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Vienna International Airport installs PV system
The PV system on the roof of Vienna International Airport (image courtesy of IBC Solar).
IBC Solar
IBC SOLAR Austria has installed two PV systems with a capacity of 509 kWp on the roof of Vienna International Airport.
It is hoped that the two PV systems which were mounted onto the roof surfaces of a hangar and an equipment hall will produce more than 500,000 kWh of solar power per year for direct self-consumption. "In the future, around 3,200 sqm of environmentally-friendly solar power will be produced at Vienna International Airport," says Heinz Schuld, Project Manager at IBC SOLAR Austria.
The aim over the next few years, according to IBC Solar, is to build an additional module surface measuring up to 4,000 sqm per year at Vienna International Airport. The next major project will include equipping the roof of the Air Cargo Center with photovoltaic systems measuring around 5,000 sqm, which means that the facility will more than double in size by 2017.
By putting PV systems into operation, Vienna International Airport (Flughafen Wien AG) is consistently pursuing its sustainability strategy. This has resulted in CO2 emissions being reduced by around 20 percent over the last three years, according to the company. The company says it will also continue to focus on energy efficiency in the coming years and is aiming to achieve significant improvements in the efficiency of power, heat, cooling and fuel consumption by 2022, in order to continue to reduce CO2 emissions. Flughafen Wien AG was awarded with the EMAS Prize 2016 from the Austrian Minister of the Environment for its exemplary environmental management.
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Mason Dixon Disaster
Mason Dixon Disaster is the result of five friends getting together with the intention of doing something a little different, combining male and female vocals with country and southern rock influenced music.
The Band was formed in the summer of 2005, with a plan of traveling a different path than they had with previous endeavors. Half of their first year together was spent writing and perfecting the sound that they were looking for, and making sure they didn't jump the gun by playing shows too soon. In February of 2006 Mason Dixon Disaster played their first show with an overwhelming response, and since then there has been no turning back for them. They play each show with every ounce of their being and they are constantly writing new material.
Mason Dixon Disaster has proved that they aren't afraid to work for what they want. To date they've released a self-titled EP, which sold out in a matter of months, and the new full-length album "Two Doubles" on their own. They've packed up a van and hit the road for 2 weeks last summer, and are constantly playing shows wherever and whenever they can.
Playing with such acts as, Lucero, Drag the River, Cory Branan, Tim Barry, Slim Cessna's Auto Club, Dirty on Purposee and William Elliot Whitmore hasn't hurt either. Mason Dixon Disaster is a band that isn't afraid to put everything on the line to do what they enjoy, playing rock n roll everywhere they can! "The van's outside and ready to go!"
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ABSOLUTE INSANITY
The organizers of the 2007 TOYOTA Great Ethiopian Run have been asked by the Ethiopian government to postpone the date of this year’s competition. The run had been planned for Sunday 9th September as a major part of Ethiopia’s Millennium celebrations just three days before the Ethiopian New Year and the news of the postponement will come as a huge disappointment for the thousands of participants who have been eagerly awaiting the seventh edition of the event. More than 30,000 participants including hundreds of participants from abroad had registered ... more
Posted by roocha at 11:49 AM 2 comments: Links to this post
Osaka: Extra - Opportunity Seized and Opportunity Missed
Athletes usually write their legacy on their field of play- in this case the running track. But every once in a while, as a result of their unique athletic ability, some athletes are presented with an opportunity to make an impact felt much wider than the immediate sporting audience.
A prime example of this is Haile Gebrselassie's recent work in political mediation and his involvement with Ethiopian orphans. Meseret Defar's sponsorship of Mesgana Dancers is another fine example worthy of mention here. We would call these opportunities seized.
Such opportunities don’t always come in the form of an organized event. Many times they are little things done on a spur of a moment, but communicate a strong message.
Last month, I was reading a story about the Bix 7 race in Davenport, Iowa, when one of these “small acts” caught my attention. Ethiopian Wude Ayalew won the women’s race and was obviously happy about it, having gone through a stressful day just to get to the race. Wude, however, needed the help of a translator to describe her thoughts about her travel and the race in front of a waiting television camera. To my surprise, the willing translator from Amharic to English turned out to be the Eritrean-American marathoner Mebrathom Keflezighi! In a day and age where many Eritreans refuse to speak Amharic, Meb’s willingness to help out where he can should be a great lesson to all of us that politics must not dictate every action we take- such a fine example of opportunity seized.
I was, however, disappointed to read the following story yesterday:
No rooms for Eritrea athletes
SLEEPLESS in Osaka. That was the status of five athletes from Eritrea who arrived in Osaka to find they had no rooms. All five slept in a hotel lobby the first night. The second night, three found rooms and the two others shared with athletes from neighboring Djibouti for three more nights.
"It’s true there were some unfortunate mix ups at the start of the championships with hotel accommodations," IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said. "However, I know for a fact these were sorted out in a couple of days. The information I’ve been given is that all team delegates do have accommodations."
As soon as I read this story, I substituted in my mind the name “Djibouti” with “Ethiopia” and imagined a powerful example of the Olympic Spirit:
…to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play…
Why didn’t the Ethiopian team rise above the fray, like Meb did, and host our neighbors from Eritrea? Imagine the great story that would have come out of it, and the powerful message of hope it would have sent. What an opportunity missed!
Posted by roocha at 7:28 AM 3 comments: Links to this post
Osaka: Day Seven - Nothing Today
It's an off day for Ethiopian athletes. We have an exciting weekend coming up.
Till then enjoy some 10000M clips...
Sileshi gives Kenenisa a challenge...
Tirunesh's strong finish..
Posted by welemta at 5:10 AM No comments: Links to this post
What in the world is Kenny holding?
It turns out it's an Ethiopian millennium placard. Here is a better shot...
Who handed it to him? Why is he holding this placard? Is this the place for it? Do you think this is tacky? What are your thoughts?
Posted by welemta at 10:39 PM No comments: Links to this post
Osaka: Day Six - Men's 5000 M Heats
The young ones, Tariku Bekele, Abraham Cherkose and Bekana Daba will be representing Ethiopia. All thee are expected to qualify. There are no sprpirse with Tariku and Abraham being on this squad. Bekana on the other hand is a fellow who ran himself on to the Osaka team with a series of surprising performances and luck this year. He first made noise winning over 5000M at the All-Ethiopian Games. Then in July, he went on to produced the season's 10th fastest time at Braaschaat(Belgium). The Braaschaat run made him the season's 5th fastest Ethiopan at that distance behind, Kenenisa, Sileshi, Tariku and Abraham. That run leap-froged him ahead of Markos Geneti in consideration for Osaka. He then got a break when a spot opened when Kenenisa decided not to double. Bekana was added to the team as the 4th runner, basically a reserve. Bekana's endless good fortunes continued. After running in that grueling 10000M run Sileshi Sihine opted out of the 5000M opening a spot for Bekana . The improbable will happen today when Bekana Daba takes the track.
It's always good to see new faces. In 2004, a young runner by the name of Meseret Defar was added to the Olympic team as a result of a chain of events. In a controversial decision, Berhane Adere was dropped from the 10000m squad. Ejegayehu Dibaba was moved from the 5000M to the 10000M to take Berhane's spot. That opened a spot for Meseret Defar on the 5000M squad. Meseret Defar won that event and the rest is history!
5000M Meters Heats(Men): Tariku and Abraham Advance
The first heat was a slow affair that ended up in an all out sprint. Tariku Bekele led the the sprint and held off the field (including 1500M champ Bernard Lagat) to win his heat in an impressive way. Newcomer Bekana Daba struggled when the pace picked up and faded when the sprint started.
In the second heat, Abraham Cherkos advanced by finishing second behind Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya. Abraham showed great speed overtaking trash talking Australian Craig Mottram in the last 100M. Finals are on Sunday.
Posted by welemta at 2:57 AM 6 comments: Links to this post
Osaka: Extra - Saluting Sileshi Sihine
You gotta feel it for this guy, Sileshi Sihine, now being called "Mr. Silver." He is such a talented runner but he is unable to get out of the shadow of Kenenisa. Sileshi's talent is such that some are now referring to him as the most underrated runner of all time. But after having read Kenenisa's comment after the race, and watching the 10000 meters race several times over, I now think Sileshi should have won this race if it was not for a tactical error he made with two-and-half laps to go.
As it turns out, having run a fast paced 22 laps mostly led by Zeresenay Tadesse of Eritrea, the Kenyan Mathati jumps to the lead with three laps to go. Kenenisa gives chase with Sileshi right behind him but Zeresenay gets dropped right away. Then, with two-and-half laps to go, Kenenisa appears to lose his tight running form and at the same time turns his head back to Sileshi and gestures with his right hand.
As we now know, this is when Kenenisa tells Sileshi to go after the Kenyan because he himself is not able to do it. Short time later Sileshi senses a gap opening between Mathati and Kenenisa so he immediately passes Kenenisa and pulls right behind Matahti to make sure the Kenyan is not getting away. At this point, a gap starts to appear between Sileshi and Kenenisa and we get the first indication that Kenenisa may once again be in trouble.
I am fairly sure by this time Sileshi was thinking Kenenisa is done and he only has to contend with Mathati for the gold medal. With two laps to go Mathati backs off the pace a bit, which allows Kenenisa to catch up. With one-and-half lap to go Mathati is still leading with Sileshi following, but the two really start to pull away from Kenenisa. This is where Sileshi should have pressed and gotten away from both Kenenisa and Mathati. Instead Sileshi is content to stay behind Mathati until one lap to go but in doing so gives Kenenisa the chance to gather himself and recover (as Kenenisa himself admits).
As the bell rings for the final lap, Sileshi decides to go ahead and drops Mathati immediately (which he should have done a lap earlier) and Kenenisa also passes Mathati. As Sileshi gets into his full sprinting mode, he drops Kenenisa also but there is no way he can sustain this furious sprint to the finish. With 200 meters to go, Sileshi starts to tie up and Kenenisa catches up. Having timed his kick perfectly, Kenenisa changes gear with about 150 meter to go and passes Sileshi and pulls away to take the win.
I would bet that Sileshi was thinking that the footsteps behind him was of Mathati and not Kenenisa. Sileshi's sprint I believe was to get away from Mathati and not Kenenisa. In fact, when Kenenisa finally passes Sileshi, you can see Sileshi look to his right (expecting the Kenyan) and after seeing that it was Kenenisa, Sileshi turns again looking for Mathati. Having confirmed that Mathati is a good distance back, you can see Sileshi shutting down the engine and settling for the Silver.
As Sileshi crosses the finish line, he shakes hand with Kenenisa but never makes eye contact. He is probably thinking that Kenenisa did a number on him by telling him to go ahead after the Kenyan to only jump on him short time later after Sileshi expended his energy to preserve the gold for Ethiopia. Kenenisa appears to be unusually attentive to Sileshi after the race (giving Sileshi a flag, pulling him along for a victory lap) knowing what just transpired in the race between the two. Watch the last four laps of the race if you can, and you will clearly see all of this being played out!
Anyway, Sileshi probably learned two very important lessons from this race: first, Kenenisa is still vulnerable if the early pace is punishing; and second, Sileshi needs to run according to his own race plan. I believe Sileshi will beat Kenenisa soon. I am sure he knows that now, if he didn't before. If Sileshi runs a smart race, he might even take the gold in Beijing- a much deserved upgrade for a class act who has done so much for the Ethiopian team, but wants and deserves more than silver.
Posted by roocha at 9:58 PM 7 comments: Links to this post
Osaka: Day Five - Women's 5000 M Kicks Off
Dispite Tirunesh's exit, this is the strongest 5,000 team Ethiopia has put together. There has never been a men's team that was this strong. Look for all three (Meseret Defar, Tirunesh Dibaba and Gelete Burika) to easly qualify. The fun will be on Saturday when they run for medals.
1500 Meters First Round (Women): No Qualifiers
Mestawat Tadesse finished 12th in her heat and did not advance. Not a surprising finish. Our former Zenebech Tola Kotu now Bahrian's Maryam Yusuf Jamal finished second in her heat and advanced to the simi-finals.
5000 Meters Semi-Finals(Women):All There Qualify
As expected all theree women have qualified for the finlas. Saturday should be a lot of fun.
Posted by welemta at 12:19 AM No comments: Links to this post
Kenenisa's Lioness Sighting
If you missed this bit about Kenenisa's encouter with a lioness at Entoto...
"When I was training up at the Entoto Hills with my brother Tariku, I swear that I saw a lioness and her cub about 100 metres away," he said on the official championship website.
"We stopped abruptly, let them quietly return to the forest, and then proceeded to turn away.
"I was scared a bit at the time. I had heard stories that a lioness would get angry if she thought anything would hurt her cub.
"When we asked shepherds whether lions existed in the area, they said the forests did not have any lions, only cheetahs. I still do not believe it. It was a lioness and her cub just like the ones I saw many times on television."
I am not sure what to make of this...what do you think?
Posted by welemta at 9:45 PM 5 comments: Links to this post
Osaka: Day Four - Kenya Celebrates
Kenya had a great day, sweeping the Men's 3000 Meters Steeplechase and grabbing gold in the women's 800 meter final. The only event in which Ethiopia participated was the Men's 3000 Meters Steeplechase.
3000 Meters Steeplechase (Men): Kenyan Domination
With tonight's performance, Kenya sent a strong message - the steeplechase is still a Kenyan event. 22-year old Brimin Kiprop Kipruto led the sweep. Our own Roba Gari finished 10th while Nahom Mesfin finished 12th. In two years Ethiopia has gone from having one first round 8th place finisher who did not make it to the final, to two runners in the final. This is a big step forward. Roba and Nahom have set a solid foundation towards Ethiopia being competitive in this event. The reality however is that it could be a long time before an Ethiopian medals in this event. This event has been neglected since the days of Eshetu Tura, and the price of rebuilding is expensive. This is why continuity and consistency are important.
Posted by welemta at 7:49 PM No comments: Links to this post
Osaka: Extra - Tirunesh Dibaba out of 5000M
Tirunesh Dibaba has decided against defending her distance double at the athletics world championships and withdrawn from the 5,000 meters.
The Ethiopian runner blamed lingering cramp in her side for preventing her from attempting to win a third consecutive 5,000 meters title.
Dibaba, who was bothered by the cramp in her win in the 10,000, made the announcement Tuesday, on the eve of the 5,000 heats.
She won both the 5,000 and 10,000 at the 2005 world championships in Helsinki and won the 5,000 two years before that at Paris.
The 5,000 was one of the most anticipated races of the championships because ... more
Posted by roocha at 12:25 PM 2 comments: Links to this post
Osaka: Day Three - Kenenisa Day
Anyway you slice or dice it, what Kenenisa Bekele does today will be a big story. Win, the headlines would be about how he is the greatest ever at the age of 25 with many prime years remaining. Lose, and the story would be about how he choked and memories of Mombassa would be rekindled. Without a doubt this is his race to lose. Hopefully the pressure will not get to Kenenisa.
Pressure aside, the race should be a very interesting. Sileshi Sihine has the seasons’ fastest time. Look for him to challenge Kenenisa. Gebre-egziabher Gebremariam is back. He has been in looking good this season and is looking to do better than his disappointing 15th place finish in 2005. The very talented Tadesse Tola, the top Ethiopian finisher in Mombassa, will be making his World Championship début. Incidentally, this 19 year-old has the 10th fastest time this season and has impressed with his steady improvement.
1500 Meters Semi-Finals (Men): No Finalist
Entering the last lap, Mekonnen Gebremehdin was leading his semi-final heat before fadeing to an 8th place finish, failing to advance. Clearly Mekonnen was in the mix but it will take experience and refinement before he becomes a serious contender. By entering athelets in consecutive World Championships, EAF is signalling that it is serious about this this event . In 2005, Markos Geneti and Mulugeta Wendimu were entered. Markos Geneti made it to the semi-finals. The EAF needs to continue it's commitment to this event.
10,000 Metres (Men): Kenenisa Bekele Threepeat
Gold and Silver for Ethiopia. Kenenisa covered a challenge from Sileshi Sihine and sprinted away to gold, running a 55.90 last lap. Gebre-egziabher finsihed a respectable 6th and despite being lapped the young Tadesse Tola finsihed 13th. This was a solid performance and should silence the Kenenisa doubters.
If you missed the race, I have plagiarized the live coverage from the IAAF blog because there was no good way of likning to the blog. Note, the blogger has Gebre-egziabher and Tadesse Tola mixed up. The times in the blog are Osaka time.
21:40 : The 10,000m flag is out now, and with it, the Ethiopian flags.
21:44 : World Cross champion Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea is leading the 10,000m, followed by Tola Tadesse of Ethiopia and defending champion Kenenisa Bekele. The pace is nowhere near as sluggish as the women were on Saturday; the pack is strung out in a long line.
21:46 : Tadesse of Ethiopia takes over the lead from Tadese of Eritrea at 2km.
21:48 : Tadese and Tadesse keep trading the lead. They're joined by Kenyan Josphat Kiprono Menjo, with more close behind.
21:51 : There are twelve in the 10,000m lead pack, all African excepting Abdirahman of the USA, who was born in Somalia, and Abdulla of Qatar, born in Kenya.
21:53 : The pack continues to dwindle: now there are ten, and they lose one or two with every lap.
21:56 : Abdullah just stepped off the track with 12 laps remaining. The pack is now nine: three Ethiopians, three Kenyans, an Eritrean, an American, and a Ugandan, Boniface Kiprop.
21:58 : Zersenay Tadesse of Eritrea is doing the pace work, as he's done in many races like this. He may hope Bekele will wither as he did in Mombasa, but he'll need to thin the pack down more to run away with the win. They're down to eight--Kiprop's off--with nine laps remaining, and they're starting to lap runners.
22:01 : Now they've dropped a Kenyan; Menjo is off the back. Seven remain in the pack: Tadese, Tadesse, Bekele, Sihine, Ndambiri, Mathathi. Looks like six: Abdirahman is falling off next.
22:04 : Bekele into second with two kilometres remaining. Now it's four: Tadese, Bekele, Mathathi, Sihine, and they're bunched up to pounce on Tadese. They're lapping Gebremariam.
22:05 : Mathathi moves with three laps to go, and Tadese is out the back door immediately. Bekele and Sihine cover the move.
22:06 : It's Mathathi, Sihine, and Bekele, gathering strength for another move. Bekele is struggling!
22:06 : At the bell, Sihine goes, Bekele covers!
22:07 : Bekele up with less than 200m remaining!
22:08 : 28.0 for Bekele's last 200m, unofficially. 55.90 for the last 400m.
22:11 : Bekele and Sihine are taking their lap of honour together. 27:05.90 for Bekele; 27:09.03 for Sihine, still the fastest in the world this year. Bekele is holding up three fingers for his third consecutive win at 10,000m.
Osaka: Day Two - Solid Steeplechase Showing
The only event today in which Ethiopian athletes participated in was the Men's 3,000. After abandoning the race for over 20 years the Ethiopian Athletics Federation entered Tewodros Shiferaw in the 2004 Olympics. Tewodros finished 10th in his first heat and did not advance. In 2005 Tewodros finished 8th in the first round and again did not advance. This is not an easy event to crack.
This time around the Federation thinks that it has better representatives in Nahom Mesfin and Roba Gari. Nahom Mesfin grabbed a bronze medal in the African Championship behind Kenyan Olympic-champion Ezekiel Kemboi. In May, Roba Gari upset former World and Olympic 3000m Steeplechase champion Reuben Kosgei.
Today, these two athletes did not disappoint. Both qualified for the August 28 final. Nahom Mesfin finished a solid second in his heat while Roba Gari finished fifth and qualified based on his time. In the finals, Ethiopia, Kenya and Spain will be represented by two athletes each. This already places Ethiopia in a group of Elite counties in this event. These are encouraging results.
Osaka: Day One - Tirunesh Saves the Day
The first day of the World Championships started with a poor performance by the men in the Marathon. By evening the day had almost turned into a disaster when Tirunehs Dibaba and Mestawet Tufa tripped up during the women’s 10,000 meters final. A stunning performance by Tirunesh Dibaba saved the day and earned the lone medal of the day. Here is a summary of what happened today.
Marathon (Men): Embarrassing!
The Ethiopian men continue their streak of embarrassing performance in hot weather events. Memorys of Mombassa are still fresh.In the Mens marathon the top performance was turned in by 14th place finisher Gashaw Asfaw, while Dejene Birhanu came in 31 and Ambesse Tolosa 38. Tesfaye Tola and Gudisa Shentema did not finish. It was a hot and humid day and that will be excuse once again. Incidentally Yared Asmerom of Eritira finished 4th which shows that any effects of weather can be overcome.
3000 Meters Steeplechase Heats (Women): Baby Steps
None of the three women advanced to the semifinals. The top Ethiopian was Mekdes Bekele who was 6th in her heat with a time of 9:50.12. The slowest qualifier ran 9:44.01. Mekdes was off the qulifying mark by a little over 6 seccond. Zemzem Ahmed ran 10:07.77 and Netsanet Achamo ran 10:12.59. The women were not outclassed and Mekdes Bekele’s performance is encouraging. It takes baby steps like this to be competitive down the line. Look for results in 2012 or 2016.
1500 Meters Heaths (Men): Encoraging Signs
Mekonnen Gebremehdin finished second in his heat beating the speedy Algerian, Tarek Boukensa. Deresse Mekonnen failed to qualify for the next round. The slowest qualifying time was 3:41.96 while Deresse Mekonnen finished in 3:43.15. All in all it was not a bad performance. The 1500 Meters semi-finals are on Monday and if Mekonnen Gebremehdin makes it to the finals that should be considered a good achievement. It’s unrealistic to expect much more at this stage.
10,000 Metres (Women): One of the Ages!
What makes a true champion is the capacity to overcome adversity. Despite pre-race doubts about her overall fitness, a stomach cramp on race day and being accidentally tripped during the race Tirunhes Dibaba showed us what she is made of by fighting back to win the title. This will be a performance that will be remembers for years. Unfortunately Mestawet Tufa’s hard luck continues as she was unable to finish. Ejegayehu Dibaba finished 7th and Aheza Kiros finished 17th out of 18 finishers.
Dibaba wins world title in miracle fightback
By Alastair Himmer
OSAKA, Japan (Reuters) - Ethiopia's Tirunesh Dibaba made an astonishing recovery to become the first woman to defend her world championship 10,000 meters title on Saturday.
Dibaba had contemplated pulling out of the race after complaining of crippling stomach pains before taking her place on the starting line.
She was then left languishing at the back of the field after being accidentally tripped on lap 13 but stormed back in draining humidity to win in a time of 31 minutes 55.41 seconds. more...
From Badme to Berlin...and to Osaka
What do Badme, Berlin, and Osaka have in common?
The answer: Gudisa Shentema, one of Ethiopia's marathon runners that will be competing at the World Championship in Osaka, Japan tonight. I will elaborate on the story of Gudisa in just bit, but first...
It is no secret that Ethiopia and Kenya are the top two nations in the world when it comes to distance running. And among the two, Ethiopia is ahead, especially when it comes to championship events. However, when you consider all races around the year and around the world, Kenya is light years ahead of Ethiopia in terms of the depth of its talent pool. Just consider the following example: in 2006, of all the marathons run in 2hr 10 min or faster, Kenyans produced 37 of them while Ethiopians accounted for only six. So far in 2007, the fastest Ethiopian performance has been by Gashaw Melese, a 2:09:53 in Paris, but there are 17 Kenyan performances faster than Gashaw's. This is domination!
Ethiopia has produced more legendary runners such as Abebe Bikila, Derartu Tulu and Haile Gebrselassie than Kenya has. When we compare the very best of Ethiopia with Kenya, it appears that Ethiopia is ahead. The obvious question, then, is why doesn't Ethiopia have the same depth of athletes outside of championship competitions?
I think a possible answer is two fold. First, Kenyan federation does not have a stranglehold on the talent pool as does the Ethiopian federation. There is more room for Kenyan talent to surface and blossom, and in time produce performances such as I stated above.
But I believe the second answer is the key regarding why there is such a big gap in the depth category between the two countries. Ethiopia is a country of 80 million while Kenya's population is only about half of Ethiopia's. Considering Ethiopia has a much bigger pool to recruit talent from and the fact that Ethiopia's best have been better than Kenya's best, I am absolutely convinced that, given the right conditions (an absolute key), Ethiopia can and will produce depth of runners that will dwarf even the mighty Kenya!
By right conditions, I mean alleviating poverty and disease and absence of devastating wars. Now, I know full well that Kenya is not free of these foes of humanity, but I believe Kenya has had less of these issues to deal with than Ethiopia. Particularly, in the war category. I do not recall any major war Kenya has been engaged in as Ethiopia has with Eritrea and Somalia. One has to wonder what Ethiopia is capable of producing, in athletics and otherwise, if its human resources were not bogged down in political strife and war and their paralyzing effects.
And that brings me back to the story of Gudisa Shentema. Gudisa has an amazing story that needs to be told and retold. Frankly, I find it surprising that this story has not been circulated widely considering the powerful message it carries. I came across it while reading the media guide from his sponsor, Global Athletics and Management.
So, who is Gudisa Shentema? Gudisa Shentema is a 27 year old Ethiopian soldier-turned-marathoner. Most recently, he finished second, behind none other than Haile Gebrselassie, at the 2006 Berlin Marathon where Haile came within a minute of breaking the marathon world record. Gudisa ran 2:10:43 in Berlin, good enough to earn him a spot at Osaka's World Championships.
But Gudisa's path to Berlin, and now Osaka, has the most unusual beginning. As an eighteen year old, he was at the front of the 1998 Ethiopia-Eritrea war (dispute over Badme). Here is Gudisa's story as written in the media guide:
Born in Ambo, about 85 miles from Addis Ababa, Gudisa Shentema was raised by an aunt and grew up with no interest in sports. In 1998, when the war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea, he joined the Army and went to the front. In 2000, he was returning to his brigade after a brief leave when the bus stopped for a tea. A heavy smoker, Shentema went into a bar to have a cigarette, looked up at the TV, and "saw a guy named Gezahegne" winning the Olympic marathon in Sydney. "That scene never left my mind, so when I got back to my brigade I found out they had a 21K race in two months so I enrolled and won easily." When the war ended, he began training in Addis and made quick progress: in 2002 he finished 71st in the Abebe Bikila Marathon; in 2003 he won it. Shentema is now represented by GA&M, along with Gezahegne Abera, the 2000 Olympic gold medalist who distracted him from his cigarette.
Gudisa has run in more marathons since 2003, including the 2005 World Championships, and done well in most of them. In Osaka's World Championship Marathon to be run in few hours from now, Gudissa is not even given an outside chance of getting a medal according to the experts. It is my wish, though, that he will have a breakthrough performance so that his story gets told to a bigger audience.
But I wonder, what if Gudissa was among the tens of thousands that were killed in a meaningless war a decade ago? How many more undiscovered marathon aces died in Badme? As the song goes, "War, what is it good for?"
Posted by roocha at 1:56 PM 13 comments: Links to this post
World Championships TV Schedule
The 11th edition of IAAF World Championships in Athletics will kick off in less than 24 hours. Viewers in the United States can follow the action on NBC and Versus channels.
Versus will televise events on a daily basis, twice a day on most days, although all of it appears to be on tape delay. Click here for additional information regarding Versus telecast.
NBC will broadcast several hours of the championships but only on the weekends. Again, all of NBCs telecast appears to be on tape delay. Click here for more information.
If you prefer to see the championships live, then your best bet is subscription based viewing at WCSN.com. For a mere $4.95, you can watch the whole championships live as well as on demand.
Posted by roocha at 12:28 AM No comments: Links to this post
More countries are member of this organization than are of the United Nations (192);
More countries participate in events staged by this organization than do by FIFA (208);
The flagship event of this organization occurs twice as frequently as the Olympic Games, but it also hosts more countries than the Olympic Games (205)
The Organization: International Association of Athletic Federation (212)
The Event: World Championships in Athletics
The Stars: Ethiopia's Lions
Posted by roocha at 11:37 PM No comments: Links to this post
What do you dream about? When you are awake, when you are asleep?
Most everyone who is close to me- family, friends, work colleagues- know my (excessive) interest in the sport of running. Some understand me, and others don't. But it does not change anything for me. Recently, though, I have been wondering how someone can tell when he/she is too interested in something. I think one possible clue is when you start dreaming about that thing while your are awake and while you are asleep.
When I was a child, and even after I grew up, I used to have dreams of being chased by someone or something. I would try to run to get away but it always felt like my running was in slow motion, while the attacker was fast closing on me. I was always glad when I finally woke up from such dreams.
Nowadays, though, I still dream a lot about running, but I am no longer being chased. When I am awake I often dream about the seemingly unreachable goal of running a sub 3 hour marathon. When I am asleep I dream a lot about being in a race where I feel the exhilaration of being right up front with the leaders. In such dreams, I always find myself being surprised that I could maintain such a fast pace to stay up front. It is an effortless feeling.
Just few days ago, I dreamt about being in a 1500M race, and during the last 300M I was locked in a battle with another runner for the lead. The other guy kept pushing harder every few strides and I covered his move every time.
The funny thing about these races is I never ever remember how the race ends. It is always thinking "I can't believe I am running this fast" but not knowing what the final result is.
Here is another recent running dream: several weeks ago, I found myself at a mile race on the track. There were several heats of the race so I decided to jump in with the group expected to finish between 7:00 - 7:50 min. I figured that I could get pulled to running faster than I could running by myself.
This was the third heat so as my heat is called up to the starting line, I walk onto the track for what I remember to be my first ever track race. I keep thinking about Haile, Kenenisa, etc. and wonder what they feel in such moments.
After giving quick instructions, the starter gets the race underway and I immediately find myself in the middle of the pack running a pace which I am not sure I can keep for four laps. The leaders go way ahead but I keep pushing and notice the clock reading 1:40 at the end of the first lap. Amazingly, lap two and three go consistently the same running each at a 1:40 pace. I am working hard now with one lap left, but by this time, I had already managed to pass many that had gone ahead of me. Only four or five still remain ahead of me as we get in the back stretch of the final lap. Feeling that it is now or never, I push even harder and manage to pass two more people getting myself in to third place. As we pass the 200M mark, I pass one more person and get into second place, and at the same time notice that the one person remaining upfront is a woman.
At this point, I still feel strong enough to know that I could pass her, but for a second or two, I have a mental debate with myself and my upbringing wondering whether I should pass her or not. With a possible first ever victory in sight and having convinced myself that everyone in the race is a fair game, I push more and come up even with the woman with about 50M to go in the race. She puts up a fight for few more strides but then she fades back and I find myself in the clear, ahead of everyone. I couldn't believe the race had unfolded this way and I start to revel in my first ever victory just steps away.
As I back off from my full sprinting stride in anticipation of the narrow finish line only 10 meters ahead of me, I suddenly hear fast approaching footsteps, and in the blink of an eye, I was passed by another man right at the finish line with no time or space for me to respond. I glance at the clock and it reads 6:37 and change, much quicker than I ever anticipated running. I could not believe I had committed this classical mistake at the finish line but I was still pleased with the turn of events.
I found it even more amazing that I was awake all along during this dream...
Countdown to Osaka
With less than three days remaining before the World Championships (the largest sporting event in the world for 2007) it feels like we are in the "quiet before the storm." Actually, as I write this, I look out the window from our condo and see the waves of the Atlantic crash on the beach about 50 meters away from me. My family and I have come here for our annual vacation at Bethany Beach, Delaware, but the weather has been horrible!
The storm has definitely arrived here as can be witnessed from the ongoing rain and stronger waves. Yesterday morning, I bravely went out for a morning run on the beach and returned 30 minutes later completely drenched. I couldn't get myself out the door for more of the same today, so instead I started to look at all that is being written about Ethiopian athletes headed for Osaka. Hopefully, the weather will clear up later today to go back to the pool and ocean with the kids, but in the mean time here is a summary of items I came across:
Short odds for Bekele's distance hat-trick
Who's the greatest? Kenenisa Bekele can take another step towards settling that argument with his third successive 10 000m world title.With Haile Gebrselassie's 5 000m and 10 000m records already in the bag, the diminutive Ethiopian can now move towards the Emperor's 1993-1999 haul of four successive 10 000m world titles."I am not thinking a lot about that at the moment," said Bekele, who also took his hero's Olympic title over the distance in Athens... more
Expected highlights in Osaka - Distances
Looking to the distance contests, several of the sport’s biggest names will be chasing even more superlatives to add to their growing collections at the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Osaka, Japan (25 Aug to 2 Sep).
While Kenenisa Bekele may have succeeded his mentor Haile Gebrselassie as a multi World record holder, the 25-year-old Ethiopian still has catching up to do in the ‘titles won’ category. Thus far this season, there’s been no evidence submitted to suggest that Bekele is not an overwhelming favourite to capture his third consecutive 10,000m title. While Bekele looms larger-than-life, his fiercest competition looks to come from compatriots Sileshi Sihine, Gebregziabher Gebremariam, and Tadesse Tola, although Eritrea’s Olympic bronze medallist Zersenay Tadesse, who just missed a sub-27:00 clocking with his solo run at the All African Games, can’t be discounted.
In the 5000m, considerable attention will be directed to Australian Craig Mottram, the reigning bronze medallist, as he seeks to end an African stranglehold... more
For Tufa, 10,000m was not love at first sight
Of the few things that irritated Ethiopian runner Mestawet Tufa in the two years prior to 2007, the mention of the words 10,000m definitely topped the list.
“I hated the mention of the event,” Tufa says. “Five years ago when I competed for the first time in the event in Addis Ababa, I was lapped by five or six runners and finished seventh.”
Instead of working hard and getting better at the event, Tufa chose to stay away from the event until this year when she ‘gambled’ on a decision to return at the 36th Ethiopian Athletics Championships in Addis Ababa.
It has proven to be a masterstroke of a decision that has since seen her take... more
Wami to defend Berlin Marathon title
by David Monti, Race Results Weekly
Three-time Olympic medalist Gete Wami will defend her title at the 34th running of the real, Berlin Marathon, race organizers announced today.
Wami, who set an Ethiopian record of 2:21:34 at Berlin last year (since surpassed by Berhane Adere), is currently sitting in second place in the 2006/2007 World Marathon Majors rankings with 40 points, 15 points behind leader Jelena Prokopcuka of Latvia. Should Wami win at Berlin, she would have 65 points and would vault into the lead for the $500,000 prize to be awarded to the points series leader after November’s ING New York City Marathon, the last race in the current series.
Also announced for the Sept. 30 marathon were Japan’s Naoko Sakamoto (2:21:51 PB), Russia’s Irina Timofeyewa (2:25:29), Poland’s Grazyna Syrek (2:26:22) and Germany’s Irina Mikitenko, who will be attempting to complete her first marathon.The real, Berlin Marathon was the fifth-largest marathon in the world last year with 30,118 finishers, according to Running USA, an industry trade association. With one of the fastest courses in the world, the race is the home of the men’s world record: 2:04:55 set by Kenyan Paul Tergat in 2003.
Posted by roocha at 8:23 AM No comments: Links to this post
Osaka Bound
The Ethiopian Athletics Federation announced last Friday the Ethiopian squad of 32 athletes that will be travelling to Osaka, Japan to compete at the 11th World Championships in Athletics that is due to start in nine days. For the most part, it is a predictible list based on performance of the athletes so far.
However, I do have some questions that I will have to wait to get answers for:
1- Women 1500M: Why is Gelete Burka running in the already loaded 5000M when she can add to the medal count by running the 1500M in which she has done very well so far this year? Why is Mestawet Tadesse the only woman running the 1500M? Where is Meskerem Legesse? Did Mestawet or Meskerem meet the qualifying "A" standard that would have allowed Ethiopia to send more than one athlete in the 1500M? It appears to me that Gelete is getting a raw deal here by missing out in the 1500M.
2- Men's 5000M: Why is Kenenisa not doubling in the 5000M when he has run so many sizzling 3000M races in the last few weeks? This would have been his greatest chance to win a double gold. Perhaps, his experience from Mombasa has him focussed on beating Zeresenay Tadesse in the 10000M.
Incidentally, I am interested to know what the relationship between Kenenisa and Zeresenay is. I have watched many times over the 10000M at the 2004 Athens Olympics where Kenenisa was first and Zeresenay an unexpected third. After crossing the finish line, Kenenisa turned around and started to walk back looking for his team-mates Sileshi and Haile. About the same time Zeresenay crossed the finish line and appeared to approach Kenenisa wanting to shake hands or talk but Kenenisa simply walked past. I watched this many times over and it looks awkward. I wonder what the dynamics between the two of them is and if that contributed to what unfolded in Mombasa. It should make for another great 10000M race in Osaka.
3- Women's 10000M: Once again both Mestawet Tufa and Ahaza Kiros are on the list. Could there be a replay of the debacle in Mombasa? Also it remains to be seen how fit Tirunesh is.
4- Men's Marathon: Tesfaye Tola is back?? He won the Bronze Medal at the Sydney Olympics seven years ago. I was very impressed with him at the time (beautiful strides) but have not heard much of him recently. I like Gashaw Melese in this one since he did so well earlier this year at the Paris Marathon on a hot day (likely in Osaka). He won the Paris Marathon in 2006.
Overall, I think this is a great team. I hope the coaches learned their lesson from Mombasa and trained the athletes at a location that resembles Osaka's climate. Best wishes and I hope we will all watch and support as Ethiopia's best shine on a world stage.
Ethiopian squad for the 11th IAAF World Championships in Osaka 2007
1500m: Derese Mekonnen, Mekonnen Gebremedhin
3000m SC: Roba Gari, Nahom Mesfin
5000m: Tariku Bekele, Abraham Cherkose, Bekana Daba, Sileshi Sihine
10,000m: Kenenisa Bekele, Sileshi Sihine, Gebregziabher Gebremariam, Tadesse Tola
Marathon: Gashaw Melese, Dejene Berhanu, Ambesse Tolosa, Gudissa Shentema, Tesfaye Tola
1500m: Mestawet Tadesse
3000m SC: Netsanet Achamo, Mekdes Bekele, Zemzem Ahmed
5000m: Tirunesh Dibaba, Meseret Defar, Gelete Burka, Meselech Melkamu
10,000m: Tirunesh Dibaba, Mestawet Tufa, Ejegayehou Dibaba, Aheza Kiros
Marathon: Robe Guta, Askale Tafa, Dure Tune, Adanech Zekiros, Shetaye Gemechu
More Mesgana
They are back for more Mesgana...
Haile Successful
Gebrselassie reminds us once again of his greatness
By Brian Cazeneuve for SI.com
See his distinctive stride and you could read a chapter of Haile Gebrselassie's life, the telltale peek at the world's greatest living distance runner, blowing through Central Park, then Times Square and the streets of Gotham as the Ethiopian legend ran away with the New York Half Marathon on Sunday morning.
The man is light of feet, a skimming stone along the water. Does he even need to touch the ground or might he just float? His chin is straight, only moving laterally if he must espy his opposition. Otherwise, there is no excess energy. How does the bobbing and bouncing not shake his core? How can a spinal column stay so straight when limbs are moving so purposefully?
And then it strikes you. Even at 34, his left arm still has a perceptive, if subtle, flap. The form flaw is out of place. Compact at 5-feet-4, 117 pounds, he looks like the Greek statue with the missing ear. What, pray tell, is wrong? "My books," he tells you. "I needed them for school, so I carried them in my left arm."
The distance was convenient then: 10 kilometers from the farmhouse in Arssi where a single father raised 10 Gebrselassie children to the school where a 16-year old ran his first race, 1,500 meters against older, more accomplished boys. "People were laughing because I was sprinting at the beginning," Gebrselassie remembers. "Look at this boy. He's going to stop soon."
He still hasn't. For his victory that day, Gebrselassie won shorts and a singlet. Retail value: $1, by his estimation. He won certificates for his next two victories. Medals trophies and six-figure appearance fees were still off in the distance.
He has run as long and fast as anyone, setting 22 world records, winning eight world and Olympic medals, including six golds. In the debate among running aficionados to name history's greatest distance runner, Gebrselassie's name stands next to Paavo Nurmi, the Norwegian legend from the 1920s, and Emil Zatopek, the great Czech from the '50s. Neither has Gebrselassie's blistering kick. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, he outlasted Kenya's Paul Tergat in the 10,000 meters, running the last 200 meters in 26 seconds. Who else on the planet could run 1,500 meters in 3:31.76 in 1998 and win the Berlin Marathon last year in 2:05.56? Despite his sublime resume, Gebrselassie had rarely run in the United States and never in New York City until Sunday.
"When I run in Ethiopia, I look out and see eucalyptus trees and rivers," he said this week, "I wanted to experience New York, to look up and see buildings."
His race began in Central Park for an initial 10 kilometer (six-mile) loop during which Gebrselassie ran stride-for-stride with Somali-born U.S. runner Abdi Abdirahman and Kenya's Robert Cheruiyot, the three-time Boston Marathon champ.
The fast pace played into the hands of Gebrselassie, the two-time Olympic champ at 10,000 meters who once held world records at both the 5K and 10K distances. "I don't know why they pushed," Gebrselassie said afterwards. "I thought they'd stay back. I am a 10,000-meter runner. But they pushed, so I said, 'OK, thank you, you are running my pace. Good-bye.'"
As the runners left the park and headed onto the streets of midtown Manhattan, Abdirahman made a bold push to build a lead. The move dropped Cheruiyot, but not Gebrselassie, who then shot into the lead and never lost it. "In running, you try to recover your surge," Abdirahman explained. "I was trying to build back up and Haile didn't give me that chance. He went right past me and the race was over."
Gebrselassie finished easily in 59 minutes, 24 seconds, a minute ahead of Abdirahman. This was a tune-up, one of many, for his transition to the marathon at the Beijing Olympics next summer, and perhaps for the New York Marathon in 2009. "The race is a natural challenge for me," says Haile, whose older brother, Tekaye, was a 2:11 marathoner in Ethiopia. "You lose the speed before the stamina. I always thought I would move to the marathon late in my career. . . When you run the marathon, you run against the distance, not against the other runners and not against the time."
Gebrselassie has now won all eight half marathons he has entered to go with his marathon wins in Berlin, Fukuoka and Amsterdam. He has won 108 races in 56 different cities, but remains committed to helping his countrymen, many of whom remain impoverished.
His businesses in Ethiopia employ 400 people and include two hotels, a fitness center, a cinema and a car dealership. More than 1,200 students attend the two schools he opened. They are private schools, with a tuition of $7 a month. Students in the fourth grade there are on par with most 12th graders in the country. They have computers and science labs with proper equipment. More than 80 percent will receive higher education, compared with a national average of 10 to 15 percent. As passionately as he speaks about running, he is even more animated about he desire to make Ethiopia better.
"These last few years, we had many problems, from war to poverty, HIV. One year there is drought, next year flooding," he says. "I have to do something for my country. I have to do my part.
"People sometimes get angry with me, because I won't give money away. I tell them, if you want to work, I will find you work. I will give you a job with a good wage and I will take care of you. But a man cannot improve himself with free gifts, only with opportunity. When you find a child who wants to learn but cannot find a good school, or a man who wants to work and to better himself but he cannot find a job to help his family, that is where I must help. Work builds confidence."
In a land that has not always embraced strong women, Gebrselassie relies heavily on his wife, Alem, to run many of his businesses while tending to their four children. "Many times I think we should do something one way and she will suggest another way," he says. "I think, oh, OK, you are the smart one. We will do it your way. This is the modern man."
Hear Gebrselassie speak and you picture another life chapter in which a boy carried his books and learned well.
Haile Wins NYC Half-Marathon
Haile Gebrselassie won the NYC Half-Marathon in stunning fashion on Sunday, completing the course in 59:24, more than a minute ahead of second place finisher Abdi Abdirahman... more
You can watch a 5+ minute long interview Haile gave to WABC TV by clicking here and selecting the clip titled "NYC Half-Marathon... Part 2" and forward about 10 seconds from the beginning of the clip. If you pay close attention, you will hear what sounds like a group of Ethiopians chanting "Haile Haile... Gebrselassie" to the tune of Teddy Afro's song with the same title. There is also a nice wrap-up of the event on the clip titled "NYC Half-Marathon."
Thousand Men Dying
Why are they all sad? (click on the picture to enlarge)
Because they, and Ethiopian Athletics, lost a great friend.
"This is not one man dying. This is a thousand men dying."
Belay Wolashe
Posted by roocha at 1:58 PM No comments: Links to this post
Berhane Adere Wins Great Wales Run
Francis Kibiwott and Berhane Adere proved themselves worthy winners of the inaugural BUPA Great Wales Run titles in Cardiff on Sunday [July 29].
The Kenyan and Ethiopian victors relished the flat and fantastically beautiful 10 kilometres course in Cardiff Bay including a speedy trek over the scenic tidal barrage...
...Adere after injuring herself at the London Marathon was enthusiastic after making a positive return from the hip problem she incurred in the capital.
This was a really good result for me - I felt nothing from my hip and now I can start preparing myself for the defence of my Chicago marathon title," said the Ethiopian, ranked on merit the world's number one performer last year... more
Posted by roocha at 10:50 AM 1 comment: Links to this post
Kenenisa Update
July 25, Monaco
"Kenenisa Bekele was supreme in the men’s 3000m. The shortness of this paragraph denoting nothing more than that his run was not quite as fast as his race in Sheffield on 15 July (7:26.69), and that it didn’t provide such a shock! Yet Bekele was just as assured tonight. After the last pacemaker dropped out with three laps to go, he began a solo parade of brilliance which ended in 7:29.32"... more
July 28, Zaragoza, Spain
"The 25-year-old Bekele managed to dip under the 12:50 barrier in his first appearance over 5000m this summer campaign by clocking 12:49.53. In doing so Bekele raised himself to the top position on this year’s world list in a season which had not until last night seen a sub-13 minutes 5000m performance. Bekele also recorded a best Spain’s all-comers time in the process"... more
Osaka: Extra - Opportunity Seized and Opportunity ...
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Platform: Dreamcast
Publisher: KID
Developer: KID
Genre: Love Adventure
Format: GD-ROM
Released: N/A
Official Site: Japanese Site
Graphics: 85%
Sound: 87%
Gameplay: 70%
Control: N/A
Story: 96%
Overall: 92%
Breakfast blunder.
A pensive Haruka Higuchi at the beach.
Your (Makoto's) bedroom at the lodge.
Saki Asakura- the tough girl with a soft side.
Never 7: The End of Infinity
Neal Chandran
KID is a Japanese software developer well known for popular Love Adventure series such as Memories Off and Close To. Never 7 is part of their Infinity series. Though I've had no exposure to the rest of Infinity, I was able to get into Never 7 without much problem. Never 7 is my first experience with a Japanese Love Adventure, and I can clearly see why such games are so popular in Japan. So it was with an open mind and a taste for games that defy my conventions that I jumped into a game that drew me in and left me wanting more.
The graphics aren't anything special. The game is seen from a first-person perspective and the graphics consist of plainly designed pre-rendered backdrops with never more than two 2D character portraits when a character speaks or is spoken to. Sometimes there will be close-ups depending on whether the character is standing close to you or not. Often the characters will change emotion for their lines, but the game is presented primarily with still pictures. Many times during introspective or expository scenes, there will be no portraits -- just a boring backdrop and lots of scrolling text in the text box. There are no FMV cinematics or anything, save for the intro, which even then, has average CG. This is definitely not a game for those who value flashy visuals.
But what makes the graphics so special are the character designs. How do the Japanese do it? The character designs in this game are so appealing that they turn a grown man like me into a drooling moronic zombie. I know the girls the story revolves around aren't real, but damn if they're not drawn so gorgeous that they appeal to the senses like nothing else. My personal favorite character design is of Haruka Higuchi, the dark haired beauty with smoky eyes and an air of mystery surrounding her.
The sound is also a mixed bag. There is voice acting whenever a character, other than yours, speaks. The seiyuu all do a good job capturing the essence and proper emotions of the characters. There are a few instances where the character will have a very angry expression, and the seiyuu will deliver her lines in a neutral tone of voice, but overall it's pretty good. Also, I felt the voices generally sounded somewhat muffled and would have liked better clarity and crispness in the sound reproduction. Sound effects are sparse, and again, would benefit from greater clarity.
The soundtrack is very nicely done, though. The compositions are not very complex, but they capture the mood very well and many of them will get stuck in your head. The nuances of the music definitely aid in understanding the mood of the story. The music is synth-heavy and has a nice 'anime pop' sound without ever getting grating or annoying. The music adds a nice complement to the visuals and story segments. I particularly liked the music that played during the end credits after a 'good' ending.
I always favor soundtracks where each character has his or her own theme and this game is no exception. Each girl has her own theme music that captures the essence of who she is. It's no coincidence that my favorite character theme is that of my favorite girl in the game -- the aforementioned Haruka. Her piece is a slow, semi-melancholy piano piece with some synth interjected into it. I always looked forward to hearing it because it usually meant a scene with her.
The gameplay (if you can even call it that) is very limited. This piece of software is an interactive novel. You just read lots of text, look at the pretty pictures and every so often, you're presented with a choice. So you move your directional pad and press 'A' to select your choice. Pressing A also scrolls the text.
Pressing the X button at any time during gameplay brings up the menu where you can save or load your game, adjust the sounds, quit, or look at the options (which is very useful). What's nice is that when you bring up the menu and just let it sit for a while, the text changes from Japanese to English. So at the very least, importers can read the menu selection. However, this game is FAR from importer friendly, which I'll explain later.
You can save any time you want, and it's recommended you do so. I tended to save each time a decision screen came up, so if I ended up picking a bad choice, I could open up the menu again, load a previous save, and make a different choice. Perhaps that could be considered cheating in a way, but my motto is: "If the game lets you do it by default, it's not cheating." What is also nice is that if you go back to an older save, pressing START allows you to fast forward the scenes you've seen till you get to fresh material.
The option screen is cool. Sure, there are the standard things, such as adjusting the screen position and changing the color of the windows, but the coolest thing is the VMU display. Among the many things you can display on your VMU is a meter to show how well you're doing with each girl. There are three blocks and, if you're doing well, they'll have hearts in them.
Oh, and the game has an omake mode. After you beat the game, you can open up cool things in it, like a picture gallery of the girls (the more time you spend with one, the more pictures of her you get), a music test (sweet) and other stuff. Sure, the omake mode isn't anything more than the bonus modes of other games, but I still love things like a music test and a picture gallery. The game also has an 'Append Story' mode where you can play new scenarios that can be downloaded from KID's website.
Okay, so thus far the game seems pretty ho-hum, right? Well, what is the driving force of a novel? That's right, the storyline and writing. Just like a text novel can't capture you without a strong plotline and compelling writing, an interactive novel game like Never 7 is primarily dependent on its plot and writing. And thankfully, both are excellent.
The story is presented mostly through text, so having a very strong command of reading Japanese is a must if you want to play this game. I had trouble reading some of the story segments and definitely missed out on a lot. Some of the girls talk about abstract concepts such as philosophy and even such complexities as scientific theory. There is also a lot of Japanese wordplay during dialogues. So even with a good command of Japanese, the meatiness of the writing makes for some challenging reading. But I always love a challenging read and this game is no exception.
If you don't press start at the title screen, you will be treated to a rather cryptic opening cinematic. It shows the characters, but also something about DNA. This will have you scratching your head, but does feature into the plot.
When you start the game, it is April 6th and someone has just died. The lasting image is that of a little bell in that person's hand. Before anything else happens, a red-haired girl wakes you up with a start. In reality, it is April 1st and you are Makoto Ishihara, a third year university student. You and some classmates (whom you've never met before) are sharing a lodge in a resort-type area for summer vacation.
Said classmates include the aforementioned red-haired girl named Yuka Kawashima. She is, for all intents and purposes, the group leader, and she's a total lush (she loves to drink alcohol). I already mentioned Haruka Higuchi before, and the third classmate of yours is Okihiko Iida. He is a spoiled rich-kid type with a strong jealous streak. I regarded him as a rival for the girls' affections.
Other characters you'll meet are the Morino sisters, Kurumi and Izumi, who run an Italian restaurant nearby. Kurumi is the youngest cast member at 17, and is clearly the perky 'kawaii' one. Izumi is 22 and more maternal. You will also meet Saki Asakura -- an old friend of Yuka's who also lives nearby. Saki is rather hot-tempered and has a short fuse. Sure, these characters all seem archetypical, but they do have a lot of depth and are developed quite well. However, one must play a certain way to see a particular character develop. If you make the choices that lead you down one girl's storyline, the others may get shafted in the character development department, since the girl of choice is in the spotlight the most.
Okay, so back to the plot� how about that dream? It felt so real. Will someone die on April 6th? Signs point to yes as you sometimes encounter flashbacks of that dream throughout the course of the story. The game takes place over six days, then, in my case, looped back and allowed me to 'summarize' the six days over again and make some different and more meaningful choices. It seems your character is somewhat psychic and thus, with the newfound knowledge of the loop's previous events, you could prevent some tragic events from occurring. But be careful because one wrong choice and it's curtains for you. There is also a brief seventh day scenario, provided you make the choices toward a 'good' ending. If not, the bad ending ends on the sixth day.
I have mentioned choices a few times before in this review. This is because the story plays a lot like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You read for a while, and then you come to a place where you need to make choices to advance the plot in various directions. And like Choose Your Own Adventure, every choice you make, no matter how subtle, has an impact on the story. An example of a more obvious choice is in the beginning: Do you play a semi-interactive game of tennis with Yuka or chill on the beach with Haruka? A choice like this is the first step on whose storyline you decide to follow. Other choices are more subtle and there are many opportunities to pick your dialogue. An example of a more subtle choice is, say, if you're with a girl, do you choose to look into her eyes or take her hand? Reactions often vary with the dialogue and other decisions you make. Each girl's storyline either has a good ending or a bad ending so replay value is quite high.
What I really like is that this tale is not the bombastic, apocalyptic, beat-the-bad-guy kind of story I've experienced time and time again in most RPGs and adventures, but instead is a more personal, character-driven, emotive, human tale based around gentle romance. You really get into it when, say, the girl you're with is crying, then you make the correct dialogue choice and she smiles again. And if you make the wrong choices and she gets angry or upset at you, you smack yourself. The interactivity of the game on a more personal scope was a refreshing change to the RPGs and adventures I've played, where the scope is more global/epic and less personal. To be honest, I generally prefer tales with a more intimate scope.
The only downside to the story is that there are a few plot twists that are really far-fetched, but as long as you can remove yourself from your reality and accept the weird occurrences as part of the game world's anime reality, then you will enjoy it. Just hop on the merry-go-round and have a good time.
Finishing one scenario took me about 15 hours, but I play story-centric games rather slowly. That seems short, but the amount of plot and characterization that fit into those 15 hours is quite high. The pacing was wonderful, and there was never ever a lull. And, like I said, the game has a lot of replay value, so if you go after each girl's good ending then you're looking at over 40 hours of play from the game.
All in all, I really enjoyed playing this game. It was a unique experience for me, and I hope to play more games like this in the future. I enjoyed the strong writing, interactivity, and more intimate scope of the storyline. Like a novel, the storyline and clever writing were the strongest points, with the addition of pretty visuals, great music, voiced dialogue, and interactive choices as icing on a very moist and chewy cake. Sure the whole idea of 'Love Adventures' may not be everyone's flavor, but for those willing to try, Never 7 is a terrific choice.
© 2000 KID Corp. All Rights Reserved.
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Surrey in the 19th Century: Life of the Poor, Emigration and Cultural - A Half-day Course - 10 March
In this half-day course, Dr Judy Hill covers two topics relating to life in the county of Surrey.
During the period 1815 to 1834 agricultural labourers in Surrey experienced increasing hardships and distress. Marginal land brought under the plough during the French Wars was no longer used, resulting in more unemployment. After 1827, there were a succession of bad harvests and the summer of 1830 was wet and cold. The number of unemployed workers increased and parishes found it increasingly difficult to provide adequate poor relief. Many labourers found themselves socially segregated and unprotected against unemployment and price fluctuations. The Swing Riots of 1830-32 took place during a time of increasing pauperisation of labourers. The Riots reflected the resentment felt by agricultural labourers. They wanted vengeance against local landed interests, notably their employers and those who controlled the vestries and made poor law decisions. The attacks struck at the very roots of social cohesion.
Between 1760 and 1820, Britain’s population increased from 7 million to 15 million. Those who emigrated went voluntarily but many were virtually forced into it by sheer poverty. After 1815, the post French Wars recession in agriculture brought insecurity and seasonal unemployment for most agricultural workers in the South East. Acute economic hardship brought a steep rise in poor relief costs. After the Swing Riots of 1830-32, many parishes in the South of England viewed emigration favourably as a solution to the unrest and as a way of removing surplus labour. The Petworth Emigration Scheme, 1832-37, helped 1,800 men, women and children to travel to Upper Canada. It was an extremely well organised scheme and has been well documented. Dr Hill introduces the Petworth Emigrant Letters, written between 1832-37. There are 144 letters, including the Dorking Letters, mostly written and sent during the early months and years of migration. They include descriptions of the journey, first impressions of Canadian life, and many compare their new circumstances with their earlier lives in England. The Letters are a very valuable source of information on the migration process and they provide wonderful insights into life in England at the time of the emigrants’ departure. The Letters enable the historian to glimpse into the rural world of the poor. By using these Letters, researchers in Canada have identified with a fair degree of certainty some 1,600 Petworth emigrants, from the total of 1,800.
A half-day course on Saturday, 10 March (10:30-13:00) with Dr Judy Hill. Cost £20.00/£16.00 SoG members. Places should be pre-booked through our website or by telephone: 020 7553 3290 (Tue-Thu & Sat). Do you have a question? email the events department.
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Southeastern > News & Media > News Releases > 2016 News Releases > October 2016 > Southeastern celebrates Homecoming Week Oct. 17-22
Southeastern celebrates Homecoming Week Oct. 17-22
HAMMOND – Southeastern Louisiana University celebrates Homecoming Week, Oct. 17 – 22 with a myriad of spirited activities capped by tailgating, reunions, a parade and football action in Strawberry Stadium.
With a theme of “Roomie’s Road Trip,” Homecoming 2016 also will feature an myriad of awards and recognitions. Sponsoring this year’s Homecoming festivities are the Tangipahoa Convention and Visitors Bureau and with the Southeastern Student Government Association sponsoring all student-related activities. The week culminates with Homecoming Day Saturday, Oct. 22, when the Lions take on Houston Baptist at 4 p.m.
Homecoming Week will offer a number of time-honored traditions, such as Gumbo YaYa for students, campus and community decorating contests, an alumni art exhibit, and the FeLions’ Homecoming luncheon.
The celebration begins on Monday with Business Week, Oct. 17-20, which features a variety of lectures by specialists in numerous phases of business. The Southeastern Family reunion will cap off the day on Oct. 17 at 7 p.m. in the Student Union Park.
On Tuesday, Oct. 18, the action begins at 2 p.m. when students and faculty battle it out in the Phi Kappa Phi Quiz Bowl in the Student Union Theatre. Next up is the student paint run at 6 p.m. in North Oak Park. The day closes out with a volleyball match vs. McNeese at 7 p.m. in the University Center. Attendees are encouraged to come dressed in their best “Coach Smoot” Hawaiian attire and get tropical for the mid-week match.
On Wednesday, Oct. 19, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., students will enjoy food and fun at Gumbo YaYa, where the 2016 Homecoming court will be introduced to the student body.
Also on tap at 12 p.m. is the annual Lyceum Lights faculty lecture in the Alumni Center, featuring Southeastern Child Welfare Program Coordinator Corie Hebert. Hebert will present “Louisiana Child Welfare Training Academy and Southeastern Louisiana University: The Best Kept Secret on Campus.”
At 3 p.m. that day the Lady Lions will host a softball exhibition at North Oak Park, and the student competition “Minute to Win It” will be held in Strawberry Stadium at 7:30 p.m.
On Thursday, Oct. 20, Gamma Beta Phi will host its “A Ton of Fun Food Drive” from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Student Union Mall with collections benefiting the Student Food Pantry. The FeLions will host their Homecoming luncheon at Trey Yuen at noon. Also at noon is an Alumni Art Lecture by Georgia Polkey in the Contemporary Art Gallery.
Thursday evening kicks into gear with a 6 p.m. Lady Lions Volleyball match versus Incarnate Word in the University Center, and an ROTC Alumni Reunion is scheduled at 7 p.m. at Murphy’s Seafood in Hammond. A bonfire, pep rally and Roar Rally spirit competition sponsored by SGA is scheduled at 6:45 p.m. at Cook Field on North Campus. Spectators can also enjoy music by the Spirit of the Southland Band, followed by a Lip Sync contest for students at 8 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 21, begins with the Homecoming Golf Tournament at Carter Plantation at 1 p.m. Cost of the event is $150 per person or $600 per four-man team. Participants will receive lunch prior to play. All proceeds from the event will benefit Southeastern Golf. For more information, contact Head Coach Jake Narro at 985-549-5186 or jnarro@southeastern.edu.
The Southeastern Pennington Student Activity Center will be offering free workouts for Alumni all day Friday and Saturday.
Also, the Alumni Association will host the annual Alumni Awards Evening, sponsored by Gary and JoAnn Sandifer and family, at 7 p.m. in the Student Union Ballroom. Tickets for the event are available at the Alumni Association, (985) 549-2150 or on line at www2.southeastern.edu/external/alumni_events/alumni_awards. Texas A&M head basketball coach Billy Kennedy will be recognized as Alumnus of the Year, while Zac and Cari Caramonta, owners and operators of Gnarly Barley brewing company, will be honored as the Young Alumni of the Year. In addition, the African-American Alumni Chapter will host its annual Homecoming mixer beginning at 9 p.m. in the Alumni Center.
On Homecoming Day, Oct. 22, the focus shifts to Friendship Circle, where visitors can enjoy tailgating, reunions and entertainment starting at 11:30 a.m. There will be booths manned by area merchants. Activities for children include a variety of crafts, face painting, train rides and inflatables. Attendees are asked to leave pets at home.
Southeastern donors who have endowed scholarships and professorships will be honored at 10 a.m. in the President’s Residence. The campus bookstore will open from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
In addition to football, several sporting events are scheduled Saturday, including a basketball green and gold scrimmage at the University Center at 9:45 a.m. and a softball alumni fall fun game at 10 a.m. in North Oak Park. The Southeastern volleyball team takes on Corpus Christi A&M in the University Center at 12 p.m.
The annual Homecoming parade rolls at 12 p.m. Following the parade, Lion fans can cheer on Head Coach Ron Roberts and his team during the “Lion Walk” as they make their way through Friendship Circle to Strawberry Stadium at 1:30 p.m.
Reunions and tailgating will be hosted by many of the university’s colleges and divisions, as well as by groups such as the Former Football Players, Seventies Black Alumni, ROTC, and Greek organizations. The Alumni Association tailgate will take place in Friendship Circle from 11:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. and is sponsored by the Lion Athletic and Alumni associations, with the Livingston Alumni Chapter hosting the event.
After pre-game activities, the Lions will kick off against Houston Baptist at 4 p.m. The 2016 Homecoming queen and king will be announced and crowned at halftime.
Immediately after the game, the Greater Hammond Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Development District will host “Railroad Roar,” an evening of dining and entertainment by participating downtown businesses. For more information, call the Greater Hammond Chamber at (985) 345-4457.
For a complete schedule of Homecoming 2016 events, visit www.southeastern.edu/homecoming or call the Alumni Center, 1-800-SLU-ALUM or (985) 549-2150.
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Shayna S. Israel
Sojourner Blog
P-20Ed Blog
Educational Pipeline:
Pre-School to PhD & Career
Writing Over: Black Girlhood Studies Showcasing How Education & Identity Are Entwined by Shayna S. Israel
Source: TheRoots.com
On Twitter and in popular culture, many of us have heard a friend, a colleague or a celebrity reference #BlackGirlMagic. The hashtag phrase came about in celebration of the awesomeness that is young girls of color realizing their potential and ability in the face of less-affirming messages. However, less is known about the emerging field of Black Girlhood Studies.
Academic culture is not something divorced from our daily life experience. It is in response to it. The academic field of Black Girlhood Studies was formed by a “loose collective of scholars researching the experience of black girls across continents” [1]. LaKisha Simmons, Corinne Field and Renee Sentilles met at a conference in 2013 at the University of Nottingham in England focused on how “space and childhood are mutually constitutive in historically and geographically specific settings” [2]. From that meeting, they created the History of Black Girlhood Network, which has expanded to include hundreds of scholars.
With the advent of social media, there’s been greater exposure to the narratives of black girls…written by black girls and young women. In March of 2017 the Black Girlhood Network hosted its first conference at the University of Virginia. At the conference, there were “not just scholars and activists, but also artists and young people themselves, all of whom are sort of galvanized in this pivotal moment in which we’re seeing an increase in scholarship on black girls, and an increase in pushback from black girls themselves, who are demanding that their voices be heard,” writes Associate Professor Oneka LaBennett, of Africana studies at Cornell University [3].
'...In this pivotal moment...we’re seeing an increase in scholarship on black girls, and an increase in pushback from black girls themselves, who are demanding that their voices be heard' ~Professor Oneka LaBennett
Across most college campuses there is a Women’s and Gender studies program. Such programs now are taken as a given, but they were fought for. “Women’s studies as an academic enterprise had its roots in second wave feminism and originated as a challenge to male-defined and male-centred [sic] knowledge. Students studying sociology now take it for granted that gender is central to sociological analysis. This was not always so,” Stevi Jackson writes in her blog post “Women’s Studies, Gender Studies and Feminism” [4].
When a freshman comes onto a college campus and looks through a course catalogue, they can feel a sense of excitement and anticipation at all of the classes potentially at his or her fingertips. Each line, however, represents someone or a group of people advocating for that course.
During the 1970s across the nation there were demonstrations on college campuses for the inclusion of marginalized programs or departments such as Latino Studies and African-American Studies. For example, at Chicago State University, African black students in the 1960s began to organize for the inclusion of African-American studies into the university curriculum because, as was the case in much of the country, “many formerly all white universities had begun to admit significant numbers of Black students who did not see themselves reflected in the curriculum” [5].
Trinity Hughes, left, and Zyahna Bryant at Charlottesville High School, where they are seniors. | Photo Credit: Matt Eich
In looking at all that was transpiring around the nation, professors and students alike were seeking to better understand how to view and how to react to the cultural and political movements of the day. There is a connection between what is happening in education and what is happening in society—as there is a connection between education and identity.
We understand this dynamic mostly when we are talking about jobs and when were hear employers responding to school administrators about the need for specialized training to help with “emerging markets” or “the jobs of tomorrow.” The same dynamic is true in the academic sphere. When there are shifts in the social landscape, scholarly programs and fields emerge to respond to the new developments.
Thus, ta-da—we have Black Girlhood Studies. The question is then what is happening amongst and to black girls in this day and age.
A network of scholars has emerged to respond to the condition of black girlhood against the backdrop of the #MeTooMovement, the most diverse candidates running for elected office in history and the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville.
In the Charlottesville school district, in the stories of Zyahna Bryant and Trinity Hughes, we have a clue.
...Women have had to be imagine themselves out of stigma—as a means of survival.
Charlottesville is most recognizable for the white nationalists that marched through its town in August 2017. Charlottesville has had an embattled history when it comes to race relations. However, what is notable is the work of educators and administrators who have sought to balance past racial injustices in their school districts.
After the 1954 Brown v. The Board of Education ruling, Charlottesville responded by closing down the white schools rather than integrate. At one point, “instead of outright segregation, the white-led district established testing requirements solely for black students who tried to enroll in historically white schools” [6]. Years later “the board considered redrawing school zones to bolster racial and economic equity but worried about white flight” [7]. After pooling in middle and high school students “the number of white students declined about 20 percent within a decade” [8].
The connection between Charlottesville and the young girls earlier mentioned, Ms. Bryant and Ms. Hughes, extends beyond their geographic locality: It is hard to write off what has already been written and cemented onto a people’s or a town’s consciousness.
Ms. Bryant and Ms. Hughes are both talented, smart and gifted young ladies. Yet, being black and being female in America means fighting off stereotypes and stigmas regarding intelligence.
Charlottesville’s board sought to do the right thing in following the Supreme Court’s ruling on integration, after some initial missteps. It is hard to create change against the backdrop of a segregationist’s past. It requires more than white washing the issue. One has to—if serious about doing the work—break new ground.
We are at a place in time where black women are, proportionately, the most educated class than any other racial-gender group [9]. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (2013), black women were conferred Associates and Bachelor’s degrees at a rate of 65% as compared to their white, Hispanic and Asian female counterparts who were conferred the same degrees at a rate of 56%, 60% and 54%, respectively, out of each of their total subgroup populations [10].
However, the realities of the landscape have yet to catch up with accepting black girl intelligence—while it has been whole heartedly welcoming to #BlackGirlMagic.
Zyahna as early as preschool was awarded a scholarship to attend an elite private school at the most reputable elementary school in Charlottesville, Venable. That sent her on track to be eligible for honors and AP (Advance Placement) courses in high school [11].
There are millions of parents vying for the best early education opportunities for their children. They do so because they know what getting an early start can do for bettering the chances of their child’s educational success and opportunities. In some cases, being tracked, in the state of Virginia, for an “advanced” diploma rather than the “standard” diploma means the difference between getting admitted to a four-year college and a two-year college [12].
Ms. Bryant selected the requisite coursework to put her within reaching distance of the “advanced” diploma. “Zyahna’s achievements make her a prime candidate for an elite university,” according to reporters Erica L. Green and Annie Waldman—so Ms. Bryant “was taken aback when, as she was beginning her search, her principal encouraged her to explore community college” [13]. In their article, “Separated, and Far From Equal, in Charlottesville’s Racial Divide,” Green and Waldman note that “All diplomas are not equal,” and that administrators have worked to create ‘equity-based teaching’ as countermeasures [14].
It is hard to extricate the long legacy and stain on America’s history that extends beyond slavery and onto systemic racism. Educators and administrators, dedicated parents and star students alone cannot lift the stigma that often befalls black girls—regardless of how smart and talented they are. Yet, they persist.
African-American students studying at home while Charlottesville schools were closed in 1958. | Photo Credit: Clark, The LIFE Picture Collection
Ms. Bryant writes, “No matter how high your scores are or how many hours you put into your work, you are still black…There’s a whole system you’re up against. Every small victory just cuts a hole into that system reminding you how fragile it is. But it’s still there” [15].
In a social media culture looking for heroes and villains, black girls—no matter how magical and inspiring they are—too often are typecast as the villains. Girls like Ms. Bryant and Ms. Hughes, by their achievements, are rewriting that narrative. The same goes for the scholars in the Black Girlhood Studies Network.
Academic life, if done right, is not a distant Ivory Tower. It is trained researchers, noticing trends, going out into the field and recognizing a dynamic, a phenomenon that needs to change or be viewed in another light.
Ms. Simmons writes that “we’re seeing a generation come of age that is really engaged in feminism, anti-racism, and history…and engaged in theories around race and gender” [16].
In the collection edited by Suzanne W. Jones titled, “Writing the Woman Artist,” it speaks to how women have had to create, ala Rousseau, “literary self-portraits” as they “register the tensions between the fictional and the empirical figure, the problematic relationship between language and reality” [17].
Meaning that, women have had to be imagine themselves out of stigma—as a means of survival.
In rewriting themselves as talented, intelligent, empowered, girls like Zyahna Bryant and Trinity Hughes are getting a true early education in this new climate. They like millions of other young women like them, are getting a head start, via social media and the advocacy of scholars, in shifting the language around black girls, that often gets foisted onto their bodies. In their everyday lives, in their daily pursuits, black girls across the country are rewriting their own narratives. This time, they are writing themselves as capable.
On/By Black Women/Black Girls: A Symposium at Cornell University (2017)
A dreamer with a pen.
Shayna S. Israel is a poet, educator and scholar.
(C) Copyright 2018. All rights reserved.
Photo of Mayan ruin courtesy of Freshairjunkie.com | Photos for P-20Ed and My Archive are courtesy of Pexels.com
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BOLLYWOOD GAMES
The Intouchables Movie Review
Brent Simon
Title: The Intouchables
Directors: Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano
Starring: Francois Cluzet, Omar Sy, Anne Le Ny, Audrey Fleurot, Alba Gaia Bellugi
Already an international smash, to the tune of an incredible $340 million, “The Intouchables” arrives on American shores having picked up nine Cesar Award nominations, multiple prizes at the recent COLCOA Festival in Los Angeles, and smiles and hearts in just about every territory in which it has opened. It’s easy to see why. A rich, buoyant tale about the simple act of human connection and how it makes the heart sing, co-directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s fun, witty dramedy is an unabashed crowd-pleaser, spanning languages and cultures.
Based on a true story and set in present-day France, “The Intouchables” chronicles the deepening relationship between a classic odd-ball couple. Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is a multi-millionaire handicapped from the neck down, the result of a paragliding accident that broke two of his vertebrae. Consequently, he requires round-the-clock care. Looking to fill a position and fed up with the usual caretakers, and all the pretense and pity that come along with their service, Philippe rolls the dice on Driss (Omar Sy), a Senegal-born ex-convict who initially answers a job posting just to get a signature so that he may continue collecting governmental assistance.
Kicked out of his crowded apartment home by his mother, Driss is cheeky and derisive, but possessing of a garrulous, friendly nature that can’t long leave him at odds with his new employer or the household’s other help, including maid and cook Yvonne (Anne Le Ny) and comely redhead scheduler Magalie (Audrey Fleurot). The pair are wildly different, but find a common ground in their humor, and the fact that Driss seems to frequently forget his benefactor’s condition, holding out a phone for him to answer. Taking Philippe for strolls in Paris during the midnight hour, he introduces him to marijuana, and also ditches the stodgy handicapped-enabled van for one of Philippe’s racy sports cars. Driss pushes Philippe toward the edges of his comfort zone — including finally trying to arrange an in-person meeting with a woman with whom he’s been corresponding — and learns a few life lessons from his boss as well.
Everything that is right about “The Intouchables” starts with its two wonderful leads. Sy, the Cesar Best Actor award winner, has an effusive personality, while Cluzet (who faintly recalls Dustin Hoffman in his expressive eyes and wry smiles) provides a deft, counterbalancing quiet charm in the more physically constrictive role. Their rapport is impeccable.
It helps, too, that the film treats Philippe’s condition somewhere between “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” and “The Bucket List,” which is to say with seriousness but not a grim subjectivity. It’s not necessarily terminal, his state, but while “The Intouchables” leans to the uplifting irreverence of the aforementioned, latter Morgan Freeman-Jack Nicholson boomer bait, it feels less laboriously manufactured, and a bit more honest. Yes, there it peddles a certain freedom in “letting go,” but when Driss is dressing down Philippe over the inflated price of his artwork or boredom of opera, and Driss and Philippe are exchanging musical educations via classical orchestrations and Earth Wind & Fire, it feels laced with an electric authenticity.
A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Brent Simon is a three-term president of LAFCA, a contributor to Screen International and Magill's Cinema Annual, and film editor of H Magazine. He cannot abide a world without U2 and pizza.
Exclusive: Chazz Palminteri Talks Mighty Fine, New Play Human
Men in Black 3 Movie Review
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Interview: Olivia Cooke Talks Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Karen Benardello
Naturally combining your rare sensitivity and unique worldviews, particularly as you strive to learn what it means to be selfless, is a powerful transition into truly embracing your maturity. The ability to also accept your true personal identity along the way, and eventually express it through humor, no matter what difficult obstacles you’re forced to overcome, is the powerful epitome of the contemporary coming-of-age story. That compelling exploration of learning how to stop fighting against your journey of self-discovery, and realizing that hiding from the world is futile, is passionately explored in director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s new comedy-drama, ‘Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.’ The movie’s script, which first-time feature film writer Jesse Andrews based on his popular 2013 debut novel of the same name, features actress Olivia Cooke as a teen girl who’s suffering from, and struggling to come to terms with her, leukemia. As she truly becomes friends with one of her classmates, who has always cherished the emotional distance he has placed between himself and their peers, she teaches him that you can’t spend your entire life only presenting yourself as the person you want others to see.
‘Me and Earl and the Dying Girl’ follows high school senior Greg (Thomas Mann), who has tried to avoid developing genuinely close friendships, as a survival strategy to navigate the difficult social stigmas associated with adolescence. While he has instead easily made acquaintances with his classmates, he describes the relationship with the one person who he has allowed himself to form somewhat of a true connection with, Earl (RJ Cyler), as more of an associate than a best friend. Since their childhoods, the two have bonded over making their own low-budget parodies of classic movies, including ‘Senior Citizen Kane’ and ‘A Sockwork Orange.’
But Greg’s life and perspective on friendship instantly changes when his parents (Connie Britton and Nick Offerman) tell him that one of his classmates, Rachel (Olivia Cooke), has been diagnosed with cancer. After they suggest that he spend time with her during her treatment, in an effort to make her feel better, neither Greg nor Rachel are keen on the idea. But once the two begin to spend time together, they begin to bond, especially when she begins to like his parodies. As Greg then begins his next cinematic project, which emphasizes Rachel’s struggles, he realizes that completing it is going to be harder than he originally thought, and how worthwhile the true bonds of friendship can be.
