitutions may inhibit β-galactoside binding [22]. Location of Active Sites within the Galectin-1 Structure This figure is adapted from one designed to show the three-dimensional structure of galectin-1 (Bourne et al., 1994). The three shaded boxes indicate regions involved in glycan binding (a), dimerisation (b), and cellular growth inhibition (c). The D27 – K29 region forms part of a DAKSF sequence (residues 27–31) that is totally conserved in the mammalian galectins-1 [27], but is totally different from the corresponding residues in other galectins [28], for which growth-inhibitory properties have not been reported. However, there is no strong argument here for the evolutionary conservation of a functional part of the galectin-1 structure. Most of the sequences of the mammalian galectins-1 are strongly conserved throughout, whereas, when we consider the whole galectin family, the interstrand loops, and even the β-strands not involved in galactose binding, are not strongly conserved. In summary, we have shown that we can ablate the β-galactoside binding activity of human galectin-1 by mutation, with no effect on the cellular growth-inhibitory activity, confirming that these are two independent functions of the protein. By further mutational studies, we have at least partially defined the amino acids that make up the growth-inhibitory site in galectin-1. A surface loop, comprising amino acid residues 25–30, and joining two internal β-strands, contains amino acids which contribute to the growth-inhibitory site. This region is relatively close to the N-terminus of the protein, and N-terminal substitutions or extensions also affect growth-inhibitory activity. Further mutational studies may be necessary to fully define the growth-inhibitory site. The ProEX expression system offers some advantages in the production of bacterial recombinant galectin-1. Our original interest in galectin-1 was as a putative substrate for a growth-regulatory, cell-surface proteinase [9]. Inhibition of the proteinase led to an accumulation of endogenous galectin-1 in the culture medium. The inhibitory action of this galectin-1 could, at least in part, account for the growth-inhibitory effect observed when the proteinase was inhibited. The fact that the recombinant hexahis-galectin-1 has a similar growth-inhibitory activity to the natural protein means that it can be used more realistically in future experiments in this area. Some of these mutants may enable us to assess the significance of each galectin-1 function to tumour growth and metastasis. We have shown that HEp-2 tumour cells do not express galectin-1, but respond to exogenous galectin-1 as a growth inhibitor [10]. Transfection of HEp-2 cells with each galectin-1 gene variant will permit the study of effects on growth and metastasis, both in vitro, and then in vivo. The galectin-1 variant, P79R, which retains growth-inhibitory activity and reasonable solubility, but has little lectin activity, may be the starting-point for the creation of an effective antitumour agent. It would not have the mitogenic activity seen with native galectin-1 [10], nor would it be involved in non-productive binding to galactosides in the extracellular matrix. This galectin-1 variant could also be used to identify the cellular receptor responsible for the growth-inhibitory effect, since binding to cellular glycans will be minimised. Cloning and mutation of the galectin-1 gene Unless otherwise noted, molecular biology reagents were purchased from Gibco-BRL and all other reagents were from Sigma. The plasmid expression vector ProEX was purchased as part of a kit, which also included the corresponding nickel-containing affinity matrix. We used standard protocols for techniques such as DNA restriction and ligation, bacterial transformation, and agarose gel electrophoresis [18]. Galectin-1 cDNA was re-amplified from human fibroblast cDNA, using the GRP3 and GRP4 primers, as previously described [10]. Specific mutations were introduced using the Overlap Extension PCR technique [19], which uses complementary forward and reverse oligonucleotide primers incorporating the intended substitution. Primers were used as specified in Table 1, in conjunction with the GRP3 and 4 primers. For mutations close to either end of the galectin-1 gene, extended and modified versions of GRP 3 or 4 were used. MasterMix (Qiagen; 25 μl) was used as a source of buffer, nucleotides and polymerase for the PCR reaction, together with 20 pmol of each primer and 2 μg template DNA in a final volume of 50 μl, containing 1 mM Mg Cl2. Thirty cycles of PCR were performed, with 30 s at 95°C for denaturation, 90 s at 55°C for annealing, and 60 s at 72°C for polymerase extension. In some cases, the 55°C annealing temperature was inappropriate for particular overlapping primers, and was modified to suit the primer composition, usually to 45–47°C. The amplified product was run on a 1.0% agarose horizontal gel in 40 mM Tris-acetate, pH 8.0, containing 1 mM EDTA buffer, cut out of the gel and purified using the Rapid Extraction protocol (Gibco-BRL). The product was restricted with Bam H I and Sal I restriction enzymes and ligated using T4 DNA ligase into the ProEX HTb vector restricted with the same enzymes, then transformed into competent E. coli DH 5α cells, as previously described [10]. After plating on ampicillin-L-broth agar culture plates, to select plasmid-bearing clones, PCR was used to screen cloned colonies for transformants, using part of each colony as a source of the template, with the GRP 3 and 4 primers, and using agarose electrophoresis to check for the presence of a 450-bp galectin-1 band [10]. Following PCR amplification and cloning of normal and of putative mutated galectin-1 cDNAs, each was sequenced bidirectionally by a modified Sanger technique using a 377 Sequencer (ABI) in the Sequencing Unit of the School of Biological Sciences, to confirm the expected mutated sequence, and to check the integrity of the rest of the cDNA. Table 2 Oligonucleotide Primers used for Overlap Extension Protein expression and characterisation Transformant colonies having the insert were innoculated in 3 ml L-broth/ampicillin medium and grown at 37°C in a shaking incubator until the absorbance at 600 nm reached 0.8. At this stage the cultures were induced for 3 h with 0.6 mM IPTG, and then microfuged for 10 min at 5000 rpm. The cell pellets were boiled in gel loading buffer, and applied to a 15% SDS polyacrylamide gel (Biorad), to test for expression of the fusion protein. For large-scale expression, 2 litre cultures were grown and induced under the same conditions. Where protein yields were low, cultures of up to 8 litres were used. The cultures were centrifuged in a Sorvall GSA rotor at 5,500 rpm for 10 min to collect cells and the pellet was resuspended in 10 ml of ice-cold sodium phosphate-buffered isotonic saline (PBS) and extensively sonicated at 4°C to lyse the cells. The lysate was centrifuged (15,000 rpm in Sorvall SS34 rotor for 20 min) and the supernatant was used for affinity chromatography. For affinity purification of the recombinant fusion proteins, a Ni-NDA-agarose column (4 ml) was equilibrated in 20 mM Tris-HCl buffer, pH 8.5, containing 100 mM KCl, 5 mM 2-mercaptoethanol, 10% (v/v) glycerol and 20 mM imidazole at room temperature. The culture supernatant was applied at a flow rate of 0.5 ml/min. The column was then washed with the equilibration buffer until the A280 of the eluant was stable, and then with 10 ml of 20 mM Tris-HCl buffer, pH 8.5, containing 100 mM KCl, 5 mM 2-mercaptoethanol and 10% (v/v) glycerol, and then with a further 10 ml of equilibration buffer. The recombinant protein was eluted with 20 ml of 20 mM Tris-HCl buffer, pH 8.5, containing 100 mM KCl, 5 mM 2-mercaptoethanol, 10% (v/v) glycerol and 100 mM imidazole [16]. Protein-containing fractions were pooled, desalted by overnight dialysis against distilled water at 4°C, and freeze-dried. Protein purity was checked by electrophoresis in SDS-PAGE, as already described. To a recombinant protein with an introduced arginine residue at the N-terminus (mutation M1R), thrombin (1%, w/w) was added, under the same conditions as were previously used to cleave GST-galectin-1 fusion proteins [10]. The resulting protein was purified by gel filtration on a Sephadex G-50 gel filtration column (60 × 1 cm; equilibrated in 30 mM Tris-HCl buffer pH 7.5), to remove small peptides, and was then re-chromatographed on the Ni-NDA-agarose column, to test for the presence of the N-terminal hexahistidine tag. Erythrocyte agglutination by recombinant lectins was tested using freshly-trypsinised rabbit erythrocytes [20]. Agglutination experiments were carried out with serial threefold dilutions of the purified fusion protein in ceramic tiles. Each well contained 100 μl of 1% bovine serum albumin in 0.15 M NaCl, 100 μl of 0.15 M NaCl and 100 μl of erythrocyte suspension, and 100 μl protein solution (1 mg.ml-1 in phosphate-buffered saline) was used to start the serial dilution. Visual identification of the endpoint of the titration of agglutination was confirmed by microscopic detection of agglutinated erythrocytes. Erythrocyte agglutination by wild-type hexahis-galectin-1 (unmodified, apart from the fusion tag) was maximal at concentrations of 100–300 μg.ml-1, and declined at higher concentrations. Where agglutination was not observed with a mutant galectin-1, trypsinised rabbit erythrocytes were incubated with the protein at 250 μg.ml-1 for 30 min, washed several times with saline, and then used for agglutination testing with wild-type galectin-1, as described above, so as to distinguish between a failure of glycan binding, or of cross-linking by the mutant protein. WI 3 8 or GM 1604A are normal human diploid fibroblast strains previously used by us in many experiments on growth-related proteolysis. The conditions for maintenance and culture of cells have been previously described, as have assays for inhibition of cell proliferation in microwell culture plates, using an ELISA spectrophotometer to measure fixed and stained cells [21]. In cell proliferation assays, the hexahis-galectin fusion proteins were added to normal culture media at known concentrations. For each assay series, the galectin-1 concentration was plotted semi-logarithmically against percentage of cell growth inhibition [10], to determine the concentration causing 50% growth inhibition (I50). Perillo NL, Marcus ME, Baum LG: Galectins: versatile modulators of cell adhesion, cell proliferation and cell death. J. Mol. Med. 1998, 76: 402-412. 10.1007/s001090050232. Cooper DNW, Barondes SH: God must love galectins: He made so many of them. Glycobiology. 1999, 9: 979-984. 10.1093/glycob/9.10.979. Liu FT: Galectins: a new family of regulators of inflammation. Clin. Immunol. 2000, 97: 79-88. 10.1006/clim.2000.4912. Wells V, Mallucci L: Identification of an autocrine negative growth factor: mouse β-galactoside-binding protein is a cytostatic factor and cell growth regulator. Cell. 1991, 64: 91-97. Wells V, Mallucci L: Molecular expression of the negative growth factor murine β-galactoside binding protein (mGBP). Biochim. Biophys. Acta. 1992, 1121: 239-244. 10.1016/0167-4838(92)90152-4. Lipsick JS, Beyer EC, Barondes SH, Kaplan NO: Lectins from chicken tissues are mitogenic for thy-1 negative murine spleen cells. Biochem. Biophys. Res Comm. 1980, 97: 56-61. Pitts MJ, Yang DCH: Mitogenicity and binding properties of β-galactoside-binding lectin from chickembryo kidney. Biochem. J. 1981, 195: 435-439. Sanford GL, Harris-Hooker S: Stimulation of vascular cell proliferation by β-galactoside specific lectins. FASEB J. 1990, 4: 2912-2918. Manilal S, Scott GK, Tse CA: Inhibition of an endogenous growth-related proteinase enhances the recovery of a negative growth regulator from cultured human cells. Cell Biol. Intl. 1993, 17: 317-323. 10.1006/cbir.1993.1067. Adams L, Scott GK, Weinberg CS: Biphasic modulation of cell growth by recombinant human galectin-1. Biochim. Biophys. Acta. 1996, 1312: 137-144. 10.1016/0167-4889(96)00031-6. Abbott WM, Feizi T: Soluble 14 kDa β-galactoside-specific bovine lectin. J. Biol. Chem. 1991, 266: 5552-5557. Bourne Y, Bolgiano B, Liao DI, Strecker G, Cantau P, Herzberg O, Feizi T, Cambillau C: Crosslinking of mammalian lectin (galectin-1) by complex biantennary saccharides. Nature Structural Biology. 1994, 1: 863-870. Liao DI, Kapadia G, Ahmed H, Vasta GR, Herzberg O: Structure of S-lectin, a developmentally regulated vertebrate β-galactoside-binding protein. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 1994, 91: 1428-1432. Hirabayashi J, Kasai. KI: Effect of amino acid substitution by site-directed mutagenesis on the carbohydrate recognition and stability of human 14 kDa β-galactoside-binding lectin. J. Biol. Chem. 1991, 266: 648-23. Abbott WM, Feizi T: Evidence that the 14 kDa soluble β-galactoside-binding lectin in man is encoded by a single gene. Biochem. J. 1989, 259: 291-294. Sharma SK, Evans DB, Vosters AF, Mcquade TJ, Tarpley WG: Metal affinity chromatography of recombinant HIV-1 reverse transcriptase containing a human renin cleavable metal binding domain. Biotech. Appl. Biochem. 1991, 14: 69-81. Lobsanov YD, Gitt MA, Leffler H, Barondes SH, Rini JM: X-ray crystal structure of the human dimeric S-lac lectin, L-14-II, in complex with lactose at 2.9 A resolution. J. Biol. Chem. 1993, 268: 27034-27038. Sambrook J, Fritsch F, Maniatis T, eds: Molecular cloning; a laboratory manual. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory,. 1989, Cold Spring Harbor Press, 2 Ho SN, Hunt HD, Horton RM, Pullen JK, Pease LR: Site-directed mutagenesis by overlap extension using the polymerase chain reaction. Gene. 1989, 77: 51-59. 10.1016/0378-1119(89)90358-2. Lis H, Sharon N: Soy bean (Glycine max) agglutinin. Methods Enzymol. 1972, 28: 360-368. Scott GK, Tse CA: Modulation of cell proliferation by protein proteinase inhibitors; a new analytical approach. Biol. Chem. Hoppe-Seyler. 1988, 369 Suppl 5: 131-135. Wells V, Davies D, Mallucci L: Cell cycle arrest and induction of apoptosis by β galactoside binding protein (βGBP) in human mammary cancer cells. A potential new approach to cancer control. Eur. J. Cancer. 1999, 35: 978-983. 10.1016/S0959-8049(99)00020-9. Cho M, Cummings RC: Characterisation of monomeric forms of galectin-1 generated by site-directed mutagenesis. Biochemistry. 1996, 35: 13081-13088. 10.1021/bi961181d. Inagaki Y, Sohma Y, Horie H, Nozawa R, Kadoya T: Oxidised galectin-1 promotes axonal regeneration in peripheral nerves but does not possess lectin properties. Eur. J. Biochem. 2000, 267: 2955-2964. Tracey BM, Feizi T, Abbott WM, Carruthers RA, Green BN, Lawson AM: Subunit molecular mass assignment of 14, 654 Da to the soluble β-galactoside-binding lectin from bovine heart muscle and demonstration of intramolecular disulfide bonding associated with oxidative inactivation. J Biol Chem. 1992, 267: 10342-10347. Yamaoka K, Ingendoh A, Tsubuki S, Nagai Y, Sanai Y: Structural and functional characterisation of a novel tumour-derived rat galectin-1 having transforming growth factor (TGF) activity: the relationship between intramolecular disufide bridges and TGF activity. J. Biochem. (Tokyo). 1996, 119: 878-886. Iglesias MM, Rabinovich GA, Ivanovic V, Sotomayor C, Wolfenstein-Todel C: Galectin-1 from ovine placenta. Amino-acid sequence, physicochemical properties and implications in T-cell death. Eur. J. Biochem. 1998, 252: 400-407. 10.1046/j.1432-1327.1998.2520400.x. Barondes SH, Cooper DN, Gitt MA, Leffler H: Galectins: structure and function of a large family of animal lectins. J. Biol. Chem. 1994, 269: 20807-20810. This work was supported by the University of Auckland Research Committee, through the Staff Research Fund. The Animal Resources Unit supplied rabbit erythrocytes. We wish to thank Linda Adams and Julia Mount, for technical assistance in the early part of this work, and Andrew Cameron and Kong Wai Chung, for preliminary attempts to make galectin-1 mutants. Libby Hitchings and, particularly, Dr Clyde Smith, helped with molecular graphics, and Dr Cristina Weinberg continued to take an interest. School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand The Liggins Institute, University of Auckland, Park Road, Auckland, New Zealand Jialiang Zhang Search for Ken Scott in: Search for Jialiang Zhang in: Correspondence to Ken Scott. Lectin Activity Surface Loop Comprise Amino Acid Residue Haemagglutinin Activity Bacterial Fusion Protein	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12809
__label__wiki	0.900446	0.900446	Home Gary-Local News Jackson family patriarch dies at 89 Gary-Local News Jackson family patriarch dies at 89 IN THIS EARLY 70s photograph Joseph W. Jackson (far right) takes his sons to visit the main office of Inland Steel’s Indiana Harbor Works. By Stephanie Gadlin, Special to the Crusader Newspaper Group Joseph Jackson, father of the iconic musical family, The Jacksons, and manager of the Jackson 5, died reportedly of cancer on Wednesday in hospice at a Los Angeles hospital at age 89. His passing comes nearly nine years to the date of the death of his iconic superstar son, Michael Jackson. Born Joseph Walter “Joe” Jackson on July 26, 1928 in Fountain Hill, AR, he was the eldest of five children. He moved with his father to Oakland, CA, until age 18 when he moved to East Chicago, IN, with his mother. It would be the place where he would meet his wife, Katherine Screws, whom he married in 1949. PHOTOGRAPHED VISITING THE Atlanta Mayor Sam Massell and his daughter (seated), Melanie, in 1971 is Joseph Jackson with his sons. Pictured l-r: Marlon Jackson, Joseph Jackson, Azira Hill, Jermaine Jackson, Mayor Sam Massell, Jackie, Tito and Michael Jackson. (Chicago Crusader Archives) The couple settled in Gary at 2300 Jackson Street, where Mr. Jackson worked full-time as a crane operator at U.S. Steel. In the mid-1950s, the patriarch started a music career with his brother, Luther, where he played guitar in a band called The Ford Falcons. By 1964, he had turned his attention to his musically-inclined sons and eventually formed the Jackson 5. After his superstar son, known globally as the King of Pop, revealed the harsh realities of growing up poor and under the strict guidance of his father, Joe Jackson was scorned in the press for alleged child abuse and often credited for Michael Jackson’s physical transformation and introverted demeanor over the years. Michael Jackson was killed by Dr. Conrad Murray and his death rocked people throughout the world. In a Crusader interview in 2005, Joe Jackson told this reporter, “Yes, I whipped my children, and I won’t apologize for it,” he said at the time. “I did what a father is supposed to do—and not one of them is on drugs, been in a gang or have been begging people for bread. I raised millionaires with good minds. Yeah, I whipped my kids, but I didn’t abuse anybody.” As news of the patriarch’s passing began to spread, local leaders offered their thoughts on the elder Jackson’s legacy. MR. AND MRS. JOSEPH JACKSON, pose for photographs following the marriage of their son, Jermaine, to Hazel Joy Gordy on December 15, 1973. (Crusader archives) Gary Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson told the Crusader she called and offered condolences to Mrs. Jackson and other family members, and she would look into whether they wanted a local, citywide tribute paid to Mr. Jackson. “That is [any citywide tribute] is dependent upon what the family would like to do,” she said. “I reached out to Mrs. Jackson and Randy to express my condolences. He was someone who was well-known and loved by the city of Gary.” “The Jackson family is the most successful family in the history of the record industry, and family is something we should be shooting for in the community because some of these kids need a belt or switch,” said Glenn Cosby, V103 radio personality and creator of the Jackson Radio Network. “[Mr. Jackson] was villainized in the press for doing something that most fathers in that era did, which is discipline his children. God bless him and his family, and I hope as a community we learn from that lesson.” Cosby founded the Jackson Radio Network in 2001 with the support of both Joe Jackson and his wife, Katherine. Reportedly, Michael Jackson expressed interest in the project, but was killed weeks before a meeting was set to take place. “Joe saw the vision early on,” Cosby said. “He understood what his family’s legacy was and he thought having an entire network dedicated to his children was a true testament to the sacrifices he and his wife made. “Think about it,” Cosby added, “they raised nine children in a house no bigger than a garage on one income. I salute him for having a destination in his GPS. He knew his sons were ready for Motown and ready to meet the world; and he deserves credit for that. One hundred years from [now], scholars will be studying that entire family the way people study Beethoven now.” Marshall Thompson, founder and leader of the legendary Chi-Lites, echoed Cosby’s sentiments. He told the Crusader, “Joe was the greatest entertainment manager in the world and his passing is one of the greatest losses we’ve ever had. We’ve been working together since 1968, and I’ve never met anyone else who had just a keen eye for business in the music industry. You have to be tough to do it. You’ve got to be smart. He was all of that.” The Chi-Lites, which came out of Chicago, were instrumental in the Jackson 5 being discovered by Motown, according to Thompson. When the quartet was slated to perform at the Regal Theatre in 1968—a break the group had been working toward for months—Thompson encouraged his bandmates to give up their spot to five boys from Gary who “needed a shot.” “I had been working with [Mr. Jackson], and I knew him and he told me his boys were ready,” Thompson said. “So [the Chi-Lites] gave our spot to the kids, and the rest is history. After winning that show, they went to Detroit that night to see Barry Gordy. All of that is because their father was not only a great manager, but also because he believed wholeheartedly that they were destined for greatness, and he was right.” Family members could not be reached at Crusader press deadline; however, John Branca and John McClain, co-executors of the estate of Michael Jackson, released a statement as told to The Wrap. “We are deeply saddened by Mr. Jackson’s passing and extend our heartfelt condolences to Mrs. Katherine Jackson and the family. Joe was a strong man who acknowledged his own imperfections and heroically delivered his sons and daughters from the steel mills of Gary, Indiana, to worldwide pop superstardom. “Mr. Jackson’s contributions to the history of music are enormous,” the statement continued. “They were acknowledged by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 in a proclamation naming him as Best Entertainment Manager of All Time; he was inducted into Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2014, and his son, Michael, acknowledged him with a Joe Jackson Day at Neverland. We had developed a warm relationship with Joe in recent years and will miss him tremendously.” Previous articleFamily of E2 Nightclub victim appeals decision Next articleWoman who called cops on Black girl selling water resigns as CEO of pot company G. David Yaros June 30, 2018 at 11:50 am The article creates a bit of confusion. Did Joe Jackson work at U.S. Steel or Inland? crusader July 2, 2018 at 9:37 am Joe Jackson worked at U.S. Steel.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12811
__label__wiki	0.647257	0.647257	FLORIDA GULF COAST UNIVERSITY Andrew Danna has been selected as the next head coach of the FGCU men’s golf program. “We are excited to have Andrew and his bride Carey joining our Eagles Athletics Family,” FGCU director of athletics Ken Kavanagh said. Danna, who spent the past year as an assistant coach at LSU, previously led the Lynn University men’s golf program to its first NCAA Division-II national championship in the spring of 2018. In fact, in his six-year tenure there, he also produced three runner-up campaigns along with a third and eighth-place finish at the national tournament. This past year, Danna played a key role in the development of a team at LSU that advanced all the way to the third round of stroke play at the NCAA Championships. Read More.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12813
__label__cc	0.608178	0.391822	The Good German (2001) Channel 4 The Good German (2/5) F ← Video 2 of 5 → L 1: The Good German (1/5) 2: The Good German (2/5) 3: The Good German (3/5) 4: The Good German (4/5) 5: The Good German (5/5) Added: 8 years ago. Watch Part Number: 1 \| 2 \| 3 \| 4 \| 5 \| Documentary Description The story of brilliant German scientist Werner Heisenberg, who headed the Nazis' ill-fated atomic bomb project during World War Two. It is commonly believed that he secretly sabotaged his own research and sacrificed personal glory in a bid to stop Hitler getting his hands on the ultimate weapon : but new evidence paints a very different picture of events. Werner Heisenberg was one of Germany's leading physicists. When Nazi ideology took over science, he was among those researchers who fled to other countries. For those who stayed, enormous pressure was put on them to conform - and to develop the Atom Bomb. Follow the rise and fall of Heisenberg and other émigré scientists who lent their talents to the U.S. and Britain and witness the post-war moral dilemma faced by those who complied with the Third Reich. Why did the Germans, the most advanced scientific nation, fail to build a nuclear bomb during the War? In late 1938 a Berlin scientist, Otto Hahn, discovered nuclear fission. Werner Heisenberg, the chief scientist of Germany's wartime nuclear project, pioneered quantum mechanics and won the Nobel Prize. When the Nazis came to power in 1933 Heisenberg friends begged him to leave Germany, knowing he would be asked to work on nuclear research for Hitler but he refused. The focus of the story is a famous meeting in Copenhagen in 1941 between Niels Bohr and Heisenberg where Heisenberg appealed to world physicists, via Bohr, to desist from or slow down nuclear research. But Hans Bethe, a contemporary of Heisenberg has another version of events. Werner Heisenberg has two sides to his story. One is a dedicated Nazi and Scientists trying to discover the Ultimate weapon. While the other side states he blocked the attempts and slowed down the process. Its quite clear now that he did indeed try to make the bomb but had the practical theory wrong. The amount of U-235 needed for the bomb was vastly smaller than the germans realized.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12821
__label__cc	0.633123	0.366877	Marc Dion: Seussical: The Presidency February 11, 2019 10:21:39 AM If you want to know why people in America shoot so much heroin, re-watch Pres. Donald J. Trump's State of the Union address. Oh, sure, we had a drug problem long before Trump became president, but Trump is the only president whose public mutterings make me think about catching a heroin habit just to turn down the sound a little. Bear in mind, I have no history of drug abuse, and I went to high school in the '70s. Only Trump could make my veins itch for the needle. Heroin addicts of often say the drug makes them feel like they're drowsy, wrapped in a warm blanket, past all care, living in that beautiful moment just before you fall asleep after a hard day's work. Of course, many of them haven't worked in a while, don't own a blanket and are sleeping on the floor of a drug house. But you get the point. I don't listen to the State of the Union address, no matter whose turn it is to be president. I wait until I can get a copy of the damn thing, and then I read it to myself. I did that with Trump's most recent verbal evacuation. Judging from what I read, if I'd watched it live, I would have overdosed by now. "If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation," said the nation's chief reason to shoot smack. And I came away with that, just the way I still remember the lyrics to bad disco songs from my high school years. I keep getting older, but the lyrics to "Ring My Bell" aren't leaving me anytime soon. It's an amazing phrase, containing all the wisdom of a tweet, and it rhymes. It's the politics of Dr. Seuss (although Seuss was kind of a lefty.) Even the name "Trump" sounds a little Seuss-ical, although most of the word that rhyme with "Trump" are unfortunate, particularly in a children's book. No matter! Let other national leaders content themselves with the alliterative sentence, the sonorous call to action, the memorable phrase. This guy rhymes. Still, there's something to agree with in this bit of poetic wisdom. You cannot have peace when you're at war, because war is not peaceful, and peace is not warlike. Completely opposite things, war and peace. If they weren't two completely different things, that Russian guy would have called his novel, "War and Peace, Like There's a Difference." Lotta wisdom in those Russians. Ask Trump. They can put things in a nutshell, the Russians. "War and Peace." It's short and it says it all, but it doesn't rhyme. If the guy who wrote it couldn't make it rhyme, maybe he wasn't such a good writer. So sad. I'm less sure about legislation and investigation. The last president to believe that was Richard Nixon, who vanished into the smoke of history, and who was so universally reviled that he had to be pardoned so we could forget about him faster. Not so Trump. No one will pardon him at the end, and they may not be able to if he becomes president for life, hickory dickory dock, just like Papa Doc. I'm going to go lie down on the couch now, maybe fold my hands over my stomach and wait for that good, drowsy, not-caring feeling that comes just before sleep. Marc Dion, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a reporter and columnist for The Herald News, the daily newspaper of his hometown, Fall River, Massachusetts. For more on Dion, go to go to www.creators.com.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12823
__label__wiki	0.503268	0.503268	CEDAR (Critical Editions for Digital Analysis and Research) is a digital humanities project based at the University of Chicago. It is a collaboration among faculty members from several departments and schools, together with postdoctoral and Ph.D. student research assistants and expert advisers from other universities. We are using selected materials from three well-known and influential literary corpora that have long histories of transmission and translation: the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Hebrew Bible, and Shakespeare’s plays. The goal of the project is to develop, test, and document new methods of digitally representing, displaying, and analyzing manuscripts, textual variants, and diverse editorial readings and translations, enabling views of these data that are not possible using traditional printed editions, with explicit representation of all the intra- and intertextual relationships a scholar may wish to note. The result is a tool for philological research that goes beyond existing tools to facilitate the most rigorous textual scholarship, on the one hand, and the teaching of complex texts and their histories to students, on the other. In addition to the Sumerian and Akkadian (Babylonian) versions of the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the first eleven chapters of the Book of Genesis have been chosen as a test case from the Bible, and The Taming of the Shrew and Hamlet (Act I) from the Shakespearean corpus. (In the case of Shakespeare’s plays, “manuscripts” includes the earliest printed editions, with all their variants.) A Shared Environment for Scholarly Work CEDAR makes use of the University of Chicago’s CRESCAT system, which is a powerful, thoroughly tested, and well-supported computational environment for scholarly and scientific research that has been developed over the past few years with funding from the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure of the National Science Foundation. CRESCAT is based on the OCHRE database platform previously built by software engineer and CEDAR technical lead Sandra Schloen. It is currently being used by more than 50 research projects at 17 universities in the United States, Canada, and Europe. It can integrate and manage large amounts of data: textual, numeric, visual, sonic, cartographic, and so on (currently about 80 terabytes). CRESCAT has many tools for cleaning, interlinking, displaying, and analyzing a project’s data, and for publishing the data on the Web and archiving it for long-term accessibility using open, standardized formats. The CRESCAT servers are monitored and backed-up by professional system administrators in the University of Chicago’s Library and Research Computing Center. Technical support and training are provided by the staff of the OCHRE Data Service in the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Scholars in the humanities have long needed a technically sophisticated and well-maintained computational environment that can accommodate all kinds of information and perform the most complex scholarly tasks, and is also sufficiently flexible and customizable to serve a wide range of scholars in different fields of research. A shared environment of this kind will enable economies of scale that make it possible to sustain and enhance the software over the long term, because there is a common code-base that works for everyone. This is in contrast to the incompatible code-bases that underlie the motley assortment of idiosyncratic and often short-lived software applications currently used in digital humanities, most of which serve only a few scholars and are not sustainable. The CEDAR project demonstrates that the same underlying data model and software can be used for research on very different literary corpora written in different historical periods using different languages and writing systems, and studied today by different communities of scholars. Digital images of original manuscripts as well as digitized transcriptions, translations, and commentary are all stored in the same database, constituting a well-organized, curated, and reusable body of data. Moreover, the CRESCAT tools used by CEDAR can easily exchange data with other digital tools for literary studies via widely used standards such as the TEI textual markup format and the Semantic Web standards of the World Wide Web Consortium. Contributing scholars have password-protected access to CEDAR data to build, enrich, and analyze critical text editions using a graphical user interface. Meanwhile, a lightweight open-access Web browser app (currently under development) will make it easy for scholars and students everywhere to view and search the CEDAR text editions. The result will be a new kind of online critical edition that is not closed off but can continue to grow and be supplemented by additional commentary, translations, and images. We are grateful to Paul Funk, not only for his generous financial contributions to the CEDAR project, but also for his intellectual contributions as an active member of the CEDAR technical staff and as an aficionado of early modern English literature. The project is supported also by a grant from the University of Chicago’s Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society. The development of the CRESCAT computational environment used by the CEDAR project has been supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure. Contact: Miller Prosser mcprosse@uchicago.edu © 2019 David and Sandra Schloen	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12824
__label__cc	0.619581	0.380419	chacebook ABOUT CHACEBOOK Chacebook Rating System SOFTCORE FILMS LUST FOR A WITCH By Chace Thibodeaux on June 18, 2018 • ( Leave a comment ) Hello, Chacebookers, I’m back! And I’m starting this week off with a new softcore film review! Now, the review may be new, but this movie isn’t. If you’re a fan of softcore films, then you’ve probably noticed that the genre is in a bit of a slump right now, as no studios appear to be making new softcore flicks or TV shows. This film was released on DVD by Retromedia in February of this year, but I don’t think that they actually made it. The copyright in the credits gives the year as “MMIV”, which is 2004, and is credited to “Temptation Home Video Inc.” So I don’t know if it’s been released before under another name, but I can’t find any info about this film on IMDB or elsewhere. Anyway, it is written by Victoria Winters and Co-Directed by Michael Windsor and Evan Stone. Stone plays David Blake, a Romance Novelists is suffering from writer’s block as he attempts to write his latest novel by the deadline his publisher has given him. Nicole Sheridan plays his wife, Justine, who is a model. Voodoo/Alexandre Boisvert plays Richard, a photographer with whom Justine is having an affair, and Rebecca Love plays Wendy, another model, who works with Justine and Richard. In the beginning of the film, David is home alone, while Justine is in some other city shooting pictures with Richard. Late at night, during a storm, a mysterious woman (played by Poppy Morgan) appears, unconscious, out on her front lawn. The woman, who is never referred to be name and is simply credited as “Witch”, claims to be a woman who was tried and attempted to be burned as a witch in Salem, in the 1600’s. She said she somehow traveled to the future to be with David. She seduces David, and then disappears the next morning, but leave a tattoo of a Pentagram on David’s arm. Justine returns home, bringing Justine and Wendy with her, ostensibly to shoot some more modeling pictures, and things David is just seeing things from working too hard, when he tries to tell her about the Witch. Over the course of the next day and night, the witch reappears and seduces Justine, David finally finds himself inspired to write again and beings furiously typing out a new book which is a based on the Salem Witch trials, before the Witch then apparently hypnotizes him into wanting to stab Justine to death. And I won’t say anymore as to avoid major spoilers. But that’s the gist of it. There’s decent plot-line in there, which could have made for a compelling and suspenseful story if done better. I’m thinking of something like the softcore horror classic SORCERESS. But it’s just sort of slapped together here, with none of the characters being developed much. And it’s pretty short, around an hour and 15 mintues, I’d estimate. There’s five full sex scenes. The first one, which opens the film, is between Evan Stone and a woman credited only as “Brooke” (who looks a little familiar, but I can’t recall her full name). The scene is a fantasy sequence, where they’re supposed to be characters in the book David is writing, so they’re dressed in old “royal” costumes and it takes place in front of a castle. There’s also a scene with Evan and Poppy in front of fireplace in David’s house. Poppy and Nicole have a lesbian scene together. Nicole and Voodoo have a scene together and also a threesome scene with Rebecca. There’s also a brief scene of Nicole masturbating while nude, which I guess is supposed to count as a sixth “sex scene.” The scenes are all fine, the lesbian scene and the threesome being the highlights, but nothing that really stands out. Overall, this is a pretty average film, not exactly essential for softcore fans. Chacebook rating: 3 STARS UPDATE 07-28-18: One of my loyal readers, and Facebook Friend, MIKE HOOD has contacted me to give me some info about this film. First, he noted that “Brooke,” whom I couldn’t recognize, is Brooke Banner. And, most importantly, he noted this is actually a re-cut version of a Hardcore porn film, released years ago called BURN (NSFW link), so I’ve edited this to also include it in my XXX section. I have to say, it was good job, as I never would have guessed that this was an edited film. I guess that explains why there were only 5 sex scenes, instead of the standard 7 that softcore films tend to have, because 5 is enough in XXX, as the scenes are much longer. It likely also explains the two directors, as perhaps Evan Stone reshot the sex scenes to make them fit the softcore designiation, but that’s just speculation on my part. Categories: SOFTCORE FILMS, XXX MOVIES Tagged as: Alexandre Boisvert, Brooke, Brooke Banner, Evan Stone, Michael Windsor, Nicole Sheridan, Poppy Morgan, Rebecca Love, Victoria Winters, Voodoo, Voodoo is Alexandre Boisvert The Magic Order #1 Executive Assistant: Iris Vol. 5 #2 Chace Thibodeaux Avid Reader. Alleged Writer. Aficionado of Erotica. Radical liberal. Social Justice Warrior. Sci-Fi Nerd. Uppity Negro. Ladies in Charge: Femdom Spanking Stories by Rollin Hand Ladies in Charge, Volume 2 - Femdom Spanking Stories by Rollin Hand. 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__label__wiki	0.993783	0.993783	‘Evil Dead’ Series From Sam Raimi Ordered By Starz; Bruce Campbell Stars The Evil Dead movie franchise has officially crossed over to television with a 10-episode straight-to-series order from Starz for a 2015 premiere. Titled Ash Vs. Evil Dead, the followup to the classic film franchise reteams the original filmmakers, director Sam Raimi, longtime producing partner Rob Tapert and star Bruce Campbell who will serve as executive producers. Campbell will be reprising his role as Ash, the stock boy, aging lothario and chainsaw-handed monster hunter who has spent the last 30 years avoiding responsibility, maturity and the terrors of the Evil Dead. When a Deadite plague threatens to destroy all of mankind, Ash is finally forced to face his demons –personal and literal. Destiny, it turns out, has no plans to release the unlikely hero from its “Evil” grip. Primetime-Panic Your Complete Guide to Pilots and Straight-to-Series orders Raimi will direct the first episode of Ash Vs. Evil Dead, which he co-wrote with his brother Ivan Raimi (Darkman) and Tom Spezialy (Chuck). “Evil Dead has always been a blast,” Raimi said. “Bruce, Rob, and I are thrilled to have the opportunity to tell the next chapter in Ash’s lame, but heroic saga. With his chainsaw arm and his ‘boomstick,’ Ash is back to kick some monster butt. And brother, this time there’s a truckload of it.” Ash Vs. Evil Dead also reunites Sam Raimi and Tapert with Starz where they executive produced the pay cable network’s first scripted hit, drama Spartacus. Ivan Raimi will co-executive produce the series, and Aaron Lam (Spartacus) will serve as producer. Fans have been buzzing about an Evil Dead series since Sam Raimi announced at Comic-Con — where he and Campbell are hugely popular — that he was working on it. “I’m really excited to bring this series to the Evil Dead fans worldwide – it’s going to be everything they have been clamoring for: serious deadite ass-kicking and plenty of outrageous humor,” said Campbell. The original Evil Dead film followed Ash and his friends who travel to a cabin in the woods, where they unknowingly release demons intent on possessing the living. It was a hit, spawning a franchise that included two sequels directed by Raimi, produced by Talpert and starring Campbell, as well as video games and comic books. There was also a recent feature reboot produced by Raimi and Talpert and directed by Fede Alvarez. Ash Vs. Evil Dead was packaged by CAA and Craig Jacobson. Campbell is repped by APA and Jacobson, Russell, Saltz, Nassim & de la Torre. Big Deals TV	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12826
__label__wiki	0.898336	0.898336	Watch Robin Williams’ Final Role In ‘Absolutely Anything’ Clip EXCLUSIVE: In his final film performance, the late Robin Williams lends his voice to sci-fi comedy Absolutely Anything for Monty Python’s Terry Jones. The legendary entertainer was the first to sign onto the long-gestating comedy about a disillusioned teacher (Simon Pegg) granted the power to do “absolutely anything” by scheming aliens, played by the Pythons. In Deadline’s exclusive clip, Pegg gives his devoted dog Dennis the ability to speak – and out comes Williams’ unmistakable voice. “One thing we’re grateful to Robin for is he was the first to come on and he stuck with the whole thing,” recalled Jones’ co-writer Gavin Scott (The Mists of Avalon, Small Soldiers), who with Jones spoke with me during a recent ADR session in Los Angeles. Jones and Scott first began writing the film 20 years ago, but it didn’t come together until Jones’ son Bill and producing partner Ben Timlett found financing. Phoenix Pictures’ Mike Medavoy and Chris Chesser (Major League, The Rundown) are executive producing the film which also stars Kate Beckinsale and Eddie Izzard. “The kind of attitude that led him to stick with the project through all its ups and downs, he totally exhibited here,” said Scott. “He wanted to make everybody feel good from the engineer to the lady making the coffee. It was very late in the day for him and we didn’t know that, but he was a real mensch.” Absolutely Anything has sold a number of foreign territories and will hit UK theaters via Lionsgate next spring. This article was printed from https://deadline.com/2014/12/robin-williams-absolutely-anything-video-simon-pegg-1201327211/	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12827
__label__wiki	0.799524	0.799524	Arizona Prosecutors Drop Death Penalty in Two Cases, Citing High Costs and Lengthy Legal Process Prosecutors in Mohave County, Arizona announced in February that they will drop the pursuit of the death penalty in two murder cases in the county. Justin Rector and Darrell Ketchner were separately charged with first-degree murder, and officials said their defense teams had already spent over $2.2 million preparing for trials that are still far from taking place. Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith said, “Everybody’s looking to save money and these death penalty cases are extremely expensive.” The murders happened in 2009 and 2014, but because of the thorough investigation and preparation required to competently defend a death-penalty case, Smith said, “[t]he anticipated soonest trial date in this case will be 10 years after the events charged.” Even if the defendants were sentenced to death, “there is no reasonable likelihood of the death penalty actually being imposed in a realistic and efficient timeframe given the current state of affairs surrounding persons sentenced to death,” he said. Bob Allison, whose granddaughter, Ariel, was allegedly killed by Ketchner, said he approves of the prosecutor’s decision, in part because his other grandchildren were being bullied as a result of publicity around the case. “We’re OK with it because we want to protect the kids,” he said. “It’s a waste of money in my opinion and the end results are going to be the same.” Between fiscal years 2010 and 2018, Mohave County has spent nearly $3.6 million on defense costs in death-penalty cases. Because no lawyers in the county public defender’s or legal defender’s office meet the state’s qualifications to handle death penalty cases, the county must contract out for those services, paying lead counsel at a rate of $125 per hour and $90 an hour for second-chair counsel. In 2016, the Mohave County Board of Supervisors authorized $344,000 in county funds to cover the costs of trying Rector and Ketchner. A Mohave County Superior Court judge granted the prosecution’s motion to withdraw the death penalty in Rector’s case on February 20, and allowed death-penalty counsel to withdraw from representing Rector. The court granted the motion to drop the death penalty in Ketchner’s case on February 14. Only one case originating in Mohave County has ever resulted in an execution. (David Louis, The cost of death: Legal fees in Mohave County death penalty cases cost more than $1 million for each trial, Kingman Daily Miner, February 25, 2018; Jim Seckler, Death penalty formally taken off the table for Rector, Mohave Valley Daily News, February 20, 2018; Death Penalty Not Sought in Trial of Arizona Girl’s Murder, Associated Press, February 15, 2018; Dave Hawkins, Arizona prosecutor drops death penalty in 2 murder cases, Las Vegas Review-Journal, February 16, 2018.) See Costs, Representation, and Victims.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12828
__label__wiki	0.766972	0.766972	The drug war – why not to fight fire with fire July 5, 2011 June 8, 2016 3 minute readby Elizabeth Dickinson In Reports Five years after the President Felipe Calderon deployed 50,000 soldiers to confront Mexico’s drug cartels, the country is divided about how well the fight is going. To half the country, the president included, there are clear signs of success: countless drug kingpins have been apprehended and the security forces are stronger than ever. To the other half of this country of 107 million, the war on drugs has only worsened insecurity, increased impunity, and weakened the state. And now, after years of public support for the battle, it’s unclear whether Mexican voters will continue to support the drug war. What changed over the last half decade was both the extent and the brutality of the violence sweeping across Mexico. Some 40,000 people have perished in the fighting, and more than 5,000 are missing. But what’s more alarming are the trend lines: the death toll has increased every year since 2006, with 2010 alone seeing more than 15,000 victims. One out of every six Mexicans personally knows someone who has died. And all the while, the number of municipalities affected by the violence has risen fourfold. Whereas insecurity was once concentrated along drug routes, today it is the overwhelming norm. Back in 2006 when Calderon came into office, he vowed that his war on drugs was the only way to prevent Mexico from falling into the hands of organised crime. Yet the harder the government has fought, the higher violence has risen, raising questions about whether that strategy is working. “There is a sense that, in fighting the drug war, the government may actually have made things worse,” explains Arturo Borja, a political analyst and researcher at Mexico’s Center for Economic Investigation and Instruction (CIDE). By bringing in bigger and more guns, the military has set a precedent for controlling territory and communities through the use of brute force, opponents of the president argue. Opposition to the government’s strategy, however, raises the question of what other options Mexico really has, short of a compromise with organised crime. Many alternative solutions aimed at rooting out the cartels’ base through economic growth and better government would take years. More immediately, the government could refocus its attention toward ending the violence through anti-gang policies such as those implemented in US cities such as Boston or Los Angeles, argues Eduardo Guerrero, a political scientist and former adviser to the Mexican presidency. With the troops deployed, and a presidential election on the way in 2012 however, it is unlikely that changes in strategy are on the cards – at least for now. But the conversation about how Mexico’s drug war is going – and whether and how it should continue – is just beginning. As more citizens than ever are exposed to the violent conflict, increasing numbers are taking to politics to join the conversation. “Calderon always says that the presidency is a place for all Mexicans,” says Araceli Rodríguez, whose son Luis Ángel León Rodriguez, a federal police officer, was abducted by unknown assailants on 16 November, 2009. “My message to Calderon is that I need to have a president who I feel supports us, the victims. Calderon would not like to live through what we the victims are living.” First published in Monocle. Elizabeth Dickinson is a Gulf-based American journalist whose writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, and The National, among other publications. She is the author of the Kindle Single Who Shot Ahmed, an account of a young videographer shot in cold blood at the height of Bahrain’s Arab Spring. She is also co-editor of the recent book The Southern Tiger, a narrative memoir by Chilean President Ricardo Lagos. She has reported from five continents and speaks French, Spanish, and Krio (Sierra Leone), as well as basic Yoruba and Arabic. Tags: Central America, drug war, drug-related violence, violent crime / Category: Reports Fighting the Last War January 30, 2012 June 20, 2016 6 minute readby Elizabeth Dickinson Tombs of the Unknown: Mexico’s Mysterious Deaths July 12, 2011 June 8, 2016 10 minute readby Elizabeth Dickinson	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12829
__label__wiki	0.701207	0.701207	Home NEWS National Congressional Black Caucus faces future with Trump Congressional Black Caucus faces future with Trump Defender News Service With the fewest Democratic congressional seats since 1938, the Congressional Black Caucus is looking for opportunities to find common ground with President Elect Donald Trump, as well as focus on rebuilding and rebranding. After losing 63 seats in the House in 2010, Democrats are again dazed and confused, this time over losing the White House to real estate mogul Donald Trump, who shockingly defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a final electoral vote count that no one, not even the victor, it seemed, saw coming. Ironically, there will be a record number of African-Americans serving in Congress—52—next year, but 50 of them will serve in the minority party in the House. Can the Congressional Black Caucus find a way forward against the largest group of Republicans in the House since 1929? “Perhaps there can be some common ground on infrastructure; it creates jobs,” said CBC Chairman G.K. Butterfield. “But that’s the top line, not the bottom line. … I think there is opportunity for the Congressional Black Caucus to have common ground with the new administration.” Though Butterfield went on to say that Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon as a White House senior adviser was “disgusting” and “not a good way to start his administration,” the CBC chairman did attempt to be open to what may come next. In a Nov. 13 email to fellow Democrats, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) stated, “Our party’s infrastructure has been decimated and our brand denigrated. We must rebuild and rebrand, and we must start now.” Members of the CBC met for dinner at a downtown restaurant in Washington, D.C., recently to discuss what’s next. “We need to take an assessment about why we are in the place we are in today. I think it is important that we have all hands on deck to make sure that we get this thing corrected. A lot of us know what the problem is. I believe in order to do it, we need to have a DNC chair who is there 24-7. We need a full-time DNC chair,” Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) said. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) emphatically spoke about what the Democratic Party could have done better to get out Black voters. Hastings was asked whether the party will ever listen to strategic advice from Black elected officials on the ground. “That’s a good question,” he said. “I hope so. They did make a course correction in my congressional district about six days before the election because I raised so much sand about it. I still think that disproportionately, money was spent on television—$67 million by the Clinton campaign—and a pittance on the ground by comparison. “I would have had a considerable amount more money in the African-American and Latino communities being utilized by the people who live in those communities,” Hastings added. The DNC is notorious for “air-dropping” in staff that aren’t local to the community they’re campaigning in. “I will never participate in another campaign that does not start with a ground game at the bottom. That includes 2018. We have a Senate race. We have a gubernatorial race. If they’re going to wait until two weeks to come to my community, they won’t have me active in their campaign,” Hastings said. Previous articleObama awards 21 Presidential Medals of Freedom Next articleColumbia Univ. to provide sanctuary for undocumented students Two Houston Democrats lead 4-way race to replace state Sen. Sylvia Garcia Black leaders unite to bring jobs and justice to Black America Back-to-back legal blows in Trump inner circle jolt presidency	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12831
__label__wiki	0.662168	0.662168	Transformers: Fall of Cybertron August 21, 2012 (AU, EU, US) November 27, 2012 (AU, EU, US) Delistings: December 21, 2017 (Steam, PlayStation) December 31, 2017 (Xbox 360, Xbox One) Developer: High Moon Studios Publisher: Activision Blizzard Links: Fall of Cybertron homepage Transformers: Fall of Cybertron was delisted on Steam, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4 on December 21st, 2017. The game was on sale on Xbox 360 and Xbox One and remained available digitally through December 31st. Like many previous licensed Activision franchises Transformers: Fall of Cybertron was delisted at the end of the year in which the license expired alongside several other titles in the Transformers series. See the linked pages to the right for more. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron remains available on physical media for all platforms except Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. “TRANSFORMERS: Fall of Cybertron transports you to the final days of the planet Cybertron where you will experience the darkest hours of the apocalyptic war between the Autobots and Decepticons. Embark on an adrenaline-fueled journey through a wide range of missions and massive environments designed around each character’s unique abilities. Game includes three DLC packs! You get the Multiplayer Havoc Pack, DINOBOT Destructor Pack and Massive Fury Pack with game purchase!“ Select Video Coverage Last Updated: January 9, 2018 by ShawnS Delisted On: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Steam, Xbox 360, Xbox One Companies: Activision Blizzard, High Moon Studios Related to this Title Transformers Prime	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12833
__label__wiki	0.959494	0.959494	Arrest Fani Kayode, Aliero Tells Security Agencies Former Governor of Kebbi State, Adamu Aliero, on Tuesday tasked security agencies to arrest with immediate effect the the director of publicity of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organization, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, for misleading the public when he claimed that the PDP had won the presidential election in 23 states. He made the call while responding to questions from journalists in Birnin Kebbi, the Kebbi state capital, on his victory at the senatorial election in the state. Aliero the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Kebbi Central Senatorial District. The FCT minister said it was reckless and irresponsible for Mr. Fani-Kayode to have made such a “stupid statement”. “Fani-Kayode is supposed to be arrested because such people can cause mayhem in this country,” the former minister said. He urged Nigerians to ignore such inflammatory statements because they could cause crisis in the country. He said the only body empowered by the Constitution and Electoral Act to declare election result is INEC. “Where you have two results being released, the INEC one and that of the fraudulent one by so called Fani-Kayode with the intent to rig the election, there can be confusion.” He said the introduction of Card Readers by INEC in the conduct of elections is a revolution. “It has completely eliminated electoral fraud. This is because previous elections were marred by election fraud,” the Senator said. He expressed satisfaction with the conduct of election in the state and called on INEC to retain the use of Card Reader and if possible, improve on lapses recorded during the presidential election. He expressed appreciation to God and the people of the state for his reelection to the Senate and for their support throughout the electioneering campaign. “We were in PDP just about four months ago and all of a sudden we changed to APC because of injustice manifested throughout the conduct of primary election in Kebbi State,” he said. He promised to do his best in giving his people robust representation at the Senate. Tags: Adamu AlieroAll Progressives Congress (APC)Card ReadersFormer Governor of Kebbi StateINECKebbi Central Senatorial DistrictMr. Femi Fani-KayodePeoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organization Chris Brown and Karrueche Rumored to Be Back Together? Ekiti 19 APC Lawmakers Teargas as They Attempt to Reconvene	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12836
__label__wiki	0.619299	0.619299	Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK In 2017, Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK had a population of 112k people with a median age of 37.4 and a median household income of $37,353. Between 2016 and 2017 the population of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK grew from 111,772 to 111,904, a 0.118% increase and its median household income grew from $36,534 to $37,353, a 2.24% increase. The population of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK is 52.4% White Alone, 29.6% American Indian & Alaska Native Alone, and 10.1% Two or More Races. 6.29% of the people in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK speak a non-English language, and 98.3% are U.S. citizens. The largest universities in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK are Northeastern State University (1,741 degrees awarded in 2016), Indian Capital Technology Center-Tahlequah (253 degrees), and Indian Capital Technology Center-Sallisaw (160 degrees). The median property value in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK is $96,000, and the homeownership rate is 68.9%. Most people in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK commute by N/A, and the average commute time is 23.4 minutes. The average car ownership in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK is N/A per household. Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK borders Benton County PUMA, AR, Washington County PUMA, AR, Sebastian & Crawford Counties PUMA, AR, Southeast Oklahoma PUMA, OK, Northeast Oklahoma PUMA, OK, and Muskogee, Okmulgee, Wagoner (East) & McIntosh Counties PUMA, OK. Photo by Jack Gray United StatesOklahomaArkansas The economy of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK employs 39.6k people. The largest industries in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK are Elementary & secondary schools (3,734 people), Construction (2,602 people), and Restaurants & Food Services (2,531 people), and the highest paying industries are Electric power generation, transmission & distribution ($92,858), Pharmacies & drug stores ($85,474), and Insurance carriers & related activities ($82,967). Median household income in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK is $37,353. Males in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK have an average income that is 1.19 times higher than the average income of females, which is $34,036. The income inequality in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK (measured using the Gini index) is 0.397, which is lower than than the national average. Households in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK have a median annual income of $37,353, which is less than the median annual income of $60,336 across the entire United States. This is in comparison to a median income of $36,534 in 2016, which represents a 2.24% annual growth. Look at the chart to see how the median household income in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK compares to that of it's neighboring and parent geographies. In 2017, full-time male employees in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK made 1.19 times more than female employees. This chart shows the gender-based wage disparity in the 5 most common occupations in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK by number of full-time employees. American Indian and Alaska Native tribes specified; or American Indian or Alaska Native, not specified and no other races In 2017 the highest paid race/ethnicity of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK workers was Two or More Races. These workers were paid 1.04 times more than American Indian and Alaska Native tribes specified; or American Indian or Alaska Native, not specified and no other races workers, who made the second highest salary of any race/ethnicity. This chart shows the race- and ethnicity-based wage disparities in the 5 most common occupations in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK by number of full-time employees. In 2017, the income inequality in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK was 0.397 according to the GINI calculation of the wage distribution. Income inequality had a 4.66% growth from 2016 to 2017, which means that wage distribution grew somewhat less even. The 2017 the GINI for Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK was lower than than the national average of 0.479. In other words, wages are distributed more evenly in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK in comparison to the national average. This chart shows the number of workers in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK across various wage buckets compared to the national average. TotalWhiteBlackNative AmericanAsianOtherTwo Or MoreWhite Non-HispanicHispanic Oklahoma City (West) PUMA, OK Edmond & Oklahoma City (North Central) Cities PUMA, OK Claremore City PUMA, OK In 2017, the PUMA with the highest Median Household Income (Total) in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK was Oklahoma City (West) PUMA, OK with a value of $74,720, followed by Edmond & Oklahoma City (North Central) Cities PUMA, OK and Claremore City PUMA, OK, with respective values of $69,943 and $64,832. The following map shows all of the PUMAs in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK colored by their Median Household Income (Total). N/A% of the population for whom poverty status is determined in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK (N/A out of N/A people) live below the poverty line, a number that is approximately the same as the national average of 13.4%. The largest demographic living in poverty are N/A N/A, followed by N/A N/A and then N/A N/A. The most common racial or ethnic group living below the poverty line in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK is false, followed by false and false. ± -1.12% From 2016 to 2017, employment in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK declined at a rate of -1.12%, from 40k employees to 39.6k employees. The most common job groups, by number of people living in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK, are Elementary & middle school teachers (1,558 people), Cashiers (1,205 people), and Driver/sales workers & truck drivers (1,096 people). This chart illustrates the share breakdown of the primary jobs held by residents of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK. The most common jobs held by residents of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK, by number of employees, are Elementary & middle school teachers (1,558 people), Cashiers (1,205 people), and Driver/sales workers & truck drivers (1,096 people). Compared to other pumas, Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK has an unusually high number of residents working as Miscellaneous extraction workers, including roof bolters & helpers (8.73 times higher than expected), Construction equipment operators except paving, surfacing, & tamping equipment operators (4.84 times), and Food processing workers, all other (4.65 times). The highest paid jobs held by residents of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK, by average salary, are Pharmacists ($103,324), Physicians & surgeons ($99,629), and Health practitioner support technologists & technicians ($82,117). The most common employment sectors for those who live in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK, are Elementary & secondary schools (3,734 people), Construction (2,602 people), and Restaurants & Food Services (2,531 people). This chart shows the share breakdown of the primary industries for residents of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK, though some of these residents may live in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK and work somewhere else. Census data is tagged to a residential address, not a work address. The most common industries in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK, by number of employees, are Elementary & secondary schools (3,734 people), Construction (2,602 people), and Restaurants & Food Services (2,531 people). Compared to other pumas, Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK has an unusually high number of Nonmetallic mineral mining & quarrying (7.75 times higher than expected), Pulp, paper, & paperboard mills (7.27 times), and Bakeries & tortilla manufacturing, except retail bakeries (7.02 times) industries. The highest paying industries in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK, by average salary, are Electric power generation, transmission & distribution ($92,858), Pharmacies & drug stores ($85,474), and Insurance carriers & related activities ($82,967). Domestic production and consumption consists of products and services shipped from Oklahoma to other states, or from other states to Oklahoma. Coal-n.e.c. Fuel oils In 2015, the top outbound Oklahoma product (by dollars) was Coal-n.e.c. with $52.4B, followed by Fuel oils with $21.4B and Gasoline and $19.2B. The following chart shows the share of these products in relation to all outbound Oklahoma products. Showing data for Oklahoma state. In 2015, total outbound Oklahoma trade was $220B. This is expected to increase 40.6% to $309B by 2045. The following chart shows how the domestic outbound Oklahoma trade is projected to change in comparison to its neighboring states. Interstate trade consists of products and services shipped from Oklahoma to other states, or from other states to Oklahoma. In 2015, the top outbound Oklahoma domestic partner for goods and services (by dollars) was Texas with $40.8B, followed by Kansas with $19.3B and Arkansas and $7.03B. The following map shows the amount of trade that Oklahoma shares with each state (excluding itself). N/A% of the population of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK has health coverage, with N/A% on employee plans, N/A% on Medicaid, N/A% on Medicare, N/A% on non-group plans, and N/A% on military or VA plans. Per capita personal health care spending in the puma of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK was $7,627 in 2014. This is a 4.58% increase from the previous year ($7,293). Primary care physicians in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK see 1587 patients per year on average, which represents a 1.8% increase from the previous year (1559 patients). Compare this to dentists who see 1704 patients per year, and mental health providers who see 264 patients per year. Comparing across all counties in the state, Pushmataha County and Ottawa County have the highest prevalence of diabetes (16.2%). Additionally, Adair County has the highest prevalence of adult obesity (41.9%) Data is only available at the state level. Showing data for Oklahoma. Primary care physicians in Oklahoma see an average of 1,587 patients per year. This represents a 1.8% increase from the previous year (1,559 patients). The following chart shows how the number of patients seen by primary care physicians has been changing over time in Oklahoma in comparison to neighboring states. Between 2013 and 2014, all personal health care spending per capita in Oklahoma (including private, Medicare, and Medicaid) grew 4.58%, from $7,293 to $7,627. Between N/A and N/A, the percent of uninsured citizens in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK N/A by N/A from N/A% to N/A%. The following chart shows how the percent of uninsured individuals in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK changed over time compared with the percent of individuals enrolled in various types of health insurance. Pushmataha County and Ottawa County have the highest prevalence of diabetes in Oklahoma, at 16.2%. The following map shows the prevalence of diabetes in Oklahoma by county over multiple years. Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK is home to a population of 112k people, from which 98.3% are citizens. As of 2017, N/A% of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK residents were born outside of the country. The ethnic composition of the population of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK is composed of 58.7k White Alone residents (52.4%), 33.1k American Indian & Alaska Native Alone residents (29.6%), 11.4k Two or More Races residents (10.1%), 6.35k Hispanic or Latino residents (5.67%), 1.45k Black or African American Alone residents (1.3%), 720 Asian Alone residents (0.643%), 215 Native Hawaiian & Other Pacific Islander Alone residents (0.192%), and 14 Some Other Race Alone residents (0.0125%). The most common foreign languages spoken in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK are Other Native North American Languages (2,989 speakers), Spanish or Spanish Creole (2,850 speakers), and Hmong (120 speakers). In 2017, the median age of all people in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK was 37.4. Native-born citizens, with a median age of N/A, were generally N/A than foreign-born citizens, with a median age of N/A. But people in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK are getting getting older. In 2016, the average age of all Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK residents was 37. As of 2017, N/A% of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK residents were born outside of the United States, which is approximately the same as the national average of 13.7%. In 2016, the percentage of foreign-born citizens in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK was 2.28%, meaning that the rate has been maintaining. The following chart shows the percentage of foreign-born residents in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK compared to that of it's neighboring and parent geographies. 1,111 ± 814 people In 2017, the most common birthplace for the foreign-born residents of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK was Mexico, the natal country of 1,111 Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK residents, followed by Cambodia with 223 and Saudi Arabia with 163. As of 2017, 98.3% of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK residents were US citizens, which is higher than the national average of 93.1%. In 2016, the percentage of US citizens in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK was 98.4%, meaning that the rate of citizenship has been decreasing. The following chart shows US citizenship percentages in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK compared to that of it's neighboring and parent geographies. 58.7k ± 38 American Indian & Alaska Native Alone In 2017, there were 1.77 times more White Alone residents (58.7k people) in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK than any other race or ethnicity. There were 33.1k American Indian & Alaska Native Alone and 11.4k Two or More Races residents, the second and third most common racial or ethnic groups. The following bar chart shows the 8 races and ethnicities represented in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK as a share of the total population. Other Native North American Languages 6.29% of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK citizens are speakers of a non-English language, which is lower than the national average of 21.5%. In 2015, the most common non-English language spoken in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK was Other Native North American Languages. 2.85% of the overall population of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK are native Other Native North American Languages speakers. 2.72% speak Spanish or Spanish Creole and 0.114% speak Other Native North American Languages, the next two most common languages. Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK has a large population of military personnel who served in false, N/A times greater than any other conflict. In 2016, universities in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK awarded 2,246 degrees. The student population of Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK is skewed towards women, with 3,457 male students and 5,189 female students. Most students graduating from Universities in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK are White (1,173 and 53.1%), followed by American Indian or Alaska Native (579 and 26.2%), Two or More Races (220 and 9.95%), and Hispanic or Latino (112 and 5.07%). The largest universities in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK by number of degrees awarded are Northeastern State University (1,741 and 77.5%), Indian Capital Technology Center-Tahlequah (253 and 11.3%), and Indian Capital Technology Center-Sallisaw (160 and 7.12%). The most popular majors in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK are General Psychology (126 and 5.61%), Licensed Practical & Vocational Nurse Training (119 and 5.3%), and Criminal Justice - Law Enforcement Administration (119 and 5.3%). The median tuition costs in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK are $N/A for private four year colleges, and $5,085 and $12,585 respectively, for public four year colleges for in-state students and out-of-state students. < 1 Year Postsecondary Certificate1 to 2 Year Postsecondary CertificateBachelors DegreeMasters DegreePost-Masters CertificateProfessional Doctorate Elementary Education & Teaching Criminal Justice - Law Enforcement Administration In 2015, the most common concentation for Bachelors Degree recipients in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK was Elementary Education & Teaching with 105 degrees awarded. This visualization illustrates the percentage of students graduating with a Bachelors Degree from schools in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK according to their major. Northeastern State University Indian Capital Technology Center-Tahlequah Indian Capital Technology Center-Sallisaw In 2016, the Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK institution with the largest number of graduating students was Northeastern State University with 1,741 degrees awarded. In 2016, 907 men were awarded degrees from institutions in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK, which is 0.677 times less than the 1,339 female students who received degrees in the same year. This chart displays the gender disparity between the institutions in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK by degrees awarded. In 2016 the majority of degrees awarded at institutions in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK were to White students. These 1,173 degrees mean that there were 2.03 times more White students then the next closest race/ethnicity group, American Indian or Alaska Native, with 579 degrees awarded. The median property value in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK was $96,000 in 2017, which is 0.441 times smaller than the national average of $217,600. Between 2016 and 2017 the median property value increased from $94,300 to $96,000, a 1.8% increase. The homeownership rate in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK is 68.9%, which is higher than the national average of 63.9%. People in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK have an average commute time of 23.4 minutes, and they commute by N/A. Car ownership in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK is approximately the same as the national average, with an average of N/A per household. In 2017, the median household income of the N/A households in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK grew to $37,353 from the previous year's value of $36,534. The following chart displays the households in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK distributed between a series of income buckets compared to the national averages for each bucket. The largest share of households have an income in the N/A range. In 2017, the median property value in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK grew to to $96,000 from the previous year's value of $94,300. The following charts display, first, the property values in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK compared to it's parent and neighbor geographies and, second, owner-occupied housing units distributed between a series of property value buckets compared to the national averages for each bucket. In Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK the largest share of households have a property value in the N/A range. This chart shows the households in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK distributed between a series of property tax buckets compared to the national averages for each bucket. In Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK the largest share of households pay taxes in the < $800 range. In 2017, 68.9% of the housing units in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK were occupied by their owner. This percentage declined from the previous year's rate of 69.1%. This percentage of owner-occupation is higher than the national average of 63.9%. This chart shows the ownership percentage in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK compared it's parent and neighboring geographies. The following chart displays the households in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK distributed between a series of car ownership buckets compared to the national averages for each bucket. The largest share of households in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK have N/A, followed by N/A. Using averages, employees in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK have a shorter commute time (23.4 minutes) than the normal US worker (25.1 minutes). Additionally, 2.62% of the workforce in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK have "super commutes" in excess of 90 minutes. The chart below shows how the median household income in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK compares to that of it's neighboring and parent geographies. In N/A, the most common method of travel for workers in Cherokee, Sequoyah & Adair Counties PUMA, OK was N/A, followed by those who N/A and those who N/A. Fort Smith, AR-OK Benton County PUMA, AR Washington County PUMA, AR	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12838
__label__wiki	0.786669	0.786669	Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA 0.311% decline In 2017, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA had a population of 127k people with a median age of 38.5 and a median household income of $36,709. Between 2016 and 2017 the population of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA declined from 127,346 to 126,950, a -0.311% decrease and its median household income grew from $34,427 to $36,709, a 6.63% increase. The population of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA is 62.2% White Alone, 28.3% Black or African American Alone, and 7.05% Hispanic or Latino. 7.27% of the people in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA speak a non-English language, and 97.2% are U.S. citizens. The largest universities in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA are Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (648 degrees awarded in 2016). The median property value in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA is $88,900, and the homeownership rate is 65.2%. Most people in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA commute by N/A, and the average commute time is 21 minutes. The average car ownership in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA is N/A per household. Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA borders Apalachee Region (Outside Leon County) PUMA, FL, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (East & Central) PUMA, GA, River Valley Regional Commission (Outside Muscogee & Chattahoochee Counties) PUMA, GA, Heart of Georgia Altamaha Regional Commission (Southeast) PUMA, GA, Heart of Georgia Altamaha Regional Commission (North & West) PUMA, GA, Lowndes CountyValdosta City PUMA, GA, Colquitt, Thomas & Worth Counties PUMA, GA, and Suwannee, Taylor, Madison, Hamilton & Lafayette Counties PUMA, FL. Photo by Tony Crescibene United StatesGeorgia The economy of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA employs 47.2k people. The largest industries in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA are Elementary & secondary schools (3,509 people), Restaurants & Food Services (2,937 people), and Construction (2,910 people), and the highest paying industries are Insurance carriers & related activities ($106,955), Couriers & messengers ($86,593), and Management, scientific & technical consulting services ($81,520). Median household income in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA is $36,709. Males in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA have an average income that is 1.24 times higher than the average income of females, which is $35,368. The income inequality in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA (measured using the Gini index) is 0.405, which is lower than than the national average. Households in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA have a median annual income of $36,709, which is less than the median annual income of $60,336 across the entire United States. This is in comparison to a median income of $34,427 in 2016, which represents a 6.63% annual growth. Look at the chart to see how the median household income in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA compares to that of it's neighboring and parent geographies. In 2017, full-time male employees in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA made 1.24 times more than female employees. This chart shows the gender-based wage disparity in the 5 most common occupations in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA by number of full-time employees. In 2017 the highest paid race/ethnicity of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA workers was White. These workers were paid 1.36 times more than Asian workers, who made the second highest salary of any race/ethnicity. This chart shows the race- and ethnicity-based wage disparities in the 5 most common occupations in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA by number of full-time employees. In 2017, the income inequality in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA was 0.405 according to the GINI calculation of the wage distribution. Income inequality had a 3.18% decline from 2016 to 2017, which means that wage distribution grew somewhat more even. The 2017 the GINI for Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA was lower than than the national average of 0.479. In other words, wages are distributed more evenly in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA in comparison to the national average. This chart shows the number of workers in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA across various wage buckets compared to the national average. TotalWhiteBlackAsianOtherTwo Or MoreWhite Non-HispanicHispanic Cobb County (Northeast) PUMA, GA Fulton County (Northeast)Johns Creek City PUMA, GA Forsyth County PUMA, GA In 2017, the PUMA with the highest Median Household Income (Total) in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA was Cobb County (Northeast) PUMA, GA with a value of $115,733, followed by Fulton County (Northeast)Johns Creek City PUMA, GA and Forsyth County PUMA, GA, with respective values of $112,433 and $102,084. The following map shows all of the PUMAs in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA colored by their Median Household Income (Total). N/A% of the population for whom poverty status is determined in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA (N/A out of N/A people) live below the poverty line, a number that is approximately the same as the national average of 13.4%. The largest demographic living in poverty are N/A N/A, followed by N/A N/A and then N/A N/A. The most common racial or ethnic group living below the poverty line in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA is false, followed by false and false. From 2016 to 2017, employment in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA grew at a rate of 3.54%, from 45.6k employees to 47.2k employees. The most common job groups, by number of people living in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA, are Driver/sales workers & truck drivers (1,917 people), Miscellaneous agricultural workers, including animal breeders (1,785 people), and Elementary & middle school teachers (1,614 people). This chart illustrates the share breakdown of the primary jobs held by residents of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA. The most common jobs held by residents of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA, by number of employees, are Driver/sales workers & truck drivers (1,917 people), Miscellaneous agricultural workers, including animal breeders (1,785 people), and Elementary & middle school teachers (1,614 people). Compared to other pumas, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA has an unusually high number of residents working as Firstline supervisors of farming, fishing, & forestry workers (7.34 times higher than expected), Miscellaneous agricultural workers, including animal breeders (6.76 times), and Electrical powerline installers & repairers (5.75 times). The highest paid jobs held by residents of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA, by average salary, are Physicians & surgeons ($283,226), Chief executives & legislators ($185,810), and Pharmacists ($153,006). The most common employment sectors for those who live in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA, are Elementary & secondary schools (3,509 people), Restaurants & Food Services (2,937 people), and Construction (2,910 people). This chart shows the share breakdown of the primary industries for residents of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA, though some of these residents may live in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA and work somewhere else. Census data is tagged to a residential address, not a work address. The most common industries in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA, by number of employees, are Elementary & secondary schools (3,509 people), Restaurants & Food Services (2,937 people), and Construction (2,910 people). Compared to other pumas, Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA has an unusually high number of Carpet & rug mills (13.3 times higher than expected), Farming (6.8 times), and Agricultural implement manufacturing (6.25 times) industries. The highest paying industries in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA, by average salary, are Insurance carriers & related activities ($106,955), Couriers & messengers ($86,593), and Management, scientific & technical consulting services ($81,520). Domestic production and consumption consists of products and services shipped from Georgia to other states, or from other states to Georgia. In 2015, the top outbound Georgia product (by dollars) was Mixed freight with $48.1B, followed by Motorized vehicles with $38B and Electronics and $30.6B. The following chart shows the share of these products in relation to all outbound Georgia products. Showing data for Georgia state. In 2015, total outbound Georgia trade was $430B. This is expected to increase 46.1% to $628B by 2045. The following chart shows how the domestic outbound Georgia trade is projected to change in comparison to its neighboring states. Interstate trade consists of products and services shipped from Georgia to other states, or from other states to Georgia. In 2015, the top outbound Georgia domestic partner for goods and services (by dollars) was Florida with $39.4B, followed by South Carolina with $25.3B and North Carolina and $20.5B. The following map shows the amount of trade that Georgia shares with each state (excluding itself). N/A% of the population of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA has health coverage, with N/A% on employee plans, N/A% on Medicaid, N/A% on Medicare, N/A% on non-group plans, and N/A% on military or VA plans. Per capita personal health care spending in the puma of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA was $6,587 in 2014. This is a 5.41% increase from the previous year ($6,249). Primary care physicians in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA see 1519 patients per year on average, which represents a 0.459% decrease from the previous year (1526 patients). Compare this to dentists who see 1984 patients per year, and mental health providers who see 829 patients per year. Comparing across all counties in the state, Quitman County has the highest prevalence of diabetes (18.2%). Additionally, Rockdale County has the highest prevalence of adult obesity (38.5%) Data is only available at the state level. Showing data for Georgia. Primary care physicians in Georgia see an average of 1,519 patients per year. This represents a 0.459% decrease from the previous year (1,526 patients). The following chart shows how the number of patients seen by primary care physicians has been changing over time in Georgia in comparison to neighboring states. Between 2013 and 2014, all personal health care spending per capita in Georgia (including private, Medicare, and Medicaid) grew 5.41%, from $6,249 to $6,587. Between N/A and N/A, the percent of uninsured citizens in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA N/A by N/A from N/A% to N/A%. The following chart shows how the percent of uninsured individuals in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA changed over time compared with the percent of individuals enrolled in various types of health insurance. Quitman County Taliaferro County Quitman County has the highest prevalence of diabetes in Georgia, at 18.2%. The following map shows the prevalence of diabetes in Georgia by county over multiple years. Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA is home to a population of 127k people, from which 97.2% are citizens. As of 2017, N/A% of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA residents were born outside of the country. The ethnic composition of the population of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA is composed of 79k White Alone residents (62.2%), 35.9k Black or African American Alone residents (28.3%), 8.95k Hispanic or Latino residents (7.05%), 1.66k Two or More Races residents (1.31%), 992 Asian Alone residents (0.781%), 314 Some Other Race Alone residents (0.247%), 162 American Indian & Alaska Native Alone residents (0.128%), and 27 Native Hawaiian & Other Pacific Islander Alone residents (0.0213%). The most common foreign languages spoken in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA are Spanish or Spanish Creole (7,339 speakers), Vietnamese (328 speakers), and German (228 speakers). In 2017, the median age of all people in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA was 38.5. Native-born citizens, with a median age of N/A, were generally N/A than foreign-born citizens, with a median age of N/A. But people in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA are getting getting older. In 2016, the average age of all Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA residents was 38. As of 2017, N/A% of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA residents were born outside of the United States, which is approximately the same as the national average of 13.7%. In 2016, the percentage of foreign-born citizens in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA was 3.94%, meaning that the rate has been maintaining. The following chart shows the percentage of foreign-born residents in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA compared to that of it's neighboring and parent geographies. 2,801 ± 1,285 people In 2017, the most common birthplace for the foreign-born residents of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA was Mexico, the natal country of 2,801 Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA residents, followed by Jamaica with 261 and Philippines with 187. As of 2017, 97.2% of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA residents were US citizens, which is higher than the national average of 93.1%. In 2016, the percentage of US citizens in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA was 97.3%, meaning that the rate of citizenship has been decreasing. The following chart shows US citizenship percentages in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA compared to that of it's neighboring and parent geographies. 79k ± 68 In 2017, there were 2.2 times more White Alone residents (79k people) in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA than any other race or ethnicity. There were 35.9k Black or African American Alone and 8.95k Hispanic or Latino residents, the second and third most common racial or ethnic groups. The following bar chart shows the 8 races and ethnicities represented in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA as a share of the total population. 7.27% of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA citizens are speakers of a non-English language, which is lower than the national average of 21.5%. In 2015, the most common non-English language spoken in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA was Spanish or Spanish Creole. 6.16% of the overall population of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA are native Spanish or Spanish Creole speakers. 0.275% speak Vietnamese and 0.191% speak Spanish or Spanish Creole, the next two most common languages. Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA has a large population of military personnel who served in false, N/A times greater than any other conflict. In 2016, universities in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA awarded 648 degrees. The student population of Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA is skewed towards women, with 1,631 male students and 1,844 female students. Most students graduating from Universities in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA are White (530 and 83.2%), followed by Black or African American (61 and 9.58%), Hispanic or Latino (35 and 5.49%), and Asian (7 and 1.1%). The largest universities in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA by number of degrees awarded are Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (648 and 100%). The most popular majors in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA are Liberal Arts & Sciences (293 and 45.2%), Registered Nursing (112 and 17.3%), and Other Agriculture, Operations, & Related Sciences (84 and 13%). The median tuition costs in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA are $N/A for private four year colleges, and $2,451 and $9,058 respectively, for public four year colleges for in-state students and out-of-state students. Associates DegreeBachelors Degree Liberal Arts & Sciences Registered Nursing Forest Technology In 2015, the most common concentation for Associates Degree recipients in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA was Liberal Arts & Sciences with 278 degrees awarded. This visualization illustrates the percentage of students graduating with a Associates Degree from schools in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA according to their major. Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College In 2016, the Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA institution with the largest number of graduating students was Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College with 648 degrees awarded. In 2016, 308 men were awarded degrees from institutions in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA, which is 0.906 times less than the 340 female students who received degrees in the same year. This chart displays the gender disparity between the institutions in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA by degrees awarded. In 2016 the majority of degrees awarded at institutions in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA were to White students. These 530 degrees mean that there were 8.69 times more White students then the next closest race/ethnicity group, Black or African American, with 61 degrees awarded. The median property value in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA was $88,900 in 2017, which is 0.409 times smaller than the national average of $217,600. Between 2016 and 2017 the median property value increased from $88,200 to $88,900, a 0.794% increase. The homeownership rate in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA is 65.2%, which is higher than the national average of 63.9%. People in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA have an average commute time of 21 minutes, and they commute by N/A. Car ownership in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA is approximately the same as the national average, with an average of N/A per household. In 2017, the median household income of the N/A households in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA grew to $36,709 from the previous year's value of $34,427. The following chart displays the households in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA distributed between a series of income buckets compared to the national averages for each bucket. The largest share of households have an income in the N/A range. In 2017, the median property value in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA grew to to $88,900 from the previous year's value of $88,200. The following charts display, first, the property values in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA compared to it's parent and neighbor geographies and, second, owner-occupied housing units distributed between a series of property value buckets compared to the national averages for each bucket. In Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA the largest share of households have a property value in the N/A range. This chart shows the households in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA distributed between a series of property tax buckets compared to the national averages for each bucket. In Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA the largest share of households pay taxes in the < $800 range. In 2017, 65.2% of the housing units in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA were occupied by their owner. This percentage declined from the previous year's rate of 65.5%. This percentage of owner-occupation is higher than the national average of 63.9%. This chart shows the ownership percentage in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA compared it's parent and neighboring geographies. The following chart displays the households in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA distributed between a series of car ownership buckets compared to the national averages for each bucket. The largest share of households in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA have N/A, followed by N/A. Using averages, employees in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA have a shorter commute time (21 minutes) than the normal US worker (25.1 minutes). Additionally, 2.02% of the workforce in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA have "super commutes" in excess of 90 minutes. The chart below shows how the median household income in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA compares to that of it's neighboring and parent geographies. In N/A, the most common method of travel for workers in Southern Georgia Regional Commission (West) PUMA, GA was N/A, followed by those who N/A and those who N/A. Apalachee Region (Outside Leon County) PUMA, FL Southern Georgia Regional Commission (East & Central) PUMA, GA River Valley Regional Commission (Outside Muscogee & Chattahoochee Counties) PUMA, GA Heart of Georgia Altamaha Regional Commission (Southeast) PUMA, GA	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12839
__label__wiki	0.749744	0.749744	Lincoln Christian University Special Focus Institutions 2015 Student Loan Default Rate 399 Applicants 56.9% Full-Time 55 Graduates Lincoln Christian University is a higher education institution located in Logan County, IL. In 2016, the most popular Bachelor's Degree concentrations at Lincoln Christian University were Organizational Leadership (18 degrees awarded), Theological Studies (16 degrees), and Missionary Studies & Missiology (16 degrees). In 2016, 252 degrees were awarded across all undergraduate and graduate programs at Lincoln Christian University. 41.3% of these degrees were awarded to women, and 58.7% awarded men. The majority of degree recipients were white (211 degrees), 12.4 times more than then the next closest race/ethnicity group, black or african american (17 degrees). The median undergraduate tuition at Lincoln Christian University is $13,020, which is $-951 less than the national average for Special Focus Institutions ($13,971). Special Focus Four-Year: Faith-Related InstitutionsSpecial Focus Institutions In 2016, the cost of tuition at Lincoln Christian University was $13,020. The cost of tuition at Lincoln Christian University is $-951 less than than the overall (public and private) national average for Special Focus Institutions ($13,971). This chart compares the tuition costs of Lincoln Christian University (in red) with those of other similar universities. In 2016 Lincoln Christian University had an average net price — the price paid after factoring in grants and loans — of $20,123. Between 2015 and 2016, the average net price of Lincoln Christian University grew by 5.54%. This chart compares the average net price of Lincoln Christian University (in red) with that of other similar universities. The average yearly cost of room and board at Lincoln Christian University was of $6,865 in 2016. During the same period, the average yearly cost of books and supplies was $1,000. The cost of room and board decreased by 0.45% between 2015 and 2016. The cost of books and supplies did not change during the same period. This chart compares the average student costs at Lincoln Christian University (in red) with that of similar universities. 87% of undergraduate students at Lincoln Christian University received grants or loans in 2016. This represents a growth of 3.57% with respect to 2015, when 84% of undergraduate students received financial aid. This chart compares the average award discount at Lincoln Christian University (in red) with that of other similar universities. 2015 Default Rate In 2015 the default rate for borrower's at Lincoln Christian University was 4.19%, which represents 13 out of the 310 total borrowers. Lincoln Christian University received 399 undergraduate applications in 2016, which represents a 59.6% annual growth. Out of those 399 applicants, 211 students were accepted for enrollment, representing a 52.9% acceptance rate. There were 775 students enrolled at Lincoln Christian University in 2016, and 4% of first-time enrollees submitted SAT scores with their applications. Lincoln Christian University has an overall enrollment yield of 39.3%, which represents the number of admitted students who ended up enrolling. Accepted Out of 399 In 2016, the undergraduate acceptance rate of Lincoln Christian University was 52.9% (211 admissions from 399 applications). This is lower than the acceptance rate of 2015, which was 59.6%. Between 2015 and 2016, the number of applicants grew by 59.6%, while admissions grew by 41.6%. This chart compares the acceptance rate of Lincoln Christian University (in red) with that of other similar universities. 4% of enrolled first-time students at Lincoln Christian University in 2016 submitted SAT scores with their applications. Lincoln Christian University has a total enrollment of 775 students. The full-time enrollment at Lincoln Christian University is 441 students and the part-time enrollment is 334. This means that 56.9% of students enrolled at Lincoln Christian University are enrolled full-time. The enrolled student population at Lincoln Christian University, both undergraduate and graduate, is 72.3% White, 7.61% Black or African American, 4.39% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders, 2.71% Hispanic or Latino, 1.16% Two or More Races, 1.16% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.774% Asian. Students enrolled at Lincoln Christian University in full-time Undergraduate programs are majority White Male (41.2%), followed by White Female (39%) and Black or African American Female (3.04%). Students enrolled in full-time Graduate programs are majority Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders Female (43%), followed by White Male (35.4%) and Black or African American Male (5.06%). The total enrollment at Lincoln Christian University, both undergraduate and graduate, is 775 students. The full-time enrollment at Lincoln Christian University is 441 and the part-time enrollment is 334. This means that 56.9% of students enrolled at Lincoln Christian University are enrolled full-time compared with 70.8% at similar Special Focus Institutions. This chart shows the full-time vs part-time enrollment status at Lincoln Christian University (in red) compares to similar universities. Retention rate measures the number of first-time students who began their studies the previous fall and returned to school the following fall. The retention rate for full-time undergraduates at Lincoln Christian University was 57%. Compared with the full-time retention rate at similar Special Focus Institutions (71%), Lincoln Christian University had a retention rate lower than its peers. This chart shows the retention rate over time at Lincoln Christian University (highlighted in red) compares to similar universities. Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders The enrolled student population at Lincoln Christian University is 72.3% White, 7.61% Black or African American, 4.39% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders, 2.71% Hispanic or Latino, 1.16% Two or More Races, 1.16% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.774% Asian. This includes both full-time and part-time students as well as graduate and undergraduates. By comparison, enrollment for all Special Focus Institutions is 45.5% White, 15.4% Black or African American, and 15.3% Hispanic or Latino. Any student who is studying in the United States on a temporary basis is categorized as a "Non-Resident Alien", and the share of those students are shown in the chart below. Additionally, 42 students (5.42%) did not report their race. In 2016, 44 fewer women than men received degrees from Lincoln Christian University. The majority of degree recipients at Lincoln Christian University are white (211 degrees awarded). There were 12.4 times more white graduates than the next closest race/ethnicity group, black or african american (17 degrees). The most common Bachelor's Degree concentration at Lincoln Christian University is Organizational Leadership (18 degrees awarded), followed by Theological Studies (16 degrees) and Missionary Studies & Missiology (16 degrees). The most specialized majors across all degree types at Lincoln Christian University, meaning they have significantly more degrees awarded in that concentration than the national average across all institutions, are Theology (145 degrees awarded), Psychology (29 degrees), and Philosophy and Religious Studies (2 degrees). Elementary & middle school teachers The most common jobs for people who hold a degree in one of the 5 most specialized majors at Lincoln Christian University are Elementary & middle school teachers (2,103,526 people), Accountants & auditors (1,113,355 people), Miscellaneous managers (813,477 people), Financial managers (443,940 people), and Education administrators (365,566 people). The most specialized majors at Lincoln Christian University are Theology (145 degrees awarded), Psychology (29 degrees), Philosophy and Religious Studies (2 degrees), Education (25 degrees), and Business (37 degrees). The highest paying jobs for people who hold a degree in one of the 5 most specialized majors at Lincoln Christian University are Physicians & surgeons, Aircraft pilots & flight engineers, Dentists, Financial analysts, and Pharmacists The most common industries for people who hold a degree in one of the 5 most specialized majors at Lincoln Christian University are Elementary & secondary schools (3,326,505 people), Colleges, universities & professional schools, including junior colleges (625,891 people), Insurance carriers & related activities (614,709 people), Hospitals (559,358 people), and Banking & related activities (516,577 people). IPEDS uses the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) standard, so the categories may not match the exact concentrations offered by Lincoln Christian University. Missionary Studies & Missiology In 2016, the most common bachelors degree concentration at Lincoln Christian University was Organizational Leadership with 18 degrees awarded. This visualization illustrates the percentage of degree recipients from bachelors degree programs at Lincoln Christian University according to their major. In 2016, 148 degrees were awarded to men at Lincoln Christian University, which is 1.42 times more than the number of degrees awarded to females (104). This chart displays the gender disparity between the top 5 majors at Lincoln Christian University by degrees awarded. In 2016, 26 degrees were awarded to men at Lincoln Christian University in Other Theological & Ministerial Studies, which is 3.25 times more than the 8 female recipients with that same degree. In 2016, 14 degrees were awarded to women at Lincoln Christian University in Missionary Studies & Missiology, which is 2.8 times more than the 5 male recipients with that same degree. In 2016, 31% of students graduating from Lincoln Christian University completed their program within 100% "normal time" (i.e. 4 years for a 4-year degree). Comparatively, 51% completed their degrees within 150% of the normal time, and 51% within 200%. The following chart shows these completion rates over time compared to the average for the Special Focus Institutions Carnegie Classification group. Highest Graduation Rate (100%) The student demographic with the highest graduation rate at Lincoln Christian University is Male and Asian (100% graduation rate). Across all Special Focus Institutions, Asian Female students have the highest graduation rate (67.2%). The most common race/ethnicity at Lincoln Christian University is white (211 degrees awarded). There were 12.4 times more white recipients than the next closest race/ethnicity group, black or african american (17 degrees). The most common race/ethnicity and gender grouping at Lincoln Christian University is white male (129 degrees awarded). There were 1.57 times more white male recipients than the next closest race/ethnicity group, white female (82 degrees). Lincoln Christian University has an endowment valued at nearly $4.97M, as of the end of the 2015 fiscal year. The return on its endowment was of $121k (2.44%), compared to the 0.512% average return ($49.1k on $9.59M) across all Special Focus Institutions. In 2015, Lincoln Christian University had a total expenditure of $12M. Of that $12M, they spent $6.01M on salaries and $12M on benefits. Lincoln Christian University employs 20 Professors, 7 Associate professors, and 5 Assistant professors. Most academics at Lincoln Christian University are Male Professors (16), Male Associate professors(5), and Female Professors (4). The most common positions for non-instructional staff at Lincoln Christian University are: Service, with 13 employees, Librarians, Curators, Archivists, and Academic Affairs and Other Education Services, with 13 employees, and Office and Administrative Support with 11 employees. Lincoln Christian University has an endowment valued at about $4.97M, as of the end of the 2015 fiscal year. The endowment of Lincoln Christian University grew 5.49% from the previous year. The value of their endowment was $4.62M lower than than the median endowment of Special Focus Institutions according to the Carnegie Classification grouping. This line chart shows how the endowment at Lincoln Christian University (in red) compares to that of some similar universities. The small bar chart below shows the endowment quintiles for all universities in the Special Focus Four-Year: Faith-Related Institutions Carnegie Classification grouping. As of 2015, Lincoln Christian University received $0 in grants and contracts from the federal government, $0 from state grants and contracts, and $0 from local grants and contracts. The bar chart shows the share of the primary expenses at Lincoln Christian University over time, and the line chart shows the expenditure for solely salaries and benefits over time compared to the median for the Special Focus Institutions Carnegie Classification grouping. This tree map shows all of the primary expenses of Research at Lincoln Christian University as a share of total expenditure. decline from 2014 In 2015, Lincoln Christian University paid a median of $6.01M in salaries, which represents 50.2% of their overall expenditure ($12M) and a 9.83% decline from the previous year. This is compared to a 0.585% decline from 2013 and a 2% growth from 2012. The median for similar Special Focus Institutions is 2.52M (38.1% of overall expenditures). In 2015, Lincoln Christian University paid a total of $1.82M to 34 employees working as instructors, which represents 30.4% of all salaries paid. This is compared to a median of $639k (25.3%) for similar Special Focus Institutions. In 2016, the most common positions for instructional staff at Lincoln Christian University were Professor with 20 employees; Associate professor with 7 employees; and Associate professor with 5 employees. In 2016, the most common positions for non-instructional staff at Lincoln Christian University were Service with 13 employees; Librarians, Curators, Archivists, and Academic Affairs and Other Education Services with 13 employees; and Office and Administrative Support with 11 employees. Male Professor Male Associate professor Female Professor In 2016, the most common demographic for instructional staff at Lincoln Christian University was Male Professor with 16 employees, Male Associate professor with 5 employees, and Female Professor with 4 employees. This chart shows the gender split between each academic rank present at Lincoln Christian University. The Christ College of Nursing and Health Sciences Cabarrus College of Health Sciences Trinity Baptist College	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12841
__label__cc	0.724626	0.275374	Aggression underlies the drive to be outstanding, to be unstoppable, to compete, to win—to be actively virtuous, at least along one dimension. Determination is its admirable, pro-social face. 2:35 - Interlude 4:53 - Danger & Mastery 7:20 - Success & Resentment 13:45 - Self-Appointed Judges Of The Human Race 16:23 - The Patriarchy: Help Or Hindrance? 32:48 - Lest We Forget: Ideas Have Consequences 37:50 - Boys Into Girls 45:00 - Compassion As A Vice 51:18 - Toughen Up, You Weasel 105:10 - Book end: post reflection. If you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of. DANGER AND MASTERY When untrammeled—and encouraged—we prefer to live on the edge. There, we can still be both confident in our experience and confronting the chaos that helps us develop. We’re hard-wired, for that reason, to enjoy risk (some of us more than others). We feel invigorated and excited when we work to optimize our future performance, while playing in the present. Otherwise we lumber around, sloth-like, unconscious, unformed and careless. Overprotected, we will fail when something dangerous, unexpected and full of opportunity suddenly makes its appearance, as it inevitably will. SUCCESS AND RESENTMENT If you read the depth psychologists—Freud and Jung, for example, as well as their precursor, Friedrich Nietzsche—you learn that there is a dark side to everything. It is because of of Freud, Jung, Nietzsche—and Orwell—that I always wonder, “What, then, do you stand against?” whenever I hear someone say, too loudly, “I stand for this!” The question seems particularly relevant if the same someone is complaining, criticizing, or trying to change someone else’s behaviour. I believe it was Jung who developed the most surgically wicked of psychoanalytic dicta: if you cannot understand why someone did something, look at the consequences—and infer the motivation. This is a psychological scalpel. It’s not always a suitable instrument. It can cut too deeply, or in the wrong places. It is, perhaps, a last-resort option. Nonetheless, there are times when its application proves enlightening. When someone claims to be acting from the highest principles, for the good of others, there is no reason to assume that the person’s motives are genuine. People motivated to make things better usually aren’t concerned with changing other people—or, if they are, they take responsibility for making the same changes to themselves (and first). SELF-APPOINTED JUDGES OF THE HUMAN RACE We’ve only just developed the conceptual tools and technologies that allow us to understand the web of life, however imperfectly. We deserve a bit of sympathy, in consequence, for the hypothetical outrage of our destructive behaviour. Sometimes we don’t know any better. Sometimes we do know better, but haven’t yet formulated any practical alternatives. It’s not as if life is easy for human beings, after all, even now—and it’s only a few decades ago that the majority of human beings were starving, diseased and illiterate. Wealthy as we are (increasingly, everywhere) we still only live decades that can be counted on our fingers. Even at present, it is the rare and fortunate family that does not contain at least one member with a serious illness—and all will face that problem eventually. We do what we can to make the best of things, in our vulnerability and fragility, and the planet is harder on us than we are on it. We could cut ourselves some slack. THE PATRIARCHY: HELP OR HINDRANCE? Of course, culture is an oppressive structure. It’s always been that way. It’s a fundamental, universal existential reality. The tyrannical king is a symbolic truth; an archetypal constant. What we inherit from the past is willfully blind, and out of date. It’s a ghost, a machine, and a monster. It must be rescued, repaired and kept at bay by the attention and effort of the living. It crushes, as it hammers us into socially acceptable shape, and it wastes great potential. But it offers great gain, too. Every word we speak is a gift from our ancestors. Every thought we think was thought previously by someone smarter. The highly functional infrastructure that surrounds us, particularly in the West, is a gift from our ancestors: the comparatively uncorrupt political and economic systems, the technology, the wealth, the lifespan, the freedom, the luxury, and the opportunity. Culture takes with one hand, but in some fortunate places it gives more with the other. To think about culture only as oppressive is ignorant and ungrateful, as well as dangerous. This is not to say (as I am hoping the content of this book has made abundantly clear, so far) that culture should not be subject to criticism. It is perverse to consider culture the creation of men. Culture is symbolically, archetypally, mythically male. That’s partly why the idea of ‘the patriarchy’ is so easily swallowed. But it is certainly the creation of humankind, not the creation of men (let alone white men, who nonetheless contributed their fair share). European culture has only been dominant, to the degree that it is dominant at all, for about four hundred years. On the time scale of cultural evolution—which is to be measured, at minimum, in thousands of years—such a timespan barely registers. Consider this, as well, in regard to oppression: any hierarchy creates winners and losers. The winners are, of course, more likely to justify the hierarchy and the losers to criticize it. But (1) the collective pursuit of any valued goal produces a hierarchy (as some will be better and some worse at that pursuit no matter what it is) and (2) it is the pursuit of goals that in large part lends life its sustaining meaning. We experience almost all the emotions that make life deep and engaging as a consequence of moving successfully towards something deeply desired and valued. The price we pay for that involvement is the inevitable creation of hierarchies of success, while the inevitable consequence is difference in outcome. Absolute equality would therefore require the sacrifice of value itself—and then there would be nothing worth living for. We might instead note with gratitude that a complex, sophisticated culture allows for many games and many successful players, and that a well-structured culture allows the individuals that compose it to play and to win, in many different fashions. It is also perverse to consider culture the creation of men. Culture is symbolically, archetypally, mythically male. That’s partly why the idea of “the patriarchy” is so easily swallowed. But it is certainly the creation of humankind, not the creation of men (let alone white men, who nonetheless contributed their fair share). European culture has only been dominant, to the degree that it is dominant at all, for about four hundred years. On the time scale of cultural evolution—which is to be measured, at minimum, in thousands of years—such a timespan barely registers. Furthermore, even if women contributed nothing substantial to art, literature and the sciences prior to the 1960s and the feminist revolution (which is not something I believe), then the role they played raising children and working on the farms was still instrumental in raising boys and freeing up men—a very few men—so that humanity could propagate itself and strive forward. Here’s an alternative theory: throughout history, men and women both struggled terribly for freedom from the overwhelming horrors of privation and necessity. Women were often at a disadvantage during that struggle, as they had all the vulnerabilities of men, with the extra reproductive burden, and less physical strength. In addition to the filth, misery, disease, starvation, cruelty and ignorance that characterized the lives of both sexes, back before the twentieth century (when even people in the Western world typically existed on less than a dollar a day in today’s money) women also had to put up with the serious practical inconvenience of menstruation, the high probability of unwanted pregnancy, the chance of death or serious damage during childbirth, and the burden of too many young children. Perhaps that is sufficient reason for the different legal and practical treatment of men and women that characterized most societies prior to the recent technological revolutions, including the invention of the birth control pill. At least such things might be taken into account, before the assumption that men tyrannized women is accepted as a truism. It looks to me like the so-called oppression of the patriarchy was instead an imperfect collective attempt by men and women, stretching over millennia, to free each other from privation, disease and drudgery. The recent case of Arunachalam Muruganantham provides a salutary example. This man, the “tampon king” of India, became unhappy because his wife had to use dirty rags during her menstrual period. She told him it was either expensive sanitary napkins, or milk for the family. He spent the next fourteen years in a state of insanity, by his neighbours’ judgment, trying to rectify the problem. Even his wife and his mother abandoned him, briefly, terrified as they became of his obsession. When he ran out of female volunteers to test his product, he took to wearing a bladder of pig’s blood as a replacement. I can’t see how this behaviour would have improved his popularity or status. Now his low-cost and locally made napkins are distributed across India, manufactured by women-run self-help groups. His users have been provided with freedom they never previously experienced. In 2014, this high-school dropout was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. I am unwilling to consider personal gain Muruganantham’s primary motivation. Is he part of the patriarchy? In 1847, James Young Simpson used ether to help a woman who had a deformed pelvis give birth. Afterwards, he switched to the better-performing chloroform. The first baby delivered under its influence was named “Anaesthesia.” By 1853, chloroform was esteemed enough to be used by Queen Victoria, who delivered her seventh baby under its influence. Remarkably soon afterward, the option of painless childbirth was available everywhere. A few people warned of the danger of opposing God’s pronouncement to women in Genesis 3:16: “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children…” Some also opposed its use among males: young, healthy, courageous men simply did not need anaesthesia. Such opposition was ineffectual. Use of anaesthesia spread with extreme rapidity (and far faster than would be possible today). Even prominent churchmen supported its use. The first practical tampon, Tampax, didn’t arrive until the 1930s. It was invented by Dr. Earle Cleveland Haas. He made it of compressed cotton, and designed an applicator from paper tubes. This helped lessen resistance to the products by those who objected to the self-touching that might otherwise occur. By the early 1940s, 25 percent of women were using them. Thirty years later, it was 70 percent. Now it’s four out of five, with the remainder relying on pads, which are now hyper-absorbent, and held in place by effective adhesives (opposed to the awkwardly placed, bulky, belted, diaper-like sanitary napkins of the 1970s). Did Muruganantham, Simpson and Haas oppress women, or free them? What about Gregory Goodwin Pincus, who invented the birth control pill? In what manner were these practical, enlightened, persistent men part of a constricting patriarchy? Why do we teach our young people that our incredible culture is the result of male oppression? Blinded by this central assumption disciplines as diverse as education, social work, art history, gender studies, literature, sociology and, increasingly, law actively treat men as oppressors and men’s activity as inherently destructive. They also often directly promote radical political action—radical by all the norms of the societies within which they are situated—which they do not distinguish from education. The Pauline Jewett Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies at Ottawa’s Carleton University, for example, encourages activism as part of their mandate. The Gender Studies Department at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, teaches feminist, anti-racist, and queer theories and “methods that centre activism for social change”—indicating support for the supposition that university education should above all foster political engagement of a particular kind. LEST WE FORGET: IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES Power is a fundamental motivational force (“a,” not “the”). People compete to rise to the top, and they care where they are in dominance hierarchies. But (and this is where you separate the metaphorical boys from the men, philosophically) the fact that power plays a role in human motivation does not mean that it plays the only role, or even the primary role. There are other serious problems lurking in the radical disciplines, apart from the falseness of their theories and methods, and their insistence that collective political activism is morally obligatory. There isn’t a shred of hard evidence to support any of their central claims: that Western society is pathologically patriarchal; that the prime lesson of history is that men, rather than nature, were the primary source of the oppression of women (rather than, as in most cases, their partners and supporters); that all hierarchies are based on power and aimed at exclusion. Hierarchies exist for many reasons—some arguably valid, some not—and are incredibly ancient, evolutionarily speaking. Do male crustaceans oppress female crustaceans? Should their hierarchies be upended? In societies that are well-functioning—not in comparison to a hypothetical utopia, but contrasted with other existing or historical cultures—competence, not power, is a prime determiner of status. Competence. Ability. Skill. Not power. BOYS INTO GIRLS It has become a tenet of a certain kind of social constructionist theory that the world would be much improved if boys were socialized like girls. Those who put forward such theories assume, first, that aggression is a learned behaviour, and can therefore simply not be taught, and second (to take a particular example) that, “boys should be socialized the way girls have been traditionally socialized, and they should be encouraged to develop socially positive qualities such as tenderness, sensitivity to feelings, nurturance, cooperative and aesthetic appreciation.” In the opinions of such thinkers, aggression will only be reduced when male adolescents and young adults “subscribe to the same standards of behavior as have been traditionally encouraged for women.” There are so many things wrong with this idea that it is difficult to know where to start. First, it is not the case that aggression is merely learned. Aggression is there at the beginning. There are ancient biological circuits, so to speak, that underlie defensive and predatory aggression. They are so fundamental that they still operate in what are known as decorticate cats, animals that have had the largest and most recently evolved parts of their brain—an overwhelmingly large percentage of the total structure—entirely removed. This suggests not only that aggression is innate, but that it is a consequence of activity in extremely fundamental, basic brain areas. If the brain is a tree, then aggression (along with hunger, thirst and sexual desire) is there in the very trunk. COMPASSION AS A VICE Many of the female clients (perhaps even a majority) that I see in my clinical practice have trouble in their jobs and family lives not because they are too aggressive, but because they are not aggressive enough. Cognitive-behavioural therapists call the treatment of such people, generally characterized by the more feminine traits of agreeableness (politeness and compassion) and neuroticism (anxiety and emotional pain), “assertiveness training.” Insufficiently aggressive women—and men, although more rarely—do too much for others. They tend to treat those around them as if they were distressed children. They tend to be naïve. They assume that cooperation should be the basis of all social transactions, and they avoid conflict (which means they avoid confronting problems in their relationships as well as at work). They continually sacrifice for others. This may sound virtuous—and it is definitely an attitude that has certain social advantages—but it can and often does become counterproductively one-sided. Because too-agreeable people bend over backwards for other people, they do not stand up properly for themselves. Assuming that others think as they do, they expect—instead of ensuring—reciprocity for their thoughtful actions. When this does not happen, they don’t speak up. They do not or cannot straightforwardly demand recognition. The dark side of their characters emerges, because of their subjugation, and they become resentful. I teach excessively agreeable people to note the emergence of such resentment, which is a very important, although very toxic, emotion. There are only two major reasons for resentment: being taken advantage of (or allowing yourself to be taken advantage of), or whiny refusal to adopt responsibility and grow up. If you’re resentful, look for the reasons. Perhaps discuss the issue with someone you trust. Are you feeling hard done by, in an immature manner? If, after some honest consideration, you don’t think it’s that, perhaps someone is taking advantage of you. This means that you now face a moral obligation to speak up for yourself. TOUGHEN UP, YOU WEASEL Men enforce a code of behaviour on each other, when working together. Do your work. Pull your weight. Stay awake and pay attention. Don’t whine or be touchy. Stand up for your friends. Don’t suck up and don’t snitch. Don’t be a slave to stupid rules. Don’t, in the immortal words of Arnold Schwarzenegger, be a girlie man. Don’t be dependent. At all. Ever. Period. The harassment that is part of acceptance on a working crew is a test: are you tough, entertaining, competent and reliable? If not, go away. Simple as that. We don’t need to feel sorry for you. We don’t want to put up with your narcissism, and we don’t want to do your work. It is to women’s clear advantage that men do not happily put up with dependency among themselves. Part of the reason that so many a working-class woman does not marry, now, as we have alluded to, is because she does not want to look after a man, struggling for employment, as well as her children. And fair enough. A woman should look after her children—although that is not all she should do. And a man should look after a woman and children—although that is not all he should do. But a woman should not look after a man, because she must look after children, and a man should not be a child. This means that he must not be dependent. This is one of the reasons that men have little patience for dependent men. And let us not forget: wicked women may produce dependent sons, may support and even marry dependent men, but awake and conscious women want an awake and conscious partner. When softness and harmlessness become the only consciously acceptable virtues, then hardness and dominance will start to exert an unconscious fascination. Partly what this means for the future is that if men are pushed too hard to feminize, they will become more and more interested in harsh, fascist political ideology. Men have to toughen up. Men demand it, and women want it, even though they may not approve of the harsh and contemptuous attitude that is part and parcel of the socially demanding process that fosters and then enforces that toughness. Some women don’t like losing their baby boys, so they keep them forever. Some women don’t like men, and would rather have a submissive mate, even if he is useless. This also provides them with plenty to feel sorry for themselves about, as well. The pleasures of such self-pity should not be underestimated. Men toughen up by pushing themselves, and by pushing each other. If they’re healthy, women don’t want boys. They want men. They want someone to contend with; someone to grapple with. If they’re tough, they want someone tougher. If they’re smart, they want someone smarter. They desire someone who brings to the table something they can’t already provide. This often makes it hard for tough, smart, attractive women to find mates: there just aren’t that many men around who can outclass them enough to be considered desirable (who are higher, as one research publication put it, in “income, education, self-confidence, intelligence, dominance and social position”). The spirit that interferes when boys are trying to become men is, therefore, no more friend to woman than it is to man. It will object, just as vociferously and self-righteously (“you can’t do it, it’s too dangerous”) when little girls try to stand on their own two feet. It negates consciousness. It’s antihuman, desirous of failure, jealous, resentful and destructive. No one truly on the side of humanity would ally him or herself with such a thing. No one aiming at moving up would allow him or herself to become possessed by such a thing. And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men are capable of. Leave children alone when they are skateboarding Sep 14 38 - 12 RULES FOR LIFE: RULE 10 \| BE PRECISE IN YOUR SPEECH	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12843
__label__cc	0.601582	0.398418	113TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER held by ST.GEORGE'S SOCIETY OF NEW YORK at "DELMONICO'S, NEW YORK, NY" (REST;) 113TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER [held by] ST.GEORGE'S SOCIETY OF NEW YORK [at] "DELMONICO'S, NEW YORK, NY" (REST;) MENU IN FRENCH;TOASTS;GOD SAVE THE QUEEN AND THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER PRINTED ON THE BACK COVER Rare Book Division. The New York Public Library http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47db-373d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 The organization that has made the Item available believes that the Item is in the Public Domain under the laws of the United States, but a determination was not made as to its copyright status under the copyright laws of other countries. The Item may not be in the Public Domain under the laws of other countries. Please refer to the organization that has made the Item available for more information. http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/ 113TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER [held by] ST.GEORGE'S SOCIETY OF NEW YORK [at] "DELMONICO'S, NEW YORK, NY" (REST;). 1899. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47db-373d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99. (Accessed July 18, 2019.) (1899) 113TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER [held by] ST.GEORGE'S SOCIETY OF NEW YORK [at] "DELMONICO'S, NEW YORK, NY" (REST;). Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47db-373d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America <http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47db-373d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99>.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12846
__label__wiki	0.900585	0.900585	The structure and functions of a prefect system in primary schools predominantly attended by black learners boweni_gp.pdf (7.119Mb) Boweni, Gaopotlake Puxley The purpose of this research was to investigate the structure and function of a prefect system in primary schools predominantly attended by black learners. It is the wish of learners to partake fully in school governance to bring about desirable changes within the education system. The riots that broke out in 1976, proved beyond doubt that learners no longer wished to be onlookers in the system, but to actively take part in stabilising it for their own future. In the past, learners who served in the prefect council were randomly chosen and elected by the principal and the staff. This was done in isolation of the learners in the school. Favouritism and popularity were the main features for a learner to be elected. At any given moment during the course of the year, a member of the council who did not perform according to the principles as set out by staff members, was sacked and replaced by anybody who they felt would do a better job. The democratic government that was voted for in 1996 brought about drastic changes within the education system. Unlike in the past, where learners were omitted as part of education stakeholders, the present government gives due consideration to learners' inputs and ideas. Legislative Acts such as the South African Schools Act (Act No. 84 of 1996) were passed to accommodate the needs and aspirations of learners. In terms of section 10 (3) of Act No. 84 of 1996, public schools are allowed to institute a prefect system where necessary. The latter statement urged the compilation of this research to bring primary schools predominantly attended by black learners on par with their white counterparts who still make use of the prefect system. The procedure for establishing an effective structure for SRC's in secondary schools is applicable in primary schools as well. The system for the election, nomination and voting in secondary schools can be applied in primary schools as well. The functions of a prefect system that included, among others, monitoring of both educators and learners outside the school premises, have been replaced by functions that lead to the creation of an educative environment within the school. Education [1257]	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12855
__label__wiki	0.825914	0.825914	Never Met Picasso 1996 NR 1h 37m DVD While art-school rejections pour in, gay painter Andrew (Alexis Arquette) looks for love and ponders a trip to Africa. Meanwhile, his lesbian pal Lucy (Georgia Ragsdale) bickers with her girlfriend, and his actress mom (Margot Kidder) takes a journey of self-discovery in this coming-of-age drama. Writer-director Stephen Kijak's feature debut won awards for screenwriting and acting (for Arquette) at the 1997 L.A. Outfest film festival. Margot Kidder, Don McKellar, Georgia Ragsdale, Alexis Arquette Stephen Kijak Drama, LGBT, Indie Dramas, Romantic Dramas	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12856
__label__wiki	0.962126	0.962126	E360 Digest A Massive Seaweed Bloom Now Stretches Across the Atlantic Ocean Sargassum extent from July 2011 to July 2018. NASA/Earth Observatory. Data provided by Mengqiu Wang and Chuanmin Hu, USF College of Marine Science Scientists have discovered a massive seaweed bloom stretching across nearly the entire Atlantic Ocean, from the west coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. The bloom, dubbed the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, first appeared in 2011 and has become an almost yearly occurrence, fueled in part by an influx of nutrients washed out to sea from deforestation and farming in the Amazon, researchers reported in the journal Science. Prior to 2011, most open-ocean Sargassum plants were found in small clumps around the Gulf of Mexico and Sargasso Sea. But in 2011, satellite images showed a near-constant string of the plants stretching across the entire tropical Atlantic Ocean. In subsequent years, the seaweed belt has gotten longer and thicker. Last year, the belt contained more than 20 million tons of Sargassum — heavier than 200 fully loaded aircraft carriers, according to NASA. “I can say that the belt is very likely to be a new normal,” Chuanmin Hu, a marine scientist at the University of South Florida who helped lead the new study, said in a statement. Sargassum provides critical habitat for marine animals such as turtles, crabs, fish, and birds, while also producing oxygen via photosynthesis. But scientists warned in a press release that too much of the seaweed can “make it hard for certain marine species to move or breathe,” can smother corals and seagrasses when it sinks to the ocean floor, and can release hydrogen sulfide gas when it washes ashore. Several countries, including Barbados, have declared national emergencies due to the amount of seaweed accumulating on their beaches and the toll it is taking on the tourism industry. “The scale of these blooms is truly enormous,” said Woody Turner, manager of the Ecological Forecasting Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. When sargassum collects along coastlines and rots, such as seen here in Cancun in 2015, it gives off a rotten egg odor. Courtesy of Michael Owen Hu and his colleagues found that several factors are responsible for the recent seaweed blooms: a large seed population left over from a previous bloom, nutrients from West Africa in the winter, and an input of new nutrients from the Amazon River. Sargassum also only grows abundantly when salinity and surface temperatures are normal. “The ocean’s chemistry must have changed in order for the blooms to get so out of hand,” Hu said. The scientists found that deforestation rates in the Amazon — and the subsequent expansion in farming and use of fertilizers — in particular helped to fuel bigger seaweed blooms. “Earth’s ocean biogeochemistry is changing in response to natural and human forcings,” Paula Bontempi, acting deputy director of NASA’s Earth Science Division, said in a statement. “The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt suggests that we may be witnessing ecosystem shifts in our ocean that could have important implications for marine organisms and ecosystem services, which humans depend on.” By Jon Gertner Polar Warning: Even Antarctica’s Coldest Region Is Starting to Melt	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12857
__label__wiki	0.512552	0.512552	Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution Posted in Science/Biology and Genetics 2012 \| 315 Pages \| ISBN: 1400069378 \| EPUB \| 5.9 MB Christmas, 1859. Just one month after the publication of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin received an unsettling letter. He had expected criticism; in fact, letters were arriving daily, most expressing outrage and accusations of heresy. But this letter was different. It accused him of failing to acknowledge his predecessors, of taking credit for a theory that had already been discovered by others. Darwin realized that he had made an error in omitting from Origin of Species any mention of his intellectual forebears. Yet when he tried to trace all of the natural philosophers who had laid the groundwork for his theory, he found that history had already forgotten many of them. Darwin’s Ghosts tells the story of the collective discovery of evolution, from Aristotle, walking the shores of Lesbos with his pupils, to Al-Jahiz, an Arab writer in the first century, from Leonardo da Vinci, searching for fossils in the mine shafts of the Tuscan hills, to Denis Diderot in Paris, exploring the origins of species while under the surveillance of the secret police, and the brilliant naturalists of the Jardin de Plantes, finding evidence for evolutionary change in the natural history collections stolen during the Napoleonic wars. Evolution was not discovered single-handedly, Rebecca Stott argues, contrary to what has become standard lore, but is an idea that emerged over many centuries, advanced by daring individuals across the globe who had the imagination to speculate on nature’s extraordinary ways, and who had the courage to articulate such speculations at a time when to do so was often considered heresy. With each chapter focusing on an early evolutionary thinker, Darwin’s Ghosts is a fascinating account of a diverse group of individuals who, despite the very real dangers of challenging a system in which everything was presumed to have been created perfectly by God, felt compelled to understand where we came from. Ultimately, Stott demonstrates, ideas-including evolution itself-evolve just as animals and plants do, by intermingling, toppling weaker notions, and developing over stretches of time. Darwin’s Ghosts presents a groundbreaking new theory of an idea that has changed our very understanding of who we are. Darwin’s Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution.epub ← Applied Molecular Biotechnology: The Next Generation of Genetic Engineering Angiogenesis Protocols, 3rd edition →	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12858
__label__wiki	0.815446	0.815446	Discover more about our individual East Dorset publications St Leonards & St Ives St Leonards and St Ives parish, nestled between Ringwood and Ferndown in East Dorset, has a population of just over 6,000.There is a great community spirit and it is a wonderful place to live. On the doorstep are Avon Heath Country Park and Moors Valley Country Park. West Moors The village of West Moors, located between Ferndown and Verwood in East Dorset, has a population of over 7,500. It is a lively village with lots of active clubs and societies, giving it a real community feel. Ferndown & West Parley Ferndown, the second largest inland town in Dorset after Dorchester, with a population of over 26,500 has two golf clubs, a leisure centre and its own theatre at the Barrington Centre. There is the popular King George V playing field, with a play area, sports pitches, tennis courts, boules area and a skate park. Wimborne, famous for its Minster, has a population of over 15,500 and is situated on the River Stour and the River Allen. A vibrant market town that hosts many events throughout the year. It also has a popular theatre, the Tivoli, and its own model town. Contact the team to discuss your advertising requirements. View our complete range of magazines covering our four areas Enjoy browsing back issues for each of our publications Our Other Areas	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12862
__label__wiki	0.985122	0.985122	Woodstock music festival: Original site to hold 3-day 50th anniversary concert The crowd on Day 1 of the Woodstock Festival on August 15, 1969. Clayton Call/Redferns BETHEL, N.Y. — A three-day music festival will be held in August 2019 at the original Woodstock concert site to mark the 50th anniversary of the historic event. The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, a concert venue built on the original Woodstock site, announced Thursday that it will host the golden anniversary event Aug. 16-18. READ MORE: ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ takes TV viewing to an entirely new level The centre says performers will include “prominent and emerging artists spanning multiple genres and decades.” The venue says talks by “leading futurists and retro-tech experts” will also be featured. Beth Woods says the names of performers and speakers will be announced soon. The Woodstock Music and Arts Fair held Aug. 15-17, 1969 drew more than 400,000 people to Max Yasgur’s farm in the Sullivan County town of Bethel, 137 kilometres northwest of New York City.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12863
__label__cc	0.670818	0.329182	solar-plus-storage Tesla and the South Australian government announced in early February that they were planning the largest “virtual power plant” (VPP) in the world. The VPP... Thousands of Floridians sheltered in 115 schools powered by solar-plus-storage in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, able to charge their mobile phones to call their... What value is resilience to energy storage systems? New findings from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Clean Energy Group (CEG) that when the value of resilience is... Have residential Virtual Power Plants come of age? Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) are not a new technology — the linking up of decentralised energy resources (DERs) to flexibly and reliably respond to grid... How can energy storage projects be made bankable? 2017 has been a big year for energy storage projects — Aliso Canyon, California’s six month rapid-fire deployment of 100 MW of storage in response... Can regulated utilities prove the business case for energy storage? Many of the most talked about energy storage projects of 2017 were commissioned or supported by regulated utilities. The trend shows no sign of slowing... Will early solar-plus-storage investors gain upper hand in Southeast Asia? Panelists at the Solar and Off-Grid Renewables Southeast Asia event in Bangkok this year could not agree whether solar-plus-storage was already an economically viable solution....	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12864
__label__wiki	0.843934	0.843934	Jonathan Cain: Steve Perry Pretty Much Said ‘Lose My Number’ Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain revealed that he's had almost no direct contact with Steve Perry since the former singer “pretty much said, ‘Lose my number.’” Even though he was complimentary toward Perry’s comeback album Traces, and noted that he wrote positively about the singer in his book, Cain said he's accepted the position and it was Perry’s “loss” if he didn’t want to keep in touch. In a new interview with Michael Cavacini, the keyboardist was asked if he’s tried to reach out since Perry attended Journey’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. “No,” Cain said. “He already said, in so many words, that he’s not interested in a relationship with me or Neal [Schon].” He added that Perry refused to talk about Cain’s book when interviewers brought it up. “That’s his loss – whatever," he said. "I don’t live like that. Your decisions and your relationships are what you make them. If he chooses not to have one with myself or Neal, that’s not my wish. But I’m understanding of his space, and I’ll leave it at that. To me, Journey just sold a million tickets on this last tour – our most successful one ever with Arnel [Pineda] – and I choose to be grateful for that.” Responding to the speculation that Perry wanted to avoid re-connection “because he’s afraid of something happening,” Cain said, “I can’t even go there. You’d have to ask him. I remember when we decided to move on without him. Steve pretty much said, in so many words, ‘Lose my number.’ I don’t have Steve’s number and I don’t talk to him. If he needs something, the publisher reaches out to us.” He described Perry as having always been “very cooperative” when it came to making decisions over the band’s business dealings. “I’m usually in complete agreement with anything he says,” Cain explained. “He has his life and we have our band and we move on. I can’t really control that situation. It’s what we make of it and that’s where we’re at.” Perry ruled out a reunion with Journey on a number of occasions last year. “You can still love someone, but not want to work with them," he said. "And if they only love you because they want to work with you, that doesn’t feel good to me.” He noted that he didn’t “really care to read Jonathan’s book,” describing the memoir as “none of my business.” Journey Albums Ranked Next: Top 10 Post-Steve Perry Journey Songs Source: Jonathan Cain: Steve Perry Pretty Much Said ‘Lose My Number’ Filed Under: Jonathan Cain, journey, steve perry	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12868
__label__wiki	0.867191	0.867191	Worm Species Lost 7,000 Genes After Evolving to Fertilize Itself “Killer Sperm” Prevents Mating Between Worm Species Most cross-species mating is merely unsuccessful in producing offspring. However, when researchers mated worms of different species, they saw devastating consequences for the female worms. Color Vision Found in Fish that Live in Near Darkness New research reveals signs of highly sensitive color vision in fish that live in the abyss beyond sunlight’s reach. Fungal Disease Threatens Hundreds of Amphibian Species Worldwide Global-scale analysis of losses due to chytrid fungus paints a grim picture: 500 species declines, 90 of which have already been lost. UMD-led study finds that a species of self-fertilizing worm lost one-fourth of its genome, including genes that make sperm competitive Reproduction in most animal species requires breeding between two individuals. But some worms have evolved the ability to go it alone. In these species, a single individual can breed with itself to produce offspring. A new University of Maryland-led study found that gaining this ability, known as “selfing,” may have caused a worm species to lose a quarter of its genome, including genes that give male sperm a competitive edge during mating. “Our results suggest that genes that are essential for tens of millions of years can suddenly become useless or liabilities, even, when the sex system changes,” said Eric Haag, a professor of biology at UMD and lead investigator of the study, which was published in the journal Science on January 5, 2018. A million years ago, a species of tiny worms called Caenorhabditis briggsae evolved the ability to breed via selfing. As a result, most C. briggsae are hermaphrodites with both male and female sex organs. Haag’s group, which focuses on the evolution of sex, has long studied C. briggsae because of their unusual reproductive behavior. To study how selfing shaped the evolution of C. briggsae, Erich Schwarz, an assistant research professor of molecular biology and genetics at Cornell University and co-corresponding author of the study, sequenced the genome of Caenorhabditis nigoni, the closest relative of C. briggsae. C. nigoni always reproduce by mating with other individuals, or outcrossing. By comparing the genomes of the two species, the researchers found that the selfing C. briggsae worms had 7,000 fewer genes than C. nigoni. Over time, C. briggsae lost approximately a quarter of its genome. Because the two worms differ primarily in their method of reproduction, the researchers hypothesized that the shift from outcrossing to selfing led to the gene loss. To confirm this, they compared gene activity in C. nigoni males and females and found that almost three-quarters of the genes that C. briggsae lost were more active in C. nigoni males than females. Seeking possible sex-related functions for the lost genes, the researchers focused on a family of “male secreted short” (mss) genes that C. nigoni had but C. briggsae did not have. In fact, no known selfing Caenorhabditis species have mss genes. And mss genes are only active in the male worms of outcrossing species, according to previous research conducted by Haag, Schwarz, former UMD graduate student Cristel Thomas (Ph.D. ’11, molecular and cellular biology) and former UMD undergraduate student Rebecca Felde (B.S. ’13, biological sciences). Using a gene-editing tool called CRISPR, the researchers removed four mss genes from an outcrossing species, Caenorhabditis remanei. As a result, sperm from male C. remanei worms lacking the proteins the mss genes encode could not compete against sperm from wild-type C. remanei males with the genes. Conversely, when the researchers inserted mss genes into male C. briggsae worms, their sperm outcompeted sperm from wild-type C. briggsae males and from wild-type C. briggsae hermaphrodites. The researchers also found that the mss genes encode short proteins that coat the surface of sperm cells. Taken together, the results suggest that the mss genes give the sperm of male worms a competitive edge during mating. “The fact that all the selfing species lost the mss genes suggests that these genes, which are very useful for worms having male-female sex, are harmful for worms that are no longer having sex with each other,” Haag said. “What we are seeing is an evolutionary snapshot of how a species fine-tunes its reproduction.” The selfing species of worms may have lost the mss genes because having competitive male sperm is harmful, according to Haag. During the study, the researchers discovered that having more competitive male sperm changed the species’ sex ratio towards greater production of males. This shift could put the worms’ survival at risk because having too many males slows population growth, and in the wild the worms must reproduce as fast as possible to survive. Experiments to confirm that competitive male sperm might harm C. briggsae are underway, according to Da Yin, a biological sciences graduate student in Haag’s group and first author of the study. “We have started to compare the growth of C. briggsae populations with and without mss genes, which allows us to test whether mss genes may have been driven out of the genome of C. briggsae by selection,” Yin said. “Our hypothesis is that C. briggsae populations with mss genes will grow slower because of their higher number of males.” Going forward, Haag and his collaborators also plan to investigate how mss genes help sperm compete. They also want to sift through the remaining 7,000 lost genes to discover their roles in C. briggsae. “A very small, but important, number of genes might have very long-standing roles in male-female mating—roles that go back to the beginning of animal life, 700 million years ago,” Schwarz said. Video: Two C. briggsae worms mating A male and a hermaphroditic C. briggsae mating, or breeding via outcrossing. The hermaphrodite is the larger of the pair. Video: Da Yin This work was performed in collaboration with the University of Toronto, the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, Berkeley. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (Award No. 2010-65205-20361), the National Science Foundation/National Institute of Food and Agriculture (Award No. IOS-0923812), the National Institutes of Health (Award Nos. S10 RR029668, GM079414, AI111173 and GM030702), the National Science Foundation (Award No. IOS-1355119), the Moore Foundation (Award No. 4551), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Cornell University startup funds. Some materials were provided by the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (Award No. P40 OD010440). The content of this article does not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations. The research paper, “Rapid genome shrinkage in a self-fertile nematode reveals sperm competition proteins,” Da Yin, Erich Schwarz, Cristel Thomas, Rebecca Felde, Ian Korf, Asher Cutter, Caitlin Schartner, Edward Ralston, Barbara Meyer and Eric Haag, was published in the journal Science on January 5, 2018. Media Relations Contact: Irene Ying, 301-405-5204, zying@umd.edu College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences 2300 Symons Hall www.cmns.umd.edu @UMDscience About the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences The College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland educates more than 7,000 future scientific leaders in its undergraduate and graduate programs each year. The college’s 10 departments and more than a dozen interdisciplinary research centers foster scientific discovery with annual sponsored research funding exceeding $150 million. Eric Haag Rebecca Felde Cristel Thomas Da Yin Biology Research News	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12871
__label__cc	0.582583	0.417417	Filters: First Letter Of Last Name is N [Clear All Filters] Novak, N., & Palenchar M. J. (2012). Uncertainty reduction strategies via Twitter: The 2011 wildfire threat to Los Alamos National Laboratory. Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. Noar, S. M., Zimmerman R., Palmgreen P., Allard S., Lustria M. L. A., Matuza M. L., et al. (2003). Development of a safer sex mass media campaign targeting high sensation-seeking and impulsive decision-making young adults. 2003 National HIV Prevention Conference Abstract Book, M3-C0903. 59-60. Niu, X., & Kelly D. (2014). The Use of Query Suggestions as Idea Tactics during Information Search. Information Processing & Management. 50(1), 218-234. Nikuei, P., Davoodian N., Tahamtan I., & Keshtkar A. Ali (2016). Predictive value of miR-210 as a novel biomarker for pre-eclampsia: a systematic review protocol. BMJ Open. 9(6), Nichols, D., Huntington P., Russell B., Watkinson A., Jamali H. R., & Tenopir C. (2004). The Big Deal: Ten Years On. Learned Publishing. 18, 251-257. Nichols, M., & Palenchar M. J. (2012). Protecting the campus brand: Best practices for external communications during a crisis. Nicholas, D., Watkinson A., Volentine R., Allard S., Levine K. J., Tenopir C., et al. (2014). Trust and Authority in Scholarly Communications in the Light of the Digital Transition: Setting the Scene for a Major Study. Learned Publishing. 27(2), 121-134. Nicholas, D., Huntington P., Jamali H. R., & Tenopir C. (2006). OhioLINK – ten years on: what deep log analysis tells us about the impact of Big Deals. Journal of Documentation. 62, 482-508. Nicholas, D., Watkinson A., Jamali H. R., Herman E., Tenopir C., Volentine R., et al. (2015). Peer Review: Still King in the Digital Age. Learned Publishing . 28(1), 15-21. Nicholas, D., Huntington P., Jamali H. R., & Tenopir C. (2006). Finding information in (very large) digital libraries: a deep log approach to determining differences in use according to method of access. Journal of Academic Librarianship. 32, 119-126. Nicholas, D., Jamali H. R., Watkinson A., Herman E., Tenopir C., Volentine R., et al. (2015). Do Younger Researchers Assess Trustworthiness Differently When Deciding What to Read and Cite and Where to Publish?. International Journal of Knowledge Content Development and Technology. 5(2), Nicholas, D., Huntington P., Jamali H. R., Dobrowolski T., & Tenopir C. (2008). Viewing and Reading Behaviour in a Virtual Enviroment: The Full-Text Download and What Can Be Read Into It. Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives. 60 (3), Nahl-Jakobovits, D., & Tenopir C. (1992). Databases Online and on CD-ROM: How Do They Differ, Let Us Count the Ways. Database. 15, 42-50.. Nahl, D(E.)., & Bilal D. (2007). Information and Emotion: The Emergent Affective Paradigm in Information Behavior Research and Theory. Nahl, D., & Tenopir C. (1996). Affective and Cognitive Searching Behavior of Novice End-Users of a Full-Text Database. Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIS). 47, 276-286.