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City-centre office building on the market
Monday, 8 July 2019, 11:41 am
Press Release: Bayleys
City-centre office building prime for mixed-use redevelopment placed on the market for sale
An Auckland city-centre office block with potential for redevelopment into a mixed-use commercial and residential property has been placed on the market for sale.
Under the Auckland Plan, the property is zoned business city centre. Permitted activities under this classification allow for the provision of accommodation and boarding house operations, community care, food and beverage businesses, education providers, office or retail space, healthcare firms, or retirement village services.
The 364 square metres of square-shaped freehold land and 736.7 square metre building at 117 Vincent Street are being marketed for sale by tender through Bayleys Auckland, with tenders closing at 4pm on August 8. The property features in Bayleys’ latest Total Property magazine out now.
Bayleys Auckland salespeople James Chan and Owen Ding said the property was built in 1965 and had a new building standards rating of 40 percent. A legal vehicle and pedestrian access way linking Hobson Street and Vincent Street runs along one side of the property
Each level of the three-storey building is 245 square metres. The ground level is currently configured to accommodate 12 covered car parks directly accessed from Vincent Street, while an additional six uncovered car parks are available on a sealed yard to the rear of the premises.
In its current two-tenant lay-out, the building’s upper two levels are accessed by a shared stairwell, with the main entry to the building accessed from Vincent Street. Both floors were fitted out some seven years ago and are configured in a mix of open plan, small offices, and meeting rooms, with each level having access to their own toilet amenities.
Architects firm bsw architects currently occupies both floors on a lease expiring at the end of 2020, and generating rental of $100,000 plus GST per annum.
“There is the potential for any new owner to either retain the building in its current floor plan serving two tenancies, or completely redesign one of the floors to accommodate residential accommodation in the premises,” Mr Chan said.
“The offices in their current state are of a C-grade standard – meaning they could be let ‘as is’ with any per square metre rate reflecting that grading, or the space could be subjected to a degree of modernisation and refitting to improve the offices up to an A-grade standard suitable for a medium-sized business tenancy.”
Mr Chan said plans had already been drawn up by the former owner for the construction of a six-storey mixed-use commercial and residential development on the site. Under those plans upper levels of the block could be configured to accommodate a quartet of one, two, and three-bedroom units on each floor.
Council planning regulations dictate that one-bedroom units in Auckland must be a minimum of 45 square metres in size, while two-bedroom units must be of a minimum 70 square metre in size, and the three bedroom units must be of minimum of 90 square metres in size.
“Auckland’s central business district is continually undergoing intensive redevelopment – particularly over the past four years with the council’s stated commitment to city-wide densification in the residential sector,” Mr Ding said.
“This has seen a number of older buildings which had previously solely housed commercial or retail tenancies now being converted to either apartment blocks or mixed-used complexes. Consequently, small stand-alone buildings such as this are becoming a growing rarity.”
One of the first examples of this latest on-going wave of commercial-to-residential conversions was undertaken nearby at 132 Vincent Street opposite the central police station in what was the former headquarters of infrastructure services company Beca Carter. After selling in late 2011, the tower has gone on to be converted into 62 contemporary-styled luxury apartments.
“The tree-lined character of Vincent Street automatically lends itself to the creation of apartments in buildings such as number 117,” Mr Ding said.
The building has a street frontage of 18.3 metres and was built in a standard concrete pillar and steel framing - with air conditioning ducted to both levels of office space.
“Any modernisation of the existing structure and interior to a commercial layout could simultaneously include a strengthening of the building to a much higher degree of new building standard (NBS),” he said.
Vincent Street is just a few hundred metres away from the ‘Spaghetti Junction’ motorway interchange linking Auckland CBD with the city’s southern and western suburbs, and less than a kilometre away from the northbound onramp of the motorway linking the North Shore.
Bayleys Real Estate
Bayleys is New Zealand's largest full-service real estate company. We offer expertise in the marketing and sale of a wide range of property, including residential real estate, farms and lifestyle blocks, and commercial and industrial property. This includes tourism and business sales such as hotels and motels. We also cover the real estate markets in Fiji and other Pacific Islands.
Bayleys also provides a complete property and facilities service including property management and valuations teams focused on achieving both Owner and Tenant satisfaction.
No other real estate company can match our breadth of coverage across all market sectors throughout New Zealand.
Contact Bayleys Real Estate
Website - bayleys.co.nz
Latest News - PropertyLive
Contact - Salesperson
Contact - Offices
Tech will reduce ag emissions, but efficiencies key for now 17/07/19 | Agricultural Greenhou...
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Join the CIA: Travel the World Giving Out Nuclear Blueprints
Thursday, 11 July 2019, 3:26 pm
Article: David Swanson
http://davidswanson.org/join-the-cia-travel-the-world-passing-out-nuclear-blueprints/
In the year 2000, the CIA gave Iran (slightly and obviously flawed) blueprints for a key component of a nuclear weapon. In 2006 James Risen wrote about this “operation” in his book State of War. In 2015, the United States prosecuted a former CIA agent, Jeffrey Sterling, for supposedly having leaked the story to Risen. In the course of the prosecution, the CIA made public a partially redacted cable that showed that immediately after bestowing its gift on Iran, the CIA had begun efforts to do the same for Iraq. Now in 2019, Sterling is publishing his own book, Unwanted Spy: The Persecution of an American Whistleblower.
I can only make sense of one reason why the CIA hands out blueprints for nuclear bombs (and in the case of Iran planned to deliver actual parts as well). Both Risen and Sterling claim that the goal was to slow down Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Yet we now know that the CIA had no solid knowledge that Iran had any nuclear weapons program, or if it had one how advanced it was. We know that the CIA has been involved in promoting the false belief that Iran is a nuclear threat since the early 1990s. But even assuming that the CIA believed Iran to have a nuclear weapons program in 2000 (which the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate would later claim had been ended in 2003), we have not been offered any explanation of how providing flawed blueprints could have been imagined to slow such a program down. If the idea is supposed to be that Iran or Iraq would simply waste time building the wrong thing, we run up against two problems. First, they would likely waste vastly more time if working without plans, as compared to working with flawed ones. Second, the flaws in the plans given to Iran were obvious and apparent.
When the former-Russian assigned to deliver the blueprints to the Iranian government immediately spotted the flaws in them, the CIA told him not to worry. But they didn’t tell him that the flawed plans would somehow slow down an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Instead they told him that the flawed plans would somehow reveal to the CIA how far along Iran’s program was. But how that would happen has never been explained either. And it conflicts with something else they told him, namely that they already knew how far along Iran was and that Iran already had the nuclear knowledge that they were providing. My point is not that these assertions were true but that the slow-them-down rationale was not attempted.
One never wants to underestimate incompetence. The CIA knew next to nothing about Iran, and by Sterling’s account was not seriously trying to learn. By Risen’s account, around 2004 the CIA accidentally revealed to the Iranian government the identities of all of its agents in Iran. But incompetence does not seem to explain a consciously thought-out effort to distribute nuke plans to designated enemies. What does seem to explain it better is the desire to point to the possession of those plans, or of the product of those plans, as evidence of a hostile threat of “weapons of mass destruction,” which, as we all know, is an acceptable excuse for a war.
That we are not entitled to find out, even 20 years later, whether giving nuke plans to Iran was incompetence or malevolence, or to ask Bill Clinton or George W. Bush why they approved of it, is itself a problem that goes beyond incompetence and into the realm of anti-democratic tyrannical governance by secret agencies.
We have no possible way of knowing a complete list of countries the U.S. government has handed nuclear weapons plans to. Trump is now giving nuclear weapons secrets to Saudi Arabia in violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty, his oath of office, and common sense — though we must, of course, defer to the wisdom of Nancy Pelosi and recognize that nothing Trump does could possibly be impeachable. The silver lining is that whistleblowers on giving nukes to the Saudis have apparently been listened to by certain members of Congress who have gone public with the information. Whether the difference is the individuals, the committees, the sides of Capitol Hill, the party in the majority, the party in the White House, the involvement of the CIA, the general culture, or the nation being given the keys to the apocalypse, the fact is that when Jeffrey Sterling went to Congress to reveal the giving of nukes to Iran, Congress Members either ignored him, suggested that he move to Canada, or — with horrible timing — died before doing anything.
Sterling’s new book, Unwanted Spy, includes very little about Operation Merlin, the plot to give nukes to Iran. The book is well worth reading for other reasons. But Sterling does tell us on page 2 that he did not leak the story to James Risen or anyone else. Later in the book he tells us that he took the story to Congressional committee staff with the proper clearance and oversight responsibilities.
In a world that was even slightly sane Sterling’s assertion that he did not leak the story to Risen might risk endangering others. Sterling has already been to prison for what I consider an admirable act of public service but the U.S. government considers the crime of “espionage.” But prosecutions for crimes in our culture are almost never desired once someone has been convicted, even if it was the wrong someone. Sterling has asserted his innocence consistently from day one. Sterling later in the book promotes the idea that one of the Congressional staff members he spoke to may have leaked the story to Risen (so he’s clearly not worried about any new prosecutions). And if you read through Sterling’s whole book, the possibility arises in your mind that the purpose of the prosecution of Jeffrey Sterling may have been as much about targeting Sterling over other matters as it was about pinning the blame on someone for Risen’s story.
Of course, assuming that it is true that Sterling was not Risen’s source, someone else was, someone who allowed Sterling to go to prison in his or her place. And, of course, Risen kept silent as well. Perhaps his promise of confidentiality to his source justified that silence. Perhaps all parties involved had little reason to believe they could help Sterling effectively, even if they tried, given the fact that he was targeted and convicted in the absence of any evidence he committed the whistleblowing.
Sterling’s book takes us from his childhood up through his trial. It provides an insightful account of how a boy and young man dealt with growing up black in the United States, and growing up with a troubled family and more than his share of serious hardship. From early on, Sterling writes that he had a deep desire to know what his country thought of him. With the guilty verdicts at his trial, he believes he’s finally been given the ugly answer.
Whether it would have helped him or not, I do not know, but I would have tried offering the advice, on the chance that it might help, that one ought not to care too much what an imaginary and fictional entity thinks of one. A country has no thoughts. It’s not a person. What do people think of you? Even that question can be given too much weight, but Sterling seems capable early on of keeping it in check. I wish he could have done the same with the less useful question of what his country thought of him.
I even wish he had not tried to “serve” his country by going to work for a secret agency which, through the course of his account, and every other account I’ve read, is never recorded as having done anything useful, much less enough good to outweigh the harm.
I’m not criticizing Sterling for joining the CIA. He was up against racist prejudice in trying to find satisfying employment. The CIA was advertising itself as diverse and enlightened, and as a way to see the world, in addition to promoting the militaristic nationalism in which not just Sterling but darn near every U.S. child believes. When Sterling, who had grown up in a small town in Missouri, took the job at the CIA, he moved to my hometown in Northern Virginia. He found the locale in some ways more advanced, and more welcoming of his inter-racial marriage. I’m sorry Sterling didn’t grow up there and that I didn’t know him; he’s within a couple of years of my age.
But where Sterling ran up against racism most severely was not in Missouri, but in Northern Virginia within the bureaucracy of the CIA. He found there a rightwing culture that had not accepted the idea of racial equality, and as far as we know still hasn’t. His career was stymied by supervisors who blocked his way and were none too subtle about the reasons why. He was told that he couldn’t do certain work in Europe because he’d stand out too much being black. He’d been to Africa and seen all-white CIA offices whose members might as well have worn signs around their necks. When he complained he was informed that by joining the CIA he had given up his civil rights.
Sterling didn’t accept that. He went through all available channels to overcome discrimination. And that made him a target for retribution. The retribution was overwhelming, and Sterling suffered. He attempted suicide. And the worst was yet to come.
Yet Jeffrey Sterling persevered remarkably. He remade himself. He faced disaster head-on. One thing that he writes gave him a major boost was the supportive letters that people mailed him while he was in prison. It’s worth remembering how often people who’ve been to prison say this. Next time you sit down to write to a Congress Member or a friend or a relative, maybe consider writing to a prisoner as well.
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
Find more from David Swanson on InfoPages.
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YES! 139 times - yes.
Maryland House of Delegates votes unanimously in favor of classroom screen safety bill
Sending cheers across the country, the Maryland House of Delegates today voted unanimously to approve a measure that requires the Maryland State Department of Education to create "Health and Safety Best Practices" for the use of digital devices in Maryland classrooms.
The bill now moves into the Senate Rules Committee, which will refer the legislation to the Senate Education Health and Environmental Affairs (EHE) Committee. Please call the members of the Rules Committee, and ask them to move this bill forward as soon as possible.
While there is no opportunity to testify in person in any of these deliberations, please contact your Senator and ask him/her to take action and support this critical effort to protect Maryland children from avoidable harm in their classrooms.
Your Senator's contact information is here.
The Maryland House of Delegates is to be commended for their unanimous vote today; it is a display of unparalleled leadership in protecting the health and safety of all Maryland students, and preventing avoidable harm in their classrooms.
Deepest thanks to everyone who is voting, calling, writing, tweeting, sharing, liking, emailing and working so hard to get this done this year.
The Maryland House of Delegates adopted amendments to HB1110 today, moving the nation's first classroom screen safety legislation one step closer to passage. A final vote of approval from the House is expected tomorrow when the delegates reconvene.
The bill's next step will be in the Senate Rules Committee, and then on to the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee.
Discussion and updates regarding amendments to the bill will be posted here in coming days. Today, however, it's time to just say thank you to all who are working so hard to protect our kids, and a special thank you to all who voted to move HB1110 forward today.
House Education Subcommittee Favorably Reviews
HB1110 Classroom Screen Safety legislation
LATEST: Many thanks to the House Ways and Means Committee for moving HB1110 forward for a House floor vote - scheduled for Tuesday, March 27.
UPDATE 3/22: The Montgomery County Board of Education has reconsidered its position on HB1110 and has voted unanimously tonight in support of the classroom screen safety bill.
Thank you, Delegate Luedtke and the members of the House Ways and Means Education Subcommittee who voted today in favor of this critical legislation. Thank you, Delegate Steve Arentz for sponsoring the bill. Thank you, to all the co-sponsors who are standing up for our children's health in the classroom.
And thank you to all the people who have linked arms and are working so hard to get this legislation through. We still have a long way to go. Please follow on Twitter for the latest.
So very grateful.
Why isn't the Chair bringing this to a vote?
Both the House Ways and Means Committee Chair, Delegate Anne Kaiser, and the Education Subcommittee Chair, Delegate Eric Luedtke, represent District 14 in Montgomery County, home to Maryland's largest and most influential school district.
HB1110, the classroom screen safety bill, is now in the subcommittee's hands, but Delegate Luedtke has not brought it up for a vote. Is it because of a letter from Montgomery County Public Schools?
In its "no position" testimony for HB1110, MCPS displays a bizarre ignorance of the substantial research on the negative health impacts of digital devices, and a callous disregard for the welfare of its students, whom the schools are legally bound to protect. MCPS blatantly prioritizes additional digital tools over the health of children:
"While well-intended, the requirement to consider and adopt proposed guidelines and procedures for the use of digital devices may, ultimately, contradict expectations of Montgomery County Public Schools to address the increased reliance and demand for digital tools in schools."
Citing literature from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that does not apply to a school setting, MCPS also strangely fails to take into account the Maryland AAP's support of the bill.
A majority of the Education Subcommittee supports the creation of statewide classroom screen safety guidelines, as do many of his Ways and Means colleagues, so why hasn't Delegate Luedtke brought it to a vote? It's undemocratic. There is no opposition and no associated costs. Just kids being protected.
Right now, the youngest of children can be required by their schools to use digital devices literally from the time they walk into the building, until the moment they walk out again. From Kindergarten through high school graduation. Without any regulation whatsoever, even though OSHA protects workers under the same circumstances.
Delegate Eric G. Luedtke
District 14, Montgomery Co.
If Delegate Luedtke fails to bring HB1110 to a vote, he will seal the fate of children across the state, increasing their risk for myopia, dry eye disease, obesity, sleeplessness, anxiety, depression and suicide -- all related to the daily use of digital devices, according to researchers.
He will also be ignoring the position of the state's medical community, 32 co-sponsors of the bill, and the fervent support of child welfare groups across the state, and across the country. How can one person deny the will of the people so flagrantly - especially when the health of children hangs in the balance?
All Maryland students should have a safe classroom
This bill ensures that the poorest kids in our state (not just the affluent ones in districts whose parents are well informed about this issue) have equal protections from the known hazards of classroom digital devices. The state owes all of its children a safe classroom, especially when individual school systems are ignoring warnings from physicians, pediatricians, occupational therapists, psychologists, optometrists and ophthalmologists -- all of whom provided written testimony supporting this bill.
The statistics are already piling up - myopia, obesity and suicide rates are soaring among the nation's children. Researchers point directly to the use of digital devices as the culprit. It is unconscionable to fail to protect Maryland students, when the hazards they face are actually introduced by their schools.
Delegate Luedtke, you alone will ensure that students are being protected, or harmed. Please put HB1110 up for a vote. If you let the clock run out on this bill, children will suffer needlessly.
So many people to thank
The support letters for HB1110 overflowed in the House Ways & Means hearing folder on Friday, March 2. There is no opposition to this bill. It has 32 co-sponsors representing both parties, from across the state. And the fiscal policy note indicates it will not cost the state or local districts a dime.
Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood submitted a petition signed by over a hundred of their Maryland members - mostly from Montgomery County - along with their organization's firm endorsement.
Common Sense Media sent a letter of support, as did Prevent Blindness, the Queen Anne's County Commissioners, the Maryland State Medical Society (MedChi) and the American Academy of Pediatrics' Maryland Chapter. The Mental Health Association of Maryland also endorses HB1110.
Parents Across America submitted written testimony. The Baltimore County PTA Council and Advocates for Baltimore County Schools sent letters of endorsement and testified at the hearing. International eye care specialists Reticare and TreeHouse Eyes of Bethesda endorsed HB1110 in their written testimony. Child development experts and concerned parents across the state submitted their written support as well.
It was a long day for everyone - especially Committee members - as several bills lasted well into the evening. Our sincere thanks to Chair Anne Kaiser, Vice Chair Frank Turner and all the Committee members for their patience after such a long day, and their professional attention to this matter.
And hats off to those who stayed during the windstorm to testify on behalf of the bill, especially Delegate Steve Arentz, Leslie Weber, Julie Sugar, Pam Kasemeyer and the indomitable Ms. Rachel Faulkner. Representing the Maryland Occupational Therapy Association, Ms. Faulkner stayed all afternoon just to ask that her profession be included in this critical effort to protect Maryland students from avoidable harm in their classrooms.
Here's the video testimony. (It begins at 4:55:15)
Let's hope that the education subcommittee members will appreciate the gravity of the public health risks facing our children, recognize the overwhelming support for this bill from the medical community, parents and child health experts, and recommend its approval.
Support testimony for HB1110
Maryland House of Delegates
Dear Chairman Kaiser, Vice Chair Turner, and Members of the Committee:
I am writing in support of HB1110: "Public Schools - Health and Safety Guidelines and Procedures - Digital Devices." The bill's primary sponsor, Delegate Steve Arentz, represents my district and has championed this effort to protect Maryland's children from the growing list of health risks associated with the use of the schools' digital devices.
It is encouraging to see so many members of the House Ways and Means Committee as co-sponsors of this crucial effort: Delegates Buckel, Ebersole, Hornberger, Patterson, Rose, Shoemaker and Tarlau, thank you. This is a vitally important bill and your support is deeply appreciated.
Just this week the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released data showing that obesity remains epidemic among children - and that diabetes and heart disease are a growing problem, as a result. The AAP also announced this week that teenagers should be screened annually for depression, given the recent dramatic spike in teen suicides. Ophthalmologists report that myopia is also impairing our children, leading to problems in school, and posing additional risks for blindness later in life from associated glaucoma, cataracts and retinal detachment.
All of these conditions - and more, such as sleeplessness, anxiety and addiction - are related to the daily use of digital devices according to researchers.
HB1110 brings MSDE together with MDH and a group of medical experts, the teachers' union, MABE, and parents to craft guidelines that will protect Maryland's children from avoidable harm, while they learn new technologies.
This effort has overwhelming support statewide and nationwide from the medical community, child health advocates, county elected officials and parents. The Maryland State Medical Society (MedChi), the American Academy of Pediatrics' Maryland chapter, and the Mental Health Association of Maryland all endorse HB1110. Queen Anne's County Commissioners support this legislation. They are joined by Prevent Blindness America, Campaign for a Commercial-free Childhood, Parents Across America, and Common Sense Media, who has just launched a campaign to combat the health problems associated with digital device use.
These advocates and experts all agree: the unregulated use of school digital devices is a serious threat to children's health and preventative steps must be taken to ensure that Maryland students are protected. HB1110 creates a statewide framework of safety guidelines for local districts to adopt, enabling our children to master technology, without being harmed in the process.
Your favorable review of the legislation will make the difference in the health of every Maryland student, now and in the future.
YES! 139 times - yes. Maryland House of Delegates ...
One Step Closer The Maryland House of Delegates a...
House Education Subcommittee Favorably Reviews HB1...
Why isn't the Chair bringing this to a vote? Both...
So many people to thank The support letters for ...
Support testimony for HB1110 Friday, March 2, 2018...
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Penguins support Pittsburgh
The Pittsburgh Penguins are setting a good example on how, in the wake of tragedy, actions speak louder than words. Much respect.
“The team announced on Sunday that it would hold a blood drive on Monday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and would cancel its annual Halloween-themed festivities at Tuesday’s game, instead opting to hold a collection to benefit the victims of the shooting.
The team’s charitable arm, the Penguins Foundation, will also make two donations of $25,000 to support the victims of Saturday’s attack, the team announced Sunday afternoon.
One payment will go toward the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, while the other will establish a fund to benefit the four police officers wounded in the shooting.”
That’s how you support a community in a time of tragedy: Less talk, more action. Good on them.
Tagged as: crosby, penguins, pittsburgh, squirrel hill
Markov leaves Habs, heads to KHL
It’s the end of an era: After sixteen years and nearly 1000 regular-season games with the Habs, Andrei Markov won’t be back next season. He’s heading back to Russia to play for the KHL, it seems.
Markov has spent his entire 16-year NHL career to date as a member of the Canadiens. Narrowly missing the 1,000-game milestone with 990 career games under his belt, the Russian rearguard sits sixth on the franchise’s all-time leaderboard for games played. He has also suited up for 89 postseason tilts during his time with the Habs.
Since making his NHL debut in 2000, Markov has racked up 572 regular-season points, including 119 goals. He finished his final Canadiens campaign tied with Hall-of-Famer Guy Lapointe for second place in team history for points by a defenseman, and is ranked third for goals from the back end.
Thanks for your years of playing your heart out for us, Andrei. You’ll be missed.
Tagged as: habs, markov
NHL won’t go to Pyeongchang Olympics
I guess Team Canada won’t be defending its gold medal in Pyeongchang. The NHL won’t participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics. For the first time since 1994, NHL players will not attend the Winter Olympics. The league has released a statement saying it “considers the matter officially closed.” The IOC confirmed to CBC Sports Monday […]
NHL in Vegas?
Well, Gary Bettman has done it again: He just announced that Quebec City’s NHL expansion bid has been denied, but Las Vegas’s has been approved: Bettman said the NHL board of governors unanimously accepted an expansion bid from Sin City on Wednesday, with the new team set to begin play in the 2017-18 season. I […]
Habs start season a record-breaking 5-0-0
Don’t look now, but the Habs are off to a hot start, going 5-0 for the first time in franchise history: “Despite powerhouse Canadiens teams that won a record 24 Stanley Cups in their 106-year history, the previous club record for wins to start a season was only four, last accomplished in 1977-78.” It’s early […]
Hockey’s back, baby!
The lockout has dragged 113 days and I wasn’t holding out much hope for any kind of season, shortened or otherwise. But this morning, I woke up to fresh snow outside and a shiny new agreement-in-principle that could see the NHL returning as soon as next week: Depending on when a new CBA is reached, […]
I miss hockey
There’s nothing more depressing than a pub in late October with no hockey on the big screen. Players, owners, settle this thing already. We need our hockey back.
How has this winter been lousy? Let us count the ways… Hockey discontentment The Habs just wrapped up their worst season in recent history. After finishing dead last in the East and the third worst team in the entire league. This season saw local favourite Mikey Cammalleri shipped off to Calgary in the middle of […]
The seven million dollar man
Scott Gomez will make $7.5 million dollars this year. Gomez is the Habs’ highest-paid player. He had 7 goals and 38 points last season. He hasn’t scored a goal in a game that counts since February 5th. Just to put that in perspective, here are some other NHLers who are making around the same amount […]
Ouch, Habs, ouch!
You know it’s gonna be a rough season for the Habs when it kicks off with a 2-0 shutout loss to the dreaded Laffs. Last night’s game was just wince-worthy. Here’s hoping we step it up against the newly-reformed Jets on Sunday.
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Meet Your Favorite Authors
Skip Heitzig
Skip Heitzig (born 1955) is the founder and senior pastor of Calvary of Albuquerque, a Calvary Chapel fellowship located in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
A native of Southern California, Heitzig has three siblings (his brother, Bob, died in a motorcycle accident in 1975).
He's been described as a former marijuana smoking surfer dude. Heitzig was witnessed to by a friend, Gino Geraci, senior pastor of Calvary South Denver. Shortly after this experience, Heitzig began to study under Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa.
His early training in radiology was through UCLA which included an internship program at San Bernardino County Medical Center in San Bernardino, California. In 1981, Heitzig married his wife, Lenya, and together, they moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to continue his work in the medical field. Together, they have one son, Nathan.
In 1982, Heitzig began a home Bible study that eventually grew into Calvary of Albuquerque. In 1988 and 1989, Calvary of Albuquerque was listed as one of the fastest growing churches in America. In 2009, Calvary of Albuquerque was listed as one of the 15 largest churches in America with an average weekend attendance of 13,000.
After a brief pastorate in San Juan Capistrano (Ocean Hills, 2004-2006), Heitzig returned to Calvary of Albuquerque as senior pastor in 2006, following the resignation of the previous pastor, Pete Nelson.
Presently, Heitzig serves on several Boards of Directors, including Samaritan's Purse.
Each year, Heitzig hosts a week-long seminar of teachings at The Cove, the Billy Graham Training Center in North Carolina. He is also a frequent guest speaker at Franklin Graham Festivals and Harvest Crusades with Greg Laurie.
Read a Sample from the Books by Skip Heitzig
The Bible from 30,000 Feet: Soaring Through the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation
Bloodline: Tracing God's Rescue Plan from Eden to Eternity
Shop Products by Skip Heitzig
The Grand Finale: Discovering the Book
Soaring Through the Bible: A Travel
The Bible from 30,000 Feet: Soaring
Bloodline: Tracing God's Rescue Plan
You Can Understand the Book of
The Bible from 30,000 Feet Bible Study
You Can Understand(tm) the Book of
How to Study the Bible and Enjoy It:
The Daily God Book--Through the Bible: A
The Bible from 30,000 Feet: The New
The Bible from 30,000 Feet: The Old
Search Authors:
Browse More Authors
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Interesting Stuff Add comments
Choosing the best cell phone carrier these days isn’t a simple task. Should the decision come down to network coverage, or should it be based on their selection of smartphones? Or maybe the quality of its customer service is what’s most important for you.
Ideally, network coverage and carrier prices would be the most significant factors in the decision making process, especially since popular smartphones like iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S3 are available across multiple providers.
So when it comes down to it, rating the quality of nationwide coverage is just plain difficult. We can test in our Miami Beach and New York locations, but we can’t test all across the United States. It’s a pretty big country, and to accurately rate the best network, you’d have to make calls in hundreds of locations across America.
The good part is that in this guide we’ll tell you everything you need to know about each major USB carrier, and some regional ones as well. Also, we’d like to continue to ask for your help in rating the carriers and sending your feedback.
The biggest national carriers offer services across the US. They offer a wide range of services with standard monthly plan that may or may not require a contract. Most offer month-by month prepaid plans as well. National carriers are mostly retreating from “unlimited plans,” and are beginning to offer shared data plans for multiple devices, which typically benefits families the most. Within these plans you can purchase data allowance of several GBs per month.
1. Verizon Wireless
After gaining control of Alltel back in January of 2009, Verizon Wireless became the biggest wireless carrier in the United States. Verizon was one of the first carriers to offer a 3G network, a music store, and GPs services. Also, it was the first carrier to offer a mobile television network. Verizon Wireless announced its 4G LTE network back in December2010, although Verizon’s first 4G phone, the HTC Thunderbolt, didn’t come onto the scene until March 2011. Initially joint venture between Verizon Communications and Vodafone, Verizon Wireless was formed back in 2000 through a merger between GTW Wireless and Bell Atlantic. In June 2012, Verizon also introduced the first shared data plans.
The Verizon Facts:
Verizon Wireless offers new subscribers the opportunity to select a shared data plan, which charges a device access fee and offers unlimited talk, text, and hot-spot connectivity along with your data tier.
Verizon Wireless 4G LTE will cover over 400 markets by the end of 2012.
Every new Verizon Wireless smartphone will be 4G LTE compatible.
Of the major carriers, Verizon Wireless has received several awards from J.D Power and Associates for the best network, and more recently for customer service.
Verizon Wireless includes a wide selection of the most popular smartphones including iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S3. The carrier is expected to reintroduce Windows Phone with OS 8 in time for the 2012 holiday season.
Its Friends & Family plan offers unlimited calling to a select group of number, even landlines.
As A CDMA carrier, Verizon Wireless international coverage is limited to a handful of countries but it does offer dual-mode CDMA/GSM handsets.
Verizon offers prepaid plans.
What does CNET think of Verizon Wireless? Its supporters love their customer service and excellent coverage the most, while its detractors complain that it’s far overpriced and limited.
As of 2012, AT&T is considered the second largest cell phone carrier in the United States right after Verizon Wireless. Back in the spring of 2011, AT&T unsuccessfully tried to acquire T-Mobile, which if it succeeded, would have pushed the carrier far above Verizon. AT&T offers a widespread network and a large and varied selection of mobile phones and smartphones. Originally formed in 2001 as Cingular Wireless, it changed its name to AT&T back in 2007 to reflect its parent company.
The AT&T Facts:
In Summer of 2012, AT&T released its own shared data plans.
For those lucky enough to be grandfathered in, AT&T offered rollover plans that let you roll unused minutes over to the following month.
AT&T has a GSM network and offers extensive international roaming.
It offers a 4G LTE network that may trail Verizon in terms of overall coverage, but it does offer fast 4G speeds.
AT&T has some of the most popular smartphones available on the market as soon as they’re released. It was the first carrier to offer the famous Motorola Razr V3 and spend two years as the exclusive provider of the Apple iPhone.
AT&T offers a varied selection of smartphones with all the major operating systems and is a major Windows phone supporter.
AT&T also offers month-to-month prepaid plans.
Its major plus for customers is its wide selection and availability of the trendiest smartphones and tablets. While its detractors complain of very poor customer service and coverage.
Sprint and Nextel merged in 2005 to become the third largest wireless carrier and the second largest CDMA carrier in the United States. Sprint began wireless service under its brand in 1995, and Nextel was founded in 1987. Prepaid service is available only through its Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile subsidiaries.
The Sprint Facts:
Sprint continues to offer unlimited calling and data plans.
This carrier is the third of the major networks to launch 4G LTE, behind Verizon and AT&T. As of Summer of 2012, Sprint’s 4G LTE service operated in 15 US cities.
Sprint was the first major US carrier to introduce 4G network and the 4G mobile phone, the HTC Evo 4G back in June 2010.
Sprint now includes most of the major smartphones, including Android smartphones, the iPhone and Blackberry.
Sprint has robust eco-friendly line and offers several rugged phones.
Customers claim that Sprint is the most affordable of the major cell phone carriers with great 4G service. Its detractors note that its customer service is terrible and its billing system is a major headache.
T-Mobile is the 2nd largest GSM carrier in the United States. It operates one of the smaller US networks of the top 4 carriers, but it has roaming agreements with AT&T and some other smaller operators. Back in the summer of 2011, T-Mobile announced its HSPA+42 “4G” network, but a potential buyout by its only national GSM competitor, AT&T, set T-Mobile back in maintaining its network and competing with other US carriers.
The T-Mobile Facts:
T-Mobile currently offers unlimited calling and data plans.
The carrier has a Wi-Fi calling app that lets you make phone calls when the network connection is weaker.
T-Mobile has extensive international roaming and thousands of Wi-Fi hot spots in the US and Europe.
Of the top 5 major carriers, T-Mobile has received the highest customer service rating by J.D Power and Associates.
T-Mobile was the first carrier to launch a Google Android phone. Its smartphone lineup now includes Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone devices, but no iPhone.
Its plans are very competitively priced compared to the other major carriers. In 2009, it introduced Even More Plus plans that don’t require a contract, but don’t offer subsidies for phones. Its Even More Plans require contracts, but also come with hardware subsidies.
T-Mobile offer prepaid plans. Its upgraded HSPA+ network offers 4G-like speeds, though it is not technically a 4G technology.
Customers mostly support T-Mobile’s customer service and flexible network plans, while its detractors focus mainly on the unusual amount of dropped calls.
5. MetroPCS
MetroPCS is the 5th largest network carrier in America with coverage in Georgia, Florida, Texas, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and California. Metro uses CDMA technology and offers unlimited minutes as a feature of all its calling plans. A prepaid carrier, it doesn’t require a contract from any customer and it doesn’t place restrictions on the time of day when you call. However, any basic services on the other carriers like voicemail and caller ID can cost extra, and the data network isn’t as fast as national providers.
The MetroPCS Facts:
International coverage is very limited.
Most plans include unlimited talk, text and Web browsing.
MetroPCS has a growing 4G LTE network, but its 3G service is still very limited.
MetroPCS doesn’t require contracts and doesn’t offer service rebates and its cell phones are more expensive than with other carriers.
MetroPCS isn’t nationwide, but it has various roaming agreements with several partners for nationwide service.
Some basic services will be extra depending on the plan.
MetroPCS customers complain most about its lack of coverage while its supporters rave about its low prices and excellent customer service.
Posted by Hector at 2:28 PM Tagged with: at&t, Cell Phone Carriers, metropcs, sprint, t mobile, Top 5 Cell Phone Carriers, Top 5 Cell Phone Carriers 2012, Top Cell Phone Carriers, Top Cell Phone Carriers 2012, verizon wireless
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Beasts and Gods – An Interview With Roslyn Fuller
Luke O'Reilly speaks with author and acadamic, Roslyn Fuller, about the state of democracy in Ireland today.
Luke O'ReillyDeputy Literature Editor
Dr Roslyn Fuller, who has declared her candidacy in the forthcoming General Election
Beasts and Gods, the latest book by Dr Roslyn Fuller, launched on Monday, November 16th, offers a criticism of modern democracy. The text analyses voting systems across 20 countries and finds that modern democracies, where elections are largely decided by bank accounts, are regularly formed without voting majorities, and aren’t democracies at all.
As a response, Fuller advocates a return to the direct democracy of ancient Athens, a return that, she believes, can be facilitated in a modern democracy by the introduction of electronic voting and online discussion forums. I attended the launch of Beasts and Gods, at which there was also a panel discussion on democracy in Ireland. An Irish-Canadian, Fuller speaks quickly and confidently with a heavy accent, and has a realistic yet positive view of democracy in modern Ireland.
“Ireland is, in many ways, more democratic than most western countries, because we do have a lot of closeness between our representatives and our people”, Fuller explains, adding, however, that “there is a culture of corruption that comes from meeting your TD here”. Fuller herself has experienced this culture, as she is currently going door-to-door during her electoral campaign as an independent candidate in Fingal: “There is often an expectation when I knock on people’s door that I will fix their problem by exerting some sort of miraculous influence on their problem. But I believe that that comes from a place of powerlessness”. What she proposes instead is a system in which “a TD has much less power. You wouldn’t need to go through to get something done, you could bypass them in a way. I think clientelism stems from trying to use power every which way you can once you get access to it”.
Fuller doesn’t just have her eyes set on electoral office, she is also a successful journalist. As the legal correspondent for Russia Today, Fuller writes a regular blog, called ‘The Fuller Picture”, on issues of international law. I asked her how a Canadian educated in Germany and Ireland had ended up working for a Russian news corporation: “A few years ago I used to be a model and I made a calendar to raise money for the legal defence of whistleblowers. Russia Today noticed it and ran an article on it. Then they contacted me asking if I would like to write for them”. Fuller explained how: “In my articles I make legal clarifications on different things that come up. There is a lot of interest out there in international law, and it’s not something that is taught in school”.
Although aware of criticisms of the Russian government’s control of Russia Today, Fuller said it had no effect on what she wrote for them: “Russia Today is owned by the Russian government in the same way that the BBC is run by the British government. From the time I’ve been writing there, whatever I write, they just print it”. Fuller argues: “A lot of other media organisations try to edit your work, or to direct the conversation somewhere, that has not been my experience with Russia Today, which is very unusual”.
Regardless of her link to Russia Today, Fuller is very critical of the effects that mass media can have on democracy: “There have been studies that show that newscasts can change your opinion of something, even when they contravene your personal experience of it. If they keep seeing newscasts saying that the economy is going badly, they will become convinced that the economy is going badly, even if their own experience tells them that it isn’t. How we overcome this is the most difficult question”.
Beast and Gods is published by Zed books and is on sale in Irish book stores now.
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Tesla’s Egg and the battle for electricity
Nikola Tesla should be one of the most famous and celebrated men of all time, an inventor whose discoveries opened the door to electrical power, the second industrial revolution and the birth of the modern age. Yet he was overshadowed even in his own time by men such as Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. Who was Tesla, why was he so important and why is he relatively unknown in a world that depends so heavily on his inventions?
BBC Four has had an impressive run in documentaries unearthing the fascinating history of the mundane. In Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity, Professor Jim Al-Khalili explains the first experiments with electricity and how it developed into a source of power that would revolutionise the world.
One of the most interesting aspects of the history of electricity was the role of Nikola Tesla. I’d heard of Tesla in passing – the Tesla Coil was a dim memory from physics and had a memorable cameo in Command & Conquer: Red Alert. But I hadn’t appreciated that Tesla’s restless, inventive mind was key to harnessing the power of electricity.
It was Tesla who combined research in electricity and magnetism to produce the rotating magnetic field. This would form the basis of alternating current systems and, arguably, the foundation for the modern age.
At the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition, Tesla joined forces with George Westinghouse to display the ‘Egg of Columbus’, or Tesla’s Egg. By employing a two-phase alternating current source (i.e. turning one set of magnets on whilst the other set are switched off and then reversing the power), a motor can be turned (or, in this case, an ‘egg’ can spin on its axis).
This would mark an opening salvo in what would become known as the War of the Currents. Westinghouse, supported by the technical brilliance (and valuable patents) of Tesla, championed alternating current. In the opposing camp was the great American inventor, Thomas Edison, who advocated direct current.
This was neither an academic debate or a theoretical struggle – the winner would become the master of the method that would power the second industrial revolution. Westinghouse recalled the propaganda unleashed by Edison against alternating current:
“I remember Tom [Edison] telling them that direct current was like a river flowing peacefully to the sea, while alternating current was like a torrent rushing violently over a precipice. Imagine that! Why they even had a professor named Harold Brown who went around talking to audiences… and electrocuting dogs and old horses right on stage, to show how dangerous alternating current was.”
Dogs, horses and calves were not the only things to be electrocuted. One battle of the war would have been farcical if had not ended so tragically – the first use of the electric chair. This was covered in an earlier post (Shocking vocabulary) and involved Edison and Westinghouse in an unseemly battle over whose standard should be used for the execution. This time, each wanted the other to take the ‘honour’ and thus prove the deadliness of their rival’s method.
Edison was fighting a losing battle: the death knell for direct current would be heard at the Chicago Columbian Exposition and in the construction of the power plant at Niagara Falls. At the Exposition, Westinghouse had won the right to illuminate the world fair. Some 27 million people would marvel at the 100,000 incandescent lamps powered by alternating current. The ‘Great Hall of Electricity’ explained the marvellous new technology and, of course, proclaimed the victory of alternating current.
In the same year, Westinghouse was awarded the contract to build the Niagara Falls power plant. The first power from Tesla’s untested machinery would reach Buffalo on 16 November 1896. The Niagara Falls Gazette reported that day, “The turning of a switch in the big powerhouse at Niagara completed a circuit which caused the Niagara River to flow uphill.”
Soon, electric power from the great hydroelectric plant was flowing across New York State and into New York City, previously a bastion for Edison’s direct current systems. As the PBS documentary on Tesla put it:
“Broadway was ablaze with lights; the elevated, street railways, and subway system rumbled; and even the Edison systems converted to alternating current.”
Ultimately, the ease at which electricity could be transmitted by alternating current at great distances without losing too much charge was an advantage that direct current could not overcome.
In a neat piece of irony, Nikola Tesla would spend his last years as a virtual recluse living in Suite 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel. The New Yorker has been built in 1929 and had been fitted with a large direct-current power plant.
The hotel did not convert fully to alternating-current service until well to the 1960s. Thus, whilst the rest of New York City, American and the world gave way to Tesla’s logic and alternating current, his own home remained one of the few outposts of direct current.
← Time for revolution
Singing for Communism →
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Klimm Apartments
Frank J. Klimm, an electrical contractor in the early twentieth century whose vision was to create a “high-class” residence and showplace, commissioned the Klimm Apartments. Construction was completed in 1913 and the property has been owned and operated as affordable housing by TNDC since 1986. The building has 42 units, including 2 one-bedroom and 40 studio apartments that house families, couples, and individuals, and there are two commercial spaces at the street level. TNDC’s renovation of the building consisted of major structural and seismic safety upgrades, upgrades to plumbing, electrical, and mechanical systems, accessibility upgrades in units, and unit repairs and remodels. Sustainable building practices were incorporated including a high-efficiency condensing boiler; Energy Star rated roof, energy efficient lighting and windows, and nontoxic paint and flooring. Completed in 2006, the Klimm Apartments is poised to provide a safe, healthy, and permanently affordable place for low-income seniors, single individuals, and families to live for many years to come.
Unit Mix: 40 studios, 2 one-bedrooms, and 2 commercial spaces
Population: Low and Extremely Low-Income Families and Individuals
Construction: Renovation
Total Development Cost: 3.7 M
Financing Sources: San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing, Bank of America, LIHTC, Merritt Cap., FHLB AHP
TNDC Role: Developer, Property Manager
Location: 460 Ellis Street, San Francisco
Photo by Mark Ellinger
← Howard Street Apartments
Maria Manor →
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Error! Unable to Find Specified Location!
Trenton Minor Sports Community Centre History:
In 1998 another committee was formed to raise funds to renovate the rink and it became evident with girls playing hockey, travelling teams and junior "B" team play out of the rink. The annex was converted into 6 large dressing rooms, and a conference room. The upstairs at the front of the rink was made into a heated viewing area with a bar and kitchen facilities. The Zamboni donated by GreenBrier – Trenton was purchased in 1999 to replace the old tractor. The rink was renamed the Trenton Minor Sports Community Centre to recognize the original builders of the facility. A new board of lights were installed in 2009, and a new state of the art refrigeration plant was installed. The rink is now capable of having ice all year round.
In November 2012, it was announced that the Trenton Minor Sports Community Centre would receive $261,000 for a new concrete floor pad for the ice surface. This funding was made possible through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). Construction began in April 2013. Higgins Construction was awarded the tender for the project, which was completed in September 2013.
Above: New rink floor under construction (2013)
For additional historic information, please visit Trenton Heritage.
Friends of Trenton Park Society
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Site updated September 13, 2016
Dubya Talk
Submitted by The Dubya Report on Sun, 03/01/2009 - 20:56
As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured.
-- White House occupants, apparently, are another matter. As usual, the official transcript cleaned up the malapropism; New York, NY, September 26, 2007.
They ought not to be trying to slip special spending measures in there without full transparency and full debate -- those are called entitlements.
-- actually, those are called earmarks; Nashville, TN, July 19, 2007
I'm the commander guy
-- speaking to the Associated General Contractors of America, May 2, 2007
Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.
-- criticizing President Clinton for not setting a timetable for exiting Kosovo, April 9, 1999
I think it's also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.
-- again referring to Kosovo, June 5, 1999
No doubt in my mind with your help Dave Lamberti will be the next United States congressman.
-- at a fundraiser for Jeff Lamberti, Des Moines, IA, October 27, 2006
Listen, we've never been stay the course....
-- October 22, 2006, appearing on ABC's This Week. (The White House web site includes at least six "stay the course" quotes over the past three years: 8/30/2006, 8/4/2005, 4/16/2004, 4/13/2004, 4/5/2004. and 12/15/2003.)
... [T]he United States Congress was right to renew the terrorist act.
--Atlanta, GA, September 7, 2006
See, the irony is what they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing that shit and it's over.
-- sharing his nuanced approach to Middle East diplomacy with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, at the G8 summit, St. Petersburg, Russia, July 17, 2006
Bush: Are you going to ask that question with shades on?
LA Times' Peter Wallsten: I can take them off.
Bush: I'm interested in the shade look. Seriously.
Wallsten: All right, I'll keep it, then.
Bush: For the viewers, there's no sun. [Some in the press corps laughed.]
Wallsten: I guess it depends on your perspective.
Bush: Touché.
-- at a Rose Garden press conference, Washington, DC, June 14, 2006. Wallsten suffers from macular degeneration, a disease of the eyes whose progress can be slowed by wearing sunglasses with UV protection.
Bush: But the day ended on a relatively humorous note. The agents said, "You'll be sleeping downstairs. Washington's still a dangerous place." And I said no, I can't sleep down there, the bed didn't look comfortable. I was really tired, Laura was tired, we like our own bed. We like our own routine. You know, kind of a nester. Like the way things are. I knew I had to deal with the issue the next day and provide strength and comfort to the country, and so I needed rest in order to be mentally prepared. So I told the agent we're going upstairs, and he reluctantly said okay. Laura wears contacts, and she was sound asleep. Barney was there. And the agent comes running up and says, "We're under attack. We need you downstairs," and so there we go. I'm in my running shorts and my T-shirt, and I'm barefooted. Got the dog in one hand, Laura had a cat, I'm holding Laura --
Mrs. Bush: I don't have my contacts in, and I'm in my fuzzy house slippers --
Bush: And this guy's out of breath, and we're heading straight down to the basement because there's an incoming unidentified airplane, which is coming toward the White House. Then the guy says it's a friendly airplane. And we hustle all the way back upstairs and go to bed.
Mrs. Bush: [laughs] And we just lay there thinking about the way we must have looked.
Noonan: So the day starts in tragedy and ends in Marx Brothers.
Bush: That's right -- we got a laugh out of it.
-- describing 9/11/2001 in an interview with Peggy Noonan in Ladies Home Journal, October 26, 2003 (reprinted on Salon.com, June 1, 2006)
I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best.
-- Washington, DC, April 18, 2006
I was going to -- I pick up the phone and say, Mr. Secretary, I've got an interesting question. This is what delegation -- I don't mean to be dodging the question, although it's kind of convenient in this case, but never -- I really will -- I'm going to call the Secretary and say you brought up a very valid question, and what are we doing about it? That's how I work. I'm -- thanks.
-- answering a question from a Johns Hopkins student about what law governs the actions of private military contractors in Iraq, Washington, DC, April 10, 2006
And it's now come to the -- and so how do you defeat their -- now, if you don't think they have a ideology or a point of view, and/or a strategy to impose it, you're not going to understand why you think the United States ought not to be as active as we are.
But I believe differently. I believe they're bound -- these folks are bound by an ideology. I know that they have got desires. They say it. This is one of -- this is a different -- this is a war in which the enemy actually speaks out loud. You heard the letter I wrote -- read from -- they didn't speak out loud on this one, but nevertheless, it's a -- we've got to take their word seriously.
-- answering a question from a Johns Hopkins student who asked whether the constitution that Mohammed established for the city of Medina might not form the basis for democracies in the Middle East. The letter Bush refers to, supposedly written by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was leaked to NY Times correspondent Dexter Filkins as part of a propaganda campaign to exaggerate Zarqawi's role. Washington, DC, April 10, 2006
Were you the only black man in Salt Lake City?
-- speaking to a Katrina survivor in New Orleans, LA, who had lived on canned goods for days before being evacuated to Utah, reported by Time magazine, March 14, 2006
... [A] prosperous, democratic Pakistan will be a steadfast partner for America, a peaceful neighbor for India, and a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world.
-- the White House later explained that Bush was referring to the Muslim world. New Delhi, India, March 3, 2006
This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America.
-- discussing the sale of US ports to Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates, Washington, DC, February 23, 2006
... [T]here's a custom in our country for people to express themselves, and it's good.
-- Manhattan, KS, January 23, 2006
Countries such as ours have an obligation to step up, working together, sanding, sending a common message, to the Iranians, that, uhh, uhh -- that it's -- the behavior -- kind of -- trying to -- uhh, clandesintly develop a nuculer weapon, or using the guise of a civilian nuculer weapon program to get the know-how to develop a nuculer weapon is unacceptable.
-- Washington, DC, January 13, 2006
Laura and I's spirits are uplifted any time we go to a school that's working, because we understand the importance of public education in the future of our country.
-- Glen Burnie, MD, January 9, 2006
Don't buy gas if you don't need it.
-- Bush's solution to the energy crisis caused by hurricane damage to drilling and refining operations in the Gulf Coast region, Washington, DC, September 1, 2005
[I]t's got to be doubly devastating on the ground.
-- after surveying hurricane damage from a height of 1,700 feet in Air Force One, August 31, 2005
He's a good rider.
-- after biking with seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, Crawford, TX, August 21, 2005
I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep on the soil of a friend.
-- preparing for a visit to Denmark, Washington, DC, June 29, 2005
[H]e's the PhD, and I'm the C student, but notice who is the advisor and who is the President.
-- introducing Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman, Lusby, MD, June 22, 2005
This isn't political talk. This is true.
-- speaking to seniors in Maple Grove, MN, June 17, 2005
[My] retirement age is 2,008.
-- President's Dinner, Washington, DC, June 14, 2005
See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.
-- Social Security "conversation," Greece, New York, May 24, 2005
... [T]he American people now are beginning to realize we have a serious problem when it comes to Social Security. And that problem begins with people like me.
-- remarks at the Republican National Committee Gala, Washington, DC, May 17, 2005
... I appreciate the spirit of Republicans and Democrats comin' together. But it wasn't a 70-uh, 5-year fix. This was 1953. We're only in 2005.
-- referring to 1983 bipartisan legislation to strengthen Social Security, Cedar Rapids, IA, March 30, 2005
I think I'm the first President ever to have stood up and said, bring all your ideas forward.
-- Cedar Rapids, IA, March 30, 2005
This notion that the US is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table.
-- Brussels, Belgium, February 22, 2005
Because he's hiding.
-- Bush's explanation as to why Bin Laden has not been caught. Air Force One, January 14, 2005
Who could have possibly envisioned an erect-sh -- an election in Iraq at this point in history?
Any time of the year it's a time of sorrow and sadness when we lose a loss of life.
-- Washington, DC, December 21, 2004
We're nearing the end of a year where -- of substantial progress at home and here abroad....
-- press conference, Washington, DC, December 20, 2004
I know there's a big definition about what that means. Well, again, I will repeat. Don't bother to ask me. Or you can ask me. I shouldn't -- I can't tell you what to ask. It's not the holiday spirit.
-- responding to a question (that may or may not have been asked) about payroll tax. Press conference, December 20, 2004
A submarine could take this place out.
-- comment to his tour guide at the Clinton Presidential Center, Little Rock, AR, November 18, 2004
And the reason why I'm so strong on democracy is democracies don't go to war with each other.
-- Washington, DC, November 12, 2004
I want to especially thank Scotty. I want to thank Scotty for saying -- nothing.
-- speaking about press secretary Scott McClellan, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, November 4, 2004
With the campaign over, Americans are expecting a bipartisan effort and results. I'll reach out to everyone who shares our goals.
-- Washington, DC, November 4, 2004
Uhh -- Gosh, I -- don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those, uhh, exaggerations.
-- Tempe, AZ, October 13, 2004, (in contrast to the statement at his press conference, March 13, 2002: "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.")
I'm mindful in a free society that people can worship if they want to or not.
-- during the final 2004 presidential debate, Tempe, AZ, October 13, 2004
... [T]echnology is going to change the way we live for the good for the environment. That's why I proposed a ... hydrogen-generated automobile.
-- St. Louis, MO, October 8, 2004
We've got an issue in America. Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country.
-- Poplar Bluff, MO, September 7, 2004
I went to the Congress last September and proposed fundamental -- supplemental funding, which is money for armor and body parts....
-- Erie, PA, September 4, 2004
Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
-- speaking to top Pentagon brass, Washington, DC, August 5, 2004; reported by Reuters.
Fuck yourself.
-- Vice President Cheney to Sen. Patrick Leahy in the Senate chamber during a discussion of Cheney's ties to Halliburton, June 22, 2004, Washington, DC.
Governor Bush and I are also absolutely determined that [we] will restore a tone of civility and decency to the debate in Washington.
-- candidate Dick Cheney during a campaign speech, August 4, 2000
And I am an optimistic person. I guess if you want to try to find something to be pessimistic about, you can find it, no matter how hard you look, you know?
-- Washington, DC, June 15, 2004
To paraphrase President Kennedy, there's America, and then there's Texas. We have great relations with France. We work closely with the French government on a lot of issues.
-- in response to a reporter who repeated Kennedy's observation that "Everyone has two countries, their own, and France," Paris, France, June 5, 2004
I want to thank my friend, Senator Bill Frist, for joining us today. He married a Texas girl, I want you to know.... A West Texas girl, just like me.
--Nashville, TN, May 27, 2004
I don't think our troops should be used for what's called nation-building.
-- spoken during a nationally televised debate, October 11, 2000.
I kind of like ducking questions
-- at the Associated Press luncheon, Washington, DC, April 21, 2004
I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn't yet.
-- responding to the question of what lessons had been learned from 9/11, press conference, Washington, DC, April 13, 2004
In my judgment, when the United States says there will be serious consequences, and if there isn't serious consequences, it creates adverse consequences.
-- appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, February 8, 2004.
... [S]ometimes when you don't measure, you just shuffle kids through. Then you wake up at the high school level and find out that the illiteracy level of our children are appalling.
-- speaking to the US Conference of Mayors, Washington, DC, January 23, 2004
We shall call him moon man from now on.
-- Kill Devil Hills, NC, December 17, 2003. On the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' flight, reporters anticipated an announcment concerning moon exploration, but had to settle for this comment after actor John Travolta told Bush he'd volunteer to go.
I want to remind you all that in order to fight and win the war, it requires an expenditure of money that is commiserate with keeping a promise to our troops....
As you notice, when there's a hole in the ground and a person is able to crawl into it in a country the size of California, it means we're on a scavenger hunt for terror, and find these terrorists who hide in holes is to get people coming forth to describe the location of the hole, is to give clues and data. And we're on it.
I'm going out to our friends and supporters and saying, would you mind contributing to the campaign for the year '04? To me, that's -- and that's a part of politics, no question about it. And as you know, these are open forums, you're able to come and listen to what I have to say.
-- press conference, Washington, DC, October 28, 2003
The more successful we are on the ground, the more these killers will react.
-- after meeting with his "war council" to discuss escalating violence in Iraq, Washington, DC, October 27, 2003.
I appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more interested in news. And the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world.
-- Fox News interview with Brit Hume, September 22, 2003.
We don't need to be breaching no dams that are producing electricity.
-- Burbank, WA, August 22, 2003, as reported by KOMO-TV (subsequently amended to "any dams"). The remark came as Bush tried to take credit for increased salmon runs in the region. Sen. Joseph Lieberman remarked, "George Bush taking credit for increased salmon populations is like a sailor taking credit for the tides."
It's a different kind of combat mission, but, nevertheless, it's combat, just ask the kids that are over there killing and being shot at.
-- interview with Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, August 14, 2003.
We want those objections heard, of course -- every citizen needs to hear a voice.
-- Summerhaven, AZ, August 11, 2003.
Security is the essential roadblock to achieving the road map to peace.
-- Washington, D.C., July 25, 2003.
The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur.
-- repeated to an audience in Brighton, UK, by politician Shirley Williams, according to London Times arts writer, Jack Malvern. Reported in the Washington Post, July 10, 2003.
We're laying the groundwork for a national campaign -- a national campaign that I believe will result in a great victory in November 2002.
-- Tampa, Florida, June 30, 2003.
Wait for us to succeed peace. Wait for us to have two states, side by side -- is for everybody coming together to deny the killers the opportunity to destroy.
-- Kennebunkport, Maine, June 15, 2003.
I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things.
-- aboard AirForce One, June 4 2003.
I recently met with the finance minister of the Palestinian Authority, was very impressed by his grasp of finances.
-- Washington, DC, May 29, 2003.
First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill.
So one of my visits -- one of the reasons I'm visiting here is to ask the question to people. Because if there's -- moving too slow, or people are saying one thing and the other thing is not happening, now is the time to find out.
-- Pierce City, MO, May 13, 2003.
I think war is a dangerous place.
-- Washington, DC, May 7, 2003.
I don't bring God into my life to -- to, you know, kind of be a political person.
-- interview with Tom Brokaw aboard Air Force One, April 24, 2003.
You're free. And freedom is beautiful. And, you know, it'll take time to restore chaos and order....
-- responding to a reporter who asked what Bush's message to the Iraqi people was, Washington, DC, April 13, 2003
The Syrian government needs to cooperate with the United States and our coalition partners and not harbor any Baathists....
-- probably a difficult requirement in Syria where the Baath party has been the leading political party since 1973. The national committee of the Baath party is effectively the decision making body in Syria, and party membersship exceeds one million. Washington, DC, April 13, 2003
We're fighting an enemy ... that will wear civilian uniforms....
-- Washington, DC, March 25, 2003.
...If we use military force, in the post-Saddam Iraq the UN will definitely need to have a role. And that way it can begin to get its legs, legs of responsibility back.
-- Lajes, Azores, March 16, 2003.
We appreciate our own support for ensuring that the just demands of the world are enforced.
I know there's some concern about overstating of numbers, you know, invest in my company because the sky's the limit. We may not be cash flowing much, but the sky's the limit. Well, when you pay dividends, that sky's the limit business doesn't hunt.
-- Kennesaw, GA, February 20, 2003.
...[A]s we insist that Congress be wise with your money, we're going to make sure we spend enough to win this war. And by spending enough to win a war, we may not have a war at all.
-- Kennesaw, Georgia, February 20, 2003.
So today I ask you to challenge your listeners ... to start a ministry, which will find the children of those who are incarcinated and love them.
-- Addressing the National Religious Broadcasters' Convention, Opryland Hotel, Nashville, TN, February 10, 2003. The quote was cleaned up before the speech was posted on the White House web site.
I believe we can achieve peace at home....
-- Washington, DC, January 30, 2003.
Should any Iraqi officer or soldier receive an order from Saddam Hussein or his sons or any of the killers who occupy the high levels of their government, my advice is don't follow that order. If you choose to do so, when Iraq is liberated, you will be treated, tried and persecuted as a war criminal.
-- St. Louis, MO, January 22, 2003.
I'm the person who gets to decide, not you.
-- reacting to a reporter's statement in the lead-in to his question that "we're headed to war in Iraq," Crawford, TX, December 31, 2002.
I had a cordial meeting at that meeting last night. We greeted each other, cordially.
-- Prague, Czech Republic, November 21, 2002.
One of the problems we have is that enough people can't find work in America.
-- Bentonville, AR, November 4, 2002.
The solid truth of the matter is, when you find -- if you want to help heal the hurt -- if you want to hurt people and help people in pain, the best way to do so is to call upon the great strength of the country, which is the compassion of our fellow Americans.
Who is this chicken shit?
-- "Poppy" Bush at a White House reception in 1991, after Senator Paul Wellstone had urged Bush Sr. to focus more on education issues and less on the Gulf War.
It's been raining, so she needs to sweep the porch, because the President of China is coming tomorrow.
-- explaining Laura Bush's absence to an audience in Charlotte, NC, October 24, 2002. Asked the next day if she appreciated the remark, Mrs. Bush shook her head and mouthed, "No."
All of us here in America should believe, and I think we do, that we should be, as I mentioned, a nation of owners. Owning something is freedom, as far as I'm concerned. It's part of a free society... It's a part of -- it's of being a -- it's a part of -- an important part of America.
-- Washington, D.C., October 15, 2002.
You need to listen carefully to the debates that goes on in our nation's capital. You see, some of them are -- goes on with people trying to get to the nation's capital. Some of them, they talk about the government's money.
-- Manchester, NH, October 5, 2002.
The definition of a patriot in the face of the evil done to America is to serve something greater than yourself in life, is to help somebody in need, is to love a person one at a time, as we remember that -- which I know we will.
We need an energy bill that encourages consumption.
-- Trenton, NJ, September 23, 2002.
There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again.
-- East Literature Magnet School, Nashville, Tennessee, September 17, 2002. Couldn't quite get out "... fool me twice, shame on me."
...[T]here is a value system that cannot be compromised, and that is the values that we praise. And if the values are good enough for our people, they ought to be good enough for others, not in a way to impose because these are God-given values. These aren't United States-created values. These are values of freedom and the human condition and mothers loving their children.
-- interviewed by Bob Woodward, Crawford, TX, August 20, 2002.
I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation.
I'm thrilled to be here in the breadbasket of America.
-- Stockton, CA, August 23, 2002. Stockton is 60 miles east of the Bay Area, and 25 miles west of the Sierra Nevada, known for watersports on the Sacramento Delta, perhaps, but not much grain production....
I believe the enemy has wakened a spirit in this country that understands in order to fight evil, in order to fight evil -- that in order to fight evil, you can do so by loving your neighbor just like you'd like to be loved yourself.
-- Stockton, CA, August 23, 2002.
There was certainly a very strong sentiment that we're on the right track when it comes to holding people to account who lie, steat or cheal....
-- responding the question of what was the most important thing he learned from the recent so-called economic forum. Crawford, Texas, August 16, 2002.
Let's see. There I was sitting around the table with foreign leaders looking at Colin Powell and Condi Rice....
-- responding the the question of why he was not addressing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples convention, Washington, DC, July 10, 2002.
There was no malfeance, no attempt to hide anything.
-- explaining the difference between Harken Energy's sale of subsidiary Aloha Petroleum, and similar transactions involving Enron shell companies "Jedi" and "Chewco," Washington, DC, July 8, 2002.
Everything I do is fully disclosed, it's been fully vetted.
i>-- responding to (and not denying) the suggestion in Paul Krugman's op-ed column that Bush's past included the corporate misbehavior he was now criticizing. Milwaukee, WI, July 4, 2002.
As the United States works to bring peace around the world our diplomats and/or soldiers can be drug into the court. That's very troubling.
-- Milwaukee, WI, July 2, 2002.
I read the report put out by the bureaucracy.
-- referring to his own Environmental Protection Agency report to the United Nations on global warming, June 4, 2002.
Very good, the guy memorizes four words, and he plays like he's intercontinental.
-- at a news conference in Rome, Italy, after NBC News correspondent David Gregory followed a question to Bush in English with one in French to President Jacques Chirac. Gregory's question to Bush was, "I wonder why it is you think there are such strong sentiments in Europe against you and against this administration?" May 26, 2002.
We hold dear what our Declaration of Independence says, that all have got uninalienable rights....
-- addressing community and religious leaders in Moscow, May 24, 2002.
There is a sniff of politics in the air.
-- in a closed door session with congressional Republicans, Washington, DC, May 16, 2002.
I'm not familiar with the anacronyms.
-- Ari Fleischer, White House press conference, Washington, DC, May 16, 2002.
My foreign policy is -- Fidel Castro is a dictator.
You see, the President is -- can still learn.
-- First African Methodist Episcopal Renaissance Center, Los Angeles, California, April 29, 2002.
Some of the biggest sources of air pollution are the power plants, which send tons of admissions into our air.
-- Wilmington, NY, April 22, 2002 (Earth Day).
And so, in my State of the -- my State of the Union -- or state -- my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation -- I asked Americans to give 4,000 years -- 4,000 hours over the next -- the rest of your life.
-- Bridgeport, CT, April 9, 2002.
I appreciate Lieutenant Governor Judi Kell for being here. Great to see you again, Judi.
-- referring to Connecticut Lieutenant Governor Jodi Rell, Bridgeport, CT, April 9, 2002.
Sometimes when I sleep at night I think of "Hop on Pop."
-- Penn. State University, April 2, 2002.
But there needs to be a focused, coalition effort in the region against peace.
-- discussing the Middle East, Crawford, TX, March 30, 2002.
I talked about making the death tax permanent, so that Rolf can pass his assets to a family member, if he so chooses.
-- O'Fallon, MO, March 18, 2002. The White House official transcript added a footnote indicating Bush meant "repeal" of the tax.
My trip to Asia begins here in Japan for an important
reason. It begins here because for a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times.
-- from the transcript of Bush's remarks to the Diet of Japan. Reported by U.S. Newswire, February 19, 2002. The White House transcript amended the statement to "half a century."
We've not got no better friend than South Korea.
-- greeting the South Korean press, February 17, 2002.
It isn't really a sissy pretzel.
-- Laura Bush, appearing on The Tonight Show, February 11, 2002.
He was a supporter of Ann Richards in my run in 1994. And she did name him the head of the Governor's Business Council, and I decided to leave him in place just for the sake of continuity. And that's when I first got to know Ken and worked with Ken, and he supported my candidacy.
-- responding to a question about ties to former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay, reported in the Houston Chronicle, January 10, 2002.
I don't intend to read it all.
-- referring to the education bill he had just signed, Hamilton, OH, January 8, 2002.
We are working hard to convince both the Indians and the Pakis there's a way to deal with their problems without going to war.
-- Washington, DC, January 7, 2002. The term 'Paki' is considered an ethnic slur in Britain. "The President has great respect for Pakistan and for the Pakistani people," White House spokesman Scott McClellan later clarified.
Not over my dead body will they raise your taxes.
-- Ontario, CA, January 5, 2002.
I know the governor likes to hunt rabbits down in Louisiana. Sometimes those rabbits think they can hide from the governor. But, eventually, he smokes them out and gets them. And that's exactly what is happening to Mr. bin Laden, and all the murderers that he's trying to hide in Afghanistan.
-- with Governor Mike Foster, Washington, DC, December 19, 2001. Foster later admitted "... I don't know anybody who hunts [rabbits] that way."
And we have a role in the government -- in the state government, in the federal government -- to provide immediate help as part of an economic security package, is to provide immediate help.
-- Orlando, FL, December 4, 2001
I want to go back to Washington. There is strong advice that I not, primarily from the vice president.
-- reported in Newsweek (International edition) December 3, 2001
I can assure you, when I was a senior in high school, I never sat in an audience saying, gosh, if I work hard I'll be President of the United States.
-- Crawford, TX, November 15, 2001
We don't have a beef with Muslims.
-- Washington, DC, October 25, 2001
You know, if you find a person that you've never seen before getting in a cropduster that doesn't belong to you, report it.
-- answering a reporter who asked what Americans should be on the lookout for in response to the announcement of a general terrorist threat, news conference, Washington, DC, October 11, 2001
And we'll be tough and resolute as we unite, to make sure freedom stands, to rout out evil, to say to our children and grandchildren, we were bold enough to act, without tiring, so that you can live in a great land and in a peaceful world.... And there's no doubt in my mind, not one doubt in my mind, that we will fail.
-- speaking to employees of the Department of Labor, Washington, DC, October 4, 2001
I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport.
-- Washington, DC, October 2, 2001
...[W]hen nations are under attack, now is not the time for politics.
-- with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Washington, DC, September 25, 2001
This crusade ... is going to take a while.
-- Washington, DC, September 16, 2001
There's one terrible pilot.
-- Sarasota, FL, September 11, 2001. During a town hall forum in Orlando, FL, December 4, 2001, Bush described his first reaction to the report that a plane hit the World Trade Center tower.
A vampire is a -- a -- cell deal you can plug in the wall to charge your cell phone.
-- Denver, CO, August 14, 2001
My administration has been calling upon all the leaders in the -- in the Middle East to do everything they can to stop the violence, to tell the different parties involved that peace will never happen.
-- Crawford, TX, August 13, 2001
A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it.
-- Washington, DC, July 26, 2001, commenting on negotiating with Congress
First, let me say how honored I was to be able to be in the presence of the Holy Father... He's an extraordinary man who is, by virtue of his leadership and his conscience and his presence has not only affected political systems, but affected the hearts and souls of thousands of people all around the world.
-- Rome, July 23, 2001
I haven't thought about the nuance of it.
-- Washington DC, June 24, 2001, when asked by Peggy Noonan about the prospect of Russia joining NATO
They're not talking about firm price controls. They are talking about mechanism to -- as I understand it, a mechanism to mitigate any severe price spikes that may occur, which is completely different from price controls.
-- reported in Molly Ivins's syndicated column, June 26, 2001
Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease.
-- Gotheburg, Sweden, June 14, 2001
Can't living with the bill means it won't become law.
-- Brussels, Belgium, June 13, 2001
So on behalf of a well-oiled unit of people who came together to serve something greater than themselves, congratulations.
-- greeting the University of Nebraska women's volleyball team, Washington, DC, May 31, 2001
If you're like me you won't remember everything you did here.
-- Yale University, New Haven, CT, May 21, 2001
There's no question that the minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead.
-- Washington, DC, May 11, 2001
But I also made it clear to [Russian President Vladimir Putin] that it's important to think beyond the old days of when we had the concept that if we blew each other up, the world would be safe.
-- Washington, DC, May 1, 2001
Neither in French nor in English nor in Mexican.
-- Declining to answer reporters' questions at the Summit of the Americas, Quebec City, Canada, April 21, 2001. When asked about the remark later, his staff said he was joking.
This administration is doing everything we can to end the stalemate in an efficient way. We're making the right decisions to bring the solution to an end.
You can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.
-- Washington, DC March 31, 2001
As you know, we're studying safe levels for arsenic in drinking water. The scientists told us we need to test the water glasses on 3,000 people. Thank you for participating.
-- Washington, DC, March 31, 2001
Do you have blacks, too?
-- Washington, DC, March 2001, during Bush's first meeting with Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Reported April 28, 2002 by columnist Fernando Pedreira of the Estado Sao Paulo in an article titled "An Overwhelming Ignorance."
You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.
-- Townsend, TN, February 18, 2001.
Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods.
-- Austin, TX, December20, 2000
The great thing about America is everybody should vote.
-- Austin, TX, December 8, 2000
They misunderestimated me.
-- Bentonville, AR, November 6, 2000
They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program.
-- St. Charles, Missouri, November 2, 2000
This is an impressive crowd, the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base.
-- Al Smith Memorial Dinner, New York, NY, October 19, 2000
It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet.
-- Arlington Heights, IL, October 24, 2000
...a hemispheric energy policy where Canada and Mexico and the United States come together. I brought this up recently with Vicente Fox, who's the newly elected president. He's a man I know from Mexico. And I talked about how best to be able to
expedite the exploration of natural gas in Mexico and transport it up to the United States, so we become less dependent on foreign sources of crude oil.
-- during the first Presidential debate, Boston, MA October 3, 2000
I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.
-- Saginaw, MI, September 29, 2000
More and more of our imports are coming from overseas.
-- reported in Slate, September 25, 2000
Bush: There's Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times.
Cheney: Oh yeah, he is, big time.
-- Labor Day Rally, September 4, 2000
After all, religion has been around a lot longer than Darwinism.
-- reported in George Magazine, September, 2000
It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.
-- Reuters, May 5, 2000
I'm a uniter not a divider. That means when it comes time to sew up your chest cavity, we use stitches as opposed to opening it up.
-- on David Letterman, March 2, 2000. (the audience booed)
I understand small business growth. I was one.
-- New York Daily News, February 19, 2000
The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case.
-- Pella, IA, as quoted by the San Antonio Express-News, January 30, 2000
Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?
-- Florence, SC, January 11, 2000
I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.
-- Nashua, NH, January 28, 2000
-- responding to Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater's 1998 question asking "Were you ever arrested after 1968?", reported in The New Republic, November, 1999. Bush's 1976 DUI arrest received wide publicity in October 2000.
Kosovians can move back in.
-- quoted on CNN's Inside Politics, April 9, 1999
I was a pit bull on the pantleg of opportunity
-- quoted in Shrub by Molly Ivins.
It's not the governor's role to decide who goes to heaven. I believe that God decides who goes to heaven, not George W. Bush.
-- Houston Chronicle.
I didn't -- I swear I didn't -- get into politics to feather my nest or feather my friends' nests.
-- Houston Chronicle
When I have been asked who caused the riots and the killing in LA, my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame....
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Bush Military Record
DubyaSpeak.com
Jacob Weisberg's "Bushisms"
Should History Record the Unvarnished Bush?
Bushisms Jr. & Sr.
Dan Quayle Quotes
The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder
George W. Bushisms : The Slate Book of The Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President
More George W. Bushisms: More of Slate's Accidental Wit and Wisdom of Our 43rd President
ThisIsObamacare.com
RightWeb
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DemocracyForAmerica.com
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Food & Dining, On The Strip
SUGAR FACTORY TO CELEBRATE NATIONAL LOLLIPOP DAY WITH NEW COUTURE POP FLAVOR CONTEST
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Celebrity, Food & Dining
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New York City's newest eatery, Sugar Factory American Brasserie in the Meatpacking District, was the celebrity Mother's Day hotspot as "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" family, Richard and Kathy Wakile, celebrated the occasion with their children, Victoria and Joseph, on Sunday. The Wakiles arrived to the busy restaurant in
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Celebrity, Food & Dining, News
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Photos: DJ Skribble Dines at Sugar Factory American Brasserie’s New York City Venue
International entertainer, DJ Skribble, enjoyed brunch at the new Sugar Factory American Brasserie in New York City's famed Meatpacking District on Friday. After hearing buzz about the Las Vegas-based eatery's expansion to The Big Apple, Scribble brought his son to check out the sweet retreat's latest venue. Skribble enjoyed a
admin 2013-04-19T21:22:48+00:00 Tags: DJ Skribble, Las Vegas, Meatpacking District, Nevada, New York City, Southern Nevada, Sugar Factory, Sugar Factory American Brasserie, vegas24seven|
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The Polygon: Home of the Soviet Union’s Nuclear Tests
Category: Peace and Conflict Tags: communist / News / russia / Videos
By James Burke, October 19, 2015
The Soviet Union tested their first nuclear bomb at the Semipalatinsk Test Site, also known as “The Polygon,” in Kazakhstan on August 29, 1949.
The area consisted of around 18,000 square kilometres of open grassland on the Kazakh Steppe.
The Polygon was also home to around 1.5 million people.
According to the above video, the August 29 nuclear weapon test was the first of 456 that were carried out in the area up until 1989 when the Soviet Union crumbled.
See video footage below of the Soviets testing their first hydrogen bomb at The Polygon on August 12, 1953:
According to the ABC, the site was officially closed for testing in 1991. Not long after that, scientists from Russia, the U.S., and the newly independent nation of Kazakhstan carried out a secretive $150 million cleanup of the highly radioactive materials that the Soviet nuclear program had left behind.
It wasn’t until 2012 that the test area was completely cleared of nuclear material.
The area’s ecology is now being further studied to understand the amount of damage the testing did, and it’s also even open for tours.
But the rivers and other water sources remain contaminated, and much of the farmland has been tainted.
See this video for the effects that the tests have had on the local population:
Cancer rates are extraordinarily high among the population, who also suffer higher than usual rates for mental disabilities, infertility, and depression. Harrowing birth defects continue, with 1 in 20 children suffering from some type of deformity. The suicide rate is also four times higher than the national average.
In total, it is believed that 200,000 people have suffered directly from radiation in The Polygon.
See this time-lapse map video below made by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto, which shows the 2053 nuclear explosions that were conducted in various parts of the globe between 1945 and 1998.
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Beware the China Alarmists Out There
Category: China Insights Tags: China
An important first step is to demand transparency from Australian individuals and institutions, as well as from Chinese citizens and institutions that seek to influence Australian society. (Image: Emily Zhang)
By VISION TIMES, October 8, 2017
The quandary over what to do about People’s Republic of China government influence in Australia has burst onto the political scene. For the past months, there has been ongoing media commentary about the consequences of political donations by businessmen with Chinese connections; and a piece in The Australian Financial Review claimed that hundreds, if not thousands, of Chinese citizens in Australia are gathering information for Chinese authorities.
These are contentious issues, ones that cause unease within the government, among public servants and citizens at large.
China is not only Australia’s largest trading partner and the source of growing foreign direct investment. Chinese-derived funds also support Australia’s higher education sector, media organisations, research initiatives such as the Australia-China Relations Institute and individual politicians and political parties. We have probably glimpsed only the tip of the iceberg in our understanding of the inroads the Chinese government wishes to make into Australian society. As China’s power grows, we should be prepared for further attempts to wield influence.
I have grappled with the sensitivities associated with Chinese influence in Australia since establishing China Matters, a public policy initiative, last year. We aim to inject nuance and realism into discussions about Australia’s ties with China. Our goal is to advance sound policy. This week, we convened 30 prominent Australians to formulate policy recommendations on this issue.
Our board decided from the start that we do not accept money from People’s Republic of China sources, either individuals or companies. China Matters relies on a mixture of Australian government and corporate funding. We sought membership in the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, which expects its members to make public their funding sources and operational costs.
China Matters for the most part discusses sensitive issues behind closed doors. This is to enable a frank exchange between people from different backgrounds and views without the sort of public uproar that has taken place following news reports of influence-buying by Chinese individuals and entities. Without doubt, these cases serve as red flags. It is not in Australian interests to allow foreigners to influence the political process, nor should they be allowed to affect the curriculum at an Australian university.
But hysteria is not a response. These issues and the allegations associated with them risk tearing apart social cohesion and pitting Australians against Australians. The issues must be discussed and managed with common sense, an understanding of the facts and impartiality.
There are nearly 1 million Australians with Chinese ancestry. Close to a half-million residents in Australia were born in the People’s Republic of China. There are 150,000 Chinese nationals studying here. No one should be allowed to stigmatise or implicate Chinese on the assumption that “Chinese” are on a mission for the People’s Republic government. Anecdotal evidence suggests that members of diverse Australian-Chinese communities already feel they are being labelled by the tone of media reporting.
Others, in turn, feel squeezed. When people representing Chinese interests engage with Australian society, Chinese interests are often pitted against Australia’s interests and values, such as freedom of speech. They also call into question the essence of our political system while putting pressure on Australians of Chinese descent by appealing to solidarity among people who share a common Chinese civilisational heritage.
Obviously, each case of influence should be examined on its own merits. Painting with a broad brush will only exacerbate xenophobic reporting and increase tensions among Chinese communities.
However, even picking apart what is detrimental to Australian values and what represents an alternative and inevitable facet of our deepening relationship with China can be demanding. When is a foreign official being manipulative? When is it part of what most diplomats do for a living, which is projecting a positive image of their country and its interests? An important first step is to demand transparency from Australian individuals and institutions, as well as from Chinese citizens and institutions that seek to influence Australian society.
We cannot lose sight of China’s impact on Australian prosperity and the contribution of Australian Chinese communities towards a thriving multicultural society, while we must keep our focus on preserving the values that underpin Australia.
Black-and-white portrayals of China’s interests are detrimental, whether overly positive or intensely negative. The insistence of the Australia-China Relations Institute that it takes “an optimistic and positive attitude” towards the China relationship is hardly a neutral starting point for unbiased work. In the same vein, it is unhelpful that people at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute automatically assume actions in Australia by any Chinese state-owned enterprise is part of a strategic plan to gain influence.
There is no more complex but consequential challenge for Australian policymakers than getting Australia’s relationship with China right. Nuance and realism, as well as perseverance and agility, will all be essential to navigate the maze of controversies of dealing with a society so different from our own.
This article originally appeared in The Australian on 23 September 2016 and is reprinted with permission.
Linda Jakobson is the CEO and Founding Director of China Matters. Her most recent book, written with Dr Bates Gill, is China Matters: Getting It Right for Australia (La Trobe University Press / Black Inc., 2017). From 2011 to 2013, she served as the Lowy Institute’s East Asia Program Director. Before moving to Sydney in 2011, she lived and worked in China for 22 years, and published six books on Chinese and East Asian society.
For more information, visit: chinamatters.org.au/
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Julie Papievis: To Heaven and Back
At the age of 29, Julie Papievis was in a car accident that left her in the balance between life and death. As she was driving away from a shopping mall, a teen driver ran a red light, plowing into her at 50 miles an hour. The impact jarred her head and neck, severely injuring her brain stem. Her body instantly began dying. Within minutes, the fire department arrived and pulled her from the wreckage. They were unable to detect a pulse or blood pressure. They took her to Loyola University Medical Center, unconscious and unresponsive. Brain scans showed no brain function.
Dr. John Shea says, “The brain stem is really the vital center of where we breathe. It controls our heart. It’s sort of our center of life. Anybody that has pinpoint purples and the abnormal posture that she had, the survival rate is very poor. She had a serious brain stem injury that I did not think she’d ever wake up.”
Julie remained unresponsive in a coma. After several weeks, hospital staff give no hope of recovery and urged her parents to release her to a nursing home.
“If somebody comes in with a brain stem injury, not breathing, not talking, can’t feed themselves, have no control over bodily functions, it’s a miserable existence,” Dr. Shea continues. “With her type of injury, I just didn’t expect her to get return of function.”
Her parents refused to give up hope. They and their church family prayed for a miracle. To the astonishment of her doctors, six weeks after the accident, Julie woke up.
Julie recalls, “I couldn’t swallow. My left eye wasn’t open. I couldn’t hear out of my left ear. I was in diapers. I was fed through a G-tube. I was drooling out of my mouth. I was paralyzed on my left side. My body was not able to do anything.”
Despite all those physical limitations, Julie had an undeniable hope. She says, “I never felt as if I was alone. I always felt the Lord’s presence in my whole walk through my recovery, and from the minute I woke up, he was there with me. I felt that because of the experience that I had.”
