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Our new podcast series — “F*cking & Dying” — explores two of the Civilians’ favorite subjects: sex and death. This first episode focuses on death as the ultimate turn-on. Stephen Plunkett performs a monologue based on an interview with porn director Craven Moorehead. And Sam Breslin Wright portrays Johannes, the director of “The Six Feet Under Club,” a festival in Austria where people can be buried alive. The episode closes with Lady Rizo singing her and Yair Evnine’s original song “Under,” based on a “Six Feet Under Club” participant who got buried alive with her lover.
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57th Anniversary of FCU
The 57th Anniversary of Feng Chia Anniversary was held on November 15 and the theme of the anniversary this year is Outstanding Feng Chia, Amazing Campus.
Feng Chia University has been proved to be one of the most outstanding schools in Taiwan in various aspects. For instance, College of Business, College of Finance, and the EMBA program all re-obtained AACSB accreditation in a flawless manner. Besides, General Education was honored as the winner of the first Paradigm Award from Chinese Association for General Education in Taiwan. Moreover, in the 2019 Times Higher Education (THE) report, FCU ranks No. 1 of all private universities in Taiwan and No. 9 all of universities around the island in the ranking of physical science.
Regarding the campus, after the land transfer of the new Shuinan campus, Feng Chia has been a borderless campus. Now with the reconstruction of the administrative offices - some units having moved to the 3rd and the 4th floors of the library - and the launch of the new East Gate, the campus looks like a brand-new one. As we look ahead, the school will have new features endlessly. It is worth noting that the reconstruction of the campus is entirely funded by alumni all over the world.
Outstanding faculty members and alumni were honored in the anniversary ceremony. The event ended up with the launch ceremony of the new East Gate. Another exhibition about the historical development of Feng Chia University is also available, till March of 2019, for all faculty members and students to understand the school history.
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Home > EXHIBITIONS > Solo Exhibitions > Bernard Frize > Bernard Frize
Bernard Frize
March 22, 2019 – May 8, 2019
GALLERY HOURS :11:00 – 19:00
GALLERY CLOSED：
SUNDAY, MONDAY, PUBLIC HOLIDAY
RECEPTION：March 22, 2019 17:00〜20:00
VENUE：Motoazabu Crest Bldg. B1F, 2-3-30 Motoazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Concurrent Exhibition
Dates: Friday, March 22 – Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Gallery Closed：Sunday, Monday, Public Holiday
Venue: Perrotin Tokyo (Piramide Building 1F, 6-6-9 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo)
Fleurant, 2015.
Acrylic and resin on canvas. 160 x135 x3 cm
© Bernard Frize / ADAGP, Paris & JASPAR, Tokyo, 2019
Kaikai Kiki Gallery and Perrotin Tokyo are happy to present two concurrent solo shows of French painter Bernard Frize, in advance of his retrospective at the Centre Pompidou – Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris (29 May – 26 August 2019, curator Angela Lampe). Featuring a wide range of paintings, including new productions, these exhibitions mark the return of the artist in Japan, 13 years after the group show « Essential painting » at the National Museum of Osaka.
«While regularly revisiting various moments of his past practice, Frize has never stopped exploring new concepts, inventing novel ways to paint (starting with the development, 10 years ago, of processes based on the creation of one painting by multiple people simultaneously), but he has also, since the mid-1990s, abandoned all recourse to what we summarize as “figurative art,” namely the representation of real and identifiable objects or images. It is only by accident or allusion, and by a natural predisposition of our vision, that we perceive this or that painting as evoking a stone, a curtain or a bookshelf. So much so that this action of expansion that first strikes us corresponds to another, of reduction or of disconnection. The paradox is far-reaching and leads immediately to the Frize’s conception of painting since the beginning, which is to constitute it of an ensemble of paradoxes, in other words of propositions contrary to common sense and expectation. Of course, the principle applies at the level of each work considered individually: “I always try to get to the point where there is not just one thing in the painting, one thing shown, but that there is a paradox, an antagonism, a difficulty in the work.”1
“I try to make paintings that one can look at at least twice. I would also say that I try as much as possible to articulate the processes amongst themselves, to recycle the remains of one series for the benefit of another. The monochrome that is drying over there is an example: at one point I put a canvas beneath it so that the drops that fall from it provide me with the beginning of another painting.”2 These words, spoken by Frize more than 20 years ago, have just as much pertinence today. Since then his work has continued to grow using the same autodidactic method. Considering the many avenues he has explored, one of the questions he certainly now faces is that of a renewed, deliberate use of distinctly figurative motifs. In an interview published in Artforum, he remarked on this point: “The figurative pieces I’ve done, the ones that are paintings in the strict sense—not the photographs or scanachromes— are, it seems to me, even more ambiguous than the abstract ones. In the figurative the images function as a sort of primary material that I use without worrying about their references, or else they are used to play with the idea of hidden figuration, of double meaning. In any case, I have never invented an image, I can only paint one in order to put it to use in a demonstration of pictorial order. When, for example, I returned periodically to painting images of pots, I did so in order to work on the idea of ‘failure,’ to accentuate, via the image, a certain exploitation of accident that I was trying to get to. So, for example, I would cover the surface of the painting with “crazing” varnish, or I would paint the image itself out of register. I was trying to represent in the clearest way possible a certain inadequacy, the fact that nothing fits in these pictures.”3 That there is still much to invent from such a conception of the image is more than likely, especially if one takes into account the way in which all sorts of illicit figurations haunt numerous paintings of Frize’s that can rightly be called “abstract.” In the course of his entire body of work, the logic would be that of an expansion of figurative exploration, through a revitalization of “pictorial intelligence.“4»
Jean-Pierre Criqui, extract of « Bernard Frize Today », in Bernard Frize, Perrotin, 2014.
Jean-Pierre Criqui is the Curator of The Musée National d’Art Moderne – Contemporary Collections, and Chief Editor of Cahiers du Mnam
Bernard Frize will be exhibited later this year at Perrotin Paris (May 18th – August 10th) and Perrotin New York (September 14th – October 26th) celebrating 25 years of collaboration between the artist and Perrotin gallery.
In 2015, Bernard Frize was awarded the Käthe Kollwitz Prize by the Berlin Akademie der Künste. The Jury members, Ayse Erkmen, Mona Hatoum and Karin Sander wrote in their statement: “He strives with the utmost sophistication toward the advancement of contemporary painterly abstraction and the development of a topology of painterly gestures and structures. ”Bernard Frize was also awarded the Fred Thieler Prize for Painting, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, 2011. The artist has been the subject of solo exhibitions in worldwide institutions, including the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa, Portugal; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Germany; Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany; Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense, Denmark; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; S.M.A.C.K., Ghent, Belgium; Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, the Netherlands; Kunstmuseum Basel & Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Switzerland; Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster, Germany; Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland; Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig, Wien, Austria; De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, The Netherlands; Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Kunsthalle, Zürich, Switzerland; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA; Villa Medici, Rome, Italy. He has also been featured in important group exhibitions, including the Sao Paolo Biennial, Venice Biennale, and Sydney Biennial, amongst others.
His work is represented in more than 45 public collections around the world, including the Tate Gallery, London; MNAM/ Centre Pompidou, Paris; MUMOK, Vienna; NMAO the National Museum of Art Osaka; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; the Kunstmuseum, Basel and the Kunsthalle, Zurich.
1 “I buy a 40 cm brush…” interview with Irmeline Lebeer, catalogue Bernard Frize: Aplat, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 2003
2 Unpublished interview with Bernard Frize and Jean-Pierre Criqui, Summer 1993
3 « Rule and Branch : Jean-Pierre Criqui Visits Bernard Frize », Artforum, October 1993
4 From the title of the book by Svetlana Alpers & Michael Baxandall, Tiepolo and the Picto-rial Intelligence, Yale University Press, 1994
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Photo gallery December, 2012
With Russian Human Rights Ombudsman and President of the Paralympic Committee Vladimir Lukin.
At the State Council Presidium meeting on improving investment attractiveness of Russian regions. With Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
At the State Council Presidium meeting on improving investment attractiveness of Russian regions.
Before laying flowers at the monument to Pyotr Stolypin. With Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
At the ceremony for presenting state decorations. With singer Oleg Gazmanov.
At the ceremony for presenting state decorations. With Mikhail Zhvanetsky, artistic director of the Moscow Theatre of Miniatures.
Launch ceremony via video linkup of the second stage of the Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean pipeline and the opening of the Kuznetsovsky Tunnel railway stretch. With Energy Minister Alexander Novak.
Launch ceremony via video linkup of the second stage of the Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean pipeline and the opening of the Kuznetsovsky Tunnel railway stretch.
Launch ceremony via video linkup of the second stage of the Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean pipeline and the opening of the Kuznetsovsky Tunnel railway stretch. With Energy Minister Alexander Novak (left) and Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov.
Taking part in a launch ceremony via video linkup of the second stage of the Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean pipeline and the opening of the Kuznetsovsky Tunnel railway stretch.
During an official visit to India. With President of India Pranab Mukherjee.
Press statements following Russia-Indian talks. With Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh.
During an official visit to India. With President of the Indian National Congress Party Sonia Gandhi.
During an official visit to India.
During an official visit to India. With Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh.
News conference of Vladimir Putin.
Before the CSTO Collective Security Council meeting.
Before the CSTO Collective Security Council meeting. With President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko.
Before the meeting with CEO of Russian Technologies (Rostekhnologii) State Corporation Sergei Chemezov.
With Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras.
At the joint news conference with President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff following Russian-Brazilian talks.
Before Annual Address to the Federal Assembly.
At the Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final in the Iceberg Skating Palace.
At the meeting on preparations for 2014 Winter Olympics while travelling along the new railway line connecting Sochi and Krasnaya Polyana.
Before the ground-breaking ceremony for the South Stream gas pipeline project.
During a working visit to Turkmenistan. With President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych (centre) and President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev.
During a working visit to Turkmenistan. With President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev (centre) and President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych.
During a working visit to Turkmenistan.
With Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a news conference following meeting of High-Level Russian-Turkish Cooperation Council.
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Russia: President Dmitry Medvedev will make his first foreign visits to Kazakhstan and China
Analytics Russia
Dmitry Medvedev begins his first foreign tour in the presidential capacity. Kazakhstan and China were chosen for the first visit. That some thinking went into their selection is clear, but exactly how significant is the choice?
Elected the president in April 2000, Vladimir Putin made his first visits to Belarus, Great Britain, and Ukraine even before the inauguration. Putin made it plain then that the choice of these countries was deliberate. Belarus had to be pampered because of its "special relations" with Moscow. Visits to Kiev and Sevastopol were logical too because Ukraine was viewed as Russia's important strategic partner. As for London, Putin went there on PM Tony Blair's invitation. It was a period when political scientists counted on "new strategic relations". They recalled Mikhail Gorbachev's famous trip to the United Kingdom and his meeting with Margaret Thatcher. They said Putin was "poleaxing" a new "window to Europe"...
It is fair to say that the Russian diplomacy failed in all these vectors. As for relations with London, they are particularly dour at this point.
Unlike his predecessor, Medvedev is going east.
"The route is charted in such a manner as to highlight importance of the Asian component of the new president's foreign policy," Oksana Antonenko, an expert with the International Institute of Strategic Studies (London), said. "Moreover, Medvedev will be visiting the least problematic countries, the ones that may be termed as Russia's strategic partners. It stands to reason to expect advancement of the Russian-Chinese relations in Medvedev's days. On the other hand, relations between Moscow and Beijing are not as smooth and cloudless as one might decide at first sight. There are problems like Russian gas export, immigration from China (actual and imagined), the necessity to shift the trade balance in the direction of hi-tech industries..."
Neither is the Central Asian region free of problems from the Kremlin's standpoint. The pipeline built from Turkmenistan to China these days may bring down Turkmen gas deliveries to Russia, a nuance that disturbs Gazprom greatly. It was Chinese competitors that compelled Gazprom to offer the Turkmens more for their gas than it had expected to offer. Beijing in the meantime is energetically advancing bilateral relations with its partners in the region, frequently outperforming Moscow in terms of scope and efficiency of investments in Central Asian economies. China is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. What with its ever growing might and clout with Central Asia, experts wonder how much longer it will continue seeking compromises with Russia within the framework of this structure. Some specialists believe that Beijing is ready to push the Shanghai Cooperation Organization down the list of its priorities and make an emphasis on bilateral contacts with Central Asian countries. This strategy will certainly strengthen China's positions in the region where positions of Russia have been steadily weakening.
Regardless of China, however, the influence Moscow exerts with the region may weaken in any case. Some Central Asian regimes amended their constitutions for what essentially comes down to life presidency of their rulers. Devolution in Russia without amendment of the constitution may be taken as an indirect menace to their legitimacy.
As for Kazakhstan as such, the new president of Russia will find advancement of relations with it much easier than it is bound to be with other Central Asian countries.
Kazakhstan and Russia have a great deal of joint economic projects running. Kazakhstan is Central Asia's unquestionable leader in terms of economic development and economic reforms. Also importantly, Kazakh diplomacy succeeded in making its foreign policy a truly multiple-vector policy. Astana maintains close contacts with Russia, China, Europe, United States, and Asian countries. Kazakhstan is one of the largest investors in lots of CIS countries. It is a member of the CIS Collective Security Treaty Organization, its representative chairs the Shanghai Cooperation Organization at this point. At the same time, the Kazakh-NATO interaction remains fairly energetic. In 2010, Kazakhstan will become the first CIS country to chair the OSCE. In a word, there are things in foreign policy (from the standpoint of strategy and cadre) Kazakhstan could teach Russia.
As for Medvedev, he is making his first visit to Asia but it is in the West that he is bound to encounter his worst problems and headaches as the Russian president. It is compromises with the West that will be particularly taxing and conflicts of interests particularly vicious. From the tactical angle, strengthening of relations with Asia will entitle Moscow to some points for the dialogue with the West. Without detracting from its importance, however, the Asian vector is not going to be predominant in the Russian foreign policy for years to come yet.
"Like his predecessor Putin, Medvedev is out to promote a multiple-vector policy," Political Techniques Center Assistant General Director Aleksei Makarkin said. "His first foreign trips should be regarded in connection with what visits will follow. The visit to Kazakhstan signifies attention to the countries of the Commonwealth where Astana is Moscow's best partner. I do not expect any surprises from the visit to Astana. Moreover, Kazakhstan itself is promoting a multiple-vector policy."
"Had Dmitry Medvedev chosen Belarus for the first visit, it would have given him bad publicity in the Western media," Makarkin continued. "Besides, the relations between Russia and Belarus are not what I'd call cordial. Neither are Russia's relations with Ukraine are, for that matter. Hence the choice of Kazakhstan, a predictable and stable partner that it is... As for China, it was chosen as one of the centers of international politics. It should be remembered, however, that Medvedev will probably visit Germany after that, Russia's closest partner in Europe. Besides, there will be the G8 summit including meetings with the US president and British PM. Viewed together, all of that makes foreign policy of Russia a multiple-vector policy."
Moskovsky Komsomolets, No 108, May 22, 2008, p. 5. © Translated by Ferghana.Ru
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THE BIG PICTURE COLUMN by Toni Michel. The State of Democracy in Kyrgyzstan
Toni Michel
Analytics Politics Central Asia Kyrgyzstan
Shortly before Kyrgyzstan’s Presidential elections in October 2017, the prominent American analyst Ian Bremmer interviewed President Almazbek Atambayev in a long article for TIME Magazine and introduced Kyrgyzstan as a “genuine democracy in a part of the world that doesn’t have any.” Atambayev himself got plenty of praise as well: he came to power six years ago, “inheriting a country with weak institutions dominated by kleptocrats. It still doesn’t have many resources, but it now has plenty of committed democrats, among them Atambayev. In fact, he’s preparing to step down after a single term as president, as laid out in the country’s constitution.”
It is doubtlessly true that Kyrgyzstan is by far the most democratic and pluralistic country in Central Asia and even the wider region. This is owed to a number of factors, among them the extraordinary diversity of the country (“Kyrgyz” literally means “40 peoples”), its mountainous geography, traditionally weak central state and lack of resources – all of which impede the emergence of a single and potentially autocratic power center.
With Kyrgyzstan having its own preconditions and peculiarities in its development, it is insufficient to look at the country’s autocratic neighbors for comparison when assessing Kyrgyz democracy. Focusing on this regional context will inevitably obscure a number of very important trends under Atambayev’s tenure as President that threaten Kyrgyzstan’s democratic progress: in fact, there is a distinct risk of democratic rollback in Kyrgyzstan.
First, consider the legal sphere. Constitutional changes in late 2016 that were not only condemned by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission for their negative impact on legislative powers and judicial independence but also for scrapping constitutional clauses that obliged Kyrgyzstan to respect rulings of international human rights bodies.
At the same time, individual rights are often under threat in Kyrgyzstan, especially upon the slightest suspicion of harboring “extremist” views. Fergana has extensively reported on a terrorism scare that saw many Kyrgyz arrested and convicted to long sentences based on insufficient and murky evidence, particularly in the country’s south.
Moreover, 2017 increasingly saw the use of the barely independent judiciary to openly go after Atambayev’s political opponents for alleged corruption or coup plots: Omurbek Tekebayev, who planned to run for President in October, got convicted to eight years in prison on fraud charges, opposition lawmaker Kanatbek Isaev war arrested before the elections on coup allegations and even former Prime Minister Omurbek Babanov who was the main presidential contender against Atambayev’s chosen successor, Sooronbay Jeenbekov, has left the country fearing arrest for allegedly stirring up ethnic unrest during the presidential campaign – a charge that Babanov vehemently denies.
Toni Michel is a European and Eurasian Affairs analyst based in Moscow. He is the founder of the start-up consultancy LockBreakers.org and is working with Civil Society Institutions like WeBuildEurope.eu and the Expert Center for Eurasian Development ECED. He is holding an MA from MGIMO University and has extensive professional experience in the European Parliament.
Follow Toni Michel on Twitter @villageescape
The presidential elections in October themselves did provide for a meaningful choice and a pluralistic election campaign, but international observers equally noted the misuse of public resources, problems with vote counting and administrative pressure on voters and officials alike.
The most worrying threat to Kyrgyzstan’s democratic development is, however, a sustained crackdown by the government on foreign and domestic independent media, resulting in self-censorship and insufficient independent scrutiny of the government’s activities.
In June 2017, Fergana itself was dealt a massive blow when its website got wholly blocked in Kyrgyzstan and a criminal investigation was opened against its local correspondent Ulugbek Babakulov for “inciting inter-ethnic hatred” by reporting on social media hate comments against ethnic Uzbeks. August 2017 then saw the closure of opposition TV station “September” for spreading “extremism” when an interviewee said he was playing the Uzbek anthem at a school opening during a live broadcast. One month later, a book on pre-Islamic beliefs in Kyrgyzstan by journalist Zulpukar Sapanov resulted in his two-year jail sentence for allegedly “inciting hatred between religious faiths”. December then saw the news website Zanoza.kg effectively shut down after the Supreme Court upheld a fine of 27 million soms ($390.000) for reporting that allegedly insulted the President. The very same month, AFP’s Central Asia Correspondent Chris Rickleton was effectively banned from the country for reasons that remain murky.
In the face of such evidence, Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch have all significantly lowered their overall scores for the country. At the same time, it is worth asking if Atambayev’s much-praised decision to observe his term limits and step down is indeed indicative of the former President’s strong democratic convictions. After all, he could have reasonably expected to be blown away by popular revolution if he overstepped his powers in a too flagrant way – just like his predecessors Askar Akayev and Kurmanbek Bakiyev experienced in 2005 in 2010. While the orderly transfer of power last year was definitely a positive development, the real baptism-by-fire for Kyrgyzstan’s democracy will come when it is the opposition and not the President’s chosen successor that is to take power after an election.
It is not yet clear if Kyrgyzstan’s new President Sooronbay Jeenbekov will continue or reverse the democratic rollback in the country. In any event, observers should think twice before describing Kyrgyzstan’s governance model only in relative terms to the neighboring autocracies. In his TIME article, Ian Bremmer was right that Kyrgyzstan has “many committed democrats”. And these activists, politicians, journalists and citizens are best helped by calling out the government whenever it attempts to infringe on their rights, shut down their publications or prevent them from speaking out freely.
The views expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Fergana-News.
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CD I Will Praise You...Rebecca St James
Category->Interfaith Center->Music CDs
By Rebecca St James. Audio CD (April 5, 2011) The album opens with three powerful songs, each underscoring the subtheme of fearing no evil. "I will praise you," the title track and first of her new songs, communicates the message of living in hope, not fear, even in the middle of the storms of life. It sets the tone and draws the listener in immediately. We are worshipping an awesome God from the get-go. The second track, "You Never Let Go," is a cover of a Matt Redman song. Catchy and foot-tapping, this song will be familiar to many. It emphasizes God's perfect love which casts out fear.--Martin Baggs. Reunion (2011), Audio CD Discs: 1.
Tracks (10): 1. I Will Praise You; 2. You Never Let Go; 3. Shine Your Glory Down; 4. You Still Amaze Me; 5. In A Moment; 6. The Kindness Of Our God; 7. When The Stars Burn Down (Blessings And Honor); 8. Almighty God; 9. You Hold Me Now; 10. You Make Everything Beautiful.
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A family discovers that dark spirits have invaded their home after their son inexplicably falls into an endless sleep. When they reach out to a professional for help, they learn…
A mother’s last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad’s acclaimed play, Incendies tells the…
Genre: Drama, Mystery, War
Scott Pilgrim is a 23 year old radical Canadian gamer and wannabe rockstar who falls in love with an American delivery girl, Ramona V. Flowers, and must defeat her seven…
Country: Canada, Japan, UK, USA
This psychedelic tour of life after death is seen entirely from the point of view of Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a young American drug dealer and addict living in Tokyo with…
Country: Canada, France, Germany, Italy
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Layers of Fear 2 Review – Ghost Ship
Peel back the layers and there’s a clear connective tissue tying Layers of Fear 2 and its predecessor together. Both games are centered around an artist gradually losing their grip on reality. While the original game focused on a struggling painter in an opulent Victorian mansion, Layers of Fear 2 shifts art forms to tell the story of a Hollywood actor during the Golden Age of cinema, as he embarks on a new role in a movie being shot aboard a decadent ocean liner. Developer Bloober Team has created something more varied and ambitious than its past work, taking inspiration from iconic film directors like Georges Méliès, Fritz Lang, and Alfred Hitchcock. And while it is a visually striking horror game, Layers of Fear 2 struggles to establish its own identity and explore its themes of anguish and despair in meaningful ways.
The story itself is like a jigsaw puzzle; some of the pieces come together as the narrative unfolds, but others are scattered across the environment as notes, optional puzzles, sound recordings, and paraphernalia that provide new details on your character’s troubled past. You might not be able to put the whole picture together before the game’s conclusion, but it’s a familiar and clichéd tale that isn’t too difficult to discern once events begin to wrap up. Childhood trauma is the key motif, built around the relationship you had with your sister, but Layers of Fear 2 regularly uses routine horror tropes as opposed to something more personal. This decision doesn’t coalesce with the story to provide a sense that your character’s state of mind and past anguish are shaping what’s happening. During the first act you catch spectral forms out of the corner of your eye, and this eventually evolves into frequent appearances from crudely assembled mannequins and a formless monster that stalks you through much of the game. These creatures are unnerving, but they’re not really specific to the game or this character, failing to capitalize on the strengths of psychological horror and the inherent importance of a character’s fears and trepidations in manifesting intimate threats.
Similarly, much of Layers of Fear 2’s art design is wrapped around the classic films that inspired it, which doesn’t always come together in a consistent way. Saying it takes place aboard a ship is a tad disingenuous, as the setting is constantly shifting and transporting you to a variety of disparate environments. Overt homages to films such as The Wizard of Oz, A Trip to the Moon, and Nosferatu are littered throughout the game. Some of them are deftly woven into the narrative and the game’s own art style, but others lack context and fail to rise above being mere visual spectacles, foregoing any semblance of cohesion with the rest of the game. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, particularly if you have an appreciation for this era of cinema, but it also makes Layers of Fear 2 feel like an inconsequential mishmash of film references without any clear significance to the story it’s trying to tell.
Much of Layers of Fear 2’s art design is wrapped around the classic films that inspired it, which doesn’t always come together in a consistent way
Your interactions with the world are very tangible, which helps ground you in the game’s setting even when the threads of reality are stretched thinner and thinner. The majority of your time is spent simply exploring each space, gathering knick-knacks to fill in the story, and solving puzzles to progress. The conundrums it places before you are never particularly challenging or memorable, whether it’s using a dial with 10 numbers to multiply up to a specific digit or manipulating a roll of film to create a doorway. Some of them are in keeping with the tone of the game and its cinematic feel, but others are so inane they just feel out of place.
What Layers of Fear 2 does do well is build atmosphere and an ever-escalating sense of dread. The score is ominous, utilizing string instruments to send a chill down your spine. But there are also plenty of opportunities for the sound design to breathe on its own, too. The creaking of wooden floorboards, rats scurrying past your feet, and the plip-plop of dripping water create tension despite their mundanity. It also makes you hesitant to simply turn around, as the environment toys with impossible spaces, distorting the world around you when you’re not looking. When you walk into a room and find a locked door with nowhere else to go but back the way you came, the suspense hits, tapping into that fear of the unknown–of what’s waiting to greet you once you turn your head.
Unfortunately, these anxiety-inducing feelings diminish as the game progresses and it leans too heavily on tried and tested tactics. The aforementioned mannequins are consistently impressive due to their creepy stop-motion-esque movement, but they’re featured so heavily that their effect as something to be scared of is severely diminished. This is a problem with Layers of Fear 2 as a whole; the protracted playtime of around 10 hours struggles to maintain its early momentum through the last couple of chapters. The formless creature that oftentimes stalks you adds some urgency to what is otherwise a methodical affair, but the most terrifying thing about the chase sequences is the threat of having to redo them if you fail. Sometimes the monster’s arrival comes so suddenly that you’re dead before even realizing what’s happened, and these cheap insta-kills mean you’re frustratingly subjected to the same death animation over and over again.
There are remnants of an excellent horror game submerged just below the surface of Layers of Fear 2. Horror icon Tony Todd–of Candyman fame–lends his bassy growl to the disembodied and omnipresent voice of the film’s eccentric director. Each word he bellows is a sonorous treat, no matter how terrifying his performance is. The art design, too, while disjointed, conjures some breathtaking imagery that you can’t help but marvel at. It’s just a shame that Layers of Fear 2 frequently pays lip service to the films and games that clearly inspired it while struggling to find a voice of its own. The story is too hazy to latch onto until the latter stages, and then nothing about it is particularly engaging, with its central mystery building towards something we’ve seen numerous times before. It occasionally hints at interesting themes but fails to go anywhere with them, falling back on telegraphed jump scares rather than delving deeper into the psychological horror it can only tease at. For every piece of good work there’s an analogous aspect that lacks focus and direction. Layers of Fear 2 feels lost at sea.
Written by gamerlord on May 25, 2019 . Posted in reviews
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The Walking Dead: The Final Season Episode 3 Review
The irony of a game about the zombie apocalypse dying an unnatural death only to be resurrected later shouldn’t be lost on anybody, nor should the fact that The Walking Dead returns with a story that is very much about the latent humanity present in even the shambling corpses roaming the Earth. It is, for certain, a game worse for wear, limping on to a long-overdue finish, but it’s a game full of purpose.
Broken Toys picks things up in the direct aftermath of Episode 2’s climactic battle. Lilly and her underlings have taken a few of the Ericson Boarding School kids hostage to be traded and trained as child soldiers. Clementine has Abel–the grungy drifter who’s been tormenting her and A.J. since Episode 1–hostage, the only lead as to how to get her new friends back. The interrogation of Abel is the closest Broken Toys gets to well-trod, familiar territory. Clementine has to walk a careful line between presenting a serious threat to a man who’s clearly ridden this bloody merry-go-round a few times before and setting the best possible example for A.J.
By way of Abel’s distinct character traits, this episode is more introspective and pensive than the series has been for some time. Abel’s not afraid of dying; he’s afraid of turning for a reason that eventually comes to define Broken Toys as a penultimate turning point and the likely set up for the finale: the idea that there is still something human in the Walkers.
Abel simply doesn’t want to become trapped in a zombie body. But to James, the Walker Whisperer introduced in Episode 2, it’s also a reason to show mercy and pity towards the Walkers. Naturally, the game gives you plenty of leeway to consider or discard this possibility out of hand. James’ proof, after all, is tenuous, presented in a strangely poignant moment where Clementine must walk amongst the Walkers. And yet, the episode’s script, credited to Lauren Mee and Mark Darin, does powerful work bringing the idea home to Clementine in other ways.
This is the episode where the theme of the whole series starts to take shape. An older generation full of perpetual fear and greed is making way for one where each others’ humanity and ability to adapt and compromise is recognized, acknowledged, and nurtured without the need for bloodshed. The grudges and enmity of the world before Walkers don’t seem to apply to these children, or, really, any of the children growing up knowing little to nothing else. We’ve seen this stretching all the way back to Gabe and Mariana in New Frontier, and, conversely, in Season 2’s Sarah, a girl sheltered from the way the world is and mentally shattering when exposed to it.
The standout moment of this episode is right in the middle: an impromptu party for the Ericson kids to remember what they’re fighting for before wandering into the lion’s den. The kids who were actually students at Ericson before the Walkers all still have delinquency files stored that they start reading off, but after it becomes clear just how many children in the file are dead and how little the people they used to be even matter anymore, the box is put away. They sing. They hold each other. They move on. Together. It’s a powerful thing, and presented in stark contrast to what Lilly’s people are going through just down the river, rehashing the same old petty fights Clementine’s seen her whole life. Clementine’s found home and peace with her own generation, one that has known nothing else but death, and the greatness of the episode lies in watching her choose to nest in it, for her and A.J. to feel like there is a future.
This is the episode where the theme of the whole series starts to take shape.
However, that still means one hell of a fight to protect it, and the latter half of the episode is a descent right back into darkness. All the skills acquired from the previous episodes come to bear in the assault on Lilly’s boat. The lack of impact from Clementine’s bow is still a factor, but it’s also much less of a linchpin on the one major Walker battle in the episode. Instead, the action side of things is hampered by some painful dips and judders in frame rate, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Telltale’s early days. Considering the fraught development history of this episode, it’s understandable, but it’s nonetheless a hindrance from time to time.
As far as the final stretch of the episode goes, it wouldn’t be The Walking Dead without things falling apart for the survivors in horrible ways, and Broken Toys saves the worst for last. The last 20 to 30 minutes are full of double-crosses, horrifying mutilations, a breathless Mexican standoff, and a moment where Clementine must decide the fate of A.J.’s soul faster and with more urgency than anything presented in the series prior–and with devastating emotional fallout.
It’s all set up for a finale that, if all goes to plan, hits two months after this one, and finally brings The Walking Dead in for the landing it deserves. But despite the blood and bombast that ends the episode, there’s another moment in Broken Toys that does more to show you the light at the end of this bleak tunnel: a dream sequence, flashing Clementine back to the little girl who sat with Lee on a hijacked train in Season 1. She just got her hair cut and learned to shoot because she was worried about the future. In Broken Toys, the voice may be that little girl’s, but the words are a woman’s. A reluctant leader’s lament for all that’s been done, the emptiness that could be, and the weariness of what must be done to get there.
And yet, smartly, this ghost of Lee isn’t crafted as some all-knowing magical father who tells Clementine exactly what she wants to hear. We’re forced to remember Lee was making it up as he went along, that his road to being the person Clementine needs was paved by his–and by proxy, your own–mistakes. But there was love, and there was hope, and for the first time in this series, Clementine being ready to face the uncertain future has nothing to do with being able to shoot or how short her hair is but the fact that she is surrounded by people, a place, and a purpose like never before. Whatever awaits Clementine at the end of this road, she goes there with a full heart. If the finale lives up to the future set up in Broken Toys, so will we.
Written by gamerlord on January 18, 2019 . Posted in reviews
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By Chace Pulley on April 24, 2019
Michael Martinez, Dean of Student Life and Title IX Coordinator, will be leaving Haverford at the end of this school year. During his tenure at Haverford, Dean Martinez has worked on a variety of different projects including Horizons, LIFTFAR (Low-Income and First-in-Their-Family Assistance and Resources), and Customs Committee. Starting next fall, Martinez will be moving to the U.A.E. to work as the Associate Dean of Students at NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus.
“I’ve been here for six years which is longer than I’ve ever been anywhere other than elementary school basically. And I think I have grown so much as a result of my experience here,” said Dean Martinez. “Haverford has taught me to look for opportunities to bring students into the conversation really at every level, from both sort of identifying the kind of issues that exist within a community and also brainstorming solutions and how to move forward.”
On campus, Dean Martinez was a controversial figure—particularly surrounding his work as the Title IX Coordinator. Addressing these concerns, Martinez said, “I think some of the controversy that has been associated with me is the nature of [working on] difficult community issues and the challenge of finding solutions to address these complicated issues and the imperfection that is very often the result of looking for solutions. I know I look back at some of those issues over time and I think I’ve learned a lot at certain points. And also I’m proud of some of the things that we’ve done that I’ve been a part of bringing to the table here.”
Some students are nervous about who will fill Dean Martinez’s slot. “In regards to Dean Martinez leaving, I’m mostly wondering who will become the Title IX coordinator. I’m hoping the next Title IX coordinator will be a trained professional who does not have pre-existing ties to the administration because of the potential for conflict of interest,” said Olivia Wong ‘21.
Looking forward, Dean Martinez hopes to bring the Haverford mindset to NYU Abu Dhabi as he begins working with students there: “I’ve been changed as a higher education administrator because of my experience here and I’ll always be looking for opportunities to bring students into the equation going forward no matter what kind of institutional context that I’m in. And that won’t always work in certain contexts but that’s something I’ll be looking for.”
Michael Martinez
Gummere’s 1/1 Faces Flooding Ahead of Bathroom Renovations
Eighth Annual Tri-Co Film Festival to Take Place May 9th
Bi-Co Bike Route Proposal Showcased at Meeting
Apartment 22 Basement to Become International Student Center
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Unexpected mechanism allows CaMKII to decode calcium signaling in the brain
In an increasingly connected world, translators and interpreters play a key role in the exchange of ideas and information. They serve the vital purpose of accurately conveying meaning from one language to the next. Nowadays, almost every modern industry has the crucial need for translators. But did you know that your brain has need for them too?
Though not in the traditional sense, cells in your brain are actively relaying information and communicating with each other in various languages. Neurons speak using neurotransmitters, molecules and electrical signals. In order to properly understand one another, cells in your brain need the skill of proficient translators. Versed in the unique languages of the brain, specialized proteins precisely decipher incoming information and accurately convey it from one neuron to the next.
An important interpreter in the brain named calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase, or CaMKII, plays a critical role in the process of learning and memory. When we learn new skills or form memories, dynamic changes occur at sites of communication between neurons called synapses. As synapses are repeatedly activated, calcium signals initiate a complex cascade that leads to long-lasting alterations in the strength of a neuron’s connections. This process, known as synaptic plasticity, is thought to underlie learning and memory. Playing a critical role in plasticity, CaMKII interprets calcium signals and converts them into the long-lasting changes that help encode memory. But the exact mechanisms behind this process have remained elusive.
Recently published in Nature Communications, a new study from the lab of Ryohei Yasuda, Ph.D., Scientific Director at MPFI has shed light on the unexpected mechanism that allows CaMKII to decode and translate calcium signaling in the brain. Using advanced imaging techniques and novel biosensors, Yasuda and his team have revealed new insights into CaMKII’s activity at the single synapse level.
In order to study CaMKII’s role in synaptic plasticity, the team developed novel sensors capable of disentangling the protein’s two distinct forms of activity. The first sensor, CaMKII?-CaM, reports CaMKII activity that is dependent on its association with calmodulin (CaM); a protein that mediates the binding of calcium to CaMKII. The second sensor, Camui?, reports CaMKII’s total activation, including both CaM dependent and CaM independent autonomous activity produced when CaMKII undergoes autophosphorylation.
Employing two-photon microscopy and glutamate uncaging to simulate plasticity in single synapses, the team used their newly design sensors to investigate the varying forms of CaMKII activity in neurons. Previously, it was thought that CaMKII decodes calcium signaling primarily through its CaM dependent activity, but MPFI scientists have uncovered that this might not be the case. Using the CaMKII?-CaM sensor, they noticed a rapid but small increase in CaM dependent activity that quickly plateaued when calcium pulses are evoked in the synapses. As calcium pulses continue, there were no further increases in CaMKII?-CaM activity within the neuron. Contrastingly, the Camui? sensor demonstrated more robust activity and a step-wise activation; where increasing the number of calcium pulses directly correlated with increased CaMKII activity.
Intriguingly, these results indicate that at a synaptic level, CaMKII’s activity is predominantly driven by its autonomous activation and to a much smaller extent by its interaction with CaM. In addition, these findings reveal that the autonomous activity of CaMKII is responsible for responding to and interpreting the language of calcium signaling during the process of synaptic plasticity.
“CaMKII has been well-established as a critically important player in the process of synaptic plasticity, but due to its complex activation profile, a working model of its activity has been difficult to achieve.” notes Yasuda, “With new insights gathered from our novel sensors, we are now able to propose a model that is consistent with our experimental data; broadening our understanding of how molecules contribute to memory.”
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helenscozycorner.com
Lighthouses on the Great Lakes
Lighthouses have been guiding ships safely to shore for centuries. They are also placed in difficult areas, such as small islands or capes to warn ships to steer clear of that piece of land and avoid collision.
The Great Lakes, as navigational channels, make no exception and are dotted with several lighthouses, many of which are captured in wonderfully illustrated nautical prints. Some of them are purely functional, but others are beautiful examples of architecture and are open to the public to climb inside them and explore them.
These are the most iconic lighthouses on the Great Lakes that you should put down on your bucket list:
Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse, Mackinaw City, Michigan
Looking like a European medieval keep, this lighthouse is strategically placed at the point where Lake Huron and Lake Michigan almost meet. The interior of the lighthouse keeper’s house is preserved the same state since 1910.
The adjacent barn houses a movie theater where you can watch historical videos. And if you feel brave enough, you can climb the 8-foot ladder to reach the top of the lighthouse tower. Because good weather is a must for a safe visit, the Old Mackinac Point lighthouse is open to the public from May to October only.
Fort Gratiot Lighthouse, Port Huron, Michigan
This historic lighthouse is the oldest one still in operation on the Great Lakes. Its tower is 86 feet tall and shines its bright light over Lake Michigan from the mouth of St. Clair River.
The architecture of the lighthouse is consistent with the traditional build of these edifices and looks almost like a movie prop – but it is the real deal. You can also climb up the tower and get a breathtaking look at the surrounding landscape.
Devil’s Island Lighthouse, Apostle Islands, Lake Superior, Wisconsin
Lake Superior has a tiny island in its midst, so it has to have a lighthouse built on it to warn ships to change course. You really must be passionate about lighthouses to go visit, because it takes some effort to reach the island.
Once there, though, you will fall in love with the craggy beauty of the natural surroundings, the Queen Anne-style keeper house and the 82-foot lighthouse tower. To prevent accidents due to bad weather, the Devil’s Island lighthouse can be visited only from May to October.
Grosse Point Lighthouse, Evanston Illinois
The Grosse Point lighthouse is categorized as a National Landmark. Thus, you can visit it free of charge, all year round. After climbing the 141 steps to the top of the tower, you will be rewarded by a breathtaking view of Lake Michigan and Chicago.
Wind Point Lighthouse, Racine, Wisconsin
A rustic looking lighthouse, Wind Point is open to the public only on the first Sunday of the month from June to October. After climbing the 144 iron steps, you will enjoy an Instagram-worthy view of Lake Michigan. While you are there, you can also visit the Fog Horn Museum, built on the grounds of the lighthouse.
We also recommend you to include the gardens of the lighthouse in your tour – they are a wonderful escape into nature for your entire family.
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Theme by Christopher Crouch.
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History of the GMA
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GHANA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION
The Ghana Medical Association was the first professional association to be formed in jubilant post independent Ghana. The association was inaugurated by the Osagefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah himself at the Arden Hall of the Ambassador Hotel in Accra on the4thof January, 1958. On that day, the two existing groups of Medical Doctors in the country namely the Gold Coast Medical Practitioners Amalgamation and the Ghana Branch of the British Medical Association merged to form one strong and unitedGhana Medical Association (GMA).
The GMA, at the time was intended to lead and seek the welfare of its members and provide expert advice and consultancy on quality healthcare delivery of the country, an aim which has remained primary on the agenda of the Ghana Medical Association through the years. Dr Kwame Nkrumah declared at the launch: “I want the GMA to be strong so that the government and the profession can talk to each other and to prosper in the years ahead.” Present at the launch were Mr. A.K. Gbedemah, then Finance Minister; Dr. Eustace Akwei then Chief Medical Officer; Prof. C.O. Easmon who was subsequently elected first President of the Association, Dr. J.A. Schandorf, the first Vice-President of the GMA and Prof. F.T. Sai, Secretary. Other members of the first Executive Council of the GMA included Dr. John Brooke David (Treasurer), Dr. R.H.O. Bannerman, Dr. M.A Barnor, Dr. D.B. George, Dr. Susan de Graft Johnson nee Ofori Atta, Dr Silas Dodu and Dr. E.M. Brown.
Since then, the GMA has been significantly influential in the health administration and healthcare delivery in the Republic of Ghana through several initiatives, innovations and interventions some of which are:
Training of Medical Doctors – The establishment of the University of Ghana Medical School initiated by Dr Kwame Nkrumah with the first president of the GMA Prof C. O Easmon as its first dean has served to augment the sheer numbers of medical doctors in the country by making the training of many more Ghanaian medical doctors possible. This bold establishment has yielded very well as several other medical schools of similar high caliber have followed. Today, the country today boasts of at least seven medical schools some of which are privately owned by Ghanaian trained doctors.
Postgraduate Medical Training – A significant contribution to the establishment and running of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons to train specialists in the various fields of healthcare delivery thereby helping to curb brain drain.
Medical Research – The GMA houses the production of a medical journal, the Ghana Medical Journal (GMJ), which was first published in September 1962.
Innumerable contributions to the Ghana Health Service, the National Health Insurance Scheme and many other national, regional and district health institutions in the country.
For its members, GMA has established Codified Conditions of Service for those in public service, provided platforms for exhibition and promulgation of their work and developed a functional welfare package which is in operation for their benefit.
The GMA, in the immediate post-independence era, was very instrumental in the formulation of health policies and the provision of holistic medical care for Ghanaians and has remained relevant ever since.
A medical historian, Dr Stephen Addae, in his book, The History of Western Medicine in Ghana 1880-1960,described the health situation in Ghana in the year 1951 as a system which was: “curative oriented, favoured the south of the country, could handle about 20% of the population, whose organization was clearly outdated, and which had a grossly inadequate medical staff consisting mostly of European doctors and a small cadre of auxiliary medical staff.” The GMA is proud to say that in the course of its 60 years of existence this picture has changed considerably.
From as far back as 1933 when the first organized group of African doctors in Ghana was founded (the Gold Coast Medical Practitioners Union) by three Ghanaian doctors: F. V. Nanka-Bruce (President and Spokesperson), C. E. Reindorf and W.A.C Nanka Bruce with J.E. Hutton Mills as secretary, through the days of the Maude Commission (set up in 1952 to mainly expand the frontiers of medical practice in the country to include preventive and social medical care and medical research) doctors have actively participated interventions to improve of the well-being of Ghanaians.
In recent times, the GMA has made great strides at connecting with the public through health advocacy and interactive programs such as the GMA Public lectures, now in its 18thyear, several radio and television programs and the publication of the Focus magazine a medical/social magazine with a national outlook.
The Ghana Medical Association, with acurrent general membership of over 3000, is affiliated to the World Medical Association, and the commonwealth Medical Association.
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1 Number 1: According to your instructions, Number 5, I've planned for SPECTRE to steal from the Russians their new Lektor decoding machine.
2 Number 1: We need the services of a female member of the Russian Cryptograph Section in Turkey and... the help of the British Secret Service.
3 Kronsteen: Well, calling it "help" would be an extremely generous characterisation.
3 Number 1: How so, Number 5?
4 Kronsteen: Because the man the British will almost certainly use on a mission of this sort would be their agent... James Stud.
The plot of the film version of From Russia With Love deviates from the book in that, where the book posits SMERSH as the force behind the plot, the movie attributes the plan to the fictional independent villainous organisation SPECTRE. In fact this is a very clever change, which adds significant depth and intrigue to the plot, as SPECTRE initially trick James Bond into thinking the Russians are behind the plan he has been assigned to foil, and plays the Russian and British secret services off against one another.
2018-11-11 Rerun commentary: I was going to mention that the next James Bond film, Goldfinger, also makes a significant plot improvement over the original novel, but a quick search shows that I've already mentioned this before.
Come to think of it, although the Ian Fleming books are classics and I really like them, most of the movies are improved in one way or another.
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“Vince liked blonde head, light, fair women," she continued. "And...
NFL Player Lawrence Okoye Arrested During A Prostitution Sting In Alabama.
Lawrence Okoye a former Olympian and NFL star, has been arrested alongside 12 other men on charges of men soliciting prostitution in Shelby county.
The 27 year old Nigerian, who currently plays for Birmingham Iron in the Alliance of American football (AAF).
Lawrence Okoye competed in the 2012 Olympics for Britain before quitting athletics to pursue an American Football career. He holds the British record in the discus of 68.24 meters.
A police statement said:
“On Wednesday, February 6th 2019, the Shelby County Drug Enforcement Task Force (SCDETF), in partnership with the Hoover police department, conducted an undercover reverse prostitution sting, titled Operation Close Out, Round 3.
The operation was carried out in North Shelby County. The operation is a continuation from September 20th and October 18th, 2018, in which 20 offenders were previously arrested.
13 men were arrested and charged with the crime of soliciting prostitution.”
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HOME OF THE HITS
A Blog Devoted to the Vintage American Record Industry and Its Music
Regional Record Labels, Pt. 1
Regional Labels, Part 1
The Cincinnati Connection
By Randy McNutt
Regional record companies flourished in the halcyon days of Top 40 radio, primarily the 1960s. Many local radio stations were willing to play high-quality singles released by local and regional labels. By the late '60s, however, this cooperation had begun to fade. Pressed by increasing radio competition, stations decided to play mostly big-label releases. The days of local labels scoring hits in their towns was ending.
Independent, commercial radio labels were of two varieties: local and regional. Local labels operated out of a hometown or one city, and didn't try to seek radio play in a wide geographic area. Regional labels did seek airply through a whole state or several states. But they did not seek national airplay.
Some local labels developed into regional ones. And a few made the jump from regional to national. But most of their owners were content to remain small. They knew their market and its influential disc jockeys, distributors, studio owners, musicians, and other music people. When I was growing up in Hamilton, Ohio, in the 1960s, I assumed the Counterpart label in Cincinnati was national because its records were played on the area's No. 1 Top 40 station, WSAI. From the mid-'60s through the mid-'70s, Counterpart released singles by rock bands such as the Mark V, the New Lime, Canon, the Grey Imprint, and other groups.
Counterpart owner Shad O'Shea worked the telephones, seeking regional airplay. He sold tens of thousands of singles over the years, usually selling from 1,000 to 5,000 copies of a hot rock single in the mid-'60s. Sometimes he received offers from larger labels--Laurie, Monument, SSI International, Columbia, Capitol, RCA, and others--to release the records nationally.
A 45-rpm Counterpart sleeve from the mid-1970s.
Counterpart Records
Founded by WCPO Radio disc jockey Shad O'Shea in 1963, Counterpart Records released singles aimed at the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana region, focusing primarily on the larger cities of Cincinnati and Columbus in Ohio; Louisville and Lexington in Kentucky; and Indianapolis and rural parts of Indiana.
That year O'Shea also formed Counterpart Music, BMI, which owned the publishing for many of the label's songs. He operated his companies from his home in suburban Cincinnati until 1970, when opened Counterpart Creative Studios at 3744 Applegate Ave. in Cheviot, a small city on the west side of Cincinnati. He moved the publishing company and the record label into the studio's office. From this studio he would record many of his label's singles. He also recorded his own singles. A prolific producer, O'Shea (real name Howard Lovdal) wrote and recorded many novelties under various names, including his own.
By 1975, when O'Shea purchased the national Fraternity Records name from founder Harry Carlson, times had grown tough for local and regional labels. Radio had tightened its playlists. O'Shea continued to use the Counterpart label, but only sporadically. He focused on Fraternity and a new label, the Applegate Recording Society.
When he semi-retired in the mid-2000s, he sold his publishing interests, his label names, and masters to a New York music producer. Today, the Counterpart name is rarely used.
A subsidiary label of Counterpart, 1970s.
Vocalist Wayne Perry takes a break during a
session at Counterpart Creative Studios, the
home of Counterpart Records. When this picture
was taken in the summer of 1973, Perry was there to remake
the New Lime's "The Only Thing To Do."
Beast Records
Strictly a local label in Cincinnati, Beast Records was founded by Randy McNutt in 1973. Its one and only release was "Gonna Have A Good Time"/"Pain" by Little Flint.
This was actually performed by two groups, the newly formed Little Flint ("Pain") and the Chamberly Kids ("Good Time") from Lebanon, Ohio. The Kids recorded another version of "Good Time" but it was not released. A compact disc album now in preparation by a New York label features the Kids' version as well as Little Flint's. The Kids featured highly talented Rick "Bam" Powell, a high school senior who sang and played drums. Both songs featured 17-year-old sideman Terry Hoskins on Hammond B-3 organ and veteran sideman Roger "Jellyroll" Troy on bass. Unfortunately, by 1973 the local radio market was all but excluding local labels from the air, and the Beast label quickly came and went. It was pressed and distributed by Counterpart using A-1 Distribution in Cincinnati.
Candee Records
Owned by popular WLW talk-show host and songwriter Ruth Lyons, Candee Records was named after her daughter. It was both a local and regional pop label in that it was based in Cincinnati, and used for a local audience, but it also served other cities in the region where Lyons' 50-50 Club was shown on television and heard on radio, including Louisville, Lexington, Indianapolis, and Columbus.
According to author Michael Banks, Candee was incorporated on March 4, 1959, as Candee Enterprises. Principals were Ruth Lyons Newman, president and director; her husband, Herman Newman, vice president and director; Candy Newman, director; and Ronald J. Coffey, secretary and director. Coffee, probably Lyons' attorney, was based at 603 Dixie Terminal Building with another attorney, Donald G. Rowlings, who was Miss Lyons' lawyer.
Banks said the corporation was dissolved on April 28, 1965. Miss Lyons, who wrote "Wasn't the Summer Short?" by Johnny Mathis and numerous other locally recorded songs, never registered Candee as a trademark, Banks said.
The company released some 45s and albums, mainly with Christmas music. Pressing and recording was often done at King Records in Cincinnati.
Tip-Toe Records
Cincinnati's Bill Watkins, a rockabilly and country singer since the 1950s, founded the Tip-Toe label in the early 1970s and operated it sporadically until the early 1980s. He named the yellow label after his 16-track recording studio that he operated in the basement of his home in suburan Colerain Township. He lived here with his wife and studio partner, Axie Watkins.
Watkins released his own material on the label as well as that of other artists who recorded at the Tip-Toe Recording Studio. The label was local, although Watkins' singles became known to rockabillly collectors around the world.
Watkins recorded two rockabilly albums in the Tip-Toe studio, one for the Rockhouse label in Holland ain 1988 nd the other for the Gee-Dee label in Germany in the early 1990s. Several singles were released from sessions at Tip Toe, including "Red Cadillac" and "Cowboy" on Randy McNutt's General Store Records. By the early 1980s, however, all activity had ceased on Tip Toe Records.
More regional and local labels will be covered in later blogs.
Posted by RANDY McNUTT at 11:54 AM
Uncle Josh and the Record Labels
In country music, only a few performers are prehistoric—contributors to what hillbilly music became in the 1920s. One of them is Calvin Edward Stewart, known Cal Stewart, who began recording comedic monologues in the 1890s and continued until his death in 1919. As the creator of the Uncle Josh Weathersby series of recordings (Josh was the Down East farmer whose foibles entertained millions of people on the infant talking machine), Stewart stands out as an actor, author, comedian, songwriter, and rustic poet. Recently, iUniverse reissued my 1981 book Cal Stewart, Your Uncle Josh in both softbound and e-book formats. A subtitle, America's King of Rural Comedy, is now added to this rewritten and expanded second edition. The book is available from Amazon.com and other Internet sites as well as from www.iUniverse.com. The book costs $20.95; $9.99 in electronic form. In addition to 19 chapters, the 277-page book features 42 rare photographs and illustrations, a guide to Stewart’s Punkin Center characters, a Stewart career timeline, a discography, and a “Cylopedium” of terms used by Stewart’s characters during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
From the Introduction to
Cal Stewart, Your Uncle Josh: America's King of Rural Comedy
As a winter storm pummeled the city of Hamilton, Ohio, I was below ground, exploring the artifacts of my elderly uncle’s life. The unfinished basement in his 1920s bungalow was his personal museum, a dim place crammed with everything from antique fishing reels to corroded weathervanes. They were piled all over the room. All his life he had hoarded assorted junk and hand-me-downs, and they all ended up there in his basement. As a child, the place fascinated me with its strange things and creaky sounds. My mind can still see them—an old orange soda pop thermometer, a set of yellowed cow’s teeth, a dozen black iron tobacco cutters, rusty horseshoes, a train-station clock, and a big hornets’ nest—long since abandoned, thankfully.
Rummaging in a corner on that stormy February night long ago, I discovered an upright Brunswick crank phonograph, a fancily carved oak model that had been painted flat red. (In the 1920s, it must have been a flapper’s dream machine.) Next to it stood a pillar of dusty 78-rpm records. I glanced at one of the more oddly named selections; it was credited to someone named Cal Stewart, who performed as Uncle Josh. To a slightly bored twenty-something newspaper reporter, Vernon Hornung’s assorted collectibles looked like relics from another century—old, useless things, suitable for tomorrow’s trash. At first, I included the Uncle Josh records in this category. As I studied the paper label on one of the heavy discs, however, I became intrigued by the performer's stage name.
“Who’s Uncle Josh?” I asked.
My uncle smiled. “He was a big name in his day. When I was young, my brother and I used to entertain ourselves for hours by listening to his records.”
I pointed to the phonograph. “Does that thing still work?”
He examined the brittle platter, slapped it onto the red felt-covered turntable, and turned the metal crank. When the steel needle touched the record, a man’s tinny voice rose above the scratching to greet me with laughter. The title, “Uncle Josh and the Honey Bees” (identified only as a “talking record”), compelled me to continue listening—once, twice, three times. Stewart recorded it for Victor and other labels. He recorded for many pioneer record companies during his long career. This record was unlike any that I had ever heard. It was both American history and entertainment. It seemed that Stewart was talking to me personally about his fictional little town, Punkin Center, a place with stories, characters, issues, laughter, and sadness. His music—a forerunner of country—brightened some of his talking records. While my own uncle regaled me with personal tales of listening to Uncle Josh records as a boy in an equally obscure small town named Dunlap, Ohio (fifteen miles west of Cincinnati), I sat down on the cold floor and paid close attention to the entertainment. I wanted more of this Uncle Josh. Later, I searched local flea markets and found a few of his records. Then I graduated to collector auctions. Seeking more Cal Stewart, I visited libraries and Josh-related sites in Boston; Swanzey, New Hampshire; Indianapolis; Cincinnati; Tipton, Indiana; and even two rural Indiana communities named Punkin Center.
For a time, I actually felt that I was on Josh’s trail—cold as it had become by then. Some small-town business districts were left so unchanged that I imagined them ready to accommodate Stewart’s acting troupe from Indiana. I walked along old brick streets and saw some now-closed theaters—former stops on a loose network known as the Kerosene Circuit. The theaters provided paychecks for traveling actors and diversions for hard-working townspeople in the days before radio and television.
Regardless of where I traveled, I learned this simple truth: Finding fragments of Cal Stewart’s life and career and putting them together is like working on a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. It will never be complete; questions will always confound us. Stewart preferred to discuss his fictional characters rather than himself. We practically know as much about them as we do their creator, who continues to live in dust-filled grooves of shellac records and wax cylinders. As I began to accumulate more information, I decided to write his story as an appreciation. If nothing more, I wanted to organize the facts that remain about the actor who entertained millions of people at the turn of the twentieth century. Slowly, my notes filled several file folders. I learned, for instance, that Stewart has been elected to the national Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York. Unfortunately, on the day I viewed his space on the group’s Web site, a large blank space existed under Stewart’s biography section. But that’s not surprising, for people tend to remember Stewart—if they bother to remember him at all—for some undetermined achievement. The truth is, he was a pioneer performer-songwriter, a forerunner of our modern ones. His personal life—so colorful, he claimed—is filled with discrepancies. Did he really leave home at age twelve? Did he make up half the things he said about himself? Was he really an express messenger on a stagecoach out West? Did he operate a locomotive? Did he work with the famous actor Denman Thompson? Was he a friend of Mark Twain? Even by using public documents and personal accounts, it's difficult to verify his claims. It is also difficult to uncover much personal information, including where Stewart lived at any one time. Too much time has elapsed, and Stewart hesitated to talk about himself except in the most superficial ways. He seemed to purposely hide clues from future researchers. Even his wife, close friends, and acting associates claimed they were not fully informed about his past. A business and music partner, Frederick Hager of Northport, New York, said of Stewart in a letter to writer Jim Walsh: “Mark Twain was an old friend and, in later life, Will Rogers.” I can’t verify it, and Hager can't elaborate. Twain had already become a famous literary figure by the time Stewart went to work for the railroad companies. Who knows? Perhaps they met on the lyceum circuit in the early 1870s, or maybe they didn’t meet until Stewart became a nationally known recording star twenty years later. Whatever the case, Stewart kept quiet about himself, which makes this book as much about the development of the Uncle Josh character in American life.
Still searching for Uncle Josh, I drove along rural Indiana’s back roads that reminded me of Hoosier highways of the early 1900s. In the southern hills, I imagined Stewart’s acting company chugging along on a train to some small-town theater before arriving at the prized destination—the Empire Theater in Indianapolis. Surprisingly, I still found evidence of his career—publicity photographs, concert handbills, books, and records tucked away in Indiana’s antiquarian bookstores, antiques shops, and libraries. Except for his earliest and most rare recordings (one recently sold for eighty-five dollars), however, most Uncle Josh recordings aren’t worth more than ten dollars because the record companies pressed them in large numbers. But they are culturally valuable, and interest in them continues to grow.
Driving farther on back roads, I stopped in Tipton, the hometown of Stewart’s wife, Rossini, and her family. The Stewarts also lived there, although they weren’t at home too often. At the Sisters of St. Joseph on the outskirts of Tipton, retired Mother Superior Gerard Maher once told me that she remembered when Hazel “Rossini” Stewart returned to Tipton after Cal’s death in 1919. Mrs. Stewart accepted a job teaching music at the Catholic academy. The transition from performing to teaching music to girls in her hometown must have been jarring, but no doubt Mrs. Stewart needed to stay in one place and reflect on her life and future for a time. One thing is certain: Indiana influenced Stewart’s writing. Early in his career, Stewart fashioned the Uncle Josh character into strictly a New England farmer, and promoted the act that way. As the years passed, however, and he met and married the Indiana woman and brought her into his company of performers. That's when Uncle Josh became more generic—small-town Midwesterner meets New England farmer. Punkin Center turned into an odd amalgam of both regions, but most of all it represented rural America.
When I met Mother Gerard she was in her nineties, but her memory was still clear. She was one of the few people in Tipton who knew Stewart and his troupe. To her, one half of a century had passed in the blink of an eye until the whole town seemed a sepia picture. Before the academy was demolished in 1977, Mother Gerard’s friends had mistakenly thrown away her Uncle Josh wax cylinder recordings. The younger women had no idea what the cylinders were, what they represented, and what they meant to the elderly nun. By the time I found her, she kept all that remained of her early days in a small wooden box: Stewart’s hardbound book Punkin Centre Stories, a collection of poems and monologues from 1903; a brittle newspaper clipping telling of his funeral in Tipton; and a playbill. She presented the book to me as a gift, and I reprinted it to share Uncle Josh’s writings with the world.
Twenty-five years later, I returned to Tipton. At the Tipton County Public Library, a modern building near the courthouse downtown, a young man escorted me to the local history room and pulled out the only file he had on Stewart. It contained ten newspaper and magazine stories from recent years. As I sifted through them, I found an unexpected prize: an original publicity photograph of Stewart in character. My heart raced. The picture was about five by eight inches, with a sepia tone, and it was cut unevenly on all sides. Dressed as Uncle Josh, Stewart stood on a set in front of a wooden railing, wearing his straw hat (with a chunk bitten out in front), white shirt, and speckled vest. His wire-rim glasses were pushed up on his wide and furrowed forehead. I believe the picture was taken late in his career, between 1915 and 1919. As I studied the heavy wrinkles under his eyes, I saw how much Stewart had aged in the last ten years of his life. I wondered if Cal himself had ever held this same picture, and what he might have thought of it. Then I turned it over and I saw these handwritten words, “Cal Stewart—Donated to the library by the Sisters of St. Joseph.” At that moment I understood that the photograph probably had belonged to Stewart’s wife, a good friend of the sisters. Holding his photograph on that gray day reinvigorated my search for Uncle Josh.
A hour later, as I stood at the broken cross that marks his grave in Tipton’s Fairview Cemetery, I asked myself: Why is Stewart nearly forgotten? Moments later, the wind blew a brown leaf across the frozen grass, pressing it firmly against the base of his tombstone. Then I realized that change is reality. Popularity is fleeting. Although each generation has its own faded stars, Cal Stewart is one worth remembering for all time.
Hits from Muscle Shoals Sound Studios
Selected Hits from
Muscle Shoals Sound Studio
3614 Jackson Highway
Sheffield, Alabama
During the used-appliance years, the 1990s.
Selected Hit Singles
“Take a Letter, Maria,” R.B. Greaves, 1969
“Oh Me Oh My (I’m a Fool for You Baby),” 1969
“Always Something There to Remind Me,” R.B Greaves, 1970
“Brown Sugar,” Rolling Stones, 1971
“Wild Horses,” Rolling Stones, 1971
“It Hurts So Good,” Katie Love, 1971
“Heavy Makes You Happy,” the Staple Singers, 1971
“Don’t Knock My Love,” Wilson Pickett, 1971
“A Very Lovely Lady,” Linda Ronstadt, 1971
“Dinah Flo,” Boz Scaggs, 1972
“Tightrope,” Leon Russell, 1972
“Starting All Over Again,” Mel and Tim, 1972
“If Loving You Is Right (I Don’t Want to be Wrong),” Luther Ingram, 1972
“Kodachrome,” Paul Simon, 1973
“Loves Me Like a Rock,” Paul Simon, 1973
“I Believe In You (You Believe in Me),” Johnny Taylor, 1973
“Lookin’ for a Love,” Bobby Womack, 1973
“Still Crazy After All These Years,” Paul Simon, 1974
“I’ll Be Your Everything,” Percy Sledge, 1974
“Beautiful Loser,” Bob Seger, 1974
“My Little Town,” Simon and Garfunkel, 1975
“Left Overs,” Millie Jackson, 1975
“Touch Me Baby,” Tamiko Jones, 1975
“Night Moves,” Bob Seger, 1976
“Main Street,” Bob Seger, 1977
The original Muscle Shoals Sound Studio (1969-1978) and its successor (1978-1990s) turned out hundreds of nationally charted singles. They included the records listed above, which also share something else in common: they aren’t generally recognized as being a product of the Alabama studios. (Note: In a few cases, additional overdubbing and/or mixing could have been done in other studios.)
Forgotten Facts
Founded by independent musicians bassist David Hood, guitarist Jimmy Johnson, pianist Barry Beckett, and drummer Roger Hawkins. The band nicknamed itself the Swampers, but it was better known as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section because it had played on hits at Fame Recording and other studios in northern Alabama.
Studio Quirks
1. When the musician-owners bought the old Fred Bevis Studio in the late 1960s, they mortgaged their homes to pay for it. The roof leaked. They didn’t have enough money to repair it, so they tucked tampons in the ceiling. They worked.
2. The restroom walls are covered with autographs of stars.
3. By the 1990s, the studio was used as a used appliance store.
4. The studio was rare in that its owners were big-name musicians who worked in their own place as well as in other studios.
5. The studio was actually in neighboring Sheffield, not Muscle Shoals. Formerly, the building had been used as a small venetian blind factory.
Selected Hit Singles from
Muscle Shoals Sound Studios
1000 Alabama Avenue
“Sharing the Night Together,” Dr. Hook, 1978
“We’ve Got Tonight,” Bob Seger, 1979
"Old-Time Rock ’n’ Roll,” Bog Seger, 1979
“When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman,” Dr. Hook, 1979
“Gotta Serve Somebody,” Bob Dylan, 1979
“Giving It Up for Your Love,” Delbert McClinton, 1980
“Ozark Mountain Jubilee,” the Oak Ridge Boys, 1983
“I Guess It Never Hurts,” the Oak Ridge Boys, 1983
“Sexy Girl,” Glenn Frey, 1983
“Valotte,” Julian Lennon, 1984
“Too Late for Gooodbyes,” Julian Lennon, 1984
“I Will Never Be the Same,” Melissa Etheridge, 1993
“Shaky Ground,” Melissa Etheridge, 1993
Plain From the Heart, Delbert McClinton, 1981
Billy Vera, Billy Vera, 1982
Comin’ Home, Bob Seger, 1982
No Fun Aloud, Glenn Frey, 1983
Deliver, the Oak Ridge Boys, 1983
The Allnighter, Glenn Frey, 1984
Havanna Moon, Carlos Santana, 1984
Studio Quirk
1. The building, along the Tennessee River, was once a navy reserve center. It offered 31,000 square feet.
For additional information on the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, see Randy McNutt’s Guitar Towns: A Journey to the Crossroads of Rock ’n’ Roll and Too Hot to Handle: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of America Recording Studios of the Twentieth Century. Both books are available through Amazon.com.
Bassist David Hood stands in front of the second MSSS
in the late 1990s.
Posted by RANDY McNUTT at 1:02 PM
Gennett Records and Mo' Blues
Mo' Blues at Gennett Records
In Richmond, Indiana, on Saturday (September 10, 2011), local Gennett Records and Starr Piano enthusiasts kicked off their Mo' Blues concert and tours in Whitewater Gorge, the area that housed the independent label's factory complex in the 1920s and 1930s.
Under warm and sunny skies through mid-afternoon, the Starr-Gennett Foundation Inc. organizers welcomed people from across the region and several states.
Martin Fisher came from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, where he is is manager of Recorded Media Collections. "I will go wherever people are interested in hearing acoustic recordings, if the drive is within a reasonable distance," he told me. Fisher brought several acoustic talking machines, including a large one that he used to play back cylinders that he recorded with guests of the Mo' Blues concert and tours. He said he buys blank cylinders from a man in England, who manufactures them at his home. Fisher said another man, an American, also produces blanks, which also can be used to record on home machines.
The program was held at the Gennett-Starr factory area in the Whitewater Gorge Park in Richmond. Parts of the original buildings still stand. Concerts were held inside one of them. On a sidewalk leading along where the factory once stood is an attractive Walk of Fame, featuring a number of prominent artists who recorded for Gennett Records or its spinoff labels.
Fisher operated in a booth near where the Gennett Recording Studio once stood. "There's so much history left here," he said of the park.
Gennett Records is known for its disc recordings. At the historic site, a concrete floor is all that stands of the firm's record-pressing unit.
For Gennett's many recordings made before and during the Depression, Richmond calls itself "the cradle of recorded jazz." The Starr-Gennett Redevelopment Plan began earlier this year, using a federal grant. One of the Foundation's goals is to build an interpretative center, including a replica of the Gennett Records sound studio.
To donate or seek additional information, contact the Starr-Gennett Foundation at 33 South 7th Street, Richmond, IN 47374-5462, or see the group's website at www.starrgennett.org.
Photos by Randy McNutt
Singers and musicians who recorded for Gennett:
Louis Armstrong, Gene Autry, Sidney Bechet, Bix Beiderbecke,
Big Bill Broonzy, Hoagy Carmichael, Vernon Dalhart, Georgia
Tom Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Wendell Hall, Coleman Hawkins,
Blind Lemon Jefferson, Uncle Dave Mason, Guy Lombardo,
Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, and many others.
Jim LaBarbara and 1960s Radio
Jim LaBarbara on the air in Cincinnati, 1980s.
Jim LaBarbara: A Life Amplified
Through Radio and Rock 'n' Roll
By Randy McNutt
When the golden age of the 45-rpm single is re-examined, future historians will undoubtedly give proper credit to local disc jockeys who made and played the hits. One of them is Jim LaBarbara, late of Erie, Cleveland, Denver, Cincinnati, and other cities. Not only did he play the hits, but he interviewed and knew many of the singers and musicians who recorded them. He also has the distinction of being a major air personality in two great Ohio music towns.
One of the most knowledgeable air personalities in radio recalls his long career in Jim Labarbara, The Music Professor: A Life Amplified Through Radio and Rock 'n' Roll. It's not just another DJ book, nor is it a superficial one. It is a personal and career memoir, a rock history, and a tribute to the radio industry that employed him for fifty years. And it's also a lot of fun to read. Its many photographs give a sense of being there.
The radio industry that he discusses is mostly gone today. When he started in it in the late 1950s, the business was still wacky and wide open to people with big ideas. In the 1970s, I used to listen to LaBarbara--the Music Professor--on WLW Radio in Cincinnati, when he played the hits and then interviewed their artists. (I find it hard to believe that the same station today is mostly talk radio, but then that has happened all over the country.) If I missed his show, I thought I possibly missed something special. More recently, he played oldies on the popular WGRR in Cincinnati. Lately he has turned to chronicling his career, and with this book he proves that he can write with flair. He weaves his own story--a college kid wants to get into radio in the late 1950s--with the concurrent stories of singers who were making hit records in the early days of rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll. Over the years, he interviewed hundreds of them, including Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Berry, Neil Diamond, John Denver, the Supremes, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles. And yes, the book offfers anecdotes about dozens of them. Those anecdotes, including the ones he tells about himself, make the book interesting.
He worked in a time when radio was still exciting and creative. His radio career began at small stations in Pennsylvania, his home state. "I drove my new . . . light-blue 1959 Jaguar XK150 with red leather . . . 150 miles to Erie on a few hours sleep," he writes in a chapter titled "J. Bentley Starr," his on-air name then. "The receptionist laughed when she saw me. She still had all the postcards I sent. I was so tired, but I wanted to go on from seven to midnight. I felt terrific; my adrenalin was pumping, and about eleven o'clock that tnight, I got an idea. I was going to hijack the station. WWGO had the transmitter controls in the same area as my on-air studio. I had control of the station. They couldn't take me off. When the all-night man came in, I locked him out after putting the news microphone in the hall. He was a college student and didn't care; he studied. I put a huge desk in front of the door and stacked cabinets on top and barricaded myself in the studio. I was replacing a guy who left to go across the street to 'Jet,' the number-one station. It was shameless self-promotion: 'Hey everybody, look at me! Here I am.' It worked. The next morning by 9 a.m., the whole city knew I was in town, but my boss wasn't happy because I missed playing some commercials. [While on the air] he fired me a couple of times, but I had to tell him to watch his language because I had the news microphone in the hall turned on. A local high school team came to break the door down. During most of that time, I played one record--"C'mon and Swim" by Bobby Freeman--and introduced it differently every time . . . It drove me crazy; I can just imagine what listeners thought." When the marathon ended thirty-some hours later, his boss agreed to keep him. When LaBarbara finally went to his car to go home, however, he found a lot of parking tickets waiting.
Eventually, he became the station's music director as well as a DJ. He stayed in Erie into the British Invasion, when he played both a British and American countdown show every night. When the Beatles visited Pittsburgh in 1964, he asked them before the show, "The 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah' in the song 'She Loves You,' was that inspired by your Liverpool friends Gerry and the Pacemakers' song 'I Like It'? Where did you get it? They all stood up [from the interview table] and mocked me, singing, 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.' Everybody got a good laugh."
He left Erie in 1966 to work for WKYC, a 50,000-watt Top 40 station in Cleveland, and WIXY. He used his real name. That year, WKYC promoted a Rolling Stones concert. The opening act was the McCoys of "Hang On Sloopy" fame. [Now the official state rock song of Ohio.--RM] LaBarbara writes: "The McCoys told me, 'We heard you on the radio last night. We're not from Dayton, Ohio, we're from Union City, Indiana.' They were upset, but that's what their record company told me. Their hit . . . was a giant, and I played it a lot. Yes, it bothered me a little that these high school kids, instead of saying, Thanks for playing our records. By the way, we are not from Dayton, but we were discovered in Dayton by the Strangeloves ("I Want Candy") when we did a concert with them, chose to be abrasive." But that's not all that bothered LaBarbara that night. "A teenage listener of WKYC won a contest," he continues, "and was invited backstage to meet the Rolling Stones in their dressing room. She made a cake and was excited to give this to her favorite band. The Rolling Stones took the cake from this little, bubbly thirteen-year-old, laughed about the cake, and proceded to throw it into a nearby toilet and flush it. She started to cry while they continued to giggle. We all thought they were jerks. I made a comment to one of my fellow jocks that I'd never play another one of their records. Of course that was difficult to do, but I sure didn't go out of my way to play them. They were dispicable in every sense of the word."
He changed his opinion of the Stones, however, when he saw them perform in 1972 in Denver. "They were a lot more professional than six years earlier," he says. "Mick [Jagger] worked the audience like Wayne Newton playing to the blue-haired angels in Las Vegas. I became a Rolling Stones fan . . . ."
LaBarbara was impressed and shocked at times by what he saw on stage and behind it. Once, "I got shocked for the first time on stage . . . I was standing in a little puddle of sweat when I grabbed the microphone to take off [stage] a soaking wet Mitch Ryder. It hurt, but I kept it to myself."
He is reminded of a conversation he had with Jerry Lewis, who visited the radio station when his son Gary had some hits. "What advice did you give Gary?" LaBarbara asks him. "He said, 'Just make sure you can look at yourself the next day in the mirror.' A simple sentence but more complex than you might think."
In the '60s, LaBarbara was excited to work in Cleveland, one of the nation's top radio markets. In 1967, he says, he and Ken Scott tied for second place behind the popular Jerry G. in a Billboard magazine radio response rating for the city. "I was flattered to be in that company," he says. Cleveland was one of America's top radio markets.
Another LaBarbara story comes from Sonny Bono, just after he and Cher had divorced. The incident reveals the way the entertainment business works. To the public, Bono had went from big star on records and television to nobody, he tells LaBarbara, with people asking what he would do now that he didn't have Cher. People saw her as the major part of the act. "I had built this whole thing," he tells Jim. "I had written all the songs--ten million-selling songs. I had written the show I had created; I worked eleven years, devoted to this act. And when everything was shaken down, I came out really holding a fig leaf. You know, I thought, I don't ever want to do that again. So, I want to do things, and at least get recognized for what I do."
Turning to politics, Bono was elected mayor of Palm Springs and later a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He later died in a skiing accident.
Another telling incident came years later, when the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and Museum recognized famous DJ Bill Randle, LaBarbara's good friend and the man who once brought Elvis to Cleveland. "I was asked to sit on the dais," LaBarbara says. "As I sat there on stage, I thought about the irony. The one place I knew he had total disdain for was the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. He told me that seventy-five to eighty percent of all the people [enshrined or noted] in there are accused or convicted felons. He certainly didn't like the politics involved with the selection process."
When the 1960s ended, and campus life erupted in violence, LaBarbara decided to move to Cincinnati, where he did a radio show that allowed him to conduct interviews with recording artists and play records. He became Jim LaBarbara, the Music Professor.
Class is still in session.
Coming soon to Home of the Hits blog: More tales of rock 'n' roll and AM radio days from Jim LaBarbara's new book. He will be making appearances in Cleveland and Cincinnati to promote it.
Jim LaBarbara, the Music Professor:
A Life Amplified Through
Radio and Rock 'n' Roll
Author: Jim LaBarbara
Publisher: Little Miami Publishing, Milford, Ohio.
Pages: 400; hardbound
Photos and illustrations: 50-plus
Additional information: www.littlemiamibooks.com
and www.jimlabarbara.com
Posted by RANDY McNUTT at 9:54 AM
Ghosts of Nashville's Recording Studios, Part 2
The ghosts of Nashville's recording studios grow in number, but not all ghosts are created equal. Some live on through their hits while others already are forgotten.
So let's continue our tour around Music City, where we'll explore two famous studios founded by "Cowboy" Jack Clement, the Sun Records legend who in the 1970s became a financially successful Nashville producer. He possibly founded more studios than any other independent of his era.
His studios spawned new ones, creating some great music and training grounds for talented audio engineers who continue to practice their craft to this day.
And now, follow me into music history--and into the . . .
Jack Clement Recording Studios, 1969-1980s
Jack Clement, the legendary writer-producer who worked at Sun Records in Memphis in the 1950s, opened his own studio in Nashville in late 1969, at 3102 Belmont Avenue, not far from the happenings of Music Row.
In 1974, Larry Butler and partner Al Mifflin bought the studio, retaining the name. It was during the Butler-Mifflin years that the studio became known as a huge hit-making machine. During the first six months of 1979, for example, about 11 percent of the Top 100 country singles listed in the major trade magazines were recorded at Clement Recording. At the time, about 150 studios were operating in Nashville, so Clement had a significant share of the business. Also that year, nine singles recorded there during the first 10 months hit No. 1.
Many of the studio's hits were made by various producers and companies, but Butler, a long-time musician, soon became one of Nashville's hottest producers of the period.
(Meanwhile, the Cowboy continued to be busy. He opened five studios, although some of them were privately operated.)
Back at 3102 Belmont, the big names of the 1970s were walking through the door: Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Don Williams, Andy Williams, Don McLean, the Amazing Rhythm Aces, and Carrie Lucas, who cut a disco hit called "Dance With You." Soon after Butler bought the studio, he brought Rogers in and produced a string of singles that included "The Gambler" and "The Coward of the County." Mac Davis came in to record "It's Hard to be Humble."
Prior to Butler's arrival, hits had been plentiful at Clement. Ray Stevens recorded "Everything Is Beautiful," Gene Watson cut "Paper Rosie," and Donna Fargo did "The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A."
The Clement Studio A measured 35x45 feet, with a 22-foot ceiling; Studio B, 25x45 feet with a 16-foot ceiling. In 1979, the complex featured a a Studer A-80 with 16- and 24-track capability, plus a Studer A-80 and a Studer B-67, both two-track recorders. The mixing console was a Harrison 32-32. If you wanted to record there, you paid $125 per hour for 16-track time and $165 per hour for 24-track time.
Through the 1980s, the studio continued to operate. Eventually, it evolved into Clement's Sound Emporium.
But that's another story.
Jack's Tracks, 1974-, c. 2010
The studio as it appeared in 1999.
Below, Allen Reynolds at the board.
(Randy McNutt)
Jack's Tracks opened in the mid-1970s at 1308 16th Avenue South on Music Row. Originally, the building was a large brick house, built in the 1890s. As the Row expanded over the years, the house became commercial property. Jack Clement, a successful Nashville producer, operated a commercial art and photography studio there until he decided to turn the house into a studio.
The building also housed his JMI Records, which opened in 1971.
Producer-songwriter Allen Reynolds remembers how Jack's Tracks came to be: "I had come up from Memphis to write for Jack," he said, "and a bunch of writers pestered him to open a demo studio."
Clement agreed.
Reynolds liked what he heard. In fact, he loved it. So he became Clement's partner in the studio. In 1976, Reynolds bought Clement's share, and he continued to operate the studio until his retirement in 2010.
Immediately Reynolds began to turn out hit singles and albums by Don Williams, Kathy Mattea, Crystal Gayle, and Garth Brooks--all produced by Reynolds. In 1978, Ampex Corp.'s magnetic tape division gave its Golden Reel award to Reynolds; his engineer, Garth Fundis; and Gayle, for making We Must Believe in Magic. The project was mastered on Ampex tape.
The last time I visited Jack's Tracks (it was always known by that name), I found no sign to identify the studio. When I knocked on the door, Reynolds answered and invited me in for a tour. The Memphis native showed me the recording console and we sat down and discussed the changing record business, songwriting, and producing. He said he learned his way around the studio by watching Clement, who learned his way by turning out hits for Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis in the late 1950s. Reynolds said Phillips was also his early engineering hero. "When he [Phillips] stopped at Jack's Tracks years ago, he said he liked it better than Jack's other studios," Reynolds told me that day. "The place has a certain homey feel to it that I've grown to appreciate. I was going to sell it once, but then I decided to hang onto it. It's not open to the public anymore. It's my private workshop."
In his place he recorded Gayle's hit "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue," "Ready For the Times to Get Better," and "Talking In Your Sleep." Brooks cut his hit "The Dance" there.
In a front room, a bag of golf clubs sat in one corner. Recording awards and photos hung on the walls. The heavy wooden front door remained locked. Access to the control room was through the former parlor, where recording artists relaxed while listening to playbacks. "We didn't plan it that way. It just happened," Reynold said.
The control room was on the small side--about twelve feet long. It led into the studio, which was also rather small by modern standards. Dark commercial carpeting covered the floor; brown soundproofing material covered the walls. Wooden folding chairs sat around for musicians. Special booths were used for drums and vocals. In this unassuming place, Reynolds created Garth Brooks' projects, including the album that sold 10 million copies. In the 1980s, Reynolds used a 24-track Sony recorder and a Quad Eight (installed in 1980) console to replace an older Quad Eight. Although the studio went digital in its final decade or so, Reynolds still enjoyed hearing sounds made on tape. "I feel it brings a warmth and richness to recording," he told me. "The board I use is old, but it's sweet."
So was Jack's Tracks.
These studios and many others are featured in Randy McNutt's Too Hot to Handle: An Illustrated History of American Recording Studios of hte Twentieth Century, available through Amazon.com.
If you’re searching for record business ghosts, Nashville is a good place to roam. Buildings that once bustled with recording studios, record company offices, and publishing companies are around nearly every corner. All you need to get started is an address and some background.
On my “ghost” tours, everything is game. I am looking for hits and history. Old studios fascinate me most, however, and there have been plenty of them in Nashville since the 1950s. Over the last several decades a number of the more high-profile studios have closed, despite their notoriety, success, and popularity at the time of their closing. When I think of them, I can’t help but feel a sense of loss, for many of the older studios were great places to record. (Their hits speak for themselves. They are from the tape era's golden days.)
Here are a few of the more interesting ghosts that I discovered in Nashville town:
Woodland Sound, 1968-2001
In 1968 audio engineer Glenn Snoddy opened Woodland Sound Studios at 1011 Woodland Street, which was not on Music Row. But that didn’t matter. Music Row people came to Woodland because its sound was so good. By 1971 Snoddy was using tape recorders with one, two, four, eight, and 16 tracks; a few years later he upgraded with two 24-track Studer recorders. By 2000 new owner Robert Solomon added to the complex two recording studios (with Neve consoles) and a mastering room. By then, he was still attracting big-name clients. I recall what the place was like long ago. I mixed a single there in 1975, and the echo sounded terrific. Immediately Woodland became one of my favorite studios. I recall seeing it again in 1998, two months after a vicious tornado had ripped through downtown Nashville. The building’s exterior had sustained some damage, but inside business went on as usual. Unfortunately, Solomon closed Woodland in 2001, after some issues with the building’s owner, but the studio’s legacy remains in its hits. A few of them include “Honey” by Bobby Goldboro; “Knock Three Times,” Billy “Crash” Craddock; “Tennessee Birdwalk,” Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan; and A-1-A, the Jimmy Buffett album that featured “A Pirate Looks At Forty.”
Woodland Sound was a winner. I won’t forget it.
1998: Woodland after the tornado.
Note damage to the facade.
Fred Foster Sound, 1964-1969
Fred Foster Sound Studios, 315 Seventh Avenue North, operated from 1964 to 1969, when the building was torn down to make way for an insurance office. At the time, Foster was the owner of Monument Records, the independent label that operated out of Nashville. Foster Sound was based on the top floor of the Cumberland Building, more commonly known as the Masonic Lodge. Foster’s place is sometimes confused with his other studio, Monument Recording, which operated in the Music Row area in the 1970s, after Foster Sound had closed. Fred Foster acquired his first studio from entrepreneur Sam Phillips, who had bought it in 1961 from Billy Sherill and Bill Cooner. Sherill stayed on as engineer and Phillips renamed the place the Sam Phillips Recording Service of Nashville. (This is the same Sherill who would become a producer at Columbia Nashville.) Three years later, Phillips sold it because he couldn’t devote enough attention to it while operating Sun Records and his other business holdings. Foster knew the studio would be a good acquisition. "It was one of the best studios in town,” he once told me. “It was flexible for doing custom work as well as our [Monument’s] own.” He hired Bill Porter as engineer and later Mort Thomason and young apprentice Brent Maher. The studio’s three-track Ampex recorder was top-of-the-line for the early 1960s. The many hits cut at Foster Sound/Phillips studio included “Single Girl” by Sandy Posey; “Right Or Wrong” and “One Kiss For Old Time’s Sake,” Ronnie Dove; “What’d I Say,” Jerry Lee Lewis; “Mohair Sam,” Charlie Rich; “Hey, Paula,” Paul and Paula; “Down At Papa Joe’s,” the Dixie Belles; “GTO,” Ronnie and the Daytonas; and “Yakety Sax,” Boots Randolph.
Too bad that I couldn’t see the building, for Fred Foster Sound was a magical recording studio—a place where great sounds and long-lasting music flourished.
Young ’Un Sound, 1969-1988
Session guitarist Chip Young founded Young ’Un Sound Studio in the late 1960s as his personal studio in Mufreesboro, Tenn., and later, as business increased, as a second, conventional studio at 114 17th Avenue South in Nashville. Nowadays, Young ’Un is remembered mainly for the home studio, which Young operated in a small log cabin on his farm, about 30 miles east of Nashville. Starting with a new 16-track Ampex recorder, one of Nashville’s earliest, Young recorded many clients—Delbert McClinton and Kris Kristofferson were among the cabin’s visitors—who sought the studio’s clean sound as well as Young’s reputation as a fine musician. The cabin studio was small—about 15 by 20 feet, including the control room. The walls and ceiling were made of logs, and the wood floor was covered with carpet. To ease space constraints, Young added a screened porch on which he could place the string players. He once told writer Richard Buskin that crickets can be heard on Buffett’s Havanna Daydreamin’ because they were chirping so loudly when the album’s strings were recorded. Young’s chief engineer was Glenn Rievf, but Young engineered many of the sessions himself. One of them was Billy Swan’s “I Can Help,” a bluesy pop hit from 1974. Young co-produced it with Swan at the cabin studio, using Young’s custom-built tube console. Despite the hits and the interest in his studio, Young didn’t get rich from owning it. It took too much of his time and money, so he closed his business in 1988. The building on Music Row later became Masterlink Studios.
Sadly, the sounds of Young ’Un are no more.
These studios and many others are featured in
Too Hot to Handle: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Recording Studios of the 20th Century, available through Amazon.com for $25.
Woodland rate card, 1978
Randy McNutt's music histories include:
Cal Stewart: Your Uncle Josh, Weathervane Press, 1981
We Wanna Boogie: An Illustrated History of the American Rockabilly Movement, HHP Books, 1989
Little Labels--Big Sound (With Rick Kennedy), Indiana University Press, 1999
Too Hot to Handle: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Recording Studios of the 20th Century, HHP Books, 2001
Guitar Towns: A Journey to the Crossroads of Rock 'n' Roll, Indiana University Press, 2002
The Cinncinnati Sound, Arcadia Publishing, 2007
King Records of Cincinnati, Arcadia Publishing, 2009
RANDY McNUTT
Randy McNutt is an independent record producer and the author of 23 books, including "We Wanna Boogie: An Illustrated History of the American Rockabilly Movement," "Too Hot to Handle: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Recording Studios of the 20th Century," and "Guitar Towns: A Journey to the Crossroads of Rock 'n' Roll." He founded this blog to complement home ofthehits.blogspot.com.
Welcome to Home of the Hits, a blog devoted to the record industry of old. It will transport you back to the days when the people who created the hits and the misses were often characters who flourished in a community of creativity. Accountants and lawyers? Relegated to the back room. So enjoy these tales of wacky entrepreneurs, four-track studios, vinyl records, wild-eyed DJs, indie labels, soul men, and rockabilly rebels . . . in Randy McNutt's Home of the Hits.
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Oxford 5, Grafton 2
Monday, May 6, 2013, at Grafton
Dennis Sneade had a no-hitter through 5-2/3 and struck out 10 as the visiting Pirates (10-4, 8-3 SWCL) qualified for the postseason. Oxford scored three runs in the fourth when Tyler Barrie squeezed in Nick Cardoni from third and two more runs followed on a Grafton throwing error. Ray Bell went the distance and struck out 11 for the Indians (5-7, 5-6). Grafton's Nick Millett doubled to break up the no-hitter, and teammate Brett Lewis added a double.
Oxford 0 0 0 3 2 0 0 5 6 0
Grafton 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 4 1
O — Dennis Sneade, Tyler Barrie (7) and James Sheehan
G — Ray Bell and Michael Holbrook
Updated: Monday, June 3, 2013, 3:26 p.m.
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Turning Stones into Art Pieces
Iqbal kirmani
Publish Date: Feb 7 2017 9:09PM
Updated Date: Feb 7 2017 9:25PM
Gowhar Gora makes artworks out of small stones, reflecting the pain of people
Pellet guns may have stopped inflicting eye injuries after the summer 2016 uprising, but Gowhar Gora, a pebble artist from Chanapora, Srinagar is giving life to small stones, depicting the ‘lost eyes’ of Kashmir.
Gowhar, 42, a veterinarian by profession, believes that as an artist he’s using stones and turning them into art pieces to show the plight of youth blinded by pellets through the summer of 2016.
“This is my way of speaking about the situation and showing how people suffered in 2016,” says Gowhar.
“So many eyes have been lost, and as it’s said ‘pathar ki lakeer ki tarah’ to denote the destiny that can’t be changed, same is the case of those eyes lost in 2016,” he rues.
Gowhar says he was a ‘normal’ person till he turned 36. The artist in him was born late. “I began art work in 2010 when I was posted in Leh,” he says. “It just took over my mind and since the past 6 years I have been doing it.” He carries little stones everywhere – even to his office.
Earlier, in 2011, he joined hands with some of his art loving friends and came together to form “Heal Kashmir with Art”. They organized an exhibition that year showcasing the artworks of various artists.
Last year, after Hizbul Mujahedeen Commander Burhan Wani was killed along with his associates on July 8, protests broke out across the valley and rallies and processions followed. Hundreds of people clashed with government forces. Subsequently, over15000 civilians were injured and about 1100 of them hit by pellets in their eyes, partially or fully blinding many of the injured. Unofficial figures have put the death toll at 94, which includes two policemen.
By inscribing pellet scars on stones, Gowhar shows that even stones could “feel” the pain and loss of vision.
Among the people totally blinded by pellets last year was14-year-old Insha Mushtaq of South Kashmir’s Shopian district. Insha wanted to become a doctor. One of the installations made by Gowhar is named ‘Insha’. “She has become a symbol of pain and tragedy of 2016,” he says. “As an artist I portray it by giving life to stones.” The installation depicts “Insha” in her mother’s lap.
For Gowhar stones are infamous for providing an excuse to government forces to fire pellets at protestors from their pellet guns. “Was Insha holding a stone or did she pelt one,” he asks.
“Mouj Kasheer” is another installation which shows a small stone which is painted red and placed in between two large stones. “The two big stones are India and Pakistan and the small one is Kashmir with blood all around,” Gowhar points out. Explaining the artwork, he says in the tussle between the two nuclear powers the people of Kashmir are caught in between and suffer the most.
Recently Gowhar and his friends travelled to a village to collect some stones and pebbles for his art work. While they were selecting stones in the village, an old man came up to them. “Days of stone pelting are over,” the old man told Gowhar, “why are you collecting stones now?”
“There’s a tempest around us and people are waiting for a Noah’s Arch to save them,” he says while showing another stone installation which he’s named Noah’s Arch.
Gowhar is planning to have an exhibition of his artworks which he calls “pebble art”. “The money made from the exhibition will be given to those youth injured by pellets,” he says.
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Ju-Jitsu Club
Japanese Ju-Jitsu
History of the Art
Facilities and Schedule
Chris Christian
Fionn Sheerin
Berkay Kanberoglu
Ju-Jitsu was the unarmed combat system used by the samurai in feudal Japan. Different parts of Japan practiced different systems, and a variety of styles developed; differences between the practice in different schools or different parts of Japan varied greatly. In addition, many notable Ju-Jitsu practitioners went on to develop and found their own arts. Fundamentally, Judo, Aikido, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu are all developed specializations of Ju-Jitsu. Kano Jigoro (the founder of Judo) and Morihei Ueshiba (the founder of Aikido) both studied Ju-Jitsu before founding their own arts emphasizing their own specialties. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was founded by the Gracie brothers, who learned from Mitsuyo Maeda, who was a student of Kano Jigoro prior to when Kano founded Judo. Karate is a more distant cousin, as it was primarily developed in Okinawa and has a more pronounced Chinese influence; however, the striking techniques and practices in Ju-Jitsu schools often resemble Karate practices.
The particular style of Aiki Ju-Jitsu practiced by the Ju-Jitsu club is similar to a small circle Ju-Jitsu, with Karate elements (most similar to Shotokan Karate, but still not the same). This style involves striking, kicks, break falls, joint locks, takedowns, restraints, throws, kata (forms), grappling and some ground work. We also teach jo staff and board breaking to more experienced students.
This specific style of Ju-Jitsu migrated from Japan in the 1960s, and has been taught on campus at ASU since 1976. In that time, it has been passed down through four chief instructors, each one working to improve the teaching methods while staying loyal to the traditions of the art. This style does not have a name, and this is the only school of this style in existence.
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Is God the Messiah? Looking at Messianic Prophecy | The Word Made Flesh, part 2 of 4
Mark.and.Judy December 13, 2018 Theology
Recap from the last section…
In the last section, we started with a stroll through the Hebrew Scriptures to see if there is any credence to the idea that there are multiple emanations or aspects to God. We needed to see if the Hebrew Scriptures allowed for such a perspective or if there was only room for God to be an absolute singular entity.
What we found was the Scriptures not only allow for distinction within God’s unity, but many times they declare it outright.
To recap, here’s what we covered last week:
“Echad” in Deuteronomy 6:4 is not a statement of the complex unity of God. It is also not a statement of extreme singularity, as pointed out by Maimonides. This leaves room for a compound unity.
The first thing Adonai tells us about Himself is that He is a compound unity: let Us make man in Our image.
He reiterates this a few times, specifically in Genesis 11 and Isaiah 6.
He uses the singular form together with the plural in these passages to denote His oneness with His compound unity.
Adonai simultaneously both makes a distinction between and equates the Angel of the Lord and Himself.
The Angel is both distinct from God and part of the “us” God refers to Himself as.
The Spirit of the Lord is also a distinctly defined part of God. It’s not a stretch to include the Spirit of the Lord, including the various facets of His Spirit, such as those outlined in Isaiah 11:2.
We’ve seen in Isaiah 48 that there are at least three aspects of God.
We have established that there absolutely IS complexity and distinction within the unity of Hashem.
In this section, we’re going to explore whether there is room in Judaism for the promised Messiah to be of exalted and, possibly, deific origin.
Immanuel & the Virgin
We’re going to start out by looking at two passages from the book of Isaiah:
Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
For a child is born unto us, a son is given unto us; and the government is upon his shoulder; and his name is called Pele-yoEtz-el-gibbor-Abi-ad-sar-shalom; that the government may be increased, and of peace there be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it through justice and through righteousness from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts doth perform this.
Now, let’s go back through and discuss this a bit. Jewish anti-missionaries are quick to point out that the word in this verse, עַלְמָה (almah), doesn’t only mean “virgin.” It could also mean “young woman” or “maiden.” They say there’s another word, בְּתוּלָה (betulah), which would have been used if the “virgin” in this verse was really a virgin and not simply a young woman.
The problem is that every time the word almah is used in Scripture, it’s used to refer to a virgin. And almost always when the word betulah is used to refer to a virgin the text also explicitly describes her as a virgin.
An example of betulah:
…Also for his virgin (betulah) sister, who is near to him because she has had no husband; for her he [the priest] may defile himself. (Leviticus 21:3, emphasis mine)
He shall take a wife in her virginity. A widow, or a divorced woman, or one who is profaned by harlotry, these he may not take; but rather he is to marry a virgin (betulah) of his own people.
There are several examples of almah, and they all imply virginity:
Genesis 24:42-44 – Abraham’s servant prays to find an almah for Isaac.
Exodus 2:8 – Miriam, an almah, is sent to fetch her mother to care for baby Moses.
Proverbs 30:18-19 – The way of a man with an almah.
Song of Solomon 1:3, 6:8 – The almot love him – these are obviously not married women.
These passages, together with the ones from Isaiah above, constitute every instance where alma is used in the Tanakh.
The Bible doesn’t bother us with the mundane. If the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 only referred to a young woman, why bring up the fact that she will conceive if she was to conceive naturally? Wouldn’t the text simply talk about the child being born, knowing that we would naturally assume this child is born by natural means?
The fact that the alma will conceive is, in itself, miraculous and of key importance to the prophecy.
One last note: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, one of the meanings of “maiden” is “virgin”.
“Almah” does equal virgin.
King Hezekiah and the Messiah
Let’s look again at Isaiah 9:6-7 (verses 5-6 in the JPS Tanakh):
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.
Many times, prophecy in Scripture (Messianic and otherwise) has more than one meaning and more than one fulfillment. Prophecy often talks both about something that is near and something that is far. This passage in Isaiah is an example of this.
This prophecy applies directly and specifically to King Hezekiah, though it was not fully fulfilled in him. This prophecy also applies directly and specifically to the promised Messiah of Israel.
This section of Scripture is attributed to the Messiah by Jews, Messianic Jews, and Christians. The idea of this passage pointing to the promised Messiah of Israel is not an idea that originated within Christianity.
“Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end.”
R. Tanhum said: “Bar Kappara expounded in Sepphoris, ‘Why is every mem in the middle of a word open, whilst this is closed? — The Holy One, blessed be He, wished to appoint Hezekiah as the Messiah, and Sennacherib as Gog and Magog; whereupon the Attribute of Justice said before the Holy One, blessed be He, ‘Sovereign of the Universe! If Thou didst not make David the Messiah, who uttered so many hymns and psalms before Thee, wilt Thou appoint Hezekiah as such, who did not hymn Thee in spite of all these miracles which Thou wroughtest for him?’ Therefore it [sc. the mem] was closed.’
Straightway the earth exclaimed: ‘Sovereign of the Universe! Let me utter song before Thee instead of this righteous man [Hezekiah], and make him the Messiah.’ So it broke into song before Him, as it is written, ‘From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the righteous.’
Then the Prince of the Universe said to Him: ‘Sovereign of the Universe! It [the earth] hath fulfilled Thy desire [for songs of praise] on behalf of this righteous man.’ But a heavenly Voice cried out, ‘It is my secret, it is my secret.’”
Bar Kappara clearly saw that Hezekiah fell short of the Messianic aspirations of this verse, though he didn’t understand why. The point remains: it is a prophecy about Hezekiah and the Messiah both – one was near (Hezekiah) and one was far (the promised Messiah).
For this prophecy to apply only to Hezekiah, the rest of the verse, and the preceding verse, would also have to apply to him fully. We know that there was an end to the peace of Hezekiah’s government. According to this prophecy, and others, the reign of Messiah will be forever. Hence, one reason for ascribing this prophecy to the Messiah.
Also, Hezekiah was not the “Everlasting Father.” No person is ever referred to as “everlasting” in the Scriptures. The only one who is referred to as “Everlasting” throughout the Scriptures is God Himself. A quick search through a concordance or online Bible search tool will validate this.
The title “Everlasting Father” is not referring to a man.
Also, the title “Mighty God” is clearly referring to God Himself.
Other Titles for Messiah
Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.
The Hebrew words for “high and lifted up” are the same words used earlier in Isaiah 6 when the prophet encounters the Lord sitting on His throne. This can be seen as a parallel, equating the “servant” with God.
Let’s consider another set of Scriptures.
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “When I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’”
Why is the name of Jerusalem called “Adonai Tzidkeinu,” “The Lord is our Righteousness?”
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’”
The righteous Branch, which is a euphemism for the promised Messiah, is ruling from Jerusalem. And His name, the Messiah’s name, is “Adonai Tzidkeinu.” The name of the city is named after its king.
There are many places throughout the Tanakh where rulers are called after names for God. But there’s something unique about this ruler’s name. No other kings, rulers, or prophets are called by the Tetragrammaton, the sacred name of HaShem. God says that He won’t share His glory with another (see Isaiah 48:11 above). As part of His glory, He doesn’t share His personal name with others, either.
The name of Jerusalem is called after its ruler, who is Adonai Himself.
Even the Talmud agrees with this:
Rabbah in the name of R. Johanan further stated: “The righteous will in time to come be called by the name of the Holy One, blessed be He; for it is said: ‘Every one that is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory. I have formed him, yea, I have made him.’”
R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Johanan: “Three were called by the name of the Holy One; blessed be He, and they are the following: The righteous, the Messiah and Jerusalem. [This may be inferred as regards] the righteous [from] what has just been said. [As regards] the Messiah — it is written: ‘And this is the name whereby he shall be called, The Lord is our righteousness.’ [As regards] Jerusalem — it is written: ‘It shall be eighteen thousand reeds round about; and the name of the city from that day shall be ‘the Lord is there.’ Do not read, ‘there’ but ‘its name’.”
So, the Talmud indicates that the Messiah Himself is called by God’s holy, unpronounceable name.
The One Who is Pierced
Let’s move on to the last portion of Scripture we’re going to review in this section. But before we do, I want to give some back story to lead up to it.
What we’re about to look at has been a controversial section of Scripture for a long, long time. The controversy is that rabbinic Judaism has claimed that Christianity changed the Scriptures in order to bend them to reflect what they wanted to say. Christians meanwhile vehemently deny any such thing. But before it was controversial and rejected by Judaism, it was accepted by them – long before Christianity ever existed.
Mainstream, rabbinic Judaism relies heavily on a scriptural text called the Masoretic text. The Masoretic text is a Hebrew text which contains the vowel points with the consonants. It’s a version of the Scriptures which was completed around the year 800 CE or so. (For anyone who might not know, when you read out of a Torah scroll, there aren’t any vowels. It’s just consonants & the reader provides the vowels. This means the reader needs to be sufficiently fluent in the Hebrew language to do this. The Masoretic text, however, includes all the vowels.) This is also the Hebrew most English translations are based on. The problem is there are many places in the Tanakh where changing some vowels completely changes the meaning of the word in question.
This debate might still be undecided if the Dead Sea Scrolls hadn’t been found. These scrolls were written sometime between 250 BCE and 70 CE, when the Second Temple was destroyed. The Dead Sea Scrolls “just happened” to contain a fragment in Hebrew with the entirety of the verse in question on it. This was hundreds of years before the Masoretic text or the life of Yeshua. Most of the writings are in Hebrew (~80%).
Lastly, there’s one more layer to the text we’re about to read: This section of Scripture is also readily available in the LXX (Greek Septuagint). The LXX was produced by a group of approximately 70-72 Jewish scholars of Hebrew and Greek, beginning about the 200 BCE timeframe. It was accepted both as canon and as authoritative by the Judaisms of the Second Temple era. This is a very important point because the Septuagint closely lines up with the versions of the Tanakh which have been in wide circulation among Christians for nearly the past 1,800 years.
With that said, here is the passage:
On that day the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the Lord, going before them. And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. The land shall mourn, each family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself, and their wives by themselves; and all the families that are left, each by itself, and their wives by themselves.
In verse 10, we see God saying the inhabitants of Jerusalem will look upon God, on Him whom they’ve pierced, and shall mourn for Him as one mourns for an only (yachid) child.
Reading this, it seems pretty plain that God is both the Redeemer and the One who is pierced and dies. But He also rises from the grave because death has no hold on Him. Starting in the next chapter, God who was pierced by and for His people cuts off idolatry from the land and delivers His holy people, Israel, from her enemies. Now let’s narrow our focus just a bit.
Here’s how Zechariah 12:10 reads in the Septuagint:
And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and compassion: and they shall look upon me, because they have mocked me, and they shall make lamentation for him, as for a beloved, and they shall grieve intensely, as for a firstborn son.
So, that version is very close to the version in our Bibles. Particularly in connecting “him” with God Himself.
Rabbinic Judaism says this is a “Christian” interpretation. If that’s true, I imagine we wouldn’t find anything like it in Jewish literature. Especially not widely accepted Jewish literature.
