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Home \ Interviews \ Amazon Prime Video’s exclusive series Jean-Claude Van Johnson
Amazon Prime Video’s exclusive series Jean-Claude Van Johnson
Host and French reporter Jackie Watson hits the red carpet for Jean-Claude Van Johnson. This series stars global martial arts and film sensation Jean-Claude Van Damme as “Jean-Claude Van Damme,” a global martial arts and film sensation…and, operating under the simple alias of ‘Johnson,” the most dangerous undercover operative in the world. Unhappily retired, he’s now whiling away his days in superficial Hollywood… until a chance encounter with a lost love lures him back into the game, eventually forcing him to confront the greatest enemy he’s ever faced: a Bulgarian drug cartel.
Jean-Claude Van Johnson stars Van Damme along with Kat Foster (Your Family or Mine), Moises Arias (The Middle), and Phylicia Rashad (Creed). The show is executive produced by Dave Callaham (The Expendables), Peter Atencio (Key & Peele), Ridley Scott (The Good Wife), David W. Zucker (The Man in the High Castle), and Van Damme. From Scott Free Productions, the series is directed by Atencio, and written and created by Callaham. Jean-Claude Van Johnson is coming soon, streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.
ABOUT BEYOND FEST
Beyond Fest is the highest attended genre film festival in the U.S. and exists to serve the genre community in Los Angeles. Based out of Hollywood’s legendary Egyptian Theatre, Beyond Fest is built in partnership with the American Cinematheque, Meltdown Comics, and Death Waltz Recording Co.
A not-for-profit entity, Beyond Fest raises funds for the 501C3 non-profit film institution, American Cinematheque.
eye on la, film, french reporter, jackie watson, Television
admin | Interviews | October 10, 2017 5:17 pm
12th Annual Denim, Diamonds & Stars
CineFashion Film Awards
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Path of Exile founder said during the austerity: "I will not run this company in this way." GENEALOGY NETWORK HUB
Posted By: Yucca195 Owen
Description: As studios around the world struggle to find ways to manage austerity, the founders and some owners of Path of Exile developer Grinding Gear Games have publicized the studio's response to feedback and why extended work hours do not solve the problem. This open letter is a response to the recent frustration of the Path of Exile community, especially for the state of the existing integrated alliance launched in early March. Chris Wilson, founder and part owner of the New Zealand developer, explained that Synthesis's game prototypes and POE Items existed more than expected, which affected the time and time allowed for testing and balancing before the release. In most cases, developers either postpone the release of the alliance or try to solve all problems through processing. Wilson acknowledged this and said that developers often feel pressure from the Path of Exile community to work overtime when they see responses to patch descriptions and development updates. “An important topic inside the gaming industry recently may be the austerity,” Wilson wrote. “Some studios get their team working 14 hours daily to package each patch, containing the most patches and improvements. Sometimes whenever we read our personal Patch Notes thread and community feedback, the world thinks we are being motivated to do the ditto." “I will not run this company in this way. Although there will inevitably be overtime issues around the league release cycle, most Path of Exile development cycles have a good balance between work and life. This is necessary to keep the developer happy and healthy. On the other hand, it also shows that some game improvements take a while to complete." Wilson did not specify the length or amount of optional overtime pay, although the company will soon respond to public responses. However, he does outline some of the difficulties New Zealand developers face when community feedback comes in. Developers have two main difficulties. If they choose to respond directly to the community through the proposed solution, then bringing the team together to develop a solution often destroys other important projects. Or, Grinding Gears can choose to consider feedback, but choose to handle it in the future. The problem is that it makes the community feel that their concerns have not been heard,mainly because Path of Exile developers are particularly active, releasing daily and weekly updates ,making more players unsatisfied, and even sales with POE Currency are falling. "We believe that our internal emphasis on long-term improvements to Path of Exile has caused some damage to the relationship with the community in the short term," Wilson said. But at the very least for the time being in the helm of Wilson, they won't adopt this mandatory austerity. This does not mean the studio will never eventually collapse anyway, along with studio staff is talking about culture, and also the optional overtime is not truly optional. But no less than in public, Grinding Gear Games takes a position.
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A ghost town in post-quake Japan
Do you remember the sci-fi movies "The Last Man on Earth" (1964) and "The Omega Man" (1971) that depicted a deserted land due to some plague that wiped away the whole population? Sadly, a similar but not exactly the same scenario may soon happen in Japan.
The small town of Iitate—once voted as one of the country's most beautiful places—will become an uninhabited place as its 7,000 residents prepare to evacuate by the end of May, The Japan Times said.
The village, which lies in a mountainous region, is situated 40 kilometers away from the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor, makes it vulnerable from the radioactive materials being spewed by the plant.
Iitate will be the next abandoned place like Ukraine's Pripyat after Chernobyl's nuclear fallout.
Katsuzo Shoji, a 75-year-old farmer said, "We've no idea when we can come back. We've heard five, maybe 10 years, but some say that's far too optimistic. Maybe I'll be able to come home to die."
Shoji and his 73-year-old wife, Fumi, experienced the shock, rage and despair as they were forced by the state to destroy all their land's produce, kill his six cows and relocate to an apartment in Koriyama, around 20 kilometers away.
Thousands of farm animals such as swine and 8,000 of the highly prized wagyu beef may need to be slaughtered if there will be no place for them somewhere else. Each head is valued up to one million yen ($12,000).
Everybody is affected, whether young or old, rich or poor, by the nuclear crisis. They group together everyday in the village office for some news with what is to become of them.
Children had to be taken by bus to schools far from their area. Some of them were being bullied in school as baikin or vermin, which is reminiscent of Japan after the atomic bomb holocaust.
In April, the government had ordered all the remaining people when it was found that radioactive cesium and other materials exceeded beyond safety limits.
Miyoko Nakamura, a 59-year-old clerk, is nearing retirement age. She said, "We've been told to quit our jobs and move out by the end of the month. A lot of people have no idea what to do. They're just hoping everything will be OK somehow."
They are stone-faced with Tokyo Electric Company's (TEPCO) initial payment of one million yen ($12,000) and 350,000 yen ($4,400) moving expenses after which, no one knows what is in store. They worry that after media attention has waned, nothing more will be given to them.
Many of the people had lived there for a long time. Shoji's clan has been farming in the region since 1880. They are too old to get involved in the government and TEPCO's battle.
About 700 family pets will be separated from their owners as the government is looking for them to stay.
One frustrated resident said, "Give us back our beautiful village."
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Home » Context of 'March 25, 2003: National Park Service Permits Snowmobiles in Two National Parks'
Context of 'March 25, 2003: National Park Service Permits Snowmobiles in Two National Parks'
This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event March 25, 2003: National Park Service Permits Snowmobiles in Two National Parks. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.
November 12, 2002: Bush Administration Intends to Reverse Ban on Snowmobiles in Yellowstone
Emission by type of vehicle [Source: National Park Service] (click image to enlarge)The National Park Service (NPS) announces a plan to reverse a Clinton-era ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. The NPS proposal would limit the number of snowmobiles permitted in the parks per day to 1,100 by December 2003. However, beginning with the 2004-2005 winter season, there would be no restrictions on the number of snowmobiles permitted in the parks. [Associated Press, 11/12/2002; Associated Press, 11/12/2002] The proposal is made despite the National Park Service having received some 360,000 emails and letters on the issue, eighty percent of which were in support of the ban. [United Press International, 11/11/2002] Lifting the ban on snowmobiles would have a considerable impact given that according to the EPA’s own figures, the emissions from a single snowmobile can equal that of 100 automobiles. [Blue Water Network, 1999; National Park Service, 5/2000; Environmental Protection Agency, 2001] The EPA had recommended in 1999 that snowmobiles be barred from the two parks in order to provide the “best available protection” for air quality, wildlife and the health of people visiting and working in the park. After coming to office, the Bush administration ordered a review of the policy as part of a settlement with snowmobile manufacturers who had challenged the ban. [Associated Press, 11/12/2002]
Entity Tags: Yellowstone National Park, Bush administration (43), National Park Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Grand Teton National Park
Timeline Tags: US Environmental Record
February 20, 2003: Plan to Allow Snowmobiles in National Parks Is Criticized
The National Park Service (NPS) releases its Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) which favors an option to reverse the November 2000 decision to ban all snowmobiles from Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks by the 2003-2004 winter season (see November 12, 2002). The new EIS—done at a cost of $2.4 million to taxpayers—results from the settlement of a lawsuit that had been filed by the state of Wyoming and the snowmobile industry to reverse the November 2000 ban. The study concludes that the “preferred option” would be to phase in a requirement that all snowmobiles used in the park be four-stroke sleds and that all operators be required to either hire a guide, pass a guide’s course or accompany someone who has passed it. [Yellowstone National Park, 2/20/2003; Bozeman Daily Chronicle, 2/21/2003] Former NPS leaders condemn the report’s recommendation, insisting that the 2000 plan—backed by earlier scientific studies which had determined a strict ban would be the best policy to protect air quality, sound emissions, wildlife and human health, and safety—remains the most popular with the public. [Bozeman Daily Chronicle, 2/21/2003; Caspar Star Tribune, 2/21/2003] Critics have warned that reversing the ban would generate significantly more air pollution in the park—twice the carbon monoxide and six times the nitrogen oxide as the November 2000 ban. [US Congress, 3/13/2002; Caspar Star Tribune, 2/21/2003] The decision to halt the phase-out is well-received by industry leaders. “We are grateful that the Bush administration has given this issue a closer look,” Clark Collins, executive director of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, tells the Boseman’s Daily Chronicle. [Bozeman Daily Chronicle, 2/21/2003]
Entity Tags: Bush administration (43), National Park Service
March 25, 2003: National Park Service Permits Snowmobiles in Two National Parks
The National Park Service decides to reverse the Clinton administration’s decision to prohibit snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. The decision ignores earlier scientific analysis concluding that a snowmobile ban is the preferred policy to protect air quality, sound emissions, wildlife, human health and safety (see February 20, 2003). [USA Today, 4/24/2003]
Entity Tags: Yellowstone National Park, Bush administration (43), Grand Teton National Park, National Park Service
December 11, 2003: National Park Service Announces Rules for Snowmobiles in Yellowstone Park
The National Park Service issues a final rule announcing that the number of snowmobiles permitted in Yellowstone Park will be restricted to 950 per day when parks open for the winter season on December 17. Eighty percent of the sleds must be commercially guided and meet “best available technology” (BAT) requirements. The remaining twenty percent will not have to be BAT. For the 2004-2005 winter, regulations on the maximum daily number of snowmobiles will remain the same, except that all snowmobiles will be required to meet BAT standards. Similar rules will be imposed on the use of snowmobiles in Grand Teton National Park and the John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Memorial Parkway. [National Park Service, 12/11/2003] The decision is made in spite of the fact that independent federal studies had previously determined that reversing the Clinton-era phase-out would result in a significant increase of carbon monoxide pollution and nitrogen oxide emissions. [Caspar Star Tribune, 2/21/2003]
Entity Tags: Bush administration (43), National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park
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Forum 18 News Service
Latest Analyses
RUSSIA: Armed raids, criminal investigations, pre-trial detentions
By Victoria Arnold, Forum 18
One year after Russia's Supreme Court banned Jehovah's Witnesses, officers mounted armed raids on homes in four regions, some holding guns in individuals' faces. Up to four people in custody and a fifth under travel restrictions face criminal investigations of organising or participating in a banned organisation.
One year after Russia's Supreme Court ruled that their Administrative Centre be liquidated as "extremist" and their activities banned, Jehovah's Witnesses are facing a wave of criminal prosecutions.
Between 10 and 20 April, officers of various law enforcement agencies conducted multiple armed raids on the homes of pacifist Jehovah's Witnesses in four regions. During some of the raids in Ufa, officers held their guns in individuals' faces and made threats of long prison sentences and trouble at work (see below).
Officers seized property and took many people away for questioning, and several appear to have been put into pre-trial detention on "extremism"-related criminal charges. The Investigative Committee is carrying out the criminal investigations.
Up to four people may now be in custody after these raids, in Ufa (Republic of Bashkortostan), Polyarny (Murmansk Region), Shuya (Ivanovo Region), and Vladivostok (Primorye), and a fifth is under travel restrictions (see below).
If convicted, they could be imprisoned for up to 10 years under Criminal Code Article 282.2, Part 1 ("Organisation of the activity of a social or religious association or other organisation in relation to which a court has adopted a decision legally in force on liquidation or ban on the activity in connection with the carrying out of extremist activity"), or up to six years under Article 282.2, Part 2 ("Participation in the activity of a social or religious association or other organisation in relation to which a court has adopted a decision legally in force on liquidation or ban on the activity in connection with the carrying out of extremist activity") (see Forum 18's Russia "extremism" religious freedom survey http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2215).
Forum 18 wrote to the Investigative Committee's press office in Moscow early in the working day of 23 April, asking exactly how many people are the subject of these criminal cases, how many are in custody, and why they were considered so dangerous that armed force was necessary to detain them. Forum 18 received no reply by the end of the working day.
Criminal investigations of Jehovah's Witnesses also continue in Kemerovo and Belgorod after a series of raids there in January and February. Two people are known to have been named as suspects (see below).
Two more Jehovah's Witnesses – Dennis Christensen in Oryol and Arkadya Akopyan in Prokhladny (Republic of Kabardino-Balkariya) - are already on trial for alleged extremism-related offences not directly related to the nationwide ban (see F18News 20 February 2018 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2355).
Arrests "direct consequence" of Supreme Court ban
Jehovah's Witnesses note that the latest arrests are a "direct consequence" of the Supreme Court ban, which was issued on 20 April 2017 and entered legal force on 17 July 2017 (see F18News 18 July 2017 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2297).
The Russian government, however, maintains that the ban does not violate the right of Jehovah's Witnesses to profess their faith. On 23 March, the Russian government submitted its response to questions from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg about the Jehovah's Witnesses' appeal against the Supreme Court ruling (Application No. 10188/17 http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-179699). The ECtHR is considering the appeal as a high-priority case.
In its response, the Russian government claims that the Supreme Court's decision "does not give an evaluation of the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses [and] does not contain a restriction or prohibition on the individual profession of these teachings".
Muslims too face "extremism" prosecutions
Prosecutors have also long used Criminal Code Article 282.2 against Muslims who meet to read the works of late Turkish theologian Said Nursi. People who meet to study his writings can be accused of continuing the activities of "Nurdzhular", which was banned as an "extremist organisation" by the Supreme Court in 2008, even though Muslims in Russia deny it has ever existed (see Forum 18's Russia "extremism" religious freedom survey http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2215).
Five Muslims are known by Forum 18 to be already on trial for having met to study Nursi's works – three in Krasnoyarsk, one in Novosibirsk, and one in Izberbash in the Republic of Dagestan. Another man, from Sharypovo in Krasnoyarsk Region, is due to appear in court soon (see F18News 27 April 2018 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2373).
Ufa: Raids with guns, one pre-trial detention
The first Jehovah's Witness to be detained in the latest raids was 32-year-old Anatoly Vilitkevich, on 10 April in Ufa (Republic of Bashkortostan). Investigators have opened a case against him under Criminal Code Article 282.2, Part 1 ("Organisation of the activity of a social or religious association or other organisation in relation to which a court has adopted a decision legally in force on liquidation or ban on the activity in connection with the carrying out of extremist activity").
According to the website of the city's Lenin District Court, Judge Larisa Mokhova ordered Vilitkevich to be kept in custody until 2 June. His lawyers submitted an appeal against his detention to Bashkortostan's Supreme Court, but this was refused on 19 April.
Officers began their searches of eight homes in Ufa early in the morning of 10 April, the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 from Brussels on 19 April. These involved over 60 law enforcement agents, including special police officers with masks and submachine guns. In some cases, Jehovah's Witnesses claim, officers held their guns in suspects' faces and made threats of long prison sentences and trouble at work.
Officials would have known that weapons including machine guns would be unnecessary, as Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide are a doctrinally pacifist community whose young male members will not do compulsory military service or any other military-connected activity. Jehovah's Witnesses follow their pacifist principles even if the government concerned jails and tortures conscientious objectors to military service, and their families and co-believers (see eg. in Turkmenistan F18News 3 October 2016 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2220). However, even before Jehovah's Witnesses were banned in Russia their communities were frequently raided by heavily armed and camouflaged officals who frequently planted "evidence" (see eg. F18News 24 October 2016 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2228).
In all, officers searched more than 20 people, including children, and took them to Lenin District Investigative Department for interrogation and fingerprinting. Investigators also seized personal belongings, including electronic devices, books, and photographs.
"Since all the citizens were in a state of shock and none of them had eaten breakfast, many felt bad," the European Association told Forum 18. "One woman lost consciousness. After a long delay, law enforcement officers called an ambulance."
All the detainees were later released, except Vilitkevich. No case has so far been opened against anybody else. At the court hearing on Vilitkevich's detention on 12 April, "the court ignored a number of legal requirements", the European Association commented. "For example, the court did not specify why such a strict ruling was imposed, nor did it verify the validity of Anatoly Vilitkevich's involvement in the crime imputed to him."
Vilitkevich is being held in Ufa's Investigation Prison No. 1. He is alone in a cell designed for two people, the European Association told Forum 18 on 20 April, and has described his conditions there as fine.
Vilitkevich has not been added to the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) "List of Terrorists and Extremists", whose assets banks are obliged to freeze (see Forum 18's "extremism" Russia religious freedom survey http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=2215).
Forum 18 called Lenin District Investigative Department (to which the Jehovah's Witnesses were taken on 10 April) on 23 April to ask what exactly Vilitkevich was suspected of doing and why this was considered so dangerous that armed force had to be used. A spokesman for the head of the department directed Forum 18 to send all questions to the Bashkortostan Investigative Committee's press service. Forum 18 sent the same questions in writing in the afternoon of the Ufa working day of 23 April. No reply has yet been received.
Polyarny, Murmansk Region: Raids, two possible detentions
Investigative Committee staff, National Guard special forces, and FSB officers made six simultaneous raids on Jehovah's Witness homes in the northern town of Polyarny late at night on 18 April, the Murmansk Region Investigative Committee announced in a 20 April statement.
Law enforcement agents broke in the door of one flat in its owner's absence and took two laptops, the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 from Brussels. A video (with no commentary) posted on the Murmansk Investigative Committee's website shows men wearing camouflage uniforms and helmets forcing open a door with the use of tools and kicks.
Officers took more than 20 people to the Investigative Department of the Northern Fleet's Polyarny Flotilla, where they questioned them. "The investigators tried to interview the children as well, asking them questions about the religion of the Jehovah's Witnesses," the European Association added.
Officers carried out the raids "with the aim of seizing documents and items relevant to the criminal case, as well as identifying persons involved in unlawful activities", the Murmansk Region Investigative Committee explained in its 20 April statement. Investigators confiscated a "large quantity" of literature and computer drives, and "a circle of persons who participated in meetings was identified, as well as persons who organised and conducted [activities] using the internet".
According to the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses, two men, aged 44 and 61, were still not contactable as of 20 April and are probably in detention.
Diana Davidova of Polyarny District Court refused to tell Forum 18 on 23 April if the court has approved pre-trial detention for any suspects in the criminal case.
The Murmansk Region Investigative Committee confirmed in its statement that it has opened a case against two people under Criminal Code Article 282.2, Part 1 ("Organisation of the activity of a social or religious association or other organisation in relation to which a court has adopted a decision legally in force on liquidation or ban on the activity in connection with the carrying out of extremist activity").
It said the two were detained "as a result of carefully planned and organised operational and investigative actions". Their alleged offence had originally been detected by the Northern Fleet branch of the FSB security service, it added.
"The suspects, reliably aware of [the ban on Jehovah's Witness activity], during the period from April 2017 to the present, on the territory of Aleksandrovsk [closed military district - ZATO] in Polyarny, organised the activities of the religious organisation by convening and holding meetings, organising the recruitment of new members, and bringing the contents of texts of religious literature to gatherings' participants".
Criminal cases may yet be opened against more people. The Investigative Committee added that the investigation is continuing "with the aim of collecting and consolidating the evidence base, and identifying other persons involved in the commission of the crime".
Forum 18 called the Northern Fleet's Investigative Department on 23 April, but a spokesman denied that the case was their responsibility, and said that he himself had only learned of it from the press.
Forum 18 asked Murmansk Region Investigative Committee's press service in Murmansk why armed force had been considered necessary in the raids. Head of the press service Kseniya Koshelyuk replied on 23 April that all further inquiries should be directed to the head of the relevant investigative department.
Shuya, Ivanovo Region: Raids, one man under restrictions
Investigative Committee investigators also carried out at least three raids on homes in the Ivanovo Region town of Shuya in the morning of 20 April. One man was taken to the police station, according to a 20 April statement from the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses in Brussels.
Dmitry Mikhailov (born 1977) has since been named as a suspect in the case under Criminal Code Article 282.2, Part 2 ("Participation in the activity of a social or religious association or other organisation in relation to which a court has adopted a decision legally in force on liquidation or ban on the activity in connection with the carrying out of extremist activity"). Investigators have placed Mikhailov under travel restrictions.
The Ivanovo Region Investigative Committee said in a 20 April statement that "from the beginning of 2018 to the present, several residents of Shuya and Shuya district, adherents of the religious organisation 'Administrative Centre of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia', which is banned on the territory of the Russian Federation, have become acquainted with literature containing statements degrading human dignity on the basis of attitude towards religion, and elements of propaganda of the exclusivity of one religion over another; have taken part in events; and have promoted its activities".
The Investigative Committee added that further investigative work is now underway to establish the identities of all persons involved in the "extremist crime".
Mikhailov's case is being investigated by Robert Barsegyan, an investigator of the Shuya District Investigative Department, his colleagues told Forum 18 on 23 April. Forum 18 reached both Barsegyan and the head of the Department Aleksandr Khramov on the same day. Neither, however, would discuss the criminal investigation with Forum 18.
Vladivostok: Raid, one pre-trial detention
Officers in Vladivostok detained Valentin Osadchuk (born 1976), the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses said. Law enforcement agents raided his home on 19 April, and investigators opened a case against him under Criminal Code Article 282.2, Part 1 ("Organisation of the activity of a social or religious association or other organisation in relation to which a court has adopted a decision legally in force on liquidation or ban on the activity in connection with the carrying out of extremist activity").
Vladivostok's Frunze District Court ruled on 23 April that Osadchuk should be kept in custody for two months (until 20 June), the European Association added to Forum 18 on 23 April.
Forum 18 thinks Osadchuk to be in detention at Investigation Prison No. 1 in Vladivostok.
Osadchuk has not been added to the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) "List of Terrorists and Extremists", whose assets banks are obliged to freeze (see Forum 18's "extremism" Russia religious freedom survey http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=2215).
Belgorod: Two still under investigation
Two Jehovah's Witnesses in Belgorod – Anatoly Shalyapin and Sergey Voykov – are under investigation for alleged offences under Criminal Code Article 282.2, Part 2 ("Participation in the activity of a social or religious association or other organisation in relation to which a court has adopted a decision legally in force on liquidation or ban on the activity in connection with the carrying out of extremist activity").
The men were among a large number of Jehovah's Witnesses whose homes were searched by Investigative Committee agents and other law enforcement officers in heavy-handed armed raids on 7 February 2018 (see F18News 20 February 2018 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2355).
Voykov lodged a complaint at Sverdlovsk District Court on 4 April against the confiscation of his passport – this was partially upheld on 16 April, the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 on 23 April, but it remains unclear whether this means the passport will be returned to him.
Voykov and Shalyapin remain suspects in the case and have not yet been formally charged. They are still under travel restrictions. Because these are valid for only ten days if no charges are brought, the two men must return to the Investigative Committee to sign them again each time they expire. Shalyapin has had to do this three times so far, according to the European Association, and Voykov twice. Their latest travel restrictions ran out on 19 April – investigators called Shalyapin on 21 April to come in and sign them again the following week. It is not known whether Voykov has also been summoned.
Neither Voykov nor Shalyapin are on the Federal Financial Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) "List of Terrorists and Extremists", whose assets banks are obliged to freeze (see Forum 18's "extremism" Russia religious freedom survey http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=2215).
Kemerovo: Investigation continues
Law enforcement agents carried out similar raids, searches, and confiscations of property at several addresses in Kemerovo on 23 January (see F18News 20 February 2018 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2355).
Nobody has yet been charged or named as a suspect in the case, which was initiated under Criminal Code Article 282.2, Part 2 ("Participation in the activity of a social or religious association or other organisation in relation to which a court has adopted a decision legally in force on liquidation or ban on the activity in connection with the carrying out of extremist activity"). No Jehovah's Witnesses in the city are in detention or under other restrictive measures, the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 on 23 April that
As 12 individuals' homes were searched, it is likely that they remain under investigation. (END)
For more background see Forum 18's surveys of the general state of freedom of religion and belief in Russia at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=2246, and of the dramatic decline in this freedom related to Russia's Extremism Law at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=2215.
A personal commentary by Alexander Verkhovsky, Director of the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis http://www.sova-center.ru, about the systemic problems of Russian anti-extremism legislation, is at F18News 19 July 2010 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1468.
A personal commentary by Irina Budkina, Editor of the http://www.samstar.ucoz.ru Old Believer website, about continuing denial of equality to Russia's religious minorities, is at F18News 26 May 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=570.
More reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Russia can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=10.
A compilation of Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) freedom of religion or belief commitments can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1351.
A printer-friendly map of Russia is available at http://nationalgeographic.org/education/mapping/outline-map/?map=Russia.
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Board index ‹ Creative Forums ‹ Creative Writing
Trump enters the stage
Elevate form over function to get at less easily articulable truths.
Re: Trump eclipse of NASA moneypit by mythical Kennedy techn
by Meno_ » Fri Mar 22, 2019 5:32 pm
NASA rocket becomes Boeing’s latest headache as Trump demands moon mission
By Christian Davenport, Joel Achenbach
Boeing senior executives arrived at NASA headquarters two weeks ago for what they knew would be a tense meeting. The rocket they’ve been building for NASA was behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Worse yet, there was no way it was going to be ready for a scheduled maiden launch in June 2020.
One estimate had the rocket launch as late as November 2021, and NASA’s leaders were furious, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid about sensitive negotiations. President Trump and Vice President Pence wanted NASA to pull off something big and bold with human spaceflight before the 2020 election: sending a crewless capsule around the moon in a precursor to an eventual return of American astronauts to the lunar surface.
But the latest delays would push the flight well past the election.
“We’re not doing this,” a dismayed NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told the Boeing team. “We’re going to create an alternative solution. All options are on the table.”
This meeting, reported here for the first time, is the backstory to Bridenstine’s March 13 bombshell dropped during testimony before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. He said that although NASA still steadfastly supports the massive rocket, known as the Space Launch System (SLS), the agency would consider sidelining it and instead using commercially available rockets for the mission known as Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1).
Bridenstine’s comments at the Senate hearing touched off a political maelstrom — angering Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the chairman of the appropriations committee and SLS’s chief benefactor. Critics say the latest machinations are yet another example of how political pressures have sustained the lucrative rocket program for years, as it has maintained Congressional support no matter how high the costs or lengthy the delays.
In the space world, Bridenstine’s announcement set off shock waves. It not only signaled a potentially radical change in NASA’s plans to return to the moon, but was a major blow to NASA’s flagship rocket program and its main contractor, Boeing. The announcement came as the company has been under scrutiny for the way it has handled the crashes of two of its commercial airplanes that killed 346 people.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said that although NASA still steadfastly supports the massive rocket, known as the Space Launch System (SLS), the agency would consider sidelining it and instead using commercially available rockets for the mission. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Bridenstine’s announcement prompted critics of the program to question whether NASA truly needs a government-owned heavy-lift rocket. The private sector is already producing such rockets. And although they are not as powerful as the SLS, they’re cheaper to fly, with reusable boosters.
Trump’s latest budget request states that a commercial rocket, not the SLS as previously planned, would be used to send a robotic probe to Jupiter’s moon Europa.
The request also says commercial rockets would be used to put up a new outpost in lunar orbit, called the Gateway. Bridenstine testified last week that commercial rockets also could send astronauts to the Gateway — another presumed SLS function. And NASA has abandoned a much-derided mission to haul an asteroid to lunar orbit to be inspected by astronauts launched via the SLS.
“This is a rocket that has been looking for a mission,” said Lori Garver, who served as NASA’s deputy administrator under President Barack Obama.
For years, Boeing has long faced criticism for its handling of the program. Last year, a report from the NASA inspector general was withering in its criticism of the company, saying it already has spent $5.3 billion and is expected to burn through the remaining money by early this year, three years too soon, without delivering a single rocket stage. The report said problems at Boeing have led to a 2½-year delay and $4 billion in cost overruns.
“Boeing officials have consistently underestimated the scope of the work to be performed and thus the size and skills of the workforce required,” the report stated.
John Shannon, Boeing’s SLS program manager, said the company acknowledges widespread problems but recently has shown progress.
“We’re late and I completely own that, but we are dialed in now and the team is producing extremely well,” Shannon said. “I have high confidence that we’re going to come out with an amazing capability by the end of the year, and I can’t wait to get to that point.”
Related: Companies in the cosmos: The new space race
In 2017, the agency’s watchdog reported in an audit that NASA had spent more than $15 billion on SLS, Orion, and the ground systems needed between 2012 and 2016. And it estimated that the total would reach up to $23 billion.
Construction of the rocket and the Orion spacecraft is spread out so that every state has jobs connected to the program. In all, SLS supports about 25,000 jobs nationwide, with a total economic impact of $4.7 billion, according to NASA.
That has helped the rocket win support among members of Congress, but also has fueled critics who have dubbed it the “Senate Launch System.” In addition to primary contractor Boeing, key contractors are Aerojet Rocketdyne, Northrop Grumman and the United Launch Alliance.
No state has benefited more than Shelby’s state, Alabama, home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. The program has created about 13,000 jobs and has pumped $2.4 billion into the state’s economy.
So when the NASA administrator floated the idea of sidelining the rocket, Shelby released a statement saying: “While I agree that the delay in the SLS launch schedule is unacceptable, I firmly believe that SLS should launch the Orion.”
Privately, his aides angrily chastised NASA officials.
The next day, Bridenstine reiterated his support for the SLS program in a blog post, saying the agency is “committed to building and flying SLS.” The day after that, he tweeted: “Good news: The @NASA and Boeing teams are working overtime to accelerate the launch schedule of @NASA_SLS.”
‘Over budget ... and unexecutable’
The SLS was born in the ashes of an earlier rocket program. Called Constellation, the program emerged under President George W. Bush and would send Americans back to the moon, and eventually to Mars. One element of the plan was the creation of a new, heavy-lift rocket, the Ares V, a modern successor to the Saturn V. It would hurl a new capsule, Orion, to the moon.
When Obama entered office, the Constellation program was struggling, and administration officials called it “over budget, behind schedule, off course and ‘unexecutable.’ ”
Obama killed Constellation in 2010, and directed NASA to aim for an asteroid and Mars instead of the moon. But the move once again angered Shelby, whose state is home to the Marshall Spaceflight Center, where much of the work on Constellation would have been based.
"The president’s proposed NASA budget begins the death march for the future of U.S. human spaceflight,” he said at the time. “If this budget is enacted, NASA will no longer be an agency of innovation and hard science. It will be an agency of pipe dreams and fairy talks.”
Although the administration terminated the moon plan, it found it politically impossible to kill all of the projects already pouring billions of dollars into coffers of major aerospace contractors.
“The president’s proposed NASA budget begins the death march for the future of U.S. human spaceflight,” Shelby said at the time.
A quartet of powerful senators who have NASA space bases in their states — Shelby, Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) — protected the heavy-lift rocket as well as the Orion capsule. They pushed through legislation mandating construction of a heavy-lift rocket and even dictating how it would be designed, including the use of legacy space shuttle hardware.
Related: The White House is in such a hurry to get to the moon that NASA is considering sidelining its major rocket to make it happen
With Constellation’s moon mission canceled, the precise purpose — the actual destinations — of the SLS and Orion became murky. The SLS clearly existed to launch Orion. But to where?
Throughout this process, the big rocket and Orion have crawled toward completion. NASA has been spending more than $3 billion a year on SLS and Orion. Both programs have faced delays.
Solid rocket boosters for the Space Launch System will be stacked at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. (Mike Brown/Reuters)
The SLS has taken so long to build that it arguably is technologically obsolete, industry officials say. Much of the hardware is derived from the space shuttle, developed in the 1970s.
Meanwhile, a vibrant commercial launch industry, with Boeing, Lockheed and Northrop Grumman, is facing competition from relatively new entrants such as SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, and Blue Origin, founded by Jeffrey P. Bezos (who owns The Washington Post). SpaceX has disrupted the launch industry by building largely reusable rockets and selling them at a discount: $62 million for its Falcon 9 and as low as $90 million for its Falcon Heavy.
By contrast, NASA officials have said that each launch of the SLS, a far more powerful rocket, would cost about $1 billion.
Garver, the former NASA deputy administrator, said that, if nothing else, these programs have delivered jobs to aerospace companies and NASA centers.
“Given that the purpose was to employ people and keep existing contracts going — they have delivered,” she said in an email.
Deep space aspirations
Since he was narrowly confirmed as NASA administrator a year ago, Bridenstine has been a steadfast supporter of SLS, a commitment he reiterated at the Senate hearing last week. He praised SLS and said it remains “a critical capability” for the U.S. space program.
The SLS is supposed to be the backbone of NASA’s deep space aspirations. But it still hasn’t flown, and the Trump administration is in a hurry to get to the moon.
At the Senate hearing last week, Bridenstine said NASA wanted to stick to its plan to launch no later than June 2020.
“Sir, if we tell you and others that we’re going to launch in June of 2020 around the moon ... I think it can be done. We as an agency need to consider all options to accomplish that objective," he said.
To meet the 2020 timeline, Bridenstine said the agency was looking at changing the mission profile, bypassing SLS for a pair of commercial rockets. Instead of launching Orion on a trajectory straight to the moon, it would look at the possibility of flying it to orbit the Earth. Then, on a second commercial rocket, NASA would launch a propulsion module. The Orion spacecraft would dock with it, and the propulsion module would shoot Orion to the moon.
Bridenstine’s blog post calls that option “not optimum or sustainable” and says having two rockets involved “adds complexity and risk that is undesirable.”
Boeing has said it is examining how to speed up work on SLS, including bypassing a months-long test program for the rocket’s first stage that was to occur at the Stennis Space Center and shipping it directly to the Kennedy Space Center.
Earlier this month, Jody Singer, the director of the Marshall Space Flight Center, acknowledged that the program was having challenges and that its maiden launch would need to be delayed, according to SpaceNews.
That didn’t faze Shelby, who introduced Singer at the luncheon.
“As chairman of the appropriations committee, I have more than a passing interest in what NASA does," he said, according to the news site. "And I have a little parochial interest, too, in what they do in Huntsville, Alabama. Jody, you keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll keep funding you.”
Christian Davenport covers the defense and space industries for The Washington Post's Financial desk. He joined The Post in 2000 and has served as an editor on the Metro desk and as a reporter covering military affairs. He is the author of "The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos" (PublicAffairs, 2018).
Joel Achenbach covers science and politics for the National desk. He has been a staff writer for The Post since 1990.
The Latest: Trump lawyers want early look at Mueller report
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation (all times local):
President Donald Trump’s lawyers want an early look at special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings before they are made public.
That’s according to Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s attorney. He says Trump’s legal team hasn’t received any assurances that they’ll get the early look they want, though.
Mueller notified Attorney General William Barr on Friday that he had concluded his probe of Russian election interference and any possible coordination with Donald Trump’s campaign.
Now, Barr will review the findings and determine how much to make public.
Special counsel Robert Mueller will be concluding his government service in the “coming days.”
That’s according to special counsel spokesman Peter Carr.
Carr says in a statement that a “small number” of the office’s staff will remain “to assist in closing the operations of the office.” He did not provide a specific timeline for when that might occur. As of Friday, 11 prosecutors were still employed by the special counsel’s office.
The statement comes just hours after Mueller turned in his confidential report closing his probe of Russian election interference and possible coordination with Donald Trump’s campaign.
House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff says his panel will issue subpoenas if special counsel Robert Mueller’s report — and its underlying evidence — are not released to Congress for further review.
The California Democrat said on CNN that Congress needs to know “and so does the country.”
He said he’s willing to subpoena Mueller as well as Attorney General William Barr, if needed, to push for disclosure.
House Democrats now see the Mueller investigation as a starting point for their own probes of President Donald Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Mueller delivered his final report to Barr on Friday.
One top Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, says the findings of the special counsel’s Russia investigation must be made public to end the “speculation and innuendo” that hangs over President Donald Trump’s administration.
The former Judiciary Committee chairman says while it’s clear the Russians “tried to meddle in our democratic processes,” he still hasn’t seen any evidence of collusion.
Grassley says Attorney General William Barr Attorney General must provide the findings from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report to Congress and the American people “to finally put an end to the speculation and innuendo that has loomed over this administration since its earliest days.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller is not recommending any further indictments in the Russia investigation.
That’s according to a Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the confidential recommendation.
—By Eric Tucker
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham expects that he and the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, will be briefed “in the coming days” about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
The South Carolina Republican says he was notified by the Justice Department that Mueller’s report has been turned over and that Attorney General William Barr “will pursue as much transparency as possible.”
Graham says he expects to be “more thoroughly” briefed. He says he believed it was important for Mueller to do his job “without interference, and that has been accomplished.”
Attorney General William Barr says the Justice Department did not block special counsel Robert Mueller from taking any action during his Russia investigation.
Barr is required to disclose to Congress any instance in which he or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided an action Mueller proposed should not be pursued.
Barr said in his letter to members of Congress on Friday that “there were no such instances during the Special Counsel’s investigation.”
The attorney general notified four key lawmakers that he may update them over the weekend.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he welcomes news that special counsel Robert Mueller has completed his investigation into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 elections.
McConnell says he and other Republicans have long believed that Russia poses a significant threat to American interests, adding that he hopes Mueller’s report will “help inform and improve our efforts to protect our democracy.”
The Kentucky Republican says he hopes that Attorney General William Barr, who received Mueller’s report on Friday, will “provide as much information as possible” on the findings, “with as much openness and transparency as possible.”
Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said he expects the Justice Department to release the report to the committee without delay “and to the maximum extent permitted by law.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer say it’s “imperative” to make the full report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller public.
The top congressional Democrats say, “The American people have a right to the truth.”
In a joint statement, they say Attorney Gneral William Barr must not give President Donald Trump his lawyers or staff any “sneak preview” of the findings or evidence.
“The White House must not be allowed to interfere in decisions about what parts of those findings or evidence are made public,” they say.
The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee says Congress should receive the full report from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler says in a statement that “We look forward to getting the full Mueller report and related materials.” He adds that “transparency and the public interest demand nothing less” because the public needs to have faith in the rule of law.
Attorney General William Barr wrote in a letter to Nadler and other committee chairmen that Mueller had finished his investigation and delivered his report to Barr. The attorney general said he would update Congress as soon as this weekend, but it wasn’t clear now much of the report would be shared with lawmakers or with the public.
Democratic presidential candidates are demanding that Attorney General William Barr make Robert Mueller’s report on Russia public.
Minutes after Barr notified members of Congress Friday that Mueller had delivered his report, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts tweeted that the attorney general should “release the Mueller report to the American public. Now.”
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey tweeted that the report “should be made public immediately.”
The Trump administration’s handling of Mueller’s report foretells big fights to come, from the presidential campaign trail to, in all likelihood, the federal courts.
President Donald Trump’s lawyers say they are “pleased” that special counsel Robert Mueller has delivered his report on the Russia investigation.
Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow issued their joint statement within minutes of Attorney General William Barr’s letter to key members of Congress confirming the delivery and suggesting he could update lawmakers as soon as this weekend.
They say: “We’re pleased that the Office of Special Counsel has delivered its report to the Attorney General pursuant to the regulations. Attorney General Barr will determine the appropriate next steps.”
Mueller’s report, still confidential, sets the stage for big public fights to come, including in all likelihood, in federal court. It’s not clear how much of the report will become public or provided to Congress.
Responding to the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, the White House says the next steps are “up to Attorney General (William) Barr.”
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders says “we look forward to the process taking its course.”
She adds, “The White House has not received or been briefed on the Special Counsel’s report.”
For 22 months, Mueller has probed allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election and other potential misdeeds by those in President Donald Trump’s orbit.
Barr has said he will provide updates on Mueller’s still-confidential findings to Congress as soon as this weekend.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report concluding the Russia investigation was delivered by a security officer early Friday afternoon to the office of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
That’s according to Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec. It was then delivered within minutes to Attorney General William Barr.
The White House was notified around 4:35-4:40 p.m. that the Justice Department had received the report.
The letter was scheduled to be delivered at 5 p.m. to staff members on Capitol Hill.
Rosenstein was expected to call Mueller on Friday to thank him for his work in the last two years.
Attorney General William Barr says he could update Congress as early as this weekend about special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings in the Russia investigation.
The Justice Department confirmed late Friday that Barr received Mueller’s final report. The report concludes Mueller’s nearly two-year-long investigation of Russian election interference and possible coordination with President Donald Trump’s campaign.
Special counsel Robert Mueller has concluded his investigation into Russian election interference and possible coordination with associates of President Donald Trump.
The Justice Department says Mueller delivered his final report Friday to Attorney General William Barr, who is reviewing it.
Mueller’s report, still confidential, sets the stage for big public fights to come. The next steps are up to Trump’s attorney general, to Congress and, in all likelihood, federal courts.
It’s not clear how much of the report will become public or provided to Congress. Barr has said he will write his own report summarizing Mueller’s findings.
The nearly two-year probe has shadowed Trump’s presidency and resulted in felony charges against 34 people including six people who served on Trump’s campaign.
Smart systems are poised to dominate the retail space by 2021 – meaning certain precautions have become necessary.
Hopes shifting as Republicans, Democrats wait for Mueller
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has been calling the Russia probe a witch hunt for two years. But now, Trump and his allies are starting to see it as something potentially very different:...
Now here is an abrupt, about face policy turnaround!!!
Trump will remove new North Korea-related sanctions because he 'likes' Kim Jong Un
Jacob Pramuk | @jacobpramuk
Published 5 Hours Ago Updated 3 Hours Ago
President Donald Trump says he will remove new North Korea-related sanctions announced only on Thursday.
The White House says he made the sudden move because he "likes" North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
The U.S. is pushing North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.
US President Donald Trump (R) gestures as he meets with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (L) at the start of their historic US-North Korea summit, at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore on June 12, 2018.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump said Friday that he would scrap action his administration took only a day earlier to crack down on companies accused of helping North Korea evade sanctions.
"It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea," the president tweeted on Friday, though the Treasury announcement he appeared to reference took place Thursday and did not involve "large scale" sanctions. "I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!"
In explaining the president's sudden announcement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "President Trump likes Chairman Kim and he doesn't think these sanctions will be necessary." Trump's tweet and the press secretary's clarification of it sent waves of confusion throughout Washington, from the Pentagon to the White House itself.
On Thursday, Treasury designated two China-based shipping companies that it said has aided Pyongyang in circumventing U.S. and international sanctions. The U.S. and its allies have used those economic measures to push North Korea to dismantle its nuclear and missile programs.
Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un have met face to face twice, but left a summit in Vietnam last month without reaching a deal on denuclearization. Since the summit, reports have emerged of new activity at a North Korean missile research center and rocket site.
Trump's surprise reversal Friday marks a departure from his administration's messaging a day earlier. In a tweet Thursday after the Treasury's announcement, White House National Security Advisor John Bolton said "everyone should take notice and review their own activities to ensure that they are not involved in North Korea's sanctions evasion."
Since exchanging explosive rhetoric with Kim during his first year in office, Trump has aimed to assuage his North Korean counterpart as he pushes for an agreement to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
The president has also tried to tread carefully around China as he tries to reach a trade deal with Beijing and end a potentially devastating trade conflict. The U.S. has viewed getting Beijing to pull back its support for North Korea as crucial to getting the isolated regime to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
A Treasury Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the president's tweet. The Pentagon referred all queries about it to the White House.
Meno_
Location: Mysterium Tremendum
Mueller delivers Report
by Meno_ » Sat Mar 23, 2019 2:10 am
Mueller Delivers Report on Trump-Russia Investigation to Attorney General
The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has conducted an extensive investigation into Russian efforts to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential race. Here is the story of how it all started.
By Sharon LaFraniere and Katie Benner
WASHINGTON — The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, on Friday delivered a report on his inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election to Attorney General William P. Barr, the Justice Department said, bringing to a close an investigation that has consumed the nation and cast a shadow over President Trump for nearly two years.
Mr. Barr told congressional leaders in a letter that he may brief them on the special counsel’s “principal conclusions” as early as this weekend, a surprisingly fast turnaround for a report anticipated for months. The attorney general said he “remained committed to as much transparency as possible.”
In an apparent endorsement of an investigation that Mr. Trump has relentlessly attacked as a “witch hunt,” Mr. Barr said Justice Department officials never had to intervene to keep him from taking an inappropriate or unwarranted step. The department’s regulations would have required Mr. Barr to inform the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees about any such interventions in his letter.
A senior Justice Department official said that Mr. Mueller would not recommend new indictments, a statement aimed at ending speculation that Mr. Trump or other key figures might be charged down the line. With department officials stressing that Mr. Mueller’s inquiry was over and his office closing, the question for both Mr. Trump’s critics and defenders was whether the prosecutors condemned the president’s behavior in their report, exonerated him — or neither. The president’s lawyers were already girding for a possible fight over whether they could assert executive privilege to keep parts of the report secret.
[What’s next? We break it down as well as the major moments in the case. And here’s the latest reaction to the news.]
Since Mr. Mueller’s appointment in May 2017, his team has focused on how Russian operatives sought to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential race and whether anyone tied to the Trump campaign, wittingly or unwittingly, cooperated with them. While the inquiry, started months earlier by the F.B.I., unearthed a far-ranging Russian influence operation, no public evidence emerged that the president or his aides illegally assisted it.
Nonetheless, the damage to Mr. Trump and those in his circle has been extensive. A half-dozen former Trump aides were indicted or convicted of crimes, mostly for lying to federal investigators or Congress. Others remain under investigation in cases that Mr. Mueller’s office handed off to federal prosecutors in New York and elsewhere. Dozens of Russian intelligence officers or citizens, along with three Russian companies, were charged in cases that are likely to languish in court because the defendants cannot be extradited to the United States.
Republicans immediately seized upon the news that no more indictments are expected as a vindication of Mr. Trump and his campaign. Those reports “confirm what we’ve known all along: There was never any collusion with Russia,” Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-highest-ranking House Republican, said in a statement.
The letter that William P. Barr, the attorney general, sent to Congress.
Democrats, including some of those hoping to supplant Mr. Trump in the White House in the 2020 election, insisted that Mr. Mueller’s full report be made public, including the underlying evidence. In a joint statement, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Senate Democrat, warned Mr. Barr not to allow the White House a “sneak preview” of the document.
“The White House must not be allowed to interfere in decisions about what parts of those findings or evidence are made public,” they said.
Not since Watergate has a special prosecutor’s inquiry so mesmerized the American public. Polls have shown that most Americans want to know its findings, and the House unanimously passed a nonbinding resolution to publicize the report.
Mr. Barr’s letter said he would decide what to release after consulting with Mr. Mueller and Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who has overseen his investigation. Justice Department officials emphasized that the White House had been kept at a distance.
Only a handful of law enforcement officials have seen the report, said Kerri Kupec, a department spokeswoman.
Although a White House lawyer was notified that Mr. Mueller had delivered it to Mr. Barr, no White House official has seen the report or been briefed on it, according to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary. “The next steps are up to Attorney General Barr, and we look forward to the process taking its course,” she said.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of the president’s personal lawyers, said he planned to remain in Washington over the weekend in part because Mr. Barr might update Congress on Mr. Mueller’s findings.
He sidestepped a question about whether the president’s lawyers were seeking to review the report before any of it becomes public. White House lawyers have been preparing for the possibility they may need to argue some material is protected by executive privilege, especially if the report discusses whether the president’s interactions with his top aides or legal advisers are evidence of obstruction of justice.
Mueller Has Delivered His Report. Here’s What We Already Know. More than two years of criminal indictments and steady revelations about Trump campaign contacts with Russians reveal the scope of the special counsel investigation.
Even though Mr. Mueller’s report is complete, some aspects of his inquiry remain active and may be overseen by the same prosecutors once they are reassigned to their old jobs in the Justice Department. For instance, recently filed court documents suggest that investigators are still examining why the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort turned over campaign polling data in 2016 to a Russian associate who prosecutors said was tied to Russian intelligence.
Mr. Mueller looked extensively at whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice to protect himself or his associates. But despite months of negotiations, prosecutors were unable to personally interview the president.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers insisted that he respond only to written questions from the special counsel. Even though under current Justice Department policy, a sitting president cannot be indicted, Mr. Trump’s lawyers worried that his responses in an oral interview could bring political repercussions, including impeachment, or put him in legal jeopardy once he is out of office.
Mr. Trump has helped make Mr. Mueller a household name, attacking his investigation an average of about twice a day as an unfair, politically motivated attempt to invalidate his election. He never forgave former Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia inquiry, an action that cleared the way for his deputy, Mr. Rosenstein, to appoint Mr. Mueller.
Mr. Trump reiterated his attacks on the special counsel this week, saying Mr. Mueller decided “out of the blue” to write a report, ignoring that regulations require him to do so. But the president also said the report should be made public because of “tens of millions” of Americans would want to know what it contains.
“Let people see it,” Mr. Trump said. “There was no collusion. There was no obstruction. There was no nothing.”
In court, the evidence amassed by the Mueller team has held up. Every defendant who is not still awaiting trial either pleaded guilty or was convicted by a jury. Although no American has been charged with illegally plotting with the Russians to tilt the election, Mr. Mueller uncovered a web of lies by former Trump aides.
Five of them were found to have deceived federal investigators or Congress about their interactions with Russians during the campaign or the transition. They includes Mr. Manafort; Michael T. Flynn, the president’s first national security adviser; and Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and longtime fixer. A sixth former adviser, Roger J. Stone Jr. is to stand trial in November on charges of lying to Congress.
Glimpses of the Mystery That Is the Mueller Investigation Here are some pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. The full picture is missing.
Those who know Mr. Mueller, a former F.B.I. director, had predicted a concise, legalistic report devoid of opinions — nothing like the 445-page treatise that Ken Starr, who investigated President Bill Clinton, produced in 1998. Operating under a now-defunct statute that governed independent counsels, Mr. Starr had far more leeway than Mr. Mueller to set his own investigative boundaries and to render judgments.
[Make sense of the people, issues and ideas shaping American politics with our newsletter.]
The regulations that governed Mr. Mueller, who is under the supervision of the Justice Department, only required him to explain his decisions to either seek or decline to seek criminal charges in a confidential report to the attorney general. The attorney general was then required to notify the leadership of the House and Senate judiciary committees.
Despite pledging transparency, Mr. Barr may be reluctant to release the part of Mr. Mueller’s report that may be of most interest: who the special counsel declined to prosecute and why, especially if Mr. Trump is on that list.
The department’s longstanding practice, with rare exceptions, is not to identify people who were merely investigative targets to avoid unfairly tainting their reputations, especially because they would have no chance to defend themselves in a court of law. Mr. Rosenstein, who has overseen Mr. Mueller’s work and may have a say in what is released, is a firm believer in that principle.
In a May 2017 letter that the president seized upon as justification for his decision to fire James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, Mr. Rosenstein severely criticized Mr. Comey for announcing during the previous year that Hillary Clinton, then a presidential candidate, would not be charged with a crime for mishandling classified information as secretary of state. Releasing “derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation,” Mr. Rosenstein wrote, is “a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.”
Weighing that principle against the public’s right to know is even more fraught in the president’s case. If Mr. Mueller declined to pursue criminal charges against Mr. Trump, he might have been guided not by lack of evidence, but by the Justice Department’s legal opinions that a sitting president cannot be indicted. The department’s Office of Legal Counsel has repeatedly advised that the stigma and burden of being under prosecution would damage the president’s ability to lead.
Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the head of the House Judiciary Committee, has argued that the department’s view that presidents are protected from prosecution makes it all the more important for the public to see Mr. Mueller’s report.
“To maintain that a sitting president cannot be indicted, and then to withhold evidence of wrongdoing from Congress because the president cannot be charged, is to convert D.O.J. policy into the means for a cover-up,” he said before the House approved its nonbinding resolution to disclose the special counsel’s findings.
Some predict that any disclosures from Mr. Mueller’s report will satisfy neither Mr. Trump’s critics nor his defenders, especially given the public’s high expectations for answers. A Washington Post-Schar School poll in February illustrated the sharp divide in public opinion: It found that of those surveyed, most Republicans did not believe evidence of crimes that Mr. Mueller’s team had already proved in court, while most Democrats believed he had proved crimes that he had not even claimed.
Nicholas Fandos contributed reporting.
And now, what goes with the whole nine yards of cleaning out Washington's political quagmire? And how will America get Great again? And will all these walled in scenarios meet the test of time for another two years?
Re: Trump enters the stage
lets see how this plays out now!!!
President Donald Trump gives the thumbs-up as he arrives on Air Force One on March 22 at Palm Beach International Airport, en route to Mar-a-Lago.
Trump faces Mueller report in Mar-a-Lago bubble
The president kicked off a weekend at Mar-a-Lago with a speech at a fundraising dinner but few words about special counsel Robert Mueller.
PALM BEACH, Florida – When the news finally broke that Robert Mueller had completed his investigation, President Donald Trump was cloistered in the safe space of his private club here, surrounded by senior aides and the diehard supporters who pay big bucks to catch a glimpse of him.
As Washington melted down over the long-awaited news 1,000 miles away, the fierce Trump defenders here girded for an epic battle.
“He seems to be able to deal with most of the stuff that most people can’t. I am convinced that he can weather anything he’s put through,” said Joyce Lewis Bass, a board member of the Boca Raton Regional Republican Club.
On Friday night, just feet from where Trump and his family were having dinner, local Republicans were holding a fundraising dinner. The logo for the event: a five-dollar bill featuring a MAGA-hat clad Abraham Lincoln.
Organizers had held out hope that Trump would make an appearance at the event, and White House officials initially signaled he wouldn't attend, saying he planned to spend his night on Mar-a-Lago’s patio with First Lady Melania Trump, their son Barron, and Melania Trump’s parents.
Schumer: Attorney General Barr must make the full Mueller report public
Congress demands full Mueller report ahead of huge partisan fight
By KYLE CHENEY
The president spoke to the cheering crowd for about two minutes, with the first lady standing beside him on stage, according to a video of his remarks obtained by POLITICO. He said nothing about the Mueller news. Instead, he thanked “the legendary Pam Bondi,” Florida’s former attorney general who was honored at the dinner, and marveled at the first lady’s poll numbers. The president also cracked a joke about the keynote speaker, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
“If Lindsey’s speaking, I want to come down here,” Trump said, “for two reasons. No. 1: he’s a great speaker. And No. 2, I know if I’m here, he’s not going to say anything bad about me.”
The dinner capped another whirlwind day for Trump. As they braced for the report throughout the day Friday, Trump and his team tried to convey an image of a president putting his head down and focusing on the job. Aides arranged a meeting with the leaders of five Caribbean countries, the president announced his pick to join the Federal Reserve and he bragged about the defeat of the Islamic State.
But Trump quickly overshadowed those efforts, issuing a confusing tweet that implied he was undoing North Korea sanctions that his administration had just put in place. The tweet caught many in the White House by surprise and the administration later tried to clarify, insisting he was referring instead to not-yet-imposed sanctions.
Trump’s Islamic State victory lap was also quickly undercut. At the end of the flight to Florida, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders entered Air Force One’s press cabin wielding a map. ISIS no longer holds any territory in Syria, she declared, without offering any other details. Trump later held up the same map, at one point displaying it upside down, boasting about his success in diminishing the terrorist group.
“So here is ISIS on Election Day. Here's ISIS right now,” he said. The only problem: the graphic didn’t compare ISIS’s current territory to Election Day in 2016. According to photographs captured by reporters, it compared the territory to 2014, undercutting the president’s about turning things around immediately after taking office.
“You guys can have the map. Congratulations. You’ll spread it around,” Trump told reporters, handing them the document. Sanders quickly snatched up the paper.
Trump tried to project calm throughout the day, distancing himself from the image of a man about to suffer a political blow. On his arrival at the airport here, he delighted in the adoration of his supporters, signing a red “Make America Great Again” hat.
But there were more subtle signs that the White House — like all of Washington — had assumed crash position ahead of the transmittal of Mueller’s report to Attorney General Bill Barr, which happened at 5pm, shortly after a sudden blinding hailstorm tore through an already-anxious capital: White House counsel Pat Cipollone joined the president at Mar-a-Lago, according to a person familiar with the matter, as did Sanders, who doesn’t always travel with the president on weekend trips.
“We'll see what happens,” Trump had said early in the day as he departed for his weekend in Florida. “There was no collusion. There was no obstruction,” he repeated once again. “Everybody knows it. It's all a big hoax. It's all a witch hunt.”
But he didn’t mention Mueller for the rest of the day. Though the president is often eager to field reporters’ questions, he ignored journalists as he sat alongside the Caribbean leaders, under two gold and crystal chandeliers. For once, it seemed, Trump felt he had nothing more to say. He was content to wait. By late evening, he had resisted tweeting once about Mueller or Russia.
Friday's fundraising dinner was hosted by the Palm Beach County Republicans. Tickets for the fundraiser started at $375, with sponsorship packages going as high as $25,000.
On Friday afternoon, a person helping to organize the dinner predicted Trump would attend, especially given that the event was held just feet from the room where Trump huddled with the Caribbean leaders. “We very much expect the president to come,” the person said. “It’s in his house.”
The mood at Mar-a-Lago Friday afternoon was low-key, despite the furor over the Mueller developments swirling in Washington. A nearby parking lot was packed with luxury cars, including a bright yellow Porsche and a chrome Rolls Royce. A woman in the parking lot sported a black fur coat in the nearly 75-degree weather.
Mueller’s actual conclusions remain under lock and key at the Justice Department. But supporters here seemed unfazed by the report’s imminent disclosure.
Asked if she’s certain the president can overcome the Mueller probe’s findings, Toni Holt Kramer, a Mar-a-Lago member and founder of the Trumpettes USA, a Trump fan club, said via email, “Positive!!!”
Marc Caputo and Anita Kumar contributed to this story.
Re: Trump enters the stage The Mueller Report
by Meno_ » Sat Mar 23, 2019 12:44 pm
Opinion, Analysis, Essays
Mueller report's release to AG Barr is the end of the beginning for Trump, not the beginning of the end
Democrats are gearing up to fulfill their oversight responsibilities in a manner wholly consistent with what Republicans called for during the Obama years.
The fight continues.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month-long investigation into the relationship between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia is finally over, bringing an end to this dramatic investigative chapter into the activities of the American president and those closest to him.
But the thing is, this was just chapter one. Anyone thinking or hoping that the completion of the Mueller report would be the finale of the story will be sorely disappointed.
Because the next chapter belongs to Attorney General William Barr and the new Democratic majority in the House as they fight for full access to the report and the underlying evidence used to compile it. And remember, while Mueller’s long-awaited report was submitted to the Justice Department on Friday, Barr has yet to determine what will be publicly revealed to Congress, if anything at all.
Because while the report itself is important, the next few chapters of this investigation belongs to Congress and the new Democratic majority in the House.
First, Congressional oversight committees will fight for possession of the Mueller report. Then, they will use the Mueller report as a blueprint to guide their investigations into every part of Donald Trump’s presidency including his foreign policy decisions, financial interests, political activities, and personal relationships.
Just three months ago, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that “some of it should be sanitized…I’ll trust Mr. Barr too work with us to get as much out as we can.” Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, advocated for the president’s legal team to have the right to “correct it” before the report is made public or released to Congress.
Anything short of releasing the full, un-redacted report to Congress will presumably result in a high-stakes standoff between Congress and the executive branch. Should the attorney general fail to voluntarily produce the report, Congressional committees will subpoena the Justice Department for it. If the DOJ refuses to comply with the subpoena, a lawsuit will be filed and this could end up in the Supreme Court’s hands. Meanwhile, newly minted private citizen Robert Mueller will almost certainly be invited to testify at a congressional hearing to discuss his report’s findings.
Mueller report and Trump-Russia investigation must push Congress to protect future special counsels
Withholding or sanitizing the Mueller report is a political loser for the president. Recent polls reveal that nearly 9 in ten Americans believe the full report should be made public. This is also a tough fight for Congressional Republicans given their past rhetoric about transparency and oversight during President Barack Obama’s time in office.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the ranking Republican on the Committee on Oversight and Reform, said this during a 2012 proceeding about getting documents from the Justice Department: “How can you ignore the facts when you don’t’ get the facts? That’s what this is all about…I just want to get the information…I think we’re right on target with this. We just want the information so we have the facts.”
At that same proceeding, former Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., then a member of the House Oversight Committee and now a Fox News contributor, opined that “the notion that you can withhold information and documents from Congress no matter whether you are the party in power or not in power is wrong. Respect for the rule of law must mean something, irrespective of the vicissitudes of political cycles.
VIEW THIS GRAPHIC ON NBCNEWS.COM
In fact, oversight Republicans’ fight with then Eric Holder’s Justice Department over the release of documents related to “Operation Fast and Furious” is instructive now. Following President Obama’s use of executive privilege to ignore a Congressional subpoena, Republicans filed a lawsuit in district court declaring, “The Attorney General’s conception of the reach of ‘Executive privilege,’ were it to be accepted, would cripple congressional oversight of Executive branch agencies, to the very detriment of the Nation and our constitutional structure.” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson agreed, who is also the judge presiding over Roger Stone’s case, ruled against the Justice Department.
If Barr and the Trump White House resist efforts by Congress to get the full report, history could repeat itself.
AOC and Cohen remind Trump that Mueller isn't the only investigator he needs to worry about
Once they’ve acquired the report, the real force of congressional oversight will be felt. Investigators will comb through every thread of evidence to create multiple lanes of oversight inquiries. Statements made to Mueller and his team will be cross-referenced with statements made to Congress during public hearings or depositions. Officials who have any inconsistencies in their testimonies will be called upon by Congress to address them under the threat of perjury. The Mueller report will effectively serve as the foundation of a forensic autopsy Congress will conduct examining every controversial decision the Trump administration has made.
In short, Democrats in Congress are gearing up to fulfill their oversight responsibilities in a manner entirely consistent with what Republicans called for during the Obama years. As House Republicans declared in 2010, “Congress is constitutionally obligated to provide thorough oversight of the Executive Branch. This obligation is recognized by scholars and the Courts and by the American public that expects its federal government to root out waste, fraud, abuse, mismanagement, and misconduct.”
Their words. Their standard. Now Trump will have to live with it.
Kurt Bardella
------------------------- - --------------------------
No new indictments, is this a positive sign to foreshadow a sign of political survival, with a clean ending of a stopped buck for Trump, hence forward?
The Guardian chimes in:
'How did the Mueller investigation manage to keep its secrets under wraps for two years?
My colleagues Oliver Laughland and Jon Swaine have a new article looking at the “leak-proof inquiry”:
Behind the walls of a nondescript concrete office building in south-west Washington DC, special counsel Robert Mueller has meticulously compiled one of the most important investigations in American history.
There have been 37 indictments or guilty pleas and 199 criminal charges. Five people, including some of Donald Trump’s closest former advisers, have been sent to prison.
And yet for all the political fallout, intrigue over Mueller’s prosecutorial strategy and obsession with the contents of his final report, the office of the special counsel has remained an almost sealed vessel.'
------------------- -- ---------------- -- --------
How in the world can things go back to some kind of ill defined normality, even after a public release of the Mueller Report, even as the supercharged political athmosphere grinds on and within its own ranks, produces newer and newer fashioned myth laden archetypes of anti constitutional severance, where perhaps the Supreme Court may turn out to be the final arbiter?
Can even they, produce some resemblance to clarity, in a starkly new world, where the very timbers which constitute the foundation , which served reverently and with absolute reference, tolling the faith and absolute allegiance of increasingly divided people?
Does an overly far reach from that into thus: the quagmire characterized as a swamp, become a politically brutal ball, seething in the language of animosity and division and contradiction hold up an outline with which the banner of oncoming generations may march forward in confidence?
Can a new internationalism arise out if a perplexing U.S. paradigm, which has served well as the blueprint for a clear manifest for the guarantee of human rights and transparently benevolent government with which it may cross over borders of faithful performance?
Can the 21st century live by a new motto, 'Beyond Truth and Fiction?
The ramifications are yet hidden, but what ideology could ever sustain a governance , before being uncovered for what it truly is?
None, the answer is always relentlessly compelling !
---------------- - ---------------- - ---------------
The Latest: House Democrats set group call on Mueller report
Associated Press AP, 9:43 AM
Attorney General William Barr leaves his home in McLean, Va., on Saturday morning, March 23, 2019. Special counsel Robert Mueller closed his long and contentious Russia investigation with no new charges, ending the probe that has cast a dark shadow over Donald Trump's presidency. (AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz) —The Associated Press
House Democrats will gather by phone on Saturday as they wait for the Justice Department to send them details of what special counsel Robert Mueller has found in his investigation of Russian interference.
That’s according to a person familiar with the meeting. The person requested anonymity to discuss the private call.
Democrats planned the 3 p.m. conference call to discuss strategy and their next steps after they were notified Friday afternoon that Mueller had sent his completed report to Attorney General William Barr.
Barr said in a Friday letter to the House and Senate Judiciary committees that he would share Mueller’s “principal conclusions” with Congress as soon as Saturday.
— By Mary Clare Jalonick
10 a.m.
Attorney General William Barr has arrived at the Justice Department a day after receiving special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report on the Russia investigation.
Barr says he could notify Congress of Mueller’s “principal findings” as soon as Saturday. Mueller on Friday concluded his probe of Russian election interference and possible coordination with Donald Trump’s campaign.
The special counsel’s full report is confidential, but Barr says he will be deciding soon how much of it he will release to Congress and the public.
President Donald Trump is on the golf course in Florida a day after special counsel Robert Mueller closed his 22-month-long Russia investigation with no new charges.
Mueller delivered his long-awaited report Friday to the Justice Department, which was expected to release the main findings as soon as Saturday.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Friday that the next steps are up to the attorney general and the White House will let the process take its course. As of Friday evening, the White House had not received or been briefed on the report.
Even with the details still under wraps, the end of the probe without additional indictments by Mueller was welcome news to some in Trump’s orbit who had feared a final round of charges could ensnare more Trump associates, including members of the president’s family.
Special counsel Robert Mueller closed his long and contentious Russia investigation with no new charges, ending the probe that has cast a dark shadow over Donald Trump’s presidency. The Justice Department was expected to release the main findings as soon as Saturday.
Even with the details still under wraps, the end Friday of the 22-month probe without additional indictments by Mueller was welcome news to some in Trump’s orbit who had feared a final round of charges could ensnare more Trump associates, including members of the president’s family.
For now, the report is accessible to only a handful of Justice Department officials while Attorney General William Barr prepared to release the “principal findings” soon.
TOPICS: Politics
DEFENSE ATTORNEY SAYS DONALD TRUMP STILL FACING LEGAL WOES, WARNS SDNY INVESTIGATION 'AIN'T A FISHING EXPEDITION'
By Donica Phifer On 3/23/19 at 9:12 PM EDT
Randy Zelin
Defense attorney Randy Zelin appears on MSNBC on March 23 to discuss the end of Robert Mueller's investigation and the legal challenges remaining for President Donald Trump.
PHOTO: MSNBC
U.S. DONALD TRUMP MSNBC
As the reactions continue to pour in following the delivery of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on accusations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 special election, one defense attorney was quick to caution those celebrating President Donald Trump's alleged victory.
Appearing on MSNBC Saturday, criminal defense attorney Randy Zelin and MSNBC anchor Kendis Gibson discussed the report from Mueller and how Trump's legal troubles may not be over, despite Mueller's recommendation that no one else is indicted as a result of his investigation.
Zelin began by outlining the mandate from the special counsel's office, saying the report is "limited to investigation into Russian influence into 2016 and related matters."
"Which means that everything related to everything else is for someone else to do," Zerlin added. "In the Southern District [of New York] are they interested in Russian interference or are they interested in things like campaign finance violations unrelated to Russia."
Gibson responded to reference the president's frequent calls of Mueller's investigation being a fishing expedition, to which Zelin asked what Gibson would say about the SDNY investigation "which ain't a fishing expedition."
“You have Michael Cohen, who has already pleaded guilty, you have evidence of campaign finance violations, you have investigations into, now, Trump Organization business dealings, insurance fraud, tax fraud, all kinds of fraud which are unrelated to the Russia investigation,” Zelin said. “So how does the Mueller report extricate the president from his problems?”
Zelin later asked why Americans aren't concerned about learning if Russa interfered in the 2016 presidential election saying, "we've lost sight of that."
Zelin's comments echo what other legal experts told Newsweek on Friday.
"I think that [the Mueller report] certainly is not the end-all, be-all for legal problems and ethics problems for the president,” Noah Bookbinder, executive director at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said. “There’s just a lot of really problematic conduct that is being investigated, and that’s not to say that what special counsel Mueller found is not going to be incredibly important…but there’s some danger to looking at whatever he produces as the definitive statement on whether or not this president did anything wrong."
Speaking to MSNBC Saturday, New York Times justice reporter Katie Bennan said that while Trump and his family — including his children Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. — haven't shown themselves to be worried in public, the remaining investigations from Congress and the Southern District of New York cannot be discounted for their potential legal ramifications.
The Southern District of New York is currently investigating potential campaign violations and misuse of funds, an investigation that includes a recent subpoena for financial documents and donor records for Trump's inauguration committee.
"I think we do have to look back at the investigation at SDNY, especially the ones that concern the Trump Organization, where the president's children might be directly implicated," Bennan said, adding that Michael Cohen's testimony included statements that some of his actions were to protect Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr.
Gibson then asked Zelin if those with the last name of Trump should be worried.
"Hell yes," Zelin replied.
Fox News Asks Dem Senator: 'Did Your Party Go Too Far?'
Russia Report Is 'Fraction' of Trump Legal Woes: Expert
Security Expert: Mueller Docs Will Leak If Not Released
Mueller Won’t Recommend Prison Sentence for Cohen
In an interview with Fox News which aired on Friday morning, hours before Mueller delivered his report, Trump expressed confusion that he was being investigated in other areas saying that his lawyers, “don’t even know what people are talking about.
© Copyright 2019 NEWSWEEK
by Meno_ » Sun Mar 24, 2019 6:20 am
MSNBC's Chris Matthews said it is "startling" that there were no indictments following the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Matthews questioned why there was no "interrogation" of President Trump following the announcement that Mueller submitted his report to the U.S. Attorney General on Friday.
"Why was there never an interrogation of this president?" Matthews asked. "We were told for weeks by experts, you cannot deal with an obstruction of justice charge or investigation without getting to motive. You cannot get to motive unless you hear it from the person himself who's being targeted, a subject of the investigation."
"How can they let Trump off the hook?" Matthews demanded.
"So far tonight we have no reason to believe Trump is going to be charged by rhetoric in the document itself, in the Mueller report, no he will not be charged with obstruction or collusion without ever having to sit down with the special counsel Mueller and answer his damn questions. How can that happen?" Matthews asked Friday night.
Matthews calls it "startling" that there will be no further indictments:
I haven’t seen MSNBC this upset since Election Night
The battle over the Mueller report begins as Trump allies claim victory
By Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker
Congressional Democrats on March 22 demanded the release of all underlying evidence in the Russia investigation while Republicans pointed to findings to vindicate President Trump. (JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
The political showdown over the Russia investigation that could reshape the remainder of President Trump’s term began in earnest Saturday even before the special counsel’s conclusions were known to the public, as Trump allies claimed vindication while Democrats demanded transparency and vowed to intensify their own probes.
Trump and his attorneys and aides were clouded by uncertainty because they did not yet know the contents of the Robert S. Mueller III’s report, which Attorney General William P. Barr and a small coterie of Justice Department officials spent Saturday privately reviewing.
Ensconced for the weekend in Palm Beach, Fla., Trump exuded optimism while playing golf, lunching at the clubhouse and chatting with friends. At the urging of his advisers, he also exhibited uncharacteristic caution, refraining from publicly crowing that the “witch hunt” was over or declaring victory prematurely. Asked mid-Saturday to evaluate the president’s mood, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said simply, “He’s good.”
The Trump team clung to hopeful signs — such as word from the Justice Department that there would be no more indictments from Mueller’s team — that the president could end up exonerated after a nearly two-year investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Related: [Attorney general is preparing a set of conclusions from Mueller report]
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III completed his report on whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia in 2016. Now the spotlight is on the attorney general. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)
But there was also widespread recognition within the Trump orbit that the Mueller report could still contain damaging information for the president — and that his legal troubles are far from over, with separate investigations into Trump’s business, inaugural committee and conduct continuing apace in New York and on Capitol Hill.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of Trump’s personal attorneys, said he was in a “watch and wait” mode and had been urging the president to “keep your powder dry.”
“The information that has been revealed publicly, particularly no further indictments, has been helpful,” Giuliani said. But, he added, “until you read the report, you don’t know exactly what it entails. . . . My message is: We’ve all waited this long. Let’s just await the reading of what’s disclosed, and then we can have proper final reactions. There’s too much assuming going on, on the other side, and we shouldn’t fall into that trap.”
Still, the contours of the political battles ahead took form. The mood among Democrats was tense and urgent, with expectations running high that Mueller’s complete report could be explosive and spark a reckoning for Trump. Party leaders called for the report to be released in full, along with the underlying documents.
Americans “deserve the truth, to know the truth,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Saturday afternoon on a conference call with caucus members. “Transparency is the order of the day.”
Related: [Trump’s legal troubles are far from over even as Mueller probe ends]
Rank-and-file Democrats worried to House leaders that the Justice Department’s independence could be threatened, according to several aides involved in those talks, while Pelosi tried to fend off — for now, at least — calls within her party to seek Trump’s impeachment.
Attorney General William P. Barr departs his home Saturday morning in McLean, Va. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“I think that day will come,” Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) told MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Saturday. “I don’t think he’s legitimate. I said it back at the end of the election. I still believe that today.”
On the campaign trail, Democratic presidential candidates called for full transparency from the Justice Department.
“We really need a full accounting of what happened,” Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., told a breakfast crowd in Greenville, S.C. He added, “It may well be the case that the only appropriate response is impeachment, but to me the most decisive way to put an end to Trumpism is for it to be defeated massively at the ballot box.”
Among Republicans, meanwhile, the calls for caution from Trump’s attorneys did not seem to reach the ears of his allies, who took a victory lap on the president’s behalf.
“This is a vindication for the president and his family that after one year, 10 months and six days the Mueller report is concluding something which we already knew, which is there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians,” said Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager.
Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, wrote in an email that the president would “weaponize Mueller report to bludgeon Democrats. Expect him to come ‘off the chain.’ ”
There was a defiant streak throughout conservative media. On Breitbart, headlines read “Leftists cope with Mueller report bust” and “MSNBC-onspiracy!” And on the Sirius radio program “Breitbart News Saturday,” upbeat tracks from the “Ghostbusters” and “Rocky” soundtracks played as a parade of Trump allies called in with commentary.
A feeling of relief set in among the many Trump associates who had spent hours being questioned by Mueller’s investigators, including former campaign official Michael Caputo.
“My family has lost everything and now we’re starting over, but I awoke today optimistic for us and for our nation,” Caputo said.
On Friday evening, after Mueller gave his report to Barr, Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago Club and in unusually good spirits, according to people who interacted with him. Cable news shows were abuzz with reports about the Mueller probe, but Trump was not seen watching much television. Rather, he sat at his usual table on the patio for dinner and to celebrate his son Barron’s 13th birthday with his wife, Melania, and Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle.
Trump Jr., who had been vacationing at Mar-a-Lago all week with his children, was on a boat fishing when the Mueller news broke Friday. The president’s son, who had come under scrutiny for the 2016 meeting he arranged at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, responded by tweeting a picture of himself and his boys holding up the fish they caught and then retweeting pro-Trump reactions.
President Trump left the patio for about an hour Friday night to attend a Republican Party fundraising dinner in Mar-a-Lago’s ballroom, where the crowd chanted “Lock her up!” after one of the featured speakers, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), called for an investigation of “both sides” — reflecting the desire of Trump supporters to go after Clinton, the defeated 2016 Democratic nominee.
Late in the evening, the president returned to the patio and appeared loose and upbeat, nodding and smiling as club members and other friends approached him at the table. Although nobody quite knew what the Mueller report said or what might happen next, people still cheered Trump. He in turn told several guests that he was proud of his accomplishments in office but did not speculate or engage in detailed discussion about the Mueller probe, according to people who were present.
At one point, White House lawyer Emmet Flood joined for a few minutes to talk with the president, as did Graham, who said he urged Trump to “listen to your lawyers.”
“He keeps saying he didn’t do anything with the Russians, and I said, ‘Well, there’s only one person that can really clear the air here, and that’s Mueller, and he’s been able to do his job and we’ll see here in a day or two what he found,’ ” Graham said in an interview Saturday.
Typically, Trump is accompanied by only a small staff entourage, sometimes with mid-level aides, on his weekend jaunts to Florida. But on Friday, several senior White House officials, including acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and press secretary Sarah Sanders, flew with him to Florida — in part so Trump would be surrounded by people he knows and trusts and therefore be less likely to do something rash, according to two people close to the president who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal details.
Trump agreed with his aides to be restrained in his public comments about the Mueller report until he gets a full briefing on its findings, which could occur as early as Sunday. Reminded that the president’s inclination has been to break the shackles his aides place on him by tweeting his feelings, one senior administration official replied, “The stakes are higher.”
On Saturday, Trump spent much of the day at the Trump International Golf Club in nearby West Palm Beach. Trump golfed and spent time with the musician Kid Rock, according to an administration official and the musician’s Instagram page, where he posted a picture posing with the president.
And there was a celebratory mood among the Trump fans — “my bridge people,” as the president calls them — who gathered near a bridge to cheer the presidential motorcade as it traveled to and from Mar-a-Lago, despite not knowing what the report says.
“I’m relieved that it’s finally out and it vindicates our president,” Paula Magnuson said. “Hopefully the Democrats will let it go now.”
Trump has told confidants he has not known Barr for long and that he cannot predict how the attorney general, who was sworn in only last month, will handle the situation. But the president also has said he is glad Barr is in charge and not former attorney general Jeff Sessions, and he has reiterated that his attorneys have told him Barr is fair, according to advisers who have spoken with him.
With little new information emerging Saturday, officials said Trump’s attorneys impressed upon the president to take a hands-off approach and to be patient with Barr — waiting for him to share Mueller’s conclusions on his own timetable and not to contact the attorney general or press for an update.
“He’s not going to engage a lot until he gets more information,” said David Bossie, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager.
That is the plan, but as those who work for him readily acknowledge, Trump rarely sticks to plans.
Meagan Flynn and Lori Rozsa in Palm Beach, David Weigel in Greenville and Colby Itkowitz in Washington contributed to this report.
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Philip Rucker is the White House Bureau Chief for The Washington Post. He previously has covered Congress, the Obama White House, and the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns. Rucker also is a Political Analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He joined The Post in 2005 as a local news reporter.
Robert Costa is a national political reporter for The Washington Post. He covers the White House, Congress, and campaigns. He joined The Post in January 2014. He is also the moderator of PBS's "Washington Week" and a political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.
Josh Dawsey is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. He joined the paper in 2017. He previously covered the White House for Politico, and New York City Hall and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the Wall Street Journal.
Ashley Parker is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2017, after 11 years at the New York Times, where she covered the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns and Congress, among other things.
Re: Trump enters the stage : WAITING
by Meno_ » Sun Mar 24, 2019 12:47 pm
AMueller delivered his report to Barr on Friday, and Barr is expected to brief members of Congress on the report this weekend. | Win McNamee/Getty Images
Congress waits another day for Mueller findings
The Justice Dept. said it would not transmit a summary of the special counsel's findings Saturday, fueling Democrats' urgent pleas to release the entire document.
By KYLE CHENEY, HEATHER CAYGLE, ANDREW DESIDERIO and JOSH GERSTEIN 03/23/2019 09:28 AM EDT
The public and members of Congress will be in the dark for at least one more day on special counsel Robert Mueller's central conclusions about contacts between associates of President Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 campaign.
The Justice Department informed Congress on Saturday afternoon that Attorney General William Barr would not provide findings to lawmakers until at least Sunday, officials at Justice and on Capitol Hill confirmed, prolonging rampant speculation about what might be in Mueller’s report and fueling Democrats' increasingly urgent pleas to release the entire document.
However, Barr, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and their top aides were at Justice Department headquarters Saturday poring over Mueller’s submission and considering how to boil down the core conclusions into a summary that can be made public before officials embark on a review of the whole document, an official said.
Access to Mueller’s report has been limited to “very few” individuals, a Justice official said, in part out of concern about leaks of one of the most politically sensitive documents in modern American history.
Democrats huddled on Saturday to strategize about how to talk about the as-yet-unseen report and how to force the Justice Department to make it public — a possible drag-out legal fight that could consume Washington for months.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi hosted a conference call with House Democrats on Saturday afternoon to discuss the report’s impending arrival. According to multiple sources who participated in the call, Pelosi said she would reject an offer for a classified briefing on Mueller’s underlying findings, arguing that the evidence should be unclassified despite DOJ guidelines that state the department should not disclose damaging information about individuals who are not indicted.
House Democratic committee chairs repeatedly referred to Republicans’ efforts to disclose documents related to other former top officials who were not indicted, including Hillary Clinton and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, when they controlled the House during the first two years of the Trump presidency.
Separately, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Republicans' efforts during that time period to force the public release of elements of the Russia probe — as well as the investigation of Clinton's email server — had armed Democrats with an argument to require significant disclosure of the Mueller findings.
“Republicans have really shot themselves in the foot with what they approved,” Jayapal said. “They really undermined any argument Barr might want to make that there's longstanding precedent.”
In a letter to lawmakers Saturday afternoon, Pelosi dismissed Barr’s plan to summarize the findings for the relevant committees as “insufficient” and said any briefings on the report should be unclassified so members are free to share the details publicly.
“We are insisting that any briefings to any committees be unclassified so that members can speak freely about every aspect of the report and not be confined to what DOJ chooses to release publicly,” Pelosi wrote.
We’re hosting a live chat on Reddit with former federal investigators who worked on some of the biggest cases since Watergate and our senior reporter, Darren Samuelsohn. Join us on Monday, March 25 at noon ET.
Pelosi also reiterated that DOJ should release the report in its entirety and related documents, "even if DOJ chooses not to prosecute additional individuals."
“Congress requires the full report and the underlying documents so that the Committees can proceed with their independent work, including oversight and legislating to address any issues the Mueller report may raise,” she wrote.
Democrats have also expressed concern that the Justice Department’s sifting of the report for public consumption could be influenced by the White House. Justice officials confirmed that they alerted the White House to the receipt of the report just before congressional leaders were notified Friday afternoon.
However, a Justice spokesperson insisted that the only information conveyed was the brief letter also sent to lawmakers. Officials have declined to say whether they plan to vet future disclosures from Mueller’s report with the White House, although such consultations over executive privilege issues are typical.
Asked Saturday whether Justice Department leaders were “plotting” with the White House to stage manage release of more information about Mueller’s probe, a Justice official who asked not to be named said: “No, that’s ridiculous.”
While they await answers, the leaders of House committees who oversee the Justice Department and intelligence community have signaled they're prepared to unleash aggressive tactics to compel Barr to make the details of the report public.
“If the AG plays any games, we will subpoena the report, ask Mr. Mueller to testify, and take it all to court if necessary," said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, a comment echoed by committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.).
That could include issuing a subpoena that could plunge the two branches of government into a protracted court fight — and potentially demanding that Mueller himself testify publicly after nearly two years of operating in virtual secrecy.
“We’re potentially looking at a classic collision of Congress’s constitutional authority to investigate with the preferences of the executive branch to, in this case, to potentially withhold information from Congress. That is an issue that will have to be decided by a court if that’s how it evolves,” said David Laufman, who ran the Justice Department’s counter-intelligence unit from 2014 to 2018 and had a key role overseeing both the Clinton and Russia investigations.
Republicans were circling the wagons around Trump, noting that Mueller did not drop new indictments as he wrapped up his nearly two-year-long probe. But Democrats cautioned that Mueller was not the end-all-be-all, noting that Congress is still investigating allegations of obstruction of justice and abuse of power on the president’s part, and that other federal and state entities are conducting probes into several aspects of the Trumpworld.
“It’s the end of the beginning, it’s not the beginning of the end,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “It’s important to remember that whatever is concluded by Robert Mueller doesn’t mean that the president and his core team are free of legal jeopardy from these other proceedings. And it’s important to remember that the Congress has a different scope of charge and responsibility than Special Counsel Mueller.”
But most lawmakers tempered their comments as they awaited word from Barr about what level of detail he intends to share with Congress and the public this weekend.
Barr’s decision carries enormous consequences for the Trump administration and the new Democratic House majority, which is wrestling with outspoken members eager to impeach Trump and is in the early stages of a crush of sensitive investigations of Trump and his administration. Democrats are also acutely aware of the dicey politics of probing a combative president.
Coloring the debate is the news that Mueller is not recommending any new indictments, a determination that has emboldened Trump, who has long claimed the investigation was a “witch hunt.” It’s unclear whether word that Mueller isn’t urging additional charges precludes the possibility that he obtained some indictments that remain sealed.
Mueller is also known to have referred or handed off responsibility for some matters to federal prosecutors in New York, Virginia and Washington, D.C., but the full extent and status of such spinoff probes has never been made public.
Announcement of the end of the Mueller probe, annotated
Republicans have emphasized that even though they, too, want much of the report to be public, Democrats seem to be demanding that the Justice Department reveal derogatory information about Mueller's witnesses even if they're not charged with a crime. Rosenstein has previously suggested the Justice Department would not take such a step, especially given the backlash after former FBI Director James Comey publicly disparaged Clinton in 2016 even while declining to recommend charges against her for her use of a private email server.
Democrats, though, say Mueller's report may contain crucial counterintelligence information that shows links and alliances between Trump associates and Russian operatives, information that could be crucial to future efforts to protect American elections from foreign interference.
And they also have raised concerns that even if Mueller's report found criminal wrongdoing by the president, a longstanding Justice Department policy against indicting sitting presidents could preclude the details from becoming public.
“To be clear, if the Special Counsel has reason to believe that the President has engaged in criminal or other serious misconduct, then the Justice Department has an obligation not to conceal such information,” Schiff, Nadler and other committee chairmen said in a late Friday statement. “The President must be subject to accountability and if the Justice Department is unable to do so, then the need to provide Congress with the relevant information is paramount.”
Trump spent much of the day golfing at Trump International Golf Club, just a few miles from Mar-a-Lago. He golfed with three other people, though the White House refused to identify his partners.
White House officials said the president was in a good mood. So far, Trump has not reacted publicly to the news that Mueller has completed his investigation. And aides said the White House has not yet been briefed on the contents of Mueller’s report.
White House officials remained largely in wait-and-see mode, even though they believe the final report will be a flop.
It was an unusually low-key response for a president known for indignant Twitter outbursts. But people close to the president predicted it wouldn’t last long.
Trump’s friends and advisers have also been privately assuring him that the report is going to be a flop and that he can spin the whole endeavor as a politically motivated waste of time. But it remains to be seen what the report might actually say — and if it’s worse than the president’s allies think, Trump could react with fury.
By Saturday afternoon, Trump had retreated back to Mar-a-Lago, his private club. He’s not expected to make any public appearances for the rest of the day.
As his client and the country awaited the Mueller report’s findings, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was seen on Saturday shopping at a downtown D.C. Brooks Brothers, according to an eyewitness.
Mueller report: Why so many of President Donald Trump's aides lied to protect him in Russia investigations
BRAD HEATH AND KEVIN JOHNSON | USA TODAY | 17 hours ago
The conclusion of the Mueller investigation into whether Trump colluded with Russia in the election has been submitted. And, Mueller's report will be governed by rules written in the wake of the Starr Report. We explain.
WASHINGTON – The first lie – the first one that was a crime, at least – came on the fourth day of Donald Trump’s presidency, in a White House office down the hall from Trump’s own.
That day, a pair of FBI agents came to question Trump’s top national security aide, Mike Flynn, about his dealings with the Russian government. Flynn gave the agents a tour of his new spot in the new administration, interrupted at one point as Trump and some movers walked past discussing where to hang art on the walls. Then Flynn took them back to his corner office and calmly lied to them about conversations with Russia’s ambassador.
Flynn, agents later wrote, “did not parse his words or hesitate.” He simply lied.
The exchange was the start of a remarkable succession of lies over nearly two years by some of Trump’s closest political associates, told to federal agents, Congress and the public that distanced the president and his campaign from an investigation into whether his campaign participated in Russian efforts to disrupt the election that put him in office.
Whatever else special counsel Robert Mueller’s now-concluded investigation may reveal, it has devoted considerable attention to the Trump associates whose lies to lawmakers and investigators deflected attention from connections between Russia and the president’s campaign, and to a central question hanging over many of the charges Mueller has filed: Why did they lie?
Mueller delivered his final report Friday to Attorney General William Barr, marking the end of an investigation that has loomed over the first two years of Trump's presidency. The Justice Department has so far revealed none of the report's conclusions, but over the past year and a half, prosecutors have sketched some of them in hundreds of pages of court filings.
Prosecutors have revealed that Trump’s campaign worked eagerly to benefit from a Russian intelligence operation that hacked his opponents’ emails and echoed them in phony social media campaigns, an effort the U.S. government later concluded was aimed in part at helping to deliver Trump the presidency. And investigators charged that a succession of top aides then lied to pretend they hadn’t.
Barr's Letter: Read Attorney General Barr's letter to Congress announcing end of Mueller's Russia probe
Investigation Ends: Special counsel Robert Mueller delivers report marking end of investigation into Trump's campaign, Russia
Mueller’s office accused seven people, all but one of them former aides or advisers to Trump, with making dozens of false statements during the Russia investigation.
The investigation has produced a deluge of falsehoods on subjects from the president’s business dealings in Moscow to a meeting his son and campaign chief attended in Trump Tower in 2016 with a Russian promising “dirt” on his political opponent. But lying to the public is usually not a crime, and Mueller’s investigators zeroed in on those directed to lawmakers and federal investigators.
Trump’s lawyers maintain that the lies reflect little more than a misguided impulse to protect themselves from things that weren’t crimes to begin with. “The thing about all these lies is that if they all just told the damn truth they probably wouldn’t have been in any trouble,” said Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lead attorney.
Prosecutors haven’t hinted at their answer, other than to reveal that it is one of the subjects they investigated.
But some of the people they have accused of lying have supplied answers of their own: One suggested he lied out of loyalty. Others appear to have been protecting the president. One, Michael Cohen, a former executive in Trump’s private business and his personal lawyer, said he lied because the president wanted him to.
“Everybody's job at the Trump Organization is to protect Mr. Trump. Every day most of us knew we were coming in and we were going to lie for him on something and that became the norm,” Cohen said in sworn testimony to a House committee Feb. 27. “And that's exactly what's happening right now in this country and it's exactly what's happening here in government.”
Special counsel Robert Muller arrives at his office building, Thursday, March
23 months of Russia lies
Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI on Jan. 24, 2017, about conversations with Russia’s ambassador, including one in which he discussed rolling back sanctions the Obama administration had imposed in response to Moscow’s election-meddling.
Three days after that meeting, two FBI agents went looking for a young campaign aide, George Papadopoulos. They took him from his mother’s house in Chicago to the bureau’s office there, switched on a video camera, and warned him to tell the truth.
“The only way you’re getting in trouble today is if you lie to us,” one said, according to court records.
For two hours, the agents quizzed Papadopoulos on his interactions with a professor in London named Joseph Mifsud and other people Papadopoulos believed had ties to the Russian government. Eventually, Papadopoulos revealed that Mifsud told him in early 2016 that Moscow had gathered “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, in the form of “thousands of emails,” months before the government revealed that Russia’s military intelligence service had hacked Democratic political organizations. But Papadopoulos passed his encounter with Mifsud off as a “strange coincidence,” unrelated to his work for Trump.
He later admitted that wasn’t true; Mifsud approached him because of his role on the campaign.
Foreign policy advisor to President Donald Trump's election campaign, George Papadopoulos and his wife Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos leave a federal court in Washington after his sentencing on September 7, 2018.
More lies by Trump associates followed.
That August, Michael Cohen lied in a written statement to two congressional committees about Trump’s efforts to construct a potentially lucrative high-rise in Moscow, telling them that they ended early in the campaign, when in fact those efforts continued until the point – almost six months later – when Trump had effectively secured the Republican presidential nomination. Cohen also tried to mislead members of Congress into thinking that Trump himself was uninvolved in the project.
A month after that, in September 2017, prosecutors allege that another Trump confidante, Roger Stone, lied to lawmakers about his efforts to gather information for the campaign about hacked emails that were being released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. Prosecutors said someone in Trump’s campaign directed a senior campaign official to get in touch with Stone about any other “damaging information” the group might have on Clinton.
When lawmakers summoned one of Stone’s associates to testify, Stone suggested he, too, stick to the story, saying in a text message obtained by prosecutors: “Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan’ … Richard Nixon.”
Cohen, Flynn and Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty to making false statements. So has Manafort’s former deputy Rick Gates, and an attorney who worked with the pair, Alexander Van Der Zwaan. Stone, who has maintained his innocence, is scheduled to go on trial in November on charges of lying to Congress and obstruction of justice.
Late last year, Paul Manafort, the former chairman of Trump’s campaign, met with investigators and appeared twice before a grand jury. There, prosecutors alleged in court filings, he lied about his interactions with a business associate in Ukraine who U.S. authorities say is tied to Russian intelligence. Prosecutors say Manafort passed polling data to the foreign associate while running Trump’s campaign.
Prosecutors didn’t charge Manafort with lying, though a judge concluded that he had. Instead they sought to use his lies against him when he was sentenced for other crimes, including conspiracy and tax and bank fraud related to years of lobbying work he conducted in Ukraine.
The full consequence of all the lies remains to be seen.
The personal legal jeopardy for Trump’s associates is playing out in courtrooms from New York to Washington. It’s less clear the implications those lies have had on Mueller’s effort to understand the scope of the Russian government’s intelligence operation around the 2016 election, and how directly it was able to tap into Trump’s campaign, if at all.
David Laufman, who ran the Justice Department’s counter-intelligence unit from 2014 until early 2018, declined to comment on the cases Mueller filed, but said the urgency of finding and countering foreign intelligence operations should be obvious.
“It’s essential when a counterintelligence threat is discovered for the FBI and the Justice Department to be able to take appropriate investigative steps to get to the heart of the matter as quickly as possible,” he said. “If someone the FBI goes to interview is withholding information from the government, that’s a serious mater
'Loyalty' and 'orders'
Trump has tried repeatedly to discredit Mueller’s investigation, savaging it as a political “witch hunt.” The FBI has confirmed that it investigated whether the president also tried to obstruct it, and Mueller’s office closely scrutinized the false statements of Trump aides.
Both Cohen and Flynn have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and have provided information about the circumstances in which they lied.
“The obvious question on the obstruction theory is who, if anyone, is suggesting that they’d want to cover it up,” said Shanlon Wu, a former federal prosecutor who represented Gates until last year.
“Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence — why are they all lying?” said Robert Ray, a former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton. “Politics is one of those spaces where loyalty is prized above most everything,” Ray said. “When you look at these cases, it’s like everyone understood that — down to the lowest staffer.”
Flynn has never revealed why he lied, and it’s puzzled those who know him.
Giuliani said it was “stupid perjury,” because Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a retired general, should have known the government was monitoring his contacts with Russia’s ambassador. Giuliani also said it was “outrageous” that agents questioned Flynn without a lawyer and didn’t give him a chance to correct his false statements.
National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and President Donald Trump arrive at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida to visit the U.S. Central Command and Specials Operations Command on Feb. 6, 2017.
MANDEL NGAN, AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Robert “Rocky” Kempenaar, one of Flynn’s longtime friends from Rhode Island, said he believes he lied to protect the president and his administration and that he did not decide to do it on his own.
“He’s a general,” Kempenaar said. “He was following orders from above him. Whether it was the president, I don’t know, but I kind of figured it out knowing Michael the way we do.”
Cohen, too, placed Trump squarely at the center of the obstruction investigation. In scathing testimony to the House Oversight Committee in early February, he said Trump had implicitly encouraged him to lie to lawmakers about plans to build a Trump Tower in Russia. And he testified that some of Trump’s lawyers reviewed and edited a false written statement before he delivered it to Congress in 2017.
“Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress, that's not how he operates,” Cohen said. “In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me, there's no Russian business, and then go on to lie to the American people by saying the same thing.
“In his way, he was telling me to lie.”
Cohen has not said when or where he had those conversations with Trump, but investigators revealed in warrant applications that they had extensively monitored both his communications and his location. He submitted documents to the House Intelligence Committee about his interactions with Trump's lawyers.
Prosecutors have so far offered nothing to substantiate that account, though they confirmed to a judge last year that Cohen had given them information about the “circumstances of preparing and circulating,” his written statement to Congress, which they found both “relevant and truthful.”
Beyond that, Mueller’s office has offered only brief explanations for why they think Trump’s aides lied.
One of its top prosecutors, Andrew Weissmann, told a judge last year that the special counsel’s office thought Manafort had lied to investigators – after promising to cooperate – to “augment his chances for a pardon.”
And they said Papadopoulos was seeking a job with Trump’s National Security Council or elsewhere in the administration when he lied to the FBI, telling agents he was “trying to help the country and you guys, but I don’t want to jeopardize my career.”
Papadopoulos' lawyer offered a clearer explanation last year before the former foreign policy aide was sentenced to 14 days in prison. He lied, Thomas Breen said, out of “misguided loyalty to his master.”
Contributing: Bart Jansen
© Copyright Gannett 2019
TheHill
March 24, 2019 - 06:00 AM EDT
Mueller's end shifts focus to New York prosecutors
The end of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation is shifting the spotlight to federal prosecutors in President Trump's hometown.
While all eyes this weekend are on the Department of Justice and Mueller's conclusions, the completion of the special counsel's report won't finish all the investigations into Trump.
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) is reportedly already carrying out a series of probes related to the president, including efforts focused on Trump's inaugural committee.
It is also overseeing an investigation into potential campaign finance violations tied to the president.
Trump and his allies are well aware of the investigations and the dangers of the New York prosecutors.
The office is legendary for its ruthless and broad investigations and has shown a willingness to take on big names, from mafia bosses to celebrities and economic powerhouses.
Legal experts told The Hill that even as the Mueller probe ends, SDNY could pose an even greater threat to the president, his family and his businesses.
"That office has been very aggressive about going after high-profile targets," said former federal prosecutor Kendall Coffey, who called the Manhattan attorney's office "utterly fearless."
"Anybody that might be in their bullseye ought to be mighty worried," Coffey added.
Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said charges pursued by SDNY could have a statute of limitations extending beyond Trump's term, meaning Trump could be indicted once he leaves office.
"If the president was found to be part of a criminal conspiracy or violation, it's possible that they could proceed with charges after the election," said Turley, an opinion contributor to The Hill.
The White House and Trump attorney Jay Sekulow did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Documents from the federal raids on former Trump attorney Michael Cohen released Tuesday indicated that federal prosecutors in New York are probing a potential campaign finance violation. Cohen has publicly implicated the president in the scheme to make payments to women alleging affairs with Trump, as have court filings from SDNY. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case.
The New York Times also reported Saturday that the Manhattan attorney's office is conducting several investigations tied to the president, including one into his inaugural committee and two others linked to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
A spokesperson for SDNY declined The Hill's request for comment.
A source close to Donald Trump Jr. dismissed any concerns over SDNY. Trump Jr. is overseeing the president's personal businesses alongside his brother Eric and has faced scrutiny over a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer.
Legal sources told The Hill that as Mueller's probe wound down, it's possible he handed evidence not relevant to the Russia probe to other U.S. attorney's offices.
Mueller referred the Cohen investigation to SDNY after investigators on his team found evidence of crimes unrelated to Russian election interference, such as bank and wire fraud.
Coffey said that while Mueller had talented prosecutors on his team, his office lacked the longstanding structure and resources SDNY has in place. That could bolster any DOJ probes coming out of New York.
Several figures who were scrutinized as part of the Mueller probe have celebrated its conclusion, taking the lack of indictments issued as the investigation ended as a sign that they won't be prosecuted as part of the Russia probe.
However, Mimi Rocah, a former assistant U.S. attorney for SDNY, said those figures could still face charges from other parts of the Justice Department.
She said that because some figures such as Trump Jr. never interviewed with Mueller before the investigation concluded, those individuals could be targets of an investigation rather than just witnesses.
The experts also noted that many of the witnesses in the Mueller probe are now facing congressional inquiries. Democrats, who took over the House in January, have launched several investigations into Trump and his businesses.
The House Judiciary Committee alone has requested documents from 81 figures, including Trump Jr. and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, who is also Trump's son-in-law.
"The congressional investigations remain a live torpedo in the water for any unindicted person," Turley said.
Rocah said Mueller could hand over evidence that he uncovered in his probe to congressional investigations as long as it wasn't part of a grand jury investigation and wasn't classified.
Jill Wine-Banks, who worked as an attorney on the Watergate investigation, said investigations launched by the state of New York could prove to be a bigger threat than those coming out of the U.S. attorney's office.
She said SDNY would have to follow the same Justice Department guidance Mueller did, which states a sitting president cannot be indicted. However, state prosecutors wouldn't be held to the same standards.
The New York attorney general has personally targeted Trump before. The office last year sued the president over his foundation, demanding that it be dissolved and that he and his adult children be prevented from holding leadership roles at other charities, at least temporarily, over alleged "persistent illegality."
And the Manhattan district attorney filed fraud charges against Manafort shortly after he was sentenced on federal charges. The maneuver was viewed by some as an attempt to stop Trump from potentially pardoning Manafort, as the president cannot pardon an individual for state charges.
"New York is his homebase and it's where his corporation and foundation are," Wine-Banks said of Trump, noting that the state and SDNY could also attempt to claim jurisdiction over the Trump inaugural committee and transition teams over their New York ties.
Re: Trump enters the stage - waiting game
by Meno_ » Sun Mar 24, 2019 2:56 pm
Initial Trump reaction from Trump
https://youtu.be/DaP54DQeUzg
Here is an op-ed from today's (Sunday, March 24, 2019) Los Angeles Times, in part.
'with all this, wjat do concerned citizens need with the report? A team of league eagles to cut our meat , for us , evidently.
And that's forgivable : The heart craves the whole truth, or should , whatever it's partisan implications.
As Garrett Graff wrote recently in Wired, all patriots must hope the Mueller report finds Trump blameless in any "conspiracy to defraud the United States."
That's because it's unthinkable that an American president would sell out his country to the Kremlin.Bit , depending on Mueller's conclusions . it might have to become thinkable . Remember Rocah's words, "That's when all real work begins."
Re: Trump enters the stage-Is he in the clear?
President Trump Is Vindicated. The Witch Hunt Is Over
By Mike Huckabee
Attorney General William Barr’s letter to Congress shows that the Russia collusion investigation is exactly what President Trump always said it was -- a witch hunt.
“In addition to this notification, the Special Counsel regulations require that I provide you with ‘a description and explanation of instances (if any) in which the Attorney General’ or acting Attorney General ‘concluded that a proposed action by a Special Counsel was so inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices that it should not be pursued.’ 28 C.F.R. 600.9(a)(3). There were no such instances during the Special Counsel's investigation.” Barr wrote in his one page letter to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
In other words, for a man Democrats said was hellbent on obstructing justice and preventing the Special Counsel from completing his investigation, President Trump did a lousy job.
CNN political analyst Gloria Borger admitted that the president is “vindicated” by the conclusion of Mueller’s probe.
Even one top Democrat in the Senate is now urging restraint. Sen. Chris Coons on Saturday said that House Democrats must use their oversight power in a "focused and responsible way" as they go forward with investigations involving President Trump, cautioning his colleagues to make sure they don’t "overdo it."
“We have to be careful to use the resources and the abilities of the House majority in a focused and a responsible way,” Coons said on CNN. “We need to focus on things that are relevant and matter to the average American.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are obsessing over the contents of the Mueller Report, but they’re overlooking the significance of what’s not in it.
Not one of the Democrats’ high-value targets — Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, or any other Trump family members — were indicted by Mueller, and the Department of Justice has already said there will be no more indictments forthcoming.
Of course, Mueller didn’t subpoena the president, either, crushing the hopes of the mainstream media journalists and pundits who had been confidently expecting that very outcome from the start of Mueller’s probe. If President Trump really was an agent of Russia, as they fervently believe he is, then surely Mueller would have taken the added step of at least interviewing him before ending the investigation.
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Among those who were indicted in the Mueller investigation, moreover, not one was charged with conspiring with Russia to fix the 2016 election -- the entire purpose of assigning a special counsel.
Here we are, two years and $30-plus million in taxpayer funds later, and nothing to show for it, except some completely discredited media commentators and partisan members of Congress who breathlessly all but guaranteed there would be evidence of the president and members of his family and staff colluding with the Russians. I won’t hold my breath for their admissions and apologies.
Lives have been ruined and America’s image on the world stage has been tarnished because rogue government agents and hyper-partisan Democrats thought they could overturn the results of an election they lost fair and square.
With the Mueller witch hunt behind him, perhaps now the President Trump can finally focus his full attention on the job that the American people elected him to do: making America great again.
©2018 RealClearPolitics
Trump's Bully Pit
By Debra Saunders
WASHINGTON -- During a week when President Donald Trump should have been beating his chest nonstop to celebrate the strong U.S. economy, he instead chose to flog his enemies, dead and alive, on Twitter and on camera.
Meno_ wrote: President Trump Is Vindicated. The Witch Hunt Is Over
It apoears, that as formerly held in this forum, there may eventually evolve two types of interpretations resulting with Mueller's report
As any other major politically infused national trauma, the report can be compared with that of Kenneth Starr's analysis if the Clinton fiasco, or the report on Nixon, or even the even more ominous report on the Kennedy assassination.
Follow up examinations of any high profile political traumas generate the pragmatic believers, who would like the healing by applying the balls which usually heal the underlying pain caused by them. The residual skeptics will always perpetuate the possible interference with the facts, as presented, saturating any credibility within a pocket of gross conspiratorial underbelly, and that usually emerges through the extreme positions of both the right and left.
Since extremists on the right will not ever, it seems now, succumb to disbelieve a validation of Mueller's report, if it's interpretation will tend to support Trump's appearent confirmation of his non involvement, it will only be the work of the extreme left, to keep facts and falsehoods alive.