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12872
__label__cc	0.640589	0.359411	Tag Archives: CLEO ROCOS MADAM CYNTHIA PAYNE AND HER ALLEGED HOUSE OF ILL REPUTE, FAVOURED BY A GREAT MANY BRITISH MP’S AND WEALTHY ARISTOCRATS. Posted on October 3, 2011 by CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION R.I.P. CYNTHIA PAYNE ….born December 24 1932, died November 15 2015 BROTHEL QUEEN CYNTHIA IN HER PRIME Sad to hear the news of one of our truly “Great British icons” … Cynthia Payne’s death on Sunday 15 November 2015, whom we have long featured here at Littledean Jail. For a more in depth insight into the life and times of Cynthia please click HERE TITILLATION , A BIT OF FETISH & THE TABOO HERE AT THE JAIL As an allegedly … self proclaimed – politically incorrect tourist attraction , we of course touch upon this industry . On display we have personal exhibit items & signed ephemera from brothel madame … Cynthia Payne including one of her personal & well used whips , luncheon vouchers etc DO NOT FORGET … IF EASILY OFFENDED STAY AWAY FROM LITTLEDEAN JAIL. CLICK ON ABOVE IMAGE TO WATCH CYNTHIA PAYNE NEWS VIDEO 1987: Mrs Payne is no brothel Madam Party planner Cynthia Payne has been acquitted of nine charges of controlling prostitutes at her home in south west London.The courtroom burst into applause after decision of the jury – of eight men and four women – was announced after just over five hours of deliberation. Mrs Payne, 53, said: “This is a victory for common sense. But I have to admit all this has put me off having parties for a bit.” Mrs Payne first hit the headlines in 1978 when police raided her home to find a sex party in full swing, attended by middle-aged and elderly men exchanging luncheon vouchers for sexual entertainment. After a trial in 1980 she was sentenced to 18 months which was then reduced to six months and a fine on appeal. This time she ended up in court after holding an “end of film” party following the production of the movie Personal Services, starring Julie Walters. Author of a book about Mrs Payne’s life, Paul Bailey, described her as “a chirpy little Cockney woman going round telling people to behave themselves.” After the 13-day trial she sent Judge Brian Pryor QC a copy of the book, An English Madam, with the inscription: “I hope this book will broaden your rather sheltered life”. Legal costs reimbursed During proceedings at the Inner London Crown Court Judge Pryor told the court: “You must be sure that the particular woman was acting as a prostitute and that that particular girl’s movements were influenced one way or another by Mrs Payne.” He ordered defence costs – in a trial costing £117,000 – to be paid from central funds and Mrs Payne’ s £5,000 legal aid costs to be reimbursed. The prosecution said Mrs Payne provided facilities for prostitutes in her home in Ambleside Avenue, Streatham including, food, drink, condoms and bedrooms. Mrs Payne emerged from the court beaming with smiles as she was mobbed by a crowd of 100 media and well-wishers. Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens said: “It seems astounding that all this public money should be poured into bringing these charges.” Police said they would not be reviewing their policy over the prosecution of brothel madams. Cynthia Payne is due to face further charges of brothel keeping at magistrates’ court. SEE BELOW A FEW SIGNED ITEMS FROM OUR MADAMME CYNTHIA PAYNE DISPLAY HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL A SIGNED XMAS CARD WITH PERSONALLY SIGNED PHOTO FROM CYNTHIA PAYNE FRONT AND REAR FACE OF CYNTHIA PAYNE’S A BOARD , INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY HER BACK IN 1987 THAT WAS ORIGINALLY ON HER STAIRWELL AT HER HOUSE OF SIN AND ILL REPUTE (BROTHEL) AT 32 AMBLESIDE AVENUE , STREATHAM .LONDON . NOW ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL ABOVE…. INSCRIBED AND HAND SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH BY HER LADYSHIP CYNTHIA PAYNE ABOVE… HAND SIGNED ELECTION FLYER FEATURING CYNTHIA PAYNE Cynthia Payne Bognor Regis, West Sussex,England Running a brothel CynthiaPayne.co.uk Cynthia Payne (born 24 December 1932, in Bognor Regis, West Sussex) is a retired English party hostess who made the headlines in the 1970s and 1980s when she was accused of being a madam and of running her brothel at 32 Ambleside Avenue, in Streatham, in the south-west of London, England.[1] Payne first came to national attention in 1978 when police raided her home and found a sex party was in progress. Elderly men paid in Luncheon Vouchersto dress up in lingerie and be spanked by young women.[2] When the case came to trial in 1980, she was sentenced to eighteen months in prison, reduced to a fine and six months on appeal.[3] She served four months in Holloway prison.[2] In 1986, the police raided her home again, this time during a “special party” she was hosting after shooting the film of her life had been completed. Although she was acquitted on this occasion,[3] the resulting court case in 1987 made headlines for several weeks with lurid tales, some details of which she aired onThe Dame Edna Experience in 1988, with co-guests Sir John Mills and Rudolf Nureyev, where she also launched her book, Entertaining at Home. The court case ended her career as a party giver. On this programme, she expressed an interest in becoming an MP, in order to change Britain’s anti sex laws, which she followed through with by standing for Parliament as a candidate for the Payne and Pleasure Party in the Kensington by-election in July 1988, followed by her standing in her own area ofStreatham in the 1992 UK General Election. She did not gain a parliamentary seat. There have been two films made that are loosely based on her life. Wish You Were Here (1987), about her adolescence with Emily Lloyd in the lead role, and Personal Services (also 1987) about her adult life starred Julie Walters. Both were written (and Wish You Were Here was directed) by David Leland, but are vague in their similarities. Cynthia Payne has made appearances as an after-dinner speaker and launched a new range of adult services and products in 2006. Posted in CRIME THROUGH TIME \| Tagged 1970'S, 1986, AMBERSIDE AVENUE, AMBLESIDE AVENUE, APANK, ARSE, BANGED UP, BARBARA WINDSOR, BEDFORD HILL RED LIGHT DISTRICT, BLACK MUSEUM, BOGNOR REGIS, BRITISH HISTORY, BRITISH MP'S, BROTHEL, BROTHEL KEEPER, CANCER, CELEBRITY SLEAZE, CHRISTINE KEELER, CID, CLEO ROCOS, CONSERVATIVE PARTY, CORPERAL PUNISHMENT, CRANMORE, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, CRIME MEMORABILIA, CRIME MUSEUM, CRIME SCENE, CRIME THROUGH TIME, CYNTHIA PAYNE, CYNTHIA PAYNE DEATH, DEATH, DEATH SENTANCE, DRUG WARS, ENGLISH MADAM, ENGLISH MADAME, FEMALE INMATES, FOREST OF DEAN, GANG, GANGLAND, GLOUCESTER, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, GREAT BRITAIN, HANGING, HIGH CLASS PROSTITUTE, HOUSE OF CORRECTION, HOUSE OF LORDS, HOUSE OF PARLIMENT, HOUSE OF SIN, INPRISONMENT, JAIL, JUDGE PRYOR, JUDGES, JULIE WALTERS, LABOUR PARTY, LADY OF THE NIGHT, LIBERAL [PART, LINDI ST CLAIRE, LITTLEDEAN, LITTLEDEAN JAIL, LONDON, LORD LONGFORD, LUNCHEON VOUCHERS, MADAM CYN, MADAMME, MANDY RICE-DAVIES, MEMORABILIA, MISS WHIPLASH, MPS, MURDERABILIA, NEWS OF THE WORLD, NOTORIOUS PRISON INMATE, PARTY PLANER, PARTY PLANNER, PAUL BAILEY, PERSONAL SERVICES, PIMP, POLICE, POLITICIANS, PREGNANT IN JAIL, PRISON, PROSTITUE, PROSTITUTE, PROSTITUTES, PROSTITUTION, R.I.P., ROY PRETT BOY SHAW, SCANDAL, SEX, SEX PARTIES, SLAVES, SLEAZE, SLIPPER, SMACK, SOILITARY CONFINEMENT, SPANK, STREATHAM, THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, THE KRAYS, THE TRUE CRIME MUSEUM, TITS, TRANSVESTITES, TRUE CRIME, TRUE CRIME COLLECTIONS, TRUE CRIME MEMORABILIA, UK'S LARGEST CRIME MUSEUM, VOTE FOR CYNTHIA PAYNE, WHIPPING \| Leave a reply	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12876
__label__cc	0.630829	0.369171	the same number of guns of heavier caliber, and that twenty heavy guns be added thereto, and refer to Appendix C, a tabular statement of guns in position an recommended. The board most earnestly call attention to the fact, as shown in Appendix C, that these are but twenty-eight guns in the exterior line of river defense, and of these eleven only are heavy guns. The board also call particular attention to the insufficient armament of Fort Boggs, a most important work in the interior line of the river defenses, and the urgent necessity for the seven heavy guns recommended. Should the guns called for be furnished, the guns they replace could be transferred to the city lines and interior lines of defense. 2nd. The board report that since the 1st June, 1862, Brigadier-General Mercer called for forty-six pieces of heavy ordnance; General Beauregard reported as necessary twenty-five pieces of heavy ordnance, and Captain McCrady recommended as necessary thirty-six pieces of heavy ordnance. The board report as received since 1st June, 1862, six pieces of heavy ordnance. The board refer to Appendix D, a tabular statement of heavy ordnance called for and supplied since June 1, 1862. 3rd. The board report as necessary to complete the armament of works constructed and under construction that the batteries for the defense of the Savannah River be increased and strengthened, as stated under first point. That in the batteries at Fort Bartow, Greenwich, Thunderbolt, Beaulieu, Rosedew, Fort McAllister, and the city lines, exclusive of Fort Boggs, thirty-three guns now in position be replaced by twenty-eight guns of heavier caliber and five mortars, and thirty guns of heavy caliber and two mortars be added thereto. The board report as necessary for the armament of works ordered fifty-one guns of heavy caliber. The board recommend in the strongest terms that the armament of Fort Bartow be increased by four columbiads and three rifled guns called for above. Fort Bartow is the key of the exterior line of river batteries. 4th. The board report that in addition to the works constructed, under construction, or ordered, works are essential to the west and southwest of Savannah. A survey is now in progress, and until a report is made by the engineer in charge it will be impossible to specify more particularly than has been done in pages 14 and 15 of the report of the proceedings of this board.* It may be stated in general terms that the board consider the Central Railroad of vital importance to Savannah, and that the approaches thereto should be defended by the erection of works mainly for field artillery. 5th. The board report that the effective force of each arm of service now available for defense of Savannah is as follows: Infantry, 5,311; light artillery, 543; heavy artillery, 1,968; cavalry, 1,450; total, 9,272. The board report that for the proper defense of Savannah the respective arms of service should be increased as follows: 10,000 infantry, making in all......................... 15,000 light artillery, making in all.................. 500 4,000 heavy artillery, making in all................... 4,000 500 cavalry, making in all............................. 2,000 Total.................................................. 21,500 Twelve thousand five hundred increase. *See p. 869. ‹ Serial 020 Page 0869 Chapter XXVI. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE. up Serial 020 Page 0871 Chapter XXVI. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-CONFEDERATE. ›	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12878
__label__wiki	0.611466	0.611466	You are here: Home / In the Media / Limmud FSU Festival Opens Friday in Belarus Limmud FSU Festival Opens Friday in Belarus September 10, 2014 By eJP Vitebsk, Belarus, Sept. 9 – Over 600 young Jews, mostly professionals 20-40 years old, will come together on Sept. 12-14 in Vitebsk for Limmud FSU, a festival of Jewish learning. There are currently about 70,000 Jews living in Belarus. Limmud FSU Belarus will take place in the hometown of Marc Chagall, at the Vitebsk National Museum of Fine Arts. Limmud FSU Belarus features a packed program of lectures, workshops, round-table discussions, music and a wide range of cultural events, including the opening of an exhibition by artist Alexander Okun. Among the main speakers will be Israeli Ambassador to Belarus Yosef Shagal, Chairman of Belarusian Jewish Organizations and Communities Boris Gersten, renowned Russian Jewish theater director Mark Rozovsky, Director of the Marc Chagall Museum Ludmila Hmelnitskaya, Israeli comedian Ilya Akselrod, Russian poet Igor Irtenyev, and many others. The opening and closing events will take place in the Vitebsk National Theater. Surrounding the conference will be two special events as part of a full Limmud FSU Festival. A Sept. 11 tour in Luzhky will explore the hometown of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who founded modern Hebrew. The tour will be guided by Ben-Yehuda’s great-grandson, the leading Israeli TV anchor Gil Hovav. A special memorial plaque at the site of Ben-Yehuda’s childhood home will be unveiled as well. Additionally, a memorial and special photo exhibition honoring the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be held Sept. 15 in the National History Museum of Belarus, in the capital city of Minsk, from where Sharon’s parents immigrated to the Jewish State. The memorial for Israel’s eleventh prime minister will be held in collaboration with the Government of Belarus, Embassy of Israel, and the local Jewish community, with the participation of Sharon’s son Gilad, and close aide Israel Maimon, who served as his Cabinet Secretary. Marit Danon, the head secretary in Prime Minister’s Sharon’s office, is curating the Sharon photo exhibition, which will include photos from the Israel Defense Forces, the Israeli government archives and his personal collections. A press conference and meeting with local officials with will also be held. Filed Under: In the Media, The Limmud Experience Tagged With: Limmud FSU, Russian Speaking Jewry	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12879
__label__cc	0.653246	0.346754	Gita Beker Busjeet (Bologna ' 04 and DC' 05) passed away on November 3rd, 2012, at the age of 30, after a valiant seven-year struggle against brain cancer. A citizen of the United States, the Netherlands and Mauritius, Gita led a productive life marked by courage, dedication and service to others until the very end. After graduating from high school, she worked on community development in Namibia. Following her SAIS Bologna year, she spent the summer in Puno, Peru, above 5,000 meters in the Andes in a social environment much like the old Wild West mining towns, on a project to combat child labor in artisanal mining. From 2007 to 2012, Gita worked on monitoring and evaluation of economic and social programs: in the field with the Pinheiro Foundation in Minas Gerais, Brazil; at the World Bank in Washington DC; and at the oldest international women's funds worldwide, the Dutch organization Mama Cash in Amsterdam. Gita's professors and friends remember her charm, enthusiasm and optimism. Following her premature death, her parents, classmates, friends and husband (Jeremy Brown, a SAIS alumnus), have decided to set up the the Gita Beker Busjeet Memorial Fellowship Fund to honor her memory. The Fund will support students at SAIS Bologna sharing her professional interests in economic and social development and the economic empowerment of women. Since its inception, the initiative has had an incredible success and the initial long term goal - to raise $100,000 and create an endowment that will honor Gita's memory in perpetuity - has already been reached. Starting from Academic Year 2013-2014, each year SAIS Europe at Bologna will welcome a new Gita Beker Busjeet Memorial Fellowship recipient. Since 2013, 6 students have benefitted from the Gita Beker Busjeet Memorial Fellowship: View Fellowship Recipients This year, the Gita Beker Busjeet Memorial Fellowship recipient is Ms. Nnenda Chinda from Nigeria. The initiative is ongoing, with the aim to increase the Fund to augment the yearly fellowship to align it with current tuition. On behalf of the SAIS Bologna Center and the Gita Beker Busjeet Fellowsip recipients, we thank you for your generosity! Classmates and friends of Gita who are interested in joining the initiative should contact the Bologna Development Staff Make a pledge and/or a gift now on our Online Donations page. How to Make a Tax Deductible Donation	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12880
__label__wiki	0.664878	0.664878	Five things to know about Brookline's mid-year crime report Emma R. Murphy emurphy@wickedlocal.com @MurphReports The Brookline Police Department just released its mid-year crime report and the good news is that violent crimes are down. Other crimes like burglary, however, are up. So far this year there have been 335 Part A crimes in Brookline. This is a slight 4 percent decrease compared to the 348 Part A crimes reported by this time last year, according to the report. Part A crimes include murder, rape, robbery, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny and assault and battery. Here are five takeaways from this year’s report. 1. Violent crimes are down. Capping off the reduction in violent crimes, is that there has not been a murder in Brookline since 2007, according to the report. Rape is down from two mid-way through 2017, to one mid-way through 2018, which was cleared through an arrest. According to the report, the 10-year average for rape cases reported is 4.2 per year. Assaults are also down 10 percent so far this year. According to the report, 62 assaults were reported during the first half of 2018, which is down from the 69 reported during the same time frame in 2017. Of the 62 assaults, 19 were domestic violence related, two were on police officers and two happened at mental health hospitals in town. The report also notes that there were two indecent assaults, three indecent exposures and one open and gross case. 2. Burglaries and motor vehicle theft are up. While reported assaults are down, burglaries are up 8 percent. So far this year there have been 27 burglaries. The majority of reported burglaries, 26, took place at residential properties, and one took place at a commercial property, according to the report. Motor vehicle thefts are also up. According to the report, seven vehicles were reported stolen so far this year, which is up from the six reported stolen by this time in 2017. One of the thefts was cleared by court action but six of the thefts remain active. In addition to the seven stolen vehicles, there was also one moped theft, which was cleared exceptionally, the report states. So far in 2018, the number of reported robberies has remained the same as in 2017, with four reported so far this year. Of the four robberies this year, three individuals were robbed and the other one took place at a convenience store. Reported larcenies in 2018 have decreased by eight percent from 242 reported during the same period in 2017, to 234 reported so far this year. 3. Arrests and field interrogations are down. Of the 335 Part A crimes reported so far this year, 50 of the cases were cleared by arrests, 66 by court action, 40 were cleared exceptionally and 11 were cleared by other means such as referral and completed service. While 168 cases are still under investigation, 100 percent of rapes, 84 percent of assaults, 25 percent of robberies, 26 percent of burglaries, 14 percent of motor vehicles and 45 percent of larcenies have been cleared. Of the 128 arrests made – a 34 percent decrease from the 193 made during the same period in 2017 – 46 percent were white, 26 percent were black, 22 percent were Hispanic, 3 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander and 3 percent were Middle Eastern/East Indian. According to the report, 81 percent of arrestees were male, 19 percent were female and two were juveniles. According to the report, 75 percent, 96, of the arrestees did not live in Brookline. The majority of non-Brookline residents arrested, came from Boston. Other arrestees came from Newton, Quincy, Revere and Cambridge. There were 17 field interrogations conducted during the first part of 2018, which is down 16 percent from 19 field interrogations in 2017. Of the 17 stopped and questioned for suspicious activity, seven were white, five were black, two were Hispanic, one was Middle Eastern/East Indian and one was unclassified. 4. Use of force incidents are down. According to the Brookline police department, use of force is any force that goes beyond compliant handcuffing. During the first part of 2018, there were nine use-of-force incidents, according to the report. This is a decrease from the 20 that took place over the same time frame in 2017. The use-of-force incidents included pointing a firearm--this happened twice--physical use-of-force like wrestling, which happened six times, and one varmint gun discharge for animal euthanasia. The situations where police utilized force included while placing a noncompliant person under arrest, responding to a resident with “significant mental illness who barricaded himself in his house”, an assault on an officer during an investigation and an altercation between two men where a vehicle was dragging one of them, according to the report. The report also notes that there were three motor vehicle pursuits, all of which ended with arrests. 5. Parking tickets are down. According to the report, there were 49,616 parking violations issued over the first half of 2018. Those violations totaled $1.58 million in fines and penalties. While 49,616 is a large number, it is a 14 percent decreased from the 57,587 parking violations issued during the same period in 2017. Brookline TAB Blog Brookline TAB ~ 1 Speen St., Framingham, MA 01701 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12884
__label__cc	0.579123	0.420877	Exploring my own backyard Kiwi lad exploring his home country New Zealand Follow Exploring my own backyard on WordPress.com Mirror Lake, Yosemite National Park Carmel-by-the-Sea, California Pebble Beach, California Bird Rock, 17-Mile-Drive Hauraki Gulf and Islands Jasper National Park Ohakune Mirror Lake Trail, Yosemite National Park Carmel Beach, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California Pebble Beach Golf Links, 17-Mile-Drive, Pebble Beach, California Bird Rock on Pebble Beach's 17-Mile-Drive Lone Cypress, a single Monterey cypress tree on the coast of Pebble Beach, California Cannery Row, Monterey Moss Landing Harbor Visitors Dock, California San Francisco City Hall Gallipoli: The scale of our war May 27, 2018 Graeme Cash Leave a comment Gallipoli: The scale of our war is an exhibition on at Te Papa focused on the Gallipoli campaign during the First World War. The exhibition is told through real-life stories of eight New Zealanders – seven soldiers and one nurse. Each person tells a part of the eight month Gallipoli campaign. The highlight of the exhibition are the large scale models of the eight featured New Zealanders. The models designed by Weta Workshop are 2.4 times human size. These figures took 24,000 hours to create, and they each weigh between 90kg and 150kg. There is a short six-part series online, which is explores the behind the scenes process of creating this exhibition. The exhibition, which cost $8 million to develop, also features other models, dioramas, interactive displays, and artefacts, such as uniforms, weapons, and personal diaries. Gallipoli: the scale of our war is located on level 2 of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 55 Cable Street, Wellington. Exhibition is open daily 10am – 6pm until April 2019 and is free to visit. ANZACExhibitionGallipoli: the scale of our warGallipolliMuseumNew ZealandNZ TravelTe PapaTravelWellingtonWeta WorkshopWorld War IWWI September 17, 2014 Graeme Cash Leave a comment The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is the national museum of New Zealand, located on Cable Street on Wellington’s waterfront. Te Papa Tongarewa roughly translates as “the place of treasures of this land.” The Museum was established in 1992 by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Act 1992. Te Papa had its official opening on 14 February 1998. Te Papa is open every day from 10am till 6pm, and until 9pm on Thursdays. Entry is free but there may be charges for special exhibitions and activities. For information on parking please check their website. The museum covers six floors of interactive exhibits. The Awesome Forces exhibition on level 2 explores New Zealand’s geological history showing how our landscape has been shaped by erosion, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. A highlight is an interactive shake house where visitors can experience an earthquake. Visitors can experience a stimulated earthquake in the shake house. Also on level 2 is the Mountain to Sea exhibition where on display are over 2500 animals and plants. On display in 6 metre long case is a 495 kilogram squid. Visitors can experience the squid’s underwater habitat in a 3D show. The theme of our powerful landscape is continued on level 3 in the exhibition Blood Earth Fire, which explores our ever changing landscape. A short documentary film Our Place screens, in which people show the place that is most important to them. Those wishing to learn about Māori history can head to the Mana Whenua, Te Marae, Whiti Te Rā! The Story of Ngāti Toa Rangatira (local iwi Tribe of Wellington), and Signs of a Nation (Treaty of Waitangi) exhibitions on level 4. ’Te Aurere Iti’, a third-size scale replica of a voyaging canoe In the Passports exhibition guests can explore the stories of some the communities that migrated to New Zealand. Tangata o le Moana: The story of Pacific people in New Zealand explores the people from the Pacific Islands that came to call New Zealand home. Also on level 4 visitors can learn more about New Zealand in the 20th century with the Slice of Heaven exhibition. A highlight on display is the skeleton of celebrated race horse Phar Lap (1926 – 1939). While Te Papa has his bones, The National Museum of Australia in Canberra has his heart and the Museum of Victoria in Melbourne has his hide mounted on a model. Phar Lap The national art collection of Te Papa is housed on levels 5 and 6. The galleries are constantly being updated and changed so there is always new works on display to see. There is also an interactive art studio space on level 5 for budding artists. There are also two cafes onsite, the Te Papa Cafe on the ground floor, which is open from 9am to 5pm and Level 4 Expresso, which is open 10am to 5:30pm, with a late closing of 8:30pm on Thursday. For shopping there are two stores the Te Papa Store on level 1 and the Te Papa Kids’ Store on level 2. Art GalleryMuseumMuseum of New Zealand Te Papa TongarewaPhar LapTe PapaWellington	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12888
__label__cc	0.587809	0.412191	6 Trends Redefining the American Church Facts & Trends - December 17, 2015 8 Comments By Aaron Earls In 1998, most Americans didn’t use the Internet or have a cell phone. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 were still three years away. Needless to say, the nation has changed significantly in the last few decades. And churches are no different. The National Congregations Study, directed by Mark Chaves of Duke Divinity School, has tracked changes in American congregational life since 1998. The most recent findings give an updated look at the modern church. The new data shows six trends redefining the shape of the church today. 1. Separation between smallest and largest churches widens. The average church in America is shrinking, but the average churchgoer is attending a larger church. The average congregation has only 70 regular participants, but the average attendee worships in a congregation with about 400 regular participants. The largest 7 percent of churches contain about half of all churchgoers. The separation between the shrinking small churches and the growing large churches has only widened since the survey began in 1998. However, those in smaller churches give more per capita than those in larger churches. A congregation of 100 adults receives about 18 percent more per capita than a congregation with 400 adults. More churches are claiming no denominational affiliation, which is increasingly common among megachurches. From 1998 to 2012, the percentage of congregations operating outside a denomination grew from 18 to 24 percent. 2. Diversity is increasing. Church staff is getting more diverse. Overall, 13 percent of senior pastors and 15 percent of other staff within historically white religious traditions are African American, Hispanic, or Asian. Catholics are by far the most diverse, with mainline being the least. Among evangelicals, 14 percent of senior pastors and 17 percent of other staff are ethnic minorities. Churches themselves are also more diverse. The percentage of churches where no ethnic group constitutes at least 80 percent of the congregation grew to 20 percent in 2012. Among predominately white congregations, the majority have at least some black (69 percent) and Hispanic (62 percent) participants and almost half (48 percent) have Asian participants. 3. Worship services are less formal. Since 1998, choirs, bulletins, and organs have all declined in churches, while testimonies, saying “Amen,” jumping or shouting, raising hands, applause, drums, and projection equipment have all increased. In 2012, less than half of all churches used choirs (45 percent) or organs (42 percent) for worship. In 1998, both were used in a majority of churches. Only 35 percent of evangelical churches now use a choir. Projection equipment made the steepest climb, up 23 points to 35 percent of all congregations in 2012. 4. Churches are starting more sites, but fewer worship services. While 62 percent of congregations have more than one worship service in a typical week, that has become less common. The drop came predominately among smaller churches. By contrast, multisite is on the rise. While only 3.4 percent of all congregations were multisite in 2012, 10 percent of all churchgoers attended a multisite church. Among churches with at least 500 adult participants, more than 16 percent have multiple locations. 5. Mainline Protestantism continues to decline. What was once the most vibrant strand of American religiosity continues to wane. Since 1998, mainline Protestant congregations have dropped from 26 percent in 1998 to 20 percent in 2012, the latest year of the research. The percentage of attendees among existing churches has also declined from 24 to 17 percent. Not only are they in decline, mainline Protestant churches are getting older. The typical American congregation was founded 58 years ago. For mainline churches, it’s 122 years. By comparison, the typical evangelical church is 30 years old. The older mainline churches are full of older individuals as well. More than half (56 percent) of adults in a typical mainline church are over 60. That age group comprises only a third (32 percent) of the typical evangelical church. 6. Church political engagement defies expectations. Some churches mix political engagement with their worship, but it might not be the ones you expect. Slightly more than one-third (34 percent) of churches participated in at least one of eight political activities asked about in the survey. Evangelicals are the least politically active tradition with only 23 percent taking part in at least one activity. One-third (33 percent) of mainline churches, fewer than half (45 percent) of Black Protestants, and three-fourths (75 percent) of Catholics participated in at least one political activity. Despite the media attention on political engagement, churches are much more likely to be involved in social services—87 percent of churches are involved in some kind of social service. Churches are twice as likely to have a homeless ministry or be involved in an education service than to have a political candidate as a visiting speaker or lobby an elected official. AARON EARLS (@WardrobeDoor) is online editor of Facts & Trends. Filed Under: Blog, Research Previous Post: « 7 Things I Miss About Pastoring a Church Next Post: 4 Personal Elements to Help Your Preaching Connect to the Lost & Unchurched » Dr. Charles Hughes says What a blessing to see God moving through multi site mega churches …..small churches ….and mega Bill Armstrong says It is very disturbing to see how senior adults are being marginalized in our churches. As long as the keep giving the thithe all is fine but having a say in is not welcomed. The only concerned is to have a senior luncheon once a month and a trip a couple times a year. All of the members are part of the family not just certain groups in the church that are young or Teenagers. A lot of talents are being waisted that could be used for the kingdom if seniors were treated with the same concern as other groups in the church. David Catterall says Doesn’t this all fit with a society based on ‘glamourous’ young people in Talent shows? Seniors are more plentiful and more active than we were in ’98. We also know how to commit for the long-term, even through the not-so-exciting times. (60+, Anglcan, ordained for 37 years) F.L. says Bill Armstrong Couldn’t agree more. We’ll see where the church goes when the true supporters are gone and all that is left are the kids who have enjoyed the benefits of the hard work, prayers, and giving of those who are “no longer relevant.” I try to remember a golden rule: “You are not them.” An experience I’m having in my own church setting does not necessarily reflect a larger trend. I think my own local church fumbles over itself to meet the needs and desires of seniors, and prioritizes senior leadership over all others – no matter how much the church shrinks or fails to reflect or minister to the needs of its surrounding community. Our church’s leadership has remained 87% unchanged since 1987, with a median age of 71.7. I’m not foolish enough to think my church’s problems mean that seniors are bad leaders, and I don’t think that our situation reflects all churches, everywhere. Ken says The gravitation toward larger churches disturbs me. Those of us who are small-church pastors often have to battle Christians who think they’re “too spiritual” for us. I wasn’t aware that snobbery is a fruit of the Spirit. Aaron Earls says Ken, hopefully our recent cover section on small churches can be an encouragement to you. https://factsandtrends.net/smallchurch/ Richard Blue says Just saw this post. True! Church changed fifty years ago with Bill and Gloria Gaither introducing what my pastor called, “Las Vegas show tunes” into worship. The Brooklyn Tabernacle music changed the church style again in the ninety’s. Church is retooled…redefined every few years to retain relevance. Church is changing again due to family and working patterns as well as worship preferences and styles. I choose to embrace the changes, help the younger generation find the Lord, and become disciples. What must not change is the gospel and a high view of God’s Word. I put some cotton in my ears, smile during the music, and stand to preach God’s Word to a hungry and thirsty younger generation.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12889
__label__wiki	0.895707	0.895707	I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold For the fictional character, see List of Scream Queens characters § Chanel #5. For the first perfume by Coco Chanel, see Chanel No. 5. Charles Demuth 90.2 cm × 76.2 cm (35.5 in × 30 in) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold, also known as The Figure 5 in Gold,[1] is a 1928 painting by American artist Charles Demuth. It has been described as influenced by Futurism and Cubism. Painted as a homage to Demuth's friend William Carlos Williams, the painting references Williams' poem The Great Figure, which describes a fire engine speeding through the streets of New York on a rainy night. The painting's title is a phrase from the poem. 1 Charles Demuth 2 Poem and painting Charles Demuth[edit] Demuth was known as a painter in the Precisionist style, incorporating clean lines and geometry into images. Art historian H.W. Janson mentions Demuth's interactions with Cubist painters in New York, and the connections between Futurism and Precisionism styles.[2] This particular work was part of a series of five abstract, poster-style portraits Demuth painted between 1924 and 1929 in homage to his personal artist and writer friends: William Carlos Williams, Georgia O'Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Charles Duncan and John Marin.[1] He and Williams had become friends when they were both living in the same boarding house in Philadelphia while Demuth was studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Williams was attending the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. As with I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold, each painting incorporated the artist's name. This portrait series is often described as also including writers Marsden Hartley, Gertrude Stein, Eugene O'Neill and Wallace Stevens, but those four were never completed. The Yale University Art Gallery has the preliminary sketch, in watercolor and graphite, for the Marsden Hartley portrait.[3] Poem and painting[edit] William Carlos Williams claims that the inspiration for the 32-word poem The Great Figure[4] (1920) came from seeing a fire engine pass him by, sounding gong clangs and siren howls as it receded in the night. He said he was so struck by the sight that he took paper and pencil out of his pocket and wrote the poem, standing there on the sidewalk.[5] Two lines: "I saw the figure 5/in gold" were taken by Demuth for his painting's title.[6] The upper right corner has an arc, implying a fragment of a large number five, repeated three times in progressively smaller, complete number fives to create an impression of the fire engine moving away from the viewer. The fire engine itself is reduced to an abstracted form composed of red rectangles, but there is a hint of a ladder on the right side and an axle across the bottom. Above the truck are globular streetlamps flanked by sidewalks and buildings in blacks and grays. Demuth conveyed his friendship with Williams by incorporating fragments of his name: "Bill" across the top, and "CARLO" (the "O" cut off and the "S" missing entirely) in yellow dots as in an illuminated theater sign. Across the bottom the painter has placed his own initials "C.D." and also the poet's "W.C.W." in the same size and color.[5] The painting was first exhibited at Intimate Gallery, New York as "Charles Demuth: Five Paintings," April 29 – May 18, 1929. It is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States of America (MMA). It is described as a combination of oil paint, graphite, ink, and gold leaf on paperboard. Dimensions 35 1/2 x 30 inches (90.2 x 76.2 cm). Demuth died in 1935, at the age of 51 years. He bequeathed the painting to Georgia O'Keeffe. She gifted it to the MMA in 1948 as part of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection.[6] The painting has never been sold. Roberta Smith described the work in The New York Times: "Demuth's famous visionary accounting of Williams, I Saw the Figure Five in Gold, [is] a painting whose title and medallion-like arrangement of angled forms were both inspired by a verse the poet wrote after watching a fire engine streak past him on a rainy Manhattan street while waiting for Marsden Hartley, whose studio he was visiting, to answer his door."[7] Describing its importance, Judith H. Dobrzynski in The Wall Street Journal wrote: "It's the best work in a genre Demuth created, the "poster portrait". It's a witty homage to his close friend, the poet William Carlos Williams, and a transliteration into paint of his poem, "The Great Figure". It's a decidedly American work made at a time when U.S. artists were just moving beyond European influences. It's a reference to the intertwined relationships among the arts in the 1920s, a moment of cross-pollination that led to American Modernism. And it anticipates pop art."[1] Robert Indiana, a popular and famous artist from the 1960s onward, painted The Figure Five in 1963. It incorporated the three yellow/gold, size-diminishing number fives from Charles Demuth's painting superimposed over a red star.[8] The painting is used as the cover picture of the novel Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture (1992). The painting is included in a book 100 Best Paintings in New York (2008).[9] In March 2013 the US Postal Service issued a pane of twelve first-class postage stamps portraying modern art, one of which was Demuth's painting. The timing was 100 years after the Armory Show, New York, 1913, which had given many Americans their first look at modern art. The stamp set was titled Modern Art in America 1913–1931 Stamps.[10] ^ a b c The Wall Street Journal, Judith H. Dobrzynski, "Where Paint and Poetry Meet" retrieved July 10, 2010 Archived January 15, 2018, at the Wayback Machine ^ H. W. Janson (2004). History of Art: The Western Tradition. Prentice Hall. p. 1031. ISBN 978-0-13-182895-7. Archived from the original on 19 February 2018. Retrieved 10 November 2012. ^ Frank, Robin Jaffee (1994). Charles Demuth Poster Portraits, 1923–1929. Arthur Schwartz Sales Co. ISBN 978-0-89467-065-7. ^ "The Great Figure by William Carlos Williams". The Poetry Foundation. Archived from the original on 3 August 2014. Retrieved 29 July 2014. ^ a b Charles Demuth, I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold Archived 2018-01-15 at the Wayback Machine Kuykendall, Lara. Khan Academy ^ a b "I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold" Archived 2017-06-06 at the Wayback Machine Metropolitan Museum of art (US). ^ The New York Times, Roberta Smith, "ART VIEW; Precisionism and a Few of Its Friends" retrieved October 26, 2008 ^ The Figure Five Robert Indiana 1963 Archived 2018-01-16 at the Wayback Machine Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington. DC. ^ MacDonald, Deanna; Smith, Geoffrey (2008). 100 Best Paintings in New York. Interlink Pub Group Inc. ISBN 978-1-56656-696-4. ^ Modern Art in America 1913–1931 Stamps Archived 2018-01-14 at the Wayback Machine United States Postal Service Announcement 13–15 (2013). The United States of America, a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on this painting (p.127) Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=I_Saw_the_Figure_5_in_Gold&oldid=888057004" Paintings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art American paintings	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12892
__label__wiki	0.830496	0.830496	HomePosts tagged 'defeated country' defeated country July 17, 2015 July 5, 2015 fasab Current Events, Factoids, Politics, Rants ally, America, americans, another cold war, arrogance, assassinations, best option, Black Sea coast, breakup of the USSR, breathed a great sigh of relief, capture, civil war in the Ukraine, Cold War part two, composite entity, counter-sanctions, coup d'etats, coup d’etat, Cuba, culprit, Current Events, defeated country, duly elected, eastern regions, eastward expansion of NATO, education, EU, Europe, factoid, facts, foreign affairs, formidable nation, friendly economic terms, fully armed, idiot, independent, information, Mikhail Gorbachev, mistake, NATO, Nikita Khrushchev, no clue about foreign affairs, not taking sides, nuclear arsenal, Opinion, Orthodox, Ottoman, plan, Poland, politics, President Carter's administration, prevent Russia becoming a great power again, puzzle, Rants, redrew borders in the Middle East, remove Ukraine, Russia, Russian's doorstep, Russian-speaking, Russians, sanctions against Russia, separatist militias, Soviet Union, Soviet Union broke apart, sphere of influence, stupid bureaucrats, stupid English bureaucrats, subservient, Summer Is Here, tensions between the West and Russia, the chill continues, the Cold War, the Crimea, the Kurds, the Ukraine, third option, Thoughts, tsarist armies, Ukraine, Ukrainian army, Ukrainian President, Ukrainians, US National Security Advisor, volunteer battalions, west, western regions, world, WWI, WWII, Zbigniew Brzezinski The world breathed a great sigh of relief when the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, but somehow we’re in the middle of another cold war that nobody wants or needs. As most things do, it all started with a huge mistake. That mistake was the West, particularly America, treating Russia like a defeated country after 1991, instead of the formidable nation that it still was despite the breakup of the USSR. Mikhail Gorbachev has acknowledged that fact. Unfortunately Americans have no clue about foreign affairs and never have had. That, plus a ton of arrogance, led us to the Ukraine which America thought it could more or less capture as an ally to be slotted into NATO. They wanted a fully armed NATO nuclear arsenal on the Russian’s doorstep. The Americans quite rightly didn’t like it when the Russians tried to do it to them in Cuba way back in the early 1960s, so what idiot thought that the Russians would like it when they did it to them? Whoever formulated the plan, it was heavily influenced by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US National Security Advisor during President Carter’s administration. His theory was that the only way to prevent Russia becoming a great power again was to remove the Ukraine from its sphere of influence. Thus America initiated an eastward expansion of NATO, using the EU to present the Ukraine with a choice between Russia and Europe. Some Ukrainians, like those in the Crimea favored Russia and others in other parts wanted closer ties with the EU. Like many other countries, the prospect of joining the EU is attractive to a significant proportion of Ukrainians. But the way America tried to bring it about was just a step too far. The Ukrainian President, who had been duly elected, was removed in what would have been called a “coup d’etat” had it happened elsewhere, or had Russia been the culprit. That is why a lot of the tensions between the West and Russia is centered on the internal troubles within the Ukraine. If one looks into the history of the Ukraine another significant part of the puzzle presents itself. In much the same way as stupid English bureaucrats redrew borders in the Middle East without any consideration for the people who lived there, (for example, the Kurds), which resulted in wars and upheaval ever since, when the Soviet Union broke apart somewhere in the region of 25 million Russians were left outside the borders of Russia. A lot of them were in the Crimea in the Ukraine. But the Ukraine had only been independent for three years in its history (1917-20), after the collapse of the tsarist armies. The post-December 1991 Ukraine was thus a composite entity, its western regions had belonged to Poland between WWI and WWII; its eastern regions were Orthodox and Russian-speaking; and its Black Sea coast had been Ottoman. The Crimea had never been Ukrainian until Nikita Khrushchev decreed it should be in 1954. Thus, for anyone with any degree of understanding of foreign affairs, the troubles now being suffered by the various peoples in the Ukraine were both predictable and avoidable. But the stupid bureaucrats in power were not able to predict it and thus the mess became inevitable. Sadly the situation has now deteriorated into what amounts to a civil war in the Ukraine. On one side there is the Ukrainian army plus “volunteer battalions”, supported by the US and its allies, and on the other the “separatist” militias who draw their support mainly from Russian-speakers in the east, and who are supported by Russia. Outside of what is happening in the Ukraine itself, the US and EU implemented severe sanctions against Russia which have hurt, but not nearly as much as they were supposed to. In turn Russia announced counter-sanctions on food and looked to emerging markets, particularly China, to diversify its foreign trade and industrial cooperation. And so the Cold War part two has begun and shows little sign of ending just yet. In fact it looks like the Ukraine will remain in a mess until it gets its act together and decides whether it wants to remain on friendly economic terms with its huge neighbor Russia, or whether it will settle for becoming subservient to the whims of the US, via some kind of economic agreement with the EU. It has a third option, though, perhaps its best option, and that is not taking sides, but rather remaining on friendly terms with both East and West. However, they may never get the chance to choose option three. In plain language, I don’t think that the people who arrange assassinations and coup d’etats will let them do that. Meantime, summer or not, the chill continues.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12895
__label__cc	0.748569	0.251431	Growing Confidence in First Nation Elections: Despite progress, improprieties still an issue Aboriginal Futures, Blog, Frontier Centre April 9, 2010 Electoral Fairness on Aboriginal Reserves One of the most important dimensions of good governance is free and fair elections, a cornerstone of democracy. Legitimate and good government can only exist where political leaders operate with the consent of the public, which can only be obtained through open and fair electoral processes. In order to gauge perceptions of electoral fairness, we asked our respondents: “In the last band election, were rightful voters able to trust that their votes, and only their votes, would be counted?” The following chart illustrates the responses which those surveyed gave to this question. Source: The Third Annual Aboriginal governance Index. Available at www.fcpp.org · When asked to describe their level of confidence that votes in the most recent band election were counted fairly, just four per cent gave the worst possible response of “definitely not.” · Only a total of 14 per cent expressed the opinion that votes were either “probably” or “definitely” not counted fairly in the last election. · A clear majority, 67 per cent, stated that votes were “probably” or “definitely” counted properly. There are still signs that many residents on reserve have misgivings about the quality of their electoral processes. For example, in another component of our survey, nearly half of all respondents (48 per cent) expressed the opinion that at some point “favours and payments had been exchanged for votes in their community.” This fact, combined with the fact that a sizable minority of respondents either expressed scepticism about the fairness of the last election or said that they “did not know” if votes were counted correctly indicates that there is more work to be done.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12896
__label__wiki	0.865418	0.865418	Who Shada! Shada! Shada! [the first episode is online and is utterly captivating]. Posted on Saturday, May 03, 2003 0 comments TV Anyone with Freeview might like to click over to channel 22 to see the rather dull (in a corporate video sense) ad banner for a new channel CBM. The Digital Spy discussion boards have entered a Metafilter like discussion and detective frenzy, speculation suggesting everything from the oft promised Trouble/Boomerang/TCM channel to a Christian Channel to something run by the Raelians. Reading through we see everything from the house of the person who's registered the domain name of the channel's website to a vague phone call to Freeview. What is the connection of the mysterious Glenn Carter or Stuart Long? Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2003 0 comments Theatre It's good to know that when Shakespeare was dropping of this mortal coil, he could still right. His will might be a formality but it's still a fabulous read: "In the name of God, Amen. I, William Shackspeare of Stratford-upon-Avon in the county of Warwick, gent., in perfect health and memory, God be praised, do make and ordain this my last will and testament in manner and form following. That is to say, first, I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through the only merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting, and my body to the earth whereof it is made." Familes got the houses and money. Still thought of his company though, and everyone including Martin Clunes lookalike Burbage got a ring (or rather the brass and orders to buy as such). I on the other hand have a mousemat with his face on it ... TV Just discovered Sonia Mansfield of the The Examiner of San Francisco. Her preview of this US season's sweeps is fabulously catty: " On May 4 at 8 p.m., Tim Allen returns with "Tim Allen Presents: A User's Guide to Home Improvement," which is basically just a clip show and blooper reel. Only Allen, Richard Karn and "Tool Time" girl Debbe Dunning appear in the special. Apparently, the rest of the cast decided to move on with their careers." I'm she and The Guardian's Charlie Brooker would get on like a 24 plot twist ... Gender Relations Typical man. “I Wasn’t Even Supposed to be on this Network” TV Now that The Simpsons seemingly rule the world of television – and particularly animation – it’s often forgotten that before the yellow family appeared, primetime cartoons had been missing from screens on both sides of the Atlantic for many years. Post-Simpsons shows like South Park and King of the Hill broke out for a brief few years as the US networks rushed about looking for their own slice of Homer Simpson’s pie. And it was under these conditions that an animated spin-off from a low budget indie film was commissioned by the generally safe ABC network; a move which the channel’s own lawyers advised them against. That show would become Clerks: The Animated Series; a programme that everybody seemed to like as an idea, but no one wanted to make … a programme that in the end was never broadcast in its entirety and even now is only available in the sell-through market. From a UK perspective, it’s perhaps not surprising that Clerks: The Animated Series never made it to the screen over here. Aside from The Simpsons (them again) no other imported animated half-hour has ever really established a convincing hold on a UK audience. South Park was quite popular when Channel 4 offered it in a Friday night post-Friends slot, but even the viewers’ appetite for that waned and now the series finds itself marooned in late night purgatory. A show like Clerks: The Animated Series, then, would seem to offer little to a mainstream broadcaster over here (and as such it’s a blessing that fans with the wherewithal can watch the whole thing on Region One DVD). But why did it fail to attract any kind of an audience in its own country? In 1992 Kevin Smith was a convenience store worker in New Jersey. On the night of his 21st birthday he saw the no-budget film Slacker in which director Richard Linklater’s camera is a character which follows a series of free spirits, each of whom has an opinion or something to get off their chest. It was plotless and as such Smith noticed that although the audience were enjoying themselves it wasn’t a terribly fulfilling or even funny film. Of a mind that he could do better he watched a number of other low budget films looking for tips and decided upon the kind of work he wanted to or – more importantly – could achieve. He started to cast about looking for somewhere which would give him the techniques he needed and settled upon the Vancouver Film School where he studied for four months before dropping out and making Clerks, the movie. The plot of the film, as described on the back of the video box is thus: “Clerks tells the brilliantly funny story of a day in the lives of 22-year-old Dante (Brian O’Halloran), who works in a Quick Stop convenience store, and his crazy friend Randal (Jeff Anderson), who works in the neighbouring video store. It’s 6am, and Dante discovers that he has to go to work on his day off. It’s just the beginning of a hilariously bad day, where he has to survive his girlfriend’s graphic sexual confessions, a mad hockey team, the unexpected arrival of his sexy ex-girlfriend and a constant stream of offensive customers. This is a day Dante will never forget.” The passage of time in the film is signaled by cutaways to the two drug dealers who linger outside the shops, Jay and Silent Bob. Jay (Jason Mewes) is a loud mouth, keen to get a sale and equally keen to boast about his sexual powers. Silent Bob (played by Kevin Smith himself) is the perfect straight man in that he says nothing at all, no matter how coarse Jay’s insults frequently become. By using his place of work, Smith was doubling up to keep costs even lower, filming largely in the dead of night (rationalized in the film by the gluing together of the locks to the shutters). The funding for the film is described on the official website thus: “Clerks was made for $27,575. It was mainly funded by 10 credit cards that Kevin had to his name, funds garnered from store credit after he sold his comic book collection, a family donation, and paychecks from working at the Quick Stop and RST Video.” His partner in funding and production was Scott Mosier, who also eventually appeared in five roles during the film as various cast members dropped out. Together they began View Askew, the production company which would be behind all of Smith’s later film projects and eventually Clerks: The Animated Series (under the pseudonym Toon Askew). Smith went on to make another film set in what was termed the View Askewniverse of New Jersey (Mallrats, featuring Jay and Silent Bob in minor roles) and in time he returned to what was actually his first love. He had always been a fan of comics, and using some of the kudos he had built he was able to produce a series of spin-off comic-books using some of the same characters from Clerks, but now unfettered by technical and budgetary concerns. The titles, produced by independent publisher Oni Press mostly followed the exploits of Jay and Silent Bob (offering a blueprint for the eventual film about those characters) but three Clerks comics were also produced. The first was concerned with a quest for profit from Star Wars merchandise, the next was a “lost scene” issue which filled in a scene from the original film when Dante and Randal visited a funeral for an old school friend, and finally there was a Christmas special. The embryonic roots of the cartoon series can be found in this seasonal number; as Dante visits his ex-girlfriend Caitlin and Randal finds himself in the much more fantastical situation of being kidnapped by Santa’s helpers and put to work in a toy grotto which has suddenly appeared between the Quick Stop and the video store. This stretching of the film’s “reality” would become a hallmark of the eventual cartoon series; in hindsight it’s obvious that the comic-book format was sparking Smith’s imagination and suggesting a possible animated form for his franchise. But before that there was another consideration. In 1995, without his consultation, Miramax (still the rights holders to the original film) joined sister company Touchstone Television in the production of a pilot for a possible sitcom version of Clerks. Smith wasn’t aware of anything until an actor who had auditioned for one of the parts told him it was being made. In this version only trace elements of the original concept remained. The show was still set in a convenience store (or a sitcom set version of one, see ITV1′s recent Hardware) but Dante became less of a strict loser, Randal moved more towards a physical comedian and a new character, Todd, was introduced as an ice-cream seller (no really) who became the one who goofs about (much as Randal did in the film). Jay and Silent Bob did not appear, although Ray, a shoplifter picked up some of their patter. Another absentee were the customers, whose misdirection was one of the joys of the original film. In this new sitcom-Clerks all of the characters were likable in the traditional sense and as such they did not make fun of the patrons. Perhaps because of Smith’s lack of involvement with the project, all of the original characters from the film were re-cast. In the end, though, the series didn’t enter production. Whether Smith would have been able to block it isn’t clear, but it’s not hard to understand why he would want to put out his own television series, if only to see his vision on screen, done “properly”. Making a cartoon would allow him to be more creative with situations and facilitate the introduction of the fantasy elements from the comic books. With his long term fellow producer Scott Mosier, Smith began pitching the cartoon series in 1995 and the first meeting was with Fox television. Fox turned down the idea feeling that the only primetime cartoon series possible was their own The Simpsons, and that nothing else could be successful. Other studios looked at the concept and liked some of it, but the interest simply wasn’t there. The idea was put on the back burner and Smith went back to making movies, producing another low budget feature, his most mature work so far, Chasing Amy (in which Ben Affleck played a comic book artist who falls in love with a lesbian) and Dogma (a road movie satirizing Catholicism which brought him in conflict with the church). He produced further Clerks comics and wrote a hugely popular sequence for the Marvel Comics series Daredevil (and would later cameo in the film adaptation of that title). There was other prime time cartoons being made of course, but not on the networks. Beavis and Butthead were hiking their way through promos on MTV and Todd Mcfarlane’s Spawn sat in the wee small hours on F/X. None of it could be described as mainstream, though. The real breakthrough came with South Park, which began as a video Christmas card passed amongst studio executives and went on to become Comedy Central’s greatest hit (now in its seventh season). The ratings it was gathering on that cable channel made the networks sit up and take notice; when Butthead creator Mike Judge’s next project King of the Hill was suddenly being called “the new Simpsons” it was clear a renaissance was happening in primetime animation. Time for Clerks: The Animated Series to be given a second chance. Smith and Mosier returned to Fox, the other major networks, the WB, F/X and HBO (current home of Sex and the City and Six Feet Under). The latter was considered to be their best meeting. In creating their concept for the animated series Smith and Mosier had sanitized the original Clerks idea in an effort to make it more suitable for television. Nonetheless, HBO wanted to know where all the profanity had gone – they had thought that the best bits of the feature had been the “dick and fart” jokes. But despite some signs of interest, all the networks passed again. Meanwhile The Family Guy, Dilbert, Baby Blues and Mission Hill (the last not yet seen in the UK) were all being taken up. Things were looking desperate. Then UPN (United Paramount Network) made an offer. They wanted 13 episodes “on the air” (which meant they would be produced and shown whatever). The problem was, UPN wasn’t a real network – it was a night package carried in syndication across cable television stations. Alongside Star Trek: Voyager it had a reputation for wall to wall wrestling (during one of their promotion drives for the “sport” they forced their other programmes to include an episode which featured a top wrestler). As UPN was making its approach, one of its heads, Dean Valentine, called Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney’s Buena Vista’s film company who – more importantly – owned the rights-holder to Clerks, Miramax. Hearing that UPN were interested, Eisner decided he was too. The company were looking to try out new types of programming on their ABC network, and so they also approached Smith. With potential deals from UPN and now ABC, the clincher for Smith and co came when an executive at ABC convinced him that UPN would not exist within a year. Smith, believing the ABC man’s honesty and eyeing this sudden offer to appear on the fourth largest network in America signed on the dotted line for six episodes (which is unusual for a mid-season replacement, and that offers some pointers as to what was to come). Also in the mix by now was David Mandel. Smith let his agent know of his intentions, and was surprised to learn that Dave Mandel, a past writer of Seinfeld who had recently signed a three-year nine million dollar contract with ABC was interested in trying animation. A lunch was set up which Mandel attended mostly because he wanted to meet the guys who had made those films. The meeting went well, and a common ground was in evidence about the approach they wanted to take with the material. By this time Smith’s various productions had developed something of a following and a site had been set up to track stories about the director’s projects new and old. The punningly titled News Askew was begun by some fans in 1997 as the third film Chasing Amy went to video; it would eventually become linked to as the source by the View Askew Productions official website. Over the years the discussion boards on the site would be frequented by Smith, Mosier and friends – actors from the director’s film would also visit on occasion. It was a good way to float ideas by the fans and also clear up any rumours which might surface elsewhere on the web. So as had been customary on other occasions with other projects, Smith posted the first announcement on the boards about the series as early as November 1998: “Well, not Scott and me, exactly. Instead, it’s going to be about clerks – or, more precisely, Clerks – The Animated Series. Look for it in January 2000. The particulars I’ll hold off on, as there are a few networks bidding on the show currently, and we’re not sure where it’s going to eventually air. All I will say is, God bless South Park – they’ve really opened the doors. Many moons ago, pre-Park, we were begging Fox to do an animated Clerks, likening it to The Simpsons, and they stared at us blankly. Last week, however, five networks not only listened to us seriously, but ardently – some even going so far as to giving us carte blanche to create more than one program. What a difference a few years makes …” The mainstream media caught on in February 1999 after an article in Daily Variety. “For us, it’s not about recreating the movie,” Smith said in the article. “We want to push the edge of the envelope in another direction. We’re talking about being a bit surreal using the animation medium. I mean, why bother doing animation unless you’re going to be wacky with it?” The budget for the show was set at $750,000 an episode (which would have been enough to make the original film 21 times over), a similar figure to the cost of many other animated series, including Family Guy. Writing as part of a team was a fairly alien process for Kevin Smith. Although he had been hired to re-write other people’s work before (the barroom drama Coyote Ugly and teen road movie Overnight Delivery) this was the first time someone else had equal input on the scripts. But he and Mandel were hitting it off well. The first draft of the pilot script was 90 pages long (an average half hour cartoon is 20 or so). This was done purposefully so that the material could be looked at to see what would not work in context. Within a few days it was cut down to 30. Much of the time they would each write an equal share and then, as is the tradition with American sitcoms, the work would be looked over by team of gag writers, which in this case included Scott Mosier with Steve Buckner and Brian Kelly (whose experience included the ratings winner News Radio). Smith was amazed at their ability to produce joke after joke, and still remain satisfied when only one or two made the final draft. He would also rely on animation directors on this occasion with Chris Bailey the supervising directors covering shows one and three, and Nick Fillipi and Steve Loter covering the others. Looking at the scripts for the series, its incredible how consistent the writing is. Frequently with both American sitcoms and cartoons it is possible to discern a difference in scripting. Even in the earlier seasons of The Simpsons its often possible to tell the quality of the show you are about to watch by the writer’s name in the credits. It would be difficult for any followers of Smith’s work, however, to discern another voice here. The dialogue is just as structured as in the films. Once the writing had been approved (after a read-through with an audience of friends and studio executives) the voice recording began. Anyone who has seen the Disney series Hercules will have been amazed at how, for once, the original cast of the film re-appeared to a man in the television series. Strangely considering the other battles which would take place over the production of the series, the replacement of the regular cast from the film was never under consideration. So Brian O’Halloran re-appeared as Dante, Jeff Anderson played Randall and Jason Mewes was still in there as Jay. That they were not specifically voice artists was shown in their delivery which differs little in style from that found in the original film, imbuing the cartoon with an unusual level of naturalism. In addition to the regular cast the series was also able to boast Alec Baldwin as the clerks’ arch-nemesis Leonardo Leonardo (after Alan Rickman left due to network pressure), but there were further star turns to come. An episode about a virus featured a general played by James Woods (whose only directing note was to “be James Woods”) whilst another featured a court case presided over by the right honourable Judge Reinhold. Alongside this former Whose Line is it Anyway? regular Mike McShane appeared in the credits of nearly every episode, often finding himself acting in scenes people by other characters he was also voicing. Throughout the rest of the series Mandel and Smith called in a few favours and there were moments featuring the collective casts of Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live plus blink and you’ll miss them cameos from Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow (Ben Affleck was due to appear in an later unproduced episode apparently). These voice recordings, edited together would be used as a guide for the art director and storyboard artist discussing how each shot would appear. Each episode would comprise 800 scenes per show. These would then be looked at by the producers who would offer suggestions as to how they could be improved or changed to fit in with their “vision”. One of the main notes for the series (seen during a short documentary on the DVD release) is “Trying for that comic book look, but with more depth.” All of the artists involved were comic fans and they were weary of the fact that other animations were said to exhibit that style of art but really didn’t – it was a layman’s idea of what comic books look like. Unlike other series, the film dictated the look of the characters, but they still wanted to take advantage of the fact that they were in animation, so there had to be the same scope. The touchstone for the look of the main characters was that if they were drawn in silhouette, the viewer should still be able to work out which was which. In addition to this, as with The Flintstones, it was hoped that the viewer at home would also be able to draw each character themselves. Although Silent Bob was fairly easy to reinvent, Jay caused a few issues because in the film he was the bad guy. Whenever the design assignment was passed to an artist their first instinct was to create a malevolent look, with lots of points, slightly fox-like. Eventually they arrived at an atypical design for the show – by giving him dots for eyes Jay was made immediately more appealing. Once they had the look for these characters, Dante fell into place relatively quickly, although the look for Randal was close to the wire in terms of shipping the first episode for animation as the crew wanted to get as close as possible to the original actor. The eventual graphics were certainly different to most other shows. Although there were some spectacular sequences, the series generally took its cues from the Hanna-Barbera style (see Huckleberry Hound and Hong Kong Phooey). This meant that in some comic moments, the joke was a slight change in the frame, perhaps a look in someone’s eyes. This was a refreshing change and more focused than The Simpsons‘ model of something happening all over the screen, sometimes as a distraction as to what was going on in the story. As with most US animation series, once the initial story-board work had been completed, the work was farmed out to animators overseas to draw the actual cartoon. Unfortunately it was here that a culture gap opened up. Although clear storyboards would be sent to Korea the cartoons would arrive back looking completely wrong. In scene after scene the Quick Stop sign on the front of the store would appear misspelled or with seemingly random lettering and sometimes the convenience store boys would be speaking each other’s lines. Over in Korea there were two animation teams, and when Smith and co noticed that the second episode returned was far better than the first it was clear that one of the teams wasn’t as good as the other. The lead animator from the failing team was duly dismissed, with immediate results. Everything went relatively smoothly for the next few episodes, but then when the sixth and final episode was returned many of the mistakes which had appeared before were back. It transpired that the animator hadn’t been fired after all but had been left to work with the good animators whose work was now suffering as a result. However as Kevin Smith described in a posting to News Askew: “Chris Bailey and producer John Bush were able to travel over there and sit down with the animators, illustrating in person what they were looking for.” Although the problems were finally overcome some of the frustration of the producers, and in particular Bailey can be seen from this posting to News Askew at the end of April 2000: “Today we finished the last little bit on the last of the six Clerks cartoons. It came down to the wire since as of last night, six retakes were still missing from some of the shows. I was told that it was too late to get the changes in the shows, but after promising the post production crew hookers and beer, they found a way to make it happen. Thanks guys! “What’s a retake? It’s when we ask the Koreans animators for a second (or third, or fourth or fifth …) pass on the animation. Some of the retakes were due to us needing something new, like another line of dialogue or a new shot, but most were because of things like paint mistakes, where they might forget to colour Randal’s head or they paint the sky day colours instead of night. “Our last minute retakes entailed repositioning a title card, adding moving mouths to a dialogue shot of Jay (the Korean animator forgot to draw them), repainting a ladies room door so that it didn’t change colour from shot to shot, fixing a camera move that was panning in the wrong direction and swapping out a couple of backgrounds and replacing them with better ones. It seemed like whenever we thought we were done, we found new things that needed doing. At times it seemed like we’d never finish by the deadline.” It’s reputed that they had a week to finish everything; whether this really was the case isn’t clear although there certainly wasn’t a budget available and the crew and actors would eventually be breaking union rules and working for free to get everything finished. Aside from problems with the animation, the programme makers were also increasingly exasperated with the process of having to pass their material with the station lawyers. This is a process that happens on all television products, but in their case they felt that their best jokes were going by the wayside because of an oversensitivity on display. To make matters worse there was also an incoherence to the decisions, which would sometimes only be made as the shows were getting a final edit. It was hard to see sight gags such as “Flintstones List” go (an infamous parody of Schindler’s List set in Bedrock which would gain a lot of publicity when the show aired), but the primary change from the films saw Jay and Silent Bob, the known drug dealers, turned into what ABC called “merry mischief makers”. The inference was still there about what they would be up to when they weren’t playing little league, but they were far cry from the characters who had appeared in the films and comic books. As production progressed, network notes drifted from a trickle to a shower. In one episode a running gag involved all of Randal’s high school girlfriends having become lesbians since sleeping with him. This was allowed, but the artists were asked to make the girls “less dykey”. Their reaction was to give them all men’s voices. Eventually as the series neared completion, the network lawyers had a list of 50 or so things they wanted changing (use of the phrase “bong” for example). By the time a recognition was there that the series would not continue this was reduced to about three, because it would cost far too much to change them. As was often the case, disclaimers appeared at the start of each show because it was thought that people might still find some of the material offensive To make those moments more painless Smith decided to include their version of the disclaimer (similar to that found at the start of his film Dogma which explained that he really hadn’t wanted to cause offense to the Catholic church). But even these were being changed at the network’s request. Another aspect of the disclaimer was so that celebrities being parodied in the show would not sue the studio for defamation. Watching the court room scene in one episode where a list of directors had to pass back the profits for making poor movies you can see why. This nervousness about including the (fake) famous ran throughout the series. A down on his luck Patrick Swayze (voiced by comedian Chris Rock) appeared prominently in an unbroadcast episode as a pet shop owner; his appearance was only allowed by the studio lawyers and Swayze’s own people if the actor was seen at the end to get a new film role. In the same episode, a sight gag in which Randal puts together the pieces and realizes they have entered the territory of the film Outbreak included a reference to not being allowed to use Dustin Hoffman’s face and so they were substituting it with Al Pacino. This was for real – Hoffman is notorious about protecting his image rights. When the show was commissioned in early 1999, the producers were advised that it would have a March start as a mid-season replacement for a previously cancelled programme. For some this is a better place to premiere, as less episodes are generally ordered and shown, and very often the producers will get a guaranteed order for a certain number of shows (usually 13 weeks) allowing them time to craft the programme without the spectre of cancellation hanging over them. At a promo show in Pasadena Smith remembers that journalists thought Clerks: The Animated Series was “the only breath of fresh air in this whole thing”. The only problem being that the network decided they were not ready to show any clips, leaving Smith and co to talk about a series no one could actually see. Then the start date was moved to the summer, the last day in May 2000. This is traditionally a much more difficult place to target a programme as American schedules are taken up with re-runs of existing shows and sporting events. The producers began to worry, but the network still professed a love for Clerks, and by this time two episodes were mostly ready so an invitation was made for a viewing in front of the studio heads. As luck would have it, Smith arrived as his two friends Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were leaving after pitching their own show. They were happy to return to see the cartoons and laughed throughout. Smith was pleased that some A-list Hollywood stars were seen to like his work, but true to form the studio executives remained stony-faced. It’s clear that ABC were becoming unsure about the potential of the show and whether it fitted inon their network. A change in culture was underway at the network, as Scott Mosier would later remember: “[That January] Who Wants to be a Millionaire aired and (ABC) shot up to being the top network … When you’re in last place, I think you think about things like hey let’s air Clerks that seems interesting and when you’re in first place I don’t think you want to air it as much.” It was also clear that the network weren’t even sure who would actually watch Clerks. As Smith described at News Askew in March 2000: “I should clear up the test screening thing. ABC had two sets of test screenings in Ohio and San Diego, for which they recruited audiences for a completely different show, and instead showed them Clerks. Our big complaint was that because they recruited for a different show, our key demographic was not represented (18 – 25). And I never said they screen edit for 55 – 80 year olds. I likened these test screenings to test screening Dogma to an audience of 55 – 80 year old priests. “But we held test screenings of our own in LA at the Miramax screening room. Two sets of audiences: one comprised of View Askew fans, the other made up of mainstream TV views not necessarily familiar with the stuff View Askew has done. Most importantly – both audiences contained our crucial 18 – 25 year olds, and both screenings scored substantially higher than the ABC recruited test screenings.” The other fly in the ointment was that (as is often the case with US series) the shows would not be shown in production or “right” order. Although the pilot had been produced as an introduction to the concept and the characters for general viewers at the studio’s request, the eventual episode wasn’t considered funny enough. Forced to make a choice the producers selected episode four as the strongest, which would offer its own problems in the end. There had been, however, enough faith in the show to run a promotion for the programme during The Superbowl, the largest American sporting event of the year; but these had not been produced by the programme makers and completely failed to capture the essence of Clerks. Suddenly this was the story of a slacker and his slacker friends; the only scene to appear being the moment from the pilot episode (which wasn’t being shown) where Jay hit a firecracker in the air with a baseball bat. It also hadn’t helped that the advert had promoted the March premiere, not the summer slot it now languished in. They would also be showing in a 9.30pm timeslot after one of their more popular sitcoms Drew Carey (shown in the UK on E4 now and then) following the season finale of Spin City (Michael J Fox’s final episode) a week before. Although the audience figures weren’t great there it attracted many teens and twentysomethings, the target audience. Unfortunately, the hype which was needed to get this demographic to tune in didn’t materialize. USA Today had covered the series months ahead of time; but this had doubtless been forgotten. Other than a full page in advert TV Guide (drawn by Chris Bailey), the programme makers had to do their own publicity. Scott Mosier paid $400 of his own money for a two week advert on the internet magazine Zentertainment. On the day the first show aired Kevin Smith did the usual round of publicity. He appeared on The Howard Stern Radio Show (and believes that a large proportion of the audience who watched that night had first heard about it that morning). But despite their efforts he was already pessimistic about their chances as he revealed during a webchat for CNN.com: “I’d be happy if three people watched and found it hilarious. Those three people would be Michael Eisner, Stu Bloomberg and Lloyd Braun, co-heads of ABC. If only those three cats tuned in and found the show funny, we might have a shot at life beyond our meager six episodes. No one else in the entire world has to watch, just those three guys. Failing that, if more people tuned in to watch the show than had tuned in to watch the final episode of MAS*H, then we might get renewed as well.” In that same interview he expressed regrets that he hadn’t gone with UPN after all: “As for regrets, the only real regret is that we didn’t opt to go with UPN instead of ABC. The UPN pitch meeting was classic. We didn’t have to pitch. They said, ‘Look, we don’t care what the show’s about. Just bring it here. We need programmes.’ We could’ve xeroxed our asses for a half hour and they would’ve let it run for at least two seasons. ABC wouldn’t let us xerox our asses, so I regret going with that particular network.” From this evidence it’s clear that by this time Smith (and everyone else with an interest) had resigned himself to the fact that it had been an adventure, that they had a cartoon series they felt they could be proud of but that it was time to move on. They would be lucky if all six of the episodes made were shown. Yes, there was the slim possibility that it would be a massive success with great word of mouth, but it was unlikely. Already the realisation had dawned that the ongoing project was dead. When it came to transmission it has to be said that the show aired on time but that an audience who hadn’t seen the film would be particularly confused by exactly who everyone was and how the series might turn out. The plot of the episode was that Jay slips on the floor of the Quick Stop, and after some convincing from Randal hires a high-powered lawyer to sue Dante for $10 million. It led to a classic courtroom scenario laced with dream sequences as a jury made up of All American Basketball All-Stars and the aforementioned Judge Reinhold presiding over all. The end of the episode went on to poke gentle fun at the animators (a concept which had been mentioned and liked in some of the original pitch meetings) as it was explained that due to circumstances beyond their control, the script for the rest of the episode was lost on its way overseas, but that luckily it was completed by the Koreans. Cue an elaborate trip into anime as all of the characters are re-imagined in a Pokémon style and the plot strands are drawn together in a nightmare which includes Sailor Moon, Pikachu, a Transformer (which turns from car to robot killing its passengers in the process) and Judge Reinhold partnering Axel Foley whilst they battle a giant rat. Although entertaining, without the layers of knowledge acquired from watching Smith’s films and the proceeding three episodes it’s an entirely bewildering experience. Unlike the first episodes of The Simpsons or South Park it lacks the satisfying ending which is needed to make people actually want to watch again or even build a cult following. The best reviews appeared on the internet in magazines focused upon the show’s target audience, and by fans on the News Askew discussion boards (which Smith and crew followed that night, presumably to see if they had at least pleased their core audience). Elsewhere, viewpoints were mixed. Ironically, it was Variety (which had legendarily slammed Star Trek on its first night) which liked it the most. The others were very unkind although more often than not they respected the look of the show and the animation. The worst review appeared in Entertainment Weekly: “Kevin Smith’s 1994 movie and current comic book have become a minimally animated cartoon series featuring New Jersey convenience-store drudge Dante, video-store drudge Randal, and freelance drudges Jay and Silent Bob, plus Smith’s trademark style of humour: endless cult-movie and not-gettin’-any sex jokes. Add a tired parody of The People’s Court, a disgusting Sally Ride astronaut joke, and an insidious strain of homophobia disguised as aren’t-we-cool-to-make-fun-of-gays jokes, and I say, after seeing five episodes, these creeps can’t disappear fast enough.” The second episode to air was the actual second episode to be made, a parody of the clip shows which appear now and then in US series as a cost-saving exercise. The joke here being that they would only be able to flashback to clips from the first episode (although later in the show we see sections of episodes which hadn’t even been made, like the time Randall became the internet bride of a Chinese businessman). Obviously for the premise of the show and most of the jokes to work the audience had to be aware of what happened in that pilot episode – which at this stage hadn’t been aired (had the series continued the actual pilot would have appeared fifth). With this in mind the audience was once again unable to follow the show. The plotlines for the other four episodes had a blatant disregard for the conventions of much television animation in that although the stories certainly come from the characters, their actions are taken to extremes. In the pilot, Dante and Randal found their livelihoods in question when the maniacal multi-millionaire Leonardo Leonardo opens the massive rival Quicker Stop across the street. Episode three was the parody of the film Outbreak, with terror brought about by Randal’s paranoia of a pet shop monkey and in episode five, Dante coached a team of misfit Little Leaguers as Randal became an unwitting pawn in a governmental secret program which resembles the Temple of Doom from the Indiana Jones movie. That the series was nothing like the original film that spawned it was addressed in the final episode. Called “The Final Episode” it opened with Dante and Randal being harangued at a Comics Convention because they have ignored what has gone before. They therefore promise that this episode would be just like the film and on cue the caption cards from the movie return, and Dante and Randal don’t leave the counter area. The joke develops that increasingly amazing events happen outside the store, but because the clerks can’t leave, the viewer doesn’t get to see more. It’s a premise that mostly works as the viewers tries to piece together what they are missing from the evidence being brought in by Silent Bob, Jay and the other customers. In the final analysis, “mostly works” is a term that could describe the series as whole. Watching it in the intended order (thanks to the DVD) as the running jokes and confidence build the overall impression is of something born of a genuine attempt at something fresh being nurtured onto the screen. If these were the first six episodes of a new cartoon series, there is certainly enough here to make someone who is interested in animation and a fan of similar shows continue to watch. That said, it does also feel throughout like a compromise. For a show such as this to succeed there needed to be some trust on the part of the network to allow the programme-makers to put their vision on screen. The reason The Simpsons works is that Fox notoriously backs away from it and allows Matt Groening to get on with putting the show he wants up on the screen. Likewise, South Park would never have worked if the Comedy Channel had said that they couldn’t have made fun of David Coruso’s career in the pilot when Kyle was trying to get his brother to jump out of the UFO. Classic animation is never created when its creators are overruled at every turn. Essentially what happened with Clerks: The Animated Series is that the network told the programme makers what they wanted and then didn’t like it when the programme wasn’t everything they hoped. It’s impossible to have it both ways. In many ways it’s difficult to see why Clerks: The Animated Series was ever commissioned as a going concern at all. It isn’t a show for a wide audience. The humour isn’t broad enough, and in places, as has already been discussed, the viewer needs all kinds of weird knowledge of film, TV, cartoon and Kevin Smith trivia to appreciate it. The Outbreak parody is hilarious if you’ve seen the virus thriller and the final episode is laced with material for fans of the original film, but looking at the series dispassionately there simply isn’t enough here for a second series on a major network. There’s not enough to build on. But The Simpsons is filled with film parody isn’t it? And isn’t that the most popular show on the planet? Well, yes, but you don’t actually have to have the knowledge to find it funny because the characters are familiar for a family audience. There the references are elaborate, but they’re worked in. With Clerks the writers are winking at the audience to such an extent that it looks like some kind of chronic condition. There needs to be broader humour otherwise the viewer will switch off because they feel stupid. The other problem is that the main characters are Dante and Randal and the show is called Clerks. That needs some qualification. In the film, the reason the audience sympathises with Dante and Randal is because they’re either just like them or know someone like them. Dante is the talker, Randal the doer – but things begin to go wrong when the roles are switched. In the cartoon, the characters undergo a change which blands them out slightly, so that the audience can’t build an expectant picture of what they’re like – some of the time they’re undoubtedly funny dialogue is interchangeable. Dante could be the eternal loser, Randal always coming up gold. A general audience likes something simpler to hold onto. The characterisations here (possibly by design) don’t seem as clear as they are in something like Friends (Pheobe is the kooky one, Joey’s a bit thick, Rachel is prissy etc). But – the screen lights up when Jay and Silent Bob arrive. They’re such archetypes, the loudmouth and the mute, so carefully drawn, that you know magic will occur. A large proportion of the funnier moments are in their hands – for example in the unseen pilot when they defect and begin to stand in front of the Quick-er Stop, or in the little league scenes where both of them round the bases together. They’re an odd couple, and they worked well enough to carry a feature film. However it’s almost like watching The Simpsons and the focus is on Marge every episode, or tuning in for the adventures of Leela on Futurama. There is a reason it’s all Homer (or Bart) and Fry (or Bender). Having said all of that, as a cult show, Clerks: The Animated Series is just perfect. Perhaps if the network had enough faith to sell it as such, advertised it enough in the right place to the right demographic with some savvy, and made sure that anyone who might be interested would be watching, it might have had a big enough audience to have been a success. Sadly there are still some people (especially in this country) who loved the Kevin Smith films but don't even know the cartoon exists. That’s a shame because it’s certainly as funny in places as any of the film work. For all these reasons outlined, Clerks: The Animated Series just didn’t take off as everyone had hoped and ABC canned it after airing just two out of the six episodes. Kevin Smith again returned to film with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, a $15 million in-joke to wrap up the story of the stoners which went on to become his biggest hit yet, garnering an even larger fan base. Like the cartoon this was filled with references and characters from all of his previous films, but the studio stayed away from the production process with only the US movie ratings board keeping him at bay. In the internet trailer for that film Smith makes his final comment about the whole cartoon affair. The live action clerks sit and stand in their familiar positions behind the counter. Dante makes some remark about his friend hanging about the store all day. Randal turns to him: “If you had been funnier than that ABC would never have cancelled us.” THANKS TO: THE NEWS ASKEW WEBSITE, THE NOËLLE PARKER CENTRAL FAN WEBSITE AND IMDB Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2003 0 comments Labels: film school, off the telly archive Spam I recently posted this spam email from fictional amore Nicola Bradley. It seems she gets about a bit and I'm not the first to 'fall' for her 'charms'. Web searches have abounded and led here. From the comments box on that post ... "I just got this email too.. After seeing it on your site, my first thought was 'Yep, it's spam.. probably spam for a porn site'.. guess someone could write back and find out what they send you.. but, im guessing its spam that they get you to write them, so its considered only voluntary." -- Ryan "Very creative! I got it too. I had to search and I ended up here. Thank goodness I didn't reply. :)" -- Anon "Yeah, Nicole sure does get around...I got it too. I thought it looked a bit odd, so I decided to do a search. Consider your site as a pubic service!" -- Steve Interesting Freudian typo Steve. Perhaps you should both ask Sebastian about it ... "Well, not for me I'm Kinda late for search, I thought she was for really, well I got to get a life." Don't be too hard on yourself Seb I'm sure any virile man glancing over that email would think their luck had changed even for a split second. Would be interested to hear from anyone who has answered the email ... That Day The turnout at the local council election, must, I think, have reached an all-time low. As we sat in out depressing little portacabin, with the sounds and sights of school children chattering about and watching the one pensioner a quarter hour toddle up the rain soaked disabled access ramp, all I could think was -- and the people of Iraq have been clammering for this? Or actually the people of Iraq are clammering for this and we take it so much for granted that some of us don't even bother? Embarassment and guilt are just beginning to set in. TV My new article for Off The Telly about Clerks: The Animated Series has just been published with a nice creamy background this time. You can read it here. Still embracing DVD technology, I offer the following deleted scene, cut for time and relevance: "But it was enough to get Smith a reputation of sorts and as is the way in these stories Hollywood was calling. It’s important to talk about his next project because it would be the first time he worked for a major studio, and the curbing of his artistic control, something which would happen again with the cartoon series. Mallrats was Clerks writ large – his attempt to essentially remake that film in a much larger setting. Instead of Dante and Randal, this time Brodie and TS. Jay and Silent Bob returned but their role was more cartooney, more comic book characterish (Silent Bob became obsessed with trying to use The Force from the Star Wars films and had a Batmanesque utility belt). It gave Smith the chance to work with professional and name actors (this was were he would meet long time pals Ben Affleck and Jason Lee, whose careers he would jump start, and fell out with Shannon Doherty). But this came at a price. The studio clearly wanted a mainstream film, so much of the verbal humour of the first becomes gross out visual humour ala Animal House. As the production began, Jay was almost recast (Jason Mewes was almost the only non-professional actor on the set and the executives weren’t sure if he could carry the film). Throughout production he felt that the piece was being compromised and that ultimately the studio didn’t really understand what he wanted to do. The film was barely released in the end but found an audience on video, which is were it premiered in the UK having missed out on a theatrical release here as well. It was during the making of this film certain cynicism of the studio system undoubtedly crept in; his next film Chasing Amy was a no budget indie production again." I'll record an audio commentary when I can round up the boys. In an odd twist I talked up Mike 'Friar Tuck' McShane's work on Clerks. In his excellent piece on Whose Line Is It Anyway? Matthew Rudd shares the love: "McShane never failed to find a rhyme, never failed to find a plot to the story, never resorted to "oh yeah"-esque fillers to account for syntactical or structural deficiencies and - most crucially - never failed to be funny. His vocal work was enormously impressive, veering worryingly towards perfection, something which improvisation never sought, expected or needed. However, McShane's lack of roughness around the edges never gave rise to any nudge-nudge grumbles about rehearsal - his integrity was always way ahead of that in the race. His skill was also useful as the last verse of the collective song (a march or gospel, generally), as at least two of the previous three contributions regularly were delivered on a rhyme-at-all-costs basis, with humour treated merely as a bonus. On top of all that, McShane could sing." He also goes on to remind us of all the things we were saying at the time, (ie) John Sessons wasn't funny, Josie Lawrence couldn't sing, Tony Slattery needed a good kicking etc. Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2003 0 comments Font I've gone back to Verdana. Georgia was hurting my eyes ... and the tag board's gone. So you'll have to use those lovely commenting tags ... Theatre Here is something I never thought I would hear myself say. Last night, I walked out on Shakespeare. Or rather I walked out on a performance of Shakespeare. I won’t embarrass anyone with the details of who (after all I did leave in the intermission and for I know the second half might have been dynamite) although I should say our local paper gave the same performance 8/10 tonight (but that review spent 80% on Shakespeares words and 20% on what he saw – yes we know it’s very well written, that’s why people perform it so often). It was a production of Henry V. Now it won’t replace Hamlet in my heart but I do like the play – I once almost had to do ‘Once More Unto The Breach…’ at school and I always get a tear when I here the king say ‘On St. Crispin’s Day….’ But this just felt wrong. To my mind Henry V is no tyrant. Yes he tramples into France but for his men to respect him they way they do in the play he has to rule with an even hand. The man I saw last night just seemed to like SHOUTING. A LOT. AT EVERYBODY! Even the tenderer scenes became a chance for him to annunciate loudly. And it wasn’t just him. Everyone was giving it some. But it didn’t feel like acting. It felt like an exercise in remembering the lines. Which they mostly did very well. Except I didn’t feel a sense of character. The king was a king because he was wearing a crown. But as the rest of the cast glided through it was difficult to get a handle on any of them. Before the show I listened to a couple behind me criticizing the Macbeth I loved so much in the same venue a few weeks ago. At least he had a table. It was also a period perfect no scenery approach here (except for the ‘wooden’ O), and I appreciate the idea of giving the audience the chance to use their imagination. This is after all what this play is about (as the Chorus reminds us all the time). But in places the playing of the people in spaces scewed this somewhat as the characters stepped over and crashed about on the O. No real sense of place. And no one seemed to be just listening. They were mostly waiting for the next line. So by about three quarters of an hour in I know I really didn’t want to stick around. So I left at the halfway point and [what happened next censored due to blogging rules – let’s just say I got my money’s worth afterall]. It is unusual how inconsistent I am about leaving some piece of art in the middle. Everyone had obviously worked hard on the production, and it was touring so this wasn’t the first time it had been performed for an audience. Being on the road is tough too. And anyone still putting on the words of my favourite four hundred year old poet is to be congratulated. But I feel OK about it because most of the stuff I objected to was down to artistic choices which I didn’t agree with. And yet I sat through Scooby Doo, Showgirls and (bless me) Spiceworld, all even more inexplicable pieces of art. And the production of ‘The Crucible’ in Edinburgh were one of the parts was essayed by the director because the original actor was sick, and he was reading nervously from the text through out. And he had all of the lines. But I think for that last one there was a Dunkirk spirit at play. They were an amateur production and not getting paid really. Henry V was a professional production and I just felt I wanted something more for my fiver. Food Ever wondered why pigs make the best truffle detectors? "The pig is not content to wag his tail and point when he has discovered a truffle," wrote Mayle. "He wants to eat it. In fact, he is desperate to eat it. And you cannot reason with a pig on the brink of gastronomic ecstasy. He is not easily distracted, nor is he of a size you can fend off with one hand while you rescue the truffle. There he is, as big as a small tractor, rigid with porcine determination and refusing to be budged." Feels a bit sinister to me ... Posted on Sunday, April 27, 2003 0 comments Alanis I know this news is a fortnight old, but Rolling Stone reports she's back in the studio recording a new album. Still bonkers: Although the songs are not yet written, Morissette knows that they will reflect the world's current upheaval, however indirectly. "I will always write about the microcosm that can be extrapolated into the macro," she says. "Something that's going on between myself and another person can be extrapolated between what's going on between Saddam Hussein and Bush. It's the same schoolyard, sandbox issue. So my preference isn't to stand on a soapbox and say what I think they should do when I possess the same qualities that they may be showing on a grander scale. I much prefer to write about my own relationships rather than pointing fingers." 'Under Rug Swept' really grew on me after a while so this may be a good thing. Keep the ideas small though ... Who Shada! Shada! Shada! [the first episode is ... TV Anyone with Freeview might like to click over ... Theatre It's good to know that when Shakespeare w... TV Just discovered Sonia Mansfield of the The Exa... Spam I recently posted this spam email from ficti... That Day The turnout at the local council electio... TV My new article for Off The Telly about Clerks:... Font I've gone back to Verdana. Georgia was hurt... Theatre Here is something I never thought I would... Food Ever wondered why pigs make the best truffle... Alanis I know this news is a fortnight old, but R...	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12897
__label__cc	0.504308	0.495692	“In line at the grocery store one day, I looked around and saw all these people, all these faces, all ages, all these people I never really see. I wondered – maybe we never really look at each other, at ourselves. If I, as a visual artist, never really looked at the people I engage with on a daily basis, do they? The thought was – I should paint these people…all of them, any of them that are willing… no selection by me, let them select themselves. Maybe we can begin to see each other. What if we make the genre of portrait painting available to all? You don’t need money or stature or accomplishment. You don’t need to fit into some ideal I might have as an artist. You are worthy because you are here… in this town, at this time. Let’s paint a portrait of our town, one portrait that is made of many…a portrait of Maquoketa. All these thoughts came in a rush as I stood in the check-out line.” – Rose Frantzen Portrait of Maquoketa: The Dimensional View features the work of Rose Frantzen, a Maquoketa, Iowa, native who has gained national and international acclaim for her oil paintings from life that bring contemporary and innovative perspectives to a traditional alla prima approach. Portrait of Maquoketa features 180 oil painting portraits that Frantzen created from July 2005 to July 2006 and an audio collage of the voices of those who posed, along with music inspired by the voices and by the quiet beauty of the hills around Maquoketa. For the Figge installation, Frantzen painted a 315-square-foot landscape view of Maquoketa from the hills outside town. The landscape is broken up on 34 vertical panels that are suspended from the ceiling so that the panels come together as one when viewed from one end of the exhibition space. The reverse side of each panel acts as a frame for the 180 portraits. The portraits, the landscape and a new music composition by John Frantzen, Rose’s brother, were funded in part by the Iowa Arts Council, a division of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts. “Although Portrait of Maquoketa has gone places I never imagined,” says Rose Frantzen, “I have felt from the start a desire to set the portrait of the town into a larger framework, namely the landscape—showing this community nestled within the Iowan countryside. The opportunity to show in the beautiful and expansive third-floor gallery of the Figge compelled me to realize my initial vision.” The new three-dimensional installation was conceived and designed by Frantzen in collaboration with her husband, artist Charles Morris, who mapped out the enlargement of Frantzen’s landscape onto panels that vary in size from 3 1/2 feet tall to more than 10 feet tall. The original landscape, which Frantzen painted on location in the early spring of 2012, was transformed to fill a 90-degree view with 30 feet in depth. This exhibition will be on view through January 20, 2013. Learn more about this exhibition in this YouTube video: Artist Rose Frantzen at the National Portrait Gallery. See Rose Frantzen's artistic process in this YouTube video. Photos: Rose Frantzen working in her studio on panels for Portrait of Maquoketa exhibirtion. © Old City Hall Gallery View photos of the installation of this exhibition at the Figge. Sponsored by Joseph and Carolyn Martin Dr. Ralph and Jennifer Saintfort Rose Frantzen, Untitled, 2005-2006, oil on panel. Courtesy of the artist.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12898
__label__wiki	0.940702	0.940702	President Trump Pays Tribute to 'Brave Patriots' Who Fought Hijackers on 9/11 Darlene Superville / AP Time September 11, 2018 (SHANKSVILLE, Pa.) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday remembered the “band of brave patriots” aboard a Sept. 11 flight that crashed in Pennsylvania, praising passengers and crew members who resisted hijackers and sent a message that the nation would “never, ever submit to tyranny.” Trump honored those killed 17 years ago at a rural field where the fourth airliner of the day crashed after those aboard realized what was happening and several passengers tried to storm the cockpit. The president praised those who “took control of their destiny and changed the course of history.” “A piece of America’s heart is buried on these grounds, but in its place has grown a new resolve to live our lives with the same grace and courage as the heroes of Flight 93,” Trump said. “This field is now a monument to American defiance. This memorial is now a message to the world: America will never, ever submit to tyranny.” Trump listened as the names of the 40 victims were read aloud, followed by the tolling of bells. He was joined in remembrances by his wife, first lady Melania Trump, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and former Gov. Mark Schweiker, who was the state’s lieutenant governor on 9/11. Nearly 3,000 people died that day when other airplanes were flown into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in an attack planned by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was killed in May 2011 during a U.S. military operation ordered by President Barack Obama. Trump, a New York native, made his first visit as president to the Shanksville site and paid tribute to the Americans who died that day. He said the site marks the “moment when America fought back,” and said the Sept. 11 anniversary recalls the day “a band of brave patriots turned the tide on our nation’s enemies and joined the immortal ranks of American heroes.” Earlier in the morning, Trump sent out a series of tweets marking the date, including praise for his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who was New York’s mayor at the time. He also tweeted quotes from Fox News about a series of his familiar grievances, including the Russia probe and the U.S. Department of Justice. Trump observed the solemn anniversary for the first time as president last year. He and the first lady led a moment of silence at the White House accompanied by aides and administration officials marking the time that hijackers flew the first of two airplanes into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. The president also participated in the Pentagon’s Sept. 11 observance last year. Vice President Mike Pence represented the administration there on Tuesday. Trump was in his Trump Tower penthouse, 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) from the World Trade Center, during the 2001 attacks. He has a mixed history with Sept. 11, often using the terrorist strikes to praise the response of New Yorkers to the attack but also making unsubstantiated claims about what he did and saw that day. He has also accused fellow Republican George W. Bush, who was president on Sept. 11, of failing to keep Americans safe. Trump has said when talking about Muslims that “thousands of people were cheering” in Jersey City, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, as the towers collapsed. There is no evidence in news archives of mass celebrations there by Muslims. Trump also said he lost “hundreds of friends” in the attack on New York City. He has not provided any names but has mentioned knowing a Roman Catholic priest who died while serving as a chaplain to the city’s fire department. 'A new beginning': Man convicted of murder in the '90s exonerated thanks to genetic genealogy Hummus products recalled due to concerns over possible listeria contamination	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12902
__label__wiki	0.526235	0.526235	Tag Archives: Fire apparatus Botanical Name: Ulex europaeus Family:Fabaceae Subfamily:Faboideae Genus:Ulex Species:U. europaeus Order:Fabales Synonyms: Furze. Broom. Whin. Prickly Broom. Ruffet. Frey. Goss. Common Names: Gorse, Common gorse, Furze Habitat: Ulex europaeus is native to portions of Europe from the northern United Kingdom south to Galicia in Spain and Portugal, and from the western Republic of Ireland east to Galicja in Poland and Ukraine. There is probably hardly a heath in the country which lacks a patch, however small, of the dry-soil-loving Furze. Ulex europaeus is a deciduous Shrub growing to 1.5 m (5ft) by 1.5 m (5ft) at a fast rate, growing to 2–3 metres (7–10 ft) tall. The young stems are green, with the shoots and leaves modified into green spines, 1–3 centimetres (0.39–1.18 in) long. Young seedlings produce normal leaves for the first few months; these are trifoliate, resembling a small clover leaf. The flowers are yellow, 1–2 centimetres (0.39–0.79 in) long, with the pea-flower structure typical of the Fabaceae; they are produced throughout the year, but mainly in early spring. The fruit is a legume (pod) 2 centimetres (0.79 in) long, dark purplish-brown, partly enclosed by the pale brown remnants of the flower; the pod contains 2-3 small blackish, shiny, hard seeds, which are ejected when the pod splits open in hot weather. Seeds remain viable for 30 years. CLICK & SEE THE PICTURES Like many species of gorse, it is often a fire-climax plant, which readily catches fire but re-grows from the roots after the fire; the seeds are also adapted to germinate after slight scorching by fire. It has a tap root, lateral and adventious roots. An extremely tough and hardy plant, it can live for about thirty years. An easily grown plant, it requires a poor soil and a sunny position to be at its best. It does well on dry sunny banks or in poor gravelly soils. It is intolerant of shade, nor does it do well on rich soils. Prefers a neutral to slightly acid soil, disliking alkaline soils. Plants are very intolerant of root disturbance. Very tolerant of maritime exposure and, once established, drought. Although native to Britain and said to be hardy to about -20°c, gorse often suffers badly in severe winters, but the plants usually recover. They often accumulate dry dead spines at their centre, this can be a fire risk in dry summers. The plants often resprout from the base after a fire and, even if killed, numerous seedlings will soon spring up to replace the dead plants. Hybridizes freely with other members of this genus. The flowers are strongly scented of coconut. Another report says that the flowers have a smell of vanilla with undertones of orange or pineapple. It is one of the most refreshing of all flower scents. A food plant for the caterpillars of several lepidoptera species. Plants often form dense thickets and these are ideal nesting areas for many species of birds. Plants in this genus are notably resistant to honey fungus. This species has a symbiotic relationship with certain soil bacteria, these bacteria form nodules on the roots and fix atmospheric nitrogen. Some of this nitrogen is utilized by the growing plant but some can also be used by other plants growing nearby. Seed – pre-soak 24 hours in hot water and sow in individual pots in a greenhouse in late winter to early spring. Germination should take place within 2 weeks. When they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and grow them on in the greenhouse for their first winter. Plant them out into their permanent positions in late spring or early summer, after the last expected frosts. Plants are very intolerant of root disturbance and so should be planted into their permanent positions as soon as possible, though not until after the last expected frosts. Cuttings of half-ripe wood, 7cm with a heel, July/August in a frame. Pot up in spring as soon as rooting commences and plant out into their permanent positions as soon as possible Edible Uses: The flower buds are pickled in vinegar and then used like capers in salads. A tea is made from the shoot tips Parts Used: Flowers, seed. Gorse has never played much of a role in herbal medicine, though its flowers have been used in the treatment of jaundice and as a treatment for scarlet fever in children. The seed is said to be astringent and has been used in the treatment of diarrhoea and stones. The plant is used in Bach flower remedies – the keywords for prescribing it are ‘Hopelessness’ and ‘Despair’ Bruised gorse was used in some areas for feeding to horses and other livestocks. Lectin extracted from seeds of this species binds to, is remarkably specific for, and is the standard method for identification of H-substance (absent in the hh antigen system) on human red blood cells. The vast majority of humans express H-substance, which is the basis for the ABO blood group system, but a few rare individuals (“Bombay phenotype“) do not—and a chemical isolated from Ulex europaeus is used to identify these individuals. It fixes nitrogen into the soil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulex_europaeus http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/g/gorgol31.html http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Ulex+europaeus Furze is the Shakespearean Word Of The Day (05/22/15) Gorse fire at Maenporth Gorse Ride South demolition: Estate to hold celebration before the wrecking ball arrives Have the Land League gone away?? Remaking it New What is gorse? The prickly, invasive plant influences Bandon state park deal Forest / Wild Fire – Europe – United Kingdom Man hunted after arson attack on house in Leigh Elderly couple targeted by con artists Carn Brea blaze – an opportunity for investigation? This entry was posted in Herbs & Plants and tagged Accelerant, Acre, Air ambulance, Americas, Area, Ariel (The Tempest), Arson, Ashdown Forest, Fire apparatus, Gorse on June 19, 2015 by Mukul.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12903
__label__cc	0.701252	0.298748	Prophet Sharing Gazing into the surprisingly bright future with “retail prophet” Doug Stephens—and what retailers should do now to make the most of it. Kathy Passero \| December 1, 2015 Doug Stephens Fans don’t call Doug Stephens “the retail prophet” for nothing. As one of the world’s preeminent industry futurists, Stephens is the go-to expert for such heavy hitters as Walmart, Home Depot, Disney, BMW, Citibank, eBay, Intel and WestJet. Before founding Retail Prophet, he spent more than two hands-on decades learning the ropes of the retail industry, where he held senior international roles and led one of New York City’s most historic retail chains. Stephens is the author of the book The Retail Revival: Reimagining Business for the New Age of Consumerism (2013), a syndicated retail columnist for CBC Radio, co-host of the popular web series The Future In Store and a member of the advisory board of the Dx3 digital conference. His bold insights on retailing, business and consumer behavior make him a sought-after source by such leading media outlets as The New York Times, BBC, Bloomberg Business, TechCrunch, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company. Below, he shares his often eye-opening perspectives. Read on to find out why courageous change is mandatory, shopping is a fundamental human need and this is the “golden age” of retail. You’ve called this “the end of an era” for retail. What’s ending? From the post-WWII era through to the 1990s, retailers could depend on a few things. America’s middle class was growing and optimistic. Mass media was dependably effective in reaching consumers. The shopper’s path to purchase was known, predictable and controlled by brands and retailers. And the public was solely dependent on physical stores to offer them distribution of products. All of these conditions have come to an end. By all measures, the middle class is shrinking. Mass media is no longer reaching consumers effectively. The consumer journey from discovery to purchase is complex and circuitous and in a world where Alibaba can sell $3.9 billion worth of goods in an hour, stores are no longer depended upon to avail distribution of products. The collapse of these historic conditions means that all retailers—whether they sell shoes or anything else—must rethink their entire business model. What opportunities does the new era present for retailers? There’s a historic leveling of the playing field taking place. Success in retail is no longer tied to how deep your advertising budget is or how big your stores are. Walmart, Target, Macy’s and many other incumbents are now struggling. Meanwhile, small insurgent brands like Shoes of Prey, Warby Parker and Bonobos that are creating awesome products or customer experiences are able to connect directly with consumers and scale incredibly fast. What might a typical shoe store look like in 10 years? On the one hand, we will have commodity marketplaces where you can get what you want fast and at what seems a fair value. You’ll get little to no service or customer experience, but you’ll get the product pretty frictionlessly. Amazon, Alibaba, Costco and other sharp discounters will dominate this corner of the market. At the other end, we’ll have highly experiential specialty and luxury retailers. You’ll go to these stores to experience the brand, connect with great staff, have fun, learn about your style and get properly fitted, perhaps even co-design your own shoes. You won’t necessarily depend on stores to carry inventory as they do today; you may have your items shipped to you after the fact. Consumers will bounce back and forth between these extremes of value. Any retailer who gets caught in the middle of these two extremes is going to have a really tough time getting noticed. Looking further ahead, I believe that within 10 to 15 years, people will be able to print their own shoes at home. In the meantime, what should shoe retailers do to adapt and thrive? The cold, hard reality is that we now live in a world where no one needs what you sell. Consumers operate with the belief that almost anything they want is accessible whenever they want it. If they don’t get it from you, they can find it somewhere else. And in most cases, they’re right! The good news is that consumers do need how you sell what you sell. They need the remarkable experience that only you and your store can provide. That experience is the unique alchemy of your store design, merchandising, engaged staff, sounds and scents. Great brands map every element of the customer experience in detail and execute them all flawlessly. What are some of your favorite “unique” retailers? Why do you like them? I like a wide range of retailers for different reasons, but in terms of uniqueness, there is one that I think every retailer should take the time to visit at least once. Bass Pro Shops are simply best-in-class at capturing the essence of the outdoor experience and bringing it into their stores. They also back the experience up with people who absolutely love the things they’re selling and like talking to customers about them. People bring their entire families with them to Bass Pro as an outing. I would throw down the challenge to any retailer to be the Bass Pro Shops of what you sell. But great retail isn’t restricted to big brands like Bass Pro Shops. Some of the best retail experiences I’ve had around the world have been in small to medium-sized independent shops. For me, it’s the art, beauty and entrepreneurial passion that the owner puts into the store that really makes me want to buy something and that forges a lasting memory of my time there. You’ve said it takes courage for retailers to change. For example? During the mid-2000s, after decades of tremendous success, Starbucks faltered. They had overextended distribution, a recession was setting in and the quality of product and experience began to suffer. After an eight-year sabbatical, Howard Schultz returned to the role of CEO and promptly closed 900 stores. Schultz and Starbucks vowed never again to let growth become the sole business objective at the expense of quality. They redesigned their product offering, adopted a local design ethos for their stores and reenergized their staff training programs. This change in philosophy meant standing up to investors who wanted double-digit stock returns at any cost, and that takes courage. How can shoe retailers implement the concept of courageous change? Any great business has to first be crystal clear about what it stands for, not only with respect to the value it delivers to customers, but about its higher existential purpose. Patagonia clothing, for example, operates with the mission to use its business to help find solutions to the world’s environmental crisis. They do this by making outstanding clothing that is sustainably manufactured. This mission guides every decision they make. Retailers need to set their own course and have the courage to act very differently from their competitors. It’s so easy, especially when the market is tough, to get drawn into thinking and acting like your direct competitors, but it’s a mistake to do so. It takes more courage to break the rules and challenge the norms. You’ve called this the “golden age” of retail. Some would disagree. I maintain that it’s the golden age of retail precisely because we have crossed into an era where being Macy’s or Nordstrom is no longer enough to guarantee success. The next great retailing icon could be a 22-year-old who gets funded by Kickstarter, starts in her parents’ basement and grows into a billion-dollar business on Instagram. You no longer need massive amounts of capital, manpower and physical assets to break into a market. In the digital age, anyone with a remarkable idea or a well-designed product or service that meets a need has an equal shot at becoming successful. It’s happening all around us! What makes you believe that the physical aspect of shopping is about more than just buying necessary goods? There will always be times when we need to hit the mall to satisfy an immediate product need, but shopping is about more than just acquisition. It’s a human, social need. We shop for entertainment, for relaxation and also, I think, for a sense of social connection to our community. The more a retailer can incorporate the human aspects of retail into his business, the more successful he’s likely to be and the more fulfilling his work will become. • How would you describe your personal style? Eclectic. What is your go-to shoe style? At home, Nike Frees. At work, brown wingtip brogues. Do you prefer to shop online or in person? I prefer to shop in a store because I can be a tricky fit. What is the first website you visit each morning? Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner, and The Coming Generational Storm by Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns. What’s your motto? The future is bright.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12906
__label__wiki	0.543512	0.543512	3132. Is This the Moment for the Working Class? By Louis Proyect, Counterpunch, January 21, 2018 “The Great Strike (IWW Textile Strike, 1912) by Ralph Fasanella. The cover for Michael Yates’s “Can the Working Class Change the World?” was a stroke of genius. Ralph Fasanella’s “The Great Strike (IWW Textile Strike, 1912)” sets the tone for a book that has deep roots in working-class struggles in the USA and that shares the artist’s solidarity with the people who take part in them. Fasanella’s father delivered ice to people in his Bronx neighborhood and his mother worked in a neighborhood dress shop drilling holes into buttons. In her spare time, she was an anti-fascist activist. The family’s experience informed his art just as Michael Yates’s working-class roots and long career as a labor activist and educator shapes his latest book. Many years ago when I was a Trotskyist activist, the party was consumed with how to reach working people. To be frank, we would have learned more from Michael’s books than reading Leon Trotsky especially given the life experience outlined in the opening paragraph of the preface: BY ANY IMAGINABLE DEFINITION of the working class, I was born into it. Almost every member of my extended family—parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins—were wage laborers. They mined coal, hauled steel, made plate glass, labored on construction sites and as office secretaries, served the wealthy as domestic workers, clerked in company stores, cleaned offices and homes, took in laundry, cooked on tugboats, even unloaded trucks laden with dynamite. I joined the labor force at twelve and have been in it ever since, delivering newspapers, serving as a night watchman at a state park, doing clerical work in a factory, grading papers for a professor, selling life insurance, teaching in colleges and universities, arbitrating labor disputes, consulting for attorneys, desk clerking at a hotel, editing a magazine and books. As a college professor, Michael never cared much for the arcane debates that are fodder to academic Marxists just as Jane Austen novels are to Modern Language Association conference attendees. Both are just ways to further your academic career. Indeed, one of the more important points in this important new book is the need to get away from “I” and begin thinking in terms of “Us”. For tens of thousands of years, starting when hunters and gatherers began to build communities based on sharing, the idea of competition never entered the picture. Once agriculture superseded such “backward” modes of production, it paved the way for class formation. Later on, as capitalism became the most individualistic form of class society, workers and peasants or wage workers were conditioned into thinking that survival rested on their ability to fend for themselves. As Margaret Thatcher once put it, “They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first.” Thatcher and her ideological soul-mate Ronald Reagan set the course for neoliberalism in the early 80s that was kept alive by politicians such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair at the expense of the working-class people who voted for them in the hope that the “lesser evil” would be more tolerable. Not much has changed since then. Even after the brutal toll liberal governments have taken on working-class families, much of the left holds out hope that a new social democratic partnership between rulers and ruled can emerge within a capitalist framework. The chief value of “Can the Working Class Change the World?” is to make absolutely clear to readers that there is no alternative to socialism. If Thatcherism rested on the assumption that there is no alternative to capitalism, it has become abundantly clear over the past four decades that unless we abolish that system and create one based on human need rather than private profit, the planet is doomed. As is the case with other books by Michael Yates that I have been reading and reviewing since 2004, the latest is graced by stylistic clarity that is in keeping with Monthly Review traditions. As the head of Monthly Review books, Michael has a finely developed sense of how to get across ideas about the class struggle without using jargon. Whether or not he has read George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”, he has obviously sought the same results as the great English author who disdained pretention and pedantry. Orwell wrote: “In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a ‘party line.’” As someone who has never undergone the training in bad writing that you get in a Marxist sect, Michael’s writing is a joy to read. For example, in the section subtitled “The Working Class Has Changed the World” in chapter four, he writes: The depredations of capital are legion, relentless and pervasive, forced upon us with fierce intensity and violence. No assault on humanity, no annihilation of nature will be forgone if money can be made. Theft is capital’s watchword. And yet, from capitalism’s birth centuries ago, those harmed most by its imperatives have resisted. Their defeats have been many, their victories too few. This leads us to the significance of such a book being published now. With socialism becoming a household word due to the massive publicity surrounding the growth of the DSA and the success of the candidates they support like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, there is a crying need to reaffirm the foundations of Marxian socialism. This is done by Michael in the most clear-cut and uncompromising terms. In a chapter on “theoretical considerations”, he reviews the Marxist theory of the exploitation of labor as presented in Volume One of Capital but in terms easily accessible to the layperson. In the same chapter, he discusses the capitalist state. In the same way, he makes Marxist economic theory comprehensible, his analysis of the capitalist state flows from Lenin’s “State and Revolution” and other such works geared to a reader trying to cope with American realities. In dispensing with arcane references to Russia in 1917, he gets to the core ideas and makes them relevant to a contemporary reader. Without mentioning the hopes placed in the Democratic Party by much of the left, Michael makes a point that should not be lost on it: One of the characteristics of capitalism is the separation of the political and economic spheres. In the feudal mode of production, state and economy were controlled directly by the nobility. They sat atop the manors, where food, cloth, and artisanal goods were produced; and they controlled politics as well. With capitalism, however, at least in those organized as liberal democracies, political leaders are elected by those eligible to vote. For capital’s ideologues, this is the definition of democracy and the reason why they claim that capitalism and democracy are congruent. The notion has been spread far and wide, and, to the extent that most people believe it, obscures the autocracy that reigns supreme in the workplace. In the final chapter titled “Can the Working Class Radically Change the World?”, Michael gets down to brass tacks on the question of how a socialist society can be built. This begins with democracy both in the workplace and beyond over policies that affect the entire population, even on a global level. Given the urgency of climate change and other environmental crises, it is clear that only a socialist world is capable of resolving them. Notwithstanding the buzz about a Green New Deal that allows even a scoundrel like Andrew Cuomo to claim support for it, he defines certain criteria as a kind of “red line” that must be satisfied in order for genuine socialism to exist. This includes first and foremost ending the private ownership of the means of production and beginning to produce on the basis of a plan—a dirty word for many leftists who fail to understand why it is so necessary. Given the interconnectedness of labor and resources on a global scale, scientific expertise accountable to democratic decision-making is more urgent than ever. If these policies smack of the USSR, especially in its early pre-Stalinist period, as well as Cuba, that’s just what is needed to ground the discussion in earlier attempts at producing for human need rather than private profit. To simply say that socialist revolution leads to disaster is a failure of the intellect and avoidance of the moral obligation we have to save the planet. Nothing serves the status quo better than writing off the possibility of creating a new society based on “Us” rather than “I”. For much of the left, the idea of worker cooperatives has become seductive. While nobody can deny the benefit of workers taking over a company, as long as it functions within a market economy, it becomes susceptible to the “same old shit”. For its advocates, such half-way measures are a substitute for seizing power through revolutionary action. As one DSA member argued in Jacobin, those 20thcentury revolutions are not relevant: It’s one thing to know what democratic socialists fight for, and another to lay out a convincing path to realizing it. This is where democratic socialists truly differ with some of our friends on the socialist left. We reject strategies that transplant paths from Russia in 1917 or Cuba in 1959 to the United States today, as if we could win socialism by storming the White House and tossing Donald Trump out on the front lawn. The last thing you will find in “Can the Working Class Change the World?” is calls for storming the White House and tossing Donald Trump out on the front lawn, although I for one would certainly take the Amtrak down to participate. In the final chapter, you will instead find demands for much shorter working hours, early and secure retirement, and free universal health care. Like peace, bread and land in 1917, these are goals that most Americans can identify with. In moving forward to achieve them, they will face considerable resistance including fascist-like measures of the kind that developed in the last major collapse of the capitalist economy in the 1930s. Given the inevitable polarization, workers will need to defend themselves against right-wing violence. If this sounds like a prospect worth avoiding, it is understandable why the alternative of a slow, molecular process based on the growth of institutions such as Mondragon is attractive even if it is utopian. Given the terrible state of the world and the growing threat of fascism, it is necessary to put working-class struggles, including the need for general strikes, on the front burner. Working people need to push back the ruling class and the state it controls on its heels, and eventually to replace it with direct working-class democracy. As the words crafted for the character Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman” by socialist playwright Arthur Miller, we are in a situation both literally and figuratively in which “The woods are burning”. The time for revolutionary struggle is now and “Can the Working Class Change the World” is a call to action. Labels: book review, labor movement, Socialism 3133. Yellow Vests Protesters: “We are not tired” 3131. Changing Our Worldview of Human Dominance 3130. Nancy Pelosi and the Horse Trading Progressi... 3129. Rat Poison Found in 85 Percent of Tested Mou... 3128. Humans Are Using Smells to Influence Nonhuma... 3127. Film Review: Dead Souls 3126. Climate Negotiators Reach an Overtime Deal t... 3125. An Epidemic of Allergy to Meat? 3124. Miners are Still Dying From Black Lung Disea... 3123. Iranian Working Class Begins to Move Again 3122. An Ecosocialist Path to Limiting Global Temp... 3121. A Killing Season 3120. Posture Maketh the Man 3119. The Yellow Vests, Capitalism and Communism 3118. “Yellow vest” Protesters in Paris and Green ... 3117. New Studies Show Exceptional Traits and Abil... 3116. Wade Davis: Life Without Wild Things 3115. US Government Suppressing Critical Scientifi... 3114. Puthuvypeen: How an Oil Company Could Turn a... 3113. Australian Students Walk Out To Protest Clim... 3112. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accelerate Like a ‘... 3111. Film Review: Black America in Seven Films in... 3110. A New Connection Between the Gut and the Bra... 3109. Fisherman in British Columbia Want To Hunt S... 3108. Marx and Alienated Speciesism 3107. Self-organized Yellow Vest Protest Movement ... 3106. The Cuban Five and Silvio Rodriguez	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12907
__label__cc	0.597815	0.402185	Articles tagged “FineArt” Was This The Real Mona Lisa? by Sean McLachlan on Aug 14, 2013 Scientists in Florence are examining the bones of a 16th century nun they think served as the model for the Mona Lisa. Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo was the wife of a wealthy merchant and is rumored to have been the model for Leonardo da Vinci’s famous portrait. She was a famed beauty in her time and lived across the street from the famous artist and inventor. When her husband died she became a nun at the convent of San Orsula in Florence, where she died and was buried in 1542. A team of scientists went looking for her in a crypt under the convent. DNA in the bones they found is now being compared with samples taken from the Gherardini family tomb in hopes of finding a match. The next step will be facial reconstruction to see what the woman looked like in life. Perhaps they’ll find the mystery to her enigmatic smile. Facial reconstruction and DNA analysis have already been done for the remains of King Richard III, found last year under an English parking lot. Researchers are also examining the possible remains of King Alfred the Great. Madrid Offers Up Great Summer Art Season by Sean McLachlan on Jul 11, 2013 Dalí, El gran masturbador, 1929 © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, VEGAP, Madrid, 2013 Madrid is one of the best destinations in the world for art, and this summer its many museums and galleries are putting on an impressive array of temporary exhibitions. The blockbuster of the season is at the Reina Sofia, which is having a major exhibition on Salvador Dalí. “All of the poetic suggestions and all of the plastic possibilities” brings together almost 200 works here by the famous odd man of surrealism. Organized in roughly chronological order, the earliest paintings in the exhibition date to the mid-’20s and show a surprisingly traditional technique. Once he’d mastered the basics, however, Dalí soon plunged into his own unmistakable style. The exhibition is accompanied by detailed texts on Dalí’s life and career. For example, we learn the reason why we keep seeing the same set of cliffs in Dalí’s work. In his youth Dalí and his family would vacation at the seaside town of Cadaqués, where he became obsessed with the cliffs of Cape Creus. He once said, “I am convinced I am Cape Creus itself. I am inseparable from this sky, from this sea, from these rocks.” %Slideshow-2876%Many of his best-known works are here, as well as early sketches and little gems, like a painting of Hitler masturbating. Who but Dalí could pull that off? (Pun intended.) Numerous video screens shows Dalí’s many film experiments, including the famous “Un Chien Andalou” with Luis Buñuel and several other lesser-known films. The show runs until September 2. The Reina Sofia has two other exhibitions. “1961: Founding the Expanded Arts” looks at a vital year in the history of modern art that saw the expansion of artistic collaborations and music experimentation and the launch of Concept Art. It runs until October 28. At the museum’s annex at Retiro park is “Cildo Meireles,” which looks at the acclaimed Brazilian conceptual artist’s work and runs until September 29. The Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza has a major exhibition on Camille Pissarro. This cofounder of Impressionism was the only one to take part in all eight Impressionist exhibitions from 1874 to 1886. The museum brings together more than 70 of his works, mostly the lush landscapes for which he was known. The show runs until September 15. El Prado also has three temporary exhibitions. The headliner is “Captive Beauty: Fra Angelo to Fortuny.” This exhibition brings together almost 300 works characterized by their small size and technical excellence. The point is to demonstrate the ability of some of Europe’s greatest artists to create beauty in a confined space and to highlight works that are often missed hanging next to giant, better-known works. They are arranged chronologically from the 14th to 19th centuries. The show runs until November 10. Another of El Prado’s exhibitions examines the relationship between two 18th-century artists, Anton Raphael Mengs and José Nicolás de Azara. The two painters traded ideas and collaborated on projects throughout their careers. “Mengs and Azara: Portrait of a Friendship” runs until October 13. “Japanese Prints,” which runs until October 6, showcases items from the museum’s collection from the 17th to 19th centuries. This year Spain and Japan are celebrating 400 years of friendly relations. In 1613, a group of Japanese emissaries set out to visit Spain. They crossed the Pacific, passed through the Spanish colony of Mexico, and then crossed the Atlantic. After touring Spain they continued on to visit the Pope in Rome before heading back home. The whole trip took seven years. We talk a lot about adventure travel here on Gadling, but nothing in the modern day can measure up to what these early travelers did. To honor the anniversary, the Museum of Decorative Arts is hosting “Namban,” a fascinating look at the artistic influence these two distant cultures had on one another. One interesting object is a large screen in the Japanese style, yet bearing a Spanish colonial painting of Mexico City. There is as yet no closing date for this exhibition. If you hurry you can still catch a free exhibition of the work of Swiss surrealist Alberto Giacometti at the Fundación Mapfre. The exhibition includes numerous examples of his famous statues of elongated human figures as well as his lesser-known paintings. This exhibition runs until August 4. We’re suffering sweltering temperatures here in Madrid right now, so beat the heat and go see some art! Edvard Munch Exhibition Opens In Stuttgart by Sean McLachlan on Jul 7, 2013 Copyright The Munch Museum/The Munch Ellingsen Group/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012 The Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany, is celebrating the 150th birthday of Edvard Munch with a exhibition of their entire collection of his work, the first time the gallery has done so in more that 50 years. “Edvard Munch in Stuttgart: From the First Kiss until Death” showcases 60 works from all periods of the artist’s development. The highlight is the only surviving proof of Munch’s iconic print “The Scream.” The proof shows that Munch originally named it “Screaming.” Other works, both paintings and prints, show his enduring obsession with harsh emotions such as fear and jealousy, as well as his feelings towards women, who are often portrayed as demons or vampires like in this print titled “Vampir II.” Munch had a close relationship with Stuttgart, often visiting the Staatsgalerie in order to promote his own work. The gallery has a long tradition of buying contemporary art and was thus able to build an impressive collection of Munch’s work. “Edvard Munch in Stuttgart: From the First Kiss until Death” runs until October 6. In Fine Style: The Art Of Tudor And Stuart Fashion Opens At The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace by Sean McLachlan on May 15, 2013 The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, London, is putting on a fashion show, although the fashions are more than 400 years out of date. “In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion” examines the luxurious clothing and jewelry worn by British monarchs and members of their court. It focuses on the two dynasties of the 16th and 17th centuries with everything from ornamental armor for a teenaged Prince of Wales to a bejeweled case for storing the black fabric patches that Queen Mary II stuck on her face to emphasize the whiteness of her skin. Many of the items are on display for the first time, such as a diamond signet ring given by King Charles I to his wife, Queen Henrietta Maria, in 1628. It bears her cypher and the royal coat of arms. Another never-before-seen piece is a pendant of gold, rubies and diamond with a miniature portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. There are also some elegant articles of clothing like a pair of lacework gloves. Of course, most costumes and jewelry from this period have disappeared, no matter how important their owners. To augment the exhibition there are more than 60 portraits showing royalty and nobility wearing their finest, including a startling portrait of a Duchess dressed as a man. “In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion” runs until October 6. If you make it to London before July 14, you might also want to see “Treasures of the Royal Courts: Tudors, Stuarts and the Russian Tsars” at the Victoria & Albert. Frederick The Great’s Picture Gallery Celebrates 250 Years With Special Exhibition A magnificent art gallery constructed by Frederick the Great of Prussia in Potsdam is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, Art Daily reports. The gallery at Sanssouci Park, part of Frederick the Great’s palace complex, was home to his vast collection of Classical and (then) contemporary art. While it lost much of its collection over the years, especially during the Napoleonic Wars and WWII, it’s still an impressive center for fine art. To celebrate the anniversary, the gallery is hosting “The Most Beautyful Gallery – Revisiting the Picture Gallery of Frederick the Great,” and has brought together much of the original collection that got dispersed across Europe. Paintings from various periods fill the walls, including examples from the Italian Renaissance and High Baroque as well as 17th century Flemish and Dutch works. The gallery also shows Frederick’s passion for Classical sculpture. Even the walls are made of marble torn from ancient buildings. Potsdam is only 23 miles from Berlin and makes a good day trip from the German capital. “The Most Beautyful Gallery – Revisiting the Picture Gallery of Frederick the Great” runs until October 31. [Photo courtesy Kent Wang]	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12908
__label__wiki	0.589049	0.589049	A bit late.... This character was designed for that fantastical/wild west RP that no one joined. Name: Victoria/Dawn Star Alisha Thomson Social Class: Commoner Occupation:Guide, situational exorcist and midew Weapons: Victoria is a proficient wielder of bolas, specifically the kind made with three balled weights, and she normally carries them on her person. Along with her bolas she is capable of using her carved walking stick as a weapon in her defence. Physical Appearance: Victoria is average height for a woman standing in between 5’5 and 5’6, however her stature and the way she carries herself can give the impression that she is taller. Having lived off the land with her people, she has an athletic build and healthy body. Her skin is a very light tan, an indication of her mixed heritage from her British father and her Ojibwa mother. Her eyes are light brown and her hair is a dark chestnut colour and straight. On the right side of her head she has two thin braids with eagle feathers intertwined. Usually Victoria will wear a deer skin jacket trimmed with a fringe on the sleeves and around the waist. Underneath, she wears a plain blue blouse tucked into a pair of jeans held up with a multi-colour beaded belt. On her feet she wears moccasin-like boots tied in a criss-cross fashion up to the mid section of her legs. Slung over her left shoulder and resting on the right of her waist is her medicine bag, filled with herbs, and various articles of power necessary to perform mide. On the left of her waist is where she keeps her bolas wrapped up. Around her neck she wears a gold crucifix necklace, as well a leather thong with three hummingbird feathers attached. Personality: Victoria isn’t shy but she isn’t outgoing either. She prefers to keep to herself, unless her services are needed, in which she will go out of her way to help those in need. She’s compassionate and holds a deep respect for all things pertaining to nature. If she has to kill an animal she will thank its spirit for providing her with meat and sustenance to continue her own journey through life. Victoria is patient and observant. Oftentimes not saying anything for long periods of times, but still managing to keep up to speed with the present occurrences. Seeing as she is of mixed heritage there are times when Victoria feels confused about who she is. Not quite Ojibwa but not quite British she’s unsure of where she belongs and how she is supposed to act. This is generally another reason why Victoria prefers to stay out of the limelight. As a guide she is knowledgeable about the various happenings in nature, leading her groups through the wilderness in an efficient in safe manner. All the while, she is also imparting her knowledge on plants and herbs that are safe to eat and their medicinal properties. Victoria’s quiet demeanour seems to disappear as she steps into the role of exorcist. Her father trained her expertly in the use of dispelling and exorcising evil from locations or individuals. She becomes a commanding individual, channelling the essence of purist holy energies to banish evil. Also, as a midew, defender of nature and healer of the soul, she will aggressively attack with the forces of nature. She is also known to have cleverly bridged the “white man” holy magic with the “red man” nature magic in order to create her own distinct variation of both styles of magic. Background: Victoria is the first and sole child of Reverend Mathias Thomson, a missionary who went into the wilderness, and Talise/Graceful Doe, an Ojibwa woman. Reverend Thomson was a traveller from Britain who sought to spread the word of god to the various heathen tribes in the “untamed west”, but as he spent time with the Ojibwa he learned that they too had a great connection to the creator. He never revoked his beliefs but instead decided to become more accepting of others. It was then that he met White Dove, the midew of the tribe and her daughter Talise, otherwise known as Graceful Doe to her people, and the two fell in love. Their relationship was stigmatised by the people of the tribe, but the couple prevailed in their love through the support of Talise’s mother, and the chief of the tribe. Following a demon attack on the village, and the reverend’s brave battle against it alongside the rest of the warriors from the tribe; they came to accept him as one of their own. They officially adopted him as a member of the tribe and a bonding ceremony between Matthias and Talise was held. After which, Matthias and Talise were married in the nearest settlement. It was not long afterwards that Talise gave birth to Victoria but she was also given the name Dawn Star, for she was born at dawn. Victoria’s childhood was largely uneventful. When not playing with the rest of the children in the tribe, she spent her days harvesting fruits, and herbs with her mother and grandmother. As expected, she was taught the traditions of her people. She learned how to set traps, hunt and essentially survive in the forest. Her father on the other hand taught her things such as, public etiquette of the “white man”, world history, geography, and literacy. At the age of 16, Victoria left her tribe to go on a vision quest, as was expected of all those who came of age. She journeyed into the forest with nothing but the clothes on her back and meditated for 6 days living off the land. On the seventh day she drew a circle in the dirt and sat in it waiting. Nothing happened the first day, neither the next, nor the one afterwards, but on the fifth day after sitting in the circle, simply meditating and being one with nature she received her sign. A hummingbird approached her, and passed through the circle she had drawn in the earth. Its wings hummed as it flew around her head circling her, until three hummingbird feathers fell into her lap and the bird was gone. Victoria immediately returned to her village where she showed her grandmother the hummingbird feathers. Her grandmother was shocked and elated, for the hummingbird’s feathers were often believed to have magical properties. It was then that she was trained mide, so that she could become a midew, essentially a Native American shaman. The teachings of mide brought conflict to her father, who had been taught that such things were witchcraft. In order to feel more comfortable with the things she was learning he thus decided to teach her the art of exorcism. By the age of 20, Victoria was believed to be a fairly accomplished midew as well as an exorcist. Time had allowed more settlements to have been founded during that time, though there had also been an increase in creature attacks and restless spirits out in the Wild West. Wanting to see if she could stand on her own two feet, Victoria left her tribe and became a wandering pilgrim of sorts. She would go into town and see if anyone needed a guide through the wilds and she would then offer her services. Occasionally, the group she was guiding would face a creature, or a monster would be preying on individuals in the town she was in for the night, and she would deal with them. Talents: Knowledge of the wilderness, survival instincts, hunting, first aid Spiritual Sense – Victoria is capable of interacting with and sensing various spirits in her vicinity. It also lets her know when people are going to die. This skill is a result of the teachings of both mide and exorcism. Mide – The teachings of Mide allow Victoria to have a very strong connection with nature. Essentially she can commune with the spirits of nature and bid them to do things with her, or tell her things. While this means she has access to the forces of nature, she actually prefers not to use it unless circumstances push her to call on the nature spirits. Generally she uses her Mide abilities to heal wounds. Clerical Teachings – Victoria’s father has taught her how to effectively banish spirits of any kind in her vicinity. However clerical teaching extends beyond purification of corruption and producing a holy aura of protection. Under the tutelage of her father, she’s managed to call forth what she refers to “Judgement Blasts”. Her judgement blasts can be fairly small, allowing her to shoot them from her finger, or large enough to encompass her hands brought together. Using her judgement blasts she can fire beams from her hands that do concussive damage rather than explosive.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12909
__label__wiki	0.886286	0.886286	Ugandan Jew Denied Visa To Study In Israeli Yeshiva October 16, 2018 By JTA (JTA) — A Jewish man from Uganda who led a Birthright trip to Israel in September was denied a visa to study at a yeshiva there. Asiimwe Rabbin, 28, had intended to participate in a program at the Conservative yeshiva in Jerusalem, but was told this week he would not get the required visa because Israel’s Interior Ministry does not recognize his community as Jewish, Haaretz reported. Last month, Rabbin led the first-ever Birthright trip for Jews from Uganda. The visa is supposed to be available to people who qualify for Israeli citizenship through the Law of Return — which applies to anyone who has at least one Jewish grandparent, converted to Judaism or is married to a Jew. Despite the fact that the Ugandan Jewish community, also called the Abayudaya, was recognized by the Jewish Agency for Israel in 2016, members have faced difficulties obtaining visas to enter the country. Rabbin’s program is sponsored by Masa, which brings young Jews from around the world to participate in programs in Israel. The organization’s executive director, Liran Avisar Ben Horin, told Haaretz that it had to heed the Interior Ministry’s rulings regarding visas. “As Masa is subject to conditions set by the Interior Ministry in this regard, we were forced to turn down his request for a Masa visa,” she said. The Ugandan community traces its roots to the early 20th century, when a former leader read the Bible and embraced Judaism. Most members were converted under the auspices of American Conservative rabbis in the early 2000s and thus are not recognized as Jewish by Israel’s mostly haredi Orthodox Chief Rabbinate. Today the community, which is based in the rural town of Mbale, has seven synagogues — including a 7,000-square-foot center that opened in 2016 — a mikvah and two Jewish schools. In June, Israel denied the immigration request of a Ugandan Jew, prompting outcry from the community’s rabbi and leaders of the Conservative movement as well as accusations of racism. Last year, Israel denied another visa application by a member of the community to study at the Conservative yeshiva. This story "Ugandan Jew Denied Visa To Study In Israeli Yeshiva" was written by JTA.