“And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart.” Is it not, they said, a fortiori argument? If in the future when they will be engaged in mourning and the Evil Inclination will have no power over them, the Torah nevertheless says, men separately and women separately, how much more so now when they are engaged in rejoicing and the Evil Inclination has sway over them. What is the cause of the mourning (mentioned in the last cited verse)?
R. Dosa and the Rabbis differ on the point. One explained, “The cause is the slaying of Messiah the son of Joseph [The precursor of the Messiah ben David, the herald of the true Messianic age]”, and the other explained, “The cause is the slaying of the Evil Inclination.” It is well according to him who explains that the cause is the slaying of Messiah the son of Joseph, since that well agrees with the Scriptural verse,
“And they shall look upon me because they have thrust him through, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son”(Zechariah 12:10)
So, we see that the Babylonian Talmud agrees with the “Christian” position that this refers to the Messiah.
It is also very obvious that it refers to God Himself! God is speaking. God says He will deliver the Jewish people. He will destroy all the nations which will come up against Jerusalem. Then in the next breath God says He will pour out a spirit (His Spirit) of grace and pleas for mercy and they will mourn for Him whom they pierced as one mourns an only child.
This is a clear and unmistakable reference to Yeshua.
It’s a clear and unmistakable reference to the day when the Jewish people as a whole finally realize that Yeshua, whom they pierced, truly is the promised Messiah of Israel.
And, even more important, the Messiah is God Himself.
Now, what was all that talk about Masoretic, Septuagint, and Dead Sea texts all about?
Rabbinic Judaism claims that our reading of this passage is wrong and they base that claim on the Masoretic text – a text that is many centuries newer than either the Septuagint or Dead Sea scrolls.
But both the widely accepted canonical text of the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls agree with what we just read. The reliable texts say that this is God speaking, who dies and is mourned by the inhabitants of Jerusalem before He completely delivers them from all their enemies.
Zechariah 12 is unmistakable. You cannot look at the text honestly and come away with another conclusion: God Himself is the Messiah of Israel. He is the One who would be born of a virgin and called “Eternal Father.” He is the one who ransomed Himself in Isaiah 53 for the good of many.
Behold, a day is coming for the Lord, when the spoil taken from you will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward. And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him… And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.
God is the suffering servant, Messiah, Son of Joseph. He not only gave His own life as a ransom for His people Israel and the world, but will also return in glory and power, delivering Israel from all her enemies and ushering in the Messianic Era.
© 2019 Kehilat Yeshua Messianic Congregation | All Rights Reserved
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How To Play Moonlight Sonata On Piano
Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig Van Beethoven Songfacts
How to play Moonlight and Pathetique Sonatas. Hot tips about studying and playing the most known Beethoven sonatas. In this video, concert pianist Robert Estrin gives you unique tips to approach and play the best known Beethoven's Moonlight and Pathetique sonatas, and at the same time how to apply those very same tipes to other piano repertoire... How to play Moonlight and Pathetique Sonatas. Hot tips about studying and playing the most known Beethoven sonatas. In this video, concert pianist Robert Estrin gives you unique tips to approach and play the best known Beethoven's Moonlight and Pathetique sonatas, and at the same time how to apply those very same tipes to other piano repertoire
If you’re about to embark on learning Moonlight Sonata, you’re most likely starting with the first movement and quite possibly, not playing the second and third. That’s ok with Beethoven as some of his students and other musicians of the period often did not play complete sonatas.... "Moonlight Sonata" has been used in and inspired a number of popular songs. John Lennon got the idea for the Beatles track " Because ," when he heard Yoko Ono playing "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano. He asked her to play it backwards, and came up with "Because" based on what he heard.
If you’re about to embark on learning Moonlight Sonata, you’re most likely starting with the first movement and quite possibly, not playing the second and third. That’s ok with Beethoven as some of his students and other musicians of the period often did not play complete sonatas. how to make hard wax beans at home "Moonlight Sonata" has been used in and inspired a number of popular songs. John Lennon got the idea for the Beatles track " Because ," when he heard Yoko Ono playing "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano. He asked her to play it backwards, and came up with "Because" based on what he heard.
If you’re about to embark on learning Moonlight Sonata, you’re most likely starting with the first movement and quite possibly, not playing the second and third. That’s ok with Beethoven as some of his students and other musicians of the period often did not play complete sonatas. how to check google play balance How to play Moonlight and Pathetique Sonatas. Hot tips about studying and playing the most known Beethoven sonatas. In this video, concert pianist Robert Estrin gives you unique tips to approach and play the best known Beethoven's Moonlight and Pathetique sonatas, and at the same time how to apply those very same tipes to other piano repertoire
How to play Moonlight and Pathetique Sonatas. Hot tips about studying and playing the most known Beethoven sonatas. In this video, concert pianist Robert Estrin gives you unique tips to approach and play the best known Beethoven's Moonlight and Pathetique sonatas, and at the same time how to apply those very same tipes to other piano repertoire
The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor "Quasi una fantasia", Op. 27, No. 2, popularly known as the Moonlight Sonata, is a piano sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven.
"Moonlight Sonata" has been used in and inspired a number of popular songs. John Lennon got the idea for the Beatles track " Because ," when he heard Yoko Ono playing "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano. He asked her to play it backwards, and came up with "Because" based on what he heard.
If you’re about to embark on learning Moonlight Sonata, you’re most likely starting with the first movement and quite possibly, not playing the second and third. That’s ok with Beethoven as some of his students and other musicians of the period often did not play complete sonatas.
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Lexincorp welcomes a new associate to its Guatemala Office Gerardo José Miró Díaz-Nuila
Lexincorp wishes to welcome its new associate Gerardo José Miró Díaz-Nuila to it´s Guatemala office. Gerardo has a Bachelors Degree from Universidad Francisco Marroquín and a masters degree in International Business and Economic Law from Georgetown University Law Center and...
LICENSE WITH UNWAVERED SALARY FOR PERSONNEL WHO WILL PARTICIPATE IN ELECTIONS 2018
The Legislative Assembly of the Republic of El Salvador has reformed Electoral Code this last July 2017. Within this reform there are specific changes to Article 113 regulatory law with direct reference to numeral 6 of Article 29 Labor Code. This reform states that employers must grant...
TAX TO LEGAL PERSONS AND THEIR CORRESPONDING OBLIGATION TO REGISTER IN THE UNIQUE TAX REGISTER (RUT)
On September 1, 2017, the new Law on Tax of Legal Persons, number 9428, came into force, and we say new, because in 2011 a first law had been approved in this regard (number 9024) that was in effect until the year 2015, when by a resolution of the Constitutional Chamber, several of its...
SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON APPROVAL OF THE LAW PROJECT FOR THE INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT OF WATER RESOURCES FILE 17.742 (02-11-2017 UPDATE)
In the legislative plenary, on November 2, 2017, the substitute text file 17742 referring to the Law for the Integrated Management of Water Resources, related to a project presented in May of 2010, originated in a process of popular consultation that in accordance with the Popular...
EXTENSION OF AMNESTY PERIOD IN THE PAYMENT OF REFUNDS, FINES AND INTERESTS FOR DEBTS IN THE HONDURAN INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SECURITY «IHSS»
On October 26, 2017, Decree 82-2017 was published in the official newspaper La Gaceta, through which the 12-month period that expired on October 26, 2017 was extended, for an additional period of 20 months. January 2018, term in which taxpayers in arrears, may make their payments in a...
AMNESTY EXTENSION AND TAX AND CUSTOMS REGULARIZATION
On September 29, 2017, Legislative Decree No. 93-2017 was published in the Official News Paper “La Gaceta”, containing the extension to the validity of the amnesty and tax and customs regularization. In this decree the validity is extended until December 31, 2017, and from the moment...
Chambers and Partners Ranked Lexincorp as one of the best law firms in Central America
Ranking institution Chambers and Partners has ranked once again Lexincorp Central American Law Firm as one of the best law firms in Central America for General Business Law. It also included the Guatemala law office as one of the best options for Corporate law and Intellectual...
The Legal 500 – Lexincorp
Honduras Creates Incentives for Investment in the Tourism Industry by Means of a New Tourism Promotion Law.-
On August 17th 2017, the official newspaper in Honduras, “La Gaceta” number 34,419, published Legislative Decree Number 68-2017, which contains the TOURISM PROMOTION LAW, coming into effect immediately. As its title suggests, its main objective is to provide incentives and promote the...
Environmental Impact Study Requirement Suppressed.
The Government of Nicaragua, through Decree 76-2006, established the standards for the protection of Nicaragua's Natural Resources, requiring investors to conduct a series of Environmental Impact Studies with the purpose of determining the sustainably of the projects, observing any...
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Date of birth : -
Date of death : -
Birthplace : Ancient Egypt
Nationality : Egyptian
Category : Historian personalities
Nefertiti (1390 B.C.-ca. 1360 B.C.) was an Egyptian quenn who still remains a mystery to scholars today.
One of the most famous women in antiquity, Nefertiti remains somewhat of a puzzlement to scholars because of her mysterious ancestry and her disappearance from the record during the last years of Akhenaten's reign. Some believe that she was of Egyptian blood, others that she was a foreign princess. Her name, which translates to "The Beautiful One is Come," is an Egyptian birthname—thus not indicative of a foreign birth—and evidence indicates that she had an Egyptian wet-nurse or governess of noble rank, strong support for a birth within the circle of the Egyptian royal court. She may have been a niece of Ay, who ascended to the throne after Tutankhamen.
Her role, if any, late in Akhenaten's rule remains equally unclear. During the first five years of his reign, Nefertiti enjoyed a high profile, and the large number of carved scenes in which she is shown accompanying him during the ceremonial acts he performed is evidence of her political importance. She is depicted taking part in the daily worship and making offerings similar to those of the king— acts quite unlike those relegated to the generally subservient status of previous chief queens. But after the 14th year of Akhenaten's rule, Nefertiti disappears from view. Some have hypothesized that she was the power behind the throne and thus responsible for the innovations during his rule until being dismissed from her position and banished to the North Palace at Amarna. Her banishment would therefore reflect within the royal family an ideological rift, with Nefertiti favoring the continued worship of Aten while Akhenaten and Tutankhamen supported a return to the worship of Amen-Re. Most scholars, however, now suppose that Nefertiti simply died soon after Akhenaten's 14th regnal year, after which first Meritaten and then Ankhesenpaten took her place at the pharaoh's side. A more dramatic, if less accepted, theory holds that she assumed a new, masculine, identity toward the end of Akhenaten's rule—that Nefertiti and the young pharaoh Smenkhkare were, in fact, the same person.
View the full website biography of Nefertiti.
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GBTA Lobbyist Talks About Making Sure Business Travel Has Its Say
GBTA's Shane Downey talks:
Other items in the FAA reauthorization
Issues to watch affecting business travelers
The Business Travel PAC
Global Business Travel Association VP of government relations Shane Downey said GBTA lobbying has focused on taxation and fees, as well as maintaining a healthy infrastructure and making business travel more comfortable and convenient. His latest focus was long-term funding for the FAA. In October, the U.S. Congress passed the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018. The legislation did more than fund the FAA for five years, though. It also included many other things GBTA lobbied for. Downey spoke with BTN assistant editor Dawit Habtemariam about lobbying efforts on behalf of the business travel industry.
BTN: The FAA received a full five-year reauthorization in October for the first time since 1982. Why was that such a big deal?
Downey: The passage of the FAA is set to come up every couple of years, and that's a good thing, to make sure everything is working the way it is, but as we've seen over the past years, short-term reauthorizations can turn into an extended time period with continuous resolutions. It was important to get the FAA reauthorized so they can continue toward upgrading our air infrastructure, which is critical for business travel.
BTN: What other items did you lobby for that were included in the FAA bill?
Downey: We pushed for "Precheck is Precheck." Many [GBTA] members were raising concerns [that] people who were not enrolled in the program were using the Precheck lanes. Homeland Security and committees in the House raised concerns about the security aspects and the long-term future. We also got voice calls banned [on interstate and intrastate passenger flights]. Many members didn't like [calls on planes] because of the impact they could have on an overall flight, and it also raised a whole bunch of security concerns. Another item deals with an issue we've been working on for eight or nine years, localities using rental cars as a way to tax out-of-towners to pay for unrelated items like a button museum, a football stadium. It spread around the country until we felt it needed to be dealt with on the federal level. We're not opposed to increasing fees and taxation on business travel, but we want that to go back into business travel. We [worked on stand-alone bills and attachments and eventually] got language inserted into the final bill that said legislators couldn't put taxes on car rentals that they wouldn't put on any other purchase at airports. There were also several attempts to increase the passenger facility charge [added to airfares]. That is something we were not necessarily opposed to, but the proposals that have been put forth were too expensive. We worked against any inclusion of a passenger facility charge increase in the final bill.
BTN: What are you working on with the new Congress?
Downey: It's a diverse Congress with members with very different backgrounds. There are new chairmen and new ideas. We're excited to educate them on the importance of business travel. Facial recognition biometrics is on our radar. It's very promising new technology, and it would move people through the security lines faster and alleviate some national security concerns. We want to make sure we're following hearings to make sure the technology is working the way it's supposed to work, that it will be an opt-in/opt-out program and that there are ways you can address misidentifications. As a business traveler, the last thing you want is to have to get through security every week being misidentified by your facial recognition and not having a way to address that. Another area relates to the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure. There is conversation around a big infrastructure bill. Chairman Peter DeFazio [D-Oregon] has not hidden the fact that he supports an increase for the passenger facility charge, and this could be an opportunity for him to increase it. We'll continue to monitor it very closely and if it is not something we can support, we'll work to stop it from happening.
We're not opposed to increasing fees and taxation on business travel, but we want that to go back into business travel."
BTN: What else is on your radar?
Downey: We've heard some conversation here in the U.S. about future air travel and air emissions, and there have been recent conversations about taxing air travel in the EU. The proposals put forth are using taxes but are not using the money to fight back against climate change. It seems more like a punitive tax to drive down demand. It's just an area we need to continue talking about, what the industry is doing to address climate change. We've long worked with the industry on sustainability programs, and I know the airlines and airplane manufacturers have worked on this. We all want to lower our carbon footprint. It will just be incumbent on us as an industry to make sure our efforts are being noticed. [Another] area is Visa Waiver. There are five countries in the EU that are not in the Visa Waiver program—Poland, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Romania and Croatia—because they don’t meet the requirements the U.S. set forth. These countries argue EU laws say all member states must have the same benefits [and that] the other EU countries should pull out. This would throw a monkey wrench into international travel. The U.S. is talking with those countries and trying to work through the issues, to help them become compliant.
BTN: GBTA also runs the Business Travel PAC, right?
Downey: It's a trade association political action committee. We raise contributions from our U.S. members only. It's our opportunity as an industry to pull together resources and support members of Congress that have been helpful to the industry in the past, such as Sen. Ed Markey [D-Massachusetts], Rep. John Katko [R-New York], Rep. Sam Graves [R-Missouri] and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman [D-New Jersey].
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Parkland Strong: A Special Night With Ska Legends The Specials At Brooklyn Steel
The Specials hosted Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students and parents at their show at Brooklyn Steel. The Brit ska legends were touring in support of Encore, the band’s first new music with vocalist Terry Hall since 1981. Artist/activist Manuel Oliver, whose son Joaquin was one of the 17 students killed in last year’s Parkland, Fla., shooting, spoke to the sold-out crowd, and the Specials—including protester/activist Saffiyah Khan—incorporated the Instrument Of Hope (a trumpet made by survivors of the shooting from bullet casings) into their set. MAGNET photographer Wes Orshoski was there for this special(s) evening.
Essential New Music: Chris Brokaw’s “End Of The Night”
If you need some music made to order, guitarist Chris Brokaw is your man. He can play all the tricky parts for Evan Dando, match blue note for blue note with Thalia Zadek in Come, score your movie and then turn around and make a set of solo classical-guitar interpretations of David Bowie and Prince songs. Once he knows the plan, he gets to work.
End Of The Night was born from a challenge: Make the last record you’d want to play at the end of the night. Ah, but what kind of night are we talking about? Each of this LP’s 10 tracks could work as a solitary nightcap for a particular situation. If you’re full of regret, listen to “Our Fathers” as you mumble your prayers. If you gotta go, let the stolid cadence and wide-screen-worthy, echoing lead of “Step Outside” ring out while you put on your 10-gallon hat and step into the inky night. Want to have some company? Bat your best bedroom eyes to “The Dip.” But if you’re turning the corner from latest night to early morning, put the whole thing on and let Brokaw’s reverberant guitar and the melancholy trumpet of Greg Kelley (Heathen Shame, Damon & Naomi) prop you up on either side as you fade away. End Of The Night delivers just what it promises.
—Bill Meyer
CategoriesESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC
There’s No Leaving New York: The National’s Never Ending Tour Hits Brooklyn
The National is easy to find. Matt Berninger and the brothers Dessner (Aaron and Bryce) and Devendorf (Bryan and Scott) are always on tour. Case in point: Earlier this year, the band played our hometown of Philly three times in less than a month. MAGNET photographer Chris Sikich caught up with the National at 2019’s Celebrate Brooklyn (with Courtney Barnett opening), thinking nobody else would be there. He was wrong.
MAGNET Exclusive: Premiere Of Ummagma’s “High Day” Video
On July 26, Ummagma will release Compass (Leonard Skully), the third album from the Canada/Ukraine husband-and-wife duo and first in seven years. Now based in Ontario, Alexander Kretov and Shauna McLarnon met in Moscow in 2003 and began a romantic and musical partnership. The dozen-track Compass follows two 2017 EPs, LCD (with Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie and Curve’s Dean Garcia) and Winter Tale (with A.R. Kane). One of the new LP’s standouts is lead single “High Day.”
Says McLarnon of the track, “It’s one of those ‘accidental songs’ that were created under odd circumstances. We were going through a tense time, living between two cities and seeing each other only when commuting ‘home’ with our daughter for the weekend. Something happened to cause us to fight; I don’t even remember what exactly and we were not talking to each other, but ended up having a guest come over—another musician. We took turns entertaining him because we didn’t want to be in the same room as each other. I hadn’t been singing anything for a few months at this point, and my husband found me singing with this guest upon returning. He took out the hand-held recorder and captured this improvisation. Later, upon playback, we knew that a song needed to be born, and we at least had an idea of the chords and stylings needed.”
So not only did McLarnon and Kretov get a song out of their quarrel, they also were able to use it to move past the argument itself. “It was a song of apology and awakening,” says McLarnon. “Not to say ‘I’m sorry for what I did or said,’ but to admit how stupid it was that we could both let something so small stand in the way of something so huge—that being us, our music and our family. This song helped us move past this to restore equilibrium in our relationship—and got me singing and writing again. This was our ‘High Day,’ and now it’s your ‘High Day,’ too.”
We’re proud to premiere the Kretov-directed video for “High Day” today on magnetmagazine.com. Check it out now.
CategoriesMAGNET EXCLUSIVE, VIDEOS
MP3 At 3PM: Katie Rose
“Beginnings” is the latest from singer/songwriter Katie Rose, who we first profiled three years ago. Rose started her career in 2011 when she was only 13, so she’s already a vet now that she’s hit the legal drinking age. “Beginnings” starts off sounding a lot like a fairytale movie but progresses into something reminiscent of a Broadway musical. Rose’s soft voice matches the initial simplicity of the tune, but as the song unfolds, both come out of their shell. “Beginnings” proves there’s definitely more special music to come from this determined young songwriter.
“Beginnings” (download):
http://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Beginnings.mp3
CategoriesFREE MP3s
The Edge Of 17: Teenage Sensation Billie Eilish Comes Out To Philly To Play
“It” 17-year-old pop star Billie Eilish just wrapped up the North American leg of her When We All Fall Asleep Tour. The energetic, 19-song performance from California’s scary sweetheart at the Met in Philly definitely had the adoring crowd wide awake, as did the opening set by Denzel Curry. MAGNET photographer Chris Sikich was there—and was sad when the party was over.
MP3 At 3PM: Zoe Konez
South London singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer/promoter Zoe Konez is the epitome of a hands-on musician. Bringing her inspiration wherever she goes, Konez spends a lot of time making music for and with people who have faced challenging circumstances. In addition to her solo work, Konez continues to write and perform with Catbear, her most excellent duo with Sarah Smith. And Konez is also very active in the LGBTQ+ community. “We Got Lost” is her latest solo single, and it’s a folky psychedelic winner. Download and/or stream it below.
“We Got Lost” (download):
http://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/WeGotLost.mp3
A Conversation With MIYAVI
As a guitarist, vocalist, actor, model and humanitarian, Japanese artist Takamasa “MIYAVI” Ishihara is a hyphenate extraordinaire, thrilling audiences worldwide with his unique and virtuosic slap-style approach to the guitar and his passionate performances in films such as 2014’s Unbroken (directed by Angelina Jolie and co-written by the Coen brothers). The 37-year-old MIYAVI shows no signs of slowing down, as he has a new LP (his 11th), No Sleep Till Tokyo, due out July 24, a summer North American tour and a role in the Jolie-starring Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil, in theaters this October.
The new album is fantastic. The lead-off track, “Stars,” seems like a quintessential MIYAVI song, with funky slap guitar, huge choruses and a synth-like 8-bit guitar lead. Your last two albums were collaborative efforts with other artists. Please talk a little about your vision for this LP. Does the title No Sleep Till Tokyo have anything to do with the fact that between recording, touring, acting and your other work, you seem like a man always on the go?
Thank you. My last two albums were collaborative projects, and it was an inspiring process to learn from such a diverse group of talented and innovative artists. As a guitarist, I have always enjoyed performing with great singers/rappers. However, for this new record, I wanted to focus on creating something 100% within MIYAVI’s world. As a Japanese artist, I have kind of been rediscovering the greatness of Japan especially after I moved to Los Angeles. Moving away gave me a new appreciation for how great and unique Japan really is. For example, I have tried to sing in English in the past but realized that I prefer to sing in my native tongue. I am encouraged by hearing songs in Spanish and Korean on the radio today. As long as a track has a high sound quality, foreign audiences are more willing to be open to your music in a different language.
In the videos I’ve seen online, your slap-guitar technique always catches people off guard; it’s so innovative. I believe you developed this style of playing pretty early on and that you might have been influenced by the sound of the shamisen. Is that correct?
Yes, I got the fundamental idea from the shamisen, which is a traditional Japanese guitar. As a Japanese guitarist, it was important to me to find my own distinct style different from any other guitarists, and so I started slapping the strings. I was also influenced by great bass players such as Marcus Miller, Larry Graham and Louis Johnson. It’s all about the passion you put into every slap.
Your music is very original but also blends many styles from funk to hip hop to rock … I even hear some blues changes in an older song like “What’s My Name?” Please talk a bit about how you compose songs and your approach to mixing different influences together.
It’s important to evolve as an artist and to continue to challenge myself to record new styles of music. Otherwise, I run the risk of getting stuck in a box, and that would be boring.
“Butterfly,” from the new album, really grooves. I don’t think of you as an artist who writes songs for the dancefloor, but that’s probably putting your music into a box. I’m guessing you don’t think of your music as belonging to just one genre. Is that the case?
Correct. I just go with the flow. It’s all about a message and a groove. People wanna sing and dance. As a creator, it’s my job to capture the listener’s attention while relaying a greater message across through my music.
The song “Samurai” talks about “doing it like a samurai” and that it’s “all or nothing ‘til I make it.” The word “samurai” conjures up certain images among western audiences that are probably not culturally accurate. I know you are sometimes billed as the samurai guitarist. Are you talking about yourself on the track, your audience or both? And what’s the meaning behind this particular tune?
An attitude. “Samurai” is such a serious word for us Japanese, and I don’t want to use this word without any purpose. On this track, I just wanted to sing about an attitude and determination. Focus and dedication. Loyalty used to be the most important value to my people, but that’s changed. True value is always inside you, and a dedication to that life motto is the beauty of Japanese culture.
As a guitar player, you embrace a wide variety of tones from acoustic to Telecaster twang to the processed sound on your leads. Am I hearing the new Fender Acoustasonic on some of the tracks?
Yeah, the Fender Acoustasonic is an incredibly unique instrument that has both acoustic and electric qualities. When I first played the Acoustasonic, I was blown away by this guitar’s potential. Throughout music history, there has always been cooperation between artists and guitar brands to create new tools. I really appreciate Fender’s creative spirit and the company’s desire to challenge musicians by developing innovative products.
When it comes to percussion and beats, you’re not afraid to use acoustic or programmed drums. Is it a question of using whatever best suits the song? By the way, I love that you added in the early-’80s Syndrums on “Under The Same Sky.” So cool!
Thank you. I have been trying to make some new guitar-oriented music for the current generation. It’s hard to make rock ‘n’ roll fresh, and so I try to innovate while also paying respects to all the rock stars who paved the path for us. Now it’s our responsibility to record music that can be a bridge to the next generation. On “Under The Same Sky,” I tried to sing mostly in Japanese as a message to all my fans who have been so supportive over the years. Even if you are away from whom you love, you feel close when you realize that we are all under the same sky. Sometimes we share pictures of our skies so that we feel close knowing that we are living on Earth.
Speaking of percussion, in the more recent live clips I’ve seen, you have a pretty minimal setup with just a drummer, a DJ and backup singers. That would seem to put a lot of pressure on your guitar work, which has to cover much of the rhythm and melody parts by itself. What attracts you to this arrangement?
I’m not afraid to use any recorded track for my shows. The most important thing for me to share with the audience is passion and explosion at every single moment through a performance. I play the guitar, sing, perform, jump and dance. Everything I can do to be connected with the audience. That’s my mission every time when I hit the stage. I’m not just a guitarist.
OK, last question. Who do you think will win in next year’s Godzilla Vs. Kong movie? It’s too bad they couldn’t find a way to bring your Kong: Skull Island character Gunpei Ikari back from the dead for the sequel!
It’s really cool to see iconic Japanese brands like Godzilla cross-over culturally. Feel free to start a petition to bring my character back from the dead!
—Bruce Fagerstrom
CategoriesINTERVIEWS
In The News: Ty Segall, Pixies, Adam Green, Redd Kross, Bat For Lashes, Jesse Malin, Hiss Golden Messenger And More
Former MAGNET cover star Ty Segall will give you a First Taste on August 2 courtesy of Drag City … Speaking of former MAGNET cover stars: The seventh Pixies album, Beneath The Eyrie, is out September 13 via Infectious/BMG in a multitude of formats and editions … Adam Green—the funniest MAGNET guest editor of all time—is back September 6 with a new LP, Engine Of Paradise (30th Century), and a graphic novel, War And Paradise … Speaking of former MAGNET guest editors: On August 23, Redd Kross will release Beyond The Door (Merge), the band’s first new LP in seven years … Bat For Lashes has announced fifth album Lost Girls, out September 6 via AWAL … The Lucinda Williams-produced Sunset Kids is Jesse Malin‘s first LP since 2015’s Outsiders, and it’s in stores August 30 via Wicked Cool/The Orchard/Velvet Elk … Another first album in four years: Lower Dens‘ The Competition, out September 6 on Ribbon Music … Terms Of Surrender, the latest from the very prolific Hiss Golden Messenger, will be released September 20 by Merge … Fans of Slowdive and Mojave 3 take note: The Soft Cavalry (featuring Rachel Goswell) has released its self-titled debut album on Bella Union, while HOO (featuring Ian McCutcheon) has issued debut Centipede Wisdom on Graveface.
High Hopes: Florence + The Machine Delivers A Sky Full Of Songs
Florence + The Machine just finished up leg five of the High As Hope tour (U.S., Canada and Mexico), which started almost a year ago, just after the band’s fourth album was released. The jaunt concludes late September with two shows at the almost 2,000-year-old Herodion Theatre in Athens, Greece. MAGNET photographer Chris Sikich caught up with Ms. Welch and band at Columbia, Md.’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, which turns 52 on Sunday.
Essential New Music: House And Land’s “Across The Field”
House And Land’s second album defies any notions of a sophomore jinx by topping its already impressive predecessor. The North Carolina duo of Sally Anne Morgan (voice, banjo, fiddle) and Sarah Louise (voice, guitar, woodwinds) started out with a determination to embroider their various contemporary concerns without compromising the spirit of their Appalachian folk material. If 2017’s self-titled debut proved you can reconcile songs fashioned before the advent of rural electrification with feminist and minimalist concepts, Across The Field shows that such material can be also be vehicle for a musician’s personal evolution.
Morgan’s an old pro at folk music—if you need a square-dance caller, she’s for hire—but her bowing alternately roughens and smoothens the textures while articulating bold melodical maneuvers around the vocal harmonies, which root the music in earlier times. Louise has evolved rapidly from her early guise as an acoustic guitarist and occasional singer working out of the American Primitive playbook to a flexible rocker, improviser and folk singer equally comfortable in plugged-in and voltage-free environments; these advancements are evident during the LP’s extended instrumental passages and expanded instrumentation. Instead of bridging past and present, House And Land lays the foundation for a great future on Across The Field.
Fast And Frightening: The Re-Formed L7 Is Still A Rockin’ Machine
The infamous grunge/punk ladies in L7 just completed a North American tour not only supporting new album (and first in two decades) Scatter The Rats (Blackheart) but also celebrating the 25th anniversary of Hungry For Stink (one of the best LP titles of all time). If that wasn’t enough, the fearless foursome brought along our faves Le Butcherettes to open at Union Transfer. MAGNET photographer Chris Sikich was there and smelled the magic.
Le Butcherettes
Q&A With Travis’ Fran Healy
Looking back, Travis frontman Fran Healy is still in awe of the enormous U.K. love fest touched off by 1999’s The Man Who—its first kiss embodied by the Scottish outfit’s breakthrough performance at Glastonbury that same year. Craft Recordings has just released a 16-track document of the Glastonbury show, along with an expanded 20th-anniversary reissue of The Man Who, one of the finest albums of the millennium’s first decade. The Glastonbury renditions of The Man Who tracks lack some of the drama and subtlety of their studio counterparts, mainly for reasons Healy explains below. But the massive progression from the charming-yet-indistinct Britpop of its self-titled debut is evident. With help from producers Mike Hedges and Nigel Godrich, Travis locked into the vaguely theatrical loud/soft dynamic that would serve the band well for the next several years.
MAGNET touched base with Healy, who reflects on The Man Who’s 2.8 million units sold, the perceived shit show that was Glastonbury and the group’s more personal connection to American audiences.
As reissues go, the Glastonbury performance makes a nice companion piece to The Man Who.
At the time, we thought Glastonbury was shit. We thought we’d blown it. We left the stage patting each other on the back … like, “Better luck next time, guys.” And we got on our buses and went home.
Apparently, there were those who felt otherwise.
I remember walking through the front door after the show, switching on my television and hearing my name before I even had a chance to sit on the sofa. There were these two BBC Radio 2 presenters sitting around a campfire at Glastonbury waxing about how wonderful our performance was. And then they showed a clip of our performance, and I was like, “Wow, this is pretty good actually.”
What bothered you most about the show when you walked offstage?
There were two things. First, I couldn’t hear myself onstage. Imagine feeling the vibration in your throat and your teeth and your mouth, but the sound is being sucked away by the volume. It’s the weirdest feeling. When I finally got in-ear monitors, it really saved my life. Before that, I’d come offstage after every single show totally depressed because I didn’t know whether I was in tune or out of tune. It probably ruined about 10 years’ worth of gigs for me. The second thing was that it pissed on everyone. We looked at the audience and thought, “This is going to crap because it’s raining.” Everyone looked pretty miserable.
Twenty years later, what’s your perspective on The Man Who?
The Man Who was the first big comedown record from Britpop—the hangover. It introduced people to this less arrogant, more introspective sound. On our first record, there was AC/DC, Oasis, a bit of everything. But at the end of (1997’s) Good Feeling, you begin to hear what we’d become. It weaves very nicely into The Man Who.
What are a few memories that stick out from the recording of The Man Who?
We started out with Mike Hedges. We wanted to work with Nigel (Godrich), but he was recording Kid A at that point, so he was super-busy. Mike is a veteran producer who did the Manic Street Preachers and all the early Cure stuff. The stuff didn’t quite hit the ground running like we wanted it to, but we did keep the vocals from “Turn” and “Why Does It Always Rain On Me?” from that session because they were really special. Then we did get Nigel involved, and the first thing we recorded, I think, was “Writing To Reach You.” I remember sitting behind him and watching him get a sound together in the studio—he didn’t even have an assistant engineer. He was soundchecking the drums with Neil (Primrose), and he’d say, “Could you hit the snare drum?’ Then he’d say, “Stop,” go move the mic about two millimeters and come back and say, “Hit it again.” He’d do this about six times until the mic was in the perfect position. Bare in mind that he did that with absolutely everything, and there was no EQ anywhere on the board—it was all mic position. I remember being like, “Wow, he hasn’t touched a single knob. He’s just listening.” Another big part of his technique is that he gets the band to play together. He records the take and tweaks tiny little bits of it. It’s all about the performance with him.
The Radiohead connection must’ve loomed large, yes?
For us, OK Computer was such a massive record, and Nigel and I were getting along really well. So it was nice having a laugh and hanging out while I was watching one of the greatest engineers who’ve ever lived.
It seems like, with The Man Who, the Travis sound came into full focus.
We weren’t really trying to go out and find a sound. But I remember opening the front door of my house in London and my two managers standing in the doorway like tax collectors. We were getting to the end of recording, and they sat down and said, “Listen, the album is quite depressing. Could you write a couple of singles?” So I went away, and the first one I wrote was “The Blue Light,” which is about domestic violence in a cul-de-sac in northern England—not really single material. But “Driftwood” did come out of that. If you have a good song to record, it will make you sound like it wants you to sound. We had those songs for The Man Who.
Does it bother you that the album didn’t do nearly as well here as it did in the U.K.?
Epic initially passed on it. Then it came out in Britain in May 1999, and three months later, we were up to 300,000 records. By Christmas, we were up to 1.5 million. Then Epic said, “Well, maybe you can come over here and try to do this thing.” In the UK, Travis became so fucking massive so quickly. One in six households had The Man Who, and the press hated us because we were so massive. We were getting played too much on the radio. We came to America almost a year later. But the interesting thing is that we never crossed over. We were this little island that a lot of people clambered onto to get away from Limp Bizkit and Britney Spears. Our career in England should’ve been what our career was in America. I’m not complaining—don’t get me wrong. But we reside in a really nice locale in America. People were desperate for something that wasn’t shit in the late 1990s, and we were lucky and honored enough make that record.
—Hobart Rowland
Pentagram Delivers Live Rites: Bobby Liebling & The Temple Of Doom Hit NYC
While the rest of the world is sipping natural wine and vaping curated indica at eco-friendly festivals headlined by Ariana Grande, we prefer to spend our summer nights pounding Lemmys and smoking skunk weed in small clubs listening to doom metal. (We have our sister magazine Decibel to thank for that.) So when we heard the legendary Pentagram was playing the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, we couldn’t wait for this day of reckoning. Bobby Liebling and Co. were nothing short of relentless, and MAGNET photographer Wes Orshoski was there for when the screams came.
The Basement Vapes, Volume Seven: By Popular Demand — Lou Reed’s Exquisite Jane
MAGNET’s Mitch Myers explains the confusing history behind “Sweet Jane,” Lou Reed’s often-covered, always-changing ode to rock ‘n’ roll
Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau (The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine)
A century ago in Paris, several surrealists and other artists devised a parlor game of sorts. The group included André Breton, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, Joan Miró and Man Ray. Their collaborative game was called Exquisite Corpse, where images (or words) were devised spontaneously, but assembled by certain rules. One popular method was for someone to draw on a section of a folded piece of paper and have the next participant complete an adjoining section without seeing what was drawn previously, except for the connecting ends. This sharing technique has had many variations over the years and still retains a sense of limitless possibilities.
Image by Man Ray, Joan Miró, Yves Tanguy and Max Morise
Exquisite Corpse came to mind in 2013 when I was organizing an NPR segment on Lou Reed’s timeless composition “Sweet Jane.” The piece was coming along well until I learned that Billboard editor Joe Levy had just written that exact article. I was a bit bummed, Levy nailed it—tracing the song’s history and mentioning essential versions. Not eager to be deemed redundant, I abandoned the radio segment and tried to forget the idea.
But still … “Sweet Jane.” The song, to use a 20th-century analogy, is the Cadillac of rock ‘n’ roll tunes. Take it for a spin—the drive is classy, reliable and a little bit pimped out. It’s well built, solid and propulsive—a smooth ride that handles like a dream. The song is actually timeless enough that I’m inspired to take another crack at it, because, like The Dude in The Big Lebowski says, “New shit has come to light.” Well, not brand spanking new, but let’s consider the trajectory of this beloved song one more time.
“Standin’ on the corner, suitcase in my hand”
Lou Reed recorded the earliest version of “Sweet Jane” in 1970 with the Velvet Underground for the band’s fourth and final LP, Loaded. That LP was the group’s swan song—as co-founder John Cale had already departed and Reed would quit the band before the new record was even released.
“Jack is in his corset, Jane is in her vest/And me, I’m in a rock ‘n’ roll band”
Recorded in Manhattan at Atlantic Studios, Loaded was a last-ditch effort by a great band that had always been willfully non-commercial. “Sweet Jane” was a deceptively straightforward tune with a rousing chorus, and the performance was edited heavily with top-40 radio in mind. Indeed, the song’s original bridge was completely deleted in post-production, but with the expanded editions of Loaded available in recent years, we can now consider the various edits and the power of the song’s initial incarnation.
“Riding in a Stutz Bearcat, Jim/You know, those were different times/All the poets, they studied rules of verse/And those ladies they rolled their eyes”
After a floating, celestial guitar intro, the song draws us in with three chords and a bump while Reed’s roguish street poetry stands out as eternally romantic—young at heart but wise in time. It’s a buoyant ode that celebrates life, love and the pursuit of rock ‘n’ roll, with some third-person omniscience and a bit of cross-dressing domesticity thrown in for good measure.
“Jack, he is a banker/And Jane, she is a clerk/And both of them save their monies/And when they come home from work”
The song was already part of the VU’s repertoire, and early versions are preserved on both Live At Max’s Kansas City and Velvet Underground Live, as well as several greatest-hits packages. On the anthology NYC Man: The Collection, Reed chose to excise the heavenly guitar intro from the Velvet’s original studio recording. Lord knows why.
“Sittin’ down by the fire, the radio does play/The classical music there, Jim/The March Of The Wooden Soldiers/All you protest kids, you can hear Jack say”
Besides the edits, there’s also the elusive question as to the actual number of chords Reed uses in the song. Is it three? Is it four? As Lou confides to Elvis Costello about the extra “secret chord” on 2010 cable program, Spectacle: Elvis Costello With…, it was really just the luck of the draw between Reed and fellow VU guitarist Sterling Morrison on the day of that 1970 recording session. So that’s how it goes.
After Reed left the Velvet Underground for a solo career, he was eventually encouraged and endorsed by David Bowie, who produced his notorious Transformer LP in 1972. This was the album featuring Reed’s biggest hit, “Walk On The Wild Side,” and it helped spur the glam-filled androgyny of the decade ahead. Naturally, Reed went out on the road to capitalize on his newfound popularity, and he tried on some transgressive personas in the process. One infamous phase was showcased on 1974 live album Rock N Roll Animal. Boasting the double-barreled firepower of hard-rocking Michigan-based guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, that particular tour provided a dumbed-down/amped-up Lou Reed show that even a Thin Lizzy fan could love.
“Some people, they like to go out dancin’/And other peoples, they have to work/And there’s even some evil mothers/Well, they’re going to tell you that everything is just dirt”
There’s been much debate about this performance. It’s adored by some while dismissed by others. The band mixed showy dual-guitar leads with Reed’s pre-punk androgyny, helping induce a curious mainstream audience to walk on the wild side. For young listeners, it was their first exposure to “Sweet Jane,” and the dramatic live track developed an enduring life of its own. Ironically, the dreamy guitar intro of the Velvet’s version is transformed here into a lengthy, dynamic and regal prologue before the three basic chords come crashing in. Reportedly, Reed disliked the band’s hard-rock posturing and especially chafed at the attention being paid to his wicked lead guitarists. Whatever.
Another seminal version appeared as the opening cut on Mott The Hoople’s 1972 LP, All The Young Dudes. It is also produced by Bowie, whose high esteem led Mott to perform this outstanding cover. Ian Hunter’s grand performance is part Bowie, part Lou, yet still totally original. Bowie also covered the song in concert, and there’s even an old demo with Bowie, Reed and Mott all playing the tune together. That said, I believe it’s my solemn responsibility to tell you that since Lou Reed is gone and David Bowie is gone, too, Ian Hunter officially owns this tune now. Hunter continues to perform “Sweet Jane” regularly, not only as an essential part of his Mott The Hoople revivals, but also as a centerpiece of his solo shows with the longstanding Rant Band.
“You know that women never really faint/And that villains always blink their eyes/And that children are the only ones who blush/And that life is just to die.”
Cruising ever onward, 1973 brought yet another version of “Sweet Jane,” this time by Michigan rock ‘n’ rollers Brownsville Station, appearing on the band’s Yeah! album alongside novelty hit “Smokin’ In The Boy’s Room.” The macho group starts by attacking the original tune like some garage band feeling sentimental on a Saturday night. The chord sequence is slightly skewed, bassist Michael Lutz bellows and barks, guitarist Cub Koda adds his tastiest embellishments, and the harmony-laden refrain is not without its juvenile charm. All in all, this cover actually is kind of sweet. Nuff said.
“But anyone who had a heart/They wouldn’t turn around and break it/And anyone who ever played a part/They wouldn’t turn around and hate it”
In 1987, the Austin Chronicle, as part of its anniversary celebration, held a marathon “Sweet Jane” contest at the Liberty Lunch venue—an evening where the contestants all performed versions of Reed’s immortal tune. Judges included Chronicle staffers Marjorie Baumgarten, Jeff Whittington and Richard Dorsett, but not the late great Margaret Moser (because she hated Reed and loved John Cale instead). Sterling Morrison, former VU guitarist was living in Austin but did not attend.
Austin music writer Michael Corcoran dutifully covered the show, writing up a scathing, comic takedown of the five-hour experience for Spin, lamenting the obvious transgressions of cool. Corky may have had an axe to grind with the Chronicle, but it’s a pretty funny story and an important historical footnote. The March, 1987 piece, provocatively entitled “Agony,” is unavailable online. But as Corcoran documents, the winner of the contest was a long forgotten group called the Magic Outlaw Band. The Mayor of Austin, Frank Cooksey, also showed up for the event, allegedly voting for Two Nice Girls, a “self-styled dyke rock band” that performed a medley of “Sweet Jane” with Joan Armatrading’s “Love And Affection” called “Sweet Jane (With Affection).” The Two Nice Girls finished in second place that night, but they also landed a record deal with Geoff Travis and Rough Trade Records solely on the strength of that medley.
Writer/judge Baumgarten, who co-conceived the Sweet Jane event, remembers the five-hour marathon as one of the fondest days of her life. Yet her colleague Corcoran thought the evening was one long, convoluted drag. Ultimately, there still can be too much of a good thing. The tune has been well integrated into our mainstream music-cultural lexicon (Cowboy Junkies, Phish, R.E.M., et al.) but once supergroups like U2 began covering “Sweet Jane” in concert, you could only wonder: Where will it end?
So, rather than invoking more versions of the song, I simply propose that somebody skilled construct a definitive amalgamation. By taking all of the notable performances and editing them together we would have an “Exquisite Jane,” a version greater than the sum of its parts. With Lou Reed’s simple, definitive chord structure as our sonic blueprint, the connective links are just waiting to be utilized. Thanks to modern technology, this audio assignment should be a piece of cake. Of course, some folks will always prefer the older classic renditions of “Sweet Jane” to any newfangled hybrid creation, but remember, those were different times.
“Sweet Jane!”
All things old are new again. East Coast blue-collar veteran rock ‘n’ roller Willie Nile revives patron-saint street bard Lou Reed’s enduring composition in anthemic old-school, Springsteen-esque, crowd-pleasing fashion. What else?
CategoriesTHE BASEMENT VAPES
Essential New Music: Rodrigo Amado & Chris Corsano’s “No Place To Fall”
If humanity survives to reflect upon the current times, the middle of the 20th century will likely be seen as a musical/cultural nexus. Whatever you listen now to can be linked back to some gathering of prior ideas that took place in 1950s or 1960s. In jazz, that can often be narrowed down to particular albums that crystalized aesthetic notions. For example, consider John Coltrane and Rashied Ali’s duo recording, 1967’s Interstellar Space, which showed how jazz could be reduce to essential ingredients: melody, texture, energy and pace. Every subsequent saxophone-and-drum session gets measured against it, and it’s a yardstick that can make anyone feel a bit short.
Portuguese tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado no doubt thought about this going into No Place To Fall and prepared accordingly. The partner he chose, American drummer Chris Corsano, is not only a long-term collaborators in Amado’s other ensembles, but a contemporary master of improvised duets. Not much binds Bill Nace, Christine Abdelnour, Paul Flaherty or Bill Orcutt at the stylistic level, but they’ve all found the freedom to be their best selves in Corsano’s company. His high energy and unerring spontaneous judgment are easy to notice, but the extent to which you don’t notice how he supports and spotlights his partners is actually testament to how good he is at it.
With Amado, Corsano funnels pressurized force through reduced sonic means—sticks on toms, brushes on the snare and cymbals, a kick drum and not much else—to make Amado’s textural variations stand out. Amado’s a melodist at heart, so while it’s a gas to hear him blow coarse and gargantuan on the title track, it’s the tender dynamics of “We’ll Be Here In The Morning” that stay with you after the adrenaline wears off. You might be tempted to ask if it measures the full yard, but it might be better focus on how the ways this music fully occupies the present. Then was great, and you don’t want to forget about it, but we’re living right now, and so is this music.
Live Review: Patti Smith, Philadelphia, May 30, 2019
At the Philadelphia Museum Of Art, Patti Smith and daughter Jesse Paris Smith paid tribute to Walt Whitman, namesake of my fourth favorite bridge over the Delaware River, titler of my second favorite Team Dresch album and my high-school English teacher’s number-one brainiac amour.
I loved the stories Patti told about the single childhood visit to the museum that made her decide to be an artist and finding fashion across the river at the Goodwill in Camden, N.J.; her recitations of Allen Ginsberg’s ”A Supermarket In California” and Whitman’s “Song Of The Open Road”; and Jesse’s reading of a letter from Whitman to his mother after seeing the body of an unknown young soldier during the Civil War.
Maybe best of all was hearing Patti’s voice fill the Great Stair Hall as she sang in chanteuse mode, especially Neil Young’s “It’s A Dream” and Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love.”
—M.J. Fine; photos by Chris Sikich
The Dove & The Wolf, Shamir, Michelle Blades, Philadelphia, May 25, 2019
Celebrating the release of Conversations, the debut album from the Dove & The Wolf, carried a sweet ache—not so much because the band’s no longer based in Philly, but because its luxurious harmonies portend heartbreak almost every time.
Michelle Blades and Shamir, who shone in their own opening sets at Johnny Brenda’s, joined the Dove & the Wolf for some of the most emotional songs of the night, with Shamir’s delicate quaver adding depth to “Free Around You” and Blades bringing her excellent guitar work to “Growing Apart” and “Queens.”
Michelle Blades
Final Revelations: This Is Not This Heat Says Goodbye With A Farewell U.S. Tour
What’s post-punk? Like any other musical term that gains currency, it’s been so used and misused that it can mean whatever the people saying it want it to mean. But if you understand it to mean, “I hear you, punk rock, and you’ve got a point, but there’s a lot more to be brought to the table—let me show you,” then This Heat was the original post-punk band.
Charles Bullen, Charles Hayward and Gareth Williams formed This Heat in London in 1976. Hayward (drums) and Bullen (guitar, clarinet) were accomplished musicians who had separately and together logged time in prog and improv settings; Williams (keyboards, bass) worked at the HMV record store in Leicester Square, and while he had never played an instrument, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of music. While they shared punk’s immediacy and aggression, they had no time for its stylistic austerity. This Heat’s music encompassed tape manipulation, angular song construction, found sound, creative recycling of sonic material and constructive clashes between styles and recording fidelities. The band’s lyrics addressed cold-war terror and skepticism about commercial/media forces in terms that didn’t tell you what you had to think about them, but left you in no doubt about how they felt. They shared labels, spaces and associations with Flying Lizards, Laura Logic and the Raincoats, but no one else sounded like them.
In 1981 Williams left This Heat to study Katakali dance, and Bullen and Hayward split the next year. While Williams died of cancer in 2001, the other two men kept in sporadic touch over the years and did their best to keep the This Heat catalog in print. But no one got to hear the music live again until 2016, when Bullen and Hayward convened a larger band called This Is Not This Heat to play This Heat’s material at London’s Café Oto. People came to those shows from around the world, so Bullen and Hayward decided to take the show to them. But the tension inherent in creative musicians playing music they conceived 40 years ago meant that TINTH had an expiration date, and it is nigh. The group—which also includes Daniel O’Sullivan, Alex Ward, James Sedwards and Frank Byng—will finish out with a tour of the U.S.
July 23 – Chicago @ Thalia Hall
July 25 – Los Angeles @ The Regent
July 27 – San Francisco @ The Chapel
July 29 – Atlanta @ The Earl
July 31 – Brooklyn @ Elsewhere
Method Men: Wu-Tang Clan Brings The Ruckus Back To New York City
Wu-Tang Clan continues to celebrate the 25th anniversary of landmark debut Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) with tour dates across the globe. RZA and Co. returned home to New York City for their third show of 2019, playing the Ford Amphitheater at Coney Island Boardwalk. MAGNET photographer Wes Orshoski shot them on sight.
Live Review: The Firefly Festival, 2019
After seven years of the Firefly Music Festival tradition, Coachella producer AEG Presents (which already had a majority stake in the 750-acre Delaware event) bought the remaining ownership shares. While loyal fans were promised minor changes to the usual four-day weekend, right off the bat, AEG cut out a day. For most, this wasn’t the end of the world, unless you’re a fan that arrives a day early to see some of your favorite DJs. For example, last year, Thursday held big names such as Two Friends (famously known for their Big Booty Mixes) and Chromeo. Concertgoers would arrive Wednesday to set up camp and unwind at a “pre-party” function before the major headliners to come. This year, campers were still able to arrive a day early (but this time on Thursday) to get settled and experience what should’ve been a sneak peak at the DJs for the weekend. That is, if it hadn’t gotten rained out. With the weekend off to a rough start, some of the festival-goers might have thought the tradition had been broken too soon.
Firefly is usually held Father’s Day weekend, but this year it was pushed back a week. Luckily, Delaware got all of the storms out of the way on Thursday, which made for a beautiful rest of the weekend. This event has quickly become one of the biggest festivals on the East Coast, with its ideal, open-air location.
For me, Friday began in the scorching heat with a refreshing and soulful throwback: TLC. The sun beating down didn’t stop these ladies from going all out, or the devoted fans from singing along. The thing I loved about this crowd was the age range, because it doesn’t matter if your 16 or 60, everyone knows “Waterfalls.”
As for Tyler, The Creator, though, there wasn’t such a large age range. But clearly devoted fans knew almost every word to the songs on his new album, IGOR, even though it’s been out for about a month. Those who have stuck by Tyler since day one were disappointed when he didn’t do “Yonkers,” the song that introduced his crazy personality and one-of-a-kind voice. But no matter what he performed, nothing could top his wild energy as he jumped across stage in his neon-green outfit.
I’m personally a big fan of DJ sets; so my two favorite sets of the day had to be Louis The Child and Zedd. Louis The Child performed at sunset at the Prism Stage, one of the new additions that came to Firefly this year. Formerly known as the Backyard Stage, it’s a large open field area where some of the biggest names play. Louis The Child played mixes of their most popular songs, including “Fire,” “Better Not” and “Love Is Alive.” I had pretty high expectations after watching a video of one of their sets that went viral on Twitter, and Louis The Child sure did not disappoint.
To close the night, Zedd blew the crowd away with a truly remarkable set. Even though he didn’t end until about 2 a.m., my friends and I didn’t want it to be over. An important aspect to DJ sets are the lights and visuals, since the DJs are behind their stand most of the time, and Zedd surely kept that in mind. We knew Zedd’s second year returning to Firefly would be a great show, so we parked ourselves right next to speaker and took in the beautiful night. One of his best-known songs, “Clarity” got everyone singing along—and even ended with fireworks. One of the security guards told us that if the performers want fireworks during their sets, then they have to provide them. So that’s how you know how much they care about pleasing their fans.
Some of my favorite parts of Firefly are the things they offer aside from the main shows. For example, The Thicket is an area dedicated to a “silent” disco, where everyone wears headphones and can change from station to station. I really enjoy this because people can listen and be dancing to whatever they want, then easily change their mind with the click of a button. This is perfect for those who aren’t quite ready to stop at 2 a.m., when the shows are over. The silent disco was open until 4 a.m., and you bet I stayed that long every night.
Saturday definitely brought a ton of emotional performances, but I think I can speak for most when I say the headliner was the most disappointing set of the night. Travis Scott has gotten a tremendous amount of acclaim for the recent album Astroworld, so you’d think he’d do more than three songs off of it. Not to mention, he didn’t play one single song the whole way through. I get that’s what rappers do—they cut to choruses every once in a while to keep the crowd going—but not with every single song. I love Astroworld and I love Travis. He’s a very good performer, but sadly, he was a huge disappointment at Firefly.
As for the other sets I saw Saturday, I was really impressed. Brockhampton was one of the performances I’m really glad I stayed for, despite how tired I was. Kevin Abstract has a spectacular voice, and he and his bandmates definitely put on an entertaining show. Alison Wonderland was another one of my favorites. “Church,” probably her most famous song, was one that she really saved for the end on purpose—the combination of her vocals and beats had everyone dancing.
I don’t know if after going for three years, I have an attachment to Firefly—or just music in general—but there’s always at least one set that just floods my body with emotions. This year it was Kygo. It was the last show of the night on Saturday, and it honestly left me speechless. I could go on and on about the lights and the beat drops, but the absolute best part of the night was when Valerie Broussard slowed things down and sung “Firestone.” Everyone in the crowd felt the love as she was singing “We light up the world” over the normal piano beat and eventually sped things up with the original version. As the chorus came on and the beat dropped, the whole crowd lit up and danced together. It was electric.
Along with all the awesome things Firefly has to offer, like hand-made jewelry, sunglasses, purses, scarves, the fest also serve some pretty amazing food that you can’t really find anywhere else. My personal favorite are the Island Noodles.
And with all great things, there must be an end. Sunday sadness for an end to an unforgettable weekend, once again. The first show I saw was 3LAU, a DJ I actually never heard of, but after this weekend, I will definitely be listening to him again. Firefly is amazing for seeing your favorite artists, but it’s also a great time to come across some pretty dope new ones, too. With the last day being the hottest day, it was tough to keep with it, but 3LAU’s set just made me want to keep dancing.
Alison Wonderland
After my third time seeing Post Malone, I can honestly say he never disappoints. Although it was nearly impossible to get anywhere remotely near him, it was still worth pushing through people to get as close as possible. He’s one of the few artists who sounds just as amazing in person, and he was incredible. Post had the whole crowd singing every lyric the entire time, especially hit sing-a-long “I Fall Apart.”
Vampire Weekend played before Post, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be waiting during any other set. Vampire Weekend is such a calm and soothing band with an awesome style. It didn’t really matter how far away we were to feel the positive vibes from a killer band.
One thing I’m happy about this Firefly experience was not driving down— and being picked up at the gates after the show. As I drove back to Pennsylvania after the festival (and stopped for food), I still managed to get home before the madness of traffic exiting the campsite even left the festival grounds. Maybe that’ll be something Coachella can help Firefly troubleshoot for next year.
—Samantha Geiger; photos courtesy of Firefly Music Festival
3LAU
Essential New Music: Steven R. Smith’s “A Sketchbook Of Endings”
Plenty of folks have latched onto the idea of making music that creates a movie in your mind, but few have been so diligent and successful at it as Steven R. Smith. The multi-instrumentalist is so prolific that he releases music under several alternate identities (Hala Strana, Ulaan Khol, Ulaan Passerine), each with an internally consistent set of sonic parameters. But no matter the name, the music evokes vivid images; spinning one of Smith’s records is like taking a trip through time and space without ever leaving your favorite listening chair.
Smith’s choice to release A Sketchbook Of Endings under his own name does not denote some more personal turn, but acknowledges that this is probably a collection of music that didn’t fit a particular project’s sound. But the title captures the album’s vibe perfectly. Each of its 15 tracks has a feeling of summation about it. Whether articulated by fuzzed-out guitar, whirring organ or home-made fiddle, these melodies are bold enough to stick in your mind and heavy enough to make you feel like you’ve lived through something.
More Than Ready For Takeoff: Khruangbin Soars At Central Park’s SummerStage
Khruangbin returns July 12 with Hasta El Cielo (Dead Oceans/Night Time Stories), a dub version of last year’s excellent Con Todo El Mundo. The Texas trio has hit the road for a mixture of festivals and headlining dates. Laura Lee, Mark Speer and Donald “DJ” Johnson just played Central Park’s SummerStage, and MAGNET photographer Wes Orshoski was there. Despite the rain, he felt the universe smiling upon him.
In The News (Live Edition): New Order, Car Seat Headrest, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Rolling Stones, Gov’t Mule And More
The wonderfully titled ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So It Goes.. is a live New Order album recorded at the 2017 Manchester International Festival and out July 12 via Mute … Car Seat Headrest‘s nine-track digital live album Commit Yourself Completely, recorded at various shows last years, is out on Matador … Also out now is Neil Young + Stray Gators‘ Tuscaloosa (Reprise/Warner), a previously unreleased, 11-track live LP recorded at the University of Alabama in 1973 … Four Paul McCartney live albums—Amoeba Gig, Paul Is Live, Choba B CCCP and Wings Over America—are out on CD and vinyl via MPL/Capitol/UMe on July 12 … The Rolling Stones‘ Bridges To Bremen (Eagle Vision) is 155-minute set recorded in Germany in 1997 available on DVD/two CDs, Blu-ray/two CDs and triple vinyl … Gov’t Mule has released Bring On The Music: Live At The Capitol Theatre (Provogue/Mascot), a two-CD/two-DVD set recorded last year; the DVD will be out July 19 … Live From The Beacon Theatre (Rhino) by the Doobie Brothers is out as two-CD, two-CD/DVD and Blu-ray sets … Sinatra In Palm Springs: The Place He Called Home is a new DVD and Blu-ray from Shout! Factory exploring Frank Sinatra‘s 50-year relationship with the California town … Foreigner‘s Live At The Rainbow ‘78 in out July 12 via Rhino on CD and double-LP … Yes: 50 Live culls 13 songs recorded during Yes‘ 50th-anniversary tour last year, out via Rhino on August 2 as two CDs and four LPs … On August 23, Capitol is releasing Lionel Richie’s Hello From Las Vegas in three editions: standard, deluxe and Target … The Jerry Garcia Band‘s GarciaLive Volume 11, November 11th, 1993, Providence Civic Center was recorded on the band’s last tour and is out July 12 on Round.
Live Review: Filthy Friends, Dressy Bessy, Brooklyn, May 24, 2019
It’s FFF (Filthy Friends Friday) at MAGNET, so we’re bringing you live reviews of the band’s recent shows in Philly and NYC. Our M.J. Fine (words) and Chris Sikich (photos) followed the supergroup—members of R.E.M., Sleater-Kinney, Minus 5, Baseball Project, Young Fresh Fellows and too many more to name—up the Northeast corridor to bring you the dirt on these Filthy Friends and their pals Dressy Bessy.
The best thing about seeing Filthy Friends on a larger stage is watching them move. While Johnny Brenda’s in Philly offered a better closeup view, at Music Hall Of Williamsburg, each member of the band had more breathing room, and it was a pure joy to see Peter Buck take full advantage of the extra space to jump, kick and squat while dashing off guitar lines that are clear kin to those on “Shaking Through,” “Little America” and “Bad Day.”
That wasn’t the only reason the two shows felt different, and while I preferred the superior sound and better behaved audience at Johnny Brenda’s, I appreciate the way Music Hall let these musicians who take up so much space in my heart have the physical space they needed to stretch out for the last show of their U.S. run.
Dressy Bessy was swell, too, with Tammy Ealom and John Hill’s amiable energy and melodic guitar riffs getting the night off to a strong start.
Highlights: Filthy Friends’ “Come Back Shelley,” “No Forgotten Son”; Dressy Bessy’s “Just Like Henry.”
Live Review: Filthy Friends, Dressy Bessy, Philadelphia, May 21, 2019
Filthy Friends struck a chord at Johnny Brenda’s with their catchy tunes about climate change, gentrification, racial injustice and love in the time of resistance, and Election Night gave them an extra resonance.
The all-star band sounded great as it ran through most of 2017’s Invitation and the recent Emerald Valley (both Kill Rock Stars); Corin Tucker’s inimitable wail paired naturally with the with crunchy, melodic riffs played by Peter Buck, Kurt Bloch and Tucker herself, and Scott McCaughey and Linda Pitmon make for a mighty sweet rhythm section.
Dressy Bessy thrived, too, offering tunes from the new Fast Faster Disaster (Yep Roc) and a bracing clutch of perfect pop nuggets from throughout its career.
Highlights: Filthy Friends’ “One Flew East,” “Angels,” “Hey Lacey,” “Despierta,” “Love In The Time Of Resistance”; Dressy Bessy’s “This May Hurt,” “Mon Cheri” (with Bloch on additional guitar) and a lively cover of Buzzcocks’ “What Do I Get?”
Dressy Bessy
Happy Wolfmother’s Day: Andrew Stockdale And Co. Bring Their Australian Witchcraft To New York City
Wolfmother brought its over-the-top hard rock from Down Under to Irving Plaza this month during its short North American tour. Andrew Stockdale and Co. stuck to the hits at the NYC show, culminating in a killer version of “Joker & The Thief” from the band’s self-titled debut. MAGNET photographer Wes Orshoski came to see the mind’s eye.
MP3 At 3PM: Jess Clinton
Jess Clinton is a Brooklyn singer/songwriter with a raspy voice and a pure rock rhythm. On new single “Sleeping Woman” (off Real Glass Heart, out July 26), she shows us her mysterious side, inspired by an imagined scene of supernatural women coming together in unity to join feministic forces. Guitar riffs repeat a common theme, while the transparent vocals creep together in harmony. The curious-yet-mystical theme the lyrics are devoted to match the ominous feeling produced by the sounds. Clinton is interested in making music that relates to human emotions, and she wants to dig deeper into the psyche. Her upcoming album will explore this more, but for now, “Sleeping Woman” gives us a preview of what’s to come.
“Sleeping Woman” (download):
http://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SleepingWoman.mp3
A Night In Heaven: Perry Farrell Kicks Off Tour With His New All-Star Band
Perry Farrell played four shows this month at NYC’s City Winery, kicking off The Kind Heaven Orchestra Tour. The Jane’s Addiction/Porno For Pyros frontman assembled an all-star band—including wife Etty Lau Farrell on vocals—that backs him on new songs as well as Jane’s and Porno classics and assorted covers (Perry seems partial to Iggy). MAGNET photographer Wes Orshoski was at the tour’s opening night, loving the summertime rolls.
MAGNET Exclusive: Download The Ocean Blue’s “Kings And Queens”
David Schelzel weathered the Ocean Blue’s early success remarkably well—so well that it never really dawned on him that 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of his band’s self-titled Sire Records debut. “I guess that’s a pretty significant anniversary,” says Schelzel matter-of-factly.
Hailing from the choco-tourism hub of Hershey, Pa., Schelzel and the rest of the Ocean Blue were essentially clueless teenagers when they signed a three-album deal with Sire. Now, the band has officially been around long enough to earn the “dream pop” tag, a misnomer that didn’t even exist when they first hit the road to prove that they weren’t, in fact, British.
“We always had a pretty realistic view of who we were and who we weren’t,” says Schelzel. “We’re all really fortunate to come from loving, caring families with great support systems. For me, being in a band is not the sum total of who I am. In the late ‘90s, when having a career in music wasn’t really a viable option anymore, it wasn’t like my whole world fell apart.”
Schelzel turned his focus to academics, eventually heading to law school in Minneapolis, where he’s now a successful attorney. These days, only founding bassist Bobby Mittan lives in Hershey, though the band’s operations are still based there. “We’re fortunate that we had a history on two major labels, which promoted us extensively all those years,” Shelzel says. “We still have a fan base that cares.”
The Ocean Blue’s seventh album. Kings And Queens / Knaves And Thieves, is out on Korda Records, a Minneapolis-based cooperative imprint the band helped launch. Leading things off is “Kings And Queens,” an early-’90s throwback that efficiently co-opts the lush and airy artiness of Britpop’s more lavish leanings without sounding dated or redundant. (You can download the song below.) Like much of the rest of the album, “Kings And Queens” demonstrates the Ocean Blue’s continued proficiency as expert assimilators of all things strummy, Anglophilic and slightly world-weary. “It’s a classic existential song,” says Schelzel. “The big thing is that we’re all basically the same.”
King And Queens is the band’s second full-length release since its 2013 return after a 10-year break. Outside his law practice, Schelzel has kept himself busy on side projects like 5 Billion In Diamonds, led by drummer/producer Butch Vig and featuring members of Soundtrack Of Our Lives, Spiritualized and Echo & The Bunnymen. Fatherhood has also been a priority, and whatever’s left is reserved for music. “The Ocean Blue is still a huge part of my life, but I don’t have to look to it for a way to make a living,” he says. “And that’s tremendously freeing.”
CategoriesFEATURES, FREE MP3s, MAGNET EXCLUSIVE
The Gotobeds: Life And Debt
Time is strange. The punks told us to burn the past, that anything new beats anything old through sheer youth. At least, Bill Bored of the Cardboards preached that credo in Stephanie Beroes’ Debt Begins At 20, a little cult documentary from 1980 that invited viewers to hang out in Pittsburgh’s nascent DIY scene. Almost 40 years later, and the future promises more dread than freedom—urban planners buffer cities with luxuries that a growing lower-middle class can’t afford, policies threaten to rob women of agency, and conniving capitalists tag even the tiniest courtesy with a price. So when Eli Kasan says “I can’t explain why the world has to burn” on a blazing rant on the Gotobeds’ third album, Debt Begins At 30 (Sub Pop), he doesn’t have to elaborate—frustrated youths everywhere know the feeling.
Still, like the pioneers from his hometown, Kasan doesn’t savor the past. He must be sitting on a patio in his house, as over the phone, I can hear the birds chirp louder than passing planes. (We’ve had to carve out a rendezvous between our opposite job shifts, but Kasan worked out an alibi: “I was able to ‘work from home’,” he says, “which means I’m just being a bum.”) The story goes that he and his fellow Gotobeds starting writing Debt Begins not long after their breakout on Sub Pop back in 2016, Blood // Sugar // Secs / Traffic. And this time, instead of another perfectly imperfect scrap in a friend’s basement, the band would head to Chicago to record in a proper studio with another pal, Tim Midyett (Silkworm, Mint Mile). Kasan would try to actually plan some lyrics instead of devising everything ad lib.
But now, let’s rewind a bit. The first time I saw the Gotobeds, Kasan was stumbling around the stage with a lampshade on his head. He, of course, also stood on several amps; later, he joined one of his guitarists on the same guitar and wished Chunklet’s Henry Owings a happy birthday. Kasan also chuckles to recall his earliest writing, like the commercial updo for “Wimpy Garcia (Brotherfucker)” from album number one, 2014’s Poor People Are Revolting. “TFP (Tom Payne), our guitar player, was just so impressed by the song itself, that he was just like, ‘Wow, this is so great, it’s such a hit, we could sell this for a car. You’ve got to sing this for a car commercial, man,’” he says. “So I completely took the lyrics I had, and mashed in a bunch of junk. And so looking back, I’m like, ‘What the hell did I do?’ Like, it doesn’t make any sense.”
You see, the Gotobeds thrive on spontaneous combustion. You could talk about the “themes” of Debt Begins—a wariness toward the unwary, loans of all kinds, age abstracted as clocks—if you wanted to pigeonhole the perpetual frustration of living into some sort of artistic “intention.” But Kasan won’t take the credit for masterminding any grand scheme; more than once in our conversation, he admits that some of his best ideas were born from sheer happenstance. The foundation for “Bleached Midnight,” for example, came from a poem in a notebook that Kasan’s old roommate, Scott MacIntyre, left behind. “I was trying to write something about different facets of war, (such as) internally, and versus someone else, and actually being at war,” he says. “His poem was about being addicted to heroin.” So naturally, Kasan reached out, and MacIntyre lent some extra words.
In fact, every song on Debt Begins features at least one other pal or fellow musician—and that, too, was something of a coincidence. The dudes were hanging out at their home base in Chicago, where Midyett lived with another friend—and they contemplated the odds that Midyett would come over and collab on a song with them. “So at one point, our drummer Cary (Belback), since we’re all rap fans, he’s like, ‘Dude, this is going to be just like a mixtape, we’re going to have a feature on every track,’” says Kasan. “He said it as a joke. And I said, ‘Yeah, that’s a great idea.’” So Kasan lined up invites to some old friends, from Bob Nastonovich (Pavement, Silver Jews) to Bob Weston (Shellac, Mission Of Burma) to Tracy Wilson Dahlia Seed, Positive No). “I remember the point when we were wrapping up, and I told the dudes, ‘Hey, I need $200 for someone to record their vocals,’” says Kasan. “And so they asked, ‘Well, so who’s all on the record?’ So I told them, and then they asked, ‘Wait, so is there a guest on every song?’ And I was like, ‘We talked about this!’”
The ‘Beds have no trouble communicating with each other. Granted, faintly gothic barnburner “Slang Words”— which, ironically, concerns this generation’s loose lips and insensitive slander—was almost abandoned forever because of a misunderstanding between Kasan and Payne from nearly six years ago. “TFP didn’t have a guitar part for it, it wasn’t finished, I didn’t have all the lyrics, so we just scrapped it, and completely forgot about it,” says Kasan. When he did remember “Slang Words,” though, he was under the impression that his guitarist wasn’t into the tune. Clearly, he was wrong. “I could have just asked him at the time, but instead I just assumed,” he says. “it’s funny, the way that things stick out in your mind, when you’re a dude, and you’re talking to your fellow friends.”
That’s another running theme in Debt Begins. We all know these days that our landscape could use a few less douchebags, and Kasan constantly draws a firm line between those blokes (like the one “jamming Sublime” on “Calquer The Hound”) and the ‘Beds. “I wake in fright/I don’t have the right/To be so parallel,” he says on “Parallel,” a sober reminder that other folks face greater fears. But Kasan admits that even “enlightened” dudes like themselves still bump against barriers. “We’ve definitely all cried in front of each other,” he says. “I’ve held all of them, spooned them [even]. But it’s still like, I’m not sure how to check on this person, even though it’s kinda easy, almost, on the face of it.”
Still, Kasan and the gang still buck the patriarchy when they can. Both versions of “Debt Begins At 30” challenge the systems that be—particularly the latter, where the ‘Beds called in Victoria Ruiz from Downtown Boys to vent her own narrative into the maelstrom. “She was the only person who essentially had a blank check,” says Kasan. “(I told her), here’s the inspiration, here’s what I was trying to say. It’d be cool to have a non-white guy sing this similar song. You can interpret it however you like.” As of our conversation, neither of us yet knew exactly how close Ruiz hewed to the original. But even with my rusty Spanish, I can still hear some parallels. A “fuego” still burns around the same point as Kasan’s fire; Ruiz cries “palabras en débito” where Kasan shouts “These aren’t even my words/They’re out on loan.” And her refrain of “Debit comienza/Pero nunca termina” remains the same as the English: “Debt begins/Never ends.”
As for Kasan’s version—to some extent, that ties back to the stance against nostalgia, and growing up. Astute readers may recognize the opening verse (“Late last night, I sat Atlas on my lap”) from poet Warsan Shire’s “What They Did Yesterday Afternoon,” another serendipitous influence that our protagonist bumped into on Facebook. But when Kasan says the line, he’s not referring to a book. When his new girlfriend moved in with her daughter Atlas, he decided he’d become her father. “I never thought that I was going to have children, or that I would want to have children,” says Kasan. “But it’s like, well, I love my lady, so I love this kiddo. So I just try not to let her get hit by a car, make sure she’s eating food, don’t be an asshole. All those things you usually do.”
Of course, anyone who listens to Debt Begins will swiftly find that Kasan and the gang aren’t assholes. The future might look grim, but time has to march on – and while we can’t burn the past, we can at least make some noise with our fellows right now. And that’s all Kasan really wants with the Gotobeds. “You meet one person at a time, and that leads to something else,” he says. “To me, irrelevant of how many records we sell, or we don’t sell—the guests that I respect like it, the friends I really like are getting it. So I feel like I’m doing something right. Even if it’s not Car Seat Headrest level.”
—Lee Adcock
CategoriesFEATURES
Essential New Music: Jake Xerxes Fussell’s “Out Of Sight”
Jake Xerxes Fussell has a storyteller’s voice. It’s big and clear, and you won’t miss a word he sings. Warm and friendly, it invites you to pull up a chair and listen to his tales, which are drawn from American and adjacent folk traditions. Fussell is also a gifted guitar accompanist; whether backing gospel and blues performers or framing his own singing, he knows just how put the vocalist in the spotlight with strategic licks that, when you single them out, sound as right as the first cup of coffee in the morning. The challenge that faced Fussell in making his third album for Paradise Of Bachelors was to figure out how to use the resources of a full band without getting in the way of his gifts. He and his crew, which includes associates of Pelt and the Mountain Goats, have gotten it right by crafting unfussy arrangements that honor the antiquity of the material without trying to reproduce it.
Atmospheric steel and strings amplify the mystery of fisherman’s lament, “The River St. Johns.” A dragging cadence and behind-the-beat piano underscore the fatigue of the working stiff narrating “Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues,” and the churchy backing of “Drinking Of The Wine” invites the listener to consider how the same substance that made last night so lively brings spiritual peace on Sunday morning. Out Of Sight is the first Fussell record to include vocal-free tunes, and both “16-20” and “Three Ravens” afford moments of reflection on an album that is otherwise alive with imagery. There’s no song named “Out Of Sight,” but perhaps the LP’s title acknowledges that Fussell and his team have knocked this one out of the park.
Live Review: Lady Lamb, Philadelphia, May 23, 2019
It’s been gratifying to see Lady Lamb’s Aly Spaltro going from hushed rooms of people hung on every delightfully surprising lyric to large clubs that can accommodate her full-on rock band along with the growing number of fans singing—or shouting—her words back to her.
She held our attention from the moment she strolled onstage at the Foundry At The Fillmore Philadelphia to sing “Even In The Tremor,” the title track of her latest album (on Ba Da Bing), and kept it for a solid 80 minutes. In between, “Without A Name” and a solo “Young Disciple” were standouts among her recent work, and older songs like “Bird Balloons,” “Spat Out Spit” and “You Are The Apple” sounded as epic and intimate as you could hope.
Labelmate Katie Von Schleicher and Alex Schaaf (who also plays in Spaltro’s band) opened the show.
Katie Von Schleicher
Essential New Music: Elkhorn’s “Sun Cycle/Elk Jam”
Elkhorn is a relatively young band, but it has a lot of history behind it. Electric guitarist Drew Gardner and acoustic 12-string guitarist Jesse Sheppard have been the core members of Elkhorn since 2013, but they’ve been playing together off and on since the 1980s. This explains the duo’s chemistry; while each man contributes something very different to the music, they sound like they couldn’t trip each other up if they tried. Gardner casts fluent, burning lines into the beyond while Sheppard supplies both rhythmic propulsion and resonant aura so radiant that the solar panels on your roof will absorb its energy.
But while these guys sound complete in each other’s company, they’re not a closed circle. Guitarist Willie Lane adds a third dimension to several tracks, and percussionist Ryan Jewell adds a varied-yet-unstinting drive. Sun Cycle and Elk Jam were recorded during the same sessions. The former has more compositional structure while the latter wears its spontaneous provenance on its sleeve, but they’re so complementary that they might just as well have come together in a gatefold sleeve.
Combat Rock: Warpaint Invades The Nation’s Capital
It’s hard to believe Warpaint has been around 15 years already. The veteran Los Angles quartet just finished a North American tour and is gearing up for some Australia and New Zealand gigs next month before returning to the U.S. for August dates with My Morning Jacket. MAGNET photographer Chris Sikich was at Warpaint’s show at D.C.’s Black Cat, where fellow L.A. act deafmute opened.
deafmute
Swedish Invasion: The Hives And Refused Descend On The U.S. Of A.
The “Official Swedish Scream Team Tour” kicked off at Franklin Music Hall in Philly, featuring country mates the Hives and Refused. These children of Mother Svea hadn’t toured together in more than two decades, and both bands came out swinging. Locals Control Top and RunHideFight got the party started. MAGNET photographer Chris Sikich was in attendance for this get together to tear it apart.
RunHideFight
MAGNET Exclusive: Listen To Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real’s “Bad Case”
If prospective employers were to review Lukas Nelson’s work history, they’d likely be struck by its diversity. Aside for his job as frontman for Promise Of The Real, he has ongoing experience as Neil Young’s bandleader and guitarist. That dream gig began in 2014, when Young jammed with Promise of the Real at Farm Aid 2014, which led to the 2015 album The Monsanto Years and an open-ended designation as his post-Crazy Horse backup unit.
Last year, there was Nelson’s ridiculously fruitful collaboration with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga on A Star Is Born. He co-wrote and co-produced a large chunk of the film’s Oscar-winning soundtrack. Oh, and that’s him and Promise Of The Real on stage with Cooper’s Jackson Maine, a character Nelson helped cultivate. “I’m big on learning—that’s for sure,” says Nelson of his varied experiences. “If it fits with my vibe, I’ll go for it.”
And then there’s the family legacy angle. The 30-year-old Hawaii native is the son of ageless country icon Willie Nelson. The two continue to be close, professionally and otherwise. Dad plays guitar on “Mystery” and makes an appearance on the final verse of “Civilized Hell,” both standout tracks on his son’s fifth full-length release, Turn Off The News (Build A Garden), out now on Fantasy Records. “It’s perfect,” says Nelson of his relationship with his father, offering nothing more.
Willie isn’t that only one on the album’s impressive guest list, which also includes Neil Young, Margo Price, Sheryl Crow, Kesha, Shooter Jennings, Lucius, Randy Houser, brother Micah Nelson and others. But never once does Turn Off The News sound like someone else’s album, partly because Nelson has come up with his most focused batch of songs yet. The other reason is Promise Of The Real, who’ve grown into a versatile and enthusiastic sounding board for their leader’s thoroughly engrained inclination to blur the multigenerational lines between rock, country, pop and R&B.
It’s hard to find a more compelling argument for Nelson’s growth as a songwriter than “Bad Case.” Available here as a free download, the album’s leadoff track is an inspired bit of Tom Petty-inspired déjà vu that deserves to be a hit—for whatever that’s worth these days. “I wrote it three years ago in Ireland, and it’s been through a lot of iterations since then,” says Nelson. “It’s about that whole concept of wanting what you don’t have.”
Turn Off The News’ overall polish and focus belies the fact that it was recorded in fits and spurts during brief breaks between tours. Working out of two studios in Nelson’s adopted hometown of Los Angeles, the group managed to record 30 songs, 11 of which made the album. As for a unifying theme, that’s fairly apparent. “There’s this sort of sinister matrix we’re being assimilated into with our phones and our news and everything,” says Nelson. “I think people are waking up to the fact they need to balance technology with reality. ‘Turn Off The News (Build A Garden)’—I was talking to myself when I wrote that.”
CategoriesFEATURES, MAGNET EXCLUSIVE
MAGNET Exclusive: Premiere Of Beauty In Chaos’ “Storm Featuring Ashton Nyte (Acoustic Version)” Video
Last year, Beauty In Chaos released debut album Finding Beauty In Chaos. The project is the brainchild of guitarist Michael Ciravolo (Human Drama, Gene Loves Jezebel), who’s also president of Schecter Guitar Research. What made Finding Beauty In Chaos really intriguing, however, was the cast of musicians that Ciravolo was able to bring on board for the LP, including Ice-T, Robin Zander (Cheap Trick), Simon Gallup (Cure), Michael Anthony (Van Halen), Al Jourgensen (Ministry), dUg Pinnick (Kings X) and Wayne Hussey (Mission).
Ciravolo and Co. had such a wealth of material for the album that they created a companion piece, full of remixes and alternate versions. Beauty Re-Envisioned is out tomorrow via 33.3 Music Collective, and this time, Zakk Wylde, Kevin Haskins (Bauhaus, Love And Rockets) and others are also along for the ride.
One of the new LP’s highlights is an acoustic version of the debut’s “Storm,” co-written and sung by Awakening frontman Ashton Nyte. “I wanted to try a stripped-down, more intimate approach to this version,” says Nyte, who also played guitar, bass, keyboard and programed the drum on the track. “This meant re-recording it from scratch, as I wanted to re-sing the vocals in a more introspective way, to match the arrangement I had in my head.”
There’s a brand-new video for “Storm Featuring Ashton Nyte (Acoustic Version),” directed by Vicente Cordero (Room 37: The Mysterious Death Of Johnny Thunders). We’re proud to premiere it today on magnetmagazine.com. Watch it now.
Waited For Duffman: With Shooter Jennings, GN’R Bassist McKagan Tours Behind His First Solo LP In Two Decades
Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan is back with his first solo album since 1999’s unreleased Beautiful Disease. Not only did Shooter Jennings produce Tenderness, he and his band are opening for and playing with McKagan in support of the LP. At the Irving Plaza show in NYC, Duff and Co. not only did the entire new record but also three GN’R songs (“You Ain’t The First,” “Dust N’ Bones” and “Dead Horse”), the Clash’s “Clampdown” and Mark Lanegan’s “Deepest Shade,” for which McKagan brought wife Susan onstage to sing it to her. MAGNET photographer Wes Orshoski was feeling the time, love and tenderness.
Essential New Music: Sonic Youth’s “Battery Park, NYC: July 4th 2008”
The members of Sonic Youth accomplished two things on July 4, 2008. First, they coaxed the Feelies out of retirement after a 19-year break in order to be their opening act at an outdoor concert in New York’s Battery Park. They banked a lot of good karma for getting Haledon, N.J.’s finest out of the basement and onto a stage again. Second, the band documented a late example of a phenomenon that would soon cease to exist. Sonic Youth released final album The Eternal in 2009, and stopped performing two years later. This 10-song set, which was original bundled as a bonus with The Eternal and has now been released separately for the first time, remains the band’s final live recording.
Sonic Youth always operated on a continuum between experimental volatility and classic-rock reliability. Sometimes the experiments didn’t work, but even when a new album was burdened with duds, the band had a great catalog to fall back upon. Battery Park, NYC leans on the oldies. Aside from one song from 2006’s Rather Ripped, everything on the record dates from the 20th century, including four songs from 1988’s Daydream Nation. But while the songs were familiar, the band played them with plenty of fire in their collective belly. The three-guitar (by this point Kim Gordon had moved to guitar and Pavement’s Mark Ibold played bass) tangle on “The Sprawl” flares like a post-volcanic sunset, and Gordon’s urgent singing on “Bull In The Heather” puts barbs on an already sharp tune.
NON-COMM 2019 (The Portraits): Amanda Palmer, WIVES, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Cherry Glazerr, Lula Wiles, KT Tunstall And More
The 2019 NON-COMMvention was a parade of musical talent packed into the upstairs and downstairs of Philadelphia’s World Cafe Live last month. These are portraits of some of those who performed, taken by MAGNET’s Chris Sikich.
Mattiel
Ali Awan
NON-COMM 2019 (The Performances): The National, Ex Hex, Strand Of Oaks, Amanda Palmer, WIVES, KT Tunstall And More
The 2019 NON-COMMvention was a parade of musical talent packed into the upstairs and downstairs of Philadelphia’s World Cafe Live between May 14 and 17. The following are some of the highlights, courtesy of MAGNET’s Chris Sikich, who took the photos and wrote the words.
The night began with Cherry Glazerr soundchecking “Daddi” twice, and it sounded as disturbing and infectious as any track played at NON-COMM or during the year thus far for that matter … WIVES obliterated the upstairs with their stunning punk. They were one of the best discoveries of the convention … Locally based Ali Awan certainly gained some new fans with his rock hooks … Three of my favorite bands/performers stunned with tight sets. Adia Victoria wowed downstairs behind the sublime Silences. Ex Hex never gets old, always delivering a jolt with its timeless rock. And locals Strand Of Oaks wrapped the night up with a riveting trip to Eraserland and earlier works.
The National delivered a stunning live performance of songs from brilliant new album I Am Easy To Find. The band’s main performers and backing vocalists/musicians filled the downstairs stage to the brim, and hearing selections from the National’s best album in years was a great way to start a Thursday … Upstairs brought a trio of new awesomeness. Lula Wiles delivered stunning folk harmonies. Orville Peck haunted with country Roy Orbison melodies. And Mattiel wowed with indie-rock precision … Downstairs brought a bounty of established greatness. Amanda Palmer wasted no time in talking about abortion with songs timely, depressing, empowering and uniquely her. Rodrigo y Gabriela brought powerhouse guitar mastery to a stunned crowd. And KT Tunstall delivered the most pure-fun rock set of the convention, capping off a phenomenal day.
Lizzo delivered an unannounced two-song set that despite its brevity will not soon be forgotten. And newcomer Jade Jackson ended NON-COMM with a brilliant country set that reminded all convention attendees how diverse and wonderful this event truly is.
Citizen Cope
J.S. Ondara
Kelsey Lu
In The News (Classic Rock Edition): Willie Nelson, Steven Van Zandt, Chrissie Hynde, Perry Farrell, Cranberries, Violent Femmes, Stray Cats And More
Ride Me Back Home is the 69th studio album from Willie Nelson. Out June 21 via Legacy, the 11-track LP completes the “mortality trilogy,” following 2017’s God’s Problem Child and last year’s Last Man Standing … Steven Van Zandt‘s music from Netflix’s Lilyhammer (which he starred in, co-wrote and co-produced) has been compiled on two Lilyhammer The Score releases—Volume 1: Jazz and Volume 2: Folk, Rock, Rio, Bits And Pieces—out July 12 via Wicked Cool/UMe … Chrissie Hynde‘s Valve Bone Woe—a collection of songs written by the likes of Brian Wilson, John Coltrane, Nick Drake, Frank Sinatra, Ray Davies and Charles Mingus—is out September 6 via BMG … Out now is Perry Farrell‘s Tony Visconti-produced Kind Heaven (BMG), featuring Dhani Harrison, Elliot Easton (Cars), Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters) and more … The Cranberries‘ eighth and final album, In The End, is out now via BMG … Violent Femmes return with album number 10, Hotel Last Resort, out July 26 on PIAS and featuring guitar god Tom Verlaine of Television … Realm Of Spells is the first new LP from Jah Wobble & Bill Laswell in 18 years, out July 19 via Wobble’s eponymous label … Out now is 40 (Surfdog/Mascot), the first album from the Stray Cats in 26 years and one that celebrates the band’s four-decade existence … Philip Bailey of Earth, Wind & Fire will release Love Will Find A Way—featuring a star-studded collection of players from all genres—on June 21 via Verve … Vince Gill‘s Okie is out August 21 on MCA Nashville.
Happy Father’s Day From MAGNET And Frank Turner
Happy Father’s Day from MAGNET and Frank Turner.
Dream Theater: Empire Of The Sun Strikes Back On 10-Year Anniversary Tour
Empire Of The Sun is in the middle of a sold-out, 24-date U.S. tour celebrating the 10th anniversary of debut album Walking On A Dream. The Australian duo—Luke Steele (Sleepy Jackson) and Nick Littlemore (Pnau)—is performing these songs live for the first time with a stage show sure to make you feel like you’re having a primo acid trip. MAGNET photographer Wes Orshoski was at the first of three nights at NYC’s Webster Hall, and he still hasn’t come down. Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in place.
Live Review: Équipe de Foot, Paris, France, May 28, 2019
What French duo Équipe de Foot is to garage punk, fire is to the Notre-Dame de Paris: They both burn it the fuck down.
Indeed, the band is as incendiary in its sound as it is blasphemous in its choice of non-Gaullist inspiration. For a pair so proudly French (onstage, Alex and Mike wear jerseys of the French national soccer—er, “football”—team), the group draws from a broad palette of 90s American rock.
These boys from Bordeaux tap into Seattle grunge (albeit looser and less teeth-gritting) and Midwest emo (while jollier and less polished). In fact, such ramshackle indie rock, performed so earnestly yet with a discernible wink, would fit snugly on Sebadoh masterpiece Bakesale.
Touring in support of the just-released Marilou, Équipe de Foot plays with abandon and confidence, thrashing through some real gems: the METZ-ian “A Little Disagreement,” the poignant “Fireworks,” the playful and wailing “Stammering.”
But the new LP’s standout track, the raging and reflective “I Could Go To Sleep And Die,” encapsulates the band’s goofy charm, for while it treats heavy topics such as death and regret and self-doubt, an ice-breaking giggle or frivolous interlude is never far off.
And why not? If Nero can play the fiddle while Rome burns, why shouldn’t Équipe de Foot kick out the jams while half of Paris’ grande dame is reduced to ashes?
—Eric Bensel
Old Time Rock ‘N’ Roll: Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band Go Out Guns Blazing
It’s easy to dismiss Bob Seger and his Silver Bullet Band as the dudes responsible for the song in Chevy’s ubiquitous and long-running ad campaign for their trucks, which we hear are assembled similar to a stone. That would be a great disservice to this prolific heartland hero and Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer. Seger has had almost as many hits as Pete Rose, and he’s playing all of them on his farewell tour: “Like A Rock,” “Still The Same,” “Hollywood Nights,” “Shakedown,” “Against The Wind,” “We’ve Got Tonite,” “Night Moves,” “Old Time Rock & Roll” and many more. At Northwell Health At Jones Beach Theater, MAGNET photographer Wes Orshoski witnessed Seger and his band of 45 years still playing it loud and lean.
New Music Friday: Bruce Springsteen, Pere Ubu, Madonna, Roger Daltrey, Hank Williams, ZZ Top, Carole King And More
Go to your local indie record store and buy these new releases, out today: Western Stars (Columbia) is Bruce Springsteen’s first new studio album in half a decade and features more than 20 musicians, including Jon Brion … Taking its title from the excellent Raymond Chandler crime novel, Pere Ubu’s, The Long Goodbye (Cherry Red) is indeed the last record from the seminal band formed in 1975 by David Thomas (who turns 66 today) … Madonna‘s 14th LP, Madame X (Live Nation, Interscope, Maverick), comes in standard, deluxe and Target editions … Roger Daltrey‘s The Who’s Tommy Orchestral (Polydor/UMe) celebrates the album’s 50th anniversary with new orchestration courtesy of David Campbell, who’s worked with the likes of Radiohead, Bob Dylan and Beck (Campbell’s son) … Hank Williams‘ The Complete Health & Happiness Shows (BMG) celebrates the 70th anniversary of the short-lived radio program, featuring 49 tracks across three LPs or two CDs … ZZ Top celebrates its 50th anniversary with Goin’ 50, a career-spanning 50-song collection available August 16 via Warner Bros. on five LPs or three CDs; an 18-song, single-CD edition is out today … Real Gone Music adds two new entries to its Johnny Mathis ’70s Columbia Album Series with Killing Me Softly With Her Song/When Will I See You Again and The Heart Of A Woman/Feelings, each set containing two albums … Carole King‘s Live At Montreux 1973 (Eagle Vision) captures King’s first performance outside the U.S. on DVD/CD, CD or vinyl.
CategoriesNEW MUSIC FRIDAY, NEWS
Essential New Music: C Joynes And The Furlong Bray’s “The Borametz Tree”
Past outings prove that C Joynes is a well-traveled guy. The guitarist’s previous recordings have reflected this. His picking is as likely to reference Malian desert-blues licks or Jamaican-dub recording techniques as it is English and American folk themes. But circling around the globe with a guitar as your traveling companion can also be a mite lonely, and Joynes’ latest album suggests that for the moment, he’d rather pursue his musical adventures in good company.
The Furlong Bray is a handy title for what’s really a crew of like-minded friends, including fellow pickers Cam Deas and Nick Jonah Davis, plus unidentified members of the Dead Rat Orchestra. Together they sound like the band that Tom Waits would feel lucky to find if he ended up in the British countryside. They’ve got the versatility to go from late-night Gamelan sonorities to rickety tango to ecstatic quasi-raga, traversing cultures and genres as easily as a jumbo jet crosses the ocean, but without the carbon footprint. Put The Borametz Tree on the platter, flip open your atlas to a random page, and start dreaming.
Still Holding On: The Dream Syndicate Remains A Live Force To Be Reckoned With
In 2017, when MAGNET fave Steve Wynn announced his reformed Dream Syndicate was set to release its first studio album in almost three decades, we were a little worried. What if it, well, sucked? Thankfully, How Did I Find Myself Here was a stellar comeback LP, and the new These Times (Anti-) is even better. The band just wrapped up a U.S. tour in support of the “sophomore” LP, and MAGNET photographer Chris Sikich was at the Sellersville Theatre show in suburban Philly, enjoying a night of wine and roses.
MP3 At 3PM: Chicago Afrobeat Project’s “Sunday Song (AfroQbano Remix)”
The upbeat sounds of a self-described “collective of Latinx music curators, artists, taste-makers and socio-cultural instigators” are sure to make you want to get up and dance. The group, called Future Rootz, aims to bring back the roots of older music and futurize it—hence its name. The limited-edition-vinyl What Goes Up Remixed is the debut release from the Future Rootz label, and it’s a collection of remixes of tracks from Chicago Afrobeat Project Featuring Tony Allen’s 2017 album What Goes Up. On the AfroQbano remix of “Sunday Song,” the sounds range from jazzy moments all the way to EDM. AfroQbano is a DJ who uses his Cuban background to merge house music with his tropical, funky vibe. Download and/or stream his fresh take on the soulful “Sunday Song” below.
“Sunday Song (AfroQbano Remix)” (download):
http://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SundaySongAfroQbanoRemix.mp3
Essential New Music: Rat Fancy’s “Stay Cool”
More often than not, girly mags and rom-coms tell young folk that courtship (and breakups) must involve some sort of deception. They lay out “tests” to prove the charming target’s loyalty, and suggest diffident airs to feign so that you’ll entice a chase. But when you live outside the status quo, you soon realize that real, mutual relationships don’t form (or break) with such catch-and-release tactics. The folks in L.A.’s Rat Fancy certainly aren’t the first to staple their hearts on their sleeves with power pop. But Diana Barraza and Gregory Johnson share something more: They’re proud to hold hands and stand out.
As such, the band’s proper debut adds more than just extra decibels to the gang’s whirligig twee approach. Granted, Barraza’s beefier riffs are nothing to sneeze at—just listen to the sugar-rush punk on “Stuck With You,” where new drummer Matt Sturgis kicks into overdrive. Rat Fancy has never been so bold before; 2017’s Suck A Lemon EP skewed way closer to candy-floss twee (with, as the name implies, a pinch of world-weary sour). Still, the sweetness still prevails on Stay Cool, as our protagonist sets up a clever parallel between messed-up tattoos that won’t rub off and a friend or lover that she hopes never fades away. Ditto for “Finely Knitted,” a Cars-esque chug where Barraza laments the loss of her favorite sweater, and not the ex who “borrowed” it. So, for Rat Fancy, this newly harnessed firepower amplifies the many emotions that Barraza could already convey with such poise.
Perhaps it’s more fitting to think of Stay Cool as a fortification of the ramparts, not ammunition for the artillery. “Never Is Forever” lays down solid, arena-thick walls between Barraza and the creeps who sneak into gigs: “They’ve got to know, they’ve got to see/You’re not for us, you’re not for me.” Likewise, “Making Trouble” steels the nerves of skittish romantics who’ve always felt too awkward to fess up to their lover with congenial jangling and a consolation: “It’s OK to be mad, and it’s OK to feel so strange.”
That pinch of kooky is key to the message—these days, only the weirdos seem to cut through the chit-chat to speak their minds. For those aficionados of the weird, Barraza manages to sneak in a couple supernatural media homages onto the album. Power-ballad bruiser “RIP Future” describes the present day as a “twilight zone,” where day-to-day social life often leads to petty arguments and unfounded demands. On the flip, the C86 echoes of Rat Fancy’s revised “Beyond Belief” plays out somewhat like one of the nicer scenarios from the same show, as Barraza meditates on the protagonist’s sleepless night alone. Could something as fleeting as love kept this person awake? Fact or fiction? Barraza answers unanimously: “The truth is, the truth is shining like a light.”
As breezy as Stay Cool might feel on the surface, a quiet and affirming force pulses underneath. Rat Fancy has grown leaps and bounds in the past two years. And yet, as decent folks who you can always turn to with open arms, they really haven’t changed. And the girly mags never told you that friends like that are worth locking down.
Essential New Music: Isasa’s “Insilio”
The roads that lead to the style known as American Primitive guitar tend to wind, and the trips that practitioners take to get there tend to make their music more interesting. Conrado Isasa came up in the Spanish hardcore scene, and he got turned on to fingerstyle acoustic guitar by Geoff Farina’s performance of a Mississippi John Hurt song. Once on the path, he made his way to the source. He tips his hat to genre godfather John Fahey as well as Fahey’s forbears by opening “Arquitecto Tenista” (“Tennis Architect) with a quote from folk tune “John Henry,” and he directly tips his hat to the guy on “Copla Para John Fahey.” But most importantly, he has gotten the message of this musical discipline, which is that you have to have something of your own to say and make you music say it.
Insilio takes you on a personal journey through its maker’s heritage, his geographical perambulations and his internal states of mind. A sequence of tunes on side two dedicated to a Spanish church and a couple of Uruguayan cities embed sadness in their evocations of beauty, and even the mundanity of “Conversaciones En Un Supermercado” is shaded with an awareness of otherness. Isasa’s guitar isn’t quite alone; harmonium, electronics and percussion offer support and counterpoint. By expressing emotional complexity with musical elegance, Isasa has gotten to the heart of his chosen style and made it his own.
The Greatest Show(alter) On Earth: Strand Of Oaks Shares Some Brotherly Love
Strand Of Oaks finished the first leg of its tour supporting the excellent new Eraserland (Dead Oceans) with a hometown performance at Philly’s Union Transfer. Tim Showalter and Co. played eight of the new LP’s 10 tracks as well as fan faves such as “Shut In,” “JM” and “Goshen ’97” over the course of their 90-minute set. NYC trio Wild Pink—whose stellar sophomore album Yolk In The Fur came out last year via Tiny Engines—opened the show. MAGNET photographer Chris Sikich was feeling the bearded brotherly love.
Rather Ripped: Ex Hex Casts A Spell Over Brooklyn
Ex Hex resumes touring behind excellent new sophomore album It’s Real (Merge) the beginning of next month, including dates with Belle & Sebastian. Mary Timony, Betsy Wright and Laura Harris just rocked Elsewhere in Brooklyn, with support from a reignited Versus (new Nihilo EP on Ernest Jenning) and Thick (who just signed to Epitaph). MAGNET photographer Chris Sikich was there and bewitched.
Cult Classic: Johnny Marr Closes Out U.S. Tour In Los Angeles With Pal Billy Duffy
Smiths guitar god Johnny Marr concluded his U.S. tour at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. The 20-song set included solo material as well as classics by Electronic and, of course, the Smiths. The highlights of the evening, however, were the last two songs of the encore, for which Marr brought out his high-school chum to play guitar. The friend in question was Billy Duffy of the Cult, and the two tunes were “I Fought The Law” and “How Soon Is Now?” MAGNET photographer Wes Orshoski is human and needs to be loved, just like everybody else does.
In The News: Black Keys, Ride, Black Mountain, Cate Le Bon, METZ, Chris Stamey, Stereo Total, Pelican And More
On June 28, the Black Keys return with ninth studio album Let’s Rock via Easy Eye Sound/Nonesuch. A return of sorts to the more minimalist, guitar-based music of the duo’s past, the dozen-track LP will be supported by a massive North American tour kicking off September 21 in Las Vegas … Ride is back August 16 with This Is Not A Safe Place (Wichita) with a U.S. tour kicking off the same day in Detroit … Destroyer is the title of Black Mountain’s fifth album, out May 24 on Jagjaguwar … The same day, Cate Le Bon will also release her fifth LP, Reward, via Mexican Summer on May 24 … METZ’s Automat (Sub Pop, July 12) is a collection of non-LP singles, b-sides, and rarities from the Toronto rawkers … On July 19, Chuck Cleaver (Wussy, Ass Ponys) will release debut solo album Send Aid via the Shake It label … If you’re seeking New Songs For The 20th Century, Chris Stamey and Omnivore Recordings have you covered June 28, with help from the likes of Nels Cline, Bill Frisell, Branford Marsalis, Caitlin Cary and Marshall Crenshaw … Stereo Total returns July 12 with Ah! Quel Cinéma! (which translates roughly to “what a palaver,” which we still don’t understand anyway) via Tapete … Out today is Nighttime Stories (Southern Lord), Pelican‘s first album since 2013’s Forever Becoming … A decade in the making, the seventh Schramms‘ album, Omnidirectional, is out June 21 via Bar/None.
MAGNET Exclusive: Download Figure Walking’s “Blue World Remix”
The past: Canadian duo Figure Walking released debut The Big Other in 2017, and the album was long listed for the Polaris Music Prize. The future: The twosome—vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Greg MacPherson (a longtime Winnipeg indie-rock fixture) and drummer Rob Gardiner (Conduct, Pip Skid)—will issue sophomore follow-up vertical/horizontal later this summer on MacPherson’s Disintegration label. The present: a remix, courtesy of Philly band Tulipomania and producer/engineer Richard Hartline, of The Big Other track “Blue World,” a perfect song to spin while you do summer things. According to MacPherson, the remix (out today!) from our Philly phriends takes an “already celebratory song to new levels of existential joy and transcendence,” and who are we to disagree?
So go back to the future with our present to you. Download and/or stream “Blue World Remix” now.
“Blue World Remix” (download):
http://magnetmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/BlueWorld.mp3
CategoriesFREE MP3s, MAGNET EXCLUSIVE
Essential New Music: The Get Up Kids’ “Problems”
Problems, the first full-length from the Get Up Kids in more than eight years, pulls an excellent trick. Like the best comeback records (think Sleater-Kinney’s No Cities To Love or Braid’s No Coast), Problems doesn’t focus its energy on concocting a new identity for an established band––the Kids already did that with their first return in 2011 and underrated fuzz-rock LP There Are Rules. Following on last year’s sugar-rushed homecoming EP Kicker, Problems is a look back at everything that’s always made the Get Up Kids a great band, a refresh of their most lovable qualities that never feels false or pandering. It reinforces the greatness of their past as much as it provides something awesome of its own accord.
All of this is to say that Problems fits in perfectly with the band’s original run of records in the most worthwhile way possible. It’s outrageously hooky, emotionally blunt and honest, melodically quirky—and even a little bit sad sometimes. It’s the Get Up Kids in their pure form. And it’s an absolute blast.
The music of the Get Up Kids has always bloomed from an essential feeling of loneliness. On 1998’s seminal Something To Write Home About, the band distilled that feeling into a document of buzzing, hands-to-the-sky catharsis, a yearning for something lost or never existent that could be worn on your sleeve, shouted from the top of your lungs to nobody in particular. So it’s fitting that Problems begins with an introverted anthem, a celebration of the act of being alone as opposed to being lonely. “Satellite” is a bursting rock song to bounce along to by yourself on a Saturday night, and the bright way Matt Pryor sings the hook (“It’s a long way down for me/The satellite orbiting the world alone”) gives you permission to have the time of your life all on your own.
Later on, songs like “Salina” and “Now Or Never” go for the tried-and-true Get Up Kids subjects with little, but meaningful, twists along the way. “Salina” is a road song about being away from a loved one, wonderfully moody but self-aware of its own drama (“Sentimental fool who writes all these words for you”). “Now Or Never” (with Jim Suptic taking the lead) is a classic pop/punk tune on which the titular cliche is delivered with the rare sense that “never” is a viable option. “Now Or Never” is also home to a classic Get Up Kids one-liner: “Our indifference is a sickness we caught together.” A little sad, but not too sad, and sung with an almost cheery tone, the line serves as a microcosm of that subtle mix of emotions that has always put this band ahead of its peers.
At this point, it feels silly to try and measure Problems against the band’s classic records. But songs like “The Advocate” and “Fairweather Friends” are easy to rank among its best. “The Advocate” falls in line with “Satellite,” an empathetic song that seeks to treat its subject with honesty and respect. Pryor has said that he wrote “Satellite” for his son, and “The Advocate” also feels like it could be directed toward a child, its core hook––“Arms around whoever you may be”––a stomping, sweet reminder of love for somebody even as they push away.