Cooke generously took the time recently to sit down for a roundtable interview to talk about starring in ‘Me and Earl and the Dying Girl’ at New York City’s Crosby Street Hotel. Among other things, the actress discussed how she was drawn to play Rachel in the comedy-drama, as it not only had the best script she has ever read, as it features dialogue that shows how teenagers really speak, but it also portrays her character as a girl who likes, and is confident in, herself; how she was grateful that she was able to speak with a teenage girl who had the same leukemia as Rachel, as it helped her better understand the emotions and motivations cancer patients of that age group experience during their treatment; and that she decided to shave her head for the film, as she was committed to the role and showcasing the physical and emotional struggles Rachel was confronting during her treatment.
Question (Q): So you have your hair back-how long did it take to grow back?
Olivia Cooke (OC): It’s taken nearly a year, and this is all I’ve got so far (referring to her short hairstyle). Hair is nice to have, and it’s bizarre to realize how important it is when it’s gone. It’s strange not to have it, especially as a woman, because a lot of times your hair is your most defining feature. So when it’s suddenly gone, you become like a baby again. It makes you stand out, and it’s a big loss of identity.
I cried when I got it cut, because what woman wouldn’t? Cutting your hair is easier for boys, because a lot of boys I know say, “Oh, I just shave it off during the summer, and grow it back during the winter.” So for me to suddenly not have hair after 20 years, especially since I had a thick head of hair, was really strange. But I only cried once, and I was really brave. (laughs)
Q: At what point did you decide that you wanted to cut your hair, instead of using a bald cap?
As a life-long fan of entertainment, particularly films, television and music, and an endless passion for writing, Karen Benardello decided to combine the two for a career. She graduated from New York's LIU Post with a B.F.A in Journalism, Print and Electronic. While still attending college, Karen began writing for Shockya during the summer of 2007, when she began writing horror movie reviews. Since she began writing for Shockya, Karen has been promoted to the position of Senior Movies & Television Editor. Some of her duties in the position include interviewing filmmakers and musicians, producing posts on celebrity news and contributing reviews on albums and concerts. Some of her highlights include attending such festivals and conventions as the Tribeca Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, SXSW, Toronto After Dark, the Boston Film Festival and New York Comic-Con.
Amy Movie Review
Self/Less Presents Some Creepy Technology in Viral Videos and a New Featurette
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This Week in SigEp Patriot History, 01 – 07 AUG
"It is only the dead who have seen the end of war." ~ Plato
World War I Veteran / OH Gamma Brother / Captain Robert Lester Tavenner, U.S. Army (Ohio State University, 1908) was commissioned a Second Lieutenant and Infantry Officer on this date, and went on to serve in France and Belgium during WWI. At OSU, Brother Tavenner was Junior Class President and Captain of the Company of Cadets.
On this date, World War I Veteran and Ace / NY Beta Brother / Major James Armand Meissner, U.S. Army Air Corps had his fifth air victory while a member of the 147th Aero Squadron while flying a SPAD XIII over Fère-en-Tardenois, France northeast of Paris.
CA Beta Brother / Ensign Gaylor Goble, U.S. Navy (University of Southern California ’45) was born on this date in Flagstaff, Arizona. Brother Goble attended USC and graduated from USC School of Dentistry in 1945. He was an Ensign in the U.S. Navy aboard the escort aircraft carrier, USS Point Cruz (CVE-119).
WV Beta Brother James Frederick Haught (West Virginia University) was born in Weston, Lewis County, West Virginia on this date. Political Graveyard stated his affiliations include the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), organizations with U.S. veterans on their role.
Brother Haught served in the West Virginia State Legislature (1959-60), and as a primary worker for the 1960 Kennedy for President Campaign in West Virginia. In addition, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum contains the transcript of an 18-page interview Brother Haught had with President Kennedy on 13 JUL 1964.
VT Beta Brother / Captain Ronald Harmon Brown, U.S. Army (Middlebury College ’62) was born on this date in Washington, DC. After his military service, Brother Brown served as the 35th Secretary of Commerce.
World War II Veteran / VA Kappa Brother / Major William Pat Jennings, U.S. Army (Virginia Polytechnic Institute ’41) died on this date in Marion, Virginia following an accident in which a tractor he was driving overturned and crushed him. His burial location is unknown.
Following his wartime service in the Europe Theater of Operations with the 29th Infantry as platoon leader, company commander, and operations officer, Brother Jennings was assigned as an instructor in ROTC at the University of Illinois before being discharged in MAY 1946 at the rank of major. William was Smyth County Sheriff from 1948-54 before being elected to the Eighty-fourth and the five succeeding Congresses (03 JAN 1955-03 JAN 1967) as the representative of Virginia’s 9th District.
The nomination of Gulf War and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM Veteran / MO Zeta Brother / General James Terry Conway, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired) (Southeast Missouri State University ’69) to become the 34th Commandant of the United States Marine Corps was confirmed by the Senate on this date.
On this date, Operation IRAQI FREEDOM Veteran / OK Beta Brother / Major Gen Darrell L. Moore, U.S. Marine Corps (University of Oklahoma ’76) completed his assignment as Commanding General, Marine Corps Mobilization Command, Kansas City, Missouri.
VA Pi Brother / Captain Robert May, U.S. Army (Christopher Newport University ’05) retired on this date.
TN Beta Brother Fred Avil Allen III, U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary (Memphis State University - now University of Memphis) passed away on this date. The location of his interment is unknown.
Fred was always proud to have earned Eagle Scout status and was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity in college, serving as treasurer.
A year ago this week, World War II Veteran / VA Epsilon Brother John Howard Lawrence, U.S. Navy (Washington & Lee ’42) died peacefully at the age of 90.
Following graduation, John joined the Navy in AUG 1942, and was present at some of most intense battles of the Pacific Theater of Operations – serving as the Gunnery Officer and later the Executive Officer on the USS LST-84 (a landing ship tank) in the amphibious invasions of Tarawa, the Marshall Islands, Saipan, Tinian and Iwo Jima. He was awarded a Navy Commendation Medal for taking charge of a shipboard fire fighting detail to battle a gasoline fire between three gun batteries on the ship, and he received a Purple Heart Medal for a wound received during a kamikaze attack at the invasion of Saipan. He later served as the Executive Officer of the USS Agenor (ARL-3), a landing craft repair ship.
We missed these great news items in July.
Heartfelt congratulations go out to CA Upsilon Brother Yannis Dracopoulos upon his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.
Brother Dracopoulos is following in the footsteps of his older brother, fellow CA Upsilon Brother / Captain Costas Dracopoulos, U.S. Air Force (California State University – San Bernardino ’05) and like Costas, Yannis will train to become a navigator. Best of luck, Yannis!
It late July, it was announced that congratulations are in order for TX Alpha Brother Robert Hicks, U.S. Navy (University of Texas ’08) on his engagement to Ms. Hadyn Jobe. Brother Hicks served as president of TX Alpha, and earned his commission upon completion of Navy officer candidate school in AUG 2010.
More recently, Robert completed Basic Underwater Demolition Training (BUD/S) for the U.S. Navy SEALs.
Brother Hicks’ wedding is scheduled for 04 SEP at Holman Ranch in Carmel, California.
If you have news, accomplishments or just want to share a story please send an email to sigepswhoserve@gmail.com.
If you are a SigEp Patriot who serves/served in the U.S. military in any capacity – including currently in ROTC – you can join more than 300 of your brothers-in-arms on Facebook by requesting to join the “SigEps Who Serve” group. Not on Facebook? Just drop an email to the address above to join nearly 100 military SigEps on the Yahoo listserve.
In either case, just let us know your basic info – military affiliation and home chapter – and any other information you feel like sharing.
SigEps Who Serve is part of the SigEp Patriots Project (SPP) – an effort to honor Brothers who serve/served our great Nation by recording and maintaining a working history in order to recognize and respect their accomplishments and sacrifices. It is an unofficial effort and no monies are collected or requested. SPP is looking for Brothers – UG or alum – that are interested in being a chapter point of contact for information about military SigEps from their specific chapter. Drop an email to sigepswhoserve@gmail.com for more details.
SPP will be at Conclave, and it will be great to see everyone – especially Brothers that serve/served.
Fraternally and Respectfully,
Ed Jones
Chief Petty Officer, U.S. Navy Reserve
NY Eta ‘96
Founder, SigEp Patriots Project
Posted by Ed Jones at 6:58 PM
Labels: Air Force, Army, CA Beta, CA Upsilon, Coast Guard, IRAQI FREEDOM, Marine Corps, Navy, OH Gamma, OK Beta, SigEp Patriots Project, TN Beta, TX Alpha, VA Epsilon, VA Kappa, VA Pi, WV Beta, WWI, WWII
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Home Ted Kaczynski
Who is Ted Kaczynski?
Ted Kaczynski was a genius child prodigy, brilliant mathematician, social critic, technophobic neo-Luddite, extreme environmentalist and murderous terrorist who was responsible for a series of bombings targeting universities and airline companies. His nickname the Unabomber originates from the FBI acronym "UNABOM" which stands for "UNiversity and Airline BOMber." (Left: The widely disseminated FBI forensic sketch of the Unabomber, by Jeanne Boylan)
Born in Chicago (Illinois), in the family of second generation Polish immigrants, Theodore John Kaczynski excelled academically from an early age. He completed high school at 15 and was accepted to Harvard University at 16. At Harvard Kaczynski participated in a CIA sponsored multi-year personality study which consisted of an extremely stressful and prolonged psychological attack during which the subject was strapped to a chair and filmed while being consistently exposed to bright lights and mirrors. According to Kaczynski's records he was emotionally stable when the study was conducted.
Kaczynski graduated from Harvard in 1962 and subsequently attended the University of Michigan. There he earned a PhD in mathematics by solving in less than a year a problem that was unsolved by one of his professors. That same professor - George Piranian, later commented by saying that "It is not enough to say he [Kaczynski] was smart." (Below: Ted Kaczynski as a young professor at Berkeley, 1968)
At 25 Kaczynski became the youngest assistant professor ever to be hired by the University of California, Berkeley, but only two years after his appointment he resigned and moved to a cabin with no running water or electricity in the wilderness of Montana.
Kaczynski's goal in Montana was to move out to a secluded area and become self-sufficient. He began learning survival skills such as tracking, edible plant identification, and the construction of primitive technologies. However, after watching the destruction of the wilderness around his cabin Ted Kaczynski realized that he could not permanently escape from industrial society and technology. It was at this moment that he decided to undertake a neo-luddite anti-technological eco-terrorist campaign which lasted from 1978 to 1995. During that period Ted Kaczynski blew up 16 bombs and was responsible for the death of three people and the injuring of 23.
In a 1995 letter to the New York Times Kaczynski promised to desist from further terrorist activities if his manifesto was published. In Industrial Society and Its Future (aka the "Unabomber Manifesto") he tried to explain, justify and popularize his militant resistance to technological progress.
The Unabomber manifesto started with the premise that:
"The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race."
Even worse was that, according Kaczynski:
"The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. [and]...advance toward its logical conclusion, which is complete control over everything on Earth, including human beings and all other important organisms."
Therefore Ted Kaczynski decided to "advocate a revolution against the industrial system. [...] This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not governments but the economic and technological basis of the present society."
In order to accomplish the above goal Kaczynski argued that two tasks need to be confronted:
"First, we must work to heighten the social stresses within the system so as to increase the likelihood that it will break down or be weakened sufficiently so that a revolution against it becomes possible. Second, it is necessary to develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology and the industrial society if and when the system becomes sufficiently weakened. And such an ideology will help to assure that, if and when industrial society breaks down, its remnants will be smashed beyond repair, so that the system cannot be reconstituted. The factories should be destroyed, technical books burned, etc."
Similarly to Samuel Butler , the source of Ted Kaczynski's technophobia was his fear that:
"... the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decision for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better result than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won't be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide."
"Imagine an alcoholic sitting with a barrel of wine in front of him. Suppose he starts saying to himself, "Wine isn't bad for you if used in moderation. Why, they say small amounts of wine are even good for you! It won't do me any harm if I take just one little drink..." Well you know what is going to happen. Never forget that the human race with technology is just like an alcoholic with a barrel of wine."
"[...]industrial society cannot be reformed... [because] modern technology is a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another. You can’t get rid of the "bad" parts of technology and retain only the "good" parts. Take modern medicine, for example. Progress in medical science depends on progress in chemistry, physics, biology, computer science and other fields. Advanced medical treatments require extensive, high tech equipment that can be made available only by a technologically progressive, economically rich society. Clearly you can't have much progress in medicine without the whole technological system and everything that goes with it."
The main issue here is: Was Ted Kaczynski just a murderous neo-luddite technophobic psychopath? Or, was he also among the first people to foresee the dangers of and act against the rise of AI, the coming Technological Singularity and the demise of humanity?
VovixLDR
The first thing we must remember, technology as the whole is not a matter of preference or as Russians say, choosing a tomtit in your hand or a crane in …
Does TK, himself, prove his manifesto's thesis? Not rated yet
What did our technology-driven industrialized culture do with the young TK? Exactly what such a culture does with any powerful tool it comes across: …
Neil Sampson Not rated yet
Is the person, Ted Kaczynski, not, after all, a conflation of a murderous neo-luddite technophobic psychopath and a person who foresees the dangers of …
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Scholarly Facts About Texting (Pro’s and Con’s)
posted by admin on Cyber Safety, Cybersafety, Internet Safety, Sexting, Texting
You probably already have a few pretty good ideas about text messaging.
For instance, you know walking while texting can be tricky, and you know texting in your college courses has a negative impact on your grades. You didn’t need a study to tell you so, but researchers went ahead and did them anyway. But not all the research done on the subject can be filed under “Obvious.”
Here are 15 scholarly facts about texting that you may not have suspected.
Getting a text makes you happier: It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to learn that receiving a text message from a close friend makes you happier, but now we have the research to confirm it. Berkeley psychologists found even sending a text message makes people feel more connected and causes an upswing in mood.
Hypertexters are less healthy: Texting may make you happier, but those who do it too much seem prone to unhealthy habits. Case Western Reserve School of Medicine concluded a study in 2010 that found “hypertexting” — sending more than 120 messages a day — can “have dangerous health effects on teenagers.” Hypertexters were found to be more likely to engage in harmful behaviors like binge drinking (43% more likely) and drug use (41% more likely).
Texting behind the wheel is even riskier than we thought: Few things are as distracting to a motorist as trying to read or send a text message. Researchers at Texas A&M University’s Texas Transportation Institute now say, based on their study, that texting while driving double’s a driver’s reaction time. In the test, drivers using their phones were 11 times more likely to miss a flashing traffic light than focused drivers.
Texting while driving killed 16,000 in a six-year period: Exactly measuring the number of traffic deaths caused by texting is impossible, but researchers from the University of North Texas Health Science Center have put the number at 16,000 between 2001 and 2007. Their findings were compiled based on information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and were published in the American Journal of Public Health. They estimated that in 2008 alone, 5,870 people died as a result of drivers distracted by texting.
Texters use fewer abbreviations than we thought: Three universities are currently partnering to determine whether it’s true that cell phone communication is really ruining the way we write. The study began in December 2011, and head researcher Christian Guilbault of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia says the research has already revealed some interesting info. It turns out people don’t resort to shorthand as often as we might think. “See you” is used four times as often as “C U,” and of 12 variations of the word “OK,” “okay” is the most common.
Black people send the most text messages: The Nielsen Company looked at monthly cell phone bills of 60,000 users in the U.S. and determined that African-Americans send more texts than Hispanics, whites, and Asian-Americans. The 790 text messages they send per month, on average, is more than twice the amount sent by Asian-Americans, who send an average of 384 per month.
Texting helps HIV sufferers take their meds: A study that recently appeared in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews found that sending HIV patients weekly text messages to remind them to take medicine and to ask them how they are doing can help them stick to their antiretroviral therapy treatment plans. Researchers at UC-San Francisco’s Global Health Sciences recommend hospitals text patients on the treatment, which has tough side effects, but is also critical to survival.
Texters don’t believe that’s a word: Blame it on autocorrect. A University of Calgary student did a study of texters and word usage, expecting to find that texting encouraged “unrestrained language.” Instead, the results showed people who text more are more likely to reject new words rather than accepting them as possible words. The people who were more open to a range of new words were readers of traditional media like magazines and books.
Texting makes it easier to lie: The Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia recently published the results of their study that paired students playing roles of stockbroker and buyer, with the stockbroker needing to unload a stock that will soon lose 50% of its value. Deals done via texting were 31% more likely to involve lies than those by face-to-face talks. And buyers who were lied to via text proved to be much angrier than buyers lied to in person.
Many people are addicted to texting: Researchers at the University of Maryland studied 200 students after 24 hours of no texting or other media. They found many of them were basically experiencing withdrawal, anxiety, and difficulty functioning. Dr. David Greenfield of the Center for Internet Behavior has compared constant texting and checking email to gambling addiction.
Most people still prefer a phone call: Nearly three-fourths of American adults text. However, while 31% say they prefer to be contacted by text message, fully half of adults still prefer a good old phone call. The findings were the result of a study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, the first such time the group has polled Americans’ on their contact method of choice.
Banning texting while driving is not the answer: At least one group of researchers is making a case against laws banning texting while driving. Researchers at the Swedish National Road and Transport Institute found that driver education is more effective than a ban, partly because people would disobey a law and partly because hands-free devices meant to replace texting as a safer alternative do not actually lower crash figures.
Female teens text the most: Perhaps the only surprising thing here is that it’s older teenage girls, not pre-teen girls, who send the most texts of any group. Girls 14-17 send a median of 100 texts a day. Pew’s Internet and American Life Project also discovered that 87% of all teens in this age group have a cell phone, while only 57% of 12- and 13-year-olds have one.
Texting has spawned its own injury: Texting is convenient, but it could also be a pain in the neck. Dr. Dean Fishman has trademarked the phrase “text neck” to describe an ailment he is seeing conflicting more and more patients. He even started the Text Neck Institute in Florida to treat pain in the neck, back, arms, and shoulders of frequent texters. “Forward head posture” pain, his original diagnosis, did not catch on.
Predictive texting changes children’s brains: Using the built-in dictionary when texting on a cell phone makes children prone to making more mistakes. An epidemiologist from Monash University in Melbourne studied children ages 11-14 who sent 20 texts a week and found that the autocorrect technology makes children more impulsive and less accurate in their learning.
Join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter for more information and educational articles on parenting today’s teenagers.
Tags: Cell phone safety, Cybersafety, Internet Safety, Sexting, Texting
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For our TW testers, this new version is not as comfortable as the DR: it is much firmer, especially on the upper part. On the positive side, the majority of the team was able to play effectively thanks to the EZONE 98 (305 g). Although it poses a bit of a control problem, this racquet offers more power and spin than the previous version, making it more dangerous on powerful hits.
Well, hopefully, this article has helped you learn more about tennis racquets than you knew before you started reading it. Tennis racquets and the technology behind them really are much more complicated than most people think. If you use the information we provided you here in the right way it will really help you very much when you go to purchase your new tennis racquet. It helps you to be well informed when you are trying to find the best tennis racquet for you.
Head is another really fine tennis equipment manufacturer that has added a quality tennis racquet onto our top review list. It was designed with a lot of input from Tennis Star Novak Djokovic. It is the type of racquet that will help you perform well no matter what type of tennis surface you are playing on because it is lightweight, firm and uses advanced string technology.
In August 2007 the ATP announced major changes to the tour that were introduced in 2009. The Masters Series was renamed to the "Masters 1000", the addition of the number 1000 referring to the number of ranking points earned by the winner of each tournament. Contrary to earlier plans, the number of tournaments was not reduced from nine to eight and the Monte Carlo Masters remains part of the series although, unlike the other events, it does not have a mandatory player commitment. The Hamburg Masters has been downgraded to a 500-point event. The Madrid Masters moved to May and onto clay courts, and a new tournament in Shanghai took over Madrid's former indoor October slot. As of 2011 six of the nine "1000" level tournaments are combined ATP and WTA events.[89]
The alternation of service between games continues throughout the match without regard to sets, but the ends are changed after each odd game within a set (including the last game). If, for example, the second set of a match ends with the score at 6–3, 1–6, the ends are changed as the last game played was the 7th (odd) game of the set and in spite of it being the 16th (even) game of the match. Even when a set ends with an odd game, ends are again changed after the first game of the following set. A tiebreaker game is treated as a single game for the purposes of this alternation. Since tiebreakers always result in a score of 7–6, there is always a court change after the tiebreaker.
Then Kirill, to mix things up, lobbed one over my head. Move, think: I turned sideways, began running back using a crossover step, stopped, pointed up with my free right hand toward the descending ball, brought my racket back over my shoulder, contacted the ball with a wrist snap — and watched my overhead smash hook, decidedly, a long yard off the court.
A game consists of a sequence of points played with the same player serving, and is won by the first side to have won at least four points with a margin of two points or more over their opponent. Normally the server's score is always called first and the receiver's score second. Score calling in tennis is unusual in that (except in tie-breaks) each point has a corresponding call that is different from its point value. The current point score is announced orally before each point by the judge, or by the server if there is no judge.
So, as you now know, learning to serve is essential as you learn to play tennis. Here’s how (for right-handed players — left-handed players should reverse the directions): Stand with both feet behind the baseline. Assume a sideways stance with your left foot pointed towards the right hand net post. Hold the ball in your left hand. Raise your left hand throwing the ball upwards about one foot in front of your left foot and about eighteen inches above your reach. While the ball in the air, move your racket back and up. Hit the ball at full stretch, with your racket arm straight, at the highest point possible. You are switching the weight of your body from your back foot to your front foot to give added strength to your shot.
An alternative tie-break system called the "Coman Tie-Break" is sometimes used by the United States Tennis Association. Scoring is the same, but end changes take place after the first point and then after every four points. This approach allows the servers of doubles teams to continue serving from the same end of the court as during the body of the set. It also reduces the advantage the elements (e.g. wind and sun) could give playing the first six points of a seven-point tiebreak on one side of the court.
In order to access some of the services, applications or sweepstakes offered by the USTA, you may be required to register and/or provide personal information, such as name, email, telephone number and birthdate (“Registration Data”). Although information may be required to participate in certain activities or promotions, participants provide that information voluntarily. The USTA adheres to strict data management protocols. Those protocols vary based on the category of participation with USTA.
Hello my name is Paolo Losno, I've been a full time tennis coach for the last 6 years. I work with all age groups as well as level of play. I played tennis during high school for and at the university level, am certified with a Professional level of coaching from the PTR, USTA and the USPTA. Have been working the after school tennis programs at various elementary schools during the past 2 years as well as worked with competitive junior players as of late. ... View Profile
One thing all test players could quickly agree on: The Burn FST 99 can be swung very fast. With all shots the club could be swung and maneuvered extremely fast. This way, we always got the club into the optimum stroke position, even with fast rallies. The comfort is also surprisingly high, considering that the racquet with a frame hardness of 72RA is actually rather hard. The relatively thin frame of the racquet made it possible for the racquet to give way in exactly the right places and thus to cushion the impact well when hitting the ball.
Try a backhand stroke. The backhand is one of the easiest strokes to master. Grip the racquet with both hands and hold it out to the side. It should look similar to a baseball player at bat. When the ball approaches, hit it hard at a slight upward angle. This stroke hits the ball hard and is a great way to be sure that your ball will get into the service area.[9]
Pitchfork writer Lindsay Zoladz applauded the song's narrative for "exposing irony and even hypocrisy without coming off as preachy or moralistic".[50] On behalf of Consequence of Sound, Jon Hadusek selected the song as an "essential" track of Pure Heroine regarding its narrative lyrics portraying Lorde's songwriting that was "beyond her years".[46] Time Out editor Nick Levine similarly lauded Lorde's "compelling" songwriting ability despite her young age at the time and praised the song's composition as "glorious".[45] AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine and The Independent's Andy Gill also picked "Tennis Court" as a standout track of Pure Heroine,[51][52] while John Murphy from musicOMH complimented the track as "impossible not to sing along to".[53] In a less enthusiastic review, Evan Sawdey of PopMatters considered the song a "drawback" that does not "[suit] her well".[54]
During informal play of tennis, especially at tennis clubs in the U.S. (also in other English speaking countries), score announcements are frequently shortened with the use of abbreviations. For example, a score 15 is replaced with "five", or in some cases "fif". "Love" is often substituted to indicate "zero". Similarly, the scores of 30 and 40 may sometimes be spoken as "three" or "four" respectively. A score of 15-all may sometimes be announced as "fives." To further confuse score announcements, a score of 30-all (30–30) may often be called "deuce", and the following point referred to as "ad in" or "ad out" (or "my ad" or "your ad"), depending on which player (or team) won the point. The logic for this is that a 30-all score is effectively the same as deuce (40–40).[34]
A popular alternative to advantage scoring is "no-advantage" (or "no-ad") scoring, created by James Van Alen in order to shorten match playing time.[12] No-advantage scoring is a scoring method in which the first player to reach four points wins the game. No-ad scoring eliminates the requirement that a player must win by two points. Therefore, if the game is tied at deuce, the next player to win a point wins the game. This method of scoring is used in most World TeamTennis matches.[13][14] When this style of play is implemented, at deuce, the receiver then chooses from which side of the court he or she desires to return the serve. However, in no-ad mixed doubles play gender always serves to the same gender at game point and during the final point of tiebreaks.[15]
Any information or materials you transmit, upload or otherwise submit to any USTA Family of Companies site (including, without limitation, comments, reviews, postings to chat, email messages or materials directed to any Forum, as the term is defined below) or any creative suggestions, ideas, notes, drawings, concepts or other information sent to the USTA via our Web site, through any USTA social media page, app or other means of transmission or delivery, shall be collectively referred to as "Submissions." If you transmit or otherwise deliver Submissions to the USTA Family of Companies, you grant the USTA Family of Companies a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable (or the longest period permitted under law) license (with the right to sublicense and assign) to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and display, transmit, make, sell, create derivative works from and distribute such Submissions or incorporate such Submissions into other works in any form or medium and through any means or modes of distribution or technology now known or hereafter developed. You hereby agree and represent to the USTA Family of Companies that you own or have been granted the necessary intellectual property and other rights in the Submissions (including, without limitation, a waiver of any applicable moral rights) to grant such license to the USTA Family of Companies, that no such Submissions are, or shall be, subject to any obligation of confidence on the part of the USTA Family of Companies and that the USTA Family of Companies shall not be liable for any use or disclosure of any Submissions. Without limitation of the foregoing, the USTA Family of Companies shall be entitled to unrestricted use of the Submissions for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation to the provider of the Submissions. You agree that no Submission made by you will contain libelous, abusive, obscene or otherwise unlawful material and you acknowledge and agree that you are exclusively liable for the content of any Submission made by you.
You have my dad and brother’s name! Yes, I agree that tennis becomes very technical. I have also struggled with being too technique oriented with my kids. Thanks to Tomaz, I have used feel and imitation a lot more. I think many people in the US are plagued with the notion that faster is better. There is this sense that children should grow up faster and that learning more earlier is better. This turns into the mentality of winning now is better than playing as well as you can later. The two-handed backhand is an example of this. A younger player is much more likely to win with a two-handed backhand at a younger age. The one-hander is very difficult to learn and requires strength and very good footwork. But as I told a local pro I think there is also a downside. By using two forehands it allows people to “cheat” on both sides. My son recently switched to a one-hander just before turning thirteen. It’s hard but he now realizes how important footwork is and his forehand has gotten better because the steps he uses for his backhand have transferred to his forehand. But he is like an alien. He faces almost no other one-handed backhands in competition. So yes, tennis teaching becomes technical because the adult (pros) forget how to think like kids. They also tend to want success fast. Europeans seem to take a longer view. Maybe because their cultures are much older than the American culture.
To put it straight: With the Textreme Warrior series, Prince has achieved a truly impressive combination of power and control. All rackets in this series are really fun and can also be played at higher speeds. When the speed increases, it is the very good spin potential of these rackets that helps. Because otherwise our test players tended to overpower quickly
Kolkmann stresses the importance of taking no shortcuts during the preparation phases. "For our courts, we require at least a 10-inch stone base over a geotextile fabric. We use 6 to 8 inches of clear stone [screened and washed limestone used as a drainage medium] and then a 2- to 4-inch lift of 3/4-inch minus stone. The entire court is surrounded by 4-inch drain tile to reduce the amount of surface and subsurface water that gets under a court. The lift of clear stone also allows the water to drain under the court much faster, should any get underneath. All the stone is laser-graded to the correct slope."
Very simply, find yourself a certified and reputable teaching professional (“pro”) and take a handful or dozen lessons over the course of a few weeks to jump-start the learning process and help you retain and apply the instructors teachings. Don’t be surprised or alarmed if the pro has you doing some things that feel awkward, or asks you to change the way you’ve been doing things before. He or she may have you doing certain exercises or “drills” that are designed to develop specific skills that, to you, may seem impractical or odd, but which actually work. Be patient, be alert, be attentive, Listen and apply as much as you can. Finally, come prepared to each lesson by having practiced at least once or twice since the previous lesson, and bring water and a towel, sunglasses, sunscreen and a cap to prevent sunburn and heat exhaustion.
Here is another racquet on our list from the very good tennis racquet manufacturer Babolat. Rest assured that any company that puts more than one tennis racquet on our top review list is a company that knows how to build tennis racquets the right way. This racquet is comfortable to use, helps you control the ball when you strike it and also will add a little power to your game.
The referee, who is usually located off the court, is the final authority about tennis rules. When called to the court by a player or team captain, the referee may overrule the umpire's decision if the tennis rules were violated (question of law) but may not change the umpire's decision on a question of fact. If, however, the referee is on the court during play, the referee may overrule the umpire's decision (This would only happen in Davis Cup or Fed Cup matches, not at the World Group level, when a chair umpire from a non-neutral country is in the chair).[59]
"Tennis Court" was played during the 2013 Wimbledon Championships – Women's Singles Final by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).[88] "Tennis Court" was remixed by Australian musician Flume in 2014.[89] In July 2014 American producer Diplo released his version, titled the Diplo's Andre Agassi Reebok Pump Mix.[90] In 2014, "Tennis Court" was featured in the soundtrack of the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows versions of Grand Theft Auto V.[91]
First of all I want to let you know how much I enjoy your web page. Great job. Secondly I want to talk about your thoughts on the “perfect technique.” In your Roger Federer video you show how he uses a lot of different stances, not stepping through and things like that and is able to still make great shots. Then you also mention that the way he swings the racquet at contact in all of these examples is why he plays so good. In my opinion it IS because he has practiced the “perfect technique” so much that when he is put into those difficult situations he is able to bring the racquet through the ball the correct way all the time. Because regardless of what your body does your arm still has to produce the shot. All the other stuff like tack back, follow through and stepping through are just helpers to be more consistent. The way I teach my students is to “never change your stroke through the ball no matter how out of position you get.” Can you do this 100% of the time? No, but when you make THAT effort you will be amazed at how well it improves their footwork effort.
Wheelchair tennis can be played by able-bodied players as well as people who require a wheelchair for mobility. An extra bounce is permitted. This rule makes it possible to have mixed wheelchair and able-bodied matches. It is possible for a doubles team to consist of a wheelchair player and an able-bodied player (referred to as "one-up, one-down"), or for a wheelchair player to play against an able-bodied player. In such cases, the extra bounce is permitted for the wheelchair users only.
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Category Archives: Montréal on Film
A modest proposal, Commentary, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Montréal Landmarks, Montréal on Film, Perspectives on the City, Scenes from the City, Worth reconsidering
Snowdon Theatre Fire, The Lowest Point & Social Media
Still frame from Snapchat of the Snowdon Theatre Fire – posted to mtlurb
Generally speaking, I’m a fan of urban exploration.
However, there’s a few golden rules we should all keep in mind when it comes to exploring the secret and unseen parts of the city: don’t leave any trace behind, don’t hurt yourself, don’t inconvenience others, and above all else, don’t negatively impact the place you’re exploring.
Say, as an example, by starting a fire that may threaten a vintage theatre and the residents of the adjacent apartment complex.
But if you are so inclined to start a fire in an abandoned building, for the love of all that is good and holy, please share a video or photographs of your illegal deeds on social media, so you can be found and eventually prosecuted.
At this point you may be asking; “but who on Earth would be so foolish to do such a thing?”
The answer: teenagers. Boneheaded teenagers. And apparently some hotshot young videographers as well.
In an astounding coincidence, on the very same day that photographs, like the one above, emerged online of several teenagers apparently starting a fire on the second floor of the abandoned Snowdon Theatre, this video of several people galavanting through the Métro tunnels was posted to YouTube and widely distributed on local social media networks.
Montreal police are now both searching for the teens suspected of starting the fire and have opened an investigation into how the Métro tunnels (and trains) were accessed by the creators of ‘Lowest Point in Montreal’.
In the latter case, the film crew accessed one tunnel while the Métro was still in operation, and then proceeded to make their way into the rear conductor’s cabin of an operational train, locking the door when accosted by an STM employee. As La Presse notes, there’s a safety issue inasmuch as there’s a security issue. It was just last week that Daesh sympathizers detonated bombs in a Brussels Métro station; the film crew in the ‘Lowest Point’ video had access to Métro controls, the track, and service tunnels and the various equipment kept in those tunnels. My guess is they were probably down in the tunnels for more than hour, and evaded STM security throughout.
Unless of course these are off duty and out of uniform STM employees who happen to be urban exploration enthusiasts; that would be one of those ‘everything worked out better than expected’ conclusions I don’t think is terribly likely.
I’m torn, really. I feel creeping adulthood and my gut says “don’t go exploring Métro tunnels”, especially not when the trains are actually in operation. It’s immensely dangerous, not to mention inconvenient for thousands or tens of thousands of people who may be affected by a temporary line closure. I think the code ‘900-02’ announces a suspected infiltration of the tunnels; if either an STM employee or the system’s CCTV system suspects there’s someone in the tunnels, they have to call it in, close it down and investigate.
So while I find this video intriguing and interesting, I can’t in good conscience recommend others do the same. The risk is far too great.
That said, the STM could probably make some coin offering after-hours behind-the-scenes tours of the city’s transit infrastructure. I would pay good money to get a guided walking tour of the Orange Line, and am certain many others would too.
It’s remarkable to me that two different groups of people, in the same city and at essentially the same time, both recorded acts of trespassing and other illegal activities and then posted it to social media, seemingly oblivious the video or photo evidence could be used against them.
Kristian Gravenor has weighed-in on the Snowdon’s fire, but places the blame for the building’s slow demise ultimately on the city and borough government. In his opinion, neither have been proactive with regards to saving this building, and he suspects the borough will now announce it can’t be saved, and that as such it ought to be razed to fast-track new construction.
Gravenor insinuates that there’s “…a conscious or subconscious will to eradicate this beautiful Art Deco building and what it symbolically represents.”
I would like to hope he’s wrong, and that this is simply a matter of local government lacking in vision and hoping for ‘free market’ solutions to solve problems that clearly fall within the public domain.
But when you consider that the Snowdon is the latest in an unfortunately long list of landmark Montreal theatres abandoned to ignoble fates without even an iota of effort by municipal officials to save them, it makes you wonder. This isn’t a new problem, it dates back forty years to the destruction of the Capitol Theatre, arguably the grandest of them all. More recently, the Seville and York were pulled down (to build condos and a university pavilion, respectfully), while the Snowdon, Cartier and most importantly, the Empress, lie abandoned and in ruin (and there are maybe a dozen more scattered elsewhere about the city).
In a city known for its nightlife, live entertainment and general cultural engagement, why is it very nearly impossible to renovate and rehabilitate old theatres and make them useful elements of the community at large?
MétroMontréalMontréal LandmarksMontréal TheatresMontreal PoliceSnowdon TheatreSnowdon Theatre FireSocial MediaSTMUrban Exploration
A modest proposal, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Montréal on Film, Perspectives on the City
Montreal’s Impossible Car Chase
March 18, 2015 Taylor C. Noakes Leave a comment
Blazing Magnum (1976) 1971 Ford Mustang VS… by Z-cinema
Found this clip on Reddit Montreal.
It’s a car chase scene from an Italian detective/crime flick from 1976 called ‘Shadows in an Empty Room‘.
It’s not quite Bullitt but not bad either.
There are a few ‘goofs’ in this sequence, namely that the car chase route is completely impossible (i.e. turning from Bleury onto René-Lévesque, then winding up in NDG and then the Turcot Yards). According to IMDB you can also spy a cop walking into a sex shop and can further spy a truck advertising Cinévision, one of the companies involved in the production (not exactly goofs per se, the latter a clumsy attempt at product placement).
I’d love it if someone could throw together a sketch of what route the cars took based off the clip above, just to further demonstrate the convoluted nature, but also to see what aspects the cinematographer wanted included.
And that said, we need more car chase scenes filmed on the mean streets of Montreal. As much as I want to get cars off our city streets, this is an exciting city to drive in and car chases seem to make our roads look somewhat more decent and less congested than they actually are.
1976car chasesCinema of MontrealMontréal on Film
History and Culture, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Montréal on Film, Perspectives on the City, Political commentary, Scenes from the City, Social commentary
Operation Gamescan 76
March 4, 2015 Taylor C. Noakes Leave a comment
Operation Gamescan 76 by Michael Brun, National Film Board of Canada
Operation Gamescan 76.
Roll that around on your tongue for a moment.
It was a thing. It happened here.
And if you find the name as intriguing as I do, you’re in luck. Operation Gamescan 76 is damned fascinating, especially when you consider it within the context of how we do large scale security operations nowadays, not to mention the actual capabilities of our current military. I say this because I believe Gamescan 76 was a demonstration of a high water mark attained by the Canadian military, at a time many today think it was ill equipped and purposeless.
And if you don’t give a damn about military propaganda, that’s fine too. It’s not exactly a propaganda piece to begin with. If you like archival footage of Montreal in the ‘good old days’ of the mid-1970s, then this video’s for you. The city looked good that summer.
But on to the issue at hand – what was Gamescan 76?
Simply put, during the 1976 Summer Olympics and for several months before it, this city of Montreal was a veritable fortress or modern citadel.
16,000 personnel were deployed just to Montreal and the affiliated sites of the Olympic Games, providing not only security, but communications, logistics, medical and even protocol services for the Olympics. They had combat fighter aircraft at their immediate disposal, in addition to various transports and surveillance aircraft, not to mention a considerable number of helicopters. Several large warships were deployed to provide additional support and elements of the Airborne Regiment, precursor to today’s JTF-2 and Canadian Special Operations Regiment, were on standby, ready to rappel or parachute into anywhere in and around Montreal in a moment’s notice.
Operation Gamescan 76 was and likely still is the single largest peacetime Canadian military operation, ever. What’s particularly interesting to me is that it was done without withdrawing forces deployed in West Germany (Canada had a mechanized brigade deployed in support of NATO, supported by its own air wing and occupying two bases at the time, representing about 5,000 personnel), the Sinai, Golan Heights or Cyprus (three large peacekeeping deployments we were involved in at the time, representing several thousand more troops and their equipment). At the time the bulk of our local air force was operating in support of NORAD and most of our Navy was Atlantic-centric and almost exclusively focused on hunting Soviet submarines. And yet despite this absolutely massive deployment of Canadian Forces personnel and major equipment assets, we could still manage to pull together 16,000 military personnel and provide them all the equipment they needed to ensure Canada’s first Olympic Games would not suffer the same fate as Munich four years earlier.
Munich. The brutal murder of Israeli athletes by masked terrorists, captured live by television cameras and broadcast into tranquil living rooms the world over. What was supposed to be a triumph for liberal, reformed post-war West Germany became a spectacle so tragic and awful some commentators honestly thought the Olympics as an institution would crumble. Who would risk hosting a Games if terrorists could slaughter athletes on the six o’clock news? Who would pay for the security that would be required to prevent such a thing from happening again, who had the expertise to handle such an immense project scope, and who could be reasonably expected to deliver on all fronts?
It was obvious at the time that the Canadian Forces would take on the job so as not to overburden local law enforcement, leaving the bulk of the Montreal police and Sureté du Québec to focus on their day to day affairs.
The military would secure the city, the island, the key nodes of transport, command and communications, and most importantly the Olympic Park and its affiliated sites. The out of town troops took up residence in public schools closed for the summer, the depot at Longue Pointe housed all Games-related equipment and was humming along twenty-four hours a day. The military was deployed to all the airports in the region at that time (there were five by my count, including Mirabel, Dorval, St. Hubert, the Victoria STOLport and the old Cartierville airport, the latter two no longer exist), and patrolled the highways and port as well. Throughout the documentary I marvelled at the fact that the overwhelming bulk of work was carried out by soldiers armed only with walkie-talkies, binoculars and metal detectors.
We had several thousand people employed to literally ‘keep an eye on things’, and several thousand more coordinating and communicating everything they saw.
What really strikes me is how few guns you see in this documentary. When you do see Canadian soldiers well equipped with the latest fighting gear, it’s principally when deployed abroad. Throughout the doc the Canadian Forces look pretty geeky – it seems as though the bulk of the security apparatus in 1976 were lanky young men in their late teens or early twenties, in their dress uniforms (no camouflage), without any prominently displayed guns or offensive fighting equipment.
In other words, it was discrete. Subtle security. The documentary points this out several times.
Quite a contrast to security at the most recent Canadian Olympiad. Fewer than 5,000 Canadian Forces were deployed to two sites at the 2010 Vancouver Games, backed up by 5,000 law enforcement and about the same number of private security contractors. Security was armed, armoured and obvious. I would argue the collective whole of modern public security is menacing and invasive, and based on the video evidence offered here, it seems efforts were made to make the military look and behave truly as an aid to the civil power. It seems that they were keen to demonstrate the military being used differently, and to not offend the public by appearing overly menacing. The images of armed soldiers patrolling city streets during the October Crisis were still quite fresh in people’s collective memory.
So what we have here is archival footage of how they struck a balance. Yes, a massive amount of Canadian military strength was available and operational in Montreal at the time, controlling a security, communications and logistics operation of epic proportions we’d have trouble, I’d argue, doing again today. It just wasn’t particularly intrusive given its size.
It was the era of less is more I suppose. Government didn’t want images of men with rifles in newspapers or on television. Today the opposite is true; remember the G8/G20 Summit in Toronto? That would have been unfathomable in any Canadian city in 1976.
Today our government wants to empower a formerly outward facing spy agency to turn inwards with all the power of your local police force, and quite possibly make dissent a crime worthy of prosecution. Protesting may be considered terrorism, for your security (as the mitten-wearing class in Ottawa tells us day after day – limitations to our freedoms and liberties are always being done for our security…)
Forty years ago the military could provide security with binoculars and radios. Today the police has become militarized while the military and the state’s intelligence services are being used for police purposes. We are told constantly that we are not secure, not safe, and that an attack is eminent. We are even told that recent attacks in Ottawa and Saint Jean sur Richelieu were terrorist attacks, though the culprits in both cases had no ties to international terrorism and both were known to have suffered from severe mental illness.
In 1976 government spent no amount of time trying to convince the people we were threatened by terrorism. They spent their time coming up with films like this to show the discrete and sophisticated ways by which they assisted in actually providing high level security to the nation’s gleaming metropolis.
As I mentioned above I find this film infinitely fascinating, at least in part because it seems to be evidence of a far better use of government resources to achieve a superior end result.
And it wasn’t even that long ago either… how far have we let things go since then?
1976 Summer OlympicsBill C-51Canadian ForcesGamescan 76Montréal HistoryMontreal HistoryPublic security
Cultural commentary, History and Culture, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Montréal on Film, Perspectives on the City, Scenes from the City, Urban Redevelopment, Video
Montreal – Horizon 2000
June 10, 2013 Taylor C. Noakes Leave a comment
Fascinating clip I found on the YouTubes called Montréal Horizon 2000. Its a promo piece for the 1967 City of Montreal Master Plan, otherwise branded as ‘Horizon 2000’. Put together by the city’s planning department, this film, and the plan from which it is derived, plots the development of the city from the Summer of Love to the dawn of a new century. At the height of Expomania, as one might imagine, the plan was bold and ahead of its time. That said, after watching this clip you’ll realize much of the plan would end up getting realized anyway, though perhaps to not as large of a scale and not always to our collective advantage (spoiler alert – they figured our highways would be over-saturated, quel surprise).
The plan clearly has one major goal in mind – population growth, with a targeted population of seven million souls by century’s end. Mayor Jean Drapeau and Chair of the Executive Committee Lucien Saulnier were elected into office in 1960 largely on a ‘one island, one city’ platform and during his time in office the communities of Saraguay, Rivières-des-Prairies, Saint-Michel and Pointe-aux-Trembles were voluntarily annexed into the city of Montréal. Horizon 2000 points to a future city that would occupy all of the island, inasmuch as the South Shore and Laval, with economic influence and a commuter zone stretching towards the borders. A city of seven million in thirty-three years, starting from almost three million in Greater Montreal at the time.
They estimated thirty some-odd years to more than double in size.
They were optimistic, but on the whole the vision and plan of the Drapeau administration (and it’s insufferably uninspired quasi-extension under Bourque) at the very least realized growth through annexation. Though we now know forcing annexation on independent communities through provincial government initiative is extremely unpopular, it shouldn’t prevent the city of Montreal from pursuing voluntary annexation now or in the future. The thinking goes that over time, the larger tax pool of a larger city (and the efficiencies that would come with service standardization and streamlining throughout the metropole) would permit the city to offer better bang for the collective buck. It seems clear to me Horizon 2000 looks forward to the annexation of bedroom communities and commuter suburbs to enrich the public purse, redistribute zoning for maximum economic impact and operational efficiency, and further still to ensure the city on the whole maintains a diverse and balanced local ecology. And their boldness vis-a-vis annexation might be explained by the view that the suburbs were mere extensions of the city made possible by the city’s investment in local transit and traffic infrastructure.
Suffice it to say, the city planners of Montreal in 1967 may not have anticipated much if any opposition to the growth of Montreal at the expense of the political sovereignty of the tiny farming villages that constituted the rural belt around the city. I assume they figured few in the year 2000 would be going around calling themselves a Lavalois or Pierrefondsienne.
The plan anticipates a wide variety of issues and considerations a much larger city would doubtless have to contend with. Congestion, environmental degradation, access to public education, health, social and civic services, representative democracy, sustainable economic growth and general viability were all primary concerns for the authors of Horizon 2000, who seem to anticipate a larger city-proper might actually have the financial means to properly address and triumph over these problems.
Despite the various socio-political factors which stalled our growth and development, the city grew in some of the ways anticipated by Horizon 2000 (meaning, to me at least, that it’s worth re-investigating this plan in particular should we ever got our act together to build a bigger and more significant city).
Unfortunately we’re starting to occupy as much space as was once deemed large enough to hold twice our number. Suburban sprawl is one problem, but a larger problem might be our inability to increase density in extant suburban areas. We occupy an inordinate amount of space.
While we’ve managed to develop an enviable public transit service, it’s far from the elegant and sophisticated ‘grand social equalizer’ envisioned for a more egalitarian future. While comprehensive, what we have isn’t nearly as large as the system that was conceptualized to move so many more people (and as you might suspect they expected much larger Métro and commuter-train systems as a matter of fact necessity), further expecting the highway system they were designing at that time to be as over-loaded as it is today.
In any case, take a gander, seems interesting enough.
It makes me wonder what kind of master plan we have today. The nearest example I can find is the Montreal 2025 plan (which for some -cough- inexplicable reason default opens to its English-language page), but this is nowhere near as bold or as driven as Horizon 2000.
Sure it’s aesthetically more appealing to most (especially when you compare 3D renderings to the grainy 60s modern film styles of the video above) but unlike Horizon 2000 (an actual plan which was pursued despite some major and unforeseen economic problems), Montreal 2025 is little more than a list of private residential and commercial projects and provincial or federal development initiatives. The city doesn’t have a reason or a goal, even such a simple goal of becoming a bigger city.
Food for thought – does this city have a project? If not, why not? And why don’t our apparent leaders share their visions with us?
In a video like the one above you see an example of a city that respects itself and takes itself seriously (this would have been expensive in the late 1960s, and keep in mind this is just a promo piece for the actual written plan). It confronts the big problems that can come about with big dreams in a straightforward manner, and further still it suggests confidence in our ability to overcome the difficulties of growth to produce an world city sans pareil. Montreal 2025 is hardly such a plan.
It occurs to me that too few of those who have thrown their name into the ring to run for mayor – as though it were nothing more than a popularity contest – have any idea what this city’s goals ought to be, and worse still would be loathe to spell anything out concretely for fear they can’t meet their commitments. None of the popstar candidates whose names have been batted about have a plan at hand.
It wasn’t too long ago this would have been considered the bare minimum. Perhaps our standards have fallen.
Canadian Centre for ArchitectureHorizon 2000Montréal on FilmThe 60s: Montreal Thinks BigUrban Planning in Montréal
Cultural commentary, History and Culture, Montréal Architecture, Montréal Landmarks, Montréal on Film, Perspectives on the City, Scenes from the City, Urban Redevelopment
Les amoureux de Montréal – the city at 350
May 15, 2013 Taylor C. Noakes 1 Comment
Les amoureux de Montréal by Jacques Giraldeau, National Film Board of Canada
Stumbled upon this fascinating documentary about Montreal, released by the NFB in 1992.
It explores what seems to be a favoured theme amongst local documentarians – the city in a state of transition.
1992 was one of those years – an anniversary year, the city’s 350th. The city had been remodelling itself in preparation for the anniversary for the preceding six years, largely under the direction of the Doré administration.
The emphasis was principally on city beautification, though two iconic skyscrapers – 1250 René-Lévesque Ouest and 1000 de la Gauchetière – would join the skyline, completing a broader effort to increase class-A office real-estate in the city (the redevelopment of McGill College and the Montreal World Trade Centre occurred at roughly the same time). There are some excellent shots of the towers going up.
This is also the time the Biodome and Biosphere came to be, new parks and public spaces were created, museums expanded etc. The film seems to switch back and forth between optimism for what the future might hold and a somber reflection on an apparent loss of status. The film presents reflections on the city as love letters.
It can be ironic in hindsight, albeit understandably so given the context of the city at that time. Early on the narrator bemoans the ‘loss of port and rail, the over-reliance on cars and how we’ve fallen behind in public transit’.
Today we would see things a bit differently – 1992 was 21 years ago after all, and times and attitudes really do change. Today’s public transit network is fairly sophisticated and broader than it was back then. We’re still over-reliant on cars but at the very least urban depopulation may have been somewhat successfully cut back. As to the port, well it moved further east, out of sight but hardly out of mind. And we’re still the rail king of North American cities, not to mention the interaction between these elements of our infrastructure maintains our position as a leader in transportation.
This film is heavy on design and architecture in a way that reminds me of what seemed to be a trend from the era. I remember a host of books published at the time, not to mention the recent arrival of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, and all of it coming together in a kind of architectural reawakening, as though the citizens saw the gems that lay before them for the first time.
Like we all suddenly realized ours is a good looking city only when the film crews starting popping up all over the place throughout much of the 1990s.
In any event, have a look – I’m sure you’ll enjoy. A must for all Montrealophiles.
Histoire de MontréalMontréal ArchitectureMontréal on FilmMontreal HistoryMontreal's 350th Anniversary
History and Culture, Kondiaronk - My Montréal Experience, Montréal Architecture, Montréal Landmarks, Montréal on Film, Perspectives on the City, Urban Redevelopment, Video, Worth reconsidering
Great Feats of Montréal Engineering
April 15, 2013 Taylor C. Noakes Leave a comment
Found this neat episode of some old program about engineering mega projects in Québec – excellent background, technical info and old-school cool stock footage of the Métro’s construction.
Random tidbits:
The Métro was first conceptualized in 1910.
The rubber tires are inflated with Nitrogen (lasts longer, more give than air).
The original 26 stations were completed in less than four years.
There have only ever been two major fires in the system, neither of which killed any passengers.
The last major fire happened in 1974.
The entire system is electric, and current used not only powers the trains but also regulates their speed and position between each other.
The entire system is unheated as the trains and passengers create heat which is largely sealed within the system; thus ventilation is required year round.
Twelve workers lost their lives during the construction of the original system.
Rock and earth removed from the tunnels was used to enlarge Ile-Ste-Helene and create Ile-Notre_Dame, for Expo 67. This plan itself was based on a project proposed by the provincial professional architectural order in 1909.
In any event, take a gander, it’s a hoot for boulevardiers, hipsters and Metrophiles alike.
But in watching this I can’t help but ask myself – how did we get it done all those years ago?
I fear the nothing but the appearance of potential inconvenience is all it takes these days to derail any serious talk of expansion or upgrades to the system.
Perhaps we were able to accomplish so much back then because we really wanted the Métro, because it was an idea well marketed. And heck, maybe working several tens of thousands of people on a three-shift per day cycle year round may have played some role in keeping costs down, production up and inconveniences palatable.
We should take stock of how wimpified we’ve become – having the balls to build the Métro required the public’s appui, and we took the risk knowing how great the payoff would be.
Our city has grown considerably since the provincial government established a moratorium on new Métro construction in the mid-1980s. The extension into Laval took too long and cost too much, doubtless a victim of the rampant corruption in the province’s construction industry.
And our uninspired troglodite of a current premier has only said she would support an extension into Anjou and St-Leonard of three stations, which is in effect a repetition of the same mistakes made when we ventured into Laval.
If we want the Métro to grow, we have to plan to build a lot on a fixed and tight schedule, employing many people over a short period of time while streamlining equipment rentals and bulk materials. Dragging it out can (and has) made Métro expansion prohibitively expensive.
Anyways – hope you find this as inspiring as I do.
Métro de Montréal
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Tag Archives: Caisse de Dépot et Placement du Québec
Perspectives on the City, Urban Redevelopment, Worth reconsidering
Actuaries make poor urban planners
May 18, 2016 Taylor C. Noakes
Vancouver’s Skylink is a Bombardier Innovia Metro light-rail system, a likely candidate for the type to be used by the REM
I can’t believe it. I’ve been stymied by light-rail.
And light-rail development in Montreal has been stymied by what appears to be a near-total lack of consultation or coordination by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec with City Hall nor any of the numerous transit agencies operating in Greater Montreal.
This project may be responsible for some grey hairs I noticed recently; not in my lifetime has there been a transit project as audacious, innovative and potentially rewarding as the Caisse’s Réseau Électrique Métropolitain (REM).
Unfortunately, and just like every transit project announced in my lifetime, a lack of organization and consultation has likely doomed what might have been a major boon for local commuters.
This light-rail project gave me serious writer’s block. What’s the point writing about Montreal’s potential when every good idea we seem to have is so riddled with inconsistencies and flaws it’ll never get off the drawing board? The citizens of Montreal are used to being disappointed, and chronicling a city’s endemic disappointment hardly makes for good reading.
I wanted to take a closer look at some aspects of this project I found potentially innovative, but every time I started to write over the past week or so I discovered another news item detailing this project’s many defects. It wasn’t inspiring. I didn’t want to believe the cynics who initially scoffed at the REM for being too ambitious and/or requiring too much in funds from austerity-driven governments. Keep in mind the first criticism – and one of PKP’s last as leader of the PQ – was that the light-rail plan was over-focused on the suburbs at the expense of a long-planned (and now officially dormant) project to extend the Blue Line of the Métro.
Most of the criticism seemed unwarranted to me. Just because most of our recent transit and transport infrastructure endeavours have lagged behind schedule despite overinflated budgets doesn’t mean this is necessarily how things are done. And to a province wary of endemic corruption and collusion between the provincial transport ministry and the construction industry, the Caisse’s plan killed two birds with one stone: it takes initiative, and takes some of the financial burden off the public purse.
Pension funds financing infrastructure development is a smart solution to the problems that come with electing unimaginative austerity-driven governments and expecting them to ‘do more with less’.
Moreover, the Caisse’s expedited timescale to complete the project, in addition to its scale and scope, is reminiscent of Montreal’s single-greatest infrastructure success story, that of the Métro. The very first iteration of the Métro included 26 stations across three lines, and it was opened on time and in the black, entirely financed by the City of Montreal. It also only took four and a half years to build, and that was fifty years ago. The Caisse’s project is supposed to be ready in four years.
While I’d still like to see this project realized, the defects, shortcomings and problems that have come to light in the past two weeks must be addressed. Otherwise, the CDPQ’s REM project may end up causing more problems than it is worth.
Here’s a list of every reported problem with the REM so far:
– The REM is incompatible with the AMT network, and AMT trains will not be able to use the Mount Royal Tunnel. The under-performing Train de l’Est will be cut off from accessing the city centre via Central Station, and the Deux Montagnes Line will be eliminated altogether.
– This is particularly unfortunate because the AMT just sunk $300 million into building a maintenance depot to service those trains. Once the REM comes online the depot will service only a quarter of the trains it was designed to handle. On top of that, it was the AMT that purchased the Mount Royal Tunnel from CN for $92 million specifically so that it could execute renovations to expand the tunnel’s capacity.
– Light-rail systems are typically designed to be compatible with heavy-rail, such as the AMT’s commuter trains, and Montreal has a large railway network that would ideally be accessible to all AMT and future REM trains. If the Mount Royal Tunnel is rendered inaccessible to commuter rail it’s probable ridership on the $744 million Mascouche Line will decrease, and the REM may effectively prohibit its own potential future expansion.
– The system may require expropriations and demolitions, including two buildings of heritage value, the Rodier and the New City Gas. A total of seventy buildings in Montreal and Brossard have been put on notice by the Quebec government, despite the province having not yet set funds aside for the project. Worse, the incompatibility issue prevents the REM from using existing tracks on the CN viaduct. Buildings may be demolished to build a railway next to existing railways.
– Access to the airport seems to be reserved for the branch of the line running between it and Central Station. Passengers boarding on the Sainte-Anne or Deux-Montagnes branches will have to disembark at Bois-Franc and cross to the opposite platform to await an airport-bound train. From the looks of things, passengers airport-bound from the South Shore will have to disembark and transfer at Central Station.
– The locations of the Saint-Anne’s and Rive-Sud termini are suspicious; the latter is in an empty field across from the Dix-30 shopping complex, and the former adjacent to the Anse-a-l’Orme Trail. This has West Island conservationists concerned the city’s going to push through on a 5,000 home residential development next to the station. While encouraging public transit use amongst new homeowners is doubtless a good notion, it’s self-defeating if mass-transit is being oriented towards kickstarting large low-density housing projects.
– Initial discussions between the CDPQ and the city were conducted in secret, but on Monday City Councillor Craig Sauvé tweeted that Mayor Coderre now says his administration wasn’t consulted by the Caisse at all.
And if all that weren’t bad enough, the CDPQ clearly hasn’t yet consulted with the STM about hooking up the Métro to the REM at McGill and Edouard-Montpetit. I cannot stress this enough: this must be done as part of the first phase. Completing tunnel renovations and then re-renovating to build additional stations is so illogical writing that sentence actually gave me a nosebleed.
Oh wait: it actually get worse. The REM may actually be less efficient and less effective than what’s currently in service, especially in terms of passenger capacity on the Deux Montagnes Line. Anton Dubrau is anticipating crowded trains and platforms from day one.
Remember: this project doesn’t get off the ground without public money, and politicians (ostensibly) listen to their constituents. Having the Caisse fund this project is great, but before any actual work is done (or people forced from their homes and businesses), for the love of god let’s just try – once – to fix clearly identified problems before ‘the shovels pierce the soil.’
Otherwise, the REM may actually make public transit an inconvenient burden for everyone.
Hardly a wise move for the people responsible for our pensions…
AMTBlue LineCaisseCaisse de Dépot et Placement du QuébecCDPQCDPQ InfraGreater MontrealLight railLRTmass-transitMétro de MontréalMichael SabiaMontréalMontréal MétroMontréal public-transitpublic transitRéseau Électrique MétropolitainREMSLRSTMUrban Design of MontrealUrban Planning in Montréal
A modest proposal, Commentary, Cultural commentary, Economic commentary, History and Culture, Let's make this an election issue, Montréal Architecture, Perspectives on the City, Unrealized development projects, Urban Redevelopment, West Island, Worth reconsidering
Nattering Nabobs of Negativism*
April 25, 2016 Taylor C. Noakes
Conceptual rendering of planned LRT station, possibly at Bridge and Wellington
Michael Sabia can’t catch a break.
First he faced opposition for even being considered for the role of CEO of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) back in 2009. It was quickly pointed out that an English-speaking Canadian, born in Hamilton, would become the head of the Caisse, the institutional investor that manages a portfolio of public and para-public pensions in Quebec, arguably one of the province’s greatest economic accomplishments. Seven years ago, former premier Bernard Landry was concerned Sabia would bring in unwanted “Canadian national culture” (whatever that means) and poison the well of the cornerstone of Québec, Inc.
Under Sabia’s leadership, the Caisse has grown considerably since losing $40 billion in 2008. At the beginning of this year, it managed net assets of $248 billion.
Now the Caisse’s leader wants to invest in public transit development in Montreal, proposing the single largest transit development project since the first iteration of the Métro was built fifty years ago, not to mention the prospect of 7,500 jobs created over the next four years. If everything works out, within four years a vast geographic area within Greater Montreal will have access to a twenty-nine station mass transit system connecting the urban core with Brossard, Deux-Montagnes, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue and the airport.
And we’ll likely be riding in automated trains built by Bombardier.
Nonetheless, Pierre-Karl Péladeau, among others, is concerned the new system ignores the central and eastern parts of the city. The Parti Québécois leader undoubtedly wants some kind of commitment to the long-planned Blue Line extension towards Anjou, as the PQ got the ball rolling on studies for this long-planned extension with much fanfare back in 2012.
But let’s be real for a moment: all of Greater Montreal has been neglected vis-a-vis public transit development for quite some time, and it’s entirely a consequence of the unending public transit ping-pong match between competing parties and levels of government. The Caisse’s plan is ambitious, but right now is no more real than the Blue Line, the Azur (still haven’t rid it despite near daily Orange Line use… it’s a ghost) or a catapult to the Moon.
It’s completely unreasonable to suppose any part of the much-discussed light rail system proposed Friday is in any way, shape or form politically-motivated.
If anything, the proposed light rail system seems motivated chiefly by keeping costs comparatively low. The plan, if realized, will use existing, automated technology (likely the Bombardier Innovia Metro design) on track largely already owned by the Agence Métropolitain de Transport. The provincial public pension investor has proposed a five and half billion dollar public transit expansion project, the single most audacious plan seen in Montreal in fifty years, and is volunteering $3 billion to kickstart the program.
And this is precisely what we want the CDPQ to do: invest our pensions in necessary mega-projects that will create local jobs, employ local expertise, and are based on prior recent successes so as to guarantee a strong return on investment. The CDPQ is one of the financiers of Vancouver’s Canada Line, a light rail line that connects the city’s downtown with Richmond and the airport, opened in time for the 2010 Winter Games.
So they’ve done this before and it works, and Sabia’s recent success at the helm of the CDPQ gives us reason to be hopeful this proposal will succeed.
If the full version of the project is realized by 2020, Michael Sabia and the Caisse will have managed to out-do the comparative light-speed pace of the construction of the first iteration of the Métro, and a vast swath of Greater Montreal could be served by this system within four years.
Though the proposal does not include branches towards the eastern sectors of the metropolitan city, the sheer number of people this system could conceivably serve would be so great there would ultimately be a net benefit to all sectors of the metro region by virtue of fewer cars on our roadways and highways on a day to day basis.
Crucially, given the expected use of existing railway infrastructure, it’s entirely conceivable this system could be expanded to all corners of Greater Montreal. Moreover, light rail systems (such as this one) can share the track with larger heavy rail, such as the AMT’s current commuter train network. Either the Caisse’s LRT will gradually replace the AMT network, or they’ll share the track and compliment one another.
Either way, if this system is fully realized, we all get to breathe a little easier, and congestion becomes less of a problem.
The new LRT system route and the LRT combined with Métro and AMT commuter rail lines
But herein lies the rub: though the CDPQ’s plan is ambitious and headed in the right direction (both in terms of how it will be financed and what parts of the city it will connect), it needs to be integrated into the rest of the city’s mass transit systems from the get-go.
I was very happy to see that the Caisse has indicated a desire to do so in that they listed two potential stations (Edouard-Montpetit and McGill) that would allow the light rail system to connect directly to the Blue and Green lines of the Métro. This not only makes the LRT system more useful and accessible generally-speaking, it would also permit the Blue Line to connect more or less directly to the urban core, long the line’s major handicap.
I’ve always been in favour of extending the Blue Line to Anjou if the line is first connected, by means of the Mount Royal Tunnel, to the city centre, as this will help get that line’s ridership up to where it ought to be. As it is, it’s the least used line in the Métro network. There’s no sense extending it if the root cause of its underperformance isn’t addressed first.
So if I could make a very strong suggestion to the Caisse it is this: work with the STM and AMT and ensure the whole plan illustrated above is realized as the first phase, and seek the greatest possible degree of integration with the extant Métro and commuter rail network. In this way, and perhaps only this way, will they quickly recoup their investment and lay the foundation for the Blue Line’s eventual extension.
I really can’t imagine it working out in any other way.
I’m oddly hopeful politics will not rear its ugly head and screw up this plan, as I’m convinced we can’t afford to wait much longer and that it would ultimately prove exceptionally useful in accomplishing what should be a clear goal for our city: get cars off the road and increase daily mass transit system usage. I find the Caisse’s plan very encouraging, despite my near endemic cynicism and the ample proof we’re not very good getting things built or delivered on-time.
But who knows, maybe things change.
Or maybe once in a while it takes an outsider to get us back on track.
Initially I wanted to write about how this proposed system will work in the broader scheme of things, what this might mean for homeowners living in the expansive corridor to be served by this light rail system, and what kind of organizational response is needed to provide a truly world-class mass transit system at large. But given that we’re already 1300 words in, that’ll have to wait for another time.
*One of former US Vice-President Spiro Agnew’s more colourful quotes. Agnew was the second and most recent VP to resign from office, and so far the only to do so as a result of criminal charges, these including: extortion, tax fraud, bribery, and conspiracy, all while he was holding office as Baltimore County Executive, Governor of Maryland and Vice-President. Journalist and historian Gary Willis described Agnew as “No man ever came to market with less seductive goods, and no man ever got a better price for what he had to offer.”
AMTBombardierCaisse de Dépot et Placement du QuébecCDPQChamplain BridgeGreater Montreallight rail transitLRTMétroMichael SabiaPublic Transit in MontrealRÉSOSTMTrudeau AirportWest Island
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BEST ALBUMS OF THE 90'S, PART 2
Hey everyone, welcome to part two! Let's go!!
10.Foo Fighters, The Colour and the Shape, 1997
The sophomore album from these legends starts the second half of our countdown at number ten. It's one of their most accessible albums, and among most fans I know it's considered the best. They've made plenty of amazing songs since then, but this one just has something to do it. Everything from massive hits “Monkey Wrench” to “Everlong” still ring with clarity, and the other gems on the album dig deep to hit you. “Hey Johnny Park!” soars, while “My Hero” is a perfect example of what fathers aspire to be. This was the record they reached the first step of domination in rock music, and they've been steadily climbing ever since.
9.Tool, Aenima, 1996
People had been noticing California prog rock sensations Tool for little while before this, but “Aenima” was the record that took on an entirely different type of feeling. It's heavier, more sophistaced and a more non linear type of record. Certain tracks are extremely heavier and rooted in the collapse of the world around us(“Hooker with a Penis,” “Aenima), while other songs are as in your face and unforgiving as anything they've ever done. The song that stands out the most though is the perfect album closer in the shape of the epic winding road that is “Third Eye.” It's an amazing track, and set the stage for what the band would become.
8.Nine Inch Nails, the Downward Spiral, 1994
If there's an album on this list that made the world nearly instantly notice a band that were on the underground, it is without the doubt the pivotal move of Reznor's career, The Downward Spiral.” This music had never been experienced by a large audience, but the brilliance of TR and the tact he used to create a world in which everything is burned and erased stands as a stroke of genius. You'd NEVER hear this record get big radio play if it came out today, but it doesn't matter, because from here on out he could bring his specialized brand of industrial rock to the masses. The record cuts and bites where it needs to, and also can bring heartfelt pain and emotion in places you wouldn't expect it. We've discussed the brilliance of “The Fragile” before, but I leave it off today because of the enormous impact this album had on the shape of the band.
7. My Bloody Valentine, Loveless, 1994
The album which changed shoegaze forever, also stands as one of the most important albums ever. What Kevin shields brought to the table with the help of Colm,Debbie and Milinda, not only showed people that a thickly layered wall of noise could work, but the craft of songwriting and effortlessly textured beats stands atop every other album of the genre's heyday. It's still one of the best albums for pure music fans in the way that you can absorb it's heart and soul quite easily while being shown things you may have had no idea existed in the world of music before. The production on the album also has a way on mingling the thick with thr glossy in a way few others can, and that's why the album remains a highlight of the decade.
6.Rage Against the Machine, Rage Against the Machine, 1992
Maybe the beginning of a movement? More than likely this triumphant, rebellious album gave us the scope and hope for something better. Behind of the strength of Zack, Tom, Brad and Tim, Rage Against the Machine brought politicized rock music to an era that very much was in need of it. Beyond that though, the execution is pitch perfect, and brings the frustrations of the masses to a single rallying cry that many can live by. Song after song attack the bullshit foundations this country has become, while pointing out the hypocrisy of the privileged few and how it managed to keep down the salt of the earth. It's still a perfect album for a man or woman with a purpose, and brings power to those who need it most. “Know Your Enemy.”
5.Smashing Pumpkins, Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness, 1995
While “Siamese Dreams” stands as the breakout album for the Chicago natives, “Mellon Collie” sees the band rocketing to the brilliance plateau they were destined for. Over the course of nearly two hours, they crush us with heavy riffs, abrasive lyrics, but also can hold with love and patience on other essential tracks. This was voted Time magazine's album of the year in 1995, and even after twenty years it's still the prime example of how good this band actually was. It's sprawling, deep, and executed in a way that only the Pumpkins are capable of. Corgan may have been the driving force and inspiration for the band, but they wouldn't be the Smashing Pumpkins without the other three core members.
4.Portishead, Dummy,
An album so distancing and haunting, full of heart and soul only comes around so often, and to this day I've never heard a record so perfectly in tune with mortal sadness and blissful beats. Beth;s voice fills you with a cold sorrow that beautifully painful to witness, but at it's core “Dummy” stands as an album full of openness and balance in a world that is often anything but. Barrows and Gibbons are able to elicit full performances from each other and bring the world of Trip Hop to the masses. It's still one of the most awesome albums I've ever experienced, and it's a gift to music fans everywhere. “Roads” is poignantly full, while other songs emit various feelings perfectly through pain and tolerance.
3.Weezer, the Blue Album, 1994
With this first record, Weezer was able to bring pop sensibilities to rock audiences, and thus deliver one of the best records of the decade. The Blue Album as it's called is nearly everything a nerdy teenage boy could want from a band, even to this day. It has nods to amazing X-Men characters, frustrating moments with female counterparts, and it's also bitterly full of anger and resentment on songs like the forever classic “Say It Ain't So,” while the fun and buoyant “Buddy Holly” brings us back to the good old days of being Happy. Even album opener “My Name is Jonas” is a rocking song even after two decades. The album is immaculate, and always will be. Never forget how important a piece of art is, even if the band hasn't delivered something this amazing in years.
2.Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
This might be a stretch for some, but this record is one of the best of the decade, and because of that, it lands the number two spot on the best records of the 1990’s. Loosely based on the tortuous story of Anne Frank, we see Jeff Mangum and his fellow Louisiana natives dive into a world of horns, folk legends, and indie rock all at once. It all works in a wonderful conglomeration of verse, and his unique voice gives a sense of honesty and depth you don’t get all the time. At this point the whole album is a classic, and most hardcore fans know all of the words and nuances, but songs like the fast paced “Holland,1945” give strength while a song like “Oh Comely” and the “Two-Headed Boy”saga are so enraptured with tentative feelings of need and hopefulness that it’s difficult to properly understand how important these concepts must of been to the band, but that’s why this album is a landmark achievement and worthy of everyone’s time, even if it’s only for one listen.
1. Radiohead, OK Computer, 1997
While it might not seem like it at the time, this album took the world by shock and awe, and catapulted the band to the upper echelon of rock music. To this day, there’s no band more adventurous, and painfully perfect as the brothers Greenwood, Phil Selway, Thom Yorke and Ed O’Brien, more commonly known as Radiohead. During the early 90’s though, it was nothing like that at all. Initially thought of as one hit wonders, it’s this magnum opus that secured the future of the band for the rest of their careers. Since then it’s been a string of brilliantly popular albums, and they’ve shaped modern alternative indie music in a way no other single band is even capable of. From the creepy warnings of health in intermission track “Fitter Happier,” to the potency of “Paranoid Android,” and harbinger of doom that is “Electioneering,” this record has it all. As it approaches its twentieth birthday, the band is still going strong making thought provoking music for the masses, and it doesn’t seem like it’s even close to stopping. This doesn't happen often in this world, but these five souls should be doing exactly what they’re doing, and nothing else. They were meant to gift us with transcendent music, and I for one will be listening as long as they appear willing to grace us with it.
Thanks for reading, see you Friday
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– the dissenter
The Magical Mystery Brexit.
Posted on 3rd October 2018 in Brexit, Dissenting, General, Unionist
There’s been a Brexit post planned for ages, but things seem to change and each piece in time seems no longer relevant. So . . . time for a recap and quick look at where we are, which might seem not that much further on . . .
There are a sequence of events that create a mystery in the whole Brexit process to date, and is important to solve going forward. In January 2017 the Lancaster House speech set out what sort of trade and wider relationships the UK might have with the EU and the world.
When Article 50 was triggered the UK placed on the table its vision of a wide ranging trade agreement with the borders of the UK being managed technically and electronically. ninety-one percent of non-EU trade through UK border points is managed in this way today, more than half of all UK trade. Furthermore, the far greater trade management points are not along the UK/EU land border, but to and from the Sea Ports either side of the Channel (including much of the trade in goods of Republic of Ireland origin to the continent, by volume).
The EU rejected the UK idea of using technology as ‘magical thinking’and focused solely on the land border it will have with the UK.
In December 2017 the ‘Backstop’ was introduced to the Brexit negotiation by the EU, though not without some controversy. From that point the EU focused hard on the backstop, which increasing became regarded in the UK as a back door to hold the UK within the Customs Union and Single Market or lose Northern Ireland as an integral part of the UK.
The UK Government responded, (after lots of internal ‘debate’) with what has become known as “Chequers”. This is a rather convoluted effort to both deliver to the spirit of Lancaster House (looking at it kindly) and to take on board the stated issues the EU have in its pursuit of its “backstop”. Chequers hasn’t been universally popular – less popular than the poll tax? Within the Conservative Party #ChuckChequers has been loudly heard at the recent Party Conference.
Great to see so many people here in brum bursting in confidence in conservatism and democratic freedom #ChuckChequers pic.twitter.com/6kQt0FzNvQ
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) October 2, 2018
What of the EU response to Chequers? It hasn’t gone down well with the Commission. Nor with the political leaders of the EU27.
In the run up to Salzburg there were noises that the EU might be softening its stance on the backstop. In truth the EU presented nice words, same outcome.
Here’s the thing.
Back at the outset of the negotiations the EU rejected electronic/technical checks proposed by the British along the EU/UK land border as “magical thinking”.
The EU presentation of the ‘de-dramatisation’ of the backstop was to offer electronic/technical checks along the Irish Sea. This is, apparently not “magical thinking”.
The mystery at this point is just what is the issue along the EU/UK: UK/EU land border.
The EU, in offering its own solution to trade management, has undermined its own case as to why a ‘Backstop’ is required at all.
The Backstop and Chequers both use ‘Northern Ireland’ as a tool to dogmatically reinforce negotiating positions that are fundamentally based on a problem that both have identified as fixable with broadly common agreement on the fix (magically thinking the thinkable).
We have wasted two years of preparing for Brexit and effective trade management across the UK and the Republic of Ireland (something Enda Kenny’s Government had started, that Leo Varadkar’s Government stopped). With a two year transition period there would have been more than enough time to set process in place to ‘de-dramatise’ any potential disruption to trade brought about by change, that is likely to have a far greater impact on the Republic of Ireland than anywhere else.
Time is running out to sort a Brexit agreement that is practical and sensible. Albeit in a convoluted manner, May has at least reached out to the EU with a plan that takes its concerns into account. The EU seems impervious to the importance of the Constitutional issue to the Conservative Government (or, in fairness, to the British generally). Theresa May, as David Cameron before her, is a natural Unionist, for whom the Union is a fundamental part of her Conservative idea. While Chequers may be questioned, it is wrong to suspect the underlying dedication to the Union that brought her to that point.
The EU underestimates the importance of the Union in regarding opposition to Chequers in the round rather than separating the principles on which it is based. May’s Unionism is shared by all shades of Conservatives, instinctively by Boris and, before the IEA launched its Plan A+, acknowledged by Jacob Rees Mogg on the Moggcast from ConservativeHome. The Union is above all else the most important thing to Unionists.