While in the coma, Julie had been given a glimpse of heaven.
“It was so vast, and there was no real beginning or end to it. It was just perfect peace. I knew that I was there in that place, because I was dead. I knew that, and I was not afraid. I was not afraid to be there. I was happy. It was like I was home, and I wanted to stay there.”
She remembers her deceased grandmothers suddenly standing with her.
“My grandmother said, ‘No, you can’t come with us. You have to go back.’ I said I can’t go back. I’m not physically okay, and I was pointing to my left side that was paralyzed. She said, ‘Your body will heal.’ I felt right then like someone had come and put a warm blanket around me and their arms around me, and I knew right then that I was in the presence of our Lord. I felt it. I knew it, and then she said, ‘Go back and be happy.’ Then the next memory I had was waking up in the rehab hospital.”
Julie was alive, but her road to recovery was difficult, both physically and mentally.
“I kept thinking and saying, ‘God, why did You not let me stay there? Why did You bring me back to this body that doesn’t work and I have to struggle so hard to do everything?’ To wake up in a body like that, like I did, it was so incredibly disabled. I don’t know how I would have ever gotten past it if I did not have the experience of hope that He shared with me through my grandmothers.”
After two months of physical therapy, feeling and movement slowly returned to her left side. Her progress was nothing short of miraculous.
Dr. Shea confirms, “With the type of injury that Julie had, she had a four percent chance of surviving. Most people that have a four percent chance of recovery, if they survive and they live longer than six months, very often are in a nursing home in severe disability or persistent vegetative state. Her recovery is not due to medicine. Her recovery is some miraculous event — some miracle that happened because theoretically she should have died.”
Julie progressed so well that in 2007, 10 years after her accident, she trained for and finished an indoor triathlon.
“When people hear I did a triathlon, they say that’s impossible,” Julie says, “but I believe nothing is impossible, because I have been in front of the Lord. I feel like anything is possible.”
Today Julie shares a message of hope and purpose with others who have suffered similar injuries. She says, “I want people to know that truly inside themselves that they matter. There is nothing that is ‘less than’ about them, because they’ve gone through those circumstances.”
She has also written a book about her experiences and recovery entitled Go Back and Be Happy.
“I have more purpose here on earth to fulfill, and I take that very seriously. The Lord is with me, which I knew, but it just makes it so much clearer that He has been with me through all of it and that He has an intention, a good intention, for my life. I feel a much closer personal relationship now that He really has a definite purpose for my life, for this story and for this gift of hope.”
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Self-Proclaimed ‘Blonde Bombshell With A Brain’ Kina Tavary Arrested After Allegedly Beating Up Her Baby Daddy
Instagram model Kina Tavary is allegedly facing misdemeanor assault charges after she reportedly beat up her DJ boyfriend Freddy Figueroa last week in New York City, reported The Daily Mail.
The 30-year-old model was reportedly out with her boyfriend when the fight broke out at around 2 am on Madison Avenue and East 29th Street. According to police documents, the DJ known as “Freddy Figs” was left in a state of “bruising, swelling, bleeding and substantial pain” after being attacked by his girlfriend. The reports also detailed that Kina repeatedly punched Freddy until police showed up to break up the fight.
The mom-of-one is now facing assault charges for the incident while the two have been barred from communication by the court. The Instagram sensation appeared in court last week to face the charges against her and she was later released on her own recognizance.
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Bryce E. Eiler, 85
Bryce E. Eiler, 85, Huntington, died at 8:45 a.m. Monday, July 31, 2017, in Heritage of Huntington, Huntington.
Posted on 2017 Aug 02
Edna L. Place, 94
Edna L. Place, 94, of Melrose, Ohio, died 12:45 a.m. Monday, July 31, 2017, at Miller’s Merry Manor West, Wabash.
Connie Sue Vorndran, 75
Connie Sue Vorndran, 75, of Warren and formerly of Auburn passed away Thursday, July 27, 2017, at Heritage Pointe in Warren.
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Robert Franklin Renkenberger, 95, of Logansport, passed away Friday July 28, 2017, in Peabody Retirement Community in North Manchester.
Russell "Pudge" Egolf, 78
Russell Lee "Pudge" Egolf, 78, of Rochester, passed into eternity at 12:31 a.m., Monday, June 26, 2017, at his home.
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Sammy S. Snyder, 76, of North Manchester, died at 8:45 p.m., Sunday, July 30, 2017, at his home.
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Billy Eugene Boggs, 75, of Lagro, died at 5:25 p.m., Thursday, July 27, 2017, at his home.
Carl Easterday Jr., 56
Carl L Easterday Jr., 56, of Wabash, died at 1 p.m., Thursday, July 27, 2017, at Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne.
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Title: String instrument
Subject: Double bass, Shahrud, Tzouras, Çeng, Duduk
Various stringed instruments of Chinese make on display in a shop.
String instruments or stringed instruments are chordophones. Some common instruments in the string family are violin, guitar, sitar, electric bass, viola, cello, harp, double bass, rabab, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and bouzouki.
2 Types of instruments
2.2 Types of playing techniques
2.2.1 Plucking
2.2.2 Bowing
2.2.3 Striking
2.2.4 Other methods
3 Changing the pitch of a vibrating string
3.1 Length
3.2 Tension
3.3 Linear density
4 String length or scale length
5 Contact points along the string
6 Production of multiple notes
7 Sympathetic strings
8 Sound production
8.1 Acoustic instruments
8.2 Electronic amplification
9 Symphonic Strings
Various string instruments on display at the Museo de Arte Popular in Mexico City.
Early string instruments have been excavated in ancient Mesopotamia, like the lyres of Ur, which date to 2500 BC.[1]
Types of instruments
String instruments can be divided in three groups.
Lutes - instruments in which the strings are supported by a neck and a bout ("gourd"), for instance a guitar, a violin, a saz.
Harps - instruments in which the strings are contained within a frame.
Zithers - instruments with the strings mounted on a body, such as a guqin, a cimbalom, an autoharp, or a piano.
It is also possible to divide the instruments in groups focused on how the instrument is played.
Types of playing techniques
An acoustic guitar being strummed.
For a full list, see List of string instruments.
All string instruments produce sound from one or more vibrating strings, transferred to the air by the body of the instrument (or by a pickup in the case of electronically amplified instruments). They are usually categorized by the technique used to make the strings vibrate (or by the primary technique, in the case of instruments where more than one may apply.) The three most common techniques are plucking, bowing and striking.
Plucking
Plucking is a method of playing on instruments such as the Veena, banjo, ukulele, guitar, harp, lute, mandolin, oud, and sitar, using either a finger, thumb, or quills (now plastic plectra) to pluck the strings.
Instruments normally played by bowing (see below) may also be plucked, a technique referred to by the Italian term pizzicato.
Bowing (Italian: Arco) is a method used in some string instruments, including the violin, viola, cello, and the double bass (of the violin family) and the old viol family. The bow consists of a stick with many hairs stretched between its ends. Bowing the instrument's string causes a stick-slip phenomenon to occur, which makes the string vibrate.
Ravanahatha has been recognized as one of the oldest string instruments in the history, Ancestors of the modern bowed string instruments are the rebab of the Islamic Empires, the Persian kamanche and the Byzantine lira. Other bowed instruments are the rebec, hardingfele, nyckelharpa, kokyū, erhu, igil, sarangi and K'ni. The hurdy gurdy is bowed by a wheel.
Rarely, the guitar has been played with a bow (rather than plucked) for unique effects.
The third common method of sound production in stringed instruments is to strike the string. The piano uses this method of sound production.
Violin family string instrument players are occasionally instructed to strike the string with the stick of the bow, a technique called col legno. This yields a percussive sound along with the pitch of the note. A well-known use of col legno for orchestral strings is the Gustav Holst's "Mars" movement from The Planets suite.
The aeolian harp employs a very unusual method of sound production: the strings are excited by the movement of the air.
Some instruments that have strings have attached keyboards that the player uses instead of directly manipulating the strings. These include the piano, the clavichord, and the harpsichord.
With these keyboard instruments too, strings are occasionally plucked or bowed by hand. Composers such as Henry Cowell wrote music that requires that the player reach inside the piano and pluck the strings directly, "bow" them with bow hair wrapped around the strings, or play them by rolling the bell of a brass instrument such as a trombone on the array of strings.
Other keyed string instruments, small enough for a strolling musician to play, include the plucked autoharp, the bowed nyckelharpa, and the hurdy gurdy, which is played by cranking a rosined wheel.
Steel-stringed instruments (such as the guitar, bass, violin, etc.) can be played using a magnetic field. An E-Bow is small hand-held battery-powered device that magnetically excites the strings of an electric string instrument to provide a sustained, singing tone.
3rd bridge is a plucking method where the player frets a string and strikes the side opposite the bridge. The technique is mainly used on electric instruments, because these have a pickup that amplifies only the local string vibration. It's possible on acoustic instruments as well, but less effective. For instance, a player might press on the 7th fret on a guitar and pluck it at the head side to make a tone resonate at the opposed side. At electric instruments this technique generates multitone sounds reminiscent of a clock or bell.
Changing the pitch of a vibrating string
There are three ways to change the pitch of a vibrating string. String instruments are tuned by varying the strings' tension because adjusting length or mass per unit length is impractical. Instruments with a fingerboard are then played by adjusting the length of the vibrating portion of the strings. The following observations all apply to a string that is infinitely flexible strung between two fixed supports. Real strings have finite curvature at the bridge and nut, and the bridge, because of its motion, are not exactly nodes of vibration. Hence the following statements about proportionality are (usually rather good) approximations.
Pitch can be adjusted by varying the length of the string. A longer string results in a lower pitch, while a shorter string results in a higher pitch. The frequency is inversely proportional to the length:
f \propto \frac{1}{l}
A string twice as long produces a tone of half the frequency (one octave lower).
Pitch can be adjusted by varying the tension of the string. A string with less tension (looser) results in a lower pitch, while a string with greater tension (tighter) results in a higher pitch. The frequency is proportional to the square root of the tension:
f \propto \sqrt{T}
Linear density
The pitch of a string can also be varied by changing the linear density (mass per unit length) of the string. The frequency is inversely proportional to the square root of the linear density:
f \propto {1 \over \sqrt{\mu}}
Given two strings of equal length and tension, the string with higher mass per unit length produces the lower pitch.
String length or scale length
The length of the string from nut to bridge on bowed or plucked instruments ultimately determines the distance between different notes on the instrument. For example, a double bass with its low range needs a scale length of around 42 inches (110 cm), whilst a violin scale is only about 13 inches (33 cm). On the shorter scale of the violin, the left hand may easily reach a range of slightly more than two octaves without shifting position, while on the bass' longer scale, a single octave or a ninth is reachable in lower positions.
Contact points along the string
The strings of a piano
In bowed instruments, the bow is normally placed perpendicularly to the string, at a point half way between the end of the fingerboard and the bridge. However, different bow placements can be selected to change timbre. Application of the bow close to the bridge (known as sul ponticello) produces an intense, sometimes harsh sound, which acoustically emphasizes the upper harmonics. Bowing above the fingerboard (sul tasto) produces a purer tone with less overtone strength, emphasizing the fundamental, also known as flautando, since it sounds less reedy and more flute-like.
Similar timbral distinctions are also possible with plucked string instruments by selecting an appropriate plucking point, although the difference is perhaps more subtle.
In keyboard instruments, the contact point along the string (whether this be hammer, tangent, or plectrum) is a choice made by the instrument designer. Builders use a combination of experience and acoustic theory to establish the right set of contact points.
In harpsichords, often there are two sets of strings of equal length. These "choirs" usually differ in their plucking points. One choir has a "normal" plucking point, producing a canonical harpsichord sound; the other has a plucking point close to the bridge, producing a reedier "nasal" sound rich in upper harmonics.
Production of multiple notes
A string at a certain tension and length only produces one note, so to obtain multiple notes, string instruments employ one of two methods. One is to add enough strings to cover the range of notes desired; the other is to allow the strings to be stopped. The piano and harp are examples of the former method, where each note on the instrument has its own string or course of multiple strings. (Many notes on a piano are strung with a "choir" of three strings tuned alike.)
Some zithers combine stoppable (melody) strings with a greater number of "open" harmony or chord strings. On instruments with stoppable strings, such as the violin or guitar, the player can shorten the vibrating length of the string, using their fingers directly (or more rarely through some mechanical device, as in the nyckelharpa or the hurdy gurdy). Such instruments usually have a fingerboard attached to the neck of the instrument, that provides a hard flat surface athe player can stop the strings against. On some string instruments, the fingerboard has frets, raised ridges perpendicular to the strings that stop the string at precise intervals, in which case the fingerboard is also called a fretboard.
Moving frets during performance is usually impractical. The bridges of a koto, on the other hand, may be moved by the player, occasionally in the course of a single piece of music. Many modern Western harps include levers, either directly moved by fingers (on Celtic harps) or controlled by foot pedals (on orchestral harps), to raise the pitch of individual strings by a fixed amount. The middle Eastern zither, the qanun, is equipped with small levers called mandal that allow each course of multiple strings to be incrementally retuned "on the fly" while the instrument is being played. These levers raise or lower the pitch of the string course by a microtone, less than a half step.
Sympathetic strings
Some instruments are employed with sympathetic strings, additional strings not meant to be plucked. These strings resonate along with the played notes. This system is for instance present on a sarangi.
Acoustic instruments
A vibrating string on its own makes only a very quiet sound, so string instruments are usually constructed in such a way that this sound is coupled to a hollow resonating chamber, a soundboard, or both. On the violin, for example the tout strings pass over a bridge resting on a hollow box. The strings vibrations are distributed via the bridge and soundpost to all surfaces of the instrument, and are thus made louder. The correct technical explanation is that they allow a better match to the acoustic impedance of the air.
It is sometimes said that the sounding board or soundbox "amplifies" the sound of the strings. Technically speaking, no amplification occurs, because all of the energy to produce sound comes from the vibrating string. What really happens is that the sounding board of the instrument provides a larger surface area to create sound waves than that of the string. A larger vibrating surface moves more air, hence produces a louder sound.
All lute type instruments traditionally have a bridge, which holds the string at the proper action height from the fret/finger board. On acoustic instruments, the bridge performs an equally important function of transmitting string energy into the "sound box" of the instrument, thereby increasing the sound volume. The specific design, and materials the used in the construction of the bridge of an instrument, have a dramatic impact upon both the sound and responsiveness of the instrument.
Achieving a tonal characteristic that is effective and pleasing to the player's and listener's ear is something of an art, and the makers of string instruments often seek very high quality woods to this end, particularly spruce (chosen for its lightness, strength and flexibility) and maple (a very hard wood). Spruce is used for the sounding boards of instruments from the violin to the piano. Instruments such as the banjo use a drum, covered in natural or synthetic skin as their soundboard.
Acoustic instruments can also be made out of artificial materials, such as carbon fiber and fiberglass (particularly the larger instruments, such as cellos and basses).
In the early 20th century, the Stroh violin used a diaphragm-type resonator and a metal horn to project the string sound, much like early mechanical gramophones. Its use declined beginning about 1920, as electronic amplification came into use.
Electronic amplification
Most string instruments can be fitted with piezoelectric or magnetic pickups to convert the string's vibrations into an electrical signal that is amplified and then converted back into sound by loudspeakers. Some players attach a pickup to their traditional string instrument to "electrify" it. Another option is to use a solid-bodied instrument, which reduces unwanted feedback howls or squeals.
Amplified string instruments can be much louder than their acoustic counterparts, which allows them to be used in relatively loud rock, blues, and jazz ensembles. Amplified instruments can also have their amplified tone modified by using electronic effects such as distortion, reverb, or wah-wah.
Bass-register string instruments such as the double bass and the electric bass are amplified with bass instrument amplifiers that are designed to reproduce low-frequency sounds. To modify the tone of amplified bass instruments, a range of electronic bass effects are available, such as distortion and chorus.
Symphonic Strings
The string instruments usually used in the orchestra, and often called the "symphonic strings" are:[2]
Violins (divided into two sections -- first violins and second violins)
When the instrumentation of an orchestral work is said to include "strings," is it very often this combination of string parts that is indicated. Orchestral works rarely omit any of these string parts, but fairly often will include additional string instruments, especially harp and piano. In the Baroque orchestra, harpsichord is almost always used, and often theorbo.
"Essay on the fingering of the violoncello and on the conduct of the bow"
List of string instruments
Luthier (maker of stringed instruments)
Musical acoustics
Ravanahatha
String instrument extended technique
String instrument repertoire
Strings (music)
Vibrating string
Stringed instrument tunings
^ Michael Chanan (1994). Musica Practica: The Social Practice of Western Music from Gregorian Chant to Postmodernism. Verso. p. 170.
^ The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. Oxford University Press. 1964. p. 412.
The physics of the bowed string
Instruments in Depth: The Viola, an online feature presented by Bloomingdale School of Music (2010)
Instrument intonation
Just intonation in any key
Fretless string instrument
Pedal steel guitar
Human voice
Dynamic intonation adjustment
Fretted string instrument
Just intonation in one key
Natural horn
Tromba marina
Long string instrument
Retunable to a just key
Flageolet tones (harmonics) or
natural overtone series
Guqin
Đàn bầu
Physical just-intoned string
part relation with additional 3rd bridge
Pencilina
Moodswinger
Articles with unsourced statements from December 2011
WorldHeritage articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference
Violin family
Violin, Viol, Rock music, Cello, Double bass
Pete Seeger, Folk music, Bluegrass music, Country music, Africa
Shahrud
Daf, Kus, Bağlama, String instrument, Mugni
Tzouras
Greek musical instruments, String instrument, Turkey, Greece, Bouzouki
Çeng
Ottoman Empire, Daf, Kus, String instrument, Turkey
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About Heritage & Culture Nature & Outdoors Shopping & Dining Music & Arts
Nature & OutdoorsHiking/BackpackingLakes & RiversPicnic AreasSports & Recreation
Completed by Duke Power Company in 1973, Lake Jocassee's 75 miles of shoreline and 7,565 acres of water have been a valuable source of energy and recreation in northwestern South Carolina. Jocassee is the only lake in South Carolina offering both trophy trout and smallmouth bass, and has become a favorite fishing spot for anglers throughout the Southeast. The deep, crystal clear water provides an excellent habitat for many species of fish, including brown trout, rainbow trout, white bass, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, bluegill and black crappie. Named "Place of the Lost One" because of the legend of the Indian maiden, Jocassee, who was said to have drowned herself in grief over the murder of her lover, this popular recreation area is surrounded by mountains and waterfalls. Located in Pickens and Oconee Counties.
off Hwy 11
The Inn at Table Rock
Eden Farms
Laurel Mountain Inn
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Home » Yesterday » Americans celebrate a forgotten history
Americans celebrate a forgotten history
Sunday, July 7, 2019 - 22:03 StudyHall.Rocks
Like Trump, Americans routinely forget the facts.
The president famously flubbed his Independence Day speech with laugh-out-loud history gaffes. But if nothing else, Donald Trump is in good company. Most Americans can't answer elementary questions about American history.
In a puzzling passage of the address, Trump remarked, "In June of 1775, the Continental Congress created a unified Army out of the Revolutionary Forces encamped around Boston and New York, and named after the great George Washington, commander in chief. The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown.
"Our Army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets' red glare it had nothing but victory. And when dawn came, their star-spangled banner waved defiant."
Pundits had a good laugh, and clever Twitter scribes altered the painting of Washington at Yorktown to show a fighter jet zooming overhead. But that wasn't all. In mentioning Fort McHenry and the "rockets' red glare" Trump made references to another conflict entirely -- the War of 1812. He later blamed a defective teleprompter for the gaffe.
It's funny -- or maybe not.
Only 36 percent of Americans can pass a multiple-choice test taken from the U.S. citizenship test. The poll, conducted by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and reported last fall, found that Americans have forgotten the basics. According to the foundation 72 percent couldn't correctly identify three of the original 13 states. And 60 percent didn’t know which countries the United States fought in World War II.
And it's not that history instruction has gone downhill, necessarily. "For the past 100 years, Americans have performed poorly on multiple-choice recall tests of history," according to the foundation. "In large-scale tests that asked students to identify key dates and figures, students failed—in 1917, 1943, 1976, and on every National Assessment of Educational Progress’s U.S. History test administered since the exam was developed in 1987."
Take the test on the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation's American History Initiative webpage.
Francis Scott Key, land of the free and slavery
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Home » Tomorrow » Scientists find evidence of "Planet Nine"
Scientists find evidence of "Planet Nine"
Thursday, January 21, 2016 - 14:48 StudyHall.Rocks
Is there a Planet Nine beyond Pluto?
Out there -- way out there beyond Pluto -- there may be a massive planet. Astronomers are calling it Planet Nine.
Here is the rundown:
The research: The discovery of a possible ninth planet is discussed in Evidence for a Distant Giant Planet in the Solar System, by Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Brown of the California Institute of Technology. Brown is the well-known scientist who discovered Eris, a dwarf planet with an orbit “well out of the plane of the solar system's planets,” according to NASA. The find led to the demotion of Pluto from planet to dwarf planet. Brown also wrote a book about it: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had it Coming,(Spiegel & Grau; 2010).
The argument: Published Jan. 20 in The Astronomical Journal, the paper argues that scattered disks in the Kuiper Belt are exhibiting “an unexpected clustering.” The authors write that “such a clustering has only a probability of .007 percent to be due to chance.” The orbital alignment, they wrote, “can be maintained by a distant eccentric planet.”
The explanation: In an interview on Cal Tech's YouTube website, the two scientists describe how their ideas developed:
“What we have discovered,” Batygin said, “is that numerous features of the Kuiper Belt, the field of icy debris beyond Neptune, can be understood if the solar system possesses an additional ninth planet that resides well beyond the orbits of the known planets.”
Most distant objects beyond Neptune and Pluto are going around the sun “pointing off in different directions,” Brown explains. “But the most distant objects all swing out in one direction in a very strange way that shouldn’t happen. And we realized that the only way we could get them to all swing in one direction is if there is a massive planet, also very distant in the solar system, keeping them in place while they all go around the sun.” [Watch the full video below.]
About Planet Nine: It could have a mass about 10 times that of Earth. The astronomers made the find using mathematical modes and computer simulations, a Cal Tech news release pointed out. The planet has not yet been spotted with a telescope.
Teenage intern finds planet
NASA marks verification of 1,000th planet
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Home » Yesterday » Versailles: A past that may be prologue
Versailles: A past that may be prologue
Thursday, March 12, 2015 - 13:51 YT&Twebzine
Woodrow Wilson couldn't convince the Senate to approve the Treaty of Versailles. Image: Whitehouse.gov.
Republican senators made news recently when they signed a letter warning Iranian leaders that any nuclear agreement reached with President Barack Obama could be swiftly undone.
“We will consider any agreement regarding your nuclear weapons program that is not approved by the Congress as nothing more than an executive agreement between President Obama and Ayatollah Khamenei,” the letter said.
Some commentators questioned whether the senators had violated the Logan Act, which prohibits unauthorized negotiations with foreign governments.
The controversy also has included a reference to the Senate's refusal in 1919 to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, negotiated by President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924). Here is an overview:
World War I (1914-1918): An estimated 10 million soldiers and 6 million civilians lost their lives during the four painful years of the first global conflict, which the U.S. did not enter until 1917. The arrival of fresh American troops upended the balance of power and is credited with helping defeat Germany.
A peace plan: In an address to Congress on Jan. 8, 1918, Wilson presented a 14-point program for world peace. The final point called for the League of Nations, stating: “A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.”
The war ends: The Germans surrendered on Nov. 11, 1918.
Wilson jumps in: Armed with his 14 points, the president personally led the U.S. delegation to negotiate the treaty. In doing so, he became the first American president to travel to Europe while still in office.
In the book, Wilson, author A. Scott Berg notes that in assembling his negotiating team, the president, a Democrat, wanted “at least the suggestion of nonpartisanship. Because the Senate had to approve all treaties, several prominent Republicans in the upper house were mentioned, Henry Cabot Lodge chief among them. He was not only the leading Republican senator, but he also chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His well-known enmity toward the president kept anybody from seriously considering the idea, though pundits ever since have suggested that if chosen, he would have ensured passage of the treaty.”
A constitutional problem: The president also believed that he actually couldn’t appoint Lodge, or any other legislator, Berg writes, because of the Constitution’s stipulation that “no Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created.”
The treaty: Beyond the fact that the treaty basically demilitarized Germany, the agreement stripped the country of its overseas territories and hit it with crippling war reparations. French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau has been described as believing that Germany should be permanently incapacitated.
In representing the U.S., Wilson promoted the League of Nations and successfully persuaded the major powers – Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan – to sign on. The Smithsonian book, World War I, The Definitive Visual History (editorial consultant Richard Overy), points out that politicians had different ideas about the way the League of Nations would work:
“Interpreted by Wilson as initiating a new era in international relations and by Clemenceau as a permanent military alliance against Germany, it was enshrined in Part I of the treaty.”
Failure to launch: Wilson returned home and personally delivered the treaty to the Senate.
“Recently returned from Paris and his unprecedented self-assigned role as leader of the American negotiating team, Wilson hoped for prompt Senate approval, but feared trouble from Republicans, newly restored as the chamber's majority party,” the Senate website says.
Suffering medical issues, Wilson stumbled through his speech.
Prominent opponents: That was only the beginning of Wilson's problems. Lawmakers had a variety of objections. Some thought the treaty was too harsh.
Most notably, the president had an influential rival – the aforementioned Republican, Henry Cabot Lodge. Lodge’s committee added “reservations” and amendments to the treaty.
Major reservations: Lodge’s chief problem with the treaty was this paragraph: “The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.”
Lodge thought this constituted a “universal, perpetual commitment binding the United States to send troops anywhere in the world at any time to repel aggression,” wrote James E. Hewes, Jr., chief of military history for the Army in a 1970 analysis, “Henry Cabot Lodge and the League of Nations.”
The upshot: Instead of haggling over the wording, Wilson opted for an end run around the Senate. Hoping to appeal directly to the voters, he scheduled an arduous speaking tour to promote the League, but he suffered a breakdown after a speech in Pueblo, Colorado, on Sept. 25, 1919. While given a Noble Peace Prize, Wilson didn’t win over the Senate. On Nov. 19, 1919, the Senate rejected the peace treaty.
Wilson’s successor, President Warren G. Harding, also rejected the idea of joining the League of Nations. In 1921, Harding approved a separate treaty concluding the war.
Parallels to the present-day: The story of Wilson and the League of Nations involves high-octane partisan politics and proves, yet again, that revered historical figures can be just as petty as the rest of us. The story also features an erudite Democratic president who was once a college professor (sound familiar?) and a newly minted Republican majority.
But most of all, the story illustrates an old adage: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Wilson would have done well to remember this – so, too, Obama and the letter-writing senators.
Not so fast: In another sense, the parallel doesn't work. As of this writing, there is not a treaty with Iran. Senators are reacting before a deal has been inked. Indeed, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, author of the letter, told The Washington Post that he had written it two weekends ago.
Beyond that, Lodge voiced credible reservations about the country’s role in keeping world peace -- based on a thorough knowledge of the treaty.
He’d actually read the thing.
Wilson by A. Scott Berg, (Penguin Publishing; 2013)
World War I, The Definitive Visual History, editorial consultant Richard Overy (DK; 2014).
Encyclopedia Virginia, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities: Woodrow Wilson
U.S. Senate website: The Treaty of Versailles
U.S. Senate website: Woodrow Wilson addresses the Senate
Library of Congress: Henry Cabot Lodge
The Miller Center, University of Virginia: Wilson embarks on League of Nations Tour
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society: Henry Cabot Lodge and the League of Nations (Aug. 20, 1970)
Quick Study: What is the Logan Act?
World War I, Day One: July 28, 1914
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A. A written transcript record is made of the hearings and of all testimony taken and the cross-examinations thereon. In addition, the presiding examiner will provide a summary of the proceedings in a recommended decision that will be presented to the Siting Board. The parties will also present legal briefs to the Siting Board with citations to the portions of the record they deem relevant to their positions.
A. Yes, but only in an unusual circumstance. If the proceeding is on certain qualifying applications by an owner of an existing major electric generating facility to modify that facility or site a new major electric generating facility adjacent or contiguous to the existing facility, the deadlines are different such that the final decision by the Siting Board must be completed within 6 months, the extension permitted in extraordinary circumstances is 3 months, and the extension permitted to consider a material and substantial amendment to the application is 3 months, unless the deadlines are waived by the applicant.
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Don't Assume LeBron James Is In LA To Win Championships
posted by Ed Black - Feb 11, 2019
Jason Smith and Doug Gottlieb (Filling in for Dan Patrick) spoke with NBA insider Ric Bucher to discuss where the Lakers stand after their loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday. One thing Jason Smith has observed from LeBron James is that he still seems like a hired gun and the Lakers are still at arm's length as far as his overall dedication. Smith brings up the point about how in a recent interview around the trade deadline LeBron James said:
"There’s nothing I need to get in this league that I don’t already have. Everything else for me is just like icing on the cake." I love the process of everything I go through to be able to compete every single night and put teams in position to compete for championships. But there’s nothing I’m chasing or feel like I need to end my career on."
Ric Bucher responded saying the following:
I'm leery of buying totally into anything LeBron says at any given time. I believe if you go back to his decision to come to LA (this is the prevailing feeling around the league), he didn't come there to play for the Lakers. He didn't come there to win championships because if he did, as he has in every other place, there would have been prerequisites for him coming...He's always held and utilized his leverage to get the team structured the way that he wanted. He didn't do any of that this time.
Ric Bucher explains more in the audio below.
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Hollar Wins 800th Game !!!
Shena Hollar
Head Coach Shena Hollar won her 800th game at Lenoir-Rhyne as the Bears swept King on Wednesday afternoon. Hollar entered the season 10th among active coaches in coaches in career wins and winning percentage and is 23rd in Division II history in most career coaching victories. Hollar, who spent two seasons at Newberry before coming to Hickory, celebrated her 800th career victory last season and now owns 846 career victories in her 22-year career.
Hollar is a graduate of Alexander Central High School and is a member of the Alexander County Sports Hall of Fame.
Clink on the link for a video:
https://lrbears.com/index.aspx?path=softball
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Dallas De Atley Stories July 27, 2012
Apple’s Black Hat presentation on iOS security disappoints, rehashes old white paper
Jordan Kahn - Jul. 27th 2012 5:31 am PT
We told you earlier this week that Apple would send for the first time one of its employees, a manager for the platform security team, Dallas De Atley, to speak at the Black Hat conference on iOS security. Unfortunately, while many hoped we would get an inside look at iOS security technologies, a wrap up of the event from The New York Times described the talk as “the equivalent of reading aloud a white paper, timed to a PowerPoint deck, before escaping out a side door.” According to several reports, most of what was covered came from a recently published white paper.
As for what Atley said:
“Our attitude is: security is architecture. It has to be built in from the very beginning,” Mr. De Atley said. In building the iPhone, he said, Apple took a bare-bones approach and sought to use the minimum number of components. Apple purposefully decided not to ship the phone with a shell, or support remote log-in access. “There’s an entire set of attack vectors we don’t have to fundamentally worry about on iOS,” he said.
Mr. De Atley highlighted a number of “sandboxing” technologies Apple had in place. “The goal is to physically isolate and separate processes from each other so that if one has a flaw, it can’t easily wreak havoc on the rest of the system.”
As examples, he noted that all third-party apps were stored in their own container on users’ devices. User data is kept partitioned from the device’s operating system so that any updates to the system do not affect the user’s personal data. He added that every single file created on the iPhone gets its own encryption key and is wrapped in the user’s passcode.
Reminder: Apple to give speech on key iOS security technologies at Black Hat this week
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Category: Character Reviews
What’s So Good About My Hero Academia? — 04/06/2018
What’s So Good About My Hero Academia?
Chances are you’ve heard all about this show and that the next season is coming out tomorrow. And it’s also possible you’re sick of hearing about it, which is completely understandable. It’s become a huge deal in the time since season two was announced to air in April of last year.
But before that, I didn’t really hear all that much about it. And maybe that’s because I wasn’t active in the anime community as much as I am now, but I was utterly shocked when I realized how huge it had become.
How I Found This Show
My friend pitched it to me as “X-men: Evolution, but it’s an anime.” Which, isn’t too far off, but I think it’s a lot more than just that now.
She bugged me for months to watch it, and then I finally broke. Reluctantly. I really was sick of hearing about it from her, and I only watched it to shut her up. I didn’t think I’d fall in love with it as I have.
The very first day I watched it was December 21st, 2016. I watched the first two episodes in the car on the way to Niagara Falls for a family trip. I could hardly hear what was going on over the music my dad was playing (I was watching the dub), but even from the visuals, I was intrigued. Though, I forgot about it for a month after that. I picked it back up mid-January, around the time I also decided to watch Yuri!!! on Ice.
I finished the 13-episode season on February 3rd, under the impression that it was just over. I thought at that point that it was just over and I’d forget about it in a couple of months anyway. I wasn’t very aware of the manga or the rising popularity of it. The day I saw season two’s air date was a dream come true. I watched the first episode of season two in excitement, unaware that from here on, I’d be a part of a huge fanbase.
Is this a good thing, though? I think it is.
But it’s “Mainstream…”
It’s common to see negativity toward fans of “mainstream anime.” I try to vary my watching between this “mainstream” genre, and everything else. Not so much because what’s “mainstream” is bad, more so that many of those shows don’t appeal to me. Shows like Sailor Moon, Naruto, Dragon Ball Z, etc. I’ve stated in previous posts that I’m not fond of long series. It’s too much of a commitment for me. If My Hero Academia were to have come out 5+ years ago, it’s a pretty good chance I wouldn’t have bat an eye at it and just went on with everything else. But because I watched it from it’s beginning, it doesn’t come across to me as fitting with those other shows. The weight of large episode count hasn’t hit. As of today, there are only 38 episodes. By the end of this season, there will be 63 episodes, and a movie, I believe.
Just the Right Amount of Action
Ignoring the episode count, I’m also generally not a fan of shows with high action scenes. I have a hard time following them. Heck, even watching something like an Avengers movie is sometimes a struggle. Everything blurs together and I just end up zoning out.
Why doesn’t this happen in My Hero Academia? There’s something about the way the fight scenes are handled that make them easy to follow for me. Maybe they’re slowed down more than in other shows? There’s also a hefty amount of dialogue outside of fighting, which definitely helps as well. And man, the sequences are just…pretty? Which is bizarre to say of a fighting scene. But, well, they just are.
Lovable Characters
The characters also have much to do with the show’s success, I believe. I like almost all of them. If I don’t have them in my favorites, I still probably like them. Besides maybe three or four. That’s not that bad with such a large cast. And most characters do get spotlight at some point, another impressive feat. It must be hard to include such depth to each and every character, but it’s been done here.
I always enjoy shows with large casts, as long as they’re done well. There’s no point in making so many characters if you don’t use them. But, if every character gets a chance to prove or disprove themselves (depending on if they’re on the good or bad side), then it’s good in my book.
An example of a show that has a large cast done poorly would be Durarara! Season 2 (or whatever it’s called). With an already big cast in season one, there was no need to more than double it for season two. It became confusing and I couldn’t keep anyone’s name straight. And some characters were created for a minor plot and were shown once and never again, or there was a plot they were a part of, but it never connected to the main plot. I regret giving this season a positive review back when I first finished it. Season one was great though!
Why I bring this up is to point out that MHA doesn’t do that. The way it gets to show off all of the characters is through the individual testing of the students. It dedicates at least half an episode to a few students to fully give a profile of their traits and power. This was important, especially for what’s to come in season three. I’ve read a bit of the manga past season two, and all I have to say is that there’s a reason why there was so much time focused on everyone. And that’s what I really love about this cast and the way it’s dealt with.
An Unusual Protagonist
Surprisingly, it didn’t really come to my full attention how strange it is that Midoriya Izuku is our main protagonist in this. He may have the typical underdog story, but it’s in his actual character that we get to see something different for once.
Instead of your usual outgoing, charismatic, and adaptable character, we get a nervous, over-analyzing, and socially awkward one. He’s much more “relatable” than what I’ve seen of popular shounen protagonists. (I’ve watched a teeny bit of Naruto, like half an episode of Black Clover, 90ish episodes of Fairy Tail, and about 65 episodes of Bleach)
We’re so used to the character that finds they want something, gets the power do it, and then does it. They’re completely fine with themselves, and can talk normally to others, and often times are a little bit too confident in their newfound skills.
Well, that didn’t really happen with Deku.
He gets power, yes, but he pays for it big time. He has to go through that vigorous, non-stop training for months, and then even when he gets the power, he’s a literal danger to himself when he uses it.
He was labelled “useless” in elementary and middle school by pretty much everyone. And that hurts. He was told he was stupid for even considering being a hero, despite the drive he had to do it. Being told that time and time again had to wear on him. His entire life, he’d been told the one thing he wanted more than anything was impossible. Even if he was more willing to put himself in danger for others. The one mark of a true hero. Because he wasn’t as powerful physically he was written off as weak and helpless, never to achieve anything.
When he does make it to the school of his dreams, communication is a huge problem for him. He’s not the suave talker you generally see in a hero. He stutters and says stupid things when his brain isn’t working. He’s also not tall and elegant, or really anything special to look at at all. He has uncontrollable hair, freckles, a baby face, and a less than average height. He can’t even tie his tie correctly, and he obsessively takes notes, muttering to himself all the while.
He’s a character of faults, but that’s what makes him stand out among all of the other shounen protagonists.
With those faults, though, he has his strengths. The ever-present need to step in a situation to save a stranger or fellow student from danger. To the point he’ll destroy himself in order to do so. He constantly lifts those around him up, when he can. He’s just and all-around kindhearted kid who wants to do the best he can, and will work hard if that’s what he has to do.
He’s too adorable
Can you tell I love him a lot? I think I included him in my Top 10 Male Anime Characters, way back in June, I believe? Since then, he’s fallen a little on my favorites list in terms of My Hero Academia characters, but I still think he’s one of the best protagonists I’ve ever seen. And, as always, it’s a total plus that’s he’s utterly adorable. The true definition of a “cinnamon roll.”
Well, the fandom is pretty fun, if you’re cool with a lot of shipping. I really mean a LOT, as in I find new pairings on an almost weekly basis now. Some I would never even consider.
And as long as you stay away from toxic shippers, which I’ve seen plenty of in my time of being a part of the community.
There’s also a ton of talented writers and artists creating fanworks on a daily basis. I am a part of that as well, as I shared in my Fanfiction Recs (And Shameless Self-Plugs): Part One. I’ve written five fanfictions based on the series, and it’s some of the best fun I’ve had in creative writing for a long time.
I get a lot of spoilers from the manga, but I don’t really mind since it’s generally only a few panels that cycle my dashboard on tumblr for a while, and then they disappear. I know only a vague timeline of what’s to come, though I have read up to Chapter 93 as of writing this. In context, season two ended around Chapter 70.
The new characters being introduced fairly early S3!
I’m incredibly excited to see what I’ve read animated, those of you who haven’t read any of the manga are in for quite a ride.
This turned into a character analysis on accident…what can I say, I love me some My Hero Academia characters.
Also, if I made any incorrect generalizations on shounen characters, please let me know! As I said earlier, I really don’t watch a lot, and the last thing I want to do is give incorrect information. It’s best to let me know so I change it.
Bakugou Katsuki: An Analysis (My Hero Academia) — 02/23/2018
Bakugou Katsuki: An Analysis (My Hero Academia)
That name sparks different emotions in different people, no pun intended. Some love him, and even more hate him. I began wondering why, exactly, this is. I didn’t ever exactly hate him. I couldn’t understand him, and he was a bit overwhelming, but I never felt actual hatred for this character. Not like another character I know (freaking Mineta I swear).
Personally, I began to absolutely love Bakugou in season 2. I’m not entirely sure why, but at some point while watching, I became obsessed with him. And now that I’m reading the manga, I’m finding even more reasons to like him. Which is why it makes me so sad when I see people hating on him. I know how he appears on the surface, but if you dig down, he’s not a bad kid.
An Analysis of Voltron’s Cast (Part Two) — 02/03/2018
An Analysis of Voltron’s Cast (Part Two)
02/03/2018 /zboudrie/3 Comments
I had a lot of fun writing part one, and it received fairly well, so here you have the other three characters I will be talking about.
Luckily I don’t have much else to say before diving right into this one, since it’s part two, so let’s just get right into this one.
An Analysis of Voltron’s Cast (Part One) — 01/30/2018
An Analysis of Voltron’s Cast (Part One)
I said during my 30 Day Anime Challenge back in December that I had a post in mind for this show, and here it is. I really like doing character analysis posts, since I think about this stuff a lot, but they take a lot more time to write than a review. Hence why there’s a real lack of them on my blog.
You should be able to read this post as long as you have an idea of what the show is about, and I won’t be giving any sort of summary to save on length.
Power is Great and All…Mob Psycho 100 and The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.’s take on psychic powers — 12/16/2017
Power is Great and All…Mob Psycho 100 and The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.’s take on psychic powers
Hello again! I know this is a day late, but my time after work went a lot differently yesterday than I expected, so this is just going to have to do. I’ve been doing well with my 30 Day Anime Challenge posts, so I’ll give myself a pass on this. I still wanted to get this post out, though.
I don’t think I’ve ever written such a lengthy title before, and you’re probably wondering why I’m smushing two shows into one post. I’ve never done that before, and I never thought I would.
[OWLS Blog Tour: “Dreamers”] Nobody Wants to be Forgotten: Noragami — 10/20/2017
[OWLS Blog Tour: “Dreamers”] Nobody Wants to be Forgotten: Noragami
Hello! I’m back for my fourth blog tour with OWLS!
This month’s topic was a tough one. This month we are covering characters who have dreams, or goals, but fall short of meeting those goals, due to some sort of force stopping them. We’re calling those characters dreamers.
Top 10 Male Anime Characters — 07/16/2017
Top 10 Male Anime Characters
I did a top 10 of female characters a while back with the full intention of doing this post immediately after, but I guess I forgot about it. Well, here it is now. I’ll have to say this list was much easier to compile than Top 10 Female Anime Characters, for reasons I’m somewhat ashamed of. I’ve realized that when I become attached to a male character, they tend to have one or more of the following traits: short stature, short temper, and blond hair. Which almost every character on this list falls into.
[OWLS Blog Tour: “TEAM”] Crona Gorgon: Soul Eater — 06/22/2017
[OWLS Blog Tour: “TEAM”] Crona Gorgon: Soul Eater
This is my very first OWLS blog post! I’ve been very excited to join this group of wonderful, kind people for a long time, and the time has finally come for me to be a true part of the group.
When given the topic of the month: “Team” in regards of the LGBT+ community, it took me a while to decide on what I would be talking about. I’m very new to the community, so my spectrum isn’t very large. I can count on one hand the number of shows/comics I’ve read or watching dealing with this community. So, I decided to talk about something that wasn’t very expected.
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Educators’ Attitudes towards Research and Professional Development
Kostoulas, A., Babić, S., Glettler, C., Karner, A., Mercer, S., & Seidl, E. (2019). Lost in Research: Educators’ Attitudes towards Research and Professional Development. Teacher Development, 29(3), 307-324 doi: 10.1080/13664530.2019.1614655
This paper reports on a study that examined how educators in Austria conceptualise research, how they engage with academic literature, and what attitudes they have towards academic development.
This paper grew out of a research methods seminar, conducted by Prof. Mercer at the University of Graz. Most authors were participants in the seminar, and were involved in conducting the literature review, formulating the research design and generating the data, under Prof. Mercer’s guidance. I was invited to provide statistical expertise and write up the article.
Editorial contributions to Challenging Boundaries in Language Education
Kostoulas, A. (2019). Conceptualizing and problematizing boundaries in language education. In Kostoulas, A. (ed.), Challenging Boundaries in Language Education (pp. 1-11). Cham: Springer. [download a preprint]
Kostoulas, A. (2019). Boundaries crossed, and new frontiers: Ongoing theoretical, empirical and pedagogical issues in language education. In Kostoulas, A. (ed.) Challenging Boundaries in Language Education (pp. 247-255). Cham: Springer. [download a preprint]
Repositioning language education theory
Kostoulas, A. (2019). Repositioning language education theory. In Kostoulas, A. (ed.) Challenging Boundaries in Language Education (pp. 33-50). Cham: Springer.
This is a conceptual contribution that puts forward a framework for describing language education theory as an interdisciplinary synthesis of applied linguistics, language education psychology, and pedagogy.
The chapter builds on the invited plenary talk I delivered in the ELT Connect 2017 conference in Graz.
Download a pre-print
Resilience in language teaching: Adaptive and maladaptive outcomes
Kostoulas, A. and Lämmerer, A. (in press). Resilience in language teaching: Adaptive and maladaptive outcomes in pre-service teachers. In Gkonou, C., King, J. and Dewaele, J.-M. (eds), Language Teaching: An Emotional Rollercoaster. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
This chapter is part of the resilience project that I co-ordinated during my appointment at the University of Graz.
In the chapter, the argument is advanced that as individuals-who-teach develop resilience, their coping mechanisms might make them more suitable or less suitable for their professional roles as teachers.
TESOL researchers reflecting on complexity
Kostoulas, A. & Mercer, S. (2018). TESOL researchers reflecting on complexity. Theory and Practice in Second Language Acquisition 4(2), 109-127.
This article synthesises reflective narratives from eight researchers and educators (including the authors), who take stock of the impact of Complex Dynamics Systems Theory in language education.
Written on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the publication of Dianne Larsen-Freeman and Lynne Cameron’s seminal volume Complex Systems in Applied Linguistics, the article explores how complexity thinking evolved in the field of language education, the challenges it poses and the opportunities it affords us.
Editorial contributions to Language Teacher Psychology
Mercer, S. and Kostoulas, A. (2018). ‘Introduction to Language Teacher Psychology’. In Mercer S. and Kostoulas, A. (eds), Language Teacher Psychology (pp. 1-17). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Kostoulas, A. and Mercer, S. (2018). ‘Conclusion: Lessons learned, promising perspectives’. In Mercer S. and Kostoulas, A. (eds), Language Teacher Psychology (pp. 330-337). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Resilience as a process of growth
Kostoulas, A. and Lämmerer, A. (2018). ‘Making the transition into teacher education: Resilience as a process of growth’. In Mercer S. and Kostoulas, A. (eds) Language Teacher Psychology (pp. 247-263). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
In this chapter, which appears in Language Teacher Psychology, Anita Lämmerer and I look into the construct of resilience, i.e., the ability people have to bounce back after adversity.
In the chapter, we put forward a conceptualisation of resilience as an emergent process, which comes into being from the interaction of trait-like characteristics, relationships and learned coping strategies.
We then use a case study of a teacher educator, who was going through a transition phase in her career, in order to illustrate how resilience functions in the face of low-level but persistent stressors.
Complex Systems Theory as a Shared Discourse Space for TESOL
Kostoulas, A., Stelma, J., Mercer, S., Cameron, L., and Dawson, S. (2018). Complex Systems Theory as a Shared Discourse Space for TESOL. TESOL Journal, 9(2), 246-260. doi: 10.1002/tesj.317
In this article, we explore how insights from complex systems theory might resonate with the experience of TESOL practitioners and argue that complexity can function as a shared discourse space where connections might be drawn between research and practice.
The article grew out of a meeting between TESOL practitioners and researchers at the Manchester Roundtable on Complexity Theory and English Language Teaching.
It builds on that discussion by exploring how language education practices and processes that are familiar to education practitioners and researchers can be understood in complexity-informed terms. To that end, we outline elements of complex systems theory that can be shown to resonate with what TESOL educators already know. These include a discussion of what complex systems are, how they operate, and how they evolve, all of which are illustrated with examples from research and language education experiences.
We show that the complexity-informed perspective they outline can provide teachers and researchers alike with an interpretive frame that may make more accessible the interconnected, sometimes unpredictable, invariably creative, and intuitively recognisable nature of language education.
Understanding curriculum change in an ELT school in Greece
Kostoulas, A. and Stelma, J. (2017). Understanding curriculum change in an ELT school in Greece. ELT Journal 71(3), 354-363. doi: 10.1093/elt/ccw087
This article reports on a case study of a language school in Greece, with a view to putting forward an understanding of the drivers that sustain or delay curricular innovation. Key to this understanding is the construct of intentionality, defined as ‘purposes’ that drive teaching and learning activity. In the article, we describe three main intentionalities that were present in the language school: (1) ‘credentialism’, an imperative to provide learners with certification; (2) ‘supplementation’, a drive to attain learning outcomes that students failed to attain in the state school system; and (3) ‘protectionism’, an unstated agenda of maintaining the status of local Greek L1 ELT practitioners. We describe how these intentionalities generated fluctuating dynamics, from which different pedagogical patterns emerged. Finally, we discuss the implications of this perspective for understanding and managing change and innovation in ELT settings.
The article builds on previous work that was presented at the Manchester Roundtable and 7th BAAL LLT SIG conference, and draws on data that were originally published in my thesis.
Fifteen years of research on self & identity in System
Kostoulas, A. and Mercer, S. (2016). Fifteen years of research on self & identity in System. System, 60, 128-134. doi: 10.1016/j.system.2016.04.002
This is the second in a series of Virtual Special Issues published by System, which showcase selected articles that have appeared in the journal. In this issue, we focus on the psychological construct of the self in language teaching and learning, as viewed from diverse theoretical perspectives. Forty articles published in the last 15 years were reviewed, of which ten were selected for inclusion in this issue, taking into account their impact, their conceptual salience or their potential to exemplify theoretical developments in the field.
Intentionality and Complex Systems Theory:
Kostoulas, A., and Stelma, J. (2016). Intentionality and Complex Systems Theory: A New Direction for Language Learning Psychology. In Gkonou, C., Tatzl, D., and Mercer, S. (eds.) New Directions in Language Learning Psychology. Cham: Springer.
This chapter examines the combined potential of the concept of ‘intentionality’ and ‘complex systems theory’ as a new theoretical direction for language learning psychology. The explanatory and predictive utility of the combined constructs for language learning psychology is then illustrated by juxtaposing two case studies, from Norway and Greece.
Read the chapter
Intentional Dynamics in TESOL: An Ecological Perspective
Stelma, J., Onat-Stelma, Z., Lee, W. and Kostoulas, A. (2015). Intentional Dynamics in TESOL: An Ecological Perspective. Teachers College, Columbia University Working Papers in TESOL and Applied Linguistics, 15(1) 14-32.
This paper puts forward a conceptual model of intentionality, which builds on previous work on ecological psychology. A re-analysis of previously published data is used to demonstrate the relevance of the model to TESOL.
Understanding and Challenging ‘the Known’
Kostoulas, A. (2014). A Greek Tragedy: Understanding and Challenging ‘the Known’ From a Complexity Perspective. In Rivers, D. (ed.) Resistance to the Known: Counter-Conduct in Foreign Language Education. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
This chapter synthesises empirical data and post-modern theorisations in order to describe English Language Teaching (ELT) as a locally embedded global phenomenon. The overall aims of the chapter are to encourage teaching professionals to reflect on how established practice (the ‘Known’) sustains and is sustained by vested interests, and to encourage them to move beyond (or ‘resist’) it through pedagogically and politically appropriate praxis.
If you are interested in getting a copy of the book, please consider following this link to Amazon.com to make your purchase. I reclaim 4% of the cover price for every purchase made from my referrals, which I use to fund this blog.
Constructing small-t theories in Greek ELT
Kostoulas, A. (2011). From applying Theory to theorising practice: Constructing small-t theories in Greek ELT. Aspects Today 32, 14-21.
This invited article builds on the talk delivered at ‘Empowering Language Teaching’ professional development day, which was organised by the Panhellenic [Greek National] Association of State School Teachers of English [ΠΕΚΑΔΕ].
In the article, I contrasted (Capital-T) Theory, or research-driven narratives about language education, with (small-t) theory, for a practice-first approach to developing personal understandings of our professional existence.
Navigating a pathway to partnership
Breen, P.B., De Stefani, M. and Kostoulas, A. (2011). ‘Navigating a pathway to partnership through turbulent seas of adversity.’ In Tripathi, P. and Mukerji, S. (eds.). Cases on Innovations in Educational Marketing (pp. 273-294). Hershey PA.: IGI Global.
This chapter was a collaborative project written with two close colleagues during the early stages of my PhD studies.
It describes aspects of our collaboration as we engaged with our assessed coursework, using the Community of Practice framework.
All authors contributed equally to the publication and are listed in alphabetical order.
The chapter was short-listed for The University of Manchester Student Partnership Awards 2010.
English as a Lingua Franca & Methodological Tension
Kostoulas, A. (2010). English as a Lingua Franca & methodological tension in a language school in Greece. in esse 1(1), 91-112.
This is the first article I published. Despite its imperfections, it is one that I am still very fond of.
In the article, I use qualitative methods to juxtapose official policy in a language school in Greece, which adhered closely to normative assumptions about the standard language, and actual practice, which was closer to the ELF model.
This article is a revised and expanded version of the paper presented at the ‘Said and Unsaid’ conference at the University of Vlorë in September 2011.
You can read some information about the peer-review process that shaped the final form of the article in this blogpost.
Image: Inside view of the Stockholm Public Library, Wikipedia
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POWER UTILITY, REGULATION | Contributed Content, Hong Kong
Published: 05 Oct 15
Here's why reliable electricity should not be taken for granted
BY PETER HOPPER & ALICE YUNG
The reliability of the electric power generation system is vital to the economic and social well being of Hong Kong. Its reliability depends upon the seamless operation and coordination of generation and distribution systems.
Today, maintaining Hong Kong's power system faces challenges from multiple objectives such as affordability, environmental protection and sustainability, and changes in demographics and business demands.
Hong Kong businesses and its population have benefited for decades from world-class levels of dependable electricity supply. Currently, the city's reliability level stands at over 99.999% -- one of the highest in the world.
This translates into an unplanned power interruption that was less than three minutes per customer on average each year. This compares favorably with other metropolitan cities such as Sydney, New York, and London.
The high reliability level of electricity power supply in Hong Kong is a direct result of the ability of power firms to attract capital to ensure sufficient capital investments in the system network, critical assets, and maintenance.
For example, individual generating units are installed with power system stabilisers; sufficient reserve capacity margins are maintained by the two power companies; and interconnection between the two power companies systems enable emergency support in the event of unexpected load variations or generator failure.
However, decades of stable service have created high expectations from users. Hong Kong residents are used to having this unusually consistent level of energy supply.
Because of that, the public often forgets about what constitutes the value and importance of having an uninterrupted electricity supply. Thus, they omit or overlook the very tangible value of reliability when pricing their electricity services.
Imagine if a power blackout occurred in Hong Kong. Railways and subways would immediately cease running. Stock market transactions would be interrupted. Elevators would stall and strand passengers in tall buildings. Internet and phone services would be severely disrupted. Life and commerce would come to a standstill.
Hong Kong is heavily dependent on a secure electricity supply because of two unique demand characteristics. It is one of the world's most densely populated cities and a major international financial center. Both of these factors have a low tolerance for electricity failure.
Today, Hong Kong has the greatest number of skyscrapers (defined as a building that reaches or exceeds a height of 150m) in the world -- nearly twice the number in New York City or three times Tokyo's.
More than 50% of the population currently lives above the 15th floor. And everyone is dependent on air-conditioning and elevator systems. The MTR subway and Airport Express networks carry an average of about 4.71 million passengers per day. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange is one of the world's largest stock markets.
Thus, a power disruption on a business day in Hong Kong would inflict an immediate and significant economic and societal cost on users and institutions. Even a single outage would create a long-term impact on Hong Kong's attractiveness as a global financial center.
Assessing a price for an uninterrupted power supply
Modern economies are driven by technology, which are completely dependent on reliable and secure electricity services. The cost of failure and sensitivity to supply disruptions continue to increase over time.
Accepting lower reliability in order to save on or reduce the amount of capital investments would be negatively offset by disproportionately higher immediate and long-term costs on the economy and society. The disruptive outcome could potentially outweigh any limited investment savings.
Based on SDG's previous experience, immediate unplanned outage costs in similar US areas range from HK$ 4/kWh for some residential customers to HK$160/kWh for critical financial services.
The immediate cost consequences of a blackout could be catastrophic. The collapse of financial trading systems could cause enormous losses in trading activities. Payment processing impairment could lead to crippling bank runs. Road, marine, and air traffic problems would reduce retail and wholesale turnover through business delays.
By applying these cost ranges to the Hong Kong's customer mix the overall cost of an hour-long power outage in the whole city would be approximately HK$300 million.
However, the total social and economic impact of major outages greatly exceeds customer outage costs. The cost of a power interruption varies by customer and is a function of the impact of the interruption on operations, revenues, and direct effects on health and safety.
Persistent outages and service failures would surely jeopardise Hong Kong's long-term leadership as regional financial hub and corporate headquarters.
Potential causes for power disruption
The most common source of power interruption in Hong Kong is damage to or faulty underground cables, which are caused by excavation works, thunderstorms, floods, landslides, and fire. Other reasons include ageing infrastructure, construction defects, and operating errors.
Adequate maintenance schedules, sufficient reserve capacity margins, and backup generation are critical for power companies to sustain a reliable supply of electricity and mitigate the potential risk of encountering power outages.
Meeting these goals and standards over the long term require significant investments. This implies that regulators need to ensure that power companies are sufficiently incentivised to invest in maintenance and critical infrastructure.
However, power companies that experience shortages of capital will potentially result in a higher frequency and severity of service interruptions.
In 2014, the Government launched a public consultation on the future fuel mix for electricity generation. Two options were put forward: import more electricity through purchase from the Mainland power grid; and use more natural gas for local generation.
Despite the lower cost of purchasing electricity through a grid compared to local generation, there are concerns that large-scale grid purchases are less stable and untried. Additional investments would be required for local back-up capabilities. The potential for lower reliability represents economic and social risks.
The true value of reliability
Identifying and quantifying the value of a reliable electricity supply is an important part of developing Hong Kong's power generation policy. It is unclear whether the Government has accounted for the true cost of power interruption when determining the level of permitted rate of return for the power companies.
For certain types of customers, reliability is a key business and operational concern, rather than merely an inconvenience. These customers would be willing to pay a premium for a reliable power supply in order to avoid significant losses or impairment of revenue, critical data, and operations.
In future reviews of the Scheme of Control Agreements that regulate the local electricity generation industry, which is bilaterally negotiated between the Government and the two local power suppliers, a pricing structure should incorporate the actual value of an uninterrupted power supply in order to reflect its true cost.
The views expressed in this column are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect this publication's view, and this article is not edited by Asian Power. The author was not remunerated for this article.
Peter Hopper & Alice Yung
Peter Hopper is managing director of SDG's Technology and Manufacturing practices in Asia-Pacific. He leads SDG's Hong Kong office and has 30 years of operating experience in a wide range of technology-based industries. Alice Yung is a consultant at SDG's Hong Kong office with experience in the power, manufacturing, and financial services industry in China, Singapore, and Japan. She has an MBA from INSEAD and a Bachelor of Science degree in Quantitative Finance.
03/11/15 | In search of better power regulation for Hong Kong 210 views
01/09/15 | Understanding a renewable energy future for Hong Kong 816 views
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Home News Asia News Guterres Relies On Quiet Diplomacy
Guterres Relies On Quiet Diplomacy
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses reporters at his first news conference at the UN headquarters (Photo: IANS)
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres acknowledged that he was engaged in quiet diplomacy to promote a dialogue on Kashmir between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif, but stopped short of saying that he was trying to mediate on the dispute….reports Arul Louis for Asian Lite News
Asked by a reporter at his first news conference at the UN headquarters if was involved in bringing about a dialogue between the two countries to resolve the Kashmir dispute, he replied obliquely asking: “Why do you think I met three time the Prime Minister of Pakistan and two times the Prime Minister of India?”
“For someone accused of doing nothing it is quite number of meetings,” he added, amid laughter, as he responded to criticism that he was not doing anything in the face of rising tensions in the subcontinent.
Guterres did not expand on what his efforts have been.
But his terse reply appeared to make it clear that he was not seeking the role of a mediator or directly getting involved in the dispute and that he was only trying to persuade the leaders of both countries to resume dialogue so they can bilaterally resolve the conflict.
New Delhi has opposed any third party involvement in India-Pakistan disputes, especially on Kashmir, citing the Simla Accord of 1972 between Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that agreed the disputes were bilateral.
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MSP says impairment not a factor in fiery crash that killed child, store president
BEL AIR, Md. — Maryland State Police are still investigating a fiery crash that killed the president of a grocery store company and a 7-year-old boy.
Andrew Klein, 65, was someone who understood that basic needs were critical for people, and Tripp Johnson, 7, had a zest for life
WBAL-TV 11 News is learning more about both victims: Andrew Klein, 65, was someone who understood that basic needs were critical for people, and Tripp Johnson, 7, had a zest for life.
The beginning of a small tribute at the intersection of West Ring Factory Road and Route 24 in Bel Air. It honors the accident victims who died: Klein, the president of Klein's ShopRite and Tripp, a second-grader at William Paca/Old Post Road Elementary. Both were passengers in separate cars when a ShopRite tractor-trailer plowed into stopped traffic. Monday's crash also included 11 other vehicles.
"Tripp hugged often. He laughed. Most of all, he made our days brighter," said Tammy Bolsey, principal of William Paca/Old Post Road Elementary.
Bosley said Tripp was well liked and had a zest for life. Counselors and psychologists are working with grieving students and staff.
"We did spend a lot of time with the younger students, where they had an opportunity to talk about all the ways they remember Tripp and celebrate the things they remembered about him most," said Bosler.
Klein is being remembered as a unique person, a Harford County philanthropist engaged in all kinds of issues and communities. Those included Baltimore, where his family opened this ShopRite store in 2014, ending a food desert in the Howard Park neighborhood.
"It's a huge loss for us and I don't know at this point what the ramifications will be long-term," said Mary Hastler, CEO of the Harford County Public Library. "He really did touch so many lives and people. I don't think people really understood what he did to change where they lived or where they worked or the library -- or the schools. He was just everywhere."
State police said finding the exact cause of the accident will take some time.
"According to our preliminary investigation, it does not seem that impairment was a factor in this crash," Maryland State Police spokesman Ron Snyder said. "It's an unfortunate confluence of events that ended in tragedy."
The boy's mother, Meagan Fullylove, remains in a hospital in serious condition. The truck driver was not injured. Police say they are trying to do a thorough investigation and not rush to any conclusions about the accident.
Information on Klein's funeral arrangements can be found here. And information on a fund for the Johnson family can be found here.
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QR codes and 2D
DENSO Introduces New Pocket-Size Bluetooth 2-D Barcode Scanner
Handheld device allows fast, accurate data capture and transfer to mobile devices
LONG BEACH, Calif. — DENSO ADC, the Americas sales arm of DENSO Wave Incorporated, inventor of the QR Code®, announced a new SE1-QB Bluetooth® wireless 2- D barcode scanner. The lightweight yet durably built SE1-QB measures only 3.9 inches long, 1.6 inches wide and 1.1 inches thick, and weighs only 2.1 ounces. The device is designed to serve as the front end of a mobile datacapture system consisting of a scanner and host smartphone or tablet.
“The trend toward mobility keeps accelerating,” said Fran Labun, vice president, Sales Group, DENSO Products and Services Americas, Inc. “Our new SE1-QB scanner gives users a fast, reliable way of scanning codes and sending the data to a mobile device.”
The SE1-QB can read 2-D or 1-D barcodes displayed on LCD screens of mobile devices or printed on paper. Two AA batteries provide up to 50 hours of operating time. A one-touch button conveniently opens up a virtual keyboard on iOS devices.
For more information, visit www.denso-adc.com/products/SE1-QB.
DENSO Corporation, headquartered in Kariya, Aichi prefecture, Japan, is a leading global automotive supplier of advanced technology, systems and components in the areas of thermal, powertrain control, electronics and information and safety. Its customers include all the world's major carmakers. Worldwide, the company has more than 200 subsidiaries and affiliates in 38 countries and regions (including Japan) and employs nearly 140,000 people.
New DENSO Bluetooth Wireless 2-D Barcode Scanner – 2
Consolidated global sales for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, totaled US$39.8 billion. Last fiscal year, DENSO spent 9.0 percent of its global consolidated sales on research and development. DENSO common stock is traded on the Tokyo and Nagoya stock exchanges.
Currently, in North America, DENSO employs more than 17,000 people at 33 consolidated companies and affiliates. Of these, 28 are manufacturing facilities located in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. In the U.S. alone, DENSO employs more than 14,000 people in California, Alabama, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, Arkansas and Pennsylvania. DENSO’s North American consolidated sales totaled US$7.9 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014.
QR Code® is a trademark of DENSO Wave, Incorporated. Bluetooth and iOS are trademarks of their respective owners.
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Mobile Barcodes CAN Deliver Real Value
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Government Access Programming
NEWS LIVE - 30
SFGTV
DW (Deutsche Welle)
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CSPAN
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SFGTV: San Francisco Government Television
Eng;eng
'Conservative Political Action Conference Part 1 with Glenn Beck, Rep. Nunes and Kellyanne Conway : CSPAN : March 2, 2019 1:40am-3:13am EST
by CSPAN
rights which grants each of us liberty. we must stand for the rich and for the poor. [applause] stand for those who have always been here, and those ancestors that came on the mayflower. and we will stand for those who are coming here legally today. their hopes are our hopes. their success is our success, and it will come because we stand for blind and equal justice. and we stand for the glorious promise of the natural inequality of outcomes for mankind. god bless. [applause] ♪ [applause] used inities have been this country. and all of that changes today. we figured out that the left is using us to secure votes and to keep themselves in power and keep themselves rich. >> affirmative action will resonate with people here. >> there are 7 billion people in the world, the majority of them would face -- if only they could. minorities do not belong to the left. we belong to nobody but ourselves and to god. >> no, we are not satisfied and will not be satisfied. >> we are separating ourselves from the victim narrative. >> the democratic party has been able to dictate for too long. who we ar
rights which grants each of us liberty. we must stand for the rich and for the poor. [applause] stand for those who have always been here, and those ancestors that came on the mayflower. and we will stand for those who are coming here legally today. their hopes are our hopes. their success is our success, and it will come because we stand for blind and equal justice. and we stand for the glorious promise of the natural inequality of outcomes for mankind. god bless. [applause] ♪ [applause]...
'Israeli PM Netanyahu, Sen. Maj. Leader McConnell & Sen. Foreign Relations Chair Menendez at American Israel Public Affa : CSPAN : March 27, 2019 3:17am-4:03am EDT
. i will also tell you we must never take anything for granted. those who seek to defame this great organization, aipac, those who seek to undermine american support for israel, they must be confronted. despite what they claim, they do not merely criticize the policies of israel's government. that happens every five minutes. they do something else. they spew venom that has long been directed at the jewish people. again the jews are cast as a force for evil, again the jews are said to have too much influence, too much power, too much money. ladies and gentlemen, you know what the best kind of way to respond to this hatred is? we read it a few days ago when mordecai confronted, the best way to respond this type of hatred is not to bow down to them, it is to stand up to them. >> [applause] >> to all the anti-semites out there, whether they live in modern persia and the palaces of tehran or the bunkers of beirut, whether they march through the streets of charlottesville or murder worshipers in a synagogue -- and jewish people -- we st up. we[applause] >> my friends, some people will nev
. i will also tell you we must never take anything for granted. those who seek to defame this great organization, aipac, those who seek to undermine american support for israel, they must be confronted. despite what they claim, they do not merely criticize the policies of israel's government. that happens every five minutes. they do something else. they spew venom that has long been directed at the jewish people. again the jews are cast as a force for evil, again the jews are said to have too...
Al Jazeera (English)
*Sports Doping: The Endless Chase (2016) Ep 2 : ALJAZ : March 31, 2019 4:00am-5:01am +03
by ALJAZ
ecuadorian government that government granted him asylum back in two thousand and twelve in a sense that he feared being extradited to the u.s. is this just the result of the arrival of a new government. in quito well that's a significant factor certainly now in two thousand and twelve the president of ecuador was a file korea leftist deeply critical of the united states in two thousand and seven he was succeeded by lenin moreno who described himself as a centrist and has publicly called julian a songe his inherited problems now what seems to have triggered the crackdown on a songes internet connection and the frequency of his visitors are comments he made last year on social media about ecuador's allies including spain it is an explicit condition of a songes asylum that he won't make any comment on ecuador's foreign policy and in addition to all of this we also have reports that the u.s. state department is putting pressure on the aquarium government to lift the asylum to lift its protection of julian a search ok thanks nick. it's now been one year since east africa's most populous
ecuadorian government that government granted him asylum back in two thousand and twelve in a sense that he feared being extradited to the u.s. is this just the result of the arrival of a new government. in quito well that's a significant factor certainly now in two thousand and twelve the president of ecuador was a file korea leftist deeply critical of the united states in two thousand and seven he was succeeded by lenin moreno who described himself as a centrist and has publicly called...
116th Freshmen Profile - Reps. Garcia & Torres Small : CSPAN : March 30, 2019 10:35pm-11:00pm EDT
after? ms. garcia: i was fortunate that i was a good student. so i was able to get on a grant program that was provided for in texas. if you were in high academic achievement from a poverty area they would waive tuition and fees. soy actually went to my first year without having to pay tuition and fees. i went to texas women's university which is outside of dallas. so i did have to get a dorm, but one of my uncles co-signed a note with my daddy to make sure i could be able to do that, to make sure i would be able to go to college. host: what did you major in and what did you do with the degree? ms. garcia: i majored in government and social work. i have degrees in social work and government. i feel like i became a social worker and still am. that was -- after that i decided i wanted to be a legal aid lawyer. went to law school. and the rest is just evolved. so i've been a social worker, a legal aid lawyer, i've been a judge and i've been elected to city government, county government, state government. host: what -- how did you decide to run for this u.s. house seat? ms. garcia: i had
after? ms. garcia: i was fortunate that i was a good student. so i was able to get on a grant program that was provided for in texas. if you were in high academic achievement from a poverty area they would waive tuition and fees. soy actually went to my first year without having to pay tuition and fees. i went to texas women's university which is outside of dallas. so i did have to get a dorm, but one of my uncles co-signed a note with my daddy to make sure i could be able to do that, to make...
116th Freshmen Profile - Reps. Meuser, McAdams, Fulcher, Trone : CSPAN : March 2, 2019 10:01am-10:34am EST
grant's and student loans, hard work and working multiple jobs to put myself through college. through the few doors that were opened to me i was about to lift myself up and really developed a commitment to helping other people have access to those opportunities and to make sure that doors were open. so that if people chose to work through them, they could really achieve the american dream. a lot of that commitment comes from my faith. . a commitment to work hard and a commitment that everybody should have access to opportunities to lift themselves up and to provide a better life for themselves and their families. host: what were you doing before you served in the house? rep. mcadams: i was mayor of salt lake county, county executive. in that capacity. , the county oversaw a lot of human services, economic development services, transportation, investments in the salt lake area. one of the issues i worked really hard on was homelessness and housing. . helping people who were in crisis to gain access to some stability. in some cases it was job training, other cases it is treatment. helping t
grant's and student loans, hard work and working multiple jobs to put myself through college. through the few doors that were opened to me i was about to lift myself up and really developed a commitment to helping other people have access to those opportunities and to make sure that doors were open. so that if people chose to work through them, they could really achieve the american dream. a lot of that commitment comes from my faith. . a commitment to work hard and a commitment that everybody...
CSPAN2
116th Freshmen Profile - Reps. Meuser, McAdams, Fulcher, Trone : CSPAN2 : March 4, 2019 8:29am-9:04am EST
by CSPAN2
things like pell grants and student loans and hard work and working multiple jobs to put myself through college. i saw that hard work and a few doors were open to me, is able to lift myself up and really developed a commitment to helping other people have access to those opportunities, to make sure doors are open if people choose to walk through them, that they can really achieve the american dream as well. i think a lot of that commitment comes from my faith, and a commitment to work hard and a commitment that everybody should have access to opportunities to lift themselves up and to provide a better life for themselves and their families. >> what were you doing before you serve in the house? >> i was the mayor of salt lake county, county executive. in that capacity the county oversaw a lot of human services, economic develop services, transportation investments in the salt lake area, the greater salt lake metro area. one of the issues i worked really hard on was homelessness and housing and helping people who were in crisis to gain access to some stability, too, some cases it'
things like pell grants and student loans and hard work and working multiple jobs to put myself through college. i saw that hard work and a few doors were open to me, is able to lift myself up and really developed a commitment to helping other people have access to those opportunities, to make sure doors are open if people choose to walk through them, that they can really achieve the american dream as well. i think a lot of that commitment comes from my faith, and a commitment to work hard and...
116th Freshmen Profile - Reps. Reschenthaler, Kim, Cox, Kirkpatrick : CSPAN : March 23, 2019 10:03am-10:42am EDT
? >> they were so appreciative of the opportunity. they never took it for granted. they told me it was important to give back. they both chose jobs that were about helping others. my dad dedicated his life trying to cure cancer and alzheimer's. my mom is a nurse. services not just a job. it is a way of life. it is not 9:00 to 5:00, then you punch out. it has to be about your mindset and what drives you. they instill that in me. >> did that start early for you? >> absolutely. my mom made me go to the hospital with her every saturday to volunteer. my dad always told me it was important to see the human element. alzheimer's, he actually went and talked to families afflicted with cancer and alzheimer's. he wanted to remember, this is not just type -- some type of experiment, you are trying to help people. that human side is something they taught me about. i have tried to hold that close to my heart whenever i work on issues, even if they are counterterrorism on the others of the world, i always try to remember the human side of this and what is impacting people's lives every day. >> where
? >> they were so appreciative of the opportunity. they never took it for granted. they told me it was important to give back. they both chose jobs that were about helping others. my dad dedicated his life trying to cure cancer and alzheimer's. my mom is a nurse. services not just a job. it is a way of life. it is not 9:00 to 5:00, then you punch out. it has to be about your mindset and what drives you. they instill that in me. >> did that start early for you? >> absolutely....
116th Freshmen Profile - Reps. Reschenthaler, Kim, Cox, Kirkpatrick : CSPAN2 : March 28, 2019 4:34pm-5:11pm EDT
were so appreciative of the opportunity and it was something that they never took for granted. they always told me it was important to give back as well. they both ended up choosing jobs that were helping other people. my dad dedicated his life for cancer and alzheimer's, my mother worked as a nurse in her own community. service isn't just a job it's a way of life. that is something that you do nine to five and then you punch out, it's gotta be about your mindset and what drives you and they instilled in me. >> does that service start early for you? >> absolutely, something that my mom made me go to the hospital with her every saturday to volunteer. my dad always told me that it was important to see the human elements that he was doing. he was a cancer researcher but he actually went and talked with families that were involved. he wanted to remember that this isn't just some type of experiment. it's something that we do in the lab, is something that we do to help people. that side of him is something that they always taught me about. and i've tried to hold that close to my heart whe
were so appreciative of the opportunity and it was something that they never took for granted. they always told me it was important to give back as well. they both ended up choosing jobs that were helping other people. my dad dedicated his life for cancer and alzheimer's, my mother worked as a nurse in her own community. service isn't just a job it's a way of life. that is something that you do nine to five and then you punch out, it's gotta be about your mindset and what drives you and they...
opportunity. it was something we never took for granted. they also told me it was important to get back. my dad dedicated his life to trying to cure cancer and also ms. my mom worked at a nurse in our own community. they taught me that service is not just a job, it is a way of life. it is not just something you do 9 through 5 and then you punch out. it has to be your mindset and what drives you. >> did that service start early for you? >> absolutely. something that's, my mom maybe go to the hospital to volunteer. my dad told me it is important city human element. it was a cancer researchers. he went and talked with family who was afflicted with cancer and afflicted with alzheimer's. this is not just kind of experiment. this is not to something you do in a lab. you are trying to help people. that human side of things is something they always taught me about. i tried to hold it close in my heart whenever i worked on issues, even issues on counterterrorism on the other side the world. i try to remember the human side and what is impacting people's lives every day. >> when you went to colle
opportunity. it was something we never took for granted. they also told me it was important to get back. my dad dedicated his life to trying to cure cancer and also ms. my mom worked at a nurse in our own community. they taught me that service is not just a job, it is a way of life. it is not just something you do 9 through 5 and then you punch out. it has to be your mindset and what drives you. >> did that service start early for you? >> absolutely. something that's, my mom maybe...
116th Freshmen Profile - Reps. Spano, Finkenauer, Roy, Rose : CSPAN : March 16, 2019 10:04am-10:40am EDT
, never forget where you come from, don't take a day for granted and make sure you continue to give back and do it authentically. >> why do you have a reputation of fighting? rep. finkenauer: i grew up the daughter of a union pipe welder. saw workers get attacked year after year, whether it was collective bargaining in my state -- they went after people working their tails off trying to provide for their family -- my mom was a public school secretary. i remember thinking that's not how we treat people. , stood up and fought for them whether it was the gutting of collective bargaining or the gutting of workmen's comp. it didn't sit right with me. i wasn't afraid to stand up and use my voice and make sure my constituents were heard. that's why i decided to take the voices of iowans to washington, d.c. to make sure working families are heard. there's a lot of firsts recently. one of the ones i'm truly proud association,ted the union my dad was a part of, i was the first family member elected to congress. also proud of that, making sure working families are heard. think ofo your parents
, never forget where you come from, don't take a day for granted and make sure you continue to give back and do it authentically. >> why do you have a reputation of fighting? rep. finkenauer: i grew up the daughter of a union pipe welder. saw workers get attacked year after year, whether it was collective bargaining in my state -- they went after people working their tails off trying to provide for their family -- my mom was a public school secretary. i remember thinking that's not how we...
116th Freshmen Profile - Reps. Spano, Finkenauer, Roy, Rose : CSPAN : March 20, 2019 1:36pm-2:12pm EDT
from and don't take a day for granted and make sure you continue to get back and do this right and do it authentically. >> what is your background and why do you have a reputation of fighting? >> i grew up a daughter of a union pipefitting welder. in that statehouse, i was four years there, i saw workers get attacked year after year whether it was collective-bargaining where they went after 184,000 islands who were teachers or corrections officers or bus drivers, people working or tells off trying to provide a good life for their family like my parents did. my mom was a public school secretary. i just tremendous thinking that's not how we treat people. i stood up and i fought back for collectiver it was bargaining are getting them worker's comp. where they were making it harder for folks who got hurt on the job to get compensation. it didn't set quite right with me. i was never afraid to stand up and use my voice and make sure my constituents were heard and exactly why a decided to do this, to take the voices of iowans to washington, d.c. and make sure working families were heard. fir
from and don't take a day for granted and make sure you continue to get back and do this right and do it authentically. >> what is your background and why do you have a reputation of fighting? >> i grew up a daughter of a union pipefitting welder. in that statehouse, i was four years there, i saw workers get attacked year after year whether it was collective-bargaining where they went after 184,000 islands who were teachers or corrections officers or bus drivers, people working or...
14Up South Africa (P1) : ALJAZ : March 21, 2019 11:00pm-12:00am +03
conclusion though that the european union will agree to grant the u.k. a delay the ground was laid for they said the e.u. ambassadors meeting last night there were some differences of opinion but they eventually compromise around a position that said that they weren't prepared to give theresa may the delay that she wants until the end of june because that would expose a really confusing situation with the european elections at the end of may but they would grant her an extension until the third week of may just before the european elections but only on the grounds that she wins the votes on her deal in parliament next week and then as the e.u. leaders arrives there just a softening before they started meeting almost every single one of them basically exactly the same arguments yes a short delay but it has to be contingent on the winning and the most significance comments came from the french president emmanuel macron the french remember had been signaling before this that they might veto a delay because they're just too fed up with the british not being able to make their minds up
conclusion though that the european union will agree to grant the u.k. a delay the ground was laid for they said the e.u. ambassadors meeting last night there were some differences of opinion but they eventually compromise around a position that said that they weren't prepared to give theresa may the delay that she wants until the end of june because that would expose a really confusing situation with the european elections at the end of may but they would grant her an extension until the...
republic that is public figures of storm here no they don't startle so i was granted the status of the first president leader of the nation i remain chairman of the security council to which the law grants serious power in determining interior and foreign policy i remain chairman of the no zero time party and a member of the constitutional council. one of the first major decisions by nasa by your successor was to rename kazik stones capital on saturday a new small town became the new name for ass donna a city that was rebuilt into one of central asia is because trade and tourism hobbes was and is a bias rule but what does the surprise handover of the presidency after three decades me for young people in kazakstan to talk about this we have that. of editor in chief of step that's an independent digital media outlet he joins us from almaty . also now with he is i got into line you know hanover a freelance journalist who has written widely on kazakh politics colleague ash is a researcher and advocate on gender rights and sexual education she joins us from new kazakh capital recently n
republic that is public figures of storm here no they don't startle so i was granted the status of the first president leader of the nation i remain chairman of the security council to which the law grants serious power in determining interior and foreign policy i remain chairman of the no zero time party and a member of the constitutional council. one of the first major decisions by nasa by your successor was to rename kazik stones capital on saturday a new small town became the new name for...
KGO (ABC)
20/20 : KGO : March 9, 2019 10:00pm-11:01pm PST
by KGO
: granted, this private investigator is being paid by cameron's family. but listen to what two others told detective vannoy. >> they heard the victim say "'f' me, cam." >> reporter: but remember, the booze was flowing and memories, hazy. they can't agree on who was in the room. did you have consensual sex with cameron harrison? >> no. if i was in the condition in i'm right now, i would not have sex with cameron. >> reporter: and what about that controversial statement cameron allegedly made to her father. >> cameron clearly stated to me that he did not say that. >> reporter: how do you know what to believe? >> i can tell you that, that cameron's story was believable. and i do believe that the young woman consumed alcohol that may or may not have impeded her ability to remember exactly everything that happened. >> reporter: so in your mind she could have given consent but simply not remembered it? >> yes. i believe that. i do not believe she was passed out. no one saw her passed out. >> reporter: "not passed out" is key because the charge against cameron is that savannah couldn't consent be
: granted, this private investigator is being paid by cameron's family. but listen to what two others told detective vannoy. >> they heard the victim say "'f' me, cam." >> reporter: but remember, the booze was flowing and memories, hazy. they can't agree on who was in the room. did you have consensual sex with cameron harrison? >> no. if i was in the condition in i'm right now, i would not have sex with cameron. >> reporter: and what about that controversial...