“Fairweather Friends,” on the other hand, is delightfully cheeky song addressed to anyone who might say, “Why do the Get Up Kids still exist?” Twenty years removed from their most beloved record, there are bound to be some people who tuned out at some point and assumed that everyone else did the same. The exuberant chorus doesn’t give them an inch: “Fairweather friends will say/All good days just fade away/To those fools I say/Stay out.” It’s not bitter. It’s not mean. It’s a pure, fun anthem for keeping your head held high even when you’re told to wonder “What’s the point?” The song, and Problems as a whole, answer that question with just as much power as the Get Up Kids ever yielded––there are still plenty of songs to be sung at the top of your lungs.
—Jordan Walsh
Live Review: Michael Fracasso, New York City, June 3, 2019
Austin singer/songwriter Michael Fracasso—who finishes a four-night East Coast concert swing tonight in D.C.—performed at NYC’s Rockwood Music Hall on Monday night along with guitarist Charlie Sexton and keyboardist Michael Ramos. Promoting new CD Big Top, Fracasso is benefiting greatly from the accompaniment of his two Austin buddies, and it is the mark of endorsement from Sexton and Ramos that makes these efforts most notable.
The hardworking Sexton had a scant two weeks to spare before going back on the road with Bob Dylan, and he chose to help bring attention to Big Top, which was actually recorded by Fracasso and Sexton back in 1999 but had never seen the light of day, until now. Fracasso has long been considered one of Austin’s premier songwriters, and his camaraderie with Sexton and Ramos was rekindled after a heartfelt memorial to late bassist George Reiff, who also played on the album. Amazed and inspired by these nearly forgotten songs that he’d heard at an informal song-pull at Patty Griffin’s home, Ramos brought the vintage recordings to the attention of Lucky Hound Records, which wisely chose to release the forgotten album in its entirety.
Fracasso is a shrewd song stylist who melds pure-pop sensibilities with infectious Americana, and his clear vocal tenor is well framed by Sexton’s accompaniment. Their recent live performances have picked up where the album left off two decades ago. Opening the Rockwood set with Michael Johnson’s rollicking “Crazy Little Cricket,” the trio searched for the proper balance of their intimate instrumentation. The talented Ramos alternated between piano and accordion all night, while Sexton added the tastiest accompaniment on top of Fracasso’s propulsive rhythm guitar. Fracasso’s classic songwriting was well showcased with performances of standout album tracks like “Mother Nature’s Traveling Show,” “A Deal’s A Deal,” “Mean Ol’ Place” and “My Blue Heaven.”
Romantic ballad “Long After Hours” showcased Fracasso’s dramatic vocal croon, as did subtle political lament “Laughing Boy,” which was actually directed at President George W. Bush when it was written. While a portion of the audience was solely in attendance to see Sexton, nobody left the show unimpressed by Fracasso’s talent. Those who were more familiar with Fracasso’s long career and many recordings were duly rewarded with performances of fan favorites like the overtly dramatic “Wise Blood,” the infectious ‘Gypsy Moth” and the totally hypnotic “Saint Monday.” The band also revived “Hospital,” a tough, clear-eyed tune off of another Sexton-produced Fracasso album, 1998’s World In A Drop Of Water.
The trio’s performance at the Rockwood did suffer from a lack of rehearsal time, but the obvious love and respect between these three musicians overcame the glitches. Supporting each other and surrendering all in service of the songs, the band brought these tunes back to life for a new, appreciative audience. With a few more gigs under their belt, they should be completely in sync for their homecoming this Sunday in Austin.
—Mitch Myers
Essential New Music: Sparrow Steeple’s “Tip Top Sorcerer”
Sparrow Steeple beckons. Follow that crooked finger and you’ll soon find yourself tumbling down the sort of rabbit hole that Lewis Carroll used to dig when he wanted to make sure that his readers got good and lost. Down there, you will be threatened by “Stabbing Wizards” and take mortal pun damage from “Handy Andean Indian,” and if you’re made of the right stuff, you’ll sit right back up and roll the 12-sided dice again.
This Philly combo is mostly composed of musicians who’ve also played in Strapping Fieldhands, and they navigate easily between T.Rex-like riffing and hobbit-snaring strum-alongs. But it’s singer Barry Goldberg who burns the deepest brand upon your brain. His fluttering delivery brings to mind Bryan Ferry back when the dapper one could still hit some high notes, and he has requisite denial of encroaching ridiculousness that you just have to have if you’re going to be an art-rock frontman. Tip Top Sorcerer synthesizes record-collector geekdom and role-playing gamer nerddom using alchemy that could get you banned in several alternate universes to come up with something greater than its already commanding parts.
Live Review: Neneh Cherry, Brooklyn, May 14, 2019
Neneh Cherry established herself as a perfectionist right from the beginning, starting and restarting “Falling Leaves” until it was right. Four attempts and a change of in-ear monitors later, she was happy and so was everyone else.
The rest of the set at Elsewhere was flawless, drawing primarily from last year’s Broken Politics. Cherry’s voice was gorgeous, equally supple and lived-in, steeped in jazz, forged by punk and tested by hip hop. It defies categorization.
Introducing “Black Monday,” one of the set’s highlights, Cherry told the story of how it was inspired by Polish women’s struggle against strict anti-abortion laws. Of “Synchronized Devotion,” she simply connected the dots between the broken politics of our time and the duty of artists and the rest of us to resist.
Her band, anchored by husband Cameron McVey’s synth wizardry, was terrific, too, bringing all that was required of Cherry’s many moods: energy, enthusiasm and impeccable playing. Percussionist Rosie Bergonzi was particularly exciting to watch.
Amid the wealth of material from Broken Politics, Cherry went back—way back—just a few times, with her emotional elaboration on Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” (from 1990’s Red Hot + Blue benefit comp) and two songs from 1989’s Raw Like Sushi (the wise-and-weary “Manchild,” played late in the main set, and a jubilant sing-along version of “Buffalo Stance” to end the night).
In the pantheon of goddesses ripped out of magazines and taped on the wall next to my bed circa 1993—along with Patti, Polly Jean, Tori, Tracy, Suzanne, Courtney, Madonna, Miki and the ladies of L7—Neneh Cherry was the one who took longest to see, and she was wonderful. It’s inspiring to hear her in such fine form and so committed to the art she’s creating at this point in her life. (I wouldn’t be above begging for a Raw Like Sushi/Homebrew-heavy show, though.)
Openers Lafawndah and Ian Isiah sounded cool, at least what I gleaned from their quick sets.
Lafawndah
Ian Isiah
MAGNET Exclusive: Download Ian Noe’s “Dead On The River (Rolling Down)”
For Ian Noe, getting the right road-kill shot became an obsession. “I couldn’t get it out of my head,” says the 19-year-old native of Eastern Kentucky. “I was trying to get that thing for three years. Melissa Stilwell is the one who took it.”
Stilwell’s striking sepia-toned image of an unfortunate deer—which hints at the stark artistry of Mathew Brady’s battlefield photographs of Civil War dead—wound up on the cover of Noe’s full-length debut for a reason. It perfectly captures the ominous sense of place he was after for Between The Country (National Treasury Recordings/Thirty Tigers), not to mention the dislocated desperation and resigned sadness that pervades the beaten-down corner of Appalachia where he grew up.
“We’d all go to my grandfather’s house on Friday and Saturday nights and just play all night long—that’s how I learned,” says Noe, who was coaxed into writing his first song at age 15 by his great aunt. “She just kept asking me every time she saw me until finally it just stayed in my head.”
Recorded in Nashville with characteristic restraint by Dave Cobb, Between The Country has to be one of the most stunning debuts of the year. Delivered with an intensity that’ll make your jaw ache, Noe’s vocals are a spare revelation, their emotive efficiency owing an equal debt to John Prine and Bob Dylan. “The first Dylan album I ever got was Bringing It All Back Home,” says Noe. “I threw it my grandparents’ cart at Walmart when they weren’t looking.”
Like it or not, the sorry humans that inhabit Between The Country’s 10 songs will take up residence in your soul—whether it’s the spurned alcoholic of “Irene (Ravin’ Bomb),” the menacing addict of “Meth Head” or any of the other hard cases who come to life in cinematic detail on tracks like “Junk Town,” “Letter To Madeline” and “That Kind Of Life.” In Noe’s sympathetic hands, each of them is more than an unredeemable product of skewed genetics and bad decisions. “I’ve known people like that,” says Noe, who’s at a loss to explain how he creates characters of such depth.
Available here as a free download, “Dead On The River (Rolling Down)” is Noe’s vaguely journalistic take on a murder ballad. “It’s based on some stuff I’ve heard about around where I’m from, and also the first season of True Detective,” he says. “You’re trying to create a feeling—if that makes any sense.”
Live Review: Santigold, Philadelphia, May 5, 2019
If it’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since Santigold’s first album came out, that might be because it’s technically been 11 years since the release of the maddeningly titled Santogold LP. More likely, it’s because the record’s still a staple of the clubs and coffee shops I frequent.
It’s always cool to see Santi White connecting with the crowd, and her Fillmore show was on point, whether she was reminiscing about her Philly days, bringing up the erstwhile Spankrock (now known as Naeem) for “Shove It” and “B-O-O-T-A-Y,” inviting the masses up to dance to “Creator” or revisiting her 11-year-old self to spit 2 Live Crew’s “We Want Some Pussy.”
The set featured every song from Santogold (with “L.E.S. Artistes,” “Unstoppable” and “I’m a Lady” sounding both classic and fresh), but newer songs like “Can’t Get Enough Of Myself” and “Coo Coo Coo” felt just as perfect. If I’m still dancing and/or drinking hot beverages in 2030, when White and I would both be turning 54, I hope she’s still providing the soundtrack.
Record Review: Drahla’s “Useless Coordinates”
Utter certain words in a sequence, and the world deems you either a prophet or a madman. Since 2015, the stylish fever dreams of Leeds-based trio Drahla—conveyed through scattered singles, cryptic sleeve covers, and music videos—read like fragments of a codex that could’ve been the work of either. Yet ponderous bass lines, guitars that jar nerves like razors and the occasional sax squall plant Drahla firmly in the art-damaged post-punk crowd, where a cool exterior and esoteric texts can shield the artist from any commitment to prophecy. And ergo, you don’t have to be a lunatic or a seer to sing baffling non-sequiturs, as Drahla does on its debut LP. You just need an alluring aura, a working knowledge of occult rituals,and enough chutzpah to convince everyone that your existential ennui equates to truth.
On the surface, singer/guitarist Luciel Brown, bassist Rob Riggs and drummer Mike Ainsley seem like Artists displaced from space and time. As Brown teases out such lines as “Castle in the air has fallen/Creation is invalid” or “Ancient Egypt in the palm of my hand” to her own serrated riffs, mundane life and ordinary people fade into tiny dots within Big Picture Concepts. Even with Drahla’s opaque lyrics, though, those dusty dialogues from academia aren’t too hard to work out—as on the rather Siouxsie-like “Stimulus For Living,” which boils down existence to a regular pattern of stimuli (fast food, sunsets, etc.) to maintain contentment. Meanwhile, “Invisible Sex” addresses our modern-day obsession with fabricated personas (both online and off) that morph into another reality in the public eye: “A profile to assign to/A glorious reflection to elevate my DNA/Visual exterior for opinion/Visual exterior for submission.”
Spend more time with Useless Coordinates, though, and you’ll find a self-fulfilling prophecy. The locked-door riddles serve as the only landmarks in the labyrinth, where tortuous corridors of sax and guitar blend into one discordant tangle. No one in Drahla will guide you through this maze, either; Brown and her acquaintances seem to place themselves above the clamor, save for the jagged bridge on the Sonic Youth-esque “Twelve Divisions Of The Day.” Even here, though, lazily drawn line “Holy water, shine on me” sounds like nothing less than a taunt, a mockery of spirit as it withers within secular rituals: “Waking up, body clock/An imitation, self-regard.”
Are these mysteries worth spelunking for? Perhaps, but dive deep enough into Drahla’s musings, and the most horrible secret emerges like a slug: There are no stairways to the stairs, no curses in the pyramids, no aura in the moonlight. Useless Coordinates has either exposed enigma as the forgery of aged signifiers, or Drahla has reduced the chaos of the unexplained to well-tread paths on a map. The initiate can only guess; the adept will surely know. But both will keep searching anyway.
CategoriesRECORD REVIEWS
In The News: Raconteurs, Titus Andronicus, Torche, Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real, Buddy & Julie Miller And More
The Grammy-winning Raconteurs—Jack White, Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler—return with Help Us Stranger, out June 21 via Third Man. It’s the band’s third album and first in more than a decade, and the North American tour supporting it starts July 12 in Detroit … June 21 also brings with it the Bob Mould-produced An Obelisk (Merge), the sixth LP from Titus Andronicus … Turn Off The News (Build A Garden) is the second Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real album for the Fantasy label, out June 14 … Torche—featuring a reshuffled lineup—will release fifth album Admission on July 12 … Buddy & Julie Miller return with Breakdown On 20th Ave. South (New West), their first album in a decade, on June 21 … Reader As Detective is the name of the new LP from the Generationals, out July 19 via Polyvinyl … Dude York is back July 26 with Falling (Hardly Art) … Guy Walks Into A Bar…, the third album from Mini Mansions, is out July 26 on Fiction and features a guest appearance by Alison Mosshart of the Kills … Chastity Belt singer/guitarist Julia Shapiro makes her solo debut on June 14 with Perfect Version (Hardly Art) … Of Monsters And Men‘s Fever Dream is out July 26 via Republic.
There Will Be Bloodshot: Murder By Death And Sarah Shook Disarm Amish Country
Bloodshot Records labelmates Murder By Death and Sarah Shook And The Disarmers rocked the legendary Chameleon Club in Lancaster, Pa. The Bloomington, Ind., quintet was supporting last year’s The Other Shore, while North Carolina-based Shook and band were promoting sophomore LP Years (also from 2018). MAGNET photographer Chris Sikich bore witness in Amish country.
Sarah Shook
R.I.P. Roky Erickson
R.I.P. Roky Erickson. Never say goodbye. Photo for MAGNET by Chris Sikich. Read Lou Barlow (Sebadoh) in MAGNET on the 13th Floor Elevators:
Lou Barlow’s Good Things: The 13th Floor Elevators’ “Sign Of The Three Eyed Men”
Happy Birthday M.I.A.
Happy birthday M.I.A. Born free. Matangi was number five on our list of the best hip-hop albums of 2013:
Best Of 2013: Hip Hop
Lollapalooza Debuted 28 Years Ago Today
28 years ago today, Lollapalooza kicked off its first year in Phoenix with a lineup featuring Jane’s Addiction, Siouxsie And The Banshees, Living Colour, Nine Inch Nails, Ice-T, Butthole Surfers and Rollins Band. What are seven bands you don’t want to see play outside during the day in 100-degree heat no matter how many drugs you take, Alex? View some of our images from Lollapalooza over the past decade here.
They Might Be Giants Released “Long Tall Weekend” 20 Years Ago Today
20 years ago today, They Might Be Giants released Long Tall Weekend. Digital display. Read our MAGNET Classics on Flood:
MAGNET Classics: They Might Be Giants’ “Flood”
Happy Birthday Rolling Stones Co-Founder Ian Stewart
Happy birthday Rolling Stones co-founder Ian Stewart. The Sixth Stone. Read our Rolling Stones Over/Under:
You Can Always Get What You Want: A Rolling Stones Fan’s Over/Under
Joy Division Released “Closer” 39 Years Ago Today
39 years ago today, Joy Division released Closer. Strange days. Read our review of the 2015 reissues of JD’s Closer, Unknown Pleasures, Still and Substance:
Essential New Music: Joy Division’s “Unknown Pleasures,” “Closer,” “Still” And “Substance”
Happy Birthday Vince Guaraldi
Happy 90th birthday Vince Guaraldi. You’re a good man. Read Over The Rhine in MAGNET on Guaraldi:
From The Desk Of Over The Rhine: Where The Hell’s The Drummer? Part Three (The Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing”)
The Day The Music Died: MAGNET Hometown Heroes Billie Holiday (1959) And John Coltrane (1967)
Why will we always hate July 17? Because it’s the day that silenced two of the most important musical voices of all time: Billie Holiday (1959) and John Coltrane (1967). Philly special, indeed.
Happy Birthday Panda Bear (Animal Collective)
Happy birthday Panda Bear (Animal Collective). We can count on you. Read fellow birthday boy Lou Barlow (Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr, Folk Implosion) in MAGNET on Panda Bear:
Lou Barlow’s Good Things: Panda Bear’s “Person Pitch”
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« NEW BOOK RELEASE BY A.B. FUNKHAUSER
Samhain »
Today’s intreview – Author Karen Millie-James
Two envelopes. Two holocaust survivors. Two anonymous bearer bonds each worth one million pounds. Corporate forensic investigator, Cydney Granger, with help from beyond the grave, enters a world previously unknown to her to unravel the truth behind a web of secrets, lies, corruption, blackmail and hidden Nazi loot as new horrors of the Third Reich come to light.
Still struggling to come to terms with the apparent death of her husband, Captain Steve Granger, five years’ earlier Cydney puts her personal feelings to one side and is determined to bring to justice an escaped Nazi criminal, Adolf Weissmuller, living under the assumed name of Albert Whiteman, whose son is about to run for the US presidency. Can Albert ever make amends for his crimes against humanity, or are some actions beyond forgiveness …?
Will Cydney, along with her trusted and tough protector, former sergeant, Sean O’Connell, also uncover the truth surrounding her husband?
The consequences of Cydney’s investigations, stretching back before WWII, are far reaching with the potential to bring down a banking dynasty as she faces insurmountable odds from which there is only one final solution.
The dramatic follow-up to The Shadows Behind Her Smile, a compelling debut which takes the reader from the heart of Cydney’s corporate world to the ruins of war-torn Damascus and where men will stop at nothing to achieve their goals.
READ AN EXCERPT HERE:
From Chapter Sixteen:
“They took our precious girls. We were helpless to do anything to prevent this. A father’s role is to protect. I couldn’t. I blame myself and did so every day of my life.”
Words failed Cydney. Her thoughts turned to Lauren, at aged eight, skipping and playing with her dolls without a care in the world, and back to the daughters of this couple before her, who were relying on her to help them so they could move on in peace.
“How?” she asked in a thin whisper, her voice tremulous, as she waited for Sybill to speak.
“They announced it. Twenty thousand children were to be sacrificed so the people of the ghetto could survive. Then it happened without warning. The soldiers charged in and rounded up all our children at gunpoint, tearing into the hospital and every household. I tried to hide Gerthe and Mathilde but there was nowhere and Mordecai and Hans were at the factory. My daughters pulled at my skirt whilst these men from hell dragged them off. I can still hear their screams. One man amongst them stood there watching, his hands folded against his chest, his eyes impassive. I ran to him, got down on my knees before him and pleaded with him to spare my girls, no matter what it took. He simply kicked me away and laughed as I lay on the ground bleeding, watching my beautiful kinder leave through the gate never to return.”
“This man, Sybill …?”
“I would recognise him anywhere. Adolf Weissmuller!”
Karen Millie-James was born in North London to a father who had escaped Germany with the kindertransport in 1939 Karen attended the University of Westminster which led to her joining the legal department of Levi Strauss, quickly being promoted to European Group Company Secretary where she remained until the company closed down its UK headquarters. Twenty three years ago, Karen set up her own consultancy business and is now widely recognized internationally as an expert in the corporate field and she sits on many boards of directors in an advisory capacity.
Karen never intended to write a book but what started as a hobby in her spare time away from the office, working in the evenings until late into the night and at weekends, has now become a new and exciting part of her life.
Her expertise in the world of business inspired her main character, forensic corporate investigator Cydney Granger. Karen now lives in the Buckinghamshire countryside with her husband of three years and their three dogs. She still works full-time in her business but the remainder is spent writing, playing tennis, going to the theatre and travelling, and having quality time with her daughter who is a professional singer. Where In the Dark is her second novel, her debut The Shadow Behind Her Smile was published in March 2016.
website: http://www.karenmilliejames.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KMillieJames
FB: https://www.facebook.com/karenmilliejames/
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Michigan Green Law
About Michigan Environmental Law
Archive | Clean Water Act RSS feed for this section
The contamination problem that no one talks about and that seems to defy solution
A chemical threat to Michigan’s drinking water that regulators were unaware of and don’t know what to do about. Sound familiar? Thinking Flint and lead in the water? Well, you’d be wrong and it’s not just a Michigan problem.
The chemicals are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and they are now a national health concern as they are beginning to show up in all sorts of places including dumps, groundwater, lakes, and drinking water. Michigan has been called “ground zero,” but it is by no means alone.
PFAS chemicals have been used to make cookware, clothes, shoes, furniture, and even food packaging! They are also used in fire-fighting foams. PFAS includes a family of chemicals but currently the focus has been on two of the PFAS chemicals, as we learn more, those concerns may expand. Unlike many other chemicals, there has been little study on the safety of these chemicals. What is known is that, like PCBs, PFAS chemicals are stable (they don’t degrade), they bio accumulate (the higher up the food chain you are, the more you likely have) and they pose remediation challenges because of their stability. Unlike PCBs, they are water soluble which makes them much harder to control. As a result, they are widely found in the environment and are already present in the blood of virtually everyone in the developed world.
Some studies indicate that PFAS chemicals may:
affect growth, learning, and behavior of infants and older children
lower a woman’s chance of getting pregnant
interfere with the body’s natural hormones
increase cholesterol levels
affect the immune system
increase the risk of certain types of cancer
They are a human health and environmental concern but there is little consensus on what levels of these chemicals are safe in your system.
According to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), there are more than a dozen communities where PFAS has been detected. Some Michigan communities have been discovered to be using PFAS-impacted groundwater for their drinking-water supply.
In November 2017, Governor Snyder issued executive order (EO) No 2017-4 creating a multi-agency “Michigan PFAS Action Response Team” to, among other things, “make inquiries, conduct studies, consult with federal agencies, and receive public comments.” The State reportedly will test 1380 water systems and 460 schools for PFAS.
In December 2017, the legislature passed PA 201 which, inter alia, included $23.2 million for state PFAS remediation. It passed 109 to 1 in the House and 33-4 in the Senate but that may be a drop in the bucket as more sites are discovered. This spring, MDEQ asked regulated wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) to conduct a screening of their industrial users to identify PFAS sources including landfills that treat their leachate through the WWTP; develop and implement a monitoring plan to evaluate the possible sources; reduce or eliminate PFAS sources; evaluate impacts and submit reports.
The EPA set a lifetime health advisory (LHA) level for two PFAS in drinking water, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS). The LHA level is 70 parts per trillion (ppt, equal to 70 ng/L) for PFOA and PFOS combined, or individually if only one is present. The EPA has not set health advisory levels for other PFAS chemicals. The State of Michigan is using 70 ppt for decision making purposes.
In the absence of federally-enforceable limits, some states are developing their own guidance and enforcement limits. The limits set by the states range from 400 times higher to 5 times less than the current EPA advisory levels.
Litigation over this contaminant has already begun in New York, Minnesota, Michigan and many other states.
For a State that dealt with PBB contamination in the 1970’s, a whole host of contamination issues from the 1970’s until now and then the Flint lead crisis, Michigan seems to have learned its lesson and is jumping on the PFAS problem with both feet but the ubiquity and complexity of PFAS appears to make this the biggest, most difficult and most expensive environmental issue Michigan may have ever faced.
Categories Agriculture, All Appropriate Inquiry, baseline environmental assessment, Brownfield, CERCLA, Clean Water Act, Cleanup, Detroit, due care, Due Dilligence, EPA, Farming, Great Lakes, MDEQ, Michigan, Pollution, Property Rights, Public health, redevelopment, Rehabilitations, Waste disposal, Water
Author Arthur Siegal
Wisconsin Great Lakes Withdrawals Under the Radar
In the hew and cry regarding Nestle and its attempt to withdraw 400 gallons of water per minute (more on that in another post), I’ve seen almost no press regarding two attempts from Wisconsin to withdraw far more than that.
Withdrawals of water from the Great Lakes are governed by the Great Lakes Compact which was approved by all eight Great Lakes states, Ontario, Quebec, and the U.S. Congress, and signed by President George W. Bush in 2008.
The Compact bans the diversion of Great Lakes water outside the basin, with certain exceptions. Two situations allow a community outside the Great Lakes basin, if approved by the States to apply for a diversion when:
A community that is located partially in the Great Lakes basin may apply for a diversion.
A community that is located within a county that is partially in the basin, may apply for a diversion.
Any community applying for a diversion must demonstrate that it has exhausted all available options for getting water. A diversion must be a last resort. Any request for a diversion must be approved by all eight Great Lakes states and so any state may veto the diversion application.
The City of Waukesha, Wisconsin, a few miles west of Milwaukee, is outside the Great Lakes basin but in a county partially in the basin. In 2016, Waukesha applied for a diversion of water from Lake Michigan arguing that the City’s water supply is contaminated with radium, a naturally occurring carcinogen. Waukesha’s application was the first test of the Great Lakes Compact. On June 21, 2016, the eight Great Lakes states voted to approve Waukesha’s diversion request with restrictions. One of the most important conditions that all water diverted from Lake Michigan to Waukesha must be returned, resulting in no net loss of water from the Great Lakes.
People in Michigan are familiar with Foxconn, a Chinese company that briefly toyed with the possibility of locating in Michigan. Instead, Wisconsin made a reportedly $4 Billion offer and Foxconn is locating in Racine, Wisconsin. On Wednesday, April 25th, the State of Wisconsin announced that it would allow a diversion of an average of 7 million gallons a day of Lake Michigan Water. Of that, 5.8 million gallons is to be used by Foxconn whose plant is located in both the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins. Reportedly, 2.7 million gallons per day will not be returned to the Great Lakes basin, largely because of evaporation.
This diversion does not require unanimous approval under the Compact because less than 5 million gallons per day will be lost.
By way of comparison, the MDEQ’s recent Nestle permit which was the subject of much opposition allows 576,000 gallons of groundwater to be withdrawn and bottled. Oddly, no one in the Michigan press has noticed, yet.
Categories Clean Water Act, Detroit Water, Great Lakes, MDEQ, Michigan, Water, Water Diversion
Want to raise taxes by $79 Million Each Year? Governor Snyder does
On Tuesday, Gov. Snyder announced a proposal to spend $79 Million annually on brownfield site clean-up, waste management planning, asbestos removal, recycling grants, water quality monitoring and state park infrastructure.
These are all laudable goals – but one has to question – where is the money to come from? The Governor wants to raise a fee on garbage disposal by 1,200%
The Governor asserts that Michigan only recycles 15% of its waste (he’d like it to be 30%) and that “to reduce waste in Michigan landfills” he’d like to increase the “surcharge” currently imposed on landfills from $0.36 per ton to $4.75 per ton. Presently, this surcharge (which was the result of negotiations between the State and industry) provides funds to the State’s Solid Waste Management Fund which helps fund permitting and licensing of landfills and other solid waste management facilities, inspections, permit and license enforcement, monitoring and inspections of landfills and solid waste management facilities. In short, the surcharge pays (along with other fees paid by the industry) for the permitting and regulation of the facilities paying the fee.
One has to wonder why landfills should be paying:
$45 Million each year to remediate and redevelop existing and future contaminated sites which in most cases have nothing to do with regulated and permitted landfills;
$5 Million each year for water quality monitoring grants which definitely have nothing to do with landfills;
$5 Million each year for state park infrastructure which, again, are unrelated to landfills.
Isn’t that why we pay taxes? Shouldn’t those regulated communities pay the costs which have nothing to do with landfills? Also, there is a State superfund law (Part 201) that requires polluters to pay for their pollution.
One can argue that paying $9 Million for local governments’ solid waste planning and $15 Million for grants to municipalities to support recycling should be covered by the State’s general fund, as well, as those functions have nothing to do with regulating those who pay the fee. When you go to get your driver’s license, would you want to be charged an additional $100 to pay for roadside cleanup of stuff like tires and debris? It is tangentially related to driving so, does that make it OK?
There is Michigan Constitutional law that says that the answer is “no” and that this “fee” is a disguised illegal tax being snuck past the taxpayers.
Michigan voters have regularly approved bonds to fund remedial and other environmental expenditures, knowing that it was an investment in our health and economy. Why is Governor Snyder afraid to ask the taxpayers to do so again? Perhaps one word: Flint?
Categories Brownfield, CERCLA, Clean Water Act, Cleanup, EPA, Great Lakes, MDEQ, Michigan, Property Rights, Public health, Recycling, Waste disposal, Water
What will 2017 Bring? Dramatic Change?
In prior years, we knew that regulatory and environmental change was coming but we expected it to be slow and incremental. With an unknown quantity like President Elect Trump, one thing is clear – no one really knows what may happen. Here are a few possibilities:
1. Coal/Cleaner Energy Generation – revitalizing the coal industry was part of Mr. Trump’s midwest stump speeches. Will Mr. Trump be able to reverse Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan? What about the Paris Climate Accord? Certainly, his team is looking at both of those right now. The dispute in Michigan v. EPA, decided in June 2015, continues to rage. In 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled that the EPA didn’t properly justify its rule governing mercury and toxic pollution (MATS) from power plants because it did not specifically address costs at the initial stage of the rulemaking process. In April, the EPA announced it was standing by its MATS rule and concluded that the benefits far outweighed the costs. Petitioners continue to litigate whether the EPA properly evaluated costs. Here in Michigan, new legislation has been passed (and is awaiting the Governor’s signature) intended to encourage additional investment in energy generation and transmission while balancing consumer choice and a greater percentage of renewable energy generation. Will it work? At a reasonable cost?
2. Power Generation Subsidies/Oil/Gas Generation – Mr. Trump’s attacks on “crony capitalism” would seem to mean that he will stop financial incentives for solar and wind generation. Will he also attack oil and natural gas supports in the tax code? Will he open up ANWAR to oil/gas exploration? Will he scale back attempts to regulate fracking? This will be difficult in light of the December EPA Report which concluded that fracking posed problems such as: fracking water withdrawals compete with other water needs; spills of hydraulic fracturing fluids and chemicals or produced water may impair groundwater resources; injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into wells may allow gases or liquids to move to groundwater resources; discharge of inadequately treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater to surface water resources; and contamination of groundwater due to disposal or storage of fracturing wastewater.
3. Pipelines – will Mr. Trump reverse the Obama administration’s dim view of oil and gas pipelines such as the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines? How will this affect Michigan where public awareness of two 60+ year-old pipelines under the Mackinac Straits has galvanized both sides of the political spectrum into action. In 2014, Michigan convened a pipeline task force which issued a report in 2015. In September, 2015, the State entered into a written agreement with Enbridge to prevent the transport of heavy crude oil through the Straits Pipelines. The task force also recommended that the pipelines be independently evaluated and that additional financial assurance be provided. The State solicited Requests for Information and Proposals (RFPs) and Enbridge agreed to pay $3.6 Million for the evaluation of the Straits Pipelines. An independent evaluation of alternatives to the Line 5 pipelines is also underway. When those will be completed is not known.
4. Infrastructure – Mr. Trump campaigned on infrastructure (although to hear him tell it, that only encompasses airport quality), and Governor Snyder appointed a 21st Century Infrastructure Task Force which concluded that the State needed to be investing $4 Billion more than it was in infrastructure to address roads, bridges, internet, water, sewer and other infrastructure needs. Given the recent nationally publicized Flint Water debacle, will Michigan find the intestinal fortitude to fully invest in infrastructure or will we continue to patch and delay? Given the State’s recent fight against a federal judge’s order to deliver clean water, and Michigan legislators “default anti-tax setting,” the future does not bode well.
5. Brownfields – as previously reported, Michigan adopted legislation streamlining its brownfield funding laws and deferred action on Dan Gilbert’s “transformational” brownfield funding legislation. Will that resurface in early 2017? I expect it will.
6. Other issues – there are a number of other issues on the horizon including cleanup standards, the maturing of the Great Lakes Water Authority and its ability to deliver clean water and septic services at a reasonable price, Michigan’s effort to reimagine its solid waste program, water withdrawals and protection of the Great Lakes from invasive species and nutrients leading to algal blooms.
Categories Agriculture, Asian Carp, baseline environmental assessment, Blog, Brownfield, Clean Air, Clean Water Act, Cleanup, Detroit, Detroit Water, due care, Due Dilligence, Energy, EPA, Fracturing, Great Lakes, Greenhouse Gasses, Hydroelectric, Incentives, Infrastructure, Insurance Coverage, Invasive Species, Jaffe, LEED, Liability, MDEQ, Michigan, Oil & Gas, Plastics, Pollution, Property Rights, Public health, RCRA, Renewable Energy, Renewable Portfolio Standard, Senate Bill, Solar, Species Protection, Sustainability, tax credits, Waste disposal, Water, Water Diversion, Wind Power
Protect the lakes – don’t flush your medicines – here’s how
A few y ears ago, the University of Michigan confirmed that it is a bad idea to put old medicines down the drain. The State of Michigan agrees. Here is a link to the MDEQ’s website on this topic. There have been concerns regarding the impacts of pharmaceuticals on wildlife, as most wastewater treatment plants are not designed or equipped to treat for medicines.
A few years ago, we had to rely on special programs to properly dispose of old medications, but while recently helping my father-in-law, I learned that there are many more local drop off sites than before. Here is one website that you can use to locate take-back locations. The Michigan State Police are now taking back medications at their 29 posts. The Oakland County Sheriff has launched Operation Medicine Cabinet with 33 locations across the County – these will accept all dry medicines. If you have to put medications in the trash, here are instructions on how best to prepare them for disposal.
Why is flushing medicine a bad idea? The UM report talks about creating antibiotic resistant superbugs and there have been other reports about hormonal changes in fish, and finding traces of various prescription substances in drinking water (yes, what we flush can wind up in someone else’s drinking supply).
Categories Agriculture, Clean Water Act, Cleanup, Detroit Water, Featured, Great Lakes, Michigan, Public health, Sustainability, Waste disposal, Water
Earth Day 2016 – hopefully this year will be better
On this, the 46th Earth Day, I have reflected on both how far we have come and how much further we have to go. Certainly, our waters and air are cleaner than they were in 1970. Our energy and cars are cleaner as well. However, the environmental challenges our society now faces are more complex and more granular and, therefore, harder to “solve.” Think about algae in Lake Erie and invasive species throughout our lakes and lands – those are much harder to deal with than a handful of industrial polluters.
Given the events of the last year in Flint, Michigan has become the country’s “canary in a coal mine” with respect to lead. More people are talking about lead and know about it than literally ever before. When John Oliver spends 18 minutes on it on HBO, you know it is permeating the nation’s consciousness. In some cases, it is possible we are focusing too much on water and not enough on paint and dust. Despite the political posturing and the recent criminal charges, I do expect that the politicians and regulators will, in the near term, step up and we will see greater action on lead removal and protection. Unfortunately, that has been the pattern – major environmental problems result in new environmental initiatives.
Unfortunately, the Flint crisis is likely to delay, perhaps indefinitely, the State’s efforts on developing a Michigan energy policy and, despite his recent letter to State employees, regulatory paralysis will likely reign in Lansing. It is difficult to see State agency employees taking anything other than the most conservative of positions to avoid falling prey to the kinds of problems that occurred in and from the Flint crisis – criminal charges have a way of focusing the mind.
The lack of: (i) an energy policy; (ii) a current solid waste policy; and (iii) a fully funded sustainable program to support brownfield redevelopment (although long promised legislation on brownfield incentives was recently introduced) coupled with the greater focus on petroleum transport via pipeline, particularly, under the Great Lakes, makes me wonder how things will look here in Michigan on the next Earth Day. Michiganders have always had a healthy respect for our environment – we were among the first in the nation to protect wetlands and waters – the 1950’s vintage easement on pipeline 5 under the straights of Mackinac was cutting edge in its time. Will Michigan resume its previous environmental leadership or will we continue to struggle as we have for the last few years? Being in a negative national spotlight is not something any of us sought but now that we’re here – perhaps it is time to step up and take a leadership role on the environment as we once did. It will cost money and effort but the results – our health and the health of the environment are worth it.
Categories Blog, Brownfield, Clean Air, Clean Water Act, Cleanup, Climate Change, Energy, Great Lakes, Jaffe, Michigan
Flint – the lessons we are learning: no longer out of sight – out of mind
It seems the whole Country is talking about Flint. There is justifiable outrage about the process, the horrible impact on the community and the failures to detect and swiftly respond to the Flint water crisis. There has been a lot of finger pointing about who is responsible but little discussion about preventing this from happening again (as Governor Snyder promised). Here are seven questions that I think people will,or should be, thinking about as the initial furor dies down:
1. Was using Flint River water a bad idea or a good idea that went horribly wrong? The Flint water crisis was a failure of execution. The Flint River was known to be a poor quality water source but that doesn’t mean that the decision to switch to the River was wrong from the start. Without getting too far down the blame game – it is clear that in June of 2013 (almost 9 months before the water switch), the then-Emergency Manager hired an engineering firm to figure out how to manage the Flint River water. There has been, to my knowledge, zero discussion of what that firm, Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, did or what they were qualified to do. Had they done their job properly and advised the City and Emergency Manager properly, either Flint would’ve not made the switch or would’ve treated the water properly. I expect that there will be hearings about this eventually.
2. Who should be preventing such problems? In short, the EPA, the MDEQ, the Michigan Department of Public Health and the local government. Governor Snyder’s own Task Force concluded that the MDEQ dropped the ball – stating that there was: (1) a culture of minimalist “technical compliance” that failed to focus on the intent of the laws MDEQ was charged to implement; (2) a failure to respond in both substance and tone to the public’s concerns; (3) a failure to understand the federal lead and copper rule, particularly focusing on optimizing corrosion control – reportedly MDEQ told Flint that treatment for corrosion control was not needed until after two six month monitoring periods had been completed.
Allegations that MDEQ dropped bad results from its water testing seem to reflect the Governor’s Task Force’s concerns and, along with allegations that the Michigan Health Department hid lead health data, may lead to criminal charges. Reports that both the Michigan Attorney General and the federal Justice Department are investigating may be leading some to have sleepless nights.
The EPA also bears responsibility – they recently (and almost certainly in response to Flint) released this Memorandum clarifying the requirement of corrosion control for communities with 50,000 or more residents. Larger still is the assertion that EPA staff knew before June of 2015 that Flint wasn’t using required corrosion control and that a staff memo on the topic was buried. On January 21, EPA issued a fairly scathing letter and emergency order to the State and City and so, “working together” seems a bit far off.
Both the State of Michigan and the EPA have established task forces and working groups looking at the causes of, and responses to, the Flint situation -my question is will there be correction at the agencies and better communication between them or will nothing change?
3. What about the rest of the State? The Flint situation has further weakened the public’s trust in government’s ability to protect them. Will this lead to people in Detroit, Lansing, Grand Rapids and elsewhere to question if their water systems are protective of human health? Given that the nascent Great Lakes Water Authority (which serves almost half the State’s residents) is just getting off the ground and its system has parts dating back to the 1800s, will there be additional testing and assurances given that the tap water we all thought was safe really is? For your information, here is a 2014 DWSD report that reflects “acceptable” amounts of lead in Detroit’s drinking water at taps they evaluated.
4. How to improve governmental transparency? Governor Snyder released 274 pages of emails and, for the most part, my review reflects that the Governor was out of the loop until late September of 2015 and then, he began to mobilize the State to respond. Why it took until January for him to issue a disaster proclamation and seek Federal aid is not clear. The Governor could have stonewalled on his emails but in the face of public pressure, he released them. Some have made hay out of the fact that he did not release his 2013 emails – when the decision to switch the water source was made. I doubt there’s anything there but agree that he should release those as well. One thing that should come out of this is an amendment to Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act to remove the blanket exemption from the Governor and his aides. In the interest of good government, the inner workings of the highest levels of the administration should be open to the public as much as the inner workings of any of the State’s agencies. Michigan is only one of two states to have such a blanket exemption and I think it’s time for that to change.
5. Will Michigan change the Emergency Manager law? Many on the left have castigated the Governor for the Emergency Manager law he championed, arguing that it is unfair and improperly denies the public their voting rights and right to elected representation. While I am not going to debate that here, it appears that the Flint Emergency Managers (there were several of them during the time in question – itself a problem) operated in an informational vacuum. This letter from the Emergency Manager in March of 2014 reflects a decision to use the Flint River rather than Detroit Water and appears to have been made without public consultation or comment. I can see calls to change the law here based on Flint’s experience. Certainly, better oversight of Emergency Managers is a must.
6. What about the infrastructure? Governor Snyder announced that he is convening a commission to study Michigan’s infrastructure needs, threats, opportunities and costs. The commission will be charged with recommending action items and investments to protect our health and well-being. Top priorities will include: water and sewer infrastructure, energy and electrical grids, broadband modernization, and upgrading the aging Soo Locks. The commission will lay the groundwork for state and municipal actions to take place. Bluntly, this is long overdue and, candidly, given how poorly Michigan’s recent road funding process went, I’m dubious about whether this will make a difference with our State Legislature. This needs to be the State government’s number one priority. However, given the political damage Governor Snyder has suffered, it seems that a program of major infrastructure investment is a long shot – necessary but unlikely. Will our “fix on failure” approach continue? Given that estimates to fix the Flint water system run to $60 Million Dollars (or more), and the Detroit/Great Lakes system into the hundreds of millions, if not billions, do we have the intestinal fortitude to invest in the future and in our health and that of our children? Do we need to replace the lead pipes or is it acceptable to rely on corrosion control treatment?
7. Will anyone going to jail? Many people have said “this is criminal” and under federal and State law, prosecutors will be looking to see if there was “reckless disregard of the consequences,” “gross negligence” or an “intentional failure to obtain or follow proper regulatory approval or direction” which may lead to possible criminal charges. The failure to use corrosion control seems a likely focal point as it might satisfy one or more of the above standards – but the facts still need to come out. It seems that the strongest argument for criminal charges may be the altering of reports or data, covering up the lead results or obstructing the investigation. Certainly, civil lawsuits will abound (and have begun) and civil penalties may be imposed but, generally, making a mistake, even one of this gigantic magnitude with these horrendous consequences is unlikely to support a criminal conviction. That’s why we have ballot boxes.
Categories Clean Water Act, Detroit Water, EPA, Great Lakes, MDEQ, Michigan
Showdown Over MDEQ Review Panels?
New Governor: New Priorities; New Organization
MDEQ rescinds vapor intrusion guidance – uncertainty reigns – what is clean enough?
Infrastructure funding in the age of austerity – just don’t call it a “tax”
Brownfield Funding Legislation Enacted
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Katrina on Brownfield Funding Legislation Enacted
Arthur Siegal on Lionfish – It’s what’s for dinner?
Arthur Siegal on Toilet to Tap? I don’t see overcoming the “ick” factor any time soon
Jinendra Jain on Toilet to Tap? I don’t see overcoming the “ick” factor any time soon
riley on Lionfish – It’s what’s for dinner?
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Bringing Balance to the Force
Even at 16, I knew this was hokum.
Yesterday morning at 10:15 (give or take a few minutes), I turned back into a 16-year-old.
We arrived at the theater a half hour early, assuming there would be a line (there was not). The night before, we had purchased our tickets online, at an added cost of $1.50/ticket, assuming the show would be sold out (it was not). The theater was nearly full, though, and even arriving early enough to sit through all the sponsored content (ugh), we had to sit uncomfortably close to the screen to have three seats together. The ads ran, followed by a long string of previews, and then it happened: the sparkling Lucasfilm logo appeared. I gasped. Amy giggled at my excitement. A moment later, the brass chord that can mean only one thing rang through the theater, the prologue text began its crawl across the screen, and 38 years disappeared from my age.
For two hours, I had fanboy thrill upon thrill as the sights and sounds I'd been craving since 1983 filled me with delight. J.J. Abrams, himself a fanboy, had accomplished what George Lucas could not in his millennial prequels: recapture the feel of the first Star Wars trilogy. It wasn't perfect--there was much about it that reminded me that, as much as this may be a Christmas present for those who first experienced Star Wars in the 1970s, it is also Star Wars for a new generation, with our old friends making appearances that feel more like cameos (and very much looking and sounding their age), so that the new, young heroes can have adequate screen time to establish their own story. The back story of this film is far more complex than the simple setup for 1977's A New Hope, since it has to explain how the great victory of Episode VI could fall away so completely in the intervening three decades, leaving those old friends almost exactly where they were at the beginning of episode IV; plucky rebels against a fascistic galactic empire about to turn a super-weapon on the republic. But that's nit-picking: I had a wonderful time, and was grinning most of the way through. More impressively, Amy, who has a very low tolerance for tent-pole action movies, had a wonderful time. Nice work, J.J.
Despite the previous paragraph, I didn't set out to write a review. My goal today is to do something different, something inspired by another blog: I'm going to reconsider the heart of the prequel trilogy, three spectacular duds that I mostly wish didn't exist. I'm doing this because David Houghton, who blogs about video games, put up an essay that caused me to see something profound in those poorly written and directed showcases for CGI. All though Houghton never mentions Jung or Taoism by name, he makes an excellent case for these philosophies being the spiritual heart of the trilogy.
In a nutshell (and, again, using language Houghton does not), the two sides of the Force, and the quasi-religious orders affiliated with them, function as both superego/id and yin/yang. The dark side of the Force is served by the Sith who, in Houghton's framework, are Randian libertarians, dedicated to full self-actualization, no matter what the cost. The Jedi, on the other hand, are puritanical warrior priests who impose their ascetic morality on all who follow their belief system. Their monastic lifestyle has no place for romance or sexuality: they replenish their numbers by recruiting small children. The Sith, on the other hand, seem mainly to consist of rogue Jedi who have been wooed to the dark side by Sith Lords.
In Jungian terms, the Jedi are the superego, the Sith the id. Uncompromising, incapable of seeing any value in each other's philosophies, they fight an endless war of ideas. The vast majority of citizens of the galaxy are caught in the middle, their very existence at the mercy of whichever power is currently dominant. Periods of Jedi dominance may appear more peaceful, but it is the peace of imposed order. Ironically, in order for the Sith to dominate, they, too, must impose order, as much as it flies in the face of their devotion to the far more chaotic dark side of the Force.
The system is utterly dualistic, with no room for any kind of Third Way--although, it could be argued, that middle path would be where most of the people of the galaxy live out their lives. In fact, in the world Lucas built in his prequel trilogy, there are significant parts of the galaxy--including the underbelly of Coruscant, the capital world--where people do all they can to escape notice by either the Jedi or the Sith, preferring instead to simply live their lives as they see fit. These same people are, sadly, caught in the crossfire as the warriors of the Force duke it out for galactic dominance.
But what if someone could, in fact, bring balance to this see-sawing war of good and evil? What if there could be an individual who could bring the yin and yang of the Force together, could find a way for them to coexist? What if there was room in the galactic ethos for both shadow and light?
That balance is Anakin Skywalker. And what George Lucas did to the prequels, the Jedi did to Anakin, setting him on the path to becoming Darth Vader, the emperor's enforcer. I'm not going to go into any more detail about how this happened, becauseDavid Houghton did a fine job explaining it in his essay. But it is tragic, both fictionally and literally, that the potential for greatness is neither adequately understood by the Jedi, who could save civilization by setting aside their dogmatic ways and permitting Anakin to bring a true yin-yang balance to the Force; nor by George Lucas, who let his baser instincts turn what could have been thought-provoking philosophical science fiction into an empty-headed explosion fest populated with ethnic stereotypes, voiced with wooden dialogue, and jarringly interrupted by slapstick and potty humor.
Lack of balance is what brings down first the Republic, then the Empire, and now, once more, the Republic, then it's also what is placing our own real world at risk. In a series of movies that frequently flaunt the laws of physics, and in which credibility is constantly strained by coincidence, the one element of realism that speaks to the heart of suffering in our own world is this imbalance.
Spiritually, I've always known this to be a problem. As a teenager, I longed for a theology or philosophy that could make sense of the world as I was experiencing it. Growing up in a parsonage, I hoped to find the answers in Christianity--and yet I find myself tormented by doubt. Star Wars, as much as it appealed to my boyish love of adventure, also prodded me to consider the possibility that there might be a philosophy that was truer, for me, than the mainline Protestantism in which I'd been raised. That's what led me to purchase The Force of Star Wars--only to discover that slim volume was nothing more than an evangelical tract using Star Wars imagery as an allegory for the gospel of Jesus Christ. This left me disappointed, frustrated, knowing there had to be more. Ultimately, I went to seminary in search of the balance I couldn't find in the church I faithfully attended every Sunday. Strangely enough, I found it in a class so poorly taught that it confused and frustrated me every time I attended. It was called "Religion in a Global Perspective," and for all the ineptitude of the lectures, it introduced me to Buddhist philosophy and the concept of balance.
That's where I am now. I am most fully myself, I now know, when I can balance my natures: head and heart, freedom and discipline, selfishness and altruism, artistry and utility. Theologically, politically, philosophically, my preferences are on the extreme left, but I choose not to live as an extremist. Keeping myself in balance, I am content, centered, fulfilled.
It's a lesson I was first exposed to in 1977, but it's taken me a lifetime to internalize it. I don't always live it, either: there have been plenty of times in the last year when outside forces have upset my balance, led me down the path to anxiety, frustration, even panic. At times like these, I am realizing, I need to channel my inner Yoda. Not the Jedi ascetic of the prequels, mind you: the cranky but serene master of Dagobah. I need to appreciate where, and when, I am, letting go of where I want to be, or what will happen next. Only then will I be able to levitate X-Wings, striking the ideal balance between the shadow and light of the Force.
That's where I will leave this discussion, closing with the obvious benediction:
May the Force be with you.
Labels: balance Jung Star Wars taoism yin-yang
Short Memories
Not Feeling the Bern
The Problem with Blaming Hearts
Ignoring the Obvious
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Cursed child characters
Since the Gastrea only came into existence ten years ago, none of the Cursed Children are older then that. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne. K. For returning characters, the original actors would do a great job. My mom and my friend Angela loved the Cursed Child, so I plan to ask for their opinions a lot. The production is one play The entire "Cursed Child" plot was first hinted at years ago in Rowling's third book, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Notably, Rowling considers this play to be Canon and the official eighth Harry-focused installment Polly Chapman is one of the most interesting characters introduced in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The play avoids With previews starting next week, hopefully we'll get confirmation about who the rest of these characters will be. who already retroactively diversified her cast of characters by revealing that Dumbledore was gay I agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested in. It was marketed as the "eighth story" of Harry Potter, taking place after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. cursed child characters K. The "Boy Who Lived" and savior of the wizarding world, who defeated Lord Voldemort in the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is nominated for 10 Tony Awards . Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the canonical eighth story in the Harry Potter universe. “Cursed Child” is all about how an ordinary son tries to measure up to a celebrity parent. For anyone who But “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” with its claims to be “the eighth Harry Potter story,” unfortunately attempts to fill in that artfully crafted void with a story driven to “put Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two: The Official Playscript of the Original West End Production 4. I do not agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested in Were you impressed by the character of Draco Malfoy in The Cursed Child? I don’t believe that the basis of the characters was ruined because the book served a Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has finally hit the Broadway stage, and the story begins 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts. Rowlings and ultimate follow-up, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a …Cursed Child, an expansive five-hour experience split into two parts, picks up where Rowling left off with her final novel, 2007’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with a now adult Harry These cast photos from the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child give us a clue. com, the most comprehensive source for Broadway Shows, Broadway Tickets and Broadway Information. The characters are too obnoxious. 3. Beginning eighteen years after the conclusion of the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , Cursed Child shows us how Harry is adapting to his greatest challenge, a struggle more difficult than vanquishing the most evil wizard in the world When the curtain goes down on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the show is over not just for you in the theatre but for the entire series itself. Review: ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ Raises the Bar for Broadway MagicReview: ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ Raises the Bar for Broadway Magic. Alleged son of Voldemort. New Cursed Child cast portraits revealed The new West End cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child have been transformed into their characters in a newly released set of portraits by Charlie Gray. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child study guide contains a biography of J. With previews starting next week, hopefully we'll get confirmation about who the rest of these characters will be. as the other 1,621 patrons greet favorite characters by the dozens. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child New York Acclaim. Which “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” Character Are You? Start the quiz! It’s been 19 years since Harry Potter began. Of course, this isn't Rowling's writing, but rather the playwright Jack Thorne elaborating on a story conceived by Rowling, Thorne and the director John Tiffany together. Rowling hinted that the story will focus on the untold story of Harry the orphan and will feature some of fan’s favourite characters from the book. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is now playing at the Lyric Theatre, After nine years of hoping and praying, a new Harry Potter book is finally here. Meet the Characters With the first preview of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child just around the corner, take a look behind-the-scenes of the photoshoot that created our character portraits, in our brand new video. To say something, if not on my behalf, then on behalf of the characters in your own story. Rowling kill any more Harry Potter characters?. Rowling and the characters that inhabit her magical world of her popular book series. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a new play by Jack Thorne, directed by John Tiffany. J. Find out which Cursed Child charcter you'd be out of Albus, Scorpius, Rose, James and Lily! Which Cursed Child Character are you? SlytheringSlytherin. The Question and Answer section for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. Fifty-six creatives, actors and members of the production team came together this morning for the first time to be part of this amazing …Meet the Characters With the first preview of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child just around the corner, take a look behind-the-scenes of the photoshoot that created our character portraits, in …13 Familiar Characters Who Make Surprising Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Cameos 13 Familiar Characters Who Make Surprising Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Cameos. 3. A #KeepTheSecrets campaign has helped reduce spoiler spills since the London premiere, though Thorne realizes that more people are likely familiar with the story at this point. Rowling and John Tiffany), opened to magical reviews in London on July 30th. The play, set two decades Harry Potter and the Cursed Child study guide contains a biography of J. Spoiler warning: In this I could reason that Fantastic Beasts was somehow separate because it wasn’t directly Harry, Hermione, Ron and other favorite characters. It’s even more Find out which Cursed Child charcter you'd be out of Albus, Scorpius, Rose, James and Lily! Which Cursed Child Character are you? SlytheringSlytherin. The eponymous afflicted youth could be so many characters in the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a legitimate play, but whether it will become a movie remains to be seen — and it’s a good bet that if it does, the announcement won’t be made on 1 April. com/quiz/UWpSv7KrFIC/Harry+Potter+Cursed+Child+CharacterWhich 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' Character Are You? Written by JJ Duncan. Ron Weasley. International Shipping. A common factor that all Cursed Children share is their red eyes, which they gain at birth. How do others describe you? Selfless. The critically acclaimed production received its world premiere in July 2016 at the Palace Theatre in London where it continues to play to sold-out houses. . K. Albus Severus Potter. The response had been particularly positive among fans who watched the play on stage. ‘Cursed Child’ doesn’t belong with the other Potter books. Rose Granger-Weasley. What did you get? Leave a Comment! MORE QUIZZESKindle Fantasy Characters. when characters travel through time, the entire stage seems to quiver—and the audience Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Overview - The BEST Broadway source for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child tickets and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child information, photos and videos. When the curtain goes down on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the show is over not just for you in the theatre but for the entire series itself. Sold out? Not for you. The official global website for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child based on an original new story by J. Scarlett Mysteries: Cursed Child is a hidden objects game developed by World-Loom and published by Artifex Mundi for PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone, and iPad. This Study Guide consists of approximately 54 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Theatre Review by Howard Miller - April 22, 2018. Fantasy Characters Multiple Choice III 363; Wallin, Rebeca (2017) "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,"Children's Book and Media Review: Many characters are well-developed and most plot points are Harry Potter and the Cursed Child book: Why some fans really dislike JK Rowling's new script However, whether this means there won’t be further stories about the new generation of characters 3 Reasons Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Sucks And, spoiler alert, it is NOT because it is a play. #CursedChild. Isabelle married Draco after the Battle of Hogwarts and she has 3 children. Works which have used it as a tag:Further; said virus enters through the pregnant female's mouth and is passed on to the child. Rowling, Jack Thorne, John TiffanyThe Harry Potter Character Who Takes A Very Dark Turn In https://www. I do not agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested in Which “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” Character Are You? Now there is a whole new generation of characters. From characters we've known for decades I agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested in. Rowling and John Tiffany. Many believed that was the end of the Boy Who Lived's tale, but late last month, London's West End began showing previews for the two-part play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Harry Potter and The Cursed Child Tickets Sell Tickets Harry Potter is one of the most successful book and film franchises of all time, smashing box office and book sales records en route to becoming a cultural phenomenon in today's day and age. Characters are flying and walking through walls. zimbio. Rowling suggested that this was the best place to air the story. Rowling's books. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Questions and Answers. who already retroactively diversified her cast of characters by revealing that Dumbledore was gay Jul 31, 2016 · Based on an original new story by J. Thorne shaped the story into the play, and Mr. By the time this movie gets made, two decades might But anyone still ready to dismiss Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as a cynical brand extension, Along with surviving characters like the imperious headmistress Minerva McGonagall (Geraldine Harry Potter and the Cursed Child [Part One] characters breakdowns including full descriptions with standard casting requirements and expert analysis. Based on an original new story by J. The Trolley The eagerly anticipated, two-part play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has cast its lead characters. Despite much assumption to the contrary, J. The play continues the story of our favorite wizard created by J. 1KFormat: HardcoverAuthor: J. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a British two-part stage play written by Jack Thorne based on an original story by Thorne, J. Isabelle is also the cousin of Hermione and Luna. Play Again. Which one are you? Scroll to next question! Scroll to answer. Rowling's Wizarding World who have an appearance, mention, or otherwise tropable presence in the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Rowling's wizarding saga, and reveals what A page for describing Characters: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child book: Why some fans really dislike JK Rowling's new script However, whether this means there won’t be further stories about the new generation of characters Cursed Child, an expansive five-hour experience split into two parts, picks up where Rowling left off with her final novel, 2007’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with a now adult Harry 11 days ago · Original 'Cursed Child' Cast Wraps Final Performance, But Memories and Magic Live On Three years ago a magical new production came to the West End, bringing the wizarding world to audiences in an Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Characters . Ron, Hermione and Rose Granger-Weasley. Ron Weasley is one of the three principal characters in the "Harry Potter" series, but in "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," he shows up as mere comic relief. Click here to buy Harry Potter and the Very little is known about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child other than it is NOT a prequel and will debut in London in Summer 2016. The play avoids Though the plot holes square measure terribly visible and unfold throughout the story, they create for charming and sincere conversations between characters, thus I didn’t mind all of them that abundant. Having seen the new play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Kayti Burt explores which character might be identified as the titular "Cursed Child". Funny Can you guess the harry potter characters? …Those who have seen or read Cursed Child know that other characters, new and old, are featured in the play, with attendant surprises. News ‘We’re working on something we love,’ says Cursed Child set designer . K https://www. You can see Cursed Child now in London’s West End, on Broadway in New York, Through dreams, flashbacks, and other machinations, we spend much of Cursed Child revisiting the past, re-encountering characters both beloved (Snape!) and shrugworthy (Ludo Bagman?!). A production photo from "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" in London. Some people argued that a follow-up story for Harry Potter would've been much better in the form of a book, but J. Harry Potter producer SPEAKS OUT on Cursed Child movie rumours (EXCLUSIVE) HARRY POTTER and Fantastic Beasts producer Lionel Wigram has spoken exclusively to Express. A #KeepTheSecrets campaign has helped reduce spoiler spills since the London premiere, though Thorne realizes that more people are …My Thoughts on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Huge Rant Inbound) submitted 2 in my opinion it's best to read it as such. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Playwrights Dissect 'Cursed Child' and Find Bad News for Theater Cursed Child is certainly action packed. Rowling and John Tiffany) and directed by Tiffany, with a musical score by Imogen Heap. Palace Theatre, London Which 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' Character Are You? Written by JJ Duncan. A #KeepTheSecrets campaign has helped reduce spoiler spills since the London premiere, though Thorne realizes that more people are …Select a Date for Part One and Part Two Together. Stubborn. A lot of the play is about these younger characters looking up at the The eagerly anticipated, two-part play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has cast its lead characters. com/jack-thorne-crafting-harry-potterThose who have seen or read Cursed Child know that other characters, new and old, are featured in the play, with attendant surprises. Can you name the characters with lines of dialogue in the play/book, 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'? Test your knowledge on this entertainment quiz to see how you do and compare your score to others. Previews of the play began at the Palace Theatre, London on 7 June 2016, and it premiered on 30 July 2016. Draco Malfoy. A positive lesson was conveyed through the book. 1. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne, the play opened to rapturous reviews from theatergoers and critics alike AUSTRALIA WARMLY WELCOMES HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD TO ITS NEW HOME. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Cast List on Broadway. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the script of a two-part play that recently opened in London’s West End, is a faithful continuation of Rowling’s series that simultaneously breaks many of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne, based on a story by J. The stories behind several of the key tracks from Imogen Heap’s soundtrack for the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. 13 Familiar Characters Who Make Surprising Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Cameos 13 Familiar Characters Who Make Surprising Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Cameos. Harry Potter And The Cursed Child Summary SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. Draco and Scorpius Malfoy. ‘Harry Potter’: Who Is The Cursed Child?Find out which Cursed Child charcter you'd be out of Albus, Scorpius, Rose, James and Lily! Which Cursed Child Character are you? SlytheringSlytherin. This tag belongs to the Additional Tags Category. Mashable is the go-to source Time is a dangerous toy in “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the enthralling two-part play about the later life of its title wizard. Take a look at grown-up Harry Potter in these "Cursed Child" character photos. The play, the eighth official story in the Potter saga, receives its world The Cursed Child story may be rewritten as the stage play is tweaked to work better before a live audience, but Rowling has said that there will be no ninth Harry Potter book. As the first reviews of the play poured in Tuesday morning, Boyle's name was getting mentioned again and again. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child cast changes: theater1988. August 6, J. Now there is a whole new generation of characters. Polly Chapman is one of the most interesting characters introduced in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two is the official script book for the play of the same name written by J. Below are the characters from J. who already retroactively diversified her cast of characters by revealing that Dumbledore was gay Jun 03, 2016 · These are our characters — the principals, at least — and it’s of interest that only these three children appear in the family portraits. The thing I like best about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which opened on Broadway on Sunday night, might be its title. cinemablend. The eighth part of the story picks up where Deathly Hallows left off, The Cursed Child, which takes place 19 years after the final Harry Potter book, features a cast of 42 actors and stars Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione alongside the new generation of Potter and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. Amazon Global Store. Everyone was shocked. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, literature essays, quiz Main characters in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child book, analysis of key characters. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two: The Official Playscript of the Original West End Production. Reviews: 3. Identity of the "Cursed Child" The play never explicitly states who the "Cursed Child" is. And many think one character, in particular, is very, very problematic. All the action from the Official Broadway Opening for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child . By the time this movie gets made, two decades might My mom and my friend Angela loved the Cursed Child, so I plan to ask for their opinions a lot. The play’s Cursed Child is based on an original new story by J. By the time this movie gets made, two decades might But anyone still ready to dismiss Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as a cynical brand extension, Along with surviving characters like the imperious headmistress Minerva McGonagall (Geraldine Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Broadway Edition Fans bringing news from the Broadway production of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" Having seen the new play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Kayti Burt explores which character might be identified as the titular "Cursed Child". Rowling's Wizarding World who have an appearance, Others have noted that the play sheds light on some of the relationships between the characters, such as Harry and Dumbledore's. Thorne also takes up time introducing characters important to the novels that don’t serve the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a new play by Jack Thorne (based on an original story by Thorne, J. The Cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Visits New York City. the characters aren't true to themselves – it's like Thorne turned the Resurrection Stone Attending Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is an all-encompassing experience, beginning with the newly refurbished Lyric Theatre. From characters we've known for decades The first images of the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child cast in costume were released on Tuesday, revealing that Sam Clemmett will be playing Albus Severus Potter and Poppy Miller as Harry One of the scariest parts about consuming a new Harry Potter story like The Cursed Child is having this thought: Will J. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth installment in J. From the sounds of it, one unlikely character in particular looks set to be a huge star of the play. " After a multitude of characters The cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on stage in London. Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child New York Tickets city tickets are on sale now at StubHub. I agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested in. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child playing now in London's West End. | Jul 25, 2017. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Audio Book – The eighth Harry Potter Audiobook. Rowling's Wizarding World who have an appearance, mention, or otherwise tropable presence in the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. so we might see some elements of "The Cursed Child" play into it with some minor characters or allusions to characters in "The Cursed Child. Do Cursed Child’s characters mesh with the versions we know and love from the books? Through dreams, flashbacks, and other machinations, we spend much of Cursed Child revisiting the past, re-encountering characters both beloved (Snape!) and shrugworthy (Ludo Bagman?!). The Australian premiere production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child officially opened at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre last night, Saturday, February 23, after a magical red carpet gala performance. Prepare to fall in love with new characters, says Cursed Child actor Paul Thornley . Spoiler warning: In this Book Review: 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' (2016) Up until nine years later, when we were presented with a brand new novel in the series after all, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Lastly, Harry, Ron, Draco, Hermione, Albus and Scorpius watching the Potter parents' death at the hand of Voldemort in Godric's Hollow has proven difficult for fans: if a future Harry and his children watched the pivotal moment that made Harry Potter the Boy-Who-Lived, Then it was finally time for the Cursed Child To hear about your thoughts on the show and your love for these characters is amazing, and it’s really stepped up here. The latest Tweets from Cursed Child Play (@HPPlayLDN). Hear me out on this one. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Learning Guide by PhD students from Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley The play respects her world, and tries to follow her characters along a logical path from teenager to (yikes) middle-aged adult. May 22, 2017 · Cursed Child New Cast Character Photo Shoot Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Take a look behind-the-scenes of our character photo shoot with the new Cursed Child cast in this exclusive video Author: Harry Potter and the Cursed ChildViews: 51KHarry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts I & II by J. Fifty-six creatives, actors and members of the production team came together this morning for the first time to be part of this amazing photo, right before the first read-through of the script. Mr. 8 out of 5 stars 12,081 Harry Potter characters read Cursed Child. "He goes on a very big journey during these two plays and then, yeah, I think we're done. He struggles with the weight of his father's fame and feels as if he is failing due to the expectations placed upon him. The show's premiere, by the way, takes place one day before what would be Harry Potter's 36th birthday, were he a real person. However, some fans responded positively to the play and its characters, with Scorpius Malfoy being particularly popular. Witches & Wizards. Mashable …Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Sonia Friedman Productions, Colin Callender and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions 17 February 2019 (industry show) Princess Theatre about the 19-years-later epilogue to book seven because it took away the readers' imagined futures for these loved characters. This is my own version of the Cursed Child. Also, I know that people have said the live production of the play is, pun intended, magical. Rowling, Jack Thorne, John TiffanyWhich 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' Character Are www. My life, like the lives of so many Though the plot holes square measure terribly visible and unfold throughout the story, they create for charming and sincere conversations between characters, thus I didn’t mind all of them that abundant. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Rowling's Wizarding World who have an appearance, Meet the Characters. The play will receive its world premiere in London’s West End on July 30, 2016. 11 days ago · Original 'Cursed Child' Cast Wraps Final Performance, But Memories and Magic Live On Three years ago a magical new production came to the West End, bringing the wizarding world to audiences in an These cast photos from the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child give us a clue. The Boy Who Lived is back — we can still barely believe it. Those familiar with the venue, famously built in the late 1990s to house Ragtime, will barely recognize the makeover, which includes custom fixtures, filament lighting, chalk-sketched wall coverings with cryptic messages, and a richly hued palette that will The story of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child takes place several years after the events of The Deathly Hallows, and follows the adult lives of Harry Potter, Hermione and Ron. My Thoughts on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child characters, plot points and scenes are so poorly written that I can't fathom it being canon. 5 Things to Know If You're Skipping Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. What did you get? Leave a Comment! MORE QUIZZESTwo more Marvel female characters survived Infinity War. Rowling Is Facing Backlash For Details She Just Revealed About 2 Harry Potter Characters Kindle Fantasy Characters. The longer I held off reading The Cursed Child, the more rumblings I heard of unhappiness, which frankly scared me off more. Rowling , Jack Thorne , et al. Rowling opened in London’s West End and now New York’s Broadway. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne, based on a story by J. George, Weasley, Fred's twin. Select a Date for Part One and Part Two Together. I will keep my critiques until I experience it in I agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested in. The eighth part of the story picks up where Deathly Hallows left off, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London's West End on 30th July 2016. . Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Characters J. Palace Theatre, LondonAccount Status: VerifiedWhich 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' Character Are www. into it with some minor characters or allusions to characters in "The Far from a mere indulgence in nostalgia, or, worse, a cynical money grab, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a compelling, amusing, intriguing and affecting play, featuring ingeniously creative staging that surpasses what could previously be described as world class. Next Quiz . I do not agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested inYet, these cameos are more fan service than story development, as at The Cursed Child’s heart lies the relationship between two characters: Harry and his son, Albus Severus Potter. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is actually a sequel. Click here to buy Harry Potter and the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’s Anthony Boyle on playing Scorpius Malfoy and bringing the two-part play to America. Rowling’s epilogue to the original Harry Potter series, found at the end of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” was a masterful finale to the saga. Rowling’s Wizarding World, is an absolute delight to read and is sure to please Potterheads around the world. com/w/harry-potter-and-the-cursed-childHarry Potter and the Cursed Child is the bare-bones script of a play. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child introduced the story lines of new characters, but it also brought back some fan The play was named Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Questions and Answers. 10. What did you get? Leave a Comment! MORE QUIZZESHad Cursed Child betrayed the legacy of Rowling’s novels or failed to live up to those stratospherically high expectations, the backlash would have surely been swift and brutal. It will receive its world With appearances from old characters, like Draco Malfoy and Professor McGonagall, and new characters, like Scorpius Malfoy and the mysterious Delphi Diggory, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child The Harry of Cursed Child is older, perhaps wiser (though some characters don’t seem to think so), but just off in particular ways that make the continuity from Deathly Hallows to Cursed Child These cast photos from the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child give us a clue. Main characters are in bold. A lot of the play is about these younger characters looking up at the Which 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' Character Are You? Written by JJ Duncan. a good story immerses the reader in the characters and world that it has constructed 11 Character Cameos In 'Harry Potter & The Cursed Child' That Fans Will Love Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, in the form of a play in London. The official global website for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child based on an original new story by J. The cursed child is a fanfiction author that has written 60 stories for NCIS, Harry Potter, Twilight, Victorious, Fringe, Charmed, Nikita, Once Upon a Time, Haven, Hunger Games, Revolution, Castle, and Supernatural. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne Rehearsals have officially begun on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One & Two and Pottermore can now reveal the full cast. And yet, it has the same addictive drive as Rowling's novels. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. And yet, it has the same addictive drive as Rowling's novels. a good story immerses the reader in the characters and world that it has constructed Through dreams, flashbacks, and other machinations, we spend much of Cursed Child revisiting the past, re-encountering characters both beloved (Snape!) and shrugworthy (Ludo Bagman?!). You've had ample time to devour Cursed Child since July 31 - but just how memorable was the script? Harry Potter characters in the Original Series, or Based on an original new story by J. Rowling's wizarding saga, and reveals what became of the Boy Wizard after he defeated Lord Voldemort. 8 out of 5 stars 12,081 Through dreams, flashbacks, and other machinations, we spend much of Cursed Child revisiting the past, re-encountering characters both beloved (Snape!) and shrugworthy (Ludo Bagman?!). Trolley Witch - Elderly witch. Some fans commented Main characters in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child book, analysis of key characters. Cursed Child is as much about – to quote a character from Angels in America some blocks away – the magic of theater as it is a gift to the legions who grew up (or grew old) reading and The Gay Romance In The Cursed Child: A Letter To JK Rowling. Swing joined:6/21/18. 11 days ago · Original 'Cursed Child' Cast Wraps Final Performance, But Memories and Magic Live On Three years ago a magical new production came to the West End, bringing the wizarding world to audiences in an Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Characters . Based on an original new story by J. Business Insider Logo Logo for Business Insider over a transparent background. From characters we've known for decades The first images of the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child cast in costume were released on Tuesday, revealing that Sam Clemmett will be playing Albus Severus Potter and Poppy Miller as Harry One of the scariest parts about consuming a new Harry Potter story like The Cursed Child is having this thought: Will J. The play allows one of fiction's most loved characters to enchant new audiences, and finally lets Harry grow up. What did you get? Leave a Comment! MORE QUIZZES The thing I like best about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which opened on Broadway on Sunday night, might be its title. Rowling's name. A production photo from "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" in London. Does anyone know if there are any planned absences or vacations for the Cursed Child leads before their final date in March? I think for the lead characters it’d be a different story Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the bare-bones script of a play. For the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child premieres tonight at London's Palace Theater. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. I do not agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested in Opt out at any time by sending email to orders@harrypotter934. Jul 31, 2016 · Based on an original new story by J. Yes, I would say that I was Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has finally hit the Broadway stage, and the story begins 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts. 3 Reasons Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Sucks And, spoiler alert, it is NOT because it is a play. I do not agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested inHarry Potter and the Cursed Child is a stage play with a script by Jack Thorne (based on a story by Thorne, J. She plays a vital role in the overall structure of the story and ends up being the one character that most Harry Potter fans can’t stop talking about. Instead, let’s just say that there are few characters in Cursed Child that can boast the same great arc that Delphi Diggory enjoys. 'Cursed Child' lets down the strong female characters from J. com or by unsubscribing via a link in the email. Sign In. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is very much a Potter book – it has all the plot twists and turns and characters and quotes that stay with you long after you have read the book. This character is the main protagonist in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and he is the son of a renowned wizard. 7/5(556)Jack Thorne on Crafting Harry Potter and the Cursed Child https://broadwaydirect. Does anyone know if there are any planned absences or vacations for the Cursed Child leads before their final date in March? I think for the lead characters it’d be a different story Were you impressed by the character of Draco Malfoy in The Cursed Child? Update Cancel. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’s Anthony Boyle on playing Scorpius Malfoy and bringing the two-part play to America. Any tropes applicable to them in the play will be written up on the pages below. After Reading The "Harry Potter" Series 20 Times, Here's Why I'll Never Touch "Cursed Child" Again. I read Cursed Child and I see it in London next month. Manuel Harlan K. Based on the world-renowned series by J. Abilities EditHarry Potter And The Cursed Child Summary SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. The eponymous afflicted youth could be so many characters in the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. Rowling, playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany. " About Us;I could reason that Fantastic Beasts was somehow separate because it wasn’t directly Harry, Hermione, Ron and other favorite characters. co. After finishing my recent re-read of all seven books, I figured the time was ripe Harry Potter and the Cursed Child New York Tickets city tickets are on sale now at StubHub. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. News. Hypable is about to put you to the test. Hermione Granger. Rowling had insisted that the story of the play was not a prequel to the story of Harry Potter, and eventuallyThe Cursed Child not only gives us a peak back into the lives of the characters we know and love from the original canon, but allows itself to expand and shift in new, interesting, and daring ways. A lot of the play is about these younger characters looking up at the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Rowling's first seven novels about the same cast of characters. News Features Theatre Classic Arts Alex Weisman and Benjamin Wheelwright playing a variety of characters. “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the latest installment of stories in J. Jamie Parker, currently starring in the West End show Guys and Dolls, will star as an adult Cursed Child clashes with the text at too many points, as well as rubbishing several of the characters, and Rowling has not at any point stated that the books were wrong when they said that travelling back in time more than five hours risked unravelling the universe, nor has she said that Bellatrix was actually eight months pregnant in the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child about the 19-years-later epilogue to book seven because it took away the readers' imagined futures for these loved characters Share Talking Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, from Scorpius Malfoy to failed Bechdel tests. Abilities EditAug 02, 2016 · This book version of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child that this play nimbly sustains itself simply by situating its canny story line in that world and remaining true to its characters and Find out which Cursed Child charcter you'd be out of Albus, Scorpius, Rose, James and Lily! Which Cursed Child Character are you? SlytheringSlytherin. Rowling's books. 1,196,277 likes · 18,182 talking about this. James Sirius Potter Jr. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Character List. The play, set two decades Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is nominated for 10 Tony Awards . Funny Can you guess the harry potter characters? …9 'Cursed Child' Character Appearances That Surprised Harry Potter Fans Everywhere. Abilities Edit The Cursed Child not only gives us a peak back into the lives of the characters we know and love from the original canon, but allows itself to expand and shift in new, interesting, and daring ways. Because of the epic nature of the story, it could not fit into the performance time of a traditional single play, and consequently will be told in two parts. I do not agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested inWere you impressed by the character of Draco Malfoy in The Cursed Child? Update Cancel. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, is a two-part play intended to be seen in order on the same day (matinee and evening) or on two consecutive evenings, or each part can be seen separately. See who will be playing your favorite characters including Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), Hermione Granger (Emma Watson Very quickly, even while just reading the script of Cursed Child, you remember that Rowling loves these stories and characters as much as you do, and it becomes easier and more enjoyable to read Top Ten Characters in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child interactive top ten list at TheTopTens®. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. who already retroactively diversified her cast of characters by revealing that Dumbledore was gay Subscribe To The Harry Potter Character Who Takes A Very Dark Turn In Cursed Child Updates Based on an original new story by J. And yet, beyond the hype, the entertaining appearances by characters long familiar to fans, and the impressive stage magic that will guarantee sold-out performances filled with Potter aficionados for a long time to come, there is an even greater magic going When the curtain goes down on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the show is over not just for you in the theatre but for the entire series itself. Of course, this isn't Rowling's writing, but rather the playwright Jack Thorne elaborating on a story conceived by Rowling, Thorne and the director John Tiffany together. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. Abilities EditHarry Potter and the Cursed Child is an original Harry Potter franchise play, authored by J. The eponymous afflicted youth could be so many characters in the play Cursed Child is canon. Draco's son. ‘Harry Potter’: Who Is The Cursed Child? The premiere of the upcoming Harry Potter play, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child", is just around the corner, and Pottermore has released a series of portraits revealing the stage characters. Yes, I would say that I was Harry Potter and the Cursed Child New York Tickets city tickets are on sale now at StubHub. I do not agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested inBelow are the characters from J. Parent tags (more general): Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling; This tag has not been marked common and can't be filtered on (yet). The eponymous afflicted youth could be so many characters in the play The latest Tweets from Cursed Child Play (@HPPlayLDN). Although the rest of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’s setting stays put in 2020, the action (along with the characters) actually jumps all around the timeline, thanks to the last remaining Time-Turner (they were all destroyed in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) being recovered from a former Death Eater by Harry and Hermione. And I already felt a bit sorry for Harry and The characters are too obnoxious. Harry, Ginny and Albus Potter. Even better? Here are some of the Harry The Harry of Cursed Child is older, perhaps wiser (though some characters don’t seem to think so), but just off in particular ways that make the continuity from Deathly Hallows to Cursed Child Cursed Child NYC Verified account @HPPlayNYC Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is now playing at the redesigned Lyric Theatre, New York. The cast will also 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,' on stage at the Palace Theatre in London, is a brilliant reinvention of the series worth J. Based on an original story by J. War and conflict have the potential to change everything. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’s Anthony Boyle on playing Scorpius Malfoy and bringing the two-part play to America. 4 27 5 1 by J. The dialouge, characters, plot points and scenes are so poorly written that I can't fathom it being canon. Characters are listed by chapter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It gave readers just a glimpse of grown-up Harry, his wife Ginny, and his three children Albus, James, and Lily. The Trolley Witch scene from Cursed Child on Broadway New character portraits for the third West End Cursed Child cast revealed May 21, 2018 As the third wave of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child actors get ready to take on the eighth Harry Potter story, here's a sneak peek at what For Harry Potter fans, these are magical times. barnesandnoble. Access expert-written guides and theatre resources. by J. Profile. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the script of a two-part play that recently opened in London’s West End, is a faithful continuation of Rowling’s series that simultaneously breaks many of 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' is filled with Easter eggs and callbacks to J. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack ThorneRehearsals have officially begun on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One & Two and Pottermore can now reveal the full cast. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (book) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016 play) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (screenplay) Harry Potter (book series) in Cursed Child, the characters casually hop back and forth between the present and 1981. In "Deathly Hallows," Ron destroyed Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has arrived at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre and it is arguably the hottest show in town. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at Melbourne's Princess Theatre is a magical piece of storytelling that holds you spellbound from start to finish. Ron's younger brother. Top Quizzes Today. 'Cursed Child' lets down the strong female characters from J. Rowling's first seven novels about the same cast of characters. Aug 14, 2017 · Entertainment Quiz / Harry Potter & The Cursed Child Characters Random Entertainment or Harry Potter Quiz Can you name the characters with lines of dialogue in the play/book, 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'? by bhenderson79 Plays Quiz Updated Aug 14, 2017. Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany This Study Guide consists of approximately 54 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Cast List on Broadway. My mom and my friend Angela loved the Cursed Child, so I plan to ask for their opinions a lot. A few additional comments. Cursed Child, an expansive five-hour experience split into two parts, picks up where Rowling left off with her final novel, 2007’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with a now adult Harry These cast photos from the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child give us a clue. Anthony Boyle, who plays Scorpius Malfoy, is not only one of the Cursed Child's main characters — from the sounds of it he's also one of the play's standout performers. Cursed Child New Cast Character Photo Shoot Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Take a look behind-the-scenes of our character photo shoot with the new Cursed Child cast in this exclusive video Below are the characters from J. M. Jamie Parker, currently starring in the West End show Guys and Dolls, will star as an adult The premiere of the upcoming Harry Potter play, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child", is just around the corner, and Pottermore has released a series of portraits revealing the stage characters. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child [Part One] plot summary, character breakdowns, context and analysis, and performance video clips. For the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, is a two-part play intended to be seen in order on the same day (matinee and evening) or on two consecutive evenings, or each part can be seen separately. com, the most comprehensive source for Broadway Shows, Broadway Tickets and Broadway Information. International Shipping Eligible Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two: The Official Playscript of the Original West End Production. Others have noted that the play sheds light on some of the relationships between the characters, such as Harry and Dumbledore's. Which one are you? Share on Facebook Further; said virus enters through the pregnant female's mouth and is passed on to the child. Funny Can you guess the harry potter characters? …I agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested in. I read Cursed I agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested in. Vote, add to, or comment on the Top Ten Characters in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne, based on a story by J. It’s a bit of a stretch to call her a major player in the universe, but she certainly manages to make the most of her few appearances. As is the case with almost every Cursed Child There are two notable Cursed Child characters who do not The thing I like best about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which opened on Broadway on Sunday night, might be its title. Rowling Overview. Rowling , Jack Thorne , John Tiffany J. A #KeepTheSecrets campaign has helped reduce spoiler spills since the London premiere, though Thorne realizes that more people are …Jul 31, 2016 · Very quickly, even while just reading the script of Cursed Child, you remember that Rowling loves these stories and characters as much as you do, and it becomes easier and more enjoyable to read Those who have seen or read Cursed Child know that other characters, new and old, are featured in the play, with attendant surprises. uk about the possibility of Based on an original new story by J. Which one are you? Share on Facebook Further; said virus enters through the pregnant female's mouth and is passed on to the child. You may not be able to get tickets to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child but the show is an incredible representation of why we When the questions got introspective about the characters, the Cursed Child is a true collaboration between Tiffany and Hoggett, and quite something to see. Thankfully, Cursed Child is a loving depiction of the rest of Potter’s world, a greatest-hits tour of beloved characters, settings and wizarding wonders, largely told through the eyes of two new Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Ticket Information. Scorpius, Malfoy, A lonely blonde kid. Now, acco Quora. Ginny Potter. I do not agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested inNow there is a whole new generation of characters. This play is intended to be seen in order on the same day (matinee and evening) or on two consecutive evenings. cursed child charactersHarry Potter and the Cursed Child is a British two-part stage play written by Jack Thorne based . Harry Potter and the Cursed Child playing now in London's West End. Rowlings and ultimate follow-up, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a delight for every member of the family. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a …Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a British two-part stage play written by Jack Thorne based on an original story by Thorne, J. The characters have remained the same, however, I am played by Isabelle Granger, twin sister of Harry Potter. The play opened on Broadway in April 2018 and won 6 Tony Awards including Best Play. The play allows one of fiction's most loved characters to enchant new Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the script of a two-part play that recently opened in London’s West End, is a faithful continuation of Rowling’s series that simultaneously breaks many of 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' is filled with Easter eggs and callbacks to J. The prospect of seeing Daniel Radcliffe return as the titular character in a Harry Potter And The Cursed Child movie has tantalized fans across the world ever since the stage play by J. Click here to buy Harry Potter and the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has finally hit the Broadway stage, and the story begins 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts. Character descriptions are included. Your Account Isn't Verified! In order to create a playlist on Sporcle, you need to verify the email address you used during registration. When Cursed Child was Apr 22, 2018 · Time is a dangerous toy in “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the enthralling two-part play about the later life of its title wizard. Harry Potter Returns in New Cursed Child Photos Close. Swing joined: 6/21/18 They all bring something to their characters, because what would be the point Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is coming, and before any official cast list is released, we wanted to take a crack at it. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Ticket Information. based theatre critic Katy Lemieux The playscript for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was originally released as a "special rehearsal edition" alongside the opening of Jack Thorne’s play in London’s West End in summer 2016. I don’t believe that the basis of the characters was ruined because the book served a message. It’s a bit of a stretch to call her a major player in the universe, but she certainly manages to make the most of her few appearances. 10 I agree to receive emails from the Harry Potter Cursed Child Store regarding offers and promotions I might be interested in. McFarland : So, Chris, this is the first new Harry Potter-centric story in Rowling’s Wizarding World in nine Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Broadway Edition Fans bringing news from the Broadway production of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" Two more Marvel female characters survived Infinity War. Many believed that was the end of the Boy Who Lived's tale, but late last month, London's West End began showing previews for the two-part play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Now there is a whole new generation of In "Cursed Child," he's there to crack dad jokes when things are getting too dark. Some fans commented Meet the characters and the actors who will play them in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre in the West End. New tickets for Cursed Child on Broadway 2019 are here New character portraits for the third West End Cursed Child cast revealed May 21, 2018 As the third wave of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child actors get ready to take on the eighth Harry Potter story, here's a sneak peek at what Top Ten Characters in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child interactive top ten list at TheTopTens®. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the most awarded production in the history of Britain's Olivier Awards, winning a record-breaking nine awards including Best New Play and Best Director. And yet, beyond the hype, the entertaining appearances by characters long familiar to fans, and the impressive stage magic that will guarantee sold-out performances filled with Potter aficionados for a long time to come, there is an even greater magic going The eagerly anticipated, two-part play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has cast its lead characters. Harry Potter. Tiffany directs. In case Book Review: 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' (2016) Potter and the Cursed Child. Theater, Drama Lyric Theatre, Midtown West Open run Recommended. Those who have seen or read Cursed Child know that other characters, new and old, are featured in the play, with attendant surprises. Their middle child, Albus Severus Potter (played by Sam Clemmett), finds himself at the center of the play's story, which was written by J. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth instalment in the Harry Potter series and based on a story written by Rowling that was The characters feel closer to the books than the movies Can you name the Cursed Child Character by First Line? character, child, cursed. Do know, however, that Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is an original work, based on a story by Ms. Go to your Sporcle Settings to finish the process. It’s an unmissable production for Harry Potter fans and it is the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. Kindle Fantasy Characters. 14 Delphi Diggory – Mackenzie Foy. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a British two-part stage play written by Jack Thorne based . Polly Chapman is one of the most interesting characters introduced in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Vote, add to, or comment on the Top Ten Characters in Harry A page for describing Characters: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Hermione and her prankster husband, Ron Weasley (Paul Thornley, delightful) are there, too, with their daughter, Rose (Susan Heyward). You can see Cursed Child now in London’s West End, on Broadway in New York, Had Cursed Child betrayed the legacy of Rowling’s novels or failed to live up to those stratospherically high expectations, the backlash would have surely been swift and brutal. Jamie Parker, currently starring in the West End show Guys and Dolls, will star as an adult Aug 17, 2016 · 'Cursed Child' lets down the strong female characters from J. Rowling demoted Ron, which plays into his worst fear: that he is less important than Harry and Hermione. Various characters in this deluxe London import, which Further; said virus enters through the pregnant female's mouth and is passed on to the child. Various characters in this deluxe London import, which Select a Date for Part One and Part Two Together. com/pop/1541152/the-harry-potter-characterSubscribe To The Harry Potter Character Who Takes A Very Dark Turn In Cursed Child UpdatesYet, these cameos are more fan service than story development, as at The Cursed Child’s heart lies the relationship between two characters: Harry and his son, Albus Severus Potter. First look at Harry Potter and The Cursed Child
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The Dead Guys
by Katie Duggan on October 1, 2017 September 30, 2017
We used to always love hanging out by the dead guys. We sat in the park near the edge of the graveyard with our Arizona iced teas and water bottles filled with whatever alcohol we could scrounge for, surrounded by all the men who got shot or blown up or stabbed by bayonets or gassed in the trenches. The guys who died in World War I and World War II had it pretty good: they had a giant flagpole and two bald eagles with beady bronze eyes and glossy black stones for the names. The ones who died in the American Revolution got an engraved stone, a plain old rock, really. I thought it was kind of sad that war only got a little rock, since it was pretty important in our nation’s history and all. But I guess it was because there were fewer of them that they didn’t quite deserve an eagle. I could never believe how many dead guys there were all over the park. I used to think that all the skeletons were buried right there, right under our feet, but I found out later from my dad that it wasn’t a real graveyard, that the stones were just memorials. The guys were actually buried in cemeteries all over, sometimes in different states. But because they were born here, they were stuck here in some form just like the rest of us, stuck as names on stupid little bronze plaques in the middle of our stupid little town.
My friend Sherry once found someone with the same last name as her on the American Revolution rock. She was so proud of it, too. She said he must have been her great-great-great-great grandfather (she just wasn’t quite sure how many greats). He crossed the Delaware with George Washington, she said; he shot lots of British bastards and helped bring freedom to the American people, dying bravely on the front line. I said that probably wasn’t true, that he most likely died of disease, or as a prisoner of war maybe. That would be cool. Or he got shot and then the wound got infected and his flesh started rotting away. Besides, if he died young, it was probably before he could even have kids, so how could he be her great-great-great-great grandfather? Sherry got a little pale when I started saying all that stuff, because she really didn’t really like talking about dead guys as much as I did. Then Sherry said he was probably a great-great-great-great uncle or something, and I should stop being so mean.
Sherry was the mean one, though. She was always ordering us around. It was because of Sherry that all the rest of this stuff happened; we never would have been there in the first place if it weren’t for her. Alexandra and I didn’t really want to do it, but Sherry insisted that we go digging around in the park the night after the big back-to-school dance was held there. We had heard from Lisa, who was a sophomore, that some kids buried bottles of vodka in the park to dig up once they got to the dance, and now we were trying to see if we could find one they forgot. It was desperate, I know, but it’s not like we had anything better to do. We had tried to sneak into the dance but we didn’t have high school IDs, so the cops at the entrance wouldn’t let us in. When we left, I saw this one boy arguing with the cops, punching and clawing at an officer. The cop’s nose started to bleed.
So there we were, heading to the park as soon as it got dark to dig through the dirt. I thought it was a pretty dumb plan—couldn’t we just steal the Grey Goose from Alexandra’s house like we usually did?—but Alexandra said her parents were starting to get suspicious and we probably shouldn’t do that anymore. Come on, Stella, she said to me, giving me that look that I always hated because it made me feel like she was calling me stupid. So I went along. I guessed even if we didn’t find anything, it would be an adventure.
I was the first to catch a glimpse of something in the dirt—a bit of glass. It was only a green shard of a beer bottle, but it gave us hope that maybe there would be something here. Alexandra found a shoelace and a used Band-Aid covered in dried blood. Sherry found a few weirdly-shaped rocks. We eventually decided we should probably spread out a little more. I went to the other end of the park, near the big pine tree that was lit up to be our town Christmas tree in a whole big ceremony each December. I thought about the last time we all went to the tree lighting together, how this one girl Samantha sang the most awful rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock” I had ever heard. The poor kid shaking the jingle bells next to her was off beat, too. It was brutal. Still, I would’ve rather been listening to that than crouched in the dirt digging with my hands. We were so dumb that the only shovels we had brought were the little plastic beach ones. There was no point to any of this.
Of course Sherry noticed the minute I stopped digging. “Hey, Stella,” she called, “come on! Keep going!” Why did I have to be digging when I didn’t care that much about unearthing some vodka? I was fine with just hanging out in Alexandra’s basement drinking Coke and eating Cheez Doodles while gossiping about the dumb kids in our class and watching a scary movie.
Alexandra had stopped digging, too. She was near the park benches, kind of hunched over. “This is where Jason and I used to spend all our time,” she said, just staring at the bench.
“Oh, shut the fuck up about Jason already,” Sherry spat back. “He had stupid hair anyway.” Sherry was getting real fed up with Alexandra. I was too. It had been months since they broke up, so I didn’t want to hear it anymore. All Alexandra cared about was boys now. I didn’t really think about boys all that much, honestly.
“Come on you guys!” I said, “we’re not gonna find anything if we just sit here. Let’s dig for a little bit longer and get out of here.”
It was getting pretty dark. There were some lights in the park, but they weren’t that bright, and at Sherry’s insistence we weren’t allowed to have flashlights. It might attract too much attention, as if three girls digging with plastic shovels and their hands wasn’t already conspicuous enough. I made a half-assed show of digging again, and was ready to give up when Sherry screamed.
Shrieked, really. It was so high pitched that it sounded kind of fake, like a sound effect in a movie. “Alexandra! Stellaaaa!” she screamed. And I started laughing. I wasn’t quite sure why—maybe because she was being annoying, so I was glad she was a little afraid; maybe because she sounded exactly like Marlon Brando in that scene in A Streetcar Named Desire that my dad always liked to reenact for me around the house.
“Come over here!” I got up and ran over to her. I had to admit I was a little curious. She wasn’t moving, but she was shaking, vibrating almost, and pretty pale. I looked down to where her shaking finger was pointing: half-buried in the dirt in front of her was a human skull.
I didn’t know what to do. I knelt down to get a closer look, guessing that she was probably messing with us; I half-expected to find a price sticker still on the bottom of it. But somehow I could tell right away that it was real. It was relatively small, and kind of yellowish. I wondered if I was supposed to feel scared, all cold and tingly, like the way they always describe in spooky stories. I wasn’t scared, though. To be honest, I thought it was kind of cool, kind of exciting. I felt myself smiling a little. Then I noticed Alexandra and Sherry were looking at me strangely.
“Huh. It’s pretty small. It must be some dead kid,” I said finally.
That was definitely the wrong thing to say. Alexandra burst into tears. “What the heck is wrong with you? Why would you say something like that?” I always thought it was funny how she still said “heck” like it was a bad word.
“Maybe it’s an animal skull?” said Sherry, her voice cracking a little.
“It’s gotta be fake, right?” Alexandra offered.
“Yeah, definitely. Or, like, this is one of the people from the war that’s buried here!”
“Looks kind of small to be some soldier, don’t you think?” I said, turning it over in my hands. “Maybe someone just stashed the skull here—abandoned some kid.” And then a thought struck me. “Or maybe someone was murdered.”
“Shut up, Stella!” screamed Alexandra.
“It’s not like a murder would actually happen here,” Sherry said. She was probably right. I felt like we were suddenly transported to some Stephen King novel, that we weren’t in our regular town anymore. The biggest scandal I could remember around here was when the Spanish teacher from the middle school got arrested for shoplifting from Whole Foods. That was kind of a big deal for us, something new for once. We always did the same thing every day: we went into the toy store and rearranged all the Rubik’s Cubes. We went to the library and looked at the medical encyclopedias or biographies of old ugly white guys in wigs. We watched the boys on their skateboards who would constantly fall off while performing tricks and pretend it didn’t hurt. Nowhere were we supposed to find a skull. But I was glad we did. I couldn’t stop staring at it, running my fingers over its surface.
“Well? What do we do?” Alexandra said finally. “Are there other bones there? And are we totally sure that this is real?”
“It looks pretty real to me,” said Sherry, and started backing away from the skull as if she was afraid what would happen if she touched it again.
“So, back to my murder theory—what do we think happened?” I asked. The skull looked like it had been there for a while, but was still so shallow in the dirt, enough for Sherry to unearth it with just a persistent plastic shovel. It was pretty weird to think about, that someone had died, and we had no idea who they were, or how the whole thing happened.
I wasn’t really scared like Sherry or Alexandra. I guess I always loved that kind of spooky stuff. When I was little, I used to read the police blotter in the newspaper, or watch all the crime reports on the evening news. But something about this still felt a little funny: it was different when all this stuff was happening right in front of you. What happened? Did a killer come after her—I decided this little skull was a her. A little girl, probably, lured into a white van or something while walking home from school, one of those clichés. Was whatever maniac did this still out there? There were still cars passing by, a few lit shops in the distance, but there was still a kind of feeling that something was going to pop out of the darkness.
“Should we get out of here?” Sherry said. It wasn’t a question. Alexandra just nodded. They were so ready to run away, and just watch a cheesy rom-com until we forgot all about this. But something inside me said I had to stop them.
“We can’t just leave.”
“Well, what are we supposed to do?”
“And how would we explain this anyway? We just randomly decided to dig in the grass at nine o’clock, for fun?”
“We could make an anonymous call. Or just leave it here—someone is sure to notice it tomorrow morning. The police can deal with it,” Alexandra said.
“We have to help this person. Find who did this to her,” I said.
“No,” Sherry said, more scared than angry. “What if they see our fingerprints on it or something, and try to blame us? Can they do that? What if they bring us in for questioning?” She was frantically smoothing her hair, her hands shaking. “My parents would kill me.”
“Ok, so let’s take it with us,” I said.
“What the fuck? We can’t take it with us. What if someone sees us with it?”
“Maybe we should just hide it somewhere else. Give her a proper burial,” I said. That was the big thing in all those ghost stories, right? The spirits roamed the earth until they were given a proper burial? But I didn’t even really know what that meant. I guess I had performed a burial ceremony once, for my goldfish. I remembered that pretty clearly. We used to joke that Tuna would live forever, and it seemed he would kill the other fish we put in the tank with him. One day, Tuna’s scales became all reddish and inflamed, so my brother Derek and I frantically dragged our mom to the pet store and bought some weird droplets to put in his tank twice daily. Tuna had been around for so long that we had almost forgotten that he could die. But he did. We decorated an old shoe box that was way too big a coffin for his body, and dug a little hole in the backyard. I guessed maybe making a real grave for the skull, perhaps saying a few kind words, was all we needed. Even if ghosts and stuff weren’t real, that seemed like a nice thing to do. Where was the rest of the skeleton, though, if there was one? It always seemed important in all those stories to have the bones together.
“Okay, first we have to find the rest of the bones,” I said.
“And do what with them? One skull is enough.” Sherry grabbed onto me and Alexandra tightly; her hands were cold. “I don’t want to touch it again or see it again.” Alexandra just kept nodding.
“But think about all she’s gone through—“
“Stop calling it a she!” Sherry screamed. “It’s creepy! We don’t know anything about it!”
I tried to say that was my point; we didn’t know anything about this skull, this person. Didn’t they want to at least try to find something out? But before I could say another word they had already started running in the direction of Alexandra’s house, running until they reached the light of the street. I hesitated for a moment, kicking some dirt over the skull, a pathetic attempt to hide it, and started running too.
We wrapped ourselves in blankets in Alexandra’s basement, and kept our mouths full of popcorn and Oreos so that we wouldn’t have to talk to each other. But I couldn’t stop picturing that little skull laying there in the dirt amid the patchy grass and half-trampled daffodils.
I didn’t even remember falling asleep. I woke up before the rest of them the next morning, curled into a little ball on the couch. Sherry and Alexandra were sprawled out on the floor. I walked home without waking them up, and went straight up to my bedroom. I locked the door behind me, and pulled the skull out of my backpack, turning it over in my hands. My heart was beating fast. Sherry and Alexandra would kill me if they found out that I stuffed it in my backpack when they weren’t looking. I still thought it was pretty cool, finding a skull and all, but at the same time I felt sad if I thought about the girl and how she got to be a skull too much. I put her on my bookshelf, next to my Mr. Met bobblehead and Gumby figurine. I figured I’d tell my mom that I bought the skull at the Museum of Natural History, or that it was a prop from Hamlet, if she ever even noticed it.
I laid on my bed, halfway under the covers, and stared at at the skull. Maybe I should give it—her—a name, and write it in chalk on the American Revolution rock, or carve it into a tree. Make her a little grave somehow. Just then, I heard someone leap up the stairs two by two, landing heavily each time. Great, Derek was home.
“Hey, Stella,” he said, pushing to open my door before realizing it was locked, “Can I ask you a quick question about girl things? I need advice on a present for Nina.” I could hear that all his weight was pressed up against the door.
My brother was a few years older than me, a junior in high school. He had a girlfriend, Nina, a skinny girl with frizzy brown hair who he got together with after she tutored him in geometry. I thought she was nice; she was the president of the Environmental Club and worked part time at the Rite Aid in town. I wasn’t sure why she was with Derek in the first place, honestly, but he was on the hockey team and apparently a lot of girls were into that.
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Once I saw her at Rite Aid the day after they had a big fight and her eye was all swollen. She gave me a warm smile and said she was just tired, really tired, and tripped while going to the bathroom the night before. But it was obvious, textbook, and I didn’t know how anyone could believe that. I didn’t know what to do, though. It was just that one time, as far as I knew—I never had any other evidence that Derek did anything to her. Yet I remembered when Derek used to beat me up, too. Once he snapped the head off my Barbie and said he would do the same to me next. Another time he stabbed me in the leg with a sharpened pencil because I tried to play with his G.I. Joe. My mom always said that all this was just because he was a boy, because he didn’t know how to deal with his feelings, but he loved me, he really did, he just had trouble showing it.
I unlocked the door and let Derek in. “How was Alexandra’s house?” he asked me, sitting down at my desk. He kept running his fingers through his stringy brown hair. So gross.
“Fine,” I said, laying back onto my bed. “What do you want?”
“I told you, a present for Nina.” He got up, pacing around a bit. “Do you think a necklace would be better, or a bracelet? Or should I take her out to dinner?”
“What’s the occasion?” I paused for a moment. “What did you do this time?”
He just looked at me. “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything. Just wanted to be nice.”
Sure, because he was really nice. “I dunno. Take her out to dinner, I guess. But let her pick the place—don’t just get burgers at Johnny’s again.”
“But I like burgers.”
“But Nina doesn’t eat meat. Remember?”
Derek had stood up, and was now wandering around my room. He started biting his nails, spitting out the ragged nail clippings onto my floor. Disgusting.
“Hey, if you’re gonna be gross, get out of here! You have a room.”
“You still haven’t helped me figure out what to give Nina.”
“I dunno. A necklace I guess is fine.” I pictured him getting her a cheap gold necklace from the Rite Aid, and then putting it in a little velvet box that he took from Mom so Nina wouldn’t know just how little he spent on it.
“Alright. Cool.” He ran his fingers through his greasy hair once more, and turned to leave before he suddenly stopped. His eyes were focused on something—I already knew what. Shit.
“Ooh, what’s that?”
“Nothing,” I said a little too quickly. “It’s, uh, for Hamlet.”
“Hamlet?”
“Ya know… Shakespeare? Ever heard of him?” Derek shot me a dirty look. He walked over to the bookcase and picked it up.
“Don’t touch it.”
“Relax,” he said, not comforting me at all. I felt like I was going to throw up. Derek couldn’t touch it. I felt like it would disintegrate in his hands if he held it.
“Shit,” he said, turning it over in his hands. “This looks real. That’s badass.” I didn’t say anything. “Hey,” he said, looking at me again with excitement, “If this is real, I wonder who this came from.”
“Uh, it was probably someone who died of something sad, like cancer or a car accident or something,” I said. “And then they donated themselves to science.”
“But what if they didn’t? What if they were, like, murdered?” It was creepy how Derek was saying almost the exact same things I had said to Sherry and Alexandra. I didn’t like that. I didn’t want to admit I thought like him. And something about the way he said all of it was too weird, too unsettling. Derek looked at me, as if savoring a thought. “I wonder what it’s like to kill a person.”
“Do you think it’s fun?”
“Like, these sick bastards probably kill people for fun, right? It’s a kind of hobby for them, I guess. A sport. There must be some kind of rush.”
“Shut up, Derek.”
“Hey, don’t you think it’s funny how they say ‘for sport’? Like I could get a varsity letter in murdering or something?” He was grinning as if it were all just some big joke, but some part of me knew it wasn’t.
“It’s not funny, Derek.”
“Come on, you used to love reading about serial killers and psychos and stuff. What happened?”
My throat was dry. “I don’t know,” I said, my voice cracking. “I used to like it. But I just don’t think I want to talk about this anymore. Give it back.”
“So, how did it happen, huh? Stabbing? Strangulation?” Derek said, not bothering to listen to me. Images of the skull buried in the dirt, of Nina’s bruises, of Derek stabbing me with a pencil started flashing across my mind. As he kept talking, I noticed I had grabbed heavy paperweight that was on my nightstand, gripping it so tightly that my knuckles were white. “Is it possible for like, the autopsy guy to tell how someone died from just a skull? Or is that only possible when the body is… like… fresh?”
“But seriously, I bet these dudes—it’s always dudes, right?— like, get off on killing people. What do you think it was like for this one?” He stepped closer to me, pushing the skull up into my face. “Do you think he was into it? Do you think she was?”