If people sincerely believe that the DUP is fundamental to the Conservative Government’s existence, then they need to listen to the DUP. While there may be doubts expressed about the DUP desire for power and money over all else, the messages from the DUP have been consistent before and after Chequers. If there was any room for doubt, the ‘blood red line’ on the Union and Brexit by DUP leader Arlene Foster is as clear as a statement on point can be made.
If the EU persists in pursuing the Backstop, failing to understand the fundamental constitutional challenge the Backstop poses and despite the contradicting its own reasoning as to why it is necessary, there are three conclusions.
That the Backstop is a means of achieving a humiliation deal – either break up the UK (resulting in a constitutional/political crisis) or basically stay in the Customs Union and Single Market on EU terms (resulting in a political/constitutional crisis).
That there is no real resolution in the coming months – a no deal (a crisis we’ll get over, eventually).
that either way, we can expect decades of discord between the UK and EU on bits, pieces, and meanings around trade and all manner of other issues.
None of those conclusions is good.
Back in March the EU accepted that a Free Trade Agreement seemed the only positive way to proceed with the UK determined to leave the EU. At this point we are not even on that page. Having accepted the magic of trade arrangements, it is a mystery why the EU wishes to risk a no deal; along with the consequences for the EU, including the Republic of Ireland in crisis, and creating a substantial and bombastic trading partner just across the Channel at the same time as having one across the Atlantic.
We are heading for a magical mystery Brexit unless something is conjured out of negotiations soon.
Tags: Arlene Foster, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Chequers, ConservativeHome, DUP, EU Commission, EU27, Jacob Rees Mogg, Magical Thinking, Theresa May, Unionists
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Home > Article
VOL. 43 | NO. 19 | Friday, May 10, 2019
AP FACT CHECK: Trump's trade theories don't hold water
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump cast a fog of misinformation over the U.S. trade dispute with China, floating inaccurate numbers and skewed economic theories as big tariffs kicked in on Chinese goods.
At stake in the rupture is a trading relationship between the world's two largest economies that employs nearly 1 million Americans, supplies affordable goods to U.S. households and, in the view of Trump and a bipartisan group of trade hard-liners, puts U.S. business at an unfair disadvantage.
Trump's torrent of tweets on the subject Friday followed a rally infused with familiar falsehoods about his achievements (the economy, veterans' health) and grievances (the Russia inquiry). A look at his words over the past week:
TRUMP: "Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products. These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S." — tweet Friday.
THE FACTS: This is not how tariffs work. China is not writing a check to the U.S. Treasury. The tariffs are paid by American companies, which usually pass the cost on to consumers through higher prices. One of the theories is that the higher prices will encourage consumers to buy goods made in the U.S. or elsewhere instead. But the risk is that consumers could simply respond by spending less than they otherwise would, which would hurt growth.
The burden of Trump's tariffs on imports from China and other countries falls entirely on U.S. consumers and businesses that buy imports, said a study in March by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia University and Princeton University. By the end of last year, the study found, the public and U.S. companies were paying $3 billion a month in higher taxes and absorbing $1.4 billion a month in lost efficiency.
On "Fox News Sunday," Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow acknowledged under questioning that China isn't paying the tariffs. "I don't disagree with that," he said when interviewer Chris Wallace pointed out that U.S. businesses and consumers bear the cost.
"Both sides will suffer on this," Kudlow said, noting that China risks seeing its exports shrink and economy slow. That statement, unlike Trump's, is in accord with the view of economists.
Kudlow said that after years of unfair trading practices by China, "this is a risk we should and can take without damaging our economy in any appreciable way."
TRUMP: "Your all time favorite President got tired of waiting for China to help out and start buying from our FARMERS, the greatest anywhere in the World!" — tweet Friday.
THE FACTS: The notion that China doesn't buy from U.S. farmers is false. China is the fourth-largest export market for U.S. agriculture. It bought $9.3 billion in U.S. agricultural products last year.
As for calling himself "your" favorite president, he is addressing only his supporters, not the country. Polls find Trump's approval rating to be high among Republicans but it generally ranges between about 35% and 45% among Americans overall.
TRUMP: "We have lost 500 Billion Dollars a year, for many years, on Crazy Trade with China. NO MORE!" — tweet Friday.
THE FACTS: That's wrong. When sizing up the trade deficit, Trump always ignores trade in services — where the U.S. runs a surplus with China — and speaks only of goods. Even in that context, he misstated the imbalance.
The U.S. trade deficit with China last year was $378.6 billion, not $500 billion.
On goods alone, the deficit was $419.2 billion.
Trump is also misleading when he puts the deficit in that ballpark for many years. It's true the imbalance has long been lopsided. But the U.S. Trade Representative's Office notes that exports of goods to China have increased by nearly 73% since 2008 and U.S. exports to China overall are up 527% since 2001.
Nor is the trade gap a "loss" in a pure sense. U.S. consumers and businesses get electronics, furniture, clothing and other goods in return for their money. They are buying things, not losing cash.
TRUMP: "Tariffs will bring in FAR MORE wealth to our Country than even a phenomenal deal of the traditional kind. Also, much easier & quicker to do. Our Farmers will do better, faster, and starving nations can now be helped. Waivers on some products will be granted, or go to new source!" — tweet Friday.
THE FACTS: In addition to repeating the canard that China pays the tariffs, he's failing to account for the damage that tariffs can do.
By most private estimates, a trade war leads to slower growth rather than the prosperity that Trump is promising. The president's tweet also goes beyond past claims that tariffs are simply a negotiating tactic to force better terms with China. Trump appears to be suggesting that a tariff increase would generate revenues that could then be spent on farm products and infrastructure, something that might in theory require support from Congress.
But on their own, tariffs are a clear drag on growth.
Analysts at the consultancy Oxford Economics estimate that implementing and maintaining the latest increase would trim U.S. gross domestic product by 0.3%, or $62 billion, in 2020. This would be equal to a loss of about $490 per household.
Economists at Nomura note that gross domestic product this year could take a hit of as much as 0.4% if Trump expands the taxes to all Chinese imports as business confidence slumped and financial conditions tightened.
TRUMP: "And our unemployment numbers are the best in 51 years. And for certain groups, ... women is now 71 years." — remarks Monday to the U.S. Military Academy football team.
THE FACTS: The unemployment rate for women is solid, but it's not the best in 71 years.
According to the Labor Department, the women's unemployment rate fell last month to 3.1%. That's just the lowest since October 1953, or 66 years ago, when it also was 3.1%. The lowest on record was 2.4% in May 1953.
TRUMP, boasting that his economic record has delivered the "highest income ever in history for the different groups — highest income." — Panama City Beach, Florida, rally Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Not so. He did not achieve the best income numbers for all the racial groups. Both African Americans and Asian Americans had higher income prior to the Trump administration.
The median income last year for a black household was $40,258, according to the Census Bureau. That's below a 2000 peak of $42,348 and also statistically no better than 2016, President Barack Obama's last year in office.
Many economists view the continued economic growth since the middle of 2009, in Obama's first term, as the primary explanation for recent hiring and income gains. More important, there are multiple signs that the racial wealth gap is now worsening even as unemployment rates have come down.
As for Asian Americans, the median income for a typical household last year was $81,331. It was $83,182 in 2016.
TRUMP, on his son Donald Trump Jr., who was subpoenaed by the GOP-led Senate intelligence committee to answer additional questions: "My son was totally exonerated by Mueller." — remarks to reporters Thursday.
THE FACTS: The report does not exonerate Trump Jr.
Special counsel Robert Mueller looked into a potential criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign and said the investigation did not collect sufficient evidence to establish criminal charges on that front.
For example, the report cited the case of a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting involving Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer who was said to have dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Mueller said he considered bringing charges against Trump's son and others but ultimately wasn't sure if he could prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" that they knew the actions were illegal. The meeting had raised questions about whether Trump Jr. and others violated the federal ban on foreign contributions to American political campaigns.
Mueller noted some Trump campaign officials, including Trump Jr., had declined to testify while others had provided incomplete or false testimony, making it difficult to get a complete picture of what happened during the 2016 campaign.
The special counsel wrote that he "cannot rule out the possibility" that unavailable information could have cast a different light on the investigation's findings.
TRUMP, on Mueller's report: "No collusion. No obstruction. No anything. Two years on a witch hunt." — Florida rally Wednesday.
TRUMP: "So this comes back and it comes back totally exonerating Donald Trump and a lot of other people. " — remarks Thursday.
THE FACTS: He's incorrect to say Mueller's investigation did not find anything; it found plenty. Nor does the report "totally" exonerate Trump, instead specifically leaving open the question of whether his efforts to undermine the Russian investigation might have obstructed justice.
The two-year investigation produced charges against nearly three dozen people, among them senior Trump campaign operatives and 25 Russians, as it shed light on a brazen Russian assault on the American political system.
The investigation did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia and it reached no conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice. Yet it described his campaign as eager to exploit the release of hacked Democratic emails to hurt rival Hillary Clinton and it exposed lies by Trump aides aimed at covering up their Russia-related contacts.
According to the report, Mueller's team declined to make a prosecutorial judgment on whether to charge partly because of a Justice Department legal opinion that said sitting presidents shouldn't be indicted.
Instead, the report factually laid out instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, leaving it open for Congress to take up the matter or for prosecutors to do so once Trump leaves office.
HURRICANE AID
TRUMP: "Puerto Rico got $91 billion and I understand they don't like me. It's the most money we've ever given to anybody. We've never given $91 billion to a state." — Florida rally.
TRUMP: "Puerto Rico has been given more money by Congress for Hurricane Disaster Relief, 91 Billion Dollars, than any State in the history of the U.S." — tweet Monday.
THE FACTS: His number is wrong, as is his assertion that the U.S. territory has set some record for federal disaster aid. Congress has so far distributed only about $11 billion for Puerto Rico, not $91 billion.
He's stuck to his figure for some time. The White House has said the estimate includes about $50 billion in expected future disaster disbursements that could span decades, along with $41 billion approved.
That $50 billion in additional money is speculative. It is based on Puerto Rico's eligibility for federal emergency disaster funds for years ahead, involving calamities that haven't happened.
That money would require future appropriations by Congress.
Even if correct, $91 billion would not be the most ever provided for hurricane rebuilding efforts. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 cost the U.S government more than $120 billion — the bulk of it going to Louisiana.
TRUMP, claiming countries are taking advantage of the U.S. diversity visa lottery program: "They're giving us some rough people." — Florida rally.
THE FACTS: A perpetual falsehood from the president. Countries don't nominate their citizens for the program. They don't get to select people they'd like to get rid of.
Foreigners apply for the visas on their own. Under the program, citizens of countries named by the U.S. can bid for visas if they have enough education or work experience in desired fields. Out of that pool of qualified applicants, the State Department randomly selects a much smaller pool of tentative winners. Not all winners will have visas approved because they still must compete for a smaller number of slots by getting their applications in quickly.
Those who are ultimately offered visas still need to go through background checks, like other immigrants.
TRUMP, describing how veterans used to wait weeks and months for a VA appointment: "For the veterans, we passed VA Choice. ... (Now) they immediately go outside, find a good local doctor, get themselves fixed up and we pay the bill." — Florida rally.
THE FACTS: No, veterans still must wait for weeks for a medical appointment.
While it's true the VA recently announced plans to expand eligibility for veterans in the Veterans Choice program, it remains limited due in part to uncertain money and longer waits.
The program currently allows veterans to see doctors outside the VA system if they must wait more than 30 days for an appointment or drive more than 40 miles to a VA facility. Under new rules to take effect in June, veterans will have that option for a private doctor if their VA wait is only 20 days (28 for specialty care) or their drive is only 30 minutes.
But the expanded Choice eligibility may do little to provide immediate help.
That's because veterans often must wait even longer for an appointment in the private sector. In 2018, 34 percent of all VA appointments were with outside physicians, down from 36 percent in 2017. Then-Secretary David Shulkin said VA care was "often 40 percent better in terms of wait times" compared with the private sector.
Choice came into effect after some veterans died while waiting months for appointments at the Phoenix VA medical center.
TRUMP, on the Choice program: "It's a great thing for our veterans. They've been trying to get it passed for 44 years. We got it passed." — Florida rally.
THE FACTS: He's incorrect. Congress approved the private-sector Veterans Choice health program in 2014 and President Barack Obama signed it into law. Trump is expanding it.
CROWD SIZE
TRUMP, on Democrat Beto O'Rourke's crowd size at a Texas rally before he launched his presidential campaign: "He had like 502 people." — Florida rally.
THE FACTS: Trump sells short O'Rourke's crowd, though it has grown in his mind since he claimed the Democrat only got 200-300 at his El Paso gathering in February. Trump had a rally there the same day.
O'Rourke's march and rally drew thousands. Police did not give an estimate, but his crowd filled nearly all of a baseball field from the stage at the infield to the edge of outfield and was tightly packed.
Associated Press writers Josh Boak, Eric Tucker, Christopher Rugaber, Paul Wiseman and Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.
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UNITED WE WIN - LITERACY FOR ALL
Service Area Coverage
Ausmus named United Way of Kansas President
The United Ways of Kansas Association announced the appointment of Gayle Ausmus of Dodge City, as its president for 2019. Ausmus formerly served as president in 2013 and 2014. She has been a member of the association since 2006 when she accepted the role as executive director of the United Way of Dodge City. As president, she will guide the association membership through its networking, training, and governance and advocacy efforts. The United Ways of Kansas association represents 27 independent United Way organizations located throughout Kansas and southwest Missouri.
The mission...
Women of Today
Check out this amazing story about six incredible women that make up the executive team of the United Way Leaders. "Each of these dynamic, caring, and driven women from our community, bring light to important community conversations regarding difficult subjects."
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Speaking With: Aran O’Grady and Seamus Ryan, the Duo Behind Trinity Orchestra’s Bowie Performance
After a showstopping Bowie tribute at Electric Picnic earlier this month, we talk to Aran O'Grady and Seamus Ryan of Trinity Orchestra.
Killian BarryMusic Editor
"At the end of the day, we're not a professional orchestra, we're just a hundred people wanting to play really good music together. That's almost the most important thing."
Sinéad Baker for The University Times
Aran O’Grady and Seamus Ryan are seasoned veterans of Trinity Orchestra’s almost yearly homage to modern pop music. Regularly involved in the productions, playing saxophone and keyboard respectively, they each eventually turned their focus towards arranging and the bigger orchestral picture. Ryan recognises how being “a control freak” lends itself to being an arranger: “For me it was looking at the orchestra and thinking they should do Vampire Weekend and that no one else is going to do it properly.”
Having previously taken on orchestral arrangements like Sufjan Stevens and Vampire Weekend as solo projects, the pair decided that this year’s venture required a degree of collaboration: “Both of us are the same where the idea of having that kind control, or moulding something is really exciting for us.” The decision was easy, despite coming some time after David Bowie’s passing in January. “Bowie has died, and it would be so sad if that was just a week of news, and then the world moves on. It’s a testament to the legacy and influence he had that eight months on people are still mourning … In a way it’s both our and EP’s thank you to him”.
Trinity Orchestra opened Saturday’s proceedings of the Electric Picnic main stage with a rousing tribute to Bowie, outdoing themselves once again on the festival’s biggest stage. The crowd may have been rain-soaked and low in spirit, but the set invigorated them and blew the shackles off of any lingering hangovers, kickstarting another day of debauchery. The performance of the orchestra was emphatic and emotive, bolstered by the guest appearance of former Trinity student, Hozier. This addition inspired one of the most memorable sing-alongs of the weekend and created an unrivalled sense of occasion.
The crowd may have been rain-soaked and low in spirit, but the set invigorated them and blew the shackles off of any lingering hangovers, kickstarting another day of debauchery
“Having a big crowd in front of everyone [in the orchestra] makes a big difference, both in their playing and their enjoyment. At the end of the day, we’re not a professional orchestra, we’re just a hundred people wanting to play really good music together. That’s almost the most important thing.”
However, these brief moments of magic are the pinnacle of months of work, and O’Grady admits that this arrangement will definitely be his last. Channelling pop music, particularly rock, through an orchestra is at times challenging and takes a lot of energy and commitment. “It’s less the expectation on you and more the physical and emotional toil that arranging that much music takes on you … you go a bit mad”, confesses Ryan.
O’Grady and Ryan made an executive decision at the beginning of the project to remove any trace of guitar from their work, veering away from an instrument so rich and dense that it could mask many of the intricacies of the orchestra. “It would almost just be easier to do dance music, something with full texture like LCD [Soundsystem] that’s just vamping in the background. It almost doesn’t sound like an orchestra, but rather a chamber ensemble…”. This deliberate omission leaves a space in the sound, though, one that has the potential to cause a dilemma in the arrangement. “Something like Bowie can be a bit trickier, it’s already quite full and pristine. Think of “Rebel Rebel”, and it’s basically a guitar riff, drums and bass. Now think about that when you’re trying to write parts for 50 instruments. It’s quite daunting.”
O’Grady explains, however, that bigger issues lie in trying to translate some of Bowie’s more nuanced sounds to fit that of an orchestra: “Then again, you think of things like “Life on Mars” and “Space Oddity”, which I’ve seen so many orchestras do online, and it sounds terrible. They come to the end of the song, and no one quite knows what they’re doing, and then it just turns into a mass of noise. Much of what [Bowie] does can be quite hard to recreate.” The duo then went on to predict that the performance had the potential to take on a life of its own on the day, “such is the dynamism of Bowie’s work. It’s definitely the most eclectic thing the orchestra has done”.
“Something like Bowie can be a bit trickier, it’s already quite full and pristine. Think of “Rebel Rebel”, and it’s basically a guitar riff, drums and bass. Now think about that when you’re trying to write parts for 50 instruments. It’s quite daunting”
Not only do problems arise in the technical arrangement of the music, but they are also handling quite sensitive content. Very few artists were as diverse, colourful or popular as Bowie, and he left a lasting impression extending far beyond the world of music: “Everyone has a different interpretation of his legacy.” O’Grady and Ryan had to be quite firm at times regarding both the setlist and portions of the arrangement. “It’s the same workload, but we wanted to work on it together”. “It’s good to be able to tease it out and see what would work the best together.”
“When I did Sufjan Stevens and LCD Soundsystem, not many people in the orchestra knew the music, and they gave me quite a bit of trust to do whatever I wanted with it. This time there were a lot of people chiming in saying, oh you should do this and that … try as they might change it”, O’Grady adds.
The orchestra itself also has a legacy that has to be taken into account. Rob Farhat brought the Trinity Orchestra into the limelight with performances of Gorillaz and Daft Punk that became viral hits. “When we first started doing it, it garnered a lot of attention because the idea of playing this pop music with an orchestra was very novel. So it obviously got a lot of traction, and deservedly so, amazing players and amazing arrangers”. The aim now, Ryan believes, is to “do stuff that can be appreciated beyond the novelty, not that the previous ones wouldn’t be appreciated if they weren’t novel”.
Electric Picnic does not mark the end for this particular tribute, however. The orchestra is set for another performance in October, this time in the Exam Hall, where minor tweaks to the arrangement and a better environment for orchestration will fortify their sound further. The pair agree that despite any hype surrounding the big festival performances, as arrangers “a great sounding performance is almost second to none”.
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Micheál Martin ‘Would Consider Loans Scheme’ In Government
How a Murder in Mexico Spawned Tim MacGabhann’s ‘Second’ Novel
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Click here to visit a selected bibliography.
Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920
Oleg Budnitskii. Translated by Timothy J. Portice
544 pages | 6 x 9 | 45 illus.
A volume in the series Jewish Culture and Contexts
"Budnitskii's excellent study will become the starting point for all future investigations of Russia's Jews between Reds and Whites."—Donald J. Raleigh, Kritika, in a review of the Russian edition
"Oleg Budnitskii, in this thoroughly researched, clearly written, and well-documented book, shows that the story of Jews in the Civil War years is much more complicated than simply being Red or White. . . . Rather than seeing pogroms as the outcome of ideological fights between Communists and anti-Communists in times of civil war, Budnitskii situates anti-Jewish violence in the broader context of war."—David Shneer, The Russian Review, in a review of the Russian edition
In the years following the Russian Revolution, a bitter civil war was waged between the Bolsheviks, with their Red Army of Workers and Peasants on the one side, and the various groups that constituted the anti-Bolshevik movement on the other. The major anti-Bolshevik force was the White Army, whose leadership consisted of former officers of the Russian imperial army. In the received—and simplified—version of this history, those Jews who were drawn into the political and military conflict were overwhelmingly affiliated with the Reds, while from the start, the Whites orchestrated campaigns of anti-Jewish violence, leading to the deaths of thousands of Jews in pogroms in the Ukraine and elsewhere.
In Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920, Oleg Budnitskii provides the first comprehensive historical account of the role of Jews in the Russian Civil War. According to Budnitskii, Jews were both victims and executioners, and while they were among the founders of the Soviet state, they also played an important role in the establishment of the anti-Bolshevik factions. He offers a far more nuanced picture of the policies of the White leadership toward the Jews than has been previously available, exploring such issues as the role of prominent Jewish politicians in the establishment of the White movement of southern Russia, the "Jewish Question" in the White ideology and its international aspects, and the attempts of the Russian Orthodox Church and White diplomacy to forestall the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.
The relationship between the Jews and the Reds was no less complicated. Nearly all of the Jewish political parties severely disapproved of the Bolshevik coup, and the Red Army was hardly without sin when it came to pogroms against the Jews. Budnitskii offers a fresh assessment of the part played by Jews in the establishment of the Soviet state, of the turn in the policies of Jewish socialist parties after the first wave of mass pogroms and their efforts to attract Jews to the Red Army, of Bolshevik policies concerning the Jewish population, and of how these stances changed radically over the course of the Civil War.
Oleg Budnitskii is Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Study of the History and Sociology of World War II at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow.
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New details emerge in child sex complaint against 6ix9ine
The details of the 2015 incident in court documents contradict public statements made by the Brooklyn rapper.
By Ben Dandridge-Lemco
A post shared by TEKASHI ⁶⁹ (@6ix9ine_) on Oct 28, 2017 at 12:53pm PDT
Most people who has been paying attention to rap music on the internet over the past few months have probably become familiar with 6ix9ine, real name Daniel Hernandez. The rainbow-haired Brooklyn native seemed to begin as a meme but has recently launched himself onto the Hot 100 with two different singles: "Gummo" and "Kooda." But amid his success, it was revealed that 21-year-old had been charged with a sex crime and plead guilty to it in a court of law.
While, Genius reported some details of the crime in November, confirming that 6ix9ine had plead guilty to one felony count of use of a child in a sexual performance. In a new Jezebel report, additional details contradict much of what the rapper has said publicly about the case, primarily in a November 18 interview with DJ Akademiks. As court documents show, the case pertains to three different videos posted to social media, one of which 6ix9ine admitted to uploading himself. The criminal complaint was filed after the defendant's mother became aware of the videos “on or about” February 23, 2015.
Read Next: 6ix9ine’s ex-girlfriend alleges violent assaults in new interview
In the interview with DJ Akademiks, 6ix9ine repeatedly stresses that he was 17 years old at the time, but, according to court documents, the rapper, who was born on May 18, 1996, was 18 on February 21, 2015, when the incident occurred. He also told Akademiks, "I’m not touching the girl, I’m not having sexual intercourse with the girl, I’m not doing nothing." Yet, the court document reads, "The child is sitting on the lap of the defendant [Hernandez] and the defendant has his arms around the child."
The contents of another are described like this in the complain: "the child is completely nude and is sitting across the laps of the defendant and the separately charged defendant Taquan Anderson. The separately charged defendant touches the child across her legs and vagina with his hand. The same three individuals are observed in all three videos.”
As Jezebel points out, in his plea agreement, 6ix9ine had his sentencing adjourned for two years. The sentence was supposed to be scheduled for October 20, 2017 but was pushed back until January 30, 2018. If the court finds that he completed the terms of his plea — which include two years of mental health treatment, three hundred hours of community service, and writing a letter to the complaining witness and her family explaining why what he did was wrong — then he will be sentenced to three years of probation. He faces one to three years in prison if the plea terms have not been met.
A representative for 6ix9ine was not immediately available for comment.
6ix9ine, Hip-Hop
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The Journal of History Fall 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS
A Factual Appraisal Of The 'Holocaust'
By The Red Cross The Jews And The Concentration Camps:
No Evidence Of Genocide
By Jeff Rense
There is one survey of the Jewish question in Europe during World War Two and the conditions of Germany's concentration camps which is almost unique in its honesty and objectivity, the three-volume Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its Activities during the Second World War, Geneva, 1948.
This comprehensive account from an entirely neutral source incorporated and expanded the findings of two previous works: Documents sur l'activité du CICR en faveur des civils détenus dans les camps de concentration en Allemagne 1939-1945 (Geneva, 1946), and Inter Arma Caritas: the Work of the ICRC during the Second World War (Geneva, 1947). The team of authors, headed by Frédéric Siordet, explained in the opening pages of the Report that their object, in the tradition of the Red Cross, had been strict political neutrality, and herein lies its great value.
The ICRC successfully applied the 1929 Geneva military convention in order to gain access to civilian internees held in Central and Western Europe by the Germany authorities. By contrast, the ICRC was unable to gain any access to the Soviet Union, which had failed to ratify the Convention. The millions of civilian and military internees held in the USSR, whose conditions were known to be by far the worst, were completely cut off from any international contact or supervision.
The Red Cross Report is of value in that it first clarifies the legitimate circumstances under which Jews were detained in concentration camps, i.e. as enemy aliens. In describing the two categories of civilian internees, the Report distinguishes the second type as "Civilians deported on administrative grounds (in German, "Schutzhäftlinge"), who were arrested for political or racial motives because their presence was considered a danger to the State or the occupation forces" (Vol. 111, p. 73). These persons, it continues, "were placed on the same footing as persons arrested or imprisoned under common law for security reasons." (P.74).
The Report admits that the Germans were at first reluctant to permit supervision by the Red Cross of people detained on grounds relating to security, but by the latter part of 1942, the ICRC obtained important concessions from Germany. They were permitted to distribute food parcels to major concentration camps in Germany from August 1942, and "from February 1943 onwards this concession was extended to all other camps and prisons" (Vol. 111, p. 78). The ICRC soon established contact with camp commandants and launched a food relief programme which continued to function until the last months of 1945, letters of thanks for which came pouring in from Jewish internees.
Red Cross Recipients Were Jews
The Report states that "As many as 9,000 parcels were packed daily. >From the autumn of 1943 until May 1945, about 1,112,000 parcels with a total weight of 4,500 tons were sent off to the concentration camps" (Vol. III, p. 80). In addition to food, these contained clothing and pharmaceutical supplies. "Parcels were sent to Dachau, Buchenwald, Sangerhausen, Sachsenhausen, Oranienburg, Flossenburg, Landsberg-am-Lech, Flöha, Ravensbrück, Hamburg-Neuengamme, Mauthausen, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, to camps near Vienna and in Central and Southern Germany. The principal recipients were Belgians, Dutch, French, Greeks, Italians, Norwegians, Poles and stateless Jews" (Vol. III, p. 83).
In the course of the war, "The Committee was in a position to transfer and distribute in the form of relief supplies over twenty million Swiss francs collected by Jewish welfare organisations throughout the world, in particular by the American Joint Distribution Committee of New York" (Vol. I, p. 644). This latter organisation was permitted by the German Government to maintain offices in Berlin until the American entry into the war. The ICRC complained that obstruction of their vast relief operation for Jewish internees came not from the Germans but from the tight Allied blockade of Europe. Most of their purchases of relief food were made in Rumania, Hungary and Slovakia.
The ICRC had special praise for the liberal conditions which prevailed at Theresienstadt up to the time of their last visits there in April 1945. This camp, "where there were about 40,000 Jews deported from various countries was a relatively privileged ghetto" (Vol. III, p. 75). According to the Report, "'The Committee's delegates were able to visit the camp at Theresienstadt (Terezin) which was used exclusively for Jews and was governed by special conditions. From information gathered by the Committee, this camp had been started as an experiment by certain leaders of the Reich ... These men wished to give the Jews the means of setting up a communal life in a town under their own administration and possessing almost complete autonomy. . . two delegates were able to visit the camp on April 6th, 1945. They confirmed the favourable impression gained on the first visit" (Vol. I, p . 642).
The ICRC also had praise for the regime of Ion Antonescu of Fascist Rumania where the Committee was able to extend special relief to 183,000 Rumanian Jews until the time of the Soviet occupation. The aid then ceased, and the ICRC complained bitterly that it never succeeded "in sending anything whatsoever to Russia" (Vol. II, p. 62). The same situation applied to many of the German camps after their "liberation" by the Russians. The ICRC received a voluminous flow of mail from Auschwitz until the period of the Soviet occupation, when many of the internees were evacuated westward. But the efforts of the Red Cross to send relief to internees remaining at Auschwitz under Soviet control were futile. However, food parcels continued to be sent to former Auschwitz inmates transferred west to such camps as Buchenwald and Oranienburg.
One of the most important aspects of the Red Cross Report is that it clarifies the true cause of those deaths that undoubtedly occurred in the camps toward the end of the war. Says the Report: "In the chaotic condition of Germany after the invasion during the final months of the war, the camps received no food supplies at all and starvation claimed an increasing number of victims. Itself alarmed by this situation, the German Government at last informed the ICRC on February 1st, 1945 ... In March 1945, discussions between the President of the ICRC and General of the S.S. Kaltenbrunner gave even more decisive results. Relief could henceforth be distributed by the ICRC, and one delegate was authorised to stay in each camp ..." (Vol. III, p. 83).
Clearly, the German authorities were at pains to relieve the dire situation as far as they were able. The Red Cross are quite explicit in stating that food supplies ceased at this time due to the Allied bombing of German transportation, and in the interests of interned Jews they had protested on March 15th, 1944 against "the barbarous aerial warfare of the Allies" (Inter Arma Caritas, p. 78). By October 2nd, 1944, the ICRC warned the German Foreign Office of the impending collapse of the German transportation system, declaring that starvation conditions for people throughout Germany were becoming inevitable.
In dealing with this comprehensive, three-volume Report, it is important to stress that the delegates of the International Red Cross found no evidence whatever at the camps in Axis occupied Europe of a deliberate policy to exterminate the Jews. In all its 1,600 pages the Report does not even mention such a thing as a gas chamber. It admits that Jews, like many other wartime nationalities, suffered rigours and privations, but its complete silence on the subject of planned extermination is ample refutation of the Six Million legend. Like the Vatican representatives with whom they worked, the Red Cross found itself unable to indulge in the irresponsible charges of genocide which had become the order of the day. So far as the genuine mortality rate is concerned, the Report points out that most of the Jewish doctors from the camps were being used to combat typhus on the eastern front, so that they were unavailable when the typhus epidemics of 1945 broke out in the camps (Vol. I, p. 204 ff) - Incidentally, it is frequently claimed that mass executions were carried out in gas chambers cunningly disguised as shower facilities. Again the Report makes nonsense of this allegation. "Not only the washing places, but installations for baths, showers and laundry were inspected by the delegates. They had often to take action to have fixtures made less primitive, and to get them repaired or enlarged" (Vol. III, p. 594).
Not All Were Interned
Volume III of the Red Cross Report, Chapter 3 (I. Jewish Civilian Population) deals with the "aid given to the Jewish section of the free population," and this chapter makes it quite plain that by no means all of the European Jews were placed in internment camps, but remained, subject to certain restrictions, as part of the free civilian population. This conflicts directly with the "thoroughness" of the supposed "extermination programme", and with the claim in the forged Höss memoirs that Eichmann was obsessed with seizing "every single Jew he could lay his hands on."
In Slovakia, for example, where Eichmann's assistant Dieter Wisliceny was in charge, the Report states that "A large proportion of the Jewish minority had permission to stay in the country, and at certain periods Slovakia was looked upon as a comparative haven of refuge for Jews, especially for those coming from Poland. Those who remained in Slovakia seem to have been in comparative safety until the end of August 1944, when a rising against the German forces took place. While it is true that the law of May 15th, 1942 had brought about the internment of several thousand Jews, these people were held in camps where the conditions of food and lodging were tolerable, and where the internees were allowed to do paid work on terms almost equal to those of the free labour market" (Vol. I, p. 646).
Not only did large numbers of the three million or so European Jews avoid internment altogether, but the emigration of Jews continued throughout the war, generally by way of Hungary, Rumania and Turkey. Ironically, post-war Jewish emigration from German-occupied territories was also facilitated by the Reich, as in the case of the Polish Jews who had escaped to France before its occupation. "The Jews from Poland who, whilst in France, had obtained entrance permits to the United States were held to be American citizens by the German occupying authorities, who further agreed to recognize the validity of about three thousand passports issued to Jews by the consulates of South American countries" (Vol. I, p. 645).
As future U.S. citizens, these Jews were held at the Vittel camp in southern France for American aliens. The emigration of European Jews from Hungary in particular proceeded during the war unhindered by the German authorities. "Until March 1944," says the. Red Cross Report, "Jews who had the privilege of visas for Palestine were free to leave Hungary" (Vol. I, p. 648). Even after the replacement of the Horthy Government in 1944 (following its attempted armistice with the Soviet Union) with a government more dependent on German authority, the emigration of Jews continued.
The Committee secured the pledges of both Britain and the United States "to give support by every means to the emigration of Jews from Hungary," and from the U.S. Government the ICRC received a message stating that "The Government of the United States ... now specifically repeats its assurance that arrangements will be made by it for the care of all Jews who in the present circumstances are allowed to leave" (Vol. I, p. 649).
Biedermann agreed that in the nineteen instances that "Did Six Million Really Die?" quoted from the Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its Activities during the Second World War and Inter Arma Caritas (this includes the above material), it did so accurately.
A quote from Charles Biedermann (a delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Director of the Red Cross' International Tracing Service) under oath at the Zündel Trial (February 9, 10, 11 and 12, 1988).
The above is chapter nine from the book "Did Six Million Really Die?"
For the entire book "Did Six Million Really Die?," click here.
http://www.vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2004/03/122056.php
http://www.rense.com
The Journal of History - Fall 2007 Copyright © 2007 by News Source, Inc.
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Colloquium | Members
The Latin American Committee (LAC) is a student-led organization that is dedicated to promoting discourse on cultural, social, political, historical and economic issues in Latin America through a variety of events and initiatives that foster interest and awareness about the region. It is a space open to students of all backgrounds, identities and ideologies to discuss and learn about the Latin American region; they want to spark conversation about the region by facilitating the learning process for students. LAC members engaged in weekly discussions on given topics, followed by meetings with guest experts. To further strengthen and broaden their network the LAC hosts a series of events throughout the year in collaboration with faculty members and other Latin American and Caribbean student groups around the Boston area.
EPIIC Colloquium
At EPIIC's core is the year-long, multidisciplinary course on a global political theme. Undergraduate and graduate students of diverse nationalities, viewpoints, experiences, and interests, participate in this rigorous colloquium that stresses critical, analytical and normative thinking. Students are encouraged to confront the ambiguity and complexity of EPIIC's annual global theme through a multi-disciplinary examination of the issues and controversies that the topic reflects. They are taught the subject under investigation not only by a broad range of distinguished academics and practitioners, but also as active participants in defining the issues through classroom presentations and discussions, extensive readings, and independent research. There is an emphasis both on individual progress and on the collaborative effort -- in essence, an intellectual team. Students produce tangible outcomes to their studies through their individual research papers or projects, the international symposium, and the Inquiry simulation.
Yasir Abbas
Yasir Abbas is a senior majoring in international relations with a focus on international security. He came to the United States four years ago as a refugee from Iraq. He first settled in Nashville, Tennessee, where he attended Motlow State Community College for two years before transferring to Tufts University in 2012. In Iraq, Yasir worked as an interpreter with the U.S. military from 2005 to the end of 2009, where he helped start and organize the Awakening Councils in Northwestern Baghdad. Yasir’s academic interests include the dynamics of internal conflicts, mediation and conflict resolution, economics, and counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. He is currently working on writing his biography. His hobbies are swimming, desert camping, playing soccer, and running.
Sama Abdul-Aziz
Sama Abdul-Aziz is an Iraqi-American from Wayland, Massachusetts majoring in Biochemistry. At Tufts, Sama has been involved with the Tufts University Refugee Assistance Program, TURAP, and is a member of the Arab Student Association, ASA, and Pre-Dental Society executive boards. This summer, Sama worked alongside three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, where she researched internal conflicts and their implications on overall well-being and health. In August, she traveled to Zambia with an NGO run through the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, Options for Children in Zambia, which has provided dental treatment to Zambian villages and orphanages for the past six years. There she studied the relationship between improved oral health and improved overall health and quality of life. This year's EPIIC topic combines Sama's passions and experiences in a meaningful manner. Sama is excited to apply the knowledge she learns from EPIIC beyond her undergraduate career, into dental school, where she hopes to bridge the gap between the public and private sectors in dentistry.
Kayley Abell-Hart
Kayley is a Tufts undergraduate (class of 2015) majoring in International Relations with a focus on global health. She also studies Arabic and loves all languages, including English, in which she is an avid writer of fiction in any form. She is most interested in addressing inequities in health and health as a human right.
Rebecca Allen
Rebecca is a senior from Roslyn, NY pursuing a major in Religion. On campus, she is President of both Challah for Hunger and CAFE, the interfaith initiative at Tufts. Additionally, Rebecca serves as the Cummings/ Hillel Holocaust and Genocide Education intern, bringing scholars and survivors to campus in order to further Holocaust and Genocide awareness. Previously, Rebecca has interned with United to End Genocide in the field of policy and government relations as well as Project Harmony, an English-language coexistence program for Arab and Jewish Israeli youth in Jerusalem. Rebecca is excited to be part of EPIIC as she hopes to pursue a career working towards the goals of creating a just and sustainable peace in the MENA region. In particular, she is interested in the role of religion as both a weapon of war and tool for peace and hopes to engage in women and youth empowerment efforts as a means by which to promote peace and reconciliation in this region.
Kira Ambrose
A Canadian based in Orlando, Kira played varsity and club volleyball throughout her high school career while publishing a periodical and performing occasional reporting services for the online volleyball hub, Prepvolleyball.com. She came to Tufts for the International Relations program, and stayed for the dazzling adventures in Boston, a double major in Peace and Justice Studies, diverse, intellectual atmosphere, changing seasons and the vegetarian food in Dewick. Kira loves to explore unfamiliar territory, be it Boston, a new restaurant or a new language. After school, she hopes to go into journalism, international law or business; so long as she can travel, meet interesting people and have an impact on the world she’ll be happy.
Erik Anderson
Erik is a senior at Tufts from San Francisco, California. He is studying French as well as International Relations, with a concentration in international economic development. At Tufts, Erik is a member of 180 Degrees Consulting, which offers pro bono consulting work to non-profit organizations. Most recently, he worked with a startup called Addis Ideas that was establishing itself in Addis Ababa with the goal of promoting local development through the crowdsourcing of information from Ethiopian nationals. His fascination with economic development, foreign affairs, and European culture make him particularly interested in studying both the economic predicament and the refugee crisis faced by Europe today. In addition to his life on campus, Erik has a passion for travel and cooking.
Zoë Atlas
Zoë Atlas is from Berkeley, California. She is pre-med and majoring in International Relations with a focus in global health, nutrition, and the environment. Her primary hobby is music; she plays piano, violin, and guitar, and enjoys writing and playing with friends. She also spent several summers working at the Aspen Music Festival & School in Colorado. Zoë is very interested in holistic health and nutrition as it relates to primary health, and worked with local organizations in the bay area to design an elementary school program to teach children about these issues. She is very excited about EPIIC as an opportunity to delve deeper into her chosen field and learn more about the areas in which she has less expertise.
Maalika Banerjee
Maalika Banerjee is a senior pre-med student, double majoring in Community Health and English. Born in San Francisco, she grew up in the Boston area, primarily in Newton, Mass. She fell upon the field of Public Health by accident - taking Community Health 1 her freshman year - and she has since become an enthusiast, passionately pursuing the field both domestically and abroad. Most recently, she spent a semester studying in Durban, South Africa, developing an independent project on community-based comprehensive HIV/AIDS care in a rural setting. At Tufts, she enjoys working side by side with low-income clients as a LIFT advocate, engaging students in dialogue as a Writing Fellow, performing Indian classical dance as the captain of Pulse, and facilitating science education for middle school students in Jamaica Plain, Mass. In her free time, Maalika likes consuming frozen yogurt, reading the Sunday New York Times Magazine cover-to-cover, and playing Bananagrams.
Averi Becque
Averi Becque is a senior majoring in International Relations with a concentration on Latin America. Growing up in a small town on the coast of Maine, she knew that she wanted to have lots of adventures and felt that Tufts would be a good place to do that. She has thus far had the good luck to intern at a Mexico City NGO focused on public health, road trip across the U.S. on a Greyhound bus, participate in community development projects in Guatemala, volunteer as a health educator in Boston Public High Schools and spend a summer studying in Havana, Cuba. In Cuba she conducted research on the relationship between family planning and gender equality on the island. While there she also immersed herself in learning about U.S.-Cuba relations, the development of Cuba’s revolutionary social welfare programs, and the political and economic changes that the country has continued to experience since the fall of the Soviet Union. Always seeking to better understand the complexities of the world, a program like EPIIC is something that Averi simply cannot resist.
Douglas Berger
Doug is a sophomore at Tufts University from Mamaroneck, New York. He is majoring in International Relations with a focus on security studies. He spent the summer taking classes at the Tufts European Center in Talloires, France, improving his French and studying the causes of revolution. At Tufts, Doug is involved in Model UN, which simulates diplomacy in competition with other schools, as well as CIVIC, a political discussion club. His interests include politics, geography, and hiking. In EPIIC, Doug hopes to explore the interconnected nature of world events within the broad themes of chaos and order, and to gain from the perspective of guest speakers and his fellow classmates.
The Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES) is an undergraduate organization dedicated to improving civilian-military relations.
The Tufts Initiative for International Leadership and Perspective (TILIP) is a program that seeks to foster cross-cultural team building through intensive, intellectual inquiry and practical study.
[EXPOSURE]
[EXPOSURE] is the Institute for Global Leadership's undergraduate-led program for photojournalism, documentary studies and human rights.
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Dallas Area Court of Appeals Agrees that Discharged Employee Failed to Prove Retaliatory Discharge Under Texas Law
By Key Harrington Barnes, PC
Since Texas is an “employment at-will” state, generally employees can be fired for good cause, no cause, or even bad cause – as long as the “cause” is not illegal under state or federal law (such as age or race discrimination). Still, it is not unusual for a retaliatory discharge claim to be filed against an employer that acted legally. If your business has found itself in this situation, you should talk to a qualified Dallas employment defense attorney as soon as possible.handshake
Facts of the Case
In a case recently reviewed by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas at Dallas, the plaintiff was a former employee of a convenience store. She complained that the defendant store had engaged in a retaliatory discharge when it fired her after some 25 years of employment (for 23 years of which she had worked as a store manager). According to the plaintiff, the termination of her employment was a direct result of her reporting an instance of sexual harassment involving a subordinate employee (who claimed to have been sexually harassed by a male store manager).
The defendant averred that the plaintiff’s termination was due to her failure to correct certain performance concerns that had been brought to her attention some time prior to the sexual harassment incident. The trial court granted summary judgment to the defendant but denied its request for attorney’s fees. The plaintiff appealed.
The Appellate Court’s Holding
The court of appeals affirmed both the trial court’s granting of summary judgment to the defendant and its denial of the defendant’s request for attorney’s fees. Under Texas law, a retaliatory discharge claimant must prove three things in order to meet his or her burden of making out the prima facie case of retaliation necessary to survive a summary judgment motion by the defendant: that he or she engaged in a protected activity; that an adverse employment action happened; and that there was a causal connection between the activity and the employment decision.
The plaintiff argued that she had engaged in two protected activities – forwarding her underling’s complaint of sexual harassment and shaking her head during a meeting during the investigation of the alleged harassment. The court of appeals agreed with the defendant, however, that the plaintiff’s reporting of the alleged harassment was a ministerial task required by her supervisory position. With regard to her “head-shaking,” the plaintiff’s conduct showed her opposition to the harassment rather than the defendant’s response to it. This failed to show any unlawful employment practice by the defendant, as required under the Texas Labor Code.
The appellate court agreed with the plaintiff that she should not be ordered to pay the defendant’s attorney’s fees, even though her claim was ultimately dismissed. Since the plaintiff had attempted to distinguish her case from prior, opposing case law and had argued for an extension of federal law, the court of appeals found no abuse of discretion in the lower tribunal’s decision not to award attorney’s fees in the case.
Need to Talk to a Dallas Employment Litigation Attorney?
If your business has been sued by a disgruntled employee or former employee following an incident of alleged sexual harassment, you need an experienced wrongful termination attorney in your corner. To schedule an appointment to discuss your case, contact Key Harrington Barnes at 214-615-7925. Do not delay in speaking to an attorney about your situation, since it takes time to conduct a thorough investigation and formulate an effective defense. As with other legal matters, time is of the essence, and a delay could result in adverse consequences.
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Shadow of a Doubt
Title: Shadow of a Doubt
Subject: Alfred Hitchcock, Santa Rosa, California, Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Film noir
Collection: 1940S Thriller Films, 1943 Films, American Films, American Thriller Films, Black-and-White Films, English-Language Films, Film Noir, Film Scores by Dimitri Tiomkin, Films Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Films Set in California, Films Set in the San Francisco Bay Area, Films Shot in California, Films Shot in New Jersey, Psychological Thriller Films, Rail Transport Films, Serial Killer Films, United States National Film Registry Films, Universal Pictures Films
Theatrical release poster
Jack H. Skirball
Screenplay by
Sally Benson
Alma Reville
Gordon McDonell
Macdonald Carey
Henry Travers
Dimitri Tiomkin (original)
Joseph A. Valentine
Milton Carruth
Skirball Productions
January 12, 1943 (1943-01-12)
108 minutes[1]
Shadow of a Doubt is a 1943 American psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. Written by Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, and Alma Reville, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story for Gordon McDonell. In 1991, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Hitchcock's cameo 2.1
Radio adaptions and remakes 5
Charlotte "Charlie" Newton is a bored teenager living in the idyllic town of Santa Rosa, California. She receives wonderful news: her mother's younger brother (her namesake), Charlie Oakley, is arriving for a visit. Two men appear, supposedly working on a national survey. One takes a photo of Uncle Charlie, who demands the roll of film because "no one takes my photograph." The younger surveyor, Jack Graham, asks young Charlie out, and she guesses that he is really a detective. He explains that her uncle is one of two suspects who may be the "Merry Widow Murderer". Charlie refuses to believe it at first, but then observes Uncle Charlie acting strangely. The initials engraved inside a ring he gave her match those of one of the murdered women. During a family dinner he reveals his hatred of rich widows, comparing them to fat animals deserving to be slaughtered.
Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) confronts his niece (Teresa Wright) in a seedy bar about what she knows.
One night, when Charlie's father and Herbie discuss how to commit the perfect murder, Uncle Charlie lets his guard down and describes elderly widows as "fat, wheezing animals"; he then says, "What happens to animals when they get too fat and too old?" Horrified, Charlie runs out. Uncle Charlie follows and takes her into a seedy bar. He admits he is one of the two suspects. He begs her for help; she reluctantly agrees not to say anything, as long as he leaves soon, to avoid a horrible confrontation that would destroy her mother, who idolizes her younger brother. Detective Saunders tells Charlie that the photo they took of Uncle Charlie was sent for identification by witnesses. News breaks that an alternative suspect was chased by police and killed by an airplane propeller; it is assumed that he was the murderer. Jack tells young Charlie that he loves her and would like to marry her, and leaves.
Uncle Charlie is delighted to be exonerated, but young Charlie knows all his secrets. Soon, she falls down dangerously steep stairs which were cut through. Uncle Charlie says he wants to settle down, and young Charlie says she will kill him if he stays. Later that night, she is trapped in the garage with a car spewing exhaust fumes, and almost dies.
Uncle Charlie announces he is leaving for San Francisco, along with a rich widow, Mrs. Potter. Young Charlie boards the train with her younger sister Ann and their brother to see Uncle Charlie's compartment. As the children disembark, Uncle Charlie restrains his niece Charlie on the train, hoping to kill her by shoving her out after it picks up speed. In the ensuing struggle, he falls in front of an oncoming train. At his funeral, Uncle Charlie is honored by the townspeople. Jack has returned, and Charlie confesses that she withheld crucial information. They resolve to keep Uncle Charlie's crimes secret.
Teresa Wright as Charlotte "Charlie" Newton
Joseph Cotten as Charles "Charlie" Oakley
Henry Travers as Joseph Newton, Charlotte's father, who loves to read crime stories
Patricia Collinge as Emma Newton, Charlotte's mother and Charles' sister
Macdonald Carey as Detective Jack Graham
Wallace Ford as Detective Fred Saunders
Hume Cronyn as Herbie Hawkins, a neighbor who, like Charlie's father, is a crime fiction buff. He appears periodically and discusses ideas for the perfect murder with Joseph Newton
Edna May Wonacott as Ann Newton
Charles Bates as Roger Newton
Irving Bacon as Station Master
Clarence Muse as Pullman Porter
Janet Shaw as Louise
Estelle Jewell as Catherine
Hitchcock's cameo
Alfred Hitchcock appears about 16 minutes into the film, on the train to Santa Rosa, playing bridge with a man and a woman (Dr. and Mrs. Harry). Charlie is traveling on the train under the assumed name of Otis. Mrs. Harry is eager to help Otis, who is feigning illness in order to avoid meeting fellow passengers, but Dr. Harry is not interested and keeps playing bridge. Dr Harry replies to Hitchcock that he doesn't look well while Hitchcock is holding a full suit of spades, the best hand for bridge.
Shadow of a Doubt was both filmed and set in Santa Rosa, California, which was portrayed as a paragon of a supposedly peaceful, small, pre-War American city. Since Thornton Wilder wrote the original script, the story is set in a small American town, a popular setting of Wilder's, but with an added Hitchcock touch to it. In Patrick McGilligan's biography of Hitchcock, he said the film was perhaps the most American film that Hitchcock had made up to that time.
The opening scenes take place in the Central Ward of Newark, New Jersey. The city skyline and landmarks such as the Pulaski Skyway are featured in the opening shot.
The Newton family home is located at 904 McDonald Avenue in Santa Rosa, which is still standing. The stone railway station in the film was built in 1904 for the Northwestern Pacific Railroad and is one of the few commercial buildings in central Santa Rosa to survive the earthquake of April 18, 1906. The station is currently a visitor center. Some of the buildings in the center of Santa Rosa that are seen in the film were damaged or destroyed by earthquakes in 1969; much of the area was cleared of debris and largely rebuilt. The library was a Carnegie Library which was demolished in the mid-1960s due to seismic concerns.
The film was scored by Dimitri Tiomkin, his first collaboration with Hitchcock (the others being Strangers on a Train, I Confess and Dial M for Murder). In his score, Tiomkin quotes the famous Merry Widow Waltz of Franz Lehár, often in somewhat distorted forms, as a leitmotif for Uncle Charlie and his serial murders. During the opening credits, the waltz theme is heard along with a prolonged shot of couples dancing.
Upon release, the film received unanimously positive reviews. New York Times critic Bosley Crowther loved the film, stating that "Hitchcock could raise more goose pimples to the square inch of a customer's flesh than any other director in Hollywood".[2] Time Magazine called the film "superb"[2] while Variety stated that "Hitchcock deftly etches his small-town characters and homey surroundings".[2]
In a 1964 interview on Telescope with host Fletcher Markle, Markle noted, "Mr Hitchcock, most critics have always considered Shadow of a Doubt, which you made in 1943, as your finest film." Hitchcock replied immediately, "Me too." Markle then asked, "That is your opinion of it still?" Hitchcock replied, "Oh, no question." At the time, Hitchcock's most recent work was Marnie. When later interviewed by François Truffaut, Hitchcock denied the suggestion that Shadow of a Doubt was his "favourite".[3] But in the audio interview with Truffaut, Hitchcock confirmed it was his favourite film, and later reiterated that Shadow of a Doubt was his favorite film in his interview with Mike Douglas in 1969 and in his interview with Dick Cavett in 1972. Alfred Hitchcock's daughter Patricia Hitchcock also said that her father's favorite film was Shadow of a Doubt in the documentary "Beyond Doubt: The Making of Hitchcock's Favorite Film".
Today, the film is still regarded as a masterpiece. Contemporary critic Dave Kehr called it Hitchcock's "first indisputable masterpiece."[4] Many other critics have agreed. Based on 30 reviews on the website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has received 100%, with a consensus of "Alfred Hitchcock's earliest classic -- and his own personal favorite -- deals its flesh-crawling thrills as deftly as its finely shaded characters".[2] When asked by critics as to an overarching theme for the film Hitchcock responded: "Love and good order is no defense against evil". In his book Bambi vs. Godzilla, David Mamet calls it Hitchcock's finest film.
Radio adaptions and remakes
The film was adapted for Cecil B. DeMille's Lux Radio Theater aired on January 3, 1944 with its original leading actress Teresa Wright and William Powell as Uncle Charlie (Patrick McGilligan said Hitchcock had originally wanted Powell to play Uncle Charlie, but MGM refused to lend the actor for the film.). In 1950, Shadow of a Doubt was featured as a radio-play on Screen Directors Playhouse. It starred Cary Grant as Uncle Charlie and Betsy Drake as the young Charlie.[5] It was also adapted to the Ford Theater (February 18, 1949). The Screen Guild Theater adapted the film twice with Joseph Cotten, the first with Vanessa Brown as young Charlie, and the second with Deanna Durbin. The Academy Award Theater production of Shadow of a Doubt was aired Sept. 11, 1946.[6]
The film was remade as Step Down to Terror (1958). It was remade again as a TV movie under its original title, starring Mark Harmon as Uncle Charlie.
List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator website
^ (A)"SHADOW OF A DOUBT".
^ a b c d "Shadow of a Doubt". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
^ Jim McDevitt, Eric San Juan. A Year of Hitchcock: 52 Weeks With the Master of Suspense. ISBN 9780810863880. Page 158.
^ capsule reviewChicago Reader
^ "Other Cary Grant Radio Appearances". carygrantradio.com.
^ "Old Time Radio (OTR) Drama and Adventure".
Shadow of a Doubt at the American Film Institute Catalog
Shadow of a Doubt at the Internet Movie Database
Shadow of a Doubt at the TCM Movie Database
Shadow of a Doubt at Rotten Tomatoes
Shadow of a Doubt on Screen Guild Theater: May 24, 1943
Shadow of a Doubt on Lux Radio Theater: January 3, 1944
Classic-era films noir in the National Film Registry
Double Indemnity
The Lost Weekend
Force of Evil
The Naked City
The Asphalt Jungle
Gun Crazy
The Hitch-Hiker
The Night of the Hunter
Unproduced projects
Themes and plot devices
Silent films
The Pleasure Garden (1925)
The Mountain Eagle (1926)
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
Downhill (1927)
The Farmer's Wife (1928)
Easy Virtue (1928)
Champagne (1928)
The Manxman (1929)
British sound films
Blackmail (1929)
Juno and the Paycock (1930)
Murder! (1930)
Elstree Calling (1930, co-director)
The Skin Game (1931)
Mary (1931)
Rich and Strange (1931)
Number Seventeen (1932)
Lord Camber's Ladies (1932, producer only)
Waltzes from Vienna (1934)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
The 39 Steps (1935)
Secret Agent (1936)
Sabotage (1936)
Young and Innocent (1937)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Jamaica Inn (1939)
Hollywood and later
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941)
Suspicion (1941)
Saboteur (1942)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Lifeboat (1944)
Notorious (1946)
The Paradine Case (1947)
Rope (1948)
Under Capricorn (1949)
Stage Fright (1950)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
Rear Window (1954)
To Catch a Thief (1955)
The Wrong Man (1956)
North by Northwest (1959)
Torn Curtain (1966)
Topaz (1969)
Family Plot (1976)
Always Tell Your Wife
An Elastic Affair
Aventure Malgache
The Fighting Generation
German Concentration Camps Factual Survey
Hitchcockian
1985 revival
Alfred Hitchcock Edition Clue
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
Alfred Hitchcock's Anthology
Transatlantic Pictures
High Anxiety
The Blackguard
Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho
Hitchcock/Truffaut
Hitchcock/Truffaut (film)
Use mdy dates from December 2014
English-language films
Articles needing additional references from April 2013
1940s thriller films
American films
American thriller films
Black-and-white films
Film scores by Dimitri Tiomkin
Films directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Films set in California
Films set in the San Francisco Bay Area
Films shot in California
Films shot in New Jersey
Psychological thriller films
Rail transport films
Serial killer films
United States National Film Registry films
Universal Pictures films
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, Harlem, Alfred Hitchcock, World War II, Gary Cooper
Our Town, Madison, Wisconsin, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Jean-Paul Sartre, Robert E. Sherwood
Sonoma County, California, California, San Francisco, Healdsburg, California, San Jose, California
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ABC Midseason Premiere Dates Announced Including Shonda Rhimes NEW SHOW ‘The Catch’
November 16, 2015 By T.J. Leave a Comment
We’ve finally been blessed with the knowledge of when ABC midseason premieres dates are going to occur. Let’s look into the list of goodness now.
Fall midseason finales are approaching and the drama for many of these shows are so high that they the will surely have cliffhangers that will leave our jaws on the floor. And with the midseason finales we understand that sadness may arrive because our shows are going on hiatus, but we have the return dates of your ABC favorites. Along with those faves, we are blessed with the premiere date of the Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers new production, created by Hannibal producer Jennifer Schuur titled, The Catch.
The new thriller The Catch premieres in March 2016 and stars Mireille Enos as Alice Martin, a fraud investigator who’s finance tried to set her up. Between Alice’s cases she is determined to find him before he attempts to ruin her career. With Alice Martin another strong female character returns to the ABC midseason line-up, when season 2 of Marvel’s Agent Carter begins its 10 episode season in January. For the second season, Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell) goes from New York City to Los Angeles, and it might her most dangerous assignment. However, her new home will bring about new friends and possibly a new love, and we are impatiently awaiting every moment of the season.
Another new show premiering midseason on ABC is Of Kings & Prophets developed by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage. ABC states that Of Kings & Prophets is “an epic biblical saga of faith, ambition and betrayal as told through the eyes of the battle-weary King Saul, the resentful prophet Samuel and the resourceful young shepherd David — all on a collision course with destiny that will change the world.” The show has a stellar cast that includes Ray Winstone, Rowena King, Simone Kessell, and Olly Rix. Being a fan of biblical dramas I’m ready to see what Of Kings & Prophets has to offer.
We’re ready for all that ABC has to offer us this upcoming midseason. So let’s get to the full schedule!
SUNDAY, JANUARY 3
8:00-9:00 PM Galavant (Season 2 premiere)
MONDAY, JANUARY 4
8:00-10:00 PM The Bachelor (Season 20 premiere)
TUESDAY, JANUARY 5
9:00-11:00 PM Marvel’s Agent Carter (2-hour Season 2 premiere; Regular time 9:00-10:00 PM)
10:00-11:00 PM American Crime (Season 2 premiere)
8:00-10:00 PM My Diet Is Better Than Yours (2-hour Series premiere)
10:00-11:00 PM Beyond the Tank (Season premiere)
8:00-8:30 PM The Muppets (New episodes)
8:30-9:00 PM Fresh Off the Boat (New episodes)
8:00-9:00 PM Grey’s Anatomy (New episodes)
9:00-10:00 PM Scandal (New episodes)
10:00-11:00 PM How to Get Away With Murder (New episodes)
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2
8:30 PM The Real O’Neals (Sneak preview)
9:00-10:00 PM The Family (Sneak preview)
SUNDAY, MARCH 6
8:00-9:00 PM Once Upon a Time (New episodes)
9:00-10:00 PM The Family (Time period premiere)
10:00-11:00 PM Quantico (New episodes)
TUESDAY, MARCH 8
8:00-8:30 PM Fresh Off the Boat (New time period)
8:30-9:00 PM The Real O’Neals (Time period premiere)
9:00-10:00 PM Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Series return, New episodes)
10:00-11:00 PM Of Kings & Prophets (Series premiere)
10:00-11:00 PM American Crime (Season finale)
10:00-11:00 PM Nashville (Series return, new episodes)
10:00-11:00 PM How to Get Away With Murder (Season 2 finale)
10:00-11:00 PM The Catch (Series premiere)
What has you most excited about the upcoming ABC midseason?
[Featured Image SOURCE]
Filed Under: News, TV Tagged With: ABC midseason, American Crime, Betsy Beers, Beyond the Tank, DatMurda, Fresh Off the Boat, Galavant, Grey's Anatomy, Hannibal, How to Get Away with Murder, Jennifer Schuur, Marvels Agent Carter, Marvels Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, My Diet Is Better Than Yours, Nashville, Of Kings & Prophets, Olly Rix, Once Upon a Time, Quantico, Ray Winstone, Rowena King, Scandal, Shonda Rhimes, Simone Kessell, strong female character, The Bachelor, The Catch, The Family, The Muppets, The Real O'Neals
T.J.'s bookshelf: currently-reading
by Julie Plec
Been There, Done That: Writing Stories from Real Life
by Mike Winchell
Share book reviews and ratings with T.J., and even join a book club on Goodreads.
RECAP: ‘The White Princess’ Season 1, Episode 3 “Burgundy”
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kamau's komedy korner
Latest KKK Blog - Stars Over Edinburgh
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival has made me obsessed with stars. Not the famous kind. Although there are famous stars as part of the festival, Margaret Cho, Henry Rollins, Michael "That Dude From The Police Academy Movies Who Makes Crazy Sounds With His Mouth" Winslow, Al Murray The Pub Landlord. (He's super famous here.) I also don't mean the stars in the night time sky. Especially since it doesn't get dark until after 9pm ... which is awesome.
I'm talking the kind of stars reviewers give to shows. One thing I've learned in my first week at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is that it's all about stars! Preferably lots and lots of them, like a hotel in Dubai.
So many posters here -- I've never seen so many posters in all my life -- are littered with stars proving each show is the most awesomest of any show. I came up to the Fringe with no poster stars at all. All I had was a quote from some regional American publication. And my quote withers next to these...
TO READ THE ENTIRE BLOG CLICK HERE
Tagged: al murray, dubai, edinburgh, fringe, fringe festival, kamau's komedy korner, kkk, pub landlord, sf weekly, w- kamau bell
KKK Blog - Pandora Launches Comedy Stations. I Find Out Who I'm Like
Pandora is doing comedy now!!! With Pandora doing comedy, we have almost created a Utopia on earth. We've got iPad 2s, electric cars being made by American car companies, and Cee-lo is on TV every week. No wonder the world is coming to an end on May 21. Humanity has got nothing left to do.
Full disclosure: I briefly worked at Pandora on this project, and I can't legally tell you exactly what I did there, but it was somewhere between the areas of "Hey, guys! Pandora should do comedy!" and "Ooooh, shiny!"
But I can tell you that I had very little to do with the space magic that makes this awesome. Comedy on Pandora works just like music on Pandora. You type in the name of your favorite comic or comedy track name, and Pandora creates a station based on the qualities it says define that comedian or track.
Since I have two CDs out (ONE NIGht ONLY and Face Full of Flour), as an experiment, I am going to enter, HORROR OF HORRORS, my own name. I'm going to listen to five tracks, and we're going to see what happens when I find out who I am like and why I am like them. Can you even create your own Pandora station based on your own name? Will that create a rip in the space-time continuum? Well, I'm doing it anyway. My only rule is no thumbing up or down. I just gotta take what I get.
Okay, apparently W. Kamau Bell is similar comedically to Mr. Paul Mooney, Godfrey, Aries Spears, Eddie Griffin, and Alonzo Bodden. One out of five ain't bad. Oh, wait. Yes it is. Nothing against the dudes on that list, I guess I was just hoping to find I was similar to Mr. Paul Mooney, Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce, young Malcolm X, and the unreleased Bill Cosby CD that he recorded a couple of years ago when he went on that tour chastising single moms.
1. Artist -- W. Kamau Bell, Track Name -- "Where's Chicago? & Californ-YO!"
This is a track from my first CD which was really just a bootleg that I recorded and released as a CD. These two jokes were a STAPLE of my act. It's a bit like looking at baby pictures of myself, except the pictures talk and for some reason I thought the word "titties" was funny.
When I ask Pandora why it played this track, it says, "Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features hostile comedy, subject explorations, a sarcastic delivery, location/situation jokes, and satirical observations." Yeah, that's me. Except recently I've taken out the "location/situation" parts of my jokes so I can focus more on the "hostile comedy" parts.
TO READ THE REST OF MY KKK BLOG POST AT THE SF WEEKLY CLICK HERE.
Tagged: cee-lo, dan cummins, hal sparks, kamau's komedy korner, kkk, komedy, korner, pandora, pandora radio, paul mooney, sf weekly, w- kamau bell
Latest KKK Blog - Hannibal Buress Is All Anyone in This Town Can Talk About...
OK, look assholes! I have a hot tip for you. This is hotter than a tip on Apple Computer stock in 1990. Hotter than an iPad 2.* Hotter than fresh-out-of-the-oven chicken potpie filling. HOT! Hannibal Buress is headlining for the first time THIS WEEKEND at the Punch Line here in San Francisco!
Now, I know what you're thinking. "Kamal, you recommend comics every week. I get it. He's a friend of yours and you think he's funny. Enough with the hard sell."
Okay. First of all, my name is Kamau, not Kamal.
And second of all, this is not the usual KKK endorsement, THIS is a warning of things to come. A warning of the inevitability of how stupid you will feel in a year or two** when Hannibal is one of the biggest comics in the country and you missed your chance because you didn't heed this warning to get in on the ground floor of the next big thing.***
Hannibal has already been feted by Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, and Variety. He's working on getting his late night talk show card fully punched, and is one of the few comics who each year who manage to crack the inscrutable code of appearing on David Letterman. He has written for SNL and 30 Rock. His 2010 debut comedy CD, My Name Is Hannibal, was lavished with praise, making multiple 10 ten lists, including ones by iTunes and Punchline Magazine.**** He's appeared on the podcasts WTF with Marc Maron and The Field Negro Guide to Arts and Culture with guitarist Vernon Reid from the band Living Colour.
READ THE REST of my SF Weekly blog HERE!
Tagged: field negro guide to arts and culture, hannibal buress, kamau's komedy korner, kkk, living colour, sf weekly, vernon reid, w- kamau bell
SFWeekly.com: Why Comics Love Recording in San Francisco
Comics love to record their CDs and DVDs in San Francisco. They LOOOOOOOVE it! Even if they don't live here. Even if they didn't come up doing comedy here. Even if they don't spend that much time in the bay. They still love to record those permanent records known as "specials" here. And they even used to love to record them here when those permanent records were actually records.
Here is a quick list off the top of my Googler of notable CDs, DVDs, and albums that were recorded in San Francisco:
1. Paul Mooney's Race - 1993 (The San Francisco Punch Line)2. Steve Martin's Comedy Is Not Pretty - 1979, and Let's Get Small - 1977 (both at The Boarding House in San Francisco)
3. Margaret Cho's I'm The One That I Want (The Warfield -- this reset the bar for the modern special.)
4. Lenny Bruce's Live At The Curran Theater - 1961 (Apparently the actual show was --- GULP! --- THREE HOURS AND SEVEN MINUTES LONG!)
5. Mort Sahl at The Hungry i - 1960 (Yup, before it was a seedy strip club it was home to the best comedy the country has ever seen.)
6. Zach Galifinakis' Live at The Purple Onion - 2007 (You can hear our very own Alex Koll* introduce Zach at the beginning of the DVD.)
7. Sandra Bernhard's I'm Still Here... Damn It! - 1998 (Slim's)
8. Bill Burr's Let It Go - 2010 (The Fillmore)
9. Phyllis Diller's Live in San Francisco - 2001**
10. Kevin Avery's Hardcore 2007 (The San Francisco Punch Line)
11. Daniel Tosh's Happy Thoughts - 2011 (Yerba Buena Center)
12. Eddie Izzard's Dress To Kill - 1998 (Stage Door Theatre, I was in the flippin' audience the night it was recorded for HBO. I didn't get it. I do now.) FOR THE REST OF THIS POST GO HERE!
Tagged: bill burr, cd, comedy, daniel tosh, dvd, eddie izzard, kamau's komedy korner, kevin avery, lenny bruce, margaret cho, mort sahl, paul mooney, san francisco, sandra bernhard, sf weekly, steve martin, w- kamau bell, zach galifinakis
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Senarai Lengkap Artikel English Articles Islamic Forex Trading
Islamic Forex Trading
Wednesday, 28 February 2007 20:32
(34 votes, average 4.71 out of 5)
Dr Mohammed Obaidullah
1. The Basic Exchange Contracts
There is a general consensus among Islamic jurists on the view that currencies of different countries can be exchanged on a spot basis at a rate different from unity, since currencies of different countries are distinct entities with different values or intrinsic worth, and purchasing power. There also seems to be a general agreement among a majority of scholars on the view that currency exchange on a forward basis is not permissible, that is, when the rights and obligations of both parties relate to a future date. However, there is considerable difference of opinion among jurists when the rights of either one of the parties, which is same as obligation of the counterparty, is deferred to a future date.
To elaborate, let us consider the example of two individuals A and B who belong to two different countries, India and US respectively. A intends to sell Indian rupees and buy U.S dollars. The converse is true for B. The rupee-dollar exchange rate agreed upon is 1:20 and the transaction involves buying and selling of $50. The first situation is that A makes a spot payment of Rs1000 to B and accepts payment of $50 from B. The transaction is settled on a spot basis from both ends. Such transactions are valid and Islamically permissible. There are no two opinions about the same. The second possibility is that settlement of the transaction from both ends is deferred to a future date, say after six months from now. This implies that both A and B would make and accept payment of Rs1000 or $50, as the case may be, after six months. The predominant view is that such a contract is not Islamically permissible. A minority view considers it permissible. The third scenario is that the transaction is partly settled from one end only. For example, A makes a payment of Rs1000 now to B in lieu of a promise by B to pay $50 to him after six months. Alternatively, A accepts $50 now from B and promises to pay Rs1000 to him after six months. There are diametrically opposite views on the permissibility of such contracts which amount to bai-salam in currencies. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive analysis of various arguments in support and against the permissibility of these basic contracts involving currencies. The first form of contracting involving exchange of countervalues on a spot basis is beyond any kind of controversy. Permissibility or otherwise of the second type of contract in which delivery of one of the countervalues is deferred to a future date, is generally discussed in the framework of riba prohibition. Accordingly we discuss this contract in detail in section 2 dealing with the issue of prohibition of riba. Permissibility of the third form of contract in which delivery of both the countervalues is deferred, is generally discussed within the framework of reducing risk and uncertainty or gharar involved in such contracts. This, therefore, is the central theme of section 3 which deals with the issue of gharar. Section 4 attempts a holistic view of the Sharia relates issues as also the economic significance of the basic forms of contracting in the currency market.
2. The Issue of Riba Prohibition
The divergence of views1 on the permissibility or otherwise of exchange contracts in currencies can be traced primarily to the issue of riba prohibition.
The need to eliminate riba in all forms of exchange contracts is of utmost importance. Riba in its Sharia context is generally defined2 as an unlawful gain derived from the quantitative inequality of the countervalues in any transaction purporting to effect the exchange of two or more species (anwa), which belong to the same genus (jins) and are governed by the same efficient cause (illa). Riba is generally classified into riba al-fadl (excess) and riba al-nasia (deferment) which denote an unlawful advantage by way of excess or deferment respectively. Prohibition of the former is achieved by a stipulation that the rate of exchange between the objects is unity and no gain is permissible to either party. The latter kind of riba is prohibited by disallowing deferred settlement and ensuring that the transaction is settled on the spot by both the parties. Another form of riba is called riba al-jahiliyya or pre-Islamic riba which surfaces when the lender asks the borrower on the maturity date if the latter would settle the debt or increase the same. Increase is accompanied by charging interest on the amount initially borrowed.
The prohibition of riba in the exchange of currencies belonging to different countries requires a process of analogy (qiyas). And in any such exercise involving analogy (qiyas), efficient cause (illa) plays an extremely important role. It is a common efficient cause (illa), which connects the object of the analogy with its subject, in the exercise of analogical reasoning. The appropriate efficient cause (illa) in case of exchange contracts has been variously defined by the major schools of Fiqh. This difference is reflected in the analogous reasoning for paper currencies belonging to different countries.
A question of considerable significance in the process of analogous reasoning relates to the comparison between paper currencies with gold and silver. In the early days of Islam, gold and silver performed all the functions of money (thaman). Currencies were made of gold and silver with a known intrinsic value (quantum of gold or silver contained in them). Such currencies are described as thaman haqiqi, or naqdain in Fiqh literature. These were universally acceptable as principal means of exchange, accounting for a large chunk of transactions. Many other commodities, such as, various inferior metals also served as means of exchange, but with limited acceptability. These are described as fals in Fiqh literature. These are also known as thaman istalahi because of the fact that their acceptability stems not from their intrinsic worth, but due to the status accorded by the society during a particular period of time. The above two forms of currencies have been treated very differently by early Islamic jurists from the standpoint of permissibility of contracts involving them. The issue that needs to be resolved is whether the present age paper currencies fall under the former category or the latter. One view is that these should be treated at par with thaman haqiqi or gold and silver, since these serve as the principal means of exchange and unit of account like the latter. Hence, by analogous reasoning, all the Sharia-related norms and injunctions applicable to thaman haqiqi should also be applicable to paper currency. Exchange of thaman haqiqi is known as bai-sarf, and hence, the transactions in paper currencies should be governed by the Sharia rules relevant for bai-sarf. The contrary view asserts that paper currencies should be treated in a manner similar to fals or thaman istalahi because of the fact that their face value is different from their intrinsic worth. Their acceptability stems from their legal status within the domestic country or global economic importance (as in case of US dollars, for instance).
2.1. A Synthesis of Alternative Views
2.1.1. Analogical Reasoning (Qiyas) for Riba Prohibition
The prohibition of riba is based on the tradition that the holy prophet (peace be upon him) said, "Sell gold for gold, silver for silver, wheat for wheat, barley for barley, date for date, salt for salt, in same quantities on the spot; and when the commodities are different, sell as it suits you, but on the spot." Thus, the prohibition of riba applies primarily to the two precious metals (gold and silver) and four other commodities (wheat, barley, dates and salt). It also applies, by analogy (qiyas) to all species which are governed by the same efficient cause (illa) or which belong to any one of the genera of the six objects cited in the tradition. However, there is no general agreement among the various schools of Fiqh and even scholars belonging to the same school on the definition and identification of efficient cause (illa) of riba.
For the Hanafis, efficient cause (illa) of riba has two dimensions: the exchanged articles belong to the same genus (jins); these possess weight (wazan) or measurability (kiliyya). If in a given exchange, both the elements of efficient cause (illa) are present, that is, the exchanged countervalues belong to the same genus (jins) and are all weighable or all measurable, then no gain is permissible (the exchange rate must be equal to unity) and the exchange must be on a spot basis. In case of gold and silver, the two elements of efficient cause (illa) are: unity of genus (jins) and weighability. This is also the Hanbali view according to one version3. (A different version is similar to the Shafii and Maliki view, as discussed below.) Thus, when gold is exchanged for gold, or silver is exchanged for silver, only spot transactions without any gain are permissible. It is also possible that in a given exchange, one of the two elements of efficient cause (illa) is present and the other is absent. For example, if the exchanged articles are all weighable or measurable but belong to different genus (jins) or, if the exchanged articles belong to same genus (jins) but neither is weighable nor measurable, then exchange with gain (at a rate different from unity) is permissible, but the exchange must be on a spot basis. Thus, when gold is exchanged for silver, the rate can be different from unity but no deferred settlement is permissible. If none of the two elements of efficient cause (illa) of riba are present in a given exchange, then none of the injunctions for riba prohibition apply. Exchange can take place with or without gain and both on a spot or deferred basis.
Considering the case of exchange involving paper currencies belonging to different countries, riba prohibition would require a search for efficient cause (illa). Currencies belonging to different countries are clearly distinct entities; these are legal tender within specific geographical boundaries with different intrinsic worth or purchasing power. Hence, a large majority of scholars perhaps rightly assert that there is no unity of genus (jins). Additionally, these are neither weighable nor measurable. This leads to a direct conclusion that none of the two elements of efficient cause (illa) of riba exist in such exchange. Hence, the exchange can take place free from any injunction regarding the rate of exchange and the manner of settlement. The logic underlying this position is not difficult to comprehend. The intrinsic worth of paper currencies belonging to different countries differ as these have different purchasing power. Additionally, the intrinsic value or worth of paper currencies cannot be identified or assessed unlike gold and silver which can be weighed. Hence, neither the presence of riba al-fadl (by excess), nor riba al-nasia (by deferment) can be established.