The validity of Mueller's work, even now, is beginning to be questioned, as the new democratic congress has voiced intentions to subpoena Miller to a series of question before Congress, if it seems as if he developed an ulterior attitude to pursue interviewing him , rather then relying on less obtrusive methods.
The written answer to the prosecutor's questions to elaborate any involvement, may be overly dismissive to that effort. In addition, ongoing legal processes, even if reaching the Supreme Court, may imply a political bias into its workings.
But we're far from that stage, and it just may follow, that a prosecurial immunity can not follow a criminal charge , after Trump leaves office.
This is w h y, for the president, the 2020 reelection becomes so very important:
He may avoid criminal prosecution for another term.
The follow ups, may vindicate him, even if district courts clearly show guilt, by virtue of how interpretations can mitigate, be the fading of public awareness.
This implies some overwhelming national/international determinancy, perhaps in the form of national security , to over-ride this whole astounding few historical years.
Re: Trump enters the stage Barr's announcement a shocker!
by Meno_ » Mon Mar 25, 2019 2:45 am
The Barr letter is a massive political victory for Trump (or, is it?)
Barr’s letter will define the narrative on the Mueller investigation — even if it’s wrong.
By Zack Beauchamp on March 24, 2019 5:54 pm
US Attorney General William Barr listens while President Trump speaks on February 15, 2019, in Washington, DC. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Attorney General William Barr’s summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russia and 2016 was delivered to Congress on Sunday afternoon. We still don’t know what the report itself says, but there’s no doubt that Barr’s summary is a huge win for President Donald Trump.
According to Barr’s letter, Mueller “did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia” during the 2016 campaign. Mueller apparently did not come to any firm conclusion on whether Trump’s interference with the investigation constituted obstruction of justice, instead asking Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to draw a conclusion based on their read of Mueller’s work. Barr and Rosenstein decided that “the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
Bill Barr’s letter summarizing Mueller’s findings, explained
Substantively, this leaves a lot of big questions about the investigation unanswered. Barr doesn’t quote nearly enough of Mueller’s work on the 2016 election to support his brief summary. Nor does he explain in detail why he decided the evidence on obstruction wasn’t enough — something that is especially important since, prior to his Senate confirmation, Barr wrote a memo harshly criticizing the Mueller investigation and, in particular, its approach to the obstruction question.
But politically, Barr’s letter is a massive PR victory for the president. It allows Trump to claim victory on both substance of the investigation and the obstruction charges and to say that his oft-repeated mantra of “no collusion” is entirely accurate. This is the interpretation that will dominate cable news for the next few days, maybe even weeks, demoralizing Democrats and rejuvenating Republicans.
Barr says at the end of the letter that he wants to release Mueller’s full report, but that there are tricky legal issues surrounding what evidence detailed in the report can and can’t be made public. These issues are currently under review; Barr says that he will release the Mueller report “as soon as that process is complete,” but who knows how long the review will take.
It’s possible Barr’s summary is accurate and the report is as good as it seems for Trump. It’s also possible that it’s misleading, and that Barr’s decision on obstruction was influenced by the beliefs he held before becoming attorney general. We just don’t know at this point.
But what is clear is this: The president absolutely has to be thrilled today.
Barr’s letter is everything Trump could have asked for
The best way to understand the politics here is to look at this tweeted statement from Sarah Sanders, Trump’s press secretary:
The first two sentences in Sanders’ statement are essentially accurate summaries of what Barr wrote in his letter. The last one is more than a bit of a leap.
Barr does not say that Mueller proved Trump innocent on either collusion or obstruction, but merely that there was not sufficient evidence of his legal guilt on either count. The Mueller report, in Barr’s summary, doesn’t clear Trump or his campaign staff of any wrongdoing or shady ties to Russia — it just concludes what they found is not enough evidence to establish that what they did in 2016 was criminal.
And when it comes to obstruction, Mueller explicitly did not “exonerate” Trump. Barr himself is explicit on this point: “The Special Counsel states that ‘while the report does not conclude that the President has committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Does the president’s handpicked attorney general making the final call on obstruction constitute “exoneration” when Mueller didn’t go that far?
But these are fine-grained and detailed distinctions that will likely be lost on a lot of people. On the face of it, Sanders’s spin that this vindicates the “no collusion, no obstruction” line seems right. The cable news summary of this report is “no charges for Trump, no evidence of crimes” — and that’s basically the message Sanders is hammering away at. As is her boss, in characteristically blunter fashion:
This version of events will be repeated over and over again for the next few days, on cable news and talk radio and congressional Republicans’ social media platforms. Twitter is full of them right now. All Democrats can say in response is “we need to see the full report” — which is true, as far as it goes, but not exactly a resounding response.
The report’s phrasing hands the president and his allies a victory in the spin wars before they even have begun. That’s true regardless of how accurate his summary is or how open the underlying report is to different interpretations. Since it’s still not clear when we’ll get to see the full report, or just how complete any version released to the public would be, Barr’s version of Mueller’s report will likely be the version that’s treated as authoritative for at least some time.
Democrats are already trying to push back on this. Rep. Jerry Nadler, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is already threatening to haul Barr in for questioning.
Whether Nadler and other Democrats could get Barr to admit something damning under questioning — if there is indeed something damning to admit — is an open question. Without the full text of the report, demonstrating any discrepancies between it and Barr’s account will be hard. And it’s not clear, again, when the full report will be released.
So given how favorable Barr’s text is for the president, how easily it can be spun as complete and total vindication for Trump, that’s about as big a win as he could have hoped for.
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Does AG Barr’s summary of the Mueller report “exonerate” Trump? I asked 15 legal experts.:
Does AG Barr’s summary of the Mueller report “exonerate” Trump? I asked 15 legal experts.
Not quite — but it’s mostly good news for the president.
By Sean Illing@seanillingsean.illing@vox.com Mar 24, 2019, 6:20pm EDT
Special counsel Robert Mueller in Washington, DC, on March 24, 2019. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
dSpecial counsel Robert Mueller has finally completed his Trump-Russia report.
Attorney General Bill Barr made the announcement in a letter to congressional committee leaders on Friday. We’ve yet to see the full report, but on Sunday Barr released a summary of the report’s principal conclusions to Congress.
At first glance, it appears to be mostly good news for President Donald Trump. Barr’s summary explicitly states that “the Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.”
On the question of obstruction of justice, the initial report is more ambiguous. The special counsel’s office, according to Barr, “did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction.” But Barr wrote that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that there wasn’t sufficient evidence for obstruction charges.
That doesn’t necessarily exonerate Trump or anyone in his campaign, but it leaves a lot of room for speculation.
So, given what we now know, where does all this leave us? What is the legal significance of this report for Trump? Does it actually exonerate the president?
To get some answers, I reached out to 15 legal experts and asked them to react to Barr’s initial summary of Mueller’s findings. Their full responses, edited for clarity and length, are below.
Victoria Nourse, law professor, Georgetown University
This report indicates that the president did not conspire with the Russians and did not obstruct justice — or at least that obstruction would be difficult legally and factually to prove. The criminal law is a poor measure — a very low bar — for a president.
The Constitution, which is our highest law, provides that the president must faithfully execute the law and the Constitution. One did not need a criminal investigation to determine that Russians hacked our election. Legally, that is the most important part of the report, since it goes to the heart of our democracy.
This report is likely to make efforts by those who seek to impeach the president more difficult. Some people wrongly believe that impeachment requires an actual crime. The Constitution does not so provide. Political offenses are sufficient. The founders, in my opinion, created impeachment as a means to oust an incompetent or disloyal president, but hoped that it would be used rarely.
This report does nothing to other investigations, in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere, that may provide more light on election hacking and may implicate the president in other potential crimes (money laundering, fraud, tax crimes etc.).
Jessica Levinson, law professor, Loyola Law School
Bottom line — this is a huge victory for Trump and his supporters. The report takes the wind out of the sails of the congressional Democrats who wish to continue investigating Trump, his businesses, his charity, and his inauguration. I think the American public could soon have “investigation fatigue.”
Mueller’s conclusion on collusion charges is an enormous vindication for Trump, who has been chanting “no collusion” for years. It’s slightly less helpful for Trump that his attorney general, Bill Barr, instead of the special counsel, concluded that Trump should not be charged with obstruction of justice, but the headline for Trump is the same — vindication on both major questions Mueller was investigating.
It’s important to remember that it’s a high bar to charge obstruction of justice, and in particular it’s difficult to prove corrupt intent, but this likely isn’t what the public will remember. The public will remember that Trump will not be charged with either collusion or obstruction of justice.
Diane Marie Amann, law professor, University of Georgia
With his four-page letter on Mueller’s report, Attorney General William Barr drives the obstruction-of-justice ball firmly into Congress’s court.
Although the “‘report does not conclude that the President committed a crime,’” as Barr writes, quoting Mueller, “‘it also does not exonerate him.’” Barr continues that he and Rosenstein weighed the evidence presented in the report, and found it “insufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
This may not end the matter, however. That’s because the conclusion turns on whether Barr and Rosenstein believed prosecutors could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump’s actions, in their words, “had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding, and were done with corrupt intent.”
“Beyond a reasonable doubt” is indeed the standard of proof for conviction in a federal criminal court. But the same is not true for other forums. Most notably, conviction in an impeachment proceeding depends on the judgment of senators following a trial in the Senate — a trial that cannot take place unless the House of Representatives votes to send to the Senate articles of impeachment. Thus the ball now lies in Congress’s court.
But given another Barr quotation of the Mueller report — that the special counsel’s “‘investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities’”— the obstruction-of-justice ball well may languish there.
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, law professor, Stetson University
Russians were eager to offer help to the Trump 2016 campaign (from the Russian lawyer who showed up at Trump Tower in 2016 to meet Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort, to Alexander Torshin, who met Don Jr. at dinner at an NRA convention in Kentucky).
Barr’s characterization of the Mueller report is that no one in the Trump campaign came to an agreement with the Russian government to conspire with the Russian interference in the 2016 election.
This is reassuring to a point.
The fact that the Trump campaign did not report the Russian offers of help in real time in 2016 remains troubling at best. And this could be fertile ground for investigations by the Democratically controlled House. Moreover, to the extent that individuals lied to Congress during the course of House and Senate investigations into the 2016 election, this could still expose more people to liability on that perjury front.
The Barr letter also refers to ongoing matters including those that have been referred from the special counsel to other offices. This would clearly include the prosecution of Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and Michael Cohen. Another open question is whether the special counsel referred any other matter that is not yet public to another office for federal prosecution.
The Southern District of New York has already referred to President Trump as “Individual 1” and implicated him in Michael Cohen’s campaign finance crimes. One of the few times that Barr quotes the Mueller report is to state “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Presumably that “no exoneration” would apply to the Southern District of New York’s own investigations of criminality.
In other words, while Barr has exonerated the president on the question of obstruction of justice, the question of whether the president violated campaign finance laws could remain a live issue for SDNY.
Christopher Slobogin, law professor, Vanderbilt University
If the summary is correct that the special counsel found no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian attempt to influence our electoral process, then the claim that Trump obstructed the investigation into that attempt is significantly undercut. It is difficult to show a corrupt motive to obstruct an investigation into a crime that did not occur.
At the same time, if there is weak to no evidence of collusion or obstruction, then concerns about tainting the grand jury are minimal and the full report should be released.
Miriam Baer, law professor, Brooklyn Law School
To show obstruction, a prosecutor must demonstrate a nexus between the particular conduct and the “proceeding” it is corruptly intended to obstruct. On page three of his letter to Congress, Barr advises that Mueller declined to say, one way or the other, whether President Trump obstructed justice.
The attorney general then goes on to advise that he and Rosenstein have reached their own joint conclusion that the facts laid out in the report fail to establish a “nexus” between Trump’s behavior and any specific “proceeding.”
Moreover, Barr states as well that report fails to establish evidence of “corrupt intent.” The determination that corrupt intent is lacking rests, at least in part, on Mueller’s other conclusion — that the evidence fails to establish that Trump himself conspired with the Russians to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
Many observers will question Barr and Rosenstein’s conclusions that none of Trump’s actions (not all of which occurred in public) were “obstructive,” or lacked “corrupt intent.” The nexus element may be more complicated, however, since it is contingent on the specific factual conclusions contained in the special counsel’s report.
For all these reasons, it will be crucial for the attorney general to provide Congress as full a recitation of the facts contained in the special counsel’s report as possible. Moreover, because the underlying facts potentially indicate behavior warranting impeachment, many members of Congress are sure to demand a recitation of the Mueller report’s facts and its underlying documents.
Trump may say he feels vindicated by this report, but the summary itself falls far short of exonerating him.
Keith Whittington, politics professor, Princeton University
The letter is notable in several aspects. It is significant in stating clearly that all indictments from the special counsel’s office have already been publicly disclosed and that no new indictments are recommended.
That does not preclude the possibility of further indictments arising from related investigations by either federal or state prosecutors, but those will presumably not focus on either Russian activities relating to the 2016 election or possible obstruction of justice.
The letter is clear that the special counsel found no coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian actors to interfere with the 2016 election. It appears that we already know the extent of the relationship between the two, and moreover we already know the extent of the Russian meddling in the election. There are no new revelations here on actions that Russia took to affect the election or of actions that campaign officials took to shape Russian interference.
The letter is particularly interesting on the obstruction of justice question. The special counsel did not rely specifically on the view that a sitting president cannot be indicted and did not factor in the issue of whether the president’s use of his Article II powers could provide the basis for an obstruction of justice charge.
Instead, the special counsel refrained from reaching any legal conclusions about whether or not the president engaged in obstruction of justice and the attorney general is now determining that no obstruction charge would be appropriate.
It would seem that both the attorney general and the special counsel are leaning heavily on the notion that the president could not have been acting with corrupt intent if there was no underlying crime for the president to attempt to cover up.
Given ongoing state and federal investigations, the president and his associates are not entirely out of the legal woods, but the Russian collusion angle is at least done. If the special counsel’s report is consistent with the attorney general’s letter, this will presumably take the steam out of the sails of an impeachment effort based on Russian collusion or obstruction of justice.
Robert Weisberg, law professor, Stanford University
A comment on obstruction: Barr’s reference to what Mueller says, and his own conclusion that he would not (if he constitutionally could) charge Trump with obstruction — these are careful and a bit slippery. He leverages the no-conspiracy finding to say that this bears on the question of whether Trump obstructed — i.e., if Trump didn’t conspire, he’d lack the motive to obstruct.
I suppose that is a legitimate evidentiary factor, but Barr may be imputing more thoughtfulness or awareness to Trump than is warranted. Further, Barr’s ultimate conclusion treats obstructive conduct and corrupt intent as if they are separate elements. Anyone who tries to make sense of the clotted and obtuse language of the obstruction statutes and the utterly unhelpful court interpretations — especially the Aguilar case—would realize that it is a little disingenuous to label these as separate elements.
In any event, it would (will) help if Barr explained what he thinks the notoriously vague term “corruptly” means. Obviously we look to appellate opinions, not prosecutorial decimations, to help us understand criminal statutes — but Barr owes us some explanation of how he understands these laws.
Jimmy Gurulé, law professor, Notre Dame
The order appointing Mueller to investigate whether Trump or members of his presidential campaign colluded with the Russians to interfere with the 2016 presidential election also authorized Mueller to investigate any crimes arising from the Russia investigation, which includes whether Trump engaged in obstruction of justice.
By failing to reach a conclusion on that matter, Mueller failed to fulfill his mandate. Furthermore, referring the obstruction of justice issue to Barr, who had decided that Trump had not obstructed justice prior to being appointed to serve as attorney general was a serious mistake and undermines the public’s confidence in the outcome.
Stephen Legomsky, law professor, Washington University
However informative the Mueller report may be, my sense is that the vast bulk of the salient revelations will end up coming from other sources.
Much information is or soon will be available from earlier news reports, the unredacted allegations in the various Mueller indictments, even the redacted allegations that hopefully will be provided to Congress, the indictments and evidence in the actions brought by both the Southern District of New York and the New York state attorney general, the previous closed-door and public testimony of the witnesses before the various congressional committees, future information from cooperating witnesses, and future leaks from administration sources.
Hopefully, too, the evidence on which the Mueller report was based will be shared with the congressional committees and will prove even more valuable than the text of the report. And all of this will generate leads from which the congressional committees can ferret out still more facts. So the Mueller report, while critical, will prove to be just one piece in the larger investigation.
Frances Hill, law professor, University of Miami
Barr’s brief letter is likely to become the centerpiece of the Trump political message for the 2020 campaign. While the Democrats will, as they should, continue to press for the prompt release of the Mueller report and all of the underlying documents, this is likely to be overshadowed by the action taken today by Barr.
The controversy will center on the obstruction charge and why the special counsel did not conclude that he found obstruction but followed the guidelines of the DOJ and thus did not indict a sitting president. Why did the special counsel leave the operative legal conclusion based on his work to the attorney general? We may never know.
We are also left to wonder whether the constraints on the investigation relating to the conspiracy issue, especially the constraints in the investigation of Trump’s business dealings with confidants of Russian President Vladimir Putin, did or did not provide evidence that Trump was sufficiently compromised that it might (or might not) have been possible to conclude that he was engaged in a conspiracy to prevent disclosure of his prior business dealings.
While these questions will linger and while they should continue to be investigated by both Congress and federal prosecutors, such efforts are now likely to be seen as either not constructive or excessive, even if they are ultimately proved to be true.
It is possible to conclude that Mueller in fact wrote a report that left the issues in this matter in the hands of the American people in the 2020 election. Whether that was the special counsel’s intent, that is where the issues now will be decided.
It becomes now particularly important to do all that is possible to counter ongoing efforts of the Russians and others to wage cyberwar against the voters. It is also important to counteract efforts by domestic political actors to selectively suppress the right of all Americans to vote.
Ilya Somin, law professor, George Mason University
Barr’s summary states that the special counsel did not find that Trump or members of his campaign colluded with Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential campaign. This crucial finding appears to exonerate Trump on the crucial issue of “collusion” with Russia.
On the question of obstruction of justice, Barr’s summary quotes the special counsel’s report as stating that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Barr goes on to state that he and Rosenstein have concluded that the evidence “is not sufficient” to conclude that Trump committed obstruction of justice.
The equivocal nature of the obstruction finding emphasizes the importance of publicly revealing as much of the report as possible, so that Congress and the public can make an informed judgment. While Justice Department policy forbids prosecution of a sitting president, Congress can still pursue impeachment proceedings against him.
Unlike a criminal trial, impeachment does not necessarily require proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In the view of most legal scholars across the political spectrum, impeachment is also possible in cases of illegal conduct or abuse of power that are not crimes.
Today’s revelations were beneficial to Trump’s cause. But he is not out of the woods yet. Multiple state and federal investigations into possible lawbreaking on his part are still ongoing. Congress would also do well to further investigate such technically non-criminal abuses of power as the president’s cruel “family separation” policy, which has been ruled unconstitutional by a federal court, in a June 2018 decision.
The administration continues to drag its feet on reuniting many of the separated migrant children with their families, and new separations still occur, even long after the court’s ruling.
The Barr letter is an important development. But it is far from the end of this particular road.
Jens David Ohlin, law professor, Cornell University
What strikes me as most important is the fact that Barr (not Mueller) made the determination not to indict the president for obstruction of justice. Based on just the evidence from the public record, even if the Mueller report added no new information, there was enough evidence to warrant a prosecution of the president for obstruction.
Incredibly, Barr states in his letter to Congress that his decision not to pursue an obstruction charge was based, in part, on the absence of evidence that Trump committed a crime related to Russian election interference.
It seems to me that this represents a major legal error on Barr’s part. Trump could still have a “corrupt intent” even if he didn’t personally conspire with the Russians, but nonetheless wanted to shut down an investigation that was threatening his close aides and associates — like former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
We’ll have to see if Congress is willing to rectify Barr’s legal error.
Ric Simmons, law professor, Ohio State University
The only possible conclusion to draw based on this summary is that the Mueller report is a complete exoneration of President Trump from any criminal activity regarding collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice. Robert Mueller has an unassailable reputation as a non-partisan professional law enforcement officer of the highest caliber, and he conducted an exhaustive, comprehensive investigation, leading a team of nearly sixty lawyers and investigators for almost two years, ultimately concluding that there was no coordination or collaboration between the Trump campaign and Russia.
It is true that Mueller did not explicitly exonerate the president on the obstruction of justice charges, but as the summary notes, the fact that there is no evidence of collusion on the part of the president makes it very unlikely that the president did in fact obstruct justice in this matter. More to the point, it would be nearly impossible to legally prove that Trump obstructed justice, since proving such a charge would require the prosecutor to establish intent, and it would be paradoxical to argue that the president intentionally obstructed justice when he was factually innocent of the underlying charge.
Peter Margulies, law professor, Roger Williams University School of Law
In declining to find that President Trump obstructed justice, Attorney General Barr ranked his view of the presidency as an institution over the unprecedented conduct of the White House’s current occupant. The matters that Special Counsel Robert Mueller described as “difficult” included whether Trump’s firing of FBI Director Jim Comey constituted obstruction. In deciding against obstruction charges, Barr had to weigh the disruption to the Russia probe caused by Comey’s dismissal against the president’s power to fire political appointees.
Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein apparently were concerned that criminalizing the Comey firing and other Trump actions that “took place in public view” would displace presidential accountability from the electoral and political realm to the courtroom. In the memo Barr wrote about the Mueller probe before becoming Attorney General, Barr worried that this shift in accountability might chill future presidents’ ability to make difficult decisions about policy and personnel.
But whether or not criminal prosecution proceeds now, Mueller’s statement that his report does not “exonerate” the President should give pause to Congress and to all citizens. Surely, the United States deserves a chief executive who is definitively free of the taint of obstruction. Mueller’s refusal to give the President that clean bill of health should spur further inquiry by Congress about the contents of Mueller’s report and the conduct of this particular president.
Robert Mueller was never going to end Donald Trump’s presidency.
© 2019 Vox Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The report did not exonerate Trump except to the extent that it found no collusion with Russia on which to prosecute. However. Mueller investigated much else in addition to collusion with Russia, most notably obstruction of justice, which the DOJ may pursue and the House committees clearly will pursue.
“There also are all of the Trump organization and Trump’s business dealings that could expose Trump to criminal and/or civil liability... In other words, Trump may be vulnerable on many fronts to legal challenges.”
Again, the beat goes on, and conspiracy theories may have some work cut out for them particularly if those conlirracirs were deliberately set up by real actions, and Miller was advised from the get go how to play That reality show, from an expert who am.ist got an Emmy.
(Right?)
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Trump's 'delight' and the discomfort of Democrats: How global media is reacting to the Mueller report
Holly Ellyatt | @HollyEllyatt
Published 5 Hours Ago Updated 52 Mins Ago
Global media are reacting to the results of one of the most gripping investigations into a U.S. president in modern times and the somewhat unexpected result of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Donald Trump.
The investigation found that Trump did not collude with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
Global media are reacting to the results of one of the most explosive investigations in modern U.S. history.
Global media are reacting to the results of one of the most gripping investigations into a U.S. president in modern times — and the somewhat unexpected result of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
Attorney General William Barr summarized the results of Mueller's investigation on Sunday by sayingit had not found that the Trump campaign had"conspired or coordinated with the Russian government" to influence the 2016 vote.
In addition, Barr said Mueller had not concluded one way or another as to whether Trump obstructed justice by trying to influence the investigation. Barr said Mueller's evidence was not sufficient to establish that Trump committed a crime.
Trump tweeted that the report's conclusions were a "total exoneration" of him. But in a letter to key members of Congress on Sunday, Barr noted that while Mueller's report "does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
Disappointed by Barr's summary of the investigation, Democrats have called Mueller's report to be published in full. Meanwhile, much of the global media have focused on the shock result and whether or not Trump is really "exonerated."
Here's a selection of global media reaction and commentary to the results of the Mueller probe:
No conspiracy
The Washington Post is headlined Monday "Mueller finds no conspiracy," attorney general says and notes in a separate article that "No collusion!" goes from defiant mantra to rallying cry for Trump's re-election" but senior editor Marc Fisher also noted that Mueller's report "contains enough fuel for both sides to cling to their version of the truth."
The New York Times also headlined with Barr's conclusions but noted that the report "stops short of exonerating Trump on obstruction of justice." The paper said that "with no impeachment in view, Democrats push forward with an investigation." Nonetheless, the paper's White House correspondent Peter Baker notes that "a cloud over Trump's presidency is lifted" and that the results will have "fortified the president for the battles to come, including his campaign for re-election."
The Wall Street Journal said "Trump's team sees political gold" in the results and that his team was already "crafting plans to use Robert Mueller's findings as a line of attack against Democrats" in the 2020 election.
Democrats' discomfort
Media outside the U.S. have also followed every twist and turn of Mueller's 22-month long investigation and have eagerly anticipated the results of the probe that Trump often called a "witch hunt."
U.K. newspapers largely focused on Trump's jubilant and delighted reaction to Barr's summary of the report and the Democrats' disappointment at the result — and what it could mean for the 2020 election race.
The U.K.'s Daily Mail noted that "Trump revels in "complete exoneration" and blasts "illegal' probe" and reported the president's happiness at the result, quoting an unnamed senior administration official as telling the paper that he hadn't "seen Trump this happy in months. It's like election night again." The U.K.'s center-right Daily Telegraph newspaper said "The findings left the president and his allies delighted" and "amounted to a major victory for Mr. Trump after 22 months of Mr Mueller's investigation."
The paper also focused on Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer demanding the full confidential report be published and their joint statement in which they noted that "Attorney General Barr's letter raises as many questions as it answers."
The Telegraph's U.S. editor, Ben Riley-Smith, and Washington editor, Nick Allen, noted in their reaction that "Democrats found themselves in a politically uncomfortable position, being asked during TV interviews whether they agreed there was no collusion and whether they trusted Mr Mueller — a man whose integrity they had repeatedly trumpeted in public."
'No respite' for Trump
The Mueller report has also caught the attention of continental Europe, a region with its own conflicted relationship with Trump following threats from the president to impose import tariffs on European cars.
France's Le Figaro said that while the Mueller report "clears" Trump and that the White House "triumphs" at the findings, the Democrats "wince." Le Monde said the findings "reinforce Trump in upcoming battles."
Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper said even though the report found "no proof (of collusion), the president is not absolved," while Germany's public broadcaster Deutsche Welle said on its website that the report actually gives "no respite" for Trump as other investigations into his administration and his business dealings will "continue unabated."
Daniel Friedrich Sturm, Die Welt's U.S. correspondent, wrote that "Sunday was a great day for the American president," and that the Mueller findings were "perhaps Trump's greatest triumph in the battle for power since his electoral victory two-and-a-half years ago." However, he noted that although the White House had downplayed the question of whether Trump had obstructed the investigation, "that will not be the last word" on the subject.
View interactive content
German business newspaper Handelsblatt said that "What remains after 3,000 subpoenas and more than 500 witnesses from the Mueller report (are) no conspiracy, no charges," but it added that while the result of the Russia investigation is "mostly good news" for Trump "the report contains worrying findings" and that "many questions remain unanswered, as long as the report is only a summary."
Trump's "victory" has barely made a dint in Chinese newspapers that largely report on the world through the lens of the ruling Communist Party. The China Daily newspaper is focused on President Xi Jinping's visit to France on Monday while the Mueller report's findings are also absent from the South China Morning Post and Communist Party-run People's Daily.
The view from Russia
Beyond Europe, Trump's reactions to the report will be just as closely scrutinized as Russia's. Russian President Vladimir Putin has not yet publicly commented on the Mueller findings.
Grigory Dukor | Reuters
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands as they hold a joint news conference after their meeting in Helsinki, Finland July 16, 2018.
Despite an apparent mutual respect between Putin and Trump, U.S.-Russian relations have been frosty of late, particularly against a backdrop of continuing U.S. sanctions on Russian organizations and individuals it says meddled in the U.S. 2016 election, as well as sanctions for any entity deemed to have been involved in its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
Russian newspapers Vedomosti, Kommersant and Komsomolskaya Pravda carried very little analysis of the Mueller findings but Rossiyskaya Gazeta, which is published by the Russian government, carried an opinion piece by Konstantin Kosachev, a senior Russian lawmaker and chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Kosachev was damning of the investigation, noting that "two years were not just lost for Russian-American relations (but were) simply crushing for them." "Will someone answer for this damage or apologize?" he asked.
Mueller report: Trump accuses enemies of 'treasonous, evil things' – live
President attacks unnamed adversaries in press conference day after summary of special counsel’s report is published
Trump threatens retaliation against 'evil, treasonous' opponents over Russia investigation – video
Ben Jacobs in Washington (now) and Erin Durkin in New York (earlier)
The American Enterprise Institute, a major conservative thinktank, just released the list of attendees at its retreat last month in Georgia.
It includes a number of Republican elected officials as well as New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, former Vice President Dick Cheney and John Delaney, a former Democratic congressman running for President.
The Wall Street Journal reports that celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos is the unnamed conspirator with Avenatti.
The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump is adamantly against further aid to Puerto Rico, which is still suffering 18 months after the island was devastated by hurricanes.
But at an Oval Office meeting on Feb. 22, Trump asked top advisers for ways to limit federal support from going to Puerto Rico, believing it is taking money that should be going to the mainland, according to senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the presidents’ private remarks.
The meeting — an afternoon session focused on Housing and Urban Development grants — ended abruptly, and Trump has continued to ask aides how much money the island will get. Then, Trump said he wanted the money to only fortify the electric grid there.
Trump has also privately signaled he will not approve any additional help for Puerto Rico beyond the food stamp money, setting up a congressional showdown with Democrats who have pushed for more expansive help for the island.
A senior administration official with direct knowledge of the meeting described Trump’s stance: “He doesn’t want another single dollar going to the island.”
The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York has tweeted a chart that they are using to lay out the case against Avenatti.
Stormy Daniels has tweeted a statement about her former lawyer, Michael Avenatti.
Fred Malek, a longtime Republican activist and fundraiser died today at the age of 85.
The death was announced by the American Action Network, the Republican 501 (c)(4) he founded. Malek worked in both the Nixon and George H.W. Bush administrations. He gained notoriety after it was revealed that he counted the number of Jews working in the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the request of Nixon.
Senator Susan Collins of Maine will face a primary challenge to her right in 2020.
The moderate Republican will face Derek Levasseur, a conservative blogger upset with her vote to overturn Trump’s declaration of a national emergency. However, Levasseur has some baggage, being arrested in 2012 for assaulting four people, including his daughter at his own wedding reception.
Hillary Clinton has endorsed a candidate in the open race to be the next mayor of Dallas, Texas.
The former secretary of state endorsed Regina Montoya ahead of the city’s nonpartisan primary on May
Montoya, a lawyer, was a staffer in the Clinton White House and a major donor to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign
Updated at 2.50pm EDT
Nancy Pelosi defended House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff after Donald Trump aides called for his resignation.
“Chairman Schiff has done an outstanding job and that’s the reason why he’s subject to these ridiculous attacks,” Pelosi spokeswoman Ashley Etienne told the Hill.
“Democrats aren’t going to be intimidated by the White House or Congressional Republicans, we’re not going to be distracted from securing the release of the full Mueller report and the underlying evidence, and we will continue to pursue legitimate oversight because that’s what the Constitution requires,” she said. “The days of Congress ignoring the mountain of legal and ethical misconduct by this President and Administration are over.”
Attorney General William Barr is likely to testify before the House Appropriations Committee next month, the Washington Post reports.
The committee has tentatively scheduled a budget hearing for April 9 on the Justice Department’s budget. The attorney general typically testifies at such hearings.
Here’s the criminal complaint against Michael Avenatti in Los Angeles.
Prosecutors allege he “embezzled a client’s money in order to pay his own expenses and debts — as well as those of his coffee business and law firm — and also defrauded a bank by using phony tax returns to obtain millions of dollars in loans.”
From DOJ:
According to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint in this case, Avenatti negotiated a settlement which called for $1.6 million in settlement money to be paid on January 10, 2018, but then gave the client a bogus settlement agreement with a false payment date of March 10, 2018. The affidavit states that Avenatti misappropriated his client’s settlement money and used it to pay expenses for his coffee business, Global Baristas US LLC, which operated Tully’s Coffee stores in California and Washington state, as well as for his own expenses. When the fake March 2018 deadline passed and the client asked where the money was, Avenatti continued to conceal that the payment had already been received, court documents said.
Avenatti also allegedly defrauded a bank in Mississippi by submitting to the lender false tax returns in order to obtain three loans totaling $4.1 million for his law firm and coffee business in 2014. According to the affidavit, Avenatti obtained the loans by submitting fabricated individual income tax returns (Forms 1040) for 2011, 2012, and 2013, reporting substantial income even though he had never filed any such returns with the Internal Revenue Service.
Donald Trump Jr. is already taunting Michael Avenatti.
Michael Avenatti faces a separate set of charges in Los Angeles, where prosecutors allege “he embezzled a client’s money in order to pay his own expenses and debts — as well as those of his coffee business & law firm — and also defrauded a bank by using phony tax returns to obtain millions of dollars,” per NPR.
That’s in addition to the case in New York, where he’s charged with attempting to extort millions out of Nike.
Trump set to weaponize Mueller report in war on Democrats and media
What we learned from Barr's summary of the Mueller report
William Barr: attorney general plays 'It has proved what we already knew'
Russia on Mueller report: 'It has proved what we already knew'
The key findings of the Mueller report
No collusion, plenty of corruption: Trump is not in the clear
Richard Wolffe
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Robert Mueller and the collapse of American trust
The reaction to AG William Barr’s Mueller letter reveals a disturbing truth about America.
The US Capitol pictured on November 7, 2018, in Washington, DC. Zach Gibson/Getty Images
Attorney General William Barr’s summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report has not resolved all of the disputes surrounding Donald Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 election. But the reaction to it has revealed one of the ways in which American politics is deeply and profoundly broken.
Democrats have responded to Barr’s summary by calling the attorney general’s impartiality into question (not entirely without reason). Leading members of Congress have raised the alarm about “very concerning discrepancies and final decision making at the Justice Department” and are pushing for the full release of Mueller’s report and for Barr to testify under oath.
Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, have responded by blasting “the biased media” for spreading “a collective scam and fraud.” The chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), even called for investigations into the FBI’s investigation itself, to see if the bureau’s pursuit of Trump and his allies was in any way improper.
A quick gander at social media shows this polarized reaction from partisan politicians is reflected in their parties’ respective media surrogates and rank-and-file voters. There’s not even a pretense of neutrality: Everyone is reading what they want into Barr’s letter, establishing a reality in which their side is right and the other side is making things up.
Barr’s document is particularly vague on some points, an ambiguity heightened by the fact that no one weighing in — from either side — has read the full report. But even the most unequivocal report would be subject to the deeper forces: the death of the neutral arbiter.
All in all, this reflects a collapse in trust in two core American institutions: politically independent federal law enforcement and the free press. This lack of faith, combined with a concomitant rise in partisanship, means that virtually every major political event is interpreted through a partisan lens. There’s no political institution widely accepted as being neutral anymore; instead, Americans judge the quality of the country’s leading institutions based on how favorable each one’s outputs are to their political interests.
The big problems haunting the Mueller debate
The fact of the decline in trust in core American institutions is well established and undeniable.
Two charts from a 2018 RAND Corporation report called “Truth Decay” tell the story elegantly. The first looks at long-term Pew data on Americans’ trust in government, finding a significant decline beginning in the mid-’60s. The data seems to track real-world government failures, such as the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the war in Iraq:
RAND Corporation -------- -------- ---------
The second chart looks at public confidence in Congress, specifically, as well as the media. Once again, it shows a pretty clear decline from peaks several decades ago.
The causes of these declines in faith in public institutions are complex. Some of it reflects actual policy and reporting failures, like the Iraq WMD debacle. Some of it reflects attempts by political actors to delegitimize these institutions, like the conservative campaign against the “liberal media” and Trump’s cries of “fake news.” It’s difficult — maybe even impossible — to separate out the relative causal power of these different events.
But this decline of faith intersects with a separate and equally important trend: rising partisanship. While people were losing faith in core institutions, the major political parties were becoming much more ideologically unified — with liberals sorting into the Democratic Party and conservatives becoming Republicans.
Like the decline in trust, the rise in polarization has complex and intertwined causes. The political aftermath of the civil rights movement, the politicization of evangelical Christianity, and the rise of the modern conservative movement all play major parts in this story. The result is that Americans have come to closely identify their social groups, like race or religion, with their political party. Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at New America, put it well in a Vox essay in September 2017:
Over the past half-century or so, partisan identities have become much more closely aligned with other social identities. Partisan divides now overlay religious divides, cultural divides, geographical divides, and racial divides. In the past, these identities used to cross-cut each other more often. Thirty years ago, you could be a culturally conservative Democrat, or culturally liberal Republican. These overlaps made the parties less distinct. They also made it easier to find common ground with opposing partisans based on other shared identities.
But as social sorting took place, we lost those potentially bridging ties. Moreover, our collective sense of cultural, regional, and ethnic status become more and more linked to the status of our two political parties, which came to represent these different identities. This made politics more emotional because it felt like even more was at stake with each election. It was not just the parties fighting each other, but also competing ways of life they represented.
As political scientist Lilliana Mason convincingly argues, “The more sorted we become, the more emotionally we react to normal political events.” And when emotions are heightened, everything becomes a threat to status. Politics becomes more about anger. And, here’s the warning from Mason that should give you goose bumps: “The angrier the electorate, the less capable we are of finding common ground on policies, or even of treating our opponents like human beings.”
When your partisan identity becomes so closely tied to your personal identity, information that challenges your political beliefs becomes a more existential threat — changing your mind or even admitting you might be wrong feels like a major betrayal. So partisans come to believe that their side has to be right — it just has to be — because the alternative is unthinkable.
Like polarization itself, the problem isn’t symmetrical on right and left. “Tribal epistemology,” as my colleague Dave Roberts terms it, is far more prevalent on the right, with media organizations like Fox News dedicated to selling comforting, often false, information to viewers.
But Democrats are hardly immune to confirmation bias. A number of laboratory experiments and surveys have shown that partisans on both sides of the political aisle work to fit facts into their existing narrative and beliefs. Polarization makes people interpret facts to fit their feelings.
This intersects with the decline of faith in political institutions in a particularly nasty way.
The less confidence people have in media and government institutions, the harder it is for information coming from one of these sources to override their partisan judgments. There are very few sources that are seen as politically neutral, and the quality of information is determined by the perceived political alignment of the source. A majority of Americans told Gallup pollsters in 2017 that they could not name a single news organization they would describe as “objective”; among those who could, Republicans named Fox News while Democrats typically cited one of several mainstream media outlets.
Every piece of information is evaluated less on the merits and more on its provenance. Court rulings are evaluated by whether the deciding judge was appointed by a Republican or a Democrat. Congressional reports are judged by which party controlled the committee that produced them. Media watchdogs on the left and right scrutinize every piece of work in the mainstream media for “bias.”
The reaction to the Barr letter was no exception. Democrats see the attorney general as a hackish Trump loyalist and evaluate the letter through that lens. Republicans see the media as in the tank for the Democrats and thus see the letter as confirmation that they were right to mistrust reporters on the Trump-Russia beat.
The result is that partisans, from politicians on down to rank-and-file voters, are living in two distinct worlds. One of those is more connected to reality than the other, to be sure, but hardly perfect. On complex political issues like Trump’s connection to Russia, where the truth of the matter is by its nature difficult to determine, people will interpret reality in a way that flatters their biases.
This leads me to be profoundly pessimistic about the future of the Mueller investigation. Even if Mueller’s full report is released in a timely fashion — and that’s still an “if” at this point, not a “when” — people will read it differently, in each case trying to vindicate their narrative of events. There will never be a shared sense of reality about what really happened in 2016 or whether Trump obstructed justice during the investigation. No authoritative document could overcome the deep systemic forces that produced this dispute.
All of this raises a series of disturbing questions: How much further can this political relativism be pushed? What happens when the subject of partisan dispute isn’t election interference, but the legitimacy of the vote counting itself?
And most broadly, how can American democracy work when there are essentially two polities living in two separate realities?
The progressive base is not as far left as you might think
Michael Avenatti has been arrested for allegedly trying to extort $20 million from Nike
Attorney General Bill Barr could wind up testifying in front of both the House and Senate
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Mueller report public
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has blocked a non-binding resolution put forth by Senator Chuck Schumer calling for the Mueller report to be made public
All charges dropped against actor Jussie Smollett. Watch CNN
Mueller told Justice Dept. three weeks ago he wouldn't reach a conclusion on obstruction
By Laura Jarrett, CNN
Updated at 7:48 PM ET, Mon March 25, 2019
Barr delivers his summary of Mueller report to Congress
CNN reporter prediction: Look for pardons
Wolf Blitzer: Sounds like Russians got what they wanted
WH says Mueller report is 'complete exoneration' of Trump
Toobin: Total vindication of Trump on collusion
Giuliani responds to Mueller report summary
CNN reporter: This line is key
Barr: Mueller finds no Trump-Russia conspiracy
Ex-Trump aide: Trump will use report as political bludgeon
How the Mueller report stacks up with Watergate
Trump responds to AG summary of Mueller report
Nadler: Conclusions raise more questions than they answer
Washington (CNN) — Roughly three weeks ago the special counsel's team told Attorney General Bill Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that Robert Mueller would not be reaching a conclusion on whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
The source said that conclusion was "unexpected" and not what Barr had anticipated.
Barr released a four-page summary on Sunday of Mueller's principal conclusions, writing that the special counsel "did not draw a conclusion -- one way or another -- as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction."
"Instead," Barr explained, "for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as difficult issues of law and fact concerning whether the President's actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction."
News of Mueller's decision to punt on the crucial question of whether the President's actions amounted to obstruction of justice was particularly notable given that he never received a sit down interview with Trump to assess his state of mind.
by Meno_ » Tue Mar 26, 2019 5:47 pm
On the contrary: the base of Trump's linkage to his constituents understand only the language of appearances, contrary to a submerged corresponding reality.
The news therefore is,: that contrary to ALL appearances , International Capital won the game. Perfectly scripted and well delivered by the guy who is well known for saying "You're fired."
And weren't all his underlings suffer that sad fate in "reality"?
The message has proven not to be in the media. A perfect coup, and all the other legal skirmishes will follow suit.
Consequential proof has shown politocal philosophies' cherished tenet of representative democracy win over objectives (objectionable issues) to be non sequitur, - the Constitutional Rights of Men(( men)) to be no longer a matter of accountability , but preference.
Now preference has become vested iron clad without the possibility of actually guilloteening sub stance from form, cause it has been perfectly re-fused figuratively.
The stage is not really cleared: props and a few minor characters drift, but the system has been saved, universally.
Putin and other mega billionaires with the aid of Trumpian deception , saved the day, for those who would have mired the landscape with an equally indisposed socialistic decline.
The decline would have paralleled a historical precedent of almost unveliavable nuclear showdown.
So I guess we should all revel at the monumental deception for the sake of following a totally self deceptive objective interpretation of the value of
demonizing excesses necessarily based on primal narcissism.
It's a fait accompli.
by Meno_ » Wed Mar 27, 2019 4:32 am
House fails to override Trump's veto on bill that would have blocked his national emergency
The House fails to override President Donald Trump's veto of a measure that would have ended the president's national emergency declaration at the southern U.S. border.
Fourteen House Republicans support the measure, but it was not enough to reach a two-thirds majority.
House Democrats' attempt to override President Donald Trump's first veto failed Tuesday, leaving the president's national emergency declaration in place for now.
The chamber fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to overcome the president's opposition to a resolution that would end his executive action. Only 14 Republicans joined with Democrats in voting to override the veto in a 248-181 vote — one more GOP representative than when the House passed the measure last month.
In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat who authored the resolution, said the congressional votes would "provide significant evidence for the courts as they review lawsuits" challenging the move to secure money for the president's proposed border wall. They signaled the House would vote again on ending the national emergency in six months, which lawmakers can do as long as it is in effect.
"The President's lawless emergency declaration clearly violates the Congress's exclusive power of the purse, and Congress will work through the appropriations and defense authorization processes to terminate this dangerous action and restore our constitutional system of balance of powers," they said following the vote. "In six months, the Congress will have another opportunity to put a stop to this President's wrongdoing. We will continue to review all options to protect our Constitution and our Democracy from the President's assault."
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, speaks to members of the media while departing a House Democratic Caucus meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, March 26, 2019.
Last month, Trump declared a national emergency to divert money already approved by Congress to the construction of barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats and some Republicans worried about Trump circumventing the legislature's appropriations power after lawmakers passed only about $1.4 billion of the $5.7 billion the president sought for structures.
In a tweet later Tuesday, Trump celebrated what he called a "BIG WIN on the border."
Both the House and Senate previously passed the legislation to block the emergency declaration with bipartisan support.
Trump hopes to use the declaration to secure $3.6 billion of the $8 billion total he wants to put toward barriers on the border. It would come from the Defense Department's military construction budget. The president has argued he has the full authority to divert the funds.
Though Congress cannot terminate the emergency declaration for now, Trump's action still will face its share of scrutiny. Numerous states and outside groups have filed lawsuits challenging the declaration.
Lawsuits have in part cited Trump's own words last month, when he said "I didn't need to do this" to get border wall funding, "but I'd rather do it much faster."
After acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Monday that the Pentagon would move $1 billion away from military construction projects to build the border wall, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wa., denied the move. He said his committee had not approved it.
It still may go through, as the Pentagon will argue it has the authority to use the funds.
Trump also requested $8.6 billion for border wall construction in his fiscal 2020 budget, which could spark yet another standoff with Democrats over his signature campaign promise.
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During a private lunch with Senate Republicans, Donald Trump laid out an ambitious legislative agenda and reveled in the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report. | Andrew Harnik/
‘He's doing a victory lap’: Rejuvenated Trump pushes aggressive agenda post-Mueller
The president appeared to move past intraparty squabbles at a private lunch with Republican senators.
President Donald Trump is acting like he just hit the lottery.
In a private lunch with Senate Republicans on Tuesday, a rejuvenated Trump laid out an ambitious legislative agenda and put past intraparty conflicts behind him as he reveled in apparent vindication after special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into allegations that the president colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign.
Trump looked like a president eager to run for reelection in 2020, and Senate Republicans — who face a tough map next year — were happy about it.
“I look at this as sort of a new election. A fresh start,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally. He said Trump put it this way: “I’ve got this behind me now. It’s a fresh start. So let’s see what we can do — starting with health care.”
The president urged his party to swiftly pass a new North American trade deal, said he would pursue an “excellent” pact with China and even called on the GOP to formulate a new health care plan as he seeks to invalidate the Affordable Care Act. He endorsed a probe by Graham into whether there was an anti-Trump effort in the Justice Department in 2016 and at one point handed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pages listing unconfirmed nominees and directed the caucus: “Please get these done.”
McConnell is expected to bring a rules change to the Senate floor pushing some confirmations as soon as next week.
Trump specifically called out Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) for slowing ambassador nominees and remarked that Menendez, who survived a corruption trial, is “lucky” to be in the Senate, according to a person briefed on the meeting. Trump also complained that Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell’s policies are hindering gross domestic product growth from reaching 4 percent, the person said.
The meeting with Republicans, described by a dozen GOP senators, showcased Trump’s new outlook as he enters his reelection campaign in earnest. With much of the cloud of the special counsel probe removed, Trump dictated an aggressive blueprint for Senate Republicans that seems impossible to execute with Democrats in the House majority.
But for Trump anything seemed possible on Tuesday as he declared both inside and outside the lunch that Republicans are going to become the “party of health care.” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said Trump is “reinvigorated” and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said the president feels “vindicated” after nearly two years of scrutiny by the special counsel.
“His perception: … That there was a concerted attempt to smear him and to cripple his presidency with something that was probably false,” Cassidy said.
"He's doing a victory lap, no doubt about it," said Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia. “But he earned it. He spent two years going through all this stuff with Mueller."
Trump’s decision to jump headlong into another divisive health care effort — with Democrats in control of the House no less — shows that he isn’t shying away from conflicts, even those that could hurt vulnerable GOP lawmakers. In fact, Republicans had no real plans to pass or even necessarily plan for sweeping health care legislation as of 24 hours ago. And most in the party have been eager to put the disastrous effort to repeal Obamacare behind them.
But at Trump’s direction, that all seemed to change on Tuesday.
“His real mission statement of the day was: take up a Republican health care package,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota
Graham to speak with attorney general about releasing Mueller report
By KYLE CHENEY and JOHN BRESNAHAN
Not everybody was that eager: "I want nothing to do with this," said one Republican senator scarred from the failed attempt to repeal the health law in 2017.
Trump also picked on favorite targets. He complained about spending in Puerto Rico as Congress tries to forge a disaster aid deal for the island states affected by recent storms. He even showed Republicans a chart that laid out what he views as profligate spending as the island recovers from a recession and a hurricane.
“And he’s right on that. A lot of it has been misused and abused,” said Shelby, the Senate Appropriations Committee chairman. “It doesn’t have the best record of spending wisely.”
Trump also griped about a lack of investigations into the Justice Department and urged Graham to move forward. He said he wants Congress to act quickly on a new deal to replace NAFTA despite the steep hurdles posed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ambivalence.
And Trump brought up the cost of stationing U.S. forces in Europe as part of NATO, but didn't complain as much as he normally does, GOP senators said.
"Compared to the way [Trump] used to be about anything multi-national, I thought it was pretty good," said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma. "It wasn’t bad at all."
The president told Republicans he wants to protect intellectual property produced by “nerds” in Silicon Valley from China, angling for a new pact with the country by driving a hard bargain, according to one attendee.
“Very good deal. Not a good deal. Not an OK deal it has to be a great deal,” Trump said, according to Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
‘Let’s just get the goods’: Pelosi rallies dejected Dems post-Mueller
By ANDREW DESIDERIO and HEATHER CAYGLE
But what was most striking is that even after Republicans voted against his national emergency on the border and his administration’s presence in Syria, he viewed the caucus as a cohesive and loyal unit instrumental to his success.
There was no apparent pushback over Trump’s posthumous attack on Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) nor did Republicans express disdain for the Trump administration’s support on Monday for obliterating Obamacare. And the president didn’t single out GOP senators that have voted against him, either.
For once, Trump was somewhat magnanimous, at least by Trumpian standards. And rather than pick fights with Republicans who have slighted him, Trump thanked the GOP for the support.
“He was grateful. He expressed gratitude for the last two years of support he’s gotten from the institution and the members in there. It was a real sincere expression of gratitude,” Cramer said.
Trump hands Democrats a gift with new effort to kill Obamacare
House fails to override Trump veto on border emergency
Supreme Court weighs crackdown on gerrymandering
Special counsel Robert Mueller walking in front of the White House
If You Thought Mueller Had Settled Matters, Think Again
By JOHN F. HARRIS
by Meno_ » Wed Mar 27, 2019 4:40 pm
Mueller’s many loose ends
What comes next now that the probe is finished.
By Andrew Prokop on March 27, 2019 8:00 am
Special counsel Robert Mueller arrives at his office on March 21, 2019, in Washington, DC. Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s sprawling, 22-month investigation has ended with a terse four-page letter from the attorney general — and a whole lot of loose ends.
Foremost among these is the question of when we will get to see more of Mueller’s report itself, rather than just William Barr’s summary. But commentators are already confused and divided on what we can infer from Mueller’s failure to “establish” conspiracy to interfere with the election means, and why Mueller decided not to decide on whether Trump obstructed justice.
More broadly, it’s also unclear how a great many threads Mueller investigated that weren’t mentioned in Barr’s letter were resolved — or unresolved. Congress will try to get answers in the coming days, and here are some of the biggest questions they will have.
The biggest loose end: When will we see (some of) the report?
Of course, the biggest loose end is that we still haven’t seen Mueller’s report itself. We’ve only seen Barr’s summary of it, which does not reveal Mueller’s reasoning or any details, and only quotes the special counsel a handful of times.
Barr wrote Sunday that his “goal and intent is to release as much of the Special Counsel’s report as I can consistent with applicable law, regulations, and Departmental policies.”
The first step in that process, he said, will be identifying what obtained Mueller from his grand jury — because he says grand jury material cannot by law be made public. Barr said materials impacting “other ongoing matters,” such as investigations Mueller referred elsewhere, must also be identified.
It’s unclear how long these steps will take, but once they are completed, we could get a (heavily redacted) Mueller report released. A Justice Department official told reporters Tuesday this will likely take “weeks not months,” but there’s some ambiguity about whether that refers to a redacted version of Mueller’s actual report, or simply another Barr summary with more information. If some version of the report is released, though, there will likely be more political and legal battles about revealing what’s under those redactions.
Did Mueller find nothing on collusion — or just not enough to prosecute?
The special counsel’s decision not to charge Americans with criminally conspiring with the Russian government to interfere with the election has spurred skeptics of the Russia probe to claim vindication. Trump supporters claim this confirms his “no collusion” mantra, and critics of the investigation from both the left and right have acted as if Mueller definitively declared there was nothing here at all.
Other commentators, though, have cautioned against jumping to that conclusion before seeing Mueller’s fuller findings. “Without seeing Mueller’s full report, we don’t know whether this is a firm conclusion about lack of coordination or a frank admission of insufficient evidence,” defense attorney Ken White writes at the Atlantic.
Barr quotes the Mueller report’s exact language twice on this topic. The first quote is, “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” The second is, “the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference.”
So it’s not yet entirely clear whether Mueller’s report describes a murky situation in which there’s some evidence that collusion occurred — or whether this part of the investigation truly did lead nowhere.
What did Mueller find on obstruction — and why didn’t he make a recommendation one way or the other?
On the topic of obstruction of justice, Mueller’s report specifically says it “does not conclude that the President committed a crime,” but that it “also does not exonerate him,” according to Barr. (Barr then proceeded to exonerate Trump himself.)
That, of course, raises the questions of what exactly Mueller found on obstruction. Here, the special counsel is known to have investigated:
The circumstances around Trump’s firing of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn
Trump’s conversations with FBI Director James Comey and his eventual firing of Comey
Trump’s pressures on Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the Russia investigation
Trump’s treatment of and contacts with various other Justice Department and intelligence officials, with regards to investigations implicating him or his associates
Whether Trump or his associates may have hinted at or offered pardons to witnesses in exchange for not incriminating him
False testimony from Trump associates to congressional committees investigating Russian interference
Trump’s involvement in crafting a false public story about Donald Jr.’s meeting with the Russian lawyer
Barr’s letter also says that “most” of the presidential actions Mueller analyzed in the obstruction report have “been the subject of public reporting.” But most is not all, so there appear to be some potentially obstructive Trump actions we don’t yet know about. So what are they?
Then there’s the question about why Mueller couldn’t make up his mind about whether Trump committed a crime here. Barr suggests that Mueller was stymied by “‘difficult issues’ of law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction.” But he is vague on why, specifically, Mueller “determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment.” Some have suggested that Mueller may have intended to leave the topic to Congress and not Barr — but again, we need to see his fuller report for more information.
What happens to Mueller’s existing cases?
As the special counsel’s office closes down, any pending cases and matters Mueller’s team has dealt with will be handled off to other Justice Department offices to resolve.
For instance, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia will handle the prosecution of Roger Stone — that office has been involved in Stone’s charges from the get-go, and Stone’s trial is currently scheduled for November 5, 2019.
DC federal prosecutors are also taking over unresolved matters relating to Paul Manafort, Rick Gates (who has not yet been sentenced), and a mysterious company owned by a foreign government that’s been fighting a subpoena. Michael Flynn’s sentencing, and an appeal from an associate of Stone’s who is fighting testimony, will also likely be handed off to other prosecutors.
What happened to ... everything else Mueller investigated?
One surprising aspect of Mueller’s findings on Russian interference with the election, as summarized by Barr, is that they were quite narrowly tailored.
Barr writes that Mueller did not find that any Trump associates conspired or coordinated with the Russian government on the Kremlin’s two main efforts to interfere with the election: the Internet Research Agency’s social media propaganda operation, and the hacking and leaking of Democrats’ emails.
Yet Barr’s summary mentions nothing about ... well, many, many other topics related to the Trump team and Russia that we know Mueller has investigated. These include:
The Trump Organization’s business dealings related to Russia
The Trump Tower Moscow talks
Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower
Russian efforts to influence US policy on sanctions and Ukraine, both during the election and afterward
Paul Manafort’s handing over Trump polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik
Manafort’s efforts to reach out to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska
Connections between the NRA, a Russian central bank official, and spending on behalf of Trump’s campaign
Potential efforts to coordinate with WikiLeaks over the stolen emails
An offer from Gulf princes to the Trump team for election help on social media
Russia and other foreign-tied donations to Trump’s inauguration
Efforts by Jared Kushner to set up back-channel communications with Russia after the election
Barr’s summary tells us nothing of what became of Mueller’s inquiries into all these matters. But there are a few possibilities.
1) Dead ends: It’s simply possible that some of the above turned out to be investigative dead ends not worth mentioning in a top-line summary.
2) Included in separate counterintelligence findings: A second possibility ties into how the Russia investigation originated as a counterintelligence probe into whether Trump campaign advisers were working on Russia’s behalf, either wittingly or unwittingly. That probe was eventually expanded to include President Trump himself.
Some of these are not about criminal conspiracy with the Russian government to interfere with the election, which was the focus of Barr’s report. Instead, these are about potential compromise or links to Russia — something that would be part of a counterintelligence probe rather than a criminal one.
So these counterintelligence findings may well have been separated out from Mueller’s main report (which focused on prosecution or nonprosecution decisions), to be handled elsewhere. And indeed, NBC News now reports that congressional leaders may be briefed on Mueller’s counterintelligence findings in the next 30 to 60 days. So stay tuned for more on that.
3) Referred elsewhere to DOJ to investigate: According to Barr’s letter, Mueller “referred several matters to other offices for further action” during his investigation. That is — matters on which the special counsel chose not to bring charges, but on which he think other Justice Department offices might.
We know of some of these. By February 2018, Mueller had referred an investigation into Michael Cohen’s finances to SDNY. And by August 2018, Mueller had referred cases about several people who had worked with Manafort on his Ukraine lobbying work — Tony Podesta, Vin Weber, and Greg Craig — to other offices. However, we don’t know how many matters Mueller referred elsewhere or what those offices might do with them moving forward.
What is Congress going to find out?
Probably before that is done, Barr will end up testifying before Congress. He has a scheduled appearance before an appropriations subcommittee to talk about the Justice Department’s budget on April 9. But Democrats want him to testify before the House Judiciary Committee before that to answer questions about the Mueller investigation, and are currently trying to nail down the timing.
Additionally, as mentioned above, the FBI is expected to brief key congressional leaders and committee chairs on the findings of the counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump or his campaign advisers were working on Russia’s behalf, per NBC News. That briefing would happen behind closed doors, but information from it could leak.
Re: Trump enters the stage - antithesis
by Meno_ » Thu Mar 28, 2019 4:59 am
OPINIONPublished March 27, 2019 Last Update 8 hrs ago
Andy Puzder: How Mueller’s report cleared Trump, and exposed the deep state
To paraphrase the French poet Charles Baudelaire, the greatest trick the deep state ever pulled off was convincing Americans that it didn’t exist. While Baudelaire was, of course, speaking of the devil, it seems an appropriate phrase. It expresses perhaps the most significant aspect of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. There is a deep state, and it just got caught using a lie to try to reverse a presidential election.
In this respect, Mueller’s report did more than simply exonerate President Trump and his campaign from patently fake claims of Russian collusion. It did more than validate his election victory. It proved beyond any doubt, for anyone from either side of the aisle willing to listen, that the deep state exists, respects no bounds on its power, has no allegiance to the truth, and, left unchecked, threatens the very foundations of our constitutional democracy.
This is not to say there is a coordinated group of conspirators that gathers in smoke-filled rooms; just that there is undeniably a power that comes with many government positions. While the majority of those in government are honorable people who respect the limits placed on their power by our Constitution and traditions, there are always those who believe they have a higher purpose, and are willing to use government power to manipulate events and further their political beliefs. A distrust of common Americans – the deplorables – can ignite a temptation to use that power to achieve a goal the deep state deems significant, even if it may subvert our democracy.
HOW LONG HAS MUELLER KNOWN THERE WAS NO TRUMP-RUSSIA COLLUSION?
The American people have intuited the deep state’s existence. They elected Donald Trump in part because he promised to “drain the swamp” and take on the systemic corruption of the D.C. establishment. In this instance, the Democrats, along with a cabal of unelected bureaucrats and certain supportive elements of the media, responded by trying to take down the duly elected president. Some of those involved sincerely believed the unsubstantiated allegations of “Russian collusion.” Others always knew – or clearly should have known – that the claims against President Trump were politically motivated fabrications.
Our nation and our institutions are strong, however, and this deep state effort failed to bring down our president. According to Attorney General William Barr’s summary, Mueller concluded that his investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities . . . despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.” That’s definitive.
True believers remain incredulous, but Mueller deserves credit for sticking to the truth despite the deep state pressure to do otherwise. He also deserves credit for taking an approach that enhanced his Report’s credibility. While it took what seemed like an unduly long time to conclude the investigation, it was undeniably thorough.
Mueller also assembled a team that included a number of Hillary Clinton supporters to investigate the claims of Russian collusion. The fact that even these potentially biased investigators were unable to find evidence of collusion following an extensive and unrestricted investigation is a compelling reason to believe the Mueller report’s conclusion. In retrospect, it was a smart move by Mueller, enhancing his report’s credibility. Had he hired a staff of Trump supporters, the Democrats could credibly have attacked the report as biased. Now, they cannot. Kudos to Special Counsel Mueller for that.
Mueller declined to reach any conclusions on the charge of obstruction of justice, properly leaving it “to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime.” After reviewing the report’s findings, Barr stated that “Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense,” stressing that this decision was made without regard to Department of Justice rules forbidding criminal prosecution of a sitting president.
Rosenstein’s involvement in that determination is significant. It was Rosenstein who appointed Mueller in the first place, and Rosenstein who authorized Mueller to investigate “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation” – language that opened the door to investigating possible obstruction of justice. His concurrence in the Attorney General’s no obstruction conclusion enhances its credibility.
Let’s be honest about it. The collusion probe was a politically motivated, deep state effort to lay the groundwork for impeaching President Trump – a mission Democratic Party operatives spearheaded with cooperation from partisan elements in the FBI and supported by a barrage of fake news coverage that all but assumed an unsubstantiated claim that a duly elected president colluded with Russia to win an election were true. As we now know, it was simply untrue.
President Trump also had powerful allies – the American people and the truth. Mueller’s report proves that Trump’s campaign message was accurate from the start – there really is a deep state, and it only tolerates those who play by its rules. Mueller’s report doesn’t just vindicate the president; it validates what he’s been saying about the corrupt D.C. establishment ever since he embarked on the road to the White House.
Those who would continue this circus of investigations and unsubstantiated accusations should be on notice: Mueller’s report was a wake-up call for the American people, and there is another election on the horizon.
Andy Puzder was chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants for more than 16 years, following a career as an attorney. He was nominated by President Trump to serve as U.S. labor
©2019 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved.
Rebecca Falconer
Trump: FBI officials committed treason in Russia probe
President Trump told Fox News' "Hannity" Russia would've preferred Hillary Clinton as commander-in-chief.
Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
President Trump told Fox News' "Hannity" Wednesday FBI officials investigating possible Russia links to his campaign had "committed treason."
What he's saying: "They wanted an insurance policy against me,” he told Fox News host Sean Hannity, referring to former FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, who upset him previously over anti-Trump campaign texts. “And what we were playing out until just recently was the insurance policy. They wanted to do a subversion. It was treason ... We can never allow these treasonous acts happen to another president."
The big picture: Strzok was fired from the FBI in 2018 because of his anti-Trump texts with his then-colleague Page in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. He had worked on the Hillary Clinton email server investigation and joined Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation but was kicked off the team and demoted when the texts surfaced.
Why it matters: This is Trump's first interview since Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation concluded, and he didn't hold back in the wide-ranging phone interview.
On the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: Trump said he would release the FISA warrants and related documents used by the FBI to investigate his campaign in full and unredacted. He told Hannity he wanted to "get to the bottom" of how the long-running Russia collusion narrative began.
On the Mueller investigation: Trump called it "an attempted takeover of our government, of our country, an illegal takeover."
On William Barr: Trump said it would never have happened Attorney General William Barr in the position from the start of his presidency. Barr said in a summary of the Mueller report Sunday finding no evidence of a Trump campaign conspiracy with Russia. On obstruction of justice, Barr said the report "does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
On Russia: Trump said Russia would’ve "much rather" had Hillary Clinton as president than himself. "I will tell you this about Russia; if they had anything on me, it would have come out a long time ago," he said. "You look at all of the different things."
On the Green New Deal, spearheaded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "I really do want to campaign against it," Trump said. "It's ridiculous. The new green deal is going nowhere."
NASA's moonshot whiplash
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
The Trump administration's new goal of returning astronauts to the surface of the moon by 2024 — five years earlier than planned — is a huge gamble with the prestige of the United States.
Why it matters: If it succeeds, this week could be remembered as the turning point that restored some of the space program's lost glory. But that's a big if, since the rockets and spacecraft are nowhere near ready. And if it fails, it would be a huge embarrassment to the nation that did all of this once before and couldn't do it again on deadline.
Go deeper693 WORDS
Kim Hart, Alison Snyder, Sara Fischer
Why Huawei is the United States' 5G boogeyman
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Chinese telecom giant Huawei is poised to claim close to half of the 5G market, nudging the technological center of gravity away from western telecom vendors and sounding alarms about China's ability to spy on Americans.
Why it matters: 5G has one global standard that makes networks interoperable regardless of the equipment vendor. The security risk posed by Huawei is debated but if it ends up dominating 5G networks, authority to set standards for future network technologies — such as 6G, which is already under development — will shift toward China.
Sara Fischer
HUD files charges against Facebook over ad discrimination
Photo: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The Department of Housing and Urban Development filed charges against Facebook Thursday for violating the Fair Housing Act by encouraging, enabling and causing housing discrimination through the company’s advertising platform.
Why it matters: Facebook just reached a historic settlement with the ACLU and other advocacy groups around this same issue, so it's surprising that a settlement did not occur between HUD and the tech giant.
Read more at Axios
© Copyright Axios 2019
by Meno_ » Thu Mar 28, 2019 2:38 pm
Meno_ wrote: Fox News
Puerto Rico's Governor Officially Sick of Trump's Shit
Samantha Grasso
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló and President Donald Trump
Following a very strange, inaccurate presentation by President Donald Trump to Republican senators earlier this week on the amount of federal disaster relief funds given to Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló has sent a message to the president essentially telling him that he’s tired of Trump’s bullshit.
“If the bully gets close, I’ll punch the bully in the mouth,” Rosselló said in an interview with CNN. “It would be a mistake to confuse courtesy with courage.”
Rosselló is currently in Washington to meet with members of Congress in an effort to grant Puerto Rico statehood, CNN reported, which Rosselló views as necessary to receive the disaster recovery funds it needs to continue the nearly-two-year-long process after Hurricane Maria.
At a weekly policy lunch on Tuesday, Trump, with the help of a misleading visual aid, questioned why Puerto Rico was getting $91 billion in aid, when Texas received $29 billion and South Carolina got $1.5 billion in aid for disaster recovery from storms. Puerto Rico, in fact, has not received even close to $91 billion—that figure is closer to the amount of damage the hurricane caused to the island, according to the Washington Post.
Following Trump’s joust at Puerto Rico, the latest in months of attacks on the island’s finances and accusations that it’s spending irresponsibly, Rosselló said Trump’s comments “are below the dignity of a sitting President of the United States. They continue to lack empathy, are irresponsible, regrettable and, above all, unjustified.”
“I invite the president to stop listening to ignorant and completely wrong advice,” Rosselló said at the time.
His thoughts shared with CNN today hit at Trump even harder. From CNN (emphasis mine):
Rosselló said the President is working off of bad information provided by White House officials.
“It’s unfortunate that we are having to hear this. These statements lack empathy, but more so they lack the true facts of the matter,” Rosselló said in response to Trump’s comments. “They’re not aligned with the truth and reality, No. 1. And No. 2, I just think we have to end this battle of words and just recognize we’re not his political adversaries, we’re his citizens,” the governor added.
“He treats us as second class citizens, that’s for sure,” he said. “And my consideration is I just want the opportunity to explain to him why the data and information he’s getting is wrong. I don’t think getting into a kicking and screaming match with the President does any good. I don’t think anyone can beat the President in a kicking and screaming match. What I am aiming to do is make sure reason prevails, that empathy prevails, that equality prevails, and that we can have a discussion.”
It’s not just Trump treating the Puerto Ricans with disrespect, but his administration too. Puerto Rican officials told CNN that on Wednesday, they were told by White House senior officials including trade adviser Peter Navarro that Puerto Rico was being too adamant in setting up a meeting between the governor and Trump. “You guys have to fucking stop with the meeting request,” one official reportedly said, while Navarro reportedly added: “Your governor is fucking things up.”
I don’t know, y’all. Maybe if the president actually gave a shit about helping Puerto Rico and the people who live there recover from the worst disaster to hit the island in modern history, Puerto Rican officials wouldn’t have to hound him for a meeting. But sure, Rosselló’s the one “fucking things up” here.
Either way, if Trump thinks dealing with Puerto Rico is going to get any easier any time soon, he’s got another thing coming—last week, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, an even more ferocious critic of the president and his response to Hurricane Maria, announced that she would run for governor of Puerto Rico in 2020.
Splinter Staff Writer, Texan
© 2018 Gizmodo Media Group
----------------------------'
It took Trump 90 seconds to lie about the “Mueller report” during Michigan speech
The president then took a victory lap.
By Aaron Rupar on March 28, 2019 9:40 pm
Less than two minutes into President Donald Trump’s speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he lied about special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report.
“The collusion delusion is over,” Trump said on Thursday night, in his first speech since Attorney General Bill Barr announced some of Mueller’s key conclusions on Sunday. “The special counsel completed its report and found no collusion and no obstruction.”
It is not true, however, that the special counsel exonerated Trump of obstruction of justice. While we still can’t say for sure what the special counsel said — all we know of Mueller’s final report came by way of a brief summary of it sent to Congress on Sunday by Barr, Trump’s hand-picked attorney general — even Barr’s letter acknowledged Mueller did not exonerate Trump of obstruction.
“While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” says Mueller’s report, according to one of the few direct quotations from the special counsel’s report included in Barr’s summary.
Barr, together with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, made the subsequent decision to clear Trump of possible obstruction of justice charges. The public still hasn’t seen the final report, which the New York Times reported on Thursday is over 300 pages long. It remains unclear if the special counsel intended for Barr and Rosenstein to resolve the obstruction question, or if he primarily meant to use his report to present evidence to Congress.
It’s also not not quite the case that Mueller said “no collusion,” as Trump claimed. According to another quotation from the report included in Barr’s summary, Mueller concluded that “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” But not establishing a conspiracy is not the same as finding no evidence of collusion at all.
After falsely claiming total exoneration, Trump used Barr’s letter to go on the attack against some of his most prominent Democratic critics — including the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, who went viral earlier in the day when he responded to a Republican effort to compel him to resign during a hearing by reciting the major pieces of evidence suggesting the Trump campaign did in fact collude with Russia.
“Little pencil-neck Adam Schiff,” Trump said, prompting boos from the crowd. “He has the smallest, thinnest neck I have ever seen. He is not a long-ball hitter. But I saw him today — ‘well, we don’t really know, there could still have been some Russia collusion.’ Sick. Sick. These are sick people.”
While Trump and his allies have spent the week crowing over the fact that the special counsel apparently won’t be indicting Trump or any additional associates of his, it remains unclear when members of Congress or the public will be able to see more of the Mueller report beyond the less than 100 words quoted in Barr’s summary.
Following a phone call with Barr on Wednesday, House Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Jerry Nadler (NY) said the attorney general made it clear that he won’t meet an April 2 deadline Democrats set for making the report public.
“We’re not happy about that, to put it mildly,” Nadler said, according to the Times.
During his speech in Michigan, Trump did not bother trying to explain the apparent disconnect between his misleading declarations of total exoneration on one hand, and his administration’s apparent reluctance to release the Mueller report on the other. After all, if the report is as exonerating as Trump has indicated, then why not make it public and take yet another victory lap?
© 2019 Vox Media, Inc.
Dee Margo, the Republican mayor of El Paso, met with Customs and Border Protection commissioner Kevin McAleenan when the federal official visited the border in the city on Wednesday and declared the system there to be “at breaking point”.
Margo told NPR shortly after that that the idea of shutting the border in response to the current migration surge would not be helpful.
He put the problem down, in the big picture, to the lack of “intestinal fortitude” exhibited on either side of the aisle in Congress on immigration laws for the past three decades.
Immediately on the ground, if the president closes the border next week, the effects will immediately be dramatic, if that’s not stating the obvious. Just in El Paso, Margo pointed out that:
“We have a hundred billion-plus in trade back and forth in imports and exports. We have six of the 28 bridges that cross from Texas to Mexico...We have 23,000 legal pedestrians that come north every day. We’ve got 13 million vehicles that come north every year.
“It affects us all the way around, from commerce - and the wait times on the bridges are approaching two hours, that’s an environmental issue, while cars are just sitting there idling. It’s a major problem.
“But the issue is not just Mexico and whatever they’re doing. The issue is the lack of action by our Congress to deal with this.”
Politicians disagree about whether there is a crisis at the border and, if there is, to what extent it is self-inflicted by America’s own dysfunctional immigration policies.
My colleagues Amanda Holpuch, taking to experts from her well-informed purchase in New York, and Nina Lakhani, who’s based south of the US-Mexico border and reports from Mexico City, analyze the latest and jointly write today:
US authorities’ failure to keep up with a steep increase in Central American families seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border has left El Paso aid workers, churches and city government scrambling to respond.
After a sudden surge in arrivals, migrants have been crowded into hotels, churches and even held under a bridge behind a chain-link fence and razor wire while their asylum claims are processed.
The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner, Kevin McAleenan, said the number of new arrivals in March is expected to reach 100,000, including 55,000 family members. “The immigration system is at breaking point,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
The chaotic scenes in El Paso are the result of a regional crisis in which growing numbers of Central American families flee violence, corruption and poverty – only to come up against failed migration polices in Mexico and the US.
Comedy writer and political observer Nick Jack Pappas isn’t laughing.
He tweeted: “$558 billion in goods flow across the U.S.- Mexico border in both directions, making Mexico our third-biggest trading partner for goods. Closing the border would cost billions.”
Pappas then continues, including a think tank quote: “If you are thinking about a total shutdown of the border, then it’s hundreds of millions of dollars A DAY -- maybe a billion.” - Duncan Wood, director of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute. Our economy would stall. The U.S. would become one of Trump’s failed businesses.
The Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies demand the detention of migrants entering the US unlawfully, even if they are claiming asylum after escaping violence and crushing poverty in Central America.
Most migrants are arriving from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, a region my world affairs colleague in Washington, Julian Borger, has described, politically, as “a hell the US helped create” with its foreign policy.
The federal agencies on the front line, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are overwhelmed.
Hundreds of migrant families who’ve crossed the border are packed under a highway overpass on the border in El Paso, in western Texas, next to the border processing station, behind razor wire and fencing, as CBP struggles to figure out where to put them.
-------'------'------'------"-----------'----'----'----'---''''''--
DONALD TRUMP DEFENDERS ARE FAILING TO ACCEPT REALITY OVER MUELLER'S REPORT, JOHN BRENNAN'S SPOKESMAN SAYS
By Shane Croucher On 3/29/19 at 7:52 AM EDT
John Brennan Donald Trump Mueller Report
Former Director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John Brennan testifies before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Capitol Hill, May 23, 2017 in Washington, DC. Brennan has accused President Donald Trump of treasonous behavior.
U.S. DONALD TRUMP RUSSIA INVESTIGATION
A spokesman for former CIA Director John Brennan has accused President Donald Trump and his defenders over the Mueller report of failing to accept reality amid criticism of the ex-intelligence chief.
Trump has claimed total exoneration by special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which is confidential and has so far only been briefly summarized in public by Attorney General William Barr.
But Barr’s summary states explicitly that Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, does not exonerate Trump on the charge of obstruction of justice.
The president attacked Brennan in a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday night, calling the intelligence veteran sick and saying he was not good at his former job.
“Let’s not forget that the special counsel’s investigation resulted in indictments against 34 people and three entities on nearly 200 separate criminal charges,” Brennan’s spokesman told Newsweek.
“Five associates of the president have been convicted, and another is awaiting trial. Those who think nothing happened and who are now going after critics of the president aren’t accepting reality and they are just playing politics.”
Trump and Brennan, who was director of the CIA from 2013 to 2017, have clashed over the president’s approach to Russia.
The former intelligence head, who has worked for Republican and Democratic presidents, is a fierce and frequent critic of Trump. In response to the criticism, Trump revoked Brennan’s security clearance.
At an infamous joint press conference with Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin after the pair met for private talks, the U.S. president cast doubt on the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies that the Kremlin sought to interfere in the 2016 election.
On Twitter following the press conference, Brennan suggested Trump is a traitor whose comments were impeachable.
“Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors,’” Brennan tweeted. “It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin.”
In the final days before Mueller finished his report and handed it to the attorney general, Brennan speculated that there could be last-minute indictments of Trump family members, though he caveated that he did not know anything about the investigation.
In the end, there were no further indictments. But Trump and his supporters seized on Brennan’s comments to MSNBC, accusing him of making a phoney prediction.
“I think Brennan's a sick person, I really do,” Trump told Hannity in an interview giving his thoughts about the Barr summary of the Mueller report.
“I believe there's something wrong with him...For him to come out of the CIA and act that way was so disrespectful to the country, and to the CIA, and to the position he held.
“He was not considered good at what he did. He was never a respected guy. Tough guy, but not a respected guy. But he lied to Congress. And the other night before the report came out, he predicted horrible things. The things he said were horrible.”
Barr has so far only released a four-page summary of Mueller’s findings in his book-length report, which spans more than 300 pages.
The attorney general intends to release at least some of the report into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election in April.
The U.S. intelligence community concludes that Russia attempted to sway the election in Trump’s favor. Mueller indicted many Russian intelligence officers over election interference.
According to Barr’s summary, Mueller’s report did not find that the president, his campaign, or any of its associates conspired or coordinated with Russia to influence the election.
Barr also noted that Mueller did not exonerate Trump on charges of obstruction of justice related to the special counsel’s long-running investigation.
But the special counsel also did not conclude that the president committed a crime.
Trump’s critics accuse the president of meddling with the investigation by constantly discrediting it as a politically motivated witch hunt, attacking Mueller’s witnesses, and taking action such as firing the former FBI Director James Comey when he had oversight of the probe.
Mueller deferred the decision to prosecute on the obstruction charges to Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who declined to pursue Trump.
“On the issue of obstruction of justice, Brennan believes it is too important to be dismissed by a Trump-appointed AG with a predetermined view on presidential accountability to the rule of law, and that we all need to see the report,” Brennan’s spokesman told Newsweek.
“As for the president and his own actions, Brennan will leave to others how it is possible that one can engage with a foreign power in a most unethical, unprincipled, and unpatriotic way without violating criminal statutes.
“But Mueller determined those actions weren’t illegal and Brennan fully accepts that.”
The spokesman added that Americans should expect much more of a president than the ability to escape criminal liability. “Traits such as decency, honesty, integrity, and competence in our president sure would be nice,” he said.
The president is still the subject of multiple investigations spanning his political, business and personal life.
Among those investigating Trump are various House committees, which plan to use the Mueller report to advance their own probes, including connections between Russia and his campaign, and the Southern District of New York.
Donald Trump on Wind Power Is ‘Malicious Ignorance’
Last edited by Meno_ on Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:33 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Re: Trump enters the stage Lunacy or Collusion?
'This Is Lunacy': Scalise Calls Out Schiff for Continuing to Push Trump-Russia Collusion 'Lie'
Mar 29, 2019 // 8:23am |
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise joined the "Fox & Friends" hosts Friday morning to call out Democrats for continuing to push the Trump-Russia collusion "lie."
On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) defended Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), an outspoken critic of President Trump who is facing calls to resign for continuing to push collusion claims despite Special Counsel Robert Mueller's findings.
"What is the president afraid of? Is he afraid of the truth, that he would go after ... a respected chairman of a committee in the Congress? I think they're just scaredy cats," Pelosi said at her weekly press conference Thursday.
Scalise (R-La.) said Democrats are ignoring the facts in their continued pursuit of the Russia "witch hunt."
He lamented that Democrats have become the party of "constant harassment of the president."
"For the last two years, Adam Schiff's been going around saying he's got more than circumstantial evidence of collusion. And they've been hanging their hat on the Mueller report. They were convinced there would be evidence of collusion and all these indictments. And there was none," Scalise said.
Despite that, Schiff and his fellow Democrats will never admit that they were wrong, Scalise said.
"They just move on and make some other baseless accusation. ... Whatever they're gonna say next, just consider the source."
'This Is a Big Circle': Sen. Paul Claims Brennan Internally Pushed 'Fake Steele Dossier'
'Totally, Profoundly Dishonest': Gingrich Slams Schiff for Continued Collusion Claims
Schiff Blasts 'Unpatriotic' Actions of Trump Campaign, Insists 'Collusion' With Russia Occurred
Latest from Fox News Channel
1 Wallace: It's Not Premature for Trump to Take 'Victory Lap' After Receiving 'Clean Bill of Health' on Collusion
Lunacy or Collusion?
In the vernacular of contra-indicated state of affairs, at what point do impressions signal a state of affairs when this difference becomes of tripartite concern? At what point do the paradoxical asertions cross the line from individual psychic breaks to social-national~international urgency where appearing fissures signal particular projective breaks?
World social nationalism in itself is particularly an ominous label, where from any shrewd politician would want to steer clear of, but it seems like that line was already passed unnoticed, and a newer no holds policy has been reintegrate on assumptions yet to be determined.
This entails risk taking on a new plateau, one with which a desperation could be unearthed .
This is most probably why, Miller , as Pontious once had, washed his hands.
This is way thicker then even a crucifixion would suggest, because it is never transparent here who or what the victims are, not to mention the victims are the very ones who unwarily become the agents .
This confusion seeks clarity, a clarity that is at once desired and further obfuscated.
by promethean75 » Fri Mar 29, 2019 6:53 pm
It's called slipping a nice fat check to Mueller for scrapping the report.
Politicians in back rooms
Rich people with heirlooms
Handshakes at clambakes
Clear the record for namesake
You don't believe they're all this fake?
c'mon meno
or should I call you Janet Reno?
be waatuh, my friend...
promethean75
by Jakob » Fri Mar 29, 2019 9:41 pm
Caliphornia.
For behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals
ILP Legend
Location: look at my suit
Re: Trump enters the stage The biggest State the big orange
https://youtu.be/YlUKcNNmywk
by Meno_ » Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:56 pm
promethean75 wrote: It's called slipping a nice fat check to Mueller for scrapping the report.
Not really, but perhaps it's too late in the game for that.
by Jakob » Fri Mar 29, 2019 11:30 pm
this thread must be so therapeutic.
I wont mention to immensity of the wealth difference in favour of the anti trump charade vs what the actual base controls.
Instead, I will just cheer you on. This is going to be a hell of an interesting elections.
https://www.peteforamerica.com/meet-pete/
Meno_ wrote: https://youtu.be/YlUKcNNmywk
Compare this to Pete, though. The Dems have come a long way. Of course Biden is even more macho dan Arnold is, but you have to wonder if he ll really run.
Jakob wrote:
https://www.americanpossibilities.org/? ... lcEALw_wcB
I bet 3/4 75 % for he will run even before looking at the published odds if there is any, of winning.
ODDS TO WIN THE 2020 UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Name Odds
Donald Trump +175
Bernie Sanders +650
Kamala Harris +650
Joe Biden +650
Beto O’Rourke +900
Andrew Yang +2200
Pete Buttgieg +2800
Sherrod Brown +2800
Elizabeth Warren +3000
Amy Klobuchar +3300
Cory Booker +3300
Tulsi Gabbard +4000
Mike Pence +4500
Kirsten Gillibrand +4500
Nikki Haley +5000
Michelle Obama +6600
John Hickenlooper +6600
John Kasich +6600
Julian Castro +7500
Howard Schultz +7500
Mitt Romney +8000
Oprah Winfrey +8000
Marco Rubio +10000
Mark Cuban +10000
Eric Garcetti +10000
Michael Avenatti +10000
Tom Wolf +10000
Orrin Hatch +10000
Rahm Emanuel +10000
Paul Ryan +10000
George Clooney +10000
Joe Kennedy III +10000
Ted Cruz +10000
Rand Paul +10000
Ben Shapiro +10000
Bill Gates +10000
Hillary Clinton +12500
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson +12500
Andrew Cuomo +12500
Mitch Landrieu +12500
Chris Murphy +12500
Tom Steyer +12500
Terry McAuliffe +12500
Martin O’Malley +12500
Tammy Duckworth +15000
Bob Iger +15000
Jeb Bush +15000
Mark Zuckerberg +15000
Tim Kaine +15000
Trey Gowdy +15000
Ivanka Trump +15000
Kanye West +15000
Chelsea Clinton +20000
Leonardo DiCaprio +20000
Will Smith +20000
Joe Rogan +25000
Tom Brady +25000
Harris, Biden and Sanders are projected equally at almost 75% less likely, then the incubant, which is a wide spread, but can change dramatically, if Trump's political and economic fronts change for the worse substantially.
If he holds on, then Biden may increase his lead considerably, opting finally to run. The barometer is very uncertain, and this will be a wild ride, affordably.
Re: Trump enters the stage. Conspiracy around Mueller Report
The Mueller investigation is over. QAnon, the conspiracy theory that grew around it, is not.
Why a conspiracy theory with an expiration date will endure.
By Jane Coaston on March 29, 2019 5:30 pm
Trump supporters displaying QAnon posters at a rally for President Donald Trump on July 31, 2018, in Tampa, Florida. NurPhoto via Getty Images
One would think that a conspiracy theory that’s based on the idea that special counsel Robert Mueller and President Donald Trump are working together to expose thousands of cannibalistic pedophiles hidden in plain sight (including Hillary Clinton and actor Tom Hanks) and then send them to Guantanamo Bay would be doomed. Mueller’s investigation has ended and Attorney General Bill Barr’s summary of Mueller’s report has been published — all without any mention of pedophiles, cannibals, or child murderers.
One would be wrong.
As evidenced by Trump’s Thursday night rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, QAnon — a conspiracy theory that took root in online forums before bursting into the public eye in early 2018 — is alive and well.
It’s not just left-leaning or mainstream outlets that have argued the conspiracy theory’s inherent, and pervasive, ridiculousness. Major supporters of the president have denounced QAnon as a “grift” and a “scam.” Many of the conspiracy theory’s allegations — like that Hillary Clinton was executed by lethal injection in February — are patently false (and wild).
But the people who follow QAnon don’t care. In their view, QAnon — a conspiracy theory that alleges hundreds of thousands of child-eating pedophiles are due to be arrested any day now by Trump and Mueller (oh, and John F. Kennedy Jr. is alive) — is bringing America together.
A quick refresher on #QAnon
QAnon is a conspiracy theory based around an anonymous online poster known as “Q” — a pseudonym that comes from the Q-level security clearance, the Department of Energy equivalent of “Top Secret.” Beginning on October 28, 2017, Q began posting on the 4chan message board /pol/ about Hillary Clinton’s imminent arrest. Followers of Q became known as QAnon, and they began awaiting “The Storm,” during which all of Trump’s enemies, including Rep. Adam Schiff and others, would be arrested and executed for being murderous child-eating pedophiles.
From a QAnon Twitter user, March 29, 2019.
I wrote about QAnon last year, when the conspiracy theory first gained attention in mainstream circles. And as I wrote then, most, if not all, of Q’s posts and predictions were unadulterated nonsense.
In a posting on November 1, 2017, Q said that on November 3 and 4, John Podesta, chair of Clinton’s 2016 campaign, would be arrested, military control would take hold, and “public riots would be organized in serious numbers to prevent the arrest and capture of more senior public officials.” Q posted, “We will be initiating the Emergency Broadcast System (EMS) during this time in an effort to provide a direct message (avoiding the fake news) to all citizens. Organizations and/or people that wish to do us harm during this time will be met with swift fury – certain laws have been pre-lifted to provide our great military the necessary authority to handle and conduct these operations (at home and abroad).”
Obviously, none of this happened. There were no public riots or mass arrests or the use of emergency broadcasts. (In fact, the Emergency Broadcast System went out of service in 1997, replaced by the Emergency Alert System.)
But none of QAnon’s most fervent followers seemed to care. And even with the release of Barr’s summary of the Mueller report — which, though very short, would probably have mentioned the indictments of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton had they been included in the document — QAnon believers aren’t deterred.
We will never see the end of QAnon
And that’s why, despite everything that’s taken place over the last week, QAnon will persist — because QAnon wasn’t built on facts, but on almost religious fervor. In fact, that’s how most conspiracy theories work. As I wrote last year:
Conspiracy theories like QAnon are “self-sealing” — meaning that evidence against them can become evidence of their validity in the minds of believers, according to Stephan Lewandowsky, a professor at the University of Bristol who studies conspiracy theories and conspiracists. Trying to disprove a conspiracy theory thus usually only serves to reinforce it.
Take conspiracy theorists who believed, falsely and without evidence, that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg had secretly died earlier this year and her death was being withheld from the American public by the government. As SCOTUSblog found in a case study it conducted, RBG conspiracy believers whom the blog confronted with evidence that the justice had not, in fact, passed away, reacted by leaning into the conspiracy theory even further.
Two users insisted that Ginsburg was dead. According to one, with over 15,000 followers: “Nope, that’s a body double if ever there was one.” And as another user, with over 435,000 followers, suggested, “That’s total hoax and a planned delay – bet she’s dead.”
And that’s just one conspiracy theory. QAnon — which began relatively simply as a conspiracy theory about the Mueller investigation — now includes references and allusions to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and “false flag” mass shootings. That means that the end of the Mueller investigation won’t end QAnon. Nothing will.
As Travis View, a conspiracy theory researcher and QAnon expert, wrote on QAnon in the Washington Post on March 26:
... failed predictions and misplaced expectations haven’t damaged the size or enthusiasm of the QAnon community. They persist in their faith that high-level Democrats will be arrested at any moment, weathering several more disconfirmations of Q’s legitimacy and trustworthiness. Some QAnon followers even claim that failed predictions are irrelevant, because dates that pass without incident serve the purpose of tricking the evil “cabal” they imagine they’re fighting.
Like 9/11 trutherism and moon-landing truthers, QAnon, it appears, is with us for good.
Re: Trump enters the stage North Korea
The day North Korea talks collapsed, Trump passed Kim a note demanding he turn over his nukes
During talks in Hanoi last month, U.S. President Donald Trump passed a piece of paper to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un calling on the leader to hand over the country's nuclear weapons
After Kim received the document during a meeting of the two leaders at Hanoi's Metropole hotel on Feb. 28, the summit collapsed
The document took a hard line on North Korea's denuclearization, calling for Kim to turn over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and bomb fuel
U.S. President Donald Trump walks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a break in talks at the U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi on February 28, 2019.
On the day that their talks in Hanoi collapsed last month, U.S. President Donald Trump handed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a piece of paper that included a blunt call for the transfer of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the United States, according to the document seen by Reuters.
Trump gave Kim both Korean and English-language versions of the U.S. position at Hanoi's Metropole hotel on Feb. 28, according to a source familiar with the discussions, speaking on condition of anonymity. It was the first time that Trump himself had explicitly defined what he meant by denuclearization directly to Kim, the source said.
A lunch between the two leaders was canceled the same day. While neither side has presented a complete account of why the summit collapsed, the document may help explain it.
The document's existence was first mentioned by White House national security advisor John Bolton in television interviews he gave after the two-day summit. Bolton did not disclose in those interviews the pivotal U.S. expectation contained in the document that North Korea should transfer its nuclear weapons and fissile material to the United States.
The document appeared to represent Bolton's long-held and hardline "Libya model" of denuclearization that North Korea has rejected repeatedly. It probably would have been seen by Kim as insulting and provocative, analysts said.
Trump had previously distanced himself in public comments from Bolton's approach and said a "Libya model" would be employed only if a deal could not be reached.
The idea of North Korea handing over its weapons was first proposed by Bolton in 2004. He revived the proposal last year when Trump named him as national security advisor.
The document was meant to provide the North Koreans with a clear and concise definition of what the United States meant by "final, fully verifiable, denuclearization," the source familiar with discussions said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The State Department declined to comment on what would be a classified document.
After the summit, a North Korean official accused Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of "gangster-like" demands, saying Pyongyang was considering suspending talks with the United States and may rethink its self-imposed ban on missile and nuclear tests.
The English version of the document, seen by Reuters, called for "fully dismantling North Korea's nuclear infrastructure, chemical and biological warfare program and related dual-use capabilities; and ballistic missiles, launchers, and associated facilities."
Aside from the call for the transfer of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and bomb fuel, the document had four other key points.
It called on North Korea to provide a comprehensive declaration of its nuclear program and full access to U.S. and international inspectors; to halt all related activities and construction of any new facilities; to eliminate all nuclear infrastructure; and to transition all nuclear program scientists and technicians to commercial activities.
The summit in Vietnam's capital was cut short after Trump and Kim failed to reach a deal on the extent of economic sanctions relief for North Korea in exchange for its steps to give up its nuclear program.
The first summit between Trump and Kim, which took place in Singapore in June 2018, was almost called off after the North Koreans rejected Bolton's repeated demands for it to follow a denuclearization model under which components of Libya's nuclear program were shipped to the United States in 2004.
Seven years after a denuclearization agreement was reached between the United States and Libya's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, the United States took part in a NATO-led military operation against his government and he was overthrown by rebels and killed.
'Miserable fate'
Last year, North Korea officials called Bolton's plan "absurd" and noted the "miserable fate" that befell Gaddafi.
After North Korea threatened to cancel the Singapore summit, Trump said in May 2018 he was not pursuing a "Libya model" and that he was looking for an agreement that would protect Kim.
"He would be there, he would be running his country, his country would be very rich," Trump said at the time.
"The Libya model was a much different model. We decimated that country," Trump added.
The Hanoi document was presented in what U.S. officials have said was an attempt by Trump to secure a "big deal" under which all sanctions would be lifted if North Korea gave up all of its weapons.
U.S.-North Korean engagement has appeared to be in limbo since the Hanoi meeting. Pompeo said on March 4 he was hopeful he could send a team to North Korea "in the next couple of weeks," but there has been no sign of that.
Jenny Town, a North Korea expert at the Washington-based Stimson Center think tank, said the content of the U.S. document was not surprising.
"This is what Bolton wanted from the beginning and it clearly wasn't going to work," Town said. "If the U.S. was really serious about negotiations they would have learned already that this wasn't an approach they could take."
Town added, "It's already been rejected more than once, and to keep bringing it up ... would be rather insulting. It's a non-starter and reflects absolutely no learning curve in the process."
North Korea has repeatedly rejected unilateral disarmament and argues that its weapons program is needed for defense, a belief reinforced by the fate Gaddafi and others.
In an interview with ABC's "This Week" program after the Hanoi summit, Bolton said the North Koreans had committed to denuclearization in a variety of forms several times "that they have happily violated."
"We define denuclearization as meaning the elimination of their nuclear weapons program, their uranium enrichment capability, their plutonium reprocessing capability," Bolton said.
Return to Creative Writing
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Hard Choices (Moderator: Marvelous) »
OJ Simpson or Bill Cosby?
Author Topic: OJ Simpson or Bill Cosby? (Read 3422 times)
JRCarter
Who's had the hardest fall from grace?
Re: OJ Simpson or Bill Cosby?
Too soon, JRCarter... far too soon.
OJ is actually in jail.
Dean Walter Greason
The Honors School
(twitter) @worldprofessor
Reginald Hudlin
Quote from: Metro on August 08, 2015, 10:10:30 am
Point well taken.
But with that point, Cosby was more of an icon. His impact as an artist and philanthropist was much bigger. So way more to lose from an image perspective.
OJ was a titan in his own right, 1975-1995.
Well, almost three years later, OJ is out on parole and Bill may be headed for jail for the rest of his life.
APEXABYSS
The O.J. trial caused riots in the streets. "Pill" Cosby down for the count! hey, hey, hey!
Quote from: APEXABYSS on May 31, 2018, 12:09:40 pm
^^Oops, my bad! I’m mixing up social upheavals!^^
"Pill" Cosby down for the count! hey, hey, hey!
You dumb! lmao!
"2. IF YOU DON'T READ THE BOOK BUT ARE WILLING TO ARGUE ABOUT IT EITHER YOU ARE:
a) An idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about.
b) A liar who is a fan who can't admit it to himself or others."
Bill got three to ten. OJ was sentenced to thirty-three.
Hypestyle
Intellectual Conqueror
so when is the movie version going to come out and who is going to play Cosby? hmm...
Be Kind to Someone Today.
Quote from: Hypestyle on September 25, 2018, 03:34:17 pm
Given the amount of footage available from his case, would make a better documentary than a movie.
Check out this excerpt from an article I found in cyberspace featuring Lisa Bonet as the subject on the cover story of The Porter:
Like a lot of self-described misfits, she found an escape in acting.
At 16, she became Denise Huxtable on The Cosby Show, and then its spin-off show, A Different World, at the time two of the most popular shows in the world.
Have the revelations about Bill Cosby’s alleged sexual misconduct tainted her memory of those years?
She looks evenly at me. “No, it’s exactly as I remember it,” she says.
But did you have a sense that anything was happening?
“There was no knowledge on my part about his specific actions, but… There was just energy. And that type of sinister, shadow energy cannot be concealed.”
You sensed a darkness? “Always. And if I had anything more to reveal then it would have happened a long time ago.
That’s my nature. The truth will set you free.”
At the time, Bonet was branded a rebel who tested the patience of the most popular sitcom dad in the country.
She showed up late on set and posed topless in Interview magazine, contrary to his wishes.
Cosby famously opposed her role in Angel Heart, in which she performed a nude sex scene with Mickey Rourke. “I don’t need to say, ‘I told you so’,” she says about Cosby’s current situation. “I just leave all that to karma and justice and what will be.”
It was around this time that she fell for Lenny Kravitz, and their marriage was like a firework, bright and intense, but ultimately short-lived.
What did you expect, I tell her, you married a rock star! She smiles. “He wasn’t when I met him.”
They were almost too perfectly matched – both half-Jewish and half-black; both dreadlocked and gorgeous; talented and young.
Lenny was 23 and Lisa just 20.
Just over a year after they met, Lenny got a record deal, and Bonet co-wrote some of the songs on his first album.
When she became pregnant with Zoë, she says, “people were falling off roofs trying to get pictures.”
The divorce, just six years in, was crushing. But with Zoë to think about, there was no room for recriminations.
Bonet went through what she calls “a very accelerated time, spiritually and intellectually.”
In other words, she grew up really fast.
Determined not to burden their daughter with her baggage – “I didn’t want to pass on those heirlooms, and this fresh wound of a divorce” – Bonet reconciled with Kravitz and focused on her daughter.
“I think there are probably times when these thresholds can either sink you,” she says, “or you can see who you are and rise and dust yourself off.
https://www.net-a-porter.com/gb/en/porter/article-33a55e73f6c7ac7b/cover-stories/cover-stories/lisa-bonet
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Back to: Humour
WTF: Capturing Zuma
WTF is renowned cartoonist Zapiro’s account of the Zuma years in 400 brilliant cartoons and the stories behind them.
It is much more than a collection of cartoons, it’s also a definitive personal record from a man uniquely positioned to reflect the serious craziness and the crazy seriousness of this bewildering time in our history.
Zapiro’s career has been tightly entwined with the tale of Jacob Zuma for more than twenty years. He has sharply charted his rise and fall, and everything in between, including the corrupting presence of the Guptas and the destructive cancer of state capture. And he created the iconic showerhead which has become a nationally known symbol of Zuma.
Zapiro was served with two law suits by Zuma, totalling R22m, claiming cartoons had invaded his dignity. And many times the cartoonist has been threatened in other ways by senior political figures because of his caustic and brilliant work.
WTF recounts these experiences and gives a unique insight into how Zapiro goes about creating his cartoons.
WTF will make you laugh and cry. Zapiro’s cartoons stand as an essential, bitter-sweet testimonial which captures Jacob Zuma and the wild ride he took the nation on. It also reflects and explains the significant presence Zuma still has in our politics.
Zapiro is Jonathan Shapiro. Born in 1958, he went through architecture at UCT, conscription, activism, detention and a Fulbright scholarship to New York before establishing himself as South Africa’s best-known cartoonist. He works as the editorial cartoonist for Daily Maverick. Previously, he was editorial cartoonist for The Sunday Times (1998–2018), Mail & Guardian (1994–2016), The Times (2009–2016), Sowetan (1994–2005), Cape Argus (1996–1997), and Cape Times, The Star, The Mercury and Pretoria News (2005–2008). He has published 22 best-selling annuals as well as The Mandela Files, VuvuzelaNation (a collection of his sporting cartoons) and Democrazy (a collection of his cartoons spanning the 20 years of SA’s democracy).
GENRE Humour
EXTENT 248PP
PRICE R295
RIGHTS World Rights
RELEASE August 2018
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Canal+ Sport Online
Customer: nc+ (ITI Neovision)
nc+ is a Polish digital satellite platform, owned and operated by the French media company Canal+. nc+ was established as a result of the merger of two leaders in the market – CYFRA+ and n platform. It has over 2 million subscribers.
Canal+ Sport Online provides Canal+ subscribers in Poland with access to all UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, Barclays Premier League and Polish Ekstraklasa matches, as well as NBA games and many other sporting events, all via dedicated apps for phones and tablets running Android, iOS and Windows Phone. Via the multiscreen app, Canal+ Sport HD subscribers can also view live event statistics.
The app has over 80,000 users. Canal+ Sport Online is the only app on the market that allows for watching the live broadcast of practically every sporting event available on nc+ channels. Up to eight games are even shown at the same time in the case of the Champions League, something not available via television broadcast. The user can also watch videos at any time related to sports events, which means highlights, goals, interviews and programmes prepared by nc+.
All tools and technologies, including their implementation, were provided and developed by Insys. Through our online platform named InsysPlay we were able to create a comprehensive service in a very short time. Our platform is protected by Microsoft PlayReady DRM. This means that materials published under the license of Canal+ are encrypted and copy-protected. Special libraries – PlayReady DRM and Google Widevine DRM – are also used to protect data in dedicated apps for Android and iOS.
The solution is made available through a very clear interface that emphasises quick access to the ongoing events through a special adaptive video stream format which adjusts its quality to the speed of the user’s Internet connection.
The app for Android and iOS was nominated for Mobile Trends Awards 2014.
The scope of the contract included: analysis of needs, functional design, UX design, graphic design, provision of infrastructure, implementation of apps on the website, Android (mobile, tablet), iOS (mobile, tablet) and WP8.
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Creating full-text searchable database of copyrighted works is “fair use”
Creating full-text searchable database of copyrighted works is “fair use” By Yixuan Long- Edited by Sarah O’Loughlin Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust, No. 12‐4547‐cv (2d Circuit, June 10, 2014) Slip opinion In a unanimous opinion delivered by Judge Parker, the Second Circuit held that under the fair use doctrine universities and research libraries are allowed to create full‐text searchable databases of copyrighted works and provide such works in formats accessible to those with disabilities. The court also decided that evidence was insufficient to decide whether the plaintiffs had standing to bring a claim regarding storage of digital copies for preservation purposes. In so holding, the Second Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part the district court’s opinion. The Guardian, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Bloomberg BNA overviewed the case. The district court opinion can be found here. The fair use doctrine, set out in the Copyright Act of 1976 as a limitation on authors’ exclusive rights over their works, allows the public to draw upon copyrighted materials without the permission of the copyright holder in certain circumstances. 17 U.S.C.A. § 107 Several research universities made digital copies of books in their collections and created a repository for the books called HathiTrust Digital Library (“HDL”) in 2008. They also founded HathiTrust to operate it. The HDL provides a full-text book database that allows users to search for page numbers where specific text can be found, and permits member libraries to provide patrons with certified print disabilities access to the full text of copyrighted works. HathiTrust currently has 80 members and the HDL contains over ten million books. Twenty authors and authors’ associations sued HathiTrust for copyright infringement. The court first decided that three authors’ associations plaintiffs, including Authors Guild, Inc., do not have standing as a matter of U.S. law because the Copyright Act of 1976 does not allow third parties to bring suits. The remaining four authors’ associations’ standing came from foreign law that confers upon them exclusive rights to enforce copyrights of their foreign members. Judge Parker went on to explain that copyright is “not an inevitable, divine, or natural right,” but rather designed to promote the progress of science and useful arts. The public can draw upon copyrighted materials without permission so long as it’s “fair use.” Here, full-text search is fair use because it is transformative in nature, adding to the original something new with a different purpose and a different character. Making four digital copies of the data (two on servers and two backup tapes) is reasonably necessary to mitigate the risk of data loss. The plaintiffs’ lost sale claim was without merit because the full-text search function does not substitute the original works. The assertion that the HDL creates the risk of security breach was also unwarranted given the security measures taken by the libraries. In addition, the court found that providing print-disabled patrons with access to all of the works in formats accessible to them constituted fair use. Although recasting copyrighted works into new forms is not transformative but derivative, legislative history of the Copyright Act of 1976 and dicta in a Supreme Court opinion upheld the conclusion that making books accessible to the legally blind is fair use. The court vacated the district court’s judgment on whether allowing member institutions to create replacement copy of a book for preservation purposes is permissible, and remanded to district court to decide whether any plaintiffs have standing in such a claim. This case has significant implications for the upcoming ruling on GoogleBooks, which similarly digitized university library collections. Google won a summary judgment on the lawsuit last November. Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google Inc., 954 F.Supp.2d 282 (S.D.N.Y., 2013). The authors have appealed to the Second Circuit. Yixuan Long is a 2L at the Harvard Law School.
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Admitted as a Tourist, Tried as a Spy
Diego Benning Wang
Diego Benning Wang is an undergraduate student at NYU.
In January 2014, less than a month before the Winter Olympics in Sochi, I traveled to Russia’s volatile North Caucasus for the second time in half a year. Despite the Russian Government’s declaration of the end of counter-insurgency wars in Chechnya and Dagestan in 2009, the region is still rife with the lawlessness and Islamic radicalism that frequently lead to murders and terrorist attacks. Shortly after surviving the restive Dagestan and Chechnya for a second time, nonetheless, I accidentally ended up detained and prosecuted by the Russian FSB—the successor to the Soviet-era KGB.
In spite of my avid enthusiasm about the peoples and cultures of the North Caucasus, traveling in the region has always been a challenge. A Chinese-born ethnic Manchu permanently residing in the US, as if my slanted Mongol eyes were not enough to attract unnecessary attention in that particular region, I had not had a haircut for almost three years. My appearance itself seemed much like an invitation for suspicion from the local law enforcement personnel.