I couldn’t look at his dumb face for another second. I couldn’t keep looking at his zitty forehead, his greasy hair, his sweaty hands rifling through my room or touching the skull or touching anything. I couldn’t stop picturing the disgusting grin on his face as he kept talking about murder, blood, dismemberment, how he said it all seemed cool in a kind of fucked up way. I picked up the paperweight, closed my eyes, and swung until I heard the crack that told me I made contact with skull.
The next day, Sherry, Alexandra and I went back to the spot where we found the skull. Next to that spot was a new pile of dirt from a freshly dug hole. I made sure that one was deep. Sherry and Alexandra didn’t notice it, or if they did, they didn’t say anything.
I looked at all the monuments with all the names of those dead guys. What difference did one more name really make? We sat down on a little patch of grass and opened a bag of chips, just like always. None of us ever mentioned a skull again after that. And nobody ever suspected me.
They didn’t find the bones until years later, when they decided to add bathrooms to the park and had to dig up a whole section for the sewage system. At that point, they couldn’t tell much about the victim for sure—the skull was way too smashed up. But they could guess. After that, the police thought they should just dig up the whole park, but decided it would be bad karma or something to do that to a memorial park. They just declared the case closed. And it’s a good thing they did. Who knew what else lay underneath, just waiting to be dug up.
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Bot check: What is the name of the res. college that begins with a B?
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Native American Veteran and Canadian aboriginal veteran List. (english version)
NATIVE AMERICAN VETERAN HISTORY
North West Rebellion
MARCH 26 - MAY 12, 1885
1,107 COMMITTED
65 DEATH IN SERVICE
(The figures include the Rebels)
53 Métis served the Canadian Army in the St Albert Mounted Rifles.
After the failure of the Provisional Government he established in the Red River region in 1869-1870, Louis Riel went into exile in Montana.
In 1873, however, Riel was elected in abstentia federal deputy for the Provencher constituency in a by-election. He went underground to Ottawa and signed the register of deputies, but was immediately removed from the House of Commons on the proposal of Mackenzie Bowell, leader of the Ontario Orangemen, and returned to the United States.
He was re-elected in the 1874 general election, but this time did not attempt to occupy his seat as MP, while Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald went so far as to finance his exile to maintain peace between the provinces. Time passed, the temperaments calmed down in 1875.
He became an American citizen in 1883 and moved to the Métis community of St. Peter's, Montana, where he resumed teaching; but in 1884 an unofficial coalition of Métis, Indians and settlers from the North Saskatchewan Valley, who had grievances and claims against the Dominion Government, invited him to return to Canada to represent them. Shortly thereafter, Riel again proclaimed a provisional government, this time at Batoche, whereupon Macdonald dispatched an expeditionary force to the North-West to restore order and restore Canadian sovereignty.
By 1884, Canada's North West had 26,000 Indians and probably about 13,000 Métis. If they had risen up en bloc, the Dominion's hold on this part of the country had been hanging by a thread, but they were relatively few in going into rebellion.
The old animosity between the Plains Cree bands, who took up arms, and
other Aboriginal groups who had less unpleasant experiences in dealing with government officials and other whites made it highly unlikely that concerted action would be taken to support Riel. Especially since his opinion of the Indians was unlikely to rally them to his cause. He regarded them as primitive savages that should be made to work "as Pharaoh had made the Jews work - for the benefit of the half-breeds," we must assume.
Hayter Reed, Commissioner of Indians for the North West and known for the harshness of his judgments estimated that only 28 bands, out of 74 that included his administrative territory, had been "unfair".
Most Métis communities also remained apart from the fighting; those who supported Riel were concentrated around Batoche along the south branch of the Saskatchewan River. Meanwhile, armed Métis scout units and riders were recruited by the Dominion Government to patrol the Canada-US border, to monitor communications and transportation lines, and to prevent weapons smuggling. arrival of any reinforcement Indian or métis with the troops of Riel.
In the aftermath of the North West Rebellion, the dream of an autonomous Métis territory was abruptly dispelled and the Métis were dispersed to even larger territories (especially to the Northwest Territories). Despite the fact that most Indian bands observed strict neutrality, restrictive amendments to the Indian Act were arbitrarily and unilaterally applied against all Indians in order to dissuade them from any future challenge to the authority of the government.
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To test these claims I took my new Amway wholesale price list down to the local supermarket for a price comparison. As it turned out, Amway wholesale prices were only slightly better than supermarket retail prices, although a few Amway products, like freezer bags, were significantly cheaper. And this was giving The Business the benefit of many doubts: I factored in its claim that its detergents are more “concentrated” than other brands; I compared Amway with high-quality brand-name products, not store brands or generics; and I compared only regular prices, ignoring the fact that the supermarket, unlike Amway, always has items on sale (not to mention coupons).[8] The same results obtained at the local drugstore in comparisons of vitamins and cosmetics. All in all, the 30 percent Basic Discount was nowhere to be found.[9]
The meeting was hosted by Sherri’s friend Josh and his wife Jean[3], he a commodities broker, she a high school math teacher. Sherri and Josh had attended the same small Christian college. Before that, he had been an Indiana farm boy, and he still had the look: a beefy, boyish face with a grin that verged on gaping, mussed hair with perpetually sweaty bangs, a brown suit that flared in all the wrong places, and a general air of guilelessness. This cast in high relief his constant, ill-advised attempts to put on city airs: the firm handshake, the breezy small talk, the man-of-the-world asides.
I have heard India has banned 6 of amways product. But I am not sure which one's are they. Guys could any one please tell me if Amway's protein powder is also included in the banned list, As I am taking it as a protein supplement. I also just saw a nice review video and thought its good, but I still dont want to be consuming a banned product.. review video I am referring to is http://amwaynutrilitedaily.com/amway-nutrilite-protein-powder/amway-protein-powder/
Their first product was called Frisk, a concentrated organic cleaner developed by a scientist in Ohio. DeVos and Van Andel bought the rights to manufacture and distribute Frisk, and later changed the name to LOC (Liquid Organic Cleaner).[19] They subsequently formed the Amway Sales Corporation to procure and inventory products and to handle sales and marketing plans, and the Amway Services Corporation to handle insurance and other benefits for distributors.[20] In 1960, they purchased a 50% share in Atco Manufacturing Company in Detroit, the original manufacturers of LOC, and changed its name to Amway Manufacturing Corporation.[21] In 1964, the Amway Sales Corporation, Amway Services Corporation, and Amway Manufacturing Corporation merged to form the Amway Corporation.[22]
The houses in Carlton Estates were a magnitude above those in our old neighborhood, where all of the concrete homes followed more or less the same design. These sat on larger lots and had deeper lawns, and each was entirely unique. There were second and third stories, and sloping, multilevel roofs. There were bamboo thickets obscuring homes from the street. Stone and wood exteriors. Stained glass windows. No sidewalks. No streetlights.
Earlier in 1949, DeVos and Van Andel had formed the Ja-Ri Corporation (abbreviated from their respective first names) to import wooden goods from South American countries. After the Chicago seminar, they turned Ja-Ri into a Nutrilite distributorship instead.[17] In addition to profits on each product sold, Nutrilite offered commissions on sales made by new distributors introduced to the company by existing distributors—a system known as multi-level marketing or network marketing. By 1958, DeVos and Van Andel had built an organization of more than 5,000 distributors. However, they and some of their top distributors formed the American Way Association, or Amway, in April 1959 in response to concerns about the stability of Nutrilite and in order to represent the distributors and look for additional products to market.[18]
We drove our teal ’88 Oldsmobile Delta to the Bayou Club Estates for our requisite ‘dreambuilding’ and toured the brand-new houses: big mansions with tall, echoing ceilings and screened-in pools, shiny state-of-the-art kitchens, garages big enough for three Mercedes, a golf course in the back, vanity mirrors and crystal fixtures in every bathroom. We drove to the yacht dealer and toured the Princesses and the Prestiges, lying on cabin beds and ascending the wooden stairs to stand on pulpits, gazing toward imagined horizons.
In a breakfast speech to volunteers at Holland Christian Schools on May 12, 1975, Ed Prince warned that lazy and neglectful U.S. citizens were not doing their fair share, forcing the government to, as a Holland Sentinel article described it, “play an increasingly larger role in our daily and personal lives.” (You don’t have to listen too hard to hear an echo of Ed Prince in his daughter, Betsy. “[For welfare recipients] to sit and be handed money from the government because they think a job like that is beneath them,” the heiress sighed to the Detroit Free Press in 1992. “If I had to work on a line in a factory, I would do that before I would stand in line for a welfare check.”)
In 2001, Betsy DeVos spoke at “The Gathering,” an annual meeting of some of America’s wealthiest Christians. There, she told her fellow believers about the animating force behind her education-reform campaigning, referencing the biblical battlefield where the Israelites fought the Philistines: “It goes back to what I mentioned, the concept of really being active in the Shephelah of our culture—to impact our culture in ways that are not the traditional funding-the-Christian-organization route, but that really may have greater Kingdom gain in the long run by changing the way we approach things—in this case, the system of education in the country.”
Building network marketing teams that last is incredibly difficult in North America (specifically USA). This may sound a bit harsh, but I have not seen Amway break a single Diamond in the USA in 2 decades (it was brought to my attention recently that there was 1, but I have not verified this). The reason teams are difficult to keep together, even with the promoting of events, is because building a business entirely offline is not attractive to most people in this country. And as much as leaders may complain that the internet has ruined this industry in some circles, it doesn’t change the fact that the marketplace is an entity all of its own; it’s not up to us to determine what’s best for the marketplace, it’s our duty to find out how they want to be marketed to and then meet that desire. Building solely offline gets tiring and the vast majority of people simply don’t want to burn the rubber off the tires any more. Now don't get me wrong, building a local team can be extremely powerful (I do it in fact), but if you are not leveraging the power of the internet then your method of marketing may not be attractive to most prospects. Additionally there are a lot of companies that have embraced the internet, and since most people go to the web for information it is easy for Amway reps to get discouraged and explore other options when they find out a business can be built online. Again, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the local offline approach, but it's best when combined with the internet.
Occasionally, though, it can be useful to mention poverty in a certain context. Inspired by the personal and business philosophies of DeVos and Van Andel, Cross spent the ten years after writing Commitment to Excellence researching the two men, culminating in his 1995 self-help book Choices with Clout: How to Make Things Happen – by Making the Right Decisions Every Day of Your Life. Much of the book is compiled from interviews with the Amway founders and top-level distributors. In a passage about excellence, Van Andel outlines the proper way for an Amway distributor to rationalize the issue of poverty:
In 2004, Dateline NBC aired a report, alleging that some high-level Quixtar IBOs make most of their money from selling motivational materials rather than Quixtar products.[49] Quixtar published an official Quixtar Response website[50] where it showed '"Interviews Dateline Didn't Do"'. Quixtar also states on its response site that Dateline declined their request to link to the site.
A 1998 analysis of campaign contributions conducted by Businessweek found that Amway, along with the founding families and some top distributors, had donated at least $7 million to GOP causes in the preceding decade.[76] Political candidates who received campaign funding from Amway in 1998 included Representatives Bill Redmond (R–N.M.), Heather Wilson (R–N.M.), and Jon Christensen (R–Neb).[74]
This is not the man who brought my dad in but a man somewhere above him. He was what The Business calls a ‘phony Emerald.’ To meet the criteria for the pin level, he’d force the people in his organization to order extra product in order to grow his volume and push him across the finish line each month – not that he turned much of a profit doing so, as he had to pass it all on to his own upline. ‘Well, the Emerald pin doesn’t mean anything unless your organization is solid,’ said my dad. ‘So you got a pin – you’re not making the money.’ Eventually, my dad says, Vincent was stripped of the Emerald pin because he couldn’t maintain the sales by force alone.
if people are simply looking to become rich quickly by signing up as many people as they can, yeah, it can be a sh*t program to get into. but if people are actually looking to help each other out and create a supportive atmosphere, then its a good thing to be around. the things i’ve learned at the meetings and conferences have helped me immensely in all areas of my life because i’m way more confident now to pursue my own dreams outside of amway.
First, as with most direct sales/MLM opportunities, your initial startup cost is typically just the beginning. You’ll also have a monthly sales quota to meet, on top of monthly meetings, regional meetings, as well as conferences that you’ll be required to attend. And unfortunately, nearly all of these costs will be your responsibility. On top of this, most IBOs will use any Amway products they’re attempting to sell, which may further increase your startup costs. Between the travel, training, and product purchases, the reality is that only a select few will ultimately realize financial freedom by selling Amway products, which, by almost any measure, are fairly expensive.
Sustainability is a core principle, as well, and has been for decades. Amway controls much of the process, from where ingredients are sourced (some come from nearly 6,000 acres of Amway-owned certified organic farmlands), to where they are manufactured. In addition, 50 percent of the energy powering Amway’s world headquarters in Ada, Michigan, is wind-generated. These are best practices in the industry and they have been a part of Amway’s DNA from day one.
For those talking about Amway (alias Quixtar) not being scam or fraud should actually gather some knowledge before talking about it, does not matter if from inside or outside of the "business" as you like to call it. If you wish, please just type in Amway lawsuit, Quixtar lawsuit just in Google if you do not want to bother searching too much. Oh, bot companies have been sewed several times for what exactly? Hmhm, how strange, fraud, pyramide scheme, violating laws, and we could go on. One of their biggest payouts was around 150 million dollars. So stop lying to people and yourselves. These are not beliefs, these are facts. Rather study business, read a book, improve your skills, make your own business or be a part of a business that actually is not just about a few overfed money preachers stuffing themselves with your time. Think, learn, read.
“You also need a great trade group. They are worth more than their weight in gold, they are worth their weight in platinum. A fair number of our folks are on the ground in the markets we serve. Global trade compliance is not country-by-country anymore. More and more, the regulatory bodies are talking to each other. If an issue comes up in one nation, it comes up around the world. It is really critical that we extensively document where the components that go into our products come from.”
5. Amway has a 90day 100% money back guarantee for startup cost (which is less than $60) for anyone who tries the business and a 6 months, no questions asked refund policy on all products purchased, even if used. So you really have to be an idiot to lose money. There is no buying quota, you don’t have to front load products and you and your customers can order what you need directly from the site and get things shipped to their front door in 3-5 days. You get paid a cash percentage of all spending resulting from your personal orders as well as referrals.
The main difference was that all "Independent Business Owners" (IBO) could order directly from Amway on the Internet, rather than from their upline "direct distributor", and have products shipped directly to their home. The Amway name continued being used in the rest of the world. After virtually all Amway distributors in North America switched to Quixtar, Alticor elected to close Amway North America after 2001. In June 2007 it was announced that the Quixtar brand would be phased out over an 18- to 24-month period in favor of a unified Amway brand (Amway Global) worldwide.
Ponder..."selling overpriced product and appointing people to sell over priced product when equally good and cheap products are available in market" both difficult and unethical...why a good human being for money would like to suck people to buy something and recruit people to buy the amway product because he and his uplines will earn and businesss will grow.rest everbody is entitled to his or her opinion..
I was invited by a gentlemen from eastern Suffolk area, NY and had told him I was busy in other things. What I didn't realize was how I had went to see this same presentation in someone's house about 20 years prior to 2015. So it was May 2015 and people want to return to the American dream and here comes these floating characters straight out of a horror video game. So they smiled their way and have their game plans down to a science. There's no way I'm going to sit through a presentation that makes me feel I am chained down in my seat 24/7.
‘One of our traditions is this Hole in One Club,’ he says. ‘We don’t use this plaque anymore, but we do make a plaque with a picture of the hole and the date you made it and your name. Some people go their whole lives and never make a hole in one, so we make a big deal out of it. You have to have a witness – you come back to the clubhouse, your witness has to verify with the pro shop. Then we open a free bar tab for you for the rest of the day. All golf members are part of it, so the insurance on it is: If someone makes a hole in one, every golf member is charged one dollar. So, that creates a three-hundred-thirty-dollar credit that you will receive. If you don’t use it at the bar, you’ll get a certificate to use around the club for anything else.’
Yue, you could not have sadi it any better! The bottom line is people looking to go into business must understand that they are representing the company that have put so many years and money in building brand recognition and product sales for the distributors that are conducting the business model the proper way. If people could only realize that they have to stop blaming others for their failures and start looking in the mirror! Our company, Active Energy, has a tremendous screening process (10 hours worth) prior to even taking an application, then once a person is approved, they still must go thru 15 hours of training in order to insure success. Eventhen, we still have distributors who struggle because they lie about their intentions, lie about their abilities, lie about having the time to dedicate to the business model. The bottom line is that if you dont COMMIT to any business, you will not succeed!! its that simple! right now, we have a 100% percent success rate but we have had to re train and hold the hands of many distributors to get them straightened out. We will continue to stand by all our distributors. WE ARE AE!
Amway aims to help people become independent business owners by selling their products. Even with a small capital, anyone can start a business through the company. However, Amway is a multi-level marketing company wherein members will need to recruit others and teach them how to recruit more people in order to make more money. Of course, there is a wide array of products that can be sold to people as well.
It is rare to see poverty mentioned in Amway’s literature. When it is, it’s usually in the context of an Amway distributor having escaped it. Success is equated with wealth. With wealth is promised an enhanced way of life, one crafted of your own dreams – and Amway gives you The Plan to achieve that life. To let your attention stray from The Plan is to invite doubt and negative thinking, which can only result in failure. ‘As successful distributors tell people they are recruiting, the pursuit of excellence can be achieved only when they discipline themselves to tune in the positive dialogues and tune out the negative ones,’ says Cross. Poverty makes us feel bad. Feeling bad is negative. Negativity causes failure. It makes poverty feel contagious. So don’t think about it.
Then tragedy struck. Just as he was qualifying for Diamond, Ed had to undergo emergency surgery to remove a brain tumor. Then he had to undergo radiation therapy. Did Ed let this stop him? Of course he didn’t. He ‘showed his mettle’ and his ‘desire to get on with his life’ by prospecting three doctors and six nurses while he was in the hospital recovering from brain cancer treatment – enabling the Johnsons to go Diamond sixty-two months after joining Amway.
As its hands reached “midnight,” the Rolex dissolved into a series of video montages depicting the consumer Shangri-La that our own forthcoming Amway success would open for us. We leered as a day in the life of a typical jobholder—all alarm clocks, traffic jams, and dingy cubicles—was contrasted with that of an Amway distributor, who slept in and lounged the day away with his family. We gawked hungrily as real-life Amway millionaires strutted about sprawling estates (proudly referred to as “family compounds”) and explained that such opulence was ours for the asking. We chortled as a highway patrolman stopped an expensive sports car for speeding—only to ride away a moment later with an Amway sample kit strapped to his motorcycle. Our laughter became a roar of delight as the camera zoomed in on the sports car’s bumper sticker: “JOBLESS … AND RICH!”
‘Shorts are fine here, jeans are fine. Casual attire, golf attire, tennis,’ says Dale. ‘What we train our staff on here, constantly, is the difference between a country club and a normal restaurant. We have a membership: they’re paying X amount of dollars just to walk in the door and come have a hamburger. So, we encourage the staff to make introductions if there are two members sitting here and they don’t know each other. To get them involved, help them meet each other, help them make friends – because that’s what’s going to make them participate more and stay members longer. It’s like a church. Like trying to get your congregation active and engaged and involved.’
You make great points. I enjoy the products and the rebates the companies pays me to have people I know and meet to shop through its online portal. If this process isn’t for you or other people that’s ok with you. Everyone has choices and I choose this avenue. But to say that many of the people involved aren’t very well educated and the like is kinda insulting; those on my team have advanced degrees and about 45 percent are working professionals with terminal degrees. Just my thoughts.
Amway breaks down its commission by PV and BV. The PV is your total point value for monthly sales, while your BV is percentage cash value based on the PV. There are possible bonuses at certain PV levels. The actual cash value of your downline is predictably complicated and, like credit card points, cleverly encourage more spending on Amway’s products.
Responsive to a challenging 876,000 SF program, the design intention of the Amway Events Center was to mediate its disparate context of elevated highways, central business district and low-rise housing. The simple, planar form of precast, aluminum and glass presents a timeless civic quality. The solidity of the precast and aluminum skin is punctured in carefully considered locations with expansive areas of glass including a crystalline entry lobby facing historic Church Street, blurring the boundary of inside and outside.
Rich and Jay go into business together selling Nutrilite vitamins, an early multilevel marketing scheme for which Jay’s second cousin and his parents are already distributors. When Nutrilite goes kaput in 1948 after an FDA crackdown on their ‘excessive claims’ regarding the products’ nutritional values (about which Rich only says, ‘Until then, there had been no official government position on what type of claims could be made about dietary supplements’), he and Jay strike out on their own – the American way. They can do it! We know they can!
Worse than the girlfriend sabotage, Kyritsis burned a couple bridges with the one person on Earth most likely to put up with all this malarkey: his mother. Kyritsis got angry that she wouldn't buy any of the overpriced products and support his "success." When he started realizing everyone around him was done listening to his sales pitch, Kyritsis decided he needed to expand his market, which he did by inflicting himself on his parents' social circle, out of desperation.
Prices for signing up as an Amway IBO depend on the Business Kit you select. IBO Literature Kit costs $62. It includes a detailed guide to help you start your business, training programs, brochures and information about the company's bonus programs. The cost of IBO Product Kit is $83.99. It includes everything found in the Welcome Kit, as well as full-size products ($150 worth) for you to try. If you are not satisfied with your business opportunity, you can ask for a 100% refund within 90 days of purchase. To do this, you will need to contact customer service by calling at 800-253-6500 or writing to customer.service@amway.com.
It isn’t known what, if anything, the DeVoses said to Governor Snyder to change his mind and detonate this atomic bomb in Michigan politics. But Snyder would’ve been under no illusions about the possible consequences of inaction. “There was all kinds of scuttlebutt that if Snyder didn't sign up for right-to-work in 2012, he would’ve bought himself a primary in 2014,” says Demas of Inside Michigan Politics. “I think Snyder understands the powerful place the DeVoses have in Michigan, and that it’s often more trouble than it’s worth to tangle with them.”
The FTC did, however, find Amway "guilty of price-fixing and making exaggerated income claims";[112] the company was ordered to stop retail price fixing and allocating customers among distributors and was prohibited from misrepresenting the amount of profit, earnings or sales its distributors are likely to achieve with the business. Amway was ordered to accompany any such statements with the actual averages per distributor, pointing out that more than half of the distributors do not make any money, with the average distributor making less than $100 per month. The order was violated with a 1986 ad campaign, resulting in a $100,000 fine.[113][114]
Since opening in 2010, Amway Center has become both the gem of the NBA and a breath of fresh air for a once-dormant corner of downtown Orlando. The arena’s response to technology, premium amenities and fan comforts have contributed to its reputation as one of the finest multipurpose venues in the country. Serving as a catalyst for the ongoing revitalization of the city’s urban core, it welcomed 20 new businesses to the neighborhood just six months after its opening.
From time to time the absurdities and contradictions of The Business would surface in Josh’s conversation. In one of his many unguarded moments, he voiced a preference for Amway Scrub Rite because it ran out more quickly than the “superconcentrated” Amway cleaners, enabling him to buy it more often. Catching himself, he quickly added, “Of course, it still lasts a long time.” This puzzled me. Why was Josh so eager to shovel money at Amway? The rational thing would be to minimize his own purchases while strong-arming his downlines into buying as much as possible. But, of course, if everyone did that, the whole business would evaporate. This is Amway’s central dilemma.
‘No,’ says Dale. ‘I’ve only been playing seriously for six or seven years, and I don’t have much time, working in hospitality. But I love playing at Bayou Club. You join a private club hoping that during season when every other golf course is swamped – I mean, we own a public course nearby, and they’re running on six-minute tee times. They’re herded through there like cattle. It’s tough during season, and it’s not enjoyable golf. Because if you’re playing golf, especially if you’re kind of a quick player, when you run into someone else and then you have to stop and you have to wait for those people to play ahead of you, to get out of the way, it interrupts your rhythm playing the game.’
Clockwise, from upper left: Amway cofounders Jay Van Andel (left) and Richard DeVos (center) meet in the Oval Office with President Gerald Ford, who is holding a copy of Richard’s book, “Believe!”; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Richard DeVos during a 2009 event at the Scripps Research Institute; an aerial shot of Dick & Betsy DeVos’s primary residence in Ada, Michigan; Dick & Betsy enjoy their courtside seats at an Orlando Magic game—an NBA team owned by the DeVos family. | National Archives; AP; Getty Images
However, I did what my upline and sponsor told me to do… Make a list of friends, family, etc. Talk to them about the products, business opportunity, and invite them to a presentation/meeting or get them on a 3 way call. I got sick and tired of feeling like I was hassling my friends and family, was frustrated and didn’t want to chase them around anymore and begging people (even strangers) to buy products from me or join my business/team.
Products have flaws sometimes, please let me rephrase; people have problems with products and you will never have the perfect product that will suit everyone’s needs. You will have to deal with product issues and returns, obviously, a happy customer will give you a happy business, and it does require some skill and stress control to keep people happy.
Hence, even in a legitimate MLM business like Amway, it is important to enter early. Those entering the business at the lower levels, find it difficult to get on new distributors and also end up with a lot of unsold inventory, thus leading to losses. Amway requires its distributors to buy back unsold inventory from the new distributors that they sponsor. But that is easier said than done.
She showed me how all the dilution bottles worked (Amway liquid cleaners come in “superconcentrated” form, which makes them superinconvenient to use), and took me on a tour of eight or so catalogues, pointing out all the products I would want to make an effort to learn about. Finally, she did the best she could with the Amway paperwork, but, math teacher though she was, she got lost in its byzantine intricacies. “I’m still learning,” she explained with an embarrassed smile. “But it’s O.K., because once I get it all down, it’s all I’ll ever need to know, whether our business is a hundred dollars a month or a million!” Unfortunately, it was what I needed to know just to buy a roll of toilet paper.
It started with a guy I randomly met at Target. Now that I think about it, it's almost as if he was waiting for a prospect right outside the store. He entered the store right behind me and then he entered the aisle I went into shortly after I did. Not that it's relevant, but I was there to buy deodorant because, well, we're not apes anymore. Anyway, he pretended to be interested in the same product that I was looking at and was like "Oh you're a Degree guy too?" I was a bit weirded out at first but I was like, I don't know, he seems harmless. We started talking about success right off the bat and how he wants to live the better life/easy life (yachts and fancy cars). He came off as very ambitious. I am too, I own a small business and I'm looking to grow it, so of course, I related to him, and that's where he thought he had me. That's right, it felt like he was out to get me.
In 2013 IBOs, people who qualified to be Business Consultants in the UK earned an average annual income of GBP21,048. This falls short ofthe UK average annual income of GBP26,500. It is however substantially better than those Amway IBOs who were not business consultants, as their average income for 2013 was less than GBP1,300 .We are not surprised, Amway has not made the 2013 Income Disclosure Statement publicly available on their website. However we found a copy for you.
This is the worst company on earth DO NOT SIGNUP WITH THEM IT IS A COMPLETE SCAM. When I signed up They offered me supposed free sample value of $150 witch in the end I ended up paying double the price for. So if that’s not bad enough they also signed me up for some LTD crap without my approval or knowledge of doing so which charged me $50 a month after all said and done I tried to call them and they said if I were to cancel they would charge me $150 cancellation fee so to anybody that’s reading this avoid amway at all cost
Of the Amway distributors who testified in the case, Rich says, ‘I have nothing against someone who tries Amway and concludes the business is not for them. But I wish they would take responsibility for their own actions instead of trying to blame the business.’ Likewise naysayers and disgruntled former Amway distributors simply do not understand how business works and are at fault for their own failures because they lack faith in their ability to succeed, and thus the necessary determination.
Amway's eSpring water filter was introduced in 2000. According to Amway, it was the first system to combine a carbon block filter and ultraviolet light with electronic-monitoring technology in the filter cartridge and it became the first home system to achieve certification for ANSI/NSF Standards 42, 53, and 55.[53][54] According to Amway, eSpring was the first water treatment system to receive certification for all fifteen NSF/ANSI 401 contaminants which include pharmaceuticals, pesticides and herbicides.[53][55] The company also claims that, in addition to these 15 contaminants, eSpring is certified for more than 145 potential contaminants, including lead and mercury.[53]
Amway China launched in 1995. In 1998, after abuses of illegal pyramid schemes led to riots, the Chinese government enacted a ban on all direct selling companies, including Amway.[29] After the negotiations, some companies like Amway, Avon, and Mary Kay continued to operate through a network of retail stores promoted by an independent sales force.[30] China introduced new direct selling laws in December 2005, and in December 2006 Amway was one of the first companies to receive a license to resume direct sales. However, the law forbids teachers, doctors, and civil servants from becoming direct sales agents for the company and, unlike in the United States, salespeople in China are ineligible to receive commissions from sales made by the distributors they recruit.
I think of my family’s time in Amway as achievement tourism. We left reality for a moment and believed the impossible was possible. My dad still wonders if there’s more he could have done, if there’s a way for him to have succeeded in Amway – admitting in the next breath that there isn’t. My parents tried everything. At each turn, the people they thought were supposed to be helping them – their upline, yes, but really the overall structure of the Amway Corporation itself – actually stood in their way. They built dreams and worked to achieve them, but the only people who benefited from their work were the people already on top.
That fucking guy tricked me to go to their zombie meeting, I got there and it looked like a little family meeting, I was lost as I kept asking the guy what’s the business is about and what am I going to do, what’s the description but he kept avoiding my questions. He gave me his website the day prior but I could not see what it was about. He kept saying that he was going to help me to have financial freedom as they have a strong network where they deal with professionals who work with Bestbuy, lululemon, etc. I can’t believe I actually went there, please slap me, I deserve it! That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever done, I spent two hours of my fucking time to go listen to blood suckers. I feel like I deserve a good slap by allowing myself to go there. I’m so fucking pissed off.
Like my friend, I was struck by the fairy tale numerology that invested even tennis shoes with a mythic charge. In Amway, extravagant desire is the motive force: To desire what your upline has, even those things that nobody could realistically hope for, is what keeps the scheme in motion.[11] Josh and Jean’s wish list, as well as the many other “visualization” exercises involved in dreambuilding, was simply part of their training to ever more expansively want. But to what end? What desire had propelled them into Amway in the first place?
You WILL be cornered and they WILL try to convince you. Their biggest obstacle is people who have heard a bit about it and don't want to join and their biggest desire is that you join under them. They spend a lot of time practicing this and anyone remotely successful at it will be very difficult to get away from. They'll have all their arguments sorted out, answers to any reason you give, defences to your accusations and will try to flip it around and put you on the defensive, making you have to explain in detail why you won't join shooting each reason down as you try. But it's all BS.
Listen to Rosemarie and Otto Steiner-Lang, who joined Amway in the hope of funding their own construction company and now run their Amway business full-time: ‘We have found in Amway the independence we were looking for. This business is a doable and affordable solution for the problems in the labor market today. Amway, which represents free enterprise perfectly, postulates and promotes the initiative of the individual, reducing the burden on the public social system.’
Some friends of mine are into Amway & are showing it to me. I am skeptical, but as I look into it things are looking good. There's some points in one of the first books you read that appear to contradict what the uppers are saying, but that's where that "Ask Questions" part comes in. Anyone can make a company look bad, either by accident or for lolz. Those that only buy their own product aren't necessarily doing it wrong, but they won't make as much as thewy would 'hiring' a 'team'. Essentially the distributor gets points for product sold, then paid on total point value (PV). Anyone can surpass their mentors, so not shaped like a pyramid :)
Scott confidently reprised decades’ worth of conservative alarmism, invoking inflation and national debt and other flat-earth bugbears in a doomsday routine as charmingly archaic as it was fatuous. An accurate narrative of the last few decades—growing productivity, GDP, and per-capita income, accompanied by a massive upward redistribution of wealth—would hardly have packed the millennial portent Scott was looking for. The Second Wave, like Communism, like all the works of man, was destined to decay and collapse, making way for the coming entrepreneurial kingdom—which, for those who lacked faith or zeal, would bring a day of reckoning. Were we ready? To prove he “wasn’t making this crazy stuff up,” he littered the floor with copies of Fortune, Money, and Forbes, citing the relevant disaster stories. I felt like I was back at ENTERPRISE 2020.
If Engler thought he had anointed a rubber stamp, he quickly learned otherwise. In January 1997, DeVos cleared house, unilaterally firing all of the party’s top directors and pausing all contracts with vendors, blaming them for the party’s losses months earlier. “Betsy regarded the governor’s input as good advice, not an order,” Greg McNeilly, a close associate of Betsy DeVos, told an Engler biographer years later. “That’s when the problems started.”
[11]At the top, the multi-multi’s seem to attain a Zen of conspicuous consumption. Brad Duncan, brother of the great Double Diamond Greg Duncan, described seeing a dusty Rolls Royce among the many cars in the garage of his upline mentor, Ron Puryear; when he asked what he paid for it, Ron answered, “I don’t know. Whatever the sticker price was.” Brad took him to task for this, until Ron lectured: “That dealership is somebody’s livelihood—somebody with a family. I’m not so hard up that I need to haggle the food out of a child’s mouth.” Brad was chastened, realizing that only small minds pay attention to sticker prices.
We had a fireplace, a poolside grill, and a river-rock deck with closing screens. We had an island counter. We had walls covered with mirrors. To get to my parents’ master bathroom, I passed through a dressing area connected to a walk-in closet. The bedroom next to mine was expressly for guests; the one at the end of the hall became a study. One of two living rooms seemed intended only for show, and the planter inside the front door housed pots of plants – silk, they never wilted. The bathroom off the family room had an outside door and a shower for people coming in from the pool. We bought new furniture, new rugs, new artwork. I had never felt more proud.
THIS IS ALL CRAP, EVERYTHING THIS GUY/GIRL IS SAYING IS ALL FAKE ESPECIALLY BECAUSE I AM A CROWN IN THE BUSINESS AND BECAUSE HE IS SAYING THAT IT IS NOT A PYRAMID SCHEME. ESPECIALLY, BECAUSE I HAVE AN UPLINE THAT IS IN THE LEVEL EMERALD AND I AM IN CROWN, EVEN THOUGH HE INVITED ME I PASSED HIM, SO THIS IS ALL CRAP IF ANYONE ONE IS INTERESTED IN THIS WONDERFUL OPERTUNITY CONTACT ME.
Amway is probably the most widely used of the "sell our products out of the comfort of your own home and be your own boss!" services, the ones that appeal to the unemployed with promises they'll get rich quick (and also encourages them to relentlessly recruit new members). And on the surface it looks fairly plausible, especially when you look at how much money Amway rakes in every year: in 2014 Amway sold $10.8 billion worth of products, so why shouldn't you try to break off a piece of that action?
Amwayers are like vampires: To join them, you must invite them into your home. Unpacking the Starter Kit was mainly Jean’s show, she being the most balanced of my upline trio, the calmest and least prone to outbursts of enthusiasm. (Josh limited himself to preparing my contract and casting a longing gaze every time my roommate ventured out of his room.) Jean was also the only one who had actually read the Amway Business Manual (included in the Kit). Nonetheless, she deferred to Josh: He did the “more important” work of “building” The Business, while she performed the womanly tasks of customer service.
The Club Level at the Amway Center -- between the Terrace and the Promenade -- splits into several types of premium seating. There are suites, including the Founders Suite which can accommodate 16 and the larger Presidents Suite, each providing a plush and roomy space from which to enjoy the game. Loge seats are among the most popular though, combining great additions like all-inclusive food and drink with a close-to-the-action feel.
And these inconveniences pale beside the emotional shock of entering Josh and Jean’s apartment. Not big to begin with, its thorough occupation by Amway Corporation made it positively claustrophobic. The living room was dominated by huge metal cabinets displaying Amway cleaning and food products; shelves along the wall were devoted to toiletries; boxes of cereal lined the top of the couch. Next to the window was an eraser board listing upcoming World Wide Dreambuilders meetings; free wall space and the outside of cabinets were decorated with motivational slogans (“I AM A WINNER!”) drawn in crayon.
Such a model can be represented as a binary tree with each node representing a person and the 2 children nodes under it representing the referred friends. It is also called “Pyramid scheme”. As you would have realized or the organizers might have suggested, in order to just recover the money that you have spent for membership, you need to have atleast 3-4 levels under you and only the levels beyond that will start fetching you some passive income as and when new members join. Just recollect the formula for number of nodes at the “n”th level of a binary tree. It is 2^n (2 power n). We shall use this formula in the following analysis.
‘It’s very dark,’ I observe. We’ve begun in the middle: a room with wood paneling, shellacked stone floors and walls, and a recessed circular area for entertaining, carpeted in emerald. Behind me, a pool table occupies most of a Turkish rug annexing the area beneath the open-style second-floor balcony. The Realtor stands near a grand piano and a stone planter housing ferns.
The recently published book, No One Would Listen, by whistle blower, Harry Markopolos, dramatically describes how SEC regulators ignored his alerts and allowed the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme to grow to enormous proportions. Their failure to act caused harm to thousands more people, despite his written and detailed warnings, which he brought to the agency five separate times over an eight-year period of investigating the scam. Additionally, the news media such as the Wall Street Journal and Forbes magazine also failed to respond to his evidence which he offered them. Madoff was apparetnly treated as “too big to expose.”
Amway is unethical way of making money. Their representative lure you to this smartly designed plan. Amway’s representatives misguide and misinform like any other business or a product’s sale representatives. which is attractive to listen for the first time with the ‘Entrepreneur” motto. But it is another way of making money leaving you frustrated in the end. I advise every one not to join this unethical product promotion. I appreciate Jeremy’s article for giving information to people.
I am an IBO for the second time in my life. I tried when I was 20 and in the Air Force. Gonna make it rich in a year. Pffft. Naw. Can you get rich in Amway? Absolutely? Will you? Probably not. Same as any business you really have to work hard and put in a lot of time and capital in the beginning with little to no return. But you stick with it, don't quit before the miracle happens. This time around, I just want to work the business, maybe grow it a little, and make enough money to maybe get my wife home to raise our daughter and home school her full time. So, hey, if I can get it to $3000 a month....great. If not.....great. I love the products anyway and if some people want to come with me and maybe make a few bucks or just enjoy some good products, great. I'm happy with it and other people's opinions of me or my Amway business are none of my business. No need to be defensive....Amway's reputation speaks for itself.
From that point forward it became more demanding and more exhausting. Our lives had been taken away. There were Thursday meetings, Saturday events, Sunday night meetings, conferences, etc. We just lost control of it all. And on top of everything else, we were losing money, not gaining money. Finally, in mid-December, I told our mentors we couldn't do it any longer. Their first response was to blame my father who I had mentioned was skeptical (like any normal person would be). They immediately assumed he had forced us to quit when it was honestly our own decision. My dad was supportive. The next day we were cut out of their delusional lives completely. We were de-friended and blocked on social media and never to speak a word to us again.
The elevated I-4 freeway bordering the east side of the site posed a distinct challenge, threatening to disconnect the arena both physically and psychologically from the downtown core. In response, the corner of the arena is anchored by a diaphanous feature tower bathed in color changing LED lighting that reveals the color and pageantry of sporting and entertainment activities within while marking the facility within the flat topography of downtown Orlando. This tower is both architectural and occupied – housing the Orlando Magic Team Store, hospitality space, Gentleman Jack Terrace and rooftop Sky Bar. The latter two are exterior spaces that take full advantage of the warm Orlando climate, commanding views to the plaza below and the greater community beyond. Further city connection is achieved via a 40’ × 60’ LED video feature that addresses downtown from an elevated façade position above the highway.
California-based art curator Sports and the Arts assembled the Amway Center Art Collection. The collection includes more than 340 works of art, including about 200 museum-quality photographs. Fourteen of the 21 artists housed in the collection represent Central Florida. The Amway Center Art Collection includes over 140 pieces of fine art paintings and mixed media originals, over 200 photographs, and graphic wall treatments highlighting both the Orlando Magic and the spirit of Orlando and Central Florida.
Inspite of it, several new schemes have again mushroomed and they try to target freshers from the software industry by tempting them to spend Rs 5-10K, which is a relatively lesser amount compared to GoldQuest (Rs 35K). So, the next time a friend comes to you and says “Dude, I am working on a part time business for additional income” and talks about such Multi Level Marketing schemes, explain these concepts to him on a piece of paper and advise him also to stay away from such schemes. Losing money is bad, losing friendship is worse and being part of a fraudulent system is the worst..
With its affiliates around the world, Amway Global is a leader in the $80 billion global direct-selling industry. Established in 1959 as a seller of household cleaners, the company expanded and diversified over the years and today is a leader in Health and Beauty through its NUTRILITE brand of nutritional supplements and the ARTISTRY brand of skin care and cosmetics.
“Across the United States, the spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and thriving, from coast to coast,” said Dr. David B. Audretsch, professor and director of the Institute for Development Strategies at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs. “This year’s AGER confirms Americans continue to view entrepreneurship in a positive light and are open to the idea of starting their own business. Compared to the global average, attitudes towards entrepreneurship in America are sustaining momentum from previous years and are on track to experience continued growth.”
grbj.com provides the same trusted and objective business reporting that the Business Journal is known for -- plus real-time original content, timely enewsletters/alerts, exclusive blogs and more. Business Journal subscribers receive the weekly print edition, including bonus publications like the annual Book of Lists, and also complete access to all content on grbj.com.
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An Intersection of Saint Louis Lives, Times and Places
Lucas and Garrison is an eclectic collection of historical research, legacy text, antique photographs and illustrations, video vignettes and biographical sketches intersecting the history of Saint Louis in the late 19th Century. The project began as the historical artifacts of Central Presbyterian Church, which was started in Saint Louis in 1844, were assembled, digitized and archived. The work eventually morphed into a more extensive research study to help better understand the motivation of late 19th Century leaders to intentionally improve the quality of life in Saint Louis.
Lucas and Garrison is about digging deep and unearthing some inspirational city stories that might teach us more about the people and places of an exciting era in an exciting city long past. We might even learn some lessons about doing a better job as citizens of Saint Louis today.
“The City of St. Louis” Published by Currier and Ives in Chicago
The Inspiration for Lucas and Garrison – 1875
Every life has a story to tell. Can we learn from the stories of Saint Louis’ past? We think the lives, times and places of an earlier era of growth and progress in Saint Louis can be instructive and inspirational for us today. Many Saint Louisans over time have chosen to devote themselves to doing what is right for their community and it has made a significant difference. History can be a great teacher and now is a great time to learn. Lucas and Garrison 1875 is about discovering and telling some of these Saint Louis stories.
The Time
This journal will tell the tales that are discovered as we consider lives that were lived during Saint Louis’ golden era, 1870-1890. Today internet research provides an overwhelming treasure trove of historical information through old directories, pamphlets and books written about earlier times. Most notably for our research, 1875 was the year that Camille N. Dry created and Richard J. Compton published an exhaustive set of 110 highly defined maps and commentary titled, “1875 Pictorial St. Louis – Metropolis of the Mississippi Valley. ”
This era in Saint Louis’ life was considered the golden age of our history – rich with interesting people and places. The Compton and Dry Map Book and the year 1875 is the epicenter of our research. The Missouri History Museum, one of the finest museums in the country, has also done a wonderful job of preserving St. Louis’ history and making is available for research.
In 1875 Saint Louis was one of the premier cities in the United States and even the world. The stories from the entire city are far too many to be addressed in full. Lucas and Garrison sets some geographical parameters for our research. Central Presbyterian Church, now located at Hanley and Davis in Clayton, Missouri was established in the City of Saint Louis in 1844. Its first location was at the corner of 6th and St. Charles Streets. As the church grew, the congregation then moved to the corner of 8th and Locust Streets in 1848.
During the building of the great Eads Bridge over the Mississippi River in the early 1870s, railroad tunnels were constructed to connect the bridge to the rail terminals farther south and west in the city. The foundation of the 8th and Locust church was so badly shaken by the tunnel excavation and blasting that the building was eventually condemned requiring an another unforeseen move. The church leaders bought property to move farther west and architect Charles Ramsey designed a beautiful new building to be built at the northeast corner of Lucas and Garrison. The new church, even though not yet completed, was included on Plate 71 of the Compton and Dry maps in 1875. This is the target area of our research – the neighborhood of Lucas and Garrison.
Compton and Dry map key for the 110 map plates. Our focus is on Plate 71.
Each of the 110 Dry and Compton directory maps or plates includes a list of some of the people who resided in that specified area of the city. Residences and businesses referenced on the maps are numbered so we know exactly where these people lived in 1875. Old city directories pinpoint their addresses and their businesses even more accurately. Many of the people living in close proximity to the intersection of Lucas and Garrison and listed on Plate 71 were prominent leaders who lived fascinating and productive lives.
They were Saint Louis luminaries whose stories have mostly been lost or forgotten over time. Many of these people were very successful, and they gave back to the city they loved. The lives of these Saint Louisans will be the basis of the profiles that we will assemble. Some of the profiles will be described on web pages including gathered resources and some will be represented through video vignettes or historical storylines.
Rabbit Trails, Back Stories and Coincidence
As we’ve stated, the initial research targets will be the 104 names and places listed on Plate 71. Many of the residents living around Lucas and Garrison in 1875 were remarkable people who lived intriguing and eventful lives and made a difference in their community. Many of those lives still impact and benefit the City of Saint Louis today.
Their lives mattered. The common denominator in many of these stories is that these people were leaders of great character. Often their lives and stories also lead us down rabbit trails, back stories and coincidences of Saint Louis history. Lucas and Garrison is also about wandering down these historical rabbit trails to see what can be discovered about Saint Louis places and institutions. This is the thrill of the journey – unchartered, obsessive research simply for the sake of seeing where it will take us!
When the “Following a Rabbit Trail” marker appears on a profile page, simply click on it to follow down that trail for more information.
Possibly Interesting, But So What?
The study and contemplation of history should not just entertain and increase our base of knowledge. We should also gain insight and wisdom. We should learn from our previous triumphs and failures as a people. Wisdom helps us to determine what truly matters in life, how to best actualize our highest calling and live valuable, productive, mutually beneficial lives. As wisdom is intentionally applied, not only individual lives but communities at large can and should be changed for the better. We can’t alter our past, but shouldn’t studying and understanding the lessons of previous generations provide us with the wisdom to sculpt a better future?
After many centuries of cultural evolution, mankind should be doing a lot better. The pursuit and application of wisdom should be an instructive guide as to how we should live. The past should influence our future. It would take all of us cooperating to use our knowledge, gifts, energy and resources to turn things around. It is a daunting responsibility, but don’t we owe it to future generations to be and do better?
We pray Lucas and Garrison 1875 can be both an intriguing historical journey and an inspiration to positively impact our community.
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Original Voice Talent Returns for Super Bomberman R Cameos
After a successful launch on the Nintendo Switch, Super Bomberman R is headed to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on June 12, 2018. Each new version of the game will have its own new, exclusive character. But there’s more to the story now. Konami has announced the original voice actors for Master Chief, Ratchet, and Clank will return to their roles for Super Bomberman R. Konami also announce Max, Bomberman’s rival, will be added to the Nintendo Switch version.
Both James Arnold Taylor and David Kaye will be returning to their longtime roles as Ratchet and Clank for the PlayStation 4's new Ratchet & Clank Bomber character. Taylor was not the original Ratchet, but has played the role since 2013’s Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando. Kaye has performed as Clank since the beginning of the series.
Master Chief Bomber is appearing on the Xbox One, and Steve Downes will be reprising his renowned role. Downes has played Master Chief since the original Halo: Combat Evolved, and has stayed with the role for every incarnation of the character, including in the Halo: The Fall of Reach series.
[E3 2018] WWE's Xavier Woods Joins Super Bomberman R
Super Bomberman R Out Today on the PS4 and PC
Super Bomberman R Releasing on PS4, Xbox One, and PC
Super Bomberman R Gets Massive Update to Version 2.0
Super Bomberman R Updates with New Characters and Mode
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HACC Features New Performance, Celebrates Fall 2016 Graduates
Current News from HACC, Jan. 27, 2017
HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, shares recent news and events with the community, including:
Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars Performance, Documentary Featured at Live at Rose Lehrman
More Than 825 Students Graduate from HACC in Fall 2016
HARRISBURG, Pa. – The Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars will take the stage for a dynamic concert at Live at Rose Lehrman on Feb. 16, 2017, at 7:30 p.m. in the Rose Lehrman Arts Center on the Harrisburg Campus of HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College.
The performance will feature the musical talents of Ruben Karoma and his wife Grace, guitarist Francis John Langba, bassist Idrissa Bangura and other musicians from the Kalia refugee camp. It includes reggae and West African tones and social commentary to describe their experiences during the Sierra Leone Civil War.
The group met in 1997 during the Sierra Leone Civil War and collaborated to create uplifting songs of hope, faith and joy to combat the struggles of war. When the war ended in 2002, the musicians returned to Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, where they met other returning musicians who joined them, forming Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars.
Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars have appeared in shows across the world, including New York’s Central Park SummerStage, Japan’s Fuji Rock Festival and the Oprah Winfrey Show. The group also opened for Aerosmith at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, and participated in the U2 tribute album “In the Name of Love: Africa Celebrates U2.”
Attend a free documentary on Feb. 13 at 7 p.m. in the Rose Lehrman Arts Center to understand more about this group. Attendees will also see rare footage of the group’s performances at fellow refugee camps, the creation of musical tracks during and after the Sierra Leone Civil War and their message – “Music can heal the trauma of man. Don’t lose hope. Music can cure you.”
Concert tickets are $20 and $25. To purchase tickets, please visit www.LiveatRoseLehrman.org. For more information, please call 717-231-ROSE (7673).
The Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars performance is funded through the Mid Atlantic Tours program of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Additional sponsors include the HACC Foundation, HACC’s Student Government Association and The Rose Lehrman Arts Fund of The Foundation for Enhancing Communities, abc27.com and WITF. Grants and community support include The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
HARRISBURG, Pa. – More than 825 students at HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, completed their associate degrees, certificates or diplomas during the fall 2016 term. The graduates were celebrated during HACC’s Commencement ceremony, held Dec. 13, 2016, at the Giant Center in Hershey.
Prior to the ceremony, thank-you video messages were shared with friends and family as a way for graduates to show their appreciation.
For a listing of graduates, please visit our online newsroom. Photos of graduates and the ceremony are available online.
About HACC
HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, offers more than 120 career and transfer associate degree, certificate and diploma programs to approximately 19,000 students. Also, the College serves students at its Gettysburg, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Lebanon and York campuses; through virtual learning; and via workforce development and continuing education training. For more information on how HACC is uniquely YOURS, visit hacc.edu. Also, follow us on Twitter (@HACC_info), like us on Facebook (Facebook.com/HACC64) and use #HACCNews.
For further information, please contact newsroom@hacc.edu
Other articles in College wide:
HACC and PCA&D Renew and Update Articulation Agreement
NEWS ADVISORY: HACC and Northampton Community College Develop Transfer Opportunity for Healthcare Students
41 Cadets Graduate from Police Academy, #HACCbrew Coming to York
HACC Announces Spring 2019 Dean’s List
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1935 Federal Improvement Aerial Survey
Erie Canal Museum
Transportation, Business & Industry
New York (State). Department Of Public Works;
Locks (Hydraulic Engineering)
The last great rebuilding of the Erie Canal was launched in the midst of the Great Depression with backing from the Federal government. Known as the 1935 Improvement, it rebuilt locks, bridges and channel between Waterford and Oswego. While work was immediately undertaken, the Improvement was not completed until the early 1960s. It changed much of the infrastructure of the system, creating greater navigable depth and higher clearances. As part of the planning for the Improvement, an aerial survey of the Barge Canal was conducted between those two points. At the time, these orthorectified stereo images represented state-of-the-art documentation. Scales between prints were the same. The overlapping imagery allowed for stereo. They are the earliest systematic aerial imagery of the Barge Canal. While some sections of the state were so covered as early as 1927 (Buffalo), the first state-wide survey was not accomplished until 1936/38. The 1935 survey of the Barge Canal is centered on the channel and presents unmatched clarity and resolution for the time. As a work of the state, the imagery is in the public domain.
This set of photographs, created in 1935, has likely remained at the Syracuse Weighlock Building (now the Erie Canal Museum) since it was abandoned by the State in the late 1950s. The context and quality of the prints make these materials a true "Rosetta Stone" in canal research. Much of the now-gone Enlarged Erie Canal was still extant and is clearly visible. Even portions of the Clinton's Ditch and the 1793 Western Inland Lock Navigation Co. canal can be seen. So much of this historic system was lost to Thruway construction and urban growth just a few years later. Vegetation has reclaimed much over the decades, obscuring the historic channels and structures from modern views. The survey translates the locations of these 19th-century structures to a 20th-century context. This coverage includes all of the Erie Barge Canal from Waterford to Three Rivers, and all of the Oswego Canal.
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Can Precision Medicine Advance STEM Diversity Featured
Written by Keith Moore
Keith Moore
www.opengovtv.com
A revolution in medicine is under way, and everyone is supposed to be able to benefit - as patients and as taxpayers. Precision medicine uses genomics, medical devices, computer science and other fields to treat individual patients, instead of broad populations, with the safest and most effective therapies for their specific conditions. This offers hope of better treatments and cures for the very young (birth defects), the very old (neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's) and everyone who is at risk for cancer. California is the global center of information technology, social media tools and mobile applications, and it also boasts top-tier medical research centers. How can the Golden State build on those assets and expand its role as a powerhouse of precision medicine innovation? How can we corral collaborative investments by industry, academic research institutions and government to accelerate progress against disease? What will the benefits for California's economy be? In 2015, President Obama announced that he’s launching the Precision Medicine Initiative and a “bold new research effort to revolutionize how we improve health and treat disease. The advances made in Precision Medicine are starting to prove the difference between traditional medical treatments have been designed for the "average patient" OGTV thanks the Milkin Institute for making available this video published on April 20, 2014.
Open Science-A New Discovery
In light of the advances made in Precision Medicine OGTV is now posied to asks the questions America will want to know. Until now, most medical treatments have been designed for the “average patient.” As a result of this “one-size-fits-all” approach, treatments can be very successful for some patients but not for others. Precision Medicine, on the other hand, is an innovative approach that takes into account individual differences in people’s genes, environments, and lifestyles. It gives medical professionals the resources they need to target the specific treatments of the illnesses we encounter, further develops our scientific and medical research, and keeps our families healthier.
Advances in Precision Medicine have already led to powerful new discoveries and several new treatments that are tailored to specific characteristics, such as a person’s genetic makeup, or the genetic profile of an individual’s tumor. This is helping transform the way we can treat diseases such as cancer: Patients with breast, lung, and colorectal cancers, as well as melanomas and leukemias, for instance, routinely undergo molecular testing as part of patient care, enabling physicians to select treatments that improve chances of survival and reduce exposure to adverse effects.
OGTV, www.opengovtv.com is excited to launch our new Open Science Channel . We will rely on a community of scientist with an interest in focusing on diversity and the impact of this revolution in genomic science. “Think of the Open Science channel as the voice of Science in Diversity”. “And our voice is as loud as the voices that we hear from you” says Keith Moore, OGTV Founder. We already know that minority communities lag far behind in becoming medical practitioners and science researchers. OGTV and a community of advocates are fighting hard to change that reality. In the meantime, we remain committed to A Team Approach to ensuring that technology and science advancements do not pass over a national priority to increase the number of minority science professionals, innovators and entrepreneurs who sell products and services, and develop technologies and solutions for our worlds healthcare needs. This would then fail to be science if we failed in our goals to bring diversity into science.
Precision medicine brought one step closer to the clinic
A revolutionary, high-throughput, robotic platform has been designed that automates and standardizes the process of transforming patient samples into stem cells. This unique platform for the first time gives researchers the scale to look at diverse populations to better understand the underlying causes of disease and create new individually tailored treatments, enabling precision medicine in patient care. This story is reprinted from materials provided by New York STEM Cell Foundation.
A paper published in Nature Methods demonstrates how this novel, highly efficient technology automates the entire process of generating patient-specific stem cells while reducing variability resulting from manual manipulations. The system takes patient samples and turns them into cells that have the ability to become any other cell type in the body, induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The Array can then turn these iPS cells into adult cell types in the body such as heart cells, neurons, and liver cells. NYSCF scientists built the Array to be highly modular enabling customized cell production to best approach unaddressed research questions.
"Our goal is to understand and treat diseases. This is not an artisanal pursuit. Researchers need to look at genetically diverse populations at scale, which means creating large numbers of standardized, human pluripotent stem cells. The NYSCF Global Stem Cell Array's massive parallel processing capabilities make this research possible," said NYSCF Research Institute CEO and Founder Susan L. Solomon, an author of the paper.
The Array will allow researchers to anticipate how people from genetically diverse backgrounds respond to new drugs -- conducting 'clinical trials in a dish.' This pioneering technology will allow researchers to identify potential drug metabolism and toxicity issues in human cells, rather than in animals, in advance of bringing drugs to patients. Ms. Solomon explained, "This has the potential to save billions of dollars in drug development and limit the dangers to people participating in those clinical trials; dramatically reducing the amount of time currently spent on human clinical trials."
"The capacity to test drugs on thousands of patients in a dish will change how we cure disease. We will be more informed about how drug candidates will behave in patients before the clinical trial phase accelerating the discovery process. This technology will enable us to bring precision medicine treatments and personalized pharmaceuticals to more patients," noted Dr. Thomas Singer, Senior Vice President, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Pharmaceuticals Division.
The industry norm used to turn adult cells into iPS cells is time consuming, laborious, and produces variable results. Currently, scientists take skin cells and, by hand, expose them to a mixture of molecules that make them look and act like embryonic stem cells. This handmade process of creating iPS cells introduces human error and variability between resulting cell lines, in addition to requiring months of hands-on time and attention. This automated, robotic platform graduates stem cell production from a classical, hands-on approach to twenty-first century high-throughput standards. The Array fuses the power of patient-specific research made possible by iPS cells with the scale to look at macroscopic, population patterns in a lab.
"This is a great example of how non-profit organizations can work together to make important advances in technology. The ability to achieve scale and reproducibility vastly increases the utility of stem cells for therapeutics," said Dr. Steven Hyman, Director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, in regard to the collaboration between NYSCF and the Broad Institute to demonstrate the reduced variance of stem cell lines made with NYSCF automated technology.
The over 600 skin samples used in this particular study represent patients with undiagnosed diseases, mental health conditions, neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, individuals with other diseases, and those with no known diseases. The creation of specific cell types from these patients allows scientists to, for the first time, merge data from the human genome with global genetically diverse populations supplying insights as to how unlucky genetics and environmental factors might promote disease onset. Moreover, the sheer quantity of cells to study generated by the Array provides researchers the power to draw broader conclusions and work with statistically significant data.
"The cell lines generated by The New York Stem Cell Foundation using the NYSCF Array are an important tool to help us better understand and develop new treatments to prevent or slow the progression of Parkinson's disease, especially in combination with emerging comprehensive biomarker data," said Dr. Todd Sherer, Chief Executive Officer of The Michael J. Fox Foundation, which was not involved in the Array development, commenting on the NYSCF innovation. "The ability to quickly test hypotheses in human cells on a large scale will be of great benefit to our research pursuit."
After patients' cells are reprogrammed to iPS cells, the Array selects cells with similar growth characteristics to further study. The research demonstrates that, when done manually, this step in generating patient-specific stem cells introduces significant variation between cell lines. This variation derived from techniques can hide important genetic differences between patients. The Array reduces the noise between resulting pluripotent cell lines allowing genetic-based differences to be detectable,and scientists to move forward to draw real and applicable solutions from their research. Additionally, the Array increases the efficiency of turning adult cells into iPS cells.
"For many common diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer's, using stem cell models to understand these diseases has relied on a few rare genetic mutations affecting only a small percentage of all sufferers. However, it has been difficult to study the more common genetic risk factors that affect the majority of patients with these diseases using stem cell models. Our automated system will enable large-scale stem cell experiments needed to understand how these risk factors directly contribute to disease," Dr. Scott Noggle, NYSCF Vice President of Stem Cell Research and senior author of the paper, explained.
The Array provides the necessary power to understand development and disease in populations, test treatments, and conduct clinical trials in a dish. This system also makes the generation of stem cell lines for conducting future cell replacement therapies possible. The NYSCF Global Stem Cell ArrayTM pushes biological research into the future, meeting the demands required to perform population-wide studies while enhancing experimental and statistical power.
OGTV welcomes videos, blogs and information that will provide the team with information that enables us to provide you with a well-rounded assessment of the facts, and what we see as the future of science diversity in America. To submit your story, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call us to discuss an interview or a film production interest at 202-469-3423. We thank The Milkin Institute and The STEM Cell Foundation for their contribution to this OGTV Feature story.
Developed by Brand Echo Media Solutions. All rights reserved.
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All content on this website ("the Site") is fictitious, as described below, except what appears on the disclaimer, terms of service, privacy policy, and copyright policy pages.
The Site is designed as if it existed within a fictional universe created by author R.L. Akers for the novel Prometheus Rebound. It is intended for entertainment purposes only, as a "transmedia" tie-in, in order to enhance the storytelling experience.
The Orbital Defense Corps
The organization referred to as "the Orbital Defense Corps" on the Site does not exist as described on the Site (i.e. it does not exist as an official branch of the United States military as of this writing). However, the real-world legal entity known as the Orbital Defense Corps, LLC ("the ODC") does exist, and it is this entity that owns the copyright and all other applicable rights to Prometheus Rebound and Prometheus Revealed, along with the copyright to all original content on the Site (see the copyright policy for more information).
Fictitious References
Names, characters, institutions, establishments, places, events, and incidents described on the Site are the product of author R.L. Akers’ imagination and/or are used fictitiously. Events or situations described on the Site with reference to real locations, institutions, establishments, and/or actual living persons are historical, merely coincidental, and/or fictionalized with the intent to provide the reader with a sense of reality and authenticity. While R.L. Akers himself is referenced on the Site, that reference is itself made fictitiously, in the form of a self-effacing cameo appearance within his own fictional universe.
Stock Photography Models
The persons shown in photographs on this website are stock photography models and are not affiliated with the ODC, the ODC's direct and indirect parent companies, subsidiaries, or subsidiaries of its parent companies (“Affiliates”). Use of such model images by the ODC and/or its Affiliates is pursuant to license from their respective owners and/or copyright administrators. The ODC and its Affiliates acknowledge that no model depicted on or in any ODC or Affiliate website or printed material uses or personally endorses any business, product, service, cause, association, or other endeavour of ODC or its Affiliates and all uses of model images are for illustrative purposes only.
Merchandise for Sale
Certain items listed as "For Sale" from the Merchandise section of the Site are, in fact, real, while other items listed as "Sold Out" may never have existed or been available for sale in reality. Only real merchandise available for sale and fulfillment will be available for actual purchase.
If you would like to learn more about Prometheus Rebound or R.L. Akers, please click the respective hyperlinks, or continue to browse this site. For more information, please contact:
The Orbital Defense Corps, LLC
Scott Depot, WV 25560
admin@orbitaldefense.com
All content on this website is fictitious. Read the disclaimer for more info. ©2011-2019 The Orbital Defense Corps, LLC.
Address all inquiries to admin@orbitaldefense.com or 1-855-ODCorps (1-855-632-6777)
disclaimer • terms • privacy • copyright
"Vacuum Suckers"The ODC's First operates out of Verne Orbital Defense Base and is under the command of Col. Joe Midgett.
Prometheus ReboundEver since the release of R.L. Akers’ well-publicized novel Prometheus Rebound—which chronicles the origins of the Orbital Defense Corps and its fight against the K’luran threat—the ODC’s public relations officials have...
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Prince of Darkness (1987)
Written and Directed by: John Carpenter
"We are transmitting from the year One-Nine-Nine-Nine..."
John Carpenter is a veritable legend of filmmaking. His run from 1976 to 1988 is unrivaled by any other modern filmmaker as far as I’m concerned. Furthermore, a look at Carpenter’s horror films during this time period is even more awe-inspiring. In a span of twelve years, Carpenter was responsible for four of the genres most loved films: Halloween, The Fog, The Thing, Christine. Coming at the tail end of this period, however, is the little-heralded Prince of Darkness. I suppose it’s inevitable that certain films are bound to be overlooked in a body of work as impressive as Carpenter’s, but it’s a true shame that Prince of Darkness doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. All of Carpenter’s staples are intact here, as the film is intensely moody, atmospheric, and genuinely unnerving at times.
The film owes much of its effectiveness to its subject matter, so I’ll start with the plot. The story involves an abandoned church that houses a mysterious canister of swirling green liquid. Father Loomis (Donald Pleasance) has been charged with the task of guarding this secret; however, he invites Professor Birack (Victor Wong) and a group of graduate students to the church to study the mysterious canister. As the weekend progresses, it becomes all too clear that the canister houses a malevolent entity, and to make matters worse, it’s apparently gaining energy. Furthermore, this liquid is responsible for possessing one of the students into the living dead when she ingests it. In turn, she begins to spread the condition among and around the church.
Upon studying the phenomenon, the team of grad students soon discovers the terrifying truth behind the canister’s contents: the green liquid is actually the son of Satan, and he’s about to wake up and wreak havoc by bringing his father back into the world. Father Loomis also explains that the Catholic Church essentially forged the Bible to placate the masses, as the truth he has revealed is far more terrifying. The inhabitants of the church must now find a way to contain this malevolent entity before he unleashes darkness upon the world. Their cause isn’t helped by the fact that a group of derelicts (headed by Alice Cooper, no less) outside of the church has also been possessed. Satan also appears to have a horde of flesh-eating bugs on call if he needs them as well. In short, containing the Prince of Darkness is not going to be easy. I won’t reveal any more of the plot, as the film slowly builds towards a twist that still unnerves me to this day.
Carpenter seems to be at the top of his game when he’s dealing with the apocalypse, and Prince of Darkness is no exception. Carpenter effectively preys upon our fears of the end of the world by slowly developing a mysterious threat whose origins are older than mankind itself. I don’t fashion myself as an especially religious person, and religion-themed horror films rarely affect me, but Prince of Darkness has managed to freak me out for years. This is probably due to the fact that Carpenter doesn’t have Satan take a tangible form like The Exorcist does. Instead, Satan and the “Anti-God” are mysterious, unstoppable form that can strike at any moment. Also, it doesn’t hurt that Carpenter has Pleasance around to sell us on their destructive capacity. I’m convinced that the man could make a stick of gum sound apocalyptic. There is also an intriguing sub-plot involving a dream that is being experienced by all the characters in the church; I can’t say more, but these sequences are among the creepiest scenes ever committed to film.
As I said earlier, all of Carpenter’s signatures are intact here: a wide anamorphic frame that is put to full use by moody establishing shots, a slow, tension-building plot, and a synth score (co-composed with Alan Howarth) that is among Carpenter’s best. As with any Carpenter film, the music itself almost becomes a character in the film, as its moody tones overshadow the entire film. As is normally the case, Carpenter gathers an impressive cast. Along with the aforementioned Carpenter favorites (Wong and Pleasance), Dennis Dun (of Big Trouble in Little China fame) provides an excellent job in a supporting role as Walter, one of Birack’s graduate students. The film’s build is also a key to its effectiveness. Some might consider it slow, but Carpenter infuses the narrative with just enough mystery to keep us interested; furthermore, once Carpenter makes his big reveal regarding the canister’s contents, you’re invested enough to still care about the proceedings from there on out. As is usually the case with Carpenter, there isn’t a ton of in-your-face gore, as that is rarely Carpenter’s style. Instead, he employs a tension-building atmosphere that aims to be unnerving rather than revolting.
For whatever reason, Prince of Darkness is rarely cited as being among Carpenter’s best films. In my opinion, it’s the second to last great film he ever did, with the last being In the Mouth of Madness, another apocalyptic thriller. In fact, it’s interesting to note that Carpenter considers Prince of Darkness to be the middle chapter in his apocalypse trilogy, with the first entry being The Thing. In terms of the four horror films cited above, I think Prince of Darkness has surely earned its place with that pantheon. It’s got a memorable story, an outstanding score, a highly effective twist, and one of the most ambiguous endings in horror history. This will frustrate many, but as a fan of ambiguity and interpretation, I’m delighted each time I watch the film.
Unfortunately, Universal has been less than kind to the film when it comes to its DVD releases. While the transfer is competent enough, I can’t help but think a new one would improve the image quality tremendously, as the one used here is a decade old. The 2.0 stereo mix is also competent, and effectively highlights the film’s score. I have no complaints there. Also, there are no extras of any sort. Last, but certainly not least, Universal’s latest release does not feature the film’s original poster art. While this might not be a big deal to many, it bothers me because the original artwork is among my favorite movie posters of all time. Interestingly enough, it scared me as a kid and actually prevented me from renting it until I was older. It should be noted that the original Image release features the original art; however, it’s now out of print. If anything about this DVD is to be commended, it’s the low price, as it can be found for $10 in most places. With no news of a re-release on the horizon, it looks like this is the best we’ll get for a while. Still, since the film is so well done, I urge any fan of horror to Buy it!
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Astashevich Andrei
1994-1999 - the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts (Faculty of Culturology and Sociocultural Activity).
2005-2007 - Academy of Public Administration under the aegis of the President of the Republic of Belarus (Department of Public Administration of Social Sphere and Belarus Studies).
1990-2004 - military service.
2004-2017 - Director of the Republican center of Olympic training in winter sports "Raubichi".
2017-2019 - First Vice-President of the National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Belarus
Sports titles and achievements:
Merited Master of Sports (2014).
Regalia/awards:
Medal "For Impeccable Service" III Class (2001)
Medal "For Impeccable Service" II Class (2008)
Medal "For Impeccable Service" I Class (2013)
Gratuity dirk (2001)
Commendation of the President of the Republic of Belarus (2004)
Anniversary medal "90 Years of State Security Authorities of Belarus" (2007)
Medal "90 Years of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus" (2008)
Badge "90 Years of the Committee of State Security of the Republic of Belarus" (2008)
Commendation of Secretary of State (2009)
Gratuity sabre (2011)
Gratuity weapon (2012)
Badge "For Excellence" II Class (2012)
Badge "For Excellence" I Class (2014)
Medal of the NOC Belarus (2016)
Medal "90 Years of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Belarus"
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Carl Abrahams (1913-2005)
Born in 1913, Abrahams like so many schoolboys took up caricaturing his schoolmasters while in his teens at Calabar College. Similarly, he applied his skills to drawing automobiles (the rage of that era) and emulated his father who also created car designs. It was a schoolboy talent that he was reluctant to outgrow and encouraged by his headmaster Rev. Ernest Price he began copying old master paintings as well as documenting local Jamaican scenes. In addition, he became fascinated with spiritual and mythical topics and tried to depict the scenes he visualized from his reading of the Bible and Greek classics. These are the themes that he would return to repeatedly during his long career as an artist.
Abrahams has often proclaimed himself ‘the father of Jamaican art’, insisting that he was the first Jamaican born artist working independently to document Jamaica’s environs in the 1930’s and there is some evidence to support his boasts. As early as 1937, the British artist Augustus John, on a brief trip to Jamaica, reported that Carl Abrahams had a talent that should be nurtured, and in 1938 following the publication of some of his watercolours in the West Indian Review, editor Esther Chapman wrote:
“The works on the following pages are works by Carl Abrahams, a young Jamaican. Mr Abrahams has been doing newspaper cartoons of some merit for several years, but was unaware that the drawings illustrated here were far more interesting to critics. So far, Jamaica has depended for her art upon such ‘imported’ artists as Edna Manley and Koren [der Harootian]. Mr Abrahams, apparently uninfluenced by either shows a striking originality and great promise in his works”
Today, Abrahams’ paintings are highly collectible and he won his popularity with Jamaican art lovers because of an engaging style that meets the viewer’s need for narrative representation, but with imagery that also appears modern. The combination of Abrahams’ simplified forms, dark outlines, bold and acidic colours easily distinguish his painting. It is stylized but not stylish. Sometimes combined with frames that are hand crafted and seductively ornate, his choice of subject matter, his sardonic wit, and his idiosyncratic style confirm that Abraham’s is a unique and significant Caribbean artist.
© PA-S
Oneika Russell, In the night of the Garden, 2008
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Tueday 3/27 Call to Action
1. Common Sense Gun Legislation
Were you at the Capitol on Saturday for the March for Our Lives? Did you see the hundreds of thousands of people around the globe demanding sensible gun legislation? It was an inspiring day. Our job as voting constituents is to use that momentum to elicit positive change. The youth of our country deserve our help. Let’s make sure we follow through.https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/a7365514-2f59-11e8-b0b0-f7…
The public safety committee of the Minnesota House tabled Representative David Pinto’s sensible gun bills preventing a discussion and vote on the House floor. https://www.twincities.com/…/mn-gun-control-hearing-little…/
State Senator Matt Little has two gun safety bills and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Warren Limmer also refuses to bring these bills to the Senate floor for discussion.
SF 3278 (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/bill.php…) Requiring gun owners to report lost or stolen fire arms.
SF 3279 (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/bill.php…) Expant criminal background checks for gun purchases.
Watch Senator Little’s announcement here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcCnI7OwrjA
On Monday, DFL lawmaker held a press conference announcing their plan to combat gun violence. It is a three tiered approach including, improving school safety, allowing gun violence research, and implementing gun safety laws. The committee deadline for new legislation has passed so it is up to the Republican controlled Senate to decide whether they will allow it to go forward.
Watch the announcement here: http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/…/democratic-senators-gun-c…/…
Today, let’s call the majority and minority leaders and demand that Minnesota’s Congress holds hearings on gun violence NOW. Here is a list of leaders: https://www.senate.mn/members/index.php?ls=#leader
As teens Ben Jaeger and Adrian Ali-Caccamo said, leaders are supposed to come together to discuss issues that important to their constituents. Instead, they are choosing to turn a blind eye. That’s unacceptable.
Read Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk’s opinion piece here: https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/…/4422084-minority-leader…
Want to see all the gun related legislation that has been introduced in Minnesota’s Congress? Check out this handy website. You can check on other subjects as well. https://openstates.org/mn/bills/…
2. Our neighbors in Wisconsin are getting ready to vote for a new state supreme court justice. Judge Rebecca Dallet supports sensible gun control regulations, while her opponent has close ties to the NRA. If you have some extra time this week, sign up to phone back or text bank Wisconsin voters in support of Judge Dallet. https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSe3XMLwq_C6lq_RrW…/viewform
Do you have excellent penmanship? You can also send postcards by signing up here: https://postcardstovoters.org/2018/03/18/dallet/
Learn more about Judge Dallet here: https://www.dalletforjustice.com/
3. Memories from March for Our Lives
Check out CD2Action’s page with highlights and interviews from Saturday’s march.
https://cd2action.com/march-for-our-lives-msp/
Sites to Check:
CD2Action https://cd2action.com/, @CD2action
MN02 Congress Watch http://mn02congresswatch.org/
League of Women Voters MN https://lwvmn.org/
Tax Day Rally at the Capitol,
On Sunday, April 15th join fellow Minnesotans in protesting tax laws that benefit the richest Americans at the expense of the poor and working classes. Let’s get together and tell our government that we want them make laws the benefit the majority, not just their pocketbooks and election campaigns.
Look here for more information: https://www.taxrallymn2018.org/
RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/200520967348623/
April 20th #NationalSchoolWalkout
Find an event in your area http://act.indivisible.org/event/national-school-walkout/
Michael Jackson - Don’t Stop 'Til You Get Enough (Official Video)
"Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" was the first short film of…
Tueaday 3/20 Call to Action
Wedesday 3/14 Call to Action
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Hunting Sketches
By Anthony Trollope
Genre: Sports & Outdoors
Turgenev's first major prose work is a series of twenty-five Sketches: the observations and anecdotes of the author during his travels through Russia satisfying his passion for hunting. His album is filled with moving insights into the lives of those he encounters peasants and landowners, doctors and bailiffs, neglected wives and bereft mothers each providing a glimpse of love, tragedy, courage and loss, and anticipating Turgenev's great later works such as First Love and Fathers and Sons. His depiction of the cruelty and arrogance of the ruling classes was considered subversive and led to his arrest and confinement to his estate, but these sketches opened the minds of contemporary readers to the plight of the peasantry and were even said to have led Tsar Alexander II to abolish serfdom.
More by Anthony Trollope
Barchester Towers
William Shakespeare, O. Henry, Mark Twain, Guy de Maupassant, Edgar Allan Poe, Anton Chekhov, L.M. Montgomery & Anthony Trollope
Can You Forgive Her?
Phineas Finn
The Life of Cicero
The Eustace Diamonds
The Small House at Allington
The Duke's Children
Framley Parsonage
The Last Chronicle of Barset
The Prime Minister
Miss Mackenzie
Anthony Trollope's Collection [ 34 Books ]
The Claverings
Kept in the Dark
Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection: 160+ Space Adventures, Lost Worlds, Dystopian Novels & Post-Apocalyptic Tales
H.G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, Edwin A. Abbott, Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson, George MacDonald, Henry Rider Haggard, William Hope Hodgson, Edward Bellamy, Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Francis Bacon, C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne, Margaret Cavendish, Jonathan Swift, William Morris, Samuel Butler, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, James Fenimore Cooper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ayn Rand, Owen Gregory, Hugh Benson, Fred M. White, Ignatius Donnelly, Ernest Bramah, Milo Hastings, Arthur Dudley Vinton, Robert Cromie, E. M. Forster, Anthony Trollope, Richard Stockham, Irving E. Cox, Cleveland Moffett, Richard Jefferies, Percy Greg, David Lindsay, Edward Everett Hale, Stanley G. Weinbaum, Abraham Merritt, Edgar Wallace, H. Beam Piper, Garrett P. Serviss, Gertrude Barrows Bennett, Philip K. Dick, E. E. Smith, Murray Leinster, Fritz Leiber, Andre Norton, Lester del Rey, August Derleth, Frederik Pohl, Kurt Vonnegut, William Dean Howells, Philip Francis Nowlan, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, George Griffith, Edwin Lester Arnold, John Jacob Astor & Gustavus W. Pope
The Belton Estate
The Bertrams
Palliser novels
The Courtship of Susan Bell
22 Great Biographies& Memoirs Include：George Washington，John Adams，Abraham Lincoln，Ulysses Grant，James Garfield，Theodore Roosevelt，Memoirs Of Napoleon Bonaparte-Louis Antoine Fauvelet De Bourrienne， The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin， Theodore Roosevelt An Autobiography ， Personal Memoirs Of U. S. Grant ， The Autobiography Of Benvenuto Cellini，
Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Benvenuto Cellini, Horatio Alger, Jr, Charles Darwin, Jacob Abbott, Frank Lewis Dyer, Victor Hugo, Lytton Strachey, William M. Thayer, W.H.G. Kingston, John G. Nicolay, John T. Morse Jr., Edward Gibbon, Rabindranath Tagore, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Stuart Mill, Albert Keim, Louis Lumet, Anthony Trollope & John Rae
The Macdermots of Ballycloran
Ayala's angel
Works of Anthony Trollope (50+ works)
Ralph the Heir
An Unprotected Female at the Pyramids
Thackeray
Is He Popenjoy?
Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite
Cousin Henry
Chronicles of Barsetshire
The Man Who Kept His Money in a Box
The Kellys and the O'Kellys
John Caldigate
Nina Balatka
North America — Volume 1
Linda Tressel
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The latest Palm Springs area news from The Desert Sun newspaper in the California desert. Coachella Valley photos, obituaries and events calendar.
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Click or tap here for The Desert Sun contact information. My Desert Sun is the story of Cayuse, a young, free-spirited mustang who lives in the desert and mountains of the American Southwest. While life in the desert is often peaceful and serene, Cayuse spends many days merely fighting for survival.5/5(5).
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Desert Sun 9 hrs · About 40 people, including visitors and staff of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, were forced to evacuate from Mount San Jacinto Peak on Wednesday night after a brush fire broke out nearby, tramway officials said. MY DESERT SUN is the third book I have in my home library written by animal advocate Diana Tuorto. Young readers learn from Cayuse, a small, feisty, and strong-willed wild mustang, what freedom is in the wide desert and mountainous regions of the American Southwest.
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Greene, James. Russian Responses to NATO and EU Enlargement and Outreach In Chatham House Briefing Paper., 2012.
Greene, James. "The Human in the Loop." In Building Integrity and Reducing Corruption in Defence: A Compendium of Best Practices, 208-220. Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2010.
Greene, James. "Personnel policies." In Building Integrity and Reducing Corruption in Defence: A Compendium of Best Practices, 47-62. Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2010.
Polyakov, Leonid, and James Greene. "The Role of Government." In Building Integrity and Reducing Corruption in Defence: A Compendium of Best Practices, 221-237. Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2010.
Greene, James. "The Role of International Organisations." In Building Integrity and Reducing Corruption in Defence: A Compendium of Best Practices, 298-313. Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2010.
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WOWIE MAUI
Still pursuing the global potato chip phenomenon, I found these at my local supermarket: Hawaiian Kettle Style, sweet Maui onion flavor.
Now I guess I never thought they’d be absolutely authentic, not least because they were manufactured by Tim’s Cascade Snacks of Algona, Washington. Still, I tried them gamely enough, but I thought they were just terrible. I couldn’t taste any onion at all, whether from Maui or anywhere else. All I could taste was a kind of cloying sweetness.
A look at the list of ingredients on the pack explained why. Of the top six ingredients, number three was dextrose, number six was sugar. Onion powder was number four, though there was no mention of whether it was Maui onion powder.
There’s also salt and garlic and cheese and spices in there too, and maybe that adds up to umami, but I couldn’t taste any of them, just he cloying sweetness. Of course I believe in chacun a son gout, and I’m sure some people like their potato chips this sweet but I had to drench them in vinegar to make them palatable, which seemed to defeat the object of having flavoring in the first place.
Just to show that I do have my finger on the pulse (or somewhere), last Sunday’s New York Times magazine had a “Recipe Redux” for Saratoga Potatoes, 1905, by which they mean potato chips. That name refers to the story, probably more of an urban myth, that potato chips were invented in Saratoga Springs, New York in 1853 by one George Crum who was chef at the Moon Lake Lodge, a man part Native-American, part African-American, though in 1853 that can hardly have been how he thought of himself.
According to legend, a customer in the restaurant kept complaining that the French fries were too thick and soggy, so, in an effort to annoy the customer even more, Crum cut them as thin as possible, so they’d be hard and crisp. As is the way with these things, of course the customer loved them, and then many other customers loved them too, and Saratoga Chips started appearing on the restaurant menu. The rest is history.
I’m not saying Crum didn’t serve up some very thin, crisp, fried potatoes in hopes of annoying his customer, but I can’t believe he invented them. I think they’re one of those things that didn’t need inventing. Once the potato was introduced to European cooks you know that somebody somewhere, probably many people in many places, would experiment with every size, shape and cooking method. I mean, who “invented” mashed potatoes?
Some people claim that William Kitchener (above) is the godfather of the potato chip, because of a recipe that appears in his book, The Cook’s Oracle, first published in 1817. The recipe is for “Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings” which sounds about right, but he recommends the slices be a quarter inch thick, and his “shavings” are “cut round and round, as you would peel a lemon.” The resulting artifact would be pretty good, I think, but I’m not sure you could really call it a chip.
This is a shame in some ways, because Kitchiner is one of history’s greatest great food eccentrics, and it would be nice if the world at large attached some important innovation to him. The one that actually applies, that he was the first food writer to give quantities in his recipes is so universal as to have become invisible. And in fact he seems generally to have been more of a collector of recipes than an inventor, so potato shavings were in any case invented by someone else.
Kitchiner was a repository for all kinds of culinary lore, though there are times when he wasn’t very discriminating. He tells us, or at least quotes without question, that the Chinese eat dog, Tartars eat horse, and Greenlanders eat “garbage and train oil.”
He also gives us, as grotesque as it is improbable, a recipe for “how to roast and eat a goose alive.” Essentially it involves plucking a live goose and having it flap around in a circle of flame for a while, so that it cooks but doesn’t expire. This sounds like nonsense doesn’t it? Roasting a goose in a hot oven can take a few hours, having it flap around in open flame would never work. Either the goose would live or the goose would roast, but I don’t see how it could do both.
Kitchiner gets his recipe from Johann Jacob Wecker’s “Eighteen Books of the Secrets of Art and Nature” first published in English in 1661, who attributes it to “Mizald.” I think this is Antonius Mizaldus, a 16th century Parisian physician and botanist, who was also of the opinion that if sweet basil leaves were placed on a pile of dung to, it would become a nest of scorpions or asps. So, not a man to be trusted, but Kitchiner doesn’t doubt him. He just calls the method “diabolically cruel.” Well yes.
Incidentally, in that NYT article – it’s by Amanda Hesser – she writes of potato chips “they’re reached that late-mannerist ‘seasoning’ stage, which has produced such atrocities as sour-cream-and-onion flavored chips.” I just can’t see the problem myself. It could be much worse. It could be live-roasted goose flavor.
And finally, just to explain the title of this post, The Cook's Oracle contains a recipe for Wow-Wow sauce, made from port, vinegar, pickled cucumbers or pick;ed walnut, mustard and mushroom ketchup. Any one of those would make a fine late-mannerist seasoning, if you ask me.
Posted by GeoffNIcholson at 7:02 PM 2 comments: Links to this post
THE FONDER HEART
It was, I suppose, the kind of conversation that goes on in millions of American homes on a Sunday morning.
“Honey,” I said, “have you seen my absinthe spoon?”
The loved one, of course, said she hadn’t.
I’ve bought exactly one bottle of absinthe in my life, and it came with a free spoon, which was why I had it. Or had had it once. The spoon itself was attractive enough, but in my admittedly very limited experience of “the Green Fairy” its mind-clouding powers had been much exaggerated. One bottle seemed to be enough. I’d never used the spoon again, which was why it had no doubt been pushed to the back of a drawer somewhere and lost.
As regular readers of Psycho-Gourmet will know, we take a special interest in spoons and their variations - the spork, the spife, the knoon and what have you. And I’d happened to come across these rather wonderful skull–shaped spoons designed by someone called Pinky Diablo.
My guess is that probably isn’t his real name. He was probably born Bluey Diablo. And of course you have to wonder exactly what you’d use these skull spoons for. They’d be just fine for stirring, not so good for shoveling, and they’d be a complete disaster for, say, eating soup. You’d get lobster bisque all down your front.
But maybe they’d be good for absinthe. The absinthe ritual is a pretty straightforward one. The absinthe goes in the glass, the spoon rests across the top of the glass. A sugar cube rests on the spoon and chilled water is poured onto the sugar cube and drips down into the absinthe through the holes in the spoon.
Maybe the skull spoon could be used to accomplish that, although it didn’t necessary look like it would sit very easily on top of a glass, and real absinthe spoons have very regularly sized and distributed holes which I think may be considered essential to the task. I had my doubts.
Anyway, I found my absinthe spoon eventually. That’s it above. So I really have no reason whatsoever to buy myself a skull spoon. It would only get lost. On the other hand, I find myself thinking seriously about buying another bottle of absinthe.
Posted by GeoffNIcholson at 12:21 PM 2 comments: Links to this post
EVERYTHING WITH CHIPS
Since I had those freshly made, hot potato chips at the LA County Fair, I’ve been eating other potato chips with a new, more intense interest. And I’m cobbling together some kind of a theory that potato chips reveal a society’s cultural identity, and its deepest, most profound assumptions.
The British of course like salt and vinegar, smoky bacon, lamb and mint, and (if they get them) Bovril. These are all sharp, aggressive, insistent flavors.
The Germans, by contrast, and to my surprise, really like paprika flavored chips, and my spy in Berlin tells me they also eat something called “Africa style,” though I wonder if the latter was done specially for the World Cup.
As yet I haven’t been able to sample those German flavors, nor for that matter Greek oregano or Russian caviar flavors, but I’m starting, in a modest way, to check out the international galaxy of potato chip flavors.
It seemed to me that the Indians, as in India rather than Native American, might have an interesting take on this. They seem to love potatoes, and curry spices and potatoes seem a match made in heaven. I went along to India Sweets and Spices here in LA and bought a bag of Anand brand potato chips, product of India, and described as Masala flavor.
Masala, I gather, just means “blended spices” and the list of ingredients on the pack says no more than “spices” so I suppose these chips might have tasted of anything. In fact the flavor was a single, back of the tongue hotness that might have been nothing more than chilli powder. It was OK, but I’d have liked more. The packs of Butter Chicken Masala seasoning sold in the store contain coriander, dry ginger, cassia, garlic, cloves, mace and star anise. I thought the good folks at Anand might have tried one or two of these
As an aside, I was pleased by the transparent cellophane those chips came in, and it made me wonder why so many chip packets are opaque and don’t allow you to see what’s inside. The most obvious answer is that most manufacturers don’t want you to see how pathetically few chips are actually in each bag. No such deception from Anand: good for them.
And then as luck would have it, I discovered that Marco, one of my wife’s colleagues, was on vacation in Japan. Maybe he could be persuaded to buy some local potato chips while he was there and bring them back. After an email or two, he duly did and my wife delivered me a bag that looked like this:
Reading no Japanese, and not having spoken to Marco, I had no idea what flavor was in the bag, but I ate them anyway, and I wasn’t much wiser. At first there was a very mild, low salt taste, and then there was a very slightly less mild, and growing, savory but inscrutable aftertaste. It was nothing as obvious as soy sauce, though you might have been able to call in umami. The chips tasted good but they were probably a little too subtle for my jaded western palate. Anyway, the linguistic research has been done. The flavor was “consommé punch,” beef flavor to you and me. There's a pretty wild commercial for them on Japanese TV featuring a little boy and a person in a dog suit. Like this:
Much more research to be done here, as and when.
MEATY PARTS
The philosophical, moral and aesthetic connections between women and meat have been discussed elsewhere in this blog.
And now those fabulously creative, original and edgy people Lady Gaga and Terry Richardson have delved deep down into the collective maelstrom of their artistic souls ...
... and come up with a picture of a naked woman covered in meat.
Gimme a break.
DEEPER FRIED
On Sunday night I had dinner with some people and I was telling my county fair stories and someone said she’d had deep-fried butter at the San Diego County Fair. There was also talk, though nobody could absolutely confirm it, that these days some fairs featured deep-fried Coca Cola.
All this, it seems, is perfectly true. A bit of googling turns up endless examples of deep fried butter (that's one of them above), though of course it’s butter inside dough, and given dough’s insulating properties, it’s not really all that amazing. Whether you want a mouthful of butter and dough is up to you, but I know many do.
It isn’t a huge leap from deep-fried butter to deep-fried mayonnaise, though that isn’t some county fair curiosity, but rather the invention of molecular gastronomist Wylie Dufresne of the New York restaurant WD-50. His recipe requires both gelatin and a kind of gum called gellan, and it doesn’t use dough as such, though the mayo is encased in a coating of flour, egg and panko breadcrumbs, so it’s not a million miles away. This is it, the cube-shaped thing in the image below.
Dufresne usually serves it with pickled tongue and he says it’s an homage to his father who once owned sandwich shop. Dufresne says, “For a long time I have wanted to create a dish that would bring all the flavors of one of his sandwiches together in a new and interesting way. Ultimately, that’s what this dish is: a tongue sandwich with lettuce, tomato, onions, and mayonnaise.”
And to wash it down? Well, it turns out the deep-fried Coca Cola was a bit of a misnomer. It was invented by one Abel Gonzalez Junior for the 2006 Texas State Fair but in fact it’s actually deep-fried coca cola batter, served with coca cola syrup, whipped cream and what not. It looks like this:
Far more appealing, and truer to its name, is deep-fried beer, another Texas State Fair specialty, and it’s essentially ravioli with a beer filling, which sounds absolutely fine to me, the dough again acting as insulating material, keeping the beer and the fat apart.
But when you think about it, just how different is that conceptually from liquor chocolates? It must be at least as hard to fill a chocolate with liqueur as it does to fill a raviolo with beer.
When I was growing up, liqueur chocolates were things adults gave to us kids at Christmas to keep us quiet. Even the aunts weren’t keen on them, and the men wouldn’t touch them because they were too girly. I don’t believe the kids thought they were all that great either, but we ate them and that’s how some of us developed a very early taste for cointreau and cherry brandy. Though of course for certain other flavors it worked as a kind of aversion therapy. It would take a least a gun to my head to make me knock back Drambuie in any form.
Which inevitably brings us back to Thomas Pynchon and the fabulous scene in Gravity’s Rainbow where Tyrone Slothrop samples home made candies. I haven’t quite committed this to memory so imagine my surprise on finding these words, “He reaches in the candy bowl, comes up with a black, ribbed, licorice drop. It looks safe … at which point Slothrop is encountering this dribbling liquid center, which tastes like mayonnaise and orange peels.
‘You’ve taken the last of my Marmalade Surprises!’ cries Mrs. Quoad.”
WITH THE PIGS IN AMERICA
I was at the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona, sitting on metal bleachers watching the pig racing. If I’d been a betting man my money would have been on Mr. Jowl. There were two women sitting behind me and one of them was saying to the other, “Oh, I couldn’t. No way. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t possibly put a thing like that in my mouth. I just couldn’t. I’d gag. I’d just die.” Her companion was doing her very best to persuade her to try some of the chocolate covered bacon that was on sale all over the fair. For all the drama, the woman did eventually try a piece. She didn’t gag, she didn’t die, and why would she? I knew, as I’d known all along, that she was protesting way too much. And frankly if you were worried about putting odd things in your mouth, there were far scarier items than chocolate covered bacon, such as the “frosting shots” and the fried dill pickles.
But the chocolate covered bacon was really, really good; pieces of bacon of varying lengths, coated with dark chocolate of varying thicknesses so that each piece had a slightly different ratio of bacon to chocolates. The pieces were served chilled to keep them crisp and crunchy. I had mine with a pint of ice cold beer, thereby simultaneously hitting three major food groups.
I’d decided my visit to the LA County fair would be all about the pig. I realized recently that I’d never seen a live pig in America. Back in England I saw them all the time as I drove up the A12 into Suffolk, hundreds of happy, odorless, free range porkers rooting in fields either side of the main road. But never in America, and given that there are about 60 million pigs alive in America at any given moment this didn’t seem right. It was a situation that needed to be corrected. I hoped the LA County Fair would get the job done, and it did.
I saw 29 pigs at the fair. The majority of them should more properly be called piglets; there were 19 of them along with three sows in a large pen in Thummer’s barn. There were also four fully-grown pigs lying singly in pens. You could reach right in and touch them, which I duly did. The flesh was far more solid and unyielding than it looked, and the pigs seemed to have no objection to being gently prodded and stroked. Then there were the racing pigs – three races with four pigs per race, along with a tiny little piglet thrown in for comic effect. That makes 29.
But I hadn’t gone to the fair just to view pigs; I’d gone there to eat them. The fair could provide pork in many forms, pulled pork sandwiches, barbecue, hickory smoked pork butts, sausages, carnitas. I’d also heard reports of the intriguing “pork chop on a stick” and I thought I needed one of those to extend my porcine education.
Certainly as a whole, the event seemed less about pork and more about dough. I knew, of course that county fairs are the home of deep-fried everything: Twinkies, Oreos, Krispy Kreme chicken sandwiches, White Castle cheeseburgers, all coated in dough and submerged in hot fat. But I was a little surprised to find it was also the home of deep fried frogs legs, deep fried avocadoes and deep fried cheese on a stick.
I only tasted some of these, but I was especially taken with the idea of the cheese. I could see them there at the counter, blocks of bright yellow cheese looking like cheese popsicles; how could that fail? Well, reasonably easily actually.
In my naivety I was imagining that the blocks were some good solid, flavorful, mature cheddar but they turned out to be Velveeta, or at least the bulk catering equivalent, and by the time one of them had been doughed and fried it turned to rather bland cheese sauce. It was OK as far as it went, but why couldn’t it have gone further with a lump of artisanal goat feta or some regional blue?
The problem with dough, or at least with the dough I ate at the fair, is that it overwhelms whatever’s inside it, so it becomes dough with cheese, or dough with avocado, and I dare say dough with frogs’ legs. The one thing that did work really well was the deep fried Klondike bar. Here dough tasted very much like a doughnut, and ice cream and chocolate are two things you can plausibly eat as topping on a doughnut, so this was absolutely fine. The melting ice cream and chocolate lubricated the dough and made a perfectly good dessert.
Given the presence of all that dough, I assumed the pork chop on a stick would get the same treatment, coated and deep-fried. That gave me some slight trepidation but by that point I was willing to go for it. I was wrong, however. There was no dough, no deep-frying, just a well cooked pork chop that somebody had pushed a stick into and cooked on a grill. It was very good, and I’m sure it tasted better than a doughy, deep-fried version would have, but I was still somehow disappointed. My appetite had coarsened, and I was wanting something grosser and more vulgar, something more like county fair food. I wondered if the fair would have had the same effect on Ferran Adrià.
Given the presence of livestock, not only pigs and cows, but also goats, sheep, chickens, rabbits, even yak, I thought the organizers might have made something out of rare breeds, heritage, sustainable agriculture, that kind of thing, but there was none of it. Cows were being milked, but the milk that came out of the cows couldn’t be sold, for health reasons. There was a display of cheeses, but they were in sealed glass-fronted cabinets and none of them were for sale either. This seemed a bit much. Surely even the most committed cheese fancier wants to do more than just LOOK at cheese.
So I tried to imagine a county fair in which the gourmets and the food obsessives were let loose to run the asylum. If absolutely anything could be doughed and deep fried, why not deep fried snail porridge or pig cheek? Wouldn’t visitors enjoy the new sous vide fad that’s sweeping the nation? Why not try hot dogs or S’mores that had been vacuum-sealed and cooked in a water bath for a few hours? Rather than smoothies and shaved ice how about pints of sea urchin foam or tomato water? Why not a deconstructed corn on the cob? Why not a molecular taco? How about a freeze-dried hotdog?
I was getting a bit fevered by now. I bought myself a basket of hot, freshly deep-fried potato chips. They calmed me down no end. It felt like coming home.
THE MAN WHO DIDN'T SWALLOW EVERYTHING
I’ve started reading Jeffrey Steingarten again. Like a lot of people I first discovered him through his book The Man Who Ate Everything, which I read cover and cover and enjoyed immensely. Then I read It Must've Been Something I Ate, which was probably just as good, but it was more of the same and therefore less enjoyable. And then I’d read him in Vogue once in a while, but he always seemed to be banging on about exotic coffee beans or what he fed his dog, and then I saw him as a judge on Iron Chef America, and it really didn’t seem that television was his medium. And so, with no great animosity, though no great regret, I stopped reading him.
But now a couple of recent issues of Vogue have found their way into the house and I’ve come to think that Steingarten is quite the waspish ironist and that I’ve been missing something.
First, in the August issue, there was an exquisite hatchet job on Gwyneth Paltrow, inspired by her forthcoming cookery book, due out in April 2011, My Father’s Daughter; “85 xeroxed pages” Steingarten blithely observes. He reckons the recipes aren’t too bad and so he and Gwyneth do some cooking together.
He suggests making the ten hour chicken but she can’t fit that into her schedule, so they settle for making chicken dumplings, and corn chowder. He’s arrives late for their cooking date, but once there he admires her knife skills. He tells us she has two outdoor pizza ovens, one in her backyard in London, another in Long Island. “I took her ownership of two of them as the mark of her seriousness as a cook,” he says. He’s not serious, surely.
Then she makes pizza, but with the wrong kind of flour according to Steingarten. And he tells us, with apparent admiration, that she makes her own stock. Personally I find this about as impressive as hearing she makes her own toast, and Steingarten can’t help adding, “But Gwyneth does have skilled kitchen helpers.” Sarcasm? I do hope so.
Things seem to be going along quite civilly between the pair of them, but obviously Steingarten’s had enough. He asks her if she hates any part of her own body, and that’s it, the end of a beautiful relationship. She doesn’t give an answer, and there’s no more cooking a deux. Reading not very closely between the lines, I think Steingarten couldn’t stand the arrangemnt a moment longer and sabotaged things to be rid of her.
Then in the September issue he visits “the best restaurant in the world,” Rene Redzepi’s Noma, in Copenhagen. Noma concentrates on “local ingredients,” which in this case (Steingarten helpfully tell us) means food from anywhere in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, Iceland and the Faeroe Islands, an area of about 1.2 million square miles by my reckoning: it’s Greenland that really bumps up the area.
Steingarten and Redzepi go foraging. They walk along the beach and sample five different kinds of sorrel. They go to a nearby farm where, says Steingarten, “I could not always tell whether it was a planted field or a vacant lot.”
Next day he eats lunch at the restaurant, and writes, “A white vase on the table was filled with various small evergreen branches: dip them into an oil infused with cepes ... then pop them into your mouth. There was a printed card nearby listing norman fir, black spruce, lodgepole pine, mountain elm, and four other trees. Soon the bulrushes arrived …”
All this is described deadpan and without comment: the most ludicrous food since the inventions in American Psycho. All of which leads me to believe that Steingarten is a master satirist who knows that all the best jokes are told with an absolutely straight face. He had me howling with laughter.
Posted by GeoffNIcholson at 9:27 AM 1 comment: Links to this post
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Experimental Investigation of Cutting Parameters Effects on the Surface Roughness and Tools Wear during the Drilling of Fiber Reinforced Composite Materials
Irshad Ullah Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan
Muhammad Wasif Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan.
Muhammad Tufail Department of Chemical Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan
Muhammad Adnan Khan Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan.
Syed Amir Iqbal Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan.
Optimization of the drilling parameters of the composite material is the key objective of this research, enhancing the surface roughness and minimizing the tool wear. In contrary to the other research, optimizing the machining parameters for a specific composite material for the mass productions, machining parameters are optimized for GFRP (Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer), CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer) and KFRP (Kevlar Fiber Reinforced Polymer) for the job shop production. In this research, the machining parameters are optimized for the enhanced surface roughness and minimum tool wear by varying the three types of composite material and three levels of the cutting speed. Nine experiments were performed, which were repeated twice in random manner to eliminate the biasness of the results. In these experiments, PVD (Physical Vapor Deposition) coated carbide inserts are used with the same geometry. Seventeen holes were machined in a single experiment, which surface roughness is measured by cutting the composite plate from middle of the hole and using the Countermatic surface roughness meter at different locations. Average surface roughness is determining for each set of varying parameters and plotted to observe the set of parameters for the minimum surface roughness. It has been observed that the minimum surface roughness are observed at; 1500rpm in GFRP, 2000rpm in CFRP and at 2500rpm in KFRP. Finally, the wear patterns are also observed on the drill inserts using SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) and it has been found that no prominent wear has been observed in the drill inserts, whereas, prominent depletion of coating are found at the higher cutting speed.
ULLAH, Irshad et al. Experimental Investigation of Cutting Parameters Effects on the Surface Roughness and Tools Wear during the Drilling of Fiber Reinforced Composite Materials. Mehran University Research Journal of Engineering and Technology, [S.l.], v. 38, n. 3, p. 717-728, july 2019. ISSN 2413-7219. Available at: <http://publications.muet.edu.pk/index.php/muetrj/article/view/1142>. Date accessed: 19 july 2019.
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Long ago, I interview one of my favorite noir writers, Paul D. Brazill, about his then-recent novella, Kill Me Quick! Whether it was fate, circumstance, or just laziness, Pulp Serenade sort of faded away and I shamefully did not publish the interview. Now, years later, I'm trying to make amends. Paul was kind enough to update the interview with a little bit about his newest work, Last Year's Man, as well as a short story, "No One is Innocent" (published over at Retreats from Oblivion).
Your story "No One is Innocent" was later incorporated into the novel, Big City Blues. Can you tell us a little bit about Big City Blues and how the short story found its way into a longer work?
With Big City Blues I wanted to have a bundle of OTT characters collide in London. The blurb says: ‘British coppers, an American private eye, London gangsters, international spies, and a serial killer known as The Black Crow all collide violently and hilariously in Big City Blues.’ I changed the main characters from No One Is Innocent a bit to fit in with the bigger story.
The jukebox in "No One is Innocent" plays Jane Morgan's "The Day the Rains Came." If you could program your perfect bar jukebox, what would be on it?
There are far too many to choose from but any jukebox without Tom Waits, Sinatra and Dusty Springfield isn’t a real jukebox.
Last Year’s Man is your new novel, what’s it about and what inspired you to write it?
A troubled, ageing hit man leaves London and returns to his hometown in the north east of England hoping for peace. But the ghosts of his past return to haunt him. I always liked the idea of the comedian Tony Hancock as a hit man or gangster and Last Year's Man is my stab at that.
The setting of Kill Me Quick! is Seatown, a shithole town populated by has-beens, screw-ups, and half-assed ex-musicians who never made it. Is this place for real, or what inspired it?
Seatown is a grotesque version of my home town, Hartlepool, and the areas around the town. A lot of it is based on real people and real situations but by throwing them all together at one time it makes the quirky sides of the town seem all the more bizarre. There are, of course, lots of normal people doing normal things in Hartlepool but there's no fun in writing about them.
There are so many great details about the life of a musician, from grimy bars to band breakups to business scams. This isn't even the glitter and glam of VH1 Behind the Music, but the real-deal grit. What is your own background in music, and did any of the details come your own musical experiences?