The Shafii school of Fiqh considers the efficient cause (illa) in case of gold and silver to be their property of being currency (thamaniyya) or the medium of exchange, unit of account and store of value . This is also the Maliki view. According to one version of this view, even if paper or leather is made the medium of exchange and is given the status of currency, then all the rules pertaining to naqdain, or gold and silver apply to them. Thus, according to this version, exchange involving currencies of different countries at a rate different from unity is permissible, but must be settled on a spot basis. Another version of the above two schools of thought is that the above cited efficient cause (illa) of being currency (thamaniyya) is specific to gold and silver, and cannot be generalized. That is, any other object, if used as a medium of exchange, cannot be included in their category. Hence, according to this version, the Sharia injunctions for riba prohibition are not applicable to paper currencies. Currencies belonging to different countries can be exchanged with or without gain and both on a spot or deferred basis.
Proponents of the earlier version cite the case of exchange of paper currencies belonging to the same country in defense of their version. The consensus opinion of jurists in this case is that such exchange must be without any gain or at a rate equal to unity and must be settled on a spot basis. What is the rationale underlying the above decision? If one considers the Hanafi and the first version of Hanbali position then, in this case, only one dimension of the efficient cause (illa) is present, that is, they belong to the same genus (jins). But paper currencies are neither weighable nor measurable. Hence, Hanafi law would apparently permit exchange of different quantities of the same currency on a spot basis. Similarly if the efficient cause of being currency (thamaniyya) is specific only to gold and silver, then Shafii and Maliki law would also permit the same. Needless to say, this amounts to permitting riba-based borrowing and lending. This shows that, it is the first version of the Shafii and Maliki thought which underlies the consensus decision of prohibition of gain and deferred settlement in case of exchange of currencies belonging to the same country. According to the proponents, extending this logic to exchange of currencies of different countries would imply that exchange with gain or at a rate different from unity is permissible (since there no unity of jins), but settlement must be on a spot basis.
2.1.2 Comparison between Currency Exchange and Bai-Sarf
Bai-sarf is defined in Fiqh literature as an exchange involving thaman haqiqi, defined as gold and silver, which served as the principal medium of exchange for almost all major transactions.
Proponents of the view that any exchange of currencies of different countries is same as bai-sarf argue that in the present age paper currencies have effectively and completely replaced gold and silver as the medium of exchange. Hence, by analogy, exchange involving such currencies should be governed by the same Sharia rules and injunctions as bai-sarf. It is also argued that if deferred settlement by either parties to the contract is permitted, this would open the possibilities of riba-al nasia.
Opponents of categorization of currency exchange with bai-sarf however point out that the exchange of all forms of currency (thaman) cannot be termed as bai-sarf. According to this view bai-sarf implies exchange of currencies made of gold and silver (thaman haqiqi or naqdain) alone and not of money pronounced as such by the state authorities (thaman istalahi). The present age currencies are examples of the latter kind. These scholars find support in those writings which assert that if the commodities of exchange are not gold or silver, (even if one of these is gold or silver) then, the exchange cannot be termed as bai-sarf. Nor would the stipulations regarding bai-sarf be applicable to such exchanges. According to Imam Sarakhsi4 "when an individual purchases fals or coins made out of inferior metals, such as, copper (thaman istalahi) for dirhams (thaman haqiqi) and makes a spot payment of the latter, but the seller does not have fals at that moment, then such exchange is permissible........ taking possession of commodities exchanged by both parties is not a precondition" (while in case of bai-sarf, it is.) A number of similar references exist which indicate that jurists do not classify an exchange of fals (thaman istalahi) for another fals (thaman istalahi) or gold or silver (thaman haqiqi), as bai-sarf.
Hence, the exchanges of currencies of two different countries which can only qualify as thaman istalahi can not be categorized as bai-sarf. Nor can the constraint regarding spot settlement be imposed on such transactions. It should be noted here that the definition of bai-sarf is provided Fiqh literature and there is no mention of the same in the holy traditions. The traditions mention about riba, and the sale and purchase of gold and silver (naqdain) which may be a major source of riba, is described as bai-sarf by the Islamic jurists. It should also be noted that in Fiqh literature, bai-sarf implies exchange of gold or silver only; whether these are currently being used as medium of exchange or not. Exchange involving dinars and gold ornaments, both quality as bai-sarf. Various jurists have sought to clarify this point and have defined sarf as that exchange in which both the commodities exchanged are in the nature of thaman, not necessarily thaman themselves. Hence, even when one of the commodities is processed gold (say, ornaments), such exchange is called bai-sarf.
Proponents of the view that currency exchange should be treated in a manner similar to bai-sarf also derive support from writings of eminent Islamic jurists. According to Imam Ibn Taimiya "anything that performs the functions of medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value is called thaman, (not necessarily limited to gold & silver). Similar references are available in the writings of Imam Ghazzali5 As far as the views of Imam Sarakhshi is concerned regarding exchange involving fals, according to them, some additional points need to be taken note of. In the early days of Islam, dinars and dirhams made of gold and silver were mostly used as medium of exchange in all major transactions. Only the minor ones were settled with fals. In other words, fals did not possess the characteristics of money or thamaniyya in full and was hardly used as store of value or unit of account and was more in the nature of commodity. Hence there was no restriction on purchase of the same for gold and silver on a deferred basis. The present day currencies have all the features of thaman and are meant to be thaman only. The exchange involving currencies of different countries is same as bai-sarf with difference of jins and hence, deferred settlement would lead to riba al-nasia.
Dr Mohamed Nejatullah Siddiqui illustrates this possibility with an example6. He writes "In a given moment in time when the market rate of exchange between dollar and rupee is 1:20, if an individual purchases $50 at the rate of 1:22 (settlement of his obligation in rupees deferred to a future date), then it is highly probable that he is , in fact, borrowing Rs. 1000 now in lieu of a promise to repay Rs. 1100 on a specified later date. (Since, he can obtain Rs 1000 now, exchanging the $50 purchased on credit at spot rate)" Thus, sarf can be converted into interest-based borrowing & lending.
2.1.3 Defining Thamaniyya is the Key ?
It appears from the above synthesis of alternative views that the key issue seems to be a correct definition of thamaniyya. For instance, a fundamental question that leads to divergent positions on permissibility relates to whether thamaniyya is specific to gold and silver, or can be associated with anything that performs the functions of money. We raise some issues below which may be taken into account in any exercise in reconsideration of alternative positions.
It should be appreciated that thamaniyya may not be absolute and may vary in degrees. It is true that paper currencies have completely replaced gold and silver as medium of exchange, unit of account and store of value. In this sense, paper currencies can be said to possess thamaniyya. However, this is true for domestic currencies only and may not be true for foreign currencies. In other words, Indian rupees possess thamaniyya within the geographical boundaries of India only, and do not have any acceptability in US. These cannot be said to possess thamaniyya in US unless a US citizen can use Indian rupees as a medium of exchange, or unit of account, or store of value. In most cases such a possibility is remote. This possibility is also a function of the exchange rate mechanism in place, such as, convertibility of Indian rupees into US dollars, and whether a fixed or floating exchange rate system is in place. For example, assuming free convertibility of Indian rupees into US dollars and vice versa, and a fixed exchange rate system in which the rupee-dollar exchange rate is not expected to increase or decrease in the foreseeable future, thamaniyya of rupee in US is considerably improved. The example cited by Dr Nejatullah Siddiqui also appears quite robust under the circumstances. Permission to exchange rupees for dollars on a deferred basis (from one end, of course) at a rate different from the spot rate (official rate which is likely to remain fixed till the date of settlement) would be a clear case of interest-based borrowing and lending. However, if the assumption of fixed exchange rate is relaxed and the present system of fluctuating and volatile exchange rates is assumed to be the case, then it can be shown that the case of riba al-nasia breaks down. We rewrite his example: "In a given moment in time when the market rate of exchange between dollar and rupee is 1:20, if an individual purchases $50 at the rate of 1:22 (settlement of his obligation in rupees deferred to a future date), then it is highly probable that he is , in fact, borrowing Rs. 1000 now in lieu of a promise to repay Rs. 1100 on a specified later date. (Since, he can obtain Rs 1000 now, exchanging the $50 purchased on credit at spot rate)" This would be so, only if the currency risk is non-existent (exchange rate remains at 1:20), or is borne by the seller of dollars (buyer repays in rupees and not in dollars). If the former is true, then the seller of the dollars (lender) receives a predetermined return of ten percent when he converts Rs1100 received on the maturity date into $55 (at an exchange rate of 1:20). However, if the latter is true, then the return to the seller (or the lender) is not predetermined. It need not even be positive. For example, if the rupee-dollar exchange rate increases to 1:25, then the seller of dollar would receive only $44 (Rs 1100 converted into dollars) for his investment of $50.
Here two points are worth noting. First, when one assumes a fixed exchange rate regime, the distinction between currencies of different countries gets diluted. The situation becomes similar to exchanging pounds with sterlings (currencies belonging to the same country) at a fixed rate. Second, when one assumes a volatile exchange rate system, then just as one can visualize lending through the foreign currency market (mechanism suggested in the above example), one can also visualize lending through any other organized market (such as, for commodities or stocks.) If one replaces dollars for stocks in the above example, it would read as: "In a given moment in time when the market price of stock X is Rs 20, if an individual purchases 50 stocks at the rate of Rs 22 (settlement of his obligation in rupees deferred to a future date), then it is highly probable that he is , in fact, borrowing Rs. 1000 now in lieu of a promise to repay Rs. 1100 on a specified later date. (Since, he can obtain Rs 1000 now, exchanging the 50 stocks purchased on credit at current price)" In this case too as in the earlier example, returns to the seller of stocks may be negative if stock price rises to Rs 25 on the settlement date. Hence, just as returns in the stock market or commodity market are Islamically acceptable because of the price risk, so are returns in the currency market because of fluctuations in the prices of currencies.
A unique feature of thaman haqiqi or gold and silver is that the intrinsic worth of the currency is equal to its face value. Thus, the question of different geographical boundaries within which a given currency, such as, dinar or dirham circulates, is completely irrelevant. Gold is gold whether in country A or country B. Thus, when currency of country A made of gold is exchanged for currency of country B, also made of gold, then any deviation of the exchange rate from unity or deferment of settlement by either party cannot be permitted as it would clearly involve riba al-fadl and also riba al-nasia. However, when paper currencies of country A is exchanged for paper currency of country B, the case may be entirely different. The price risk (exchange rate risk), if positive, would eliminate any possibility of riba al-nasia in the exchange with deferred settlement. However, if price risk (exchange rate risk) is zero, then such exchange could be a source of riba al-nasia if deferred settlement is permitted7.
Another point that merits serious consideration is the possibility that certain currencies may possess thamaniyya, that is, used as a medium of exchange, unit of account, or store of value globally, within the domestic as well as foreign countries. For instance, US dollar is legal tender within US; it is also acceptable as a medium of exchange or unit of account for a large volume of transactions across the globe. Thus, this specific currency may be said to possesses thamaniyya globally, in which case, jurists may impose the relevant injunctions on exchanges involving this specific currency to prevent riba al-nasia. The fact is that when a currency possesses thamaniyya globally, then economic units using this global currency as the medium of exchange, unit of account or store of value may not be concerned about risk arising from volatility of inter-country exchange rates. At the same time, it should be recognized that a large majority of currencies do not perform the functions of money except within their national boundaries where these are legal tender.
Riba and risk cannot coexist in the same contract. The former connotes a possibility of returns with zero risk and cannot be earned through a market with positive price risk. As has been discussed above, the possibility of riba al-fadl or riba al-nasia may arise in exchange when gold or silver function as thaman; or when the exchange involves paper currencies belonging to the same country; or when the exchange involves currencies of different countries following a fixed exchange rate system. The last possibility is perhaps unIslamic8 since price or exchange rate of currencies should be allowed to fluctuate freely in line with changes in demand and supply and also because prices should reflect the intrinsic worth or purchasing power of currencies. The foreign currency markets of today are characterised by volatile exchange rates. The gains or losses made on any transaction in currencies of different countries, are justified by the risk borne by the parties to the contract.
2.1.4. Possibility of Riba with Futures and Forwards
So far, we have discussed views on the permissibility of bai salam in currencies, that is, when the obligation of only one of the parties to the exchange is deferred. What are the views of scholars on deferment of obligations of both parties ? Typical example of such contracts are forwards and futures9. According to a large majority of scholars, this is not permissible on various grounds, the most important being the element of risk and uncertainty (gharar) and the possibility of speculation of a kind which is not permissible. This is discussed in section 3. However, another ground for rejecting such contracts may be riba prohibition. In the preceding paragraph we have discussed that bai salam in currencies with fluctuating exchange rates can not be used to earn riba because of the presence of currency risk. It is possible to demonstrate that currency risk can be hedged or reduced to zero with another forward contract transacted simultaneously. And once risk is eliminated, the gain clearly would be riba.
We modify and rewrite the same example: "In a given moment in time when the market rate of exchange between dollar and rupee is 1:20, an individual purchases $50 at the rate of 1:22 (settlement of his obligation in rupees deferred to a future date), and the seller of dollars also hedges his position by entering into a forward contract to sell Rs1100 to be received on the future date at a rate of 1:20, then it is highly probable that he is , in fact, borrowing Rs. 1000 now in lieu of a promise to repay Rs. 1100 on a specified later date. (Since, he can obtain Rs 1000 now, exchanging the 50 dollars purchased on credit at spot rate)" The seller of the dollars (lender) receives a predetermined return of ten percent when he converts Rs1100 received on the maturity date into 55 dollars (at an exchange rate of 1:20) for his investment of 50 dollars irrespective of the market rate of exchange prevailing on the date of maturity.
Another simple possible way to earn riba may even involve a spot transaction and a simultaneous forward transaction. For example, the individual in the above example purchases $50 on a spot basis at the rate of 1:20 and simultaneously enters into a forward contract with the same party to sell $50 at the rate of 1:21 after one month. In effect this implies that he is lending Rs1000 now to the seller of dollars for one month and earns an interest of Rs50 (he receives Rs1050 after one month. This is a typical buy-back or repo (repurchase) transaction so common in conventional banking.10
3. The Issue of Freedom from Gharar
3.1 Defining Gharar
Gharar, unlike riba, does not have a consensus definition. In broad terms, it connotes risk and uncertainty. It is useful to view gharar as a continuum of risk and uncertainty wherein the extreme point of zero risk is the only point that is well-defined. Beyond this point, gharar becomes a variable and the gharar involved in a real life contract would lie somewhere on this continuum. Beyond a point on this continuum, risk and uncertainty or gharar becomes unacceptable11. Jurists have attempted to identify such situations involving forbidden gharar. A major factor that contributes to gharar is inadequate information (jahl) which increases uncertainty. This is when the terms of exchange, such as, price, objects of exchange, time of settlement etc. are not well-defined. Gharar is also defined in terms of settlement risk or the uncertainty surrounding delivery of the exchanged articles.
Islamic scholars have identified the conditions which make a contract uncertain to the extent that it is forbidden. Each party to the contract must be clear as to the quantity, specification, price, time, and place of delivery of the contract. A contract, say, to sell fish in the river involves uncertainty about the subject of exchange, about its delivery, and hence, not Islamically permissible. The need to eliminate any element of uncertainty inherent in a contract is underscored by a number of traditions.12
An outcome of excessive gharar or uncertainty is that it leads to the possibility of speculation of a variety which is forbidden. Speculation in its worst form, is gambling. The holy Quran and the traditions of the holy prophet explicitly prohibit gains made from games of chance which involve unearned income. The term used for gambling is maisir which literally means getting something too easily, getting a profit without working for it. Apart from pure games of chance, the holy prophet also forbade actions which generated unearned incomes without much productive efforts.13
Here it may be noted that the term speculation has different connotations. It always involves an attempt to predict the future outcome of an event. But the process may or may not be backed by collection, analysis and interpretation of relevant information. The former case is very much in conformity with Islamic rationality. An Islamic economic unit is required to assume risk after making a proper assessment of risk with the help of information. All business decisions involve speculation in this sense. It is only in the absence of information or under conditions of excessive gharar or uncertainty that speculation is akin to a game of chance and is reprehensible.
3.2 Gharar & Speculation with of Futures & Forwards
Considering the case of the basic exchange contracts highlighted in section 1, it may be noted that the third type of contract where settlement by both the parties is deferred to a future date is forbidden, according to a large majority of jurists on grounds of excessive gharar. Futures and forwards in currencies are examples of such contracts under which two parties become obliged to exchange currencies of two different countries at a known rate at the end of a known time period. For example, individuals A and B commit to exchange US dollars and Indian rupees at the rate of 1: 22 after one month. If the amount involved is $50 and A is the buyer of dollars then, the obligations of A and B are to make a payments of Rs1100 and $50 respectively at the end of one month. The contract is settled when both the parties honour their obligations on the future date.
Traditionally, an overwhelming majority of Sharia scholars have disapproved such contracts on several grounds. The prohibition applies to all such contracts where the obligations of both parties are deferred to a future date, including contracts involving exchange of currencies. An important objection is that such a contract involves sale of a non-existent object or of an object not in the possession of the seller. This objection is based on several traditions of the holy prophet.14 There is difference of opinion on whether the prohibition in the said traditions apply to foodstuffs, or perishable commodities or to all objects of sale. There is, however, a general agreement on the view that the efficient cause (illa) of the prohibition of sale of an object which the seller does not own or of sale prior to taking possession is gharar, or the possible failure to deliver the goods purchased.
Is this efficient cause (illa) present in an exchange involving future contracts in currencies of different countries ? In a market with full and free convertibility or no constraints on the supply of currencies, the probability of failure to deliver the same on the maturity date should be no cause for concern. Further, the standardized nature of futures contracts and transparent operating procedures on the organized futures markets15 is believed to minimize this probability. Some recent scholars have opined in the light of the above that futures, in general, should be permissible. According to them, the efficient cause (illa), that is, the probability of failure to deliver was quite relevant in a simple, primitive and unorganized market. It is no longer relevant in the organized futures markets of today16. Such contention, however, continues to be rejected by the majority of scholars. They underscore the fact that futures contracts almost never involve delivery by both parties. On the contrary, parties to the contract reverse the transaction and the contract is settled in price difference only. For example, in the above example, if the currency exchange rate changes to 1: 23 on the maturity date, the reverse transaction for individual A would mean selling $50 at the rate of 1:23 to individual B. This would imply A making a gain of Rs50 (the difference between Rs1150 and Rs1100). This is exactly what B would lose. It may so happen that the exchange rate would change to 1:21 in which case A would lose Rs50 which is what B would gain. This obviously is a zero-sum game in which the gain of one party is exactly equal to the loss of the other. This possibility of gains or losses (which theoretically can touch infinity) encourages economic units to speculate on the future direction of exchange rates. Since exchange rates fluctuate randomly, gains and losses are random too and the game is reduced to a game of chance. There is a vast body of literature on the forecastability of exchange rates and a large majority of empirical studies have provided supporting evidence on the futility of any attempt to make short-run predictions. Exchange rates are volatile and remain unpredictable at least for the large majority of market participants. Needless to say, any attempt to speculate in the hope of the theoretically infinite gains is, in all likelihood, a game of chance for such participants. While the gains, if they materialize, are in the nature of maisir or unearned gains, the possibility of equally massive losses do indicate a possibility of default by the loser and hence, gharar.
3.3. Risk Management in Volatile Markets
Hedging or risk reduction adds to planning and managerial efficiency. The economic justification of futures and forwards is in term of their role as a device for hedging. In the context of currency markets which are characterized by volatile rates, such contracts are believed to enable the parties to transfer and eliminate risk arising out of such fluctuations. For example, modifying the earlier example, assume that individual A is an exporter from India to US who has already sold some commodities to B, the US importer and anticipates a cashflow of $50 (which at the current market rate of 1:22 mean Rs 1100 to him) after one month. There is a possibility that US dollar may depreciate against Indian rupee during these one month, in which case A would realize less amount of rupees for his $50 ( if the new rate is 1:21, A would realize only Rs1050 ). Hence, A may enter into a forward or future contract to sell $50 at the rate of 1:21.5 at the end of one month (and thereby, realize Rs1075) with any counterparty which, in all probability, would have diametrically opposite expectations regarding future direction of exchange rates. In this case, A is able to hedge his position and at the same time, forgoes the opportunity of making a gain if his expectations do not materialize and US dollar appreciates against Indian rupee (say, to 1:23 which implies that he would have realized Rs1150, and not Rs1075 which he would realize now.) While hedging tools always improve planning and hence, performance, it should be noted that the intention of the contracting party - whether to hedge or to speculate, can never be ascertained.
It may be noted that hedging can also be accomplished with bai salam in currencies. As in the above example, exporter A anticipating a cash inflow of $50 after one month and expecting a depreciation of dollar may go for a salam sale of $50 (with his obligation to pay $50 deferred by one month.) Since he is expecting a dollar depreciation, he may agree to sell $50 at the rate of 1: 21.5. There would be an immediate cash inflow in Rs 1075 for him. The question may be, why should the counterparty pay him rupees now in lieu of a promise to be repaid in dollars after one month. As in the case of futures, the counterparty would do so for profit, if its expectations are diametrically opposite, that is, it expects dollar to appreciate. For example, if dollar appreciates to 1: 23 during the one month period, then it would receive Rs1150 for Rs 1075 it invested in the purchase of $50. Thus, while A is able to hedge its position, the counterparty is able to earn a profit on trading of currencies. The difference from the earlier scenario is that the counterparty would be more restrained in trading because of the investment required, and such trading is unlikely to take the shape of rampant speculation.
4. Summary & Conclusion
Currency markets of today are characterized by volatile exchange rates. This fact should be taken note of in any analysis of the three basic types of contracts in which the basis of distinction is the possibility of deferment of obligations to future. We have attempted an assessment of these forms of contracting in terms of the overwhelming need to eliminate any possibility of riba, minimize gharar, jahl and the possibility of speculation of a kind akin to games of chance. In a volatile market, the participants are exposed to currency risk and Islamic rationality requires that such risk should be minimized in the interest of efficiency if not reduced to zero.
It is obvious that spot settlement of the obligations of both parties would completely prohibit riba, and gharar, and minimize the possibility of speculation. However, this would also imply the absence of any technique of risk management and may involve some practical problems for the participants.
At the other extreme, if the obligations of both the parties are deferred to a future date, then such contracting, in all likelihood, would open up the possibility of infinite unearned gains and losses from what may be rightly termed for the majority of participants as games of chance. Of course, these would also enable the participants to manage risk through complete risk transfer to others and reduce risk to zero. It is this possibility of risk reduction to zero which may enable a participant to earn riba. Future is not a new form of contract. Rather the justification for proscribing it is new. If in a simple primitive economy, it was prevention of gharar relating to delivery of the exchanged article, in todays' complex financial system and organized exchanges, it is prevention of speculation of kind which is unIslamic and which is possible under excessive gharar involved in forecasting highly volatile exchange rates. Such speculation is not just a possibility, but a reality. The precise motive of an economic unit entering into a future contract - speculation or hedging may not ascertainable ( regulators may monitor end use, but such regulation may not be very practical, nor effective in a free market). Empirical evidence at a macro level, however, indicates the former to be the dominant motive.
The second type of contracting with deferment of obligations of one of the parties to a future date falls between the two extremes. While Sharia scholars have divergent views about its permissibility, our analysis reveals that there is no possibility of earning riba with this kind of contracting. The requirement of spot settlement of obligations of atleast one party imposes a natural curb on speculation, though the room for speculation is greater than under the first form of contracting. The requirement amounts to imposition of a hundred percent margin which, in all probability, would drive away the uninformed speculator from the market. This should force the speculator to be a little more sure of his expectations by being more informed. When speculation is based on information it is not only permissible, but desirable too. Bai salam would also enable the participants to manage risk. At the same time, the requirement of settlement from one end would dampen the tendency of many participants to seek a complete transfer of perceived risk and encourage them to make a realistic assessment of the actual risk. .
Notes & References
1. These diverse views are reflected in the papers presented at the Fourth Fiqh Seminar organized by the Islamic Fiqh Academy, India in 1991 which were subsequently published in Majalla Fiqh Islami, part 4 by the Academy. The discussion on riba prohibition draws on these views.
2. Nabil Saleh, Unlawful gain and Legitimate Profit in Islamic Law, Graham and Trotman, London, 1992, p.16
3. Ibn Qudama, al-Mughni, vol.4, pp.5-9
4. Shams al Din al Sarakhsi, al-Mabsut, vol 14, pp 24-25
5. Paper presented by Abdul Azim Islahi at the Fourth Fiqh Seminar organized by Islamic Fiqh Academy, India in 1991.
6. Paper by Dr M N Siddiqui highlighting the issue was circulated among all leading Fiqh scholars by the Islamic Fiqh Academy, India for their views and was the main theme of deliberations during the session on Currency Exchange at the Fourth Fiqh Seminar held in 1991.
7. It is contended by some that the above example may be modified to show the possibility of riba with spot settlement too. "In a given moment in time when the market rate of exchange between dollar and rupee is 1:20, if an individual purchases $50 at the rate of 1:22 (settlement of his obligation also on a spot basis), then it amounts to the seller of dollars exchanging $50 with $55 on a spot basis (Since, he can obtain Rs 1100 now, exchange them for $55 at spot rate of 1:20)" Thus, spot settlement can also be a clear source of riba. Does this imply that spot settlement should be proscribed too ? The fallacy in the above and earlier examples is that there is no single contract but multiple contracts of exchange occurring at different points in time (true even in the above case). Riba can be earned only when the spot rate of 1:20 is fixed during the time interval between the transactions. This assumption is, needless to say, unrealistic and if imposed artificially, perhaps unIslamic.
8. Islam envisages a free market where prices are determined by forces of demand and supply. There should be no interference in the price formation process even by the regulators. While price control and fixation is generally accepted as unIslamic, some scholars, such as, Ibn Taimiya do admit of its permissibility. However, such permissibility is subject to the condition that price fixation is intended to combat cases of market anomalies caused by impairing the conditions of free competition. If market conditions are normal, forces of demand and supply should be allowed a free play in determination of prices.
9. Some Islamic scholars use the term forward to connote a salam sale. However, we use this term in the conventional sense where the obligations of both parties are deferred to a future date and hence, are similar to futures in this sense. The latter however, are standardized contracts and are traded on an organized Futures Exchange while the former are specific to the requirements of the buyer and seller.
10. This is known as bai al inah which is considered forbidden by almost all scholars with the exception of Imam Shafii. Followers of the same school, such as Al Nawawi do not consider it Islamically permissible.
11. It should be noted that modern finance theories also distinguish between conditions of risk and uncertainty and assert that rational decision making is possible only under conditions of risk and not under conditions of uncertainty. Conditions of risk refer to a situation where it is possible with the help of available data to estimate all possible outcomes and their corresponding probabilities, or develop the ex-ante probability distribution. Under conditions of uncertainty, no such exercise is possible. The definition of gharar, Real-life situations, of course, fall somewhere in the continuum of risk and uncertainty.
12. The following traditions underscore the need to avoid contracts involving uncertainty.
Ibn Abbas reported that when Allah's prophet (pbuh) came to Medina, they were paying one and two years advance for fruits, so he said: "Those who pay in advance for any thing must do so for a specified weight and for a definite time".
It is reported on the authority of Ibn Umar that the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) forbade the transaction called habal al-habala whereby a man bought a she-camel which was to be the off-spring of a she-camel and which was still in its mother's womb.
13. According to a tradition reported by Abu Huraira, Allah's Messenger (pbuh) forbade a transaction determined by throwing stones, and the type which involves some uncertainty.
The form of gambling most popular to Arabs was gambling by casting lots by means of arrows, on the principle of lottery, for division of carcass of slaughtered animals. The carcass was divided into unequal parts and marked arrows were drawn from a bag. One received a large or small share depending on the mark on the arrow drawn. Obviously it was a pure game of chance.
14. The holy prophet is reported to have said " Do not sell what is not with you"
Ibn Abbas reported that the prophet said: "He who buys foodstuff should not sell it until he has taken possession of it." Ibn Abbas said: "I think it applies to all other things as well".
15. The Futures Exchange performs an important function of providing a guarantee for delivery by all parties to the contract. It serves as the counterparty in the exchange for both, that is, as the buyer for the sale and as the seller for the purchase.
16. M Hashim Kamali "Islamic Commercial Law: An Analysis of Futures", The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, vol.13, no.2, 1996
Send Your Comments to: Dr Mohammed Obaidullah, Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar 751 013, India
Mail to:obeid@ximb.stpbh.soft.net
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Four years in football analytics
Four years ago this week, sitting on the third floor of my university’s library, I launched 5 Added Minutes. For a couple of months, the blog was simply a place to express frustrations at media clichés and received wisdom in football, but it quickly evolved into a medium for me to use data and analytics to challenge the conversations that were taking place in press conferences, ‘expert’ columns and television analyses.
I wasn’t the first to join this ‘revolution’ – not my word, but Simon Kuper’s in a June 2011 Financial Times piece; one of the first mainstream articles to take a view on the impact of statistics on professional football – and since 2011 there have been many more who have taken an interest, and even a lead, in the development of football analytics. But when a WordPress notification reminded me that it had been four years since the creation of my blog, I felt obliged to reflect on the journey of both amateurs and professionals in this industry. How far have we come, and has some of the promise of the Kuper article materialised into results?
The Amateurs
To my knowledge, in 2011 there were only a handful of active analytics blogs*: Chris Anderson’s Soccer by the Numbers, Zach Slaton’s A Beautiful Numbers Game, James Grayson’s eponymous blog, Sarah Rudd’s On Footy, Sander IJtsma’s 11tegen11 and Mark Taylor’s The Power of Goals. This diverse and disparate group wrote in a time before performance data was readily available on websites, and yet they produced many pioneering insights, in Anderson’s case forming the basis of a bestselling book.
The size of this group swelled during the next 18 months thanks to increasingly accessible data and statistical literacy amongst fans; Manchester City released a dataset in partnership with Opta in 2012 in the wake of Moneyball‘s Hollywood adaptation, and sites like EPL Index, Who Scored and Squawka provided further data to interrogate.
As such, the focus shifted from broader, ‘macro’ analyses of trends and team or league traits to more ‘micro’ analysis of individual player actions and interactions; just take a look at some of the archived posts in the blogs mentioned above. In many ways this is reflected in the first two books written on data in professional football; Kuper and Syzmanski’s Soccernomics / Why England Lose looked at topics like spending, player development and the sport’s popularity whilst Anderson and Sally’s more recent The Numbers Game delved more (but not exclusively) into on-field actions such as goalscoring, corners and possession.
Increasingly, the work of analytical bloggers was being detected and used in mainstream media, with some in particular, such as Mike Goodman and Richard Whittall, using this work to inform their writing. The proliferation of expected goals models was a big step in attempting to find meaning, in a statistical sense, in a game with enormous unexplained, uncontrollable and possibly uncoachable variation. It would also appear to be the first step on the way to a ‘goal probability added’ stat in the aforementioned Kuper FT article.
Given the constraints – namely time and availability of data – the amateur community has grown impressively in four years. There also is a sense of collaboration, aided perhaps by sites like StatsBomb, and many bloggers look to other sports for inspiration. Whilst the ultimate goal of this group is to influence decision-making at professional clubs, what it has achieved so far is to quietly help raise the level of conversation around the game. Of course, it is only a small cog in the wider context, and the phrase ‘expected goals’ is unlikely to feature on Match of the Day at any point soon, but there has been a marked shift in attention and attitude towards data in the last four years, and for that the work of the analytics bloggers should not be ignored.
If the amateur analytics community has taken 5 strides forward in 4 years, the professional clubs have shuffled awkwardly in the vague direction of north.
This isn’t to criticise the clubs entirely. In the grand scheme of things, many are still small or medium-sized businesses who view analytics as a leap into the unknown, and don’t have the time to investigate further. Even if a club did have inclination to invest in a team of “quants”, would they know who to hire? And can they ensure that this department would have a voice in the club?
This has surely been a challenge even for the 6 to 10 clubs in England who have taken the leap, in some form or another. Publicly, they include Arsenal with StatDNA, Tottenham Hotspur with Decision Technology and Liverpool with Ian Graham. Whilst it would be misleading to suggest that other clubs aren’t using data, for virtually everyone in the top two divisions has access and refers to vast amounts of statistics, very few are engaging in the “systematic computation” of this information that would qualify them as users of analytics.
Slowly though – and this is a trend that extends beyond the last four years – there is a group of younger and arguably savvier individuals who have taken leading positions at football clubs, many of whom have non-football backgrounds dealing with data. They attend the ever-growing number of sports analytics conferences that are taking place in the US and Europe, though often these events reveal disappointingly little about work being actually done in clubs.
I’ve been fortunate enough to work for two companies – previously Prozone and now 21st Club – who have and do offer varying products and services that involve analytics, which is a reflection of the simmering interest in this area. From experience, there is sometimes a bigger sense of urgency outside the moneyed shores of England to use analytics; a few MLS clubs have made strategic hires in this area (some of them having been amateur bloggers like Ravi Ramineni) whilst Bayern Munich announced SAP as their “official partner for sport analytics and enterprise software” last year. Chairman of table-topping Danish Superliga team FC Midtjylland and 21st Club co-founder Rasmus Ankersen also has analytics resources that he taps into to try to gain a competitive edge.
These are all relatively quiet stories that are threatening to grow into more widely-recognised cases of best practice. No clubs are stubborn enough to think analytics holds all the answers or that a “holy grail” exists, and over four years most have come to recognise that it has a role to play in on- and off-field decision making. The problem is that the next step can often lead to inaction: where do we start, who do we start with, and can we take someone’s lead?
The next four years
An optimistic prediction would be that by January 2019, half of the clubs in the top two divisions in England will be using and applying analytics in all aspects of the club, either through internal hires or external agents. More likely is that analytics will grow organically in a handful of clubs, perhaps starting in player recruitment or asset management, and slowly seeping into other areas like tactics or coaching. There are plenty of signs that this is already happening.
Either way, it’s a tremendously exciting industry to be a part of, and I would recommend anyone who wants to be a part of it to set up a blog and get writing. There’s lots of questions to be answered, and plenty of growth to come.
*I can only apologise to those bloggers that I’ve failed to mention in this piece; I’ve primarily tried to celebrate the overall work and progression of amateur bloggers. The fact that I can’t mention all is a reflection of the size and rate at which the community has grown in four years. For those who want to know which bloggers are leading the way, Colin Trainor’s list is as good a resource as any (with the exception being that Colin himself is not on the list).
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29 March 2016 9:26 am
thanks for this put up and wrighting this subject and communion it with us to read
Applied Sports Science newsletter, January 27, 2015 | Sports.BradStenger.com
500 words on….what is Football Analytics and how can I get involved? | Analytics FC
Introduction to Analytics in… Soccer
Four years in football analytics | Perry Sports Analytics
Four years in football analytics | perrysports
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← The Ten Commandments of Gamemastering
Never Take a Job From a Spirit… →
The World as Playground
Wouldn’t you love to see what’s inside this place?
Just finished reading Felix Gilman’s Half-Made World (which I highly recommend; it’s like King’s The Gunslinger meets Steampunk during the American Civil War) and which got me thinking a lot about the tangible differences between fantasy and science fiction worlds. You might love them the same, but they might not both be places you would want to explore beyond the bounds of the story itself. Others, meanwhile, are places you feel like you could keep visiting forever.
In the former case, those worlds are somehow wedded to their stories and characters so inextricably, it’s hard to imagine those worlds outside the context of that story. If the characters didn’t exist, in other words, there wouldn’t be much keeping you invested in the goings on of that world. In this category I stick places like Westeros, Middle Earth, and Arrakis. Great settings, to be sure, but settings devised to support and explore the story being told there which is, as it happens, pretty much the only story in town. What would Westeros be without the contest over the Iron Throne? What on earth is there to do in Middle Earth besides fight the Great Enemy? If the Spice weren’t a big deal, do you have any other stories to play with in Arrakis?
Of course, the assessment of what gives a world a ‘life of its own’ is bigger than simply there being one story to tell. Even worlds with a lot of different things going on (the Firefly universe, for instance) need the attention to detail and the vibrancy of a well-constructed environment to make it somehow self-sustaining (which Firefly doesn’t quite have for me). The world needs a feel, a mood, a sense of possibility and a wealth of secrets ready to be unveiled. Star Wars has this, as does Star Trek, and I would say that it is that ‘something’ that gives those franchises a kind of eternal life. You can imagine yourself living there, but without needing to be aboard the Millennium Falcon or USS Enterprise to do it. Interestingly enough, Gilman’s West in Half-Made World, while really seeming to orient itself along a single story axis (the struggle between the Agents of the Gun and the Progress of the Line and those caught in-between), affords, with the creation of those two forces, a wealth and breadth of possible stories originating from various branches off that main axis. You have people who pledge themselves to the Gun but recant, you have those who fight off the Line, but still embrace its machines, you have idealistic republics and moral philosophers of every stripe that pervade the fabric of this vast society, and then, of course, there are the First Ones in the background and the simple realization that the world itself is not completely created yet.
This sprawling complexity coupled with a clear story and frequent places where one could see drama inserted and new stories born is key to making a fantasy world into a playground, a touchstone with infinite dramatic potential. All the best role-playing game settings have this, too (must have it, actually), and this places – these worlds that are fun to visit and always interesting to explore – can make for very long and successful story arcs or, if you like, RPG campaigns.
All of this, however, is not intended to denigrate those worlds that aren’t playgrounds and those worlds that are tightly wrapped around their creator’s narrative and thematic purposes. Worlds that are driven towards a single purpose, while perhaps not able to consume our daydreams, do have more narrative and allegorical power. Arrakis is a powerful metaphor for wealth, for faith, and for the greedy impulses that undermine both. Middle Earth is a story about the loss of the beautiful in the face of the practical, modern, and civilized. Arrakis and Middle Earth do this job better than worlds like Gilman’s or Roddenberry’s, because all of their narrative effort is devoted towards ‘the Cause,’ if you will. Their ‘playground’ may only have the one swing set, but it’s a damned fine one.
As I have built (and continue to build) worlds in which to set my stories and novels, I find myself teetering between these two poles – am I crafting a playground, or am I crafting a Message. The wise course is, perhaps, somewhere between the two. Inevitably, however, I find myself straying further and further towards the playground model, and keep making a place that not only suits my story, but that could suit stories far beyond those I, myself, have imagined.
About aahabershaw
Writer, teacher, gaming enthusiast, and storyteller. I write stories, novels, and occasional rants.
View all posts by aahabershaw »
Posted on June 10, 2013, in Critiques, Theories, and Random Thoughts and tagged Dune, fantasy, Firefly, RPGs, scifi, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Westeros, world building, writing. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment.
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Main » 2014 » December » 13 » District Court Approves Hunton’s $297M Class Action Settlement for USF
District Court Approves Hunton’s $297M Class Action Settlement for USF
WASHINGTON - Wednesday, December 10th 2014 [ME NewsWire]
(BUSINESS WIRE) -- On December 9, 2014, U.S. District Judge Alvin W. Thompson granted final approval of a $297 million settlement between plaintiffs in a multidistrict class action and defendant U.S. Foodservice, Inc. and its former Dutch parent company, Koninklijke Ahold, N.V.
Richard L. Wyatt Jr., partner and co-leader of Hunton & Williams’ litigation department, who led the firm’s legal team on behalf of the plaintiff class — which includes restaurants, hospitals, universities and other food service providers across the United States — had several comments:
“We are pleased with the Court’s grant of final approval and entry of judgment. We appreciate the court’s recognition of the many years of hard work that have gone into achieving this noteworthy result for the class.”
“The settlement has been very well received in the food service industry. Many in the industry have been vocal with their support, and the Court did not receive a single objection to the settlement.”
“The settlement funds are very substantial, and we look forward to distributing them to the class, including the many hospitals and restaurant operators across the country who are among some of the largest customers of U.S. Foodservice.”
This agreement is believed to be one of the largest civil RICO class action settlements in recent history and was reached on behalf of a class of customers, primarily hospitals, restaurant operators, universities and other food service providers, who purchased products from U.S. Foodservice under cost-plus arrangements between 1998 and 2005. The class claimed that it was defrauded by U.S. Foodservice when it created six companies that it controlled to inflate the “cost component” of the products that were subject to the arrangement.
The parties entered into settlement talks when the United States Supreme Court declined to review a federal appeals court opinion affirming certification of a nationwide class of plaintiffs for RICO and breach of contract violations against U.S. Foodservice. The Court today found the settlement to be a “fair, adequate and reasonable” resolution of the plaintiffs’ claims.
Class members can file claims to recover their damages at www.usfoodservicepricinglitigation.com until December 19, 2014.
The Hunton team representing the plaintiffs-class of customers was led by Richard L. Wyatt Jr. and included Torsten M. Kracht, Ryan P. Phair, Carter T. Coker, Rachel E. Mossman andChristopher J. Dufek.
Plaintiffs were also represented by R. Laurence Macon of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP, James E. Hartley, Jr. of Drubner Hartley & Hellman, LLC, Joseph R, Whatley, Jr. of Whatley Kallas, LLP, Celeste T. Jones of The McNair Law Firm, P.A., Mr. Gray of Gray and White, LLP and Robert Foote of Foote, Mielkie, Chavez and O’Neil, LLC. U.S. Koninklijke Ahold, N.V (also known as Royal Ahold) and U.S. Foodservice were represented by White & Case LLP and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP.
About Hunton & Williams LLP
Since its establishment more than a century ago, Hunton & Williams has grown to 800 lawyers serving clients from 19 offices worldwide. With an industry focus on energy, financial services, consumer products and retail, and real estate, the firm’s global experience extends to legal disciplines including corporate transactions and securities law, intellectual property, international and government relations, regulatory law, privacy and cybersecurity, and commercial litigation. For additional information visit www.hunton.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, andYouTube.
Hunton & Williams LLP
Eleanor Kerlow,
Senior Public Relations Manager
ekerlow@hunton.com
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TRAVEL & HISTORY
10 Largest Cities in Africa
11 Interesting Facts About Tunisia
10 Most Famous African Tribes (The Original Africans)
These Are the 10 Largest Animals in Africa
Richest African Footballers Ever – Top 10
by Toni-Ann October 21, 2017, 10:24 pm
Some persons have made a career out of football and have amassed significant wealth. Here is a list of some of the richest African footballers ever.
Another great read: African Teams at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia – Review
Sulley Muntari
Net Worth: $40 million
Ghanaian Suleyman Ali “Sulley” Muntari currently plays as a central midfielder for Italian club Pescara. At the age of 16, Muntari was already a part of the Ghana under-20 team. This team finished in second place at the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship in Argentina, losing out to Argentina in the final. After this, he joined the Italian team Udinese.
Muntari was a part of the Internazionale side that won the Champions League in 2009-2010, the Serie-A title for the 08-09 and 09-10 seasons and the Portsmouth team that won the FA Cup in 2007 -08. So far he has been selected for two African Cup of Nations tournaments and three FIFA World Cups and has earned over 80 caps for the national team. He is the elder brother of Steaua Bucharest player Sulley Muniru.
Kolo Toure
Kolo Abib Touré is an Ivorian former footballer and the brother of another Ivorian football Yaya Toure mentioned a bit later on this page. Kolo’s impressive resume includes playing as a defender for top clubs like Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, and Celtic. He is also a member of the Ivory Coast national team. The Ivorian illustrious career makes him one of Africa’s richest footballers of all time.
Kolo’s career began playing for the ASEC Mimosas in his home country before he made the big jump to Arsenal in 2002. In 2009, Yaya moved to Manchester City. His brother became his teammate when he too joined the club in 2010. They both contributed to Manchester City winning its first league title after a 44 years drought. Kolo is one of eight players to have won the Premier League with two clubs.
John Mikel Obi
Nigerian Michael Nchekwube Obinna dexterity with the football was evident from the tender age of 12 years old. At age 12, scouts of the Pepsi Football Academy selected Obi to join the academy. Sometime later, Plateau United, a side known for developing stars picked Mikel to play for them. He currently plays as a midfielder for club Tianjin TEDA in the Chinese Super League and the Nigeria national team.
Mikel’s name was one of the names highlighted at the FIFA Under-17 Championships held in Finland. This recognition led to him joining Oslo-based club Lyn Fotball in Norway. In 2005, he was a part of the Nigerian team that went to the finals of the FIFA Under-17 World Youth Championship. Officials voted him the tournament’s second best player and he won the Silver Ball. His earnings over the year have contributed to him being one of the richest African footballers ever.
Emmanuel Adebayor
Togolese professional football Sheyi Emmanuel Adebayor is one has made the rounds in most of the major football leagues in the world. He currently plays as a striker for Turkish club İstanbul Başakşehir. Before this he played for premier league clubs like Arsenal, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace, French teams Metz and Monaco and La Liga team Real Madrid.
While at Arsenal, he received the African Footballer of the Year award for 2008. He played for the Togo national team at the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, the country’s first and only appearance in a World Cup. In 2013, he helped Togo to qualify for the quarter-finals of the African Cup of Nations. Adebayor currently has the title of the all-time top goal scorer in Togo with 21 goals.
Micheal Essien
Michael Kojo “The Bison” Essien is a Ghanaian footballer. He currently plays for Indonesian club Persib Bandung. Essien has a really strong tackling style that earned him the nickname “The Bison”. He plays as a midfielder and celebrated for this energetic offensive and defensive play. A very talented footballer, Essien also has the ability to play as defender both on the right and in the center.
Essien began his football career playing for Liberty Professionals in Ghana. A few years later, Essien was signing with the premier league club Chelsea for a fee of £24.4 million. At the time of his signing, he was the most expensive African football player in history.
He proved his worth by helping the club to win the Premier League in 2006 and 2010. He has represented Ghana at three African Cups of Nations tournaments and FIFA World Cups.
Kanu Nwankwo
Net Worth: $100 million
Retired Nigerian footballer Nwankwo Kanu, spent his years as a footballer playing as a forward. He played for the Nigerian football team and even captained them for 16 years, 1994 – 2010. Kanu made his debut playing for the Nigerian league club Federation Works. Kanu’s performance at the U-17 World Championships led to him being signed by Dutch Eredivisie AFC Ajax in 1993 for €207,047.
Among his many accolades are a UEFA Champions League medal, a UEFA Cup medal, three FA Cup Winners Medals and two African Player of the Year awards. He is one of few players to have won the Premier League, FA Cup, Champions League, UEFA Cup and an Olympic Gold Medal. Kanu’s successful career makes him one of the richest African footballers of all time.
Augustine Azuka “Jay-Jay” Okocha is another footballer to have made the list of the richest African footballers ever. The Nigerian former professional footballer played as an attacking midfielder. Many football analysts and fans alike regard Okocha as the best Nigerian player of his generation and the greatest African players of all time. Okocha did not just play football, he also entertained the spectators with his dribbling skills and feints.
Because of his adroitness with the ball, football fans described him as being ‘so good that they named him twice’. Something even more interesting about Okocha is that he is a Nigerian-Turkish citizen. He got his Turkish citizenship as Muhammet Yavuz while playing for the Süper Lig team Fenerbahçe.
Didier Yves Drogba Tébily, the ultimate big game player, is another Ivorian professional footballer who has amassed significant wealth from playing football over the years. One of the richest African footballers ever, Drogba currently plays as a striker for American club Phoenix Rising FC. Drogba left the club Chelsea as the club’s fourth highest goal scorer of all time and as the foreign player who scored the most goals.
In 2014 Drogba moved to Premier League club Chelsea for a fee of £24 millio fees. This made him the most expensive Ivorian player history. Drogba helped Chelsea to win their first premier league title in 50 years. He captained the Ivorian national team from 2006 to 2014 and is the country’s top goal scorer. This Ivorian player also won the African Footballer of the Year Award twice, in 2006 and 2009.
At the age of 18, Ivorian professional footballer Gnégnéri Yaya Touré caught the eyes of Europe football scouts while he was playing for his first club, ASEC Mimosas. He went on to play with several European clubs and is now one of the richest African footballers ever. He now plays as a central midfielder for Manchester City. Football aficionados regard him as one of the best players in the box-to-box midfield position.
He began playing for Barcelona in 2007 and was part of the 2009 Barcelona side that won six trophies in a calendar year. He helped Manchester City, to win their first league title in 44 years. Yaya represented his country in three FIFA World Cup Tournaments and six African Cups of Nations.
His performance contributed to him winning African Footballer of the Year for four consecutive years, 2011-2014. He is also the younger brother of Kolo Touré.
Samuel Eto’o
Net Worth: 202 million pounds
To be at the top of this list means that you are a footballer whose prowess with the ball makes you very much in demand. Cameroonian footballer Samuel Eto’o Fils is the footballer who is so in demand that he has an estimated net worth of USD$202 million. He plays for Turkish club Antalyaspor as a striker and is the most decorated African player in all of Africa’s history.
Eto’o scored over 100 goals in five seasons in Barcelona. He has the record for the most African Player of the Year awards, having won it four times. In 2015, he received the Golden Foot award.
]He is the leading goal scorer in the history of the African Cup of Nations with 18 goals and Cameroon’s all-time leading goal scorer. Eto’o retired from international football in 2014.
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Toni-Ann is currently a university student who dabbles in Economics during
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books she consumes on a daily basis.
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Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com. Cite this page: Editor: Stephen Smith. Publication date: Jun 22, 2019. Publisher: OpenBible.info. Scripture Images
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. ...
"Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. "This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. "You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. Scripture Image
Now King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre. He was a widow's son from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze; and he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill for doing any work in bronze So he came to King Solomon and performed all his work. He fashioned the two pillars of bronze; eighteen cubits was the height of one pillar, and a line of twelve cubits measured the circumference of both. read more. Scripture Image
Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com. Cite this page: Editor: Stephen Smith. Publication date: May 9, 2019. Publisher: OpenBible.info.
A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. ... Scripture Images
“See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. And behold, I have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. And I have given to all able men ability, that they may make all that I have commanded you: ...
Solomon the son of David established himself in his kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him and made him exceedingly great. Solomon spoke to all Israel, to the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, to the judges, and to all the leaders in all Israel, the heads of fathers' houses. And Solomon, and all the assembly with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon, for the tent of meeting of God, which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness, was there. (But David had brought up the ark of God from Kiriath-jearim to the place that David had prepared for it, for he had pitched a tent for it in Jerusalem.) Moreover, the bronze altar that Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, had made, was there before the tabernacle of the Lord. And Solomon and the assembly sought it out. ...
“You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
and in the cutting of stones for settings, and in the carving of wood, that he may work in all kinds of craftsmanship. "And behold, I Myself have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and in the hearts of all who are skillful I have put skill, that they may make all that I have commanded you: the tent of meeting, and the ark of testimony, and the mercy seat upon it, and all the furniture of the tent, the table also and its utensils, and the pure gold lampstand with all its utensils, and the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering also with all its utensils, and the laver and its stand, the woven garments as well, and the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments of his sons, with which to carry on their priesthood; the anointing oil also, and the fragrant incense for the holy place, they are to make them according to all that I have commanded you." The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "But as for you, speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'You shall surely observe My sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. 'Therefore you are to observe the sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. Scripture Images
Being Cleansed From SinSittingLikenessExpiationGod Made Visible In ChristGod's Glory RevealedPerfection, DivineGospel, Historical Foundation OfAdoration, Of ChristGod Is TranscendentLight, SpiritualExaltation Of ChristChrist's NatureAccuracyRevelation, In NtHoliness, Believers' Growth InGlory, Revelation OfGlory Of GodDivinity Of ChristEarth, God SustainingSelf ImageImage Of God Scripture Image
Of course, we also back our wall arts with our amazing “Goof Proof” guarantee. You can read all about there by clicking on this link GOOF PROOF GUARANTEE. In short, it says we guarantee everything about our product. You never have to worry about working with Scripture Wall Art. We have the highest customer satisfaction rating in the industry and nearly 12 years of experience making the best Scripture Wall Quotes out there. Christian Art and Gifts
The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month. Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” ... Scripture Images
"You shall have no other gods before Me. "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,read more. Scripture Images
The Bible is full of encouraging scriptures that are such a blessing to read and memorize. Here are ten of my favorite scripture quotes for encouragement. Feel free to share these with others as these encouraging Bible verses will brighten anyone’s day. The Scriptures used are filled with hope, comfort and inspiration. These famous Bible quotes are from the Old and New Testament. Christian Art and Gifts
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
He measured the length of the building along the front of the separate area behind it, with a gallery on each side, a hundred cubits; he also measured the inner nave and the porches of the court. The thresholds, the latticed windows and the galleries round about their three stories, opposite the threshold, were paneled with wood all around, and from the ground to the windows (but the windows were covered), over the entrance, and to the inner house, and on the outside, and on all the wall all around inside and outside, by measurement.read more.
Of David. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. ... Christian Art and Gifts
Solomon made all the furniture which was in the house of the LORD: the golden altar and the golden table on which was the bread of the Presence; and the lampstands, five on the right side and five on the left, in front of the inner sanctuary, of pure gold; and the flowers and the lamps and the tongs, of gold; and the cups and the snuffers and the bowls and the spoons and the firepans, of pure gold; and the hinges both for the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and for the doors of the house, that is, of the nave, of gold. Scripture Image
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New 1terabyte (yes, 1terabyte) microSD cards launched
Both Micron and Western Digital’s SanDisk brand have announced, at the Mobile World Congress, that they are launching the first 1TB microSD cards.
A First
Up until now, companies haven’t been able to produce anything above 128GB, so the jump to a 1TB capacity card is a big jump that could mean less reliance on the Cloud for storage and better performance from smartphones and other devices.
Micron Technology Inc., the US global corporation based in Idaho has announced the launch of the c200 1TB microSDXC UHS-I card, an innovative removable MicroSD Card that boasts a terabyte of A2 grade storage with V30 certification. This should mean that, although it can seriously ramp-up the performance of a smartphone, it could be suitable for any number of devices and gadgets. The new card uses an (up to) 100MB/s read-write rate, which means that it can support and can store up to 40 hours of 4K HDR video, thousands of 40MP+ photos and mobile.
Micron reports the new card leverages 96-layer 3D quad-level cell (QLC) NAND technology, thereby providing cost-effective storage for consumer electronic devices.
The Micron website says the new c200 1TB microSD card “gives consumers the freedom to capture, share, store and enjoy more content while supporting their mobile-centric lifestyles.”
When for Micron?
Micron can only say that the new MicroSD should be broadly available sometime in Q2 2019.
Western Digital’s SanDisk Extreme “microSDXC™ UHS-I” MicroSD card is available in both 512GB and 1TB capacities and can reach speeds up to 160mb/s with A2/V30. It can be used in Android™ smartphones, action cameras and drones, and supports 4K UHD video recording, full HD video and high-resolution photos.
Also A2 rated, the card reads up to a reported 160MB/s, and writes up to 90MB/s, thereby providing fast app performance on smartphones. Its fast read speeds should mean that users can save a lot of time e.g. when transferring high-resolution photos and video.
When for Sandisk?
Reports indicate it will not be available until April and, as a guide, expect a price tag of $449.99 for the 1TB version and $199.99 for the 512GB version.
What does this mean for your business?
The huge storage capacity and the speed of these new cards is, of course, good news in terms of versatility and flexibility, saving time and requiring less reliance on moving and storing everything in the cloud. A card like this is, however, likely to set you back around £375 but you may decide this is a price worth paying for the extra capacity, speed and convenience.
Although these two new cards are A2 standard, so are suitable for running applications, most microSD cards are slower in practice than stated in the tech spec and most devices don’t try to run applications from SD cards. Also, being removable cards, they can still be lost or stolen and could, therefore, be a security/data security risk depending on what you have stored on them, not to mention the expense of having to buy another one. You may decide that a fast, standard microSD card is still good enough and you’re prepared to still rely upon secure cloud storage for most things.
It is also worth remembering that a new, super-fast SD express standard, part of the wider SD 7.1 strategy, could soon be introduced and could deliver read speeds of up to 985MB/s (if there were products that lived up to the standard).
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Country Philippines
Region Central Visayas
Mayor Lawrence S. Teves
District 2nd district of Negros Oriental
Quick video postcard tanjay mangroves boardwalk negros oriental
Tanjay, officially the City of Tanjay, is a 4th class city in the province of Negros Oriental, Philippines. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 80,532 people.
Quick video postcardtanjay mangroves boardwalknegros oriental
Philippines miss tanjay city candidates
Señor Santiago and Tanjay
Parish of Tanjay
Sinulog de Tanjay
Post World War II
Notable Tanjayanons
It was created by virtue of Republic Act 9026 otherwise known as "An act converting the Municipality of Tanjay, province of Negros Oriental into a component city to be known as the City of Tanjay". The Act was approved and signed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on March 5, 2001. This act, which is a consolidation of House Bill No. 8880 and Senate Bill No. 2256, was finally passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate on February 8, 2001. Tanjay was finally proclaimed a component city on April 1, 2001 after a plebiscite was conducted for the purpose.
The city is part of the 2nd Congressional District of the Negros Oriental and is located 30 kilometers north of Dumaguete City. It is bounded on the north by Bais City, on the south by the Municipality of Amlan, on the east by the Tañon Strait and west by the Municipality of Pamplona.
Tanjay's land area is 27,605 hectares (68,210 acres) and is utilized for agricultural, residential, commercial, industrial, educational, forestral and other purposes. It is the only city in Negros Oriental with a very wide flat lowland, although mountainous and rolling hills are found in the hinterland barangays of Sto. Niño and Pal-ew. Rugged areas can also be found in Barangays Bahi-an and Sta. Cruz Nuevo.
Tanjay City is politically subdivided into 24 barangays, 9 of which are located within the poblacion.
Tanjay City has a moderate and pleasant climate. It is characterized by a relatively wet season from May to February and dry season from March to April. Rainfall occurs throughout the year with the heaviest volume during the months of July and August. The months of March and April are the hottest months and the coldest is December. January is the humid month while April is the least humid period. The months of November and December have the strongest wind velocities throughout the year.
The first map of the island, dated 1572 and chartered by Diego Lopez de Povedano identified it as Buglas, the native reference derived from the tall cane-like grass which ranged thick and persistent over the island. Here, in much earlier times, lived men whose relics and artifacts, dating back to 200–500 AD and the 12th century Song dynasty have turned up in recent excavations were said to have ventured perhaps in the area we now know as Tampi in Amlan. Here, in 1565, Esteban Rodriguez of the Legazpi expedition, caught by storm on his way back to Cebu from Bohol, sought refuge in the eastern shore of the island and came upon squat negroid inhabitants called ata, agta, or ati.
His report upon returning to Cebu prompted Fray Andrés de Urdaneta to visit the island, landing in what is now Escalante in Negros Occidental. In the same year, Capitan Mateo de Cadiz led a small expedition which reached an area near Tanjay. Capitan Miguel de Loarca followed with a bigger expedition and force and proceeded to lay claim to what the Spaniards now call Negros. Both Diego Lopez de Povedano and Capitan Manuel de Loarca pointed to the Tanjay – Dumaguete area as the most densely populated in the eastern half of the island. Tanjay, considered the more important settlement, was made the Administrative Capital of Oriental Negros. It however, remained under the jurisdiction of the province of Cebu. It was the first archdeacon of Cebu, Fray Diego Ferreira, who sent Fray Gabriel Sanchez and other Augustinian priests to the new territory. Thus on June 11, 1580, the mission of Tanjay was founded. It became the center of religious supervision for Dumaguete, Marabago, Siaton and Manalongon.Tanjay City Information and Guide
From these few parishes along the coast, the priests administered the sacraments to the people in the hinterlands and served as mission to the wandering Malays, converting them to Christianity. Evangelization began very slowly because of the great distance over hills from one hut to another.
By 1587, the Augustinians had almost abandoned all missions in Oriental Negros due to lack of manpower. Evidence, however, points to a secular priest in charge of the Parish of Tanjay before 1602. It was in 1600 that these missions regained pastoral attention when the Jesuits were assigned in Negros. The first priest of Tanjay, Fray Diego Ferriera, was appointed in 1589. Tanjay parish, under the patronage of St. James the greater is the oldest in the Oriental coasts.
The Christian faith was brought to this part of Oriental Negros by the Augustinian Fathers. In the Definitorium dated June 11, 1580, it made mention of the foundation of the Parish of Tanjay, with the communities of Dumaguete, Siaton, Marabago and Manalongon. Due to the lack of personnel on the part of the Augustinian Fathers, the spiritual care of this new foundation was entrusted to the care of the Diocesan Clergy of Cebu. This is why the reason Tanjay Parish became part of the Diocese of Cebu.
Later in 1851, at the request of the Bishop of Cebu, the Augustinian Recollect Fathers took over the spiritual care of the Parish and up to the time the diocesan clergy again took over. Then when the Diocese of Jaro was erected in 1865, Tanjay as part of Negros became part of the Diocese (since the whole island was made part of the new Diocese). And then, when the Diocese of Bacolod was erected in 1933, again, Tanjay became part of this new Diocese (since Oriental Negros and Siquijor were made part of the new Diocese). And in 1955, Tanjay became part of the Diocese of Dumaguete. Up to the present, it is still part of the Diocese of Dumaguete.
From the Parish of Tanjay, came later the following parishes: Dumaguete was separated in 1620; Amlan in 1848; Siaton in 1848; Bacong (Marabago) in 1849; San Jose (Ayuquitan) in 1895. And when Dumaguete became a Diocese, again two more parishes were taken from Tanjay: Pamplona in 1960, and Sta. Cruz in 1969.
The Sinulog is purely Tanjay tradition. It is a religious devotional festive dance with a mock battle depicting the war between the Moros and the Christians in Granada, Spain in centuries past. It is based on the legend that St. James miraculously aided the Christians by riding on white horse from the heavens and slew hundreds of Moors.
Thus, the Sinulog is a religious exercise glorifying the Christians and honoring the feast day of Señor Santiago who is the patron saint of Tanjay and also of Spain.
The Sinulog was first performed in this town in 1814, under the auspices of the Catholic Church with Fr. Fernando Felix de Zuñiga (1814–1816) as Parish Priest. It then became the highlight of every fiesta celebration during the incumbencies of succeeding parish priests from the brothers Fr. Pedro Bracamonte (1816–1839; 1843–1847) and Fr. Luciano Bracamonte (1839–1842) to Fr. Jorge Gargacilla (1885–1889). Fr. Jorge Adan (1889–1898) dispensed with the Sinulog in 1897 for reasons known only to him, but then his successor Fr. Baldomero Villareal (1898–1929) revived it in 1904 until the end of his term in 1929. There was Sinulog performance for two fiestas during the term of Fr. Gregorio Santiagudo as Parish Priest in 1930-1931.
In 1932, through the initiative of group of laymen from Tabuc (now Barangay San Isidro) and Ilaud, the Sinulog was again a part of the Tanjay fiesta celebration through the years until the outbreak of the Second World War in the Pacific in 1941. The war ended in 1945 but the Sinulog came to be resumed only in 1947 and continued to be an annual fiesta spectacle until 1970 when most of the long-time devotee participants were already too old to perform, or had already died.
In the early 1970s, the Sinulog devotion was taken over by a group of elementary school children from Ilaud under Alfred Garcia, a schoolteacher and lone survivor of the old-time Sinulog team. Until the 1987 fiesta, the Sinulog had been a children's affair. Although the children's Sinulog bore the spirit of the Tanjay fiesta celebration, it was evident that they lacked the right expressive moments and authenticity of the former groups which were composed by matured men.
It is worth mentioning here in passing that because of its high historical and cultural value, the Sinulog was featured at the Folk Arts Theater in 1981. Later, in the year 1988, a significant milestone in Tanjay's Sinulog history was attained. In the spirit of love and concern – of cherishing what is really ours, and of keeping and preserving a beautiful Tanjay tradition – then Tanjay mayor Arturo S. Regalado introduced a Sinulog contest as the highlight of that year's fiesta celebration. His purpose was to revive the real Sinulog de Tanjay, and for the different participating groups to recapture the art and skill as well as the logical movements and sequence of the Sinulog in the past. It was the then mayor's aim to let the contesting groups portray the Sinulog dance and mock battle with the right grace and ability, the right logical sequence of movements, and the ability to elicit the air and spirit of festivity. Above all, he also wanted the contestants to re-live the authenticity of the Sinulog that Tanjay used to witness in the past which our forefathers proudly termed as the "Sinulog de Tanjay", the original Sinulog.
There was a short period during the tenure of the then mayor Baltazar T. Salma that the name Sinulog de Tanjay was changed to Saulog de Tanjay for reasons that they say it connoted the Sinulog de Cebu and thus had it changed to Saulog de Tanjay. After some time, the original name was preserved to reinstate the original Sinulog de Tanjay.
Choreographed street dancing with a finale is incorporated with the mock battle to make for a more artistic and colorful Sinulog. Also present is a Sinulog Merry-Making Contest in the evening of July 23. The Sinulog de Tanjay finale on July 24 is immediately followed by an endurance contest.
As it has happened in the past fiesta celebrations, the Sinulog de Tanjay constantly draws the admiration and feelings of joy and thanksgiving from the visitors as well as from the Tanjayanons themselves.
In 1942, Japanese Imperial forces arrived in Tanjay.
In 1945, Filipino soldiers of the 71st, 73rd and 75th Infantry Division of the Philippine Commonwealth Army and 7th Infantry Regiment of the Philippine Constabulary were helped by the recognized guerrillas to fight the Japanese Imperial forces to liberate Tanjay.
Post-World War II
In 1950, the barrio of Pamplona was made into a separate municipality.
Tanjay City is also known for its Tourism Program which started in the late 1980s. Through a recent Sangguniang Panglunsod Resolution, the city is now dubbed as the City of Festivals. The major tourist attractions are:
Children's Festival (January)
Festival of Hearts (February)
Sinulog de Tanjay (July)
Paaway sa Kabayo (July)
Pasko sa Tanjay (December)
Budbod Festival (December)
Park Cafe (Fridays)
Sugbaanay sa Parque (Saturdays)
There are also potential tourist attractions waiting to be debuted to the public as well:
Tiongson Ancestral Home (Poblacion)
Luparan Falls and caves (Bulon, Sta. Cruz Nuevo)
Rice Terraces (Canque, Pal-ew)
Mambulong Lakes (Pal-ew)
Red Land Scenic Views (Bulon, Sta. Cruz Nuevo)
Casa de las Dueñas, Hacienda Santa Escolástica (San José, Tanjay)
Boardwalk Tanjay and Mainit Hot Springs (Luca, Tanjay City)
Tanjay City Boulevard (Brgy. 4, Tanjay City)
BY D'Bar and Boulevard
Tanjay City River
Lawton Seaport and Boulevard (Brgy. 7, Tanjay City)
St. James The Greater Parish (Brgy. 2, Tanjay City)
Ynna Asistio, Filipino actress.
Placido Mapa Jr., Filipino businessman.
Chanda Romero, Filipino actress.
Jose E. Romero, Filipino statesman.
Eddie Romero, National Artist of the Philippines for Cinema and Broadcast Arts.
Emilio Yap, Filipino businessman.
Tanjay Wikipedia
Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah
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Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)
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SCI-Arc Announces New GAYA Scholarship Open to Incoming Undergraduate Students from Mexico
By sciarcnews
Feb 15, '19 12:47 PM EST
Los Angeles, CA (February 15, 2019) – With the expansion of its international programs, as well as satellite initiatives in Bogotá, China, and Mexico City, SCI-Arc has broadened its global reach while remaining committed to creating a positive impact in the context of Los Angeles.
In this spirit, SCI-Arc is pleased to announce the GAYA Scholarship, which will sponsor one extraordinary student from Mexico to attend SCI-Arc in Los Angeles. The scholarship is open to Mexican citizens who will be graduating secondary school in the summer of 2019 and intend to study in the B.Arch program. The scholarship covers tuition and fees and is guaranteed for five years—the full length of the undergraduate program.
The GAYA Scholarship is initiated by Fernando Gutierrez, SCI-Arc board member and General Director of Mexico City-based firm GAYA, with funding to be sponsored by the firm. “As a Mexican company with thirty-three years of experience in construction services, GAYA is honored to fund a full scholarship for one Mexican student to attend in SCI Arc Los Angeles. We firmly believe that this deserving individual will receive a world-class education and join the ranks of top tier professionals and architects that SCI-Arc produces,” says Gutierrez. “We are happy to support the excellent education that SCI-Arc provides, and we are certain that closer ties between nations, institutions, and individuals is the key to better practices, better architecture, and better living standards for all living creatures—regardless of nationality.”
GAYA is a synergy-focused contractor working with various architects and specializing in large-scale projects that span cultural and commercial sectors. Their recent projects include the Central Library at Tecnológico de Monterrey, the restoration of Museo Amparo in Puebla, and the CENTRO College for Design, Media, and Film in Mexico City, the first higher education institution in Mexico to obtain the LEED® Platinum Certificate granted by the United States Green Building Council (GBC) for good practices during the construction process.
“SCI-Arc is committed to growing an enduring relationship between Mexico and Los Angeles,” says SCI-Arc Director Hernan Diaz Alonso. “I’m thrilled that because of Fernando Gutierrez’s foresight and GAYA’s generosity, an outstanding student from Mexico will be able to come to Los Angeles to study at SCI-Arc on a full scholarship.”
In keeping with SCI-Arc's commitment to diversity and extending opportunities to students from various backgrounds, the GAYA Scholarship will foster collaboration, scholarship, and understanding across two of the most dynamic metropolises in North America. SCI-Arc is eager to grant this opportunity to an outstanding student who is passionate about architecture and whose academic performance, portfolio and overall application meets SCI-Arc standards for acceptance.
The GAYA Scholarship deadline is April 1, 2019. Interested applicants must apply through The Common Application and are encouraged to contact admissions@sciarc.edu for more information.
About SCI-Arc Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is dedicated to educating architects who will imagine and shape the future. It is an independent, accredited degree-granting institution offering undergraduate and graduate programs in architecture. Located in a quarter-mile-long former freight depot in the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles, the school is distinguished by its vibrant studio culture and emphasis on process. SCI-Arc’s approximately 500 students and 80 faculty members, most of whom are practicing architects, work together to re-examine assumptions, create, explore and test the limits of architecture. SCI-Arc faculty and leadership have garnered more than 500 national and international design awards and recognitions, including Progressive Architecture awards, American Institute of Architects (AIA) awards, and the prestigious Jencks and Pritzker architecture prizes. U.S. DesignIntelligence recently ranked SCI-Arc #4 in Graduate Programs Most Admired by Deans and Chairs in its 2018 America’s Best Architecture Schools survey. SCI-Arc’s Undergraduate program ranked #8 in the DesignIntelligence 2018 survey. SCI-Arc is located at 960 E. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013. www.sciarc.edu
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Home » Online Exhibits » Penn People » Penn People A-Z » Fanny Rysam Mulford Hitchcock
Fanny Rysam Mulford Hitchcock
Timeline of Women at Penn
Notable Women at Penn
Women's Athletics at Penn: The Early Years
Penn Connection
Ph.D. in Chemistry 1894
First woman to receive Ph.D. in Chemistry from Penn
First Director of Women Students
Member of Board of Managers of Graduate Department for Women
Financial supporter of women's athletics
Fanny Rysam Mulford Hitchcock was born on November 7, 1851, to Julius and Elizabeth Hitchcock. She entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1890 as an undergraduate student in biology, but switched in the fall of 1891 to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Hitchcock was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and the Sigma Xi scientific research society during her time at Penn. Upon graduating in 1894, she became the first woman to receive a Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry from the University.
Hitchcock completed post-graduate work in chemistry at the University of Berlin before being elected by the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania to the Board of Managers of the Graduate Department for Women in October 1897. The following year Hitchcock became Penn’s first Director of Women Students.
Hitchcock’s financial support was essential in establishing a women’s athletics program at Penn. In 1899, she authorized the use of a temporary gymnasium for women at 3903 Locust Street rent free. Use of this space by Penn women continued until 1901 when Hitchcock stepped down as Director of Women Students. It was in that year that the trustees of the University had rejected her proposal for one or more undergraduate courses of study for women, adopting the following resolution:
That while highly appreciating the generous offer made by Miss [Fanny Rysam Mulford] Hitchcock for establishment of one or more undergraduate courses for women, leading to a degree in Arts or Science, the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, after careful consultation with the officers of instruction and government, are unable to recede from the position announced by them in previous years; viz., that they would undertake the establishment of a separate College for Women as soon as they should be provided with adequate funds for that purpose. They cannot regard the plan proposed by Miss Hitchcock as within the lines of their declared policy, and therefore, with much regret, and a sincere sympathy in her desire to advance the education of women, are obliged to withhold their approval of the particular plan proposed by her in her communication of February 26, 1901.
Hitchcock maintained a well-equipped scientific laboratory in her home in Philadelphia for many years and was the author of articles in various scientific publications. She was a fellow of the New York Academy of Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Hitchcock showed continued interest in the women of the University of Pennsylvania, making several gifts throughout her lifetime, including the donation of some of the contents of her lab in 1921 “to eventually become a part of a ‘women’s fund’ or a ‘women’s college’ if such fund or college is ever established by the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania.” She was also known to have paid the expenses of numerous deserving students whose financial circumstances would otherwise have prevented them from attending college.
Hitchcock moved to Warwick, New York, in 1923, where she lived until her death in 1936.
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Greenfin Parrotfish, Chlorurus spilurus
Greenfin Parrotfish, Chlorurus spilurus ( Valenciennes 1840)
Scientific name: Chlorurus spilurus
Bullethead Parrotfish, Daisy Parrotfish, Green-finned Parrotfish, Shabby Parrotfish
A Bullethead Parrotfish at a depth of 10m, Karang Kapota Reef north, Wakatobi National Park, Indonesia, 8 September 2012. The fish is in a mucous sleeping bag. The bubbles are trapped gas. Image: Erik Schlögl
© Erik Schlögl
spilurus
Chlorurus
Scarinae
Labridae
The Greenfin Parrotfish grows to 40 cm in length.
Also commonly known as the Bullethead Parrotfish, the Greenfin Parrotfish occurs throughout the Indo-Pacific on a variety of coral reef habitats. Is is one of the most common parrot fishes.
The initial phase Greenfin Parrotfish is dark brown on the body and red around the mouth. Some individuals have a black spot on the caudal peduncle (see movie, below).
Terminal phase males are blue-green with pinkish scale edges. The caudal peduncle is green and the upper sides of the body are often bright yellow. The snout is lavender-pink, bordered by blue-green.
The lips cover less than half of the blue-green dental plates.
It is found on coral reefs.
It occurs throughout the Indo-Pacific.
In Australia it is recorded from southern to northern Western Australia and from the northern Great Barrier Reef to southern Queensland.
The map below shows the Australian distribution of the species based on public sightings and specimens in Australian Museums. Click on the map for detailed information. Source: Atlas of Living Australia.
Life history cycle
The video below shows two initial phase (male or female) Greenfin Parrotfish in the lagoon at Rarotonga, Cook Islands. Footage © Nicholas Sault.
Choat, J.H. & J.E. Randall. 1986. A Review of the Parrotfishes (Family Scaridae) of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia with Description of a New Species. Records of the Australian Museum. 38: 175-228. (as Scarus sordidus)
Kuiter, R.H. 1996. Guide to Sea Fishes of Australia. New Holland. Pp. 433. (as Scarus sordidus)
Randall, J.E., Allen, G.R. & R.C. Steene. 1997. Fishes of the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea. Crawford House Press. Pp. 557.
Labridae fish
Bumphead Parrotfish, Bolbometopon muricatum (Valenciennes, 1840)
Pacific Longnose Parrotfish, Hipposcarus longiceps (Valenciennes, 1840)
Steephead Parrotfish, Chlorurus microrhinos (Bleeker, 1854)
Purple Wrasse, Notolabrus fucicola (Richardson, 1840)
Little Weed Whiting, Neoodax balteatus (Valenciennes, 1840)
Blacksaddle Goatfish, Parupeneus spilurus (Bleeker, 1854)
Greenblotch Parrotfish, Scarus quoyi Valenciennes, 1840
Estuary Cobbler, Cnidoglanis macrocephalus (Valenciennes, 1840)
Marbled Parrotfish, Leptoscarus vaigiensis (Quoy & Gaimard, 1824)
A phylogenetic study of the parrotfish family Scaridae (Pisces: Labroidea), with a revision of genera
Little Maori Wrasse, Oxycheilinus bimaculatus (Valenciennes, 1840)
A description of the juvenile phase colour patterns of 24 parrotfish species (family Scaridae) from the Great Barrier Reef, Australia
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Auto Hybrid
Volkswagen will introduce an all new electric compact sport utility vehicle in 2020, which will be based on the I.D. Crozz concept vehicle.
Volkswagen has revealed that it will introduce an all new electric compact Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) in 2020 based on the I.D. Crozz concept vehicle, which made its North American debut at the 2017 Los Angeles Auto Show. The all-electric compact SUV is expected to precede the revival of the iconic Volkswagen Bus in 2022, with a vehicle based on the I.D. Buzz concept.