50 Feet From Syria : ALJAZ : March 11, 2019 12:32pm-1:01pm +03
of justice grants for crime control community policing. it's not a war on drugs don't ever think it's wrong. it's a war on the blacks it started as a war on the blacks and has now spread to hispanics and poor whites it was war blocks and. it was designed basically to take that energy it was coming out of the civil rights movement and destroy it we have all would tell me and people reckon. makes ten year we have ten more me and i knew more maybe i mean come on then we got to stop at some point say you know what you know people saying then we had to fight for the abilities for chances for people to save for opportunity. according to a two thousand and three report from the bureau of justice if currency rates remain unchanged one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime even in the age of obama something akin to a caste system is alive and well in america the mass incarceration of poor people of color is tantamount to a newcastle stone one specifically designed to address the social political and economic challenges of our time michelle alexander is a professo
of justice grants for crime control community policing. it's not a war on drugs don't ever think it's wrong. it's a war on the blacks it started as a war on the blacks and has now spread to hispanics and poor whites it was war blocks and. it was designed basically to take that energy it was coming out of the civil rights movement and destroy it we have all would tell me and people reckon. makes ten year we have ten more me and i knew more maybe i mean come on then we got to stop at some point...
60 Minutes : KPIX : March 10, 2019 7:00pm-7:58pm PDT
. >> lapook: things that most people would take for granted. >> jennelle stephenson: just basic things. >> lapook: one of the most cruel parts of the disease, jennelleh, is being accused of faking pain to get narcotics, being labeled a "drug-seeker." during one trip to the emergency department, when she fell to the floor in pain, a doctor refused to help her. >> jennelle stephenson: and i'm looking up at her, and i'm in tears, and, i'm like, "i'm doing the best that i can." >> lapook: and you've got to be thinking... >> jennelle stephenson: i just, sometimes i don't understand, i don't get it. like, sorry. i'm in so much pain, and you think i just want some morphine. and it just makes me sad that some people in the medical community just don't get it. >> dr. francis collins: so this would be my lab. >> lapook: dr. francis collins is director of the national institutes of health, the largest biomedical research he oversees budget that funds more than 400,000 researchers world-wide. >> clinton: dr. collins, please come up to the lectern. the n.i.h. in 2000 when he made a landmark
. >> lapook: things that most people would take for granted. >> jennelle stephenson: just basic things. >> lapook: one of the most cruel parts of the disease, jennelleh, is being accused of faking pain to get narcotics, being labeled a "drug-seeker." during one trip to the emergency department, when she fell to the floor in pain, a doctor refused to help her. >> jennelle stephenson: and i'm looking up at her, and i'm in tears, and, i'm like, "i'm doing the...
7Up South Africa : ALJAZ : March 14, 2019 11:00pm-12:01am +03
what sort of extension to grant for how long and what sort of conditions might be attached alongside the main vote tonight there are some amendments of course m.p.'s putting forward their idea of how things ought to go there's one amendment that will test the waters on a second referendum is another that will attempt to force a vote on all the available options next week before the e.u. council some of the so-called indicative vote there's even an amendment suggesting that trees make shouldn't be allowed to bring her deal for another vote as she plans to do next week well that's all to come let's try to unpack it a bit with tom hamilton he's my guest former head of policy and research for the opposition labor party tom thanks for being with us what do you make first of all of to reason may's gambit announced last night to try and bring her deal twice defeated for a third attempt next week well it's say it's all she's got she's got a deal that has been negotiated agreed by the and by the you can get in that the just not by the u.k. parliament and she doesn't have the ability
what sort of extension to grant for how long and what sort of conditions might be attached alongside the main vote tonight there are some amendments of course m.p.'s putting forward their idea of how things ought to go there's one amendment that will test the waters on a second referendum is another that will attempt to force a vote on all the available options next week before the e.u. council some of the so-called indicative vote there's even an amendment suggesting that trees make shouldn't...
7Up South Africa : ALJAZ : March 15, 2019 3:00pm-4:01pm +03
police are taking for granted that the in my might well be others that they in my need to be born into custody have gotten a raise. to expect that but they haven't ruled it out so plays in the meantime continue to listen to police advice but i also want to give assurance to paypal the police are obviously incredibly active on the ground they are bringing in additional police officers the defense force of bringing them down so just listen to the advice that's available to you but we are ensuring the security of those who are moving around in christchurch at this time. it was a risk to the. principle that he's a fool to all of that nor he did not directly connected to the attack sort of question so early at least partially it is my understanding nice use of a lot of the research. in connection to the takes today all of the individuals that wasn't there would be a question for a commission of bush i'm not sure if there's something crime i voted to share but i know anyone who is a threat to the public to the relief of the those risks. ideology and what is there certainly that is the a
police are taking for granted that the in my might well be others that they in my need to be born into custody have gotten a raise. to expect that but they haven't ruled it out so plays in the meantime continue to listen to police advice but i also want to give assurance to paypal the police are obviously incredibly active on the ground they are bringing in additional police officers the defense force of bringing them down so just listen to the advice that's available to you but we are...
A Conversation With Bill Moyers : KQED : March 11, 2019 9:30pm-11:01pm PDT
granted or take with finality what those in power tell us and who fight for the justice and the liberty and the equality that is mentioned in the declaration. to me the declaration is the much greater, more powerful, of the instruments of our government. so when you keep revising, the older you get, you keep revising what you know. that's why livinluto an old age if you'ry to have your health is a wonderful, internal, and perpetual university. - final question, to you mr. moyers and that is would you repe j for them a story theph campbell said to you at the conclusion of all of the interviews when it was finally done. e whenked whether you intended to stay in this line of work? - yeah we wod been together thoseummers and i was leaving to come back, it wasn't the last ti i saw him because when i got back to new york and started editing i remembered i had looked at all the footage and i hadn't asked him about god. i called him at his home in hawaii and i said, "joe i didn't ask you about god. "wouso he did, but new york let's when i was leaving, when i was leaving skywalker ranch
granted or take with finality what those in power tell us and who fight for the justice and the liberty and the equality that is mentioned in the declaration. to me the declaration is the much greater, more powerful, of the instruments of our government. so when you keep revising, the older you get, you keep revising what you know. that's why livinluto an old age if you'ry to have your health is a wonderful, internal, and perpetual university. - final question, to you mr. moyers and that is...
ABC 7 News at 5 : KGO : March 24, 2019 5:00pm-5:29pm PDT
14. grant williams spins in. picks up a nice two. tennessee is back in the sweet 16. 83-77, the final. north carolina and washington this the midwest. i loved kobe white's hair. it is sweet. so is his shot. he had 17 in this one. not done. in the second half look at the bounce pass to johnson. he drains it for a quick three. washington really had no chance in this game. may bank it off the glass and in. he led the tar heels with 20. great ball movement led to an easy three for little. unc rolled into the sweet 168 1-59. basketball is getting exciting. >> mindi, thanks. >>> new on abc7 news at 6:00, there is the tenth running of the oakland marathon. but this year, >>> all new on abc7 news at 6:00, there is a $6.5 million mystery with the college admission scandal. we will explain the one big question in a remains unanswered. >>> plus, united airlines makes a change to its booking system. how it's trying to be more inclusive. those stories tonight at 6:00. >>> in the east bay, traffic is back to normal after the 10th annual oakland running festival and marathon. check it out. mor
14. grant williams spins in. picks up a nice two. tennessee is back in the sweet 16. 83-77, the final. north carolina and washington this the midwest. i loved kobe white's hair. it is sweet. so is his shot. he had 17 in this one. not done. in the second half look at the bounce pass to johnson. he drains it for a quick three. washington really had no chance in this game. may bank it off the glass and in. he led the tar heels with 20. great ball movement led to an easy three for little. unc...
ABC World News Tonight With David Muir : KGO : March 13, 2019 5:30pm-6:00pm PDT
story, governor newsom granting a reprieve for more than 700 inmates on death row in california. >> i did this with a heavy heart, with deep appreciation for the emotions that drives this issue. and i did it with the victims in mind. >> the governor signed an executive order placing a moratorium on the death penalty. >> today the governor's office issued these photos of crews taking apart the death chamber at san quentin. there is both a gas chamber and a lethal injection facility. an upgrade of the chamber was completed in 2010, but it's never been used. >>> with 737 inmates, california has the largest death row in the united states. in fact, san quentin prison houses 25% of all condemned inmates in the u.s. >> the state hasn't executed anyone since 2006, after a federal judge declared that california's lethal injection protocol was unconstitutional. >> newsom's decision runs counter to a call by state voters. in 2016 voters defeat aid measure that would have banned capital punishment and even approved another measure to speed up the execution process. >> so with all of that as a bac
story, governor newsom granting a reprieve for more than 700 inmates on death row in california. >> i did this with a heavy heart, with deep appreciation for the emotions that drives this issue. and i did it with the victims in mind. >> the governor signed an executive order placing a moratorium on the death penalty. >> today the governor's office issued these photos of crews taking apart the death chamber at san quentin. there is both a gas chamber and a lethal injection...
ABC World News Tonight With David Muir : KGO : March 5, 2019 3:30pm-4:00pm PST
officials, ordered that his son-in-law, jared kushner, be granted top secret security clearance. but when we asked the president about it today, no answer. instead, he lashed out at democrats' sweeping new investigation into allegations of everything from corruption to abuse of power. sir, your response to the democrats who are calling for a criminal investigation into jared kushner's security clearance? >> it's a disgrace. it's a disgrace to our country. and the people understand it. when they look at it, they just say presidential harassment. but that's okay. >> reporter: the house judiciary committee demanding documents from 81 people and entities close to the president, including his sons, don jr. and eric. kushner and former aides like hope hicks and steve bannon. and they want to know about everything from the president's one-on-one meetings with vladimir putin to the now infamous trump tower meeting with that russian lawyer and whether president trump and his family are profiting from the presidency. the white house, furious, but democrats, undaunted. >> there has to be a chec
officials, ordered that his son-in-law, jared kushner, be granted top secret security clearance. but when we asked the president about it today, no answer. instead, he lashed out at democrats' sweeping new investigation into allegations of everything from corruption to abuse of power. sir, your response to the democrats who are calling for a criminal investigation into jared kushner's security clearance? >> it's a disgrace. it's a disgrace to our country. and the people understand it....
ABC7 News 11:00PM : KGO : March 22, 2019 11:00pm-11:35pm PDT
years of granting wishes for children in san francisco. >> i was honored to once again mc this special event of wishes at the it's carlton. a reception, a dinner, all to raise money to grant more wishes for critically ill children. a a day with the giants and a private movie screening courtesy of frances ford cope lu. >>> and the paving the way gala in san francisco to raise money for homeless young people. they work with young people each year to provide enlication, employment and health services. two really great important events happening tonight. >>> and the weather didn't dampen too much. a few sprinkles for our event. >> year going to push that storm out of here really fast. it is pretty widespread rain right now. we're seeing the down pours. so let's get you to street-level radar. guadeloupe canyon parkway. mission street, ocean avenue seeing the heavy rain. year going to track this moisture for you. 11:28 tonight. so be prepared for some heavier rain. right now it's steady, moderate. kensingten, berkeley. moderate in the south bay to saratoga, santa clara, sunnyvale area. now t
years of granting wishes for children in san francisco. >> i was honored to once again mc this special event of wishes at the it's carlton. a reception, a dinner, all to raise money to grant more wishes for critically ill children. a a day with the giants and a private movie screening courtesy of frances ford cope lu. >>> and the paving the way gala in san francisco to raise money for homeless young people. they work with young people each year to provide enlication, employment...
ABC7 News 11:00PM : KGO : March 23, 2019 11:00pm-12:01am PDT
b.a.r.t. police officer shot and killed oscar grant. foundation created by family and friends held a gala in his honor, joined by other families who lost children at hands of police. louis pena is there with the story. >> reporter: a celebration where oscar grant's family remembered him to raise money. many moms affected by police shootings were there. mothers from across the country with one thing in common, pain. >> representing my son at age of 14 killed by baltimore city police officer. >> from atlanta, georgia, executed by the atlanta police, march 24th, 2015. >> reporter: once the year the mothers find comfort in each other remembering the life of oscar grant. b.a.r.t. police officer shot and killed unarmed grant in 2009. >> this is a sorority we didn't pledge for. >> reporter: gives scholarships in son's name. >> still need to fight for accountability in the police force and work to get justice system as equal for all of us. >> reporter: in 2010 the officer was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. congresswoman says more needs to be done to avoid deaths like grant. >> we
b.a.r.t. police officer shot and killed oscar grant. foundation created by family and friends held a gala in his honor, joined by other families who lost children at hands of police. louis pena is there with the story. >> reporter: a celebration where oscar grant's family remembered him to raise money. many moms affected by police shootings were there. mothers from across the country with one thing in common, pain. >> representing my son at age of 14 killed by baltimore city police...
to give some long-term drivers money to buy stock, granting them access to the ipo, but protesting lyft drivers organized by a group say they want higher wages and benefits. uber and lyft drivers in los angeles are planning to strike tomorrow. according to the l.a. times, uber slashed per mile pay from 80 to 60 cents in orange and l.a. county. they want higher wages across the board. they protested in los angeles before, but this time they are being led by a group ride share drivers united. uber said their old pay scale was not working and other changes will include take home pay. as part of the efforts to build a better bay area, we are looking at what it's like for here for ride share drivers. from the website, we have a form we would love for to you fill out if you are a ride share driver telling us about your experiences. it may inspire our next building a bay area story. >> richmond firefighters it saved two pets in an apartment today. the post it video showing the daring rescue. firefighters with local 188 had to wade through thick smoke to find two dogs. one had to be brough
to give some long-term drivers money to buy stock, granting them access to the ipo, but protesting lyft drivers organized by a group say they want higher wages and benefits. uber and lyft drivers in los angeles are planning to strike tomorrow. according to the l.a. times, uber slashed per mile pay from 80 to 60 cents in orange and l.a. county. they want higher wages across the board. they protested in los angeles before, but this time they are being led by a group ride share drivers united....
. today oakland was awarded a grant to help with the illegal dumping problem. recycling and recovery is giving the city $160,000 to form a rapid response crew. the funds will also expand garbage pickup to apartment buildings. >> building a better bay area can come in many forms. share your ideas and see what other people think. >> new developments tonight in the college admissions scandal. led to a federal investigation into eight universities. the education department alerted the schools today. including stanford and usc. some of the most prominent in california. if violations are found the schools could lose access to federal student loans. >> stormy daniels former lawyer is under arrest. the charges and which high profile lawyer has been named an alleged tor. >> flower fans. from around the bay area are descending on this backyard. how the labor of love is building a better bay area. why are all these business owners so excited? we're going to comcast. it's ahead of the game, ahead of the curve. it's going to add to the productivity of our business. it's switch and save days at comca
. today oakland was awarded a grant to help with the illegal dumping problem. recycling and recovery is giving the city $160,000 to form a rapid response crew. the funds will also expand garbage pickup to apartment buildings. >> building a better bay area can come in many forms. share your ideas and see what other people think. >> new developments tonight in the college admissions scandal. led to a federal investigation into eight universities. the education department alerted the...
tennessee. nodded at 80 off the miss. grant williams is there for the big follow-up put back. two seconds left. carson edwards is foul and made two of three and sending the game into bonus ball and the extra frame rocking the rim. purdue wins it, 99-94. this sports report sponsored by river rock casino. in virginia, they were a 12-seed and there is no more cinderella left. all the big name teams. >> tennessee and florida state. >> looking good. you can rip it up. >> everything is riding on north carolina. >> i have duke. even though they can't shoot. >> i did not feel like dragging. >> obviously. we didn't do it. >> you didn't invite us. >> next year. >> abc 7 news continues online and twitter and facebook and all your mobile devices with your news app. >> our next newscast is 4:30 tomorrow yoooh, hello yellow! at ross and you find... yes! that's yes for less. spring forward with the latest brand-name styles at 20 to 60 percent off department store prices. at ross. yes for less. why are all these business owners so excited? we're going to comcast. it's ahead of the game, ahead of
tennessee. nodded at 80 off the miss. grant williams is there for the big follow-up put back. two seconds left. carson edwards is foul and made two of three and sending the game into bonus ball and the extra frame rocking the rim. purdue wins it, 99-94. this sports report sponsored by river rock casino. in virginia, they were a 12-seed and there is no more cinderella left. all the big name teams. >> tennessee and florida state. >> looking good. you can rip it up. >>...
ABC7 News 11:00PM : KGO : March 29, 2019 1:07am-1:40am PDT
, the from san jose state. the zags win it, tennessee. nodded at 80 off the miss. grant williams is there for the big follow-up put back. two seconds left. carson edwards is foul and made two of three and sending the us bal a extra frame rocking the rim. purdue wins it, 99-94. this sports report sponsored by river rock casino. in virginia, they were a 12-seed and there is no more cinderella left. all the big name teams. >> tennessee and florida state. >> looking good. you can rip it up. >> everything is riding on north carolina. >> i have duke. even though they can't shoot. >> i did not feel like dragging. >> obviously. we didn't do it. >> you didn't invite us. >> next year. >> abc 7 news continues online and twitter and facebook and all your mobile devices with your news app. >> our next newscast is 4:30 tomorrow shshow me homecoming. baby sloth videos on youtube. amy, do you uh mind giving someone else a turn? oh... yeah i made myself a little comfortable here. i got a pizza for amy! yes, that's me! xfinity lets you search netflix, prime video, and youtube with the sound of your v
, the from san jose state. the zags win it, tennessee. nodded at 80 off the miss. grant williams is there for the big follow-up put back. two seconds left. carson edwards is foul and made two of three and sending the us bal a extra frame rocking the rim. purdue wins it, 99-94. this sports report sponsored by river rock casino. in virginia, they were a 12-seed and there is no more cinderella left. all the big name teams. >> tennessee and florida state. >> looking good. you can rip it...
ABC7 News 11:00PM : KGO : March 6, 2019 11:00pm-11:35pm PST
. the legislation will grant protections for an additional 7,000 units in the city and grant tenants the right to mandatory mediation with land lords. officials say the ordinance was passed on an urgency basis to help cope with the continuing rise in housing prices. >>> new developments tonight in a dui case involving giants outfielder cameron maybin. he was arrested in scottsdale, arizona on friday. today, police released this video. he appears to be struggling during field sobriety test. police say he admitted to drinking five glasses of wine. the giants haven't taken any disciplinary action. maybin apologized today saying, i take full responsibility for my actions. he says he's "choosing to learn and grow from this valuable life lesson." >>> singer r. kelly is back in custody tonight just hours after an explosive interview. >>> they promised a comeback. sweet news for fans at a santa rosa restaurant destroyed in the tubbs fire. >>> and celebrating july fourth on the slopes. which resort just announced it will stay open in july. >> here's a look at what is coming up on jimmy kimmel
. the legislation will grant protections for an additional 7,000 units in the city and grant tenants the right to mandatory mediation with land lords. officials say the ordinance was passed on an urgency basis to help cope with the continuing rise in housing prices. >>> new developments tonight in a dui case involving giants outfielder cameron maybin. he was arrested in scottsdale, arizona on friday. today, police released this video. he appears to be struggling during field sobriety...
ABC7 News 4:00PM : KGO : March 1, 2019 4:00pm-4:58pm PST
president trump ordered his then chief of staff john kelly to grant his son-in-law jared kushner a top security clearance. >> did you tell anyone in the white house to -- >> no. i don't think i have the authority do that. i'm not sure i do. but i wouldn't -- i wouldn't do it. i was never involved with the scurity. >> in a "new york times" interview president trump has previously denied those claims. yet today on fox news, white house counselor kellyanne conway noted the president does have authority to intervene on his own behalf. >> i will tell you that the president has the absolute right to do what was described. >> in january house oversight committee chairman elijah cummings launch and investigation into house the white house awards cleans but he says so far the trump administration hasn't handed over a single document or scheduled a single interview. he has threatened subpoenas if >> why do they have concerns about jared kushner? why were there over 100 omissions and changes? >> they imposed the jared act which would revoke anyone given a clearance. >>> there's disagram over why
president trump ordered his then chief of staff john kelly to grant his son-in-law jared kushner a top security clearance. >> did you tell anyone in the white house to -- >> no. i don't think i have the authority do that. i'm not sure i do. but i wouldn't -- i wouldn't do it. i was never involved with the scurity. >> in a "new york times" interview president trump has previously denied those claims. yet today on fox news, white house counselor kellyanne conway noted...
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Home / Music Autographs for Sale. / Led Zeppelin Autographs for Sale. / Robert Plant Autograph photo Led Zeppelin – Autographs
Robert Plant Autograph photo Led Zeppelin – Autographs
Robert Plant Autographed 16×11.5 photo Led Zeppelin
SKU: rplantphoto16 Category: Led Zeppelin Autographs for Sale.
Robert Plant Autograph photo Led Zeppelin.
Colour photograph measures 16 x 11.5 cm of Plant holding a couple of awards.
CBE (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. Best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band Led Zeppelin alongside Jimmy Page, John Bonham and John Paul Jones. A powerful and wide vocal range (particularly evident in his high-pitched vocals) has given him a successful solo career spanning over 30 years. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of rock and roll. He has influenced fellow rock singer-songwriters such as Freddie Mercury, Axl Rose and Chris Cornell. In 2006, Heavy Metal magazine Hit Parader named Plant the “Greatest Metal Vocalist of All Time”. Voted “the greatest voice in rock” in a poll conducted by Planet Rock in 2009.
In search of a lead singer for his new band, he met Plant. Who referred him to a show at a teacher training college in Birmingham (where Plant was singing in a band named Obs-Tweedle). Sung A version of “Somebody to Love” by Jefferson Airplane was sung by Plant in front of Page, leading Page to the end of his search
In 2008, Rolling Stone editors ranked him number 15 on their list of the 100 best singers of all time. In 2011, Rolling Stone readers ranked Robert the greatest of all lead singers.
All autographs come with our Lifetime Money Back Guarantee Certificate of Authenticity. UACC Autograph Registered Dealers #306.
Led Zeppelin 3 Autographs Lp, Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones
Robert Plant autograph Led Zeppelin 2 CD cover
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Domestic Violence Restraining Order Clinic (Redwood City) 9:00 am
Domestic Violence Restraining Order Clinic (Redwood City)
Jan 1 @ 9:00 am – 12:30 pm
Redwood City Bay Area Legal Aid hosts Domestic Violence Restraining Order clinics in Redwood City every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9:00 am; and every Wednesday at 1:30 pm. Clinics last approximately 3.5 hours. BayLegal Staff and …
Domestic Violence Restraining Order Clinic (Richmond) 9:00 am
Domestic Violence Restraining Order Clinic (Richmond)
Richmond Superior Court – Room 185 Bay Area Legal Aid hosts Domestic Violence Restraining Order clinics in Richmond every Wednesday at 9:00 am. BayLegal Staff and Volunteers assist participants with pro per (self-represented) pleadings to obtain a …
Reentry Legal Services Drop-In Clinic (San Jose) 9:30 am
Reentry Legal Services Drop-In Clinic (San Jose)
Jan 1 @ 9:30 am – 11:30 am
Santa Clara County residents with an arrest or conviction history: get help with housing issues, public benefits, suspended licenses and other ID issues, criminal record issues, employment issues, consumer issues, and identity theft. Drop-in hours …
Domestic Violence Restraining Order Clinic (Redwood City) 1:30 pm
Jan 1 @ 1:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Reentry Legal Services Drop-In Clinic (Richmond) 2:00 pm
Reentry Legal Services Drop-In Clinic (Richmond)
Contra Costa County residents with an arrest or conviction history: get help with housing issues, public benefits, suspended licenses and other ID issues, criminal record issues, employment issues, consumer issues, and identity theft. Drop-in hours …
Domestic Violence Restraining Order Clinic (South San Francisco) 9:00 am
Domestic Violence Restraining Order Clinic (South San Francisco)
South San Francisco San Mateo Superior Court – Northern Branch – Law Library Bay Area Legal Aid hosts Domestic Violence Restraining Order clinics in South San Francisco every Tuesday at 9:00 am. Clinics last approximately 3.5 hours. …
Consumer Rights Clinic (San Jose) 9:30 am
Consumer Rights Clinic (San Jose)
Jan 2 @ 9:30 am
San José Bay Area Legal Aid hosts Consumer Rights Clinics (in conjunction with SparkPoint San José and the Workforce Institute) every First Thursday of the month at 9:30 am and 1:00 pm. The clinic is …
Consumer Rights Clinic (San Jose) 1:00 pm
Jan 2 @ 1:00 pm
Consumer Rights Clinic (Richmond) 9:30 am
Consumer Rights Clinic (Richmond)
Richmond Bay Area Legal Aid hosts Consumer Rights Clinics in Richmond at SparkPoint – Contra Costa West every First Friday of the month at 9:30 am and 1:00 pm. BayLegal Staff and Volunteers assist with preparing …
Consumer Rights Clinic (Richmond) 1:00 pm
Domestic Violence Restraining Order Clinic (Pittsburg) 9:00 am
Domestic Violence Restraining Order Clinic (Pittsburg)
Pittsburg Superior Court – Self Help Center Bay Area Legal Aid hosts Domestic Violence Restraining Order clinics in Pittsburg every Tuesday at 9:00 am. BayLegal Staff and Volunteers assist participants with pro per (self-represented) pleadings to …
Domestic Violence Restraining Order Clinic (Daly City) 1:00 pm
Domestic Violence Restraining Order Clinic (Daly City)
Daly City Community Service Center Bay Area Legal Aid hosts Domestic Violence Restraining Order clinics in Daly City every Tuesday at 1:00 pm. Clinics last approximately 3.5 hours. Please arrive on time! If you arrive more than …
Jan 10 @ 9:00 am – 12:30 pm
Jan 15 @ 9:30 am – 11:30 am
Jan 16 @ 9:30 am
San José Bay Area Legal Aid hosts Consumer Rights Clinics (in conjunction with SparkPoint San José and the Workforce Institute) every Third Thursday of the month at 9:30 am and 1:00 pm. The clinic is …
Jan 16 @ 1:00 pm
Jan 20 @ 10:00 am – 1:00 pm
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History, Rolex, Watch 101
The Air-King has one of the longest standing histories of any Rolex model, with 70 years of continuous production. It first debuted in 1945, toward the end of WWII, with the Reference 4925. The model was part of the Air Series, which also included the Air-Lion, Air-Giant, and Air-Tiger. Rolex designed the Air-King with pilots in mind. The model paid homage to the officers in the RAF who served in the Battle of Britain during the war. Today, the Air-King is the only remaining model from the Air Series that Rolex continues to manufacture.
Over the course of its lifespan, the Air-King has remained largely unchanged until just a few year ago in 2016. However, in the early days, it saw a number of small modifications since the original model. One of the most notable variations is the 5500 series, which Rolex unveiled in in 1957. This iconic reference featured either a caliber 1520 or 1530 movement and remained in production for an impressive 37 years. Throughout its run, the 5500 was available in a number of dial options. Some of them are extremely rare like the double red, which features the words “Air-King” and “Super Precision” in red.
The Rolex Air-King After the 5500
Following the 5500 came the Reference 14000. This updated Air-King featured a new caliber 3000 movement and sapphire crystal. Rolex made a slight modification to the 14000 shortly after. The Reference 14010 came equipped with an updated engine turned bezel.
Rolex replaced the Air-King 14000 series with the 1142XX series in 2007. It marked the first major aesthetic change for the Air-King model. The 1142XX series featured new concentric dials, a thicker case, and machined Oyster bracelet. Although the original reference still featured the engine turned bezel, the brand removed it in later models. Instead, they offered the option for a white gold fluted bezel for the first time in the Air-King’s history. The 1142XX series was also the first to receive the coveted COSC certification.
In 2014, Rolex discontinued the production of the beloved Air-King. However, fans rejoiced when the model returned just two years later in 2016. Until then, the Air-King had always been an entry-level model and purist’s Rolex. With the most current variation, the Reference 116900, the brand finally decided to up the ante. They completely overhauled the dial and gave it a number of upgraded features. It boasts “Superlative Chronometer” certification and houses an all-new movement for the line. The caliber 3131 is in fact the same one found in the Milgauss. Still, despite the modern updates, the latest addition to the Air-King line maintains the same allure as its predecessors. For instance, the “Air-King” script on the dial is the same as the models from the 1950s.
The Air-King may be one of the simplest Rolex models on the market. However, this has become part of its charm and appeal. The Air-King is a no-frills timepiece. It doesn’t include any extraneous bells and whistles. It’s practical, strong, dependable, and classic. As one of the longest continuously produced models in the Rolex family, the Air-King lives up to its nickname: the “warrior watch.”
The Rolex "Fat Lady" Reference 16760
Mother's Day - What to Put on Her Wrist
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Watch-Spotting for the Oscars 2019
Celebrities, Lifestyle
2019 Notable Oscar Nominees and their Timepiece Preferences
The 91st annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, are fast approaching. This year’s show will be a bit different from decades past. After Kevin Hart stepped down as host following a controversy last December, they elected not to replace him. So, the event with go without a host this year. In its place, you can expect to see a star-studded lineup of presenters. They include legends like Samuel L. Jackson to rising stars like Emilia Clarke and many more.
The red carpet coverage is set to begin an hour and a half prior to the Oscars. You can bet there’s one thing we’ll have our eye on: the wrists. Several of this year’s nominees share in our love of a fine timepiece. Here, we’ve rounded up which nominees you should keep your eye out for. We’ve also highlighted the watches featured in two of this year’s nominated films.
PHOTO CREDIT FLICKR
Mahershala Ali is up for his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor this year. His previous win was for the 2017 film Moonlight. Now, he received a nomination for his portrayal of Dr. Don Shirley in Green Book. While accepting his previous Oscar, Ali wore a handsome IWC DaVinci with a sleek, all-black tuxedo. So be sure to keep an eye on his wrist at this year’s event. See if he’s sporting the same model or something new.
Sam Rockwell will being going head to head with Ali, hoping to score his second Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Rockwell won the category last year for the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. This year, he’s up for his portrayal of President George W. Bush in Vice. Rockwell also wore one of his favorite watches to last year’s Academy Awards. He’s a Rolex man, and his model of choice is the GMT Master II.
Rachel Weisz is up for her first Oscar nomination in thirteen years. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress in 2006 for her performance in The Constant Gardner. But this year, she’s hoping to score her second Academy Award for her portrayal of Lady Sarah in The Favourite. You can often find Weisz wearing one of the most classic and timeless watches of all-time: the Cartier Tank Francaise.
Lady Gaga made her film debut in 2018 in the remake of A Star is Born. However, she’s scored her first two Academy Award nominations at this year’s event. Gaga is up for both Best Lead Actress and Best Original Song for “Shallow.” For the past two years, Gaga has been loyally devoted to Tudor. She’s proudly served as their ambassador and one of the faces of their “Born to Dare” campaign. See if you can spot her wearing her favorite Tudor model, the Black Bay.
Bradley Cooper made his directorial debut this year with his adaptation of A Star is Born. He also starred in the film alongside Gaga. His work has landed him two Academy Award nominations, for Best Lead Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. Cooper has received several nominations before, for his work in American Sniper, American Hustle, and Silver Linings Playbook. However, he’s yet to score his first Oscar win. Like his co-star, Cooper also serves as a watch ambassador. He joined IWC’s ranks just last year and enjoys wearing the Big Pilot.
Rami Malek is a young actor known for his work in television, starring in Mr. Robot. This year, he has just landed his first Academy Award nomination. He’ll go up against Cooper for Best Lead Actor for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. At the world premiere of the film in London, Malek wore a Montblanc 4810 Day-Date. We’ll check him out at the Oscars to see what he might be sporting in hopes of landing his first win.
In addition to the nominees who share our passion for watches, we’d be remiss to pass over the nominated films that feature important timepieces. First Man is up for four awards in the production category. The biopic chronicles the life of Neil Armstrong throughout the space race. The film wouldn’t be complete without one of the most crucial instruments associated with the first lunar landing: the Speedmaster. The film partnered with OMEGA, who supplied them with authentic reproductions as well as pieces from the brand’s archives.
Last but not least, the film Vice is up for a total of five awards at this year’s Oscars. The nominations include Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. The film chronicles the life of Dick Cheney throughout his vice presidency under President George W. Bush. Christian Bale plays Cheney in the film. Despite being Vice President, you can coincidentally, or perhaps not so coincidentally, find him wearing a Rolex President.
How Does a Rolex Turn-o-Graph Work?
Why Would Pre-Owned be More Expensive than New?
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A New Way to Lessen the Blow of Taxes in Japan
The new NISA tax option is something to be seriously investigated by any who are now calling Japan “home.”
By Eric La Cara Jun 10, 2015 4 min read
Japan is certainly an interesting country and, if you are a foreigner who has residence there, the experience is surely one that began with a bit of a cultural shock as there are so many differences in societal norms and in the living of simple, everyday life.
Japan is unique in that it has both low birthrates (about 1.3 children per woman of child-bearing age) and astounding gains in life expectancy (going from 77 years in 1980 to around 83 years presently). These two demographic facts have made Japan one of the oldest societies on the globe and have also created a myriad of fiscal challenges due to the relative shrinking of the resulting labor pool.
This, of course, has also led to efforts on the part of the government to find ways to remain solvent and this often translates to more taxation schemes. Expatriates who live and work in Japan are certainly in no way exempted from this need to find sources of revenue to keep services and pensions in effect…
Regarding the pension system in Japan and how it affects foreigners who are residents, perhaps a quick history would be in order. The Japanese Kokumin Nenkin or national pension is a system in which all registered residents of Japan, both Japanese and foreign, are mandated to be enrolled. Since early 2010 it has been managed by the Japan Pension Service.
There are essentially three parts to the system:
Part 1 – All residents of Japan who fall between the ages of 20 and 60 but do not fit into the other categories listed below, are required go to a local National Pension municipal office and enroll. Usually this group includes the unemployed, self-employed, or employees of smaller companies. After accomplishing this, they are considered in the system and assured of some kind of retirement income.
Part 2 – Employer enrolled workers in various traditional employee pension schemes, which include the basic national pension, make up this category. In this case pension contributions are automatically deducted from a worker’s salary by the employer. As things change in Japan, this more traditional system is being eroded.
Part 3 – This section includes people who are aged between 20 and 60 years and who are considered dependent on those making up the second category. These folks are not required to pay contributions and their costs are paid by the individual upon which they are dependent.
As Japan changes, the old fashioned cradle to grave pension system is becoming all the more threatened and new ways to save and to avoid excessive taxation are now wise undertakings, certainly for those who are non-national residents.
Building up one’s personal assets and thereby becoming more self-reliant is an essential endeavor for any Japanese resident as the old-fashioned pension system can no longer be relied upon by individuals for future prosperity in this rapidly aging society.
There are a few tax exemption or deferment schemes to promote investment by individuals that have already been in existence in other countries like the U.S. with its Individual Retirement Account (IRA) and Canada’s variation called the “TFSA” or Tax Free Savings Account. Japan’s version is the “NISA,” or the Nippon (Japan) Individual Savings Account, which was just initiated this past January.
This newly minted tax exemption program for small investment should be an effective method for an individual in Japan to accumulate asset value over the mid-to-long term, as well as to serve as a source of investment funding for promising businesses, hence stimulating what has been a rather moribund and static economy of late.
For the purposes of an individual who is a resident of Japan, the most important aspect is the potential for personal asset formation for future retirement while also enjoying certain tax benefits that have been, unlike many Western countries, previously unavailable to the individual seeking relief from tax burdens and the unpredictability of the long-term solvency of the traditional pension system.
NISA was conceived as a savings vehicle for any residents of Japan aged 20 years or older. With the NISA account, people are availed an exemption of the 20% levy on income from capital gains, dividends and coupons from yearly investments, up to one million yen (or around 10K dollars U.S.) made over a five-year period. This is limited to those who have had their residence in Japan over that time period. Under this new law, tax-exempted investments can be made through NISA for up to 10 years (beginning in 2014 for a total cumulative investment of 5 million yen or $50k U.S.).
For those who are not native to Japan but are residents there, this is perhaps a bit of light in what has been a rather dark tax environment, especially for those who are used to more tax-friendly places of birth. It is something to be seriously investigated by any who are now calling Japan “home.”
Topics: Jobs in Japan / Working Culture in Japan
Japan101: Taxes, Pensions and Health Insurance
Eric La Cara
Skier, traveler, tax strategist.
More articles by Eric La Cara
Is setting
up a NISA account worthwhile for US citizens? I assume that the US doesn’t exempt the
NISA assets. So would that mean that whatever money you saved due to the tax
exemption in Japan would just have to be paid to the US instead?
How To Protect Your Credit Score While Living Abroad
While you're having fun in Japan, don't forget to take care of your finances back home.
By Eric La Cara Feb 10, 2015 3 min read
Moving In Japan Made Easy
Moving house is made easier by that famous Japanese customer service
By Andrew Smith Dec 15, 2014 2 min read
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getAbstract Stay curious
Walking the Talk: World leaders discuss implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement
by Sara Kupfer
This week, around 20,000 politicians, scientists, NGO representatives and business leaders are convening in Katowice, Poland, for the 2018 climate change conference. The goal of the meeting is to finalize the implementation guidelines of the Paris Agreement on climate change. Nailing down the practical steps each signatory state must take to keep average global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius will be crucial to ensure that the well-meaning pledges made in Paris will become a reality.
For background on the science of climate change, the consequences of global temperature rise and ways to avert its worst impacts, getAbstract has put together a Climate Change Channel. Among the publications we wish to highlight are:
Adoption of the Paris Agreement. Proposal by the President of the Conference of the Parties.
By the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Much has been written about the Paris agreement, but what does it actually say? If you don’t want to plough through 32 pages of legalese, check out getAbstract’s succinct summary.
Warming World
Why Climate Change Matters More Than Anything Else
By Joshua Busby
If the world fails to act on climate change, what will be the consequences? Political scientist Joshua Busby draws an alarming picture of the geopolitical upheavals that might await us, ranging from large-scale flooding and famines to new international conflicts arising over scarce resources.
The Madhouse Effect
How Climate Change Denial is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy
By Michael E. Mann and Tom Toles
Despite almost 97% of scientists agreeing on human-caused global warming, why do climate change deniers continue to exert considerable influence on public opinion? The answer has more to do with politics and ideological conviction than with healthy scientific skepticism, explains atmospheric scientist Michael E. Mann in a book he has co-authored with cartoonist Tom Toles.
An Inconvenient Sequel
By Vice President Al Gore
Former Vice President Al Gore’s groundbreaking 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, opened the eyes of millions to the climate crisis. The movie has since prompted many to ask, “Can the world avert catastrophic climate change?” and “What can I do?” In this sequel to the documentary, Gore addresses some of these questions. He details how breakthroughs in clean energy have laid the foundation for a carbon-free energy future and implores citizens to elect politicians who will implement climate-friendly policies. From eating less meat to setting up social media channels, Gore provides a long list of practical steps each one of us can take to be part of the movement his documentary has sparked.
About Sara Kupfer
Sara Kupfer is a writer at getAbstract based in San Diego, California.
www.getabstract.com
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February 18, 2014 / 11:59 AM / 5 years ago
Candy Crush Saga maker King plans U.S. stock market debut
Mia Shanley, Sven Nordenstam
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - King, the company behind the hit mobile phone game “Candy Crush Saga,” is planning a U.S. stock market debut that some analysts think could value it at more than $5 billion and herald a flurry of technology company listings this year.
A woman poses for a photo illustration with an iPhone as she plays Candy Crush in New York February 18, 2014. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
The successful flotation of Twitter in November and a surge in Facebook’s share price have fueled speculation that a string of technology firms could come to market, including music-sharing service Spotify, lodging service AirBnB and payments company Square, as well as King.
But some analysts question whether King can maintain its breakneck pace of growth, particularly given the difficulty of some other games makers in maintaining success.
Zynga, the creator of “Farmville,” has seen its share price halve since its initial public offering in late 2011, while Finland’s Rovio has struggled to replicate the success of its 2010 hit “Angry Birds.”
Asian markets did see some successful IPOs last year, like Japanese mobile game maker GungHo Online Entertainment, but there has not been a recent stellar debut story on the mobile game front in Western markets that has excited investors.
“There’s going to be a fair amount of demand,” for King’s IPO, said Mike Hickey, an analyst at the Benchmark company,. “In the mobile market in general, I think there’s an appetite for people to find ways to participate and in a lot of ways this is a best-of-breed-type play.”
“Candy Crush Saga,” which involves moving candies to make a line of three in the same color, was the most downloaded free app of 2013 and the year’s top revenue-grossing app.
It has been downloaded more than 500 million times since its launch in 2012. The basic games are free, but players must pay for add-ons or extra lives.
The IPO prospectus offered a first glimpse into King’s money-making machine, which generated $1.9 billion in revenues in 2013, or $5 million a day. It posted adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of $825 million in the year, up from $28.5 million in 2012.
In comparison, Zynga and Supercell, the company behind “Clash of Clans,” both earned around $900 million in revenues last year.
While King’s revenue skyrocketed in 2013 from the prior year, its fourth-quarter revenue declined sequentially, falling to $602 million from $621 million in the third quarter.
King, in its filing, attributed the decline to “a decrease in ‘Candy Crush Saga’ gross bookings, which was mostly offset by an increase in gross bookings across all of our other games.”
“The market is going to kick back a little bit after the Zynga experience,” Hickey said. “The challenge then for King is that they can maintain engagement on ‘Candy Crush,’ which is the majority of their performance, and that’s the issue they’ll have to work investors through.”
The company, which released its most recent puzzle game, “Farm Heroes Saga,” in January, said profit for the fourth quarter was $159 million, up from $6 million a year ago but a 31 percent drop from the third quarter.
King will have to prove it is not a one-hit wonder with “Candy Crush Saga” by delivering a series of money-making games, Hickey said.
King’s co-founder and chief executive officer, Riccardo Zacconi, said the group, which is 48.2 percent-owned by private equity firm Apax Partners, has so far launched five games for mobile phones and all have attracted substantial fan bases.
“Mobile usage is exploding and games are commanding the lion’s share of time spent,” he said in the prospectus.
“NO ROOM FOR UPSIDE’
Japanese tech and telecoms group Softbank bought 51 percent of Supercell late last year, valuing the firm at $3 billion, or around 6.5 times its 2013 EBITDA.
Applying the same multiple to King’s 2013 EBITDA would value the firm at around $5.3 billion.
“The risk here is that the company is valued beyond the 7-10-billion-dollar range because it is a hot company,” Josef Schuster, founder of IPOX Schuster, a Chicago-based IPO research and investment house, said. “On the first or the second day of trading the company is going to be an expensive buy, and if the stock does well in the first month or so there is no room for upside.”
King, which plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “KING”, intends to raise up to $500 million in the listing; the amount a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees and the final size of the IPO could be different.
Founded in Sweden in 2003, King was profitable in 2005 and has not had a funding round since September of that year, when it raised 34 million euros ($46 million) from Apax and Index Ventures.
In the last few months, it has made more than $500 million in dividend payments - including a $217 million payout this month - to its board of directors, its top executives and major investors. Index Ventures owns 8.3 percent of King.
King offers 180 games in 14 languages through mobile phones, Facebook and its own website, but is heavily reliant on “Candy Crush Saga,” which brings in about three quarters of its revenues. The company says its games are played more than 1 billion times a day.
JP Morgan, Credit Suisse and BofA Merrill Lynch have been appointed to lead the IPO. (link.reuters.com/xax86v)
Additional reporting by Leila Abboud in Paris, Tanya Agrawal and Avik Das in Bangalore, Malathi Nayak in San Francisco and Olivia Oran in New York; Editing by Alistair Scrutton, Mark Potter and Leslie Adler
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Butterfly boost for Cairngorms National Park
THE future of the Cairngorms National Park’s butterflies and moths has been given a boost with the launch of a project to increase their numbers.
The Cairngorms National Park is an important area for butterfly conservation but many species of butterflies and moths are under-recorded. As sensitive indicators of how wildlife is responding to habitat and climate change, there is a need for improved data on the status and distribution of many species.
The Butterflies and Moths Mean Business project will train local people and businesses in assisting in this area by becoming experts in identifying and recording the species.
There will also be the opportunity for local land-managers to share good practice and identify target areas for habitat improvement in order to increase the number and range of the insects.
Training days will be held throughout from April to August and are being run by the Butterfly Conservation, a UK charity which works to conserve the country’s butterflies and moths and their habitats.
One of the species which will be looked at will be the Pearl-bordered Fritillary, one of Britain’s most rapidly declining butterfly and a UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UKBAP) Priority species in need of urgent conservation action. The workshops will target other important UKBAP species including the Northern Brown Argus butterfly and the Netted Mountain Moth.
Yvonne Malcolm, Cairngorms Project Officer for Butterfly Conservation Scotland, said: “The Cairngorms boasts a wealth of natural heritage and beauty for those who are inspired to explore and enjoy it.
“I am very excited about the coming summer season and believe this is a fantastic opportunity for locals and visitors to see and learn more about butterflies and moths while getting involved in biodiversity conservation.
“Not only will it give the public the opportunity to learn about these beautiful insects, but they will help in protecting and enhancing them.”
Stephen Corcoran, the Cairngorms Biodiversity Officer, said “This project is an excellent example of highlighting the importance of local biodiversity and the tourism sector.
“One of the main reasons why people come to the Cairngorms is to see wildlife and this project is helping to raise the profile of how important the Cairngorms is for butterflies and moths, and how easy it is for local people and visitors to see these insects and learn more about them.”
One of the key themes of the project will be to raise awareness of the importance of the Cairngorms National Park for a range of butterfly and moth species. Butterfly trails will be established throughout the summer at prime tourist sites to enable visitors to see and identify the species. Workshops will also be held during the summer for locals working in tourism to promote these sites.
This project is funded by Butterfly Conservation Scotland, in partnership with the Cairngorms National Park Authority, Cairngorms Leader+, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Cairngorms Local Biodiversity Action Plan.
For more information or to book a place contact Yvonne at the CNPA’s offices in Grantown-on-Spey on tel: 01479 873535 or email [email protected]
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USC Event Calendar
Double Feature: Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Escape from the Planet of the Apes
Tuesday, February 20, 2018 at 7:00pm
Ray Stark Family Theatre (SCA)
900 West 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Admission is free. Reservations required. RSVP at http://cinema.uscedu/BeneathEscape.
The 1968 sci-fi satire Planet of the Apes has traversed decades of American popular culture, reflecting changes in society, politics, Hollywood, and audience tastes. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Planet of the Apes, the USC School of Cinematic Arts and 20th Century Fox will host a film retrospective and exhibit featuring props, costumes, models, and artwork to offer a broad yet intimate perspective on the evolution and enduring popularity of the Apes universe. Join us for a double feature from the Planet of the Apes franchise with Beneath the Planet of the Apes and Escape from the Planet of the Apes.
7 p.m.: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
Directed by Ted Post
35mm print provided courtesy of 20th Century Fox
In this acclaimed sequel, an astronaut crashes through the time barrier searching for the missing Taylor. The daring rescue leads to a subterranean city where mutant humans, who practice mind control, worship a weapon capable of destroying the entire planet.
8:45 p.m.: Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
Directed by Don Taylor
The world is shocked by the appearance of three talking chimpanzees, who arrive mysteriously in a U.S. spacecraft. They become the toast of society, but one man believes them to be a threat to the human race.
There will be a 10-minute intermission between films.
Planet of the Apes 50th Anniversary Screening and Legacy Panel
Friday, February 9, at 7 p.m.
The Frank Sinatra Hall at the Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre Complex
Double Feature: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes
Wednesday, February 28, at 7 p.m.
The Ray Stark Family Theatre, School of Cinematic Arts 108
Presented by USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative. Organized by Organized by the USC School of Cinematic Arts and 20th Century Fox.
Arts, Film Screening, Student Life
Students, Alumni, Faculty/Staff
University Park Campus
Visions and Voices, School of Cinematic Arts, visionsandvoices, employees
http://visionsandvoices.usc.edu/event...
Admission is free. Reservations required.
Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative
#visionsandvoices
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Archive for the 'Pride of the Yankees' Category
“The Pride of the Yankees” with Richard Sandomir
Posted in Pride of the Yankees on Jun 26th, 2017 Comments
The untold story behind the first great sports film... The Pride of the Yankees: Lou Gehrig, Gary Cooper, and the Making of a Classic
On July 4, 1939, baseball great Lou Gehrig stood in Yankee Stadium and gave a speech that contained the phrase that would become legendary: "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."
He died two years later and his fiery widow, Eleanor, wanted nothing more than to keep his memory alive. With her forceful will, she and the irascible producer Samuel Goldwyn quickly agreed to make a film based on Gehrig's life, "The Pride of the Yankees." Goldwyn didn't understand -- or care about -- baseball. For him this film was the emotional story of a quiet, modest hero who married a spirited woman who was the love of his life, and, after a storied career, gave a short speech that transformed his legacy. With the world at war and soldiers dying on foreign soil, it was the kind of movie America needed.
Using original scripts, letters, memos, and other rare documents, Richard Sandomir tells the behind-the-scenes story of how a classic was born. The search to find the actor to play Gehrig; the stunning revelations Eleanor made to the scriptwriter Paul Gallico about her life with Lou; the intensive training Gary Cooper underwent to learn how to catch, throw, and hit a baseball for the first time.
On a warm summer evening, Richard Sandomir led our intimate Clubhouse conversation and brought "The Pride of the Yankees" to life. Listen in...
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Align Podcast
We break down everything you need to know about functional movement, lifestyle and nutrition to achieve world class results with the guidance of world renowned experts. Learn actionable steps for optimal diet, strength, endurance, power, weight loss or gain, biohacking, mobility, flexibility, self-care and more!
Now displaying: September, 2017
Bryan Callen: Assume the Position, Benefits of Tragedy, Body Language | Ep. 134 0
Born in the Phillipines, Callen spent the first fourteen years of his life overseas in countries like India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Greece and Saudi Arabia, before moving to the U.S. He went to high school in Massachusetts and earned his B.A. in History at the American University in Washington D.C.
Bryan Callen has spent the last 17 years in Los Angeles fighting traffic because that’s where he seems to find the most work. (Bryan Callen is also writing this but making it seem like someone ELSE is writing this by referring to himself in the 3rd person) Callen got his start as an original cast member of MAD TV. He then went on to play numerous roles on the small and big screen including, “Old School” “Bad Santa”, “Sex and the City”, “Entourage,” “Californication”, “7th Heaven,” “King of Queens,” “Stacked,” “Las Vegas,” “West Wing,”“News Radio,” “Significant Others,” “CSI,” “NYPD Blue,”“Suddenly Susan,” and “Frasier.” He recently finished a two season character arc on USA’s“In Plain Sight”
Callen is not a famous actor but sometimes people look at him and scream “Bilson, ” since that’s the character he played on several episodes of CBS’s “How I Met Your Mother.” His most recent TV role was Captain Frank Dashell, leader of the Undead Task Force, in the short lived but critically acclaimed MTV comedy, “Death Valley”. He’s been recognized for that role exactly 4 times but who cares since he’s been recognized over one million times (I’m guessing) as EDDIE, the Middle Eastern owner of a wedding chapel in a little movie called THE HANGOVER. Not to mention his role as Samir, in HANGOVER II where he played basically the same exact character only Samir had thick, curly, hair and darker skin which is actually a good look on Callen considering his Irish/Italian heritage has left him with a ruddy complexion and thinning, mouse-brown hair. His most recent role on the big screen was in the Lion’s Gate drama WARRIOR where he did an excellent job playing himself.
Between acting gigs Callen spends his time power lifting, taming lions, vanquishing evil and making people laugh as a stand up comic. That’s why he can currently be seen on SHOWTIME performing a stand up comedy special called MAN CLASS.
MIND PUMP II: Bonobo Love, Phantom Pain, Hacking Nervous Systems| Ep. 133 0
What Is MindPump?
What exactly IS MindPump? MindPump is an online radio show/podcast that has been described as Howard Stern meets fitness. It is sometimes raw, sometimes shocking and is always entertaining and informative. Your hosts, Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer and Justin Andrews have over 40 years of combined fitness experience as personal trainers, club managers, IFBB fitness competitors and fitness thought leaders.
The fitness world is filled with charlatans and snake oil salesmen pushing the latest and greatest (and sometimes downright dangerous) workout programs, supplements and faux science on the unsuspecting masses. Sal, Adam and Justin use MindPump as a platform to shed the light of TRUTH on health, fitness and a host of other topics. By listening to each episode of MindPump, you will be able to absorb over 40 years worth of workout wisdom in record time so that you can cut through the BS and experience the absolute fastest way to reach your health and fitness goals.
Porangui: Capoeira, Resolving Trauma, Sound Healing | Ep. 132 0
“My art is that of holding sacred space. The degree to which I can hold space musically or in silence, on a stage or with a client on the massage table, determines if magic will happen. Whether we are dealing with the space between notes or the space between breaths, the healing power of my work happens when I get out of the way and allow Spirit to move through me.”
- Poranguí
As a live musician, world soul artist and one-man orchestra Poranguí weaves ancestral songs and indigenous rhythms from around the globe. Creating his performances from scratch using looping technology, Poranguí’s live grooves range from meditative to dance party, moving the body, lifting the spirit, and transcending the divide between performer and audience. An evening with Poranguí might take you on a journey from deep, earthy didgeridoo grooves to high-vibe ecstatic Brazilian beats to blissful African kalimba lullabies. Serenades and storytelling to beat boxing and booty shaking: Together, these make an unforgettable experience.
As a DJ, Poranguí performs funky tribal world house sets that integrate live instrumentation, a hybrid of his organic indigenous sound with a potent electronic bed that moves large dance floors. And in sound design and media production roles – including film soundtrack contributions – Poranguí’s work is informed by experience with photography and filmmaking.
As a therapeutic bodyworker providing individual sessions in private practice, Poranguí draws on his academic background in neuroscience, his family legacy in the healing arts, and his training as a licensed massage therapist. His “Myorhythmic Release” technique combines the healing properties of sound, movement, and breath, supporting clients from all backgrounds and health conditions in finding freedom from the limitations and suffering of old patterns and trauma.
Poranguí’s integration of these practices – music, healing arts, and arts education – makes him a valued resource for and contributor to retreats, arts centers, school programs, festivals, and special events.
For Poranguí, this rich practice of music, healing, teaching, performance, and creative collaboration represents the intersection of journeys both personal and professional.
“Growing up among such different worlds (cultural, linguistic, spiritual) challenged me as a child. Now I look back and see the blessing it afforded me, to serve as a bridge for others. It taught me to appreciate the salient threads that connect us in our collective human experience. It informs my art and pushes me to find new ways to tell the stories of our ancestors in a way that we can all hear it – in the midst of our contemporary culture.”
Carl Paoli II: Butterfly Effect, Freestyle Movement, Fitness of Empathy | Ep. 131 0
About Carl Paoli
Born in the U.S. to Swedish parents and growing up in Spain, Carl Paoli learned from an early age how to connect to and be conscious of others. Carl's childhood passion and enthusiasm for physical activity lead him to explore many different sports such as snow boarding, skiing, wake boarding, water skiing, karate, among others. It was his love for gymnastics, however, that would greatly shape his definition of hard work and determination.
Carl soon rose to become an elite gymnast in Spain where he trained and competed for over fifteen years. Throughout his gymnastics career he received many accolades, including a National Gold Medal for Vault. Carl studied Environmental Science at Universidad Miguel Hernandez and specialized in Genetic Engineering and Coral Reef Ecology. After university, Carl returned to the U.S. to pursue his career in marine biology.
Carl's mind was never far from his appreciation for sport and fitness, and he reentered the world of gymnastics in 2004 in San Francisco. He now works as a Strength and Conditioning Coach and runs his own practice called Naka Athletics, which specializes in all level physical preparation and representation of action sports athletes.
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"The celebrated 'red coat girl' from Schindler's List, Polish actor Oliwia Dabrowska, has revealed she was left traumatised..."
"... after breaking a promise to director Steven Spielberg not to watch the film until she was 18."
"It was too horrible. I could not understand much, but I was sure that I didn't want to watch ever again in my life." She also said she "really regretted" not paying attention to the director's suggestion that she "grow up into the film", and not watch it until she was older.
"I was ashamed of being in the movie and really angry with my mother and father when they told anyone about my part," she said. But, having revisited the film as an 18-year-old, she said she realised "I had been part of something I could be proud of."
She was 3 when she made the film and 11 when she watched it for the first time.
Tags: children, movies, Spielberg
Actress has to be dramatic.
Brew Master said...
That movie affected me when I first saw it in my 20's when I already knew the horrors of the holocaust. I can't imagine being 11 and being exposed for the first time. I doubt I would have fully understood either.
It's good to know that at 18 she has a better understanding.
I, me, me, me.
It's all about me.
I thought that particular scene was out of place. My snl said his teacher wanted his class to watch the movie when he was in the fifth grade, but parents raised a stink about it.
Libertarian Advocate said...
@ Peter:
What's your point?
I have no issue with teaching kids about the uglier sides of history, but images are an entirely different ball of wax than words. Spielberg was right.
Well... I admit, at 11 I would've been tempted to do the same thing had I been in the same circumstance. And at that age, I don't think I would've fully understood it either (although in all honesty, my 11 year old self probably would have turned it into wishful superhero-saves-us-all fantasy fodder instead...).
But that's the way it goes. She regretted it then, but she's come to grips with it now. Perspective changes with age; it's something we all know intellectually, but still seem to be surprised at every time we see an example of it.
I'd have advised her to make a burnt offering to Spielberg after the first viewing.
The Nazi's scale, mass resources and efforts put into a system to despise and murder innocent people is stunning to any thinking 11 year old.
This world is not safe.
And how is the North Korean's scale, mass resources and efforts into exterminating us going this morning?
The North Koreans and the Iranians are jointly working at to despising and killing innocent Jews and innocent Americans as we speak.
Obama and Kerry have unexpectedly discovered that this is normal...after all they feel the same way about Jews and Americans and want them to understand that they are their friend in high places.
There is nothing preventing it from happening again, and it's only gotten easier. Same hatreds, same justifications for weakness in the face of evil, same stupid humans in power, same stupid people putting them there.
The second amendment is the only protection that ever really made any people any safer in the world. It should be part of internationally recognized human rights.
If kids can compose songs to Dear Leader and sing them, then they can see where that can lead in every gory detail.
Better to watch a movie of it (or be in a movie of it) than live it.
My little cousin was doing a report on the holocaust at 11 or so and she was interviewing a survivor. Her mom asked him to try leave out some of the most traumatizing stuff because of her age. The guy told her about soldiers throwing babies in the air and shooting them and she was like, um I thought you were going to leave out the worst stuff. He said 'I did'.
sonicfrog said...
Shanna... Great story. I wish you were making it up because it's horrifying, but am sure you're not.
Would you mind if I shared your quote?
PS. I was in my early 30's when I saw Schindler's List. I cried like a baby when I recognized the significance of the red dress in the later scene of the movie. You had kind of forgotten about her, but then realized the hope she represented was dead. That was brilliant movie making.
A little different for us Baby Boomers because we grew up with our fathers', uncles', and friends' parents' war stories, as well as a plenitude of documentaries.
But this girl would have heard all manner of ghastly stories, being Polish
Not at all. Yes, true story. If allowed, people can be awful. We should never, ever forget that.
As for the movie, the red coat never really did anything for me. The part that gets me every time is the scene with Schindler throwing all his little trinkets aside and freaking out about how he could have/should have done more.
JAL said...
Who showed it to her when she was 11?
I didn't give my kids the option to watch it til they were older and had an emotional and historical framework to put it into. Of course by that time they were teenagers and thought they knew everything anyway.
Geoff Matthews said...
Brew Master,
When I was in 6th grade, they had an in-depth lesson about the holocaust. Alberta had a teacher (James Keegstra) who had been teaching his students that the holocaust was a hoax. When that came to light, the province decided to get serious about teaching the holocaust. It wasn't that traumatic, but then they didn't show up movies about it either.
This actually reminded me about the boy who was in The Shining, and how Kubric never exposed him to the horror aspect of the movie. He never watched it as a kid, which was probably a good thing.
The latest news on the huge scope of the ghettos and work camps in Europe beside the death camps should not be ignored.
The network of camps and ghettos set up by the Nazis to conduct the Holocaust and persecute millions of victims across Europe was far larger and systematic than previously believed, according to new academic research.
Researchers conducting the bleak work of chronicling all the forced labour sites, ghettos and detention facilities run by Hitler’s regime alongside such centres of industrialised murder as Auschwitz have now catalogued more than 42,500 institutions used for persecution and death.
There probably were many little girls in red coats.
One wonders how Europeans manage. Some of our best friends there are a British couple and a German couple who regularly visit each other. (We have heard some stories.) Bet they have a no talk rule.
I shall ask.
Interesting reaction.
At 11 (late 50s), I remember seeing non-fiction books around the house concerning the war and some of the photos regarding the Einsatzgruppen were pretty graphic.
There were also some pretty ghastly accounts in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post at the time, which was also free to peruse at home, so I'm having a little trouble understanding all this sheltering.
Maybe it's just because I'm a guy.
I remember reading tons of stuff about Christian martyrs as an elementary student. I think we had a book in class. Those were pretty gruesome.
But a movie is more viceral. I read all this stuff in elementary school but watching 'the last emperor' at 10 gave me nightmares.
As a child my first exposure was in a book compilation of Life magazine photo's called 'Life Goes To War'.
Even with that exposure the true scope of what was done was not all that apparent to me as a child. It was horrible, yes, but a youthful mind does not have the experience necessary to understand evil at that scale.
Geoff Matthews: I was fortunate in that I did not have any teachers of the denial sort. It was taught matter of factly, but not in depth.
My own pursuit of history as an adult has informed me beyond what any teacher possibly could have done given the limited time frames they have available.
No one is traumatised watching a movie. The traumatised three year olds and eleven year olds were the ones shot or thrown in ovens. Actually they weren't traumatised. They were murdered. Traumatised would be an eleven year old survivor of the camps. A perfectly safe person who never forgets how safe she is while watching a movie about other persons being systematically murdered and then tells you she was traumatised -- that's obscene.
When I taught high school history I showed this movie. However, to only jr and sr. students.
A perfectly safe person who never forgets how safe she is while watching a movie about other persons being systematically murdered and then tells you she was traumatised -- that's obscene.
And why was she "ashamed of being in the movie"? Who made her feel shame?
Jeff Teal said...
Read Mila 18 and Exodus at age 13.Sent me on a quest and longtime fascination with German and Germans.It is also what made me conservative.Somebody has to stand up to anyone whoeven looks like they could industrialize killing people.And worse.
I'm surprised at how cavalier many people in this thread are being about the notion that young children can be upset and haunted by exposure to images of terrible violence and cruelty.
Film has a power that words don't. I'd never show this film to an eleven-year-old. There's plenty of time for them to grapple with the horrors of human history in a visual way when they're older.
Worse than Schindler's List for me in the "Great movie. Never want to see it again." department was "Dead Man Walking" with Sean Penn. Even the thought of seeing it again makes me queasy - and I was a fully grown adult.
I saw Schindler's List as an adult. Some of those images are very disturbing and stick with you forever. It was a very powerful film, and I hope to never see it again.
Schindler's list is the greatest movie, ever ever. I think all non-Jews need to see it at least every annually to understand the damage antisemitism has done.
We can never be reminded too often about the Jewish Holocaust.
And I think it was very brave of Spielberg to make such a movie. I don't think the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Abe Foxman give him enough credit for standing up to the Mel Gibson's in Hollywood.
"Schindler's list" is really the rebuttal to the "Passion of the Christ".
Gary Rosen said...
Hmmmm, looks like C-fudd's been sock-puppeting again. Well, that's what happens when he can't get it on for the flophouse JO.
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Global asthma prevalence in adults: findings from the cross-sectional world health survey
Teresa To1, 2, 3, 9Email author,
Sanja Stanojevic1,
Ginette Moores1, 4,
Andrea S Gershon1, 2, 3, 5,
Eric D Bateman6,
Alvaro A Cruz7 and
Louis-Philippe Boulet8
BMC Public Health201212:204
© To et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012
Asthma is a major cause of disability, health resource utilization and poor quality of life world-wide. We set out to generate estimates of the global burden of asthma in adults, which may inform the development of strategies to address this common disease.
The World Health Survey (WHS) was developed and implemented by the World Health Organization in 2002-2003. A total of 178,215 individuals from 70 countries aged 18 to 45 years responded to questions related to asthma and related symptoms. The prevalence of asthma was based on responses to questions relating to self-reported doctor diagnosed asthma, clinical/treated asthma, and wheezing in the last 12 months.
The global prevalence rates of doctor diagnosed asthma, clinical/treated asthma and wheezing in adults were 4.3%, 4.5%, and 8.6% respectively, and varied by as much as 21-fold amongst the 70 countries. Australia reported the highest rate of doctor diagnosed, clinical/treated asthma, and wheezing (21.0%, 21.5%, and 27.4%). Amongst those with clinical/treated asthma, almost 24% were current smokers, half reported wheezing, and 20% had never been treated for asthma.
This study provides a global estimate of the burden of asthma in adults, and suggests that asthma continues to be a major public health concern worldwide. The high prevalence of smoking remains a major barrier to combating the global burden of asthma. While the highest prevalence rates were observed in resource-rich countries, resource-poor nations were also significantly affected, posing a barrier to development as it stretches further the demands of non-communicable diseases.
Global Burden
Global Prevalence
Asthma Prevalence
Clinical Asthma
Asthma is a major cause of disability, health resource utilization and poor quality of life for those who are affected. It is the most common chronic disease among children and young adults, particularly because of its early onset (one out of four individuals in the general population develops asthma before the age of 40 years) [1], it accounts for considerable healthcare costs and loss of work productivity [2]. In 2004, Masoli et al., and the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) combined data from the Phase 1 International Study of Asthma and Allergies (ISAAC) study collected in 1992-1996 and the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS) in 1988-1994 to generate global estimates of asthma burden, which suggested that asthma prevalence ranged from a low of 0.7% in Macau to 18.4% in Scotland [3–6]. This report estimated that 300 million people worldwide had asthma, and projected that this number would increase to 400 million by 2025, as countries became more urbanized [4].
The GINA report however was at best a general estimate, as the data on which it was based came from different surveys collected between (1988 and 1996) using different sampling methodologies and asthma definitions, and recruited different age groups, The World Health Survey (WHS) [7], designed and implemented by the World Health Organization (WHO) from 2002 to 2003, employed a standardized methodology to collect information from which to estimate health of populations which would allow within and between country comparisons. This data was intended to inform policy in a wide range of countries from six continents around the world. The WHS is public data available through the WHO upon request and has previously been used to estimate the burden of other chronic diseases and risk factors for these diseases [8–13]. This standardized cross-sectional survey was implemented by 70 of the 192 WHO member states, and constituted the largest multi-country survey of asthma in adults to date. We used WHS data to estimate and compare the global and country-specific burden of asthma.
World health survey (WHS)
A stratified probability sampling design, where the sampling frame covered 100% of the country's eligible adults ≥ 18 years of age was used in each of the countries. The sample was stratified by sex, age and urban/rural living strata [7]. A multistage cluster design was used in all countries except Australia, China, Comoros, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, India, and Russia, where post-stratification probability weight were not available (simple weights were used), and Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Guatemala, Netherlands, Slovenia, UK, and Zambia where no probability weights were available.
Each respective Ministry of Health of the 70 member states who elected to participate in the WHS was responsible for designing the local sampling strategy and administering the standardized questionnaires. The sample size for each participating country ranged from 1,000 to 10,000 participants; each country chose a sample size based on their needs, amount of detail required and feasibility/survey costs. Each of the survey modules were pilot tested in 12 countries. Translated surveys were administered by trained personnel either face-to-face or by telephone (Australia, Israel, Luxembourg, and Norway), using both paper and electronic questionnaire formats, depending on feasibility [7]. Training courses for participating countries were run by WHO regional offices, and quality standards set by the WHS Quality Assurance Standards & Guidelines committee were monitored by external peer review. A detailed country report, providing details about the survey, is freely available on the WHS/WHO website.
Definitions of asthma
A strict definition of asthma based solely on doctor diagnosis may be useful in some clinical settings in developed countries; however, in developing countries it may vary greatly depending on the context, availability, and access to health care and medications. A combination of diagnosis and/or treatment for asthma may more accurately classify individuals with active asthma. Since diagnosis and the availability of treatment may be challenging in resource-poor countries, a broader definition which includes respiratory symptoms, in addition to diagnosis and treatment received may yield a higher sensitivity in identifying individuals with asthma. Therefore, in this study, we estimated and compared the global burden of asthma using three definitions of asthma. The first definition was doctor diagnosed asthma which is based on the question "Have you ever been diagnosed with asthma?" The second definition was clinical asthma which was based on doctor diagnosed asthma and/or a positive response in either of two questions "Have you ever been treated for asthma" or "Have you been taking any medications or treatment for asthma during the last 2 weeks?" The third definition, symptoms of asthma, was based on doctor diagnosed asthma, clinical asthma and/or a positive response to "During the last 12 months have you experienced attacks of wheezing or whistling breath?" The WHS survey questions were similar to those used by the ISAAC and ECRHS surveys [3, 5, 6]. To avoid confusion between asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (a disease most prevalent amongst older adults); we limited our study population to individuals aged 18 to 45 years.
Definition of smoking
Current smoking was defined based on a positive response to the question "Do you currently smoke any tobacco products such as cigarettes, cigars, or pipes?".
Regional differences
Estimates of asthma prevalence were calculated for each participating country as well as for each WHO region. Six regions using the WHO definitions were included: Africa (includes 18 countries), Americas (7), Eastern Mediterranean (4), Europe (30), South East Asia (5), and Western Pacific (6) [7, 14].
All analyses were conducted using STATA statistical software [15]. Country-specific prevalence estimates were obtained by applying survey weights for complex sampling designs. No weights were applied for pooled regional analyses [11, 13]. Given the different age-distributions in each of the participating countries, we age-standardized the country specific prevalence estimates. However, since the standardized estimates were similar to the unadjusted estimates (Mean Difference: -0.04; 95% Limits of Agreement: -0.07; 0.62), we presented the unadjusted results.
The risk factor module included questions related to tobacco use and exposure to pollutants and was available for 53 countries [16]. Smoking data was missing for Austria, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These countries account for only 9,803 of the 181,042 individuals (5.41%) who completed the survey.
The study materials and methods were approved by the research ethics board at the Hospital for Sick Children (REB # 1000025091).
Of the 181,042 individuals who completed the WHS, a total of 178,215 (98.4%) adults in 70 countries responded to the questions related to asthma diagnosis and respiratory symptoms. The median survey response rate at the household level was 93.0%, whereas the median response rate at the individual level was 99.0%. Country-specific response rates can be found on the WHS website [16]. Overall, the question-specific response rates was high, ranging from 73.3 to 97.7%. The lower response rates observed for clinical asthma was due to low response rates in the Americas (34.1%). All other regions had response rates above 70% for clinical asthma.
Global burden of asthma
The global prevalence of doctor diagnosed asthma in adults was estimated to be 4.3% (95% CI: 4.2; 4.4). The prevalence of doctor diagnosed asthma varied widely amongst the 70 participating countries, ranging from 0.2% in China to 21.0% in Australia (Table 1 and Figure 1). Using a less stringent definition, the global prevalence of clinical asthma (or treated asthma) was 4.5% (95% CI: 4.4; 4.6). The prevalence of clinical asthma also varied widely amongst the 70 participating countries, ranging from 1.0% in Vietnam to 21.5% in Australia, representing a 21-fold global variation (Table 1 and Figure 2). The five countries with the highest prevalence of clinical asthma were Australia (21.5%), Sweden (20.2%), UK (18.2%), Netherlands (15.3%), and Brazil (13.0%). Finally, using the least stringent definition, the global prevalence of wheezing was estimated to be 8.6% (95% CI: 8.5; 8.7). The prevalence of wheezing had a 15-fold variation across the world (Table 1 and Figure 2), with the highest rates observed in Australia (27.4%), the Netherlands (22.7%), the United Kingdom (22.6%), Brazil (22.6%), and Sweden (21.6%).
Region and country-specific estimates of asthma prevalence by 3 definitions
Asthma Prevalence (%)2
Region1
Diagnosed Asthma
Wheezing Symptoms
Comoros3
Congo3
Cote d'Iviore3
South Africa5
Swaziland5
Zambia4
Regional Sub-total
Morocco5
Bosnia Herzegovina5
Crotia3
Netherlands4
(95%CI)
(4.17; 4.36)
1 World Health Organization definition of regions
2 All asthma prevalence estimates were calculated using post satisfaction weights unless otherwise indicated
3 Post stratification weights were not available from these countries, so sampling weights were used in calculating the prevalence estimates
4 Weights were not provided these countries
5 Standard errors were missing due to a sampling unit
Worldwide prevalence of clinical asthma.
Worldwide prevalence of wheezing asthma.
Regional differences in clinical or treated asthma
The prevalence of clinical asthma in adults did not differ greatly between regions (Table 2). The highest prevalence of clinical asthma was in the Western Pacific region (6.2%) which was largely contributed by the high prevalence in Australia. The prevalence of clinical asthma was similar in rural (4.86%) and urban (4.91%) residents in all regions except the Western Pacific (p-value: 0.840). The largest differences between rural (3.7%) and urban (5.1%) were observed in the Americans.
Prevalence of clinical asthma, current smoking, symptoms and treatment by regions
% Among Clinical Asthma Population Reported Symptoms in Last 12 Months
Country Regions
Prevalence (%)
of Clinical Asthma
% Current Smokers
Asthma Ever Treated
% Wheezing
Asthma symptoms
Almost half (49.7%) of individuals living with clinical asthma had experienced wheezing in the last 12 months, the highest prevalence reported being from South East Asia (57.9%).
Almost a fifth of those with clinical asthma had never received treatment for asthma in their life.
Prevalence of smoking
The prevalence of smoking in the population with clinical asthma (23.3%) was not different from that of the overall global prevalence of smoking (23.5%). In Europe and South East Asia, more than one third of the population with clinical asthma was currently smoking. There was no association between prevalence of smoking amongst individuals with asthma and the country level prevalence of asthma.
Using standardized WHS data obtained from the WHO, we estimated that the global prevalence of clinical asthma in adults was 4.5% and varied by as much as 21-fold amongst 70 participating countries. Amongst the population living with clinical asthma, almost one in four was a current smoker, one in two reported wheezing in the past 12 months, but one in five had never received asthma treatment. The WHS is the first standardized, representative survey which included population-based data regarding respiratory symptoms and treatment permitting estimation of the global burden of asthma in adults. This study provides the most current global estimates of the burden of asthma and shows that asthma continues to be a major public health problem worldwide.
We estimated the prevalence of asthma using three definitions ranging from the most stringent - self-reported doctor diagnosis, to the most inclusive definition - self-reported wheezing. Clinical history in combination with a reversible airway obstruction as measured by a pulmonary function test is the gold standard for diagnosing asthma. However, implementing such a standard to identify individuals with asthma is impractical considering the scale of the sample of this study, and would be extremely costly and time consuming. Our questionnaire-based classifications offer a reasonable, feasible and practical alternative. While the respiratory symptoms definition may overestimate the global asthma prevalence, the clinical definition likely underestimates disease burden in resource-poor countries with inadequate access to health care facilities and treatments. Our analyses focused mainly on the clinical asthma definition, which identifies asthma burden based on diagnosis and/or treatment. This definition likely yields a lower false positive rate compared to a symptom-based definition [17].
Compared with the asthma estimates previously reported (Table 3), our asthma estimates are more up-to-date, are based on consistent data contributed by a large number of developing countries, and include estimates for both rural and urban dwellers. Country and regional differences highlight the need for locally tailored interventions and initiatives to address the specific risk factors and needs. While not directly comparable due to differences in methods used, our country-specific estimates are broadly similar to those presented in the GINA report [4]. We also observed that the prevalence of asthma varied greatly between countries, with the highest prevalence observed in resource-rich countries [4, 6]. The ISAAC study also employed a standardized global survey and was implemented locally, but the target population was children only. Unlike the WHS, some countries in the ISAAC study used convenience samples and were not necessarily multi-staged or stratified to be representative of the entire country. The ISAAC study used a video questionnaire to help reduce misclassification due to translation of wheezing symptoms; this, however, was not practical for the WHS. The ECRHS was limited to developed countries, and therefore cannot be used to infer global figures. Finally, since the GINA Burden of Asthma 2004 estimates were a retrospective combination of the ISAAC and ECHRS surveys, the country specific estimates are not necessarily representative of the entire population, and the averaging to different surveys from the same country introduces bias since different instruments were used.
Summary of prevalence of asthma reported in the literature
Study & Survey Used
Countries Included
Findings of Asthma Prevalence
ECRHS (1996)5
ECRHS
An asthma attack in the last
12 months or currently taking asthma medication
Ranged from 2.0% in Estonia to 11.9% in Australia with a median of 4.5%
ISAAC Steering Committee (1998)3
ISAAC Phase 1
Self-reported ever had asthma
6-7 and 13-14
11.3% in children aged 13 14 years and 10.2% in children aged 6-7 years
Wheezing or whistling in the chest in the last 12 months
Ranged from 1.6% in Indonesia to 36.8% in the UK
Masoli et al. (2004)4
ISAAC and ECRHS
Various depending on the survey and country
13-14 and 20-44
Ranged from 0.7% in Macau to 18.4% in Scotland
Lai et al. (2009)18
Wheeze in the past 12 months
14.1% in children 13-14 years and 11.5% in children 6-7 years
Sembajwe et al.
(2010)13
Ranged from 1.8% in Vietnam to 32.8% in Australia with an overall 6.0%
To et al. (2011)
(Current study)
Doctor diagnosis, clinical and symptoms of asthma
4.3% doctor diagnosed asthma, 4.5% clinical asthma and 14.4% symptoms of asthma
In 2010, Sembajwe et al. used the WHS data, and reported variations in wheezing symptoms and doctor diagnosed asthma prevalence across world regions relating them to national income [13]. All subjects aged 18 to 99 years from 64 countries were included in their study. They reported a 6% prevalence of doctor diagnosed asthma and 9.2% for current wheezing, which does not agree with our findings. The major differences between their findings and ours may be attributed to differences in study population included (ours included all 70 participating countries but limited it to participants aged 18 to 45 years old). Since our prevalence estimates were lower, it suggests that their estimates may have been biased by the inclusion of subjects with COPD as asthma.
Using the WHS data to measure the global burden of asthma offers several strengths. Firstly, the same standardized questionnaires were applied to all individuals who participated. Secondly, the survey was administered using multi-staged random sampling in most of the sites making the country-specific estimates representative of the whole population. The survey in each country was also stratified by age, sex and rural/urban residence, further improving the generalizability of our findings. Nevertheless, the WHS data only included adults, and likely underestimates the global burden, since asthma is more prevalent in children. Canada and the United States are notable absences from the Survey, however participation was voluntary and these countries elected not to take part. Therefore, our estimates likely underestimate the total global burden of asthma, but the sample of countries included in the WHS is sufficient to make statistically sound global inferences
Our results highlight that asthma continues to be a major public health concern worldwide. Applying our 4.5% clinical asthma prevalence to the current world population of 7 billion translates to 315 million individuals with asthma. However, using our 8.6% self-reported prevalence of asthma symptoms, we estimated that nearly 623 million individuals are currently living with some level of asthma-related symptoms worldwide. While proper long-term management of asthma will allow individuals with asthma to achieve good levels of control enabling them to live with good quality of life, our data indicates that asthma control is not optimal in many countries. Worldwide, nearly half of the asthma population reported wheezing in the last 12 months, and only a moderate proportion had been diagnosed and/or received treatment. In addition, the high prevalence of smoking continues to be one of the major barriers in combating the global burden of asthma. While the highest overall prevalence of asthma was observed in resource-rich countries, many resource-poor nations also have a high prevalence of this disease. This is of concern because in most such countries, resources are consumed by the pressing demands of infectious diseases and the need to provide primary care for the broader population. In many countries there is little, if any provision of the essential medications that at both individual and population level can lead to very satisfactory control of asthma. Uncontrolled asthma poses an extra weight in the burden of non-communicable disease, which constitutes a major barrier for development.
The asthma statistics from the WHS presented here may be useful to health policy and decision makers, clinicians, and researchers in designing programs and plans of action to address risk factors such as smoking and improve quality of provided for asthma and reduce the burden that it presents, through provision of treatment that is adequate, accessible, and effective.
This paper used data from the WHO World Health Surveys, a Multi-Country Survey Study.
TT obtained data from the World Health Organization and is responsible for the concept and design of the study. TT and SS participated in the interpretation of data, analysis, and drafting the manuscript. GM participated in the interpretation of data and drafting the manuscript. AG, AC, EB, and LPB assisted with reviewing and revising the final manuscript. All authors approved the manuscript as submitted and take full responsibility for the manuscript.
Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
ProAR - Núcleo de ExcelênciaemAsma, Faculdade de Medicina da Bahia, UFBA, Salvador, Brazil
Laval University, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1X8, Canada
To T, Wang C, Guan J, McLimont S, Gershon AS: What is the lifetime risk of physician-diagnosed asthma in Ontario, Canada?. Am J RespirCrit Care Med. 2010, 181: 337-343. 10.1164/rccm.200907-1035OC.View ArticleGoogle Scholar
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Variations in the prevalence of respiratory symptoms, self-reported asthma attacks, and use of asthma medication in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS). EurRespir J. 1996, 9: 687-695.Google Scholar
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BedirhanÜstün T, Chatterji S, Mechbal A, Murray C, WHS Collaborating Groups: The World Health Surveys. Health systems performance assessment: debates, methods and empiricism. In Health systems performance assessment: debates, methods and empiricism. Edited by: Murray C, Evans D. 2003, Geneva: World Health Organization, 797-808.Google Scholar
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Citations: 391 more information
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Todd's picks are red hot in basketball winning in 12 of the last 14 weeks and have hit over 70% in College hoops.