My oldest brother was a musician who mostly played in hotel bars, working men's clubs, on cruise ships and the like. I played in a couple of post- punk bands. I've been around musicians of various shades of success all of my life. Many musicians' reach exceeds their grasp and vice versa, so it can have a tragi-comic aspect to it that suits my spin on noir.
Lots of music is referenced through the book, including Tom Waits, Julie London, Fairport Convention, and John Martyn, but none is so surprising as Dire Straits. This must be the first noir book to mention that band. You describe them as the sound of gloom. Do you really hate Dire Straits that much, and just what is so bleak about them to your ears?
I don't mind them in small amounts, to be honest. Knopfler is a very tasty guitarist. Never been a fan. They signify a certain pastel cloured, '80s, hotel bar corporate rock sound, though.
More than a couple people are wearing Doc Martens. What's the cultural significance, and do you still still have a pair yourself?
I haven't worn Doc Martin boots in my life! Not with my feet! They are very Brit Grit, though. Like Fred Perry, Carry On Films and marmite.
One of your characters defines irony as "when the audience knows more about what's happening than a character and knows that the character's making a mistake." So, do you think all noir is inherently ironic?
As I've said before, I think noir has a lot in common with slapstick, in that the characters are on the verge of falling down a metaphorical manhole all the time. They usually think they know what's going on but haven't a clue!
Apparently no good shows happen in Seatown any more … so tell me, what's the best and worst shows you've ever seen?
Gang Of 4 at Middlesbrough Rock Garden, Magazine at Redcar Coatham Bowl, Ennio Morricone at the Barbican Centre, Lyle Lovitt ant Hammersmith Appollo were all great. Both times I saw Kinky Friedman. Both times I saw the Subway Sect. Leeds Futerama Festival in 1979 - Joy Division, the Fall etc. I don't remember the crap ones: enough with those negative waves, Moriaty!
Give me some music recommendations! What are some of the best British punk bands that people don't talk about as much as they should?
Although British punk was about re-inventing rock muic, some of the best bands were the ones that were anti- rock. Subway Sect, The Prefects, ATV. They had a different approach to music and lyrics.
One of your characters says, "Democracy drags things down to the level of the lowest common denominator. In music, that's usually the bass player." Why does everyone always make fun of bassists?
I used to play bass, so ... It does seem that bass players are not so much the ugly friend but the mousey one you always forget about. There are many exceptions of course: Barry Adamson, Bootsy Collins, for example.
Shifting gears, I have some questions about other projects … Roman Dalton, werewolf P.I., began as one of your stories, but now other writers are taking a spin with the character. Why open it up to other writers, and what's it like seeing other people use your character?
I actually thought the Dalton world was a good one that I didn't have the ability to exploit fully. Letting someone like Allan Leverone or Matt Hilton take a bite of it put more meat on its bones, he says mixing metaphors.
What's this about the Polski Noir project on your website? Who does the translating?
Polski Noir is a webzine where flash fiction in English is translated into Polish. The translations are done by my friend Marta Crickmar and her students. Writers published so far include Patti Abbot, Richard Godwin, K A Laity.
What are you working on now? Any upcoming publications you can share with us?
Small Town Crimes is a flash fiction and short story collection that will be out from Near To The Knuckle at the end of the month. I’ve just finished a follow up to Last Year’s Man. It’s called "The Iceman Always Rings Twice."
"The Iceman Always Rings Twice!" That's a great title. Do you come up with titles before you start writing?
That title was suggested by Daniel Moses Luft on Facebook when he found out I'd written a yarn called "The Postman Cometh."
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Labels: Interview, Paul D. Brazill
Ed Gorman wrote the saddest westerns I've ever read. Full of hurt, hardship, disappointment, and human failure. Gorman's conception of the west was never typical of the genre. Manifest Destiny, heroism, triumph--these values had no place in his books. Gorman's frontier was one of mourning, not celebration. Much like in his crime novels, Gorman's westerns were full of empathetic characters, people in whom we recognized the best and worst of ourselves. Gorman's characters were flesh and blood, not stock types.
It's been two weeks since I learned that Ed Gorman passed away. I'm still saddened by this news. His books taught me a lot about life, and a lot more about myself. I miss our emails and I will miss not having a new book of his to look forward to.
Below are reviews I wrote of his Guild series, some of my favorite books of his.
"Guild" bdy Ed Gorman (M. Evans and Company, 1987)
Book 1 of the Guild series.
Guild is one of Ed Gorman’s most haunting and enduring protagonists, a somber guide through the umbra and penumbra of the Old West. A former lawman haunted by memories of a little girl he killed while on duty, he’s become a bounty hunter with no clear allegiance to the law or the lawless. Guild appeared in four novels and one short story, and together they articulate Gorman’s anti-classical vision of the West, a profound and original take on the genre.
Gorman doesn’t celebrate celestial skies and wide-open plains, upstanding lawmen and quick-draw gunfighters, or any of the other iconic themes of the genre. Instead of a clear division between heaven and earth, Gorman sees a morally ambiguous purgatory populated by characters of equally uncertain morals. Nobody is entirely good or all bad; everybody’s guilty of something, and they always have their reasons. Whereas for many authors the land represented the possibility of redemption and renewal, for Gorman the land represents lingering ghosts and painful memories.
Guild, the first novel in the series, was first published by M. Evans and Company in 1987. It is now available as an eBook for Kindle. The story begins with Guild delivering a prisoner to the town of Danton. Before Guild can move on, trouble rears its ugly head when an accountant at the local bank is murdered during an attempted robbery. Frank Cord, the bank manager, is quick to point his finger at a traveling magician named Hammond. As the town turns into a lynch mob, Guild takes it upon himself to try and save Hammond, keep law and order, and figure out what Frank Cord is hiding from everyone.
From start to finish, Guild is a terrific novel and exemplifies some of Gorman’s strongest traits as a writer: not only his lean plotting, deft display of action, and masterful command of language that wastes not a word, but also his intuitive feeling for character and emotion. One of Gorman’s hallmarks is his deep sympathy for humans at their weakest, most desperate moments. He understands all too well why people make bad decisions, and hurt others or themselves. When the Sheriff refuses to take a stand against Frank Cord, Gorman allows him this dignified justification: “It just means I’m old and afraid of getting turned out in the winter like some animal.” It doesn’t excuse his cowardice, but it explains it. Much of Gorman’s bitter poetry stems from all-too-human rationalizations such as these.
One of the aspects of Gorman’s writing that I greatly admire is how reluctant he is to presume to understand the extent of human suffering. A perfect example is Annie, a young woman that Hammond saved from a brothel and who travels with him as companion and assistant. Their relationship is neither as lover nor parent-child, but something deeper, more uncertain, and more sacred. Theirs is a bond based on love, support, and need. Something so natural it defies words, and which the townsfolk of Danton can’t comprehend. When Guild learns of her troubled past, Gorman doesn’t give needless, lurid explication. Instead, he offers a humble, subtle description of Guild’s reaction: “Guild made a face. He thought about her and her eyes and her grief.” Not only is there power in such understatement, but also dignity. Gorman gives Annie, and women who have suffered as she has, a respectful distance. By not going into excessive detail, Gorman conveys that real pain is sometimes beyond words.
Another quality of Guild that I like is his political commentary on the times. “There was a sense in the Territory that civilization was not only inevitable but good–yet most people still enjoyed the blood-quickening thrill that only violence brought.” Like Gorman’s later character, the political strategist Dev Conrad, Guild sees beyond party and class lines. His observations of a social gathering make his cynicism and skepticism very clear:
“Women in pink gowns and white gowns and blue gowns that cost as much as a working man’s wages floated around the three floors of the restaurant on the arms of men who talked in loud, important voices about finance and politics and local matters as if their opinions alone could change the course of things.”
“Finally, predictably, he got tired of looking at and listening to the walruslike men around him with their air of money and malice.”
In later Guild novels, Gorman would further explore the deep-seated moral, economic and political corruption of The West, but already in this first book his worldview is made clear. He has no tolerance for hypocrisy, elitism, or human exploitation.
In traditional Western lore, Manifest Destiny promised people freedom, opportunity, and a prosperous future. In reality, the land offered no such easy rewards. Gorman’s view of the harsh landscape reflects the hardships and torments that everyday people had to endure in order to survive: “This was the Territory, and all it asked for purchase was that you be able to tolerate cholera and influenza and ague and typhoid and scurvy, and that you be able to endure the fact that many of your young ones would die before they reached age five.” Gorman is a Realist, not a Romanticist, and Guild is a poetic lament rather than a patriotic celebration.
Guild is a man of principals, but he’s not morally righteous. He’s a man of rare humility and humanity. If he sees the worst in others, it is only because he has already seen it deep within himself. He uses his own troubled past—the killing of the young girl—as a measure for others. Guild is at once burdened and humbled by his own guilt. As he tells Annie, “I’m not sure I’m worth forgiving.” Whereas in a more Classical Western, characters could find redemption in the natural landscape, no such easy release from the past is possible in Gorman’s world. This is one of the novel’s most noir-inspired touches: the past stays with the characters, the bad deeds never go away, the ghosts never disappear.
One of the most heartfelt, and heartbreaking, moments of the book was between Annie and Guild. The two are full of anger and guilt, much of which stems from their own failure to make things right in the world, and the way the let down those they love. They fought with each other, but eventually they realized that all they have left is each other. “So you try not to hate me, mister, and I’ll try not to hate you,” Annie tells Guild. This is the only love that is possible in Gorman’s world. Imperfect and wounded, there’s nothing ideal about their bond, but it is sincere and honest. No relationship in any of Gorman’s novels is perfect—they’re all full of aching and loneliness, but they’re also completely believable, and all too relatable.
As a Western-Suspense novel, Guild is top-notch. The plot hooks you right away, the cast is well-rounded and compelling, and the novel builds momentum until its dark, sobering conclusion. Like in his noir novels, Gorman doesn’t soften the blows: life in the West has seldom been more bleak or blistering than in Gorman’s novels. Don’t expect a happy ending, but what you’ll get instead is a richer and more emotionally powerful experience.
Buy Guild here for Kindle.
"Death Ground" by Ed Gorman (M. Evans and Company, 1988)
Ed Gorman’s Guild series only gets better as it goes on. The books also get progressively darker, grittier, and more desolate, yet somehow more human and tender. Perhaps it is because the characters themselves become relatable, their misgivings more understandable, their stories more tragic. Death Ground, the second entry in the series, is even better than its predecessor, Guild. It was originally published in 1988 by M. Evans and Company, and is now available as an eBook for Kindle.
As Death Ground begins, the bounty hunter Guild has taken a job as a bodyguard for Merle Rig. But soon Guild learns that Rig has been murdered, and so has the young man, Kenny, whom Guild hired on to help protect Rig. The prime suspect is a notorious outlaw named Kriker, who is believed to have held up a bank with Merle Rig’s assistance. Two deputies, Thomas and James Bruckner, have been ordered to bring back Kriker. Guild, however, suspects the Bruckner brothers may know more about the robbery than they let on. As Guild sets out across the snowy plains, he unwittingly wanders into a grim drama of human devastation with no chance of a happy ending.
Like its predecessor, Death Ground is hard-hitting Western Noir. The characters aren’t driven by heroism so much as desperation, depression, and selfishness. They exist in a world where “good” and “evil” don’t exist, but where every action is cast in a morally complex shade of grey. Kriker, for instance, is a mess of bad deeds and good intentions. A thief and a killer, he started his own settlement where people wanted by the law could hide out and start their lives over again, but this time on the right foot. Kriker also saved a little girl whose parents were killed in one of his raids. But now both the girl and the town are in jeopardy. She has cholera, and the whole town could die if she doesn’t receive treatment. Kriker doesn’t believe in doctors, however, yet he won’t leave without her, either. This is a perfect example of the psychologically nuanced characters that Gorman excels at creating. Kriker is a living and breathing contradiction, but his complications make him believable. He’s as much a villain as he is a victim—and a hero, for that matter. He goes to great lengths to save that little girl, endangering himself and the whole town in the process. But, in Gorman’s world, redemption is never so easy to come by, as both Kriker and Guild learn the hard way.
“You live in a nice world, Mr. Guild,” says the sheriff. “It’s the only one that’ll have me,” replies Guild. Guild is an imperfect man living an in imperfect world. He’s as much capable of violence and immoral actions as those around him. And he carries as much as the rest of them, if not more. That’s why he’s the perfect Western narrator—because he understands all too well the people with whom he crosses paths: the not-so-good and the not-entirely-bad, the awful things they do to one another, and their hopes and dreams deferred. Guild, never one to waste words, says it more simply: “People were just people and sometimes they did terrible things. Everybody did.”
One of my favorite quotes from a movie comes from Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game: “The awful thing about life is this: Everyone has his reasons.” I’m not sure if Gorman was alluding to that line when he wrote, “We all got our ways, Mr. Guild,” but I think both he and Renoir share the same sentiment. Renoir and Gorman are humanists. They don’t seek to judge their characters, but to make sense of their actions. The more imperfect the characters are, the more sympathy these artists express towards them. Renoir and Gorman are understand, but not always forgiving. Even the Bruckner brothers are given their moments of empathy. James, the younger one, had his face scarred by his older brother, Thomas. Loveless and friendless, James clings to Thomas, following him on a dark path that leads to violence and murder. Thomas isn’t entirely the bad guy, however. He had ambitions, wanted to leave the family farm, wanted to make something of himself, and he feels bad for the way he treated his brother—that is, as much as he can feel about anything. Therein lies his problem: he doesn’t feel enough. That’s why he can do the things he does.
Guild, on the other hand, feels too much. At least, he used to. In Death Ground, the world is wearing down on the bounty hunter. Law and lawless alike can’t understand how can he do his job: track a man, and sell him to justice for money. At times, even Guild himself is struck by the inhumanity of his job. But in an inhumane world, sometimes that is the only way to survive. That is why he holds a bit of respect for men like Kriker, men who risk everything for the life of another human. Love is never idealized in Gorman’s world—love exists only in an outlaw who clings to a mute child whose parents he killed, and who he allows to suffer from cholera because he doesn’t believe in doctors; love exists between brothers who stick together, even though all they can do is cause harm to themselves and others; but love doesn’t exist for Guild. It did once, and the memories of a wife who left him linger as painfully as thoughts of the little girl he once killed while working as a lawman. Love, however, was not through causing Guild pain, and would reappear in both Blood Game and Dark Trail (my other favorite novel in the series).
If any character is redeemed through this tragedy, it is Father Healy. A former criminal, he hid out in Kriker’s settlement and posed as a priest. The tragic events depicted in Death Ground, however, give Healy the chance to finally give much needed comfort and reassurance to the community. As the cholera spreads and families are destroyed, the devastation takes begins its toll on Healy, and we really see what it means to have spirit, and the strength it takes to bear witness to such tragedies—not just the ones that are beyond our control, but the ones that we create, too. As the night draws to an end, it becomes increasingly impressive to see how Healy retains the moral resilience to stand by the community in its darkest hour.
In Death Ground, Gorman also continues a theme that he began in Guild: the anti-classical view of the West. Instead of celebrating heroism, freedom, and pastoral landscapes, Gorman focuses on corruption, guilt, and doleful environments. Gorman looks beyond the conventional, patriotic themes and sees the darker underbelly of the West. Here is one such example:
“And so it was that the Bruckner brothers learned what the frontier was all about. Not heroic or legendary gun battles. Not the beauty of the sprawling Territory. Not the sense of holding your own destiny in your own hands. Control: that’s what the frontier was really all about.”
The theme of “control” Gorman would further develop in the next entry in the Guild saga, Blood Game.
Gorman’s West is constructed from “bitter bits of real civilization.” There’s nothing majestic about it, nothing grand or celebratory, nothing ideal. His characters cling to whatever they can hold on to: abusive relationships, unethical jobs, paths that can lead nowhere but further down. They aren’t grounded so much as they’re stuck in the ground—six feet under, or at least part of the way there, anyway.
There’s a lot of hard-lived poetry in Gorman’s novels, and none of it harder to swallow or grittier than in his Westerns. Death Ground stands as one of the bleakest entries in the Guild series, but also one of the best.
"Blood Game" by Ed Gorman (M. Evans, 1989/Forge, 2001)
Blood Game is as brutal and bloody as Westerns come. In this third entry in the Guild saga, Ed Gorman gives a gut punch to the whole “man’s inhumanity to man” theme and leaves it bruised and broken, curled up in a fetal position in the corner. It’s a beautiful book, but beauty doesn’t have to be pretty, and it rarely is in Gorman’s novels.
Originally published by M. Evans and Company in 1989 and reprinted by Forge in 2001, Blood Game finds lawman-turned-bounty hunter Leo Guild working for boxing promoter John T. Stottard. Stottard wants Guild to guard the cash box during an upcoming match that involves his star fighter, Victor Sovich. Guild doesn’t like boxing because he finds it savage; but he finds human exploitation even more barbarous, and Stottard and Sovich are two of the worst offenders. Sovich is notorious for fighting black boxers in the ring, several of whom have already been killed by his savage blows. And that’s just what Stottard and the crowds are hoping will happen which Sovich faces off against Rooney, an aging black fighter whose better years are already behind him.
Tensions mount as Guild realizes that more than just money is riding on this match. There’s Stottard’s son, Stephen, who is emotionally attached to his abusive father, and haunted by the absence of his mother who ran away when he was still a child. Then there’s Clarise Watson, the sister of a man whom Rooney killed in the ring. And then there’s John T. Stottard, himself, whom Guild suspects might be up to foul play. As the countdown to the fight draws nearer, Guild witnesses just how low human nature will sink for a taste of blood.
The final boxing match is one of the most despicable presentations of society in all of Gorman’s works. The blood and the violence are matched only by the vileness and desperation of the characters. Like a cataclysmic domino effect, everyone’s plans collapse into disastrous ruin, leaving Guild to try and pick up the pieces. As one doctor tells Guild, “Sometimes we treat people we love pretty badly.” That line could be the epigram for many of Gorman’s novels. It’s simple, but it captures the tragedy of so many of the author’s books, including Blood Game. Neither John T. Stottard, his wife, their son, or even Clarise Watson could comprehend the shockwaves their actions would cause. The effects would linger long after the boxing match ended, and some pains don’t lessen with time, they only grow deeper.
Gorman’s characters frequently take a lot of physical blows. The punishment they endure is on par with some of Dudley Dean’s work that I’ve read. But in Gorman’s work, the characters that receive the most punishment aren’t the ones who get punched or shot—they’re the ones who survive, and live to remember all the pain they’ve caused in others. As Guild tells someone at the end of the book, “Hitting you would be easy. You’re going to have to live the rest of your life with how you treated him. That’s going to be the hard part.” Guild is also a survivor, one burdened with memories, and that’s where his soulfulness comes from.
One of the most prominent themes of Blood Game is control—not only over one’s own life, but also over others. John T. Stottard tries to achieve control through manipulation: he abuses son into submission; he rips off his fighters; and he stokes through crowds through bloodlust. Guild is a man who can’t be bought, which is why Stottard immediately dislikes the bounty hunter. It’s also why he trusts Guild, and looks for new ways to deceive him. The other side of the “control” theme is that of human exploitation. Blood Game explores the deep roots of racism in American society, and how even after slavery was technically over, black people were still exploited, abused, and treated as an inferior class just because of their skin color. By exploring these issues, Gorman reveals the far side of paradise. While many tend to think of the West as a mythological utopia, Gorman reminds how hypocritical, barbaric, and ugly civilization out West really was.
Gorman’s prose style is deceptively simple. His streamlined phrases are powerful without being bombastic, full of emotion without resorting to theatrics. There’s never a wasted word or an excessive adjective. The narrative flows smoothly from first page to last, and reading his books from cover to cover is not only a pleasure for the experience, but it also reinforces just how tightly constructed the book is. The book is also full of strong, poetic imagery, such as when he describes a gunshot in the back of someone’s head as “a terrible purple flower suddenly in bloom.”
Reading the Guild saga, I’ve been struck by how crucial the theme of prolonged guilt runs through all the novels. (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that only one letter differentiates “Guild” and “guilt,” either.) Much like in Clifton Adams’ The Desperado and A Noose for the Desperado, Gorman’s characters can never outrun their history. As one character admits, “I knew that at last my past had found me, the past I wonder about when I can’t sleep at night.” Guild, himself, is no exception. He understands people so well because he’s seen the worst of himself in action, and he’s never forgotten what bad things he is capable of doing with his own two hands. Another character says these words, but they summarize Guild’s own conscience: “I know that no apology can undo what I did. I must accept my blame without any attempt at justifying myself.”
For me, the most moving line was one character’s admission: “I wish I could feel good, Leo. I wish I could feel some satisfaction. I deserve what happens to me, Leo. I shouldn’t have done it. I surely shouldn’t have.” None of the characters had in mind some large scheme, or any grandiose plot. They wanted something they thought was simple—money, sex, love, revenge, happiness—but never realized the heavy cost they would have to pay to achieve it. “I don’t want to hate her anymore, Leo,” one character tells Guild. “I’m tired of hating her. It takes too much out of me after all these years.”
Gorman’s West is not about valor, redemption, or purification. It’s not about Manifest Destiny. It’s about characters who can’t take control of their lives, who can’t rule over the land, who can’t reinvent themselves, who can’t escape the past.
"Guild and the Indian Woman" by Ed Gorman (1988)
Part of the Guild series.
“Guild and the Indian Woman” is the only short story to feature Ed Gorman’s series character, the lawman-turned-bounty hunter Leo Guild. It originally appeared in the 1988 anthology Westeryear, and was later included in Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg’s The Best Western Stories of Ed Gorman.
The short story begins with Guild tracking down a man believed to have died of cholera. While he is checking with the doctor, a sixty-something year old Mesquakie Indian grandmother walks through the door and shoots the doctor in the face. She then asks Guild to accompany her to the sheriff. It seems like a cut-and-dried case, but Guild suspects there is more to it than meets the eye.
“Guild and the Indian Woman” is a terrific companion piece to the four novels that make up the saga. In just a handful of pages (26, in my large-print edition), Gorman gets to the heart of the Guild novels, which is to expose the dark recesses of the Old West. The crimes are as gritty and seamy as in Noir.
The story is also remarkable for how Gorman is able to condense the essence of Guild’s personality into a mere few lines. Guild can not only recognize a man’s potential for causing pain, but also the pains that a man has already suffered, and he’s never judgmental. Take a look at this paragraph below, as it clearly shows Guild’s world-weary insight:
“The door opened and a stubby man with watery eyes and filthy, shapeless clothes emerged. He needed a shave and a bath. With the coast-to-coast railroad tracks and another cycle of bank failures, the territory was home to many men like him. Drifting. Dead in certain spiritual respects. Just drifting. Guild knew he was cleaner and stronger and smarter, but he was probably not very different from this man. So he was careful not to allow himself even the smallest feeling of superiority.”
The Guild saga is one of my favorite Western series. If you like your Westerns unconventional and with shades of Noir, like something that Gold Medal might have published back in the 1950s, then be sure to look into the Guild novels, they might just what you’re looking for.
"Dark Trail" by Ed Gorman (M. Evans and Company, 1990)
Dark Trail is the grave conclusion to Ed Gorman’s Guild saga. Gorman not only saved the best for last, he also saved the darkest, most dolorous, too. Originally published by M. Evans and Company in 1990, it was later reprinted in a paperback edition by Forge in 1997.
In Dark Trail, the past finally catches up with lawman-turned-bounty hunter Leo Guild. Years ago, his wife, Sarah, left him for a gunfighter named Frank Cord. Now, she wants Guild’s help to save Frank’s life. Frank has gone and left Sarah for another woman—another gunfighter’s woman, Beth. Unlike Guild, however, this gunfighter—Ben Rittenauer—isn’t going to let his girl go so easily.
As tensions mount between Frank and Ben, a third party begins to show interest in the fight. Tom Adair, a local cattle baron and railroad tycoon, wants to throw a party for the local aristocrats and politicians. The main attraction: a real, live gunfight. The prize: $10,000. Knowing that whomever wins gets both the money and Beth, Frank and Ben quickly agree to a public duel. As the big night draws nearer, Guild struggles to convince the men to call off the fight before it is too late.
With its circular narrative and inevitable, disastrous conclusion, in Dark Trail Gorman elevates the Western to the level of Greek Tragedy. The violently sobering finale shows how little value these people had for human life, whether it was their own or another’s. In previous Guild books, Gorman has remarked about man’s inhumanity to man—“People were just people and sometimes they did terrible things. Everybody did.” (Death Ground) and “Sometimes we treat people we love pretty badly.” (Blood Game)—but nowhere is his lament for humanity lost greater or more affect than here, in Dark Trail.
One of Guild’s struggles in each of the books has been to preserve the sanctity of human life—an ironic goal, considering his job as a bounty hunter. His job, however, positions him to see just how debased and devalued life was in the Old West. People would kill, prostitute their bodies, or sell their souls for a dollar—or less, if they were desperate enough. And there would always be somebody (like Tom Adair in Dark Trail, or John T. Stottard in Blood Game) ready to take advantage of those hopeless people. Try as he might, Guild couldn’t beat the Adairs and the Stottards of the world, and he couldn’t convince the Sarahs, Beths, Franks, or Bens that living and loving was worth more than the price of a new gown or a lead bullet. Guild learned the hard way—by taking an innocent life by accident—and it has been his burden to see history repeat itself over and over again, and to be unable to stop the cycle from continuing. That is what makes Guild a tragic character—he’s as guilty as the rest, but this knowledge doesn’t allow him to enact any change in the world around him, so he just relives the same pains over and over again.
Relationships in Gorman’s novels are never romanticized or idealized—they’re as flawed and wounded as the people are themselves. For that reason, they’re very realistic and relatable. His characters have enough self-knowledge not to believe in happy endings, which allows for very frank and honest discussions about love (or love lost, as is often the case). This dialogue between Guild and Sarah is a classic example:
Guild: “There was a lot of years when I thought that would still be a good idea.”
Sarah: “Us getting back together?”
Guild: “Yes.”
Sarah: “It wouldn’t work, Leo.”
Guild: “I know. But it’s nice to think about sometimes.”
Another hallmark of Gorman’s novels are his morally ambiguous characters. There are no easy heroes and no easy villains—in fact, those “hero” and “villains” labels rarely apply to his stories. Everyone is equally capable of hurting someone else, just as everyone is equally capable of helping someone else (even if they rarely do). Just as much a hallmark is Gorman’s refusal to pass judgment. When Guild tells Sarah, “You really are good. True and honest and loyal,” there’s no irony or resentment in his voice. In a way, Sarah is the person responsible for this whole chain of events—it was her who left Guild for Frank in the first place—yet, in Guild’s eyes, she is still the person most capable of goodness. Guild is sincere because he, like Gorman, doesn’t blame Sarah. Guild knows that perhaps it was himself who drove Sarah away, and that maybe it was his own failings as a husband—and as a fellow human—that started this tragic ball rolling so many years ago. Guild has a rare sense of humility, of perception, and of understanding. He understands people because he understands himself—all the bad things he’s done, and all the good things he could have done but failed to.
Reading all the Guild stories right in a row—Guild, Death Ground, Blood Game, and Dark Trail, plus the short story “Guild and the Indian Woman”—was a moving experience. They’re a mournful, brooding bunch, but they’re all excellently written, and filled with compelling, lifelike characters. Guild is a remarkable protagonist, and it was a pleasure spending time with him. And even though the series is over, I’m sure that I will be visiting Guild again real soon.
Fives Guns to Tombstone (1960)
Fives Guns to Tombstone (1960) spoils a good premise by needing too much dialog to explain too many double-and-triple crosses, making its 71 minute runtime seem a lot longer. What should have been a noir-fueled story of gang and familiar betrayal winds up being a tedious talk-fest.
The plot centers around two men—one a respectable businessman, the other a known outlaw—who plan to hijack a shipment of money. The respectable one arranges for Matt Wade (Robert Karnes) to be broken out of jail so that he can persuade his brother, Billy (James Brown), to steal the money from his outlaw partner. Billy, an outlaw who is trying to go straight, is also raising Matt's son, Ted (John Wilder). Matt tricks Billy into being an unwilling participant in a robbery in order to persuade him to re-join the gang. Everything gets worse for the characters—and for the script—from there, and most of the movie is spent with characters going from one location to another doing a lot of talking. Even the shoot-out and chase at the end can't make up for all the wasted time leading up to it.
Journeyman director Edward L. Cahn directed 126 movies (features, shorts, and the occasional tv episode) between 1931 and 1962. I've only seen a handful, but I remember liking the women-in-prison movie Betrayed Women (1955) and the Mamie Van Doren crime flick Vice Raid (1960), and I've heard great things about Law and Order (1932), his second film.
Beautiful print on the MGM Limited Edition Collection dvd-r.
Labels: Movie Review, Western
Good Day for a Hanging (1959)
Anyone who thinks westerns are as simple as "good guy vs. bad guy" hasn't seen Good Day for a Hanging (1959), a grim western in which the evils of mob-justice gets turned on its head. this time, the town tries to overturn a death sentence and depose the new lawman. A pair of exciting, outdoor chases bookend what is mostly a somber chamber drama, gripping and understated, in which a widower (Fred MacMurray) puts on a badge and loses his daughter (Joan Blackman), his fiance (Margaret Hayes), and the town itself.
Fred MacMurray plays a reluctant lawman and the only member of a posse who will testify that young bank robber Robert Vaughn killed the Marshal while trying to escape. MacMuarry's testimony, however, only fuels the town's bloodlust—they would rather see the kid go free. Even MacMurray's daughter (who carries a torch for childhood sweetheart Vaughn) and fiance won't stand by his side.
Seemingly in the tradition of High Noon, Good Day for a Hanging is different because it does not uphold the myth of the lone man with a gun. Unlike Gary Cooper, MacMurray's lawman tries to do things by the book; it is the social pressures of family and friends that push him to cave in and acquiesce to their demands.
A deep sadness runs through Good Day For a Hanging. MacMurray, Hayes, and Kathryn Card (who plays the widow of the recently-murdered sheriff) have all outlived their spouses. The children, too, are longing for a more complete family—Joan Blackman looks for it in Robert Vaughn (a symbol of childhood when things were better), and Hayes' little boy longs for a father and says he will grow up to be just like MacMurray, a double-edged sentiment that grieves the lawman.
Superb ensemble cast with a strong script by Daniel B. Ullman and Maurice Zimm (Zimm also provided the story for Creature from the Black Lagoon), and is based on the short story "The Reluctant Hangman" by John Jo Carpenter (Texas Rangers, v62 #1, March 1956). Excellently directed by Nathan Juran (better known for fantastic fare such as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, 20 Million Miles to Earth, and The Deadly Mantis, and who also won an Oscar for Art Direction on How Green Was My Valley) and photographed by Henry Freulich (whose career spanned 1929-1969 and over 200 credits).
Below are screenshots from the Columbia DVD. Nice colors and anamorphic widescreen. Highly recommended.
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Pizzeria Americana Ohana, Monroe Ave.
Note: this establishment has closed. As of Dec. 2011, this site is occupied by Ken's Pizza Corner.
Way back in March 2009, I did a post on Kip's Pizzeria Americana in Greece. I also mentioned that there was a second location on Monroe Avenue in Brighton, going by the name Pizzeria Americana Ohana.
According to RocWiki, the two locations are now under completely separate ownership, and indeed their websites don't look at all alike, and make no mention of each other.
The menus at the two P.A.s are still pretty similar, but I still wanted to check out the Ohana location, just to see if it differed much from Kip's. It took me some time to do it, because although their menu and website say that they open at 11 a.m., on several occasions when I tried calling at lunchtime, I got no answer.
Eventually, I succeeded in ordering some pizza later in the day, to take home for dinner. I got two, a small pepperoni pie, and a medium Margherita.
I was a little put off when the person who took my phone order told me rather brusquely, "It's gonna be at least half an hour," before hanging up. I frankly wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Should I show up in half an hour? If I do, should I bring a book or something else to pass the time? Should I phone home and let my family know I might be late bringing home dinner?
Fortunately, when I did arrive about 35 minutes later, my pizzas were ready. They did in fact bear a definite resemblance to the pie that I'd gotten at Kip's, particularly around the edge, which was formed into a thick lip with a knotty, rope-like appearance.
The crusts were medium thick, with a firm, slightly charred underside that bore a light dusting of cornmeal. The crust had a pleasant bready flavor and aroma, and good texture.
The pepperoni pie was well balanced, with a moderate layer of mild-tasting tomato sauce that was neither too sweet nor too strongly flavored with herbs. That was topped by a uniform layer of lightly browned mozzarella, and rather spicy cup & char pepperoni, which was crisp along the edges.
The Margherita (or Margarita, to go by the menu spelling, though that sounds as if it should be topped with a tequila lime sauce, with some salt along the edge) was a little untraditional. The crust on this one is brushed with olive oil, and topped with garlic, fresh tomato, basil and Asiago cheese. It was certanly enjoyable, but the tiny bits of diced tomato contributed very little other than some color, and the basil, while more noticeable, took a back seat to the garlic and cheese. The latter two components, though, worked well together. The pizza had a nostril- and palate-pleasing garlic presence, and the Asiago, while not as stringy as processed mozzarella, gave the pizza a nice, sharp-edged tang. The thin coating of olive oil between the crust and toppings helped bring the various components together.
Pizzeria American has an extensive list of toppings to choose from (the cheese list alone runs to eight different varieties), and no less than 31 gourmet pizzas, which run the gamut from a simple four cheese pizza to the "Garbage Pie," whose name says it all. They also serve hot and cold subs, sandwiches and burgers, wings, appetizers and salad. It's stricly takeout and delivery ($2.00 delivery charge).
Both these pizzas were pretty good. I particularly liked the crust, and though this wasn't my favorite Margherita around here, both it and the pepperoni pie were pretty well made. I gave Kip's a B+, and that does seem about right for this too.
Pizzeria Americana Ohana, 1860 Monroe Ave. (near 12 Corners) 271-5860
Mon. - Thu. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 11 a.m. - 10 p.m., Sun. noon - 8 p.m.
Labels: 14618, grade B+, margherita
Straight Home, Lexington Ave.
Straight Home is on Lexington Avenue, about a half mile east of Mount Read. There's a bar on one side, and a takeout pizzeria/grill on the other.
Straight Home used to be The Lex Bar & Grill, which is why there's a place called Lex South on Scottsville Road. I guess Lex South was originally a second location of the original Lex.
I mention that because Lex South shares its building with a pizzeria, Sylvio's, as does Straight Home, so it seems there's some connection between the Lex, or its successor Straight Home, and pizza.
But back to Straight Home. The grill opens at 11 a.m., but I tried to get a slice there a couple of time around lunch hour only to be told that pizza wouldn't be available until later. So finally one evening I swung by and got a pepperoni slice.
When I placed the order, the cook pulled out a large cheese slice, added some pepperoni to it and put it in the pizza oven, where it stayed for quite some time, even though it appeared to have already been baked when he put it in. Maybe it was just partially baked, with the idea that it could be finished when it got rewarmed in the oven.
After, I'd say, five minutes, maybe a little more, my slice emerged. It was a giant slice, measuring 10 1/2 inches along the sides.
Despite the length of time it had spent in the oven, the underside of the slice was quite pale. It was lightly dusted with cornmeal. It was firm, but not crisp.
The crust was rather thin toward the tip of the slice, and gradually got thicker nearer the outer edge, going from about a quarter inch to 3/4" thick. The lip at the edge was over an inch thick.
The slice was rather greasy, probably from all the pepperoni. I would've held the slice vertically to let the grease drip off, but the pepperoni would've fallen off too. Pepperoni just doesn't adhere well when you try to add it to a cheese slice that's already been cooked. So I did the best I could sopping it up with a napkin.
There was a lot of cheese here, and a lot of pepperoni too. This was a big slice in a lot of ways. Big in size, and loaded with cheese and pepperoni.
The only thing there wasn't a lot of was sauce. There was just a thin layer underneath the cheese, and I couldn't really pick up much of its flavor.
Besides pizza, Straight Home has all the bar food staples, grilled, fried and otherwise. The wings looked and smelled particularly good. Both the bar (which is on the right, facing the front of the building) and the takeout counter were reasonably busy on this weeknight. (The name, I assume, is meant to allow you to say that you're going, or that you went, "straight home" after work or whenever, *wink wink*.)
This was, I thought, rather atypical bar pizza. Of the few bars that serve pizza, I've always figured that most, like Acme, make it thin so you won't get too full to keep drinking. One slice of this, though, was pretty filling.
I can't say I liked it too much, I'm afraid. The dough had risen nicely, and had a good bready flavor, but bottom was just not nearly done enough for me. I also found it a little out of balance, and would've liked a little more sauce to balace out the cheese and pepperoni. Overall, this was pizza with some potential, but this particular slice had some definite flaws as well. I'll give it a C-.
Straight Home Inn, 688 Lexington Ave. 458-0020
Mon. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 2 a.m., Sun. noon - 2 a.m.
Posted by Pizza Guy at 12:15 PM 0 comments
Labels: 14613, bar, beer, eat-in, grade C-, late-night, slices
A Genuine Neighborhood Pizzeria in the 19th Ward: Menezes Pizza
Menezes Pizza on Chili Avenue has been in business for 24 years, all under the ownership of Freddy and Jill Menezes (pronounced "men-EZZ-ez"). In a business in which both pizzerias and their owners come and go with some frequency, that's pretty impressive.
I recently had the opportunity to chat with both Jill and Freddy about what's kept them going all these years, and about how the pizza business has changed since they started out in 1986.
I'll refer you to Menezes' website for the story of how Menezes Pizza got started on Genesee Street and how it ended up at its current location, in the former site of a Pizza Hut carryout franchise (score one for the little guys!).
When I read that story prior to my visit, I was impressed by the Menezes' commitment to their 19th Ward neighborhood, and that very much came out during my conversation with Jill. With obvious affection for the area, she termed it a "very special neighborhood," both in its diversity of residents and because it is a very real neighborhood, where people still talk to each other.
That neighborliness has been a factor in the success of Menezes, which, without the kind of advertising budget that its larger competitors have, has had to rely to a great extent on word of mouth. Jill recalled that the day that Menezes opened after relocating from Genesee Street, they had 300 orders, despite almost no advance advertising, simply because word had spread among the customers and local residents. Clearly there's a symbiotic relationship at work here between Menezes and the neighborhood, many of whose residents found their first jobs at the pizzeria.
But it's unlikely that Menezes would have stayed in business for this long had they not turned out good pizza, and provided good service. And what was also apparent from talking to both Freddy and Jill is their commitment to both. She described Fred - who oversees most of the pizzamaking operations - as someone who has always striven to make the best product he can, adding that they were both determined from day one to "treat people the right way."
What has also benefited Menezes over the years is the contrasting yet complementary personalities of Freddy and Jill. He's a people person who takes a hands-on approach and is able to roll with the punches, while Jill, with an academic background in both art and economics, tends to look more at the big picture, trying to keep up with the latest technology and coming up with innovative approaches to business issues and marketing.
Freddy's passion for quality was evident in the frustration he expressed over some changes in the pizza business since he started out. Back in the day, he told me, the cheese and pepperoni were all hand-sliced. Today, workers' comp issues and customers' expectations of a fast turnaround time have made that impracticable. Even the sauce has changed over the years; as Freddy explained, cooking helps bring out the flavor of tomatoes, but these days the idea has taken hold that fresher always means better, so now tomatoes go from the vine to the can with minimal processing.
And while it's not exactly news that the government can make life more difficult, here's one that never would have occurred to me: sauce is best kept at room temperature before it's spread on the pizza, so that it can cook in the oven; if it's cold when it's applied, precious minutes will go by in the oven just warming it up. But keeping sauce out at room temperature doesn't sit right with the Department of Health, whose inspectors insist that it be kept refrigerated when not in use.
There have been more serious challenges too, not the least of which is the recession and the continued sluggish economy. The deep-pocketed chain pizzerias have responded by slashing prices and spending heavily on advertising, neither of which small independent shops like Menezes can afford without going into debt, something that Freddy and Jill have always tried to avoid.
On top of that, there was a snafu earlier this year when the phone company printed the wrong phone number for Menezes in the phone book. That was eventually straightened out, but in a business that relies heavily on phone orders, that's more than just an inconvenience.
Clearly, then, running a successful pizza business is not as simple as one might think. With all the obstacles that are out there, the pizza had better be good, and consistent, and Menezes' pizza is both. I got a quick walk-through of the process, starting with the massive mixer (think KitchenAid on steroids), and moving on to the dough retarder, where the dough is chilled to allow for a slow fermentation. Eighteen-year veteran Jay Trudeau (seen in photo) was busy pressing out the dough and topping it with Menezes' house-made sauce and other toppings, and from there it was on to the ovens. Pizzas at Menezes typically go in to the oven on a tray (screens are no longer used), then finished directly on the oven's stone deck. If you, like me, prefer your pizza to be baked without the tray, just let them know when ordering, and they'll accommodate you.
Talking with Freddy and Jill gave me newfound respect not just for the real-life "moms and pops" out there who run our neighborhood pizzerias, but for small business owners in general. It takes both brains and heart, to understand the business but also to genuinely care about taking good care of your customers. At one point in our conversation, Jill made the comment that she and Fred "try our hardest every day to serve people the best we can." I think that as much as anything else, that sums up why Menezes has been in business now for 24 years and counting.
Menezes Pizza, 445 Chili Ave., 328-3010
Mon. - Wed. 11 a.m. - midnight, Thu. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 1 a.m., Sun. noon - midnight
Note: Menezes Pizza will be participating in the Second Annual Taste of Chili Avenue Festival from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, July 24. The event will take place along Chili Avenue near Thurston Road. Other features include two stages of entertainment, a basketball competition, face painting and activities for kids. Parking will be available at HSBC, the Progressive Cathedral Church of God in Christ, and the Gardiner Recreation Center. Admission is free.
Posted by Pizza Guy at 6:15 AM 0 comments
Labels: 14608, 14611, 14619
Humphrey House, Penfield
The Humphrey House has been serving food in Penfield for over 30 years now. It closed for a while in 2007, and reopened under new ownership in 2008.
Recently, the Humphrey House installed a wood-fired oven, which they use to create a variety of thin-crust pizzas. This of course necessitated a visit on my part.
I’ve had mixed results with wood-fired pizza around here, so I didn’t know what to expect. At one extreme are those pizzas that come out dry, thin, brittle and crackerlike. Me no like. At the other are pizzas that are so soft, chewy and pale that you wonder what the point was of baking them in a wood-fired oven. That’s kind of like buying a Ferrari and never driving it over 30 m.p.h.
But then there are the pizzas that fall in between, with a nice char on the outside, a whiff of smokiness, a crisp bottom and a chewy interior. Except for the smokiness, that can be done in any good pizza oven, but with the right technique, a wood-fired oven is perfect for achieving that result. So I was cautiously optimistic.
Of the seven pizza choices on the menu, I chose the Margherita, as I usually do for wood-fired pies. It’s a classic, and simple enough that the toppings won’t get in the way of the crust.
My pizza measured a foot across, and the crust was very thin, making it just about right for a satisfying lunch for one person. The crust was quite charred and heat-blistered on the bottom. The charring was a bit uneven, but was confined entirely to the underside - the edge was not charred at all.
As thin as the crust was, though, the charring was only on the surface of the underside. The crust was not burned through, and in fact it remained supple, even floppy, especially toward the tips of the slices. By all indications, then, this pizza had baked very quickly, at very high temperatures - long enough on the hot oven floor for the underside to char, but without burning the toppings or drying out the crust.
I’ve never been to Italy, sad to say, but that made me wonder if this was closer to genuine Neapolitan pizza than the really crisp pies turned out by a lot of wood-fired pizzerias in this country. Contrary to what I’d thought, I’ve read that most pizza in Naples has a rather soft crust, mostly because of the flour that they use, which is one reason that it’s typically eaten with a knife and fork. Again, I can’t confirm that from first-hand experience, but if that’s true perhaps this pizza was not too far from that mark, as far as the crust is concerned.
In more “American” fashion, though, this was a fairly saucy pizza. Instead of the fresh or crushed tomatoes found on some Margheritas, this was topped with a relatively generous layer of cooked sauce, which had a slightly sweet yet tangy flavor. It was almost too much sauce for such a thin crust, but I like sauce, so it was OK with me.
As I mentioned, the top side of the pie was not nearly as well-done as the bottom, and the fresh mozzarella slices were more softened than melted. The shredded basil was wilted enough to blend with the other components, but still green enough to retain its fresh flavor.
HH’s other pizzas include a “Traditional” pepperoni pizza, and yet another take on “Sicilian,” with pancetta, red onions, mozzarella and garlic sauce. You can peruse the rest of the menu on their website, but it’s wide-ranging, with steaks, seafood, chicken and pasta. A white-tablecloth dining room takes up most of the space, with a small, informal bar in a separate room in back.
It’s funny - in some ways, this wasn’t really the kind of pizza I like best - I like more of an interior in my crust, for one thing - but I think it was well executed, and I give credit to the pizzaiolo for not being afraid to make good use of the wood-fired oven, while avoiding the danger of simply burning the pizza and calling it “artisanal.” No doubt some people would take one look at the blackened underside and pronounce it inedible, but I found it well executed, and I’ll give it an A-.
The Humphrey House, 1783 Penfield Rd., Penfield, 267-7415
Mon. - Thu. 11:00 am - 9:00 pm, Fri. & Sat. 11:00 am - 10:00 pm, closed Sun.
Labels: bar, beer, eat-in, grade A-, margherita, penfield, table service, thin crust, wood-fired
Ciaccia's
Ciaccia's is an Italian deli on Lee Road, a little north of Lyell. I saw a reference somewhere to them serving pizza, so I went to investigate.
Though there's a sign in the window that says they serve mini pizzas, what I found inside was that there were cut slices available at lunchtime. They had two varieties, pepperoni and veggie, so I got one of each.
These were rectangular, Sicilian-type slices. They had been sitting out at room temperature, so I rewarmed them in a toaster oven before trying them.
As you might expect, the crust was fairly thick, with a light brown underside that was slightly oily to the touch. It was nice and crisp (thanks in large part to the reheating), and it had a light texture, not dense at all. It seemed to have had a pretty good rise in the pan.
The veggie slice was topped with sweet and hot peppers, black olives, mushrooms and onions. Except for the onions, the veggies all seemed to be of the canned variety. Despite my aversion to mushrooms - most of which I picked off - it was a tasty combination. This slice seemed relatively light on the sauce, and I hard a hard time detecting the flavor of the sauce. The cheese was melted and soft, and covered with all those toppings, it had not browned at all. The slice was also dusted with Parmesan.
The pepperoni slice was noticeably more browned than the veggie, and the cheese was more congealed. It had a heavier application of sauce, which had a thick consistency and a tomatoey flavor. I don't know if the pepperoni pizza was intentionally given a more generous layer of sauce, but if so, it was a wise decision, as this helped the sauce better stand up to and balance out the pepperoni, which had a spicy, assertive flavor.
Ciaccia is, again, a deli, not a pizzeria as such, so the emphasis here is mostly on deli meats and subs. They do offer a variety of hot and cold items, and you'll also find various imported foods in the back. They seem to do a pretty steady lunchtime business.
I've seen Sicilian pizza described as, essentially, focaccia with toppings, and that's about how I'd describe this too. It made for a pleasant eating experience, with its light-textured crust and enjoyable toppings. I think I would've liked the veggie slice a little more had fresh olives been used, and though the crust was good, for my taste it could've been browned a bit more to bring out a little additional flavor from the dough. But all in all, not a bad couple of slices, and I'll give them a B-.
Ciaccia Importers of Fine Foods, 183 Lee Rd., 458-3497
(hours unknown)
Labels: 14606, grade B-, Sicilian, slices, thick crust
Pontillo's: Bushnells Basin vs. Alexander St.
One thing that bedevils smaller pizza chains is lack of consistency from one location to another, and one pizzeria that I've seen that complaint leveled at in particular is Pontillo's. Part of the issue with Pontillo's seems to be that each shop is independently operated, without a lot of central control or oversight. At least that's the contention I've seen raised on occasion.
So I decided to conduct a little test, by visiting two Pontillo's locations and comparing their slices. First, I went to the Bushnell Basin Pontillo's, which consistently gets high marks for its pizza. Then I stopped at the Alexander Street Pontillo's, about which I've read a fair amount of negative comments.
If you've never been to the Bushnells Basin Pontillos, be aware that, this being a tony East Side suburb, it's not marked by any big red-and-white signs as at other Pontillo's. Instead, you'll find only a discreet sign above the door to let you know that this is a pizzeria and not a real estate agency or a chiropractor's office.
Inside, it was quite busy, with a knot of customers around the counter awaiting their slices from the several types of pies sitting on racks on the left. Service was friendly and efficient, however, with pies emerging from the ovens to keep pace with demand.
My pepperoni slices had a thin-to-medium crust that was somewhat crisp and slightly charred underneath. Some oil from the top of the pizza had seeped down around the edges, although the underside didn’t seem greasy otherwise.
The toppings were all moderately applied, in good balance with each other and with the crust. The sauce had a slightly sweet flavor, and the mozzarella was nicely baked, just enough to brown a bit without losing its so well-baked as to tighten up or lose its "meltedness." (Anybody got a better adjective for me there?) The slices were lightly dusted with what I took to be Parmesan.
The edge was formed into a small lip, which was enjoyable. The dough in general had pretty good, bready flavor.
The Alexander Street Pontillo's is located half a block from East Avenue, in the heart of the East End. It's open late on weekends, so clearly much of its business comes from patrons of the many bars in the area. But it's open during the day too, which is when I stopped by.
Unlike the Bushnells Basin location, this Pontillo's was not busy at all on my lunchtime visit. In fact I was the only customer there. Again, I'm sure it's a different scene altogether at 2:30 on a Saturday morning.
There were, I think, four types of slices to choose from, cheese, pepperoni, Buffalo wing, and veggie. I took a pepperoni slice.
Rather than two ordinary size slices, here I was given one big one, although I was offered the option of having it sliced in two, which I declined.
Otherwise, the biggest difference between this slice and those I got at Bushnells Basin was that the underside was considerably more charred, with some nearly black areas scattered around the bottom.
The crust was medium thick, about the same as at BB. It was, however, of uneven thickness, with some spots noticeably thicker than others.
Given the charred bottom, it was no surprise that when I folded this slice, it broke right down the middle. The underside was dry and crackly, though it had a pleasingly toasty flavor, especially along the edge. Although not as pliable as I would've preferred, I did like the flavor and texture of this crust.
The sauce on this slice had a thick consistency, with a tomatoey flavor that was both slightly sweet and slightly salty. There was a noticeable flavor of dried herbs, though I'm not sure if that came more from the sauce or the sprinkling of herbs on top. The cheese was applied in a thin but pretty uniform layer, and the pepperoni was evenly distributed as well. Despite the well-cooked underside, the top was not so well done, and the pepperoni was more chewy than crisp.
So, what did this little experiment indicate? Well, this may not be a scientifically valid result, but I found the two locations pretty consistent with each other, and where they differed, I'm not sure that the Alexander Street Pontillo's came out on the short end. The only major difference was that the latter was more charred and crackly underneath, which may or may not be a bad thing, depending on your tastes.
I will say that the BB Pontillo's struck me as a smoothly run operation. Depsite the throng of customers, things were run efficiently, and the counter guy was courteous and friendly.
Service at Alexander Street was fine too, but I have no idea what it's like late at night on a weekend. Then again, the customers you get at that hour are not necessarily as easy to deal with as those you get at lunchtime. So I have to wonder if some of the complaints might have more to do with that than with the pizza itself. As far as the pizza's concerned, these were comparable, and though I wouldn't rate either among my favorites, they were both pretty good.
My inclination was to give them both a B, but I did give the Spencerport Road Pontillo's a B+, and I think these were about as good as that one, so for the sake of consistency I'll give them a B+ as well.
Labels: 14604, Bushnells Basin, chains, downtown, grade B+, late-night, slices
Rigatoni's, Penfield
Rigatoni's is a small Italian restaurant in the village of Penfield. It's not someplace I would've thought of for pizza until I ran across this article. A phone call confirmed that they do indeed serve individual-size pizzas, so I promptly ordered one with pepperoni.
The crust on my pie was medium thick, and 10 inches wide, with a mostly pale, screen baked bottom. It was a little unevenly cooked, with one section of the edge considerably darker than the rest. The crust had a soft texture, even along the edge. It had clearly risen fairly wall, but the interior was not particularly airy.
The sauce was applied somewhat thickly, though in good balance with the crust. It was tomatoey, but also had a noticeable herb flavor.
The shredded cheese was moderately applied, with some individual strands still visible, and a few bare spots here and there. I'm not sure, but it seemed to me that there might've been some provolone in there along with the mozzarella.
Rather than the typical, small round slices, the pepperoni on this pie appeared to have been cut from a relatively wide pepperoni that had been sliced and quartered. It had a good meaty flavor. The entire pie was lightly dusted with herbs and what appeared to be Parmesan.
Rigatoni's has all the Italian standards on the menu, like chicken and veal parm, greens & beans, and pasta, as well as more basic stuff like subs and wraps. They also do a substantial catering business. There's room for about 30 diners indoors, with some outdoor seating as well. No alcohol, but you're welcome to BYOB.
I wouldn't mind going back sometime for lunch or dinner, to check out some of those other items on the menu, but I'd probably skip the pizza. It was tasty, and was pretty well balanced, but the crust wasn't so great. To me, it was reminiscent of the kind of pizza you might expect to get off the kids' menu at a restaurant - nothing to complain about, but not something I'd take over a good dish of pasta. I'll give it a C.
Rigatoni's, 2133 Five Mile Line Rd., Penfield. 381-8550
Mon. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 9 p.m.
Labels: eat-in, grade C, outdoor seating, penfield
Jim & Ralph's, NY style pie
Back in March, I did a post on a slice that I got at Jim & Ralph's on Elmgrove Road, which had recently started serving pizza. I found it a pleasant surprise coming from a restaurant that I had always thought of as more of a burgers-'n'-hots kind of place, and along with my "B" rating I said that Jim & Ralph's "warrants a return visit sometime for a full pie."
Well, I followed up and that, and went back for full pie. Alas, perhaps my expectations had been raised too much, but this time I was disappointed.
My pizza had a thin crust that was very soft - even the edge was soft. It reminded my of one of those soft breadsticks they give you at Olive Garden. Not bad, maybe, for a breadstick, but not what I'm looking for in my pizza.
Having said that, though, I didn't find the crust all that bready. It seemed rather lifeless, for lack of a better term, and the slices were rather floppy.
The underside bore some screen marks and was very unevenly cooked - it was quite dark in some areas, and very light in others. My guess is that there are hot spots in the oven, which means that the pizza needs to be moved around now and then while it's baking to ensure an evenly cooked crust.
The sauce on this pizza had a mild tomatoey flavor, and was moderately applied. The cheese was more heavily applied, and was melted and stringy. For my taste, it was a little too heavily applied for this thin a crust, and threatened to overwhelm the other components.
Overall, the pizza had a slightly salty flavor, and I thought I detected some garlic powder in the background as well.
I should also mention that the overall preparation seemed a bit sloppy. The pepperoni was somewhat unevenly distributed, as was the cheese. And when I opened the box I found that the cheese had slid around in one area. In fairness, I can't guarantee that that didn't happen after I took custody of the pizza box, but I did try to be careful, so I don't think so. Regardless, even aside from that this just didn't seem like an carefully prepared pizza. (Having said that, it is a relatively minor point, in my scheme of things. If it has good flavor and texture, I'll overlook a little sloppiness.)
I'll refer you to my prior post on Jim & Ralph's for other details about their menu, etc. As for this pizza, well, it tasted pretty good, but the crust was not the greatest, and the components just didn't seem to come together very well. It was OK, but not better than OK, so I'll give it a C. So in light of the prior review, on average, we're talking B-/C+ here, with some concerns about consistency. Or maybe it's just a better place to pick up a reheated slice than a full pie.
Jim & Ralph's, 904 Elmgrove Rd. 247-7220
Open daily 10 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Labels: 14624, eat-in, gates, grade B, slices, thin crust
Mark's, Winton Place
Although I don't go out of my way to review chain pizzerias, I figure that local or regional chains deserve at least one review here. Up till now, my one post on Mark's Pizzeria has been a review of the Lyell Avenue location in Rochester. Some readers commented that the Lyell location wasn't the best Mark's to go to, and I've seen more than one thing said about the Mark's in Winton Place, so I've been meaning to check it out sometime. And now that the Mark's on Lyell has closed (at one point a sign in the window said that Paradiso would be opening there), I figured it was a good time to do that.
This was considerably different from the pizza I got at Lyell. In fact, if I hadn't known otherwise, I never would've guessed that they both came from the same chain.
For starters, this was much thicker than the Lyell Mark's pizza. The crust was nearly an inch thick. It had reasonably good flavor and texture - not outstandingly bready, but not gummy, and it was cooked through, without the raw-dough flavor of some crusts.
The concentric rings of round bumps underneath indicated that they had been in a dimpled pan. I'm not quite sure what the theoretical advantage of such a pan would be, but the underside here was medium brown, dry to the touch, and firm but not crisp.The outer edge was pretty good, bready and a little crisp. The lip had been crimped, sort of like a pie crust, so that it had a sort of knotty appearance.
The sauce was moderately applied and very middle-of-the-road in flavor. Tomatoey, but not especially sweet, salty, herbal, or acidic.
The thin but uniform layer of mozzarella was pretty well browned, and though not burnt, it seemed a bit dried out (which I don't think was from spending too much time on the warming rack - they were quite busy at lunch time, and slices were moving quickly).
Mark's menu is available on their website, and the Winton menu here. On my visit to the Winton Place Mark's, they had several different slices available, nothing too unusual or remarkable as far as I could tell. And compared to some places today, Mark's pizza menu is relatively basic, with eight specialty pizzas and about 15 toppings to pick from.
The Winton Place location is pretty much a takeout and delivery place only, although there are a few picnic tables nearby. One thing I'd read about the Winton Place Mark's was that service was good, and it was. Did they "treat me like family," as their five-second ad says? Well, for me that depends on which of my relatives you're talking about, but the counter guy was friendly and seemed to make an effort to connect with each customer and to provide good service. Noticing that the first slice he'd given me was on the small side, he purposely picked out a bigger one to go with it, to balance things out.
Speaking of balance, that brings us back to this pizza. It was pretty good, but for me, the crust was just a little too thick. It's not that I dislike thick crusts per se, but they tend to knock a pizza out of balance - in other words, they dominate the other components. You could try to compensate for that by adding a lot of cheese, a lot of sauce, and other toppings, but to me, pizza is one of those things where less is sometimes more. Better to make the crust a little thinner, so you get a more subtle interplay between the crust, cheese and sauce.
I'm sure if you order a whole pie from Mark's you can get it thin if you ask, but you can't do that when you walk in for a slice, and from what I saw a lot of people go there to get slices. So I'm reviewing what I had, which is all I can do.
At the same time, I know that's just my subjective preference, and I can't say this was a poorly made pizza. Certainly it was filling, and if you like thick crusts, this was not bad. If I wanted a thick crust, I'd probably opt for a nice, crunchy Sicilian slice over this, but this was, well, all right. I'll give it a C+.
Mark's Pizzeria, 3450 Winton Place, 292-5140
Sun. - Thu. 10 a.m. - 10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 10 a.m. - midnight
Labels: 14623, chains, grade C+, Henrietta, outdoor seating, slices, thick crust
A Genuine Neighborhood Pizzeria in the 19th Ward: ...
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New to my collection
Prince Adalbert of Bavaria (1886-1970) married Countess Auguste von Seefried auf Buttenheim (1899-1978), the daughter of Count Otto Seefried auf Buttenheim and Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria. They had two sons, Konstantin and Adalbert. Prince Adalbert was the younger son of Prince Ludwig Ferdinand of Bavaria who married Infanta Maria de la Paz of Spain
Princess Augusta of Bavaria (1875-1964) was the second of four children of Prince Leopold of Bavaria and Archduchess Gisela of Austria. She married in 1893 to Archduke Josef of Austria (1872-1962), who was the fourth child and eldest son of Archduke Josef Karl, Palatine of Hungary, and Princess Clotilde of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, This image is from 1915. and shows the Archduchess with her four children, Josef Franz (1895-1957) who married Princess Anna of Saxony; Sophie (1899-1978), Ladislaus (1901-1946) and Magdalena (1909-2000).
The children of Grand Duke Friedrich August of Oldenburg (1852-1931). He was married twice, first to Princess Elisabeth of Prussia (1857-1895) and then to Duchess Elisabeth of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1869-1955) He was had one surviving child, Duchess Sophie Charlotte (1879-1964), by his first marriage and three surviving children by his second marriage: Grand Duke Nikolaus (1897-1970) whose first wife, Princess Helene was the sister of Duchess Altburg's husband; Duchess Ingeborg Alix (1901-1996) and Duchess Alburg (1903-2001). Ingeborg married Prince Stephan zu Schaumburg-Lippe and Altburg was the wife of Josias, Prince of Waldeck und Pyrmont.
This image is from 1912 and shows Archduke Karl Stephan of Austria (1860-1933) and his wife Archduchess Maria Theresia of Austria (1862-1933). Karl Stephan was the fourth child of Archduke Karl Ferdinand and Archduchess Elisabeth of Austria. Their primary estate was in Poland. They had six children, but this photograph includes only five as the eldest daughter, Archduchess Renata was already married. Back row; Archduke Wilhelm (1895-1948 as a Russian POW); Archduke Karl Albrecht (1888-1951), Archduke Karl Stephan, Archduke Leo Karl (1893-1939) Archduchess Eleonora (1886-1974). Sitting in the front; Archduchess Mechtilidis (1891-1966) and Archduchess Maria Theresia.
Posted by Marlene Eilers Koenig at Saturday, February 06, 2016
Oh Puhleeze!
A new Habsburg
A lovely Romanov gift
King Alfonso XIII dead at 54
The late Prince of Waldburg zu Zeil und Trauchburg...
Galitzine-Pollitt engagement
Alfonso XIII in grave danger
King George's funeral cost £25,000
Will Ena's marriage be called off
Bavarians and Austrians - Cousins and Siblings
A Princess Party at a palace with a real Princess
Charles and Camilla
Dictatorship averted in Spain
The Duchess of York expects a visit from the stork...
the Kaiser meets the Duke of Cumberland
It's a girl for Nicoleta and Nicholas????
BREAKING NEWS: Tatiana Galitzine marriage annull...
A Mecklenberger visits Wisconsin
Head of the Princely House of Schaumburg-Lippe
Two new postcards
Balmoral Castle may be sold
It is a boy!
Kaiser Friedrich III and Kaiserin Viktoria
Christmas keeps coming
Remembering the late Duke of Calabria
Prince Henry's body has arrived in England
Half of Germany's Princes are Idle
Ena is in Rome
Alfonso and Ena to reconcile?
Crown Prince sees his father for first time in two...
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How do you know if your home is haunted?
Tavistock / Breakers Hotel – Return
Public Business
The Old Tavistock / Breakers Hotel
Old Napier Cemetery
Kaikora & Otane Investigation
Hawkes Bay Business
Private Home Investigation – Hastings
Mangaroa, Park Island Cemeteries
The Old Napier Cemetery
Disclaimer & Safety Issues
Images From You
Old EVP & Photos
Investigation Request
The Old Tavistock / Breakers Hotel Shadowlands 2017-07-30T04:58:36+00:00
The Tavistock Hotel / Breakers Restaurant
Phase of Moon
11 Celcius
Overcast, odd showers
Team Members Attending:
James, Karla, Marianne, Nathan, Scotty, Tip
Guest Team Members Attending:
Diaze, Hine, Marshelle
Equipment used:
Digital Cameras, Digital Recorders, Walkie Talkies, Laser Digital thermometer, Flashlights, K2 Meter, Night Vision Video Cameras
History of the Investigation Site
The Tavistock / Breakers Hotel
The Tavistock hotel (know as the Tavi to locals) is situated in the Central Hawkes Bay township of Waipukurau. It has a very long history dating well back to 1857 when there was an accommodation house run by a Mr Aveson.[1]
The Tavistock was originally built as a stop over for the Porangahau Coach service and then it consisted of a small accomodation block that also served meals. It was originally situated about half a mile away from it’s present location.
This was sold in October of 1858 to Mr George Lloyd and renamed Lloyds Hotel.[2] The Hotel lasted in his hands until 1861, when it transferred ownership again and was renamed Moss’s Inn or the Tavistock Hotel. [3] It was then transferred onto its current location, a quarter acre site, on the corner of Ruataniwha Street and Racecourse Road, which fronts onto SH2, a main arterial route through the country.
Most recently ownership of the property changed hands pretty regularly. In 2010 it was put up for tender and was offered for auction in 2012. Again being put on the market in 2013 with an article about it’s being for sale on stuff.co.nz . We were unable to find out information about who currently owns the property.
In the 1900’s the hotel was extended to be a double story wooden structure, and two dining rooms and a commercial room were added. Expansion was made so the facility could seat up to 100 diners, with a billiards out room, stable and small farm attached to support the hotel. Major repairs were required after the devastating 1931 Hawkes Bay Earthquake. You can see today much of the Art Deco influence in the repairs, in the beautifully ornate ceilings of the hotel.
The ground floor of the hotel included two restaurant bars, an 18 machine gaming room and renovated kitchen. There are 27 rooms and a three-bedroom apartment upstairs. The upstairs was until recently used for guest accomodation.
[1] Open column, Hawke’s Bay Herald, Volume I, Issue 9, 21 November 1857, Page 3 retrieved 10th July 2017 – [2] Advertisements Column one, Hawke’s Bay Herald, Volume 2, Issue 58, 30 October 1858, Page 2 retrieved 10th July 2017 – [3] Advertisements Column 4, Hawke’s Bay Herald, Volume 4, Issue 159, 6 October 1860, Page 1 retrieved 10th July 2017
Paranormal Reports
Historical reports of paranormal activity at the hotel
Prior to current management of this business (who have been there for 2 years), there have been over the years, consistent reports of paranormal activity on the premises. The hotel is still said to be the home of Ma Bertrum, who after her death of a heart attack, continued to take care of the guests in different little ways when the hotel was still functioning as a hotel. Many of the unusual happenings in the hotel are ascribed to Ma, who was a well known figure in the Waipukurau community. These include reports of the following:
Apparitions were said to be seen in the Breakers bar area, frequently touching bar staff and sometimes guests. A young Maori lad had been seen crying in the toilets of the now Crossroads pub, and patrons of the Oak room bar have felt stabbing sensations in their torso region following the stabbing and murder of a man in those toilets.
The kitchen in particular was said to be a very active area of the hotel, with staff avoiding the very back area when they could
Staff and guests have been known to experience cold spots, have unusual or very uneasy feelings in specific areas of the hotel
There were reports of people hearing disembodied voices
Reports of people smelling unusual odours or perfumes, or cigarette smoke
Shadow people have been seen, misty forms, and in some cases, full bodied apparitions
Unusual lights have been seen in specific areas
The distinct sound of footsteps has been heard, particularly in the Breakers and Oak room areas
Different faces have shown up in photographs that people have taken inside the hotel
There have been many complaints from people who have felt as though they are being watched throughout the whole building, this has been from staff and from customers
Guests have reported knocking on their room doors in the wee hours of the morning, this would occur regularly at around the same time every morning
Electrical disturbances – lights turning themself on and off
Seeing movement out of the corner of their eyes.
Current reports of paranormal activity at the hotel
The day prior to the investigation Karla and Marianne did a walk through of the hotel with the management and then interviewed staff who were prepared to talk to us on the condition of anonimity. We also spoke with three friends who were currently staying with the management at the hotel. When these people were interviewed the day prior to our investigation, it appeared that pretty much the same activity has continued to be reported by them and guests, and only in the past few weeks. Reports of things such as:
Seeing shadow people
Hearing footsteps in the foyer between the Oak room and Breakers. Two of the staff were sitting down about to feed a baby in Breakers when they heard clear, loud footsteps coming up the ramp. It sounded to them like a parent and child. The footsteps continued up to the door and the staff waited for it to open and them to come in.
Feelings of being watched and uncomfortable
Lights turning on and off by themselves – guests also commented on this
Doors slamming shut by themselves (Dry store room door)
Banging on the inside of the door to the back room in the kitchen, and feeling discomfort when in that area
Feeling of cold spots
Seeing movement out of the corner of the eye
Feeling of being physically touched…and interestingly all 3 who said they had been touched, were touched on the same shoulder.
Friends currently staying report that the light bulb and cords frequently swing in their room, with no drafts or possibly physical causes (like heavy trucks going past)
These friends also report knocking on their walls and doors.
Another friend reported seeing a full bodied aparition sitting on a chair in the corner of their room (male guest)
This investigation was the most active investigation that this team has been on – more active even than the private business done previously. Activity was recorded, along with EVP, beginning on our pre-investigation walkthough the day before the investigation with hotel managment in the late afternoon. Along with the audible sound of a door handle being turned in one of the upstairs corridors – heard by five of us standing in the corridor at the time, and caught on recorder. This made us all very excited for what sort of activity we would encounter on the actual investigation.
The team started the evening with a very lovely meal at the Breakers restaurant, and sat talking and discussing the plan of action for the investigation until staff had finished their work for the night. We then did our initial full team walkthrough, took baseline recordings (which showed no anomalous recordings), and decided where to place the two night vision cameras. One upstairs in what we called Ma Bartrum’s corrider (as that is where her bedroom was), and the other in the Oak room conference room in the hotel (where a patron had been stabbed to death some decades ago). Once all the equipment was set up and running, the team was divided into 3 different teams in order to cover the very large building. Investigation proper began at 10.30pm and ended at 3am. Temperature readings at arrival to the hotel were 11 Celcius, dropping to 8 Celcius by the time we began our investigation. The only area of the hotel that we were unable to have access to was the Crossroads pub. We are very grateful to have had access to the areas we were able to investigate.
Subjective Experiences: ( things team members felt with no objective or evidential back up )
Feelings of being watched and in some areas very unwelcome
Feeling uneasy and uncomfortable, particularly in the staff toilet at the back of the kitchen
Feeling emotional in specific areas of the building
Feelings of being touched
Sudden obvious temperature drops (digital thermometer was unavailable in these cases)
Walking into cold spots (colder than ambient temperature), that were not debunk-able
Flashes / sparks of different colour lights
Seeing an apparition – Ma’s corridor
Feeling the presence of spirit
Smelling different odours, most notably, violets (upstairs, mostly in Ma’s corridor), fresh cigarette smoke (upstairs,
in Ma’s corridor), cat urine (mostly debunked), Daphne flowers (in Oak Room)
Feeling dizzy, light-headed, nauseated, instant headaches in particular spots
A child’s laughter – not caught on audio, but heard audibly by team members.
Hearing knocking sounds not caught on audio
Objective Experiences: ( Evidential based and in no particular order )
Various tapping, rapping, knocks and scraping noises
Responding to team member requests – on audio
Light anomalies – (orbs, not that many) – caught on camera
Footsteps caught on audio and on video audio,
Temperature drops of up to 3ºC recorded with digital laser thermometer
Spirit energy form (smoke like) caught in image and other photographic anomalies.
Numerous EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) caught on audio, many responding directly to questions asked by the investigators. One a residual? evp along with the sound of clinking glasses
Numerous (7) disembodied voices heard by team members and caught on audio or video
Footsteps caught on audio at different times, but within different groups in the team.
Electronic disturbances with the walkie talkies – making static noises when not being touched.
Feeling hugged – with temperature drop recorded around person, and evp captured at the same time.
Seeing an apparition outside room 15 suddenly appear beside a team member, giving her a start, along with an evp on audio saying “Boo”.
K2 meter flashing to red on numerous occasions witnessed by everyone in the restaurant area and other
areas of the hotel by different groups within the team particularly in the entrance area with Nathan and Scotty
Other electronic disturbances, most notably with recorders failing, and cameras not working
Door handle turning in room, heard by 5 people and caught on audio in pre-investigation walk-through
Spirit responding to team members requests for it to move some of the toilet paper out of the toilet area.
Control object (Salt shaker) visibly moved off marked area in the Breakers restaurant area, when no team members or staff were present
What we were able to debunk
As paranormal investigators, it is our responsibility to try and find physical reasons for reported events, first and foremost, before we leap to the conclusion that anything is paranormal in origin. These are some possible solutions to what some have reported happening.
Shadow people: In the Breakers restaurant, and the Oak room it is possible that shadows people had been seeing in these two rooms, were in fact caused by the lights from traffic passing on the main highway beside the building. The position of the large number of windows allows maximum light into these areas. However, this does not account for all of the sightings in other parts where traffic lights do not reach.
Cat urine odour: The smell of cat urine in the Oak room and in a shower upstairs. A dried urine puddle was found in the upstairs shower and fresh puddles in the downstairs toilet. But the question is, how is the cat getting into and out the oak room? This is a bit of a mystery to the management. Also this does not explain the odoriferous fragrances that popped up out of the blue in other areas where team members were sitting, some of which had a distinct urine smell to them.
Cold spots: Some cold spots were simply the results of windows being open or cracked, or missing floor boards, or in one shower an opening in the roof.
Sounds: Some of the sounds were simply the result of people stepping on loose floorboards, or the building settling – given her age and the physical condition of the upstairs area. This however, does not account for all the reports and team experiences of hearing, bangs, clicks, glasses clinking, tapping and footsteps.
Most Notable Experiences
James: “My favorite moment was when I turned around near the shower in the hallway to see ma’s face staring into my eyes. She must have been a tall lady. Light brown skin with black hair set in curls, with piercing, golden brown eyes.”
Karla: “My best experience was in this wood shed and the green room. And when James and I saw the shadow figure along the alley way. It was so clear. Hearing the lady talk to me in the green room. Hearing spirit next to mewhere Daize’s dog got sick. The scratching by the wall.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/K7_Tapping-in-woodshed.mp3
Scratching caught on Karla’s digital recorder</span
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/scraping-sound_Woodshed.mp3
Scratching/scraping sound caught on James’ digital recorder
Marianne: “There were a couple of events out of all of them on the night that stood out for me. The first was in the room a couple up from Ma’s. I was in there with the staff that were on the investigation with us. I felt arms go around me like I was being given a loving hug, and a temperature drop immediately around me, recorded with the digital thermometer. Then on review, hearing the evp captured at the same time, was quite validating for me.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M19_Is-that-you-Thats-me-at-the-back-of-her.-Shake-your-cock.mp3
Marianne speaks, then female spirit says “Is that you? (to another spirit). Male responds “That’s me at back of her”, Marianne then says shaky cold.
The other experience was when I was standing in the doorway of room 15 when suddenly an apparition in the form of a white figure appeared at my left shoulder. I got such a start, because the figure was solid, no features, just a white form. Then again on review there was audio to back up this experience of mine – a woman saying “Boo!”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M24_boo.mp3
Right at start of audio – Female spirit simply says “Boo!”, showing her sense of humour.
Nathan: “Best moment was sitting in the hallway to breakers with Scotty and hear the footsteps and child giggling. Called out on walkie talkie where tip and Karla were and they were in the wood store, I think. Checked breakers and it was empty. That was crazy for me. And we heard it twice.”
Scotty: “Mine would either be the same as Nate or when we were upstairs in the room near the kitchen and Tip me and Nate were talking and we heard the woman’s voice say hello and then snapping the pic of the misty figure.”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/footsteps-3.mp3
This is rather a long clip… The footsteps in the first 8 seconds of the recording are spirit. After that Nathan gets up and goes to investigate and you can hear his footsteps.
Tip: “The toilet paper on the floor that wasn’t there before you mentioned it Karla. That was cool. Because I asked the spirits to move the loo paper 20 minutes before it happened. What freaked me out about that, was the toilet paper looked clawed at the edges. My walkie kept going off (making odd noises), and the fact that me, Scotty, and Nathan heard the word “Hello”, which sounded like it came from a walkie talkie.
Overall this was the most active investigation that this team has been on. Right from the time we started we had impressive activity, including on the pre- investigation walk through, the previous day. Every investigator on the team had personal subjective experiences, some more than others. In terms of what evidence was captured, we obtained a huge amount, both subjective and objective. From the images collected, to the large amount of EVP captured to spirit responding to requests. Also the audible bangs, footsteps, laughter, and disembodied voices captured, not to mention the apparitions seen visibly. The Shadowlands Paranormal Investigations team, has no question whatsoever, that the old Tavistock hotel complex has both active and residual hauntings. We thoroughly enjoyed our time investigating this grand old lady and are very grateful to the management of the hotel for their kindness in letting us run over the premises for the night.
So if you have gotten this far into the Tavistock/Breakers investigation page.. the really good stuff starts now 🙂
Evidence Obtained
So much audio evidence was captured, from audible bangs, responses to questions, disembodied voices, too many to list individually here. However in total out of 4 digital recorders that were running we got 137 separate evp (over 30 Class A), 10 disembodied voices caught, and about 20 bangs, knocks, tapping and voices. Don’t worry we aren’t posting them all. Only the ones we feel are the better of them all.. Most Class A, however some are not, but they are so good it is hard not to include them. A Class A recording is when the voice is audibly clear and totally easy to make out. It doesn’t have to be a loud voice, it is the clarity of the voice that is what makes it a Class A.
What is a particular stand out in most of these is that most of these EVP were fully responsive to what we were asking – or to what was happening in the room at the time the recording, or that the spirits were conversing amongst themselves. These evp have been sorted into sections… Straight voice EVP, Laughing/Whistling, Noises – bangs, taps, footsteps. Enjoy!
Evp – Voices (Class A)
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/K4_Ill-give-you-some-good-photos.mp3
In the splashing you can hear a male spirit saying “I’ll give you some good photos”, followed by Tip Speaking. Tip was in the basement of the hotel that has a few inches of water in it and had previously been asking spirit to show themselves in image. The photo he took immediately after this shows a huge number of orbs. The only such photo taken in that area.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Sweet-Laughter.mp3
You can hear Tip again speaking. Then a very cultured British sounding male speaks, saying “Sweet laughter” and talking slightly over Karla. This is an exceptional EVP.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M1_Spirits-touch-dodododo.mp3
This was captured in the toilets on the left side of the Breakers restaurant, during our baseline sweep for the evening. The male spirit mocking us, says “Spirits touch… doo do doo do” and then you can faintly hear a drawn out “Boooo” over Marianne’s voice
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M2_Kit-carried-me.mp3
This one has a distinct Scottish (highlands, according to Scotty), accent. Taken during our baseline sweep, right by the Breakers bar. He says “Kit carried me.”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M2_Allo.mp3
Same spirit as before talking over us in Breakers as we were getting organised to start, after baseline sweep.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M2_Hello-2.mp3
This one is in the same area at around the same time. We think it is a child playing, saying “hello” over top of us again.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/K7_Shes-coming-Shes-coming.mp3
This one is referring to Marianne coming back into the Breakers area. A female spirit says “She’s coming, she’s coming”.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/K12_No_Yeah.mp3
You hear Tip speak then you will hear two spirit in quick sucession: male “No”, female “yeah” then Tip inhaling.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/K10_Help-us.mp3
James, Karla, & Tip are in the Green room at the back of the kitchen. You will hear Tip talk, then a female talk over him and Karla slightly as she starts to speak. The female says “Help us” almost in a whisper.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/get-what-you-want-1.mp3
James & Karla talking followed by very depressed sounding female “What did you want?”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/I-had-a-look.mp3
Nathan talking followed by a female who quickly whispers “I had a look”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M3_That-wont-be-it_Help-me.mp3
This audio was captured along with previous ones in Breakers.. Again spirit are speaking over team members. You hear two people talk, then you hear the first spirit saying “They won’t finish”, then a little boy saying “Help me” Same voices as previously.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M24_boo-1.mp3
Quiet very fast female voice at beginning saying “Boo!” having just appeared to Marianne who responds startled. Followed by other team members speaking. This one is a favourite as it shows the spirit’s sense of humour. This was in the doorway of room 15
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M25_Pur-gurl-are-ya-alrite-_yeah.mp3
This audio was captured immediately after the last one in the same place as previous EVP. Marianne is just finishing saying she tripped when a male, older spirit, in a very scottish accent, and very concerned voice says to her. “Pur gurl are ya alrite?” A female spirit also says “Yeah”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M29_yep.mp3
Team members are talking about feeling spirit energy around and how it is alot calmer when they are not around. Spirit speaks over them saying “bullshit ” and some other unintelligble words. Spirit at end simply says “Yep!”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Not-much.mp3
Scotty & Nathan were in the Oak room. Scotty is talking. Spirit responds “Not much”.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Ow.mp3
This was immediately after the previous EVP spirit says “Now” (as if to say the previous one had gotten over any anger?)
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/S1_Cat-meow.mp3
This is a VERY special EVP and a first in over 20 years of doing this work. This was in the initial walk through at the beginning of the evening. There were 4 recorders going in the room at that time. Scotty’s was the only one to pick up this clear kitty meowing. He meows over top of the team in the background.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M4_Natch.mp3
These next 8 audio are all taken in Ma’s room. In this one James is speaking followed by a woman saying “Natch” not sure if that is the name or a person? (edited to add: Marianne looked up the word Natch and it is a slang term, it stands for “Naturally; as may be expected.“)
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M4_Yeah-ok.mp3
We always introduce ourselves to spirit on our investigations. This is Marianne & Karla speaking (on the initial walkthough), followed by a woman saying”oh ok”.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M6_Its-getting-cold_It-is_Its-getting-really-cold.mp3
Two male? spirit speaking to each other.. “Hmm It’s cold” It is, its getting really cold”, followed by Marianne asking permission to enter her room
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M11_Alright_thank-you.mp3
Marianne explaining how the K2 meter works.. Female (very fast and short) says “alright”, then a pause “thank you”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M12_Oh-that-was-bright_Untelligible-friday.mp3
You can hear Marianne talking… meantime Daize is taking a picture. Female spirit whispers “ohhh that was bright” followed by Marshelle and then Diaze again.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M13_hmmm.mp3
Female spirit obviously bored with our conversation in the background, gives a sort of bored, semi-polite hmmm
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M15_Sure.mp3
Hine asking spirit to move back as she can feel one touching her back. Male responds “Sure”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M16_I-didnt-do-it.mp3
We were just leaving Ma’s room after Marianne getting the feeling we needed to move on. Female spirit Ma? responds “I didn’t do it.”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M11_Dont-do-that-to-me_Drink_Thank-you-very-much.mp3
This is an interesting EVP.. Marianne is speaking and you hear a converstation between 3 spirits.. Firstly a female, “I didn’t do it.” Followed by a male saying “Drink!” then the clinking of glasses (none were in the room), and a final male saying(softly)”Thank you very much!” This is in the old lounge room
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M17_What-is-that-for.mp3
This is in room 33 just up from Ma’s room. You will hear team talking, then a little boy clearly says “What is that for?” and Marianne responds.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M18_sounds-of-uncles-_Make-a-sound-whispered_What-Oh.mp3
You hear Marianne talking.. then you hear a female spirit quickly say something “terrible examples”?, followed by another female spirit whispering to the little boy “Quick make a sound” the boy responds, “what? – oh” . Same room as previously
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M22_thats-awesome.mp3
Room 33. Marianne speaks followed by a female spirit saying “That’s awesome!”, then Marshelle speaks.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M23_What_Wheres-the-rest.mp3
Marianne in the upstairs lounge talking, followed immediately by a male spirit saying “What!” and a female spirit saying “Where’s the rest?”, referring to the rest of the team. We had broken up into small groups.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M26_Whatya-up-to.mp3
Daize and Hine? Talking about talking one more picture. Older female spirit quickly asks “What are you up too?
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Thats-a-worry.mp3
Karla talking in the green room followed by a male spirit saying “That’s a worry!”, then Karla talks again
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/S5_Is-that-the-Lady_yeah.mp3
A female spirit asks “Is that the lady from Doron?” ( Referring to Marianne who just was talking. Edited to add: Marianne looked up the word Doron – it is Hebrew in origin and means “gift”. Rather nice, don’t you think?)
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/S3_Hey_cigarettes-smell-cigarettes.mp3
Clear spirit saying “Hey!” followed by much softer and quiet conversation between two spirit “cigarettes”,” they smell cigarettes” , then Marianne starts to comment that she can smell cigarettes
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/special.mp3
This is Scotty talking. Spirit finishes his sentence for him “Special” then Marianne speaking in background.
Evp – Voices (Class B)
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M3_kid-yelling.mp3
This was again in the Breakers area when we got a number of Class A recordings as well. The kid yelling in the background over our voices.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M4_It-is-sad.mp3
Marianne was talking to James about the current state of the hotel upstairs. They were in Ma’s room. A sad sounding female responds “It is sad”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M5_If-you-have-to.mp3
Marianne is speaking and a female spirit comes in and says “If you have to” then Marianne finishes her thought
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M7_Who-said-that.mp3
Child speaks after Marianne pauses “Who said that?” in room 33
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M8_Arent-you-lovely.mp3
After asking permission to enter Ma’s room Marianne promises they won’t stay long. Female spirit says to her “Aren’t you lovely”. She then tells the rest of the guest investigators to come into the room
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M8_Shes-mad_You-really-think.mp3
Marianne is commenting on smell of violets. A male spirit disparagingly says “Shes mad!” A female spirit says “You really think…?”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M9_youll-get-in-trouble-if-you-dont.mp3
Marianne explaining how the Walkie talkie works. Female spirit says “You’ll get in trouble if you don’t”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M12_Thirty.mp3
Daize asking how old spirit is. Male responds (very quickly) “Thirty”.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M21_Wow-amazing.mp3
Daize, Hine, Marshelle, & Marianne, discussing how they can suddenly smell a violet smell, that masks the pee smell. A female spirit talks over them saying “Wow! Amazing” and an old male over the top of the girls says “Well look at that!” (very softly)
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/S_Adelaide.mp3
At the very end of this segment you hear a very distant and tinny sounding male spirit speaking a name “Adelaide”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/S2_Marianne-help-me.mp3
Female spirit right at the beginning of this clip saying “Marianne! Help me?”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/She-shouldnt-be-here.mp3
Depressed sounding female spirit commenting on Karla, who was recovering from the flu. She says “She shouldn’t be here”.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wheezing_Im-so-dead.mp3
Three male spirits talking.. first one says “ok”. The second one says “Have a listen”. The third male sounds like he is speaking through an old wireless radio “I’m so dead”.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/who-it-is_K2-Goes-off.mp3
Female spirit says “Who is it?” Then you hear Scotty talking about the K2 Meter just going off.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/3-spirit-conversing.mp3
Marianne starts speaking, then you can hear a conversation between 3 different spirits, male & female -except for the last younger one who says “I know”. It is hard to make out what they are saying though. Then Marianne finishes her sentence
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/005_1_Thats-good.mp3
This was captured during the preinvestigation walkthough the previous day. One of the staff was talking about how she felt about being physically touched by spirit…A male spirit says “that’s good” very quietly between the two voices
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Im-here-are-you-listening.mp3
This is a soft and fast male voice saying “Im here. Are you listening?”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/J6_Marianne.mp3
Female spirit talking under Karla’s voice, she simply says “Marianne” in a very accented (?British) voice
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/J7_Downstairs.mp3
Male spirit responding to Tip – He says “Downstairs”.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/K2_Me-1.mp3
Gruff, low and fast spirit responding to James and Karla commenting on the temperature in the green room dropping. He says “Me!”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/K2_What-is-that.mp3
Karla speaking then curious female spirit asks “What is that?” referring to the digital recorder Karla was holding.
Spirit saying “Hello!”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M2_Ill-take-this-room.mp3
Female spirit saying “I’ll take this room”.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M2_Lord-he-can-see-me.mp3
This is an interesting EVP. James and Marianne were in the green room. James had just seen a shadow person in the kitchen door. The spirit responds shocked “Lord! He can see me!”
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M3_Good.mp3
Spirit had just made the K2 meter light up. Marianne didn’t see it and thanked spirit regardless. A male spirit responds with “Good!”
Disembodied Voices (heard audibly)
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/disembodied-voice_and-you-should.mp3
James says.. I hope this has worked properly – then disembodied unintelligble voice – can’t make out what it says. James hears it though
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Disembodied-Voice_Hey-Hello.mp3
Voice says “hey!” heard audibly by Tip who comments
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/disembodied-voice.mp3
VERY faint disembodied voice, heard by Karla at beginning of clip, also heard by James.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/K8_Disembodied-voice_What-for_Tapping.mp3
Deep gravelly disembodied voice responds to James’ question in the green room “What for!” Heard by Karla, followed by a tapping noise.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M2_YOU-DONT-SAY.mp3
Marianne speaking interupted by unintelligible, metalic sounding voice. Heard by James as well. Both were in the green room
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M31_Disembodied-voice_who-is-it-Damn-it.mp3
Marianne speaking, interupted by male disembodied voice saying “Who is it?” “Damn it!”. Heard by James as well. They were both upstairs in the corridors at this time.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M4_Her-name-is-Ivy_Is-your-name-Ivy.mp3
Disembodied female says “Her name is Ivy”. Then James whispers “Is your name Ivy?” pause then Marianne whispers she just heard a woman talking and James says he did as well.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M3_Disembodied-footsteps.mp3
Marianne talking, interupted by audible disembodied footsteps. Heard by James as well. Both were sitting in the Oak room
Laughter, Whistling, Growls, Bangs, & Taps
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/004_8a_Door-handle-being-pulled.mp3
This is a door handle being pulled down about 6 feet from where 5 of us were standing talking on the pre-investigation walkthough the day before. Diaze is speaking interupted by the door handle, then Karla & Marianne speak up.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/J4-Door-Banging-by-itself.mp3
James hears the door bang shut by itself. No one else heard it at the time.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/J8_Tapping-noises.mp3
Tapping noises heard by James & Karla on the inital walk-though.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/K1_Tapping-in-Green-Room.mp3
Tapping noise in the green room.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/K1a_Laughing_You-did-good.mp3
Female spirit chuckling over the top of the team’s excitment over an image Scotty captured. James says thank you, then a soft male voice says “you are very welcome” this photo is the one with the room all yellowy looking and misty.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/K9_Growling.mp3
Karla talking, followed by growling noise.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/K13_Suppressed-chuckle.mp3
Suppressed chuckle or snort over Tips excitement on finding the toilet paper on the ground.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M2_Laughing_owww.mp3
All this laughter in this clip belongs to spirit.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M2_Laughing.mp3
Woman laughing over team, also says unintelligble word
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M2_Loud-noise.mp3
Loud bang heard by James & Marianne in green room.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M2_nasty-chuckle.mp3
Mischevious chuckle over team talking in Breakers
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M2_squeel.mp3
Kid making fun of Hine who always said “holey moley” – he finished the mole part off for her. This was in Breakers after we got a shot full of orbs.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M2_Whistling.mp3
Clear as whistling. No doubt!
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M3_Growling.mp3
Growling while James was speaking in Breakers.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M4_Banging-noise.mp3
Banging noise before James saw Shadow figure in green room.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M27_chuckling-coughing.mp3
Spirit chuckling (or coughing?) over how spirit wouldn’t allow us to take photos in the room where Marianne got surprised by the spirit.
http://shadowlands.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/M28_Door-banging.mp3
Door banging in upstairs lounge by kitchen.
In total we took 467 photos. There were not as many orbs as one might have expected (less than 30, in fact), if one were to consider orbs just dust – especially considering the age of the hotel and the condition of some of the areas of the upstairs region. There is one particularly good orb photo taken when the K2 meter was going wild in Breakers. At Shadowlands Paranormal Investigations, we have a rule that we do not include orb shots unless they are accompanied by some objective evidence, such as EVP or a temperature drop, or the K2 meter is going off – without a physical reason, or a combination of all. That being said here are our images.
We had two night vision videos running – one was placed at the far end of Ma Bartrum’s corridor, outside her room. The other was placed against the outside door in
the Oak room looking towards the toilet Area. One of these cameras was in full colour, the other filmed in a green shade that one most often sees on the paranormal TV shows. In total this gave us 7 hours of video. Out of which we extracted a number of EVP, bangsand other noises which were collated into two separate video clips one for each area.
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U.S. CIO, Iowa State alum VanRoekel to give free talk at noon Monday
This is a very late event notice, but it’s hopefully just in time for some. At noon on Monday, Steven VanRoekel, the second Chief Information Officer of the United States and an Iowa State University alumnus will deliver a free presentation at his alma mater.
VanRoekel’s talk, which is preceded by a reception at 11:30 a.m., will focus on cyber security and federal information technology issues, the Des Moines Register reported. The event will take place in Memorial Union’s Great Hall (2229 Lincoln Way). …
SPN Team | April 1, 2012 | Events, News
This is a very late event notice, but it’s hopefully just in time for some. At noon on Monday, Steven VanRoekel (left), the second Chief Information Officer of the United States and an Iowa State University alumnus will deliver a free presentation at his alma mater.
VanRoekel’s talk, which is preceded by a reception at 11:30 a.m., will focus on cyber security and federal information technology issues, the Des Moines Register reported. The event will take place in Memorial Union’s Great Hall (2229 Lincoln Way).
The Register also noted that a VanRoekel spokeswoman said the CIO would kick off the day with a private visit to a Des Moines tech firm to meet with tech entrepreneurs.
To learn more about Monday’s event in Ames, visit lectures.iastate.edu.
For a Q&A with VanRoeckel, check out the Register’s article, “U.S. data chief rolls out plan for nation’s info systems“.
Here’s VanRoekel’s bio (from the Iowa State event page):
Steven VanRoekel is the second Chief Information Officer of the United States and an Iowa State alumnus. Prior to his position in the White House, he held two positions in the Obama Administration: executive director of Citizen and Organizational Engagement at USAID and managing director of the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, where he oversaw all operational, technical, financial, and human resource aspects of the agency. He also led the FCC’s efforts to introduce new technology and social media into the agency. Mr. VanRoekel worked at Microsoft Corporation from 1994 to 2009, most recently as a senior director in the Windows Server and Tools Division. He received a bachelor’s degree in management of information systems from Iowa State. Part of the National Affairs Series.
Credits: Photo of Steven VanRoekel from lectures.iastate.edu.
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Television and drug abuse : a cultural studies approach to Thai health communication research
Young, P 2009, Television and drug abuse : a cultural studies approach to Thai health communication research, Masters by Research, Applied Communication, RMIT University.
Young.pdf Thesis application/pdf 2.22MB
Young, P
The main objective of this thesis is to illustrate the benefits of using a cultural studies approach in the field of health communication research in Thailand. In this thesis I apply a cultural studies approach to examine the construction of meanings involving drug use and abuse in Thai television advertisements and dramas. The thesis has as its focus analyses of television texts and audience responses.
The major arguments advanced in this thesis are that: (a) the causes of drug use and abuse are complex; (b) drug use and abuse, particularly given the 'risk culture' and 'risk society' of the post-modern world, are products of individual social and cultural contexts; (c) cultural studies assist us to better understand the cultural dimension of human behaviour, including the causes of drug use and abuse; and so (d) by adopting a cultural studies approach to the design and production of health promotion campaigns, such campaigns may be made more effective.
The thesis argues that in designing health promotion campaigns, health professionals should be concerned to better understand the complexity of their audiences and the manner in which members of those audiences construct meanings and make sense of texts. Should they do so, the designers of health promotion campaigns may, thereby, develop a more sophisticated understanding of what is necessary to contribute to changing audience behaviour. This, in turn, may assist them to improve the design and effectiveness of future health promotion campaigns.
The principal tool drawn from cultural studies used in this thesis is textual analysis. This research method involves making an educated guess at some of the most likely interpretations that might be made of a text. In addition, it demonstrates the complexity of the process of making media texts. The texts analysed in this study are selected from two genres of television: television advertisements and television dramas. I analyse television advertisements used in health promotion / drug prevention campaigns broadcast in Thailand in the period from 1990 to 2004 and two well known Thai television dramas entitled Kam See Than Don: KSTD (1999) and Num Poo: NP (2002).
Masters by Research
Applied Communication
Drug abuse -- Australia
Television -- Australia
Mon, 06 Dec 2010, 13:37:36 EST Thu, 16 Dec 2010, 11:44:44 EST Mon, 17 Jan 2011, 14:18:09 EST Mon, 15 Sep 2014, 08:33:55 EST Filtered Full
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00:00:00' //pausecontent[0]='00:00:00
10' /////var pausecontent2=new Array() /////pausecontent2[0]='News.com: Technology and business reports' /////pausecontent2[1]='CNN: Headline and breaking news 24/7' /////pausecontent2[2]='BBC News: UK and international news' St. Peter's Mission School - Accra, Ghana
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Welcome to St. Peter's Mission School
St. Peter's Mission School is an ultra-modern day and boarding international school ranked among the top private educational institutions in Ghana. The student population is diverse and international, comprising Ghanaian children and a large number of other nationalities drawn from over 21 countries across the globe.
Right from the beginning of the school in 1990, the focus was achieving a vision of commitment to high standards and the success of all students intellectually, morally, socially, culturally and psychologically.
This vision was the force that influenced the early establishment of a healthy school climate characterized by basics like discipline, a supportive and responsive attitude towards the children, a shared responsibility for student progress among teachers and the urge among students to put learning at the centre of their daily activities. The school was therefore established on a solid foundation and this has been behind its rapid growth and great achievements.
St. Peter's Mission School is an ultra-modern day and boarding international school ranked among the top private educational institutions in Ghana. The student population is diverse from over 21 countries across the globe.
St. Peter's Mission School is its tradition of discipline and excellent examination results. Since the school reached the Junior High School level in 1993, we have made 18 appearances at BECE and no one has ever failed.
The school places great emphasis on promoting a variety of co-curricular activities so that every student gets the opportunity to discover his/her potential in something he/she is really good at. It is a must for every student to belong to at least one club.
Our vision is to be the major brand name as far as academic excellence and total training is concerned.
As a co-educational, institution we strives to provide a well–ordered, caring, happy and secure atmosphere ...
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8.37 Child victims of modern slavery and trafficking
This definition is inclusive of internal trafficking or trafficking of children within borders.
Care of Unaccompanied and Trafficked Children: Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities on the Care of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking and Trafficked Children (2014) provides that where the age of a person is uncertain and there are reasons to believe that they are a child, they are presumed to be a child in order to receive immediate access to assistance, support and protection in accordance with Article 10(3) of the European Convention on action Against Trafficking in Human Beings. Age assessments should only be carried out where there is significant reason to doubt that the claimant is a child. Age assessments should not be a routine part of a local authority’s assessment of unaccompanied or trafficked children. Where age assessments are conducted, they must be Merton Compliant.
This guidance provides information about trafficking, the roles and functions of relevant agencies and the procedures practitioners should follow to ensure the safety and well-being of children who it is suspected have been trafficked
The organised crime of child trafficking into the UK has become an issue of considerable concern to all professionals with responsibility for the care and protection of children. Any form of trafficking children is an abuse. Children are coerced, deceived or forced into the control of others who seek to profit from their exploitation and suffering. Some cases involve UK-born children being trafficked within the UK.
changed title
RELATED GUIDANCE
'Safeguarding Children Who May Have Been Trafficked', non-statutory good practice guidance issued by the Department for Education and the Home Office in October 2011
ECPAT - UK Briefing Paper on Child Trafficking - Begging and Organised Crime (published in September 2010)
ECPAT briefing 'On the Safe Side - Principles for the Safe Accommodation of Child Victims of Trafficking'
Safeguarding Trafficked Roma Children and Families, (published by the London Safeguarding Children Board in September 2010)
Care of Unaccompanied and Trafficked Children: Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities on the Care of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking and Trafficked Children (2014)
RELATED CHAPTER
Children from Abroad Procedure
In March 2015,a link was added to the Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities on the Care of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking and Trafficked Children (2014) and the chapter updated to reflect the guidance and in particular age assessments should only be carried out where there is significant reason to doubt that the claimant is a child and should not be a routine part of a local authority’s assessment of unaccompanied or trafficked children.
Important Information about Trafficking
Managing Individual Situations
What Trafficked Children Need
Returning Trafficked Children to their Country of Origin
Trafficked Children who are Looked After
International and UK Legislation
Support Services and Useful Contacts
The organised crime of child trafficking has been an issue of considerable concern to all professionals with responsibility for the care and protection of children for some years. Victims may be trafficked into, out of or within the UK. Since the passing of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, crimes related to human trafficking have been incorporated into the broader term ‘Modern Slavery’. Modern Slavery includes slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour, as well as human trafficking. Child and adult victims may be trafficked into the UK and then sexually exploited or forced to work. Any form of modern slavery including trafficking children is an abuse. Children are coerced, deceived or forced into the control of others who seek to profit from their exploitation and suffering. Some cases involve UK-born children being trafficked and exploited within the UK. There is some overlap, therefore, between the approach we need to take to Child Exploitation (CE)and other forms of modern slavery. From November 2015 specified public authorities have a ‘duty to notify’ the Secretary of State of any individual (including a child) encountered in England and Wales who they believe is a victim of slavery or human trafficking.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/508817/Duty_to_Notify_Guidance__Version_2.0_.pdf
It is essential that professionals working across social care, education, health, immigration and law enforcement develop an awareness of modern slavery and an ability to identify trafficked children and those subjected to other forms of modern slavery. Everyone involved in the care of unaccompanied and trafficked children should be trained to recognise and understand the particular issues likely to be faced by these children.
This guidance provides information about modern slavery, including trafficking, the roles and functions of relevant agencies and the procedures practitioners should follow to ensure the safety and well-being of children who it is suspected have been trafficked or who are victims of modern slavery .Definitions
The Definition of Modern Slavery Modern slavery is the recruitment, movement, harbouring or receiving of children, women or men through the use of force, coercion, abuse of vulnerability, deception or other means for the purpose of exploitation. Individuals may be trafficked into, out of or within the UK, and they may be trafficked for a number of reasons including sexual exploitation, forced labour, domestic servitude and organ harvesting.
Further definition is outlined in the Modern Slavery Acthttp://www.antislaverycommissioner.co.uk/media/1063/ukpga_20150030_en.pdf
The definition of trafficking contained in the 'Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children' (ratified by the UK in 2006) is as follows:
"Trafficking of persons" shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of person, by means of the threat of or use:
Of force or other forms of coercion;
O abduction;
Of fraud;
Of deception;
Of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability; or
Of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
Any child transported for exploitative reasons is considered to be a trafficking victim, whether or not they have been forced or deceived. This is partly because it is not considered possible for children in this situation to give informed consent. Even when a child understands what has happened, they may still appear to submit willingly to what they believe to be the will of their parents or accompanying adults. It is important that these children are protected also.
Most children are trafficked for financial gain. This can include payment from or to the child's parents. In most cases, the trafficker also receives payment from those wanting to exploit the child once in the UK. Trafficking is carried out by organised gangs and individual adults or agents.
Trafficked children may be used for:
Sexual exploitation;
Domestic service;
Sweatshop, restaurant and other catering work;
Credit card fraud;
Begging or pick pocketing or other forms of petty criminal activity;
Agricultural labour, including tending plants in illegal cannabis farms;
Benefit fraud;
Drug mules, drug dealing or decoys for adult drug traffickers; ‘county lines’
Illegal inter-country adoptions.
Children may be trafficked from a number of different countries for a variety of different reasons. Factors which can make children vulnerable to trafficking are varied and include such things as poverty, lack of education, discrimination and disadvantage, political conflict and economic transition, inadequate local laws and regulations. Separated migrant children may become vulnerable to traffickers during their journey to the UK as they pass through a number of locations where traffickers are finding it easy to recruit their victims. It is also true that whilst there is a demand for children within the UK, trafficking will continue to be a problem.
In order to recruit children, a variety of coercive methods are used such as abduction or kidnapping as well as more subversive ways such as the promise of education, respectable employment or a better life. It has been suggested that children have been brought in via internet transactions, foster arrangements and contracts as domestic staff, or been tricked into a bogus marriage for the purpose of forcing them into prostitution. Although there is no evidence of other forms of exploitation such as 'organ donation, or harvesting', all agencies should remain vigilant.
Many children travel to the UK on false documents. The creation of a false identity for a child can give a trafficker direct control over every aspect of the child's life. Even before they travel to the UK children may be subject to various forms of abuse and exploitation to ensure that the trafficker's control over the child continues after the child is transferred to someone else's care.
Any port of entry into the UK may be used by traffickers via air, rail and sea and as checks on main entry points are increased evidence suggests that traffickers are using more local entry points.
Trafficked children are victims of serious crime and this will impact on their health and welfare. In order to coerce and control, they are commonly subject to physical abuse including use of drugs and alcohol, emotional and psychological abuse, sexual abuse and neglect as a result of a lack of care about their welfare and the need for secrecy surrounding their circumstances.
There is increasing evidence that children of both UK and other citizenship are being trafficked internally within the UK for very similar reasons to those outlined above. There is evidence of teenage girls born in the UK being targeted for internal trafficking between towns and cities for sexual exploitation.
Identification of Trafficked Children
All practitioners who come into contact with children and young people in their everyday work need to be able to recognise children who have been trafficked or who may be victims of modern slavery , and be competent to act to support and protect these children from harm.