On Jan 17, 2014, I was leaving the Chechen capital Grozny for Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia. Instead of taking a direct bus, I opted for an alternative route.
During my first trip to the North Caucasus, I had a less than desirable experience in Beslan, North Ossetia where the tragic hostage crisis took place in 2004. On a wet and chilly morning, I hopped on a minivan in Grozny bound for Nalchik, capital of Kabardino-Balkaria. As I quickly fell asleep after the minivan’s departure, I woke up roughly half an hour later only to find myself escorted to a labyrinth of iron-wired fences by a menacing Cossack paramilitary officer wielding a loaded rifle. Aware of my failure to register my visa within the required period after my entry to Russia, I surreptitiously slipped the Cossack a 1000-ruble bill (approximately 30 US dollars); and only then was I admitted back aboard the minivan. Because of this experience, I wanted to avoid passing by Beslan at all costs. After carefully studying the train and bus schedules on that date, I decided to have an overnight stopover in the North Ossetia city of Mozdok.
The Mozdok District is at the northernmost tip of North Ossetia and is connected to the rest of North Ossetia by a narrow corridor sandwiched between Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria. The city served as a major Russian military base during the two Chechen Wars and is still home to strategic military allocations.
At the train station of Grozny, Chechnya, I managed to purchase a train ticket to Mozdok after considerable efforts in helping the confused ticket vendor retrieve the country code of China where my passport was issued.After a fairly pleasant six-hour train ride that passed in friendly conversations with my Chechen fellow passengers, the Chechen conductors wished me a good night when I took off from the train in Mozdok. While walking out of the train station, I was greeted by two unsmiling ethnic Ossetian cops who requested to examine my IDs. After several flips through my passport, a series of questions about my trip, and a phone call to their precinct reporting my arrival, the cops returned my passport and gave me the directions to my hotel. At the hotel, which was state-owned and affiliated with the local government, I was informed by the chatty Russian receptionist that I was the only foreign national so far to seek lodging at their premise. She even agreed to issue me a semi-official registration certificate that could potentially exempt me from paying bribes to migration service employees and corrupt policemen. Tired but content, I went fast asleep after checking into my room.
The next morning at around 8:30, I was awakened by violent knocks on my door. An Ossetian cop named Oleg Akimov came into my room and threw me the same questions I was asked at the train station the previous night. This time, however, he took my passport, told me to get dressed for a visit of the local migration service office at his company. After a 5-minute drive in his white Lada car that was most likely privately owned, he escorted me the office of the chief of the local migration service—a middle-aged Russified Ossetian by the name of Sergey Semyonovich Mozloev. The chief shook my hands in a friendly manner, invited me to be seated on the couch, handed me a three-page document, and asked me to read it carefully. According to the document, the Mozdok District is an extra-constitutional zone with its own laws; and non-CIS nationals are categorically prohibited from entering the district. Assuming that I would be let off the hook after paying a fine or bribe, I half-heartedly went on answering the chief’s completely random questions ranging from my favorite soccer team to my travels. It took me a while to realize that he asked those questions only to kill the time while we were waiting for a police inspector.
Once the inspector—a slightly younger Russified Ossetian named Igor—came into the office with a camera and a fingerprint recorder, the questions I faced suddenly became serious. First they had me fingerprinted and photographed. Then I was asked to state my stance on the 5-Day War between Russia and Georgia in August 2008, to name the former US secret service workers that he believed were teaching at NYU, and to recount the anti-Russian information that they believed was being disseminated in my classes. Astounded by my fluent command of Russian, they asked me what other languages I spoke. After typing in the 8 languages I spoke into a Blackberry-looking device, the inspector handed me the document I had been asked to read, and told me to read the first line in all languages I knew.
While I was struggling to translate the sentence into my already stale Italian, an elderly Armenian over-stayer came into the office to submit the bank receipt of his fine. The chief, himself married to an ethnic Armenian for 23 years without learning a word of Armenian, immediately ordered the Armenian immigrant to ask me some basic questions in Armenian. I attempted to answer those simple questions at my highest possible speed, and succeeded in leaving the two Ossetians completely dumbfounded, although the did not understand a word I had said. After the Armenian left the office, the inspector once again asked me to name the US secret service workers I had had contact with (although I had met none), saying it was totally conceivable that the US Government could send a Chinese passport holder to collect negative information about Russia, such as the inter-ethnic strife between the Ossetians and the Ingush. Coincidentally, I had in fact recently written about the early-1990s military conflict between the Ossetians and the Ingush in a research thesis.
After my denial of having any contact with US Government, the inspector requested that I listed all my classes I had taken at NYU. I offered them an official copy of my undergraduate transcripts, which I happened to have in my pocket. However, not a single staff-member at the migration service office was able to read in English, nor was any of them able to find an English-speaker. Therefore, despite being a suspect, I was asked to translate my own transcripts—a document that theoretically contained crucial incriminatory information—into Russian. While I was jotting down the Russian translation on a photocopy of my transcripts, the inspector resumed asking politically sensitive questions, such as whether Edward Snowden deserved to be treated as a criminal by the US Government, and whether I agreed with his notion that 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by the White House.
After four hours of intense interrogation, the inspector finally decided that I was not an American spy, and ordered his assistant to file charges against me. According to the migration service chief, I violated three immigration laws: failing to register my visa, illegally trespassing into the Mozdok District, and illegally staying overnight in the Mozdok District. Fortunately, the inspector decided to drop the first and last cases against me. While the charges were being drafted, I was taken across the street to the local police precinct to have my biographical data taken. Although the local migration service closely collaborates with the local police precinct, they have no formal connection; the former is directly affiliated with the FSB while the latter is a branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The officer in charge of the precinct’s database was a Dagestani Kumyk named Tamerlan. Upon hearing from the inspector that I was a tourist, he started a long and enthusiastic lecture on traditional Ossetian and Dagestani wedding ceremonies; meanwhile, he was booting up the computer hat information about suspects. When he scrolled to the bottom of the the list, I noticed that 90% of the suspects in the system had Muslim names, although Russians and Ossetians, both predominantly Christian, form a 90% majority in the district. After taking my fingerprints and front and side mug shots, the officer had a hard time entering my biographical information into his system. Unable to read my passport, he confused my passport number with the number of an expired Russian visa (I neglected to correct him), and incorrectly typed the Cyrillicized version of my name. After another five minutes spent listening to Officer Tamerlan’s uninterrupted lecture on traditional weddings, his colleague Oleg, who had arrested me at my hotel room earlier that morning, came to the precinct to escort me back to the office of the migration service.
During the one hour I spent at the precinct, the migration service chief sent for a locally renowned cook who had befriended most of the office’s staff members. The cook—an elderly Sakhalin Korean who spoke Russian without a hint of an accent—prepared a lavish lunch with both Korean and Ossetian dishes, plus half a dozen bottles of different beverages from Coke to sparkling water to Irish whiskey. The waist-high table had already been surrounded by 5 female staff members—all were ethnic Russians. The chief invited me, scofflaw that I was, to take the seat of honor, while he himself took a less prominent seat. In the deeply traditional Ossetia, the seat of honor is usually conferred to the eldest or the most respected person present at the meal; other fellow diners are allowed to start eating only after the “VIP” does. As soon as I took my seat, the five Russian women by the table immediately started pouring me drinks, putting food onto my plate, and grilling me with questions about my hair, my travels, and the eight languages I spoke. Unable to pronounce my Spanish name, they kept addressing me as Yakovchka (a diminutive form of Yakov—the Russian equivalent to Diego). Having spent the entire previous month in Muslim areas, I could not have felt more awkward as the center of five Russian women’s attention.
Meanwhile, the chief’s assistant finished formulating the charges (with my name still misspelled). This document highlighted not only my citizenship, but also my ethnicity (written in the form as “nationality”), which, incidentally, was also spelled incorrectly. After I approved the document’s validity (errors and all), the assistant escorted me to the local branch of the Federal Court that was specifically designated to serve cases forwarded by the FSB. On our way to the court, the assistant told me that control over foreign nationals had only tightened over the recent months due to the upcoming Olympics. Had I entered the district six months earlier, I could have been immediately packed onto a Vladikavkaz-bound bus upon my arrival in Mozdok, after paying a “fine” of roughly 2000 rubles (60 dollars)—whether this was an official fine or simply greasing a cop’s palm was not clear to me,
The judge appointed to handle my case was a grey-haired and –mustached Digorian Ossetian named Nugzar Grafovich Khubaev who looked more like a street artist than a judge. A polyglot himself, during our pre-trial conversation at his office he seemed more interested in my knowledge of Armenian and Georgian (which he also spoke) than in my case. I was found guilty. Fortunately, the judge imposed a minimal fine of 2000 ruble and only ordered me to be “self-deported” within 15 days. After announcing the ruling, the judge explained his decision, praised my politeness and academic achievements, read me a bilingual Georgian-Armenian poem about a soccer game between Georgia’s Dinamo Tbilisi and Armenia’s Ararat in the 1970s, wished me success, shook my hands, and headed back to his office. When I was just about to step out of the court building, the judge came up to me from behind and handed me the court ruling announcement he had just read, saying that he was so carried away by the poem he read that he forgot to hand the document to me before leaving the courtroom.
After I stepped out of the court building, the assistant informed me that a note had to be stamped on to my passport in light of the ruling. According to him, the note would prevent Russian consular outposts from issuing me entry clearances over the next 5 years, and I had to face further interrogations at the airport upon my departure. Flipping through my passport on which everything was written only in Chinese and English, I saw that the assistant had completely misunderstood how the passport was put together. Although only the first 6 pages of my Chinese passport are for remarks and observations, I told the confused assistant that he should better stamp the note on the very last page. And so he did.
Upset about the entry ban, I rejected the chief’s and the inspector’s invitation to their houses for dinner. Before I went back to my hotel, the inspector gave me two bars of German-made chocolate, while the chief hailed a taxi, slipped the cab driver 300 rubles (10 dollars), and told him to offer me a ride around the city before taking me to my hotel.
After leaving Mozdok, I boarded one train and two flights, and was stopped-and-frisked twice, before finally leaving Russia on Jan 25— seven days after my arrest. During this period, my passport was checked repeatedly. Fortunately, none of those cops had the patience to flip my passport past the first 15 pages. Even at the passport control at the airport, my criminal offense was left unnoticed.
My arrest is in fact a blessing in disguise. Within a span of eight hours, I experienced the incompetence of Russia’s law enforcement organs, the perpetuation of the Soviet-era anti-American mentality among employees even in remote borderlands; meanwhile, during the time I spent in custody, I was allowed to avail myself of Ossetian hospitality, and of the thin interpersonal boundaries between the law enforcement personnel and law offenders typical of Russia. As a lawbreaker holding a foreign passport, I was defenseless but not helpless, because the Ossetian culture’s emphasis on kindness and hospitality that obliged my captors to listen to my stories was the greatest asset I could hope for.
Tags: Armenia, Caucasus, Chechnya, Diego Benning Wang, Edward Snowden, Georgia, Grozny, Ingushetia, KGB, local law enforcement personnel, Mozdok District, NYU, Oleg Akimov, Olympics, South Ossetia war
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Propaganda Studies: Invasion and occupation of Iraq since 2003
Posted on May 29, 2014 by jl author
First, mainstream media outlets in the United States (a fact that is equally applicable to most capitalist countries) are largely privately owned. Let us take the case of Television news. The facade of diversity created by hundreds of news channels breaks down with the realization that most channels are owned by a few major media houses such as CBS, NBC, CNN and Fox. These television networks are in turn owned by bigger business corporations such as General Electric, Time Warner, AOL, etc. Some of these major business corporations also have sister concerns that serve directly or indirectly as military contractors to the American government. The massive deployment of military weaponry and equipment had undoubtedly resulted in windfall profits for these companies (even as the economy was reeling under an acute recession). In the case of the Bush presidency, his Administration had several former energy company employees such as Dick Cheney and Condaleeza Rice, whose loyalties were stronger with former employers than with majority of American citizens. Also, for media conglomerates such as NBC, CBS, etc, bolstering their bottom lines is of primary importance, for after-all they are privately owned and are driven by the profit motive. In this framework, it is easy to see why their editorial policies and news selection guidelines would reflect these imperatives and preoccupations. This analytic framework makes it easy to see how major media companies in the country implicitly aided (if not prompted) the government to invade Iraq and take control of its energy resources. As a result of this inherent advantage, a list of misconceptions was perpetrated by the Bush Administration during the war. (Johansen & Joslyn, 2008, p.591)
Coming to media’s funding sources, we see that major advertisers are themselves business corporations whose profit-motive makes little allowance for issues of propriety and justice. This is why the business community largely remained silent in the lead-up to the Iraq war. Sourcing of news content is another key filter that aids propaganda efforts. Since the misinformation campaign about the presence of WMD in Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq was hosted by Bush Administration officials, the permanent presence of correspondents and reports in government offices like the White House, Capitol Hill and the Pentagon made it difficult for alternative views to be presented to the citizenry. (Kampfner, 2003, p.12) For example, while all major news media outlets gave extensive coverage to the utterances of Bush Administration members such as Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, etc, none of them gave an iota of news time to dissident views such as those offered by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Robert Fisk, John Pilger, Amy Goodman, etc. From news production point of view, it is cost-efficient and less cumbersome to station correspondents in major government centers as opposed to places like academic departments and public squares. More importantly, getting information from such obscure places is not going to serve the interests of the government or media corporations; and hence editors reflexively avoid alternative or dissident points of view. (Edgley, 2000, p.78)
This brings us to the manifestation of the concept of ‘flak’ in the build up to the Iraq War. Those criticizing the government initiative were either branded as unpatriotic or treacherous or siding with the evil. This includes dissident intellectuals mentioned above. But prominent popular cultural icons are not pardoned either, as the case of the shunning of Dixie Chicks clearly shows. Immediately after their open criticism of Bush Administration’s imperialist policy, Dixie Chicks band was ostracized and outcast in most of the radio and television stations; so much so that their music careers have been derailed in the process with little scope for a comeback. By making such outspoken icons into scapegoats, the government-media nexus deters such tendencies among prominent celebrities and intellectuals. So flak had proved to be a major disincentive for those who disapproved of the Iraq war. Consequently, the government was able to proceed with its plan to secure oil resources in Iraq at the cost of tax-payer funding and the cost of innocent civilian lives in Iraq. (Casey, 2010, p.565)
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Iraqi Dinar Chat, Information, News, Facts, and Guru Forums
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Abdul Mahdi announced his visit to Saudi Arabia Wednesday, Germany and France before the month of Ra
From Reputable News Sources
by admin » Wed Apr 17, 2019 8:15 am
Abdul Mahdi announced his visit to Saudi Arabia Wednesday, Germany and France before the month of Ramadan {expanded}
(Baghdad: Al-Furat News) Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi announced that he will visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
"We will have a visit on Wednesday to Saudi Arabia and an important delegation. There are several projects and memorandums of understanding we are discussing with the Kingdom, as well as a large number of businessmen accompanying the delegation," Abdul Mahdi said at the weekly press conference. And important investment. "
"Our visit to Saudi Arabia will be like previous visits to Egypt and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which are important visits to show how Iraq works with its surroundings and the Arab and Islamic world," he said. "Iraq wants to be a great meeting point."
"The Arar border crossing with Saudi Arabia has become closer to use and will be an important and important outlet," he said.
He pointed out that "efforts are continuing to confront the floods and abundant water that came from the neighboring countries, and the work continued and participated by all institutions and departments and the armed forces and popular mobilization and Peshmerga, in addition to popular mobilization and wide, thank God we have been able to control the water excellent efforts and nothing has been so big yet" .
"Our water reserves have increased to more than 41 billion cubic meters of water. This is very good and Iraq is benefiting for the coming years, and we expect other water to come because of the melting of snow," he said. "We issue a daily report on the status of water and floods in all the stations and rivers in Iraq. The truth is that the report is the same because of the many rumors and the intimidation of people. "
"We have sent government delegations to all provinces to find out the measures taken to deal with the floods and follow them signed site, in addition to the protection of oil wells, there is a decline in water levels."
"In our meetings with the Anti-Corruption Council and the Council of Ministers, we focused on settling salaries for economic, regulatory and administrative reasons, as well as corruption," he said.
"We received a large number of international envoys to Iraq, including the Russian envoy, we discussed the oil and gas field, we also received the Korean president's advisor, and we discussed the field of manufacturing and electronic government because South Korea is very advanced in this field. We received the British Minister of State for International Trade, British businessmen to invest in Iraq, and we also received a delegation from the US Senate. "
"We received the news of the fire that hit the historical cathedral of Notre Dame and sent a cable to the French president. We will have a visit to France and Germany before the holy month of Ramadan," he said.
"We have sent an invitation to the Pope to visit Iraq and visit Ur and the house of the Prophet, peace be upon him, in solidarity with all Iraqi factions. We need a clear and strategic vision to deal with and classify the land in all cities of Iraq," he said.
"We are in front of a major shift in relations with Saudi Arabia. Relations are now going well. Our visit to Saudi Arabia will be excellent in light of the arrangements and coordination delegation that has come to Iraq and the memorandums of understanding to be signed by the two sides. Issues between the two countries. "
"There are constitutional provisions regarding the establishment of regions, and if something is to be established, it must be for the benefit and not for a particular interest, and it is up to the people of Basra, and there is a discussion of the issue by the political blocs, and this is a right for them to have other views."
"We do not deny that there are many shortcomings in the ration card items, and we hope to receive the quantities to the full citizen during the month of Ramadan, and the citizen should receive the full ration, and we have provided ways to achieve this."
"We do not know where they came from by 20 percent, or any other percentage, about the control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard over Iraq's economy, how do you calculate this ratio?" Iraq has relations with the state of Iran and advanced trade exchange, } This is something else. "Done
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Hamza Yusuf Hanson
Hamza Yusuf Hanson is an American Islamic scholar, and (with Zaid Shakir and Hatem Bazian) is co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, United States. He is a convert to Islam, and is one of the signatories of A Common Word between Us and You, an open letter by Islamic scholars to Christian leaders, calling for peace and understanding.
Mark Hanson
1958 (age 53–54 Walla Walla, Washington, United States)
He earned degrees in nursing from Imperial Valley College and religious studies at San José State University.
In 1977 he converted to Islam.
The Burda
Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart
The Content of Character
The State We Are In: Identity, Terror, and the Law of Jihad (contributing Author)
The Creed of Imam Al-Tahawi
Agenda to Change our Condition co-authored with Zaid Shakir
Walk on Water: The wisdom of Jesus
Educating your Child in Modern Times
Submission Faith and Beauty
Co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, United States.
Islamic Work and Contributions
He is most seen giving lectures on Peace TV.
Islambox vods
The dangers of heedlessness
Why I come to Islam
The spirit of Islam
Changing the tide
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News by Sport
Faces in KS: Tyler Stottle
Tyler Stottle is back for his senior year for the Lancers of SM East.
By: Sports in Kansas - Chet Kuplen
Tyler Stottle is an athletic and physical linebacker that is primed for a big senior season for the Shawnee Mission East Lancers.
He is also very versatile and can play multiple spots whether that is inside linebacker or safety. He also features a 35.6” inch vertical and has great quickness. While he may be one of the smaller linebackers in the state last season he has packed on some muscle in the off-season and stands 6-foot-1 and 185-pounds. He’s also a very physical player. In fact, he quit soccer because he was being penalized too much for being too physical and asked his father if he could just focus on football. The move seemed to be perfect fit.
Stottle had a huge junior season in which he earned 1st Team All-Sunflower League honors and 1st Team All Non-Senior All-State Honors from Sports in Kansas, honoring the top players in the state that are freshman, sophomores or juniors in the state. He registered 81 tackles one year ago for the Lancers. While he may not be a major recruit, currently holding zero offers, that doesn’t take away the fact that he is one of the best returning linebackers in the state.
“My goal is to win a state championship. I am not worried about not having any offers right now I want to focus on my high school season, however I would love to play at the next level. I play linebacker in high school but I played safety at most of the camps I went to. I will play wherever they need me to play at the next level.” Stottle said.
Stottle is also on the varsity lacrosse team, a sport that has become very popular over the years in the Kansas City market and not really known to the rest of the state. Rugby is also quite the popular sport at some KC high schools as well. Just as we talked about Sam Thomas being a rare swimmer and linebacker, who was featured yesterday from Andover Central, we have another one. Stottle swims on a club swim team in the summer and also played basketball last year.
Stottle has had three football coaches over the last nine months, not something that is common for a program that has become a power in 6A football. It has been a bit hard to follow what is going on at SM East in the coaching ranks if you’ve followed high school football over the last eight or nine months.
The Lancers are now led by first year head coach Justin Hoover, who was scheduled to be the offensive coordinator for 2018, but took on the head role once Fred Bouchard announced on August 6th that he was taking a different role in Illinois. Bouchard was a multiple-time state championship coach in Missouri before taking the East job, where he never got to coach in a game. Brouchard was hired after Dustin Delaney, last year’s head coach that led the Lancers to a 6A state title in 2014, left to take a job in Colorado at the end of last years season. He has recently resigned after winning his first game in Colorado this past Friday night.
Regardless of what has went on in the off-season with coaching, Justin Hoover is primed to take over an East program after spending the last several seasons as the offensive coordinator at state power Bishop Miege, a team that has went 50-2 over the last four seasons with four state titles. Hoover also is known for developing high level quarterbacks including Drew Locke at Missouri and Graham Mertz at BV North through his Spin It QB Academy.
“I can tell you that he has the leadership, football IQ, and energy needed to be one of the top coaches in the state and this this team to a championship. The team has 100% bought into Coach Hoover. We’re the underdogs at this point, but I like that. We’ll get noticed by the end of the season.” Stottle said.
While Hoover and company will handle the offense, Stottle returns to lead a defense along with all-state defensive end P.J. Spencer who is seeing Division I interest. They are two of the seven starters that return for the Lancer defense in 2018. Just four starters return on offense including quarterback Andy Maddox.
SM East opens up the 2018 campaign on Friday against Sunflower League opponent Gardner Edgerton, who comes over from the EKL. GE also with a new head coach in Ryan Cornelson who comes over from Hutchinson after replacing Marvin Diener.
We caught up with the outstanding senior linebacker below in the latest Q&A edition of Faces in Kansas.
Special thanks to Foo's Fabulous Cafe' for being a loyal supporter of the Lancer Booster Club and Lancer Gridiron Football. Head to Foo's to "Plan, Celebrate, and Enjoy Life."
Q&A w/ Stottle
How did you get involved in football?
I’ve loved the game since I was little and have been playing tackle football since I was in 2nd grade. I was playing soccer but was always getting penalties for being too physical. So, I asked my dad if I could just play football.
What are your goals for this season?
My main goal is to help lead my team to a State Championship. I hope to stay healthy, have a great season, and get some offers to play at the next level. I’d love to play for KU or K-State.
What makes you such a force as a player?
I am aggressive and fly to the ball. I am fast and physical. My biggest strength is my ability to read and react. I put myself in position to make a play. I am quick; can get into the backfield in a hurry and control the field from sideline to sideline. I ran a 4.16 Shuttle at the 810 Sports Combine. Or, I can drop back in coverage if I read pass. I came up with three picks last season at linebacker. I hope to build on that this year. I’m not one of those 150 tackle per season guys. My defense doesn’t stay on the field long enough for that to happen. We like to punch the other team in the nose and get off the field. I only play about 2 ½ quarters per game.
What’s the atmosphere like to play on a friday night for your school and town?
My community is all about football. Under the Friday Night Lights our student section brings the biggest and loudest crowds in the state week in and week out. Shawnee Mission East fans are the best around and our team couldn’t be more thankful for their support.
For someone who hasn’t seen one of your games, why come to one?
This year I believe we have the most talented group of Senior athletes in the state who all have been working their tails off since going undefeated as a Freshman team. Some of the other teams may have a handful of kids with D1 offers. We are talented from bottom to top. We are very experienced and know that every single game matters. So, every week our goal is complete domination and we show no mercy.
Who are the other key players on your team?
Like I was saying, we are strong and deep. Andy Maddox QB, PJ Spencer DE, Ashton Jenkins NG, Deonte Carroll WR/S, Parker Willis K/P, Noah Steele TE, and Michael Perry WR will all be names people recognize by the end of the season. Tony Friends, our Junior Running Back is also going to have a big season.
Favorite thing about football?
Hitting people and scoring touchdowns.
Do you play any other sports, tell us about that?
I played JV basketball last year and will play Varsity lacrosse this year as well as swim team over the summer.
What is it like to play for your coach?
Our new coach over the last couple of weeks is Justin Hoover and in those few weeks I can tell that he has the leadership, football IQ, and energy needed to be one of the top coaches in the state and lead this team to a championship. The team has 100% bought into Coach Hoover. We’re the underdogs at this point. But, I like that. We’ll get noticed by the end of the season.
What did you and the team do in the off-season to become better and plans to get better this summer?
Our summer weights and conditioning this year was very rigorous. We attended a team camp at Northwest Missouri State that gave us an opportunity to work on our new offense and get some game speed experience for some of our new guys. That camp also gave us the chance to match up against teams from Missouri that we won’t see during the season. There were a lot of good teams at the camp. In my opinion, SME and Park Hill were the two best teams at that camp. A good amount of guys on the team have also been attending skills camps throughout the summer to get better.
We also had the opportunity to scrimmage Miege this summer. That was lots of fun because they are a great team and we won’t get the chance to face them. I think most of their guys will tell you we are underrated. That camp also gave us a chance to work on some new stuff on defense. Passing quarterbacks are not going to be able to just sit back in the pocket and get comfortable. If they do, they are going to get to know me on a personal basis. I think I got to the QB 5 or 6 times in our scrimmage against Miege.
What interests are you seeing at the college level and what are your plans?
I participated in college football camps at Kansas, twice at K-State, Northwest Missouri State, Western Missouri, and Emporia State. I also attended FBU camp in Kansas City. I played as a safety for most of the camps. I had the chance to work with 2-time Super Bowl Champ Darryl Pollard at FBU. That was an awesome experience. Occasionally a coach would want me at linebacker. I will play wherever they need me at the next level.
Favorite thing to do when you aren’t playing sports?
Hang out with friends and go to the pool.
Favorite subject in school, what type of student are you, GPA?
My best subject is math. I have a 3.2 GPA.
Best place to eat in your town or the surrounding area?
Oklahoma Joe's or Chick-fil-A. Of course, Foo’s has the best frozen custard. Back in the day we’d always head straight to Foo’s after football practice.
One thing the average person wouldn’t know about you?
I grew up playing football in the Blue Valley League. So, I’ve lined up against kids from the EKL quite a bit. I hope to see some of them in the post season. Also, I have a 35.6 inch vertical jump which is 5th all time at Shawnee Mission East.
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Tag Archives: dream
July 8, 2019 Ken 4 Comments
Conclusion to Part 1 of the Pilgrim’s Progress
So I awoke, and behold it was a dream.
Now, Reader, I have told my dream to thee;
See if thou canst interpret it to me,
Or to thyself, or neighbor; but take heed
Of misinterpreting; for that, instead
Of doing good, will but thyself abuse:
By misinterpreting, evil ensues.
Take heed, also, that thou be not extreme,
In playing with the outside of my dream:
Nor let my figure or similitude
Put thee into a laughter or a feud.
Leave this for boys and fools; but as for thee,
Do thou the substance of my matter see.
Put by the curtains, look within my veil,
Turn up my metaphors, and do not fail,
There, if thou seekest them, such things to find,
As will be helpful to an honest mind.
What of my dross thou findest there, be bold
To throw away, but yet preserve the gold;
What if my gold be wrapped up in ore?
None throws away the apple for the core.
But if thou shalt cast all away as vain,
I know not but ’twill make me dream again.
Bunyan opened The Pilgrim’s Progress by describing his book as a dream: “As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream.” He closes his story by saying: “So I awoke, and behold it was a dream.”
Bunyan wrote his masterful work as an allegory. As we have seen, in Bunyan’s dream all the characters and events have meaning. Some are easy to interpret; others take more thought and consideration. Bunyan concludes The Pilgrim’s Progress with a poem inviting his readers to “put by the curtains, look within my veil” and challenging them to use discernment. He cautions against “playing with the outside of my dream” by pressing his analogies too far or reading too much into his plot lines. And he warns of regarding it too lightly—thinking of it simply as an entertainment. His story is endearing and enjoyable, but his substance is weighty. He speaks of matters of eternal consequence and he wants he readers to sense the gravity of his message.
Bunyan understands the challenge of writing about such glorious themes and he readily owns his limitations as an author. He encourages his readers to cast away any dross they find, “but yet preserve the gold.”
Many novels and stories can be compared to a change purse. They have only a little value, and with one or two readings, they are emptied out. But great books are like deep mines. Each time you return and put forth more effort to read and understand them, they yield more riches. The Pilgrim’s Progress is such a treasure. It is indeed filled with much gold. Those who accept Bunyan’s challenge to read and interpret his book will find their efforts richly rewarded. It should be read over and over. As you read the book at different stages in your own journey, you will gain more insight and more readily understand different characters and places.
God has used Bunyan’s writings in amazing ways. In 1660 he was imprisoned for preaching the gospel in a non-conformist church. This turn of events could have discouraged him and deterred his ministry. But Bunyan was determined to continue serving the church. He cared for his congregation and sought for ways to teach and encourage them. During the 12 years he was in prison (from 1660 to 1672) he published five books and numerous pamphlets, including his auto-biography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, where he shared his own story of how God had rescued him from his sin and eventually called him to gospel ministry. He also began shaping his experience into an allegory that would later develop into The Pilgrims Progress.
These books not only allowed Bunyan to continue serving his own congregation, they extended his ministry far beyond his town of Bedford. Through his writings, he became very well known, especially in his willingness to suffer for the cause of Christ.
When Bunyan was released in 1672, he set aside his writing to resume his responsibilities as pastor in his church. But in God’s providence, his freedom was short-lived. He was imprisoned again from 1675 to 1678 in a prison known in Bedford as the Den where he completed The Pilgrims Progress (Part 1).
The book was published the year Bunyan was released (1678). He had become a popular author and The Pilgrims Progress was an immediate success. A second edition was published the same year. A third edition followed in 1679, two more in 1680. At the time of Bunyan’s death the book has gone through 13 editions, over 100,000 copies. Over time it became the most widely read book in the English language apart from the Bible.
Bunyan hints at a sequel in his concluding poem, saying that he might “dream again.” His hint suggests that his sequel will focus on those who turn away from the gospel:
His first idea for a sequel was published in 1680. It was called: The Life and Death of Mr. Badman; Presented to the World in a Familiar Dialogue Between Mr. Wiseman and Mr. Attentive. It was written as a companion book to The Pilgrim’s Progress to show the end of those who remained in their sin at death.
The book was good, but it was never received as “the sequel.” It went a different direction and left some important questions unanswered. The questions that Bunyan’s readers wanted him to address were: What happened to Christian’s family? What about his wife and his four sons that stayed behind in the City of Destruction? Did they perish? Did they escape! Tell us more!
So Bunyan was compelled to write the real sequel to the story. The Pilgrim’s Progress (Part 2) was later published in 1684. It tells the story of Christiana and her children as they set out on their own journey to the Celestial City. Part 2 emphasizes the importance of the family and bringing the gospel to our children. And it emphasizes the church and how the family serves and benefits from the ministry of the church. If you enjoyed Part 1 of the story, Part 2 offers more of Bunyan’s gold.
Accept Bunyan’s challenge. Read and reread his books. But as you enjoy the endearing characters and following the exciting adventures, don’t miss the main message. Bunyan is pointing us to the Word of God that we might seek and find the Savior. Don’t miss Christ! He is the One who can take away our burden. He is the One who gives light on our path. And He is our joy at our journey’s end. He and He alone can save!
allegorydreamJohn BunyanPilgrim's Progress
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News at Home
tags: Jimmy Carter, public history
by Evan A. Kutzler
Evan A. Kutzler is assistant professor of history at Georgia Southwestern State University. He is author of Living by Inches: The Smells, Sounds, Tastes, and Feeling of Captivity in Civil War Prisons (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, forthcoming 2019) and co-editor with Timothy J. Williams of Prison Pens: Gender, Memory, and Imprisonment in the Writings of Mollie Scollay and Wash Nelson, 1863-1866 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018).
Jimmy Carter Sunday School, February 3, 2019, photo by Jill Stuckey
Those who have attended Jimmy Carter's Sunday School know that the time between arrival and 10:00 a.m.—measured in hours—is not really empty. A church member, often Jana Carter or Jill Stuckey, orients visitors, goes through a list of do's and don'ts, and provides short history lessons along the way. It is a presentation that church members have perfected over the years and the orientation is interactive and lively. "What have the Carters been doing in retirement?" Jill asks the audience. It is a loaded question. "Habitat!" or "Building houses!" is the most common first response. "Yes, the Carters build houses one week a year," Jill responds, smiling through gritted teeth. "How about the other fifty-one weeks?" Soon a more comprehensive accounting emerges: helping to ensure fair elections; eradicating Dracunculiasis or "guinea worm"; writing books; staying in shape; hunting and fishing. One avocation, though quite successful, is never mentioned: Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are practicing public historians.
Jimmy who? A public what? The work that the Carters do at the local level meets the National Council on Public History's inclusive definition of the field: "public history describes the many and diverse ways in which history is put to work in the world." Consider, for instance, Sunday school itself. The history lesson begins before President Carter arrives and continues after he enters. Political Scientist Jason Berggren writes that Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, serves "as a press conference of sorts" and "an occasion for presidential apologetics – an ongoing defense and explanation of his presidency."(1) The setting also makes it a form of wide-ranging historic site interpretation that includes Carter's upbringing, his years in the White House, his post-presidency and— last but key to it all—his deep, compelling faith.
Sunday school at Maranatha is not a political rally, but it has a secular significance as public history. Guests often come from around the world to connect with the past—a need that drives much of the public history world from heritage tourism to reenactments. President Carter serves as both historical subject and docent in these moments. "Where are you from?" he asks the audience. When someone says, "Washington State," Carter responds, "The best nuclear-powered submarine in the world is stationed there. I'll let you guess the name." Carter is referring to a ship that bears his name—a subtle reminder of his history with the U.S. Navy. At the end of Sunday school, Carter shifts fully into public historian mode, shaping the way he wants people to remember him. "I used to say I'd be happy to take photographs with you after church," he jokes with a smile. "Now, I'm willingto do them." Or, with a smaller smile, he apologizes about his waning mobility. "My doctor tells me I have to sit during photographs. Please don't take my sitting to mean that I think I'm better than you."
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter speak at Plains High School for President's Day, 2016, photo by Jill Stuckey
Jimmy Carter continues to shape his historical legacy in others ways. Indeed, to visit Plains High School, the railroad depot that served as a presidential campaign headquarters, or the Boyhood Farm is to take a guided tour led by public historian Jimmy Carter. Although Carter has written more than thirty books, his favorite to write was An Hour before Daylight: Memoirs of a Rural Boyhood (2001). Published just as his boyhood farm opened to visitors, this book has shaped interpretation at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site more than any other. In fact, it would be difficult to overemphasize the impact of the book at the farm. According to historian Zachary Lechner, "Carter's perspective—very much in evidence throughout the site's interpretation—is omnipresent at the farm."(2) From Jimmy Carter voiceovers to written excerpts, the boyhood farm is nearly as immersive an experience as Maranatha. There are few autobiographical landscapes quite like it.
Both Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter also remain active members of the public history community, including the Plains Better Hometown Program and the Friends of Jimmy Carter National Historic Site. In December 2016, one year after President Carter beat cancer, the Better Hometown Program held a Christmas Party in the Matthew Rylander House. Better known locally as "the haunted house," the (ca. 1850) plantation house was rented by the Carter family between 1956 and 1961. Although now vacant, it is owned by the Better Hometown Program, and the Carters led the way in stabilizing the building. The night of the party, with a torrential storm outside and only Christmas lights inside, the Carters went to each table after dinner, describing what used to be here or there and pointing out "hidden" rooms between first-floor closets and an attic. The family thought these nooks were the source of house's haunting. The Carters also make recurring cameo appearances in a "whodunit" murder mystery series organized by Kim Fuller, Director of the Friends of Jimmy Carter NHS. The popular event is held on the SAM Shortline, an excursion train between Cordele and Plains that the Carters lobbied to bring here in 2000.
Carter painting door at the Plains High School, 2015, photo by Jill Stuckey
As board members of the Friends, the Carters play key roles from interpretive work to fundraising. Rosalynn Carter recently led the way in putting Plains on Georgia's Camellia Trial. In 2016, the National Park Service made President Carter an honorary park ranger and the Carters have given special programs on President's Day for years. Together, they have helped the Friends group raise millions of dollars for the park. This fundraising has enabled the organization to hire a full-time education specialist who creates museum lesson plans and coordinates field trips. In some ways, the Carters have created a living history museum of 20th Century rural America in Plains with a twist: the global perspective of a former president and first lady.
Orientation before Sunday school at Maranatha makes it clear that Jimmy Carter still thinks carefully about official and ceremonial titles. He does not like to be referred to as "Mr. President," an orientation leader explains, "because there is only one 'Mr. President' at a time, and that is the person who occupies the Oval Office." So be it. Indeed, we ought to respect President Carter’s wish that we not confine him too much to his time as chief executive. So address him as President Carter, or describe him by one of his less formal titles and roles: Sunday school teacher, public health leader, navy veteran, compassionate Christian, and a friend to strangers. And to these sobriquets, each more descriptive than “Mr. President,” we should include Jimmy Carter, public historian.
Carter becomes honorary park ranger, 2017, photo by Jill Stuckey
(1) D. Jason Berggren, "Life after the Presidency: Jimmy Carter as Sunday School Teacher," White House Studies, vol. 13, no. 2 (2015), 111, 109-127.
(2) Zachary J. Lechner, "Commemorating Jimmy Carter and Southern Rural Life in Plains, Georgia," in Born in the U.S.A.: Birth, Commemoration, and American Public Memory, edited by Seth. C. Bruggeman (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012), 83.
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New Lebanese government should be formed as soon as possible – UN envoy.
6 May 2011 – The United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon today reiterated the need for the formation without delay of a functioning government, noting the many issues that remain to be addressed by the authorities.
“There are many concerns of importance to ordinary Lebanese people that need to be addressed, irrespective of their confession or their politics. These include social issues, economic issues but also security concerns,” Michael Williams told reporters in Beirut following a meeting with the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri.
UN officials, including Mr. Williams and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, have been calling on Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate, Najib Miqati, and other leaders to quickly form a new government.
The former government, led by Saad Hariri, collapsed in January after 11 Hizbollah and allied ministers resigned, reportedly over its refusal to cease cooperation with the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon that is investigating the 2005 assassination of Mr. Hariri’s father, Rafiq, and 22 others.
In a recent report relating to Lebanon, Mr. Ban warned that the absence of a functioning government for several months “has created a power and security vacuum of which extremist and armed groups could take advantage, in an already fragile and polarized situation.”
Mr. Williams and Mr. Berri also discussed the recent developments in the Arab world and the changes that have been taking place, as protesters across North Africa and the Middle East take to the streets demanding greater rights and freedoms.
They also discussed maritime issues, reiterating the UN’s position that Lebanon is fully entitled to take the necessary measures to explore and exploit such resources within its territorial waters.
“This is one more reason, a very important reason, why a new government should be formed as soon as possible,” said Mr. Williams.
Meanwhile, Terje Roed-Larsen, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Security Council resolution 1559, which deals with Lebanon, briefed Council members in a closed-door session on Mr. Ban’s latest report on the issue.
In a related development, the Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal, Daniel Bellemare, filed an amended indictment today, replacing the indictment of 11 March 2011, to include substantive new elements that had been unavailable until recently.
“The Prosecutor does not intend to make further amendments to the indictment, unless ordered to do so by the Pre-Trial Judge. Other indictments could, however, be filed in the future if warranted by the evidence,” UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters in New York.
The tribunal was set up following a probe by the International Independent Investigation Commission after an earlier UN mission found that Lebanon’s own inquiry into the massive car bombing that killed Mr. Hariri and the others was seriously flawed.
posted by philippe at 12:17 PM
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The Promise (2016)
Title: The Promise
Country: Spain / USA
Director: Terry George
Actors: Oscar Isaac Charlotte Le Bon Christian Bale Shohreh Aghdashloo
Official Site: http://thepromise.movie/
The Armenian genocide finally gets the Hollywood treatment with this earnest and ultimately unsatisfying romantic epic.
Movies have always had the powerful ability to not only entertain, but to inform. Movies can bring attention to little-acknowledged moments of history, whether good or bad, by telling a story that will (hopefully) intrigue an audience and push them to open their eyes to the past, and, hopefully, to learn from it.
Starting in 1915, the ruling Turks of the Ottoman Empire claimed to begin a resettlement of Armenians throughout the countryside, when in fact it was the beginning of the mass slaughter of an ethnic group that ultimately claimed over a million lives. It is one of those shameful moments in history that was somewhat buried except by the survivors who drew attention to what happened. Still, when World War I exploded around the same time, apparently there were countless atrocities going around so that the Armenian Genocide ended up getting shelved away in the history books.
To give a dramatic arc to explain a story so big and so horrible, The Promise focuses on an Armenian villager named Mikael (Oscar Isaac). Mikael has promised to marry a local woman whom he barely knows so that he can use her dowry to go to medical school in Constantinople. When he returns, he'll marry and be the educated doctor he strives to be. But some things get in the way. Constantinople proves to be glamorous, cosmopolitan, and exciting, due in no small part to the beguiling French-educated Armenian Ana (Charlotte Le Bon) who tests Mikael's promise that he left in the village. To make things more difficult, Ana is already with a good man named Chris Meyers (Christian Bale) a globe-trotting Associated Press journalist. To make things more MORE difficult, there are stirrings of the Turkish government cracking down on Armenians, starting with throwing intellectuals into prison and escalating to horrific violence and slaughter.
The Promise follows this trio of characters from riots to labor camps to hiding in cabins to leading orphans through the woods. A lot is covered in the film, as real events are squeezed between all the scenes of the tired love triangle that is supposed to anchor our interest in the characters. The love triangle becomes a silly distraction when the story itself is intriguing and important. Bale, as the American journalist, does his best being a good guy despite knowing his lady is stepping out on him with his friend. The female characters (oh, a shame to waste Shohreh Aghdashloo) are all generally underwritten and stereotypical (domineering mother, saintly village wife, seductive yet saintly city woman). Ultimately, Oscar Isaac manages to wring the emotion that he can out of a few disturbing and horrifically sad scenes, trying with the force of his will to raise the quality of the picture.
The Promise isn't a terrible movie. Coming from director Terry George of Hotel Rwanda and In the Name of the Father fame, the film has its heart in the right place. At the end of the film, it will spur you to find out about this oft-ignored moment in history. And by that measure, the movie succeeds. I just wish it was better.
Christain Bale
Hostiles (2017)
The Water Diviner
More in this category: « The Fate of the Furious Kong: Skull Island »
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Resume Reading — Consciousness Began When the Gods Stopped Speaking
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Ideas Philosophy
Consciousness Began When the Gods Stopped Speaking
How Julian Jaynes’ famous 1970s theory is faring in the neuroscience age.
Veronique Greenwood By Veronique Greenwood Illustration by Carmen Segovia May 28, 2015
Julian Jaynes was living out of a couple of suitcases in a Princeton dorm in the early 1970s. He must have been an odd sight there…By Veronique Greenwood
Julian Jaynes was living out of a couple of suitcases in a Princeton dorm in the early 1970s. He must have been an odd sight there among the undergraduates, some of whom knew him as a lecturer who taught psychology, holding forth in a deep baritone voice. He was in his early 50s, a fairly heavy drinker, untenured, and apparently uninterested in tenure. His position was marginal. “I don’t think the university was paying him on a regular basis,” recalls Roy Baumeister, then a student at Princeton and today a professor of psychology at Florida State University. But among the youthful inhabitants of the dorm, Jaynes was working on his masterpiece, and had been for years.
From the age of 6, Jaynes had been transfixed by the singularity of conscious experience. Gazing at a yellow forsythia flower, he’d wondered how he could be sure that others saw the same yellow as he did. As a young man, serving three years in a Pennsylvania prison for declining to support the war effort, he watched a worm in the grass of the prison yard one spring, wondering what separated the unthinking earth from the worm and the worm from himself. It was the kind of question that dogged him for the rest of his life, and the book he was working on would grip a generation beginning to ask themselves similar questions.
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, when it finally came out in 1976, did not look like a best-seller. But sell it did. It was reviewed in science magazines and psychology journals, Time, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. It was nominated for a National Book Award in 1978. New editions continued to come out, as Jaynes went on the lecture circuit. Jaynes died of a stroke in 1997; his book lived on. In 2000, another new edition hit the shelves. It continues to sell today.
Jaynes was sent to prison, where he had plenty of time to reflect on the problem of consciousness.
In the beginning of the book, Jaynes asks, “This consciousness that is myself of selves, that is everything, and yet nothing at all—what is it? And where did it come from? And why?” Jaynes answers by unfurling a version of history in which humans were not fully conscious until about 3,000 years ago, instead relying on a two-part, or bicameral, mind, with one half speaking to the other in the voice of the gods with guidance whenever a difficult situation presented itself. The bicameral mind eventually collapsed as human societies became more complex, and our forebears awoke with modern self-awareness, complete with an internal narrative, which Jaynes believes has its roots in language.
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It’s a remarkable thesis that doesn’t fit well with contemporary thought about how consciousness works. The idea that the ancient Greeks were not self-aware raises quite a few eyebrows. By giving consciousness a cultural origin, says Christof Koch, chief scientific officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, “Jaynes disavows consciousness as a biological phenomenon.”
But Koch and other neuroscientists and philosophers admit Jaynes’ wild book has a power all its own. “He was an old-fashioned amateur scholar of considerable depth and tremendous ambition, who followed where his curiosity led him,” says philosopher Daniel Dennett. The kind of search that Jaynes was on—a quest to describe and account for an inner voice, an inner world we seem to inhabit—continues to resonate. The study of consciousness is on the rise in neuroscience labs around the world, but the science isn’t yet close to capturing subjective experience. That’s something Jaynes did beautifully, opening a door on what it feels like to be alive, and be aware of it.
Jaynes was the son of a Unitarian minister in West Newton, Massachusetts. Though his father died when Jaynes was 2 years old, his voice lived on in 48 volumes of his sermons, which Jaynes seems to have spent a great deal of time with as he grew up. In college, he experimented with philosophy and literature but decided that psychology, with its pursuit of real data about the physical world, was where he should seek answers to his questions. He headed to graduate school in 1941, but shortly thereafter, the United States joined World War II. Jaynes, a conscientious objector, was assigned to a civilian war effort camp. He soon wrote a letter to the U.S. Attorney General announcing that he was leaving, finding the camp’s goal incompatible with his principles: “Can we work within the logic of an evil system for its destruction? Jesus did not think so ... Nor do I.” He was sent to prison, where he had plenty of time to reflect on the problem of consciousness. “Jaynes was a man of principle, some might say impulsively or recklessly so,” a former student and a neighbor recalled. “He seemed to draw energy from jousting windmills.”
Jaynes emerged after three years, convinced that animal experiments could help him understand how consciousness first evolved, and spent the next three years in graduate school at Yale University. For a while, he believed that if a creature could learn from experience, it was having an experience, implying consciousness. He herded single paramecia through a maze carved in wax on Bakelite, shocking them if they turned the wrong way. “I moved on to species with synaptic nervous systems, flatworms, earthworms, fish, and reptiles, which could indeed learn, all on the naive assumption that I was chronicling the grand evolution of consciousness,” he recounts in his book. “Ridiculous! It was, I fear, several years before I realized that this assumption makes no sense at all.” Many creatures could be trained, but what they did was not introspection. And that was what tormented Jaynes.
A psychology based on rats in mazes rather than the human mind, Jaynes wrote, was “bad poetry disguised as science.”
Meanwhile, he performed more traditional research on the maternal behavior of animals under his advisor, Frank Beach. It was a difficult time to be interested in consciousness. One of the dominant psychological theories was behaviorism, which explored the external responses of humans and animals to stimuli. Conditioning with electric shocks was in, pondering the intangible world of thoughts was out, and for understandable reasons—behaviorism was a reaction to earlier, less rigorous trends in psychology. But for much of Jaynes’ career, inner experience was beyond the pale. In some parts of this community to say you studied consciousness was to confess an interest in the occult.
In 1949, Jaynes left without receiving his Ph.D., apparently having refused to submit his dissertation. It’s not clear exactly why—some suggest his committee wanted revisions he would not make, some that he was irked by the hierarchical structure of academia, some that he simply was fed up enough to walk. One story he told was that he didn’t want to pay the $25 submission fee. (In 1977, as his book was selling, Jaynes completed his Ph.D. at Yale.) But it does seem clear that he was frustrated by his lack of progress. He later wrote that a psychology based on rats in mazes rather than the human mind was “bad poetry disguised as science.”
It was the beginning of an odd peregrination. In the fall of 1949, he moved to England and became a playwright and actor, and for the next 15 years, he ricocheted back and forth across the ocean, alternating between plays and adjunct teaching, eventually landing at Princeton University in 1964. All the while, he had been reading widely and pondering the question of what consciousness was and how it could have arisen. By 1969, he was thinking about a work that would describe the origin of consciousness as a fundamentally cultural change, rather than the evolved one he had searched for. It was to be a grand synthesis of science, archaeology, anthropology, and literature, drawing on material gathered during the past couple decades of his life. He believed he’d finally heard something snap into place.
ONE-BOOK WONDER: Although Julian Jaynes, who died in 1997, never completed another book, The Origins of Consciousness in Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind will carry his name into eternity. John Updike wrote in The New Yorker that when Jaynes “speculates that until late in the second millennium B.C. men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of gods … we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis through all the corroborative evidence he finds in ancient literature, modern behaviorism, and aberrant psychological phenomenon such as hypnotism, possession, glossolalia, prophecy, poetry, and schizophrenia.”Princeton University
The book sets its sights high from the very first words. “O, what a world of unseen visions and heard silences, this insubstantial country of the mind!” Jaynes begins. “A secret theater of speechless monologue and prevenient counsel, an invisible mansion of all moods, musings, and mysteries, an infinite resort of disappointments and discoveries.”
To explore the origins of this inner country, Jaynes first presents a masterful precis of what consciousness is not. It is not an innate property of matter. It is not merely the process of learning. It is not, strangely enough, required for a number of rather complex processes. Conscious focus is required to learn to put together puzzles or execute a tennis serve or even play the piano. But after a skill is mastered, it recedes below the horizon into the fuzzy world of the unconscious. Thinking about it makes it harder to do. As Jaynes saw it, a great deal of what is happening to you right now does not seem to be part of your consciousness until your attention is drawn to it. Could you feel the chair pressing against your back a moment ago? Or do you only feel it now, now that you have asked yourself that question?
Consciousness, Jaynes tells readers, in a passage that can be seen as a challenge to future students of philosophy and cognitive science, “is a much smaller part of our mental life than we are conscious of, because we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of.” His illustration of his point is quite wonderful. “It is like asking a flashlight in a dark room to search around for something that does not have any light shining upon it. The flashlight, since there is light in whatever direction it turns, would have to conclude that there is light everywhere. And so consciousness can seem to pervade all mentality when actually it does not.”
Perhaps most striking to Jaynes, though, is that knowledge and even creative epiphanies appear to us without our control. You can tell which water glass is the heavier of a pair without any conscious thought—you just know, once you pick them up. And in the case of problem-solving, creative or otherwise, we give our minds the information we need to work through, but we are helpless to force an answer. Instead it comes to us later, in the shower or on a walk. Jaynes told a neighbor that his theory finally gelled while he was watching ice moving on the St. John River. Something that we are not aware of does the work.
The picture Jaynes paints is that consciousness is only a very thin rime of ice atop a sea of habit, instinct, or some other process that is capable of taking care of much more than we tend to give it credit for. “If our reasonings have been correct,” he writes, “it is perfectly possible that there could have existed a race of men who spoke, judged, reasoned, solved problems, indeed did most of the things that we do, but were not conscious at all.”
Jaynes believes that language needed to exist before what he has defined as consciousness was possible. So he decides to read early texts, including The Iliad and The Odyssey, to look for signs of people who aren’t capable of introspection—people who are all sea, no rime. And he believes he sees that in The Iliad. He writes that the characters in The Iliad do not look inward, and they take no independent initiative. They only do what is suggested by the gods. When something needs to happen, a god appears and speaks. Without these voices, the heroes would stand frozen on the beaches of Troy, like puppets.
Speech was already known to be localized in the left hemisphere, instead of spread out over both hemispheres. Jaynes suggests that the right hemisphere’s lack of language capacity is because it used to be used for something else—specifically, it was the source of admonitory messages funneled to the speech centers on the left side of the brain. These manifested themselves as hallucinations that helped guide humans through situations that required complex responses—decisions of statecraft, for instance, or whether to go on a risky journey.
The combination of instinct and voices—that is, the bicameral mind—would have allowed humans to manage for quite some time, as long as their societies were rigidly hierarchical, Jaynes writes. But about 3,000 years ago, stress from overpopulation, natural disasters, and wars overwhelmed the voices’ rather limited capabilities. At that point, in the breakdown of the bicameral mind, bits and pieces of the conscious mind would have come to awareness, as the voices mostly died away. That led to a more flexible, though more existentially daunting, way of coping with the decisions of everyday life—one better suited to the chaos that ensued when the gods went silent. By The Odyssey, the characters are capable of something like interior thought, he says. The modern mind, with its internal narrative and longing for direction from a higher power, appear.
Daniel Dennett likes to give Jaynes the benefit of the doubt: “There were a lot of really good ideas lurking among the completely wild junk.”
The rest of the book—400 pages—provides what Jaynes sees as evidence of this bicamerality and its breakdown around the world, in the Old Testament, Maya stone carvings, Sumerian writings. He cites a carving of an Assyrian king kneeling before a god’s empty throne, circa 1230 B.C. Frequent, successive migrations around the same time in what is now Greece, he takes to be a tumult caused by the breakdown. And Jaynes reflects on how this transition might be reverberating today. “We, at the end of the second millennium A.D., are still in a sense deep in this transition to a new mentality. And all about us lie the remnants of our recent bicameral past,” he writes, in awe of the reach of this idea, and seized with the pathos of the situation. “Our kings, presidents, judges, and officers begin their tenures with oaths to the now-silent deities, taken upon the writings of those who have last heard them.”
It’s a sweeping and profoundly odd book. But The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind was enormously appealing. Part of it might have been that many readers had never thought about just what consciousness was before. Perhaps this was the first time many people reached out, touched their certainty of self, and found it was not what they expected. Jaynes’ book did strike in a particular era when such jolts were perhaps uniquely potent. In the 1970s, many people were growing interested in questions of consciousness. Baumeister, who admires Jaynes, and read the book in galley form before it was published, says Jaynes tapped into the “spiritual stage” of the ascendant New Age movement.
And the language—what language! It has a Nabokovian richness. There is an elegance, power, and believability to his prose. It sounds prophetic. It feels true. And that has incredible weight. Truth and beauty intertwine in ways humans have trouble picking apart. Physicist Ben Lillie, who runs the Storycollider storytelling series, remembers when he discovered Jaynes’ book. “I was part of this group that hung out in the newspaper and yearbook offices and talked about intellectual stuff and wore a lot of black,” Lillie says. “Somebody read it. I don’t remember who was first, it wasn’t me. All of a sudden we thought, that sounds great, and we were all reading it. You got to feel like a rebel because it was going against common wisdom.”
It’s easy to find cracks in the logic: Just for starters, there are moments in The Iliad when the characters introspect, though Jaynes decides they are later additions or mistranslations. But those cracks don’t necessarily diminish the book’s power. To readers like Paul Hains, the co-founder of Aeon, an online science and philosophy magazine, Jaynes’ central thesis is of secondary importance to the book’s appeal. “What captured me was his approach and style and the inspired and nostalgic mood of the text; not so much the specifics of his argument, intriguing though they were,” Hains writes. “Jaynes was prepared to explore the frontier of consciousness on its own terms, without explaining away its mysterious qualities.”
Meanwhile, over the last four decades, the winds have shifted, as often happens in science as researchers pursue the best questions to ask. Enormous projects, like those of the Allen Institute for Brain Science and the Brain-Mind Institute of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, seek to understand the structure and function of the brain in order to answer many questions, including what consciousness is in the brain and how it is generated, right down to the neurons. A whole field, behavioral economics, has sprung up to describe and use the ways in which we are unconscious of what we do—a major theme in Jaynes’ writing—and the insights netted its founders, Daniel Kahneman and Vernon L. Smith, the Nobel Prize.
Eric Schwitzgebel, a professor of philosophy at University of California, Riverside, has conducted experiments to investigate how aware we are of things we are not focused on, which echo Jaynes’ view that consciousness is essentially awareness. “It’s not unreasonable to have a view that the only things you’re conscious of are things you are attending to right now,” Schwitzgebel says. “But it’s also reasonable to say that there’s a lot going on in the background and periphery. Behind the focus, you’re having all this experience.” Schwitzgebel says the questions that drove Jaynes are indeed hot topics in psychology and neuroscience. But at the same time, Jaynes’ book remains on the scientific fringe. “It would still be pretty far outside of the mainstream to say that ancient Greeks didn’t have consciousness,” he says.
Dennett, who has called The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind a “marvelous, wacky book,” likes to give Jaynes the benefit of the doubt. “There were a lot of really good ideas lurking among the completely wild junk,” he says. Particularly, he thinks Jaynes’ insistence on a difference between what goes on in the minds of animals and the minds of humans, and the idea that the difference has its origins in language, is deeply compelling.
“[This] is a view I was on the edge of myself, and Julian kind of pushed me over the top,” Dennett says. “There is such a difference between the consciousness of a chimpanzee and human consciousness that it requires a special explanation, an explanation that heavily invokes the human distinction of natural language,” though that’s far from all of it, he notes. “It’s an eccentric position,” he admits wryly. “I have not managed to sway the mainstream over to this.”
The broader questions that Jaynes’ book raised are the same ones that continue to vex neuroscientists and lay people.
It’s a credit to Jaynes’ wild ideas that, every now and then, they are mentioned by neuroscientists who study consciousness. In his 2010 book, Self Comes to Mind, Antonio Damasio, a professor of neuroscience, and the director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California, sympathizes with Jaynes’ idea that something happened in the human mind in the relatively recent past. “As knowledge accumulated about humans and about the universe, continued reflection could well have altered the structure of the autobiographical self and led to a closer stitching together of relatively disparate aspects of mind processing; coordination of brain activity, driven first by value and then by reason, was working to our advantage,” he writes. But that’s a relatively rare endorsement. A more common response is the one given by neurophilosopher Patricia S. Churchland, an emerita professor at the University of California, San Diego. “It is fanciful,” she says of Jaynes’ book. “I don’t think that it added anything of substance to our understanding of the nature of consciousness and how consciousness emerges from brain activity.”
Jaynes himself saw his theory as a scientific contribution, and was disappointed with the research community’s response. Although he enjoyed the public’s interest in his work, tilting at these particular windmills was frustrating even for an inveterate contrarian. Jaynes’ drinking grew heavier. A second book, which was to have taken the ideas further, was never completed.
And so, his legacy, odd as it is, lives on. Over the years, Dennett has sometimes mentioned in his talks that he thought Jaynes was on to something. Afterward—after the crowd had cleared out, after the public discussion was over—almost every time there would be someone hanging back. “I can come out of the closet now,” he or she would say. “I think Jaynes is wonderful too.”
Marcel Kuijsten is an IT professional who runs a group called the Julian Jaynes Society whose membership he estimates at about 500 or 600 enthusiasts from around the world. The group has an online members’ forum where they discuss Jaynes’ theory, and in 2013 for the first time they hosted a conference, meeting in West Virginia for two days of talks. “It was an incredible experience,” he says.
Kuijsten feels that many people who come down on Jaynes haven’t gone to the trouble to understand the argument, which he admits is hard to get one’s mind around. “They come into it with a really ingrained, pre-conceived notion of what consciousness means to them,” he says, “And maybe they just read the back of the book.” But he’s playing the long game. “I’m not here to change anybody’s mind. It’s a total waste of time. I want to provide the best quality information, and provide good resources for people who’ve read the book and want to have a discussion.”
To that end, Kuijsten and the Society have released books of Jaynes’ writings and of new essays about him and his work. Whenever discoveries that relate to the issues Jaynes raised are published, Kuijsten notes them on the site. In 2009 he highlighted brain-imaging studies suggesting that auditory hallucinations begin with activity in the right side of the brain, followed by activation on the left, which sounds similar to Jaynes’ mechanism for the bicameral mind. He hopes that as time goes on, people will revisit some of Jaynes’ ideas in light of new science.
Ultimately, the broader questions that Jaynes’ book raised are the same ones that continue to vex neuroscientists and lay people. When and why did we start having this internal narrative? How much of our day-to-day experience occurs unconsciously? What is the line between a conscious and unconscious process? These questions are still open. Perhaps Jaynes’ strange hypotheses will never play a role in answering them. But many people—readers, scientists, and philosophers alike—are grateful he tried.
Veronique Greenwood is a science writer and essayist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Discover, Aeon, New Scientist, and many more. Follow her on Twitter here.
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Anti-Vietnam War demonstration in Dinkytown, April 11, 1967. Photograph by St. Paul Dispatch-Pioneer Press.
During the Second Indochinese War between communist North Vietnam and US-backed South Vietnam (1955‒1975), the US government escalated American involvement in Southeast Asia. In response, anti-war activists and university students in Minnesota, along with demonstrators across the nation, took to the streets to protest.
The US first intervened in Vietnam in the early 1950s, when it backed French troops during the First Indochina War. As the Second Indochina War began, the CIA and US government under Dwight D. Eisenhower backed pro-democracy South Vietnamese leaders. American interference in Southeast Asia continued as subsequent administrations slowly escalated the war throughout the 1960s.
Most Americans were at first supportive of the US government’s efforts to purportedly fight communism and ensure democracy in Southeast Asia. However, anti-war critics believed that this was the Vietnamese people’s fight—first for independence from colonial rule and then for reunification. The US was intervening in a conflict that was not its own, and it was causing more deaths than saving lives. This argument rang true for young college-age Americans who could be drafted into the army, had friends risking their lives abroad, or had already served and were disillusioned with the government.
Protesters across the nation took their concerns to the streets as well as the ballot box. In Minneapolis, anti-war demonstrators organized a march in Dinkytown in April 1967, carrying signs with slogans such as "War is darkness; peace is light." Later that month, activists attended a rally at the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus to hear Martin Luther King Jr. speak out against the war.
Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota was also an outspoken critic of the war. Supported by young anti-war activists, he won a high percentage of votes at the 1968 New Hampshire primary. Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale (1964‒1976) initially supported the conflict but shifted his stance in the late 1960s. In 1965 he had visited South Vietnam, where he talked to reporters from newspapers such as the Minneapolis Tribune and revealed what was going on behind the scenes.
In response to President Nixon’s decision to send troops into Cambodia in April 1970, students on over 700 college campuses gathered to protest. On May 4, 1970, Kent State University students clashed with the Ohio National Guardsmen, which left four students dead and nine injured.
University of Minnesota (U of M) and Macalester College students organized protests in response to the invasion of Cambodia as well as the Kent State deaths. In May 1970, thirty people attended anti-ROTC demonstrations at Morrill Hall. Seventeen were arrested and charged with unlawful assembly. Faculty also got involved and released statements protesting the arrests. Another group of anti-ROTC demonstrators posed as wounded or dead war victims outside the doors of an All-University Senate meeting. Meanwhile, twenty to thirty students conducted an all-night occupation of Coffman Hall, which ended peacefully when policemen escorted them out of the building.
Students carried their protests beyond the campus to locations throughout the Twin Cities. On May 11, 1972, seventy-five demonstrators spent the night on Washington Avenue in Minneapolis and blocked traffic to make their point. Three hundred policemen and National Guardsmen, called in by Governor Wendell Anderson and Minneapolis Mayor Charles Stenvig, told the demonstrators to clear the street. Most complied, though 150 students returned and were joined by more students. Although this could have become a violent standoff, the police eventually withdrew. 3,000 protesters had gathered by then, either reconstructing blockades along Washington Avenue or moving on to other streets (including Interstate 94).
A few days later, over 3,500 protesters marched from Northrop Mall to the capitol in St. Paul. Later that month, Minnesotans gathered at the Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington for a “Dump the War” rally, which featured McCarthy, John Kerry (Vietnam Veterans against the War spokesman), and several Congressmen as speakers. It was considered the largest anti-war assembly in Minnesota to date.
Protests in Minnesota took place within a nationwide context of anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, as well as other social movements that mobilized large numbers of people. Such acts of protest and resistance drew public attention and built up domestic pressure on the US government to gradually withdraw American troops from Vietnam by 1975.
Park, Sharon. "Anti-Vietnam War Movement, 1963-1973." MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society. http://mnopedia.org/event/anti-vietnam-war-movement-1963-1973?width=75%25&height=75%25&title=Dr.%20Martin%20Luther%20King%20Jr.%20in%20St.%20Paul%20%7C%20%3Ca%20href%3D%22/multimedia/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-st-paul-0%22%3EDetails%3C/a%3E&inline=true (accessed July 18, 2019).
© Minnesota Historical Society
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.
First published: February 4, 2019
Last modified: April 3, 2019
AV2006.41
KSTP-TV Archive
Moving Images Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/display.php?irn=10463671
Description: May 11, 1972, news coverage of antiwar demonstrations at the University of Minnesota. National Guard members march down the street and Bruce Lindberg talks to a crowd. Part of the “The Cause Is Peace?” videotape.
Description: Eugene McCarthy speaks to students in front of Coffman Union at the University of Minnesota during a Vietnam protest. Part of Turner & Buehler's Stories - on U of M demonstrations, “The Cause of Peace?” videotape.
KSTP-TV Archive, Moving Images Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: May 11, 1972 videotape of University of Minnesota anti-war demonstrations. Part of Turner & Buehler's Stories - on U of M demonstrations, “The Cause of Peace?” videotape.
48663, AV2006.41
Description: Videotape of Vietnam protest march to the Minnesota State Capitol on May 13, 1972. Speaker rallies the crowd on the steps of the building.
Description: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at an anti-war rally at the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus on April 27, 1967.
Chaduvula, Raju. “9 Photos of the University of Minnesota’s Massive 1972 Anti-war Protest.” Minnesota Daily, October 3, 2016.
http://www.mndaily.com/article/2016/10/9-photos-of-the-university-of-minnesotas-anti-war-protests-in-1972
Furst, Randy. “Vietnam War Era Activists Reconvene at Macalester College.” Star Tribune, May 4, 2016.
www.startribune.com/vietnam-war-era-activists-reconvene-at-macalester-college/378033081/
Gettleman, Marvin E., Jane Franklin, H. Bruce Franklin, and Marilyn B. Young, eds. Vietnam and America: A Documented History. Young. New York: Grove Press, 1985.
Isserman, Maurice, and Michael Kazin. America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Nathanson, Iric. “Martin Luther King’s ’63 and ’67 Minnesota Visits Are a Study in Contrasts.” MinnPost, January 16, 2012.
https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2012/01/martin-luther-kings-63-and-67-minnesota-visits-are-study-contrasts/
Nordahl, Jeffrey. "Why I Protested The Vietnam War." Minnesota Remembers Vietnam: The Story Wall. A Minnesota PBS Initiative.
https://www.mnvietnam.org/story/why-i-protested-the-vietnam-war/
O’Neill, Hannah. “Eight Days in May.” U of M Radio on Your Historic Dial (podcast), May 23, 2017.
https://www.continuum.umn.edu/2017/05/eight-days-may/
Phillips, Kimberley L. War! What Is It Good For?: Black Freedom Struggles and the U.S. Military from World War II to Iraq. University of North Carolina Press, 2012.
PUM-10872928
Walter Mondale Oral History Interview, June 16, 2011–October 26, 2011.
Description: Portion of interview with Gary Eichten and Mr. Mondale regarding Vietnam.
Sandbrook, Dominic. Eugene McCarthy: And the Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism. New York: Anchor Books, 2005.
Sieg, Kent G. "The 1968 Presidential Election and Peace in Vietnam." Presidential Studies Quarterly 26, no. 4 (1996): 1062-80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27551671.
University of Minnesota. Fact Sheet II on University of Minnesota Activities During the Nationwide Campus Anti-War Movement, May 25, 1970. University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, http://hdl.handle.net/11299/122371
University of Minnesota. Fact Sheet III on University of Minnesota Activities During the Nationwide Campus Anti-War Movement, June 8, 1970. University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, http://hdl.handle.net/11299/122373
Wells, Tom. The War Within: America’s Battle Over Vietnam. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994.
Vietnam War Protest Collection, 1969-1973
Manuscript Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: This archival collection consists of flyers, leaflets, posters, petitions, newsletters, newspapers, and other printed matter centered on the protest movement against the Vietnam War (1969-1973) in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Anti-war actions documented in the collection include local and national protest marches and demonstrations, student strikes, teach-ins, draft resistance, and fundraising benefits.
Minnesota Clergy and Laity Concerned. Vietnam War opposition papers, 1962-1975.
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00062.xml
Description: Papers relating to the Minnesota Clergy and Laity Concerned's activities in opposition to the Vietnam War and U.S. draft policies.
AV2007.38.2
Oral History Interview with Donna-Marie "D.M." Boulay, June 10, 2005
Minnesota's Women Vietnam Veterans Oral History Project, Oral History Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Minnesota's Women Vietnam Veterans Oral History Project’s interview with Boulay, who was in the Army Nurse Corps. She describes the hostility and sexist remarks she received as a veteran, as well as her participation in the Veterans Against the War and anti-war protests in 1968/1969.
Oral History Interview with MaryLu Brunner, May 23, 2006
Minnesota's Women Vietnam Veterans Oral History Project
Oral History Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Minnesota's Women Vietnam Veterans Oral History Project’s interview with Brunner, who was in the Army Nurse Corps. She did not personally experience hostility from the anti-war movement and describes her skepticism of the war while on duty.
Oral History Interview with Valerie Buchan, October 27, 2005
Description: Minnesota's Women Vietnam Veterans Oral History Project’s interview with Buchan, who was in the Army Nurse Corps. She discusses the hostile anti-war environment that she and other veterans faced when they returned home.
Bloom, Alexander, and Wini Breines, eds. “Takin' it to the Streets": A Sixties Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
DS557-DS559
Pamphlets Relating to the Vietnam War
Pamphlet Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: The MNHS Pamphlet Collection contains pamphlets and printed ephemera relating primarily to Minnesota protests and draft resistance during the Vietnam War. A few items pertain to the creation of the Minnesota Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Oglesby, Carl. Ravens in the Storm: A Personal History of the 1960s Anti-War Movement. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008.
Bailey, Beth L. America's Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.
Gottlieb, Sherry Gershon. Hell No, We Won't Go!: Resisting the Draft During the Vietnam War. New York: Viking Press, 1991.
Heikkila, Kim. Sisterhood of War: Minnesota Women in Vietnam. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2011.
Ludewig, Sara. “Marching Against the Madness: Macalester College and the Counterculture, 1966 to 1974.” History honors project, Macalester College, 2017. http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/history_honors/22
Nathanson, Iric. “Another War that Divided Minnesota: Vietnam Politics in the 1960s.” Hennepin History, 63, no. 4 (Fall 2004): 4‒24.
Schmitz, David F. The Tet Offensive: Politics, War, and Public Opinion. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
Smaby, Alpha. Political Upheaval: Minnesota and the Vietnam War Protest. Minneapolis: Dillon Press, 1987.
Gale Family Library. Vietnam War & Minnesota: Overview.
http://libguides.mnhs.org/vietnamrec
Michigan in the World. Resistance and Revolution: The Anti-Vietnam War Movement at the University of Michigan, 1965‒1972.
http://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/
Nathanson, Iric. "Two Favorite Sons: the Humphrey‒McCarthy Battle of 1968." MinnPost, May 25, 2011.
https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2011/05/two-favorite-sons-humphrey-mccarthy-battle-1968/
University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Libraries. Vietnam War Protests at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee–Archives Dept.: The Student Strike and Later Protests, 1970‒1972.
http://guides.library.uwm.edu/c.php?g=56372&p=364611
Morrill Hall Takeover, University of Minnesota
Civil Unrest on Plymouth Avenue, Minneapolis, 1967
McCarthy, Eugene (1916–2005)
Humphrey, Hubert H. (1911–1978)
Hmong and Hmong Americans in Minnesota
Nonpartisan League
The Nixon administration’s decision to expand war to Cambodia in April 1970 sparks nationwide protests on university campuses, including ones in Minnesota.
Anti-war demonstrators march in Dinkytown (Minneapolis) to call for peace.
The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) lead a March on Washington to End the War. 15,000–25,000 college students and anti-war activists participate in the largest peace protest up until that point in American history.
Martin Luther King Jr. speaks out against the Vietnam War on the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus—a controversial move for the Civil Rights leader.
Eugene McCarthy, senator of Minnesota, announces his presidential candidacy and runs on an anti-war campaign.
The Tet Offensive, a surprise attack by North Vietnamese troops, is a major American defeat. Public support is already low, and the majority of Americans turn against the war.
10,000 anti-war protesters demonstrate at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Their clash with policemen, who use tear gas and clubs on protesters, is nationally televised.
Richard Nixon narrowly defeats anti-war Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey (former Minnesota senator) in the presidential election.
News of the My Lai massacre, the mass shootings of unarmed Vietnamese civilians (including women and children) by a company of American soldiers, sparks nationwide protests.
President Nixon decides to send US forces into Cambodia, though the administration had already started secret bombings there earlier in 1969.
Students on over 700 college campuses, including the University of Minnesota, protest the US invasion of Cambodia. National Guardsmen and policemen kill four white students at Kent State.
A series of protests in and around the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus begin. They become known as the “eight days in May.”
Senator Eugene McCarthy gives a speech before U of M students in front of Coffman Union.
A “Dump the War” rally is held at the Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington. At the time, it is considered the largest anti-war assembly in Minnesota.
The Paris Peace Accords officially end the Vietnam War, though US troops remain in Vietnam until 1975.
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Woman hailed as 'Angel of Manchester' for saving teens from deadly blast
The hotel responded: "It really was the absolute least we can do - we hope you got back home safely". Alex Klis, from York, is looking for her parents who have been missing since the attack. The Park Inn, one of the hotels closest to the Manchester Arena , provided free food, drink, towels, duvets and pillows to those who were stranded after the city's main train station was closed.
Tide women's golf ties for 14th at NCAA Championships
In the other quarterfinals, host school and No. 1 seed Northwestern overcame a rugged start to beat Kent State 3-2. However, Ainhoa Olarra and Ana Pelaez, USC's top scorers the first two rounds, combined to play the back nine at 10 over par.
2 soldiers, 2 militants killed in gunfight along LoC
He said operation is going on. Search operation resumed this morning near the Line of Control (LoC) in Naugam sector in the frontier district of Kupwara where two militants were killed in an encounter. On May 1, bodies of two soldiers were mutilated by the notorious Border Action Team (BAT) of the Pakistani Army in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district.
Cigarettes Will Now Come In Standard Packaging In The UK
Public health groups have welcomed the measure, as the number of smokers in the United Kingdom continues to decline. There is also a minimum pack size of 20 cigarettes. "Today marks a momentous victory in the battle for a tobacco free future". Ms Bauld, who is also Cancer Research UK's cancer prevention expert, has also been a leading voice in the campaign for the change.
Barracks Road AT&T Employees Go on Strike
About 40 workers are expected to protest outside the company's main administrative office on Bush Street on Friday, but not over the weekend, he said . The majority of the striking workers - about 21,000 - are employees of AT&T's wireless division, which includes retail outlets. The contract for union employees expired in February, and negotiations between the Communication Workers of America and AT&T have now reached a stalemate.
Melania Trump forgoes head scarf in Saudi Arabia
It is a markedly different message from his campaign tweet that said " Saudi Arabia and numerous countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays". USA policy holds that ownership of the holiest site where Jews can pray, as with the rest of Jerusalem , is subject to Israeli-Palestinian negotiation.
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Quick Hits: Reviews of Flash #12, New Mutants #25 and more…
By Nerdy Nothings 2986 days ago
Flash #12: Only a year after its initial release, DC Comics’ latest Flash series comes to an end. Weirdly, that’s to make way for another series starring that character, Flashpoint, a giant crossover that will probably be filling up your pull boxes for the next five months. While I thought Geoff Johns’ latest take on the Scarlet Speedster (now Barry Allen) began promisingly, the book faltered many times in its brief run, perhaps hindered by the fact that at his core Barry Allen is just not an interesting character. Though bolstered by some terrific art by Francis Manapul, I was always on the brink of dropping Flash, which was seldom bad but often mediocre. That basically describes my feelings on this series’ last issue, in which Allen has an anti-climactic showdown with the Reverse Flash. Though the issue looks great (and this time it’s classic Flash artist Scott Kolins doing most of the drawing), there’s very little of substance here. We revisit some ideas about Barry Allen regressing emotionally (the overexposition of which ruined Flash #11, one of the worst comics I bought all year) and, more interestingly, gain a glimpse into the Reverse Flash’s Speed Force experimentation, but that’s about it. It’s a pretty weak book which doesn’t get a real ending thanks to Flashpoint, and I’m stuck wondering why DC brought back one of its marquee characters if they were only going to give him a 12-issue series. C
Review by Rebel Rikki
New Mutants #25: With the “Age of X” all wrapped up we get a new creative team with issue #25 of New Mutants, most notably new writers with Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning teaming up to oversee this team of mutants. I’ve never followed the New Mutants in the past, except when required to by crossovers, so I came to this issue with a pretty fresh set of eyes, and I found it to be a pretty solid jumping on point for new readers and old fans alike. A lot of the issue deals with the aftermath of—what I’m assuming is—this title’s previous, non-”Age of X”, storyline and the writers do a solid job of letting us in on what has gone down and why we’re seeing the plotpoints that we are in this issue. And once those loose ends are tied up we get a solid glimpse of where this title will be going, what this team—under new leadership—has been tasked by Cyclops to taker care of… and I admit, I’m kinda excited about this new direction. A-
Review by Spaceman Spiff
FF #3: This series is off to a really fun start as we get some clarification on last month’s cliffhanger. Of course, if you’ve been paying attention—and the intricacies of Jonathan Hickman’s writing kinda demand that you should!—you won’t be surprised to find that Valeria and Dr. Doom have teamed up not to take down Reed Richards, but to take down four—of course—Reed Richardses from alternate universes! And who do they decide to use as their think-tank in tackling this problem? Why non-other than some of the Marvel universe’s—and Reed’s—biggest enemies. Epting as always provides fantastic art and I can’t wait to keep seeing what this series pulls out of its hat. A
Unwritten #25: Tommy Taylor has returned to reality after a strange journey through worlds of literature. Now he and his two allies plan to break into an auction house to steal some relics belonging to his departed father, Wilson Taylor, which they think will help elucidate the mysteries surrounding Tommy’s life. Of course, if you follow Unwritten, you know nothing ever goes as planned, and the shadowy villains that have been plaguing Tommy since issue #1 intend to see he doesn’t get what he wants. I don’t think Unwritten has ever had a bad issue, and its metafictionality never ceases to disappoint. Indeed, I feel like a real discussion about the power of fiction to affect reality is especially relevant in light of recent political events, and what better forum to host that discussion than a piece of fiction? A
tags: fantastic four, ff, geoff johns, jonathan hickman, new mutants, the flash, unwritten
Quick Hits: Reviews of Batman Inc. #5, FF #2 and more…
Quick Hits: Reviews of FF #4, Darkwing Duck #12 and more
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Murtala
(Redirected from Mohammed)
Murtala Mohammed
4th President of Nigeria In office
July 29, 1975 – February 13, 1976
Preceded by Yakubu Gowon Succeeded by Olusẹgun Obasanjo
General Murtala Ramat Mohammed born (November 8, 1938–February 13, 1976) was a military ruler (Head of the Federal Military Government) of Nigeria,(1975–1976).
Muhammed opposed the regime of Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi which took power after a coup d'etat on January 15, 1966, in which several Northern Nigerian leaders had been killed under gruesome circumstances. Thus he participated in the successful counter-coup of July 29, 1966, which included the crucial seizure of the airport at Ikeja, which was later renamed the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in his honor. He at first intended to use the coup as a step towards the secession of northern Nigeria, but later dropped this demand.
The coup led to the installation of Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon in power. On July 29, 1975, General Muhammed was made head of state by younger soldiers who wanted to ensure that Nigeria was returned to democratic rule. The armed forces chose thirty-eight-year-old Brigadier (later General) Murtala Ramat Muhammed, a Muslim northerner, to succeed Gowon. A Hausa, trained at the British military academy at Sandhurst, Murtala Muhammed had command of federal field forces in the final phase of the civil war, including being responsible for the abortive efforts to cross the Niger River. He was not directly involved in the coup d'état that brought him to power, but he had played a prominent role in rallying northern officers behind the July 1966 coup that felled Ironsi. In a short time, Murtala Muhammed's policies won him broad popular support, and his decisiveness elevated him to the status of a national hero.
One of his first acts was to scrap the 1973 census, which was weighted in favor of the north, and to revert to the 1963 count for official purposes. Murtala Muhammad removed top federal and state officials to break links with the Gowon regime and to restore public confidence in the federal government. More than 10,000 public officials and employees were dismissed without benefits, on account of age, health, incompetence, or malpractice. The purge affected the civil service, judiciary, police and armed forces, diplomatic service, public corporations, and universities. Some officials were brought to trial on charges of corruption. He also began the demobilization of 100,000 troops from the swollen ranks of the armed forces.
Twelve of the twenty-five ministerial posts on the new Federal Executive Council went to civilians, but the cabinet was secondary to the executive Supreme Military Council. Muhammad imposed the authority of the federal government in areas formerly reserved for the states, restricting the latitude exercised by state governments and their governors in determining and executing policy. Newly appointed military governors of the states were not given seats on the Supreme Military Council, but instead were expected to administer federal policies handed down by Muhammad through the military council. The federal government took over the operation of the country's two largest newspapers, made broadcasting a federal monopoly, and brought remaining state-run universities under federal control.
Murtala Muhammad initiated a comprehensive review of the Third National Development Plan. Singling out inflation as the greatest danger to the economy, he was determined to reduce the money supply that had been swollen by government expenditures on public works. Muhammad also announced that his government would encourage the rapid expansion of the private sector into areas dominated by public corporations. He reappraised foreign policy, stressing a "Nigeria first" orientation in line with OPEC price guidelines that was to the disadvantage of other African countries. Nigeria became "neutral" rather than "nonaligned" in international affairs. The shift in orientation became apparent with respect to Angola. Nigeria had worked with the OAU to bring about a negotiated reconciliation of the warring factions in the former Portuguese colony, but late in 1975 Murtala Muhammad announced Nigeria's support for the Soviet-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, citing South Africa's armed intervention on the side of the rival National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola). The realignment strained relations with the United States, which argued for the withdrawal of Cuban troops and Soviet advisers from Angola. In October the Nigerian Air Force took delivery of Soviet-built aircraft that had been ordered under Gowon.
Murtala Mohammed was, however, killed on February 13, 1976 in an abortive coup attempt when his car was ambushed in traffic in Lagos. He was succeeded by his chief of staff, Olusegun Obasanjo, who completed the plan of an orderly transfer to civilian rule by handing power to Alhaji Shehu Shagari on October 1, 1979.
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Big Bad Voodoo Daddy breathes life into old hits
Jamie Rule on November 7, 2013 in Entertainment
Photo Courtesy of Savoy Jazz
Last Friday, Nov. 1, Tech’s Ferst Center for the Arts hosted Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, a swing revival band that has been lighting up venues with their soulful tunes since the early 1990s.
2013 is a special year for the band, as this is their 20th anniversary. As a testament to this special occasion, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy gave a stellar performance for the Tech community. Each song that they played was good in its own right, but an observant audience member might have noticed that several of the songs sounded almost the same. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy made up for this apparent lack of musical diversity by spreading out the similar ones, giving the audience a rest by playing unique songs in between the monotonous ones.
While the band’s music was undoubtedly the main attraction of the night, the lead vocalist, Scotty Morris, added to the entertainment with his upbeat attitude and boundless energy. During each song, he was intent on his performance and sang or played accordingly. Whenever Big Bad Voodoo Daddy was not in the midst of a song, however, Morris would talk to the audience, giving anecdotes and interesting tidbits about the origins of some of their songs; perhaps his favorite thing to say was the name of each band member.
Between songs, Morris embarked on an unceasing round of introductions, occasionally introducing the same person three or four times in a row with only slightly different wording each run through. By the end of the performance, concert-goers had to have been determinedly not paying attention throughout the entire performance to not know at least one band member by name. The only Big Bad Voodoo Daddy member who Morris failed to introduce more than once was Morris himself, whose name had to be looked up for the purpose of writing this article.
However, Morris’s energetic babbling was not directed at the audience, to whom he spoke rather coherently. Aside from introducing the others on stage, most of what Morris hastily declared between songs was relevant and interesting.
For example, while the band was preparing to sing “Mambo Swing,” Morris, after introducing someone of course, picked up a cowbell. A rather excited audience member shouted “More cowbell!” in allusion to the viral Saturday Night Live skit, and Morris, hearing him, replied “Yes, my friend, always more cowbell.” Then, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy took off into the lively “Mambo Swing,” followed closely by more introductions, naturally.
The friendly speeches of the lead vocalist improved the concert but did not account for all of the entertainment last Friday. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy performed extraordinarily well. Unlike many bands, their live performance was on par with their albums, of which nine have been released since 1994. Arguably, this band sounds even better in person, which is rare, indeed.
Throughout the night, the group performed many songs, including their most well-known and popular “Go Daddy-O,” “You & Me & the Bottle Makes 3 Tonight (Baby)” and “Mr. Pinstripe Suit.”
Each of these hits were performed with gusto, but the real entertainment came in an unexpected sense when the band played their lesser known works, some of these may have been completely unfamiliar to several members of the Ferst Center audience. These songs included the unusual “Zig Zaggity Woop Woop,” which, contrary to common belief, does not actually constitute an English phrase.
A band performing their greatest hit is expected to be a grand exhibition, but Big Bad Voodoo Daddy managed to make a spectacle out of all of their songs. Whether it was an internationally famous tune, or one that only the group’s most devout fans have heard before, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy put care and skill into their performance, allowing audience members to immerse themselves in the music.
Perhaps the most well-placed song of this concert was the one that Big Bad Voodoo Daddy ended with, a spirited rendition of “So Long-Farewell-Goodbye.” However, even though they said goodbye to the Ferst Center at the end of the night, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy is by no means disappearing from the public eye. On Oct. 22, they released their newest album, It Feels Like Christmas Time.
Throughout the performance, Scotty Morris talked about this new album but continually promised the audience that the band would not play Christmas music as early as the first of November. It was moments like these that made the concert not only a musical spectacle to behold, but also a simply entertaining and worth-while experience.
For anyone who particularly liked Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, however, Morris made certain that they knew that this album is now for sale.
Copyright 2018 Samira Bandaru, Editor-in-Chief, and the Georgia Tech Board of Student Publications
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OyChicago articles
Have you been personally inspired by a Holocaust survivor?
Part of our collective Jewish responsibility is to remember. In commemoration of Yom HaShoah, Oy!Chicago is looking for guest writers of all writing experience levels to contribute to our next special blog series, "We Will Never Forget," a collection of first-person blog posts about how our lives have been impacted by survivors of the Holocaust and their stories.
Whether you are the descendant of a survivor, or simply wouldn't be here today if it weren't for a survivor; whether you have made sharing a survivor's story part of your mission or had one meaningful moment when a survivor touched your life, we want to get your story -- and their story -- out there.
To pitch your idea, write a paragraph describing what your piece would be about and send it to info@oychicago.comby Friday, April 15.
The only other requirements are that the post should in some way relate to the theme, and that you are 21 or older. We will review your submission and let you know if we are interested in working with you and running your piece in the series, which will run May 2-6.
Please note that Oy!Chicago is a volunteer-staffed website, so we are unable to pay for published submissions at this time.
Stef & Steven
‘Nurture the Wow’ focuses on the spirituality of parenting
By Abigail Pickus
Chicago-area Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg's new book, "Nurture the Wow," recognizes parenthood as nothing less than a spiritual practice.
After Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg became a mother for the first time, she found herself trying to make sense of this profound life-changing experience that we call parenthood.
"With parenthood you have this whole set of absolutely transformative experiences, but it has not been informed by how we talk about what prayer is or what God is or what spirituality is," she said. Because Judaism and Jewish thought, which had sustained her for so many years, seemed at first out of touch with her new role as parent, full of sleepless nights, tantrums, and mounds of laundry.
And that was when a light bulb went off in her head. "I started wondering how many theologians throughout history have been mothers?"
Of course Ruttenberg already knew the answer to that question. "The answer is very few. While many of the men writing theology have been fathers, they have not been engaged in taking care of children," she said.
In her new book, Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting (Flatiron Books), Ruttenberg, a Chicago-based rabbi, returns once again to the treasures of Judaism that had sustained her for so long and shows how they can "illuminate the work of parenting -- the love, the drudgery, the exasperation, all of it."
Because Nurture the Wow, which reads like a parenting guide grounded in Jewish thought and wisdom as told by a friend who is in the midst of it herself, goes so far as to say that the act of parenthood is nothing less than an act of spirituality.
"I went looking for ways to speak to my exhausted, crazy-making, blissful, confusing experience of being a mother and I came to the conclusion that parenting can be a legitimate spiritual practice in its own right. It can change who you are and how you are in the world," she said.
Ruttenberg, who has been named by Newsweek and The Daily Beast as one of 10 "rabbis to watch" and one of the top 50 most influential women rabbis, is also the author of Surprised By God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion (Beacon Press), and the editor of numerous anthologies.
She received her rabbinic ordination from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles, and is currently Director of Education for Ask Big Questions, an initiative of Hillel International, and a rabbinic consultant to Hillel International.
She and her husband, a professor at Northwestern University, have three children ages 7, 4 and 7 months. Currently on sabbatical in Israel, they will return to the Chicago area over the summer.
With "Nurture the Wow," Ruttenberg foresees her primary audience as parents of young children those who are in the thick of the crazy years. "Hopefully, I've given them a framework and ways to think about what they're going through in a more thoughtful way so that they have a few extra resources when the tantrum starts," she said. But she also hopes anyone "inside the Jewish conversation" also picks up her book.
"I think of what I'm doing as feminist theology," she said. "I want to talk to them about what it means if we take parents of all genders and take their experiences seriously and incorporate that into our conversation about what Judaism is."
Because Ruttenberg feels that raising children -- and everything that goes with it, from the profound to the mundane and everything in between (including moments of despair) -- is just as spiritually enlightening as the most zenful meditation practice. "Individual parents need to understand their parenting as a spiritual practice and we need to shift our culture in how we think about it," said Ruttenberg. "Because if you go deep enough in your parenting it will take you everywhere. The transcendent love that you feel for your child can take you to the doorway of the holy. It will take you all the way."
Abigail Pickus is a Chicago-based writer and editor.
Third annual JCC Chicago Jewish Film Festival opens March 10
Budding young filmmaker Jack Yonover will share his food allergies documentary 'That Bites!' with audiences at this year's JCC Chicago Jewish Film Festival. (Photo credit: Jack Mueller)
Jack Yonover is quite an impressive and articulate eighth grader. Two years ago, Yonover, who is allergic to pistachios and cashews, came up with the idea to make a documentary for his bar mitzvah project reflecting on the fears and frustrations of living with food allergies.
A self-starter and an aspiring filmmaker, Yonover raised $10,000 to fund That Bites! through a crowdfunding campaign. The Wilmette native took lessons at Chicago's FACETS Multi-Media film school to learn the basics of documentary filmmaking and learned to edit film from the geniuses at the Apple Store. Then, for Chanukah, his family bought him some movie-making equipment.
Yonover says he hopes his film helps other kids, like himself, who struggle with allergies. "I know that when I was diagnosed with my allergy, if I had seen my movie, the first few months of living with a food allergy would have been a lot easier," he said.
His film is about to get a much wider audience when the third annual JCC Chicago Jewish Film Festival opens March 10. The documentary is one of 18 Jewish-inspired films that will be screened at the festival, which runs through March 20 in Chicago and the suburbs.
"We have such a fantastic selection of films," said Addie Goodman, chief advancement officer for JCC Chicago. "There really is something for everyone -- documentaries, shorts and feature-lengths -- stories that will make you laugh, cry, be inspired, learn, and love. The film festival celebrates great art and powerful storytelling all through a Jewish lens."
In addition to Yonover's documentary, two other festival films specifically relate to the Chicago community -- Surviving Skokie and Breakfast at Ina's. Surviving Skokie, created by the son of a Holocaust survivor, chronicles how the quiet existence of hundreds of survivors is disrupted when a neo-Nazi group announces plan to march through town. For lighter fare, Breakfast at Ina's tells the story of Ina Pinkney, a.k.a. Chicago's "Breakfast Queen," who decided to close her iconic West Loop restaurant after more than 30 years of feeding Chicagoans.
Some of the festival films drawing buzz include the quirky documentary Very Semi-Serious, which examines the humor, art, and genius of The New Yorker cartoons; the British dramedy, Dough, chronicling an old Jewish baker whose floundering business is saved by a young Muslim apprentice; and Felix and Meira, a cross-cultural love story, set in Montreal, between a Hasidic woman and a secular man. Also, Every Face Has a Name captures the first free steps of Holocaust survivors docking in Malmo, Sweden, while It Happened in Saint-Tropez is the French romantic comedy filled with mix-ups and betrayals involving a family of opposites.
The films, targeting ages from kids to adults, will screen at eight venues around the city and suburbs, including additional screenings in private homes upon request.
"What we're looking for with the festival," Goodman said, "is the opportunity for our community to connect, dialogue, think, and really be inspired by film."
For more details on the JCC Chicago Jewish Film Festival, visit www.jccfilmfest.org. JCC is a partner with the Jewish United Fund in serving our community.
Posted by Lindsey_2 at 3/8/2016 3:25 PM
Nominations now open for the fifth annual Chicago Jewish 36 under 36 list
New play ‘A Splintered Soul’ explores moving forward in America after the Holocaust
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Mustafiz-Rubelah said that
Bangladesh's ODI captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza is going to lead the country in the last World. He left the country today with teammates called for the World Cup and Ireland tour. Before going for a long two-and-a-half month long tour, fans wanted to apologize for their mistakes and along with their prayers, the country's most successful captain, said the captain.
Mostafiz-Rubelroo also expressed their hopes of going ahead to represent the country at Mashrafe No World Hall. Master Mostafizur Rahman is going to play the World Cup for the first time. Naturally, the world's romance has thrilled him. He said, "World Cup is the biggest event in our cricket. Everyone wants to play here, everyone's goal is to do something good. Our mentality is similar. And I'm recovering from the injuries. Now optimistic about getting the full rhythm back. I'm going to the first World Cup. Very excited. '
The most experienced Rubel Hossain, after the Bangladesh team's bowlers, was the most experienced Mashrafei. The fast pacer is going to play his third World Cup. With his own goal in the field, he said, "We are going to the World Cup with great dreams. Of course, our first goal is to play in the second round. We all have confidence that we play very well. "
The people of the country say they have confidence in cricketers to play for the first time Mohammad Mithun He said, 'One wants only for the people of the country, you will pray for us and believe in us.'
At least in the semifinal match, allrounder Mosaddek Hossain said the ball. Said, "Of course, it is big to keep playing the role for the team. If we can go to the semi-finals, then our wish will be fulfilled. "
Saifuddin, who is called for the World Cup, also wants the selectors to give confidence. In his words, 'Actually, if you get a chance, it will not be possible to use the opportunity. Team management trust me. I will also try to do something good. '
Soumya Sarkar is going to play the World Cup for the second time since 2015. It is more than expected that he has more than expected, and admits that he does not want to make a mistake, in his face. He said, "This is my second World Cup. Of course, hopefully more than ever before. The mistake that I made earlier can not be done now.
Like to take the challenge, not pressure: Sabbir
Messi-Salah face-off today
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Jib Kidder - Windowdipper
I love shows like American Idol and So You Think You Dance because they constantly are turning me on to new music, and new artists. Last night on the results show, one of the contestants at the bottom (Ade) had to "dance for his life" and he did this fabulous contemporary/hip-hop routine, choreographed to this WACKY-fun song by Jib Kidder.
Now, I've never heard of Jib Kidder before but WHOA "Windowdipper" drew me in FAST, given that Ade only had a couple of minutes to impress the judges. The intro uses all of these Microsoft Windows blips and blops. I watched the video today from work on my computer and kept thinking how my computer was about to die. So trippy! The song can be found on iTunes.
Apparently Travis Wall, runner-up on Season Two of SYTYCD has choregraphed a routine to the same song. Pretty hot as well! I'm obsessed with this song now. OBSESSED. Jib Kidder reminds me a little bit of Girl Talk in the way that he infuses so many elements from different songs, but the guy is totally unique. It's a new kind of MASH-UP and I love, love, love it!
Check out Jib Kidder on the web: Official Label Site//MySpace//YouTube
Labels: Girl Talk, Jib Kidder, Single Reviews
Calvin Harris Album Artwork Revealed
Album Artwork Via Coverlandia
Love, Love, Love Calvin Harris. Ready For The Weekend, the new album from the Scottish DJ, is due out in August. Debut single "I'm Not Alone" hit # 1 on the UK Singles Charts and stayed there for 2 consecutive weeks. Nice! The follow up single, "Ready For The Weekend" features vocals by UK singer Mary Pearce and is released in the UK on August 10th, with remixes announced by Dave Spoon, High Contrast and Fake Blood. The video premiered online in June. I love this song! It's got a fantastic old-school vibe too it and Mary Pearce's vocals sound fantastic. I'd love to see a Calvin Harris set should he come do a club tour in the U.S.
Check out Calvin Harris on the web: Official Site//MySpace//Facebook//Twitter//Bebo//Youtube
Labels: Artwork, Calvin Harris
New Blake Lewis Album Drops in October
I adore Blake Lewis. Lewis was the beat-boxing cutie-pie who was runner-up to Season Six winner Jordin Sparks. While his debut album with Arista Records, Audio Daydream peaked at # 10 on the Billboard Charts, his singles failed to make much of an impact on the charts. "How Many Words" hit #8 on the Billboard Dance Charts with Remixes by DJ Dan and Dave Audé. His new album, Heartbreak On Vinyl is out on October 6th via Tommy Boy Entertainment. The first single will be "Sad Song" and you can have the chorus sent to your phone as a ringtone now.
I can't wait for new Blake Lewis. The guy is super talented and definitely brings something unique to the Idol alum crew. I also happen to love the new "electro-dance" sound that he's bringing to his next album. According to USA Today, Lewis is working with songwriters, producers and collaborators including S*A*M & Sluggo (Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco), Dave Audé (Pussycat Dolls, Paradiso Girls, Girlicious), Rodney Jerkins (Lady Gaga, Britney Spears), and Jean Baptiste (Will.I.Am, Black Eyed Peas) which all sounds mighty promising.
According to Blake in his e-newsletter: "The new album is coming together nicely, I just finished the photo shoot with the greatly talented Myriam Santos (google her!). We had a blast and I got to shoot in my hometown SEATTLE! I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to be working with a group of people that believe in me and support my crazy ideas!!"
Go Blake! Can't wait to hear what's next from you.
Check out Blake Lewis on the web: Official Site//MySpace//Facebook//Twitter
Labels: American Idol, Blake Lewis, Music News
posted by Unknown at 12:36 AM 0 Comments
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Why Trump's Tariffs Are Just a Drop in the Bucket
© Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
President Trump said this week that tariff increases by his administration are producing "billions of dollars" in revenues, thereby improving the country’s fiscal situation. But CNBC’s John Schoen points out that while tariff revenues are indeed higher by several billion dollars this year, the total revenue is a drop in the bucket compared to the sheer size of government outlays and receipts – and the growing annual deficit.
Map of the Day: Navigating the IRS
The Taxpayer Advocate Service – an independent organization within the IRS whose roughly 1,800 employees both assist taxpayers in resolving problems with the tax collection agency and recommend changes aimed at improving the system – released a “subway map” that shows the “the stages of a taxpayer’s journey.” The colorful diagram includes the steps a typical taxpayer takes to prepare and file their tax forms, as well as the many “stations” a tax return can pass through, including processing, audits, appeals and litigation. Not surprisingly, the map is quite complicated. Click here to review a larger version on the taxpayer advocate’s site.
A Surprise Government Spending Slowdown
Wikimedia / Andy Dunaway
Economists expected federal spending to boost growth in 2019, but some of the fiscal stimulus provided by the 2018 budget deal has failed to show up this year, according to Kate Davidson of The Wall Street Journal.
Defense spending has come in as expected, but nondefense spending has lagged, and it’s unlikely to catch up to projections even if it accelerates in the coming months. Lower spending on disaster relief, the government shutdown earlier this year, and federal agencies spending less than they have been given by Congress all appear to be playing a role in the spending slowdown, Davidson said.
Number of the Day: $203,500
The Wall Street Journal’s Catherine Lucey reports that acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney is making a bit more than his predecessors: “The latest annual report to Congress on White House personnel shows that President Trump’s third chief of staff is getting an annual salary of $203,500, compared with Reince Priebus and John Kelly, each of whom earned $179,700.” The difference is the result of Mulvaney still technically occupying the role of director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, where his salary level is set by law.
The White House told the Journal that if Mulvaney is made permanent chief of staff his salary would be adjusted to the current salary for an assistant to the president, $183,000.
The Census Affects Nearly $1 Trillion in Spending
Alex Rader/The Fiscal Times
The 2020 census faces possible delay as the Supreme Court sorts out the legality of a controversial citizenship question added by the Trump administration. Tracy Gordon of the Tax Policy Center notes that in addition to the basic issue of political representation, the decennial population count affects roughly $900 billion in federal spending, ranging from Medicaid assistance funds to Section 8 housing vouchers. Here’s a look at the top 10 programs affected by the census:
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Playing the blame game
— Psychochild @ 2:06 AM
It’s the eternal question: When something goes wrong, who (besides yourself, of course) is to blame? In the corporate world, the term “blamestorming” is used to describe a meeting where people try to assign the blame to someone else.
Game development is no different. Sometimes games don’t “live up to their potential”, or some other euphemism meaning “didn’t make the piles of money desired.” Who is at fault? Unfortunately, while the answer might be useful to avoiding the problem again, it’s not always easy to come up with the solution. And, this isn’t just because people prefer to blame others rather than take a long, hard look at themselves.
So, who really is to blame?
Those who have too much fun
In what I can only hope is an attempt at trolling, Tobold complained that game developers have too much fun. He references some comments that Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, made about how “The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.” All work and no play make Jack a highly productive resource, I guess.
Tobold’s argument is that developers have too much fun making the game and thus shun the “unfun” parts like QA and bug fixing. Given that my first advice to people wanting to get into game development is making games is not the same as playing games, I will disagree with this. Anyone expecting game development to be all, er, fun and games is not going to last long. To an outsider the idea of game developers playing MMOs and having nerf gun wars may be a popular conception, it’s not the case. The nerf guns are there because after 12+ hours of being at work you need to blow off some steam or you’ll blow up at everyone.
No serious game developer who has lasted more than a few months making games is going to say the process of making games is “too fun”. Everyone knows there has to be some part of the job that’s going to suck, like chasing down that one last impossible bug. You don’t get into an industry that has long hours, crap entry-level pay, and high burnout without some sort of resolve.
Uh oh, time to make every PR person out the cringe. Am I insulting my current and potential customers? Will I ever get a job in game development ever again?
But, let’s face it, sometimes the players do make the game suck. In the realm of single-player games you have the “pirates” who would rather rip off any game, regardless of if it’s a big, nasty corporation or some indie dev who depends on people paying for his game to keep his family fed. Take a look at the comments when a developer speaks in favor of protecting his games to see how people turn wanting free stuff into an ideological crusade. Pirates take resources away from just focusing on making a fun game. (Note: Screeds about DRM or piracy in the comments will most likely be removed. Go post on Jeff’s blog, he’s the one that opened this can of worms.)
In multiplayer games, particularly MMORPGs, your experience is influenced by others. The guy spouting racist epithets over voice chat harms your experience and eventually the reputation of the service as a whole. The gold farmer monopolizing a spawn that happens to also be a quest target is frustrating. Or perhaps your nemesis is the “10 gld plz its not mcuh 2 u plz” beggars who hound you in the main cities.
Of course, in situations where people can more directly affect you, such as PvP, the problems increase. A good PvP game requires a really good community. Unfortunately, PvP tends to attract the type of people that aren’t good for the community; they aren’t the majority, but they are a significant force. When people have to worry about more directly about intimidation, spying, and some some random schmuck ruining their day, the you start to see other players as obstacles instead of fellow travelers in the game.
Sadly, this is a case where one bad apple really can spoil the whole thing. There are a lot of kind, wonderful, patient, sharing people you meet in a game. But, one asshole harassing you at the wrong time is all it may take to make you leave the game ind disgust. The power of larger numbers doesn’t always work the way you might hope. Once a few of the good people leave, then there are a fewer people around to counter-act the effects of those bad apples.
Of course, we should look at developers as the culprits, right? They do, after all, create the game and are most directly responsible for it being complete and fun. As Tobold pointed out, if the developers shirk their duties, then the game can end up sucking.
Of course, I’m a developer. And, as I’ve said, people rarely want to take the blame themselves. This isn’t a mea culpa blog post. Sorry M59 fanatics who hate me with the burning passion of a thousand white hot suns.
The most obvious response is that there are often extenuating circumstances. I know from first-hand experience that even if the previous developer is a smart guy, there are always going to be ugly parts to the project. And, smart guys have their off days (or periods of learning how to code in a proprietary scripting language….)
You also have the team factor. A team of artists working their fingers to the bone don’t matter if the programmers can’t deliver on what was specified. A project at 3DO hit an unhappy roadblock when the artists were told the programmers couldn’t make enemies “fly” in the game late in the development cycle. This means that all the neat flying enemies wouldn’t go in, and the artists had to rush to put in new enemies to fill the gap. Even if 3DO’s projects weren’t all on unrealistic timelines by that time, it was an impossible situation no matter how bright the people were.
Of course, then there’s the developer’s favorite target…
Or, “the publishers” for developers who have a publishing contract. Really, what can’t be blamed on the pointy-haired bastards?
Sometimes people ask why managers get blamed when things go badly, but developers take the credit when things go well. That’s the harsh reality of entertainment. If you go to a concert and the lighting is poor, you don’t say, “Wow, the band really sucked!” If the lighting is perfect, you are likely to have a better impression of the band and maybe not even spare a thought for the person in charge of lighting. Even if the band’s performance didn’t change, your opinion of the experience changes and you don’t necessarily give credit where credit is due.