Buy Tonight's Picks
Todd is a lifelong football fan (to say the least, you should see his house – it’s awash in more football memorabilia than you could shake a stick at) and has been betting football since 1997 when he was laid off of his job as a network systems administrator with a major financial firm – when his job was outsourced. Todd then tore after his dream of being a professional sports bettor and supporting his wife and 3 children through his earnings. Todd learned the hard way – he had no choice but to find a way to win or his family would pay the ultimate price (being a proud man, he refused to have that happen). He became a student of the trade, studying every trend, stat, and analysis he could get his hands on – looking for any advantages he could uncover. He even tried a few sports handicapping services. He soon found that he did much better on his own, but the time tied up in pursuit of winning was demanding as he worked at it almost 14 hours a day. But, with time and trial comes experience – and he soon began to recognize in all that data, what it takes to make really sharp plays.
Todd is a machine when it comes to devouring sports information and can recall the smallest fact of games played decades ago. It's almost scary. But that kind of recall is invaluable when it comes down to facts to be considered in sports wagering. Todd is probably our most seasoned handicapper, and amazingly enough, Todd came to us - even though we were aware of him, he was otherwise tied up with another firm where he was one of their top level handicappers. Out of the blue one day Todd decided to make a move to BOC sports where we welcomed him immediately. He remains an integral part of the BOC team, still picking the games that no one sees coming.
Todd Emmett's picks for NBA and College Basketball. Investors can purchase a single day, week, month or season of picks.
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Four more games coming to the Xbox Game Pass
Chris Sutton June 19, 2019 No Comments
Microsoft has announced that four more games will be added to the Xbox Game Pass before the end of June, and one of them is exclusive to PC.
On Thursday 20th June, both Resident Evil: Revelations and Rare Replay will be added to the Xbox Game Pass for console players only. Resident Evil: Revelations is a survival-horror game that was originally released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2012, but HD remakes eventually released for the last generation of consoles in 2013 and the current generation of consoles in 2017. Rare Replay is decidedly less scary, compiling together 30 of Rare’s best titles into one package, including the likes of Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll, Battletoads, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark, Banjo Tooie, and Conker’s Bad Fur Day. The compilation released as an Xbox One exclusive in August 2015 to great reviews, and it’s an absolute must-play for those who didn’t experience some of Rare’s classic titles, particularly those from the Nintendo 64 era.
On Thursday 27th June, Torment: Tides of Numenera and Goat Simulator will be added to the Game Pass. Torment: Tides of Numenera, the well-received RPG from 2017, has the privilege of being the first game that is being added exclusively to the Xbox Game Pass for PC, as it won’t be playable by Game Pass subscribers on console. Goat Simulator, meanwhile, will be available to play on both Game Pass for PC and Game Pass for Console. Goat Simulator is absolutely ridiculous and isn’t particularly well made, but it is a decent laugh if you’re at a loose end and fancy taking on the role of a goat and smashing things up.
As well as these new additions there are also a number of games leaving the Xbox Game Pass on the console side of things. Next Up Hero will go on Thursday 27th June, while a further five titles will leave on Sunday 30th June. Namely, these titles are Dead Island Definitive Edition, Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition, Shadow Complex Remastered, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, and Zombie Army Trilogy.
Don’t forget that you can subscribe to the newly-launched Xbox Game Pass Ultimate—which will give you access to both Game Pass for Console and Game Pass for PC as well as an Xbox Live Gold Subscription—for just £10.99 a month, and new subscribers can get their first month for just £1. Of course, if you don’t want Ultimate then you can still subscribe to the standard Xbox Game Pass for Console or Xbox Game Pass for PC.
New titles coming to Xbox Game Pass in October
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, What Remains of Edith Finch and more joining the Xbox Game Pass before the end of March
No Man’s Sky (Post NEXT)
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Current and Future Salt Reduction Techniques
Sponsored by: Food and Drink Federation
Date: 22 January
Food and Drink Federation presentation on technological and ingredient solutions for reducing salt
Salt reduction in food continues to be a priority for food manufacturers. However, following years of gradual reductions in salt levels, the industry is now reaching the limits of what can be done. For some foods it will be very difficult to achieve further reductions with the techniques currently available. This means that new solutions are vital in order for companies to meet some of the Responsibility Deal 2012 salt reduction targets.
This webinar will present the findings from independent research by Leatherhead Food Research, commissioned by the Food and Drink Federation and the British Retail Consortium, which aimed to help companies identify possible solutions to this problem. The research was published in July and showed that a number of potential future methods do exist to reduce the salt content of foods.
The webinar will also describe some of the key techniques currently available for reducing salt in products. These approaches have been used successfully by some of the UK’s best-loved brands and supermarkets and will be helpful to those companies that have recently decided to reduce salt in their products.
Register now if your company is starting out on, or reaching the limits of, a salt reduction programme and is keen to learn about the possible solutions for salt reduction both now and in the future.
BARBARA GALLANI,
DIRECTOR, FOOD SAFETY, SCIENCE AND HEALTH
Barbara Gallani, as Director of Food Safety and Science of the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), is responsible for the development, implementation and promotion of FDF's policy with respect to scientific, technical and regulatory issues. This involves the evaluation of UK, European and international policies and legislation on: residues and contaminants, food contact materials, novel ingredients and technologies, incident management and prevention, food labelling and nutrition.
Before joining the FDF in 2008 Barbara worked as Food Policy Executive at the British Retail Consortium and in Brussels as Food Policy Advisor at the European Consumers Organisation (BEUC).
Barbara is a Fellow of the Institute of Food Science and Technology and represents FDF on a number of national and international committees and steering groups.
The Food and Drink Federation is the voice of the UK food and drink industry, the largest manufacturing sector in the country. FDF's membership comprises manufacturers of all sizes as well as trade associations and groups dealing with specific sectors of the industry.
Understanding of UK RD targets for salt
Awareness of current successful options for salt reduction
Analysis of possible future solutions to further reduce salt
Understanding of regulatory constraints linked to reformulation
Technical or Regulatory Affairs
Company Nutritionists
Product Technologists
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Global Health Studies Minor
A Global Health Studies minor alum during her Fulbright Research Award to India
The minor in global health studies requires a minimum of 15 s.h. of approved coursework, including 12 s.h. in courses numbered 3000 or above taken at the University of Iowa. A maximum of 6 s.h. of coursework used to satisfy another major, minor or certificate may be applied toward the minor. A maximum of 3 s.h. of GHS:4990 Independent Project in GH may be used in the GHS minor.
Students must maintain a grade point average of at least 2.00 in all courses for the minor and in all UI courses for the minor. Course work in the minor may not be taken pass/nonpass. Students may earn either the certificate or the minor in global health studies, but not both. Undergraduates who earn the minor in global health studies may not earn the major in global health studies.
The minor is interdisciplinary, designed for undergraduates who wish to study the complex factors influencing health and disease locally and around the world. Students are advised to choose courses from at least two different disciplines. Students are strongly encouraged to include at least one of the courses required for the Certificate in Global Health Studies in their plan of study for the minor. The program highly recommends that students complete a period of study abroad focused on global health issues.
Students may petition to take courses not on the approved list, providing these courses can be shown to include substantial material related to global health. To petition for a course to be included in the minor, students should submit an online course petition form, and email a syllabus for the course to globalhealthstudies@uiowa.edu.
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Site Review Policy
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January 19, 2009 Johanna Manga News 2 comments
Best Manga of 2008
For the purpose of this post, I’m using a highly idiosyncratic definition of “best”, based mostly on what I looked forward to and enjoyed re-reading. And if some sources can publish “Best of 2008” lists in early November, I figure as long as mine’s out by the end of January, I’m good.
I have a few subcategories, under which I’ve ranked a maximum of five titles, with #1 being best. Links take you to my reviews.
Best Completed Manga
These titles ended this year, and I’ll miss them.
Tramps Like Us, the wonderful josei, concluded in February.
Emma got her happy ending in March in this Victorian maid’s romance.
The thrilling Naoki Urasawa’s Monster ended in December, although we’re still talking about what the conclusion meant.
The Kindaichi Case Files series was truncated early with volume 17, The Undying Butterflies, in May, due to publisher problems.
I had expected to include ES (Eternal Sabbath) (ended in March) on this list, but I found the conclusion so out of keeping with the rest of the series that it didn’t make the cut.
Best Continuing Manga
Nana, easily. Brilliant stuff, with books 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 out this year.
Aria — Although Tokyopop began publishing it this year, I couldn’t in good conscience put it under Debut, because ADV put out three volumes back in 2004. However, Tokyopop did continue the series beyond where ADV left off, releasing a new book 4. It’s simply lovely to look at.
Love*Com is goofy romantic comedy, very good at what it does and always enjoyable.
Parasyte‘s alien body horror overcame my dislike of scary stuff due to its skill and depth.
Hikaru no Go — It’s easy to take consistently good, long-running series for granted, distracted by shiny new stories, but this competition manga stayed at the top of its game.
Plus, a quick shout-out to my favorite guilty pleasure, Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs, just because no one else ever mentions it.
Best New Manga
Black Jack — Demented. Excellent. Viscerally imaginative.
High School Debut is very very good at what it does, and by turning the usual characterizations on their heads (the girl is sporty and doesn’t understand relationships; the boy does although he’s been hurt in the past), it stays fresh and funny. It also comes out quickly, with six volumes this year, one every couple of months, which helps in building and keeping interest.
Sand Chronicles steps beyond the usual high school romance with realistic tough choices.
Papillon only started in October, but I loved its twist on Cinderella twins, and with the author’s track record on Peach Girl, I have confidence it will continue well.
Solanin, a single-volume telling of how a group of young adult friends make key life decisions.
Most Disappointing
Aurora’s josei and ladies’ comics. While Walkin’ Butterfly started acceptably storywise, there were printing and binding problems with the book (the spine was too tight, mostly). As the series continued, the physical problems were corrected, only for the story to become tiresome. The promised conclusion in book 4 keeps getting put off and now has no definite publication date. The Luv Luv line of sexy comics for adult women, meanwhile, delivered plenty of sex wrapped in plenty of cliches and sometimes disturbing ideas of how women should behave. It was adult only in the number of naked body parts shown.
Beauty Pop — From great beauty competitions with original characters to boringly standard romance. Dropped.
The Reformed — Who would have guessed that prolific how-to-draw-manga artist Christopher Hart’s original manga would be so horrible?
Manga Sutra — From creative sex education to stereotype in only three books. This series had potential to be something different, a sexy yet informative story for adults, but instead went for repetitious plotlines that didn’t address the conflicts the author raised, settling instead for overly familiar characters and situations.
Honey and Clover, for not living up to all of its praise. That’s not the fault of the series — it’s a fairly good story with characters that I’d really like if some of them weren’t so aggressively wacky — but I feel bad for not liking it as much as I feel I’m supposed to.
For comparison, here’s last year’s list. Please note that I have a couple more Best of 2008 posts, one for graphic novels and one overall, still to come.
Pingback: Best Manga of 2009 – Comics Worth Reading
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Sleepless Volume 2
Is There a Need for Vertigo These Days?
Kate Leth Celebrates an Important Anniversary
Viz Parent Goes After Another Type of Manga Piracy
Is Goldie Vance Done?
The Avant-Guards
Invisible Kingdom
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Hope and Health in ‘Larger Contexts’: Hans Mol, Jürgen Moltmann, and Viktor Frankl on Self-Transcendence
Project for Spirituality, Theology and Health
Anglican Health Network
Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust
Center for Spirituality, Theology & Health, Duke University
Centre for Death and Life Studies
Marylebone Healing & Counselling Centre
Royal College of Psychiatrists Special Interest Group in Spirituality & Psychiatry
Spirituality in Mental Health North East
Spirituality, Theology & Health seminars at Durham University
Department of Theology & Religion
News Current
News Past
Seminars Current
Seminars Past
Monday, 22nd April 2019Seminar Thursday 9 May 2019:
This seminar took place on Thursday 9 May 2019, 4.30-6pm in Seminar Room C
(D/TH107, Dept. of Theology & Religion, Abbey House, DH1 3RS, Durham).
Dr Adam Powell, Junior Research Fellow, Department of Theology & Religion, Durham University
This paper is a cross-disciplinary look at the wartime experiences and subsequent theories of the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, the theologian Jürgen Moltmann, and the sociologist Hans Mol. Each of these influential figures experienced imprisonment during the Second World War, and each went on to develop discipline-specific ideas about meaning-making, hope, and identity, respectively. Although their theories were distinct, and indeed aimed at different audiences, they overlapped in suggesting that the sources of human hope and meaningful identity came from beyond the self. These sources may include, for example, the love of/from another person or the objectified rituals and beliefs of a particular religion. Either way, for these three thinkers, the motivation to survive and the potential to flourish were not found in personal narrative but in something more transcendent. This cut against much western philosophy built on the sovereignty of the individual. What is more, this paper seeks to show that this similarity came, in part, from their first-hand encounters with the atrocities of war – devastating the individual both physically and psychologically. After drawing out the possible connections between their experiences and their academic contributions, the paper concludes with suggestions about what this may offer more contemporary discussions of human well-being within the medical humanities, psychiatry, et cetera which increasingly emphasise the mental and physical value of individual narrative construction.
Adam Powell is a junior research fellow in the Department of Theology & Religion of Durham University and a recipient of Durham’s International Fellowships for Research and Enterprise. As a member of the interdisciplinary project, Hearing the Voice, he researches religious experiences (supernatural voices and visions) among both 19th-century Mormons and 21st-century Spiritualists. He is the author of Hans Mol and the Sociology of Religion (Routledge, 2017) and Irenaeus, Joseph Smith, and God-Making Heresy (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2015) and co-editor of Sacred Selves, Sacred Settings (Ashgate, 2015).
Department of Theology & Religion© 2019, Project for Spirituality, Theology & Health
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Boom California
We aim to create a lively conversation about the vital social, cultural, and political issues of our times, in California and the world beyond.
NextSeeing Through Murals: The Future of Latino San Francisco
A Boom Interview with California’s Poet Laureate
Boom California on March 14, 2017
Dana Gioia
Editor’s note: Having served as chair of the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 to 2009, Dana Gioia has long been known for his provocative essays, for his work in literary criticism, and especially for his poetry and advocacy of the craft. A native Californian born to Sicilian and Mexican immigrant parents in 1950 and raised in the southwest Los Angeles County industrial town of Hawthorne, as a first-generation college student, Gioia earned his BA from Stanford, MA in comparative literature from Harvard, and MBA back at Stanford, leading him into the business world decades before becoming a full-time writer.
With a seemingly ever-growing emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education in contemporary K-12 learning and in universities, a natural tendency has been to dismiss the arts and humanities as less important. This is as true in California as anywhere. And yet, as big questions remain and loom ever larger for California and its people, so does the importance of the arts and humanities for learning, for critical thinking, and for engagement with wider societal concerns. Consistent with California’s rich literary tradition, Gioia has contributed in many ways, with California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Heyday), The Misread City (Red Hen), his essay “Fallen Western Star,” and in poems from his many collections including Pity the Beautiful (Graywolf) and 99 Poems (Graywolf). Together with his essays, Gioia takes up the task of the poet, for whom California reserves a special place.
While the title of State Poet Laureate has been held by California poets for over a century, the position became official in 2001 and is overseen by the California Arts Council, which conducts an intense nomination process, after which the governor chooses the poet laureate from three top candidates; then the appointee must be confirmed by the California State Senate. On 4 December 2015, Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. appointed Dana Gioia to this role. What follows is Gioia’s accounting of his work as California Poet Laureate, originally delivered to the California Senate Rules Committee and here revised with new questions for our Boom readers.
Boom:
You are California’s tenth poet laureate, serving a two-year governor-appointment. California has changed a lot over the years, as has the dynamic makeup of our state. What do you hope to accomplish in this role?
Gioia:
My goal as state poet laureate is to bring the power of poetry and literature to as many people and communities as possible across California. I especially want to reach people and places outside the major metropolitan areas. The state poet laureate should serve the whole state. For that reason, I have set the goal of visiting every county in California. Reaching all fifty-eight counties in two years perhaps may be too ambitious, but it seems the right target. With proper planning and the active partnership of county libraries and art councils, that goal should be achievable. I will give it my best effort.
What are your plans to reach diverse regions and people in the state?
I want to reach all California. Our state is so large and varied that one needs to be systematic in covering the vast territory and meeting the diverse populations. That is why I have chosen the approach of trying to visit as many counties as possible. Of course, it will also be necessary to do multiple events in the metropolitan areas to reach different audiences. This second goal is easier since so many invitations come from urban areas. The key is to focus on invitations that reach different communities.
Why is poetry significant, and why does it matter in today’s society?
Poetry is our most concise, expressive, and memorable way of using words to describe our existence. Poems awaken the imagination and memory to make us more alert to life. On both an individual and communal level, poems provide the language, ideas, and images to help us understand ourselves, our society, and the world. That is why poems are so often used to great effect at public occasions. They give people the words to articulate what they experience and feel. That is also why poetry has always been used in education. It not only develops a student’s mastery of language; it also enhances creativity, empathy, and emotional self-awareness.
One of the functions of the California Poet Laureate, as with the United States Poet Laureate, is to create a cultural project during the appointment. Could you briefly describe your cultural project? How has it come to and involved artistically underserved communities?
My project has been to participate in at least one cultural event in every county in California—with a focus on creating a free event at each county’s public library. This approach is necessarily simple and flexible, then, and the events are either primarily literary or combine several arts, including poetry. In both cases, I have and will continue to involve local students, writers, musicians, and artists in each visit. I have already had local Poetry Out Loud high school champions participate in my public presentations and will continue to do so. By trying to visit every county, my public service, by definition, focuses on underserved communities.
You teach in the university, but how does poetry become accessible rather than a mere academic pursuit for cultural elites?
I have spent most of my working life outside the university—in business, government, and journalism. I believe the pleasures and enlightenment of poetry are open to most people, not simply to an academic elite. Although I take myself seriously as an artist, I don’t see much point writing in ways that exclude the average intelligent person. Art without an audience is a diminished thing. This is one reason why I have been and plan to continue working with local civic institutions, especially libraries and art centers—local venues that are open to everyone. They are the best avenues to reach a broad and diverse audience. Mixing poetry with music and the other arts also makes events more accessible to the average person.
How do you see poetry connecting to the minds of individuals in leadership and innovation throughout California, in both public and private sectors?
I have been and will continue to be open to invitations to meet and speak with leaders in both the public and private sectors. I have both held and have scheduled several talks at statewide or regional gatherings for librarians and high school teachers, with one for county officials. I also believe that our state finals for Poetry Out Loud in the Capitol building allows our elected representatives a chance to see the transformative power of poetry programs in the lives of students in their districts.
Do you plan to collaborate with your predecessor, Juan Felipe Herrera, now the US Poet Laureate, or the State Librarian of California Greg Lucas, or any other government group
It is impossible for me to be an effective state poet laureate unless I collaborate with arts councils, libraries, schools, parks, museums, and city book festivals. As chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, I learned how much could be accomplished through partnerships. I consider myself a member of the State Arts Council team, and I involve them in everything I do. I am currently working with Greg Lucas to find an effective way of partnering with county libraries to help reach my goals. His support is essential to my success. As for the US Poet Laureate, I have also already done two public events—in Sacramento and Los Angeles—with Juan Felipe Herrera and have an invitation out to him for a third event in partnership with State Parks.
Who among our California poets do you believe have had the greatest influence in California?
California has an extraordinary poetic tradition. When I led an editorial team to create the anthology California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present, I found it challenging to limit our selections to only 100 poets. If I had to pick a central poet for the state, I would choose Robinson Jeffers. His vision of California’s landscape and wilderness has inspired three generations of writers, artists, and environmentalists. There has also been a great bohemian tradition with writers such as Kenneth Rexroth, William Everson, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Charles Bukowski. I also admire the great Theodor Geisel of San Diego, better known as Dr. Seuss. Among my favorite living California poets are Al Young, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Ron Koertge, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Kay Ryan. Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Award winner Ryan, who also served as US Poet Laureate, is probably my favorite living American poet. A master of ingenious, short poems that mix wisdom and surprise, she is California’s answer to Emily Dickinson.
Dana Gioia is the ex-chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and Poet Laureate of California. He received an MA in comparative literature from Harvard University and has published five full-length collections of poetry between 1986 and 2016.
Posted in: Interviews
Tagged in: Art, Education, Literature
Posted by Boom California
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A California Requiem
BOOM California is a publication of the University of California Press. We aim to create a lively conversation about the vital social, cultural, and political issues of our times, in California and the world beyond.
© 2018 University of California Regents
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Posts Tagged ‘Securities and Exchange Commission’
PUBLIC ADVERTISING OF “PRIVATE PLACEMENTS” – A BRAVE NEW (RISKY) WORLD
Posted in Securities, Uncategorized, tagged accredited investor, advertising private placement, broker-dealer, exemption, general solicitation, jobs act, private placement, Rule 506(c), SEC, Securities Act 1933, Securities and Exchange Commission on October 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »
According to the SEC, in 2012 companies raised $173 billion through direct private placements, and pooled funds raised $725 billion. These offerings were conducted without public advertising. After September 23, 2013 companies and hedge funds offering their securities in private placements can now advertise the offering to the public, so long as (1) all purchasers are “accredited investors” and (2) they take “reasonable steps” to verify that each purchaser is “accredited.” However, the new rules also increase the risk and likelihood of losing your private placement exemption, and should be used with caution.
The basic foundation of securities laws in the United States is that every offering and sale of a security must be either registered with the SEC and applicable state commissions, or qualify for an exemption from registration. The primary exemption from registration is §4(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 (“Securities Act”), which exempts “transactions by an issuer not involving any public offering.” In the decades after 1933, court rulings and SEC guidance added a confusing and formidable crazy-quilt of rules about what made a “private placement” under §4(2). To address this problem, in 1983 the SEC issued Regulation D; private placements that meet one of the three Reg D requirements are deemed exempt from registration, and thus Reg D provides issuers with a “safe harbor” so they know their private placement is exempt, instead of having to deal with the uncertainty of §4(2).
The details of Reg D offerings are beyond the scope of this article, but nearly all private placements by issuers are conducted under Rule 506 of Reg D, because there is no limit on the amount raised or the number of accredited investors (now known as Rule 506(b)). There are several specific requirements that must be met to comply with a Reg D exemption, and Form D must be filed with the SEC and the relevant state commissions – more on that later. But until now, it was a requirement of every Reg D private placement that it not involve any public offering.
That means no advertising, no Internet webpages about your offering, no hosted breakfast meetings at the retirement home about an “investment opportunity,” no facebook postings, no windshield flyers at the mall – until now.
The JOBS Act
Section 201(a) of The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, (the “JOBS Act”)(April 5, 2012) directed the SEC to issue rules allowing “general solicitation” in connection with a private placement. Earlier this year the SEC issued new Rule 506(c), which went into effect on September 23, 2013 and provides a new “safe harbor” exemption from registration for securities offerings marketed using general advertising if:
all investors are “accredited investors” at the time of investment, and
the issuer takes reasonable steps to verify that each purchaser is an accredited investor.
New Rule 506(c) under Regulation D allows issuers and their agents to advertise and offer to the public their securities, without having to register the offering or the securities under the Securities Act, if (1) all investors are “accredited investors” at the time of investment, (2) the issuer takes reasonable steps to verify that each purchaser is an accredited investor, and (3) they otherwise comply with Reg D. Note that the definition of “accredited investor” under Reg D has not changed, which means that an “accredited investor” includes persons that the issuer reasonably believes to be an accredited investor. Therefore, the issuer will not lose the exemption if an unaccredited investor sneaks in, so long as the issuer reasonably believed the investor was accredited.
Securities issued under new Rule 506(c) will still be “covered securities” under federal securities laws, and therefore preempt the “Blue Sky” laws of the 50-states; state registration will not be necessary, but the issuer must still file Form D with the SEC and the states where securities are sold. Form D has been amended, and the issuer must now check-the-box to state whether the offering is conducted under new Rule 506(c), or traditional Rule 506(b) with no public offering.
One of the key compliance requirements will be taking “reasonable steps to verify each purchaser is an accredited investor.” The SEC has provided guidance. First, the traditional method of requiring investors to “self-certify” that they are accredited by checking a box on their stock purchase agreement will not be acceptable for public offerings under new Rule 506(c). Second, rather than a “bright line” test, the SEC has adopted a “principals-based approach” to whether the issuer takes reasonable steps – a “common sense” test, depending on the facts of each offering. At one end of the spectrum, if the issuer sells its shares to JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, very little effort will be required to establish that the purchasers are “accredited,” it is readily confirmed in the public record. On the other end of the spectrum, verifying the accredited status of natural persons will require some effort (and record-keeping).
Natural persons may be accredited based on (1) income (alone or with spouse), or (2) their net worth. The SEC provided a few safe-harbor methods for satisfying that investors are “accredited,” which are not exclusive.
An issuer will be deemed to have satisfied the verification requirement for the income of a natural person by reviewing the investor’s IRS income forms for the two most recent years, such as Form W-2, Schedule K-1, Form 1099, and Form 1040. The issuer must also get a written representation from the investor that he expects to reach the required income level again in the current year. If the income requirement is based on joint income with the investor’s spouse, the IRS forms and representation must pertain to both the investor and spouse.
An issuer will be deemed to have satisfied the verification requirement for the net worth of a natural person by reviewing one or more of the investor’s bank statements, brokerage statements, securities account statements, certificates of deposit, tax assessments and appraisal reports for assets, and a consumer credit report for liabilities from one of Experian, Equifax, or Trans Union. The investor’s written representations described above are required.
Third-Party Verification
An issuer will be deemed to have satisfied the verification requirement by getting a written confirmation from the investor’s registered securities broker or investment adviser, CPA or licensed attorney.
Bad-Actor Disqualifications
Concurrent with issuing the new Rule 506(c), the SEC also issued the long awaited “Bad Actor” disqualification rules, disqualifying felons and other “bad actors” from participating in Rule 506 offerings. The issuer will lose its private placement exemption and be subject to rescission (discussed below) if the issuer, a director or officer, a 20% owner, a promoter, or a finder has had a “disqualifying event” such as a criminal conviction, a securities related injunction or restraining order, a banking regulator order, or any of a number of other disqualifying events. These will be discussed in more detail in a companion article.
The Big Risk – Claims for Rescission, Damages and Enforcement Action
The penalty for violating the registration or antifraud provisions of the securities laws is that, at a minimum, investors can rescind their purchase and receive a refund of their investment. Some states, such as Colorado, provide for attorney’s fees in these types of cases. Additionally, the state and federal regulatory agencies have enforcement rights and, in extreme and aggravated circumstances, may fine and enforce criminal penalties.
The federal antifraud provisions arise primarily from Section 10(b) and rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”), as well as the lesser known Section 12(2) of the Securities Act. States have similar or identical antifraud provisions in their “Blue Sky” laws. Failure to comply with these provisions can result in civil liabilities (i.e., money damages). The liability can be, and often is, personal as to corporate officers, directors, principal shareholders and promoters. These antifraud laws prohibit any person in connection with the purchase or sale of any security from misrepresenting or omitting a material fact or engaging in any act or practice that constitutes a “fraud” or deceit upon any other person. Fraud, for securities law purposes, is much broader than the average person thinks of “fraud”. It includes omissions in disclosure (sometimes even unintentional ones) rather than just deliberate misrepresentations. Therefore, regardless of whether you intend to defraud an investor, if you fail to disclose a material fact, you may be liable.
If an issuer loses its exemption, or, fails to disclose important facts or makes mistakes in disclosures, it is at risk for claims by investors seeking to get their money back, and the directors and officers who participated in the offering may be personally liable. None of the antifraud damages or rescission rights were removed by these new rules.
Risk #1 – Lose The Exemption, No Fall-Back Exemption
Lawyers commonly help their clients design and conduct private placements so that they comply with both old Rule 506 of Reg D (now Rule 506(b)), and §4(2) of the Securities Act. Rule 506 has a number of specific requirements that, if not met, will cause you to lose the exemption. For example, it is not uncommon for an issuer to restrict its offering to accredited investors, thereby decreasing its disclosure obligations, but then decided to let in Uncle John and Aunt Jane, who are not accredited. Since it hasn’t met the disclosure obligations for non-accredited investors required by Rule 506, the issuer has lost the benefit of that exemption. However, if the placement also complied with the §4(2) requirements, and Uncle John and Aunt Jane meet the “sophisticated investor” requirements of §4(2), the issuer has not lost its private placement exemption – the offering is still exempt.
But, if the offering includes general solicitation and advertising to the public under new Rule 506(c), there is no fallback exemption. Remember, the §4(2) registration exemption applies only to offerings “not involving any public offering,” and therefore will not be available as a fallback if you fail to meet the formal requirements of new Rule 506(c). A private placement with public advertising under new Rule 506(c) is all-or-nothing – you are on the trapeze without a net.
Risk #2 – Commit Securities “Fraud”
“Oops, we forgot to mention, that one guy is suing us about that one thing!”
“Did we tell the investors about that note coming due next year?”
Generally speaking, liability for securities fraud arises when the investor makes his investment decision. While there is no specific disclosure requirement under Rule 506 for offerings made only to accredited investors, without a disclosure document like a private placement memorandum or offering circular, the issuer will be in a tough spot if an investor claims securities fraud, which will be all the more difficult if the offering was advertised. First, a disgruntled investor could claim that he decided to invest based on the public advertising that he saw, before he even saw any investment documents – a risk that did not exist before. An issuer would have little evidence to defend that claim without a robust offering disclosure document with comprehensive risk factor disclosures, and a well-controlled investment acceptance procedure.
Second, securities “fraud” includes the failure to disclose a material fact, which is a fact that a reasonable investor would consider important to an investment decision. The courts have consistently held that generic or “blanket” risk disclosures, such as “this investment is risky and you could lose all your money,” are not sufficient to protect issuers from liability for securities fraud. Fact and risk disclosures must be well considered and specific to each issuer and each offering. In the author’s opinion, public advertising of private offerings will increase the already considerable tension between an issuer’s desire to make its stock attractive, and the lawyer’s desire to disclose all “bad facts” and potential risks. Absent the regulatory scheme of SEC review and comment for public offerings, and specific and very detailed disclosure rules, issuers making public offerings of private placements under new Rule 506(c) may “sales pitch” their stock, and pay the price for inaccurate and incomplete advertisements and solicitations at a later date.
Risk #3 – Lose the Broker-Dealer Exemption
In addition to the registration exemption, a private placement must also comply with the broker-dealer registration or exemption requirements of the Exchange Act. That is, securities may not be sold in the United States except by a person registered as a broker-dealer (or their agents), unless an exemption applies – the persons selling the securities must be registered or exempt. The “issuer exemption” is most commonly used for a private placement. The issuer exemption allows the directors and officers of a company to sell its securities without registering (1) so long as they do not sell more often than once every 12 months, (2) the selling persons are officers, directors, or full-time employees who perform substantial duties for the Company other than selling these securities, and (3) the selling persons are not paid compensation for their sales efforts – they can continue to receive their normal compensation, but no commissions or bonuses for selling the stock. Issuers must be mindful that these rules still apply, even with a publicly advertised private placement. If advertising an offering generates excessive calls and inquiries to the company, the company must be very careful that the persons taking the calls understand their roles and limitations in the context of the broker-dealer exemption, and don’t cause the issuer to lose its “issuer exemption.”
Risk #4 – Hedge Funds May Get Special Attention
In addition to the registration exemption and the broker-dealer exemption, private pooled investment funds, such as hedge funds, private equity funds and venture capital must, must be registered as an investment company under the Investment Company Act of 1940, unless an exemption applies. Most private funds rely on one of two exemptions from the 1940 Act, both of which are not available if they make a public offering of their securities. Because the new rules allowing general solicitation would be of no value to private funds if advertising caused them to lose their 1940 Act registration exemption, the SEC has determined that private funds can make public offerings under Rule 506(c) without losing their 1940 Act registration exemption. Specifically, the SEC ruled that since the JOBS Act provided that offers and sales under new Rule 506(c) shall not be deemed public offerings “under the Federal securities laws,” and the 1940 Act is a “Federal securities law,” then, offerings by private funds under Rule 506(c) shall not be deemed public offerings.
However, the SEC indicated it may be paying particular attention to advertising and disclosures by private funds. Investment advisers to private funds are subject to additional rules under the Advisers Act, and in its issuing release the SEC said “we intend to employ all of the broad authority Congress provided us ….. and direct it at adviser conduct” affecting investors in private funds. The SEC provided this pointed reminder: “Recently, for example, we have brought enforcement actions against private funds advisers and others for material misrepresentations to investors and prospective investors regarding fund performance, strategy, and investment, among other things.” It is probable that the SEC will be carefully scrutinizing advertising and sales materials of private funds for potential misrepresentations.
The Early Fallout
The SEC, and particularly state securities regulators, did not support allowing “public advertising of private placements” (and yes, that is a direct contradiction in terms – a fact not lost on the SEC). However, the JOBS Act required this rule-making, and it does not come without a cost. First, the SEC finally issued the “Bad Actor” rules, prohibiting persons with a relevant bad history from participating. That will be discussed in a different article. At the same time, the SEC issued new proposed rules regarding Form D and filing requirements. Until now, Form D has been a mere formality and an information gathering tool for the SEC. Failure to timely file Form D had little or no real consequences. The SEC is proposing to add real enforcement and penalties behind the Form D filing requirement, and to require issuers making public offerings under new Rule 506(c) to file their offering materials with the SEC. While these new Form D and reporting requirements are only proposed for comment at this time, and the final regulations remain to be seen, it is clear that the SEC intends to keep a close eye on issuers using advertising for their private placements. State securities commissions will be doing the same.
SEC Says Public Companies Can Use Facebook, Twitter for News, If Investors Informed
Posted in Governance, Securities, tagged 1934 Act, facebook, public company, Regulation FD, SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, Securities Exchange Act of 1934, selective disclosure, twitter on April 3, 2013| 2 Comments »
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that companies can use social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to make news announcement in compliance with Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure), if investors have previously been told which social media the company will be using, and who’s feed to monitor. Regulation FD requires companies to distribute important news in a manner designed to get that information out to the general public, so that all investors have the ability to get important news at the same time. Today the SEC confirmed that social media can meet that requirement, if certain conditions are met.
The SEC commenced an investigation last year after Netflix CEO Reed Hastings posted on his personal Facebook page on July 3, 2012 that Netflix’s monthly online viewing for June 2012 had exceeded one billion hours for the first time. Netflix did not report that information to investors through a press release or Form 8-K filing, and a Netflix press release later that day did not include the information. The announcement represented a nearly 50% increase in streaming hours from Netflix’s January 25, 2012 report, and was clearly important news to the market. Hastings and Netflix had not previously used Facebook to announce company metrics, and they had never told investors to watch Hastings’ personal Facebook page for Netflix news. Netflix’s stock price increased from $70.45 at the time of the post, to $81.72 at the close of the following trading day.
According to the SEC press release: “The SEC did not initiate an enforcement action or allege wrongdoing by Hastings or Netflix. Recognizing that there has been market uncertainty about the application of Regulation FD to social media, the SEC issued the report of investigation pursuant to Section 21(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.”
The SEC’s report of investigation, available here, confirms that Regulation FD applies to social media used by public companies the same way it applies to company websites. As a result, reporting issuers cannot use social media as the sole method to report material, non-public information, unless the issuer has previously notified investors and the public to look to a specific site, page or feed for that type of information. Failure to comply could constitute selective disclosure and a violation of Regulation FD.
In particular, the report of investigation notes that the personal social media site of an individual corporate officer would not ordinarily be assumed to be a method “reasonably designed to provide broad, non-exclusionary distribution of the information to the public” as required by Regulation FD, even if the officer is a business celebrity and has a large number of subscribers, friends or contacts. “Personal social media sites of individuals employed by a public company would not ordinarily be assumed to be channels through which the company would disclose material corporate information”, and may not be used for that purpose unless the public is given advance notice that the site may be used to distribute company information.
THE SEC OPENS ITS TOOLBOX: NON-PROSECUTION AND DEFERRED PROSECUTION AGREEMENTS
Posted in Securities, tagged deferred prosecution, McNulty Memorandum, non-prosecution agreement, Seaboard Report, SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, Thompson Memorandum on August 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Last year the SEC announced it was adopting new procedures to encourage greater cooperation in its enforcement investigations, including the use of cooperation agreements, non-prosecution agreements and deferred prosecution agreements. Non-prosecution agreements and deferred prosecution agreements are typically used in criminal proceedings to encourage cooperation by important witnesses and provide fair and specific treatment of cooperating witnesses. To understand their use by the SEC it is helpful to understand how these tools developed under federal practice.
The Department of Justice has used these agreements for years in corporate fraud cases. The infamous “Thompson Memorandum”, written by Larry Thompson of the DOJ in 2003 to help federal prosecutors decide whether to charge a company with criminal offenses, required that a company must
turn over materials from internal investigations,
waive attorney-client privilege, and
not provide targeted executives with company-paid lawyers,
before the company could claim credit for cooperating with the DOJ. In other words, a company might provide extensive cooperation to the DOJ, but would not get any credit for that cooperation unless it expressly gave up its rights and breached its indemnification contracts. Nearly every public company has indemnification agreements with its directors and officers, and indemnification is provided in the corporation statutes of Delaware, Colorado, and most other states. While eviscerating the constitutional rights to counsel and against self-incrimination, and the statutory right and contractual obligation to indemnification, the Thompson Memo also provided for the use of non-prosecution agreements for companies that waived their constitutional rights.
The Thompson Memorandum was replaced in December 2006 by the more reasonable “McNulty Memorandum”, which provided some relief from the most offensive portions of the Thompson Memorandum by requiring prosecutors to go through certain procedural requirements and obtain approval from senior supervisors before demanding a waiver of the attorney-client privilege.
The McNulty Memorandum was revised in 2008 (the “Filip Memo”) to prohibit the Department of Justice from coercing companies to breach their indemnification agreements with their directors and officers, to allow credit for cooperation to companies that do not waive the attorney-client privilege or do not disclose attorney-client work product, and to prohibit prosecutors from demanding attorney-client communications or attorney work product.
In contrast to the Department of Justice, the SEC does not have criminal enforcement powers, only civil enforcement powers, and must refer criminal cases to the Department of Justice. However, over the years the SEC has sought greater cooperation from companies and people under SEC civil investigation. For example, the SEC’s equivalent of the Thompson/McNulty/Filip Memorandums is the 2001 “Seaboard Report” describing the criteria it will consider in determining whether, or how much, credit it will give to companies who self-police, self-report, take corrective action or cooperate with the SEC. Never mind that the “Seaboard Report” is neither about “Seaboard” nor a “report”, it stated that cooperation can result in reduced charges, lighter sanctions or mitigating language in settlements.
Despite the SEC’s more reasonable approach to the rights of companies under investigation, the Seaboard Report, and the SEC’s approach to giving credit for cooperation, were vague, and often applied after-the-fact. In many cases, a company never really knows where it stands with the SEC, and whether it is actually receiving credit for cooperation, until after the investigation is complete. While the Justice Department’s rules were originally offensive, at least a defendant signing a non-prosecution or deferral agreement knows exactly what to do, and exactly what treatment it will receive in return for cooperation.
To encourage the type of cooperation the SEC wants, it needs to provide the same type of certainty and fairness to potential witnesses as the DOJ, and so last year the SEC adopted new procedures for rewarding cooperation.
The SEC entered its first non-prosecution agreement in December 2010 with Carter’s Inc. In the Carter’s case the EVP of Sales, Joe Elles, allegedly gave substantial discounts to the company’s largest customer and hid them from the company. Because the company didn’t know, it did not recognize the discounts until later reporting periods, which caused the company’s results for the quarters in which the discounts were given to be artificially inflated. The SEC brought an action against Elles, but entered into a non-prosecution agreement with Carter’s. The SEC identified the following factors as relevant to its decision not to bring an action against Carter’s: (1) the “relatively isolated nature” of the unlawful conduct; (2) the company’s “prompt and complete” self-reporting of the misconduct to the SEC; and (3) the company’s “exemplary and extensive” cooperation in the inquiry, including a “thorough and comprehensive” internal investigation. The SEC did not require Carter’s to waive its attorney-client privilege.
The SEC recently announced its first use of a deferred prosecution agreement, with Tenaris S.A., a manufacturer of steel pipe products from Luxemburg, listed on the New York Stock Exchange. A world-wide internal investigation conducted by Tenaris’ outside counsel revealed Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations in Uzbekistan, where Tenaris allegedly bribed Uzbek officials and made $5 million in profits from pipeline contracts. The company self-reported to the SEC and the Department of Justice, cooperated with the government, and made extensive efforts at correcting the violations.
The SEC said that Tenaris was an appropriate candidate for the first deferred prosecution agreement because of its “immediate self-reporting, thorough internal investigation, full cooperation with SEC staff, enhanced anti-corruption procedures, and enhanced training.”
Under the deferred prosecution agreement, the SEC will not bring civil charges against Tenaris unless the SEC determines that the company has not complied with its obligations under the agreement. Although Tenaris shared the results of its internal investigation with the government, the agreement does not require it to waive the attorney-client privilege. Tenaris agreed to pay $5.4 million in disgorgement and interest.
By eliminating the Hobson’s choice of either cooperating and not knowing what will happen, or not cooperating and not knowing what will happen, the certainty provided by deferment and non-prosecution agreements will allow lawyers to better advise their clients on the consequences of self-reporting and corrective actions, and should make it easier for the SEC to secure cooperation from companies and individuals on a fair and reasonable basis.
Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Changes Definition of “Accredited Investor”
Posted in Dodd-Frank Financial Reform, Securities, tagged accredited investor, Dodd-Frank, financial reform, private placement, Reg D, Regulation D, SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission on September 22, 2010| 1 Comment »
This is the first in a series that will analyze important changes to capital markets and corporate finance laws, enacted by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
Most U.S. based companies seeking to raise money from investors do so through a “private placement” authorized under Regulation D of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Reg D provides several exemptions from SEC registration of a securities offering, the most popular of which (Rule 506) allows unlimited investment and participation by “accredited investors”. If the offering includes non-accredited investors, the issuer must meet required disclosure obligations by providing information of the same kind that would be provided in a registration statement for a public offering. If only accredited investors participate in the offering, there are no specific disclosure requirements mandated by Reg D (although thorough disclosure is still recommended as a risk management practice). Therefore, many issuers chose to limit their offerings only to “accredited investors”.
With the enactment of Dodd-Frank, effective July 21, 2010, and for at least the next four years, the definition of “accredited investor” has changed. The net worth part of the accredited investor test, which specifies that a natural person is an accredited investor if his or her net worth is at least $1 million, now excludes the value of that person’s primary residence. Before July 21, the net worth test included the investor’s primary residence.
There was no transition period or future effective date, so that issuers conducting private placements on July 21, 2010 had to amend and re-document their private placements in process to comply with the change. Fortunately, the other portions of the accredited investor definition, including the net income tests for natural persons, remain unchanged for now.
The Comptroller General is required to study the appropriate criteria for accredited investor status and report back to Congress within three years. On July 20, 2014 and every four years thereafter the SEC must review the definition of accredited investor as it applies to natural persons and make adjustments in the rules if appropriate.
The Race to the Bottom has a discussion of the history of the definition of accredited investor, as well as some thoughts about the SEC’s role in developing the standards in the past and the future.
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Here's why Virat Kohli is not keen on endorsing Pepsi anymore
Kohli has reservations about directly endorsing a cola, given the increasing health worries over sugary drinks
Indian cricket captain and the country's highest paid celebrity Virat Kohli may be on the verge of making big changes to his brand endorsement deal with Pepsi over concerns that colas don’t chime with his desire to champion fitness.
A PepsiCo spokesperson said: "Discussions are still on with Virat and his team."
Kohli has reservations about directly endorsing a cola, given the increasing health worries over sugary drinks, said an executive with knowledge of the development.
"He may choose to associate with another brand from within the company's portfolio," this official said. Former cricketer Sachin Tendular, for example, has signed a partnership deal with PepsiCo for its Quaker oats brand. Kohli's endorsement deal with PepsiCo has been up for renewal for over a month now, having ended on April 30. The company is keen on a contract extension considering Kohli's celebrity status. He has been associated with directly with brand Pepsi for at least six years now.
Kohli, 28, made his views on fitness clear in a recent interview to CNN-IBN.
"When I started my fitness turnaround, it was more of a lifestyle thing initially. If something goes away from that, I would not want to be a part of that or be promoting that," he said. "We are actually on the cusp of making some big changes on that front. Things that I've endorsed in the past, I won't take names, but something that I feel that I don't connect to anymore. If I myself won't consume such things, I won't urge others to consume it just because I'm getting money out of it."
Currently in England for the ICC Champions Trophy, Kohli endorses 18 brands, with the ones related to food and beverages being Pepsi, Herbalife nutritional supplements and Boost. Other endorsements include MRF tyres, Tissot watches, Puma sports gear, Colgate oral care, Audi cars and Samsonite luggage, among others. Besides endorsements, the fitness advocate has direct investments in a chain of gyms called Chisel, tech startup Sports Convo, Wrogn fashion and has also partnered with Nazara Technologies for online cricket games.
There was no response to an email sent to Cornerstone, the talent management firm that represents Kohli.
The Rs 22,000-crore soft drinks industry has been under increasing scrutiny by both governments and health lobbyists. The sector has been facing low single-digit growth in the past five-six quarters, owing to consumer preferences moving to low-sugar beverages, reduced spending on discretionary products and local brands selling at least 15-30% cheaper.
PepsiCo recently introduced Pepsi Black, a zero-sugar cola in cans. With an estimated brand valuation of $120 million plus, Kohli has surpassed former colleagues such as Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni.
Sachin Tendular
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Shakespeare’s Globe announce casting for Oliver Chris’s Ralegh The Treason Trial
Douglas Mayo 31st October 2018 31st October 2018 News, Off West End
Shakespeare’s Globe is delighted to announce the full cast of Ralegh: The Treason Trial, compiled, edited, dramatized and directed by Oliver Chris.
A verbatim account of what played out on that extraordinary November morning in 1603, the production has been compiled and edited from sources present at the trial itself. It will premiere in Winchester Great Hall from Friday 16 November, the location of the original trial 415 years ago, before opening in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on Saturday 24 November for a limited one week run.
Simon Paisley Day is Ralegh. Simon returns to the Globe having appeared as Petruchio in Toby Frow’s 2012 production of The Taming of the Shrew, and in the titular role in Lucy Bailey’s Timon of Athens in 2008. Simon’s other stage credits include Urinetown (West End), The Low Road (Royal Court) and Twelfth Night (National Theatre). Screen credits include The Musketeers (BBC), Titanic (ITV) and Madame Bovary.
Nathalie Armin is Cooke. Nathalie’s previous theatre work includes Machinal (Almeida), Limehouse (Donmar Warehouse) and Another World: Losing Our Children to Islamic State(National Theatre). Television includes Home (Channel 4) and Marcella (ITV).
Fiona Hampton is Heale. Fiona returns to the Globe after appearing in this year’s Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank production of Much Ado About Nothing. Her other theatre credits include Touching the Void (Bristol Old Vic), Winter Hill (Octagon Theatre) and Tamburlaine (Arcola/UK Tour). Television includes The Collection (Amazon Prime/BBC).
Pooky Quesnel is Popham. Pooky’s theatre work includes The Suicide (National Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (Royal Exchange) and Sitting Pretty (Watford Theatre). Television includes The A Word, W1A and Class (BBC).
Simon Startin is Cecil. Simon’s theatre credits include The Government Inspector(Birmingham Rep) and Islands (Bush Theatre). Television includes The Musketeers, Mapp and Lucia and Tag (BBC).
Tim Steed is Howard. Tim’s theatre credits include Ink (Almeida/West End), Crossing Play(Royal Court), The Crucible (Royal Exchange) and 80 Days Around The World (St James Theatre). Screen credits include Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Crown (Netflix), The Current War and The Death of Stalin.
Jay Varsani is Dyer. Jay graduated from East 15 earlier this year. Previous theatre credits include Memoirs of an Asian Football Casual (Leicester Curve), The Pillow Man, Hamlet, Wild Honey and All My Sons (East 15). Films include Gloves Off and Golden Years.
Amanda Wright is the Clerk. Amanda’s theatre credits include Meek (Headlong), Go Noah Go (Little Angel Theatre) and The Government Inspector (Birmingham Rep). Television includes Marley’s Ghost (BBC) and Coronation Street (ITV).
Oliver Chris is an actor, writer and director best-known in the theatre for his roles in One Man, Two Guvnors (National Theatre, West End, Broadway), King Charles III (Almeida, West End, Broadway), and Twelfth Night (National Theatre).
Full cast includes: Nathalie Armin, Fiona Hampton, Simon Paisley Day, Pooky Quesnel, Simon Startin, Tim Steed, Jay Varsani and Amanda Wright.
Ralegh: The Treason Trial is compiled, edited and dramatised by Oliver Chris, directed by Oliver Chris, and designed by Jessica Worrall. The production plays at The Great Hall in Winchester from 15 – 18 November and the Sam Wanamker Playhouse from 24 – 30 November 2018.
BOOK NOW FOR RALEGH: THE TREASON TRIAL
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trendsetting research initiatives & signature publications
Researching a favorite cause? Three tips--and one star. (The star is you.)
More than 90% of American households give to charity each year. Chances are, you are doing it yourself at least two or three times a year. But how do you know the charity you choose is a good one? That's a good question. And the answer is, you can check out a charity the hard way, or the easy way.
What's the hard way? Lots of research. Visit national online resources, such as Charity Navigator and GuideStar, to see how the charity you are choosing stacks up on its financials, governance, and measuring the impact of its programs. It's fairly common for donors to want to know the percentage of an organization's budget going to fundraising, for example. Donors also want to know who's on the board of directors--who are the people making sure the charity fulfills its mission in a financially sound manner?
There's certainly nothing wrong with this level of research.
But there is an easier way. Next time you check out a charity, try these three easy steps, and you'll validate your decision every bit as much as if you were to research the cause extensively.
First, check out the charity's website. Does it make sense? Does it look well organized? Can you find the information you're looking for in five minutes or less? Go with your instincts here. You'll be able to get an excellent feel for the way an organization is run, just by looking at how it presents itself online.
Second, see how quickly you can identify the actual people that the charity helps. Not names, of course, but the group of people who are benefiting directly from the charity's activities. So, for example, at a children's hospital, you will want to know that children are being well cared for. If it's a homeless shelter you're supporting, scan the website quickly to look for stories and information about specific activities the charity is doing to help those in need, beyond broad generalizations.
Finally, and most importantly, ask yourself if you truly love this cause. If it feels good to support a cause, that counts for a lot. Giving works best when it's self-defined, and that means defined by you. The results of your giving will be that much better if you support the causes you love, in the ways you choose to support them. Sure, every once in a while, it's okay to support a friend's cause because you care about that friend, but try to stick with your own personal favorite causes as much as you can. Doing good should feel great--to you.
Emerging research shows that lives can be improved by tapping the power of doing good for others and making yourself better at the same time. It works in simple ways that are easy for busy people to apply in their day-to-day lives. Starting with being human. That’s all it takes to make life better for everyone, including yourself.
Being human includes you.
Most of the time we think about charitable giving from the point of view of the charities and the people who are helped with the donations.
But what about the point of view of the people writing the checks?
Research shows that families who add charitable giving into their plans report feeling they have "better lives" than those whose plans don't include charitable giving.
People who give are more cheerful. They have nicer things to say about their children and their friends. They are healthier. They smile more, too.
Giving and grinning. They're related.
"Are those tomatoes?" My middle daughter was studying the colors and shapes on the platter. Circles of yellow, orange, and red. And semicircles of white.
"Yep," I said. "Those are tomatoes from the farmer's market. Tomatoes grow in colors other than just red. Aren't they pretty?" I studied the platter, too. It really was pretty. "And the white half-circles are slices of mozzarella cheese. All organic," I added.
"What's it called?" she asked.
"I don't know yet," I answered. I thought I'd just create a salad, and then name it, when I could see what it looked like after it was done. "Right now," I said, "it's just called 'lunch.'"
Actually, I think it's called research. Even better.
"Our team loves to teach kids about charities. We host summer workshops for elementary children to learn about the joy of giving. We ask the kids to create their own games so that the lessons really sink in." That's what we heard from Mulberry South when we asked the company to describe its favorite way to do good--volunteering.
But what's with the photo? These are mancala game pieces, which are part of one of the "giving games" used in the workshops.
See? Doing good is rewarding. And fun.
The pink dress, or the blue dress? The ruffles or the sequins? Playing dress up is one of the best parts of being a little girl, learning to make choices between two good things.
Maybe playing dress up is a little bit like doing good. If you learn to make choices when you are young, you might just have that skill for life.
I think it is so important to underscore the ways we can do good. In my high school classroom, I see the kids that choose not to do good. It scares me and makes me sad. If we as parents can take time out to reinforce the idea early and often, we can help ensure our children will make the right choices when they get older.
That's according to Melinda, a mother of two girls, ages 7 and 9, and one boy, age 13. Well said!
Dressing up and doing good build positive habits. And that's not all they have in common. It feels good to dress up. And it feels good to do good, too.
What's in the color pink? A favorite book, called Pinkalicious. And rosy cheeks, warm with the glow of donating the book to a charity for children who don't have any books. And, of course, the frosting on top of the cupcakes, baked to celebrate the generosity cooked up in a kitchen by two little girls and their mother on a Sunday afternoon.
Pink is a beautiful color.
Mothers are really good at teaching their kids about the joy of giving. But don't take our word for it. Check out the research.
What do you call a cake for a 5 year old? Frozen. As in, the movie.
What else do you call a cake for a 5 year old? Impressive! As in, how did her mother get that frosting to look just like ice? And that snowman--so charming! And the numeral "5"--professional-grade decorating for sure!
What else do you call a cake for a 5 year old? Heart warming. As in, the birthday girl makes you melt.
Caroline, your cake is amazing! Happy Birthday, Camille!
"Why should 'doing good' be a good experience?" That is the question I asked my 13-year-old. "Because it is," she answered.
Hmm. Circular reasoning, but I think it actually works.
Giving to others also makes you feel more grateful for the good you already have in your own life. That's a little circular, too. And there's more. Research at the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California-Berkeley shows that grateful children are happier.
"So," I said to my daughter, "doing good feels good and makes you grateful, which makes you happier." "Right," she said.
I love conversations with my daughter. They just keep getting better and better.
Okay, this is a change of pace. Just for fun.
Ever wonder how good you really are?
Take the survey.
I guarantee you'll like the results.
Do you look forward to shopping for baby gifts? Maybe you get a little rush when you pick up a bouquet of flowers for a friend on the way to meet her for lunch. Or you seem to have more energy when you are raking leaves at a family gathering, volunteering at your children's school, or walking a 5K with your whole family to support children with genetic disabilities.
Or perhaps you feel cheerful as you wrap your kids' birthday presents or help them set up a lemonade stand to raise money for an animal shelter. And you get an extra spring in your step when you mail a donation to your favorite charity.
If things like this happen to you, you are not alone! In fact, research shows that you have every reason to feel good. Because doing good does feel good, scientifically speaking.
According to studies at the University of California, people categorized as “grateful” reported feeling 25 percent more happiness and energy—and 20 percent less envy and resentment—than ungrateful people. And a study released earlier this month tells us that "prosocial spending"--spending money to benefit others--shows positive signs of increasing happiness. Researchers at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and Harvard Business School recently found evidence that "how people spend their money" plays a role in happiness; specifically, those who "spend money on others report more happiness." It's true of adults around the world, and both physical and mental benefits are observed. The "warm glow of giving" can even be seen in toddlers!
What kind of giving boosts happiness the most? That, according to researchers, would be the categories of "doing good" that are most closely related to satisfying the basic human needs of "relatedness, competence, and autonomy." Donating to a charity of your choice, helping a neighbor, learning a few new recycling protocols, participating in a community event, purchasing a product that helps support a cause that has touched your family, serving on a committee to share your talent. It's all good, and good for you, too.
So, next time you need a mood booster (instead of reaching for that big slice of cake?), try doing a little good.
Source: Prosocial Spending and Happiness: Using Money to Benefit Others Pays Off, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Lara B. Aknin, Michael I. Norton Current Directions in Psychological Science, February 2014 vol. 23 no. 141-47.
Little girls are so enterprising! Especially when holidays roll around. “We’re selling Halloween candy,” my youngest daughters announced, glowing with enthusiasm. “And we are giving away stuffed animals to our customers.” Sure enough, they’d set up shop in the kitchen.
“Interesting business model,” I said. The comment went over their heads, I thought. Or did it? Not so long ago, Fidelity Charitable surveyed nearly 150 CEOs and founders of companies, including winners of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year® Award. Guess what? Nine out of 10 entrepreneurs donate money, both personally and through their companies, to support charitable causes, and 70 percent also donate their time. Plus, 61 percent said they believe being an entrepreneur makes them more inclined to give to charity.
Interesting, isn’t it? It kind of makes you hope your kids grow up and start something good. Or perhaps they already have.
The girls in our house love to count. All four of us. We count the minutes before bedtime. We count the sheets of stickers, divided three ways, to be sure the sticker distribution is equal. We count the number of layers we can add to a birthday cake without it falling over. And then we count the candles.
"Today," I said to the girls, "let's count the ways we do good." I didn't tell them this was actually work. Better to disguise it as fun, I said to myself. "I'll read a list of ways to do good," I explained. "And each time I say something we do in our family, put up one finger." The girls seemed to be tracking. "What if we run out of fingers," one of them wondered. Smart girl. "You won't," I said. "There are only 10 ways to do good." Actually, there are an infinite number of ways to do good. But they all fit into 10 categories. At least I think so. Whatever it is you like to do to do good, I figure the 10 ways pretty much cover it. Or close enough. And besides, it’s too hard to keep track of anything you can’t count on two hands. Especially when little girls are helping you add it all up.
How good are you? Try counting. Have your kids do it with you! Chances are, when you're done, you'll be holding up all ten fingers. Give your kids a high five for doing good. And then give yourself one, too. (That's called applause. And you deserve it.)
10 Ways to Do Good
Giving money to a charity of choice, directly or through a foundation, whether it’s tossing coins into a fountain or putting dollars in an envelope or writing checks or transferring shares of stock
Volunteering in the community or at your children’s school, which, of course, includes visiting homeless puppies
Recycling and respecting a sustainable environment, even if it means just turning off lights and recycling your Diet Coke cans
Serving on civic boards and committees, whether it’s the committee for the school fundraiser or the neighborhood association
Celebrating your favorite causes by supporting and attending community events, buying the occasional ticket to the charity event
Marketing with a focus on a charitable cause . . . maybe you’ve added your favorite causes to your Facebook page!
Purchasing products and services that include a charitable element
Donating inventory, or collecting necessities, such as canned goods or used clothing, to give to people in need
Sharing with others, like your relatives, neighbors, and fellow employees, including preparing a meal for a family in need
Caring for your own health, keeping your commitment to wellness and physical fitness, gratitude, self-worth and self-expression
When Retail Gets Real
This afternoon I had the opportunity to participate in a CF Insights webinar, "To Cast a Wide Net or Focus on the Core: Can Technology Change the Equation?" This is a terrific question for community foundations who are weighing their options for engaging donors in what we referred to in the webinar as "retail" philanthropy, which I'll define here as $25 to perhaps $100 online contributions. Can these donors who engage in regular giving at small levels--with donations in the $25 to $100 range and donated primarily online--be inspired, educated and encouraged to adopt a more strategic (and ultimately more rewarding) "investment" approach to philanthropy using a community foundation donor advised fund as a primary vehicle?
Stated more practically, how quickly can community foundations convert a retail donor to a bonafide, actively engaged, and committed donor advised fund account holder? Technology is quickly emerging as a solution. The name of the game is to engage the retail donor immediately in a meaningful online experience--ideally through a donor advised fund platform. And the key is to leverage the efficiencies created by today's technology to make the donor advised fund administration affordable, both for your foundation and for the donor.
During today's webinar, Becca Graves, CF Insights executive director, and Dana Nelson, executive director of giveMN.org, with my comments in the middle, kicked off and rounded out a conversation about the factors a community foundation might consider in evaluating options for offering a retail giving tool to its donors and even to the general public. As is the case with most lively discussions, time did not permit every question to be fully explored.
Here are a few additional observations, along with a handful of helpful resources, to round out the issues raised in the webinar.
How can you realize the potential of the "retail philanthropist" and encourage these donors to establish and expand their relationships with you, when they have so many choices of institutions and professionals to help administer their various giving vehicles? A helpful resource here is to better understand the range of tools available for online giving. I am particularly impressed with Dana's giveMN.org approach, as well as the perspectives offered by the Markets for Good initiative.
How can you grow your accounts and assets under management through a retail strategy without compromising the quality of the high-touch relationship-building culture that has been your institution’s hallmark? Consider focusing on the experience of the donor. A helpful educational resource on this topic is Four Key Elements of Donor Experience Management: Inspiring Loyalty Through Online Engagement made available through Crown Philanthropic Solutions.
How can you incorporate retail giving options and still drive growth without adding unnecessary expense and risk, across all geographies and demographics? A helpful article on the rural donor experience is useful to this conversation. Iowa State University recently released Philanthropy in Rural Farm Families through its extension and outreach program.
Certainly, your answers to these questions--and many other questions like them--are important. But the answers aren’t nearly as important as asking the questions in the first place.
Lean in.
I've been hearing that a lot lately. I like it! Most of it, at least. I think Sheryl Sandberg is exactly right about women's potential for leadership and what it takes to get ahead. And I admire her spirit and boldness in getting her ideas out there. Leaning in is one way to do it, no doubt about that!
But maybe there are other ways to do it. Once upon a time I leaned in at my job. And I loved my job. And I earned promotions. And I was grateful for every opportunity I encountered. And then, one day, a little over a year ago, I decided I was done. I had done everything I had set out to do. As hard as it was to admit, I'd run out of things at that job to lean in to.
I am not Sheryl Sandberg. I am not even remotely close, actually. The book I published isn't a bestseller, except among my family and a few good friends. And my company is not Facebook. (Obviously.)
But all of that is fine with me. I take my kids to school every morning, and most days I get to pick them up. And we do our office work together at the kitchen table, I with a laptop and an iPhone and the girls with their magic markers and iPads. And we eat a lot of cereal for dinner.
I am a mother of five girls--two stepdaughters and three daughters, one with special needs. I am 44 years old. And I am still a CEO. But I am no longer a CEO of a billion-dollar foundation. I am the CEO of my own company. The one I started when I made my move. Which wasn't to lean in to get ahead. Instead, my move to step up was to step out.
Every once in a while, something--or someone--really gets my attention. That happened a few months ago when I met Marion Mariathason. We were introduced by a mutual friend, Nick Franano, who met Marion on an airplane. They started talking about philanthropy. Which is always a terrific topic. At least I think so!
As these things go, one introduction led to another, and over the last few months I've had the pleasure of getting to know Marion and his team at a Denver-based company called So Rewarding. Marion started So Rewarding to make it easy for people to give through their every day activities. Right in their own neighborhoods, practially. And right down to some really fun wristbands to help generous people of all ages spread a little kindness. I love it!
Doing good, after all, should be fun. And what's more fun than philanthropy as a lifestyle? So Rewarding sure seems to have it so figured out.
Cereal, sustainability and the ocean in between
Sometimes the stars align around the most unusual ideas. Recently I posted a story about a cereal adventure in college. I love to write about experiences in doing good and generosity, especially when they inspire great ideas and self-discovery. Along those lines, I've been keeping in touch with Laura Wildman, president of Mom Corps Kansas City. Laura and her family are in Sydney, Australia, where Laura's husband is completing a special work assignment. Now that's an experience!
So, all of these things recently came together. Australia. The gift of cereal. And doing good by respecting a sustainable enviroment.
It started with an interesting update from Laura about what it means to go green, on the other side of the world. In a recent post, Laura writes
There are free filtered water stations across the city to reduce bottle water usage. Electricity is also used on demand so you have to turn on an outlet to use it (so the outlets are not always on) and many escalators don't move until stepped on. Electricity rates are five times higher during peak hours on weekdays from 2 - 8 p.m.
And there's more:
They make recycling very easy. We have four different colored bins for plastics, glass and yard waste and trash (the smallest of the four). They are picked up fortnightly (every 2 weeks) and trash is picked up weekly.
Then, shortly after I read Laura's post, I got an email from Stacey Frye, CFO at Cogent. Here's what Stacey had to say:
The Fryes were able to visit dear friends in Austraila this past Summer. They are there on a two-year temporary work assignment. In another 12 months, they will hopefully be home and living across the street from us again. We loaded up our suitcases with three of the jumbo-sized bags of Cap'n Crunch to cart halfway across the world for two of our favorite kids (ages 8 and 4) after hearing that they only found one store that carried Cap'n Crunch, and it cost $16 for a really small box. We made it through customs, declaring that yes we had food but it was really only a little bit of bagged and processed cereal. We even made it past the drug sniffing dogs that weren't too intrigued by the smell of Crunch Berries. Kids and Dad were thrilled, and Mom rationed out the Cap'n Crunch for a few weeks to keep everyone happy. Cereal stories. Gotta love them.
Believe me, I love them!
Doing good and how to have fun, for real
I read Matt Monge's recent post, "Chance Favors the Connected Mind," with great interest. "Creativity and innovation," he writes "are far more likely when people are connected." Well said! But does the quality of the connection make a difference? I believe it does.
Companies mean well when they bring employees together for brainstorming sessions, strategic planning retreats, team meetings, and even holiday parties and happy hours. But do events like that create meaningful experiences and connections? Perhaps. But sometimes the sense of connection seems forced. The meetings are intended to make connections, generate ideas, and foster innovation. The problem is, innovation usually requires a context beyond just innovation for innovation's sake. Otherwise it seems, well, fake.
Forced innovation is a lot like forced fun. "Okay, kids," I've often said to my children, "we are going to have fun. Let's go to a movie. Or go out for ice cream. Or make a cake. Something fun." More often than not, the declaration that an activity is supposed to be fun makes it turn out just the opposite. Which is not fun. On the other hand, the long afternoons baking cakes in the kitchen for a big birthday party, which typically include watching at least two cakes topple to the floor, wind up being fun. Very fun, actually. Especially when we have to get innovative and work together to rescue and reconstruct all those layers and all that frosting into a brand new cake.
So what about the workplace? Is it possible to create an authentic environment for innovation? It most certainly is. This where corporate social responsibility (CSR) comes to the rescue. Instead of pulling employees together for a mandatory innovation session, instead gather everyone together for a new experience in giving. Volunteer together in the community. Spend an afternoon reviewing grant opportunities for the corporate foundation, matching causes with the company's culture and values. Gather for an hour in a conference room to whiteboard a rapid prototype of the company's "doing good" footprint--five years from now. (We share Lisa McAlister's love of the rapid prototype!) Host a Saturday summer camp for employees' children and grandchildren to inspire kids to be generous and learn how to give. You might be surprised at how much innovation about the business itself gets accomplished in a nonbusiness setting. And, at the same time, an awful lot of good is getting done, giving back to the community and building the company's reputation and brand as a socially responsible corporate citizen.
Next time your company want to generate new ideas, better connections and innovation to drive its growth, consider designing a new experience in giving back. You'll love the intended--and unintended--consequences.
Good work, anywhere and everywhere
My recent conversation with Matt Monge, founder of the Mojo Company, really got me thinking about the workplace. What will the workplace of tomorrow look like? When it comes to the workplace, Matt Monge is my go-to guy.
This was not the first time I'd had a conversation about the workplace, and what it is versus what it could be. Once upon a time I was sitting at my kitchen counter. With my pink notebook. On my iPhone. But I was eating no cake. And I was eating no cereal. The subject of where to work was giving me plenty of food for thought at that particular point in my life.
I called my mother. "I think I will do an experiment." I said. "Maybe I’ll see if I can work outside of my office for a while. Away from my desk. Just to see if it works for me.” My mother was supportive. But not overly enthusiastic. Which was unusual because my mother and I are almost always overly enthusiastic about the same things. And not just cake and cereal. "Well," said my mother, "I supposed you could try it. But I love my office. I love my desk." But I was undaunted. "Well," I said to my mother, "I am going to try it. I think I could be just as productive outside of the office as I am inside the office. Maybe even more productive."
And so I tried it. The very next day, I moved out of my office. All I kept was my iPhone. And I worked just about everywhere and anywhere. In my colleagues' offices. In conference rooms. In coffee shops. In car pool lines. In the waiting area at the car wash. In the aisles at the grocery store. Occasionally in the pedicure chair. Even in a radio studio, live on the air. My experiment turned out to be worthwhile. I learned that the quality of work is not necessarily dependent on the location in which the work is performed. In fact, my work got better, outside the office, away from my desk.
Best of all, though, this experiment reminded me that mobility is a gift. And that we are living in a world where a connection with anyone and anything is in the palm of our hand. And that is the part I absolutely loved. I could do really good work, desk or no desk, office or no office. I was free.
And now, more than two years later, I have a friend who is trying this experiment, in a really big way. As in from Australia. Her name is Laura Wildman, and she's president of the Missouri-Kansas City Metro division of MomCorps, a professional staffing firm that specializes in flexible workplace solutions. Laura writes about her adventures down under. Laura's husband is on a two-year special work assignment in Sydney, and in December 2012 the family of four packed up a home in Prairie Village, Kansas and ventured across the globe. True to her company's mission, Laura is still actively engaged in her position at MomsCorps, getting it all done from the other side of the world.
See? You really can work from anywhere.
Bolder is better
Nothing's quite as much fun as meeting smart, brave people. Getting to work with them is even better. That's certainly the case with Kyle Claypool and his team at Optima Worldwide, a web marketing company that's not afraid to do things like generate more than 11,000 visitors to a client's site through a recipe contest. And send care packages to bloggers via U.S. Mail. And build a tracking function to link Facebook activity to television shows. Now Kyle is actually asking clients to ask his firm to take more risks. And be willing to try a few things that might actually fail. And set goals that might very well be too big to achieve.
I think Kyle is on the right track. And not just when it comes to setting big goals for web marketing. Or even business, for that matter. In my world, it also works with kids. Even with a little girl with special needs. ("I just know you can get all of these spelling words right.") It works at the gym, when I think I cannot possibly do one more push up and I end up making it through three of them. And it works with baking, too, adding lots of layers onto cakes. Yes, about one in every five times the entire cake falls over. But it's always worth a try.
After all, if you're not willing to push the limits, you never really find out how far you can go. And it would be a shame to never find out how far you can go. Because it's always further than you think.
It's always personal
Recently I've been following two terrific stories about doing good. Specifically, how a single person is making a really big difference, giving back and helping others--and doing so precisely the way he wants to do it.
Consider Ariel Nessel, a Dallas real-estate developer who decided to start giving away $1000 a day, directly to individuals. A decision he made after years spent writing checks to charities--more than $700,000 in total. But he wanted a different sort of philanthropic experience. And that desire led to a new, highly personal approach to giving. For example, Ariel recently gave $1000 to a filmmaker to produce short videos about respecting the environment. An article by Michelle Gienow in the Chronicle of Philanthropy quotes Ariel explaining his strategy: "power is no longer with organizations as much as it is with people."
It's working at work, too. Matt Monge, chief culture officer at Mazuma Credit Union in Kansas City, Missouri, wrote a terrific post about creating a conscious corporate culture. "People don’t leave their humanness at the back door when they come to work," writes Matt. In fact, he says, people helping people is good for business, and creating a culture of social responsibility inspires and motivates the people in the company which in turn drives corporate growth.
Stories like this really shouldn't come as a surprise. The social consciousness of America is growing, rapidly. For example, six years ago, a study of 20 and 30-year-olds indicated that 56 percent of employees in this age group would consider leaving an employer if that employer didn’t share the employees’ commitment to social responsibility. By 2012, that figure had jumped to an astounding 86 percent.
Much opportunity lies in how we respond to--and encourage--this important emerging market trend. The opportunity to create an entrepreneurial framework for social responsibility, redefining “good.”
And it's not just philanthropy that's changing the landscape; other disciplines are influencing the new definition of doing good, including corporate sustainability and resiliency, talent development, governance, regulatory influences and consumer-centric marketing. These best practices play out in the community in civic and corporate arenas, and even in Americans' personal lives, inspiring, affirming and celebrating the social causes that are most important to each individual.
Doing good means more than giving money to favorite charities. Activities such as volunteering, serving on boards or committees, recycling, purchasing products supporting a cause and attending community events are playing a bigger role in the donor experience. Even wellness and caring for others is part of the wide net cast around the notion of social responsibility.
It's an exciting trend, well-worth watching. After all, doing good is best when it's self-defined. And that is precisely what drives so much of the benefit involved in philanthropy, however you choose define it, both at home and in the workplace.
Generosity empowers the giver.
Next, and even better
How lucky am I? Once upon a time, at the University of Kansas School of Law, I was handed the keys to the law review office by Debbie Wilkerson. She was managing editor during the year before I was managing editor. And, earlier this year, more than a decade later, Debbie was next in line after me to lead the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation as president and CEO. (Actually, it was closer to two decades later. But I don't think we look it.) Guess what? Debbie and her team ended 2012 with a record year at the foundation, more than doubling the foundation's record year in 2011. I like it! I love it! Debbie is so good.
She's for good, for real!
Lately I've been reading Katya Andresen's blog. It's all about doing good and social media. I like Katya! Even though I have only met her once, long ago at a conference. But Katya gets a high five, based solely on the fact that she openly admits on her "About Me" page that she dreams of making cupcakes for the class Halloween party instead of buying them at the grocery store. Katya is a mom to three. And she's also chief operating officer at Network for Good. And she knows it's plenty good enough to buy your cupcakes instead of bake them. See? I told you she was good.
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Home > Volume 82 Issue 23 > GOVERNMENT CONCENTRATES > Field trials of bioengineered crops resurge at USDA
Issue Date: June 7, 2004
Field trials of bioengineered crops resurge at USDA
New hope for Hubble Space Telescope
Setting research priorities at NIH
EPA opens laboratories to outside researchers
Government & Policy Roundup
The number of applications to the government for field trials of crops that have been bioengineered to produce drugs and industrial chemicals has increased greatly over the past year, says a report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit group. After the ProdiGene incident (C&EN, Nov. 25, 2002, page 6), when corn modified to produce a pig vaccine was accidentally mixed with soybeans, applications for field trials of these bioengineered crops dropped from about 25 annually to only four. In the past 12 months, USDA has received 16 applications and has approved seven to date. So far, little has been revealed about these field trials, CSPI says. Details about the number of acres, the location, and the chemicals produced have been kept secret, the report says. “It is impossible to know whether these biopharmed crops present any food safety or environmental risk, since the whole process is shrouded in secrecy,” says Gregory A. Jaffe, author of the report. USDA has said, however, that most applications are for outdoor field trials of less than 1 acre each involving corn, rice, barley, safflower, mustard, and tobacco and usually are for plants engineered with human genes to produce novel proteins. In response to the CSPI report, USDA announced that it will reveal more data about the trials on its website. The National Food Processors Association is opposed to the use of food crops for the production of drugs and industrial chemicals. The report is available at http://cspinet.org/new/pdf/pharmareport.pdf.
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International historians to debate Sarajevo 1914 'the South Slav Question' at Southampton University
Date of Event: 26 June 2014
Southampton University in the UK is marking the Centenary of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination with an international conference in June 2014.
Sarajevo 1914: Spark and Impact will debate the murder that triggered the First World War in the context of local and regional unrest in the 'South Slav' areas of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
More than 20 historians from across Europe, including experts from Croatia, Serbia and Austria, will be taking part in the event from June 26-28 at Southampton University's Highfield Campus.
The main speakers include Professor Christopher Clark, author of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.
Southampton University says the assassinations of Franz Ferdinand and his wife were "evidence of an unresolved ‘South Slav problem’ in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, of serious social tensions in the region, and of a Habsburg regime whose imperial mission was at odds with popular aspirations in the Balkans.
"The regional context in which the murders occurred remains controversial: some aspects have been well considered by historians over the past century but many are completely under-researched.
"Above all, there have been few attempts to think about the causes and repercussions of the South Slav problem in the interaction of its local, regional and international dimensions."
The University describes the conference as "a unique opportunity to hear historians discussing a subject which is crucial to understanding why the First World War took place and why the Habsburg Empire collapsed in 1918, transforming south-eastern Europe for the 20th century."
'Sarajevo 1914: Spark and Impact' will be opened by Dr Emil Brix, Austrian Ambassador to the UK, on Thursday 26th June 2014
More information and details of how to register can be found here.
Information supplied by the Faculty of Humanities, Southampton University
A day of solemn ceremony - as global events close the WW1 Centenary & Mons again pays tribute to the ‘first and the last’ 11 November 2018
Belgium honours last Commonwealth soldier killed in the Great War 13 November 2018
Wincanton's Poppy of Honour memorial to Great War fallen 25 October 2018
'Congress and the World Wars'- Capitol Hill Centennial Exhibition 22 March 2017
'World War I and American Art' - Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia 08 November 2016
'Fields of Battle, Lands of Peace' in Passchendaele 28 July 2017
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Winning So Much You Get Bored With Winning
February 14, 2017 By The Central Standard Times in Culture Tags: 100 in a row, Bill Walton, Celtics, Gail Goodrich, Jahangir Kahn, Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lady Huskies, Lakers, Oklahoma Sooners, University of Connecticut, win streaks Leave a comment
There was a lot in the news on Monday, including the late-breaking story that President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor has resigned in the wake of a scandal likely to linger a few more days, but that was all the more reason to take refuge in the sports pages. The big story there was the University of Connecticut Huskies women’s basketball team winning its 100th consecutive victory, and although we rarely comment on the sporting scene that seemed worth noting.
We’ve followed some remarkable winning streaks over our many years of sports spectating, but none of them approached triple digits. Back in the 2013-14 season our beloved Wichita State University Wheatshockers men’s team reeled off 35 in a row before losing on a missed buzzer beater to a powerhouse Kentucky University Wildcats squad in the second round of the championship tournament, and we’ll always love them for that, but that’s a full 65 games short of 100, and of course the streak didn’t include a couple of national championships. Way back when we were first falling in love with basketball the University of California-Los Angeles was dominating men’s collegiate basketball like no one had before and no has since, but their best win streaks were 47 in a row with the great Lew Alcindor, now better as known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was inarguably the best college player ever, and 88 in a row with the pivot manned by the great Bill Walton, who was arguably the second best college player ever. UCLA won five national championships with those legendary centers and another five without them over a 12-year span, which is as many the blue-blooded programs of the University of Kansas and the University of Kentucky have combined to win over their many years of play, but the Connecticut women have won 11 since 1995 and are almost prohibitive favorites to make it an even dozen this year.
The longest winning streak by a professional basketball team was 33, set by the Los Angeles Lakers in the ’71-’72 season, which we well remember following, being big fans of the Jerry West and Gail Goodrich backcourt and awed by the comic book superhero play of Wilt Chamberlain at center. That squad won the championship and is still regarded as one of the best ever, but it didn’t sustain that championship level for long. In pro ball there are 82 games and none of them are easy wins, so the most impressive streaks were the Boston Celtics’ nine consecutive championships, with 11 in 12 years, and the Connecticut women are in that territory even though they’re forced by college rules to completely turn over the team personnel every four years.
No other American team sport has seen such a streak. The longest winning streak in college football is 47, set by the University of Oklahoma’s Sooners between 1953 and 1957, which coincided with our beloved pop’s matriculation at the school, and of course his children were taught to faithfully await it happening again, which we still do starting with every win, including their impressive bowl to finish the past season. The Sooner’s streak started after a loss to the University of Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish, and ended with a loss to the same villains, and to this day our beloved pop and all his children still root against Notre Dame in any sport even if they’re playing against the Islamic State. Those darned New England Patriots have the longest win streak in professional football, having reeled off 21 in a row from October of 2013 to October of 2014, but that provided only one of their five championships to show for it. You have to go way back to 1916 to find major league baseball’s longest winning streak, which was The New York Giant’s 26.
Connecticut’s Hartford Courant has been following the Lady Huskies’ streak closely enough to compile an intriguing list of other streaks, which includes an amazing 555 straight by Pakistani squash legend Jahangir Kahn, whom we admit we’d never heard, and 252 wins in a row by Hartford’s Trinity College in women’s team squash. The University of North Carolina’s women won 103 soccer games without a loss, and the great Edwin Moses went 10 years and 122 400 meters high hurdles races without a loss.
Given how humans tend to have off nights, even the very best of them, one hundred straight games without being so off as to suffer a defeat against the toughest competition in the land is a laudable achievement.
There’s some grumbling among the fans that Connecticut’s dominance is diminishing the popularity of the women’s game, as if the great dynasties of the UCLA Bruins and Boston Celtics and New York Yankees and the recent sustained excellence of those darned New England Patriots wound up hurting the ratings and gate attendance, and some of the old school feminists who’ve long been involved in the game are sore that the very much male coach Geno Aurriema has been the one constant presence over the streak, but we’ll pay no attention. We turn to the sports to find excellence that can’t be found elsewhere, and refuge from arguments and resentments, and we’re glad that the Lady Huskies are providing both. Their 100th win was quite a joy to watch, too, if you like seeing the beautiful game played beautifully.
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Waldenstrom’s
Crowdsourcing my mom’s cancer
My mom has always been our clan’s chief information hunter and learner.
That is, until last week, when she was diagnosed with a rare cancer: Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia.
Mom was a medical research librarian – someone who delighted in being a generous resource for journalists like me.
Mom and me in November, 1955
I remember her describing the day in 1981 or 1982 when a reporter called her to ask for information about a newly identified disease with an odd name: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Mom checked it out, learned about it, filtered and curated the information, then delivered it to the Miami Herald reporter, likely following up with photocopies in the mail.