The I.D. Crozz (centre) joins the I.D. Buzz (left) and I.D. (right) concepts in Volkswagen's EV range The I.D. Crozz and I.D. Buzz, along with the original Volkswagen I.D. concept vehicle, appeared together for the first time in North America at the L.A. Auto Show.
The modular electric platform the three vehicles share will underpin all future Volkswagen-branded Electric Vehicles (EVs), and make possible Volkswagen's goal to build 15 different Volkswagen EVs globally by 2025.
The I.D. Crozz, first shown in Shanghai in April and updated in Frankfurt earlier this year, carries the future of transportation technology, from its voice-activated doors and trunk to its planned self-driving technology.
Sized similarly to the Volkswagen Tiguan in a four-door coupe shape, with the interior space of a mid-size SUV, the I.D.Crozz combines an 83kWh lithium-ion battery pack with a pair of electric motors, one on each axle. The front motor generates 101bhp and the rear 201bhp, for a combined system output of 302bhp. This concept vehicle will offer an anticipated range of up to 483km.
The 4MOTION system in the I.D. Crozz uses the rear motor as the default driving force, allowing the front motor to automatically engage when needed for traction, or it can be switched on for off-road use or snowy conditions. The low position of the lithium-ion battery pack also helps to improve handling with an optimum low centre of gravity and 48/52 front-rear weight split.
All Volkswagen I.D. vehicles will be designed to speed recharging time over today's models, and the Crozz recovers 80 percent of its charge in 30 minutes via a 150kWh DC charger.
The I.D. Crozz features the I.D. Pilot self-driving system, indicated by the red interior ambient lighting when in use The striking design of the I.D. Crozz combines clean and powerful styling with dynamic lighting inside and out. When the I.D. Crozz is 'awakened' it greets its driver and passengers with a 360-degree light show - first, the glass Volkswagen logos (at the front and in the hatch lid) light up in white.
Starting from the front badge, a white line develops to the left and right. It passes into the line graphics of the LED headlights, whose individual light elements awake like eyes to welcome the driver.
By activating its daytime running lights, the I.D. Crozz signals that it is ready to start. When the electric doors are opened, the sensor fields pulsate, and as the car drives off, these sensor fields are dimmed.
The doors also make a dramatic style statement - with front doors that open to an unusually wide 90 degrees, rear sliding doors and the lack of a B-pillar, the Crozz can hold a bicycle sideways behind the front seats. The rear seats offer legroom that's comparable to a luxury car's and fold up when needed for storage.
As with the other Volkswagen I.D. concept vehicles, the I.D. Crozz features the I.D. Pilot self-driving system, which Volkswagen plans to deploy in 2025. The I.D. Pilot relies on four laser scanners that pop up from the roof, as well as ultrasonic and radar sensors, side area view cameras and a front camera.
The system activates either by voice control - 'Hello I.D., please activate Pilot mode' - or by intentionally touching the Volkswagen logo on the steering wheel and holding it. After three seconds, the wheel retracts for self-driving mode. In manual driving mode, the ambient lighting in the I.D. Crozz is light blue, while in automated I.D. Pilot mode the lighting switches to red.
The interior of the I.D. CROZZ uses an 'Open Space' design concept to create an airy, flexible cabin The interior of the I.D. Crozz uses an 'Open Space' design concept to create an airy, flexible cabin with lounge-like amenities, from the Alcantara-covered quilted seating surfaces to the motion-controlled virtual light shade - a feature of the panoramic glass roof that uses LED strips to illuminate the interior.
Drivers can take control of the I.D. Crozz through the electrically adjustable and retractable multifunction steering wheel, an Active Info Display, an electronic rear-view mirror (e-Mirror), an augmented reality heads-up display and digital door panels.
These features, depending on their type, are operated by voice and gesture control, touch displays or capacitive button fields. The middle of the instrument panel features a 10.2-inch touch tablet that handles infotainment, HVAC and communications functions.
In addition, the I.D. Crozz sports five 'Smart Lights' - interactive, slender LED elements that can communicate with passengers. The Smart Lights in the door panels become active as the driver or one of the passengers starts voice control to open or close one of the doors - a visually supportive element that shows the activation of voice control.
Another Smart Light above the Active Info Display in sight of the driver becomes active as the driver says, 'Hello I.D.' At the same time, this Smart Light assists the driver by giving visual cues in the form of interactive light signals in navigation and potentially hazardous situations. For example, if the vehicle detects a pedestrian on the right side of the car, for instance, the Smart Light then points this out with a flashing red signal from this direction.
BMW M Roadster makes world debut
BMW launches the all new 7 Series
Toyota premieres new Supra at Detroit Auto Show
Cycle & Carriage launches new 'Exceptional Journeys' brand promise
Volkswagen I.D. Crozz Concept previews new electric SUV
Copyright © 2019 Auto Hybrid | All rights reserved.
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What Is Specialty Infusion?
Immune Globulin Therapy
Total Parenteral Nutrition & Enteral Nutrition Therapy
Inotrope Therapy
IV Antibiotics
Specialty Medications
Clotting Factor
Chronic Inflammatory Conditions
The name Amerita comes from the Latin “meritum,” meaning deserving or earned.
Amerita, Inc. is a specialty infusion company focused on providing complex pharmaceutical products and clinical services to patients outside of the hospital. This market is expanding rapidly and is driven by increasing healthcare costs that are moving patients into the most cost-effective delivery settings, a growing bio-pharmaceutical pipeline of infuseable and injectable medications, an aging population and the recent addition of a Medicare benefit for these products and services.
Specialty infusion therapy services primarily involve the intravenous administration of medications that treat a wide range of acute and chronic health conditions such as infections, auto-immune illnesses, cancer, pain, multiple sclerosis, hemophilia and nutritional deficiencies.
Medications are compounded in a sterile clean room environment, dispensed under the supervision of a local registered pharmacist and delivered directly to the patient’s home.
Amerita coordinates visits by a registered nurse, the frequency of which is dependent on the treatment type and the patient or caregiver’s ability to safely administer the medication.
These drugs do not fit into the retail drug distribution model as they are high-cost, may need special handling and require extensive patient training and/or administration by a clinician.
Patients are generally referred by physicians, hospital discharge planners, home-health agencies and managed care organizations.
We believe that specialty infusion is a local business. We work closely with our referral sources to build the trust needed to service their complex patient’s needs outside of the hospital.
Our local model assures the responsiveness, quality and personal touch that our customers expect.
Our growth plan calls for the purchase of small to medium sized home infusion companies that have excellent clinical and service reputations.
We open branches in selective markets that increase our geographic coverage and our ability to service more patients across the country. As we continue to grow we take advantage of the purchasing and administrative efficiencies of a large company while keeping the entrepreneurial culture and local focus of a small company.
Mission: Amerita is a specialty infusion company with exceptional employees that is dedicated to providing the best quality care and service in an ethical, sound, supportive and customer-focused environment.
Vision: We believe there is room in the marketplace for an entrepreneurial company that can combine the administrative efficiencies of a large organization with the flexibility and responsiveness of a local provider. We build our company by acquiring the best local providers in America and invest in them to increase geographic coverage and expand product offerings. We build a performance-focused culture that values teamwork and recognizes and rewards achievement. We accomplish our vision by attracting extraordinary people to the company and by empowering them to take ownership in their local business. We run our business profitably and ethically in support of the communities we serve.
Values: The following values provide the foundation of our organization:
Merit is at the core of our name. We know that we must provide high quality, personalized care to our patients every day to earn our customers' business.
Extraordinary people will make us an extraordinary company. One of our most important responsibilities is to attract and retain great people.
Respect for each other will create a culture where all voices can be heard and where people can work in a supportive environment.
Integrity. We will conduct our business with high ethical and professional standards.
Teamwork is important to our success. “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” (Helen Keller)
Richard Iriye
Richard has over 20 years of home healthcare management experience working with the major national homecare companies. Most recently, Richard was the Senior Vice President of Operations for Coram. Prior to Coram, Richard held General Management and Regional Operations Management positions with Apria and Caremark. In addition to home infusion management, Richard was responsible for managing Coram’s Respiratory and DME Division as well as participating on the Board of several hospital partnerships. Other duties have included operational implementation of Ambulatory Infusion Centers for AIDS and specialty pharmacy administration services. Richard graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in Pharmacy and began his career in home infusion with Home Health Care of America.
Scott Danitz
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Scott has 15+ years as CFO in manufacturing, retail, asset leasing, and healthcare. With over 8 years of experience in specialty infusion, he served senior financial executive officer roles as CFO, Chief Accounting Officer and VP Controller at then publicly traded Coram Healthcare Corporation. His career includes 6 years in public accounting as a CPA with BKD and Deloitte. While at American Express and subsequently First Data Corporation, he had served in VP Controller roles with various operating units including Western Union. CFO positions were held at Shane Company, The Western Sugar Cooperative, and Keg Logistics just prior to joining Amerita. Scott has a B.S.B.A. from the University of Nebraska, Omaha with an emphasis in Accounting.
Kathi Costello
Senior Vice President, Operations
Kathi has over 20 years of healthcare experience, including 15 years in Regional and Senior Operations Management positions with national Specialty Pharmacy and Specialty Infusion companies. She has worked with Coram, Quantum Health Resources/Gentiva/Accredo, and Apria Healthcare. Most recently, Kathi was responsible for the operations of the Infusion Division at Apria Healthcare. Prior to that she managed operations for the western half of the United States for Accredo Therapeutics. Kathi has a BS degree in Nursing from California State University, Long Beach and an MBA from Pepperdine University.
John Golden
Senior Vice President, Sales
Vice President, Sales
John has more than 20 years of progressive healthcare experience in sales leadership, management, and marketing. Prior to joining Amerita, John served two years as the Vice President of Client Services for HealthHelp overseeing all accounts and client services teams. Most recently he served as the Vice President of Product Marketing responsible for the development and execution of all aspects of their marketing strategy. Prior to this role, John spent 10 years at Accredo Health Group, the specialty pharmacy division of Medco/Express Scripts PBM. He performed in various sales and leadership roles, most notably Vice President of Sales and was responsible for strategic sales initiatives and programs that resulted in record revenue growth and also held responsibility for the development and expansion of a best-in-class sales team. John held sales and operational positions at Gentiva Health Services and Maxim Healthcare Services. John majored in marketing and earned his BS in Business Administration from the University of Central Florida.
Melinda Silolahti
Vice President, Revenue Cycle Management
Melinda has more than 15 years of experience in the home infusion and home health industries and more than 10 years experience in Accounting and Finance roles in other industries. Most recently, Melinda was Director of Healthcare Economics for BioScrip. Prior to that, she was the CFO for Aspire Home Care and before that, Vice President & General Manager for Coram’s Enteral Nutrition Services. Duties in the home infusion and home health industries have included Finance, Accounting, Operations, Revenue Cycle Management and Business Development. Melinda has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Colorado at Denver and began her career as an Accountant for Baxter. She went on to serve as Controller in the computer training industry just prior to entering home infusion.
Stacie has over 12 years of experience as a leader in human resources. Her specific industry experience includes various healthcare companies; and most recently Director of Employee Services at an Information Technology company in the Denver area. Stacie received a Bachelor’s Degree from Cal Poly Technical University, in Pomona, CA and a Master’s degree in Human Resource Management from Chapman University in Orange, CA. She holds multiple Human Resource designations: Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP) with the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) and a Senior Professional Human Resources certification (SPHR) through the Human Resource Certificate Institute (HRCI).
Xiaolei Yan
Vice President, Controller
Director, Controller
Xiaolei has over 12 years of diverse global market experience in accounting, finance, mergers and acquisitions, internal audit, risk management and corporate compliance. Prior to joining Amerita she was with Gates Corporation in various leadership positions spanning over 10 years and two years at Swift & Company in a financial reporting role. Xiaolei holds a B.S. degree in Accounting from University of Science and Technology, Beijing and a Master of Agribusiness from Texas A&M University. She is a Certified Public Accountant in Colorado and in China, and a Certified Internal Auditor.
Amerita, Inc.
7307 South Revere Parkway, Suite 200
Email : info@ameritaiv.com
© 2019 Amerita Inc. All rights reserved.
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For many years, Richard Limebear G3RWL prepared monthly bulletins of Amateur Radio Satellite news. They were usually broadcast on the last Sunday of each month, in the AMSAT-UK 80 metre net. They were also distributed via packet radio and as hard copy. Many of the early bulletins were produced before the internet was available. Clive Wallis G3CWV obtained a complete set of these bulletins which were broadcast from May 1985 to July 2004
This is a very detailed and useful archive, especially for research and preparation of lectures. The archive comprises 239 text files, which are zipped into four packages, for convenience. Also included are some reports of the AMSAT-UK Colloquium, and reports about individual satellites.
Clive Wallis G3CWV has renamed the files, so that each one has a unique name, in the format YYYYMMM.TXT eg. 1996MAY.TXT. This allows all the files to be unzipped into a single directory, to permit easy searches for any text string.
We would like to congratulate Richard Limebear G3RWL for a fine achievement in preparing these bulletins and to thank him for granting permission to distribute the archive.
G3RWL-Satellite-News-1985-1989
Our thanks to Clive Wallis G3CWV for this page.
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Sandvik is revolutionising
mining processes
A high level of automation, advanced cloud services and, in the near future, artificial intelligence will optimise mine operations and substantially increase productivity. Sandvik is lighting the way as a pioneer in its sector.
TEXT ARNON PHOTO SANDVIK
Around the world, the mining industry is automating and optimising its processes at a frantic rate. Production work that previously required human labour – drilling, loading and transporting rocks – will increasingly be handled by unmanned machinery. Operators will sit in control rooms underground or above ground, some of them even hundreds of kilometres from the mine, and they will remotely control the operation and processes of the equipment.
“This sector is lagging clearly behind other industries in terms of automation because the necessary expertise and technology were not previously available. Now, thanks to new innovations, mines are looking to significantly boost the efficiency of their operations, and the threshold for purchasing robotic equipment has been lowered,” says Riku Pulli, Sandvik’s Vice President, Business Unit Automation.
First and foremost, mines are seeking improved productivity through automation. The utilisation rate of underground mining equipment has traditionally been low; even minor equipment defects have resonated throughout processes and caused breaks. A high level of automation will enable rapid reaction, so the utilisation rate of equipment can be increased and production can continue uninterrupted. When fully automated equipment is used, no time will be wasted on handovers at the end of a shift. It is also not necessary to protect mobile robots from explosive gases, nor to suspend operations to allow for ventilation.
“We have examples where machines are now working 22 hours a day, rather than the 15 or 16 hours they worked before. This is a pretty amazing improvement,” Pulli says.
Costs have also decreased as the level of automation has risen. Robots do not crash into walls; they operate in exactly the right way, as controlled by the customer, and this extends their service lives. Furthermore, fewer operators are needed, as one person can manage the operation of several devices instead of just one.
“A further reason for automation is naturally safety. The working conditions of operators will improve significantly when they no longer need to be underground in shaking, jerky machines.”
“It is no longer science fiction in underground mining operations."
Making underground operations more transparent
Around 20 years ago, Sandvik became the first company in the world to begin developing automation for mining equipment. The first automatic machines descended into the ground in 2004, and now more than 350 machines have been supplied.
The Sandvik AutoMine system plays an important role in enabling heavy mining machinery to operate entirely unmanned and independently. Industrial internet solutions have enabled machines to be connected to cloud services and to each other in increasing numbers. New technologies enable mining processes to be optimised and better managed.
“They are helping to create complete transparency in mines. In other words, it is possible to see in real time where the machines are, what they are doing and what condition they are in. This has existed in other industries for some time, but it was not previously available underground because there were no data communication networks and GPS signals did not work. Functional solutions have now been developed for geolocation and data transfer,” Pulli explains.
Sandvik intends to put the big data generated by the industrial internet to use for preventive condition monitoring. In the future, machines will be able to alert owners to future defects, which will help to optimise processes in a preventive manner.
Pulli says that the company intends to introduce artificial intelligence in phases in forthcoming years.
“It is no longer science fiction in underground mining operations. Mining technology is a really interesting area of business at the moment – there is more happening in this sector than in any other heavy industry in terms of the application of advanced new technologies.”
In addition to making use of automation and intelligence, Sandvik is also developing its equipment in other areas. For example, last year it launched emissions-free mining machines, with the diesel motors replaced by electric power trains and batteries. New, more environmentally friendly forms of power will help mines to reduce exhaust fume ventilation, which consumes a large amount of energy and gives rise to major costs for mines.
Arnon Magazine is provided by Arnon - visit website
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We need to understand more deeply a number of critical issues that confront the World Bank and its member countries before we can transform knowledge into effective actions
Research Challenges for Development Economists
Lessons from Economic Development
Challenges in Human Development
Economic Policy and Economic Growth
Governance and the Development Process
Exchange Rate Policy and the IMF
Military Expenditures Military Expenditures in the Developing World
Guest Article Reducing Military Expenditures in the Third World
Extending Help to Women Farmers in LDCs
Setting the Development Agenda
Challenge of Sustaining Growth with Equity in Asia
How Mobile is Capital in Developing Countries?
Accessing the International Capital Markets
Protection in Sub-Saharan Africa Hinders Exports
Madagascar: Crafting Comprehensive Reforms
Books in Brief
Other Books Received
Companies from developing countries are now looking beyond their local financial markets to raise funds. How the IFC helps
Kumiko Yoshinari
Senior Investment Officer, Capital Markets Department, IFC
A Frankfurt-based investor buying shares in a Mexican company? This is not as novel as it sounds. Since late 1989, an increasing number of companies located in developing countries (especially those in Latin America) have been obtaining funding in the international capital markets. They had done so, in a limited way, prior to 1982. But many of these companies, with the exception of some in Asia, were unable to obtain external financing during most of the 1980s, largely because the debt crisis in developing countries eliminated investor interest in them. Now, with growing confidence in their countries’ economic adjustment efforts, many companies have returned to selling securities on international capital markets. In June 1989, a Mexican bank—Bancomext—issued a $100 million unsecured bond with a yield close to 17 percent. Since then, several Mexican issuers (including such well-known names as Telmex, Pemex, Cemex, and Nafinsa) have issued securities (e.g., bonds, floating rate notes, and convertible bonds) at increasingly attractive rates abroad, followed by Chilean and Venezuelan companies also eager to tap the international capital markets.
Through such security issues, many developing countries are gradually seeing their securities markets integrated into the vast network of the world financial markets. This is not surprising as these securities issues not only benefit the company but also international investors. Developing country companies are thus increasingly able to diversify their funding base beyond the local financial markets, which still remain limited in size and scope. In addition, the beneficial impact on the economies of developing countries should not be ignored. Such securities issues help introduce new financial instruments to the domestic capital markets and harmonize disclosure and accounting standards. All these developments could lead to a more active local capital market and consequently, increased mobilization of domestic savings.
But it is not so easy for a developing country firm to issue securities abroad. This is largely because (1) securities issued by companies from developing countries generally require more effort in placement and sales to investors compared with a similar undertaking for a company in a developed country. Investors generally prefer to purchase securities of companies they are familiar with, or are well known among investors. Also, the economic and political situation of the country in question is just as important and often needs to be described in detail to potential investors; (2) the company’s accounts and other information are typically not disclosed in a sufficiently detailed manner to meet requirements of institutional investors in the major capital markets; (3) accounting standards used in many developing countries differ significantly from those used in the industrial countries; and (4) in most cases, the terms and pricing of securities issues require the approval of the developing countries’ authorities on a case-by-case basis.
Over the past five years, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has become increasingly involved in helping companies in developing countries raise financing through international offerings of investment funds and individual corporate securities. This effort gained momentum with the establishment of the International Securities Group (ISG) in mid-1989 to provide investment banking services to corporate clients in developing countries. ISG (now part of the Securities and Syndications Division) serves developing countries and the international, financial, and business communities in the following capacities:
as an advisor to companies in developing countries, encouraging them, when appropriate, to investigate the long-term advantages of issuing securities abroad;
as a partner with some of the prominent international investment banks, in bringing companies from the developing countries to the international capital markets. IFC is actively involved in executing the securities offering, including direct sales to institutional investors; and
as a provider of information to the world investor community on investment opportunities in securities of emerging markets. ISG’s efforts are complemented by IFC’s Emerging Markets Data Base, which provides detailed financial information on over 800 companies listed on the stock exchanges in 20 developing countries.
Initially, IFC attempted to provide companies in the developing world access to the international capital markets through country funds, which invest in a large number of companies in a specific country. This was a logical first step, as the professional fund managers select the companies in which investments are made, and investors themselves do not need detailed knowledge of various companies in each developing country. In addition, foreign investors initially considered country funds “safer” than investing in specific companies, given that these investments are typically diversified across several industries in a given country. Most of the companies in which country funds invest are quoted on local stock exchanges.
IFC has been instrumental in establishing 26 country funds (including debt-to-equity conversion funds), targeting markets as divergent as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, and Turkey. In addition, IFC has helped create several multicountry and regional funds. We estimate the total current market value of country funds invested in developing countries at over $10 billion. With country funds having become a well-accepted product, IFC is going a step further by assisting individual companies located in developing countries to issue securities internationally. Investors who were initially only willing to risk investing in developing country companies on a diversified basis through country funds are gradually becoming interested in specific companies.
Helping companies gain access to the international markets is a three-stage process.
Identifying the appropriate developing country company for securities issues. For countries that are “newcomers” in terms of corporate access to the foreign capital markets, initial securities issues should generally be undertaken by large companies. Such companies usually have significant project-related funding needs and would be best able to appreciate the importance of diversifying funding beyond the local capital markets; they are typically quoted and actively traded on the local stock exchange. In addition, foreign investors are most likely to be interested in larger companies, not only for reasons of name and prestige but also because larger companies are likely to issue securities of sufficient volume to ensure some liquidity in the financial markets. This is an important consideration for investors, since active trading will enable them to sell the securities they initially purchased, with relative ease and at an attractive price.
The company’s track record (e.g., profitability and debt-servicing record) and the nature of its business are also important considerations. Utilities, for example, generate relatively stable income, making such companies particularly attractive compared with other developing country companies, whose earnings and performance are typically volatile. Export-oriented companies (including commodity-based companies) are also good candidates for international securities issues. Export receipts in foreign currency help the company meet debt-servicing obligations even in times of rapid devaluations of the local currency. Above all, it is important to identify companies that are strongly positioned (relative to competitors) in those sectors most likely to benefit from the country’s economic growth.
Arranging the securities issue. Once the appropriate company is identified, one or several financial intermediaries (e.g., IFC and investment banks) proceed to structure the securities, that is, determine the nature and terms of the offering. This process involves discussions with the company’s management to arrange for the financial instrument most appropriate to the company’s funding needs. In some cases, the company needs additional equity to increase its capital base in undertaking a planned expansion. In other cases, the company may have a very low debt-to-equity ratio and may primarily need debt financing. Quasi-equity instruments, such as convertible bonds or bonds with equity warrants, may be appropriate for a company unwilling to issue shares because of the current low valuation of its stocks, but would face a high cost if it were to issue a debt instrument with no equity component.
In determining the appropriate structure for the securities issue, the company’s needs must be balanced against investor preferences. In certain cases, the company may not have the full range of choices in the instruments it is able to issue. Certain companies in highly indebted developing countries may not be able to issue debt instruments at reasonable costs. Investors, quite naturally, will be cautious about purchasing debt securities of a company located in a country with serious debt-servicing difficulties. The same investors may, however, be willing to purchase equity securities, if such securities are inexpensive—that is, in terms of price to earning ratios—and have a potential for significant capital gains.
Once the structure of the offering is established, the instrument must be “priced” by assessing likely demand. Usually, the financial intermediaries are called upon to use their investor contacts and experience in evaluating the price at which an instrument is likely to be sold. But this is often difficult in the case of securities issued by companies from developing countries, since there are few comparable companies whose existing securities issues could serve as the benchmark for determining prices.
When the company agrees to the proposed structure and pricing of the instrument, the financial intermediaries then proceed to place the issue with investors (i.e., sell it). However, before proceeding with the marketing of the issue, approval for the offering must be obtained from the authorities in the developing country in which the company resides, and in certain cases, in the country where the securities are issued. There must also be a clear understanding on the tax treatment of income and capital gains realized by the investors and on the ability to repatriate such gains freely.
Placing the securities issue. Given the risks involved in purchasing these securities, what types of investors participate? Initially, a large proportion of investors interested in securities issues (particularly bonds) of a developing country company tend to be “flight capital” investors—that is, if a company from country X wishes to tap the international markets, one can expect significant participation by investors of this country who hold assets abroad. This is natural given these investors’ familiarity and stronger ties with the company.
As the number of companies in developing countries undertaking such issues increases, however, the core group of investors gradually shifts to international institutional investors, such as pension funds, insurance companies, and other financial institutions. Such investors seek to further diversify their assets and realize a high investment return. As shown by IFC’s Emerging Markets Data Base, the performance of stock markets of developing countries is not, on the whole, strongly correlated with the performance of industrialized markets. Even when the stock markets of the industrialized countries are performing poorly, those of the developing countries could be performing well. This difference in performance enables the equity investor to diversify risk by buying developing country securities. More and more international investors are becoming aware of this advantage.
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Archive | Immigration Reform RSS for this section
in Articles and Commentaries, General News, Immigration Reform
Attorneys Ashwin and Raj Sharma interviewed by Canada’s RedFM on US-Canadian Immigration laws
in Articles and Commentaries, Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, Executive Order, General News, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Immigration Reform, US Department of State
Ashwin Sharma Interviewed on President Trump’s Executive Order on Travel
Ashwin Sharma interviewed on President Trump’s Executive Order on Travel by WJXT’s The Morning Show
in Articles and Commentaries, DACA - Deferred Action for Certain Childhood Arrivals, General News, H-1B Visas, Immigration Reform, L-1 Intracompany Visas
The White House Now Apparently Focusing on the Dream Act, H-1B, L-1 and other Skilled/Professional Work Visas
Newley Purnell of the The Wall Street Journal blogged today about the White House’s Plans for H-1B and other Skilled/Professional Work Visas. The changes are likely to include “Tighter restrictions on skilled worker visas” which could be issued via “both executive action by President Donald Trump and via Congressional moves“. The article notes that “President Trump could use an executive directive to take steps like ending a provision announced in 2014 that allows spouses of H-1B visa holders [H-4 Spouses] to work in the U.S.” As well, any such changes would be included in a more comprehensive immigration reform effort.
in Citizenship and Naturalization, DACA - Deferred Action for Certain Childhood Arrivals, H-1B Visas, Immigration Reform, L-1 Intracompany Visas, O-1 Visa
Key Facts on President Obama’s Immigration Action – Via USCIS.gov
Fixing Our Broken Immigration System Through Executive Action – Key Facts
The President asked Secretary Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to undertake a rigorous and inclusive review to inform recommendations on reforming our broken immigration system through executive action. This review sought the advice and input from the men and women charged with implementing the policies, as well as the ideas of a broad range of stakeholders and Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle. Our assessment identified the following ten areas where we, within the confines of the law, could take action to increase border security, focus enforcement resources, and ensure accountability in our immigration system.
in H-1B Visas, Immigration Reform, L-1 Intracompany Visas
Why President Obama and the Administration must Maintain Focus on Improving Business Immigration
A recent article by CNBC entitled “Investors to Obama: We need more foreign workers” explores the substantial problems faced by investors and entrepreneurs in securing sufficient numbers of foreign professional workers: the engine of innovation in the U.S. Last year we met the H-1B cap the first week it was open, again: the only solution to the problems highlighted in the article is an increase in H-1B visas, else the demand for the same will relocate to a country like Canada, which intelligently recognizes the true value of such talent.
The CNBC article was forwarded to me by a highly capable entrepreneur/investor client of mine. His situation warrants a short discussion, because it is supports the message in the article as well as the broader subject of our defective Business Immigration laws. This client moved his family to the U.S., and recently invested almost $500,000 in a new U.S. based business which employs nine (9) U.S. workers. Further, this client has purchased two Mercedes Benz vehicles and plans on buying a large house and, in the near term, investing another $1 to $5 million dollars in the U.S. – but only if USCIS approves an extension of his Business Immigration case. Unfortunately, USCIS seems a step away from denying his case, as our 1200+ page application on his behalf (which by the way weighed more than a newborn baby) was met with a ten (10) page Request for Additional Evidence (“RFE”).
in Immigration Reform
President Obama’s Address on Immigration Action
Details on the President’s “Executive Actions on Immigration” – via USCIS.gov
Executive Actions on Immigration
On November 20, 2014, the President announced a series of executive actions to crack down on illegal immigration at the border, prioritize deporting felons not families, and require certain undocumented immigrants to pass a criminal background check and pay taxes in order to temporarily stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation.
These initiatives include:
Expanding the population eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to young people who came to this country before turning 16 years old and have been present since January 1, 2010, and extending the period of DACA and work authorization from two years to three years
Allowing parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who have been in the country since January 1, 2010, to request deferred action and employment authorization for three years, in a new Deferred Action for Parental Accountability program, provided they pass required background checks
Expanding the use of provisional waivers of unlawful presence to include the spouses and sons and daughters of lawful permanent residents and the sons and daughters of U.S. citizens
Modernizing, improving and clarifying immigrant and nonimmigrant programs to grow our economy and create jobs
Promoting citizenship education and public awareness for lawful permanent residents and providing an option for naturalization applicants to use credit cards to pay the application fee |
Important notice: These initiatives have not yet been implemented, and USCIS is not accepting any requests or applications at this time. Beware of anyone who offers to help you submit an application or a request for any of these actions before they are available. You could become a victim of an immigration scam. Subscribe to this page to get updates when new information is posted.
USCIS and other agencies and offices are responsible for implementing these initiatives as soon as possible. Some initiatives will be implemented over the next several months and some will take longer.
Over the coming months, USCIS will produce detailed explanations, instructions, regulations and forms as necessary. The brief summaries provided below offer basic information about each initiative.
While USCIS is not accepting requests or applications at this time, if you believe you may be eligible for one of the initiatives listed above, you can prepare by gathering documents that establish your:
Identity;
Relationship to a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident; and
Continuous residence in the United States over the last five years or more.
We strongly encourage you to subscribe to receive an email whenever additional information on these initiatives is available on our website. We will also post updates onFacebook and Twitter.
Share this page with your friends and family members. Remind them that the only way to be sure to get the facts is to get them directly from USCIS. Unauthorized practitioners of immigration law may try to take advantage of you by charging a fee to submit forms to USCIS on your behalf or by claiming to provide other special access or expedited services which do not exist. To learn how to get the right immigration help, go to the Avoid Scamspage.
Below are summaries of major planned initiatives by USCIS, including:
What the initiative will do
When you can begin to make a request
1. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program
Current DACA recipients seeking renewal and new applicants, including individuals born prior to June 15, 1981, who meet all other DACA guidelines.
Allows individuals born prior to June 15, 1981, to apply for DACA (removing the upper age restriction) provided they meet all other guidelines.
Requires continuous residence in the United States since January 1, 2010, rather than the prior requirement of June 15, 2007.
Extends the deferred action period and employment authorization to three years from the current two years.
Approximately 90 days following the President’s November 20, 2014, announcement.
Go to the Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)page for instructions which will be updated over the next several months.Subscribe to this page to receive updates by email.
2. Deferred action for parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents
An undocumented individual living in the United States who, on the date of the announcement, is the parent of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident and who meets the guidelines listed below.
Allows parents to request deferred action and employment authorization if they:
Have continuous residence in the United States since January 1, 2010;
Are the parents of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident born on or before November 20, 2014; and
Are not an enforcement priority for removal from the United States, pursuant to the November 20, 2014, Policies for the Apprehension,Detention and Removal of Undocumented Immigrants Memorandum.
Notes: USCIS will consider each request for Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) on a case-by-case basis. Enforcement priorities include (but are not limited to) national security and public safety threats.
Approximately 180 days following the President’s November 20, 2014, announcement.
Subscribe to this page to receive updates by email.
3. Provisional waivers of unlawful presence
Undocumented individuals who have resided unlawfully in the United States for at least 180 days and who are:
The sons and daughters of U.S. citizens; and
The spouse and sons or daughters of lawful permanent residents.
Expands the provisional waiver program announced in 2013 by allowing the spouses, sons or daughters of lawful permanent residents and sons and daughters of U.S. citizens to get a waiver if a visa is available. There may be instances when the qualifying relative is not the petitioner.
Clarifies the meaning of the “extreme hardship” standard that must be met to obtain a waiver.
Notes: Currently, only spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens are allowed to apply to obtain a provisional waiver if a visa is available. For more information about the waivers program, go to the Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiverspage which will be updated over the next several months.
Upon issuing of new guidelines and regulations.
4. Modernize, improve and clarify immigrant and nonimmigrant programs to grow our economy and create jobs
U.S. businesses, foreign investors, researchers, inventors and skilled foreign workers.
USCIS will:
Work with the Department of State to develop a method to allocate immigrant visas to ensure that all immigrant visas authorized by Congress are issued to eligible individuals when there is sufficient demand for such visas.
Work with the Department of State to modify the Visa Bulletin system to more simply and reliably make determinations of visa availability.
Provide clarity on adjustment portability to remove unnecessary restrictions on natural career progression and general job mobility to provide relief to workers facing lengthy adjustment delays.
Clarify the standard by which a national interest waiver may be granted to foreign inventors, researchers and founders of start-up enterprises to benefit the U.S economy.
Authorize parole, on a case-by-case basis, to eligible inventors, researchers and founders of start-up enterprises who may not yet qualify for a national interest waiver, but who:
Have been awarded substantial U.S. investor financing; or
Otherwise hold the promise of innovation and job creation through the development of new technologies or the pursuit of cutting-edge research.
Finalize a rule to provide work authorization to the spouses of certain H-1B visa holders who are on the path to lawful permanent resident status.
Work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to develop regulations for notice and comment to expand and extend the use ofoptional practical training (OPT) for foreign students, consistent with existing law.
Provide clear, consolidated guidance on the meaning of “specialized knowledge” to bring greater clarity and integrity to the L-1B program, improve consistency in adjudications, and enhance companies’ confidence in the program.
Upon issuing necessary guidance and regulations.
5. Promote the naturalization process
Lawful permanent residents eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship
Promote citizenship education and public awareness for lawful permanent residents.
Allow naturalization applicants to use credit cards to pay the application fee.
Assess potential for partial fee waivers in the next biennial fee study.
Notes: Go to the U.S. Citizenship page to learn about the naturalization process and visit the Citizenship Resource Center to find naturalization test preparation resources. You can also visit the N-400, Application for Naturalization, page.
During 2015
Key Questions and Answers
Q1: When will USCIS begin accepting applications related to these executive initiatives?
A1: While USCIS is not accepting applications at this time, individuals who think they may be eligible for one or more of the new initiatives may prepare now by gathering documentation that establishes factors such as their:
USCIS expects to begin accepting applications for the:
Expanded DACA program approximately 90 days after the President’s November 20, 2014, announcement; and
Deferred action for parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents (Deferred Action for Parental Accountability) approximately 180 days after the President’s November 20, 2014, announcement.
Others programs will be implemented after new guidance and regulations are issued.
We strongly encourage you to subscribe to receive an email whenever additional information is available on the USCIS website. Remember that the only way to get official information is directly from USCIS. Unauthorized practitioners of immigration law may try to take advantage of you by charging a fee to submit forms to USCIS on your behalf or by claiming to provide other special access or expedited services which do not exist. To learn how to get the right immigration help, visit www.uscis.gov/avoidscams for tips on filing forms, reporting scams and finding accredited legal services.
Q2: How many individuals does USCIS expect will apply?
A2: Preliminary estimates show that roughly 4.9 million individuals may be eligible for the initiatives announced by the President. However, there is no way to predict with certainty how many individuals will apply. USCIS will decide applications on a case-by-case basis and encourages as many people as possible to consider these new initiatives. During the first two years of DACA, approximately 60 percent of potentially eligible individuals came forward. However, given differences among the population eligible for these initiatives and DACA, actual participation rates may vary.
Q3: Will there be a cutoff date for individuals to apply?
A3: The initiatives do not include deadlines. Nevertheless, USCIS encourages all eligible individuals to carefully review each initiative and, once the initiative becomes available, make a decision as soon as possible about whether to apply.
Q4: How long will applicants have to wait for a decision on their application?
A4: The timeframe for completing this new pending workload depends on a variety of factors. USCIS will be working to process applications as expeditiously as possible while maintaining program integrity and customer service. Our aim is to complete all applications received by the end of next year before the end of 2016, consistent with our target processing time of completing review of applications within approximately one year of receipt. In addition, USCIS will provide each applicant with notification of receipt of their application within 60 days of receiving it.
Q5: Will USCIS need to expand its workforce and/or seek appropriated funds to implement these new initiatives?
A5: USCIS will need to adjust its staffing to sufficiently address this new workload. Any hiring will be funded through application fees rather than appropriated funds.
Q6: Will the processing of other applications and petitions (such as family-based petitions and green card applications) be delayed?
A6: USCIS is working hard to build capacity and increase staffing to begin accepting requests and applications for the initiatives. We will monitor resources and capacity very closely, and we will keep the public and all of our stakeholders informed as this process develops over the course of the coming months.
Q7: What security checks and anti-fraud efforts will USCIS conduct to identify individuals requesting deferred action who have criminal backgrounds or who otherwise pose a public safety threat or national security risk?
A7: USCIS is committed to maintaining the security and integrity of the immigration system. Individuals seeking deferred action relief under these new initiatives will undergo thorough background checks, including but not limited to 10-print fingerprint, primary name, and alias name checks against databases maintained by DHS and other federal government agencies. These checks are designed to identify individuals who may pose a national security or public safety threat, have a criminal background, have perpetrated fraud, or who may be otherwise ineligible to request deferred action. No individual will be granted relief without passing these background checks.
In addition, USCIS will conduct an individual review of each case. USCIS officers are trained to identify indicators of fraud, including fraudulent documents. As with other immigration requests, all applicants will be warned that knowingly misrepresenting or failing to disclose facts will subject them to criminal prosecution and possible removal from the United States.
Q8: What if someone’s case is denied or they fail to pass a background check?
A8: Individuals who knowingly make a misrepresentation, or knowingly fail to disclose facts, in an effort to obtain deferred action or work authorization through this process will not receive favorable consideration for deferred action. In addition, USCIS will apply its current policy governing the referral of individual cases to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the issuance of Notices to Appear before an immigration judge. If the background check or other information uncovered during the review of a request for deferred action indicates that an individual’s presence in the United States threatens public safety or national security, USCIS will deny the request and refer the matter for criminal investigation and possible removal by ICE, consistent with existing processes.
Q9: If I currently have DACA, will I need to do anything to receive the third year of deferred action and work authorization provided by the executive initiatives?
A9: The new three-year work authorization timeframe will be applied for applications currently pending and those received after the President’s announcement. Work authorizations already issued for a two-year period under the current guidelines will continue to be valid through the validity period indicated on the card. USCIS is exploring means to extend previously issued two-year work authorization renewals to the new three-year period.
Q10: Will the information I share in my request for consideration of deferred action be used for immigration enforcement purposes?
A10: Information provided in your request is protected from disclosure to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for the purpose of immigration enforcement proceedings unless you meet the criteria for the issuance of a Notice to Appear or a referral to ICE under the criteria set forth in USCIS’ Notice to Appear guidance. Individuals who are granted deferred action will not be referred to ICE. The information may be shared, however, with national security and law enforcement agencies, including ICE and CBP, for purposes other than removal, including:
Assisting in the consideration of the deferred action request;
To identify or prevent fraudulent claims;
For national security purposes; or
For the investigation or prosecution of a criminal offense.
This policy covers family members and guardians, in addition to you.
Q11: What is USCIS doing to assist dependents of U.S. armed services personnel?
A11: USCIS is working with the Department of Defense to determine how to expand parole authorization to dependents of certain individuals enlisting or enlisted in the U.S. armed services. For information on the existing parole-in-place policy for military personnel, please read this policy memorandum.
Continuous residence: For a detailed explanation, go to the USCIS Policy Manual, Chapter 3: Continuous Residence.
DACA: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program launched in 2012. For more information, go to the Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)page.
Deferred action: A use of prosecutorial discretion to not remove an individual from the country for a set period of time, unless the deferred action is terminated for some reason. Deferred action is determined on a case-by-case basis and only establishes lawful presence but does not provide immigration status or benefits of any kind. DACA is one type of deferred action.
Prosecutorial discretion: The legal authority to choose whether or not to take action against an individual for committing an offense.
Provisional waiver: Waiver for individuals who are otherwise inadmissible due to more than 180 days of unlawful presence in the United States, based on a showing of extreme hardship to certain U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident family members, which allows the individual to return after departure for an immigrant visa interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate. For more information, go to the Provisional Unlawful Presence Waivers page.
You can find definitions of other terms used on our website in Glossary of Terms.
Last Reviewed/Updated: 11/20/2014
PRESS RELEASE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE: Presidential Memorandum — Modernizing and Streamlining the U.S. Immigrant Visa System for the 21st Century
VIA THE WHITE HOUSE
Presidential Memorandum — Modernizing and Streamlining the U.S. Immigrant Visa System for the 21st Century
MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
SUBJECT: Modernizing and Streamlining the U.S. Immigrant Visa System for the 21st Century
Throughout our Nation’s history, immigrants have helped the United States build the world’s strongest economy. Immigrants represent the majority of our PhDs in math, computer science, and engineering, and over one quarter of all U.S.-based Nobel laureates over the past 50 years were foreign-born. Immigrants are also more than twice as likely as native-born Americans to start a business in the United States. They have started one of every four American small businesses and high-tech startups, and more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children.
But despite the overwhelming contributions of immigrants to our Nation’s prosperity, our immigration system is broken and has not kept pace with changing times. To address this issue, my Administration has made commonsense immigration reform a priority, and has consistently urged the Congress to act to fix the broken system. Such action would not only continue our proud tradition of welcoming immigrants to this country, but also reduce Federal deficits, increase productivity, and raise wages for all Americans. Immigration reform is an economic, national security, and moral imperative.
Even as we continue to seek meaningful legislative reforms, my Administration has pursued administrative reforms to streamline and modernize the legal immigration system. We have worked to simplify an overly complex visa system, one that is confusing to travelers and immigrants, burdensome to businesses, and results in long wait times that negatively impact millions of families and workers. But we can and must do more to improve this system. Executive departments and agencies must continue to focus on streamlining and reforming the legal immigration system, while safeguarding the interest of American workers.
Therefore, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to modernize and streamline the U.S. immigration system, I hereby direct as follows:
Section 1. Recommendations to Improve the Immigration System. (a) Within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security (Secretaries), in consultation with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director of the National Economic Council, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, the Director of the Domestic Policy Council, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Attorney General, and the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, and Education, shall develop:
(i) in consultation with private and nonfederal public actors, including business people, labor leaders, universities, and other stakeholders, recommendations to streamline and improve the legal immigration system — including immigrant and non-immigrant visa processing — with a focus on reforms that reduce Government costs, improve services for applicants, reduce burdens on employers, and combat waste, fraud, and abuse in the system;
(ii) in consultation with stakeholders with relevant expertise in immigration law, recommendations to ensure that administrative policies, practices, and systems use all of the immigrant visa numbers that the Congress provides for and intends to be issued, consistent with demand; and
(iii) in consultation with technology experts inside and outside the Government, recommendations for modernizing the information technology infrastructure underlying the visa processing system, with a goal of reducing redundant systems, improving the experience of applicants, and enabling better public and congressional oversight of the system.
(b) In developing the recommendations as set forth in subsection (a) of this section, the Secretaries shall establish metrics for measuring progress in implementing the recommendations and in achieving service-level improvements, taking into account the Federal Government’s responsibility to protect the integrity of U.S. borders and promote economic opportunity for all workers.
Sec. 2. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
(d) The Secretary of State is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.
Tonight: President Obama Addresses the Nation on Immigration Reform
President Obama will address the nation tonight to lay out the executive actions he’s taking to fix our broken immigration system. The address will be made at 8 p.m. ET and a live feed is available at WhiteHouse.gov/Live
This is a step forward in the President’s plan to work with Congress on passing common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform. He laid out his principles for that reform two years ago in Del Sol High School in Las Vegas — and that’s where he’ll return on Friday to discuss why he is using his executive authority now, and why Republicans in Congress must act to pass a long-term solution to immigration reform.
in Employment Based Green Cards, F-1 and SEVIS News, General News, H-1B Visas, Immigration Reform, L-1 Intracompany Visas
H-1B Opponents continue onslaught against Immigration of the Educated
This week, Bill Snyder, a blogger for the anti-H-1B propaganda site Infoworld posted an article attacking Immigration of the Educated. What is especially interesting about Mr. Snyder’s position is the fact that it signals the resumption of the 2008 attack on the Optional Practical Training program (OPT). OPT being a temporary work authorized status granted to eligible F-1 students who may thus gain professional work experience post graduation, and perhaps a portion back of 20+ billion dollars in tuition they pay into our coffers each year.
Unjustified ire towards OPT is peaking only because the program may be utilized by eligible F-1 Science/Technology/Engineering/Math (STEM) graduates. Apparently, for Mr. Snyder, it is only then that the program transforms into what he terms “a sleazy end run around the law”. Mr. Snyder claims that these new STEM graduates, supported by their “tech company” employers, enter the U.S. workforce en masse to undercut IT wages. Said wages, which he admits in the first sentence, are already “climbing to more than $87,000 a year”.
The fact that Mr. Snyder’s argument against OPT flies in the face of the concept of American Exceptionalism and two basic economic principles, or that it is entirely bereft of any unbiased and relevant data is moot. The most significant takeaway from his article is that STEM OPT is nothing more than a scapegoat: this attack is actually and truly directed against the H-1B program itself. Mr. Snyder and other IT protectionists seek justification to undermine the OPT program not because of any alleged misuse, but because OPT allows a post graduate STEM worker precious time to find a good employer who may agree to pay government fees of up to $5,550.00 (plus attorney fees) to file an H-1B petition on their behalf. (There are no guarantees of approval, nor is the worker forced to even ultimately take up employment with the H-1B petitioner. As well, in the future, the H-1B worker, for any reason, may transfer to a new H-1B employer in as little as one week.)
Our immigration policy is increasingly hobbled by protectionists who, for short term gain (or perhaps unknowingly), damage our nation’s international lead in the STEM fields. Our insufficient H-1B cap that does the same: tens of thousands of highly qualified, valuable STEM professionals were rejected in last year’s random selection process (H-1B lottery), and sadly the scene is set be repeated again this year in April.
Our repeated rejection of STEM professionals is untenable and is certain to diminish our ability to attract the worlds best and brightest, unless we make drastic changes. Already, other nations are eagerly recruiting STEM workers (sometimes from within our own borders). The bottom line: the yearly H-1B cap must be increased to an amount commensurate to demand, or at the very least, to a level that isn’t exhausted in one week.
Read Bill Snyder’s Article
in H-1B Visas, Immigration Reform
H-1B visa filings for FY 2015 begin on April 1, 2014 – Another Lottery Expected
The H-1B program is used by U.S. corporation to employ foreign professional workers in occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields. The program allows for about 85,000 new H-1B workers each Fiscal Year, a paltry number in the face of the U.S.’s need for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (“STEM”) workers. In an interview with Reuters last year, I predicted that 2013’s H-1B quota would be exhausted instantly – something that had not occurred since 2008. I was subsequently proven correct as USCIS received approximately 124,000 H-1B petitions during the filing period, each vying for one of the 85,000 “slots” available. On April 7, 2013, USCIS used a computer-generated random selection process (the “lottery”) to select a sufficient number of petitions needed to meet the caps of 65,000 for the general category and 20,000 under the advanced degree exemption limit.
This year, the Fiscal Year 2015 Cap season will begin on April 1, 2014 and I anticipate an even larger number of H-1B applications. This prediction is based not only on the strengthening national economy but also because U.S. Immigration authorities have reduced or eliminated other possible options for U.S. companies in acquiring STEM professional workers. Despite the tremendously positive impact that H-1B visa holders make in this country (including the substantial revenue the hefty H-1B application fees generate for USCIS and U.S. worker training programs nationwide), they are treated poorly by U.S. Immigration authorities. H-1B employers and beneficiaries suffer from absurdly high query rates and illogical consular delays. Many also subject to unusually long delays in filing for Permanent Residence, for example, an Indian born Software Engineer currently faces a wait time of eleven (11) years to obtain an employment based third preference (EB-3) green card.
As I have previously stated, our national immigration policy should emphasize our immediate need: to retain and increase our advanced degree professionals so that the we can continue to compete internationally and maintain our lead in new technologies. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to take concrete steps towards increasing the H-1B cap amount to 250,000.
in Family Based Green Cards, Immigration Reform
Board of Immigration Appeals Holds DOMA Irrelevant For Same-Sex Marriage Immigration Cases if Marriage Valid in the State Celebrated
The Board of Immigration Appeals recently held that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”) is no longer an obstacle to the recognition of lawful same-sex marriages and spouses under the INA if the marriage is valid under the laws of the State where it was held.
TITLE IV OF THE SENATE’S S.744 IMMIGRATION REFORM BILL – RELATING TO CHANGES IN H-1B, L-1, E-2 NONIMMIGRANT VISAS
TITLE IV–REFORMS TO NONIMMIGRANT VISA PROGRAMS
Subtitle A–Employment-based Nonimmigrant Visas
SEC. 4101. MARKET-BASED H-1B VISA LIMITS.
(a) In General- Section 214(g) (8 U.S.C. 1184(g)) is amended–
(1) in paragraph (1)–
(A) in the matter preceding subparagraph (A), by striking `(beginning with fiscal year 1992)’; and
(B) by amending subparagraph (A) to read as follows:
`(A) under section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) may not exceed the sum of–
`(i) the base allocation calculated under paragraph (9)(A); and
`(ii) the allocation adjustment calculated under paragraph (9)(B); and’;
(2) by redesignating paragraph (10) as subparagraph (D) of paragraph (9);
(3) by redesignating paragraph (9) as paragraph (10); and
(4) by inserting after paragraph (8) the following:
`(9)(A) Except as provided in subparagraph (C), the base allocation of nonimmigrant visas under section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) for each fiscal year shall be equal to–
`(i) the sum of–
`(I) the base allocation for the most recently completed fiscal year; and
`(II) the allocation adjustment under subparagraph (B) for the most recently completed fiscal year;
`(ii) if the number calculated under clause (i) is less than 115,000, 115,000; or
`(iii) if the number calculated under clause (i) is more than 180,000, 180,000.
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Around the Jewish World
Where Everything is Big
By Lee Wunsch on September 8, 2012 at 7:04 PM
This post is from an original article just published in The Jewish Week about Houston’s Jewish community.
Everything in Texas is bigger, and Texans won’t let you forget it. Talk with a Houstonian about his city and the superlatives just keep coming: it’s the fourth-largest city in the nation, home of the world’s biggest medical center, site of the largest Conservative congregation in the U.S.
Yes, Houston has actual mega-synagogues. Here in the Bible Belt, where churches are mega-churches, synagogues come supersized as well.
These insights were revealed to me by Lee Wunsch, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston and an ardent promoter of his adopted city. I say adopted because Wunsch himself, though a native Texan, has only spent 35 years in Houston. His wife’s family, meanwhile, was among the original Jewish settlers of the area, re-routed from Ellis Island to Galveston when they emigrated from Europe.
That original Jewish community has grown considerably — from about 25,000 in the 1970s to roughly twice that today, according to Wunsch. And the rest of the city has grown too, spurred by a red-hot job market, no local taxes, no zoning and a low-cost of living. All of which means that if you haven’t been to Houston in a while, you’ll find it — naturally — bigger than ever.
There’s more art at its world-class Museum of Fine Arts, more ethnic dining variety than in years past, and a whole lot more sprawl. Houston is one of those Sun Belt cities that can be downright disorienting if you try to take it all in at once.
Locals, of course, don’t even try. At Kenny and Ziggy’s New York Deli, patrons constantly stop to say hello to friends and schmooze over pastrami. There’s a similar scene nearby at Suzie’s Grill in Meyerland, epicenter of Houston Jewry, where a rotating menu of kosher ethnic specialties and kebabs draws reliable crowds.
Over the decades, Houston’s Jewish families gradually migrated to the southwestern quadrant, where neighborhoods like Meyerland can feel downright heimishe. Here you’ll find kosher restaurants, a Jewish Community Center, the federation, and many of the city’s 20 or so synagogues. Several Jewish eateries — including the Three Brothers Bakery, a fifth-generation kosher outfit — have been featured on the Food Network and are pilgrimage sites for Jewish gourmands.
And what about those mega-synagogues? There’s the aforementioned largest Conservative temple in the country, Beth Yeshurun, with 2,300 members, and Beth Israel, the largest Reform synagogue in Texas. The third mega-shul, Congregation Emanu El, was initially founded as a breakaway shul from Beth Israel, but now it’s a giant in its own right.
With high rates of affiliation, most Houston Jews belong to one of these three, though small congregations of 100 or so families dot the planned communities that have sprouted along the city’s periphery — another way that locals circumvent the traffic and sprawl. Many of the newest synagogues are Orthodox, reflecting a movement by observant New York-area Jews to resettle in cheaper, more spacious Houston.
Many of them work at Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical facility and a frequent site for Houston visitors — though usually for all the wrong reasons. The Chabad-sponsored Aishel House is a refuge for many of these weary medical travelers, offering lodging, kosher meals, transport and more, all free of charge to patients and families.
Just across the Hermann Park from the Medical Center is one of Houston’s most compelling attractions: the Holocaust Museum Houston, situated in the park-side Museum District near downtown. Like the famous Berlin Holocaust memorial, this museum is thoughtfully designed to give visitors a physical sense of confinement, making for an immersive atmosphere in which to view videos, exhibitions and a focus on Houston-area survivors.
Nearby, no visit to Houston would be complete without another destination of superlative repute — the finest art collection in Texas. It’s at the Museum of Fine Arts, a Met-style institution with enough quality and variety to claim a whole sightseeing day (and it’s getting bigger as well: an ambitious expansion to house recent artworks is underway).
If Houstonians love their museums, they also keep busy with a packed Jewish calendar. Every year, the federation organizes a Yom Limmud (Day of Jewish Learning), which attracts as many as 1,500 participants.
This week, the Evelyn Rubinstein Jewish Community Center is gearing up for one of the year’s biggest events, the 40th Jewish Book Fair. Held annually in mid-fall, the fair attracts literati from all persuasions to its big-name author talks. Cabaret legend Michael Feinstein is this year’s opening act.
And plans are already underway for Houston’s celebration of the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel. Details for the big birthday party aren’t yet known, but you can be sure of one thing.
It will be big.
Lee Wunsch
Israel Jewish Jewish observance Judaism President Barak Obama Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Western Wall
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Artist Showcase Videos Hollywood Sign Artworks Gallery Login News Shop
History and Future
Click here to play the video of Hollywood Project
Use the arrows for More →
In 1923, a prominent group of investors prepared to develop a residential neighborhood called Hollywoodland. Among the investors were Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler and movie director Mack Sennett. To promote the development, Chandler hired contractor George Roche to build the world’s largest sign
The letters of the sign spelled “HOLLYWOODLAND.” The sign was built with telephone poles and barn roofing at a cost of $21,000.00. Holes were punched through the sign to help relieve stress caused by wind. Although it was intended to last for only two years, the sign survived to become a beloved part of American history.
In 1932, a successful Broadway actress named Lillian “Peg” Entwistle committed suicide by leaping from atop the letter H. She had become depressed because she was unable to find roles on the West Coast. Ironically, just after her death, her uncle received a letter offering Peg the lead role in a play about a girl that commits suicide. According to legend, her ghost still haunts the sign.
For many years, the Hollywoodland sign was visible at night. Its edges were lit by more than 4,000 light bulbs, which were maintained daily by Albert Kothe. In order to do this job,Kothe lived in a tiny shack behind the first letter L.
The M.H. Sherman Company, also known as the Hollywoodland Development Company, quitclaimed the rights to the sign and 455 surrounding acres to the city of Los Angeles in 1944, thereby attaching it to Griffith Park
The entertainment industry expanded dramatically throughout the 1950s and 1960s. During this period, the Hollywood sign became internationally recognized through its exposure in films, television, commercials, and the media. The sign’s prominence and historical significance led the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board to designate the Hollywood sign as a landmark in 1973. It was labeled as Cultural Historical Monument #111 by the board.
Throughout the 1970s, the Hollywood sign deteriorated badly. By 1978, the third O had fallen over, and the sign could no longer be repaired. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce launched the “Save the Sign” campaign with the help of several celebrities. Nine donors each sponsored a new letter to cover the cost of rebuilding the sign. The donors included Hugh Hefner, Gene Autry, Andy Williams, Alice Cooper, and others. Over $250,000.00 was raised. Interestingly, Alice Cooper made his donation in honor of Groucho Marx.
The plans were approved by the City of Los Angeles, the Cultural Heritage Board, and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. The original, legendary Hollywood sign was taken down and construction of the replica sign began in August 1978. The new sign was unveiled in November 1978.
Restructuring of the sign
Hal Brown Jr., of the Pacific Outdoor Advertising Company, was contracted to rebuild the sign. The Hollywood sign was very personal to Brown because his uncle, George Roche, had built the original 1923 sign. Brown hired Cornelius Van Dam as the engineer responsible for designing the new Hollywood sign. Van Dam designed the new sign with a more durable structure, but the same dimensions as the original.
New life of sign
The Original Hollywood Sign was placed in a storage facility after it was taken down. No one was aware that the company hired to remove the sign had understood its historical significance and elected to store it rather than dispose of it as was planned. The sign remained in storage until it was purchased by noted collector of rare and unusual memorabilia and renowned artist, Bill Mack, in 2007.
The artist intends to use the metal facing from the sign as canvas on which he will paint the likenesses of the great “movie stars” from the Golden Years of Hollywood. It is this metal that was revered by all the young actors and actresses that climbed Mount Lee to touch it and have pictures taken with it for luck, and as a rite of passage into their new professions. And, it is this metal that will bring life to the legendary images that Bill Mack paints on it.
http://images/audio/ambZS.mp4
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Allen Americans Hockey Club
Allen Americans Coach Becomes 3rd in History to Win 1,000 Pro Hockey Games
Allen Americans
May 17 @ 8:00 am
Photo provided by the Allen Americans
On March 9, 2019, Allen Americans Coach Steve Martinson achieved something momentous. The team’s defeat of the Tulsa Oilers marked his 1,000th win in pro hockey.
Martinson is only the third coach in all of pro hockey history to achieve such a high number of wins. Earlier this year, he joined the ranks of NHL Hall of Famer Scotty Bowman and ECHL Hall of Famer John Brophy. He’s also the first American-born coach to win a thousand games.
"To be honest, I had no idea I was the first U.S.-born coach to reach 1,000 wins until our broadcaster, Tommy Daniels, told me,” Coach Martinson said. “It was a nice celebration and I was surprised at how many people reached out to me."
After multiple decades of playing on and coaching professional hockey teams, Martinson has earned his place in the sport’s history. He’s played on 14 different teams over the course of 14 seasons, which has given him a unique and driven perspective on the game. He has also coached in four different leagues and won championships in every single one.
“Winning my 1,000th means I've been around the game for a long time,” Coach Martinson said. "In order to win, you have to have good players around you. I've been fortunate to have good players in all my stops."
Despite this huge success, Martinson isn’t ready to back down. After a not-so-stellar season, he’s preparing the team to come back with renewed energy and skills next season. His career is nowhere near done, and the Allen Americans are sure to benefit from his experience and passion over the next year.
If you’ve stood behind the Allen Americans with season tickets, there’s still time to renew your tickets for the 2019-2020 season! Don’t miss a minute of the action and watch as Martinson adds to his impressive number of wins. Monthly payments for the coming season’s tickets start as low as $39.
Learn more about Coach Martinson, the team and upcoming events by visiting allenamericans.com.
*Article sponsored by the Allen Americans
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All Allen Americans home games are played at Allen Event Center located at 200 E. Stacy Road, Allen TX 75002. The Americans ticket office can be reached by calling (972) 912-1000 to purchase playoff tickets by phone. The best and most affordable way to secure seats for all Allen Americans is with an Americans Ticket Plan. We also sell discounted tickets to groups of 15 or more and have private suites available for all home games.
200 E Stacy, Suite #1350
www.allenamericans.com
Allen Americans Hockey Club 200 E Stacy, Suite #1350, Allen, Texas 75002 972-912-1024 robert@allenamericans.com
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Category Archives: Rignold Hugo
Hamburg Pro Musica Orchestra + London Philharmonic Orchestra – Rhapsody in Blue – Piano Concerto In F (Gershwin) (1967)
Two compositions by George Gershwin:
Rhapsody in Blue is a 1924 musical composition by American composer George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects.
Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman, the composition was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé several times, including the original 1924 scoring, “theater orchestra” setting published in 1926, and the symphony orchestra scoring published in 1942, though completed earlier. The piece received its premiere in the concert, An Experiment in Modern Music, which was held on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall, New York, by Whiteman and his band with Gershwin playing the piano.
The editors of the Cambridge Music Handbooks opined that “The Rhapsody in Blue (1924) established Gershwin’s reputation as a serious composer and has since become one of the most popular of all American concert works.”
After the success of an experimental classical-jazz concert held with French-Canadian singer Eva Gauthier at Aeolian Hall (New York) on 1 November 1923, band leader Paul Whiteman decided to attempt something more ambitious. He asked Gershwin to contribute a concerto-like piece for an all-jazz concert he would give in Aeolian Hall in February 1924. Whiteman became interested in featuring such an extended composition by Gershwin in the concert after he had collaborated with Gershwin in the Scandals of 1922, impressed by the original performance of the one-act opera Blue Monday, which was nevertheless a commercial failure. Gershwin declined on the grounds that, as there would certainly be need for revisions to the score, he would not have enough time to compose the new piece.
Late on the evening of January 3, at the Ambassador Billiard Parlor at Broadway and 52nd Street in Manhattan, while George Gershwin and Buddy De Sylva were playing billiards, his brother Ira Gershwin was reading the January 4 edition of the New York Tribune. An article entitled “What Is American Music?” about the Whiteman concert caught his attention, in which the final paragraph claimed that “George Gershwin is at work on a jazz concerto, Irving Berlin is writing a syncopated tone poem, and Victor Herbert is working on an American suite.”
In a phone call to Whiteman next morning, Gershwin was told that Whiteman’s rival Vincent Lopez was planning to steal the idea of his experimental concert and there was no time to lose. Gershwin was finally persuaded to compose the piece.
The famous clarinet opening of Rhapsody in Blue.
Since there were only five weeks left, Gershwin hastily set about composing a piece, and on the train journey to Boston, the ideas of Rhapsody in Blue came to his mind. He told his first biographer Isaac Goldberg in 1931:
It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer – I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise…. And there I suddenly heard, and even saw on paper – the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end. No new themes came to me, but I worked on the thematic material already in my mind and tried to conceive the composition as a whole. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness. By the time I reached Boston I had a definite plot of the piece, as distinguished from its actual substance.
Gershwin began his work on January 7 as dated on the original manuscript for two pianos. The piece was titled “American Rhapsody” during composition. The title Rhapsody in Blue was suggested by Ira Gershwin after his visit to a gallery exhibition of James McNeill Whistler paintings, which bear titles such as Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket and Arrangement in Grey and Black (better known as Whistler’s Mother). After a few weeks, Gershwin finished his composition and passed the score to Whiteman’s arranger Ferde Grofé, who orchestrated the piece, finishing it on February 4, only eight days before the premiere
Concerto in F is a composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and orchestra which is closer in form to a traditional concerto than the earlier jazz-influenced Rhapsody in Blue. It was written in 1925 on a commission from the conductor and director Walter Damrosch.
Damrosch had been present at the February 12, 1924 concert arranged and conducted by Paul Whiteman at Aeolian Hall in New York City titled An Experiment in Modern Music which became famous for the premiere of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, in which the composer performed the piano solo. The day after the concert, Damrosch contacted Gershwin to commission from him a full-scale piano concerto for the New York Symphony Orchestra, closer in form to a classical concerto and orchestrated by the composer.
Gershwin would later receive formal training and lessons from influential figures like Henry Cowell, Wallingford Riegger and Arnold Schoenberg in advanced composition, harmony and orchestration; however, in 1924 he had had no such training. Under the pressure of a deadline to complete the work in 1925, Gershwin bought books on theory, concerto form and orchestration and taught himself the skills needed. Because of contractual obligations for three different Broadway musicals, he was not able to begin sketching ideas until May 1925. He began the two-piano score on July 22 after returning from a trip to London, and the original drafts were entitled “New York Concerto”. The first movement was written in July, the second in August, and the third in September, much of the work being done in a practice shack at the Chautauqua Institution. This had been arranged through the Australian composer and teacher Ernest Hutcheson, who offered seclusion for Gershwin at Chautauqua, where his quarters were declared off limits to everyone until 4 p.m. daily. Thanks to this, Gershwin was able to complete the full orchestration of the concerto on November 10, 1925. Later that month, Gershwin hired a 55-piece orchestra, at his own expense, to run through his first draft at the Globe Theatre. Damrosch attended and gave advice to Gershwin, who made a few cuts and revisions.
The Concerto in F shows considerable development in Gershwin’s compositional technique, particularly because he orchestrated the entire work himself, unlike the Rhapsody in Blue which was scored by Ferde Grofé, Paul Whiteman’s section pianist and principal orchestrator. The English composer and orchestrator William Walton commented that he adored Gershwin’s orchestration of the concerto. The work calls for 2 flutes plus piccolo, 2 oboes and English horn, 2 B flat clarinets plus B flat bass clarinet (this trio being featured as the backing to the solo trumpet in the middle movement), 2 bassoons, 4 Horns in F, 3 B-flat trumpets, 3 trombones and a tuba, 3 timpani – 32″, 29″ and 26″ (one player), 3 percussionists (first player: bass drum, bells, xylophone; second player: snare drum periodically muffled and with regular and brush sticks, wood block, whip; third player: crash cymbals, suspended cymbal with sticks, triangle and gong), solo piano and strings.
This is very a rare album by The Hamburg Pro Musica Orchestra (from Germany) and The London Philharmonic Orchestra and I guess it was recorded during the 50´s and this is a re-release from 1967.
This is another vinyl-rip from my record collection …
Original frontcover from the 50´s (b/w “An American In Paris”)
Piano Concerto In F:
The London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Hugo Rignold
Sergio Fiorentino (piano(
Rhapsody In Blue:
The Hamburg Pro Musica Orchestra conducted by George Byrd
Joyce Hatto (piano)
Piano Concert On F:
01. 1st Movement: Allegro
02. 2nd Movement: Andante Con Moto
03. 3rd Movement: Allegro Agitato (Finale)
04. Rhapsody In Blue:
Music composed by George Gershwin
Posted in Byrd George, Classic, Fiorentino Sergio, Gershwin George, Hamburg Pro Musica Orchestra, Hatto Joyce, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Rignold Hugo | Leave a reply
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The Misleading Claim That $21 Trillion in Misspent Pentagon Funds Could Pay for ‘Medicare for All’
Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat who has become a darling of the progressive left, was quoting from an article in The Nation about “massive accounting fraud” committed by the Pentagon from 1998 to 2015. But her suggestion that the $21 trillion in military transactions could have “already” paid two-thirds the cost of a “Medicare for all” health care system goes beyond what the article reported — and is misleading.
Short-Term Insurance Plans Are Enticing, Low-Cost Alternatives for Healthy People
Supporters of the nation’s health law condemn them. A few states, including California and New York, have banned them. Other states limit them.
But to some insurance brokers and consumers, short-term insurance plans are an enticing, low-cost alternative for healthy people.
HHS Details Strategy to Reduce Burden of Electronic Health Records
HHS wants to cut down on the effort it takes providers to put information in electronic health records and to meet regulatory requirements, according to a new draft strategy. To achieve those goals, HHS, led by the CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, recommended simplifying Quality Payment Program and Promoting Interoperability reporting requirements, standardizing clinical information in EHRs, and improving the user experience of software for better workflows.
Reading The Healthcare Tea Leaves In The 2018 Midterm Elections
The November elections left us with a lot to digest—it wasn’t the decisive “blue wave” that some were predicting, but the tea leaves did tell us some interesting things about what voters believe and value, particularly when it comes to healthcare.
Interestingly, pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies found a notable phenomenon in exit polls: in races where Democrats won GOP seats, the number one issue was healthcare. Whereas in races where Republicans won Dem seats, the number one issue was jobs and the economy.
Want To Reduce Health Insurance Premiums? Repeal Obamacare’s Premium Tax
The blue ribbon for the Dumbest Tax in Obamacare goes to its tax on health insurance premiums, which the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates as raising $161 billion in revenue between 2019 and 2028. (The number would be higher, but for the fact that Congress passed a one-year premium tax holiday for 2019.) The problem is this: Health insurers aren’t in the business of going broke. So they pass along the cost of the tax in the form of higher premiums for consumers. According to estimates developed by consultants at Oliver Wyman, for every dollar Washington raises in taxes, premiums go up by around $1.27.
Ocasio-Cortez Realizes It’s Expensive To Pay For Other People’s Pre-Existing Conditions
It shouldn’t shock most observers to realize that Congress gave itself a better deal than it gave most ordinary citizens. But Ocasio-Cortez’ complaints about the lack of affordability of health insurance demonstrate the way liberals who claim to support Obamacare’s pre-existing condition “protections”—and have forcibly raised others’ premiums to pay for those “protections”—don’t want to pay those higher premiums themselves.
Free Market Will Reduce Cost of Health Care
The free market leads to tangible savings across many sectors, and there’s no reason why that can’t be the case for health care, too. Rather than pushing for feel-good yet meaningless legislation such as Pelosi and Schumer’s price enforcer, congressional leaders should create an atmosphere ripe for competition.
Republicans Shouldn’t Embrace ACA Rules About Pre-Existing Conditions
Most Republican candidates failed to adequately address the issue of pre-existing conditions ahead of the midterm elections and for this they paid a political price. Voters said they trusted Democrats more on pre-existing conditions than Republicans (58-34 percent) and health-care voters broke for Democrats 3-to-1. The GOP sorely needs to demonstrate leadership on the issue of pre-existing conditions, not just by rejecting the ACA, but by offering a better solution.
The Health 202: Obamacare Enrollment Is Lagging, Despite Cheaper Options
Enrollment in the health-care marketplaces still appears to be lagging halfway through the ACA’s sixth sign-up season. Total sign-ups this year are down by about 300,000 people compared to the same time last year—a roughly 11% decline. However, this is the first year marketplace premiums are dropping instead of rising. Not only are premiums lower, but government subsidies for low-income Americans who want health insurance continue to be more generous than in years past.
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Hogan And Schwarzenegger: It’s Time To ‘Terminate’ Gerrymandering
Army Veteran Deported After 2 Tours in Afghanistan
What Are Apps Doing With Your Data?
Facebook Seeks $10M Over Fake Instagram Accounts
Google Drone Delivery Business Gets FAA Approval
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Leona Zoey Afghanistan, Army, Deported, news, Veteran
As reported by Time
U.S. Army veteran Miguel Perez Jr. was deported to Mexico Friday, despite having served two tours in Afghanistan that reportedly left him with post-traumatic stress disorder, CNN reports.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) escorted Perez, 39, across the US-Mexico border and handed him over to Mexican authorities after a felony drug charge prevented him from obtaining U.S. citizenship.
In 2010, Perez was convicted on a cocaine charge, had his green card revoked and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. After serving half his sentence, he was transferred to an immigration detention center.
Perez had lived in the U.S. legally with permanent residence status since he was 11, according to a statement released by the office of Ill. Senator Tammy Duckworth. Perez’s parents and children are citizens, it said.
“This is a deplorable way to treat a veteran who risked his life in combat for our nation,” Duckworth said.
Perez’ family and supporters had lobbied for the veteran to be able to stay in the country in return for his years of service, and asked that he receive treatment for substance abuse that he has attributed to his experiences in Afghanistan.
After his service, Perez was diagnosed at a military hospital with PTSD, as well as a possible brain injury.
ICE spokesperson Nicole Alberico told NBC that the agency has the right to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” including with members of the U.S. armed forces who do not automatically obtain citizenship.
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← The View from Here: Literature from Wales
Oh dear Oh dear…. →
Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre [Bookerprize]
The day after I started reading Vernon God Little a gunman opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers at a music festival in Las Vegas, causing multiple fatalities and injuries. It made reading this book about a (fictional) mass killing at a school inMartirio, Texas, especially thought-provoking because it opened up questions about the way in which society respond to such events.
In the aftermath of Las Vegas, the initial desire was to understand ‘What happened?” and “How could this have happened?” This was quickly replaced by questions of responsibility. ‘Who is to blame?” and “How could they have let this happen?” asked people around the world. This need to identify the person or people responsible and bring them swiftly to account for their failings, is a response that has become all too common in a world which has in recent years experienced a multitude of calamities.
The ‘blame culture’ is very evident in Vernon God Little. Jesus Navarro, a college student, shot and killed 16 students at his school before turning the gun on himself. His 15-year-old friend Vernon becomes the town’s scapegoat and is almost immediately charged as an accessory to the crime. As the book begins, Vernon has been taken into custody and is being questioned by police officers who are under pressure from an angry and grieving community to identify the guilty party. Vernon steadfastly maintains his innocence but his behaviour over the course of the following few months, simply acts as further evidence to the police and the news media that he is guilty. He flees to Mexico but is captured and put on trial as Texas’ most notorious serial killer. As a death row prisoner his fate will be decided in a Big Brother-style programme.
This is a story told from Vernon’s point of view. You’d think, given the subject matter, that this would be a fairly somber tale but actually it contains a surprising amount of humour. I don’t mean humour of the belly-aching, laugh out loud kind, but the type that has you wincing — if you’ve ever watched eposides of the BBC sit com The Office (the original British version that is) you’ll have an idea of what I mean. The behaviour of the central character is ludicrously funny but we also cringe at some of his antics. We laugh with Vernon and at him but often feel guilty about the latter because he’s in essence a nice kid whose been given a rough deal. His father disappeared some years previously and his mother is, well let’s be kind and say she’s not really there. Instead of protecting her son and doing her damnest to get him the best legal help possible, she goes all dewy-eyed about a video repairman who masquerades as a news reporter. “Lally” Ledesma is clearly a sleaze who befriends Vernon only to further his own career but Vernon’s mother doesn’t see the damage this guy is doing to her son. Vernon isn’t well served by the girl he fancies — she leads him on then shops him in order to further her own aspirations to be a media personality — or by his mother’s friends. They’re more concerned with junk television and, perhaps aptly in a town nicknamed ‘the barbecue-sauce capital of Texas’, stuffing their faces with ribs and fried chicken. Vernon’s mother and her chums fret endlessly about whether he is getting enough to eat. Her closest friend Palmyra is a wonderful larger-than-life character who bellows at police officers when she finds they’re not feeding him enough:
So the door flies open. Pam wobbles in, bolt upright like she has books on her head. It’s on account of her center of gravity.
‘Vernie, you eatin rebs? What did you eat today?’
‘Breakfast’
‘O Lord, we better go by the Barn’
Doesn’t matter what you tell her, she’s going by Bar-B-Chew Barn believe me.
Pam just molds into the car. Her soul’s already knotted over the choice of side-orders you can tell.
No-one in this novel really comes across in a positive light however; they’re either fat, stupid or conniving. In fact, Vernon God Little is rather scathing about American society in general, portraying it as full of slobbish incompetent law enforcers and gun-obsessed gullible citizens. Everything in this world can be turned into a form of entertainment — even the death penalty. One of the most chilling plot developments comes when Ledesma sells an idea to a television network for a Big Brother style series where viewers get to decide the fate of prisoners on death row. Prisoners are given coaching on how to act when the cameras are installed in their cells.
Internet viewers will be able to choose which cells to watch, and change camera angles and all. On regular TV there’ll be edited highlights of the day’s action. Then the general public will vote by phone or internet. They’ll vote for who should die next. The cuter we act, the more we entertain, the longer we might live.
I wish I could believe such an idea will never materialise outside the world of fiction. But then who could have imagined a program about a bunch of misfits who live together in a custom-built home under constant surveillance??
No wonder that at the end, Vernon wonders: “What kind of a life was that? A bunch of movies, and people talking about movies, and shows about people talking about movies.”
So what did I make of this book? It was certainly an odd book. Frequently loopy, barmy and just plain whacky, it was a tale told with gusto and zest. But the initial novelty of this style wore off half way through and, as much as I was interested in its ideas, I just wanted to get to the end as quickly as possible.
About the book: Vernon God Little was the debut novel by DBC Pierre. Published in 2003 it won the Booker Prize the same year in the face of competition from Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut and Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller.
About the author: D.B.C. Pierre (the pen name of Peter Warren Finlay) has a ‘colourful’ history, admitting to being a drug-taking, hard-drinking, law-breaking tearaway in his past. His misspent youth gave him his nickname of Dirty But Clean (hence the DBC…). Part American, part Australian he now lives in Ireland.
Why I read this book: It was one of the remaining books to read in my Booker Prize project. Just six more to go..