It’s the same thing with games. If the game goes well, the manager’s work is likely to be nearly invisible. Making sure the resources are available to complete the project, making sure the different parts are done and working together, and resolving problems that spring up between different people happens beyond the view of the end user. On the other hand, there can be some bone-headed management maneuvers that do hurt a game quite visibly: Setting and sticking with a shipping date that is too early, cutting necessary resources like QA testing, not providing enough marketing funds for the project, or any of a lot of other problems can hurt a game. It relates to the team problem again: even if all the developers are working hard to do everything they can, a few management blunders can make all that hard work moot. Of course, when things go well it is often the management who is most handsomely rewarded financially, so it tends to balance out.
One problem with blaming a faceless group (and this goes for developers, too), is that it’s just so easy. “The managers fucked it up” is a lot easier to spout off than naming a specific name. One time while at 3DO I was talking to an M59 player they complained about how “the programmers” were screwing up the game. I explained to him that I pretty much was “the programmers” so he was saying I did a terrible job. He became much more subdued after that. Developers don’t name names because that waste of oxygen who screwed the project over may still be your boss the next company you work for.
The nature of game development
Perhaps the blame doesn’t always lie with a person. I’ve said before that the problem with game development is that fun is not easily quantifiable. If you program a calculator, you can see if it works pretty easily. If you program a game, determining if it is “fun” is much harder, especially if you’re a small developer with few resources.
Plus, fun is not universal. As I mentioned recently, I enjoy inventory management. I don’t know why, because my desk is a mess of stacked paper and other stuff; I have a roll of duct tape next to my stuffed Mickey Mouse in his Sorcerer’s Apprentice outfit. (I’m not using them together, they’re just there on my desk!) So, organization isn’t exactly a way of life for me. Perhaps that’s why I like organizing things in the game, because it’s more controllable for me. At any rate, putting in lots of inventory management is probably not a good idea, even if some of us crazies do enjoy it.
Who is really to blame?
Every project that “doesn’t live up to expectations” is unique. You can’t always say one thing or the other is to blame. Possible solutions to one problem (like “take all the fun out of making video games”) may bring other problems much later (like “franchise fatigue”).
The real reason we want someone to blame is because nobody wants to stare failure in the face. If your favorite MMO is being closed down, you want somewhere to throw blame. If your favorite game doesn’t live up to the press it got before release, you want someone that is at fault.
But, whomever it was, it certainly wasn’t me at fault.
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One of the things I don’t think you mentioned about players is that they are terrible at saying what it is that they actually want. They aren’t bad at telling you whether they are happy or unhappy, but the changes they suggest will often make them unhappier because of unforseen consequences.
And then there’s the “silent majority” problem. A group of players will be agitating for some change, let’s say they want to turn the sky pink, because blue sky sucks, let’s face it.
So eventually, you “do what the customers want”, and turn the sky pink. All the people who liked blue sky and don’t read forums are now really unhappy. Pointy hair can be involved in this one, too.
Comment by Toldain — 19 September, 2009 @ 6:59 AM
To go along with players being poor at really knowing and explaining what they want, is the perception of what is wanted. It’s so many times removed from the player-base to conception, design and implementation, even the best of intentions can go wrong in the telephone game way – too many times removed from the original desire. And there’s no one to blame there, it’s a fact of life. What you want and what I think you want, can be orders of magnitude different. Now multiple that by millions of players and potential players, and it’s easier to see how starting out to make a great game that people will want, can still end up in the pisser.
Comment by Saylah — 19 September, 2009 @ 7:51 AM
Tobold’s post was a reaction to Lum’s reporting of Kottick’s words and a slew of comments afterwards agreeing with Lum.
I think he just wanted to make the point that what we are all here for is to make the players have fun, a point which may have been slightly lost chez Lum where most commentators were mostly outraged industry people.
I think where Kottick was coming from is he was addressing a roomful of money men and he wanted to distance himself from the antics of Richard Garriott (who bought himself a spaceflight while his game went under) and Brad McQuaid.
Garriott and McQuaid gave the impression to people outside the industry of fiddling while Rome burnt. That may not be a fair perspective but it is I think how many non-industry people perceived it at the time.
Additionally there are jokes, like a recent Control-Alt-Delete
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20090916
about Blizzard and their mountain of gold.
Now some of those money men will remember 1999 and getting burned on the dot com crash. In some ways today’s gaming boom is very reminiscent of back then (particularly the tendency of some people in the industry to cite number of visitors as proof of success not the actual amount of money being made).
Finally there are games where it really does seem like the developers put the players second. In SWG I used to love doing missions all day. Now missions are capped at about 10 in an attempt to force you to do the themeparks (quest chains) that later developers have added to the game. It really feels like don’t do the old stuff (which you like) do my stuff (which sucks). A clear example of a live team being selfish.
I don’t think Kottick’s remarks are acceptable and I suspect he is hastening the departure of his most able staff (and the moneymen are shrewd enough to know it). Seeing him would not encourage me to invest my capital in his company although with 4 new Blizzard releases (SC2, D3, Cataclysm and new MMO) due in the next 24 months or so he can say anything and his company will still make money in the short to medium term.
It’s also perfectly possible that the impression he gave is not actually reflective of life at Activision, what he says to his financiers may not accurately reflect how he and his management team actually operate.
Personally I think the only sane goal is to have a product that is a blast both to play and to work with.
Comment by Stabs — 19 September, 2009 @ 8:28 AM
One of the things people complained a lot about on FFXI is that the developers didn’t seem to play the game. I think this is also an aspect of a problem.
It’s related to Toldain’s comment. The reason why the developers make the pink sky seems to me to usually be because they don’t play with the general population enough to see that most like the blue sky. They act at the system level of mechanics and data, but they rarely see how it affects the population except through the community team giving them summed up forum reports.
Of course I’m not a dev, and have little idea if they do go out in fact and play. But I have seen some developer updates in the games I play that make me wonder if they really understand the game from a player standpoint. I think that can contribute to a game’s failure if so.
With players its tough because people will like your game for many reasons and be at odds with each other. If your game is too successful at catching a wide net it may be hard to successfully update the game. Each faction will have different needs and your time and effort is very limited.
Comment by Dblade — 19 September, 2009 @ 8:39 PM
Stabs wrote:
Yeah, I know that. The reaction on Lum’s site was exactly what it should have been. To look at Activision’s recent success story, Guitar Hero: that didn’t come about because the developers at Harmonix were not having fun. Rather, it came about because the developers were passionate about music and gaming and found a way to combine the two. The story about coming up with the mechanism for “star power” shows how important it is for developers to have fun making the game, because it leads to good ideas. Scott/Lum, being a game developer, knows the truth. Tobold, not being a game developer, seemed to be spouting off with an uninformed opinion, to be polite.
Now, sure, maybe Mr. Kotick was talking to investors or maybe taken out of context, but this strikes me as a way to make the good developers stay away. I make games rather than do business programming or any other career because I need to create. Telling me that a job at your company is intended to be enforced drudgery is a good way to make sure I don’t work at that company. I’m not alone in that assessment.
Dblade wrote:
[Developers] act at the system level of mechanics and data, but they rarely see how it affects the population except through the community team giving them summed up forum reports.
This may be true for some people, but I think the problem is much simpler in many cases. The problem is which players do you listen to? In the “pink sky” example above, there were players asking for the change. Do you treat it like an echo chamber it is? If so, then you’re “not listening to something everyone wants.” The forum warriors aren’t going to believe that they’re the minority when demanding a change.
But, if you ignore any suggestion that comes from a minority, you really will miss some suggestions the majority would support. Your playerbase isn’t going to get together as a coherent majority and make suggestions. You’re going to get them from bits and pieces. And, yes, sometimes the developers are going to look at it from a purely systems point of view; that is what they do for a living, after all. Especially when talking about something aesthetic (like a literal pink vs. blue sky issue would be), the developer may not see a real difference in how it affects the game. But, of course, this could be a subtle hot-button issue that brings ardent supporters out. It could also be a bandwagon issue that people become part of in order to “get together as a team” with others. The dangers of having a highly social medium….
Comment by Psychochild — 20 September, 2009 @ 1:53 AM
/AFK – Sept 20
[...] Psychochild demands “Whose responsible this!” Find out! [...]
Pingback by Bio Break — 20 September, 2009 @ 6:05 AM
I’m less interested in laying blame than I am in fixing problems. If that means someone’s ego gets bruised, it’s not my first concern. That said, when I tried to make some changes in my current project’s workflow, I was met with far too many egos to actually effect the change. Funny how that works out, and how it means that I’m less interested in suggesting changes in the future. I think that’s an unhealthy feedback loop, and the blame game gets in the way of real solutions.
As to Kotick, I will never work for him if he maintains that mindset. Working in games is already an underwhelming proposition, but intentionally looking to make it worse doesn’t sit well with me. I’m still amazed when I see suits who don’t seem to have learned from the ea_spouse kerfluffle.
That said, I’ve worked in games for a while now, and seeing how some of the best devs are gamers themselves, it isn’t unheard of to find them a wee bit distracted from getting things done. There is such a thing as a corporate culture of too much *distracting* fun… but I’d not say that game devs are unique in that respect. It’s human nature, especially among creative types. I respect a leader who can turn that fun to productive ends in a bit of management aikido, but I pity (and ultimately disrespect and ignore) a leader who thinks that devs having fun is something to min/max out of the system.
Comment by Tesh — 20 September, 2009 @ 12:39 PM
Tesh wrote:
I’m less interested in laying blame than I am in fixing problems.
Agreed. You’ll notice I ran down the list, and while I didn’t go into excruciating depth about why game developers deserved to be wiped out with a plague, I didn’t just focus on one area. If there’s a meta-lesson to learn here, it’s that there isn’t any one particular place to lay the blame. Most of the time the problem is like a death by a thousand paper cuts: no one cut was mostly responsible, but they all affected the outcome in some way.
[It] isn’t unheard of to find [developers] a wee bit distracted from getting things done.
True, and as you point out this isn’t limited to game developers. One thing I’ll point out is that most areas of game development are creative in nature. Not everyone can just sit at their desk and *BAM!* creativity emerges. A recent post by author Charlie Stross points this out about writing:
Writing fiction for a living is an odd occupation. Before you get around to hitting the keyboard, you spend a lot of time staring out of the window, playing Solitaire (well, not me: but it’s the principle that counts), and daydreaming. This is, in actual fact, an essential part of the job — letting your introspection off the leash with the fruit of your imagination. If you don’t get your random daydreaming time in, the product is poor.
The later part of the post talks about where the drudgery starts, though, just like it does for the rest of us creative types in our own work. But, the point remains: we’re valuable for our imagination and creativity. Despite however much managers would love to have hit-makers who work to a perfectly-timed schedule, that’s not how creativity works. That’s certainly not how the problems we often face work, either.
Sometimes a difficult design issue doesn’t resolve itself immediately. Sometimes a tricky programming challenge just can’t be solved by thinking harder/smarter. (Not sure if there’s an artist equivalent, you would know better in that regard.) Really bright people, and that includes many game developers, will be working on a problem even if they’re not staring intently at a blank computer screen. I often go for short walks to help work out my problems. Others fire up a game. Yes, sometimes that “15-minute break” turns into “a marathon session (of *gasp* Peggle)”. Someone who does that too often needs to be managed better (or, if independent, find better motivation), not told “No more fun, EVER!”
*chuckle*
Indeed, there are artist equivalents. I always have a small sketchbook and several pens handy, for instance, for when I need to do something different.
The trouble comes when one gets too distracted (learn self control!), but knuckling down from on high doesn’t do much to help that. It tends to foster resentment more often than not. Imagination and creativity need constraints to be productive (you can’t think outside the box without a box), but too many constraints kill the process. It’s a balance.
(Oh, and if you work at some studios, there are further creativity stiflers. EA, for instance, has legal claim on any work you do, even outside of the office, that might even remotely pertain to a game design they could make money off of. That means no indie projects if you’re an employee. That’s bad form, in my mind, but I’m sure it made sense to some idiot in a corner office.)
Comment by Tesh — 21 September, 2009 @ 8:02 AM
EA, for instance, has legal claim on any work you do, even outside of the office, that might even remotely pertain to a game design they could make money off of.
And, actually, that’s not true in California. The state has laws that protect employees from these types of claims, so you own any work you do outside of the office, as long as you do not use company resources to do the work. Some people believe this specific law is why California has a strong entrepreneur base, lots of startups, and why Silicon Valley has thrived.
But, yeah, sometimes the dollar signs obscure logic and reality.
Comment by Psychochild — 21 September, 2009 @ 1:05 PM
Brian, that misses my point a little. Maybe an example will help.
Lets say the popular forums say “Ranger is overpowered.” When friday comes around, and the time I set for my developers to play the game on normal servers with normal characters comes (paid of course) I say “hey, looks like we are getting a lot of noise about rangers. While you play take a look, /search to see how many there are, and you people levelling them see how fast you get parties or get asked to do events.”
The developers go out, and notice that while the rangers get invites fast, very few people play them because ammo costs so much, and other classes get invited relatively quick. They can ignore forum posts safely.
However if the devs have been playing, and notice that everyone wants rangers only for things across servers, and quite a few of them playing other jobs cant even find parties, then the forum ranters may have a point. If the servers have a ton of bandwagon rangers, its critical.
Or they may pick up on things that the data wont show. In FFXI black mage is like the third most played job, so you’d think it would be okay right? However if they played the game, they’d realize they cant find a single black mage in experience parties, Why? Most BLM are already at max level in endgame, and because of many reasons (making mobs that resist magic while being pushovers to meelee was a huge one) the few that level it up have to solo to cap.
We are often contradictory as players, I do agree. But it’s not that simple because those in charge of responding to them have no sense of context since they may not even be involved in the game’s social life. I’d seriously pay my staff, all of them, to pay the game on company time to have that.
Going off on a bit of a tangent here, but it’s interesting to talk about. ;)
“hey, looks like we are getting a lot of noise about rangers. While you play take a look, /search to see how many there are, and you people levelling them see how fast you get parties or get asked to do events.”
Understand that you’re describing two different things here: playing the game and using (limited) data to see a trend. Playing the game would entail the developers playing the Ranger class and comparing it with another class. In the case of class balance, however, the real issue is likely to be perception rather than a direct comparative imbalance.
(That’s the problem with picking an example, the “real reason” may be something completely separate from what you wanted to point out!)
I think this is the core of the issue, in that sometimes the issue is player perception. If Rangers are perceived as overpowered, but the reality is that players don’t often play the class due to ammo costs, ignoring the problem may not be the best solution. The best (but, as we’ll see, not the most popular) way to test it out is to reduce ammo costs and see if everyone then flocks to the Ranger class as being tremendously overpowered. If not, then there truly is no problem. However, reducing ammo costs when the board warriors are crying about the class being too powerful is a great way to make sure people hate you for “not listening” and “boosting an already too powerful class”. Nerfing the class when it does prove to be too powerful will upset the people who rolled the flavor of the month.
At this point, it essentially becomes about community management. How can you look like you are listening while not upsetting even more people?
Having developers play the game isn’t a cure-all, either. I joked that this comic was incorrect, it’s often the developer boosting his or her own character. Most don’t have time for spouses (unless they’re also game developers!) What you gain in understanding you’d lose in objectivity for some people. Where’s the optimal balance there? Hard to say.
Making games is hard work. There’s very little glamor in the video game business. Rarely is it ever like the fun you see in all of those misleading ads about game design offered at community colleges. At least in my experience most people in the industry aren’t lucky enough to be working at Blizzard or assigned to a project that that they are truly interested in. They show up each day, do their best and go home.
Most game critics, bloggers and players have absolutely no idea of how much blood, sweat and tears it takes to make a video game. Clever words are no substitute for credibility. Yet they can cavalierly tear apart a video game that took thousands of hours of combined effort in the blink of an eye. I say to them and pompous jackasses like Bobby Kotick, try actually creating a successful video game and then come back and we’ll talk. Life is very convenient and comfortable in your basement armchairs.
If you work in the industry you have to make your own fun and find reasons to be passionate about what you do, whatever you do. I’ve spent thousands of hours scripting video games and even though it was hard work and yes even tedious at times I still found it personally rewarding.
That said, a video game company has to have a culture and an atmosphere that is interesting and nurturing to their employees. Making great video games is an art and a craft. You can not treat artistic people like corporate drones and expect them to produce magic.
Comment by Wolfshead — 25 September, 2009 @ 10:56 PM
Brian:
It’s not always perception. Players also use metrics or their own to evaluate things, like parsers, or even sometimes the difference is so glaring people can eyeball it. Bandwagonning has to be built on something real, not just perception. It’s hard to give more examples without going into detail.
I guess my point is that you can’t always treat it as a community management issue as a developer, you also have to treat and understand it mechanically as a player that plays the game.
A really hilarious example of this was during a dev suggestion panel for FFXI. Someone had the bright idea of asking “Why don’t you make a cheese sandwich?” The players on forums groaned, but the developers went out and made a cheese sandwich item in the game, despite 90% of food being literally useless and not even sold at auction.
“Developers don’t name names because that waste of oxygen who screwed the project over may still be your boss the next company you work for.”
Yeah, I can get behind that. Dunno what prompted you to post this just a couple days after I gave a brief (and nameless) postmortem of Dungeon Runners, but you put things a lot better than I managed to. Thanks.
Comment by Matthew Weigel — 27 September, 2009 @ 9:52 PM
The first target I would pick for the failures I know of is simple: Feedback starvation
Many game developers appear to get stuck in a rut without getting useful feedback loops on their implementations. Then comes the question of who should provide feedback?
A: That depends on who you are, but everyone needs it to avoid failure.
Comment by oskar — 28 September, 2009 @ 8:35 AM
[...] make death threats.) Game developers tend to be a scary smart bunch of people for a reason. Second, game development is complex. There are a lot of different people responsible for a project. Especially at larger companies, [...]
Pingback by Psychochild’s Blog — 26 October, 2009 @ 1:43 AM
What say you all to considering a game’s failure to be the result ofa recipe of poor interdepartmental feedback, communication, and timely problem resolution that is then linked to feedback, communication, and satifaction with customers?
Sometimes when people start placing blame on one person or group of people, its not the accurate source of the problem but a symptom(s) more oft) of something else going on and being the source.
If gold farmers are being blamed for issues, what gave them the opportunity to discover the ability to farm it?
What steps were in place to detect it occuring quickly or potential for it?
What steps were expeditiously implemented once discovered so that it didnt/doesnt become a common place or wide spread occurence?
Is the gold farmer to be in blame? Yes of course they shoulder some of it, but they didnt get there alone.
Comment by Storm Revenant — 1 November, 2009 @ 3:02 AM
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Ex-Senate aide appears in court on child porn charges
CNN Supreme Court Producer Bill Mears
(CNN) - Sen. Lamar Alexander's former chief of staff appeared in court on Thursday after formally being charged with possessing and attempting to distribute child pornography.
Jesse Ryan Loskarn, 35, looked straight ahead and answered "yes" or "no" when questioned by the judge in U.S. District Court. He did not enter a plea.
Loskarn remained in custody with another hearing scheduled for Monday when bail considerations would likely be raised.
He was arrested Wednesday after a raid on his Washington home and quickly replaced by Alexander, who said in a statement that he was "stunned and surprised" by the news.
Alexander said his office was cooperating with investigators.
An affidavit from a U.S. Postal inspector included in the criminal complaint alleged Loskarn made several purchases in 2010 and 2011 from a Canadian company selling sexually explicit DVDs and streaming videos, the majority of which featured underage nude boys.
Federal investigators then said in October, child pornography files were being offered for download on an Internet peer-to-peer network linked to Loskarn's residential IP address.
It included a 28-minute video of graphic material featuring children reportedly as young as 6 years old.
The Maryland native had previously worked for two Republican House members, as well as the House Rules Committee and the Senate Republican Conference.
™ & © 2013 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.
Filed under: Congress • Lamar Alexander
Isn't this Lamar Alexander a GOP guy? Pat yourself on back, GOP. This is what republicans represent in this nation, pathetic. Shut up, all.
The Republican Party, the party of family values.
Ol' Yeller
"The Maryland native had previously worked for two Republican House members, as well as the House Rules Committee and the Senate Republican Conference."
Long time staffer of the Family Values Party, the 'I'm better than you because you all are all sinners and going to heII Party', and the now.... 'Oh yeah, what about Anthony Weiner Party'
AKA- the Hypocritical/Projectionist Party.
A True Conservative
I don't care if R or D.....fire him and jail him!
Alexander, who said in a statement that he was "stunned
Jesse Ryan Loskarn , Sen. Lamar Alexander's former chief of staff is charged with possessing and attempting to distribute child pornography.
He had previously worked for two Republican House members, as well as the had previously worked for two Republican House members, as well as the House Rules Committee and the Senate Republican Conference.
Oh my,
House Rules Committee and the Senate Republican Conference.
sonnie3
This creep need 20 years of hard time. and a large fine.
December 12, 2013 10:25 pm at 10:25 pm |
Woman In California
Another day in the mind of a republican.
"Society wants the truth!"
"Society can't handle the truth, only Google can!"
Does auto-complete work for all search queries?
Perhaps we need to look at the aggregate search data stored on the server.
December 13, 2013 03:21 am at 3:21 am |
Marie MD
Oh my, the party of family values is at it again.
jay howard
A typical Republican.... what can you expect from them? This perv should run for the Senate. The Republicans voted in a diaper wearing, hooker visiting "family man", David Vitter, and recently voted in cheating liar Mark Sanford. They love pervs.
Perhaps we need to look at the aggregate search data stored on the servers.
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Kathleen Lenski, Connie Kupka, Sheldon Sanov, Barry Socher, violins; Michael Nowak, Kazi Pitelka, violas; Paula Hochhalter, David Speltz, cellos
Quintet in C major, Op. 29 — Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20 — Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847)
October 9, 1981 — Weiss Duo (photo)
Sonata No. 1 in D major, Op. 12 No. 1 — Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Duo Sonata in A major, Op. 162 — Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)
Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 18 — Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949)
November 13, 1981 — Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Winds
David Shostac , flute; Allan Vogel, Lon Bussell, oboes; Gary Gray, clarinet; Robin Graham, Richard Todd, horns; Kenneth Munday, John Steinmetz, bassoons
Two Arias — George Friedrich Handel (1685 – 1759)
Three Fugues from “The Art of the Fugue” — Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750)
Quintet in B-flat major, Op. 56 No. 1 — Franz Danzi (1763 – 1826)
Trois Pièces Brèves — Jacques Ibert (1890 – 1962)
Divertimento No. 8 in F major, K213 — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
December 4, 1981 — Pro Arte Ensemble
Ezra Kliger, violin; Sara Behar, viola; Todd Hemmenway, cello; Greg Donovetsky, oboe
Quadro in B-flat major — Georg Philipp Telemann (1681 – 1767)
Quartet in F major, K370 — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
String Trio No. 1 in B-flat major, D471 — Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)
Serenade in C major, Op. 10 for string trio — Ernö Dohnányi (1877 – 1960)
Phantasy Quartet — Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976)
January 8, 1982 — The Pacifica String Quartet
Marjorie Kransberg, Kiki Collins, violins; Francie Martin, viola; Dane Little, cello
Quartet No. 19 in C major, K465 — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
Six Bagatelles, Op. 9 for string quartet (1924) — Anton Webern (1883 – 1945)
Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 — Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)
February 5, 1982 — The Chalumeau Trio
Kalman Bloch, clarinet; Gabor Rejto, cello; James Bonn, piano
Trio in B-flat major, Op. 11 — Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Four Pieces for clarinet and piano (1913) — Alban Berg (1885 – 1935)
Cello Sonata in D minor (1915) — Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)
Trio in A minor, Op. 114 — Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
February 27, 1982 — The New England Ensemble of Australia
Special Concert in Memory of Ann Feingold
Andrew Lorenz, violin; Janis Laurs, cello; Wendy Lorenz, piano
Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor, Op. 90, “Dumky” — Antonin Dvorák (1841 – 1904)
Trio — Talivaldis Kenins (1919 – )
Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat major, D898 (Op. 99) — Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)
March 5, 1982 — The Arianna Ensemble
Mary Rawcliffe, soprano; Carol Herman, viola da gamba; Kathleen McIntosh, harpsichord; Genette Foster, baroque violin
Four pieces — George Friedrich Handel (1685 – 1759)
With Ravish’d Ears (Alexander’s Feast)
Softly Sweet in Lydian Measure (Alexander’s Feast)
Prelude in D minor
Ma Quando Tornerai (Alcina)
Sonata No. 5 in D major (Book II of 1723) — J. F. Rébel (1661 – 1717)
Cantata, Diane et Actéon — Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683 – 1764)
Five pieces — Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695)
Dear, Dear, Pritty Youth
Hornpipe in D major
Here Let My Life
Almand (Bell-Barr)
Hark, the Ech’ing Air (The Fairy Queen)
Trio Sonata in G major — Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695)
Eilt, Ihr Stunden (Cantata No. 30) — Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750)
Fantasia in A minor, BWV904 — Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750)
Mein Glaubiges Herze (Cantata No. 68) — Johann Sebastian Bach
Meine Seele Erhebt den Herrn — George Friedrich Handel (1685 – 1759)
April 2, 1982 — Kaplan-Mayorga Piano Duo
Leigh Kaplan, Lincoln Mayorga, pianos
Fantasy in F minor, D940 (Op. 103) — Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)
Variations on a Theme of Haydn, Op. 56b — Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
Remembrance of Things Present — Eugene Hemmer (1929 – 1977)
Three Dances — Madeleine Dring — (1923 – 1977)
Danses Andalouses (1921) — Manuel Infante (1883 – 1958)
May 14, 1982 — Da Camera Players
Haim Shtrum, violin; Michael Nowak, viola; David Speltz, cello; Delores Stevens, piano
Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat major, K493 — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 19 — Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943)
Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25 — Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
June 11, 1982 — Manya Trio
Mark Kashper , violin; Armen Ksajikian, cello; Neal Brostoff , piano
Variations on a Hebrew Melody, Op. 22, for piano trio(1939) — Paul Ben-Haim (1897 – )
Trio in F major, Op. 18 — Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 – 1921)
Trio in E minor, Op. 67 — Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975)
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September 27, 1985 – Weiss Duo (photo)
This concert was dedicated to the memory of Helen Karr, past president of the South Bay Chamber Music Society.
Sonata in B-flat major, K378 — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
Sonata in E minor, Op. 82 — Edward Elgar (1857 – 1934)
Sonata in A major — César Franck (1822 – 1890)
October 11, 1985 — The Fine Arts Brass Quintet
Anthony Plog, Burnette Dillon, trumpets; James Sawyer, trombone; J. Alan Johnson, bass trombone; James Atkinson, horn
Fanfare from La Péri — Paul Dukas (1865 – 1935)
Two Renaissance Madrigals, transcribed by Irving Rosenthal
Three Chorale Preludes — Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
Two Pieces — William Brade
Quintet in B-flat major — Robert Sanders
Excerpts from Art of Fugue — Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750)
Suite No. 1 — William Schmidt (1926 – )
Suite for brass — Leonard Lebow
November 1, 1985 — The Westwood Wind Quintet
John Barcellona, flute; Peter Christ, oboe; David Atkins, clarinet; Kenneth Meyer, bassoon; Calvin Smith, horn; Virginia Mitchell, piano
Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 16, for piano and winds — Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Quintet in E-flat major for winds — Anton Rossler (1746 – 1792)
Allegro and Arioso — Ingolf Dahl (1912 – 1970)
Six Bagatelles — György Ligeti (1923 – )
Sextuor for piano and wind quintet — Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963)
December 13, 1985 — Marchand Ensemble
Patricia West Harpole, piano; Lisa Edelstein, flute; Kathleen Robinson, oboe; Stephen Piazza, clarinet; John Steinmetz, bassoon
Clarinet Sonata in F minor, Op. 120 No.1 — Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
Divertissement for oboe, clarinet, and bassoon (1954) Jean Françaix (1912 – )
Sonata Op. 14 for flute and piano (1965) — Robert Muczynski (1929 – )
Trio for oboe, bassoon, and piano (1926) — Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963)
January 17, 1986 — Ellington String Quartet
Michelle Kikuchi-Richards, Cheryl Channel, violins; Robin Ross-Davis, viola; Steve Richards, cello; with Guy Hallman, piano
String Quartet in D major, Op. 64 No. 5, “Lark” — Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809)
String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K465, “Dissonance” — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 — Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
February 14, 1986 — Greenberg Ensemble
Susan Greenberg, flute; James Smith, guitar; Jacqueline Brand , violin; Janet Lakatos, viola; Douglas Davis, cello
Trio, Op. 29 No.1 for flute, violin, and viola — Federigo Fiorello (1753 – 1823?)
Sonata da Camera for flute, viola, and guitar — Jurriaan Andriessen (1925 – )
London Trio No. 3 for flute, violin, and cello — Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809)
Sonata in A minor, “Arpeggione” for viola and guitar — Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)
Serenade, Op. 141a for flute, violin, and viola — Max Reger (1873 – 1916)
Serenade, Op. 26 (Rondo) for flute, viola, and guitar — Wenzeslaus Matiegka (1773 – 1830)
Pavanne for flute, viola, and guitar — Gabriel Fauré (1845 – 1924)
Five Renaissance Scottish Dances for flute, cello, and guitar — Peter Maxwell Davies (1934 – )
The Miller’s Dance for flute, cello, and guitar — Manuel De Falla (1876 – 1946)
Serenade in D major, Op. 8 for violin, viola, and cello — Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Ralph Morrison, violin; Cynthia Phelps, viola; David Speltz, cello
Divertimento in E-flat major, K563 — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
Prelude and Fugue in F major (arr. Mozart) — Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750)
Serenade in C major, Op. 10 — Ernst von Dohnányi (1877 – 1960)
April 11, 1986 — Trio West
Mark Baranov , violin; Barry Gold , cello; Lina Targonsky, piano
Trio in C major — Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809)
Trio in D major, Op. 70 No. 1, “Ghost” — Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
Trio in G minor, Op. 15 — Bedrich Smetana (1824 – 1884)
Delores Stevens, piano; Lynn Schubert, flute; John Gates, clarinet; Roger Lebow, cello; Yoko Matsuda, violin; David Johnson, percussion
Jazz 43 a la Tristano — Dorrance Stalvey
After Light — Robert Dick
Nocturne — Mel Powell
Interrupted Melodies — Ivan Jevtic
Theme and Variations for bowed vibraphone — Sheila Silvers
Songs of the Rubaiyat (of Omar Khayyam) — William Penn
Wind Willow Whisper… — Joseph Schwantner
Sonatine en Trio, Op. 85 for flute, clarinet, and harpsichord — Florent Schmitt (1870 – 1958)
June 6, 1986 — Mount Washington Ensemble
Connie Kupka, Brian Dembow, violins; Kazi Pitelka, Roxann Jacobson, violas; Paula Hochhalter, cello
String Quintet No. 3 in C major, K515 — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 111 — Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
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ABOUT RUSSIA / GEOGRAPHY AND NATURE / PEARLS OF RUSSIA / SPILLED BLOOD
The Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood
This marvelous Russian-style church was built on the spot where Emperor AlexanderII was assassinated in March 1881. After assuming power in 1855 in the wake of the disastrous defeat of Russia in the Crimean war against Britain, France and Turkey, Alexander II initiated a number of reforms. In 1861 he freed the Russian serfs (peasants, who were almost slaves). Within the first half of his reign military, judicial and urban reforms were undertaken and Russia became truly a capitalist country. However, in the second half of his reign Alexander II was no longer keen on continuing reforms. After a series of attempts on his life, including an explosion in the Winter Palace and the derailment of a train, Alexander II was assassinated by revolutionaries, who threw a bomb at his royal carriage.
It was decided to build a church at the spot where the emperor was mortally wounded. The church was built in 1883-1907 and was officially called the Resurrection of Christ Church (a.k.a. Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood). Most of the money for the church was donated, by the royal family and thousands of private donors. Both inside and outside, the church is decorated with unique mosaics, designed by the most prominent Russian artists of the time (V.M. Vasnetsov, M.V. Nesterov, M.A. Vrubel, etc.) and created in 1895-1907. For all the "Russian look" of the church, its main architect A. Parland was not even a Russian by origin.
The church was closed for services in the 1930s, when Bolsheviks were destroying churches nationwide. For the last 20 years it has been under restoration. The restoration work is currently near completion and the church has just reopened. A view of the church from Nevsky Prospect is breathtaking.
NOTE: In different books translations of the church's name vary. You can find Church of Savior on Blood, The Resurrection Church, The Church of the Resurrection of Christ, etc.
Location: Naberezhnaya kanala Griboyedova.
Reopened in late August, 1997 after almost 30 years of restoration.
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Occupational Tax Office
City of Morehead
Morehead is located in Eastern Kentucky, nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It was founded in 1854 by Colonel John Hargis and named after James T Morehead, a politician who served as governor of Kentucky from 1834 to 1836.
With a population of nearly 7,000, Morehead is home to Morehead State University, one of the Top 25 Universities in the South, Cave Run Lake, an amazing recreational attraction and Eastern Kentucky's largest lake, Rowan County Senior High School, a Top 100 High School in Kentucky and St. Claire Regional Medical Center, the second largest employer in the region. Morehead is located within the Daniel Boone National Forest along the Sheltowee Trace Trail and recently became the third city in Kentucky to be designated a Trail Town.
Rowan County Public Schools
The mission of the Rowan County School District is to provide individuals with sufficient knowledge and skills for lifelong learning, to have respect for themselves and others, and to become productive citizens in an atmosphere that encourages creativity, as well as physical and emotional well - being through a joint effort of the family, school and community.
Morehead State University
Morehead State University (MSU) is a comprehensive public university with robust undergraduate and graduate programs, emerging doctoral programs, and an emphasis on regional engagement. MSU aspires to be the best public regional university in the South through prioritizing student success; outcomes; academic excellence; and rankings, reputation and regional responsiveness.
Maysville Community & Technical College
More Than A School
Maysville Community and Technical College is much more than buildings and programs: we're a community where students find confidence, collaboration, compassion and success.
Morehead Utility Plant Board
The Morehead Utility Plant Board's mission is to serve our customers in a courteous and timely manner creating mutual respect while realizing that our customers are our reason for operating. We serve the customers with the following goals 1.) Safety and environment 2.) Quality 3.) Cost effectiveness
Rowan Water
Rowan Water, Incorporated was established in 1968 to serve customers outside the city limits of Morehead, Kentucky. Rowan Water, Inc started with a couple hundred customers and has now grown to over 6,800 customers today. We serve Rowan, Carter, Elliot, Morgan and a few customers in Fleming. Rowan Water also sells water to Olive Hill and Fleming Water.
The Rowan County Health Department
The Gateway District Health Department exists to protect people's health and well being. Through our programs and services, we hope to prevent injury and illness, promote good health practices, keep the environment safe and clean, and help you enjoy a long, high quality, and healthy life. If you need to contact us about our programs and services, you may call us at our district office or at any of our four county health centers. Rowan County Health Center: 606-784-8954
Morehead Tourism
Whether you're a Fortune 500 company looking to expand or a high-tech startup, MMRC is the place for you. Our region features a full spectrum of businesses ranging from automotive supplies, retail distribution and logistics to custom manufacturing. We have an educated workforce, premium infrastructure, and rural atmosphere close to modern conveniences. We are home to Morehead State University, Rowan Campus of the Maysville Community & Technical College, and one of the nation's best public school districts, as well as St. Claire Regional Medical Center. Our recreational areas include Cave Run Lake and The Daniel Boone National Forest. Our region is certainly a great place to work, live, and play.
Clyde A. Thomas Regional Airport
Opening in 2007, we're Kentucky's newest public airport serving the needs of local, state, and national air traffic including business jets with: A 5500 ft. runway; Modern office facilities with visitor and pilot lounges, and conference room; Full service and 24 hour self-serve 100LL and Jet A fuel, AWOS 3, 24 T-Hangars, 10 tie-down spots, Courtesy car.
The FBO is open 7 days a week providing:
Aircraft maintenance, Flight instruction (private, instrument, commercial), Aircraft rental and Other assistance as needed.
Morehead and Rowan Co. Chamber of Comm.
Morehead and Rowan County serve as a regional hub. We service over 100,000 people in health care, education, recreation and retail. That means we are the economic development hub and boast a strong workforce. We live in a community strategically located next to Interstate 64 in Eastern Kentucky that is within 6 hours to over 50% of the national population. We are proud to offer the following to those who live here or are interested in our area:
Closed all State Holidays
Contents Copyright © 2019, All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Contents maintained by the Webmaster
Rowan County Fiscal Court · 600 West Main Street · Morehead, KY 40351 · (606)784-5151
Web Site Design and Maintenance · Fiscalsoft Corporation
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Netflix acquires feature doc “Quincy” from Rashida Jones, Alan Hicks
Global streaming platform Netflix has acquired a documentary about the legendary music producer, Quincy Jones. Directed by Jones’s daughter, actor Rashida Jones and Alan Hicks, Quincy will serve as an intimate portrait ...
Global streaming platform Netflix has acquired a documentary about the legendary music producer, Quincy Jones.
Directed by Jones’s daughter, actor Rashida Jones and Alan Hicks, Quincy will serve as an intimate portrait of the entertainment icon and provides unprecedented access into Quincy Jones’ legendary life. Weaving personal vérité moments with private archival footage, the doc presents the story of Jones, a force in music and pop culture for 70 years, transcending racial and cultural boundaries.
Beyond his own musical acclaim, Jones discovered some of the biggest talents of the past half of the century. He mentored and cultivated the careers of young talents, from 60s pop star Lesley Gore to the legendary Michael Jackson. The music mogul was also named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century.
His portfolio of accomplishments also includes seven Oscar nominations and the film academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Jones garnered an Emmy Award for his score of the opening episode of the 1977 television miniseries, Roots, and in 2016 he received a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical for The Color Purple.
The film is produced by Paula DuPré Pesmen and executive produced by Jane Rosenthal and Berry Welsh from Tribeca Productions and Adam Fell from Quincy Jones Productions.
Quincy will launch globally on Netflix on Sept. 21 and have a limited theatrical release.
“It’s rare that somebody who has lived as much life as my dad is still interested in growing and knowing the next generation,” Rashida Jones in a statement. “He is such a man of action and accomplishments, but we were so lucky to spend real time with him, to let him reflect on life and the larger picture. I feel honored to be able to share that with audiences all over the world.”
“It’s a rare opportunity to be able to present the definitive story of someone who has for over seven decades, not just influenced, but altered the course of culture. Combining his God-given creative gift with a near maniacal work ethic, Quincy Jones has done just that, marshalling every expression of the arts to their full potency resulting in everything from Thriller to The Color Purple,” added Lisa Nishimura, VP of original documentaries for Netflix. “Told through the rare and intimate lens of directors Alan Hicks and Quincy’s daughter Rashida Jones, Quincy provides a fresh and unexpected journey into this legendary life, still in the making.”
Adam Fell, Alan Hicks, Berry Welsh, Jane Rosenthal, Lisa Nishimura, Netflix, Paula DuPré Pesmen, Quincy, Quincy Jones Productions, Rashida Jones, Tribeca Productions
“13th,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race” among Primetime Emmy noms
Renewed and returning
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Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week
"All this has happened before, and it will all happen again."
- Walt Disney's Peter Pan (1953).
at August 30, 2009 2 comments:
Labels: Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week
Theme Song of the Week: She-Wolf of London (1990-1991)
at August 30, 2009 No comments:
Labels: Theme Song
Trailer: Carlito's Way (1993)
Labels: Brian De Palma
CULT TV FLASHBACK #89: She-Wolf of London: "The Juggler" (1990-1991)
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the horror genre experienced a dramatic resurgence on television thanks to syndication (and the successful path blazed by the high-rated Star Trek: The Next Generation).
This TV era gave viewers Friday the 13th: The Series (1987-1991), Freddy's Nightmares (1988-1990), Monsters (1988-1991), Dracula: The Series (1991), and also this relatively obscure one season effort, She-Wolf of London, created by genre icons Tom McLoughlin and Mick Garris.
Forecasting the birth of UPN and the WB in the mid-1990s, She-Wolf of London was designed to be the flagship program of the Hollywood Premiere Network (by Universal Studios), but things didn't work out so well. The hour-long horror series ran on WWOR Channel 9 in New York and KCOP in Los Angeles, but the series' first true national exposure occurred with a prime-time rerun on the Sci-Fi Channel in 1992. By then, of course, She-Wolf was long canceled...
She-Wolf of London invoked the title of the 1946 (Universal) horror film starring June Lockhart, but adopted a totally new premise. The 1990s series involved a beautiful American graduate student in England, Randi Wallace (Kate Hodge), who was bitten by a werewolf and therefore became one herself. The "cursed" Randi sought help with her "condition" from a local profe ssor of mythology, the erudite and initially skeptical Ian Matheson (Neil Dickson). Soon, however, Ian saw Randi's transformation with his own eyes and realized he had to help.
Accordingly, Randi moved into the Matheson family's London bed and breakfast with Ian's "Mum" (Jean Challis), his nosy Aunt Edna (Dorothea Phillips), and a young American cousin, Julian (Scott Fults). Very soon, a (subdued) romance developed between Matheson and Randi. Aunt Edna always wondered what all that howling emanating from the basement was all about...
Each week on She-Wolf of London, Randi and Ian would investigate some mythological "creature of the week" in England. They looked into a bog man ("The Bogman of Leitchmour Heath,"), zombies ("Can't Keep a Dead Man Down,") a succubus ("She Devil"), a diabolical circus ("Big Top She Wolf"), even an insane asylum ("Moonlight Becomes You.")
Created in the style of Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1975), She-Wolf of London was an old-fashioned-style series built on the sturdy pillars of character repartee, atmospheric locations...and a cool monster of the week. A few years later, The X-Files would hone, evolve, and literally perfect this style of horror TV storytelling, but She-Wolf remains an interesting missing link in genre history, landing between Kolchak and X-Files.
At the time of broadcast, the series drew mostly positive reviews. Variety noted that "Hodge makes an intelligent character out of the cursed young student, and Dickson gives the professor humor, a shade of early James Mason, and an absurd air...Writers-creators Tom McLoughlin and Mick Garris have the good sense to play Randi's predicament with a semi-straight face." (October 15, 1990, page 79).
One particularly atmospheric She-Wolf of London story was entitled "The Juggler," (by Jim Henshaw; directed by Gerry Mill) and first aired on October 30, 1990....right before Halloween. Here, an ancient Satanic cult sought revenge against a British reverend, Parfrey (John Carlin) after being evicted from the Church of All Saints on All Hallow's eve. The wrathful cult leader thus summoned the (French) mythical creature called the "Bell Ringer" (or Juggler), a demon known to prey on the children of enemies. This Devil Clown thus went after Parfrey's daughter, Liza (Claudia Bryan), in part because she had been given a gold ring which focused the Devil Clown's evil attention upon her.
In the course of the episode, Ian and Randi investigated the Juggler, and young Julian -- who had fallen for Liza -- ended up in mortal danger, wearing the Juggler's ring himself. At the same time, Randi continued to learn about her "wolf" powers, here developing a keen sense of smell, that -- according to Ian -- would "tell her everything" she needed to "know to hunt" down enemies. Naturally, before "The Juggler" is done, that new ability comes in handy in stopping the villain of the week.
Heavy on slow-motion photography, classic architecture (the crypts underneath the church...), Dickensian-style apparitions, and misty, gloom-laden night shooting, the story of "The Juggler," -- the so-called "Devil Clown," -- shows off the solid production values of She-Wolf of London, which were far superior to contemporary American-lensed efforts like Freddy's Nightmares or Monsters. The pace of "The Juggler" is a bit slow and plodding by today's standards, but like most She-Wolf episodes, it nonetheless boasts a palpable love for the classic movies of the genre, and develops in a manner that respectfully pays tribute to them.
After approximately a dozen episodes as She-Wolf of London, the entire series relocated to Los Angeles and became known for the last half-dozen shows as Love & Curses. This continuation featured an increased concentration on romance and humor over the serious horror. Today, both iterations of this syndicated one-season wonder remain unavailable on DVD, but some die-hard fans still remember She-Wolf of London with real devotion.
Labels: about horror, cult tv flashback, cult-tv flashback
CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Carlito's Way (1993)
"The Street is watching. She is watching all the time."
-Carlito (Al Pacino), in Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way (1993)
Al Pacino has portrayed more than his share of cinematic gangsters over the years, from Michael Corleone in Coppola's classic Godfather trilogy to the cocaine-addled Tony Montana in De Palma's own incendiary (and brilliant...) Scarface (1983).
Yet it is Pacino's Carlito Brigante, in Carlito's Way (1993), whom I personally find the most haunting. Perhaps that's because Montana was but a despicable thug who spiraled into utter madness and self-destructive violence. And the powerful Corleone was a man who had everything...but nonetheless permitted his paranoia, secrecy and quest for legitimacy to destroy the things (and people) he valued most.
Or perhaps it is because, of all of these flawed individuals -- Carlito Brigante remains the one man who came nearest to authentic redemption; to escape. To a throwing off of the role destiny had so cruelly carved out for him.
Viewing De Palma's Carlito's Way again last evening, I realized that my enduring identification with Carlito or "Charlie" was no mere accident or happenstance. Director Brian De Palma has fashioned not simply another crime drama nor film noir here, but rather -- as he did in the example of The Untouchables (1987) -- a film of authentic mythic quality: a modern day variation on the Greek Tragedy, specifically as that term is defined by Aristotle in The Poetics.
And -- since this is De Palma we're talking about -- the director vets his tragedy with dynamic, canny and meaningful imagery. Consider that Carlito Brigante dwells in a world of illusions and dreams -- the world where he miraculously "gets out" and "escapes to paradise." Accordingly, in many important shots, De Palma utilizes reflections in mirrors to indicate that Carlito is no longer entirely part of the sleazy world he inhabits...but rather the world he dreams about. He is half-in and half-out of "the Street," and as we see, that's not a good place to dwell. Not until the end -- and his tragic death -- is escape actually tangible for Carlito; is paradise a colorful, living thing where he can, finally, truly, let down.
Once more, I appear to be in a small (if vocal...) minority in my appreciation for a sterling De Palma film. Regarding Carlito's Way, Rolling Stone complained, for instance, that "there's a secondhand feel to the way this gangster movie delivers the goods." The Washington Post lamented: "Watching "Carlito's Way," all you can think is, "Brian, why aren't you over this gangsters and guns and blood stuff yet?"
Imagine -- just imagine for one second -- a film critic suggesting the same thing to director Martin Scorsese after Mean Streets, Good Fellas and Casino. Come on Marty, what's with all the gangsters, huh? Grow up, Scorsese, why don't you?
In my opinion, many critics missed the boat with Carlito's Way. If viewed within the framework of Greek Tragedy -- the film emerges as one of the best and most affecting gangster films ever produced. It concerns, literally, the full breadth of a gangster's "way." And how that "way" -- ultimately -- proves a fatal trap.
This Dream of Mine is So Close I Can Touch It
In accordance with film noir tradition, Carlito's Way commences with a voice-over narration. It is spoken by Carlito himself (Pacino) -- our main character -- as he flashes back from his death bed (a paramedic's stretcher rolling through Grand Central Station...) to describe for the audience how he came to his untimely demise.
The legendary Latino gangster reflects on the final year of his life: 1975. He was unexpectedly released from a prison sentence of thirty years duration due to prosecutorial malfeasance. His feisty, corrupt lawyer, David Kleinfeld (Sean Penn), was the man who arranged his freedom. And because Kleinfeld "saved" him in this fashion, Carlito feels he owes the slick attorney a huge debt.
Yet after five years in prison, Carlito no longer desires to return to the mean streets of the city as an "assassin" and "purveyor of Narcotics." He has gone straight...retired, and wants to chart a new, clean path. Among other things, he re-establishes his relationship with an aspiring dancer: the beautiful and sexy Gail (Penelope Anne Miller).
But fate has plans for Carlito. Soon after Brigante's release, David asks Carlito to oversee one of his floundering investments, a disco club called "El Paraiso," where the owner, Ron Saso is skimming money. Meanwhile, another thug -- the up-and-coming Benny Blanco (John Leguizamo) -- is desperate for Carlito's approbation. But after a violent altercation between Kleinfeld and Blanco, Carlito makes a mistake. Instead f killing the trouble-making Blanco, Carlito lets him go.
And then, finally, Kleinfeld manipulates Carlito into a half-backed scheme to exact revenge against a Mafia, family, the Taglialuccis. When that scheme turns to bloody, brutal murder, Carlito realizes his only chance for survival is escape. "You killed us," he tells David, realizing that the mob will now hunt him down.
With $75,000 dollars in savings, a desperate Carlito arranges to meet the pregnant Gail at Grand Central Station, where -- God willing -- they will board a train bound for Miami. From there, it's the Bahamas...and a new life. But en route to the train station, Carlito must contend with betrayal, theft, vicious pursuit, the Taglialuccis and an unseen enemy he had not counted on...
Everything I Hoped For. Everything I Need
Aristotle defined "tragedy" as the tale of a great person who undergoes a dramatic reversal of fortune. In undergoing that reversal, that character's dilemma (and fate) evokes pity (meaning sympathy) and fear on the part of the audience until finally -- following the denouement -- there emerges a feeling of "cleansing" or catharsis.
And importantly, the all-important reversal of fortune is affected by something called "hamartia," a Greek word meaning a character flaw or foible. This is a critical distinction: a hero's sad fate is rendered not because of the character's intrinsic moral defects, but because of a mistake, because of some wrong action undertaken.
Eventually, in a good tragedy, the affected character comes to a final recognition about this wrong action, and experiences an epiphany about his existence; about destiny...and fate.
Let's consider Carlito's Way in light of Aristotle's definition of tragedy. Carlito is a "great person" indeed, especially in 20th century terms. He's a legendary gangster who once knew power, riches and fame. Carlito's reversal of fortune involves his arrest and incarceration. Going to jail changes Carlito in a critical way, and he loses a taste for the life that gave him "honor" and "glory" on the Street. When he is released from jail, Carlito notes that he has been "re-born" (like the Watergaters, he says...) and that he desires to start fresh.
This is not a con, nor a lie...but fact. And yet trouble finds Carlito, first in a pool hall shoot out, and then in his old associations coming back to haunt him. Still, in every meaningful way Carlito attempts to escape the pull of crime, the pull of the Street. But then, one day, Carlito -- now half-out of the "streets" -- makes a fatal mistake. He disrespects young Benny Blanco, a man described to Carlito (by Saso) as "you, twenty years ago." Then Carlito compounds that mistake by letting Blanco live following an altercation in the disco. At that moment (which De Palma's reveals in telling close-up), Blanco understands that Carlito's killer instinct is gone, and that he is ripe for the picking-off. Carlito is-- in the lingo of Blanco -- "over."
This mistake leads to Carlito's downfall and death. And certainly, this is where "fear" and "pity" both come into the picture. Let's tackle "pity" first. Gail is pregnant with Carlito's child. Carlito and Gail just want to escape the city with enough money to start a car rental business in the Bahamas. Yet Carlito can't let go of another mistake: repaying his "debt" to Kleinfeld. Gail notes in one scene that she knows exactly how this story will end, "how the dream will end:" With Carlito dead in an emergency room while she weeps over his lifeless body. Carlito's tragic end is thus predicted, and so we fear that the prophecy will come true.
De Palma generates "pity" or sympathy by devoting special care to the love story between Carlito and Gail. Critic Janet Maslin termed it "grandiose romanticism." And Zach Campbell at Slant Magazine noted that "the scenes between Carlito (Al Pacino) and Gail (Penelope Ann Miller) are touching and expertly calculated illustrations of deep-seated romantic feeling: rainy streets, late night coffee shops, dim apartments." In other words, we are meant to feel that this is more than a simple romance, but a love story for the ages. The love story befitting a "great person" like Carlito, king of thieves, and, in his own words, "The Last of the Mohicans."
The "fear" part of this Tragedy equation arrives in what is surely the greatest climactic set-piece of any De Palma film (and that's saying something, given the Odessa Steps in The Untouchables or the split-screen Prom massacre in Carrie [1976]). To the tune of "Lady Marmalade" first, -- and then some anxiety-provoking follow-up compositions from Patrick Doyle -- De Palma arranges a sustained, fever-pitched chase sequence. This set-piece takes Carlito from his bar to a train, to Grand Central Station, down an escalator, and onto a train platform.
During this sequence, the camera is continually in motion, Carlito is constantly in motion, and even the trains are in continuous motion. Carlito grapples with the Taglialuccis, Saso's surprise theft of his money, a betrayal by Pachanga, and even an obese mafioso who functions as a kind of wild card; always lagging behind the other crooks as an unwitting but dangerous rear guard.
Carlito attempts to elude his enemies at the train station, and De Palma artfully takes up his hero's stance with the camera: dodging, lunging, retreating, trailing, and cornering in what amounts to a breathless, nail-biting race. Carlito informs the audience in his voice over narration that he "is angling all over," and the same is undeniably true of De Palma's direction:.it is sterling, gorgeous and, indeed, fear-provoking. It's angling all over, lifting us like a tide into waves of tension and suspension.
This electrifying denouement is so brilliantly staged that, at first, we don't even recognize the looming danger (Benny Blanco) until it's too late. Like Carlito, we're sprinting to that finish line...to Gail -- in the distance -- waiting by the train. The first time we watch the film, we don't even notice that danger (Blanco...) runs hand-in-hand with Carlito right up until shots are fired. And again, this is form deliberately echoing content. Carlito's tragic mistake was writing off Blanco; was not seeing and sensing the danger the young hood represented. De Palma grants us a deliberate visualization of that mistake in the seconds leading up to Carlito's shooting.
In the end, after Carlito is shot, Gail's prophecy of doom is proved accurate, but in his dying instants, Carlito finds some small peace; the catharsis or cleansing of Aristotle's definition. A son (or daughter) will succeed Carlito, and -- hell -- he lasted longer than any of his colleagues thought possible. In this fateful moment, De Palma allows Carlito (and the audience), to catch a small glimpse of that evasive, elusive paradise: a travel poster hanging on the wall of Grand Central Station. The poster reads "Escape in Paradise" and it is the only image in the frame to be shot in living, vibrant color. Everything else is gloomy black and white.
Suddenly, the dancer rendered on that travel poster becomes Gail -- in Carlito's eyes -- and begins to spin...free. She starts to dance. A gorgeous sunset looms behind her...and as the movie ends, the lovers' theme song ("You Are So Beautiful") underscores the feeling that all is not lost, or hopeless. Gail (and her child) will go on with the $75,000.00 dollars. Carlito didn't escape the streets, but his child will. The cycle of poverty and violence that gave rise to Carlito and his mistakes will, finally, be shattered, in his progeny.
Didn't You Ever Have a Dream? If You Can't Get In, You Don't Get In...
De Palma provides us a number of visual indicators that Carlito dwells in a different world than the criminal associates who interact with him.
For instance, as Carlito confronts the corrupt Saso early in the film, we see Carlito framed inside a mirror. And when Carlito deals with the treacherous Lalin (Viggo Mortensen) in his office -- again -- we see Carlito positioned inside the confines of mirror. This is a pervasive visual indicator that Carlito is "through walking on the wild side," just as he claims; that he is different from those men he still associates with. He is noble...they are not.
Finally, when Carlito allows his sense of "debt" to Kleinfeld to get the better of him, we again view Carlito framed in the mirror -- alongside Gail -- staring at himself. Angry over Gail's prediction of doom, he shatters the mirror with his fist. Carlito's destruction of the mirror (and his reflected image there) suggests that Carlito is no longer separate from the corruption of the Street (and from men like Lalin and Saso); that this venture with David (a prison break involving the Taglialucci's) will make him, again, a criminal. It will be his undoing.
In other words, the "mirror" image represents the good world -- the place Carlito wishes to dwell...but can't. When Carlito visits Gail in her apartment, he gazes at her -- the madonna -- in a mirror too, meaning that she is part and parcel of that world he can't attain or keep. He is separated from Gail and that world, incidentally, by a door and a chain too...another obstacle blocking his entry to "paradise."
Carlito's Way is dominated by brilliant and subtle visual touches such as these. For instance, on your next viewing pay attention to Benny Blanco's wardrobe and the way in which it changes and evolves each time he re-appears. At first, Benny seems a pretentious, unimportant clown (especially with the alliteration of his name: Benny Blanco from the Bronx!). Later, his wardrobe grows serious...as his threat to Carlito turns serious. And I also admire the way the film sets up Kleinfeld and Carlito on opposite/mirrr reflection paths. Carlito is the gangster trying to go straight; Kleinfeld is the "straight" man (an attorney) becoming a gangster.
It's impossible not to be swept away in Carlito's tragedy. Even though his fateful ending is a foregone conclusion, you still find yourself rooting for his success. The most admirable quality about Carlito, perhaps, is that he never stops reaching for that better life. Unlike Montana or Corleone, Carlito's "way" doesn't involve killing people, peddling drugs or broaching robbery. His "way" to a better future is closer to our way -- keeping his nose clean, minding his own business and working hard. That's the American dream and that Carlito's dream. In the end, that dream is something he's denied, and one composition in the film captures that failure. It features Carlito at war with gangsters, the American flag perched behind him on the wall. A study in contrasts: violence in the foreground; beauty and liberty in the background.
I suppose I identify with Carlito because he doesn't seek fame or power...he just wants to pursue personal happiness. De Palma's success in Carlito's Way is that he makes the audience identify with this gangster and his dream in a way uncommon for the bloody genre. Even Carlito's death brings about the pity of Aristotle's tragedy. "Sorry boys," Carlito tells the paramedics (in his mind), "all the stitches in the world can't sew me together again. Lay down... lay down."
And then, finally, Carlito contemplates Gail, the woman left behind. "No room in this city for big hearts like hers... Sorry baby, I tried the best I could, honest... Can't come with me on this trip."
It seems to me that carping movie critics could have made room in this city for a De Palma film like Carlito's Way.
One with a big heart.
Labels: Brian De Palma, cult movie review
Coming Soon: Ken Russell: Re-Viewing England's Last Mannerist
Very shortly, Ken Russell: Re-Viewing England's Last Mannerist (Scarecrow Press; 2009), will become available for purchase. This new, hardcover book is a collection of essays about the artist behind such controversial movies as The Devils (1971), Tommy (1975), Crimes of Passion (1984) and Whore (1991). The anthology has been assembled and edited by Kevin Flanagan, maestro of GameCulture Journal, dedicated Russell historian, and film scholar.
The critical anthology features essays by writers John C. Tibbetts, Barry Keith Grant, Paul Sutton, Brian Hoyle, William Verrone, Brian Faucette, and Thomas Prasch.
For Part IV: Critical Re-Considerations, I also contributed a piece, entitled "As the White Worm Turns: Ken Russell as God and Devil of Rubber-Reality Horror Cinema," which gazes at Russell's considerable impact on the genre in the 1980s with such efforts as Altered States (1980), Lair of the White Worm (1988) and, to a lesser-extent, Gothic (1986).
Here's a (very short) snippet of my work, which defines the nature of "rubber reality" and relates to Russell's visual style:
"In films of this genre sub-type, the dramatis personae easily, and in trademark Russell fashion, glide between alternate realities, often quite indiscernibly to audiences. There is often no traditional scene transition between these parallel “modes” of reality and fantasy. The phantasms of the unconscious and subconscious mind are often physically externalized as tangible and tactile. Furthermore, state-of-the-art special effects breakthroughs create these fantasy domains (in miniature, in matte paintings, etc.), just as in Altered States.
I've long admired Ken Russell and his bold visual imagination, so it was a great pleasure to be involved in this study and re-evaluation of his cinematic output and his career. Soon, I'll be interviewing Kevin Flanagan here on the blog about his new book, about the essays inside it, and about Russell's place in film history. Stay tuned!
CULT TV FLASHBACK #88: Automan (1983 - 1984)
From Glen Larson -- the man who brought the world Manimal (1983) and Nightman (1997-99) -- came this short-lived 1983 ABC series, an hour-long dramatic superhero adventure entitled Automan.
The series ran for 13 hour long episodes before untimely cancellation. The final Automan episode actually went unaired until a 1990s broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel (now Sy Fy).
This vintage series starred Desi Arnaz, Jr., as Walter Nebicher, a computer expert and nerd working at the L.A. Police Department. Nebicher dreamed of action, adventure and romance, but his cranky superior, Captain Boyd had other ideas and wanted the genius to stay at his desk in the Computer Room.
So -- in rebellious desperation -- Walter spent his free time creating a heroic, handsome alter ego, Automan (Chuck Wagner), a computerized hologram that looked, sounded, and felt real: the world's first “truly automatic man,” (hence the handle Automan.) So special was Auto that he actually considered himself perfect. “On a scale of one to 10, think of me as an 11,” he boasted in one episode.
This unique superhero didn’t wear a costume—he was the costume, and his torso glowed bright blue with powerful "holographic energy." Automan also boasted a helpful sidekick, a buzzing computerized pal called Cursor, a hologram generator that -- in the lingo of the program -- could “rezz up” anything needed to pursue the bad guys of the week, particularly customized transportation. Cursor outfitted Automan with a zippy Autocar, an Autocopter and even an Automotorcycle!
Automan also had one defensive capability in his crime-fighting arsenal. In times of extreme danger, he and Walter could merge into a single unified entity (“The Great Pretender”) to avoid death or catastrophic injury. This perfect symbiosis allowed Walter to actually become the hero he had created.
But Automan was a successful police detective for another reason: he could interface with computers and mechanical devices of all shape and sizes, including slot machines (“Staying Alive While Running a High Flashdance Fever”), thereby permitting him access to a whole new kind of “street” informant. On one occasion (“Zippers”), Auto even seduced a female super computer, scandalously boasting that he would “penetrate” her memory core! A braggart, Automan was also prone to spontaneous and bizarre declarations such as, “I suddenly sense the presence of a microchip!”
Automan even had his own Achilles heel/Kryptonite, originating from the fact that his complex program required a tremendous amount of power. Sometimes, he was unable to operate during the daytime -- when demands on the California power grid were especially high. Luckily, Auto could re-charge himself via proximity to electrical outlets, sucking nourishing power through his fingers (“The Biggest Game in Town”).
Automan’s other major weakness was a psychological foible based on his personality. Like Lieutenant Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–94), this artificial life form a literal thinker. Although he fancied himself the “finest deductive reasoner on the planet,” he did not comprehend human nature. Instead, he would sort of mindlessly receive pertinent input (often “downloads” of movies and TV series) about human nature, and then he would studiously mimic that behavior to catch the bad guys. Think Neo in The Matrix (1999)...only sillier.
In the episode “The Great Pretender,” Automan absorbed data on gangster movies such as The Godfather (1972) and out-gangstered the bad guys... as a new mob chief called “Otto.” In “Staying Alive While Running a High Flashdance Fever,” he viewed Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Flashdance (1983), and these MTV-age productions provided our hero with studly moves on the dance floor; right down to his John Travolta white-suit.
Automan and the Tinkerbell-ish/R2-D2-like Cursor represented the only fantasy elements featured on the series, and the bad guys were run-of-the-mill “crooks” and thugs. In “The Biggest Game in Town” there was a trio of gamers conducting high-tech extortion; in “Renegade Run,” a corrupt sheriff (played by the ubiquitous Richard Lynch...) threatened Walter. No costumed freaks or aliens here, thank you very much. There wasn't even an evil holographic twin for Automan to combat.
Although it was far more entertaining and droll than Manimal (Glen Larson’s other superhero series of the same vintage), Automan did not fare well in the ratings sweepstakes. It aired for one month (December) in 1983 on Thursday nights from 8:00 to 9:00 and was crushed by the competition, the mega-hit Magnum P.I. on CBS and the Nell Carter comedy Gimme a Break on NBC. Then it was shuffled off the ABC schedule until March of 1984, where it lasted barely another month on Monday nights at 8:00, this time competing against Dick Clark’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes (NBC) and Scarecrow and Mrs. King (CBS).
Still -- in some ways -- Automan seemed the right superhero at the right time. In the early 1980s, home computers had started to supplant the Atari 2600 as the technological gadget of choice in American dens, and the hologram Automan seemed tailored to prove that high-tech gadgetry was helpful and "user friendly." Unlike the Terminator, Automan showed that mankind could control his tools and harness them for beneficial purposes.
These days, Automan functions best, perhaps, as a time capsule of the 1980s. The series was surely inspired by the 1980s Disney epic, Tron, which likewise had been set in the world of computers and featured "computerized" dramatis personae and environments. Another Reagan Age touch the late Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” plays in the background of “Staying Alive While Running a High Flashdance Fever"...an episode set entirely inside a disco. And stylistically, each story culminates with a humorous (and hackneyed) “freeze frame,” an old television tradition that was lampooned in comedies like Police Squad. Also unlike TV series of today, Automan consisted entirely of interchangeable, standalone stories that could pretty much be viewed in any order desirable.
With Tron 2.0 on the horizon, I predict it's just days now before Automan is re-booted as Automan 2.0...no doubt to be directed by Bryan Singer. This time, Auto will be a shaggy-haired, brooding, anger-prone hologram...with a computer-generated hook for a hand. Or something like that...
Labels: cult tv flashback, cult-tv flashback, superheroes
CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Blow Out (1981)
"Well, the box-office failure of "Blow Out" was, I think, a tragedy for De Palma and for John Travolta -- it's just about the best work each of them has ever done. But it probably served as a warning to some of the people who might have wanted to do something politically sophisticated. It's as if people get penalized for sophistication."
- Pauline Kael, on Blow Out (1981)
If -- as Brian De Palma has famously stated -- "the camera lies 24 times a second," then how often, we must wonder, do politicians lie?
And if our national leaders lie about important things -- like life and death -- then, in some fashion, is American liberty itself...a lie? If the history we all know and learn in school is merely "comfortable" fiction, then what do all our glorious symbols (like Old Glory and the Liberty Bell) and slogans (like Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death") really signify?
In blistering, paranoid fashion, Brian De Palma's Blow Out (1981) delves deeply into this frightening conundrum. Indeed, this cerebral, Reagan-age thriller starring John Travolta and Nancy Allen focuses on a political conspiracy that stabs at the very heart of the Great American Experiment, and at the heart of American democracy itself. It depicts a country in which holding on to power is paramount, truth is irrelevant, and justice is just another loaded word.
De Palma's caustic, blunt film makes clever use of real life, historical national conspiracies and cover-ups, including the JFK assassination, the Chappaquiddick incident, and Watergate in order to spin a tale of America the Corrupt, America the Fallen, and most certainly not America the Great, post-Camelot. Intriguingly, Blow Out makes this case by focusing on the technological medium of film itself -- particularly a fictional surrogate for the Zapruder film -- as Entrenched Power's vehicle for selling "The Big Lie."
Though a dramatic failure at the box office, Blow Out remains, perhaps, Brian De Palma's most successful film in terms of critical approbation. Roger Ebert noted in his 1981 review that "this movie is inhabited by a real cinematic intelligence," and that "De Palma is more successful than ever before at populating his plot with three-dimensional characters." The late Kael, of course, lauded the film as "a great movie" in her famous New Yorker review entitled "Portrait of the Artist As A Young Gadgeteer."
With De Palma -- an incomparably skilled filmmaker who operates in several modes and genres successfully (mainstream, thriller, crime, war...) -- it's difficult to pick favorites or select one "best film" from among so many triumphs. Yet Blow Out represents something of a consensus favorite: an unimpeachable thriller rich in homage to film tradition (in this case to the canon of Michelangelo Antonioni). It's also gorgeously self-reflexive, focusing on the manipulative power of movies by taking us -- literally -- through the building blocks of film production.
And finally, Blow Out also boasts a heavily ironic use of powerful images, particularly iconic symbols of Americana. Thus the visuals brilliantly reflect and augment the film's paranoid content. Also, the ending here is particularly unforgettable: haunting, bitter and nihilistic.
The Biggest Thing Since The Zapruder Film
Blow Out is the tale of a sound expert named Jack Terri (John Travolta). Following a tragic incident in his past working for law enforcement (on the Kean Commission), Jack has retreated to crafting sound-effects for sleazy, low-rent slasher films, like his current project "Co-ed Frenzy."
Unluckily for Jack, even that job isn't going so well. He just can't find the "Perfect Scream" to accompany a shower scene murder in the horror movie. His temperamental director wants other original sounds too, because he's grown tired of library effects and "canned" material.
To appease the filmmaker, an intrepid Jack heads out by night to a remote country road and records with his microphone several new sounds: an owl hooting; a frog's call, even the night wind rustling leaves in the trees.
But then, suddenly, Jack records something sinister: the sound of a terrible car "accident." Appearing as if out of nowhere, a car races off the unlit road, into a deep creek. In seconds, it sinks beneath the placid sruface. Jack rescues one passenger, a floozy named Sally (Nancy Allen), but the driver inside the car drowns.
That dead driver turns out to be Governor McRyan, an up-and-coming politician who was about to announce his candidacy for President of the United States. All the national polls suggested that if McRyan ran for high office, he would easily unseat the current, unpopular President. If this were but a simple accident, McRyan's fate surely would be considered tragic.
But there's more to this incident than meets the eye (or ear). While listening to his sound recordings, Jack hears a very distinct gun shot precede a tire blow-out...meaning that this "accident" was actually a political assassination. Unfortunately for Jack, the authorities are not even mildly interested in this "truth." The police cover-up Sally's presence in the car that night, and fail to check the car's blown-out tire for signs of a bullet strike. Even as Jack begins to build a story of what actually occurred that terrible night by using a film of the accident photographed by the sleazy Manny Karp (Dennis Franz), officials begin to erase the real story from history. Better to settle for a comfortable lie, than expose a dangerous truth.
And worse, the villainous assassin, Burke (John Lithgow) is still nearby, cleaning up loose ends in homicidal fashion. As the Liberty Day Jubilee approaches in the Philadelphia, Jack enlists Sally to help him seek out the truth behind the conspiracy, unaware that Burke is also stalking her...killing lookalike women so that her eventual murder will be ruled part of a serial killer's psychotic pattern, not a "hit" in a far-ranging political conspiracy.
I Don't Watch The News. It's Too Depressing
Like all great art, Blow Out reflects the time period in which it was crafted. Writing for Slant Magazine in 2006, critic Paul Schrodt provides some of that historical context in his review:
"America had fallen into a deep funk by 1981—the year of Blow Out's release and Ronald Reagan's presidential inauguration. Still hung over from the Vietnam War and dealing with inflation on the brink of recession, the public's election of Reagan, on a platform of optimism, suggested a desire to move on and leave the past behind.
De Palma, as anti-establishment as ever, suggests this in itself is another lie. When Jack Terry (John Travolta) inadvertently records the assassination of a presidential candidate, everyone politely asks him to leave his conspiracy to himself. But he can't let it go....Everyone else would like to believe it was just "a freak accident," so the nation can quickly heal again. (Maybe De Palma was prescient: Five years later Reagan would secretly and illegally sell arms to Iran in order to free U.S. troops, only to then deny he ever knew about the deal, retaining his bright image.)"
In other words, what candidate Reagan was "selling" the electorate in 1980s was a "new morning in America" (post Carter-malaise) when, in fact, nothing really changed at all. As I wrote in my review of Body Double, Ronald Reagan was the all-time champion of image-making, an affable Hollywood actor skilled at saying one thing and doing another thing all together. In his inauguration, Reagan stated boldly that "Government is the problem," but during his two terms, Reagan actually grew the government dramatically. Reagan's sunny demeanor also involved a "New Patriotism," and "New Confidence" in America and its institutions, and that 1980s trend is the very image that De Palma repeatedly and successfully undercuts in Blow Out. The film is dominated by stirring images of America and American patriotism...but these images are the background for horrible, monstrous events. The symbols of American freedom are mocked, because in this setting, they are empty representations.
For instance, the finale of Blow Out is set against the backdrop of "The Liberty Bell Jubilee," the first instance in a century that the Liberty Bell has been rung. All too quickly, this patriotic parade and celebration of American history becomes an opportunity for the psychotic Burke (Lithgow) to stalk and murder Sally.
Ironically, this vicious killer views himself as a patriot, and it is strongly implied that he serves at the pleasure of the President (the man, ultimately, who would benefit from the death of McRyan). How do we know? Well for starters, Burke wears a Jubilee Button that reads "I Love Liberty" throughout the film's final sequence. It's not difficult to extrapolate that Burke is a fictionalized version of zealous, right-wing thugs such as G. Gordon Liddy, the enthusiastic criminal who was convicted for conspiracy, burglary and illegal wiretapping for his supervisory role as a Watergate "plumber" during the Nixon Era.
Liddy's mission was to keep Nixon in office, and Burke serves the same function in this fictional tale, offing the President's competition before he can prove dangerous to political continuity. Again, in real life, Giddy (who served eight years in prison for his crimes), also considered murder (of Jack Anderson) -- at least according to his own autobiography -- to preserve Nixon's hold on power. (Liddy, G Gordon, Will. St. Martins Press., 1996) pp. 208–211.
At the conclusion of Blow Out, Burke drags Sally up the steps of a grand building as glorious fireworks explode in the heavens above. Then, he strangles her to death against the backdrop of a colossal American flag.
There can be no question about the significance of these particular images. As Sally dies before Old Glory, the red, white and blue lights of the fireworks suddenly turn lurid, sleazy and ugly...soiled by those who kill in America's name. By positioning Sally's death against these powerful and patriotic symbols, De Palma successfully makes the point that the "reality" of America is very different from the glorious imagery that dominates her landscape, and inspires such fervent nationalism.
In attempting to rescue Sally, Jack accidentally runs his jeep into a storefront window that is decorated with the American legend, "Liberty or Death." This is, again, a literalization of Jack's agenda. He is in search of truth...or he will most certainly die, at the hands of a corrupt government. When Jack crashes through the transparent glass window housing that legend, he is literally crashing through the illusion of American liberty.
Even Burke's murder of a hooker in a train station bathroom is framed deliberately so as to feature a message about freedom and liberty. The most prominent object in one high-angle shot of a bathroom stall is actually a tampon dispenser decorated with the brand name "Stayfree." "Stay Free?" How can people stay free if the truth is hidden?
In Blow Out's most ironic and mocking use of iconic American imagery, Jack arrives too late to save Sally from Burke, but De Palma's camera triumphantly spins around the tragic duo nonetheless. As an "average" citizen dies below so the powerful may continue to "serve," in the heavens above fireworks explode with orgasmic glee and abandon.
The illusion of freedom and liberty are alive for all to see in the sky, even if Sally (and the truth...) die right here; their ends acknowledged only by Jack.
Sally's personal story in Blow Out also serves as a metaphor for disillusionment and disenfranchisement in America. Sally begins her journey as a disinterested observer, just minding her own business trying to make a buck any way she can. She doesn't even watch the news "because it is too depressing." When Sally finally does get involved in the "political process," in a quest with Jack to reveal the truth about this conspiracy, what happens? She is brutally murdered.
In this case, a murdered innocent in a movie may very well represent a disappointed, disillusioned electorate in real life. Most people don't get involved in politics, and those activists who do so inevitably face disappointment because things don't seem to change, or get any better. The parties in power may alternate, but the entrenched interests don't. Killing Sally in Blow Out is, essentially, killing hope in the democratic process; it's killing political involvement. From a certain perspective, there are no reak "good guys" in Blow Out because even the guy in "search of the truth," -- Jack himself -- exploits the simple-minded Sally (representing the American electorate) for his own purpose. He ruthlessly uses her for his ideological agenda...and she ends up dead, even though that agenda was inarguably noble.
Writer Rob Nelson, of Minneapolis Movies wrote about Blow Out in 1996 that:
"Jack's increasingly selfish and obsessive sleuthing reflects an '80s tide turning away from political action and toward selfishness and misogyny: A woman whom he'd saved from the crash, a makeup artist named Sally (Nancy Allen), becomes no less a pawn of Jack's scheme than the villains'. The film is full of male manipulators bound together in a vicious circle: The dead man's political rival had used Sally in an attempt to frame him; a smarmy TV news reporter manipulates Jack; and Jack in turn exploits Sally by subtly goading her into wearing a wire for her meeting with the killer...In the amazingly hyperbolic finale, DePalma conflates patriotism, dirty tricks, violence against women, and slasher movies into a single sick joke, one that's all the more dark for how fully it resonates with the real zeitgeist."
Indeed, this is where some critics detect misogyny on De Palma's part, but as I offered last week, I see this as the director's commentary on misogyny. Sally is brutally used. Buy one political side (the assassins) to discredit a "good man." She is then used by the opposition ("Jack") to get at the truth. After she ends up dead, she is, finally, used again, this time by the media. Her "perfect scream" (her scream at the moment of her death...) gets exploited by filmmakers to be enjoyed in a bad slasher film. This is a comment on exploiting women in the culture all right, but it isn't De Palma who is doing the exploiting. He's exposing the exploitation. And I don't think he's talking about slasher films either: he's talking about our predilection to be distracted by tits and ass, bread and circuses, while the business of the nation passes us by.
I Didn't Hire Her For Her Scream. I Hired Her For Her Tits
As Vincent Canby wrote in his New York Times review, "more important than anything else about ''Blow Out'' is its total, complete and utter preoccupation with film itself as a medium in which, as Mr. De Palma has said along with a number of other people, style really is content. If that is the case, ''Blow Out'' is exclusively concerned with the mechanics of movie making, with the use of photographic and sound equipment and, especially, with the manner in which sound and images can be spliced together to reveal possible truths not available when the sound and the image are separated."
Canby is correct to note Blow Out's obsession with the technical aspects of filmmaking. Early in the film, De Palma provides a split-screen image of Jack hard at work at his Independence Film offices. On the right side of the frame is a TV news story covering Governor McRyan. On the left hand side of the frame is an insert shot of Jack at a sound editing machine, adjusting levels, labeling tapes, etc. The implication here is one of routine, tech-ish multi-tasking. The eye goes to the report on the TV, while the hand goes to the work of sound cutting. This is before the car accident/assassination occurs...and so Jack still handles his job in a work-a-day, routine fashion...not thinking about the serious implications of what he does.
When Jack goes out to the creek to record various sounds, De Palma also reminds us of the breadth of our technology, revealing in detail how a directional microphone picks up authentic sounds from great distances. A series of staggeringly beautiful long-shots join the percipient and the perceived within the same frame. We thus see Jack connected (in the background), to a majestic, hooting owl (in the foreground). Yet importantly, these "real" sounds are soon to be placed over unreal events; ones staged especially for movies. And movies, of course, are false narratives. It's another explicit reminder from De Palma that movies do lie; both in images and sound. That although the sounds may be "real," their context has been altered in ways we can't begin to imagine by the time they reach our ears.
Later, we watch in detail as Jack creates a sort of film strip of the car accident by utilizing photographic film stills (featured in a popular magazine). We watch him laboriously photograph these stills one-frame-at-a-time, and the result -- when we watch it assembled -- is a visual record of the governor's car accident; one that gives the incident new life, new shape. Yet, as illuminating as these visuals remain, without the sound of the accident, there is no hint at all of a gun shot; only the accidental "blow-out." The truth is not in the film. At least not obviously.
But the important thing here is that De Palma is including us in the process, just as he did with the split-screen multi-tasking. He's showing us the building blocks of film so we can understand how pictures, how sounds, can be created and manipulated. This is the crux of the story, of the conspiracy.
In one beautifully-crafted scene, Jack returns to his studio to find every single one of his reel-to-reel tapes blanked out...erased. De Palma shoots this scene in novel fashion by spinning his camera around the studio in a series of sequential, overlapping (time lapsed) circles, as though we are positioned on one of those damaged reels ourselves. This round-and-round movement of the camera mimics the movement of the reel tape; and we get the idea that Jack is "spinning" on his heels himself; ambushed by Burke's erasure of the critical sound recording.
The film's punch-line, of course, marks the (grim) line between the film's "reality" and the "fiction" within the film. Jack spends much of the film trying to locate the so-called "perfect scream" for the horror movie he is working on. The director brings in several actresses to record new screams...but they are all lacking in some fashion. They lack passion. They lack authenticity. In the end, Jack uses Sally's death scream in the slasher movie. Her scream is blood-curdling because it is real. It is the voice of terror. It is that real scream which is applied to the fictional film-within-a-film to lend the shlocky enterprise some sense of authority or gravitas. The horrifying truth, of course, is unknown except to Jack. It's sort of a small-scale conspiracy balanced against the national conspiracy. But nobody seems to care about the truth anymore...
In the film's last shot -- slowed down for emphasis -- Jack hangs his head low, hands over his ears, as the scream repeats. Jack was a man who wanted to "hear" the truth, but ended up hearing too much. Now he just seeks silence. He wants to hear no evil.
The fetishistic attention to technical detail (editing, sound recording, etc.) in Blow Out reminds us that nothing in the art of film is what it seems on a simple viewing. The component parts -- the parts coming together in a final cut -- can literally be anything. The truth can be exposed...or hidden in film depending on the whim of the director. Or the President of the United States...
You'd Be Amazed What Some People Would Do For a Story Like This.
An obvious foundation for Blow Out is the similarly-titled 1966 Antonioni film Blow-Up, which concerns another artist (a photographer, instead of a film's sound engineer...) becoming embroiled in what he perceives to be a crime...a murder.
In that film, the lead character, played by David Hemmings, begins to lose focus on his "real" life. He begins to obsessively question reality itself. In some senses, that's also the journey of Jack in Blow Out, but he starts to question political reality -- the images of patriotism and nationalism so proudly displayed.
De Palma's other sources here arise not from movie history, but from conspiracy lore. The setting of the car "accident" at a creek -- and the presence of an unmarried woman in the passenger seat of a married politician's automobile -- clearly recall the July 18, 1969 Chappaquiddick incident involving Senator Ted Kennedy.
The Karp film, which -- because it lacks sound -- cloaks the truth of the conspiracy rather than exposing it, recalls the much-debated, much-analyzed Zapruder Film. In this case, Manny Karp, the originator of the McRyan film, had foreknowledge of the car "accident," so he could be present at the creek to film it. That fact retroactively raises questions about the late Zapruder, and how he came to be filming the Kennedy assassination. Indeed, some people have suggested a connection between the late Zapruder...and the CIA. And, as I mentioned above, Burke is pretty clearly a model of the Watergate Plumber, namely the most infamous of the lot, Liddy.
In referencing all of these terrible incidents (JFK's assassination, Chappaquiddick, and Watergate), De Palma asks the viewer to consider the tumultuous and bloody nature of modern American history, and how much we really "know" for certain about it. Indeed, Blow Out was released just months after the attempted assassination of President Reagan by another lone gunman (and friend of the Bush family...), John Hinckley.
Just ask yourself, how would history have been different if an unvarnished Ted Kennedy -- having no Chappaquiddick incident to mar his personal history -- had run against Nixon in 1972? How would history have been different if Reagan had not survived his first term, and George Bush ascended to the Presidency in 1981? I believe what De Palma was prescient in Blow Out, making us feel that kind of paranoia as a sort of palpable fear. We begin to understand how politicians and the media can manipulate images and sounds; manipulate truth using certain indelible images.
The attacks of 9/11? Dukakis in a tank? Bill Clinton hugging a beret-wearing Monica Lewinsky in a crowd? Willie Horton's mug shot? Bush Jr. with a bullhorn on the rubble? "Terrorist" fist bumps? "Let's Roll?" "The Fundamentals of the Economy are sound?" These "clips' were brought to you by a selective corporate media. Why?
In Blow Out, De Palma delves into a dark place, one where seeing and hearing is not necessarily believing. He tells us, again, that film can be a powerful and insidious tool in the court of public opinion. But trenchantly, the master manipulator himself shows us the tricks of the trade this time. De Palma lifts the curtain and reveals how the magic works. And it's not all in the wrists.
It's in the microphones, the editing bay, the scissors, and the camera lens.
at August 21, 2009 11 comments:
Labels: Blow Out, Brian De Palma
Of Men, Morality and Microwaves: A Trip Back to The Last House on the Left
Writer/director Wes Craven created The Last House on The Left (1972) as a "Generation Gap" Era re-interpretation of the 1960 Ingmar Bergman film, Jungfrukallan (or The Virgin Spring), an Academy Award winner for best foreign film. Going back further, you can trace the film’s violent tale to a twelfth-century Swedish ballad sometimes known as “Töre's daughter in Vänge."
There are some two-dozen variations of this particular ballad, but all versions are built upon the bloody pillars of rape and revenge. The story also involves the destruction of innocence or purity, and the moral price of vengeance.
The filmed versions of "Töre's daughter in Vänge" all feature a relatively affluent doctor, his innocent young daughter, and the violent, unwashed “herdsmen” who -- after raping and murdering the girl -- arrive at the doctor’s home to stay the night. In the end, after learning of his daughter’s death or suffering, the doctor exacts bloody and righteous vengeance against the murderers.
The three celluloid versions of this long-lived story offer starkly different interpretations of the ballad. Bergman's take is overtly religious and redemptive. Craven's "God is Dead," Manson-era take seeks morality in a universe totally absent the Divine. And the post-Bush/Obama era version of Last House on the Left offers a sort of "let's turn the page" approach to morality; leaving us to draw conclusions for ourselves after we have witnessed horrific, cruel, pre-meditated violence.
"You See It and You Allow It:" Violence and Faith in The Virgin Spring
Bergman’s The Virgin Spring explicitly concerns faith. Indeed, the tragic incident from start to finish may even be interpreted as a "test of faith" for Dr. Tore, played by Max Von Sydow.
He wonders why God permits such atrocities in the world of man. “You see it and you allow it! The innocent child’s death and my revenge…you allowed it! I don’t understand you!” he laments near the film’s conclusion.
Tore searches for meaning in the death of his beloved child, Karin (Birgitta Pettersson); but also in his own blood-thirsty, violent actions. He is a faithful servant…so why was he punished in this cruel fashion? Why was his dignity -- his sense of civilization -- stripped from him? Was he right to act so barbarously?
Mareta (Birgitta Valberg), Tore’s wife, believes that the innocent child was taken from the family because the parents loved and adored the beautiful Karin more than they worshipped and honored Christ. In other words, the parents were punished for not putting their love of God first. A shaken Dr. Tore swears to erect a church in the very spot in the forest that his daughter died; a kind of testament to the Mystery of Faith.
God rewards the tortured, doubting Tore. The Supreme Being miraculously creates a bubbling spring at the very idyllic location where Karin died; a sign that Tore’s continued faith is justified; and that his violent actions were justified too. Tore sees his faith restored by this miracle. A rapturous, high-angle shot reveals the creation of the virgin spring, and Tore’s awe at God’s wisdom and power.
An affirmation of religion (specifically Christianity), The Virgin Spring suggests that God forgives even the most atrocious acts of violence…if only the perpetrator is faithful. Tore may never have all his answers (God moves in mysterious ways), but the doctor can satisfy himself that God exists...and that God has heard him; and that he remains the Lord's servant.
Brilliantly and artfully crafted, Bergman’s version of "Tore’s Daughter" may boast a darker, more sinister interpretation too, especially given our times. The film seems to suggest that after committing heinous violence, the self-righteous will be rewarded with a miracle, and more than that, even be granted certainty of the existence of the Divine...something most human beings are denied on this mortal coil.
Today, we see doctors murdered for performing legal operations, terrorists bombing innocent civilians, and nations launching into bloody war...all over personally-held beliefs or delusions that “God is on their side.” Religion thus becomes the excuse for ideological and literal warfare. Here we see the same thing on a smaller, more intimate scale: bloody vengeance is deemed okay, and forgiven...if one is devout.
The Road Leads To Nowhere And the Castle Stays the Same: The Last House on The Left (1972)
Wes Craven re-interpreted The Virgin Spring and "Tore’s Daughter in Vange" for The Last House on The Left, his widely-despised debut film.
The New York Times reviewer walked out of the film (with an hour still to go) and called it “sickening tripe,” (December 22, 1972). Even Danny Peary, author of Cult Movies decried the film as a “sick sexual fantasy” and “an incitement to violence.” (Delacorte Press, 1981, page 348).
In The Last House on The Left, young Mari Collingwood (Sandra Cassel) -- the equivalent of the Karin character -- is raped and killed by the sociopath Krug (David Hess). Her path intersected with Krug's while she was trying to score some weed on the way to a rock concert performance (by a popular group called "Bloodlust.") In The Virgin Spring, Karin had been on her way to "lighting candles" for Christ, to honor his suffering, when attacked. The distinction, of course, is critical. Mari is a self-involved modern teen of the Peace Generation; not a devout supplicant like Karin. Craven has thus stripped the religious veneer from the tale. But importantly, he has not stripped the moral underpinnings of the ballad. On the contrary, he has actually augmented them.
Although Mari prays to (an absent) God before she is murdered -- in a harrowing scene staged in almost identical fashion to Karin’s rape and murder in The Virgin Spring -- there is no salvation for her or redemption for her fallen parents here. Unlike the Tores in The Virgin Spring, Dr. Collingwood (Gaylord St James) and his wife in the 1972 Last House on the Left are not enlightened in the finale by the existence of God, or by a comforting awareness of Divine Method. Rather, they are left totally isolated in their shattered, middle-class living room, surrounded by the blood of villains. The camera does not majestically swoop heavenward to give the impression of God’s support; or even presence.
Instead, by freeze-framing on the shattered Collingwoods in the final (close-up) shot of The Last House on the Left, Craven reveals the futility of bloodshed and retribution in a way that the spiritually uplifting finale of The Virgin Spring does not. Very simply, the film ends on the face of two shattered people. They have been as violent and brutal as Krug and his fellow attackers (Sadie and Weasel)...and their daughter is still dead. They have achieved nothing...except the lowering of themselves to barbarism; to the level of the criminals who were so monstrous. They have survived; they have prevailed...but now they don't even know who -- or what -- they are.
On the soundtrack, a song entitled "The Road Leads to Nowhere" (composed and performed by David Hess) plays, and the title itself (also a lyric featured in the body of the pieces) expresses the futility of all the violence portrayed in the film. Despite the brutality, despite the revenge completed, "the castle stays the same," meaning that nothing changes. Mari remains dead and God does not right that wrong because the Collingwoods have "won." The subtext of the film is simple: as bad as the low class Krug and his compatriots are...the affluent, middle-class Collingwoods are really no better.
There's a fascinating moment in Last House on The Left, when Krug, Sadie and Weasel all pause by the lake, following the rape and murder of Mari (and her friend, here named Phyllis). For a brief instant, the criminals are silent. And they actually appear chastened. As if, for one fleeting instant...they have awareness of what they are; what they have done. At the end of the film, the Collingwoods kill with comparative abandon and glee. Mrs. Collingwood even bites off Weasel's penis while giving him head (a macabre touch not retained in the remake). The "respectable" Collingwoods seem to have no recognition of what they've done...not until that "freeze frame" captures them in the hell of their own making; in the aftermath of a bloodbath. In both these moments, violence is not championed, not even in the name of retribution. The opposite is true.
Why is The Last House on the Left so reviled by so many, so despised? In part because it accomplishes the unthinkable and the totally unsavory: it treats violence as real...and horrible. Most films, even great horror films, treat violence in a "tolerable" way, meaning that we may be frightened by the scary images...but we're not, ultimately, undone or debauched by them. Movie decorum keeps "the horror of violence" at an acceptable distance from our psyches..
Not so Last House on the Left. After titillating the audience with early glimpses of the comely Mari in the shower, arousing lascivious interest, Craven turns the table on his audience and stages a brutal, affecting, prolonged, utterly monstrous rape. He lingers there. The scene goes on and on until you feel sick to your stomach watching. Again, this is Craven's desired manipulation: he makes you thirst for the blood of Krug, Sadie and Weasel right along with Mari's parents. Your anger is justified and righteous. We identify with the Collingwoods. With their loss, with their pain. We want the bad guys to suffer too.
But then, there you are, at the end of the film -- having wallowed in the violence with the Collingwoods. And you don't feel good about it. You feel - like the Collingwood's in that traumatized, valedictory freeze frame -- ashamed . The Collingwoods have stooped to Krug's level and gotten their revenge...but what's left? The road leads to nowhere. Violence, while perhaps satisfying on first impulse, ultimately solves nothing. Forged during the time of the Vietnam War, Craven's Last House on the Left is perhaps the ultimate anti-violence, anti-war film. It doesn't romanticize violence, and furthermore, decries violence even when the situation is an archetypal Biblical "Eye-for-an-Eye" setting. It's ironic that Last House on the Left is constantly attacked as being an incitement to violence, when nothing could be further from the truth. It's just that -- as movie goers and perhaps even as critics -- we prefer our violence palatable...not authentically disturbing.
"Are You Ready to Be A Man?" The Last House on the Left (2009)
The remake of Last House on the Left (2009) makes a number of interesting and telling modifications to the Swedish ballad and original story of "Tore's Daughter."
In this cinematic version alone, for instance, the doctor's daughter -- again named Mari (Sara Paxton) -- survives the attack. Her survival removes some of "anger" that, theoretically, Dr. Collingwood should feel. His victimization, in other words, is not as severe.
Also, the leader of the "herdsmen" or thugs, Krug (Garret Dillahunt) is defined more in the terms of being one of Craven's "Bad Fathers," than in the original film. This Krug is almost constantly seen goading his son into violent action; telling him to cowboy up and be a man. Even the rape of Mari here seems to stem more from Krug's cruelty to his son than his own feelings of sexual desire. The point, I believe, is the cycle of violence: the passing of "abuse" from one generation to another.
Also, alone among the filmed versions of the tale, Dr. Collingwood in this film (Tony Goldwyn) gets to utilize his skills as a physician.
Some of these changes in the "Tore's Daughter" template are just superficial; and some run far, far deeper. For instance, in the last act of the remake, Dr. Collingwood stabilizes his badly-wounded daughter and plans to escape in a boat (and get her to a hospital alongside his wife). With the aid of Mrs. Collingwood (Monica Potter) and Krug's son, Justin (Spencer Treat Clark), Dr. Collingwood also incapacitates Krug, eliminating any and all immediate danger..
But instead of simply escaping -- or killing Krug in the heat of a kill-or-be-killed moment (as was the case in the Craven version) -- this Dr. Collingwood takes his time and, with extensive pre-meditation, plans for the torture and death of Krug utilizing a malfunctioning microwave oven. In other words, this is no longer a case of flight or fight. Mari is safe. Krug is down for the count. But Collingwood -- a man sworn to protect life -- nonetheless breaks his oath and engineers a complex plan (involving a delicate surgery...) to kill Krug. Here's how I see this: Were my loved ones attacked and in jeopardy, I would certainly respond violently in the moment...perhaps even murderously...to protect them. But, were my wife and daughter attacked, and the situation safely ameliorated, I can't imagine I would respond by engineering -- over a sustained period of time -- a brutal surgery and torture scheme. That goes beyond preservation of self and family. That's...extreme sadism.
There are two ways to read this alteration in the tale. Either this is a pander-fest to the modern audience, ostensibly a bread-and-circuses demographic, who demand Krug's blood and want him to suffer in a horrifying way. Or, as I believe, this is a comment on our post-9/11 age, just as Craven's version commented on the 1970s. Yes, we were brutally attacked in September 2001 and three thousand Americans died horrible deaths and the terrorists were EVIL. But The Iraq War occurred in 2003, the torture at Abu Ghraib happened in 2004, and over 101,000 Iraqis are now dead in the year 2009. Exactly when, you might rightly ask, do we get to stop avenging 9/11 with a free conscience? Exactly when does the "heat of the moment" of 9/11 fade away, and reason...and restraint...and LAW set in? We were right to strike back against those who hurt us and killed our loved ones...but how long do we continue striking back against enemies with moral impunity before we are the ones provoking a new cycle of violence?
In the 2009 version of The Last House on the Left, Dr. Collingwood expresses not one recrimination about his actions; and that's also the official take of our government, even today. President Obama wants to "turn the page" on American moral abuses of the Bush Years...thus leaving them unaddressed and unpunished. That's also the state in which we leave Dr. Collingwood. Mari (like America) is safe and sound, but he (like our nation) hasn't yet looked in the mirror and faced the consequences of his bloody actions. That needs to happen. For him and for us.
This is a fascinating change in the enduring Swedish original. In the past, Dr. Tore and Dr. Collingwood responded to violence with savagery, but it was always in the passion of the moment. And they had motives we sympathized with: the death of the daughter. Here, this Dr. Collingwood has time for reflection, time for pause, and his daughter yet lives. And despite time, despite the survival of his daughter, Collingwood still knowingly and mercilessly fries Krug's brain in a microwave.
He doesn't feel bad about it...and in this case -- I hate to say it -- that makes the Tore character worse than the despicable Krug. Because this Krug, like his previous incarnation, at least experiences that moment of humanity by the lake in which he realizes that he's a monster. This Dr. Collingwood still thinks he's a doctor and an upright citizen. He marches on...but his violence is left unaddressed. And Krug, for all his brutal crimes, clearly didn't set out one morning to hurt Mari or Page...he happened upon them...and his brutal nature asserted itself. That assertion doesn't take him off the hook for his crimes in any way, but they were crimes of opportunity. By contrast, Collingwood is the only character in the movie who plots out and executes -- in detail -- a torturous death for another human being.
In some ways, this newest Last House on the Left is the most disturbing version of the tale yet produced. It doesn't find answers in God, like Bergman's version. Nor does it find answers in man's nature, like Craven's tale. Instead, it just punts moral judgment down the line. The 2009 Dr. Collingwood feels he was justified in the pre-meditated torture and murder of another human being because he was attacked first....and I suspect many modern viewers feel the same way.
"Bloodlust" isn't just the name of a rock group. And it's not a feeling limited merely to black hat bad guys, either. We can find it right here, dwelling in our very own neighborhoods. Just turn by the lake, and stop at the last house on the left...
Labels: essay, horror movies, horror remakes
CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Woodstock (1970)
It was forty years ago today that a generation came together in upstate New York to celebrate a vision of the future that included good music, peace and love...and perhaps a recreational drug or two.
Yep, the Woodstock concert is officially four decades old in August of 2009, and given that landmark anniversary, I thought it would be appropriate to remember Woodstock -- the movie -- today.
This Academy-award winning non-fiction film endures as a remarkable document, one that pain-stakingly charts a specific time and place, particularly Bethel, New York, on the specific weekend when 1.5 million kids descended on a parcel of farmland for what ultimately became a free concert (much to the surprise of the show's concerned financiers).
It's no hyperbole to state that Woodstock is a giant among documentaries (and concert films), much as the event itself remains a colossus among concerts. If you want to witness the dark side of the Vietnam generation, check out (the equally amazing, if depressing...) Gimme Shelter. But Woodstock has the good vibrations. It delivers just what the film's subtitle promises: Three Days of Peace and Music.
Yet what I admire most about the movie Woodstock is that director Michael Wadleigh depicts two engaging stories simultaneously. One is the story of the music itself, of the on-stage performances. You've got Arlo Guthrie, The Who, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Virtually everything about this facet of the film is sterling; from Joan Baez on stage at night by her lonesome, singing about her incarcerated husband (a draft dodger), to the always energetic Jimi Hendrix, doing his particular brand of hard rock.
But today, I'm even more fascinated by the other story depicted by Wadleigh. It's a tale of logistics; of preparations; of amazing, vast scope. In other words, Woodstock is a film that doesn't merely provide shots of teeming masses, it's one that desires to reveal how those masses lived for three days (and nights) in that farmland setting. The film shows us how, where, and when concert-goers slept, carving out territory for themselves and pleasantly "saying goodnight" to their neighbors. It reveals how people made the best of a difficult situation when the sky opened up and it began to rain. Before long, the ground had turned to slick, messy mud...
The film shows us concert-goers standing patiently in line to use a pay phone (and check-in with their worried parents). At one point, we even learn that a baby has been born at Woodstock. And then realization dawns that this is not merely a "shitty mess" as one person suggests, but rather a full-blown, ad-hoc city. There's health care (forty-five doctors from the Army have arrived; all toiling without pay), there's food, there are even bathing facilities (meaning a place for co-ed skinny dipping.)
Improbably, Wadleigh even arranges an entire sequence around the toilets; portable chemical port-a-johns that service the vast crowd. And finally, at the end of the film, we see volunteers cleaning up the deserted field, picking up what appears to be a vast sea of garbage. "Just love everybody and clean up a little garbage on the way out, and everything will be fine," one organizer optimistically suggests.
There was so much footage shot for Woodstock that, at times, the movie cuts to split-screens, ones two-and-three frames strong. To Wadleigh's credit, he marshals the technique when it is merited -- as balance and counterweight, mostly -- not when he's simply attempting to be flashy. The result is a visually dazzling film that's never less than compelling.
Unlike the rowdy, contentious Town Halls we see on TV today, the Woodstock concert didn't require policemen to step in and maintain law and order. Instead, people behaved themselves and didn't act on ignorance or bigotry. Fifty thousand teenagers were expected...and over a million showed up. And yet there were no major incidents to report.
I suspect there's a lesson in that somewhere.
The radical right wing in this country has been very successful at marginalizing, ridiculing and lampooning the Peace Generation (with a little help from the "libertarian" South Park). But that's okay, because the Left has this film -- an authentic time capsule -- capturing Woodstock in all its glory, wonder and peace. And undeniably, this the finest moment of that Peace Generation.
Rent Woodstock, watch Woodstock...and commemorate a time in America when an event like this could actually happen without courting disaster. At this point -- what with those pesky Death Panels and all -- I don't think it's going to happen again soon.
Labels: cult movie review
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Tribute Gallery 2013
Michael Ansara
Dennis Farina
James Gandalfini
Stanley Kauffmann
Tom Laughlin
Lou Scheimer
Gilbert Taylor
Marcia Wallace
As always, any omissions in the gallery are entirely unintentional. Please feel free to remember these (or any other...) film and TV artists in the comments section below.
at December 31, 2013 1 comment:
Labels: 2013, tribute
Remembering 2013 on the Blog
Horror Films FAQ
Well, the year 2013 is rapidly moving into our rear-view mirror, and so goes another year of posts here on Reflections.
This year, I posted more than 1,280 times, which is a record for me, and I had a great time doing it. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I'll see if I can top the number for next year...
In more specific terms, in 2013 the blog celebrated the 20th anniversary of The X-Files, marked Star Trek Week for the release of Into Darkness, Superman Week for the premiere of Man of Steel, and even had The Lone Ranger Week.
The year also saw the release of my books, Horror Films FAQ and Science Fiction and Fantasy Films of the 1970s.
As I've written before, these books are the gasoline that keeps the engine of the blog running, so if you can spare the money, please think about supporting my work in print (or e-book form). It helps. A lot.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Films of the 1970s
Not long ago, the blog also celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of a certain time lord for Doctor Who Week. I also reviewed all the Indiana Jones films.
On Saturdays, I covered Star Trek: The Animated Series, Return to the Planet of the Apes and the first season of the 1990s Land of the Lost.
And on Sundays, I blogged Star Blazers season one, and Joss Whedon's Firefly.
We also had time to remember the life and career of those we lost this year, including genre giants Richard Matheson and Ray Harryhausen.
Most importantly, I'll always remember 2013 as the year we undertook the Reader Top Ten together for the first time.
In 2013, readers selected the best science fiction movie of all time, the greatest sf movie character, the greatest science fiction movie 2000 - 2013, the best horror film 1960 - 2000, the best science fiction film of the 1970s and the greatest toys of their childhood.
It was a great pleasure to read the reader choices and explanations, and this type of post has become my favorite. For one thing, you've all helped me find new movies to watch...
As 2014 -- my ninth year of blogging -- looms, so does a set of new anniversaries. In the twelve months ahead I'll be gazing back at the films of 1984, for instance, and celebrating The Terminator's 30th anniversary.
Upcoming 2014 releases sure to merit attention include Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Robocop, Godzilla, Veronica Mars, Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, and Max Max: Fury Road.
In the next few weeks, I'll also be reviewing all the Riddick films, the Back to the Future films, and I'm toying about re-visiting the entirety of the Die Hard franchise too, if readers are interested.
So stay tuned. As I like to say, the best is yet to come...
at December 30, 2013 12 comments:
Labels: 2013, about John
The Six Cult-TV Diseases You Don't Want to Contract...
Disease has often been termed the greatest enemy mankind has ever faced. If you go by cult-television history, that idea certainly seems true. A wide swath of genre programs have memorably showcased the (often-gory) impact of disease on the fragile human life form.
Of course, some of these fictional diseases are much more hideous and horrible than others. Below is a tally of six truly dreadful, nightmare-inducing cult-TV diseases you really, REALLY don't want to contract.
6. "Venusian Plague." (From the Space: 1999 episode "The Lambda Factor.") In this Year Two episode of the 1970s Gerry Anderson outer space series, Commander John Koenig (Martin Landau) relates a horrifying story from his days as an astronaut cadet. On a routine re-supply mission to a Venus space station, two of Koenig's friends and ship-mates, Sam and Tessa, became infected with the plague there. Rather than risk bringing the incurable disease back to Earth, Koenig had to leave his friends behind to die. In the episode, Koenig relates this harrowing story to Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain), and we also see the "ghosts" of his guilt, namely Sam and Tessa...but as plague-infected ghouls. Their faces are scarred and marred by blisters, and well, it isn't a pleasant sight. I recounted the full, gory details of the Venusian plague in one of my contributions to the officially-licensed Space: 1999 short story anthology, Shepherd Moon (2010). But the scary notion underlining this disease is its origin. The Venusian Plague originates on another world, but affects us. Was it engineered? Created to keep us away? I've always wondered...
5. "Gamma Hydra IV Disease." (From the Star Trek episode "The Deadly Years."). In this tale, Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Bones and Lt. Galway are infected with a strange form of radiation while on a planet called Gamma Hydra IV. Because of their exposure, the landing party begins to age rapidly. Kirk loses command of the Enterprise, and Spock loses something worse: Kirk's friendship. It's terrible to witness these vibrant, intelligent, young heroes succumb to the frailties of the flesh, and "The Deadly Years" is an affecting installment because of this. Here, the infected crew members develop arthritis, senility and other maladies associated with extreme old age, and as audience members we get to reflect that there's nothing worse than growing old before your time. In 1988, Star Trek: The Next Generation re-visited the idea of an "aging" disease in the episode "Unnatural Selection."
4. "The Angel of Death" (From The Burning Zone pilot) In the premiere episode of this short-lived 1996-1997 UPN series, archaeologists in Costa Rica excavate a cave that has been sealed for 15,000 years and inadvertently let loose a sentient disease. The infected can be detected from hemorrhagic-appearing (bloody) eyes. This disease is also sentient, part of an intelligent "hive" (shades of Doctor Who: "The Invisible Enemy.") It can even control and direct subordinate "warrior viruses" to further infect and distract humanity. The fear at work here is one regarding our enemy's "intent," and perhaps even one involving...scale. Can something as microscopic as a virus think, plan, and conquer the human race? Being struck with a disease is terrible enough, but to imagine that there is insidious purpose or malevolence behind that disease ups the ante considerably. I have often described The Burning Zone as "disease of the week," and other shows involved an outbreak of spontaneous combustion (!) and an epidemic of malaria.