She beat me to the Web, of course. In 1992, while we in newsrooms were still bound to “dumb” computer terminals on a tightly controlled Intranet, mom was putting the University of Pennsylvania Biomedical Library on the Internet and later to the World Wide Web.
By the time I went online-only in 1999, it was old hat to mom, who had taken early retirement and was on the way to important things, like earning her Master Gardener’s certification. She told me she missed the calls from reporters, many of whom had learned to search for themselves, traversing the magic Web that connects people and information.
Last Tuesday, she told us she’d been diagnosed with Waldenstrom’s. She was terrifically relieved the doctor had ruled out Multiple myeloma, the cancer that killed her closest brother. But she didn’t know much more.
“I just don’t have the energy to do the research on this one,” she said.
So the junior apprentice medical research librarian team went to work: Find, learn, filter, curate and report back, in language comprehensible to normal mortals.
My wonderful sister-in-law, Mary, went for the building blocks and found the “what” of Waldenstrom’s here.
When the oncologist said mom should immediately begin chemotherapy on Rituxan, my favorite uncle raised warning flags: He found the widely used and astonishingly expensive drug is under FDA scrutiny after being linked to dozens of deaths, as this Wall Street Journal article discusses.
Fortunately, mom has both “the public option” – Medicare – and private health insurance, so she has choices on treatment.
So I went to find the “where,” and the “how” for the best possible care. My reflex was to bring her to University of Texas’ MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston – not far from our home in San Antonio – where fabulous doctors successfully treated my uterine cancer in 2006. But my parents are in southern New Jersey, and that’s a long hike from Houston. Another option would be the Mayo Clinic, but the closest facility for her is in Minnesota.
On Friday, I found the Bing Center for Waldenstrom’s Research, under the umbrella of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. It looks to me like the best and closest option for her, at just about 300 miles and 5.5 hours, as the car flies. I will be setting her up for a second opinion and potential new patient status today.
Now here’s the part where my friends who are journalists, research librarians, and just dogged diggers can help: What else or where else should we look for? Is this the best option? What do you know?
And Boston, it looks like my mom is on the way. You be good to her, OK?
Afternote and update: Mom has always been a rebel, and proudly posted a sign in one library that said “No Silence.”
Please take that as a cue to talk among ourselves in the comments, on Twitter and in email!
Posted in crowdsourcing, true stories | Tagged Bing Center for Waldenstrom's Research, cancer, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, journalism, librarian, Mayo Clinic, MD Anderson, Rituxan, true stories, university, Waldenstrom's | 15 Comments
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Guides and Information on France
The latest news and views from France written in English
Vincent Lambert Died on Thursday Morning, Announces his Family
11th July 2019 11th July 2019 spanner44Leave a Comment on Vincent Lambert Died on Thursday Morning, Announces his Family
In a vegetative state since 2008, Vincent Lambert died Thursday 11th July 2019 at the Reims hospital, announced his family to AFP.
Vincent Lambert died at the age of 42 at the hospital in Reims (Marne), Thursday, July 11, 2019, announced his family to AFP .
“Vincent died at 8:24 this morning” at the University Hospital of Reims, said his nephew François #AFP
– Agence France-Presse (@afpfr) July 11, 2019
“Vincent died at 8:24 this morning” at the University Hospital of Reims, said his nephew Francis, expressing “his relief after years of suffering for everyone.”
“We were prepared to let him go,” added François Lambert, who obtained information from Vincent’s doctor.
Vincent Lambert, in a vegetative state for ten years following a road accident, had been stopped for more than a week.
A family drama
Tuesday, July 2, the latter, Dr Vincent Sanchez, head of palliative care department of the Reims University Hospital, had initiated a new treatment stop, effective since the evening of Wednesday 3rd, of this patient now 42 years old, made possible on June 28th by the Court of Cassation. In addition to stopping hydration and feeding by tube, the medical protocol included “deep and continuous sedation”. On Monday 8th July, his parents had resigned themselves to his death after having multiplied the recourses.
His death puts an end to a long serial judicial and media that saw Vincent Lambert’s family tear up: on one side, his parents, Viviane and Pierre, fervent Catholics firmly opposed to a cessation of treatment, supported by their lawyers and several associations, including the “I support Vincent” committee.
On the other, his wife Rachel, his nephew François and six brothers and sisters who denounced a “therapeutic relentlessness”. According to them, Vincent told them orally to prefer to die rather than to live “like a vegetable”, although he never wrote an advance directive.
“The case” Vincent Lambert had become the symbol of the end-of-life debate in France.
In May 2019, Vincent Lambert’s parents had implored Emmanuel Macron to maintain the treatments. The President had then assured him that he “ not belong to suspend a decision which is at the discretion of his doctors and is in accordance with our laws,” but “to hear the emotion aroused.”
Read also: Vincent Lambert Case: for his parents, his death “is now inevitable”
Tagged Coma Death Reims University Hospital of Reims Vegetative State Vincent Lambert
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The Demographic Time Bomb
Tag(s): Politics & Economics
Some 20 years ago or so I attended the Sony European Executives Seminar, an International Programme in Management at the Institute of Management Development (IMD International) in Lausanne, Switzerland. IMD is renowned for the quality of its executive education and is rated No. 1 outside the US and No 2 worldwide by the Financial Times for its executive education. Forbes rates it No. 1 worldwide and the Economist No. 1 outside the US for its MBA programme. The course consisted largely of case study with plenty of preparation and then analysis and discussion with the professors. But interspersed among the generally routine course work were occasional gems. One lecture on psychology I particularly remember but the outstanding feature was a lecture on demographics by an elderly German professor. His style was matter of fact but his message was dynamite. He brought to our attention something of which most of us were blissfully ignorant, that is that the population of Europe was aging fast, that the baby boomers, those born in the two decades after the second world war were the most numerous cohort in society and that eventually we would retire and expect our pensions to be paid for by later generations coming through. But there would be fewer of them and the model would be hard to sustain. He showed us chart after chart, all based on incontrovertible population data that were almost entirely predictable to high levels of statistical reliability. Actuarial tables could tell us how many would die and when; not who would die but the proportion and the distribution. Only the most catastrophic of events like war or plague would upset these predictions.
And now it’s here. The baby boomers are retiring. Europe’s population has aged. There are fewer of the young in work to pay for the pensions. Just this past decade we reached a milestone where there are more of us aged over 60 than under 16 for the first time ever. One thing has got worse if anything. Contrary to all common sense retirement ages have been moved down when they should have been moved up. There is a late and feeble attempt in some countries to increase retirement ages but this runs into enormous political pressure particularly from trade union leaders who, heads in sand as usual, tend to say, we must stick to what we have got regardless of the ability of the state i.e. the rest of us to pay for it. In France where a small move has been made in the right direction the leading candidate in the current election for President is proposing to move right back and thus condemn future generations to massive unfunded liabilities.
Five of the world’s top 10 oldest populations are in Europe, a result of significantly reduced fertility rates and longer life expectancies. William H. Frey, an analyst for the Brookings Institution think tank predicts the median age in Europe will increase from 37.7 in 2003 to 52.3 by 2050, while the median age in the US will rise to just 35.4.[i]According to the Office for National Statistics, there are now 10,000 centenarians in Britain, compared with only about 100 a century ago. A quarter of all the babies born last year are expected to live longer than 100 years. Over 50 years the Queen sent out 100,000 birthday telegrams and cards to centenarians but it’s doubtful that she will continue to do this much longer as it will be normal for people to reach that age. Although if her own mother’s longevity is a guide she may send herself one on 21 April 2026, the date when she will reach 100. By 2050, a quarter of a million Europeans will be over 100 years old.
The UK’s pension arrangements are particularly chaotic. The vast majority of public sector workers receive occupational pensions paid directly from current taxation. Thus our state pension system is particularly vulnerable to changing demographics, as the number of state retirees whose pensions must be paid out each year after year grows and the number of workers supporting them falls, so reducing the tax base.
The sums of money involved are astonishing. According to HM Treasury total unfunded outstanding public sector pension liabilities are equivalent to 53% of GDP. But this understates the real picture according to independent analysts who question some of the assumptions supporting this assessment, such as, for example, outdated population projections. The CBI believes it to be closer to 70%, the Institute of Economic Affairs puts it at 74% and Towers Watson, a leading firm of actuaries, reckons it is well over 80%, greater than the UK’s official national debt.
It is extraordinary that, in one of the world’s most developed economies, one of the centres of the global asset management industry, years of political short-termism have created public sector pensions that are almost entirely unfunded. Governments of all colours, but especially that of Gordon Brown, have added millions of people to the state pay roll without apparently giving thought to how their promised pension entitlements would be paid. Liam Halligan, chief economist at Prosperity Capital Management describes this as “surely one of the most astonishing instances of ‘kicking the can down the road’ in human history.”[ii]
It would seem that generations of ministers and civil servants have deliberately hidden the financial consequences of our changing demography on public sector schemes. They have clung on to their own generous taxpayer funded retirement benefits while not facing up to tough policy changes. Estimates of future public sector costs have been kept artificially low and in any case are buried off-balance sheet. As someone who has served as a Trustee of a private sector pension scheme if my fellow Trustees I and had run our scheme in such a way we would have been convicted of fraud.
When Herbert Asquith as Chancellor of the Exchequer first introduced a small measure of state funded means-tested pension in 1908 it was restricted to people over age 70. At that time few lived to such an age and if they did for not much longer. Pensioners are now spending decades in retirement, indeed if people retire at age 60 three decades of drawing a state pension will not be uncommon. The cost implications of this for the private sector have been apparent for many years and most companies have withdrawn or at least closed to new entrants final salary schemes. In the private sector it has always been the case that pensions are not transferable so individuals like me who have changed employers a number of times have often left pension reserves behind. In the public sector a teacher might switch schools several times in her desire to seek advancement but her pension rights continue to accrue in a national fund, another example of the quasi-apartheid that now exists between the two sectors. The UK’s public sector pensions have scarcely been adjusted in almost half a century even though life expectancy has risen almost two decades. Liam Halligan says “That’s why there’s a giant Ponzi scheme at the heart of the UK’s public finances, the nature of which is only now starting to be understood beyond a small circle of analysts and commentators, many of us dismissed as cranks, who have been banging on about it for years.”
The demographic time bomb isn’t set to explode at some point in the distant future. It is exploding around us right now as the baby boomers are retiring in droves. Between now and 2016 the number of British citizens aged 65 and over will increase by 1.4 million while numbers aged below 50 in work will fall by 160,000.
But this isn’t just a problem here in the UK and other developed European nations. Japan’s workforce is aging faster than any other society’s. The number of children born per Japanese woman is 1.39, far below the replacement ratio. Many Japanese women put off having children till quite late and many more put it off altogether. The Japanese government has estimated that by 2060, Japan’s population of 128 million will shrink by over 30%, and over 40% of them will be over 65 years old.[iii]This problem is particularly acute because Japanese society is still very homogenous and resists immigration which otherwise could partially alleviate the problem.
But the mother of all demographic time bombs is set to explode in China. While the world watches the Chinese economy gradually overtake all others and apparently defy all the doom mongers that say its political system would not permit such economic advancement there is one unalterable fact it has to deal with. The one-child policy still officially imposed by the communist regime has had two devastating consequences. First it has led to an unhealthy preference for the one child to be a boy with the result that there are some 100 million young Chinese males with no brides in sight. The second is that China’s working population has probably peaked in the past twelve months and now will swiftly decline. Today there are five workers aged 20-59 supporting every citizen over 60. But by 2032, that ratio will have fallen to two, the same as it is in Italy and Germany. Anatole Kaletsky asks the question: “How will China cope with the reduction of labour? The only answer is another question one constantly hears in China: will we get old before we get rich or the other way round? That is the biggest issue of all for China.” [iv]And so, perhaps, for all of us.
One fountain of hope against this bleak scenario is at my alma mater, Oxford University, which has long believed in the power of unified thinking across different academic disciplines. As fertility falls and longevity increases the old will outnumber the young in almost all countries within 50 years. To help the world cope with this fundamental shift in the structure of society, the Oxford Institute of Population Aging is studying all the issues from all the angles. Researchers in anthropology, demography, economics, history, medicine, philosophy, politics, public health, psychology and statistics are working together in a common cause. This is funded by proceeds from a campaign to generate so-called Oxford Thinking which has raised £1.25 billion to date.[v]
It would seem that at the least saving must be made compulsory until we are all firmly in the habit. John Blundell, former Director-General of the Institute of Economic Affairs, argues that all employers should be forced to put 10 per cent of all salaries into individual retirement accounts owned by everyone over 16.[vi]Even casual workers will see a percentage of their earnings go that way. They will also own it, watch it grow and become invested in future prosperity. The Chilean system is like this. In 1980, under the government of Augusto Pinochet, the Secretary of Labour and Pensions, José Piñera changed the conventional state run system to a capital funded system run by private investment funds. About two thirds of the workforce entered the system and had 10% of their income diverted to such funds. There was a safety net for those who did not complete enough service or level of income to qualify for a decent pension. Their system is not without its faults, not least the high administrative charges, and the World Bank has recommended reforms. José Piñera’s brother, Sebastián is now President of Chile and is committed to implementing reforms. While he is of the right his left wing opponents have supported the system while calling for similar reforms. At least we can see one country where politicians are prepared to try a different way.
[i]“Sixty is the new old” Helen Edwards Marketing 9 November 2011
[ii]“The real danger of public sector pensions is finally hitting home” Liam Halligan Daily Telegraph 2 July, 2011
[iii]“Reimagining Japan: The Quest for a Future That Works,” Clay Chandler, Asia editor for McKinsey & Co. 2011
[iv]“There’s one cloud over China’s rosy future” The Times 14 March 2012
[v]http://www.campaign.ox.ac.uk/
[vi]“Beyond Ideology: Towards the Demise of the State and the Coming Era of Consumer Politics” John Blundell Speech to Hitchin & Harpenden Business Club. 2 November 2007
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Morton Schindel Dies: Producer Of Children Films, Hailed By Scholastic As “Pioneer”
UPDATE with tribute video: Morton Schindel, founder of Weston Woods Studios which was Oscar-nominated for an animated short children’s film, died August 20 at age 98. Schindel produced more than 300 films and 450 recordings based on award-winning children’s books that are found in school and library collections worldwide. His films have been translated into more than 20 languages.
He actually developed the iconographic style of filmmaking, in which original artwork from an open book glides in front of a motion picture camera, giving the still imagery cinematic life. By moving the pictures at deliberate, controlled speeds, the camera captures the mood and action that the illustrator conveyed on the pages of the book. Mr. Schindel brought hundreds of award-winning children’s books into schools via film. See examples of his work here in this tribute video:
“Morton Schindel not only founded the art form and business of creating films based on outstanding children’s books, he also helped generations of teachers and librarians understand how they could reach more children with these great stories through the medium of film, video and television,” said Richard Robinson, chairman, president and CEO of Scholastic. “He pioneered this important art form by working with hundreds of authors and illustrators including Maurice Sendak, William Steig and Robert McCloskey, winning their support by making creative films like Where the Wild Things Are, Blueberries for Sal, Harold and the Purple Crayon, and The Amazing Bone, which adhered absolutely to the spirit and story of the original printed work.”
Born in Orange, NJ in 1918, Schindel moved to New York City after college and worked as a clerk in Stern’s Department Store. He first founded ELMOR Manufacturing Company, a machine shop, but ending up contracting tuberculosis and had to stop work to convalesce. In early 1950, he tried his hand at film, but the company he worked for, Teaching Films, went bankrupt and so he became an independent producer.
He was recruited to serve as Film Officer and Attaché in the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey a year later and then returned to Connecticut in 1953 to launch Weston Woods Studios. The company struggled in the early years, but in 1966, the federal government passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the first school libraries were opened. After that, Weston Woods’ sales quadrupled virtually overnight.
The company soon gained prestige, receiving an Academy Award nomination for best animated short in 1984 for Doctor DeSoto, based on the children’s book of the same name by William Steig, and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Children’s Video in 1996 for Owen, based on the book of the same name by Kevin Henkes.
In 1996, Weston Woods Studios was acquired by Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company and Schindel stayed on as an advisor. Weston Woods produced more than 200 additional films based on the books of Scholastic and all publishers.
Produced by Paul Gagne, Linda Lee and three others who were on Schindel’s original team, these films have been honored with innumerable prizes including 15 Carnegie Medals awarded by the American Library Association for best video of the year based on a children’s book.
From 1982 to 2016, Schindel served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Weston Woods Institute, a non-profit organization for the support of innovative techniques for educational and cultural communications with children. At the age of 78, he founded Mediamobiles, Inc., a company that developed mobile multimedia learning environments.
He received many awards and honors during his lifetime, including The Regina Medal, awarded each year for a lifetime contribution to the field of children’s literature, the Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Education Technology, The Action for Children’s Television Hall of Fame Award and the American Libraries Services for Children Lifetime Achievement Award for “reaching children from the hills of Appalachia to the suburbs of Tokyo with books, films, stories and songs.” He also received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Teachers College, Columbia University as the only graduate “who never earned a dime as a librarian or a classroom teacher,” but nonetheless became “a teacher to millions.”
Schindel graduated from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Economics and received his Masters in Curriculum and Teaching at Columbia Teachers College.
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White SW Computer Law
Intellectual Property, Information Technology & Telecommunications Lawyers
Melbourne Office - PO Box 452, COLLINS STREET WEST Victoria 8007 Australia
Sydney Office - GPO Box 2506, SYDNEY New South Wales 2001 Australia
Telephone: Melbourne Office - +61 3 9629 3709 Sydney Office - +61 2 9233 2600
Facsimile: Melbourne Office - +61 3 9629 3217 Sydney Office - +61 2 9233 3044
Email: wcl@computerlaw.com.au Internet: http://www.computerlaw.com.au
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nloct99
2011/10/28 17:51 steve 2011/10/17 20:52 external edit
nloct99 [2011/10/17 20:52]
nloct99 [2017/07/30 18:03] (current)
====== White SW Computer Law Intellectual Property, Information Technology & Telecommunications Newsletter - October 1999 ====== ====== White SW Computer Law Intellectual Property, Information Technology & Telecommunications Newsletter - October 1999 ======
- ===== IS YOUR BUSINESS NAME A TRADE MARK INFRINGEMENT? ===== +
+ ===== Is Your Business Name A Trade Mark Infringement? =====
If you select a business or company name or an internet domain name without conducting a trade mark search, you may find yourself a party in a trade mark dispute, particularly where there is a registered Australian trade mark similar to your chosen name. If you select a business or company name or an internet domain name without conducting a trade mark search, you may find yourself a party in a trade mark dispute, particularly where there is a registered Australian trade mark similar to your chosen name.
In this matter, the audience which was likely to be reached by both corporations was a different but separate sophisticated group of customers who, even if initially confused by the alleged similarities in names would be unlikely to remain confused about the parties' identities to the point of entering into a contract. We understand that the initial decision is subject to appeal. Not all businesses would have such a narrow and educated audience and so the Court cannot be expected to make a similar decision in every case where there is such a similarity between trading names and the goods or services sold by the respective parties. In this matter, the audience which was likely to be reached by both corporations was a different but separate sophisticated group of customers who, even if initially confused by the alleged similarities in names would be unlikely to remain confused about the parties' identities to the point of entering into a contract. We understand that the initial decision is subject to appeal. Not all businesses would have such a narrow and educated audience and so the Court cannot be expected to make a similar decision in every case where there is such a similarity between trading names and the goods or services sold by the respective parties.
- ===== SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT IN AUSTRALIA MADE EASIER ===== + ===== Software Development In Australia Made Easier =====
On 30 September 1999, the High Court of Australia rejected //[[case_links#Data Access Corporation Inc v Power Access Services Pty Ltd|Data Access Corporation Inc's appeal in their copyright infringement claim against Power Access Services Pty Ltd]]//. Power Access Services had written a program which was functionally similar to Data Access's program in another language by copying the functionality of the reserved words. On 30 September 1999, the High Court of Australia rejected //[[case_links#Data Access Corporation Inc v Power Access Services Pty Ltd|Data Access Corporation Inc's appeal in their copyright infringement claim against Power Access Services Pty Ltd]]//. Power Access Services had written a program which was functionally similar to Data Access's program in another language by copying the functionality of the reserved words.
One area that may be exposed after this decision is that for databases to be entitled to copyright protection as if they were computer programs, there must be, amongst other things, "a set of instructions". The Court left open whether or not databases would be entitled to protection under other provisions of the Copyright Act but clearly stated that taking data is "unlikely" to be a breach of the copyright in a computer program. \\ This is an outstanding result for the software development community and is one of the best written judgments in this area for some time. Finally the software development community is beginning to enjoy the benefits of a technologically aware High Court which has coherently clarified its earlier decisions. One area that may be exposed after this decision is that for databases to be entitled to copyright protection as if they were computer programs, there must be, amongst other things, "a set of instructions". The Court left open whether or not databases would be entitled to protection under other provisions of the Copyright Act but clearly stated that taking data is "unlikely" to be a breach of the copyright in a computer program. \\ This is an outstanding result for the software development community and is one of the best written judgments in this area for some time. Finally the software development community is beginning to enjoy the benefits of a technologically aware High Court which has coherently clarified its earlier decisions.
- ===== IS YOUR INVENTION INVENTIVE? (TRANSPONDERS ARE!) ===== +
+ ===== Is Your Invention Inventive? (Transponders Are!) =====
Patents may also be objected to prior to sealing. Commonly the opponent will claim that the invention is not novel, does not involve an inventive step and/or is not a manner of manufacture. When filing an application for a patent, a search must be conducted for "prior art", which are examples of similar inventions already in use or information already published. The list of prior art together with detailed specifications of the invention are filed as part of the patent application. Patents may also be objected to prior to sealing. Commonly the opponent will claim that the invention is not novel, does not involve an inventive step and/or is not a manner of manufacture. When filing an application for a patent, a search must be conducted for "prior art", which are examples of similar inventions already in use or information already published. The list of prior art together with detailed specifications of the invention are filed as part of the patent application.
Microchip was also unsuccessful in its claims that Avid's patent did not involve an inventive step and/or was not a manner of manufacture. However, Avid was requested to prepare some amendments to the claims made in its application. Patent protection is expensive and time consuming to obtain. The financial return expected from an invention must be considerable before patent protection is viable. An alternative to patent protection is the use of a confidential information deed, when discussing the invention, but the legal protection offered by the use of such a deed is not as strong as that offered by a patent. Microchip was also unsuccessful in its claims that Avid's patent did not involve an inventive step and/or was not a manner of manufacture. However, Avid was requested to prepare some amendments to the claims made in its application. Patent protection is expensive and time consuming to obtain. The financial return expected from an invention must be considerable before patent protection is viable. An alternative to patent protection is the use of a confidential information deed, when discussing the invention, but the legal protection offered by the use of such a deed is not as strong as that offered by a patent.
- This article is a guide only and should not be used as a substitute for proper legal advice, readers should make their own enquiries and seek appropriate legal advice.
© White SW Computer Law 1994-2019. ABN 94 669 684 644. All Rights Reserved.
This website is a guide only and should not be used as a substitute for proper legal advice.
Readers should make their own enquiries and seek appropriate legal advice.
For legal advice please email wcl@computerlaw.com.au
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Conservative Daily > Blog > Gun Rights > Update: GOP Resurrecting Radical Gun Confiscation Bill!
Update: GOP Resurrecting Radical Gun Confiscation Bill!
By Max McGuire/ 07/01/2019/ Gun Rights, Today's Action Alerts
This is an important action alert: Congressional Republicans are resurrecting their gun confiscation legislation!
Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has been working on a new gun confiscation bill for weeks. The bill — the Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act of 2019 — was actually written by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). But since Graham is the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he is the one tweaking it and trying to bring together enough votes to pass it.
Back in March, we received word that Graham was going to try to push it through. With your help, we buried Congress in close to a half million FaxBlasts demanding that they kill the bill. It worked. Graham didn't bring the legislation to a vote in the committee. It looked like we had won.
Now, three months later, the bill is being resurrected. Graham is once again negotiating with Democrats to try to push this gun confiscation bill through.
Why? Well, Graham just kicked off his re-election campaign. Graham isn't worried about the primary challengers. But he is worried about his Democrat opponent, Jaime Harrison, who has been fundraising like crazy.
Graham, like so many Establishment Republicans, believes that the way to win re-election is to "do something" on gun control.
And his plan to "do something" is to create a nationwide gun confiscation program!
Stop Lindsey Graham and the GOP from pushing this gun confiscation plan through! Send your instant and urgent FaxBlast to Congress right now and force them to KILL Senate Bill 7 before it's too late!
If the government wants to disarm an American citizen, they need to prove in a Court of Law that someone deserves to be disarmed. That usually requires prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone is a criminal or mentally defective. This is what due process looks like. If the government can't prove you did something wrong, they can't take away your constitutionally protected rights.
Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio's Extreme Risk Protection Order bill flips this upside down. Instead of the government having to prove you are guilty, they would only need to accuse you of being a criminal or mentally ill.
The legislation would allow prosecutors to use testimony from family members and friends to convince a judge that a gun owner poses a threat to society. No evidence is presented in these hearings… only hearsay. And the suspect isn't allowed to attend these hearings. The whole thing is kept a secret. The first time that a gun owner realizes he is being targeted is when police are banging on his front door with a confiscation warrant…
Make no mistake: this bill is about confiscating guns from innocent Americans. These people haven't been convicted, or let alone even charged with a crime. They are innocent.
That is what makes this more dangerous than any other anti-gun bill being proposed in Congress. It would give vengeful and spiteful spouses, exes, family members, and neighbors the power to disarm gun owners. It would allow police and prosecutors to target gun owners without even having to charge them with a crime!
Instead of forcing the government to prove someone's guilt, this bill flips the burden of proof upside down and forces the disarmed gun owner to prove their innocence instead. "Innocent until proven guilty" would no longer apply to gun owners…
We are already seeing this new power being weaponized in states like Maryland and Florida. Hundreds of confiscation orders have already been issued in these states. Last November, a 61-year-old man was killed during a confiscation raid in Maryland. He didn't break the law. He wasn't mentally ill. But he got into an argument with a family member and she reportedly turned him in to police to get even. He was shot dead in his own doorway when he refused to surrender his gun collection…
We warned that if these laws went into effect, people would die. Now, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham want to take this radical law nationwide!
The GOP is terrified. They are convinced that the only way they can hold onto their power is to "do something" on gun control. They have spent the two years trying to figure out a way to make gun control advocates happy without losing support from conservatives.
They think this bill will do just that. They are literally trying to give away your gun rights so they can hold onto their political power.
And now, Graham's office is saying they have the votes to push this through. Donald Trump has already promised to sign this bill if it reaches his desk.
Please, do not let these cowards get away with this! Do not let them pass this confiscation bill!
Fight back now before there's nothing left,
Max McGuire
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MATHIS, MUSICALS
& THE ESTABLISHMENT
I have sung since I could talk. I was a very shy child but I was always able to sing for others. I was in choirs, small Madrigal singing groups, performed in musicals all throughout college. I absolutely loved (and still love) the high I got from singing. Right out of college I went to Montana to do summer stock musicals.
My first professional job began three days after I got back from Montana and was it a good one! I was one of eight young singers to back up Johnny Mathis in a group called Our Young Generation. I was with that group for one, unforgettable year. (see below).
My final show with Mathis was at the old Copacabana in New York and when the others went back on the road, I stayed. I was soon doing summer stock and auditioning for everything on Broadway I could. I went back to L.A. to visit my family, but was soon on the road again as a member of a terrific show group, “The Establishment.” I was in that group off and on for the next eight years (taking some time out to have two babies!), including one season of being regulars on “The Jonathan Winters Show” on TV. (see below)
In between Establishment gigs, I was also a studio singer on several albums (Harry Nillson and others) and TV variety shows (for Carol Burnett, Sonny and Cher, and others). In my spare time (hah!) I often acted in plays with local L.A. theater groups (Theatre 40, Company of Angels, etc.) and musicals all over the Los Angeles area; my favorite role was “Kate/Lily” in Cole Porter’s brilliant backstage musical, “Kiss Me Kate.” The award-winning Interact Theater, who did musical pastiches as fund-raisers every year, always invited me to be a part of their shows and I loved doing it.
At some point, my voice-over work and my kids began to take more of my time and live theater—especially singing—took up less and less. Nowadays I sometimes sing for friends and can be counted on to perform “Sunrise, Sunset” at weddings because, after all, someone has to do it, right?
I think the fact that I was/am a singer greatly influenced my VO career; so many of us are musicians and we hear the music in the words and cadences of sentences. It’s been a simply lovely journey….and it’s not over yet!
I have been a singer since I could talk—seriously. For many years, that’s what I did professionally, before voiceovers and having kids took up all my time. Interested? See below.
Singing Backup for
I was one of eight young singers (that’s me as a blonde on the left) to back up Johnny Mathis in a group called Our Young Generation. We were on the road for an entire year, all over the country, Canada, Japan and Korea too! From Vegas lounges to Carnegie Hall, from school auditoriums to airplane hangars (when we entertained the troops overseas), there we were opening for Johnny with a few song-and-dance numbers then getting to support him by supplying all musical choral back-up.
Performing with Johnny Mathis in this Christmas Medley from 1965.
The Establishment (LP)
I was in a terrific show group called “The Establishment” off and on for eight years. We had our own 40 minute show and were usually an opening act for various stars, among them Andy Griffith, Andy Williams, Ann-Margaret, the Henry Mancini Orchestra, and were regulars for one season on “The Jonathan Winters Show” on TV. You can enjoy some clips from our performances below.
"Age of Aquarius"
"Born Free"
"Consider Yourself"
"What the World Needs Now"
"Pop Medley"
"Patriots Medley"
"When I'm Sixty-Four"
"Move in a Little Closer
"Christmas Medley"
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Posts tagged: Tang Jitian
The Anatomy of a Crackdown: China’s Assault on its Human Rights Lawyers
By Elizabeth M. Lynch, October 18, 2015
When the Chinese government detained, harassed and disappeared over 280 human rights lawyers and legal activists in July 2015, the international community took notice. These simultaneous, country-wide, nighttime and early morning raids made front page news in the United States, often described as the Chinese government’s attempts to eradicate cause lawyering from its shores.
But as the Leitner Center and the Committee To Support Chinese Lawyers‘ new and seminal report Plight and Prospects: The Landscape for Cause Lawyers in China reveals, in some ways, these arrests and detentions are the least of the human rights lawyers’ worries. Instead, Plight and Prospects makes clear that over the past five years, the Chinese government has quietly and methodically used a more effective means to limit the space for cause lawyers: the law.
Although the Chinese government still relies on extra-judicial measures such a illegal detentions, torture, constant surveillance when “free,” and pressures on families, employers and even landlords in an attempt to destroy the lawyer’s life, Plight and Prospects underscores that soon these extra-judicial methods will be unnecessary. Through amendments to the Lawyers Law (amended 2007), the Criminal Law (amended 2015), the Criminal Procedure Law (amended 2012), the National Security Law (passed 2015) and through the annual lawyer licensing procedure, the Chinese government can limit the ability of cause lawyers to practice and still pay lip service to “the rule of law.”
As Plight and Prospects points out, under President Xi Jinping (pronounced See Gin-ping) there has been a stepped-up effort to enshrine in law methods that will effectively break the cause lawyering movement. But even before Xi took power in 2012, there were already concrete efforts in the Chinese government to use the law to limit human rights lawyers’ advocacy.
Take for example, the Lawyers Law. Amended in 2007 and believed to provide the profession with greater protection to practice law, it has proven to be a double-edged sword. Sure Articles 36 and 37 of the Lawyers Law maintain that the lawyers “rights to debate or a defense shall be protected in accordance with the law,” but Article 49, which lists the examples of lawyers’ conduct subject to punishment, increased the number of categories from four to nine with the 2007 amendments. Added to the Lawyers Law as Article 49(6) was instances where a lawyers “disrupts the order of a court . . . or interferes with the normal conduct of litigation or arbitration.” Vague and unclear, this provision could be used to limit the courtroom advocacy of lawyers who take cases the government just does not like.
Lawyers Liu Wei and Tang Jitian review papers in April 2010
And in 2010, it was. In April 2010, Tang Jitian (pronounced Tang Gee-tee’an) and Liu Wei (pronounced Leo Way), two cause lawyers who had represented a practitioner of the spiritual movement Falun Gong and who both quietly left the courtroom in protest when they were unable to present their client’s defense, were hauled before the Beijing Bureau of Justice for a hearing concerning whether they should be disbarred (see China’s Rule of Law Mirage: The Regression of the Legal Profession Since the Adoption of the 2007 Lawyers Law). While Tang and Liu both raised Article 37 – that their ability to practice law was being infringed upon – as a defense, both were permanently disbarred under Article 49(6) for “disrupting the courtroom.” (Id.).
Further attempts to limit the advocacy of human rights attorneys have been proposed more recently by the All China’s Lawyers Association (ACLA), the national bar association that operates under the guidance of the Ministry of Justice. ACLA’s draft revisions to the Lawyers Code of Conduct (proposed in 2014), if adopted, could limit methods of advocacy that lawyers must use when representing vulnerable populations, including the use of the media and internet (draft Article 9), organizing demonstrations or “inflaming” public opinion (draft Article 11), or supporting organizations that do cause lawyering (draft Article 13). These draft provisions are in contravention of Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution which provides for freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.
When your home becomes your prison: residential surveillance
The Criminal Procedure Law (CPL) provides another example. Amended in 2012, it was hoped that the amendments would better protect suspects’ rights and ensure a more fair system. But, as Yaqiu Wang at China Change has pointed out, it left one gaping loophole: “residential surveillance at a designated place.” Articles 72 through 77 of the CPL deal with residential surveillance. Although this sounds like a more mellow way to be detained than at a detention center, for those investigations that might involve crimes of “endangering state security,” “terrorism” or “serious crimes of bribery,” residential surveillance does not occur at one’s home. (CPL, Art. 73) Instead, it occurs at an undisclosed location – the family is informed of the fact that the person is being detained under residential surveillance (required by CPL, Art. 73), but not necessarily of the location of the residential surveillance. The suspect has a right to retain a lawyer (see CPL, Art. 73, applying CPL, Art. 33). But because “residential surveillance in a designated place” presupposes a possible state security, terrorist, or serious bribery charge, the requirement that a meeting with the lawyer take place within 48 hours (CPL, Art. 37) is suspended for those possible charges. (CPL, Art. 37). Instead, any meeting must be approved by the police. (CPL, Art. 37). Which fits with the rules that the suspect must follow when in residential surveillance: only with permission of the public security agency can the suspect meet or correspond with someone else. (CPL, Art.75(2)). And it is not hard to place someone under residential surveillance at a designated place. All that the police need is approval from the chief of public security above the county level. (see Ministry of Public Security Implementing Regulations of the CPL, Art. 106). Residential surveillance pending investigation is permitted for up to six months. (CPL, Art. 77).
Whereabouts Unknown: Lawyer Wang Yu
As Plight and Prospects points out, the use of residential surveillance at a designated place has been used with abandon in the current crackdown. The section entitled “Whereabouts Unknown” highlights that eight of the suspects still being held as a result of the July crackdown are held under residential surveillance at a designated place but no one outside of the police, not even their lawyers, know where. Amnesty International researcher William Nee has pointed out that although a legally-authorized form of detention under the amended CPL, it still carries with it the dangers associated with enforced disappearances: held secretly and without access to a lawyer, these suspects in residential surveillance are vulnerable to torture to force a confession.
By being able to point to the law it is using to crackdown on cause lawyers, the Chinese government likely aspires to punt the international critique of a failure to follow a rule of law. It is following a rule of law, it will say. But as Plight and Prospects notes, it is a hollow one where the Chinese government undermines its own Constitution, other provisions of many of the laws it has used in the crackdown, its international treaty obligations as well as the desires of its own people.
Human Rights, Rule of Law | ACLA, China, Committee to Support Chinese Lawyers, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Human Rights, Lawyers Law, Leitner Center, Liu Wei, Plight and Prospects, residential surveillance, Rule of Law, Tang Jitian
25 Years After Tiananmen – Same, Same But Different
By Elizabeth M. Lynch, June 2, 2014
The Goddess of Democracy – the symbol of the Tiananmen Square Protests
Twenty-five years ago, on the night of June 3 and into the early morning hours of June 4, 1989, tanks rolled in to the streets of Beijing and the Chinese government did the unthinkable: it opened fire on its own people, killing hundreds if not thousands of unarmed civilians in the streets surrounding Tiananmen Square. That violent crackdown marked the end of seven weeks of student-led, peaceful protests in the Square itself, protests that were supported by much of the rest of Beijing, protests that would amass hundreds of thousands of people a day, protests that people wistfully thought would change China.
Twenty-five years later the students who participated in the protests are no longer fresh-faced, wide-eyed college kids, the workers who supported them are retired, and many of the bicycle rickshaw drivers who ferried dying students to hospitals on that bloody Sunday morning are long gone. Along Chang’An Avenue, glitzy buildings have replaced the blood and bullet holes. Starbucks stand near where students once went on hunger strikes. Tiananmen is different; China is different. But yet there are some things that remain the same.
The government that ordered the crackdown 25 years ago – the Chinese Communist Party (“CCP”) – is still in power and many of the gripes that initiated the student protests – corruption and nepotism among political elites, lack of personal freedoms, and government censorship – have only gotten worse and continue to be the impetuous for activists. And, like the students in 1989, these activists are still willing to risk their lives to promote the values enshrined in the Chinese Constitution and guide China to become a better place for its people.
But make no mistake, while these factors might be the same, there are important aspects of China that have changed. In
Hundreds of thousands of Beijing residents – students, workers, ordinary people – supported the protests.
particular, China’s rise as a global power. Criticizing China for human rights violations and its failure to live up to its own laws is not as easy as it was in 1989 when President George H.W. Bush cut off government ties, military relations, and the sale of U.S. government goods the day after the Chinese government’s crackdown. Imagine denying U.S. businesses the opportunity to sell products to the world’s second largest economy? That would never happen today. And to severe relations with China – would the American public want to so easily give up its cheap Walmart goods or be denied the ability to obtain the newest iPhone? Probably not. The Chinese government understands the soothing and influential comforts of our material desires.
But perhaps the most troublesome change is how the CCP now deals with dissent. If the last few months are any guide, excessive violence continues to be the modus operandi of the CCP. Cao Shunli (pronounced Ts-ow Shoon-lee), an activist who organized small, peaceful protests that called for citizen participation in China’s United Nations human rights review, was detained for “picking quarrels and causing trouble,” was denied medical treatment for months, and died in police custody. Tang Jitian (pronounced Tang Jee tee-an), a disbarred-lawyer-now-activist that sought to assist Falun Gong practitioners, has recounted the physical torture he suffered while in police custody in March. Since coming out of detention with 16 broken ribs, Tang has all but effectively been denied appropriate medical care for his tuberculosis which has gotten significantly worse.
Deaths of many protesters lined the streets surrounding the Square
But the CCP has learned from its mistakes. No longer is its violence against dissent as public as it was the morning of June 4, 1989. And no longer does the CCP come off as a lawless regime. Instead, its cloaks its crackdowns with a veneer of legality. Since April 2014, in preparation for the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, the Chinese government has detained – either criminally or through unofficial house arrest – over 84 individuals. But these individuals are not detained under the guise of being counter revolutionaries like the students of the 1989 movement. That would be too obvious. Instead, the Chinese government has slapped the vague and overly broad crime of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles.” After 20 years of Western rule of law programs, the CCP has come to realize that the easiest way to deflect global criticism is to follow legal procedure, no matter how abusive, vague or entrapping that legal procedure might be.
If the 25th anniversary of Tiananmen means anything, China’s new strategy – the use of law to suppress dissent – must be
Everyday rickshaw drivers tried to save many of the students
examined and criticized. China’s activists are being violently detained and imprisoned in record numbers “in accordance with the law.” But that suppression of dissent is no different than what happened in 1989. It is another method of killing the chicken to scare the monkeys – ensuring that the violence against a few “troublemakers” teaches the rest of society not to rock the boat. This time though the rest of the world is increasingly complacent.
As the world marks the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre on Wednesday, China will be the lone nation that will not. Since 1989, its people have been forbidden to commemorate the event; they are not permitted to remember; they are not allowed to note those fateful days that changed their lives more than anything in China’s recent past. And that is why the events that other nations hold in honor of the many brave Chinese people who lost their lives on that night are so important. Because while the Chinese government has found new strategies to more effectively deal with international criticism of its treatment of its people, the one thing that the outside world still has is the truth. But that truth must not be limited to just what happened 25 years ago; it must also be used to call on China today stop its suppression of dissent today. To do otherwise is a disservice the victims of that night.
One of the most iconic photos of the 2oth Century – one man stands up to a line of tanks
Human Rights, Remembering Tiananmen | 1989, Cao Shunli, China, crackdown, dissent, massacre, Tang Jitian, Tiananmen
A Rose By Any Other Name….. Violence & Repression Under Xi Jinping
By Elizabeth M. Lynch, May 9, 2014
For Tang Jitian (pronounced Tang Jee tee-an), a human rights advocate and disbarred criminal defense lawyer, 2013 should have been a banner year. The new Criminal Procedure law took effect ostensibly providing for greater rights for defendants and their lawyers; the Supreme People’s Court’s new President, Zhou Qiang, highlighted the pressing need for the judiciary to respect criminal defense attorneys; and the Third Plenum of the Party’s Central Committee released its resolution, calling on the Party to “give rein to the important function of lawyers in safeguarding citizens’ and legal persons’ lawful rights and interests.” To cap it all off, in December, the government abolished the much reviled Re-Education Through Labor (“RETL”), an administrative punishment unsupervised by the court system that often resulted in hard labor sentence of up to three years.
But for Tang Jitian, 2013 and the early months of 2014 have proven to be anything but positive. Instead, human rights advocates have experienced one of the worst years since 2008 according to the 2013 Annual Report published by the non-profit Chinese Human Rights Defenders (“CHRD”). Under the leadership of China’s new president, Xi Jinping (pronounced See Gin ping), there have been more than 220 criminal detentions of human rights defenders, as documented by CHRD’s report, a three-fold increase from the previous year. The number of detentions that have not gone through the legal process if even greater.
What makes Xi’s crackdown different – and more ominous – than previous ones is its veneer of legality and its attempt to mask the increased levels of violence.
China’s new president – Xi Jinping
Nothing exemplifies that better than what happened to Tang Jitian in China’s Heilongjiang province this past March.
Whac-A-Mole: RETL is Replaced By Other Administrative Detention
As a human rights attorney, Tang has represented some of China’s most vulnerable, in particular adherents of the spiritual movement Falun Gong. The Chinese government has categorized Falun Gong as a cult not necessarily as a result of any of its practices, but rather as an easy way to target a movement that was able to amass a large number of dedicated followers in a short amount of time. It was Tang’s zealous advocacy of a Falun Gong practitioner that led to his disbarment in 2010.
On some level, one cannot be a human rights lawyer in China without understanding the particular plight of Falun Gong practitioners. And that is why Tang ended up outside of a Jiansanjiang (pronounced Gee-en san jee-ang) detention Center where several Falun Gong practitioners were being detained in a “Legal Education Center.”
Re-Education Through Labor Camp before they were formally abolished
While the Chinese government may have eliminated the RETL system, it did not get rid of all forms of administrative punishment. In its place popped up drug rehabilitation centers to house many of RETL’s drug addicts and legal education centers to deal with RETL’s Falun Gong practitioners as well as citizen petitioners, people the government has deemed “troublemakers.” The ability to detain individuals without proper legal procedures has been too powerful of a tool for a government with an obscene infatuation with “social stability” to give it up so easily. For these detained individuals, it is of little consolation if the prison they find themselves in is called a labor camp or a legal education center. In the end they are still deprived of their liberty without any legal review or access to lawyers and often with little to no contact with their families.
When the Lawyers Become the Victims
It was this discrepancy that Tang and three other human rights lawyers – Jiang Tianyong, Wang Cheng and Zhang Junjie (the Jiansanjiang Four) – sought to bring attention to by trying to serve as attorneys to the Falun Gong practitioners being held at the Jiansanjiang Legal Education Center. However, before the Jiansanjiang Four could lodge formal complaints on behalf of their clients, the police raided their hotel room and detained the four attorneys.
Zhang Junjie would be released five days later; Tang Jitian and Jiang Tianyong were held in detention for 15 days. None ever went
The Jiansanjiang Four – from L to R: Jiang Tianyong, Zhang Junjie, Wang Cheng & Tang Jitian
before a judge but again the law allows for this form of administrative punishment as well. In March 2006, China’s Public Security Administrative Punishment Law (“Admin Punishment Law”) – a law that gives free rein to the police to detain individuals for up to 15 days – went into effect. Under the law, the police essentially serve as prosecutor, judge and jury. Although there is an appeal process, as Joshua Rosenzweig notes, “it’s possible to request that a detention be postponed pending the outcome of such a challenge [appeal], but, again, police have discretion to decide this based on whether they think the individual will continue to be a harm to society. So, basically one has little option but to serve one’s time in jail first and pursue remedies later.”
Each of the Jiansanjiang Four were held under the Admin Punishment Law. Tang and Jiang were given the maximum punishment of 15 days for “using cult activities to endanger society.” It was Tang and Jiang’s attempts to represent Falun Gong practitioners – the very reason for their profession and protected by the Lawyers Law – that was punished.
Under the Veneer of Legality, Increase Levels of Violence
Five to 15 days might not seem like a long time, but for someone being tortured, it is an eternity. While being held by police, each of the Jiansanjiang Four experienced repeated beatings and each needed to go to the hospital upon their release. This is what makes the Admin Punishment Law dangerous – without any supervision or the ability to appeal the sanction, the police have free rein to do what they want with these “troublesome” human rights advocates.
Tang Jitian receiving diagnosis at the hospital
AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan
This type of violence against human rights advocates is becoming increasingly common under President Xi Jinping. While beatings are the most common, denial of services, including food and medical treatment has also become prevalent and at times with dire consequences. Tang Jitian suffers from spinal tuberculosis. According to Boxun, while at a Beijing hospital after his detention, Tang was initially informed that surgery was necessary to avoid paralysis. But a few days later, the head of the hospital visited Tang’s room to inform him that the surgery was not possible at the hospital and suggested that he leave. Tang’s TB, at least the spinal portion, is going untreated.
For Cao Shunli, another human rights advocate who had been criminally detained since September 2013, it was her medical condition mixed with possible beatings that eventually killed her. On March 14, 2014, while still in police custody, Cao died of as a result of her tuberculosis. Her family claims that her TB was left untreated and that she was physically abused in police custody. To this day, Cao’s body has not be release to her family for proper burial.
But while China conducts one of its worst crackdowns on human rights advocates, it is still able to obtain a seat on the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, a body responsible for enforcing many of the international human rights standards which the Chinese government violates with abandon. One wonders how many other human rights advocates must die before the world wakes up.
Civil Society, Human Rights | Cao Shunli, China, human rights advocates, Jiang Tianyoung, Jiansanjiang, Public Security Administrative Punishment Law, Tang Jitian, weiquan
In Defense of Dylan in China: Come Writers and Critics Who Prophesize with Your Pen
By Elizabeth M. Lynch, April 10, 2011
Originally posted on The Huffington Post
Bob Dylan performed in concert in Beijing on April 6 and Shanghai on April 8
Maureen Dowd’s op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times – Blowin’ in the Idiot Wind – lambasts singer-songwriter/protest-singer/civil-rights-activist/voice-of-a-generation/whatever-he-is-to-you Bob Dylan for his recent concert in Beijing, China. For Dowd, Dylan’s acceptance of the Chinese government’s approval of his set list is anathema to everything he represents. Dropping his famous protest songs of “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A’Changin’” from the set list during China’s most severe crackdown on its own citizens since 1989 and ignoring the recent detention of Chinese rights activists shows, for Dowd, that Dylan is nothing more than a sellout, willing to auction his morals to the highest bidder.
But Dowd’s virulent critique of Dylan makes one wonder, where has she been in all of this? Dowd is an obvious Dylan fan, likely even a disciple, with her skilled use of Dylan quotes and understanding of the man’s extremely tangled and uncomfortable history with fame. But China’s “harshest crackdown on artists, lawyers, writers and dissidents in a decade” and its “dispatching the secret police to arrest willy-nilly, including Ai Weiwei” as Dowd notes, didn’t just start this weekend and didn’t just start with the detention of Ai Weiwei.
Since the middle of February, the Chinese government has been illegally abducting Chinese rights activists, preventing them from contacting their family let alone a lawyer, and subjecting them to torture and abuse. This siege on rights activists in China is done as a pre-emptive strike on the nascent civil society that has been developing and is an attempt for the Chinese Communist Party to avoid the fate of Mubarak and Ben Ali and maintain its one-party authoritarian rule, especially as a change of leadership comes in 2012.
Tang Jitian was abducted from his home on February 16, 2011, starting what has proved to be a wide-cast net of illegal abductions and abuse (abuse of both China’s own laws and the individuals that remain in custody). Since then, Dowd has written 13 columns, not a single one dealing with the issue of the Chinese government’s harsh and violent crackdown on its citizens. Today’s column barely touches upon the issue and instead focuses on Dylan’s “selling out.”
Let’s face it, Dylan is unable to sell out because he never bought in in the first place. Dylan never fully engaged the civil rights movement. While his songs did become a motivating force for many of the great civil rights activists and moments in U.S. history, by 1965, he was done with folk and had plugged in. And since the 1980s, Dylan has been on a non-stop tour, selling the rights of his iconic protest songs to commercial entities (the rights to Times They Are A Changin’ was first sold to accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand and in 1996 to the Bank of Montreal), appearing in a Victoria’s Secret ad, producing an abysmally bad Christmas album, and almost never including Blowin’ in the Wind and the Times They Are A’Changin’ in any set list anywhere in the world (review his set lists here: http://www.bobdylan.com/tour/calendar/2010).
Dylan’s lack of mentioning China’s recent crackdown on dissent isn’t shocking. In fact, the old guy likely knows nothing of what is happening in China – why should we rely on him to be our voice and do all the work? This isn’t his issue; in fact, the man likely has no issues other than himself.
Which brings us back to Maureen Dowd. Unlike most of the people concerned about human rights abuses in China, Dowd has a powerful platform for her voice – her twice-a-week column in the N.Y. Times. With a large and influential readership that likely reaches the halls of the White House and Congress, discussion of China’s recent abuse of its own citizens and its subversion of a rule of law in her column could influence important policy makers as well as the world-at-large.
To their credit, some of the world’s major newspapers have been reporting on China’s recent crackdown, but these articles have been cursory at best and do not fully explain why China’s recent assault goes above and beyond what traditionally occurs in an authoritarian regime. But most individuals knowledgeable on the issue have had extreme difficulty in getting their voice out in the mainstream press (kudos though to The International Herald Tribune and the N.Y. Times for publishing opinion pieces in its print editions and kudos to The Guardian and the Wall Street Journal for having opinion pieces on the issue in their online papers).
Dowd has the opportunity to expose what is happening in China and call for the freeing of, or at the very least the end of the abuse of, not just Ai Weiwei, but also rights-defending lawyers Tang Jitian, Jiang Tianyong, Teng Biao, Liu Shihui, Tang Jingling, Li Tiantian, and Gao Zhisheng. The whereabouts of these lawyers, unlawfully abducted by Chinese authorities (even under Chinese law), remain unknown. Their only offense: asking the Chinese government to uphold its promise of a rule of law and using the legal system to protect society’s most vulnerable.
Dowd’s disappointment in Dylan’s snub of China’s crackdown on dissent leads me to believe that this is an issue Dowd is concerned about. But instead of asking Dylan to be the spokesperson for the issue, Dowd should practice what she herself appears to preach. My challenge to Dowd is to use her sharp-witted pen and find a way to raise the plights of China’s rights-defenders in the American consciousness instead of relegating it to two sentences in a column that is otherwise a critique of Dylan. If Dowd doesn’t, then I am left to think “you could have done better but I don’t mind, you just kinda wasted my precious time….”
Rule of Law | Ai Weiwei, Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan concert in China, China, crackdown on dissent, Gao Zhisheng, Jiang Tianyong, Li Tiantian, Liu Shihui, Maureen Dowd, righst defending, Rule of Law, Tang Jingling, Tang Jitian, Teng Biao, weiquan
Rights Lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s Wife on His Abduction
By Elizabeth M. Lynch, March 28, 2011
Gao Zhisheng is perhaps the most well-known of China’s rights-defending lawyers. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Gao began successfully representing victims of medical malpractice and farmers denied just compensation for their land. In fact, in 2001, Gao was named by China’s Ministry of Justice as one of China’s most influential lawyers. Spurred by his success and what appeared to be a Chinese government welcoming a stronger public interest law bar, Gao expanded his work to included practitioners of Falun Gong, a religious organization which the Chinese government has long feared as a threat to its one-party rule and has declared a cult. Gao’s representation of Falun Gong practitioners did not just highlight the baseless accusations of “using superstitious sects [cults] to undermine the implementation of the law” (China’s Criminal Law, art. 300), but also the torture of Falun Gong practitioners while in police custody (for a seminal article on Gao’s work, see Eva Pils, Asking the Tiger for His Skin: Rights Activism in China, Fordham International Law Journal 2007. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1563706).
Gao’s zealous advocacy of Falun Gong practitioners did not go unnoticed by the Chinese government, and his status as a lawyer to be celebrated for representing society’s most vulnerable, quickly changed. Gao was now viewed as a piranha of the state. In December 2006, Gao was convicted of subversion and was given five years probation to be served from his home. However, in February 2009, Gao was abducted from his home by the police. For over fourteen months, he was not heard from and no one knew where he was. In April 2010, Gao emerged from seclusion only to be abducted again only two weeks later. During the time he was free, he was able to report to the Associated Press the torture he underwent while in police custody.
Gao’s whereabouts, like recently abducted rights defending lawyers Tang Jitian, Teng Biao, and Jiang Tianyong, remain unknown. In a plea for the world to pay attention to these random and lawless detentions, Gao’s wife, Geng He, who was able to flee to the United States with their two children in January 2009, published an op-ed in today’s New York Times. Below is an excerpt with a link to the full article. Geng begs that if her husband has been killed, that the Chinese government have the dignity to return his body so that his family can lay him to rest.
The Dissident’s Wife
By Geng He
Gao Zhisheng with his wife, Geng He, and their two children
San Francisco – WITH the world’s attention on the uprisings in the Middle East, repressive regimes elsewhere are taking the opportunity to tighten their grip on power. In China, human rights activists have been disappearing since a call went out last month for a Tunisian-style “Jasmine Revolution.” I know what their families are going through. Almost a year ago, the Chinese government seized my husband and since then, we have had no news of him. I don’t know where he is, or even if he is alive.
Human Rights, Rule of Law | abduction of lawyers, China human rights, Criminal Law Article 300, detention, Falun Gong, Gao Zhisheng, Geng He, Jasmine Revolution, Jiang Tianyong, rights defending, Tang Jitian, Teng Biao
Reality or Myth: China’s Rule of Law & Its Recent Assault on Lawyers
By Elizabeth M. Lynch, February 21, 2011
Rights-Defending Lawyer, Tang Jitian
The Chinese government has tried to break Tang Jitian’s spirit. Failing, it now seeks to break his body. Tang, a Chinese human rights lawyer, was forcibly abducted from his home on Wednesday, February 16 by the Beijing police. Five days later, in contravention of Chinese law, Tang’s whereabouts remain unknown to his family, friends, and other human rights lawyers who desperately await some news of him. Tang’s wife, after waiting at the police station for over four hours, was not permitted to see her husband and not informed of his whereabouts. Tang’s “crime” in all of this: seeking to uphold individual’s legally-guaranteed rights and hold the State to its promise of a rule of law.
When Tang Jitian (pronounced Tang Gee Tea-ann) emerges from this unlawful and forced seclusion, he may be badly beaten, tortured and abused. Soon after his abduction on Wednesday, Tang was transferred to the Beijing Public Security Bureau (PSB), an outfit that has been assigned the task of suppressing China’s nascent human rights movement. Violence is a necessary part of the PSB’s mandate: it provides a very physical signal to other human rights lawyers what awaits them if they become too vocal, organized, or, ironically, too successful in bringing cases to protect citizen’s rights. But this State-sanctioned violence is outside the limits of the law, and makes one wonder that if, by attacking these rights-defending lawyers (in Chinese, weiquan lawyers), the Chinese government is really committed to a “rule of law” society or if the use of such language by Chinese officials is a mere mirage.
The Breaking of a Body: Tang Jitian’s Potential Fate While in PSB Custody
Human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng (pronounced Gao Zhi-sheng) likely serves as the most potent reminder of the
Human Rights Attorney, Gao Zhisheng
lawlessness of the PSB. In 2001, Gao was listed by China’s Ministry of Justice as one of the country’s top-ten lawyers for his work representing victims of medical malpractice and farmers who were denied just compensation for their land. But as Gao took on more controversial cases – particularly defending Falun Gong practitioners, a quasi-religious organization that the Chinese government perceives as a real threat to its power – government respect for his work quickly faded. In December 2006, Gao was convicted of subversion and was given five years probation to be served from his home. However, in February 2009, Gao was abducted from his home by the police. This was the second time he was abducted, the first in 2007 where he was tortured for over 50 days. But this time, Gao’s abduction would be for much longer. For over fourteen months, he was not heard from and no one knew where he was. In April 2010, Gao emerged from seclusion only to be abducted again only two weeks later. During the time he was free, he was able to report to the Associated Press the torture he underwent while in police custody.
What awaits Tang may be similar – 48 hours of continuous beatings, various forms of physiological torture, wet towels over one’s face to give the feeling of suffocation – or even worse. Unlike Gao Zhisheng, who is well known in the international community, or Teng Biao, a famous Chinese law professor and human rights activist who, because of his status, experienced a less violent beating when he was taken into custody for a few hours by police last December, Tang does not have such connections to protect him. Without such an international cache like Teng Biao, Tang is an easy target for the Chinese security apparatus and will likely be used to violently symbolize the PSB’s power over the human rights lawyers.
Trying to Break a Spirit: Tang Jitian’s Disbarment
Wednesday’s abduction was not the first time that Tang has been on the Chinese government’s radar. In May 2010, because of his defense of a Falun Gong practitioner in Sichuan province, the Beijing Bureau of Justice – the government body that manages the legal profession in Beijing – disbarred Tang from the practice of law. Ostensibly arguing that Tang violated courtroom rules, the Beijing Bureau of Justice’s decision was largely seen as political. Similar to the United States, disbarment in China is reserved for those lawyers who commit a crime. Tang was the first lawyer to be disbarred for what merely appeared to be zealous advocacy.
Since his disbarment, Tang has had no way to economically support himself, relying solely on the kindness of other human rights lawyers. Such a blow has had its impact and more recently, Tang had become depressed about his situation, although still very active in the human rights movement. One would have thought that this would have been sufficient for the Chinese government – that by taking away Tang’s livelihood, it would not seek to detain him. One would also think that such action would be unnecessary: Tang’s disbarment was a clear signal to other human rights lawyers that the State could use vague provisions of the law to disbar them and deny them their raison d’etre. But it appears that disbarment was not punishment enough for the PSB.
Why Abduct Tang Jitian Now? China’s Rule of Law Regression
The immediate cause of Tang’s abduction relates to the recent house arrest and abuse of another human rights lawyer,
Human rights lawyer, Jiang Tianyong
Chen Guangcheng (pronounced Chen Gwang-chung). Chen, a blind, self-taught lawyer who represented women forced into abortions by their village government, has been under house arrest since he was freed from prison in September 2010. Last week, Chen and his wife were reportedly beaten after they leaked an hour-long video of their daily surveillance to the U.S.-based human rights and religious group, China Aid (for the video, click here). On Wednesday afternoon, Tang Jitian had lunch with a group of Beijing human rights lawyers to discuss what the group could do to support Chen. Soon after this brain-storming session, Tang was abducted. Additionally, another participant of the Wednesday lunch group has also been abducted. On Saturday, February 20, 2011, human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong (pronounced Gee-ong Tea-ann young) was taken away in an unmarked van, only days after he was roughed up while in police custody.
But Tang and Jiang’s belief that the law should be followed and individuals’ rights should not be trampled on by the State is the real reason for his abduction and likely abuse at the hands of the PSB. Over the past few years, China’s human rights attorneys have become more organized, using modern technology to quickly communicate with each other, and increasingly vocal, demanding that the government abide by its own laws when it comes to the people’s civil rights and civil liberties. Instead of responding positively to these developments – developments that largely symbolize a growing rule of law society and an emerging civil society – the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has further entrenched its authoritarian rule and has used increasingly sever measures to break these human rights lawyers. While Chinese human rights lawyers’ cases would be everyday affairs for public interest lawyers elsewhere in the world, the CCP views these lawyers as a threat to their one-party rule and the PSB views them as a threat to its all-inclusive, and many times illegal, policing methods. Based upon the recent abduction of Tang Jitian and Jiang Tianyong, the PSB and the CCP will do whatever it takes to suppress these human rights lawyers.
On Saturday, while rumors were circulating on the internet that China itself was to have a “Jasmine Revolution” following the events in the Middle East, a Chinese rights activist tweeted that the Chinese government detained twenty-one other human rights attorneys: Zhu Yufu, Liao Shuangyuan, Huang Yanming, Teng Biao, Ran Yunfei, Li Tiantian, Liu Guohui, Ding Mao, Lu Yongxiang, Xiao Yong, Zhang Jianping, Shi Yulin, She Wanbao, Li Yu, Lou Baosheng, Wei Shuishan, Zhang Shanguang, Li Xiongbing, Xu Zhiyong, Huang Yaling, and Li Bo. Many may suffer physical abuse at the hands of the PSB. Some already have.
Why Should Anyone Care?
I met Tang Jitian when I was last in China and was impressed, not just with his bravery, but also with understanding of his role in pushing the Chinese government to truly commit to a rule of law. If human rights lawyers are suppressed now he told me, there will be no one to take over the movement. Tang is right and breaking the movement appears to be one of the goals of the Chinese government. By openly subjecting human rights attorneys to constant surveillance, disbarment, psychological threats, and physical abuse, the Chinese government hopes that once this generation of human right lawyers pass, no younger lawyers will dare to take up the mantle; the repercussions are too severe.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take a hard line on human rights
But the question remains, will the rest of the world allow this? Last month, the Obama Administration impressed many by repeatedly raising the issue of human rights with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Just days before Hu’s arrival in Washington, D.C., Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bluntly discussed the plight of China’s human rights lawyers, stating that the United States will expect China to fulfill its own promise of rule of law: “America will continue to speak out and to press China…when lawyers and legal advocates are sent to prison simply for representing clients who challenge the government’s positions….” The time has come for the United States to back-up that statement.
The Obama Administration has already expressed its concern with the treatment of Chen Guangcheng. But it cannot forget the less known advocates like Tang Jitian and Jiang Tianyong – without some form of international recognition of his situation the PSB will believe it has the cover to do with Tang and Jiang what it wants. Furthermore, the Obama Administration needs to see the Chinese government’s recent reaction as an affront to a “rule of law” and also needs to comment on the importance of not just a “rule of law” in China but on the existence of a vibrant public interest law bar. Human rights lawyers directly challenge the State in order to protect individual’s legally-guaranteed rights; only when these lawyers are able to more freely function in society will China have any meaningful rule of law.
A meaningful rule of law in China is not just an abstract principle for Americans. As more Americans do business in China and as the U.S. government seeks to increase the number of students studying in China to over 100,000, rule of law in China will become an everyday concern. Last year’s arrest and prosecution of Australian citizen and Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu and the recent conviction of U.S. citizen and geologist Xue Feng embody the importance of China’s rule of law development for Americans. The Obama Administration needs to publicly condemn the Chinese government’s recent suppression of human rights lawyers, call for the release of Tang Jitian, and frankly question the Chinese government’s commitment to a rule of law. Tang and Jiang’s safety depends on it.
Human Rights, Rule of Law | Beijing, Chen Guangcheng, China, Falun Gong, Gao Zhisheng, human rights lawyers, Jasmine Revolution, Jiang Tianyong, Public Security Bureau, Tang Jitian, weiquan
The U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue: There is News to Report!
By Elizabeth M. Lynch, May 17, 2010
After a two year hiatus, the U.S. and China resumed their human rights dialogue last Thursday and Friday in Washington, D.C. Don’t be alarmed if this is the first you heard of the Dialogue; the U.S. mainstream press barely covered it.
The U.S-China Human Rights Dialogue is subject to criticism and much of it viable. China doesn’t send anyone with much power to negotiate (for last week’s Dialogue the highest official was Chen Xu, Director General of the Department of International Organization of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs); the Dialogue itself is conducted largely behind closed doors and it is unclear what is accomplished; and there are never benchmarks set to determine if these dialogues actually produce any results.
But last week’s U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue, even with the little that is
Assistant Secretary, DRL, Michael Posner
known about it, is newsworthy; it reflects a changing interpretation of human rights in the U.S.-China relationship. From what can be gleaned from Department of State press conference, the new emphasis in human rights appears to be almost exclusively rule of law. While Mike Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, highlighted five different topics which were discussed at the dialogue (religious freedom, labor rights, freedom of expression, rule of law, and racial discrimination), the focus of the Chinese delegation’s field trip on Friday was largely legal. On Friday, the Chinese delegation made the following visits: a meeting with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to discuss rule of law and an independent judiciary; a talk with Cardinal McCarrisk at Catholic Charities’ Anchor Mental Health Center to discuss the relationship between the religious community and government as it pertains to human and social services; discussions with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services concerning labor rights and collective bargaining; and a talk with Thomas Crothers at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace regarding the interplay among law, human rights and food safety.
In addition to the focus of an effective legal system as a part of human rights, here are some other interesting takeaways:
Why discuss with delegates from an atheist country the role of religious organizations?
This is perhaps the most interesting and most puzzling aspect of the talks. China, run by the Communist Party, is a self-declared atheist country. In fact, all of the Chinese delegates from last week are admitted atheists. To be a Chinese official, Communist Party membership is a prerequisite; to be a member of the Chinese Communist Party renunciation of religion (Buddhist, Islam, Christianity, etc) is necessary. So given this fact, the State Department trip to Catholic Charities offers an interesting insight into the U.S.’ policy toward religion, human rights, and China, particularly in regards to Christianity.
While ostensibly atheist, China is one of the fastest growing Christian nations. Even based on the Chinese government’s official numbers –which are likely low-balled—from 1997 to 2006, China saw a 50% rise in the number of Christians. The number, including those that attend the government-run churches as well as the underground, unofficial churches, is around 70 million. Although this seems like a large number, population wise, it is only around 5%. So for many Western Christian missionaries, the name of the game is China. Western Catholics and Protestants both know this and are in China, albeit undercover, in large numbers.
While China has a growing Christian population, the Chinese government remains ambivalent about its development – sometimes seeing it as buttressing its authority and sometimes seeing it as a threat. Although religious groups and charities have been important in the U.S.’ civil society development, China is a long way from having any sort of religious charities that could support human rights or rule of law.
So why the trip to Catholic Charities? Perhaps the Chinese officials requested this because they are sincerely interested in learning more about the role religious groups can play in society. Or perhaps U.S. policymakers’ idea of human rights, at least in China, is becoming less secular and more religious-based, particularly Christian. Unfortunately, Assistant Secretary Posner did not explain why the Human Rights Dialogue with atheist China focused on the role of religious organizations in supporting human rights and we are left merely to speculate.
U.S. Raises Issue of Liu Xiaobo’s Imprisonment, the Disappearance of Gao Zhisheng, and likely the Disbarment of Tang Jitian and Liu Wei
Assistant Secretary Posner informed the press that U.S. officials discussed many specific Chinese dissents’ cases during the Dialogue. However, the only two cases he named were those of Liu Xiaobo and the very odd case of Gao Zhisheng.
Liu Xiaobo has a long history of human rights activism in China. In 1989, he
Activist Liu Xiaobo
participated in the Tiananmen protests and has repeatedly criticized the Chinese government. His activism has received many accolades from the West, including Reporters Without Borders’ Foundation de France Prize. In December 2008, Liu Xiaobo was one of the organizers of the Charter ’08 movement, a movement calling for more democracy, less corruption and greater accountability of the Chinese government. For these activities, Liu was arrested and sentenced to a very harsh 11-year prison term for inciting subversion of state power. Even for China, the sentence is particularly long.
Although Liu’s sentence was harsh, the outcome was not surprising from
An emaciated Gao Zhisheng in March 2010 after a year in police custody
China. Gao Zhisheng’s case however is just downright bizarre and Kafkaesque. Gao is a self-taught lawyer and received much praise by the Chinese government for his work in public interest law. But that was back in 2001. By 2006, Gao had fallen out of favor and his work, particularly the representation of the repressed religious organization Falun Gong, was seen as a threat to the Chinese government. In 2006, Gao was detained, arrested and eventually found guilty of subversion. His three year prison sentence was converted to five year probation and he was allowed to remain at home. After harassment, physical abuse and threats to his life, in February 2009, one month after his wife and child fled China for the United States, Gao was mysteriously abducted by Chinese police. His whereabouts remained unknown. The Chinese government remained largely silent in regards to Gao’s whereabouts until January of this year when in response to questions regarding Gao’s disappearance, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu retorted that Gao was “where he should be.” Although ominous, Gao eventually reemerged in March 2010 at Wutai Mountain, hundreds of miles from his home. Announcing that he was giving up rights activism for the opportunity to be reunited with his family, Gao went to Xinjiang Autonomous Region at the beginning of April to visit his in-laws. After one night there, Gao was abducted a second time and to this day, his whereabouts are unknown.
In addition to Liu and Gao, Posner also mentioned that the cases if recently disbarred public interest lawyers were also raised. This likely means Tang Jitian and Liu Wei, two public interest lawyers who were recently stripped of the right to practice law. Both Tang and Liu merely represented
China’s increasingly hard-line stance against rights activists and public interest lawyers reflects a country that may not be interested in establishing the rule of law, at least at it pertains to non-economic spheres. Raising these issues is important not just for the people being detained or harassed, but also to see how China moves forward in response to the issues. For example, President Obama, in his trip to China last November, reportedly raised the issue of Liu Xiaobo’s detention. However, the Chinese government did not lighten Liu’s sentence in response. Instead, the Chinese government sentenced Liu to the overly harsh term of 11 years in December, a month after President Obama’s visit. It will be interesting to see what happens to Liu Xiaobo, Gao, Tang and Liu Wei after the Human Rights Dialogue. Does China care anymore about the U.S.’ criticism?
Even the Chinese know what the real purpose of Arizona’s new law
To create a feeling of mutual respect, the U.S. usually voluntarily discusses its own human rights issues during these dialogues. In last week’s Dialogue, Assistant Secretary Posner volunteered Arizona’s new law against illegal immigrants as an example of a potential human rights violation in the United States. However, according to Posner, the Chinese were not concerned about the law as it may apply to their citizens visiting the U.S. Even the Chinese know that the law’s likely racial profiling will be for Mexicans, not Chinese.
How to Move Forward
Last week’s Human Rights Dialogue was only the second since 2002, after China suspended the talks. Actually having the Dialogue itself is a major accomplishment. Additionally, at the end both sides agreed to have another session in 2011, making the Dialogue an annual event. For purposes of a continuing conversation, this is a good sign. But the criticism that China merely plays lip service to the Dialogue is apt. That is why it is important that during this month’s Strategic & Economic Dialogue (S&ED), to be held in China May 24 and 25, that high level officials, including the Secretary of State, raise human rights. China places more emphasis on the S&ED compared to the Human Rights Dialogue. But if the U.S. really wants China to move forward in human rights and rule of law, the topic must also be raised at the S&ED.
Human Rights | Arizona immigration law, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Catholic Charities, Chen Xu, Christianty in China, Democracy Human Rights and Labor, Department of International Organizations, Department of State, Gao Zhisheng, Liu Wei, Liu Xiaobo, Michael Posner, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rule of Law, Sandra Day O'Connor, Strategic & Economic Dialogue, Tang Jitian, Thomas Crothers, U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue
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WSJ: Making Data Beautiful
MARVELS
Making Data Beautiful
The most inspiring new art is visualized information
By HOLLY FINN
Aaron Koblin
Aaron Koblin's New York Talk Exchange shows, in real time, the volume of telephone and Internet data flowing to other cities.
Dateline: Dullsville. This week the Tate Modern museum in London unveiled a Damien Hirst retrospective that's about as fresh as one of its featured pieces: "A Thousand Years" is an actual rotting cow's head. Why are we picking at these carcasses of creativity? We should instead be celebrating the really new and relevant: the rise of the data visualizers. Their medium is the one with momentum, the one genuinely changing how we think and feel. And it's about to boom.
At companies and universities, and far beyond, the goal of data-driven digital artists is clear, not cynical: convey complex concepts quickly and crisply. They want to generate not Art-with-a-capital-A, necessarily, but understanding. They take stone-cold data—units of information—and turn them into something warmly communicative. Beautiful, too. So they become a pleasure for us to absorb.
Humans process information 17 times faster using sight than other senses, according to one Danish physicist. Take Gareth Lloyd's Web-based "A History of the World in 100 Seconds": over 14,000 geo-tagged Wikipedia articles, digitally mapped from 499 B.C. to the present. You can watch the data points pop like fireworks as they gradually form a glowing map of the continents. Hans Rosling's Gapminder website tracks data on the wealth and health of nations from 1800 on. You watch as bubbles representing each country expand, contract and bounce along over time—almost hopefully.
Data visualization has a history, of course. William Playfair invented four key visualization types in 1786, influencing Florence Nightingale, among others. She used a graphic polar chart in 1859 to show that soldiers were dying from infections, not wounds. But big data is today's specific bane. We all battle data obesity—too much information, not enough of it nutritious—and crave experts to help us sort and savor it. Happily, technology has handed us, and them, the tools. Faster computers, new programming languages.
"It's not unlike a microscope—taking something you can't see and bringing it into the scale of perception," Aaron Koblin, 30, told me at lunch in Google's San Francisco office. He's head of the company's Data Arts Team.
Mr. Koblin has temporally mapped text messages in New York. 'You really understand a lot about cities from flows,' he says.
Mr. Koblin's work sits right on the line between art and information. The shimmery tiles in eCloud, his installation at San Jose International Airport, change from opaque to transparent depending on the global weather data they're receiving. His New York Talk Exchange project visualizes the volume of long-distance telephone and Internet data between New York and other cities, revealing New Yorkers' relationships with the world.
He has temporally mapped text messages, too, in Amsterdam and New York. "You really understand a lot about cities from flows, when people are awake and doing what things at what locations," says Mr. Koblin. "And you can say, people in Brooklyn tend to get up later than people in Manhattan."
Add to that sonification: sound reiterating what you see, helping to "storify" information, especially for those who are pitch-sensitive. "You can turn data into rhythms," says Mr. Koblin, such as cable-box data. "CNBC has a constant rhythm, really local. But CNN is really event-driven—and you get these crazy spikes."
Tomorrow's prime exhibition space is online, not in a gallery. Still, some of Mr. Koblin's visualizations are part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. He was nominated for a Grammy for his Radiohead video. And he co-created the first made-for-Web music video for Arcade Fire's "The Wilderness Downtown." Plug in the address where you grew up and the video, using Google Street View, transports you back there. You can almost taste the chocolate milk.
Delivering information and entertainment in such delightfully shocking ways is what the coming age of data arts is all about: a flat screen reaching out to smack, or sway, you. Talk about fresh. There are no putrefying cow heads here.
A version of this article appeared April 7, 2012, on page C12 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Making Data BeautifulMaking Data Beautiful.
Apr 7, 2012 8:04:34 PM | Analytics, Art, Statistics
NY Times: A Hit That Has Outlasted 10,000 Chandeliers
A Hit That Has Outlasted 10,000 Chandeliers
By PATRICK HEALY
“The Phantom of the Opera” will make show business history on Saturday with the 10,000th Broadway performance of an $8 million production that became an $845 million hit. But it is also something much more. It is the musical that has come to define modern Broadway by proving the purchasing power of women and tourists, the durability of repeat business and the lure of spectacle: ingredients for success embraced by producers of “The Lion King,” “Wicked,” “Mamma Mia!” and other smashes.
While “Phantom” has prospered from unparalleled word of mouth, a show as much for sightseers as for theatergoers, its unprecedented Broadway run has hardly been a foregone conclusion. When it opened on Jan. 26, 1988, big hits were few, and roughly half of Broadway’s theaters were empty. Yet thanks to persistent marketing, strict quality control and flexibility in ticket pricing (the worst seats can now be had for only $26.50), “Phantom” survived — in fact thrived — when shows with bigger stars and better reviews brought down their curtains.
The show’s 2011 box office performance was its most lucrative, and in December “Phantom” earned more in a single week, $1,579,428, than in any of the 1,256 weeks since the musical reached New York.
It’s a windfall for investors like James B. Freydberg, who recalled recently that he and his business partner decided to put $500,000 into “Phantom” in 1987 because they figured they might do better than in the stock market, which had just crashed on Black Monday. They have gone on to earn about $12 million from “Phantom” through Broadway and national tours, and still receive regular checks of $100,000 from a show that Mr. Freydberg hasn’t seen since opening night 24 years ago.
“No one ever, ever expected this kind of wealth,” he said. “My only other investment that has performed better is my Apple stock.”
From years of detailed audience surveys, the producers and creators of “Phantom” have honed the ways to maximize its appeal, whether emphasizing the show’s love story in advertising or offering sharp discounts so audience members will return. More than 40 percent of “Phantom” patrons have seen it at least once before, and a majority of “Phantom” audiences in 2011 saw no other Broadway show that year. About 68 percent were women, and nearly 60 percent were tourists.
“Based on all our data, we’re able to predict, for virtually each week of the year, what the demand for seats will be, what types of people will be coming and how to price the seats,” said Alan Wasser, the production’s general manager.
Katie Spohr, a 24-year-old from Illinois with an internship in Manhattan, is one of those people. “I wanted to pick a musical that was really well established, that everyone would like, and I’d heard it was something you can’t leave without seeing,” Ms. Spohr said outside the Majestic on Tuesday night. She bought tickets to take her boyfriend, Sam, visiting from Indiana. “He’s not a big theatergoer,” she added. Sam shrugged in assent.
Today’s Broadway formula often involves adapting brand-name movies into stage musicals and star-driven shows, but “Phantom” relies on a slightly different model. It, too, was an adaptation — of a 1909 French novel — and it arrived on Broadway on the tail end of a winning streak by its producer, Cameron Mackintosh, and its composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber. But while its crashing chandelier drew much of the attention in London (where it still runs) and during its early days in New York, it’s the heart-filling, heartbreaking plot and lush music that provide staying power on Broadway, where only 30 percent of shows ever turn a profit.
“Any supersuccessful show depends on audiences’ coming back, and to do that a musical has to find a way to hit people in the solar plexus,” Mr. Mackintosh said in an interview. “There aren’t many epic love stories on Broadway anymore, like ‘South Pacific’ or ‘The King and I,’ where people get swept away.”
Reminded of the weak reviews from 1988, Mr. Mackintosh scoffed at the idea that “Phantom” had become the theatrical equivalent of comfort food. Mr. Lloyd Webber agreed, saying, “ ‘Phantom’ doesn’t exactly have the traditional leading man, or the traditional happy ending.”
The show’s weekly running costs have been tightened over the years to about $600,000, modest for any musical and low for one with such elaborate sets and costumes. As a result, the show turned a profit almost every week in 2011.
But Mr. Mackintosh has not stinted on marketing efforts that have cost millions over the years. While he declined to provide precise figures, he said he long ago learned to ignore theater executives who maintained that advertising could be pared back as positive word of mouth spread.
Instead, the show’s simple visual signature — the Phantom’s white mask — remains on a billboard in Times Square and on signs on New York City buses. That mask has become a cultural reference point, like the two yellow eyes for “Cats” and the cap-wearing waif for “Les Misérables” — the next two longest-running shows on Broadway — and, more recently, the ornate doorbell for the hit Broadway musical “The Book of Mormon.”
The musical also benefited considerably from the multimillion-dollar advertising budget for the 2004 film adaptation, which came when Mr. Mackintosh noticed Broadway sales weakening. The production grossed $31.4 million in 2003, before the movie’s release; in the three subsequent years, the box office receipts rose to $34.6 million, $41.8 million and $43.5 million. Indeed, before entering Tuesday’s performance, two women from Helsinki, as well as another pair from Houston, said they first learned about the musical from seeing ads for the movie.
The women from Houston said they were also drawn by the unusually inexpensive seats in the rear mezzanine, whose prices were reduced in the last couple of years after the show’s general managers calculated that more money could be netted by selling that frequently empty section at cut rates. The $26.50 seats are the flip side of the dynamic pricing strategy that has spread among most Broadway shows, which charge premium prices for the best seats.
“Phantom” did its best business ever last year, grossing $44.8 million, including that record final week of the year; $1.5 million is an enormous weekly amount for any show.
Harold Prince, who won a Tony Award for directing “Phantom,” said he believed its enduring buzz was the result of keeping the performances sharp. The 84-year-old Mr. Prince said he returned four times a year to see and rehearse the show, and that resident directors were on hand to pounce on signs of staleness.
Not every version of “Phantom” has had the success of the one on Broadway. A truncated production that opened in 2006 in Las Vegas at a cost of $75 million is scheduled to close this September. And a sequel, “Love Never Dies,” flopped last year in London, though Mr. Lloyd Webber said he hoped a retooled version from Australia might make it to Broadway someday.
Mr. Mackintosh said he was hoping to do better with a new “Phantom” production he was assembling to tour in Britain and, if successful, perhaps in the United States.
“After 25 years it seems right to try a new approach if you’re going to send ‘Phantom’ out again,” he said, noting that the musical had played in 27 countries and 145 cities. (The show has grossed $5.6 billion worldwide.) “But it’s not like the old ‘Phantom’ is going anywhere. It will be in London and on Broadway, forever we hope.”