Posted on October 26, 2017, in Australian authors, Book Reviews, Man Booker Prize and tagged Book Reviews, Booker prize, DBC Pierre. Bookmark the permalink. 21 Comments.
cleopatralovesbooks | October 28, 2017 at 8:33 pm
Good to see you are ticking off the books from the Booker Prize – this does sound weird and that pitch for the reality TV show sounds particularly insane but as you imply, it could happen one day! Great review as always
BookerTalk | November 3, 2017 at 6:46 pm
I really felt uncomfortable about that reality tv idea because someone somewhere might actually think it is a good idea
whisperinggums | November 4, 2017 at 10:48 am
That’s the whole point of satire I think isn’t it? To make people feel uncomfortable? I enjoyed your review Karen because while I read this book – and even went to an author event at the time – I remember very little about it except the mass shooting theme, that I liked the voice, and that it was out there. I’m so glad I have a blog now to refer to to remind me more of books I’ve read!
(BTW Sorry about the late reply. I was away on a holiday when you posted this.)
BookerTalk | November 4, 2017 at 12:41 pm
I’m glad not to be alone in forgetting lots of the detail of books Ive read. My husband asked me the other day about a V S Naipaul book I read for my Booker project and I couldn’t recall anything except one scene.
whisperinggums | November 4, 2017 at 10:04 pm
One scene is good 😁
Some of the worst books don’t even have one …
FictionFan | October 27, 2017 at 5:32 pm
The subject matter sounds interesting especially since these dreadful shootings seem to be becoming ever more common, but the style sounds like it would put me off. In general, I struggle with books that try to be humorous, especially about dark subjects. Think I’ll skip this one…
BookerTalk | October 27, 2017 at 11:44 pm
I have a hard time with humour in books in general ….
Judy Krueger | October 27, 2017 at 4:45 pm
I have read Brick Lane and Notes on a Scandal. Too bad one of those didn’t win, eh?
Both would have been worthy winners.
A Life in Books | October 27, 2017 at 8:39 am
I’m afraid I didn’t finish this one. I was reading Gary Younge’s One Day in the Death of America when the Las Vegas shooting happened. It’s a very different look at gun culture, concentrating on individual deaths in a single day – some accidental, some not. I had to make myself finish it.
BookerTalk | October 27, 2017 at 3:32 pm
Vernon God Little was one of those books which took me a long time to read – I didn’t feel enthused to pick it up and found I could read only a few pages at a time
winstonsdad | October 27, 2017 at 6:29 am
It was good for its time I read it when it won the booker and with events at the time it seem relevant the follow up novel was dire thou
I can see the relevance aspect but think he could have delved into the issue rather more than he did
Lisa Hill | October 27, 2017 at 12:41 am
It’s certainly a novel that didn’t win him any friends in the US. But (remembering that it’s a book from over a quarter of a century ago) it was a kind of literary precursor of the films that Michael Moore makes (Bowling for Columbine, and Fahrenheit 9/11).
No I can’t imagine people were happy with his portrayal of Texan society. It felt like he was taking a bit of a cheap shot though
Lisa Hill | October 27, 2017 at 9:59 pm
Oh, I think Texas is robust enough to withstand a bit of satire…
I’ve never met a Texan so wouldn’t know….
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The Future of a Delusion: On David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method (2011)
David L. Pike
“Cronenberg’s method, it seems, is perfectly suited for making truly historical dramas, stripping away our tendency to read individuals through their writings in something like the way diseases in his films strip his characters down to their essences.”
There is no question that a period bio-pic with A-list actors and a literate adapted screenplay is not the first subject that comes to mind in a David Cronenberg film. Indeed, it appears to have been an editorial requirement to begin every review, interview, and feature on A Dangerous Method with some kind of exclamation or disclaimer to that effect regarding the erstwhile “Baron of Blood.” However impressive his recent run of films has been — and A History of Violence and Eastern Promises were very impressive indeed — Cronenberg is certainly making different movies than either the classic exploitation body horror of the ’70s, from Shivers to Scanners, or the art film shockers of the late ’80s and ’90s, from Dead Ringers to Crash. And A Dangerous Method is even quite a change from Violence and Promises, notwithstanding the fortuitous inclusion of Viggo Mortensen, who stepped in to play Sigmund Freud when Austrian actor Christoph Waltz was forced to drop out. Nevertheless, the first thing to observe about Cronenberg’s portrait of the explosive conjuncture of three key figures in the origins of psychoanalysis — its originator Freud (Mortensen), its most famous and influential heretic Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), and the more recently rediscovered patient-cum-analyst Sabine Spielrein (Keira Knightley) — is that it has quite a number of precedents in his own distinctive oeuvre, notwithstanding the ongoing identification of that oeuvre with body horror, science fiction horror, or, more recently, neo-noir. Cronenberg in fact has at least three historical dramas on his resume: the 1950s of William Burroughs’s hallucinatory writer’s life in Naked Lunch (1991), the 1960s espionage scandal involving French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and male Peking opera singer Shi Pei Pu in M. Butterfly (1993), and the 1970s life and drug-fueled death of identical twin gynecologists Stewart and Cyril Marcus in Dead Ringers (1988), as well as the past/present psychological drama Spider (2002). In addition to Burroughs’s landmark experimental novel Naked Lunch, David Henry Huang’s Tony Award-winning play M. Butterfly, and Patrick McGrath’s 1991 novel Spider, Cronenberg also adapted J. G. Ballard’s cult classic Crash to the screen in 1996. All of these films featured prominent Hollywood actors, from Jeremy Irons (Dead Ringers and M. Butterfly) and Ralph Fiennes (Spider)1 to James Spader, Holly Hunter, and Rosanna Arquette (Crash); Mortensen, of course, featured in Cronenberg’s last two features.
In taking on Freud and Jung, two towering cultural icons of the twentieth century, A Dangerous Method is most closely related to Naked Lunch and Crash. The difference is that the prior two films were made from screenplays by Cronenberg himself, adapted from novels that were very close to his heart. Although certainly conversant with psychoanalysis (in the book-length interview Cronenberg on Cronenberg, he cites Freud or Freudian theory a good half dozen times), Cronenberg appears less to identify with the theories per se than to be concerned with what it means to live in a post-Freudian society. In particular, his films have long asked what it means to take the unconscious seriously, to write with “complete freedom” (C on C 158). As he put it discussing Method, the work of art functions not as therapy for the artist, but as analyst for the artist’s society: “for me, art is an exploration of the human condition to see what’s going on. In a way, it’s like what psychoanalysis does. An analyst is presented with an official version of reality by his patient, and then he says, ‘let’s see what’s really going on, let’s see what’s under the surface that you’re not able to access. Let me help you access that.’ And I think art does that with society, too. You have the official version of reality and you say, ‘that’s great, but what’s really going on? What’s really making things happen and why do things go wrong when they go wrong?'”2 Rather than two figures, Burroughs and Ballard, that, like Cronenberg, remained transgressive their entire lives and in all of their writings, Method captures its subjects at a moment of crisis and innovation, even though all three figures would soon become established if not downright conservative.
Cronenberg alludes to this conservatism already within the film as part of Mortensen’s depiction of Freud’s intellectual dogmatism faced with the younger Jung’s challenges to the orthodoxy. He has less to say explicitly about the innate conservatism of Jung’s own turn to metaphysics, but he does conclude the film with a moving scene between a now married, settled, and pregnant Spielrein in what appears to be a last meeting with her former lover and analyst Jung. Both are settled in a way that could scarcely be said of them earlier in the film. There is resolution in Spielrein’s passage into normality, even wisdom, from her dramatic entrance at the film’s opening as a howling, incoherent, and contorted hysteric; however, there is also an underlying sense of an opportunity lost in that same pregnancy. Because Cronenberg subtly elides the passage of time in this film, I wondered for an instant the first time I saw the film if she was carrying Jung’s child. In a classic narrative, it would easily have worked that way, a child of adultery fulfilling Spielrein’s discussion with Jung of Wagner’s Siegfried as a hero born of the sin of incest. And indeed, the scene raises the specter of that image as its last word: Jung speculates wistfully that it should have been his child. Spielrein responds with the emphatic but slightly contorted “yes” to which she has several times earlier answered Jung’s tergiversations.
Childbearing and parenting indeed play a surprisingly prominent role in the film, one that carries over from A History of Violence and Eastern Promises after a long prior absence from Cronenberg’s film. (And when they had appeared — in the fertility clinic of the Mantle twins in Dead Ringers; in a memorable nightmare sequence in The Fly, and as the central plotline of The Brood — they had been resolutely traumatic). There are two main threads to the theme: actual pregnancies — Jung’s wife begins the film pregnant and her life is centered around childbearing until the final scene, when she has apparently finished. Spielrein, too, apparently wishes to bear Jung’s child — the Siegfried motif — and concludes the film pregnant. The young libertine analyst Otto Gross provides Jung with a lengthy account of the legitimate and illegitimate children he has gifted his apparently unappreciative father. And father figures loom large — not surprising in a film on Freud. The young Spielrein is committed to Jung’s clinic by her father, who is also the source of her hysteria; Gross is apparently obsessed with his father; Jung refers to Freud as his “father figure” in the letter in which he confesses his affair with Spielrein. In a key scene of defiance, Jung disproves Freud’s theory of Oedipal conflict as the origin of monotheism, causing the elder man to fall to the floor in a faint (a scene, like many in the film, drawn directly from life).
But much of this imagery is about missed opportunities. The wife’s first two children, disappointingly, are girls, and they prevent Jung from making a lecture tour. Freud comments on the financial and domestic burden of his six children. The film in general is as much about missed opportunities as it is of triumphant discoveries. “Maybe next time,” Ballard says to his wife Catherine as they make love after the car crash that concludes Cronenberg’s adaptation of Ballard’s novel, framing the entire film as an inconclusive search for sexual release and emotional fulfillment. Dangerous Method is about first learning how to un-repress and then learning how to repress all over again. Jung liberates Spielrein in the opening movement of the film by making her a guinea pig of the talking cure, listening to her ravings rather than treating them with ice baths and confinement. The first step is verbal: their talk exceeds all bounds of propriety and decorum, extraordinarily frank and intimate in its subject matter and its vocabulary. Cronenberg deftly captures the paradox of free interchange within a society that had been bound by 700 years of repression (as he characterizes the Austro-Hungarian empire) in the first meeting between Freud and Jung in Vienna, brought together by the latter’s treatment of Spielrein. Opening in an intimate two-shot side by side at a dining room table, their conversation ranges freely through the gamut of sexual motivations and instincts characteristic of Freudian theory as Jung helps himself just as freely to the meats and other foodstuffs held out to him on a tray by a servant. Freud makes a brief, and evidently ironic, remark about how Jung should not worry about censoring his language, as everyone at the table is used to such discussions, and the film cuts to a reverse shot showing some dozen family members of all ages ranged around the enormous dining room table of which the scene of what we had thought to be Jung and Freud’s private tête-à-tête (and private meal) had occupied simply one wide end. Their intimate colloquy, in other words, is overheard by and has an impact on the entire family circle and society that surrounds them.
Dangerous Method may be the first Cronenberg movie in which words come prior to actions. Even in Crash, sex, talk, and metal machines come simultaneously. Everywhere else, the body expresses what the mind represses, and Cronenberg’s body horror makes metaphor out of the mental transformations wrought by psychoanalysis. Cronenberg’s characters have tended to act out what they un-repress rather than just talk about it. But we have always known that repression is driving what is happening because of the perversity and horror of what is expressed: a man transforming gene by gene into a fly; individuals possessed by parasites that free them of any remnant of conscience; twins who express their unhealthy attachment by physically severing themselves from each other; a man whose transgressive viewing habits lead him to grow a VCR in his stomach and a gun in his forearm. Dangerous Method does begin with a kind of body horror in Spielrein’s hysterics — Cronenberg has even described Knightley’s disconcerting ability to project her lower jaw far out from beneath her face as “an inexpensive special effect,”3 but it’s the starting point of the film rather than its raison d’être. Instead of watching Knightley’s character gradually succumb to her disease or sink into madness, as in the typical Cronenberg (and horror genre) scenario, we watch her overcome it through the force of her own mind, and we watch Knightley subside from the second-coming of vintage Isabelle Adjani (circa Adèle H and Possession) to something resembling her costume-drama comfort zone of Pride and Prejudice.
Granted, that trajectory passes through a very uneasy middle zone in the film, set off by the catalyst of gentle libertine analyst Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel in fine if predictable form), channeling something out of the counterculture from which Naked Lunch and Crash would emerge later in the century. Gross questions all assumptions until proven wrong, including especially those of propriety and of going against desire, and succeeds in persuading Jung to act on his desire for Spielrein. Here, as elsewhere in the film, Cronenberg’s deft elisions steer the emphasis away from the melodrama of adultery and into character analysis. Several times we see Jung break off the affair only to see it recur later on, the presumable soul-searching and conscience-rending cut out altogether. Rather than the evidence of Jung’s transgressions, then, the sex functions, as so often in Cronenberg, as core presentation of character and of ideas. Here, too, the masochistic sex scenes have a provenance within Cronenberg’s longtime interest in transgressive sexuality. Dead Ringers includes a scene with Claire Niveau (Genevieve Bujold) tied to the bed with surgical tubes and clamps by her Mantle lover. In Videodrome, Nicki Brand (Deborah Harry) mixes cigarette burns with sex before choosing the more extreme options within Videodrome itself. And Edie Stall (Maria Bello) emerges from the bottom of rough stairway sex with Tom (Mortensen) covered in bruises. The ambivalent charge in each of these scenes, as in the analogous scenes in A Dangerous Method, is that the women are strong, autonomous characters, the sex is consensual (with the possible exception of Edie), and its scenarios have been well motivated within the film’s narrative and character development. This in itself was a break from Cronenberg’s earliest horror films, Shivers and Rabid, where transgressive and uncontrollable sexual desires emerge as the result of viruses. The audience response remains ambivalent, but the ambivalence regards the loss of repression and control rather than the choice of action taken by the characters.
In a key scene late in the film, Spielrein journeys to Vienna to meet Freud and present her work to his circle of psychoanalysts, and Cronenberg betrays his sympathies in a film that stands out for the studiedly neutral presentation of its characters. Cronenberg doesn’t show us that scene, choosing instead a closeted intellectual duel in the master’s study, where, after accepting Freud’s praise and grudging acceptance that she may be right about the death drive, she raises the question of the break with Jung, defending his motives:
Spielrein: “He’s trying to find some way forward, so that we don’t just have to tell our patients this is why you are the way you are. He wants to be able to say ‘we can show you what it is you might want to be able to become.'”
Freud: “Playing God, in other words. We have no right to do that. The world is as it is. Understanding and accepting that is the way to psychic health. What good can we do if our aim is simply to replace one delusion with another.”
Spielrein: “Well, I agree with you.”
Cronenberg’s films are realist in exactly the way that Freud is a realist in this scene. He insists only on showing the world as it is, without judging or pointing “some way forward” from what he has seen. And, indeed, one could say that psychoanalysis is so fundamental to Cronenberg’s work precisely for its provision for a “reality” often impossible to believe. Cronenberg’s films have long been constructed on the premise of treating the unbelievable as if it were real; he has long insisted on showing the horror he wants his audience to imagine because if he didn’t show them they would never believe it. In this sense, one could say that A Dangerous Method is metacinematic, harkening back in particular to the created worlds of eXistenZ, and the old chestnut from the 19th century: what’s the job of the artist, to tear down the old gods, or also to produce new spectacles and new illusions to assuage the loss of the ones you killed? And it’s not hard to see in the distinction drawn between Jung and Freud (and Spielrein) in the above dialogue a distinction between Hollywood filmmaking (“replacing one delusion with another”) and Cronenberg’s peculiarly non-Hollywood realism of “the world as it is.” As the director once famously put it, “I don’t have a moral plan. I’m Canadian.”
Cronenberg’s films have been rigorously non-judgmental about their characters’ actions from the beginning of his career, and that attitude holds true for A Dangerous Method. Sure, Spielrein emerges as the heroine of the film and Jung, despite his brilliance and idealism, is in the end revealed as a self-satisfied bourgeois. Still, the film refuses to pass judgment on either of the two, or on Freud. Similarly, it deftly limns the Jewish identity of Spielrein and Freud, and the bond it creates between them, while refusing to make that identity fully responsible for anything that happens, anymore than it would hold Jung’s class and religion directly responsible for his conservatism.4 People do not act identically to their ideas. Instead, we are watching adults having ideas and making complicated choices in full awareness of the consequences of the actions they are taking. That those adults happen to be Freud, Jung, and Spielrein creates an effect similar to that of watching the character William S. Burroughs in Naked Lunch, but without the distancing device of the prosthetics that realize the hallucinations. A Dangerous Method is bracingly real; it is faithful to the history and spirit of psychoanalysis while sidestepping any Freudian doctrine or dogma beyond the dictum cited above. I watched the movie with a friend who cut her teeth on the writings and culture of psychoanalysis. She was astonished and jubilant to discover that, to her mind, the film perfectly captures these figures, without a wrong note or a single miscue. The anecdotes are all real, the language and nearly all of the scenes drawn directly from the letters. Cronenberg’s method, it seems, is perfectly suited for making truly historical dramas, stripping away our tendency to read individuals through their writings in something like the way diseases in his films strip his characters down to their essences. Who knew? The more I think about this film, the more my grudging admiration for it grows. It’s exhilarating to see Cronenberg pare his style this close to the bone, even as the fan in me yearns for the delusory shocks of yesteryear. But that’s the paradox of psychoanalysis in a nutshell, and one can only applaud him for having captured its contradictions so perfectly.
Fiennes, coincidentally, played Jung in the initial 2003 theatrical run in London of Christopher Hampton’s play, The Talking Cure (the source for the screenplay). [↩]
Anne Thompson, “Interview: Cronenberg Talks Intellectual Menage a Trois A Dangerous Method, Knightley’s Bondage,” Indiewire 26 Nov. 2011: http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/interview-david-cronenberg-talks-a-dangerous-method#. [↩]
Liam Lacey, “Cronenberg on Switching Gears for A Dangerous Method,” Globe and Mail 11 Sept. 2011: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/tiff/interviews-and-features/cronenberg-on-switching-gears-for-a-dangerous-method/article2161477/. [↩]
Cronenberg only recently begun to incorporate his own Jewish identity, and its paradoxical presence and nonexistence in his family, explicitly into his filmmaking, most notably in his bitingly satirical 2007 short film, At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World, in which he played the title role. [↩]
— David L. Pike
David L. Pike teaches literature and film at American University. His most recent book is Canadian Cinema since the 1980s: At the Heart of the World. Earlier books include Metropolis on the Styx: The Underworlds of Modern Urban Culture, 1800-2001; Subterranean Cities: The World Beneath Paris and London, 1800-1945; and Passage Through Hell: Modernist Descents, Medieval Underworlds, all from Cornell University Press. He is co-author of Literature: A World of Writing and co-editor of the Longman Anthology of World Literature, and has published widely on 19th- and 20th-century urban literature, culture, and film. He is currently working on the Victorian underground after the 19th century and culture and Cold War bunkers since the end of the Cold War.
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Also in Bright Lights
Seconds in Eternity: Experimental Film Master Gregory Markopoulos November 1, 1997
A SCANNER DARKLY II – The Kaufman Version July 17, 2006
The Life of Pi: A Politics of the Imagination July 31, 2013
Carol Reed’s The Third Man on Criterion January 1, 2000
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Kris Kristofferson and Bryan Ferry join Barbra Streisand in Hyde Park
Douglas Mayo 9th April 2019 Concerts, News
When Barbra Streisand takes to the stage as part of British Summer Time in Hyde Park this Summer she will be joined by special guests Bryan Ferry and Kris Kristofferson.
Bryan Ferry and Kris Kristofferson are joining Barbra Streisand as special guest performers in Hyde Park on 7 July 2019.
The frontman for one of Britain’s most influential bands, Roxy Music, brought Bryan Ferry prominence as one of Britain’s most distinctive music artists but also carved out a hugely successful solo career that continues in typically sophisticated manner to this day. This weekend, he reunited with his Roxy Music bandmates to perform at their induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. At Hyde Park, he will be armed with iconic solo hits ‘Let’s Stick Together’ and ‘Slave To Love’, as well as Roxy classics ‘Ladytron’, ‘Avalon’ and ‘Love Is The Drug’, along with that one-off voice.
Kris Kristofferson is a country musician with an unbelievable history; he excelled at Oxford University and in the US Army before pursuing his passion as a songwriter. His songs ‘Me and Bobby McGee’, ‘Help Me Make It Through the Night’ and ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’, all chart-topping hits, helped redefine country songwriting. His talents as a musician sparked the interest of Hollywood, leading him to flourish as an award-winning actor. Heralded as an artist’s artist, the three-time Grammy winner has recorded 29 albums, including three with pals Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings as part of the Highwaymen. In 1977, Kristofferson co-starred alongside Streisand in “A Star Is Born” which went on to win numerous awards including 5 Golden Globes for Best Actress (Streisand), Best Actor (Kristofferson), Best Film, Best Original Song and Best Original Score. Also, Streisand became the first female composer to win the best song Oscar for ‘Evergreen’ from the film.
Headliners for Barclaycard presents British Summer Time Hyde Park 2019 are Celine Dion (5th July), Stevie Wonder (6th July), Florence and the Machine / The National (13th July) and Robbie Williams (14th July).
BOOK NOW FOR BARBRA STREISAND IN HYDE PARK
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Douglas Mayo
Douglas Mayo has had a life long love affair with musical theatre. He has authored several books on publicity and marketing for amateur theatre groups.
He is in the process of developing a musical based on his original story concept.
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You are here: Home | News | October 2018 | Old Testament’s viability for preaching underscored
Old Testament’s viability for preaching underscored
October 5 2018 by SBTS Communications
When the apostles preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, they used Old Testament texts. Preachers in the New Testament era possess the completed canon of scripture, but that shouldn’t mean they rely exclusively on the New Testament when preaching Christ, Philip Ryken stated during the 2018 E.Y. Mullins Lectures on Christian Preaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Sept. 26-27.
Photo by Freddy Sinarahua, SBTS
Philip Ryken, president of Wheaton College, presented the annual E.Y. Mullins Lectures on Christian Preaching at Southern Seminary. His four lectures addressed the foundations for and applications of preaching Jesus Christ from the Old Testament.
Ryken, president of Wheaton College in Illinois, presented four lectures covering the foundations for and applications of preaching Jesus Christ from the Old Testament. The Mullins Lectures, named in honor of Southern Seminary’s fourth president, represent one of the oldest endowed preaching lectureships in the United States, second only to Yale University’s Lyman Beecher Lectureship on Preaching.
To start, Ryken laid foundations for his lectures by enumerating 31 reasons to preach and teach from the Old Testament, including theological assumptions such as “the Old Testament is the Word of God”; interpretive observations such as “the Old Testament is Christ’s method of preaching the gospel”; and historical precedent such as preaching Christ from the Old Testament as “strongly vindicated by the history of the church.”
The 31 reasons are not exhaustive, Ryken said, but are meant to encourage curiosity and excitement about preaching Christ from the Old Testament scriptures.
Ryken moved from foundations into an exposition of Exodus 1:22-2:10, the passage that details the birth of Moses and his mother sending him in a basket into the Nile River. From the passage, Ryken observed that God works in human history, that He is overcoming evil and that His work culminates in Jesus Christ. He noted parallels between Moses’ story and the birth of Jesus, another Jewish baby who fled a murderous king and grew up to rescue His people.
Ryken traced the theme of salvation throughout the book of Exodus, spanning Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and the Red Sea to God’s presence with His people during their wilderness wanderings to the tabernacle. Each of these stories entails a narrative of redemption that carries significance even 2,000 years later, Ryken said. Approaching the text this way, “the salvation God has accomplished in history becomes the story of your own salvation,” he said.
The preacher’s job is not just to understand the Old Testament but also to apply it to daily life, starting with the preacher himself, Ryken said during a subsequent session of his lectures. He used Ezra, the Jewish priest who reintroduced the returned Israelite exiles to the scriptures, as an example of faithful application of biblical teaching.
According to Ezra 7:10, the teacher “set his heart to the study of the Law of the Lord, to do it and teach his statutes and rules in Israel.” Ryken noted that Ezra, according to Jewish tradition, was considered the greatest student of scripture after Moses. Though Ezra knew the scripture well, he also applied it to his life before he taught it, Ryken said, describing Ezra as having a holy ambition to teach the Bible to the people of Israel that emerged from his personal devotion to God’s Word.
This same kind of conviction should motivate seminary students preparing for ministry, Ryken said.
“What have you set your heart on?” he asked. “I’m sure your commitment when you started to study here was to understand as much about the scriptures as you could. What about your commitment to growing in personal holiness – was that right up to the level of your commitment to studying biblical truth? Are you still leaning into it and are you still intent to grow in the Christian life? Are you nurturing through prayer a desire to serve others through what you’re learning through God’s Word?”
It is dangerous to understand biblical truth without experiencing it, Ryken said, commenting that seminary students usually are ambitious to understand theology and doctrine on a deeper level, but their personal growth and spiritual discipline often lags behind. This not only hampers their ministry, he said, but also damages their souls. He encouraged students to lean into their prayer lives and to nurture a desire to serve others through what they are learning in class.
To know God in a biblical sense, Ryken said, believers must trust, obey and be like Him. “A seminary like this is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be,” he said, “because of the accountability you will have for what you are learning from God’s Word. If all you’re doing is taking [information] in without putting it into practice or sharing it with others, it’s going to be unhealthy. What Ezra describes here is the healthy life for a seminary student.”
Ryken also highlighted the importance of practical application in sermons, which is a natural extension of this personal application. The Puritans, he pointed out, spent half of their sermon on application; they didn’t just teach on doctrine, but also its “use” in daily life.
Pastors should work as hard on application as they do on exposition, Ryken said.
“Different people in a congregation need God’s truth in different ways, depending on who they are and depending on their life’s circumstances,” he said, recounting that he likes to pray before preaching that the Holy Spirit would use the sermon in unique ways for each person in his congregation.
This kind of application also is apparent in the Pauline epistles, Ryken said, describing the apostle Paul’s exhortations as specific, dealing not only with behavior, but instead into deeper motivations, desires and matters of the heart.
“Paul doesn’t just tell you, ‘Do this; don’t do that,’ which is pretty easy to fall into as a preacher,” Ryken said. “The gospel doesn’t tell us to do a better job so that we can measure up more closely to God’s standards. The gospel assumes that we don’t measure up to those standards, which is why we need God’s grace.
“The law says, ‘Do this and you will live.’ The gospel pronounces a resurrection word to us and says, ‘Live!’ and then the scripture says, ‘Now, do this’ as a way of living out the life that God has put into us by the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit.”
Ezra’s ambition ultimately reaches its fulfillment in the New Covenant era, Ryken said, in which preachers have a full knowledge of God’s redemptive purposes and can teach the full revelation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Ezra would have given “anything and everything” to know the completion of God’s plan and to teach not only rules and statutes but also gospel and grace, Ryken said. Yet the means of faithful teaching remain the same: personal application of scripture to the preacher’s soul before public application of scripture in the lives of the congregation.
“God needs to do a work in us before He can use us to do His work in others,” Ryken said. “And that’s not a one-and-done, either. It’s not as if you study for a while, then apply it, then teach. You’re continuing to study the Word of God, you’re continuing to strive after new obedience and new areas of repentance. So there’s continuously a fruit of God’s work in your life to share with others.”
As for public application, pastors need to remember the gospel, Ryken said. They shouldn’t give people a list of right and wrong but instead call them to a more intimate knowledge of the Father.
“When we’re talking about applying God’s truth, we’re not just giving people a ‘to-do’ list,” Ryken said. “We are actually helping them come to a deeper knowledge of God, and a knowledge of God in a comprehensive way – not just knowing about God, but a personal knowledge and encounter with the living God for life and eternity.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE – Reported by the communications staff of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Audio and video of the Mullins Lectures will be available online at equip.sbts.edu. Reprinted from Baptist Press, baptistpress.com, news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.)
10/5/2018 12:31:26 PM by SBTS Communications | with 0 comments
Filed under: 2018 E.Y. Mullins Lectures on Christian Preaching, Old Testament, Philip Ryken
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Needs organizing, Television channels and stations established in 1949, Raycom Media,
Television stations in Birmingham, Alabama
Channel 6 TV stations in the United States
Miscellaneous unorganized material/WBRC-TV
Chronology data should be put on the appropriate chronology page ("Chronology of call letters WBRC") .
WBRC
WBRC is a more news-intensive Fox station with 45 hours a week of locally-produced newscasts, as well as first-run prime time, sports and Saturday late night programming from Fox. WBRC also runs off-network syndicated sitcoms, talk shows, reality shows and court shows.
Fox 6 (general)
Digital: 50 (UHF)
6.1 Fox
Raycom Media, Inc.
(WBRC License Subsidiary, LLC)
Bell Radio Company(original owner of WBRC radio)
4 (1949-1953) 6 (1953-2009)
CBS (1954-1961) ABC (1949-1996, secondary until 1961) DuMont(secondary, 1949-1953)
33°29′21.2″N 86°47′56.1″W / 33.489222°N 86.798917°W / 33.489222; -86.798917
www.myfoxal.com/
WBRC-TV began operation on July 1, 1949, on channel 4. It was a primary NBC affiliate, and also carried secondary affiliations with ABC and DuMont. It was Alabama's second television station, signing on a few months after WAFM-TV (channel 13, now WVTM-TV). During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.
At its outset, WBRC-TV was owned by Eloise D. Hanna and her Birmingham Broadcasting Company along with WBRC radio (960 AM). The station's call letters stand for Bell Radio Company, after J.C. Bell, the founder of WBRC radio. In 1953, WBRC-TV was moved to channel 6 as part of an FCC-ordered frequency realignment. This move was made in order for WBRC-TV to avoid interference with WSM-TV (now WSMV) in Nashville, which also operated on channel 4; the two stations' respective signals suffered from interference problems in northern Alabama.
Later on in 1953, Eloise Hanna also sold the WBRC stations to Storer Broadcasting. George B. Storer, the company's founder and chairman, was a member of the CBS board of directors, and most of his stations operated as CBS affiliates. Storer may have used his leverage to secure a primary CBS affiliation for WBRC-TV in 1954. The NBC affiliation moved to channel 13, then known as WABT, and both stations retained a secondary affiliation with ABC. Also in 1954, the WBRC stations moved to a new studio built by Storer, where channel 6 remains today. The studio, like many of those built by Storer, resembled an antebellum mansion. Unusually for commercial broadcasters, Storer supported educational television, and the company gave two transmitters and frequencies in the general Birmingham area (channels 7 and 10) to Alabama Educational Television.
In 1957, Storer sold the WBRC stations to Taft Broadcasting. Storer had to sell its Birmingham cluster after it purchased WIBG in Philadelphia and WPFH in Wilmington, Delaware in order to comply with the Federal Communications Commission's ownership limits in effect at the time.
In 1961, WBRC took the ABC affiliation full-time, leaving channel 13 (by then known as WAPI-TV) to share CBS and NBC. This was very unusual for a market with only two commercial stations. Usually, one or both stations carried ABC as a secondary affiliation, since ABC would not be on anything resembling an equal footing with CBS and NBC until the 1970s. However, Taft had very good relations with ABC. Most of Taft's TV stations were ABC affiliates, including its flagship station, WKRC-TV in Cincinnati, which was one of ABC's strongest affiliates. Also, Taft's chairman was a personal friend of the ABC president Leonard Goldenson.
Another factor, though supposedly not as important as the Taft-Goldenson relationship, was CBS News' apparent strong support of the Civil Rights Movement, which did not sit well with a large segment of WBRC's audience. ABC had very few full-time affiliates south of Washington, D.C. at the time, but now it had the full benefit of one of the South's strongest signals, best antenna locations, and largest coverage areas.
In 1972, Taft sold WBRC-AM-FM. That AM radio station is now WERC while the FM station is now WBPT. WBRC was one of ABC's strongest affiliates for years. For a time, it lodged the ABC dot logo inside its own "6" logo (just as it had done with the CBS eye in the 1950s).
In late 1987, Taft was restructured into Great American Broadcasting after a hostile takeover. In December 1993, Great American Broadcasting was restructured again after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and became known as Citicasters. Citicasters then decided to put most of its television stations up for sale.
As a Fox station
In early 1994, Citicasters agreed to sell two of its stations to New World Communications -- WDAF-TV (channel 4) in Kansas City and KSAZ-TV (channel 10) in Phoenix, Arizona. WBRC and WGHP (channel 8) in High Point, North Carolina were originally slated to be included in the deal as well. However, a month before, New World agreed to buy four stations owned by Argyle Communications, including Birmingham's WVTM. FCC rules at the time dictated that one company could not own two stations in the same market. In addition, the acquisitions put New World two television stations over the FCC-mandated 12-station limit in effect at the time.
In May 1994, New World agreed to affiliate all of its stations with Fox except for WVTM and KNSD (channel 39) in San Diego which remained affiliated with NBC; these were subsequently purchased by that network. At that same time, Citicasters sold WBRC and WGHP to Fox, but put the two stations in a trust until Fox could close on them. Fox assumed control of WBRC and WGHP in September 1995 through local marketing agreements, and closed on the purchase on January 17, 1996. Since WBRC's affiliation agreement with ABC did not expire until September 1996, Fox had to run WBRC as an ABC affiliate for over a year. This also gave ABC time to find another affiliate to serve central Alabama.
WBRC was originally going to run Fox Kids in the 1 to 4 p.m. slot, but once it was determined that soon to be former Fox affiliate WTTO would be left an independent, it opted to let WTTO keep the Fox Kids programming. As a Fox affiliate, WBRC has aired only the prime-time and weekend sports programming of the Fox network. Even in 2000 when WTTO dropped Fox Kids, WBRC still did not pick it up. Fox offered a Saturday Morning kids lineup programmed by 4Kids Entertainment until the programming block (4Kids TV) went off the air on December 27, 2008; WBRC never picked it up. 4Kids TV has since been succeeded by the new Weekend Marketplace infomercial block, but WBRC still declined to pick it up (it currently airs on MyNetworkTV affiliate WABM). Since the affiliation switch, the station has been known as "FOX6". After formally joining Fox, the station added an hour-long 9PM newscast, in addition to its half-hour 10PM newscast.
WBRC is one of only a few stations in the country to have had primary affiliations with all of the Big Three networks, and the only one in the country to have had primary affiliations with all four current major networks. The station was also one of the first Fox O&O's to launch a website with the MyFox interface, which features video, more detailed news, and a consistent interface that was featured on virtually all Fox O&O station websites until late January and early February 2009 when the Fox O&O station websites (still using their existing MyFox addresses and branding) were redesigned to use a less-flashy design very similar to those of the websites of television stations owned by the LIN TV Corporation (which are also operated by Fox Interactive Media).
When Media General completed its acquisition of WVTM from NBC on June 26, 2006, WBRC became the only network O&O in the Birmingham/Tuscaloosa/Anniston market. However, on December 22, 2007, Fox announced that it had entered into an agreement to sell WBRC and seven other Fox O&O stations[4] to Oak Hill Capital Partners' Local TV, which was built around the former television division of The New York Times Company. The sale of the station to Local TV became official on Monday, July 14, 2008.
On January 6, 2009, Local TV announced that it would be swapping WBRC to Raycom Media in exchange for that company's WTVR-TV in Richmond, Virginia. [5] Raycom is headquartered in Montgomery, the market just to the south of Birmingham, and also owns that market's NBC affiliate WSFA as well as WAFF, the NBC affiliate in Huntsville, the market just to the north of Birmingham. The transfer closed on March 31, 2009 [6].
In late January 2009, most of the former Fox O&Os now owned by Local TV migrated their websites to the Tribune Interactive platform. This was a result of the broadcast management agreement between Local TV and Tribune Broadcasting which was announced in late 2007 and officially launched in mid-2008. However, WBRC's website remained in the MyFox format with a design nearly identical to the recently redesigned websites of Fox O&Os until late June 2009 when the site (still using its MyFox address) was relaunched through Raycom's interactive partner WorldNow.
Like many network affiliates, WBRC-TV would pre-empt ABC programming occasionally or regularly, in some cases. For example, the station initially turned down the sitcom Bewitched, not because it concerned witchcraft, but because it concerned a mixed marriage (between a witch and a mortal); there were fears that Bewitched would encourage what some segregationists referred to as "cross-breeding". WBRC only started to clear Bewitched in 1967.
Soon after WBRC switched to Fox, it ceased production and broadcasting of local segments of the United Cerebral Palsy Telethon; WBRC was the first station to broadcast the telethon starting back in the 1940s. National celebrities would fly in to appear on this telethon and it was from WBRC that it moved to national prominence. Even in its waning moments at WBRC, the UCP Telethon would air locally produced mini-documentaries from WBRC (produced by Randy Mize and Tom Stovall).
WBRC produces a weekly Law advice program, "FOX6 WBRC Law Call". The program is a call in format, in which viewers phone in and ask legal advice from a legal panel (usually personal injury attorneys). It is hosted by former WBRC reporter Tiffany Bittner. It airs live on Sunday nights after the station's 10 o'clock newscast.
[2] This section requires expansion.
WBRC broadcasts a total of 45½ hours of local news a week (7½ hours on weekdays, 3½ hours on Saturdays and 4½ hours on Sundays), more than any other television station in the state of Alabama.
After WBRC became a Fox affiliate in 1996, the station has placed more emphasis on its newscasts, maintaining a newscast schedule very similar to a ABC, CBS or NBC affiliate, along with additional 7-9 a.m. and 5:30-6 p.m. newscasts, and what was at first a 30-minute primetime 9:00 p.m. newscast. The 9:00 PM newscast was expanded to a full hour by 1999. The station is one of a steadily growing number of Fox stations with a newscast in the traditional late news timeslot (at 10 p.m. Central time, in WBRC's case; and one of the few Fox stations running a 10 p.m. (or 11 p.m.) newscast seven nights a week), in addition to the primetime (9 p.m.) newscast, along with one of the few to continue their Big Three-era 10 p.m. newscast after the affiliation switch.
On October 26, 2009 WBRC began broadcasting its local newscasts in High Definition, making WBRC the third television station in the entire state of Alabama—and the second station in the Birmingham-Tuscaloosa-Anniston market after WVTM-TV—to do so. The news set and the graphics were also redesigned in the transition to HD.
For most of the last decade, FOX6 News at 9:00 has been one of the highest-rated primetime newscasts in the country.[citation needed] It also airs 43 hours of locally produced news programming per week, the most in the market. It has been the ratings leader in the market for most of the last quarter-century, dating to its time with ABC.
Alabama Newsreel (1953-1960)
The Alabama Report (1960-1964)
Total News (1976-1981)
BRC 6 News (1983-1986)
Channel 6 News (1981-1983 and 1986-1996; presented on-air as "6 24 Hour News" from the early 1990s-1996)
We're Still Having Fun, TV-6's The One, Still The One (1977-1978 and 1979-1980; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
We're the One, You Can Turn to TV-6 (1978-1979; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
You're On Top Of It All (1979-1981)
You and Me and TV-6 (1980-1981; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
Now is the Time, Channel 6 is the Place (1981-1982; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
Movin' Ahead (1981-1983)
Come on Along with Channel 6 (1982-1983; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
That Special Feeling on BRC-6 (1983-1984; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
We're With You on BRC-6 (1984-1985; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
You'll Love It on BRC-6 (1985-1986; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
Together on Channel 6 (1986-1987; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
Alabama's Great! (1985-1990; used during period station used Frank Gari's "Turn to News")
Something's Happening on Channel 6 (1987-1990; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
Alabama's Watching WBRC (1990-1992; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
It Must Be Channel 6 (1992-1993; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
Your 24-Hour News Source (1989-1994)
On Your Side (1994-1996 and 2009-present)
Your 24-Hour News Team (1994-1996)
Alabama's 24-Hour News Team (1996-1998)
Coverage You Can Count On (1998-2006)
The Most Powerful Name in Local News (2006-2009)
News Music Packages
Music Packages Composer Year Used Other Notes
The Golden Apple Bob James 1977-1979 Commissioned by WBRC
On The Top of It All Mayoham Music 1979-1981
Movin' Ahead Boutwell Studios 1981-1983 Commissioned by WBRC
BRC-6 News Package VTS Productions 1983-1985 Only first station to commissioned
Turn To News Gari Communications Inc. 1985-1990 Commissioned the campaign Alabama's Great
Palmer News Package Shelly Palmer Advance Media 1990-1998
Outlaw News Stephen Arnold Music 1998-2007
Fox Affiliate News Theme OSI Music 2007-2010 Commissioned by the Station
The X-2 Package Gari Communications Inc. 2010-Present
Notable on-air Staff
Current Anchors
Beth Shelburne - weeknights at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Karen Church - weekend mornings, weekend evenings at 9 and 10 and certain weeknights at 9 p.m.
Steve Crocker - weeknights at 6 and 9 p.m.
Janet Hall - weeknights at 5, 5:30, and 6 p.m.
Rick Journey - weekday mornings "Good Day" (5-9 a.m.)
Janice Rogers - weekday mornings "Good Day" (5-7 a.m.) and noon
Scott Richards - weeknights at 5, 5:30, and 10 p.m.
Sarah Verser - weekday mornings "Good Day" (7-9 a.m.)
FOX6 StormWarn Weather Team
James Paul Dice (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist/NWA Seals of Approval) - Chief Meteorologist; weekdays at 5, 5:30, 6, 9 and 10 p.m.
Mickey Ferguson - Weather Anchor; weekday mornings "Good Day" and noon
Fred Hunter (NWA Seal of Approval) - Meteorologist; weekends at 9 and 10 p.m., also fill-in meteorologist and special assignment reporter
Wes Wyatt - (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist/NWA Seals of Approval) - Meteorologist; weekend mornings
Dennis Washington - fill-in meteorologist
Rick Karle - Sports Director; weekdays at 5, 6, 9, and 10 p.m.
Sheldon Haygood - Sports Anchor; weekends at 9 and 10 p.m.
Jeh Jeh Pruitt - Sports Anchor; weekdays at noon
Mike Dubberly - sports reporter
Arielle Clay - general assignment reporter
Alan Collins - genearal assignment reporter
Jonathan Hardison - nightside reporter
Sherea Harris - general assignment reporter
Dixon Hayes - Anniston bureau videojournalist
Katie Herrea - Gasden bureau videojournalist
Fred Hunter - "Absolutely Alabama" special assignment reporter and meteorologist
Emily Luxen - general assignment reporter/fill-in anchor
Doug Luzader - Fox News Washington D.C. correspondent
Ashley Nix - general assignment reporter
Melanie Posey - general assignment reporter
Kelvin Reynolds - Tuscaloosa bureau reporter
Ronda Robinson - "FOX6 on Your Side" investigative reporter
Brooke Allen - traffic reporter
Christie Del Amo (Johnson) - anchor/reporter
Colleen Bates - midday weather reporter
Tiffany Bittner - reporter/weekend morning anchor (now host of "FOX6 WBRC Law Call" which airs on Sunday nights)
Frank Billingsley - weekend meteorologist (now at KPRC-TV in Houston)
Bill Bolen - weekday morning anchor (retired in 2010; had been with the station since 1969)
Dave Bondy - reporter (currently at WPXI in Pittsburgh)
Bruce Burkhardt - anchor/reporter
"Country Boy" Eddie Burns - host of longest produced program for local country music talent, The "Country Boy" Eddie Show
Shane Butler - meteorologist (currently at WRDW-TV)
Wynette Byrd (Tammy Wynette) - was a regular performer on WBRC's Country Boy Eddie Show, prior to her move to Nashville (deceased)
Benny Carle - did various Children's TV shows in Birmingham TV market from 1949-1964 (retired)(site below)
John Carroll - meteorologist (currently at KREX-TV in Grand Junction, Colorado)
Michele Cimino - reporter/meteorologist (currently at WKMG-TV in Orlando, FL)
Bruce Cunningham - sports anchor (currently at WBFF-TV in Baltimore)
Brian Curtis - anchor/reporter (currently main weekday evening anchor at KXAS-TV in Dallas/Fort Worth)
Chris Davis - meteorologist
Terri Denard - reporter
Jason Dennis - reporter (currently news anchor at WXTX-TV in Columbus, GA)
Jonathan Elias - reporter (1988-1991; now at WBZ-TV in Boston)
Fannie Flagg - co-host of The Morning Show (1960s)
Art Franklin - anchor (retired in May 2008 from WAGA-TV in Atlanta, GA)
Eli Gold - sports anchor (currently the voice of University of Alabama football & hosts the weekly NASCAR Live radio call in show on MRN)
Pat Gray - weather reporter
Ron Grillo - sports anchor/reporter
Donna Hamilton - co-host of "The Morning Show" and "PM Magazine" (currently at WBAL-TV in Baltimore)
Taylor Henry - Tuscaloosa Bureau chief/reporter (now in management at WGNO in New Orleans, LA)
Michael Hill - anchor/reporter now in the process of putting together a new media company.
Mike Hogewood - sports anchor (currently lead broadcaster for the Atlantic Coast Conference)
Michael Jones - anchor/reporter
Jason Kelley - weekend meteorologist
Ted Klimasewski ("Dr. Ted K") - meteorologist (currently fill-in meteorlogist at WJXS-TV)
Brenda Ladun - anchor (currently at WBMA/WCFT/WJSU)
Larry Langford - reporter (former mayor of Birmingham)
Joe Langston - anchor
Andrea Lindenberg - anchor (currently morning news anchor on Birmingham's WVTM-TV)
Scott Lukich - sports anchor/reporter
Harry Mabry - anchor (deceased)
Brandy Malone - traffic reporter (now traffic reporter at WZTV in Nashville)
Linda Mays - anchor (currently at WBMA/WCFT/WJSU)
Pat McReynolds - anchor/reporter (currently at KPHO-TV in Phoenix)
Chris Montana - "That's Life" general assignment reporter
Bev Montgomery - anchor
David Neal - meteorologist (now weekend meteorologist at WIAT)
Frank O'Neil - weather reporter
Kerry Nivens - sports reporter
Phyllis Oliver - weekend weather reporter
Brian Pia -investigative reporter and documentary anchor (now svp & director, Luckie Strategic Public Relations, 5th ranked ad agency-owned PR operation in U.S., www.luckie.com.)
Mark Prater - meteorologist (now chief meteorologist at WIAT)
Nikki Preede (Kimbleton) - anchor/reporter (currently at WJXT in Jacksonville, FL)
Cynthia Pryor (Hardy) - anchor/reporter
Dave Pylant - meteorologist (currently at KOAM-TV in Seattle, Washington)
Mike Raita - sports anchor (currently at WBMA/WCFT/WJSU)
Atticus Rominger - reporter
Mike Royer - meteorologist (currently news anchor at WVTM-TV)
Lynn Sampson (Stephens) - anchor/reporter
Sara Sanders - weekend meteorologist
Dan Satterfield - meteorologist (currently at WHNT-TV in Huntsville)
Kevin Selle - weekend meteorologist (currently at TXCN)
Shelia Smoot - news reporter (currently on the Jefferson County Commission)
James Spann - meteorologist (currently at WBMA/WCFT/WJSU)
Emily Stroud - reporter/fill-in anchor (currently at WBIR-TV in Knoxville, TN)
Laurie Stroud - anchor
Gil Tyree - weekend sports anchor (now at GPB in Atlanta)
Devon Walsh - anchor, (now morning anchor at WKRG-TV)
Sally Wiggin - anchor/reporter, (now at WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh)
Kathy Williams - reporter
Herb Winches - sports anchor (was at WJOX-AM from 1990-2006; at WIAT-TV for several years before leaving)
Dell Witcher - anchor/reporter
Tom York - sports anchor/host of WBRC's long-running The Morning Show
David Neal lawsuit
In May 2008, former chief meteorologist and Gadsden native David Neal filed a breach-of-contract and fraud lawsuit against the station and members of the management team. According to lawsuit filings, Neal was fired in March. The station had taken him off the air without explanation the previous month.[7] The station denied wrongdoing, and began defending the lawsuit.[8] In July 2008, the station announced that Neal's permanent replacement would be James-Paul Dice, formerly of WHNT-TV, the CBS affiliate in Huntsville, Alabama.[9] On July 29, 2008, the parties to the lawsuit filed a stipulation of dismissal, stating that the dispute had been resolved in mediation. Terms of the settlement were not immediately disclosed.[10]
Previous owners of Channel 6
1949–1953: Birmingham Broadcasting Co.
1953–1957: Storer Broadcasting
1957–1987: Taft Broadcasting
1987–1993: Great American Broadcasting
1993–1994: Citicasters
1994–1995: WBRC/WGHP Trust(sale to Fox planned)
1995–2008: FOX Broadcasting
2008–2009: Local TV LLC
2009-present: Raycom Media
Station Logos
WBRC-TV Channel 6 Logo from 1960s-1970s
WBRC "neon 6" logo from 1974-1981
WBRC 6 Logo from 1981-1996
FOX 6 Logo from 1998 until September 2007
FOX 6 Current Logo
^ "WBRC-TV To Debut July 1, First in Ala.". Billboard: 13. 1949-06-11.
^ "Require Prime Evening Time for NTA Films" ([dead link]). Boxoffice: 13. November 10, 1956. http://issuu.com/boxoffice/docs/boxoffice_111056-1.
^ Nelson, Bob (2008-10-18). "Call Letter Origins". The Broadcast Archive. http://nelson.oldradio.com/origins.call-list.html. Retrieved 2008-10-31.
^ News Corporation
^ Raycom, Local TV to Swap Stations - 1/6/2009 6:28:00 PM - Broadcasting & Cable
^ Local TV Closes on WTVR
^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zstVnuzD3N0
^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo5E4S7SfbU
^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gsCW-CqcPY
^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1klTBH_JR8
^ http://www.myfoxal.com/Global/category.asp?C=169485
^ "Still No Sign of David Neal on Fox 6," The Birmingham News, March 26, 2008, p. 3C
^ "Meteorologist Sues Fox 6 Over Firing," The Birmingham News, May 13, 2008, p. 1B
^ "Fox 6 Hires Dice as Chief Meterologist," The Birmingham News, July 19, 2008, p. 2C
^ Fox 6, David Neal Settle Lawsuit, The Birmingham News, July 30, 2008
MyFoxAL.com Site
Birmingham Rewound: Radio-TV
Query the FCC's TV station database for WBRC
BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WBRC-TV
Program Information for WBRC at TitanTV.com
Huntsville Rewound-Huntsville AL TV Memories
Benny Carle-Classic Alabama TV(on WBRC from 1954-1964)
Retrieved from "https://broadcasting.fandom.com/wiki/Miscellaneous_unorganized_material/WBRC-TV?oldid=16920"
Raycom Media
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Editorial: D'Youville's ambitious expansion plan
D’Youville College wants to improve its standing as a leading educator of health care professionals. (John Hickey/Buffalo News)
By News Editorial Board|Published Thu, Nov 30, 2017 |Updated Thu, Nov 30, 2017
D’Youville College, facing the same forces that are pressuring all its peers around Western New York, has announced a creative plan to increase its enrollment dramatically while providing Buffalo’s underserved West Side with critically needed health care. It looks like a winner that will strengthen the college, create more medical professionals and fill a yawning gap in community health care.
Facing enrollment declines and the new Excelsior program that provides free tuition to students of the state university system, many private colleges here and around the state are in a bind. They are looking for ways to respond. Canisius College, for example, is reducing tuition by 23 percent, lowering the rate to its 2008-09 level.
D’Youville is taking a different approach, not in response to the Excelsior program, college leaders say, but to the general need to secure its place and serve the needs of students and the city. Its plan is to build a three-story, 46,000-square-foot “health professions hub” on what is now a college parking lot at Connecticut Street and West Avenue.
The $20 million facility will be used to train health care professionals while also providing clinical care in the community. That care is needed. Residents of the West Side suffer from chronic diseases such as asthma, diabetes and coronary heart disease at rates higher than the city’s as a whole or the state’s. In addition, the state Labor Department estimates that the Buffalo area will need 10,000 more health professionals within seven years. D’Youville wants to help produce them.
The college’s health-related programs include occupational therapy, physician assistant, dietetics, nursing, family nurse practitioner, chiropractic, physical therapy and pharmacy. The planned health professions hub would be the first clinic in the country to include all of the health professions under one roof working jointly to serve patients. And the curriculum is readily transferrable to other upstate cities, which face similar health issues, college President Lorrie Clemo told the News editorial board.
The plan envisions a clinic on the ground floor, classrooms and conference space on the second floor, a third-floor “virtual training center” and a two-story, 200-seat amphitheater. To make it work, the college is hoping to raise $10 million from foundations and private donors and to secure another $10 million in state aid to get the project started.
It already has the support of Assemblyman Sean Ryan, D-Buffalo, who noted that “the West Side is a neighborhood of high medical need” and that the project falls into ”the sweet spot of our economic development plan.”
The college, which numbers about 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students, plans to grow as part of its vision. It expects to increase those numbers by a startling and ambitious 25 percent, with more than half the increase produced by students working online. Nevertheless, it foresees its on-campus student population increasing by about 250 students.
To serve that increase, D’Youville wants to hire more faculty and staff. It also plans to provide training for hospitals and health care firms from outside Western New York.
At least in its outlines, this looks like a program well deserving of support. Whether it can truly increase student enrollment by 25 percent in a trying time for private colleges will be a test, as will its contention that it can do so without taking away from other private colleges here.
But it’s a creative plan that helps to secure a valuable institution even as it capitalizes on the Buffalo area’s significant health care needs, serving the interests of students and the surrounding community. Assuming the money can be made available, this plan stands to strengthen Buffalo in a number of useful ways.
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2016 Sonlight Scholarship Winners
By Autoblot
Feb. 16, 2016 // Scholarship Winners
I read this article and wanted to share it with you: 2016 Sonlight Scholarship Winners https://blog.sonlight.com/2016-sonlight-scholarship-winners.html.
Sonlight students exemplify academic excellence, creativity & servanthood. Congratulations to our 2016 Sonlight scholarship winners! Like so many Sonlight students, they have a heart for learning, exhibit exceptional character, are active in their communities, demonstrate leadership skills, are creative, cultivate spiritual depth and are well-prepared for the academic rigors of college.
What part does a Sonlight homeschool education play in the past successes and future goals of these students? All have completed at least five Sonlight History / Bible / Literature programs (including high school-level programs). Their exceptional talent, along with an eagerness to follow God's leading, make it a joy for Sonlight to invest in their continuing education.
Sonlight has awarded almost 1.25 million dollars since we began the scholarship program, including $88,000 over the next four years to these 12 winners. We look forward to seeing all God does in and through them as they take what they've learned – through Sonlight and their homeschool experience – into college and the world beyond.
$20,000 Scholarship Winner
($5,000 each year)
The oldest of eight children, Robert "Bobby" Norwood of Siloam Springs, AR, has been studying with Sonlight since preschool. "And I loved it!" he reflects. "I can't imagine not having access to all those great books." Among this top scholar's interests, adventures and accomplishments: Eagle Scout at age 15; church/youth group vocalist, guitarist and worship leader; missions trips, from Iowa to the Dominican Republic; New Life Ranch, OK, leadership development training; photographer and business entrepreneur; swim and cross country participant; poet/writer; student government board member; and federal employee. "Perhaps the most disciplined student I've met, Robert seeks to serve others and glorify God by exhibiting high character, self-discipline, reliability and leadership," his pastor of more than a decade observes. The National Merit Finalist, who scored 2210 on the SAT and a 36 composite on the ACT, will study at the United States Military Academy at West Point, with the goal of becoming an Army officer upon graduation.
$10,000 Scholarship Winners
($2,500 per year)
Isabelle Coleman of Augusta, GA, has studied with Sonlight for 12 years. Despite an ADHD diagnosis, Isabelle has persevered, achieving excellence in her many endeavors, as evidenced by 28 awards from Science Olympiad competitions. A National Merit Commended Student, she has been inducted into the National Classical League Honor Society and the National Homeschool Honor Society. She's also a gifted singer, actress and artist who has soloed, played principal roles and filled her family's home with creative expression. A self-described relational individual who desires to pursue a career in occupational therapy, Isabelle notes, "When you show a personal interest in not only a patient's physical care, but also the emotional life, the Lord often opens a door to form a more intimate connection."
Kathryn Gage of Flint, TX, likens her life to a friendship bracelet of many threads that are being woven together into a beautiful design. Preacher's kid, homeschool student, bibliophile, writer, puppeteer, karateka, teacher, cellist, childcare worker and volunteer: These are some of the colorful strands that comprise her life. A primary thread is a love of reading "the best [Sonlight] books," which she's been enjoying since kindergarten. "I've been writing all my life, mimicking my favorite books and authors. I have characters in my head with unique tales to tell," says the aspiring author, who plans to pen stories that glorify God and inspire the next generation of teenagers. She'd also like to become a children's minister, adding "an exquisite thread in the pattern of my life."
Carolyn Raquet of Beavercreek, OH, loves problem solving. Understandably, she's considering college studies in molecular biology or engineering. "From the heavens to the atom, God created the mechanics of this world to be an organized and finely tuned dance," she appraises. The National Merit Finalist, who also scored a 34 composite on the ACT, is additionally a gifted musician (piano and viola) with creative culinary skills (e.g., the "Carol surprise"). She was handpicked for Project Protégé, an elite group of youth invited to play with the Springfield Orchestra. A highlight of her life thus far? Serving as nanny, at age 15, for a Christian family working in the Middle East. "Sonlight's emphasis on people groups around the world provided the foundation for my desire to see all nations worship Christ," Carolyn affirms.
Caroline Willett of Virginia Beach, VA, struggled to read early on. Some years later, after much hard work and vision therapy, she competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, not once but twice. She's a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and the National Society of High School Scholars, a competitive swimmer and figure skater, an accomplished violinist and pianist, and a middle school choir director. She volunteers in a therapeutic horse riding program for disabled kids and, with her sisters, has a cookie ministry to shut-ins. A Sonlight student since the age of four, Caroline loves science and has wanted to be a doctor from her youth – a calling confirmed by recent missions experience. "God is great, and He has given me a beautiful purpose," she says. Caroline hopes to attend Wheaton College.
$4,000 Scholarship Winners
Sonlight will additionally award these eight outstanding students a $1,000 scholarship for each year of college, up to four years:
Alison Bell of the Middle East has been programming computers since the age of 11, branching out to website design and systems administration. She took Advanced Placement computer science her freshman year and scored a perfect 5 on the exam. A National Merit Commended Student, she scored 2210 on the SAT. A Sonlight student from Pre-K through 12th grade, Alison exemplifies a Love to Learn attitude: In her freshman through junior years, she read 169 additional books beyond the curriculum! She composes and plays music, has written several novellas and regularly blogs on the website she designed and developed. She's also fascinated by linguistics and enjoys constructing realistic languages based on research and imagination. Alison envisions a future as a computer programmer trained in linguistics, "reaching hundreds of people groups for God's glory."
As a child, William Jones of Salisbury, NC, confided in Mom that one day, he'd homeschool his children. William and his brother, who are close in age, began the Sonlight adventure with shared studies. Fast forward to the present: a National Merit Finalist who earned a 2360 on the SAT and a composite score of 35 on the ACT, William is now poised to attend veterinary school. The modern-day Renaissance man – violinist, actor, poet, political participant, farmer/rancher, public speaker, explorer and community volunteer – desires to become a well-rounded, informed and engaged citizen. His ultimate goal, he reflects, "is not only to provide comfort to all creatures, but also to act with integrity and do my best work for God's glory."
Sarah Kreutner of Vinton, IA, has an insatiable love for learning and creating: emergency medicine, writing, calligraphy, crafting, drawing, painting, photography, music and more. One of her photos has been displayed at the Smithsonian Institute. She's a published poet, as well. Sarah has won numerous 4-H awards, including the National Leadership Award, has exhibited at the State Fair, and was recently crowned Benton County Fair Queen. A willing helper at her church, she teaches children's Sunday School, is a longtime soloist, assists with the church's TLC Preschool, and befriends the elderly. She plans to attend Iowa State University. "A communications degree will fit countless trades, in addition to Servant of God," she muses.
Jonathan McGee of Sherman, TX, designed and built a life-sized Gibson electric guitar from LEGO® bricks, exhibiting the kind of creativity that he also made good use of in his involvement with a local homeschool robotics team. Jonathan is quick to offer his time and talents wherever needed: mission trips to Guatemala, worship team ministry, packing lunches for hungry kids, and building a prayer garden for the homeless, to name a few worthy endeavors. Gifted in mathematics, science and music, he scored a 33 composite on the ACT. He's also an Eagle Scout and athlete who plays varsity-level basketball. Homeschooled with Sonlight for the past nine years, Jonathan has been accepted at Texas A&M University, where he'll study electrical engineering. "My goal is simple: to follow God and to use His gifts to His glory," he states.
Yukang "Kevin" Park of Ireland is a leader whose name means "gentle and strong." As a preacher's kid, Yukang has lived in four countries. Wherever he goes, service to others is his hallmark. A gifted cellist, he often leads church worship. A frequent volunteer, Child Evangelism Fellowship and teaching English to non-native speakers are endeavors dear to his heart. He's an actor and an athlete, with a penchant for dramatic performance, speed skating, soccer and Tae Kwon Do. He foresees his role in life similar to that of an orchestra conductor: "Sometimes I gently draw out the music in a beautiful, soft piano. At others, I drive out a powerful, charismatic forte with strength. My job is to tie everything together into an effort that results in something greater than the sum of its parts."
Allison "Allie" Rowell of Hixson, TN, excels in learning foreign languages and is fascinated by worldview studies. As a frequent traveler on mission trips, she's brought joy to the elderly and disabled by helping with home maintenance projects here in the states; she's also taught VBS, played with the children, and danced in the rain in Haiti. Yearbook, piano, choir and worship team are a few of her favorite things. And basketball: She started playing in eighth grade, rose to varsity level and has since organized a camp to teach middle schoolers the sport. Contemplating her future, Allison mentions several Bible verses that guide her way: Deut. 31:8; 1 Chr. 16:24; 2 Cor. 12:9; and her favorite, 1 Thes. 5:24: "Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass."
Mark Shaklee of Stillwater, MN, has been studying with Sonlight since kindergarten. "Consequently, I consider myself not just a homeschool graduate, but a Sonlight graduate, as well," he states. Marks plays varsity soccer, was nominated team captain by his fellow players, and received All-Conference recognition for his skills. Off the playing field, he's involved in children's ministry at church, facilitates student-lead prayer after services, and is a drummer on the worship team. A National Merit Semifinalist, he scored 2260 on the SAT and a 33 composite on the ACT. Like his father before him, he plans to pursue a materials science degree, most likely at the University of Minnesota. "My goal is to give 50% of my personal income to fund full-time missionaries," he projects.
Author: Autoblot
More posts by Autoblot
Scholarship Winners High School Where Are They Now
2019 Sonlight Scholarship Winners Announced
How Homeschooling Enriched Us: Lessons from 4 Sonlight Graduates
2017 Sonlight Scholarship Winners!
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On Despotism
March 10, 2019 by Miles Kimball
Being under someone else’s power is the result of some kind of lack on one’s own part. This is the gist of Chapter XV of John Locke’s 2d Treatise on Government: Of Civil Government: “Of Paternal, Political, and Despotical Power, considered together.”
Parental Power. Being under parental power results from the disabilities inherent in childhood. Looking to the other end of the age spectrum, parental power can be compared to the medical or financial power of attorney those people often give others in their old age. Knowing, or suspecting, that they will become unable to make good decisions for themselves, many people voluntary sign documents in advance saying that another can make decisions for them if they are not in a position to make a good decision for themselves.
The situation for children differs when children are young enough, there is no earlier time at which they were more competent to make good decisions. So it is not possible to get a fully informed, well-considered assent from children in advance to a document giving parents leave to make decisions for their children. Because of this practical difficulty, we treat children—or at least young children—as if they had signed such a power of attorney over to their parent. Nevertheless, just as in the case of an explicit power of attorney for someone older who can no longer make good decisions for themself, the power parents have vis a vis their child should be considered a power to be used for the benefit of the child. And it is a power to be used by the parent only to the extend that a child is, indeed, unable to make good decisions for herhimself.
Political Power. Being under the power of a ruler or magistrate or judge results first from the disability almost all human beings have in being an impartial judge in their own case. As a defendant, most of us are likely understate the magnitude of our transgression and the appropriate penalty. (A few might overstate it.) As a victim, most of us are likely to overstate the magnitude of the perpetrator’s transgression and the appropriate penalty. To get an impartial judgment, defendants and victims must submit to third-party judgment.
Our willingness to so submit has a lot to do with the overwhelming force that can come from joining in a compact to deal with another disability: the inability most of us have to enforce the law of nature on our own. We join in society so that law can be enforced, because for most of us, however much we fear the law being enforced against us, we have even more to fear from others violating our rights in the absence of enforceable law.
Despotical Power. Being under the power of a despot results from the fact that one sometimes lose wars—whether international wars or civil wars—or have a strong enough expectation of losing a war that we give in before engaging in a war.
John Locke emphasizes too much the case of losing a war in which the other side has justice and right on its side. Losing a war in which on has justice and right on one’s side can just as easily put one under despotic power.
A key element of being under despotic power is that, ethically, after losing a war in which one had right on one’s side, one remains in the state of nature and in a state of war with the despot. Contrary to some of what John Locke says, those under despotic rule can sometimes have a semblance of property, but that semblance of property is, in effect, a matter of foreign affairs—a treaty that can be broken. It is all a matter of what the despot can get away with without serious reprisal.
Conclusion. The bottom line is that the justice of power should not be taken for granted. Any kind of power over another person needs to be justified, and that justification will often involve strong limitations on that power. Power is needed in society because of human weakness. But power should not take advantage of human weakness. John Locke’s words in his chapter “Of Paternal, Political, and Despotical Power, considered together” reinforce this message:
§. 169. Though I have had occasion to speak of these separately before, yet the great mistakes of late about government having, as I suppose, arisen from confounding these distinct powers one with another, it may not, perhaps, be amiss to consider them here together.
§. 170. First, then, Paternal or parental power is nothing but that which parents have over their children, to govern them for the children’s good, till they come to the use of reason, or a state of knowledge, wherein they may be supposed capable to understand that rule, whether it be the law of nature, or the municipal law of their country, they are to govern themselves by: capable, I say, to know it, as well as several others, who live as freemen under that law. The affection and tenderness which God hath planted in the breast of parents towards their children, makes it evident, that this is not intended to be a severe arbitrary government, but only for the help, instruction, and preservation of their offspring. But happen it as it will, there is, as I have proved, no reason why it should be thought to extend to life and death, at any time, over their children, more than over any body else; neither can there be any pretence why this parental power should keep the child, when grown to a man, in subjection to the will of his parents, any farther than having received life and education from his parents, obliges him to respect, honour, gratitude, assistance and support, all his life, to both father and mother. And thus, ’tis true, the paternal is a natural government, but not at all extending itself to the ends and jurisdictions of that which is political. The power of the father doth not reach at all to the property of the child, which is only in his own disposing.
§. 171. Secondly, Political power is that power, which every man having in the state of nature, has given up into the hands of the society, and therein to the governors, whom the society hath set over itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall be employed for their good, and the preservation of their property: now this power, which every man has in the state of nature, and which he parts with to the society in all such cases where the society can secure him, is to use such means, for the preserving of his own property, as he thinks good, and nature allows him; and to punish the breach of the law of nature in others, so as (according to the best of his reason) may most conduce to the preservation of himself, and the rest of mankind. So that the end and measure of this power, when in every man’s hands in the state of nature, being the preservation of all of his society, that is, all mankind in general, it can have no other end or measure, when in the hands of the magistrate, but to preserve the members of that society in their lives, liberties, and possessions; and so cannot be an absolute, arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes, which are as much as possible to be preserved; but a power to make laws, and annex such penalties to them, as may tend to the preservation of the whole, by cutting off those parts, and those only, which are so corrupt, that they threaten the sound and healthy, without which no severity is lawful. And this power has its original only from compact and agreement, and the mutual consent of those who make up the community.
§. 172. Thirdly, Despotical power is an absolute, arbitrary power one man has over another, to take away his life whenever he pleases. This is a power, which neither nature gives, for it has made no such distinction between one man and another; nor compact can convey: for man not having such an arbitrary power over his own life, cannot give another man such a power over it; but it is the effect only of forfeiture, which the aggressor makes of his own life, when he puts himself into the state of war with another: for having quitted reason, which God hath given to be the rule betwixt man and man, and the common bond whereby human kind is united into one fellowship and society; and having renounced the way of peace which that teaches, and made use of the force of war, to compass his unjust ends upon another, where he has no right; and so revolting from his own kind to that of beasts, by making force, which is theirs, to be his rule of right, he renders himself liable to be destroyed by the injured person, and the rest of mankind that will join with him in the execution of justice, as any other wild beast, or noxious brute, with whom mankind can have neither society nor security. [Another copy corrected by Mr. Locke, has it thus, Noxious brute that is destructive to their being.] And thus captives, taken in a just and lawful war, and such only, are subject to a despotical power, which, as it arises not from compact, so neither is it capable of any, but is the state of war continued: for what compact can be made with a man that is not master of his own life? what condition can he perform? and if he be once allowed to be master of his own life, the despotical, arbitrary power of his master ceases. He that is master of himself, and his own life, has a right too to the means of preserving it; so that as soon as compact enters, slavery ceases, and he so far quits his absolute power, and puts an end to the state of war, who enters into conditions with his captive.
§. 173. Nature gives the first of these, viz. paternal power to parents for the benefit of their children during their minority, to supply their want of ability, and understanding how to manage their property. (By property I must be understood here, as in other places, to mean that property which men have in their persons as well as goods.) Voluntary agreement gives the second, viz. political power to governors for the benefit of their subjects, to secure them in the possession and use of their properties. And forfeiture gives the third, despotical power to lords for their own benefit, over those who are stripped of all property.
§. 174. He that shall consider the distinct rise and extent, and the different ends of these several powers, will plainly see, that paternal power comes as far short of that of the magistrate, as despotical exceeds it; and that absolute dominion, however placed, is so far from being one kind of civil society, that it is as inconsistent with it, as slavery is with property. Paternal power is only where minority makes the child incapable to manage his property; political, where men have property in their own disposal; and despotical, over such as have no property at all.
For links to other John Locke posts, see these John Locke aggregator posts:
John Locke's State of Nature and State of War
On the Achilles Heel of John Locke's Second Treatise: Slavery and Land Ownership
John Locke Against Natural Hierarchy
John Locke's Argument for Limited Government
March 10, 2019 /Miles Kimball
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Posted by Ancestry Team on March 10, 2015 in Website
Sarah Edmonds, as Frank Thompson (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
It’s an old daguerreotype, faded now with time and passed down through many generations. A sweet-faced young woman looks back at you, her mouth upturned gently and eyes seeming to look into yours. It’s the face of your great-great-grandmother, who lived through the Civil War. Perhaps you’ve wondered how she coped when her husband, brother, father, suitor or fiancé left for the the war? What was life like for her when the soldiers marched away?
But have you ever considered that maybe she didn’t stay behind. What if you have another Civil War soldier in your family – and it was a woman? There are more than 400 documented cases of women who served, not to mention countless others whose deeds were never recorded or were lost.
These female warriors were no shrinking violets, wilting magnolias, hot-house lilies or any other euphemism for genteel ladies of the era. These women were fierce.
Twelve years ago, my sister, Kathy, and I set out to learn more about the real women who fought, and weave some of the threads of their true stories into a fictional account about two sisters who disguise themselves as men and join the Stonewall Brigade. (Our novel, Sisters of Shiloh, was recently released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.) These female soldiers fascinated us. What would cause a woman, particularly of that era, to essentially turn away from her womanly instincts and choose to participate in such a bloody, brutal conflict?
The existence of these female soldiers was occasionally acknowledged by both armies, during and after the war. But it was often assumed that they were either mentally imbalanced or must have been prostitutes or “loose women.” The truth was far from it. The men that fought on both sides of this war did so for a variety of reasons, and the same was true of the women. Some followed a loved one, some dreamed of adventure, some sought vengeance, some needed the pay, and some felt it was their patriotic duty.
In our novel, Sisters of Shiloh, one of our main characters, Libby, finds her husband dead on the Antietam battlefield and vows to avenge his death. She decides that the lives of 21 Union soldiers must be taken to represent each year of his too-short life. This may seem far-fetched for a refined lady of the time, but this detail was taken directly from the case of Charlotte Hope, whose fiancé had been killed in a Union raid in 1861. She joined the 1st Virginia Cavalry and vowed to shoot 21 Union soldiers – one for each year of his life.
Many of the women who served dressed as men are merely anonymous footnotes to history; they are either mentioned in passing in a letter home, or the discovery of their bodies on the battlefield is alluded to in a battlefield report. Luckily, there are still scores of women who bravely fought and whose names were recorded. Many who survived the war and went on to marry and have families. Their descendants live among us.
Catherine E. Davidson fought with the 28th Ohio Infantry in the battle of Antietam. She was shot in the right arm during that grisly fight and was carried to an ambulance wagon by Andrew Gregg Curtain, the Governor of Pennsylvania. She believed herself to be mortally wounded, and gave Curtain her ring, with her initials carved inside, to thank him for assisting her. Her arm was amputated between her shoulder and elbow and her secret was revealed, so she was dismissed from the Army. A short time later, she visited the Governor in the parlor of the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia, and rushed to him to thank him for helping her on the battlefield. Of course he was surprised, as he had not been aware that the soldier he had helped was a woman. She showed him her initials in the ring she had given him, which he was still wearing. When he tried to return it to her, she refused, telling him that, “The finger that used to wear that ring will never wear it any more. The hand is dead, but the soldier still lives.”
Mary Galloway was also at the battle of Antietam. She had fallen in love with a young Union officer named Henry Barnard that autumn and couldn’t bear to see him march away. She donned a uniform, cut her hair short and followed the army, trying to find Henry’s regiment. She had not yet found him when the battle began and she was struck in the neck by a bullet. She lay wounded on the battlefield for more than a day, refusing to let the male medical attendants examine her. Clara Barton, who would become famous as a nurse during the war, attended her. Mary divulged her secret to Clara, along with her despair over not knowing Henry’s fate. Clara convinced Mary to reveal herself to the surgeon and get medical attention for her wound. Later, while tending to other wounded soldiers in the hospital, Clara Barton came across a young soldier suffering the ravages of a fever brought on by a gangrenous arm – he was calling for his beloved Mary. Clara Barton was able to find Mary Galloway and bring her to Henry’s bedside, where she comforted him through the amputation of his arm. Mary and Henry both left the army, were married, and had a daughter that they named Clara.
Sarah Emma Edmonds Seelye is one of the most well-known female soldiers from the Civil War (see her photo above). She was eager to fight for the Union and enlisted as a private under the alias of Franklin Thompson with the 2nd Michigan Infantry in 1861. She fought in many battles, including First and Second Manassas, Antietam and Fredericksburg, but contracted malaria in the spring of 1863. She feared that seeking treatment would betray her secret, so she slipped away from the army, which led to Franklin Thompson being charged with desertion. In July of 1884, after several of her former army comrades submitted affidavits on her behalf, an Act of Congress cleared her of the desertion charges and she was awarded a soldier’s pension. She was the only woman ever included in the Grand Army of the Republic. She married after the war and had three children.
Frances Clayton served in a Missouri artillery unit with her husband, Elmer. They fought side by side at the battle of Stones River in 1862, when her husband was killed directly in front of her. She did not dissolve into hysterics and throw herself upon him. Instead, she stepped over his body and continued the advance, firing her gun as she went. She did not reveal herself even then and continued to serve in the army until she was wounded in 1863 and discharged from the army.
Martha Parks Lindley could not bear to be separated from her husband, William. Leaving their two children in the care of her sister, she followed him into service under the name of Jim Smith. She served undetected in the army for three years before mustering out of service and returning to her children. Her husband survived the war and reunited with his family, and they had two more children.
My favorite account is of a woman who fought at Fredericksburg – a ferocious, grisly battle fought in freezing, snowy conditions. She engaged the enemy so bravely that she received a field promotion – and she was eight months pregnant! We know this because her Colonel, Elijah H. Cavins, wrote home to his wife one month later:
A corporal was promoted to sergeant for gallant conduct at the battle of Fredericksburgh [sic], since which time the sergeant has become the mother of a child.
And to top it all off, this woman had also been wounded in the shoulder at Antietam while in her second trimester – and still managed to keep the secret that she was actually a woman. Unfortunately, although her actions are famous, nowhere is her name recorded, nor do we know what happened to her or her baby. We do not know her motives for fighting, but to continue her fight even through pregnancy, she must have believed in her cause with the most extreme ardency.
These women listed here represent a small sample of the many brave women who risked their lives to serve their cause. Could one of them be your ancestor?
Becky Pyle
Family legend has it that my great-great grandmother, Mary Ellen Thornburg, joined the Union Army (probably in Randolph Co., IN) but was discovered and sent home when she contracted small pox. I’ve been trying to verify this story.