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12910
__label__wiki	0.538238	0.538238	Discovery Green Presents Michael Craig-Martin This Summer And Fall by Glasstire July 12, 2019 Houston’s Discovery Green, the 12-acre downtown park created by a public-private partnership between the City of Houston and the nonprofit Discovery Green Conservancy, has announced the upcoming installation The Shape of Things: Michael Craig-Martin at Discovery Green. The show of large sculptures by British artist Michael Craig-Martin will be on view during park hours from Thursday, Aug. 1 to Sunday, Nov. 3, 2019. This is the first exhibition of Craig-Martin’s sculptures in Texas, and only the second venue in the United States. London-based Craig-Martin attended Yale University’s School of Art and Architecture from 1961 to 1966, studying alongside Chuck Close, Brice Marden and Richard Serra. As a longtime professor at Goldsmith’s in London, he was an influence on many key figures in the Young British Artist generation, including Damien Hirst, Michael Landy, Gary Hume, Fiona Rae, Ian Davenport, Angus Fairhurst, and Richard Patterson. Craig-Martin’s work explores the form and symbolism of everyday objects through a variety of media including line drawings, paintings, large-scale installations, prints and, since 2011, powder-coated steel sculptures. The exhibition at Discovery Green includes six sculptures ranging from 8 to 12 feet high, depicting objects such as an umbrella, a wheelbarrow, a light bulb, and a shoe. Judy Nyquist, chair of the Discovery Green Conservancy’s public art committee, says of the exhibition: “These large-scale works are simultaneously simple and bold, elegant and humorous, minimal yet approachable. The over-scaled outlines convey the effect of windows, through which visitors can view and experience the landscape in and around our urban oasis in unexpected ways.” For more, please go here. Spring Preview 2010 Michael Craig-Martin Invades All of Dallas	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12915
__label__wiki	0.941949	0.941949	Latest info on artists, songwriters, producers, and record labels Hamada Mania Music Blog Tag Archives: Andrew Wyatt Miley Cyrus unleashes new EP “She Is Coming” Miley Cyrus has released her new extended play (EP) online. “She Is Coming” is now available via iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play, Tidal and all other digital streaming platforms. The new project features six songs on the shape of “Mother’s Daughter,” “Unholy,” “D.R.E.A.M.” (featuring Ghostface Killah), “Cattitude” (featuring RuPaul), “Party Up the Street” (featuring Swae Lee”) and “The Most.” Among the musicians backing Cyrus on “She Is Coming” are Andrew Wyatt (Dua Lipa, Alicia Keys), Mark Ronson (Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse), Ilsey Juber (Beyonce, Charlie Puth), Mike Will Made It (Brandy, Kelly Rowland) and The Monsters & Strangerz (Bebe Rexha, Zara Larsson). Stream “She Is Coming” below. Tags: Andrew Wyatt, Ilsey Juber, Mark Ronson, Mike WiLL Made It, Miley Cyrus, RCA Records, SME, Sony Music Entertainment, The Monsters & Strangerz Categories EPs Amber Mark shares music video for new single “Mixer” Amber Mark has shared the music video for her new single online. The visual clip for “Mixer” was posted to the American singer/songwriter’s Vevo channel on Friday (April 5, 2019). The track was written by Mark alongside Andrew Wyatt, whose other credits include Lady Gaga’s “Shallow,” Dua Lipa’s “New Love,” Lykke Li’s “So Sad, So Sexy,” Charlie XCX’s “Die Tonight,” Lorde’s “Perfect Places,” Bruno Mars’s “When I Was Your Man,” and Liam Gallagher’s “Chinatown.” As mentioned in earlier posts, Mark’s upcoming project – featuring further contributions from Two Inch Punch, Sarah Aarons, Julian Bunetta, Noah Breakfast, and Jeff Gitty – is expected to arrive later this year via Jasmine Music / PMR Music in partnership with Virgin EMI Records. Watch the music video for “Mixer” below. Tags: Amber Mark, Andrew Wyatt, Benjamin "Two Inch Punch" Ash, Benjamin Ash, Jasmine Music, Jeff Gitty, Jeffrey "Jeff Gitty" Gitelman, Jeffrey Gitelman, Julian Bunetta, Noah Beresin, Noah Breakfast, PMR Music, Sarah Aarons, Two Inch Punch, UMG, Universal Music Group, Virgin EMI Records Categories Videos Alicia Keys reunites with Raphael Saadiq for new collaboration Alicia Keys has reunited with Raphael Saadiq for a new collaboration. The American singer, songwriter and record producer (born Charles Ray Wiggins) previously teamed up with Keys on the John Mayer-featuring “Lesson Learned,” taken from the artist’s chart topping album, “As I Am.” Saadiq’s songwriting and production resume boasts additional works with Erykah Badu (“Love of My Life”), Mary J. Blige (“So Lady”), Teedra Moses (“Take Me”), John Legend (“Wrap Me Up in Your Love”), Mashonda (“Ask of You”), Kelly Price (“So Sweet”) and Jill Scott (“Summer Spring Feeling”). Keys’ current promotional single “Raise a Man” – which was co-written by Terius “The-Dream” Nash and co-produced by Larrance “Rance” Dopson – is now available via iTunes and all other digital streaming outlets. Her upcoming eighth album reportedly delivers further contributions from Emeli Sande, Mark Ronson, St. Vincent, Pierre Medor, Linda Perry, Jeremiah Bethea, Asia Whiteacre, Tricky Stewart, Stacy Barthe, Arrow Benjamin, Fred Ball, DaHeala, Jeff Bhasker, Andrew Wyatt, and Emile Haynie. Stream the audio clip for “Love That Girl” below. Tags: Alicia Keys, Andrew Wyatt, Arrow Benjamin, Asia Whiteacre, Charles "Raphael Saadiq" Wiggins, Charles Wiggins, Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, Christopher Stewart, DaHeala, Dean “Arrow Benjamin” McIntosh, Dean McIntosh, Emeli Sande, Emile Haynie, Fred Ball, Jason “Daheala” Quenneville, Jason Quenneville, Jeff Bhasker, Jeremiah Bethea, Larrance "Rance" Dopson, Larrance Dopson, Linda Perry, Mark Ronson, Pierre Medor, Raphael Saadiq, RCA Records, SME, Sony Music Entertainment, St. Vincent, Stacy Barthe, Terius "The-Dream" Nash, Terius Nash, The-Dream, Tricky Stewart Categories Collaborations Alicia Keys premieres music video for new single “Raise a Man” Alicia Keys has premiered the music video for her new single online. The visual clip for “Raise a Man” was posted to the American singer, songwriter and record producer’s YouTube channel on Thursday (February 21, 2019). The track co-written by Terius “The-Dream” Nash, whose latest project “Ménage à Trois: Sextape Vol. 1, 2, 3,” is now available via iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play, Tidal and all other digital streaming platforms. Production duties on “Raise a Man” were collectively handled by Alicia Keys alongside Larrance Dopson, who is also responsible for Kali Uchis’s “Tyrant,” Justin Timberlake’s “Say Something,” Mariah Carey’s “8th Grade,” Little Mix’s “More Than Words,” and Kendrick Lamar’s “These Walls.” As mentioned in earlier posts, Keys is expected to release her eighth studio collection later this year via Sony Music Entertainment / RCA Records. The follow-up to 2016’s “Here” reportedly delivers further contributions from Tricky Stewart, Mark Ronson, DaHeala, Foy Vance, Arrow Benjamin, Fred Ball, Stacy Barthe, Johnny McDaid, Andrew Wyatt, Linda Perry, Asia Whiteacre, Pierre Medor, and Jeremiah “SickPen” Bethea. Watch the music video for “Raise a Man” below. Tags: Alicia Keys, Andrew Wyatt, Arrow Benjamin, Asia Whiteacre, Benamin "Arrow Benjamin" McIntosh, Benjamin McIntosh, Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, Christopher Stewart, DaHeala, Foy Vance, Fred Ball, Jason “Daheala” Quenneville, Jason Quenneville, Jeremiah “Sickpen” Bethea, Jeremiah Bethea, Johnny McDaid, Larrance Dopson, Lewis Sky, Linda Perry, Pierre Medor, RCA Records, SME, Sony Music Entertainment, Stacy Barthe, Terius "The-Dream" Nash, Terius Nash, The-Dream, Tricky Stewart Alicia Keys releases new promotional single “Raise a Man” Alicia Keys has released her new promotional single online. “Raise a Man” is now available via iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon, Google Play, Tidal and all other digital streaming platforms. The track co-written by Terius “The-Dream” Nash, whose other credits include Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” Beyonce’s “Single Ladies,” Mary J. Blige’s “Just Fine,” Janet Jackson’s “Greatest Ex,” Usher’s “Trading Places,” Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” Celine Dion’s “Skies of LA,” and Mariah Carey’s “Touch My Body.” The follow-up to 2016’s “Here” reportedly delivers further contributions from Tricky Stewart, Mark Ronson, DaHeala, Foy Vance, Arrow Benjamin, Fred Ball, Emile Haynie, Stacy Barthe, Johnny McDaid, Andrew Wyatt, Jeff Bhasker, Linda Perry, Asia Whiteacre, Pierre Medor, and Jeremiah “SickPen” Bethea. Stream the audio clip for “Raise a Man” below. Tags: Alicia Keys, Andrew Wyatt, Arrow Benjamin, Asia Whiteacre, Benamin "Arrow Benjamin" McIntosh, Benjamin McIntosh, Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, Christopher Stewart, DaHeala, Emile Haynie, Foy Vance, Fred Ball, Jason “Daheala” Quenneville, Jason Quenneville, Jeff Bhasker, Jeremiah “Sickpen” Bethea, Jeremiah Bethea, Johnny McDaid, Larrance Dopson, Lewis Sky, Linda Perry, Pierre Medor, RCA Records, SME, Sony Music Entertainment, Stacy Barthe, Terius "The-Dream" Nash, Terius Nash, The-Dream, Tricky Stewart Categories Singles Dua Lipa teams with Joel Little for new collaboration Dua Lipa has teamed up with Joel Little for a new collaboration. The New Zealand record producer and songwriter is responsible for Lorde’s “Royals,” Imagine Dragons’ “Whatever it Takes,” Shawn Mendes’s “Youth,” Ruth B’s “If This is Love,” Daya’s “Safe,” Kesha’s “This is Me,” Bebe Rexha’s “The Way I Are (Dance with Somebody),” and Khaled’s “Young, Dumb & Broke.” Besides renewing his worldwide publishing deal with Sony/ATV; Little has also contributed to the next projects by Normani, OneRepublic, Ina Wroldsen, and Ella Eyre. Meanwhile, Dua Lipa’s next single “Swan Song” – taken from the original motion picture soundtrack “Alitta: Battle Angel” – will arrive on January 25 via all digital streaming outlets. The track was co-written by Justin Tranter and Kennedi Lykken, with collective production duties handled by Junkie XL alongside Mattias Larsson and Robin Fredriksson (aka Mattman & Robin). For her upcoming sophomore album, Dua Lipa has reportedly worked with Stephen “Koz” Kozmeniuk, Emily Warren, Jason Evigan, Lindy Robbins, King Henry, Sarah Hudson, Grades, Tove Lo, MNEK, Tayla Parx, Savan Kotecha, Caroline Ailin, Dayyon Alexander, Kamille, Andrew Wyatt, Ilsey Juber, Ilya Salmanzadeh, Sasha Sloan, and Max Martin. Watch the music video for “Electricity” below. Tags: Alexandra “Sasha Sloan” Yatchenko, Alexandra Yatchenko, Andrew Wyatt, Camille "Kamille" Purcell, Camille Purcell, Caroline Ailin, Daniel "Grades" Traynor, Daniel Traynor, Dayyon Alexander, Dua Lipa, Emily Warren, Grades, Ilsey Juber, Ilya Salmanzadeh, Jason Evigan, Joel Little, Junkie XL, Justin Tranter, Kamille, Kennedi Lykken, King Henry, Lindy Robbins, Mattias Larsson, Mattman & Robin, MNEK, Robin Fredriksson, Sarah Hudson, Sasha Sloan, Savan Kotecha, Sony/ATV, Stephen “Koz” Kozmeniuk, Tayla Parx, Taylor "Tayla Parx" Parks, Taylor Parks, Tove Lo, Uzoechi "MNEK" Emenike, Uzoechi Emenike, Warner Brothers Records, Warner Music Group, Warners Bros. Records, WMG Alicia Keys enlists Tricky Stewart for new collaboration American singer, songwriter, and record producer Alicia Keys has enlisted Christopher “Tricky” Stewart for a new collaboration. Stewart’s songwriting and production resume boasts works with Beyonce (“Single Ladies”), Mariah Carey (“Touch My Body”), Rihanna (“Umbrella”), Mary J. Blige (“Just Fine”), Ciara (“Ride”), Brooke Valentine (“Girl Fight”), Brandy (“Louboutins”), Toni Braxton (“Missin'”) and Whitney Houston (“I Look to You”). Besides regular collaborator Terius “The-=Dream” Nash, Stewart has also worked with songwriters including Traci Hale, Penelope Magnet, Kandi Burruss, Ester Dean, Crystal Nicole, Shelly Peiken, Katrina Willis, Michelle Bell, Candice Nelson, Keri Hilson, Shamora Crawford, and Lindsey “Mavelle” Gilbert. Meanwhile, Keys is expected to release her eighth studio collection in 2019 via Sony Music Entertainment / RCA Records. The follow-up to 2016’s “Here” reportedly delivers further productions and songwriting contributions from DaHeala, Foy Vance, Arrow Benjamin, Fred Ball, Emile Haynie, Stacy Barthe, Johnny McDaid, Andrew Wyatt, Jeff Bhasker, Linda Perry, Asia Whiteacre, Pierre Medor, and Jeremiah “SickPen” Bethea. Stream the audio clip for “She Don’t Really Care” below. Tags: Alicia Keys, Andrew Wyatt, Arrow Benjamin, Asia Whiteacre, Benamin "Arrow Benjamin" McIntosh, Benjamin McIntosh, Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, Christopher Stewart, DaHeala, Emile Haynie, Foy Vance, Fred Ball, Jason “Daheala” Quenneville, Jason Quenneville, Jeff Bhasker, Jeremiah “Sickpen” Bethea, Jeremiah Bethea, Johnny McDaid, Lewis Sky, Linda Perry, Pierre Medor, RCA Records, SME, Sony Music Entertainment, Stacy Barthe, Tricky Stewart Usher reunites with JHart for new collaboration Sinead Harnett teams up with Gallant for new single “Pulling Away” Lauren Jauregui drafts Ollie Green for new collaboration Tayla Parx teases new collaboration with Little Mix Justin Timberlake enlists Sarah Aarons for new collaboration Acoustic Performance Album Samplers Hamada's Favorite Songs of the Year Lyric Videos Musicians' Galore New Record Deals Publishing Deals Songs Meant for Other Artists (Hamada's Remix) Year's Best Released Songs Year's Best Unreleased Songs	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12916
__label__wiki	0.568166	0.568166	The futility of greed By Anthony Akinola 24 December 2018 \| 3:27 am Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google+ Share on WhatsApp Share on LinkedIn Share via Email Time for the thinking cap 21 hours ago Opinion Handicap the naira exchange rate system - Part 2 19 hours ago Nigeria Nigerian Flag I once talked about the “iniquity of greed” with a Nigerian I met in London sometime in the 1980’s. The meeting place was at the then African Concord House, owned by the late Chief MKO Abiola, where I had more or less established a perennial presence not least to read Nigerian newspapers. Those of the internet age might wonder why one would have had to travel all the way from Oxford to London for the purpose of reading newspapers; the internet generation does not have to “travel” out of their bedrooms in order to read anything but this was not the case in the 1980’s. Nigerian newspapers were flown to Britain and other parts of the world by various agents. Be that as it may, I met this Nigerian in London and for some strange reason we did not introduce ourselves. Maybe the reason I did not introduce myself – even when not quite used to frivolous introductions – was because of what happened at African Concord House. As we scrambled for the newspapers, some as old as weeks, this fellow grabbed one which had published an article of mine. He seemed to be excited by it as he yelled, “yes, it is Anthony Akinola again. His articles stand out among those of other Nigerians. He is always writing about structures that can move Nigeria forward. I think he is looking for political appointment.” Naturally I felt pleased by what he had to say about Anthony Akinola and I did not hesitate to say, “you can never tell with these writers”. A member of staff of the African Concord magazine glanced at me, marvelling at the fact that someone could be talking about the very person standing next to them without knowing it. The article which sparked his comments was one I had written, furthering my arguments about the desirability of a rotational presidency in Nigeria. It is not always true that one would be writing solely for selfish reasons. Without the passion for writing, one can hardly achieve longevity as a writer. Of course, a writer may get noticed and invited to play a role where his or her expertise is relevant but this would not mean they deliberately courted it. Maybe we should not impute motives into what others do. Now to this important matter of the iniquity of greed, the discussion was provoked by our reflection on the fall of the Second Republic (1979-1983). One epitaph of that era was provided by General Olusegun Obasanjo who castigated the government of the Second Republic for having spent over 50 billion naira – a colossal sum in those days – in less than four years, with nothing to show for it. The military regime led by General Obasanjo, had voluntarily handed over power to a civilian administration led by Alhaji Shehu Shagari in October 1979; that voluntary transfer of political power from one government to another, a hitherto unprecedented feat on the African continent, enhanced the dignity of General Obasanjo considerably in the eyes of the world and must have given him some kind of moral authority to indulge in lecturing others about how a government should be run. However, his critics might not concede he still has that moral authority today, having himself presided over a somewhat prodigal civilian administration between 1999 and 2007. With the possible exception of a tiny minority of its members, the politicians of the Second Republic were a despicable horde. In spite of the poor state our universities were and still are in, there were quite a number of them donating monies to educational institutions of rich nations in return for lousy, honorary degrees. I wrote angrily about this when I was studying in the United States. Not just a few of the Second Republic politicians had private jets, while rabbits compete with dangerous vehicles for the right of way in our so-called public roads. Our hospitals, as rightly described by their equally incompetent military conquerors, were no better than “mere consulting clinics.” When the fall of the Second Republic came, it was an occasion of great joy to impoverished Nigerians. The politicians of today are hardly any different from their disgraced predecessors. Many will say they are even worse! Their intention to defraud the public becomes evident in the dubious assets most of them declare. A hitherto unemployed university graduate would have no qualms about declaring an asset worth hundreds of millions of naira, all in anticipation of what could be stolen while in office. Assets declared by politicians are accepted in good faith, their authenticity never verified or established. Many Nigerians would want to go into politics today, not because they want to serve their nation but because they want to be rich. The salaries and allowances our elected politicians corner to themselves would amaze their counterparts even in the truly rich nations of the world. A senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria earns more money than the President of the United States of America. The Nigerian politician wins regular lottery in corrupt practices or shady deals. The saving grace for democracy of today, if one must be honest, has been the distrust Nigerians have for the military. The experiences of governance between 1985 and 1998, as well as cases of corruption involving contemporary military chiefs, do not recommend further military involvement in politics. Some Nigerians call for a revolution, which is to say that there can be no peace when the majority of our peoples live in abject poverty and a tiny minority lives in gluttonous greed. The majority of our peoples love democracy and are peace-loving, however, disruptive tendencies can find easy recruitment in the ranks of the uneducated and the impoverished. The Boko Haram ideology, detestable as it is, is one example of the danger poverty and lack of education pose to our collective existence. It is therefore both in the short-term and long-term interest of our nation that we enrich our peoples educationally and economically, and end the twin cultures of corruption and greed. Alhaji Shehu ShagariAnthony AkinolaBoko HaramChief MKO AbiolaOlusegun Obasanjo Receive News Alerts on Whatsapp: +2348136370421 To enable commenting and other interactive features, please switch to the more advanced . More Top News Stories 2 hours ago Nigeria 4 hours ago World Kogi APC stakeholders meet in Kwara over guber poll	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12918
__label__cc	0.560073	0.439927	Galloping Through Ireland! Town And Gown. Apr. 23rd, 2013 at 10:15 AM The conference was at the lovely Queen's University Belfast. Here's an amusing thing to know about Belfast: The city has this amazing obsession with Queen Victoria. Almost every third item in the city is named after her. There's Queens University, Great Victoria Street, Queens Road, Victoria Park, Victoria Street, Victoria Road, Victoria College, even the Victoria Square Shopping Centre. All of this for a woman who spent a grand total of three hours of her life in the city. But part of her legacy was Queens University . . . This is the main campus. It's a lovely place, with that kind of neo-Gothic red brick that the Victorians loved. Just on the far side of that photo is a little alley where you noodle around this place: It's a chapel. Just beyond it is the music department, where all the fun happened. However, if you happened to be a few minutes early to the first paper session of the day, you could look up at the chapel and see these guys: The university is located in a lovely, hip neighborhood with plenty of fine restaurants. The city of Belfast also got in on the act. They decided to host a wine reception for all of us ethnomusicologists in Belfast's City Hall: Take a look at that building. It is constructed of solid marble, inside and out. It is a singularly graceful and impressive piece of civic architecture. So what does the city of Belfast decide to put inside this solid-marble treasure, right in the large, hollow, echoing atrium, as a sonic treat for scholars who study music and culture? Why, a gen-you-wine Ulster pipe-and-drum band! Observe the four snare drums, the large bass drum, and the corps of men playing shrill little fifes. This is not just a musical form that has no indoor voice; this is, as one off-duty ethnomusicologist told me, "music to annoy Catholics with." (Amusingly enough, this has also been the gist of more than one academic paper I've seen on these pipe bands. Just not stated quite so bluntly.) You literally could not hear yourself think, what with these guys playing outdoor Music To Annoy Catholics With inside a solid-marble atrium. You could certainly barely hear the followup Irish trad group over the residual buzzing in your head: Or maybe that was just the wine. One more post on Belfast, I think, and then onward. Current Music:Pipe and drums! Well, this part of Ireland has apparently been more pro-British than the rest (which is why it is still part of the UK), and I guess Victorians were just as Queen-of-England-mad as we are today, except there was more stuff lying around unnamed and ready to name after her. I bet that, if there had been a whole bunch of new unnamed streets and institutions in the 80s, they'd all have been named after Diana.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12920
__label__wiki	0.667007	0.667007	Chondrial’s CTI-1601, a Potential Therapy for FA, Granted Orphan Drug Status by FDA by Jose Marques Lopes, PhD Chondrial Therapeutics‘ CTI-1601, an investigative therapy for Friedreich’s ataxia (FA), has been granted orphan drug status by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “We are very pleased to receive orphan drug designation for CTI-1601. Our team is working to complete all Investigational New Drug (IND) enabling studies so that we can file an IND and begin human clinical trials,” Carole Ben-Maimon, MD, president and CEO of Chondrial Therapeutics, said in a press release. The FDA’s IND application process is another step in a drug’s development. It gives a pharmaceutical company permission to ship an experimental drug across state lines before a marketing application has been approved. Friedreich’s ataxia is caused by a deficiency of the frataxin protein, which is normally present in the mitochondria of all tissues. Chondrial’s CTI-1601 uses a carrier protein to deliver frataxin to the mitochondria, where the protein would mature and integrate in mitochondrial metabolism. By replenishing the levels of healthy frataxin, researchers hypothesize that FA patients’ symptoms may be minimized and disease progression may be halted. FA is a genetic, progressive disease that affects multiple systems, including the nervous system and the heart. The disease usually begins in childhood. Patients generally present impaired muscle coordination that worsens over time. Cardiac complications may result in heart failure. Patients exhibit progressive impairments in speech, hearing, vision and sensory functions. Friedreich’s ataxia is the most common form of hereditary ataxia. It is believed to affect about 1 in every 50,000 people in the U.S. The disease is caused by a mutation in the FXN gene, leading to the frataxin protein deficiency. Researchers believe that frataxin is critical in the assembly of iron-sulfur clusters in the cells, which are crucial to the proper functioning of many proteins, including some involved in energy production. Orphan drugs are potential therapies for the treatment of rare diseases, or those affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S. The FDA grants the designation if there is a medically plausible basis for using the drug. The designation provides important incentives for drug development, including tax credits for clinical testing, exemption from a prescription drug user fee, and access to protocol assistance from the FDA. Companies may also benefit from seven years of market exclusivity if the drug is approved by the FDA. Tagged Chondrial Therapeutics, CTI-1601, frataxin, mitochondria, Orphan Drug Designation. Previous: 5 Types of Treatment for Friedreich’s Ataxia Next:The Medical Management of Friedreich’s Ataxia My son who is 24 years old, was diagnosed with FA at age of 15… When can we expect for this to reach human trials?	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12921
__label__wiki	0.686132	0.686132	Heather Munro Prescott The Pill Kills: Women’s Health and Feminist Activism Gender Studies, Science & Medicine This post originally appeared on Nursing Clio. On December 16, 1975, a group of Washington, D.C. area women’s health activists held the first-ever protest at the headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The demonstration took the form of a “memorial service” to commemorate the thousands of women who had died from using the contraceptive pill and other estrogen-containing drugs, and to call attention to the “dangerous experiment” being performed on women. Protesters wore black armbands “to symbolize the deaths of sisters caused by unsafe drugs and hormones,” and carried signs reading, “The Pill Kills,” “Feed your pills to the rats at the FDA,” “Women are not chicks – or white mice,” and “Women’s Health, Not Drug Company Wealth.”1 The demonstration received nationwide media attention, and was included in the 1976 ABC television special “Women’s Health: A Question of Survival”, produced by Marlene Sanders.2 Today, we are more accustomed to seeing feminist protests that demand better access to birth control rather than greater oversight of contraceptive drugs and devices. For example, there is a movement to “free the pill” from the prescription and make it available over the counter in the United States in the same way as some forms of emergency contraception. Conversely, it is usually birth control opponents who hold demonstrations proclaiming that the “pill kills.” 3 Seaman speaking at press conference holding up a cervical cap in 1980. (Bettye Lane/WikimediaCommons) The 1975 protest against the FDA was part of a longer tradition of women’s activism on behalf of consumer safety. Since the early twentieth century, grassroots activism by women’s organizations such as the National Consumers League played a critical role in the passage of laws protecting consumers from harmful products, including the first Food and Drug Act in 1906 and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938.4 This vigilance by female consumers became especially strident in the 1960s and 1970s, when feminist health activists began raising concerns about products designed and marketed specifically to address women’s reproductive health issues. In 1969 journalist Barbara Seaman published the book-length exposé The Doctors’ Case against the Pill, which roundly condemned scientists, physicians, and the FDA for allegedly foisting a dangerous product on unwitting female consumers.5 A year later, a Senate subcommittee led by Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) investigated concerns that the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry were withholding important information about oral contraceptives from women. Members of the radical collective D.C. Women’s Liberation were in the audience and became outraged that no women were called to testify about their negative experiences with the Pill. Unable to contain their anger, the activists shouted questions from their seats: “Why weren’t we told about side effects? Why aren’t any women testifying? Why are you using women as guinea pigs?” and “Why are you letting the drug companies murder us for their profit and convenience?” When Senator Gaylord told them to sit down and be silent, they replied “We are not going to sit quietly! We don’t think the hearings are more important than our lives!”6 Denied the opportunity to testify at the Senate hearings, D.C. Women’s Liberation decided to hold their own hearings on the Pill. They circulated flyers advertising the event reading, “The Pill: Is It a Menace, A No-No, or a Girl’s Best Friend?” The group made it clear that they were not opposed to oral contraceptives, but that they objected “to unsafe contraceptives foisted on uninformed women for the profit of the drug and medical industries and for the convenience of men.” They extended their critique to include what they believed to be a paternalistic and condescending medical profession: “we will no longer let doctors treat us as objects to be manipulated at will,” they declared. D.C. Women’s Liberation’s actions eventually led to oral contraceptives with lower doses of estrogen and the introduction of the patient package insert, which informed consumers about the risks associated with birth control pills.7 Demonstrations against the pill and other estrogen-containing drugs also fostered the growth of the women’s health movement. Following the 1975 memorial service for victims of estrogen, activists formed the National Women’s Health Network to serve as the voice for women’s health in the nation’s capital. The National Women’s Health Network continues to develop strategies “to challenge dangerous drugs and medical devices, raise women’s voices for the health care we need, and ensure the sexual and reproductive health rights of all women.”8 Screen shot of the NWHN homepage. Visit to learn more. As we face an increasingly hostile climate for women’s health issues in Washington, the work of watchdogs like the NWHN is more important than ever. For example, demand for intrauterine devices (IUDs) has grown exponentially because women fear they will lose birth control coverage if the Affordable Care Act is repealed. Those of us who remember the story of the Dalkon Shield IUD, which killed at least eighteen women and permanently injured hundreds of thousands of others in the 1970s and 1980s, may find it ironic that women are now clamoring for a device that was once an icon of women’s victimization by the pharmaceutical industry.9 The story of feminist activism on behalf of contraceptive product safety demonstrates the limits of framing discussions of birth control technology solely in terms of the ongoing battle between prochoice organizations and religious conservatives. Jean Horan and Tacie Dejanikus, “Feed estrogen to the rats at the fda, ama, drug companies,” Off Our Backs 5/11 (January-February, 1976), 12-13. Return to text. “ The First FDA Protest (1975),” National Women’s Health Network, accessed January 6, 2017.Return to text. Katie Walker, “On 50th Anniversary, ‘Pill Kills Day’ Exposes Health, Environmental Impact of Birth Control,” American Life League, May 14, 2010. Return to text. Gwen Kay, Dying to Be Beautiful: The Fight for Safe Cosmetics (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2005), 3–5. Return to text. Barbara Seaman, The Doctors’ Case against the Pill (New York: Peter H. Wyden, 1969). Return to text. “The Pill Hearings,” National Women’s Health Network, accessed January 6, 2017. Return to text. Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, On the Pill: A Social History of Oral Contraceptives, 1950-1970(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 127-28. Return to text. “Celebrating 40 Years in the Movement,” National Women’s Health Network, accessed January 6, 2017. Return to text. Karen Hicks, Surviving the Dalkon Shield IUD: Women v. the Pharmaceutical Industry (New York: Teachers College Press, 1994). Return to text. contraceptionfeminismThe Pillwomen's rights Rosa Parks and the Image of Respectability Science and Journalism: Two Sides of the Same Coin? Heather Munro Prescott received her undergraduate degree in Comparative Religion, summa cum laude, from the University of Vermont in 1984. She received her M.A. (1989) and Ph.D. (1994) in Science & Technology Studies from Cornell University. She joined the faculty at CCSU in that year. She has served as co-coordinator of Women’s Studies (1995-99) and chair of the history department (1999-2002). In Fall 2001, she was A. Lindsay O’Connor Distinguished Visiting Associate Professor of American Institutions at Colgate University. In April 2010, upon the recommendation of a Faculty Senate advisory committee and President Jack Miller, the Board of Trustees selected Dr. Prescott as a Connecticut State University Professor. Dr. Prescott’s teaching interests include recent U.S. history, U.S. women’s history, and the history of medicine and public health. Her research interests include U.S. women’s history, history of childhood, and most recently, disability history. Her first book, A Doctor of Their Own, received the Will Solimene Award of Excellence in Medical Communication from the New England Chapter, American Medical Writers Association. “No-Tell Motels”: Abortion in Pre-Roe South Carolina Cara Delay, Nursing Clio, Cora Webb, Nursing Clio, Regina Day, Nursing Clio and Madeleine Ware, Nursing Clio Teenage Feminism Decades before “Girl Power” Kera Lovell	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12925
__label__cc	0.712084	0.287916	Clio Stereoview American Scenery 3 5/16 x 6 3/4 in. (8.4 x 17.1 cm) This marble sculpture of Clio, the Greek muse of history, in her clock-wheeled chariot, has long been a popular symbol of the House. This stereoview was likely a souvenir for a tourist visiting the Capitol, where the statue was perched in Statuary Hall. It was carved by Carlo Franzoni in 1819, and she watched over the House through its four decades meeting in the room, and over visitors to the Capitol ever since. View Related Media View Related Exhibitions & Publications National Clock, in the Old House of Representatives, U.S. Capitol Stereoview Statuary Hall Postcard The Speaker's Lobby The Speaker's Lobby—situated directly outside the House Chamber in the U.S. Capitol—is a long corridor featuring portraits of past Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives. In this video, House Curator Farar P. Elliott describes and recounts the history of the space. Speaker's Lobby and Members' Retiring Room The Tourist's Capitol History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, “Clio Stereoview,” https://history.house.gov/Collection/Listing/2013/2013-071-000/ (July 18, 2019)	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12926
__label__cc	0.674478	0.325522	Rodolfo Herrera Rodolfo Herrera has been working in the field of family law since 2006. Before passing the California State Bar exam in 2007, Mr. Herrera worked as a law clerk for a prestigious family law firm in San Diego. During this time, Mr. Herrera gained extensive experience in family law matters. Mr. Herrera passed the Bar exam and moved on to become an associate attorney with the firm, during which time he quickly became experienced at litigating in Superior Courts throughout California. Mr. Herrera then practiced family law for two years before eventually opening his own firm, Herrera Law Firm. Currently, HLF is committed to giving back to the community by helping San Diego residents work through their family law disputes. Mr. Herrera is a San Diego native who attended high school at Army & Navy Academy in Carlsbad, California and earned his law degree from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law, located in San Diego. Additionally, Mr. Herrera’s impressive education includes a Bachelor of Science from California Polytechnic State University (in San Luis Obispo, CA.) and a Master’s Degree from Drexel University (in Philadelphia, PA). Contact Rodolfo Directly Please fill out the form on this page, and your message with be securely delivered directly to Rodolfo Herrera.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12938
__label__wiki	0.755981	0.755981	Updated: September 25, 2018 11:21 am Preschooler seriously injured in dog attack at off-leash park in Mississauga By David Shum WATCH ABOVE: A three-year-old girl is in hospital after suffering serious injuries in a dog attack on Sunday. Her family is calling on the owner of the dog to come forward. Shallima Maharaj reports. Peel Regional Police are looking for the owner of a black-and-white Husky after they say it attacked and seriously injured a three-year-old girl at an off-leash park in Mississauga over the weekend. Police said the incident happened between 4 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on Sunday at the Parkway Belt Leash-Free Dog Park in the area of Highway 403 and Eglinton Avenue. READ MORE: Toronto woman says she couldn’t get through to 911 while her dog was being mauled Phoenix Pike is the mother of Georgia Lund, the child who was attacked. Pike said Georgia was with her grandfather when the attack occurred. Pike said her daughter suffered lacerations to the back of her head and several other parts of her body. “The dog dragged Georgia down the hill about 25 feet and my dad chased them,” she said. Pike said her father had to “kick the dog in the face a few times and get the dog off of Georgia.” Georgia was taken to hospital with serious injuries and is currently listed in stable condition. READ MORE: Siblings suffer serious injuries in dog attack as city set to adopt new animal control bylaw The owner of the dog briefly spoke with Pike’s father but he took off pretty quickly, she said. “The owner of the dog came and said something to him – I’m not sure ’cause I wasn’t there – and then as he was trying to get information, he was talking to me on the phone and the medics were on their way… Then the owner just picked up the dog and ran,” she said. Goergia’s prognosis, for the most part, is good according to Pike — she’s talking, eating and playing again. Pike said she’s more upset that the owner left them to deal with that situation without trying to help. “I don’t understand why he took off anyway. Maybe he’s scared, maybe he just didn’t know what to do. We’re all put in that situation sometimes,” Arnold Lund, the child’s father, said. “The difference between a man and a boy is sticking around.” The owner is described as a man of South Asian descent, in his early 20s, was is five-feet-six-inches tall and 180 to 200 pounds. He was clean shaven, had glasses and was wearing orange shorts. Anyone with information is urged to contact police. Update: Incident occurred in a leash-free dog park. Child was initially transported to local hospital and later transported to a Toronto hospital. Child is currently in critical but stable condition. — Peel Regional Police (@PeelPoliceMedia) September 24, 2018 — With files from Shallima Maharaj child attacked Dog Attack husky dog leash-free dog park Mississauga dog bite	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12940
__label__cc	0.620359	0.379641	Home » Locations » Asia » South-Eastern Asia UCSF has a strong presence in South-Eastern Asia, particularly addressing prevention and control of infectious diseases. Notable projects in this region include research on health risks of sex workers and migrants in Cambodia and technologies to improve TB diagnostic services in Viet Nam. Several projects address pediatric disease, such as the vascular effects of pediatric stroke in China and neurodevelopment of HIV-infected children in Cambodia and Thailand. Other HIV-related projects in Thailand examine the immunology of HIV infection, including neurological and central nervous system consequences of long-term infection with HIV. As in other Asian regions, the Malaria Elimination Initiative of the Global Health Group works with counties in the region on malaria elimination. Explore Related Locations - Please select - Brunei Cambodia Indonesia Viet Nam Laos Malaysia Myanmar Singapore Thailand Timor-Leste Philippines Active Projects: 64 Policy Analysis to Denormalize Tobacco Use in Coastal and Wilderness Environments in California and the Pacific Rim Jeremiah Mock, PhD Japan, Thailand 12/1/18 11/30/21 Improving the molecular diagnosis of drug resistant tuberculosis Midori Kato-Maeda, MD Philippines 3/1/16 2/28/21 Malaria Elimination Realised through Community focused Interventions (MERCI) Adam Bennett, PhD, MA Cambodia, Viet Nam, Laos 1/1/18 12/31/20 ACTG, AIDS Clinical Trial Research Group Diane Havlir, MD Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, China, India, Thailand, Brazil, Peru, Haiti 1/1/14 11/30/20 LOC-IMPAACT Leadership Group Theodore Ruel, MD Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, China, India, Thailand, Argentina, Brazil 2/1/14 11/30/20 International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trial Group Master Member Agreement Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, China, India, Thailand, Argentina, Brazil, Bahamas 1/1/14 11/30/20 Global Health diplomacy in conflict and post conflict areas Sebastian Kevany, MPH Zimbabwe, Sudan, Afghanistan, Thailand, Iraq 10/16/15 10/16/20 Quality Improvement Center/HEALTHQUAL Bruce D. Agins, MD, MPH Malawi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Nigeria, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Laos, Thailand, Haiti, Papua New Guinea 9/30/17 9/29/20 International Clinical Research Fellowship Christopher Stewart, MD Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Liberia, Cambodia, Viet Nam 2/1/17 7/31/20 PSI Myanmar-2016 Malaria Writing Workshop May Sudhinaraset, PhD Myanmar 8/1/15 7/31/20 Health system/workforce planning and performance Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, China, Thailand, Jordan, Papua New Guinea 7/1/14 6/30/20 Evalution of a school-based smoking prevention program in Indoensia Justin White, PhD Indonesia 7/1/14 6/30/20 Developing capacity in medicine and emergency response Aaron Harries, MD Kenya, South Sudan, Uganda, Thailand, Philippines, Haiti 7/1/14 6/30/20 Epidemiology of leishmaniasis and schistosomiasis South Sudan, Egypt, Malaysia 7/1/14 6/30/20 Trauma, critical care, global health, and physician well-being Krista Kaups, MD Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Thailand, Albania 7/1/14 6/30/20 Tuberculosis contact tracing in resource poor settings Elizabeth Fair, PhD, MPH Tanzania, Indonesia 7/1/14 6/30/20 Capacity Building for minimally invasive surgery in Thailand Stanley Rogers, MD Thailand 7/1/14 6/30/20 Epidemiology capacity building Nancy Hills, PhD Tanzania, Viet Nam, Guyana 7/1/14 6/30/20 Epidemiology of vector borne diseases Isabel Rodriguez Barraquer, MD, PhD Uganda, India, Thailand, Brazil, Colombia 5/17/16 6/30/20 Global health nursing and eliminating health disparities Oi Saeng Hong, RN, PhD, FAAN China, South Korea, Macao S.A.R., China, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Philippines, Brazil 7/1/14 6/30/20 Health economics, noncommunicable diseases, and global tobacco control Justin White, PhD Indonesia, Thailand 5/20/16 6/30/20 Improving the health of children through clinical care and the study of malaria Michelle Hsiang, MD Namibia, Swaziland, Indonesia, Thailand 7/1/14 6/30/20 Director of TREAT Asia and VP of Global Initiatives for amfAR Annette Sohn, MD Thailand 5/20/08 6/30/20 Anesthesia preceptorship in Vietnam Odi Ehie, MD Viet Nam 7/1/14 6/30/20 iBiology: Bringing the worlds best biology to you Ronald Vale, PhD Burundi, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Sudan, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, Philippines, Ireland, Malta, Belize, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Bermuda, Canada, Greenland, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu 8/1/09 6/30/20 Implementation science, and behavioral interventions in support of HIV prevention Christina (Krysia) Lindan, MD, MSc Rwanda, India, Viet Nam 7/1/14 6/30/20 Associate Dean for Global Health and Educational Innovations UCSF School of Pharmacy Tina Brock, MS, EdD Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Namibia, Liberia, Japan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Viet Nam 7/1/14 6/30/20 Health systems analysis John Peabody, MD, PhD Philippines, Mexico 7/1/15 6/30/20 Training pediatric cardiac surgeons in South East Asia Shunji Sano, MD, PhD Japan, Viet Nam, Thailand 1/22/03 6/30/20 Institute for Global Orthopedics and Traumatology (IGOT) Richard Coughlin, MD Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Seychelles, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Congo (Kinshasa), Congo (Brazzaville), Egypt, Morocco, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Viet Nam, Thailand, Philippines, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Brazil 7/1/06 6/30/20 Disease susceptibility and global distribution of genetic variation Mark Seielstad, PhD Philippines, Brazil 7/1/15 6/30/20 Epidemiology and clinical manifestations of chlamydial infections Julius Schachter, PhD Ethiopia, Niger, India, Nepal, Thailand, Mexico 2/13/11 6/30/20 Blood safety standards and lab capacity in low & mid income countries Elizabeth Donegan, MD Sierra Leone, Indonesia, Philippines, Armenia, Moldova, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Dominica, Haiti 7/1/14 6/30/20 Gender equity, women's empowerment and reproductive health in US and low-income countries Ushma Upadhyay, PhD, MPH South Africa, Philippines 7/1/14 6/30/20 Chlamydial sexually transmitted diseases and trachoma Deborah Dean, MD, MPH Nepal, Viet Nam, Thailand, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Ecuador 2/13/14 6/30/20 Child Family Health International (CFHI) Jessica Evert, MD Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Ghana, India, Philippines, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador 7/1/14 6/30/20 Global Brain Health Institute Victor Valcour, MD, PhD South Africa, Viet Nam, Turkey, Greece, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Dominican Republic 7/1/14 6/30/20 Identifying the role of opportunistic pathogens including Giardia, Cryptosporidia, Microsporidia and Mycobacterium avium Robert Owen, MD Afghanistan, Viet Nam 6/28/15 6/30/20 Traumatic brain injury education Alisa Gean, MD China, Viet Nam, Philippines 7/1/14 6/30/20 Access to anesthesia care in underserved regions Gabriel Sarah, MD Viet Nam, Haiti 7/1/15 6/30/20 Women's empowerment and access to family planning Ruby Warnock, MPH Cambodia 6/28/15 6/28/20 Effects of Air Pollution on Childhood Tuberculosis in Viet Nam Robert Blount, MD Viet Nam 11/1/15 4/1/20 Establishment of the UP Manila Drugs of Abuse Research Laboratory Roy Roberto L. Gerona, PhD Philippines 4/1/18 3/31/20 Strategic Information Technical Assistance Consortium George Rutherford, MD Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Cameroon, Congo (Kinshasa), Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, China, India, Cambodia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Laos, Thailand, Ukraine, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Papua New Guinea 9/30/13 3/31/20 International Network for Strategic Initiatives in Global HIV Trials (INSIGHT): START Richard Price, MD Uganda, Morocco, South Africa, Mali, Nigeria, China, Japan, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Australia 12/15/15 1/31/20 QB3-Malaysia Research and Bio-Entrepreneurship Training Program Regis Kelly, MD Malaysia 2/1/07 1/30/20 GINI: Gardasil Immunogenicity with Needle-free Injection-Safety and Immunogenicity of Gardasil using IM and ID needle-free injection delivery Joel Palefsky, MD Thailand 12/2/13 12/31/19 Improving the efficiency of clinic-based active tuberculosis case finding: point-of-care C-reactive protein-based TB triage testing in Vietnam Christina Yoon, MD, MPH Viet Nam 1/1/19 12/1/19 PREDICT-2 Dean Jamison, PhD Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon, Congo (Kinshasa), Congo (Brazzaville), Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand 10/1/18 9/30/19 Health Evaluation, Applied Research, and Development (HEARD) Dilys Walker, MD Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Congo (Kinshasa), Congo (Brazzaville), Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Indonesia, Myanmar, Yemen, Haiti 12/5/16 9/30/19 ATS Implementation Guide and Training Modules Philip Hopewell, MD Kenya, Tanzania, China, India, Nepal, Indonesia, Mexico 11/1/06 9/30/19 UN Special Envoy for Tuberculosis: Strategic Priorities Eric Goosby, MD Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Central African Republic, Congo (Kinshasa), Congo (Brazzaville), Lesotho, South Africa, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, China, North Korea, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Myanmar, Thailand, Philippines, Russia, Brazil, Papua New Guinea 10/1/15 9/29/19 Population-based HIV Impact Assessments in Resource-Constrained Settings under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) George Rutherford, MD Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Cameroon, Congo (Kinshasa), Congo (Brazzaville), Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, China, India, Cambodia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Laos, Thailand, Ukraine, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Suriname, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Papua New Guinea 9/30/15 9/29/19 U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA) Victor Valcour, MD, PhD Thailand 10/1/14 9/29/19 3HP for LTBI in Immigrants Pilot Study Payam Nahid, MD, MPH Viet Nam 9/29/16 9/28/19 Tuberculosis Trial Consortium Payam Nahid, MD, MPH Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, China, Viet Nam, Brazil, Peru 9/22/09 9/17/19 Smoking Cessation Contracts with Social and Monetary Incentives Justin White, PhD Thailand 9/1/15 8/31/19 Establishment of a Philippine Cancer Phenome-Biobanking System Linda Giudice, MD, PhD, MSc Philippines 3/1/17 8/31/19 High Throughput Screening of Philippine Terrestrial and Marine Organisms for Antimalarial Properties and Identification of Novel Drug Targets Joseph Derisi, PhD Philippines 12/17/14 7/31/19 Pegylated Interferon Lambda w/wo Daclatasvir, Compared to Pegylated Interferon Alfa, Plus Ribavirin in Subjects With Hepatitis C Genotype 2 and 3 Mandana Khalili, MD South Korea, Japan, India, Singapore, Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, United Kingdom, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Canada, Australia, New Zealand 4/15/13 6/30/19 A Multi-Centric Evaluation of a Device for Automated Malaria Microscopy (EasyScan Go) Philip J. Rosenthal, MD Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Brazil 7/20/18 5/31/19 Preparing Vietnam for Malaria Elimination Roland Gosling, PhD, MS, MD Viet Nam 12/1/14 5/31/19 Operational Infectious Disease Research - Research Support Across Southeast Asia Roland Gosling, PhD, MS, MD Viet Nam 5/10/17 5/29/19 Archived Projects: 154 Metagenomic Contributions to Type 2 Diabetes Among Filipino Populations Mark Seielstad, PhD Philippines 12/23/15 3/31/19 Thai Red Cross S&S, HPV TA008 Joel Palefsky, MD Thailand 2/1/14 1/31/19 Preparing Lao PDR for malaria elimination Adam Bennett, PhD, MA Laos 10/1/14 1/31/19 Aligning datasets for in-country decision making Hilary Spindler, MPH Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Botswana, Namibia, Ivory Coast, India, Thailand, Russia, Ukraine, Antigua and Barbuda 10/16/16 10/16/18 Improving hospital care for breastfeeding support in Indonesia Valerie Flaherman, MD Indonesia 10/1/15 9/30/18 International Clinical Research Fellowships for Medical Students Joel Palefsky, MD Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, India, Cambodia 9/1/12 8/31/18 Policy Analysis on Banning Flavored Tobacco in Thailand Toki Ko, MS Thailand 9/1/17 8/30/18 Community Perceptions of Intestinal Infections in the Sorsogon Province, the Philippines Ekaterina Tangog , MS Philippines 9/1/17 8/30/18 Factors Associated with G6PD Deficiency Testing Adherence Among P. vivax RDT-positive Individuals Living in Southern Lao PDR Resego Bokete, MS Laos 9/1/17 8/30/18 The Perspective of the Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh on Repatriation to Myanmar Saba Rahman, MS Bangladesh, Myanmar 9/1/17 8/30/18 Cost Analysis of Waliku - A Mobile App and Database System that Digitizes Student Absenteeism and Child Sickness Data Alekya Tummala, MS Indonesia 9/1/17 8/30/18 p24 Antigen and Alternative Markers in Infants, Vietnam Annette Sohn, MD Viet Nam 7/1/15 6/30/18 Outcomes of pediatric patients presenting at Cambodian referral hospitals Mackensie Yore, MS Cambodia 6/28/17 6/28/18 Cambodia Integrated HIV and Drug Prevention Implementation Ellen Stein, MPH Cambodia 5/1/16 4/30/18 Therapeutic Interventions during Acute Infection to Address the CNS Reservoir for HIV Victor Valcour, MD, PhD Thailand 5/1/13 4/30/18 Commitment Contracts and School Competition for Smoking Prevention in Indonesia Justin White, PhD Indonesia 4/1/17 4/1/18 Global Fund Prospective Country Evaluations George Rutherford, MD Mozambique, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo (Kinshasa), Senegal, Cambodia, Myanmar, Guatemala 2/1/17 3/31/18 NICHD International & Domestic Pediatric & Maternal HIV Studies Coordinating Center Theodore Ruel, MD Kenya, Tanzania, Thailand, Argentina, Brazil 4/1/15 12/31/17 Optimal MDR treatment in children Rada Savic, PhD Indonesia 12/1/15 11/30/17 HEAL Initiative Phuoc V. Le, MD, MPH, DTM+H Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Liberia, Nepal, Philippines, Mexico, Haiti 2/1/16 9/30/17 Results for Malaria Control in Asia and the Pacific (RECAP) Singapore 1/28/16 7/31/17 Tuberculosis guidelines and best practices internationally Sarah Royce, MD, MPH Cambodia 9/1/10 6/30/17 University of California Global Health Institute Program for Fellows and Scholars (UCGHI-PFS) Craig Cohen, MD, MPH Burundi, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Central African Republic, Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Sierra Leone, Kyrgyzstan, South Korea, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia, Myanmar, Haiti 4/4/12 6/30/17 Stigma and Discrimination Against HIV-Positive Young Adults in Bangkok, Thailand Rhea Mathew, MS Thailand 9/1/16 6/30/17 Metabiota - Viral Surveillance for the PREDICT Program 20150410 Charles Chiu, MD, PhD Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon, Congo (Kinshasa), Congo (Brazzaville), Gabon, China, Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru 10/1/14 6/1/17 Long-Term Central Nervous System (CNS) Consequences of Treatment during Acute Infection Victor Valcour, MD, PhD Thailand 7/26/11 5/31/17 PSI Maternal and Child Health Project in Rural Myanmar May Sudhinaraset, PhD Myanmar 5/1/14 12/31/16 Philippine-UC Collaboratory for Device Innovation (Education/Training Award) Michael Harrison, MD Philippines 12/11/14 12/25/16 2.1 Project Title ACTG: AIDS Clinical Trials Group Francesca Aweeka, PharmD Kenya, Mozambique, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, India, Thailand, Brazil, Peru 1/1/14 11/30/16 LOC-IMPAACT Leadership Group Francesca Aweeka, PharmD Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, China, India, Thailand, Brazil 12/1/15 11/30/16 Center for AIDS Prevention Studies Stephen Morin, PhD Kenya, Mozambique, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, China, India, Nepal, Thailand, Philippines, Brazil 9/1/11 8/31/16 VIPS: Vascular Effects of Infection in Pediatric Stroke Heather Fullerton, MD China, Malaysia, Argentina, Chile, Australia 8/5/09 7/31/16 Evidence Reviews required for the revision of the WHO guidance on the treatment of TB. Payam Nahid, MD, MPH Viet Nam 6/6/16 7/15/16 Investigating the Role of Stigma on Fertility Desire among HIV-positive Women in Bangkok, Thailand Natasha Mehta, DSc, MPH Thailand 7/1/15 6/30/16 mHealth Interventions for Pregnant Women in Low and Middle Income Countries in Asia: A Systematic Review Eri Yoshimura, MS Indonesia 7/1/15 6/30/16 UAB-UCSF Creative and Novel Ideas in HIV Research Paul Volberding, MD Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ivory Coast, India, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Thailand, Brazil, Peru 6/1/15 5/31/16 International Network for Strategic Initiatives in Global HIV Trials (INSIGHT) Ann Schwartz, PhD, MPH South Africa, India, Thailand, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Brazil, Peru, Australia 6/1/10 5/31/16 International Network for Strategic Initiatives in Global HIV Trials (INSIGHT) Steven Deeks, MD Tanzania, Zambia, Morocco, South Africa, Mali, Thailand, Greece, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru 6/29/06 5/31/16 Biomarkers for Malaria Eradication (BIOME) Bryan Greenhouse, MD Thailand 5/1/15 4/30/16 Cambodia Integrated HIV and Drug Prevention Implementation Program Kimberly Page, PhD, MPH Cambodia 5/15/12 4/30/16 Thai Red Cross S&S, HN177 Joel Palefsky, MD Thailand 3/11/15 1/31/16 Neurodevelopment and Imaging among HIV-infected Children from the PREDICT Study Victor Valcour, MD, PhD Cambodia, Thailand 5/18/10 1/31/16 QB3 Entrepreneurship, Train the trainers program Regis Kelly, MD Malaysia 6/12/15 10/31/15 Collaboration with Padjadjaran University Sharof Tugizov, PhD Indonesia 10/28/10 10/27/15 Restratification of Epidemiology & Development of Interventions For More Effective Control & Elimination of Malaria in Vietnam Viet Nam 4/7/14 10/6/15 Turnaway Study Diana Foster, PhD South Africa, India, Nepal, Cambodia, Colombia 10/1/13 9/30/15 Abortion Turnaway Project Diana Foster, PhD South Africa, Cambodia, Colombia 10/1/07 9/30/15 Do financial literacy training and microloans reduce HIV risk behaviors among female entertainment and sex workers in Cambodia? A mixed methods study Ariana Austin, MS Cambodia 9/1/14 9/1/15 Human papillomavirus and the impact of needle-free vaccination on incidence in Thai women: a quantitative study Sneh Patel, MS Thailand 9/1/14 9/1/15 Sustaining malaria elimination: the cost of program interventions for malaria elimination and the prevention of reintroduction in the Philippines Stephanie Sario, MS Philippines 9/1/14 9/1/15 Evaluating the Effectiveness of Tobacco Control Policies in Low- and Middle-Income Countries Neal Benowitz, MD India, Malaysia, Thailand, Uruguay 10/17/11 7/31/15 Identifying Variants Casual for Type 2 Diabetes in Major Human Populations Mark Seielstad, PhD South Korea, Singapore, Finland, United Kingdom 9/20/09 7/31/15 Barriers to point-of-care G6PD testing for P.vivax malaria in Malaysia: a qualitative study Jessica Jaswal, MS Malaysia 9/1/14 7/1/15 Developing an International Research Program in AIDS and Substance Abuse [II] Norman Hearst, MD, MPH Uganda, Egypt, South Africa, China, Indonesia, Romania 7/1/13 6/30/15 Mobile Phone Platform for Genomic Disease Detection Adithya Cattamanchi, MD Viet Nam 7/1/12 6/30/15 2014 Global Conference on Social Franchising for Health Dominic Montagu, DrPH Philippines 10/1/13 3/31/15 Atlanta HQ: UCSF Technical Assistance to Support PEPFAR George Rutherford, MD Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Nigeria, Viet Nam, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominican Republic, Haiti 4/1/09 3/31/15 A Phase III Clinical Trial to Study the Tolerability and Immunogenicity of V503, a Multivalent Human Papillomavirus (HPV) L1 Virus-Like Particle (VLP) Vaccine, in 16- to 26- Year-Old Men and 16- to 26- Year-Old Women Joel Palefsky, MD South Africa, Malaysia, Thailand, Israel, Turkey, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Canada 2/7/13 2/6/15 Peripheral Reservoir of HIV Monocytes Pivotal to Cognition in HIV Victor Valcour, MD, PhD Thailand 8/1/09 1/31/15 mHealth for Safe Abortion in Indonesia Indonesia 7/15/13 11/30/14 Chemoprophylaxis for HIV Prevention in Men Expansion Study [II] David Glidden, PhD South Africa, Thailand, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru 2/1/13 11/30/14 Donation of Primaquine for the UCSF-Sponsored Phase 2A Dose Escalation Study of the Efficacy, Safety and Pharmacokinetics of Low Single-Dose Primaquine for Gametocytocidal Activity against P. Falciparum in Sub-Saharan Africa Roland Gosling, PhD, MS, MD Mali, Thailand 10/16/13 11/15/14 Pathogen Discovery in PREDICT Human and Wildlife samples to Detect and Identify Viruses Present, Both Known and Novel Charles Chiu, MD, PhD China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia 10/1/12 9/30/14 Women, Children, and HIV Website Susan Coffey, MD Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Philippines, United Kingdom, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, U.S. Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Australia, Marshall Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu 9/1/11 8/31/14 Assess Clonidine and Aspirin in Noncardiac Surgery Patients at Risk of Perioperative Cardiovascular Event South Africa, China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Canada, Australia 10/29/10 7/4/14 Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship Renewal Joel Palefsky, MD Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, India, Cambodia 1/1/11 6/30/14 TB TO 2015 Philip Hopewell, MD Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, China, India, Nepal, Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico 9/30/09 6/30/14 Biodiversity surveys in Indonesia and discovery of health and energy solutions Jennifer Whistler, PhD Indonesia 7/1/13 5/31/14 Supplement: Biodiversity Surveys in Indonesia and Discovery of Health and Energy Solutions Jennifer Whistler, PhD Indonesia 6/1/13 5/31/14 Framework for Private Health Sector Engagement in Myanmar Dominic Montagu, DrPH Myanmar 10/31/13 4/30/14 Consortium of Universities of Global Health (CUGH) - Leading the Way Haile Debas, MD Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Egypt, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Ghana, Mali, China, India, Pakistan, Viet Nam, Thailand, Israel, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago 8/26/10 3/6/14 Improving Malaria Treatment Practices in Myanmar's Private Sector: An Evaluation of Incentives for Driving Demand for Diagnostic Tools Dominic Montagu, DrPH Myanmar 10/1/12 2/28/14 Nonlinear Mixed Effects Modeling of Rifapentine in Children Rada Savic, PhD Kenya, South Africa, China, Viet Nam, Peru, United States 10/1/11 12/31/13 Novel Technologies to Increase the Accessibility and Accuracy of Tuberculosis Diagnostic Services in Hanoi Province, Vietnam Adithya Cattamanchi, MD Viet Nam 10/1/11 12/31/13 Microbicide Pregnancy Registry--Microbicide Trials Network Juan Vargas, MD Malawi, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, India, Thailand, Peru, Puerto Rico 6/1/12 12/31/13 International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Group Leadership Award Francesca Aweeka, PharmD Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, India, Thailand 6/1/12 12/31/13 International Traineeships in AIDS Prevention Studies George Rutherford, MD Eastern Africa, Middle Africa, Northern Africa, Southern Africa, Western Africa, Central Asia, Eastern Asia, Southern Asia, South-Eastern Asia, Western Asia, Central America, South America, Caribbean 8/1/07 7/31/13 HIV and Global Drug Therapies: Peripheral Neuropathy Complications and Mechanisms Victor Valcour, MD, PhD Thailand 8/1/09 7/31/13 HIV-1 Specific Immune Responses in Thai Individuals with HIV Dementia Victor Valcour, MD, PhD Thailand 8/1/09 7/31/13 New Hazards for Young Women Sex Workers; Effects and Crises Arising from Recent Anti-Trafficking Laws in Cambodia Kimberly Page, PhD, MPH Cambodia 7/1/11 6/30/13 PSI/Myanmar Collaborative Impact Study Planning Dominic Montagu, DrPH Myanmar 5/1/10 6/30/13 ACTG: AIDS Clinical Trials Group; MASTER SUBCONTRACT -- U01AI068636 Francesca Aweeka, PharmD Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, India, Thailand, United States 7/1/06 5/31/13 Central Nervous System Effects in Acute HIV Seroconversion Victor Valcour, MD, PhD Thailand 7/1/09 5/31/13 CAPS/Fogarty Visiting Scientists and In-Country Research Training Activities George Rutherford, MD Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Sudan, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Kazakhstan, China, Japan, India, Iran, Nepal, Cambodia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Thailand, Philippines, Georgia, Jordan, Croatia, Czech Republic, Russia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada 6/1/09 5/31/13 International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) E. Michael Reyes, MD, MPH Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Ivory Coast, China, India, Viet Nam, Guyana, Bahamas, Barbados, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago 4/1/11 3/31/13 Nutrition intervention on infections and birth outcomes among rural Vietnamese women Deborah Dean, MD, MPH Viet Nam 3/14/14 3/14/13 DNA of Thai Male Thyrotoxic Patients and Family Members Louis Ptacek, MD Thailand 2/18/08 2/18/13 Chemoprophylaxis for HIV Prevention in Men Expansion Study [I] David Glidden, PhD South Africa, Thailand, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru 2/1/12 1/31/13 The Impact of Migration on the Family and Intergenerational Solidarity in Rural Cambodia Zachary Zimmer, PhD Cambodia 10/1/11 12/31/12 The Effects of Social Franchising on Access, Use, Quality, and Equity of Health Services in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Proposal for a Systematic Review Dominic Montagu, DrPH Myanmar 7/1/12 12/31/12 Oral Health is Global Health John Greenspan, BDS, PhD Nepal, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Philippines, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Haiti, Jamaica, Micronesia, Vanuatu 12/10/07 12/9/12 Advancing Academic Understanding of the Private Sector, and Strengthening the Social Franchising Community of Practice Dominic Montagu, DrPH Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Congo (Kinshasa), Sudan, South Africa, Benin, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, China, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, Yemen, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Peru, Papua New Guinea 8/1/11 10/31/12 Viral Discovery in Human and Animal Samples Charles Chiu, MD, PhD Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon, Congo (Kinshasa), Congo (Brazzaville), Gabon, China, Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, United States 6/1/11 9/29/12 Community-based VCT: Zimbabwe Stephen Morin, PhD Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Thailand 7/1/08 6/30/12 Culture and HIV Prevention in Cambodia Kimberly Page, PhD, MPH Cambodia 1/1/09 6/30/12 International Maternal Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Group - Master Subcontract Diane Wara, MD Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, India, Thailand 7/1/06 5/31/12 T001: Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group (AACTG): Pharmacology Laboratory Francesca Aweeka, PharmD Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, India, Thailand, Brazil, Peru, Haiti, Puerto Rico, United States 6/29/06 5/31/12 Role of the Informal Sector in Mixed Health Services Project Dominic Montagu, DrPH Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Congo (Kinshasa), Sudan, South Africa, Benin, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, China, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, Yemen, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Peru, Papua New Guinea 4/15/10 4/14/12 Improving Data on Private Healthcare Use and Provision Dominic Montagu, DrPH Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Congo (Kinshasa), Sudan, South Africa, Benin, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, China, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, Yemen, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Peru, Papua New Guinea 9/15/11 1/31/12 AIDS Policy Research Center Stephen Morin, PhD Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kazakhstan, China, Japan, India, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Thailand, Philippines, Croatia, South America, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 1/1/08 12/31/11 Chemoprophylaxis for HIV Prevention in Men Expansion Study [III] David Glidden, PhD South Africa, Thailand, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru 9/1/07 12/31/11 To carry out re-analysis of data from 5 studies on use Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplication (TB-Lamp) technology for rapid TB diagnostics, stratification of results and reporting Adithya Cattamanchi, MD Madagascar, Malawi, Uganda, South Africa, Ivory Coast, India, Viet Nam 12/5/06 12/5/11 Evaluating the Effectiveness of Tobacco Control Policies in Low and Middle Income Countries Neal Benowitz, MD India, Malaysia, Thailand, Uruguay 9/1/09 10/16/11 Center for AIDS Prevention Studies Stephen Morin, PhD Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Myanmar, Thailand, Argentina, Peru 9/1/06 8/31/11 Learning in Action Dominic Montagu, DrPH Myanmar 8/1/09 7/31/11 Master Agreement: International Network for Strategic Initiatives in Global HIV Trials/ICR INSIGHT Steven Deeks, MD Uganda, South Africa, Mali, Nigeria, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay 12/1/06 5/31/11 IMPAACT: International Maternal Pediatrics Adolescent AIDS Clinic Francesca Aweeka, PharmD Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, India, Thailand 3/16/11 5/31/11 The Philippine Child Health and Policy Experiment John Peabody, MD, PhD Philippines 7/15/03 4/30/11 I-TECH International AIDS Education and Training Center E. Michael Reyes, MD, MPH Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Ivory Coast, China, India, Viet Nam, Bahamas, Barbados, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago 4/1/06 3/31/11 Global Health Sciences Clinical Scholars Program Immersion Experience Haile Debas, MD Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Thailand, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Brazil 5/1/09 1/31/11 Assessment of Affordable Medicines Facility for Malaria Treatment Kenya, Madagascar, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Cambodia 5/26/10 12/31/10 Tuberculosis Trials Consortium (TBTC) Payam Nahid, MD, MPH Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, China, Viet Nam, Peru 9/23/99 11/30/10 Consortium of Universities of Global Health (CUGH) Haile Debas, MD Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Egypt, Botswana, Namibia, Ghana, Mali, China, India, Pakistan, Viet Nam, Thailand, Israel, Czech Republic, Guatemala, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago 8/5/09 7/31/10 Hanoi School of Public Health GIS Workshop George Rutherford, MD Viet Nam 6/1/10 6/18/10 T003: International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Group IMPAACT Francesca Aweeka, PharmD Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, India, Thailand 7/1/06 5/31/10 Microbicide Pregnancy Registry--Microbicide Trials Network Juan Vargas, MD Malawi, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, India, Thailand, Peru 6/1/09 5/31/10 Center for International AIDS Support, Training, and Evaluation (CIASTE) / University Technical Assistance Project in Support of the Global AIDS Program (GAP) George Rutherford, MD Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Egypt, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Ghana, China, India, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Thailand, Guatemala, Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago 9/30/02 3/31/10 Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for Improved Health Sustainability in the Philippines John Peabody, MD, PhD Philippines 1/3/08 2/28/10 University Consortium for Global Health Haile Debas, MD Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Egypt, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Ghana, Mali, China, India, Pakistan, Viet Nam, Thailand, Israel, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago 9/1/08 12/31/09 Recommendations for Future Studies of Air Pollution and Adverse Perinatal Outcomes Tracey Woodruff, PhD, MPH China, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Malaysia, Austria, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom 10/27/08 9/28/09 Vietnam Reproductive Health Education Project [2] Uta E. Landy, MD Viet Nam 1/1/07 7/31/09 Amphetamine-Type Stimulant (ATS) Use HIV among Young Female Sex and Entertainment Workers in Cambodia Kimberly Page, PhD, MPH Cambodia 7/1/08 6/30/09 Doris Duke Charitable Foundation International Clinical Research Fellowship Program Joel Palefsky, MD Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Cambodia, Thailand, Nicaragua 1/1/07 6/30/09 International CAPS/Fogarty Visiting Scientists George Rutherford, MD Uganda, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, India, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Thailand, Brazil, Peru 6/1/04 5/31/09 Global Health Sciences Clinical Scholars Program Immersion Experience Haile Debas, MD Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, Thailand, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Brazil, Peru 8/1/07 3/31/09 Community-Based HIV VCT: Zimbabwe Stephen Morin, PhD Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Southern Africa, Thailand, United States 9/27/03 6/30/08 CFAR International Scientist Training Awards / International AIDS Training Program Paul Volberding, MD Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, India, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Thailand, Brazil, Peru 8/1/02 5/31/08 San Francisco National Clinical Trial Center, ESPIRIT Steven Deeks, MD Morocco, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Israel, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Australia 8/1/05 7/31/07 Safety and Pharmacokinetics of Tenofovir and Emtricitabine in HIV Negative Thai Women Kimberly Page, PhD, MPH Thailand 8/7/06 7/31/07 Phase 1/2 Trial of Pharmacological HIV-1 Prevention Kimberly Page, PhD, MPH Cambodia 9/15/03 6/30/07 Educational Needs and Barriers to Neonatal Care in Pacific Rim Countries Colin (John) Partridge, MD, MPH Viet Nam 7/1/06 6/30/07 Vietnam Reproductive Health Education Project [1] Uta E. Landy, MD Viet Nam 5/1/03 12/31/06 Technical Assistance on Social Franchising Project Dominic Montagu, DrPH Myanmar 10/1/05 9/30/06 Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group (AACTG): Pharmacology Support Laboratory Francesca Aweeka, PharmD Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, India, Thailand 4/1/04 8/15/06 Impact of the Number of Contacts on the Transmission of Tuberculosis - a Molecular Epidemiologic Study Payam Nahid, MD, MPH Viet Nam 7/1/04 6/30/06 Strengthening Teaching on Reproductive Health (RH) in Hue Medical Facility, Hue, Vietnam Philip Darney, MD, MS Viet Nam 3/1/05 6/30/06 Building Community Partnerships: Case Studies at Three HPTN Sites Stephen Morin, PhD Zimbabwe, Thailand, Peru 9/1/05 5/31/06 Axios Program Evaluation Program James Kahn, MD, MPH South Africa, Nigeria, Pakistan, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, United Arab Emirates 10/1/04 12/31/05 Cultural and Behavioral Factors Related to Malaria Transmission and Control among Hmong and Other Minority Ethnic Groups in Mainland Southeast Asia Thailand 1/1/04 12/31/05 Sustaining Vietnam's First Anonymous HIV Testing and Counseling Center Christina (Krysia) Lindan, MD, MSc Viet Nam 5/12/03 10/12/05 Development and Evaluation of Health Care Delivery in Developing Countries Dominic Montagu, DrPH Myanmar 3/1/05 6/30/05 Sarlo Foundation Philippines Project John Peabody, MD, PhD Philippines 6/23/04 6/22/05 High Throughput Screening of Philippine Terrestrial and Marine Organisms for Antimalarial Properties and Identification of Novel Drug Targets Joseph Derisi, PhD Philippines 1/1/80 6/30/80 Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) Center for Discovery and Innovation in Parasitic Diseases (CDIPD) Active Investigators: 55 Bruce D. Agins, MD, MPH Adam Bennett, PhD, MA Robert Blount, MD Tina Brock, MS, EdD Richard Coughlin, MD Deborah Dean, MD, MPH Joseph Derisi, PhD Elizabeth Donegan, MD Odi Ehie, MD Jessica Evert, MD Elizabeth Fair, PhD, MPH Alisa Gean, MD Roy Roberto L. Gerona, PhD Linda Giudice, MD, PhD, MSc Eric Goosby, MD Roland Gosling, PhD, MS, MD Aaron Harries, MD Diane Havlir, MD Nancy Hills, PhD Oi Saeng Hong, RN, PhD, FAAN Philip Hopewell, MD Michelle Hsiang, MD Dean Jamison, PhD Midori Kato-Maeda, MD Krista Kaups, MD Regis Kelly, MD Sebastian Kevany, MPH Mandana Khalili, MD Christina (Krysia) Lindan, MD, MSc Jeremiah Mock, PhD Payam Nahid, MD, MPH Robert Owen, MD Joel Palefsky, MD John Peabody, MD, PhD Richard Price, MD Isabel Rodriguez Barraquer, MD, PhD Stanley Rogers, MD Philip J. Rosenthal, MD Theodore Ruel, MD George Rutherford, MD Shunji Sano, MD, PhD Gabriel Sarah, MD Julius Schachter, PhD Mark Seielstad, PhD Annette Sohn, MD Christopher Stewart, MD May Sudhinaraset, PhD Ushma Upadhyay, PhD, MPH Victor Valcour, MD, PhD Ronald Vale, PhD Dilys Walker, MD Ruby Warnock, MPH Justin White, PhD Christina Yoon, MD, MPH	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12941
__label__wiki	0.791851	0.791851	Ziarno prawdy A big shot prosecutor Teodor Szacki divorces his wife and leaves Warsaw to “start a new life” in picturesque town in southeast Poland Sandomierz. After a short while he is called in to investigate a strange and mysterious murder case. Alienated in provincial reality he struggles to find a killer, when he stumbles upon more victims. While the investigation continues he realizes that all murders are connected to alleged historical Jewish ritual killings. Those murders prompt a wave of antiSemitic hysteria in the town. In his investigation Szacki must wrestle with the painful tangle of PolishJewish relations and real findings of his work that roots of some legends arefantasy, not a grain of truth… Genre: Mystery, Thriller A few years back tragic events tied the fate of three Catholic priests. From then on they meet on every anniversary of the disaster to celebrate their survival. On an everyday basis they have their ups and downs. Lisowski works at the curia in a big city, has a career and is dreaming of the Vatican. Problem is, archbishop Mordowicz, an opulent church official who uses his political influence to build the largest sanctuary in Poland, gets in his way. The second priest, Trybus, is a village parson. He ministers to a poor community and gives in to human weaknesses more and more often. Kukuła is not faring well either. Despite his fervent faith, he loses the trust of his parishioners actually overnight. Soon the stories of the three clergymen are going to join once again. An eight-episode story charting seven days from the life of a cocaine dealer whose perfectly organized life begins to sink into chaos while he is forced to make the most important choices in his life. Genre: Crime Imagine that you have the power to decide on people’s lives. Who would you condemned, and whom he saved? In the center of Europe suddenly, without a trace, people begin to disappear. The investigation goes into the hands of Vulture (Michal Zebrowski) – a police officer who appears to be devoid of feelings. Tough, incorruptible, no obligations and favors to others. Until he meets Natasha (Anna Przybylska) – a woman other than those that he met so far. Vulture begins a dangerous game with the enemy ahead of him is still a step. Discovers a world in which people are leading a double life. For the first time, logical thinking will drive him into a trap with no way out. Suddenly, the hunter turned into animals. Balancing on the border between passion and reason, the world of logic and clever manipulation, you will have to answer the question: is there anything more important than life? W ukryciu In the spring of 1944 in Poland, near the end of WWII, Janina faces a huge change in her life when her father decides to offer a shelter to his Jewish friend’s daughter Ester. One day, her father is arrested and Janina starts to take care of Ester by herself and in doing so secret emotions rise between them. Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller, War Chce sie zyc Mateusz is an intelligent, romantic young man tragically trapped inside his own body, suffering from severe cerebral palsy that makes speech and controlled movement nearly impossible. Born into a loving family, Mateusz’s protected world is shattered when circumstances place him in an institution where he is misunderstood and mistreated. Featuring an astonishing, virtuoso lead performance, Life Feels Good beautifully recounts the true story of one man’s extraordinary efforts to endure in the face of impossible odds. 7 uczuc Fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, envy, shame. Adaś Miauczyński goes back to his childhood days when, like most of us, he used to find it problematic to name the emotions that accompanied him. To improve the quality of his adult life, he decides to return to that time – which proves not so carefree after all – to learn how to experience the seven basic emotions. This extremely unpredictable journey into the past features an abundance of hilarious, even comical, situations but is also filled with lots of touching moments and food for thought. Jak pies z kotem A vision of an unconventional family together with their conflicts and rivalry, a vision full of ironic sense of humour but also emotional moments and true closeness. When the elder brother, Andrzej, suddenly falls ill, despite their differences and a wall of misunderstandings that has grown between them, his younger brother is taking it upon himself to care for his brother in need. Niespotykanie spokojny czlowiek Twenty years after a devastating terrorist attack in 1983 that halted the course of Poland’s liberation and the subsequent downfall of the Soviet Union, an idealistic law student Kajetan and a disgraced police investigator Anatol stumble upon a conspiracy that has kept the Iron Curtain standing and Poland living under a repressive police state. Adam unexpectedly visits his family house at Christmas after a few years of working abroad. No family member knows about his secret plans and the real reasons of his visit. Konwój A murder of a convict held in custody seems to be connected with dark and mysterious events from two years back. Down, But Not Out! The twenty four hours of four amateur women boxers as they step for the first time into the ring. The Formula The pain of losing an unborn child destroyed balance in marriage and leads to tragedy. Set in communist Poland of the 80s the movie depicts early career of cardio surgeon Zbigniew Religa. Moje córki krowy A 40-year old actress (single and strong, yet lonely), her sister (an emotionally unstable schoolteacher whose married-with-kids life appears more orderly) and their domineering father, who gradually loses control over his family due to his wife’s sudden illness and his own health troubles; these are the three individuals at the heart of this film, a touching story about the strength of family ties in a situation of imminent danger. Jack, an unappreciated American writer in his sixties, comes to the off-season peninsula of Hel in the north of Poland and isolates himself to write a script. He meets Kail, a local who earns money by making lie-detector tests. Jack doesn’t find any inspiration until some tourists mysteriously disappear – one of them found dead with his tongue cut off. Kail, persuaded by his friend Mila that Jack is the murderer, begins an investigation. The truth turns out to be more twisted when he discovers that Jack is writing about him. Pitbull. Niebezpieczne kobiety Two new female police officers struggle to survive a force filled with corrupt superiors and the brutal world of the criminal mafia. Prosta historia o morderstwie Empsillnes A man is alone in space within a reality where artificial intelligence has taken control over the world. An American in Texas Country: Norway, Poland, USA Genre: Crime, Drama, Music The story of the Polish fliers who found themselves fighting for the freedom of their own country in foreign skies. Seen through the eyes of Jan Zumbach, fighter ace and adventurer, it tells how the Poles, driven across Europe by the German war machine, finally made their last stand. Flying Hurricanes for the RAF over Britain, they became a key component in the legend of ‘The Few’. Up against the might of the Luftwaffe they hoped that, by saving Great Britain from Nazi invasion, they were keeping the dream of a free Poland alive. Country: Poland, UK, United Kingdom Genre: Drama, War Pitbull: Last Dog A policeman gets killed and the short-staffed police chief sends for a few experienced officers to support him in his fight with organized crime. Meanwhile, a conflict between local gangster groups escalates. Dark Crimes A hard-boiled detective becomes suspicious of an author when the incidents described in his hit novel resemble the inner-workings of an unsolved murder. Country: Poland, UK, United Kingdom, United States of America, USA Women of Mafia Tragedy meets comedy in seven stories about how our entire world can collapse at any given moment. Podatek od milosci In a pagan Estonian village where werewolves, the plague, and spirits roam, the villagers’ main problem is how to survive the cold, dark winter. And, to that aim, nothing is taboo. People steal from each other, from their German manor lords, and from spirits, the devil, and Christ. Amongst the disorder, a young farm girl hopelessly and forlornly in love with a village boy. Country: Estonia, Netherlands, Poland The Last Witness An ambitious young journalist uncovers the horrific slaughter of 22,000 Polish officers during World War II, a secret kept hidden for far too many years. Genre: History, Thriller Breaking the Limits Based on true events. In 1980s Poland, Jerzy Górski is a young man who finds the determination to struggle against his drug addiction through athletic training, with the aim of competing in the US Ironman Triathlon. Genre: Biography, Drama, Sport All About My Parents The story about the friendship between two women, family problems and difficult childhood. Spellbinder is a fantasy teen drama/science fiction television series, produced by Film Australia & Telewizja Polska in association with the Australian Children’s Television Foundation. The series is a 1995 serial of 26 episodes, co-produced between Australia and Poland. It was also novelized by the creators, Mark Shirrefs and John Thomson. The shots were taken both in Australia which represented the “modern” world and in Poland where most pictures that featured the parallel world were shot. Spellbinder was followed by, Spellbinder: Land of the Dragon Lord, in which Heather Mitchell reprises her role as Ashka. Country: Australia, Poland Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Sci-Fi & Fantasy Spellbinder: Land of the Dragon Lord Spellbinder: Land of the Dragon Lord is a teen, preteen and children’s television series, and a sequel to Spellbinder. Both series deal with children travelling between parallel universes, although the only common characters between the two series are Ashka, and her sidekick Gryvon. It was also novelized by the creators, Mark Shirrefs and John Thomson. The series was filmed on location in Australia, China and Poland. The show was a joint production between studios in the three countries, although the script and concept came from Australia, and the spoken language is English. The series is fast-paced and there are usually new challenges for the characters in each episode, which are solved through cleverness and wits. As with most children’s shows, most of the adventure is headed by children, although Ashka, Kathy’s parents, and the scientist Mek are adults. Country: Australia, China, Poland A military attaché at the French embassy is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of Warsaw. A classic tale of spying, intrigue, and romance, based on the novels of Alan Furst and adapted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. Country: France, Poland, UK, USA Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Romance, War The Passing Bells At the outbreak of World War I, two teenage boys – one German and one British – defy their parents to sign up. An epic historical drama spanning the five years of the First World War, as seen through the eyes of two ordinary young soldiers. Country: Poland, UK Genre: Drama, War, War & Politics Forgive Us Our Debts Threatened by creditors, a newly unemployed man agrees to work for a debt collector, but soon discovers his deal with the devil has unexpected costs. Country: Albania, Italy, Poland, Switzerland A seductive alien prowls the streets of Glasgow in search of prey: unsuspecting men who fall under her spell. Country: Poland, Switzerland, UK, United Kingdom, United States of America, USA Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller The Congress More than two decades after catapulting to stardom with The Princess Bride, Robin Wright decides to take her final job: preserving her likeness for a future Hollywood. Through a deal brokered by her loyal, longtime agent and the head of Miramount Studios, her digital doppelganger will be controlled by the studio, and will star in any film they want, with no restrictions. In return, she receives healthy compensation so she can care for her ailing son. Twenty years later, under the creative vision of the studio’s head animator, Wright’s double rises to immortal stardom. With her contract expiring, she is invited to speak at Miramount’s “Futurological Congress”. However, a group of terrorists plot an attack on the convention. Country: Belgium, France, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, Poland Genre: Animation, Drama, Sci-Fi	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12944
__label__wiki	0.588104	0.588104	Tag: Joyce Dickerson Adults, Community, News, Politics, U.S. October 7, 2014 Record Number of African-Americans Running For Congress in 2014 WASHINGTON — A record number of African Americans are running for federal office this year, but their advances in elected office have been met by increased racial polarization in politics, particularly in the Deep South. According to an analysis by David Bositis, an expert on African-American politics, there are 82 black nominees in the two major parties running in 2014, surpassing the 2012 record of 72 candidates. Of the 82 candidates running, 64 are Democrats and 18 are Republicans, and all but three are seeking election to the U.S. House. Two black Democrats, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Joyce Dickerson of South Carolina, and one black Republican, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, are on the ballot for U.S. Senate seats. Among the candidates are four African-American women who are likely to be new additions to the U.S. House: Democrats Brenda Lawrence of Michigan, Alma Adams of North Carolina, and Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands, as well as Republican Mia Love of Utah, who would be the first black Republican woman elected to Congress. Candidate Brenda Lawrence Currently there are 44 African Americans serving in Congress, and their ranks are forecast to grow in November, which means next January will bring in a Congress with the highest number of blacks serving in U.S. history. The growth of blacks in Congress has been most notable in the House Democratic Caucus. After the 2012 elections, House Democrats became the first congressional faction in history to be more than half women and minorities. The 2014 election slate suggests that trend will not reverse itself anytime soon. White men continue to dominate the Republican Party, and white men make up the majority of Senate Democrats. These milestones are not without downsides, Bositis notes. The nomination of black candidates, particularly in the Deep South, is driven in part by the massive exodus of whites from the Democratic Party ranks, which has fueled more racial polarization than harmony. “I wish I could write with confidence that these increases in black major party nominees was a positive development, but the fact is that many of the increases are occurring in states (especially in the South) where most whites are withdrawing from Democratic party politics — leaving black candidates the nominations by default,” he wrote. article by Susan Davis via usatoday.com Filed under: Alma Adams, blacks running for Congress, Brenda Lawrence, Cory Booker, House of Representatives, Joyce Dickerson, Mia Love, more African-Americans running for Congress, Senate, Stacey Plaskett, Tim Scott, Virgin Islands	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12945
__label__wiki	0.731418	0.731418	Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations in the Context of State Surveillance Activities? HRBDT > Blog > Technology, Big Data and Human Rights: Scope, Methods and Regulation > Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations in the Context of State Surveillance Activities? August 2, 2016 Vivian Ng By Vivian Ng and Daragh Murray August 2, 2016 In Blog, Technology, Big Data and Human Rights: Scope, Methods and Regulation On 16 May 2016, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which was established under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and provides oversight of public authorities in the United Kingdom (UK), released its decision in Human Rights Watch & Others v The Secretary of State for the Foreign & Commonwealth Office & Others (HRW v Secretary of State). The applicants claimed that UK public authorities unlawfully intercepted, stored and used their information and communications, thereby interfering with