Feb 17, 2012 7:34:02 PM | Art, Music, Statistics
FT: Forget dong the 'math' and stick to proper English
Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/be8ae0b0-eabc-11e0-ac18-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1aGV775ud
Forget doing the ‘math’ and stick to proper English
By Lucy Kellaway
Last week, I was sent an email from a “work-life balance expert” offering tips on staying cheerful in times of financial strife.
What struck me most about this message – apart from its trite fatuousness – was the assumption that we need cheering up when the economy is down.
I have never seen any evidence that happiness moves in tandem with economic activity. I’m no less happy now than I was in the boom of the mid-2000s. And if I am upset, it’s not because of the economy but because the ceiling has just fallen down in my hall and so there is grit in my bed and in the fridge.
In fact, it’s possible that happiness may even rise in recessions. There was a study a couple of years ago that showed that people in work are marginally more content during hard times because they are grateful to have a job.
However, according to last week’s press release, the path to good cheer in recession lies through “living exponentially”. Just looking at this phrase causes my happiness levels to suffer a dip. The word “exponential” has taken a lot of abuse from managers who use it to describe any growth that is more than sluggish. Whereas in maths an exponential graph goes swiftly from almost flat to almost vertical, this pattern is seldom traced by any market I’ve ever come across.
But now the term seems to have slipped free of its mathematical moorings altogether: living “exponentially” involves having “quality time with yourself” and “living in your own truth”.
Speaking from the vantage point of my own truth, I find some things are truer than others. Truest of all are mathematical truths, and it is therefore upsetting to see them being pilfered shamelessly by innumerate managers eager to lend an aura of fact to what is usually a glob of guff.
Exponential is the least of it. Now every happening in business is called a “data point”, and change is increasingly known as “delta”, as in “what’s the delta on that?”
“Inflection point” is similarly debased. In maths, this is when the curvature goes from positive to negative but to managers it is a grandiose way of saying maximum or minimum. Last month, I saw it had been degraded further in a gung-ho article on the Huffington Post by a social entrepreneur entitled “The Inflection Point, The ‘Aha’ Moment” – in which it meant nothing at all.
Managers have a long history in playing fast and loose with percentages to make themselves look good. When it comes to effort, an impossible 110 per cent used to be regarded as a bare minimum.
Now hyperinflation has taken hold. A few weeks ago in Australia, the highest ever illegitimate percentage scoring was recorded when ex-cricketer Tim Nielsen said he was “100,000 per cent behind Australia being the best team in the world”.
All sorts of other things are just plain wrong when they are translated from maths to business talk. “To decimate” means to reduce by one-tenth; it does not mean to slash. “Infinite” means immeasurably large; it isn’t a general term to mean a lot. And “quantum” is something very, very small, not something very, very big.
More distressing than any of the above, however, is the phrase “Do the math”. This would be fine if it were a genuine invitation to whip out one’s slide rule. Instead it is a slightly threatening way of asserting: I’m right and I have logic on my side.
Last month, Barack Obama claimed that his tax package “isn’t class warfare. It’s math.” But it wasn’t math, really. It was politics. Yet at least President Obama is American, and so the phrase sounds better on his lips. On BBC Radio Four last week, I heard a Brit taking about the far right in UK politics, urging listeners to “do the maths” – which sounded even worse.
The strangest thing about all this misuse of mathematics is that when there is an actual need to discuss figures, managers go all coy, and proper numerical terms are nowhere to be seen.
Indeed, in business, numbers are not called numbers any more – they are called “metrics”. Which is a bit bizarre, when you think that metrics are about the study of metre in poetry. And in the mouths of modern managers, numbers no longer do anything as basic as go up and down: they go north and south as if they were points on a map.
Last week in a meeting I heard a finance manager say the following words: “We’re looking to see our metrics coming in north of the 3 mill mark.”
If he had done the maths before opening his mouth, he might have put it rather better and said: the number will be bigger than three million or X>3m.
lucy.kellaway@ft.com
Oct 8, 2011 11:55:31 PM | Language/Linguistics, Leadership & Management, Lucy Kellaway, Math, Opinion, Statistics
NY Times: In a Data-Heavy Society, Being Defined by the numbers
In a Data-Heavy Society, Being Defined by the Numbers
By ALINA TUGEND
I HAVE a confession to make. I started using Twitter about six months ago and eagerly watched my “followers” rise — 20 to 30 to 40. I made it to 60 and suddenly plateaued — a few would follow and then (heartbreak) “unfollow.”
At one point, I signed up my sons, who didn’t even use Twitter, to follow me. While part of me was laughing at myself — how senseless was this? — I also took some pleasure in seeing my numbers rise.
Numbers and rankings are everywhere. And I’m not just talking about Twitter followers and Facebook friends. In the journalism world, there’s how many people “like” an article or blog. How many retweeted or e-mailed it? I’ll know, for example, if this column made the “most e-mailed” of the business section. Or of the entire paper. And however briefly, it will matter to me.
Offline, too, we are turning more and more to numbers and rankings. We use standardized test scores to evaluate teachers and students. The polling companies have already begun to tell us who’s up and who’s down in the 2012 presidential election. Companies have credit ratings. We have credit scores.
And although most people acknowledge that there are a million different ways to judge colleges and universities, the annual rankings by U.S. News & World Report of institutions of higher education have gained almost biblical importance.
“Numbers make intangibles tangible,” said Jonah Lehrer, a journalist and author of “How We Decide,” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009). “They give the illusion of control.”
Too many people shopping for cars, for example, get fixated on how much horsepower the engine has, even though in most cases it really doesn’t matter, Mr. Lehrer said.
“We want to quantify everything,” he went on, “to ground a decision in fact, instead of asking whether that variable matters.”
Even before we could measure — and flaunt — numbers online, some had long been a reference point. Consider the many years that fans have meticulously followed baseball statistics.
And we often do need to find ways to measure and evaluate people and products in as objective a way as possible.
The trouble, though, is when we mindlessly and blindly rely on those numbers to tell us everything, said Sherry Turkle, a professor of social studies of science and technology and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Initiative on Technology and Self.
Numbers become not just part of the way we judge and assess, but the only way.
“One of the fantasies of numerical ranking is that you know how you got there,” said Professor Turkle, who is the author of “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other” (Basic Books, 2011). “But the problem is if the numbers are arrived at in an irrational way, or black-boxed, so we don’t understand how we got there, then what use are they?”
My colleague Michael Winerip recently wrote an article about an excellent and exceptionally dedicated middle-school teacher, with terrific performance evaluations. But a formula used by the New York Department of Education put the teacher in the seventh percentile of her teaching peers.
That formula used 32 variables plugged into a statistical model that “appears transparent, but is clear as mud,” Mr. Winerip wrote.
And even if we understand the numbers — something as apparently clear-cut as how many books an author sells — they aren’t always helpful.
Robin Black, author of the short story collection, “If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This,” (Random House, 2010) wrote a blog post on how fretting about the different ways to measure her book’s success has overshadowed why she wrote it in the first place.
“I go to a place where everything has a number,” Ms. Black told me. “How many advance copies, how many reviews, how many sales.”
Amazon recently made it possible for authors to check how many books they’ve sold and, using interactive maps, it even zeroes in on how many sales occurred in which cities.
“Twenty years ago, maybe every Sunday you looked at The New York Times best-seller list,” she said. “Now you can torture yourself 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It becomes an exercise in scab-picking.”
And those black-and-white statistics, while arguably irrefutable in one way, really tell us almost nothing. Amazon’s rankings of book sales, for instance — which anyone can view — can vary wildly based on the sale of very few books.
All those numbers help us lose sight of why we’re really doing what we’re doing. Ms. Black, for instance, said her books were largely about loss.
“I’ll get a letter from someone who says, ‘My daughter died, and reading your book really helped,’ ” Ms. Black said. “That’s so meaningful. How do I measure that against 500 Twitter followers?”
Eric Frankel is founder of a company called 10 Minutes to Change, which works on human resources strategies and talent management, which means figuring out how to improve workers’ performance.
He’s also a certified public accountant, so he knows the importance of numbers. But, he said: “Just because we have the skills and ability to put metrics on everything doesn’t mean we should. People are ever-changing, fascinating and incredibly frustrating.”
Metrics to evaluate employee potential, teamwork and salesmanship can’t and shouldn’t replace hands-on interpersonal skills and instinct, Mr. Frankel said. Even professional baseball scouts, who have access to every conceivable statistic, know true worth is “steeped in the intangibles garnered by close observation, team orientation, makeup, work habits, leadership skills and professional presence,” he said.
This reliance and overweening trust in numbers is to some extent generational, said Howard Gardner, a professor of cognition and education at Harvard Graduate School of Education.
“For almost anybody in the United States under the age of 25, the only models are quantifiable rankings,” he said.
So when students are researching a paper, how do they decide where to turn for the greatest expertise? Often, he said, by looking at what articles or papers online have the most hits.
“Let’s take Britannica versus Wikipedia,” said Professor Gardner, who is the author of “Truth, Beauty and Goodness Reframed” (Basic Books, 2011). “Should it be that whatever has the most hits or the most editors makes it better than someone who spent his life studying Kant?”
The obsession with numbers, he said, means we don’t trust or even look for the intangibles that can’t be measured, like wisdom, judgment and expertise.
We also lose a sense of ourselves as anything but a number and a rank, and start feeling bad if our numbers don’t measure up to others.
Mr. Lehrer, in a blog post titled Online Status Anxiety on his Web site, wrote, “What I’m most troubled by is the desire of individuals (especially myself) to constantly check up on these numbers, and to accept these measurements as a measure of something meaningful.”
He went on, “That’s why I wish there was a popular social platform that didn’t measure anything. I doubt such a platform will ever exist — we clearly want the explicit hierarchies, even when they drive us crazy — but it sure would be a relief.”
By the way, 320 people “liked” that blog post.
The most frustrating thing for those of us who have a tendency to obsess over rankings is that we know we can simply refuse to keep checking. And if we must see how our blog or book or number of online friends measure up, we can also remind ourselves that those statistics have only as much importance as we’re willing to invest in them.
Or as Ms. Black put it: “I have to stop worrying about numbers. I have to reclaim the ambiguous part of my own intelligence.”
E-mail: shortcuts@nytimes.com
Apr 23, 2011 7:30:32 AM | Analytics, Opinion, Statistics
NY Times: When the Data Struts Its Stuff
When the Data Struts Its Stuff
By NATASHA SINGER
IN an uncharted world of boundless data, information designers are our new navigators.
They are computer scientists, statisticians, graphic designers, producers and cartographers who map entire oceans of data and turn them into innovative visual displays, like rich graphs and charts, that help both companies and consumers cut through the clutter. These gurus of visual analytics are making interactive data synonymous with attractive data.
“Statistics,” says Dr. Hans Rosling, a professor of international health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, “is now the sexiest subject around.”
Dr. Rosling is a founder of Gapminder, a nonprofit group based in Stockholm that works to educate the public about disparities in health and wealth around the world — by offering animated interactive statistics online that help visitors spot trends on their own.
Hit the play button and an animated graphic, called Gapminder World, shows a constellation of brightly colored bubbles, each representing a different country, bouncing along over two centuries. Without ever having to view yawn-inducing numbers on gross domestic product per capita, you can watch some countries, like the United States, rapidly growing healthier and wealthier before your eyes while smaller bubbles, for countries like Congo, rise on the life expectancy axis even as they dip on the income line.
The advanced animation has let Dr. Rosling make wonky statistics about poverty as intuitive and potentially fascinating for viewers as a nature program about the Serengeti on TV. “If we show a herd of zebras, and one zebra has a bad leg and lags behind, you can see that immediately,” says Dr. Rosling, whose video clip from the BBC on health and wealth statistics has been viewed more than four million times on YouTube. “If one country gets left behind, you can see that, too.”
Visual analytics play off the idea that the brain is more attracted to and able to process dynamic images than long lists of numbers. But the goal of information visualization is not simply to represent millions of bits of data as illustrations. It is to prompt visceral comprehension, moments of insight that make viewers want to learn more.
“The purpose of visualization,” says Ben Shneiderman, founding director of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland, “is insight, not pictures.”
The growing field has implications for companies, governments, academic institutions, nonprofit groups, news organizations and marketers — just about anybody who tries to convey huge amounts of information in visual, interactive forms. But advances, he says, come with both benefits and risks.
On the benefit side, people become more engaged when they can filter information that is presented visually and make discoveries on their own.
On the risk side, Professor Shneiderman says, tools as powerful as visualizations have the potential to mislead or confuse consumers. And privacy implications arise, he says, as increasing amounts of personal, housing, medical and financial data become widely accessible, searchable and viewable.
“The visual analytics research community works on these issues,” he says, “but more needs to be done.”
In the 1990s, Professor Shneiderman developed tree mapping, which uses interlocking rectangles to represent complicated data sets. The rectangles are sized and colored to convey different kinds of information, like revenue or geographic region, says Jim Bartoo, the chief executive of the Hive Group, a software company that uses tree mapping to help companies and government agencies monitor operational data. When executives or plant managers see the nested rectangles grouped together, he adds, they should be able to immediately spot anomalies or trends.
In one tree-map visualization of a sales department on the Hive Group site, red tiles represent underperforming sales representatives while green tiles represent people who exceeded their sales quotas. So it’s easy to identify the best sales rep in the company: the biggest green tile. But viewers can also reorganize the display — by region, say, or by sales manager — to see whether patterns exist that explain why some employees are falling behind.
“It’s the ability of the human brain to pick out size and color” that makes tree mapping so intuitive, Mr. Bartoo says. Information visualization, he adds, “suddenly starts answering questions that you didn’t know you had.”
For entertainment value, the Hive Group has also posted a tree map of the 100 most popular songs on iTunes, updated every 24 hours.
The fact that serious software companies are now tree mapping the pop charts is a sign that data visualization is no longer just a useful tool for researchers and corporations. It’s also an entertainment and marketing vehicle.
In 2009, for example, Stamen Design, a technology and design studio in San Francisco, created a live visualization of Twitter traffic during the MTV Video Music awards. In the animated graphic, floating bubbles, each displaying a photograph of a celebrity, expanded or contracted depending on the volume of Twitter activity about each star. The project provided a visceral way for viewers to understand which celebrities dominated Twitter talk in real time, says Eric Rodenbeck, the founder and creative director of Stamen Design.
Information visualization has changed substantially in the 10 years since the studio has been in business, Mr. Rodenbeck says. Designers once created visual representations of data that would steer viewers to information that seemed the most important or newsworthy, he says; now they create visualizations that contain attractive overview images and then let users direct their own interactive experience — wherever it may take them.
“It’s not about leading with a certain view anymore,” he says. “It’s about delivering the view that gets the most participation and engagement.”
TO that end, the company has just introduced an initial version of mondowindow.com, a site that shows airline passengers a detailed satellite map of the landscape they are flying over — and lets them direct the view.
For passengers with Wi-Fi access who enter their airline and flight number on the site, mondowindow.com displays more than just the terrain below. It also offers information bubbles highlighting different place names, local landmarks and tourist attractions like schools and botanical gardens, and photos of native fauna, like a blue jay.
On the ground, we may live in a world of T.M.I. — too much information. But Stamen Design is betting that we will relish rich images of ground data when we are flying several miles high.
Apr 3, 2011 8:20:57 AM | Analytics, Fun, Statistics, Web/Tech
FT: Happiness - A measure of cheer
Source - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/990cbbde-11e5-11e0-92d0-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz19Q9canHr
Happiness: A measure of cheer
By Tim Harford
Published: December 27 2010 18:44 | Last updated: December 27 2010 18:44
‘The welfare of a nation can ... scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income.’
So the US Congress was warned in 1934 by Simon Kuznets, who thus continued a long tradition of pointing out that there is more to life than money. But the economist’s comments broke particular ground: they were attached to the first serious attempts to produce national income accounts – the tally of all that a country produces and earns – for the US. Kuznets and his small research team had built them, and he knew their limits.
Where Kuznets led, others have followed. From the upper echelons of the administration of President Barack Obama to the offices of Nicolas Sarkozy, his French counterpart, to David Cameron, UK prime minister, the goal of gauging a nation’s wellbeing has captured the imagination of policymakers. They join less likely countries such as Bhutan, whose mission to measure “gross national happiness” has made the Himalayan mountain kingdom a trendsetter.
Mr Cameron was the most recent to take up the cause, saying Britain needed to look for alternative measures that would show national progress “not just by how our economy is growing, but by how our lives are improving; not just by our standard of living, but by our quality of life”. While some analysts suspect each politician has his own motives – appearing nice to electors, flattering the economy and so on – the result has been to create a sense of momentum behind happiness economics.
What do happiness yardsticks add up to? - Dec-27
Tim Harford: Call no man happy until he is a government statistic - Nov-19
Editorial Comment: A happy medium - Nov-26
Happiness rethink - Oct-22
Oxford economists draw up poverty meter - Jul-02
Samuel Brittan: We do not prosper by income or happiness alone - Aug-03
Embracing happiness is one thing; measuring it another. There are, broadly speaking, three approaches to measuring a country’s wellbeing. One is to use the long-established framework of national income accounts and adjust it to better reflect national welfare. The second is to collect data on objective measures that are plausibly related to wellbeing: anything from life expectancy to crime, suicide rates to income inequality. The third – and the three are not mutually exclusive – is to try to measure national welfare directly by asking people how they feel: the equivalent of measuring wealth by asking: “On a scale of one to 10, how rich are you?”
Intellectually the project of measuring national welfare seems to belong on the centre-left. National income accounts themselves – like unemployment statistics – rose to prominence in the 930s as Franklin Roosevelt tried to lead the US out of the Great Depression and the government recognised it understood very little about how the economy was really doing – beyond very badly. The second world war and the central planning mentality that came with it merely intensified the focus on the government being able to understand how the economy was functioning.
The countervailing view was most pithily expressed by John Cowperthwaite, the laisser-faire financial secretary of Hong Kong in the 1960s, who claimed he refused to collect economic statistics because it would only provide ammunition to the planners. His views have not prevailed. Kuznets won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1971 – only the third year in which it was awarded – and it is hard to find serious economists who think that collecting national income accounts is pointless. The question is whether there is a benefit in trying to supplement those with accounts of national welfare – or, to put it cutely, an index of national happiness.
Mr Cameron says that there is. “You cannot capture happiness on a spreadsheet any more than you can bottle it,” he declared last month. The happiness index project, he added, had a practical purpose: to help the government understand, “with evidence”, the best way of improving people’s wellbeing. In short, Mr Cameron believes happiness indices can help his Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government plan its way to a happier nation in the same way Kuznets’ national accounts helped policymakers respond to the Depression and the outbreak of war.
Before understanding what governments might do with measures of happiness, it is worth asking how to measure it. Although “neuro-economists” are not averse to sticking people into brain scanners with a view to gleaning their inner thoughts, the easiest way to find out whether somebody is happy is to ask them. This might seem uncontroversial; after all, it seems almost definitional that if you’re happy then you know it.
Yet even here there are two quite distinct approaches. The first, and best known, is to collect information about “life satisfaction”, asking people how satisfied they are with their lives, taken as a whole, on (for instance) a scale of one to 10, eliciting a once-and-for-all answer to the question of how life is working out.
The alternative is to zoom in on a particular set of events and ask what feelings they produced. One example is the “day reconstruction method” produced by researchers including Norbert Schwarz, a psychologist, the economist Alan Krueger (until recently chief economist of the US Treasury), and Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist and another winner of the Nobel memorial prize in economics. The DRM asks people to recall, episode by episode, the previous day’s events and the most prevalent accompanying feeling – stress, peace, exhaustion, elation.
In short, one approach measures life satisfaction and the other mood – and the two concepts are quite different ways to think about happiness. One survey comparing women in Rennes, France, and Columbus, Ohio, found that the American women were twice as likely to say they were very satisfied with their lives, but the Frenchwomen spent more of their day in a good mood. “We have tended for too long to use a single word to refer to a wide variety of things,” says Prof Kahneman. “In particular there’s a real need to distinguish between life satisfaction and mood or experienced happiness. They are quite distinct and they have different causes and consequences.” If politicians are to incorporate the measurement of happiness into the fabric of national statistical frameworks, this is a distinction they will have to start taking seriously.
One obvious objection to the new-found emphasis on indicators of national welfare is that it is not, in fact, new-found at all. The most famous (albeit contested) finding in happiness economics is the Easterlin Paradox – that money buys happiness in any given society but richer societies seem to be no happier than middle-income ones – which dates back to the 1970s.
Still, data on subjective wellbeing have been improving ever since. The UK has published Social Trends for four decades, an almanac for modern times that includes information on crime and the fear of it, attitudes to marriage, satisfaction with the National Health Service, calls to child protection numbers, air pollution, North Sea fish stocks and much else. Other countries do likewise.
This puts the wellbeing agenda in a strange place. Those who believe in it know that the data already exist: Andrew Oswald of Warwick University and a leading advocate of the use of wellbeing data points to the UK’s Labour Force Survey, which already includes questions on depression and anxiety. Prof Oswald wants to see more such questions and have more attention paid to them, but this is a request to do more rather than to do something profoundly different.
But professors Kahneman and Krueger, and others, do have plans for a more radical departure. They propose the publication of “time accounting” measures alongside regular national accounts. The US Bureau of Labour Statistics has, funded by the National Institute on Aging, begun to implement some of their proposals.
Time-use surveys use representative samples to see how a nation spends its time – whether cooking, commuting or watching television. They are a well-established part of the US statistical apparatus. The happiness element comes in when the surveys are combined with the DRM. Because this asks survey respondents to rank the emotions they felt while spending time in various activities, it can be used to produce a measure of how long people spend in a predominantly unpleasant state of mind – as well as the kinds of things they are doing at the time. (For the curious, the particularly miserable activities include commuting and working. Sex, lunch and dinner are rarely unpleasant.)
The Kahneman-Krueger team have developed a stripped-down version of the DRM, which can be conducted as a regular telephone survey, and the Bureau of Labour Statistics has already conducted its first survey with the new method. Pilot studies seem to produce results broadly faithful to the DRM; the first data from the BLS work are due early in 2011.
Will national time accounts – or some alternative measure of welfare – give politicians a tool of practical importance? Or will Cowperthwaite be proved correct: that the data will only encourage politicians to meddle? Prof Krueger thinks not. “This approach is particularly amenable to evaluating public policy interventions, as investing in roads and high-speed rail can affect commuting time, overtime laws affect work hours, and playgrounds affect leisure activities.”
National time accounts will do more than that, because they sidestep an insuperable problem of the life satisfaction approach: that one person’s five out of 10 might be another person’s eight out of 10. Up to a point this problem can be shrugged off, especially when looking at large sample sizes, but if there are systematic differences between the way people express these judgments – differences between urban and rural, white and black, men and women, Danish and French – the data cannot be used to make comparisons across these groups. (In one Eurobarometer survey, 64 per cent of Danes described themselves as “very satisfied” and only 16 per cent of French. It is tempting to question how much the survey really tells us about the relative wellbeing of France and Denmark.)
National time accounts measure how much time people spend engaged in activities where the strongest of many emotions is a negative one. This greatly lessens the interpersonal comparability problem (although it cannot remove it entirely). In the end it may produce controversial findings – imagine, for instance, if it were shown that women spent far more time doing things they disliked than men did, or that the elderly lived blessed lives compared with the young.
The UK Office for National Statistics will continue its consultation until mid-April. By then the first American time-use accounts should be available. If Mr Cameron is serious about happiness, he will be casting an optimistic glance across the Atlantic.
Dec 28, 2010 7:35:05 AM | Analytics, Banking/Finance & Economics, Psychology, Statistics
NY Times: Disney Tackles Major Theme Park Problem - Lines
Disney Tackles Major Theme Park Problem: Lines
ORLANDO, Fla. — Deep in the bowels of Walt Disney World, inside an underground bunker called the Disney Operational Command Center, technicians know that you are standing in line and that you are most likely annoyed about it. Their clandestine mission: to get you to the fun faster.
To handle over 30 million annual visitors — many of them during this busiest time of year for the megaresort — Disney World long ago turned the art of crowd control into a science. But the putative Happiest Place on Earth has decided it must figure out how to quicken the pace even more. A cultural shift toward impatience — fed by video games and smartphones — is demanding it, park managers say. To stay relevant to the entertain-me-right-this-second generation, Disney must evolve.
And so it has spent the last year outfitting an underground, nerve center to address that most low-tech of problems, the wait. Located under Cinderella Castle, the new center uses video cameras, computer programs, digital park maps and other whiz-bang tools to spot gridlock before it forms and deploy countermeasures in real time.
In one corner, employees watch flat-screen televisions that depict various attractions in green, yellow and red outlines, with the colors representing wait-time gradations.
If Pirates of the Caribbean, the ride that sends people on a spirited voyage through the Spanish Main, suddenly blinks from green to yellow, the center might respond by alerting managers to launch more boats.
Another option involves dispatching Captain Jack Sparrow or Goofy or one of their pals to the queue to entertain people as they wait. “It’s about being nimble and quickly noticing that, ‘Hey, let’s make sure there is some relief out there for those people,’ ” said Phil Holmes, vice president of the Magic Kingdom, the flagship Disney World park.
What if Fantasyland is swamped with people but adjacent Tomorrowland has plenty of elbow room? The operations center can route a miniparade called “Move it! Shake it! Celebrate It!” into the less-populated pocket to siphon guests in that direction. Other technicians in the command center monitor restaurants, perhaps spotting that additional registers need to be opened or dispatching greeters to hand out menus to people waiting to order.
“These moments add up until they collectively help the entire park,” Mr. Holmes said.
In recent years, according to Disney research, the average Magic Kingdom visitor has had time for only nine rides — out of more than 40 — because of lengthy waits and crowded walkways and restaurants. In the last few months, however, the operations center has managed to make enough nips and tucks to lift that average to 10.
“Control is Disney’s middle name, so they have always been on the cutting edge of this kind of thing,” said Bob Sehlinger, co-author of “The Unofficial Guide: Walt Disney World 2011” and a writer on Disney for Frommers.com. Mr. Sehlinger added, “The challenge is that you only have so many options once the bathtub is full.”
Disney, which is periodically criticized for overreaching in the name of cultural dominance (and profits), does not see any of this monitoring as the slightest bit invasive. Rather, the company regards it as just another part of its efforts to pull every possible lever in the name of a better guest experience.
The primary goal of the command center, as stated by Disney, is to make guests happier — because to increase revenue in its $10.7 billion theme park business, which includes resorts in Paris and Hong Kong, Disney needs its current customers to return more often. “Giving our guests faster and better access to the fun,” said Thomas O. Staggs, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, “is at the heart of our investment in technology.”
Disney also wants to raise per-capita spending. “If we can also increase the average number of shop or restaurant visits, that’s a huge win for us,” Mr. Holmes said.
Disney has long been a leader in technological innovation, whether that means inventing cameras to make animated films or creating the audio animatronic robots for the attraction It’s a Small World.
Behind-the-scenes systems — typically kept top secret by the company as it strives to create an environment where things happen as if by magic — are also highly computerized. Ride capacity is determined in part by analyzing hotel reservations, flight bookings and historic attendance data. Satellites provide minute-by-minute weather analysis. A system called FastPass allows people to skip lines for popular rides like the Jungle Cruise.
But the command center reflects how Disney is deepening its reliance on technology as it thinks about adapting decades-old parks, which are primarily built around nostalgia for an America gone by, for 21st century expectations. “It’s not about us needing to keep pace with technological change,” Mr. Staggs said. “We need to set the pace for that kind of change.”
For instance, Disney has been experimenting with smartphones to help guide people more efficiently. Mobile Magic, a $1.99 app, allows visitors to type in “Sleeping Beauty” and receive directions to where that princess (or at least a costumed stand-in) is signing autographs. In the future, typing in “hamburger” might reveal the nearest restaurant with the shortest wait.
Disney has also been adding video games to wait areas. At Space Mountain, 87 game stations now line the queue to keep visitors entertained. (Games, about 90 seconds in length, involve simple things like clearing runways of asteroids). Gaming has also been added to the queue for Soarin’, an Epcot ride that simulates a hang glider flight.
Blogs that watch Disney’s parks have speculated that engineers (“imagineers,” in the company’s parlance) are also looking at bigger ideas, like wristbands that contain information like your name, credit card number and favorite Disney characters. While Disney is keeping a tight lid on specifics, these devices would enable simple transactions like the purchase of souvenirs — just pay by swiping your wristband — as well as more complicated attractions that interact with guests.
“Picture a day where there is memory built into these characters — they will know that they’ve seen you four or five times before and that your name is Bobby,” said Bruce E. Vaughn, chief creative executive at Walt Disney Imagineering. “Those are the kinds of limits that are dissolving so quickly that we can see being able to implement them in the meaningfully near future.”
Dreaming about the future was not something on Mr. Holmes’s mind as he gave a reporter a rare peek behind the Disney operations veil. He had a park to run, and the command center had spotted trouble at the tea cups.
After running smoothly all morning, the spinning Mad Tea Party abruptly stopped meeting precalculated ridership goals. A few minutes later, Mr. Holmes had his answer: a new employee had taken over the ride and was leaving tea cups unloaded.
“In the theme park business these days,” he said, “patience is not always a virtue.”
Dec 28, 2010 5:39:11 AM | Analytics, Business, Consumer Insights, Fun, Innovation, Statistics, Web/Tech
WSJ: Research Into Human Sexuality Leaves a Lot to Be Desired
THE NUMBERS GUY
Research Into Human Sexuality Leaves a Lot to Be Desired
By CARL BIALIK
Let's talk about sex.
Nearly 6,000 people between the age of 14 and 94 did so at the behest of Indiana University researchers, who this week published results from their national survey. These respondents said, among other things, how often they have sex with people of the same or opposite genders; which sexual practices they engage in; and whether they used condoms. Sex researchers say it is the first study of this scope and scientific rigor since 1992, when the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center surveyed nearly 3,500 people.
The survey's results are fascinating, but not the final word on sex in America. While researchers took care to find a representative sample of people, the survey population limits or omits a few key groups that could have skewed the results, some health researchers say. And because of the inevitable challenge studies on sex face in persuading people to respond honestly, the findings should be treated with some skepticism.
One area of inquiry that tends to draw a lot of interest can be especially problematic, statistically speaking: comparing how each gender reports on sex. That came into play in the latest study, which found that boys age 14 to 17 say they use condoms 79% of the time during intercourse, compared to just 58% of girls in that age group who said their male partners used condoms.
Numbers Guy Blog
Sex, and Studying It, Is Complicated
Those numbers might suggest that boys are exaggerating their condom use, or that girls are underreporting it. But the potential mismatch between the sexual encounters each group described also might account for some of the difference. Some respondents might have been having sex with people outside the 14-17 age range. This could affect the results if age influences whether someone uses a condom.
"Sometimes people portray this as if men and women in surveys are closed populations," says William Mosher, a statistician at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, about the comparisons between male and female sexual behavior. "They are not closed populations."
Then there is the challenge of ensuring that people answer honestly about deeply private matters. Researchers who led the Indiana study acknowledge the difficulty of obtaining truthful information. "There is no perfect method," says Debby Herbenick, research scientist at Indiana University and co-author of the study.
Nonetheless, she says the Indiana group's approach had certain advantages. Researchers hired the survey company Knowledge Networks to interview people electronically. Many pollsters are skeptical of Web surveys because not everyone in the U.S. is online—or online often enough to see ads for Internet-based panels. But Knowledge Networks takes a different approach, contacting people via mail by randomly selecting addresses, and persuading about one in four or five to join a panel. If panelists lack the means to answer online polls, the company equips them.
Another problem with the study: Soldiers, prostitutes and Americans living abroad are unlikely to participate in sex surveys, either because they are outside the geographical range, or because they are reluctant to talk about illicit activities. Their absence can affect results, researchers say.
The survey also had limited statistical power to describe the sexual habits of subgroups of Americans, because of small sample sizes. This prevented researchers from learning much about same-gender sex. And, for instance, an analysis of whether black women who used marijuana before sex also used condoms was hampered by the presence of just eight such women in the sample.
While the anonymity of online surveys might make respondents more comfortable responding honestly, it also can be harder to verify their identity—perhaps the person who claims to be a 45-year-old woman is actually a 20-year-old man. For the last comprehensive survey on Americans' sexual behavior in 1992, researchers faced a different set of issues. Online polling wasn't an option, so interviewers went to people's homes, explains Robert T. Michael, an economist at the University of Chicago and a principal investigator on the study. To persuade respondents to divulge highly personal information, pollsters appealed to people's desire to help supply information and fight the spread of AIDS. "We had a compelling rationale, and our field people were good," Prof. Michael says.
"It's exciting, intellectually challenging research," Prof. Michael says of sex studies. "It's important to get it right."
October 8, 2010, 7:16 PM ET
Sex, and Studying It, Are Complicated
My print column this week examines the fascinating numbers and tricky statistical issues that accompany sex surveys, such as a high-profile one published by Indiana University researchers this week.
This study in many ways is a descendant of one conducted by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center in 1992. Such studies are so infrequent because sexual research that looks beyond fertility and sexual health issues can be hard to fund, researchers say.
The latest study emerges in a different research climate than the one that produced the 1992 study. The Indiana study makes use of online polling, which wasn’t an option last time around. Knowledge Networks, which conducted the survey, uses mailing addresses to recruit its panel and provides Internet access to households that need it. This helps overcome some potential methodological drawbacks to online research, which also has an important potential advantage for research asking about sensitive topics: It allows researchers to ask about sex without ever personally asking anyone about sex. On the phone or in person, there is “more risk that respondents and research subjects are going to be less honest in their responses,” because of their desire to please interviewers, or not be embarrassed with them, said J. Michael Dennis, executive vice president at Knowledge Networks.
Another important advantage for online polling is cost. “For face-to-face interviews, to get really large numbers, it is considerably expensive,” said Debby Herbenick, research scientist at Indiana University and co-author of the recent study.
Then there are all the inherent challenges with getting people to talk about sex, for which pollsters have devised a wide range of strategies. For the 1992 survey, interviewers avoided asking directly about sensitive topics, either by giving respondents some questions in writing or by using a clever way to cloak their responses. When asking about which kinds of sexual behavior was involved in respondents’ most recent sexual encounter, interviewers would hand over a card where letters corresponded to various options, such as oral sex, and respondents would tick off letters. Interviewers didn’t have the key to the card.
In addition to the interview mode, other characteristics differ between the two surveys — notably questions asked. That lessens the ability to track trends between the surveys.
Funding also differed. The older study was planned with the promise of Congressional money, but when North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms led an effort to block in the Senate, researchers had to delay and turn to other sources, including foundations. The newer study bypassed governmental sources, receiving funding for data collection from Church & Dwight Co., the makers of Trojan condoms. Condoms are a major topic in the research. Herbenick said the company didn’t dictate study design, though it did offer advice.
These surveys nonetheless are broader and in some ways more reliable than the federal government’s efforts to track sexual behavior, which generally are part of broader studies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, administered in schools, asks just seven questions about sex. It also doesn’t define sex, out of fear that more schools or parents would opt their students out of responding. “We want to ask appropriate questions, but at the same time, we don’t want to create any unnecessary red flags,” said Laura Kann, who helps direct the survey.
Meanwhile, the National Survey of Family Growth, run by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, focuses on reproduction, so it covers only ages 18 to 44, and only in 2002 did it begin to survey men in addition to women.
One finding many of these surveys share is that the stories men and women tell about their sex lives don’t always match up as we’d expect. Typically, men report more sex partners than women do. Also, in the latest survey and in recent studies of college students, more men report their partners achieve orgasm in their latest sexual encounters than the proportion of women who report achieving orgasm, a finding which has received extensive press coverage.
Researchers who have found these results attribute them generally to poor communication between men and women in bed. “We all need to do a better job of communicating,” Herbenick said.
But such findings may be problematic when certain groups are excluded. Robert T. Michael, an economist at the University of Chicago and a principal investigator on the study, pointed out that prostitutes are unlikely to tell strangers about their sex habits, and those with many clients may have a major effect on estimates of average number of sex partners.
His collaborator on the 1992 study, Edward Laumann, said that because of such discrepancies, “people could be describing the same thing,” yet their answers still could add up to different numbers for each gender.
William Mosher, a statistician at the National Center for Health Statistics, added that these surveys generally are fixed on a certain age range, and don’t ask people outside the country about their sex habits — both factors that could lead to mismatches between male and female responses.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the orgasm reporting gap isn’t real, or even bigger than found — just that there are potential confounding factors. Stanford University sociologist Paula England, who has collaborated on the college studies, said these findings hold up among various subcategories of respondents — which suggests that at least in this population, if not necessarily in the overall population, sex isn’t always perceived the same way by both partners. And Pepper Schwartz, a sociologist at the University of Washington, said a study she worked on in the 1980s found a similar effect, though not as large, among couples — who presumably were reporting on the same sexual encounter. “The direction or percentage might have some wiggle room, but the message is pretty clear,” Schwartz said.
Oct 12, 2010 8:03:11 AM | Analytics, Consumer Insights, Demographics, Relationships, Statistics
NY Times: Cellphones Now Used More for Data Than for Calls
Cellphones Now Used More for Data Than for Calls
By JENNA WORTHAM
Liza Colburn uses her cellphone constantly.
She taps out her grocery lists, records voice memos, listens to music at the gym, tracks her caloric intake and posts frequent updates to her Twitter and Facebook accounts.
The one thing she doesn’t use her cellphone for? Making calls.
“I probably only talk to someone verbally on it once a week,” said Mrs. Colburn, a 40-year-old marketing consultant in Canton, Mass., who has an iPhone.
For many Americans, cellphones have become irreplaceable tools to manage their lives and stay connected to the outside world, their families and networks of friends online. But increasingly, by several measures, that does not mean talking on them very much.
For example, although almost 90 percent of households in the United States now have a cellphone, the growth in voice minutes used by consumers has stagnated, according to government and industry data.
This is true even though more households each year are disconnecting their landlines in favor of cellphones.
Instead of talking on their cellphones, people are making use of all the extras that iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smartphones were also designed to do — browse the Web, listen to music, watch television, play games and send e-mail and text messages.
The number of text messages sent per user increased by nearly 50 percent nationwide last year, according to the CTIA, the wireless industry association. And for the first time in the United States, the amount of data in text, e-mail messages, streaming video, music and other services on mobile devices in 2009 surpassed the amount of voice data in cellphone calls, industry executives and analysts say.
“Originally, talking was the only cellphone application,” said Dan Hesse, chief executive of Sprint Nextel. “But now it’s less than half of the traffic on mobile networks.”
Of course, talking on the cellphone isn’t disappearing entirely. “Anytime something is sensitive or is something I don’t want to be forwarded, I pick up the phone rather than put it into a tweet or a text,” said Kristen Kulinowski, a 41-year-old chemistry teacher in Houston. And calling is cheaper than ever because of fierce competition among rival wireless networks.
But figures from the CTIA show that over the last two years, the average number of voice minutes per user in the United States has fallen.
Still, even the telephone design industry has taken note. Ross Rubin, a telecommunications analyst with the NPD Group, said cellphones outfitted with numerical keyboards — easiest for quickly dialing a phone number — were no longer in vogue. Touch screens, or quick messaging devices with full “qwerty” keyboards, on the other hand, are. On the newest phones, users must press several buttons or swipe through several screens to get to the application that allows them to make calls.
“Handset design has become far less cheek-friendly,” Mr. Rubin said. Mr. Hesse of Sprint said he expected that within the next couple of years, cellphone users would be charged by the data they used, not by their voice minutes, a prediction echoed by other industry executives.
When people do talk on their phones, their conversations are shorter; the average length of a local call was 1.81 minutes in 2009, compared with 2.27 minutes in 2008, according to CTIA. For some, the unused voice minutes mount up.
“I have thousands of rollover minutes,” said Zach Frechette, 28, editor of Good magazine in Los Angeles, who explained that he dialed only when he needed to get in touch with someone instantly, and limited those calls to 30 seconds. “I downgraded to the lowest available minute plan, which I’m not even getting close to using.”
Mr. Frechette said part of the reason he rarely talked on his phone was that he had an iPhone, with its notoriously spotty phone reception in certain locales. But also, he said, most of his day was spent swapping short messages through services like Gmail, Facebook and Twitter. That way, he said, “you can respond when it’s convenient, rather than impose your schedule on someone else.”
Others say talking on the phone is intrusive and time-consuming, while others seem to have no patience for talking to just one person at a time. They prefer to spend their phone time moving seamlessly between several conversations, catching up on the latest news and updates by text and on Facebook with multiple friends, instead of just one or two.
“Even though in theory, it might take longer to send a text than pick up the phone, it seems less disruptive than a call,” said Jefferson Adams, a 44-year-old freelance writer living in San Francisco. By texting, he said, “you can multitask between two or three conversations at once.”
Nicole Wahl, a 35-year-old communications manager at the University of Toronto, estimates she talks on her phone only about 10 minutes a month.
“The only reason I ever call someone anymore is if I don’t have their Twitter handle or e-mail address,” Ms. Wahl said. “Like my hairdresser to see if she has a last-minute appointment or my parents to say I’m dropping by.”
American teenagers have been ahead of the curve for a while, turning their cellphones into texting machines; more than half of them send about 1,500 text messages each month, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project.
Mrs. Colburn, from Massachusetts, said she caved to the pleading of her 12-year-old daughter Abigail for a cellphone to send text messages with her friends after she and her husband discovered it was hindering her from developing bonds with her classmates.
“We realized she was being excluded from party invitations and being in the know with her peers,” she said.
Mrs. Colburn said texting had also become a much easier way to stay in touch with her daughter and receive quick updates about after-school plans.
“The other night she texted me from upstairs to ask a vocabulary question,” she said with a laugh. “But I drew the line there. I went upstairs to answer it.”
May 14, 2010 6:10:51 PM | Analytics, Consumer Insights, Statistics, Web/Tech
TED: Lies, damned lies and statistics
In a brilliantly tongue-in-cheek analysis, Sebastian Wernicke turns the tools of statistical analysis on TEDTalks, to come up with a metric for creating "the optimum TEDTalk" based on user ratings. How do you rate it? "Jaw-dropping"? "Unconvincing"? Or just plain "Funny"?
May 7, 2010 6:15:31 PM | Analytics, Fun, Humour, Statistics
NY Times: Local Governments Offers Data to Miners
Local Governments Offer Data to Miners
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Eric Gundersen, a developer in Washington, D.C., has created an application showing people the safest route home from bars and another that tells people about bike routes.
SAN FRANCISCO — A big pile of city crime reports is not all that useful. But what if you could combine that data with information on bars, sidewalks and subway stations to find the safest route home after a night out?
In Washington, a Web site called Stumble Safely makes that possible. It is one example of the kind of creativity that cities are hoping to mobilize by turning over big chunks of data to programmers and the public.
Many local governments are figuring out how to use the Internet to make government data more accessible. The goal is to spawn useful Web sites and mobile applications — and perhaps even have people think differently about their city and its government.
“It will change the way citizens and government interact, but perhaps most important, it’s going to change the way elected officials and civil servants deliver programs, services and promises,” said Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, which is one of the cities leading the way in releasing government data to Web developers. “I can’t wait until it challenges and infuriates the bureaucracy.”
Advocates of these open-data efforts say they can help citizens figure out what is going on in their backyards and judge how their government is performing.
But programmers have had trouble getting their hands on some data. And some activists and software developers wonder whether historically reticent governments will release data that exposes problems or only information that makes them look good.
It is too early to say whether releasing city data will actually make civil servants more accountable, but it can clearly be useful. Even data about mundane things like public transit and traffic can improve people’s lives when it is packaged and customized in an accessible way — a situation that governments themselves may not be equipped to realize.
A Web site called CleanScores, for instance, tracks restaurant inspection scores in various cities and explains each violation. After School Special combines data from San Francisco schools, libraries and restaurants so parents can plan after-school activities and see how children’s nutritional options compare by neighborhood. And Trees Near You, available for the iPhone, lets people identify trees on New York streets.
By releasing data in easy-to-use formats, cities and states hope that people will create sites or applications that use it in ways City Hall never would have considered.
San Francisco recently unveiled DataSF, a Web clearinghouse of raw government data that the public can download. The data sets include seismic hazard zones, street sweeping schedules and campaign finance filings. New York City’s Data Mine includes directories of sidewalk cafes, property values, horseback riding trails and historic houses.
Washington was a leader in releasing its data, and the federal government is doing it too at Data.gov.
Much of this data has always been publicly available, but until recently it has been almost impossible to find. Getting hold of it might have required tenacity, drive and endless phone calls.
The push to publicize government data goes as far back as the 1960s, but technology has made it possible for people to use the data in ways that would not have been possible even a year ago, said Eric Gundersen, president of Development Seed, the Washington company that created Stumble Safely. The company builds data and map applications for international development programs.
“The timing now with the open data movement is really critical because there are a lot of open-source tools that really make that data usable,” Mr. Gundersen said. These include the mapping tool he used to build Stumble Safely and also a site for the United States Agency for International Development that maps public health clinics.
Some activists are skeptical that governments will release politically risky data that could show that people are not doing their jobs. Mayor Newsom said he wants to release all kinds of data, and said he would not be surprised if “people who love to hate their mayor” create an application that maps his public schedule, to bolster their cases about which parts of town he neglects.
There is also the concern that people might misinterpret what the data is telling them.
“In the most basic of forms, with regard to crime stats and unemployment numbers, these kinds of bulletin boards are very useful,” said Saul Bloom, executive director of Arc Ecology, an environmental nonprofit group, who has been an activist in San Francisco for three decades. “But on detailed data dealing with very complicated material, you really have to know what you’re looking for in order to distinguish between good data and junk data.”
Mr. Bloom also worries that cities could manipulate data to gloss over things like unemployment rates by neighborhood.
Governments are trying to make data openness a more open process itself by asking people to vote for data sets they want to be released. In New York, for example, people have requested data on school violence, public restroom locations and bicycle accidents.
Still, asking for the data is often not enough. Software developers in New York have been unsuccessful in getting data feeds of pedestrian and bicyclist injuries and fatalities from the Police Department, said Noel Hidalgo, who is director of technology innovation for the New York State Senate and has been working with developers on building city-data applications. He envisions applications that overlay accident information on city bike maps.
Paul J. Browne, a deputy commissioner of the New York City Police Department, said it releases information about individual accidents to journalists and others who request it, but would not provide software developers with a regularly updated feed. “We provide public information, not data flow for entrepreneurs,” he said.
There have been other scuffles over who has the right to data. Routesy, an iPhone application, uses data from San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency to show train and bus schedules and locate stations on a map. It stopped working for a while because a private contractor working with the agency wanted to charge a licensing fee for the information. The agency now requires its contractor, NextBus, to make the data freely available.
There is evidence that governments’ attitude toward publicizing data is changing. Two years ago, when a Web design and research firm called Stamen Design started a Web site, Crimespotting, that mapped crime data for Oakland, Calif., the city cut off access to the data a week after the site went up.
Bob Glaze, the city’s chief technology officer, said the frequent data requests from the site were disrupting the city’s own crime site. The city eventually changed its mind. And in August, Stamen’s designers unveiled a San Francisco version of Crimespotting with Mayor Newsom at their side.
Some government leaders are making data disclosure an official policy. Mayor Newsom signed an executive order saying city data should be released, and the White House is about to publish a directive expected to give similar instructions to federal agencies.
San Francisco, New York and Washington have all organized contests to encourage software developers to create applications with their data. And the developers are using the data to build businesses. Stamen, for example, uses Crimespotting to show potential clients what it could create for them. Other firms are selling the iPhone apps they have built.
The cities, meanwhile, are to some degree using developers to provide citizens with a service so they do not have to.
“We are increasingly governing in a time when the demand for services exceeds our resources,” said Aneesh Chopra, chief technology officer of the United States. If the contests “spur dozens of innovative applications,” he said, “then we’ve essentially achieved a policy objective at virtually no cost.”
Stamen Design put together the San Francisco Crimespotting site using information from the city's police department.
DC Bikes, which shows bike paths in the Washington area, and Stumble Safely, which shows the safest way to get home from bars at night there, were both developed using government data.
Dec 7, 2009 7:43:50 AM | Analytics, Business, Statistics, Web/Tech
TIME: The Four-Day Workweek Is Winning Fans
The Four-Day Workweek Is Winning Fans
By Bryan Walsh
In an era when most of us seem to be working more hours than ever (provided we're still lucky enough to have jobs), 17,000 people in Utah have embarked on an unusual experiment. A year ago, the Beehive State became the first in the U.S. to mandate a four-day workweek for most state employees, closing offices on Fridays in an effort to reduce energy costs. The move is different from a furlough in that salaries were not cut; nor was the total amount of time employees work. They pack in 40 hours by starting earlier and staying later four days a week. But on that fifth (glorious) day, they don't have to commute, and their offices don't need to be heated, cooled or lit.
After 12 months, Utah's experiment has been deemed so successful that a new acronym could catch on: TGIT (thank God it's Thursday). The state found that its compressed workweek resulted in a 13% reduction in energy use and estimated that employees saved as much as $6 million in gasoline costs. Altogether, the initiative will cut the state's greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 12,000 metric tons a year. And perhaps not surprisingly, 82% of state workers say they want to keep the new schedule. "It's beneficial for the environment and beneficial for workers," says Lori Wadsworth, a professor at Brigham Young University who helped survey state employees. "People loved it." Those who didn't tended to have young children and difficulty finding extended day care. (See 10 ways your job will change.)
Managers from around the world have gotten in touch with Utah officials, and cities and towns including El Paso, Texas, and Melbourne Beach, Fla., are following the state's lead. Private industry is interested as well — General Motors has just instituted a workweek of four 10-hour days at several of its plants. "There is a sense that this is ready to take off," says R. Michael Fischl, an associate dean at the University of Connecticut's law school, which is organizing a symposium on four-day weeks.
The advantages of a so-called 4-10 schedule are clear: less commuting, lower utility bills. But there have been unexpected benefits as well, even for people who aren't state employees. By staying open for more hours most days of the week, Utah's government offices have become accessible to people who in the past had to miss work to get there in time. With the new 4-10 policy, lines at the department of motor vehicles actually got shorter. Plus, fears that working 10-hour days would lead to burnout turned out to be unfounded — Wadsworth says workers took fewer sick days and reported exercising more on Fridays. "This can really make a difference for work-life balance," says Jeff Herring, Utah's executive director for human resources.
Of course, in the age of the BlackBerry, fewer days in the office may not make much of a difference in terms of workload. But as energy prices start rising again, it makes sense to be flexible and find savings where we can. 10-4, 4-10.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1919162,00.html
Copyright © 2009 Time Inc.
Nov 2, 2009 5:55:35 AM | Demographics, Environment, Statistics
FT: Superfreakonomics
Superfreakonomics
Review by Tim Harford
Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
By Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Allen Lane £20, 288 pages
FT Bookshop price: £16
For fans of the multimillion-selling pop-economics book, Freakonomics, all that needs to be said is that the sequel’s title is an accurate description. This book is a lot like Freakonomics, but better.
The original, a runaway hit, had its genesis in Stephen Dubner’s masterful New York Times Magazine profile of “rogue economist” Steven Levitt. “Rogue” may be stretching it a bit, because Levitt is, in fact, a garlanded and hugely influential professor at the University of Chicago.
He has applied his statistical techniques, now much emulated, to unconventional topics such as the link between abortion laws and crime, or whether sumo wrestlers cheat (they do, he concludes). The 2005 book that resulted was wide-ranging, fascinating and above all, likeable – however, it showed signs of haste, and it was never clear whether it was supposed to be a book by Steven Levitt or about him.
SuperFreakonomics offers much the same range and amiability, but is more polished. The book’s chapters cover prostitution; data analysis in healthcare and counter-terrorism; altruism; innovation; and geo-engineering. The reader may not guess the central topic from the chapter titles or the opening pages, however, which betray a fondness for springing surprises and putting twists in the storytelling.
Detours are all part of the style; an afternoon reading SuperFreakonomics is like one of those thrilling and occasionally frustrating conversations where ideas tumble out so quickly that they keep interrupting each other. In short, the book’s organisation is deliberately on the freaky side, but if you simply resolve to read it from cover to cover you are guaranteed a good time.
My favourite chapter describes the research of John List, a colleague of Levitt’s, as he zaps some of the most famous results in behavioural economics. In the “dictator” game, well-known in economic circles, player A is given $10 by the experimenter and told they can keep it all. Alternatively they can give some to anonymous player B. Many players do, indeed, hand over money, a finding that troubles conventional economic theory.
List thinks many researchers have embraced this finding too easily, however. “What is puzzling”, he comments, “is that neither I nor any of my family of friends (or their families and friends) have ever received an anonymous envelope stuffed with cash”. The lab experiments, in which large numbers of students display a preference for sending cash to anonymous strangers, need to be questioned more closely. Yet List showed that with small modifications to the dictator game, experimental subjects could be persuaded not only to curb their generosity, but to confiscate cash from others.
There is much more here, and all is told with verve and care. Levitt and Dubner have a gift for explaining precisely how a researcher discovers something. Their epilogue, on Keith Chen’s attempts to introduce currency to a monkey society, is a model of how to tell a gripping story of scientific research without compromising on accuracy.
The most eye-catching chapters in the book are the first, on prostitution, and the last, on global warming. The chapter on prostitution flits from academic research into street prostitution, carried out by Levitt and sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh, to an engaging profile of a high-end escort and various digressions into the economics of gender and other topics.
One of these asides provides the book’s best moment: when the authors demonstrate that a prostitute gets more money through the use of a pimp than a homeowner gets through the use of a realtor, or estate agent. The financial impact of a pimp is greater than that of a realtor, “Or, for those who prefer their conclusions rendered mathematically, PIMPACT > RIMPACT.”
Those with a prurient curiosity (I am guilty), will find some of the descriptions of what prostitutes do all day rather coy. Those with an interest in the economic angle (guilty, again), will find some questions unanswered.
“The real puzzle isn’t why someone like Allie becomes a prostitute, but rather why more women don’t choose this career,” Levitt and Dubner write. Do tell, thinks the reader, but they don’t, even though literature on the puzzle does exist. The leading research on the question is written by two women, not two men, a fact that some people will find relevant.
The analysis of street prostitution is based on careful academic work. The account of high-end prostitution is merely a journalistic profile of a single successful and intelligent woman. But Levitt and Dubner seem to have decided that while data-driven discoveries are generally wonderful, you can have too much of a good thing.
The authors claim to prefer data to “individual anecdote”, but part of the secret of their success is that they like a good story more than anyone.
As for the final chapter on global warming, it is a striking discussion of geo-engineering, surveying various schemes for cooling down the planet rather than trying to prevent climate change by cutting carbon emissions. This is a strong story, but it is also one-sided, portraying the geo-engineers as brilliant iconoclasts, dismissing the objections to geo-engineering as the knee-jerk reaction of the unreflective, and failing to convey the views of a single credible geo-engineering sceptic. A well-deserved swipe at Al Gore does not really count.
According to this chapter, the only reason everyone is making so much fuss about carbon dioxide is that they’ve never heard of geo-engineering, or are the kind of stubborn Luddites who think technology never solved anything. I have some sympathy with that view but the section nevertheless needed more balance.
In the end, a book such as SuperFreakonomics stands or falls on its entertainment value. And on that count, there’s no doubt: it’s a page-turner.
More revealing, though, was that I’d folded over at least a dozen pages, resolving to go back, follow up the references, and find out more. This is a book with plenty of style; underneath the dazzle, there is substance too.
Tim Harford is the FT’s ‘Undercover Economist’
Oct 25, 2009 1:35:57 AM | Analytics, Banking/Finance & Economics, Books, Statistics
Online Metrics Insider: The Lighter Side of Metrics Today
The Lighter Side Of Metrics Today
by Pat LaPointe , Tuesday, October 13, 2009
In the pressure of the current business environment, humor isn't lost. Here are a few ideas for metrics and measurement tools I've come across in my travels recently that you might like to hear about:
Aleanment Index - how you manage expectations for what will get done with fewer headcount than last year.
Bland Awareness: A measure of how uninspiring your brand is.
Brand Vasequity: A calculation of brand value taken after your marketing budget has been neutered.
Customer Satisfiction: A metric that skews customer feedback in the most favorable terms for your next presentation to senior management.
Dashbored: A comprehensive set of marketing performance metrics guaranteed to make your CEO's eyes glaze over.
Dumbographics: Statistical data describing the consumer segment stupid enough to purchase your competitor's overpriced, poor-quality product or service.
Mantric - the one metric that looks so good you hear about it over and over and over.
Misery Mix Model - a statistical methodology for ascertaining exactly why your plans failed to achieve objectives.
ROE (Return on Everything): What your CEO is demanding.
Six Stigma: A set of visible marks on your forehead signify a failed attempt at improving the quality of the creative-development process.
If you've got others, I'd love to add them to our collection - post below.
This commentary is insightful. I recommend it to others.
Post your response to the public Metrics Insider blog.
See what others are saying on the Metrics Insider blog.
Pat LaPointe is Managing Partner at MarketingNPV -- specialty consultants on marketing measurement and metrics, and publishers of MarketingNPV Journal, available online free athttp://www.MarketingNPV.com
Oct 15, 2009 9:33:06 AM | Fun, Humour, Statistics
WSJ: Can a Ballclub's Record Justify Its Beer Prices?
SEPTEMBER 11, 2009, 10:01 A.M. ET
Can a Ballclub's Record Justify Its Beer Prices?
In an ideal world, beer prices at the ballpark would be based solely on the quality of the team. Only the very best ballclubs would jack up the prices, while the mediocre teams would offer bargains ... and the Washington Nationals would give beer away for free. Regrettably, we don't live in an ideal world.
According to data collected by Team Marketing Report for the 2009 season, beer prices vary dramatically among big-league teams. A 21-ounce beer costs $4.75 in Pittsburgh, but you'll shell out $8.75 for a 20-ounce brew at San Francisco's AT&T Park. This led us to wonder: Does quality have anything to do with beer prices?
Surprisingly, it does. A team with a .600 winning percentage charges, on average, about $1.30 more for a 16-ounce beer than does a team with a .400 percentage.
So which ballclub offers the best value based on its team's winning percentage? At Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, you'll pay a modest $6.75 for a 21-ounce beer while watching one of the best teams in the National League. And for all their losing seasons, at least the Pirates allow their fans to drown their sorrows at a decent price. Even after factoring in their dismal record this season, that 21-ounce beer they sell at PNC Park is still 32% less expensive than it should be by this measure.
On the other end of the spectrum there's Nationals Park where, in exchange for watching baseball's worst team, fans get to spend $7.50 for a 20-ounce beer. Of course, nothing compares to Boston's Fenway Park. There, you'll pay $7.25 for just 12 ounces—a rate that is, ounce for ounce and win for win, the worst beer value in baseball.
—Justin Merry
Oct 6, 2009 5:53:10 AM | Analytics, Food and Drink, Sports, Statistics
FT: How economists are tackling sports injuries
The high cost of injuries – not just for players, but for the success of teams – has inspired a new breed of statisticians to number-crunch the best solutions
How economists are tackling sports injuries
By Robert Hudson
Tom Brady: Make-or-break quarterback of the New England Patriots
Tom Brady is like a cartoon superhero. The tall, comically handsome quarterback for the New England Patriots is one of the richest and most glamorous sports stars on the planet (he’s married to a Brazilian supermodel, for starters). And he throws a football like Superman throws a punch: powerfully, effortlessly, and at the very moment the enemy thinks he’s been disabled by Kryptonite. On Monday night in Foxborough, Massachusetts, basking in the bright lights and raucous adoration of 70,000 fans packing Gillette Stadium, Brady faced almost certain defeat and refused to accept it. Twelve points behind with two minutes to play, he led his team to a fabulous victory. It’s what superheroes do. But a generation earlier, it would have been a different story. The same player would have spent the evening pottering round the house, doing what he could to avoid the game on TV – a reluctant ex-jock at the age of 32.
Ten minutes into the 2008 NFL season, on September 7 last year, the football was snapped into play and two lines of giants collided in exquisitely choreographed violence. Kansas City were playing the Patriots, perennial favourites for the Super Bowl. The ball was in Brady’s hands. Kansas City’s Bernard Pollard, nicknamed “The Bonecrusher” at university, was trapped on the ground under one of Brady’s huge guardians. Just as the quarterback cocked his arm to throw, Pollard squirmed free and leapt headlong. Helmet hit knee, and that was the end of the Patriots’ season.
Could Brady really be so vital? Yes. He had led the Patriots to four Super Bowls and won three of them. In 2007, he was named the league’s Most Valuable Player. Bill Barnwell, managing editor at Football Outsiders, which produces an eye-watering almanac of American football statistics, says that the observed impact on a team of an injury to a superstar is about 6.75 times that of the observed impact of an injury to a reserve player. And Brady isn’t just a superstar, he’s a superstar quarterback. He leads the offence, where injuries have a statistically higher impact than they do on defensive units. Barnwell explains that the injury rate of a team’s offensive players year on year has a 0.42 correlation with team success (where 1 is a perfect correlation and 0 is no correlation). With defensive players, that drops to a 0.29 correlation. And the quarterback is crucial – his individual correlation is 0.3, twice that of any other position. An NFL offence is designed intricately around the quarterback’s strengths and weaknesses. Change the central cog, and the whole machine jams.
Medically, Brady is not so interesting. When Pollard’s helmet crashed into his left knee and he fell twisting to the ground, Brady tore his medial collateral and anterior cruciate ligaments. These are cords of tissue on the inside of the knee and running through the centre of the knee, respectively. But 30 years ago, before modern surgical techniques were available, such injuries ended professional sportsmen and women’s careers.
With teams matched as evenly as they are in the NFL, the loss of Brady had pundits guessing that the Patriots, who had won every regular season game in 2007, wouldn’t make the playoffs. They didn’t.
Brady’s story shows vividly how injury can affect a team, and in particular injury to a star player, whose performance is doubly critical. And since sport is increasingly obsessed by Freakonomics-style analysis, where economists and statisticians (and mere stats nuts) hunt for inefficiencies in the system, his case raises questions, too. Most Valuable Player isn’t some airy-fairy construct in the big-money world of US sport. The NFL uses a salary cap to ensure more balanced competition between the teams: each can spend $116m on player salaries this season, which they divide between 53 active players. New England spends $14m of this – more than 12 per cent – on Brady.
Sport is not a conventional business (Barnwell says that getting to the playoffs can cost a team more than they earn from it) but an NFL team’s raison d’être is to win, and one of the biggest constraints they face is the salary cap. In this context, the $14m spent on Brady represents a massive opportunity cost – a cost made painfully clear by his season on the sidelines as he convalesced. With so much at stake in the big money world of professional sport, the questions become more urgent. Do teams and their owners understand the economics of injury? How are decisions surrounding sports injury made? And is that changing?
Simon Kemp is head of sports medicine at the Rugby Football Union in England, an organisation striving to incorporate stats-based economic insights into its approach to injury. He says that the way professionals are treated when they are injured differs from the way ordinary people are treated. “We’re dealing with people whose priorities are very different from the man on the street. While I might advise an amateur to try conservative treatment, which will still let him lead a pretty active life, professionals can’t get by with that. Besides, they’re used to injury.” Kemp says that between 2002 and 2004, professional rugby players in England spent an average of 69 days a year injured.
How long players – and especially star players – spend recovering, therefore, becomes a matter of vital concern. Team doctors, for better or worse, are focused on helping players get back on the field as quickly as possible: in professional sport, the difference between 10 days and 12 days can be the ball game. When Jason Robinson, the talismanic England winger and full back, pulled his hamstring at the 2007 World Cup, the medical team threw everything at the problem. “We’re on the cutting edge and we have a very small window,” says Kemp. “We’ll try new things, so long as the science suggests they’ll help, and we think they’re not dangerous.” Kemp had found some success with homeopathic injections of Traumeel – a combination of various botanical bits and pieces. He told Robinson that the potential benefits exceeded the risks, and Robinson agreed to be injected. “I’m not saying it was the Traumeel,” Kemp says. “Jason was getting great rehab and placebos can be powerful. But we had him back on the pitch for the quarter-final.”
In 2004 Richard Hill, one of England’s World Cup-winning rugby heroes of the year before, faced a similar injury to Brady’s. He says now: “I just wasn’t ready to stop.” Hill was told about risks of infection and rates of success of surgery, which for this kind of procedure are 85 per cent and upwards. He had the operation. When he needed another one a year later, he was told it would probably mean he’d need a knee replacement in his forties. He had that operation, too. As it happened, the replacement took place only a year after Hill stopped playing. “It was worth it,” he says. “The last two games I played [the European Cup quarter- and semi-finals last year] are two of my best rugby memories.”
It’s clear that most serious sportsmen will risk long-term health difficulties in order to play.
Carson Palmer: Cincinnati Bengals star who returned to form after surgery
But what if Tom Brady had never been injured? The treatment he received and his successful recovery tell only part of the story. In fact, the sports science decisions best informed by statistics and microeconomics increasingly focus on preventing injuries rather than curing them. The process begins with information-gathering. For seven years, the RFU has been logging every injury in the professional game in an effort to gather enough data to identify trends reliably. The England and Wales Cricket Board and the English Institute of Sport, which looks after Olympians, now have similar rolling audits, although they are at an earlier stage of development.
The numbers are already being crunched – and proving useful in planning which treatments might best serve not just the player, but the team. A recent study of hamstring injuries found that every new hamstring injury costs the team an average of 14 playing days; an average recurrence costs 25 days. Furthermore, almost all the recurrences took place during matches in the first month after return, and after an hour of play. It quickly became clear that players who had sustained hamstring injuries should be replaced after an hour during their first few games back. Moreover, the two clearest risk factors for hamstring injury were age and a previous injury, and players who performed specific strengthening exercises reduced the incidence, severity and recurrence of hamstring injuries.
It’s work like this that has helped the RFU halve injury recurrence rates between 2003 and 2007. Ian Beasley, senior doctor at the Football Association, looks at the data sets with envy. “I can’t really understand why we don’t run a proper audit,” he says. One difficulty is getting clubs to agree: each team, after all, needs to devote resources to collecting the information and entering the stats, at the very least – let alone finding people to analyse the data. “Hopefully,” says Beasley, “we can get someone attached to do that.”
It is eyebrow-raising that rugby – and cricket – can afford audits but the FA cannot. According to Stefan Szymanski, an economist at Cass Business School who recently co-authored, with FT columnist Simon Kuper, Why England Lose & Other Curious Football Phenomena Explained, “You have to look at where the money is and why it’s being spent. With the England and Wales Cricket Board and English Institute of Sport, the money is being spent by people whose target is national success.” The ECB pays each county £20,000 a year to improve their medical practices. “The Rugby Football Union is more balanced between the clubs and England, but England money is still very important, which helps England set the agenda. Also, rugby is a dangerous game, so there’s a responsibility to the players. Therefore, these organisations can run sport-wide programmes.”
Some information is published – more by the RFU than the others, echoing its wider concerns and more balanced financial structure – but these audits primarily exist to help English sport maintain a competitive edge over its rivals.
The financial situation in football (and the NFL in the US) is radically different. What might be feasible for Chelsea’s sophisticated medical team is not feasible for a lower league club with one physio and a part-time doctor. And even within the Premier League, Chelsea have vastly more money than Hull. The FA can’t demand compliance because, points out Szymanski, “[the] England [team] is an economic sideshow. The clubs have the muscle. It might be great for Leyton Orient to pool medical information – the losses in competitive edge would be more than outweighed by efficiency savings – but the same isn’t true for Chelsea.”
AC Milan’s famously secretive players’ lab, which routinely coaxes great players into their mid- and late-30s, gives the club a big advantage. Why would it share? It is safe to assume the same holds true in the NFL. For all their money, the 32 clubs don’t have access to the sheer quantity of data that less wealthy sports are starting to gather.
The defining text for the new breed of sports statisticians is Moneyball, Michael Lewis’s tale of how a new understanding of scoring efficiency helped an underfunded US baseball team punch above its financial weight. In a forthcoming piece for the British Journal of Sports Medicine, John Orchard speculates that football medics might be facing their Moneyball moment.
Orchard says that differences in skill between the top clubs’ players are so slight that he’s surprised teams don’t seem to appreciate “what seems obvious from the outside: injury outcomes will be a key factor in determining who wins the Premiership each year”. It has become almost hackneyed to say that squad depth is crucial and that Liverpool don’t score if Gerrard and Torres aren’t playing, and yet still there is no published study exhaustively trying to link injury with success, and seeing if medical treatment makes a difference.
According to the RFU’s injury report for 2002 to 2004, the teams finishing in the top four places of the league lost an average of about 600 player days per season. The next four lost something like 800. The bottom four lost closer to 1,000. The situation is hideously complex – better managed, better funded teams, which you would expect to do well, tend to have better medical programmes as well – but it is hard to imagine that causation doesn’t run both ways.
Back in the US, Bill Barnwell and Football Outsiders crunch the numbers to show an even more graphic link: of the 10 healthiest teams in 2008’s NFL, seven made the playoffs. A huge 26 per cent of a team’s win rate from year to year can be chalked up to a change in injury rate. In spite of this, says Barnwell, “teams rarely credit the absence of injury for their success”.
Someone has to do this kind of analysis on football. Orchard argues that a team spending £100m on wages with an injury rate of 22 per cent will probably beat a team paying £25m with a rate of 12 per cent, but statisticians can control for that. If better medical teams really do keep players on the pitch, then management (and fans) might finally feel that £1m invested in better medical care has more marginal utility than £4m spent on another spare midfielder, “just in case”.
If injury incidences and outcomes were blind luck, then there would be nothing to do except focus on treatment. But they clearly aren’t. The RFU’s success with hamstrings is just one example. Simon Kemp knows rugby will always be dangerous, but he hopes that better conditioning might even help players come through some of the collisions which tear anterior cruciate ligaments.
“How?” I ask.
“We don’t know yet,” he replies.
Knees will never be impervious to helmets, but audits can protect future Tom Bradys in other ways. The RFU data have demonstrated so clearly that illegal tackles disproportionately cause injuries that they have helped persuade referees to apply the law more strictly. The NFL is tightening up on knee-level tackles post-Brady – but perhaps an ongoing data collection programme would have caught the problem earlier.
If so, then going by Brady’s salary – the crudest measure of his worth – it would have been at a fraction of the cost of his absence, let alone those of the other quarterbacks whose recent seasons might have been saved. As Tom Brady runs blinking into the floodlights this season, he won’t be thinking about value-for-money risk and resource management; it’s not his job. But somebody should be.
Robert Hudson is author of ‘The Kilburn Social Club’, published by Jonathan Cape
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Rugby Union’s most common injuries
The data illustrated here, collected by the RFU (and featuring Gloucester and England’s Olly Morgan), show the highest-risk training injuries, measured in days missed, as suffered by rugby backs. Injuries are also broken down by the type of problem most associated with a particular match event, eg the commonest injury for a forward to suffer as a result of a scrum is calf strain, while a back is most susceptible to a thigh haemotoma as a result of a collision
He stats, he scores
Statistics have been popular among sports fans and coaches long before Freakonomics-style analysis took off, writes Alex Cardno. Walks, hits, runs … every player comes with a compendium of facts and figures. About eight years ago, however, Nate Silver, a Detroit Tigers baseball fan, began using these figures differently. Rather than judge players on batting average alone, for example, Silver developed a series of complex algorithms to predict the outcome of a player’s career and the success of various teams. His predictions, including that the usually dismal Tampa Bay Rays would win more than 80 games in the 2008 season, proved correct time and again. This consistency soon gained him a large following of baseball fans.
In 2003, Silver sold his main algorithm to Baseball Prospectus, publisher of a website devoted to detailed analysis and advanced statistics on the game. Silver received a stake in the site and stayed on as a writer and consultant until late 2007.
Then in March last year, he launched a statistics-driven politics blog, FiveThirtyEight.com – named after the number of votes in the US electoral college. Silver built a database of political polls and weighted their results against historical fact. He noticed patterns emerging and applied the techniques he had used with baseball statistics to predict elections.
The website’s profile rose dramatically as he accurately predicted Democratic primary elections in state after state. When it came to the presidential poll, he predicted the vote of 49 out of 50 states, and was the first to declare Obama’s victory, beating professional pollsters.
Silver, now 31, continues to publish FiveThirtyEight, applying statistical analysis to major policy issues. “There are some things [where] you can’t be quite as robust as you can be in forecasting an election, but, for example, there was a climate change bill that was passed, barely, by the House [of Representatives], where we can look at the characteristics of which House members voted for it and which didn’t, and try to predict what is going to happen in the Senate.”
Silver is a regular on US news channels and made Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People List in April. Last November he signed a book deal with Penguin (owned by Pearson, the FT’s parent company). His first book will focus on his predicting methods, picking up where Freakonomics left off. “It should be a book that’s both serious and fairly rigorous but also fun,” he says. It’s due for publication late next year, by which time Silver’s name may be known round the world: as this magazine went to press he wouldn’t give details, but he did reveal that his next website venture would focus on the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
To read Alex Cardno’s interview with Nate Silver, go to www.ft.com/natesilver
Sep 20, 2009 8:57:52 PM | Analytics, Banking/Finance & Economics, Sports, Statistics
NY Times: Wall Street's Math Wizards Forgot a Few Variables
Wall Street’s Math Wizards Forgot a Few Variables
By STEVE LOHR
IN the aftermath of the great meltdown of 2008, Wall Street’s quants have been cast as the financial engineers of profit-driven innovation run amok. They, after all, invented the exotic securities that proved so troublesome.
But the real failure, according to finance experts and economists, was in the quants’ mathematical models of risk that suggested the arcane stuff was safe.
The risk models proved myopic, they say, because they were too simple-minded. They focused mainly on figures like the expected returns and the default risk of financial instruments. What they didn’t sufficiently take into account was human behavior, specifically the potential for widespread panic. When lots of investors got too scared to buy or sell, markets seized up and the models failed.
That failure suggests new frontiers for financial engineering and risk management, including trying to model the mechanics of panic and the patterns of human behavior.
“What wasn’t recognized was the importance of a different species of risk — liquidity risk,” said Stephen Figlewski, a professor of finance at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University. “When trust in counterparties is lost, and markets freeze up so there are no prices,” he said, it “really showed how different the real world was from our models.”
In the future, experts say, models need to be opened up to accommodate more variables and more dimensions of uncertainty.
The drive to measure, model and perhaps even predict waves of group behavior is an emerging field of research that can be applied in fields well beyond finance.
Much of the early work has been done tracking online behavior. The Web provides researchers with vast data sets for tracking the spread of all manner of things — news stories, ideas, videos, music, slang and popular fads — through social networks. That research has potential applications in politics, public health, online advertising and Internet commerce. And it is being done by academics and researchers at Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook.
Financial markets, like online communities, are social networks. Researchers are looking at whether the mechanisms and models being developed to explore collective behavior on the Web can be applied to financial markets. A team of six economists, finance experts and computer scientists at Cornell was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to pursue that goal.
“The hope is to take this understanding of contagion and use it as a perspective on how rapid changes of behavior can spread through complex networks at work in financial markets,” explained Jon M. Kleinberg, a computer scientist and social network researcher at Cornell.
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Andrew W. Lo, director of the Laboratory for Financial Engineering, is taking a different approach to incorporating human behavior into finance. His research focuses on applying insights from disciplines, including evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience, to create a new perspective on how financial markets work, which Mr. Lo calls “the adaptive-markets hypothesis.” It is a departure from the “efficient-market” theory, which asserts that financial markets always get asset prices right given the available information and that people always behave rationally.
Efficient-market theory, of course, has dominated finance and econometric modeling for decades, though it is being sharply questioned in the wake of the financial crisis. “It is not that efficient market theory is wrong, but it’s a very incomplete model,” Mr. Lo said.
Mr. Lo is confident that his adaptive-markets approach can help model and quantify liquidity crises in a way traditional models, with their narrow focus on expected returns and volatility, cannot. “We’re going to see three-dimensional financial modeling and eventually N-dimensional modeling,” he said.
J. Doyne Farmer, a former physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and a founder of a quantitative trading firm, finds the behavioral research intriguing but awfully ambitious, especially to build into usable models. Instead, Mr. Farmer, a professor at the interdisciplinary Sante Fe Institute, is doing research on models of markets, institutions and their complex interactions, applying a hybrid discipline called econophysics.
To explain, Mr. Farmer points to the huge buildup of the credit-default-swap market, to a peak of $60 trillion. And in 2006, the average leverage on mortgage securities increased to 16 to 1 (it is now 1.5 to 1). Put the two together, he said, and you have a serious problem.
“You don’t need a model of human psychology to see that there was a danger of impending disaster,” Mr. Farmer observed. “But economists have failed to make models that accurately model such phenomena and adequately address their couplings.”
When a bridge over a river collapses, the engineers who built the bridge have to take responsibility. But typically, critics call for improvement and smarter, better-trained engineers — not fewer of them. The same pattern seems to apply to financial engineers. At M.I.T., the Sloan School of Management is starting a one-year master’s in finance this fall because the field has become too complex to be adequately covered as part of a traditional M.B.A. program, and because of student demand. The new finance program, Mr. Lo noted, had 179 applicants for 25 places.
In the aftermath of the economic crisis, financial engineers, experts say, will probably shift more to risk management and econometric analysis and concentrate less on devising exotic new instruments. Still, the recent efforts by investment banks to create a trading market for “life settlements,” life insurance policies that the ill or elderly sell for cash, suggest that inventive sales people are browsing for new asset classes to securitize, bundle and trade.
“Good or bad, moral or immoral, people are going to make markets and trade via computers, and this is a natural area of financial engineers,” says Emanuel Derman, a professor at Columbia University and a former Wall Street quant.
Sep 13, 2009 5:50:46 AM | Analytics, Banking/Finance & Economics, Consumer Insights, Statistics, Web/Tech
Online Metrics Insider: Visualising Data
Jodi McDermott, Sep 04, 2009 12:45 PM
When an engineering colleague of mine (95% of my immediate surroundings) emailed me a link this past week, I thought for sure it was for a YouTube video. This link was different though, in that it introduced me to Anscombe's quartet, a set of four datasets that share the exact same statistical properties. Each one of these datasets has the same mean, variance and mean of each y variable, variance and mean of each x variable and the exact same correlation between the x and y variables. A little geeky, eh?
What's my point, you might ask? When each one of these datasets is plotted out visually, they have completely different appearances (just click on the link above and you'll see what I mean). There are outliers where one would not expect to see them -- identifying both opportunities and risks in your data depending on what you are analyzing. However, one would never see the variance in data patterns if it was not plotted in a chart or graph (or analyzed data point by data point).
Looking at your data is just as important as reading your data. Not all of us can see the obvious by just looking at numbers, even if we don't consider ourselves "visual" people. I've learned this quite extensively in my current job when presenting data findings to a combination of both finance and product teams. Some people are "table" folks and others are "chart" folks. Regardless, the combination of the two data presentation methods jogs the brain and forces you to see the data in new ways and patterns. Here are three reasons why you need to visualize your data:
1. Visualizing data allows you to segment elements within your results set. For example, when analyzing campaign data, the average click-through rate or cost per acquisition might meet your campaign goals. However, deeper segmentation via visualization can help you determine where further optimization opportunities lie via eliminating waste and exploiting upside outliers.
2. Ability to see relationships and correlations within the data. Scatterplots and grids can help sift out opportunities where you might have huge upside if you can optimize your key trigger points (whether it is behavior metrics like CTR or margin management).
3. Trend analysis over time is more obvious when it is visualized. Trends in data can shift dramatically or slowly over time. Visualizing trends can allow you to see the slope of a metric or group of metrics to identify seasonal and market trends that may not pop out at you when you are just staring at a table of numbers.
Segmentation, correlation and trending are just three of the reasons for data visualizations -- but there are so many more. As analysts, we sometimes do not see the forest through the trees. Visualizing data forces you to stop and look at the results and ponder the bigger picture. In this case, perhaps, a picture is worth a thousand data points.
Jodi McDermott is the Director of Data Strategy for Clearspring Technologies and blogs at http://widgetanalytics.wordpress.com. Contact her here
Sep 9, 2009 8:37:42 AM | Analytics, Statistics
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People’s Republic of China Grants Trump An Honor No Foreign Leader Has Had Since Its Founding
Ryan Pickrell China/Asia Pacific Reporter
November 08, 2017 8:48 AM ET
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are reportedly being treated like royalty on their first official visit to China.
Trump and his wife were granted a rare dinner at the Forbidden City, an honor that has not been bestowed on a foreign leader since the founding of the People’s Republic of China 68 years ago, reports New York Daily News, as well as several other media outlets.
The president and first lady arrived in China, the third leg of Trump’s two-week Asia tour, Wednesday afternoon. After landing in Beijing, Trump and Melania toured the Forbidden City with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan.
U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. first lady Melania visit the Forbidden City with China’s President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China, November 8, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
The Forbidden City, a massive palace complex, was the residence of the imperial family for centuries. At this world-famous site, which was shut down for this special visit, the leaders of two of the world’s most powerful countries enjoyed a Peking Opera performance and a dinner together. Such treatment is notably different from what former President Barack Obama received on his farewell tour.
Obama was “snubbed” by the Chinese when he visited Beijing for the G-20 summit last year.
“Xi is going to treat Trump almost like an emperor,” Ming Wang, a professor of government and politics at George Mason University, told CNN, arguing that China “will give Trump an exceptional reception, essentially they’ll try to make Trump happy.”
Whether Trump will be swayed by such treatment remains to be seen. The president is expected to press China on issues concerning bilateral trade and North Korea, two huge problems impacting the bilateral relationship. While Trump has spoken highly of China’s president, the country’s strongest leader in decades, on numerous occasions, his administration has not hesitated to antagonize the Chinese on matters impacting U.S. strategic national interests.
It remains to be seen whether talks between Trump and Xi will be productive or largely ceremonial.
Follow Ryan on Twitter
Send tips to ryan@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Tags : beijing china donald trump
Ryan Pickrell
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For years, the luxury industry has been investing heavily in ultra-sophisticated tech solutions which use the latest advances in nanotechnology, internet of things (IoT), and AI to authenticate products. It lobbies governments to extend enforcement bodies’ powers to seize and destroy fake goods, to prosecute buyers and dealers, and to block access to websites that sell counterfeit goods. And then there are the lawyers: LVMH alone employs at least 60 lawyers and spends $17 million annually on anti-counterfeiting legal action.