The nationality or immigration status of the child does not affect any agency's statutory responsibilities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children. Nationality and immigration issues should be discussed with the UK Visas and Immigration only when the child's need for protection from harm has been addressed and should not hold up action to protect the child.
Possible Indicators
Identification of trafficked children may be difficult as they might not show obvious signs of distress or abuse. Some children are unaware that they have been trafficked, while others may actively participate in hiding that they have been trafficked.
The following indicators are not a definitive list and are intended as a guide to be included in a wider assessment of the child's circumstances.
At port of entry, the child:
Has entered the country illegally,
has no passport or means of identification or has false documentation;
Is unable to confirm the name and address of the person meeting them on arrival;
Has had their journey or visa arranged by someone other than themselves or their family;
Is accompanied by an adult who insists on remaining with the child at all times;
Is withdrawn and refuses to talk or appears afraid to talk to a person in authority;
Has a prepared story similar to those that other children have given;
Is unable or is reluctant to give details of accommodation or other personal details.
Whilst resident in the UK, the child:
Does not appear to have money but does have a mobile phone;
Receives unexplained/unidentified phone calls whilst in placement / temporary accommodation;
Has a history of missing links and unexplained moves;
Is required to earn a minimum amount of money every day,
works in various locations,
has limited amount of movement,
is known to beg for money;
Is being cared for by adult(s) who are not their parents and the quality of the relationship between the child and their adult carers is not good;
Is one among a number of unrelated children found at one address;
Has not been registered with or attended a GP practice;
has not been enrolled in school.
Children internally trafficked in the UK, indicators include:
Physical symptoms indicating physical or sexual assault;
Behaviour indicating sexual exploitation;
Phone calls or letters from adults outside the usual range of contacts;
Persistently missing; missing for long periods;
returning looking well cared for despite having no known base;
Possession of large amounts of money;
acquisition of expensive clothes, mobile phones without plausible explanation;
Low self-image, low self-esteem, self-harming behaviour, truancy and disengagement with education.
Section 45 (4) of the Modern Slavery Act provides that a young person shall be considered not guilty of an offence if they committed it as a consequence of being a victim of slavery.
Any agency or individual practitioner or volunteer who has a concern regarding the possible trafficking of a child or believes them to be a victim of modern slavery, should immediately make a referral under the Making a Referral Procedure. In cases where a child displays indicators that they may have been trafficked, whether from overseas or within the UK practitioners should also refer the case to the relevant competent authority by submitting a National Referral Mechanism referral form. If there are also issues relating to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 the ’Duty to notify‘ should be observed.
Practitioners should not do anything which would heighten the risk of harm or abduction to the child. Where a child has been trafficked, the Assessment should be carried out immediately as the opportunity to intervene is very narrow. Many trafficked children go missing from care, often within the first 48 hours. Provision may need to be made for the child to be in a safe place before any Assessment takes place and for the possibility that they may not be able to disclose full information about their circumstances immediately.
Prompt decisions are needed when the concerns relate to a child who may be trafficked in order to act before the child goes missing.
Duty to Notify
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/duty-to-notify-the-home-office-of-potential-victims-of-modern-slavery
Public authorities have a duty to notify the Secretary of State about suspected victims of slavery or human trafficking.
The ‘duty to notify’ provision is set out in Section 52 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and applies to the following public authorities in England and Wales at the time of publication (additional public authorities can be added through regulations):
(a) a chief officer of police for a police area,
(b) the chief constable of the British Transport Police Force,
(c) the National Crime Agency,
(d) a county council,
(e) a county borough council,
(f) a district council,
(g) a London borough council,
(h) the Greater London Authority,
(i) the Common Council of the City of London,
(j) the Council of the Isles of Scilly,
(k) the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.
Home Office staff within UK Visas and Immigration, Border Force and Immigration Enforcement are also required, as a matter of Home Office policy, to comply with the duty to notify.
Decision making following the receipt of a referral will normally follow discussions with the Police, the person making the referral and may involve other professionals and services - see those identified in Support Services and Useful Contacts.
Child and Family Assessment
Specific action during the Child and Family Assessment of a child who is possibly trafficked should include:
Seeing and speaking with the child and family members as appropriate - the adult purporting to be the child's parent, sponsor or carer should not be present at interviews with the child, or at meetings to discuss future actions;
Drawing together and analysing information from a range of sources, including relevant information from the country or countries in which the child has lived. All agencies involved should request this information from their counterparts overseas. Information about who to contact can be obtained via the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or the appropriate Embassy or Consulate in London;
Checking all documentation held by child, the family, the referrer and other agencies. Copies of all relevant documentation should be taken and together with a photograph of the child be included in the social worker's file.
Even if there are no apparent concerns, child welfare agencies should continue to monitor the situation until the child is appropriately settled.
Strategy Discussion and Section 47 Enquiries
The Strategy Discussion should decide whether to conduct a joint interview with the child and if necessary, with the family or carers. Under no circumstances should the child and their family members or carers be interviewed together.
The Strategy Meeting should consider video interviewing the child, and taking photographs and fingerprints which would assist in identifying the child at a later date.
Professional interpreters, who have been approved and DBS checked, should be used where English is not the child's preferred language. Under no circumstances should the interpreter be the sponsor or another adult purporting to be the parent, guardian or relative. See here for 8.41 Use of Interpreters, Signers or Others with Communication Skills
Multi-agency Meeting
On completion of a Section 47 Enquiry a meeting should be held with the social worker, their supervising manager, the referring agency as appropriate, the Police and other relevant professionals to decide on future action. Further action should not be taken until this meeting has been held and multi-agency agreement obtained to the proposed plan, including the need for a Child Protection Conference and Child Protection Plan.
Where it is found that the child is not a family member and is not related to any other person in this country, consideration should be given as to whether the child needs to be moved from the household and/or legal advice sought on making a separate application for immigration status.
Any law enforcement action regarding fraud, trafficking, deception and illegal entry to this country is the remit of the Police and the local authority should assist in any way possible.
Trafficked children need:
Professionals to be informed and competent in matters relating to trafficking and exploitation;
Someone to spend sufficient time with them to build up a level of trust;
To be interviewed separately, at no stage should adults purporting to be the child's parent, sponsor or carer be present at interviews or at meetings to discuss future action;
Safe placements if children are victims of organised trafficking operations and for their whereabouts to be kept confidential;
Legal advice about their rights and immigration status;
Discretion and caution to be used in tracing their families;
Risk assessment made of the danger if he or she is repatriated;
Where appropriate, accommodation under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 or an application of an Interim Care Order.
The child should be offered an Independent Visitor and, if they decline, their reasons should be recorded. Any Independent Visitor appointed should have appropriate training and demonstrate an understanding of the needs faced by unaccompanied or trafficked children.
In addition, unaccompanied children should be informed of the availability of the Assisted Voluntary Return Schemes which are available through the Home Office. More information is available here - Assisted return: application form - GOV.UK
In many cases, trafficked children apply to the UK Visas and Immigration for asylum or for humanitarian protection. For some, returning to their country of origin presents a high risk of being re-trafficked, further exploitation and abuse.
If a child does not qualify for asylum or humanitarian protection and adequate reception arrangements are in place in the country of origin, the child will usually have to return. It is important that this is handled sensitively and with assistance with reintegration which is available through voluntary return schemes.
Trafficked children may be accommodated by the local authority under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989. This is most often because they have been identified as Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children.
The assessment of their needs to inform their Care Plan should include a risk assessment of how the local authority intends to protect them from any trafficker being able to re-involve the child in exploitative activities. This plan should include contingency plans to be followed if the child goes missing.
Whilst the child is looked after, residential and foster carers should be vigilant about, for example, waiting cars outside the premises, telephone enquiries etc.
The local authority should continue to share information with the Police, which emerges during the placement of a child who may have been trafficked, concerning potential crimes against the child, risk to other children, or relevant immigration matters.
Children in specific circumstances - children going missing
Significant numbers of children who are categorised as UASC have also been trafficked. Some of these children go missing before they are properly identified as victims of trafficking. Such cases should be urgently reported to the police. Local authorities should consider seriously the risk that a trafficked child is likely to go missing.
The Missing People Helpline and the NSPCC Child Trafficking Advice and Information Helpline (0800 107 7057) can offer support.
Practitioners responding to the disappearance of vulnerable children from abroad, following their arrival in this country, can access additional guidance 8.1 Joint Policy for Children Missing
International agreements and legal instruments relevant to trafficked and exploited children include:
Council Of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking Human Beings (2005);
The Yokohama Global Commitment on the Commercial Exploitation of Children (Yokohama 2001);
UN Convention on Rights of the Child (UN 1989) and its protocols on Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (2000) and Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (2000);
Declaration and Agenda for Action on Commercial Exploitation of Children (Stockholm, 1996).
In 2000 trafficking became enshrined in international law for the first time through the Palermo Protocol.
UK legislation and guidance relevant to trafficked and exploited children includes
Care of unaccompanied and trafficked children Statutory guidance for local authorities on the care of unaccompanied asylum seeking and trafficked children July 2014;
Safeguarding children who may have been trafficked: non-statutory good practice guidance issued by the Department for Education and the Home Office in October 2011;
Working Together to Safeguard Children 2018;
Modern Slavery Act 2015 Home Office Circular;
The National Plan for Safeguarding Children from Commercial Sexual Exploitation (2001-5);
The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002;
The Sexual Offences Act 2003;
ECPAT - UK Briefing Paper on Child Trafficking - Begging and Organised Crime (published in September 2010);
Safeguarding Trafficked Roma Children and Families, (published by the London Safeguarding Children Board in September 2010);
Modern Slavery Helpline 08000 121700
UK Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC)(0114 252 3891)
CEOP - Child Exploitation and On-line Protection Centre (020 7238 2320)
NSPCC Child Trafficking Advice and Information Line (0800 107 7057) - an advice and information service for professionals, a case consultancy service is also available by appointment.
Refugee Council Children's Panel - Provides support to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. ECPAT UK (020 7233 9887) - UK children's rights organisation campaigning to protect children from commercial sexual exploitation.
UNICEF (020 7405 5592)
Afruca (Africans Unite Against Child Abuse) (020 7704 2261) Promotes the welfare of African children in the UK and is concerned about cruelty against African children.
CROP - Coalition for the Removal of Pimping (0113 240 3040) A voluntary organisation working to end the sexual exploitation of children and young people by pimps and traffickers.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office website (0207 008 1500)
Crime Reduction Toolkits - The Trafficking Toolkit
The Missing People Helpline and the NSPCC Child Trafficking Advice and Information Helpline (0800 107 7057)
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The last crane folded by Sadako Sasaki was donated by the girl’s family last year. The crane was folded out of a gum wrapper the day before she died.
A bowl of origami cranes sit in a bowl next to the guest book in the Wendover Museum. Visitors are encouraged to take a crane as a memento and a reminder of their visit.
Sadako Sasaki (1943 – 1955) was a Japanese girl who was 2 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Aug. 6, 1945, near her home in Hiroshima, Japan. Sadako is remembered through the story of a thousand origami cranes before her death. One of the cranes Sadoko folded is now on display in the Historic Wendover Museum.
A replica of the Little Boy atomic bomb is on display at the Historic Wendover Museum. Little Boy is the name of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
Paper origami cranes are an display near the tiny crane folded by Sadako Sasaki. Worldwide, the cranes are a symbol of peace, hope and recovery.
C-123 Provider aircraft permanently resides at Historic Wendover Airfield in Wendover, Utah. The museum contains many artifacts.
This field telephone is one of the many things on display. The telephones were first used in World War I to direct troops replacing flag signals and the telegraph.
Ronnie and Gerald McDonough take a moment to check out an interactive display during a visit to the museum in January.
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A Legacy of Peace
Family of Sadako Sasaki, who died from fallout from the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, donated her final peace crane to Historic Wendover Airfield Museum ♦
It is a gum wrapper, painstakingly folded 33 times by 12-year-old Sadako Sasaki. She used two small pins to form it the day before she died. Now it rests in Wendover, Utah, as a statement about peace.
The wrapper, like 643 other cranes she folded, began as a flat strip. This one is tan. After hours of work, the folding reveals a neck to the side. With the lift of two flaps, two wings appear and a belly surfaces below.
It is February 1955, young Sadako works tirelessly, folding paper cranes. Since her leukemia diagnosis, she is frail but focused. The disease and its treatment ravage her body and weaken her, but her resolve and spirit are strong.
Sadako’s best friend, Chizuko, is the girl’s first hospital visitor. She brought with her paper, scissors and a plan. Chizuko shares with Sadako the Japanese legend: if Sadako would fold 1,000 paper cranes the Gods might grant her a cure.
For Sadako, the folding, the work and hope begin.
Decades pass and this crane had yet to have a final home. The crane is deflated, or at least it appears so. It might be round. The miniature origami is, at most, an inch in all directions. It is too small to tell without magnification.
The crane is a token of peace, good will and friendship.
On Aug. 5, 2017, 63 years later and 5,740 miles away in Wendover, Utah, a Japanese delegation, with Sadako’s nephew, Yuji Sasaki, presented one of Sadako’s completed paper cranes to officials at the Historic Wendover Airfield in Wendover, Utah.
The presentation was monumental in many ways, said HWAF president Jim Petersen.
First, the site of the presentation — the Enola Gay hangar — was the location from which the hangar’s plane and namesake, departed on its mission, arriving at its destination on Aug. 6, 1945, to drop the atomic bomb, named “Little Boy,” on Hiroshima, Japan.
Second, there are only five other U.S. sites where the family has made such a donation, but this site is the only one of the six that was a Manhattan Project site, where plans were carried out to drop the bomb that would stop the war, Petersen stated.
Among the other U.S. crane exhibits are the World Trade Center’s visitor center in New York City, one at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and another at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri.
For Petersen, besides the presentation of the crane itself, there were two other highlights of the ceremony. One was the talk given by Ret. Air Force Col. Edwin P. Hawkins, which Petersen noted was both short, but poignant. Hawkins’ past as a liaison for the U.S. in Japan, where he became a close friend of the Sasaki family, made him also the perfect liaison to facilitate the presentation. His comments at the ceremony carry even further weight because of his ties to both sides.
Hawkins’ gist was that the Japanese and American delegations’ meeting at the Enola Gay hangar was a historical event. This was the first time the two sides — the one who dropped the atomic bomb and the other who were the remaining family members and fellow-citizens of the victims of that bomb — would come together, he said, “not with enmity in their hearts, but with thoughts of reconciliation.”
He acknowledged that Japan still feels “deep pain at the fate of the ones they loved; the other feels pride in the accomplishments of men who they consider heroes. Both strive to keep those memories alive.”
He continued on, saying that what the two countries share are the noble values of “compassion for victims, and the willingness to overcome anger, distrust and hatred toward those who committed the act …”
He further argued that true reconciliation will be two-pronged. It will involve the necessity to “promote mutual understanding and strive for lasting peace.”
According to Hawkins, both elements of the reconciliation are symbolized by Sadako’s paper crane. According to the Wendover Airfield’s website, in Japanese culture, cranes are given to victims as a “symbol of peace … hope and recovery.”
Hawkins explained, “This act, presenting the very paper crane Sadako folded as she lay dying, in memory of the Enola Gay and the Atomic Bombing Group, this simple act speaks powerfully to the power of reconciliation.
“I suspect few will fully appreciate what we witness here today,” he said. “Maybe not now; perhaps in generations to come.”
Also touching to Petersen and many of the attendees was Yuji’s duet that he sang with another Japanese lady. The song was written as a tribute to his Aunt Sadako.
Kathy Hussey, docent for the airfield’s museum, said she spent the better part of the ceremony in tears, especially as Yuji performed the duet.
Hussey, who grew up in Wendover, but who in a previous interview with the Transcript Bulletin stated that she would help deliver items to the base’s barracks to help out the local colonel’s wife, also had a family connection to the base.
Hussey noted that at the ceremonies, the Japanese delegation, including Yuji Sasaki, were friendly, humble, energetic and they all mingled cordially among the audience members.
Petersen was fairly happy with the ceremony’s attendance. There were around 100. The foundation’s three active members were disappointed with the lack of representation from Utah government officials. After inviting the governor, lieutenant governor and state representatives, none showed up.
Gov. Herbert did send a letter stating, ”[the ceremony] was a good thing,” Petersen said.
The board invited many international and national media organizations, including 60 Minutes and Japanese media outlets.
Brad Westwood, of the Utah State Historic Preservation Office, and all three Tooele County commissioners attended. Commissioner Shawn Milne introduced the program.
Petersen said his airfield board saw the crane presentation as an opportunity for the word to spread about what exactly happened at the top-secret base during World War II.
The air base was critical in ending the war and its pilots and support personnel fought in both the European and Asian theatres.
While in Wendover, the Japanese delegation would tour the base and they were also honored at a luncheon by Wendover City officials.
Along with presenting Sadako’s tiny paper crane, the delegation brought crates full of similar paper cranes, which were folded by Japanese school children. They offered these cranes to the museum to present to those who tour the airfield museum.
While Sadako’s crane currently sits behind glass sharing space with other airfield memorabilia, Petersen said the foundation will soon create a display that highlights just this singular crane and make it stand out from the rest of the museum as a key feature.
The crane and its exhibit, over time will continue as a symbol of healing for the two countries. Regardless of fault and motivation, the crane has set the two countries on a conciliatory path.
However, Sadako’s work and her family’s loss has become a bigger metaphor, but that metaphor came with a cost. The day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, was so memorable for her, that even though she was only 2 years old, she remembered its effects.
According to the biography, “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes,” written by Eleanor Coerr and published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in 1977, she claimed to remember the feeling of the heat of the the detonation touching her face.
Sadako told Chizuko, “… the heat prickled my eyes like needles.”
As Sadako weakened and was unable to fold more cranes, her family and friends exceeded her 1,000 crane goal. By October 1955, they totaled 1,300. She died, that month, just eight months after her diagnosis.
A giant monument sits in Hiroshima, Japan. It is at the Children’s Peace Park. There, a statue towers above. It is of Sadako holding a crane high above her head.
Japanese kids and others from around the world fold thousands of paper cranes each year to donate for placement at Sadako’s statue as a symbol of world peace.
And, now, in Wendover, Utah, at another museum, where a former airfield stands is another relic from Sadako. This airfield, which Jim Petersen and his Historic Wendover Airfield Foundation are restoring bit by bit, is also a piece of World War II metaphor. Here the American military worked to train officers whose efforts by air would halt the growing tyranny in Japan and Germany and bring peace to the world.
In this museum, is a little paper crane folded by a 12-year-old girl, who fought hard to live, who hoped for a miracle that did not come for her. Though she was not cured, perhaps her crane can continue to heal our world and provide hope that peace is worth fighting and dying for, but if at all possible, not at the cost of war.
Latest posts by Peggy Bradfield (see all)
Knack for Nurturing - July 31, 2018
A Legacy of Peace - April 24, 2018
Playing for ‘Messiah’ - December 14, 2017
2019 Fourth of July Celebrations
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b. 24/06/1891 Cedar Springs, Ontario, Canada. d. 08/08/1918 Demuin, France.
Henry “Harry” Garnet Bedford Miner (1891-1918) was born in Cedar Springs, Ontario, Canada on 24th June 1891, son of John and Sarah Orpha Miner, and lived on a farm. He was a student at Highgate School in Oxford Township, then went into farming. In December 1915 he enlisted in the 142nd Infantry Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, and was transferred to the 58th Infantry Battalion the following year. Miner received the Croix de Guerre from the French government in recognition of the part he played in operations near Lens in 1917.
Corporal Miner was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously for his conduct on 8th August 1918, the first day of the massive Allied offensive around Amiens in France. Near Demuin, Miner charged a German machine gun position alone and, after killing the crew, turned the captured weapon on the retreating enemy. Later in the day, with the help of two comrades, he attacked another enemy machine gun emplacement and put it out of action. Again alone, Miner assaulted a German bombing post, dealt with two enemy soldiers with his bayonet, and put the other occupants of the position to flight. It was during this last action that Corporal Miner received severe grenade wounds that proved to be fatal.
He was buried in Crouy Military Cemetery, Amiens, France. His citation was published in the London Gazette on 26th October 1918. His medals including the VC, British War Medal 1914-20, Victory Medal 1914-19 and the French Croix de Guerre, are held by the Huron County Museum, Goderich, Ontario. In other tributes, The South Barracks (building M-209) in Land Force Central Area Training Centre Meaford (LFCATC Meaford) is named the Corporal H.G.B. Miner Barracks in his honour. Branch 185 of the Royal Canadian Legion in Blenheim, Ontario, is named the Harry Miner Branch.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: HURON COUNTY MUSEUM, GODERICH, CANADA.
BURIAL PLACE: CROUY MILITARY CEMETERY, AMIENS, FRANCE.
Harry Garnet Bedford
Miner VC
Cemetery Plan courtesy of Kevin Brazier
PLOT V, ROW B, GRAVE 11
Cedar Springs, Ontario
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North American Publisher / ISBN: Valiant Entertainment - 978-1-68215-215-7
Positive minority portrayal?: yes
X-O Manowar: Deluxe Edition 5
Pere Pérez
Review by Frank Plowright
Despite the names of other writers featuring for having contributed short stories, the five Deluxe Editions of X-O Manowar are driven by the imagination of Robert Venditti, who brings his story to a close with this content. As a standalone it’s an excellent example of the ambition and unpredictability that’s made his version of X-O so entertaining, but as it builds on so much already introduced you’re better off starting with an earlier selection.
Alien race the Vine have been integral to the series from the opening sequence of their abducting and enslaving 5th century Visigoth warrior Aric and his people to their arrival on Earth believing they can share the planet in the course of Deluxe Edition 4. It’s a naive belief, and the awkwardness is compounded by there being a second group of Vine who never left after an aborted invasion, many of whom can pass for human, led by the fearsome Commander Trill, who gets his own chapter detailing his wrong-minded ambition. Aric’s in the middle of sorting that problem out alongside Ninjak when another alien race arrive to throw everything into confusion. This appeared as individual paperbacks The Kill List and Long Live the King, and greater plot details are revealed by following the links. Although he writes some of the following content, these stories essentially draw together the plots Venditti introduced at the start of his run, and do so very satisfactorily.
In terms of art, Joe Bennett (sample art right) is a revelation, mixing his familiar superhero style with far more ambitious and startling alien scenarios. It’s as if he’s channelling the spirits of the French artists who featured in the 1970s Heavy Metal, and it’s a unique look in the 21st century. Francis Portela excels with the humane qualities of tale spotlighting Aric’s youth, and Robert Gill combines good storytelling with great action pages (sample art right). Unlike volume four, there is no disappointing art, and the likes of Mike McKone and Javier Pulido on shorter content are excellent.
Because there’s a density to Venditti’s concluding episodes and so much other content dotting back and forth through time, this Deluxe Edition provides a greater variety than the previous four volumes combined. There’s the origin of the Shanhara armour, and spotlights on ally Ninjak, enemy Commander Trill and the Roman centurion who killed Aric’s Uncle. We see Aric as a young child, Aric’s death and transformation, his successor, and a glimpse into the Valiant universe of the near future when there’s no Aric around. Most of this material forms the paperback Succession and Other Tales, some of which are written by creators other than Venditti, but they all capture the mood of the series.
This is an occasion where the sum of the parts are better than the whole, simply for the sheer variety on offer providing such a thorough immersion in Aric’s world.
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Portland Place, W1A
Buildings in this area date from the nineteenth century or before
Road · Marylebone · W1B ·
This is a street in the W1A postcode area
VIEW THE MARYLEBONE AREA IN THE 1750s
Marylebone - so good they named it once but pronounced it seven different ways.
Marylebone is an area in the City of Westminster North of Oxford Street and South of Regents Park. Edgware Road forms the Western boundary. Portland Place forms the eastern boundary with the area known as Fitzrovia.
Marylebone gets its name from a church, called St Mary's, that was built on the bank of a small stream or bourne called the Tyburn. The church and the surrounding area later became known as St Mary at the bourne, which over time became shortened to its present form Marylebone.
Today the area is mostly residential with a stylish High Street. It is also notable for its Arab population on its far western border around Edgware Road.
Marylebone station, opened in 1899, is the youngest of London's mainline terminal stations, and also one of the smallest, having opened with half the number of platforms originally planned.
Originally the London terminus of the ill-fated Great Central Main Line, it now serves as the terminus of the Chiltern Main Line route.
The underground station is served by the Bakerloo Line, opening on 27 March 1907 by the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway under the name Great Central (following a change from the originally-intended name Lisson Grove). It was renamed Marylebone in 1917.
Central London, north west (1901) FREE DOWNLOAD
Central London, north west.
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Keats Grove, NW3
Road in/near Hampstead
Can't see your street on the map? Click here to view a list of local streets
Road · Hampstead · NW3 ·
John Keats lived in the road and his house is now a museum.
The road was formerly called John Street
Hampstead though now considered an integral part of London, has retained much of its village charm.
Hampstead is on a steep hill and the tube station platforms are the deepest on the London Underground network, at 58.5 metres below ground level. It has the deepest lift shaft on the Underground.
Although early records of Hampstead itself can be found in a grant by King Ethelred the Unready to the monastery of St. Peter's at Westminster (AD 986) and it is referred to in the Domesday Book (1086), the history of Hampstead is generally traced back to the 17th century.
Trustees of the Well started advertising the medicinal qualities of the chalybeate waters (water impregnated with iron) in 1700. Although Hampstead Wells was initially successful, its popularity declined in the 1800s due to competition with other London spas. The spa was demolished in 1882, although a water fountain was left behind.
Hampstead started to expand following the opening of the North London Railway in the 1860s (now on the London Overground), and expanded further after the tube station opened in 1907.
View copyright notice
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The Alpha - The New COePA Website
Wednesday, 09 March 2011 20:18 | Last Updated on Thursday, 07 March 2013 23:18 | Written by Administrator | Hits: 16816 | |
Lord Jesus says: about Himself:
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, says the Lord who is and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8)
This is how the name for the new COePA website came to be ... It is dedicated for the most wonderful of all names: The Alpha
He is "the Lord," or God the Judge, who is to rule.
He is "the Almighty," therefore we should not doubt in His coming or His powers.
He is "the Alpha and the Omega,”
He is "the Beginning and the End.”
St. Augustine says that the Son is the Beginning in which heaven and earth were created, because it is said, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," and "All things were made by Him.
St. Ambrose states, that the Son of God has no beginning, because He is the actual beginning, and He does not have an end, as he is "the End.”
By being Himself the beginning, how could He accept or assume what He really is (the beginning of existence as long as He actually exists, because He is the Beginning). And how could He have an end, He who is the ending of all things, and in this "ending" we find ourselves home where we reside without end.
St. Jerome and Tertullian state that this conforms with what the apostle says, that "He might gather together in one all things in Christ" (Eph. 1:10), or in whom we find all our needs. In whom He holds His Church, keep her, protect her and provide her with all her needs.
FR. TADROS YACOUB MALATY
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Ban Ki-moon's wish is pious but people need help to end their powerlessness
By Editorial Desk
07th-Apr-2015
The Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon welcomed the participation of the opposition in City Corporations elections and appealed to the authorities to ensure that the elections will be transparent, inclusive and credible. He further expressed the hope that the political parties will soon find a way to overcome their differences.
Under healthy politics and true political leadership such hope of dignified role of the political parties would have been very encouraging and purposeful. It appears that the international community is not getting deep into the nature of our helplessness. Otherwise, it would have been clear that, to call it politics or whatever, the battle for our parties is about elimination of the opposition. The opposition has already been excluded from the national election for continuing in power.
The dispute is a national one of grave nature: whether our people have lost their right to vote for choosing their government for all time to come. So the political difference is not just about party politics. In fact, the politics is about making people powerless.
Our political leadership is mostly void of consideration of national interests. The democratic structure that was established under a democratic Constitution came under fatal attack within two-three years of introducing the same. One party system was formed in 1975 with nothing left of democracy.
The nation is surprised to find itself leaderless for saving democracy. Our supposed to be political leaders are anything but political leaders who talk of democracy but doing everything against democratic practices.
In the national election of January 5th the people lost their voting right altogether. The present movement is for a fresh election to be held in a free and inclusive manner.
It is doubted with every justification if there is any real change of heart for holding the city corporations' elections democratically tolerating multi-party democratic change.
It will be wrong to think that without any prior understanding mere participation in the elections of the three city corporations by the opposition can be a hopeful development towards ending the crisis. The democratic politics is akin to tango dance and it takes two to dance. We cannot be really sure who are our effective leaders leading the country towards disunity and anarchy against the wishes of the people. The fight is between anti-people forces afraid of honest election and democracy.
After election manipulation has become the way of capturing power it is not easy to submit to election politics.
However much humiliating it is for our educated ones, it is undeniable that we are failing totally to help our people and the country from dissolving into ceaseless strife and loss of life. Such a situation will not mean a two-sided struggle between the two parties.
Where the leaders do not consider it necessary to engage with each other it is glaringly clear that no signs of leadership are to be found expecting them to be trying to resolving the serious national crisis confronting the nation.
There are those who abnormally think that they have conquered the country through the liberation war and so their rule and not the people's rule must prevail. Democracy can have no meaning to them. The other side is a defeated party and must remain in submission. This is like declaring war against the whole nation.
By relying too much on police power instead of people's power for suppressing the movement for democracy, we have police force behaving without care for obeying law as admitted by the Chairman of our Human Rights Commission recently. He had to say it clearly about police behaving tyrannically.
When the government opts for tough police action that in turn creates more desperate violence. It is time for the government to reconsider its decision to realize that the current political crisis is not for the police to resolve.
Unfortunately, the tragic clashes and bloodletting that has been going on for months over the demand for fresh election will have no end if we have to depend on the current leadership who are made to follow the wrong path.
We are having violence versus more violent battles but no political thinking for political way out. It is not understandable how no election can produce a peaceful political solution. It is unknown to us.
So our people need help to save themselves from brutish politics of death and destruction with no one to turn to for leadership. The game is too ferocious and too unsafe for peace and safety. The general fear is that the city corporations' elections will solve nothing. These elections are more for the preparations on both sides to be more ruthless in days to come. According to adventurists, safe under government, showing all recklessness to see that the politics of elimination must succeed. But our people cannot remain powerless and friendless to be victims.
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Tag Archives: John McCain
Palin the problem? McCain shouldve looked to the athletic world for VP
Now that the election is over and the country has chosen Obama to move into the White House, it’s time to play some Monday Morning Quarterback with the 2008 election. In looking at the Xs and Os of the republican campaign, some say that selecting Sarah Palin may have been John McCain’s biggest flaw.
With that, The Max looks at some personalities from the athletic world that McCain may have been better off choosing:
JOE PATERNO
At 97 years old (or something like that), selecting Penn State football coach Joe Paterno certainly doesn’t seem like the logical choice. But if you prop him up next to the presidential hopeful, he would definitely help make Old Man McCain look like a kid again. Let’s face it, McCain’s no spring chicken. But next to Joe Pa, even Moses would look young. Plus, we would be very interested in hearing Paterno’s stance on social security reform, seeing as he has been collecting since Herbert Hoover was in office.
Clearly, McCain thought he could gain all the Hillary Clinton supporters by naming Sarah Palin as his running mate. But he failed to recognize that she was more like somebody America wanted to hook up with, not vote for. Plus, she didn’t really possess much toughness, despite all of her efforts to prove people otherwise.
With Chyna, though, McCain would’ve gotten the female vote,�while�never having had to worry about people wanting to hook up with her (we’re getting sick just thinking about it). And he’d have a lady in his corner that could kick some butt, if needed. McCain’s only concern might be seeing the self-proclaimed Ninth Wonder of the World leave the White House to go star in�some ridiculously-bad�VH1 reality show with Vanilla Ice and Danny Bonaduce.
In all honesty (not really), we found this sign while rummaging through the garbage outside McCain’s Arizona mansion. We’re not 100 percent sure, but we can only assume it means that somebody named Manuel was in the running to be McCain’s partner in crime. We’re guessing it was Charlie Manuel. For the record, The Max would’ve fully endorsed this pick (anything to get Manuel out of a baseball uniform and into a suit works for us. Does he get poured into that thing before games?).
Come to think of it, the Manuel name could have also referred to Jerry Manuel. That would’ve been “gangsta,” as the Mets manager likes to say.
On the surface, Jose Canseco doesn’t sound like an ideal running mate. But just because he’s a complete whacko doesn’t mean he’s not capable of making a few good decisions. Just think about how tough he would be in the war on drugs.
Actually, scratch that. We want no part of the tell-all book he would pen about American politics after he left office. Hey, Jose. We know that there are some shady things going on in Washington. But that doesn’t mean we want to hear about them. Ignorance is bliss.
Hey, he’s not doing anything else.
Tags: 2008 election, Charlie Manuel, Chyna, Jerry Manuel, Joe Paterno, John McCain, Jose Canseco, Penn State, politics, Stephon Marbury, WWE
McCain for GM?
Before we get started, let’s make one thing perfectly clear: The Max will not express its political views here (to be honest, we don’t even know what our political views are). This is not that kinda place. But we will get to the bottom of what the heck John McCain was scribbling on his legal pad all night during the debate. Luckily for us, it had to do with sports, which makes it fit to print on this blog.
By now, we’re sure you’re asking yourself how we know McCain’s scribblings were about sports. Well, two things: 1. Stop asking yourself so many questions and just suspend disbelief for a little while. 2. We had “our guy” pick through the trash after the debate. Here’s what he found:
Ok, a couple of things here. We like his proposed rotation. It looks like he sees Joba going back in the ‘pen, which we can’t argue. But how does he plan on getting Mike Jacobs onto the team (or why)? Also, it looks like he doesn’t like the idea of selling Cano while his stock is so low. We wonder, though, which would be an easier job? Bringing Cano back to prominence or saving the economy?
As for his drawing, we guess it’s supposed to Obama. Who knows? Maybe he should’ve concentrated more on debating, rather than doodling.
Tags: Barack Obama, Brian Cashman, John McCain, presidential debate, Yankees
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COMET ISON OUTBURST CONTINUES:
The abrupt brightening of Comet ISON on Nov. 14th has pushed the comet into the range of naked eye visibility. Dark-sky observers around the world report seeing it with their unaided eyes on the morning of Nov. 15th. To the human eye, ISON is just a faint smudge of magnitude +5.5. Backyard telescopes are revealing much more. The effects of the outburst have propagated into the comet's suddenly riotous tail, as shown in this image taken on the morning of Nov. 15th by Damian Peach:
"It's hard to believe this is the same comet I photographed on Nov. 10th," says Peach. "Now that ISON has experienced an outburst, the show has really begun."
The increase in brightness and emergence of multiple gaseous streamers could be caused by fresh veins of ice opening up in the comet's nucleus. Rapid vaporization of ice by solar heat is a sure-fire way to boost a comet's visibility. But, as NASA's Comet ISON Observing Campaign states, "we have no idea." The comet's nucleus is hidden from view by a hazy green atmosphere, so events in the interior remain a mystery.
"I have a strong suspicion that this is Comet LINEAR (C/1999 S4) all over again," says Mark Kidger of the ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre in Madrid. In the year 2000, Kidger other astronomers monitored Comet LINEAR as it disintegrated en route to the sun. "The sudden appearance of ISON's gas tail, the increasing fuzziness of its coma, and now this sudden outburst all remind me of C/1999 S4 just before it broke apart."
To reiterate: No one knows what is happening to Comet ISON. This could be the comet's death throes--or just the first of many brightening events the comet experiences as it plunges toward the sun for a close encounter on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 28th).
Monitoring is encouraged. Comet ISON rises in the east just before the sun. Amateur astronomers, if you have a GOTO telescope, enter these coordinates. Dates of special interest include Nov. 17th and 18th when the comet will pass the bright star Spica, making ISON extra-easy to find. Sky maps: Nov. 16, 17, 18, 19. www.spaceweather.com
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Articles on Illinois (IL) Schools and Colleges Offering Accounting Degrees and Programs
Western Illinois University, College of Business and Technology Accounting Program Profile
Carbondale, Illinois
College of Business and Technology
The undergraduate accounting program at Western Illinois University focuses on creating graduates with the knowledge, skills, and competencies they need to be successful in the accounting profession. Coursework including individual and team projects and working with advanced computer software help students toward this goal.
Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville, School of Business Accounting Program Profile
Edwardsville, Illinois
School of Business, Department of Accountancy
The undergraduate accounting program at Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville focuses on providing students with an educational foundation in accounting that will allow them to grow professionally in their careers. Graduates are prepared for entry in accounting careers in the public or private sector.
Northern Illinois University, College of Business Accounting Program Profile
DeKalb, Illinois
Bachelor of Science in Accountancy
The undergraduate accounting program at Northern Illinois University focuses on developing students into successful professionals in the accounting field. Students learn to solve real-world business problems through coursework and a strong internship program.
Southern Illinois University - Carbondale, College of Business Accounting Program Profile
College of Business, Department of Accountancy
The undergraduate accounting program at Southern Illinois University – Carbondale provides students with a basic understanding of all accounting concepts, including taxation, auditing, and accounting information systems. Graduates of the program have the skills to handle unstructured problems or work in a team or computer based environment.
University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Business Administration Accounting Program Profile
College of Business Administration, School of Accounting
The undergraduate accounting program at University of Illinois at Chicago focuses on providing students with technical and conceptual knowledge of the accounting field. Coursework contains practical applications to prepare students for successful careers in the industry.
Top Accounting Schools in Illinois
Illinois has approximately 79 colleges and universities, many with excellent accounting schools. The accounting industry in Illinois is expected to grow by 22 percent between now and 2018. Accountants in Illinois averaged an annual wage of $67,430 in 2009. Below is a ranking of the top accounting schools in the state of Illinois.
List of Illinois Accounting School Profiles
At Accounting Careers for Dummies we have profiled the accounting programs at colleges across the US. Below is a list of profiles of Illinois colleges:
Bradley University, Foster College of Business Administration Accounting Program Profile
Foster College of Business Administration
Bradley University's Foster College of Business Administration offers an extremely flexible accounting major. Accounting students are encouraged to join the student-run Bradley Accounting Club (BAC) to become immersed in activities, both social and educational, that help unite students and faculty. In addition to traditional internship programs, the accounting major at Bradley University can participate in job co-op programs for students who seek unique work experiences. There are approximately 200 accounting majors within the Foster College of Business Administration and upon entering Bradley University as freshman, accounting majors are assigned a faculty member advisor for the 4-year program. Bradley University is one of the few schools admitted to the Internal Audit Education Partnership Program (IAEP) after passing a rigorous review of the school’s curriculum.
Illinois Wesleyan University, Department of Business Administration Accounting Program Profile
Illinois Wesleyan University,
Illinois Wesleyan University's Department of Accounting offers students the chance to take a wide range of courses including mathematics, information systems, law, economics, statistics, marketing, management, and finance to ensure a well-rounded education. During the May term of each year, in the four year accounting program, students are encouraged to take electives, study abroad, or work a full-time internship. Students are assigned permanent academic advisors after their freshman year. Illinois Wesleyan University is well-known for the many scholarship opportunities offered to accounting students including: AAA-CPA Foundation Essay Contest, AICPA Scholarship, American Society of Women Accountants Scholarship, Illinois CPA Society Scholarship, National Society of Public Accountants Scholarship, and the Institute of Management Accountants National Scholarship Program. In their junior year at Illinois Wesleyan University, accounting students hold a full-time internship for ten weeks at an accounting firm and then return to campus for a six week intensive of business courses where students analyze their internship experiences. Accounting students can join the IWU Accounting society to expand their professional network.
Loyola University-Chicago, Accounting and Business Law Department Programs Profile
Loyola University-Chicago,
Accounting and Business Law Department
Bachelor of Business Administration, Accounting
Loyola University's Accounting and Business Law Department, offered through the School of Business Administration, has full-time and part-time programs for students who wish to earn their Bachelor of Business Arts in Accounting. Loyola’s School of Business Administration is fully accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). The school is dedicated to Loyola’s Jesuit tradition of educating students to become responsible leaders in a changing global business environment. Many scholarship opportunities are available to full-time accounting students. Students who wish to earn a Master of Science in Accountancy once they've finished the Bachelor of Business Arts in Accounting can do so with only one additional year at Loyola University. Public service, teaching, and research are important factors of a Loyola education. The department acknowledges that learning occurs both inside and outside of the classroom and recognizes that the relationship between students and professors is a partnership with responsibilities on the part of both faculty and student.
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We discovered a warped and twisted disc of young, massive stars at the edge of our Milky Way
By Richard de Grijs, Associate Dean (Global Engagement) and Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University
The warped spiral galaxy ESO 510-G13 seen edge-on. NASA
From a great distance, our Milky Way would look like a thin disc of stars that rotates once every few hundred million years around its central region. Hundreds of billions of stars provide the gravitational glue to hold it all together.
But the pull of gravity is much weaker in the galaxy’s far outer disc. Out there, the hydrogen clouds that make up most of the Milky Way’s gas disc are no longer confined to a thin plane. Instead, they give the disc an S-like, warped appearance.
Although the Milky Way’s warped hydrogen gas layer had been known for decades, in research published today in Nature Astronomy, we discovered that a disc of young, massive stars there is warped too, and in a progressively twisted spiral pattern.
Read more: From pancakes to soccer balls, new study shows how galaxies change shape as they age
We were able to determine this twisted appearance after having developed the first accurate three-dimensional picture of the Milky Way’s stellar disc out to its far outer regions.
Mapping the Milky Way
Trying to determine the real shape of our galaxy is like standing in a Sydney garden and attempting to determine the shape of Australia. The Milky Way is all around us, so to determine its shape, we would need to map the distributions of stars in all directions.
While that is not particularly difficult in directions above and below the stellar disc plane, it becomes much harder along the Milky Way’s plane.
Other than stars and hydrogen gas clouds in the Milky Way’s plane, our view is obscured by huge quantities of dust. The material astronomers call dust is made up of carbon particles. It is not too different from the soot that builds up in your home if, for example, you have an open fire.
Large quantities of dust obscure our view of what lies beyond, but dust also makes light look redder. This is because the size of those carbon particles is close to the wavelength of blue light. Therefore, blue light can be absorbed quite easily by the dust while red light passes through without too much trouble.
But it’s not just the presence of dust that makes mapping our Milky Way galaxy troublesome. It is notoriously difficult to determine distances from the Sun to parts of the Milky Way’s outer disc without having a clear idea of what that disc actually looks like.
Pulsating stars
One of the researchers in my international team – Xiaodian Chen of the National Astronomical Observatories (Chinese Academy of Sciences) in Beijing – compiled a new catalogue of well-behaved variable stars known as classical Cepheids. These stars vary in brightness over a period of time.
These stars are among the best mileposts in astronomy: they can be used to determine very accurate distances with uncertainties of only 3-5%. This is pretty much as good as it gets in astronomy, allowing us to obtain the most accurate map of the outer Milky Way available to date.
Our new catalogue was based on observations made with NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a space telescope fitted with long-wavelength (infrared) glasses, ideal to look through any dust in the Milky Way’s disc.
The Cepheids mapped range from the Milky Way’s centre to its outer regions with most on the near side of the centre of our galaxy because of observational limitations.
Classical Cepheids are young stars that are some 4 to 20 times as massive as our Sun, and up to 100,000 times as bright. Such high stellar masses imply that these stars live fast and die young, burning through the hydrogen fuel in their stellar interiors very quickly, sometimes in only a few million years.
Cepheids show day- to month-long pulsations, which can be observed quite easily as changes in their brightness. Combined with a Cepheid’s observed average brightness, the period of its pulsation cycle can be used to obtain an accurate distance.
We all warp together
Somewhat to our surprise, we found that our collection of 1,339 Cepheid stars and the Milky Way’s gas disc follow each other closely. Until our recent study, it had not been possible to tie the distribution of young stars in the Milky Way’s outer disc so well to the flaring and warped disc made up of hydrogen gas clouds.
3D distribution of the classical Cepheid variable stars in the Milky Way’s warped disc (red and blue points) centred on the location of the Sun (shown as a large orange symbol). The units kpc are kiloparsecs (1 kpc = about 3,262 light years) along the image’s three axes are used by astronomers to indicate distances on galaxy-wide scales. Richard de Grijs (Macquarie University), Author provided
But perhaps more importantly, we discovered that the stellar disc is warped in a progressively twisted spiral pattern.
Many spiral galaxies are warped to varying extents, such as the galaxy ESO 510-G13 (pictured top) in the southern constellation Hydra, roughly 150 million light-years from Earth. However, only a dozen other galaxies were known to also show similarly twisted patterns in their outer discs.
Read more: Curious Kids: Where are all the other galaxies hidden?
Combining our results with these earlier observations, we concluded that the Milky Way’s warped and twisted spiral pattern is likely caused by forced torques from the galaxy’s massive inner disc. The rotating inner disc is, in essence, dragging the outer disc along, but since the outer disc’s rotation is lagging the resulting structure is a spiral pattern.
This new map provides a crucial update for studies of our galaxy’s stellar motions and the origins of the Milky Way’s disc. This is particularly interesting given the wealth of information we anticipate to receive from the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite mission.
Gaia aims to eventually map our Milky Way in unprecedented detail, based on the most accurate distance determinations to the galaxy’s brightest stars ever obtained.
Richard de Grijs received funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He is also affiliated with the International Space Science Institute--Beijing.
Originally published in The Conversation.
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Website Group
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Company & Staff
TAN Ruisong Chairman of the Board
TAN Ruisong who was born in February, 1962, has begun his career since 1983. As a research level senior engineer, he holds a Bachelor's Degree in Engine Design & Manufacturing from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a Master's Degree in Shipping and Ocean Engineering as well as a PhD Degree in Management Science and Engineering from Harbin Engineering University. He acts as Chairman of the Board of AVIC. He is also a member of the 13th Session of CPPCC.
Before that, he has held positions as General Manager in AVIC Harbin Dong'an Automotive Engine Manufacturing Co., Ltd, Vice Chairman and General Manager in AVIC Harbin Engine (Group) Co. Ltd., Chairman in AVIC Harbin Aviation Industry Group Co. Ltd., Vice President AVIC II, Executive Vice President of AVIC as well as President and Member of the Board of AVIC.
LUO Ronghuai President
LUO Ronghuai born in December, 1961, began his career in1982. He received his Bachelor's Degree with a major in High Altitude Equipment in Department of Aircraft Design of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, as well as MBA from Sichuan Institute of Business Administration. He acts as Member of the Board and President of AVIC.
Before that, he has successively held positions as Deputy Chief Engineer and Deputy General Manager of Chengdu Aircraft Industry Company; Chairman and General Manager of Chengdu Aircraft Industrial (Group) Co. Ltd.; Assistant General Manager of AVIC I (and also General Manager of AVIC Commercial Aircraft Co. Ltd. and Chairman of Shanghai Aviation Industry Group); Vice President of COMAC; as well as Vice President of Aero Engine Corporation of China.
LI Benzheng
WU Xiandong
Zhang Minsheng
CHEN Yuanxian
YANG Wei
Ren Yukun
Hao Zhaoping
LI Benzheng Executive Vice President
Li Benzheng graduated from the Harbin Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree. He began his career with Ministry of Space, and has held a series of posts in Ministry of Aerospace, China Space Industry Corporation and State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. His expertise primarily lies in quality management, scientific research and production.
Before joining AVIC, he was the Chief Engineer of State Administration of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense. Prior to that, Li was the Chief Commander of the Lunar Exploration Project at Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center and served in the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense mainly in charge of Technology and Quality. Li has taken the role of Executive Vice President of AVIC since November 2014.
WU Xiandong Executive Vice President
Wu Xiandong graduated from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics after majoring in Manufacturing, Engineering, and Electromechanical Control. He studied at the Moscow Aviation Institute, earning his Doctoral Degree in Aerospace Manufacturing Organization. From 1994 to 1995, he served in the Postdoctoral Workstation at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Wu has been an Assistant Engineer at AVIC Harbin Dong'an Automotive Engine Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Deputy Director General of Corporate Authority at AVIC II, President of Harbin Aviation Electromechanical Manufacturing Company, as well as Director General of Enterprise Assets in AVIC II's Management Department, President's Assistant and Vice President of AVIC II. He was appointed as Executive Vice President of AVIC since July, 2008.
Zhang Minsheng Chief Accountant
Zhang Minsheng who was born in August, 1968, has begun his career since 1990. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Dongbei University of Finance & Economics, as well as Master's degree from HEC Business School in Paris. He acts as Chief Accountant of AVIC.
Previously, he served as Chief Accountant of Aero Engine Corporation of China(AECC), Chairman of AECC Aviation Power Co.,Ltd, Executive Director of AECC Assets Management.
CHEN Yuanxian Executive Vice President
Chen Yuanxian received his Bachelor's Degree from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics as well as Doctorate from the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
He had held positions of Director of China Aviation Accessories Institute, Vice Chairman of Jincheng Group and successively Director of Airborne Equipment Department, Director of New Aircraft Office and Deputy Chief Engineer of AVIC I. Then he acted successively as Deputy Chief Economist, Director of Strategic Planning Department, Board of Directors Office Director, Chief Economist and Board of Directors Secretary. He worked as Deputy General Manager, and General Manager of AviChina.
YANG Wei Executive Vice President
YANG Wei born in May, 1963, began his career in November, 1985. He received both his Bachelor's Degree of Aerodynamics and Master's Degree of Flight Dynamics of Northwestern Polytechnical University. He holds positions of Executive Vice President of AVIC as well as Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Deputy Director of Science and Technology Commission of AVIC.
Before that, he has acted successively as Deputy Director of AVIC Chengdu Aircraft and Research Design Institute, Chief Engineer, Director and Chief Engineer as well as Deputy Chief Engineer of AVIC.
Ren Yukun Corporate Ethics Team leader
Ren Yukun born in March 1965 in Qing'an, Heilongjiang. He began his career in July 1988. Mr. Ren received his Master's Degree in Management Engineering from Harbin Institue of Technology, and a Doctor's Degree in Management Science and Engineering from Beijing University of Technology. Currently, he acts in AVIC as Corporate Ethics Team leader.
Previously he served in CASIC as General Manager of Human Resource, member of Corporate Ehtics Team, and part-time supervisor of State-owned Enterprise Supervisory Board.
Hao Zhaoping Executive Vice President
Hao Zhaoping was born in 1968 at Luonan, Shaanxi. He began his career in March 1994. Mr. Hao received his Bachelor's degree in aircraft structure and strength from the National University of Defense Technology, and Master's degree from China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology of China Aerospace Industry Corporation. He acts as Executive Vice President of AVIC.
Previously, he served as President of China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology at CASC.
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The Aviation Industry Corporation of China, Ltd. (AVIC) was founded on November 6th, 2008 through the restructuring and consolidation of the China Aviation Industry Corporation Ⅰ (AVIC Ⅰ) and the China Aviation Industry Corporation Ⅱ (AVIC Ⅱ). We are centered on aviation and provide complete services to customers in many sectors - from research and development to operation, manufacturing and financing. Our business units cover defense, transport aircrafts, helicopters, avionics and systems, general aviation, research and development, flight testing, trade and logistics, assets management, finance services, engineering and construction, automobiles and more. We have over 100 subsidiaries, nearly 27 listed companies and more than 450,000 employees.
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Battery Chemistries
What Are The Different Types of Rechargeable Battery Chemistries/Technologies?
Batteries in portable consumer devices (laptops and notebooks, camcorders, cellular phones, etc.) are principally made using either Nickel Cadmium (NiCd), Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) or Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) technologies. Each type of rechargeable battery technology has its own unique characteristics:
NiCd and NiMH: the main difference between the two is the fact that NiMH batteries (the newer of the two technologies) offer higher energy densities than NiCads. In other words, pound for pound, NiMH delivers approximately 100% more capacity than its NiCad counterpart. What this translates into is increased run-time from the battery with no additional bulk to weigh down your portable device. NiMH also offers another major advantage: NiCd batteries tend to suffer from what is called the memory effect. NiMH batteries are less prone to develop this dreaded affliction and thus require less maintenance and care. NiMH batteries are also more environmentally friendly than their NiCd counterparts, since they do not contain heavy metals (which present serious landfill problems).
Li-Ion has quickly become the emerging standard for portable power in consumer devices. Li-Ion batteries produce the same energy as NiMH batteries but weigh approximately 35% less. This is crucial in applications such as camcorders or notebook computers, where the battery makes up a significant portion of the device's weight. Another reason Li-Ion batteries have become so popular is that they do not suffer from the memory effect AT ALL. They are also better for the environment because they don't contain toxic materials such as Cadmium or Mercury.
Is it Possible to Upgrade My Device's Battery to a Newer Chemistry?
NiCd, NiMH and Li-ion are all fundamentally different from one another and cannot be substituted unless the device has been pre-configured from the factory to accept more than one type of rechargeable battery. The difference between them stems from the fact that each type requires a different charging pattern to be properly recharged. Therefore, the portable device's charger must be properly configured to handle a given type of rechargeable battery.
Refer to your owner's manual to find out which rechargeable battery types your particular device supports, or simply use our search engine to find your device. It will automatically list all of the battery types supported by your machine.
What is the Memory Effect ?
NiCd batteries, and to a lesser extent NiMH batteries, suffer from what's called the memory effect. What this means is that if a battery is continually only partially discharged before re-charging, the battery forgets that it has the capacity to further discharge all the way down. To illustrate: If you, on a regular basis, fully charge your battery and then use only 50% of its capacity before the next recharge, eventually the battery will become unaware of its extra 50% capacity which has remained unused. Your battery will remain functional, but only at 50% of its original capacity. The way to avoid the dreaded memory effect is to fully cycle (fully charge and then fully discharge) your battery at least once every two to three weeks. Batteries can be discharged by unplugging the device's AC adapter and letting the device run on the battery until it ceases to function. This will insure your battery remains healthy.
Aluminium–air batteries (Al–air)
Aluminium–air batteries produce electricity from the reaction of oxygen in the air with aluminium. They have one of the highest energy densities of all batteries, but they are not widely used because of problems with high anode cost and byproduct removal when using traditional electrolytes. This has restricted their use to mainly military applications. However, an electric vehicle with aluminium batteries has the potential for up to eight times the range of a lithium-ion battery with a significantly lower total weight.
Aluminum-ion
Aluminium-ion batteries are a class of rechargeable battery in which aluminium ions provide energy by flowing from the negative electrode of the battery, the cathode, to the positive electrode, the anode. When recharging, aluminium ions return to the anode, and it can exchange three redox electrons per cation. Rechargeable aluminium-based batteries offer the possibilities of low cost and low flammability, together with three-electron-redox properties leading to high capacity. The inertness of aluminum and the ease of handling in an ambient environment is expected to offer significant safety improvements for this kind of battery.
Super Iron
Super iron battery: A new class of rechargeable electric battery. "Super-iron" is a moniker for a special kind of ferrate salt (iron(VI)): potassium ferrate or barium ferrate, as used in this new class of batteries. As of 2004, chemist Stuart Licht of the University of Massachusetts in Boston was leading research into a Super-iron battery.
Wet Lead Acid
Wet lead acid battery: The major advantage of the wet cell lead acid battery is its low cost - a large battery (e.g. 70 Ah) is relatively cheap when compared to other chemistries. However, this battery chemistry has lower energy density than other battery chemistries available today. Its most common application is a starter battery for vehicles, but they can also be used in alarm systems, uninterruptible power supplies and for energy storage for buildings not connected to the electrical grid. The lead-acid battery chemistry was invented in 1859.
Gel battery: A type of VRLA battery that uses gelified electrolyte. Unlike a traditional wet cell lead-acid battery, the cells of a gel battery are valve-regulated. Its applications include automobiles, motorcycle, boats, aircraft, and other motorized vehicles.
Absorbed Glass Mat (AGM)
Absorbed glass mat: A type of VRLA battery. The plates in an AGM battery may be flat like wet cell lead-acid batteries, or they may be wound in tight spirals. In cylindrical AGM's, the plates are thin and wound, like most consumer disposable and rechargeable cells, into spirals so they are also sometimes referred to as spiral wound. Its chemical composition are electrolytes absorbed into a fiberglass mat.
Lithium-Air (Li-air)
The lithium-air battery (Li-air) is a metal–air electrochemical cell or battery chemistry that uses oxidation of lithium at the anode and reduction of oxygen at the cathode to induce a current flow.
Lithium Cobalt Oxide (ICR)
Lithium cobalt oxide, sometimes called lithium cobaltate or lithium cobaltite, is a chemical compound with formula LiCoO2. The cobalt atoms are formally in the +3 oxidation state, hence the IUPAC name lithium cobalt(III) oxide. Lithium cobalt oxide is a dark blue or bluish-gray crystalline solid and is commonly used in the positive electrodes of lithium-ion batteries.
Lithium ion battery: A relatively modern battery chemistry that offers a very high charge density (i.e. a light battery will store a lot of energy) and which does not suffer from any memory effect whatsoever. Its chemical composition is LiCoO2, LiMn2O4, LiNiO2 or Li-Ph for the cathode and carbon for the anode. Applications include laptop computers, camera phones, some rechargeable MP3 players, and most other portable, rechargeable digital equipment. Tesla, Reva and Kewet are all releasing new lithium ion battery electric car models in 2007. Lithium ion batteries were introduced around 1990. The problems with Lithium batteries include volatility, thermal runaway, high cost and limited shelf and cycle life.
Lithium Ion Manganese Oxide (IMR)
A Lithium ion manganese oxide battery is a lithium ion cell that uses manganese dioxide, MnO2, as the primary cathode material. They function through the same intercalation/de-intercalation mechanism as other commercialized secondary battery technologies, such as LiCoO2. They are a promising technology as their manganese-oxide components are earth-abundant, inexpensive, non-toxic, and provide better thermal stability.
Lithium Ion Polymer (Li-Po)
Lithium ion polymer battery: Similar characteristics to lithium-ion, but with slightly less charge density and a greater life cycle degradation rate. An advantage over regular lithium-ion is ultra-slim design, as little as 1 mm thick. Disadvantages would be if the battery discharges below a certain voltage it may never be able to hold a charge again, also if overcharged the battery becomes extremely unstable and may explode. Applications include ultra-slim cells for personal digital assistants (PDA). They were released in 1996.
Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4 or LFP)
The lithium iron phosphate battery, also called LFP battery (with "LFP" standing for "lithium ferrophosphate"), is a type of rechargeable battery, specifically a lithium-ion battery, which uses LiFePO4 as a cathode material, and a graphitic carbon electrode with a metallic current collector grid as the anode. The specific capacity of LiFePO4 is higher than that of the related lithium cobalt oxide (LiCoO2) chemistry, but its energy density is slightly lower due to its low operating voltage. The main problem of LiFePO4 is its low electrical conductivity. Therefore, all the LiFePO4 cathodes under consideration are actually LiFePO4/C. Because of low-cost, low-toxicity, well-defined performance, long-term stability, etc. LiFePO4 is finding a number of roles in vehicle use, utility scale stationary applications, and backup power.
Lithium–Sulfur (Li-S)
The lithium–sulfur battery (Li–S battery) is a type of rechargeable battery, notable for its high specific energy. The low atomic weight of lithium and moderate weight of sulfur means that Li–S batteries are relatively light (about the density of water). They were used on the longest and highest-altitude solar-powered aeroplane flight in August 2008. Lithium–sulfur batteries may succeed lithium-ion cells because of their higher energy density and reduced cost from the use of sulfur. Currently the best Li–S batteries offer specific energies on the order of 500 W·h/kg, significantly better than most lithium-ion batteries, which are in the range of 150 to 250 W·h/kg. Li–S batteries with up to 1,500 charge and discharge cycles have been demonstrated.
Lithium Thionyl Chloride (LiSOCl2)
Lithium-thionyl chloride batteries are not rechargeable. The cell contains a liquid mixture of thionyl chloride (SOCl2), lithium tetrachloroaluminate (LiAlCl4), and niobium pentachloride (NbCl5) which act as the catholyte, electrolyte, electron sink, and dendrite preventive during reverse voltage condition, electrolyte, respectively. A porous carbon material serves as a cathode current collector which receives electrons from the external circuit. Lithium-thionyl chloride batteries are well suited to extremely low-current or moderate pulse applications where a service life of up to 40 years is necessary. Lithium-thionyl chloride batteries are generally found more in commercial/industrial: automatic meter reading (AMR) and medical: automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) applications.
Lithium–Titanate
The lithium–titanate battery is a type of rechargeable battery which has the advantage of being faster to charge than other lithium-ion batteries. Titanate batteries are used in certain Japanese-only versions of Mitsubishi's i-MiEV electric vehicle and Honda uses them in its EV-neo electric bike and Fit EV. Opportunity charging in public transportation, such as large capacity electric bus project TOSA, is using the Titanate batteries high charging capability to partly recharge the battery in 15 seconds while passengers are disembarking and embarking at bus stops. Due to their high level of safety, lithium-titanate batteries are now being used in mobile medical devices.
Magnesium batteries are batteries with magnesium as the active element at the anode of an electrochemical cell. Both non-rechargeable primary cell and rechargeable secondary cell chemistries have been investigated. Magnesium primary cell batteries have been commercialised and have found use as reserve and general use batteries.
Manganese Dioxide-Zinc (MnO2)
Alkaline batteries are a type of primary battery dependent upon the reaction between zinc metal and manganese dioxide. Another type of alkaline batteries are secondary rechargeable alkaline battery, which allows reuse of specially designed cells. Compared with zinc-carbon batteries of the Leclanché cell or zinc chloride types, alkaline batteries have a higher energy density and longer shelf-life, with the same voltage. The alkaline battery gets its name because it has an alkaline electrolyte of potassium hydroxide, instead of the acidic ammonium chloride or zinc chloride electrolyte of the zinc-carbon batteries. Other battery systems also use alkaline electrolytes, but they use different active materials for the electrodes.
Rechargeable Alkaline
A rechargeable alkaline battery (also known as alkaline rechargeable or rechargeable alkaline manganese (RAM)) is a type of alkaline battery that is capable of recharging for repeated use. The first generation rechargeable alkaline batteries were introduced by Union Carbide and Mallory in early 1970's. Several patents were introduced after Union Carbide's product discontinuation and eventually, in 1986, Battery Technologies Inc of Canada was founded to commercially develop a 2nd generation product based on those patents. Their first product to be licensed out and sold commercially was to Rayovac under the trademark "Renewal". The next year, "Pure Energy" batteries were released by Pure Energy. After reformulating the Renewals to be mercury free in 1995, subsequent licensed RAM alkalines were mercury free and included ALCAVA, AccuCell, Grandcell and EnviroCell. Subsequent patent and advancements in technology have been introduced. The formats include AAA, AA, C, D, and snap-on 9-volt batteries. Rechargeable alkaline batteries are manufactured fully charged and have the ability to hold their charge for years, longer than NiCd and NiMH batteries, which self-discharge. Rechargeable alkaline batteries can have a high recharging efficiency and have less environmental impact than disposable cells.
Mercury Oxide
A mercury battery, also referred to as mercuric oxide battery, or mercury cell, are non-rechargeable electrochemical battery, a primary cell. Mercury batteries use a reaction between mercuric oxide and zinc electrodes in an alkaline electrolyte. The voltage during discharge remains practically constant at 1.35 volts, and the capacity is much greater than a similarly sized zinc carbon battery. Mercury batteries were used in the shape of button cells for watches, hearing aids, cameras and calculators, and in larger forms for other applications.
Molten salt battery: High temperature battery that offers both a higher energy density through the proper selection of reactant pairs as well as a higher power density by means of a high conductivity molten salt electrolyte. They are used in services where high energy density and high power density are required. These features make rechargeable molten salt batteries the most promising batteries for powering electric vehicles. However, operating temperatures of 400 to 700°C bring problems with thermal management and safety, and places more stringent requirements on the rest of the battery components. Its composition includes a molten salt electrolyte.
Nickel-Cadmium (NiCD)
Nickel-cadmium battery: This chemistry gives the longest cycle life of any currently available battery (over 1,500 cycles), but has low energy density compared with some of the other chemistries. Batteries using older technology suffer from memory effect, but this has been reduced drastically in modern batteries. Cadmium is toxic to most life forms, so it poses environmental concerns. Its chemical composition is nickel for the cathode and cadmium for the anode. It is used in many domestic applications, but is being superseded by Li-ion and Ni-MH types. It has been mass produced since 1946.
Nickel-Iron (NiFe)
The Nickel-iron battery is a very robust battery which is tolerant of mistreatment, like overcharge, over discharge, short-circuiting and thermal shock, and can have very long life. It is often used in backup situations where it can be continuously charged and can last for 20-50 years. Its limitations are a low specific energy, poor charge retention, poor low-temperature performance and its high cost of manufacture. Its chemical composition is nickel(III) oxide-hydroxide for the cathode, iron for the anode, and potassium hydroxide for the electrolyte. This battery chemistry has been produced since 1903.
Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH)
Nickel metal hydride battery: Similar to a nickel-cadmium battery (NiCd) but it uses a hydride absorbing alloy for the anode, which makes it less detrimental to the environment. In addition, a NiMH battery can have two to three times the capacity of an equivalent size NiCd and the memory effect is not as significant. However, compared with lithium ion chemistry, the volumetric energy density is lower and self-discharge is higher. Its chemical composition is nickel for the cathode and a hydride absorbing alloy for the anode. Applications for the battery include hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius, Toyota RAV4-EV all-electric plug-in Electric car, and consumer electronics. It was made available in 1983. The most advanced versions, up to 105 amp-hours, were made by a partnership between Panasonic and Toyota. These are the standard battery for all-electric EVs capable of lasting longer than the life of the vehicle while yielding a range more than 100 miles on a charge, adequate acceleration, and modest weight.
Nickel Oxyhydroxide (NiOx)
Nickel oxyhydroxide battery (NiOx) is a type of primary cell. It is non-rechargeable and must be disposed after a single use. NiOx batteries can be used in high-drain applications such as digital cameras. NiOx batteries used in low-drain applications, have a lifespan similar to an alkaline battery. NiOx batteries produce a higher voltage of 1.7V compared to an alkaline batteries of 1.5V, which can cause problems in certain products, such as equipment with incandescent light bulbs (such as flashlights/torches), or devices without a voltage regulator.
Nickel-Zinc (NiZn)
Nickel-zinc battery: A type of rechargeable battery commonly used in the light electric vehicle sector. The battery is still not commonly found in the mass market, but they are considered as the next generation batteries used for high drain applications, and are expected to replace lead-acid batteries because of their higher energy density and higher power to mass ratio, up to 75% lighter for the same power. In addition they are expected to be priced somewhere in between nickel-cadmium and lead-acid batteries, but have twice the energy storing capacity of nickel-cadmium batteries. Problems with Nickel-zinc include relatively high cost with limited life expectancy.
Potassium-Ion (KiB)
A potassium-ion battery or K-ion battery (abbreviated as KIB) is a type of battery and analogue to lithium-ion batteries, using potassium ions for charge transfer instead of lithium ions.
Silver Calcium
Silver Calcium alloy batteries are a type of lead-acid battery with grids made from lead-calcium-silver alloy, instead of the traditional lead-antimony alloy or newer lead-calcium alloy. They stand out for its resistance to corrosion and the destructive effects of high temperatures. The result of this improvement is manifested in increased battery life and maintaining a high starting power over time.
Silver-Oxide (AgO2)
A silver-oxide battery is a primary cell with a very high energy-to-weight ratio. Available either in small sizes as button cells, where the amount of silver used is minimal and not a significant contributor to the product cost, or in large custom-designed batteries, where the superior performance of the silver-oxide chemistry outweighs cost considerations. These larger cells are mostly found in applications for the military, for example in Mark 37 torpedoes or on Alfa-class submarines. In recent years they have become important as reserve batteries for manned and unmanned spacecraft. Over the counter uses are seen in watches and calculators. Spent batteries can be processed to recover their silver content.
Polysulfide Bromide (PSB)
The polysulfide bromide battery (PSB), (sometimes polysulphide bromide), is a type of regenerative fuel cell involving a reversible electrochemical reaction between two salt-solution electrolytes: sodium bromide and sodium polysulfide. It is an example and type of redox (reduction–oxidation) flow battery.
Sodium-Ion (SiB)
Sodium-ion batteries (SIB) are a type of rechargeable metal-ion battery that uses sodium ions as charge carriers.
Sodium-Sulfur (NaS)
Sodium-sulfur battery is a type of molten-salt battery constructed from liquid sodium (Na) and sulfur (S). This type of battery exhibits a high energy density, high efficiency of charge/discharge (89—92%), long cycle life, and is made from inexpensive, non-toxic materials. However, the operating temperature of 300 to 350 °C and the highly corrosive nature of sodium make it suitable only for large-scale non-mobile applications. A suggested application is grid energy storage in the electric grid.
Zinc–air batteries (non-rechargeable) and zinc–air fuel cells (mechanically rechargeable) are metal-air batteries powered by oxidizing zinc with oxygen from the air. These batteries have high energy densities and are relatively inexpensive to produce. Sizes range from very small button cells for hearing aids, larger batteries used in film cameras that previously used mercury batteries, to very large batteries used for electric vehicle propulsion.
Zinc-Bromine Flow
Zinc bromide battery: A type of hybrid flow battery. A solution of zinc bromide is stored in two tanks. When the battery is charged or discharged the electrolytes are pumped through a reactor and back into the tanks. One tank is used to store the electrolyte for the positive electrode reactions and the other for the negative. Its composition includes the zinc bromide electrolyte.
Zinc-carbon
A zinc–carbon battery is a dry cell primary battery that delivers about 1.5 volts of direct current from the electrochemical reaction between zinc and manganese dioxide. A carbon rod collects the current from the manganese dioxide electrode, giving the name to the cell. A dry cell is usually made of a zinc can which also serves as the anode with a negative potential, while the inert carbon rod is the positive cathode. General purpose batteries may use an aqueous paste of ammonium chloride as electrolyte, possibly mixed with some zinc chloride solution. Heavy duty types use a paste primarily composed of zinc chloride. Zinc–carbon batteries were the first commercial dry batteries, developed from the technology of the wet Leclanché cell. They made flashlights and other portable devices possible, because the battery can function in any orientation. They are still useful in low drain or intermittent use devices such as remote controls, flashlights, clocks or transistor radios. Zinc–carbon dry cells are single-use primary cells.
Zinc-cerium (Zn-Ce)
Zinc–cerium batteries are a type of redox flow battery first developed by Plurion Inc. (UK) during the 2000s. In this rechargeable battery, both negative zinc and positive cerium electrolytes are circulated though an electrochemical flow reactor during the operation and stored in two separated reservoirs. Negative and positive electrolyte compartments in the electrochemical reactor are separated by a cation-exchange membrane, usually Nafion (DuPont). The Ce(III)/Ce(IV) and Zn(II)/Zn redox reactions take place at the positive and negative electrodes, respectively. Since zinc is electroplated during charge at the negative electrode this system is classified as a hybrid flow battery. Unlike in zinc–bromine and zinc–chlorine redox flow batteries, no condensation device is needed to dissolve halogen gases. The reagents used in the zinc-cerium system are considerably less expensive than those used in the vanadium flow battery The Zn-Ce flow battery is still in early stages of development.
Zinc-chloride
Similar to Zinc-carbon
Zinc-Ion (ZiB)
A zinc ion battery or Zn-ion battery (abbreviated as ZIB) uses zinc ions (Zn2+) as the charge carriers. Specifically, ZIBs utilize Zn as the anode, Zn-intercalating materials as the cathode, and a Zn-containing electrolyte.
Information was derived from Wikipedia.org and all the users who provided the accumulative knowledge.
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Ananya Dance Theatre exhibiting at Arts Midwest
Ananya Dance Theatre will host a Marketplace exhibit booth at the Arts Midwest Conference in Columbus, Ohio, August 28-31.
Gary Peterson, managing director, Ananya Dance Theatre, will meet you in Booth #827 of Battelle Hall, Greater Columbus Convention Center.
Available for touring: “Shyamali: Sprouting Words” • NPN Touring Support Available
Photo by V. Paul Virtucio
Ananya Dance Theatre will present the world premiere of “Shyamali: Sprouting Words” as part of Women of Substance at The O’Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University, St. Paul, September 15-16, 2017. The work is the fourth in the company’s five year series on the theme “Work Women Do.”
Shyamali is a 90-minute dance that explores how dissent against oppression fuels life force. Inspired by the courage of women around the world to refuse silence and sustain communities against injustice, “Shyamali” means “dark green” in Bengali, and invokes the resilience of grass, which springs up when trod upon.
Shyamali is structured in three acts and questions the audience’s relationship to the stage. Act One invites community members, drawn from workshop participants, on stage to witness as dancers enter from the auditorium. A moment of co-creation with the local community, the interactions with the dancers are spontaneous. A vocalist calls for renewal out of loss, and guides audience members to their seats.
Act Two unearths “moving as grass,” women rising up, fast footwork in protest, female intimacy/love as political action, and reckons with the emotional toll of being in continuous dissent.
The final act draws upon Chatterjea’s time among Standing Rock water protectors, and pays homage to the power and potential of peaceful, ceremonial, and spiritual protest with looping phrases, abstract mudras, and yogic breath work as performers take their stand among the audience.
“Shyamali: Sprouting Words” is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, Pittsburgh, PA, in partnership with the Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia, PA, the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, Kahului, HI, the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA, The O’Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN, and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). The Forth Fund is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For more information: www.npnweb.org.
In addition to our home theater, residencies and performances have been confirmed at all four venues, along with a confirmed presentation at UtahPresents! at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
We are creating Shyamali to work artistically with a minimum of eight dancers, though the full 13 performers are available when possible. Our tour ensemble will include eight performers (includes Chatterjea) and a production manager who will direct load-in/load-out and call light and sound cues.
Available for touring: “Shaatranga: At the Edge of New Worlds”
Ananya Chatterjea • Photo by Ryan Stopera
“Shaatranga” will premiere in Fall 2018 at The O’Shaughnessy, St. Paul. This dance will be the capstone of Ananya Chatterjea’s five-year exploration of the theme, “Work Women Do.” As ancient trade routes across Asia, the Indian Ocean, and silk routes map the spread of cotton and indigo through colonial to contemporary times, the production and distribution of blue jeans serves as metaphor for the journeys of women of color throughout history to achieve justice.
For more information: gary.peterson@ananyadancetheatre.org • 612.486.2238.
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License and terms of use of my music
* MISCELLANEOUS
The music is distributed for FREE for your personal listening and editing pleasure.
Anyway, its use implies the acceptance of a license and specific terms of use, as described below: the music is released as copyrighted under the "freeware" model, and absolutely not as part of the public domain.
The same terms of license apply to all parts of the music, including samples and instruments, unless otherwise noted. Keep in mind that those terms may be modified by myself at any time without any notification. The official and latest version of this license is available on my website, located at http://www.arachnosoft.com. Be sure to check it when necessary.
* DISTRIBUTION
You are free to distribute the music to anyone you want, under any format, as long as you keep the final user informed about the origin of the music, its author, and its official availability on my website, http://www.arachnosoft.com.
If you want to distribute the music in another format than the ones I offer to you (MP3, OGG, etc.), I would like you to contact me before, to keep me informed on the use of my music.
You are of course free to distribute the original package, as found on my website. I'd like to be also informed by e-mail if you do so.
In any case, you MUST specify clearly that the music has been produced by me, Maxime Abbey, and that the original and latest versions are available on my website, http://www.arachnosoft.com.
Moreover, the distribution must be done freely, or in exchange of a small amount of money aimed at covering distribution fees and/or supports (CD-ROM, disks...). Any commercial distribution is covered by the commercial usage terms of this license, as described below.
* USAGE
You are entirely free to use and listen to the music for your personal pleasure and to convert in any format to suit your listening needs, as long as it does not harm anyone and complies with the terms of this license.
If you want to use the music on your own creations (software, website, CD-ROM, presentation, magazine, etc), whatever is your project, please contact me to keep me informed about it, even if any use in non-commercial projects is encouraged. However, any commercial use MUST be discussed with me before anything. All parts of the music are concerned, even the samples and the instruments, as, unless otherwise noted, all have been build and recorded by myself.
You are fully allowed to modify or remix the music as you want, but if you want to distribute a modified version, you must indicate that you've used my own work as basis, and that you are the author of this modified version. Moreover, I would be pleased to be informed about your work.
How to read and use the files in MIDI format
A MIDI file requires a MIDI file player, and is aimed to be played through a MIDI synthesizer, either hardware or software. The sound quality of a MIDI file mostly relies on the sound quality of the MIDI synthesizer used to reproduce it.
You should already have at least a software MIDI synthesizer on your computer, as most recent operating systems come with their own built-in MIDI synthesizer. But you can get and install additional software synthesizers if you are not satisfied with the sounds of your current one. WinGroove, Yamaha S-YXG, Roland HyperCanvas and SynthFont are quite popular software MIDI synthesizers.
However, for maximal enjoyment, I recommend the use of a good hardware General MIDI synthesizer, such as those from the most well-known manufacturers (Roland, Yamaha, Korg...) or those which come with the Creative line of soundcards (Sound Blaster Live!, Audigy, X-Fi...), using a good sound bank.
For Creative cards, and any software which supports SoundFonts, such as SynthFont, there are many good SoundFont General MIDI banks available on the Internet for MIDI file listening: Magic SoundFont, Unison, Fluid, SYnerGi, Mega Sound Bank, Crisis, Titanic SoundFont, RealFont, Utopia Live! are a few examples among many others.
I made the original IT version using sounds from my own SoundFont bank. Check the documentation included with the IT version for more information about those sounds and how to get them.
As MIDI file player, for Windows, I STRONGLY recommend vanBasco's Karaoke Player, available at http://www.vanbasco.com, but any MIDI file player should be able to reproduce my music, including Winamp, Windows Media Player, QuickTime, KbMedia Player, and many, many others.
How to read and use the files in IT (ImpulseTracker) format
The IT versions of my music are the original versions. They are thus the ones susceptible to offer the best sound quality, because the IT format is a lossless (without compression) format.
Unless explicitly noted, my music in IT format do not use any special features or effects offered by OpenMPT, the software I used to compose the music. As a result, it should be readable and editable in most IT-compatible players and trackers.
For Windows, I recommend OpenMPT (open-source version of the famous ModPlug Tracker) to edit this music, and any recent ImpulseTracker file player to listen to it: OpenMPT, ModPlug Player, Winamp and XMPlay are a few examples of free audio file players under Windows supporting my IT files.
How to read and use the files in MP3 or OGG Vorbis formats
The MP3 and OGG versions of the music offered on this page aim at providing a more common format, for your convenience, because of their usability in any software (such as Winamp) or hardware (portable audio players, car audio...) compatible with the format.
These versions have been rendered from the IT versions, first in high-quality WAVE lossless format using OpenMPT, then converted into compressed MP3 or OGG format, using a bitrate of 192 kbps.
Unless explicitly noted, they sound identical to the original IT version available on my website, except for the lossy compression of the MP3 or OGG format.
ZIP files and other compressed formats: how to use them?
Most of the files available for download on this website are distributed as a compressed file in ZIP format, in order to reduce their download size. So, to open a ZIP file, you must use software able to uncompress this file format. There are plenty of them, free and commercial ones, among them: WinZip, UltimateZip, IZArc, PowerArchiver...
To uncompress a ZIP file, you have to open the wanted file into the software with the File - Open Archive menu, then, the contents of the file being displayed, use the Extract command, generally in a menu named Actions, select a folder on your hard drive where you want to place the file. The software uncompresses the ZIP file, and the files will be then available in the folder you've selected.
These instructions are also valid for most other compressed file formats (like RAR files, for example).
Along with "Arabian Feelings", this song remains one of my favourites among all my personal works. More than five years after the release of the first version, here is a new, entirely reworked-from-scratch track, based on that same little melody.
The first version, as most of my early works, was a very repeative mix of melodies. With this new version, I wanted to keep the same ideas, while introducing some new stuff, which you'll discover when looking after the first two minutes of the song.
Just like with "Arabian Feelings", I tried to split this song into several parts, either by using different instruments, or by covering different registers.
As a sidenote, this new version is also inspired from a song by Karsten Koch, "The Hidden Empire".
Released on 05-31-2007
Technical information: 20 channels, duration of 8:14.
Listen online to Green Hills
Download Green Hills
IT Version (24.82 MB)
MIDI Version (18 KB)
MP3 Version (11.11 MB)
OGG Version (12.36 MB)
All versions included, this arrangement totalizes 19589 downloads so far.
Four years after the release of the first version, here is the new version of one of my very own tunes, "Arabian Feelings". Not a game music or film soundtrack this time, but a music I started to compose myself as soon as I heard a little piece of oriental music while walking on a street.
To correct the main defaults of the first version which was quite repeatitive, this new version comes with some new melodies and fresh ideas, mainly inspired from the oriental and "space-sounding" instruments I've used in it. It's also partly inspired by an excellent music track by Karsten Koch, named "Jupiter's Orbit".
Listen online to Arabian Feelings
Download Arabian Feelings
IT Version (9769 KB)
MP3 Version (9989 KB)
OGG Version (10000 KB)
Operation Stealth (James Bond: The Stealth Affair) - The Ballad of J. & J.
This music is the "underwater theme" from "Operation Stealth", a 1990 game by Delphine Software (released as "James Bond: The Stealth Affair" in the USA).
Another game music work from me, inspired, as usual, from the original soundtrack in AdLib/PC/MS-DOS and Amiga formats.
Listen online to Operation Stealth (James Bond: The Stealth Affair) - The Ballad of J. & J.
Download Operation Stealth (James Bond: The Stealth Affair) - The Ballad of J. & J.
OGG Version (2116 KB)
Lemmings - Level 7 (Rainbow Islands)
Here is my version of certainly one of the most well-known (if not THE most) tunes from the famous video game "Lemmings".
Indeed, first appeared on the first game from the "Lemmings" series in 1990, this music has been reused in other variants of the game, including "Lemmings 2: The Tribes".
Technical information: 7 channels, duration of 1:47.
Listen online to Lemmings - Level 7 (Rainbow Islands)
Download Lemmings - Level 7 (Rainbow Islands)
Warning: the following music files are much older than those displayed above. As a result, they contain mistakes and defaults because of their age and my lack of musical knowledge when I composed them.
Hence, their quality is lower. I offer them to you only if you are interested in the discovery of my first musical works, but be aware that you are listening them at your own risk :-)
Maxime Abbey's Legacy Collection
This archive contains all the musical files I've composed and produced between May 2001 and October 2002, organized into a single file, in order to keep track of my computer-assisted music history.
Indeed, due to the release, as of early 2006, of music pieces entirely made with new tools and knowledge, I estimate that my previous tunes, which are already several years old, do no longer match my current view of computer-assisted music production, and do not reflect what I'm able to produce nowadays.
As a result, I've decided, instead of stopping releasing my old works, to group them in a single collection, which could make a visible distinction between my old and current releases.
Download Maxime Abbey's Legacy Collection (4847 KB)
All versions included, this arrangement totalizes 3307 downloads so far.
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Home / Top Story / 'It Was a Miracle': Freed Pastor Andrew Brunson Celebrated at Big DC Events, Gets to Walk Daughter Down the Aisle
'It Was a Miracle': Freed Pastor Andrew Brunson Celebrated at Big DC Events, Gets to Walk Daughter Down the Aisle
Pastor Andrew Brunson was celebrated at some big events in Washington this week after being freed from two years of captivity in Turkey.
Pastor Brunson made headlines in October 2016, when he was unjustly accused of terrorist-related charges by the Turkish government. Turkey claimed he was a spy, but US officials criticized the government for creating false charges to use him as a bargain for negotiations, and for persecuting him for his Christian faith.
The first event for Brunson this week was the State of the Union on Tuesday night on Capitol Hill. Brunson and his wife, Norine, were guests of US Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC). Tillis, a representative of Brunson’s home state, helped to fight for his freedom.
The following day, Pastor Brunson attended a celebratory event for his release at Capitol Hill. In his speech reported in Politico and the Christian Post, he thanked evangelical leaders, organizations, and US officials who fought for his freedom.
“There’s still a number of American citizens who are held in Turkey, and I hope that there will be continued interest in getting them released,” said Brunson. “I was the only one who was not a dual citizen. …I don’t think any of them are guilty either, but they’re being held as leverage. So may they not be forgotten.”
“I don’t know how many countries have this kind of emphasis on religious freedom, not just in their own country but trying to advocate for it around the world. I think this is something very unusual, very admirable,” about the United States, Brunson added.
Norine Brunson gave honor to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom for their efforts. The bipartisan commission was instrumental in Brunson’s release from Turkish imprisonment.
“We’re aware that not all stories end the way ours did, so just keep up your work,” she said. “And we have to give glory to God.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), husband of one of the commissioners, was moved by Brunson’s speech. He went on to state how he believed his colleagues should become more aware of the commission’s efforts.
Though it was a time of celebration, Pastor Brunson encouraged the officials that Christian persecution in Turkey is growing.
“There are more restrictions coming right now. There have been a number of missionaries who have been deported from the country. There has been a real dampening effect on the Church; in some ways because a lot of what the media put out about me, which was government supported or initiated, which was painting a very negative picture of Christians, through me, saying, for example, that I’m a terrorist or that Christians support terrorist groups and we want to divide the country,” Brunson said.
Brunson believes the persecution is not solely on belief, but fear of the Fethullah Gülen movement, an Islamic movement created from teachings of a Turkish imam living in the US.
“There’s a lot of bad stuff happening in Turkey right now, most of it not toward Christians but toward people who are accused of supporting Fethullah Gülen,” Brunson said. “I have many friends in prison in Turkey now who should not be in prison. Many families have been destroyed.”
In the midst of intense persecution, the Brunsons shared they would go back if they were able to.
“If we could we would go back, but USCIRF probably doesn’t want us to go back,” said Brunson. “We would love to go back, we love the people, because we believe God loves the people there. And we want to show God’s love to them. …Some day we hope the conditions will be right for us to go back.”
Brunson and his wife also attended the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday.
President Trump, who had been sworn into office three months into Brunson’s detainment, acknowledged Brunson this week.
“He was in there for a long time before I got there, and I said, ‘You got to let him out. You better let him out.’ And they let you out,” said Trump. “It was a miracle.”
President Trump went on to highlight a very happy moment taking place for the Brunson family this weekend that wouldn’t have been possible if Pastor Brunson was still in prison.
“This Saturday, Pastor Brunson will walk his daughter down the aisle,” Trump said during his National Prayer Breakfast address. “Well, that’s great…Was I invited?”
Pastor Brunson said “yes” before President Trump continued his speech.
Brunson is slated to release a book this fall.
Tags 'It Aisle Andrew Brunson celebrated Daughter Down events freed gets Miracle' pastor Walk
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What is Homegrown Theory?
Ersel Aydınlı
Gonca Biltekin
It is rare that a recognized voice from non-Western world makes an impression in International Relations theory. While a few studies have looked at the structural and institutional constraints that contribute to such lack of recognition, part of the problem stems from confusion around the definition of what theorizing out of the non-Western world actually is. Based on a review of studies that embody indigenous conceptualizations of international phenomena in the periphery, we first define such ‘homegrown’ theorizing as original theorizing in the periphery about the periphery. By elaborating on these conceptualizations’ specific methods in building theories, we then provide a typology of homegrown theories and assess each theory building method in terms of its potential for global acceptance and further development. We substantiate our arguments on global acceptance by drawing on a comparison of the citation counts of 18 homegrown theories. In doing so, we try to give voice to some of the most prominent scholarly and intellectual efforts stemming from the periphery, and provide a guide for Western scholars on how to engage with homegrown theorizing in a more intellectually stimulating manner. The article concludes by highlighting a number of critical factors in opening up space for different voices in the world of IR.
Keywords : core and periphery, homegrown theory, International Relations Theory, theory building
Over the years, various debates, multiple paradigms, a number of new methods and forms of data, as well as the incorporation of input from other disciplines, have given International Relations (IR) a remarkable level of sophistication. Indeed, there are few other disciplines that are more open to fundamental criticism, inter-disciplinarity, and input from non-academic sources than is IR. [1]Haluk Ozdemir, “An Inter-Subsystemic Approach in International Relations,” All Azimuth 4, no. 1 (2015): 5-26.IR has also been widened as some formerly understudied--mostly non-Western--phenomena have found their way into mainstream scholarship. [2]See for example; Stephanie G. Neuman, International Relations Theory and the Third World (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998); Arlene Tickner, “Seeing IR Differently: Notes from the Third World,” Millennium - Journal of International Studies 32, no. 2 (2003): 295-324; Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver, International Relations Scholarship Around the World (Oxon: Routledge, 2009); Massad Ayoob, “Security in the Third World: The Worm About to Turn,” International Affairs 60, no. 1 (1984): 41-51; Bahgat Korany, “Strategic Studies and the Third World: A Critical Appraisal,” International Social Science Journal 38, no. 4 (1986): 547-62; Edward Azar and Chung‐in Moon, “Third World National Security: Towards a New Conceptual Framework,” International Interactions 11, no. 2 (1984): 103-35; Barry Buzan, “The Concept of National Security for Developing Countries with Special Reference to Southeast Asia” (paper presented at the Workshop on Leadership and Security in Southeast Asia, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, December, 10-12, 1987); Barry Buzan, “People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in the Third World,” in National Security in the Third World, ed. Chung‐in Moon and Edward Azar (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1988), 14-43; Caroline Thomas, In Search of Security: The Third World in International Relations (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1987); Yezid Sayigh, “Confronting the 1990s: Security in the Developing Countries,” Adelphi Papers 30, no. 251 (1990): 3-7.
IR’s inclusiveness, however, does not apply to International Relations Theory (IRT), which remains imperfect as a tool for understanding and explaining the newest and often more problematic parts of contemporary international relations.[4]Steve Smith, “Six Wishes for a More Relevant Discipline of International Relations,” in The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, ed. Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 725-32; Thomas G. Weiss and Rorden Wilkinson, “Global Governance to the Rescue: Saving International Relations?” Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations 20, no. 1 (2014): 25. Overwhelmed by an expanding ontology, IRT has failed to explain and foresee the most momentous international events of recent decades. Consider the surprise over the Iranian revolution, over the irrationality of suicide attacks after 9/11, or more recently, over ISIS’ efficiency. Being under-theorized, such novel phenomena are approached using concepts usually alien to the context, and ultimately unhelpful in understanding or addressing the needs surrounding these issues.[3]For example, concepts like “small wars” or “proxy wars” are inadequate in terms of representing the experiences of people who actually fought them (Barry Buzan and Richard Little, International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Tarak Barkawi, “On the Pedagogy of ‘Small Wars,’” International Affairs 80, no. 1 (2004): 19-38). “Failed states” or “rogue states” do not fare better (Massad Ayoob, “Defining Security: A Subaltern Realist Perspective,” in Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Strategies, ed. K. Krause and MC Williams (London: UCL Press, 1997), 121-48; Pınar Bilgin and David Morton, “Historicising Representations of ‘Failed States’: Beyond the Cold-War Annexation of the Social Sciences?” Third World Quarterly 23, no. 1 (2002): 55-80; Pınar Bilgin and David Morton, “From ‘Rogue’ to ‘Failed’ States? The Fallacy of Short-Termism,” Politics 24, no. 3 (2004): 169-80).The incongruence is not limited to rationalist/positivist IRT, [5]Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan, “Why Is There No Non-Western International Relations Theory? An Introduction,” International Realtions of the Asia Pacific 7, no. 3 (August 7, 2007): 287-312, doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcm012. but extends to post-positivist theories. [6]Krishina Sankaran, “The Importance of Being Ironic: A Postcolonial View on Critical International Relations Theory,” Alternatives 18, no. 3 (1993): 388; Arlene Tickner, “Seeing IR Differently: Notes from the Third World,” 324; Claire Wilkinson, “The Copenhagen School on Tour in Kyrgyzstan: Is Securitization Theory Useable Outside Europe?” Security Dialogue 38, no. 1 (2007): 5. Our supposedly revolutionary new concepts and approaches remain largely insufficient in explaining what happens globally and in offering lessons for improvement.
This deficiency can only be addressed by building more relevant theories. For theory to be relevant in accounting for contemporary international relations, we argue, it should not only apply to, but also emanate from different corners of the current political universe. The main obstacle for IRT, then, is arguably the exclusion of the periphery from original theory production. A growing literature points to the conditions augmenting this exclusion. [7]See for example Michael Wesley, “Australia’s International Relations and the (IR)relevance of Theory,” Australian Journal of International Affairs 55, no. 3 (2001): 453-67; Emilian Kavalski, “Recognizing Chinese International Relations Theory,” in Asian Thought on China’s Changing International Relations, ed. Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski (New York: Pelgrave Macmillian, 2014), 230-48; Arlene B. Tickner, Claiming the International (London and New York: Routledge, 2013); Tickner and Wæver, International Relations; Arlene B. Tickner and David L. Blaney, Thinking International Relations Differently (New York: Routledge, 2013); Peter Drulák, “Introduction to the International Relations (IR) in Central and Eastern Europe Forum,” Journal of International Relations and Development 12, no. 2 (2009): 168-73. The impediments range from peripheral conditions and attitudes such as skepticism/indifference towards social sciences in general and theory in particular, [8]T.V. Paul, “Integrating International Relations Studies in India to Global Scholarship,” International Studies 46, no. 1-2 (2009): 129-45. or lack of resources and institutional support, [9]Tickner and Wæver, International Relations. to the global “hegemonic status of Western IR theory that discourages theoretical formulations by others”. [10]Acharya and Buzan, “Why Is There No Non-Western,” 287.The global hegemonic structure of the discipline pushes periphery scholars to be consumers of theory, rather than producers of it. [11]Anna M. Agathangelou and L. H. M. Ling, “The House of IR: From Family Power Politics to the Poisies of Worldism,” International Studies Review 6, no. 4 (December 2004): 21-49; Pınar Bilgin, “Thinking Past ‘Western’ IR?” Third World Quarterly 29, no. 1 (2008): 5-23; Walter D. Mignolo, “Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and Decolonial Freedom,” Theory, Culture & Society 26, no. 7–8 (2009): 159-81.
Despite the general agreement on the need and ongoing efforts to enrich IRT with periphery voices, [12]See for example the two most recent presidential speeches in ISA (Paul, “Integrating International Relations”), which are about opening up IRT, the establishment of groups (Global IR) and journals which specifically seek to bring in more outside-of-the- core voices. there is a major divide in terms of how this can and should be done. Many argue that the best way is to have periphery IR scholars tackle with the primary questions of the core and try to modify, criticize, and improve upon existing theories. This view is advocated by more positivist leaning scholars, since they see no fundamental difference between theorizing in the core and in the periphery, except in the material conditions of scholarship. [13]Song Xinning, “Building International Relations Theory with Chinese Characteristics,” Journal of Contemporary China 10, no. 26 (2001): 61-74; Benjamin Creutzfeldt, “Theory Talk# 51: Yan Xuetong on Chinese Realism, the Tsinghua School of International Relations, and the Impossibility of Harmony,” Theory Talks, November 28, 2012, http://www.theory-talks.org/2012/11/theory-talk-51.html; David Shambaugh, “International Relations Studies in China: History, Trends, and Prospects,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 11, no. 3 (2011): 365. Hence, their suggestion is to improve those conditions for the periphery scholar. Interestingly, this is also the route preferred by advocates of “post-Western” theory, who share an “intuition that greater incorporation of knowledge produced by non-Western scholars from local vantage points cannot make the discipline of IR more global or less Eurocentric.” [14]Gennaro Ascione and Deepshikha Shahi, “Rethinking the Absence of Post-Western International Relations Theory in India: ‘Advaitic Monism’as an Alternative Epistemological Resource,” European Journal of International Relations 22, no. 2 (2016): 313-34. They usually point to the role of underlying nationalistic ideology in bringing about distinctively ‘non-Western’ theories, and they argue that such endeavors only serve to recreate the relationship between the core and periphery. [15]Young Chul Cho, “Colonialism and Imperialism in the Quest for a Universalist Korean-Style International Relations Theory,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 28, no. 4 (2015): 680-700; Ching-Chang Chen, “The Impossibility of Building Indigenous Theories in a Hegemonic Discipline: The Case of Japanese International Relations,” Asian Perspective 36, no. 3 (2012): 463-92; Jeremy T. Paltiel, “Constructing Global Order with Chinese Characteristics: Yan Xuetong and the Pre-Qin Response to International Anarchy,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 4, no. 4 (2011): 375-403; Andrei P. Tsygankov and Pavel A. Tsygankov, “National Ideology and IR Theory: Three Incarnations of the ‘Russian Idea,’” European Journal of International Relations 16, no. 4 (2010): 663-86. They warn against any project that is self-admittedly ‘non-Western’ but emulates the dominant forms of thinking (including methodology) in the West.[16] Giorgio Shani, “Toward a Post-Western IR: The Umma, Khalsa Panth, and Critical International Relations Theory,” International Studies Review 10, no. 4 (2008): 722-34; Bilgin, “Thinking Past ‘Western’ IR?”. This conviction also emanates from a belief in the falseness of the West/non-West dichotomy, hence the preference for the term ‘post-western’.
The proponents of this first route are missing a few major points. First, submerging oneself within mainstream concepts and debates and trying to work from within the system, is not particularly viable for periphery theorists. It is extremely hard for the periphery scholar to find a spot for herself/himself within the core theory circles, requiring at minimum a fully Western post-graduate education and training in Western methodologies and language. Socializing into this competitive environment requires imitation and utilization of those core ideas as reference points; for otherwise periphery scholars are regarded as less than competent. Therefore, for the voice of a periphery scholar to be heard in the core debates, whether to criticize or otherwise, s/he has to be fully immersed within that community and forego any periphery perspective.
Secondly, core theoretical debates are, frankly, not generally open to empirical input from the periphery. Even when they are, the expectation for periphery-inspired work is that it support the core theories, rather than amend or correct them. Thus periphery scholars become “social-science socialized” [17]Bilgin, “Thinking Past ‘Western’ IR?”. producers of local data, who are expected to support mainstream theories, and operate as “native informants”. [18]Peter Marcus Kristensen, “How Can Emerging Powers Speak? On Theorists, Native Informants and Quasi-Officials in International Relations Discourse,” Third World Quarterly 36, no. 4 (2015): 637-53. Becoming a “theorist” in the periphery means risking “becoming nobody” [19]Julie Mathews and Ersel Aydınlı, “Are the Core and Periphery Irreconcilable? The Curious World of Publishing in Contemporary International Relations,” International Studies Perspectives 1, no. 3 (2000): 298. in the global community. In the rare instances when a periphery scholar nevertheless attempts to “do theory,” their work is likely to be dismissed as not being “theory”. [20]Robert M. A. Crawford, “Where Have All the Theorists Gone- Gone to Britain? Everyone? A Story of Two Parochialisms in International Relations,” in International Relations—Still an American Social Science? Toward Diversity in International Thought, ed. Robert M.A. Crawford and Darryl S.L. Jarvis (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 221-42; Pınar Bilgin and Oktay F. Tanrisever, “A Telling Story of IR in the Periphery: Telling Turkey about the World, Telling the World About Turkey,” Journal of International Relations and Development 12, no. 2 (2009): 174-9. This attitude highlights the dichotomy between “theory” and “local” that is imposed on the periphery scholar. Under these conditions, this first option degenerates into hiring new labor for the same task and the same purpose. Indeed, such a course of action sounds like a perfect recipe for the perpetuation of marginalization under the guise of pluralism, akin to the self-promotion of 'ethnic food' or 'world music' in contemporary Western societies.
Lastly, attempts by a few very competent periphery scholars to take up the first route have met with little success. For example, Ayoob [21]Ayoob, “Defining Security”. actually tried to amend realist understandings of security by bringing in input from the Third World, but his ideas did not resonate. Similarly, Xuetong’s attempts to revise realism did not lead to substantial debate within the core. [22]Linsay Cunningham-Cross, “Using the Past to (Re)Write the Future: Yan Xuetong, Pre-Qin Thought and China’s Rise to Power,” China Information 26, no. 2 (2012): 219-33; Paltiel, “Constructing Global Xuetong”. Such efforts have not managed to enrich ‘core’ theory with widened perspectives.
We see more merit in the second option, i.e. to build directly on the richness of these periphery lands, their history, practices and experiences. A genuine attempt to widen the world of IRT requires periphery voices acquiring their theorizing agency first, and this can only be done if their experience can serve as a source for unique new theorizing efforts and perspectives. Before trying to cram periphery feet in the core’s glass shoes, the discipline needs to see what those in the periphery themselves have to offer. Neither does it help to relegate the periphery’s voice to one of criticism only. Such a shattering of the glass shoes, i.e. showing that core concepts do not fit in the periphery, does not itself provide a wearable, efficient pair of shoes. In other words, “post-Western” perspectives often offer little to move beyond ‘the West and the non-West’. Diversity and dialogue can only come about when periphery scholars do not just ‘meta-theorize’ but also ‘theorize.’
Therefore, the increasing irrelevance of IRT needs to be addressed by a new form of theorizing, one which effectively blends peripheral outlooks with theory production. We call this form “homegrown theorizing,” which is defined here as original theorizing in the periphery about the periphery.
This definition may warrant further definitions. We deal with them in more detail in the next section, but can summarize our criteria as follows. First, for any idea/approach/perspective to be considered as theory it should propose a relationship between at least two concepts. This is a methodologically neutral definition acceptable by both positivists and post-positivists, even though they disagree on the nature of the relationship: for positivists it must be causal, for post-positivists it is constitutive, at best. Second, for any theory to be original at least one of these concepts must be either novel or redefined. While suggestions for new methods to operationalize extant concepts are also inventive, they remain in the purview of the original theory, and as such do not warrant substantial revision. Finally, for any original theory to be homegrown, it should be based on indigenous ideas and/or practices. It is our conviction that the disciplinary culture values scholarly work that fulfills the originality criteria, but is oblivious to the diversity that might be achieved by fulfilling the third one. This paper intends to highlight that potential.
Two caveats are in order. First, to label something as ‘homegrown’ we are not concerned with the ethnic/national identity of the author, rather, with various aspects of how the non-core experience is drawn on and conceptualized. Second, we prefer to use ‘periphery’ over ‘non-Western’ despite the ambiguous meaning of ‘periphery’ because it inherently evokes the subaltern agency in a hegemonic relationship. So the criteria we propose can be used with respect to theorizing anywhere that has been considered as peripheral in some respect. For example, it can be applied to IRT in Western Europe –considered peripheral in comparison with the US, [23]Steve Smith, “The Discipline of International Relations: Still an American Social Science?” The British Journal of Politics & International Relations 2 (2000): 374-402; Jörg Friedrichs, European Approaches to International Relations Theory: A House with Many Mansions (Oxon: Routledge, 2004). but part of the core in comparison to elsewhere. [24]Tickner includes Canada, Western Europe and Australia as semi-periphery (In Tickner, Claiming the International). Nonetheless, in this article, we focus on homegrown theorizing from outside of both North America or Western Europe, as that is what is generally seen as underdeveloped or even non-existent, mostly under-recognized, yet increasingly important.
A typology of homegrown theories based on the differences in their production serves three purposes. First, it makes dealing with homegrown theories a more systematic endeavor by providing a guide for recognizing original theory building in the periphery—not necessarily an easy endeavor for a phenomenon that is considered “hidden”[25] Acharya and Buzan, “Why Is There No Non-Western,” 295. or “unrecognizable”. [26]Robert M.A. Crawford and Darryl S.L. Jarvis, ed., Where Have All the Theorists Gone- Gone to Britain? Everyone? A Story of Two Parochialisms in International Relations (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), xii. Most of the extant reviews of theorizing outside of the core currently rely on geo-cultural categorizations, such as “Chinese”[27] Ras T. Nielsen and Peter Marcus Kristensen, “Constructing a Chinese International Relations Theory: A Sociological Approach to Intellectual Innovation,” International Political Sociology 7, no. 1 (2013): 19-40; Yaqing QIN, “Why Is There No Chinese International Relations Theory?” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 7, no. 3 (2007): 313-40. or “Japanese” [28]Takashi Inoguchi and Paul Bacon, “The Study of International Relations in Japan: Towards a More International Discipline,” International Realtions of the Asia Pacific 1, no. 1 (2001): 1-20. international relations theory or independent theorizing in “emerging powers”, [29]Kristensen, “How Can Emerging Powers Speak?”. or in a specific country. [30]Jong Kun Choi, “Theorizing East Asian International Relations in Korea,” Asian Perspective 32, no. 1 (2008): 193-216. These geo-cultural categorizations may be helpful from a “sociology of the discipline” perspective but are inadequate in identifying the most valuable efforts to theorize international relations stemming from outside the US/Europe. For example, “pure theory” in the periphery refers to discussions about mainstream theories and may not translate into original theorizing. An article on game theory and rational choice that is written by a Chinese scholar may be original but “bear no traces whatsoever of ‘local theorizing’”.[31] Kristensen, “How Can Emerging Powers Speak?”. However, by defining what is actually ‘homegrown’ in any theory, and categorizing theories accordingly, we can explain just how original and homegrown theorizing is. Focusing on the homegrownness of the idea, rather than on the background of the theorist, we identify degrees of being original as well as identifying the elements of a theory that can be original, adapted or borrowed. By contrast, saying only that a particular theory is “hybrid” [32]Helen Louise Turton and Lucas G Freire, “Peripheral Possibilities: Revealing Originality and Encouraging Dialogue through a Reconsideration of ‘Marginal’ IR Scholarship,” Journal of International Relations and Development 20, no. 2 (April 18, 2014): 458, doi:10.1057/jird.2015.17. tells us little about in what ways it is the same as or different from mainstream theory.