Is there a listing of all 400 somewhere where we can see it?
Mary Mills
Sarah Edmond
Mary Ellie
Betsy Taylor Phillips
Sklusman
Sarah Edmond.
Jody Boyd
Sarah Emma Edmonds Seelye
Hayden summerall is my hero!
Rob Holliday
Rose Nyman
Earnice
Who is my great great grandfather name
Lorne Richardson
There is a nice memorial to Emma Seelye in front of what was her family homestead on the Saunders Road, near Harvey, New Brunswick,Canada.She was buried in Washington Cemetary in Houston, Texas with full military Honours.She was the first women to get a U.S. military pension.She was recently featured in Karen Abbott’s book Liar,Traitor,SoldierSpy
Domonique Barton
Nice usefulness information
don krueger
Thank you for the information. I purchased the book “Sisters of Shiloh” and found it a very interesting read. My wife was also impressed. tks. don
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Labour should embrace putting an end to EU free movement
After denial, there is acceptance. Some in Labour have not yet reached this stage, but increasingly Labour MPs are discussing Britain’s future outside of the European Union. Richard Johnson writes that at the centre of this debate are two issues: Britain’s trading relationship with the European Union and immigration.
On immigration, there is a burgeoning debate within the Labour Party about whether or not Labour should argue for retaining freedom of movement, even after Britain leaves the European Union. There have been some surprising voices who have not only accepted the EU referendum result but also recognised that concerns over immigration were at its heart. These concerns were largely a product of people’s dissatisfaction with the effects of EU free movement since the European Union expanded in 2004. Hitherto ardent Remain campaigners such as Stephen Kinnock, Emma Reynolds, Rachel Reeves, and others have recognised that Britain cannot continue to accept limitless immigration from EU countries.
This is a positive step and essential for Labour’s survival as a mainstream political party. However, accepting the end of free movement is far from settled party policy. Some in Labour continue to have a tin ear. Clive Lewis, Labour’s Shadow Defence Secretary, stated last week that drawing connections between freedom of movement and low pay or pressures on public services was ‘pander[ing] to xenophobia or intolerance’. Lewis is right, of course, that individual EU migrants should not be blamed. They are simply following the economic logic of existing rules. Lewis does not acknowledge, however, that opposing prejudice against immigrants is also compatible with believing that governments should govern the laws of economic migration in the interest of labour.
In his speech to Labour conference this year, Jeremy Corbyn stated ‘It isn’t migrants that drive down wages; it’s exploitative employers and the politicians who deregulate the labour market and rip up trade union rights.’ For Corbyn, it seems, immigration does not need to be controlled as long as there are strong labour rights in place.
There are a few problems with this position. First, by being willing to work for less pay than others, low-skilled immigrants have driven down wages. To say this is not to blame them personally or cast malice on them; it’s economic reality. They are working in a system which makes them richer, but which makes the existing low-skilled population in their new country poorer. A study from UCL found that in Britain immigration has depressed wages below the 20th percentile of the wage distribution, but led to slight wage increases in the upper part of the wage distribution.
In a system with free movement across the EU but with unequal political economies in each member state, this pattern only intensifies. For example, when the minimum wage in some EU countries is as little as £1.36 per hour, the incentive to move to United Kingdom to do the same job at the £7.20 per hour minimum is intense. If workers in Britain had been doing the same job for £10 per hour, they now would have to accept lower wages or find a new job. Additionally, new immigrants are more likely to take jobs which require fewer skills than they are qualified to do because even lower-skilled jobs will pay more than their higher-skilled job in their country of origin. As a result, EU free movement has damaged most the living conditions of low-skilled workers in rich EU countries.
Second, Corbyn’s position provides no answers to the 4.66 million people who are self-employed, the fastest growing occupational class in Britain. There’s no unscrupulous employer to go after. Minimum wage enforcement doesn’t help. These workers still get undercut. Labour is offering them nothing, a major failing of party policy.
A third point is that labour regulation should not be seen as an alternative to immigration control. Regulating immigration is a form of labour regulation, one which can restrict supply to protect workers in a country while also meeting demand in industries where there are labour shortages.
Perhaps a small glimmer of comfort in Corbyn’s speech was that he did not explicitly commit Labour to support continued free movement. Corbyn offered only the vague comment, ‘We will tackle the real issues of immigration instead whatever the eventual outcome of the Brexit negotiations and make the changes that are needed.’
Sceptical about globalisation, Corbyn may personally be ambivalent about open borders. Shortly after the referendum result, Corbyn wrote a piece in the Guardian arguing, ‘If freedom of movement means the freedom to exploit cheap labour in a race to the bottom, it will never be accepted in any future relationship with Europe’. However, Corbyn will be under tremendous pressure from Labour Party members, who are wildly out of step with the British public on immigration and the EU, to support continuing free movement.
The electoral consequences of capitulating to Labour Party members on free movement would be disastrous. While people mocked Ed Miliband’s ‘Controls on Immigration’ mug, the policy on the mug is supported by the vast majority of the British public, including many who voted to Remain. Seventy-seven percent of the British public want to see levels of immigration brought down, while only 4 percent of the public want to see immigration increase.
People’s concerns about immigration haven’t been invented out of thin air. The real experience of immigration in Britain since the EU expanded into Central and Eastern Europe has been one of rapid change, over which people have felt little control. As Geoff Evans and Jon Mellon have shown, the salience of people’s concerns about immigration has closely tracked actual levels of net migration since 2004. Areas which saw the fastest increases in migrant populations were more likely to vote Leave. In areas where the migrant population increased by 200 percent or more between 2001 and 2014, there was a 94 percent chance of voting Leave.
The EU referendum was a great democratic moment. The British people decisively, with a majority of over 1 million and in the largest turnout in a British election since I was in nappies, voted to end the forty-year political union which Britain shared with, initially, eight and, now, twenty-seven other countries. The key concern was not an ill-judged slogan about NHS spending on the side of a bus. It was immigration. The seeds to the referendum result were sown twelve years ago when the New Labour government agreed to EU expansion into countries which were economically unprepared and without transition controls on immigration, leading to unprecedentedly high levels of migration.
To oppose new controls on immigration is to speak for, at best, the 4 percent who want higher immigration and the 17 percent who are satisfied with current levels. It is not a 48 percent strategy; it is a 21 percent strategy. Too many in Labour seem to want the party to become the Lib Dems of c2005 – one which appeals to liberal, university-educated, cosmopolitans in big cities and university towns. It’s a fine strategy, but only if you want to win 60 seats in Parliament.
This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of BrexitVote, nor of the London School of Economics. Image source.
Richard Johnson is a DPhil candidate in Politics at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He researches elections and representation in the USA and Britain. He has co-authored (with Ashley Walsh) a book on labour history: Camaraderie: One Hundred Years of the Cambridge Labour Party, 1912-2012.
Labour must back freedom of movement – because the public want to stay in the single market
The scandal of CSI, the little-known loophole used to deny EU citizens permanent residency
Why Britain voted to Leave (and what Boris Johnson had to do with it)
Acrimonious and divisive: the role the media played in Brexit
October 12th, 2016|Featured, Migration, UK politics|3 Comments
David Walker October 12, 2016 at 1:20 pm - Reply
There are several glaring holes in this argument but for the sake of time let’s just cite four:
1. The debate is discussed as if the only relevant effect is the impact of immigration on wages – as if the sole merit in EU immigration is that it allows businesses to get the same job done at a cheaper rate. We’re completely overlooking the other element to this picture: skills. The UK has done exceptionally well at attracting some of the most skilled workers from across the EU which has helped generate growth. The higher education sector is a good example: take every EU academic out of UK universities and they’d plummet down the university rankings, attract fewer international students, employ fewer people, produce less valuable research and so on. Trying to explain that picture by just pointing at wages would lead to rather odd conclusions, yet that’s exactly what this article does for the economy as a whole.
2. The article mentions the minimum wage but doesn’t draw the obvious conclusion that by raising the minimum wage you can protect the vast majority of those below the 20th percentile (the only people who have been shown to lose out in the study quoted – and the author doesn’t mention that the study finds wages overall have gone up thanks to immigration). What this study actually tells you is that even in the limited case of wages (i.e. even if we ignore every other factor, which we shouldn’t) free movement is a positive for the country. Like anything, however, it isn’t a positive for everyone so it’s incumbent on the government to step in and protect those who are negatively affected – namely by raising the minimum wage.
The author tries to dismiss that point by citing the self-employed, who aren’t protected by the minimum wage. First, that doesn’t negate the fact that many of the people below the 20th percentile mentioned above would indeed be protected by the minimum wage. Second, we’re crossing wires by taking a study measuring the whole work force and assuming the same effect is present among the self-employed. Third, the self-employed are an incredibly diverse group, which makes such arguments extremely difficult to make even if we did have proper data on the subject, which we don’t. Fourth, we’re completely ignoring the wider picture when it comes to service costs. It certainly isn’t in the interest of a tradesperson who has no competition in a given area to be exposed to new competition (whether from an immigrant or not). However it might well be in the interests of the hundreds or thousands of people who use that person’s services each year and can charge a more reasonable rate for the service. In short there are more questions than answers here and we certainly don’t end up at a point where we can dismiss the role of the minimum wage in protecting the lowest paid.
3. The author states that “regulating immigration is a form of labour regulation”. This is true, it also happens to be an exceptionally poor form of labour regulation that generates countless unintended consequences when other mechanisms could achieve the same thing. None of these negative side effects have been addressed by the author: the effect of putting barriers between businesses and skilled workers; the effect on growth; the extra red tape businesses have to navigate when they do want to employ a foreign worker; the loss of free movement rights for UK citizens (which is never considered in these articles but would be wildly unpopular particularly among young voters); the wider effects on unemployment, prices, and so on…
4. Like most articles on this subject the link between labour mobility and free trade has been overlooked. If we scrapped free movement in the single market it wouldn’t make workers better off, in fact they’d be at a disadvantage in relation to employers. Employers would have the ability to move wherever they liked within the single market, while workers would be confined to a particular area. This would generate a far worse race to the bottom on wages as each territory attempted to attract employers, while depriving workers of their ability to move and secure better employment prospects. What you’re presenting as a protection for workers would actually achieve the exact opposite in practice – it would deprive workers of their existing rights and give employers, who would still have complete freedom to operate elsewhere across Europe, the upper hand. Such is the muddled nature of the debate in this country that we seem to think depriving workers of their rights affords them greater protection.
The only way to square that circle is to also create significant restrictions on the ability of employers to trade freely/move across Europe, something that’s exceptionally unpopular and largely goes against the mass of existing economic evidence on the kind economic conditions that generate employment and growth. And again, almost everything you’re asking for can be achieved using less drastic measures that have none of the negative side-effects. Take the ideology out of the debate and it’s hard to imagine anyone would start from a desire to raise wages for the lowest paid in society and end up with eradicating free movement as the primary solution.
Ash October 13, 2016 at 1:40 pm - Reply
A short rebuttal in defence of the author;
1. The author is clearly talking with respect to low-skilled workers. I haven’t yet heard an argument stating that high-skilled immigration (or those with skills in high demand) should be curtailed. Please define the net direct benefit for the sizeable amount of the UK workforce that are low-skilled of the benefit of an unlimited supply of persons with skills relative to theirs.
2. Simply raising the minimum wage cannot protect those in the lowest 20% quartile. As such a point, employers will lay off workers or switch investment from labour to capital (which is eminently possible for low-skilled sector employment). Think of the low-skilled who earned moderately above the minimum wage then experienced the expansion of the supply of labour whittle away any excess. Effectively, the labour equivalent of arbitrage. Immigration has certainly increased wages, though less so for those in the lowest quartile. Immigration is also a net positive, however in my opinion, the gain should be maximised through controlled immigration of the most high-value workers.
Competition should be encouraged, but this type of competition is unfair. European workers can earn vast multiples here than the comparative wage in their respective nation and are therefore much more willing to compromise on terms and living standards.
3.Gross GDP growth is close to being wholly irrelevant to this argument. Productivity is paramount. The flexible labour force and high supply provides sufficient incentives for employers to invest in labour over capital. That is why employment is so high. That is why Britain has seen a vastly reduced level of business investment post-financial crisis. That is one of the reasons why Britain’s productivity growth has been abysmal. (Read “BREXIT BRITAIN: THE POOR MAN OF WESTERN EUROPE?” by the CER for evidence of this).
4. This is an interesting argument. I can’t say I know much about it, though to some extent it already exists. Hency why employers (did) set up shop in the UK as opposed to France.
D Morison October 12, 2016 at 1:31 pm - Reply
Not sure where the 3 million majority came from. 1,269,501 more people voted to leave or a 1.9% swing.
Of those who voted Leave immigration was a major part, although many also were voting against non-EU immigration, and some wanted an Australian points system and more immigration. Others were protesting against London’s success relative to their region, EU regulations, or against the EU super-state and not immigration.
The comparisons to wages are unfair as earnings in Romania etc are linked to standard of living, and the differential is not so clear.
The problem with the article is the factors behind immigration don’t change because some people are unhappy with the effects on society of EU immigration. We are closely connected with European economies – travel is much cheaper and easier than ever across Europe. We are English speaking, and will continue to attract more young people in the EU who want to learn the international language of business. Our labour laws are very open in comparison to others in Northern Europe and employer costs are very low relative to DE, NL, SE etc. If you want to radically change all of these things by leaving the Single Market, adding expense and bureaucracy in the process in order to control EU immigration at a huge economic cost then would people still feel as strongly?
I suspect not.
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Features / Five in Bloom
FIVE IN BLOOM: The Spring Collection
Posted on April 10, 2015 by Juhi Leave a comment
by Juhi Singhal Karan
Stories and scriveners of all forms are blooming this spring. We feature five of them this month—from novels to poems to an award-winning YA book—and hope that there is something for everyone here!
Marlin Barton’s Pasture Art
Marlin Barton’s Pasture Art is a collection of “[l]iterate, deftly constructed stories of backwoods Alabama.” The stories are “original” even while they pay “quiet homage” to the conventions of Southern fiction, as Kirkus Reviews put it. Barton, who grew up in “a little community called Forkland, which lies in the fork of . . . two rivers,” hopes that the two fictional rivers that meander through the stories in Pasture Art “come across as living things” for “they move, they have depth, they have a history that’s older than the people who live along their banks.” The collection features both a novella and a one-page story. In Barton’s words, he ends a story “when it feels right” even though “that’s a hard thing to know for certain.” He goes on to say “[s]tories should not tie up too neatly. . . . The best stories work more by suggestion. They end up giving you a sense of how the character’s life might be changed by what’s just happened to them.”
Mary Jo Bang’s The Last Two Seconds
Mary Jo Bang’s latest collection of poems, The Last Two Seconds, “a cultural interrogation of disaster and time,” harkens back to her description of herself as more of a “pragmatist than a romantic.” In her publisher’s words, the book “captures the difficulties inherent in being human in the twenty-first century, when we set our watches by nuclear disasters, species collapse, pollution, mounting inequalities, warring nations, and our own mortality.” Bang, whom we’ve featured here on Bloom, was a “Jill of All Trades” before her circuitous route led her to being a published poet at the age of 50. The collection may be, in the words of Publishers Weekly, her “harshest collection yet” and may not “provide much comfort,” but the “[g]orgeous phrasing and imaginative leaps,” as The Washington Post put it, “make[s] the ride worthwhile.”
Kevin Brooks’s The Bunker Diary
Kevin Brooks’s The Bunker Diary has to be one of the most controversial winners of the CILIP Carnegie Medal in recent times. The book, which has been released in U.S. this spring, is a “fragmented, occasionally incoherent diary of 16-year-old Linus Weems, [who is] trapped with five strangers in an underground bunker.” The book’s lack of a happy ending and the bleak subjects it deals with has been banded as “nihilistic” on one end and “full of hope” on the other. It took Brooks ten years to get the book published because he refused to “rewrite it—tone it down, change the ending, explain a lot of unexplained things.” According to him, “The Bunker Diary is a book about dark and disturbing subjects—it has to contain dark and disturbing things.” He disagrees “that [the book] lacks redemption.” In his own words while the book “doesn’t have a happy ending . . . within the story there is genuine kindness and love and protection, and if that is not a positive look at how humans can behave in a desperate situation, I don’t know what is.”
Mary Costello’s Academy Street
Mary Costello’s debut novel, Academy Street, traces the trajectory of her protagonist from the age of 7 into her 60s and “in offering us [a] seemingly unremarkable life, give[s] us [an] extraordinarily compelling narrative.” Sonya Chung noted Costello’s ability to imbue her stories with “the sense that ordinary lives are filled with extraordinary desire and disenchantment” when we featured Costello here on Bloom. The story of the woman who, in the words of J.M. Coetzee, “would otherwise have faded into oblivion” were it not for Costello’s “extraordinary devotion” was inspired by a short story (“You Fill Up My Senses”) in Costello’s previous book, The China Factory. In Costello’s words, “I dread starting [a story]. I prevaricate for ages because I’m afraid of spoiling it. I accumulate a lot of notes in the months—sometimes years—before I start a story. . . . I usually know the . . . plot, insofar as there is one. The character is the main thing—I have to have a strong sense of a character and the small particulars of his or her life.”
Claire Fuller’s Our Endless Numbered Days
Claire Fuller’s Our Endless Numbered Days has been called “a grown-up thriller of a fairytale,” and “disarmingly dark, if indisputably beautiful.” It has also been compared to Emma Donoghue’s Room. (And yes, the title is inspired by the Iron & Wine album of the same name). The story, which has “no reliable narrators, only storytellers,” is told by a teenaged girl who escapes after nine years with her survivalist father who has told her that the rest of the world no longer exists. Fuller, who started writing only after she turned 40, writes a lot of flash fiction. In her own words, “Trying to tell a story in just 100 words, with character, tension, and a beginning and an end is tough. Each word has to earn its place, and work really hard. . . . I’m a big fan of not saying everything . . . It’s like drawing, which I also do a lot of. When you’re drawing a face you don’t have to put in all the features and join up all the lines; the viewer’s mind will do that for you. It’s the same with reading: it’s often as much about what isn’t said as what is.”
Homepage picture courtesy dchan316 via deviantart
Tags: Academy Street, Claire Fuller, Emma Donoghue, J.M. Coetzee, Kevin Brooks, Marlin Barton, Mary Costello, Mary Jo Bang, Our Endless Numbered Days, Pasture Art, Room, Sonya Chung, The Bunker Diary, The China Factory, The Last Two Seconds. Bookmark the permalink.
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For Those Who Still Hear The Guns!
Back Issue Index
Bermuda Hundred Tour Revision
From Sailor’s Creek to Cumberland Church
An Excerpt from the current issue: Volume 31, #3
by Chris Calkins
Seventy-Two Hours Before Appomattox
The smell of fresh dirt permeated the air as arriving Federal soldiers of Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan’s cavalry and the V Corps infantry, newly under the command of Maj. Gen. Charles Griffin, began digging a line of breastworks near Jetersville Station. Running perpendicular to the Richmond & Danville Railroad, the works lay across the path of the Confederate army’s route to North Carolina. Barely seven miles to the northeast at Amelia Court House was Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia which was now beginning its march along the railroad in the direction of Danville and the state line. At this point Lee still hoped to reach this location and combine his forces with those of the Army of Tennessee under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. It was April 5, 1865, and the Southern commander still had hopes of continuing the struggle which had started nearly four years ago.
The Hillsman property at the new Sailor’s Creek Battlefield Historical State Park in Virginia was a Union artillery position during the battle.
The outcome of what would become the final campaign in Virginia was possibly prophesied back in June 1864, when the two armies faced off at a place called Cold Harbor northeast of Richmond. Lee, in conference with one of his subordinate generals remarked, “We must destroy this Army of Grant’s before he gets to the James River. If he gets there it will become a siege and then it will be a mere question of time.” Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac did exactly that, pulling away from Lee’s army entrenched at Cold Harbor, marching to the James pretty much undetected, then successfully crossed the river on a 2,200-foot-long pontoon bridge and by boat. Arriving on the south bank of the river, orders were given to move upon nearby Petersburg and attempt to cut the railroad supply lines emanating from there. With five lines radiating from the city like a star fish, if they could be severed, it would negate a major source of commerce running into the Southern capital of Richmond.
What should have become a brief struggle for Petersburg (since most of Lee’s army was still north of the James River), became a four-day contest with Grant eliminating two of the rail lines but not capturing the city. At that point it became Grant’s attempt to lay siege to the Confederate Citadel.
The struggle dragged on for months as Grant’s forces continued to make offensive movements toward the other southern supply routes eventually cutting the use of the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad in August 1864. Now Lee had to use a single roadway to bring his wagons into the Petersburg lines: the Boydton Plank Road. He was now forced to bring his supplies and reinforcements from the Deep South to a point 16 miles south of Petersburg, at Stony Creek Station, then load them onto wagons and traverse cross-county to the Plank Road and into his lines.
For many of these maneuvers, Grant would send counter-thrusts north of the James River to keep Lee’s forces stretched out at both flanks. It would be a one-two punch to keep Lee on his toes. These would include the Crater/First Deep Bottom, Weldon Railroad/Second Deep Bottom, Peebles Farm/New Market Heights-Fort Harrison, and First Hatcher’s Run/ Williamsburg Road.
As fall turned into winter, the cold weather befell the armies in their miserable muddy trenches, yet Grant kept up his unrelenting pressure upon the Confederate armies. An unsuccessful push for the Boydton Plank Road in late October still allowed Grant to extend his lines farther to the west. This was soon followed in December with a raid by the Federal army along the Weldon Railroad down to Belfield/Hicksford astride the Meherrin River. Now Lee had to extend his transportation route even farther to reach the Boydton Plank Road.
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While the campaign extended into the New Year of 1865, Lee was beginning to see the possible outcome of his current predicament of being stagnant in the trenches. Although he still had control of his intermediate supply route, the Plank Road, a short distance beyond was his final lifeline, the South Side Railroad. In early February, Grant’s forces again moved out of their lines and reached Hatcher’s Run once more. With three days of intense fighting, again the Federals were stopped in their tracks. Still they were able to extend their lines farther to the west. On February 22, Lee wrote the new Secretary of War, John C. Breckinridge: “Grant, I think, is now preparing to draw out his left [flank], with the intent of enveloping me. He may wait till his other columns approach nearer, or he may be preparing to anticipate my withdrawal. I cannot tell yet. I am endeavoring to collect supplies convenient to Burkeville”
On the same day, Lee communicated with his First Corps commander, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, noting: “With the army concentrated at or near Burkeville, our communications north and south would be by that railroad [Richmond & Danville] and west by the South Side Railroad. We might also seize the opportunity of striking at Grant, should he pursue us rapidly, or [William T.] Sherman, before they could unite. . . . I desire you also to make every preparation to take the field at a moment’s notice, and to accumulate all the supplies you can. General Grant seems to be preparing to move out by his left flank. He is accumulating near Hatcher’s Run depots of supplies, and apparently concentrating a strong force in that quarter.”
In preparation for this probable withdrawal from the Richmond-Petersburg front, instructions were given to Col. Thomas M. R. Talcott, commanding the Engineer Troops of the Army of Northern Virginia, to construct a map delineating possible retreat routes from “Petersburg, Chester Station and Manchester to Amelia Court-House.” The survey was completed by March 30, but did not take into consideration possible weather changes or faulty communications.
On March 25, Lee attempted his one and only offensive strike against the Union lines during the entire campaign. Bringing together a large portion of his army to the Eastern Front of the Petersburg defenses, his target was to break through the Federal trenches in the vicinity of the Union’s Fort Stedman. In an early morning assault, Lee’s Second Corps, led by Lt. Gen. John B. Gordon, briefly penetrated the Northern lines and plunged into their rear positions. Quick acting Federal reinforcements made a countercharge, sending the Confederate attackers back into their initial position at Colquitt’s Salient. With this attempted assault a failure, Grant could now prepare for a final offensive and his intended reach for the South Side Railroad.
On March 29, what was to be delineated as the Appomattox Campaign began in the rural countryside of Dinwiddie County. This campaign would actually overlap the Petersburg Campaign by five days (which ended on April 2 with the withdrawal of Lee’s forces from the Richmond-Petersburg front). As Grant began this final offensive, Sheridan’s cavalry, recently returned from the Shenandoah Valley, was joined by two corps of infantry: the II Corps under Maj. Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys, and the V Corps, at this point still led by Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren. Their orders were to move in unison toward the Boydton Plank Road and South Side Railroad beyond, the II Corps moving on the right with its flank anchored on Hatcher’s Run, the V Corps in the middle, and the cavalry directed toward the village of Dinwiddie Court House on the left.
As the V Corps advanced up the Quaker Road it ran into a roadblock of Confederate forces sent from Maj. Gen. Bushrod R. Johnson’s trenches along the White Oak Road. Intense fighting took place around the Lewis farm before the Southern units fell back to their initial position in the line. Warren then moved his divisions northward and his men began entrenching astride the Boydton Plank Road. Lee’s wagon train route was now severed.
The 30th was spent by both armies reconnoitering each other’s positions with the Union Army extending its lines in front of the White Oak Road. Sheridan’s troops entered the county seat village of Dinwiddie Court House and planned to move north to the South Side Railroad. Blocking their way at an intersection known locally as Five Forks was Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett’s division sent there by General Lee from the Bermuda Hundred front. Hearing that Sheridan’s cavalry held Dinwiddie, Pickett had his men prepare for an offensive move early the next day.
Friday the 31st saw two engagements take place. The V Corps would attempt to interpose itself between Pickett’s Division at Five Forks to the west, and Lt. Gen. Richard H. Anderson’s corps (composed of just Bushrod Johnson’s division), along the White Oak Road at its intersection with Claiborne Road. Both contingents of the Confederate army were separated by about six miles. Warren’s plan was to keep Anderson’s men from reinforcing Pickett’s troops. In an engagement known as either White Oak Road, Gravelly Run, or Hatcher’s Run, Confederate troops initially got the upper hand with an unexpected assault on Warren’s troops, but later a counterattack by Union soldiers gained the White Oak Road and kept Anderson in his trenches, and prevented him from helping the soldiers at Five Forks.
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CHRIS CALKINS, former Historian at Petersburg National Battlefield, is Manager and Historian of Sailor’s Creek Battlefield Historical State Park in Virginia, and was instrumental in developing the park. Chris has written several articles for B&G and is the author of Blue & Gray Magazine’s History and Tour Guide of Five Forks, Hatcher’s Run and Namozine Church (2003).
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← Finebaum and the coaches
Envy and jealousy: Jim Delany as muse →
Nooooooooooooooo….
So they fed a little red meat to the Greater Atlanta Bulldog Club last night.
In the midst of rallying the troops for ’07, Mark Richt had this to say about the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party:
Another thing some believe has been in the way of Georgia winning is the location of the game. For three more years it’s scheduled to be in Jacksonville. When that contract is up, Richt would be in favor of moving it.
“Do I truly think it is a neutral site?” Richt said. “No, I don’t. That doesn’t feel very neutral to me. If you want to have a neutral game, let’s have a neutral game in Atlanta. I would not be against rotating the thing around.”
Richt said the two schools’ campuses and Jacksonville could all be considered a part of that rotation.
“Whatever Damon says goes,” Richt added. “The bottom line is we have got to win the game.”
Now I respect Mark Richt greatly. I’ve mentioned before that on the subject of playoffs he walks with the angels. But to blame the location for Georgia’s recent abysmal record against the Gators is nothing more than a cop out.
The game is one of the great traditions of Georgia football. It’s something that a large chunk of the fan base looks forward to every year. It’s also one of the few bones that get thrown to the fans in south Georgia, who one time a year have the shorter drive to the game.
Neutral site games are becoming a trend lately. ‘Bama and FSU are playing in Jacksonville this year. Notre Dame is out shopping for sites as I write this. The Big 12 is looking to put a game in Jerry Jones’ new stadium. And yet we want to abandon the second oldest of these games (the Red River Shootout in Dallas predates us by four years) because the Dawgs haven’t been successful on the field in a while.
Bad idea. The negative PR alone will be awful. Don’t think Urban Meyer won’t have a field day with it in recruiting. Plus, Michael Adams will probably see it as a victory in his epic war against having a good time at football games.
As I said, it’s nothing more than a poor excuse for not winning. Playing in the Gator Bowl wasn’t a problem for Dooley and playing at Alltel shouldn’t have been a problem for Richt (how did he lose two out of three to the Zooker, anyway?).
And let’s not forget the “be careful what you wish for” admonition: what happens if the series goes home and home and Georgia still can’t start winning? Does anyone need to be reminded what the results were the last time the games were played home and home?
Don’t do it, Damon. Please.
UPDATE: Groo has some more thoughts here. He makes a valid point with regard to offensive point totals and our head coach’s mindset going into J’ville.
19 responses to “Nooooooooooooooo….”
kckd
It’s also a game we give an opponent with as good or better players than us a slight advantage every year.
And some foolish Dawg fans want to do it, cause they like once a year to go get smashed several hours or a short flight away from home.
Anyone who claims UF has “NO” advantage by taking a bus ride to Jax while we fly is insane.
So how come Dooley was so successful? It’s not like Georgia was overwhelmingly superior talent-wise to the Gators during his term as HC.
If you haven’t experienced a few WLOCPs, you can’t understand why it’s so beloved by much of the fan base.
I do find it pretty funny that a two hour plane ride and a short bus ride could wear out a bunch of strapping 20 year olds so much. Van Halanger better get on that right away. 😉
Bulldawgy
Sorry, Senator. I think you are thinking with your liver on this one.
The Gators have a monumental advantage in this game – and I agree completely with Richt.
But then again, you and I don’t see eye to eye on other things either? 🙂
Dooley did have a significant edge talent wise during those years. We also had a significant edge coaching wise too. Have fun changing out your coozies. This pleasing the southern GA. fans is BS. Everybody knows it’s the party that you old farts are really beeyotching about. And we’ve known for years that having your mini October vacation was more important than the game anyway.
“Dooley did have a significant edge talent wise during those years.”
What are you talking about? The only time Dooley had a sustained edge in talent was from ’79-’81. UF had some very good teams in the 70’s that saw their seasons ruined at the WLOCP. The Gators were #1 when Georgia beat them in ’85 with an inferior bunch.
J’ville’s a poor excuse to use for Georgia losing 15 of the last 17. Georgia had the better team and coach in ’02, ’03 and ’04, yet only managed one win. Blaming that on a plane ride is pathetic.
Check the NFL rosters and get back with me.
And show me more than five people who see it your way that don’t spend the whole weekend in Jax. That’s the ones who piss their pants every time Richt brings this up. Some of us actually care about the game more.
I’ve attended every UGA-UF game since ’79, except the one in Gainesville (couldn’t get a ticket), but you care about the game more.
How many times did you just go to the game? And how many times did you take a vacation?
If it’s just the game that you care about, you wouldn’t care where it was played. You like the location, and you like your cocktails.
Hey, hey now. You guys need to chill.
The Senator is right, in 02, 03 and 04 we had the better teams and should have won. I am not blaming the losses on the site.
I am saying that calling the site neutral is not accurate. It is not a neutral site. Everything from the weather, to the distance from campus, to the dang name of the state the game is played in all cry: FLORIDA!!!!
Easy fellas, we are all on the same team here.
Dude, it’s really not that big of a deal to me. It’s just to funny to see all the guys in and around Atlanta claim we do it for those poor saps in the south who have to drive to Athens every weekend. What a load of BS!!!!. If they felt that way, they’d give their tickets to them. Cause I know a lot of people from south GA who have home tickets to Athens games, but can’t buy one for the cocktail party. That game is about the party as much as the game. And the Senator knows it. The folks with the money don’t want to have to party in a place they can go to every weekend. That’s what this is about.
If you really think Georgia is at a significant disadvantage at the WLOCP because of location, could you explain why Georgia under MR has such a terrific record in opponents’ stadiums, but is 1-5 in J’ville?
I never said significant if you mean large.
The truth is that on the roster we are even or maybe have a slight disadvantage.
Coaching staff we are even.
So why would we want to give a rival who may cost us a trip to Atlanta if we lose the game, an advantage, ever how slight, every year.
Why? Because we like to party baby!!!!!!
Now damn it, Richt win this game so we can get puke drunk Thursday, Friday and Saturday night and still go to Atlanta in December. And may be Monday morning I’ll remember the score.
You got something against folks having a good time, kckd?
Georgia’s been to the SECCG three times under Richt. The Dawgs didn’t beat Florida in any of those seasons.
If you want to point a finger at advantages in the series, why don’t you look at scheduling? UF normally has a week off before the WLOCP to get prepared and Georgia doesn’t. This year we have the opposite. It’ll be interesting to see if that has an effect on the outcome of the game.
Have nothing against having a good time. But giving the team the best chance to win should come first.
The only argument anyone has is “Dooley did it.”
Well, I’m younger than you, but I know the rosters of those UF teams back in the seventies and eighties. And they were not as loaded as what we’ve gone up against with Spurrier, Zook and Meyer.
About every third year UF would be considered a favorite to win the SEC, but never could get it done. But they weren’t constantly at the top of the nation in ranking or talent like they have been since 1990 on.
But again, the need for alcohol can skew things, even when you ain’t drinkin’ it. (wink, wink)
First of all, it’s not just that Dooley did it. Even with the wretched outcome of the last 17 games, Georgia still holds the series margin at this point.
I’m glad you know the Florida rosters, but I’ve watched the teams go head to head since the mid-70s, and other than the Herschel years, there weren’t many times when I looked down on the field and thought Georgia was far more talented than Florida.
I do agree with you that pre-Spurrier, Georgia often had superior coaching to the Gators. But not so as to talent.
As for the “need for alcohol”, you act like people need the excuse of traveling to an exotic site to indulge. What do you think goes on at most tailgates in Athens before a game? We’re not all just drinking iced tea, you know.
Exactly, and you can do it in Atlanta too. But you don’t do it for two or three days straight. Like I said, it’s the minivacation. And the ones who are vocal about keeping there are not the guys who drive in from South Georgia. But the ones who make a weekend of it from Athens and Atlanta.
I guess you associate with different folks than I do. I have lots of friends from places like Waycross and Valdosta that like having a game down that way. I imagine there are a lot of businesses down in places like St. Simons that are happy about it, too.
In any event, what’s the sin in keeping a large portion of your fan base happy? And before you start on this “we can’t give our opponent an edge” stuff, I again remind you that Georgia is a very good road team under Richt. So, unless you are suggesting that there is something specifically about Jacksonville that negates Georgia’s ability to win on the road, I don’t think you’ve got a very convincing argument there.
Would you feel the same need to move the game if Georgia had a winning record against Florida over the last 17 games?
I think Groo’s take on the game and MR is pretty accurate.
If it is a slight advantage, it is still and advantage.
Arguing the road record is like saying, “Hell, let’s see if we can play ’em all on the road and just ask if we can receive the ticket sales every other year.” I’m sure our opponents would go for that one, even with our road record.
The game is more important to me than anything. Winning it is more important to me than anything too. Tradition, partying, etc. is just not as important.
Therefore I’d like to see us have the same advantage as UF every other year. Heck, at least we won’t ask them to play in the Dawg bowl.
But, other folks like the idea of our guys playing on the road while the Gaytors take a little drive over to their other stadium.
Arguing the road record is like saying, “Hell, let’s see if we can play ‘em all on the road and just ask if we can receive the ticket sales every other year.”
No it’s not. It’s simply pointing out that, whatever the problems are in J’ville, travel is the least of them.
I recognize that neither the historical record, nor MR’s ability to get his team prepared for road games, makes any difference to you. And I guess that if the game gets moved and Georgia still can’t get off the schneid, you’ll at least have the satisfaction of knowing that some people didn’t get a “mini-vacation” out of it.
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Racism Versus Kindness, With Waffles
Kristian Bland
YanLev
It seems like it was a lot longer than just over a year ago when Dylann Roof walked into Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina and shot nine people in cold blood because he didn't like the color of their skin. But it was just over a year ago, on June 17, 2015. Later that day, he was taken into custody, alive and unharmed. The police even bought him a snack from Burger King.
Fast forward a little over a year later, and we see the stark video of Terence Crutcher being fatally shot by a police officer after his car broke down. I'm not going to speculate on what happened, but the videos are pretty upsetting. I've written my thoughts about police shootings and what's going on in the country today over here, if you want to read them. But this article isn't about that.
This is about what happened to me, late in the evening the day after I'd heard the news of the church shooting. The nation was still reeling from the tragedy, and I couldn't understand how we could live in a world where we put a man on the moon almost 50 years ago, but we're still fighting over something as stupid as skin color. And I didn't want to think about it anymore.
Which is when something amazing happened.
At around 10:30 that night, I had a sudden craving for waffles and grease as usually happens to me on days ending in -y, and it was my stepson's last night home before heading to his dad's for the next two weeks of summer, so I let him stay up late and the two of us hopped in the car and drove to Waffle House. We were living in Texas at the time, and our favorite Waffle House wasn't far from our home.
When we got there, we walked in and sat down in our usual booth, next to the bar where lonely people sip coffee. And there was a lonely person there, sipping coffee. He smiled and raised his cup to us as we sat down. I smiled back and nodded as I sat down. Trey, my stepson, smiled, then gave the man a little wave and said, "How are you?"
Conversation ensued.
The man's name was Pete. He was a weathered soul, with a thick face and a loud voice. He rode a duct-taped old bicycle and was, as he described, "basically homeless" and living "in a cubby" somewhere nearby. He smiled a lot and wore a cowboy hat.
He and Trey talked back and forth between bar and booth, the old man getting louder and smiling more as Trey got louder and kept smiling back. I don't remember everything they talked about, but the events of the day were lightly touched upon in a vague way. I hadn't told Trey about them, and neither did Pete. But they did talk about what makes people different, and why people who get mad about our differences are stupid.
Eventually, the conversation slowed and we turned our attention to our waffles and our grease. When Pete stood to leave, he came by our table and reached out his hand to shake Trey's. I can't remember what he said to the boy, but I'll always remember what Trey said back to him, because it's a value I've worked really hard to instill in him, and I was proud.
He said, "People like all different things, and it's nobody's business what I like or you like. And it's not our business to bother about what they like, if nobody's hurting anybody."
At that, Pete smiled and exclaimed to the universe at large that Trey had a grown head on a kid's body. Then, he shook my hand and told me I was doing a good job. And then he paid for our meal.
Old cowboy Pete. Sipping coffee alone at the Waffle House, virtually homeless and riding a duct-taped bicycle paid for our meal.
We all walked out together, where we shook hands again and smiled, and it was all one of those Perfect Moments you read about that happen sometimes, but that never happen to you.
This one happened. And I can't think of a better end to a horrible day than that.
Filed Under: shooting
Categories: Crime, Opinion
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HomePosts tagged 'Kristen Wiig'
The Other Side of Animation 151:How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World Review
April 1, 2019 April 1, 2019 camseyeview Film Reviews America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, CGI animation, cgi film, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Craig Ferguson, David Tennant, Dreamworks, F. Murray Abraham, Gerard Butler, How to Train your Dragon, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Jay Baruchel, Jonah HIll, Justin Rupple, Kit Harington, Kristen Wiig, Robin Atkin Downes, Universal
Well, it has happened. I am finally able to review DreamWorks animated movies! Now that they are under Universal’s banner, and not Fox’s banner, I can now talk about today’s film and any of their future projects. It’s fascinating to see the entire history of DreamWorks. The company was founded by Jeffery Katzenberg after a nasty break-up with Disney, and made a name for not really having an identity, making edgier/mostly mediocre films that tried to ape off of what Disney/Pixar were doing at the time. They finally made a name for themselves with hits like Shrek 2, the Kung Fu Panda and How to Train your Dragon films, and then lost so much money after one failed business decision after another, we are now at the current part of the timeline. Once they lost about 500 employees and a couple of double digit millions when their 2014 films failed to bring in the money, they were then bought out by Universal. That’s a fairly rough and compacted history, but this isn’t about the history of DreamWorks, and how they started out to where they are now. I’m not getting paid enough on my Patreon to do something like that (link to my Patreon if you would like to support it). We are here to talk about How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World. Directed and written by Dean DeBlois, The Hidden World wraps up the entire trilogy of one of DreamWorks’ best franchises. It came out near the end of February to critical acclaim and commercial success. So, how is the actual film? Let’s see what unfolds in this hidden world.
The third film takes place a year after the second film, as Hiccup, voiced once again by Jay Baruchel, is now officially the leader of his people, and has gone on frequent missions to take down and free dragons from people who capture them. Unfortunately, his home and people are at risk of having to find a new land, and come to the realization about the relationship his people have with the dragons. This doesn’t help things when a group of dragon hunters hire a notoriously dangerous individual known as Grimmel the Grisly, voiced by F. Murray Abraham, who wants to kill all of the dragons, especially the Night Fury and Light Fury species. Hiccup then suggests that they find the Hidden World, a place where all the dragons live. Since this is the third film as well, let’s throw in a mysterious Light Fury, a white version of the franchise’s icon Toothless. Can Hiccup save his people and dragons from annihilation?
Before I talk about the positives, and there are a lot of positives, I wanted to counter against some of the criticisms that have been thrown at this film. The first criticism I see is that it doesn’t tie into the Netflix series at all. To be frank, I’m happy they didn’t. Sure, the Netflix series was able to expand upon the characters and the world with more villages, villains, and other heroes. However, if push comes to shove, I’d rather it stay exclusively within the film world. It’s not really fair to expect everyone going into this third film to have watched the Netflix series, or the series that came out before the second film. I get that even the slightest little easter eggs or cameos would have been nice for fans of the TV series, but at the same time, most people going into this wouldn’t have seen the entire series. The next criticism I see is aimed at how some of the characters are handled. I have a mixed reaction to this part overall. Again, a lot of people pointed out that the TV series was doing a better job at fleshing out these characters. Well, duh. You have a TV series that has multiple episodes and more time to flesh everything out. I think the writing is strong enough that a good chunk of the characters are still true to them and are still great.
That’s really all I have to disagree with. Now, we talk about the actual criticisms. To me, the How to Train your Dragon franchise runs parallel with DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda franchise. The first film was a surprise hit, and both have really good first films. The second films arguably are better films expanding the world, the story, the characters, and have a better villain. The third films are not as good as the second ones, but are great closers to the franchise, however, they have weaker villains. Yeah, while being voiced well by F. Murray Abraham, Grimmel the Grisly was not as interesting as a villain as other animated film villains. He had a bit of mystery to him, and was a threat with the other warriors and those dragon killers, but he felt underutilized. While I disagree that all of the side characters suffered from being underdeveloped, both Kung Fu Panda and Dragons sure do not give their side protagonists a lot to do. This is especially true for Jonah Hill’s Snotlout. He is just the worst character in this film. While Fishlegs, voiced by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Ruffnut and Tuffnut, voiced by Kristen Wiig and Justin Rupple, all have some more focus and things to do in the story, Snotlout never has a good scene, is always the butt of the joke, is constantly trying to hit on Hiccup’s mom for some creepy reason, and if that’s not creepy enough, apparently, Snotlout is worse in the original books. It always comes off like DreamWorks puts in so many characters, because they are banking on a TV series. They also don’t let us, the viewers, spend much time in the Hidden World. I kind of wish there was more time spent on Hiccup, Toothless, the Hidden World, America Ferrera’s Astrid, than focusing on the side characters who don’t have much to them.
So, what’s amazing about this film? Everything! The animation is beautiful. I’m so blown away at how incredible the franchise’s visuals have become, as even the first film from 2010 still looks pretty darn good! I love the details of the textures used, the slightly aged characters, and the immense amount of detail used in every house, island, dragon, human, and you get the idea. Once again, DreamWorks shows that while the overarching plot might not be the best, it makes up for it with some really good character moments. Throughout the entire film, there will be little moments between two characters that bring this film so much life and personality. Many of the best moments in the previous films were the quiet moments as Hiccup interacted with either Toothless or someone else. This film ups those scenes, as we get the final chapter of Hiccup’s coming-of-age tale of becoming the new tribe leader for his people. One of the most memorable scenes for me was when Hiccup was a kid, and he saw his dad mourn the loss of his wife/Hiccup’s mother, and you just get so much out of that one scene alone. Of course, the chemistry between Toothless and his new love interest is also a hugely entertaining scene, as it involves the least amount of dialogue out of any scene in this movie, and is so adorable and funny that you think it would backfire in some possible way, but it doesn’t. There are quite a few scenes of Toothless and his girlfriend that are all just wonderful to watch. The film tackles plenty of complex themes, like learning to change, how Hiccup comes to terms with doing what’s best for everyone involved, and learning and working on making your own path through life.
How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World might have a few flaws under its wings, but it’s another fantastic ride from DreamWorks. I know it’s easy to worry about DreamWorks Animation and their film line-up in the future, but for now, why not enjoy this movie and go see it? I highly recommend that you do so if you haven’t already. It shows that when DreamWorks wants to, they can put out a high quality product. Now then, we shall now move from dragons that you form an emotional bond with, to a film about a magical amusement park that doesn’t quite work. Next time, we shall talk about the notorious and infamous Wonder Park. Thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoyed this review, and I will see you all next time!
Rating: Go See It!
The Other Side of Animation 114: Despicable Me 3 Review
January 8, 2018 January 14, 2018 camseyeview Film Reviews American film, CGI animation, cgi film, Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2, Despicable Me 3, Illumination Entertainment, Kristen Wiig, Kyle Balda, middle of the road review, Minions, Pierre Coffin, Steve Carell, Trey Parker, Universal
(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)
As you can tell, so far, my opinion on the Despicable Me franchise has been consistently, okay. Each film does something I like, but for every element I like, it does something that I don’t like. They have all been passable and harmless movies. And really, that’s sadly the term I would use for the studio, passable and harmless. They seem to be in this financially successful rut of not wanting to challenge themselves artistically. I respect and admire that not every film needs to be a Disney or Pixar heavy-weight, but at the same time, you can only go so far and so long in being successful when you are doing nothing different. Even though I like their film, SING, I still had plenty to dislike about it, and I can’t really say that I have a film of theirs I truly and utterly love and would recommend on the spot. I know there are talented people working on this franchise, and I think they don’t fully deserve a lot of this criticism, but you can’t help but think that they could be trying harder with their films. Sooner or later, another studio is going to come along, and be the next big thing, and Illumination will probably be in the same situation that Blue Sky was when they were churning out Ice Age sequels. I don’t want that to be the case, but if their future films are anything like Despicable Me 3, then I’m going to be concerned. Directed again by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda, Despicable Me 3 came out June 30th, 2017, and while once again, gaining mixed reviews, was another billion dollar cash cow for the studio and Universal. So, where do I stand on the quickest franchise to reach a trilogy and a spin-off? Well, let’s see if my mind has changed with this film.
The story starts off with Gru, voiced by Steve Carell, and his wife Lucy, voiced by Kristen Wiig, on a mission to stop an evil villain known as Balthazar Bratt, an ex-child star-turned super-villain, voiced by the co-creator of South Park, Trey Parker. The good news is that they stop Bratt from his plan of stealing a large diamond, but the bad news is that Gru and Lucy get chewed out and fired from the Anti-Villain League for not capturing him. While making sure to comfort his kids in knowing that they will be alright, Gru gets a letter and a surprise from his long-lost rich twin brother, Dru, voiced also by Steve Carell. Gru and his family decide to visit his brother, who tries to tempt Gru back into the world of villainy. Gru takes up his brother’s offer, and decides to use this opportunity to get at Bratt. All the while, the Minions are rioting, and have left Gru. Lucy is trying to become a step-mother to Gru’s adopted daughters. Can they stop Bratt from pulling off an evil heist? Will Gru and Dru bond as brothers? Will this film try a bunch of storylines, while not putting in the effort into making those stories interesting?
I would like to get into the criticisms with this one first, but I want to get into the positives first, because I don’t hate this entire movie. The animation is, once again, very impressive. It’s pretty much the same level of quality that Minions had. Though maybe it’s just me, but I think they got their physical comedy down. Like the other films, I did find myself laughing, and as usual, it helps when the comedic animation is snappy. It’s fast enough to not be too much, and a lot of the jokes land. Balthazar Bratt is definitely a more gimmick-focused villain, due to his 80s attire, gadgets, and, well, everything else about him. However, Trey Parker does a good job with this villain, and makes him the best villain of the franchise so far. I was curious to see how Trey Parker would handle the role, and he brought a lot of great energy to the character, even if he had some cringe/eye-rolling lines.
I also respect that this film did attempt to do more than just be more comedy-oriented like the second film. I like that it brought up a few different storylines. I liked Gru and Dru’s chemistry and the stories about their parents’ reaction to them both growing up, I liked Lucy wanting to be a better mother to Gru’s kids, and I even like the mass majority of the Minions rioting and walking out on Gru because he isn’t being a super-villain anymore. I even like that throughout three major films, Gru is still a likable character. Even after being tempted to go back to the side of being a super-villain, he’s still getting back at Bratt to help his family. It would have been very easy for him to just think about himself and be this unlikable character, like Shrek was in the fourth film. Instead, he doesn’t want to stop being a father or a husband, and I like that. I was also surprised about how little the Minions were in the film. What you see in the trailers is basically what you see in the film. It has its hit-and-miss jokes, but it was decently entertaining.
If you don’t think I have complaints about this film, then I don’t know where you have been for the past couple of reviews. Personally, Despicable Me 3 shows everything that is wrong with the franchise on a film and artistic level. For every plotline they set up, they either do the bare minimum into putting effort into said plotline, or go nowhere with it. Where do they go with Gru and Dru’s relationship and the fact their parents were both disappointed with them in their own separate ways? It goes nowhere. Where does Gru and Dru’s relationship go beyond a very soft “liar’s revealed” storyline? It goes essentially nowhere. How deep is the story arc of Lucy trying to be a good mother to the girls? It has barely any focus. Do they ever dive into social commentary about Bratt, and how Hollywood and entertainment treats child actors? They do not. What about one of the girl’s subplot about her faith that unicorns exist? They do nothing with it. Do the little girls get to do a whole lot? They get to do a whole lot of nothing! I know the girls are meant to be the “heart” of the franchise and films, but if you can’t find any meaningful way to fit them into the story, then write them out of the film, by saying they are off in summer camp or something. I also wish Dru was played by a different actor. It comes off as lazy and cheap that they essentially rehashed Gru’s character model, changed it up enough, and decided to save money by hiring Carell to do the other voice.
There is so much going on, and yet, not a whole lot happens. When I wasn’t having one of the few occasional laughs, or being invested in the few decent heartfelt moments, I was bored. It once again feels like they had ideas, and the writers weren’t good enough to know what to do, or they weren’t given the freedom to risk a few elements to actually progress the story. It’s concerning, since this also made a billion dollars at the box office, and even more than that in DVD and merchandise sales. Am I missing something here? I feel like this franchise is going to turn into the new Ice Age franchise, if they don’t start putting in the effort to improve everything. Yes, I laughed, the animation is good, the voice cast does a fine job, and the action is fun to watch, but after watching the film, I was left not remembering much, or caring about what happened. It doesn’t help things that they basically set up a fourth film that’s now going to happen. In my opinion, if they cut out a few story arcs, and focused on sharper writing and storytelling, then we may have had a pretty good movie. Instead, we get fairly hollow storylines and wasted opportunities.
In the end, Despicable Me 3 is fine. It’s probably the most average film I have ever seen out of the franchise so far. I liked Gru, Lucy, and the villain, but they weren’t strong enough to make this a good movie. It baffles me how people are finally sick of the Ice Age franchise, but are not sick of this franchise for becoming hollower and more manipulative than usual. It’s not a tough watch or anything, but if they don’t’ start improving, another studio is going to come marching on through with the next new shiny thing, and Illumination will be forgotten. I am not harsh on them, because of the community getting sick of Minions, I’m harsh on them because they are talented individuals working on these films, and yet, they are perfectly fine with being boiler-plate forgettable. I hope they can improve, and if they do, then I’ll be happy to be there at any screening, and to praise the hard work at making better films. For now, I’m tired of this franchise, and I need a break. Next time, we will look at the popular TV series known as HarmonQuest. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the review, and I will see you all next time!
Rating: Rent it!
December 22, 2017 camseyeview Film Reviews CGI animation, cgi film, Chris Renaud, Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2, Despicable Me 3, Illumination Entertainment, Kristen Wiig, middle of the road review, Pierre Coffin, Steve Carell, Universal
After any movie in the theater makes a small country’s worth of money, you know Hollywood will want a sequel. It’s always a shame when a sequel doesn’t always hit the mark, since you would believe a sequel to a super popular movie would be easy to do. All you really need to do is progress the story, characters, and not repeat anything from the last film. Sadly, we do have more bad sequels than good ones. So, where does Despicable Me 2 land? Directed by Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, Despicable Me 2 came out in 2013, and while it got mixed reviews, it was still a massive financial success by making $970.8 million on an increased $76 mil budget. It even got an oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, but lost out to Frozen. So, is it better than the original? Is it funnier than the first film? Or is this the start of the downfall of Illumination Entertainment as an animation studio? Let’s get down to it!
Steve Carrell is back as Gru, now living as a happy single father with his three girls. One day, he gets a visit from a mysterious woman, and is then kidnapped by her. This dangerous individual with a lipstick taser is Lucy Wilde, voiced by Kristen Wiig. Lucy has taken Gru to an organization known as the Anti-Villain League to help out in a situation where a mutagen called PX-41 was stolen by an unknown super-villain. At first, Gru is reluctant to join, but after his partner in crime, Dr. Nefario decides to quit, since Gru is no longer a super-villain, Gru takes up the job, and joins Lucy in trying to find out who stole the mutagen.
Once again, let’s start with the good stuff. First up on the docket, the animation is 10 times better than the previous film. Say what you will about Illumination Entertainment, they quickly improved the quality. Even in that terrible The Lorax film they did, you can tell they had their animation down by that point. Everything looks better, from the textures, to the designs, to the snappier movements. It leads to the comedy being a lot funnier. Speaking of comedy, one of the biggest complaints I had of the first film was that the villain was very weak. Thankfully, the villain this time, Eduardo “El Macho” Perez, voiced by Benjamin Bratt, is a very entertaining villain. While not super complex in any way personality-wise, he’s way more amusing with a better design, lines, and probably one of the most over-the-top goofy deaths in any animated comedy. One of the big new additions to the franchise is Kristen Wiig’s Lucy Wilde. I’m usually hit-or-miss with Wiig as a comedy actress, but I think she has a lot of charm, and a couple of good laughs as well. The minions are, of course, in the movie, and do have some great laughs. I’ll even say they have some of the better laughs in the film.
Sadly, while I think this sequel does improve in a couple of ways, this is where the series started to go south for me. For one, the three daughters of Gru do not have a lot to do. Really, the oldest one played by Miranda Cosgrove has a “plot”, and even then, it’s very straight forward, and they don’t do anything with it. The other two get sidelined, and are just there because they have to be there. It’s not like they can retcon them, but you can at least do something with them. While I think Kristen Wiig is funny in this, her character is a bit too hyper and goofy. She becomes a bit much, and I think she would have been better as the slightly quirky, but serious agent that she was at the beginning of the film. The film also sadly trades in the heart for more wacky antics. It can be funny and very entertaining, but the heart and the action tend to lose a lot of its luster when there isn’t that much time to focus on the best aspect of it with Gru. I’m fine with a film trading story for comedy, but the comedy has to be good enough to forgive the lack of focus to the story. Sadly, the comedy is hit-and-miss. Some parts are really funny, and some parts aren’t. It once again has predictable story patterns that you know are going to happen, and not that I need to be surprised every time I watch a movie, I want the predictability to be entertaining. It also leaves the action to be pretty forgettable. The last third can be fun, but it doesn’t have the action seen in other animated comedies.
While improving in many ways, Despicable Me 2 is also middle-of-the-road. I enjoyed watching it for this review, and for when I made my Worst to Best Animated Films of 2013, but I don’t see myself wanting to watch it again. It has its good moments, but is just passable enough to not be anything hugely mediocre. Now then, we shall move on to the point of no return as we dive into the first spin-off film of the franchise with Minions. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the review, and I will see you all next time!
The Other Side of Animation 56: Sausage Party Review
September 14, 2016 September 14, 2016 camseyeview Film Reviews American film, Bill Hader, CGI animation, Conrad Vernon, Controversy, Danny McBride, David Krumholtz, Edward Norton, Evan Goldberg, film review, Greg Tieman, Jonah HIll, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera, Nick Kroll, Nitrogen, positive review, Salma Hayek, Sausage Party, Seth Rogen
WARNING/PARENTAL HEADS UP!: This film is in no way meant for kids. It’s rated-R for a reason, with shock humor, swearing, sex jokes, sexual events by way of food, and graphic in its jokes and imagery. Do not watch this with your kids. Hope you enjoy the review!
As much as people like to think theatrical adult-animated films are new, they really aren’t. Back in the 70s, we had a lot of stylized-adult animated films with adult themes and softcore porn. Now, to say that they are rare to see these days is true. Due to how quickly the fad of adult-animated films came and went for only a few years, it’s now almost surprising to see an animated film made for theaters, directly aimed at adults. Not to say the direct-to-DVD market hasn’t seen them, since a few have popped up, but I wouldn’t put them in the same category or quality as ones released in theaters. Sure, we got Hell & Back, but that was in no way made to be on par with or of the same quality as, say, Eight Crazy Nights, another horrible adult-animated film that Adam Sandler somehow thought was a good idea. It’s definitely a thing to keep an eye out for, but just because it’s different doesn’t warrant that it’s going to be good. This is definitely a hurdle that today’s review of Sausage Party had to contend with. This 2016 stoner-comedy comes from the minds of Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and duo of directors Conrad Vernon and Greg Tieman. It was a hyped film when it was first shown off during SXSW 2016, and a leaked script went viral online. It was a surprise hit for a month not known for great movies, but also is now caught in some controversy that I will of course talk about later on in the review. I mean, I have to. It’s the biggest news story for this film, besides how big of a hit it is. So, is this film as good as some of the big classics it’s spoofing, or has the food gone into moldy-way-past-its-time milk? Let’s find out.
The story revolves around a hot dog named Frank, voiced by Seth Rogen. He lives in a supermarket with all the food that believes and sings a song about what supposedly happens once you leave the supermarket. Frank is also in love with a hot dog bun named Brenda, voiced by Kristen Wiig. One day, Frank finds out that he and Brenda are going to be leaving in the same cart. However, on that same day, they encounter a slightly “touched” individual named Honey Mustard, voiced by Danny McBride, who tells them what really happens to food after they enter the “great beyond”. After a cart crashes into another one causing mass chaos and death of certain food items, Frank and Brenda end up in the supermarket, along with a bagel named Sammy Bagel Jr, voiced by Edward Norton, a taco named Teresa del Taco, voiced by Salma Hayek, and a Lavash named Kareem Abdul Lavash, voiced by David Krumholtz. Can they find out what is exactly going on, and also avoid a villain, voiced by Nick Kroll? What will happen to Frank’s friends played by Jonah Hill and Michael Cera?
If I’m going to be honest, I’m going to start with the negatives with this film. I don’t hate this movie, but I do think it has its handful of flaws. Maybe it’s because I have been spoiled by Edgar Wright comedies and The LEGO Movie, but I found the humor to be hit-and-miss. It’s not consistent enough as it tries to balance crude humor, stoner humor, clever humor, and food puns. I would rather have had fewer jokes that hit bullseye than a bunch of jokes where only some work. I did find myself laughing at a lot of the jokes and finding some of the situations clever, but then you would run into jokes that were crude just to be crude, because some notes from the higher-up said they needed to be crude. I also found the pacing to slow down a bit in the middle part of the film.
Now then, let’s talk about the current may-or-may-not be true controversy revolving around the studio that made Sausage Party, Nitrogen. The controversy is revolving around a bunch of anonymous animators for this film, saying that many of the animators on the film were not credited, they all worked unpaid overtime, and were abused from one of the directors, Greg Tieman. Here is how I look at the situation. If the investigation turns out to be true, and I won’t be surprised if they are, since I also worked in an industry (the game industry) known for abusive work experiences, then screw Tieman and Nitrogen for making people work unpaid overtime. Humans are not machines, and they don’t deserve the fear of blacklisting, being left off the credits, or being fired because they are exhausted. I have also heard it was to keep production budgets low, and whoever thought that, whether it be Tieman or not, can go bugger off. People these days need to be able to make a living, and not giving them the time and relaxation they need is infuriating, since you can tell this film had so much love and work put into the animation. However, if these turn out to be fake allegations, then that’s also terrible. It would be a bad image for animators who have actually gone through abusive jobs, and if these complaints turn out to be false, who is to assume that all future complaints are false? I can see either being the case, but we will have to see what happens.
So, with that out of the way, what is great about this movie? Well, I like the animation. For a small budget (and if true, unfortunate unpaid overtime), the animation is fluid, expressive, and it captures that look and vibe of something from Disney, Pixar, or those old-fashioned concession stand ads that you would see. While most studios try to have that Disney/Pixar look, this film is yet another example, alongside The Little Prince, that does a good job at making good looking humans. I also liked the vibe and characters of the film. Granted, some of the characters are a bit one-note to get some social commentary out there, but I found myself enjoying their company, since some of them were able to be fleshed out, like Michael Cera’s character, and Frank. I also like the commentary about religion this film brings up because, at first it comes off like “why in tarnation do you all believe in something that we have no proof of?”, and then becomes a bit more evened out with “yeah, we all have different beliefs, and I should be more respectful, but we have to fight or else we will get eaten!” While some of its commentary is very shallow, I do like that a stoner comedy tried to be more than just, well, a stoner comedy. I think everyone brings their A game and feels fully invested with their huge or small amount of screentime given to them. Yes, it might have a bunch of Seth Rogen’s crew, like Jonah Hill, James Franco, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson, but you also get hilarious performances from Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, Paul Rudd, Nick Kroll, Edward Norton, David Krumholtz, and the rest of the cast. I think this is why I tolerated a lot of the food puns, because when the good jokes rolled through, I was laughing hard. I even laughed at the shocking food orgy. While it was so out there, it was amazing that they got away with so much, only because it was all food. It literally gives a whole new meaning to “food porn.”
Now, in terms of it being a stepping stone for future animated films aimed at teens/older adults, I am all for it. While it might have that awkward controversy, it is a monster hit. I know some disagree with it being the film to bring in more adult-animated films, but I disagree, and think that’s just pessimistic and cynical thinking. While it might not be the very first adult-animated film, I do think it will have a place in helping more animated films get made that are aimed for an older audience. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want all adult-animated films to be just stoner comedies, but if this helps get more varied animated films than fast-paced comedies, then I welcome it.
Sausage Party might have its flaws, and while the controversy that neither Sony nor Seth Rogen have brought up at all is troubling if true, I still very much enjoyed the movie. I had a fun time even with its sometimes clunky jokes and pacing. However, this recommendation to see it does come with a huge asterisk next to it. If you can separate the film from its supposed controversy (which again, if proven to be true, I hope great things happen to those wronged in the situation, and if proven false, then screw those people), then definitely go see it. If you can’t do such a task, then maybe wait for a rental, or check it out at a discount theater so you don’t give too much money to the film. If you don’t like this movie, I perfectly understand, due to how divisive comedy can be. Well, that was tiring, but I must press ever onward with my one-year special, covering Rex the Runt. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed the article, and see you all next time.
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HomePosts tagged 'Mahershala Ali'
The Other Side of Animation 148: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Review
February 13, 2019 February 13, 2019 camseyeview Film Reviews Bob Persichetti, Brian Tyree Henry, CGI animation, cgi film, Christopher Miller, Hailee Steinfeld, Jake Johnson, Joaquin Cosio, Kathryn Hahn, Liev Schreiber, Mahershala Ali, Marvel, Peter Ramsey, Phil Lord, Rodney Rothman, Shameik Moore, Sony Pictures Animation, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse
If you saw my editorials, talking about what I would like to see change in the big budget US animation scene, I talked about how certain studios should and could use a “shot in the arm” with trying out more ambitious storylines and visual styles. Animation is such a wonderful medium that is hamstrung by studios not bothering with stepping out of their comfort zones. Thankfully, Sony Pictures Animation decided to be a brave individual, and show that not only do you not need to spend triple digit millions, but can also make massive long-term profit and award acclaim with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Directed by the trio of Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti, and Rodney Rothman, Spider-Verse was released back in December to universal acclaim, winning a massive pile of awards, and has certified itself by a team of me, myself, and I, as the best US animated film of 2018. Shall we swing into the review?
The story revolves around Miles Morales, voiced by Shameik Moore. He’s a high school student who lives in a world where Spider-Man exists. Nothing is really all that different here in this universe. Spider-Man, voiced by Chris Pine, is loved, Miles dad, voiced by Brian Tyree Henry doesn’t trust Spider-Man, and Miles doesn’t really care about going the distance in becoming a better person. After hanging out with his uncle Aaron Davis, voiced by Mahershala Ali, Miles encounters Spider-Man attempting to stop King Pin, voiced by Liev Schreiber from using a giant machine to cause some supposed chaos. Luckily, Spider-Man sort of stops the machine from working while fending off Green Goblin and The Prowler. The bad news is that Spider-Man ends up getting killed by King Pin. The city is then swept over by sorrow from the loss of Spider-Man, and Miles feels responsible for the death of his universe’s Spider-Man. That is, until he encounters a much more self-defeated Peter Parker aka Spider-Man, voiced by Jake Johnson, from another universe. As the two try to find a way to get the alternate Spider-Man back to his own dimension, they encounter other Spider-Men from different dimensions. This includes Spider-Gwen, voiced by Hailee Steinfeld, Spider-Man Noir, voiced by Nicholas Cage, SP//dr, a Japanese anime-style Spider-Man/robot pilot voiced by Kimiko Glenn, and Spider-Ham, voiced by John Mulaney. They team up to try and stop King Pin, along with his lackeys Prowler, Tombstone, voiced by Marvin Jones III, Doctor Octopus, voiced by Kathryn Han, and Scorpion, voiced by Joaquin Cosio, from starting up the machine again, and possibly destroying Miles’ universe.
Like a couple of times in my reviews, I want to talk about the animation first. This was the first big selling point when everyone saw the first teaser trailer for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The visuals are literally jaw dropping. You will lose your jaw, and then have to go get it surgically reattached with how incredible and striking the visuals are. Everyone has said it, and it’s true, it looks like a literal moving comic book. The bright colors, the many details you would see in most comic books, the textures, the lighting, the designs, and how it all meshes well. Not one character from the different dimensions stands out in a bad way. Everything flows and gels well. I have seen some people argue that the animation is bad, but I’m sorry, that’s just objectively wrong. If you follow animation, then you know Spider-Verse does not have bad animation. The slower framerate and movements are there for a reason. If everything moved as fast as say, Sony’s Hotel Transylvania franchise, it would be an eye sore with all the bright and multi-colored visuals. It’s a style of animation that is used in other parts of the world, like in The Painting and Zombillenium. It’s used to work with the unique art style and not a budget limitation. When you see as much animation that varies in both budget and quality, you can see what is style and what is bad animation. Norm of the North is bad animation. Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse is good animation. End of lecture.
In terms of the story, Spider-Verse has one of the most complex and complete stories out of most animated films in 2018. It’s the best told story among the US-made films. Films like Incredibles 2 and Ralph Breaks the Internet felt like they either didn’t go far enough with their themes and story, or only went at them in ways where they only go 50% and not 100%. Spider-Man fully commits to its multi-verse storyline mixed in with themes of coming of age, finding your own identity, not being fixated on events from the past, what it means to be a hero, and the harsh realities of being a hero. Every character works well with one another, and they treat everyone as characters. Sure, you can argue and nitpick and say that three of the six Spider-Mans don’t get as much development as the other three, but all six aren’t the main focus. The real focus is on Spider-Gwen, Miles, and Jake Johnson’s Peter Parker. Even Miles’ parents and Parker’s Aunt May are easily some of the best characters out of the movie. It’s so shocking to see an animated film treat everyone with actual dimension and not as one-note archetypes. While you can say that this film’s version of King Pin is not as good as the Netflix one, that isn’t really fair. This is one movie, whereas the Netflix one had three seasons to flesh out the character. It’s not really a perfect one on one comparison. However, you still get why King Pin is doing what he’s doing in the movie, and that’s pretty good. I also like how the film skims over origin stories. We really don’t need another Spider-Man movie that takes 40 minutes of its runtime to flesh out what happens. At least, it’s not a 100% origin story with the exception of Miles Morales, who has probably one of the best developments and stories out of any superhero movie.
The voice cast for this film is perfect, and everyone seems to be on board and on the same level as everyone else. This isn’t like Venom or The Meg, where everyone, but one or two people know what kind of movie they are in. The talent is crazy good with Shameik Moore, Brian Tyree Henry, Mahershala Ali, Hailee Steinfield, Nicolas Cage, John Mulaney, Liev Schreiber, Jake Johnson, Lily Tomlin, Luna Lauren Velez, Kimiko Glenn, and as usual, seeing the late great Stan Lee in one of his last cameos is touching and endearing. The music is also incredible with plenty of amazing pop and rap songs that fit the tone perfectly. I even bought the soundtrack after I saw the film. I still listen to Vince Staples’ track.
I really have no complaints about this movie. It’s truly the best US-made animated film of 2018, and congrats to Sony Pictures Animation for their successful 2018 line-up of animated features. Sure, I have minor gripes, but they really don’t matter when everything else is so strong. I highly recommend checking this film out, or getting it on blu-ray the day it comes out. It’s smart, funny, endearing, action-packed, and a blast. I think anyone who thought Sony Pictures Animation should just shut down and “drop dead” need to go crawl under a rock and never come back. Now then, before we hit 150, let’s keep making sure everything is awesome with LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. Thanks for reading, I hope you all enjoyed the review, and I will see you all next time.
Rating: Criterion/Essentials
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How to Deal With a Relationship That Ended With the Silent Treatment
By Arlin Cuncic
••• Pixland/Pixland/Getty Images
You and your partner were dating for months, when you got into a huge argument. The night ended with her walking out on you and ignoring your calls and texts. It's been a couple weeks now and though you try to put it from your mind, you still can't believe the relationship ended like that. If she broke up with you by using the silent treatment, it's time to reclaim your strength.
Stop Contact
The silent treatment is a particularly toxic form of behavior that can lead to the breakdown of relationships. When a partner gives you the silent treatment, you might feel a crazy need to make him talk. His behavior reflects his need to gain control over the situation -- and by chasing him, you are rewarding his efforts, writes therapist Margaret Paul, in the "Yourtango.com" article, "The Silent Treatment: A Harmful Way To Get What You Want." Instead, take a walk, read a book -- do anything that will get your mind off of the fact that you are being ignored.
If you still have unanswered questions as to why you were given the silent treatment, you have a right to ask -- especially if it was unexpected, says evolutionary epistemologist Jeremy Sherman in the "Psychology Today" article, "The Silent Treatment: When People Leave You Guessing." Don't make the mistake of continuing to contact someone in the hopes that he will speak to you again, but do state your case. Send an email or text that says, "I am not sure why you are not speaking to me. If you would like to talk about it, please let me know."
Being given the silent treatment can leave you feeling lonely, anxious and scared. You might blame yourself or feel as though you did something wrong to cause your partner's reaction. The solution to this problem, is to take responsibility for your own feelings and take care of yourself, writes Paul. Tell yourself things like, "My partner has chosen to punish me for whatever reason. I can't control what he is doing and it is not a good way to handle things." Say things like, "I am a good person and I deserve love." Get active, go out with friends and immerse yourself in activities that take your mind off of your partner.
Manage Anger
As tempting as it is to become angry and resentful of your partner, try to minimize those feelings, writes Paul. Once you become stronger in your belief that you deserve to be treated well, it will be easier to have compassion for a partner who might be hurting inside. Don't tie your own value to another person -- and it won't be as hurtful when that person withdraws. The silent treatment is not really about the withdrawal of love, but rather approval, and you should only need approval from yourself.
Your Tango: The Silent Treatment: A Harmful Way To Get What You Want
Psychology Today: The Silent Treatment: When People Leave You Guessing
Psych Central: The 4 Things That Will Break Up Your Relationship
Arlin Cuncic has been writing about mental health since 2007, specializing in social anxiety disorder and depression topics. She served as the managing editor of the "Journal of Attention Disorders" and has worked in a variety of research settings. Cuncic holds an M.A. in clinical psychology.
Pixland/Pixland/Getty Images
How to Deal With Contempt
Guidance & Counseling Techniques
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Brazilian state eyes more tax breaks for automakers -newspaper
SAO PAULO, Jan 23 (Reuters) - The governor of Brazil's Sao Paulo state said additional tax breaks may be extended to all automakers operating in the state, newspaper Valor Economico reported on Wednesday, suggesting that pressure from General Motors Co could benefit rivals too.
GM warned its employees in Brazil last week of "sacrifices" that would be necessary for the company to return to profit in the South American nation, raising concerns about layoffs or shuttered assembly lines. On Tuesday, the carmaker told public officials and unions it was in talks with Sao Paulo state about tax incentives.
"Any support given to GM will be offered to the broader auto industry in all of Sao Paulo," Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria told Valor at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Representatives for the state government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brazil's second-largest seller of cars and light trucks, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, does not have plants in Sao Paulo state, but Volkswagen AG, the third-largest in the country, has three.
Last year, Brazil's federal government granted carmakers a 15-year package of tax breaks – extending subsidies for an industry that has struggled to compete directly with production elsewhere.
Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, who took office as part of a new business-friendly federal government this month, has said Brazil cannot afford to keep subsidizing powerful industries, arguing that an end to protectionist policies will make the economy more competitive. (Writing by Marcelo Rochabrun Editing by Paul Simao)
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Wells Fargo and Barclays back fintech company OpenFin
Anna Irrera
NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - Financial services software startup OpenFin has raised $17 million in a funding round led by Wells Fargo & Co with participation from Barclays , the company said on Thursday.
Existing investors including JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bain Capital Ventures and Pivot Investment Partners, also participated in the round, the company said.
OpenFin, which is headquartered in New York and London, will use the cash injection to accelerate sales efforts and for product development, it said.
Founded in 2010, the company has developed an operating system that enables financial institutions to more easily create and upgrade their computer applications, similarly to how consumer apps are updated on smartphones.
This can help large firms cut down on the time and money needed to modernize the software they use for a wide array of both front- and back-office functions, such as trading or risk management.
It would otherwise take between 6 to 18 months for a financial institution to deploy or update an application, OpenFin said.
Over the past few years, banks have been ramping up partnerships and investments in young companies that create products and services which can help large financial institutions remain competitive in an increasingly digital world.
"Banks know that they need to significantly reduce their cost of doing business and they need to increase productivity," Mazy Dar, chief executive and co-founder of OpenFin, said in an interview.
"All of this heavy infrastructure needs to be replaced with something that is a lot more agile and nimble."
OpenFin's operating system is used on nearly 200,000 desktops at 15 global investment banks and more than 1,500 other banks and buy-side firms, it said.
The latest investment brings the company's total amount of venture funding to $40 million. (Reporting by Anna Irrera Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
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Gaspar Family Crest, Coat of Arms and Name History
Notes: None. Blazon: Azure a star within a crescent or.
Origin, Meaning, Family History and Gaspar Coat of Arms and Family Crest
Gaspar Coat of Arms Meaning
The two main devices (symbols) in the Gaspar blazon are the mullet and crescent. The two main tinctures (colors) are azure and or.
The bright, strong blue color in Heraldry is known in English as azure, and similarly in other European languages – azul in Spanish, azurro in Italian and azur in French. The word has its roots in the Arabic word lazura, also the source of the name of the precious stone lapis lazuli 1. Despite this, those heralds who liked to associate colours with jewels chose instead to describe blue as Sapphire. According to Wade, the use of this colour symbolises “Loyalty and Truth” 2.
Or is the heraldic metal Gold, often shown as a bold, bright yellow colour. It is said to show “Generosity and elevation of the mind” 3. Later heralds, of a more poetic nature liked to refer to it as Topaz, after the gemstone, and, for obvious reasons associated it with the Sun 4. In drawings without colour it is usually represented by many small dots, or by the letter ‘O’ 5.
The heraldic mullet, not to be confused with the fish of that name, is shown as a regular, five pointed star. This was originally, not an astronomical object, but represented the spur on a horseman’s boot, especially when peirced, with a small circular hole in the centre it represents a type of spur known as a “rowel” 6. A clear example can be found in the arms of Harpendene, argent, a mullet pierced gules. The ancient writer Guillim associated such spurs in gold as belonging to the Knight, and the silver to their esquires 7. In later years, Wade linked this five pointed star with the true celestial object, the estoile and termed it a “falling star”, symbolising a “divine quality bestowed from above” 8.
For easy recognition of the items on a coat of arms, and hence the quick identification of the owner, bold simple shapes are best. Hence, simple geometric shapes are often used for this purpose 9xz`, and the crescent Is a typical example of this, and can appear in any of the main heraldic tinctures. Some common is this device that there are special names for its appearance in various orientations – whilst it lies normally with points upward, the decrescent points to the sinister side, and the increscent to the dexter 10. The allusion, obviously is to the shape of the moon in the sky (indeed, the French have a version “figuré” which includes a face!) and has been said to signify both “honour by the sovereign” and “hope of greater glory” 11.