their right to respect for private and family life, and their right to freedom of expression, as guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This post will examine the Tribunal’s decision, and offer some suggestions relevant for consideration should further claims be made to challenge the Tribunal’s decision. There is no possibility of an appeal against the Tribunal’s decision, but complainants can take claims further to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and these issues have been laid out in light of that possibility. In its decision, the Tribunal differentiated between those applicants who were resident in the UK, and those applicants who were not, at any material time, resident in the UK. In this case, ‘residence’ is used as a proxy for physical presence. With regards to applicants who were resident in the UK, the Tribunal implicitly acknowledged its jurisdiction but dismissed their claims as frivolous and unsustainable unless further submissions are provided (see para 64 of the decision). As for the other applicants who were not, at any material time, resident (or present) in the UK, the Tribunal concluded that the UK did not have jurisdiction over them and that as they did not claim to enjoy a private life in the UK, the UK has no obligation to secure their rights. The Tribunal’s decision rests on an assumption that individuals have to be physically present in UK territory for it to have jurisdiction, and it used residency to determine the physical location of the individual. In effect, the Tribunal rejected its jurisdiction over applicants who were not physically present in the UK at the time of the alleged interference, and so rejected the possibility of extraterritorial jurisdiction in relation to surveillance activities. As Marko Milanovic has discussed, the Tribunal’s determination that those situated outside of the UK do not fall within its jurisdiction and, accordingly, do not enjoy rights under the ECHR, rests on an over-reliance on Bankovic v Belgium and a conservative view of the case law. In Scarlet Kim’sscrutiny of the Tribunal’s decision, she provided a sketch of the context to the judgment and suggested that jurisdictional issues are at the heart of the dispute, highlighting that this requires analysis of the jurisdictional issues arising when interference is conducted remotely. Indeed, the decision did not adequately address the key jurisdictional questions, namely: Can interference with communications give rise to jurisdiction? How meaningful are territorial boundaries given the distributed architecture of our communications networks? Does the location of the affected individual matter for determining jurisdiction if the interference was conducted by UK public authorities? Communications on the Internet are deliberately distributed throughout the network; this is a feature intended to ensure that the Internet can still function, even if part of the infrastructure is disabled. In practice, this means that communications frequently pass through (a number of) third States en route to their destination. Even when the two entities communicating are in the same State, routing through third States may occur. This architectural feature of the Internet means that communications that merely pass through a State should not necessarily concern that State. However, it is suggested that this mere transmission of information must be distinguished from communications that a State (in this case the UK) actively interferes with, i.e. through collection, storage, amalgamation, or analysis. This distinction is not clearly drawn in the Tribunal’s decision. As will be discussed below, the critical factor is that a State interferes with a communication, and thus with an individual’s human rights (such as the right to privacy). In this regard the place of interference is largely irrelevant, as it is the individual’s rights that are of concern. Accordingly, if the individual is within the State, the question is one of territorial jurisdiction. If the individual is outside the territory of the State, the question is one of extraterritorial jurisdiction. As covert surveillance conducted by State intelligence agencies (or other entities) pose a range of dangers, it is important (for the ECtHR or other human rights bodies) to clarify the applicability of extraterritorial human rights obligations to prevent a protection gap and a negation of human rights. Extraterritorial Jurisdiction? State jurisdiction is primarily based on the principle of territoriality. However, as States (and their agents) frequently engage in acts outside their territory, it has become increasingly recognised that acts of State agents abroad may give rise to extraterritorial jurisdiction. The determination of jurisdiction does not necessarily depend on the location of an individual vis-à-vis the State, but rather, on the exercise of authority and control of the State over the individual. As it stands, the case law of the ECtHR has not established a clear answer regarding the potential applicability of the ECHR to extraterritorial electronic communications surveillance. However, there appears to be a trend towards the recognition that extraterritorial jurisdiction can be established under certain circumstances. This post will highlight how the ECtHR has done so, and what relevant obligations apply under the ECHR as a result. Al-Skeini v UK was a landmark judgment on the extraterritorial application of international human rights law. In Al-Skeini, the ECtHR recognised two forms of extraterritorial jurisdiction – (1) State agent authority and control, and (2) effective control over an area. For the purposes of this post, only the former is relevant. Extraterritorial jurisdiction on the basis of State agent authority and control occurs when State agents’ acts establishing authority and control are performed, or produce effects, outside the State’s own territory (see Al-Skeini, para 131). This State agent authority and control does not, however, result in the applicability of the full spectrum of human rights law obligations. Instead, extraterritorial obligations are contextual, ‘divided and tailored’ such that only those rights relevant to the situation of the individual are applicable. The exercise of State agent authority and control over certain rights of the individual results in jurisdiction thereto, and consequently obligations under international human rights law in relation to those rights. State agent authority and control is most clearly demonstrated in detention operations where physical authority and control is exercised. This may occur either in formal detention centers (such as in Al-Skeini, where the detention of the applicant by British forces and his death in British-controlled facilities engaged the UK’s responsibilities under the ECHR), or outside formal detention centres (such as in Öcalan v Turkey, where the applicant was detained by Turkish security forces in Kenya, effectively bringing him under Turkish authority and jurisdiction). However, the ECtHR has developed that reasoning further and recognised that extraterritorial jurisdiction on the basis of State agent authority and control is not restricted to situations where State agents have physical custody of individuals. For example, in Jaloud v the Netherlands, Mr Azhar Sabah Jaloud died when his vehicle was fired at whilst passing through a checkpoint manned by personnel under the command and direct supervision of a Netherlands Royal Army officer. Despite not having physical custody of Mr Jaloud, the Dutch agents exercised authority and control over his right to life as he passed through the checkpoint they manned. This gave rise to extraterritorial jurisdiction and, thereby, ‘divided and tailored’ obligations, in particular with respect to the right to life. Another example is the case of Pad v Turkey. Although this case was declared inadmissible due to the failure to exhaust domestic remedies, it is important to consider it together with the reasoning relating to extraterritorial jurisdiction adopted in Jaloud, as it offers an insight into how the European Court may address issues of authority and control. The Court held that Turkey exercised jurisdiction because the victims were killed by fire discharged from a Turkish helicopter. This meant that the physical proximity between the State agents and the affected individual was not critical. Instead, the effective exercise of authority and control over the individuals’ right to life, even remotely, established the extraterritorial jurisdiction. This effective exercise of authority and control over their right to life could have amounted to a violation, should the case have been admissible. It appears that the ECtHR is moving towards an understanding that exercising authority and control over an individual’s rights gives rise to extraterritorial jurisdiction and obligations in relation to those affected rights. Jurisdiction in this regard is not based on a tenuous connection with distant effects. It is based on the actual exercise of authority and control. Scope of jurisdictional obligations in the context of extraterritorial surveillance? In the present case, the allegations relate not only to communications that are simply passing through the UK, but the applicants also claim that the UK has intercepted, stored, and used their information and communications. If the UK has intercepted, stored or used the data of those individuals who are not in the country, the State has effectively exercised authority and control over the affected individuals’ right to privacy (see Shimovolos v Russia, para 65; Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner, para 94). Carly Nyst has suggested that such a situation can be determined as an interference-based jurisdiction over the right to privacy. As previously established, this exercise of jurisdiction gives rise to the State’s extraterritorial obligations in so far as the affected rights are concerned. ECHR Article 8 states that ‘Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence’. Liberty v UK clarified that ‘telephone, facsimile and e-mail communications are covered by the notions of ‘private life’ and ‘correspondence’ within the meaning of Article 8’ (para 56). Furthermore, in the digital age, not only is content information relevant to the protection of the right to privacy, but communications data (or metadata) can also allow very precise conclusions to be drawn about private lives, as the European Court of Justice has affirmed in Digital Rights Ireland v Minister for Communications (para 27), and Copland v UK (para 43). Communications data is distinct from communications content, but is equally relevant to the issue of the right to privacy in the digital age. The ECtHR has also clarified that the following can constitute an interference with the right to private and family life: (1) The collection and storage of personal information (including telephone, email and Internet usage), without the knowledge of the individuals whose information is being collected and stored (Copland v UK, para 44); and (2) regardless of whether the personal data is subsequently used, the ‘mere storing of data relating to the private life of an individual’ (S. and Marper v UK, para 67). Practical consequences? It has been established that the interception of the content of communications and/or of communications data is an exercise of authority and control over an individual’s right to privacy, capable of giving rise to extraterritorial jurisdiction. Indeed, if extraterritorial jurisdiction is not established, there is a risk that intelligence agencies may exploit this gap to circumvent Convention protections through the use of intelligence sharing arrangements. Effectively, if extraterritorial jurisdictional obligations do not apply, and as a result international human rights safeguards are not in place, it circumvents existing limits on domestic surveillance and renders affected individuals without an avenue of redress (since they cannot claim against the interfering State or their territorial State). The ECtHR has made it clear that collecting and storing personal data about individuals amounts to an interference with the right to privacy. Such interference with individual communications is an exercise of authority and control by the interfering State over the affected individual, and thus gives rise to jurisdiction. Should this extraterritorial jurisdiction be disputed and dismissed, it permits States that are interfering with communications to do so without subjecting them to international human rights law obligations and the safeguards prescribed therein, which is undesirable to say the least. Originally published on the University of Essex’s Human Rights Centre blog. Embedding Human Rights in Internet Governance By Lorna McGregor, Daragh Murray, Catherine Kent and Ahmed Shaheed After Paris, it’s traditional detective work that will keep us safe, not mass surveillance By Pete Fussey First Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy to the Human Rights Council By Lorna McGregor So Software Has Eaten the World: What Does It Mean for Human Rights, Security & Governance? By Eileen Donahoe	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12948
__label__wiki	0.876971	0.876971	Oleh Kotsyuba: HURI's New Manager of Publications HURI publications The Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University is pleased to welcome Dr. Oleh Kotsyuba as its new Manager of Publications. No stranger to HURI and with extensive experience in publications, Kotsyuba is a welcome addition to our team. Kotsyuba is a longstanding member of the HURI community. He was involved with the Institute throughout his graduate studies at Harvard, where he earned his PhD, and most recently as a Jaroslaw and Nadia Mihaychuk Postdoctoral Research Fellow. A regular participant at HURI seminars and lectures, Kotsyuba has actively contributed to HURI’s academic discussions, and has given presentations at HUSI and the Seminars in Ukrainian Studies. As a Mihaychuk Research Fellow, he worked on the strategies used by Ukrainian writers of the late 1970s and 1980s to disengage from the Soviet state. Kotsyuba received a broad academic training in Ukraine, Germany, and the United States. He earned his undergraduate degree, together with a professional degree in teaching, at the University of Ternopil where he majored in German and English Literatures and Languages, and in World Literature. He later earned master’s degrees in English from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, and in Comparative Literature, Computational Linguistics, and Computer Science at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. He went on to receive his PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard, writing a dissertation on Ukrainian and Russian writers of the 1970s and 1980s. In addition to these academic qualifications, Kotsyuba has a substantial background in publishing, management, and digital media. Most recently, he worked as Acquisitions Editor at Academic Studies Press (ASP), where he oversaw more than twenty book series in Slavic, East European and Central Asian studies. As part of his duties, he solicited and edited manuscripts, negotiated contracts, invited peer reviews, and budgeted and supervised numerous book publications. In his position, Kotsyuba strongly contributed to the further development of the series in Ukrainian Studies at ASP. Prior to ASP, Kotsyuba worked with the Krytyka Journal and Publishing House. As Chief Online Editor and Director of the Web Project, he oversaw the programming of a complex website that combined publishing with sales and subscription management. He solicited manuscripts and supervised the work of a team of editors, translators, and marketing staff. Kotsyuba also commands a solid background in business and management. At FriendScout24 GmbH in Munich, Germany, he hired and oversaw a team of customer service agents, developed guidelines for internal processes and customer communication, and prepared financial and performance reports. He went on to become the Manager for International Business, which involved coordinating product management, programming, translation, PR and marketing in the course of the product rollout in Spain, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Still later, as the Manager for Online Marketing at Plan.NET Media GmbH, Kotsyuba managed online content advertisement campaigns for such large companies as Apple, BMW, and LEGO. On this strong foundation, Kotsyuba steps into the role of HURI’s Publications Manager with ambitious plans to continue the legacy of the program as well as to adapt it to the demands of present-day academia. “The initial mission of the Institute’s publications program was to publish what no one else would, at a time when Ukrainian studies as a field didn’t really exist,” he noted. “Now, the Ukrainian studies field is thriving. Therefore, the role of our publications program is evolving.” Staying true to HURI’s original mission, Kotsyuba will continue support for fundamental research and translations that serve as key resources for academics in the US, Ukraine, and beyond -- works that commercial and large university presses are unlikely to publish due to their niche subject matter. At the same time, Kotsyuba aims to expand the scope of HURI’s publications to include topics that are more contemporary and respond to the new demands in the fields of humanities and social sciences. Passionate about comparative studies, Kotsyuba sees great potential in Ukrainian history, culture, and literature to contribute to subfields and broader theoretical problems -- not least because Ukraine has historically always been an “intersection” – cultural, linguistic, political, and economic. One need only consider Rus’ dynastic ties to Western Europe, parallels between Ukraine and Ireland’s multilingual and anticolonial struggles, and Ukraine’s physical location bridging East and West to gain a sense of the broad relevance of Ukraine-related topics. In the short term, Kotsyuba will be working closely with Dr. Halyna Hryn, Harvard Ukrainian Studies journal editor, to institute tools and procedures for the journal aimed at streamlining article submission, peer review, book review, and publication processes. “The nature of publishing in general and academic publishing in particular has radically changed in the past thirty years,” Kotsyuba remarked, “and so we need to adapt to these changes to effectively compete with the wealth of content out there. It’s no longer enough to simply publish a well-founded and well-edited study – self-publishing nowadays already accomplishes that – but at stake is the distribution of knowledge that reaches its target audience and informs the general public. To this end, new means are required and a multidimensional approach is key for success of publications today.” The publication in a number of media – such as Internet, video, and audio – together with bold promotion efforts will become a priority for HURI publications. He also envisions a separate website for the journal that would allow for timely publication of articles online, even before they appear in print. Another priority is reducing the time from submission to publication, and increasing the frequency of the journal’s appearance, returning to the original format of more compact but more frequently published journal issues. “It is an honor to work on this reform of the journal with such talented and qualified editor as Dr. Halyna Hryn,” Kotsyuba noted. As for the monographs and translations, he plans to bring the background projects out into the open so that forthcoming works are anticipated by both the academic and general audience. The unique publication program in Early Ukrainian Literature would be continued, and he aspires to launch a translation project to fill in the gaps in the availability of works of Ukrainian literature in English and in documents pertaining to Ukrainian history. The general direction of the publication program would be broadened to include more publications in social sciences, and on Ukrainian history and culture. He also would like to strengthen the outreach efforts of the publications program and invite young and established scholars from adjacent fields to publish with HURI, emphasizing the comparative aspect of Ukrainian studies. “With Dr. Michelle Viise as the monographs editor, our publications program is exceptionally well positioned to move in that direction,” he noted. Reflecting on the past, Kotsyuba underscored the great progress that HURI publications has achieved in the last 45 years, thanks to his immediate predecessor Marika Whaley and those who preceded her, as well as many other colleagues who in their different roles have contributed to the success of HURI publications. With the Institute’s leadership firmly in support of these ambitious goals, Kotsyuba is well prepared to continue the work of his predecessors and guide HURI’s publications program through the challenges and opportunities ahead. Dr. Kotsyuba can be reached at kotsyuba@fas.harvard.edu for inquiries about publishing with HURI.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12951
__label__wiki	0.696184	0.696184	About IRNA About CFNEPR Israel Resource Review Articles Authored by David Bedein Israel Resource Review Archive The Philadelphia Bulletin Foreign Military Aid To The Palestinian Authority Critique of Human Rights Groups How to Communicate to Media and Policy Makers Israelis Evicted From Their Homes, Summer 2005 The Israeli Arab Community UNRWA The UNRWA Reform Initiative Articles About UNRWA Special Reports on UNRWA UNRWA Films Videos About UNRWA Power Point: Anatomy of Hamas takeover of UNRWA Articles About Palestinian Authority Palestinian Authority Films Special Reports on Palestinian Authority Schoolbook Research Project Powerpoint: The Next Intifada Israel Behind the News Apartheid, Zionism And The J Street Syndrome PROF. J. P. GOLBERT A friend of mine was a prominent rabbi in South Africa before he emigrated to Israel. Prior to the fall of the apartheid regime, he went on a speaking tour in America. His subject was Israel but Jews in America besieged him with questions about the Apartheid regime in South Africa, then in its death throes. He was bemused. Of all the cruelty and injustice in the world, why should apartheid specifically have so riveted the passions of Jews? And what does it have to do with the passion of Jews today to end “The Occupation”? What explains the “J Street Syndrome”? Why would Jews decide to serve the enemies of the Jews, the very people whose most cherished goal is to destroy the State of Israel and massacre all the Jews in the world? This is not hyperbole. They say it themselves on their websites and in their media, their public meetings and in their mosques. The Hamas Charter itself (in Article Seven) says that Jews are the cause of all the world’s problems and that the Judgment Day can come only by killing all the Jews. To stand with them is tantamount to carrying a sign, “Death to the Jews,” because that is that they stand for. Why do Jews do that? I have two theories which interlock. First, I believe it is a function of a specifically Jewish sickness called Ma Yomru Hagoyim – freely translated, “What will the World Think of Us” — a uniquely virulent form of the well-known psycho-sociological phenomenon called “Self-Hatred.” In brief, the natural result of being victim of bigotry universally reviled is to internalize the reaction that it is one’s own fault, that if one (or, in this case, we Jews) behaved more acceptably to those who revile us, we would no longer be hated; or even more simply stated, Jews are the cause of anti-Semitism. There is hardly a Jew alive who has not been told by bigots “You aren’t like the other Jews” meaning “You’re OK” … unlike the Other Jews; unlike Those Jews.” The notion is implanted that “if all Jews were like me, there would not be anti-Semitism,” that the world hates us because we are different, because we believe we are special and “chosen”, because we believe we are superior and above the rules of civilization and entitled to rule over others, etc. Therefore, the cure to anti-Semitism is for Jews to accept universal “enlightenment” and universality and to demolish “particularisms,” starting with our own, and be worldly, pliant and “progressive.” Following this reasoning, the obstacle to peaceful relations with the non-Jewish world is Those Jews, the ones who refuse to assimilate. So the “good Jews”, the enlightened Jews, the universalist Jews have to prove that not all Jews are like “Those Jews”. The classic paradigm is the sheiner Yidden, in the language of an earlier generation, who believed that the Jews who learned Talmud and kept the Commandments were “too Jewish” and that caused anti-Semitism. Their solution was to petition government to outlaw learning of Talmud and otherwise suppress the practice of Orthodox Judaism. The sheiner Yidden feel the need for Jews to be in the forefront of the struggle for abstract “justice” (as defined from time to time by the world at large), and champion all the causes currently popular among the nations of the world. Jews have to do so, even if the cause is inimical to Jewish interest, for that proves our sincerity and dedication to principle. In fact, if the cause is perfectly suicidal to Jewish interests, it presents a positive opportunity to prove our commitment to principle. The issue, therefore, was never whether apartheid or “The Occupation” is the worst thing happening at any historical moment. Rather, it is merely that this is the cause which seems dearest to the world at the time, and therefore, is the cause which best enables us to endear ourselves to the hearts of the world by being in the vanguard. If we are the first and the best of what they think is good, how can they hate us? It is enough to command the massive allegiance of the sheiner Yidden that it is a popular cause for the world at large, especially for those who hate us the most. How does a cause become endeared to the world? The “conscience of the world,” whether embodied in world organizations, such as the United Nations, non-governmental organizations or the international press corps, fully subscribes to the most powerful driving “principle” in international relations today; namely, Third World Can Do No Wrong. The corollary is that Democratic West can do right only by full support of Third World causes, however one-sided or suicidal. The West too suffers from self-hatred, having been so reviled for so long by their former colonies for their history of exploitation and so, it has abdicated moral leadership to the Third World and serves Third World goals dutifully. The Third World is dominated by the countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, so the richest and most powerful of the Islamic countries determine what causes are most important. The Islamic authorities despise Jews and cannot reconcile themselves to the loss of Islamic sovereignty, certainly not to the lowly Jews. “The Occupation” is therefore a source of acute embarrassment to the sheiner Yidden and it has to be ended at all cost and the State of Israel even abolished or the world will not accept the sheiner Yidden. Here two historic dynamics merge. The West is the exemplar of skill in “imagery;” presentation of urges as ideals, of consumerism as “progress,” of technology as spiritual enlightenment, of bigotry as principle. (Remember “Manifest Destiny” and “White Man’s Burden”? Remember the sacred principle of “Neighborhood Schools”?) It is no accident that public relations is a Western invention. The second historical dynamic is that the West has always used the Jew as the scapegoat to cleanse its own conscience by projecting its sins onto the Jew and then punishing the Jew. Thus, Europe can expiate the sin of Nazism by turning the Israelis into Nazis in their own minds and then “fighting Nazism” by attacking Israel. So important is it to them to do this that there is no distinction which cannot be obliterated in the process, even to the point of blind nihilism. After evacuating Gaza and absorbing some 8,000 rockets from Hamas, specifically targeting civilians, Israel finally undertook a limited, pinpoint operation to inhibit the hostile activity and the elite opinion makers of the world went into a rage. They screamed “Genocide!” The Israeli “occupation” has been called “fascistic,” “genocidal,” even “worse than the Nazis” and the European “peace camp” intones solemnly that “The real Holocaust is in Gaza.” Seriously. The fact is that fuel, food and medicine have been allowed into Gaza, even during military operations and even though it has been routinely commandeered by Hamas to its terrorists. Nevertheless, Gaza is compared to the Warsaw Ghetto, where Jews were confined and systematically undernourished, harassed, denied medical attention and publicly executed for smuggling food and medicine. How are Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto even similar? Did the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rain rockets down on German cities and send suicide bombers to blow up German buses and restaurants? Did they wage relentless war on Germany for generations, asserting their right to destroy Germany and turn the Baltic red with German blood? Unlike the Arabs of Gaza, the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were completely innocent of any offense against Germany or anyone else and completely harmless. The population of Gaza has quadrupled under the “fascistic, genocidal, worse-than-the-Nazis, apartheid” Israeli “occupation.” Standard of living and life expectancy have increased similarly. At the same time, the rate of infant mortality has declined sharply. If the Jews had suffered such a fate in Europe, the word “genocide” would not have entered the world’s vocabulary. (Should we compare the rate of Jewish infant mortality in the Holocaust?) The comparison is so ludicrous that it should have the world rolling on the floor holding their sides in derisive laughter. But no, people take it seriously and entertain it as a valid opinion. It cuts the hearts of the sheiner Yidden to the quick. None of those militating against Israel over the fate of the “Palestinian” civilians, however, really cares at all about them. The proof is the total lack of interest in any massacres of Palestinian civilians by anyone not associated with Israel; not the Fatah people rounded up and thrown off roofs or otherwise massacred by Hamas; not the tens of thousands killed by King Hussein of Jordan back in 1970, when he put down a PLO uprising against his rule nor the massacres perpetrated by Islamic State in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria. Nor do the parties screaming “genocide” really care at all about genocide. The proof is the lack of interest elicited by any of the real genocides taking place in the world, even as they scream about a totally fanciful Israeli “genocide” against the “Palestinians.” Sudan has committed not one genocide, but two; one against the black Africans of Darfur and another, of longer duration, against the black Africans of South Sudan. The Conscience of the World could hardly care less. Who did anything for the Tutsis when they were being massacred by the hundreds of thousands? Who did anything about the Chinese genocide against the Tibetans or the Indonesian genocide in East Timor? Third World can do no wrong, remember, even when the victim is another Third World people in equally good standing. No one presents any of this as anti-Semitism, of course. What we are given to believe is that it is only Zionism that is reviled, certainly not Jews or Judaism. Of course, that is demonstrably nonsense. Why is Jewish nationalism, alone among the world’s nationalisms, illegitimate and “racist”? And why is anti-Zionism always accompanied by threats and intimidation against Jews? Why do defensive measures taken by everyone in the world become “disproportionate” and criminal when undertaken by Zionists? If anti-Zionist is not anti-Jewish, then why are slogans like “Jews to the gas” heard at “anti-Israel” demonstrations all over Europe, North and South America and the Muslim world and it seems to be perfectly acceptable? And why are violence and incitement against Jews very generally not treated as a hate crime? A classic anti-Semitic caricature was posted on Facebook. It could have come straight from a Nazi propaganda sheet. It depicts a stereotype Jew, teeth dripping with blood, about to bite into a dead boy wearing a Palestinian flag. Facebook rejected complaints that it constituted hate speech, and denied that it violates community standards. To have posted such a thing depicting an Arab terrorist would certainly be deemed Islamophobic “hate speech” but the Jew was wearing an Israeli flag, so we can pretend that it is not about Jews, only Israel, although it could not be clearer that “Israel” is only a different, collective, persona of “Jew.” And once again, a powerful nation has decided that the world would be better off without Jews and the world seems willing to go along with the decision. Iran has declared “wiping Israel off the map” as part of its agenda and its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, have openly declared their intention to kill every Jew in the world. And yet, the ruling elite of the world regards them as “legitimate resistance” and is moving on all fronts to empower them as sovereigns over territory and engage them as part of the international community. No one even objects that nuking Israel would kill millions of Arabs, including their precious “Palestinians.” No one objects to the intended double genocide, not even the “Palestinians.” Forcing Israel into indefensible borders and tying its hands defensively is presented, still to this day, as part of a “peace process” as though the proponents really believe that Israeli surrender of territory and other strategically important concessions will actually result in peace with the Arabs. In fact, not many people are that stupid. Every Israeli concession has produced more war and death, not less. There is a clear and deliberate policy goal. Anyone who advocates for the “peace process” is willfully trying to bring about the demise of Israel and the slaughter of the Jews. The Obama administration, which was outstandingly hostile to Israel found a tame, well funded, ostensibly Jewish organization which insists that they are pro-Israel because they seek to force Israel into concessions “for peace” and isn’t peace in Israel’s interest? They know what the Road Map really is. They know the Road ends at New Auschwitz. Nevertheless, the effect on Jews, sensitized by self-hatred, is to stimulate the urge to out-do the world, to be better than they at their own game. Once the direction the wind is blowing is clear, the urge is perfectly reflexive: to run to get there first, no matter where, in the expectation of being smothered in camaraderie. When the camaraderie is withheld, and they still experience exclusion because of their Jewishness, they naturally locate the cause as the “Other” Jews who did not run with them and thus denied them the approval of the Jew-haters, which they so crave. A great many Jews accept and internalize the hatred of the nations. They feel the need to justify our existence to a world which hates us, not for what we do, but simply for the fact of our existence. They do not see the futility of trying to justify the Jews’ existence by championing a cause which the West needs to pursue in order to expiate its own guilt, which historically requires The Jew as scapegoat. Subtly, the enemy becomes the “Other” Jews rather than the bigots who hate us and the remedy is to make common cause with the bigots against the “Other” Jews. So the demand “Peace Now” has been directed toward the government of Israel alone, never toward the Arab parties, as if it were so clear that the Arabs sincerely want nothing but peace; as if it were so clear that the Arabs, who prepared enthusiastically in 1967 to “drive the Jews into the sea” and “turn the Mediterranean red with Jewish blood,” really want true peace if only Israel will “abandon its aggression” (meaning, put its neck on the block again by retreating to the 1949 Armistice lines, with a 9 mile waist at its population and economic center, facing uphill toward the Arab armies). Their hatred of the Other Jews has become ever more extreme. Expulsions of Jews from their homes and communities have been carried out by the Israeli government with exceptional violence. It was meticulously planned, with malice aforethought, that resettlement and rehabilitation of those communities would be delayed indefinitely, simply to destroy the lives of Those Other Jews and render them powerless. In a word, they were pogroms. In Israel and all over the world, there are Jews in the forefront of the efforts to delegitimate the State of Israel as a “fascist” and “apartheid” state and return the Jews there to minority status, to be ruled over by the tender mercies of the “Palestinians,” who make no secret of their intentions to slaughter Jews and reduce any survivors to dhimmi status. No one calls that “apartheid” or “racist.” University professors all over the world, even in Israel, call for the isolation of Israel, boycott of Israeli products and of the very universities whose faculties they sit on. The idea of a Jewish State is an embarrassment to them. They have taken every opportunity to proclaim that Israel is not a Jewish state, but rather, a state of all its citizens which happens to have a Jewish majority, for the time being. In this environment, Jews have a choice. They can go along with the tenor of the times and stand, like J Street, shoulder to shoulder with the world’s elite, which has grown more openly and viciously anti-Semitic year by year. Obviously, acceptance and promotion in the world of the elite goes to those who serve the established Jew-hating order without reservation, just as it once depended on serving the Church in its persecution of Jews or the Communists in theirs. The price demanded for entrée into the community of the “enlightened” Jew-haters is total support of the enemies of Israel and the Jewish people. Their hostility to everything associated with Israel must be as vociferous as that of any of the bigots. They must become, in effect, “unJews.” In doing so, of course, they lend legitimacy to their benefactors’ bigotry. They will be amply rewarded. They will be praised and honored for their service to the forces of Jew-hatred who pose as defenders of human rights. The organizations of the sheiner Yidden will receive copious financing from European governments and foundations that have for many years financed Arab terror organizations (in the name of “resistance,” of course). Or a Jew can stand for truth against the Powers That Be, the “Conscience of the World” as embodied in august sounding titles, like United Nations Human Rights Council, which is, in fact, dominated by the Organization of the Islamic Conference whose members include some of the most egregious violators of human rights in the world. That is irrelevant to the world’s twisted morality, however. Third World Can Do No Wrong, after all, even when the victim is another Third World people. Will it be different if the victim is The Jew? Apartheid is now a thing of the past and the new business of the world’s elite rulers is not the real evils in the world but rather, delegitimation and destruction of Israel. And the sound we hear is the stampede of the sheiner Yidden, running to get there first. Copyright 2019 by PROF. J. P. GOLBERT SOURCECopyright 2019 by PROF. J. P. 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POB 71098 Beit Agron International Press Center 37 Hillel Street Jerusalem 94581 Israel order cakes Tel. (+972-2) 623 6368 Cell phone (+972-54) 722-2661 David Bedein Director of IRNA and CFNEPR dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com Media Inquiries media@israelbehindthenews.com General Inquiries contact@israelbehindthenews.com 2161 POSTS5 COMMENTS Arlene Kushner 241 POSTS0 COMMENTS Noam Bedein 45 POSTS0 COMMENTS © A WEBstationONE.com production, partially funded by the Internet Development Fund and the IDF Link technology. © 2003-2017 All rights reserved. Articles and Special Reports on IsraelBehindTheNews.com are copyrighted. Readers should feel free to reprint, distribute and use the material herein, with citation and appropriate reference to Israel Resource News Agency. Michael Kuttner / jwire - July 12, 2019 There are certain times in our lives when momentous events are destined to occur. The verse from Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) says it most eloquently: For everything there...	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12952
__label__wiki	0.542006	0.542006	Home NEWS News Kathleen Falk's 2008 Dane County budget is tentative Kathleen Falk's 2008 Dane County budget is tentative by Vikki Kratz Dane County Exec. Kathleen Falk warned that without knowing what the state Legislature will do, the budget could change significantly over the next few months. With the state budget still being hammered out, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk has to do a lot of guessing. At a press conference Monday announcing her 2008 budget, Falk noted there were "hundreds" of budget lines that are affected by the lack of a state budget. "I had to make my best guesstimate at what I think the numbers will be," she said. Falk's proposed $460 million budget includes $5 million for the county's Conservation Fund, $100,000 in gang prevention programs, and adds 12 new staffers to the Sheriff's Office. Falk also proposes spending $500,000 to expand the Early Childhood Initiative, which is currently operating only in Allied Drive, to two more neighborhoods. (The county has not yet identified the new sites, but anticipates that one will be in Madison and the other in another municipality, such as Verona or Sun Prairie.) Falk also restored $100,000 in funding for motel vouchers for the homeless and a $60,000 contract with Valley Packaging, which is a sheltered workshop for people with mental health problems or other disabilities. The $460 million operating and capital budget represents a $10.7 million increase over last year's total. If approved, the budget would hike property taxes by 3.3%. But Falk warned that without knowing what the state Legislature will do, the budget could change significantly over the next few months as millions of dollars are either cut or added. "Human services is the most profoundly impacted," Falk noted. For example, while the Legislature has agreed to increase the fees counties pay when teenagers are sent to state institutions (Dane County will pay about $900,000 next year under the plan), lawmakers are still arguing over how much counties should get for youth programs that keep kids out of trouble. Gov. Jim Doyle has proposed giving Dane County $1.1 million next year, which is the figure Falk used for her budget. The Dane County Board must now approve the budget. County Board chair Scott McDonell called Falk's budget a "good start." But he added, "Anything could happen with the Assembly and the Senate. And that's what's worrying me right now." Isthmus On Tap What's happening this weekend Bringing you the fun around town Curated recommendations on eats, reads and more from Isthmus staff and contributors Madison Craft Beer Week A celebration of great beer	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12953
__label__wiki	0.869877	0.869877	Voting Process and Closing of Polling Station The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) is monitoring the second round of 2018 Presidential Elections in all electoral districts around Georgia. ISFED Observation Mission consists of 651 short-term observers (STO) at polling stations, 73 observers deployed at district electoral commissions (DECs) and 78 mobile teams. ISFED observers are also present at 12 polling stations abroad. PVT and Incident Centers are operating in the central office staffed with 15 operators and 10 lawyers. ISFED’s observation of the second round of Presidential Elections is based on the Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) methodology, which enables us to timely detect violations, systematically evaluate the entire Election Day process and verify the accuracy of the official election results. In this statement, ISFED presents its assessment of the voting process and closing of polling stations based on the information provided by 99.7% of PVT observers. Based on the analysis of the information received through the PVT, ISFED concludes that the voting process at most of the polling stations throughout Georgia was conducted generally in accordance with the procedures prescribed by the law. However, during the voting process, violations of voters’ secrecy of vote remained as the most problematic. Outside of polling stations mobilization of coordinators and supporters of Georgian Dream and of Salome Zourabichvili were at massive scale. They were tracking the voters who came to the precincts, which is the continuation of an infamous malpractice of attempted influence on voters’ will. Cases of violations of secrecy of vote on Election Day and practice of tracking the voters once again highlight the problems related to the environment of intimidation and harassment during the pre-election period and its negative effect on the electoral process. Near the closing of polling stations, ISFED observed isolated serious incidents, such as: loss of table version of the voters’ list, unauthorized intrusion at precinct with an attempt of kidnapping a mobile ballot box. Other violations observed at this stage were mainly connected to the procedural shortcoming. At this time, ISFED observers have filed 46 complaints with Precinct Electoral Commissions (PECs) and 54 complaints with District Electoral Commissions (DECs). Detailed Information from the PVT At 99.2% of polling stations across Georgia, voters cast their ballots using proper voter identification. This figure is statistically identical to that of the first round of elections (99.7%). Inking was always properly checked at 98.5% of polling stations, which is statistically almost no different from the first round of elections, when inking was checked at 97.1% of polling stations. At 99.7% of polling stations, the ballot papers were properly validated with a signature and seal. This figure is not statistically different from the first round elections (99.1%). At 99.7% of polling stations, voters were always properly inked. This figure is statistically not significantly different from the first round of elections when voters were properly inked at 98.6% of the polling stations. The secrecy of vote was always ensured at 98.3% of the polling stations. This figure is similar to the first round of elections (98.6%). The cases of physical violence, pressure and threat were identified at 1.6% of polling station, which is a slight worsening compared to the first round of elections (0.8%). As of now, ISFED observers have reported following violations: Loss of electoral documentation At PEC #20 of the election district #67 (Zugdidi), a table version of the voters list got lost. This caused a temporary suspension of the voting process and police were present at the precinct. Voting resumed however voters who were in the lost list were not allowed to cast a vote. ISFED requested annulment of the results of this polling station. Break into the PEC by unidentified individuals At PEC #37 of the election district #20 (Rustavi), unidentified individuals broke into the premises of the polling station and attempted to kidnap a mobile ballot box. They broke the precinct doors, however were unable to get a hold of the ballot box. After resistance from the commission members, the intruders ran away. Currently, police are present at PEC and vote count is in progress. Alleged attempt to influence the voters’ will At PECs #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #20, #25, #26 and #27 of the election district #36 (Borjomi), Georgian Dream members were mobilized. They had papers, likely lists which they used to track the voters. At PEC #10 of the election district #33 (Kareli), Georgian Dream members were mobilized with lists. A Chairperson of the Sakrebulo (City Assembly) was present at PEC and was campaigning. Number of ballot papers exceeding the number of signatures At PEC #39 of the election district #35 (Khashuri); at PEC #25 of the election district #11 (Sagarejo) and at PEC #12 of the election district #62 (Chokhatauri), there were cases when one extra ballot paper was issued to the voters. Violations of the secrecy of vote At PEC #5 of the election district #44 (Ambrolauri), a voter took a photograph of ballot paper in the voting booth. At PEC #27 of the election district #33 (Kareli), two cases of taking photographs of ballot papers in the voting booth were identified. Violations regarding mobile ballot box At PEC #22 of the election district #30 (Kaspi) and at PEC #8 of the election district #81 (Kobuleti), voters of mobile ballot box were not noted in the general lists. Presence of unauthorized persons at PEC At PEC #35 of the election district #60 (Ozurgeti), a representative of Christian-Conservative Party of Georgia was present at precinct during the entire election day. Signature by another voter At PEC #100 of the election district #67 (Zugdidi), a voter found another voter’s signature in his field. Violation of inking procedure At PEC #38 of the election district #51 (Zestaponi), a registrar did not ink a voter. Irregularities related to ID cards At PEC #11 of the election district #10 (Gldani), a voter belonging to mobile ballot box list, was allowed to vote without an ID card. At PEC #5 of election district #22 (Marneuli), there was one case when a voter arrived with an old (laminated) ID card, however according to ISFED observer the voter possesses a new biometric ID. ISFED allows citizens to follow the election process online via Elections Portal – www.electionsportal.ge, where election violations are immediately posted on the incident map. In addition, anyone can report violation of the electoral process by sending a text to a toll-free number 90039. ISFED will issue next statement on November 29 ISFED Observation Mission is made possible with the generous support from the American people, by financial support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The Mission is also supported by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, Runoff Election Day observation is carried out with financial support from the Royal Norwegian Embassy, the European Endowment for Democracy (EED) and the Embassy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The views expressed in this statement belong solely to the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy and may not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, NED, the United States Government, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Norwegian Embassy, British Embassy, or EED.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12958
__label__wiki	0.759546	0.759546	Reaching out to help Jews in need, in NEPA, in Israel, everywhere in the world Jewish Federations of North America About Israel Making Aliyah Volunteer in Israel on a Kibbutz 2019 Israeli Day Parade Yom HaAtzmaut – May 9, 2019 Reporter Archives “Friends of the Reporter” Jewish Holy Days Israel/International E-Updates 2019 UJA Campaign Corporate Matching-Gift Program Donating With Stock Make A Pledge Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania Endowment Fund Charitable Bequests Designated Fund Donor-Advised Philanthropic Funds Annual Campaign Endowments/P.A.C.E. and L.O J.E. Local Jewish Resources NEPA Jewish Film Loan Library On Independence Day, UNESCO okays resolution denying Israeli claims to Jerusalem Home/Uncategorized/On Independence Day, UNESCO okays resolution denying Israeli claims to Jerusalem Originally posted on the Times of Israel BY RAPHAEL AHREN AND ALEXANDER FULBRIGHT on May 2, 2017 The United Nation’s cultural body on Tuesday passed the latest in a series of resolutions that denies Israeli claims to Jerusalem, in a move both forcefully condemned by Israel and touted as a diplomatic feat due to the growing number of countries that opposed it. Submitted to UNESCO’s Executive Board by Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Sudan, the resolution on “Occupied Palestine,” which indicates that Israel has no legal or historical rights anywhere in Jerusalem, was expected to pass, given the automatic anti-Israel majority in the 58-member body. The vote, which coincided with Israel’s Independence Day, passed with 22 countries in favor, 23 abstentions, 10 opposed, and the representatives of three countries absent. The 10 countries that voted against the resolution were the US, UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Greece, Paraguay, Ukraine, Togo, and Germany. Its wording was slightly less harsh on Jerusalem than previous resolutions, in that it does affirm the importance of the city to the “three monotheistic religions.” In the moments after the vote passed, Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, draped in a large Israeli flag, addressed the meeting. “Even now, after this miserable vote, this blue and white flag is flying high above the Temple Mount and throughout Israel’s eternal capital city, Jerusalem, waving in the wind, saying to all ‘here we are, and we are here to stay,’” Shama-Hacohen said. “This biased and blatantly deceitful decision, and the attempts to dispute the connection between Israel and Jerusalem, will not change the simple fact that this city is the historic and eternal capital of the Jewish people,” Danon said in a statement. “Israel will not stand silently by in the face of this shameful resolution.” In the lead up to Tuesday’s vote, Israeli diplomats were busy trying to prevent an European-Arab agreement that would see the council’s European members either vote in favor or abstain in exchange for a slightly softer text. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was said to have made phone calls to European leaders in a bid to convince them to reject the resolution. Earlier on Tuesday Netanyahu harshly criticized the UNESCO resolution for ignoring the Jewish people’s millennia-long bond to Israel’s capital city. Speaking at the Bible Quiz held annually on Independence Day, Netanyahu said that despite the text of the resolution, Judaism has deeper roots in Jerusalem that any other religion. “There is no other people in the world for whom Jerusalem is as holy and important as for the Jewish people, even though a meeting will take place at UNESCO today that will try to deny this historical truth,” he said. “We denounce UNESCO and uphold our truth, which is the truth,” that “throughout Jewish history Jerusalem was the heart of the nation.” Israeli C-130 transport planes fly over Jerusalem during celebrations marking Israel’s 69th Independence Day on May 2, 2017. (AFP Photo/Thomas Coex) According to Israeli officials, Germany was a driving force behind a deal that would see all EU states abstain in exchange for the removal of the most incendiary anti-Israel passages. But on Monday, Italy announced that it would vote against the resolution, apparently ending the effort to forge a European consensus. Jerusalem prefers to see Western countries vote against a harsher resolution, even if it passes, than a consensus in support of a milder text. Tuesday’s resolution, unlike previous resolutions, does not refer to the Temple Mount only as Haram al-Sharif, or to the Western Wall Plaza only as al-Burak plaza, the respective sites’ Muslim names. In fact, these sites are not mentioned at all. Furthermore, Resolution 201 EX/PX/DR.30.1 affirms “the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions.” It also notes that the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem, both of which are in the West Bank, “are of religious significance for Judaism, Christianity and Islam” — though it calls them “Palestinian sites.” The entrance to Rachel’s Tomb, near the West Bank town of Bethlehem (Photo credit: Nati Shohat/Flash90) However, the current draft of the resolution still contains many red flags for Israel. For instance, Israel is referred to throughout the document as the “occupying power,” indicating that it has no legal or historical ties to any part of Jerusalem. Earlier this week, Israel officials acknowledged that the resolution that passed Tuesday is somewhat easier to stomach than previous versions, but emphatically urged Western countries to vote against it.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container] By admin\| 2018-01-10T16:17:33+00:00 May 2nd, 2017\|Categories: Uncategorized\|Tags: Israel, Israel’s 69th Independence Day, Jerusalem, Occupied Palestine, UNESCO\|0 Comments EITC Advocacy in Harrisburg Rediscovering Jewish Infrastructure: 2018 Update on United States Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Synagogues Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh: VICTIMS OF TERROR FUND Israeli Honored by Queen for ‘Strengthening Tech Partnership’ with UK September 29 @ 6:55 pm - October 1 @ 8:05 pm October 8 @ 6:20 pm - October 9 @ 7:20 pm October 13 @ 6:15 pm - October 15 @ 7:20 pm	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12965
__label__wiki	0.879934	0.879934	White House Cancels Press Briefing For 2nd Day In A Row Robert Chamber "Look at this face - you won't be seeing me around" The White House has cancelled yet another press briefing that was scheduled for Thursday, following the mass shooting incident at the Florida High school. President Donald Trump will not be appearing for any public event to mark the recent incident that killed at least 17 people. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House Press Secretary, announced earlier Wednesday that the press briefing for the day would be canceled following the mass shooting incident at the Broward County, Florida School. “In light of this tragedy there will not be a regularly scheduled briefing as previously announced,” Sanders said in a statement. “We will inform you as more information is available.” President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday that no one should “feel unsafe in an American School”, in response to a school shooting in Florida. He sent several tweets on Wednesday in response to the school shooting that left at least 17 injured. The exact nature of injuries is still to be disclosed; however, the incident has left many personalities shaken. President Donald Trump said in his another tweet that, “My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting,” Trump tweeted. “No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school.” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House press secretary, said in a statement that, “The president has spoken with Gov. [Rick] Scott of Florida and offered federal assistance if needed.” She further added that “Department of Homeland Security Secretary [Kirstjen] Nielsen also spoke with Gov. Scott, as well as state and local officials. She has briefed the president on those conversations. The governor, the secretary and other administration officials will continue to keep the president updated.” In another Tweet by President Donald Trump, he updates that, “Just spoke to Governor Rick Scott. We are working closely with law enforcement on the terrible Florida school shooting.” The briefing on Wednesday was originally scheduled for 1 p.m. However, it was delayed twice, first at 3 p.m. then to 4 p.m. before the news about the school shooting spiked on the national cable news. The schedule of events released for Thursday does not contain any press briefing or public appearances by the President. Trump was briefed on the shooting earlier Wednesday, according to the White House, and has been in contact with state officials about the incident. At least 17 people were killed during the shooting incident at the school in Florida and several others were reportedly injured. The suspect is identified as a former student of the school and is currently held in custody. The sheriff’s office later confirmed the identity of the shooter as Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year old former student. Previous articleKristen Gillibrand Blames Immigration Flip-Flop On Racism Next articleDemocrats Stall Key Immigration Vote Robert Chambers is a self-described "policy wonk" and has been writing for online news publications for the last several years. He and his wife live in Alexandria, VA. U.S. Doles Out Millions In Foreign Aid During Shutdown	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12968
__label__wiki	0.602082	0.602082	Home News The Extreme message of the season The Extreme message of the season It's easy to be cynical about Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It's harder to turn into a model for volunteerism. But we should. by Derek Jennings Photo by Derek Anderson Workers and volunteers listen to Extreme Makeover: Home Edition host Ty Pennington. His hunk value is considered one of the show's attractions. Volunteers and onlookers at the Raleigh edition of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition take a break to hear from show host Ty Pennington. Don Mead of HomeLife Builders, the company constructing the Extreme Makeover home in Raleigh, takes a beverage break. Andrea Pinel, who helped organize volunteers through Triangle Homeworks, works as a remodeling consultant in Cary. Here, she helps Donna Stickly stuff a signed photo of Ty Pennington into her construction pack before entering the job site. Paul Jugenheimer Sr. clips old Christmas lights from a tree at the Building Together Ministries community center, which was buffed out and given a new roof by Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. A crowd of onlookers gathers outside the Rigginses' home in Raleigh as work goes late into the night. The recently completed Extreme Makeover: Home Edition project in Raleigh was a scripted Christmas miracle. Hollywood celebrities came through on a shiny white horseer, busand, aided by a local builder with a heart of gold, saved the day for a struggling-yet-deserving family. The community came out in droves, demonstrating generosity and love, confirming the best of what we believe about ourselves. Let the studio audience say awwwwww. As with any Christmas miracle, the setting wouldn't be complete without a chorus of bah humbugging. An alternate take on the above would be: Media conglomerate comes to town and bombards us all with the message that corporations are our salvation and that happiness and success are attainable through over-consumption and the redemptive power of things. From an abstract, political standpoint, of course I recognize the program is "entertainment"a show to ABC/Disneyand a highly rated, Emmy Award-winning one, at that. It is most certainly an advertising opportunity for Sears, the show's main sponsor, which stocks each house on every episode chock full of appliances and plasma TVs from their stores. And, sure, the way in which the producers tell the families' stories are carefully calibrated for maximum tear-duct drainage. But so what? I'm a fairly regular viewer of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which airs on Sunday evenings after football and America's Funniest Groin Injuries, because it's one of the few shows on TV that I can watch with my entire family. And in the interest of full disclosure, I'll even admit that, despite knowing the formula by heart, I usually end up a tad misty-eyed by the end of an episode when they show the family's reaction to their new home. I give the show high marks for social responsibility in comparison to other network fare (Desperate Housewives, anyone?). I'm clearly grading on a curve, here. Still, what intrigues me most about this television show, and the thing that made me want a closer look, is their community engagement model. If you're not familiar with the show, it follows a fairly simple format. Producers select a family with a hard-luck story, assess their living conditions, personalities, preferences and special needs, and then whisk them off on a one-week vacation (usually to one of Disney's theme parks, since the show airs on Disney-owned ABC). While they are out, an all-star assortment of interior designers works with a local builder and community volunteers to completely demolish the existing home and rebuild a new, lavish residence in a matter of mere days. Each episode details the family's plight, the construction process, the furnishing and decorating of the home. Finally, the show is capped with a "reveal" of the new home, when the family returns to their neighborhood in a darkened limo and is let out across the street from their house, obscured by the design team's custom tour bus. Throngs of extended family, friends, well-wishers and volunteers, and other folks who just want to be on television, then chant "Move that bus!" until the bus driver obliges and the family is overcome with emotion at the sight of their not-so-humble abode. The camera crews then follow the family inside as they are taken on a tour of the house, which frequently includes over-the-top choices in décor and themes in the rooms, being sure to highlight the especially nice, Sears-furnished appliances and gadgets. Whether you find the formula hokey and cloying, or sincere and poignant, it's undeniable that the show's combination of sympathetic subjects and barn-raising spirit promote a powerful brand-identity for the network and its sponsors while unleashing an almost-populist energy, at least temporarily, upon local communities. In Raleigh, the program chose a family in the Mordecai-Halifax Court neighborhood just north of downtown. In recent years the area has undergone a Hope VI HUD grant-funded transition from the Halifax Court public housing project to a gentrifying, mixed-income neighborhood. New, detached $400,000 homes share space (for now) with older, modest and often deteriorating dwellings dating back to the earlier part of the last century. I'd actually found out early about the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition project coming to Raleigh. I'm on the board of directors for a local charity that provides services and transitional housing for the homeless, and an e-mail forwarded to our distribution list from one of the show's producers piqued my interest. The e-mail asked people in local government and community organizations to nominate families we felt were deserving of a new house and being featured on TV. The Rigginses received several nominations and overwhelming support, certainly fitting the Extreme Makeover prototype in that they're highly regarded and display selflessness despite adversity. The husband, William, has been blind since 1985 and works as an assembler for Lions Industries, which provides jobs and services for the visually impaired. His wife, Linda, a social worker, has suffered a number of health issues over the past year resulting in large medical bills which, piled on top of day-to-day expenses, threatened to overrun their modest resources. Through it all, the couple remain tireless workers at Building Together Ministries, a nonprofit, Christian community organization that provides tutoring, after-school services, summer camps, a thrift store and life-skills classes for disadvantaged youth and parents. Building Together shares its facility with Hope Elementary Charter School, right across the street from the Rigginses' residence. Their home (like, sadly, far too many downtown) was in extreme disrepair and easily could have been condemned by the city, leaving this couple and their three young children, ages 3 to 6, with no affordable place to go. Even in the midst of that, and living in a house so small they had to keep their refrigerator in the dining room, they took in another family for a while last year, letting them stay in their converted attic. Friends, coworkers and neighbors say that type of concern and willingness to push their needs aside to help others typifies the Rigginses. Their strong faith ascribes this timely intervention to divine providence. The Rigginses were nominated by Triangle Homeworks, a local nonprofit that actually got its start when some friends and fans of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition got to wondering how they could replicate the good works they saw on TV. Triangle Homeworks, in operation for more than a year, has now done a few, albeit considerably more low-key, charitable construction projects in the area and plans to continue. The show's producers used them for the recruitment of volunteers. A block away from the construction site, management of volunteers ( which included me for a day) was handled by red-jacketed employees of HomeLife Communities, the construction company chosen to build the house. Inside a huge tent that sprang from the side of the N.C. Baptist Men's Disaster Relief Bus, prospective volunteers signed disclaimers. One form gave ABC/Disney the rights to use our images, and the other said they would pretend not to know us should we happen to amputate an arm using a masonry saw or get crushed by one of the ubiquitous dump trucks. Sounded fair to me. Each Extreme home can only be built through massive amounts of volunteerism. There's an axiom in project management about resources: having nine women pregnant for one month each will not produce a baby in 30 days. But in home construction, which typically, with no delays or setbacks, takes at least four months, attempting to build a quality house in less than seven days is nothing short of insane. According to a spokesman for HomeLife Communities, the construction plan was so compressed that tasks ordinarily allotted one day on a build had to be completed in just one hour. The sheer overkill in workers and overtime it takes to pull off the house-in-a-week thing ordinarily would mean that even a modest-sized house would have a price tag in the millions (or, roughly the cost of homes on the normal market in California). What snarky blog posts and pissed purists miss while decrying all of the resources being concentrated to aid one family (and often one whose needs may not differ much if at all from many other members of their community) is that when Extreme Makeover: Home Edition comes into a city, they help to create a volunteerism infrastructure. There are folks who are lifelong activists, volunteers and community servants who daily go about their business of quietly making miracles in the lives of their fellow citizens. Our society would fall apart (or at least do so more quickly) without them. Yet on the set of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in Raleigh, I met not only those diehard stalwarts, but also a large number of folks who told me that this was their first volunteer or community service project. Triangle Homeworks saw its roll of registered volunteers double due to its involvement in the project. And were it not for the opportunity to participate in a TV production, receive a blue T-shirt, and the slim chance of an autograph or getting on television, I'm sure the number of folks showing up to work on the Rigginses' house would have been a lot less. But here's the thing: Doing good for others and playing a part in doing something on a scale much more grand than you could accomplish on your own changes a person. Thousands of volunteers worked on the house, with several hundred working at any given time. I spoke with as many people as possible among the diverse throng to gauge their motivations. "I didn't have any money to give, but I had some free time, so I just came down," said a man who looked to be in his 40s. He'd heard about the event on the news. He explained that while he was an experienced painter, the builder was coordinating all the skilled trades, and those who just volunteered off the streets were given any of a number of miscellaneous tasks. He was eager to fit in anywhere. While several newly arrived volunteers waited in the staging tent, he left to deliver some freshly recharged batteries for the walkie-talkies the construction crews used. I wouldn't see him again for a couple of hours, when we both were cleaning up construction trash from the back yard, placing scrap wood into huge dumpsters and scaffolding parts on pallets to be removed by the forklifts. Another man ended up on the set by happenstance. "I was downtown to pay my rent and just kind of saw things all blocked off. I asked what was going on and when I found out it was Extreme Makeover, I just had to come down here. I remembered how this area used to be, with Halifax [Court].... And now ...," he paused and pointed to a neat row of colorful, two-story houses along North Blount Street. One of them had a "For Salefrom the mid-$400,000s" sign out front. "Some of those houses over there are Section 8. It's really nice. I get subsidized rent now, and live over near New Bern Avenue. Man, I'd love it if they came to my house to build me a new one, but I figure this is the next best thing, to be able to help them do this for someone else," he said. A retiree with a cheery smile, who recently moved with her husband to Fuquay-Varina from California, came to volunteer with her sister, who also lives in the area. Together, they swept streets, picked up trash, and angled for a slot on the cleaning crew that got to actually go inside the housea plum assignment for those who weren't carpenters, plumbers, electricians and such. I asked the two if they normally volunteered on community projects and they responded that they hadn't, but were enjoying the feeling of making a difference so much that they would do so in the future. As a viewer of the show, I admit I've always been a tad dubious about all of the building company representatives who invariably choke up when handing over the house keys to the family. But after spending time with some of these people off-camera and even off-the-record, I found that their voices still cracked with emotion and earnestness when talking about the conditions the Rigginses were living in and the difference they could make in their lives. When this episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition airs Jan. 21, it will no doubt be the biggest commercial in the history of HomeLife Communities. Yet, as skeptical and cynical as I can be, I saw in HomeLife no concern about the costsfinancial or humanin pulling off this project. Instead, I witnessed folks working on two or less hours of sleep. I saw people who put in a full day's work at their office and then drive over to the site to work all through the night. There were a few subcontractors who paid their crews to be there and billed nothing. And there were numerous laborers and skilled contractors who plied their trades for no money. All the labor, all the supplies: all donated. I spoke to Don Mead, HomeLife's Raleigh division president, and was moved by the candor and sincerity he exuded. "We had about four-and-a-half weeks' notice prior to the start of building in order to get prepared," he said. "We just heard that we would be helping a family in Raleigh. We'd offered our services to the Extreme Makeover show last year and weren't selected, but when we heard that they were planning a project in this area, we asked again. We just wanted to give something back to this neighborhood and the community, and feel very fortunate to have been chosen out of all the great builders in the area." HomeLife Communities, headquartered in Atlanta but also doing business in Raleigh, Charlotte and Phoenix, prides itself on its community involvement and charitable endeavors, taking on the personality of its founder and CEO, Jon Been, who is a particularly staunch supporter of children's charities. They're no strangers to giving away houses, either, having made an annual tradition of the Duke Children's Miracle House, in which they and all of their subcontractors build a home at cost, forsaking all profits. They then sell the home and give all of the proceeds to Duke Children's Hospital. Last year, that project produced over $90,000 for the cause, and next year, they hope to top $100,000. Still, foregoing profits on one job is one thing. On this project, according to Mead, "Everything is 100 percent donated. All the labor, all the materials ... the mortar, stone, every bit of everything going into this house has been donated." As if to underscore the point, while we spoke he paused briefly to talk to another gentleman about a delivery schedule. He then introduced the man to me as the manager of a local furniture store whose company had donated "every stick of furniture" going into the house. When asked whether they'd counted up the costs of the endeavor, Mead replied, "Honestly, no. We haven't looked at it or totaled up the expense involved. And I couldn't put a number on what this project is worth if I had to take into account the love and care and concern of all of these people," waving his arms toward a sea of blue-shirted volunteers in multicolored hardhats scurrying about. More telling is an anecdote that Darren Drevik, marketing director for HomeLife, shared with me. "Someone managed to get the whole family, who didn't yet know about the surprise, out of the home on a pretext, and several of us from the construction team toured their home for the first time," he said. "The family's 6-year-old son was living in what was about a 10-by-10 foot plywood addition tacked onto the back of the house. There was no heating there, except for a space heater," he said, his eyes watering. "Don [Mead] said, 'I don't care about a TV show. Whether that happens or not, we're gonna do something for this family regardless. And when it was announced and finalized, and we got to actually meet the family, the first thing that Don did was go seek out that little boy and tell him, 'I promise you, you won't have to sleep in the cold ever again.'" Darren's voice broke at the recollection, and as my eyes began to water, too, I looked away, feeling the need to go lift something heavy. I found, through the course of my volunteer day, that I'm not the only one who can't get through an episode of the show without tearing up. Either everyone on the construction site happened to be really in touch with their feelings, or there is just something about witnessing good things happening to people in need. Even more so, there is something deeply satisfying about being able to be a conduit, no matter how meager your contribution or trivial your involvement, through which a blessing may flow. The most wonderful thing about the entire project was not that Extreme Makeover agreed to build a fantabulous house for the Rigginses. Although it provides them a firm base from which to continue going out into the world and serving their neighbors, the new home still primarily benefits one family. But ABC and HomeLife departed from the show's formula somewhat and also provided a new roof, worth more than $100,000, to the building that houses the Hope Elementary Charter School, Building Together Ministries and the Raleigh Mennonite Church. They power-washed, painted and refinished the exterior of the building, an old public elementary school that's found new life as a communal hub. The building in that way mirrors its surrounding neighborhood's transition from a public housing project, with concentrated poverty, to a mixed-income development full of promise. Extreme Makeover provided the community center with a brand new kitchen, remodeled its auditorium and completely landscaped its grounds. And just as investment in the community center will provide benefits over time to the neighborhood and city, there is an opportunity for an even greater foundation to be laid in the wake of the project. Andrea Pinel, a consultant with Case Handyman and Remodeling in Cary, who also volunteers with Triangle Homeworks in her spare time, noted that on the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition project, there was a good mix of construction professionals, volunteer vets and individuals new to both construction and volunteerism. "I have a friend who had never done construction in her life, and I taught her to nail up the chair-rail molding. There were a couple of women who had just been picking up trash and I brought them in to fill nail holes in the trim. And they did as well as professional crews I've seen. That's the beauty of it. This project brought all different types of people together for one goal," she said. It's only natural that some of the volunteers were motivated by a chance to see celebrities, or just general curiosity. As a quid pro quo, Pinel made her friends who just wanted to be on the set also promise to volunteer four hours on a weekend for Triangle Homeworks, away from the camera. But Andrea saw a change in those who served during that week. "Everybody was so giving. I worked till midnight and came back at 5 a.m., and there were people who'd never left. You just get an adrenaline rush from it. Everyone was in such a good mood, and gracious. After doing something like this, when you go back to your real job, you're more focused and you just feel better. It's just incredible. And the feeling is the same whether you're volunteering on a huge project like this or just helping fix someone's kitchen in Apex." Pinel sees an opportunity to carry over the energy, goodwill and experience from this project to others. With the new volunteers Extreme Makeover generated, Triangle Homeworks will have an easier time handling upcoming projects, including their most ambitious endeavor to date, building a new homeless shelter in Raleigh. Envision, if you can, citizens, local government and the business community coming together to regularly provide much-needed repairs for local nonprofits and needy families. Picture, then, the model expanding beyond the building trades, to include information technology, financial and professional services. That would be truly extreme. That would be a foundation worth building on. What I most wanted to find out while volunteering for a day on the Extreme Makeover project was whether it was truly possible for capitalism and altruism to occupy the same space. The answer is an emphatic "yes." I've written recently about the necessary evil of nonprofits having to be increasingly run like businesses in order to survive. Conversely, I can't think of a better "necessary good" than encouraging businesses to run more like nonprofits. There are three ways to affect that type of change. Firstly, the people who work for (or own) these companies must be made aware of the needs of the community and empowered to undertake projects that benefit the common good. Secondly, there should be a business benefit to be gained from being a good corporate citizen. Let's be real. At ABC, for all the goodwill and can-do spirit the cast and production staff have, you can bet that if the show's ratings dip precipitously, it will be gone. Consumers should provide patronage and a pat on the back to those companies that behave responsibly and better their communities. I'm not condoning needless or mindless consumerism. If you don't need a plasma TV, don't buy one. But if you are going to buy one, take into account a company's community track record in making your choice. And thirdly, local governments should favorably recognize those businesses that make positive contributions and, ultimately, lessen the work that otherwise would fall to them, or the nonprofit sector. For example, schools in the Triangle are reputed to be among the best in the nation. However, with all of the corporate capital we have, there's no reason why they shouldn't be the absolute best, trailing, perhaps, only Silicon Valley, Calif., or Redmond, Wash. As part of efforts to roll-back corporate welfare, lawmakers should consider the contributions made by the companies and their employees, providing tax credits for the aggregate amount of time volunteered. When an Olympics or major sporting event comes to an area, stadiums and other local improvements are left behind. Also left behind is the capacity for event planning and logistics that can be used on future projects. When all is said and done, I'd like to see an Extreme Makeover: Community Edition, in which we use the lessons learned from the TV-inspired rebuilding of the Rigginses' home in Raleigh. We have a unique opportunity to use the intangible infrastructure left behind. Those thousands of volunteers and dozens of businesses that are now sensitized to the needs of the community, as well as acquainted with the satisfaction that comes from filling them, are invaluable assets that should be utilized to help bridge the gap between what our community is and what we'd like it to be. Issue: 2006-12-20 News News Feature	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12969
__label__cc	0.595489	0.404511	‘Bright’ Featurette Explains Will Smith’s Gritty Buddy Cop Fantasy, With Orcs and Elves Hmm…How best to describe David Ayer’s Bright…Well, in the words of the filmmaker himself, this