The second purpose of having a typology of homegrown theories is to reveal that different forms of original theory building are not only possible, [33]For contary views see, Ching-Chang Chen, “The Absence of Non-Western IR Theory in Asia Reconsidered,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 11, no. 1 (2011): 1-23; Chen, “The Impossibility of Building”. but have already taken place. By offering a typology, we aim to move beyond general categorizations of approaches to homegrown theorizing--such as “particularism,” “provincialization,” [34]Rosa Vasilaki, “Provincialising IR? Deadlocks and Prospects in Post-Western IR Theory,” Millennium - Journal of International Studies 41, no. 1 (2012): 3-22. or “denationalization”[35] Turton and Freire, “Peripheral Possibilities”. --to suggesting specific methods for building homegrown theories.
Our third purpose is to identify the prospects and challenges associated with different types of homegrown theories in terms of their potential for recognition. [36]Homegrown theories have varying degrees of acceptance and engagement, which are undoubtedly shaped by the wider social and institutional milieu. Our purpose here, however, is to discern the other factors, i.e. properties of the theories themselves, which may help to overcome barriers against their reception. To do this, we collected a sample of 18 works (six books, nine journal articles, and three book chapters) that we identified as examples of homegrown theory based on the above criteria, and obtained their citation scores through the Web of Science, Cited Reference Search to assess their level of global recognition. [37]Tickner and Wæver, International Relations; Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan, ed., Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and Beyond Asia (Abington: Routledge, 2009). The sample was established using a form of chain-referral technique, i.e. going through reference lists of works on the state of IR in different parts of the world [38]Tickner and Wæver, International Relations; Acharya and Buzan, Non-Western International Relations Theory. and then checking individual studies to see whether they fit our criteria. The sample is by no means exhaustive but heuristically valuable. On average, the works in our sample are cited 12.4 times in the first five-year period after publication. The highest record is Cardoso and Faletto’s Dependency and Development in Latin America, [39]Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979). which had 91 citations in the first five years. Comparing this to 5-year citation scores of, for example, Alexander Wendt’s Social Theory of International Politics [40]Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 167. or Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics, [41]Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw Hill, 1979), 57. it might appear that homegrown theories do not fare too badly. However, there is very wide discrepancy within our sample, since four of the homegrown theories we found were not cited at all within the first five-year period and all but two of the others received fewer than 15 citations over five years. Such lack of recognition is a major impediment for theoretical enrichment of the discipline. An emergent theory should be applied, and confirmed or disconfirmed by other researchers, so that it undergoes continuous refinement and development. This makes theory building a collective exercise. Without recognition, the development of any emergent theory is hindered.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. The next section introduces the proposed definition of homegrown theory and puts forward a typology. The subsequent three sections assess each type’s potential for global acceptance and further development by relying on an analysis of citations they receive. The article concludes by considering a number of critical factors in opening up space for different voices in the world of IR.
2. What is Homegrown Theory?
What distinguishes homegrown theories from mainstream theories is their origination from a geo-cultural standpoint, whether this be at the stage of concept formation or at the stage of inference. This standpoint however, marks the background of the ideas, not the theorists: National conceptualizations of IR are not the same as indigenous conceptualizations of international relations. The national identity of a group of closely collaborating non-Western scholars, or research by non-Westerners, is sometimes related to, but not the same as the identity of the “theory.” Phrases such as ‘Chinese School’, ‘Indian School’, or ‘Russian School’, cannot constitute homegrown theories in their own right if they refer exclusively to the community of scholars who work or live in these countries or are of these nationalities. It is only if such labels refer to those works which rely on practices, customs and phrases distinctively prevalent among the respective societies, that they become homegrown theories. An example is the English School, which does not refer to English-born scholars, but to the approach characterized by Britain’s experience and diplomatic practice, or the Copenhagen school, which does not comprise only Danish IR scholars, or those affiliated with the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, but rather is made up of those sharing a philosophical and a normative concern on limiting state monopoly on defining security. A crucial step then is to identify where to look for the identity of theory. [42]Obviously, discussing what theory is is a huge task that cannot be meaningfully confined to the limits of this paper. What we attempt is a simple breakdown of its most basic properties.
There are basically two places to look for a theory’s “homegrownness”: the concepts can be homegrown, if they were specifically built by relying on a geo-culturally specific standpoint (whether it be a culture, civilization, religion, customs or traditions); and/or the theory can be inferentially homegrown, if the data used in the inference come from observation of geo-culturally specific phenomena, provided that such data are used for building or altering theories, not for testing them. Theorists either build on a local philosophical standpoint in their production of novel concepts and/or particularly draw their data from the part of the world they experience to invent new concepts or alter existing ones.
From these distinctions, three groups of theories emerge. Some scholars build on works by local thinkers, writers or scholars from different disciplines, and use their concepts with an IR outlook. Since most of them have indigenous intellectual and/or philosophical approaches as their starting point, we call them referential homegrown theories. A second group of scholars transforms mainstream Western ideas or concepts in such a manner that they reflect indigenous meanings attached to them by particular societies. These can be called homegrown alterations, with the level and type of alteration differing from one theory to another. Finally, some theorists develop original concepts out of geo-culturally specific experience and commonly used idioms of daily life, and use them in an IRT framework. Since they do not borrow from any pre-existing conceptualization either in the core or in the periphery, we call these authentic homegrown theories. The following sections address each type of homegrown theory individually and assess their prospects for recognition by the global IR disciplinary community.
2.1.Referential homegrown theory building
Referential homegrown theories are what come to mind first in thinking about homegrown theories. In this type of theory building, a homegrown thinker’s ideas or concepts of an indigenous culture, religion, civilization, etc. are used as a reference point to make inferences about observed phenomena. Thinkers such as Kautilya, Xun Zi and Ibn Khaldun, or cultures such as Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism or Islam, are examples. [43]Amitav Acharya, “Dialogue and Discovery: In Search of International Relations Theories Beyond the West,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 39, no. 3 (April 27, 2011): 619-37. Usually the observed phenomena come from within the same geo-cultural sphere, rather than the ideas or concepts being applied to elsewhere. In other words, a non-Western standpoint is used both in concept formation and inference. Referential homegrown theories investigate empirical implications of homegrown ideas -particular cultures and thinkers-, and empirically and/or conceptually engage with these thinkers and cultures. As such, they move beyond mere suggestions of relevance of for IRT. Generally, referential homegrown theories redefine ideas of a homegrown thinker/culture in order to make homegrown ideas more accessible to a wider audience and more relevant for studying contemporary phenomena. Thus, they are instrumental in incorporating non-core ontologies into global IR.
There are a few attempts in which Xun Zi’s thought are considered as a source for understanding and explaining Chinese foreign policy behavior. [44]Dawa Norbu, “Tibet in Sino-Indian Relations: The Centrality of Marginality,” Asian Survey 37, no. 11 (1997): 1084; Yan Xuetong, Ancient Chinese Thought and Modern Chinese Power (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2011). In particular his thoughts on types of great powers and international order have inspired frameworks to explicate China’s “peaceful rise”. [45]Yan Xuetong, “Xun Zi’s Thoughts on International Politics and Their Implications,” Chinese Journal of International Politics 2, no. 1 (2008): 135-65. Xuetong redefines power in line with Xun Zi’s ideas to account for China’s “peaceful” rise. He particularly refers to Xun Zi’s Five Ordinance System, which is a hierarchy of power between nations that are under the rule of the emperor. The obligations of nations are based on their geographical proximity to the emperor and their individual power status. More distant and less powerful nations have fewer responsibilities, whereas closer and more powerful nations take on more responsibilities. Such redefinition of power that comes with higher responsibility, as well as Xun Zi’s renunciation of power as solely based on military strength, helps to explain why China’s accumulation of power has not led to conflictual balancing behavior.
Like China, India is also very rich in sources for homegrown conceptualizations. Three Indian perspectives on world order stand out: Nehruvian internationalism, Gandhian cosmopolitanism, and political Hinduism or Hindutva.[46] Kanti Bajpai, “Indian Conceptions of Order and Justice: Nehruvian, Gandhian, Hindutva, and Neo‐Liberal,” in Order and Justice in International Relations, ed. Rosemary Foot, John Gaddis, and Andrew Hurrell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 236-61. Bajpai argues that Nehruvian internationalism is very similar to a Westphalian conception of order, yet it is differentiated by non-alignment. While Nehruvianism is not naïve about the use of force in international relations, “Jawaharlal Nehru rejected power-politics and the Western concept of maintaining security and international order through balance of power”. [47]Navnita Behera, “Re-Imagining IR in India,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 7, no. 3 (2007): 346. Therefore, non-alignment was both a principle of exercising autonomy in foreign affairs, and an ‘order-building’ instrument through which a ‘third’ area of peace outside the two power blocs was to be created to secure the establishment of a just and equitable world order. Behera argues that aside from its policy implications, “non-alignment was never accorded status or recognition as a ‘systemic’ IRT because it did not suit the interests of the powers that be”. [48]Behera, “Re-Imagining IR,” 347.
Gandhian cosmopolitanism emphasized non-violence (ahimsa) and presented a world order in which the rights of individuals, emancipation, and freedom are prioritized. In Gandhian thought, nation-state and nationalism were only instruments to ensure human liberation from imperial powers, and states should be radically decentralized bodies. The international system was important to the extent that it gave way to a world order, where small, autonomous groups of people interact on the basis of non-violence, truth power and economic equity. The Gandhian conception of world order was ontologically original in that it placed small communities as the primary actors of world politics. [49]Bajpai, “Indian Conceptions”. Inspired by Gandhi’s focus on non-violence, Galtung redefined peace as the absence of structural violence, [50]Thomas Weber, “The Impact of Gandhi on the Development of Johan Galtung’s Peace Research,” Global Change, Peace & Security 16, no. 1 (2004): 31-43. and proposed a theory of conflict transformation through non-violent means. [51]Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization (London: Sage, 1996). Galtung’s theory of structural violence was widely recognized, as he was regarded as the founder of Peace Studies. He also established the Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO) and published the Journal of Peace Research. Although his inspiration by Gandhi was evident and self-proclaimed, it was somehow downplayed and in his later years, when Galtung focused more on peace activism, his impact in the scholarly community waned. This was partly because his wide adoption of Gandhi’s philosophy was alien to academics and researchers, as what he proposed “move[d] too far outside the usual interpretations” into what was no longer deemed peace research. [52]Weber, “The Impact of Gandhi,” 42.
The peace research community’s wider attitude toward Galtung’s later work is illustrative of the first major risk associated with referential homegrown theories. If homegrown ideas are used in their original form, and redefinition of concepts is either non-existent or minimal, the resulting homegrown theory becomes insular. Although, referential homegrown theories appear to be the most common form of homegrown theorizing, (10 out of 19 in our sample are referential homegrown theories), and a few prominent scholars have in fact engaged in indigenous thinking, they do not do particularly well in terms of citation compared to other works in our sample. On average, referential homegrown theories have 7.9 citations in the first five years--below the overall average of 12.4. This lower citation rate may be because even if the resulting homegrown theory is original, its empirical implications may remain vague to non-indigenous researchers, which results in a diminished understanding of the theory’s potential to be applicable elsewhere. Another explanation may be the rather exclusionary nature of some of these conceptualizations. For example, Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva presupposes a regional hierarchy of civilizations, in which Hindu civilization occupies the first place among other civilizations. [53]Kanti Bajpai, “Indian Grand Strategy: Six Schools of Thought,” in India’s Grand Strategy: History, Theory, Cases, ed. K. Bajpai, S. Basit, and V. Krishnappa (New Delhi: Routledge, 2014), 131. Based on its implications, Hindutva was deemed as a form of Indian fascism. [54]Prabhat Patnaik, “The Fascism of Our Times,” Social Scientist 21, no. 3-4 (1993): 69-77. At other times, theories maybe evaluated on the grounds of their practical consequences, i.e. the effectiveness that they hold for determining successful policy, as opposed to their explanatory power. For example, Nehru disregarded the ideas of Gandhi, which he found dangerous to the sovereignty and security of the nascent Indian state. [55]Hugh Tinker, “Magnificent Failure? The Gandhian Ideal in India after Sixteen Years,” International Affairs 40, no. 2 (1964): 262-76. Therefore, even when including rich tradition and innovative practice, referential homegrown theorizing attempts may not realize their full potential in terms of global reception, if they remain insular and largely prescriptive.
The second major risk associated with referential homegrown theories is the opposite of insularity: assimilation by mainstream theories. In these cases, homegrown concepts are redefined in a way that the resulting explanation is subsumed under a mainstream theory. When theorists fall short of assessing the empirical implications of referential homegrown ideas independently from preconceived paradigmatic lenses, homegrown concepts are “translated” in a way to correspond to one or more terms in current international relations lexicon. Such “translation” by subsuming the homegrown concept, usually serves as a confirmation of mainstream approaches.
Assimilation with respect to homegrown philosophers/philosophies is most often done through comparing homegrown ideas to those of “fathers of political theory,” and considering them as versions of mainstream paradigms. For example, Hassan [56]Umit Hassan, Ibn Haldun’un Metodu ve Siyaset Teorisi (Istanbul: Toplumsal Donusum, 1998), 41-46. points out 67 thinkers ranging from Herakleitos to Sartre whose ideas have been compared with or likened to those of the 14th century North African scholar, Ibn Khaldun. In international relations, he is alternatively depicted as a realist,[57] James Winston Morris, “An Arab Machiavelli? Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Politics in Ibn Khaldun’s Critique of Sufism,” Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 8 (2009): 242-91; Barbara Freyer Stowasser, “Religion and Political Development: Comparative Ideas on Ibn Khaldun and Machiavelli,” Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, 2011, accessed August 21, 2016, https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/ufohrhyqa4phr775z9p1. postmodernist,[58] Jack Kalpakian, “Ibn Khaldun’s Influence on Current International Relations Theory,” The Journal of North African Studies 13, no. 3 (2008): 363-76. or historical materialist. [59]Robert W. Cox, “Towards a Post-Hegemonic Conceptualization of World Order: Reflections on the Relevancy of Ibn Khaldun,” in Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics, ed. James N. Rosenau and Ernst-Otto Czempiel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 132-59. His ideas on group unity, asabiyah, have also been likened to constructivist accounts of identity. [60]Jack Kalpakian, “Ibn Khaldun’s Influence on Current International Relations Theory,” 184.
Some of the works inspired by Indian philosopher Kautilya, who was regarded as an “Indian Machiavelli,” [61]Herbert H. Gowen, “‘The Indian Machiavelli’ or Political Theory in India Two Thousand Years Ago,” Political Science Quarterly 44, no. 2 (1929): 173-92; Roger Boesche, “Moderate Machiavelli? Contrasting the Prince with the Arthashastra of Kautilya,” Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy & Social Theory 3, no. 2 (2002): 153-76. are also examples of assimilation. For example, Modelski asks whether Kautilya’s state system (mandala) was one of international order, where some sort of mutual understanding prevails. He argues that Kautilya’s system of states does not resemble an international order, but an anarchy, which is remedied by relative stability in the domestic sphere.[62] George Modelski, “Kautilya: Foreign Policy and International System in the Ancient Hindu World,” The American Political Science Review 58, no. 3 (1964): 549-60. Uzzaman refers to Kautilya’s thinking to explain India’s contemporary foreign policy and argues that Indian strategic culture espouses a “Kautilyan brand of realism”. [63]Rashed Uz Zaman, “Kautilya: The Indian Strategic Thinker and Indian Strategic Culture,” Comparative Strategy 25, no. 3 (2006): 242.
While the above examples of assimilations border on anachronism, other forms of assimilation are less direct: scholars incorporate homegrown philosophers’ inferences as empirical findings and make use of them to support their own (mainstream) conceptualizations. Gilpin, focusing on the relationship between physical environment and social life, is inspired by Khaldun’s explanation of the rise of the Islamic empire. Ibn Khaldun argued that the desert operated like the sea for Arabs and eased the empire’s expansion. [64]Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Gilpin also uses Khaldunian insights on the relationship between internal composition of a state and its propensity to expand, as well as its decline because of corruption and luxury. Similarly, Deudney [65]Daniel Deudney, “Bringing Nature Back In: Geopolitical Theory from the Greeks to the Global Era,” in Contested Grounds: Security and Conflict in the New Environmental Politics, ed. Daniel Deudney and Richard Matthew (SUNY Press, 1999), 25-60. refers to Ibn Khaldun as one of the sources of his conceptualization of environment and its consequences on social and political life. Strange [66]Susan Strange, “Political Economy and International Relations,” in International Relations Theory Today, ed. Ken Booth and Steve Smith (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 154-74. refers to Ibn Khaldun’s empirical findings, while Cox [67]Cox, “Towards a Post-Hegemonic Conceptualization”. and Pasha [68]Mustapha Kemal Pasha, “Ibn Khaldun and World Order,” in Innovation and Transformation in International Studies, ed. Stephan Gill and James H. Mittleman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 56-70. refer to Khaldun as a potential source for conceptualization of change and world order in international relations.
Referential theories are easily identifiable as “homegrown” because they openly refer to a non-Western source of knowledge. Their level of acceptance by the global discipline might vary, however, depending on the acceptability of their policy implications on the one hand, and the theorist’s effort to articulate the novelty it brings when understanding and explaining contemporary phenomena. Insularity is particularly likely if the homegrown theory is applied to the same geo-cultural sphere from which it originates and can be overcome by applying it to other geo-cultural spheres. Assimilation is also unfruitful especially when it is anachronistic, e.g. treating Kautilya’s ideas as if he had written in a time where “realism” or “international order” meant the same as they do today. Anachronistic assimilation does not introduce novelty and basically fails to achieve anything more than just informing the reader that ‘an indigenous/non-Western thinker has thought similar ideas before.’ In our sample, examples of this type of work, i.e. work focusing on conceptual correspondences, were cited just once at most. This is not very surprising as they offer little guidance as to how those concepts would be applied to today’s affairs. The non-anachronistic form, i.e. introducing old works as new empirical evidence for modern IR theories, are more scientifically fruitful as they increase the travelling ability of mainstream concepts not only across places but also time. Yet it is an equally deficient strategy in terms of homegrown theory building, because the indigenous thinkers’ ideas are used to confirm or support an already existing theory, without any alteration. Cox’s two different pieces on Khaldun receive four citations each, while Pasha’s article is not cited at all.
2.2.Alterative homegrown theories
Alterative homegrown theories are built by restructuring mainstream theories based on evidence from indigenous experiences. It can be done in two ways: either different definitions for mainstream concepts are suggested or they are applied in a different level of analysis. Unlike referential theories, relying on local evidence is a requisite characteristic for alterative theories to be called homegrown. The resulting theory offers novel insights, but since it alters an extant mainstream theory, alterative homegrown theories are corrective, rather than innovative theories.
A rather globally acknowledged example of alterative homegrown theories is world-systems theory. Wallerstein extended Marx’s depiction of class and division of labor, and applied it on a global level. [69]Daniel Chirot and Thomas D. Hall, “World-System Theory,” Annual Review of Sociology 8, no. 1 (1982): 81-106. World-systems theorists’ innovation consists of having world-systems as the unit of analysis, not the states, since they argue that the agents in the world-system are not confined to any state’s borders. [70]Terence K. Hopkins and Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: Theory and Methodology (London: Sage, 1982). Crucial to this innovation is their use of evidence about a wide geographical area to account for the historical rise of the West, and continuing poverty of the most non-Western societies. Luxembourg’s earlier work on Turkey, Russia, India, China and North Africa [71]Chirot and Hall, “World-System Theory”. as well as Wallerstein’s own work on Africa, [72]Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein and Terence K. Hopkins, The Essential Wallerstein (New York: The New Press, 2000). provided the multiregional empirical background. While Wallerstein’s work was mostly qualitative, other world-system researchers also incorporated quantitative data to show worldwide patterns. [73]Richard Rubinson, “The World-Economy and the Distribution of Income within States: A Cross-National Study,” American Sociological Review 41, no. 4 (1976): 638-59; David Snyder and Edward Kick, “Structural Position in the World System and Economic Growth, 1955-1970: A Multiple-Network Analysis of Transnational Interactions,” American Journal of Sociology 84, no. 5 (1979): 1096–126.
World-systems analysis’ reception is quite wide. Although we only included in our sample Wallerstein and Hopkins, [74]Hopkins and Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis. a work that was cited 13 times in the first five years of its publication, Wallerstein and his colleagues subsequently produced a substantial number of works based on the theory, which augmented its recognition. Another factor in bolstering its reception was its institutionalization in distinguished universities and research centers in North America. Although the theory was inferentially homegrown (devised based on inferences from a non-Western experience of capitalism) most of the theorists were Western, and were linked to an extensive network in the core. Further factors might have been the familiarity of the global discipline with Marxist concepts, and the wide use of quantitative data, at a time when positivism was popular. Lastly, World-systems theory has strong connections to the disciplines of history and economy, and was able therefore to generate appeal in a wide range of disciplines.
Another attempt to apply mainstream concepts in other levels of analysis is Cai Tuo’s [75]Tony Cai, “Global Governance: The Chinese Angle of View and Practice,” Social Sciences in China 25, no. 2 (2004): 57-68. work on global governance. Cai defines global governance as a cooperation of official and non-official agents over a global problem within the borders of a country, i.e. transnational cooperation on national territory. This definition is inspired by conditions prevalent in developing countries: first, civil society is usually too weak to project its influence transnationally; second, there is a general distrust towards “non-territorial politics and globalism”, [76]Cai, “Global Governance,” 58. and finally there is a preference for dealing with global problems through established intergovernmental institutions and mechanisms. Therefore, civil society takes part in transnational networks only when the global problem in question is addressed locally with involvement of the local government. Transnational cooperation is a learning mechanism for both civil society and domestic government, where a top-down understanding of management is slowly giving way to a more open one.
Cai’s correction to the global governance literature is to apply a supposedly global level concept at the domestic level, which reveals the discrepancy between the developing societies and developed societies in terms of both attitude and ability. His analysis also offers practical guidance as to the improvement of civil society and argues that involvement of host state institutions may serve to improving global consciousness and global values.
Similarly, Qin Yaqing [77]Yaqing Qin, “Rule, Rules, and Relations: Towards a Synthetic Approach to Governance,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 4, no. 2 (2011): 117-45. finds fault in the mainstream global governance literature in explaining East Asian governance practice. Most theories of governance rely on rule-based governance, with the underlying assumption that individuals are rational, cost-calculating actors with exogenous self-interests. But in East Asian communitarian societies, he argues, the essence of governance is relational, and it highlights morality, and trust, all of which are drawn from Confucian philosophy. While rule-based governance takes tangible results as the objective, relational governance emphasizes process, i.e. maintaining a relationship which makes participation, strengthening of ties, and developing a shared understanding possible. Consequently, he argues that judging ASEAN and APEC as ineffective in comparison to the EU or NATO is misleading, since the merit of the former may not be in achieving tangible results, but in maintaining continuous dialogue and negotiation.
Qin Yaqing is not the first to introduce a “relational” and “processual” ontology to the study of IR, [78]Qin, “Why Is There No Chinese”. but his conceptualization differs from mainstream theories in terms of his understanding of trust as a genuine social norm, rather than as another cost-reducing mechanism. Moreover, he reconceptualizes “relational” in the domain of governance. Despite his emphasis on Confucian values, he does not directly refer to Confucius in his concepts or inferences, but he highlights the distinctive experience of East Asian subjects, whose daily life is infused with Confucianism.
Compared to the above, some other attempts involving a less substantive correction, i.e. homegrown improvements, redirect the application range of mainstream theories, by offering alternative operationalizations. For example, late socialist and then post-socialist Russian scholars incorporated a few Western-derived concepts, [79]Alexander Sergouinin, “Russia: IR at a Crossroads,” in International Relations Scholarship Around the World, ed. Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver (Oxon: Routledge, 2009), 223-41. which gave way to the development of a “national liberal school” of IR in Russia. The school combines “nationalism” and “liberalism”, terms which acquire a different meaning in the Russian context than that employed by Western theorists. For example, they point to the importance of international institutions and a non-unipolar world as a means to achieve peace, [80]Andrei P. Tsygankov and Pavel A. Tsygankov, “A Sociology of Dependence in International Relations Theory: A Case of Russian Liberal IR,” International Political Sociology 1, no. 4 (2007): 307-24. they emphasize the risks of globalization, while not denying the opportunities associated, and argue that the democratization process must reflect local conditions. [81]Andrei P. Tsygankov and Pavel A. Tsygankov, “New Directions in Russian International Studies: Pluralization, Westernization, and Isolationism,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 37, no. 1 (2004): 1-17; Tsygankov and Tsygankov, “A Sociology of Dependence”.
In a similar vein, Kuznetsov builds on Toynbee’s and more recently Huntington’s theory of “clash of civilizations,” in his theory of “grammatological geopolitics”. [82]Artur Kusnezow, “A New Model for Traditional Civilisations,” International Affairs (Moscow) 41, no. 4-5 (1995): 95-100. While Huntington’s theory proposes that the potential zones of conflict run along the fault lines of nine largely denominational civilizations, Kuznetsov’s grammatological geopolitics defines civilizations in terms of the alphabets the nations use and argues that a more accurate prediction of conflicts can be attained by the resulting fault lines. In addition to Huntington’s, he identifies seven more, “smaller” sub-cultures: Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, Georgian, Mongolian, Korean and Ethiopian. These subcultures are more prone to conflicts than are broader civilizations because of their rather fast developmental potential. As evidence, he particularly refers to conflicts in and around the post-Soviet states, such as between Serbia (Cyrillic) and Croatia (Latin) in 1991-1995, as well as Georgia’s (Georgian) war with Russia (Cyrillic) in 2008, South Ossetia (Cyrillic) in 1991-1992, 2004, and 2008, and with Abkhazia (Cyrillic) in 1992-1993, 1998 and 2008.
Homegrown alterations of mainstream theories may reflect a) interdisciplinary approaches, b) sensitivity to changing meanings of concepts in different settings, and c) experimentation with respect to level of analysis. Through these strategies, the resultant theorizing becomes more than a simple application of the existing theory, and acquires a certain degree of originality. Other forms of engaging with mainstream concepts are less substantial, often employing only one of the above strategies. These homegrown improvements of mainstream theories are important in advancing the “traveling ability” [83]Giovanni Sartori, “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics,” The American Political Science Review 64, no. 4 (1970): 1033-53. of mainstream concepts or point out their limitations in doing so. In consequence, they are valuable for expanding the application range, i.e. “globalness”, of mainstream International Relations. Although they are hypothetically more advantageous in terms of reception, as other scholars already have familiarity with the concepts, in actuality they are the least cited form of homegrown theorizing in our sample. On average, each alterative homegrown theory work is cited six times in the first five years, which is only half of the overall average. One particular reason may be their inherent position on “the fringes” of mainstream theory, rather than being “out” of mainstream theory: taking a corrective stance by pointing out the shortcomings of an established paradigm, may be regarded as more threatening to hegemony than either referential or authentic homegrown theories. This also highlights the tremendous difficulty faced by periphery scholars when they attempt to challenge the core theories: they are not refuted, but are simply ignored.
2.3. Authentic homegrown theory building
Authentic homegrown theory building essentially relies on scrutinizing available or newly collected data and focusing on the incongruencies between what has been observed and what has been expected based on extant conceptualizations. Authentic homegrown theory building begins with putting forward empirical puzzles and coming up with original concepts to explicate these puzzles. Authentic concepts are coined with little or no reference to either homegrown ideas or mainstream theories.
Focusing on empirical puzzles for theory development is a common strategy among inductively oriented researchers. [84]Diana A. Zinnes, “Three Puzzles in Search of a Researcher,” International Studies Quarterly 24, no. 3 (1980): 315-42. Consequently, systematic collection and/or analysis of (usually a large magnitude of) data is tremendously important to not only homegrown, but any authentic theory building. Since authentic homegrown concepts are not redefined or refined forms of indigenous conceptualizations, what makes them homegrown is the origin of the data used while making inferences. In other words, authentic homegrown theory is not conceptually, but inferentially homegrown.
One example of authentic homegrown theory building out of the periphery comes from the latest Chinese efforts to analyze China-US bilateral relations from 1950 onwards using event data. Yan Xuetong tries to explain the “sudden deteriorations followed by rapid recoveries [which] have been the norm in China–US relations since the 1990s”. [85]Yan Xuetong, “The Instability of China–US Relations,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 3, no. 3 (2010): 263. He proposes that fluctuating relations, characterized by “short-term improvements in China–US relations that have followed each short-term dip” [86]Xuetong, “The Instability of China–US Relations”. are neither attributable to rising nationalism in China nor to Chinese overconfidence built upon China’s fast economic growth, but rather to the discrepancy between heightened expectations of the two sides and the actual policy inclinations derived by their interests. He states that the good will by both sides actually worsens the balance in their bilateral relations, because it impedes their ability to pinpoint realistic policies based on their interests. [87]Xuetong, “The Instability of China–US Relations,” 280. It actually gives way to the establishment of a “superficial friendship” in which both countries imagine they have more common interests than they actually have. The resulting inconsistency leads to instability.
Xuetong extends his argumentation by building a typology of bilateral interests with respect to different sectors of China-US relations. While in security matters, US and Chinese interests are mostly “mutually unfavourable,” in economy and culture, they have more mutually favorable interests, so much so that he calls them “cultural friends”. [88]Xuetong, “The Instability of China–US Relations,” 274-5.
Observing different fluctuation patterns in different time periods, Xuetong’s theory explains them with the (in)congruence between expectations and interests. At the same time, he addresses the contemporary Chinese problematique: finding peaceful yet assertive ways to engage with the outside world. Accordingly, his theory can also be regarded as prescriptive; too much optimism, i.e. heightened expectations with respect to US-Chinese relations, can actually impede rather than boost stability.
Another example of authentic homegrown theory building out of the periphery is Latin American dependency theory, which is inferred from the Latin American experience in development and international trade in the 1950s. It also originates from an empirical puzzle: In contrast to David Ricardo’s thesis that free trade would benefit both parties because of the comparative advantage, terms of trade for underdeveloped countries relative to the developed countries had deteriorated over time. Raul Prebisch, an Argentinian economist, argued that there were “declining terms of trade” for Third World states, because peripheral nations had to export more of their primary goods to get the same value of industrial exports. Through this system, all of the benefits of technology and international trade transfer to the core states. [89]Joseph L. Love, “Raúl Previsch and the Origins of the Doctrine of Unequal Exchange,” Latin American Research Review 15, no. 3 (1980): 45-72.
Dependency theorists integrated Prebisch’s thesis with their observations regarding global relations of production in Latin America. Contra modernization theory, they argued that looking at domestic determinants of economic growth and development is not sufficient to understand the patterns of (under)development. [90]Tony Smith, “The Underdevelopment of Development Literature: The Case of Dependency Theory,” World Politics 31, no. 2 (1979): 248. An international outlook, which takes into account historical and sociological variables, along with interactions between and across domestic and international realms is also needed. [91]Cardoso and Faletto, Dependency and Development.
For Latin American structuralists Fernando H. Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, [92]Cardoso and Faletto, Dependency and Development. dependency and development were not mutually exclusive: dependency and autonomy were two ends of a political continuum, as development and underdevelopment were two ends of the economic continuum. They argued that the local political elites in peripheral states have structured their domestic rule on a coalition of internal interests favorable to the international economic structure. Therefore, international capitalist structure, by itself, does not lead to a single form of dependency; it is rather the sociological consequences and the subsequent alliances which shape the dependent status of the South. [93]Smith, “The Underdevelopment of Development,” 251.
Although originated in Latin America, structuralist dependency theory could be applied to a wider scope of countries, from economically developed ones in East Asia to underdeveloped countries in Africa. [94]Matias Vernengo, “Technology, Finance and Dependency: Latin American Radical Political Economy in Retrospect,” Review of Radical Political Economics 38, no. 4 (2006): 551-68. The emphasis on alliances and struggles within and across national borders makes the theory more historically nuanced and more conducive to social change [95]Arlene Tickner, “Latin American IR and the Primacy of Lo Práctico,” International Studies Review 10, no. 4 (2008): 708. albeit at the expense of predictive power.
A final example of authentic homegrown theorizing is from South Africa. Geldenhuys [96]Deon Geldenhuys, Isolated States: A Comparative Analysis (Cambridge: Press Syndicate, 1990). focuses on the South African experience of being an isolated state for four decades, and puts forward a descriptive theory of isolation. Analytically differentiating isolation from other forms of estrangement, such as short-term alienation, obscurity of a state (being ignored), or armed isolation during war, he defines isolation as either a long term, voluntary and deliberate policy by a state (self-isolation) or a deliberate policy by other states (enforced isolation) to diminish one’s level of international interaction. He gives a detailed list and description of 30 indicators of isolation and investigates questions pertaining to targets and implementers of isolation, its means, causes, objectives and effects. His framework is original in pointing out a rather understudied phenomenon in international relations, but one which dominated South African domestic and international politics for decades. On the other hand, Geldenhuys’ theory of isolation is mostly a descriptive rather than explanatory theory.
Both Xuetong and the dependency theorists pointed out patterns in the data, unforeseen or under-explained by the existing theories. Similarly, Geldenhuys’ operationalization of isolation required extensive data on several spheres of international interaction. Authentic homegrown theories seem to rely on extensive collections of data, either to reveal empirical puzzles, or to describe a situation. This is probably due to the lack of a conceptual reference point to justify their arguments. While theorists in the core can write purely theoretical pieces with little or no reference to systematically collected data, a similar option appears untenable to homegrown theorists, since it would jeopardize their acceptance by the global discipline. Such data collection, however, requires substantial time and effort, which might be one of the reasons authentic homegrown theories are rare to find. At the same time though, extensive data collection seems to augment their citation scores. The average citation score for the above three examples is 38, and even when Cardoso and Faletto, 1979 [97]Cardoso and Faletto, Dependency and Development. is removed as an outlier, the average score is 11.5.
Homegrown theories are by definition local, i.e. attached to a particular geo-cultural sphere. A theory, on the other hand, is presumably universal, applicable to classes of phenomena that can be found anywhere, anytime. Accordingly, claims for homegrown theorizing are often rebuffed or downplayed on the basis of their supposed parochialism or exceptionalism. [98]Jack Snyder, “Some Good and Bad Reasons for a Distinctively Chinese Approach to International Relations Theory” (paper presented at the APSA 2008 Annual Meeting, Hynes Convention Center, Boston, Massachusetts, 2008); Shambaugh, “International Relations Studies”. Despite the claim for universality however, mainstream IR theories are also parochial, a phenomenon that became increasingly evident over the years since Hoffmann’s [99]Stanley Hoffmann, “An American Social Science: International Relations,” Deadalus 106, no. 3 (1977): 41-60. declaration of IR as an American social science. [100]Robert W. Cox, “Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory,” Millennium - Journal of International Studies 10, no. 2 (1981): 126-55; Howard J. Wiarda, “The Ethnocentrism of the Social Science Implications for Research and Policy,” The Review of Politics 43, no. 2 (1981): 163-97; Steve Smith, “The United States and the Discipline of International Relations: ‘Hegemonic Country, Hegemonic Discipline,’” International Studies Review 4, no. 2 (2002): 67-85. If all of the supposedly ‘universal’ theories are parochial as suggested, then it would be unfair to dismiss a self-admittedly homegrown theory on the basis of parochialism. It would rather be more accurate to state that all theorizing is homegrown, with the potential for universal recognition, if not application. Such a stance can pave the way forward to a more inclusive discipline. As one scholar puts it, it might indeed be the only way for International Relations to be more inclusive and hence truly “international”. [101]Crawford, “Where Have All the Theorists Gone,” 222-3.
Our review suggests that despite the inequality in the social and political sphere, there is great potential in terms of periphery-based, homegrown IRT. There are voices out of the larger world, but they are not incorporated successfully into larger literature. The supposed universalism of any theory depends on its acceptance by the wider community of scholars. All the major theories of today were once a homegrown theory, and the material and discursive power of these theories came from the power of the object they studied. As these theories grew into becoming universal, the discursive sphere was shut down to outsiders to keep the hegemony intact. Their monopoly on the scholarly imaginations of international relations has become the major obstacle to a true globalization of IR. The power of actors (whether they are states, nations, groups, civilizations or even theorists) is still the determining factor in identifying whose voices will be globally heard and integrated into the global scientific discipline. Structural and institutional factors, such as discrepancies in material capabilities, network structures and publication opportunities between the core and the periphery have a huge effect on whose theory will be popular. The theories and conceptualizations of international relations of an international system under Chinese, Russian or Indian hegemony would greatly differ from the current ones in ontology and epistemology.
A closer look at the types of publications, suggests that there remains a major packaging, production, and marketing problem, which inhibits the contribution homegrown theorizing might make to the wider discipline. On average, from our sample, books presenting examples of some form of homegrown theorizing are cited 35 times, articles 4.8 times, and book chapters 1.3 times. Clearly, publishing books instead of articles appears to pose an advantage for homegrown theorists. The prestige of the publishing house and its range of distribution network may facilitate its recognition. Additionally, the depth of elaboration permitted by the relative length of a whole book might be instrumental in augmenting an idea’s reception. On the other hand, compared to articles, publishing books, especially by a well-known publishing house, requires a higher level of pre-existing recognition by the scholar. Therefore the books may be cited more because the authors of those books are already well-known and hence already have wider access—Cardoso, Galtung and Xuetong are already well-known figures. Nevertheless, comparing citations to specific book chapters to citations for the whole book, suggests an interesting pattern. Order and Justice in International Relations is cited 29 times in total, but only one of these is to Bajpai’s chapter. Most of the citations are to chapters written either by the editors, or to the chapter that focuses on Europe. [102]Kalypso Nicolaidis and Justine Lacroix, “Order and Justice beyond the Nation-State: Europe’s Competing Paradigms,” in Order and Justice in International Relations, ed. Rosemary Foot, John Gaddis, and Andrew Hurrell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 125-54. (got 9 citations). Governance without Government: Order and Change in World Politics is cited 548 times, but only 12 of them are to Cox’s piece on Ibn-Khaldun. Again the most citations in this volume are directly to the editors’ chapters [103]These 18 works are only part of what we went through during the whole review. Some of the studies were left out of citation analysis because they were published long before 1980, and hence their first 5 year citation score cannot be obtained through WoS Cited Reference Search. We included Cardoso and Faletto (Cardoso and Faletto, Dependency and Development), however, but only citations to it from 1980 to 1984. Even when the citations in year 1979 could not be added, it still was the most cited work in our sample. In within-sample comparisons, we only considered citations made within the first five years of each cited works’ publication date. Since older works can naturally be expected to have a larger number of total citations, comparing their total citation score to those of relatively newer works would be misleading. or to works on the Western international system from a critical perspective. Similarly, Innovation and Transformation in International Studies is cited 36 times, none of which is to Pasha’s chapter. The most cited chapter in the volume is that of Stephen Gill’s piece on Karl Polanyi. [104]Stephen Thornton, “Karl Popper,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Nov 13, 1997, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/popper/. Therefore, even when the material obstacles to wider access are surmounted, or even when the articles are published by well-known and elsewhere abundantly cited scholars, homegrown conceptualizations’ reception is relatively low.
Beyond the above factors that are exogenous to the process of theory building, a few observations can be made about the substantial differences between the theories themselves, which may account for how these differences reflect on their acceptance. The foremost quality of a new theory is that it can be understood and applied by other researchers. Therefore, insularity and vagueness are both fatal to homegrown theories. Accordingly, the concepts used should be adequately defined and clarified. As Lynham points out, “an important function and characteristic of theory building is to make these explanations and understandings of how the world is and works explicit and, by so doing, to make transferable, informed knowledge for improved understanding and action in the world tacit rather than implicit”. [105]Susan A. Lynham, “The General Method of Theory-Building Research in Applied Disciplines,” Advances in Developing Human Resources 4, no. 3 (August 1, 2002): 223. If theorists fall short of transmitting to the mind of the reader, how and where one can test the suggested theory, or how one can infer from the empirical observations that the proposed mechanism is at work, then the theory will not be engaged. Original concepts are good, but those whose meaning is too blurry for others to understand will remain unproductive. [106]Stephen M. Walt, “The Relationship between Policy and Theory in International Relations,” Annual Review of Political Science 8, no. 1 (2005): 23-48. If nobody else is able to apply the concept, then the theory is doomed to isolation, and its development will halt. In particular, a poor clarification of concepts used in Referential Homegrown Theories may limit their transferability to the people cognizant of the referent culture or ideas. Limited transferability may confine such theories to discussions within communities of culturally homogenous scholars, which will deny the global IR community the fundamental benefit of referential homegrown theories, i.e. incorporation of non-core ontologies.
Insularity and policy dependence inhibit reception; assimilation and anachronism threaten originality and diversity. Comparisons across thinkers, or studies on a non-Western thinker, may be fruitful in familiarizing the global discipline with periphery theorists’ ideas, but from a theory building purpose, assessing and testing empirical implications of their ideas independently from preconceived paradigmatic lenses, is paramount. In other words, the concepts should not simply be “translated,” a practice which usually serves as an implicit confirmation of mainstream approaches. Deriving implications out of those ideas, and testing them against the data is what makes any theory stronger.
Finally, a closer look at the most cited of the theories explored here, reveals that the most efficient way of building both original and recognized theories appears to be through systematic collection of data. Xuetong relied on quantitative data on US-China bilateral relations, dependency theorists based their theoretical innovation on foreign trade data, and Geldenhuys made an extensive collection of qualitative data on levels of international interaction. It is impossible to ignore the irony in this, as empirical work is often considered in dichotomous terms with theory, and those who are empirically oriented, i.e. “native informants,” [107]Agathangelou and Ling, “The House of IR”; Kristensen, “How Can Emerging Powers Speak?”. “area specialists,” [108]Robert H. Bates, “Area Studies and the Discipline: A Useful Controversy?” PS: Political Science & Politics 30, no. 2 (June 1997): 166-9. or “historians” [109]Paul W. Schroeder, “History and International Relations Theory: Not Use or Abuse, but Fit or Misfit,” International Security 22, no. 1 (1997): 64-74; John Lewis Gaddis, “History, Theory, and Common Ground,” International Security 22, no. 1 (1997): 75-85. are seen as “non-theorists.” Such a starting perspective is a major obstacle in overcoming the broader hegemonic division of labor. Better theories cannot be built out of philosophical and meta-theoretical discussions, they can only be built through hands-on empirical work. Still better theories can only be built through the hands-on work of a wider, global scholarly community.
1. ↑ Haluk Ozdemir, “An Inter-Subsystemic Approach in International Relations,” All Azimuth 4, no. 1 (2015): 5-26.
2. ↑ See for example; Stephanie G. Neuman, International Relations Theory and the Third World (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998); Arlene Tickner, “Seeing IR Differently: Notes from the Third World,” Millennium - Journal of International Studies 32, no. 2 (2003): 295-324; Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Wæver, International Relations Scholarship Around the World (Oxon: Routledge, 2009); Massad Ayoob, “Security in the Third World: The Worm About to Turn,” International Affairs 60, no. 1 (1984): 41-51; Bahgat Korany, “Strategic Studies and the Third World: A Critical Appraisal,” International Social Science Journal 38, no. 4 (1986): 547-62; Edward Azar and Chung‐in Moon, “Third World National Security: Towards a New Conceptual Framework,” International Interactions 11, no. 2 (1984): 103-35; Barry Buzan, “The Concept of National Security for Developing Countries with Special Reference to Southeast Asia” (paper presented at the Workshop on Leadership and Security in Southeast Asia, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, December, 10-12, 1987); Barry Buzan, “People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in the Third World,” in National Security in the Third World, ed. Chung‐in Moon and Edward Azar (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1988), 14-43; Caroline Thomas, In Search of Security: The Third World in International Relations (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1987); Yezid Sayigh, “Confronting the 1990s: Security in the Developing Countries,” Adelphi Papers 30, no. 251 (1990): 3-7.
3. ↑ For example, concepts like “small wars” or “proxy wars” are inadequate in terms of representing the experiences of people who actually fought them (Barry Buzan and Richard Little, International Systems in World History: Remaking the Study of International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Tarak Barkawi, “On the Pedagogy of ‘Small Wars,’” International Affairs 80, no. 1 (2004): 19-38). “Failed states” or “rogue states” do not fare better (Massad Ayoob, “Defining Security: A Subaltern Realist Perspective,” in Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Strategies, ed. K. Krause and MC Williams (London: UCL Press, 1997), 121-48; Pınar Bilgin and David Morton, “Historicising Representations of ‘Failed States’: Beyond the Cold-War Annexation of the Social Sciences?” Third World Quarterly 23, no. 1 (2002): 55-80; Pınar Bilgin and David Morton, “From ‘Rogue’ to ‘Failed’ States? The Fallacy of Short-Termism,” Politics 24, no. 3 (2004): 169-80).
4. ↑ Steve Smith, “Six Wishes for a More Relevant Discipline of International Relations,” in The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, ed. Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 725-32; Thomas G. Weiss and Rorden Wilkinson, “Global Governance to the Rescue: Saving International Relations?” Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations 20, no. 1 (2014): 25.
5. ↑ Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan, “Why Is There No Non-Western International Relations Theory? An Introduction,” International Realtions of the Asia Pacific 7, no. 3 (August 7, 2007): 287-312, doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcm012.
6. ↑ Krishina Sankaran, “The Importance of Being Ironic: A Postcolonial View on Critical International Relations Theory,” Alternatives 18, no. 3 (1993): 388; Arlene Tickner, “Seeing IR Differently: Notes from the Third World,” 324; Claire Wilkinson, “The Copenhagen School on Tour in Kyrgyzstan: Is Securitization Theory Useable Outside Europe?” Security Dialogue 38, no. 1 (2007): 5.
7. ↑ See for example Michael Wesley, “Australia’s International Relations and the (IR)relevance of Theory,” Australian Journal of International Affairs 55, no. 3 (2001): 453-67; Emilian Kavalski, “Recognizing Chinese International Relations Theory,” in Asian Thought on China’s Changing International Relations, ed. Niv Horesh and Emilian Kavalski (New York: Pelgrave Macmillian, 2014), 230-48; Arlene B. Tickner, Claiming the International (London and New York: Routledge, 2013); Tickner and Wæver, International Relations; Arlene B. Tickner and David L. Blaney, Thinking International Relations Differently (New York: Routledge, 2013); Peter Drulák, “Introduction to the International Relations (IR) in Central and Eastern Europe Forum,” Journal of International Relations and Development 12, no. 2 (2009): 168-73.
8. ↑ T.V. Paul, “Integrating International Relations Studies in India to Global Scholarship,” International Studies 46, no. 1-2 (2009): 129-45.
9. ↑ Tickner and Wæver, International Relations.
10. ↑ Acharya and Buzan, “Why Is There No Non-Western,” 287.
11. ↑ Anna M. Agathangelou and L. H. M. Ling, “The House of IR: From Family Power Politics to the Poisies of Worldism,” International Studies Review 6, no. 4 (December 2004): 21-49; Pınar Bilgin, “Thinking Past ‘Western’ IR?” Third World Quarterly 29, no. 1 (2008): 5-23; Walter D. Mignolo, “Epistemic Disobedience, Independent Thought and Decolonial Freedom,” Theory, Culture & Society 26, no. 7–8 (2009): 159-81.
12. ↑ See for example the two most recent presidential speeches in ISA (Paul, “Integrating International Relations”), which are about opening up IRT, the establishment of groups (Global IR) and journals which specifically seek to bring in more outside-of-the- core voices.
13. ↑ Song Xinning, “Building International Relations Theory with Chinese Characteristics,” Journal of Contemporary China 10, no. 26 (2001): 61-74; Benjamin Creutzfeldt, “Theory Talk# 51: Yan Xuetong on Chinese Realism, the Tsinghua School of International Relations, and the Impossibility of Harmony,” Theory Talks, November 28, 2012, http://www.theory-talks.org/2012/11/theory-talk-51.html; David Shambaugh, “International Relations Studies in China: History, Trends, and Prospects,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 11, no. 3 (2011): 365.
14. ↑ Gennaro Ascione and Deepshikha Shahi, “Rethinking the Absence of Post-Western International Relations Theory in India: ‘Advaitic Monism’as an Alternative Epistemological Resource,” European Journal of International Relations 22, no. 2 (2016): 313-34.
15. ↑ Young Chul Cho, “Colonialism and Imperialism in the Quest for a Universalist Korean-Style International Relations Theory,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 28, no. 4 (2015): 680-700; Ching-Chang Chen, “The Impossibility of Building Indigenous Theories in a Hegemonic Discipline: The Case of Japanese International Relations,” Asian Perspective 36, no. 3 (2012): 463-92; Jeremy T. Paltiel, “Constructing Global Order with Chinese Characteristics: Yan Xuetong and the Pre-Qin Response to International Anarchy,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 4, no. 4 (2011): 375-403; Andrei P. Tsygankov and Pavel A. Tsygankov, “National Ideology and IR Theory: Three Incarnations of the ‘Russian Idea,’” European Journal of International Relations 16, no. 4 (2010): 663-86.
16. ↑ Giorgio Shani, “Toward a Post-Western IR: The Umma, Khalsa Panth, and Critical International Relations Theory,” International Studies Review 10, no. 4 (2008): 722-34; Bilgin, “Thinking Past ‘Western’ IR?”.
17. ↑ Bilgin, “Thinking Past ‘Western’ IR?”.
18. ↑ Peter Marcus Kristensen, “How Can Emerging Powers Speak? On Theorists, Native Informants and Quasi-Officials in International Relations Discourse,” Third World Quarterly 36, no. 4 (2015): 637-53.
19. ↑ Julie Mathews and Ersel Aydınlı, “Are the Core and Periphery Irreconcilable? The Curious World of Publishing in Contemporary International Relations,” International Studies Perspectives 1, no. 3 (2000): 298.
20. ↑ Robert M. A. Crawford, “Where Have All the Theorists Gone- Gone to Britain? Everyone? A Story of Two Parochialisms in International Relations,” in International Relations—Still an American Social Science? Toward Diversity in International Thought, ed. Robert M.A. Crawford and Darryl S.L. Jarvis (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 221-42; Pınar Bilgin and Oktay F. Tanrisever, “A Telling Story of IR in the Periphery: Telling Turkey about the World, Telling the World About Turkey,” Journal of International Relations and Development 12, no. 2 (2009): 174-9.
21. ↑ Ayoob, “Defining Security”.
22. ↑ Linsay Cunningham-Cross, “Using the Past to (Re)Write the Future: Yan Xuetong, Pre-Qin Thought and China’s Rise to Power,” China Information 26, no. 2 (2012): 219-33; Paltiel, “Constructing Global Xuetong”.
23. ↑ Steve Smith, “The Discipline of International Relations: Still an American Social Science?” The British Journal of Politics & International Relations 2 (2000): 374-402; Jörg Friedrichs, European Approaches to International Relations Theory: A House with Many Mansions (Oxon: Routledge, 2004).
24. ↑ Tickner includes Canada, Western Europe and Australia as semi-periphery (In Tickner, Claiming the International).
26. ↑ Robert M.A. Crawford and Darryl S.L. Jarvis, ed., Where Have All the Theorists Gone- Gone to Britain? Everyone? A Story of Two Parochialisms in International Relations (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), xii.
27. ↑ Ras T. Nielsen and Peter Marcus Kristensen, “Constructing a Chinese International Relations Theory: A Sociological Approach to Intellectual Innovation,” International Political Sociology 7, no. 1 (2013): 19-40; Yaqing QIN, “Why Is There No Chinese International Relations Theory?” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 7, no. 3 (2007): 313-40.
28. ↑ Takashi Inoguchi and Paul Bacon, “The Study of International Relations in Japan: Towards a More International Discipline,” International Realtions of the Asia Pacific 1, no. 1 (2001): 1-20.
29. ↑ Kristensen, “How Can Emerging Powers Speak?”.
30. ↑ Jong Kun Choi, “Theorizing East Asian International Relations in Korea,” Asian Perspective 32, no. 1 (2008): 193-216.
32. ↑ Helen Louise Turton and Lucas G Freire, “Peripheral Possibilities: Revealing Originality and Encouraging Dialogue through a Reconsideration of ‘Marginal’ IR Scholarship,” Journal of International Relations and Development 20, no. 2 (April 18, 2014): 458, doi:10.1057/jird.2015.17.
33. ↑ For contary views see, Ching-Chang Chen, “The Absence of Non-Western IR Theory in Asia Reconsidered,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 11, no. 1 (2011): 1-23; Chen, “The Impossibility of Building”.
34. ↑ Rosa Vasilaki, “Provincialising IR? Deadlocks and Prospects in Post-Western IR Theory,” Millennium - Journal of International Studies 41, no. 1 (2012): 3-22.
35. ↑ Turton and Freire, “Peripheral Possibilities”.
36. ↑ Homegrown theories have varying degrees of acceptance and engagement, which are undoubtedly shaped by the wider social and institutional milieu. Our purpose here, however, is to discern the other factors, i.e. properties of the theories themselves, which may help to overcome barriers against their reception.
37. ↑ Tickner and Wæver, International Relations; Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan, ed., Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and Beyond Asia (Abington: Routledge, 2009).
38. ↑ Tickner and Wæver, International Relations; Acharya and Buzan, Non-Western International Relations Theory.
39. ↑ Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979).
40. ↑ Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 167.
41. ↑ Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw Hill, 1979), 57.
42. ↑ Obviously, discussing what theory is is a huge task that cannot be meaningfully confined to the limits of this paper. What we attempt is a simple breakdown of its most basic properties.
43. ↑ Amitav Acharya, “Dialogue and Discovery: In Search of International Relations Theories Beyond the West,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 39, no. 3 (April 27, 2011): 619-37.
44. ↑ Dawa Norbu, “Tibet in Sino-Indian Relations: The Centrality of Marginality,” Asian Survey 37, no. 11 (1997): 1084; Yan Xuetong, Ancient Chinese Thought and Modern Chinese Power (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2011).
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47. ↑ Navnita Behera, “Re-Imagining IR in India,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 7, no. 3 (2007): 346.
48. ↑ Behera, “Re-Imagining IR,” 347.
49. ↑ Bajpai, “Indian Conceptions”.
50. ↑ Thomas Weber, “The Impact of Gandhi on the Development of Johan Galtung’s Peace Research,” Global Change, Peace & Security 16, no. 1 (2004): 31-43.
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78. ↑ Qin, “Why Is There No Chinese”.
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86. ↑ Xuetong, “The Instability of China–US Relations”.
87. ↑ Xuetong, “The Instability of China–US Relations,” 280.
88. ↑ Xuetong, “The Instability of China–US Relations,” 274-5.
89. ↑ Joseph L. Love, “Raúl Previsch and the Origins of the Doctrine of Unequal Exchange,” Latin American Research Review 15, no. 3 (1980): 45-72.
90. ↑ Tony Smith, “The Underdevelopment of Development Literature: The Case of Dependency Theory,” World Politics 31, no. 2 (1979): 248.
91. ↑ Cardoso and Faletto, Dependency and Development.
93. ↑ Smith, “The Underdevelopment of Development,” 251.
94. ↑ Matias Vernengo, “Technology, Finance and Dependency: Latin American Radical Political Economy in Retrospect,” Review of Radical Political Economics 38, no. 4 (2006): 551-68.
95. ↑ Arlene Tickner, “Latin American IR and the Primacy of Lo Práctico,” International Studies Review 10, no. 4 (2008): 708.
96. ↑ Deon Geldenhuys, Isolated States: A Comparative Analysis (Cambridge: Press Syndicate, 1990).
98. ↑ Jack Snyder, “Some Good and Bad Reasons for a Distinctively Chinese Approach to International Relations Theory” (paper presented at the APSA 2008 Annual Meeting, Hynes Convention Center, Boston, Massachusetts, 2008); Shambaugh, “International Relations Studies”.
99. ↑ Stanley Hoffmann, “An American Social Science: International Relations,” Deadalus 106, no. 3 (1977): 41-60.
100. ↑ Robert W. Cox, “Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory,” Millennium - Journal of International Studies 10, no. 2 (1981): 126-55; Howard J. Wiarda, “The Ethnocentrism of the Social Science Implications for Research and Policy,” The Review of Politics 43, no. 2 (1981): 163-97; Steve Smith, “The United States and the Discipline of International Relations: ‘Hegemonic Country, Hegemonic Discipline,’” International Studies Review 4, no. 2 (2002): 67-85.
101. ↑ Crawford, “Where Have All the Theorists Gone,” 222-3.
102. ↑ Kalypso Nicolaidis and Justine Lacroix, “Order and Justice beyond the Nation-State: Europe’s Competing Paradigms,” in Order and Justice in International Relations, ed. Rosemary Foot, John Gaddis, and Andrew Hurrell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 125-54. (got 9 citations).
103. ↑ These 18 works are only part of what we went through during the whole review. Some of the studies were left out of citation analysis because they were published long before 1980, and hence their first 5 year citation score cannot be obtained through WoS Cited Reference Search. We included Cardoso and Faletto (Cardoso and Faletto, Dependency and Development), however, but only citations to it from 1980 to 1984. Even when the citations in year 1979 could not be added, it still was the most cited work in our sample. In within-sample comparisons, we only considered citations made within the first five years of each cited works’ publication date. Since older works can naturally be expected to have a larger number of total citations, comparing their total citation score to those of relatively newer works would be misleading.
104. ↑ Stephen Thornton, “Karl Popper,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Nov 13, 1997, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/popper/.
105. ↑ Susan A. Lynham, “The General Method of Theory-Building Research in Applied Disciplines,” Advances in Developing Human Resources 4, no. 3 (August 1, 2002): 223.
106. ↑ Stephen M. Walt, “The Relationship between Policy and Theory in International Relations,” Annual Review of Political Science 8, no. 1 (2005): 23-48.
107. ↑ Agathangelou and Ling, “The House of IR”; Kristensen, “How Can Emerging Powers Speak?”.
108. ↑ Robert H. Bates, “Area Studies and the Discipline: A Useful Controversy?” PS: Political Science & Politics 30, no. 2 (June 1997): 166-9.
109. ↑ Paul W. Schroeder, “History and International Relations Theory: Not Use or Abuse, but Fit or Misfit,” International Security 22, no. 1 (1997): 64-74; John Lewis Gaddis, “History, Theory, and Common Ground,” International Security 22, no. 1 (1997): 75-85.
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Tags: core and periphery homegrown theory International Relations Theory theory building
Would 100 Global Workshops on Theory Building Make A Difference?
The Hegemony of Governmentality: Towards a Research Agenda
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Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: A Critical and Reflexive Assessment
The Cold War Residue in a US “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy”
The Implications of “Closed-World Discourse”
“Data-Driven” Technological Fetishism
A Different Future for Public Diplomacy
Hamilton Bean
Edward Comor
All Azimuth V7, N1, 2018, 5-20
This essay presents a critical and reflexive assessment of contemporary efforts to innovate the measurement and evaluation of public diplomacy. Analyzing a recent and pivotal report called “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” it explains how the institutional and ideological residue of the Cold War underwrites these initiatives in the context of American activities in its contemporary “War on Terror.” Inspired by Marx’s concept of the fetish—an under-represented conceptual approach to public diplomacy research—the authors critique the thinking of public diplomacy scholars and officials, arguing that both an omnipresent past and a powerful form of technological fetishism are discernible in the “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy” report. An outcome of the type of thinking represented in the report, they conclude, has been the pervasiveness of
contradictions and, in this area of foreign policy, disempowering implications.
Keywords : Cold War, measurement and evaluation, Public diplomacy, technological fetishism
Succinctly defined, public diplomacy (PD) has been a means of advancing a country’s assumed interests through the efforts of various agencies and actors to shape the thinking and ideals of foreign publics. PD has historically involved an array of activities: from propaganda broadcasts to educational exchange programs to embassy-sponsored cultural events. With technological developments (e.g., television, satellites, and the internet), innovations in PD have followed. The rapid development of digital, social, and mobile media has compelled PD officials in many countries to make use of new technologies in ways that go well beyond
message dissemination.[1]Ronit Kampf, Ilan Manor, and Elad Segev, “Digital Diplomacy 2.0? A Cross-National Comparison of Public Engagement in Facebook and Twitter,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 10, no. 4 (2015): 331-62, doi:10.1163/1871191X-12341318; Rauf Arif, Guy J. Golan, and Brian Moritz, “Mediated Public Diplomacy: US and Taliban Relations with Pakistani Media,” Media, War & Conflict 7, no. 2 (2014): 201-17, doi:10.1177/1750635214538619; James Pamment, “Digital Diplomacy as Transmedia Engagement: Aligning Theories of Participatory Culture with International Advocacy Campaigns,” New Media & Society 18, no. 9 (2016): 2046- 62, doi:10.1177/1461444815577792. Increasingly, it is expected that the precise results of communication efforts should be measurable. While empirical outputs (e.g., the number of messages a particular PD program distributed) have long been reported, capabilities associated with digital technologies have opened the door to what some call “the holy grail” of PD: measureable impacts—uniquely detailed assessments of what a particular policy or program achieved in terms of its influence on public thinking at a level heretofore unavailable to policy analysts.[2]James Rider, “Proving Public iplomacy Programs Work,” The Foreign Service Journal 92, no. 10 (2015): 19-22, accessed March 30, 2016, http://www.afsa.org/sites/default/files/december2015fsj.pdf.
Rather than debating broad methodological, epistemological, or even philosophical questions related to this quest (debates, for example, regarding the possibility or impossibility of controlling the thoughts of others), in this essay, we closely examine a recent and much lauded US policy report on this topic—titled “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: Progress Towards Measuring the Impact of Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting Activities”—to critically reconsider the technologically-framed goals of this foreign policy sub-field.[3]US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: Progress Towards Measuring the Impact of Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting Activities,” September 16, 2014, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/231945.pdf. Herein, we argue that the renewed and intensified desire to measure and evaluate PD (now through capabilities associated with digital technology) stems from at least two under assessed and interrelated sources. One, we propose, is the ideological residue of the Cold War and a way of thinking about communication that contributes to a profound institutional inertia. Information technology scholar Paul Edwards refers to this Cold Warera thinking as “closed-world” discourse.[4]Paul Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997). We argue that this discourse contextualizes “data-driven” PD measurement and evaluation, not just in practice but also in how PD measurement and evaluation are being conceptualized. The other source of this compulsion involves a general lack of clarity as to what PD officials are meant to achieve, specifically PD’s measurable impacts. We argue that this unanswered “what” question—what ends are PD analysts and officials pursuing (and, at least indirectly, what has caused the problems that they are responding to)—is not so much a matter of ignorance as it is driven by influences that, curiously, may well be recognized but are treated as if they are not. Most PD efforts, we argue, do little to address (let alone redress) root causes of antipathy; yet, while many or most officials and analysts surely recognize this, the increasingly ambitious march towards the granular measurement and management of PD continues.
We seek to explain this strange state of conscious self-denial using a critical and materialist approach (and one not yet applied to the study of PD) drawn from Marx’s concept of the fetish.[5]Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol.1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977). Through this concept’s iteration as technological fetishism, we try to better understand PD’s technology-mediated disjunction between thought and action. In bringing both Edwards’ concept of a closed-world discourse and Marx’s understanding of the fetish to bear on contemporary PD, in what follows, we seek to challenge and refresh what has been a somewhat unreflexive area of foreign policy—paradoxically unreflexive, given that digital technologies are said be “revolutionizing” PD practices.
The pairing of the theoretical orientations of Edwards and Marx might seem incongruous in that Edwards’ discourse-oriented approach draws influences from social construction of technology and poststructuralism, both of which, in part, arose from perceived shortcomings in Marx’s focus on political economy. Both Edwards and Marx, however, draw attention to relations of power and, in our view, language and culture are not reducible to narrowlydefined material conditions, but nor are they autonomous. We agree with Cultural Studies scholar Chris Barker that “the material-cultural binary is a hindrance to investigation and should be put to one side.”[6] Chris Barker, Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice (London: Sage, 2002), 17. PD practices involve an assemblage of material technologies, institutional subcultures, and ways of talking about PD that permit, encourage, or forbid alternative ways of thinking. Our approach applies political economy and textual analysis and articulates them together to produce a novel interpretation of an influential PD policy guidance document. In doing so, we hope to spur consideration of alternative possibilities for PD’s future.
We begin with an overview of the institutionalization of particular ways of thinking during the Cold War, demonstrating that despite this conflict’s conclusion more than twenty-five years ago, its residue has resurfaced to taint the assumptions of PD officials fighting the post- 9/11 “War on Terror.” Relating the key PD report mentioned above (“Data-Driven Public Diplomacy”) to this closed-world discourse, we proceed to address two main questions: (1) How does the report characterize the history of PD measurement and evaluation? And (2) How does the report reflect and reinforce questionable assumptions about the political
and cultural potentialities commonly associated with communications generally and digital technologies more specifically? After demonstrating that PD officials are turning to technological solutions, our paper examines this concentration of resources through the lens of technological fetishism. Through its conceptual application, further contradictions are revealed—contradictions that we suggest need to be openly examined for both academic and strategic reasons. We conclude that PD’s embrace of increasingly sophisticated analytical technologies—as they reflect and further fetishize policy relations and preferred narratives— is entrenching something very different from a foreign policy truly focused on peace, security, and development.
2. The Cold War Residue in a US “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy”
In 1963, at the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the United States Advisory Commission on Information (established by Congress) issued its eighteenth report. In the wake of that year’s confrontations concerning Cuba, its authors pointed out that other events—such as developments in Berlin, the Chinese Communist invasion of India, and Communist insurrections in South Vietnam and Laos—demonstrated the very real threat of international Communism.[7]US Department of State, Eighteenth Report of the United States Advisory Commission on Information, 88th Cong. 1st sess. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1963), accessed March 20, 2016, http://www.state.gov/pdcommission/reports/175429.htm. An array of American state resources would need to be mobilized in response. The role of the US Information Agency (USIA), for example, was clear: “Our most urgent job is not merely to interpret US policy and the US way of life, but to more pertinently establish in men’s minds the basic distinction between western and Communist concepts of society.”[8]Eighteenth Report of the United States Advisory Commission, 21.
More than at any other time, America’s containment of the Communist (and especially the Soviet) threat involved both physical and psychological defenses. However, citizens were often frustrated that communication promoting America abroad lacked efficacy. “Many Americans—including Presidents and Congressmen—could not comprehend how information programs seemed incapable of blunting anti-Americanism abroad and building sympathy for U.S. policies.”[9]Seth Center, “The Evolution of American Public Diplomacy: Four Historical Insights,” December 2, 2013, https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/219025.pdf. The Advisory Commission therefore noted that critics of USIA were correct in their assertion that “enhanced research and training programs are needed in order … to develop firmer foundations for our foreign information programs in relation to the opinions, attitudes, hopes, aspirations, and misconceptions of the foreign audiences… .”[10]Eighteenth Report of the United States Advisory Commission, 22. Topping its list of what to do about it were recommendations for “improving internal coordination and communication, inspection and evaluation, … interagency relations and coordination, … forward planning, and the role of the office of policy.”[11]Eighteenth Report of the United States Advisory Commission, 3.
More than fifty years later, despite dramatic changes in geopolitical conditions, as a report completed by the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy (ACPD) in 2014 (“Data-Driven Public Diplomacy”) conveys, this need for ever-improving measurement and evaluation of PD has reemerged. Commissioned by the successor to the Advisory Commission on Information, the ACPD was operating in a much different world: “Non-state actors” had replaced the Soviet Union as the world’s most significant threat.[12]US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “2014 Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy,” December 11,2014, http://www.state.gov/pdcommission/reports/235008.htm, 10. Nevertheless, enhancing the capacity to measure and evaluate strategic information and communication activities—a significant element of PD’s Cold War past—has again become a priority. The “War on Terror” (or, to use official jargon, “Combatting Violent Extremism”) has filled a vacuum created by the Soviet Union’s collapse. In some ways, of course, it has. But in other ways, as we argue, something more complex and worrisome is at work. Specifically, Cold War-era institutional assumptions and practices have found renewed relevance in the form of “data-driven” PD, thereby constraining the ability of policymakers and officials to think about security and PD in new ways. As one U.S. intelligence community insider noted, “Many of today’s principal analytic problems arise from continued reliance on analytic tools, methodologies, and processes that were appropriate to the static and hierarchical nature of the Soviet threat during the Cold War.”[13]Jeffrey R. Cooper, Curing Analytic Pathologies: Pathways to Improved Intelligence Analysis (Pittsburgh, PA: Government Printing Office, 2005), 23, accessed March 15, 2016, http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA500058. We similarly see in passages of ACPD’s “Data-Driven” report a renewed attempt to make sense of a highly complex world using aspects of a Cold War-era mindset.
According to the US Department of State, ACPD is charged with appraising US Government activities intended to understand, inform and influence foreign publics and to increase the understanding of, and support for, these same activities. Comprised of seven bi-partisan members drawn from government and industry, ACPD had been grappling with new mandates for better PD measurement and evaluation since the early 2000s, when the State Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) required units to scrutinize the use of taxpayers’ money as part of a broader Government Accountability Office (GAO) push for
increased effectiveness and de-duplication of effort. In a public meeting of ACPD in 2010, Cherreka Montgomery, Director of the Evaluation and Measurement Unit (EMU) in the US Under Secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning and Resources (R/PPR), described State’s newfound level of commitment to evaluation as unprecedented. When Montgomery was hired in 2005, PD had “more than 898 different performance measures, most of which were merely outputs,” and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had assessed State’s PD strategy and performance measurement as “not performing.” Montgomery described how she and others had worked to standardize, consolidate, and improve PD performance measures.[14]Tijana Milosevic, “Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy Examines Evaluation Tools,” Alliance for International Exchange, July 21, 2010, http://www.alliance-exchange.org/policy-monitor/07/21/2010/advisory-commission-public-diplomacyexamines-evaluation-tools.
Nevertheless, ACPD was temporarily shuttered in 2011 after failing to win congressional reauthorization. In announcing its reauthorization in 2013, ACPD’s new Executive Director, Katherine Brown, emphasized that ACPD was “operating under a clear mandate to itemize and assess the efficiency of public diplomacy programs across government for an annual comprehensive report.”[15]Lisa Heyn, “Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy is Reinstated After 19-Months Hiatus,” Alliance for International Exchange, July, 31, 2013, http://www.alliance-exchange.org/policy-monitor/07/31/2013/advisory-commission-public-diplomacyreinstated-after-19-months-hiatus. At the ACPD’s first public meeting following its reauthorization, Brown described the organization’s role as a “watchdog” that needed to “break down the activities and review how their impact is being measured.”[16]See “Minutes and Transcript for December 2013 Meeting of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy,”
December 2, 2013, https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/219024.pdf. ACPD today claims that measurement and evaluation of PD and broadcasting are priorities: “Knowing when public diplomacy is working can often be elusive, yet measurement and evaluation of public diplomacy and international broadcasting activities is essential for strategic planning.”[17]“US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy,” U.S. Department of State, accessed May 2, 2016, http://www.state.gov/pdcommission/index.htm. Assessing additional contextual factors would be useful in further understanding the production of the 2014 “Data-Driven” report, but doing so would not change our fundamental critique of its discourse.
The 2014 “Data-Driven” report was produced by communication and PD scholars who also made recommendations based on their findings, which focused on five key areas:
(1) increased recognition on the part of State Department officials of the importance of research in public diplomacy; (2) movement away from State Department and BBG’s [Broadcasting Board of Governors] risk-averse cultures, which can negatively impact how research data and evaluations are conceived, conducted, reported and used; (3) more consistent strategic approaches in developing and evaluating public diplomacy and international broadcasting activities; (4) increased training in strategic planning, including research and evaluation; and (5) more funding and personnel to conduct more meaningful evaluations … that can correct the course of programs and activities.[18]For minutes and transcript from the quarterly meeting, see US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: Progress towards Measuring the Impact of Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting Activities,” September 16, 2014, https://www.state.gov/pdcommission/meetings/232682.htm.
Numerous institutions and commentators praised the report for its innovative approach, and it has figured prominently in ACPD’s subsequent Comprehensive Annual Reports. Indicators of the report’s significance include the Public Diplomacy Council’s (a nonprofit organization with close ties with the US Information Agency Alumni Association) declaration, “Anyone who follows US public diplomacy should read the report, starting with Nicholas Cull’s excellent introduction tracing the history of evaluating US efforts to change opinions and attitudes of publics overseas.”[19]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” par. 2. According to another commentator, the true audience for the report was not the general public, but rather, “the specialists and especially the policy makers who can effect change….”[20]Patricia Kushlis, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: An Evaluation of an Evaluation of and Evaluation,” WhirledView, October 3, 2014, http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirledview/2014/10/data-driven-public-diplomacy-an-evaluation-of-an-evaluation-ofan-evaluation.html., para. 2. Intertextual markers of the 2014 report’s influence continue to emerge while its themes reflect trends in public diplomacy research writ large.[21]James Pamment, “Articulating Influence: Toward a Research Agenda for Interpreting the Evaluation of Soft Power, Public
However laudable and forward looking the report has been in the eyes of policy analysts and PD officials, our reading reveals signs of something more obscure, entrenched, and seemingly unchangeable: lingering Cold War-era assumptions about the capabilities of communication technology to sustain and advance (self-evidently benevolent) American power. Of course, the “Data-Driven” report is just one of many examples of PD discourse, not all of which reflect such Cold War assumptions. However, we argue that the “Data-Driven” report uniquely reveals evidence of what Edwards calls a closed-world discourse—a set of material and symbolic conditions that underlay US Cold War policies promoting global surveillance and control through technology.[22]Edwards, Closed World. Both then and now, analytical technologies have enabled various American national security offices and officials to work together in the context of a complex of techniques, political goals, and ideological perspectives.
According to Edwards, during the Cold War, the closed and tightly policed world of US national security affairs was bound together, ultimately, through the overarching struggle between the United States and Soviet Union. As the Advisory Commission’s 1963 report (mentioned above) illustrates, American PD efforts were principally conducted to thwart real or imagined Soviet aggression. For Edwards, closed-world discourse comprised a number of inter-related elements involving a shared worldview, a tacitly agreed upon set of practices, and a common language. For one thing, it relied on “techniques drawn from
engineering and mathematics for modeling aspects of the world as closed systems.”[23]Edwards, Closed World, 15. The ACPD’s “Data-Driven” report reiterates this impulse in its emphasis on complex analytical models from which to generate innovations drawn from what it calls “actionable data.”[24]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 19. The report’s authors urge the BBG, for example, to “employ more advanced statistical methods for analyzing cross-national survey data, such as hierarchal linear modeling (multilevel analysis) of aggregated cross-national survey data to identity and measure global and regional predictors of BBG impact.”[25]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 46. As one commentator noted in response to the report, “The greatest opportunity for influence comes from the visualization and synthesis of big data insights with the nuance, experience, and understanding developed by generations of diplomats.”[26]Ali Fischer, “Data-Driven Diplomacy: A Practical Guide,” CDP (blog) USC Center for Public Diplomacy, February 23, 2015, http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/data-driven-diplomacy-practical-guide, para. 4. This commentator, a consultant who stands to benefit from “data-driven” developments, described the need for data scientists and diplomats to work shoulder-toshoulder: “An understanding of the nature of data science and the roles diplomats and data scientists would play at each stage of research and analysis is critical to success.”[27]Fischer, “Data-Driven Diplomacy,” par. 5.
Closed-world discourse also relied on technologies, especially the computer, that made “systems analysis and central control practical on a very large scale.”[28]Edwards, Closed World, 15. Similarly, the ACPD’s emphasis on “data-driven planning and measurement” demonstrates that the impulse toward centralized analysis and control persists.[29]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 17. Current efforts include the Mission Activity Tracker (an online performance measurement reporting tool that documents the scope, frequency and achievements of specific PD activities) and the Advancing Public Diplomacy’s Impact report (a global comparison study to measure the influence of US PD activities worldwide on key foreign audiences). Despite these and other initiatives, the “Data-Driven” report’s authors
noted the need to go further, bemoaning that “there is currently no centralized methodology or office responsible for measuring and evaluating US public diplomacy and public affairs activities conducted via social media.”[30]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 34.
Edwards, furthermore, argues that closed-world discourse involved “fictions, fantasies, and ideologies, including such visions as global mastery through air power and nuclear weapons [and] global danger from an expansionist ‘evil empire’.…”[31]Edwards, Closed World, 15. While the Soviet threat has vanished, enemies have multiplied. As the “Data-Driven” report declares, “Given the fast proliferation of non-state actors who are shaping the international system this century, it [PD] has never been more pertinent to our national security strategy.”[32]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 16. Here it should be noted that the complete absence of discussion within the report of what threat, exactly, is being countered through PD is consistent with what scholars describe as a post-9/11 homeland security “ontology,” by which they mean the “translation of virtual, potential threat[s] into specific, possible outcomes and concrete, material actions.”[33]Lauren Martin and Stephanie Simon, “A Formula for Disaster: The Department of Homeland Security’s Virtual Ontology,” Space and Polity 12 (2008): 286. Vague-yet-omnipresent threats haunt the “Data-Driven” report, bolstering its urgency and recommendations.
A final element of closed-world discourse during the Cold War was its “language of systems, gaming, and abstract communication and information that relied on formalisms to the detriment of experimental and situated knowledge.”[34]Edwards, Closed World, 15. Such a language of games and control endures in the ACPD report as its authors assert that “public diplomacy, like traditional diplomacy, is a long game.”[35]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 16. The report “makes suggestions on structures and methodologies needed to make foreign audience research more robust, impact assessment more institutionalized, and feedback loops for strategy and tactics more systematic.”[36]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 2. For example, a “department-wide content management system for social media accounts at US embassies worldwide” would “enable better coordination of efforts in digital engagement, and potentially make for sustainable procedures for pre-and post-communication analytical efforts.”[37]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 18. Systemization of PD, however, appears more aspirational than actual in that evaluation “should strive to be more specific and systematic in describing the research processes it undertakes” and, in some cases, there appears to be “no systematic way that evaluations” presently can be “distributed, stored, or solicited.”[38]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 32 and 20.
The “Data-Driven” report contains residues of closed-world discourse that, at first glance, seem coincidental and are easy to overlook. Of course, there are also many notable differences between the report and Cold War-era PD efforts. For one thing, the authors demonstrate malleability in arguing for the need to “identify and develop culturally appropriate programs and messages, and the proper way to employ them.”[39]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,”18. The report’s repeated calls for field research, avoiding self-reported data, and deepening and expanding research efforts evidence more openness than the Cold War rhetoric that Edwards analyzed. Our concern, however, is that several of the “Data-Driven” report’s premises and recommendations eerily resemble Cold War-era thinking, implying little or no reflection on the underlying assumptions of PD itself at a time when that reflection is urgently needed.
The “Data-Driven” report’s flickers of closed-world discourse risk further entrenching the status quo. As arguably the most vaunted example of a more general and pervasive embrace of technological empowerment and scientific precision in PD, paradoxically the report undermines the pursuit of a precise understanding of why people in other countries support or (sometimes violently) oppose US policies in the first place. As Eric Nisbet and colleagues put it in the context of PD in Muslim countries:
Public diplomacy initiatives and media lobbying efforts do not address the root causes of anti-Americanism endemic to Muslim countries and instead are likely to only lead to small gains in ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of the Muslim public. Short of substantial changes in US political, economic, and foreign policy, widespread hatred and loathing of the United States in the Muslim world is likely to continue.[40]Eric C. Nisbet, Matthew C. Nisbet, Dietram A. Scheufele, and James E. Shanahan, “Public Diplomacy, Television News, and Muslim Opinion,” The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 9, no. 2 (2004): 33, doi:10.1177/1081180x04263459.
3. The Implications of “Closed-World Discourse”
Data-driven PD’s promise of sophisticated measurement, abstract representation, and statistical certitude in support of the status quo risks further marginalizing the voices of PD officials and analysts who may be critical of US national security policies, and thus an historically-grounded and substantive re-consideration of them. It is vital to recognize that, like Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s infamous Cold War-era Pentagon computers, the output of data-driven PD is not simply statistical, it is also rhetorical in that it bolsters conformity to existing policies. What is puzzling is that the “Data-Driven” report’s authors simultaneously acknowledge and ignore this situation. Echoing critiques of misleading and self-serving 1960s Defense Department “research,” they note that “current [PD] research and
evaluation systems in place often seem to justify programs, campaigns, and budgets” yet the authors recommend changes that surely will be used to legitimize subsequent elaborations of many of these programs, campaigns, and budgets.[41]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,”18.
Rather than an unacknowledged error or the intellectual inability to identify such contradictions, we propose that the authors of the “Data-Driven” report generally see this problem but, nevertheless, choose to ignore it. If this is correct, the question that needs to be answered is why? To respond directly, below we draw upon concepts from Marx to supplement Edwards’ discourse-centered approach. To productively connect Edwards’ and Marx’s approaches, however, we first need to explain how the institutional context of ACPD’s report influences its characterization of PD’s Cold War past—a preferred narrative that shapes PD’s present and future.
Whether during the Cold War or post-9/11-era, by the very nature of the institutional framework of their analysis, when writing a report for a country’s foreign policy officials, scholars are compelled (whether consciously or not) to frame what they produce in accordance with the “realities” at hand (as James Joyce famously quipped, “My consumers are they not my producers?”). Indeed, all scholarly work is influenced by the vested interests that directly or institutionally shape intellectual capacities. While, ideally, academics—protected by tenure and the university—are relatively free to think openly and reflexively, their “real world” circumstances (from the research cultures of their institutions, to the need to gain or maintain access to institutional arenas, to the commercial interests of their publishers) all shape what can or cannot be said and, in the context of policy questions, what can or cannot be conveyed as being reasonable and actionable. The “Data-Driven” report reflects these general limitations, but not without some remarkable moments of hesitation and even selfcontradiction.
In his introduction to the report, Nicholas Cull, for example, asserts that US PD, carried out primarily through the now disbanded USIA (United States Information Agency), effectively exposed Eastern Europe and the USSR to “Western ideas:”
The leaders of revolutions spoke powerfully of the influence of US international broadcasting and analysts noted the role that exposure to western ideas through exchanges had in laying the foundations for change. Ironically the agency’s success in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union contained the seeds of its decline. USIA had always justified itself as a necessity of the Cold War. Once the Cold War was ‘won’ its political pay-masters saw it as an ideal source of a ‘peace dividend’ budget saving.[42]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,”11.
There are, of course, many interpretations as to the reasons for the collapse of Soviet and East European communism.[43]Michael Cox, Rethinking the Soviet Collapse: Soveitology, the Death of Communism and the New Russia (New York:Continuum Intl. Pub. Group, 1998); David M. Kotz and Fred Weir, Revolution from Above: The Demise of the Soviet System (London: Routledge, 1997); Ralph Miliband and Leo Pantich, “Preface,” Socialist Register 27 (1991); Robin Okey, The Demise of Communist East Europe: 1989 in Context (London: Arnold, 2004). As Cull intimates, among PD scholars, the theory that the information and ideas disseminated through American state agencies, especially the USIA, played an important role conveys an implicit bias that legitimizes PD generally and the saliency of the “Data-Driven” report more specifically. It should be pointed out that we do not raise this issue as a means of simply dismissing Cull’s assertion. Instead, we wonder if this “truth,” coupled with its widespread use in associating the contemporary problem of Islamic extremism with the Cold War, is at least as much self-serving as it is insightful. The takenfor-grantedness of PD’s assumed past utility reveals, we argue, that the “Data-Driven” report itself is imbued with “baked in” institutional interests that otherwise might go unnoticed, especially in a policy paper crafted by seemingly objective academics.
This generalized and partial explanation for the report’s orientations is not novel; once any scholar is tasked to conduct research and submit recommendations—particularly on an assumed problem requiring actionable guidance—the intellectual straightjacket that is an obvious component of all nation-state policymaking (and one traditionally resisted within the university) is almost certainly strapped on. We suggest, however, that there is more to it than this: The reified object of the “Data-Driven” report—digital technologies—also plays a significant (but largely unseen) role in shaping or, to be more precise, mediating the thinking behind the report itself. Indeed, the report’s very title—“Data-Driven Public Diplomacy”— implies that data itself has become a form of agency in this policy arena.
In his introduction, Cull recognizes (and seemingly regrets) the actualization of what we might observe to be a form of technological determinism (i.e., technology itself constituting a decisive and, indeed, independent social agent). Cull traces this determinism to the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, which, he says, “imposed a considerable administrative burden on the entire agency [the USIA] by introducing a requirement to generate a hierarchy of goals and deliver annual assessments of the extent to which these had been met.”[44]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 11. Cull continues, “While logical on paper, it proved a poor fit for the agency’s work,” and he goes on to discuss post-9/11 efforts to better measure PD’s results as, “The quest to measure the un-measurable.”[45]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 11-12, emphasis added. Yet, on the same page, Cull writes that “the new tools of social media make new kinds of evaluation possible even as the communication environment requires an ever more nuanced approach for an ever more savvy audience, evaluation has an unprecedented significance. It must be part of the DNA of public diplomacy’s future.”[46]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 12, emphasis added.
Measurement and evaluation of what a PD program has achieved or can achieve are therefore positioned to be both dubious and inevitable. Cull recognizes measurement and evaluation’s DNA-like entrenchment in contemporary PD alongside its inadequacies and contradictions. Thus, introducing the ACPD report is a leading PD academic and policy analyst who appears to know that the mechanization of knowledge that a data-driven PD furthers is neither doable or desirable, yet he accepts it as inevitable. Collectively, the scholars writing the “Data-Driven” report propose the renovation of PD on foundations that are far from stable yet, they assert, build it we must. As the short history of PD presented by Cull concludes, data-driven policies now are in place and, going forward, “actionable research” and “measured forms of impact evaluation” are crucial for PD’s “maximal utility.”[47]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 16. We next identify what might be a principal contributor to this contradiction.
4. “Data-Driven” Technological Fetishism
In its introduction and subsequent pages, the “Data-Driven” report reflects the pervasiveness of something more complex and powerful than just technological determinism: technological fetishism. According to David Harvey, this kind of fetish reflects:
the habit humans have of endowing real or imagined objects or entities with self-contained, mysterious and even magical powers to move and shape the world in distinctive ways. The technological changes that we see all around us are, of course, very real. They are a constitutive feature of how we live our daily lives.[48]David Harvey, “The Fetish of Technology: Causes and Consequences,” Macalester International 13, no. 1 (2003): 7, emphasis added.
This focus on fetishized relations in daily life as constitutive is important in that it underlines that fetishistic thinking is not based in the mind. It is instead rooted in concrete human relations. A policy official, for example, almost certainly knows that digital technologies do not have the intrinsic power to prescribe or impel specific outcomes but, because others work and act as if they do, they in fact generate an experienced social reality; they entail a tangible form of agency. As a technology or technique is institutionalized and utilized (e.g., the internet), people really do organize their social relations, investments, and public policies around its existence as an unquestionably central agent of history. In this sense, the magic of the fetish is real. As the thing fetishized is treated as if it is powerful, it in effect exercises power.
To reiterate, the technological fetish is not some kind of twisted condition of a defective mind; it is an experiential outcome of “normal” social relations. More generally, in modern society, most relations are mediated by money, contracts, technologies, and other such things. What occurs in the fetish is the mind not inverting reality but, instead, its recognition of a real inversion. In contemporary society, the (dead) products of social relations— including technologies—experientially mediate our relations and realities. Fetishization, therefore, is more than just reification (the taken-for-grantedness of human creations) or technological determinism. With the fetish, a dual reality is recognized. Specifically, most people know or have the capacity to know that a fetish is an arbitrary social construction but, through the conditions of one’s relations, act as if it is not. By comparison, technological determinism—in practically all its iterations—is not consciously understood and accepted.[49]Sally Wyatt, “Technological Determinism Is Dead; Long Live Technological Determinism,” In The Handbook of Scienceand Technology Studies, ed. Edward J. Hackett et al. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008), 165-80. Generally, technological determinism more directly reflects the reification of things while the technological fetish cannot, by comparison, be simply eradicated through some form of critical reflection. Instead, it constitutes what Slavoj Žižek calls (when referencing the fetish generally) an “objective illusion”—a “reality” that is inseparable from the “real world” of human relations, including the real world of policymaking.[50]Savoj Žižek, The Universal Exception (New York: Continuum, 2006), 340.
Illustrating continuity between the Cold War and post-9/11 eras, the “Data-Driven” report demonstrates that the “real world” of PD seems to fundamentally require an unyielding march toward the generation and use of evermore precise and measurable forms of data. The report’s assertion of a “recent movement toward more data-driven planning and measurement” as a “positive shift in public diplomacy” both elides this historical continuity and undermines the more subjective, indeterminate, and human elements of PD.[51]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,”17. For the “Data-Driven” report’s authors, this problem need not be dwelled upon. Why? A circular and arguably idealistic answer is given: “Those involved in international broadcasting and public diplomacy research and evaluation are impressive both for their deep loyalty to US diplomacy generally and the need for measurement specifically.” [52]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,”17.
In much of the report, while technology-mediated and quantitative methods are recognized to have their limitations, they constitute an inevitable and necessary “way forward,” although a “way forward” towards precisely what remains unclear.[53]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 47. By its conclusion, however, the report implicitly answers this unposed question with a call to, among other things, refine and nuance various forms of data using more developed social media assessment capabilities. The fetish, it seems, both obscures the question and structures the answers. Thus, what has become a common sense means of policy empowerment—digital technologies and data— contributes to analytical disempowerment. As with so many other mechanized applications, digital technologies do more things for us and, in the process, intellectual capabilities onceexercised are subsumed.
Because technological fetishism stems from structural conditions and material relations, for analysts and officials aspiring to redress its contradictory implications, to repeat, their individual recognition of its presence is not in itself a sufficient response. The technological fetish, we argue, mediates and serves to externalize the problem it appears to be redressing as isolatable and resolvable. Anti-American extremism, for example, is not presented as a problem that the American state, or interests that it represents, have directly contributed to.[54]Kamel Daoud, “Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It,” New York Times, November 20, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/opinion/saudi-arabia-an-isis-that-has- made-it.html?_r=0. This historical dimension of foreign policy, for practical purposes, lies outside the parameters of the analysis. Not only are the foreign policy continuities concerning American power and the problem it is confronting obscured, technological developments are themselves insulated from their socio-economic contexts.
Assessing the “Data-Driven” report and US foreign policies involving data and digital technology through an understanding of technological fetishism clarifies the implications and contradictions at hand. With this in mind, calls for the innovative use of data through PD measurement and evaluation developments should be accompanied by a far more critical recognition of the ways in which such appeals demonstrate continuity with entrenched institutionalized interests and Cold War-era assumptions about the possibilities of controlling human beings. However, this kind of reflexive historical and relational perspective becomes difficult to imagine given the mediating role of technological fetishism in now “common sense” efforts to, in effect (and to repeat Cull’s statement once again), measure the unmeasurable. Following Gramsci, common sense itself is a way of thinking that, despite its logical and empirical shortcomings, serves as a shared and often useful guide in people’s lives. As with the fetish, this usefulness involves the fact that others also act as if it makes sense. Gramsci contrasts common sense to what he calls “good sense” which, instead, entails a conscious understanding of the complexities, dualisms, and even the fetishisms that pervade everyday life.[55]Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 332-35, 419-25. We assert that PD needs to be guided by less common sense and more good sense.
5. A Different Future for Public Diplomacy
Some analysts who are not obligated to a policymaking raison d'être and who are pursuing seemingly idealistic research agendas (ironically) can be useful to policymakers. Corman, Trethewey, and Goodall, for example, do not hesitate to call US strategic communication models “dysfunctional,” arguing that they have “diminished [our] status among world opinion leaders and further[ed] the recruitment goals of violent extremists.”[56]Stephen R. Corman, Angela Trethewey, and Bud Goodall, “A 21st Century Model for Communication in the Global War of Ideas” (Report no: 0701, Consortium for Strategic Communication, Arizona State University, April 3, 2007), 2, http://csc.asu.edu/ wp-content/uploads/pdf/114.pdf. Instead of asserting the need for tighter message control through the use of ever improving measurement and evaluation techniques, they explore the productivity of acknowledging the fallibility of American policies. “For instance,” the authors state, “rather than always promoting the virtues of democracy, the United States might try messages that discuss its problems and invite comparison of these faults to the problems of other forms of government.”[57]Corman, Trethewey, and Goodall, “A 21st Century Model,” 13. They also urge officials to “deemphasize control and embrace complexity, replace repetition of messages with experimental variation, consider moves that will disrupt the existing system, and make contingency plans for failure.”[58]Corman, Trethewey, and Goodall, “A 21st Century Model,” 15. We find Corman, Trethewey, and Goodall’s critical impulse refreshing, innovative, and perhaps even a good place to begin reconsidering the foundational premises of PD.
Although the “Data-Driven” report’s principal recommendations have little to do with reconsidering the foundations of PD in this way, an opening for change is revealed in more than just Cull’s two-minded introduction; it also surfaces in one of its recommendations. Specifically, its authors state, “In the current environment, it is hard to imagine how critical, forward looking research designs could be implemented given existing cultures of fear and risk-aversion. State Department and BBG leadership should reward and encourage honest and balanced evaluations and encourage the admission of setbacks for stronger programming.”[59]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 20. Furthermore, “[e]valuations should be written in a balanced manner that highlights the successes and failures of particular campaigns and activities.”[60]Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 22. Although we find it difficult to believe that PD policymakers and researchers will use this recommendation to reconsider their fundamental working assumptions, calls for “honest and balanced evaluations” might, going forward, promote more thoughtful accounts of the underlying policies and premises that PD campaigns and activities are designed to support.
Finally, some solace might be taken in light of Cull’s recognition, although largely implicit, of the dubiousness of the “Data-Driven” project itself. It is likely that only the more distant and critical analyst—one relatively removed from policymaking and its fetishmediated realities—has the capacity needed to place PD on a reflexive and productive path, one very different from the cul-de-sac within which it is now travelling.
In critiquing the ACPD’s “Data-Driven” report, and the characterizations and biases on which it rests, we conclude that the enrollment of evermore sophisticated analytical technologies, particularly as they reflect and further fetishize policy relations and preferred narratives, is not a useful innovation of PD. These developments ultimately renew and entrench questionable Cold War-era assumptions about technology and the nature of state power. Data-driven approaches have less to do with building mutual understanding and peace than with supporting governments’ strategic interests and ambitions. The danger is that datadriven approaches will lead officials further away from PD’s humanistic capabilities. Just as stakeholders have witnessed US educational institutions recently diminish or eliminate important aspects of instruction in order to boost quantitative assessment outcomes,[61]Lindsey Layton, “Study Says Standardized Testing is Overwhelming Nation’s Public Schools,” Washington Post, October 24, 2015. datadriven PD risks diminishing (or, more likely, not considering) PD’s more useful—yet more difficult to assess—potentials.
A critical perspective maintains, however, that the twenty-first century trajectory of PD is not inevitable, particularly as the technological choices being made are, simultaneously, political choices.[62]Barker, Cultural Studies; Edwards, Closed World. Through critique and a more reflexive effort to understand these policy choices, wider and less contradictory alternatives become at least imaginable. As Edwards notes, objects of knowledge are produced under specific conditions from materials that are themselves historical products, practices, objects, and symbols.[63]Edwards, Closed World. In this context, for academics advising policymakers on how to manage a specified problem, their elaboration and, indeed, legitimization of the magical powers vested in digital technologies and measurement techniques is profoundly contradictory. The presence of the technological fetish obscures the historical and material relations shaping contemporary policy delusions; yet, when applied reflexively in our analysis, the technological fetish also illuminates and clarifies the (contradictory) realities of why PD officials and commentators are thinking and acting in certain ways. In regard to the authors of the “Data-Driven” report itself, to quote Maurice Godelier, “it is not the subject who deceives himself, but reality which deceives him.”[64]Sean Sayers, Reality and Reason: Dialectic and the Theory of Knowledge (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 203.
Participating in fetishizing technology and, in turn, facilitating its mediation of policy, promotes an ahistorical and potentially circular analysis. This mediation entails technology’s paradoxical disempowerment of the same analysts and officials who turn to technology for empowerment. Once again, empowerment to do precisely what remains unclear, and this confusion may be related to the dualistic reality of the fetish itself. Our conclusion is that the common sense that more institutional monitoring, quantification, and measurable coordination will lead to more effective PD is something far removed from the more difficult task of exercising good sense—a way of conceptualizing PD that, we suggest, might yield a much different approach to peace, security, and development.
1. ↑ Ronit Kampf, Ilan Manor, and Elad Segev, “Digital Diplomacy 2.0? A Cross-National Comparison of Public Engagement in Facebook and Twitter,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 10, no. 4 (2015): 331-62, doi:10.1163/1871191X-12341318; Rauf Arif, Guy J. Golan, and Brian Moritz, “Mediated Public Diplomacy: US and Taliban Relations with Pakistani Media,” Media, War & Conflict 7, no. 2 (2014): 201-17, doi:10.1177/1750635214538619; James Pamment, “Digital Diplomacy as Transmedia Engagement: Aligning Theories of Participatory Culture with International Advocacy Campaigns,” New Media & Society 18, no. 9 (2016): 2046- 62, doi:10.1177/1461444815577792.
2. ↑ James Rider, “Proving Public iplomacy Programs Work,” The Foreign Service Journal 92, no. 10 (2015): 19-22, accessed March 30, 2016, http://www.afsa.org/sites/default/files/december2015fsj.pdf.
3. ↑ US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: Progress Towards Measuring the Impact of Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting Activities,” September 16, 2014, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/231945.pdf.
4. ↑ Paul Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997).
5. ↑ Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol.1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977).
6. ↑ Chris Barker, Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice (London: Sage, 2002), 17.
7. ↑ US Department of State, Eighteenth Report of the United States Advisory Commission on Information, 88th Cong. 1st sess. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1963), accessed March 20, 2016, http://www.state.gov/pdcommission/reports/175429.htm.
8. ↑ Eighteenth Report of the United States Advisory Commission, 21.
9. ↑ Seth Center, “The Evolution of American Public Diplomacy: Four Historical Insights,” December 2, 2013, https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/219025.pdf.
10. ↑ Eighteenth Report of the United States Advisory Commission, 22.
11. ↑ Eighteenth Report of the United States Advisory Commission, 3.
12. ↑ US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “2014 Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy,” December 11,2014, http://www.state.gov/pdcommission/reports/235008.htm, 10.
13. ↑ Jeffrey R. Cooper, Curing Analytic Pathologies: Pathways to Improved Intelligence Analysis (Pittsburgh, PA: Government Printing Office, 2005), 23, accessed March 15, 2016, http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA500058.
14. ↑ Tijana Milosevic, “Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy Examines Evaluation Tools,” Alliance for International Exchange, July 21, 2010, http://www.alliance-exchange.org/policy-monitor/07/21/2010/advisory-commission-public-diplomacyexamines-evaluation-tools.
15. ↑ Lisa Heyn, “Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy is Reinstated After 19-Months Hiatus,” Alliance for International Exchange, July, 31, 2013, http://www.alliance-exchange.org/policy-monitor/07/31/2013/advisory-commission-public-diplomacyreinstated-after-19-months-hiatus.
16. ↑ See “Minutes and Transcript for December 2013 Meeting of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy,”
December 2, 2013, https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/219024.pdf.
17. ↑ “US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy,” U.S. Department of State, accessed May 2, 2016, http://www.state.gov/pdcommission/index.htm. Assessing additional contextual factors would be useful in further understanding the production of the 2014 “Data-Driven” report, but doing so would not change our fundamental critique of its discourse.
18. ↑ For minutes and transcript from the quarterly meeting, see US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: Progress towards Measuring the Impact of Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting Activities,” September 16, 2014, https://www.state.gov/pdcommission/meetings/232682.htm.
19. ↑ Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” par. 2.
20. ↑ Patricia Kushlis, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: An Evaluation of an Evaluation of and Evaluation,” WhirledView, October 3, 2014, http://whirledview.typepad.com/whirledview/2014/10/data-driven-public-diplomacy-an-evaluation-of-an-evaluation-ofan-evaluation.html., para. 2.
21. ↑ James Pamment, “Articulating Influence: Toward a Research Agenda for Interpreting the Evaluation of Soft Power, Public
22. ↑ Edwards, Closed World.
23. ↑ Edwards, Closed World, 15.
24. ↑ Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 19.
26. ↑ Ali Fischer, “Data-Driven Diplomacy: A Practical Guide,” CDP (blog) USC Center for Public Diplomacy, February 23, 2015, http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/data-driven-diplomacy-practical-guide, para. 4.
27. ↑ Fischer, “Data-Driven Diplomacy,” par. 5.
33. ↑ Lauren Martin and Stephanie Simon, “A Formula for Disaster: The Department of Homeland Security’s Virtual Ontology,” Space and Polity 12 (2008): 286.
36. ↑ Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 2.
38. ↑ Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 32 and 20.
39. ↑ Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,”18.
40. ↑ Eric C. Nisbet, Matthew C. Nisbet, Dietram A. Scheufele, and James E. Shanahan, “Public Diplomacy, Television News, and Muslim Opinion,” The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 9, no. 2 (2004): 33, doi:10.1177/1081180x04263459.
43. ↑ Michael Cox, Rethinking the Soviet Collapse: Soveitology, the Death of Communism and the New Russia (New York:Continuum Intl. Pub. Group, 1998); David M. Kotz and Fred Weir, Revolution from Above: The Demise of the Soviet System (London: Routledge, 1997); Ralph Miliband and Leo Pantich, “Preface,” Socialist Register 27 (1991); Robin Okey, The Demise of Communist East Europe: 1989 in Context (London: Arnold, 2004).
45. ↑ Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 11-12, emphasis added.
46. ↑ Advisory Commission, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” 12, emphasis added.
48. ↑ David Harvey, “The Fetish of Technology: Causes and Consequences,” Macalester International 13, no. 1 (2003): 7, emphasis added.
49. ↑ Sally Wyatt, “Technological Determinism Is Dead; Long Live Technological Determinism,” In The Handbook of Scienceand Technology Studies, ed. Edward J. Hackett et al. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008), 165-80.
50. ↑ Savoj Žižek, The Universal Exception (New York: Continuum, 2006), 340.
54. ↑ Kamel Daoud, “Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It,” New York Times, November 20, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/opinion/saudi-arabia-an-isis-that-has- made-it.html?_r=0.
55. ↑ Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 332-35, 419-25.
56. ↑ Stephen R. Corman, Angela Trethewey, and Bud Goodall, “A 21st Century Model for Communication in the Global War of Ideas” (Report no: 0701, Consortium for Strategic Communication, Arizona State University, April 3, 2007), 2, http://csc.asu.edu/ wp-content/uploads/pdf/114.pdf.
57. ↑ Corman, Trethewey, and Goodall, “A 21st Century Model,” 13.
61. ↑ Lindsey Layton, “Study Says Standardized Testing is Overwhelming Nation’s Public Schools,” Washington Post, October 24, 2015.
62. ↑ Barker, Cultural Studies; Edwards, Closed World.
64. ↑ Sean Sayers, Reality and Reason: Dialectic and the Theory of Knowledge (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 203.
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Tags: Cold War measurement and evaluation Public diplomacy technological fetishism
China Reaches Turkey? Radio Peking’s Turkish Language Broadcasts During the Cold War
The Geopolitical Origins of Turkish-American Relations: Revisiting the Cold War Years
Strategic Communication and the Marketization of Educational Exchange
Turkish Terrorism Studies: A Preliminary Assessment*
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Capital Needs Labour
ARTICLE | April 5, 2011 | BY Patrick Liedtke
Patrick Liedtke
The past three and a half years have seen a very rough ride for the world’s financial markets. Not only did the credit crisis (which The Geneva Association has studied intensively) directly impact the value of many real world assets (especially U.S. real estate) and stock markets with particular bearing on bank stocks, many derivatives and structured financial products; it has also led to a deeper rethinking of how we deal with financial risks and what role the provision of capital plays for the proper functioning of modern economies. In recent days,* the disasters in Japan have triggered further concerns about the available capital stock and its future productivity, bearing heavily on global stock market valuations. Much has been written about overcoming the crisis and (re)positioning those parts of our economic and financial system that suffered most to generate future growth. Unfortunately, less prominent in these discussions are the aspects that relate to an intelligent use of labour in an economic system that is leaving its deterministic origins – dating back to the important work of Adam Smith and the industrial revolution – even further behind it.
Many economies have made great strides to turn themselves into stock market economies. Even nations that until two decades ago had very different traditions have embraced an approach to producing wealth and welfare for their people based on activating capital to a maximum, often resorting to leveraged structures that would allow a greater exploitation of increasingly thinner layers of capital. Faced with historically unprecedented levels of stock market capitalization and a fundamental belief in (if not ever-lasting, at least) ever-returning bull markets (like those seen in the 1990s), only confirmed pessimists or incorrigible killjoys would consider possible sustained crash scenarios seriously. According to the disciples of the new financial age, even the last remaining sceptic must become convinced of the wonders of the new approach: lasting, almost limitless growth, high returns on capital (fuelled by increased leverage), no inflation – an investor's paradise.