3. "F. Emasculata." (from The X-Files episode of the same name.) This second season segment of the Chris Carter series also begins with the discovery of something terrible in the rain forest of Costa Rica, namely an insect parasite that burrows inside living human hosts and creates grotesque, white, pulsating pustules on the skin. These boils throb and grow, and ultimately explode, spreading the disease all around in a sickly, moist burst. It's absolutely the most nauseating thing you've ever seen. My wife still refuses to watch this episode of The X-Files, in part because of a final, tense stand-off set on a bus. A badly infected man -- with pustules growing and threatening to burst on his cheek -- uses a young, innocent child as a hostage. Mulder (David Duchovny) must free the boy, and do it before that damned zit bursts.
2. "The Marburg Virus" (From Millennium's two-part "The Fourth Horseman/The Time is Now.") The disease featured in this episode of Millennium remains absolutely horrifying. One scene -- set at a middle-class family's Mother's Day dinner -- depicts an American family bleeding out before our eyes. The disease (originating from contaminated chicken, of all things...) quickly sets in, and dark brown pustules begin to form on the infected family members. The Mom dies first as her white blouse becomes awash in crimson. Then, all at once, these poor folks sweat out their whole blood supply in a matter of seconds. This is also the disease that costs Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) dearly in terms of his family...
1. "The Phage" (From Star Trek: Voyager's "The Phage.") The Vidiians remain one of the most creepy and disturbing alien races ever featured on Star Trek. Residents of the Delta Quadrant, the Vidiians suffer from a necrotizing -- flesh eating -- virus. Infected souls must undergo skin transplants and skin grafts regularly to combat the effects of the deadly disease, but even after such "healing" operations still appear absolutely hideous, like rotting corpses. Perhaps the creepiest thing about the Phage is that the disease has also, essentially, devoured the Vidiian Sodality's culture. These advanced, once-peaceful aliens have forsaken art, commerce and other noble pursuits in order to save themselves from extinction. The Vidiians are thus terrifying because they embody two fears about our mortality. First, that we could succumb to a deadly, disfiguring disease ourselves. And second, that it could sweep away all of our loved ones, and even destroy our very civilization. Imagine not only being disfigured and ill yourself, but watching your children and spouse suffering and dying from the Phage every single day. It would be Hell on Earth...
Labels: From the Archive
Television and Cinema Verities #102
"Working with Richard [Basehart] was a joy. He wasn't an easy person but we hit it off from the start...He made bad dialogue breathe. I learned a lot from him."
- David Hedison discusses his Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea co-star, Richard Basehart, in Science Fiction Television Series, Volume 2, by Mark Phillips and Frank Garcia, 1996, page 534
Labels: Verities
Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Return to the Planet of the Apes: "Mission of Mercy" (November 1, 1975)
In “Mission of Mercy,” a number of crises strike all at once for the astronauts.
First, the World War II airplane that Bill, Jeff and Judy have been utilizing to defend the humanoid pueblo city runs perilously low on aviation fuel, meaning another dangerous foray to Ape City for supplies.
Meanwhile -- and even as General Urko searches “New Valley” for the humanoid populace -- Nova falls gravely ill from an illness in her lungs which is highly contagious.
Unless a serum can be acquired, Nova will die, and the rest of the humanoids, including the astronauts, will follow..
This week’s episode of Return to the Planet of the Apes (1975) actually concerns a pretty good idea, and one which has re-surfaced in the pop-culture in The Walking Dead. Specifically, after the fall of human civilization, the survivors will fall prey to diseases and illnesses once conquered by modern medicine…but now once more grave threats. Talk about having to swallow a bitter pill! In this case, Nova nearly succumbs to a treatable disease, and Judy must make a dangerous trek to Ape City to get help from Zira and Cornelius.
Despite the interesting concept, the execution of it leaves something to be desired. In particular, Judy -- an astronaut capable of flying spaceships and even World War II war planes -- doesn’t know about serums and how they work. No doubt, her ignorance is a result of the writers wanting to explain the topic to young audiences. But still, it's handled pretty poorly.
Beyond this hard-to-swallow aspect of the episode, “Mission of Mercy” is mostly an action-oriented episode, with the astronauts struggling to beat the clock and once more save the day. Bill and Jeff must cross a rickety bridge in a truck, just as it collapses. And then their truck breaks down…in a lightning storm. Suffice it to say that a lot of obstacles get thrown up against the astronauts as they struggle to hold onto the one advantage they have (the war plane), and keep Nova alive at the same time.
In some sense, the focus on action is true to the Apes film franchise, but the five movies alternated serious action with cerebral science fiction concepts (like infinite regression) and a sub-text about racism and religious zealotry. As a cartoon series aimed for kids, Return to the Planet of the Apes doesn’t quite rise to that level, but “Mission of Mercy” seems a bit more pedestrian, even, than other installments.
Also, it’s getting a little difficult to believe that Zira and Cornelius can go out into the wilderness outside of Ape City on yet another mission to help the humanoids, and not get caught either by Urko or Dr. Zaius. The pacifist chimps take big risks in every episode, and with no repercussions.
Next week: “Invasion of the Underdwellers.”
Labels: 1970s, Planet of the Apes, Return to the Planet of the Apes, Saturday morning TV
Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Land of the Lost (1991): "Heat Wave" (November 16, 1991)
In “Heat Wave,” the Porters and all the denizens of the Land of the Lost endure a terrible and long-lasting drought. In desperate need of water, Kevin and Mr. Porter hike to a local watering hole only to discover that the Sleestak are already intent on using it.
Given a choice between leading the Sleestak back to their compound or sending them on a merry chase, the Porters choose the latter option, and head out into the wild…
“Heat Wave” is a relatively undistinguished, though harmless, episode of the 1991-1992 Land of the Lost remake. It’s more of a “runaround” than anything else, and the episode eats up its running time with the Porters being chased by Sleestaks, or simply hiding from them.
The main idea of “Heat Wave” is that it would be “game over” for the Porters if the Sleestak learn the location of their treehouse and compound. This is so presumably because the Sleestak are so powerful and threatening. They would take the house by force for themselves, and kill or enslave the Porters and their entourage.
Unfortunately, the new series has routinely treated the Sleestak as comic buffoons, and demonstrated again and again how the Porters out-smart and out-fight them. In other words, the episode’s central threat doesn’t really work as meaningfully as it should.
By contrast, on the original series the Sleestak were indeed menacing, and I remember some terrifying episodes in which they swarmed the Marshalls’ home (a temple, at that point) by night, and could barely be repelled. The three Sleestak outcasts of the new series – seen in broad daylight -- just don’t rise to that level of terror.
Accordingly, “Heat Wave” is never particularly thrilling or interesting. The only interesting aspect of it is the pairing of Porter and his son, Kevin. The episode becomes about their “father/son” bonding, but even this aspect of the tale would have felt more meaningful if the conflict with these re-done Sleestak were stronger villains.
Next week: “The Thief.
Labels: Land of the Lost, Land of the Lost 1991, Saturday morning TV, Sid and Marty Krofft
The Films of 1984: The NeverEnding Story
The NeverEnding Story (1984), a child-like, innocent fantasy film made in Germany by director Wolfgang Peterson. His is a name you will recognize immediately for his efforts in the genre like Enemy Mine (1985) and those outside it too, such as Das Boot (1981).
The NeverEnding Story also features stellar practical effects from Brian Johnson, the accomplished special effects director and guru behind Space: 1999's (1975 -1977) miniatures and pyrotechnics, plus the effects of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Aliens (1986). Many of the landscapes and creatures Johnson devised for this cinematic effort remain positively wondrous a quarter-century on.
Both tonally and visually, The NeverEnding Story boasts a softer, more whimsical vibe than the film's appreciably darker and more adult contemporaries, Krull or Legend for instance. But the world The NeverEnding Story so ably depicts is also refreshingly fanciful and indeed, a bit surreal; what Variety called a "flight of pure fancy."
I realize the movie won't be everybody's cup of tea, however. It's not all Rrc battles, clashing armies and sword fights; and there's never any sense that this tale is part of some larger, realistic, otherworldly saga.
Instead, as valuable description of the film's atmosphere, let me quote the Boston Globe's Michael Blowen. He termed the movie "so wonderfully appropriate to children that it seems to have been made by kids. But there is enough artistic merit in the tale to enchant adults equally."
Looking back today, it's clear that The NeverEnding Story succeeds most powerfully indeed as this "dual track"-styled fantasy that Blowen hints at. On one hand, this is a genre film starring children and intended for children; alive with adventure, whimsy and excitement. On another level all together, however, adults can enjoy the film because it cleverly references (albeit symbolically), the vicissitudes of adult life.
When young Atreyu (Noah Hathaway) faces several dangerous tasks in the film, it is not just adventure or ordinary fairy tale creatures he countenances, but existential dilemmas about self, about the human psychology.
In the beginning, it is always dark....
A dangerous book: The NeverEnding Story.
The NeverEnding Story's particular narrative arises from a popular and critically-acclaimed literary work by German writer, Michael Ende. Alas, Ende was allegedly unhappy with the film's translation of his 1979 book, in part, perhaps, because it depicts only the first half of his narrative. At the box office, the 27 million-dollar film was considered a bomb, though (lesser) sequels were eventually produced. Critical reviews were mixed.
In The NeverEnding Story, a sad boy named Bastian (Barret Oliver) is doing poorly in school after the untimely death of his mother. His father is cold and distant, and Bastian feels alone, rudderless. At school, he is relentlessly bullied by his classmates, and the world feels devoid of hope; of warmth.
One day, Bastian hides from the bullies in a book store and learns from an old man named Koreander (Thomas Hill) of a strange book; a book that is different from all others. It is called "The NeverEnding Story." Koreander claims that it is not a safe book. He hints it can actually transport the reader to another world, another time.
Alone in an attic, Bastian reads the mysterious book. It tells of a mythical world called Fantasia where a creeping "Nothing" is devouring the world a land at-a-time.
A young boy, about Bastian's age -- Atreyu -- is summoned to the Ivory Tower to embark on a heroic quest. The land's Empress is dying of a strange malady, one tied to the existence and spread of "The Nothing." Atreyu must learn how to cure the Empress's disease, an act which should simultaneously stop the "The Nothing." But it will not be easy.
Early on, Atreyu loses his beloved white steed, Artex, in the "Swamp of Sadness," attempting to contact "The Ancient One" -- a giant old turtle "allergic" to young people.
There, Atreyu begs the apathetic old creature -- who lives by the motto "we don't even care whether or not we care" -- for help. The Old One finally informs the boy warrior that he must travel ten thousand miles to the South Oracle if he hopes to get his answer about the Empress.
Fortunately, a luck dragon named Falcor rescues Atreyu from sinking further into the Swamp of Sadness, and transports him to the Southern Oracle. There, with the help of two kindly elves, Engywook and Urgl, Atreyu faces two critical tests.
First, he must walk through a gate in which is self-worth is judged. If his self-worth is found lacking, two giant statues will destroy him with eye-mounted particle beam weapons.
The second test at the Southern Gates is the "magical mirror test." There, Atreyu must gaze into a mirror and countenance his true self. Here, brave men learn that they are cowards inside. And kind men learn that they have been cruel.
Surviving both tests, Atreyu learns that he must next pass beyond the "boundaries" of Fantasia to save his world and his queen. This is something of a trick answer, however, as he learns from his feral nemesis, Gmork.
As Gmork confides in the warrior about Fantasia: "It's the world of human fantasy. Every part, every creature of it, is a piece of the dreams and hopes of mankind. Therefore, it has no boundaries."
In the end, worlds collide. Atreyu needs the help (and the belief) of Bastian in his world; and Bastian must be the one to save the Empress, even though at first he can't quite make himself believe that he can help. As the Empress notes, Bastian "simply can't imagine that one little boy could be that important."
But, of course, he is...
We don't know how much longer we can withstand the nothing.
A beacon of hope in Fantasia, The "Ivory Tower."
In the synopsis above, one can easily detect how the dangerous, fanciful quests in Atreyu's Fantasia (Fantastica in the Ende book...) translate into relevant messages about human life here on Earth, and in particular, the challenges of adulthood.
"The Swamp of Sadness," for instance, is a place that -- if you stop to dwell -- you sink further and further.
In other words, this specific trap is a metaphor for self-pity. If you stop to focus on how sad you are, how depressed you feel, you just keep sinking. And the further you sink, the harder it is to escape; to pull yourself up. Sadness creates more sadness.
And the Ancient Guardian?
He represents apathy and old age; wherein acceptance of "how things are" has overcome the desperate need of hungry youth to change (even save...) the world. Appropriate then that this guardian should be visualized as a turtle...since he can just hide from everything in his over-sized shell, never to face reality. As the movie notes, "There's no fool like an old fool!"
The Southern Gate's first test, of "self worth," also relates to us, right here, everyday. If we don't believe in ourselves and what we can accomplish under our own steam, how can we make others believe in us or our abilities? Feelings of strong self-esteem and self-worth must by need precede all quests of "self actualization," right? If you don't believe you can do something in the first place, why try?
The second Oracle test -- also encountered before victory -- involves facing yourself. There are all sorts of "monsters" and crises to fear in our everyday lives, but none of those beasts is worse or more terrifying than self-reflection; how we sometimes view and judge ourselves.
The magical mirror test asks us to solemnly reflect on who we are; on who we have become. Are we the good people we could be? Or are we hypocrites hiding behind platitudes about being good? When we look in the mirror, which face do we see?
Even the movie's nebulous but effective central threat is contextualized as a danger to the psychology; a danger to self. What's at stake if you have low self-esteem, if you sink into depression, and you don't see yourself truthfully in that mirror of conscience?
Well, the creeping Nothing around you -- and inside you -- just grows and grows.
"It's the emptiness that's left," Gmork says, describing the "Nothing." "It's like a despair, destroying this world...Because people have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams. So the Nothing grows stronger."
So, meet 1984's The NeverEnding Story: the self-help book of fantasy cinema, in which every challenge Atreyu faces alludes to the book's reader, Bastian, and his unique set of challenges. Not to mention our challenges too.
Should he wallow in self-pity in despair, with the end result that the quicksand will consume him? Should he hate himself because he is sad, and not pulling himself up by his bootstraps as his Dad desires?
If Bastian succumbs to these visions of himself (and does not see his own self worth), the Nothing consumes him...just as it consumes Fantasia. The answer, of course, is to believe in himself, and this message is not as heavy handed as it might have been, in part because of the delightful fantasy trappings.
It's amusing and also rather charming to see our grown-up fears (of depression) and foibles (like low self-esteem) made manifest into the physical genre trappings of the heroic quest; dangers to be avoided and beaten down. Depression as a swamp. Apathy as a turtle inside his shell. Self-worth as a hurdle that must be crossed, etc.
Another highly commendable aspect of The NeverEnding Story is how it views imagination and education.
Of course, the act of reading (and of imagining the adventures of literary figures) is championed here as a way of dealing with unpleasantness in real life; unpleasantness like death, and like bullying. Reading is the catalyst of everything important in the film: the introduction to adventure and the key to saving the world. As Julie Salomon wrote in The Wall Street Journal back in 1984, The NeverEnding Story "brings back the early excitement of reading as a child, when the act of turning pages took on a magical quality."
But more than that, I appreciate how The NeverEnding Story turns the idea of "the Ivory Tower" on its ear. In metaphor, the Ivory Tower has become synonymous with something negative. The phrase Ivory Tower widely "refers to a world or atmosphere where intellectuals engage in pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life."
Today, people decry Ivory Tower residents as "elitists" or as being somehow bad, even evil. Instead, ignorance and anti-intellectualism are raised up as virtues, instead. Don't read the newspaper? Great! Don't know geography? Terrific. Who's the leader of Pakistan? Don't know? Don't care? Outstanding.
Well, as The NeverEnding Story makes plain, nothing bad EVER originates from the Ivory Tower. Self-enrichment and education are universal positives...in any reality. There is no down side to being smart; to gathering knowledge; to being a resident of this "Ivory Tower."
Ask yourself, what do others gain by keeping another person away from learning, away from the proverbial Ivory Tower? By keeping others ignorant? That's the danger of anti-intellectualism right there; that someone will "bully" another being into being something less than what he or she could be.
Gmork makes the case aptly: "People who have no hopes are easy to control; and whoever has the control... has the power."
When you tie together The NeverEnding Story's multiple strands of education (and learning to read, to experience literary worlds), imagination (putting yourself into the literary fantasy...) and self-worth to the movie's paradise -- "The Ivory Tower," -- you get the point plainly.
It's a message perfectly suited for adults and kids: don't for a minute believe that one person can't be important.
The question, for viewers, of course, is simply: are you interested in a fantasy film created in this vein, a fantasy film in which the advice "never give up, and good luck will find you," is championed at the expense of more mature, nuanced themes.
I can easily imagine that, before having a son, I might have felt that this message was somehow cheesy or over-the-top. But being the parent of a seven-year old, I find myself appreciating The NeverEnding Story more than ever before. The movie is fun and inventive, and it has a light touch with this material. I find it audacious and courageous that a fantasy movie should take the form of, literally, the aforementioned "self-help book."
Now, I don't know that I would want other fantasies to emulate this mold; but in this case, the unusual symbolism successfully differentiates The NeverEnding Story from its many brethren of the early 1980s. The result is that the movie is distinctive...and memorable.
Of course, not everyone agreed. Critic Vincent Canby wrote, of the movie's approach: "When the movie is not sounding like ''The Pre-Teen- Ager's Guide to Existentialism,'' it's simply a series of resolutely unexciting encounters between Atreyu and the creatures that alternately help and hinder his mission."
Perhaps that's true, but what about when the movie does sound like a Pre-Teen Ager's Guide to Existentialism? For me, that's where this movie's worth ultimately resides; in the idea of real life foibles and crises made manifest in fantasy terrain. I don't think the movie's great strength -- the brawny central conceit -- should be discounted quite so readily.
Having a luck dragon with you is the only way to go on a quest...
Falcor, the Luck Dragon...looks suspiciously like a puppy.
The other factor that distinguishes The NeverEnding Story today is the film's pre-CGI visualization of Fantasia.
In fact, this movie, -- much like The Dark Crystal (1982) -- is a wonderful testament to the things practical effects can achieve given an adequate budget and a sense of unrestrained imagination. Here, an entire world is built from the ground up; and it's a world of leviathan Rock Biters, racing snails, Sadness Swamps, weird "elf-tech," and much more.
Using prosthetics, gorgeous sets, miniatures, and mattes -- and no digital backgrounds or monsters whatsoever -- the makers of this film support the storyline with their droll, highly-detailed creations. Some of these creations are really, really weird, mind you.
For instance, the Rock Biter is an amazing, idiosyncratic and wholly individual thing. He's crazy-looking, and yet he's got real personality and character. I can't say he looks "real"; more like something you'd imagine from Alice in Wonderland. And yet he has weight and presence, and when he is sad, you feel his pain. In the movie, the Rock Biter contemplates giving himself to the Nothing, essentially committing suicide, and the pathos is authentic. A bad special effect could not have accomplished that feeling.
Today, some of the flying effects don't hold up; certainly that is true. The ending of the movie also feels sudden, and a little too convenient.
But nonetheless, The NeverEnding Story still has...something. It may not be what we desire of a fantasy as "serious" grown-ups, but trenchantly it does recall such youthful stories as Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland.
Empire's Ian Nathan wrote of The NeverEnding Story: "This was sweet and charming at the time but now it just lacks either the comedy or sophistication of kids' fantasy film that we've all become accustomed to."
I agree with him that The NeverEnding Story remains sweet and charming. And the film's sense of sophistication arises from the central conceit of turning human emotions -- depression, self-hatred, apathy -- into the trials of a heroic, fantasy quest.
But I know what he means.
There's the sense after watching the film that, somehow, The NeverEnding Story isn't merely child-like, it's actually childish.
I'll leave it up to each individual viewer to decide if that's the film's ultimate weakness, or true blue strength.
at December 27, 2013 No comments:
Labels: From the Archive, The Films of 1984
Movie Trailer: The Neverending Story (1984)
Labels: From the Archive, movie trailers
Joel's Christmas Haul
Here's a sampling of Joel's Christmas collection, from parents, grandparents, and other family members!
The Seven Most Dangerous Computers in Cult-Television History (and a Few Friendlier Models Too...)
Some years ago, a dear friend presented me with a coffee cup inscribed with this legend: “To err is human. To really screw things up you need a computer.”
Many times over the years, I’ve been reminded of that quotation while watching episodes of cult television programming. The trope of the "villainous super computer" is now extremely well-established in horror and sci-fi, so today I decided to present my choices for the most dangerous of this TV computer bunch.
The selections range from mildly dangerous (#7) to most intensely, world-destroying, time-freezing dangerous (#1). In addition, I’ve also added a few examples of human-friendly computers below, so no one will accuse me of being rabidly anti-computer.
7. “Goodfellow’s Effort Eliminating Computer” or “G.E.E.C,” from The Super Friends (1973 – 1974). This colossal computer was created by the kindly Professor Goodfellow for a noble purpose: to free mankind from the yoke of physical work and hard labor.
The giant machine was programmed to handle everything from manufacturing to transportation to other routine business matters. Unfortunately, when mankind doesn’t work, drive and meaning disappear from life and mankind suffers. Fortunately, the Super Friends realize that “it’s good for people to work, or they won’t have purpose.”
In the end, however it is a mouse that destroys the Goodfellow computer not a superhero, thus proving that machines are not infallible.
6. “The General,” from The Prisoner (1967). In this episode of the short-lived British series, the imprisoned Number Six (Patrick McGoohan) learns that some of his fellow villagers are being mysteriously educated by a mysterious and sinister force. Unraveling the puzzle, he learns that the education system – Speed Learn -- is actually an insidious form of mind-control, shepherded by a super computer known as “The General.”
Programmed with vast stores of knowledge, the machine can apparently answer any question about history, mathematics or any other subject. It's a veritable high-tech Oracle of Delphi. At least, that is, until crafty Number Six asks the General a one-word interrogative: “why?”
The General promptly and accommodatingly short-circuits.
5. Checkpoint Devices Model “Omega.” In the Ark II (1976) episode “Omega,” the intrepid crew of the Ark II discovers that a nearby village recently re-activated a super computer from the pre-apocalypse era.
This giant, monolith-like device can completely control human minds, particularly the minds of the very young. Seizing control of the children, Omega orders the youngsters to enslave their parents and grandchildren and put them to work in the fields. Soon, Ark II personnel Ruth and Samuel fall prey to Omega’s anti-social mind directives, while Jonah attempts to defeat the computer in a life-sized game of Chess...the only method of de-activating it.
When that gambit fails, it’s up to the talking chimpanzee (!) Adam – a life form that Omega has denigrated as inferior – to stop the computer from taking complete control of the village.
4. “Will Operating Thought Anologue,” or WOTAN, from Doctor Who: “The War Machine.” In this early era tale from 1966, the First Doctor (William Hartnell) matches wits with a super computer called WOTAN, which has concluded that mankind is a mortal danger to the safety of the planet, and accordingly sets out to create ambulatory war machines to eradicate this threat.
Like “Omega” in Ark II, WOTAN boasts the unusual capacity – for a machine anyway – to hypnotize human beings. It uses this insidious power to begin transforming the human race into mindless slave labor…for the manufacture and construction of more mobile units.
In the end, the Doctor is able to re-program the evil computer and save the Earth…again.
3. The M-5, from Star Trek. Invented by Dr. Richard Daystrom (William Marshall) “the M-5 Multitronic System” is installed aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise in the second season episode “The Ultimate Computer.” The ship maintains only a skeleton crew to oversee the machine while it assumes total control.
At first, all seems well, until M-5 begins to act…independently. Without orders, it begins shutting down life support on parts of the ship, and then it opens fire on an unmanned freighter, the Woden (no relation to WOTAN). All attempts to shut down the computer fail, and when a (red-shirt) ensign attempts to pull M-5’s plug, it incinerates him.
The key to M-5’s erratic behavior involves the fact that it has been programmed with Dr. Daystrom’s “memory engrams.” This development means that machine is as psychologically unstable as its creator. Unfortunately, there’s a catastrophic downside: The Enterprise is scheduled to go into a war game simulation against four other warships, the Hood, Potemkin, Lexington and Excalibur. The M-5 characterizes the game as a real battle situation, and sets out to destroy the Starfleet vessels…and all those aboard her. Captain Kirk (William Shatner) realizes it’s time to make an appeal to M-5’s human side, and that’s precisely what he does.
A runner-up from Star Trek might be the society-controlling Landru from “Return of the Archons,” which erases human individuality and creates a collective known as “The Body.”
2. “Alex 7000,” from The Bionic Woman: “Doomsday is Today.” This machine -- and apparent blood relative of the Hal 9000 -- is the invention and child of a pacifist named Dr. Elijah Cooper (Lew Ayres).
As the two-part episode by Kenneth Johnson opens, Cooper makes an announcement to the world that he has invented a “cobalt bomb” which can destroy the world. Worse, he plans to use this doomsday device if any nation on Earth attempts to deploy or even test a nuclear bomb. This is his (admittedly strange…) way of assuring peace.
A small Middle-Eastern country violates Cooper’s terms, leaving Alex 7000 to fulfill the doctor's orders and…destroy the Earth. The world’s first bionic woman, Jaime Sommers (Lindsay Wagner) attempts to de-activate Alex 7000 in the computer’s vast subterranean complex, but he is capable of defending himself with laser beams, machine gun fire, mines, and other devices.
1. “The Guardian of Piri.” This alien computer from Space: 1999 (1975 – 1977) -- not unlike a more advanced model of the G.E.E.C. – was initially created to relieve the physical and mental burdens of the people of the distant world of Piri.
Unfortunately, in making their lives “perfect,” The Guardian succeeded only in destroying its own creators. The Guardian locked Piri in a static bubble of time (because perfection must last forever...) and then transformed the humanoid denizens of the world into near mindless catatonics with no physical needs or desires.
When Earth’s errant moon passes into range of the Guardian’s influence, the deadly machine attempts to make the Alphans’ life perfect too, putting the humans next in line to suffer the same fate.
Only Commander Koenig (Martin Landau) resists the hypnotic call of the Guardian. He saves his people by destroying the Guardian’s sultry servant (Catherine Schell), another “perfect” machine. As the Alphans return to space, they see that life has returned to Piri, the Guardian’s hold over time itself also destroyed.
Other dangerous computers appeared in the Quark episode: “Vanessa 38-24-36” and in The X-Files episodes “Ghost in the Machine” and “Kill Switch.”
Despite the examples above, we must remember that cult-TV computers are our friends too.
Among the more benevolent were:
“The Old Man in the Cave.” In this fifth season Twilight Zone episode (1964) set ten years after a nuclear apocalypse, one handful of survivors owes its very survival to the always-correct advice of the Old Man in the Cave, an unseen stranger. They don't realize until the episode’s climax that the “old man” is actually a benevolent computer. They repay its kindness and loyalty by hurling stones at it and short-circuiting the poor machine.
In one of the most nihilistic endings in cult tv history, these ungrateful survivors soon die...after eating contaminated food that the Old Man in the Cave had warned them not to consume.
“Orac.” This super computer designed by the scientist Ensor was brought aboard the Liberator at the end of the first season of Blake’s 7 (1978 – 1981). Possessing, at times, human qualities such as stubbornness and pride, Orac is capable of interfacing with every computer in the galaxy possessing a “tarriel cell.” Orac can even predict the future, it seems, on some important occasions.
Orac is rendered functional by use of a small rectangular key, and also possesses a thirst for knowledge which equates, sometimes, to endangering the very rebels it works with. Orac alone survived the series’ final massacre on Gauda Prime, in the episode “Blake.”
“The Turk.” In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008 – 2009), Sarah, John and Cameron at first believe that the computer “The Turk” is an early version of the destructive computer network, Skynet (on TV and in T3 a “worm” on the Internet, not an actual computer system). But in fact, the Turk is a “brother” artificial intelligence to Skynet, and one with the capacity to help the human race.
Other "good" cult-tv computers include SID on UFO, and Dr. Theopolis on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
at December 26, 2013 3 comments:
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Home Dave Chappelle kept me up until 5am this morning and I'm still...
Dave Chappelle kept me up until 5am this morning and I’m still trying to process what just happened
The first time I saw Dave Chappelle perform live was 10 years and three months ago, in a large, echo-y gymnasium at UC San Diego. It was my 20th birthday and I was so excited.
This was June of 2004, and the comedian was at the absolute peak of his Chappelle’s Show fame, which meant he suddenly found himself performing for sports arenas full of college kids who had neither the patience nor the decorum (nor the sobriety) to actually sit and listen to a standup comic performing material, choosing instead to holler “I’M RICK JAMES, BITCH!” or “WHAT!” and “YEAH!” in Lil Jon voices at random — in reference, of course, to their favorite Chappelle’s Show impressions. They did this without provocation or logic. They interrupted him constantly. They did not care. He was pissed. Every audience member who wasn’t doing it was super pissed.
Two weeks later, encountering a similar audience in Sacramento, he left the stage for two minutes, then came back and said: “This show is ruining my life. This is the most important thing I do, and because I’m on TV, you make it hard for me to do it. People can’t distinguish between what’s real and fake. This ain’t a TV show. You’re not watching Comedy Central…You know why my show is good? Because the network officials say you’re not smart enough to get what I’m doing, and every day I fight for you. I tell them how smart you are. Turns out, I was wrong. You people are stupid.”
Less than a year later, mid-production, he took off for South Africa and the show came to an abrupt end.
I have always felt a strangely personal guilt about this. I’m sorry about the idiots at UCSD, Dave, I have wanted to tell him. To this day, I can’t think of another instance in which such an intelligent brand of comedy has amassed such an astoundingly high percentage of morons as its fan base.
This being the case, I went into Dave Chappelle’s midnight performance at the Punch Line in SF last night (the fourth of four gigs in two nights announced Tuesday morning; he’ll do another one tonight at 10:30pm) with, well — I don’t want to say great expectations. But it’s a small club; I’ve heard great things about his smaller shows in SF over the past year or so, and I was ready for something like a redemptive Dave Chappelle experience.
“All of those 20-year-old idiots have grown up,” some part of my brain believed. “These shows sold out so quickly. These are super-fans. This will be great.”
You know what happens to drunk 20-year-old idiot college kids who get an ego boost from yelling stupid shit at standup comedians? They do grow up. They get jobs. They move to SF. They buy expensive collared shirts. And they become drunk 30-year-old idiot startup bros who get an ego boost from yelling stupid shit at standup comedians.
“DAVE who’s the hottest celebrity you’ve slept with!” (“That question assumes I’ve slept with a celebrity.”)
“DAVE you lift, bra? You lift!” (“No, this is actually just a really small shirt.”)
“Hey Dave! HEY DAVE! Are you gonna get the iPhone 6?” (Blank stare of disbelief. “Uh, probably.”)
Have you ever cringed so hard in a public place that it takes all your strength not to actually pull your shirt up over your head and crawl under your chair? Imagine a club full of people sharing this feeling. Now sit with it. For four hours. Now add a two-drink minimum and stressed-out waiters serving mandatory drinks that mandatorily must be downed within the next 10 minutes because it’s 1:45 in the morning.
To be fair: Chappelle was asking for it, quite literally. He opened with some SF-centric bits — a story about how he got mugged for the first time ever in San Francisco, and it was by a gay man. There was a quick, sweet anecdote about hanging out with the “startlingly funny” Robin Williams at the Punch Line, followed by a thought about Joan Rivers (“Joan Rivers was a great comedian, the problem is, she died a couple days after Robin Williams. Great comedian, but that’s bad timing.”) And then the evening became a neverending Q&A session, with very loose interpretations of both Qs and As.
“What do you guys wanna talk about?” he repeated at least a half-dozen times, leaning forward on his barstool in a short-sleeve black button-up shirt (looking, yes, noticeably buff), chainsmoking an entire pack of yellow American Spirits that he stubbed out in succession on his sneaker, drinking tequila and Coronas, and, at one point, ordering shots for a couple in the front row.
Fresh from appearances the past couple months at the traveling Oddball Comedy Festival, Chappelle — who, most of the year, lives in a farmhouse in Ohio with his wife and three kids — acknowledged that he was using this handful of last-minute SF performances as “practice” before heading to Chicago this weekend, where he’ll host Common’s Aahh! Fest, with Lupe Fiasco, De La Soul, MC Lyte (!), and others. And either he was plain sick of repeating material he’d performed three times in the last 48 hours, or he doesn’t have any new material, because most of what he did last night — sorry, what he did this morning, from 12:30am until just shy of 5am — is not what most people would refer to as “material.” This is also likely one reason the most sober he appeared all night was in the couple instances he caught people holding their cell phones, which were strictly and clearly prohibited from the moment he walked on stage. (“YouTube ruins comedy.”)
Also to be fair, Dave Chappelle is one of the few comedians alive who could get away with straight-up, absolutely non-planned riffing for that long — on current events, on domestic abuse and football, on race relations, on Ferguson, on run-ins with OJ, on sex, on marriage, on fame and its perils — and actually, for the most part, hold an audience’s attention.
For all his sloppiness (the last half-hour or so was largely Chappelle realizing and vocalizing how badly he needed to pee), the man possesses a spark of something undeniably genius, and it’s most visible in his social commentary, when he lets himself get dark — like the running gag of him being a “quinoa-eating” black person, the kind that makes white people feel safe. Or like when he unleashed a lucid torrent of facts about the shooting of unarmed young black men in the US over the past three years, including the grossly under-publicized killing of 22-year-old John Crawford III by white cops in a Walmart in Chappelle’s home state of Ohio last week. Crawford had picked up a BB gun inside the store — a gun that was for sale, naturally, at Walmart.
“The store never closed! They haven’t even shown the tapes!” Chappelle said incredulously. “And the worst part is that you’re allowed to carry a gun in Ohio. I’ve gone to Denny’s packing a gun! (Pause.) I’ve had a lot of cash on me at certain points in my life.”
At times you could almost see the sharpest version of him shining through the beer and weed haze, gauging the audience’s temperature, seeing how much more serious and guilt-inducing shit a mostly white audience would tolerate, before bringing everybody back in with his (still excellent) white suburban neighbor voice or a dick joke punchline.
Around 4am, after maybe half the audience had left (“What if I just wait all of you out? I’m going to be the last one standing”) and Chappelle became less and less articulate, the pauses in his riffing got longer, as he (and we) sat listening to the sound of cars driving through freshly rain-washed streets outside. Everybody had gotten their dumb questions out, or else had gotten too drunk and indiscriminately yelled for a while and then had their embarrassed friends drag them home. It was awkward the way any straggler-at-the-party-at-4am interaction is awkward. A little bit like a hostage situation, but with an incredibly funny and intelligent albeit unfocused kidnapper.
“It will take you years to understand what happened here tonight,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh, as someone asked about his show tomorrow (tonight). “Oh yeah, it’ll be great,” he said. “You should come. Based on how it went tonight, you won’t hear this shit again.”
Q: “Bring back the show!”
A: “Problem with that is, when you quit a show the way I did, networks don’t exactly trust you ever again. You realize I didn’t tell anyone I wasn’t coming in, I just left. So it’s like ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll see you Monday…'”
Q: “What’s the funniest insult you’ve ever heard?”
A: “My 5-year-old kid told me that I had a vagina on my back, with a butt for a mouth, with a hot dog in it. Five years old! I was like, the force is strong with this one. My wife got mad at me for laughing, but come on…I wasn’t even gonna laugh until the hot dog bit. He got me with the hot dog.”
WriterEmma Silvers
SectionPixel Vision
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You are here: Home › Post Tagged with: "Manhattan Project"
16. July 2019 Harald Sack
On July 16, 1945, the first detonation of a nuclear device with the code name Trinity took place in the Jornada del Muerto desert in New Mexico. Although nuclear chain reactions had been hypothesized already in 1933 and the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (Chicago Pile-1) had taken place in December 1942, the date of the Trinity test is usually considered to be the beginning of the Atomic Age. Los Alamos director…
Please Don’t Ignite the Earth’s Atmosphere…
13. May 2019 Harald Sack
When in 1952 the world‘s first thermonuclear fusion bomb was ignited, mathematicians and physicists thought it would be rather unlikely that testing the newly developed device might result in burning all the nitrogen in the earth‘s atmosphere. However, the possibility could not be excluded completely. Nevertheless, they have have tested the bomb and fortunately for all of us not the like did happen. One of the key persons behind the development of…
The First Self-Sustained Nuclear Chain Reaction
2. December 2018 Tabea Tietz
On December 2, 1942, during the Manhattan Project, a team led by Italian born physicist Enrico Fermi initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1), the world‘s first human-made nuclear reactor, and initiated the so-called atomic age. CP-1 was built on a rackets court, under the abandoned west stands of the original Alonzo Stagg Field stadium, at the University of Chicago. Nuclear Chain Reaction and the Atomic Bomb…
Lise Meitner – The Misjudged Genius
27. October 2018 Tabea Tietz
On October 27, 1968, Austrian-Swedish physicist Lise Meitner passed away. She is known today for her passionate and extraordinary work on radioactivity and nuclear physics along with her colleague Otto Hahn,[1] who was honored with the Nobel Prize while Meitner stayed unrecognized. Family Background and Early Life Lise Meitner was born on November 7, 1878 in Vienna Leopoldstadt (2nd district of Vienna), Austria. She was the third daughter of the Jewish lawyer Philipp Meitner and…
Vannevar Bush and his Vision of the Memex Memory Extender
11. March 2018 Harald Sack
On March 11, 1890, American engineer, inventor and science administrator Vannevar Bush was born. He is best known as as head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) during World War II, through which almost all wartime military research and development was carried out, including initiation of the Manhattan Project. In computer science we know Vannevar Bush as the father of the Memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer with a…
James Chadwick and the Discovery of the Neutron
27. February 2018 Harald Sack
On February 27, 1932, English physicist and Nobel Laureate Sir James Chadwick published an article in the scientific journal ‘Nature‘ about the discovery of the neutron, a previously unknown particle in the atomic nucleus. Youth and Education Chadwick was born in Bollington, near Manchester. His parents were John Joseph Chadwick and Mary Anne Knowles. He first attended the Bollington Cross C of E Primary School and later the Central Grammar School for Boys…
George Kistiakowsky – From the Manhattan Project to a Nuclear Weapons Ban
18. November 2017 Tabea Tietz
On November 18, 1900, Ukrainian-American physical chemist George Kistiakowsky was born. Kistiakowsky worked on developing the first atomic bomb but later advocated banning nuclear weapons. In the Manhattan project, he was in charge of X Division, which was responsible for the development of the explosive lenses necessary for an implosion-type nuclear weapon. Education and Academic Career George Bogdanovich Kistiakowsky went to the Russian Revolution in 1917 in Kiev and Moscow in private schools. However,…
Joseph Hamilton and the Health Effects of Radioactive Isotopes
On November 11, 1907, American professor of Medical Physics, Experimental Medicine, General Medicine, and Experimental Radiology Joseph Gilbert Hamilton was born. Hamilton studied the medical effects of exposure to radioactive isotopes, which also included the use of unsuspecting human subjects. Education and Research in Radionuclides Joseph Hamilton joined the University of California and earned his Bachelors degree in Chemistry in 1929. He continued his education and studied medicine in Berkeley and also worked…
Charles Percy Snow and the Two Cultures
15. October 2017 Harald Sack
On October 15, 1905, English physical chemist and novelist Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow was born. Snow is best known for his series of novels known collectively as Strangers and Brothers, and for The Two Cultures, a 1959 lecture in which he laments the gulf between scientists and “literary intellectuals“. Youth and Education C. P. Snow was born in Leicester to William Snow, a church organist and choirmaster, and his wife Ada.…
Harrison Brown and the Isolation of Plutonium
26. September 2017 Harald Sack
On September 26, 1916, American nuclear chemist and geochemist Harrison Scott Brown was born. Brown is generally known for his role in isolating plutonium for its use in the first atomic bombs and for his studies regarding meteorites and the Earth’s origin. He also was a political activist, who lectured and wrote on the issues of arms limitation, natural resources and world hunger. Harrison Brown was born in Sheridan, Wyoming, USA, the…
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Who CAN you trust? »
Mechanisms of Prejudice: Hidden and Not Hidden »
Message #2136
Author Topic: Mechanisms of Prejudice: Hidden and Not Hidden (Read 6465 times)
Re: Mechanisms of Prejudice: Hidden and Not Hidden
Fri Oct 31, 2014 at 04:01 PM EDT.
The complete guide to every public eyewitness interview in the shooting death of Mike Brown
Mike Brown was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson in broad daylight on a hot Saturday afternoon in Ferguson, Missouri. Consequently, eyewitnesses were standing at virtually every angle to observe exactly what happened that day. Seven have come forward publicly. Many gave interviews in the immediate aftermath of the shooting on Canfield Drive. Below is an annotated list of every public interview and video given by each eyewitness.
Dorian Johnson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQeni0qt8Vo&feature=player_embedded
Dorian Johnson is an essential eyewitness. He was walking with Mike Brown when they were first confronted by Officer Wilson and has given the only public account of what was said and done throughout the early stages of that confrontation.
Agelbert NOTE: Go link at bottom for links to all interviews.
• Here is the video interview with Johnson still on the scene soon after Brown was killed in which he describes everything he saw.
• Here is the same video from Johnson, but from a different camera angle.
• A very detailed 12-minute interview with Johnson by Al Sharpton in which he recounts every detail he could remember.
• Here Johnson does a video interview with the local press in which he recounts the story, the same as he said when he was on the scene. But he adds that it felt as if Brown was gunned down "like an animal."
• Here is an interview Johnson did with Chris Hayes just days after Brown was killed.
• Here Johnson does an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
• Here Johnson does an interview with CNN's Don Lemon after Brown's funeral.
• Here Johnson gives an interview more two months later, on Oct. 30, again with CNN's Lemon, and stands by every aspect of his previous account.
Additional ALL links to interviews can be found below the fold at the link below.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/31/1340611/-The-complete-guide-to-every-public-eyewitness-interview-in-the-shooting-death-of-Mike-Brown
“We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values… when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
-- Martin Luther King, Jr. April 4, 1967
"It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones."
Kajieme Powell's Sacrifice
It's time to listen to Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Kajieme Powell, Chris Hedges and Will Allen. If we don't, mankind is doomed.
The Concept of Race.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2014, 07:47:31 pm by AGelbert »
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Assoc Prof Khoo Soo Guan, Christopher
Associate Professor, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Email: assgkhoo@ntu.edu.sg
Office: WKWSCI 05 05
Chris Khoo is an associate professor in the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information, Division of Information Studies at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he teaches courses in knowledge organization, information architecture, data mining and Web-based information systems. He obtained his PhD at Syracuse University in 1997, his MSc in Library & Information Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1987, and a BA from Harvard University. He has also worked for several years as a science reference librarian, cataloger and online information searcher at the National University of Singapore Libraries. His main research interests are in knowledge organization, ontologies, automatic sentiment categorization, human categorization behavior, natural language processing, information extraction, multidocument summarization, and clinical decision support systems.
Chris Khoo's current research projects are:
- Digital intelligence (WKWSCI Academic Research Cluster funding)
- Automatic multidocument summarization of research articles
- Autmatic extraction of treatment information from a medical database
- Automatic sentiment analysis of multiple Web genres
- Human categorization behaviour
- Integrated clinical decision support system for wound care management
- Knowledge organization of websites, portals & learning object repositories
Argument and Information Structures in Research Papers
Evidence-Based Teaching of Literature Review Writing
Knowledge Representation of Social Science Quantitative Research Data for Data Curation and Reuse
Modelling Clinician Interaction With a Clinical Decision Support System for Wound Management and Early Recognition of Deteriorating Patients
Khoo, Christopher and Brendan Luyt, Caroline Ee, Jamila Osman, Hui-Hui Lim and Sally Yong. (2007). How users organize electronic files on their workstations in the office environment: a preliminary study of personal information organization behaviour. Information Research, 12(2), paper 293 [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir.
Wang, Z; Chaudhry, Abdus Sattar; and Khoo, Chris. (2007). Potential and prospects of taxonomies for content organization. Knowledge Organisation, 33(3), 160-169.
Khoo, C., and Na, J. C. (2006). Semantic Relations in Information Science. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 40, 157-228.
Khoo, C., Dai, Y., & Loh, T.E. (2002). Using statistical and contextual information to identify two- and three-character words in Chinese text. American Society for Information Science and Technology. Journal, 53, 365-377.
Khoo, C., Ng, K., & Ou, S. (2002). Proceedings of the Seventh International ISKO Conference: An exploratory study of human clustering of Web pages. (pp. 351-357)Wurzburg, Germany: Ergon-Verlag.
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When the believers stop believing: Chesapeake dumps shale gas assets
Only two years ago Chesapeake Energy Corp. president Aubrey McClendon was telling us about the limitless future of natural gas in North America. It was going to free us from foreign oil by allowing us to convert our vehicle fleet to run on domestically produced natural gas from vast shale deposits. Technology was now making these deposits accessible, and McClendon offered up "research" done by a nonprofit largely funded by his company that showed that these deposits could power America for another century.
It is a good thing that McClendon, who still runs Chesapeake, isn't taking his own advice these days. Back in mid-2008 when natural gas prices leapt above $13 per thousand cubic feet, the company was riding high as the darling of the shale gas drillers.
Since the crash in late 2008, natural gas prices have been mired in the $3 to $4 range, not high enough to justify the high costs associated with most shale gas drilling. And that means, of course, that natural gas drilling is taking place only in those spots which are deemed easy enough and cheap enough to exploit profitably at these prices. Gas drilling rig counts in North America slipped from more than 1,600 at the end of August 2008 down to fewer than 700 during the worst of the bust in mid-2009 and settled at 906 last week, according to Baker Hughes.
In testimony before the U.S. Congress in 2008 McClendon said to our elected representatives: "Many of you think of our industry as being part of the 'oil and gas industry' and therefore attached at the hip to the oil industry. However, nothing could be further from the truth." (PDF) He went on to say:
Imagine tomorrow if your hometown or national newspaper proclaimed that you had introduced a plan that would, in one stroke, cut gasoline's cost in half, reduce our oil imports, improve our air quality, enhance national security, strengthen the dollar, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create tens of thousands of new jobs in the U.S. in the automotive, truck, steel, natural gas and related industries. The papers might say you just have changed the course of American history.
It was an inspiring vision even if delivered in a somewhat obsequious manner. With the high-minded help of America's domestic natural gas drillers, the country could free itself from the tyranny of oil, McClendon told the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
Fast forward to today. So poor is the natural gas business now that McClendon has decided to sell off a good portion of Chesapeake's shale gas assets in order to concentrate on oil trapped in shale. Why? Because the price of oil is so much higher relative to natural gas, proving that price is the key driver in exploiting hard-to-get hydrocarbon resources. Since McClendon's 2008 testimony, the natural gas industry seems to have been rejoined at the hip to the oil industry (or perhaps it was never really separated). So much for cheap, abundant natural gas for the next century. So much for freeing ourselves from the tyranny of oil.
In truth, I don't blame McClendon for doing what he's doing. His job is to make money for his shareholders, and unlike many presidents of public traded companies, McClendon owned a huge stake in the company before a margin call nearly wiped him out. Since then he has bought back about 900,000 shares according to Chesapeake's latest proxy statement (PDF). Before the margin call he owned more than 33 million shares representing about 5 percent of the company, far more than most corporate chief executives.
But just because McClendon's interests are aligned with his shareholders doesn't mean they are aligned with the interests of the American public. And, the notion that a self-interested energy company executive can give solid advice to Congress about long-term policy is nonsense. Of course, policymakers need to collect information from the oil and gas industry in order to understand our current energy situation. But that is altogether different from expecting objective policy advice.
So, where does that leave us with respect to natural gas in the United States? We are not quite back to where we were before the shale gas boom. But domestic natural gas supplies aren't going to be as plentiful as previously believed. The shale gas boom that had seemed to raise U.S. domestic gas production by 11 percent turned out to be a mirage. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced in early 2010 that as a result of poor methodology, it had been overestimating U.S. domestic gas production by (surprise) about 10 to 12 percent, almost the same amount as the growth attributed to the shale gas boom.
And, the same agency--an agency known for its persistently optimistic energy supply forecasts--now shows domestic gas production stagnant through 2020 and barely meeting tepid growth in demand through 2035. (The EIA has been known in the past to simply match production to projected consumption and assume that supplies will somehow come from somewhere.) The stated reason for the less-than-buoyant projection is that growth in shale gas production is expected only barely to offset declines in production from other sources of natural gas.
Natural gas prices are low now because the U.S. economy remains in low gear. Should it accelerate to high gear, count on much higher natural gas prices as demand picks up. Then perhaps we'll have a shale gas boom again followed by a bust.
Both the murky projections of future natural gas supplies and the wildly cyclical nature of the industry make it a questionable platform for energy security. What America and the world needs now are new steady, dependable and climate-friendly sources of energy, sources as steady as the rays of the sun and as clean as the wind on plains.
Kurt, thanks for the good article. You are saying that gas prices are low because the US economy is not growing. Why does the NG industry continue to dump an oversupply of gas into the market? They should learn from OPEC and limit the supply artificially. That would be in the national interest as well as in the interest of the gas industry. Prices of gas should be a touch below oil prices to make sure that the reserves are not depleted too fast.
In addition to clean energy we need most of all a substantial amount of energy conservation. Europe consumes on average half the energy we consume without sacrificing life quality. But then again prices of energy are substantially higher in Europe than they are here in the US.
To propose that the government or the industry limit the amount of natural gas produced in the country in order to stabilize the price and encourage conservation would be an unprecedented intrusion into the free market, right? Wrong! The Texas Railroad Commission which regulates the oil and gas industry in the state essentially used to fulfill the role Saudi Arabia does now, regulating production so as to act as the swing producer in the world to smooth out supplies.
I say "used to" because that was true in the days before the United States peaked in its oil production which was 1970. Before then the Railroad Commission "prorated" wells forcing oil companies to produce at only a set percentage of the well's potential rate, changing the rate in response to rising or fall prices to maintain steady oil supplies to the market.
This essentially kept prices up when they would have tanked, and kept them down when they would have skyrocketed.
Thus, wide price swings were avoided and this made planning and exploration in the industry much more predictable. It also meant the oil wasn't squandered in an orgy of overproduction and price cutting.
Henry Kissinger proposed in the 1970s a floor on oil prices in the United States to be implemented by a sliding import fee that changed with prices, but always maintained a minimum price that would encourage conservation and alternatives.
It also would have met with approval from the domestic oil and gas industry had it ever been implemented, successfully splitting domestic producers off from international producers politically.
But instead of adopting a rational, self-interested energy policy, we adopted no policy which meant one that was most amenable to foreign oil producers.
We are making the same mistake again by following a policy that squanders domestic natural gas. This country has a long history of manipulating energy prices and production for specific policy aims. When we decided to deregulate the industry completely what we got was what you would expect: high volatility and high uncertainty that has plagued the country for 40 years.
Naturally, what I'm talking about would mean higher prices. But it would also mean a better environment for developing alternatives to fossil fuels and it would encourage conservation.
In the current environment, such a policy would seem impossible. But things can change. Look at how much is suddenly changing around us in ways no one anticipated.
Mark Goldes said...
TIME FOR A FEW BLACK SWANS!
Nassim Taleb’s brilliant book: The BLACK SWAN – The Impact of the HIGHLY IMPROBABLE, provides a way to discuss how we can move more rapidly beyond fossil fuels.
Two revolutionary breakthroughs in energy have surfaced so far this year.
Joule Unlimited has announced they can create diesel for $30/barrel. The process combines solar energy, water and carbon dioxide with bacteria. The same process can also be used to create alcohol fuels without agriculture and gasoline with no need for oil.
Andrea Rossi has demonstrated his Energy Catalyst in Italy. Incorrectly called “Cold Fusion” it is in production. A one Megawatt heating plant is scheduled for completion in October. Rossi claims electricity can be produced for one cent per kilowatt hour. Dr. Edmond Storms, a distinguished scientist has said: “there will be a stampede to buy these things”.
Both are Black Swans. A small flock of them are being born. See Black Swans and also “Cold Fusion” at: www.aesopinstitute.org
A 24/7 program to validate, develop and produce Black Swans can help move us beyond fossil fuels more rapidly than stalled Washington institutions.
When the believers stop believing: Chesapeake dump...
My congressman has selective science disorder
Prelude interview on WJR now online
The week of the game changer in oil, or was it?
Prelude makes The Huffington Post
Is the modern anti-tax movement a product of incre...
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"Democracy" In Action; Or "Why Washington Drives Me Crazy"
Even though I blog almost exclusively about workplace safety and labor issues, I follow all Washington politics very carefully. I manage to get most of my frustration out by writing Confined Space, but occasionally life in DC gets so overwhelming that I even have to write about general politics.
This is what's making me rip up the newspapers and throw things at the radio lately.
Example 1: You may have heard that the Republicans lost a vote today on approving oil drilling in Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Now, if you're not following this issue carefully, you might assume this was a regular up and down vote. Not even close. First, most controversial legislation needs 60 votes to pass in the Senate because Senators can filibuster (talk indefinitely), and 60 votes are needed to shut it down for a vote. But the Republicans couldn't muster 60 votes, so they came up with something else: attach it to the budget bill whcih can't be filibustered. But they couldn't even get 50 votes for that, so they tried tactic number 3 (courtesy of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens): Put it on the Defense appropriations bill -- and add Katrina relief to that. No one would dare vote that down, leaving our boys defenseless and Katrina victims rotting in the mold, right?
Wrong again.
The Senate today failed to pass a major defense appropriations bill after a Democratic-led bloc stymied it with a filibuster in an effort to force removal of a controversial provision on oil drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge.
With 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster and cut off debate on the bill, its backers fell short by four votes. The tally on a motion to invoke cloture so the Senate could move to a vote on the bill itself was 56-44.
Voting to block the bill were 40 Democrats, one independent and three Republicans -- Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Bill Frist of Tennessee. Frist, the Senate majority leader, had supported passage, but once the voting numbers became clear, he cast a "no" vote for procedural reasons so that he could bring up the drilling issue for another vote.
I'll be interested to see what they come up with next....
Example 2: The Republicans did have one victory today. Vice PresidentDarth Vader Dick Cheney flew back from his trip abroad just in time to cast the deciding vote to give the Republicans victory by a nose on the budget bill. The bill included $40 billion in budget cuts that would
allow states to impose new fees on Medicaid recipients, cut federal child-support enforcement funds, impose new work requirements on state welfare programs and squeeze student lenders
President Bush hailed the vote as "a victory for taxpayers, fiscal restraint and responsible budgeting."
Responsible budgeting? Perhaps the President is so worried about getting impeached that he's forgotten about the $56 billion tax cut last week -- conveniently separated from the budget bill so that it would be harder to do the math.
But let's do the math anyway. Let's see. You cut $40 billion in spending, but then take away $56 billion in revenues -- according to my childrens' first grade math book -- that would put the budget $16 billion further in debt. I don't think even a first grader would call that "responsible budgeting."
And it wasn't just any budget-increasing tax cut, it was your characteristically typical Republican budget-increasing tax cut:
The Tax Policy Center, run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, has concluded that the bottom 80 percent of households would receive 15.8 percent of the House tax cuts' benefit. The top 20 percent would receive 84.2 percent of the benefit. Households earning more than $1 million a year would get 40 percent of the tax cuts, or an average reduction of nearly $51,000.
In other words, it's your basic take 'from the poor and give to the rich.'
Example 3: When both the House of Representatives and the Senate pass similar bills, they go to a "Conference" of leaders of both Houses to iron out the differences. Then the bill is sent back to the House and Senate for final votes. Republicans and Democrats sit on the Conference committees.
But the Republicans just invented something new. The pharmaceutical companies have been trying to pass a bill that protects vaccine manufacturers from product liability claims in the event of an Avian flu pandemic. But there wasn't enough support. So the Republicans added it to the fiscal year 2006 Defense Department spending conference report -- after after House and Senate negotiators had already signed the conference report and announced its details to the public (more here).
That's it for you "Democracy In Action" lesson for today.
And yes, this will all be on the final exam, November 7, 2006.
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Wanted: New Coach To Guarantee Success for Federer and Murray…
Posted on July 30, 2010 by JA Allen
Roger Federer, ranked No. 3 and Andy Murray, ranked No. 4 are in the market for new coaches.
Andy Murray decided to split with Coach Miles Maclagan shortly after Roger Federer announced that he would be teaming up on a trial basis with former Pete Sampras coach Paul Annacone.
Something is definitely in the air. Just what is the significance of these seemingly disparate actions by two of the tennis world’s top four?
If you are paying attention to the subtle signs, you get the feeling that the top players are girding up, preparing for an all-out assault on the hard courts where they figure to be playing for all the marbles in 2010.
This is the season when the current No. 1 player, Rafael Nadal is most vulnerable. While no one can overtake the Majorcan in the next few months, the player who advances his standing by adding to his own ranking points may be laying the foundation for his tennis future.
If you recall, Maclagan stepped in to replace Brad Gilbert on Andy Murray’s team back in 2007. The Scot explained the departure of his current coach of over three years by admitting that he and Maclagan had major differences of opinion about the direction or approach they were taking in terms of Murray’s career. They no longer saw eye to eye on what was important.
That cannot be good. In fact, it is disastrous when the coach and the player do not agree.
One must wonder who went astray in this bizarre scenario? Regardless, Murray has made up his mind to stick with Alex Corretja until he finds a new coach––someone who will help him reach that No. 1 ranking and secure his first major.
Andy Murray, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic currently rank behind World No. 1 Rafael Nadal.
Murray is the only member of the top four who has not taken that giant step by holding a major trophy as a slam winner on the last day of the tournament.
This week the Scot is playing in the Farmers Classic in Los Angeles, stepping into to accept a wild card after Novak Djokovic pulled out for undisclosed “personal reasons.”
Murray has been idle from the tour since being dismissed by Rafael Nadal in the semifinals at Wimbledon. It was just one more failure in a year of very high expectation starting with his defeat by Federer in the finals of the Australian Open.
At age 23 with two years of waiting patiently under his belt, Murray is ready to put all the pieces of his game together and be the dominant player everyone assures him he can be. Hence––a new coach, a new attitude and a new grasp on the dream of making it to the No. 1 spot.
The time for patience has ended.
This, Murray believes, is right time for his era to begin. It all starts with a new coach.
For Roger Federer the reason for the move to work with Paul Annacone is obvious. It is time to add another special ingredient to propel Federer to the top one more time.
When the Swiss worked with Jose Higueras he developed and fine-tuned an effective drop shot that has now become a considerable weapon in the Maestro’s arsenal.
Roger Federer worked with Coach Jose Higueras in 2008 during the clay season.
Their tenure together was a short one but Higueras helped Federer see the value of that shot on clay and Federer transplanted that stroke to other surfaces very effectively.
Annacone worked with Pete Sampras while the American added eight additional slam titles to his record book.
Federer needs a boost right now at the start of the American hard court season because the Swiss has a boat-load of points to defend after winning Cincinnati last year and making the finals of the U.S. Open.
If Federer does not stem the tide of earlier-than-expected- exits, his ranking could fall even further than his current No. 3 slot. Right now, Federer can hope to add to his point totals and climb back up to the No. 2.
Then he can bide his time until next year during the clay court season when Nadal will be defending all his championship points. At that point Federer will have nothing to lose––but lots of points to gain.
Presently, Federer has gone as far as he can relying on his own instincts and insights. The Swiss needs another perspective for building on-court strategies and for assessing his opponents––Annacone, as a master of the game, can offer Federer another pair of eyes. So the Swiss hopes.
Federer has never needed the hand-holding, ego-bolstering kind of coach that most professionals find indispensable. What the Swiss seeks in a coach is much more technical in nature. After all, Federer knows his own game–-his strengths and weaknesses better than any other person alive.
He needs that individual who understands the game to tell him he can only run round around his backhand if the guy on the other side of the net serves at 115 mph or less.
Or that the inside out backhand will work on player “x” because he cannot move well to his left. These are technical adjustments the Swiss can make in his game with adequate preparation by a coach who know his stuff and understands what Federer can and cannot do in a match.
Both Federer and Murray aim toward capuring the U.S. Open in 2010
People have accused Federer of being “stubborn” but no one has ever accused him of being stupid.
Federer has not employed a coach because he does not need a “traditional” coach with him every week of the year.
Annacone could be just what the Swiss Maestro needs to ratchet up his game for one last try at the No. 1 ranking.
So while No. 3 and No. 4 tinker with new coaches in order to make another charge up mountain, and No. 2 stands salivating in the wings, the current King waits, ready to throw them off again as they come his way.
Nadal will remain King of the Mountain in 2010––but he will not take anything for granted, knowing there will always be usurpers wishing to bump him off.
U.S. Open: A Look at the Men’s Favorites
3 Coaching Tips To Help Your Team Succeed
British Open 2019 — Preview, Odds, and Predictions
Tags: Andy Murray, Men's Tennis, Miles Maclagan, Paul Annacone, Roger Federer, U.S. Open Tennis
Category Tennis
← Should There Be A “Senior” Ryder Cup?
Jack Tatum: Fine Line Between Being Aggressive and Dirty →
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East Tennessee Historical Society - Connecting the Region and Its History
The East Tennessee Historical Society is one of the most active private historical organizations in the state. We specialize in finding creative ways to introduce the public to the fascinating world of history.
Lectures, tours, award-winning exhibits, family heritage programs, genealogy classes, and student and teacher education appeal to people of all ages.
Recognizing that East Tennessee’s history, heritage, and geography are distinct from the rest of the state, the East Tennessee Historical Society provides services and programs uniquely tailored to the region. ETHS partners with and promotes the history and events of organizations and sites across our 35 counties. We have 45 affiliate chapters across the region.
To preserve, promote, and interpret the history of Tennessee, with a focus on East Tennessee.
The East Tennessee Historical Society and Museum, along with the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, the Knox County Archives, and the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound are headquartered in the beautiful East Tennessee History Center in downtown Knoxville.
The East Tennessee Historical Society was established in 1834 as the East Tennessee Historical and Antiquarian Society. The guiding spirit behind the founding was Dr. J.G.M. Ramsey, son of a pioneer family, the author of one of the state’s first histories, and also a founder of the Tennessee Historical Society. Since 1924 ETHS has been an adjunct to and headquartered with the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection of the Knox County Public Library. The two operate as a private/public partnership to preserve and share the history of East Tennessee.
The East Tennessee Historical Society’s Museum of East Tennessee History opened in 1993. The popularity of the museum, a growing artifact collection, and increased research audiences spurred an expansion of the East Tennessee History Center and generated a campaign for a new, first-class Museum of East Tennessee, which opened in 2008.
Natalie L. Haslam Signature Gallery
Voices of the Land: The People of East Tennessee
Through artifacts, images, and technology, the museum tells the story of three centuries of life in our mountain and valley land. The exhibit especially explores the region’s strong connections to important national events.
Rogers-Claussen Gallery
Changing exhibitions explore a variety of historical topics.
IRS Form 990 Information Return
Fiscal Year 2017 - East Tennessee Historical Society
Fiscal Year 2017 - East Tennessee Historical Society Foundation
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Activated Charcoal – Switch ON Your Body’s Toxin Trap
07 Jan 2019 11:58 AM | Aliya Umm Omar (Administrator)
Activated charcoal is a potent natural treatment used to trap toxins and chemicals in the body, allowing them to be flushed out so the body doesn’t reabsorb them. It’s made from a variety of sources, but when used for natural healing, it’s important to select activated charcoal made from coconut shells or other natural sources.
Making activated charcoal involves heating carbon-rich materials, such as wood, peat, coconut shells, or sawdust, to very high temperatures. The high temperatures change its internal structure, reducing the size of its pores and increasing its surface area. This results in a charcoal that is more porous than regular charcoal. The manufacture of activated charcoal makes it extremely adsorbent, allowing it to bind to molecules, ions, or atoms. This 'activation' process strips the charcoal of previously absorbed molecules and frees up bonding sites again. This process also reduces the size of the pores in the charcoal and makes more holes in each molecule, therefore, increasing its overall surface area. As a result, one teaspoon full of activated charcoal has more surface area than a football field!
The charcoal's porous texture has a negative electrical charge, which causes it to attract positively charged molecules, such as toxins and gases. The black powder stops toxins and chemicals from being absorbed in the stomach by binding to them. The body is unable to absorb charcoal, and so the toxins that bind to the charcoal leave the body in the faeces.
Activated charcoal is not the same substance as that found in charcoal bricks or burnt pieces of food and it shouldn't be confused with charcoal briquettes that are used to light your barbecue. While both can be made from the same base materials, charcoal briquettes have not been "activated" at high temperatures. Moreover, they contain additional substances that are toxic to humans.
The first documented use of activated charcoal goes as far back as 3750 B.C., when it was first used by the Egyptians for smelting ores to create bronze. By 1500 B.C. the Egyptians were also using it for intestinal ailments, absorbing unpleasant odours, and for writing on papyrus. In 400 B.C. the Ancient Hindus and Phoenicians discovered the antiseptic properties of activated charcoal and began using it to purify their water. A well known practice for any long sea voyage was to store water in barrels that had been charred.
By 50 A.D., leading the way for the use of activated charcoal in medicine was Hippocrates and Pliny, who began using it to treat many different ailments such as epilepsy, and vertigo. After the suppression of the sciences through the Dark Ages, charcoal re-emerged in the 1700’s and 1800’s within the use of medical treatments - both for its absorbent properties of fluid and gases and for its disinfectant properties. Some popular uses during this time period included poultices made from charcoal and bread crumbs or yeast (favoured by army and navy surgeons) as well as charcoal powders to alleviate foul smelling ulcers, acidity in the stomach, and even nosebleeds. By the 1900’s charcoal was even starting to be sold as lozenges, biscuits, and tooth powders!
Today, activated charcoal is used in practical applications in hospitals and homes, for people and for pets. In medical facilities around the world, charcoal is used in filtering masks for lab technicians, in liver and kidney dialysis machines, and even as markers in breast cancer surgery (among many other applications). Just as charcoal has been used to help remove toxins ingested by humans, veterinarians also use this practice for pets that may have ingested something potentially harmful to them (such as when dogs eat chocolate!). Additionally, activated charcoal has found its place in day to day use, being used in air filters and water purification. Activated carbon is used in methane and hydrogen storage, decaffeination, gold purification, metal extraction, sewage treatment, air filters in gas masks and respirators, filters in compressed air, teeth whitening, and many other applications.
Activated Charcoal Benefits
One of the most popular activated charcoal uses is for the safe and effective treatment of poisoning and drug overdoses. It’s used in emergency trauma centres across the world. Research shows that activated charcoal works better than stomach pumping in some situations. In addition, it’s used to reduce bloating and gas, lower cholesterol and treat bile flow problems safely during pregnancy (intrahepatic cholestasis).
So, how does activated charcoal work? As mentioned before, activated charcoal works by trapping toxins and chemicals in its millions of tiny pores. Typically, however, it’s not used when petroleum, alcohol, lye, acids or other corrosive poisons are ingested.
It doesn’t absorb the toxins, however. Instead it works through the chemical process of Adsorption:
In the body, absorption is the reaction of elements, including nutrients, chemicals and toxins, soaked up and assimilated into the blood stream. Adsorption is the chemical reaction where elements bind to a surface.
In addition to being a safe and effective treatment for poisonings and the removal of toxins from the system, additional activated charcoal uses include deodorizing and disinfecting, and it’s an important step to treat Lyme disease.
Activated charcoal may be able to assist kidney function by filtering out undigested toxins and drugs. It seems to be especially effective at removing toxins derived from urea, the main by-product of protein digestion.
Aging is a natural part of life, but due to the toxic load we are exposed to through food, our homes and workplaces, and our environment, to prevent premature aging we must get rid of them. For this activated charcoal use, take two capsules per day after exposure to non-organic foods, heavy meals or after contact to other toxins. This supports better cognitive function, a reduction in brain fog, healthier kidney and liver function, and a healthier gastrointestinal tract.
In humans, activated charcoal has been shown to help improve kidney function in those suffering from chronic kidney disease. Activated charcoal may help promote kidney function by reducing the number of waste products that the kidneys have to filter. Those with chronic kidney disease suffer from a condition in which the kidneys can no longer properly filter waste products.
Activated charcoal uses include helping prevent cellular damage to kidneys and liver, as well as supporting healthy adrenal glands. Activated charcoal benefits major organs by helping the body flush out the toxins and chemicals that cause the damage.
Intestinal Gas
Activated charcoal powder is thought to be able to disrupt intestinal gas, although researchers still do not understand how. It could work by binding the gas-causing by-products in foods that cause discomfort. Liquids and gases trapped in the intestine can easily pass through the millions of tiny holes in activated charcoal, and this process may neutralise them.
In a 2012 study, a small sample of people with a history of excessive gas in their intestines took 448 milligrams (mg) of activated charcoal three times a day for 2 days before having intestinal ultrasound examinations. They also took another 672 mg on the morning of the exam. The study showed that medical examiners were better able to see certain parts of some of the organs they intended to identify with the ultrasound whereas intestinal gas would have obscured these before the treatment. Also, some 34 percent of the participants who were given the activated charcoal to reduce their gas had improved symptoms.
In a 2017 study, people who took 45 mg of simethicone and 140 mg of activated charcoal three times daily for 10 days, all reported a significant reduction in abdominal pain with no side effects.
Dosing recommendations to alleviate gas and bloating: Take 500 milligrams one hour prior to a typical gas-producing meal, with a full glass of water. Follow with an additional glass of water immediately thereafter to help get the charcoal into your system, where it can bind with gas-producing elements.
People have long used activated charcoal as a natural water filter. Just as it does in the intestines and stomach, activated charcoal can interact with and absorb a range of toxins, drugs, viruses, bacteria, fungus, and chemicals found in water.
In commercial settings, such as waste-management centres, operators often use activated carbon granules for one part of the filtration process. Dozens of water filtration products are also designed for at-home use, using carbon cartridges to purify water of toxins and impurities.
A 2015 study found that water filtration systems that used carbon removed as much as 100 percent of the fluoride in 32 unfiltered water samples after 6 months of installation. However, according to a study published in the Journal of the Canadian Dental Association, activated carbon filters (activated charcoal), removes some fluoride.
Activated charcoal traps impurities in water including solvents, pesticides, industrial waste and other chemicals. This is why activated charcoal uses include being used in water filtration systems throughout the world. However, it doesn’t trap viruses, bacteria and hard-water minerals.
Given its use as a gastrointestinal absorbent in overdoses and poisonings, it follows that some people might propose activated charcoal as a treatment for diarrhoea.
In a 2017 review of recent studies on the use of activated charcoal for diarrhoea, researchers concluded that it might be able to prevent bacteria and drugs that can cause diarrhoea from being absorbed into the body by trapping them on its porous, textured surface.
While noting it as a suitable treatment for diarrhoea, the researchers also pointed out that activated charcoal had few side effects, especially in comparison with common anti-diarrhoeal medications.
Teeth Whitening and Oral Health
Have your teeth become stained from coffee, tea, wine or berries? Activated charcoal helps whiten teeth while promoting good oral health by changing the pH balance in the mouth, helping prevent cavities, bad breath and gum disease.
It works to whiten teeth by adsorbing plaque and microscopic dirt that stain teeth. This activated charcoal use is cost-effective and an all-natural solution for a bright smile.
Although activated charcoal has amazing toxin-absorbing properties, there still is no significant research to support its use for teeth whitening or oral health.
Activated charcoal uses extend beyond internal applications. For external treatments, it’s effective at treating body odour and acne and relieving discomfort from insect bites, rashes from poison ivy or poison oak, and snake bites.
Around the world, many different traditional medicine practitioners use activated charcoal powder made from coconut shells to treat soft tissue conditions, such as skin infections.
Researchers have reported that activated charcoal can help draw micro-particles, such as dirt, dust, chemicals, toxins, and bacteria, to the surface of the skin, to make removing them easier.
Emergency Toxin Removal
Activated charcoal uses also include as an antidote in the event of an accidental, or purposeful, overdose of many pharmaceutical drugs and over-the-counter medications. It’s effective for aspirin, opium, cocaine, morphine, sedative and acetaminophen. It’s important that the proper amount is administered as quickly as possible — definitely within an hour of ingestion. That's because it can bind a wide variety of drugs, reducing their effects.
In humans, activated charcoal has been used as a poison antidote since the early 1800s. For instance, studies show that when a single dose of 50–100 grams of activated charcoal is taken within five minutes of drug ingestion, it may reduce drug absorption in adults by up to 74%. This effect decreases to around 50% when the charcoal is taken 30 minutes after drug ingestion and 20% if it's taken three hours after the drug overdose.
The initial dose of 50–100 grams is sometimes followed by two to six doses of 30–50 grams every two to six hours. However, this multiple dosage protocol is used less often and may only be effective in a limited number of poisoning cases.
It can be used in cases of food poisoning when nausea and diarrhoea are present. Adults take 25 grams at onset of symptoms or when food poisoning is suspected, and children should be given 10 grams. Increase dosage as necessary. Remember, it’s essential that adequate water is consumed when activated charcoal is taken.
Most organic compounds, pesticides, mercury, fertilizer and bleach bind to activated charcoal’s surface, allowing for quicker elimination, while preventing the absorption in the body. However, it's important to note that activated charcoal is not effective in all cases of poisoning. For instance, it appears to have little effect on alcohol, heavy metal, iron, lithium, potassium, acid or alkali poisonings.
In the event of poisoning, call the emergency services immediately. No one should ever try to treat an overdose or poisoning at home. What's more, experts warn that activated charcoal shouldn't be routinely administered in all cases of poisoning. Rather, its use should be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Recipes for Health
Cleansing Face Mask
Activated charcoal is an active ingredient in many commercial products for fighting acne. This is because activated charcoal can pull the dirt and toxins from your skin that cause you to break out.
1/2 teaspoon activated charcoal powder
1/2 teaspoon water
1/2 teaspoon aloe vera gel
A few drops of tea tree oil (optional)
Mix this together and apply to your face with a flat brush for a wonderful skin detox. Let the mask dry and wash off gently.
Wet a toothbrush and dip into powdered activated charcoal. Brush teeth as normal, paying special attention to areas showing the most staining. Sip a bit of water, swish through mouth thoroughly and spit. Rinse well, until spit is clear. For best results, brush your teeth with activated charcoal powder 2–3 times per week.
Note:Be careful, for it can (and will) stain grout and fabrics. Protect counters, floors and clothing before using. If you have crowns, caps or porcelain veneers, it’s possible that activated charcoal will stain them. In addition, if your teeth become sensitive, stop using it.
Charcoal may absorb smells and harmful gases, making it ideal as an underarm, shoe, and refrigerator deodorant. Activated charcoal is also reported to be able to absorb excess moisture and control humidity levels at a micro level.
Take about 4 tablespoons of your favourite coconut oil and mix in 2 teaspoons of activated charcoal powder. You will also need a third of a cup of both starch and baking soda.
Insect Bites/Stings
After a mosquito bite or bee sting, mix one capsule of activated charcoal with ½ tablespoon of coconut oil, and dab on affected area. Reapply every 30 minutes until itching and discomfort are gone. As activated charcoal stains nearly everything it touches, wrap with a bandage.
Snake/Spider Bites
To treat bites from snakes and spiders, including the brown recluse or black widow, you want to cover a larger area than just a small bandage, as the bacteria and viruses that lead to tissue damage need to be mitigated quickly.
Create a wrap out of fabric that’s big enough to go around the affected area twice. Dab the mixture of coconut oil and activated charcoal on the fabric, and wrap. Secure with bandages. Reapply every two to three hours, rinsing well between applications.
To treat acne, mix one capsule of activated charcoal with two teaspoons of aloe vera gel, and smooth over face. Let dry and rinse off completely. The activated charcoal binds with environmental toxins and dirt that contribute to acne. It’s also good for spot treatments.
There have been no major adverse reactions noted with activated charcoal in any of its various forms, except that it may cause nausea and vomiting in large amounts. In addition, constipation and black stools are two other commonly reported side effects. Whenever you take activated charcoal, it’s imperative to drink 12–16 glasses of water per day. Activated charcoal can cause dehydration if adequate amounts of water aren’t consumed in tandem. In addition, this helps to flush out the toxins quickly and prevents constipation experienced by some individuals.
It’s always good to be aware of any medical conditions such as intestinal bleeding or blockages, holes in the intestines, chronic dehydration, slow digestion, or a recent abdominal surgery, as they may affect how activated charcoal reacts in your body.
When activated charcoal is used as an emergency antidote for poison, there's a risk that it can travel into the lungs, rather than the stomach. This is especially true if the person receiving it vomits or is drowsy or semi-conscious. Because of this risk, activated charcoal should only be given to individuals who are fully conscious.
Additionally, activated charcoal can interfere with the absorption of nutrients, supplements and interfere with prescription medications. Take activated charcoal 90 minutes to two hours prior to meals, supplements and prescription medications.
People taking medications should talk with a doctor before taking oral activated charcoal products, as these may interfere with absorption of their medication.
To Sum Up…
Activated charcoal is a type of charcoal that's processed to make it more porous. This porous texture is what distinguishes it from other types of charcoals, including the type used for barbecuing. Its super absorbent nature helps it trap toxins and chemicals in the gut and as it can’t be absorbed by your body, it carries the toxins bound to its surface out of your body in faeces. The porous surface of activated charcoal has a negative electric charge that causes positive-charged toxins and gas to bond with it. This is why it is still touted as a universal antidote to treat drug overdoses, food poisoning and deadly snake and spider bites. Not only does it combat the life threatening conditions it has many other uses ranging from lowering cholesterol to whitening teeth.
Although its toxin-absorbing properties have a wide range of medicinal and cosmetic uses, more research is needed to scientifically prove its effectiveness.
https://www.sappohill.com/pilot.asp?pg=Activated_Charcoal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_carbon
https://draxe.com/activated-charcoal-uses/
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/activated-charcoal#section2
https://www.ideahacks.com/activated-charcoal-benefits/
What is Hijama?
Hijama in Islam
Types of Cupping
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Trenton Mayor on Economic Developement and LGBTQ Issues
Steve Adubato talks with Reed Gusciora, Mayor of Trenton, about the challenges facing the city; the role of the state government in economic development; and the importance of the LGBTQ community in politics today.
4/20/19 #306
"Welcome to State of Affairs. I'm Steve Adubato. We're coming to you from the Agnes Varis NJTV Studio right here in Newark, New Jersey. We're gonna introduce a gentleman who knows Newark, but he's not from Newark. He is Reed Gusciora, who is the mayor of the capital city, Trenton. Good see you. Good to see you Steve. For those who don't know Trenton... by the way, you can see the Capitol dome behind us. Is it... that's the... Trenton's more than that right? It is. It's seven square miles. It's on the... it sits midway between Philadelphia and New York. We have four train lines, waterfront property. So it's a great place to come and invest. You also spent 22 years in the State Legislature before you became mayor? I represented the capital district. Yes. That's right. The number one challenge facing Trenton these days happens to be? Well it's a combination. Our water, public utility, is a challenge where we're trying to turn that around. We have economic development issues, crime, and also education. What are the biggest opportunities for Trenton? The fact that you can buy low and develop. We have a lot of potential developable lands. Seven entities came in for cannabis ventures. We have the Roebling factories that have been sitting there for 50 years. So we have a lot of investors that want to come in and gamble on Trenton. You know, it's interesting. I happened to be at a college basketball game, I have a... full disclosure, I'm a fan of Seton Hall University basketball. Myles Powell? Yeah. Right? From Trenton. He made a big shot one of the games against Villanova, and the announcer said, "There he is! Myles Powell. From Trenton." Trenton makes - the world...? ...takes. ...takes. Explain to folks what that means. And by the way is that still on the bridge? It's still on the bridge. And now it has LED lighting. So... [laughter] ...it changes colors. Technology, innovation, okay? Explain to folks the short version, the Reader's Digest version, I'll age myself. When it comes to that whole... who makes and who takes? Well, we made the wire for the Brooklyn Bridge and the Roebling wire works, we also made Lenox china, Beam china, and a whole host of things that we make, Trojan rubbers were made in Trenton, New Jersey a long time... Really? I didn't know that. Exactly. And... but all those factories have shut down and a lot of that... a lot of those buildings are redevelopable, or can be mixed use, can be... a lot of opportunities are available. But talk about the role of government. You've made it clear, because you know state government better than most..."
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India has avoided 1 million child deaths since 2005, new study concludes
By Leslie Shepherd
Dr. Prabhat Jha
India has avoided about 1 million deaths of children under age five since 2005, driven by significant reductions in mortality from pneumonia, diarrhea, tetanus and measles, according to new research published today.
Nearly three times that number could have been saved if national progress in child health matched that reached in some states, Dr. Prabhat Jha, head of the Centre for Global Health Research of St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, wrote in today’s issue of The Lancet.
A steeper decline in the number of girls dying narrowed a previously observed girl-boy mortality gap, said Dr. Jha, a professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. An almost equal number of boys and girls under age five died in 2015.
This research is part of the Million Death Study, one of the largest studies of premature deaths in the world. Dr. Jha is the lead investigator of the survey, based in India, where most deaths occur at home and without medical attention. Hundreds of specially trained census staff in India knocked on doors of more than 1.3 million homes to interview household members about deaths. Two physicians independently examined these “verbal autopsies” to establish the most probable cause of death.
“You get the truth when you knock on doors and talk to parents,” said Dr. Jha. “We knocked on the doors of 100,000 homes where children died. If the health system failed these families, they will tell you all about it. These are far more reliable numbers than models or projections from small studies.”
The study found a 3.3 per cent annual decline in mortality rates of neonates (infants less than one month old) and 5.4 per cent for those ages one month to 59 months. The declines accelerated starting in 2005 and were fastest between 2010 and 2015, and in urban areas and richer states. Per 1,000 live births, the mortality rates among neonates fell from 45 in 2000 to 27 in 2015. The one-59 month mortality rate fell from 45.2 to 19.6.
Looking at specific causes of death, mortality rates from neonatal tetanus and measles fell by at least 90 per cent, neonatal infection and birth trauma fell more than 66 per cent. For children ages one to 59 months, mortality rates from pneumonia and diarrhea fell more than 60 per cent.
About 6 million children die around the world each year and progress in reducing that number depends greatly on India, which accounts for about a fifth of the deaths. About 29 million Indian children died between 2000 and 2015. Had the mortality rates of 2000 continued unchanged, about 39 million children would have died.
The authors noted that in the last decade the government of India has modestly increased its traditionally low level of public spending on health. The government launched a program to encourage women to give birth in hospitals and for children to have a second dose of measles vaccine.
Dr. Jha said that to meet the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals of halving its child mortality rates by 2030, India must maintain its current trajectory for children ages one to 59 months and accelerate declines in neonatal mortality.
Reducing the number of neonatal deaths will require efforts to reduce deaths caused by premature delivery and low birthweights, especially in poorer states, he said. Both are strongly linked to largely modifiable maternal and prenatal factors such as health care during pregnancy, education, nutrition, anemia and tobacco use.
In an accompanying commentary for The Lancet, leading scientists from Bangladesh and Tanzania wrote that the “Million Death Study can be a model for other countries where vital registration systems are still fragmented.”
This work received funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Disease Control Priorities Network, the Maternal and Child Epidemiology Estimation Group and the University of Toronto.
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January’s Scary Reading List – Who Are You, Really?
January 5, 2016 / SARussell / 1 Comment
“Who are you?” I asked myself this question as I perused my bookshelves for this January’s Scary Reading List. It’s a loaded question, one that is asked again and again during this time of the year. Once the New Year arrives, many people (myself included) are overwhelmed by this question. Out with the Old You, in with the New You, right?
Gym advertisements ask, “Who are you? Are you going to be the person who sits on their butt all year or are you going to do something?” Diet ads are even worse, posing the question as, “I love the new me! I don’t even recognize that girl from 50 pounds ago! Don’t you want this too?” There are the countless magazine and internet articles about “Bad Habits to Break”, “Good Habits to Form”, “Effortlessly Trick Yourself Into Saving More Money!” and “8 Easy Steps To A Better, Happier You!”
It’s weird, right? A person can try to change their life whenever they want, but it’s only in the first few weeks of the year that the scrutiny becomes so invasive. Ads are run, articles are published, money is spent, intentions are proclaimed, and resolutions are written. All so we can transform into Different People. Better People. It seems doable at first. How could you not implement these “easy changes”? Why not build yourself a new life for the New Year?
But then for many people, all those plans for change and self-improvement fall by the wayside. It’s almost never a spectacular failure, just a series of small setbacks that gradually push you off the wagon altogether. Suddenly, you find yourself right back where you started.
Who are you? Not that person you thought were going to become.
That’s the fear inherent in the New Year. It’s a quiet fear, but very real—fear that you will fail your resolutions and you won’t make any progree. A fear that you will always be the person you have been. Maybe you don’t like that person very much. That person has become stagnate.
Or worse still, maybe failing to become a “better” person means you’re actually becoming a worse person.
What does that person look like?
As I sorted through stacks of books (I have a problem where I buy way too many books), I wondered what kind of person I’d be if I was ever faced with a monstrous threat. Forget shallow New Year’s resolutions, I thought, what happens when things go wrong? Really wrong? What kind of person would I be if I ever had to face something truly horrible? Would I like that person?
With these questions in mind, I selected the following three books, all of which explore what happens to people caught in unimaginably terrible situations, teasing out these struggles with themes of identity, self-awareness, and deep mistrust. These books ask about who we are—not just the people we aspire to be or even the people we are in normal circumstances, but the people we are when the rules no longer apply and the world disintegrates.
After all, the scariest monsters in the world are the ones lurking inside the dark recesses of our psyches. We like to think we can control them, that we’re rational, measured, and civilized. It’s easy to assume it’s the truth when our lives are going as planned, when our biggest worries involve our New Year’s Resolutions. It’s a lot harder to maintain a logical mindset when your ship is trapped in the ice, your town is plagued by witches, or when your daughter is possessed by a demon.
So here’s my January 2016 Scary Reading List! If you are similarly interested in examining how the human psychology contorts in the face of terrible adversity, feel free to pick up any one of these books and let me know your thoughts in the comments. Think of it as a mental exercise, perhaps even a method of achieving a new degree of self-awareness.
Or just a way to entertain yourself on the cheap this month. Either way works!
The Terror – Dan Simmons
“The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of finding the Northwest Passage. When the expedition’s leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the Terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear there is no escape. A haunting, gripping story based on actual historical events, The Terror is a novel that will chill you to your core.”
I’ve wanting to read this book for years now, and I finally decided I was going to make time for it! It seems to hit all the marks—gripping premise; merciless Arctic setting; group-infighting and threats of mutiny; oh, and a ghastly monster.
Told from multiple characters’ points of view, this fictionalization of a legendary but lost expedition to the Arctic imagines what happened to the doomed ships and their crews. A group of tough sailors, led by the ambitious but flawed Sir John Franklin, endeavors to find the waterway that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, a feat which would have provided an important trade route. The expedition was confident that they would succeed in exploring the last remaining bit of the route. It should have been smooth sailing (forgive the pun).
But from what I’ve read about it, everything that could go wrong goes extremely wrong. And on top of the bitter cold and lack of food, these men find themselves stuck in the ice, hunted by an terrifying predator. Eventually they turn on each other, committing unspeakable deeds in the name of what they claim to be “survival,” like mutiny, murder, and cannibalism.
Are these the same decorated, accomplished men who were so confident in their purpose when the left the comfort of civilization behind? I find it intriguing to examine how civilized men descend into savagery in the face of overwhelming cold, hunger, and fear.
The Witches: Salem, 1692 – Stacy Schiff
“It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister’s daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death.
The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, parents and children each other. Aside from suffrage, the Salem Witch Trials represent the only moment when women played the central role in American history. In curious ways, the trials would shape the future republic.
As psychologically thrilling as it is historically seminal, THE WITCHES is Stacy Schiff’s account of this fantastical story-the first great American mystery unveiled fully for the first time by one of our most acclaimed historians.”
The Salem Witch Trials have always fascinated me. It’s an unfortunate, true example of how fear can twist a community into something horrendous and how people manipulate the truth to serve their own purposes.
I see a parallel between the Puritans and the crew of The Terror. As this The New Yorker article points out, when the Salem Witch Trials took place, the Puritans had only recently colonized New England, and life was incredibly difficult. Devestating winters, Indian raids, and animal attacks were just a few of the very real dangers they faced. However, the Puritan settlers thought of themselves as God’s chosen people and were confident in their mission to build a more godly civilization. They were going to create something wonderful, which would make them better Christians and make the world better, all to the glory of God.
But how could this vulnerable, small community hope to avoid psychological distress while trying to scratch an existence from a foreign and hostile wilderness, fend off Indian attacks, and survive the brutal New England winters?
It’s not a stretch to believe that, with their religion as the only source of affirmation and comfort in their lives, that their faith would distort their beliefs and confirm their fears, however illogical and destructive. Is it really so hard to understand how a community banded together to accuse, try, and execute family members, friends, and neighbors of heinous crimes with no real proof?
Instead of creating a Christian utopia, they fell victim to mass hysteria, accusing victims as young as five years old.
Part of my aim in reading this book is to find out if the people of Salem ever realized the gravity of the trials. I wouldn’t be surprised if they lived in denial for the rest of their lives and refused to acknowledge what they’d done. It might be impossible to accept such a truth.
A Head Full of Ghosts – Paul Tremblay
“The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia.
To her parents’ despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie’s descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts’ plight. With John, Marjorie’s father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.
Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie’s younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface—and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.”
Unlike the previous entries on the list, this novel seems to work entirely within the confines of a family, which goes to show that even small-scale traumas can demolish everyone’s sense of identity and self-control (or lack thereof). One person’s behavior can transform everyone around her, especially when she’s possibly possessed by a demon and a camera crew hows up to film everything.
As if possession isn’t enough to freak me out, I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through the ordeal laid out in A Head Full of Ghosts, on national television no less. I’m very excited for the reality show aspect, because reality shows could be said to embody the worst in voyeuristic human behavior.
It’s intriguing idea to explore. People act differently when they think they’re being watched, just as they act very differently when they know they aren’t being watched. How would the members of a family act when their child becomes possessed, the money runs out, no one can help, and a camera crew films every last bit? What happens to the people who watch this morbid display unfold in relative anonymity? I can’t wait to find out!
In case you need more convincing, check out this quote from NPR’s review: “Tremblay ambitiously structures the story as a pingponging narrative that coalesces into an unsettling conversation about the truth, or what the various characters suspect is the truth. It’s an intricate dance, and one that Tremblay pulls off with agility, ease and immaculate pacing. Merry’s poignant numbness, Karen’s secret reason for being obsessed with The Possession and Marjorie’s increasingly shocking transgressions mesh like clockwork with themes of greed, deception and faith.”
The New York Times also loved it. What more do you need?
Happy Reading! Leave you thoughts in the comments!
15 Scary Good Horror Novels for Your 2019 Reading List
12 of My Fave Modern Horror Novels For Spooky Reading
15 Horror Novels for Your 2018 Reading List
March Horror Reading List – Texas Ghost Stories
Books, Creature Feature, Existential Horror, ghosts, Horror Literature, Literature, Monsters, Novels, Possession, Uncategorized, Witches
1692A Head Full of GhostsDan SimmonsPaul TremblayScary Reading ListStacy SchiffThe TerrorThe Witches: Salem
January 2016 Horror Movies
The Forest: When A Bad Movie Happens To An Intriguing Concept
D. Whitman
Thanks for the predictably excellent post. The desire to create a new, and better, identity is a classic theme of American literature, from Winthrop’s City on a Hill, to Whitman’s reinvention of himself as a draper, and your writing captures that theme nicely. Plus, these all sound like great reads, although I may have to wait until Halloween to try the last one, which sounds really scary.
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Weekly Roundup: Is Trump's Star Rising in the Panhandle?
Dara Kam News Service of Florida
Mike Hill and Donald Trump
The West Coast glitterati might be shunning President Trump’s Hollywood star, but Pensacola’s ready to welcome the Donald’s celebrity plaque.
That’s according to Mike Hill, a former state representative running to return to the Legislature in the conservative stronghold, who took to Facebook Live this week with a giant replica of the Hollywood Walk of Fame plaque.
In the video, Hill, a black Republican, stands in front of a Confederate monument in downtown Pensacola and vows to “bring the Trump Hollywood star” to “the first settlement in America.”
Trump’s sidewalk star --- which has been destroyed twice --- probably isn’t going anywhere, but the West Hollywood City Council reportedly passed a unanimous resolution this month calling for the onetime reality-show host’s marker to be permanently removed.
The video of Hill --- who’s captured on camera directing his photog to scootch a little to the left and a little closer to frame the shot --- is a contrast to the slickly produced campaign ads bombarding Floridians in the mail, on TV and over the internet in the days leading up to Tuesday’s primary elections.
Almost as an aside, at the end of the nearly two-minute video, Hill holds up a giant sign with his own name on it and asks voters to support his bid in state House District 1. Hill’s been eclipsed in fundraising by fellow Republican Rebekah Bydlak in the race to replace term-limited Rep. Clay Ingram, R-Pensacola.
Hill’s Facebook post, which garnered nearly 5,000 views within two days, might be wacky, but it’s a tame tactic compared to what’s going on at the other end of the I-10 corridor --- and of the political spectrum --- where incumbent Congressman Al Lawson and challenger Alvin Brown are duking it out in Congressional District 5.
Lawson, who spent nearly three decades in the Florida Legislature, handily beat longtime Democratic Congresswoman Corrine Brown, in 2016, while she was embroiled in a criminal investigation that led to her eventual conviction on corruption charges and a five-year prison sentence.
But Lawson faces a serious challenge from Alvin Brown, who was Jacksonville’s first elected black mayor and who is not related to the former congresswoman. Brown lost his mayoral seat after one term in 2015, after winning election in a close contest four years earlier.
The two men have hammered each other over their records, with Brown slamming Lawson for supporting Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law and Lawson hitting back over Brown’s refusal as mayor to support a resolution guaranteeing anti-discrimination protections for the LGBTQ community.
It’s been called the “silly season” and the “nasty season,” and it’s winding down into the “tail-end season” prior to Tuesday’s primaries. After that, the inter-partisan warfare will explode until, and probably following, the Nov. 6 general election.
As Floridians prepare to bid adieu to some of the candidates who’ve made them cheer, jeer and gnash their teeth, the ancient Roman poet Horace advised to “forget about hope” when saying farewell.
“Time goes running, even,” he wrote, “as we talk. Take the present, the future’s no one’s affair.”
COURT BACKS PUBLIC RECORDS
The courts were almost as busy as the candidates this week, with a series of rulings dealing with public records and more kerfuffle over proposed constitutional amendments on the November ballot.
The Florida Supreme Court this week declined to take up appeals filed by the Broward County School Board and prosecutors, clearing the way for the release of additional surveillance-camera footage related to the February mass shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The 4th District Court of Appeal last month sided with a coalition of news organizations and ordered the release of footage from the afternoon of Feb. 14, when 17 people were killed at the school. But the Broward County School Board and the Broward State Attorney’s Office appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court.
Justices declined to take up the cases, and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office released the videos to the public shortly after Wednesday’s twin orders, which, as is common, did not explain the Supreme Court’s reasons for declining to weigh in.
COURT BLOCKS PUBLIC RECORDS
In a separate public-records lawsuit, the National Transportation Safety Board took steps to block the disclosure of documents related to the deadly bridge collapse at Florida International University. The move came the same day state transportation officials were prepared to hand them over to the Miami Herald.
Using Florida’s public-records law, the Herald requested a wide range of documents related to the 950-ton, 174-foot span, which collapsed in March, days after being positioned across an eight-lane road in Miami, and killed six people. But state transportation officials claimed they could not comply with the newspaper’s request because of a federal law related to an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Leon County Circuit Judge Kevin Carroll on Tuesday ordered state officials to release the records to the newspaper, prompting the national board to move the case to federal court, where a judge Thursday agreed to keep the documents private, at least for now.
Asking the federal court to put a stay on Carroll’s order, Andrew Grogan, an assistant U.S. attorney, acknowledged “both the plaintiffs and the public have a legitimate interest in learning what happened in the lead-up to the bridge collapse.”
But, he added, “it is also in the public’s interest to preserve the integrity of the investigation so that NTSB can fulfill its mission of determining the probable cause of the accident and making recommendations to prevent similar accidents in the future.”
STATE WANTS CONSTITUTIONAL PROPOSALS TO STICK
In other high-profile court action this week, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office asked the Florida Supreme Court to reject a legal challenge seeking to block six proposed constitutional amendments from going on the November ballot.
Bondi’s office is disputing arguments that the proposed amendments, placed on the ballot by the Florida Constitution Revision Commission, violate First Amendment rights and improperly tie together unrelated subjects.
Plaintiffs, including former Supreme Court Justice Harry Lee Anstead, filed the case last week, arguing that combining disparate issues in single ballot proposals violates First Amendment rights of voters and is “logrolling” of issues that should be considered separately. The lawsuit raised the specter of voters having conflicting views of issues in the same ballot proposal.
STORY OF THE WEEK: Hundreds of candidates throughout Florida ramped up campaigns in last-ditch efforts to garner votes in advance of Tuesday’s primary elections.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Ultimately, defendant has chosen an easier course of treatment to maximize ‘uniformity,’ and ease ‘security concerns,’ by ignoring the substantial risk of harm to Ms. Keohane’s mental health that results from denying such ‘minor accommodations’ as panties and access to defendant’s female grooming standards. This ends now.” --- U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, ordering the state to accommodate transgender inmate Reiyn Keohane. Walker accused Department of Corrections officials of ignorance and bigotry for initially refusing to allow Keohane to resume hormone therapy or to have access to “social transitioning,” such as bras and female grooming items, despite the prisoner’s repeated suicide attempts.
Put Trump's star in front of
Permalink Submitted by Ocean Joe on August 25, 2018 - 11:29am
Put Trump's star in front of the main door at Chattahoochee.
Better yet, send the 'Trump
Permalink Submitted by Anonymous on August 27, 2018 - 11:25am
Better yet, send the 'Trump Star' to any one of the chapters of the KKK currently active in Florida. I'm sure they'd love it!
Because "in your guts, you
Because "in your guts, you know he's nuts!"
I was going to vote for that
Permalink Submitted by Jessica White on August 24, 2018 - 10:30pm
I was going to vote for that girl Bydlack untill I saw this and all her negitive TV adds. This shows true leadership and out of the box thinking! I will be voteing for Mike Hill now. Great move! He is showing that he can fight for our values here in Northwest Florida! Trump is loved here!
Ah yes . . . . . another
Permalink Submitted by Frank on August 24, 2018 - 11:11pm
Ah yes . . . . . another, suddenly out-of-the-blue, first time SSN commentator . . . . . love that future felon . . . . . . PATHETIC . . .
Nothing like proposing to
Permalink Submitted by Frank on August 24, 2018 - 6:40pm
Nothing like proposing to bring a monument of a divisive, unindicted co-conspirator to Florida . . . . . . . especially by an African-American posing in front of a Confederate monument for a white supremacist President rapidly running out of friends . . . . . . . . PATHETIC . . .
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Synonym-Antonym
Find Synonym-Antonym of a word in seconds.
Antonym
No result found for keyword escapedonesmemoryType mismatch
Antonyms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | Popular
Synonyms: A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | Popular
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Armand D’Angour is a British classical scholar and classical musician. He is a Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Jesus College, Oxford. His research embraces a wide range of areas of ancient Greek culture; his publications deal with ancient Greek music and metre, the Greek alphabet, innovation in ancient Greece, and Latin and Greek lyric poetry. His is the author of the acclaimed study The Greeks and the New (2011) and is currently working on a book about the early life of Socrates. He is also conducting an international scholarly research project to reconstruct the sounds and effects of ancient Greek music.
His latest book on the early life of Socrates, Socrates in Love: The Making of a Philosopher was published to critical acclaim by Bloomsbury.
‘Fascinating and revelatory. A penetrating combination of tremendous scholarship, imagination and sympathetic understanding’ WILLIAM BOYD
‘Succeeds brilliantly in achieving something that I had always assumed was impossible: providing a historically grounded portrait of the man Socrates may actually have been. Not merely eye-opening, it is thrilling and moving’ TOM HOLLAND
‘In this brilliant study, Armand D’Angour re-focuses the works of Socrates the Philosopher by looking afresh at the life of Socrates the Man. In doing so, D’Angour does not just provide new insights into Socrates, but into ancient Greek thinking as a whole.’ PETER FRANKOPAN, author of The Silk Roads
‘Write the name Aspasia on your hearts! History, as told by men, has often erased the role of women. Our new champion Armand D’Angour has pieced together the evidence — that a woman of great intellectual powers helped lay the foundations of Western philosophy. This is a delicious and exhilarating piece of serious scholarship.’ HELENA KENNEDY, Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford
For more see: www.armand-dangour.com
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3-12-02- Tonya will be on the Celebrity Boxing Wed. March 13 at 9:00pm EST on the Fox channel. She is boxing Paula Jones.
2-4-02- This is for anyone who has sent money for photos. Could you please contact Linda at lglpr@hotmail.com
1-17-02- As you all know Tonya's name has hit the news again. At this time I really can't tell you any more then what you have read. I breifly spoke with Tonya and Linda. Tonya thanks everyone for their well wishes and will be in contact soon. I will be speaking with them again soon and will let you know more when I can.
10-17-01- We have just learned that Tonya's appearance on the Weakest Link will be aired on Monday Oct. 22 at 8pm EST.
9/29/01- Great news for us game show watchers. Tonya has just finished taping for The Weakest Link game show. She don't know the exact date it will air but was told sometime in the month of October. If we find out a date for sure I will post it right away.
9/13/01- Tonya sent this card the other day and wanted it to be posted to her fans. Please read it. Linda and myself would also like to extend our prayers to the victims and family and friends of those who were hurt by the events of tuesday.
8/22/01- I was just informed that Tonya will be on Larry King Live 8/23/01. It will be about people who have been hounded by the media. I don't know who the other panel members will be.
7/23/01- For all you New Yorkers, Tonya will be at the Barracuda Club on 7/26/01. She will be the celebrity judge for a lip sync contest. The show will be starting at 11:00pm. Come down and join us.
7/17/01- Two new galleries uploaded! Check out Galleries 8 and 9. More pics to come very shortly...
6/13/01- A new update from Linda has been added to Linda's Updates.
5/23/01- I spoke to Linda the other day and Tonya will still be in Florida on 6/29/01. She will be throwing out the first pitch at the minor league team for the Jacksonville Suns.
12/21/00- Tonya has sent a Christmas greeting to all. You can find it at Tonya's Messages also Linda has sent a greeting at Linda's Updates . I would also like to wish everyone a safe and Happy Holiday season. I hope Santa brings you what you want. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone.
12/15/00- I talked to Linda last night and she said Tonya is back on the ice and doing well. Also for anyone interested Tonya is selling some of her Olympic stuff. For more information you can write to LGLPR@aol.com Also Tonya had sent a letter for Thanksgiving and I just got around to posting it. Sorry. It can be found at Tonya's Messages.
8/17/00- There are new updates in Linda's Updates. It tells about their trip to Charleston, SC. and about a possible video. So what are you waiting for go check it out.
4/10/00 - On April 25th Court TV is airing a show about Tonya. This show was taped about a year or so ago. Check your local listings for details.
2/28/00 - Tonya woud like everyone to know she is ok. She is very sad and hurt by what has happened. Tonya cannot discuss the case at this time. She send her love to all her fans and thanks everyone who has signed the guest book and sent e-mails.
Tonya and Linda will let us know more when they can.
2/24/00 - I just talked to Linda. She wanted me to let everyone know she hasn't forgotten about us. She has been very busy takeing care of her mother who has been sick. Within the next week or two she will continue with the updates. She says Tonya is doing well. They will be in touch with us soon.
A woman by the name of Linda Prouse from Canada is writing Tonya's book. She is known for writing books about Liz Manley and Brasseur & Eisler. There have been no release dates yet. We will keep you posted as to when it will be released.
1/28/00 - There are articles on Tonya in the February issue if Blades on Ice , the Jan/Feb issue of International Figure Skating, as well as Jane magazine.
11/06/99 - Highest ratings of the season on Entertainment Tonight -
'"Entertainment Tonight" nailed its highest rating of the season so far, up 7% from last week and 13% over year-ago numbers. The newsmagazine was boosted by a two-part report on Tonya Harding's return to ice skating competition, which aired on Oct. 18 and 19 and averaged a 6.4 on both days.'
From an article entitled "Newsmags, Game Shows Rally in Syndicated Ratings"
By Chris Pursell
� Reuters/Variety
10/25/99 - We've started a mailing list! - Sign up for the Tonya Harding mailing list at Onelist. If you are not currently registered with Onelist, you will need to do so before joining the list.
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Tolkien in East Yorkshire
Roos [May - June 1917]
A six-week period occurred when no letters passed between Ronald and Edith, probably because they were living together. This immediately followed the period of May to June 1917, which I contend was when Edith danced for Tolkien among the Cow Parsley (“the hemlocks”). This event almost certainly occurred between 10th May and very early June 1917, which was the inspiration for the dance of Lúthien Tinúviel. Tolkien mentions Roos three times in his published Letters. On the first occasion in 1955 he informed his American publishers: “The kernel of the mythology, the matter of Lúthien Tinúviel and Beren, arose from a small woodland glade filled with ‘hemlocks’ or other white umbellifers) near [my emphasis] Roos on the Holderness peninsula – to which I occasionally went when free from regimental duties while in the Humber Garrison in 1918 [sic].” His 1964 letter to Christopher Bretherton gives a largely similar account, as does his 1972 epistle to his youngest son, Christopher, after Edith’s death. However, there is one subtle difference, because in the final “Roos” letter Tolkien tells Christopher that the woodland glade was “at Roos.” There are a few possible candidates in the Roos area, but it has been generally accepted after John Garth’s identification in Tolkien and the Great War (2003) that the wooded area of Dents Garth behind All Saints’ Church in Roos at the south-eastern edge of the village is the most likely location for Edith’s dance.
Unless further documentary evidence becomes available the absolute certainty of the identification of the woodland will have to remain conjectural, but there are a few striking local landmarks, which would seem to support the identification. Dents Garth and Roos churchyard contain Beech, Horse Chestnut, and all the other tree and plant species mentioned in the various versions of the encounter between Beren and Lúthien. The only exception is a mature Elm tree – Beren leans on a young Elm in the earliest surviving version of the text, but mature examples of this species were probably lost in the devastating effects of the Dutch Elm disease of the 1970s and 80s. A sapling, probably growing from a sucker of one of the original trees may be found just south of the church car park to this day. The continued presence of an active noisy Rookery in Dents Garth would seem to indicate the previous presence of Elms in the woodland, as traditionally this is the tree species in which Rooks prefer to nest. This evidence is bolstered by the nearest property to the church, which in Tolkien’s time, as now, is simply called “The Elms” with “Elm Farm” the adjacent property to the north.