The total trade in fakes is estimated at around $4.5 trillion, and fake luxury merchandise accounts for 60% to 70% of that amount, ahead of pharmaceuticals and entertainment products and representing perhaps a quarter of the estimated $1.2 trillion total trade in luxury goods. Digital plays a big role in this and perhaps 40% of the sales in luxury fakes take place online, as today’s counterfeiters milk the ubiquity and anonymity of the internet space to the last drop. For every e-commerce platform like Alibaba that cracks down on fakes, a new one emerges that allows goods to be shipped directly from manufacturers.
So what should luxury goods companies be doing instead?
To answer that question, we interviewed 32 professionals across four panels: luxury executives, representatives of luxury industry associations, experts on anti-counterfeiting from academia and the public sector, and executives from the music and pharmaceuticals industries, which have been more successful than luxury goods firms in fighting against counterfeiting.
What we hear suggests that luxury firms’ failure to contain the growth in counterfeiting is rooted in a hollowing out of their brands. Many luxury brands have become symbols of status and privilege but not much else. The emphasis across the industry has been on signalling rather than delivering luxury; intangible over tangible product attributes; and the logo over all other markers of quality.
This philosophy has been consistently applied to supply chains, manufacturing, and pricing: By relocating production to low-cost countries, luxury firms severed the centuries-old association of luxury goods with their historical places of origin. The outsourcing also led to relaxed control over supply chain, design ,and manufacturing just as counterfeiters were putting unprecedented pressure on each of these processes.
At the same time, in spite of the cost savings, luxury products’ sticker prices have risen dramatically. At first, the idea was to cushion the impact of the growing traffic of Chinese tourists buying abroad and reselling at home. But the hikes escalated rapidly and by 2014, a Chanel handbag cost 70% more than it had just five years earlier. Other brands followed suit, raising prices at more than twice the rate of the mainstream market. Buoyed by initial success of this pricing strategy, many firms also phased out their more affordable, entry-level brands. Case in point: Dolce & Gabbana in 2012 discontinued its profitable but less expensive D&G brand.
As a result of these developments, luxury brands have become disconnected from their physical products, which reduces customer concerns about buying fakes. Does spending $2,500 on a branded good made in China look smart when you can get a made-in-China fake version (possibly from the branded company’s supplier) that looks pretty much the same? The anonymity of the new digital distribution networks for fakes only makes the decision easier.
This suggests that luxury sector’s solution to the counterfeiting challenge lies less in fighting counterfeiters and more in rediscovering what made the brands great in the first place.
To begin with, luxury companies need to reconnect with their roots. Much of luxury brands’ authenticity comes from their roots in, and intimate links with, a particular country or region. Healthy, authentic brands have celebrated and romanticized these links. They have actively taken up the mantle of stewards and local community leaders. More recently, striving to make counterfeiting socially unacceptable has led luxury firms to start thinking about what they stand for.
Family firms are particularly good at communicating how they align their internal ethos with external values. Take the case of Italian cashmere and luxury sportswear maker Brunello Cucinelli, with 2017 sales of over $600 million. Launched in the 1970s as a one-man operation, it now employs 500 staff in historic home of Solomeo near Perugia. Run with a management style of “radical kindness” to employees, the company is devoted to the renovation and cultural preservation of the local community. In addition to refurbishing the town’s infrastructure and heritage monuments, the company has set up a free school to teach traditional skills, including tailoring. The long-standing commitment to its home region and its people is what underpins the founder’s vision of a “humanistic enterprise” and humanistic modern capitalism.
There are tangible advantages in reshoring as well. If they bring manufacturing back to their home countries where stricter controls are easier to implement, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Burberry can better control supply and distribution issues that have facilitated counterfeiters. They can, for example, more easily prevent factory overruns, where offshore suppliers manufacture more goods than a brand has commissioned, and then distribute the surplus products through alternative distribution channels directly to customers.
Going Beyond the Logo
At a time when weekend markets all over the world are awash with luxury logos printed on cheap T-shirts and shopping bags, it may be hard to believe that the original Chanel 2.55 flap bag sported no logo at all. It was the quilted stich and the diamond or herringbone pattern that said “Chanel.” Yet for 60 years, the bag has been considered timeless and essential. Similarly, Max Mara’s wool-and-cashmere 101801 Icon coat remains a logo-less classic that has hardly ever been copied.
There’s a message here: logos are easy to knock off, but good craftsmanship isn’t. To make fakes less attractive to consumers, luxury firms will need to emphasize a style and quality that is tough to replicate and is independent of the logo. Emphasizing traditional craftsmanship, handmade components, and heritage techniques is a powerful way of infusing a brand with authenticity.
LVMH is one brand that has been going down this route. In October 2018, it held the fourth edition of its series of open-door events known as Les Journées Particulières. Launched in 2011, this initiative showcases LVMH’s architectural and cultural heritage alongside the savoir-faire, creativity and artisanal excellence of its “Houses.” The group invited the public to 77 locales across 14 countries and five continents. They included workshops, wine cellars, private mansions, family homes, historic stores and other venues, half of which were previously closed to the public. A total of 180,000 visitors attended talks, masterclasses, practical demonstrations, and flash-mob gatherings.
Revisiting the Customer Connection
It’s also high time for many luxury goods companies to reboot their assumptions about customers, because their customers are evolving. Increasingly the new rich of today are Millennials, and their ethics and tastes are rather different from those of their parents. There is shift in emphasis to experience, sustainability, and sharing from products, consumption, and exclusivity.
Some luxury brands are changing their strategies accordingly. Kering, the group owner of Gucci, Balenciaga, Stella McCartney, and Yves Saint Laurent, has been steadily raising the proportion of renewable raw materials in its products, from biodegradable glitter to fabrics made from seaweed and orange fibers. Its eyewear division, for example, has partnered with an Italian bioplastics firm to create a range of biodegradable frames. The group has also introduced “environmental P&L” into its business model, signaling an industry-wide shift in practice. The response from consumers has been favorable: Yves Saint Laurent, for example, now does 65% of their business with Millennials.
Post-sale services such as alterations, maintenance and repair, as well as the booming trade in “pre-owned” luxury items, are all promising areas for luxury goods companies to explore. An early pioneer in this respect is Audemars Piguet, which in 2018 announced plans to launch a second-hand watch business. If executed properly, this kind of strategic move can help a luxury firm take control over its products throughout their lifecycles. It can also change the economics of buying a fake by offering consumers more affordable but still genuine options.
adapted from Harvard Business Review
Counterfeit Chanel bag
Dolce & Gabbana’s spectacular store in Rome, Piazza di Spagna effortlessly reflects the greatness of the Italian brand
Quietly opened in December 2018 following the immensely controversial incident in its history, Dolce & Gabbana's redesigned flagship in Piazza …
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Buildings and Homes are intended to be a safe harbor for people’s lives – not a living nightmare of injury and death
building collapse, building materials, building methods, cricketdiane, disaster recovery, hurricanes, tornadoes
I am all for designing new things, inventing and innovating, but where there are things available to solve problems which are simply not being utilized – why create another something for it? From the storm shelters and safe rooms which are available to people in Oklahoma and across tornado prone areas that aren’t being added to homes and schools to reinforcement strategies, materials and methods for buildings in need of them not being used, decisions are being made that, far in advance of dangerous situations, are contributing to the loss of life and injuries during those events.
In one thing I read several years ago, it said that 85% of buildings in New York City are made of unreinforced masonry – that the beautiful old brick buildings throughout the city are not reinforced in any way. During the recent Moore, Oklahoma tornado, it was obvious that the school was not a reinforced structure either, nor was the hospital there which had the entire second floor ripped from it.
There were pictures from the end of last week’s tornadoes including one that attacked near St. Louis, Missouri that indicated a high school’s damaged walls and in those photos, it is obvious there were two brick walls as if a facade had been added over the existing brick building – neither of which were reinforced in any way. The yield of those decisions to not reinforce that structure even when a second facade was being added meant a pile of bricks and bricks as moving projectiles, dangers falling not only from above but in a spray outwards from the building, and had their been lives in that area of damage – potential loss of life and injuries as a result.
Up to 10 trapped in Philadelphia building collapse
PHILADELPHIA, June 5 (UPI) — A number of people were trapped Wednesday after a building collapsed in downtown Philadelphia, officials said.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/06/05/Up-to-10-trapped-in-Philadelphia-building-collapse/UPI-86161370448361/?spt=hs&or=tn
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Culture Warrington
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PARR HALL
Parr Hall is one of the leading arts and entertainment venues in the North West and has played host to some of the biggest names in the industry, including The Rolling Stones, John Bishop, The Stone Roses and more. Dating back to 1895, this beautiful grade-two listed building is steeped in Victorian charm and packed full of character. The venue can cater for up to 1,000 people for a performance, whilst holding up to 244 for a sit-down dinner, and 500 people for a drinks reception.
PYRAMID ART CENTRE
This town-centre venue is home to variety of unique spaces that can be adapted to meet your individual needs. Complete with a 200-seater studio theatre and dedicated dance studios, this versatile building can be used for a range of events, from performances and weddings, to classes and business meetings. Boasting historic features from its past life as the Old Magistrates’ Court, in addition to striking, modern architecture, this magnificent building has got something for everyone.
WARRINGTON MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY
Indulge your guests with a spot of culture and host your event at the oldest museum in the North West. With a meeting room that is perfect for small-scale meetings and events, and world-class heritage and artwork at every turn, this is a fabulous venue in which to entertain your guests.
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Title 24 > Chapter 14
Authenticated PDF
§ 1417 § 1418 § 1419 § 1420 § 1421 § 1422 § 1422A § 1423 § 1424 § 1425
Professions and Occupations
CHAPTER 14. BOARD OF ELECTRICAL EXAMINERS
Subchapter III. Other Provisions
§ 1417 Homeowner's Permits.
(a) Any person, who plans to install that person's own internal wiring, electrical work or equipment, including the main breaker or fuse, in or about that person's own home, that is not for sale nor any part for rent, excluding swimming pools and hot tubs, shall obtain a homeowner's permit. Permits shall be valid for 1 year. Failure of the homeowner to obtain a final inspection of the homeowner's work shall be cause for the Board to cancel the homeowner's permit.
(b) Persons applying for a homeowner's permit shall submit a photo identification, copy of the deed to the home and title or contract of sale for the mobile home (if applicable).
(c) Application for a homeowner's permit shall be available at the Board office in Dover, or by mail. The Division shall issue the permit only to those persons who fulfill the requirements of this section.
72 Del. Laws, c. 210, § 1; 70 Del. Laws, c. 186, § 1.;
§ 1418 Partnership, firm or corporation; loss of license holder.
(a) If a partnership, firm or corporation suffers a loss of a license holder, the partnership, firm or corporation shall notify the Board in writing with supporting documentation within 7 days of the loss of a license holder.
(b) The Board shall schedule an emergency meeting within 10 days during which time the partnership, firm or corporation may continue to operate without a license holder provided the partnership, firm or corporation continues to employ the same personnel with the exception of the license holder.
(c) A person associated with the partnership, firm or corporation shall submit an application for a license to the Board, before the emergency meeting, for consideration by the Board at such meeting. At the emergency meeting the Board may issue a temporary license valid for 100 days dated from the date of notification by the partnership, firm or corporation.
(d) If approved at the emergency meeting, the applicant shall be scheduled for the next available examination.
(e) Regardless of the provisions of subsection (c) of this section, a temporary license shall expire when the Board receives notification of the results of the examination.
(f) If the partnership, firm or corporation allows the 100-day temporary license to expire without having a person obtain a license or having in their employ a person with a license, then said partnership, firm or corporation shall cease and desist immediately from all electrical work for which a license is required under this chapter.
72 Del. Laws, c. 210, § 1.;
§ 1419 Exceptions.
(a) Nothing in this title shall be construed to prevent the performing of electrical work by:
(1) Any of the following individuals working in a manufacturing or industrial facility:
a. An electrical engineer who is recognized by their company as the person responsible for facility repairs, maintenance, or electrical additions, and who is registered with the Board, or a professional electrical engineer who is registered with the Board and who is licensed and listed on the Delaware Association of Professional Engineers;
b. An electrical engineer or electrical engineering technician, recognized by the manufacturing or industrial company as qualified, working in a laboratory environment conducting basic research and development;
c. An "in-house" electrical engineer, electrical engineering technician, or other person conducting research and development building and testing a custom panel designed by the company and not commercially available, provided that such exception shall not extend to the permanent installation of the equipment;
(2) The Department of Transportation, its agencies, offices and divisions, for all work performed by the Department, or under its supervision, and which is approved by the Department, for the installation, erection, construction, reconstruction and/or maintenance of drawbridges and traffic-control devices, including traffic signals, traffic signs and highway lighting;
(3) Persons working beyond the main breaker or fuse of 200 amps or less on structures used exclusively for agricultural purposes, except that the provisions of § 1420 of this title regarding certificates of inspection shall apply where new installations are involved;
(4) Any electric light or power company, electric railway company, steam railway company, diesel railway company, telegraph or telephone company, water or wastewater utility whose rates and services are regulated by the Delaware Public Service Commission, or any person performing the electrical work of such company or utility, when such work is a part of the plant or services used by the company in rendering its authorized service to the public, as further defined in rules and regulations of the Board;
(5) Any homeowner or homeowners who comply with the mandates of § 1417 of this title.
(b) Nothing in this chapter shall restrict any person from servicing equipment in the fields of heating, air conditioning, refrigeration or appliances.
24 Del. C. 1953, § 1432; 55 Del. Laws, c. 423, § 1; 59 Del. Laws, c. 202, § 16; 62 Del. Laws, c. 342, § 1; 64 Del Laws, c. 476, § 5; 65 Del. Laws, c. 355, § 1; 70 Del. Laws, c. 186, § 1; 72 Del. Laws, c. 210, § 1; 78 Del. Laws, c. 191, § 7; 79 Del. Laws, c. 86, § 3; 79 Del. Laws, c. 407, § 1.;
§ 1420 Certificate of Inspection required; "cut-in-card"
(a) All electrical work performed in this State, unless specifically exempt, shall receive a certificate of inspection issued by a Board-licensed inspection agency.
(b) All applications for inspections shall be filed with the inspection agency within 5 working days of the commencement of electrical work.
(c) Inspection agencies shall make all inspections within 5 working days of receipt of the application for inspection.
(d) No power company shall connect any current, light or power to any property without first obtaining from an inspection agency a permanent or temporary "cut-in-card," except in case of emergency when service may be restored by a licensed electrician prior to obtaining a "cut-in-card." The inspection agency shall issue a "cut-in-card" only for electrical work performed by a licensed electrician, except for work being done or which has been done by persons who are not required to obtain licenses under this chapter.
24 Del. C. 1953, § 1433; 55 Del. Laws, c. 423, § 1; 59 Del. Laws, c. 202, § 17; 70 Del. Laws, c. 186, § 1; 72 Del. Laws, c. 210, § 1.;
§ 1421 Electrical Inspection Agencies.
(a) All agencies, who intend to conduct electrical inspections in this State, shall apply for a license as an approved electrical inspection agency, complete a Board-approved application and submit to the Board proof of the following:
(1) Name or names, address or addresses, and telephone number or numbers for all office facilities located in this State, at least 1 office of which shall service all 3 counties;
(2) For all electrical inspectors employed by the inspection agency, proof of at least 7 years of experience in residential, commercial or industrial wiring;
(3) The passing grade obtained by each inspector on the following examinations, administered by a nationally recognized testing agency and approved by the Division: Electrical 1- and 2-family dwelling; electrical general, administered within 18 months of employment as an inspector; and electrical plan review, administered within 24 months of such employment.
(b) The Board may grant conditional approval of the inspection agency, not to exceed 6 months, after reviewing the credentials of the agency, evidence of general liability insurance and errors and omission insurance, as required by the Board's rules and regulations, and payment of the fee established by the Division. No electrical inspection agency shall conduct any electrical inspection in this State until it has at least 1 full-time, nationally-certified inspector on its payroll, who will conduct electrical inspections in this State.
(c) The Board may deny an application for licensure as an inspection agency; such denial shall be in writing and state the reason or reasons for such denial; and shall be provided by the Board to the inspection agency within 10 days of the decision. The inspection agency may appeal all denials of licensure to the Superior Court.
(d) After the Board has granted a conditional approval for the inspection agency and such approval has been in effect for at least 3 months, the Board may grant a license to the inspection agency, upon submission of certified proof of the following:
(1) All employees, officers or stockholders of the inspection agency shall not have any proprietary or pecuniary interest in any electrical contracting business located in this State;
(2) All employees, officers or stockholders of the inspection agency shall not have any proprietary or pecuniary interest in any manufacturer or seller of electrical appliances, machinery, wiring, electrical hardware or other electrical apparatus.
(3) All employees, officers or stockholders of the inspection agency shall not have any proprietary or pecuniary interest in any electric utility or company, municipal electrical department or other utility or company, which supplies electrical energy for industrial, residential or commercial use.
(e) All licensed electrical inspection agencies in this State shall file, and keep up to date, with the Board and keep open to public inspection at all times during normal business hours, and in each office, the addresses and telephone numbers of all offices, time of regular business hours for all offices, and a schedule with all rates and charges for services rendered by the agency.
(f) All licensed electrical inspection agencies in this State shall make inspections within 5 days of receipt of an application for inspection and shall issue a certificate of approval within 15 days after final inspection. All applications for inspection must be filed by a state-licensed electrician or by a person or persons specifically excepted by this chapter.
(g) All violations noted during an inspection shall be corrected within 15 days and reinspected by the same inspection agency. If not corrected, the inspection agency shall notify the utility concerned and the Board of such violations. The utility shall not provide service to the premises until the violation is corrected.
(h) All records of the licensed electrical inspection agencies shall be available for examination by the Division's investigators; the agency shall inform the Division of the location of all records.
(i) All licensed electrical inspection agencies in this State shall carry general liability insurance and errors and omission insurance of at least $1,000,000 each for claims of property damage or personal injury arising from faulty electrical work approved by the agency, or any of its employees, or other acts or omissions performed by the agency or any of its employees.
(j) All employees of all licensed electrical inspection agencies in this State shall be remunerated on a salary basis only and shall not be given commissions or other bonus incentives for volume of work performed.
(k) Each license shall be renewed annually upon payment of the appropriate fee, in such a manner as is determined by the Division.
(l ) The Board may impose any of the sanctions available under § 1414 of this title on an electrical inspection agency if the agency is determined to be guilty of:
(1) Fraud or deceit in obtaining a license;
(2) An act of consumer fraud or deception of the public;
(3) Negligence, incompetency or misconduct in providing electrical inspection services; or
(4) Violation of any lawful provision of this chapter or any lawful rule or regulation established thereunder.
24 Del. C. 1953, § 1434; 59 Del. Laws, c. 202, § 18; 59 Del. Laws, c. 396, § 1; 70 Del. Laws, c. 186, § 1; 72 Del. Laws, c. 210, § 1; 73 Del. Laws, c. 128, §§ 7, 8.;
§ 1422 Apprentice electricians.
(a) An apprentice electrician must work under the direct onsite supervision of a licensed master electrician, master electrician special, limited electrician, limited electrician special, residential electrician or journeyperson electrician.
(b) A licensed electrician supervising an apprentice electrician pursuant to subsection (a) of this section shall be responsible for the activities of the apprentice electrician performing work in the State.
§ 1422A Residential electricians.
(a) A residential electrician license allows for a person to conduct residential electrical work without having to be under the direct onsite supervision of a licensed master electrician, master electrician special, limited electrician, limited electrician special or journeyperson electrician.
(b) Electricians with a residential electrician license are prohibited from performing any electrical work other than:
(1) Electrical work performed on or within a residential dwelling or building prior to the dwelling or building being connected to the electric grid, or
(2) Work to or beyond the breaker panel or fuse box in a residential dwelling or building.
§ 1423 Duty to report.
(a) An owner, operator, manager, or supervisor of a business performing electrical services shall have a duty to report to the Board, if such owner, operator, manager, or supervisor has knowledge that a person working for or under his or her supervision is:
(1) Performing electrical work; and
(2) Does not have the proper license under subchapter II of this chapter.
(b) The report required pursuant to this section must be made in writing to the Board within 10 days of such owner, operator, manager, or supervisor having the required knowledge and shall contain the name of the person performing the electrical work without a license.
(c) An owner, operator, manager, or supervisor of a business performing electrical services must check to see if an employee or independent contractor has the proper license under subchapter II of this chapter before allowing such employee or independent contractor to perform electrical work for such owner, operator, manager or supervisor.
79 Del. Laws, c. 86, § 4; 70 Del. Laws, c. 186, § 1.;
§ 1424 Penalty.
A person, not currently licensed as an electrician or exempt from licensure under this chapter, when guilty of performing electrical work, or using in connection with that person's name, or otherwise assuming or using any title or description conveying, or tending to convey, the impression that the person is qualified to perform electrical work, such offender shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. Upon the first offense, the person shall be fined not less than $500 nor more than $1,500 for each offense. For a second or subsequent conviction, the fine shall be not less than $1,500 nor more than $2,300 for each offense. Justice of the Peace Courts shall have jurisdiction over all violations of this chapter.
24 Del. C. 1953, § 1440; 55 Del. Laws, c. 423, § 1; 59 Del. Laws, c. 202, § 19; 70 Del. Laws, c. 186, § 1; 72 Del. Laws, c. 210, § 1; 78 Del. Laws, c. 191, § 8; 79 Del. Laws, c. 86, § 4; 81 Del. Laws, c. 290, § 4.;
§ 1425 Inspections.
An agent of the Division may inspect during business hours, without prior notice any person providing electrical services at any business or location to determine if such person has a proper license as required by this chapter.
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the country intricate, and intersected by ditches, by roads, and woods, and I was fearful of risking the chances of a night attack, in which it would be impossible to distinguish friend from foe. In my judgment there was too great risk of that most melancholy of disasters when friends shoot each other by mistake in a blind melee.
The country wa so broken that cavalry could not operate. My infantry was inferior in number to that of the enemy. It was reported tome that the infantry could not, after the fatigue of the day, sustain the march of 12 miles, which would have enabled them to get in the rear of the enemy by another route. Had they attempted it the enemy, if disposed to retire, could cross before they reached it, as they had only 3 miles to march. The probability of a gunboat being stationed at port Royal Ferry to protect their retreat was an element to be duly considered. I was forced unwillingly to the conclusion to halt and make the attack early in the morning. With this view I ordered Colonel Phillips' Georgia Legion, which I was notified had arrived at pocotaligo, to join me at daylight. The entire command was ordered to be ready to march at daylight.
Early in the morning I advanced as far as Port Royal Ferry, where I found the enemy had crossed during the night. Captain Stephen Elliott, jr., brought up his artillery and battered the ferry-house, which sheltered their pickets, and their flat-boats, with which they had effected a crossing, at the range of 250 yards. As stated by a corporal of the enemy taken prisoner, their force consisted of twelve companies of infantry, viz: Fiftieth Pennsylvania Regiment, one company of Eighth Michigan, one company of New York, one of cavalry, and two pieces of artillery. The whole force I had actually engaged was 76 men rank and file. One hundred and ten were in reserve and holding horses, a considerable number only armed with sabers. The remainder of my force was on picket duty and watching other roads by which the enemy might approach. The smallness of the list of killed and wounded presented after such protracted firing is accounted for by the thorough protection afforded the skirmishers by the banks of the canal, of the shelter of which they availed themselves in retreating by a line parallel to that of the enemy, rejoining their horses by a circuit to the left.
I would specially commend the soldierly bearing of Captain W. L. Trenholm and Lieutenant L. J. Walker, of the Rutledge Mounted Riflemen; Lieutenant R. M. Skinner, of Company A, and Sergeant Lesesne, of same company; Corpl. W. H. Jeffers and Privates Joseph D. Taylor and W. K. Steadman, of the Rutledge Mounted Riflemen.
I was much indebted to Captain W. W. Elliott, acting ordnance officer, for his information of the topography of the country.
Lieutenant Ed. H. Barnwell, acting assistant adjutant-general, showed great zeal and gallantry, and was exposed to a sharp and close fire while aiding me in the engagement.
I cannot too highly commend the pertinacity and spirit shown by the small command of the First Battalion Cavalry, under Lieutenant R. M. Skinner, of Company A, while exposed to a close and rapid fire of a greatly superior force.
The Rutledge Mounted Riflemen, armed with a long-range rifle, were placed at a greater distance from the enemy. Throughout the contest they behaved with great steadiness and courage, and illustrated the excellent discipline and drill for which the corps is conspicuous.
Lieutenant L. J. Walker, with 6 of the Rutledge Mounted Riflemen, formed the advance guard while following the enemy. Lieutenant L. J. Walker per formed the responsible duty assigned him with skill and courage.
‹ Serial 020 Page 0025 Chapter XXVI. SKIRMISH AT POCOTALIGO, S. C. up Serial 020 Page 0027 Chapter XXVI. SKIRMISH ON JAMES ISLAND, S. C. ›
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Films, Articles with Wikipedia content, 1993 films,
Touchstone Pictures films
PG-13 rated films
My Boyfriend's Back
Sean S. Cunningham
Dean Lorey
Andrew Lowery
Traci Lind
Harry Manfredini
Cinematography by
Mac Ahlberg
Studio(s)
My Boyfriend's Back is a 1993 American romantic black comedy/fantasy/horror film directed by Bob Balaban which tells the story of Johnny Dingle, a teenage boy who returns from the dead as a zombie to meet Missy McCloud, the girl he's in love with, for a date. The movie received negative reviews for its weak plot and bad acting.
The movie's title is a reference to the 1963 song of the same name by The Angels. The original title of the film, Johnny Zombie was changed shortly before the film's theatrical release. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Matthew McConaughey, Renee Zellweger, and Matthew Fox appear in small roles in the film.
Johnny Dingle's (Andrew Lowery) your typical teenager. He's in love with a beautiful girl named Missy McCloud (Traci Lind), but he can't tell her. One day, the shop where Missy works gets robbed and Johnny is killed trying to help. But Johnny doesn't want to stay dead, so he returns to his life like nothing ever happened. After a while, he discovers that his body is disintegrating and he must feed on human flesh if he wants to survive.
Andrew Lowery as Johnny Dingle
Traci Lind as Missy McCloud
Danny Zorn as Eddie
Edward Herrmann as Mr. Dingle
Mary Beth Hurt as Mrs. Dingle
Jay O. Sanders as Sheriff McCloud
Libby Villari as Camille McCloud
Matthew Fox as Buck Van Patten
Philip Seymour Hoffman as Chuck Bronski
Paul Dooley as Big Chuck
Austin Pendleton as Dr. Bronson
Cloris Leachman as Maggie the zombie expert
Paxton Whitehead as Judge in heaven
Matthew McConaughey as Guy #2
Renee Zellweger (scene cut)
This is Matthew Fox and Matthew McConaughey's first film roles. Renée Zellweger's only scene was cut from the film.
The film was met with very negative reviews and had a very poor box office gross, making $3,335,984.
My Boyfriend's Back on IMDb
My Boyfriend's Back at Box Office Mojo
My Boyfriend's Back at Rotten Tomatoes
My Boyfriend's Back Review at Obscurus Lupa Presents
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The article or pieces of the original article was at My Boyfriend's Back (1993 film). The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Disney Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Retrieved from "https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/My_Boyfriend%27s_Back?oldid=2968408"
Articles with Wikipedia content
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Sugar, Spice, Not Very Nice
March 15, 2017 By intsculpturectr in ISC Residencies Tags: Katie Hovencamp Leave a comment
Parochial Collar #1, in Sugar, Spice, Not Very Nice exhibition, 2017. Photo by Anna Margush
“What are little girls made of?” Those familiar with the well-known 19th-century nursery rhyme will answer: “Sugar and spice and all things nice. That’s what little girls are made of!” Artist Katie Hovencamp, on the other hand, provides an alternative response in her solo exhibition, Sugar, Spice, Not Very Nice, which is on view in the Linder Art Gallery at Keystone College, from 2/28 through 4/28. Against a backdrop of hand-painted, 19th-century-style wallpaper, the show features Hovencamp’s Parochial Collar series, accompanying photographs of the artist wearing the collars, and a collection of Victorian-style drawings, all of which subvert traditional ideals of femininity.
Installation view of Sugar, Spice, Not Very Nice, 2017. Photo by Katie Hovencamp
The fourteen collars in the show hark back to those worn in an earlier time, when women were expected to be prim and proper. However, rather than being comprised of soft fabric, reflecting gentle femininity, Hovencamp’s collars are made of hard metal, including steel, aluminum, copper, and cast iron. Some of the collars also incorporate lace fabric, which provides a nice contrast to the metallic colors and textures. Hovencamp carefully crafted each collar, providing intricate details, such as cut-out patterns on several.
Complementing the collars are photographs of Hovencamp wearing her metallic neck attire, and, as with the collars themselves, the photographic images offer conflicting ideas of femininity. While the collars themselves suggest feminine propriety, the pieces appear against the nude flesh of the artist.
In addition to the collars and photographs, the exhibition includes pen and ink with watercolor drawings produced in 2016/2017. The Victorian style of the drawings suggests a corresponding subject; however, upon closer inspection, the subversive nature of the images becomes clear, enhanced by titles with layered meaning. For example, the most recent drawing, Extension, from 2017, portrays three women dressed in long 19th-century style dresses. Each woman has floor-length hair spilling down her back, suggesting the idea of hair extensions. However, shockingly, a child appears at the end of each woman’s hair, resembling an insect trapped in a spider web, thus commenting on the close connection between a mother and child, to the point that the child becomes an extension of the mother. Untamed, from 2016, also has different levels of meaning. Four women wearing long evening dresses, complete with petticoats, face toward the viewer, though with gazes turned away. The women appear restricted in the formal dresses, and their expressions almost seem to indicate submission. Countering all of this, though, is the head of a wild feline covering each woman’s genital area. From left to right, the untamed cats are a bobcat, leopard, tiger, and lion, and all four have their mouths wide open in uninhibited roars. One can imagine that these Victorian-era women, though constrained by society’s conventions, refuse to be tamed at heart.
Kingdom, 2016. Photo by Katie Hovencamp
Other of Hovencamp’s drawings reference motifs the artist explored in performance pieces. Her 2016 drawing, Kingdom, which represents the head of a woman incorporated into the castle of a kingdom, shares similarities with her performance entitled Reverie, from 2016. In both, a female head appears at the center of a castle, confined by buildings in the drawing and fabric in the performance work, and, again, suggesting the conventions that bind women and hold them in place.
In an earlier drawing (not in the exhibition), and performance of the same name and date, Frivolous, 2014, the artist’s body is enshrouded by a huge mound of fabric, bows, and lace, with only her legs and feet sticking out.
2014 performance, Frivolous. Photo by Yelizaveta Masalimova Cunningham
Returning to the Victorian theme of the Parochial Collars and several of the drawings, the title expresses the perception of women then, and, sadly, to some even today, as being silly or foolish, and not having any real purpose, except to bear children and appear attractive. The restrictive nature of women’s clothing during that time (and in some ways—stiletto heels and strapless dresses–in our own!), such as long, full dresses worn over petticoats and corsets (Hovencamp’s drawing, Cinch, 2016), only served to reinforce those ideas, prohibiting women from moving freely, while, at the same time, appearing fashionable.
Hovencamp’s exhibition communicates the artist’s love of her craft, particularly the collars. It also conveys her desire to be “not very nice” as she uses her body and art to comment on women’s issues.
By Sara F. Meng
« Rodin’s Human Experience, and Our Own
High Fidelity »
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New Stonehenge visitor centre to be filled with never-before-seen artefacts
Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum will be lending around 250 objects to the new visitors centre at Stonehenge.
The facility will be home to a special exhibition area and is due to be completed before the end of the year.
The museum have all the finds from every 20th Century excavation.
Adrian Green is the Director of Salisbury and South Wiltshire, he says many have never been seen:
“We’ve got antler picks and bones and remains of people who were actually excavated at the monument it itself. These are things that people have never seen before and are thousands of years old, that’s what’s really going to blow people’s minds.”
The Museum’s collections span the history and archaeology of Salisbury and south Wiltshire, from prehistoric times to the present day. The Museum is Designated by the Arts Council as having archaeology collections of outstanding national importance
Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum
Stonehenge & Prehistory
Stonehenge is a unique monument standing at the heart of an extensive archaeological landscape on Salisbury Plain. Finds from excavations at Stonehenge are held at the Museum, as well as important discoveries such as the Monkton Deverill Torc and the Amesbury Archer burial.
Art of Stonehenge
As well as collecting objects from Stonehenge, the Museum has an extensive range of paintings, prints and drawings of the monument. These include some of the earliest known depictions of the stone circle, as well as works by contemporary artists.
Link Article: http://www.spirefm.co.uk
Link: http://www.StonehenegTours.com
Link: http://www.salisburymuseum.org.uk/
Merlin at Stonehenge
Categories : Archaeology, Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, Stonehenge news, Stonehenge tours, Stonehenge Visitor Centre, wiltshire, wiltshire heritage museum
Stonehenge Lecture by Mike Pearson. Wiltshire Heritage Museum
Prof Mike Parker Pearson, who will be presenting the latest scientific results from laboratory analysis following a decade of fieldwork in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. 2(:30 pm, Saturday, 23 February, 2013)
A striking and original interpretation of the awesome Stone Age site from one of the world’s foremost archaeologists on death and burial”
New research over the last year has provided fascinating insights into the lives of the people of Stonehenge and why they built this enigmatic and mysterious monument. Mike Parker Pearson will talk about his new book Stonehenge: exploring the greatest Stone Age mystery, and will present the latest scientific results coming out of laboratory analysis following a decade of fieldwork in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. This includes new light on the people buried at Stonehenge, and on the settlement of the builders at the nearby henge of Durrington Walls. He will also reveal the results of new research into the provisioning of Stonehenge, including the search for its quarries in Wiltshire and west Wales, to show how the act of building Stonehenge involved people from all over prehistoric Britain.
Mike has spent many years researching Stonehenge and its environment, particularly during the Stonehenge Riverside project. He is Professor of British Later Prehistory at UCL Institute of Archaeology.
http://www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk
* Tel: 01380 727369 (office hours Tuesday to Friday 10am to 5pm)
Saturday afternoon lectures start at 2.30pm and last approx. one hour.
This lecture is being held at Devizes Town Hall, just a short walk from the Museum.
Cost: £6 (£3.50 WANHS members)
‘See you there’
Categories : stonehenge book, stonehenge guide, stonehenge new theories, Stonehenge news, Wiltshire Events, wiltshire heritage museum
Lasers at Stonehenge. British Archaelogy
At last, after all these years, we’ve got the very first comprehensive study of the actual stones at Stonehenge. As part of its research into Stonehenge and its landscape that will feed into displays at the new visitor centre, English Heritage commissioned Greenhatch Group surveyors to produce the first complete, high resolution 3D digital model of Stonehenge and its immediate landscape, using lasers and a bit of photogrammetry. (http://mikepitts.wordpress.com/)
Then Marcus Abbott (ArcHeritage) and Hugo Anderson-Whymark (freelance lithics specialist) analysed the data, created new digital images and news ways of seeing them, added some of their own photos and spent time amongst the real stones.
In one sense the results are not surprising: it was obvious to anyone with eyes that that we could learn a lot about Stonehenge with a proper study of the stones. And yes, we have learnt a lot. But just about all the details are revelatory.
There are four different areas where new things are really going to change the way we think about the monument:
how the stones were dressed and what the original monument looked like
prehistoric carvings – difficult to see and unknown to visitors: the new discoveries have doubled the number of such carvings known in the whole of Britain
damage by tourists: the scale of damage done by souvenir collectors in the 18th and 19th centuries had not been recognised before
graffiti: dates range between 1721 and 1866, though most were carved 1800–1850 – and they’re almost everywhere.
And this must be just the beginning. There are more details yet to see (there is still scope for new and higher resolution survey), and new things to think about in the vast data set.
If you know Stonehenge, from this alone you can see at once how much new information has been revealed. Amongst other things, it seems fair to draw from this (and other new data) that the sarsen circle probably WAS complete; and that the whole thing was designed to be seen from the north-east, approaching up the Avenue – so the implication follows that the setting midwinter sun you’d be facing to the south-west was the key alignment.
British Archaeology also published the pioneering Stonehenge laser study done in 2002.
Please follow Mike Pitts excellent archaelogy Blog: http://mikepitts.wordpress.com/
Link: http://www.archaeologyuk.org/ba/ba73/index.shtml
Link: http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/
The Council for British Archaeology’s award-winning bi-monthly magazine is the authoritative, in-depth source of information and comment on what’s new, interesting and important in UK archaeology.
Link: http://new.archaeologyuk.org/british-archaeology-magazine
Blog sponsored by ‘Stonehenge Guided Tours’ www.StonehengeTours.com
Categories : 3d stonehenge, archaeologists, Archaeology, laser scan, Solstice, stonehenge landscape, Stonehenge news, Stonehenge tours, Stonehenge Visitor Centre, wessex archaeology, wiltshire heritage museum
The Stonehenge Landscape Project. Lecture: 10th December 2011
Recent Analytical survey and investigation in the World Heritage Site, by David Field.
Monuments within the Stonehenge Landscape have rarely been subject to survey techniques in modern times and in many cases reliance has been placed on Ordnance Survey depictions of the early 20th century. In advance of the establishment of a new visitor centre and to complement and support the recent university programmes of excavation in the area, English Heritage has been conducting the Stonehenge WHS Landscape Project to determine what non-destructive survey techniques can tell us about the area. Using ground survey, aerial photography, lidar and laser scanning a number of fresh and sometimes surprising conclusions emerge. This talk will outline the results so far.
David Field is a senior landscape archaeologist at English Heritage. He has undertaken extensive research into the prehistory of Salisbury Plain and the Vale of Pewsey, including the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. Publications include ‘Earthen Long Barrows’ 2006),‘The story of Silbury Hill’ (co author with Jim Leary, 2010), ‘The Field Archaeology of the Salisbury Plain Training Area’ (2002) and ‘Ancient water management on Salisbury Plain’ in Patterns of the Past: Essays in Landscape Archaeology (1999). He has also contributed a number of articles to WANHM, most recently as one of the joint authors of the reports on the Breamore jadeite axehead and the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Midden at East Chisenbury, in Volume 103 (2010).
Contact the Bookings Secretary if you would like to be added to a reserve list:
* Tel: 01380 727369 (10am to 5pm Monday to Saturday)
* Send an e-mail.
Cost: £5 (£3 for WANHS members)
Visiting Stonehenge ? Visit the Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes: http://www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk
Sponsored by The Stonehenge Tour Company – www.StonehengeTours.com
The Stonehenge Stone Circle Website
Categories : Archaeology, durrington walls, Stonehenge, Stonehenge archaeological digs, stonehenge guide, stonehenge landscape, Stonehenge news, Stonehenge tours, visit salisbury, wessex tours, wiltshire, wiltshire heritage museum, world heritage site
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No-one’s Braver Than Brieva: The Successes of Strands’ CEO
by Aoife Crean on Nov 23, 2017
Cuban-born Erik Brieva is no stranger to success. A mathematics graduate and computer sciences expert, his professional life thus far has been dedicated to entrepreneurial ventures, enterprise software and internet-based business, having co-founded and managed several companies in Spain, the United Kingdom and United States before propelling STRANDS to a world FinTech stage.
STRANDS is the latest in a long list of business accomplishments to date, but the first at the helm of a company not of his own creation. Prior to taking over at STRANDS, Brieva co-founded and sold 3 companies: Polymita Technologies, a Business Process Management software vendor acquired by RedHat, for whom he went on to work as marketing director for 2 years; Enzyme Advising Group dedicated to, business processes and consulting bought out by Nexe Group, and Intelligent Software Components, S.A. (iSOCO) which was acquired by B2B Factory and Expert System.
Despite joiningSTRANDS some 10 years after its creation, he has been the driving force behind the company’s recent successes and excellent reputation. Since taking the reins in 2014, he has expanded STRANDS’ global footprint from two small regional offices located in Barcelona and San Francisco, to 5 strategically located headquarters in Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Kuala Lumpur, Mexico City and Miami, and positioning the company as a Fintech world leader - ranked as such by the likes of Forrester and IDC - offering personal and business financial management to banking institutions. Today,STRANDS is a global powerhouse, having implemented PFM & BFM solutions in some 600 banks worldwide and with revenues growing 20% year on year and in excess of US$18m in cash-flow. So what’s next for the man with the Midas touch?
When asked what motivates him to get up every morning, his satisfaction was unmistakable:
“I am immensely proud of STRANDS and its incredible family of talented individuals, of being able to generate such huge growth in a such a short time, and offer transformative value to our clients. For me, it is the first time I have been brought in to manage an existing company, which now stands at 200 people around the world.
“My goal on becoming CEO of STRANDS was to turn-around the company and to foster innovation by growing our product portfolio to incorporate solutions that meet the needs of a rapidly-changing market. For some time now, we have been doing great work to promote digital transformation within the banking experience of the future and which, more importantly, will improve people’s lives in general. To say that about the job you do is an incredible honor”.
The next challenge on the cards for Mr. Brieva is to prepare STRANDS for an IPO on the stock market, as a result of the dedication to continuous innovation, and as pioneers of a new paradigm in banking known as ‘relationship’ banking, in which banks and customers (both individual and business users) understand each other in new ways, thanks to improved Machine Learning technology.
The Digital Revolution within the banking sector is well underway, but there is still a long road ahead. Banks and financial institutions are more aware than ever of the need to transform themselves to fit their new reality. Erik Brieva has had the foresight to be a major player in this overhaul, and an essential cog in the machinery that will promote change for the better in the banking sector. “At STRANDS we are in a powerful position to partner with banks in their expansion process and prepare for a new, exciting, digital future”.
What’s certain is that where Brieva goes, great things ensue. Watch this space.
Aoife Crean
Strands' Content Manager and the voice behind the Strands' brand. Passionate about language and their impact, Aoife Crean writes in her native English, Spanish and Catalan producing whitepapers, blog posts, news items and interviews relating to Fintech and trends in banking.
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IPRCCA Shortlist
HOME(current) CATEGORIES CRITERIA RULES & REGULATONS JURY SPEAKERS AGENDA VENUE PARTNERS CONTACT US WINNERS 2018
JURY CHAIR
Dr. Pragnya Ram
Group Executive President -
Corporate Communications & CSR
Jury Quote
“I am indeed honoured to be the Chair of IPRCCA 2018. Even more to be in the midst of all of you, 23 highly competent and well regarded colleagues.
Arpan Basu
Head of Corporate Communications-South West Asia
Dimple Kapur
Head-Corporate Communications
Khurafati Nitin
Latika Taneja
Director – External Communications, Marketing & Communications – South Asia
Madhavan Narayanan
Senior Editor, Writer, Mentor, Consultant and Commentator
Nandini Chatterjee
Chief Corporate Communications Officer
Neeraj Jha
Nitin Thakur
Director, Brand & Communications
Partho Dasgupta
Rameet Arora
COO & Head of Digital
Ruchika Mehta
Corporate Director- Communications & PR
Group Executive President - Corporate Communications & CSR
Aditya Birla Group
Dr. Pragnya Ram has been associated with the Aditya Birla Group for a long time. As the Group executive president, Corporate Communications, Dr. Ram has been actively involved with the group's community initiatives. She has a strong academic background, with a Ph.D. from Bombay University and Masters degrees in History and Sociology. She was awarded the Sir Phirozeshah M. Mehta Scholarship during her Masters programme. She also holds a postgraduate Diploma in Journalism from the Bombay College of Journalism and is a recipient of the Patanjali Sethi best writer award. Dr. Ram began her career teaching at the Elphinstone College, Mumbai, and Stella Maris, Chennai. She has also taught at management institutes like S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research and Chetna College of Management, Mumbai.
Dr. Ram is a member of the Board of Studies in Human Development at the Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey (SNDT) Women’s University, Mumbai. She is a member of the Committee on Corporate citizenship, All India Management Association, Delhi, and a member of the Community Development Committee, Confederation of Indian Industry, New Delhi.
Suresh rangarajan
Head Corporate Communications
Suresh Rangarajan (46 years) is the Head of Corporate Communications at Tata Motors based in Mumbai. Reporting to the CEO & Managing Director of the company, Suresh enjoys a seat in the Executive Committee. In his role at Tata Motors, Suresh is responsible for strategic direction, brand management, and building thought leadership and advocacy for the company with internal and external stakeholders across all forms of traditional, broadcast and digital platforms. He also oversees the visualization and internal branding verticals, and ensures operational excellence in planning, management and execution of all events and activations.
Suresh is an experienced communications professional with close to two decades of experience in Corporate Communications and PR encompassing Media Relations, Corporate and Brand Reputation Building, Event and Activations Management and Internal Communications. Leveraging his wide-ranging expertise across levels, over the years, Suresh has planned and managed communication campaigns representing varied clients across sectors viz. Corporate, Automotive, Telecom, Entertainment, Lifestyle, FMCG, Retail and Sports among others. He also brings in an in-depth understanding of various aspects of effective media management and enjoys strong relationships across levels with key members of the media nationally.
Prior to his tenure with Tata Motors, Suresh worked with Vodafone India (2011-2017) as an Associate Vice President Corporate Communications responsible for managing the brand and communications needs for the company in India. Prior to Vodafone India, he worked with Nissan Motors (2009-2011) as Deputy General Manager -Public Relations helping the company build their brand awareness in India.
Before his corporate stint, Suresh has worked in different capacities for close to a decade (1999-2009) with India's leading PR agencies viz. Vaishnavi Corporate Communications, Rediffusion DY&R and Clea Public Relations. During his agency tenure, he has strategised, planned and implemented marketing and corporate communication programs for various Tata group companies and a host of clients across different industry sectors.
A Mechanical Engineering Graduate, Suresh has done his MBA with specialization in Marketing Management from the University of Pune, Maharashtra. Suresh is someone who enjoys responsibilities, seeks challenges and is obsessed in creating excellence in everything he undertakes. His motto in life has been "If you can visualise the invisible, then you can achieve the impossible."
A person with simple pleasures in life, Suresh likes to spend his free time listening to music. He also enjoys watching movies and sports are his passion. He has played games like soccer, cricket and hockey during his study years and takes avid interest in watching formula one and tennis.
Rakhee Lalvani
Vice President Public Relations and Corporate Communications
Indian Hotels Company Limited
Have built and integrated the Corporate Communications Department from ground up to meet needs of senior management and business heads with executing the Company’s corporate and business strategies, in addition to handling PR on a global scale for about 145 hotels across all its brands ; Taj, Vivanta, Ginger. Responsible for providing advice and guidance to the Managing Director and Executive Committee on companywide communications related issues, interfacing with media and acting as company spokesperson, developing strategic relationships with media. Have significant experience in brand management / public relations, crisis management, event management, corporate sponsorships and reputation management Responsible for integrated branding initiatives in global markets such as Europe, America, South East Asia, Japan, Middle East, Australia and North America and providing strategic direction to global agencies to position IHCL’s brands in these markets. Responsible for positioning the company and its brands in the coveted World Best Lists Identified, potential reputational issues and developed appropriate communications responses to defuse and/or avert crises. Part of the crisis communication team that handled 26/11 and responsible for the successful launch of the Taj Mahal Palace Mumbai post restoration, which is a Harvard Business School case study
Sujit Patil
Vice President & Head- Corporate Brand and Communications
Godrej Industries Limited and Associate Companies
Sujit is responsible for building and sustaining Godrej group’s reputation across diverse stakeholders. He is among the few IABC accredited business communicators in India and a three time winner of the IABC International Gold Quill award. He has been listed as India’s top ten men in corporate communications by Reputation Today and featured on the PR Week Global Power Book. Most recently Sujit has been listed on the Holmes Report’s Influence 100 research and listing of the world’s most influential in-house marketing and communications professionals. Under his leadership, Godrej has won almost all prestigious industry awards for communications including the Diamond Sabre Award – Company of the year – Asia Pacific and South Asia. His team has been consecutively ranked number one among Reputation Today’s top 30 corporate communications team in India. Apart from being a speaker and jury at various national and international bodies such as the World Communication Forum, Davos, AMEC, PR Newsweek Asia, etc., Sujit is a part of the prestigious Arthur W Page Society. He volunteers as a guest faculty at various B-Schools, is a weekend farmer, loves travelling, understanding cultures and experimenting with new cuisines.
Shravani Dang
Vice President Global Group Head- Corporate Communications & Marketing
Shravani Dang is an Independent Board Director and an experienced business, public affairs and CSR leader with over two decades of quantifiable achievements. Her experience base spans Indian and multinational companies across Technology, Financial, Not-for-profit and Industrial sectors, in both complex and large organizations.
Currently, she serves as the Vice President at the Avantha Group; she is a Trustee of CAF India and an independent member of the board in a listed company. She has worked in Leadership capacities with internationally reputed brands like Fidelity, IT giants CSC ($17b billion) and HCL, as well as international relief and development organization CARE India.
Max Group
Nitin is a senior brand and communication professional with over two decades of experience. He is currently working as Director, Brand & Communications at the USD 3 billion diversified Indian conglomerate - Max Group. His role involves strengthening the Group’s reputation through traditional and digital media strategies and providing leadership and guidance in strategic campaigns of the Group’s operating companies such as mergers & acquisitions, as well as in crisis management. He is a part of Group Executive Leadership team and works closely with the Group President and the Managing Director. In 2017, he was nominated as one of the Top 100 communication professionals in India by Reputation Today and under his leadership, his team at Max Group was deemed among the Top 30 Corporate Communications Teams in India by Reputation Today for two consecutive years.
Prior to Max, he was with Microsoft India, managing product advocacy and communications. In the past, he has been in a consulting role, as a part of various communication agencies – advising leading brands across verticals such as Technology, Consumer Products, Financial Services, Healthcare.
Nitin is married and has a 12 year old daughter. He is currently based in Delhi-NCR.
Aman Dhall
Head of Corporate Communications
Policybazaar.com
Aman heads the Corporate Communications function at Policybazaar.com. He carries over a 13 years of experience in journalism, sports, development sector and marketing communications. While relationships are important in external and internal communications, Aman believes that content is the driver for rich communication that makes one stand-out in the crowd. With this belief, Aman has set up and scaled the corporate communications department at PolicyBazaar.com Group in the past four years. He has played a pivotal role in building the brand from the ground up for the group entity, PaisaBazaar.com when it started in 2014.
He happens to be the youngest recipient of the industry-acclaimed Fulcrum Award in 2016 for his PR efforts in growing the brand's reach and driving the strategic intent in-house for group companies. He is now leading the reputation-building efforts for the group's latest healthtech venture, Docprime.com which is focused on making health care services affordable, accessible and available for masses.
Prior to starting his leadership role with PolicyBazaar.com group, Aman was an entrepreneur and ran a sport development venture for three years. He started his career as a journalist with The Times of India Group where he worked through different editorial roles between 2005 & 2010. His last role was with The Economic Times managing the personal finance pages for the weekend edition and writing on the BFSI sector. He later moved on to work in different consulting roles in the sports industry.
Aman has studied B.Com(H) from Delhi University and holds a post-graduate diploma in journalism as well a masters degree in commerce. He also holds a specialised masters degree in sport management from Loughborough University, UK. Aman has a keen interest in sports and is a former national-level table tennis player. He played for England’s Leicestershire County in 2010-11 during his time in the UK.
Coca Cola India
Arpan Basu is the Head of Corporate Communications at Coca-Cola India and South West Asia. He has been with the company since 2015 and is responsible for building communication strategies that support business objectives and drive growth. Having spent over fifteen years working as a Corporate Communications / Marketing Communications specialist, Arpan has vast experience across reputation management, executive branding, crisis communication and advocacy. Further, he has handled the entire gamut of external and internal communications for the companies he has worked for. In his previous stint with Max Life Insurance, he successfully implemented an integrated communications and rebranding campaign of ‘Max Life Insurance’ from the earlier ‘Max New York Life’. His work has received many accolades, some worth mentioning are the recent recognitions by Reputation Today as “40 under 40” as a leading communications professional and Excellence in Financial PR at the SABRE AWARDS SOUTH ASIA 2014.
Arpan has worked across industries such as Life Insurance, Pharmaceuticals, Public Relations and Chamber of Commerce. Since his work profile requires through understanding of the business and its functioning he has gained insightful knowledge not only about the company but also about the industries he has worked in. A testimony to this is the fact was being recognized amongst the top 5 “Outstanding young insurance Executive” in Asia in the “Aeon Benfield Scholarship” conducted by Asia Insurance Review. Arpan holds a degree in Master’s in Business Administration from Ohio University and a Bachelor’s in Commerce degree from Calcutta University.
Abhishek Mahapatra
Vice President & Head of Communications, Corporate Affairs, & CSR
Abhishek Mahapatra is Vice President, Communications, Corporate Affairs & CSR, and Nissan India. In this leadership role he is responsible for Nissan’s overall communications, community program and public affairs for Nissan’s efforts in India. Abhishek is an integrated communications professional with 16 years of experience and has held leadership positions of increasing responsibilities at in-house roles at Uber, Ford, and also at agencies including Edelman and MSL, across India, Middle-East, China & Asia Pacific markets.
A strong believer of paid, earned & owned channels, Abhishek is driven by passion and power of storytelling, and guided by a metrics oriented frame of mind.
Corporate Director- Communications & PR- The Park Hotels
An INSEAD alum, Ruchika Mehta is recognised as a global marketing and communications specialist with over 18 years of experience. She has actively worked in complex environments, with multiple teams and on numerous projects, having a rich base in Brand Management as well as in Digital sphere with exemplary communication skills. In the past she has launched the Asian hospitality giant Shangri- La Hotels into India in 2005 and has worked with Hyatt and ITC hotels. In her current role Ruchika spearheads Corporate Communications and Brand Marketing for the Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels Limited ( 17 hotels, 10 under development) - The Park Hotels, The Park Collection, Zone by The Park, Apeejay Hospitality Institute and other category – Flurys ( 22 outlets ): delicatessen and Italia – the Italian restaurants. She leads the global communications strategy including CSR with national and global PR and advertising agencies that represent different geographies as well as overlooks annual budget for advertising and promotions for the group. A social media influencer herself, she is known as a social media star with over 30,000 followers in Instagram alone. She is one of the pioneers to use Influencer Marketing in her industry and is also sought after at various industry summits for her able know how on influencer marketing. In her journey, Ruchika has shown entrepreneurial, disruptive and profit oriented approach with demonstrated success in launching brands using innovation, leading cross functional teams and fostering productivity. Her work has been awarded and recognised by the industry.
• Awarded Corporate Communication Professional of The Year's by the CMO Asia's Award for Excellence in Branding & Marketing 2018.
• Awarded ‘Women Super Achiever in Marketing and Communications’ by the prestigious Femina’s World Women Leadership Awards 2017.
• ‘Most Admired PR professional’ of the year by the prestigious Lonely Planet Travel & Lifestyle Leadership Awards 2017`
• ‘Corporate Communications Professional of the Year' at the '22nd Global Brand Excellence Awards' by World Brand Congress 2013.
• 'Corporate Communications Professional of the Year' at the 4th CMO Asia awards for 'Excellence in Branding and Marketing'.
• Star Youth Achiever Award 2011- 12 by Star News and Global Youth Marketing Forum
Sonia Dhawan
VP – Corporate Communications & Public Relations- Paytm
Sonia is the Vice President - Communications for Paytm and its group companies. She is responsible for media relations and communication strategy. She handles public relations, crisis communication and advocacy among other important roles at Paytm. She has been key in shaping the Paytm brand over the eight years with impactful decisions, and strategic handling of the PR initiatives. Sonia is a post-graduate from Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad and an MBA from Sunstone Business School.
CEO- BARC India
Partho Dasgupta is a general management professional with diverse experience in consumer goods industries and in media, across print, television and out-of-home. His wider career has been in media and consumer industries where he worked on large and small start-ups.
Partho has led start-up and management teams for Times Now, Future Media, The Economic Times and Times Multimedia.
A keen observer of consumer and media trends, Partho is the CEO of BARC India, a joint initiative of broadcasters, advertising agencies and advertisers, which is India’s only registered TV measurement agency. BARC India is the largest Television Measurement system in the world and is now evolving the business into Digital Measurement and Data backed consumer Insight areas.
Sattvik Mishra
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, ScoopWhoop Media Pvt Limited
Sattvik is the Co-Founder & CEO at ScoopWhoop Media Pvt Limited. ScoopWhoop is India's most exciting youth media platform for social news & entertainment largely appealing to the 16 - 35 demographic. It reaches over 30mn Indian millennials monthly across three digital publications ScoopWhoop.com, Vagabomb.com, and ScoopWhoop HIndi (ScoopWhoop’s Hindi publication).
Sattvik started ScoopWhoop.com as an experiment along with 4 friends in August 2013 with no intention of being an entrepreneur or starting a company. For six months he was doing his day job at an advertising agency and moonlighting as the CEO/content writer for ScoopWhoop. In 2014, ScoopWhoop went from an experiment to one of the leaders in the media-publishing space.
Under his leadership, ScoopWhoop has grown tremendously in a short span and is widely considered as a brand that is on the cutting edge of youth culture in India. Today, ScoopWhoop clocks over 250 million video views, and over 400 million content engagements across social and owned platforms monthly. So far ScoopWhoop has raised more than 6m USD from Kalaari Capital and Bharti-Softbank, making it one of the few media companies in India the market is ready to back.
Educated from IIMC in Advertising and PR and having completed BCA in Computer Science from Symbiosis International University, he is one of the youngest entrepreneurs in the media space.
Fortune India included Sattvik in their prestigious 40 Under 40 list two years in a row, 2015 and 2016. He was also part of Forbes' 2016 '30 Under 30 Asia' list.
With an active lifestyle, he spends his free time traveling and watching movies.
Senior President & Country Head, Strategy and Marketing & Corporate Communication, YES BANK & Executive Director, YES Global Institute
Amit Shah, a senior leader at YES BANK and founding member of YES Global Institute, YES BANK’s practicing think-tank, is a ‘design-thinker’ and TEDx speaker with extensive experience in transformational leadership in the financial services and consultancy sectors across the world, and has made valuable contributions to the public understanding of FINTECH and Digital Banking.
Recently recognized by LinkedIn as a key social media influencer with his profile featuring among the LinkedIn Power Profiles India 2018, Amit has been instrumental in creating and strengthening the ‘YES BANK’ brand over the last eight years. During his tenure, the bank’s profit has grown more than 10x, and the bank has emerged as one of the Top 500 Banking Brands globally.
His responsibilities include business strategy, planning & analytics, marketing, internal & external communication, branding, digitalization, public & social policy advocacy, CSR strategy and sustainability initiatives.
Prior to joining YES BANK, Amit has worked with organizations like TSMG and L&T. He has completed his MBA from NITIE - Mumbai and Engineering from NIT - Surathkal.
Madhavan Narayanan is a an editor, journalist, writer and columnist with more than 30 years of experience in both Indian and international environments, having worked for respected media entities including Reuters, The Economic Times, Business Standard and Hindustan Times after starting out in the Times of India Group.
He is currently an independent writer, media entrepreneur, consultant and columnist and regularly features as a commentator on BBC radio, Al Jazeera English, ET Now and Lok Sabha TV, in addition to writing for Firstpost.com, India's frontline news portal, Asia Times, Moneycontrol and Business Standard. He writes regular columns for Zee News on politics and Reputation Today, India's public relations industry portal, about journalistic perspectives on reputation and branding.
Madhavan also advises startups involved in the media field and has also launched with his partners a festival called Knowledge Factory, an events-and-talks venture that aims to spread deeper inter-disciplinary perspectives thorugh informal means. He is also active in the social media and is listed among the top 200 Twitter influencers in India.
In his long career, Madhavan has covered topics including technology , business, economics, public policy, politics, diplomacy, entertainment and social issues as a correspondent and has observed the information technology industry, media, Internet, policies, macroeconomics, and social trends from close quarters. He also has a personal interest in cinema, music, poetry and the arts. He writes and tweets in Hindi and Tamil as well, and is in the process of venturing into translations from Tamil to English.
Madhavan has majored in economics and political science from the University of Delhi.
Khurafati Nitin started my radio career 18 years back, with All India Radio. I did my schooling from St Columba's Ashok Place, and then did English hons from KMC,DU. My shows allow me to talk to people, understand their problems, basically give them a vent to let out the steam and relax.
Awards are not a benchmark to measure success or for good work, yet they do give a lot of boost to his morale. In all humility i say that I am India's most awarded Radio Jockey, and have been awarded the RAPA award, Promaxx Award, Paranshree award,Media Federation of India Award(thrice),Indian Achiever's award for the best Radio jockey across India 2012 and 2014 for myCSR initiatives on radio and three prestigious New York Festival Awards.
I have also hosted television shows like Brand Equity on Times Now, Brady's Day Out on Times Now, Dilli Ki Khurafat Nitin Ke Saath on NDTV and Living Cars on News X
I currently host the Morning Prime Time Show from 8AM to 12PM Monday to Saturday on 92.7 BIG FM Delhi.
Head-Corporate Communications, HDFC Bank
Chief Corporate Communications Officer, PwC
Bhupendra-Chaubey
Executive Editor, CNN News 18
Charanjeet Singh Arora
Co-CEO- Kinetic India
Believes in Clarity of task , experience across different industries . A team player , Leader with a vision of 10 X growth . Lead and drive business like an Entrepreneur , can work and grow in any environment. Know how to build high performance teams - believe in sharing knowledge and empowering.
Highly flexible to new ideas and ready to take new roles and responsibilities.
Deepak Bhatt
Manager Communications – IIM Ahmedabad
Sanjeev Handa
Vice President and Head of Corporate Communications
Sanjeev Handa is the Vice President and Head of Corporate Communications at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. He is responsible for leading and driving the Communications and PR strategies for Maruti Suzuki. Additionally, Sanjeev also spearheads the communication strategy of the CSR programmes for the company.
Prior to this role, he was the Vice President of Marketing at Maruti Suzuki India Limited, where he was responsible for NEXA, Product marketing, True Value, Media, Market Research, Loyalty, CRM and Motorsports and setting up the Digital marketing infrastructure for the company. He has contributed in a major way in steering the success of many leading brands in the company’s portfolio.
Sanjeev is an Indian School of Business- Hyderabad Alumni and an Economics Graduate with over two and a half decades of solid experience in Marketing, Strategy, Brand Management, Advertising, CRM and Sales in leading global organizations. He has received multiple awards, ‘Most data driven CMO’ by CMO Awards of India, ‘Digital Marketer of the Year 2016’ by IAMAI, to name a few.
Head-Corporate Communications, Piramal Group
LATIKA TANEJA, Director – External Communications, Marketing & Communications – South Asia
Latika Taneja is heading corporate communications for Mastercard in South Asia with for last one year. Previously she has worked with DuPont India Pvt Ltd as the head for external affairs for the company. Latika has 14 years of work experience in corporate & marketing communications and public affairs functions.
Latika has actively contributed to the defining and development of well-known brands. She has worked for large multinational companies and leading communication agencies and across FMCG, Consumer Durables, Telecom, ITES, Financial Services and Chemicals Industries.
Latika is BA (Hons) English from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University and Post Graduate Diploma Business Management - Symbiosis Institute Of Management, Pune.
COO & Head of Digital, HT Digital streams
Sudhakar Rao
Director - Branding, ICFAI Group
Sudhakar Rao studied Mechanical Engg at graduate level and went to IIM, Bangalore for Post Graduate Program in Management.
Sudhakar Rao started his career as Brand Manager and moved up as SBU Head and Director. In a career spanning over 20 yrs, Sudhakar Rao played multiple roles of Branding, Marketing, P & L responsibilities, Corporate Relations, International Operations etc
In the last 2 decades of fast track work life, Sudhakar Rao dealt with sectors like Textiles, Food and Education where he not only launched many brands but also nurtured them towards their rightful position in the market place.
At ICFAI, Sudhakar Rao is the Head of Branding for the entire Group that includes 11 ICFAI Universities, 9 ICFAI Business Schools, 7 Tech Schools, 6 Law Schools and a huge Distance Learning Program.
He is also the official spokesperson for the ICFAI Group.
“I am indeed honoured to be the Chair of IPRCCA 2018. Even more to be in the midst of all of you, 22 highly competent and well regarded colleagues. I am sure the evaluation process will prove intellectually stimulating, full of rigor. Likewise our expectations from the presentations are clear – they must reflect a communication vision, purposeful strategy, roadmap and focus. Of course execution is key. So is measurement. Staying the course in today’s unbelievable challenging environment, being well grounded in the complexities is critical as well. In sum, the winners will be communication champions with an ethical work ethos. A very hearty welcome to all of you. Guess there will be a few takes for us too, given that learning afresh is always our motto. Cheers!”
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Turkey: new round of dismissals in administration affects academics
EUA has expressed its concerns several times regarding the measures taken in Turkey since the attempted coup in July 2016 and continues to monitor the evolution of the political situation and its impact on the higher education sector.
On Sunday 8 July, two weeks after the re-election of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on 24 June, a further 18632 Turkish state employees were dismissed due to alleged links with terror organisations and acts against national security. The army and police forces are particularly affected by the decree, but the Turkish Official Journal also lists around 200 academics and 50 higher education administrators. It also refers to the closure of a newspaper and several non-governmental organisations, some of whom are active in education and science.
EUA is concerned by the continued and grave pressures exerted on university autonomy and academic freedom in Turkey. The Association calls on the government of President Erdoğan to respect these internationally recognised principles and expresses its support for the Turkish higher education community.
For information in English, please refer to:
http://concernedscientists.org/category/news/turkey/
https://turkeypurge.com/
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/
Institutional Autonomy
European Values
Universities & Values
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"Turkey-EU relations exponentially decelerated especialy after Gezi Park protests"
JTW team held an interview with USAK Center for European Union Studies expert Mustafa Kutlay, analyzing the Gezi Park protests as regards to the Turkey-EU relations. Kutlay stated that EU’s remarks concerning the Gezi Park protests are not particularly resulted from Turkey’s stance. He stressed that this issue is linked with the fundamental rights and freedoms which are assured in the EU’s legal texts.
Some EU leaders and representatives of EU institutions expressed their opinions, to some extent their condemnations and critics. What sort of reflections do you think will arise?
Most of EU’s critics are based on the EU acquis. As you know, there are some articles in EU legal documents ensuring the fundamental rights and freedoms. The Gezi Protests were analyzed in this framework. The demonstrations appeared as a demand for freedom. People stated that they conserved their right to speak concerning the city they lived in. The critical point here was that the demonstrations took place in a peaceful way and in accordance with the right to demonstration. The rigorous interference of the riot police was the breaking point. Even after that phase, implementation of violent police force continued contentiously.
> Turkey Map
Other important dynamics that caused the protests to go off the rail was the mingling of some marginal groups who resorted to the use of force and disrupted public order. We saw that EU institutions dispatched critics to Turkey at his point. Following this, Turkey’s harsh response pointed to a new juncture during the crisis. In the following period, it is possible to see the maintenance of the protests’ negative effect, at least for a while, on EU-Turkey relations.
As regards to human rights and freedoms, Turkey accused the EU several times with applying double standards. What is your opinion on this subject?
In terms of EU acquis, violent use of force by security forces was a point worthy of criticism. EU institutions also stressed on this situation. It should be underlined that this situation is not peculiar to Turkey. In other words, saying “this is unfair to Turkey and a double standard, they ignore what is happening in other places but only criticize us” is, I suppose, a consequence of not following the EU very closely. For instance, Hungary, a member state, is in a process of making a constitution which involves severely autocratic inclinations. Several EU institutions have therefore criticized the Hungarian Prime Minister and the supporters of this Constitution; moreover, discussions considering the suspension of membership are taking place. Thus, this issue is not peculiar to Turkey. Yet, it is not possible to say that the EU gives equal importance to each incident. For example, the Neo-Nazi investigations in Germany and racist parties in the EU member states seeking support by racist discourses such as Golden Dawn in Greece, are not harshly criticized. In this regard, it is seen that EU institutions sometimes rightfully face critics of applying double standards.
You mentioned the examples of Hungary and Greece, but they are both member states. Do the critics of the EU institutions in this case present an intervention to the domestic affairs of Turkey?
From the Turkish perception, the decisive point that prevents us from approaching the issue as an intervention to domestic affairs is that Turkey is a candidate country. Turkey wants to achieve full-membership – albeit there is not a considerable progress today. Each year, progress reports about Turkey are being published and EU is closely following the developments in Turkey. So, Turkey is in a partnership relation. In this context, if the statements of the EU institutions are considered as a direct intervention to domestic affairs, Turkey’s membership process must be discussed anew. If these statements are construed to be an intervention and therefore improper, the membership process must be fundamentally argued as well.
In this case, how can the harsh reaction of the Turkish government to the EP’s Gezi Park decision be explained?
Turkey-EU relations, mainly after 2006, are exponentially losing its acceleration. A “name is there but self is lost” sort of relation exists to this day. As a result, Turkish decision-makers’ tendencies to reject the EU-rooted critics increased. Because the alternative costs of such reactions are rather low. Instant rejections of the EU critics basically reveal that EU lost its transforming power in Turkish politics and Turkish foreign policy.
The response of the Turkish side might be found extreme. But it is seen that EU, too, made vital mistakes concerning Turkey-EU relations. In fact, Turkey took numerous initiatives to proceed with the negotiation process. Likewise, it proposed alternative resolutions about the Cyprus issue. EU’s stance regarding the Cyprus issue was “Some steps forward may be taken only if the Turkish side of the island says 'yes' to the Annan Plan”. The isolation over the Turkish population was to be lifted, direct trade by law was to be enforced and the developmental gap in-between was to be closed. But the EU did not do any of these. When the Greek side became a member state and the representative of the whole island; the Southern Cyprus, together with Greece, gained the power to veto.
On the other hand, the German and French axis, particularly during Sarkozy term, took a categorically anti-Turkey stance and endeavored to keep Turkey out of the Union. The whole process was comprehended as being gradually excluded from the EU ring by Turkey. Up until now, numerous opportunities concerning the acceleration of the membership process and enhancing cooperation during the Arab Spring or the Euro crisis were missed. In brief, the exclusionist policies of the Germany-France axis focusing on keeping Turkey at bay, and unopened negotiation chapters due to political reasons culminated in the disposal of Turkey. The European decision-makers should address themselves for the underlying causes of the failures. I believe the EU officials, apart from their reactions, should ask themselves “Why are we at this point, and why have the relations with Turkey deteriorated?” and resort to self-criticism.
Mustafa Kutlay is an analyst at the USAK Center for European Union Studies. His main academic interests are international political economy, economies of Europe and Turkey, Turkey-EU relations, Greece, and the Cyprus issue.
Gezi Park
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Hawaiʻi International Conference on English Language and Literature Studies (HICELLS) 2020
Add to Calendar 2020-03-13 11:00:00 2020-03-14 11:00:00 Hawaiʻi International Conference on English Language and Literature Studies (HICELLS) 2020 The Department of English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo organizes the Hawaiʻi International Conference on English Language and Literature Studies (HICELLS) with its theme “Trends in Research and Pedagogical Innovations in English Language and Literature” at UH Hilo main campus on March 13-14, 2020. The conference aims to provide an avenue for research scholars in the fields of English language and literature Studies to share their expertise with other scholars, researchers, and students from various international backgrounds, and to discuss among scholars and educators the new trends in research and pedagogy in English language and Literature. Location ELT events noreply@eltevents.com Australia/Sydney public
UH Hilo main campus
William O’Grady
Peter I. De Costa
Language literature
fdumanig@hawaii.edu
https://hilo.hawaii.edu/depts/english/hicells-2020.php
The Department of English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo organizes the Hawaiʻi International Conference on English Language and Literature Studies (HICELLS) with its theme “Trends in Research and Pedagogical Innovations in English Language and Literature” at UH Hilo main campus on March 13-14, 2020. The conference aims to provide an avenue for research scholars in the fields of English language and literature Studies to share their expertise with other scholars, researchers, and students from various international backgrounds, and to discuss among scholars and educators the new trends in research and pedagogy in English language and Literature.
HICELLS
19.701015, -155.0814688
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COMMENTARY: Indoor Smoking Bans
From the Editors of E Magazine December 19, 2006
Protecting Non-Smokers, but Taking a Toll on the Environment?
Indoor smoking bans are spreading rapidly around the world as cities, states and even countries are adopting a more effective way to protect non-smokers from the harmful effects of second-hand cigarette smoke—banishing smokers to the great outdoors.
Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom and Italy have banned smoking in workplaces and public buildings, planes, trains, buses, restaurants, bars and other public spaces, and other European countries are likely to follow their lead. Though smoking was supposedly entrenched in France, and this nation of Gaulloises puffers was not expected to give in without a fight, a countrywide smoking ban in public spaces goes into effect there in early 2007. In the U.S., more than 150 areas around the country have now eliminated smoking in public places and the workplace, and California is paving the way for smoking bans on public beaches.
While I applaud the introduction of these bans—after all, why should non-smokers suffer from health complications after inhaling second-hand smoke, or come out of restaurants and bars smelling of stale cigarettes?—there has been little consideration of the negative impacts that result from pushing smokers to the great outdoors. Few smokers understand that cigarette filters are not biodegradable and take the time to dispose of them in the trash, so these bans result in a significant increase in cigarette litter. Most cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate—in other words, plastic.
Cigarette litter has been a problem for as long as people have smoked, and especially since filtered cigarettes became popular in the mid-20th century following the discovery of a cause-effect relationship between smoking and cancer. Estimates from the World Health Organization suggest that close to 1.1 billion people—or one third of all people above the age of 15—smoke. When each of these smokers consumes an average of several cigarettes a day, one can only begin to picture the number of cigarette butts disposed of in streets, parks and other public places every single day. Discarded cigarettes have been reported—prior to any indoor smoking ban—to be as high as 4.5 trillion each year, according to Yahoo News in 1999, and it is estimated that cigarette butts account for 50 percent of all litter in the world.
I have visited many cities that have suffered from the "cigarette butt invasion" following the introduction of indoor smoking bans. The Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment (INCPEN) found that the incidence of cigarette butt littering in London increased by more than 43 percent between 1996 and 2004 as more businesses forced smokers to stand outside. The Irish Business Against Litter organization estimated in 2004 that an extra 200 million cigarette butts would be dumped on the streets every year as a direct result of the government’s workplace smoking ban.
In the U.S., a local news station in California, KBHS/KHOG, reported in 2004 that, although Fayeteville’s new smoking ban has led to cleaner air, concerned citizens and business owners have noticed a dramatic increase in cigarette litter since the ban was introduced. People living in cities with such bans are noticing the growing piles of cigarette butts outside restaurants and bars where smokers huddle. As Jane Bickerstaffe, director of INCPEN, says, "If you look around outside offices, where smokers hang out, you will see cigarette butts piling up. If you make more people smoke outside bars and clubs that is just going to get worse."
Why does all this matter? Why should we care that more and more cigarette butts are littering our streets following the introduction of these bans? Don’t these cigarette ends just disappear as the streets are cleaned? Unfortunately the answer is mostly no. Many cigarette butts are flushed down storm drains by rain and other water runoff into rivers and oceans before the street cleaner can get to them, and these butts degrade water quality and harm aquatic life.
The paper and tobacco of cigarette butts may be biodegradable, but the filters are not, and persist in the environment as long as other forms of plastic. These filters are composed of a bundle of 12,000 cellulose acetate fibers and are reported to take between 18 months and 10 years to decompose, depending on the environment they’re in. Once decomposed, they remain chemically present in the environment, as they contain up to 4,000 chemicals including hydrogen, cyanide and arsenic. Toxological data has shown that chemicals from discarded cigarette butts are capable of leaching into surrounding waterways. One particular problem is that these leached chemicals are deadly to the water flea Daphnia magna, a small crustacean at the lower end of, but crucial to, the aquatic food chain.
The saddest environmental impact of cigarette butts is their role in the deaths of thousands of marine mammals and birds every year. These wild creatures mistake the butts for food. Once ingested, the butts can lead to starvation or malnutrition if they block the intestinal track, and can also prevent breathing by blocking vital air passages. In 2003, the United Nations International Maritime Organization reported that cigarette litter adversely affected 177 species of marine animals and 111 species of seabirds through ingestion.
There no hard data showing a direct link between smoking bans and increased death of animals through ingestion of cigarette butts yet, but it is likely such a direct link will be identified, notably in coastal cities and states. As the number of discarded cigarette butts continues to grow, so do the number of cigarettes flushed into storm drains. Cigarette litter is actually getting worse in coastal areas, with cigarette butts forming the lion’s share of beach litter. In 2004, half a million volunteers of the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup picked up an impressive 1.6 million butts from shorelines.
The solution to the cigarette litter problem is simple to implement. First, it is clear that a strong educational message is needed. I came across a pile of studies demonstrating that smokers who would never litter other, bigger objects have no concept that they are littering when they throw their cigarette remains on the ground. One 2000 study by the Environmental Protection Agency of New South Wales found overwhelming evidence that smokers are not aware or do not believe that the cigarette butts they fling have any sort of environmental impact.
Another study by Australia’s Beverage Industry Environment Council revealed that four out of five people observed littering cigarettes do not consider them to be litter. Margaret Hodge of the Volusia County, Florida recycling program summarizes the issue very well: "People don’t understand that the filter of a cigarette is designed to last forever, so they just toss it out thinking that it will just go away. But it doesn"t." My personal experience has validated the fact that the majority of smokers flick their cigarettes wherever and whenever.
Modifying the littering behavior of smokers is therefore an important step that any city, state or country introducing an indoor smoking ban must take to help reduce increases in cigarette litter. The educational message must be clear and consistent to ensure that behavior is changed for the long-term. I am positive that an important percentage of smokers would alter their littering behavior if they knew that cigarette butts are made
of plastic, not cotton or paper, and that they contain chemicals which pollute near water sources and adversely impact wildlife.
According to the Clean Virginia Waterways website, studies have already demonstrated that smoking-related litter can be decreased by 50 percent or more through educational campaigns that underline the negative reverberation of cigarette litter on nature. Australian surveys show the same results.
For the education campaign to work, we need well-placed bins for cigarette butts. In one survey, more than 80 percent of smokers said they would dispose properly of their butts if suitable bins were available. These receptacles need to be where people are most likely to discard their cigarettes, for example at all entry/exit points of buildings and outside bars, restaurants and clubs. Following the introduction of indoor smoking bans throughout Scotland in 2005, the Edinburgh City Council decided to invest in stub-out plates to be fitted to 1,000 bins across the city center to encourage smokers to dispose of butts responsibly. The new plates went hand-in-hand with an advertising campaign encouraging smokers to keep the streets clean, doubled with a 50 on-the-spot fine for littering cigarette butts.
But how do cities pay for all this? The answer is pretty simple, even though smokers will protest heavily: Anti-litter taxes and fines. In some U.S. states, anti-litter taxes are already in place for canned and bottled beverages to support anti-litter efforts. The same could apply for cigarettes, and would go a long way in helping reduce cigarette-related litter. Surely the cost of cleaning up cigarette butts should not fall upon non-smokers!
In the spring 1999 issue of the Tobacco Control journal, researchers actually called for additional taxes on tobacco products to go towards clean-up efforts. The levying of additional taxes on cigarette products to fund environmental campaigns and clean-ups has also been identified as an important way to mitigate the "cigarette butt problem." Additionally, cigarette-litter fines should be visibly enforced and implemented as part of a comprehensive anti-cigarette litter campaign.
Taking things a little further, the tobacco industry should be encouraged to take an active and responsible role in educating smokers about adequate cigarette littering behavior. While tobacco manufacturers have taken some positive steps at educating smokers about the negative health effects of smoking through ad campaigns and labeling on cigarette packets, they have made little to no effort at any form of anti-litter education.
One significant measure was taken by Philip Morris, which in 2003 began carrying an anti-litter logo on several brands. "We believe we have a role to play on the reduction of litter" said spokeswoman Jennifer Golisch at the time. But the company’s effort was limited, and has not been followed by others. Tobacco manufacturers need to take this role more seriously and adopt a widespread and aggressive educational approach, with messages urging the proper disposal of cigarette butts appearing on cigarette packets and advertisements.
FLORENCE DEPONDT has served as Program Coordinator for the Coral Reef Research Foundation in San Francisco.
CONTACT: Cigarettelitter.org; Clean Virginia Waterways
The Coral Reef Alliancewww.coralreefalliance.org/
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Health and Living
Lovech, Bulgaria: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
Read more about Lovech, Bulgaria: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
Traveling to Lovech, Bulgaria? If you're planning to go to Lovech, here is some important information about when to go, what to wear, and what to pack:
Kymenlaakso, Finland: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
Read more about Kymenlaakso, Finland: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
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Uusimaa, Finland: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
Read more about Uusimaa, Finland: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
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Tavastia Proper, Finland: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
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Päijänne Tavastia, Finland: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
Read more about Päijänne Tavastia, Finland: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
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Ocean City, Washington, United States of America: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
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West Wyalong, New South Wales, Australia: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
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Singkil, Indonesia: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
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Washington Dulles International Airport, Virginia, United States of America: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
Read more about Washington Dulles International Airport, Virginia, United States of America: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
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Ostabat-Asme, France: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
Read more about Ostabat-Asme, France: What to pack, what to wear, and when to go [2018]
Traveling to Ostabat-Asme, France? If you're planning to go to Ostabat-Asme, here is some important information about when to go, what to wear, and what to pack:
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The Lessons of the EU Leadership Fight- OPINION
by Daniela Schwarzer
After the European Parliament election in which fears of a populist surge proved unfounded, the European Council has now delivered a slate of highly qualified, well-chosen candidates to fill the European Union's top leadership positions. The only problem is that it may have exacerbated the EU's "democratic deficit" in the process.
The haggling may have been unedifying, but the candidates nominated by the European Council to lead the European Union’s governing institutions are undoubtedly impressive. If approved by the European Parliament, German Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel will become president of the European Commission and Council, respectively, and Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell will serve as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Then, in November, Christine Lagarde is set to succeed Mario Draghi as president of the European Central Bank.