is “really the story of a friendship.” As co-star Noomi Rapace describes it, “It’s L.A. Right now. It just happens to be orcs and elves.” If you’re confused by that, you’re not alone. But this new featurette does its damnedest to lay it out for you: This is a story about racial tensions (but with orcs and elves), a classic buddy cop flick (but with orcs and elves), and a police thriller (you know, with orcs and elves). In the upcoming Netflix Original (oh, indeed), Will Smith plays a mustachioed police officer who teams up with an orc, played by Joel Edgerton hidden somewhere under all that blue makeup. Their mission is to keep a magic wand (yes, really) from falling into the wrong hands. Also, Noomi Rapace plays an evil fairy. Here’s the official synopsis for the film, which was written by Max Landis: In an alternate present day, humans, orcs, elves and fairies have been coexisting since the beginning of time. Two police officers, one a human, the other an orc, embark on a routine night patrol that will alter the future of their world as they know it. Battling both their own personal differences as well as an onslaught of enemies, they must work together to protect a young female elf and a thought-to-be-forgotten relic, which, in the wrong hands, could destroy everything. Bright also stars Edgar Ramirez and Lucy Fry, and hits Netflix on December 22. UP NEXT: THE SEVEN KINDS OF NETFLIX RECOMMENDATIONS Source: ‘Bright’ Featurette Explains Will Smith’s Gritty Buddy Cop Fantasy, With Orcs and Elves Filed Under: netflix, will smith Categories: Movie News	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12973
__label__cc	0.633238	0.366762	Domestic Religious Liberty Sexuality / LGBT Church Renewal Derryck Green Marc LiVecche John Lomperis Faith McDonnell Mark Melton Dan Moran Rick Plasterer Chelsen Vicari Jeffrey Walton UMVoices The IRD The Mouse Providence Journal by William J. Abraham Mountains Are There to Be Climbed: The Next United Methodism by UM Voices (William J. Abraham is the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.) A Stunning Remark In 2016 I travelled to Portland to attend the second week of the General Conference of The United Methodist Church. When I got there on the Sunday I ran into old friend from the other side of the aisle, theologically speaking. We had worked together on various projects, know each other relatively well, and genuinely enjoy each other’s company. I had not known what had happened during the week but it quickly became clear that my friend was deeply distressed at the degree of success that conservatives had achieved in the controversial decisions that had been taken. I quickly learned that the conservatives were winning every significant vote that would further their agenda in the church as a whole. The anticipation was that their train was barreling down the tracks and headed for the station unless someone pulled the emergency brake. At the outset of the conversation my friend said something that left me stunned: “Your folk are winning; now you will have to take charge of the church.” I immediately declined the new job description; I have no illusions about the properly modest role of academics in the life of the church as a whole; yet there is here a grain of painful truth that traditionalists need to heed as we face the future. As we all now know, the emergency brake was indeed pulled when a Commission on the Way Forward was appointed to tackle the crisis that had at long last come to a head. No one really knew how things would fall out in February, 2019, when the General Conference met in St. Louis. However, there was a real possibility that the traditionalists would indeed win and that their train would make it all the way into the station. Even so, I have become aware that some of the traditionalists are profoundly ambiguous about the prospect of taking responsibility for the future of The United Methodist Church. Unlike secular politicians who revel in their victories – even their marginal victories – there is a sobriety that deserves attention at this stage in the debate. There is also the perennial temptation of conservatives, after winning the vote, of failing to follow through on their success. We need to think through, however provisionally, the challenges that lie ahead now that a modest version of the Traditionalist Plan has been adopted. We must avoid failure in the aftermath of success. By success I refer initially to the fact that most of the current elements in the Traditional Plan have been passed. Even if the Plan in toto is thrown out by the Judicial Council, the situation is by no means negative. Happily this is a very unlikely scenario. The United Methodist Church has stood firm on the biblical and classical teaching of the church on marriage and its own internal standards for ordination. Others will add the potential strengthening of canon law and the possibility of a generous exit for those who cannot accept the pertinent teaching and practice of The United Methodist Church. A further level of success would be the successful implementation of the new legislation in the life of the church. However, all of this would constitute a mere nominal if not pyrrhic victory. We surely need to think of success in much more constructive terms, that is, in terms of a new vision of United Methodism that in broad terms would be orthodox in doctrine, robust in its ethics and practice, global in its reach across space, intellectually and theologically vibrant, Spirit-energized from top to bottom, and socially engaged. We need a new instantiation of United Methodism rather than a mere defense of the status quo. Maintaining the church’s faithful moral witness is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of success. Success means climbing the mountain that has now emerged on the horizon of our history. Our lack of assurance on this critical point means that conservatives should continue to pursue every possible avenue open to us; and we should not hesitate to engage in extensive conversation with all sides in the current debate. As the French proverb notes: “Reculer pour sauter mieux.” One steps backs in order to jump better. Prudence demands that we are diligent in these messy and even exhausting operations. A hearty sense of potential surprise and reliance on divine providence are essential as we move forward. There has been a real measure of success and we should be grateful to all who have made this possible. An Initial Sign of Success One sign of that success is the immediate avalanche of criticism launched against traditionalists. We are portrayed as wolves in wolves clothing. Our current political culture of incivility, ignorant criticism, and moralistic shaming has erupted, not least on social media. We also know that a sense of sorrow, disappointment and anger has already gripped whole sections of the church. Centrists and progressives have been hurt, deeply hurt; the pain in some cases has been expressed in terms of scapegoating, resentment, and vilification. Because of these developments, it is initially crucial to step back, absorb the wave of attacks, and keep our nerve. Speaking pastorally, the stance should be one of non-anxious presence. The temptation to rush in and seek to make peace where there cannot be peace must be resisted. By this stage, to use a phrase John Wesley used at the failure of his marriage, the water has been spilt and it cannot be gathered up again. To be sure, we can keep the lines of communication open and remain friends where that is possible; but we should have no illusions about the trauma that has been experienced. As we all know in cases of acute grief, trauma leads to the overwhelming of our cognitive faculties and it will take time to heal and come to terms with reality. In time trauma can bring truth to light, but sorting this out is a delicate business. It is extremely important to grasp the deeper logic that is in play here. Things become so complicated that there is no neutral way of sorting out what is at stake; I make no claim to being neutral in my ruminations. As is already visible, I write as a conservative and for the most part for conservatives. Our critics have effectively framed the debate in terms of inclusion and exclusion. This is a godsend because it allows them to run a narrative about slavery and women in ministry that puts us on the defensive. It allows them to exploit the natural opposition to any idea of exclusion, for the default position will always initially be in favor of inclusion. It also allows a virtuous narrative about the moral arc of history which requires that we be identified as obsolete and out of step with the times. Add to these considerations that the default position in explaining the Traditional Plan will be to latch on to the ‘punitive’ provisions and the picture of the traditionalist makes everyone cringe. Add a further element, namely, the idea that the very discourse of exclusion is a source of pain, hurt, and even trauma, and we are dragged deeper into a black hole from which there appears to be no escape. Taking Control of the Narrative This whole way of thinking needs initially to be seen for what it is, namely, a toxic combination of persuasive definition, virtue-signaling story-telling, and fallacious reasoning. The ultimate issue for the conservative is none of these moves, much less a combination of them. The crucial issue at the end of the day is one of faithfulness to our Lord and to the tested tradition of the church. The failure to recognize this is an egregious error. It is the old game of Sein and Schein, much practiced by the mode of thought beloved of the Frankfurt School of philosophy, so that what seems to be true is not true. Of course, what counts as faithfulness is contested. And, of course, it would be wonderful if we could find a neutral ground on which this contested issue could be publicly resolved. However, the disagreement goes all the way to the bottom so that appeals to the Gospel, notions of justice and equality, scripture, tradition, experience, reason, inclusion, and the like, have been exhausted. To speak technically, ‘faithfulness’ is an essentially contested concept. However, to ignore that faithfulness is the real issue for conservatives is to poison the wells at the outset. Moreover, to frame the Traditional Plan as being essentially punitive is to miss the point at issue. The real issue is accountability to church teaching and practice. Failure to frame this issue initially in this way constitutes an elementary blunder in the interpretation of what is at stake. To put it simply, conservatives are not for sale precisely because they believe for better or worse that they cannot among other things walk away from our Lord’s teaching on marriage. So generally, we need to repudiate aggressively the persistent practice of describing our position in ways that we find utterly fallacious and unconvincing. A couple of further points stand in the neighborhood. The whole effort to present our position as one of causing harm is also a toxic way to proceed. Thus we are constantly scolded and reprimanded because our discourse and speech is intrinsically harmful; merely to take the stance that we do and to speak as we do is the cause of pain and trauma. It is small wonder that in these circumstances we simply stay quiet and say nothing. Here we face an unavoidable dilemma. We speak, and we are accused of causing harm; we stay silent, and we are accused of collusion with oppression. At one level, the best policy is simply to stay silent, for this way we avoid causing pain; we simply take a hit on being accused of collusion. What is happening here is there we are forced to fight a blindfold battle because the terms of the dispute are never clarified. Sorting Through the Thickets of Identity Perhaps we can make progress on this front by means of several distinctions. In this respect I intend to operate at a more neutral level. What is at issue here is the complex nature of identity. At one level, it is perfectly obvious that gender identity cuts deeply into the experience and conception of ourselves as persons. Thus, the identity of a cis-gender male or female, that is, one whose biological sex and gender identity coincide, runs so deep that to call that into question is a profoundly disturbing experience. In this respect, calling into question the gender identity of those in the LGBTQIA communities is indeed a disturbing if not traumatic experience. I think conservatives can get this point conceptually and with effort can go a long way to feeling in a deep way what is at stake. Just think and feel your way into being challenged on your naturally formed conception of your identity as male or female. At a second level, what is at stake is one’s moral stance on gender expression, that is, the extent to which one expresses one’s gender identity in terms of behavior. This is the case most especially for those gays and lesbians for whom gender expression as it relates to the concept and practice of marriage is a moral and legal mandate. Thus, the rejection of gay marriage is seen as a radical rejection of one’s moral and theological identity. Witness the aggressive repudiation of any distinction at this stage between one’s person and one’s behavior. Failure to accept the behavior, in this case, gay marriage, is interpreted and experienced as a rejection of one’s gender expression and one’s moral identity and thus as a deep act of hostility to the deep identity of the persons involved. Unless one fully accepts the gender expression represented by gay marriage (and ordination), then one is in effect rejecting the personhood of gays and lesbians. One is automatically pronounced guilty of causing harm. Again, I think that conservatives can both understand and sympathize with their critics and opponents; they also hope that their alternative position can be understood conceptually and emotionally. There is little evidence that their hopes are likely to be fulfilled. There is a simple way to state what is at stake in this arena. Ask this question: what is required of a conservative to avoid causing harm? The answer, of course, is that the conservative has to endorse the moral and theological position of those committed to full inclusion. Progressives want full endorsement; centrists want limited endorsement or tolerance within the church as a whole. However, this is precisely to ask conservatives to give up their moral and theological convictions. Until we see this we do not grasp what is at stake. At a third level, what is at issue is one’s ecclesial identity, that is, one’s identity as a United Methodist. In this instance, identity is a matter of one’s identification with the church to which one belongs. This kind of identity also runs very deep, but generally it is not as deep as one’s gender identity and one’s moral stance on gender expression; thus one could cease to be a United Methodist and still retain one’s gender identity, one’s moral stance, and one’s Christian identity. To be sure, changing one’s ecclesial identity is a very serious matter; how serious depends on a host of factors from family genealogy to the level of participation in the life of one’s church. What often happens, however, is that the various identities (gender, moral, and ecclesial) are so intertwined or correlated that change in ecclesial identity is treated on a par with gender and moral identity. Unless one’s gender and moral identity is endorsed by the church to which one belongs, then failure on this front is seen as a radical rejection of one’s gender and moral identity. So, if conservatives are not prepared to accept full inclusion at the level of gender expression, it is virtually impossible to interpret their refusal as anything other than an act of hostility and even bigotry. However, conservatives are much more prepared to abandon their ecclesial identity if their views are rejected; they make a clear distinction between issues of gender identity, moral identity, and ecclesial identity and have thus been much more prepared to walk away from their ecclesial identity as United Methodists than their opponents. There is a fourth issue in play, namely, the content of what constitutes unity within The United Methodist Church. This time around, we can speak of rival forms of ecclesial identity as it applies to The United Methodist Church. The relevant distinction at this stage is between those who are compatibilists and those who are incompatibilists. The issue is simple. Compatibilists, who generally identify as moderates or centrists, hold that United Methodism can hold together those who differ radically on the moral status of gender expression. The differences on gay marriage and ordination can be accommodated within the one church. The United Methodist Church can with good will on all sides accommodate both positions in the same way as it accommodates pacifists and non-pacifists. Incompatibilists, in this case both conservatives and progressives, hold that this is not the case. The differences, they believe, run too deep in terms of teaching and practice for both sides to be able to live together. So what is at stake here is rival conceptions of the ecclesial identity of The United Methodist Church. I realize that I have gone deep into the weeds. Even so, there are other dimensions that I can only touch on by way of telegrams. So, philosophically, we are faced with technical problems that cannot be addressed here; thus folk are confusing the illocutionary meaning of our discourse with its perlocutionary effects. Imagine the yawns that this will evoke. Psychologically, we are dealing in some instances with an adult form of adolescence. Of course, there is pain when we run into folk who disagree with us at the various levels of identity that I have just charted; yet in the current debate, all this is forgotten. The only way conservatives can avoid causing pain is to agree with the moral and ecclesial agenda of our critics. However, to insist on this is intellectual madness; it is a case of cooking the books by means of moral and emotional blackmail. Frankly, we have had enough of this verbal bullying; it is time to confront this form of intellectual malpractice and refuse its assumptions. The Change in Canonical Identity For the moment, let me now change the subject and make a very different assumption. Put differently, let me continue to sing to the conservative section of the choir. Let’s suppose that the results of the General Conference mean that The United Methodist Church is now canonically identified as a global orthodox Christian denomination rather that one more version of Liberal or Progressive Protestantism in North America. As one friend (who is not a traditionalist) expressed the matter abruptly and brutally, The United Methodist Church is now owned by the conservatives and evangelicals. Interestingly, after the initial shock, this is exactly what much of the secular reporting has reluctantly come to acknowledge. If we make this assumption, then there can be no illusions about the responsibility that has now descended on the current network of conservative leaders who will need to stand firm and seize the future with confidence. I refer to those who will have to lead us into a wholly different future than that envisaged by the current network of bishops, superintendents, agency executives, some big-steeple pastors, and the like. By the future, let me repeat again, I mean here the development of an orthodox, global, intellectually vibrant, Spirit-energized, socially engaged version of Methodism. Owning the responsibility laid upon these new leaders will not be easy. This especially the case given the prospects of division up ahead but let me not get ahead of myself; let me keep singing. The Failure of Episcopal Leadership Frankly, the current network of leaders, not least the majority in The Council of Bishops, have failed. The majority of bishops are not fools; they are, in many respects, highly intelligent, theologically trained, and richly experienced church leaders who have spent years in the trenches. Yet despite all this, they have failed. Caught between a vision where they are called to executive functions rather than to advocacy, they have failed on both fronts. Their posture as advocates has undermined their skill as presiding officers of the church as a whole. This became patently obvious in their efforts to impose their judgment on the church (and not without deception, given their attempt to mis-describe what happened in their submission to the Judicial Council) and in their all-too-visible incompetence in sending the report of the Commission on the Way Forward to the General Conference. What I find most striking is their lack of social and cultural intelligence, that is, the iterated assumption of their arguments that the One Church Plan would somehow secure the unity of the church. It is absolutely astonishing that they failed to anticipate defeat and to prepare the potential losers in such a way that they would be spared some of the trauma that emerged afterwards. Their role as advocates simply blinded them to their role as presiders and as pastoral leaders. They then compounded the error by scapegoating those who could not but stand by their moral and theological conscience and who had made this abundantly clear across the years. This Plan ( which says: let’s agree to disagree on the contentious moral issue and make appropriate institutional changes) was a recipe for division from the beginning. It never really took seriously the more conservative, more orthodox, more traditionalist side of the church. Insofar as there was a dialogue it was a dialogue of the deaf where one side was never truly heard. To be sure, its advocates believed that they were accommodating both sides of the aisle. However, there were no visible signs that its architects ever really took seriously the moral and theological conscience of its detractors. On the contrary, the public attitude generally was one of condescension, trivialization, moral superiority, and even outright hostility. It was enough in the roll-out for General Conference to cite the difficulties in the Traditional Plan that were voiced by the Judicial Council and move back to the repetition of the virtues of the One Church Plan. There was also a false assurance within the episcopate that somehow the church would respect the advice of the episcopal office, even though it was clear that trust had already broken down given the terms of reference they managed to secure in the original mandate given to them in Portland in 2016. I know of one distinguished theologian (who differs from me on the material issues at stake) who thinks that the One Church Plan was in fact an effort to rid the church of conservatives once and for all by creating conditions in which as a matter of conscience they could not remain within The United Methodist Church. I find it difficult to believe that some in the leadership of the church were entirely innocent on this score. Even so, I understand the positive motivation behind the actions of our bishops over the last generation. No bishop wants to show up in the history books as a bishop who oversaw the division of The United Methodist Church. Moreover, we are not privy to their deliberations, so it is best to give the benefit of the doubt and move on. No Quick Fix This failure in episcopal leadership makes visible a further obstacle to any quick resolution of the challenges. Transitioning into the future will be beset with all sorts of unforeseen challenges. History cannot be rushed; the laws of social and institutional gravity cannot be broken. It will take time for current leaders, whether informal or formal, to get their bearings. Which is all to the good, because the church as a whole is badly damaged given the internal divisions and turmoil that have been in place from the beginning of its creation in 1968. Putting the issue succinctly, we now inherit a church which has been severely wounded spiritually, morally, and theologically. Securing the health of the church will be the work of a whole generation and more. To be sure, there is much to celebrate on the conservative side in terms of the solid work of the church across the years. Even though few if any bishops have recognized this, the continued harvesting of the network of renewal groups not only led to the prospects of success in The General Conference, it has provided pivotal resources that are vital to the healing of the church’s wounds and the creation of a new day. The fresh emphasis on scripture, the retrieval of the doctrinal treasures of the patristic era, the wonderful new work on John and Charles Wesley and on the history of Methodism, the intentional tapping into the energies of the Holy Spirit, the reversal of the appalling decisions made earlier on abortion, the experiments in making disciples, the marked emphasis on reaching effectively to help the poor and the needy, all these and more are already installed in the hard-drive of the church. Hence there is much cause for celebration. Yet the painful truth is that we inhabit a severely wounded church that is overburdened with bureaucratic agencies, divided along various axes (and not just the push-button ones that are familiar), short on trust, and in some quarters deeply alienated from its connectional sensibility. The Temptation to Withdraw It should be no surprise in these circumstances that some conservative leaders (often found in large churches) are wary of success. This is entirely understandable given their herculean efforts in growing their local churches and in establishing very effective ministries of discipleship and outreach. They find the current situation intolerable, operating, as they see it, as a drain on financial resources and as a brake on work in evangelism. We can also add the predicament of those who are lodged in progressive conferences who feel deeply alienated from their leaders in United Methodism. It is small wonder that they would prefer to pull out and go independent or join a more informal connection of former United Methodist congregations. One can understand why they want to be done with United Methodism and start all over again free from the bondage of the recent past. Where there is a will there is a way. So, it would be strange if some clergy and their congregations were not to choose this option. However, let’s pause and take stock of the situation. First, we all need to face the fact that there is no way of avoiding the cross of pain and suffering that is up ahead. Cross-bearing is unavoidable for all Christians; it is doubly assured for those who would lead the church into a better future. In the grace of God, we can look to a day when we find rest for our weary souls; however, that day lies beyond the grave; the future as leaders will be one of great pain and suffering. Two additional comments are in order at this point. To begin, adversity has always been the lot of those who engage in ministry. As one of my esteemed teachers once put it: There are no problem-free situations. Paul’s correspondence to the Corinthians amply illustrate how exasperating Christian ministry often is; it is foolish to think that everything will go as well as we see in Paul’s correspondence with the Philippians. Furthermore, the turmoil we currently face is now a turmoil that shows up right across the board within Christian denominations. There are rumblings within the Orthodox tradition; and the euphoria that greeted the papacy of Pope Francis has evaporated. There is no place to run and hide. To take a very different but relevant example, consider the case of Watchman Nee, the remarkable Chinese Christian leader who left Methodism because he was fed up with the problems of denominationalism; in the short-term he birthed a fascinating network of local churches. Now, however, the third-generation leaders are showing up in graduate schools because they face exactly the same kind of problems that all Christian groups have to face across the generations. Second, consider what the relevant alternative entails. At best, a local independent church will isolate its leaders and members from the problems of the wider church; but its outreach will be circumscribed unless it teams up with other local churches. At best, a new North American Wesleyan denomination would become one more interesting experiment that is likely to follow in the footsteps of other denominations that have been birthed over the centuries. Within two generations it could well go the way of these other experiments: insular, embarrassed by its minority status, all too ready to take on board the most recent moral and theological fads developed in the bigger battalions of Christendom, subject to the standard processes of fatigue, and the like. The extraordinary opportunity to follow through on the comprehensive renewal of a global Methodist denomination will have been passed over in favor of a local option that abandons connection as a hallmark of Methodist identity and practice. This is not the development of a new future for Methodism; it is the inadvertent destruction of Methodist witness and practice as it was adopted and has evolved in the providence of God as a global expression of the Christian faith. Third, walking away from success is an extraordinary act in which the magnificent assets of The United Methodist Church will be handed on a plate to those who will in time be defeated by a post-Christian culture that will seek to undermine it from within. We do not at this point have any kind of taxonomy or metrics of The United Methodist Church. I have been told on good authority that there are millions of dollars languishing in banks that were collected for work in China. Think of the missionary work this could make possible. I have no idea how to confirm this testimony. However, if we were to do a serious audit of our resources, they would be staggering in their range and depth. Think, for example, of the medical and educational institutions and endowments. It may sound radical and grandly pious to say that we are prepared to surrender these assets in order to remain faithful and true to the faith of the church; in truth we run the risk of serious irresponsibility in stewarding the assets of the church. Fourth, and closely related to this point, there is the need to stand by and with our brothers and sisters across the globe in United Methodism. I think of the situation in Russia where, after a very wobbly start, not least in theological education, the church is poised to act as a critical leaven at the very heart of Eastern Orthodoxy. The church is not likely to grow exponentially in Russia, as is happening elsewhere, but it would be an act of betrayal to abandon this tender plant which faces such daunting challenges and desperately needs help to flourish. It would not be difficult to give other examples, like Africa University; readers can readily fill out the catalogue of particulars. It will be a spiritual tragedy of the highest order if we abandon our brothers and sisters across the globe; put differently, it will be morally disastrous if we selfishly walk away on the grounds that we are alienated and exhausted due to our painful experiences over the last generation. Fifth, and finally, there is a critical issue that underlies both the sense of danger and the positive prospect of an extraordinary future for United Methodism. I have long come to believe that United Methodism represents an expression of biblical and classical Christianity that has its own unique charisms that need to be preserved with flair and carried to the ends of the earth. It is no accident that the history texts books do not quite know what to do with Methodism and the Wesleyan tradition more generally. We do not fit the standard paradigms represented by Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Magisterial Protestantism. Least of all should United Methodism be seen as a branch of Mainline, Liberal Protestantism. We represent a remarkable embodiment of the Christian faith that has indeed its own vices and failures but it also has a crucial role to play in the future of Christianity on the global horizon. That role means that we need a global, orthodox, Spirit-led, Wesleyan church, committed to making robust disciples of Jesus Christ across the face of the earth. It is this kind of future that we need to embrace with enthusiasm and flair now that the Traditional Plan has succeeded at General Conference in 2019. There will be a host of messy and complex decisions to be made; but we can leave all that to be worked out on the hoof; moreover, I am confident there are bishops and other leaders waiting in the wings to lead the way. Keeping our Nerve What matters at this point is that we be crystal clear about the opportunity that lies ahead of us given even the minimal success of the Traditional Plan. This is not easy. Critics are piling on with a host of stereotypes and narratives that undermine precisely the sense of identity I enumerated. Prescient observers can recognize the relevant litany. The litany is laid out in terms of lack of love, bigotry, rigidity, inconsistency, legalism, bribery of African delegates, Trumpism, colonialism, and the like. Sadly, it is not difficult to name the vices that we have had to face over the last couple of years. To invoke a different metaphor, folk have gone on a prolonged shopping spree in the political underworld. We have witnessed the physical take-over of meetings, the intentional misrepresentation of the due diligence undertaken for General Conference, the demonization of the various renewal groups, the deployment of false piety, the fear-mongering, the shameful use of parliamentary obfuscation and delaying tactics, and the carefully orchestrated interventions of agencies, seminary leaders, and youth petitions. The Arcus Foundation has poured close to two million dollars, beginning in 2011, into the campaign to undo the canonical teaching and practice of The United Methodist Church. The most pressing vices on display have been the incessant use of non-rational means to achieve the relevant ecclesiastical results and the constant resort to emotion and narratives of victimhood (replete with charges of oppression and hatred) carefully placed to inhibit serious engagement with the painful and complex issues involved. It is patently obvious that for the most part all this represents the public practices of the progressive elites of North American parochial culture. It is also, to be sure, the normal hasty effort to unhorse the detested enemy who stands in the way of progress and pious enlightenment. Rising above this avalanche of criticism is a daunting task. It can and must be done by avoiding falling into a mentality of victimhood and by seizing and sustaining a whole new identity of ourselves and of our future. It is time now to drop my aforementioned assumption and face reality afresh. The stark truth can be expressed in a simple proposition: The United Methodist Church is now ungovernable. Hence it is illusory to think that a network of conservatives can govern the church with any kind of coherent vision. We must now prepare for division without apology and with persistent resolution. To use the vulgar language of the streets, there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that they will be allowed to implement even the minimal success achieved at General Conference. Aside from the usual motley crew of ecclesiastical anarchists and wreckers, we already know that centrist and progressive leaders have run up flags in a bid to find ways to create their own version of United Methodism. The Executive Committee to the congregations to The United Church in Germany have publicly announced that they will not abide by the decisions of General Conference. The divorce lawyers have been called in and the only question is what kind of settlement can be arranged, whether amicable or angry. As one leading centrist pastor in Dallas expressed it in a letter to his congregation, the house of United Methodism has been burned down and the job and the task now is to take the foundations and build a new ‘inclusive’ version of Methodism. Best Wishes to Centrists and Progressives I genuinely wish centrists and progressive leaders well in their endeavors. There will be a place for them in the astonishing diversity of Christian faith and practice in the United States and in a few select sites outside North America. It may well be that the humiliation of defeat at General Conference will inspire them to develop less polemical and more constructive visions of their current interpretations of United Methodism. However, they face several challenges as they move forward. First, they are by no means united and will have trouble separating their sheep from the goats. The well-known tensions that accompany intersectionality are already visible. (How can a cis-gender white male in Kansas lead a truly inclusive church?) The best way forward would be to have one new expression of United Methodism on the non-traditional side of the aisle in that centrists only differ from progressives in hoping to make room for conservatives in their midst. The centrists are now becoming radicalized and are thus showing their true colors. However, this is not for me to judge. I have no interest in writing the script or roadmap for those who lost the vote and are now desperately trying to come to terms with reality and find a way forward. It is enough to note that the threat and not just embarrassment from allies is all too real. It is not easy to turn in your grave while you are still alive. Second, the track record of mainline denominations that pursued policies and practices of radical inclusion has not been rosy. Some United Methodists think that the One Church Plan was and is a recipe for growth up ahead. (As one distinguished academic and retired bishop asked: How can we hope to include new members when we are excluding those who self-identify as LBGTQIA Christians?) Time alone will tell. But I suspect that the same cheerful illusions that prompted the predictions of success at General Conference ever since the late nineteen-eighties lie at the back of this empirically insecure prediction. In any case it is silly to make decisions about the future hinge on what the current youth in North America consider normative. Third, centrists in particular are naïve in thinking that they can hold the line in securing adjusted heterosexual norms for the LGBTQIA communities. This is already a major problem in their failure to address the challenge of bisexuality. However, this is simply the tip of an iceberg. Centrists and progressives are either willfully ignorant or are carefully duplicitous in coming to terms with the most recent version of liberation theology that has already overtaken the standard conventions to which centrists are committed. I have in mind the “Indecent Theology” of the remarkable Argentinian theologian, Marcella Althaus-Reid, who began life as a Methodist before finding a home in the Quaker tradition during her tenure as the first women theologian appointed at the University of Edinburgh. Frankly, what is at stake is the open embrace of obscenity, the playful dalliance with the moral sewage of the Marquis de Sade, and now the effort to find emancipatory activity of God at those margins that include the BDSM communities scattered across the world. Hume once quipped that reason is and always should be the slave of the passion. One wonders what this great lapsed Presbyterian would make of such a development. There is no need to wonder what Albert Outler would have made of it. He warned that the embrace of permissiveness would simply lead to more permissiveness; hence he used all his political savvy and guile to help craft the language which became the explicit canonical teaching of United Methodism in 1972; and he fought with ruthless ingenuity to make sure that those who worked for the alternative vision of sexual morality would fail to achieve their goals in the relevant Commission of the day. The old danger of sowing in the wind and reaping the whirlwind is a real one. Getting Ready for a Better Future My ultimate interest here, however, is to begin the difficult task of identifying some initial principles and insights that should guide the work of conservatives in the immediate future. Happily, there is a quiet host of gifted leaders who are also working on this agenda; happier still, there is a wise and patient network of leaders gifted at thinking through the logistics involved. I offer a laundry list of items for consideration. First, by way of yet one more reiteration: what is at issue is the creation over time of a whole new version of United Methodism that will fit the description given earlier. I have deliberately made the list of relevant adjectives broad and numerous: orthodox, global, ecumenical, Spirit-energized, intellectually vibrant, evangelistic, socially engaged, Wesleyan, robustly holy, sacramentally realistic, episcopal in structure, and so on. We need a new big tent United Methodism that will include evangelicals, charismatics, High-Church, traditionalists, and the like; and we need a new United Methodism that will make no apology for racial and ethnic diversity and for the long-standing ministry of women. To be sure, there is still much work to be done in addressing the challenges of racial and ethnic identities; we can expect that the prevailing narrative of white privilege and patriarchy will be weaponized afresh in order to undermine our future catholic and United Methodist identity. This development is simply one more reason to embrace the identity as we ourselves name and implement it rather than pay attention to the alternative which is so readily imposed upon us. We cannot repeat often enough that the General Conference and the General Conference alone names and represents the identity of The United Methodist Church. We should push back aggressively against the claims that its processes are flawed, or that it has become the voice of the demonic in our midst, or that it has no real agency beyond its captivity to patriarchy and to late-modern or neo-liberal capitalism. Imagine how current dissidents would have jumped to identify with its decisions if the One Church Plan had passed; they concede the crucial point even as they seek to legitimize their dissident identity. Second, it is crucial that we follow through on the necessary legislative and political action that expresses and strengthens the improved position of the Book of Discipline. There should be no promises at this point that we are going to back off or back down. Of course, this will be described as an effort to double-down on our position. Moreover, we can expect the standard objections and shaming to be repeated and even intensified. However, the danger is that any sign of stepping back or slowing down will be taken as weakness; the sharks will smell blood in the water and act accordingly. We cannot do other than act from within our own lights at this point; integrity and consistency require staying the course and seeing this through to the end. Thus we should not be intimidated by charges of doubling-down on our position; to accept this description is to be enrolled in a tendentious narrative that should be aggressively resisted. To be sure, if there is a concerted effort to have a serious conversation across the current divides that can take us to a better place, well and good. We can and should reach out to those who want to secure a realistic and consensus as we move towards the next General Conference; we should be open to any serious olive branch that is offered. However, such efforts require trust, a disposition that is in short supply given the language that has been used in public to attack us and our convictions. It also requires an honest assessment of the standing of our interlocuters, and that too is in short supply given that centrists and progressives cannot always identify their constituencies and thus cannot always be relied upon to deliver on their promise and agreements. In short, this is not a time to wobble; it is a time to stand firm and move forward. Third, every effort should be taken to prevent the current turmoil spilling over into our local churches. Think of the scenarios of General Conference spreading across the face of the church. Unfortunately, this is already taking place in some congregations as local clergy openly and publicly defy the ruling of General Conference. At one level we are witnessing the ugly face of clericalism, as pastors speak as if they can ignore the sentiments and judgment of laity. At another level, it is an astonishing display of hubris in that clergy claim that the local church to which they are appointed is ‘their’ church rather than a local congregation of The United Methodist Church. The default disposition and position should be simple: no decision should be taken at the local level unless it is absolutely essential. In the meantime, avoid introducing unnecessary turbulence in local churches. Fourth, it is imperative that we do what we can to repair the damage done to the African leadership of United Methodism. The treatment of our African colleagues has been nothing less than appalling. I noted one observer who proposed that they were captive to the legal dictates of their governments, as if they were not standing with centuries of perceived biblical and ecclesial teaching. In another case, they were identified as captive to the colonial mindset of the missionaries who brought the Gospel to them. The critical point is that their agency has been demeaned if not demonized by those who on other occasions wax eloquent about the need to listen to the Other, to the marginalized, and to those from the non-western world. The long-standing sense of western superiority has caused incalculable damage. The repair must begin immediately in the council of bishops; but all of us need to bear in mind the deep breach that has now appeared. Fifth, given the success at the General Conference, there can be no compromise on the retention of the United Methodist name, a point that has surfaced with pleasing emphasis by the delegates from Africa. Just as secular elections have consequences, so do decisions of General Conference, the only body that can speak for The United Methodist Church as a whole. Continuity with the recent expression of global Methodism matters at this juncture; those who have systematically rejected the practice and teaching of the church (and those now rushing to join the queue), and who have failed across two generations to convince the church at large to adopt their revisionary agenda, have forfeited their right to the name. Many, of course, have already expressed shame at the name. Many have also quite naturally proclaimed their version of continuity with the tradition. However, the latter have lost the war to win the mind of the church as represented by its highest courts and should come to terms with the new normal. Perhaps we can find a way for all sides to keep the vestiges of the name; however, we cannot repress the fact that decisions of General Conference really do matter. Sixth, in the allocation of resources there needs to be a resolute stance that secures a fair allocation of current assets. These belong as of moral and legal right to The United Methodist Church. They should not be handed over merely to secure some kind of sentimental vision of a manageable future. Of course, there needs to be significant reform of a host of institutional assets; however, ownership implies obligations and responsibility. Speaking in terms of future negotiations, the default position should be one of retention and of reasonable accommodation that avoids costly legal battles. We need a balance of strong realism and just compassion. One immediate and obvious point of contention will surely be the future of our seminaries. There is no need to rush to judgment. What is pivotal is to secure a much stronger and more welcoming place within faculties and student bodies for future conservative clergy and leaders. This is non-negotiable with respect to those schools of theology that are located in university settings. We can anticipate much fear-mongering, sincere but ignorant references to fundamentalism, threats of disaffiliation, and predictions about the loss of academic freedom on this front. However, we should ignore these and insist on real intellectual diversity, genuine academic freedom, and on such changes as will make possible a fresh and invigorating engagement with the full range of theological disciplines and resources. It is absolutely crucial that there be the institutional sites in which all future United Methodist scholars can play their full place in the academy at large and in which the research and development arm of the future teaching and practice of all United Methodist bodies can be cultivated to the highest intellectual standards possible. I know first-hand how difficult this can be. More relevant to the current crisis, we will need the best intellectual and pastoral resources we can muster to tackle the challenge posed by the sexual revolution of the twentieth century. There is massive unfinished business in this domain both within and without the church. Seventh, we need to prepare to launch a massive effort to revitalize the host of rural and small town churches that have suffered spiritually because of the distractions and infighting of the last sixty years. Maybe we should look again at the use of updated revival services; add to this the possibility of a new order of itinerant evangelists and musicians that would spearhead a season of exuberance and hope; add to this the implementing of effective ministries of catechesis and disciple-making. The point is clear: we need to tackle the spiritual and doctrinal challenges right across the board, but most especially the challenges faced by those smaller churches that still wistfully yearn for a new day in the history of United Methodism. Eighth, we need to make it abundantly clear to Methodists across the world that we are open to fresh overtures of unity and cooperation that will enrich and implement the vision that we are ready to embrace. This is not one more effort at Western paternalism or colonizing; it is, at one level, a recognition of the genuinely global nature of our enterprise; at another level, it is a friendly invitation to join in the movement of gift-sharing that has become the hallmark of more recent ecumenical endeavors. Starting within our own family, we can then continue to reach out to other Christian churches as we seek to receive all that the Holy Spirit seeks to give us as we humble ourselves in submission to the journey provided by providence. Ninth, while it is prudent to let the dust settle and allow the relevant dissident groups to figure out what they want to do, it is important that we be prepared with our own account of the best way forward in the crisis that we must now endure. Given the failure of the bishops, we simply seize the opportunity that has opened up before us and do the work that should have been done in preparation for the General Conference of 2019. I am morally certain not just that conservatives can retain the remarkable unity already in place; they already have buried in their conversations the blueprint that we need for the future. We need to proceed from a position of strength and not from a position of spurious kindness or unrecognized victimhood. Onward and Upward So the marching order is clear: onward and upward to a new day in United Methodism. What then is to be done? This paper is written as an insider intent on upholding and strengthening the conservative results of the General Conference. I have already indicated that we now face is division. What should we do now? Perhaps we can make progress on finding common ground. On this front consider the following laundry list. We can agree that the best way to frame the issue on all sides is in terms of faithfulness to our Lord. Every other category has to be subordinate to this central feature of Christian discipleship. We can agree that we have inflicted sufficient harm on each other (leave the proportions aside for the moment) that the pain of staying together is now greater than the pain of living apart. We can agree that it would be a good thing for all sides to be set free to follow their conscience and their contrasting forms of identity and thus not be a roadblock to the relevant forms of discipleship and witness which are embraced by the different groups that now exist within United Methodism. We can agree, hard as this will be, that we will try and keep some kind of loose connection and co-operation as we move into a new future. We can agree that empirically the votes are not there for one more effort to adopt some kind of one church plan. This means that we will need to recalibrate how we handle the reflective equilibrium between the unity, catholicity, holiness, and apostolicity of the church. We can agree that we will avoid costly litigation in the courts and find a way to differ and disagree that represents a unique gift of our tradition to the church as a whole. We can agree that we will do all we can to form friendships across our difference and thus strengthen the bonds of affection that are already in place behind the scenes. With these in place, let’s imagine a whole new future. Let there be now at least two branches of United Methodism: The [orthodox] Global United Methodist Church and The [centrist] Intercontinental United Methodist Church. If a third is needed, let’s consider The Progressive United Methodist Church. Let there then be an Association of United Methodist Institutions which can house a variety of United Methodist bodies (including colleges, universities, and medical institutions) and where we can find ways to work together in UMCOR, in publishing, in theological education, missionary endeavor, and in other ways that are mutually agreed. This secures two critical goals. First, folk are free to follow their calling as they perceive it; second, we keep in place a pre-conciliar form of connection that recognizes that we own a common heritage and a common history of sin, affection, anger, and misery. This is the big picture; I leave the legislative details to those who are expert on these matters. If this olive branch is summarily dismissed, so be it. We will not make the dreams for a better vision of what is now a global, orthodox United Methodism dependent on a positive response from those who prefer to ignore our overtures. We need to move forward with a robust vision of where we want to be in fifty years rather than wait and react defensively to either the status quo or the vague fantasies of our critics. Of course, if anyone else has a better suggestion, let’s hear it out. Perhaps we need to set up a trampoline where folk who have given up on high wire acts can bounce back into a truly realistic conversation about the future. Deep down, I believe that there is enough honesty and even good will across the church to hope for a constructive conversation about the way forward. We can, if we really desire, make the transition as economical and efficient as possible. The mountain is there to be climbed; and the future view from the top will be terrific when we get there. In the meantime, as all sides now agree, let’s stay in the business of mission and ministry. Tagged with: Billy Abraham • Institute on Religion and Democracy • Methodism • Modified Traditional Plan • Perkins School of Theology • Traditional Plan • UMC • United Methodism • United Methodist • United Methodist Church • Wesleyanism • William Abraham • William J. Abraham 28 Responses to Mountains Are There to Be Climbed: The Next United Methodism Bradley Pope says: I cannot imagine the traditionalists are this organized, but if they want to get momentum they need to offer positive. spirit filled, attractive & assertive leadership immediately because they are being framed as the exact opposite…1 Peter 2:12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. “In any case it is silly to make decisions about the future hinge on what the current youth in North America consider normative.” 100% agreement. Thank you for your thoughtful article. cbbyrd says: Perhaps not yet entirely organized but committed entirely to faithfulness to following Christ above the institutional protectionism and cultural relativism that has defined the UMC of recent decades. We trust that God will guide us forward as he has surely guided us til now. As an outsider who still has a heart for conservative Methodism (my mother was raised Methodist, my father’s Methodist was raised Methodist and her sister was a Methodist missionary, I received my education in a Methodist-sponsored college, and I have served in music positions in several Methodist churches over the years) I hope that the conservatives will stand firm, and not let the liberals chip away at the foundation until the whole building topples. There should not be such a thing as “progressive” United Methodism. If the liberals leave, do not let them claim any form of the United Methodist name and heritage. Let them start their own church. They will find out soon enough that God does not bless liberalism, as it is not true Christianity, but is simply a parody, ministering to the world, the flesh, and ultimately the devil. Hang in there, conservatives. That is what happened in the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The conservatives rallied and took control back into their own hands. The liberals finally left on bad terms and started their own convention. It is withering away, as all liberal religious endeavors do eventually. Loren Golden says: “God does not bless liberalism, as it is not true Christianity, but is simply a parody, ministering to the world, the flesh, and ultimately the devil.” “Ministering to” is inappropriate to use in this context. “Accommodating” is more accurate, if overly generous. “Prostituting the faith once delivered to the saints to service”, as crass as it sounds, strikes nearer the reality of what has become denominations that have been given up to the debased mind of Theological Liberalism/Progressivism. I stand corrected. Rayme Jernigan says: why not simply orthodox and progressive branches? I didn’t understand the thinking behind a “centrist intercontinental?” 1. Theologically Liberal church bureaucrats, as well as a great many pastors, like to think of themselves as “centrist”. 2. There are many UM congregations with substantial numbers of traditionalists and progressives in their memberships (and their pastors almost always posit themselves as “centrist”; see No. 1, above). Any prospect of dividing the denomination between an Orthodox Global UMC and a Centrist Intercontinental UMC has the potential of splitting these congregations apart. Calling the second of these the Progressive UMC would make convincing traditionalist members to support a whole congregational move into it, for the sake of congregational unity, a monumental (if not insurmountable) task for the “centrist” pastor. Adam Hamilton’s Church of the Resurrection in suburban Kansas City is a case in point. Hamilton billed himself as an Evangelical when he was building COR, and for that reason he attracted a great many Evangelicals into COR’s membership, many of whom are still COR members today, despite the liberalization of Hamilton’s theology over the past 1-1/2 decades. Hamilton has a very vested interest in keeping the denomination together, while honoring (or at least paying lip service) to both traditionalist and progressive members, because he wants to keep both the traditionalist and progressive members (and their monetary contributions) from leaving his flock. If worse comes to worst (in Hamilton’s estimation), and the “divorce” that he would “rather not have” actually comes to pass, he would have a more difficult time convincing traditionalist COR members to follow him into the “Progressive UMC” than he would convincing them to follow him into the “Centrist Intercontinental UMC”. There’s no need to write pages of theological bull. I’m an outsider, a straight person, a senior citizen, a family member to six lgbtq people and friend to countless other lgbtq folk. I am in the lgbtq loop of knowledge which conservative folk are excluded. What I know is the United Methodist has always had and still does a tremendous number of closeted gay clergy and laity. Every faith communion has its closeted lgbtq folk as well; numerically, there are more lgbtq people in the population than redheads. The common ground between conservatives and progressives is both groups absolutely love and adore lgbtq people – and I’m not just talking “celibate” to conservatives. Progressives love gay people (clergy and laity) who are honest. Conservatives love UMC gay clergy and laymembers only if they remain closeted and allow conservatives to play “pretend”, falsely believing everyone in the church is heterosexual until told otherwise. I know one state legislator who supported an amendment to his state’s constitution defining marriage as one man-one woman. He adored the pastors at his downtown, UMC congregation. What he didn’t know is every lgbtq person and allies knew his senior pastor and associate pastor were, in UMC lingo, “practicing gay men”. He regularly attended church for inspiration and spiritual leadership from his closeted gay ministers. That’s the hypocrisy of conservatives – as long as gay people deceive you and pass for straight (it’s not uncommon for gay people to enter into a mixed orientation marriage as a cover, while hooking up with those of the same sex outside their sham marriage), you enjoy and give thanks for the (closeted) gay leadership and gifts in the UMC. Progressives enjoy the same leadership and gifts of gay people in the UMC, but prefer honesty over deception. That’s the only difference, folks. Everybody – conservative and progressive – loves gay people and thinks highly of them when they’re in the pulpit. I’ve observed this for more than forty years, because I’m friends with your closeted lgbtq folks. UMC conservative are are nothing but hypocrites. If you conservatives only knew the truth! Diane I read no reference to scripture, history or tradition or reason in regards to the previous mentioned elements of faith.God comes first not personal experience,that is why liberals lost. Why bother with scripture? The reality is everybody in the UMC generally loves lgbtq people and the gifts they’ve brought to your faith communion. Some love only lgbtq people that they perceive as straight and others still love lgbtq people when they’re honest and say, “I’m gay (used inclusively for lgbtqi)”. Either way, your common denominator is love of lgbtq people. God is spirit, God is sacred love. Claim the God-given sacred love that everyone has for your UMC gay siblings. It’s not difficult to find common ground. As the gospel song goes, “the Jesus in me sees the Jesus in you, it’s so easy…to love.” Want scripture? Love one another, as God loves you. The issue is not in loving gay people. The issue is in their demand that you accept them for their behavior, not in spite of it. Diane, you fail to acknowledge that God has set the rules, and we are not free to change them. and God says very clearly that homosexual sex is wrong. Your comments remind me of the Oprah Winfrey show in which she made the statement, after a visiting minister made a comment about unsaved people going to hell, that “my Jesus is a God of love, and he would never send anyone to hell”. The minister replied, “Just one problem with that. Your Jesus does not exist.” That statement is also true about YOUR Jesus. God is spirit. Not a rule book. Thank heavens! With all due respect, your comments are lacking any semblance of intelligence. You make these assertions with absolutely nothing to back it up. You say that God is a Spirit not a rule book. Brilliant. One can easily argue that the 10 commandments constitute a rule book. That aside, your idea that the Beatles “all you need is love,” for our guide to matters of the spirit and indeed eternal salvation is not only ridiculous, it is dangerous. Following your rock’n’roll theology, we just need to love the pedophile, the adulterer, the thief, the murderer, etc., etc., and not “judge” them. The plain truth of the matter is this. Real congregations of Christians be they a UMC local church or any of the other denominations that present the scriptures in their fullness, will welcome all who fall short of the Glory of God. And this includes our fellow members of the human race who feel that their sexual identity is theirs to proclaim. The hard part of course is whether or not the sinner is willing to ask Jesus Christ for forgiveness and to turn away from the lifestyle that displeases the Holy One True God. This is real love and we are called by our Lord to present the truth in order that the homosexual too may enter the Kingdom of God. This grace and mercy is available to you too Diane It’s your choice. As C.S. Lewis once wrote: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce Dave Gingrich says: The only reason the UMC remains ungovernable is that the leaders in the (non-orthodox) minority are collecting salaries from the UMC. Orthodox Methodists have been too nice. Enforce the Discipline and orthodoxy will prevail. Thank you, Prof. Abraham, for this article. I have read and re-read it, appreciating the wisdom it contains. It is my prayer that the conservative leadership of the UMC will stand firm in upholding the conservative results of the General Conference and will move forward, resisting the barrage of vitriol being spewed by the liberals who disagree with those results. Finally, I agree with Mike’s statement regarding the United Methodist name. If (more likely when) the liberals leave, they should not be allowed to claim any form of the United Methodist name and heritage. Your seventh point about the need to revitalize the many small town and rural churches that have suffered due to the many years of infighting really hits home in my part of northeastern Pennsylvania. If you were to visit here and see the many churches that have closed or been forced to combine with others or just completely disappeared and demolished, you would see for yourself the results of the many years of infighting and attention to the disobedience encouraged by many of the bishops. People have objected and in at least one case have signed letters of complaint about a bishop that were dismissed without true inquiery. Local people have “voted with their feet” and left the United Methodist Church. This has been going on so long that there is little hope of rebuilding these lost churches. The damage has been done. Other robust congregations of other denominations have taken their place. Not only that, but those who are left in these dying churches know that help is not on the way. It has been obvious that this is not a high priority of bishops and others at top levels of the UMC nor has it been. Andrew Hughes says: I hope and pray that God will help us abide by the 2019 conference vote and stengthen our resolve, as “Methodists”, to honor our heritage and scripture. Lee D. Cary says: A fine, scholarly document of 9,000+ words. Particularly relevant is the first paragraph after the heading “The Failure of Episcopal Leadership,” that includes these words: “I refer to those who will have to lead us into a wholly different future than that envisaged by the current network of bishops, superintendents, agency executives, some big-steeple pastors, and the like…Frankly, the current network of leaders, not least the majority in The Council of Bishops, have failed.” The Professor flies perilously close to the flame of truth on the wings of what, I assume, is a tenured chair. Bravo! As a diagnosis of an ill patient, it is thorough and thoughtful. The treatment recommended is designed to rejuvenate, rehabilitate, renew, etc. the existing structure. The multiplicity of tasks suggested exceeds the complexity of the Connectional Conference Plan, and the CCP is a 5-star Rube Goldberg. Organizations fail from several causes: demand for their product declines; their technology is eclipsed by others; their products are more easily purchased on-line; customers lose confidence in their quality, etc. Behind those obvious causes can often be found fault lines in their organizational structure, complicated by poor leadership on the “C” floor level. So, how is the UMC organized? The clergy system is based on a feudal system of conference silos where the Bishop is King, the Superintendents are (temporarily) the Nobles/Barons, the big church senior pastors are the Knights, and the Clergypersons live in the various levels of Serfdom subject to the appointment wishes of the King, through the Superintendents (District HR Directors). The Bishops are paid by the General Church with monies from the franchise tax (AKA apportionments) placed on individual congregations. The Superintendents’ are paid by that portion of apportionments retained at the Conference level. The Knights are paid by their local church, and often very well. The salaries for the rank-n-file Clergypersons are paid by their local church, with help from Conference monies, if the local church cannot meet the minimum salary. (At least that was how it was when I retired.) The Jurisdictional level of organization is a consortium of Conference silos based on geographical proximity. The Book of Discipline is supposed to provide guidelines, for example, in the human-sexality behavior category for the entire organization, but that doesn’t work. Lastly, there are (1) the independent seminaries – that operate unilaterally cranking out graduates who then compete for entry level clergy positions, and (2) the Boards & Agencies (c.f., Cabinet Departments in the Federal Gov’t) that operate largely autonomously, staffed by church bureaucrats. So, it’s a mixture of a feudal system, and a portion of the current U.S. federal system within the Executive Branch where the permanent employees reside, doing special stuff. Could it be time to rethink an organization that hasn’t been working all that well for a long time? Perhaps make it more grassroots directed and accountable, and simpler to boot? (480 words) Lee, you could have made your point with far fewer words. Your last sentence says it all. L. Cary says: Evangeline J. Cristobal says: Thank you for clearing the cloud of doubts in my mind, lifting my spirit, believing that there is hope for our UMC. Allen Fuller says: I’m seeing this talking point come out everywhere: that gay people are more numerical in the population than redheads. Hm. The memos must have gone out far and wide. I have a counter-point. Sinners are more numerical in the population than black-haired people. Non-sequiter? Only if the initial claim is also a non-sequiter. Just as sinners are to be accepted, so also gay people are to be accepted (these groups overlap, of course). Just as Jesus calls sinners to “go and sin no more,” so also he calls gay people to do. The number of people in relation to a particular hair color has nothing to do with our born-that-way sinful “orientation.” It is not the issue. The real issue is that one particular sin has taken on a privileged status and can no longer be named as sin. Sarah196 says: What is to be done with a group of people who say, “We are victims, so the rules don’t apply to us.” Let the first reprimanded be the bishops who thought they were morally superior and broke the rules too. They conspired in a breach of fiduciary responsibility. They were given a position of trust and betrayed it. Lee Deaderick says: The times we live in remind me so much of pre and very early WW2 in England. So much wasted effort trying to “appease” a evil mad man with rational discussion. Time to stand and fight the fight that is at hand All we should expect is “blood sweat and tears”. But alas that does not mean the fight should be abandoned, Christian civilization depends on it. and in the end Gods plan will prevail. “As one distinguished academic and retired bishop asked: How can we hope to include new members when we are excluding those who self-identify as LBGTQIA Christians?” There is a fallacy in this line of thinking, in that membership in the Church of Jesus Christ is somehow something that we, as members in said Church, get to decide. It is not we who get to decide who gets to be a member or who is to be excluded from membership, based on our own criteria. The very notion of “those who self-identify as LBGTQIA Christians” is extremely problematic. At the root of this “self-identity” is, at one level or another, unbelief—unbelief that God created humankind male and female, with no other genders in between or outside (Gen. 1.26-27, 2.18-25, Mt. 19.4-6, Mk. 10.6-9), and with no crossing or mixture of the two; and unbelief that consensual sexual expression outside the bonds of lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual marriage is sin in the eternal judgment of God (Ex. 20.14, Lev. 18, Dt. 5.18, Mt. 5.27-32, 15.18-20, Mk. 7.20-23, 10.10-12, Lk. 16.15-18, Jn. 8.3,11, Acts 15.20,29, Rom. 1.18-28, I Cor. 6.9-20, 10.8, II Cor. 12.21, Gal. 5.19-21, Eph. 5.3-12, Col. 3.5-6, I Thess. 4.3-8, I Tim. 1.8-11, Heb. 13.4, I Pet. 4.3-5, II Pet. 2.9-10, Jude 7, Rev. 2.14-16,20-23, 17.1-2, 21.8, 22.15). If one says, “God accepts me just as I am, without requiring me to repent of my self-defined sexual identity,” then such a one is no longer thinking of God, but rather of an idol that he or she has made in his or her own image, to which he or she has appended the name “God”. Moreover, when you bring “those who self-identify as LBGTQIA Christians” into the membership of the Church of Jesus Christ, do they then faithfully and unapologetically proclaim that Christ wrought atonement with God on our behalf in His Self-Sacrifice on the Cross, bearing the wrath of His Father poured out on Him in just recompense for our sins, thus securing for us an eternal redemption (Is. 53, Rom. 5.8-11, 8.1-4, I Cor. 15.3, II Cor. 5.14-21, Heb. 9.11-10.18), vindicated by the evidence of having been raised from the dead by His Father just three days later (Mt. 16.21, 17.23, 20.19, I Cor. 15.4)? No! Rather, they “pervert the grace of our God into sensuality” (Jude 4), repeating mantra of the world that homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism are not only positive moral goods, but that God Himself is the author of them, having made them that way. They point not to Christ and His Kingdom, but to man and his. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die” (The Cost of Discipleship, p. 89). After the Lord Jesus first announced that He would be handed over to His earthly enemies, killed, and then raised from the dead, He said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Make no mistake: When He said “let him deny himself and take up his cross,” He meant that those who would come after Him must die to themselves, die to their selfish ambitions, and most of all, die to sin. Continuing on, He said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Mt. 16.24-25) And He further said, “Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” (Mt. 10.38) The Apostle Paul elaborates on this, writing, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. … Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” (Rom. 6.1-6,12-14) And as the Apostle Peter wrote, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” (I Pet. 2.24) And of the sin of sexual immorality, Paul wrote, “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. … Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. So glorify God in your body.” (I Cor. 6.13,18-20) Among the sins that we are to die to, in obedience to the Lord Jesus’ call, is the sin of sexual immorality. Among other things, that means do not view pornography, do not engage in sexual intercourse with someone of the opposite sex to whom you are not married, do not engage in sexual intercourse with someone who is the same gender as yourself, do not seek to make yourself into a person of the opposite gender from which you were born, and do not break the marriage covenant you have now with your opposite sex spouse to marry someone else. The Lord Jesus died to free us from the penalty, power, and presence of sin. The penalty of sin was broken for those who would eventually put their faith in Him when He bore that penalty on Calvary. The power of sin is broken as we live our daily lives in obedience to the Word of God, not in order to earn salvation, but in loving and respectful response to the salvation the Lord Jesus earned on our behalf. And the presence of sin will be abolished when He returns “to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Heb. 9.28). The common teaching that homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism, et al, are not sins because Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity (SOGI) dogma justifies them does not free those caught up in the sin of sexual immorality from that sin, because SOGI proponents speak only on their own authority and not on God’s. Just because they say it is not sin, does not mean that God says that it is not sin. The authority that the Lord Jesus gave His apostles to bind and loose sin (Mt. 16.19, Jn. 20.23) does not extend to anyone who speaks and acts contrary to Scripture. At the end of our lives, we will stand before the Judgment Seat of God to make an accounting of ourselves (Rom. 14.10, II Cor. 5.10, Rev. 20.11-15). It will be a great and terrible day. Grace and mercy will be shown as undeserving sinners are issued into the Kingdom of Heaven, but also judgment and wrath against those who proclaimed falsehood in His Name (Mt. 7.21-23, 18.6, 25.31-46, Rev. 19.20). All sin begins as desire in the human heart (Gen. 4.7, 6.5, 8.21, Jer. 17.9-10, Mt. 15.18-20, Jas. 1.13-15), and that desire is itself a result of our innate sinfulness, stemming from the Fall. By no means can it be used to justify the commission of sins, nor can those desires be attributed to God, “for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” (Jas. 1.13). So then, let us not find our identity in sexual immorality, even though the world says that many things the Bible reckons as sexual immorality are not. Rather, let us find our identity in Christ, and in Him alone. He is the Good Shepherd who lays His life down for His sheep, and we His sheep know His voice and follow Him (Jn. 10.4,11), and He will not lead us into sexual immorality, as many leaders in the Church have done over the past half century (Rev. 2.14,20). We must not cling to our sexual immorality and then try to find our identity in Him, as do “those who self-identify as LBGTQIA Christians,” for “in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” (I Jn. 1.5-6) Those who have committed sexual immorality must repent of it for the sake of knowing Christ, for “the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry” (I Pet. 4.3), and Christ came not “to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Lk. 5.32). For if we cling to our sexual immorality, deluding ourselves that it is not a sin, when in fact it is, while at the same time diluting the faith once delivered to the saints, in keeping with that self-delusion, so as to present ourselves as His disciples, why should He not say to us, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Mt. 7.23)? “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? … For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.” (Ezek. 18.23,32) The United Methodist Church can only move forward if the One Plan Bishops and clergy are removed other wise there must be a new Methodist movement. The same people cannot still be driving the bus. If you do not agree, maybe you and your friends should start paying their salary and retirement, td says: Thank you for commenting on rural and small town churches: we surely are methodists who have been forgotten. My contention is that the umc clergy is now generally not concerned about bringing christ to people and people to christ; they generally see their jobs as business managers and not spiritual leaders. Where people are coming to seek a link with god in their lives, they tend to find something like a Lion’s club instead of a church at their local UMC. Candler Professors Spar on Gay Marriage in United Methodism Fun With Math The Institute on Religion & Democracy	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12980
__label__wiki	0.930225	0.930225	Randall v Randall Probate Action. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in allowing the appellant's appeal, held that, in the absence of authority which required it to hold otherwise, he had a sufficient 'interest' in the will of his former wife's deceased mother to bring a probate claim challenging the validity of the will. M v F (Covert Recording of Children) Practice Family proceedings. The Family Court described the serious consequences that had arisen for one family after a parent had covertly recorded a child in the course of a dispute about where the child should live. It held that it was almost always likely to be wrong for a recording device to be placed on a child for the purpose of gathering evidence in family proceedings, whether or not the child was aware of its presence, and that anyone who was considering doing something similar should, first, think carefully about the consequences. *Re N (Children) (Jurisdiction: Care Proceedings) Family proceedings Jurisdiction. The Supreme Court allowed an appeal by the Children's Guardian and the local authority against an order stating that the Hungarian court was better placed to hear a case regarding two children and that transferring the case to Hungary would be in the children's best interests. The children were Hungarian nationals born in the United Kingdom to Hungarian parents. The transfer request would be set aside and the case would be returned to the Family Division. Re C (Children) Practice Family proceedings. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, allowed a mother's appeal against orders made by a judge in connection with a local authority's appeal, including that the mother would give oral evidence at the appeal hearing. It held that the process adopted by the judge on the authority's appeal to him had not been appropriate or fair to the mother, even though he had embarked upon it with the best of intentions. Re the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 (Case G) Family proceedings Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division made rulings concerning twins born to the applicant, X, who was in a same-sex relationship with the first respondent, Y. Owing to IVF treatment, X was the biological mother, and Y the gestational mother, of the twins. Owing to an error on the part of the clinic that had provided the treatment, X was not registered as the parent. The court held that an order would be made that X was the parent of the twins. Re D (A Child) Adoption Order. The Family Court dismissed a mother's application for leave to oppose an adoption order where there was no change in circumstances of a nature and degree sufficient on the facts to open the door to permit her to defend the adoption application. Re Y (Children) (No 3) Family proceedings Orders in family proceedings. The Family Division ruled, on a fact finding hearing, that there was insufficient evidence to prove a local authority's case that it had been the intention of the respective parents of four children, who had been taken from the United Kingdom to Turkey and who were subsequently made wards of court, to take them to a war zone in Syria controlled by ISIS and to remain there on a permanent basis. Re K, L & M (children) (child arrangement orders) Family proceedings Orders in family proceedings. The Family Court held that owing to the father's reported behaviour it was in the three boys' best interests not to have any face to face contact with him until he made changes to his behaviour. Face to face contact included Face Time and Skype. Contact was to be limited to telephone contact for one hour and further an order was made under of the Children Act 1989 regarding further applications by the father. Re FM (a child) Family proceedings Orders in family proceedings. The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, in dismissing an appeal by a mother against a special guardianship order in respect of her son, made in favour of her sister and brother in law, held that, in the circumstances of the case, the judge had been entitled to reach the conclusion that the order had been a necessary and proportionate interference with family rights to ensure that the son's welfare needs were met. Re V (European Maintenance Regulation) Divorce Financial provision. The Family Division declined to stay or dismiss the wife's application for maintenance, including interim relief, pursuant to s27 of the in circumstances where the husband had, a few months previously, lodged a writ for divorce in Scotland. The Scottish court had not been seised of maintenance at the date upon which the wife had issued her application and the present court had priority.