About five metres away from the Cow Parsley in the churchyard is a railed off area, which contains a damp subterranean staircase surmounted by an escutcheon depicting the palm of a hand above three circular features containing wavy lines, which represents water. This is the heraldic device of the Sykes family, (the hand denotes a baronet), who commissioned the exterior stairs down to the crypt probably during the restoration of the church in 1842. Of course, in Tolkien’s mythology Beren had to make the much more perilous journey down to Melko’s underground fortress of Angamandi (later Angband), and his heraldic device, drawn by Tolkien much later, features a hand, because his hand clasping a Silmaril was lost to the ravening wolf Carcharoth.
A further plausible link to Tolkien’s fiction is a three-trunked tree, which is the nearest tree to the south-west corner of the church, between the church and the entrance in the southern exterior churchyard wall. In the earliest-surviving version of Tolkien’s story, Lúthien is imprisoned by her father Tinwelint (later Thingol) in Hírilorn, a mighty Beech tree: “so deeply cloven was her bole that it seemed as if three shafts sprang from the ground together and they were of like size, round and straight, and their grey rind was smooth as silk, unbroken by branch or twig for a very great height above men’s heads.” As John Garth remarked, when I mentioned the finding of this tree, the three-trunked tree “seems such a specific seemingly random detail” of the story, that the finding of such a tree actually in Roos near the genesis of the tale is suggestive. The tree in Roos churchyard, which would have been there in Tolkien’s time, has some similarities to his description, including the cloven bole, the three shafts of equal size, the grey bark, and branches above the height of men, although now there are also some new tiny lower twigs. The fairly smooth bark is now partly obscured by ivy stems, but crucially this tree is a Lime, or more poetically a Linden tree, not a Beech. The tree adjacent to this Lime tree is a Beech! Of course in the poem about Beren and Lúthien in The Fellowship of the Ring, the original version of which dates back to around 1919, Tinúviel’s feet are described as a “light as leaf on lindentree”. The leaves of both the Beech and the Lime would be at their freshest green when the Cow Parsley was in bloom.
On the southern side of the car park to the church is a meagre unimpressive waterway heading south out of the village. This is very hard to see in the summer months as it is concealed by the heavy undergrowth. I have visited this area many times in the summer, but only became aware of its existence during a winter excursion. In Tolkien’s forest of Neldoreth in which the tree Hírilorn grows is a river called Esgalduin. By no stretch of the imagination could the tiny Roos Beck be classified as a river, but the hidden aspect of the beck may have more significance. Apparently, Roos Beck is visible at the North End of Roos (but I have never been able to locate it), and it emerges again south of the church, but for much of its course it is hidden and was until recently neglected as it passed through the bottom of residents’ gardens as it heads towards the church. It was only after torrential downpours in late June 2007 that the hidden Roos Beck caused severe flooding, and was cleaned out, and the course repaired. In Tolkien’s tale there was no tiny hidden stream, but the far more majestic river Esgalduin, which flowed through Neldoreth. The ‘esgal’ element in Esgalduin, means ‘screen’ or ‘hiding’, and Esgalduin actually translates as “River under veil,” so as unlikely as it sounds Roos Beck may have been part of the “cauldron of soup” in the back of Tolkien’s mind when he created the far more magical River Esgalduin.
On 28 May 2016 I led a group of ten members of the UK Tolkien Society around almost all the known locations Tolkien stayed at, or would have known when he was in East Yorkshire. I have been to Roos many times over the past 5 years, but luckily our visit coincided with a day when All Saints’ Church, Roos was actually open to the public. It is not known if the staunch Roman Catholic Tolkien would have ventured inside the church, but the reluctant convert Edith may have been more likely to have entered the church. Here, she would have been confronted with three brightly painted figures on a chancel screen and a wooden Calvary, giving the interior a very High Anglican atmosphere. One of the attendees of our visit, Tony Curtis, is a calligraphic artist, and he was attracted by an item of high-quality calligraphy behind glass on one of the walls. It post-dates Tolkien’s time in the area, but it is of interesting local historical value. This was chiefly a list of all the incumbents of the Roos diocese, but it also included the information that the original spelling of the village name was Ros, and that the name is unusual in the area as being of Celtic origin and means either marsh or moorland. After the Norman Conquest the name of the village was utilised by major landowners, so in c.1158 a Robert de Ros took the title of Baron of Helmsley. The editors of Parma Eldalamberon 11 examined the meaning of ros, and their suggested derivations include the Welsh rhôs, which meant ‘moor, heath or plain’; or the Breton word ros, which meant ‘hillock’, and the Irish word ros, which meant ‘promontory’. This latter definition may have some significance because in notes about the conclusion of The Book of Lost Tales in the Faring Forth Tol Eressёa was to be “uprooted and dragged near to the Great Lands, nigh to the promontory of Rôs”, which was to be followed by the “Battle of Rôs” in which the Elves were to be defeated. Christopher Tolkien proposed that Rôs may be Brittany, but the editors of Parma Eldalamberon postulated that “the promontory of Rôs may have been suggested to Tolkien by Roos”. It could be argued that Roos, which is slightly higher than some of the immediately surrounding area, lies at the head of the promontory of Holderness, which dribbles away to the elongated sand spit of Spurn Point.
Tolkien clearly had a romantic experience in Roos, which remained with him all his life until the event was even obliquely memorialised on his own gravestone. In the more immediate aftermath of Edith’s dance he worked on his Goldogrin vocabularies and grammar and even invented a meaning for ‘ros’, with an exceedingly romantic flavour: “embrace”. However, this may have been an extremely temporary definition. It is known that in due course ‘ros’ evolved in the etymologies to be equivalent to “foam, spindthrift, [and] spray.”
Finally, when I guided the group along the path around the perimeter of the churchyard a very prominent gravestone on the southern edge was noted. It is the only gravestone dating before Tolkien’s time which may be easily read from the path. The sides take the form of ridged tree-trunks, and the apex is formed from the conjunction of two branches. The design is likely to have attracted Tolkien, who had a lifelong interest in trees. This is the memorial to a Victorian physician and surgeon, Edward THEW Turnbull [my emphasis]. Thew is a very unusual Christian name, but may have some personal relevance to the Turnbull family, and used in a similar manner as Reuel was in the Tolkien family? Although in the earliest versions of The Book of Lost Tales, the character who later evolved into Sauron was a cat named Tevildo; before Sauron was eventually settled on as a name for this malignant Maia, the names Túvo, then Tû were utilised. Shortly afterwards Tolkien decided on the longer-lasting Thû, which was used for a considerable period in the 1920s. Was this name originally suggested to Tolkien when he was still wishing to tie in his personal reminiscences of time spent in Roos with his emerging mythology? Once the memory of Roos became more distant was Thû dropped in favour of the far more well-known name Sauron? However, because it is possible to see Thû as natural linguistic development from Tûvo and Tû, this is probably the most likely item in Roos churchyard with possible Tolkien links to be a pure coincidence.
John Garth has kindly supplied another possible link to show Dents Garth may have been commemorated in Tolkien’s linguistic invention. Lúthien’s father’s realm was named Doriath and in the etymologies, published in The Lost Road, Doriath is also known as Garthurian meaning fenced realm. However, it should also be pointed out that Garth is not a particularly rare Northern word, and Tolkien would have come across it before. In The Lord of the Rings garth is used on a couple of occasions by Treebeard. Towards the end of the narrative Treebeard renames the area around Isengard as “The Treegarth of Orthanc,” and earlier when singing of the entwives, their part of the song mentions spring returning to “garth and field.” In Tolkien’s writing garth has positive connotations, as it seems Dents Garth did in Tolkien’s remembrance of his past life with Edith.
The three-trunked tree, the heraldic hand, the former proliferation of elm trees and a single Beech next to a “Linden tree”, the particular appearance of Roos Beck, and the use of the unusual name Thew on a gravestone, which are all within fifty metres of Dents Garth may seem insignificant or coincidental in themselves, but taken in conjunction with his positive use of the word garth, and surrounded by the cow parsley, or the “hemlocks” that Tolkien wrote about, Dents Garth does seem to be a pretty reliable likely venue for the location for Edith’s dance.
So far no convincing location has been put forward for the precise location where the Tolkiens lived during the 6-week gap between Edith living in Hornsea and Withernsea. The clues are very slim, but in a reworked version of an old poem now retitled The Horns of Ulmo Tolkien added that it was rewritten “in a lonely house near Roos.” Mathison believes this refers to Tolkien’s billet at Thirtle Bridge Camp, but I contend that Tolkien would never have described a location at which over a thousand men were stationed as “a lonely house near Roos.” On balance I believe he was based away from the camp and in a house not adjacent to other dwellings, but not too far from Roos. One possibility is a building on the outskirts of Halsham, which had a few isolated buildings at that time, as it does now. It is much smaller, and more strung-out than the comparably more tightly-packed Roos.
maria mila
Love this blog. I learned so many new things! It's an extremely interesting read!
Michael Flowers
Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it
I was wondering. The little elusive water-course you mention, could it possibly be not Esgalduin but the pool/mere that appeared and then forever disappeared in the Lay of Leithian?
"Then merrily his piping trilled;
the grass was soft, the wind was stilled,
the twilight lingered faint and cool
in shadow-shapes upon the pool
beneath the boughs of sleeping trees
standing silent. About their knees
a mist of hemlocks glimmered pale,
and ghostly moths on lace-wings frail
went to and fro. Beside the mere
quickening, rippling, rising clear
the piping called. Then forth she came,
as sheer and sudden as a flame
of peerless white the shadows cleaving,
her maiden-bower on white feet leaving;
...."
A mere is an area of still water in these parts. This doesn't fit the meandering Roos Beck. However, a few hundred yards south of the church is a small lake (where the old castle used to be), so this could be described as a mere. You may be on to something. I'll look into that area when the cow parsley is in bloom again.
There are a lot more photos here: http://eybirdwatching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/tolkiens-hemlock-glade-part-2.html
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The treaty
Fearing political division in the parliament and in his country, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki won't sign the just-completed agreement on the status of U.S. forces in Iraq, a leading lawmaker said Friday.
The new accord's demise would be a major setback for the Bush administration, which has been seeking to establish a legal basis for the extended presence of the 151,000 U.S. troops in this country, and for Iraq, which won notable concessions in the draft accord reached a week ago.
"No, he will not" submit the agreement to the parliament, Sheikh Jalal al Din al Sagheer, the deputy head of the Shiite Muslim Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, told McClatchy. "For this matter, we need national consensus."
The above is from Roy Gutman's "Iraq's prime minister won't sign U.S. troop deal" (McClatchy Newspapers) and don't count the treaty out yet. al-Maliki is a US puppet and the administration wants the deal. You might think that the State Dept -- which has been doing a strong diplomatic push for the last five weeks -- would be in a tizzy over the latest news; however, they seem highly non-plussed. A sure sign that something more is planned. On the front page of today's New York Times, Alissa J. Rubin offers "As Iraq Takes Control, Puzzle Over Prisoners" which asks what happenes at US prisons like Camp Bucca when Iraq has control or something resembling it? Rubin writes:
Under the proposed new rules, the United States military would need Iraqi permission to make arrests and then would have to turn suspects over to the Iraqi authorities within 24 hours.
Less clear, however, is what will happen to those already in detention -- about 1,000 people in all.
And the answer? Less clear is as clear as it gets. Inside the paper, James Risen offers "Pentagon Finds Company Violated Its Contract on Electrical Work at Bases in Iraq" which involves the Pentagon's finding that KBR is in "serious contractual noncompliance" and the paper ads that there are more records about safety violations than were previously known (at least 18 lives have been lost due to electrical 'work' by US contractors in Iraq).
Kimberly Wilder (On The Wilder Side) notes AFP's "Forgotten candidates for US president may still impact race" which is an overview of all the candidates running for president:
Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have captured the limelight in the race for the US presidency, but they are not the only ones running: 12 forgotten candidates are also chasing the keys to the White House.
Kimberly Wilder is a Green and supporting her party's nominee, Cynthia McKinney, so we'll note this section on McKinney from the article:
Like the Democrats, the Green Party also has an African-American candidate in Cynthia McKinney, a Georgia congresswoman from 1993 to 2003.
McKinney will be on the ballot in 32 states, and could possibly peel off voters from Obama in key states due to her support among women, blacks and anti-war advocates.
"Obama cannot take the peace vote for granted. There are peace candidates running from across the political spectrum," said Kevin Zeese, executive director of anti-war group Voters for Peace.
And just to correct two things, any vote Cynthia recieves (true of all candidates) is a vote she won, not one she 'peeled off'. Second, Cynthia McKinney is the ONLY African-American candidate. Prior to running for the presidency, Barack regularly (and repeatedly) billed himself as "African American" in Columbia's alumni publication. He said he did so to note both countries and explained it was not hyphenated because he wasn't African-American. When even uber Obama supporter Donna Brazile can use the proper terms (bi-racial, mixed race) on Charlie Rose, you'd think the press might be able to.
The following community sites have updated since Friday morning:
roy gutman
alissa j. rubin
kimberly wilder
Friday, October 24, 2008. Chaos and violence continue, concerns rise regarding Iraqi Christians, the "Awakening" members forgotten?, and more.
Today Mary Beth Sheridan (Washington Post) observes, "But the violence diminished with the creation of 'Awakening' groups, U.S.-paid patrols of mostly Sunni fighters who broke with insurgents and allied with U.S. forces." 'Awakening' members are Sunni thugs put on the US payroll in order to stop the attacks on the US. It's the "fork over your lunch money" strategy playground 'strategy' as US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and Gen David Petraeus made clear in their testimonies to Congress in April. For some US currency, the attacks would stop and the US would step out of the way and let the "Awakening" take over various regions providing 'security' which struck many residents as a reign of terror. October 1st, the puppet government in Iraq was supposed to take over nearly half the "Awakening" members (but even that portion remains on the US payroll). Nouri al-Maliki has never trusted the "Awakenings" and has staffed his ministries with his own Shi'ite thugs. Petraeus has repeatedly praised the "Awakenings" as providing security to Iraq. Where do things stand now? Earlier in the week, Surdarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) reported on the issue and noted it "is already touching off new conflicts that could deepen without U.S. military backing for the movement. They have stripped traditional tribal leaders of influence. They have carved up Sunni areas into fiefdoms, imposing their views on law and society and weakening the authority of the Shiite-led central government. Divisions are emerging among the new breed of tribal leaders, even as they are challenging established Sunni religious parties for political dominance." The "Awakening" presence was felt last year after repeated kick start attempts (always hailed as a 'turned corner' by the press) going back to 2005. The pay-offs were one aspect of the counter-insurgency strategies being deployed against Iraqis. Barack Obama, Democratic presidential nominee, supports counter-insurgency and has the bulk of those responsible for the assault on Iraqis on his advisory board (Sarah Sewell, Samantha Power, et al). So it's no surprise that Time quotes him insisting, "The Sunni awakening changed the dynamic in Iraq fundamentally. It could not have occured unless there were some contacts and intermediaries to peel off those who are tribal leaders, regional leaders, Sunni nationalists, from a more radical messianic brand of insurgency." [Note: Time is down for "scheduled maintenance session" -- that web address was given to me over the phone. If it does not work, Google the quote and you will find it.]
Tim King (Salem-News) observes: "At least half of them are being cut loose and Iraq is expected to take over the payments for a little more than half the program. Most members of this group believe they will not see any payments from their now country. Cutting off the payments to the Sons of Iraq is a colossal mistake. The checkpoints operated by the Sons of Iraq are exactly what has brought the peace to Iraq. Ending them is foolish, but we are doing it. These are mostly Sunni Muslims and they had a place in the Shiite government with the Sons of Iraq, but we are allowing one of the war's few success stories to end, and likely have not even begun to see the repercussions that are sure to come." The "Awakening" members fear they will be arrested or worse and on the issue of arrests,
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reported Monday, "Police arrested three Sahwa members in Mustafa neighborhood in Baquba, according to arrest warrants." (Sahwa and Sons Of Iraq are other names for "Awakening" members.)
Meanwhile the crisis continues for Iraqi Christians. Mark MacKinnon (Globe and Mail) speaks with Father Sabri al-Maqdessy who explains, "Christians have always been targeted by different groups in the Middle East because we are the only people without a tirbal system to protect us or that political power to give us security. The church is weak. The Vatican does not have tanks. . . . Everyone is leaving. If the situation continues the way it is for another 10 years, 20 at most, you won't see any Christians left here." Mission News Network via Crosswalk.com quotes Open Doors USA's president Carl Moeller, "I'm afraid it's actually getting worse. The Christian community continues to be terrorized by extremists and basically are being forced out of homes at gunpoint, children and elderly people being murdered. This is a real crisis. Not just a Christian crisis, but a real humanitarian crisis for the country of Iraq." UN High Comissioner for Refugees spokesperson Ron Redmond addressed the topic in Geneva today:
UNHCR is helping thousands of Iraqi Christians who have fled the northern city of Mosul over the past fortnight, most of them to villages elsewhere in Ninewa province but also about 400 who have crossed into Syria. It is still not clear who is behind the intimidation that caused them to flee. More than 2,200 families, or some 13,000 people, are estimated to have left Mosul by mid-week, mostly to safe areas to the north and east of the city. That is more than half of Mosul's Christian population. They have also fled to the neighboring governorates of Dahuk, Erbil and Kirkuk. Most have been taken in by other Christian families. The displacement now appears to be slowing, according to UNHCR staff in the region. UNHCR Iraq and its partners have delivered aid to at least 1,725 of the displaced families in about 20 ares of northern Iraq. In Syria, meanwhile, UNHCR Representative Laurens Jolles reports that many Christians from Mosul have been systematically targeted and no longer feel safe there. UNHCR will provide support for those Iraqis who seek refuge in neighborhing countries and we very much appreciate that Syria countinues to welcome refugees. Syria already hosts at least 1.2 million Iraqis.
This as Assyrian International News Agency reports that Yonadam Kanna ("leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement and member of Iraq's parliament") has called for the troops in Mosul to be pulled and new ones to be sent in, "We call for an exchange of the troops who failed to protect the Christians in their areas with new troops who are able to bring security to these areas." And in a new development, AINA reports, "The auxiliary bishop of the Chaldean Church of Babylon in Iraq, His eminence Shlemon Warduni, expressed support on Friday for the establishment of an administrative area for the minorities living in the Nineveh Plain. Speaking to the reporter of the webzine ankawa.com, the high ranking church leader made it clear his church has changed its stand on the administrative unit issue. . . . The Iraqi constitution allows for the establishment of local rule for minorities in areas where they have considerable numbers. The Assyrian Democratic Movement, the political party supported by an overwhelming majority of Assyrians from all church denominations during the last national elections, announced during a 2003 conference in Baghdad it endorses the idea of making the minority dense Nineveh Plain area into an administrative unit according to the Iraqi constitution. Since then, an increasing number of Assyrian representatives from the political and religious sphere have supported the plan."
In some of today's reported violence, Reuters notes a Kut mortar attack that claimed the lives of 3 children (two more wounded). AndReuters notes 1 Iraqi soldier was shot dead outside Tuz Khurmato and wounded two others.
Stopping for the public airwaves (and all listed can be streamed), in public radio news, WBAI Monday features Judy Collins. Collins and Kenny White appear on Janet Coleman and David Dozer's Cat Radio Cafe along with playwright Shem Bitterman. The program airs Monday at 2:00 p.m. EST. Public television? NOW on PBS offers a report on the nursing crisis: "According to a government study, by the year 2020, there could be a nationwide shoratge of up to one million nurses, which could result in substandard treatment for hundreds of thousands of patients. Just as alarming, fewer nurses are choosing to teach the next generation of professionals, resulting in tens of thousands of applicants being turned away from the nation's nursing schools." NOW on PBS begins airing on many PBS stations tonight (check local listings) as does Washington Week which finds Gwen joined by journalists Shailagh Murray (Washington Post), Michael Viqueira (NBC) and David Shribman (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) and, for the child-at-heart, Gwen also provides two circus clowns on the panel.
Turning to the US race for president. Barack Obama is not a Socialist or a Communist (or a socialist or a communist). He is a Corporate War Hawk. But the confusion is understandable considering all the efforst to prop Baby Barry up throughout the Democratic Party primary by non-Democrats. It's the general election and Barack's just received his latest endorsement from a Socialist or a Communist: Howard Zinn. (Zinn is a Socialist.) Watch him make an ass out of himself via the so-called "Real" News. Mickey Z (Dissident Voice) provides the takedown for that pathetic sort of cowardice: "This strategy of choosing an alleged 'lesser evil' because he/she might be influenced by some mythical 'popular movement' would be naive if put forth by a high school student. Professors [Noam] Chomsky and Zinn know better. If it's incremental change they want, why not encourage their many readers to vote for Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney? The classic (read: absurd) reply to that question is: 'Because Nader or McKinney can't win.' Of course they can't win if everyone who claims to agree with them inexplicably votes for Obama instead. Paging Alice: You're wanted down the ______ rabbit hole." And on the subject of Noam Chomsky, let's drop back to 2007 when Panhandle Media was far less concerned with propping up Weather Underground. This is Michael Alpert of ZNet (ZMag) speaking to Amy Goodman in April of 2007:
Michael Albert: One example was, Weatherman was a group that was engaged in activity at the time. It was part of SDS, not a part I was belonged to, but they wanted to recruit me. At a particular moment, I went into Noam's office, and I asked him about it, this recruitment effort by them and whether -- you know, how I should relate. Noam was loath to give people advice about what to do in their life or about strategy.
Amy Goodman: And explain what the Weathermen were.
Michael Albert: The Weathermen were a very -- they were the most militant, most violent wing of SDS. Their analysis was a bit peculiar. I don't think we need to go into details. But in any case, so I asked him about that, and he was very loath to do that, but in this particular case -- we were already pretty close, and he -- you know, he didn't want me to make an error, so he did make a suggestion. And he sort of said very quickly, he said, "They're wonderful people. They're great people. They're moved well. I mean, their motives are good. Some of them are going to die. Some of them are going to hurt others. They're going to have very little effect on the well-being of people around the world because of what they're doing." And in a phrase, right, he captured what was there, and his advice was important. I don't think it was a difinitive in my choice not to join, but it certainly would have been a big factor.
And there's actually a lot more to the above anecdote. (I know Michael, I've heard the anecdote repeately over the years in expanded form.) But Chomsky is warning Albert against the Weathermen. The Weathermen, Chomsky is arguing, is too dangerous. The Weathermen is the group that breaks off from SDS and will become Weather Underground. The Weathermen do the Days of Rage in Chicago (1969).
And let's do a book plug. Paul Street's Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics came out last month and Street's one of the few on the left who has not embarrassed himself in 2008. And here's Street mentioning his book at ZNet: "It shows Obama and his marketers working effectively to create a false left impression among certain targeted voters. As I demonstrate, Obama posed as a left-leaning antiwar and social justice progressive, donning deceptive rebel's clothing in numerous speeches, town hall meetings, and television commericals through much of the primary campaign. He claimed falsely to be a dedicated opponent of American emprie, war and inequality, even going to the sickening point of telling Iowa voters that they could 'join the movement to stop the [Iraq] war' by Caucusing for him. For all his claims to be a nobel reformer 'above the fray' of America's plutocracy and 'ideological' politics, the real Obama excavated in my study is no special exception to -- and is in many ways an epitome of -- what the still-left Christopher Hitchens called (in his 1999 study of the Bill and Hillary Clinton phenomenon) 'the essence of American politics. This essence, when distilled,' Hitchens explained, 'consists of the manipulation of populism by elitism'." If you use the link to the article, you should check out the comments as well (Street's contributing to the comments). But to clarify something for this site: As repeatedly stated here, Barack is not a Socialist. However, as Ava and I noted -- addressing Leela's brave piece of writing:
First, thank you to Dee Dee for finding that post and e-mailing to ask that it be highlighted. Second, read what Leela's saying. We don't agree with her view of Democrats. We do, however, know where's she's coming from on that view. Her view is the sort of thing that can start a conversation. It may never bring feminists into one political party's tent (we don't think that should be a goal of the feminist movement short of a feminist party being started), but conversations can illuminate and increase our understandings.
Leela is obviously upset (first hint, her title), so even though we disagree with her view of the Democratic Party (re: Socialism), we would have first registered that she was upset and then attempted to engage. That didn't really happen on the thread and we'll assume that was due to the anger/ill will her view caused others.
But here's the reality: some people do see the Democratic Party as a Socialist Party. Some people see the Republican Party as an Evangelical Party. Neither belief is accurate but to understand each other, we need to understand where we are all coming from."
That is the reality of perceptions. (And of course alleged brainiac Rachel Maddow doesn't grasp that there is a difference between Socialism and Communism.) For this site, we are a left site and see no Socialism in Barack. But the right insisting Barack's a Socialist are not necessarily lying or even wrong. The terms are largely undefined in discussions today (again, allegedly educated Maddow -- from the center -- expressed on her bad MSNBC show this week that Socialism and Communism were the same thing). Leela is among the women blogging at Citizen Girl, by the way. And the US has a Socialist in Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders. But -- as is usually the case -- 'helpers' and the 'shocked' obscure reality by referring to him as 'independent.' He is a Socialist openly and the refusal to apply that label goes a long way towards explaining how screwed up US politics are. Another sign of the sickness in the US is this country's Socialist Worker and crap like Ashley Smith's "Fighting for what we want" that wants to argue there's no difference on the wars between the McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden ticket (there isn't) but uses pejoratives for McCain-Palin ("moronic," "knuckle dragging") but not for Obama-Biden. It's not even-handed and it does imply -- by insulting only one side -- that one ticket is 'better.' There is no difference on the Iraq War between the tickets for the two major parties. One would assume an allegedly Socialist periodical would have no reason to take sides between two Corporatist candidates. There's a lot more honesty -- from their political perspective (right-wing) -- in Stanley Kurtz' most recent National Review piece: "In short, the New Party was a mid-1990s effort to build a 'progressive' coalition to the left of the Democratic party, uniting left-leaning baby boomers with minorities, relatively militant unionists, and 'idealistic' young people."
Moving over to political lies, Mark Hosenball (Newsweek) underscores a big lie that passed with little attention, "'All the public reports suggested,' Obama said, that people shouted 'things like 'terrorist' and 'kill him'.' Making a death threat against a presidential candidate can be a crime. But even before Obama cited "reports" of the threats at the debate, the U.S. Secret Service had told media outlets, including NEWSWEEK, that it was unable to corroborate accounts of the 'kill him' remarks--and according to a law-enforcement official, who asked for anonymity when discussing a political matter, the Obama campaign knew as much. Now some officials are disgruntled that Obama gave added credence to the threat by mentioning it in front of 60 million viewers. At this point in the campaign, said one, candidates will 'say anything to make a particular point.'" [For more on that topic, see this snapshot from last week.]
On the subject of political lies, yes, people in the US do have the right not to vote. That is their decision and it can be a perfectly acceptable one despite the harping from certain quarters that insist "YOU MUST VOTE!". Linda Averill (FSN via Information Clearing House) explains that position and also provides some history:
Outrageous rules, media censorship, private financing of campaigns, and sheer thuggery have marginalized political parties that compete with labor's fake friend, the Democratic Party. This includes even parties like the Greens, who simply want to reform capitalism.
It's not people who vote socialist or Green who throw away their votes. The system does it! U.S. elections are "winner take all." If a socialist gets 20 percent of the vote, a Green gets 15 percent, and a Democrat gets 51 percent -- all votes go to the Democrat.
Things weren't always so sewn up. At the start of the 20th century, socialists ran on explicitly pro-labor, anti-capitalist platforms. And they won seats -- more than 1,200 offices nationwide.
To eliminate the threat this posed, the Democrats and Republicans launched a political witch-hunt. Socialist party offices were raided, pro-labor representatives were denied their seats, radicals were tossed in jail, and restrictive ballot laws were passed.
Averill closes by quoting Mother Jones: "I have never had a vote, and I have raised hell all over this country. You don't need a vote to raise hell! You need convictions and a voice!"
Those who wish to vote will have many choices to chose from (except for the state of Oklahoma whose restrictive laws allow voters to only pick the Democratic or Republican presidential ticket). Ther is the Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney who will appear Saturday October 25 on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. Cynthia's running mate is Rosa Clemente and Cynthia will be in Seattle:
The Washington State Power To The People Campaign has announced that Green Party Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney will be visiting Seattle on Sunday, October 26th and Monday, October 27th. Scheduled activities include:
* 3pm - 7pm
"Vote...Then What?
From The Day After The Election Onward: Strategies for Community Organizing, Greening & Reconstruction"
Umojafest Peace Center
24th Ave & E Spring St, Seattle
The public is invited to attend.
Cynthia McKinney will be speaking in support of grassroots and institutional solutions to violence and other issues plaguing urban communities nationwide. This event is hosted by the Umojafest Peace Center and the McKinney/Clemente 2008 Power To The People Campaign. The program will include hip-hop and spoken word performances, speakers from youth and community based organizations, and a showing of the award-winning film, American Blackout.
* 11am - 12:30pm
"The Power of Student Movements: How to Use Your Campus as a Tool to Change the World!"
Broadway at Pine Street, Seattle
The public is invited.
Ms. McKinney will address the growing concerns of students, the need for student leadership, and how students can organize on campus to engage in and impact social justice struggles and make meaningful contributions to communities outside school. This event will be hosted by the Black Student Union of Seattle Central Community College.
The Republican presidential candidate is John McCain, Sarah Palin is his running mate.
McCain - Palin '08 notes:
"And as governor, I've succeeded in securing additional funding and assistance for students with special needs. By 2011, I will have tripled the funding available to these students." -- Governor Sarah Palin, 10/24/08
Governor Palin Has A Proven Record Of Commitment To Special Needs Children:
Governor Palin Has Increased Funding For Special Needs Education. Overall funding for Special Needs students has increased every year since Sarah Palin entered office, from $219 million in 2007 to a projected $276 million in 2009. Breakdown below:
FY07: $219,358,041
On March 28, 2008, Governor Palin Signed Legislation That Will Nearly Triple
Per-Pupil Funding Over Three Years For Special Needs Students With High-
Cost Requirements. Per-pupil breakdown below:
FY08: $26,900
Governor Palin Has Directed State Funds To Other Special Needs Programs.
This funding includes $500,000 for diagnostic services for autistic children and $250,000 for training in early autism intervention in her FY2009 budget.
The Executive Director Of The Association Of Alaska School Boards Called
The New Funding Palin Fought For A "Historic Event." "Carl Rose, the executive director of the Association of Alaska School Boards, praised the changes in funding for rural schools and students with special needs as a 'historic event,'
and said the finance overhaul would bring more stability to district budgets."
("Alaska Legislators Overhaul Funding," Education Week, 4/30/08)
Families Of Special Needs Children "Have Been Flocking To Palin Rallies ...
They Say, Because Her Story Is Theirs, Too." But in the sea of faces, nearly everywhere she goes, she encounters people who aren't really there for the politics. ... Families of children with Down syndrome have been flocking to
Palin rallies. They come to shake her hand, grab a hug or snap a picture,
drawn there, they say, because her story is theirs, too." (Savannah Guthrie,
NBC "Nightly News," 10/14/08)
Scott Conroy (CBS News) reports, "The Alaska governor, whose infant son Trig has Down syndrome, said that a McCain/Palin administration would allow more flexibility for parents to choose their children's schools, committed to fully fund the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, and promised to reform and refocus special needs services." This was a major speech and text of it (and video) is up at McCain-Palin:
Too often, even in our own day, children with special needs have been set apart and excluded. Too often, state and federal laws add to their challenges, instead of removing barriers and opening new paths of opportunity. Too often, they are made to feel that there is no place for them in the life of our country, that they don't count or have nothing to contribute. This attitude is a grave disservice to these beautiful children, to their families, and to our country -- and I will
work to change it.
One of the most wonderful experiences in this campaign has been to see all the families of children with special needs who come out to rallies and events just
like this. We have a bond there. We know that children with special needs
inspire a special love. You bring your sons and daughters with you, because
you are proud of them, as I am of my son.
My little fella sleeps during most of these rallies, even when they get pretty rowdy. He would be amazed to know how many folks come out to see him instead of me.
When I learned that Trig would have special needs, honestly, I had to prepare my
heart. At first I was scared, and Todd and I had to ask for strength and understanding.
I did a lot of praying for that understanding, and strength, and to see purpose.
And what's been confirmed in me is every child has something to contribute to the
world, if we give them that chance. You know that there are the world's standards of perfection, and then there are God's, and these are the final measure. Every child is beautiful before God, and dear to Him for their own sake. And the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who are most vulnerable.
As for our baby boy, Trig, for Todd and me he is only more precious because he is vulnerable. In some ways, I think we stand to learn more from him than he does
from us. When we hold Trig and care for him, we don't feel scared anymore. We feel blessed.
Of course, many other families are much further along a similar path -- including my best friend who happens to be my sister, Heather, and her 13-year old son Karcher, who has autism. Heather and I have worked on this for over a decade. Heather is an advocate for children with autism in Alaska. And as governor, I've succeeded in securing additional funding and assistance for students with special needs. By 2011, I will have tripled the funding available to these students.
Heather and I have been blessed with a large, strong family network. Our family helps make sure that Trig and Karcher have what they need. But not everyone is lucky enough to have that strong network of support. And the experiences of those millions of Americans point the way to better policy in the care of children with special needs.
One of the most common experiences is the struggle of parents to find the best and earliest care for their children. The law requires our public schools to serve children with special needs, but often the results fall far short of the service they need. Even worse, parents are left with no other options, except for the few families that can afford private instruction or therapy.
Many of you parents here have been through the drill: You sit down with teachers and counselors to work out the IEP -- an individual education plan for your child. The school may be trying its best, but they're overstretched. They may keep
telling you that your child is "progressing well," and no extra services are required. They keep telling you that -- but you know better.
You know that your children are not getting all of the help they need, at a time when they need it most. The parents of children with special needs ask themselves every day if they are doing enough, if they are doing right by their sons and daughters. And when our public school system fails to render help and equal opportunity -- and even prevents parents from seeking it elsewhere that is unacceptable.
In a McCain-Palin administration, we will put the educational choices for special needs children in the right hands their parents'. Under reforms that I will lead as vice president, the parents and caretakers of children with physical or mental disabilities will be able to send that boy or girl to the school of their choice -- public or private.
And McCain picks up another endorsement today, South Carolina's The State which asserts that "we prefer Sen. McCain. First and foremost, he is far better prepared not only to be commander in chief, but to lead the nation as it deals with a complex array of global challenges, from Iran to North Korea, from Russia to Venezuela. Consider two widely different areas of foreign policy, Iraq and Colombia. Sen. McCain has often led the charge against the Bush administration when it was wrong on national security, from the 9/11 Commission (working with Joe Biden to make that happen) to the use of torture. But the most dramatic case regards Iraq. For years, he insisted we needed to send more troops. When Mr. Bush finally agreed to the "surge," Sen. McCain was Gen. David Petraeus' most conspicuous supporter. The surge worked. Sen. McCain was for it, and Sen. Obama was against. That's no accident. Sen. McCain's support arose from his superior understanding of the situation and how to approach it."
Ralph Nader is the independent presidential candidate and Matt Gonzalez is his running mate. The campaign has toured all fifty states and this Saturday? "Nader to Attempt Guinness World Record on Saturday: Massachusetts Marathon, Most Speeches in 24-Hours:"
This Saturday, Ralph Nader will hold campaign events in 21 cities across Massachusetts in an attempt to set a sanctioned Guinness World Record
to give the most speeches in a 24-hour time period. The minimum threshold
he must meet is 15. He is scheduled to deliver over 315 minutes of speeches
and drive over 365 miles. Each speech will last at least 10 minutes and will
tackle a separate issue.
Nader/Gonzalez campaign events are scheduled to be held in the
following cities:
Boston, Cambridge, Belmont, Somerville, Medford, Arlington, Lexington,
Concord, Waltham, Watertown, Newton, Worcester, Auburn, Springfield, Chicopee, Holyoke, Northampton, West Springfield, Westfield, Stockbridge
and Sheffield.
There is an additional van for intrepid journalists who want to chronicle the adventure from start to finish.
For a full itinerary or other related inquires, please contact Ryan Mehta at
408-348-0681, or Rob Socket at 202-471-5833.
And events are lined out throughout the final days of the race. One just announced will take place November 2nd:
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE RALPH NADER TO SPEAK IN ALLENTOWN
WHO: Ralph Nader
WHAT: Campaign rally/speech on the Wall Street bailout and other current
WHEN: Sunday November 2 at 7:30pm
WHERE: Scottish Rite Cathedral, 1533 Hamilton Street, Allentown, PA 18102
On Sunday, November 2 at 7:30pm, consumer advocate and Presidential candidate
Ralph Nader will hold a press conference followed by a rally in Scottish Rite Cathedral.
He will speak about the Wall St. Bailout, single-payer health care, the Iraq
War, the environment, and the state of the Presidential debates from which
he was excluded.
Ralph Nader is the only Presidential candidate who recommends jail time,
not bail time for Wall Street fat cats (and the only one who has been pointing
out the risks of deregulation for the last 20 years). He is the number three contender for the Presidency, America's number one consumer advocate,
and he has real solutions to our economic woes.
mark mackinnon
ayan mittra
katherine zoepf
mary beth sheridan
sudarsan raghavan
cat radio cafe
janet coleman
david dozer
now on pbs
shailagh murray
scott conroy
Just as the situation seemed to be stabilizing, a spate of murders in recent weeks targeting the Christian community of the nearby city of Mosul has sparked a new exodus. Another 1,500 families have fled Mosul in the past month, with many of those arriving at St. Josephs, looking for shelter and food.
"Christians have always been targeted by different groups in the Middle East because we are the only people without a tribal system to protect us or the political power to give us security," the bald, soft-spoken priest said as we chatted inside the stone-walled compound of St. Joseph's, which from the street looks as much like a castle than a place of worship. "The church is weak. The Vatican does not have tanks."
Just as worrying for Father Sabri are those who are leaving Ainkawa. Theyre not returning to their homes, but headed for new lives in the West, leaving Iraq behind. As much as half of Iraqs prewar Christian population of 800,000 is believed to have emigrated since 2003.
"Everyone is leaving. If the situation continues the way it is for another 10 years, 20 at most, you won't see any Christians left here."
The above, noted by Vic, is from Mark MacKinnon's "The plight and flight of Iraq's Christians" (Globe and Mail) and the priest being quoted is Father Sabri al-Maqdessy. On the same topic, Crosswalk.com includes this paragraph in today's news summary:
Mission News Network reports that the situation facing Christians in the Iraqi city of Mosul is not improving. "I'm a afraid it's actually getting worse," said President of Open Doors USA Carl Moeller. "The Christian community continues to be terrorized by extremists and basically are being forced out of homes at gunpoint, children and elderly people being murdered. This is a real crisis. Not just a Christian crisis, but a real humanitarian crisis for the country of Iraq." Coalition forces in the area are not authorized to aid Christians, however, as the situation is viewed as an internal matter. "[I]t's really an international crisis where the Christian community is in danger of being extinguished completely in Mosul... The city itself is being religiously cleansed of Christians." Moeller believes al Qaeda is behind the attacks.
Ed West's "Global Persecution of Church intensifies" (United Kingdom's Catholic Herald via Catholic Online) examines the issue worldwide and notes the following of Iraq specifically:
In other countries instability or anarchy has led to increased persecution. Several thousand Iraqi Christians remain displaced after two weeks of violence in the city of Mosul that left at least 13 Christians dead. A church was firebombed in the city last Tuesday as the country's leading Shia cleric condemned the ongoing attacks.
Some 800 Christians have been murdered since the US-led invasion in 2003 and half the country's 800,000 faithful have fled the country. Last week Iraq's leading Catholic churchman, the Chaldean patriarch Cardinal Emmanuel-Karim Delly of Baghdad, described the "disastrous and tragic" situation in his country at the Synod of Bishops on the Bible in Rome, saying life in Iraq was like the Way of the Cross for many people."Peace and security are lacking, just as the basic elements for daily life are lacking," he said, drawing applause from more than 200 bishops.
The suspected fragging murders in Iraq of 1st Lt Lou Allen and Capt Phil Esposito continue. From Robert Gavin's "Wives talk in frag case" (Albany Times Union):
"Occasionally he makes eye contact with me,'' Siobhan Esposito told a military prosecutor on the first day of testimony in Martinez's double-murder trial, "and it's with contempt."
Her husband, Capt. Phillip Esposito, 30, of Suffern, and 1st Lt. Louis Allen, 34, of Milford, Pa., were on a military base in Tikrit, Iraq, when a devastating Claymore mine exploded outside Esposito's living quarters and office about 10 p.m. on June 7, 2005. The men, who had been playing the board game Risk at the time, died the next day.
Capt. Esposito's widow, who now lives in Virginia, battled tears as she testified in the military courthouse, at Fort Bragg just outside Fayetteville. She last spoke to her husband, with whom she has a 5-year-old daughter named Madeline, on June 6, she said, and last saw him the prior New Year's Eve.
Allen's widow, Barbara Allen, next testified, but said nothing about Martinez on witness stand. But after the court session, when asked by reporters, she said there had been a "few occasions where he actually walked up to me" and looked her up and down. She said she brought it to the attention of military police, who took measures to avoid similar interactions.
Meanwhile Eddie notes this from Ayan Mittra "Fact check: Biden on Iraq" (Dallas Morning News):
CNN says this statement by Joe Biden is misleading: "George Bush is now backing the plan that Barack Obama suggested, which is to set a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq and turn over responsibility to the Iraqis." CNN said the Bush administration, like the Obama campaign, is considering a troop withdrawal timetable. But the Bush proposals are based on security improvements in Iraq, while Obama's are based on a 16-month timetable.
Joe Biden is the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Barack Obama is top of the ticket. Staying with the US presidential race,Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney will appear Saturday October 25 on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. Cynthia's running mate is Rosa Clemente and Cynthia will be in Seattle:
In addition, today, Cynthia is on:
Washington Journal
John McCain is the Republican presidential candidate and Sarah Palin is his running mate. Becky notes this from McCain-Palin:
McCain-Palin 2008 Launches New Television Ad: "Ladies And Gentlemen"
ARLINGTON, VA -- Today, McCain-Palin 2008 released its latest television ad, entitled "Ladies and Gentlemen." The ad highlights Joe Biden -- Barack Obama's own running-mate -- guaranteeing an international crisis if Barack Obama is elected. Because of Barack Obama's inexperience, Joe Biden has guaranteed the American people that the world will test Barack Obama within the first six months of being elected. If Barack Obama's vote against the surge and response to the Russia-Georgia crisis are any indication, Americans can't afford to see if he passes the test or not. The ad will be televised in key states.
VIEW THE AD HERE:
Script For "Ladies And Gentlemen" (TV :30)
ANNCR: Listen to Joe Biden.
Talking about what electing Barack Obama will mean.
JOE BIDEN: Mark my words.
It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama.
The world is looking.
We're going to have an international crisis ... to test the mettle of this guy.
I guarantee you it's gonna happen.
ANNCR: It doesn't have to happen.
Vote McCain.
JOHN MCCAIN: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.
AD FACTS: Script For "Ladies And Gentlemen" (TV :30)
ANNCR: Listen to Joe Biden. Talking about what electing Barack Obama will mean. JOE BIDEN: Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama. The world is looking. We're going to have an international crisis ... to test the mettle of this guy. I guarantee you it's gonna happen. ANNCR: It doesn't have to happen. Vote McCain. JOHN MCCAIN: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.
Joe Biden: Mark my words. Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. ... The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. And he's gonna have to make some really tough - I don't know what the decision's gonna be, but I promise you it will occur. As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it's gonna happen. I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he's gonna need help." (Joe Biden, Remarks, Seattle, WA, 10/19/08)
Ralph Nader is the independent presidential candidate and Matt Gonzalez is his running mate. Samantha notes this from Team Nader:
Help Ralph Get Into Guinness Book of Records
Posted by The Nader Team on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 04:53:00 PM
Drop a $2 bill on Nader/Gonzalez.
C-Span 2 is going to air the Third Party Debate live tonight at 9 p.m. EST.
Former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges is going to moderate.
If you are in the Washington, D.C. area, please come on down to the Mayflower Hotel and watch live and in person.
Also, we consider the $2 bill a good luck charm.
And we’re going to need all the luck we can get on Saturday.
Because it’s now official.
Our national media coordinator just got off a long distance phone call to the UK with the head of the Guinness Book of World Records.
He just confirmed it.
With your help, Ralph will make it into the Guinness record book this Saturday.
Ralph will campaign in 21 cities and towns across Massachusetts in one day.
Guinness says that if hits 15, he’ll be in the record books — most campaign speeches in a 24-hour period.
But we’re shooting for 21.
Each speech will last ten minutes and will tackle a separate issue — single payer, poverty, Palestine — you get the idea.
On Saturday, Ralph is scheduled to deliver 315 minutes of speeches — and we’ll be driving 365 miles.
In one day.
Events are now scheduled in the following towns:
Boston, Cambridge, Southborough, Somerville, Medford, Arlington, Lexington, Concord, Waltham, Watertown, Newton, Worcester, Auburn, Springfield, Chicopee, Holyoke, Northampton, West Springfield, Westfield, Stockbridge and Sheffield.
If you are in the Massachusetts area, come on out and meet Ralph and the Nader Road Crew as we zip across the Commonwealth. (For complete schedule, including times of each stop go to votenader.org/marathon)
If not, donate $2, or $20, or whatever you can afford now to fund Nader’s Mass Marathon.
We need to rent the cars and vans, pay the advance teams, feed the hard working Nader’s Raiders road crew, rent the multiple GPS systems.
And we need to meet our latest fundraising goal of $200,000 by tomorrow midnight.
So, donate now and then watch the widget zoom to the goal line.
And deliver Ralph into the Guinness book.
Onward to November
The Nader Team
PS: If you donate $100 or more now, we will ship to you our corporate crime package. The package includes two books and a DVD: Gangster Capitalism by Michael Woodiwiss, The Cheating of America by Charles Lewis, Bill Allison and the Center for Public Integrity, and a DVD of our Wall Street rally. (This offer ends October 24, 2008 at 11:59 p.m.)
In public radio news, WBAI Monday features Judy Collins. Collins and Kenny White appear on Janet Coleman and David Dozer's Cat Radio Cafe along with playwright Shem Bitterman. Public television? NOW on PBS offers:
Nurses Needed
[Streaming video of this program will be available online after broadcast]
According to a government study, by the year 2020, there could be a nationwide shortage of up to one million nurses, which could result in substandard treatment for hundreds of thousands of patients. Just as alarming, fewer nurses are choosing to teach the next generation of professionals, resulting in tens of thousands of applicants being turned away from the nation's nursing schools.
"If there was ever a time in the history of this country when one thought about the match between a profession and the changing needs of people in the country, this is the time," Dr. Mary Naylor of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing tells NOW on PBS. Dr. Naylor points out the growing population of older people, many of whom are living with chronic conditions, is significantly increasing the demand for nurses.
This week, NOW on PBS takes a hard look at how the shortage of nurses is placing strains on the entire medical system, as well as innovative efforts to reverse the trend.
Can America solve its nursing crisis?
NOW on PBS begins airing on many PBS stations tonight (check local listings) as does Washington Week which finds Gwen joined by journalists Shailagh Murray (Washington Post), Michael Viqueira (NBC) and David Shribman (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) and, for the child-at-heart, Gwen also provides two circus clowns on the panel.
ed west
robert gavin
The attack against Radhi occurred during the morning rush hour when a gray 1979 Toyota Land Cruiser slammed into his official motorcade in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad and exploded, authorities said. The minister is a member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a major Shiite coalition partner of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The blast killed nine people and wounded 26, according to Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, the top spokesman for Iraqi military operations in Baghdad. Among the dead were three of the minister's bodyguards, including his nephew, according to a statement from the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry.
The explosion blew a hole in the street, sheared chunks of brick off buildings and damaged many cars in the area. The windows of stores surrounding the square were shattered, and glass carpeted the sidewalks.
The above is from Mary Beth Sheridan's "U.S. Cedes Control Over Iraq's Once-Bloody 'Triangle of Death'" (Washington Post) and the excerpt above is covering the attack on Mahmoud Muhammad al-Radhi's convoy which is a topic Katherine Zoepf also addresses in "Bomber Kills 11 in Attack on Iraqi Official" (New York Times):
Salam Rzoki, 35, was walking to work at a nearby photograph developing center and said he was about 100 yards away when the vehicle exploded.
"Iraqi security forces deployed around the scene and started shooting randomly to keep people away," Mr. Rzoki said. "I tried to cross the street to help the victims but a policeman told me to stay away. I explained that I just wanted to help the victims, and he refused me again, then pulled out his gun and fired a warning shot over my head."
A spokesman for the labor minister, Abdullah al-Lami, told Al Arabiya television that the bombing was "the latest in a series of criminal attacks that are targeting the development process in Iraq," The Associated Press reported.
In what may be Zoepf's first solo byline from Iraq, she's turned in a very well written article. Both articles note the 'handover' over Babil Province to Iraqis and Sheridan adds the following: "But the violence diminished with the creation of "Awakening" groups, U.S.-paid patrols of mostly Sunni fighters who broke with insurgents and allied with U.S. forces."
In the US presidential race, we'll note Matthew Power's "Left Behind" (UAE's The National)
On the day after the United States congress passed an unprecedented $700 billion bailout of the collapsing financial industry, Ralph Nader -- tireless consumer advocate, scourge of both Wall Street and K Street, scapegoat of the American Left, quadrennial presidential candidate -- held a campaign rally in the echoing lobby of an abandoned bank in Waterbury, Connecticut. It was his fourth official run for the presidency in as many elections. A large banner, reading Nader-Gonzalez 2008, was hung before the empty vault, and a sign marked "safe deposit boxes" pointed unreassuringly down a darkened stairwell. A dusty chandelier hung over the lectern, and a single red balloon had drifted up from its blue and white mates tied to a chair, resting against the peeling paint of the ceiling.
The rally’s setting may have been an unintentional allusion to America’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, or perhaps a clever piece of low-budget political stagecraft, but there were few present to appreciate such subtleties. Fifty or so people filled half of the folding chairs set up by campaign volunteers, or picked at the fruit and pastries laid on a table to one side. There were a few families, a clutch of college students, a scattering of geriatric hippies. After a few independent candidates for state and local offices took their turns stumping for votes, Nader himself walked to the lectern – at 74 a stooped, greying figure in a dark suit, with a voice so slow and deep it sounds like a 45rpm record played at 33. Half the room stood to give him an ovation; even among those who would come out on a Saturday morning to hear him speak, it seemed sentiment was divided.
Nader spoke forcefully, without a teleprompter or notes, infuriated at the current bailout plan, which he calls "Socialism coming to the rescue of Capitalism." "I warned of this for twenty years. It was deregulation that started it. And you can thank Bill Clinton, working hand in glove with the Republicans. Washington had Wall Street over a barrel. They could have gotten them to agree to anything." There was scattered clapping, hoots of approval, most vociferously from his own campaign volunteers manning a table at the back.
Nader laid the blame equally on Wall Street and the government – two villains, in Nader's view, whose unholy alliance represents everything wrong with contemporary American life. Instead of using the crisis as a chance to extract concessions from the finance industry, Nader argued, the government has used "Chicken Little" tactics to scare Americans into approving the publicly-financed bailout with no public hearings. "Instead of 13 colonies under King George the Third, we're 50 colonies under King George the Fifth. And this is taxation without representation!" Nader's voice echoed off the empty bank's high ceilings, like a prophet of economic doom.
Ralph Nader is the independent presidential candidate and Matt Gonzalez is his running mate. Kayla notes this from Team Nader:
Pull Out the Stops Video
Posted by The Nader Team on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 10:17:00 AM
We’re less than two weeks out.
As of yesterday, Ralph has campaigned in all 50 states.
Media exposure is picking up.
Crowds are getting bigger at the Nader rallies.
Last night, Ralph spoke before a packed crowd of over 1,000 in Boulder, Colorado.
Starting Monday, our radio ads will be playing in key states around the country.
On Saturday, Ralph will go for the world record for most campaign stops in a day as he motors across Massachusetts, hitting 21 towns and cities.
And tonight, Ralph will participate in a Third Party debate that will be shown live on C-Span at 9 p.m. EST.
We’re firing on all cylinders.
And as of this writing, we’re just $70,000 shy of meeting our goal of $200,000 by tomorrow night.
So, please, donate now whatever you can afford — $5, $10, $50, $100 — up to the legal limit of $2,300.
Or, if you haven’t purchased our Nader ‘08 Buffalo T-Shirt (men’s or women’s), please do so now.
Let’s drive the widget hard today.
Yesterday, late at night, the Nader Media Team pulled together a new video featuring National Campaign Coordinator Jason Kafoury.
Jason updates you — our loyal supporters — on where we stand — and where we’re heading.
And then drive up the widget.
We haven’t missed a deadline yet this year.
Let’s get it done.
PS: If you give $100 or more now, we’ll ship to you our No More Bailouts Package. The package includes two books and a DVD: Gangster Capitalism by Michael Woodiwiss, The Cheating of America by Charles Lewis, Bill Allison and the Center for Public Integrity, and a DVD of our Wall Street rally. (This offer ends October 24, 2008 at 11:59 p.m.)
A few notes. "Share This" is causing problems. For the same reason (Mozilla shutting down for some members), the feed to the McCain events has been removed from the side.
Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney will appear Saturday October 25 on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. Cynthia's running mate is Rosa Clemente and Cynthia will be in Seattle:
And here's a video of Cynthia on al Jazeera:
Morgan notes this from the McCain-Palin campaign:
McCain-Palin 2008 Launches New Web Ad: "I Am Joe"
ARLINGTON, VA -- Today, McCain-Palin 2008 released its latest web ad, entitled "I am Joe." The ad features Americans who submitted their homemade videos to the campaign telling their stories and how they are like "Joe the Plumber." Like Joe in Ohio, people from across the country do not want to see their taxes increase as Barack Obama proposes. They don't want a president who will "spread the wealth around" instead of creating new wealth and new opportunity. They don't want a president who sees economic success, expansion and job creation as an excuse to increase taxes. They don't want a president who will place a tax on the American dream.
VIEW THE WEB AD HERE
John McCain is the Republican presidential candidate and Sarah Palin is his running mate.
Yesterday, a video was added to one of the morning entries after Marci e-mailed to request it. It's Govenor Palin speaking about women's rights.
A portion of the speech was included in yesterday's snapshot.
matthew power
Gina rightly guessed in the roundtable tonight (see the gina & krista round-robin tomorrow morning) that the hoped for topic tonight (by me) would probably be Governor Sarah Palin and special-needs. The speech by Palin that was highlighted in today's snapshot also included a section on special needs. And the plan was to offer that section and to jump on an angle Jim asked (three or four weeks ago) be held for Third (and has still not resulted in a feature for Third). But an idiot wrote a post online insisting Sarah Palin was really against the disabled and special-needs community. I find that so offensive and think someone really has to be the lowest of the low to even suggest something like that.
The man's a liar and we'll note this comment posted in response (no link to that man's trash) to his nonsense:
I am certain that Senator Obama will do as much for all Americans with developmental disabilities as he has for those in the state of Illinois. Illinois was ranked 47th when he came into the Illinois legislature and now we are ranked 50th. . . but I am sure you already knew that as you have "worked with and for parents of children and adults with disabilities at the local, state, national and international level for 35 years." As an Illinois parent of a child with developmental disabilities, I can tell you first hand Senator Obama and our overwhelmingly Democratic state government have done nothing for our children. I also find it interesting that you regard Senator Obama as such as champion of disability issues, but a review of "The One's" convention speech transcript reveals that he forgot to mention autism. On the other hand, both Senator McCain and Governor Palin both made commitments to the weakest and most vulnerable among us.
It's really amazing that some man (not the person posting the comment quoted above) thinks he can look at the parent of a special-needs child and call him or her a liar based on nothing (based on lies). It really goes to how sick our national conversation has gotten. I don't give a damn about tone and I'm not interested in policing the internet (or advocating for anyone else to). But special-needs children is an issue I've volunteered on and donated to for decades and maybe I'm just taking this topic too personally?
That could be it. But I think when someone wants to make judgments about someone's parenting, they damn well better know something. And when they want to accuse a parent of a special-needs child of not giving a damn about children with special-needs, they better have something a little stronger than a 'hunch.'
But that's how the left's run all year long -- fact free and filled with lies. You had non-Democrat Barbara Ehrenreich attempting to clear the Democratic Party primary of Hillary with a slanderous piece of filth that didn't even pass the comprehension test. Equally true, the religion that so alarmed Socialist Barbie in Hillary was also practiced by Dream Crush Barack.
Once again, we're seeing how disgusting so many on the left are. The same way they ripped Hillary apart with lies, they now go after Sarah Palin.
I'm not voting for Sarah Palin. Yet for some strange reason, I have no desire to rip her apart with lies. In 2008, that qualifies as a 'bad' leftie.
Because women joined in on the attacks on Hillary -- little no names like the Elivra look-alike failed actress who believes one bad but successful play makes her a playwright -- it allowed society at large to really attack women with the deep thread of misogny that apparently is always below the surface.
So it does matter when Robin Morgan thinks she can lie about Sarah Palin. There was no reason for Robin to write that ridiculous column (and there was no reason for Women's Media Center to publish it). But Robin's desire to stone Palin and to do so with lies created the climate for others to 'let loose.' Robin is too damn smart not to grasp that there is a direct line between her column and those shirts with the c-word and cries of "stone her old-style!"
It does matter when Gloria Steinem dismisses a question (a valid one) about how it's not feminism to insist Palin should be home with her children by stating she hasn't heard anyone say that. I'm sorry Gloria hadn't heard that but it was all over the internet and if Women's Media Center wants to be a net presence (it's not a print publication) and they want people to take their "Sexism Sells But We're Not Buying It" campaign, they better start self-checking and they better start monitoring and calling out. Otherwise, Women's Medica Center is ENDORSING sexism.
They also better grasp that the speech Palin gave this week was an important speech and one that needs highlighting and discussion. Not hisses, not coughing up fur balls, a serious discussion.
And a serious discussion needs to take place about how certain women have intentionally failed others. WMC provides a link (actually an address, the woman in charge of their blog doesn't know how to do links) to Cynthia McKinney's NPR interview (covered in Wednesday's snapshot) and that's going to cut if for 'coverage' of Cynthia's campaign.
2008 has shown (and continues to show) just how deeply sexism remains in the US. Feminists in the United States have more than enough to focus on. But that would require getting off their knees (or backs) and standing up -- there's been no indication that our 'leadership' can do anything of the sort.
When feminists stood up for Hillary back in January, it was important for them to be destroyed. They had to be victimized with lies and smears because otherwise people might listen to them. So it's especially appalling to see Robin Morgan and others who were the targets of lies turn around and utilize lies to take Palin out.
It's especially disgusting to watch women like Robin do the men's work for them -- get into a catfight to take out a woman.
It's disgusting and it's not feminism.
Governor Sarah Palin identifies as a feminist and has long before this year. It's a real shame that feminists couldn't take the road that we're all supposed to take: I'm not tearing her apart.
Deciding not to join in on "Bash the Bitch" didn't require that you vote for her. It did require that you saw how ugly it got with the attacks on Hillary and you weren't about to let it happen to another woman running for high office. It did require that you grasped the message attacks on Palin sent to young girls. It did require that you had enough self-respect to tell various Democratic males (in 'power') -- egging you on to prostitute your talents by attacking Palin -- to go f**k themselves.
In the real world, Jill Zuckman's "Sarah Palin talks about wardrobe flap, double standard for women and special education" (Chicago Tribune) explains:
Less than two weeks before Election Day, she will deliver her first major policy speech Friday, calling for full funding of special education, a subject that has suddenly become extremely personal. And that's not just because of the arrival of Trig, her 6-month-old son with Down syndrome. It's because families with children who have disabilities have been flocking to her campaign stops, looking to Palin and her family for inspiration.Palin on Thursday granted one of her first newspaper interviews since becoming McCain's vice presidential nominee. She was joined by her husband, Todd, who cradled Trig, noticeably plumper since he was first introduced to the world two months ago.
Palin called the disabilities issues "a joyful challenge." Todd Palin showed off photos of people with Down syndrome who have come to campaign events, and the candidate said one advocacy group sent her a bumper sticker that said "My kid has more chromosomes than your kid."
"These children are not a problem, they are a priority," Palin said."We're on this journey with other families," she said. "We'll learn a lot from those other families, as they can count on us in the White House doing all that we can for them also. It's going to be a nice team effort here."
Sarah, Cynthia, Rosa and Hillary. In one way or another, all four have been repeatedly betrayed this year. (Rosa Clemente is Cynthia's running mate.) It's not about disagreeing with them or even about 'tone' -- it's about grasping when they are being attacked and having the feminist perspective that you're not going to join in, that you're either going to stand up for them the way you'd want to be stood up for or you're going to shut your damn mouth because, although cowardly, you're not a hypocrite. Sadly, those two options were too much for most 'leaders' in the feminist movement in 2008 and the movement's suffered greatly as a result.
Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4185. Tonight? 4186. Just Foreign Policy lists 1,273,378 as the number of Iraqis killed since the start of the illegal war . . . same number they listed last week and the Thursday before and, yes, the Thursday before that. They've got a candidate to install and Iraq Can Wait! Obviously.
Tensions and treaty
The treaty hits a road bump (or is it a 'sticky' b...
"Awakening" and Iraq Christians
Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Barack's Wipin...
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Those wacky, Iraqi elections
Iraqi officials expressed concern about the success of the upcoming national elections, scheduled for Jan. 16, after the Iraqi parliament failed to overcome disagreement over the proposed new election law, as the earliest time a new law could be enacted would be next week.
An Iraqi official revealed that some political blocs held secret meetings in some neighboring countries to destabilize the results of the upcoming elections due on Jan. 16 next year, the state-run al-Sabah newspaper reported on Saturday.
According to al-Sabah, Haidar al-Ibadi, a leading member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Dawa party, accused some political blocs of trying to hinder the progress of the upcoming elections as he "got information showing that secret meetings were held by some political forces in several neighboring countries under regional intelligence guardianship."
The above is from Ghassan Awad's "Fears over failure of approving new elections law in Iraq" (Xinhua). Two Thursdays ago, Iraq's Parliament was supposed to pass the election law; however, they didn't. Then it was wait and wait all through last week and nothing, still nothing. Iraqi Lt Gen Ali Ghaidan Majeed tells AFP, "What we are afraid of, if there is any delay to the elections . . . is this may create problems for security in general." Ranj Alaaldin (Guardian) observes, "Iraq has once again met what very low expectations remain of it. Despite a 15 October deadline, the Iraqi parliament is yet to agree on a new election law for the national elections due to be held in January, and this may, as a result, throw its political, legal and constitutional framework into disarray." Alaadin notes that the issue of open and closed lists isn't the only issue:
The only major group still to call publicly for the closed-list system is the Kurdistan Alliance; it will not, however, derail the elections over this issue. Instead, it is the question of what to do with the neglected governorate of Kirkuk that has, in predictable fashion, been the greatest cause of division within parliament. Indeed, the issue of Kirkuk itself could also become a pretext to delay the vote and keep the old 2005 law in effect.
Kirkuk, controlled by the Kurds after the 2005 elections, never took part in this year's provincial elections because of disagreements over responsibility for security and eventual control of the provincial council. Similar disagreements exist once again. Some have called for special arrangements that divide the area into four separate, ethnically-defined electoral constituencies, while the Turkmen and Arabs are calling for voting quotas in response to what they call the modified demographics of the governorate by the Kurds, who constitute the majority there.
The Kurds were forcefully removed from Kirkuk by Saddam and are now returning back, pursuant to the "normalisation" process under Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, which seeks to reverse the Arabisation policies of the Ba'ath regime. According to UN reports and staff present in Iraq at the time, in November 1991 alone, eight months after the conclusion of the 1991 Gulf war, more than 150,000 Kurds were evicted from Kirkuk.
The Kurdistan Alliance, however, has rejected giving any special status to Kirkuk simply because it has a Kurdish majority. If the oil-rich area is given special status, then, by equal measure maintains the Alliance, so should other disputed territories where Kurds happen to be minorities. To implement a quota system would indeed be profoundly undemocratic.
Following the death of Abdelaziz al-Hakim, his son Ammar al-Hakim took over the political party Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) interviews him about the intended elections:
How do you rate Maliki’s government?
We believe there were very important steps taken by the prime minister. Of course, they were not achieved by the efforts of one individual [alone] but happened because of joint efforts, unlimited support, extended from the different political powers, especially the forces of the United Iraqi Alliance [the previous ruling coalition which included both Maliki and ISCI]….
At the same time, there were a lot of mistakes made. These were tracked by the parliament because they are the side observing the [government’s] performance. Some believe the government failed to provide a clear plan and vision for its performance during the last four years. They also think that a lot of positions and decisions were taken as reactions. There were large amounts [of money] spent to achieve projects. The money was spent. But there were no projects achieved… . These are not media pronouncement. These are facts and figures being discussed among officials. This is one of the problems on a long list that we are facing.
What do you say to people who view your list as not inclusive enough of the country’s Sunni population?
We have a national program and opportunities for all. But if we opened our doors and gates and if some people didn’t make firm decisions to join, they should be asked why are you not joining… We have put out a national program and extended the invitation to all.
Meanwhile AP reports that Iraqi MP Tayseer al-Mahhadani has an arrest warrent out on her as does her husband -- she is a Sunni member of Parliament. Prashant Rao (AFP) reports that she's wanted for the vauge and umbrella charge of 'terrorists activities' and that -- arrest warrant or not -- she can't currently be arrested unless Parliament waives her immunity as a member of Parliament.
CNN reports:
The envoy, Susan Rice, arrived Friday and met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. She held talks Saturday with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari at the Foreign Ministry compound in Baghdad. While touring the ministry building, they surveyed damage from the August 19 bombing, one of six targets hit within an hour that day.
Later Saturday, about 100 miles north in Tikrit, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest detonated himself outside a political party headquarters, killing two people, police said.
If you use the link, be sure to check out Susan Rice's scowling face. Yes, that is her natural facial expression.
Violence continued today in Iraq . . .
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad sticky bombing which wounded two people and a Tikrit suicide bomber who took his own life and the lives of 3 other people.
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports an attack on a Baghdad military checkpoint in which two Iraqi soldiers were injured, 1 Iraqi Army Captain was shot dead in Mosul and, in an attack on a Mosul army checkpoint, 1 Iraqi soldier was killed.
ghassan awad
mohammed al dulaimy
ranj alaaldin
iraqiraq
The US Embassy in Baghdad
It is the world's most expensive embassy, costing more than $700 million (£427 million) and designed to withstand earthquakes and insurgents. Yet only nine months after being opened, the US Embassy in Iraq is riddled with problems expected to cost more than $130 million to fix.
Nobody praised its architecture when it was inaugurated in January -- think Milton Keynes on the Moon. The cube-like structure, topped with razor wire, is the size of Vatican City and features a supermarket and swimming pool. But the 2,000 or so Americans moving in believed, at least, that it would keep them safe and comfortable.
Not so. A report by a US Government inspector-general yesterday pointed to staggering State Department incompetence.
The above is from Oliver August's "US embassy in Baghdad faces $130 million repair bill after errors" (Times of London) continuing the press coverage begun on Thursday with Warren P. Strobel's "IG: Pricey new U.S. Embassy in Iraq has 'multiple' flaws" (McClatchy Newspapers). CNN's Charley Keyes adds:
One problem cited by the Inspector General's Office is inadequate emergency "safe areas" inside the embassy compound. It suggests the State Department try to recover $4.6 million "to repair safe areas, which are vital to protecting staff in emergency situations but which were not constructed according to contract specifications."
"We found that although the construction ... [of the embassy] in a war zone in 34 months was a significant accomplishment, considerable construction deficiencies remained because designs for the facilities had not been completed and approved and quality control and commissioning procedures were inadequate," the report says.
"Without a valid design and robust quality control and commissioning activities, the department cannot be assured that the NEC [new embassy compound] complies with contract and department requirements, as well as with applicable building codes," it says.
Rhonda notes this from Dennis Kucinich's re-election campaign:
Dennis Kucinich Will Be a Guest on C-SPAN, Washington Journal
Dear Friends, Congressman Dennis Kucinich will be a guest on:
C-SPAN, Washington Journal
Sunday, October 25, 2009, at 9:30 a.m. ET
There will be an initial interview followed by a Q&A session. Topics of discussion will consider the major issues of Afghanistan, Health Care and Climate Change.
The Re-Elect Congressman Kucinich Committee
We'll note the following community posts from Thursday and Friday:
"Alito's confirmation" (Isaiah)
"Dinner in a skillet in the Kitchen" "The 'safe' way to 'address' it" (Trina)
"Scary" "Ms. magazine" (Ann)
"Army pays out $4.3 million" "TNAOC" (Betty)
"tony blair and gordon brown - war hawks of a feather" "now that is scary" (Rebecca)
"Iraq wants to skip out on debt to Kuwait" "Governments shouldn't attack the press" (Ruth)
"Friday, at last" "Taxi Cab Obsessions" (Kat)
"Accountability" "Crazy sick" (Marcia)
"False optimism, the Air Force remembers one of their own, and more" "Harry Reid" (Stan)
"David Brock, you ought to be ashamed of yourself" (Elaine)
"Idiot of the week: Norm Kent" "Applause and boos" (Mike)
"THIS JUST IN! EVEN HE CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" "THIS JUST IN! THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ADULTS!" (Wally)
"Not even Britney fell so quickly" "The press says the darndest things" (Cedric)
oliver august
the times of london
warren p. strobel
charley keyes
Friday, October 23, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, still no 'progress' on Iraq's election law, Iraqi Christians consider fleeing due to violence, the United Nations says Iraqis should not be forced to return to Iraq (pay attention England and Denmark), Gordo Brown decides British lives are worth less than Iraqi oil, the US Congress forgets Iraq, and more.
This morning on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show (second hour, international hour), Diane was joined by panelists Abderrahim Foukara (Al Jazeera), Moises Naim (Foreign Policy) and Janine Zacharia (Bloomberg News). Iraq was noted in the following:
Diane Rehm: Let's go right back to the phones, to Kansas City, MO. Good morning, Ron.
Ron: Good morning. My question deals with the economic development. I was -- I traveled in Iraq and one of the things that I saw there wasn't really -- for all the billions of dollars that we were spending over there -- there's not a lot of economic development taking place. So, you know, that's lacking. My understanding of Afghanistan is that they were once -- they are geographically located in what was known as "The Old Silk Trade" -- that's between the Middle East and Asia. And I want to know what's going on to try to redevelop that in the way of infrastructure with roads and railroads which would allow them to have a place into the global economy which should be the essential goal that the United States would want?
Diane Rehm: Let's take Iraq first. Abderrahim?
Abderrahim Foukara: Well the issue of economic development, it has at least two impediments in Iraq. One is corruption. And the second one is political instability. Now Prime Minister Maliki was here in Washington recently. They're saying -- both he and President Obama have been saying -- Iraq is now stable enough to start focusing on economic development. Now that's one way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it is that the whole focus on economic development as we have seen it talked about here in Washington during Prime Minister -- Prime Minister Maliki's visit is that Iraq, which has sort of fallen off the radar here in the United States, is actually still not doing well politically. And talking economic development is one way of diverting attention -- people's attention -- from the real problems that continue to bedevil Iraq. [. . .]
Diane Rehm: Janine?
Janine Zacharia: Well you know too echo what Abderrahim said, Prime Minister Maliki came again this week to say "Iraq's open for business" but it truly is not open for business when you still have the sec -- Correct, the political situation is involved so we don't know what's going to happen with January elections, but the security issues is still paramount. You cannot -- American businessmen or international businessmen cannot go and roam around Iraq and set up shop right now and import Coca Cola and do all these things without being worried about being blown up. [. . .]
Diane Rehm: Moises?
Moises Naim: Economic development is very, very difficult. Economic development in the middle of a war is impossible. So it doesn't matter. There's no country ever that's developed on the basis of foreign aid. You can pour as much money as you want and unless you have a functioning market and investors, commercial activity -- development will not happen. And it's impossible to have that if you have a war going on.
We're not doing the "Afghanistan snapshot" so "[. . .]" indicates they then turned to the issue of Afghanistan. We will note Afghanistan in a moment, in terms of a Congressional exchange led by US House Rep Susan Davis. But first, let's note the political referred to above.
Howard LaFranchi (Christian Science Monitor) observes, "Once again the US finds itself hostage to Iraqi politics -- this time as a result of a standoff among Iraqi political parties over an overdue election law." If you're saying "Huh?", you were sleeping last week when Gina Chon was warning the Thursday date was approaching and Iraq appeared to be missing it. Parliamentary elections in Iraq are said to take place this coming January. That's after they were already kicked back. They were supposed to take place in December. They kicked it back to January. Last week, on Thursday, they were supposed to have passed the law and didn't. And still haven't. On Wednesday, the Pentagon's Michele Flournoy appeared before the House Armed Services Committee and stated that Iraq actually had two more weeks to pass it. (Kat covered the hearing here.) Flournoy also stated they could just pass legislation on what day to hold the election and leave all matters to the 2005 election law -- which, no, would not be 'progress'. She left out the part about Iraq's court system finding that law to be unconstitutional. While Flournoy attempted to downplay, others aren't doing so. Michael Jansen (Irish Times) observes, "The US military may have to put on indefinite hold its plan to dispatch additional troops to Afghanistan if Iraq's election does not take place on time in January. [. . .] On Wednesday, after prolonged debate, the Iraqi parliament admitted failure in its efforts to draft a new election law to govern the coming contest and asked the Political Council for National Security to take on the task." "Thrown in doubt" is the call Salah Hemeid (Al-Ahram Weekly) makes and goes on to note of the High Electoral Commission: "The commission, responsible for organizing polls in Iraq, has said that it needs 90 days to print and distribute ballots. Iraqi and UN officials fear that the election could be delayed if lawmakers fail to pass a revised election law this week." The New York Times editorializes in "Counting Backward" that when it comes to the elections, Iraq's Constitution must be followed (they appear to forget that Iraq's Constitution also covers Kirkuk -- click here for more on that and don't miss the latest Inside Iraq for the issue as well). Barbara Surk (AP) reports today that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's spokesperson stated the Ayatollah wants the elections to take place January 16th as has been announced. Howard LaFranchi explains:
The situation, which caught Obama administration diplomats off guard as they have focused attention on Afghanistan and the electoral crisis there, is reminiscent of the stalemate the Bush administration faced in 2007 concerning a series of "benchmark" laws the US Congress sought in return for continuing support to Iraq.
At that time, US diplomats spoke of "two clocks" in the two capitals to explain the discrepancy between Washington's demand for quick political action and Baghdad's refusal to be rushed.
The two clocks are on display again, with US diplomats including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton imploring Iraqi leaders to pass an election law. For their part, some Iraqi politicians say it is Americans and not Iraqis who feel a need to hurry on legislation that cuts to the heart of Iraq's power struggles.
The election law should have been approved by Oct. 15 in order for elections scheduled for Jan. 16 to go forward, according to the Iraqi constitution.
Alsumaria reports that the National Security Political Council will discuss the election law tomorrow when they meet. Former Reagan administration official Lawrence J. Korb (Center for American Progress) is on the ground in Iraq gathering impressions and, in his latest piece, he notes:
Iraq is a fragile state, and it can become a stable or failed state depending on whether the government increases or decreases in legitimacy and competence. If it does not become more competent or regresses, there is danger of a coup. Losing legitimacy could lead to a civil war.
From Parliament issues to the US Congress, we're dropping back to yesterday. And we'll start with a question: Does the US Congress exist to help scoundrels rake in more ill gotten gain?
Thursday, we (Ava, Wally, Kat and myself) attended a hearing that was a complete waste of time unless you're a lobbyist/business person needing Congress to give you a stamp of approval. We attended the waste of time hearing because it was entitled "Afghanistan and Iraq: Perspectives on US Strategy." Due to votes, there was a lengthy break in there and, if we'd been smart, we would have bailed during the break because after one hour of that hearing, one hour when NO ONE mentioned Iraq, it was as obvious as it was embarrassing -- embarrassing for the US House Armed Services Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. Do they have trouble reading on the Hill?
For most of us in the United States, a hearing entitled "Afghanistan and Iraq: Perspectives on U.S. Strategy" would be about . . . Afghanistan and Iraq. So where the hell was Iraq?
They didn't have time for it. They had time to call war mongers "public servants."
What the hell is Barry McCaffrey doing testifying to Congress to begin with? Retired general? BR McCaffrey Associates, LLC is his company. And his company is in the business of prolonging wars so when he says the military has to stay and when he refers to the 'justifiable' "anger" Americans had towards Afghanistan -- and laments it being gone -- every damn word out of his mouth is suspect because he's working the street, under the street lamp, trolling for bucks.
Here's SourceWatch on the Old War Whore Barry:
In April 2008 documents obtained by New York Times reporter David Barstow revealed that McCaffrey had been recruited as one of over 75 retired military officers involved in the Pentagon military analyst program. Participants appeared on television and radio news shows as military analysts, and/or penned newspaper op/ed columns. The program was launched in early 2002 by then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke. The idea was to recruit "key influentials" to help sell a wary public on "a possible Iraq invasion."[1]
Shortly after the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, McCaffrey exclaimed on MSNBC: "Thank God for the Abrams tank and... the Bradley fighting vehicle." The "war isn't over until we've got a tank sitting on top of Saddam's bunker," he added. The Nation noted, "in March [2003] alone, [Integrated Defense Technologies] received more than $14 million worth of contracts relating to Abrams and Bradley machinery parts and support hardware." [15]
The above says he's got nothing to say that isn't either suspect or paid for. He sells war and he profits from it. There is no reason the US Congress needs to waste their time or US tax payer dollars getting Barry's opinion on Afghanistan. He is not, no matter how many times some members of Congress got it wrong, "a public servant." He is a lobbyist and he lobbies for war. That's reality.
Reality is also that if you're hearing's entitled Iraq and if US forces are in Iraq -- more than are in Afghanistan -- it's pretty damn stupid and insulting not to even shoot the s**t about Iraq in passing during the hearing. Now Pakistan the subcommitee made time for in the hearing despite Pakistan not being in the hearing's title.
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert made an idiot of himself (no surprise there) in an online discussion with David Brooks (Brooks was no better but the world has grown accustomed to that). Here's Herbie:
Bob Herbert: David, the president is deciding what we should be doing with regard to troop deployments in Afghanistan. It seems to me that however one feels about this war and the war in Iraq, the environment here on the home front is bizarre. This is as weird a wartime atmosphere as I can imagine. For most Americans, there is nothing in the way of shared wartime sacrifices. There is no draft. We have not raised taxes to pay for the wars. Except for the families of those in the military, most Americans are paying very little attention to these conflicts. I've brought this matter up a few times on college campuses and the response has been, in essence, a collective shrug.
We addressed that in terms of the press last night (click here). But, hey, Bob Herbert, what does it say when the US Congress forgets the Iraq War? Riddle me that, Bob Herbert.
Here's a section of the hearing:
US House Rep Susan Davis: Help me with this issue because we are continuing to raise the issue of the role of women and whether or not we're abandoning them in any way if we move into negotiating or how we're able to have some kind of reconciliation in Afghanistan -- we want to focus on them. Where -- where does security lie because clearly the military has paved the way for many efforts in Afghanistan. I mean there's no doubt about that. And yet on the other hand, I understand that it's perhaps overly ambitious of us to believe that all of those efforts with the military and civilian capacity both are not necessarily in the best -- are picking up the best -- the best interests of the Afghan people -- or the region, assuming that Pakistan we're talking about as well. Do you want to -- Ms. Cole?
Beth Ellen Cole: I think that with governance -- like all of these issues -- we have to enlarge our view of security. I mean security is not just something that military forces can bring to the communities of Afghanistan. In the United States, we think of the security as school guards and bank guards and people who protect judges. And it's not just a question of military or police forces. Border guards, people that are dealing with looking at money laundering and bank operations and we -- in that sense, this -- the debate about troops is a very, very important debate but we have to think about the other assets that we have to bring to bear including -- with the Afghans -- including putting women as police officers in certain places or as school guards which we've shown we can do in Liberia. [. . .]
US House Rep Susan Davis: General Barno, do you have any thoughts?
Lt Gen Dave Barno (retired general): Two things. I think one, on the issue of security, you're absolutely correct that there -- it's not a sequential problem of security and reconstruction and development, these things are concurrent , these things have to parallel with one another. [. . .] The other question I think you alluded to was this idea of "What does it mean to women if we negotiate with the Taliban?" That's a paraphrase of what, perhaps, I think you were saying you were saying. And-and I do think we have to be aware that in my estimation, I think from a policy standpoint right now, having the Taliban be part of the government of Afghanistan is not where this is going, is not the objective. Having reformed Taliban, ex-Taliban, Taliban that have rejected violence, put down their weapons and join the political process, that's a very different outlook. The small "t" if you will, the individuals, not-not the movement. And I think that's where we have to be careful that we don't inadvertently send this message that we're willing to negotiate with the Taliban because we're really trying to exit -- as opposed to we're willing these Taliban, former Taliban fighters, lay down their arms and become part of this political process. Our goal when I was there was not to kill the Taliban -- collectively in the big strategic picture, it was to make the Taliban irrelevant, make no one want to become part of the Taliban, no one aspire to the Taliban and that takes a very nuanced approach of many different elements of simply security and military forces.
US House Rep Susan Davis: Mm-hm. Mr. Waldman, can I just real quickly get a response from you on that?
Matthew Waldman: Sure. I-I-I mean, in terms of security [. . .] But as has been said by Ms. Cole, the notion of security is much broader and-and of course, really security will political strategy which is indigenous In terms of women, you're absolutely right to raise this, I think it's a very serious issue. I think the-the-the -- when one travels the country and talks to Afghans, it's very clear that they want their girls to go to school -- if you look at the numbers now, over 2 million girls in school, yeah, you know, there's this universal desire to see that happen and for women to have the uh, in most areas, for women to be able to work and have rights, freedoms and rights that-that men have. It is alarming that the Shia law was passed recently, which you're probably aware of. And I certainly think that one has to ask about the commitment to the current administration to --
Us House Rep Susan Davis: Yes --
Matthew Waldman: -- women's rights.
US House Rep Susan Davis: -- which is doubtful.
Matthew Waldman: Yeah, yes. It certainly is. And uh we've yet to see real substance behind the-the-the work to try to-to empower women and to uh support their opportunities and rights. But you're also right that there is concern about women's rights after -- as negotiations move forward. Now of course reconciliation -- truth and reconciliation -- is essential in Afghanistan.
To review the participants above: Cole works for the US Institute of Peace (US government), Waldman works for the Carr Center AGAINST Human Rights (US government mouthpiece with a major in counter-insurgency studies and cheerleading) and Barno (Near East South Asia Center For Strategic Studies -- billed as "the preeminent U.S. Government institution for building relationships and understanding in the NESA region"). So the US government is more than well represented and we can all chuckle and pretend the stammering and stumbling Waldman represented the land of academia as well. So what did Barry represent? The War Machine. So that gets a seat at the table in front of Congress? That's really pathetic and really shameful and it's past time that Barry was pulled from Congressional panels because he's not an expert and he uses the fact that Congress calls on him as part of his business portfolio.
Now we didn't highlight the above exchange to say: The US must stay in Afghanistan for the women! That's b.s. The Afghanistan War's gone on long enough. Suddenly, the US gives a damn about women's rights? No, it's time to fly that false flag and see if you can get anyone to salute it.
No one should.
And you need to relate it back to Iraq where women did have a higher social standing, the highest in the region. And they've lost all that. It's much too late to worry about women's rights. Women were sold out by the US government and it was not by accident or happen-stance. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the US government made the decision (after making the decision for illegal war) to install thugs with US ties that they thought they could interact with (in stealing the natural resources of both countries) and that they thought could terrorize the local population (the non-exiles) into a state of fear where they would not fight back.
They went for thugs. They installed thugs. Thugs don't respect rights. They don't respect women's rights, they don't respect women. At the start of this month, Najaf banned alcohol -- and not out of any concern over alcoholism but to 'condemn' the 'sin' of drinking alcohol. They're reactionary zealots and thugs and they were installed because that's what they were.
We do not need to get caught up in the cry of "for the women!" -- of Iraq or Afghanistan. The US has destroyed the lives for women in both countries and the US is not the one who can fix it. They've had more than enough time to try. They don't give a damn. With Iraq, US President Barack Obama could have sent a powerful message by making the US Ambassador to Iraq a woman. He wasn't interested. He went with the inept Chris Hill. And, as Republicans in the Senate knew, Chris Hill would screw things up because that's what he does -- as his personnel file demonstrates -- and they knew they could turn around and use him in any campaign. "Chris Hill screwed up Iraq!" "We had the surge and everything was wonderful! Then Chris Hill was installed!"
The Obama administration refuses to learn from mistakes and refuses to anticipate them. The arrogance is what is bringing them down (and, yes, they are being brought down -- the hero worship is over). Republicans (the current incarnation) would not attack Ray Odierno. He's military. So if they wanted to attack on Iraq -- a very serious issue to many voters -- they were going to go civilian. Therefore, who Barack appointed as ambassador was a serious issue. He or she was going to be attacked regardless. A competent woman doing a wonderful job would still have been attacked by the Republicans. But that said (whomever was installed in the post would be attacked), it's no excuse to install an incompetent of either gender but that's what happened with Chris Hill.
As Janine Zacharia observed on NPR today, violence continues in Iraq.
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad sticky bombing last night (no one wounded or killed apparently), a Mosul roadside bombing which claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier. Reuters notes a Baghdad sticky bombing which claimed the life of 1 man and left his wife and their three children wounded and a Baaj roadside bombing which claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier.
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 police officer shot dead in Mosul on Friday, 1 traffic police officer shot dead in Mosul and one police officer wounded in a Mosul shooting.
Tuesday Mike noted, "Reuters reports, 'Iraq will temporarily shut down thousands of schools in two provinces and some in Baghdad after discovering 36 new cases of the H1N1 flu virus, Iraqi officials said on Tuesday'." Today John Leland (New York Times) reports on the "nearly 2,500 school closings" which have resulted from the fears or concerns: "Dr. Ihsan Jaafar, general director of the Public Health Directorate in the Health Ministry, said the number of cases was insignificant, especially compared with neighboring countries, where infection rates were much higher."
Yesterday's snapshot noted the United Nations High Commisoner for Refguees (UNHCR) released a new report entitled "Asylum Levels and Trends in Inudstrialized Countries First Half 2009: Statistical overview of asylum applications lodged in Europe and selected non-European countries." The report found that Iraqis continued to be the number one aslyum-seekers around the globe. Today UNHCR's Andrej Mahecic spoke on the issue of Iraqi refugees and the forcible deportation of them:
UNHCR is concerned about the fact that some European states have begun forcibly returning Iraqi originating from the region of Central Iraq over the last few months. In our guidelines issued last April, we noted that in view of the serious human rights violations and continuing security incidents throughout Iraq, most predominantly in the central governorates, asylum-seekers from these governorates should be considered to be in need of international protection. UNHCR therefore advises against involuntary returns to Iraq of persons originating from Central Iraq until there is a substantial improvement in the security and human rights situation in the country.
This reminder comes after the UK attempted to forcibly return 44 Iraqi men to Baghdad earlier this month. They were reportedly unsuccessful asylum claimants held in immigration removal centres in the UK. Iraq only accepted 10 who were allowed to leave the chartered aircraft in Baghdad, and the remaining 34 were returned to the UK and placed in immigration centres.
Other European states have signed readmission agreements with Iraq for voluntary and forced return. Denmark has forcibly returned 38 people originating mainly from Central and Southern Iraq since signing its agreement in May 2009. Sweden has undertaken some 250 forced returns with an unspecified number of returnees originating from the five central governorates of Iraq since signing an agreement in February 2008. UNHCR has also concerns about the safety and dignity of these returns.
Concerning asylum-seekers from the three northern governorates, as well as those from the southern governorates and Al Anbar, UNHCR recommends that their protection needs are assessed on an individual basis.
A significant number of Iraqi refugees are Christians. Mindy Belz (World Magazine) recounts some of the recent violence aimed at Iraqi Christians: "In May a 32-year-old Christian teacher was kidnapped in Kirkuk, but freed two weeks later by a joint operation between the Iraqi army and Awakening forces, or former insurgents now siding with Iraqi and U.S. forces. On Aug. 18 insurgents kidnapped a 50-year-old Christian physician named Samir Gorj. A passerby, also a Christian, who tried to come to his aid during the abduction was shot and killed." After his family piad a larger ransom, Gorj was released. "Then on Oct. 3 Imad Elia, a Christian nurse in Kirkuk, was kidnapped in front of his home and found dead in the street two days later." Meanwhile Sardar Muhammad (niqash) reports that Iraqi Christians are weighing whether or not to flee Kirkuk due to an increasing violence, "Local Christians say that they are now targets of armed groups and tens of them have been killed and kidnapped, while their churches have been bombed."
Iraqi refugees aren't the only ones being returned by others. Caroline Alexander (Bloomberg News) reports the British government is sending the country's Royal Navy back to Iraq "to help train Iraqi sailors and protect oil platforms" according to the UK's Armed Forces Minister Bill Rammell. To protect the oil, imagine that. Of especial interest to the US is this section of Rammell's statement:
The House will be aware that the UK concluded combat operations in Iraq on 30 April, and that our combat forces were withdrawn by the end of July in accordance with our previous arrangement with the Government of Iraq.
"Combat forces" are 'gone.' Because "protecting oil" is a non-violent effort? Point: The UK returns to Iraq. There was no withdrawal. "Combat" forces is a joke. Combat forces as opposed to that brigade of Iyengar Yoga instructors the US military usually deploys? On the UK's return, as Rebecca observed last week, "gordo even screws up a withdrawal."
In the September 4th snapshot, the following appeared:
Meanwhile Quil Lawrence (NPR -- text only) reports that Iraqi security forces are using an instrumbent to detect bombs that probably doesn't do that: "Many U.S. officials say the science is about as sound as searching for groundwater with a stick. [. . .] One American expert in Baghdad compared the machine with a Ouija board but wouldn't comment on the record. A U.S. Navy investigation exposed a similar device made by a company called Sniffex as a sham."
SniffexQuestions comments:
The NPR story you mentioned about a dubious explosive detector understates the problem. This is the latest in a long history of fraudulent explosive detectors that are dowsing rods. 15 years ago, the FBI busted the company, and when they opened the detectors they found they were empty. When they raided the factory, the FBI found the company was photocopying a Polaroid photo of cocaine in order to tell the detector what the molecular signature was. And in a stroke of genius so that competitors or foreign countries could not reverse engineer the "detection signature chip" they printed the photocopies on black paper. The company moved overseas, has changed the name of the product multiple times, but it has never passed a test showing it is more effective than flipping a coin as to finding explosives or drugs.
Sniffex was a copycat product by a Bulgarian "inventor" that came out a few years ago. The US distributors were arrested and prosecuted by the Securities and Exchange Commission for using the device as the basis of a stock scam, but the new Sniffex Plus is still for sale to consumers overseas. I have been to the Middle East, and seen these in use outside hotels and other businesses.
TV notes. Tonight on most PBS stations (check local listings), NOW on PBS explores global warming:
Is climate change turning coastal countries into water worlds? NOW travels to Bangladesh to examine some innovative solutions being implemented in a country where entire communities are inundated by water, battered by cyclones, and flooded from their homes.
Imagine you lived in a world of water. Your home is two-feet under. You wade through it, cook on it, and sleep above it. This is the reality for hundreds of thousands of people around the world, coastal populations on the front lines of climate change.
Only weeks before world leaders meet in Copenhagen to discuss climate change, NOW senior correspondent Maria Hinojosa travels to Bangladesh to examine some innovative solutions -- from floating schools to rice that can "hold its breath" underwater -- being implemented in a country where entire communities are inundated by water, battered by cyclones, and flooded from their homes.
Many PBS stations begin airing Washington Week tonight as well (remember there is a web extra to each show if you podcast and you can check out the web extra the following Mondays when it is also posted to the website). Joining Gwen around the table this week is Dan Balz (Washington Post), Doyle McManus (Los Angeles Times), David Sanger (New York Times) and Deborah Solomon (Wall St. Journal) -- and the show plans to remember journalist and Washington Week panelist Jack Nelson who passed away earlier this week. Meanwhile Bonnie Erbe will sit down with Linda Chavez, Bernadine Healy, Avis Jones-DeWeever and Patricia Sosa to discuss the week's events on PBS' To The Contrary. Check local listings, on many stations, it begins airing tonight. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers:
Medicare/Medicaid Fraud
Medicare and Medicaid fraudsters are beating U.S. taxpayers out of an estimated $90 billion a year using a billing scam that is surprisingly easy to execute. Steve Kroft investigates.
Fighting For The Cure
More Americans are suffering from epilepsy than Parkinson's, cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis combined. Katie Couric reports on a disease that may not be getting the attention it deserves. | Watch Video
When Hollywood refused to produce his films his way, Tyler Perry started his own studio in Atlanta and now his movies - including the popular "Madea" series - are drawing huge audiences. Byron Pitts profiles the new and unlikely movie mogul. | Watch Video
60 Minutes, this Sunday, Oct. 25, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
michael jansen
salah hemeid
howard lafranchi
sniffexquestions
quil lawrence
4 reported dead and 5 wounded in Iraq so far today
THE US military may have to put on indefinite hold its plan to dispatch additional troops to Afghanistan if Iraq's election does not take place on time in January.
On Wednesday, after prolonged debate, the Iraqi parliament admitted failure in its efforts to draft a new election law to govern the coming contest and asked the Political Council for National Security to take on the task.
The above is from Michael Jansen's "US troop deployment to Afghanistan may depend on Iraq poll" (Irish Times)and the elections are finally news. Gina Chon (Wall St. Journal) spent last week reporting on what was happening and not many other domestic outlets even seemed to notice. Now it's really all they can talk about. (I'm not referring to the Irish Times -- I'm referring to US papers with their own staff in Baghdad.) This would be the elections 'intended' to be held in January. The ones that were earlier shoved back from December 2009 -- their earlier announced date. The ones now in question because Thursday last week was supposed to be the deadline to pass an election law. On Wednesday, the Pentagon's Michele Flournoy appeared before the House Armed Services Committee and stated that Iraq actually had two more weeks to pass it. She also stated they could just pass legislation on what day to hold the election and leave all matters to the 2005 election law -- which, no, would not be 'progress'. She left out the part about Iraq's court system finding that law to be unconstitutional. While Flournoy attempted to downplay, others aren't doing so. From Salah Hemeid "Elections on the way?" (Al-Ahram Weekly):
Iraq's third election since the overthrow of the regime of Saddam Hussein after the 2003 US-led invasion of the country was thrown into doubt this week when the Iraqi parliament failed to agree on a new election law. Iraqi lawmakers have not been able to pass the legislation in part because of differences over the nature of the voting system and ethnic divisions in the disputed oil-rich province of Kirkuk.
The polls are scheduled for 16 January, and Iraq's independent High Electoral Commission has said that the calendar for planning the election is based on that date. The commission, responsible for organising polls in Iraq, has said that it needs 90 days to print and distribute ballots. Iraqi and UN officials fear that the election could be delayed if lawmakers fail to pass a revised election law this week.
Meanwhile, Swine flu has hit Iraq -- with 121 cases confirmed. John Leland (New York Times) reports on the "nearly 2,500 school closings" which have resulted from the fears or concerns:
Dr. Ihsan Jaafar, general director of the Public Health Directorate in the Health Ministry, said the number of cases was insignificant, especially compared with neighboring countries, where infection rates were much higher. He described the school closings outside Baghdad as illegal and blamed "irresponsible announcements" for confusing people and creating a panic.
Violence continues in Iraq today. Reuters reports 1 guard was shot dead in Mosul, 1 traffic police officer was shot dead in Mosul, one Iraqi soldier was injured in a Mosul shooting, a Baghdad sticky bombing claimed the life of 1 man and left his wife and their three children injured and a Baaj roadside bombing which claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier.
The Denmark conference can't come soon enough. Scientists project global seas will flood 20 percent of Bangladesh by 2030, stranding some 35 million climate refugees. Some are proposing that industrial nations who contribute to global warming should open their doors to displaced Bangladeshis.
Is a coastal catastrophe approaching, and what should we be doing about it?
Turning to public radio, NPR's The Diane Rehm Show begins broadcasting this morning at 10:00 am EST on most NPR stations and online. For the first hour panel (domestic), Diane's joined by David Corn (Mother Jones), Susan Page (USA Today) and Byron York (Washington Examiner). The second hour (international) finds Diane joined by panelists Abderrahim Foukara (Al Jazeera), Moises Naim (Foreign Policy) and Janine Zacharia (Bloomberg News).
john leland
NYT thinks Iraq's Constitution matters . . . sometimes
Iraq's political leaders need a strong shove ahead if there is to be any hope of withdrawing American troops on time and ensuring that the country they leave behind doesn't once again unravel.
Maybe it's better that the New York Times ignore Iraq? The above is from the editorial in today's paper entitled "Counting Backward" and the thought of any news outlet advocating for Iraq to be given "a strong shove" is disturbing enough; however, when it's the paper which did more than any other to sell the illegal war, it's flat out appalling.
As you read along, you notice a strange kind of 'concern' on the part of the paper. For example, take this sentence, "Iraq's Constitution says national elections must be held before Jan. 31." Iraq's Constitution says that? (It does.) So it's important to the paper? Because Iraq's Constitution says it?
Strange because deeper in the editorial, you can find the following: "The second, even more difficult issue, is who should be eligible to vote in Kirkuk. [. . .] The broader Kirkuk problem could take years to resolve. The way to break the election logjam would be to use the current voter list -- no legitimate voters would be disenfranchised -- with an understanding that it will not prejudice the decision on Kirkuk's future." Wait a minute, wait a minute!
The paper just advocated for the elections to be held in January and did so citing Iraq's Constitution; however, now they raise the issue of Kirkuk and shove it aside? Has anyone read Iraq's Constitution?
The issue of Kirkuk was supposed to have been put to a referendum -- per Iraq's Constitution. Not only that, in 2007, the US White House proposed a series of benchmarks by which to measure 'progress' in Iraq and one of them was the Kirkuk issue being resolved. Nouri al-Maliki signed off on those benchmarks. These weren't "get around to it some time benchmarks," these were "get to work on these and accomplish them" and the timeline was supposed to have been one year but people were still acting -- in 2008 -- as if Nouri could work on them then. Since 2008, the benchmarks have all but been forgotten.
Today the New York Times wants to argue points and advocate for following the Iraqi Constitution . . . except when they don't want to follow it. And no one's supposed to notice the logical fallacy built into their argument which advocates for a "strong shove."
Meanwhile the Cleveland Leader notes Hotaru Ferschke and other war widows and widowers were addressed by Congress which "granted final approval to new legislation" regarding widows and widowers and permanent residency. Michael Ferschke died serving in Iraq. Prior to that, he and Hotaru had planned a life together, were living together and attempting to get pregnant when he was deployed to Iraq. Shortly after he shipped out, Hotaru learned she was pregnant. The two were married over the phone. Though the US military recognizes the marriage, the US government refused to do so for citizenship issues and had been attempting to deport both Hotaru and Hotaru and Michael's son Michael H. Ferschke III.
Last night the following community sites updated:
now that is scary
Not even Britney fell so quickly
THIS JUST IN! EVEN HE CAN'T BELIEVE IT!
TNAOC
Applause and boos
And Marcia's "Crazy sick," Trina's "The 'safe' way to 'address' it," Ruth's "Governments shouldn't attack the press," Ann's "Ms. magazine," Kat's "Taxi Cab Obsessions" and Isaiah's "Alito's confirmation."
Ms. magazine is celebrating Gloria Steinem's 75th birthday and more:
Dear Common Ills,
Join Ms. and receive the Fall issue in your mailbox!
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What does it mean that for the first time in U.S. history women are about to become the majority of U.S. paid workers?
Ms. is pre-releasing its Fall feature article "Paycheck Feminism," that suggests some of the governmental policies that can and must change to meet the needs of women today.
Join Ms. NOW to get the rest of this exciting Fall issue delivered straight to your mailbox.
What will this historic milestone mean for government policies, our workplace, and our lives? Tell us what you think.
Here is what you have told us so far:
"Ratify CEDAW and make it illegal for men to be paid more than women for the same quality of work." - Julia from California
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- Bridgette from Washington, DC
"We need to revive the 1980's discussion of comparable work and start a legislative imitative addressing this…" - Margo from Illinois
"Help lesbian women in the military by repealing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' … legalizing gay marriage… start[ing] a national ad campaign promoting equal distribution of household labor… lower[ing] the work week from 40 hours a week to 36 hours a week…" - Azzurra
"Single payer health care not attached to a job!" - Nora
"Finally, pass the ERA" - Jean from Washington, DC
Our Fall issue also includes Gloria Steinem's 75th - birthday wishes (true to Gloria, they are wishes for feminism's future!) and an original poem about Gloria by Alice Walker. Make sure that you get this exciting and iconic issue of Ms.
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And Sunday there's an event for war resistance. With Aimee Allison, David Solnit authored the must read Army Of None. David Solnit notes Courage to Resist has an event Sunday:
Sunday, October 25, 7 pm - more info
Prof. Marjorie Cohn, President of the National Lawyers Guild. Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent
Rebecca Solnit, award winning author/writer/essayist.A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster
Aimee Allison, author/public affairs/TV host. Co-host of The Morning Show on Pacifica station KPFA
This event is a benefit for Courage to Resist in support of military war resisters. Endorsed and supported by Veterans for Peace SF Bay Area Chapter, Iraq Veterans Against the War (SF Bay Area), BAY-Peace, Asian Americans for Peace and Justice, CodePink, War Resisters League-West, United for Peace and Justice - SF Bay Area, and American Friends Service Committee - SF.
Events graphic & events PDF leaflet. Many of these great books are available from our orders page.
Free event, $5 donation suggested. Wheelchair accessible. Book signing will be held.
For more information, contact 510-488-3559.
the cleveland leader
david solnit
aimee allison
courage to resist
Bob Herbert: David, the president is deciding what we should be doing with regard to troop deployments in Afghanistan. It seems to me that however one feels about this war and the war in Iraq, the environment here on the home front is bizarre. This is as weird a wartime atmosphere as I can imagine. For most Americans, there is nothing in the way of shared wartime sacrifices. There is no draft. We have not raised taxes to pay for the wars. Except for the families of those in the military, most Americans are paying very little attention to these conflicts. I’ve brought this matter up a few times on college campuses and the response has been, in essence, a collective shrug.
That's from a 'discussion' at the New York Times. And if you ever wonder why the press sucks so much, you're answer can be found above. It can also be found in David Brook's response. But let's stick with the Dumb Ass Bob Herbert for now.
Americans aren't paying attention to Iraq? Well golly, how could they?
The problem isn't the 'apathetic' public, the problem is the press. The Iraq War has vanished. You don't have to turn on the TV to grasp that.
Just look at the New York Times.
The coverage is pretty much non-existant and when it does emerge it emerges with the lies that the illegal war is over and almost over so nobody worry about it because it's either wound down or is winding down.
That is the message the press sends on Iraq . . . When it bothers to cover Iraq at all.
Now there are exceptions. The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and McClatchy still offer regular Iraq coverage. But you can go whole weeks without ever catching Iraq on any of the Big Three networks' evening newscasts. And PBS?
The NewsHour last covered Iraq when? Not a headline, in the 'news roundup,' an actual damn story on Iraq. When did that happen?
Bob Herbert wants to claim Americans aren't paying attention to the Iraq War.
How the hell could they?
Where are they supposed to go Bob Herbert?
CBS News website killed their Iraq page this year.
And Pandhandle, Beggar Media, so-called 'independent' media doesn't pick up the slack?
Go to CounterPunch, go to Dissident Voices, go to the Nation, go to The Progressive, go to Democracy Now!, find that Iraq War coverage.
You won't find it because it damn well doesn't exist.
So don't start screaming and finger pointing at the US citizenry that they don't know details about a war going on oceans away -- a war the press wanted and damn well sold.
I'm so damn sick of this because it's not just Iraq.
This is the press' idea of 'examination.' They pinpoint a supposed problem and then work around to blaming everyone for it except themselves. They never take their part of the blame.
Bob Herbert needs to grasp that when something's not covered, there's no reason people should know about it.
David Brooks, whom I'm not even in the mood to deal with, and Bob Herbert go on to suggest that the 'answer' is for citizens to do some form of community service.
That's the answer?
Gee, flooding the zone raises awareness. Community service? Hmm. Easy out that allows Herbert and Brooks to avoid confronting the reality that the press doesn't give a damn about Iraq.
There's The Diane Rehm Show on NPR on Fridays. If Diane's not off (with a guest host filling in), there's a good chance Iraq will be discussed in the second hour of the Friday show. Other than Diane, I'm not seeing anyone in the media who can make the claim that they cover the Iraq War as they did two years ago. Or that they even make airtime for it. It's just not happening.
This is the year when ABC decided to 'farm out' Iraq to the BBC. This was the year that TV made clear early on that they were no longer interested in Iraq. In March, as PEW pointed out, for the first time since 2002, Iraq wasn't one of the top ten stories on the network evening news. PEW has charted the decline as beginning in 2007. It should be noted that's when the American people were told to stop worrying about the Iraq War because the Dems controlled both houses of Congress. It's two years later and there are still approximately 125,000 US troops in Iraq.
Bob Herbert wants to whine that the public's not paying attention to Iraq . . . from his post at the paper that sold the illegal war, from his post at the paper that's walked away from covering the illegal war. Why doesn't Bob share how many millions the paper spends to staff Baghdad each year and then why doesn't he explain how many articles make it into print. And how about these little one and two paragraph 'articles' on Iraq that the paper runs? How about we don't count anything as an article unless it reaches at least five paragraphs?
Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4349. Tonight? 4351.
4 reported dead and 5 wounded in Iraq so far today...
NYT thinks Iraq's Constitution matters . . . somet...
Iraq's 'intended' January elections
Those amazing and wonderful Iraqi security forces
Iraq may vote on election law . . . next Monday
"This war has to end, because they're little, they...
NYT's latest unsourced claim and that unpassed ele...
The distractors (FMF), the liars (ibid) and more
'Withdrawal' and Chris Hill says no one's leaving
Inquiry into stress clinic shooting in Iraq
Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "White House On...
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Couples thinking about kids can be screened for genes that may cause disease in their offspring. Redd Angelo, Unsplash, CC BY-SA
Explainer: what is pre-pregnancy carrier screening and should potential parents consider it?
July 13, 2017 11.55pm EDT
Gina Ravenscroft, Nigel Laing, Royston Ong, University of Western Australia
Gina Ravenscroft
Research Fellow in neuromuscular disease and genetics, University of Western Australia
Nigel Laing
Professor, University of Western Australia
Royston Ong
Phd Student in Population Genetics, University of Western Australia
Gina Ravenscroft receives funding from the NHMRC, WA Department of Health and the French Muscular Dystrophy Association (AFM).