If that is the case, where does the issue of labour come in? Under the traditional understanding, capital is supposed to be a complementary production factor to labour. But why work at all, when correctly invested capital is expected to produce returns that lead one to believe in the existence of a new form of perpetual motion? Capital, rather than being the complementary factor of production just mentioned, is now often perceived as an increasingly substitutive one. We are experiencing a new phenomenon in economic theory in the form of the automatic multiplication of capital's productive function. According to this approach, every stock market investment will be rewarded by a further, self-perpetuating increase. Capital creates more capital - the multiplier effect of compound interest. Labour is becoming increasingly irrelevant and, if one extrapolates this trend, will at some point no longer be necessary to achieve prosperity.
Even if this scenario is clearly exaggerated, its central tenets are present in the current debates about the functionality and organization of our economic systems. Governments everywhere are preparing the financial markets to meet the requirements of global capitalism. The 'new market' has ensured itself a permanent place in the operations of capital procurement and investment. The recent setbacks and the shortcomings made so obvious during the credit crisis and the now following sovereign debt crisis have mainly triggered a reconsideration of the resilience of the current system, but not a thorough questioning of at least some of its fundamental tenets. While one would expect that a near-death experience for the global financial system, such as the one the world witnessed at least once during the crisis, would trigger deeper rethinking, the energy of the leading actors has been targeted at symptoms rather than root causes:
If “too big to fail” is the problem, why not seriously consider avoiding “too big” in the first place?
If “too interconnected to fail” is the problem, why not think about reducing interconnections between actors and through various conglomerate structures?
If “wrong incentives for capital deployment” are the problem, why not try to make the system self-correcting rather than self-exploiting?
If “inadequate global supervisory structures” are the problem, why not tackle them directly?
It seems that too little of the resources aimed at correcting our economic and financial system is directly trying to solve the underlying setup. And in all of this, the role of labour, which is so crucial not only as a production factor but also for the social cohesion and stability it provides, is being forgotten. Threats to financial stability do not exclusively emanate out of capital markets. As the unrest in several Arab countries demonstrates yet again, without social stability there can be no financial stability. To underestimate the influence and importance of labour would be a serious error. However clear the complementary nature of labour and capital appears to be to the economist, it is often lost on the financial technocrats who are shaping the current discussions about financial stability. Unfortunately, it remains extremely difficult to quantify their relationship and relative importance. Estimates of the human capital of the USA, ranging between 50 and 90 percent of total American capital, thus are not only peculiar (not only due to their high degree of inexactness) but disconcerting as we implicitly admit that we do not know how our wealth is truly produced. Nevertheless one thing is certain: although the status of labour in a society is, to a major extent, determined by its relationship to capital, its role as a monetary factor of production is only of partial significance. It is therefore necessary to identify the various functions of labour:
The production function: Labour enables people to earn their living. Since the emergence of Homo Oeconomicus against the background of Calvinism and Capitalism, this particular function has ensured that labour is mainly equated with remunerated employment.
The allocation function: By using redistribution mechanisms, labour reallocates the resources available to the community. This function has been less comprehensively studied than the production function and analysis has principally focussed on monetary redistribution rather than on the allocation of unremunerated services.
The solidarity function: The social components of labour further the organization of communities and ensure social cohesion. The exclusion of e.g. the long-term unemployed by and from society provides evidence of the strong correlation between labour and social integration.
The sense and purpose function: Labour allows people to develop and express the values they believe in - 'we are what we produce/do'. This was an important theme in the report to the Club of Rome The Employment Dilemma and the Future of Work that Orio Giarini and I wrote together.
The focal points of the four functions of labour are shifting. Whereas remunerated labour used to be almost the sole focus of interest, in more recent times labour researchers, economists, philosophers and institutions (for example the Catholic Church in Pope John Paul II's 'Laborem Exercens') have investigated the concept of labour from different viewpoints and attempted to distinguish it from that of remunerated employment.
It is clear that even a comprehensive reorganization of access to capital in our society - for instance in the form of workforce participation in productive capital (an idea which has frequently been advanced in the past and failed almost as often), or the encouragement of the 'cult of equity and leverage' or the use of investment earnings to supplement pensions - cannot replace all the functions of labour. The concept of capital assets as a physical store of value in respect of labour expended which can later be released is an oversimplification. In our money-based economy, capital is an instrument which stimulates human and entrepreneurial activity. The future value of capital is thus strongly correlated with both these factors and is a clear indicator why, ultimately, any future standard of living does not depend on any accumulated (savings, pensions or other) rights, but on the willingness of society to keep activating its productive capacities.
Today we must take into account the increasingly complex processes in the organization of labour and capital, which are evident from the increased demands made on the persons involved and on modern risk management. Each technological advance raises the interaction of labour and capital to a new level, manifesting different risk structures and usually placing greater demands on people and their work. The capital investment required by a pedestrian in order to move around is virtually nil and the worst that can befall him is a sprained ankle. Motor vehicles involving greater capital investment drastically reduce journey time, but their use requires a more qualified type of labour and in the worst case they can kill people. As airplanes attain even higher speeds, the pilots have to undergo extensive training and a crash can cost the lives of several hundred people. However, more complicated demands are not limited to the use of technology, but extend over every stage from planning, design and production to disposal or processing. The application of atomic energy or biotechnology furnishes more extreme examples of these new structures. The problems in properly harnessing extreme technologies such as nuclear energy generation have become apparent long before the current Fukushima or the earlier Chernobyl disasters.
It is virtually impossible to quantify the interaction of labour and capital in the aforementioned examples realistically enough to allow generally valid (mathematical) production functions to be determined, which also remain fully suitable in the event of large technological and organizational advances. As complexity and capital intensity increase, society faces changes in the organization of work which require not only a more highly qualified workforce, but also people being able to adapt their qualifications to changing circumstances more readily. Existing knowledge must be renewed and updated ever more quickly. In this respect we can talk of an accelerating and regenerative society and economic system.
Society is regenerative, not only because it must ceaselessly bring its knowledge base up to date, but also because organizational forms are generally becoming more 'organic' and thus more sustainable and compatible with each other. Since the Club of Rome's first report on the limits of growth, this realization has gained acceptance in the environmental sector and is now spreading to others: medicine and biotechnology allow us to regenerate our bodies by means of operative and non-operative intervention and to stay active longer, the working world encourages life-long learning and thereby seeks to create the preconditions for the efficient use of an adequately qualified workforce over a longer period of time.
Further, we should not forget that in recent years advances in the techniques of capital management have themselves grown in complexity, being partially responsible for more volatile financial markets and, in consequence, also for the recent crisis. In the creative centres of the financial world in London and New York, the specialists who design, implement and supervise these complicated new financial instruments are called the 'rocket scientists' of finance, thus linking them to those pioneers of space travel entrusted with the responsibility for highly complex processes. The financial debacle that has still not fully released the world from its grip has also shown that Nobel Prize winners of the modern economy can trigger catastrophes in the financial markets, when they make mistakes in their own specialist areas.
Capital instead of labour is utopian – capital needs labour, as much as highly productive labour needs capital. If our attention is currently focussed on the world's stock exchanges and financial markets, this is only the swing of a pendulum looking for the next element capable of bringing another increase in the standard of living. Although we may currently be intent on the possibilities offered by capital, trying desperately to repair the damages done to our markets and introducing new rules and regulation to guarantee proper functioning of financial operations, tomorrow labour will once again dominate the agenda. In the long term, in our society labour will always enjoy a superior status to capital and will exceed its characteristic as a function of production, because labour is characterized by other and more qualities, which capital does not possess.
The monetary value of labour will continue to be based on the interaction of the markets and competition between the supply and demand sides of labour and subject to an imperfect selection process. The social value of labour must however be determined by the society concerned, for labour is more than monetary production.
Geneva Association. Systemic Risk in Insurance – an analysis of insurance and financial stability, special report of The Geneva Association Systemic Risk Working Group. Geneva: The Geneva Association, 2010.
Giarini, Orio., and Liedtke, Patrick. The Employment Dilemma and the Future of Work. Geneva: The Geneva Association, 2006.
Liedtke, Patrick. “From Bismarck’s Pension Trap to the New Silver Workers of Tomorrow: Reflections on the German Pension Problem” European Papers on the New Welfare 4(2006):71-76.
Liedtke, Patrick. “New Risks for Old-Age Security.” (Editorial for the Four Pillars Newsletter of The Geneva Association), Four Pillars 47(2010).
Reday-Mulvey, Genevive. Working beyond 60: Key policies and practices in Europe. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
*. The last revision of this article was on 16 March,2011. just five days into the earthquakes, the tsunamis and the problems with the nuclear reactors and already the world’s stock markets are searching for a new equilibrium in the face of a shifting risk landscape.
Secretary General and Managing Director, The Geneva Association, Switzerland; Email- patrick_liedtke@genevaassociation.org
World Academy of Art & Science Draft Vision & Mission
- Strategic Planning Committee
Call for United Action
- Heitor Gurgulino de Souza
Great Divorce: Economics & Philosophy
Policy for Full Employment
The Perfect Storm: Economics, Finance and Socio-Ecology
Science and Economics: The Case of Uncertainty & Disequilibrium
Human Rights, Liberty & Socio-Economic Justice
- Winston P. Nagan
- Patrick M. Liedtke
Global Prospects for Full Employment
- Garry Jacobs and Ivo Šlaus
Grossly Distorted Picture: GDP Still Misleading
- Hazel Henderson
Biopolicy – Building A Green Society
Towards a Global Democratic Revolution
- Andreas Bummel
- T. Natarajan
Revolution in Human Affairs: The Root of Societal Violence
- Jasjit Singh
Universal Nuclear Disarmament: What Can India Offer?
- Manpreet Sethi
Report on Activities of WAAS and Club of Rome
Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
- CAPS-WAAS Workshop
New Delhi, February 7-8, 2011
Revolution in Human Affairs
New Delhi, February 9, 2011
The European Leadership Network
Thoughts and Prayers for our Japanese Friends
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A slave girl and a jailer
No, it’s not a country song, though it would make a good one. It’s a story right out of the Bible, about two unlikely characters who came to faith in Jesus in first century Philippi. The slave girl was possessed of a spirit of divination, by which she made lots of money for her owners who used her as a fortune teller. Paul exorcised her demon and cancelled her sorcery’s license in one fell swoop, and for his troubles he ended up being beaten with rods and locked in stocks in the inner prison. That’s where we meet the jailer.
We don’t know much about this man. Tradition says that he was a retired Roman soldier, too old to fight with the Roman army, but not too old to work in the local prison. He was comfortable with using violence when necessary, but happy when he could make it through a night without a fight. He had finished processing the two newest prisoners, Paul and Silas, shoved them in their cell, locked them down, and was hoping the rest of the night shift would be uneventful. You cannot make up a story as fantastic as what was about to happen.
Because on this night, at midnight, the other inmates heard a sound they had never heard before in a prison, especially out of the mouths of men who had just been beaten to a bloody pulp. What would normally provoke a vile spewing of venomous curses produced something completely different in these two new inmates. Paul and Silas were singing praises to God. The rest of the cellblock was shocked into silence. But we are just getting started, here. Singing prisoners was surprise number one. As the concert continued, the second surprise of the night happened. An earthquake shook the ground violently, leaving all the prison doors open and every prisoner’s shackles loosened. The ultimate surprise was next: Not one prisoner escaped. They were all free and they could have run away, but no one did. That brings two questions to my mind: First, why did God cause the earthquake that opened the prison doors and set the captives free? Second, why did all the prisoners stay right where they were when the doors were opened? There’s one answer to both: God loved a Philippian jailer and had plans for him. Had even one of the prisoners escaped, the Roman government would have required the jailer’s life. I love the irony in that: Their escape would have cost the jailer his life. But Jesus’ life paid for his escape. When the jailer took out his short sword and prepared to kill himself, thinking the prisoners had run away, Paul yelled to him to stop. “We are all here,” Paul said.
The jailer ran and fell down before Paul and Silas and asked that question that, dear reader, is more important than any other question you could ever ask: “What must I do to be saved?” And the answer that Paul and Silas gave is so simple: “Believe in the Lord Jesus.”
Believing in the Lord Jesus and giving Him your life is the most powerful thing any of us can do. Not just for salvation; it is the best way to grow in your faith. It is the best help in avoiding sin. It is the best path to making a real difference in the world. It is the best way to lay up treasures in heaven. It is the only way to find fulfillment and success and significance in this life.
Believe in the Lord Jesus!
The first recorded sit-in
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We will never ungod God
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Be famous for your faith
Pixar's Principles for Your Church
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« Pilatus PC-24 Rollout
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Government to Take Over Troubled Malaysia Airlines
By Capt. Ivan | August 10, 2014 - 5:41 PM | August 10, 2014 Aviation News from around the Web
Malaysia’s government will carry out a “complete overhaul” of its troubled national airline in an attempt to revive company after it was hit by two devastating disasters this year.
The move on Friday to de-list Malaysia Airline System and take it private had been expected since ticket sales slumped in the wake of the baffling disappearance of MH370 on March 8 with 239 passengers and crew. The airline’s crisis deepened on July 17 when another jet, Flight MH17, was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
State investment fund Khazanah Nasional’s [KHAZA.UL] proposed 1.4 billion ringgit ($436 million) buy-out of the shares it does not own paves the way for it to take steps such as cutting back on less-profitable routes, trimming the bloated payroll and installing a new management team.
A full-scale rebranding of the airline, which has reported losses for the past three years, could also be considered as it grapples with shaky customer confidence following the twin tragedies.
Khazanah said it will need cooperation “from all parties” to undertake the restructuring, covering the airline’s operations, business model, finances, staff and the regulatory environment.
“Nothing less will be required in order to revive our national airline to be profitable as a commercial entity, and to service its function as a critical national development entity,” it said in a statement.
Political considerations will play a important role in the restructuring of the company, which like other state-owned firms, has been used by the government to promote development goals such as affirmative action policies for majority ethnic Malays. Reuters first reported on the possible restructuring in July.
Khazanah has injected more than 5 billion ringgit ($1.6 billion) into MAS over the last 10 years, as it has increasingly struggled in the face of competition from upstart budget airlines such as AirAsia Bhd.
POLITICAL SENSITIVITIES
Attempts to restructure the airline over the years have been politically fraught due to heavy opposition to job losses from its influential labor union.
“There is no point in going to another airline or getting some private equity team involved or anything like that because the government will effectively have to offer some sweeteners to the union to diminish their power and diminish their size,” said Timothy Ross, Asia transportation analyst at Credit Suisse. “They probably employ 5,000 people too many.”
The carrier has a fleet of 151 planes and a total staff of nearly 20,000 employees.
The head of Malaysia Airline’s main labor union said it would support the plan only if the current top management team, led by chief executive Ahmad Jauhari, was replaced.
“Ahmad Jauhari has had three years to turn things around. We’ve made it very clear, we will support a new team that has the aviation knowledge and integrity for the job,” Mohd Jabarullah Abdul Kadir told Reuters.
Khazanah will offer 27 sen for each share in the company it does not own, amounting to 1.38 billion ringgit, a 12.5 percent premium to the closing share price on Thursday, MAS said in a statement after suspending its shares.
“DRAMATIC IMPACT”
Khazanah, which owns 69.37 percent of MAS and is chaired by Prime Minister Najib Razak, said it expected to give more details of the planned restructuring by the end of August after it has secured approval from shareholders.
The airline and its key stakeholders are in talks with banks for a strategic overhaul that could include the partial sale of its engineering unit and an upgrade of its ageing fleet.
The company turned in its worst quarterly performance in two years in the January-March period and has been burning through its operating cash.
The carrier warned in May of a “dramatic impact” on passenger traffic from the loss of Flight MH370. The July 17 disaster, in which MH17 was believed to have been shot down by Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine, sped up government efforts to restructure the airline, sources said.
Sources had told Reuters in July that planned to take the airline private as the first step in a major restructuring. The state investor is working with CIMB Investment Bank on the restructuring, the sources added.
“This is the sensible way forward given that massive surgery is required,” said Christopher Wong, a senior investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management Asia.
Mohshin Aziz, an analyst from Maybank Investment Bank Research, said the price offered by Khazanah was a fair deal for minority investors.
Tagged Malaysia Airlines, Malaysia Airlines MH17, Malaysia Airlines MH370. Bookmark the permalink.
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Population 81.4 million
GDP growth (%)* 13.4 3.8 -1.5 -3.6
Inflation (yearly average, %) 9.0 9.6 29.5 34.1
Budget balance (% GDP) -2.2 -1.8 -4.7 -5.2
Current account balance (% GDP) 4.0 2.2 1.3 0.2
(e): Estimate. (f): Forecast. * Iranian calendar: 2019 year runs from the 20th March 2018 to the 21st March 2020.
Significant gas and oil reserves (second and fourth largest in the world, respectively)
Very low external debt
Strategic position in the sub-region
Large market
US withdrawal from Vienna Agreement
High inflation
Social unrest
Unfavourable business environment
The presence of Revolutionary Guards in the country’s productive system and their collusion with political circles could hinder the opening-up of the economy
World Bank governance indicators place the country at a high level of risk
Sanctions pushed the Iranian economy into recession in 2018
In May 2018, US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from the Vienna Agreement signed in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) and the restoration of US sanctions within 90 days (180 days for oil exports). Although this decision does not invalidate the previous agreement, it is likely to plunge the Iranian economy into a new period of recession by gradually cutting it off from the rest of the world. The first sanctions-related impacts began to be felt in 2018, and the economic situation is expected to steadily worsen. In response to the US measures, the European Union has put in place so-called blocking measures that would protect companies carrying out legal activities in Iran from the extraterritoriality of US sanctions (laws allowing non-US companies to be prosecuted abroad, provided they have a link with the US). Despite this, several European companies have said that they are shutting down their activities. At the same time, under American pressure, the main Asian partners have scaled back their purchases of Iranian oil, resulting in a decline in oil exports since August 2018. Exports are expected to fall from a monthly average of 2.1 million barrels per day (mbd) in 2017 to 1.1 mbd in 2019. The non-oil economy is also expected to suffer from declining trade and investment. Fears of a shortage of dollars caused the rial to collapse on the parallel foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene through commercial banks. The Iranian currency is said to have lost more than 80% of its value, driving up the prices of imported goods. Inflation is expected to rise again above 30%, hurting businesses and households alike.
The government deficit widens as the current account surplus narrows
The government deficit is expected to widen significantly in 2019 in view of the decline in budgetary revenues. These revenues will be hurt still further by the contraction of oil income, which represents 40% of revenues, and by the decline in non-oil revenues, which are expected to suffer from the economic recession. Rial depreciation, coupled with higher oil prices, should, however, help to mitigate the effects of the sanctions. In response to the US decision, the government is considering implementing a package of measures to support the private sector and address food and pharmaceutical shortages.
The reinstatement of sanctions is also likely to impact Iranian banks, which remain unprofitable and poorly capitalised. In 2016, the country undertook a comprehensive reform programme with the support of the International Monetary Fund to accelerate the upgrading of the banking system to international standards and strengthen its contribution to the economy. US authorities want to exclude Iran from the SWIFT network, which would prevent Iranian banks from making international transfers as was the case before 2015. Although the interbank communication network is managed by a Belgian cooperative society, it handles a large proportion of transactions in US dollars, which does not protect it from the extraterritoriality of American law. To defend European interests and maintain trade relations with Iran, the European Union is talking about setting up a euro-based exchange system that could replaceSWIFT.
Despite rial depreciation and declining imports, the contraction in oil exports, which account for 80% of total exports, will cancel out the current account surplus almost completely. Iranian reserves are decreasing but remain comfortable (14 months of imports).
US sanctions weaken the Iranian President
The American decision to withdraw from the Vienna Agreement will not be without consequences for Iranian policy. The restoration of sanctions has seriously weakened President Hassan Rouhani, who was re-elected in 2017 for a four-year term, and his government. Under pressure from Parliament, the Ministers of Labour and Economy were dismissed in August 2018. The President also had to defend his economic record before MPs. On that occasion, Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated his confidence in him, but Mr Rouhani seems to have lost a large part of his supporters in the reform camp and remains prey to criticism from conservatives. Ordinary Iranians were first in line to be affected by the sanctions and they are once again facing soaring inflation and shortages of consumer goods. There were many popular protests in 2018 and more are expected in 2019.
Iran's relationship with the Sunni countries in the region is expected to remain tense, but the country will continue its efforts to cooperate with European and Asian countries to limit the impact of sanctions and its isolation.
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You are here: Arts > Movies & TV >
Singer Yang Kun plays a boxer in new film
0 Comment(s) Print E-mail chinadaily.com.cn, June 18, 2019
Singer-actor Yang Kun reveals the behind-the-sequence stories of his new film The Heart. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Around a year ago, Singer Yang Kun suspended all his music assignments to spend time on boxing training. Now, his upcoming film, The Heart, starring him as an underdog boxer, will open across Chinese mainland on June 14.
The film, directed by Liu Fendou, best known for the 2008 critically acclaimed feature Ocean Flame, is about a former boxing champion's redemption.
The sports-themed film was shot in China and Thailand.
To play a professional boxer, Yang put on 25 kilograms and had to wake up as early as 5 am to train.
Recently during a promotional event in Beijing, Yang explained that the story attracted him for its depiction of humanity and conflicts.
Born in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region in 1972, Yang began his career as a pop singer in 1994, winning a string of best singer awards as well as releasing nine albums.
Besides Yang, the movie also features actress Xia Zitong.
A still image of The Heart. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Singer-actor Yang Kun reveals the behind-the-sequence stories of his new film The Heart.
chinadaily.com.cn
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Fernand Khnopff
In Fosset Rain
mk98 1890 Oil on panel 19x23.5
1858-1921 Belgian Fernand Khnopff Gallery Fernand Khnopff was born to a wealthy family that was part of the high bourgeoisie for generations. Khnopff's ancestors had lived in Flanders since the early 17th-century but were of Austrian and Portuguese descent. Most male members of his family had been lawyers or judges, and young Fernand was destined for a juridical career. In his early childhood (1859-1864) he lived in Bruges where his father was appointed Substitut Du Procureur Du Roi. His childhood memories of the medieval city of Bruges would play a significant role in his later work. In 1864 the family moved to Brussels. To please his parents he went to law school at the Free University of Brussels (now divided into the Universite Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel) when he was 18 years old. During this period he developed a passion for literature, discovering the works of Baudelaire, Flaubert, Leconte de Lisle and other mostly French authors. With his younger brother Georges Khnopff - also a passionate amateur of contemporary music and poetry - he started to frequent Jeune Belgique ("Young Belgium"), a group of young writers including Max Waller, Georges Rodenbach, Iwan Gilkin and Emile Verhaeren. Khnopff left University due to a lack of interest in his law studies and began to frequent the studio of Xavier Mellery, who made him familiar with the art of painting. On the 25th of October 1876 he enrolled for the Cours De Dessin Apres Nature ("course of drawing after nature") at the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts en Bruxelles. At the Academie, his most famous fellow student was James Ensor, whom he disliked from the start. Between 1877 and 1880 Khnopff made several trips to Paris where he discovered the work of Delacroix, Ingres, Moreau and Stevens. At the Paris World Fair of 1878 he became acquainted with the oeuvre of Millais and Burne-Jones. During his last year at the Acad??mie in 1878-1879 he neglected his classes in Brussels and lived for a while in Passy, were he visited the Cours Libres of Jules Joseph Lefebvre at the Acad??mie Julian.
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The Puzzling World of Winston Breen
Trying to read all the novels in my new classroom library has kept me very busy (it's been cobwebby around here lately)! Yesterday, I finished The Puzzling World of Winston Breen, a book that I will be recommending to my boy-heavy classes. Readers who enjoy mysteries and puzzles will love Eric Berlin's novel.
Winston Breen loves puzzles, so when the chance to go on a real treasure hunt comes up, he jumps at the chance. He works with a misfit crew that includes two squabbling fortune hunters, a librarian-heiress, an ex-cop, and his little sister. As in most novels like this, everyone has a secret and the plot twists will keep the reader guessing. Adding to the high interest are the puzzles that are interspersed throughout the novel, with the answers available at the back of the book.
At times, it felt like there were too many characters to track, and that Winston's friends were added in solely to humanize him. I would have preferred that the crucial characters were better developed. Still, I like that Winston is able to love puzzles and be popular with his peers.
My students are always looking for mysteries, but unfortunately, I don't know of many, so usually recommend The Westing Game. I appreciate this updated version for giving my students another option.
Posted by Miss K at 10:45 AM 1 comment:
Imagine how difficult it would be to illustrate what it's like to be deaf and blind. It seems impossible to me, but Joseph Lambert was able to do it in the very beginning pages of Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller. Set against a black background, a white outline of Helen shows her struggling with a spoon and other objects being forced upon her. The shadowy figure of Helen Keller may start the story, yet this book belongs to Annie Sullivan, her famous teacher.
Diving into Sullivan's difficult childhood as an orphan with poor eyesight, the reader gets a well-rounded picture of a historical figure who is exalted in the public's eye. Sullivan was hardworking and dedicated, true, but she was also difficult and obstinate. On a personal note, my mother worked at the Perkins School for the Blind, so I loved learning more about the school's history and its relationship with Sullivan and Keller.
My one quibble is the type that Lambert chose. Much of the book is written as a letter from Sullivan, and her cursive is faint and small. I found this print to be tiring to read. Regardless, it is worth the effort; this is a book worth sharing.
Friends With Boys
Faith Erin Hicks' Friends With Boys is the first graphic novel that I read as part of the judging for the final round of the 2012 Cybils. If this is a sign of the books to come, I am so excited to read the other nine finalists.
Maggie spent her entire life being homeschooled with her three older brothers, but her mother has left them, so she must face ninth grade in a public school for the first time. In addition to the stress of making new friends, finding her way around, and navigating life without her brothers, she is followed by the ghost of a mariner's wife. The inclusion of the ghost reminded me of 2011 Cybils nominee Anya's Ghost, and also was the least necessary part of the story for me. It didn't tie up neatly and didn't add much to the characters I cared about.
As for characters I cared about, there were plenty. Maggie is fantastic and realistic, and her relationship with her brothers was refreshing. Not all teens hate their siblings, and it's nice for them to see themselves reflected in literature. Actually, a lot of different types of people show up in Hicks' work; this broad spectrum drives home the message to be yourself. If that isn't clear enough, a reformed jerk says, "I don't want to be that guy being an *** to that other guy just because he does theater instead of sports, okay? That crap stays for life, whether we want it to or not." The coming of age aspect of the novel felt real; not everyone is forgiven, just like in everyday life.
Hicks' illustrations are detailed and expressive. The characters have flaws and look normal, keeping with the realistic feel of Friends With Boys. This is a book that I would share with all ninth graders who are concerned about finding their place in high school.
Hey y'all! Remember me? Turns out my new school in a new language in a new continent takes a lot of time and energy!
Daughter of Smoke and Bone was one of my favorite books that I read last year, so I bought the sequel the day it was released. Yet, somehow, it took me two months to read it, and I don't think that can be blamed on my busy schedule.
Where Laini Taylor's first novel in the series was all about love, discovery, and the creation of a beautiful world; Days of Blood and Starlight is full of death, war, and the destruction of many worlds. That will never hold my interest, no matter how gorgeous Taylor's writing is. Her sentences are still as wonderfully descriptive, but what they describe does not appeal to me.
The second novel in a trilogy is always challenging...the story needs to be moved ahead, but there can be no real resolution, and a beloved character or two usually gets the chop. The only reason I kept reading Days of Blood and Starlight is because I am convinced that Taylor will give readers the satisfying conclusion that they deserve.
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The We Need Diverse Books movement emphasizes the importance of readers being able to see themselves on the page. Kelly Yang's semi-autobiographical middle grade novel, Front Desk, will resonate with many readers who have been searching for a literary hero who has a life like theirs.
Mia's family moved from China to California with hopes of the American dream. That all came crashing down and they struggle to make ends meet while running the nasty Mr. Yao's motel, the Calivista. Despite the hardships, Mia perseveres and does her best to make her life better.
This novel tackles big topics like poverty, racism, and immigration, but it also focuses on how friends can look many different ways, parental relationships, and mean girls. This is the first novel I've read where a character receives free lunch at school, and there isn't a big deal made of it. I love Front Desk for that alone. Fortunately, there is much more to love.
When sharing this novel with my students, I will be sure to mention the author's insanely inspiring story.
The Lifters
There are plenty of sad middle grade novels, but there aren't that many about the concept of sadness. Leave it to Dave Eggers to write a novel that makes sadness okay, while offering hope.
The plot instantly engages: Gran and his family move to a new town where there are frequent sinkholes and a lot of sadness; somehow, the two are connected. Gran and his new friend Catalina Catalan need to figure out a way to hold everything together. Their solution involves handles, carousel horses, and borrowing an old wheelchair.
The Lifters is strange and sweet, and full of nuggets like, "...when someone asks if you trust them, it usually means they're about to do something that will make you reassess that trust." You can tell that Eggers has children and knows young readers (from his work with 826 National) because there is so much thought put into this novel: there is an illustration on every other page to break up the text, the chapters are short, and the characters are relatable. The Lifters is a stand-alone novel, which is perfect, but I hope it isn't Eggers' last middle grade novel. Young readers deserve books like this.
Oh hooray, hooray for this short story anthology! Edited by Ellen Oh, who cofounded the "We Need Diverse Books" movement, there is so much to love in this collection. As a teacher, I am always looking for strong mentor texts and shorts stories are perfect because they can give a class a shared reading experience, without taking as long as reading a novel together.
Usually, short story collections start out with the best story and have a varying level of quality throughout. While I did think that Matt de la Pena's story, "How to Transform an Everyday, Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place of Higher Learning and You at the Podium," was the best, I loved them all. De la Pena's story is all about hard work and lessons learned through basketball; this will be appeal to my male students so I'll be keeping it in my back pocket!
Another standout was Somain Chainani, whose sumptuous title story is about an extravagant grandmother who takes her nerdy grandson for a European adventure. I loved it and was eager to read more by the author, only to learn he wrote The School for Good and Evil that some of my students rave about and I avoid because of the cover. Lesson learned (again).
I want this for my library so that students can dip in and out of the stories that interest them, so I can use them as mentor texts for writing lessons, and so I can interest readers in authors they might be hesitant to check out in book form (Grace Lin's books look big to developing readers, but her sweet story here might entice them to brave the pages!).
Books I'll Give My Son for His 10th Birthday (in 9 years)
Yes, I have nine years until my son turns 10, but I already have a list of books for him in the future on my Goodreads page. The majority of them will be checked out of the library, but there are a few that will have to be bought so they can be pored over and enjoyed again and again.
The first is The Street Beneath my Feet by Charlotte Guillian and illustrated by Yuval Zommer. It's important to mention the illustrator because he does incredible heavy lifting in the book. The Street has the coolest design I've seen in awhile: the entire book is one long, beautifully textured page that folds out on a journey through the earth and back out the other side.
I learned so much about where things occur under the earth's surface. Who knew that rabbit dens are deeper than fox dens? The science is simplified and the text is conversational. I spent a good amount of time marveling at the gorgeous illustrations of the minerals.
The Street Beneath my Feet is worth adding to every school library and having in your own home. It will be pulled out again and again.
Lucy Letherland's Atlas of Adventures is the coolest. It is where children's bucket lists begin and I hope it opens my son's eyes to many potential adventures. Featuring places around the world, each location gets a two-page layout with exquisitely detailed illustrations, full of fun facts and new vocabulary.
I love the idea of asking kids to think about what they would add to this book. Are there any local adventures that they have had that could be added? What would the drawing look like and what facts would need to be included?
Between this and Maps by Aleksandra Mizielinska, young readers will be geographically inspired and ready to start planning future travels. Maybe I don't have to wait nine years to buy it. Maybe I'll buy it for my classroom (and myself) now and get it again for my son.
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Diane Wolff
Author, Scholar
The Man of Iron, Genghis Khan, Conqueror of China
The Man of Letters, Chancellor Yeh-lu, Secretary, Physician and Astrologer to Genghis Khan
An Offer He Could Not Refuse: The Man of Iron Recruits the Man of Letters
Beyond the Great Wall, which marks the frontier of civilization, beyond the great Gobi Desert, lies Mongolia, the Land of Blue Sky.
This is the setting of the story of Genghis Khan, who is called by his people Conqueror of the World.
Genghis Khan conquered China in the year 1215 in a military campaign that was a work of genius. I was a member of the government of the deposed emperor.
Call me Chancellor Yeh-lu. That is what he Mongol nobility call me. I am half-Chinese and half-nomad of the tribe of the Khitan. My father was Khitan royalty. My mother was a Chinese noblewoman. Through her, I received my classical Chinese education.
My family were the royal family of a deposed dynasty, for after the fall of the glorious Tang Dynasty, North China was ruled by us. We came down from the north and conquered China. The old military and feudal families who formed ruling class could no longer protect the borders. The Great Wall was built to keep people like us out of North China, but the Tang let the frontier go and China was divided. Stronger barbarians came and took North China from us. Then the Mongols came and took it from them. That was the story of China.
One group of barbarians from outside the Great Wall replaced another. The Song Emperor escaped to the South, below the Yangzi River. This was a Han Chinese dynasty. The founder had his generals forsake warfare, so the South was not strong enough to take back the North and put China back together again.
There a new mercantile culture flourished. The South grew rich on trade. It was a new era in Chinese history. Southern Song created a brilliant culture The arts flourished, but they had given up warfare. I should say as a matter of history that my people the Khitan gave China the name Cathay.
You are surprised, there is a nobility among the nomads—it is true. They are an aristocratic society, these riders of the horse. The Chinese call them barbarians because they are unlettered. Also, they do not bathe and they cover themselves in bear grease against the cold. They are notorious gluttons and they drink to drunkenness at their legendary feasts. All these things are true.
Yet I admire their bravery in warfare, their loyalty, their Code of Laws.
At the time that Genghis Khan founded the Great Mongol Nation twenty years ago, he adopted the script of the Uighur to write the language. The Chinese have had their magnificent writing for more than a thousand years.
Here is an important moment in the conflict between China and the barbarians. Through his prowess in war and his excellence in government, Genghis Khan brought peace. He ended the warfare that had been a feature of life in the steppes for generation. The tribes were unified under his banner. He founded a nation, Yesse Mongol Ulus, the Great Mongol Nation.
The steppe wars are examples of brilliant cavalry warfare, but that a story for another time. I am telling you of Genghis Khan's conquest of China, the richest and most brilliant civilization on earth. He did not intend to occupy it. He intended to rule it from the steppes. He made war on China for revenge, for they had been meddling in the politics of the steppes for generations. They backed the tribe that murdered his father and left him alone, unprotected, to die in the steppe winter.
In him was born a lust for power that never left him.
I am a civilized man. I read and write. I speak Chinese and the languages of the tribes. I sat for the examinations that entitled me to serve in the government. I served in the department of the treasury. I was in daily attendance upon the deposed Emperor.
I had in my possession the Seal of State of the Jin--that was the name of the dynasty founded by the Manchus.
I am a Confucian in my public life, for Confucianism is the best philosophy for the ordering of the state. In my private life, I am a Buddhist. Buddhism is the best philosophy for the ordering of the mind.
I served an emperor and l lived in the imperial palace. I saw much. I witnessed the fall of a dynasty.
I saw people starving to death in the streets. I saw the Mongol Army set to the torch the magnificent capital of Qungdu. I saw the princesses of the royal family throw themselves from the wall rather than allow themselves to be taken captive by the Mongol commanders. I saw the streets run slick with human fat, rendered down in the fires. I saw the slaughtered in the streets. These visions haunted me. A sense of doom enveloped me. Joy left me and I had no will to live.
After the Mongols left China, I went to a Buddhist monastery to pray and to seek enlightenment. In my dreams, the ghosts of my ancestors howled, and I was sorry that I had had not joined them.
I meditated until the Abbot declared that I had achieved enlightenment. Shortly afterward, I received the most momentous communication of my life. This was a summons from The Conqueror.
The reader may well ask, how did a man of letters come to serve in the government of a military man?
The answer is simple. Genghis Khan, who was called the Man of Iron, made me an offer I could not refuse.
As an official in the government of a deposed dynasty, I expected to be put to death. Instead, I was summoned into the presence of the most powerful sovereign in Asia, and I was recruited.
He sent a general to the monastery, a man bearing a solid gold tablet in the shape of a tiger. It was official summons, with a guarantee of good treatment. He asked me to come to his camp, and he asked me to bring him the Seal of State. He was the new Emperor of China.
I went under armed escort to the vast steppelands beyond the Great Wall. I met him and I gave him the Seal of State.
He was seated upon the Dragon Throne that had been taken from the Audience Hall of the Jin Emperor. Across it was thrown a white horseskin, symbolizing his rule over all of those who herded horses. He sat there with his legs open, his leather armor covering his massive chest, his red hair hanging in plaits beneath his war helmet trimmed in sable. He looked as though nothing on earth could unseat him.
He questioned me closely then offered me my life if I helped him to govern China. I knew he was no mere barbarian.
He told me that he was not an educated man, but that he surrounded himself with educated men.
He was a true nomad. He loved being the ruler of thousands of clans living in felt tents, loved owning vast herds of horses and the herd animals the nomads call "the five snouts." He loved the free open life of the steppes and the seasonal migration to good pasture. He loathed the peasants who lived in fixed dwellings in villages and were slaves to the seasons.
But he needed men like myself with skills that his people did not possess. The Mongols knew nothing of administration and record-keeping. They had no skills for governing the richest civilization on earth. That is why he recruited me.
The Mongol generals wanted to put all of North China to the torch and turn it into pasture for their horses. I convinced the Supreme Khan that he had more to gain from taxing the population than from annihilating it.
I appealed to his greed, not to his sense of compassion, for he had none. I do not believe that he comprehended civilized life, meaning the life of those who lived in fixed dwellings.
Genghis Khan made me an offer, an offer to save Chinese civilization and I took it. I became a man of letters serving in a military government.
This is the story of my life. For the past twelve years I have been personal secretary, physician and astrologer to Chinggis Khan, who brought such devastation to China. I had no idea that within a matter of years, I was to become the most important statesman in the Mongol Empire. Mine has been a rare and spectacular life.
I stood beside Genghis Khan on the battlefield. I advised him on campaign and at court. I can tell you, he was no barbarian. The Chinese are so convinced of their own superiority that they cannot see him for what he was, an aristocrat of the horse-raising nomads. He gave a Code of Laws to his people. He gave them a written language. He brought peace to the empire. He tolerated all religions. He promoted trade.
Many of my fellow officials fled to the South to where a Han Chinese emperor sat on the throne of the Song Dynasty. They refused to serve a conquest dynasty.
Many Confucian officials who remained behind were taken prisoner. Many were turned into slaves.
My fellow officials said that I was a traitor to my people. I don't think so. I believe that I saved Chinese civilization. Who would be there to speak for the people, if not for me?
My situation was difficult. The Mongol generals resented me. "Are you going to weep for the people again?" they asked, when I went to the battlefield to see the slaughter and to help those that could be helped.
They soon came to see why I gave my advice. They knew what happened after the slaughter. I stopped the epidemic of battlefield diseases. Typhoid, dysentery, cholera.
The Mongols are shamanists and believe that spirits inhabit the rivers and they did not want to disturb the spirits. They were afraid of lightning for many of them were killed in the rivers of the steppes. But they learned.
In the minds of the Chinese literati, Genghis Khan was a bloodthirsty barbarian because he wreaked such devastation upon our civilization, but he was a man of honor and bravery. He was a genius at utilizing every element in his domain to his best advantage.
He was not bloodthirsty. He did not kill for the sake of killing. His warfare had an elementary logic all its own. He never left an enemy population behind the advancing front lines of his army. He never lost a battle. He rode at the head of his army into war. He wore the same rags as his men. He lived in a round felt tent. He ate the same food as they. They were fanatically loyal to him. He was the steppe incarnate.
A Confucian looks for moral order in history. I believe that I have found it.
The Chinese never asked themselves, what had they done to deserve the conquest? What was it all about? I leave this record, this tribute to the man I knew. The Chinese are the greatest historians on earth. They create a history of every dynasty, that future generations may understand the lessons contained in history. Perhaps this is the reason that their civilization has lasted so long. They learn from the past.
There is no one to create this history in this first generation. The task has fallen to me. I offer the history of the man who founded a dynasty in China.
Yeh-lu Chu-ts'ai
Chancellor to Genghis Khan
Khara Khorum
The Silk Road Series
Batu. Khan of the Golden Horde: The Mongol Khans Conquer Russia
Russian history is strangely silent on the subject of the conquest of Russia by the Mongol Empire. This book reveals the true story and the reason why Russian history is silent. It is the story of Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, who plotted with Genghis Khan's favorite daughter-in-law, the Princess Sorghagtani, to put her sons on the throne.
Taifun: Khubilai Khan Invades Japan by Sea
Why would a man born to the horse take to the sea? Why did the boy Shogun refuse to submit to the man who unified China? Why did Khubilai Khan become obsessed with forcing the submission of Japan?
The Offer: The Man Who Saved Chinese Civilization
Chinggis Khan, the ruler of the steppes beyond the Gobi Desert, conquers China, the greatest civilization on earth. He recruits a grand courtier from the imperial court to form his government. The Mongols knew nothing of governing. The Supreme Khan needs am educated man, to advise him. This is the story of the relationship between the military genius and the greatest statesman of the empire.
Il-Khan: Why Hulegu Khan Destroyed the Assassins and the Caliphate
Why did the Mongol Emperor give Orders of Submission to the Caliph of Baghdad? This volume reconstructs the story from the contemporary Muslim historians Juvaini and Rashid al-Din.
Princess Sorghagtani: Surrounded by Men of War
The European priest sent by the Pope of Rome to the Mongol court described Princess Sorghagtani as the most remarkable woman of her age. She was an excellent judge of men, well-connected and well-respected. When her husband died, she turned her attention to the careers of her sons instead of making a royal marriage.
She had watched her father-in-law build the empire. She was not about to let the house of Ogodei destroy it.
Her story illuminates one of the most brilliant political careers of all time. This is Game of Thrones in Asia, only the story is for real.
Narrative History
Marco Polo's World
Why was Marco Polo called a liar by the citizens of Venice when he returned after his stay of almost two decades at the court of Khubilai Khan?
Young Readers FREE DOWNLOAD!
Chinese Writing: An Introduction
How to look at the Chinese language. How to make sense of it. How to understand the styles of Chinese calligraphy. Illustrated with photos of masterpieces of calligraphy in the four styles. Photos: collection C. C. Wang, modern Chinese painting master. Winner of the American Library Associations Most Notable Book Award in the year of its publication.
E-mail Diane
Great Video: Mongols Versus Samurai
The Mongols Attack by Sea, Samurais on the beach. The Armada of War Junks built in Korea
Great Video: Khubilai Khan Invades Japan by Sea
Japanese Samurai Take to the Beach to Defend Against the Landing of the Fleet of War Junks of the "Northern Barbarians."
Great Video: The Mongol Invasion of Medieval Russia
In a brilliant campaign headquartered in a vast camp in the steppes, Batu Khan attacks Kiev and burns the Church of the Virgin to the Ground. He defeats the Russian princes and becomes the Khan of All the Russias.
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Review: Hunter Hayes delivers on new single and video for 'Tattoo' Special
By Markos Papadatos Jul 29, 2014 in Music
Atlantic Nashville recording artist Hunter Hayes has released his highly-anticipated new music video for his single "Tattoo," which is high-energy and a lot of fun.
Its music video was directed by Kristen Barlowe and it is very creative and visual. It was filmed in an old warehouse, with an 80s cassette player backdrop and it consists of animated graphics, graffiti art and a female love interest who is the subject of this tune.
"Tattoo" was co-written by Hayes, as well as such Nashville songwriters as Troy Verges and Barry Dean, and it is already climbing up the Billboard Hot Country Songs and Airplay charts. It is the sophomore single from his latest studio album Storyline, which as Digital Journal reported, garnered a favorable review.
Hayes is seen jamming on his guitar throughout the majority of his video, and singing to his stunning brunette.
"Tattoo" is definitely a fun and energetic tune to hear live, and he nailed it when he sang it at the iHeartRadio Theater in New York this past May, for his exclusive iHeartRadio show, which was presented by P.C. Richard and Son. It just makes the audience want to jump and tap their toes along with him.
For more information on Hunter Hayes and "Tattoo," check out his official website.
More about hunter hayes, Tattoo, Video, Single, Country
hunter hayes Tattoo Video Single Country Atlantic Nashville
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Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Release: Annihilation
– May 16, 2018Find Others: Blu-ray, DVD, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: Drama, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Natalie Portman, Paramount, Science-fiction
Digital Release Date: May 22, 2018, Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: May 22, 2018
Price: DVD $17.96, Blu-ray/DVD Combo $19.96
The highly interpretive and undeniably provocative science fiction drama Annihilation is written and directed by Alex Garland (Ex Machina) and stars Natalie Portman (Black Swan).
Biologist and former soldier Lena (Portman) is shocked when her missing husband (Oscar Isaac, Drive) comes home near death from a top-secret mission into “The Shimmer,” a mysterious quarantine zone apparently created by aliens that no one has ever returned from. Now, Lena and her elite team (which includes Greenberg‘s Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jane the Virgin‘s Gina Rodriguez and Creed‘s Tessa Thompson) must enter a beautiful, deadly world of mutated landscapes and creatures, to discover how to stop the growing phenomenon that threatens all life on Earth.
Generally admired by critics upon its wide theatrical release in April, 2018 (it garnered an 87% Fresh rating at reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes), Annihilation stalled at the $33 million mark at the domestic box office.
The Annihilation Blu-ray Combo Pack includes an hour-plus of bonus content. Natalie Portman, director Garland and other cast and crew take viewers behind the scenes for a deeper look inside the film’s stunts, intricate set design and breathtaking visual effects. The Blu-ray also boasts a Dolby Atmos soundtrack remixed specifically for home viewing.
Buy or Rent Annihilation
on DVD | Blu-ray/DVD Combo | Instant Video
Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD, 4K Ultra HD Release: Arrival
New Release: Iron Man 2 DVD and Blu-ray
Blu-ray, DVD Release: Melancholia
Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD Release: Knight of Cups
DVD Release: The Borgias: The Complete Series
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Amazon Fulfillment Warehouse Former Employee Speaks About Work Conditions at the Facility
October 4, 2018 | News
Brooks Schuelke, Esq.
Schuelke Law PLLC
Austin, TX (Law Firm Newswire) October 4, 2018 – A worker at the Amazon warehouse in Fort Worth, Texas is speaking out about the working conditions at the facility. The 49 year-old woman was injured while at work, obtained workers compensation and is now homeless.
According to the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health’s Dirty Dozen employers who risk worker’s health list, Amazon’s warehouses are listed as having unsafe working conditions and focus more on efficiency and worker productivity than on employee safety.
The woman began working at the Fort Worth Amazon warehouse in May 2017. She says, she quickly began to notice how frequently she and other co-workers were asked about productivity, bathroom breaks and performance.
In October 2017, the woman injured her back while performing her job duties at her malfunctioning work station. According to the woman, her workstation was missing a brush safety guard that was intended to keep items from falling on the floor. She complained to management about her injury and was instructed to go to the medical area at the warehouse. She was allowed to use a heating pad for 30 minutes.
The woman continued to work with her injury. As her condition worsened, when the woman came to work, she was sent home by management without pay. She asked for workers compensation for her injuries.
Finally on workers compensation, the woman went for physical therapy and returned to work in January 2018 to find that the workstation she was injured at was still not fixed. She went back on medical leave, taking an extra two weeks unpaid leave. In April 2018 she was told by doctors that her back was still injured. However, five days after this assessment, it is alleged that Amazon’s workers’ compensation insurer instructed the company doctor to stop treating her.
In June 2018, the workstation was fixed. A month later the woman met with management and was offered a buyout of $3,500 provided she signed a non-disclosure agreement to not say anything bad about Amazon. She rejected the offer and is now allegedly homeless.
“If you find yourself in a similar situation, our door is open to you,” said Austin on-the-job injury attorney, Brooks Schuelke, of Schuelke Law, PLLC, not involved in this case. “Workers’ compensation law is complex and confusing. It’s best to not try and deal with it on your own or you may find your claim has been denied. We have a long track record of helping people in instances such as this.”
Learn more at http://www.civtrial.com
3011 N. Lamar Blvd
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In-Depth Interview with Owner of Manhattan’s Freshest Vegan Restaurant
By Nell Alk | November 12, 2015
“I never thought this was where I’d end up with my life,” restaurateur Ravi DeRossi tells me over the phone during our hour-long interview.
Indeed, the 40-year-old owner of Death & Company, The Bourgeois Pig, Mayahuel, Cienfuegos, Amor y Amargo, Desnuda, 124 Rabbit Club, Proletariat, Bergen Hill, Post Office Bar, Riddling Widow, Sol (closed), Mother of Pearl (formerly Gin Palace) and Avant Garden wasn’t always on a trajectory towards working in the adult beverage business. The Brooklyn-based entrepreneur began his career as a visual artist, selling paintings to people of means in New York and Europe. Until September 11, 2001. That date changed everything for DeRossi. The world was different after that, and the effects were no less felt by this painter in his mid-twenties struggling to make ends meet in Manhattan.
With the economy collapsing and few folks collecting canvas, DeRossi left for New Mexico, where he dabbled in theater. But he was depressed and drinking profusely and wound up getting arrested. After roughly a week behind bars, his father traveled to Santa Fe from Boulder — where DeRossi grew up — and bailed his son out of jail. At that time, DeRossi’s mother was in the midst of opening a gourmet grocery, café and wine shop. So DeRossi stayed on in Colorado to assist.
DeRossi recalls thinking, “I have nothing in my life right now. I’ll help my mom.” Though he hated it, he learned a lot. After a challenging first year, the second year brought success.
“There was an article in the local paper, and then business exploded. It was a really neat thing. It ended up doing really well. Two years later we sold it for five times what we would have accepted. We paid our debts and I immediately moved back to New York. I ended up living on East 7th Street, wondering what I was going to do.”
The Bourgeois Pig would be his entry into the world of food and drink in New York. It was a hit, and remains so to this day. Following this, DeRossi opened bar after bar, restaurant after restaurant.
Coincidentally, where he was living upon first returning to NYC is the very same street on which his 100% vegan fine dining restaurant opened earlier this season. Avant Garden — located at 130 East 7th Street — has been generating buzz since its announcement in May. Finally, four months later, the intimate space (formerly occupied by Gingersnap’s Organic) launched as this tasteful and tasty place for vegans and non-vegans alike.
“I hope all the vegans come here and love it, but it’s more important to me that non-vegans come here,” DeRossi says.
Executive chef Andrew D’Ambrosi and his skilled line cooks prepare vegetable-laden dishes in the open kitchen, which stretches along ten counter seats for an up-close and personal view of how menu items are assembled. (From experience I can assure that this is a transfixing place to perch for a meal.) With twenty seats occupying the remainder of the cozy eatery, Avant Garden proves a crowded but comfortable spot to dine and drink wine. Deliberately absent a cocktail program, things wind down by 11PM–12AM seven nights a week. Currently Avant Garden is open only for dinner, from 5PM. And the food is delicious — inventive yet familiar, flavorful and fresh. From what I tried I highly recommend the tomato jam, pickled peach, tomato, almond ricotta and basil toast; the quinoa tabouleh, apricot, couscous, onion, preserved lemon and pumpkin seed salad; the king oyster, maitake, smoked macadamia and crispy leeks entrée; and the singular dessert, a pudding made from bamboo rice cooked in coconut milk, scented with lemongrass and kaffir lime with cinnamon-dusted diced mango and calamansi-lime sorbet.
But enough about what you should order at Avant Garden. Read on to learn more directly from the Brooklyn-based bachelor and avid pet parent Ravi DeRossi — about his on again off again relationship with veganism; his preferred way to spend nights; his inherent and admitted hypocrisy when it comes to animal rights; his decision to hire a non-vegan chef to helm Avant Garden; and his latest passion project, a nonprofit known as B.E.A.S.T.
First things first: Are you vegan?
I am about 98% vegan. The only time I ever eat any animal products is when I’m tasting dishes that are going on [my] menus. I taste them just to make sure they’re good. But I’m in the process of phasing that out; I finally have a guy that works for me whose palate I trust. It’s exceptional. I trust him to taste everything on my behalf.
Were you raised vegan?
I’m half Indian, half Italian. But even my Italian side grew up in India. But I’m American. I was born here. My family’s not vegan. Nobody in my family is. But there was always so much Indian food around, and Indian food is mostly vegan. It was really easy to keep meat out of my diet. I don’t know what compelled me, because I started really young. I didn’t have this passion for animals. We had had two dogs growing up, but I was never close to them. I just chose not to eat meat. And I didn’t [eat meat] for a very long time.
Why did you veer away from veganism?
There [have] been a few times in my life where I went away from it and then went back to it. I’m going to be brutally honest; some of this stuff is terrible, but it’s true. I was in art school in New York and had been vegan going in, but I was broke. This was 20 some odd years ago. I had no money. The little money I had I spent on alcohol. And I was drinking too much. Obviously. There was one bar between my house and my school [that] offered free food if you spent money on alcohol. I think it’s still there. It was garbage. That would be my meal of the day every day on my way home. That last[ed] about a year, [until] I was disgusted with myself.
So why in more recent years as a successful restaurateur and bar owner? Beyond the menu assessing?
Being in the bar business, I was drinking a ton. I was drinking every day. Your consciousness gets repressed. Eventually, after drinking every day for long enough, it no longer existed. It wasn’t until probably 5 years ago — I had opened 7 or 8 bars by that time, was working every night until, like, 4 or 5 in the morning, drinking every night and living conscious-free — [that] I started sobering up.
At some point my [then] girlfriend convinced me to adopt a dog. I hadn’t had animals in my life in a very long time. So we rescued this pit-bull German shepherd mix from Hurricane Katrina. And we ended up adopting a second dog. Then we found a cat living in the basement of one of my bars. And then we found another cat. As I had two dogs and four cats living around me, my conscious started coming back. I realized this love I had for these animals; how much they changed me. I didn’t want to go out at night and drink anymore. I wanted to be home with Honeybee and Cajun Queen and my cats, which is part of the reason why I cut my alcohol intake by 95%. That got me back to where I was before I started drinking so much.
Do you still have these companion animals?
I moved to Carroll Gardens because of them. I prefer living in the city. I used to be a snob about it, tell[ing] people, I leave the country more often than I [go] to Brooklyn. But…now I have a huge backyard.
Given your recognition and acknowledgement of animal suffering for food, etc., how does it make you feel to own and run restaurants and bars that feature animal products, from the menu to the furniture?
It’s terrible. I get it. It’s total hypocrisy. People call me out on it all the time. When I got into this industry, I didn’t have a conscience and it didn’t faze me. Now my conscious is dominating my life. That’s why I’m doing Avant Garden; that’s why I’m doing B.E.A.S.T.; that’s why I’m adding vegan menus to all my venues. I have a two-year plan: My intention is to sell all my bars. I want out. I will hold onto Death & Co. because we’re getting rid of the food. People don’t go there [for food]. It’s a cocktail bar. Our food sales are, like, 1%. There’s no reason to have food. And we’re also opening Death & Co. in L.A. I have no problem ruining people’s lives with alcohol; I don’t want to ruin animals’ lives. I’m going to do a fast-casual spin-off of Avant Garden. I think it’s going to be called Avant Garden as well. I’ll do that in New York and, if it’s going well, we’ll probably do 1, 2, 3 locations. And then, as we’re selling everything off, my intention is to put that money towards branding and expanding Avant Garden across the country. I will open Avant Garden, a fine dining restaurant, in Hollywood. And I’ll probably end up moving to L.A. at some point. It’s either that or I’m going to move upstate somewhere. Or both. I’m pretty good at making things happen. When I get an idea and I want to do it, I do it. My plan is to have Avant Garden fine dining, which will probably end up opening in a few cities. Definitely L.A. second. I have a lot of friends in the animal rights world there. Maybe Miami, Chicago. Then, the fast-casual line. The idea would be to make it as big as any fast-casual restaurant that has thousands of locations. I think it’s about time. So, to get back to the hypocrisy of what I do — there’s a huge hypocrisy to what I do — I’m working to change that.
Can you tell me more about B.E.A.S.T.?
B.E.A.S.T. (Benefits to End Animal Suffering Today) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. After adopting dogs and cats, animals became really important to me. It just made sense. What can I do to help? Open a vegan restaurant? I can do that.
Death & Co. is considered one of the trendiest bars in the world. We have a wait list seven nights a week. Without sounding like an arrogant asshole, I want to capitalize on that for animal rights. So I’m gonna start B.E.A.S.T. I’m gonna throw really cool parties and charge people to attend. The idea is to do all these parties and raise all this money.
To which organizations will the money you raise go?
When it comes to animal rights, everybody needs money. The idea is to give it to organizations that are on the ground getting shit done.
Small organizations are having a harder time raising money. That’s who I want to help the most. When it comes to which animals, to me, they’re all the same. I just read about the bear bile farms in China and it breaks my heart. And I love Sea Shepherd. Last year for Christmas I bought all 200 employees Sea Shepherd hats and sweatshirts. But I don’t want to name anyone just yet.
Once B.E.A.S.T. launches, we’re gonna take our B.E.A.S.T. logo and make stencils out of it and chalk paint or spray-paint it all over New York. A little guerilla marketing. Once the money starts coming in, 100% will go to different organizations doing cool shit. And if you get the B.E.A.S.T. logo tattoo anywhere on your body, I’ll donate $1000.
Speaking of money, are you working with investors for Avant Garden?
There [are] no investors, just me. I don’t use investors that often. Having investors sucks.
Remind me again how you came to open Avant Garden…
Remember, I hate mushrooms. Bergin Hill’s Andrew D’Ambrosi made me a hen of the woods dish that happened to be vegan and it was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Over the next year-and-a-half he made me 20 different vegetable dishes that I thought were amazing. I said, Let’s open a restaurant.
So, why enlist a non-vegan as Avant Garden’s executive chef?
Andrew just wants to make great food. He’s a really great chef. He makes very good vegan food, and that’s all it comes down to. I think he sees it as a challenge. If down the line I can convert [Andrew] to being vegan, I will. If we [launch] Avant Garden fast-casual, and Andrew does that with me, then I’ll probably make him go vegan. I say that lightheartedly, but it’d be nice if he did.
What’s your favorite type of food?
Probably Indian. There’s this restaurant called Dosa Royale. Fucking amazing. They’re not fully vegan, but they’re probably 50% vegan. I eat there, like, three times a week. And I order from Wild Ginger, the vegan Thai restaurant. I really love their food. I go to Juicy Lucy every day for lunch when I’m at the office. I just love their tofu hot dogs.
Why does eating vegan in 2015 make sense?
The obvious: [Farm] animals. But it’s also environmental. There [are] millions of environmental reasons. So many [wild] animals are going extinct and the oceans are running out of fish. [Animal agriculture] is one of the leading causes of greenhouse gases and global warming. If you don’t give a shit about [farm] animals, but you care about the planet, it’s a huge reason to go vegan.
Lastly, where are you from?
I’m from New York, but I moved to Boulder, Colorado when I was young, around 11–12. So most of my [youth was spent] in Boulder. New York always felt like home. Boulder’s never felt like home. But I’ve lived all over: LA, New Orleans, London, Europe — Greece, Paris, Spain. But I always kept coming back to New York. It always felt like this was where I was supposed to be.
All photos courtesy of Avant Garden.
Maniac_In_BlackⓋLittleItalyNY™
Is it a vegan food good for butt gluteus? Thank you.
Abby Bean
Kudos for changing for the better, sir!
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The world’s third-largest island, politically divided between Malaysia and Brunei in the north, and Indonesia to the south, Borneo is a tropical paradise with unspoilt, endless white sandy beaches, the oldest and most bio-diverse rainforest on Earth, and an abundance of natural wonders.
"In complete contrast to Peninsular Malaysia, East Malaysia (the northern half of Borneo) is a mysterious world of coral islands and lush rainforests harbouring exotic creatures and isolated tribes."
The world’s third-largest island, politically divided between Malaysia and Brunei in the north, and Indonesia to the south, Borneo is a tropical paradise with unspoilt, endless white sandy beaches, the oldest and most bio-diverse rainforest on Earth, and an abundance of natural wonders, (including the orangutan – one of man’s closest relatives – and a host of other endangered species).
It’s also one of South East Asia’s few destinations that’s great come summer. Wedged between the Bornean jungle and the South China Sea, Kota Kinabalu is the launching point for explorers to head out and enjoy Sabah’s surrounding jungle and marine-life, coral atolls, tropical islands, pristine beaches, giant rivers and abundance of nature.
KK’s centre is based around its waterfront area, where trendy bars, restaurants and hotels mingle with traditional markets, fishing ports and hawker stalls.
Further afield, Kinabalu National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site, known for its many carnivorous plant and orchid species, and home to Mount Kinabalu) is an unrivalled attraction for nature-lovers and climbers alike; while Sipadan Island, at the heart of the coral triangle (the most diverse marine environment in the world) is one of the planet’s best destinations for scuba-diving.
March to October
Choose from the cream of Borneo's finest resorts.
Bliss in Borneo & Bali 14 Days
SINGAPORE | KOTA KINABLU | BALI
From £2750 per person, including flights
View this itinerary
Gaya Island Resort Kota Kinabalu
Set on an exotic island in the midst of the South China Sea (only accessible by boat), fringed by a golden beach, and backed by lush rainforest, Gaya Island has a real ‘back-to-nature’ appeal.
Shangri-La’s Rasa Ria Resort & Spa Kota Kinabalu
Mount Kinabalu in the distance. A stunning nature reserve setting. And – unique to the resort – the Nature Interpretation Centre, gateway to the Nature Reserve: this resort enchants everyone with its super, natural magic.
I am interested in Borneo
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01642763049 info@eduhope.org
Religious & Cultural Child Abuse
I CAN READ AND WRITE
I was born in Accra–Ghana, into a circle of polygamy family and absolute poverty.
I feel very blessed and content with my life which is underpinned by the saying “In everything you do, put God first, and he will direct you and crown your efforts with success”, although, there was a time in my life when I couldn’t imagine my dreams come true.
At a very tender age, I walked in the streets of Accra-Ghana feeling that I was rather walking in a desert island shouting for help with no support from the state, no children social service to turn to, no reliable family to depend on, hopelessly wishing to become a lawyer in future.
Mum had just returned to Ghana from very successful years, but later a painful struggle in Nigeria, everything had fallen apart, mum is suddenly a single mother of five and homeless. The frustration mounted on us (her children) and we became prematurely independent. With constant tears and sorrow in my heart, my greatest fear was not what I will eat the next day, but who I will become someday. The echoes of life lead me to the deep ends of a stormy sea at a tender age. This wasn’t what I dreamt of, my fairy dream of one day becoming a Lawyer was about to be swept away into dark clouds. I was innocently vulnerable, it was hard and dark but I survived.
Although, studying law didn’t go well for me, today I am a proud Social Worker and a Public Health Educator, because someone elevated me from a helpless situation and gave me hope.
To give back to children who are experiencing similar situation like I suffered, I am passionately committed to help every abandoned child that I come across to protect their vulnerabilities. With your help, we will care and support abandoned children in significant risk, reduce their risk and help them reach their potentials in life (Julie A-G Fiamavle).
A nation that protects and shield its children with wisdom, invest immensely in how the country’s resources are arranged, the wisdom we give to our children will preserve their lives, our own lives and the lives of four generations to come. Thus, a ripple effect on their community, country and the world at large.
– Julie A-G Fiamavle
PROMOTE EDUCATION AND HEALTHY CHILD DEVELOPMENT IN GHANA-AFRICA
Ghana is Located in the continent of Africa, in the sub-region of sub-Saharan West Africa country. A fast-growing population with limited resources for basic education and health development for children and young people. the population of Ghana was estimated to be 28, 516, 866 and projected to increase to 29, 088, 849 by the year 2018. 36.5 percent (equivalent to 10, 356, 143 in figure) of the population are children and young people under the age of 15. 60 percent of the population are young children and adults between the age of 15 to 64, and the rest of the 3.5 are older adults from age 65 plus. 66.7 percent of the population are not in the labour force, these include young children and adults from the age of 15 to 64. Child dependency ratio in Ghana is 60.8 %. Education attainment in Ghana varies across regions, people from the Southern urban areas tend to be more literate, compared to the less literates from the Northern rural areas of the country.
Source: The estimation data for section “Ghana population literacy” is based on the latest data published by UNESCO Institute for Statistics (retrieved 2/3/ 2017, via http://countrymeters.info/en/Ghana)
FACTORS INFLUENCING SCHOOL EXCLUSION ARE
Over 400,000 Ghanaian children are out of school
Children are not enrolled due to lack of statutory enforcement to abolish child labour, lack of social system designated for children educational welfare, lack of teacher and resources to ensure appropriate basic leaning such as reading, writing and numeracy skills, lack of school in their communities, lack of interest and poverty. In some cases, Children are at risk of dropping out of school due to challenges of extreme poverty, young carer responsibilities and cultural devaluing of girls in certain communities.
HOW DOES EDUHOPE SUPPORT CHILDREN’S EDUCATION?.
We believe that every child deserves the right to basic elementary and secondary school education and healthy development, this is a fundamental Human right. Good early stage in education and healthy development of a child, regardless of their gender, culture and beliefs paves the way for any nation to secures successful and production future leaders within their communities. However, in Ghana-west African like many other developing countries, children who come from a wealthy home have the opportunity to attend a private school, which is often a quality education offered at an expensive price, compared to children from poor background who often attend a public school which is said to be free but with non-or very minimal resources, it has therefore, become a sigma to attend a public school as it is deemed the worst place for effective early educational and child developmental needs. Our aim is to provide a healthy start for less privileged children in Ghana, through quality educational needs that meets the standard of a private school to bridge the rate of inequality in childhood education and in an environment, that support healthy early development. Children are incline to transits from dependency to increasing autonomy. Developmental milestones are defined as norms in relation to the things most children can do by certain age. The early stage of a child’s life, from nursery and preschool age 0 to 4 tend to affect their future physical, cognitive, emotional and social development. The ecological environment of a child will determine how a child play, learn, speak and behave.
As the Ghanaian Akan Adages goes: The older ones look after their young once to develop healthy teeth, and in turn, the young once look after the old once when they start to lose their teeth.
For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it (Ecclesiastes 7:12)
In Ghana- West Africa, the government has repeatedly tried to recognise the importance of early-stage education, unfortunately, this has not been successful due to constant changes in government administrations. Thus, there is no social system to support child development programme. This means that families who cannot afford to pay for their children’s early stage learning, miss out. Children who do not have families or carers are most vulnerable but mainly forgotten in plain places by the government. Voluntary organisations are left to support children within their communities. These organisations are often unskilled, lack knowledge and resources that are necessary to stimulate the early childhood development.
We will train and support other voluntary organisation to enable them to give adequate care and support to the children under their care.
All donations will be used to support pre-school to secondary school programme in facilitating new school building, employ teachers, provide learning and teaching materials, provide healthy school meals and clean drinking water, provide school uniform and clothing for children who need them. This will help to support the children in a holistic manner that meets all their basic need.
Our books collection campaign ‘I can read and write’ has been very effective for the past 7 years in collecting quality UK standard of books to support children in Ghana- West Africa. This will help to meet the standard of a private school programme by ensuring that qualified teachers are adequately trained and well skilled.
All volunteers will be trained at their level of needs and supported to improve their knowledge and skills, this will eventually promote employment within the scheme.
We work in collaboration with Social Workers, Teachers, Health Professional, Private Organisations, Voluntary Organisations and the Police to ensure that children receive holistic care and support underpinned by the Children’s Rights and Human Rights Acts.
All volunteers will be trained at their level of needs and supported to improve their knowledge and skills, this will eventually promote employment within the scheme. We work in collaboration with Social Workers, Teachers, Health Professional, Private Organisations, Voluntary Organisations and the Police to ensure that children receive holistic care and support underpinned by the Children’s Rights and Human Rights Acts.
NEW SCHOOL BUILDING AND BOOKS COLLECTION PROJECT FOR CHILDREN OF GHANA- AFRICA
Nursery and preschool age 0 to 5
Primary age 6 to 11 (Key stage 1 and 2)
Junior and Senior Secondary age 11 to 15 (Ordinary level GCSE Books)
Advance level Secondary age 16 to 18 (A ‘level GCSE Books)
Let us invest in the wisdom, knowedge and understanding of our children while we are strong, for it is greater than gold and any money that mordern slavery can bring. Please stop child abuse and child labour. Instead guide their paths with quality education.
Help us fight for every child's basic need and education.
Make A Donation To
A times it may be difficult to identify what Child Abuse really is, whether you are a child or you are concerned/working with a child experiencing or likely to experience any form of harm. This page gives you the basic knowledge and signs to look out for regarding Child Abuse and Neglect. What modern slavery is and the factors that influence children to be at high risk.
52492total sites visits.
100 Bourne Morton Drive
Ingleby Barwick
TS17 6FL
info@eduhope.org
Company Registration Number (England and Wales): 06879340
© Copyright 2018 Eduhope Children's Charity l Fiamavle ministeries. All rights reserved.
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Rutgers men's rugby team suspended for spring semester
03/21/16 12:53am Nikhilesh De
Photo by Facebook |
The Rutgers men’s rugby team was suspended in February due to violations of school policy. Their suspension will last at least through Aug. 1, when members can apply for reinstatement as an official group.
The men's rugby team was suspended for the spring semester due to a violation of school policies in February, said Nicholas Nahrwold, a School of Arts and Sciences senior and the team's captain.
The suspension will last through the beginning of summer, likely ending on Aug. 1, Nahrwold said. The team should be able to begin playing again in the fall.
"The whole team (was suspended) — it wasn't an individual, it was a team suspension," he said. "We were informed of the suspension ... about three or four weeks ago."
Nahrwold declined to discuss which University policies were violated.
The team's suspension was first reported by Brendan Triplett of This Is American Rugby on March 11.
During the suspension, the team is not allowed to practice, play, contact their coach or otherwise engage in any team-related events, according to the article. A local tournament meant to be hosted at Rutgers has been moved to Temple University.
"The club ... is working to rectify any outstanding issues before it can seek reinstatement as a recognized student organization," said University Spokesperson E.J. Miranda.
He confirmed the team's suspension in an email but provided no further details.
"It's a step back to a team that was invited to the national championships," Nahrwold said. "I think the team has definitely learned from this event, (and) a setback like this will never happen again."
Nikhilesh De is a School of Engineering junior. He is the news editor of The Daily Targum. Follow him on Twitter @nikhileshde for more.
Nikhilesh De
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- darkmatter Journal - http://www.darkmatter101.org/site -
Aaj Kaal (Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow) [video]
Nirmal Puwar | Journal: Commons | General Issue [7] | Issues | Apr 2012
The film Aaj Kaal.[1]
Aaaj Kaal (Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow) from darkmatter journal on Vimeo.
It has become commonplace to film elders. But it is not so usual for elders to make a film themselves. A little known film, Aaj Kaal (1990) was made over twenty years ago by South Asian elders, within a community education project based in Southall (London), directed by Avtar Brah and coordinated by Jasbir Panesar with the film trainer Vipin Kumar. The film is a powerful historical register and methodological tool in the further development of dialogic and participative methods and modes of engagement using media practices. As we embark on a raft of multi-media based research (pedagogic) practices, we have much to learn from the theoretical, political and practical mediations which informed this project.
Informed by radical forms of pedagogy[2] and a commitment to adult education, the film provides a performative dialogic ethnography.[3] It is notable for at least two reasons. Firstly, in terms of the methodological processes, it was forged in a reflexive project, attentive to the dynamics and practices of telling and listening with film. This was many years ahead of what has now become the burgeoning field of visual sociology. Secondly, the film offers a different enunciation of British post-war social scenes and transnational public spheres.[4] Stories are told and performed by tellers who are usually off the radar in the crafting of histories of racism and anti-racist struggle from Southall.
In the finale of the film, the social and affective properties of gidda feature as an aspect of social scenes produced in British front rooms. Gidda is a dance formation through which Punjabi women have aired their joys and sorrows. It is full of gendered mimicry and risqué words, and moves which they have carried across continents and re-invented in the intimate territorialisation of diaspora space.[5] For earlier generations, as we see in the film, the gidda sessions were central to how they settled and made Britain a home for themselves, in an admixture of pleasure, performance and gendered territory. It is in these private zones that they made their public lives together. These modes of coming together provide one layer, so far largely unregistered, of migration and settlement in the making of the post-war British front room.
Territories are not only made in the political battles on the streets. They are also generated in the social and cultural gatherings in homes, which function as semi-public spaces. Gidda instituted a performative shaping of architecture, with gendered bolian comprising the affective properties of taking occupation and home making together. The film offers a glimpse of the meeting places created by the first generation of Asian elders in day centres and the seaside; a view remote to David Parr’s depiction of the working-class British seaside.
1. For a closer excavation of Aaj Kaal and its ethical and creative antecedents, see Puwar, N. (2012) ‘Mediations on the Making of Aaj Kaal’, Feminist Review, Issue 100, 124-141. Available: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/fr/journal/v100/n1/full/fr201170a.html [↑]
2. Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Harmondsworth: Penguin. [↑]
3. Denzin, N. (1993) Performance Ethnography: Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Culture. London: Sage Publications. [↑]
4. Fraser, Nancy (2007) “Transnationalizing the Public Sphere: On the Legitimacy and Efficacy of Public Opinion in a Post-Westphalian World”, Theory Culture & Society 24(4):7-30. [↑]
5. Brah, A. (1996) Cartographies of a Diaspora: contesting identities, London: Routledge. [↑]
Article printed from darkmatter Journal: http://www.darkmatter101.org/site
URL to article: http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2012/04/03/aaj-kaal-yesterday-today-tomorrow-video/
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Spice Up Your Summer: The girls are coming to Dublin!
By Donegal Woman • 8 months ago
Spice Girls have surprised us all today with a major announcement for Irish fans - they're coming to Croke Park.
The legendary pop group have added extra dates to their much-anticipated today which will now begin in Dublin on Friday 24th May 2019.
It’s 21 years since Spice Girls last performed in Ireland. Emma, Melanie C, Mel B and Geri (minus original member Victoria Beckham) will be back as the first girl group to headline Croker. Posh Spice
Tickets for the Dublin gig go on sale on Ticketmaster this Thursday 22nd November at 9am.
The UK and Ireland stadium tour will see the era defining, history making, best-selling female group of all time bringing girl power back in full force as they reunite on stage for the first time since the London 2012 Olympics.
The Spice Girls formed in 1994 and topped the charts in 37 countries with their debut single ‘Wannabe’ in 1996.
Spice Girls’ debut album ’Spice’ went on to sell more than 31 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling album of all time by a female group.
The girls have gone on to sell more than 85 million records, releasing three studio albums and 13 singles and winning a host of awards including a BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music.
On their upcoming reunion tour, they said: “We are beyond excited to be reuniting next year for a stadium tour! Bringing girl power and our message of friendship and love back to the stage feels more relevant than ever. We hope everyone can join us for one big Spice Girls party!“
Tickets will be available on www.ticketmaster.ie
‘Queen GG’ Grainne earns Top 20 spot in Miss Universe
Niall Horan launches debut solo album to rave reviews
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Augusta National GC
Augusta, Georgia, USA 10 Apr 2014 - 13 Apr 2014
With This Win - Bubba Watson
Bubba Watson celebrates on the 18th green after winning the 2014 Masters (Getty Images)
Top ten for Langer
Strong finish for McIlroy
Gallacher embraces retail therapy
Luiten leaves Augusta on a high note
PHOTO GALLERY: Masters Tournament
• His second European Tour International Schedule victory in his 41st European Tour event. His first was the Masters Tournament in 2012.
• Could move to as high as fourth in the Official World Golf Ranking from 12th.
• His second Major Championship victory in his 25th Major Championship appearance.
• His second Major Championship victory following his first success in the 2012 Masters Tournament.
• His second victory comes in his sixth appearance in the Masters Tournament.
• Becomes the 17th different player to record multiple victories in the Masters Tournament.
• Shared the lead going into the final round of the 2014 Masters Tournament. He made up a three shot last round deficit when he won in 2012, tying Louis Oosthuizen in regulation play, before winning the play-off.
• Moves into joint second place in the all-time list of players to win the second Masters title in the fewest number appearances with six. Horton Smith (won his two from three appearances). Next are Jimmy Demaret (won his first two from six appearances), then alongside Arnold Palmer (won his first two from six appearances).
• Left-handers have now won six of the last 12 Masters Tournaments, dating back to 2003. They are: Mike Weir (2003), Phil Mickelson (2004, 2006, 2010) and Bubba Watson (2012 and 2014).
• Is the ninth Major Championship won by a left-hander. Phil Mickelson (five), Bubba Watson (two), Bob Charles and Mike Weir (both with one).
• Playing in the last group in the final round. The winner has played in the last match on Sunday in 20 of the last 24 years.
• This was the first time he had led a Major Championship going into the final round.
• The 58th American victory in the Masters Tournament.
OTHER FACTS
• Becomes the seventh player to win two Masters Tournament titles for their first two Major victories. They are: Horton Smith (1934, 1936), Jimmy Demaret (1940, 1947), Arnold Palmer (1968, 1960), Bernhard Langer (1985, 1993), Ben Crenshaw (1984, 1995), José María Olazábal (1994 and 1999) and Bubba Watson (2012 and 2014).
• Becomes the 21st victory by a left-hander in European Tour history.
• The second American to win on The European Tour in 2014, following Patrick Reed (WGC – Cadillac Championship).
• Becomes the third consecutive American Major winner, following Phil Mickelson (2013 Open Championship) and Jason Dufner (2013 US PGA Championship).
• The 195th American victory in European Tour history.
• The 17th different winner this season on The European Tour from the 17 events so far.
• The sixth player leading or sharing the lead going into the final round this season that has gone onto win from the 16 stroke play events to date.
• The third rounds leader(s) has now won the Masters Tournament 42 out of the 78 editions.
• Extends his five year exemption in the US Open Championship, Open Championship and US PGA Championship until 2019.
• Gains a place in the 2014 PGA Grand Slam of Golf.
• His second victory of 2014, following the Waste Management Open.
• His seventh victory as a professional.
T1 LANGER, Bernhard GER -
T1 BAE, Sang-moon KOR -
T1 BOWDITCH, Steven AUS -
T1 BRADLEY, Keegan USA -
T1 CASTRO, Roberto USA -
T1 CHOI, K J KOR -
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Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute
About Medgar and Myrlie
Medgar and Myrlie Evers are widely regarded as two of the greatest leaders of the civil rights movement. Medgar Evers was a pioneering visionary for civil rights in the 1950s and early 1960s in Mississippi. From the beginning, Myrlie Evers worked alongside her husband. In the years following his assassination, she continued the pioneering work they had begun together.
Medgar Evers was born on July 2, 1925 in Decatur, Mississippi. He was the third of five children of Jesse and James Evers. His family owned a small farm, and his dad also worked at a sawmill.
Medgar Evers was a pioneering visionary for civil right in the 1950s and early 1960s in Mississippi. As the state’s first field secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), he was one of the most visible leaders in the civil rights movement in America.
His assassination on June 12, 1963 galvanized President John F. Kennedy to ask Congress for a comprehensive civil rights bill, which was signed into law the following year by President Lyndon Johnson.
Myrlie Evers
From the beginning, Myrlie Evers worked alongside her husband, Medgar. In the years following his assassination, she continued the pioneering work they had begun together. An author, lecturer, and educator, she was one of the first African American women to run for Congress. She made significant strides in corporate America as Director for Community Affairs at the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) in the 1970s. In 1995, she was elected chairperson of the NAACP and helped rebuild and restore the national reputation of the organization.
In 1989, she founded the Medgar Evers Institute, with the initial goal of preserving and advancing the legacy of Medgar Evers’ life’s work. Upon the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Medgar Evers, and recognizing the international leadership role of Myrlie Evers, the Institute’s board of directors changed the organization’s name to the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute. She currently serves as chairman of the Institute, with the mission of championing civil rights with a focus on history, education, and reconciliation, especially among young people.
About MMEI
The Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute is a not-for-profit charitable corporation. Contributions are tax deductible to the full extent of the law under the IRS Code Section 501(c)(3).
info@eversinstitute.org
press@eversinstitute.org
Stay informed about MMEI events, activities, and programs.
Tweets by @EversInstitute
Copyright © 2019 Medgar & Myrlie Evers Institute. Theme: Himalayas by ThemeGrill. Powered by WordPress.
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November 30th, 2017 | Written by Peter Buxbaum
Ports Express Concerns Over Tax Bills
CRUISING: The industry operates mobile assets that can be moved from uncompetitive markets to more favorable ones.
Senate tax bill would impose a new tax on the cruise industry.
AAPA wants tax bill to retain the ability of state and local governments to do “advance refunding” of their bonds.
The Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay wants the wind energy tax credit to stay as is.
The American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) has written Senate leaders to oppose new taxes on the cruise industry included in the Senate tax reform bill.
Ports are also concerned about provisions that would restrict the refinancing of municipal bonds and the reduction of the tax credit for wind energy, both in the House bill.
“The cruise line industry is a significant maritime industry responsible for driving economic growth and creating jobs at US port facilities, making it an important part of the American economy,” wrote Kurt Nagle, AAPA president and CEO.
Nagle noted that the cruise industry operates mobile assets that can easily be moved from uncompetitive markets to more favorable ones. The cruise industry contributed $50 billion to the US economy in 2016, supporting 370,000 jobs that paid $20 billion in wages and benefits.
Cruising is a growth industry, with demand increasing 62 percent in the past 10 years. In 2016, 11.52 million of the 24.2 million global cruise passengers globally were from the US.
“We urge you to remove the Senate tax bill provision to impose a new tax on the cruise industry,” Nagle wrote. “This provision would have an enormous adverse impact on the economic viability of our port members and their communities, as well as hinder rather than promote American economic growth, jobs, and our international competitiveness.”
The AAPA also wants the tax bill to retain the ability of state and local governments to do an “advance” refinancing or “refunding” of their bonds. A state or local issuer can refinance – or “refund” – a tax-exempt municipal bond by issuing a new “refunding” bond, using the proceeds to pay off the original bond. According to an AAPA document, advance refundings have saved state and local governments more than $11 billion in the last five years but the current tax bill making its way through Congress would prohibit bond issuers to do an advance refunding.
A refunding bond issued within 90 days of the refunded bond’s redemption is a “current” refunding, while a refunding bond issued more than 90 days before redemption is an “advance” refunding. But, says the AAPA, market conditions favorable to refunding can occur outside the 90-day window of a current refunding and waiting to do a current refunding may miss savings particularly when interest rates are rising. The organization is urging members of Congress to strike the prohibition of tax-exempt advance refundings of municipal bonds in the house bill.
Meanwhile, the Maritime Exchange for the Delaware River and Bay is worried about the provision in the House tax reform bill which would lower the wind energy production tax credit to its 1992 level of $15 per megawatt hour. The credit currently stands at $24 per megawatt hour. The Senate tax bill is silent on the issue.
The Maritime Exchange wants Congress for to implement a permanent extension of the wind energy tax credit, currently set to expire in 2019. “US ports are key partners and significant links in the transportation supply chain tapestry dealing with wind energy components that are imported or installed offshore,” said a letter the organization wrote to Pennsylvania congressman Bob Brady, a Democrat.
Over the past few years, the Port of Wilmington, Delaware, has received 600 wind blades destined for Pennsylvania, according to the document. The Exchange urged Brady to work towards eliminating language in the House bill that lowers the wind energy tax credit PTC in a final tax bill and replacing it with a permanent extension of the current credit.
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Why I dislike the term Scientist
By Hapsci - March 04, 2011
What does the word 'scientist' mean? Really mean? Who can call themselves a ‘scientist’? Someone who studied a 'science' subject at degree level? But what if they became a HR manager and worked in a non 'sciency' company, are they still a scientist? Do you need to have a science PhD to be called a scientist? Or be actively doing science research? But what about all the people that work in science without 'sciency' qualifications? Are they still scientists?
Apparently the word scientist was coined by William Whewell in 1834 at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, to describe a group of people all studying different scientific disciplines (I have to admit, I haven't found any solid sources for this but you can read more about the term scientist here). The word scientist can be used by anyone. The description of someone as a scientist in my view is pretty meaningless; it tells you nothing about the person. I think there is a problem with overuse of the futile word 'scientist' and I do not feel that science reporting, 'engagement' or the image of science in general is helped by the term. This thought occurred to me whilst watching the BBC Horizon programme (Horizon: Science Under Attack). Part of the programme involved looking at climate change articles in different newspapers, the conclusion being that the articles presented an inconsistent story and lead to confusion. Some of this confusion comes directly from the topic, in an area that is still being researched there are bound to be inconsistencies and limitations to what is known, theories are new and still being disproved. However, many science stories have different 'expert scientists' or 'a group of scientists' (named only as 'scientists' and not by their proper job title) who have ‘discovered’, offered an opinion on or have written about the topic in question. Calling yourself a 'scientist' does not give you an expert view on every aspect of science and the majority of media offerings do not make the distinction between different types of scientists or researchers. This lack of distinction is where confusion lies. Unqualified individuals can comment on issues and be seen as an 'expert scientist' in the eyes of the press and public, if the research is questioned by another scientist there is no distinction made between the expertise of the two scientists and therein is the problem, who do you believe? The more sinister side of the story is that people who are not qualified in any way start offering advice to people (an extreme example being misleading use of the word ‘Dr’ by Gillian McKeith) and become recognised public figures, whilst the real experts are ignored. Take this ‘Chocolate healthier than fruit’ (research carried out by scientists) story as an example (it is an example of awful journalism too, the science was carried out at ‘Hershey Centre for Health and Nutrition’ which is clearly a conflict of interest). What it all basically comes down to is checking your sources.
There are other problems with the term 'scientist', such as the negative connotations it generates. For the majority of people the word scientist creates an image of a 'crazy mad scientist' and this has been proven through 'draw a scientist' experiments (if anyone has any other links to the results of any of these experiments please share it with me!). If you do not believe me, just do a quick Internet search for images of scientists. How much is the opinion of a crazy mad scientist who spends all day hiding in a lab really valued? I do not know - I imagine there has been some research into this, somewhere. The solution to this problem could be to drop the word scientist in the media all together and for people to insist that the proper job title of the person or group of people in question is used. I had a little tweet exchange with Mark Henderson (@markgfh) (Science Editor of The Times) and he said he tried to use proper titles but the title or explanation of the person had to be accessible/understandable to all readers. Personally, I think most terms are understood (biologist, pharmacologist, geologist, chemist, mathematician to name a few 'general' terms) by the public. If you really need to use the word scientist or scientists then I see no harm in specifying what kind of 'scientist' the 'scientist' in question is (i.e. cancer research scientist) or when describing a group of people, so a biologist, psychologist and a chemist there is no problem using the description as a 'group of scientists' as long as you specify who makes up the group.
Let me also add that I have no problem with use of the word science my only issue is with 'scientist'.
I would be interested to know what other people thought about this!
happy science real science science science and the media science communication the word scientist
Someone Who Dislikes Buzz 4 March 2011 at 09:47
The word science means many thing. I think scientist has most meaning if we use the definition of science as being a philosophical approach to knowledge. That is a scientist is someone that uses or respects the scientific method to develop knowledge, rather than basing their world view using divine revelation or gut feeling.
So IMO it's not what you know, or whether you're a researcher, that matters; it's whether you have an evidence-based view of reality.
Hapsci 4 March 2011 at 10:44
That, in my view is what you would say about someone who practices science (and is the traditional meaning of the word scientist), however, I think that meaning has been somewhat lost. When a newspaper article states 'scientists have found xxx' or 'Scientist, Dr M says' they use the word scientist as a title and as a way to communicate 'this person knows what they are talking about because they are a scientist'. It has turned into a job title rather than to mean a way someone thinks. Also, I think a lot of science is carried out because of gut feelings, although the scientific method is used to test the gut feeling!
Yes, I agree that the public misunderstands science as being the unalterable truth of the universe; rather than an iterative process of developing ways of explaining it - making scientists the new priesthood. I don't think there's anything wrong with this meaning of the word, just how we are portrayed by the media in this instance.
(There's absolutely nothing wrong with gut feeling, BTW - it's essential in some instances. But you can't say that your personal choice over today's flavour of ice cream is scientifically derived. OK, some might but this is bogus research of the order of the 17th January is the most depressing day of the year)
Tim Eggleston 10 March 2011 at 09:20
I call myself a scientist, and I do so as a badge of honour. It has nothing to do with my Geology degree or the fact that I work with computers now -- as Buzz alludes to above, it's about taking an evidence-based approach to reality. Most people living normal lives apply the scientific method all the time without even realising that's what they're doing.
I think that declaring you have a problem with the word "scientist" as a noun or collective noun is a depressingly insular way of looking at the world. Most people who have no interest in science don't care what your speciality is, they just lump us all together in one big stereotype. Sure, if you look at it in a glass-half-full way, the stereotype sucks, and you're into "mad scientist" or "nerd" territory. But if you're optimistic about things, and if you choose to look on the brighter side of the philosophical spectrum, you have people like Simon Singh or Carl Sagan or Larry Page and Sergey Brin -- and who wouldn't want to be lumped into the same basket as them?
I think efforts would be better placed reclaiming the word scientist; using it in its optimistic sense and making sure that when people hear it, that's what they understand. Take back the stereotype, and make it your own!
Hapsci 10 March 2011 at 10:21
like I said to the comment 'someone who dislikes buzz' above, the traditional meaning of the word scientist is someone who thinks and approches things in a scientific way. However I think that meaning has been somewhat lost. The media refering to someone as a 'scientist'/expert scientist' as a way of justifying a viewpoint on a given topic means nothing and therefore the word scientist in that context is useless and confusing. I might not have made that clear enough in the post above.
ginckgo 17 April 2011 at 01:30
This may be slightly tangential, but I've been thinking about the badging of someone as a scientist for life because of their degree. This particularly comes up in discussions about the compatibility of science and religion. People [citation needed] have argued that these two are compatible because there are scientists that are also religious. To me this simply means that people can compartmentalise their professional work and their private beliefs. Or put another way, religion is compatible with people, however, that does not mean it is compatible with the act of carrying out scientific research (quite the opposite actually).
So this is another area where the term 'scientist' is misused.
Neil Craig 16 June 2011 at 08:41
When you look at the number of people who try to get respect by calling themselves scientists -Christioan scinetists, scientologists, global warming scientists, political scinetists (well most of the), creation scientists - it is clear they think that the term engenders public respectr. I think the problem should nopt be dropping the term but finding some definition which would limit it to people practicing the scientific method.
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2019 Belmont Derby, Belmont Oaks, and John A. Nerud Stakes
Henley's Joy takes his walk down Victory Lane after the 2019 Belmont Derby Invitational
Suburban and Dwyer Stakes - also on the card
The Saturday after Independence Day is one of the highlights of the Belmont Park spring-summer meeting, with 5 rich graded stakes run that afternoon. Intermittent showers passed through the area but the main track remained fast and the turf courses firm wth temperatures in the low 80's. The highlight race of the afternoon was the $1 million Belmont Derby Invitational (G1) for 3-year-olds going 1 1/4 miles on the inner turf course. The Belmont Derby kicks off the new Turf Trinity Series for 3-year-olds, which continues with the 1 3/16 mile Saratoga Derby on August 4 and the 1 1/2 mile Jockey Club Derby at Belmont on September 7, with all 3 races offering $1 million purses. American Turf (G2) fourth place finisher Seismic Wave was sent off as the lukewarm 9-2 favorite in the full field of 14, off his close 2nd in the Pennine Ridge (G3). In to challenge him uncluded 5-1 second choice Demarchelier, undefeated in 3 starts including the Pennine Ridge (G3), and 11-2 third choice Digital Age, also undefeated in 3 starts including the Columbia Stakes and the American Turf (G2).
Henley's Joy takes over the lead in the stretch.
Jockey Julien Leparoux sent 15-1 Moon Colony to the lead first time by through fractions of 23.31, 47.80, 1:11.60, and 1:35.53 while pressed by 49-1 Blenheim Palace and stalked by 21-1 Henley's Joy. Entering the stretch, Moon Colony tired as 16-1 Social Paranoia, 4th early, moved up to lead through 9f in 1:47.29. Henley's Joy, 3rd throughout under Jose Lezcano, came out for room and rallied to take the lead at the 1/16 pole to win by 3/4 length in 1:58.29. It was another 1/2 length back to late-running 11-1 Rockemperor third.
Pgm Horse Jockey Win Place Show
6 Henley's Joy Lezcano 43.60 21.60 13.60
8 Social Paranoia Franco 15.80 9.20
14 Rockemperor Velazquez 8.70
Winning Time: 1:58.29
$1 Exacta 6-8 331.50
$1 Trifecta 6-8-14 4,450.50
$1 Superfecta 6-8-14-13 40,161.50
Results Chart
Left: Henley's Joy in the winner's circle. Winning owner Jeffrey Bloom said, "It's such a big race to win and it's so important, but for this particular horse, he's had the worst racing luck and he's just been so honest, so many rough trips, it was just so gratifying to see him be able to show everybody how talented he is. He's had so many near misses in situations where things didn't go right and he answered the call today in a big spot."
Right: Henley's Joy heads back to the barn after the race. Winning jockey Jose Lezcano said, "I had a very good trip. I broke out of the gate and going into the first turn I had one horse in front, one beside me. The horse seemed very comfortable. Around the backside, I was a little worried he was kind of jumping off the bridle. When I asked him to take off, it was easier because of how he broke out of the gate. It's been a very good meet. All the trainers have given me great opportunities and I'm very grateful for them."
Left: Second place finisher and beaten favorite Social Paranoia in the paddock before the race. Jockey Manny Franco said, "I got the trip that I wanted. The horse responded to me every time that I asked. I just got beat by a better horse. This is the second time that I've been on him and he ran great for me. I could not ask for more."
Right: Third place finisher Rockemperor heads out of the paddock before the race. Jockey John Velazquez said, "It was a very good effort. He just didn't break good enough to be closer up front. Following the start, he came out with a good run and finished up well."
Left: Fifth place finisher and beaten favorite Seismic Wave returns after the race. The 9-2 choice was 11th early and 11 lengthe off the pace under Joel Rosario then passed tired horses to finish 5th beaten 3 3/4 lengths. The Bill Mott trainee has a record of 2 wins, 2 seconds, and 1 third in 7 starts, earning $223,150 for owner-breeder Juddmonte Farms.
Right: The horses break from the gate for the Belmont Derby.
Concrete Rose wins the Belmont Oaks Invitational
The $750,000 Belmont Oaks Invitational (G1) featured 9 three-year-old fillies also going 1 1/4 miles in the inner turf. The Belmont Derby kicks off the new Turf Tiara Series for 3-year-old fillies, which continues with the 1 3/16 mile Saratoga Oaks on August 4 and the 1 3/8 mile Jockey Club Oaks at Belmont on September 7, with all 3 races having $750,000 purses. Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1) winner Newspaperofrecord was sent off as the 8-5 favorite off 2nd place finishes in the Edgewood (G3) and Wonder Again (G3), over 3-1 Concrete Rose, winne of the Edgewood (G3), and 7-2 Cambier Parc, winner of the Wonder Again (G3).
Jockey JMiyabi Muto sent 42-1 Jodie to the lead first time by and she set fractions of 24.29, 49.16, 1:14.14, and 1:37.79 while pressed by Concrete Rose and stalked by Newspaperofrecord. Entering the stretch, Jodie tired allowing Concrete Rose to take over through 9f in 1:49.24. Kept to task by jockey Julien Leparoux, Concrete Rose drew off late to win by 2 3/4 lengths over late-running 18-1 Just Wonderful in 1:59.97. It was a nose back to Cambier Parc third, while favorite Newspaperofrecord came up empty late to finish last beaten 13 1/4 lengths.
Left: Concrete Rose in the winner's circle. Winning trainer Rusty Arnold said, "It's a long year, but her last two have really moved her forward. I was impressed today. I was very, very happy with how she ran. (I was concerned) that I rested her too much. Everyone had run and we hadn't run in two months and a couple of days and I was a little worried. Her training went smooth, her works went smooth and everything went well. Sometimes your plan works and sometimes it doesn't work, but this one worked. Absolutely (will run in the Saratoga Oaks). Unless there's an issue. That's why we rested her and hopefully it worked."
Right: Concrete Rose heads to Victory Lane. Winning jockey Julien Leparoux said, "I thought (Newspaperofrecord) would be on the lead unless they came for her, but I guess today they tried something new and took her back a little bit. (Jodie) wanted to go, so I was happy to be second and my filly relaxed beautiful for me the whole race. I knew at the 1/4 pole, I had a lot left. She made a big run at the end. It was nice. She's pretty easy to rate. She seemed nervous in the paddock, but when she's on the track, she's just very easy to ride. I knew was going to relax and I wasn't really that concerned about the distance."
Left: Second place finisher Just Wonderful in the paddock before the race. Jockey Wayne Lordan said, "She likes to drop in at the races at home, so we decided to do the exact same thing here. I thought she came home really well. It's her first time going that trip as well, and for the future she'll get that trip. Hopefully, she can come back out here and compete again. I'm delighted with the run."
Right: Third place finisher Cambier Parc heads out of the paddock. Trainer Chad Brown said, "She ran terrific. I thought she got a pretty good trip. The winner was tons the best today. She really performed. Unfortunately, we just lost second by a bob, but I was proud of her effort.:
Left: Last place finisher and beaten favorite Newspaperofrecord returns after the race. Trainer Chad Brown said, "She didn't want to rate at all, she was all over the place. It was no fault of Irad (Ortiz)'s, the filly just wouldn't cooperate. So, we tried it, it didn't work, and that's that."
Right: The start of the Belmont Oaks.
Promises Fulfilled wins the John A. Nerud Stakes
The $300,000 John A. Nerud Stakes (G2), formerly run as the Belmont Sprint, featured a field of 7 older horses sprinting 7 furlongs on the main track, with the winner earning automatic entry to the Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) under the Breeders' Cup Challenge "Win and You're In" promotion. Metropolitan (G1) fourth place finisher Promises Fulfilled was sent off as the 3-5 favorite over 4-1 Nicodemus, 4th in the True North (G2), and 7-1 Do Share, 4th in the Churchill Downs (G1).
Jockey Luis Saez sent Promises Fulfilled to the lead immediately through fractins of 23.16 and 46.09 while pressed by 17-2 fourth choiice Warrior's Club and stalked by 24-1 Killybegs Captain. Turning for home, Promises Fulfilled left the field in his wake opening up by 2 1/2 lengths midstretch through 3/4 in 1:09.47. Kept to task by Saez, Promises Fulfilled drew off late to win by 4 1/2 lengths in 1:21.75. It was a neck back from Warrior's Club to Killybegs Captain third.
Left: Promises Fulfilled in the winner's circle. Winning trainer Dale Romans said, "It didn't look like there was much speed and when (Killybegs Captain) missed the break, that left him out there. He was going to be hard to beat if no one pressed him. He hadn't had that slow of a pace in his life. Look at the horses he's been running against; this race finally gave him a bit of class relief. But this should set him up well. Where we go next, we'll have to sit down and figure it out. He can make a mile. There's just a good group of horses running 3/4 and a mile. We'll get that all figured out."
Right: Promises Fulfilled heads back to the barn. Winning jockey Luis Saez said, "He broke so sharp. He always breaks sharp. The last time, he missed the break, but today he broke so clean, he was right there. When he came to the stretch, and he switched leads, he was running. I still had a lot of horse. It's very hot today. He got a little tired when he crossed the wire, but that's normal. I think he's 100 percent. He feels way better than he did in his last races, and let's see what happens in Saratoga."
Left: Second place finisher Warrior's Club in the post parade. Jockey Joel Rosario said, "It was a nice finish by him. Chasing the leader, he was the horse to beat, and my horse kept fighting. It was a good effort."
Right: Third place finisher Killybegs Captain in the paddock before the race. The 24-1 shot stalked the pace in third under Eric Cancel but could not improve late, finishing third beaten 4 3/4 lengths. The John Terranova trainee improved his record to 5 wins, 5 seconds, and 2 thirds in 21 starts, earning $305,453 for owner Curragh Stables.
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105,000 foreign citizens issued with work permits since 2016 in Turkey
The Ministry of Labor and Social Security has issued work permits to 104,915 foreign citizens in Turkey since 2016, it stated on March 27.
According to the data reported by the ministry’s International Labor Force Department, the province of Istanbul tops the list, hosting 38,837 foreigners who have been issued work permits.
The neighboring northwestern province of Kocaeli, with 622 work permits, is at the bottom of the list.
Of the total 105,000 work permits handed out since 2016, 39,935 have been given to Syrian citizens.
There are around 4.5 million migrants in Turkey, 3.5 million of whom are Syrians.
Syria has been locked in a devastating civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad government cracked down with unexpected ferocity on pro-democracy protests that erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and millions more have been displaced by the conflict.
citizen, work permits, 2016, Turkey
‘On night of July 15, deputies risked lives’
Erdoğan slams former deputy PM Babacan over his resignation from AKP
Former Turkish Deputy PM Babacan resigns from AKP
Arrival of S-400s is in preparation process: Erdoğan
CHP head pays visit to Istanbul mayor
Erdoğan: Turkey abiding by international laws in East Med
MHP leader slams fresh debates on Turkey’s presidential system
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Thousands protest UK health services
February 04 2018 16:56:00
Thousands of people marched through central London on Feb. 3 in support of the country’s embattled National Health Service (NHS), which is straining under the weight of winter demand.
NHS staffing levels have been in crisis for months, an issue made worse by a winter flu outbreak. The public health service is a highly-emotive political issue, and controversially formed the center-piece of the successful pro-Brexit campaign during the 2016 referendum.
Protesters carrying placards reading “NHS not for sale”, and “Hands off our NHS”, braved the cold and rain to demand that the government pump more money into the system, and roll back the influence of the private sector in the public-funded service. Hospital campaigner Tamsyn Bacchus demonstrated with a life-size replica vulture and an NHS placard, fearing that the free-at-point-of-use service was moving towards a US style user-pay system.
“I have faith, and so do all these folk here, that it’s so important... when your child is running a high fever, when you need the hospital or a doctor you can get them without worrying about having to pay for it,” she told the Press Association.
There are 40,000 vacant nurse posts in England, according to the Royal College of Nursing, with 27 percent more nurses and midwives leaving the job between 2016 and 2017 than joining. Numerous doctors have taken to social media in recent weeks to apologize to patients, with one emergency doctor in central England warning of “third-world conditions.”
During the 2016 EU referendum, the Leave campaign’s battlebus that carried leading figures such as Boris Johnson around the country was emblazoned with the disputed claim that the NHS could receive up to 350 million ($494 million, 397 million euros) extra per week if Britain no longer had to fund the EU.
National Health Service, NHS, heaşth, UK, England, rights, service, public service
Short-term foreign debt stock at $120.4B
Turkey, 3 more countries seek cooperation in technology
More than 500,000 houses sold in H1
Turkish economy sees total turnover rise 14.4% in May
Retail sales volume down 3.7% in May
Turkey runs $14B budget deficit in H1
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Turkey violated right to a fair trial in anti-terror case, says ECHR
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled Turkey violated the right to legal assistance and the right to examine witnesses in a 2003 court ruling which sentenced an alleged member of a terror organization to 18 years and nine months of imprisonment.
The applicant, Hasan Basri Gökbulut, was deported to Turkey from Iran on May 2002 and subsequently interrogated by the police, where he admitted being one of the main leaders of the outlawed Federative Islamic State of Anatolia (AFİD).
Following his questioning, Gökbulut was charged with membership of an illegal armed organization and faced trial in August 2002.
During the trial, the public prosecutor made use of the testimonies of four other suspects taken during criminal proceedings in 1998, identifying Gökbulut as one of the leaders of the organization.
Meanwhile, the defendant retracted his confessions, claiming to have been tortured by the police during his interrogation and demanded to examine the witnesses against him. The court, however, refused his demand and sentenced Gökbulut to 18 years and nine months of imprisonment.
In his 2003 application to the ECHR, Gökbulut explained he was not able to consult a lawyer while he was held in police custody. He also complained he was denied the right to examine any of the witnesses whose testimony the court relied upon for his conviction.
The ECHR’s judgment found Turkey guilty of violating Gökbulut’s rights to legal assistance and to examine witnesses and concluded that the national court did not provide “any serious reason” to deny Gökbulut the right to examine the witnesses whose statements were admitted as evidence.
“The testimony in question had played a decisive role, since no other evidence in the case file had directly proved that Mr. Gökbulut had committed the offence with which he was charged,” the court said.
The ECHR also underlined that the security court did not respond to Gökbulut’s allegations that his initial testimony was taken under duress, concluding that Turkey’s courts “failed to verify the procedural safeguards and the way in which the statements had been obtained.”
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