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12985
__label__wiki	0.505175	0.505175	Kent State employees sue over illegal union dues Back To Case COLUMBUS, OHIO (APRIL 29, 2019) – Three Kent State University workers have filed a federal lawsuit alleging that union dues were illegally deducted from their paychecks. Annamarie Hannay and Adda Gape are custodians for student residence halls at Kent State University. Since they started working at the university, they were required to pay money to AFSCME, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. However, in August 2018, each of them resigned their union membership and requested that Kent State stop deducting union dues from their paychecks. Despite the decisive victory for workers’ rights in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision, AFSCME refused to honor the resignations of these employees outside of arbitrary opt-out periods. Kent State University continued to deduct dues from the workers’ paychecks without their affirmative consent. Hannay, Gape, and their coworker John Kohl are now suing to exercise their “Janus rights” with the help of attorneys from The Buckeye Institute, which also represents plaintiffs in Maine, Minnesota, and Ohio in cases to end forced union exclusive representation, and the Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit law firm that represented the plaintiff in Janus v. AFSCME. “AFSCME is putting money before workers. The union is violating workers’ constitutional rights by denying their resignations in order to keep collecting dues,” said Patrick Hughes, president and co-founder of the Liberty Justice Center. “Kent State is supporting the interests of a government union above the workers who serve their students every day.” In June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus that government employers may not withhold union dues or fees from employees’ paychecks without their affirmative consent. Prior to the Janus decision, employees were given an unconstitutional choice: pay the union as a member or pay the union as a nonmember. Now that workers’ First Amendment right to choose has been recognized, any permission to deduct dues given before June 27, 2018, should be null and void. “I’m being forced to pay the union for more than a year after I first submitted my resignation and withdrew any permission to deduct dues from my paycheck,” said Annamarie Hannay, who pays almost $600 each year to AFSCME. “I sent in my resignation to the union and Kent State in August 2018. Since then, not only has my resignation been denied, but I’ve also received confusing and contradictory messages from the union about when I could finally stop paying them money from every paycheck.” “Annamarie and Adda are asking the court to rule against this egregious and ongoing violation of their First Amendment rights, which—to date—their union has refused to acknowledge,” said Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute. “The U.S. Supreme Court spoke plainly in its Janus ruling that unions must obtain ‘clear and compelling evidence’ that a worker has consented to be a member of the union. In this case, AFSCME has not done so. In fact, Annamarie and Adda have resigned their memberships and made it plainly known that they do not want to be members of the union.” Hannay, Gape, and Kohl’s case, Hannay v. Board of Trustees of Kent State University, was filed on April 29, 2019, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. A copy of the case is available here: https://libertyjusticecenter.org/cases/hannay-v-kent-state/ Kristen Williamson media@libertyjusticecenter.org or 773-809-4403 A year after the Supreme Court’s Janus decision, government workers face steep obstacles exercising their rights This week marks one year since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that government employees cannot be required to pay fees to government unions at their workplace. The ruling was a major victory for workers’ rights, free speech and freedom of choice. Cleveland Plain Dealer: Kent State custodians sue to stop university from withholding union dues from paychecks CLEVELAND, Ohio — Three Kent State University workers sued the university and a labor union Monday, saying the university continues… Cleveland.com: Kent State custodians sue to stop university from withholding union dues from paychecks April 30, 2019 — Three Kent State University workers sued the university and a labor union Monday, saying the university… "The Liberty Justice Center pursues its goals through strategic, precedent-setting litigation to revitalize constitutional restraints on government power and protections for individual rights." © 2019 Liberty Justice Center All Rights Reserved	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12986
__label__cc	0.661961	0.338039	Cowell, Cage, and Crumb: How the Fleisher Collection Creates Music History By Fleisher Collection Mon, October 30, 2017 As the world's largest circulating collection of orchestral performance sets (a part for each musician and a score for the conductor), the Fleisher Collection has come to occupy a unique position in American music history. From its inception in 1909 as the personal library of America’s first training orchestra to the present day, the Fleisher Collection has become the singular most important resource on the Pan-American symphonic coming of age as the repository of archival correspondence with every major composer, conductor, and publisher active in 20th century music. During the Great Depression, the Fleisher Collection interested the government in the desirability of producing performance sets from manuscript scores by contemporary American composers so the music could be performed. In an initiative to put musicians back to work, under the Works Progress Administration, the Fleisher Collection sponsored the nation’s largest music copying project from 1934 to 1943, and added thousands of works by hundreds of contemporaneous composers to its holdings. Henry Cowell (1897-1965) and John Cage (1912-1992) not only provided their own works to the Collection, but also helped the Collection acquire works by other important contemporaneous composers. Over the years, the Fleisher Collection has become the home for many "lost" works due to the destruction of war, the simoleon-centric mindset of publishers, and the absent-mindedness of composers themselves. Both Cowell and Cage, for example, asked the Collection to send them scores of their own works that they lost! The Fleisher Collection continues to partner with arts organizations and composers around the world as part of its longstanding commitment to promoting new, noteworthy, and overlooked works. The most recent iteration of this is the Free Library’s new partnership with the Barnes Foundation’s musical initiatives. The Collection is honored to have the opportunity to help promote the Philadelphia premiere of, not only a local and living composer's work, but the work of one of the most significant musical innovators of our time. George Crumb’s (b.1929) Metamorphoses (2015-2017), his first major piano cycle since the 1970s, is the culmination of a long career of pushing musical limits and creating masterful compositions. A mark of great composer is accessibility. Crumb's compositions fall between the neoclassical style and the radically controversial avant-garde, allowing his music to attract audiences rather than alienate them. This recent collaboration with world-renowned pianist Margret Leng Tan (b. 1945), whose virtuosic performances have received critical acclaim for their expressive interpretations, is an opportunity not to be missed. Purchase tickets to Cowell, Cage, Crumb: Pioneers of the Avant-Garde Piano » This is the third and final post in a series that explored the three C’s relationships to each other, American music, and the Fleisher Collection. Part I - Cowell, Cage, and Crumb: The Three C’s You Have to Know Part II - Cowell, Cage, and Crumb: The Interconnectedness of American Arts To view correspondence with these composers and the Fleisher Collection, browse our Digital Collections. George Crumb writing out music for "The Fiddler" (Marc Chagall) in 2015. Photo credit: Margret Leng Tan George Crumb with his completed score for “Black Prince” (Paul Klee) (2015) George Crumb with “The Blue Rider” (Vasily Kandinsky) (2015) Fleisher Collection music Add a Comment to Cowell, Cage, and Crumb: How the Fleisher Collection Creates Music History	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12989
__label__wiki	0.572563	0.572563	REPLAY: How the ACS Uses Content Marketing to Attract Scientists February 28, 2017 by Chris Conner Leave a Comment The American Chemical Society uses content marketing to attract scientists to their products – journals, which contain more content. How do they do it? How do they persuade scientists to publish in their journals? Of course scientists care about Impact Factor. But that is a feature. ACS goes beyond that to tell a story about the journal and the editors behind it. The idea is to make scientists want to be part of the same story. Wendy Wise, the Assistant Director for Content Marketing described for me some of the approaches they take. REPLAY: How the ACS Uses Content Marketing to Attract ScientistsChris Conner https://lifesciencemarketingradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/WendyWiseforiTunes.mp3 One is to focus not on the journal itself but the editors behind the journals (active researchers themselves) their work, and their vision. To cut through the clutter, they produced a series called In the Lab, telling the story in a different way. They employed a 360-degree camera to take photos of the editors own research labs. Curiosity about where people work and learning more about them creates an affinity toward them. For the launch of a new open access journal, they did a novel teaser campaign with interactive content. The team took advantage of digital scratch-off (like a lottery ticket) to give clues about the new journal. This tactic gathered 10,000 subscribers to the email list for the new journal. That worked well because scientists want to solve problems. Wendy says the key to all their content marketing is to make it stand out. It needs to be different enough to knock people off guard and make them pay attention. The ACS Axial Blog Wendy Wise is the Assistant Director for Content Marketing at the American Chemical Society and that includes 50 journals of the ACS, notably JACS, ACS Central Science, and C&E News. Chris: Today I’m speaking with Wendy Wise. She’s the Assistant Director for Content Marketing at the American Chemical Society and that includes 50 journals of the ACS, notably JACS, ACS Central Science, and C&E News. Wendy, welcome to Life Science Marketing Radio. Wendy: Hi, thank you. Chris: This is going to be a good one. Today we’re going to talk about marketing to scientists with content. We do that sometimes, but you’re selling something different than the marketers in my audience. But you still need to engage them with something relevant and that’s where I think the person listening here can learn a lot from you and maybe take away some new ideas. So, you’re marketing a large number of journals from the ACS, each one of those is different. Wendy: Yup. Chris: Can you give, for the context of this conversation, give or describe the range of publications you’re talking about? Wendy: Well, so we publish, as you mentioned, around 50 journals and we have everything from the multidisciplinary nature journals, such as JACS, and ACS Central Science, and ACS Omega, which are more general chemistry and interested in papers from all around the different areas of chemistry. And then, we have journals that are very specific to a topical area like Biochemistry or ACS Chem Neuroscience or ACS Nano that focus on a particular area in chemistry and a smaller group, then, a smaller target audience exists for those journals. Chris: And each one has an editor who is a person working in a lab, right, not a publishing house? Wendy: Yeah, exactly. So, this is what makes our journals, as a publisher, pretty unique in that we have these active researchers heading our journals. So, people who are in the lab who are constantly experimenting and pushing the boundaries of science themselves, reading papers and publishing work that’s relevant to their area that they’re active research or experts in. Chris: And how do you work with them to kind of set an editorial agenda? Wendy: So, we have a different group, besides the marketing team, called the Editorial Development Group that works quite closely to develop the scope. But it’s really the editor’s vision for the journal is what we try to promote and work with. Of course, ACS Publications maintains some overview of that as well. But mainly is the editor’s vision that we’re trying to fulfill. Chris: And do they have, this just came to my mind, do they have an unlimited tenure at this job or as long as they want to do it or…? Wendy: No, it’s not unlimited. Most of the time it’s at the editor’s discretion. These people are really, really busy rock stars in the scientific world. So, you know, sometimes they’re happy to be editor for 20 years and sometimes they say after 5 years, “You know what, I’d rather not re-sign this contract because I’ve got other initiatives I’m working on right now and I just want to move on to something different.” Chris: Right, that makes total sense. I was just curious because I thought, yeah, it’s a long time to do something and how do you guys keep it fresh and so on. Wendy: Yeah. Chris: Of course, your goal is to get scientists to publish in those journals. Wendy: Yes. Chris: And what does it take to make them think that you’re the right fit? Like a particular journal, how do you make them think, “My story or my manuscript needs to go in here?” Wendy: Well, so the publishing world in sciences hinges on a lot of metrics. One of those metrics that is used to judge whether or not a journal is significant is called an impact factor and that’s published by Thomson Reuters. So, we do a lot of marketing around what our different impact factors for our journals are, but that’s not the entire story behind any of our products. So, we have actually sort of turned a new leaf in that we’re doing more content marketing to try and interest folks into publishing their articles with us. And one of the initiatives in the content marketing sphere that we’ve been pushing is our new blog called ACS Axial. And that blog was set up so that we could tell the story behind the journals. Because when you have these really prolific scientists reading your brand, there’s just so much information that you can interest people with. What are they doing in their labs? What is their personal history like? And you can…there’s just different stories to tell behind that, as well as for our services. We do a lot of things like open access programs and author services and there are stories to tell behind those as well. So, we’ve been running a blog and daily publishing new stories about our products and services and then emailing out our opt-ins and our interested marketing lists, once a month, with different newsletters tailored to their tastes. Chris: Yeah, so I’m more curious to hear about these personal profiles. Are you publishing kind of a portrait of someone’s career and the path they took, the science they’ve done to get where they are? What does that look like? Wendy: Yeah, so we’ve done stories like that, you know, where you do like a profile story on your main subject, in this case, our active research editors. But we’ve actually been trying to push the boundaries of the stories that we’re telling and the ways that we’re telling them too, because I mean, people have so much to read these days that we’re not necessarily thinking they’re going to stop what they’re doing so that they can just read another article that they’re lambasted with about more subject matter or more scientific stuff. So, we’ve been trying to do sort of new and unique formats when coming up with blog posts. And one of the most recent blog posts we did was using what we call a 360 camera. We brought the 360 camera into one of our active researcher editors’ labs and we used the camera to photograph his entire lab, so that when we got the images back, it was, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen like the HGTV dream house, but it was like one of the rooms in the HDTV dream house where you could move the image around and see the entire lab and see all of his equipment. And, we pointed out different things on the video as to what he was working on. And it became kind of this really interesting interactive story that we could tell with images instead of 500 words or 1000 words that people could look at relatively quickly and that they got excited about. And we’re hoping that that excitement that they felt looking at the 360 video then will translate into excitement about the journal itself. And we called that, it’s a series, it’s called “In the Lab,” with our various editors. Chris: I like that. I mean it’s just a novel kind of content to have those 360° images. I think everybody’s curious about what the labs of people they’ve worked with actually look like or people whose papers they’ve read. They want to know what other people have, what they’re doing, and how they solve those problems. So, I think that’s a great idea. Wendy: Thanks. Chris: Yeah. You mentioned previously also sort of an innovative campaign around launching a new journal. Can you tell us about that? Wendy: Yeah, so last year we ran a campaign to launch a journal that we launched this year in the summer called ACS Omega. It’s one of our newest open-access journals. But we had a little bit of time before we were going to let people know that it existed. So, we decided that we were going to do something a little bit different and we wanted to sort of tease people as to what was coming. So, we had something called a teaser campaign that ran about two weeks before we made the announcement about this new journal that we launched. And, we did that through what we called our clue campaign. I don’t know if you recall, if you go to 7-Eleven and you buy a lottery scratch-off or something, you use a coin to scratch off stuff that’s underneath. One of my bosses had this idea that we should use some sort of scratch-off campaign in a mailing or in a something and instead of using like a paper mailing we decided that we were going to take that concept and use it in this campaign in using that program called Scratch It, which is like a digital scratch-off. So, we sent out some emails, clues basically, as to what this new journal was going to be about. So, we did about four scratch-offs and every time you scratched off one of our scratches, it revealed a letter from the name of the new journal. So, we had people scratch-off ‘O’ for open access and ‘M’ for multidisciplinary and ‘E’ for extradited publishing time and ‘G’ for global, as this was a very global journal that we were launching. And, we had a lot of fun and a lot of success with that campaign. People were excited to find out what it was. They weren’t sure. We teased them about a big announcement coming two weeks from now, to keep following us with the clue campaign and keep scratching off letters as they were released. And we saw about…we used that campaign to get people to sign up for our email list and we saw, at the end, about 10,000 folks had subscribed to our email list for this new journal, which was fantastic. I mean, we were just, we were thrilled with that number. Chris: Yeah, that’s phenomenal. I think it’s a brilliant result and, obviously, an engaging thing that got people interested. Scientists are curious. They also want to be the first to figure something out. So, a teaser thing like that… Wendy: Exactly. Yeah, yeah exactly. They’re very smart and they like to solve problems and so we gave them this sort of, something they could guess at. And we got a lot of guesses in too, that were pretty interesting. Nobody guessed the right name of the journal, which turned out to be ACS Omega, but we had some really interesting, interesting names. Chris: Now, I’m curious about the branding of the journal itself. Omega, was it exactly as you said there, open-access multidisciplinary, or was the name chosen for some other reason and then you figured out those? Wendy: You know, it’s funny. We hired a… There’s actually a group that came in, a consulting firm that attempted to help us name the journal. So, they were a naming consulting group that have named big pharmaceutical products in the past and whatnot, and they were good. They started the brainstorming process for us, but we actually came up with the name on our own through a kind of late-night email brainstorm group email with about five of us just going through different ideas, different names, different iterations. I think, we started with Alpha, Gamma, whatever. We went through the whole Greek alphabet before somebody said, “Hey, what about Omega?” And, we were like, “Oh my gosh, that’s a perfect name for this journal” because of the open access nature of it and it’s also going to be publishing a substantial amount of articles and sometimes we refer to those as mega journals. Chris: Oh, okay. I love that story. I’ve been involved in a couple of naming projects and I don’t know what other people’s experiences have been, they’re harder than you can imagine. And I have seen, honestly the most, I don’t want to say intense “battles” in a conference room that I have ever seen over the naming of a product. Wendy: Wow. Chris: The most intense marketing discussions ever because people get very emotional around those things. It was amazing because there were some constraints on us about what we could and couldn’t use and there was a historical name, but we had to rebrand something. And yeah, people had some very strong feelings about it. And then, the other ones where it’s just like you come up with a gazillion names and there’s already a big product line and how do you make it new and interesting and not contrived or whatever. It’s a hard thing. Wendy: It’s a very hard thing. We actually had a name that we were using internally. We called it code name something else. I’m not going to say what the other name was, but that we were using internally and we didn’t have everybody on board with that name. And so, I think it became important to find one that was universally liked internally and that one, I mean, pretty much won out immediately. Chris: Well, that’s a great story. Well, I love all this stuff that you’re doing and what I think people are going to take away from this is really just thinking about new ways and new types of content. Again, with the 3-D camera, it’s not about science itself or any particular part of chemistry, it’s about the people who are doing it. And they’re interested in that and they have curiosity about that. And then, with your scratcher campaign, it is content marketing. You’re getting people involved in a contest. It’s interactive content, which actually is probably more rare than any other type of content. So, that’s another brilliant example and, hopefully, people listening to this get some new ideas for things they can do for selling instruments or reagents or whatever else they’re doing. Wendy: Yeah, you definitely have to sort of knock people off guard a little bit because, as I said, they’re getting so many emails every single day. Unless your product or your push or your content is a little bit different than everybody else’s, it’s going to be hard to stand out. That’s always what I feel like, and so, my team and myself and my colleagues we push really hard to try to be innovative in our marketing. Chris: I won’t even restate that, I mean, that’s it. You just said it. That’s the lesson that hopefully more people will listen to. Well, Wendy thank you so much for being on the podcast. Is there someplace we should point people to see some of these examples or can you send me some links and I’ll put them in the show notes with the podcast? Wendy: Yeah, absolutely. I would encourage everyone to check out our blog, ACS Axial, and that’s Axial, axial.acs.org. Chris: Okay. I’ll definitely put that in the show notes. There’ll be a link there and thanks again. Wendy: No problem.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12990
__label__wiki	0.547867	0.547867	Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Seventh Circuit › 2008 › SEC v. Lyttle, Melvin R. Receive free daily summaries of new opinions from the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. SEC v. Lyttle, Melvin R., No. 07-2466 (7th Cir. 2008) In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________ Nos. 07-2466, 07-2467 UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MELVIN R. LYTTLE and PAUL E. KNIGHT, ____________ Defendants-Appellants. Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division. No. 1:03-CV-1513 Sarah Evans Barker, Judge. ____________ ARGUED MAY 16, 2008 DECIDED AUGUST 7, 2008 ____________ Before BAUER, POSNER, and WOOD, Circuit Judges. POSNER, Circuit Judge. Melvin R. Lyttle and Paul E. Knight were charged (along with others, not before us) in a civil case brought by the SEC with perpetrating a prime bank fraud. This is a common fraud in which the perpetrators solicit investments by telling prospective investors that the investors money will be invested in high-yield bank-issued securities not available or even known to the general public. (For further description, see SEC, Investor Alert: How Prime Bank Frauds 2 Nos. 07-2466, 07-2467 Work, Sept. 15, 2000, www.sec.gov/divisions/enforce/ primebank/howtheywork.shtml (visited July 21, 2008); SEC, Investor Alert: Warning to All Investors About Bogus Prime Bank and Other Banking-Related Investment Schemes, www.sec.gov/divisions/enforce/primebank. shtml (visited July 21, 2008).) The district judge granted summary judgment for the SEC on a variety of counts, awarded injunctive relief, and assessed monetary penalties. Lyttle and Knight appeal only from the imposition of the penalties, $110,000 on each of them. That amount was proper only if the SEC proved that these defendants engaged in fraud, 15 U.S.C. §§ 77t(d)(2)(C)(i), 78u(d)(3)(B)(iii)(aa); 17 C.F.R. § 201.1001 and pt. 201, subpt. E, tab. I; see SEC v. Kern, 425 F.3d 143, 153 (2d Cir. 2005); Rockies Fund, Inc. v. SEC, 428 F.3d 1088, 1099 (D.C. Cir. 2005) that is, if it proved scienter, Aaron v. SEC, 446 U.S. 680, 697 (1980); Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U.S. 185, 201 (1976), meaning that the defendants either knew that the representations they made to investors were false or were reckless in disregarding a substantial risk that they were false. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd. v. Tellabs Inc., 513 F.3d 702, 704 (7th Cir. 2008); see also Sundstrand Corp. v. Sun Chemical Corp., 553 F.2d 1033, 1044 (7th Cir. 1977) ( a reckless omission of material facts upon which the plaintiff put justifiable reliance in connection with a sale or purchase of securities is actionable under Section 10(b) as fleshed out by Rule 10b-5 ); SEC v. Infinity Group Co., 212 F.3d 180, 192 (3d Cir. 2000); Meadows v. SEC, 119 F.3d 1219, 1226-27 (5th Cir. 1997). Although the Supreme Court has previously reserved the question whether reckless behavior is sufficient for civil liability under § 10(b) and Rule 10b-5, it has noted that every Court of Appeals that has considered the issue has held that a Nos. 07-2466, 07-2467 3 plaintiff may meet the scienter requirement by showing that the defendant acted intentionally or recklessly, though the Circuits differ on the degree of recklessness required. Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 127 S. Ct. 2499, 2507 n. 3 (2007). The defendants argue that because scienter is a state of mind, summary judgment can almost never be granted in favor of a plaintiff who has the burden of proving scienter, as the SEC did. For it is always possible, they say, that a reasonable jury would credit a defendant s testimony that he believed the representations were true. The premise of the argument that scienter is a state of mind requires qualification. In our recent Makor decision (cited earlier), elaborating on the proposition stated in earlier cases that proof of recklessness can establish scienter, we noted that a popular definition of recklessness in this context [proof of scienter in a securities fraud case] is an extreme departure from the standards of ordinary care . . . to the extent that the danger was either known to the defendant or so obvious that the defendant must have been aware of it. This looks like two criteria knowledge of the risk and how big the risk is but as a practical matter it is only one because knowledge is inferable from gravity ( the danger was either known to the defendant or so obvious that the defendant must have been aware of it ). When the facts known to a person place him on notice of a risk, he cannot ignore the facts and plead ignorance of the risk. 513 F.3d at 704 (citations omitted). Even when a party s subjective beliefs are critical to liability, it is not always true that the case cannot be decided on summary judgment as the present case illustrates. The defendants are under indictment for fraud 4 Nos. 07-2466, 07-2467 and refused to testify in this case. Their refusal is privileged by the self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment. But the consequence of their refusal is that they cannot testify to their state of mind. Without such testimony to contradict the mountain of circumstantial evidence (circumstantial with regard to the defendants inmost beliefs, at any rate) that the SEC presented, evidence reinforced by the inference (permissible in a civil case) of guilt from their refusal to testify, as in SEC v. Colello, 139 F.3d 674, 677-78 (9th Cir. 1998), no reasonable jury could doubt that they had acted with scienter, see LaSalle Bank Lake View v. Seguban, 54 F.3d 387, 391-92 (7th Cir. 1995); Doe ex rel. Rudy-Glanzer v. Glanzer, 232 F.3d 1258, 1264 (9th Cir. 2000), whatever the precise definition of the word. To begin with, they extracted the remarkable total of $32 million from 31 investors (the minimum investment was $1 million) with typical prime bank representations. Not only did they pocket several million dollars of the invested money for their personal use (personal use that included the purchase by one of the defendants of a gazebo and a custom-built piano) rather than investing the money in the no-risk trading program that they had promised the investors they would invest it in; but what they did invest they invested in a company that engaged in high-risk, not no-risk, trading. They falsely stated to the investors that the investments were insured up to 196 percent of the original investment. They were not insured. One of the defendants promised investors a return of 100 percent per week, told them their investments were being monitored by the Federal Reserve Board, and warned them that unauthorized communications about the investments would lead to their being blackballed by the Federal Reserve. When investors inquired how their Nos. 07-2466, 07-2467 5 investments were doing, the defendants falsely stated that the money had been temporarily placed in U.S. Treasury notes. In the absence of contrary evidence, and there was none as we are about to see, the brief summary that we have given would have left a reasonable jury with no alternative to inferring scienter. SEC v. Jakubowski, 150 F.3d 675, 681-82 (7th Cir. 1998); SEC v. George, 426 F.3d 786, 795 (6th Cir. 2005); see In re Chavin, 150 F.3d 726, 728-29 (7th Cir. 1998); United States v. Premises Known as 717 S. Woodward St., 2 F.3d 529, 534 (3d Cir. 1993); United States v. One Parcel of Property Located at 15 Black Ledge Drive, 897 F.2d 97, 102 (2d Cir. 1990). For it is inconceivable that the defendants could have believed the cascade of fantastic lies that they told the investors. They present three defenses, which we ll call the I am just a copying machine defense, the honor among thieves defense, and the better liar defense. To establish the first defense they argue that they merely repeated misrepresentations that defendant Gail Eldridge (not an appellant), who seems to have been the moving spirit in the prime-bank scheme, made to them. That is not true, but if it were it would not avail them. One doesn t have to be the inventor of a lie to be responsible for knowingly repeating it to a dupe. The defendants could not have thought that the fact that Eldridge told them something implausible (to put it mildly) made it true. Their second defense is that Eldridge defrauded them, as shown by the fact that she pocketed the lion s share of the $32 million stolen from the investors. The defendants, however, pocketed almost $9 million, and even if Eldridge took more than her fair share of the loot, that would not exonerate them. One is reminded of the high- 6 Nos. 07-2466, 07-2467 wayman s case. Everet v. Williams (Ex. 1725), belatedly reported in Note, The Highwayman s Case, 9 L.Q. Rev. 197 (1893); see W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 50, p. 336 n. 4 (5th ed. 1984); Byron v. Clay, 867 F.2d 1049, 1051-52 (7th Cir. 1989); United States v. Kravitz, 281 F.2d 581, 583-84 n. 3 (3d Cir. 1960). One highwayman sued another, claiming that he was entitled to a larger share of the loot from a series of joint robberies. The suit was dismissed, both were hanged, and the plaintiff s lawyers were fined for having brought a suit both scandalous and impertinent. The third defense is that the defendants believed the false representations that they made because the investors believed them. In other words, if a lie is skillful enough to deceive the person lied to, it must have deceived the liar as well. Enough said. AFFIRMED. 8-7-08 of Seventh Circuit opinions.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12992
__label__wiki	0.689409	0.689409	Federal Officials Try Again To Bolster Plans For People With Medical Conditions By Michelle Andrews July 5, 2011 Uninsured sick people got some good news recently — or some of them did, anyway. Starting July 1, the Obama administration reduced the premiums by up to 40 percent in special high-risk insurance plans that the federal government is running in 17 states and the District of Columbia. These “pre-existing condition insurance plans” were created under the 2010 health care overhaul to provide guaranteed coverage to people who have medical conditions that often make them uninsurable in the individual insurance market. On the low end, Mississippi will reduce premiums by 2 percent. Several states will cut monthly rates in the 15 to 25 percent range, including the District of Columbia, which will reduce premiums by 18 percent. Six states, including Virginia, will reduce their premiums by 40 percent. The change means that a 55-year-old District resident who would have owed $551 per month under the old pre-existing condition insurance plans rates for the standard plan will now owe $450. In Virginia, the same person’s premium would now be $297 monthly, compared with $498 before. More From This Series Insuring Your Health The new premium rates take into account more state-specific data and thus more closely track the standard rates for individual policies in each state, as the law requires. “Now the program has been up and running for six to nine months, and we’ve had an opportunity to refine the methodology,” says Steven Larsen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the Department of Health and Human Services. The administration reviewed rates in the 23 states and the District where it administers the pre-existing condition plans. Federally run plans in the other six states had rates that were already in line with individual premiums, and those rates didn’t change. Consumers in the 27 states that opted to use the money provided in the health law to run their own PCIPs may not see similar reductions in rates. (Maryland is one of the states that runs its own plans.) HHS has informed those states that they may modify their rates, but they’re not required to do so. (Even before the federal overhaul was enacted, 35 states offered high-risk pools for people with preexisting conditions. But those programs can be more expensive than the newer plans operating under the health law.) Consumer advocates and federal officials hope that the lower premiums will encourage more people to sign up for the plans, which are intended as a bridge to 2014 when most of the provisions of the federal health law take effect and insurers will no longer be able to turn down applicants because of medical conditions. Although early estimates suggested that as many as 375,000 people might sign up for the pre-existing condition plans, as of April 30, 21,454 had enrolled. Along with a legal requirement that people be uninsured for six months before signing up for the new plans, high premiums are probably the biggest stumbling block to enrollment, experts say. “They can’t really do anything about the six months, because that’s in the law,” says Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, who heads the health insurance and managed care committee for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. “But they can bring down the cost, which will help.” Reducing the cost has made all the difference to Kathleen Watson of Lake City, Fla. Watson, 49, had been uninsured since 2004 when her COBRA coverage under her husband’s previous policy expired. Because she had leukocytosis, a constant elevated white blood cell count, finding affordable coverage was impossible. Compounding her medical problems, in 2009 Watson was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and subsequently developed an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection that occurred when she was hospitalized with pneumonia. Last year, when the health law created the new plans for people with pre-existing medical conditions, Watson looked into coverage. But the $605 monthly premium was more than she could afford on what she earns running a medical transport business. Then she learned that rates in the three plans were coming down by 40 percent in Florida. She checked out the plans again, and this time signed up for a much more affordable $363 a month. Her coverage started July 1. “I’m just happy to have insurance now,” says Watson, who says she immediately needs a CT scan and a lung biopsy to check out enlarged lymph nodes in her right lung, bladder and colon. “Hopefully it does what it says.” At the same time that HHS is reducing premiums in many PCIPs, it’s also making it easier for applicants to the federal plans to prove that they have a pre-existing medical condition. In the past, applicants had to present a letter from an insurer denying coverage before they could enroll. This was not only time-consuming but could also be a financial strain for people, say consumer advocates. It’s not uncommon for insurers to require applicants to submit the first month’s premium at the time that they apply for coverage, says Stephen Finan, senior director of policy at the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network. The money is returned once the applicant is rejected, but it’s difficult for many people to have what may be several hundred dollars tied up while their application moves through the process. Under the revised rules, instead of showing that they were rejected by an insurer, applicants to the pre-existing condition insurance plans can now simply submit a letter dated within the past 12 months from a doctor, physician assistant or nurse practitioner stating that they have or have had a medical condition, illness or disability. “Doctors are getting word of this and they’re offering to help people write the letters,” says Finan. There’s no word yet on whether other states may follow the federal government’s lead and reduce premiums or relax their application rules (many already accept physician letters as proof of illness). But even though the current changes only apply to 17 states and the District of Columbia, “this is a very positive step forward,” says Finan. “I’m not sure we’ll see a huge difference, but we expect to see a difference.” Cost and Quality Insurance Insuring Your Health The Health Law Uninsured Consumer advocates and federal officials hope that the lower premiums will encourage more people to sign up for the plans, which are intended as a bridge to 2014 when most of the provisions of the federal health law take effect and insurers will no longer be able to turn down applicants because of medical conditions. Although early estimates suggested that as many as375,000 people might sign up for the pre-existing condition plans, as of April 30, 21,454 had enrolled.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line12999
__label__wiki	0.897259	0.897259	Beautiful Tour Star Abby Mueller on Her Sister Jessie’s Advice September 1st, 2015 \| By Ryan Gilbert It's going to be one fine day when the national tour of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical premieres in Providence on September 15 and begins to make its way across the country. Abby Mueller stars as the titular singer/songwriter, which is some kind of wonderful treat since her sister, Jessie, won the 2014 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for originating the role in the Broadway production. Abby told Broadway.com that her sister's been "very supportive of the whole thing," and even offered some sage advice. "She told me the great thing is that it's not about you. It's about Carole, which I think is key for anyone who's playing this part. She encouraged me to bring the truth to it and that's what's going to make it relatable to people." Of course, Jessie is currently starring in the Broadway-bound musical Waitress at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Abby is excited to see the new tuner. "We started rehearsals right when they started previews, so I haven't seen it yet, but I'm trying to see if there's a way we can finagle it next week," she said. "We're going to be in tech near there, so I don't know if it'll work out. Otherwise, I'll have to wait another year for Broadway." Abby performed with Carole King and Broadway's Beautiful star Chilina Kennedy on The Today Show last week and happily freaked out. "It was an out-of-body experience. It was so cool and she's so lovely and kind," she said. "It was an honor. My head was exploding. I was pinching myself the whole time. She's a legend."	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line13001
__label__wiki	0.559792	0.559792	© getty Beat of Brazil / The secret of the 13 churches TEXT SOLVEIG FLÖRKE Once the richest city in the New World, Ouro Preto still shines with the glory of the past and its magnificent colonial buildings are a World Heritage Site. But why do the city’s 70,000 inhabitants need more than a dozen churches? Wrought-iron lanterns, wooden doors with intricately shaped hinges and handles, white houses with brightly-colored window frames. With their neat little shutters and sashes they look like the windows in a fancy doll’s house. At Tiradentes Square the glory of former days is almost tangible. In fact, the entire city of Ouro Preto in the Brazilian state Minas Gerais is redolent of a richer, more splendid past. Magnificent churches, baroque statues, cobbled streets. It is astonishing to find such a perfectly preserved 18th century town in Brazil, and it makes the sight of this picturesque place with its glorious past all the more enthralling. Everywhere you go you find yourself surrounded by astonishing beauty: the city theater – the oldest in Brazil, wonderful mansions and magnificent colonial palaces with ornate balconies and pretty porches, baroque fountains like the Chafariz dos Contos (Fountain of Tales) and inviting little shops. The city is characterized by its colonial architecture, and the well-preserved old center was named a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site in 1980. The richest city in the New World In its heyday, roughly 300 years ago, Ouro Preto was richer than any other city in the New World. The reason for this wealth also gave it its name: “ouro preto” translates as black gold. Black because of the faint discoloration of the ore caused by iron oxide. The discovery of gold here around 1730 triggered a veritable gold rush. Within a very short space of time the population swelled to 100,000 people, more than anywhere else in Brazil. The city attracted adventurous Europeans – mostly from Portugal – who were determined to claim their share of the fabulous wealth that beckoned, and slaves who had been shipped from by the colonial rulers from Africa to Brazil. Three hundred years ago, they would be lined up on the city’s colossal stone bridge and sold to owners who would force them to mine Minas Gerais’ valuable mineral resources. The name of the state also indicates what it is famous for: “Minas Gerais“ means “General Mines”. As well as gold, the region also has plentiful supplies of diamonds and topazes. The heart of the city: see a 360° view of Praça Tiradentes. Use the arrow keys or mouse to navigate; for full-screen mode click the right mouse key and select “full screen”. If you’re using a mobile device, navigate with your fingers © 360cities.com Valmir has been a tourist guide in Ouro Preto for over 35 years. He recommends taking three days to explore his native city – and wearing sturdy shoes. Ouro Preto sits at an altitude of around 1200 meters and its terrain is characterized by vertiginous ascents and descents, making scrambling up and down the narrow lanes and streets – sometimes in the rain, sometimes in the sweltering heat – a fixed part of any tourist program. “If you think of Brazil, you usually have visions of the sea, the beach, the Copacabana and the big cities,” says Valmir. “Here you encounter a completely different Brazil.”And one thing that makes Ouro Preto stand out is the city’s astonishing number of churches. Although Brazil is the biggest Catholic nation in the world, how does that explain 13 churches in a town with a population of 70,000? Valmir has the answer: “Under Portuguese rule the inhabitants were forced to hand over all their wealth to their colonial masters. There was one single exception: gold that was needed to build churches was allowed to remain in the country. So the Brazilians built church after church, all lavishly decorated with gold.” The city became a paradise for artists and architects who were able to follow a unique creative vision here, designing churches and buildings in a style that became known as Barocco mineiro, a blend of European architecture and the skilled craftsmanship of artisans from Africa. For the slaves, each new project meant even more back-breaking work. In the Nossa Senhora do Pilar church alone the lavish decorations from floor to ceiling were covered with more than 400 kilos of gold leaf – each kilo of which had to be mined by the slaves in the surrounding mines. The picturesque little colonial town Ouro Preto is transformed into a colorful carnival at Easter. As well as numerous free concerts and religious rituals, in the early hours of Easter Sunday something truly wonderful takes place: the route of the Easter procession is decorated with a gigantic carpet of colored sawdust (tapetos coloridos) in fantastic pictures and patterns; everyone is welcome to join in and be creative. Here you encounter a completely different Brazil Valmir, tourist guide Despite its venerable architecture, Ouro Preto is a very lively place thanks to its distinguished, state-run university which attracts thousands of students into the city. They sit on the steps in front of the city hall in the sun, their heads in their books. The evening parties in the “halls of residence” are legendary, and even as a tourist you may find yourself being spontaneously invited. It is also worth visiting the Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto for its mineral museum which has a large collection of gemstones. The souvenir sellers on the large marketplace are exceptionally friendly and pleasantly unpushy. You can browse around the pottery items, wood carvings, pictures, sunglasses and necklaces without being hassled to buy. The prices are also comparatively fair and not overpriced for the tourists. Valmir invites us to take a photo in front of the most famous church in Ouro Preto. The Igreja da Ordem Terceira de São Francisco de Assis da Penitencia attracts visitors from all over Latin America who come to admire its baroque architecture and decor. The church took 40 years to complete and was designed by one of Brazil’s most outstanding artists: Antonio Francisco Lisboa, better known as Aleijadinho. Born as the son of a black slave and a white carpenter and architect, his father also treated him as a slave, forcing him to labor on his building sites. When Aleijadinho was 20 years old, his father sold him to a sculptor. Here, his phenomenal skill and artistry attracted attention and he started earning money, enough to buy his mother’s freedom. São Francisco de Assis Church is considered Lisboa‘s masterpiece and it has ensured that the man and his extraordinary story remains unforgotten. Of course, we can’t go without visiting Valmir’s favorite church: the Igreja da Santa Ifigênia, which offers the best view over Ouro Preto. A city that has shaped Brazil’s national identity. A city whose golden glory is completely black. Culture Clash: Culture podcasts Travel broadens the mind. Particularly if we pass the time at airports, on airplanes and in taxis with fascinating culture podcasts. Drone’s eye view The middle distance perspective is what makes these pictures so special. They show majestic expanses and magical details in the same shot. In this trip around the world seen from the sky, photographers introduce their favorite drone photos Ritual fun Is there a more pleasurable way to purge your sins? Ducks ahoy! Duckburg The Gurgleurp's on ice, all ready to toast Donald Duck on his 85th birthday! Our congratulations come in form of a portrait of Duckburg, his hometown - with plenty of ideas for a unique city break.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line13003
__label__wiki	0.68738	0.68738	Features & Images » Feature Story A new template for ski resorts is created at Utah's Powder Mountain — with untracked runs, limited ticket sales and an exclusive community of idealists by Steve Andrews Photo by Ian Matteson courtesy of Powder Mountain Summit is a collection of like-minded entrepreneurs who gather to effect 'global change.' The latest effort is with Utah's Powder Mountain, designed as a purpose-built community. This photo is not of author Steve Andrews. Photo by Ian Matteson courtesy of Powder Mountain House sizes at Powder Mountain are limited to no more than 4,500 square feet to avoid the McMansion's. Photo by Ian Matteson courtesy of Powder Mountain The invite email for the Summit Series said to check in by 4 p.m. but it's 3:45 p.m. and I'm still roughly half an hour away according to my phone's map. It's hard to keep my eyes on the road because I'm passing incredible possibilities for untouched powder lines as I weave through Utah's Ogden Canyon. I had to make an emergency pitstop at Wal-Mart after the timely realization that I never took my underlayers out of the dryer. At least the lightbulb went off before I got to the hill. Surely there has to be some buffer time to allow for late arrivals like myself, considering the majority of the guests for this weekend are flying into Salt Lake City on a Friday. As I race through Eden — population 600 with only one gas station and no stoplights — I fail to consider that a lack of cell-phone reception prevents me from checking the directions in my email. I remember reading the check-in location is called Bower Lodge, so I speed uphill on Powder Mountain. I ask a few people where to find Bower, only to meet puzzled faces with no idea what I'm talking about. I zigzag my way between lodges with no luck until I finally reach the top where a ski-patrol shack sits at the end of the road. Surely they will know where it is. They are friendly and welcoming, but after telling them my intention to write a story on the changes taking place here, the room goes quiet and they look around at one another. Another patroller remarks: "No comment" while everyone else laughs. Another one pipes up: "Come back with a bottle of tequila and we'll tell you some stories." The guy to my left realizes that the lodge in question is the old clubhouse at the golf course back down in the valley. I thank them and speed back down to check in with no time to spare. While weaving back down toward Eden, my first note-to-self is: Fun-looking mountain but at US$40 million they could probably afford a couple of signs. The Summit Series started as an offer for a free ski weekend from a college dropout wanting to fast-track how to become a successful entrepreneur. Elliot Bisnow and his "dream list" of 19 people has now blossomed into a community of more than 10,000 individuals who converge under the Summit banner several times a year. According to their website: "Summit creates unique gatherings designed to catalyze entrepreneurship, creative achievement, and global change to create a more joyful world." To put it another way, they produce events that bring together people who want to meet other big-idea people. Four years ago, the same people crowd-sourced the funds to purchase Powder Mountain and the land that it's built upon. After 10 years as a brand, Summit now has a home as stewards of an old ski resort that bears the oxymoron of being famous for the fact that nobody knows about it. The group intends to develop a town roughly the size of Telluride — at about 180 hectares with a population of about 2,300 — to serve as a hub for innovators, artists, and anyone else who dreams of a better society. But who doesn't, really? Especially when it comes to the jargon we see in developer's marketing collateral. What makes these guys different? Is it possible to balance their lofty ideals with the end goal that all investors will turn a profit? Is the Summit weekend just an elaborately produced effort to attract buyers to a new purpose-built community in which a few investors stand to make a huge pile of money? That's certainly one way to look at it, and even if that were the only motive, it could be a brilliant marketing campaign in mountain-resort real estate. The founders share high ideals and a grand vision that includes creating co-op work spaces, open venues to encourage interaction, and Burning-Man inspired art installations throughout their new town. But Summit's founders aren't from the mountains, they bought into it. Will the fast-paced city mentality influence the mountain community they hope to create? Or can it be the other way around where the landscape and open spaces help these high-profile influencers not take themselves and life too seriously? Powder Mountain has operated as a ski resort for more than 45 years. Rising high above Eden, the area is relatively unknown in comparison to nearby Park City and the resorts within the Cottonwood Canyons. Eden itself is nothing more than a prime example of resort gentrification: large parcels of land subdivided over the past few decades to make room for townhouses that pack in weekenders from Salt Lake City and points beyond. The mountain's 4,000 hectares receive over 12 metres of Utah's famously dry snow yearly; enough to cause most snow-lovers to take notice. But until the latest change of ownership occurred just over three years ago, the local skiers and boarders rejoiced in their well-kept secret of the lack of crowds.It was their biggest asset. Now that Summit is at the helm, there is potential for Powder Mountain to show up on a radar of skiers and non-skiers: their market is the rich, elite city dwellers from New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and elsewhere who are keen to escape their urban habitat and connect with other like-minded individuals here. Summit began 10 years ago on the Utah ski slopes. The then-22-year old Bisnow wanted to connect with bright minds. In 2005 Bisnow and his father founded Bisnow Media, which last year they sold for a reported $50 million. But early on, as a fresh college dropout, Bisnow admittedly was in over his head. "In my quest to just meet other entrepreneurs and get advice I cold-called 20 people that I'd read about," Bisnow said. "I invited Blake (Mycoskie) from TOMS shoes, and Ricky (Van Veen) and Josh (Abramson) who started (the popular video website) Collegehumor. We went skiing in Alta, which is just over an hour from Powder Mountain. I actually paid for the trip on my credit card and got sponsors to cover the costs. And that was the first Summit." That first meeting was so successful that the group decided to meet again six months later — that time inviting a few more friends and business associates. Steadily the word got out of a gathering of like minds across a wide spectrum of industry with the shared assumption that humanity as a whole is greater than the sum of its individuals. The events became more polished and headline speakers included Quentin Tarantino, Erin Brockovich, and Kendrick Lamar. Additionally you can meander between a full slate of activities including yoga, meditation sessions, even arts and crafts: I made a leather bracelet on Sunday afternoon that I'm pretty proud of. Deals were made and companies were born. Over a short time, the Summit events blossomed and became a destination for self-professed visionaries who were keen to interact and rub shoulders with each other. PURCHASING A MOUNTAIN Greg Mauro, Venture capitalist by day and skier by heart, had been looking for a mountain home for some time. His parents owned a house in Aspen, where his love of the mountains was fostered. But by the turn of the millennium, Aspen had morphed into an overwhelming monstrosity of a resort destination that had lost its small-town charm. He tried living in different areas, including Whistler in 2001. Eventually he discovered the relative solitude of Powder Mountain and fell in love. He invited friends to visit, but on the condition that any photos they took or tales of endless powder runs should be misrepresented as Park City in fear this secret would get out. In 2011, the owners put Powder Mountain up for sale. Originally the plan was to develop three golf courses and a town of 10,000, a vision that sounded all too familiar to this Whistlerite. But those owners couldn't cut it. It was the aftermath of the 2008 recession and their vision was dead in the water. Mauro saw the opportunity to make a deal and approached Summit with an out-of-the blue offer. "We flew out the next day," Bisnow said of the response to Mauro's offer. "He (Mauro) said there's this unbelievable 10,000-acre ski area called Powder Mountain. I think we can get in there and buy it for an unbelievable price and could do something really special." As the Summit members and Mauro looked over the expansive Wasatch mountain range and Salt Lake Basin on a site that would eventually become the Sky Lodge, an unexpected alliance formed virtually overnight. Mauro would ensure that the day-to-day operation of the resort was profitable and the Summit team would focus on building a community by attracting buyers through their trademark events. In 2013 Powder Mountain changed ownership for $40 million with a consortium of young Millennials at the helm — the first time a group from the new generation was in charge of this type of resort development. To finance the deal, they crowd-funded the purchase and had no trouble raising the money. The new owners produce events, but they didn't know squat about mountain-community development. "We studied about 30 different mountain communities from all over the world," Bisnow said. "We looked at Aspen, Park City, Telluride. We also looked to communities in Europe and even places like SoHo and Windward Walls in Miami." Bisnow's main concern is the ski-resort explosion of "McMansions" and the "era of huge houses." In an effort to prevent that from happening at Powder Mountain, they are limiting house sizes to 4,500 square feet, with the majority of the homes taking up around 2,500. The ideal is to blend the homes with the natural environment. And lots are selling like hotcakes, ranging from $225,000 to more than $2 million. WHO BUYS INTO THIS? On this weekend in late January, the candle-lit steps direct us upstairs toward the commotion taking place inside the Timberline Lodge. At 40 years old, it's the closest thing to a historical building on the mountain. I introduce myself to anyone and everyone and in less than half an hour I meet venture capitalists, app-developers, real-estate tycoons, a New York Times columnist, and a famous movie director as we gather at a long-table dinner that encourages a family-style meal among strangers. Summit co-founder Jeff Rosenthal tells us that the mission "is to inspire entrepreneurs and innovators from different backgrounds." The criteria has always been the same, he says: "Are you innovators of your discipline, regardless of your level or age? And are you nice people who we want to be around, regardless of personal or professional success?" It sounded fairly clichéd to me. Of course, you want to be around the people you are around, nothing profound there. But at the same time it hints at exclusivity: who judges whether or not a candidate is someone they want to be around? And what if that perception changes? Human nature being what it is, what he said sounded nice, but I know that you can't build a community under those pretenses, no matter how hard you try. He also set a few ground rules: No social media content inside the lodges; and no drinking and driving. Through a Cadillac sponsorship the event featured brand-new black Escalades as shuttles to the venues between mountain and valley. Riding in the $100,000 SUV helped me feel special, but it isn't enough for me to want to drink the Kool-Aid. This event took place a week after Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the U.S., a fact that is unavoidable in conversation. To my relief, many here are as dumbfounded as I am at what had happened. Through dozens of discussions I realize this crowd is well-off, but they're not ostentatious. As everyone finds seats at the table, I sit down next to Colin Eckles: He's in his early 30s and made his fortune selling real estate in China. He now splits his time between Los Angeles and Hawaii, and is developing his own community on 200 hectares on Hawaii's big island — a community that will feature biodynamic agriculture and follow permaculture principles. He wants to construct seven buildings to serve as spiritual centres, coinciding with the seven chakras. "I did the tour," he says, referring to the Summit realty team's guided mountain tour. "And I'm in. I bought a lot." Eckles was not the only person I spoke to over the weekend who purchased a lot after seeing the land and Summit's plans to orchestrate a new community. Sitting down for a rest at the Sky Lodge on Saturday afternoon, I met a board member of a high-profile sports brand who made the deposit last year and finally pulled the trigger this weekend to secure his lot. "Now I just have to tell my wife," he says with a nervous grin. At prices up to $2 million or more per home site, it is similar to the Sea to Sky market; although this purpose-built community has a collective intention for 'good business.' The people I meet seem to have an earnest desire to grow a community that differs from other mountain towns. Bisnow himself is building a family home where he plans to raise his kids in this exclusive little hub. This is not a pump-and-dump scheme, and the endgame will be — for now — a mountain community in which everyone is from a similar socio-economic background and shares the same modus operandi of getting rich off of really big, successful ideas. Comparisons could be made: Is it a rich-kids' club? Cult-like? Maybe a bit of both. The people running the show regard art, intelligence, and community as their biggest assets, at least on paper. Their plans promise a respect for Mother Nature and the hope to symbiotically coexist and not to conquer. But come on, don't we all buy into this? And haven't we been duped before? What was obviously missing from the weekend was the dirtbags. This was an affluent, educated bunch of people, but they weren't from the mountains. The group was still coated with their veneer from New York or San Francisco, showing that it's easier said than done to take the city out of the city folk. Mountain culture is much different from SoHo or the Mission district and a big indicator of success will be whether this community can adapt to mountain life by not taking itself too seriously. Will they buy a new jacket when it rips after shredding through the trees, or easily fix it with a strip of duct tape? The urban intellectuals have descended upon the mountains, but will these guys rent out one of their rooms to the dishpig in the back of the kitchen working tirelessly at one of their marquee dinners? Where the Summit team will really have to prove itself is in how well they coexist with the third and fourth generation of Weber County locals who call Powder their home mountain; who love it for its lack of outside attention. After Summit bought Powder Mountain, Facebook comments were quick and dirty: "Just a bunch of trust-a-farian douchebags that are going to ruin the valley. If you like waste, conspicuous consumption, and rich, overprivileged assholes that drive Escalades in $500 worth of couture "winter apparel" that has never seen actual use, by all means keep making these human-shaped bags of spiders more rich by buying lift tickets to their private mountain. To the very last person, they are a complete waste of blood and organs..." After I followed up with the guy who posted that, he had this to say: "I was unfortunate enough to work for Powder Mountain during the buyout, and subsequently walked off the job with most of the food and beverage staff because they fired the long-time F&B (food and beverage) director with no notice, to bring on a Summit kid." That Feeling The frigid morning air stings my face as I step outside the condo, a gorgeous unit that Summit must have rented from a local family. I can only assume the family owns it from the abundance of creepy portraits where everyone wears the same outfit. The clear blue sky is accentuated with a purple alpenglow sunrise on the eastern hillsides, beckoning all the early-birds who had the discipline to get home at a reasonable hour last night. I run into my new buddy Eckles and we head up the lift. It hasn't snowed for more than five days so I'm not hopeful of finding fresh powder. Yet Powder Mountain's slogan is: Preserving the Powder. There are still countless untracked lines right next to the lift that opened only today. The policies here differ from other resorts: They don't open every lift immediately, which ensures they can still open new terrain in between storms; and they cap day-ticket sales at 2,000 a day. Yes — so across this 4,000-hectare terrain, it means there is always plenty of untracked snow for everyone, even five days after the last storm. For an extra fee of $18 you can take a snowcat up Lightning Ridge toward James Peak for some of the longest off-piste freeride terrain in Utah — something I see as a selling point but may be deemed as extreme by most. The terrain can't hold a candle to what we have in the Coast Mountains, but to be fair, not much can. If Summit is true to its slogan and wants to preserve powder, my main wish would be to save these incredible runs for those who really work for it. Although tracks are present in the trees, the most difficult lines are still fresh for me to leisurely shralp without the pressure to go, go, go like I do at home. Whether hiking, taking a cat or bus, or just eyeing good runs from the lift, there is enough terrain to keep me interested. I find challenging, yet easy-access lines that would have been tracked out at resorts with a bigger scene. This is not an advanced group of skiers and boarders attending this weekend, and for the majority the rolling terrain is more than enough to satisfy. But the Paradise chair was ripe with enough cliffs and pillows to keep even the most discerning powder hound content until the closing bell. It gives me a sense of privacy and solitude that I haven't felt at a ski resort, and it is enough for me to consider that if I were wealthy enough to buy a lot, I would also see a return beyond the financial. I'd be one of the best skiers or boarders on the mountain and would have my pick of challenging terrain without fear of it getting tracked out. My riding partner and I differ greatly in ability but it doesn't matter. Part of the magic of snow sports is the ability to choose your own line and meet up at the bottom of the pitch. As I learn more about Eckles and his past I see how much this trip means to him: He tells me of his high-stress, high-stakes real-estate ventures and the resulting epiphany that life is not all about money. I admire his altruistic intentions for his own development plans, which give me a bit of reassurance that I chose the right path for myself by neglecting the city life and opting to live in the mountains. Like most of us, we come alive when we are given the freedom to creatively express our movement in nature. It's a decidedly first-world luxury that does have its purpose: it helps us lighten up and be present. The world certainly needs more of that. As much fun as it is to make a new friend, the urge to push myself is too great and I split with Eckles to find some more challenging terrain. I find it in Powder Country, a zone that has no lift at the bottom but instead has a bus that takes you up the canyon back into the resort. Deep snow, a steep pitch, and a few drops are enough to satisfy my craving before heading back into the Sky Lodge for lunch. Steve Andrews was a guest of the Summit Group. He really enjoyed the buffets, free beer, meeting amazing people, and exploring those untracked lines. But for the price tag of $1 million to $2 million, he would put his lessons learned at Summit toward building his own mountain utopia somewhere up north.	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line13008
__label__cc	0.609367	0.390633	An Act establishing a sick leave bank for Anthony Barton, an employee of the Department of Developmental Services By Mr. Pacheco, a petition (accompanied by bill, Senate, No. 2199) (subject to Joint Rule 12) of Marc R. Pacheco for legislation to establish a sick leave bank for Anthony Barton, an employee of the Department of Developmental Services. Public Service. Referred to Senate Committee on Bills in the Third Reading Emergency Preamble Whereas, The deferred operation of this act would tend to defeat its purpose, which is to establish forthwith a sick leave bank for a certain employee of the department of developmental services, therefore it is hereby declared to be an emergency law, necessary for the immediate preservation of the public convenience. 2/19/2019 Senate Referred to the committee on Rules of the two branches, acting concurrently 3/14/2019 Senate Rules suspended 3/14/2019 Senate Referred to the committee on Public Service 4/22/2019 Senate Bill reported favorably by committee 4/22/2019 Senate Read second and ordered to a third reading An Act establishing a sick leave bank for Debra Messier, an employee of the department of revenue An Act establishing a sick leave bank for Christine Smith, an employee of the Department of Conservation and Recreation An Act establishing a sick leave bank for Sheri Panas, an employee of the department of unemployment assistance An Act establishing a sick leave bank for Thomas Lingenberg, an employee of the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke An Act establishing a sick leave bank for Marilyn O’Neil, an employee of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line13009
__label__cc	0.666948	0.333052	Overview and Your Agreement to Privacy It is very important that you read these terms because they concern the collection and use of information you may consider private or personal. This site (“Company” “We”, or “Us”) values your privacy. We have therefore implemented this privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) with transparency, consumer choice, and data security in mind. This Privacy Policy addresses concerns about how we collect, use and share personal information through this website, related websites and any sub domains thereof (collectively, the “Site), as well as other plug-ins exchanging information with Us (“Applications”). (Collectively, the Site and Applications may be referred to herein as “Online Services.”) The Privacy Policy governs your use of the Online Services, including your visit to or browsing of the Site and any actions taken with respect to the Online Services, including the purchase of products or services offered by the Company. 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If you visit the Site or use the Online Services (even if you do not engage in a sales transaction), we may collect a variety of data from visitors, including IP addresses, URL, browser settings and plug-ins, screen resolutions, cookie preferences, search engine keywords, JavaScript enablement, internet service (ISP) information, referring/exit pages, computer profiles and operating systems, date/time stamps, clickstream data, traffic data, and all other “visitor” data that the Company may collect from visitors under applicable law (collectively, “Visitor Data”). Visitor Data may include the URL you just came from (whether on the Site or not), and the URL you next go to (whether on the Site or not). We may collect the IP addresses of the websites and pages you visit. Please note, while an ISP does not identify a user by his or her name, it may, with the cooperation of an ISP, be used to locate and identify an individual using the Web. 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We strive to make certain that Our servers and connections incorporate proper encryption and security devices. The Company stores the Person Information in a database and its computers have security measures (such as firewall and password protections) in place to safeguard and secure the information We collect. We have also implemented physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to further safeguard the information. Credit card and related information are transmitted by secure servers (SSL). Unfortunately, no data transmission is guaranteed to be 100% secure and We therefore cannot guarantee the security of your information you transmit to or from the Site, Applications, or through the use of the Online Services. You therefore provide your information, including Personal Information, at your own risk. ACCORDINGLY, WE DISCLAIM LIABILITY FOR THE THEFT, LOSS, OR INTERCEPTION OF, OR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS OR DAMAGE TO, YOUR DATA OR COMMUNICATIONS BY USING THE SITE, APPLICATIONS, AND THE ONLINE SERVICES. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND ASSUME THESE RISKS. Try These Keto-Friendly Meals! Are Max Burn Keto Pills #1? THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT AND NOT AN ACTUAL NEWS ARTICLE, BLOG, OR CONSUMER PROTECTION UPDATE. Terms Of Use Policy Privacy Policy © 2019 Max Burn Keto	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line13015
__label__cc	0.716633	0.283367	A pastime, a pursuit, a passion! Coins are intrinsically interesting, aren't they? But becoming a collector means going one step further - it means looking at a coin and seeing more than 'just money'. Coins have meaning. Beyond the gold, beyond the silver, that's what gives them value. People preserve coins as keepsakes, memorials, even talismans, such as the 'lucky' quarter tucked away in a drawer or the silver dollar minted in a birth year. To a collector, a coin can be precious for many reasons: as a piece of history, as an expression of a culture, as a work of art. And every Canadian coin has a singular story to tell. For passionate collectors, the Mint produces some of the world's most stunning commemorative coins, treasured for their rarity, historic significance and craftsmanship. Canadian coins celebrate our nation's culture and milestones, its natural splendour, the technological and athletic achievements that make us proud. Canadian collector coins are struck meticulously, one by one in Ottawa at the Royal Canadian Mint's original home, crafted from initial designs by Canadian artists. Many Canadian coins have been honoured with international recognition and awards. 2018 Uncirculated Set Fine Silver Coin – Dragon Dance (2018) Pure Silver Proof Set – 240th Anniversary of Captain Cook at Nootka Sound (2018)	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line13018
__label__wiki	0.669541	0.669541	Home Model Trains model trains for sale gumtree \| Model Train Express model trains for sale gumtree \| Model Train Express The earliest toy trains were made from lead and had no moving parts. Some had wheels which turned, but these needed to be pulled or pushed. Some of the early 19th-century push toy trains were made of tinplate, like the big, durable, stylized locomotive toys in the U.S., that were painted red and gold and decorated with hearts and flowers. model trains for sale gumtree Around 1875, technological advancements in materials and manufacturing allowed tin to be stamped, cut, wrapped, and lithographed faster than ever before. Toy trains were altered when Märklin, a German company which specialized in doll house accessories, sought to make an equivalent toy for boys in which a constant revenue stream could be ensured by purchasing add-on accessories for years after the first purchase. In addition to boxed sets containing a train and track, Märklin offered extra track, rolling stock, and buildings offered separately, creating the predecessor to the modern model train layout featuring buildings and scenery in addition to an operating train. Electric trains adopted, with the first appearing in 1897, produced from the U.S. company Carlisle & Finch. As residential use of power became more common in the early 20th century, electrical trains gained popularity and as time moved on, these electric trains grew in sophistication, gaining light, the ability to change management, to emit a whistling sound, to smoke, to couple and uncouple cars as well as load and unload freight. Toy trains from the first half of the 20th century were frequently made of lithographed tin; later trains were often made mainly of plastic. Prior to the 1950s, there was little differentiation between toy trains and model railroads–model railroads were toys by definition. Pull toys and wind-up trains were marketed towards children, while electrical trains were marketed towards teens, particularly teenaged boys. It was during the 1950s the modern emphasis on realism in model railroading began to catch on. Today, S gauge and O gauge railroads continue to be considered toy trains by their own adherents and are often accessorized with semi-scale model buildings by Plasticville or even K-Line (who owns the rights to the Plasticville-like buildings created by Marx in the 1950s into the 1970s). However, as a result of their high price, one is more inclined to find an HO scale or N scale train set at a toy store than a O scale collection. Many modern electrical toy trains contain sophisticated electronic equipment that emit digitized sound effects and permit the operator to safely and easily run multiple remote control trains on one loop of track. In the last few years, many toy train operators may operate a train using a TV camera in the front of the engine and hooked up to a screen, such as pc monitor. This will show an image, similar to that of a genuine (smaller size) railroad) Thanks for your interest in model trains for sale gumtree	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line13019
__label__wiki	0.786122	0.786122	Nels Anderson’s World War I Diary In this Book Allan Kent Powell Published by: University of Utah Press Nels Anderson’s World War I Diary provides a rare glimpse into the wartime experiences of one of the most well-respected sociologists of the twentieth century, the renowned author of The Hobo (1920) and Desert Saints: The Mormon Frontier in Utah (1942). Anderson, a keen observer of people, places, and events his entire life, joined the U.S. Army in 1918 at the age of 29 and was sent to Europe to fight as part of the Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF) under General Pershing. Because keeping a journal was strongly discouraged among American forces during WWI, particularly among the rank-and-file soldiers, Anderson’s diary stands as a rare gem. Furthermore, it is the only known account of war service during WWI by a member of the LDS Church. Anderson joined the Mormon faith after accepting the hospitality of an extended Mormon ranching family during his travels throughout the American West as a working hobo. Anderson’s accounts of the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives are particularly remarkable given the challenges of keeping a detailed journal amidst the chaos and suffering of the war’s Western Front. His insights into the depravity and callousness of war are buttressed with intimate human portraits of those to whom he was closest. The war years provided many formative experiences that would prove to have a lasting influence on Anderson’s views regarding the working poor, authority, and human values; this would come to bear heavily on his later work as a pioneering sociologist at the University of Chicago, where he helped establish participant observation as a research method. The many introspective entries contained in this volume will be of reat interest to military historians and history buffs as well as to those in the social sciences looking to find the intellectual origins of Anderson’s later work in the burgeoning field of sociology. Download \| Title page, Copyright Charles S. Peterson pp. vii-xix pp. xxi-xxiii 1. Camp Mills, New York, June 1918 2. Crossing the Atlantic, June 1918 3. England, June 1918 4. Arrival in France, June 1918 5. Training in Humberville, July 1918 6. Up to the Front, August 1918 7. The St. Mihiel Offensive, September 1918 8. The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, October 1918 9. War’s End, November 1918 10. Through Belgium and Luxembourg, November–December 1918 11. Germany, December 1918–March 1919 12. Back to France, March 1919 13. School in Montpellier, March–April 1919 14. Notes, April–August 1919	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line13020
__label__wiki	0.997308	0.997308	Amati Quartet String Quartet No. 39 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 50 No. 4, Hob. III:47: II. Andante moderato assai String Quartet No. 39 in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 50 No. 4, Hob. III:47: IV. Finale. Fuga. Allegro moderato String Quartet No. 41 in D Major, Op. 50 No. 6, Hob. III:49 "The Frog": III. Menuetto. Allegretto String Quartet No. 37 in C Major, Op. 50 No. 2, Hob. III:45: I. Vivace String Quartet No. 37 in C Major, Op. 50 No. 2, Hob. III:45: IV. Finale. Vivace assai String Quartet No. 36 in B-Flat Major, Op. 50 No. 1, Hob. III:44: I. Allegro String Quartet No. 36 in B-Flat Major, Op. 50 No. 1, Hob. III:44: II. Adagio non lento String Quartet No. 41 in D Major, Op. 50 No. 6, Hob. III:49 "The Frog": II. Poco Adagio String Quartet No. 37 in C Major, Op. 50 No. 2, Hob. III:45: III. Menuetto. Allegretto Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 50 String Quartets - Schubert: Death and… Isang Yun: Clarinet Quintet Nos. 1 & 2,… Schubert: String Quartet No. 14,…	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line13021
__label__cc	0.583333	0.416667	This best-of summarizes Bob Dylan’s inexhaustible years between 1973–’89. There are hits, such as the soulful, gospel-charged “Gotta Serve Somebody,” and the stunningly lyrical and wool-sweater warm “Tangled Up in Blue,” as well as clever choices like gospel-rocker “The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar,” and “Silvio,” a glossy R&B popper written with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. The rolling, ambient “Series of Dreams” and the open-hearted shuffle-rocker “Dignity” are outtakes from 1989’s Oh Mercy album sessions, two tracks that could’ve been released as singles. Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 Bob Dylan Changing of the Guards The Groom's Still Waiting At the Altar Jokerman Ring Them Bells Gotta Serve Somebody Series of Dreams Brownsville Girl Under the Red Sky More By Bob Dylan Blood On the Tracks Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits The Basement Tapes Bob Dylan & The Band Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses) [Remastered] Play It As It Lays Patti Scialfa Crosby, Stills & Nash	cc/2019-30/en_head_0049.json.gz/line13022

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