Nigel Laing receives funding from the NHMRC, WA Department of Health, AFM (French Muscular Dystrophy Association), USMDA (US Muscular Dystrophy Association), Perpetual, MND Australia and AFBS (The Foundation Building Strength for Nemaline Myopathy).
Royston Ong receives funding from the Australian Postgraduate Award.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recently recommended obstetricians, gynaecologists and other related health care providers offer pre-pregnancy carrier screening for genetic diseases to all patients.
Pre-pregnancy carrier screening involves testing healthy adults for the presence of gene mutations that cause diseases that are not present in them, but if both parents have the same recessive gene, could eventuate in their children. This includes diseases such as cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophies.
Who are genetic carriers?
If both partners in a couple carry the same recessive disease, then the couple have a one in four chance of a child with that disease. Carrier couples may therefore have multiple affected children. Some recessive diseases are relatively mild but others are severe, including many that cause death at or shortly after birth.
Autosomal recessive inheritance of harmful mutations. from National Library of Medicine
Newton Morton, one of the founders of genetic epidemiology, estimated from population data as long ago as 1956 that each of us is a carrier of three to five lethal recessive mutations and this has been confirmed by more recent research. This means we are all carriers of something, but most of us are generally unaware of our carrier status unless we have an affected child.
Pre-pregnancy carrier screening
Historically, pre-pregnancy carrier screening programs have been tailored for specific population groups who are more likely to have a recessive disease. For example, the recessive brain condition Tay-Sachs disease, which is usually fatal in early childhood, has a high incidence in the Ashkenazi-Jewish community.
In 1969 it was discovered the loss of an enzyme (called hexosaminidase A) causes the disease. This led to the development of tests allowing carriers for Tay-Sachs disease to be identified. The first pre-pregnancy carrier screening programs in the Ashkenazi population followed in the 1970s. Since then the incidence of Tay-Sachs disease has reduced by more than 90%.
Other such targeted pre-pregnancy carrier screening programs exist in other parts of the world. For example in Mediterranean countries where there is a high rate of the recessive blood disease thalassaemia, pre-pregnancy carrier screening was offered and this also resulted in a reduction in the incidence of the disease.
Today, the country with the most comprehensive pre-pregnancy carrier screening program is Israel. It introduced a national program in 2003 and by 2015, the program was screening approximately 60,000 people annually for nearly 100 recessive conditions. The Israeli program is tailored to the different ethnic groups in the country, but also includes diseases common in all ethnic groups such as spinal muscular atrophy.
Diagnostic laboratories around the world are now using technology that can sequence multiple individuals for hundreds of disorders at once. This technology is used to diagnose many different types of genetic diseases and is more effective than standard diagnostic testing. It has also been investigated for carrier screening and can detect carriers of multiple recessive disorders.
When pre-pregnancy carrier screening programs are introduced, they reduce death and disease associated with the screened diseases. They can save families from experiencing the tragedy of a child affected by a significant genetic disease. They also reduce the burden of recessive disease within the population as a whole.
Everyone wants a healthy baby. Carlo Navvaro/Unsplash, CC BY
Each recessive disease is rare but there are hundreds of recessive diseases and so collectively they have wide-ranging social and economic impacts. A study of 50 severe recessive diseases found their collective incidence to be greater than that of Down syndrome (one in 600 compared to one in 1,100).
So pre-pregnancy carrier screening programs that include many genetic diseases, as now recommended by the American College, would maximise knowledge of genetic risk for couples.
When testing genes, some identified variations are definitely harmful while most are definitely harmless. But for some variations we can’t be sure if they are harmful, and whether or not they will cause disease in any children.
And some mutations, called de novo mutations, arise spontaneously during the development of a child. These mutations cannot be detected by pre-pregnancy screening.
So while the risk of having an affected child is reduced by pre-pregnancy carrier screening, it is not eliminated.
There are no guarantees that pre-pregnancy screening will result in a healthy baby, but it will allow couples options to reduce the burden of disease associated with known disease-causing mutations.
Counselling is required before and after the test to explain the risks to couples.
There is little health risk from the test, no more than the risk associated with taking a blood sample. The cost may be prohibitive for many couples, though. While it depends on the number of genes screened, costs may be several hundred dollars per person.
Can and should we have testing in Australia?
A small number of targeted pre-pregnancy carrier screening programs have been in place in Australia for a number of years including for Ashkenazi populations, for individuals with a family history of various diseases, and in IVF clinics. In Victoria the Victorian Clinical Genetics Service offers private pre-pregnancy carrier screening.
Several Australian groups, such as the Australian Genomics Health Alliance, are researching ways to screen larger numbers of genes. It remains to be seen if Australian bodies will make similar recommendations to those in the US.
Parents take note: even minor sleep problems can lead to cognitive difficulties in children
If you were destined for dementia in your 60s, but there was nothing you could do about it, would you want to know? shutterstock.com
Gene testing for the public: a way to ward off disease, or a useless worry?
Digitized strand of DNA. Mathagraphics/From www.shutterstock.com
Even though genetic information is available, doctors may be ignoring important clinical clues
About 3% of babies are born with birth defects, when there is a problem with how they develop in the womb. from www.shutterstock.com
Why we don’t know what causes most birth defects
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Various artists’ Traditional Irish Music in America anthology
In the 1970s, something new yet very old was happening in America. Traditional Irish music was being played and recorded. Just when it looked as though Irish music would fade out and disappear in the modern, mechanized world of the mid-20th century, a new generation of young Irish and Irish-American musicians came under its spell. What began happening to roots music of all kinds happened to Irish music. A revival began and became a renaissance until today, it’s played in pubs, dance halls and social halls, on public radio and television, all over North America.
Just as this phenomenon was starting to take hold, a few musicians and recording technicians went out into the field to record traditional Irish music where it was being made: in people’s homes. The musicians were a hybrid of old and young, veterans and journeymen and newcomers, Irish and American-born. What they all had in common was that they were making the music because they loved it. They certainly weren’t touring the country playing clubs and halls or making records in fancy and expensive studios. That would come later.
Some of those field recordings, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and other sources, were released by Rounder in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They’ve now been released on CD for the first time, as this fine anthology. The first two in the set are Traditional Irish Music in America, the first featuring music made on The East Coast, the second Chicago. The anthology, all sold separately, also includes The Music of Ed Reavy and The Light Through the Leaves.
Traditional Irish Music in America — The East Coast
The East Coast (as well as much of Reavy and Light) was recorded, produced and annotated by Mick Moloney, who also accompanies many of the featured artists on guitar, mandolin and banjo. The recordings themselves are very sharp and clear, far above the usual stuff of field recordings. There are 21 tracks, mostly suites of two or more jigs, reels and hornpipes, averaging between two and three minutes per track. They feature 22 musicians, young and old, on fiddle, flute, accordion, whistle and uilleann pipes. They play solo and in duets, trios and quartets, occasionally accompanied by piano.
The playing is top-notch and the varied instrumentation keeps things interesting. It’s hard to pick out any tracks for special mention, but among the best are two solo fiddle sets by then teen-ager Maureen Fitzpatrick, “The Oak Tree” reel and the jigs “An Phis Fhliuch/O’Farrell’s Welcome. Father Charlie Coen plays lovely concertina on a solo set of reels and in a quartet playing two jigs on the final track. And Eugene O’Donnell’s fiddling is very warm and lyrical on a set of hornpipes accompanied by Moloney on guitar.
Traditional Irish Music in America — Chicago
Chicago is not quite as accessible as East Coast. The recordings are more obviously field recordings, with some stray noises and a certain hollowness to the sound. There are fewer musicians involved, and the tracks are grouped by who plays on them, all of which gives this CD a little less variety than its companion.
In addition to the instrumental tunew, there are two very enjoyable songs, “Fair Cassidy” sung by James Keane Sr., and “I Am Asleep” by the multi-talented Maida Sugrue, who also plays fiddle on a lovely polka, accompanying accordionist Terry Teahan.
Fiddler Liz Carroll is the star of this collection, though, accompanying the equally stellar young accordionist James Keane Jr., on two sets of reels, and playing exquisitely a solo set of reels that finish off the disc.
This is from a few years later, but I can’t resist including this video of Liz Carroll and James Keane Jr.
Joe Shannon plays several sets on the uilleann pipes. All are good but would have been more enjoyable sprinkled about the record rather than all in a row at the beginning. Likewise Teahan’s perky accordion and concertina tunes.
The Music of Ed Reavy
The Music of Ed Reavy is a wonderful tribute to the Irish-born fiddler and composer who wrote dozens of contemporary, traditional-style Irish tunes that have entered the common repertoir played and recorded in the past 20 years.
Reavy, who was born in Ireland in 1898 and emigrated with his family to Philadelphia in 1912, started writing music in the late 1920s after playing for a number of years. He was influenced by musicians of various Irish regional styles playing in cities all over the East Coast.
Reavy plays a number of the tunes in this collection. Other musicians include many from the Traditional Irish Music in America discs, including Liz Carroll, Mick Moloney, Maeve Donnelly and others. The recording is for the most part of excellent quality, although the tracks Reavy himself plays are not as sharp and clear.
Reavy played and composed in a fairly distinctive style, with just enough ornamentation but not too much. His music is highly melodic and evocative. As he himself said, “When I was composing music, it used to take me back to Ireland. I’m out here 62 years, but I can retrace almost every step I took in Ireland.” His tunes can likewise transport the listener.
As with the Chicago CD, Liz Carroll’s tracks are excellent, particularly a duet with Armin Barnett on “The Road to the Glen,” and her solo on the intricate hornpipe “The Lone Bush.” Moloney accompanies fiddler Eugene O’Donnell on a set of slow jigs, and also assists Paddy Cronin on the stately reel, “In Memory of Coleman.” The disc isn’t all fiddle music. There’s a reel by Tim Britton on uilleann pipes, a lovely mandolin-guitar duet on “Lad O’Bierne’s Hornpipe,” a tin-whistle tune and a couple of accordion numbers. Lots of variety, and most tracks are under two minutes.
A true treat is Reavy playing a set of reels, including “The Boys at the Lough,” on a 78 rpm record from 1927.
The thick accompanying booklet has a biography of Reavy and a discussion of his music that is at times too technical for the general reader. Of particular interest, though, is a transcript of an interview with Moloney in which Reavy talks about how he names his tunes.
Ed Reavy is a gem among Celtic music recordings.
The Light Through the Leaves
And The Light Through the Leaves is a breath of fresh air. This disc of “Traditional Irish Wind Instrumentals” spotlights the solo work of eight musicians on flute, whistle and uilleann pipes. The recordings were mostly made by Moloney on his trips around the East Coast and Midwest in the late 1970s, and are of similarly high quality as the other discs.
The sequencing and arrangement of the tracks is particularly good. Not only are the flute, whistle and pipe tunes interspersed, but there’s a variety of jigs, reels and airs of different tempos, and the individual players all have very distinct styles.
The late Al Purcell plays three lovely airs on a full set of pipes, including not just the drones and chanter but also the regulators, which aren’t always used by American players. Bill Ochs also uses the regulators to good effect on a set of jigs, but Tim Britton doesn’t use them at all on his selections.
Flutists Noel Rice and Richard Hughes have fluid styles and get a warm, full tone out of their instruments, while Mike Rafferty plays with an airy “push” style that isn’t all that pleasant to listen to. Larry McCullough, an ethnomusicologist and a top tin whistle player, turns in several good performances, particularly a moderate-tempo set of jigs that includes “The Banks of Lough.”
As with the others in the set, Leaves comes with thorough liner notes by Moloney, including brief bios of the musicians and some historic background on the music.
This entire anthology of Irish Traditional Music in America is a treasure. These are, to be sure, “important” recordings, but they’re also good records, worthy of a place in the collection of anyone who loves Celtic music.
Find out more about the anthology at Rounder’s website.
(Rounder, 2001)
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The Meads Of Asphodel – Running Out Of Time Doing Nothing (2019)
By The Grim Lord on June 17, 2019 in Music Reviews
After a lengthy wait, The Meads Of Asphodel are finally back, with a brand new dose of chaos and intrigue. After chronicling events of the holocaust in Sonderkommando, The Metatron and J.D. Tait have worked on a not so new concept, focusing on the topics of both death and hatred. Some of you might wager that this sounds like just another day at the office for these guys, but this time the messages are even more relevant as we are in an age where hate seems to be at the forefront of the world’s stage, so much that it has even found its way into the metal scene, where hatred has always been quite pleasant. The difference though, as the Metatron will explain in a coming interview is that are different kinds of hate and perhaps those might create radicalized people who could cause a massive amount of trouble for all of us in the future. Some might say that they’re already doing this, small a number as they may be. In fact, I was saying to myself yesterday, “where are all these Nazi’s they’re talking about?” I was beginning to think it was an Iron Sky situation, where the Nazis had taken refuge on the moon and were transmitting messages to people on the dark web through satellite signals or something. Maybe they’re hiding in my bushes. Behind the shed? In the water closet? Ah, I think I know where those little bastards are hiding – My closet! But there’s only a bunch of clothes in here, so I have no idea why people are so frightened. But I really should have donated a few of these shirts years ago.
Despite not knowing where the Nazi’s are hiding these days (maybe the earth is hollow as Greg Carlwood theorized and they’ve got bases there?) and whether or not I should be prepared to battle them should they come marching out of my commode, I have to say that fans of The Meads Of Asphodel’s work will be quite pleased this time around. As always, there are many genre infusions, from electronica to acoustic folk and even some trippy prog instances. There are even female vocals present on “Like Blood Shaped Flakes Of Snow” that remind me of The Project Hate, before they became monotonous. If “Recollections Of A Loom Hand-Weaver” doesn’t put you into a zone where psychedelics may be useful, then “I Stood Tiptoe, Reaching Up For Heaven” surely will. There’s also the wonderful welcoming in “Bug Splat” which is prime quality for these guys. A little bit of jazz can also be found on closing number, “Souvenir Of Death” which seems to invoke a bit of a trance. If that wasn’t interesting enough, there are also some disco influences on “Black Is Black & White Is White” Perhaps this is not something you would expect for these guys, but The Meads Of Asphodel have always played outside of the box and I think this is something that more bands should be trying to do. They’ve transcended metal in several ways, but you’ll still hear plenty of it – the black metal influences that have been there since the band’s debut (which is quite great and should be reissued, since everyone else is polishing their old albums and re-releasing them) are still quite prominent; though definitely beefed up with glorious synth performances and decorative guitar melodies that launch into brilliant guitar solos. It’s great to hear a good solo, especially in every song ever made; which is what I would do if I had my own universe to manage. Additionally, there are more clean sections overall on this album, which even includes The Metratron himself in some areas. Please keep in mind that Running Out Of Time Doing Nothing is not your garden variety black metal album and it will take far more than one listen to grasp it completely. There are several unique blends of styles and atmospheres in play here and I feel that people who truly love experimental and out of the box music will certainly love it. Especially a certain section on the record where news clips are intertwined with laugh tracks, an idea that I feel is as genius as the band itself. I’m quite convinced that The Meads Of Asphodel have outdone themselves here and I didn’t even think that was humanly possible from what I’ve heard prior.
(11 Tracks, 64:00)
TagsThe Meads Of Asphodel
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Jun 28, 2018 - Jul 1, 2018
Champions of Magic / Sarofim Hall
The 5 world-class illusionists that make up the Champions Of Magic return for their 2018 international tour following sold out shows across the globe, rave reviews and a run in London’s West End.
With over 20 million online views between them, this cast of top magicians includes international award winners presenting daring grand illusions, stunning close-up magic and incredible mind reading. Their skills have been seen around the world on TV with appearances on ‘Access Hollywood Live’, ‘The Next Great Magician’, ‘Good Morning Britain’, ‘Penn & Teller: Fool Us’ and ‘Caught On Camera with Nick Cannon’.
Witness the impossible, including disappearances, levitation, teleportation and a heart stopping finale, all presented with lighting and special effects to rival the biggest theatrical spectacles.
Broadway World described the cast as “5 of the world’s finest magicians”, NBC called Champions Of Magic “the most incredible show” and FOX said “that’s incredible… you guys are rock stars!”.
Champions Of Magic has been seen by thousands across the world, now is your chance to see why fans return to see one of the world’s biggest touring illusion shows time and time again.
On Sale Date
Monday, March 19, 2018 at 10:00am
Tickets start at $24.50
Jul 1, 2018 at 1:00pm
Hobby Center 101
Follow @HobbyCenter
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Singapore’s health system: commentary from the literature
This post is coauthored by Austin Frakt and Aaron Carroll.
We have already written many posts about Singapore’s health system (there’s a a tag for that), which is built around medical savings accounts (it’s Medisave program), though encompasses so much more. Unsurprisingly, we’re far from the first to comment on the system. But, contrary to what some have suggested, we’re not just interested in scoring political points. We want to know what data and evidence have to say about Singapore. This post summarizes a few points from some of the relevant literature from peer-reviewed journals.
Scholarly literature on Singapore’s health system goes back at least as far as the 1995 Health Affairs paper by William Hsiao. (His paper is ungated. Ungated versions of those linked below may also exist. Use Google Scholar.) He described the country’s health spending trajectory just before and after Medisave was introduced. Medisave, you might remember, is the major source of cost-sharing for the people of Singapore:
The per capita cost of health care in Singapore, in fact, rose faster after the introduction of the Medisave program in 1984 (Exhibit 2 [below]). Health expenditures per capita rose at an average rate of 13 percent per year-2 percent faster than the average before the introduction of Medisave. Part of this accelerated rate of increase was attributable to the upgrading of public hospital facilities but mostly caused by other factors. […]
In spite of the high average rate of growth in GDP of 10 percent, Singapore’s health expenditures grew faster, rising from 2.5 percent to 3.2 percent of GDP between 1980 and 1993.
In other words, health care spending increased after the introduction of increased cost-sharing, which is not what most proponents of such changes would expect. These points are repeated in Michael Barr’s “critical inquiry” into Singapore’s medical savings account, published in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law (JHPPL) in 2001. But this was not a randomized controlled trial, and causality is, of course, not proven.
In an accompanying commentary, Mark Pauly responded with two valid points, among others. First, it’s been well established that the more something costs an individual, the less of it they buy. It’s even been established for health care. Cost sharing definitely matters. Second, casual, pre-post examination of time series is uninformative about the effects of an intervention. How would Singapore’s health spending have changed in the absence of the Medisave intervention? We don’t know.
Compounding the difficulty in judging Medisave from a time series is that it was not the only intervention. It seems to be uncontroversial in Singapore that substantial government involvement (some may call it “intrusion”) in the health care market is necessary for good performance. Hsiao quoted a 1993 Singapore Ministerial Committee on Health Policy white paper, the first few pages of which can be viewed here:
Market forces alone will not suffice to hold down medical costs to the minimum. The health care system is an example of market failure. The government has to intervene directly to structure and regulate the health system.
Barr quoted a different passage of the same document justifies rationing, including by government intervention:
We cannot avoid rationing medical care, implicitly or explicitly. Funding for health care will always be finite. There will always be competing demands for resources, whether the resources come from the State or the individual citizens. Using the latest in medical technology is expensive. Trade-offs among different areas of medical treatments, equipment, training and research are unavoidable.
Intervene, the government did. In Health Affairs, Thomas Massaro and Yu-Ning Wong described some of the interventions, including control of physician and hospital supply, generous subsidization of hospital care, and hospital revenue caps. They wrote,
Financing mechanisms alone do not define a health care system. Singapore has a clearly delineated policy that works in its setting. The state actively participates in every aspect of the delivery system, from physician supply to price setting and the establishment of service criteria. This willingness to intervene aggressively in the market (at levels probably unacceptable to most Americans) may be as important as the individual savings mechanism to its success.
In a JHPPL commentary that accompanied Barr’s paper, Hsiao described other means of cost control.
MediShield [Singapore’s opt-out, catastrophic health plan] adopted the risk selection practices of private insurance schemes by excluding as enrollees persons aged seventy and older and by not covering some expensive services, such as treatments for congenital abnormalities, mental illness, and HIV/AIDS. [Some of these policies may have changed since the paper’s publication in 2001.]
Again, however, point granted to Pauly that some restrictions imposed by Singapore’s government are not altogether different from those imposed by commercial plans in the U.S., for better or worse. We take this to mean that there really aren’t all that many ways to control costs in all areas. Ultimately, you have to say “no” in some fashion.
In another JHPPL commentary, Chris Ham makes what we think is the most important point:
The broader lesson from Singapore is that health care reform continues to swing back and forth between a belief in market forces and the use of government regulation. In reality, health policy is replete with examples of market failures and government failures as policy makers experiment with different instruments. The variety of health care systems developed around the world indicates that the choice is neither pure markets nor government control but the balance to be struck between the two. And to return to our starting point, where the balance is struck will be shaped by social values and the political choices that follow from them.
There’s one more challenge in assessing Singapore’s health system, raised by Barr.
The government is highly secretive about the detailed operation of its system and has not made either the data source or method of its calculations available to anyone outside those in the Civil Service and the government who need to know—not to the public; not to academic researchers.
This probably explains why, though there is a literature on the Singapore health system, it’s a modestly sized one. It should also cause anyone serious to hesitate before advocating that Singapore’s system, and its results, can be generalized without some concerns.
By the way, JHPPL also published a letter to the editor by Meng-Kin Lim (we gather this is his homepage) and responses from Michael Barr and William Hsiao. Finally, here’s a paper that compares Shanghai’s experience with medical savings accounts to Singapore’s.
The bottom line is that Singapore isn’t simply “cost-sharing”, “free market”, “competition”, and a “lack of government involvement”. If you endorse Singapore’s health care system, you’re buying into many things, and some truths, that libertarians and conservatives claim to dislike. We acknowledge that more cost sharing can reduce spending. But if that’s the only thing you endorse, then you’re not talking about Singapore.
by robert aylward on August 28th, 2013 at 14:16
Singapore has experienced such phenomenal economic growth that any measure of health care expenses is likely to be misleading. If the GDP grows by over 35% in one year (as it did in 2010-11), and health care expenses as a percentage of GDP decline by 10%, what does that indicate?
by Sean Parnell on August 28th, 2013 at 14:29
I wouldn’t take to much from the fact that health spending as a share of GDP rose after Singapore introduced their MediSave system. Health care is a luxury good (for you non-economists, please don’t freak out over that term, it just means as income rises people tend to buy more of it).
The numbers suggest the share of GDP spent on health care rose about 28% in the period shown (2.5% to 3.2%) while NHE rose 292% (620m to 2,430m). The only way those numbers square is if Singapore was experiencing fairly decent economic growth during that time. In fact, the World Bank generally shows economic growth between 7 and 11 % per year over this time period, except for two pretty bad years in the mid-eighties. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG
by steve on August 28th, 2013 at 16:49
I agree we shouldnt rely too much on any one number. Still, Singapore introduced MSAs believing that they would help control costs, which they already saw as a problem. It doesnt look as thought they were able to control costs by themselves. Singapore continued to have growth, but when they added direct govt intervention to the mix, they controlled costs.
Maybe you need the mix of MSAs plus govt. controls, or maybe govt. controls alone would be sufficient. I dont think you can tell from the Singapore experience.
by Brad F on August 28th, 2013 at 19:50
Watching how Singapore has raised the shackles of folks interested or involved in policy the last few weeks has me scratching my head.
Not so much because we cant learn a great deal, we can, but if we were to pick apart a system and ask, “by deconstructing the facts, what can we take away and apply in the US,” I would not think a platform emanating from a culture totally removed from ours, and with a govt sometimes resembling a benevolent police state, we would have the ideal correlate for lessons.
At least with the Swiss, we have a kinship (played out a bit in debate, granted). The same goes for the Germans and the Dutch (read Stephen Ambrose’s great books on liberating those countries)–waiting for those dissections too.
Bill Haseltine said it best:
“He added that the system is based upon “the suspicion of the economic man,” where people may “cheat and chisel” the Singaporean health care system. Therefore, the Singaporeans have built a system where most people have to pay for their health care. In addition, Singaporeans believe in “social harmony,” or the notion that the system should not get too out of balance.”
Not quite applicable on our shores, with our fondness for apple pie, hot dogs, and baseball.
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MPA offers discount via SPC Blog
Martin Paltnoi (MPA Research) has contacted me and has told me all about his company's newInteractive Online Report & Search Services. He adds
"We would be happy to provide our services at a generous discount if contacted through the SPC Blog".
These services include (i) European Drug Patent Status Review, which covers major product/preparation patent information plus allied supplementary protection certificates for all products on the market in 27 European territories, (ii) EU 1st Marketing Authorisation, (iii) MPA SPC Watch, which identifies SPCs for all 27 member states in the EU, with additional information available for up to 39 countries and (iv) UK/ROI Veterinary Drug Patent Status Review, which covers major product/preparation patent information plus allied SPCs for all veterinary medicines on the market in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
While this blog does not endorse any products or services -- and has no specific information concerning the discounts -- it is always gratified to see anyone who is prepared to offer to supply anything to its readers on favourable terms.
Posted by Jeremy at 2:39 pm 0 comments
Labels: search services
The AtoZGenerics iPad app
In "Patent firm blazes trail with new drugs app for the iPad", a short article in The Belfast Telegraph by Anne Madden, it is reported that Patentnav, based at the Northern Ireland Science Park, has created AtoZGenerics, which is said to be one of the first patent information applications for iPads.
AtoZGenerics offers information on European and US patent expiry dates, which can often be difficult to find. The company's founder, Dr Eddie O'Gorman, says:
"The AtoZ Generics app contains a lot of valuable information that can be difficult to find, and all for only 59p. It provides expiry dates on US patent term extension and UK Supplementary Protection certificate expiry dates, as well as approximate global drug sales."
If any readers gain experiences of this app which they'd like to share, the SPC Blog will be delighted to hear from them.
Labels: iPad app
Ireland fee hike: your chance to comment
The Irish Patents Office has announced that Ireland's Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation is conducting a review of the fees charged for Supplementary Protection Certificates. This seeks to engage with interested parties to seek their views on the proposal to review the current application and renewal fees for Supplementary Protection Certificates. Responses should be received by close of business on Friday 30th July 2010. The rationale for changing fees is as follows:
"Fees for Supplementary Protection Certificates fall somewhat outside the rationale for keeping fees for intellectual property protection low, as the circumstances for granting SPCs are very different to those for granting patents. As a Supplementary Protection Certificate will provide patent protection to a pharmaceutical company up to a maximum of 25 years, a balance must be struck between paying a premium for
continued market monopoly and allowing for entry into the market for generic medicines.
By comparing current fees charged for Supplementary Protection in all Member States of the European Union, Ireland is currently the fourth least expensive country. In cost per head of population (per million) Ireland ranks as the tenth least expensive country of the EU 27, in line with countries with a population of approximately 10 million, namely Belgium, Sweden, Portugal and the Czech Republic. The preliminary fees for consultation as set out would bring Ireland closer in line with countries with similar population size such as Denmark, Finland and Slovakia".
The proposed new fees and European averages are indicated in tabulated form here.
Labels: Fees, Ireland
What is a product? Cetuximab has its day in court
Giving judgment yesterday in the Patents Court (England and Wales) in Yeda Research and Development Company Ltd v Comptroller General of Patents [2010] EWHC 1733 (Pat), Mr Justice Lewison dismissed Yeda's appeal against the Dr Lawrence Cullen's decision to refuse its application for two SPCs.
The facts are a bit complicated. Yeda applied for a cancer treatment patent in 1989 which was granted in 2002 but later expired. This patent taught that two forms of agent were used to kill tumour cells: cytotoxic agents and cytostatic agents (which included monoclonal antibodies). Yeda had found that the combined treatment of one of the novel monoclonal antibodies with anti-neoplastic drugs provided a more efficient treatment for inhibiting the growth of human cancer cells than did the use of the new monoclonal antibody of the anti-neoplastic agent by itself. Claim 1 of the patent was for "A therapeutic composition comprising (a) a monoclonal antibody and (b) an anti-neoplastic agent" and Claim 2 covered "The therapeutic composition of Claim 1 for separate administration of the components". Claim 6 was for "Use of (a) a monoclonal antibody and (b) an anti-neoplastic agent, as defined in any one of claims 1 to 5, for the preparation of a therapeutic composition for treating cancer". The chosen monoclonal antibody was cetuximab (Erbitux) and the chosen anti-neoplastic agent was irinotecan.
The European Commission granted market authorisation for use of the patent in June 2004, the authorisation being stated to be for "the medicinal product "Erbitux – cetuximab". The clinical particulars described the product so authorised as 'Erbitux in combination with irinotecan ... for the treatment of patients with...(EGFR) expressing metastatic colorectal cancer...".
Relying on the Commission's authorisation Yeda made two SPC applications (the 037 and 038 applications). The 037 application specified the product to be protected as "cetuximab in combination with irinotecan". Lawrence Cullen refused to grant the SPC on the basis that, since the authorisation was for cetuximab alone, the application did not comply with Article 3(b) of Regulation 1768/92 since the SPC was not for the product for which authorisation was granted. The 038 application specified the product to be protected as "cetuximab". Lawrence Cullen rejected this application too, since cetuximab alone was not the invention protected by the patent with art 3(a), which requires that the product be protected by the patent.
Yeda appealed in respect of both refusals. The really interesting bit related to the 038 application. Here Yeda argued that, since a combination of cetuximab and irinotecan was needed in order to make up the "therapeutic composition" claimed by Claim 6, the combination would take place inside the patient's bloodstream. Accordingly, if someone supplied cetuximab with the intention that it would be administered to a patient, that supply would be a supply of a means for putting the invention into effect. It would be obvious to the supplier of the cetuximab that it was intended to put the invention into effect -- which would amount to secondary infringement under the Patents Act 1977, s.60(2). Under European case law, whether a product is protected by a basic patent in force is a question of domestic law. Cetuximab was therefore protected by the basic patent in force. On behalf of the Comptroller of Patents it was argued that, if Yeda had to rely on the making of the therapeutic composition inside the body of the patient during the course of treatment, it was actually claiming a method of treatment which was barred from being patented under section 4A(1) of the 1977 Act. Discussion arose in the course of proceedings as to whether it was appropriate or necessary for the court to refer a series of questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling.
Lewison J dismissed both appeals. In his view
* What constitutes a "product" must be strictly construed, looking at what it is, rather than what it does, and taking into account only its active ingredients.
* The Commission's authorisation decision clearly identified the medicinal product, 'Erbitux – cetuximab' as its subject-matter -- no other medicinal product was identified. It alluded to irinotecan only in order to explain how cetuximab was used. This could not constitute a marketing authorisation of a product consisting of both cetuximab and irinotecan.
* Given the restrictive interpretation of the term "product", to incorporate the notion of secondary infringement into the SPC regime would be illegitimate. While this was not acte clair, it was in any event a matter for national rather than European law, so no reference would be made for a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union.
SPCs and anticompetitive conduct: the General Court speaks
Case T-321/05 AstraZeneca v Commission, a complex decision delivered by the General Court of the European Union at the beginning of this month, is not only about SPCs as such -- it concerns the rectitude or otherwise of the Commission's assessment that AstraZeneca, the UK's second-largest pharma company, misled patent officials and flouted antitrust rules in order to keep generic competition at bay with regard to its Omeprazole product.
The General Court upheld most of the Commission's finding but reversed the finding that AstraZeneca breached EU rules by withdrawing market approvals for older versions of its medicine in Denmark and Norway, thus preventing market entry by generic producers and parallel importers. Some interesting comments concerning abuse of dominant position and SPCs can be found in the judgment, which is some 920 paragraphs long. A few examples:
"361 ... the Commission applied Article 82 EC correctly in taking the view that the submission to the patent offices of objectively misleading representations by an undertaking in a dominant position which are of such a nature as to lead those offices to grant it SPCs to which it is not entitled or to which it is entitled for a shorter period, thus resulting in a restriction or elimination of competition, constituted an abuse of that position. The question whether those representations were objectively misleading must be assessed in the light of the specific circumstances and context of each individual case. ...".
"366 ... the Court rejects the applicants’ argument that the existence of specific remedies which make it possible to rectify, or even annul, patents and SPCs granted unlawfully justifies application of the competition rules only where an anticompetitive effect is demonstrated. Where behaviour falls within the scope of the competition rules, those rules apply irrespective of whether that behaviour may also be caught by other rules, of national origin or otherwise, which pursue separate objectives. Similarly, the existence of remedies specific to the patent system is not capable of altering the conditions of application of the prohibitions laid down in competition law and, in particular, of requiring, in cases of behaviour such as that at issue in the present case, proof of the anticompetitive effects produced by such behaviour".
The SPC Blog may return to this decision again, if time and resources permit.
Labels: abuse of dominant position
SPCs and anticompetitive conduct: the General Cour...
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JOE DEMPSIE ON SKINS, GAMES OF THRONES, AND NAVIGATING THE SPACE BETWEEN COMEDY & DRAMA
FEATURED, FILM + TV, INTERVIEWS
Joe Dempsie photographed for The Untitled Magazine by Mary Rozzi. This page: Joe wears a shirt by SEVERAL, and jeans by ACNE.
“I don’t think drama has any responsibility beyond telling great stories – and I still broadly believe that – but when done in the right way it can hold up a very powerful mirror to society.” -Joe Dempsie
Joe Dempsie has been involved in a number of amazing stories. He first captured attention (and hearts) on screen in 2007 as the flawed but extremely charming Chris, on the seminal youth series, Skins – a show whose unflinching portrayal of teenage life excited teenagers and terrified adults. Since then, Dempsie has become a household name for a very different genre of television. On the first six seasons of the action-fueled fantasy series, Game of Thrones, he played Gendry, the skilled blacksmith and bastard son of a king, whose questionable death launched a thousand memes.
Dempsie’s ability to transition from fact to fiction and back again has led to comedic and dramatic roles in award-winning television shows and movies that run the gamut from spine-tingling thriller to quirky comedy. The year alone has seen him play a murder suspect in the BBC1 series One of Us, a darkly complicated character in the television film Ellen, and the straitlaced foil to a bohemian spirit in the dark comedy, Burn Burn Burn.
The Untitled Magazine caught up with Dempsie to get the lowdown on his current and upcoming roles and the method to his madness. Check out the exclusive interview below and catch him in Burn Burn Burn, now available on Netflix.
Left Page: Joe wears trousers by VELVET, a shirt by EDWARD CRUTCHLEY, a coat by PAUL SMITH, and boots by RUSSELL AND BROMLEY. Right Page: He wears a shirt by SEVERAL.
The Untitled Magazine: How did you get into acting?
Joe Dempsie: By accident really, my mum heard me telling a friend that I was enjoying drama at school, and around the same time was made aware of an acting workshop for young people in Nottingham, the town where I grew up. I started going there two evenings a week from the age of thirteen. Most of the sessions involved improvisation exercises or rehearsing for plays we planned to stage but it also had a reputation among casting directors as a good place to go to find young actors for parts in TV or film. I did my first few professional acting jobs from that point onwards, but it wasn’t until nineteen that I started seeing it as anything other than a hobby. At that point, with help from the Workshop, I managed to get an agent down in London, six months later Skins came along. I’ve been earning my keep acting ever since.
UM: Was it like to film Skins?
JD: I’ll always look back on filming Skins, particularly the first series, with really fond memories. It came at a fairly crucial time for me as the previous summer I’d decided to defer a place at university for a year to see if I could land any more decent acting work that may in turn get me an agent. I had a part time job at a local cinema but there didn’t seem to be many auditions on the horizon. At the same time all my school friends were off having a blast at various Uni’s around the country – experiencing new cities, new people, new hangovers…At the end of that gap year I’d got the agent but had no work. I just decided to take up my university place when I found out I’d got the part in Skins. Filming the show became my university experience in every way – I moved to a new town, learned a lot about the industry I wanted to work in and made friends I’ll have for the rest of my life. It was every bit as fun to shoot as it looked on screen and in that first year we had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for so, ironically, there was a real innocence to it which will always have a special place in my heart.
Left Page: Joe wears a jumper by PAUL SMITH, trousers by SEVERAL, and boots by RUSSELL AND BROMLEY. Right Page: He wears trousers by LOU DALTON, a shirt by BARBOUR, a coat by PAUL SMITH, and boots by RUSSELL AND BROMLEY.
JD: Did you feel as if you grew up with your character, Chris? He was definitely an audience favorite.
JD: I think Chris will always be the character I miss the most. Despite his troubles he seemed to have an infectious optimism, which I think audiences connected with and admired. It’s certainly a quality I’ve tried to take on board in my own life, with varying degrees of success.. It’s always nice to hear people say a character you’ve played has stayed with them in some way. I was nineteen when we started filming, a couple of years older than the rest of the cast so I personally felt like I’d already come through the other side of those awkward years we were portraying. There were definitely things I learned from Chris, but I think I’d done a fair bit of my growing up by then.
UM: Fast forward to today and you have several award-winning shows under your belt, how do you decide which roles to take?
JD: There’s no strict set of rules, it’s usually just instinctive. When I’m reading a script I don’t look for anything other than an engaging story told in an original way with layered characters. If you don’t have those three elements then what’s the point? I’m still at a stage in my career where I’m auditioning for the majority of the roles I end up playing so in reality the only real power I have is over what I say no to. Beyond that, if I read a script I like – whatever the medium – I just have to make sure I put the work in, do myself justice in the audition and hope I get the job.
UM: We can’t talk about your career without mentioning Game of Thrones, what is it like to be a part of such a global phenomenon?
JD: Well again, like with Skins, I don’t think anyone that was involved in season one of Thrones could’ve predicted how popular the show was going to be. On a personal level it was, and remains, the biggest production I’ve ever worked on. It was a different kind of work to anything I’d done before. I learned a lot, had loads of fun and again found some great mates. Since I’ve left it’s been amazing to watch Thrones grow in popularity, scale and ambition – I’m very proud to have been part of it.
Left Page: Joe wears trousers by MARKUS LUPFER, a jumper by ALBAM, a jacket by SEVERAL, and boots by RUSSELL AND BROMLEY. Right Page: He wears a shirt by SEVERAL
UM: We heard that you might be returning to the show, can you say anything about that? It will mean the death of many memes!
JD: It would be lovely to go back at some point, but it’s completely out of my hands. Like every year, we’ll just have to wait and see. Long live the memes.
UM: You just starred in the television series One of Us and it has quite a dark premise. How do you get in to the mental space for something like that?
JD: No method in particular. Sometimes I might take myself off somewhere quiet and put a bit of music on, but other times the scene itself can do the work for you. Weirdly some of the shows with the heaviest subject matter end up having the most light-hearted atmosphere on set. Think we’d go nuts if it was all doom and gloom.
UM: Do you prefer to act in comedies or dramas?
JD: I’ve tended to do more drama over the last few years, but I love them both. It might feel like you’re working different muscles but I guess good comedy and drama is all about truth in the end. All writing is hard, and I’ve huge admiration for all the writers I’ve been fortunate enough to work with. I think it’s doubly difficult to write a great, original comedy these day, which I think is partly why I haven’t done so much recently.
UM: How about television or films, do you have a preference there?
JD: Again, not really. I’ve tried to stick to the ethos that if I like the script, character and director – the medium is irrelevant. It’s almost become cliche to talk about ‘The Golden Age Of Television’, but I do think we’re seeing a significant shift. At a time when film studios are spending an ever greater portion of their money on superhero films at the expense of mid-budget human stories, TV has stolen a march. Resources have increased along with the number of platforms, and American cable networks in particular have trusted their show’s creators to deliver their vision with minimal interference in the creative process. The idea of the long form narrative – the opportunity to let your story and characters develop over a number of hours – appeals massively to top-level directors and actors alike.
Left Page: Joe wears trousers by LOU DALTON, a shirt by BARBOUR, and a coat by PAUL SMITH. Right Page: He wears a shirt by MARKUS LUPFER.
UM: You just starred in the TV movie, Ellen, which is about a teenage girl who has been forgotten by society. What made you want to be involved with that film?
JD: I just loved the script. I thought Sarah Quintrell had shone a light on a section of society that isn’t always done justice on film. Nearly all of her characters are poor and working class, but aren’t, as is often portrayed, devoid of humor, warmth and hope. As well as being keen to play with the ambiguity of my character, Jason, I also thought it was important for the darker elements of the narrative to be shown on screen. I’ve said before that I don’t think drama has any responsibility beyond telling great stories – and I still broadly believe that – but when done in the right way it can hold up a very powerful mirror to society. I think Ellen did that.
UM: Your next full-length film to be released is Burn Burn Burn, which is about two young women who are road tripping to spread their deceased friend’s ashes. Where does your character fit into the plot?
JD: I play James, the boyfriend of Seph (Laura Carmichael). He’s a decent man, but I think ultimately kind of predictable. He has his life and career planned out and struggles with Seph’s spontaneity, dependence and occasional childishness…They’ve been together a number of years and are maybe a little too comfortable, but Dan’s (Jack Farthing) death leads Seph to consider whether they’re really right for each other.
Left Page: Joe wears a shirt by MARKUS LUPFER. Right Page: He wears a jumper by PAUL SMITH.
UM: Burn Burn Burn seems like a fun one, how was it to be on the set for that?
JD: Yeah, it was great…despite the film opening on a funeral it is a comedy, so it was nice to play a lighter character. It was made on a shoestring budget, but they’re often the nicest sets to be on because no-one’s there for the money – it’s all for the love of the script. The director Chanya Button put together a brilliant cast and crew and I think she’s going to go on to fantastic things. I’m chuffed that I got to work with her right at the beginning.
UM: What projects are you excited about for 2017?
JD: Earlier this year I shot a film called Dark River with Clio Barnard, a director who’s work I’ve admired for a number of years. That should be out at some point in 2017.
UM: What do you like to do when you aren’t acting, do you have any hobbies or passion projects?
JD: At the moment my passion project is decorating my house. It’s taken me nearly three years to start, and progress is slow. I see a Gendry/rowboat/paintbrush meme on the horizon…
Photography by Mary Rozzi @ A&R Photographic
Styling by Lorna McGee @ A&R Photographic
Grooming by Amy Conley @ Stella Creative Artists
Stylist Assistant: Federica Battistino
Tags: Actor, BBC1, Burn Burn Burn, Chris in Skins, Dark River, Ellen movie, Game of Thrones, Gendry, Joe Dempsie, Mary Rozzi, Netflix, One of Us, Skins, The Untitled Magazine, Untitled Magazine Exclusive Interview
ATTACK ON ABORTION CONTINUES WITH OHIO 'HEARTBEAT BILL' & NEW TEXAS LAW
MADONNA GIVES A RAW AND RELEVANT SPEECH AT 'WOMEN IN MUSIC'
The Untitled Magazine December 8, 2016
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Report. The Rise of Rimland: The New Political Geography and Strategic Culture
Timofei Bordachev, Vasily Kashin, Alexei Kupriyanov, Fyodor Lukyanov, Dmitry Suslov
© Sputnik/Vladimir Astapkovich
The Rise of Rimland
Modern international relations have entered a period of global change unprecedented in the postwar history. The processes unleashed by the changed role of China and India are making an important contribution to the burgeoning “Eurasian phenomenon,” or the surge in international trade and expectations for the traditionally peripheral landlocked regions of Central Eurasia.
The rise of China and India as world political powers during the last decade and a half has truly changed the world. But for the time being they are playing different roles. China has joined the competition for global leadership and resources. According to many scholars, it is even the driving force of this competition (Russia, unlike China, has been the catalyst of a military and diplomatic exacerbation but not of a global shift). China is certainly one of the few key players in global politics, whose accumulated might enables it to project influence all over the world, including in Asia, Eurasia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Simultaneously Chinese geostrategy is based on Russia’s military might, given the countries’ close and trusting relationship.
India, for its part, is predominantly a regional power. Though active internationally, it does not put forward a global agenda and concepts. However, there are grounds to believe that Indian foreign policy will gradually seek to transcend its traditional boundaries. The first such sign is its infatuation with the Indo-Pacific Region concept (IPR) as an alternative to the APR. But India, Japan and the US have different visions of the IPR idea, which is already a source of concern for China. The concept is being actively promoted by the United States and Japan, which hope to use it as a blueprint for a global arc of containment against China. India needs the IPR as a tool to strengthen its own global standing and, down the line, to legitimize its likely presence outside of its traditional zone of interests in the Indian Ocean.
Geopolitics in a New Way: The Global Role Of China And India And Interests Of Russia. Expert Discussion
Rimland
I recommend you this article on the Valdai Club website: http://valdaiclub.com/a/reports/rise-of-rimland/
Modern international relations have entered a period of global change unprecedented in the postwar history. The processes unleashed by the changed role of China and India are making an important
Global Regionalisation and Integration in Eurasia Follow the link
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Serving the Greater Seattle and Puget Sound Area
Each time our doves are released at an event we cannot help but get an emotional feeling watching our doves soar into the heavens, doing what generations before them have been trained to do.
Where do the doves go when released?
The doves have been trained to return to their home loft. People often ask if all doves will fly home. NO. Only those that have been properly bred with the homing instinct and correctly trained.
NEVER release doves that have not been trained to return home. Pet store birds or Turtle Doves should never be released because they cannot be trained to return home.
How do Release Doves know where home is?
Nobody really knows. But a well-trained dove can navigate hundreds of miles to find their way home. There are documented flights of over one thousand miles. But most white dove release businesses keep within about fifty to one hundred miles from home.
Will they make a mess at the ceremony?
It cannot be guaranteed, but birds usually do not defecate when flying so the chances are slim. Furthermore, the birds usually have a special diet before big events so they can perform at top levels without messing up.
When will the birds be released?
This is entirely up to you! There can be a lot of creativity in the timing and location of your release. Discuss this with the release coordinater so we can plan the event perfectly. We never release birds close to sunset or after dark. They must have time to fly home before sunset.
What if it rains on the day of our ceremony?
For 'Acts of God' such as rain, snow, high winds or other adverse situations, we reserve the right to cancel the dove release. We will not jeopardize the health and well being of our beloved doves. In this event all deposits are fully refundable.
Please contact us with any questions so we can help make your special day unforgettable.
| About Us | Contact Us | FAQs | Funerals | In The News | Other Services | Testimonials | Weddings | Home
White Dove Release
701 SW 126th St.
Seattle, Washington, 98146 USA
White Dove Releases for Weddings, Funerals,
Memorials, Anniversaries, Birthdays
All Special Occasions!
Michael McAndrews
michael@whitedoverelease.net
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Edwin Mainman's Bronze Plaque
This memorial plaque is popularly known as a "dead man's penny", issued post World War I to the next-of-kin of all British and Empire military killed while serving in the war.
With Dr Martin at the Front
Accounts from local surgeon Arthur Anderson Martin, including "Poor German Marksmanship", "The State of the Trenches", "Dreaded Gangrene" and "Hints to New Zealanders"
The Unidentified Soldier
Many soldiers had their photo taken before going off to war. Te Papa is working to identify Wellington soldiers from photographs taken, before going off to war.
Arthur Gannon's Peace Carriers - celebrating the end of the war
Arthur Gannon’s Peace Carriers wore one of the features of the recent Wellington Peace Celebrations procession. They made a fine display, comprising nine vehicles drawn by-twenty horses, all elaborately decorated, and from one of the lorries the above typical bulldog, robed in a Union Jack gazed intently down on the crowds. In addition to the above display Arthur Gannon who is a returned lieutenant of the Maori Pioneers N.Z.E.F., placed a number of Lorries and expresses at the free disposal of the Salvation Army, etc
A Christmas Carol for Arthur Gannon's son, Rangi
Rangi was the son of Edna Hiria Gannon, nee Kelly and Arthur Gannon. Several of his letters and photographs feature on Window Into WW1.
Hand written inscription reads: 'Daddy' love for Rangi Xmas 1917
RNZA Historian/Engineer Corps Memorial Museum Curator Howard E Chamberlain provided these materials from his private collection.
Craven School for Girls - "The Cup" in aid of the Sick and Wounded Soldiers Fund
The reviews for the show were very positive (see below) and a total of £46 10 s (over $6500 in today's money). The script for "The Cup" and several of the musical numbers were written by Miss W Fraser, one of the head mistresses at the school. It was about a statue (played by Mr Stephens) that comes to life in a girls school - no other performances of this play could be found in the newspapers of the time.
Help the Starving Belgians Programme Booklet
An example of a Belgian Relief Fund fundraising programme. This object is the first of many donated by the Royal NZ Engineer Corps Memorial Centre that will be featured on Window into WW1.
Autograph Book 1913 - 1922
This autograph book includes many signatures from members of the New Zealand Medical Corps housed at the Awapuni (Racecourse) Camp during World War I. There are also autographs from Victor and Horace Cunninghame of the Collinson & Cunninghame department store, Palmerston North.
This autograph book comes from the donor’s grandmother, Annie Mabel Watson, nee Lumley, born 21 Oct 1900, died November 1999. She was the daughter of Charles and Sarah Jane Lumley. Her parents ran a general store in Ashhurst.
Patriotic Tableau - 1918, celebrating the end of the war
In this photograph from 1918 the staff of the local department store Collinson and Cunningham are costumed to reflect the Allies - including Uncle Sam and Britannia.
"B.S.A. (Birmingham Small Arms Company)" brand bicycle. 1914-1918
The New Zealand Cyclist Corps was created in New Zealand in March 1916 using recruits who were training to join the Mounted Rifles.
Object - Papers of the Palmerston North Returned Soldiers' Association
These documents represent much of what is left of the archives of the Palmerston North Returned Soldiers' Association (later the Returned Services' Association) from the time of the First World War - thirteen pages of club rules, alongside incorporation papers (including list of early members who made the request).
Anzac Day Square Table Mat
The Australian War Memorial Museum comments: 'Patterns for patriotic crochet items were published in women's magazines and newspaper supplements.... women could use them to make a variety of household items, such as bedspreads, tray cloths, table cloths or tea cosies'.
New Zealand Fashion, 1914-1918
In what ways did women's fashion change in New Zealand during World War One? We looked at the newspapers of the time to find out!
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82nd Airborne Moves to Northern Ireland, Dec - Feb, 1943
Leaving Naples
On November 18, 1943, the 505 PIR boarded the USAT (US Attack Transport) Frederick Funston, an attack troop transport vessel which had already seen service in WWII during the Sicily and Salerno campaigns. The destination was unknown to Bill or anyone else at his rank. He said they sailed west to the port of Oran, Algeria to pick up supplies. The men got some shore leave. They celebrated Thanksgiving with a turkey dinner.
Bill said they were in port for about a week before they got underway again. They were part of a convoy of protective destroyers and trooper transport ships carrying the rest of the 82nd Airborne Division deployed in the Mediterranean, except for the 504 PIR and other units including company of 307th Combat Engineers, which had been left behind in Italy at the request of General Mark Clark.
USAT Frederick Funston
(Date of photo unknown)
Bill said they headed west across the Mediterranean Sea, passing through the Straights of Gibraltar:
“The boat headed west out into the Atlantic, and we said ‘ look at that compass pointing dead west.’ We were sure we were headed home. But it turned out just to be a diversion to avoid Nazi submarines”. Suddenly on our western course we saw the compass turn to the northeast and we said , ‘Oh no!’. The ship was headed for Belfast, Ireland”. Source: Interview with William Clark by Herd Bennett, January 26, 2000
Conditions on board were much the same as the voyage to Casablanca on the George Washington, in April – May, 1943 with cramped, humid conditions, fetid air, movies, religious services, and gambling.
Arrival in Northern Ireland
On December 9, 1943, the USAT Frederick Funston made anchor in the port of Belfast. The 325th Glider Infantry Regiment (GIR) came in on the same day aboard the USNS (US Naval Service) James O’Hara. Other vessels were with the convoy carrying various smaller units of the 82nd. Bill said that as his boat entered the harbor, looking over the bow, he could see divers swimming ahead of the ship. They were making sure the ship’s path was cleared of mines possibly planted by Nazi U-boats.
MAP 1: View Naples to Northern Ireland Nov - Dec 1943 in a larger map
(Click on the lines and blue place markers for more information)
These newly trained 507th and 508th PIRs were to arrive from the US separately and later to join with the other two large airborne units – the seasoned 505 PIR and 325 GIR. The 508 arrived on December 5, 1943, aboard the HMS Strathnaver, while the 508 arrived on January 9, 1944 on the USAT James Parker.
Right from the start, when the men stepped off their ships onto the docks in Belfast harbor, they couldn’t believe their turn in fortune. The streets were clean; the buildings in good repair. There were no thieves or beggars to be wary of; no North African dust storms; no flies (and the dysentery that came with them); no malaria nor typhus, and no blazing heat. The people spoke English and the girls were beautiful. The locals were the first English speaking civilians they had seen since leaving New York harbor almost eight months previously. In many ways it must have seemed like being in army training in America, but with cultural and geographical curiosities which made it intriguing and exciting in the way a tourist feels about visiting a friendly foreign land.
They were trucked or trained to their new billets in a variety of places across the counties of Tyrone, Londonderry, and Antrim. For the 505 and the other 82nd Airborne units arriving from the Mediterranean such as the 325th GIR, the green of Ireland was a sharp contrast to the barren, diseased, and hellish conditions of their training in North Africa. They drank it all in with alacrity; reveling in this unexpected heavenly paradise. To a degree, they even liked their housing which consisted of British Nissen huts and American Quonset huts; another welcome change from the tents of North Africa.
British Nissen huts were originally designed by an American, who later became a British citizen and WWI soldier engineer, Major Peter Norman Nissen. Source: “Inventing the 20th Century: 100 Inventions That Shaped the World”. Dulken, S., 2002, p. 44.
They were allegedly inspired by the Native American Iroquois Longhouses. Quonset huts were the American variant built before and during WWII and named after their place of design, Quonset Point, at the Davisville Naval Construction Battalion stationed in Davisville, Rhode Island. Source: “Quonset Huts” Retrieved from Waymaking.com Author unknown.
They can be found all over the WWII Allied world and are instantly recognizable by semi circular “aircraft hanger” like appearance. The inside of the huts were an open space which, by intention, could be converted into hospital wards, headquarters office space, or troop barracks.
WWII era Quonset huts
Source: Wikipedia Commons
82nd Airborne Unit Camp Locations
The 82nd Airborne Division Headquarters were located around Castledawson, County Londonderry. See MAP 2 below for where they were quartered.
MAP 2: View 82nd Airborne Division Headquarters N. Ireland in a larger map
The 505 including the 505 Service Company was stationed to the south in County Tyrone in and around the town of Cookstown. Regimental HQ Company was billeted in the south of the town near a west-south road junction in the map below. 1st Battalion’s digs were near the beautiful Killymoon Castle on the eastern outskirts of town. 2nd Battalion was stationed in an area known as Desertcreat farm off the Dungannon Road, south of Cookstown. Companies G and H of 3rd Battalion were quartered in Drum Manor Forest Park along Drum Road to the west of Cookstown, while the remainder of 3rd Battalion, namely Company I was to be found on the north side of town in MAP 3 below.
MAP 3: View 505th Quarters N. Ireland in a larger map
Bill’s Location in Northern Ireland
As with many episodes of Bill’s service with the 82nd Airborne, his stay in Northern Ireland is somewhat irregular with respect to the movements of his unit, his service record, and his own testimony during and after the war. The reasons for these discrepancies I believe have to do with his role as a parachute rigger in the 505 Service Company. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, unlike other members of the 505 service company, riggers were required to jump into combat on a rotation basis with combat companies as a demonstration of the quality of their parachute maintenance, repair and packing. Much about the parachute riggers of WWII is not well documented – at least in published sources.
I very recently found one source which helps elucidate the role, work and movements of the 82nd Airborne riggers. The work is entitled “82nd Airborne Division: 82nd Parachute Maintenance Company”. The author is unknown, but it is an officially written document obtained at the 82nd Airborne Museum, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Curiously, even with this source there are discrepancies between it, on the one hand, and Bill’s testimony after the war, letters he wrote home and his service record, on the other hand. I’ll write more about these in later posts. Suffice it to say that as per his service record and testimony, Bill was often to be found with the 505 PIR fighting in combat zones when the riggers of the 82nd Airborne (which would have included him) were in the rear echelons maintaining parachutes. These discrepancies continue to be a confounding mystery, which I hope one day to resolve.
Whatever the case, Bill must have been a good rigger. In one of his interviews in 2000 with his friend and lawyer, Herd L. Bennett, he said that while in Naples, he was promoted to the rank of Technical Sergeant 4th Grade (T/4). Source: Interview with William Clark by Herd Bennett, January 26, 2000
Part of his new T/4 duties entailed leading a squad of riggers in repairing and packing parachutes.
Despite the fact that the 505 PIR was stationed in Cookstown, Bill stated that in Northern Ireland, he was stationed very near the town of Ballymoney in County Antrim. Source: Interview with William Clark by Herd Bennett, January 26, 2000
Ballymoney is 32 miles away from Cookstown, where the rest of the 505 PIR was camped. I have interviewed two other members of Bill’s unit, the Service Company 505; Privates John Snyder and Maurice Herron, and both of them confirmed that the Service Company riggers were always stationed away from them. However, if Bill was stationed near Ballymoney, 32 miles is extremely far away.
Parachute rigging and repair installations were built in Northern Ireland before the 82nd Airborne arrived. At least one such installation or “plant” has been described (see blue place marker at top of MAP 2 above).
In his engrossing and well researched book, “Passing Through: The 82nd Airborne Division in Northern Ireland 1943-44”, John McCann wrote of these parachute maintenance plants:
“At Ballyscullion, a small 315-acre townland on the outskirts of the south Derry Village of Bellaghy, preparations were already underway to facilitate the needs of the 82nd. On 27 November ‘Charlie’ Company, 202nd Engineer Combat Battalion arrived to begin the construction of a parachute drying, servicing and repacking plant. Each plant consisted of seven semi-circular steel framework buildings set on a concrete floor and covered in corrugated iron. Internally, fitted wooden boards provided adequate insulation for the overhead hot water heating system”. Source: “Passing Through: The 82nd Airborne Division in Northern Ireland 1943-44”, 2005 p. 46
Notice McCann states that “each plant consisted…” implying that there was more than one of these plants in Northern Ireland. He briefly mentions on page 61 that another was at built at Monrush in Cookstown, ironically where the 505 PIR were stationed (see blue place marker on top of MAP 3 above).
According to the unpublished, manuscript on the history of the 82nd Parachute Maintenance Company obtained from the 82nd Airborne Museum, there was another parachute maintenance installation. On page 8 the document states:
“The 505 combat team maintenance section, after being on the high seas for nearly a month, during which they ate Thanksgiving dinner (once thinking they were close to the USA) docked at Belfast, Ireland on the 9th of December, 1943. Moving on the village called Ballymoney they set up a packing shed on Millickore Airdrone [sic]. They worked day and night opening boxes and drying chutes. The men really enjoyed being in an English speaking country again, brogue [Irish accent] not considered, and had a very good time there.
After things settled down they could indulge in good beer and some potent Irish whiskey, not to mention the company of many local Irish coleens [Irish women]. On the day they finally started packing parachutes, they received orders to box up again, before 50 chutes had been packed, and be ready to move.” Source: “82nd Airborne Division: 82nd Parachute Maintenance Company”. Author unknown. Date unknown., p. 8
Bill’s whereabouts is difficult to ascertain for sure since the morning reports and muster calls for his unit and many others are missing from September 1943 onwards. They were destroyed in the 1973 fire at the National Personnel records center in St. Louis, Missouri.
However, given Bill’s testimony and this newly discovered information, it is certain that he was assigned to work at the parachute packing and repair installation located at Millickore Airdrome near Ballymoney in County Antrim. It makes sense that Bill would have been quartered near to a parachute maintenance installation.
According to John McCann, despite plans for parachute training, there were few airfields and no C-47s. The absence of these meant no parachute drops. Soon the planners realized that the parachute maintenance installations weren’t needed. Source: “Passing Through: The 82nd Airborne Division in Northern Ireland 1943-44”, 2005 p. 61
Map 4: View 505 Rigger's station, Ballymoney County Antrim in a larger map
(Click on the lines and shape for more information)
I have been unable to ascertain the exact area around Ballymoney where the Millickore Airdrome was located in WWII; where the 505 PIR riggers built their parachute maintenance shed and were likely billeted. It isn’t listed on well researched credible websites like:
“The Second World War in Northern Ireland” (http://ww2ni.webs.com/)
“Airfields of Country Antrim” page (http://ww2ni.webs.com/countyantrimairfields.htm)
Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: United Kingdom, Northern Ireland Antrim(http://www.ronaldv.nl/abandoned/airfields/GB/N-Ireland/antrim.html)
To demonstrate what the airdrome and sheds may have looked like from the air as well as the likely distance from the airdrome and Ballymoney, the modern day “Causeway Airfield” (even though it is in County Londonderry) is used as a placeholder while I chase down this latest mystery.
The Causeway Airfield is indicated by the blue shape in the left of MAP 4 above. The blue line is the route from the airfield (where they would likely have been billeted) to the nearby large town of Ballymoney, three miles away, a place where the men would go when off duty.
Without sufficient airfields for parachute drops, opportunities for training the 82nd paratroopers was further limited because most of the area was used for growing crops. The only training options available were: road marches, some weapons training on firing ranges, obstacle courses, guard duty, parades, and patrols. Reveille was at 6:00 AM and lights out at 10:00 PM. At least in the case of the 505 PIR stationed in Cookstown, except for passes, men were limited to staying at camp. They played cards, gambled, read, and wrote letters.
Despite having said this, it appears that once drying of the chutes was underway i.e. “after things settled down”, the 505 riggers stationed at their billets near Ballymoney had time to enjoy their new (and in comparison to North Africa and even Naples) vastly improved surroundings.
With the 82nd Division Headquarters at Castledawson some 20 miles away and the 505 Regimental Headquarters even further distant at 32 miles, all indications are that this must have been a relatively easy assignment (see MAP 5 below). In comparison to their 505 brethren, the 505 riggers seem to have had more spare time and more freedom.
Map 5: View 505 Riggers - 82nd HQ - 505 PIR in a larger map
When Bill spoke to me of Northern Ireland during a visit in 1996, he excitedly told me of how naturally beautiful Ireland was. He said that during the war he had been stationed near the coast. He said he especially loved the coast line and remarked on how green the grass was. He marveled at how it grew all the way to the edges of the cliffs and that the contrast between the green grass and the deep blue of the sea was dazzling. He asked me if I had ever been there. I informed him that I hadn’t. He insisted that I should go one day because, in his opinion, Ireland really was a beautiful place.
In a letter home he wrote:
“I saw a lot of the British Iles. Ireland, England and Scotland. My opinion is that Ireland is the best of all”. Source: Letter dated January 14, 1945. William A. Clark, p. 2.
Ballymoney is only about 10 miles from the coast which would have made it quite easy for Bill and the 505 riggers to ride bicycles (a common mode of transport), or even walk there (See MAP 6 below). The coast in this area, known as the “Causeway Coast”, is quite picturesque. His unit’s close proximity to it would explain his fond recollections of Ireland’s breathtaking seaside.
Map 6: View Distance from Ballymoney to Causeway Coast in a larger map
Most of the other enlisted men of the 505 didn’t get to see the coast much because they were too far inland. They just didn’t have transportation to go anywhere. When issued passes, some moved around using public transportation such as buses, or trains and the like. Others used bicycles or walked. Some only were issued passes to Cookstown. Those more fortunate usually took their leave in large towns such as Belfast or Londonderry. The Service Company of each regiment was charged with driving troops from one place to another, so they could use their Regiment’s vehicles to get out more often even if it was only to move supplies or pick up and drop off troops for training.
Men of other 82nd Airborne units, namely the 507 PIR and 508 PIR, did see a lot of the coast. They were stationed on the Causeway Coast at Portrush (507 PIR) and Portstewart (508 PIR). (See the blue place markers on MAP 6 above). The men of these regiments gave similar descriptions to those Bill recollected.
Leave and Friendships
Bill mentioned to me in 1996 that a lot of the men from his company had made close friends with families in Northern Ireland and whenever the opportunity arose, often in the evening, after their duties were finished, they would leave camp and call at the houses to visit for a fire side chat and some tea, or whiskey. These troopers would make bonds with the whole household. They would bring treats like chewing gum, or chocolates for the family’s children, whom they treated like they were their own brothers and sisters back in the States. The father and mother of a household treated them as one of their own sons. In many respects these men were adopted by the family. The people of Northern Ireland didn’t have much during the war, but whatever they had they readily shared with the troopers. The 82nd men did likewise. They were fully aware of the deep sacrifices the locals were making, and that made the men all the more grateful for their hospitality.
While some troopers made friends with local families, others would leave camp and go into town for drinks at a pub. In either case this was often done without passes:
“The men were given three day passes and furloughs while in Ireland and there was a problem in connection with men staying ‘absent without leave’. The AWOL rate took a sharp upward curve…” Source: “Put on your boots and parachutes!” Wills, D., 1992, p. 38.
The men would often get away with it, or their superior officer turned a blind eye. Sometimes though, they were caught. The resultant punishments could include a reduction in rank, additional training exercises, pay cuts, long hours of Kitchen Patrol (KP), guard duty, hard labor, or other unsavory assignments.
Trooper pulling guard duty outside a hut, Winter, 1943.
Sketch by William L. Prescott (AKA Linzee Prescott by the 505), 1943
Notice the All American (AA) 82nd Airborne unit insignia is sewn over with a plain cloth patch to hide the unit’s identity.
Source: “Saga of the All American” Dawson, Forrest W., 1946, unpaginated
Christmas 1943 in Northern Ireland
Part of the 82nd Division including the 508th PIR, 505th PIR, the 325th GIR and other smaller units (such as Divisional Headquarters Company, the 407th Airborne Quartermaster Co, 307th Airborne Medical Co, 82nd Airborne MPs, 82nd Airborne Signal Co, 782nd Airborne Ordnance Co, the 307th Airborne Engineers minus C Co), among others celebrated Christmas 1943 in Northern Ireland.
Source: Author’s Collection
Click on the image for higher resolution.
You’ll notice Bill’s Christmas card is postmarked November 1, 1943. Bill must have sent the card while performing occupation duty in Naples, Italy. At 55 days before Christmas, the date gives an idea of the estimated time it might have taken for the Christmas mail to arrive from the ETO to the US; which is surprising since this is Victory Mail (as indicated by the words “V MAIL” at the bottom of the card). V MAIL was sent by aircraft. It arrived much more quickly than regular mail which was sent by ship. The space for writing a message using V MAIL was very small in comparison to a letter which could be any number of pages. Many people didn’t like using V MAIL for this reason, but I think it suited Bill, since as the war progressed he wrote home less often. Bill’s brother, Henry Clark Jr., explained why in a letter dated December 23, 1944:
“I can understand why he [meaning Bill] doesn’t write. If I had been over here as long as he has I probably wouldn’t be writing but semi annually either. In other words the longer and further you get away from home the less one writes. I’m going to drop him a line tonight and see if I can get him “on the ball”. In other words I am going to mildly inform him that he has a few obligations as far as his correspondence is concerned….” Source: “Letter written home from Somewhere in France” Henry Clark Jr. December 23, 1944 p. 2
Bill’s unused Army Issue Airborne Stationary
Bill said he had memories of a special Christmas in 1943. In every town and village their was at least caroling. In the bigger towns, there were church services and even a dance at the American Red Cross Service Club in Portrush. Wherever the men of the 82nd were stationed in Northern Ireland, the people treated them with all the hospitality their war stricken rationing could muster. The soldiers were welcomed into the people’s homes by order of their own Prime Minister, but from reading some of the war memoirs of 82nd men and from what Bill told me, it is clear the locals would have done it anyway.
A significant number of 82nd men were of Irish descent and found they had distant and even near relatives living in the area. Other troopers had friends or associates from their home towns, whose family had immigrated to the US from Northern Ireland. In many cases, these people developed the foundations for what were to become life long relationships. Some men met Irish women, fell in love, and later married them. Other troopers would make the journey back to Northern Ireland many times in later years to stay connected with their war time friends. Such was the very special and lasting bond between the 82nd Airborne troopers and the people of Northern Ireland.
A Cold Winter
Bill never mentioned anything about how cold it was during his winter stay in Northern Ireland. But by all accounts it was absolutely frigid. For the 82nd men who fought in North Africa and Italy, the change in climate was dramatic. Not only was it cold, but it was damp. Most of the time it was overcast. For men stationed in the Quonset and Nissen huts, there was no insulation. They slept on hard wooden bunks without mattresses. Their only source of heat was a single small stove which they stoked with a meager daily ration of coal or peat. These stoves gave out little heat because they were insulated to keep their tin metal casings from melting. Many a trooper never forgot how cold they were in Northern Ireland. The following two sketches are by William L. Prescott a famed WWII artist and paratrooper assigned to 505 PIR Regimental HQ Company.
505 PIR troopers suffering the cold in a Nissen hut at their Cookstown camp, Winter, 1943.
Sketch by William L. Prescott. (AKA Linzee Prescott by the 505)
Well bundled troopers in winter issue shivering beside cold stoves in Northern Ireland, Winter, 1943.
The Republic of Northern Ireland
One other thing Bill talked about was the Republic of Ireland. He said:
“The troops were not allowed to go to Dublin because that was in a different country.” Source: Interview with William Clark by Herd Bennett, January 26, 2000
Without going into a discussion of politics, Northern Ireland is part of the UK with its own legislative government. It borders the Republic of Ireland of which Dublin is the capitol city. The Republic of Ireland was a neural country in WWII. While some 82nd soldiers stationed in Northern Ireland may have visited “free Ireland” as they called it, Bill never did. It would have meant a court marital; possibly with a sentence in a Stateside Federal prison. During WWII, blackout conditions were in force all across Northern Ireland. Indeed Belfast had been the target of German bombing raids during the time known as the “Belfast Blitz”. The sun set early and rose late. Most of the time it was dark with overcast days. Some 82nd men were stationed close enough to the border with the Republic of Ireland to see some of its cities lights at night. In the blackout conditions which made the long nights seem interminable, the lights of “free Ireland” must have been a significant temptation for them.
Reluctantly Moving On
Despite the dark, cold, damp and cloudy conditions, Northern Ireland will always be a special place for the veteran men of the 505 PIR, the 325 GIR, and many smaller veteran attached or organic 82nd units. All these units combated not only the formidable Axis powers in the Mediterranean, but the harsh climate in North Africa, and the depressing privations endured during their time there.
The 505 riggers left Ballymoney on February 14, 1944. Their hearts were heavy. In light of what they had experienced, Northern Ireland had been too good to be true – and as time went on – too good to last. In Bill’s mind, it was incomprehensible how any civilized country could function so well being that close to Nazi occupied Europe, with Luftwaffe bombing raids, and the U-boat threat to shipping. Bill was soon to discover that their new destination of England was to prove equally welcoming, and its ability to function in spite of the long war, just as incomprehensible.
Unlike the 82nd’s time in Northern Ireland, their time in England would be accompanied by a most intensive training program. They were to be thrown into the thick of the invasion preparations. In a short time, a sense of foreboding was to grow among the men; with the outcome being very uncertain. As I’ll make more clear over the next few posts, it is becoming evident that Bill often had the choice of relatively safe missions or dangerous ones. As often as he could, he was to choose danger. In his eyes the Normandy invasion presented an opportunity which he was unwilling to resist.
Posted by Jeff Clark at 7:33 AM 3 comments: Links to this post
The Capture and Liberation of Naples, Italy
Today is October 4, 2012. I wanted to post this blog entry in remembrance of Bill’s birthday, which was October 5, 1922. By a coincidence the events covered here occurred at the time of his 21st birthday. While he did get to see October 5 in relative safety, as you will discover, Bill was extraordinarily lucky to have survived the events of just two days later.
At the end of the battles for Salerno, German casualties were about 3,500 men. American losses were much the same. At approximately 5,500 it was the British with the highest number of soldiers lost. Source: “United States Army in World War II Mediterranean Theater of Operations: Salerno to Cassino”, Blumenson, M., 1993, p. 144 http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-MTO-Salerno/USA-MTO-Salerno-9.html
The majority of the fighting on the part of the American forces was done by the 36th and 45th Infantry Divisions. To be sure the 82nd Airborne was responsible for a key part of the victory with the 504’s sacrifices made at Altavilla and for helping to plug the gap in the line. They also contributed by dropping the 2nd Battalion 509th PIR, which was attached to the 82nd Airborne, in rugged terrain in the region of Avellino about 20 miles north of the town of Salerno to block mountain passes. These men were badly misdroped, but managed to cause the enemy considerable confusion and havoc.
“The value of the [82nd Airborne] reinforcement stemmed less from the actual number of troops than from its psychological lift to the commanders and men in the beachhead who were beginning to feel uneasy; they had no way of knowing that the worst had passed”. Source: “United States Army in World War II Mediterranean Theater of Operations: Salerno to Cassino”, Blumenson, M., 1993, p. 145 http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-MTO-Salerno/USA-MTO-Salerno-9.html
When talking about Salerno, in acknowledgement of the men from the 36th Division he saw lying dead on Hill 424, Bill often mentioned that rightly or wrongly the 82nd Airborne got the credit for the breakthrough at Salerno which led to the advance on Naples.
Trooper Henry Covington in his excellent 1949 book “A Fighting Heart: An Unofficial Story of the 82nd Airborne Division” captures well the contributions made by the 82nd at Salerno from an airborne (particularly a 509th) perspective:
“How well the 509th troopers did their job is shown in the fact that the Germans became so jittery about airborne activity that they deployed more troops for preventive and corrective action then we had airborne troops in the entire Allied Airborne Army. These enemy troops naturally were unavailable for decisive and critical action at Salerno.
We saved the Salerno beachhead all right. We had it from none other than General Mark Clark, himself:
‘At a moment when the scales of defeat or victory hung in the balance the weight of airborne troops tipped them to the side of victory.’” Source: H. Covington “A Fighting Heart: An Unofficial Story of the 82nd Airborne Division” 1949 p. 41
Bill’s sentiment represents another dimension to the battle and to the war in general; and it’s one expressed by many airborne troopers I’ve interviewed. In his typically humble way, he perceived the victory in a larger context which reflected a deep love for his fellow American soldiers and hinted at his hatred of war as an insanity haunting the human condition. In a letter home in June 1945 he wrote:
“From what I can hear most people back in the States think that all of the fighting was done in France and Germany. People who are like that should see all of the graves at “Kasserine Pass” in Africa. Also at Bizerte, Sousse, and Cape Bon. Also hill 609 near Bizerte. I have more respect for men who have fought through Africa than all of the rest of us put together. Because from what I’ve seen it was a rough war there and the climate didn’t help matters any.” Source: William Clark, letter dated June 13, 1945
Bill said the 82nd Airborne fought with the 45th Division and the British to break through the German lines and capture Naples. Map 1, below shows the progress made and lines of attack by the Allies and defenses by the Germans.
Map 1: Advance to the Volturno River
(Click on this link to see the map in full size)
Source: “United States Army in World War II Mediterranean Theater of Operations Salerno to Cassino.” Blumenson M., 1993, page 133. Retrieved from http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-MTO-Salerno/USA-MTO-Salerno-9.html
Here’s a 3 minute portion of news reel covering the battle for Salerno and the advance to Naples.
Source: Nara.gov
On September 28 the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 505 PIR were loaded onto LCIs at Paestum in the south of Salerno Bay, moved across the bay and landed at the coastal town of Maiori in the north, just a few miles west of Salerno itself in Map 1 above.
Third Battalion 505 had departed the day before to meet up with the Rangers and Company H of the 504 PIR. The latter units had been fighting all through the Salerno battles to seize and defend the Chiunzi Pass. It was a key strategic mountain gateway which linked the invasion beaches to the south with the flat plain leading to Naples in the north (See Map 1 above).
With the 3rd Battalion in the lead, and the rest of the regiment following behind, the 505 fought the rear guard of the retreating Germans through the mountains and down onto the plains in front of Mt Vesuvius.
By October 1 they reached Naples.
Aerial reconnaissance photo of smoldering Mt. Vesuvius with Naples on the right Oct. 1943
The 82nd advanced on Naples from the south crossing the plain between the coast and Mt. Vesuvius
Source: fold3.com
The Germans had left Naples a crippled city. The electrical power and water supply were cut. The sewage system was destroyed. Stockpiles of coal and liquid fuel had been set on fire. Railways and the docks had been sabotaged. Railway junction boxes and critical line switches were blown. Many ships birthed in the port had been holed and sunk. Not all the damage was done by the Germans. Allied bombing raids, conducted when the city was in German hands, left their own destruction mainly on the port and its docks. These bombing raids were necessary to put pressure on the Germans, thereby providing an advantage to liberating Allied forces invading at Salerno and further south.
Pictures of the damage done by the Allied bombing campaign
(click on them to view in high resolution)
Naples is bombed by 100 flying fortresses of the US Army Air Force on April 4 1943
This raid by 100 flying fortresses from the US army air force destroyed or damaged 23 ships including 3 submarines. Several smaller craft were hit and a floating dock was damaged. Three of the ships were ocean liners.
The docks of Naples burning after a US Army Air Force raid
Craters, scorch marks and fires after an Allied raid on Naples
(Click on the picture for a larger view)
Ground level view of Naples destruction by Allied bombing
Demolished cranes at the port of Naples probably by Allied Bombing raids
Largest warehouse in the port of Naples bombed by US Army Air Force
Ship on the left is ocean liner "Sicilia" a 480 foot hospital ship probably bombed by US Army Air Force
Ship with two smoke stacks is the 590 foot ocean liner "Lombardia". She was bombed in two then caught fire and burned during an Allied air raid
Pictures of demolitions made by the retreating Germans
Ship sunk in Naples by Retreating Germans
(Docks destroyed by Allied bombing)
Dry dock flooded by Germans
Same dry dock and ship. The dry dock emptied and repaired by US Army Engineers
General Ridgway later described with disgust the scene of Naples’ destruction:
“By this time we were beginning to realize what tremendous damage the retreating Germans had done to this old and beautiful city. The harbor area had been subjected to the most complete destruction I have ever seen in war. Every big crane was down, damaged beyond use. Ships of all sizes, from a twenty thousand-ton passenger vessel, which lay on its side, half submerged, down to little launches, clogged the harbor, holed and wreaked by explosives. Cruisers and destroyers had been sunk at their anchorage, with nothing but their top masts showing. The water had a thick scum of oil over it.” Source: Ridgway, M. Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway, 1956, p. 88
While some of the damage reported by General Ridgway, particularly the sinking of vessels, was done by the Germans, the destruction of Naples’ port facilities and ships was the mostly the result of Allied bombing. In any case, as we will see, the Germans weren't quite finished.
In the meantime, the 82nd Airborne Division was tasked with policing Naples, cleaning it up, and restoring some semblance of order. General Ridgway ordered the city divided into three sectors. Each sector was assigned an infantry regiment from the 82nd. With their German masters gone, the local Neapolitans set about reestablishing order in their own way. Family feuds were reignited. Nazi collaborators were hunted down. The Germans had opened the city’s prisons and criminals were being targeted and targeting their enemies in turn. It was a dangerous place especially at night.
As the new Assistant Division Commander and Commander of the 505, Colonel Gavin (very soon to be General Gavin) was chosen by General Ridgway to implement orders to restore civility lest the city descend into anarchy.
After the war Gavin wrote candidly of this unenviable assignment:
“As darkness neared, I did not see how I could get the city under control, and General Ridgway was emphatic in his orders to me as he outlined my responsibilities. Occasionally a carabinieri, or city policeman, came by the command post, and while these men shrugged their shoulders and said the Neapolitans were difficult to control, they offered no help. Apprehensive about what would happen during the night, I told the Chief of Police just before darkness set in that any Italian, regardless of his sympathies, who possessed a weapon in the vicinity of where a weapon had been fired would be shot at once. He seemed startled and gulped a bit as we explained exactly what we meant; then off he went. A few minutes later a weapon was fired in a side street. I took a platoon of troopers and went right out to get anyone with a weapon. The men had orders to shoot. No one with a weapon could be found. Almost at once quiet descended over the city. The next morning the situation was well under control, and we began to clear up the debris, clear the port, get the utilities back in operation, and provide food.” Source: Gavin, J. “On to Berlin: Battles of an Airborne Commander 1943 - 1946” 1978 p. 73
General Ridgway set up his Divisional Headquarters in the former Secret Police Headquarters or “Questura” at the city’s center square where all of the grand government buildings were located.
On October 4 the 505’s 2nd Battalion and part of 1st Battalion were attached to the British 23rd Armored Brigade. The force moved out to the north to fight the Germans retreating to the Volturno river which was the western part of the first of several subsequent and highly effective German defensive lines spanning the Italian peninsula.
The 505 units returned to Naples on October 8 to find that while they were gone tragedy had struck. Unsatisfied with destroying the city’s infrastructure, the Germans had set time bombs throughout the city, with a preference for buildings which would be used as sleeping quarters, command posts, or congregation areas for the Allied liberators and civilians alike.
One massive device was planted behind a cleverly designed false wall in the basement of the Naples post office, just 300 yards away from the 82nd Airborne’s Divisional Headquarters at the Questura across the city’s square. At around noon on October 7, (two days after Bill’s 21st birthday) it detonated. A huge explosion tore through the building and rocked the square.
“The post office building across the square from us was being used by some troops (not 82d men) when, suddenly, at mid-day when men were having chow, there was a tremendous explosion. At the time I happened to be leaning out of the Questura’s second floor window talking with someone on the street below, and felt a great sucking-in of air followed by an outward rush of air and noise coming from the bombed building. Heavy explosives had been left by the Germans, who assumed the building would be used by our troops, and they had set delayed timers. There were many deaths and everybody rushed over and pitched in to dig out the grisly remains.” Source: Lebenson L., “Surrounded by Heroes: Six Campaigns with Division Headquarters, 82nd Airborne Division, 1942 – 1945. p. 72 2007
“Back in Naples on the 7th, a huge time bomb left behind a false wall in the main post office building by the retreating Germans, exploded, killing or wounding upward of one hundred people, primarily civilians.” Source: Nordyke, P., “All American All the Way: The Combat History of the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II” 2005, p. 148
After the war, Bill told a story about this explosion which differs in some details from these accounts. He said that while in Naples his unit (the 505th PIR Service Company) was quartered in a post office. He said a German shell or some other unidentified explosive agent blew up the post office. Bill said he was inside the post office when the device detonated. Somehow he miraculously escaped the blast without injury. Source: Interview with William Clark by Herd Bennett, January 26, 2000
Naples Post Office Explosion
Source: Dawson “Saga of the All American” 1946
Other descriptions of the bombing support Bill’s recollections of an “unidentified explosive”, possibly a “German shell”. This one is particularly relevant because it was written by paratrooper Peter Turnbull, a combat engineer present during the liberation of Naples. Turnbull was assigned to the 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion attached to the 82nd Airborne Division.
“The building [Naples Post Office] had already been checked by 111th Engineers but they had not discovered the bomb, Lt Sinclair of the 43rd Bomb Disposal Section R.E. who inspected the site after the explosion stated that the charge must have been 1000-2000lbs and that they found a tail fin from a 250kg German aerial bomb amongst the debris and it would have taken three or four of these to cause the damage.” Source: Turnbull, P., “I Maintain the Right: The 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion in WWII” 2005, p. 37
Below are two news reel videos of the post office bombing aftermath. The first video is a US news film. The second one is British.
US news report of the Naples post office time bomb
British news report of the Naples post office time bomb
With some success, British and American engineers had been frantically checking for time bombs and booby traps ever since they entered Naples. In one building they found a device attached to 1,700 pounds of TNT. They defused it just a few minutes before it detonated. Despite their herculean efforts, the post office explosion was followed on October 10 by another bomb blast in the former Italian Artillery Barracks where the 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion and a company of engineers from the 36th Division were quartered. This bomb exploded at 8:30 AM on the southern side of the barracks. Many of the troopers were still asleep. Twenty-three men were killed and 21 more were wounded.
General Ridgway was shocked by the bombing:
“On Sunday morning, I went with General Clark to services at the Cathedral, and while we were there we heard a tremendous dull explosion. We left at once, to find that the barracks where the engineer battalion had been quartered had blown up. I will never forget the tragic site. Arms and legs of American soldiers, killed in their sleep, were sticking pitifully out of the rubble of the second floor. Twenty men were killed, and many more were wounded. We were never able to establish definitely whether the explosion was the result of a time device left by the Germans, or whether some of the engineers’ own demolitions went off by accident. I still believe, though, that it was the result of a German booby trap.” Source: Ridgway, M. Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway, 1956, p. 90
Airborne Combat Engineer, Peter Turnbull elucidates on General Ridgway’s suspicions:
“Sgt Frank Miale had a theory that boxes of German TNT stored in the basement of the barracks were not thoroughly checked after their removal from other buildings, and that a time device in one of the crates set off the resultant explosion.” Source: Turnbull, P., “I Maintain the Right: The 307th Airborne Engineer Battalion in WWII” 2005, p. 40
In a spirit of frustration and with a desire for revenge, General Ridgway wrote:
“We did everything we could to find and capture the German colonel who had been in command at Naples, but he had moved on by the time we entered the city. We later learned that he was killed in battle, which for the peace of his soul, is a good thing. If we had caught him, he would have been tried by court-martial for the useless, senseless, needless slaughter that he caused.” Source: Ridgway, M. “Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway”, 1956, p. 90
October 10 must have been a day of mixed feelings for Jim Gavin as it was also the date on which Colonel Gavin officially became Brigadier General Gavin in a formal ceremony held in the morning. Gavin was now formally the Assistant Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.
He later remarked:
“I hated to leave the 505th, since I had been through so much combat with it, but it would still be in the division with me.” Source: Gavin, J. “On to Berlin: Battles of an Airborne Commander 1943 - 1946” 1978 p. 73
This wasn’t be the last time the now General Gavin would express strong feelings for his 505 men, especially the veterans who had been with him from the first combat jump into Sicily.
Posted by Jeff Clark at 1:40 PM 1 comment: Links to this post
82nd Airborne Moves to Northern Ireland, Dec - Feb...
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IPhone 7 will have a battery with 14 percent more capacity than the iPhone 6s
The iPhone 7 is not yet ready to be released. In fact, most likely it is present from September. However, at this point already it have been leaked many rumors betting on some major changes in the field of design, but also functional.
Now we have known that (according to these speculations) the new iPhone 7 could be equipped with a powerful battery than the existing iPhone 6s. Quite reliable sources claim that the iPhone 7 will feature a battery of 1,960 mAh, which will undoubtedly prove to be great news for all those who are concerned about the performance of iPhone. The battery, in fact, is one of the biggest headaches of smartphone owners, no matter what brand they are. Enlargement is significant because its predecessor, the iPhone 6s, currently has a lithium-ion battery of 1,715 mAh.
As you can see, the new iPhone 7 battery have 14% more capacity than the iPhone 6s, which certainly will be felt in the autonomy. It is necessary to bear in mind, nevertheless, that we are before a rumor that is not provided with the Apple support and that therefore, it might stay in pure speculation.
Increased battery capacity of smartphone would not be a trivial matter. Apple has never paid much attention to the field of autonomy. In this way, would not more than that of Cupertino is overcome in this regard, although an increase of 14% capacity will not necessarily mean 14% more autonomy.
But this would not be the only novelty that would accompany the launch of the iPhone 7. Everything indicates that we will have the opportunity to enjoy a fairly new design (with much less thickness) and a screen with identical dimensions, but in this case could be made of sapphire crystal on which so much has been spoken.
At this point it should be clarified that there are many rumors that point to a later release, so that famous Sapphire screen would not come until 2018 with the iPhone 8 (in 2017 it would touch the shift to iPhone 7s). Also it has opted for the disappearance of the entry of 3.5 millimeter for headphones, which would be replaced by Lightning connector. Inside the device we could find a more powerful processor (A9 to A10) and 2 to 4 GB RAM. In addition, it would be presented in three different capacities: 32GB, 128GB and 256GB, so the more basic version of 16 GB would be a better life.
The presentation of the new iPhone 7 will not take place until late September, when Apple usually publicize each new generation of its flagship device. All these rumors cannot be confirmed or disproved until then.
New details on the iPhone 7 camera
The most important developments of the iPhone 7 Plus
LG V20, all leaked features
Tags: iPhone 7 batterylaunch of the iPhone 7new iPhone 7presentation of the new iPhone 7
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Eberwhite
Eberwhite Neighborhood
Eberwhite is perhaps the most cohesive elementary school area in the city. Located on the former property of Eber White, an early settler who helped fugitive slaves escape to Canada, this neighborhood has a mix of homes of different eras, all within a few blocks of Eberwhite Woods, one of the city’s most beautiful, secluded natural areas.
The school and its grounds were carved out of the southeast corner of the oak-hickory woods in 1950, adjoining a neighborhood of broad, hilly, tree-lined streets and predominantly two-story homes built between the two world wars.
In the 1960s subdivisions wrapped around the south and west edges, but the woods have remained safe from development, nurtured by a school-based stewardship group. They have walking trails, a profusion of spring wildflowers, and three ponds, one of which lies in a natural amphitheater and is the site of cacophonous early-spring concerts by frenzied spring peepers.
North of Liberty, the Virginia Park area has many two-family duplexes and Cape Cods. Behind the strip of fast-food joints along Stadium is a mixed neighborhood of small homes and apartments. South of Pauline, 1950s- and 1960s-era neighborhoods stretch toward Stadium, where apartment and condominium complexes rise along the neighborhood’s southern boundary.
Eberwhite graduates all go to Slauson Middle School and to Pioneer High, both within walking distance.
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What you need to know, where to find it, and how to do it.
Answers From Men
Entertainment/Popular
Monthly Mailbag
Petulant White Athletes
by Rodimus Dunn
Where have you gone John?!
A new epidemic is sweeping across America. The petulant white athlete. This disease has reached full endemic status with all of the great Brett Favre’s recent sexting shenanigans. We’ve long tolerated/ignored/overblown the peevish, self-serving attitude and behavior of countless black athletes (see Terrell Owens, Chad Ochocinco, Floyd Mayweather, Rasheed Wallace, Barry Bonds, Randy Moss, Allen Iverson, etc) as just part of their behavior. White athletes are supposed to be coaches on the field, heady, selfless, team first, and an extension of the coach. All of that has now changed with this new generation me-first white athletes. For every John Stockton, we now have a Jay Cutler. The 70’s and early 90’s produced the first generation of this group:
John McEnroe- His behavior needs no explanation.
John Elway- The professional career of John Elway started with him telling the Baltimore Colts, who had the first pick in the 1983 draft, that he wouldn’t play for them. His reason was he thought the team wouldn’t allow him to be successful. Elway was a freakish athlete, and threatened that if the Colts drafted him he would go play baseball. He was quickly traded to the Denver Broncos, and the rest is history.
Eric Lindros- He did basically the same thing John Elway did, but with the Quebec Nordiques for the 1991 NHL draft. Lindros didn’t want to go to Quebec because he believed it was far away, they probably couldn’t market him well, and because he’d have to speak French. He was eventually traded away to the Philadelphia Flyers, and Quebec got so many assets in the trade they became a league powerhouse for over a decade.
Now on to our current petulant roster:
Jay Cutler- He’s basically the second coming of Jeff George…but worse. He’s got the cannon arm, horrible attitude, bad leadership skills, self-satisfying smirk, and terrible career win/loss record. Cutler’s got the body language of an adolescent who discovers that their dog has run away. He throws interceptions and he puts his head down. His receiver drops a pass and he puts his head down. The team scores a touchdown and he puts his head down. Not only does he look like he’s at a funeral, he says asinine stuff also. For example, Cutler had the nerve to say this about team legend Elway while he was playing for the Denver Broncos, “”I have a stronger arm than John Elway, hands down. I’ll bet on it against anybody’s in the league. Brett Favre‘s got a cannon. But on game days, there’s nobody in the league who’s going to throw it harder than I am at all.” Recently after throwing 4 interceptions to the same player (DeAngelo Hall), Cutler had this to say, “There’s no reason to shy away from him. I mean, that’s hard for me to say, throwing four picks at a guy, but I’d still, if we had to play them tomorrow, I’d go at him every time, if we could.” People used to blame it on his diabetes…trust me, it’s not the diabetes. He’s the unquestionable captain of the petulant white athlete team.
Brett Lorenzo Favre- Everyone knows his story, but to summarize: he’s a drama queen and an attention whore. He wants people to think he’s just a down home country boy, but he’s actually a calculated, self-absorbed, egomaniac. He has no idea how to say I’m sorry, even though he’s been the culprit behind many people’s wounds. I won’t elaborate on his past prescription drug abuse because we all have our weaknesses, but the sexting is ridiculous. Favre, Tiger Woods, and every famous person need to learn how to cheat properly. Don’t call or text from your own cell phone, use a prepaid phone, leave the phone in your car or at the office, don’t leave messages on voicemails, and don’t sleep with someone who has more to lose than you do.
Seems just like yesterday, huh?
Philip Rivers- Amazingly, Jay Cutler and Rivers are enemies. Big shocker. Rivers likes to yell at opponents, referees, and worst of all his own receivers and offensive lineman. If you ever watch a San Diego game, you’ll see Rivers yelling at a receiver for running a route wrong or dropping a pass. You won’t see him yelling at himself for throwing behind someone, or getting them killed by a closing safety. His defenders say he’s just a fiery guy who really want to win. I never recall Joe Montana or Tom Brady yelling at any of their teammates, and they have a few more rings than Rivers’ zero. One day his line is going to part like the Red Sea and let him get creamed like Willie Beamen from Any Given Sunday.
probably yelling at one of his offensive lineman
Eli Manning- If there were no Peyton Manning people probably wouldn’t give Eli a pass for being overrated, petulant, and always looking disinterested or bewildered. He did exactly the same thing John Elway did, and forced San Diego to trade him to New York on draft day. Furthermore, he openly sulks after every incomplete pass, and he makes the “Manning face after every interception. Only Jay Cutler has worse body language.
Matt Leinart- He was handed the keys to the Ferrari, but decided to insist on a bus token. Leinart screwed the pooch in the preseason, lost his starting job, then decided to take his ball and go home. He had this weird sense of entitlement just because he was a star in college. Leinart assumed that after Kurt Warner retired, he would get the starting job…he forgot that jobs have to be earned. After showing terrible body language during a preseason game, not agreeing to be a backup, and essentially calling out his coach, the former Trojan was released. I’d be remiss if I didn’t include this quote to exemplify his petulance: “I feel like I’ve outplayed the competition, training camp, preseason,” Leinart said. “I think my play speaks about that. For me, this goes beyond the football field. “The philosophy is you want the best 11 guys to play. I feel like I’ve proved that with my performance. I don’t really know what else I could possibly do, so it probably goes beyond football. For me, I just really want an explanation and I haven’t been given one.”
Ben Roethlisberger- He rounds out the petulant white quarterback clique. It’s well documented that Roethlisberger’s ego had become larger in life to match his fame. He was warned by former coach Bill Cower about the dangers of riding motorcycles, and sure enough, in 2006 he was riding without a helmet (and a valid motorcycle license) and was involved in a violent crash. Of course he later lied about the frequency of his motorcycle riding and about having an invalid license. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the two sexual assault allegations levied against him. Of course no one knows what really happened in those situations, but the 2nd situation seemed extra creepy. When did white athletes ever get accused of this kind of stuff?
I smoke, I drink, I’m supposed to stop but I can’t
Brian Urlacher- In 2004 the Bears start linebacker reportedly got two different women pregnant. Not abnormal for the average black athlete, but not usual for the white ones. Moreover, in 2006 he had two children within seven weeks of each other (one with the woman he was dating, and one with a woman he was cheating with). The out of wedlock child was a boy that Urlacher was allegedly dressing in pink girls diapers and painting his toenails to confuse the kid’s identity. He declared paternity, and got his child support to be only $2000 per month. Many were disenchanted about that amount because in Illinois the usual value is roughly 20% of the father’s salary. At the time Urlacher was in the middle of a nine year $56.7 million contract.
Bret Myers- No one likes guys who beat up women. In 2006 Myers was seen by several witnesses punching his wife in the face and dragging her by the hair while walking down the street in Boston. The police report lists Myers as 6’4” and his wife at 5’4” and 120 pounds. Prosecutors really wanted go forward with the trial, but Myers’ wife didn’t want to prosecute, so the case was dropped. 2007 also wasn’t a very good year for Myers as he got into an embarrassing verbal altercation with a reporter. He called the reporter “retarded,” cursed at him for asking legitimate questions, and had to be physically restrained.
Tim Tebow- Just kidding
Categories Sports
Author AFM
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The Definition of Explosive
Any substance (TNT, etc.) that, through chemical reaction, detonates or violently changes to gas with accompanying heat and pressure.
Patch Box
Covered compartment in the buttstock of a rifle used to carry patches or other small items.
Adjustable Stock
The stock is the wooden, polymer, or metal handle of a long gun that extends from the trigger back to where the gun is braced against the shoulder. An adjustable stock is one that can be easily lengthened or shortened to fit shooters of different sizes.
Fixed Ammunition
A complete cartridge of several obsolete types and of today's rimfire and center-fire versions
A firearm designed to fire a single cartridge, eject the empty case and reload the chamber each time the trigger is pulled. It uses the energy from the fired shot to eject the empty case and feed the next round into the chamber.
Federal Firearms License
A Federal Firearms License (FFL) is a license in the United States that enables an individual or a company to engage in a business pertaining to the manufacture of firearms and ammunition or the interstate and intrastate sale of firearms. Holding an FFL to engage in certain such activities has been a legal requirement within the United States since the enactment of the Gun Control Act of 1968.
The frequency at which a firearm can fire its projectiles.
The science of cartridge discharge and the bullet's flight. Internal ballistics deals with what happens inside of a firearm upon discharge. External ballistics is the study of a projectile's flight, and terminal ballistics is the study of the impact of a projectile.
Italian for "short." Seen as part of a cartridge designation. On some Italian manufactured guns that use .380 ACP, the designated caliber is 9mm Corto (9mm Short), which is also the same as the German 9mm Kurtz
The setting on the sights of a firearm that controls the vertical placement and the altitude above mean sea level. This is important for long range precision shooting because the air density changes with elevation and affects the path of the bullet.
Flat Nose
A bullet shape with a flat nose rather than a rounded one.
A quick shot taken without deliberate aim.
Riding the Slide
Racking the slide incorrectly by allowing your hand to rest upon the slide as it moves forward during the loading procedure. Riding the slide is a common cause of misfeeds and other malfunctions.
Gas Check
A metal cup placed on the end of a lead bullet to protect the lead against the hot gases of the burning powder charge. Used in some types of firearms ammunition when non-jacketed bullets are used in high pressure cartridges, to prevent the buildup of lead in the barrel and aid in accuracy.
A bullet designed with a full diameter flat point. It is primarily used in target competition because it cuts a clean round hole in paper targets that aids in scoring the target.
A laser sight is an alternative sighting device which enables the shooter to quickly and accurately see where the firearm is aimed even when lighting or other conditions prevent using the gun's normal sights. Lasers may be located within the grips, hung from accessory rails at the front end of the gun, or placed within the firearm.
Curio and Relic
Firearms which are of special interest to collectors by reason of some quality other than is associated with firearms intended for sporting use or as offensive or defensive weapons. To be recognized as curios or relics, firearms must fall within one of the following categories:
Firearms which were manufactured at least 50 years prior to the current date, but not including replicas thereof;
Firearms which are certified by the curator of a municipal, State, or Federal museum which exhibits firearms to be curios or relics of museum interest; and
Any other firearms which derive a substantial part of their monetary value from the fact that they are novel, rare, bizarre, or because of their association with some historical figure, period, or event. Proof of qualification of a particular firearm under this category may be established by evidence of present value and evidence that like firearms are not available except as collector's items, or that the value of like firearms available in ordinary channels is substantially less.
A special Curios or Relics license is available from the BATF, which allows collectors to buy eligible firearms in interstate commerce.
Zeroing
The act of setting up a telescopic or other sighting system so that the point of impact of a bullet matches the sights at a specified distance.
Fore-End
Also spelled Forend. That part of the stock forward of the action and located below the barrel or barrels. It is designed to give the shooter a place to hold the front end of the gun and protects the shooter's hand from getting burned on the hot barrel.
Trap Gun
A shotgun, often with only a single relatively-long barrel, with relatively tight choke boring and a relatively high-combed stock used for shooting clay pigeons in the game of Trap, where the birds are launched at least 16 yards ahead, usually rising and going away from the shooter at relatively low angular velocity. To better absorb recoil, a trap gun is normally heavier than a field gun because one shoots a lot but walks only a little.
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An increasing number of studies and reports from different organizations and contexts examine the linkages between health and different factors, including lifestyles, environments, health care organization and health policy, one specific health policy brought into many countries in recent years was the introduction of the sugar tax. Beverage taxes came into light with increasing concerns about obesity, particularly among youth. Sugar-sweetened beverages have become a target of anti-obesity initiatives with increasing evidence of their link to obesity.[21]– such as the 1974 Lalonde report from Canada;[20] the Alameda County Study in California;[22] and the series of World Health Reports of the World Health Organization, which focuses on global health issues including access to health care and improving public health outcomes, especially in developing countries.[23]
According to Tattvarthasutra, 2nd century CE Jain text, yoga is the sum of all the activities of mind, speech and body.[6] Umasvati calls yoga the cause of "asrava" or karmic influx[171] as well as one of the essentials—samyak caritra—in the path to liberation.[171] In his Niyamasara, Acarya Kundakunda, describes yoga bhakti—devotion to the path to liberation—as the highest form of devotion.[172] Acarya Haribhadra and Acarya Hemacandra mention the five major vows of ascetics and 12 minor vows of laity under yoga. This has led certain Indologists like Prof. Robert J. Zydenbos to call Jainism, essentially, a system of yogic thinking that grew into a full-fledged religion.[173] The five yamas or the constraints of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali bear a resemblance to the five major vows of Jainism, indicating a history of strong cross-fertilization between these traditions.[173][note 16] https://www.facebook.com/Buzzing-Offer-BusinessInvesting-650621182046830/
Pre-philosophical speculations of yoga begin to emerge in the texts of c. 500 – c. 200 BCE. Between 200 BCE and 500 CE, philosophical schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism were taking form and a coherent philosophical system of yoga began to emerge.[50] The Middle Ages saw the development of many satellite traditions of yoga. Yoga came to the attention of an educated western public in the mid 19th century along with other topics of Indian philosophy.
The number of asanas used in modern yoga has increased rapidly from a nominal 84 in 1830, as illustrated in Joga Pradipika, to some 200 in Light on Yoga and over 900 performed by Dharma Mittra by 1984. At the same time, the goals of Haṭha yoga, namely spiritual liberation (moksha) through the raising of kundalini energy, were largely replaced by the goals of fitness and relaxation, while many of Haṭha yoga's components like the shatkarmas (purifications), mudras (seals or gestures including the bandhas, locks to restrain the prana or vital principle), and pranayama were much reduced or removed entirely.[225] The term "hatha yoga" is also in use with a different meaning, a gentle unbranded yoga practice, independent of the major schools, sometimes mainly for women.[226]
Malaysia's top Islamic body in 2008 passed a fatwa, prohibiting Muslims from practicing yoga, saying it had elements of Hinduism and that its practice was blasphemy, therefore haraam.[297] Some Muslims in Malaysia who had been practicing yoga for years, criticized the decision as "insulting."[298] Sisters in Islam, a women's rights group in Malaysia, also expressed disappointment and said yoga was just a form of exercise.[299] This fatwa is legally enforceable.[300] However, Malaysia's prime minister clarified that yoga as physical exercise is permissible, but the chanting of religious mantras is prohibited.[301]
The Rigveda, however, does not describe yoga, and there is little evidence as to what the practices were.[7] Early references to practices that later became part of yoga, are made in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the earliest Hindu Upanishad.[67] For example, the practice of pranayama (consciously regulating breath) is mentioned in hymn 1.5.23 of Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (c. 900 BCE), and the practice of pratyahara (concentrating all of one's senses on self) is mentioned in hymn 8.15 of Chandogya Upanishad (c. 800–700 BCE).[68][note 8] The Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana teaches mantra repetition and control of the breath.[71]
"...[T]here is the cultivation of meditative and contemplative techniques aimed at producing what might, for the lack of a suitable technical term in English, be referred to as 'altered states of consciousness'. In the technical vocabulary of Indian religious texts such states come to be termed 'meditations' ([Skt.:] dhyāna / [Pali:] jhāna) or 'concentrations' (samādhi); the attainment of such states of consciousness was generally regarded as bringing the practitioner to deeper knowledge and experience of the nature of the world." (Gethin, 1998, p. 10.)
a technique for entering into other bodies, generating multiple bodies, and the attainment of other supernatural accomplishments; these are, states White, described in Tantric literature of Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as the Buddhist Sāmaññaphalasutta;[41] James Mallinson, however, disagrees and suggests that such fringe practices are far removed from the mainstream Yoga's goal as meditation-driven means to liberation in Indian religions.[42]
Jain yoga has been a central practice in Jainism. Jain spirituality is based on a strict code of nonviolence or ahimsa (which includes vegetarianism), almsgiving (dana), right faith in the three jewels, the practice of austerities (tapas) such as fasting, and yogic practices.[249][250] Jain yoga aims at the liberation and purification of the self (atma) or soul (jiva) from the forces of karma, which keep all souls bound to the cycle of transmigration. Like Yoga and Sankhya, Jainism believes in a multiplicity of individual souls which bound by their individual karma.[251] Only through the reduction of karmic influxes and the exhaustion of one's collected karma can a soul become purified and released, at which point one becomes an omniscient being who has reaches "absolute knowledge" (kevala jnana).[252]
^ James Mallinson, "Sāktism and Hathayoga," 28 June 2012. Archived 16 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine [accessed 19 September 2013] pgs. 2 "In its earliest definition, in Pundarīka's eleventh-century Vimalaprabhā commentary on the Kālacakratantra, hathayoga is said to bring about the "unchanging moment" (aksaraksana) "through the practice of nāda by forcefully making the breath enter the central channel and through restraining the bindu of the bodhicitta in the vajra of the lotus of wisdom". While the means employed are not specified, the ends, in particular restraining bindu, semen, and making the breath enter the central channel, are similar to those mentioned in the earliest descriptions of the practices of hathayoga, to which I now turn."