The good news is that each of these candidates would strengthen the EU at a time of global insecurity. The bad news is that the EU itself will continue to face significant challenges from within. The struggle to fill the top leadership positions resulted in the elimination of the Spitzenkandidaten process – whereby the largest party grouping in the European Parliament selects the Commission president – and the return of backroom deal-making, which many see as undemocratic. The justification for that change needs to be explained, or the EU’s credibility may suffer. After all, the Spitzenkandidaten process was introduced in 2014 to counter the perception that the EU suffers from a democratic deficit.
The leadership struggle has also intensified a clash of perspectives within – and about – the EU’s sources of legitimacy. Whereas member states with a strong parliamentary culture think the top personnel should be selected based on the results of May’s European Parliament election, others (like France) consider executive experience far more important than the link to those results. It is naturally a long process to devise a broadly accepted system for selecting EU leaders. Despite this year’s setback, the principle of the Spitzenkandidaten system should be preserved and combined in the next elections, with additional transnational lists of candidates backed by stronger trans-European party structures. Beyond that, the EU also needs to strengthen the role of the European Parliament.
A number of MEPs are deeply frustrated by the Council’s failure to nominate any of the Spitzenkandidats on offer, and they could make their sense of betrayal known by voting against von der Leyen’s appointment. Should her candidacy be rejected, months of institutional gridlock would likely follow. As a show of good faith, von der Leyen should announce early that she will work toward empowering MEPs de facto to initiate legislation. With an inter-institutional agreement with the European Commission, such a change would not require an amendment to any founding treaties. Moreover, if confirmed, von der Leyen and the new European Parliament president, David Maria Sassoli of Italy’s Democratic Party, should establish a working relationship as close as that of their respective predecessors, Jean-Claude Juncker and Martin Schulz. But, given the new composition of the European Parliament, they should strongly involve the chairs of all parliamentary groups that wish to work toward a stronger Europe.
The fact that MEPs elected Sassoli instead of the Council’s own candidate, former Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, suggests that the European Parliament election in May has led to a renewed desire for institutional self-assertion. And yet the election left the body more fragmented than ever. The number of seats held in the 751-member parliament by the two main party groups, the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), fell from 404 to 336, owing to gains by the Greens, right-wing nationalists, and liberal centrists.
The fall of Europe’s grand coalitions and the emergence of new, smaller parties will impede decision-making, as already demonstrated by the Parliament’s failure to agree on its own Spitzenkandidaten. Divisions among the parliamentary groups are not just political, but also geographic. The EPP has almost no MEPs from France or Italy, and large delegations from Germany and Northern Europe. The S&D draws far more support from the Iberian Peninsula and Italy, with relatively few MEPs from the Visegrád group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) or France.
The increased fragmentation in the European Parliament goes hand in hand with changing relationships between EU member states. France and Germany’s days of working hand in glove are gone; and even if they do come together on a particular issue, blocking minorities can stand in their way at the Council. The latest round of EU leadership negotiations shows just how hard it has become to reach a majority, let alone unanimity. On the contrary, national governments fight increasingly recklessly for their interests. As a result, individual member states will face a strong temptation to pursue specific objectives in smaller, likeminded groups. The challenge, then, is to ensure that such initiatives follow official EU processes, rather than being decided through intergovernmental backroom deals.
The strong turnout in the European Parliament election indicates that the EU has not lost public support. The political center was strengthened at a time when Euroskeptic and nationalist parties are on the rise in member states. Overall, public trust in the EU is as high as it was in the 1980s, when European integration served as a defense against the Soviet Union. For most Europeans, being a part of the EU still means something.
But the outcome of the election also signaled a desire for change. Many citizens abandoned traditional parties, and a significant share of them did so out of fear. Like politicians at the national level, the EU’s new leaders will have to answer to voters who harbor deep uncertainties about their and their children’s future. Europeans are understandably anxious about great-power competition, new security threats, and a technological revolution that threatens to upend entire economic systems and societies.
The EU, working with member-state governments, will need to respond to these challenges with ambition and resolve. The European Council has already devised a strategic agenda for 2019-2024, and now the ball is in the European Parliament’s court. Since the elections in May, MEPs from the four moderate party groups have been negotiating a shared program of policy priorities. In other words, they are putting substance over personnel; regardless of who fills the top leadership positions, the European Parliament will already have a shared platform in place. Despite the circumvention of the Spitzenkandidaten process, this effort, like the slate of promising candidates selected by the Council, suggests that the EU is slowly and steadily maturing.
Daniela Schwarzer is Director of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).
Read the original article on project-syndicate.org.
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FIFA announce Russia to host 2018 World Cup, Qatar to host 2022 World Cup
Related football news
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Russian bid personnel celebrate the awarding to Russia the 2018 World Cup.
Image: Alexander Wilf.
Football's governing body, FIFA, today announced Russia is to host the 2018 World Cup, and Qatar is to host the 2022 World Cup. The decision was made by FIFA's 22 executive members, who conducted a ballot in Zurich today. Russia beat England, Spain-Portugal and Holland-Belgium to host the event in 2018. The Qatar bid was picked ahead of the United States, Australia, Japan, and South Korea to stage the 2022 tournament.
Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Igor Shuvalov spoke briefly to react to his country's victory. "You have entrusted us with the FIFA World Cup for 2018 and I can promise, we all can promise, you will never regret it. Let us make history together," he said. Some analysts had suggested that Russia would not win the right to host the tournament, since Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had decided not to travel to Zurich, but remained in Moscow. FIFA President Sepp Blatter said of Russia: "I am sure that to organise the World Cup in that region, or that continent, it will do a lot of good for this part of the world."
You have entrusted us with the FIFA World Cup for 2018 and I can promise, we all can promise, you will never regret it. Let us make history together
—Igor Shuvalov, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia
Russia captain Andrey Arshavin said he was "very, very happy" with the result. "It is going to have a huge impact in sports, in our economy, in the development of the country and even in politics. The influence of football in the world is huge. You can see that even today with the presentations and those who were making them," he said. "It’s going to be the best World Cup in history because Russians are so hospitable. I hope it will change the way that Europe and the world view Russia—and hopefully change the opinion of Russian people too."
'Today we celebrate, but tomorrow, the work begins'
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the ruling Emir of Qatar, praised FIFA for "believing in change". Al Thani, who was in Zurich for the announcement, added: "We have worked very hard over past two years to get to this point. Today we celebrate, but tomorrow, the work begins. We acknowledge there is a lot of work for us to do, but we also stand by our promise that we will deliver." Qatar urged FIFA to take "a bold gamble" by hosting the event in the Middle East for the first time. While only 1.7 million people live in Qatar, the bid representatives said that football is popular there. It was thought that there may be concerns that the extreme heat in Qatar would put the delegates off. Hassan Al-Thawadi, the chief executive of the bid, played down the fears. "We know it would be a bold gamble and an exciting prospect but with no risk," he said. "Heat is not and will not be an issue."
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the ruling Emir of Qatar, praised FIFA for "believing in change".
Image: United States Federal Government.
"Everyone is celebrating in the Middle East; everyone was behind us since the very beginning. They believed in us the whole way. And I’m so glad FIFA believed in us as well," Al Thani added. "I’m speechless, but very proud and happy. I’m so proud that the Middle East was recognised by FIFA. We are so privileged to have a tournament like this coming to our region for the first time. It shows the value of FIFA and what it stands for as an organisation. As I promised, we will not let FIFA down. Everything we have promised until now will become a reality." Speaking about why Qatar won the bid, he said: "What made us different is that we pushed the boundaries; we created new concepts, things which were not conventional but still very possible, very realistic for a country like ours. Therefore we are very proud to represent a new era, a new age for FIFA to look towards the future—the World Cup is for everyone.
'We gave it our best shot'
Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA, announced Russia and Qatar would host the tournament.
Image: Roosewelt Pinheiro.
There was disappointment in the countries which were beaten by Russia and Qatar. "Naturally we are hugely disappointed. At the same time we gave it our best shot," said England ambassador Gary Lineker. "It was very well presented by our bid team. All you can do is wish Russia well and hope they have a really good World Cup but I wish it was us." A journalist in Spain reported that there was "bitter disappointment here amongst Spanish fans," and added that the economic crisis in the country may have been to blame. American supporters watching on large screens in Washington, D.C. were, when it was announced Qatar had won, "simply stunned—no booing or tears, but disbelief; and then a minute later, every face shows honest disappointment," a BBC correspondent said.
The managing director for the Spain-Portugal joint bid, Miguel Angel Lopez, commented on losing out to Russia. “FIFA thought it was better to promote football in other latitudes and there we are," he said. "The decision is focused on taking football to regions which have never held a World Cup." Former Belgian footballer Marc Wilmots said: “Russia is a political choice and Qatar is an economic choice. You can say that to some extent the sport has been the loser with the decision for these two World Cups.”
We had heard people say our bid was too soon so it’s possible that was the reason. We knew it would be tough but it’s still a big disappointment.
—Kuniya Daini, vice-president, Japan Football Association
Howard Stringer, Japan's bid chairman and CEO of Sony said: “We had it in 2002—that was too big a mountain to climb. I was hoping we could get Japan another mission—the chance to do something spectacular in technology for society.” The vice-president of the Japan Football Association Kuniya Daini added: “We had heard people say our bid was too soon so it’s possible that was the reason. We knew it would be tough but it’s still a big disappointment. We have set a target of hosting the World Cup alone by 2050 so we will be bidding again.” The Australian Sports Minister Mark Arbib told local media: “We’re all pretty shattered over here. It was a bit unexpected because we thought we had run a first-class campaign to win. We did our best ... unfortunately it wasn’t the case.”
Making the announcement, Blatter said: "We have had four bidders for 2018 and we can have only one winner. Three of the bidding associations must go home saying 'what a pity'. But they must say football is not only by winning but football is also a school of life where you learn to lose. That's not easy." The 2010 World Cup was held earlier this year in South Africa, and Brazil will host the 2014 World Cup. When the bids for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments were announced in March 2009, Blatter praised the number of countries who wanted to host. "We are very pleased about the fantastic level of interest in our flagship competition, with all initial bidders confirming their candidature."
"FIFA receives eleven bids for 2018 and 2022 World Cups" — Wikinews, 17 March 2009
Some information contained in this article was obtained from television, radio, or live webcast sources. Reporter's notes and the broadcast source details are available at the collaboration page.
"World Cup vote live - decision day" — BBC Sport, 2 December 2010
Paul Doyle, Steve Busfield. "World Cup 2018 and 2022 decision day - live!" — The Guardian, 2 December 2010
"Russia & Qatar will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups" — BBC Sport, 2 December 2010
Jamie Jackson. "Qatar win 2022 World Cup bid" — The Guardian, 2 December 2010
"Reaction from losing candidates in World Cup race" — Toronto Sun, 2 December 2010
"M. Al-Thani: Qatar is the right choice" — FIFA, 2 December 2010
"Arshavin: Russia 2018 will change views" — FIFA, 2 December 2010
Retrieved from "https://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=FIFA_announce_Russia_to_host_2018_World_Cup,_Qatar_to_host_2022_World_Cup&oldid=3884001"
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J Mascis
Joseph Donald Mascis Jr. (/ˈmæskɪs/; born December 10, 1965) is an American musician, best known as the singer, guitarist and main songwriter for the alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr. He has also released several albums as a solo artist and played drums and guitar on other projects. His most recent solo album, Elastic Days, was released in November 2018.[1] He was ranked number 86 in a Rolling Stone list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists",[2] and number 5 in a similar list for Spin magazine in 2012.[3]
J Mascis at Virgin Festival in 2009.
Joseph Donald Mascis Jr.
(1965-12-10) December 10, 1965 (age 53)
Amherst, Massachusetts, United States
Alternative rock, noise rock, hardcore punk, stoner rock, doom metal
Musician, singer-songwriter, producer
Vocals, guitar, drums, keyboards, bass, banjo
Dinosaur Jr., J Mascis + The Fog, Witch, Deep Wound, Upsidedown Cross, Sonic Youth, Sweet Apple, Bless the Barn, Heavy Blanket, Band of Horses, GG Allin
www.jmascis.com
Mascis was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, the son of a dentist[4] and grew up in the same area together with his sister Patty and an older brother.[5] His mother, Theresa (an avid golfer), died in 1985 while his father, Joseph Sr., died in 1993.[6][7]
Mascis became a music and drumming fan at the age of 9. He joined the jazz ensemble in school as a drummer, because there was not one of rock or punk.[8] At 17, Mascis joined the short-lived hardcore group Deep Wound with Lou Barlow, Scott Helland, and Charlie Nakajima in the early 1980s.[7][9] He went on to found Dinosaur Jr. with bassist Barlow and drummer Emmett Jefferson "Patrick" Murphy (aka "Murph") in 1984, switching to guitar in the process, and they achieved national success.[7] His vocals have been described as "Neil Young-like" and his guitar riffs as "monolithic".[10] Mascis dismissed Barlow from Dinosaur Jr. in 1989 and over the next eight years recorded several more Dinosaur Jr. albums, as well as the 1996 acoustic solo album Martin + Me. In 1989 Kurt Cobain suggested that Mascis join Nirvana.[11]
The manager for Deep Wound was Gerard Cosloy, who then went on to found Homestead Records. Homestead released Dinosaur Jr.'s first record. Mascis says that the reason why Dinosaur Jr.'s sound is not fully formed on that record is that they were more or less automatically signed to Homestead.[12] Megan Jasper, vice president at Sub Pop Records characterises this period as "J had some anger, like any punk rock kid. Usually, though, when a young person is angry, they tend to be really loud. And J wasn’t. He was only loud when he played music".[7]
As a side project, he was the drummer in Boston doom metal group Upsidedown Cross, who released a self-titled album on Taang! Records in 1991.[13][14] He wrote songs for the film Gas, Food, Lodging, in which he made a cameo appearance.[13][14] In 1996, he had a small part in the movie Grace of my Heart and provided a ballad and a Beach Boys-like song for the soundtrack. In 1998, he retired the Dinosaur Jr. name.[7]
In April 2005 Mascis, Barlow, and Murph reformed the band for a tour celebrating the re-release of the group's first three albums. The reunited line-up has since released four new albums: Beyond in 2007, Farm in 2009, I Bet on Sky in 2012,[7] and Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not in 2016.
Solo materialEdit
In 2000 he began producing albums with his new band, J Mascis + The Fog. In 2003, the house and studio he owned burned down.[7]
In August 2005 Mascis released J and Friends Sing and Chant For Amma, a solo album under the J Mascis and Friends banner. The album consists of devotional songs dedicated to Hindu religious leader Mata Amritanandamayi, or Ammachi, about whom he had written "Ammaring" on the first J Mascis + The Fog album More Light. The proceeds from the album are being donated to tsunami relief efforts Ammachi's organization is spearheading. In 2008 the six-track album was made available digitally on his own Baked Goods label.[15]
In 2006 Mascis returned to drumming with his newly formed heavy metal band Witch for their self-titled debut album.
Also that year, he collaborated with Evan Dando on a new Lemonheads album. The Lemonheads was released that September, featuring Mascis playing lead guitar.
In 2010 Mascis joined with John Petkovic and Tim Parnin of Cobra Verde and Dave Sweetapple of Witch to form Sweet Apple. The self-titled debut album was released on Tee Pee Records.[16] Mascis plays drums, guitar, and sings on the album.
Mascis released a mostly acoustic album in March 2011 titled Several Shades of Why on Sub Pop Records.[17] He was joined in the studio by several guest musicians, including Kurt Vile, Ben Bridwell and Sophie Trudeau.[18] Mascis toured North America with Vile as support act to promote the album.[19][20] In 2013 Richard Ayoade cast J Mascis in a small role, a caretaker, in his film The Double. Mascis's electric guitar work is featured on the 2014 Strand of Oaks album Heal.[21]
In April 2014 he played with reunited Nirvana on a secret gig after the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions. He sang the songs School, Pennyroyal Tea and Drain You.[22] In August 2014 he released the solo album Tied to a Star on Sub Pop and toured in support of it.[1]
His wife, Luisa, whom he met in New York in the mid 1990s and married in 2004, is from Berlin, Germany[4][7] They reside in Amherst, Massachusetts, in a house formerly owned by Robert Thurman, a professor of religion noted for his work on Buddhism, and father of actress Uma Thurman.[7] In September 2007 they had a baby boy named Rory.[7] His brother-in-law is German filmmaker Philipp Virus, the director of the 2006 Dinosaur Jr. DVD Live in the Middle East. He is a devotee of Mata Amritanandamayi, a Hindu guru and author.[23] Mascis explained that he discovered her in the mid 1990s when "I was at my lowest, as the band got bigger, I got more depressed. I was looking for anyone to help, to feel better".[5]
In 1982 Mascis became a straight edge, part of a hardcore punk associated movement whose members avoid drug and alcohol abuse. Since then, he has mostly been a teetotaler and never used other recreational drugs.[8]
Signature JazzmastersEdit
July 2007 saw the release of a signature guitar by Fender, the J Mascis Signature Jazzmaster. The instrument comes in a Purple Sparkle finish and, while otherwise visually similar to a standard Jazzmaster, features a few modifications J requested. December 2011 saw the release of the Squier by Fender J Mascis Jazzmaster. This features a basswood body, C-shaped maple neck, rosewood fingerboard with 9.5" radius and 21 jumbo frets, two single-coil Jazzmaster pickups which have been replaced with Kinman Guitar Electrix ThickMaster (Jazzmaster) Zero-Hum pickups, three-position switching and dual tone circuits, gold anodized aluminum pickguard, aged white plastic parts (knobs, switch tip, pickup covers), Adjusto-Matic™ bridge with vintage-style floating tremolo tailpiece, vintage-style tuners, chrome hardware, Vintage White finish and J Mascis signature on the back of the large '60s-style headstock.
Solo albumsEdit
Martin + Me (1996)
The John Peel Sessions (2003)
J and Friends Sing and Chant for Amma (2005)
J Mascis Live at CBGB's (2006)
Several Shades of Why (2011)
Tied to a Star (2014)
Elastic Days (2018)
Dinosaur Jr.Edit
Main article: Dinosaur Jr. discography
Dinosaur (1985)
You're Living All Over Me (1987)
Bug (1988)
Whatever's Cool With Me (1991)
Green Mind (1991)
Where You Been (1993)
Without a Sound (1994)
Hand It Over (1997)
Farm (2009)
I Bet on Sky (2012)
Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not (2016)
J Mascis + The FogEdit
More Light (2000)
Free So Free (2002)
WitchEdit
Witch – Tee Pee Records (2006)
Paralyzed – Tee Pee Records (2008)
Deep WoundEdit
American Style (1982 – 7" – demo)
Deep Wound (1983 – 7" – Radiobeat)
Bands That Could Be God LP
Discography (2006 – Compilation – Damaged Goods)
Upsidedown CrossEdit
Upsidedown Cross (1991)
Evilution (1993)
Witchcraft (1997)
Sloth/Updsidedown Cross Split (2002)
Sweet AppleEdit
Do You Remember 7" – Valley King Records (2010)
Love & Desperation – Tee Pee Records (2010)
I've Got a Feeling (That Won't Change) 7" – Damaged Goods (2010)[24]
Elected/No Government 7" – Outer Battery Records (2012)[25]
Wish You Could Stay (A Little Longer)/Traffic 7" – Outer Battery Records (2013)[26]
The Golden Age of Glitter – Tee Pee Records (2014)[27]
Heavy BlanketEdit
Heavy Blanket – Outer Battery Records (2012)
Live at Tym Guitars – Brisbane, Australia – Tym Records (2013)
In a Dutch Haze – Collaboration with Earthless – Outer Battery Records (2014)[28]
CollaborationsEdit
One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das (OST) (2013) collaboration with Devadas[29]
"Feed - Japanese Voyeurs"
Mascis plays guitar and sings backing vocals on the song "Feed" by the now inactive post grunge band Japanese Voyeurs. "Feed" can be found on the band's only album to date, "yolk", released independently July 2012.
^ a b Gittins, Ian (January 9, 2015). "J Mascis review – grunge godfather discovers his acoustic side". The Guardian.
^ "100 Greatest Guitarists". Rolling Stone. December 18, 2015. Retrieved August 9, 2016.
^ "Spin's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Spin. May 3, 2012.
^ a b Lester, Paul (August 3, 2012). "J Mascis: 'I never took it that seriously'". theguardian.com. The Guardian.
^ a b Davis, Erik (June 3, 1993). "Picking Up the Slack". spin.com. Spin Media.
^ Lindsay, Cam (April 23, 2007). "J Mascis - The Exclaim! Questionnaire". exlaim.ca. The Exclaim!. accessed September 28, 2010.
^ a b c d e f g h i j Bevan, David (October 4, 2012). "Dinosaur Jr.: Rediscovering the Gnarl". spin.com. Spin Media.
^ a b Haley, Dominic (August 21, 2017). "How a 16-year-old J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. got into straight-edge and learnt to play anywhere". Loud and Quiet. No. 88. Archived from the original on November 18, 2017. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
^ Carew, Anthony. "J Mascis Kicks Lou Barlow Out of Dinosaur Jr". altmusic.about.com. About.com. Retrieved July 7, 2015.
^ Ankeny, Jason. "J. Mascis Biography". Allmusic.com. Rovi. Retrieved July 7, 2015.
^ Bevan, David (October 4, 2012). "How J Mascis Almost Joined Nirvana (Twice!) and Built to Spill". spin.com. Spin Media. Retrieved July 8, 2015.
^ Interview with J Mascis, Underyourskin.net, accessed September 27, 2010.
^ a b Strong, Martin C. (1999). The Great Alternative & Indie Discography. Canongate. ISBN 0-86241-913-1.
^ a b Selzer, Jonathan (1991) "Signs of Life", Lime Lizard, October 1991, p. 48-9
^ Hughes, Josiah (November 21, 2008). "J Mascis Issues Digital Solo Album For Charity". exclaim.ca. The Exclaim!.
^ "J Mascis Forms New Band, Sweet Apple". Pitchfork. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
^ Hughes, Joshiah (November 5, 2010). "J Mascis Announces Solo Acoustic Album". exclaim.ca. Exclaim!.
^ "J Mascis Several Shades of Why". exclaim.ca. Exclaim!. March 15, 2011. Retrieved July 7, 2015.
^ Fitzmaurice, Larry (January 18, 2011). "J Mascis Tours With Kurt Vile | News". Pitchfork. Retrieved October 22, 2011.
^ Lindsey, Cam (March 14, 2011). "J Mascis Great Hall, Toronto ON March 11". exclaim.ca. Exclaim!. Retrieved July 7, 2015.
^ "First Listen: Strand of Oaks, 'Heal'". npr.org. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
^ Breihan, Tom (April 11, 2014). "Watch Video From Nirvana & Friends' Secret Show At Saint Vitus Last Night - Stereogum". stereogum.com. Spin Media. Retrieved July 7, 2015.
^ Hawthorne, Marc. "Onion AV Club Interview". The Onion. Archived from the original on March 16, 2008. Retrieved April 15, 2008.
^ Damaged Goods release: I've Got a Feeling. damagedgoods.co.uk. Retrieved on 2014-08-13.
^ Outer Battery release: Elected/No Government. outerbatteryrecords.com. Retrieved on 2014-08-13.
^ Outer Battery release: Wish You Could Stay (A Little Longer)/Traffic. outerbatteryrecords.com. Retrieved on 2014-08-13.
^ Sweet Apple Discography. sweetapplesongs.com. Retrieved on 2014-08-13.
^ Outer Battery release: In a Dutch Haze. outerbatteryrecords.com. Retrieved on 2014-08-13.
^ One Track Heart Soundtrack. krishnadasmusic.com. Retrieved on 2016-08-10.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to J Mascis.
JMascis.com
J Mascis on IMDb
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Twenty One Pilots' 'Blurryface' Has Been on the Billboard 200 Chart for Four Years
The 2015 album has never left the charts
Kevin Winter, Getty
Twenty One Pilots are one of the biggest bands in the world. As a crossover duo that’s embraced by fans of alternative, pop, rock, and everything in between, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun have seen success across the board. So much success that 2015 album Blurryface has never left the charts.
Related: Twenty One Pilots Surprise With “Chlorine” Music Video: Here’s What We Think it Means
Just around the corner from its four-year anniversary, Blurryface is also readying to celebrate a full four years on the Billboard 200 album chart since it May 17, 2015 debut. With smash hits like “Tear In My Heart,” “Stressed Out,” and “Ride,” it’s no surprise Twenty One Pilots' breakthrough album is still crushing it.
After a No.1 debut, the album has maintained in the Top 200 for the past 208 weeks. Blurryface currently sits at 147, an 11 spot increase from last week and a spot that will likely be boosted thanks to the album’s upcoming anniversary.
Most recent release Trench is also still on the Billboard 200 album chart. Currently sitting at 122, the October 5, 2018 release has been charting for 31 weeks.
Read More: EXCLUSIVE: Twenty One Pilots Recall Hearing Themselves on Radio for First Time
Revisit the Blurryface era with a nostalgic recollection of the first time Josh and Tyler ever heard themselves on the radio.
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July 17, 2019 July 17, 2019 / Rebecca Mazzarella - Lead Writer, PSE&G / Leave a comment
Cue Martha and the Vandellas! Temperatures are forecast to be in the high 90’s and low 100’s across New Jersey. While we often casually throw around the term “heat wave,” there are some specific requirements for weather to qualify as such–and the end of this week just might make the cut.
June 21, 2019 June 21, 2019 / Jim Namiotka - Lead Corporate Writer, PSEG / 2 Comments
In an interview with Bret Kugelmass of the Titans of Nuclear podcast, watch as PSEG Chairman, President and CEO Ralph Izzo talks about the importance of nuclear energy and energy efficiency in mitigating against carbon emissions.
June 29, 2018 July 3, 2018 / Lauren Feldman - Livingston, NJ / 4 Comments
Video Credit: NBC New York
I am a wife and mother of two daughters and live in Livingston, New Jersey. On May 15, I had a traumatic experience that changed my life. With some luck – and most importantly, the help of a stranger – my story has a happy ending. Continue reading →
Building strong cities means building strong partnerships
May 9, 2018 May 9, 2018 / Dave Daly - President and COO, PSE&G / 2 Comments
A few weeks ago, I had the honor of standing with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Councilman Joe McCallum and other officials at an event at PSE&G’s new Fairmount Heights electrical switching station in the city’s West Ward. Although I have attended numerous dedications to celebrate completion of energy infrastructure over the years, this one was a unique opportunity for me – and PSE&G — on a number of fronts.
First and foremost, we had gathered to unveil more than a dozen specially crafted works of art installed on the protective wall that surrounds this new station. The “art wall” is a 30-foot-high canvas for 14 internationally accomplished artists – about half from Newark – whose works now beautify a single square block. The station’s unique promenade also invites people to visit and experience the artwork – turning the site into a destination for the community, city and beyond.
But when a hundred or so people gathered on that April morning, we collectively celebrated more than completion of the art wall, and the modern switches, breakers and transformers that lay beyond it. We joined with the community to celebrate the partners and partnerships that have made this project possible.
We hailed the success of a local hiring program. With the help of our contractors, we met our commitment to ensure that at least 30 percent of the work hours would be performed by local residents – including females, people of color and those living in the West Ward. As a result of their employment, two workers secured their union books; two were able to buy their first homes; three people were trained in construction site management, and yet another – fully trained in construction safety – has been tapped for other projects.
In addition to jobs, we also celebrated the more than $12 million that has been put into the local economy through local contracts and spending on everything from food vendors and hardware stores to local trucking companies. The project was managed by a local, minority-owned architectural and construction management firm.
As Mayor Baraka and others noted, the Fairmount Heights switching station enabled us to put a check mark in multiple “win” columns – jobs, supplier spend, community benefits and, of course, electric system reliability and resiliency.
For PSE&G, being a strong community partner is nothing new. It’s in our DNA to do more than merely maintain the pipes and wires that provide homes and businesses with safe, reliable electricity and gas. We donate to charitable causes, encourage employees to volunteer, and support local economies.
PSE&G serves 300 municipalities – including eight of the state’s 10 largest cities by population. Collectively, these eight urban centers are home to about 1.2 million people who depend on our cities to be the kind of places in which they want to live, work and raise a family.
I believe we can – and should – do more to strengthen our cities and help them solve some of the challenges they face.
It starts with asking local leaders and officials, “How can we be helpful? What kind of mutually beneficial partnership can we develop?”
I expect the answers will be focused on how we might hire local talent to help construct energy infrastructure, or procure more products from local vendors. Perhaps it’s working with educators to support STEM programs that are preparing our future energy workforce. Maybe the focus is on how a city might attract a large, Internet-based corporation to locate there. Or it could be as straightforward as having one of our energy efficiency experts audit a municipal building and recommend ways to save energy and money.
The ideas will undoubtedly be as different at the cities themselves. But the end game should be a partnership that advances sustainable growth, supports community development and fosters corporate citizenship – all while supporting PSE&G’s efforts to maintain and upgrade its infrastructure, like we did in Newark’s West Ward.
Effective partnerships don’t come easy – nor do they happen overnight. Although PSE&G employees engage with municipal leaders all the time, we are in the early stages of creating an urban plan or model that will further guide our conversations and drive a thoughtful approach to solving issues.
I personally look forward to meeting with municipal officials during the coming months to find new ways to engage people and communities, strengthening PSE&G’s ability to live up to our founder’s credo for the company he named Public Service – “to make New Jersey a better place to live and to work.”
Fort Delaware’s place in our energy future
April 26, 2018 April 27, 2018 / Diana Drysdale - President, PSEG Solar Source / 2 Comments
Pea Patch Island was, in the beginning, a mostly forgotten mound in the middle of the Delaware River. Through the earliest years of American history, the island was so small and unassuming that neither New Jersey nor Delaware were concerned with which state claimed ownership.
But that all changed two centuries ago, right after the War of 1812, when the island became a focal point for our young nation’s security. Construction lasted many years, but the result was Fort Delaware, a pentagon-shaped fortification that, along with Fort Mott in Pennsville, New Jersey, and Fort DuPont in Delaware City, Delaware, established a three-pronged defense of Philadelphia and its critically important harbor from enemy ships.
The attack on Philadelphia never came, however. So during the Civil War, Fort Delaware was put to more productive use as a Union POW camp for 32,000 captured Confederate soldiers. Once the War Between the States was over, the fort remained active but quiet through World Wars I and II. It wasn’t until the mid-20th century that Fort Delaware began its new life as a historical site and tourist attraction.
On April 27, Delaware state officials formally dedicated Fort Delaware’s newly installed solar array – made possible through the state’s longstanding partnership with PSEG and the company’s donation of 700 solar panels.
Fort Delaware’s story is one of shifting identities. Here at PSEG, we know all about that.
For most of our 115-year history, Public Service was a traditional poles-and-wires company, providing customers with electricity that was generated using fossil fuels.
PSEG has donated 700 solar panels to power Fort Delaware State Park, replacing an old diesel generator damaged during Superstorm Sandy with a new, renewable source of year-round electricity. The new solar installation was dedicated during a ceremony in Delaware City, Delaware, on April 27, 2018.
But today, PSEG has earned a national reputation and a new identity as a leader in clean energy. We have invested nearly $2 billion in solar energy – including PSEG Solar Source, which has developed 23 utility-scale solar farms in 14 states (including the largest solar farm in Delaware), and Solar 4 All, an award-winning program that builds solar energy facilities on old landfills and brownfields, putting these forgotten spaces back to productive use.
PSEG’s donated solar panels were installed with the help of state and federal grants. The new solar installation replaces the island’s previous source of electricity – an old diesel generator that was damaged during Superstorm Sandy – and will provide the state park with approximately $20,000 worth of clean energy per year.
In previous seasons, the generator burned 180 barrels of diesel fuel per year to power the state park. The drums of fuel were brought to the island by boat – which was not only inefficient, but also presented both environmental and safety concerns.
By converting to solar energy, Fort Delaware State Park now has access to clean, efficient and more affordable power year-round, enabling heat, lights, security cameras and dehumidifiers to run throughout the winter months.
The result is a win for the environment and a win for the people of Delaware.
At PSEG, we’re proud of our clean energy leadership. That’s also true in our home state of New Jersey, where we not only are the leading developer of solar energy but also, as the operators of the Salem and Hope Creek nuclear plants, the state’s leading generator of carbon-free electricity.
And we’re working closely with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy to pursue the state’s clean energy goals – including initiatives to expand energy efficiency, promote the use of electric vehicles and contribute to the development of offshore wind resources.
PSEG has enjoyed a long-lasting public-private partnership with the state of Delaware. We’re excited to continue that partnership and support the sustainability of Fort Delaware by merging Civil War history with 21st-century science to provide safe, clean and efficient solar power that also helps the state reduce its carbon footprint.
How a building changed my life
April 24, 2018 April 26, 2018 / Jhakeyda Floyd / 5 Comments
Jhakeyda Floyd (center) with her teammates Ed Simpson (left) and Brendon Thomas, who worked with her as contractors on the Safety Watcher team.
I was born and raised in Newark. In fact, I have lived here my whole life. For a while, I lived in an apartment building that overlooked an empty lot at the corner of Littleton Avenue and West Market Street in Newark’s West Ward. A long-closed factory used to be there, and after it was demolished the land remained vacant for a long time.
At the time, I was working three jobs to provide for my two daughters, Keziah and Jaziah, and my son, Zion. I was a security guard at one of my jobs, and when I noticed that a fence had gone up around the vacant lot and a security guard station had been placed there, I went to see if could get a job as a guard. I learned that PSE&G was planning to put a new switching station at the site to improve the local electric system. At first many residents expressed concerns about the plan, but after many meetings with local residents, community groups and elected officials, PSE&G obtained approval to build the new station.
As part of the agreement PSE&G made with the City of Newark, the company and its general contractor on the project, Jingoli & Sons, created a job training program to prepare local residents for jobs in the construction industry. I am one of the almost 100 Newark residents who were trained under the program, and three years ago I began working as a contractor Safety Watcher at that very station – the Fairmount Heights Switching Station.
A view of the plaza at the Fairmount Heights Switching Station. A colorful mosaic can be seen on the wall in the background.
To prepare me for the job I received many hours of OSHA-approved training in construction job-site safety. My job was to keep a close eye on the workers there to ensure that they were performing their work safely and keeping themselves at safe distances from electric equipment and other hazards. When I reported to work that first day, the site was just an empty lot in the earliest stages of active construction. At first I was concerned that the predominantly male work force would be reluctant to take instructions from a woman, but as they got to know me and came to understand that I had their safety at heart, they were very accepting. I like to say that when someone pushed back, I would just use my ‘mommy voice.’ It never failed.
Over time, the station began to take shape. The building that houses the switching equipment went up, the station equipment and electric circuits were installed and the building was placed in service. Finally, earlier this month a decorative art wall surrounding the building was dedicated at a ceremony attended by PSE&G executives, local residents, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and other officials, and the artists whose works grace the walls. What had been an eyesore just a few short years ago is now a beautiful building housing a functioning switching station. The West Ward is better for it. Newark is better for it. And I am better for it.
A portion of the art wall surrounding the Fairmount Heights Switching Station.
My friends on the PSE&G team that managed the project told me that they always get a special feeling of pride and satisfaction when a project they have been working on is finally completed. Now, having seen this project through from start to finish, I understand exactly what they mean. I will never look at this building without thinking, “I helped build this.”
When I came to work here I was struggling financially and living in a high crime area where I was afraid to take my children out to play. Thanks to this opportunity, I now own my home in Newark (where else?) and my children can now safely play in their own backyard.
Yes, I helped build that building. But the building also helped me to build a better life for me and my children.
Celebrating National Lineman Day
April 18, 2018 April 8, 2019 / Karen Johnson - Director, PSE&G Communications / Leave a comment
Coding Future Leaders
September 21, 2016 September 21, 2016 / Adah Steward - HR Consultant - Workforce Analytics, Operational Excellence, PSEG / 2 Comments
Adah and Girls Who Code North Star Academy Graduates
Walk into any neighborhood and you will quickly learn about the types of people who create it; the “nosy neighbor,” the “corner store comedian,” the “grumpy old man,” the “unofficial neighborhood watch,” the list is infinite. It’s these people who give each community and neighborhood its own unique identity.
August 19, 2016 August 22, 2016 / John A. Bridges, Vice President, Electric Operations - PSE&G / Leave a comment
Walk around any neighborhood and look up. Chances are you’ll see a utility pole with wires and other equipment. And for good reason. Utility poles dot the landscape of every town around the state and most of the country. They form the highway above us that keeps everyday life in order. In fact, there are about 180 million utility poles across the United States – that’s about one pole for every other person in the country.
PSE&G Street Inspectors: Real Life Ghostbusters
August 9, 2016 August 9, 2016 / Rodney Brown, Distribution Supervisor – Plainfield Gas, PSE&G / Leave a comment
What do “Ghostbusters” and PSE&G street inspectors have in common? They’re both searching for invisible enemies, need special detection equipment, and keep the public safe. The difference is that at PSE&G, we’re not looking for ghosts. We’re searching for leaking gas on our buried pipes.
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Montenegro.com Travel Blog
Everything you want to know about Montenegro and More…
Events and active tourism
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UNESCO / Durmitor National Park
August 22, 2016 Events and active tourismMontenegro.com blogger
Many will be familiar with destinations from the UNESCO World Heritage List such as the Taj Mahal in India, Machu Picchu in Peru, the Pyramids in Egypt, Stonehenge in England, the Grand Canyon in Colorado and Lake Bled in Slovenia. But did you know that also on UNESCO’s list of world natural and cultural heritage sites is Montenegro’s biggest national park, Durmitor? Durmitor National Park encompasses the Durmitor chain of mountains and the canyons of the Tara river with their 1,500 plant species and 130 bird species. The Tara River Canyon has been declared a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, and there are also the Draga and Sušica canyons, the Komarnica canyon valley and a great many mountain-tops – 48 of them exceeding 2,000 metres above sea-level. There are also 18 glacial lakes that have been dubbed the Gorske Oči – the Eyes of the Mountain. Along with hundreds of other destinations the world over, this park has been specially selected for protection by the United Nations Organisation for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO). The park is of inestimable value to all of humanity as a centre for the development of Balkan flora, with features of both alpine and arctic and, on the southern slopes, in the canyon valleys, thriving sub-Mediterranean and even Mediterranean vegetation, while the lakes are a focal point for plant life more typical of the Siberian taiga. The mountain meadows and pastures, the deep fissures, rock gardens, scree slopes, melt waters, peat bogs and freshwater habitats are what makes this part of south-eastern Europe so valuable, and incomparable to anywhere else in the world.
Durmitor National Park extends over 39,000 hectares, with 20,000 hectares under UNESCO protection after its inscription in the World Heritage list in 1980. Durmitor also comprises the highest-altitude town in the Balkans – Žabljak, located at 1,456m above sea-level and surrounded by no less than twenty-three peaks more than 2,300m in height.
German geographer Kurt Hassert said,
“Among the mountain giants of the south-Slavic countries, the most powerful and most magnificent is Durmitor”.
Photography lovers will attest to the fact that the combination of mountains and lakes makes for some of the most beautiful, natural subject matter. Durmitor National Park is an inexhaustible source of inspiration from which some of the most beautiful works of art have sprung, and the very name Durmitor has some interesting stories associated with it. It is told that the word Durmitor is of Romanic origin, from the Latin word dormitorium – it was from this word that the Italian word dormitorio came, or dormire, meaning to sleep. When they were advancing into this territory the Roman legionaries are said to have asked themselves whether perhaps the mountain was sleeping. Another etymology of the name Durmitor dates back to the time of the Celts. According to this version the name is derived from the Celtic “water from the mountain” – dru-mi-tor, which many find a more likely explanation.
Some notable peaks dominate, setting the rhythm for all the others. The most striking are: Bobotov Kuk – 2,523m, Bezimeni Vrh – 2,487m, Minin Bogaz – 2,387m, Međed – 2,287m, Savin Kuk – 2,313m, Ljeme – 2,455m, Planinica – 2,330m, Crvena Greda – 2,175m and Pruta – 2,393m. The Austrian explorer Oscar Baumann was the first to scale the highest peak of Durmitor – Botovo Kuk – at a height of 2,523m, and his thoughts, written in “First Steps in Ciro’s Cave”, are still quoted today: “To our east stretched a deserted valley in the karst, full of rocky debris and snow drifts … while on the other side we were greeted by the green landscape … [A]ll was glistening beside Lakes Skrcko and Malo, which looked like two dark blue eyes”.
In its unbelievably deep and picturesque valleys, beneath the mountain slopes, surrounded by rich plant life, Durmitor conceals eighteen glacial lakes or, as the locals calls them, the Eyes of the Mountain. Mentioning just a few of them, there are Modro, Zminje, Vražje, Riblje and, certainly the best known, Crno Jezero (the Black Lake) which is frozen over in winter but in July and August reaches water temperatures of twenty celsius or more.
This mountain range offers ideal conditions for active holidaying all the year round – hiking, biking, angling, mountaineering and snowshoeing – but Durmitor also offers opportunities to get to know its cultural and historical heritage with visits to sites preserving prehistoric remains dating back to the time of the Illyrians, as well as the Romans. A variety of cultural influences have left their mark in the form of various characteristic structures. The Illyrians left tumuli, or burial mounds, while characteristic of the Roman period are stone bridges, standing stones and caravan trails that can be found in this region. Necropolises with their stylised tombstones, the ruins of Turkish bridges and watchtowers along the old Montenegrin-Turkish border, the remains of the ancient fortification of Pirlitor above Lever and the three monasteries in the Tara valley, at Dobrilovina, Dovolja and Đurđevića Tara, raised between the 15th and 17th centuries – all bear witness to a thriving mediaeval world here.
Seven areas of the Durmitor National Park are subject to special protection schemes, each with their own specific characteristics: the old-growth spruce and fir forest in the Mlinski Potok valley, the stands of black pine at Crni Podi in the Tara canyon, the Black Lake with its nearby forest, the Skrčka lakes valley and the immediate area of the Sušica canyon, the Barno Jezero lake with its immediate surroundings, the Zabojsko Jezero lake with surroundings and the area along the Tara river canyon.
Do you want to discover and enjoy the beauty of world heritage? Durmitor National Park is a destination you should not miss – just look at how magical the Black Lake is in winter.
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3. Future Tourism Conference from 04 – 07.05. 2019. in Budva
Top Reasons Why to Visit Montenegro in 2019
Living the best life – Atelier DADO Gallery
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July 13, 2019 July 13, 2019 / Red Metal
On June 4, 1976, a television presenter named Tony Wilson watched the Sex Pistols perform at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall. The audience for the pioneering punk band was decidedly small; fewer than fifty people attended. Nonetheless, many of these people would go on to have promising music careers of their own. To harness the energy of this new wave of music sweeping Manchester, Wilson founds a record label he dubs Factory Records, signing a promising collected called Joy Division as their first band.
The Sex Pistols’ appearance at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall could be compared to the release of the Velvet Underground’s debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, in terms of influence. An observation commonly attributed to Brian Eno is that the album only sold around 30,000 copies, yet every single one of those buyers formed a band. Lou Reed’s band provided a sound that singlehandedly invented the concept of alternative rock. Similarly, despite fewer than fifty people being present for the Sex Pistols’ show, a significant portion of the attendees, Ian Curtis, Mark E. Smith, and Morrissey among them, would go on to form some of the most praised bands of their generation.
The show itself was booked by members of another recently-formed punk band known as the Buzzcocks. Amusingly, a journalist by the name of David Nolan suggested the Sex Pistols didn’t inspire their audience because they were expert musicians, but because the performance in question was so terrible, they felt they could do better. Given the do-it-yourself ethos of the punk rock movement and the post-punk genre that evolved alongside it, this development is strangely fitting.
From the moment it begins, it is clear that 24 Hour Party People is quite a bit different from your typical biographical feature. Although the film begins in 1976, Wilson breaks the fourth wall as soon as he is introduced. He is well aware of the twists and turns life has in store for him, and acts as a host of sorts for the events to follow. As a result, the film provides a decidedly postmodern experience. This isn’t even a particularly deep reading of the film – Wilson goes as far as describing himself as “being postmodern before it’s fashionable”. For those unfamiliar with the label, Wilson sums up its entire life with a single word: Icarus. Music experts know that the rise and abrupt fall of Factory Records is a cornerstone of rock history, and for those unaware, this one word tells them exactly what to expect.
What I find particularly admirable about this film is that it doesn’t even try to disguise the fact it’s a work of fiction inspired by true events. One of the more irritating aspects of biographical features is that it’s easy for audiences to accept studio notes intended to liven up the narrative as hard fact. Here, Wilson and company freely admit that many of the events depicted in this film draw inspiration from rumors and urban legends. Why depict things as they are when the legends are far more interesting? This leads to one memorable scene in which Buzzcocks member Howard Devoto is depicted copulating with Wilson’s first wife in a nightclub bathroom. The real Devoto, appearing as an extra, admits that “[he] definitely [doesn’t] remember this happening”. As a result, 24 Hour Party People is the kind of film that can give you a basic guideline as to what happened during the life of Factory Records while also providing you an incentive to read about these people yourself.
To produce Joy Division’s records, Wilson hires Martin Hannett. He is often referred to by those familiar with his work as a studio madman for his meticulous, if unorthodox methods. In his introductory scene, he is shown on a hilltop recording silence. During the recording sessions for Unknown Pleasures, he instructed drummer Stephen Morris to set up his kit on the roof and recorded his part long after everyone else had gone. He didn’t quite go as far as barging into Wilson’s apartment and shooting at him with blank cartridges, however. Instead, he settled for firing a gun into a phone with Joy Division manager Rob Gretton on the other side. In spite, or perhaps because, of his peculiarities, Hannett is considered one of the greatest record producers of all time.
Although 24 Hour Party People is primarily a comedy, it is not afraid to shy away from some of the darker aspects of its subject’s history. Joy Division was a band whose impact eclipsed their lifespan. Ian Curtis wasn’t a stable person in any sense of the term. He suffered from epilepsy in a time when medical science knew very little about the affliction and had severe depression. One concert in has him accosted by white supremacists invading their shows due to the fascistic name of their band, which causes him to have an especially violent episode. On the eve of their slated United States tour, he hangs himself after watching Werner Herzog’s 1977 film Stroszek. The comedic tone never completely dissipates from the narrative at any point, yet the moment in which Wilson visits the deceased’s next of kin and bids Curtis farewell is quite poignant. Following Ian Curtis’s death, New Order rises from the ashes of Joy Division, becoming Factory’s most successful act.
Ultimately, these good times are not to last. New Order could be seen as having fired the fatal bullet that killed Factory Records. Despite “Blue Monday” becoming the best-selling 12” single of all time, they lost money on every copy due to the sleeve’s elaborate design – the cost of which exceeded the price of a single. It also didn’t help matters when Wilson commissions New Order for a new studio album in Ibiza, which they fail to deliver on even after two years. However, the true harbingers of disaster were none other than the people who wrote the song that provides the very name of this film: Happy Mondays.
Wilson signed this promising band shortly after opening his successful nightclub, The Haçienda. After Factory Records loses money as a result of the “Blue Monday” fiasco, Wilson turns to Happy Mondays to deliver. After three successful albums, Wilson commissions Happy Mondays to record their fourth album in Barbados. Living up to the rock-star lifestyle, the band proceeds to completely blow the money on drugs. When all is said and done, vocalist Shaun Ryder holds the recordings for ransom, which Wilson retrieves for £50. Unfortunately, the band was so drugged out of their minds, they failed to write any lyrics for the album; all the tracks on the record are instrumentals. Although lyrics would be written for the final product, the album is a critical and commercial disaster, thus sounding the death knell for Factory Records.
All in all, the label was a failure in the long run, but it proved to be an admirable artistic experiment whose influence can be felt to this day. This is demonstrated when, realizing they’re about to be ruined, Factory Records has no choice but to sell their assets to London Records. However, it turns out what they had really didn’t amount to much. They didn’t sign any contracts with their bands; one of the most important policies the real Wilson stood by is that musicians were free to come and go as they please. In essence, Wilson is unable to sell out by virtue of having nothing to sell in the first place. Some thought him mad, but his place in the history books speaks for itself. It’s confirmed to Wilson himself when, in a somewhat Monty Python-like scene, God Himself shows up to congratulate him on a job well done. There’s a distinct possibility that this was a hallucination brought on by smoking marijuana, but who can say?
In the face of the countless biographical features that follow a distinct Hollywood formula, 24 Hour Party People is a breath of fresh air. It’s a humorous, highly original postmodern art piece that informs as much as it entertains. In most biographical features, you’re just waiting for the pieces to fall into place, but the highly experimental nature of Mr. Winterbottom’s narrative always keeps you guessing – even if you’re familiar with the history of Factory Records. There’s something very interesting about a film that freely admits to taking liberties with reality. Many of the utterly insane events that unfold in this film seem too outlandish to be true – and then you learn a little more than half of them really happened. The fabrications and the truths seem to intertwine until both are nigh unrecognizable.
Whether or not you fancy yourself a music fan, I could easily recommend watching 24 Hour Party People. In fact, if you’re not familiar with the Madchester music scene, it could serve as a decent crash course for the subject. Mr. Wilson’s experiment may not have lasted long in the grand scheme of things, but there is no questioning the sheer impact he and his associated talent had on modern music.
2000s Films, 24 Hour Party People, Andy Serkis, Danny Cunningham, Entertainment, Film, Film Review, Films, Happy Mondays, John Simm, Joy Division, Lennie James, Michael Winterbottom, Movie, Movies, Paddy Considine, Review, Sean Harris, Sex Pistols, Shirley Henderson, Steve Coogan, Uncategorized
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15 thoughts on “[FILM REVIEW] 24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom, 2002)”
生きる塾
私的には、そこそこ楽しめました。😃
ありがとうございます！ファクトリー・レコードは長続きできなっかたけどイギリスの音楽に深い影響を受けました。ジョイ・ディヴィやニュー・オーダーやＯＭＤやハッピー・マンデーズや。。。全てのバンドの音楽は今でも素晴らしいです。
実は私は、25年ほど前に、ファクトリー・レコード以前のトイズファクトリー→バンダイ・レコードに所属していました。
無理はない。言葉を一回か二回だけ聞く時、可笑しい連想しやすいですね。
Mr. Wapojif
Glad you enjoyed it. My main issue with the film is it writes The Stone Roses out of the Hacienda story, for some reason. But overall it’s stood the test of time.
Welcome to Manchester! I walked past the Hacienda (an apartment block now) just last night and see it every day on my tram journey into the city centre. Belting. There’s still a highly active music scene here, of course.
Yeah, I myself was a bit surprised, given how influential they have been, that The Stone Roses were glossed over. Guess they chose to focus on the Happy Mondays’ far more entertaining meltdown. Print the legend, and all that.
Are the tenants there are like the ones who live on Abbey Road in that they constantly have to deal with annoying tourists? It’s pretty cool that you get to see a site where music history was made every single day. I totally look forward to seeing what you guys come up with next.
There’s a fancy sign on the building explaining it’s the Hacienda apartments, but I’ve never seen anyone gawking at it. That’s usually saved for the Old Trafford football stadium up the road.
I never got into the music that grew out of this scene as much as some others, but I’ve heard a few of these stories. Would be interesting to see them played out on screen, even mixed with the urban myths and legends. It also annoys me when films purport to be based on true stories but contain so much of that myth/legend stuff that they can’t be relied on. If the movie straight up admits that it’s mixed truth and legend together, though, that’s a different matter.
I knew Joy Division had an extremely depressing and tragic history, but I didn’t know about Ian Curtis hanging himself after watching a Werner Herzog film. I haven’t seen Stroszek, but I have seen Woyzeck, which I think Herzog made around the same time. I can see that movie doing some weird things to your mind if you’re in a certain state.
That’s definitely what ticked me off about every other biographical feature last year (i.e. The Favourite, Green Book, Vice, BlacKkKlansman, etc.); they tried to have their cake and eat it, presenting fictional events alongside the truth and claiming it’s 100% real. You gotta love a film that’s upfront about mixing in legends with truth. Surprisingly, it’s difficult to tell, given just how crazy things got, what’s real and what isn’t – even after reading up about it. We’re talking about people who took enough drugs to kill a normal person at least ten times over.
Most of what I read about Ian Curtis suggested he wasn’t exactly a great person (especially not to his wife), but there’s no denying the man had some severe issues. Medical science in the 1970s just didn’t understand how to effectively treat epilepsy, and the medicine he took to alleviate his condition only exacerbated his depression. He was even convinced people only showed up to his gigs to watch him have an episode, so it’s pretty much impossible not to feel sympathy for him. Interestingly, his bandmates apparently remember him as something of a goof, and this film even shows him and his band covering Louie Louie, which is pretty much the exact opposite of what their fare usually entailed. It goes to show that there is much more to these people than what even the legends say.
As for Herzog, the only film I’ve seen of his is Aguirre, the Wrath of God, which is quite the grim journey down a river of insanity. It was good, and I can see the influence it had on Apocalypse Now, to be sure. And yes, those two films were made about two years apart. If Aguirre was any indication, I can see them as films you need to be in a right frame of mind before watching or else they will lose you.
Truth is stranger than fiction, as they say. That’s part of why I also really get pissed off when period piece sort of movies that look like they’d be good end up screwing around with history to produce something full of half-truths without admitting that they’ve done that (“based on a true story” is a great bit of weasel language, probably first thought up by a lawyer.) The actually true story always seems to be more interesting than whatever some writers decades later come up with. I know the truth can sometimes be lost, but it seems like this movie’s approach to that problem is much more honest, which I can appreciate.
I really liked Aguirre when I saw it. I’d definitely need to be in a certain mood to watch it again, though. Woyzeck is pretty bizarre, but also dark in that way Aguirre is. I’ve only seen a few Werner Herzog movies, but the guy seems to have something to say without getting all preachy about it, which takes some skill. I’ve also read a few of the stories about Herzog’s relationship with Klaus Kinski, an actor who played the leads in Aguirre, Woyzeck, and a bunch of his other movies in the 70s and 80s and who seems to have been actually mentally unbalanced. Considering the fact that these guys filmed on location in some extremely harsh environments, I guess you’d have to be a bit crazy to do so.
Mr. Herzog was definitely crazy in the endearing sense of the term considering what he and his crew did to make these films. If what I’ve heard of his canon is any indication, what I feel allows him to outshine other directors with a message for his audience is that he has proven not to be a one-trick pony. Aguirre was extremely grim, yet apparently, Fitzcarraldo is supposed to be exceedingly idealistic, making it the exact opposite as far as tone is concerned.
Conversely, I have to say the defining flaw of modern-day auteurs is that they rarely leave their comfort zone. I think it’s because they want to establish a unique style that can’t be compared to any of their predecessors, but because the styles they come up with invariably have so many facets, their fare tends to be equal parts tedious and predictable. It’s not terribly surprising in hindsight that Alex Garland’s follow-up to a film that takes a dim view on science and humanity (Ex Machina) is another film that takes a dim view on science and humanity (Annihilation). Similarly, Ari Aster ended up following up a film wherein a woman has a personal tragedy that causes her to fall on the ground crying her eyes out at one point (Hereditary) with another film wherein a woman has a personal tragedy that causes her to fall on the ground crying her eyes out at one point (Midsommar).
Another point in Mr. Herzog’s favor is that he seems to handle set conflicts a lot better. He’d have to be a good negotiator to have worked with a loose cannon like Klaus Kinski. That guy was certifiably insane, and not in the endearing sense of the term – I mean insane in the sense that it’s kind of a miracle he didn’t become a serial killer. He certainly had the right psychological profile for it, having an antisocial personality disorder and zero impulse control. When filming Fitzcarraldo, the natives who were working as extras offered to kill Kinski for the director due to the his erratic behavior, though the latter ultimately refused. I can’t imagine modern-day auteurs being able to handle that; they’d probably storm off the set/replace the offending party the exact second things didn’t go according to plan.
ManInBlack
Maybe the Stone Roses were omitted because they weren’t signed to Factory Records like the other acts were?
That’s what I’m guessing. Still a little strange that they barely got a mention in this film given their importance to the Madchester scene.
I like the approach of this film, as you’ve described it. So many biopics are shoe-horned into a predictable pattern, but I like the idea of this one turning the traditional biopic on its head. Thanks for putting this on my radar – I wouldn’t have come across it otherwise.
Indeed, this is not a cookie-cutter biopic by any stretch. It’s stylish, amusing, and freely admits to presenting urban legends and rumors alongside the truth. It helps that the real-life story has so many twists and turns, that the inventions have nothing on reality.
Charlie Watts & The Jukebo… on The Immortal Jukebox
Butch Hancock, Joe Ely and Emm… on The Immortal Jukebox
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In the oil crescent, the Benghazi Defense Brigade (BDB) claimed to have shot down a Libyan National Army (LNA) helicopter on 17 July near Magrun, 70 kilometers south of Benghazi. The LNA, however, said that the helicopter crashed as a result of technical failure. The four-member crew are reported to have been killed, but there is also confusion as to who they were. LNA sources say all were Libyans, while the BDB’s media outlet, Boshra News, claims two were foreigners. AP reports indicate that the two foreigners may have been members of French special forces. Meanwhile, the BDB managed to retake the towns of Sultan and Jelidia, which it had withdrawn from last week. LNA reinforcements had been mobilized to the area, but were unable to halt the BDB’s advance.
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Total Agricultural Risk Coverage
Marion County, West Virginia
Pick a county West Virginia State Total Barbour County, West Virginia Berkeley County, West Virginia Boone County, West Virginia Braxton County, West Virginia Brooke County, West Virginia Cabell County, West Virginia Calhoun County, West Virginia Clay County, West Virginia Doddridge County, West Virginia Fayette County, West Virginia Gilmer County, West Virginia Grant County, West Virginia Greenbrier County, West Virginia Hampshire County, West Virginia Hancock County, West Virginia Hardy County, West Virginia Harrison County, West Virginia Jackson County, West Virginia Jefferson County, West Virginia Kanawha County, West Virginia Lewis County, West Virginia Lincoln County, West Virginia Logan County, West Virginia McDowell County, West Virginia Marion County, West Virginia Marshall County, West Virginia Mason County, West Virginia Mercer County, West Virginia Mineral County, West Virginia Mingo County, West Virginia Monongalia County, West Virginia Monroe County, West Virginia Morgan County, West Virginia Nicholas County, West Virginia Ohio County, West Virginia Pendleton County, West Virginia Pleasants County, West Virginia Pocahontas County, West Virginia Preston County, West Virginia Putnam County, West Virginia Raleigh County, West Virginia Randolph County, West Virginia Ritchie County, West Virginia Roane County, West Virginia Summers County, West Virginia Taylor County, West Virginia Tucker County, West Virginia Tyler County, West Virginia Upshur County, West Virginia Wayne County, West Virginia Webster County, West Virginia Wetzel County, West Virginia Wirt County, West Virginia Wood County, West Virginia Wyoming County, West Virginia West Virginia NRCS
Pick a district 1st District of West Virginia (Rep. David McKinley) 2nd District of West Virginia (Rep. Alex Mooney) 3rd District of West Virginia (Rep. Evan Jenkins)
Total Agricultural Risk Coverage payments in Marion County, West Virginia totaled $12,444 from 1995-2017.
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Agricultural Risk Coverage County - Corn $12,182
Agricultural Risk Coverage County - Soybean $163
Agricultural Risk Coverage County - Oats $99
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Custom The Subject of Corruption Essay
The main aim of this paper is to explore the subject of corruption. In the first part of the paper, we will focus on the definition of corruption and the types of corruption which exist in the world. Next, we will analyse whether corruption can be stopped in the following four perspectives: Classical, Radical, Conservative, and Modern Liberalism. In each perspective, we will determine its meaning, the reason why corruption exists in that perspective, and find out whether corruption can be tackled from that perspective. In the final part, of the paper, we will use modern liberalism to demonstrate that corruption will appear as well as its consequences in Hong Kong Capitalism and how competitive market of Hong Kong leads to corruption. We start with a definition of corruption and its different categories.
There are some answers to the question of interpretation of corruption. Corruption refers to misconduct on the side of a dominant person or authority through means that are immoral, illegal, or contrary to moral customs. Corruption usually comes from patronage and its connection is with bribery. Examples of corruption acts include extortion, bribery, embezzlement, fraud, influence peddling, nepotism, and cronyism. There are several types of corruption; the first one is organized corruption. This is whereby corruption has become a complete and integrated view of the social, economic, and political system. This means that systematic corruption is a circumstance in which the main institutions and procedures of the country are routinely used by unscrupulous groups and individuals leaving the other people no other way to handling the corrupt officials. Sporadic corruption is the vice versa of systematic corruption. Its existence is inconsistent and, therefore, it does not constitute a threat to the instruments of power or the economy (Harris, 2003).
Political or grand corruption refers to any operation between public and private sectors` actors through which there is an illegal change of communal goods into private-regarding payoffs. It is grand corruption as it involves political decision makers of a country and it occurs at the high ranks of the political systems. Political corruption occurs, when the legal bases against which corrupt acts are normally judged and evaluated are weak. The consequence of political corruption is misallocation of resources and perverts the decision making process. There is also petty corruption, which refers to the everyday corruption that exists at the implementation end of politics, where the public meets the public officials. It is corruption of bribery in link with the implementation of current laws, rules, and regulations and it involves modest sums of money. We now focus on the different perspectives of corruption starting with the Classical liberalism perspective.
Classical liberalism is a political philosophy that values the sovereignty of people including the freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press, and markets together with the limited government. Classical liberalism is a political philosophy that argues for an affiliation between the state and civil society. A civil society consists of all the voluntary and natural relationships in a society while the government oversees society and tries to make sure that it maintains the civil and orderly environment. Classical liberalism advocates that a civil society should be self-governing and believe that people have ordinary rights, which are different from the government. In addition, classical liberalism advocates that part of what constitutes a civil society is the capability of its members to assist each other. Why does corruption exist in Classical liberalism?
Classical liberalism involves promoting the market, voluntary association, limited government, and democracy. Classical liberalism is a believer in people who are doing well to each other and more so, people should love doing well. This means that, in classical liberalism, there is the granting of power to people and as much, the liberals are hopeful that a civil society will do the right thing although there are chances of having some vicious people. This happens mostly to people in positions of power. Corruption will exist in classical liberalism, because people have been granted power and there is the limited government. With time, people in positions of power will start misusing the power and this opens the door to corruption. From its definition corruption involves bribery and people, who are not in any positions of power will start bribing their way to getting access to national resources and hence corruption.
The handling of corruption in classical liberalism is necessary, as the presence of corruption will erode the whole ideology of liberalism. When people in positions of power start abusing the power the rest of the people in the civil society will have to take the easiest way in getting access to resources, which will be through corruption. In classical liberalism, both the government and civil society are liable to each other, especially in terms of corruption. They both need to be strong enough in order to maintain an environment that is corruption free. Corruption in classical liberalism strains the associations of people in the society and eventually the gap between the rich and poor will grow. In this context, it is essential that corruption in classical liberalism be handled to avoid poor relationships between people in the civil society.
The next perspective in which we can discuss corruption is the radical perspective. The term “radical” refers to a person, who favours extreme or fundamental change in the current institutions or social, political, or economic conditions. The radical perspective is whereby people support original political, economic, and social reforms by direct and often unbending methods. Radical people often advocate for a change through means that are uncompromising and straightforward. Despite all these attributes of radical perspective corruption, still exists. Some uncompromising methods that the radicals employ while dealing with the social, economic, and political issues give rise to corruption. In the current world, most people are resistant to change, and if any person intends to advocate for change in any aspect then he needs to use flexible methods (Deepak, 2008).
Corruption will exist in the radical perspective, because people are not ready to change. People will opt to stick to the original ways of doing things. In this case, where the environment favours an extreme change in the current institutions, people will choose the easiest way of doing things and this will mean corruption. The methods, in which the radicals deem best for bringing change in the society, are normally rigid and do not accommodate the ideologies of most people. This means that people, who do not want to accept these changes, will come up with alternative ways in which they can get their things in the economic, social, and political aspect. The short cuts in use will involve bribery, which is a significant element of corruption. The begging question is: why corruption in the conservative perspective should be stopped or tackled?
The fact, that people in the radical aspect will chose the alternative way of handling things, means that there are high chances of corruption. The stopping of corruption in radical perspective will ensure the implementation of the right changes in the society and people will not have to be corrupt. In most cases, the ideas fronted by the radicals are straightforward ideologies and their implementation will mean a better society for everyone. The moment corruption finds its way in the radical society doing away with it, will be a harder battle and it will be an obstacle to any meaningful change. It is, therefore, noteworthy that corruption is handled in the radical perspective to pave the way for change in the society (Moore & Smith, 2007).
In definition, conservative perspective refers to the ideology of a society favouring traditional values and views and in most cases tending to oppose change. The conservatisms tend to cling and maintain their existing views, institutions, or conditions. In other terms, it is a society that resists change and would rather they carry on with the traditional way of doing things. Why would corruption exist in the conservative perspective?
The current world is a dynamic one with things changing rapidly. In the social, economic, and political aspects, there has been notable change in everything around it. These changes come with both positive and negative effects and it is, therefore, necessary that we adopt these changes. Conservative people are resistant to change and tend to support the original ideologies of doing things. When people adapt to ways of doing things, there is a tendency of corruption cropping up as they find better ways of doing things. For instance, if a person knows that he has to pay somebody to get an item then this is corruption as in an ideal society there should be no bribery to acquire something. Corruption will exist in this perspective, because they oppose change even if it is for the best. The conservative society relies so much on the traditional ways of doing things that they deem change as an obstacle to their undertakings. It is, therefore, evident that corruption will exist in the conservative society, because of their resistance to change and adaptation to the traditional views and ideologies (Seppo, 2003).
Corruption in the conservative society should be tackled so, that there is no erosion of the traditional views and ideologies that they uphold. Corruption will be detrimental to the traditional views that they favour, as people will not be using the right means of doing things. Corruption refers to evil behaviour that comes with the greed of wanting to get things in an easier way or not wanting to pay the price of obtaining something. Conservative people tend to do things by the book and the presence of corruption will wear this trait away, leaving other people suffering. For people to stick to the traditional ideologies, means that they have value and changing them will not be beneficial. Allowing corruption in such a society will mean compromising with their values as a society, and this is an indication that the traditional views do not have any value.
The last perspective we consider is the modern liberalism. Liberalism exists, where people have the liberty to exercise their rights, and in modern liberalism, we are talking about these freedoms, but with the government involvement, free trade, and cared to grave welfare. In modern liberalism, there is the ideology that the government needs to provide welfare that will make the poor be free. Modern liberalism has some revisions and extensions to the classical liberalism understanding of liberty and its connection to authority. Modern liberalism calls for democratization of citizenship, which involves equal political and civil rights, especially in connection to unprotected women, men, and racial minorities. To attain these modern liberals call for an increase in state participation, in the provision of these liberties. This will be by increasing civil liberties, equal rights, and greater transparency of the governmental decisions (Center for Social Research & Education, 2005).
Corruption exists in the modern liberalism perspective, because of various reasons. The foremost reason is the power that the state will award to people in its attempt to ensure that everybody enjoys his or her freedom. In modern liberalism, the government participates in ensuring that both the poor and the rich gain from the resources of the nation. Thus, it will be necessary that some people receive positions of power to help the state in ensuring equity in all aspects. Corruption will come about, when few people in power abuse their power and in the end oppress the poor in a society. In a corrupt environment, the poor people suffer, because they do not have money to bribe those in power in order to get favours. Modern liberalism will give rise to some people getting favours and this will lead to competition and bribery as every person attempts to get their rights. These favouritisms of some people will bring corruption, as people will use their money to gain these favours from the people in power.
Just like in the above perspectives, corruption needs to be stopped in the modern liberal world so that everybody can enjoy their rights and freedoms. Modern liberalism favours the promotion of rights and freedoms, especially with the help of the state. Stopping corruption will mean that the state will be able to undertake its duty without any hindrances. Corruption, in the modern liberalism, means that only some people will benefit from this government’s initiative to ensure equal rights and freedoms. The poor will not benefit in a corrupt environment, as they will not have any money to bribe in getting the state services and goods. Stopping corruption will be of substantial help in enabling the state to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor and ensuring that people in the society are equal in terms of rights and freedoms.
Hong Kong practices capitalism in its operations. Capitalism refers to an economic system that means production, and distribution is corporately or privately owned, and the growth is equal to the accumulation, and reinvestment of profits obtained in a free market. This is similar to modern liberalism, where the goods and services in the market need to serve the needs of every person in the society. This environment gives corruption a platform to grow, as people will want to gain more than others in the free market do. More so many people will not want to work and depend on the produce from others, because it is a free market. Looking at the recent news from Hong Kong, it faces some severe issues, because of corruption. For instance, Hong Kong is recording a diminishing manufacturing that can exacerbate income inequality accompanied with high paying jobs for professionals and restaurant jobs. Hong Kong is facing financial crisis because of corruption and continued lack of democracy. There is also competitive market in Hong Kong and this profoundly contributes to corruption as people fight for resources in the market. Few people are willing to work towards production of goods while the number of consumers keeps growing. This high number of consumers in the market will lead to corruption, as they will want to get more than others do.
In conclusion, the corruption behaviour is something that is evident in different nations. What varies in the presence of corruption is the ways in which these corrupt actions take place. There are various natures of corruptions, and different environments give rise to each type of corruption. In the end, corruption is evil behaviour, and it needs not be entertained in the society as it erodes the values of the society. Corruption increases inequality among citizens of a nation, and the states need to stop the existence of corruption.
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allegra_glashausser@fd.org
Before joining the Federal Defenders, Allegra Glashausser worked for five years at Appellate Advocates, first as a staff attorney and later as a supervising attorney. While there, she handled direct appeals and post-conviction motions for indigent criminal defendants in all levels of the New York State court system, representing clients convicted of serious felonies, those facing deportation due to criminal convictions, and those seeking to reduce their sentences under revised drug laws. She won the four cases she litigated in the Court of Appeals, including People v. Dunbar, in which the court found that an interrogation program used on about 15,000 defendants was unconstitutional.
Ms. Glashausser is the current chair of the Corrections & Community Reentry Committee of the New York City Bar Association. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan and New York University School of Law and clerked for Judge Rosemary S. Pooler of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
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Automobile designer Chip Foose bio, Career, Net worth, Personal life, Early life, Facts
Who is Chip Foose?
Chip Foose is the protagonist of the reality TV show Overhaulin' by Velocity and an American car manufacturer. He's also an American automobile designer, businessman, and an artist. His jobs on Cars (2006), Titus (2000) and Overhaulin (2004) is common with him.
Early Life of Chip Foose
Douglas Sam "Chip" Foose was born in Santa Barbara, California, USA, on 13 October 1963. His dad, Sam Foose, was a particular automotive expert and had his own business called "Project Design" in Santa Barbara. One couldn't call it a successful business in the early seventies.
Terry Loose, the spouse of Sam and the mom of Chip, was as difficult as she could support her boyfriend. Terry was herself a keen vehicle lover, and their comparable interest in vehicles and design turned them into a near pair. On 2 December 1959, they married, their marriage was a success, Chris Sacca is best renowned for returning from a debt of $4 million to become an even though there were moments when Sam worked for 100 hours a week to gain enough cash for a healthy career for his family. He spent the days with the repair job and the evenings with his real enthusiasm, warm engines. Terry didn't want their dad to lose the children so she took them to Sam's store for a family lunch together. It was worth the job, as Sam featured with his custom designs in several hot-rod journals, and individuals began speaking about him.
The career of Chip Foose
When he was only seven years old, Chip began working at his father's company. He was heavily influenced by the skills and achievement tale of Alexander Sarantos Tremulis, a car designer who collaborated for the Ford Motor Company and Tucker Car Corporation–Preston Tucker's business. When he was a teenager, Chip met him and intended to enter the Design College of the Art Center. Chip His dad followed him to vehicle displays and hot-rod rides; whenever Chip enjoyed a vehicle he saw, he took his sketchbook and colored pencils and painted it, lying in front of the vehicle on the floor. People collected around him to watch him draw and even paid $7 or $8 to get his warm rod drawn by him. When Chip was nine years old, Sam offered him a true treasure–a ruined Volkswagen with which Chip was excited to do all the job on his own, spending all his free time after college and on the weekend repairing it, hammered by the magic of digging out the dents and replacing the broken wood. Sam was satisfied with the work of his son, and Chip was proud of himself, but at once Sam took the hammer to his shock and dropped it right on the hood's fresh paint, asking Chip to fix it again. It was 'the greatest way to learn from errors, ' as his dad subsequently informed him. On November 29, 2018, Sam Foose died, leaving the household grieving. On his Facebook and Instagram accounts, Chip formally announced that his dad had passed away.
Net Worth of Chip Foose
Chip Foose net worth: Chip Foose is an American television character, a businessman, a businessman, and a designer and manufacturer of automobiles with a net worth of $18.5 million.
Personal Life of Chip Foose
In 1991, Chip proposed to his girlfriend Lynne; later they married and had two kids, Brock and Katie, but they had tough times when Chip was too busy with his job so he couldn't be back as often as Lynne wanted. So on Father's Day in 2006, Lynne asserted that if he did not modify his work timetable so that he could spend more time with the family, she would leave Chip. He recommended Chip to slow down with his job initiatives when Chip's dad was still alive, to spend more time with the children, and Chip attempted hard to cut more hours for family weekends, journeys to Disneyland and walking picnics. Chip is severe about his job as a parent. He is worried about the educational modifications that are taking place nowadays. America's greatest offense is the reality that all these store courses were taken out of colleges. Children today, their dream is not about building something, it's about buying something,' Chip shares their worries. Chip attempts to engage his child Brock in the cycle of his job, exchanging the heritage that Fooses has gained for centuries. Brock received it correct and his hobbies and concerns are very dedicated. He had his own high college television series "Foothill Television" earlier, for which he produced news segments and talked to his schoolmates about the news.
Facts of Chip Foose
He has received Ridler Awards on 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2015.
In 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2006 and 2014 Most Beautiful Roadster Award. Some of these vehicles have been intended by Foose and finished by other construction companies such as Troy Trepanier, Barry White, and Bobby Alloway.
In 1990, 1991, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2010 Goodguys Street Rod of the Year Award.
Diecast Inductee Hall of Fame 2009.
2011 Bilsport Performance Show's Best Hot Rod. Best Custom Car-Expo 2014 Chevrolet' Cool Air'.
BusinessmanArtistChip Foosean American automobile designerTerry LooseChris Sacca
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Colonel Sanders
By Filson Historical | October 6th, 2010 | Browsing the Collections, Famous Kentuckians | No Comments
The front Great Room at the Filson Historical Society boasts one of the most recognized faces in the world with a connection to Kentucky. No, not Henry Clay, his portrait is in the dining room. It is not Abraham Lincoln, although we do have a portrait of him also. Situated amongst the busts of Generals and Senators and the paintings depicting the landscape, lies the bust of Harland Sanders. Known throughout the world as Colonel Sanders, this man revolutionized the fried chicken industry with his cooking technique and “secret recipe.” Restaurants that bear his likeness are found in 90+ countries worldwide.
Most Kentuckians know the history of Colonel Sanders. Born in Indiana, he made his fortune in the chicken business. While living in Corbin, KY Colonel Sanders began selling food out of his serving station. When that location became too small, Sanders moved to a motel and restaurant and began to perfect his “secret recipe” for frying chicken. He was recognized with the honorary title “Kentucky Colonel” in 1935 and re-commissioned in 1950. After his initial restaurant went under due to the building of Interstate 75, Sanders began to look at the potential to franchise. With Dave Thomas (yes, that Dave Thomas), Sanders stripped the menu from possibly over 100 items to a few chicken items and salads. In 1964 Sanders sold his corporation for $2 million. In 1960 Colonel Sanders moved to the Louisville area and could be seen riding around in his red Cadillac wearing his iconic white suit with black western string tie. Sanders passed away in 1980 at the age of 90 and is buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.
Bust of Colonel Sanders at The Filson
The bust at the Filson is one of the artist’s proofs of the bust that adorns the Colonel’s gravesite at Cave Hill. The bust was given to the Filson in 1978 by Margaret Sanders Huenergardt, the artist and daughter of Colonel Sanders. If anyone is interested in seeing this Kentucky icon, the Filson Historical Society is open Monday-Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM.
Filson Historical
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Home — NetEnt — Starburst
The Starburst gaming machine is one of the most successful NetNet developments. The game dedicated to gems occupies the highest positions in the ratings of the world's leading online casinos. This is an atmospheric slot with 5 reels and 10 paylines. Each gambler can claim the payouts of up to 50,000 units of the game currency. In the device, there is a wild symbol, and also there is an advantageous function of repeated spins of the reels.
https://free-slots.games/games/netent/starburst/demo
https://free-slots.games/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Starburst.mp3
Cool Diamonds 2
GemStar
Rules of the Starburst Slot
The Starburst video slot has three adjustable settings:
the number of active lines;
the size of the bet;
the cost of a game currency unit in credits.
The number of paylines active during the spin is set in the Lines menu. With its help, the player is given an opportunity to choose from 1 to 10 directions. The Level menu is used to adjust the bet. It can be from 1 to 10 virtual coins per line. The unit of game currency in credits is set using the Coin Value control element.
Also, there are the following keys on the console under the reels of the Starburst video slot:
Autoplay – starts spins in the automatic mode;
Max Bet – activates the maximum bet amount;
Paytable – opens the payouts table;
Button with a circular arrow – starts a single spin manually.
The winnings are possible for the combinations of 3, 4, or 5 identical images on the active payline. In this video slot, there are no risk game functions and bonus rounds.
Winnings and Bonuses
The set of images in the Starburst video slot partially resembles symbols in the one-armed bandits of the classic genre. In particular, the most expensive image has the coefficients of 50, 200, and 250 and is executed in the form of the Bar inscription. When it comes to the cost, the second place is occupied by the symbol of seven. It multiplies the line bet by 25, 60, and 120 times. Other regular icons are made in the form of precious stones and have such coefficients:
yellow stone – 10, 25, 60;
green stone – 8, 20, 50;
orange stone – 7, 15, 40;
blue and purple stones – 5, 10, 25.
The winning combinations have to start on the first reel and form from left to right.
In the Starburst slot, there is a wild symbol that depicts the seven-pointed star with multi-colored rays. It appears only on three central reels. When falling out, this icon occupies the entire row vertically. Each occurrence of the image starts the re-spins of the reels, during which no money is withdrawn from the player’s account. It is possible to start up to 3 re-spins in a row.
How to Win the Starburst Slot
In the Starburst slot, the theoretical return percentage (RTP) is 96.1%. One of the advantages of the device is the availability of a function that allows you to regulate the number of active paylines. The more of these paylines the player uses, the higher his chances of forming a winning combination. Thanks to the re-spins, each round can bring even larger payments than promised by the payouts table. Because the standard structure of the playing field (5×3) uses relatively few regular characters (7), the slot is characterized by a high frequency of winning combinations.
BAR 50, 200, 500
7 25, 60, 120
Yellow stone 10, 25, 60
Green stone 8, 20, 50
Orange stone 7, 15, 40
Blue stone 5, 10, 25
Purple stone 5, 10, 25
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FinnishNotDone
The story of Finnish Migration in the New World
Culture & Clubs
Finnish Organizations & Clubs
Finnish Cultural Sites
What Is Finnish Not Done?
07/24/2013 05/19/2016 Marko Sillanpää
Finns of the Caribbean
Yah mon, there were Finns in the Caribbean and not just on the fishes. It all started on March 7th, 1785 on the island of Saint Barthélemy, better known as just St. Barts. King Gustav III of Sweden would trade access to the Swedish port of Gothenburg for the island with France’s King Louis XVI. King Gustav didn’t want to be left behind as the rest of Europe would colonize the Americas.
As word of the new colony spread through Sweden, “island fever” erupted in Finland. The warm sunny location and promises of protection from creditors caused a massive migration to port cities in Finland in hopes of passage to St. Barts. Another proclamation in May of 1786 from the king would portray the meager income and cramped conditions on the island would quell the migration. In 1785, the island was already home to 950 people.
Under Swedish rule, the main port of Gustavia would be created. One of the first ships to arrive was merchant ship, the Exprès, from Turku. The island was declared a free port for any type of trade under any flag. The port would even be involved in the slave trade, until 1813. The French Revolution and the War of 1812 would later boost the role of the port, during which 20% of US exports would go through Gustavia. In this day and age, piracy was a common practice in the Caribbean. Gustavia would be one of the main ports where pirates of any flag could sell their booty.
Another role for the island would be a place to put people into exile. Robert Montgomery, commander of the Tavastehus Dragoon Regiment, a Finnish cavalry regiment. He would be exiled here for his part in the Anjala Conspiracy, an attempt to secretly negotiate a truce with Russia over Finland, in 1789. He would return from St Barts in 1793.
During the reign of Sweden over St Barts, Berndt Robert Gustaf Stackelberg born in Turku was the Governor of St Barts from 1812 to 1816. When taking office the population of the island was 5,482. From 1819 to 1831 would be the ambassador of Sweden to the United States. While he was from German aristocracy, the family line would move to Finland. Much of that family line is still in Finland and Estonia.
August Maximilian Myhrberg arrived in St Barts in 1842 with the Swedish military. Born in Raahe, Finland, Myhrberg would fight in wars across Europe. He would leave the island in 1848.
There were probably many other Finns on the island during Swedish rule. Many probably with the military. Unfortunately I was not able to find many facts related to Swedens rule over St. Barts.
Sweden would hold onto St Barts until 1878. The Napoleonic Wars would take their toll on trade in the Caribbean. As would several hurricanes (1819, 1821, and 1837) and the invention of the steam ship. King Oscar II would sell the island back to the French for 300,000 riksdalers. To this day, St. Barts still holds to its Swedish history.
By the way, St Barts would not be Sweden’s only territory in the Caribbean. For a short time in 1813, 14 months in fact, the British gave the island of Guadeloupe to the king for Sweden’s participation in the Napoleonic Wars. But Sweden never really took control over Guadeloupe.
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Sartenada says:
Very special blog post!
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