Śaradatilaka of Lakshmanadesikendra, a Shakta Tantra work 11th century CE "Yogic experts state that yoga is the oneness of the individual soul (jiva) with the atman. Others understand it to be the ascertainment of Siva and the soul as non-different. The scholars of the Agamas say that it is a Knowledge which is of the nature of Siva’s Power. Other scholars say it is the knowledge of the primordial soul." (SaTil 25.1–3b)[35]
Theosophists including Madame Blavatsky also had a large influence on the Western public's view of Yoga.[207] Esoteric views current at the end of the 19th century provided a further basis for the reception of Vedanta and of Yoga with its theory and practice of correspondence between the spiritual and the physical.[208] The reception of Yoga and of Vedanta thus entwined with each other and with the (mostly Neoplatonism-based) currents of religious and philosophical reform and transformation throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Mircea Eliade brought a new element into the reception of Yoga with the strong emphasis on Tantric Yoga in his seminal book: Yoga: Immortality and Freedom.[209] With the introduction of the Tantra traditions and philosophy of Yoga, the conception of the "transcendent" to be attained by Yogic practice shifted from experiencing the "transcendent" ("Atman-Brahman" in Advaitic theory) in the mind to the body itself.[210]
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Hugh of St. Victor on the Perfection of Human Nature
Not too long ago I had occasion to study a remarkable work about education, the Didascalicon by Hugh of St. Victor, a 12th-century theologian and scholar. Education back then meant a whole lot more than standardized tests; the educated man was the wise man, and Wisdom meant seeing everything in its rightful place and in relation to God. Hugh’s vision of things, I believe, can help us think about our own priorities both as individuals and as a nation.
“Of all things to be sought, the first is that Wisdom in which the Form of the Perfect Good stands fixed,” writes the French theologian and scholar.[1] For the Platonic tradition in which Hugh stood, the Perfect Good is that which, once attained, leaves nothing else to be desired, and in relation to which everything we do bears the relationship of means to an end. Plato had seen that the ultimate good we are all seeking is Happiness, which among all other human goods is the only one of which it makes no sense to ask, “And why would you want that?” Human happiness itself is the eternal possession of the transcendent Goodness and Beauty, or a kind of eternity of action in these spiritual states.[2]
Aristotle, whose thought Hugh was attempting to synthesize with Christianity, agreed with Plato’s basic analysis of the Ultimate Good, but took a less radically anti-materialist view of it.[3] All actions, events, and states of being in the world are ordered to one another as means to ends, but what makes human life and activity unique is that it is self-consciously and freely ordered in such a way: we can not only choose among ends but also among means to those ends. All human actions are naturally oriented toward the final end of happiness, and we attain happiness through enlightenment and moral action—what Aristotle called “rational activity in accordance with virtue”; so far, Aristotle agrees with Plato. But Aristotle thought that virtuous action was impossible or at least seriously hampered without certain external goods. A child who receives no education or a poor education will never come to discern either the ultimate good or the means to achieve it; the mind of the poverty-stricken man is not focused on virtue and enlightenment but on where his next meal will come from and on whether he will be thrust out into the cold; the sick man finds it extremely difficult to focus on anything other than his symptoms. Community is necessary as well, for only in cooperating with others can we attain these and many other external things we need to live the authentically good life (a solitary man, says Aristotle, is “either a beast or a god”). Thus, for Aristotle, the human good is integral: it means the perfection of human nature through the possession of the intellectual and moral virtues as well as external goods—mind, heart, and body.
Deeply influenced as well by St. Augustine’s view of the liberal arts, Hugh of St. Victor created a compelling Christian synthesis of these ideas from which we can still learn much today. Wisdom for Hugh is Christ Himself, the divine exemplar “through whom all things were made” (Nicene Creed), the “light that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9, Douay-Rheims), and He in whose image we were made. When man fell from grace in Eden, he became corrupted in his very nature: his intellect was afflicted with ignorance, his will beset by concupiscence (disordered desire), and his body by privation, illness, and mortality. Man was originally made perfect according the divine model of Christ, and Christ himself came to restore to us what was lost through sin. Through the discernment of the Good, He calls us back to Himself and to restoration of human nature within us. The science that seeks out the Good in all things is Philosophy, literally the “love of Wisdom.” The goods at which the fundamental spheres of human activity aim are themselves images or reflections of the Good, as exemplum to exemplar, and the means by which human nature returns to perfection. Philosophy is divided into four arts. The mechanical arts and sciences, such as agriculture, architecture, and medicine, serve to relieve the needs of physical existence and make possible a life of virtue in Aristotle’s sense. The practical part of philosophy leads to the possession of moral goodness, the virtues of the heart, while theoretical philosophy aims at knowledge through possession of the intellectual virtues. The final component of philosophy is logic, by which the mind is led to find truth in the other three. In this way, all human activity can be seen to be rightly ordered toward Happiness, which means the perfection of human nature in mind, heart, and body, and finally in salvation through eternal union with God.
This view of things gives us a way, I believe, to not only understand the many mundane and seemingly unspiritual tasks at which we are compelled to spend most of our time—they are part of and images of Christ’s work of restoration—but also as a standard by which to critically examine the way our society spends its time and resources. Economic activity, for example, ought to be for the meeting of human needs, not for luxury or other forms of gratuitous self-indulgence. Nor should it result in destruction of the environment. Moreover, personal wealth should not exceed a level sufficient for meeting those needs while also allowing for leisure, education, and in general the development of one’s faculties and potentials. Law, also, as an important shaper of character, ought to be radically rethought in that light. And since every human being enjoys the inherent dignity of being made in the image of God, healthcare, employment, leisure, housing, nutrition, access to culture, a healthy environment, and education should all be guaranteed. And it should become once again a belief deeply held by our culture that temporal existence is not an end in itself but only an image of the eternal Good, the end of all striving and the meaning of human life.
—Doran Hunter
[1] The following summary is from Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon, New York, Columbia University Press, 1961, Book I.
[2] Plato, Symposium, London: Penguin Books, 1951, 84–6
[3] Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon, New York: Random House, 1941.
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Feminism and the Art of Banality: Sofia Coppola's Somewhere
by Scott Oris
In her film, Somewhere (2010), Sofia Copola has created a critical meditation on the “male gaze” (a term created by feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey), which establishes her as one of the most important, active female directors. Somewhere focuses on male gaze from the perspective of a movie star named Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff). At the offset Johnny has everything, fame, a fast car and the pick of any woman he desires. However, his relationship with his daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning), an eleven years old that needs her father, forces Johnny to change his “gaze” from that of objectifying women to seeing them as real people.
Johnny is shown multiple times throughout the movie watching strippers in his bedroom. The first time he falls asleep, and the second time he actually enthusiastically grabs one, as if he has to obtain her as a possession. The luxury to be able to fall asleep during their performance, and then the other time to be able to grab one of them after watching, demonstrates the power of the male gaze to determine female worth on the screen. Laura Mulvey, in her article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” defined this as the traditional exhibitionist role of women, who are judged by their “to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey 715). This is how Johnny’s perspective of women in the first part of the film is defined.
Another example of this comes when Johnny is driving and makes eye contact with a woman he has never met. He then follows her all the way to the closing of her gate. Mulvey believed the cinema created a pleasure world of looking at women in a narcissistic way. She stated,
As the spectator identifies with the main male protagonist, he projects his look on to that of his like, his screen surrogate, so that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the power of the active power erotic look, both give a satisfying sense of omnipotence (Mulvey716).
In the first part of Somewhere, this was further exemplified by the use of long takes leaving the audience to hold the gaze longer then has previously been possible. The film forces the viewer to become a voyeur and creates a mood of stillness. In viewing one of his conquests, the audience is able to see Johnny walk up to the girl’s apartment, watch her answer the door and then show their sexual embrace. During this entire shot, the camera remains fixed from the street, as the audience watches through her window.
This kind of voyeurism has been made famous by director Alfred Hitchcock, especially in his film, Rear Window (1954). The film mirrors what Tania Modeleski in “From The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory” describes as Jimmy Stewart’s character L.B. Jefferies' evolution of how he views women. Initially, Jefferies is almost infantile in his viewpoint of women. In being unable to walk with a broken leg, Jefferies becomes more fixated on watching all his neighbors then he is the beautiful and nurturing Lisa, played by Grace Kelly, who is actually present in his apartment (Modeleski, 725). Similarly in Somewhere, Johnny is fixated on every girl he sees, who he finds attractive in that exact moment. His gaze is based on the surface, without understanding the long term effects it has had on his life.
Modelski also discusses how the first image of Jeffries, while he sleeps, shows his hand on his thigh, which she believes is subtly masturbatory, stating it was “as if he were an invalid who abused himself in the dark” (Modeleski, 725). In Somewhere, Johnny’s arm is broken with a cast, which is present as he watches strippers in his bedroom. When portrayed this way the broken arm is almost seen as masturbatory in that it shows the meaninglessness of his narcissistic pleasure of objectifying women. According to LoBrutto and Morrison when he removes his arm cast, he is “symbolically casting off what is broken about him” (130). As Jefferies maturity was complete when he realized he desires to marry Lisa, Johnny’s is likewise complete when he realizes how his objectification of women has kept him from living a meaningful life with his ex-wife and daughter (Modeleski, 725).
Coppola uses long takes, with ambient silence, which creates a very realistic and empty portrayal of Johnny’s life. Stylistically, the film has similarities to Linklater’s Before Trilogy (1995, 2004, 2013), which creates a sense of reality using very long takes that unfold in real time. These films focus on the self-awareness of the relationships between men and women. This is similar to how meditative Somewhere is on Johnny having his realization about what is important in his life.
The film also demonstrates influences from the French New Wave such as Agnes Varda’s Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962) where events also unfold in real time (Tyree 14). Another film from the French New Wave, which Somewhere references is Eric Rohmer’s, My Night At Maud’s (1968), where there is minimal camera work with very long takes, which informs the scope of time in the narrative. In choosing to film, Somewhere in this more minimalistic style, Sofia Coppola is able to convey a more meditative kind of voyeurism, which conveys the banalities of the male gaze. When the film opens, it is dark with only the sound of a car moving. When the car is finally shown, it goes by only to disappear again. The audience is made to wait for the car’s appearance again. This goes on for over two minutes, with one static camera shot. By doing this, the audience’s mind is put into a more meditative state, leaving their thoughts to wander a bit before the car finally stops, and Johnny Marco steps out of the Ferrari. This also influences the perception of the audience, forcing them to a linger on viewing something they would not usually stare at when watching a movie.
The following scene shows Johnny falling off the stairs in a drunken party, where he breaks his arm. According to Vincent LoBrutto and Harriet R. Morrison, in their book, The Coppolas: A Family Business they describe the party in Somewhere as allowing “[Johnny's] environment wash over him” (LoBrutto, Morrison 129). He is aimlessly in this in-between stage of his life, vulnerable and without direction. The film’s sparse dialog and long takes of Johnny Marco sitting in silence by himself, bring attention to the emptiness of his life. His own pleasure seeking starts to become more of a routine and less of the active and exciting lifestyle for which he is thought to have. In fact he falls asleep during a striptease and later falls asleep during sex with a woman he just met.
The camera provides a more detached feeling during his numerous liaisons with women. This is similar to the Marilyn Monroe silk-screens of Andy Warhol, which were taking a sexual pop icon and showing how, when viewed over and over, the image becomes empty; thus her face blurs. The one shot is a long shot from the street, another is too dark to see anything, and for one only the noise of the actual sex is heard through the movement of the bed. All of these cinematic choices by Coppola create a very detached and impersonal feel to Johnny’s numerous conquests.
Cleo, Johnny’s eleven year old daughter, is the changing force which causes his viewpoint of women to change. After hosting another night of strippers in his bedroom, he wakes up with Cleo signing his cast. The first shot of Cleo is a close-up on her face, which directly contrasts the other shots of Johnny's interactions with women, all of which are much more distant. His interactions with her are more meaningful and close. Due to her mother not being able to have her for a certain amount of time, Johnny now has to become her sole caregiver, which forces him to reevaluate the meaning of his life and his treatment of women.
The theme of water is connected with Cleo and very prevalent in the film. Cleo ice skates and swims, and she is often wearing a dress which incorporates blue. When Johnny first wakes up to her signing his cast, his sheets are white, and Cleo is wearing blue. The water/blue represents her purity in the movie. When they are at the ice skating rink, Cleo starts ice skating, while Johnny barely pays attention to her instead looking at his phone. Then he starts watching her and begins to change. The water being frozen represents his relationship with her and how it eventually thaws. Later they are in the water together, which demonstrates the closer their bond has become. This is part of his slow realization that how he thinks of women should change - his recognition of the importance of his daughter in his life. They bond throughout the film, doing many activities such as ping pong and swimming (which again reflects the water motif) and prompting Johnny to understand his importance in life and the responsibility he has for his daughter.
The name Cleo is most likely a reference to Agnes Varda’s Cleo From 5 to 7, in which a famous singer named Cleo is chronicled. The film unfolds as if it happened in real time and demonstrates a transformation from an object of the male gaze to actually returning the gaze on men. Molly Haskell, in reference to Cleo From 5 to 7, terms this as “coming to consciousness” which she describes as, “a woman’s sense of herself as a figment of men’s fantasies." In Cleo From 5 to 7, our protagonist realizes, while she is waiting for the results a biopsy, that if she really were sick the men in her life would not pursue her anymore; thus realizing the person she created was solely for their satisfaction (Haskell 296). In Somewhere, our protagonist has a realization of how he views women in his life. His relationship with his Cleo, who is very intelligent and self-reliant, demonstrates his respect for women. He is now able to see women as not being objects.
Another film from the French New Wave that deals with transformation and the male gaze is Eric Rohmer’s My Night At Maud’s, which unfolds in the scope of a night with a passive and repressed man spending time with a woman who is divorced and sexually powerful. There is almost no music, and the film predominantly focuses on long takes of dialogue exchanges between the characters. These kind of scenes focus on the details of the banalities of everyday life and how they formulate into deep philosophical ideas. This is very similar to how Sofia Coppola utilizes long takes and stillness, which add more meaning to subtle gestures of the dialogue of the characters.
In making Somewhere, Sofia Coppola has created a unique film, which demonstrates a strong French New Wave influence. By making the bold choices of using long takes and forgoing a central story, Somewhere resembles its title, in that it creates the atmosphere of emptiness in Johnny Marco’s life. Coppola demonstrates this by showing the banalities and the routine nature of his many conquests. By realizing his own love and appreciation for his daughter, his character is redeemed, and, as such, Johnny Marco demonstrates that a man can change his gaze of objectification of women in the movies. Coppola boldly states that men in the movies can view women as human beings after all.
Works Cited:
"Cleo from 5 to 7." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 10 May 2015.
Haskell, Molly. From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies.
2nd ed. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1987. Print.
LoBrutto, Vincent, and Harriet R. Morrison. The Coppolas: A Family Business.
Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012. Print.
Modleski, Tania. From The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock And Feminist Theory. 2009. Film Theory and Criticism; Introductory Readings.
By Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen. 7thed. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. 723-735. Print.
Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. 2009. Film Theory and Criticism; Introductory Readings.
By Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen. 7th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. 711-722. Print.
My Night At Maud’s. Dir. Eric Rohmer. Perf. Jean-Louis Trintignant, Francoise Fabian,
Marie-Christine Barrault, Antoine Vitez. LesFilms du Losange. 1968. DVD
Somewhere. Dir. Sofia Coppola. Perf. Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning. Alliance FIlms, 2010. DVD.
Tyree, J. M. "Searching For Somewhere." Film Quarterly
Summer 64.4 (2011): 12-16. JSTOR [JSTOR]. Web. May-June 2015.
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TLC BLOG TOUR: All Stories are Love Stories by Elizabeth Percer
Title: All Stories Are Love Stories
Author: Elizabeth Percer
Publisher: Harper
Release Date: March 22/2016
Acquired: Print copy sent by publisher
In this thoughtful, mesmerizing tale with echoes of Station Eleven, the author of An Uncommon Education follows a group of survivors thrown together in the aftermath of two major earthquakes that strike San Francisco within an hour of each other—an achingly beautiful and lyrical novel about the power of nature, the resilience of the human spirit, and the enduring strength of love.
On Valentine’s Day, two major earthquakes strike San Francisco within the same hour, devastating the city and its primary entry points, sparking fires throughout, and leaving its residents without power, gas, or water.
Among the disparate survivors whose fates will become intertwined are Max, a man who began the day with birthday celebrations tinged with regret; Vashti, a young woman who has already buried three of the people she loved most . . . but cannot forget Max, the one man who got away; and Gene, a Stanford geologist who knows far too much about the terrifying earthquakes that have damaged this beautiful city and irrevocably changed the course of their lives.
As day turns to night and fires burn across the city, Max and Vashti—trapped beneath the rubble of the collapsed Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium—must confront each other and face the truth about their past, while Gene embarks on a frantic search through the realization of his worst nightmares to find his way back to his ailing lover and their home.
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Typically, I'm a fan of all things multiple perspective, but All Stories are Love Stories was a perspective too many for me, so much so, that I was skipping past the lives of people I didn't really care for. With a character-driven story line propelling it forward, this was a novel of the lives affected by the catastrophes happening outside of crumbling walls. It was an overly, albeit poetically, descriptive narrative that took it's time getting to the action, because the action wasn't what really mattered.
We open with impending doom. A countdown to be exact. An EXACT countdown to paint an even clearer picture: "seven hours, fifty-two minutes, and thirteen seconds..." before an earthquake literally breaks the city of San Francisco. Initially told in the alternating perspectives of choir directer Max Fluerent, baker Vashti Shirah, and geologist Gene Strauss, we are given backstories, and present day play-by-play. When all hell breaks loose, these stories eventually merge into one perspective, as the characters meet, and link chains with more people in the city.
All Stories are Love Stories was, for me, exactly what it's title advertised. It was a mashup of stories that shared common ingredient. It was a showcase of the way the important things have a way of surfacing amid the scariest moments of our lives. Why is it so hard to act on our impulses when we're not in danger of NEVER being able to again? How deeply broken are the pieces of ourselves that we were convinced were on the mend? This novel took a look at the many ways those questions could be answered. But I wasn't all that interested in what everyone involved had to say. I'll admit that I was definitely more interested in Max and Vashti's exploration of their past, and the way they were handling this current crisis together. I skipped forward to their scenes, and devoured their emotional outpourings. I played the fly on that crumbling wall.
There were so many ways to fall in love with the idea of this book though, and probably so many more ways to actually love everything that was in it. I took what I needed to away from it, but I predict that there will be so much more that YOU get out of it.
Recommended for Fans of: Contemporary, crisis situations, The Last Policeman series by Ben H. Winters.
Challenges: Goodreads 50 Book Goal
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credit: elizabethpercer.com
Elizabeth Percer is a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and has twice been honored by the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation.
She received a BA in English from Wellesley and a PhD in arts education from Stanford University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship for the National Writing Project at UC Berkeley. She lives in California with her husband and three children. All Stories Are Love Stories is her second novel.
Thank-you to Trish at TLCBlogTours, and Harper for sending me a print copy to read, and review for this tour!
Labels: 2016, All Stories are Love Stories, Elizabeth Percer, Review, TLC Blog Tour
Thank you for sharing your thoughts as part of the tour.
Janet A April 25, 2016 at 11:28 AM
Why does it say "Find out more about Billie..." beside a picture of Elizabeth Percer?
Reeka April 28, 2016 at 4:24 PM
It has now been fixed. I really hope this is not the author, trolling.
TLC BLOG TOUR: All Stories are Love Stories by Eli...
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Tag Archives: Lancaster County SC
3 Shot After Argument At Waffle House Got Out Of Hand
LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — Deputies are looking for a man who shot three people after a fight at a restaurant. Investigators said someone drove up and started shooting into their car after the group left the Waffle House on the Highway …Read More
TAGS: crimestoppers, Highway 9, Lancaster County SC, Lancaster Police Department, man shot 3 people, Shooting, Waffle House
SC Police Looking For Man Accused Of Hitting Officers With Car
LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — Officers are searching for Tyzhe Lashown Hough following a Sunday afternoon incident that sent two Lancaster City police officers to the emergency room. On Sunday around 3:20 p.m., officers came upon a wreck at the intersection of …Read More
TAGS: Attempted Murder, Chesterfield Avenue, Lancaster County SC, Lancaster SC, PFC Erica Ealy, police officers hit by car, S. Market Street, Sgt. Brenner Hartley, Tyzhe Lashown Hough
Boy, 3 In Critical Condition After Getting Locked In Hot Car
LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — A 3-year-old boy was taken to a hospital after being found in a car, according to Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office. Officials said it appears the child left the home without the knowledge of his mother and was …Read More
TAGS: 3 year old alone in car, boy found in a car, criminal investigation, department of social services, heat stroke, Lancaster County SC, Walnut Road
300+ Pot Plants Found Growing In Woods Near Man’s Home; Arrest Made
LANCASTER COUNTY — Lancaster County Drug Task Force and South Carolina Law Enforcement Division agents accompanied by National Guard personnel located and destroyed more than 300 marijuana plants. They used a helicopter to find several plants in the backyard of a …Read More
TAGS: Heyward Tolbert, Lancaster County SC, marijuana plants, National Guard, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, trafficking marijuana, Watermark Road
Man Stabbed To Death During Domestic Disturbance
LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — A man died Sunday after being found stabbed in his home, according to the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies were called to the home on East Arrow Lake Court in Indian Land around 1:32 a.m. for a …Read More
TAGS: domestic disturbance, East Arrow Lake Court, Indian Land, Jimmie Adams, Lancaster County SC, man stabbed to death, Stabbing
Man Charged With Multiple Counts Of Molestation Denied Any Bond
LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — On Dec. 28, the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office received information alleging that Dennis Fred Rutledge, 62, of Lancaster, had been having inappropriate sexual contact with a female juvenile. Investigators began a detailed investigation and have charged Rutledge …Read More
TAGS: criminal sexual contact with a minor, Dennis Rutledge, exposure of private parts in a lewd and lascivious manner, Inappropriate Sexual Contact, Lancaster County SC
Deputies Searching For Inmate Who Walked Away From Work Area
LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — An inmate walked away from a work area Tuesday around 2 p.m., according to Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office. It happened in the area of Old Charles Street and Airport Road in Lancaster County. Deputies said Anthony Scott …Read More
TAGS: Anthony Scott Vincent, escaped inmate, inmate being sought, inmate walked away from work area, Lancaster County Detention Center, Lancaster County SC
Dispute Over Pack Of Cigarettes Leads To Assault, Shooting, 3 Arrests
LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. – One man was severely beaten and another shot multiple times in a dispute over a pack of cigarettes, authorities say. Saturday evening, the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to WoodCreek Apartments on West Meeting Street on …Read More
TAGS: argument over a pack of cigarettes, assault, Brandon Thompson, Kyndra Jones, Lancaster County SC, Ronnel Thompson, Shooting
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ANTHONY, STEVEN OBRIAN
Charged With FLEE/ELUDE ARREST W/MV (F).
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CLUB STATEMENT: Whaddon Road fixtures
Cheltenham Town Ladies FC confirms that it has reached an agreement in principle with the men’s club to play two FA Women’s Premier League games at Whaddon Road in the forthcoming 2017/18 season.
The availability of the ground is subject to further negotiation but it is hoped that one game will be played midweek and another on a Sunday afternoon. In particular, both parties are mindful of the preparations that are currently being undertaken with the pitch.
CTLFC Manager Graham Fletcher said: “I am delighted that, after a number of seasons when it has not been possible to play at Whaddon Road, the Cheltenham Town chairman Paul Baker has generously offered us the chance to play two FA WPL matches there. We have always enjoyed a good relationship with the men’s club and this move is a fine example of their desire to help promote women’s football in our region.”
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 23rd, 2017 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorised. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Senior forward leads Rutgers' second-half explosion at Princeton
09/08/14 2:16am Garrett Stepien
Photo by Dennis Zuraw |
Senior forward Stef Scholz scored two goals in the second half to ignite Rutgers’ offense in a 5-0 win.
At first, the two teams were evenly matched.
Going into the half, the Rutgers women’s soccer team was up just one goal. Despite being a heavy underdog, Princeton gave the Scarlet Knights a challenge.
With Princeton opening its season last Friday night at home against the Knights, head coach Mike O’Neill knew that the Tigers’ optimistic energy would be plentiful.
“One of the things we addressed before the game was that it’s Princeton’s opening game, so we knew that they would come out with a lot of energy,” O’Neill said.
Outside of the 1-0 deficit after an early goal by senior forward/midfielder Amy Pietrangelo in the seventh minute, the Tigers matched the Knights on the field with five shots on goal and a stout defense that did not allow as much as a sniff near the net in the final 18 minutes of the half.
Initially, Rutgers was given a challenge.
But that challenge soon vanished into the night.
Led by senior forward Stef Scholz, the Knights erupted for four goals in the second half and buried the Tigers by a final score of 5-0 at Mysik Field at Roberts Stadium.
Scholz got the offense’s wheels turning immediately coming out of the locker room, wasting no time with a goal in the 52nd minute.
After what initially seemed to look like a save by Princeton goalkeeper Darcy Hargadon on a corner kick, Hargadon bobbled the ball before letting it loose, where Scholz hopped on the opportunity and buried the ball in the back of the net to put Rutgers up, 2-0.
Scholz, who exploded for four goals last year against the Tigers, knew coming out of the locker room at halftime that the Knights needed to initiate some source of momentum.
“We talked during halftime that we needed to extend our lead a little bit, and we weren’t really playing our style that we normally do,” she said. “So, we came out really strong in the second half and started our attack really, really well and then kicked it in the back of the net to extend our lead.”
Nearing the midway point of the second half, lightning struck twice.
Scholz found the back of the net once again in the 68th minute, thanks to a great feed off of a header by junior backer Brianne Reed.
What came next demonstrated why the Knights were the better team.
On a free kick from 35 yards out, junior forward Rachel Cole booted a laser shot into the back of the net in the 76th minute to make it 4-0.
Then, right before the final horn sounded, freshman midfielder Tori Ahde used every bit of time the 90 minutes allowed. On a last-second shot from the left sideline of the 18-yard box, she scored her first career goal to put the finishing touches on the game and finalize the margin at 5-0.
The outing was similar to last year’s matchup with the Knights’ Garden State neighbors from the Ivy League, where they went on to win 5-1.
This time around, O’Neill thought that the team’s effort was even stronger.
“What we also talked about in the first half was the importance of being a 90-minute team,” O’Neill said. “The thing I enjoyed about the first half was we were put under pressure a bit — and every game you’re going to be put under pressure — but I liked the idea that we were put under pressure and not breaking.”
O’Neill said that the defense and its “bend-don’t-break” mentality set up for the fireworks that ensued in the second half.
He credited a formidable back four — the backbone of a defense that has pitched three shutouts in a row — for how functional the offense subsequently operates on the other side of the field.
It also makes life easier for freshman goalkeeper Casey Murphy, who improved to 4-0 in the net after recording three saves against Princeton.
As a part of that back four, Reed feels that the defense — and the entire team as a whole — has gotten the ball rolling.
“Our defense organizes our midfield really well and then, as a back line, we have chemistry,” Reed said. “We know how each other plays and we play off each other’s strengths, so I think we found a good connection and we just have to keep rolling with that right into our Big Ten play.”
For updates on the Rutgers women’s soccer team, follow @TargumSports on Twitter.
Garrett Stepien
Cap and Gown: Out of college, into real world
Catherine Nguyen
5/20/2019 11:55pm
Cap and Gown: Rutgers senior attributes success to father
Referendum Statement
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New SD card, the Ultra High Speed (UHS) Class 3 (U3) to support the latest 4K Ultra HD recording feature in latest smart phones announced
Acer has already launched, Samsung has announced the launch. I am talking about the latest feature of smart phones which 4K Ultra HD recording. Acer had launched the first 4K ultra HD recording phone in September 2013 called Liquid S2 while Samsung says it has smart phones supporting 4K Ultra HD recording in pipeline. Thats all very good but how do you save this resource hungry format on your SD card. The SD cards available now do not support this feature which means that the recordings are saved on your mobile phone's internal memory.
The SD Association has announced the creation of a new SD card called Ultra High Speed (UHS) Class 3 (U3). This UHS SD card will support 4K Ultra HD video recording. The SD association has said that the release has been done to coincide with the release of large number of devices supporting the 4K Ultra recording.
Readers may recall that many of the new Televisions being launched are supporting the 4K Ultra HD standard including the Samsung's UHD TV. The good news is that all new devices that will support the new UHS Speed Class 3 will also be backwards compatible and will work with existing SD memory cards.
This is specially true because 4K Ultra HD recording is limited to a chosen few and pro photographers. The SD Association has not given a confirmed date for the release of the UHS SD card but indications are that it should be available by early next year.
Labels: Hardware, hot, New Product, Tech News
Manu Pillai 13 November 2013 at 17:24
This 4K HD seems to be the next thing ! in Video ! which would gain mass attention !
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Early voting for Aug. 24 primary under way
By Olga Peters/The Commons
—The primary ballots are in and registered voters wishing to vote early can pick up ballots for the Tuesday, Aug. 24 primary from their Town Clerk’s office.The deadline to request an early ballot is the end of the business day on Monday, Aug. 23. Closing times vary for each town clerk’s office.According to the Secretary of State’s website, for an early ballot to count, it needs to arrive at the town clerk’s office by the end of business day on the day before the election, or at the polling place before 7 p.m. on election day.Voters can cast their early ballots in person at their town clerk’s office. Voters can also request ballots be mailed to their home or delivered by two justices of the peace.The deadline for unregistered voters to register is Wednesday, Aug. 18, at 5 p.m.“If you’re registered to vote in the town you reside in, you do not need to register again,” Brattleboro Town Clerk Annette Cappy wrote in a recent e-mail.Major political parties use the primary election to nominate their candidates for the general election.Under Vermont statue, party registration is not required to vote in a primary. On primary day, voters take the ballots for all the major parties into the polling booth and privately choose which party to vote.Although gubernatorial candidates have received the most attention these past few months, in this primary, voters will also select candidates for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House, as well as for the statewide offices of lieutenant governor, state treasurer, secretary of state, auditor and attorney general.Several state Senate and House seats have primary contests.According to the Secretary of State’s website, Vermont has three major parties: Democratic, Progressive and Republican. To be considered a major party, a party’s candidate must have received 5 percent of the vote in a statewide race in the previous election and the party needs to organize in a minimum of 15 towns within the next year.More than half of Vermont’s voting-age population is registered to vote. As of May 18, 444,493 voters had registered. Voter turnout increased from 48 to 67 percent between 2002 and 2008, according to statistics from the Secretary of State’s office.On Aug 24, approximately 263 different polling places will open no later than 10 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. Voters should contact their town clerk for polling place locations or go to www.sec.state.vt.us for a complete list of polling locations.More voting information and a list of candidates can be found on the Secretary of State’s elections and campaign financing website at www.govotevermont.com.
Originally published in The Commons issue #60 (Wednesday, July 28, 2010).
More by Olga Peters
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Egizia: Shifting Sands Now on Kickstarter
Egizia: Shifting Sands, being published by Stronghold Games, is now live on Kickstarter. The game promises to give us not only a new, updated edition of the game, but also includes the classic game as one of its Kickstarter exclusives.
The classic Egizia was set in ancient Egypt, as is the new game. In both games, players are attempting to fulfill requests from the pharaoh in order to earn victory points. The new edition of the game, Egizia: Shifting Sands, introduces two new monuments to the game, the Colonnade and statues.
For more information on this classic game with new twists, check out the Kickstarter page here.
Eggertspiele Announces New Game for GenCon
Eggertspiele has announced a new title for their catalog – Coimbra. Coimbra is designed by Virginio Gigli and Flaminia Brasini and is illustrated by Chris Quilliams. Coimbra is a set in the Portuguese city with the same name during the Age of Discovery (15th – 16th century).
As one of Coimbra’s oldest houses, your role is to seek prestige with the monasteries, universities, and fund explorations. To do this, player’s will draft dice each round that can be used in multiple ways and taking dice can affect turn order, income, and the cost of bribery . Whoever can optimize the use of the dice and the constant change of synergy with the monasteries, universities, and expeditions will be the winner.
Coimbra is a designed for 2-4 players and takes approximately 60-90 minutes. Coimbra pre-orders will open April 16, 2018 and it will be released on August 2, 2018 at GenCon.
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Iran says 'jihadist separatists' behind attack as probe points to IS
By Kay Armin Serjoie (AFP) Sep 25, 2018 in World
Iran on Tuesday identified the perpetrators of a deadly attack on a military parade as "jihadist separatists", announcing a series of arrests and appearing to tie the Islamic State group to the bloodshed.
The intelligence ministry published photos of the five men it said carried out the assault Saturday in the southwestern city of Ahvaz that killed 24 people including a four-year-old child and other civilians.
"The five members of a terrorist squad affiliated to jihadist separatist groups supported by Arab reactionary countries were identified," the ministry said in a statement.
"The terrorists' hideout was found and 22 people involved (in the attack) were arrested," it said, adding that explosives were seized along with military and communications equipment.
The attack targeted a parade in Khuzestan province commemorating the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
The border region, which has a large ethnic Arab community, was a major battleground of the conflict and saw ethnic unrest in 2005 and 2011.
Iranian officials initially blamed Arab separatists, who they claimed were behind previous unrest, for the latest attack, saying they were backed by Gulf Arab allies of the United States.
This version was bolstered when a movement called "Ahwaz National Resistance", an Arab separatist group, claimed responsibility shortly after the assault.
But the Islamic State group (IS) was also quick to claim responsibility and later posted a video of men it said were the attackers.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Monday linked the attackers to Iraq and Syria, where IS once had major strongholds.
"This cowardly act was the work of those very individuals who are rescued by the Americans whenever they are in trouble in Iraq and Syria and who are funded by the Saudis and the (United) Arab Emirates," Khamenei was quoted as saying by his official website.
- Saudi, UAE deny -
Iranian authorities have accused the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) of being behind the Ahvaz attack.
Both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi denied any involvement.
Saudi Arabia "completely rejects the deplorable false accusations by Iranian officials regarding the kingdom's support for the incidents that occurred in Iran," a Saudi foreign ministry official said Tuesday.
The UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, has also dismissed Iran's accusation as "baseless".
"This official campaign launched in Iran against the UAE is regrettable and has escalated since the Ahvaz attack," Gargash tweeted earlier this week.
The photographs of the alleged attackers released by the authorities Tuesday showed the bodies of four men named as Ayyad Mansouri, Fouad Mansouri, Ahmad Mansouri and Javad Saari.
The picture published by the intelligence ministry of an alleged fifth member of the group, Hassan Darvishi, was a screenshot taken from the video put out by IS.
According to local media two of the Mansouris are brothers and the third is their cousin.
Abdullah Ganji, the managing director of the ultra-conservative Javan daily, wrote on Twitter that a Mansouri brother "was killed in a suicide bombing in Syria".
There has been no known presence of Iranian Arab separatist groups in Syria.
Ganji also wrote in an article that the nature of the attack in Ahvaz, in which the assailants died, far more resembled IS than the "bombing or hit and run operations" typical of Arab separatist groups.
"To kill until you are killed, without trying to leave the scene is the method of (IS)," he said, pointing to parallels with a high-profile attack in Iran last year.
On June 7, 2017 in Tehran, 17 people were killed and dozens wounded in simultaneous attacks on the parliament and on the tomb of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- the first inside Iran claimed by IS.
More about Iran, Unrest, Investigation
Iran Unrest Investigation
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HomeTrendsObama’s Solar Initiative and Its Benefits to the American West
Obama’s Solar Initiative and Its Benefits to the American West
July 7, 2017 Trends 0
As of this writing, Obama’s Solar Initiative of 2016 is one of the regulations that will be carried on in Trump’s administration. Obama’s Solar Initiative aims to provide low and middle-income homeowners and renters access to this lucrative source of energy. But how the people will benefit is the question.
A look into Obama’s Solar Initiative
Released on July 7, 2015, the fact sheet is about ‘the actions of the federal government to scale up solar access and cut energy bills in communities across America.’ The steps were taken in conjunction with President Obama’s goal to tackle climate change at the national level.
Furthermore, the basis of Obama’s Solar Initiative is a long-standing dilemma faced by the general public. While the installation of solar panels in Tucson and other cities is not as expensive as it was a decade ago, still, only the wealthiest households can afford it. According to the report published by the George Washington University Solar Institute, only 5% of the total number of homes with solar panels is earning $40,000 or less. This is true despite the fact that solar firms in the US offer loans and leases to homeowners.
How the Initiative may help the people
Fundamentally, Obama’s Solar Initiative targets the households who otherwise have no or limited access to solar energy, making solar more accessible to various communities. Obama’s Solar Initiative specifically covers subsidized housing. Low- to middle-income households face financial barriers when it comes to going solar, and Tucson solar installers can only do so much.
Obama’s Solar Initiative also aims to extend federal-insured solar panel system loans to these homes. Such households are using a lesser amount of electricity compared to higher-income households. So basic solar installation can cover at least 90% of a household’s energy demands.
Such an initiative provides lower-income families with an opportunity to reduce their electricity costs. If implemented properly, Obama’s Solar Initiative will be instrumental in making the quality of life of poor Americans much better. There might be some remarkable shifts in their spending patterns including devoting a portion of their income on equally important things such as children’s education and retirement. For instance, for households with insufficient income, a $10 to $20 savings on their electricity bills could mean a lot.
In sum, Obama’s Solar Initiative is the White House’s commitment to making the US a greener country. It is the federal government’s holistic approach to include all the stakeholders. Administrative actions are centered towards making solar accessible to as many communities as possible, and if it means targeting each American household, then so be it.
Obama's Solar Initiative
Solar Initiative
Renovate with Natural Stones for a Luxurious Bathroom
Pro Tips on Choosing the Right Air Filter for Your HVAC System
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Home — Key Staff — Client Area Articles — Definitions
Emissary
Emissary in the Clinical Research Press
Emissary Launches TeamTrials Clinical Research Platform for Electronic Data Capture (EDC)
Category: Emissary in the Clinical Research Press
AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 22, 2002
Contract clinical research organization Emissary Inc. today introduced TeamTrials, a comprehensive Web-based software platform for conducting clinical trials.
Emissary is using TeamTrials to streamline its customers' research studies, enabling faster, more efficient trials for new medical devices, drugs, biopharmaceuticals and other life-improving medical products.
"Working on the front lines of clinical research, Emissary understands the opportunities and challenges of bringing any new technology into the complex clinical trial process. TeamTrials was developed to transform the way clinical trial teams work, helping to unite all trial functions and participants on a single Web-based platform," said Dr. Steven Mayo, CEO and founder of Emissary. "A single platform helps to streamline every aspect of the trial, from study set-up and site selection to final data submission, and makes the best use of electronic data capture and a whole host of new technologies that cut clinical trial time and costs."
Medical product manufacturers continue to face mounting time-to-market pressures, making the adoption of technology-enabled clinical trial processes imperative. With the introduction of TeamTrials, Emissary can significantly reduce clinical trial time compared to traditional paper-based trials, translating into tremendous savings in operational costs.
TeamTrials accelerates the clinical trial process by enabling real-time interaction and collaboration among all members of the clinical trial team, including study sponsors, monitors, doctors, patients and institutional review board members. Based on a secure, field-proven Web application, the system offers electronic data capture (EDC), workflow automation, online patient diaries, document management, interactive voice response and a broad range of support capabilities. Emissary is currently expanding the platform to provide additional tools, such as time and resource tracking for the project manager, scheduling for the study coordinator and trial registration for the prospective patient.
Emissary has been conducting rigorous, detail-focused clinical trials for medical device, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies since 1995. TeamTrials is now integrated into the company's operations and will be used for all clinical trials moving forward. The underlying TeamTrials technology was initially deployed in 1999 and has been used for a dozen studies to date, including a 19,000 patient registry.
About Emissary Inc.
Emissary Inc. is an international contract research organization (CRO) providing clinical trial management services to the pharmaceutical, medical device and biotechnology industries. Emissary's experienced clinical research teams ensure rapid development of life-saving and life-improving medical products by making quality the priority in every clinical trial. The company is at the forefront of the CRO industry's effort to improve the clinical trials process with TeamTrials(R), a comprehensive software initiative that reduces the cost, time and complexity of clinical trials, benefiting patients, investigators and researchers throughout the global clinical research community. Founded in 1995, Emissary maintains headquarters in Austin, Texas, with key affiliates located throughout North America and Europe. For more information, visit Emissary's Web site at www.Emissary.com.
Emissary and TeamTrials are registered trademarks of Emissary Inc.
FDA Form 1572 - Guidance on the FDA's Statement of Investigator Form
Clinical Trial Accrual Hampered by Many Factors
Clinical Research Regulation: FDA vs. ICH
The Historical Rise of Pharmaceutical Regulation
Time Management for the Research Professional
Latin Abbreviations Ad Nauseam
Surviving an FDA Inspection of Your Clinical Trial Site
Consulting is an Art
Illuminating the Diagnosis of Intracranial Hematoma
FDA’s Bioresearch Monitoring (BIMO) Inspections
Copyright ©2008 Emissary International LLC. Emissary, TeamTrials, and the Compass Logo are registered trademarks.
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Encyclopedia Dubuque
www.encyclopediadubuque.org
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
ZEBULON PIKE LOCK AND DAM
From Encyclopedia Dubuque
Revision as of 16:04, 21 November 2013 by Randylyon (Talk | contribs)
This entry is being edited.
Zebulon Pike Lock and Dam (#11)
ZEBULON PIKE LOCK AND DAM. Major navigational improvement on the Upper MISSISSIPPI RIVER.
Construction of the locks ranks was one of the major construction projects ever attempted. Photo Courtesy: Bob Reding
In 1929 Congress authorized the construction of locks and dams on the Upper Mississippi River. The purpose was to maintain a nine-foot deep channel enabling barges and other river craft to use the river through the season of open water. (1) In 1933 a survey indicated at a dam with locks could be constructed less than a mile above Specht's Ferry. (2) An Army Corps of Engineers report, however, found that the river bedrock was not suitable. A second survey indicated that Dubuque would be a good alternative. In addition, the project would provide jobs for many people unemployed. (3) In late 1933 a precise location for the construction was chosen upstream from the EAGLE POINT BRIDGE.
Work on the lock and dam, named for famed explorer Zebulon Montgomery PIKE, began in 1933 with the construction of the locks. Workers earned thirty-five to fifty cents per hour with skilled labor making $1.25. A cofferdam was first constructed around the site of the lock and the area inside pumped dry for the workmen. Residents of KIMBALL'S PARK meanwhile began plans for evacuation. (4)
To create the pool that would exist behind the dam, workmen labored through the winter sawing and removing trees from nine acres of bottom land. It was feared that the dead trees would finally collapse and fall into the water. Floating downstream, they could obstruct the machinery operating the locks. Much of the timber was burned. (5)
Construction of the dam was started on September 30, 1935. Steel plates were driven up to forty-five feet below the river bed and sixteen chain operated roller and "Tainter" gates were erected to hold back the water. When finished lock measured 600 by 110 feet. The dam was 1,276 feet long in addition to the levee that extended the rest of the way to the Wisconsin shore. (6)
It is not generally remembered that President Franklin Roosevelt was being criticized severely at this time. River traffic had been declining, and critics believed such projects were a waste of money. (7)
The facility was first put into operation on September 13, 1937 when W. A. Turner, the resident engineer and lock master of the dam, pressed a button closing the last of the thirteen tainter gates. The day was chosen because no tow boats operated by Inland Waterways Corporation were due to pass at the locks. It was expected that the locks would be fully functional three days after the gates were lowered. Small pleasure boats were not stopped. A small spot on the Wisconsin side of the dam was left open for their passage. The water there was three feet deep.
The eleventh of twenty-six LOCKS and dams between St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, and St. Louis, Missouri, the Dubuque project cost $1,470,000. The dam, at 4,818 feet was one of the largest on the river. The lift section of the dam measured 1,278 feet. The gates were 30 feet high and 55 feet long.
Workers are hardly visible within the soon-to-be-completed lock. Photo Courtesy: Bob Reding
The total cost of the project came to $7,443,000 including land acquisition and site preparation. As many as 1,000 workers were employed at the site at one time. Although it was announced that as many as four deaths could be expected on a project of this size, only two workers were killed. Harold Arendt fell to his death; Ardenal Thompson was fatally struck on the head by a stern-operated clam shovel. (Photo Courtesy: Daniel Callahan)
The lock and dam were dedicated on August 21, 1938. (8) Miss Hazel Skemp, the centennial queen, broke a bottle containing water from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans over a concrete wall christening the structure. (9) Speeches made from the deck of the steamer "Ellen" belonging to the Army Corps of Engineers were broadcast from speakers on shore and in EAGLE POINT PARK. A regetta, with many boats replicas of pioneer craft, organized by Richard BISSELL was staged and in the evening the last performance of "Under Five Flags," the history of the Upper Mississippi, was performed. (10)
On June 21, 1993 Lock and Dam 11 was shut down for the first time in eighteen years. (11) Exceptionally high water caused transportation disruption along the entire river.
This cottage belonging to CHRISTOPHER CAPRETZ was constructed on an island in the MISSISSIPPI RIVER. The construction of the dam submerged the island and home. Photo courtesy: Paul Lembke
An estimated 291,000 people visited the lock and dam in 1996 to view the operation. With years of interest in the site, a visitor center in 1987 was completed at the lock and dam along with an additional 25 parking spaces and an area for easy turning around. (12) On September 2, 2001 a DUBUQUE RACING ASSOCIATION grant of $1,300 allowed the local Audubon Society to purchase a 20 power telescope for viewing viewing birds from the visitor center. (13) Nine days later, however, following terrorist attacks in New York, the entire area was closed to the public. (14)
After decades of use, Lock and Dam 11 made the Army Corps of Engineers list for repair projects in 1996. In 2006 a $26.9 million rehabilitation project began to replace the structure's electrical system, resurface the lock chamber, repair concrete on the upper and lower guidewalls, and replace the lock machinery. (15)
1. "Forty Years of Service: That's Some 'Boondoggle'" Telegraph Herald, July 24, 1977, p. 1. Online: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=UNFBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OKoMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3721,2874769&dq=zebulon+pike+lock+and+dam+dubuque&hl=en
2. "Lock and Dam Will be Built at Eagle Point," Telegraph Herald, October 11, 1933, p. 1. Online: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8f9BAAAAIBAJ&sjid=U6oMAAAAIBAJ&pg=4301,1324218&dq=lock+and+dam+dubuque&hl=en
3. Kruse, Len. "My Old Dubuque," Dubuque, Iowa: Center for Dubuque History, Loras College, 2000, p. 68
4. "Forty Years of Service...."
5. "Dubuque Area About All Set," Telegraph Herald, May 5, 1939, p. 5. Online: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=S95BAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AaoMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2796,1953161&dq=lock+and+dam+dubuque&hl=en
8. "Dubuque Dam Dedication is Set for August 21st," August 7, 1938, p. 20. Online: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sNtBAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3akMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6870,4631540&dq=zebulon+pike+lock+and+dam+dubuque&hl=en
11. Hanson, Lyn. "Dubuque Gridlock Halts Barges, Boats," Telegraph Herald, July 10, 1993, p. 2. Online: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=X2VFAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NrwMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5676,1972166&dq=lock+and+dam+dubuque&hl=en
12. "Visitor Center to be Finished This Fall at Lock and Dam 11," Telegraph Herald, March 26, 1987, p. 2. Online: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=M5VSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8ssMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3838,4554899&dq=lock+and+dam+dubuque&hl=en
13. Reber, Craig. "Telescope Is for the Birds; But It's Up Close and Personal," Telegraph Herald, September 2, 2001, p. 14. Online: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=f4xdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=f1wNAAAAIBAJ&pg=6372,213922&dq=lock+and+dam+dubuque&hl=en
14. "Lock and Dam Closed to Public," Telegraph Herald, September 15, 2001, p. 3A
15. Reber, Craig. "Lock Undergoing Rehabilitation," Telegraph Herald, February 23, 2006, p. 3A. Online: http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=DQ&p_theme=dq&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=10FF873FAB12A838&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM
Special thanks to Joe Schallan.
Retrieved from "http://www.encyclopediadubuque.org/index.php?title=ZEBULON_PIKE_LOCK_AND_DAM&oldid=105241"
Copyright Creative Commons BY-NC-SA.
About Encyclopedia Dubuque
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Home Fossils Fossil beetles suggest that LA climate has been relatively stable for 50,000...
Fossil beetles suggest that LA climate has been relatively stable for 50,000 years
A photo of a darkling beetle fossil from the La Brea Tar Pits. Credit: CP image #0000 2222 9825 2094 provided by the Berkeley Fossil Insect PEN, photography by Rosemary Romero.
Research based on more than 180 fossil insects preserved in the La Brea Tar Pits of Los Angeles indicate that the climate in what is now southern California has been relatively stable over the past 50,000 years.
The La Brea Tar Pits, which form one of the world’s richest Ice Age fossil sites, is famous for specimens of saber-toothed cats, mammoths, and giant sloths, but their insect collection is even larger and offers a relatively untapped treasure trove of information. The new study, published today in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, is based on an analysis of seven species of beetles and offers the most robust environmental analysis for southern California to date.
“Despite La Brea’s significance as one of North America’s premier Late Pleistocene fossil localities, there remain large gaps in our understanding of its ecological history,” said lead author Anna Holden, a graduate student at the American Museum of Natural History’s Richard Gilder Graduate School and a research associate at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum. “Recent advances are now allowing us to reconstruct the region’s paleoenvironment by analyzing a vast and previously under-studied collection from the tar pits: insects.”
The new study focuses on ground beetles and darkling beetles, which are still present in and around the Los Angeles Basin today. Insects adapt to highly specific environmental conditions, with most capable of migrating when they or their habitats get too hot, too cold, too wet, or too dry. This is especially true for ground and darkling beetles, which are restricted to well-known habitats and climate ranges.
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The researchers used radiocarbon dating to estimate the ages of the beetle fossils and discovered they could be grouped into three semi-continuous ranges: 28,000-50,000 years old, 7,500-16,000 years old, and 4,000 years old. Because the beetles stayed put for such a sustained period of time, evidently content with their environmental conditions, the study suggests that pre-historic Los Angeles was warmer and drier than previously inferred—very similar to today’s climate. In addition, insects that thrive in cooler environments, such as forested and canopied habitats, and are just as likely as the beetles to be preserved in the tar pits, have not been discovered at La Brea.
“With the exception of the peak of the last glaciers during the late Ice Age about 24,000 years ago, our data show that these highly responsive and mobile beetles were staples in Los Angeles for at least the last 50,000 years, suggesting that the climate in the area has been surprisingly similar.” Holden said. “We hope that insects will be used as climate proxies for future studies, in combination with other methods, to give us a complete picture of the paleoenvironment of Earth.”
Anna R. Holden et al, A 50,000 year insect record from Rancho La Brea, Southern California: Insights into past climate and fossil deposition, Quaternary Science Reviews (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.05.001
Note: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by American Museum of Natural History.
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Saint-John Perse awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the soaring flight and the evocative imagery of his poetry which in a visionary fashion reflects the conditions of our time".
The Apartment wins Academy Award for best picture. After Lost Weekend, Billy Wilder again found himself in the winners circle, taking home Oscars as producer, director, and co-writer (with I.A.L. Diamond) for this wry look at corporate America.
Ivo Andric awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country".
West Side Story wins Academy Award for best picture. The musical was co-directed by Jerome Robbins (who had staged the Broadway musical) and Robert Wise, the first time a team directed a best picture winner. The film won 10 Oscars, remaining in the record books as the sole runner-up to the trio of movies that won 11.
John Steinbeck awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception".
Lawrence of Arabia wins Academy Award for best picture. At three hours and 48 minutes, its the longest-running best picture winner (one minute longer than Gone With the Wind). The tale of T.E. Lawrence marked the second best picture win for David Lean in five years.
Giorgos Seferis awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his eminent lyrical writing, inspired by a deep feeling for the Hellenic world of culture".
Tom Jones wins Academy Award for best picture. For decades, Hollywoods Hays Code dictated what couldnt be depicted onscreen. This comedy, directed by Tony Richardson and written by John Osborne adapting Henry Fielding, helped break that code by depicting the radical idea that sex could be fun.
Jean-Paul Sartre awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age".
painting by Roy Lichtenstein: Oh, Jeff...I Love You, Too...But... (sometimes Oh, Jeff). Like many of Lichtenstein's works its title comes from the speech balloon in the painting. Although many sources, such as the Encyclopedia of Art, describe Whaam! and Drowning Girl as Lichtenstein's most famous works, artist Vian Shamounki Borchert believes it is this piece, calling it his Mona Lisa. The Daily Mail listed it along with Whaam! and Drowning Girl as one of his most famous at the time of its 2013 Retrospective at the Tate Modern. Borchert notes that this painting captures "the magic" of its "anguished and yes [sic] beautiful blue eyed, blond hair, full lips" female subject while presenting "sad eyes that seem to give in to what seems to be a doomed love affair". Lichtenstein in 1967 Measuring 48 in × 48 inches, Oh, Jeff...I Love You, Too...But... is among the most famous of his early romance comic derivative works from the period when he was adapting cartoons and advertisements into his style via Ben-Day dots.
An art exhibit is held at Stanford University, featuring Brancusi's Bird in Space (loaned by student Richard Holkar) as its major piece. Another work entitled Soul in Flight — a "sculpture" consisting of two bent coat hangers — is surreptitiously added to the exhibit by D. Heskett and R. Robbins (student colleagues of Holkar), without the bother of going through the submission process. The coat-hanger piece remains as part of the exhibit for several days, until it is accidentally bumped and comes apart during an evening cleaning of the displays.
My Fair Lady wins Academy Award for best picture. It was one of the most-anticipated films in years, since it was based on the Broadway mega-hit. The winner of eight Academy Awards, its also notable as the last best pic winner to be filmed entirely on Hollywood soundstages.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the artistic power and integrity with which, in his epic of the Don, he has given expression to a historic phase in the life of the Russian people".
The Sound of Music wins Academy Award for best picture. A few years after the urban grittiness of West Side Story, Robert Wise directed this wholesome Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. It won five Oscars and was an enormous hit; it also rescued the financially strapped 20th Century Fox, which was recovering from the mega-expensive Cleopatra.
Nelly Sachs awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel's destiny with touching strength".
Shmuel Yosef Agnon awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his profoundly characteristic narrative art with motifs from the life of the Jewish people".
A Man for All Seasons wins Academy Award for best picture. Robert Bolts thoughtful play, about Sir Thomas Mores battles with King Henry VIII, concerned religion, principles, and morality. Bolt adapted his play, which was directed by Fred Zinnemann (From Here to Eternity).
Miguel Angel Asturias awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his vivid literary achievement, deep-rooted in the national traits and traditions of Indian peoples of Latin America".
In the Heat of the Night wins Academy Award for best picture. The competition was intense in 1967, including The Graduate and Bonnie & Clyde. But only three years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, this mystery was a look at race relations, exploding prejudices, and offering smart insights. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger (best actor winner) led a strong cast.
Yasunari Kawabata awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind".
Oliver! wins Academy Award for best picture. The 1960s were NOT the heyday of Hollywood musicals, but you wouldnt know it by looking at Oscar: Oliver! became the fourth musical in eight years to take the best-picture win.
Samuel Beckett awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his writing, which — in new forms for the novel and drama — in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation".
Midnight Cowboy wins Academy Award for best picture. The film, directed by John Schlesinger and starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, became the first X-rated movie to win the Oscar. When it was re-released two years later, it was re-rated as an R, without any cuts. The script was by Waldo Salt, based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy.
ESP: HOME » Timelines » Arts and Culture vs Physics (1960-1969)
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2nd April 2017 Frances Deegan
“Researchers have now found an explanation for what triggered the largest volcanic eruption witnessed by mankind. The volcano’s secret was revealed by geochemical clues hidden inside volcanic quartz crystals”.
-The weekly newsletter of the Geochemical Society, Jan 31st 2017
An animation I made to summarise our work on Toba supervolcano, published in January 2017 in the journal Scientific Reports.
Below you can read a summary of our recently published work on Toba supervolcano, that also appeared in Swedish on Uppsala University’s website here.
The deadliest volcanoes on earth are called supervolcanoes, capable of producing cataclysmic eruptions that devastate huge regions, and cause global cooling of the climate. The Indonesian supervolcano Toba had one of these eruptions about 73 000 years ago, when 2 800 cubic kilometers of volcanic ash was ejected into the atmosphere and rained down and covered enormous areas in Indonesia and India.
Scientists have long debated how these extraordinary volumes of magma are generated, and what makes this magma erupt so very explosively. A team of researchers at Uppsala University, together with international colleagues, have now found intriguing clues hidden inside millimeter-sized crystals from the volcanic ash and rock.
The researchers analysed quartz crystals from Toba, and found a distinct shift in the isotopic composition towards the outer rim of the crystals.
The researchers analysed quartz crystals from Toba, and found a distinct shift in the isotopic composition towards the outer rims of the crystals. Photo: Budd et al.
‘Quartz crystals that grow in the magma register chemical and thermodynamical changes in the magmatic system prior to eruption, similar to how tree rings record climate variations. When the conditions in the magma change, the crystals respond and produce distinct growth zones that record these changes. The problem is that each “tree ring”-analogue is only a few micrometers across, which is why they are extremely challenging to analyse in detail,’ says Dr. David Budd at the Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University.
The researchers analysed quartz crystals from Toba, and found a distinct shift in the isotopic composition towards the outer rim of the crystals. The crystal rims contain a relatively lower proportion of the heavy isotope 18O compared to the lighter 16O.
‘The low ratio of 18O to 16O contents in the crystal rims indicate that something in the magmatic system changed drastically just before the big eruption. The explanation behind these chemical signatures is that the magma melted and assimilated a large volume of a local rock that itself is characterised by a relatively low ratio of 18O to 16O. This rock type also often contains a lot of water, which may be released into the magma, producing steam, and thereby an increased gas pressure inside the magma chamber. This rapidly increased gas pressure eventually allowed the magma to rupture the overlying crust, and send thousands of cubic kilometres of magma into the atmosphere,’ explains Dr. Frances Deegan at the Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University.
Luckily, these cataclysmic super-eruptions happen very rarely.
‘Biologists have previously shown that this particular eruption at Toba pushed humanity close to extinction. It will hopefully take many thousands of years, but the fact is it is only a matter of time before the next super eruption, maybe at Toba, Yellowstone (USA), or somewhere else. Hopefully, we will know more and be better prepared next time!’ says Professor Valentin Troll at the Department of Earth Sciences, who led this study of Toba quartzes at Uppsala University.
Budd, D.A., Troll, V.R., Deegan, D.M., Jolis, E.M., Smith, V.C., Whitehouse, M.J., Harris, C., Freda, C., Hilton, D.R., Halldórsson, S.A., & Bindeman, I.N. (2017) Magma reservoir dynamics at Toba caldera, Indonesia, recorded by oxygen isotope zoning in quartz. Scientific Reports | 7:40624 | DOI: 10.1038/srep40624 1
quartzresearchSIMSsupervolcanoTobavolcanoes
Previous PostVolcanoes as probes of the Earth
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Khary WAE Frazier
kharyfrazier
Claimin: Detroit
Born on Detroit’s Westside, the self-proclaimed “80’s baby” always had a passion for music. Blame it on growing up in the kitchen of soul music’s melting pot, or the influence of a musically gifted grandmother. Regardless, Wae has used his past experiences and musical influences (which range from Ice Cube to Bob Dylan) to create a style of hip-hop all his own. With his musical range in conjunction with his work ethic and personality, Wae has had the opportunity to work with a countless number of talents—ranging from soul legends like The Floaters to a plethora of local musicians, poets, and comedians. Wae has released three underground projects that have created a buzz throughout Detroit. He is currently promoting his first official release “Preaching II The Choir”, a musical gumbo that merges hip-hop rhythms with elements of reggae, jazz, and 70’s funk. More up-tempo than his previous releases, Wae describes this album as a chance to "give the people nonstop 'heat' with no fillers or letdowns". Fans gravitate to Wae’s live performances since they receive such a unique experience. Equipped with a live DJ (DJ Drummer B) and band (General Population), Wae expands the preconceived notions of what a hip-hop artist can offer his audience with his use of interactive entertainment and showmanship.
Check out my sound at www.
Last edited by Javon; 08-04-2008 at 04:03 PM. Reason: no promoting
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: World Tour
Posted by Audun Sorlie on August 29, 2011
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: World Tour - Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS (1990)
This entry is part 3 of 14 in the series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Manhattan Missions
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Hyperstone Heist
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back From The Sewers
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of The Foot Clan
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (Genesis)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (SNES)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (NES)
TMNT (GBA)
Brian Rice created a new series of simple fun for the youngest with his Electric Crayon Deluxe games. These titles are picture books with uncolored pictures, inviting the kids to use the color map and filling in the blanks to create some toddler works of art. From 1985 to 1992, 11 of these titles were developed, ranging from Sesame Street, Super Mario and Inspector Gadget. In 1990, no property was hotter than the TMNT, and so they got their own Electric Crayon book.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: World Tour isn’t much of a game, nor does it claim to be. All you’ll find within this digital book is outlines and 22 colors (which can be mixed) as well as an educational description of each of the landmarks that the TMNT are visiting. After coloring at your hearts desire, there is an option to print out the work to be hung up on the wall. In all, there are 30 different locations that the turtles visit, their home, Statue of Liberty, Stonehenge, Eiffel Tower, Bavarian Castle, The Alps, The Kremlin, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Acropolis, Sahara Desert, The Nile, The Sphinx, Taj Mahal, Mount Everest, Great Wall of China, Mount Fuji, Australian Outback, Galapagos Island, Amazon River, Panama Canal, Teotihuacan, Golden Gate Bridge, California Redwoods, Yukon Territory, Mount Rushmore, Mississippi River, Kennedy Space Center, Lincoln Memorial and the White House.
As interesting as it is to see the turtles photobomb every known landmark known to man, the fun does run quite thin halfway through a picture, since it basically is just like a bucket fill in Paint. Kids will want to draw mustaches on faces, teens would want to create as much awkward innuendo as possible, but there’s no option to actually draw with the crayons. The pictures themselves look alright for the most part, though there are quite a few that have some really weird proportions and confusing angles. It does however touch on the heart strings and remind you that no matter where in the world the turtles are, their hearts will always be with the USA, as this tear jerker showcases:
Wait, is that Lincoln or a Zentraedi?
Anyway, considering the mass appeal of TMNT at the time, and the fact their faces and imagery was on virtually anything that could be bought with money, it’ not an all out bad product, and kids do genuinely love to play around with colors. In addition to DOS and Amiga, World Tour also saw release on Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and Atari ST. There’s no real difference between any of these other than the C64 and the CPC having less colors and no print function.
Series Navigation << Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade GameTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Manhattan Missions >>
Pepper’s Adventures in Time Seven Cities of Gold, The Maniac Mansion Murder on the Zinderneuf Castle Wolfenstein Beyond Castle Wolfenstein Wizardry: Legacy of Llylgamyn Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom Ikari III: The Rescue Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars
Tag: Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, educational, IBM PC, Licensed: Cartoon, World Traveling
Gaball Screen
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FROM THE MAGAZINE: Maintenance buoys non-renewable market - Insight
FROM THE MAGAZINE: Maintenance buoys non-renewable market
The need to maintain, rebuild or upgrade existing power plants to ensure they remain cost-effective and environmentally acceptable is generating significant logistics work for heavy lift service providers and project forwarders, writes Phil Hastings.
In the Philippines, for example, Elmer Sarmiento, president and ceo of Royal Cargo, confirmed that established plants fuelled by non-renewable resources often need heavy lift service provision to support maintenance operations.
“That maintenance work can include the replacement or recalibration of old equipment, such as generators, transformers and ship unloaders, among others, which if they were to break down could cause an emergency shutdown of the plant, resulting in huge costs for the operator,” he explained.
“The heavy lift work required to support such maintenance activities can involve not just the use of heavy lift equipment but also precision handling, logistics coordination and meeting a strict timeline of delivery. We have provided those sort of services to the majority of power plants in the Philippines.”
More generally, Bahadir Erdil, global projects director – USA, and managing director – Turkey, for Logistics Plus, suggested that power plant modernisation in some parts of the world has been boosted further by the privatisation of some previously state-owned facilities.
“Over the last decade, especially in the Middle East, Eastern Europe and North Africa, ownership of some state-owned power plants has been transferred to private investors. That change can result in new investment to finance modernisation, refurbishment or rehabilitation of those plants,” he commented.
At Trans Global Projects Group (TGP), the company’s business in the non-renewable energy sector continues to centre on providing project logistics services for newbuild plants. However, Joerg Roehl, ceo Europe for Trans Global Projects Group (TGP), explained that the group has recently been involved in some modernisation and refurbishment projects.
“We see this as a growing market in the near future,” he added.
July 10 - A.P. Møller Mærsk reportedly wants half of its earnings to come form inland logistics, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
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Welcome to iWave Inc.
Financial and Banking Solutions
ATMPack
CASAPack
CCPack
SWITCHPack
Stock Dealings
BrokeragePack
OTP Master
Hardware / Software System Integration
Software System Development
Software System Implementation
A graduate of Scientific Mathematics and Modern Nuclear Physics, Mr. Kobayashi has been with Intelligent Wave, Inc. (Japan) since 1984, and with iWave since 1991. He began the Manila Representative Office of Intelligent Wave, Inc. (Japan) as the General Manager at the age of 32, one of the youngest officers in the history of iWave, Inc. Mr. Kobayashi’s illustrious career in the IT industry has been punctuated by numerous firsts and breakthroughs. Know more about him
He was the first provider of a non-stop fault tolerant computing solution for banking systems in 1985. Installed the first ATM System in Myanmar in 1995. Spearheaded the development and implementation of a complete stock trading system for the Manila Stock Exchange in 1993 and for the stock exchange of Yangon in 1996. Mr. Kobayashi designed and developed the legacy transaction framework known as the Transaction Server Platform (TSP) under the Unix platform in 1997 used for applications with high-speed, high-volume, and high-availability processing requirements. He now serves as the Chairman and CEO of iWave, Inc.
Hiro Kobayashi
CHAIRMAN & CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER
Mr. Garcia is the President & CEO of DFNN Group. a director of Cuyapo Rural Bank, Inc. since January 2013, Chairman of Diversified Special Economic Zone since 2000, President of Hatchasia, Inc. since 2002, a Director of Philippine Mineral and Alloys Corporation since 1993 and a Director of Essence Asia Philippines since October 2010.Know more about him
Mr. Garcia served as President of Diversified Securities, Inc., from years 1994 to 2000. He was formerly a Governor of the PSE from years 1995 to 1997. He also became a member of the PSE’s Legislative Committee and the Financial Infrastructure sub-committee of the E-Commerce Promotion Council of the Philippines. Mr. Garcia was also a former Director of the Philippine Association of Brokers and Dealers, Inc. (PASBADI) from years 1996 to 1998.
Ramon C. Garcia Jr.
Rhome’s field of expertise is in On-Line Transaction Processing (OLTP) Systems. He has more than 20 years experience in implementing high-volume and high-availability mission-critical financial applications. As a National State Scholar, he earned his degree in Computer Engineering at the Mapua Institute of Technology with honors. Rhome started at iWave in 1993 and is now head of the System Development Division as Project Director for delivery and services.
Rhome Balmeo
TECHNICAL PROJECT DIRECTOR/HEAD OF SYSTEMS & APPLICATIONS SUPPORT
TJ is a member of iWave’s Management Committee and is an integral part of the management team in improving iWave’s operations and business development hinged in competence and excellence.TJ joined iWave in February of 1998 as Division Manager for the ON/2 ATM On-line Transaction Processing System Group and since then held several management and marketing positions. Know more about him
He was crucial in the implementation of the Y2K software compliance for the ATM system of a number of Philippine commercial and universal banks. He has also successfully managed breakthrough projects in the banking industry with the implementation of innovative products. Likewise, he was able to cultivate long lasting relationships with clients that translated to continuous flow of projects when he took up the challenge of revitalizing the domestic market.
TJ E. Mondragon
AVP FOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
As an Executive Assistant to the EVP-COO, Ms. Sanchez started her career in iWave in 1994. From that year, she also assisted in the HR functions of the company and assigned to be the Executive Assistant to the CIO in 2006. She acquired the position of Administration Officer in 2008.Ms. Sanchez graduated from Philippine Women’s University (PWU) with the degree of Bachelor of Science in Banking and Finance.
Arceili C. Sanchez
AVP FOR HUMAN RESOURCES AND ADMINISTRATION
A congressional scholarship grantee, Mr. Bryan Adams S. Manigbas graduated from Batangas State University with a degree in Accounting, being a topnotch in Practical Accounting 1 Comprehensive Examination in March 2008. He started his career with Thompson Reuters, which is one of the leading financial information providers in the world. He handled the analysis of financial and non-financial information of publicly listed companies in Mexico, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand for different stakeholders around the globe like potential investors, creditors, bankers, etc. Know more about him
After passing the Certified Public Accountant Licensure Examination in 2009, he decided to pursue his challenging career in the field of general accounting, financial accounting and management accounting and taxation in the private sector.
Bryan Adams S. Manigbas
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER/TREASURER
Mr. Arambulo is the former Group Deputy Chief Finance Officer of the Transnational Diversified Group, Manila, Philippines since 2007. In December 2005 to 2007, he was responsible for the policy implementation and strategic management of the ePerformax Contact Centers Corporation’s overall growth plans and profitability as the General Manager on Philippine Operations. Know more about him
He became a Director of EasyCall Philippines Inc. in 2005, former Director of Transnational E-Business Solutions, Inc. since 2004 and the former Deputy President – Information and Communications Technology Division of Transnational Diversified Group since 2002. From years 2002 to 2005, he became the Financial Planning & Operations Director of ePerformax Contact Centers Corporation.
Ronald L. Arambulo
Mr. Marco Urera has served as the CEO/President for Vision Technical & Management Services, Inc. (“VTMSI”) since 1987 and Vision A&E, Inc. (“VAE”) since 2007; Managing Director of Home Alert, Inc. (“HAI”) since 2002 and Fax n Parcel, Inc. since 1991. He is also the President of JW Tea Products, Inc. since 1987.Know more about him
VTMSI is an operating and holdings company. VAE, a subsidiary of VTMSI, is a business process outsourcing company engaged in Design Support and CAD Production for architecture and engineering services. It has recently established a branch office in Vancouver, Canada, VAE. Another subsidiary of VTMSI is HAI, a company that imports and distributes fire safety products in the Philippines. Mr. Urera is also the Founder and Managing Director of Fax n Print, a one-stop telecommunication business center and printing company. He was also the former CEO of EDSAMAIL and Evoserve.
Mr. Urera graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the De La Salle University.
Marco Antonio R. Urera
Mr. Villanueva is currently a senior partner of Argosy Advisers Inc., an investment advisory firm (since 2001), Chairman of VFL Advisors, Inc., a financial consultancy firm (since 2001), and President of ABV Inc., a real estate holding company (since 2003). Know more about him
He sits as an independent director and Chairman of the Audit Committee of Chinatrust Philippines Commercial Bank (since 2003). He also holds directorships in the Makati Supermart Group (since 2003), the CDC/Quadrillon Group (since 2007) and Testech Inc (since 2006). He is adviser to the Board of PhilRatings Inc. and member of the Market Governance Board of the Philippines Fixed-Income Exchange (2008). He has previously held senior executive positions in stock brokerage and investment banking firms where he was country head and CEO of the Philippine operations and was a member of the PSE (1991-2001). He was also the head of the Corporate Finance Division of SGV and Co. (1976-1991), the largest auditing and consulting firm in the Philippines and his work included assignments in HongKong, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. He has also lived and worked in HongKong and in the United States.
In addition to his current directorships, he has previously been a director of a number of companies including a Venture Capital Fund, the largest Cable TV operator in the country, a telecommunications company, a hotel, financing company and an insurance company.
He was formerly President of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX) (1998), a professional association of finance practitioners and, Co-Chairman of the Capital Markets Development Council (1999-2002), a coordinating body of the private and public sector players in the Philippine capital markets to develop national policy on the capital markets.
Edwin B. Villanueva
Mr. Ricardo (Ricky) Banaag was the Country Manager for Intel Microelectronics (Phils.) Inc. for over 16 years. As Country Manager, he was responsible for all of Intel’s Sales and Marketing operations in the Philippines.Know more about him
With over thirty years in the IT industry, Mr. Banaag has a depth of company experience in developing the PC industry in the Philippines.
Mr. Banaag ran IBM’s PC Company, which was responsible for the entire PC Marketing and Support operations for IBM Philippines.
Prior to his running the PC operations, Mr. Banaag was Country Manager for IBM’s Global Network and was Executive Assistant to the President and General Manager of IBM Philippines. Previous roles within IBM were within Retail, Distribution, and Manufacturing industries.
Mr. Banaag has been named by the Metro Computer Times as one of the Top 20 Movers and Shakers of the Philippine IT Industry. He was also named one of the Philippines’ Most Influential CEOs for 2008 and in December of 2009, was given the IT Executive of the Year Award by the IT Journalists Association of the Philippines.
Mr. Banaag received a BS Industrial Engineering degree from the University of the Philippines and was accorded the Departmental Award in Industrial Engineering for 2002 by the U.P. Alumni Engineers.
Ricardo Banaag
Mr. Toshiyuki Ishikawa serves as President & CEO of TT&V Consultancy Inc. since November 2013. The company is DFNN’s business partner and provides consultation to Japanese companies entering the Philippines, as well as matching with iWave. Know more about him
He has experience with investment companies, online brokerage and foreign exchange firms, and game development companies in Japan.
Toshiyuki Ishikawa
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Record number of African migrants reach US-Mexico border
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Undaunted by a dangerous journey over thousands of miles, people fleeing economic hardship and human rights abuses in African countries are heading to the US-Mexico border in unprecedented numbers, surprising Border Patrol agents more accustomed to Spanish-speaking migrants.
Officials in Texas and even Maine are scrambling to absorb the sharp increase in African migrants. They are heading to America after flying across the Atlantic Ocean to South America, and then embarking on an often harrowing overland journey.
In recent weeks, agents in the Border Patrol's Del Rio sector stopped more than 500 African migrants found walking in separate groups along the arid land after splashing across the Rio Grande, children in tow.
That is more than double the total of 211 African migrants who were detained by Border Patrol along the entire 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometre) US-Mexico border in the 2018 fiscal year.
“We are continuing to see a rise in apprehensions of immigrants from countries not normally encountered in our area,” said Raul Ortiz, head of the US Border Patrol's Del Rio sector.
The immigrants in Texas were mostly from the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Angola. Cameroonians have also been travelling up through Mexico and into the US in larger numbers, and seeking asylum at ports of entry.
One recent Saturday in Tijuana there were 90 Cameroonians lined up to get on a waiting list to request asylum that has swelled to about 7,500 names. Also on the waiting list are Ethiopians, Eritreans, Mauritanians, Sudanese, and Congolese.
Cameroonians generally fly to Ecuador because no visa is required and take about four months to reach Tijuana. They walk for days in Panama through dense jungle, where they are often robbed and held in government-run camps. They leave from Cameroon's English-speaking south with horrifying stories of rape, murder and torture committed since late 2016 by soldiers of the country's French-speaking majority, which holds power.
A few days after the big group of African immigrants were apprehended in Texas, federal officials dropped off dozens of them in San Antonio. Officials in the Texas city sent out a plea for French-speaking volunteers for translating work, “and most importantly, making our guests feel welcome”.
Many were taken to Portland, Maine, — about as far as one can get from the Mexican border and still be in the continental United States. Word has spread among migrants that the city of 67,000 is a welcoming place. Somali refugees were resettled in Portland in the 1990s.
A total of 170 asylum seekers arrived in recent days. Hundreds more are expected in an influx that City Manager Jon Jennings called unprecedented. With one shelter already full, a basketball venue called the Portland Exposition Building Expo was converted into an emergency shelter.
Portland officials tweeted last Thursday that rumours some of the migrants are carrying the Ebola virus “are patently false” and said that as asylum seekers they are in the United States legally.
Last Thursday afternoon, families in the Expo chatted in French and Portuguese as children kicked a soccer ball near rows of cots.
One of the men, 26-year-old Prince Pombo, described himself as a pro-democracy activist and said he had fled his native country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, because of political oppression. He went to neighbouring Angola, then flew to Brazil. There, he met a local woman and they had a baby they named Heaven. Now 16-months-old, she giggled as she played with her mother in the Expo. Pombo said his journey from Congo to America took three years.
More migrants are on the way. Mexico is on pace to triple the number of African immigrants it is processing this year, up from 2,100 in 2017.
High demand for J'can workers in Michigan hospitality sector, says labour minister
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The Solomon Gray Series
The Konstantin Series
The Harry Vaughan Series
The Caradoc Series
DI Granger Series
Charity Anthologies
Keith Nixon
4 Stas
Review - The Girl Who Wouldn't Die by Marnie Riches
Written by Marnie Riches — Georgina (George) McKenzie is a Cambridge University student on exchange in the lurid city of Amsterdam. When a bomb goes off outside the university where she is studying politics, no-one seems able to explain why it was targeted. George can’t help herself but get involved and pulls along her reluctant friend Ad. After she writes a blog post about the bomb the officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Paul van den Bergen, enlists George in his investigative efforts. Very soon they realise that a person was part of the bomb. In a large box with the device was one of George’s classmates. Then another bomb goes off with a second of George’s class killed. Why are they being blown up, and by whom?
In South London, Ella Williams-May is a girl in trouble. She and her mother are being targeted by a local gang, led by Danny. When Ella is caught stealing handbags to make ends meet she’s forced to become an informant by the police. Ella inveigles her way into Danny’s gang, leading a dangerous double life.
As George, Ad and van den Bergen race against time to find the bomber they discover that George herself may be the target. Can van den Bergen save her?
This is a smart debut crime novel from Marnie Riches. It switches between gaudy Amsterdam, narrated by a suitably coarse George, and down at heel South London, in two seemingly unconnected story lines. The jump between the two is jarring at first. There’s no clear signposting when you step from one strand into the other. However, the plot is pacy and compelling enough to maintain the interest and when the link is finally made, it’s well worth it.
There are several major strengths in this novel. First and foremost is the sense of place. The majority of the plot occurs in Amsterdam, with a smattering of Cambridge gentility, some events in Germany along with a parallel plot in gritty south east London. The Dutch location comes through the strongest and suits George’s voice (another major plus) very well. It is clear Riches knows her stuff when it comes to Amsterdam, in fact she studied modern and medieval Dutch. George’s neighbours are prostitutes, everyone smokes drugs and when the story opens she’s been sleeping around. It seems she fits in well. But there’s a lot more to George than first meets the eye. She’s dogged and determined, happy to be involved in a brutal and dangerous case.
There are a lot of characters in The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die, from sleazy university lecturer Vin Fennemans, who manipulates and assaults his students and has an intense dislike of George, to each of the victims who we meet before their grisly ends. The author doesn’t hold back at all in her narrative. The descriptions as the killer goes to work are up close and personal. The pace is high and maintained throughout, if anything increasing as the conclusion is reached and the perpetrator is revealed in a very satisfying and intelligent conclusion. There are two further installments to follow. The next will be The Girl Who Broke the Rules, due to be published in August.
Originally written for Crime Fiction Lover.
Tagged: Marnie Riches, The Girl Who Wouldn't Die, Crime Fiction Lover, Euro Crime, Debut, 4 Stas
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KenmoreThompson.com
A Reluctant Defence of Screech-ins
Comments Off on A Reluctant Defence of Screech-ins • 25/06/02019
So for those of you who aren’t familiar with Newfoundland and Labrador, here is a brief definition of terms to get us started:
Screech is a brand of Jamacian dark rum that’s bottled by the Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corporation, and marketed as a uniquely Newfoundland product. Screech is possibly named after a story in which an American officer stationed on the island during the war, was asked for a glass of rum which Newfoundlanders were drinking with ease. Not realizing how strong it was, when the American took a sip it caused him to fall out of his chair and howl at its strength. Please note that from the start “Screech” is a branding exercise on the part of the NLC.
A Screech-in is a ceremony apparently based on a ceremony held for American Navy-men after being stationed in NL for one year. The ‘modern’ Screech-in was originally promoted by some bars on George St. and by the NLC (which now produces ‘official’ Screech-in certificates) to induct visitors to Newfoundland as “honorary Newfoundlanders.” The content of ceremony varies slightly depending on who does it, but it usually includes repeating some exaggerated Newfoundland English phrases, kissing a codfish, eating a bit of bologna (‘Newfie Steak’) and drinking a mouthful of Screech. (I grew up around teetotallers, where unmixed Purity Syrup was used–another Newfoundland brand).
Come From Away is an award-winning musical about the commercial flights that were stranded in the small town of Gander, NL after the US closed its airspace in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The hospitality shown to these stranded passengers is a point of pride for Newfoundlanders, and by extension, Canadians. Come From Away is currently playing in Toronto, produced by Mirvish Productions.
Now that that’s out of the way, here’s what happened: Mirvish Productions announced that they were going to attempt a world record Screech-in at a showing of Come From Away in Toronto. To simplify what came next: some Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were upset and complained that a Screech-in should only happen in Newfoundland and/or Labrador. Other Newfoundlanders and Labradorians made fun of the first crowd because it doesn’t matter and it’s all made up anyways. In the end the Screech-in was cancelled, which annoyed this guy for some reason.
I hate this entire debate, if for no other reason that I reluctantly have a toe in both camps. I think the anti-Toronto-Screech-in crowd is dumb because Screech-ins are just a commercial for the NLC to begin with. But I think the anti-anti-Toronto-Screech-in crowd is dumb because obviously Screech-ins have become more meaningful than just a commercial for the NLC, even if we tell ourselves it’s just a silly trick we play on visitors.
I also hate myself for getting annoyed enough at everyone involved to blog about it.
For myself, personally, I recognize that Screech-ins are a fun way to welcome people to Newfoundland and/or Labrador, but I don’t have any particularly strong feelings of attachment to the ritual. It’s all made up anyways, not some timeless tradition (note that this article gives different origin for Screech-ins than what I wrote above, but I literally don’t care enough to do any more reading or re-type what I wrote). I also feel like it connects to broader debates about who is (or can be) a Newfoundlander and/or Labradorian, which is another thing I feel people don’t think deeply enough about. But that’s a chat for another time.
Now, having expressed my ambivalence to the ritual itself, I just need to re-state this clearly, because I want this to be the background hum to every conversation about Screech and Screech-ins from now until the island sinks back into the sea: we are essentially arguing about an ad campaign. Literally every step of the way in this story is another layer of marketing, from what happened and why, to the meaning and content of the ritual.
Because it is a ritual. Just because it isn’t a century old doesn’t mean it isn’t a meaningful one for many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
I’m an anthropologist. There was a day, long ago, when anthropology was obsessed with indexing the content of a culture. You’d do your research and write that this group of people do this thing, and that group of people do another thing. Here’s why. This group likes this, the others that. Isn’t that curious?
To oversimplify: this is outdated, but it’s still how a lot of laypeople think about culture. We don’t even have to look that far to find examples: I’m sure we can all remember a time when someone (maybe even you yourself) expressed the opinion that because this or that First Nation individual uses a snowmobile to hunt, they’re somehow less indigenous. (In case I need to wade in here: no, using a snowmobile does not make someone less indigenous)
So on that outdated basis we might look at the Screech-in, identify its origin in American Naval traditions, and its close relationship to marketing and tourism, and dismiss it as inauthentic.
But that would be missing the point. Cultures, like basically all social groupings, are imagined communities and they gain reality by identifying an in-group and an out-group. This doesn’t have to be a hostile process, but the boundary must be continually identified, negotiated, patrolled, and defended. Broadly speaking, it doesn’t really matter a whole lot what happens inside of the group, or how ‘authentic’ it is. The point is that everyone in the group has the understanding that the group exists, and those inside have some common identity that makes them different from those outside. Within the group will be smaller groups, and outside of the group they may be nested inside another larger group as well, but that’s complicating things a bit too much for my purpose here.
Now, some people might argue about whether Newfoundlanders and/or Labradorians constitute a legitimate identity. “Should the group exist?” is a conversation I might entertain at another time. But as for “Does it exist?” … I’m going to take for granted that it does because I’m already like 900 words in, and it’s my blog, so there.
The point is that the Screech-in, ‘authentic’ or not, historical or not, whether you like it or not, is essentially a border crossing into and out of the group that calls itself “Newfoundlander” and/or “Labradorian.”
In the ritual of the Screech-in, people are brought into the group–but not all the way. They are, after all, only honorary Newfoundlanders/Labradorians at the end. Screech-ins are an opportunity for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to look around the room and wink at one another, assert their Newfoundland-ness or Labrador-ness by instructing others on how to perform it, judge them based on that performance, and at the end continue to hold the ‘inductee’ at arm’s length.
Whether or not you think it’s kind of dumb, like I do, if you see the Screech-in in this light, it’s not hard to see why this episode elicited so much criticism. And given that two of the most important axes along which Newfoundlanders recognize other Newfoundlanders are place (“Where you ‘longs to?”) and blood (“Who’s yer fadder?”), is there any wonder that people would reject a theatre company in Toronto’s authority to hold a Screech-in? Where does Mirvish Productions come from? Toronto. Not Newfoundland. Who’s Mirvish Productions’ father? If the answer isn’t the Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corp, there’s a problem.
To complicate things a bit, consider some of the responses to the controversy. I recall someone on Facebook commenting that they had held a Screech-in at a wedding in Ontario once, so what’s the problem with Toronto? But think about what a wedding is; a social ritual to join two families together. Some might dispute the wedding Screech-in because it didn’t happen in Newfoundland and/or Labrador, but if in the end we give it a pass, it’s only on the basis of blood: a Newfoundlander will have officiated, as a way of inducting new family members into his or her community.
If the news had been “Alan Doyle to Host Record-Breaking Screech-In in Toronto,” people may have had a slightly different reaction. There still would have been a debate, I’m sure, but a different one.
To sum up: this whole thing is stupid.
To be more generous: yes Screech-ins are dumb. Yes it’s marketing, not just by Mirvish Productions, but also by the NLC and the tourism board, etc. But it’s not just those things. It’s become an occasion for Newfoundlanders and/or Labradorians to assert their particular identities, then make a show of bringing new people into the community, while quietly acknowledging that they’re not really ‘in’ after all, which reasserts that identity again.
As a final thought: the fact that this all came up as the result of an attempt to market a musical about Newfoundland and Labradorians’ hospitality is positively delicious.
Lemme just put an extra few lines here because the footer on my website is still borked up.
Maybe another line? Yeah, that should do it.
One more for good luck.
Newfoundland and Labrador1
Sorry about the mess! I’ve been in the process of fixing this website for 3 years. But what’s a few years more between friends?
Instated Emotion
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Kevin D. Hendricks
Bald Birthday Benefit
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Guys Don’t Have a Clue
December 29, 1998 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment
It’s come to my attention that a lot of guys out there don’t have a clue how to treat women. This is becoming more and more apparent, and not just because a few jerks out there can’t get dates. The main problem is society and they way we portray sex, relationships, and women. Sex is cheap. Relationships equal sex. Women are objects. This twisted mentality is destroying people.
How many teenage girls out there have a poor self image? They think they’re fat, ugly and unwanted. Society tells them they must be skinny as a rail and possess computer-enhanced beauty. No one meets that standard, and young girls go to extremes to reach the standard, or they wallow in their own self hatred. Society also has some deranged ideas about sex. Sex is free, sex is fun, sex is safe–let’s all have sex! No one understands the sanctity of sex or the importance of marriage. The result is hormone-drunk, teenage boys thirsting for a computer-enhanced beauties to screw. All it is pleasure. The young girls long to be wanted, and so give their bodies hoping to be accepted and improve their self image.
No, no, NO! This is all wrong. Yeah, it may sound like I’ve boiled this down to the Jr. High health class discussion on self esteem–but apparently the world was sleeping through that talk. A lot of guys out there treat women like dirt. They don’t understand the sanctity of sex, and that’s all they want. The gentlemen is a rare breed.
Few guys exist that want more from girls that mere pleasure. For the pleasure seeking guys out there: the world is not your playground. Grow up and realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you. For the minority of guys who actually want an intimate relationship with a girl, I have some news for you. Girls simply need to be treated right. They deserve attention. You have no idea how far a few compliments and kind gestures will go. Try opening doors for them. Tell them how pretty they really are. And I’m gonna have to scream on this point. Playboy, Penthouse, Cosmopolitan, www.nudechicks.com, and half the planet want you to think women have to be immaculate. Guess what, that’s $2,000 worth of snazzy computer effects. Did you ever see the posters or the cover to the movie Pretty Woman? Guess what, that’s not Julia Roberts’ body. Would you believe that there are actually web sites out there with fake nude pictures. Some respectable women refuse to pose nude, so some sickos just use some fancy computer effects, and walla–Sandra Bullock naked. The human body is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I don’t understand why we have to use air brushing and computer effects to fix it up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl that I could honestly say wasn’t pretty.
Do you have any idea what kind of a radical change we would see if teenage girls actually believed what I just said?
Yeah, I’m rambling. Probably cuz this issue angers me. I’ll try and sum things up. Guys, don’t be selfish. Treat women with gentleness and respect. Girls, no matter what anyone tells you, and no matter what you think–you are beautiful. God doesn’t make ugly people.
What kind of a pathetic society idolizes unhealthy slimness, unnaturally large breasts, and computer-enhanced beauty?
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The personal site of Kevin D. Hendricks: Sharing ideas I can’t get out of my head, including causes, local politics, and lots of books. Since 1998. Kevin is a writer and editor with his company, Monkey Outta Nowhere, in West St. Paul, Minn.
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A nationwide initiative focused on youth character education and healthy relationships for middle school students was launched at Ariel...
A nationwide initiative focused on youth character education and healthy relationships for middle school students was launched at Ariel Community Academy by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and United Way President and CEO Brian Gallagher in the presence of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Chicago Bears Owner Mike McCaskey, United Way Metro Chicago CEO Wendy DuBoe, Chicago Bears alumni, leading NFL Draft prospects and over 600 very excited students.
The NFL supports United Way's efforts to actively raise awareness about human trafficking and support potential victims by providing...
The NFL supports United Way's efforts to actively raise awareness about human trafficking and support potential victims by providing additional funding to the Arizona 2-1-1 to cover calls before and during the Super Bowl. Street teams of volunteers trained to engage and share information were out in the city to distribute materials with tips for recognizing the signs of trafficking victims and information on whom to call for help.
NFL-United Way TV ad featuring Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks
Buffalo Bills Linebacker Arthur Moats wins championship title in a league-wide competition to recruit the most volunteer readers, tutors and...
Buffalo Bills Linebacker Arthur Moats wins championship title in a league-wide competition to recruit the most volunteer readers, tutors and mentors. With 7,932 pledges, Arthur Moats earned the title United Way Super Recruiter and won $10,000 for United Way of Buffalo & Erie County.
NFL-United Way TV ad featuring Nnamdi Asomugha of the Philadelphia Eagles
Roger Staubach and Franco Harris co-chair the 40th anniversary of the NFL and United Way partnership with a nationwide vote powered by USA...
Roger Staubach and Franco Harris co-chair the 40th anniversary of the NFL and United Way partnership with a nationwide vote powered by USA TODAY Ad Meter to identify the public’s favorite NFL-United Way PSA from the last 40 years. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 1999 PSA featuring linebacker Derrick Brooks is named the fan favorite. Read More
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See the History
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The Hanging Tree
If you're wondering, this is the house I was taking a picture of. No picture of my new friend -- he preferred not to.
So I'm taking a picture of a house along the Old Concord Road, which is pretty much what I do. I walk along the road, and I see a house or a field or a sign or a person that seems interesting or to have a story to tell and I take a picture of it or talk to the person or stop and jot a note down. Anyhow, I look like something between a private eye in a supermarket thriller and the way you thought a poet would look in high school -- floating down the street, pen in hand, scrawling deathless lines as I stroll.
And, as sometimes happens, someone comes over. I'm snooping or I have out a notebook or I'm pointing a camera, so somebody strides or drives over -- in this case drove, pulling smoothly but quickly into the drive directly in front of me. I don't remember what he said first -- tall slim white guy, probably late 60s, if I recall correctly smoking. Driving -- I can't believe how little I observed! -- some kind of long two-door, I THINK, probably domestic. I must have been asleep. Or at the very least paying attention to the house I was shooting.
Anyhow. "You okay?" he asks me, very polite and it's worth noting without a hint of threat or defensiveness. But it was his neighborhood -- he'd been shooting the crap with the guy across the street, at the car lot/produce market/cattle farm. I'd seen them talking as I walked past and felt like they'd noticed me. I usually would cross the street to speak with people like that, but they were deep in an asphalt parking lot by a big aluminum barn, and I just couldn't bear to walk a quarter mile with them wondering who the hell I was the whole time.
So I explained who I was and gave him my elevator pitch about Lawson and his book and my project and so forth and then we were friends. He said he had been an investigative reporter at the Independent Tribune, so we enjoyed talking about work. He told me most of the people on these roads -- in these communities -- are retired now, and the farms that are run are either keep-busy farms or rented out, with only few of the latter. We talked about the stories we have to tell, and then history came up, and then he mentioned that of course nowadays we're rewriting history, and then of course here we went on the Confederate flag.
I don't have to share the specifics. Some facts, as far as I can tell wrong (the owner of the most slaves was himself African American?); some commonly heard themes about historical revisionism and states' rights. Even a claim, new to me, that the war was fought over taxes. (I have to admit: if people have really begun to convince each other that the Civil War was fought over taxes, it may be game over. I thought of Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now" saying, "My god, the genius of that.") But anyway, a simple interaction. I stopped along the road, a fellow told me how the locals lived, shared what they thought. It was a perfect interaction for a reporter like me, on Lawson's trail to see what's out there.
We parted cheerfully, wished each other well without reservation. And for about 30 seconds I congratulated myself on simply reporting, letting the story come to me, instead of challenging. And then I thought, you know, with the murders and the flag and the cops and all this, though it's fine to listen to everybody I come across, I had better take care to hear other voices than the ones from the people whose houses were on the main streets I was walking down. I had better make sure I hear everybody's voices.
I mean not that this was new. Lawson mentioned the Huguenots by the river, and Huguenot descendants I found. Lawson talked extensively about Indians (everyone I've met in the Santee and Catawba tribes referred to themselves as Indians, and so I do as well), and I've made an effort to make sure I have talked to and about them as well. I was stunned when I learned that for its first half-century, the slave port of Charleston made more money sending Indians to Barbados than it did bringing African and island peoples to the mainland, so this is good for me. I'm doing like Lawson did -- trying to get how things are here, how they've been.
So I decided that since the murders of African Americans, in churches or at the hands of police or private citizens, are so much in our discussions, I'd better make a special effort I got some African American voices in my chorus, and along I went.
The very next day I had a great opportunity.
I walked my first day from the little not-even-crossroads of Mt. Gilead, just north of Concord, into Salisbury. There I was well entertained, as Lawson was by the Sapona Indians. The next day I started in Salisbury and walked through town to the northeast, walking down Long Street, quickly leaving the prosperous downtown and entering the town of East Spencer, which I will describe with these images and this, directly from my notebook: "Long st a parade of the burned, the collapsed, and abandoned." I have a half-dozen similar images of burned-out buildings and houses.
Also a school-free zone since the school burned down.
The cheerful town banner by the house with boarded windows almost physically hurts.
Curtis on the left, Mike on the right.
A town of 1500 or so souls that has been losing population for 40 years, East Spencer is a place with problems: half its children in poverty, and a quarter of its elderly. Fewer than 700 families, 85 percent of which are African American, with a commonly cited number of more than 100 empty houses. A town of broken houses. And across Long Street, on a back porch, two guys having a chat. I walked over and met Mike and Tony, though Tony later told me his name was actually Curtis, and when I called the business card Mike gave me and asked for Mike, it was a wrong number, so he may have started out with a pseudonym too.
Anyhow, I introduced myself, shared business cards and pins and my little Lawson story -- and the story of the conversation of the day before. And off we went, cheerfully. In a town with the problems of East Spencer, Mike and Curtis did not think the Confederate flag was a big issue -- they were a lot more worried about employment, violence, and poverty and its attendant miseries. "As long as you keep a bunch of winos and run-down property in town," Tony said, you're not going to improve. They discussed water bills and troubled youth, irresponsible code enforcement and the failure to invest in the community. We never quite got to institutionalized racism and that sort of thing, but they said the makeup of the town was simple. Over in Spencer and Salisbury is where the white people and slave-owners had lived, and East Spencer was where the black people went -- literally on the other side of the tracks; enormous freights trundled through as we spoke. And they said it was within living memory that you were back across the tracks by nightfall if you knew what was good for you. As far as the flag went, Mike did say he actually approved of it: "I'd rather someone hung up the flag, then I know not to go there; I'll go somewhere else. Go there and I might get hung."
Mike had to leave -- he had started a nail salon, whose card he gave me -- but he expanded on that whole getting hung thing. He and Curtis had mentioned a boundary between East Spencer and Salisbury they called "the unemployment tree," and I was looking for a clarification on that, but I never got there because he brought up another tree. "Don't forget to see the hanging tree," he said, before he left.
The what, now?
Yep: the hanging tree. I was to Google "lynching" and "Salisbury," and I would find an image of five men hanging from a tree, and the tree still stood on Seventeenth Street where it crossed the railroad tracks. Well, it's not five but three men hanging from a tree -- in 1906 -- and Seventeenth doesn't cross the tracks. Eleventh Street does, though. And according to this account (and map!) of the events, Eleventh Street was where I wanted to be. So I went there.
I'm not at all sure this lovely old tree is the right one. The point is far more important: the people in the community know that somewhere right there is where a white mob lynched three black men. I cannot imagine how one lives under these conditions.
I have no reason to be certain the tree I took a picture of is the one from which these three men -- one only 15 years old -- were lynched by a mob in August 1906, but if this tree is the wrong one, the right one is within a hundred yards or so. [Correction, 8-26-15: I'm told that there's considerable doubt about not only which tree but whether the tree stands at all; link through for a thorough discussion.] And here you can get a lot of background on the crime that led to the lynching, but that's not the point. The point -- the terrible point -- is that of all the historians and writers and people throughout the Salisbury area who showed me such enormous kindness, pointing me in the direction of old buildings and monuments, cemeteries and trails, the Trading Path and the Trading Ford, nobody outside the black community thought to say to me, "Don't miss the hanging tree." The black community? I spoke to two guys for twenty minutes and it came up and came up but good.
I spoke with Curtis for a while after Mike left, and then I went to see the tree. Around Eleventh Street there are warehouses and traintracks and such, but standing by itself was this tree, plainly old enough to have been large in 1906, and I watched it for a few minutes. No wreath, no flowers, no nothing -- just a tree, surrounded by a fence. It's not a symbol for Salisbury -- but it's a symbol for its black residents.
Anyhow off I went, along the path Lawson and I share.
Naturally, that turned out to be the day I saw a million Confederate flags, too. I took pictures.
This one in Denton doesn't leave much to the imagination. The dudes on the porch were super cheerful and closed the door so I could see the flag on it. There's an even bigger one flying above the house.
This house with its mess of a yard was surrounded by well-kept houses without Confederate flags, and I thought, "Well, at least his yard looks like his soul does." That's exactly what I thought.
So anyhow, I walked along, thinking my thoughts, until I passed the Pandemonium Performance motorcycle shop on Flat Swamp Road into Denton. There a large Confederate flag flew, and a small one, and a large American flag, and a sign saying, "You want to start something?"
I most certainly did not. I got a curt nod from the guy out front and I didn't even take a picture. Except then I walked into Denton and thought, "I want to talk to the guy flying those flags." So I drove back, pulled over across the street, and shot a couple snaps. As I sat there the same guy walked out and asked: "You okay?" With overtones only of helpfulness. "I'm fine," I said, and asked if it was okay if I took some pictures. It was, and he urged me to park in his lot. "When I saw you stop, I worried you had broken down," he said. He was genuinely checking to see if I needed help.
So I told him my story. And we talked. "The reason is, to me that flag does not represent color," Kary, the shop owner told me. His some-number-of-greats-grandfather fought in the war, which was fought because "the North was trying to take what the South had, tell us we couldn't do what we wanted." Like, I pointed out, own slaves, a point he yielded. But "to me, that flag represents me rebelling versus the government telling me what to do." He pointed to the American flag and said, "that's another thing about that flag -- you have the right to have an opinion."
"Want to Start Something?" Um, nuh-unh. I'll just be on my way if you don't mind. That is, I perceived this flag the way the vast majority of people perceive it, not the way the shop owner says he means it.
The Pandemonium Performance motorcycle shop near Denton. We talked about flags and racism and symbols and such. I walked away thinking these were nice people in this shop.
This is Kary. He owns the shop, though not the building. We had an awesome conversation.
To be sure; and to fly any flag you like, regardless of how others perceive it. The conversation continued and never, I need to be sure I am making clear, approached disrespect, threat, or even anger. We were discussing one of the matters of the day, and Kary laughed when I told him the "You want to start something?" sign had cowed me. Turned out it came from a rack of motorcycle batteries in the shop. Kary and I spoke respectfully, decently, and cheerfully. When Kary tells me he's not racist I believe him. I suspect that when I told him the flag is perceived as racist by just about everybody else, I think he believed me. He didn't change his actions, but he believed me.
In fact, when I tried to explain that whatever his personal beliefs, there was no doubt that millions of people took the flag as a symbol that he was a racist, he said he hated that. So I made a gesture, raising my middle finger, though pointing it at the wall, not at him. "What if I put that on a flag and waved it in your face?" I asked. He admitted that might offend him, and when I said, "What if I told you that though that middle finger is universally understood to mean disrespect and meanness, when I use it I just mean you should remember to have a digital exam to make sure you don't have prostate cancer? Because I'm worried about you?" He smiled and even laughed, nodding. He got the point.
He didn't take down his flag, mind you, but he got the point.
Anyhow. That was last week, and I look at the conversations of that day is among the most important I've had on the trek. Like Lawson I'm out trying to see what's out there, who's out there, what's going on, and at the moment, we are talking about this flag, and I'm walking through its home territory. Lawson walked through North and South Carolina. And it was South Carolina still flying the Confederate flag on its state capitol grounds until the Charleston church murders convinced their legislature to take it down. And it was North Carolina KKK members, don't forget, who came down to make sure nobody thought all Carolinians were civilizing.
I was so glad for these conversations. Because I want it to be easy -- I want the house with the dirty yard and the flag to be symbolic of a Bad Person with Racist Views, and I want anybody who still flies that flag to be Bad and Wrong and Mean. I want it to be easy. But there were Mike and Curtis telling me that they were a lot more concerned about jobs and education and civic investment than in some flag, and they pointed me at the hanging tree. And there was Kary -- and so many like him whom I've met so often -- who genuinely believes that the flag is not a symbol of racism, and who genuinely believes, despite all the enormous, vast evidence that ths Southern states seceded to protect slavery and white supremacy, that the Civil War was fought over something other than slavery. (Here's the flag's designer, in his own words. Shudder.)
In fact, as a small aside, let me remind you that unlike Lawson, I am not having on my trek my first experience in this territory. I have lived here more than two decades, and I can remind you: people in the South? If nothing else, they are stubborn. Stubborn. With all the positive and negative things that word can carry. If you're wondering why people refuse to accept the unequivocal evidence that the war was about slavery and the flag was adopted as a symbol of white resistance to Civil Rights, try to remember that you may be dealing less with racism than with a streak of pure, gut stubbornness. That stubbornness is not unadmirable. Though I will say -- in this case it's horribly misguided.
We talk about the flag and the flag and the flag and the churches and blah blah blah but the reality is now, this very day, black people are being murdered in the streets. By criminals, by citizens, by amateur crimestoppers, by the police, over and over and over. There cannot be any doubt that this is a direct result of slavery and the war. And yet another black citizen is killed and we say, "Gracious me that's just terrible," and then we get into a long pointy-headed discussion about the damned flag.
Mind you: the flag should come down. Anybody who flies it? At the very least -- at the very least -- is saying, "I know that tens of millions of people will find this offensive, but I still think the fact that I can claim to my own satisfaction that I personally don't mean it that way outweighs the absolute certainty that those tens of millions of people will perceive this flag as racist and mean and vicious." This is at best selfish and at worst ... something much worse. We should take down the flag, and everybody flying one should know: people who look at you see Dylann Roof, not your great-whatever-great-grandfather, whether he personally owned slaves or not. By flying it you're choosing to side with the Dylann Roofs of this world.
One more aside -- monuments. The monuments should stand, every single one of them. Salisbury itself has had some discussion over its downtown Confedereate monument, which some would like to have removed. I completely oppose such Stalinist whitewashing. Salisbury's monument to Confederate soldiers is actually quite lovely, but it's also physical fact. And though I agree with all who find offensive and even absurd its inscription that it commemorates men who died for "constitutional liberty and state sovereignty," I would never take it down. Instead I'd add a new plaque giving more responsible information.
More important, I'd build an enormous monument around the Hanging Tree -- a monument to every African American person lynched, to every African American person terrorized during Jim Crow, to every African American person ruined by centuries of state-sponsored racism. In the first place, why would you not? In the second place, what visitor to the Southeast would miss the Salisbury Lynching Monument, if it existed?
So that's it on flags, trees, symbols, and suggestions from the Lawson Trek. No answers, and certainly no easy shorthand. Flying the flag doesn't make you one of the racists -- but it certainly means that's who you're choosing to align yourself with. Anyhow that's what people are talking about right now, here in the Carolinas, where Lawson walked and where I walk along in his path.
This was great. After our discussion I so enjoyed reading this in thoughtful text.
Jeff Mathews link
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, leave my country. You and all your gutter degenerate Yankee filth pseudo liberals.
Did it EVER occur to scum like you that the men wearing the grey were by and large the direct descendants; the grand children and great grandchildren of the very people whose fortitude and courage and sacrifice brought "these United States" into existence after eight long years of a terrible revolution? Or that the sacrifices of their grandsons and great grandsons made it possible for this country to maintain its' freedom from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
This is what that sacrifice has earned us? Contempt and moral superiority from some classless Yankee buffoon whose family was in all probability not even in the same hemisphere when mine was serving in the Continental Line and the 3rd Louisiana 87 years later.
People like you are why this country is a sewer. The worst mistake my kind ever made was in allowing any immigration whatsoever after the Revolution. It brought scummy euro trash like your sort onto the lands we paid for in blood and like a loathsome social disease, we find out, way too late, the actual cost of importing this disease of stupidity and desperate moralizing.
Wow.....really??? So this is how you respect your ancestors? By being an absolute jerk and name calling and accusing someone of being something when you know absolutely NOTHING about their ancestors or if they were fighting with yours? Seems like you're the problem. And quite frankly, THIS WASN'T YOUR LAND TO TAKE! IT WAS THE NATIVE AMERICANS OF WHICH I AM....So why don't YOU get out of MY COUNTRY? You and your ancestors came in and raped and and killed my ancestors so you have NO ROOM TO TALK. And btw, YOU'RE "EURO TRASH" too if your ancestors immigrated to this country in the revolution idiot. I grew up in the very heart of the South and I think it's about time someone wrote something like this. But as long as people like you still want to hate people just because of the colour of their skin or their heritage, this country will never be at peace. You need God in your life. Wake up for crying out loud.
I would like to agree with my native american friend here whit people like yourealy make this country what it is. My uncle is curtis in this story and i honestly am glad i read this i undertsnd what he grew up in when he and my great grandmother moved here from philly. And you KKK trump supporters will truely burn when the rapture comes...郎
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