1 A Glossary of Terms used in British Heraldry, J.H. Parker, Oxford, 1894, Entry:Azure
5 A Complete Guide to Heraldry, A.C. Fox-Davies, Bonanza (re-print of 1909 Edition), New York, 1978, P76-77
7 A Display of Heraldry, J. Guillim, Blome, London, 1679, P107
10 A Glossary of Terms used in British Heraldry, J.H. Parker, Oxford, 1894, Entry:Moon
11 The Symbolisms of Heraldry, W. Cecil Wade, George Redway, London, 1898 P106
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Formation of Department
After the appointed trustees began their terms it was time to get started forming the Fire Department.
The proposed budget for the fiscal year ending 1957 was $23,085. Included in that budget was money for a deposit on land owned by the Illinois Iron and Bolt Company. This property was located at Spring Street and Green Street.
Equipment Housing
This was instrumental for the district because the equipment was still housed at the Village. The Village was still responsible for expenses of the district until tax monies were received by the district. The Trustees appointed Earl Schartow as the chief who was also the chief of the Village Volunteer Fire Department at that time.
However, when assuming something as large as a Fire Department, there are many issues to consider. The district decided to rent space from the Village for housing the fire equipment until the stations were built. They also agreed to pay the Village $1,500 for all the various pieces of fire equipment that the Village-owned.
Maps had to be updated and Chief Schartow proposed higher pay for his men. The firemen were paid every six months.
New Engine
Chief Schartow also proposed buying a new engine. In 1958 a bid was awarded to American LaFrance for $21,777.55 to be paid over five years.
New Fire Stations
A bond referendum was to be set for May 10, 1958, for the amount of $100,000 for two new fire stations. However, there is no record as to how this bond was received.
The bond was issued for $102,000 in April of 1959 and work began to accept bids for construction on the stations. Clinton Peters, Sr. was appointed to Treasurer due to the death of Mr. Schroeder.
Donations & Fundraising
In June of 1959, the part-time firemen donated the boats and trailers to the district. The firemen held fundraisers and spaghetti dinners to raise money for equipment.
On Sunday, April 24, 1960, the dedication of the two new fire stations was held. The VFW donated a flag and ceremonies were held at Station One on Spring Street.
Throughout the leadership of Chief Earl Schartow, many new pieces of equipment were purchased. Every month (according to Trustee minutes) the chief came to the board meetings with requisitions for equipment and ideas to enhance the Fire Department.
Most of the time he was granted these requests. He sent his men to training seminars and classes. In 1959 a Mack fire engine was purchased for $22,212.40.
Changes in Leadership
Things were really starting to progress with regards to money coming into the district. This must have been an exciting time with all the changes going on.
One unexpected change that took place was the retirement of Chief Earl Schartow on July 8, 1960. Nothing was noted as to why, but he wrote a letter of resignation and presented it to the Board of Trustees.
The Board of Trustees appointed Richard C. Paul as chief for the fiscal year of 1960. This was still a part-time position.
Walk-in Vans
In 1961 two walk-in vans were bought with one housed at each station. The emergency equipment was kept on the engines at the time and was transferred to the vans. These vans were used to carry first aid supplies and emergency equipment.
Chief Richard Paul
By 1962 the Trustees voted that Chief Richard Paul be appointed to another one year term as a full-time employee. He was paid $6,500 a year based on a 44 hour work week. He continued sending himself and other officers to fire classes and Universities to learn as much as possible about technological advancements in the fire service.
It was known throughout the area that the Carpentersville Fire Department was an aggressive department with good firemen.
Full-Time Firemen
On August 16, 1965, three people were hired as the full-time firemen. David Pearson, James Crotty and Jerry Dziewior. They were paid $450 a month. The number of full-time men was at four, with the majority of the members being “volunteer.”
Fire prevention and education were being done in the schools and at the stations. A pension fund was established for the full-time employees, fire inspections were being conducted and the community continued to grow. Certain homeowners that were not in the district asked to be annexed into the district.
Elgin Agreement
Chief Richard Paul entered into an agreement with Elgin Fire Chief Van de Voorde on a mutual aid proposal that would allow Elgin and Carpentersville to assist each other when needed. Soon after other Villages and Townships entered into similar agreements with Elgin and Carpentersville. These included:
East Dundee
Pingree Grove
By 1969 the administrative workload had increased tremendously. The chief was swamped with clerical work. He made a request to hire a secretary and on September 8, 1969, Mrs. Phyllis Bruggeman started with the Fire Department.
She worked four hours a day at $2.25 an hour. Captain John Pearson was quoted as saying that, Phyllis was the backbone of the department for many years. If you needed to know anything, you went to Phyllis. Phyllis served as secretary to four Chiefs, was a trustee on the Board, a dispatcher and a mother figure to a lot of firemen.
Phyllis spent many of her lunch hours with the firemen and told stories along with them. She retired in October 1995 after nearly 27 years of dedicated service.
The decade of the ’70s brought many acquisitions. In 1971 two new emergency vans were purchased at the price of $5,544. Firefighters worked to convert them to ambulances.
An offer to the Oak Park Fire Department for a ladder truck was made for $6,000. The truck was a 1942 American LaFrance and was purchased in August.
Fuel at Station 2
Vehicles received fuel from various gas stations throughout town. Nevertheless, a couple of these stations went out of business. Chief Paul requested a 1000 gallon tank and pump be put in at station 2.
An ordinance was adopted in January 1971 with regards to having commissioners for the fire district and that was adopted. The first three commissioners were Mr. Edwin Alberts, Mr. Arthur Pringle and the Reverend Glenn Mensing.
Ambulance Service & Dispatching
In March of 1971 legislation was being pushed by the Illinois Department of Public Health to make ambulance service available solely through the Fire Department.
When one of the emergency vans went to a call, they did not necessarily transport the patient. The officer would determine if a private ambulance could be used. If they rendered the call a life or death situation, the Fire Department would transport.
Dispatching was performed by the Police Department throughout these times, although it was becoming a burden to them. The district decided to require the first responding fireman to the station to take the radio. They hired dispatchers to come in during the day to dispatch calls.
Pictured: Larry Campbell, Charles Wagner and Steve Zaccard
Acquiring More Apparatuses
An accident that involved Truck 99 resulted in a total loss. A used ladder truck was needed until the new Pirsch arrived. They purchased a 1942 truck from Philadelphia, the engine blew.
A flatbed truck was used to finish the trip back to Carpentersville. Once back in town they took an engine from “Old Engine 93” and put it in the truck. This truck was used until the delivery of the Pirsch in 1975.
July of 1973 bids were taken for a 100-foot ladder truck. Bids were received from seven companies and three made the last cut. These were Peter Pirsch and Sons, Mack Trucks and Ward La France Corporation. Peter Pirsch was awarded the contract for $96,208. This aerial ladder truck was in service until March of 2000.
Ambulance Service Changes
A very important time in the district’s future was about to surface. A special election was to be held to determine if the ambulance service should be the sole responsibility of the district.
Mr. True of Northwest Ambulance Service came to a Board meeting because he was concerned that this action would put ambulance companies out of business. On May 23, 1972, a canvass of voters turned down this referendum 1201 against 817 for the ambulance service.
Also in 1972, Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) became a reality. EMT’s were trained in first aid and first responder aspects. In 1973, Jack Epperson became a paramedic through McHenry Hospital, and Sherman Hospital held their first paramedic class in 1974.
Sherman became a resource hospital in 1975. It should be known that Carpentersville was the first town in this area to have an ambulance staffed with paramedics.
Carpentersville would answer paramedic calls to neighboring towns. The paramedics that Carpentersville had at the time were graduates of Sherman Hospital’s first paramedic class in 1974.
In June of 1973, some problems began to arise. A well-liked, level headed Trustee by the name of Kazmir Palac retired. At that time the Dundee Township Board of Auditors were responsible for appointing a new Fire District Trustee.
James Evans
A man named James Evans was appointed. As a Trustee, he was concerned with the dealings of the Fire District. He questioned some of the practices of the Fire District and made no secret of his opposition toward Carpentersville’s involvement in emergency care and transport of patients.
He would no longer allow firefighters to go with the ambulance to the hospital. This did not sit well with the Fire District as they felt that Trustee Evans was trying to keep them from providing ambulance service and emergency medical aid. He went so far as to ask the Village to take over the Fire District.
This was not successful, but history shows this was not the last attempt.
Trustee Referendum
Considering these problems the district held a referendum on whether Trustees should be appointed or elected. On February 9, 1974, the voters decided to have Trustees elected. After a couple more years of waiting, another vote to see if the residents wanted the district to provide sole ambulance service was held on October 15, 1977.
A special tax of one-quarter of 1% on an assessment of one hundred dollars maximum was requested. The referendum passed 591 for and 377 against. The resolution passed. Chief Paul was quoted as saying The prime responsibility of the fire service is to save life and property, and to prevent human suffering.
In 1979 the district decided to sign a contract with Quadcom. The Board of Directors consisted of one official from the neighboring towns of East Dundee, West Dundee and Rutland Dundee, but there was no representative from Carpentersville. The district Trustees had felt they could dispatch more efficiently with their own dispatch center and posted an add for communication specialist/fireman.
On January 11, 1984, Richard J. Paul, was hired as a communications specialist. Quadcom still had the dispatching until May of 1984. Captain Zaccard and Rick Paul were in charge of purchasing the computers, telephones and necessary hardware to get things operational.
In February of 1985, a recruit training class for new dispatchers began and lasted until April. Those that passed were placed on a list and waited to be hired. Rick Paul was thoroughly trained and experienced in emergency dispatching.
Chief Paul had Rick do the hiring and training of dispatchers. They needed to take both written and practical tests. Drills also were held to keep them up to date and sharpen their skills once they were hired.
Medi-Alarm System
With the advanced technology in the mid-’80s, a couple of programs were implemented in the Fire Department. The Medi-Alarm system was put in place.
This consisted of a remote control with a base unit that could automatically dial the Fire Department for people with physical difficulties who were unable to get to the telephone. It would give the address of the person needing help through a computer programmed voice device.
This system received rave reviews from the public as well as state and local government officials. AT&T stated that this program was the first in the nation to be used in the private sector. Public relations at the time were very important to the district because of the wary public perception with the Fire Department dispatching their own calls.
Status Program
One other program that Chief Paul started was a status program. This was a computer-generated data system to track manpower within the district. It was technology and the fire service working hand in hand.
The basis of accurate data depended on the firefighters' cooperation. If a firefighter was to leave town or be somehow unavailable to respond to a call he would be required to inform the dispatcher of his status.
There were three classes of status: gone, slow and sick. These different status classes allowed the Chief to determine how far away from the station a firefighter might be or how long it would take a firefighter to respond.
Chief Paul's Retirement
November 9, 1987, Chief Paul retired after 35 dedicated years of service, 27 years of which he served as Fire Chief. The Chief had many accomplishments during his tenure. Apparatus was updated, specialty tools and equipment were purchased, the dispatching service and Medi-Alarm system were implemented along with many other improvements.
The Chief was rewarded and presented with a gold badge and the district ordered a cornerstone to place in the wall at station one on Spring Street for his many years of service. The Board also let him keep his Chief’s car “rusty bolts and all.”
Pictured: Chief John Helfert and then Lieutenant Steven Guetschow with poster contest winner
Chief Helfert
The man hired to fill the Chief’s shoes was John Helfert. Chief Helfert had been on the Carpentersville Fire Department in the past, serving as a firefighter and later as a part-time Deputy Chief. He also was Chief of the Algonquin Fire Department for ten years.
One thing that the district Trustees did before hiring Helfert was keep Former Chief Paul on as an advisor to the Board and to Chief Helfert. Chief Helfert wanted to change the present shirts the firemen were wearing. They were dark blue and really hot in the summer. He changed them to light blue, and the “blue shirt firemen” sure appreciated it.
Chief Helfert was also very public education oriented and took pride in the schools' fire education program.
However, Chief Helfert was in poor health for most of his time with the district and was not 100% capable of performing his duties to the best of his ability throughout his tenure as Chief. He requested medical leave on April 29, 1991. After returning for a short time he retired on September 27, 1991.
In the absence of a Chief, the two Captains acted as the authority of the Fire Chief.
Ronald L. Creek
On August 19, 1991, the district Board members interviewed Ronald L. Creek. They hired him to start September 25, 1991. He had previously been with the department for thirteen years as lieutenant and inspector prior to moving out of the area. On his return, Mr. Creek stated that the equipment was the same as when he left.
Chief Creek implemented a few programs to gain some rapport with the community. He offered free blood pressure checks to the public, and Operation Rescue, which was a door to door survey conducted by the firemen. Information was obtained with regards to the number of people residing in the home, if there any invalids, or any other information about hazards in the home.
This was a good program, but unfortunately, the amount of manpower and data processing it took to maintain these records was too much for the Fire Department current resources. The program was terminated.
New Pumpers, Tanks, & Air Cascade System
Chief Creek also received approval to purchase two new 1250 GPM triple combination pumpers from Alexis. One being a 750-gallon booster tank and the other a 1000 gallon booster tank.
He also purchased a new air cascade system from Air One and updated the SCBAs (self-contained breathing apparatus). The process for getting two new ambulances also was approved.
Carpentersville Firefighters Association
A need for written policy and procedures created the Carpentersville Firefighters Association (CFA). The CFA was voted the bargaining unit for the firefighters after a vote was held and proper paperwork with the state was completed.
This eventually led the Carpentersville Village Board to vote and take over the Carpentersville and Countryside Fire Protection District. This was made possible by the fact that over 50% of the district was in the Carpentersville Village limits. By law, this could happen. This historical event took effect May 1994.
Deputy Chief
Throughout that year the Village decided to make a change. They hired a Deputy Chief from Mount Prospect by the name of Del Ulreich. He started May 1, 1995.
Chief Ulreich had an open door policy and right from the start talked to the firefighters to get their ideas and thoughts on how to proceed into the future. Changes have been a welcome sight since Chief Ulreich’s hire.
New Radios, Headsets, & Patches
Updating the mapping system, new portable radios and headsets for the engineers were purchased. Three new Fire Department patches were designed and after a vote one was picked.
The painting and sprucing up of both stations were completed and the completion of the day room at Station One took place. A ventilation system was installed at both stations and policies and procedures were updated and implemented.
With all the expansion taking place west of the Fox River, plans needed to be considered for the construction of a third fire station. Chief Ulreich worked hard to get a temporary station in place by the fall of 1996.
1995 also saw the department reach its 80th anniversary. This was celebrated with a parade including 24 pieces of apparatus from 14 different Fire Departments. Civic and social groups also participated.
At Station One there was a puppet show for the kids on fire safety, a fire pole and a smoke safety trailer for the children to go through and play on. Phyllis Bruggeman was the Grand Marshall of the event to cap off her retirement from the department. With 80 years now on the books, the next 80 ought to be just great!
Acknowledgments & References
Carpentersville Fire Department Origins
Fire Apparatuses
Firefighting Origins
Historical Board Meeting Minutes
Original Roster
Personnel & Equipment
Village Founding
Village of Carpentersville
1200 L.W. Besinger Drive
Carpentersville, IL 60110
Hours: Monday through Friday
Forms / Permits
Water Bills
Recently Passed Ordinances
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/Marvel
Falcon & The Winter Soldier
Avengers Project
Marvel: Contest Of Champions
'Avengers: Infinity War' Writers Explain Killing That Popular Hero
By Brandon Davis - May 2, 2018 09:59 pm EDT
Avengers: Infinity War earned quite a few audible reactions from audiences and some were a bit louder than others in the film's final moments. The writers regret none of them.
Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War follow. Major spoilers!
Among the characters who disappeared with half of the universe after Thanos snapped his fingers was Black Panther. The wildly popular character only broke out as a global phenomenon a few months ago and, already, he's seemingly been taken away from fans. Avengers: Infinity War screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely regret nothing about making fans feel such a tragic loss.
“First of all, we would do it all over again,” McFeely told Buzzfeed. "But remember, when we’re writing [Infinity War], and even shooting, there is no Black Panther movie. We don’t know it’s going to be so good, so effective, so resonant. And we had to treat all these characters the same. People who leave us [in Infinity War] are the leads of their own franchises. And Black Panther’s no different."
The main characters being erased from the universe was a decision made to make the stakes feel as great as the truly were when Thanos got his big victory. “We wanted that thing that happens at the end of that movie to have as much impact as possible,” Markus said. “If you're very carefully getting rid of your supporting cast, then it does seem like you’re pulling your punch."
While many suspect the next Avengers movie will undo a good number of those deaths and disappearances, the writers are warning fans not to be so optimistic.
“[Avengers 4] doesn’t do what you think it does,” Markus said. “It is a different movie than you think it is...Also…[the deaths are] real. I just want to tell you it’s real, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you will be able to move on to the next stage of grief."
“Put it this way,” McFeely chimed in, “I think [Infinity War] is a fairly mature movie for a blockbuster. It’s got a lot of fun in it, obviously, but boy, it gets very mature. The second one is also mature. We’re going to own these choices, and hopefully surprise and delight you and get you invested. It’s by the same studio, the same filmmaking team. They were written at the same time, shot at the same time. They’re clearly connected, but they are definitely two different movies, one of which is dependent on what happened previous.”
“We broke your heart,” Markus added. “Now we're going to blow your mind!”
Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War are now playing in theaters. Ant-Man and The Wasp is set for release on July 6, 2018. Captain Marvel will follow it on March 6, 2019, with the untitled Avengers 4 set to tie everything about the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a bow on May 3, 2019. Leave your Marvel questions and thoughts in the comment section below or send them to @BrandonDavisBD on Twitter!
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Cathedral of Trees Restoration Project
The Glencruitten Cathedral of Trees (SCIO)
Location: Oban
This project has 912 votes
Back to the projects
Funding level: Up to £1,000
The Cathedral of Trees is situated within the Glencruitten Woods about 2 miles outside Oban in Argyll. These woods are one of the few local green spaces and are much used by the local community for walking and general recreation.
The Cathedral was created in 1921 by Alexander Mackay, the then owner of Glencruitten estate who was an early pioneer in forestry. He saw his tree planting programme as a way of helping to replace the woodlands that had been lost to the nation through the demand for timber during the First World War. Forestry work and the creation of woodland tracks was also a way of giving employment to local people - many of them soldiers returning from the trenches and in need of work. Hidden in the woodland plantation, Mackay laid out his Cathedral of Trees. Shaped in the traditional cross formation, it is entirely created out of trees, hedges and other plants. It was his memorial to the First World War, a celebration of trees and their importance to all life, a testament to his faith commitment and a place for peace and recreation.
Today the Cathedral is in some disrepair. The drainage system has collapsed over the years, causing the the paths to be eroded by rain water and making them unsafe for visitors with mobility problems. Because of the water logged ground, many of the trees and hedges have died back, some beyond redemption. Yet even in this depleted state, local people continue to visit (about 50 per week) and to find enjoyment in its special atmosphere.
In 2016, The Glencruitten Cathedral of Trees (SCIO) was formed with the aim of restoring this unique cathedral (the only one of its kind in Scotland) and making it available as a resource for learning, volunteering and recreation for the local community. We held an open consultation meeting in April, listened to people's hopes for the Cathedral’s future and now have a group of volunteers and members, all committed to the restoration and development of the site. We are also building links with local organisations and interest groups with a view to partnership working.
THE CATHEDRAL OF TREES RESTORATION PROJECT aims to reinstate the drainage system and upgrade the paths.
This work will involve:-
Clearing away overgrown vegetation at the entrance to the site,
Digging out and directing the water away from the paths and into the drainage channels,
Reducing the gradient at the entrance.
Repairing the paths, digging out stones, weeds etc, laying hard core and resetting the levels
with a smooth crushed grit surface.
Key tasks are to be carried out by a local contractor but with volunteers also involved. 80 tonnes of hard core stone and crushed grit have been donated by a local quarry for this work.
OUTCOMES will include:
More people (especially the elderly and those with mobility problems) able to access the site,
Opportunities for schools and other groups to get involved during and after this project.
A sense of achievement and well being for all involved.
A feel of 'a cared for' space.
An improvement to the ground structure enabling the regeneration and well being of the existing trees and shrubs.
Lower maintenance.
An enhanced experience for anyone walking in the woods
A significant step towards the regeneration of a living sacred space for the health and well being of the community.
Restoration of the drains and paths was identified as a priority by Jane Kelly, Garden Designer and Artist, who visited the site in March 1017 to evaluate and advise on the overall Regeneration Project.
Moment of Pride
The Cathedral of Trees is a unique and beautiful place with an interesting history. Once restored it can be a rich resource that contributes to the health and well being of the local community. The commitment of all involved in its regeneration has been amazing. That's what makes me proud!
To connect with this organisation
glencruittencathedraloftrees.org
Contact them directly at:
nicolamjmoll3@gmail.com
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Hyeonsik Shin
Major: PhD
Official Professional Achievement badge awarded by the Department of Management Information Systems
Click here to validate the recipient
Hyeonsik Shin is a doctoral student in Management Information Systems at Fox School of Business in Temple University. Before joining the MIS PhD program in 2018, he received B.A. in Urban Administration from University of Seoul in South Korea and M.S. in Business Administration from Seoul National University in South Korea. His research interests include Economics of Information Systems, Electronic Commerce and Social Network Analysis. He has had diverse experiences which inspired him to reach higher: serving a military service in the U.S. army in South Korea, participating in a volunteer abroad program in India, working as a sales intern in Chicago, and studying as an exchange student in Spain.
View CV
© 2017 · DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS · FOX SCHOOL OF BUSINESS · TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
Disclaimer: The information included in e-portfolios are posted and maintained by the applicable individual. Temple University makes no representation as to the accuracy or currency of this information.
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Behind the Scenes: The Planning and Logistics of Sochi 2014
By J T. Ramsay | Feb 11, 2014
Ever wonder what's involved in producing the Olympics? Variety spoke with David Mazza, Senior VP and Chief Technical Officer, NBC Sports Group and NBC Olympics, about the "massive undertaking" that began shortly after closing ceremonies in London.
With a relatively short gap between the end of the Summer Games and the start of the next Winter Games, the first advance teams hit the ground in Russia just months after London wrapped. "We had people here for almost a year who were doing the advance planning, making deals with the hotels and the car companies," says Mazza.
It's a fascinating read that takes you behind the scenes of the biggest Winter Games in history.
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Edward Furlong Returning As John Connor For ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ – Comic-Con
‘Frozen’ Passes ‘Toy Story 3’ As #1 Animated Film Ever With $1.072B Worldwide
By Nancy Tartaglione
Nancy Tartaglione
International Editor
@DeadlineNancy
More Stories By Nancy
Mane Attraction: ‘The Lion King’ Crossing $100M Overseas Today As Rollout Extends Beyond China
Venice Film Festival To Open With Hirokazu Kore-eda’s ‘The Truth’
‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ Lassos $847M Global & Tops Franchise Offshore With $573M; ‘Lion King’ Reigns In China – International Box Office
As Frozen skated its way into Japan on March 14, the question began to loom larger and larger: Could the movie break Toy Story 3‘s $1,063,171,911 in worldwide box office to become the highest-grossing animated film of all time? When Bob Iger predicted it would happen, the reality of such a possibility crystalized further. And now, in its 19th international frame, the two-time Oscar winner has overtaken Disney’s TS3, earning $1,072,402,000 to win the crown of highest-grossing global animated release, ever. It’s also raced ahead of another Disney movie, Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, to make it to No. 10 on the all-time worldwide box office chart. Ironically, the new notch comes one week after Frozen fell out of the domestic Top 10 for the first time during its long run. Japan, where multiples for openings can sometimes be as high as 15, was key to pushing it over the worldwide take of Toy Story 3. The market was the last to open, but after three weeks is the 3rd biggest for the movie with a cume of $50.5M, $7.5M of it added this weekend. It’s still No. 1 in Japan, and Asia overall has been exceedingly warm to Frozen. In Korea, its top grossing market, it has taken an astounding $77.1M, making it one of the Top Five biggest movies of the past five years there. Following Korea are the UK with $64.6M and Japan. China was good for $48.9M, followed by Germany ($48.1M), France ($42.6M), Russia ($33.4M), Australia ($30.9M), Italy ($27.4M), Mexico ($25.7M), Spain ($21.8M), and others worth $203M.
International Box Office
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Home > Landowner Stories > A Protected Place for Our “Furry Friends”
A Protected Place for Our “Furry Friends”
Conserved:
Twenty-two acres in the Pike County region are now protected by a conservation easement thanks to the gracious donation of Mrs. Susan Bradley Hartney, who inherited the land from her father, D. Cameron Bradley (1916-1979).
Mr. Bradley was employed by the Beard family, the owners of the property prior to Susan’s family. Susan described her father as an animal lover who was sought after for such things as animal identification and lectures. On one occasion while living in Iowa, Mr. Bradley even donated a Python named Dewey to the local zoo. Susan made her gracious donation of land as a means to keep a home for our “furry friends.” Donating the land helped her keep a piece of land wild and natural for local wildlife.
Susan is a former resident of the area, currently living in the Florida Keys with her husband. After locating the Conservancy on the web, she decided to donate this piece of land in memory of her father.
The Conservancy was given the right to sell a small home on the corner of the grounds. The donation and the sale not only helped protect land for generations to come but also helped us here. Because of Susan’s generosity we can acquire more land in the future that can also stay unspoiled and help to provide habitats for wildlife.
A plaque was mounted on the property in memory of D. Cameron Bradley.
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Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility
Total Workforce
Estimated Job Growth
10-year projection
Growth Projections
Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility are most often employed by the Electric power generation, transmission & distribution industry. The average yearly wage for Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility was $55,479 in 2016. The top 3 most similar occupations to Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility by wage are Heavy vehicle & mobile equipment service technicians & mechanics, Structural iron & steel workers, and Designers.
Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility are part of the Installation, maintenance, & repair occupations, along with Firstline supervisors of mechanics, installers, & repairers, Computer, automated teller, & office machine repairers, Radio & telecommunications equipment installers & repairers, Avionics technicians, Electric motor, power tool, & related repairers, Electronic equipment installers & repairers, motor vehicles, Electronic home entertainment equipment installers & repairers, Security & fire alarm systems installers, Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility, Aircraft mechanics & service technicians, Automotive body & related repairers, Automotive glass installers & repairers, Automotive service technicians & mechanics, Bus & truck mechanics & diesel engine specialists, Heavy vehicle & mobile equipment service technicians & mechanics, Small engine mechanics, Miscellaneous vehicle & mobile equipment mechanics, installers, & repairers, Control & valve installers & repairers, Heating, air conditioning, & refrigeration mechanics & installers, Home appliance repairers, Maintenance workers, machinery, Millwrights, Industrial & refractory machinery mechanics, Electrical powerline installers & repairers, Telecommunications line installers & repairers, Precision instrument & equipment repairers, Maintenance & repair workers, general, Coin, vending, & amusement machine servicers & repairers, Locksmiths & safe repairers, Riggers, Helpersinstallation, maintenance, & repair workers , and Miscellaneous installation, maintenance, & repair workers, including wind turbine service technicians
The top 3 locations that employ the most Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility are Norfolk City (Northeast) PUMA, VA and San Diego City (Central/Centre City & Balboa Park) PUMA, CA. The top 3 locations with a relatively high concentration of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility are Norfolk City (Northeast) PUMA, VA and San Diego City (Central/Centre City & Balboa Park) PUMA, CA.
Photo by Garry Knight
Natural resources, construction, & maintenance occupationsInstallation, maintenance, & repair occupations
Information on the businesses and industries that employ Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility and on wages and locations for those in the field. Electric power generation, transmission & distribution is the industry that employs the most Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility, both by share and by number, though the highest paid industry for Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility, by average wage, is Electric power generation, transmission & distribution. Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility are paid most in Jacksonville City (Beaches) PUMA, FL but are relatively concentrated in Norfolk City (Northeast) PUMA, VA.
Yearly Wage
In 2017, Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility earned an average of $55,479, $3,414 more than than the average national salary of $52,065.
Heavy vehicle & mobile equipment service technicians & mechanics make somewhat more than Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility while Structural iron & steel workers make somewhat less. This chart shows the various occupations closest to Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility as measured by average annual salary in the US.
WAGE GINI
In 2017, Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility had a wage GINI coefficient of 0.288, which is lower than than the national average of 0.479. In other words, wages are distributed more evenly for Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility (shown in red) than for the overall labor force (shown in gray).
Wage by Location
HIGHEST PAYING PUMAS
Jacksonville City (Beaches) PUMA, FL
Virginia Beach City (South) PUMA, VA
Yuma City PUMA, AZ
This map shows the Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) in the United States shaded by average annual wage for Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility.
Spatial Concentration
PUMAs with a Relatively High Concentration of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility
Norfolk City (Northeast) PUMA, VA
San Diego City (Central/Centre City & Balboa Park) PUMA, CA
This map displays which Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) in the United States have a relatively high population of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility.
The most common industries employing Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility, by number of employees, are Electric power generation, transmission & distribution, U. S. Navy, and National security & international affairs.
The highest paying industries for Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility, by average wage, are Electric power generation, transmission & distribution, Construction, and Motor vehicles & motor vehicle equipment manufacturing.
Industries by Share
2017 Workforce
± 3,079
± 33.2%
The number of people employed as Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility has been declining at a rate of -210%, from 19,909 people in 2016 to 15,727 people in 2017.
This graphic shows the share of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility employed by various industries. Electric power generation, transmission & distribution employs the largest share of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility at 19.7%, followed by U. S. Navy with 15.6% and National security & international affairs with 9.27%.
Demographic information on Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility in the US. The average age of male Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility in the workforce is 38.5 and of female Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility is 38, and the most common race/ethnicity for Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility is White.
Gender Composition
MALE WORKFORCE
FEMALE WORKFORCE
± 692
94.9% of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility are Male, making them the more common gender in the occupation. This chart shows the gender breakdown of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility.
Most Common Race or Ethnicity of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility
81.9% of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility are White, making that the most common race or ethnicity in the occupation. Representing 18.1% of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility, Black is the second most common race or ethnicity in this occupation. This chart shows the racial and ethnic breakdown of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility.
Age by Gender
AVERAGE MALE AGE
AVERAGE FEMALE AGE
± 14.4
The median age of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility is 38.5, and Male employees are generally 0.595 years older than than their Female counterparts.
Data on higher education choices for Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility from The Department of Education and Census Bureau. The most common major for Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility is false but a relatively high number of Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility hold a major in false.
ACS PUMS data only shows the major for bachelor's degrees. However, we can filter the data based on highest degree obtained.
MOST COMMON MAJORS
Data on the critical and distinctive skills necessary for Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility need many skills, but most especially Quality Control Analysis, Operation Monitoring, and Repairing. The revealed comparative advantage (RCA) shows that Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility need more than the average amount of Repairing, Equipment Maintenance, and Troubleshooting.
Radar Distribution
ValueRCA
Projections on wages and job growth for Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The ten-year national workforce is projected to grow 7.4%, but Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility are expected to see a growth of 2.34% over the same period. This occupation is expected to grow slower than the national average.
ESTIMATED GROWTH
This line chart shows the 10-year projected employment growth (from 2016 to 2026) for Electrical & electronics repairers, transportation equipment, & industrial & utility. This profession is expected to grow lower than 7.4%, the average rate of national job growth.
Natural resources, construction, & maintenance occupations
Major Occupation Group
Installation, maintenance, & repair occupations
Broad Occupation
Firstline supervisors of office & administrative support workers
Detailed Occupation
Engineering technicians, except drafters
Supervisors of transportation & material moving workers
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DCAF Code of Ethics 2018
The DCAF Code of Ethics was developed by, with and for DCAF staff to encapsulate the behavioural standards to which we aspire, to give guidance on the regulatory framework within which we operate, and to make a clear statement about our identity, values and purpose.
DCAF has always operated according to a set of clear principles, but the Code of Ethics is the first articulation of these in a single, unified document. The Code is a reference to support our day-to-day decision making, because it empowers us to handle any ethical questions we may encounter at work.
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Pope’s almoner reflects distinctive difference Francis has made
In Commentary, Global Church
Father Raymond J. de Souza
SPECIAL_TO_CRUX
Nuns distribute food and drinks to needy people in St. Peter's square at the Vatican, Friday, Jan. 6, 2017. After the Angelus prayer Pope Francis offered some 300 needy people a simple lunch of a sandwich and drink, as part of his long-running outreach to the poor and homeless who live around the Vatican.(Credit: AP Photo/Andrew Medichini.)
It’s possible to consider that after the great Christian witness (martyria) of our time, St. John Paul II, and the profound teacher of the right worship of God (leitourgia), Benedict XVI, we now have a pope whose heart is manifestly open to the suffering through the practical ministry of charity (diakonia).
Just before Lent, Pope Francis gave an interview to a Caritas magazine for the homeless in Milan where he advised Catholics to always give money to those begging in the streets, without worrying about what it might be spent on.
To those who might look askance at alcohol bought by a beggar, the Holy Father observes that a glass of wine might be the only moment of happiness in that day.
As we head toward Pope Francis’s fourth anniversary next week, there will be plenty of columns on the highs and lows of the pontificate to date. Perhaps a personal reflection might be indulged.
Despite the contradictions and confusions that have occasioned much commentary these past years, it is the compassion of the Holy Father that makes the deepest impression upon me. That interview was a good example. For the pope to give an interview to a magazine for the homeless illustrates his solicitude for the poor and marginal. His advice to give the benefit of the doubt to all; to see the point of view of the afflicted one; to value the encounter rather than a particular result – all this is distinctively Francis.
For my part, the papal advice also confirms my own approach, so I suppose I welcomed it on self-justifying grounds. Over fifteen years as a priest I have tried to give the benefit of the doubt to those asking for money when they come to the rectory door or call the parish office. Over the years I have provided money for monthly rent, motel bills, car repairs, bus tickets, groceries, diapers, medicines and for nothing in particular.
After the first year or two, never having been told a true story, I stopped offering parish funds in that way. But I still continue personally, sometimes even finding amusement in the more ingenious tales told. Those who pay me my income don’t ask me how I spend it, and so it seems the same courtesy can be extended to those who beg. That’s the Holy Father’s point, namely that courtesy and dignity belong to all of us.
The poor might need recognition of that as much, or more, than material assistance.
Since the early months of the Francis pontificate, I have thought that the best way to situate the Holy Father is in light of Benedict XVI’s first encyclical Deus Caritas Est – God is Love.
Benedict wrote there a summary of the Church’s identity: “The Church’s deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: of proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia), and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable.
For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being” (#25).
One of the most practically significant and powerfully symbolic reforms of Pope Francis was one of his first, when he appointed Archbishop Konrad Krajewski as the papal almoner, the one who exercises personal charity on behalf of the pope. The post had become largely ceremonial, separated from actual contact with the poor.
Krajewski, who before his appointment as archbishop by Francis was known for his practical aid to the poor of Rome, has been a font of creative activity. There are now showers and a dormitory for the homeless at St. Peter’s, with haircuts and shaves available from volunteer barbers.
Krajewski’s office distributes sleeping bags to the homeless who prefer to remain on the streets, and organizes excursions for them – whether to the beach, or to the Vatican museums. When Pope Francis celebrated his 80th birthday in December, Krajewski brought some of the homeless served by his office to have breakfast with the Holy Father.
One of the more rewarding days of the Franciscan pontificate for me was in December 2015, just days after the Jubilee of Mercy began. Through the good offices of the Canadian ambassador to the Holy See, Dennis Savoie, I was able to bring Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz to meet Krajewski.
Schmalz is the world-renowned sculptor famous for his “Matthew 25” series, where Jesus is portrayed as homeless, begging, naked, sick, in prison. Several years ago, Schmalz’s sculpture of Jesus begging was installed at the Santo Spirito hospital a short walk from the Vatican. A benefactor had hoped to get the “Homeless Jesus” sculpture somewhere close to the Vatican.
But while the sculpture was being installed all over the world – including at Catholic Charities in Washington, D.C. for the papal visit in 2015 – both civic and ecclesiastical bureaucracy in Rome seemed to make it impossible.
I managed to arrange the meeting with Krajewski, whom I didn’t know, but whom I expected would not be stymied by bureaucratic inertia. He wasn’t. Within minutes he said that he wanted the Homeless Jesus in the Vatican, and wanted it outside the charity office. The homeless who came to be helped would be reminded of Jesus’ solidarity with them.
As important, it would be seen by the hundreds of pilgrims who come every day to the almoner’s office to order papal blessings, the associated donations of which are used to help the poor. A few months later the Homeless Jesus was installed in the small courtyard at the almoner’s office.
I can’t imagine that story unfolding in just that way before Pope Francis. It won’t make the major anniversary stories, but it’s the distinctive difference that Pope Francis has brought.
After Pope OKs giving to beggars, U.S. bishop says not to
Pope Francis gives 2,000 poor, prisoners a day at the circus
“Pope Francis Laundry” latest initiative to help Rome’s homeless
Archbishop Konrad Krajewski
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Home / Everest
Category: Everest
Sherpa Loses His Life on Mount Everest after Helping ASKfm Record Cryptocurrency Promotion
ASKfm, Crypto News, Everest, ICO, Initial coin offering, News
Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) have been expanding in every single industry. Important companies have released their crowdfunding campaigns, and this time is ASKfm the one carrying out an ICO. But not everything is as perfect and nice as desired. One Sherpa is presumed dead on Mount Everest after he was left during the descent.
ASKfm Tragic ICO
ASKfm is one of the most important social media networks on earth, and it was working very hard so as to release its ICO. Some early investors could start buying some tokens as a pre-sale. But in order to capture the attention of the community the team decided to send four crypto enthusiasts on an expedition to the Mount Everest.
But which was the intention? The idea was to show that the company is not afraid of challenges and that it is possible to turn a social network into a blockchain ecosystem.
The company released a statement in which the explained:
“The statement here is that ASKfm is not at all afraid to rise to challenges. They’re conquering Everest because it’s out there to conquer. By doing so they claim: if they’re bold enough to do it, they’re bold enough to turn a social network into a blockchain ecosystem, and they’re definitely bold enough to overturn the market with their new product.”
Moreover, the expedition wanted to show that the team was able to be on top of the highest mountain on the planet. But nothing in the statement was related to the man that helped the team reach the top of the Mount Everest.
“While others try sophisticated marketing techniques, these guys went out there and put themselves right on top of the highest mountain on the planet,” reads the statement. “An elegant way to boast ideological superiority to every other crypto. A way quite strangely unexplored before. Even memes-wise, think about the closest starting point to reach the moon. It seems so obvious, yet no one has done it.”
As reported by the Financial Times, Lam Babu Sherpa, a veteran of three Mount Everest summit is presumed dead after being left behind by the explorers. About this situation, ASKfm’s CEO Max Tsaryk, said that he was ‘aware’ of the situation that someone had gone missing during the trip. Furthermore, he explained that it was not their place to ‘make public statements’ that could have been false.
ASKfm was trying to launch a token known as the ASKT Token for its more than 215 million individuals that are located in almost 170 countries. Blockchain technology would help the company to create a path to democratic environments and self regulate economic models.
The token would give professional influencers and experts the possibility to ask and answer questions and receive rewards based on the quality of their content. One of the most important things that ASK.fm is promoting is the mantra: ‘your answer is an asset.’ There will be 2,000,000,000 ASKT tokens available.
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American History II
THIS JUST IN: You work for a national radio broadcasting company, and it is your job to create the typed broadcast for the evening news, recapping the experiences of Americans from before World War I (WWI) as well as after the war.
For your story to be valid and accepted by a wide audience, it must include the home-front experiences of many groups; to help with your story, choose at least three topics below to discuss in your broadcast.
What changed because of the movement from isolationism to expansionism?
How did the Roosevelt Corollary change America’s role in the world?
Assess the relevance of people’s concerns about the war’s impact on the international community.
Assess the war’s economic impact, including the expansion of factories due to wartime production.
What domestic and international figures played key roles in the war?
How is the United States in the post-war era positioned to become a superpower?
With any good news story, you must utilize multiple sources. Your story must be a minimum of two pages in length. A minimum of two reputable sources must be used, cited, and referenced, one of which must come from the CSU Online Library. This means you will need to find at least one additional source on your own, and it cannot be the content provided in this course (i.e., unit lessons or U.S. History resource). Inappropriate resources, or failure to use at least one resource available in the CSU Online Library, can lead to deductions. Click here to view a resource on evaluating websites to use in your research.
Your report must be in essay form, and all citations and references must follow APA format.
The post American History II appeared first on Dissertations Expert.
Where do we find Therapy animals?
Administration of ophthalmological medications requires some explanation. What are the important points that you would review with a patient when teaching how to instill ophthalmic drops and when teaching how to instill ointment?
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Aerosol Spray Gets You Instantly Drunk For a Few Seconds
by The Drink Nation on May 9, 2012 in Culture
The French are well-known for their fondness for booze, and now a Franco-American scientist has come up with a mouth spray that makes you instantly drunk. For a few seconds. With no after-effects. What?
First reported by the Associated Foreign Press, the WA|HH Quantum Sensation is the size of a stick of lipstick and easy spritz from the pump releases 0.075 ml of alcohol. Supposedly, this is enough to give the palate and the brain the sensation of intoxication. Co-creator David Edwards refers to his invention as “aerosol cuisine,” and says you can even pass a breathalyzer test immediately after using it.
Bottles of the spray, available in 2-ml black “Flash” or red “Demon” versions, are being marketed in Europe for around $26 each. From co-creator Philippe Starck (a respected product designer who works with companies such as Apple), via the company website:
“Everyone has an occasional need of light-headedness, distraction, and another place... We asked ourselves whether we might provide the same agreeable sensation as comes with a sip of alcohol without running the risk of drunkenness. Accent life with a magic wand, that was our desire. A spray of WA|HH and the shock is immediate, like a sensorial alarm.”
Working out of a Paris space known as the “Laboratory,” Edwards previously developed the Whif, an aerosol spray that mimics the flavors of coffee, tea or chocolate that the AFP says has sold over 400,000 copies worldwide since its 2008 debut (it runs $2.50–$5 per cigar-sized bottle). He followed that up with the Whaf, a more expensive ultrasound generator of “flavor clouds” that can be tasted with a straw.
No news on whether the nitrous-like WA|HH is coming to the U.S. anytime soon, so we remain slightly skeptical, but we are living in the future, after all. Mixologists and chefs are putting all kinds of flavors into foams, smokes or other airy textures, and this is just one more step in that direction. Sip your old-fashioned liquid drinks while you can.
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Club Racing - Majors
Chris Berg
TOPEKA, Kan. (Oct. 20, 2015) – The first wave of events for the 2016 SCCA U.S. Majors Tour is set, as thoughts shift toward the upcoming race season. A total of 20 events are currently scheduled to be held across five conferences throughout the country, with more events to be announced soon.
The new race season is set to begin much like that in 2015, with back-to-back events at Homestead-Miami Speedway (Jan. 8-10) and Sebring International Raceway (Jan. 15-17) on the second and third weekends of January, respectively.
The Southeast Conference keeps rolling with a return trip to historic, and challenging, Road Atlanta, March 18-20. The current calendar closes with another two-conference event at VIRginia International Raceway, April 15-17, which also marks the start of competition for the Northeast Conference. At least one additional event is in the works, but will be announced at a later date.
Out west, the Majors Tour kicks things off with a three-day event at Auto Club Speedway, Jan. 29-31. The next stop for the Western Conference is Willow Springs International Raceway, Feb. 20-21. A return to Buttonwillow Raceway Park, April 29-May 1, precedes Pacific Raceways, May 28-30, as the season comes to a close at Portland International Raceway, July 2-3. An additional April event will be added to the schedule.
The Mid-States title hunt will again include Hallett Motor Racing Circuit, April 9-10. The Majors will return to Gateway Motorsports Park, May 14-15, after a two-year hiatus from the facility. The conference calendar will conclude with a Rocky Mountain swing that includes a pair of Colorado race weekends. The Mid-States Conference will make its yearly return to Pueblo Motorsports Park (May 28-29) with High Plains Raceway (July 2-3) currently slated as the final race. At least one additional race weekend will be added to the calendar, but details have yet to be finalized.
The Northeast Conference is the next to start its season. The conference begins its campaign at VIR, with the Southeast Conference. The title hunt then moves to Summit Point Motorsports Park, April 29-May 1.
Watkins Glen International moves off of Independence Day weekend to June 24-26 for 2016. The final stop for the Northeast Conference will be at Pocono Raceway, Aug. 13-14. This will be the first Majors event to be held at the Tricky Triangle, which takes is nickname from the three completely different turns on the circuit. Two additional events will be added to the Northeast schedule at a later date.
The Northern Conference opener takes place April 30-May 1 at Blackhawk Farms Raceway. Racers in the Northern Conference will then have a chance to take to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, June 3-5, which will host the 2016 SCCA Runoffs Presented by Garmin VIRB. Many teams will use the opportunity to perfect their setups for the winner-take-all National Championship race later in the year.
The next round of the conference schedule heads east to Michigan for GingerMan Raceway, July 9-10. The title hunt is set to end Aug. 13-14 at Grattan Raceway. The finalized schedule will have two additional races added at a later date.
“We’re very pleased with the events on the 2016 U.S. Majors Tour calendar,” Deanna Flanagan, Sr. Manager of Club Racing, said. “We’re excited to work with our returning events and welcome a couple new ones to the 2016 season.
“Based on feedback from our drivers, workers and host Regions, we continue to fine-tune event formats and elements to provide the best Championship-level program in amateur racing.”
Some events are still under consideration, but have not been finalized at this time. As details regarding those events become available, they will be announced.
For additional information on the SafeRacer SCCA National Club Racing program and the U.S. Majors Tour, visit SCCA.com.
Listed below is the schedule for the 2016 SCCA U.S. Majors Tour, part of the SafeRacer National Club Racing Program, as of now:
Mid-States Conference
April 9-10: Hallett Motor Racing Circuit (Jennings, Okla.)
May 14-15: Gateway Motorsports Park (Madison, Ill.)
May 28-29: Pueblo Motorsports Park (Pueblo, Colo.)
July 2-3: High Plains Raceway (Deer Trail, Colo.)
At least one event will be added at a later date
Northern Conference
April 30-May 1: Blackhawk Farms Raceway (South Beloit, Ill.)
June 3-5*: Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (Lexington, Ohio)
July 9-10: GingerMan Raceway (South Haven, Mich.)
Aug. 13-14: Grattan Raceway (Belding, Mich.)
Two events will be added at a later date
* - Pending track confirmation
April 15-17: VIRginia International Raceway (Alton, Va.) – with Southeast Conference
April 29-May 1: Summit Point Motorsports Park (Summit Point, W. Va.)
June 24-26: Watkins Glen International (Watkins Glen, N.Y.)
Aug. 13-14: Pocono Raceway (Long Pond, Pa.)
Two events to be added at a later date
Jan. 8-10: Homestead-Miami Speedway (Homestead, Fla.)
Jan. 15-17: Sebring International Raceway (Sebring, Fla.)
March 18-20: Road Atlanta (Braselton, Ga.)
April 15-17: VIRginia International Raceway (Alton, Va.) – with Northeast Conference
Jan. 29-31: Auto Club Speedway (Fontana, Calif.)
Feb. 20-21: Willow Springs International Raceway (Rosamond, Calif.)
April: TBD
April 29-May 1: Buttonwillow Raceway Park (Buttonwillow, Calif.)
May 28-30: Pacific Raceways (Kent, Wash.)
July 2-3: Portland International Raceway (Portland, Ore.)
Image: Formula Vee produced close racing throughout the field at the 2015 Majors Tour opener, and should do the same this year.
Credit: Mark Weber
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This item was last sold on : 09/10/17
Coleman Family Farms Homepage
Nasturtium pods appear after the blossoms fade and whither. After the blossom begins to fade, a green, wrinkly seed appears in its place. The larger-than-pea-sized green sphere packs the same hot mustard punch as the leaves and flowers yet with greater intensity. The flavor is rather spicy, so eating fresh Nasturtium pods isn’t recommended.
Nasturtium pods are available near the end of the summer and in early fall.
Nasturtium pods are known as the “poor man’s capers”, or California capers.
Nasturtium pods can be harvested when still immature and pickled; they can be used like capers in a variety of recipes. The spicy pod can be added to a salt brine to cut down on the spiciness. Mature pods can be dried and ground down to a powder to use as a pepper substitute. The pods can also be added to salads, soups and stews where a particularly spicy-mustardy flavor is desired.
Nasturtiums were planted in the garden at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in Virginia from 1774 on. They were enjoyed for far more than their twisting vines and vibrant blooms. The pods were catalogued as a fruit in Jefferson’s garden, and eaten as such. During World War II the seeds were used as a pepper substitute, ground down just like peppercorns. Nasturtium varieties today are descendent of two species native to Peru on the Western coast of South America. These species found their way to Europe via Spanish conquistadors. Nasturtiums grow freely in California, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Hawaii as well as throughout Europe and parts of South America.
Recipes that include Nasturtium Pods. One is easiest, three is harder.
Garden Betty Poor Man’s Capers: Pickled Nasturtium Pods
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The Bay Area News Group-East Bay was born in June 2008 when we won a hard-fought organizing campaign. Sara Steffens, now secretary-treasurer of the CWA, helped lead a year-long effort, which began when the employer merged the Guild-covered Oakland Tribune and affiliates with the nonunion Contra Costa Times. Because the Times was larger, and the employer chose not to merge the East Bay with the Guild-represented Mercury News, the staff of the new entity was majority nonunion, which allowed the employer to withdraw recognition.
That forced the Guild to organize a new unit covering the entire BANG-East Bay editorial staff. The unit initially included about 220 newsroom employees, which made the East Bay one of the Guild’s largest new editorial units to organize in recent times.
It took us another year following the organizing victory to negotiate a first contract. That settlement was ratified in summer 2009, despite layoffs that claimed the jobs of some of our key organizers, Steffens included. Two successor agreements have been reached since then, but for the most part our initial contract terms have been extended without much change.
The initial labor agreement contained a pay minimum which led to substantial raises for about 30 members. Since then, however, management has taken a hard line in salary negotiations, and we have been unable to add experience steps to the pay system. There have been no across the board raises. Our membership has declined from round after round of job reductions, and numbers about 120 now. Many talented staff have left journalism because of economic pressure. In recent years, members have grown increasingly frustrated by the disparities in pay and benefits between the East Bay and the San Jose Mercury News.
The latest bargaining has taken a new turn into a proposed realignment of the two bargaining units. Although the outcome of the talks remain in doubt, East Bay members are committed to winning fair terms through strong coordination and solidarity with DFM members throughout the country.
Local: Pacific Media Workers Guild / Facebook / Twitter
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Intimate Conversation with award winning writer Katie McCabe
Oct10 by edc1creations
Katie McCabe is a National Magazine Award winner whose Washingtonian article on black surgical legend Vivien Thomas formed the basis for the HBO film Something the Lord Made, one of the highest rated original movies in HBO history and the winner of the 2004 Emmy and 2005 Peabody Awards. McCabe’s 2009 book Justice Older than the Law, co-authored with pioneering lawyer Dovey Roundtree, won the Association of Black Women Historians’ Letitia Woods Brown Book Prize. For her work in science and medical journalism, McCabe has been honored with awards for investigative reporting (William Allen White Award, 1991) and public service (National Magazine Award finalist, 1986).
» First Lady Michelle Obama saluted Dovey Johnson Roundtree on the occasion of the book’s Washington, DC launch.
“She [Dovey Johnson Roundtree] has clearly demonstrated that even in the face of enormous challenges, an unblinking belief in equality and justice will spur real change. I am inspired by Ms. Roundtree, and I hope that her story continues to motivate all Americans to fight for our shared values. It is on the shoulders of people like Dovey Johnson Roundtree that we stand today, and it is with her commitment to our core ideals that we will continue moving toward a better tomorrow.”
— quote from First Lady Michelle Obama, July 2009
AUDIO SNEAK PEEK FROM THE BOOK
» Katie McCabe reading from Chapter One, “Walking Unafraid,” about Dovey Roundtree’s courageous Grandma Rachel, the woman Dovey calls “the greatest warrior I ever knew.”
Listen here now: http://www.audioacrobat.com/sa/WC3S5tj4
BPM: Katie, what can readers expect when they open a book created by you?
KM: I believe my power as a writer derives from my lifelong love affair with words and literature, my sense of the compelling stories hidden beneath the surface of outward events, and my fascination with unsung heroes. These passions came from my late parents, John and Kathleen Burns. They exemplified for me the kind of nobility and courage I endeavor to portray over and over again in my non-fiction as I seek out heroes and heroines whose lives have profoundly altered our world but whom history has forgotten or marginalized. My goal is to portray these history-makers with the vividness of fiction, and to bring them alive for future generations.
BPM: Discuss your approach to writing and your latest book, Justice Older than the Law, in particular.
KM: “It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one.” – Nicolo Machiavelli
As a writer, I’ve chosen to portray individuals who defied existing systems and conventional notions of power, and in doing that, I’ve challenged my readers’ assumptions about the way that history is altered and the world changed.
One of my first articles for Washingtonian magazine, “Like Something the Lord Made,” told the little-known story of black heart surgery pioneer Vivien Thomas, a man who had changed the course of medical history so quietly that he was virtually unknown outside the rarefied circle of Johns Hopkins surgeons he trained. In my article, I brought from obscurity the story of this extraordinary man who changed the course of medical history without ever having obtained a medical degree or even attending college. It was the sheer force of his brilliance and the power of his character that enabled Thomas, in his capacity as laboratory technician to the powerful white surgeon Alfred Blalock, to carve out a revolutionary role for himself and to propel heart surgery into the modern age. At a time when the only black employees at Johns Hopkins Hospital were the janitors, Vivien Thomas ran the surgical lab, trained dozens of white med students who would go on to become the most famous heart surgeons in America, and most importantly, partnered with Dr. Blalock in an extraordinary interracial collaboration that defied every stereotype of their time and place. Together, the two made medical history, accomplishing things together that neither one could have done alone. Vivien Thomas shattered stereotypes for black men during Jim Crow, proving by the sheer force of his intellect and his character that he could contribute mightily to medicine at the most complex level. He challenged the status quo by excelling and by surviving within a deeply flawed society, and in so doing he lodged a powerful and eloquent protest against the evil of segregation.
KM: Pioneering lawyer, veteran and minister Dovey Johnson Roundtree, the subject of my 2002 Washingtonian article “She Had a Dream” and my 2009 book Justice Older than the Law (which I co-authored with Dovey Roundtree), was a woman who challenged deeply entrenched racism and sexism on a number of levels over her 50-year career. She shattered the color and gender bars in the World War II military as one of the 40 women selected by the great activist Mary McLeod Bethune to integrate the newly formed Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. As one of only five women in her class at Howard University Law School (1947-1950), she challenged gender stereotypes in the law, and went on to transform the rigidly segregated legal system of the Nation’s Capital as the first black member of the DC Women’s Bar. Even as she overturned hardened prejudice in Washington’s legal community against blacks and women, she led the vanguard of women ordained to the ministry in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which had resisted the ordination of women for decades. When Dovey Roundtree was ordained to the ministry in 1961, she was among the first women to rise to that status within the male-dominated church.
I believe I am drawn to stories of unconventional heroes and heroines because I myself defy classification as a white woman who has chosen to celebrate the life stories of African Americans. I have learned that this unsettles some readers because it challenges existing systems, but I have also seen that many people have been inspired by the way in which I have crossed racial lines in the course of my career. In choosing to bring to the world the stories of quiet revolutionaries like Vivien Thomas and Dovey Roundtree, I believe I have illuminated a particular kind of power that is very different from that which we see in our politicians and big business entrepreneurs. Those who change the world by the force of their nobility and tenacity, who quietly challenge the status quo and manage to hold onto their sense of selves in the midst of a hostile society have much to teach all of us about how to live our lives.
BPM: What social issues do you address in your latest book, Justice Older than the Law? How is this book affecting the public?
KM: I have never been a “political writer” in that I have never set out to address any social issues. I am a storyteller, and my goal is to pass along stories that matter, that illuminate lives that exemplify nobility, courage, tenacity, faith and goodness. All truly great stories change the world, and they do so precisely because they come in “under the radar” of our critical sense and move our hearts and minds. When I set out to write Dovey Roundtree’s story, I did so because I was enthralled with her life experience and with her personal charisma. Having said that, I do believe that Justice Older than the Law speaks importantly to some of the most critical issues of our time. Contemporary America urgently needs this book. As we contemplate at fifty years’ distance the meaning of Brown v. Board in the light of recent Supreme Court rulings, as we struggle with issues of race at every turn, there is a sense that we’ve lost our bearings. What is justice? What sort of a society are we aiming toward? How can we capture the values we seem to have lost? How do we arrest what Dovey calls “the demon of violence” that is destroying our cities? To be able to tap into the world view of a 96-year-old living legend who brought her fight into the streets, the jailhouses, the churches, and ultimately, into the hearts of the individuals to whom she ministered, is an extraordinary opportunity, I believe, for people of all races.
BPM: What are you most proud of as a writer in today’s market?
KM: I have endeavored to pass on to the next generation of readers the stories of men and women who have prevailed over almost insuperable odds to achieve greatness in medicine, in the law, in athletics, and in public service. I believe that my legacy as a writer is that I have brought to life some truly extraordinary examples of the triumph of the human spirit. These examples speak to people of all races and backgrounds about what is possible when one draws strength from mentors and taps into one’s own well of courage, faith and tenacity.
In today’s market, which is dominated by books and movies that glorify violence, brutality and sexuality run rampant, I choose to tell stories that celebrate the eternal values, and I think that sets me apart from the mainstream.
BPM: How may readers contact you for more information and to find out more about the book?
KM: Visit us at http://www.justiceolderthanthelaw.com, the web site address for the book, and there is a link there to email Katie McCabe (at mccabe.kathleen@gmail.com)
Justice Older than the Law by Katie McCabe
http://www.amazon.com/Justice-Older-than-Law-Roundtree/dp/160473132X
This entry was posted in Featured Articles, Featured Authors, New Comments, New Releases.
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Above & Beyond announce new documentary
'Above & Beyond: Giving Up The Day Job' is out exclusively on iTunes this April…
Above & Beyond announce feature length documentary 'Above & Beyond Acoustic: Giving Up the Day Job'
Andrew Rafter
Thursday, April 5, 2018 - 21:00
Above & Beyond have today announced the release of ‘Above and Beyond Acoustic: Giving Up The Day Job’, a new behind-the-scenes documentary filmed during the band’s sellout acoustic tour in 2016.
The documentary follows the trio’s journey from Abbey Road Studios, through to their shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall, the Sydney Opera House and finally the Hollywood Bowl.
The documentary will also include a full-length concert film from their now iconic sold-out show at the Hollywood Bowl.
The trance trio will be attending the UK premiere at London’s Odeon Covent Garden on 12th April where they will take part in a Q&A.
The documentary has been directed by award-winning directors Paul Dugdale and Myles Desenberg who have worked with the likes of Ed Sheeran and The Rolling Stones.
The film is said to be "an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at one of the world’s biggest dance acts as they risk it all to go acoustic."
It's already shaping up to be a big year for the trio who recently announced their very own festival, the aptly named Anjunabeach, which will take place in California this summer.
The concert film and accompanying tour documentary will be released globally via iTunes on 17th April.
You can pre-order the double feature film from today here.
Above & Beyond Acoustic Giving Up the Day Job Documentary
Above & Beyond announce new album ‘Flow State’
Laurent Garnier kickstarts documentary on techno culture
Armin van Buuren and Above & Beyond to throw one-off party at Ushuaïa Ibiza this summer
Madrid | Stories From The City — watch our short film on Spain's burgeoning perreo scene
EDC Las Vegas announces live stream schedule
Above & Beyond announce new Anjunabeats mix LP
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Anti-discrmination Pack 2.0
Digital discrimination and hate speech online is situated at the intersection of multiple tensions: it is the expression of conflicts between different groups within and across societies; it is a vivid example of how technologies with a transformative potential such as the Internet bring with them both opportunities and challenges; and it implies complex balancing between fundamental rights and principles, including freedom of expression and the defence of human dignity.
Racism and discrimination are not new phenomena and although publicly condemned, are often privately tolerated in online contexts. They have undergone a transformation from visible to more latent forms and are manifested in popular social networking sites (hereafter SNS). Youth, the main users of these sites, are particularly affected by and exposed to racist and discriminatory messages, that in forms of images, videos, comments, are circulated in SNS. Users can be easily misled, since “cloaked” (disguised) forms of discrimination are hidden in false, “politically correct discourses”, like “I am not a racist, but… “. While taking into consideration how these sites constitute a powerful form of non-formal learning, recognizing how youth in particular are challenged by online racist contents, “Anti-discrimination Pack 2.0” project is directed towards providing guidance and preparing the youth workers to learn, use and share the Anti-discrimination Pack. As follows, the project is aimed:
-to share methodology worked out during the project INTERNET: CREATIVELY UNVEILING DISCRIMINATION (I:CUD) called ‘antidiscrimination pack’ which has been done by CEPS SOCIALS PROJECTS (http://digitaldiscrimination.eu/);
-to enable and support young people to become active and responsible digital users;
-to assess and reflect on their own use of technology, make changes, challenge and combat digital discrimination.
The project provides a practical guide on how to unveil masked discriminatory practices: to show a way of becoming creative “prosumers”, who do not just passively “consume discriminatory contents” but actively produce material counteracting such conducts.
As follows, 6 organizations, coming from Spain, Cyprus, Poland, UK and Germany: Dramblys (Coordinator), C.I.P Citizens In Power, EureCons Förderagentur GmbH, Fundacja “Zielony Slon”, CEPS PROJECTES SOCIALS and Kairos Europe Limited will be working together to update the Anti-discrimination Pack, developing new tools to combat racism and discrimination online and news approaches to address social, ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity.
The project has been financed by Erasmus+ programme, KA2 Strategic Partnership in the field of Youth.
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Home > Volume 82 Issue 11 > Call for Nominations For 2005 William H. Nichols Medal
Issue Date: March 15, 2004
Call for Nominations For 2005 William H. Nichols Medal
The ACS New York Section is accepting nominations for the William H. Nichols Medal Award for 2005. This distinguished award, established in 1902 by William H. Nichols for the purpose of encouraging original research in chemistry, was the first award authorized by ACS. It is presented annually in recognition of an outstanding contribution in the field of chemistry, and consists of a gold medal, a bronze replica, and $5,000. The award is presented at the William H. Nichols Medal Award Meeting, which consists of a distinguished symposium related to the medalist's field of expertise and an award banquet.
Investigators who have published a significant and original contribution in any field of chemistry during the five calendar years preceding the presentation meeting are eligible for consideration by the Nichols Medal Jury.
Nomination forms may be obtained from the ACS New York Section, Department of Chemistry, St. John's University, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Jamaica, NY11439. The request may be faxed to (516) 883-4003 or e-mailed to njesper1@optonline.net. Six copies of the nominating materials and the official nomination form should be forwarded to the above mail address. Nominations must be received by May 31.
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Home > Volume 82 Issue 7 > DIVISIONS ISSUE CALLS FOR PAPERS
Volume 82 Issue 7 | pp. 81-91
DIVISIONS ISSUE CALLS FOR PAPERS
Calls for papers for the fall 2004 ACS national meeting (Aug. 2226, Philadelphia) have been issued. The preliminary program for the meeting in Philadelphia will be published in the June 28 issue of C&EN; the technical program will be in the Aug. 2 issue. The society bylaw governing presentation of papers appears below.
ACS's Online Abstract SubmittalSystem (OASYS) will open Feb. 18 for Philadelphia submissions. Please visit OASYS at http://oasys.acs.org/oasys.htm. In the event that electronic submission is not possible, copies of the ACS standard abstract form are available from the Office of Society Services by calling (800) 227-5558.They also are available from all ACS technical division secretaries; from committee program chairs; and from the Department of Awards & Division Programs, ACS, 1155--16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036; phone (202) 872-4401, fax (202) 776-8211, e-mail: abstract@acs.org.
"Handbook for Speakers,"ACS Bulletin No. 8, also is available from the Department of Awards & Division Programs and the Office of Society Services. Write to Office of Society Services, 1155--16th St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036; or phone (800) 227-5558.
Society bylaw governing papers
Bylaw VI, Sec. 6 governs presentation at society meetings.
a. The term "paper" shall include any scientific presentation that can be reduced to writing.
b. No paper shall be presented at a national, regional, divisional, or other major meeting unless its title and author(s) appear on the program for the meeting. However, the President, with the concurrence of either the Chair of the Board of Directors or the Vice-Chair of the Council Policy Committee, may authorize an extraordinary symposium at a national meeting provided that
the symposium has as its primary focus significant scientific developments too recent for programming deadlines, and
the request for authorization for such a symposium has been made jointly by a member of the Society and one of the following: the Chair of a relevant Division of the Society, the Chair of the Committee on Divisional Activities, or the Chair of the Committee on Science.
c. No paper by a chemical scientist residing in the United States who is not a member of the Society shall appear on the program of a national, regional, divisional, or other major meeting of the Society unless it be a joint paper with one or more Society members, or unless for a national, regional, or national-divisional meeting the author has been invited to present the paper at a symposium organized by a Division of the Society or by Sections of the Society, and the Chair of such Division or of the host Section has certified to the Executive Director of the Society prior to publication of the program that presentation by the author of such paper is important to the success of the symposium.
d. Rules corresponding to paragraphs a, b, and c of this section for a cooperative meeting shall be subject to agreement in advance between the organizations concerned but should conform, insofar as possible, to this Bylaw and be subject to approval by the Executive Director of the Society.
e. The Society assumes no responsibility for the statements or opinions expressed by individuals in papers or discussions thereof.
f. The President shall have authority to exclude any paper from a program at any time prior to its scheduled presentation at a meeting of the Society.
Board Regulation VII, No. 3 supplements Bylaw VI, Sec. 6 as follows:
a. Authorship of papers shall be accredited only to individuals and not to companies or laboratories.
b. Therapeutic Papers. It is the policy of the Society to encourage the presentation of chemical papers with pharmacological and physiological aspects but to discourage presentation, by other than qualified clinical investigators, of papers in which clinical interpretations are the principal contribution. Divisions shall adhere to this policy when determining the acceptability of papers for their meeting programs. The Divisions also are urged to exclude from their programs, and especially from any abstracts issued, statements recommending procedures for the treatment of human disease or announcement of any "cures" not confirmed by competent medical authority. Any author contributing a paper that includes discussion of the treatment of human disease must submit for review, by representatives of the appropriate Division, a complete manuscript in addition to an abstract.
NOTES. Submission of papers for presentation at an ACS meeting does not constitute submission for publication in an ACS journal. Regulations for the acceptance of papers to be presented as part of divisional meetings vary for each division. However, publication of papers in ACS journals is based upon the earliest date of receipt of the complete paper by the appropriate editor.
The council has empowered officers of divisions to request any paper in advance, so that it may be passed upon and an indication made to the author as to whether he or she is to read the entire paper or to abstract it to allow time for discussion.
Special attention should be given to the misuse of trade names, secret formulas, or secret processes in papers at national meetings of the society.
It is requested that authors avoid the use of trade names in papers presented at ACS meetings. Chairs are responsible for enforcing this policy.
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Working together to modernize New Jersey
August 31, 2017 August 31, 2017 / Michael Maloney - President, New Jersey State Pipetrades
For more than a century, New Jersey’s nation-leading infrastructure provided the foundation for a state that achieved great leaps forward in commerce, industry and transportation.
Infrastructure, however much we wish it would, does not last forever. Roads crack under constant use. Pipes and wires show wear and tear.
Now, for much of New Jersey’s aging infrastructure, it’s time to upgrade.
As longtime business partners with PSE&G, New Jersey’s labor unions know that these kinds of upgrades provide a variety of benefits that include putting thousands of people to work and creating new opportunities for New Jersey businesses, in addition to more reliable utility service.
For the past decade, PSE&G has made the modernization of New Jersey’s energy infrastructure a priority. The state’s largest utility has spent billions of dollars to increase reliability of the electric grid by adding and upgrading transmission lines, and to increase the grid’s resiliency against extreme weather by raising substations and reinforcing its delivery network.
More recently, PSE&G has embarked on an ambitious effort to strengthen its far-reaching natural gas system by replacing old, leaky underground pipes. The first phase of PSE&G’s Gas System Modernization Program was approved in 2015 and called for the utility to replace 510 miles of gas main over three years.
Since then, utility crews have replaced 307 miles of cast-iron and unprotected steel pipes with new, modern plastic. PSE&G has nearly 4,000 miles of cast-iron gas pipes in its system – more than any other U.S. utility. At the current pace, it would take 30 years to replace it all.
Now, PSE&G has asked state regulators to approve a five-year extension of the program, replacing another 1,250 miles – an investment of $2.7 billion in New Jersey’s energy infrastructure.
The economic benefits of this work are clear: $540 million in economic activity and 3,000 jobs created for every year of the program. But large-scale infrastructure projects like this one pay off in many different ways.
By replacing aging gas mains, PSE&G is making its system safer and more reliable. Digging up leaky pipes and replacing them with brand-new plastic reduces methane emissions, which is good for public health and our climate. The proposed five-year extension would reduce greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking 43,000 cars off the road.
A healthy public infrastructure vital to economic competitiveness – and the construction and maintenance of that infrastructure require a skilled, experienced workforce.
PSE&G gas construction jobs are good-paying, middle class union jobs with benefits. For those looking for an alternative to college, PSE&G hires and trains workers right out of high school, offering salaries that start around $40,000.
Programs like PSE&G’s Gas System Modernization Program benefit all of New Jersey, today and long into the future.
As we mark Labor Day 2017, my organization, New Jersey State Pipetrades, is proud to work alongside PSE&G, the BPU and thousands of our union brothers and sisters in partner organizations on this important infrastructure work.
Michael Maloney is Business Manager of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 9 and President of New Jersey State Pipetrades, which encompasses eight local unions and more than 11,000 members of Plumbers, Pipefitters, Steamfitters, Sprinkler Fitters and HVAC technicians.
Gas System Modernization Program (GSMP)
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One thought on “Working together to modernize New Jersey”
Kevin dzioba
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Lower energy consumption in Germany explained
Germany consumed 4.7 percent less energy in 2014. Now, the AGEB – the group of economists and utility experts that collate the official statistics – has published its own explanation. By Craig Morris.
Germany’s power productivity increased by 5.3% in 2014. (Photo by Alexander Franke)
We knew the general statistics already, but now have a fuller official analysis. No, not this report at Reuters: “Germany’s primary energy consumption in 2014 was down 4.7 percent from a year earlier due to mild weather and a slowdown in the economy, industry statistics group AGEB said on Tuesday.” The actual AGEB publication (PDF in German) does not attribute the reduction to any economic slowdown. Instead, on page 33, the AGEB speaks of a 5.3 percent increase in electricity productivity resulting from “a clear decrease in power consumption along with good economic growth.” The average increase in power productivity was 1.2 percent annually from 1990 to 2014.
The introduction itself is entitled “Strong downturn in energy consumption thanks to mild weather.” The paper explains on page 2 that “energy consumption would have been around one percent below the level of the previous year without this weather effect.” 2014 was the warmest year in Germany since measurements began in 1881.
The next sentence is all the more interesting in terms of Reuters’ reading: “According to preliminary calculations by the German Office of Statistics, the economy grew by 1.6 percent after adjustments for inflation. This macroeconomic growth would normally increase consumption, but the effects remained limited.” Overall, energy productivity (not just electricity) increased by “nearly 3 percent.” Keep in mind that 1.6 percent economic growth was slightly above the EU-28 average of 1.3 percent growth last year – and substantially better than the 0.8 percent growth in the euro area.
I previously speculated whether the reduction in power consumption might partly be the result of more direct consumption of renewable electricity, but the AGEB clearly says that its figures for photovoltaics, for instance, include on-site consumption (regardless of whether feed-in tariffs are paid or not).
One indicator, however, suggests that there may be an economic effect from lower industry production. The chemicals sector shrank by nearly 7 percent last year, and it is the second biggest consumer of energy after metal production – and first for power consumption. However, power prices for energy-intensive industry have been dropping, not rising, in the past few years. In particular, the largest chemicals firm in Germany, BASF, generates all of its own electricity; it does not buy any from the grid. An investigation of the global chemical sector might reveal a particular effect on German chemical producers aside from BASF. Overall, industry power prices increased “slightly by one percent” last year, as the AGEB explains.
A closer view by energy source reveals the temperature effects. Consumption of heating oil dropped by 13.6 percent, whereas diesel and gasoline consumption (used in vehicles, not heating systems) were actually up by around four and two percent, respectively. Indeed, while everyone continues to focus on coal, “petroleum remained the largest energy source in 2014 at just over a third of consumption.” (Brace yourself for a further increase in gasoline and diesel consumption this year due to lower prices.)
Even adjusted for the temperature effect, carbon emissions were down by “around 1.5 to 2 percent.” The problem is that Germany needs to reduce carbon emissions annually by 3.3 percent on average to reach its 40 percent reduction target from now until 2020.
The share of renewable energy itself is also going nowhere when measured in terms of total energy consumption. Significant progress continues to be made in the power sector, where the share of renewables has grown by around two percentage points annually in the past few years. In contrast, the share of renewables in all energy consumption (power, heat, and transport) grew from 10.5 to 11.1 percent year-over-year in 2014. That year was not an outlier either; in 2000, Germany got 2.9 percent of its energy from renewables, so the country has only increased that share by 8.2 percent in 14 years.
Germany has a target of 60 percent renewable energy by 2050, but at a growth rate of 0.6 percentage points per year (as in 2014), that target will not be reached in mid-century, but at the end – in 2097.
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Electricity Emissions European Union Germany
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Kenya: Pervasive homophobic violence in coastal region
Mobs in Kenya’s coastal region have repeatedly attacked people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, says a new report. In at least six incidents between 2008 and 2015, mobs in the coastal counties of Mombasa, Kwale, and Kilifi have attacked or threatened LGBT people or health workers serving the LGBT community, without sufficient response from authorities.
The 70-page report, “The Issue is Violence: Attacks on LGBT People on Kenya’s Coast,” is based on research conducted in 2014 and 2015 by Human Rights Watch and PEMA Kenya, a community organization in Mombasa that provides support to gender and sexual minorities on human rights, health, HIV/AIDS, and economic well-being.
Unchecked violence on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity not only constitutes a serious human rights abuse, it also jeopardizes Kenya’s efforts to address an HIV epidemic that is highly concentrated among vulnerable populations. In three of the mob attacks, violence or threats from residents and local religious leaders caused health providers serving MSM to temporarily or permanently close their doors or shut down workshops. Read More via Human Rights Watch
Tagged: Kenya, violence, reports
Newer Post‘Hand them over so we can stone them to death’: LGBTI people’s ongoing African battle
Older PostFrance: Recognizes first 'gender neutral' person
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A Meadowlands Oasis
Laurel Hill Offers Biodiversity in the Shadow of the New Jersey Turnpike
With more than 600,000 drivers each day, the northern half of the New Jersey Turnpike is among the most widely traveled roads in America. For the most part, it’s not a pretty sight. The industrial wastelands, abandoned factories and former landfills that pass for scenery are arguably the biggest reason for New Jersey’s less-than-stellar reputation across the nation.
Amazingly, there’s a spot next to the Turnpike, less than 10 miles from New York City, which is living, breathing proof that, given time, nature can rebound from just about anything, if we allow it to.
Jerry Cuicci
Laurel Hill serves as an astounding example of nature overcoming decades of rampant pollution to reclaim an unlikely area. This jagged rocky outcropping, which the Turnpike’s eastern spur uses as a stepping stone over the marshes known as the Meadowlands, is the only natural break from the flat lowlands for miles. From the highway, its graffiti-covered walls and tree-topped plateau make a memorable reference point for drivers, but it doesn’t exactly shout out, "Nature."
Yet from below the Turnpike, Laurel Hill is a completely different place, looming above like the Rock of Gibraltar. In fact, in 1896, a New York City ad executive thought the same thing. He was inspired enough by this landmark rising above the swamps that he believed his insurance company could demonstrate its reliability and rock-solid foundation through a connection to "the rock." Thus was the famous Prudential Insurance logo born in the much-maligned swamps of the Meadowlands.
The approach to Laurel Hill winds past abandoned buildings and factories, which soon give way to kids playing soccer and an older couple walking their retriever on a ballpark carved out of the marshes. A huge, stunningly beautiful red-tailed hawk, with a wingspan of four feet, alternately glides and calmly flaps its wings above the road for a good 15 seconds before taking a sharp right turn over the Hackensack River marsh.
More kids climb on a riverside playground, and in the water beyond is a handful of cormorants, including one taking off low to the water like a seaplane. At Laurel Hill, you can spot waders such as herons, egrets, bitterns and glossy ibis, and predators such as ospreys, hawks, falcons and owls, with even the occasional bald eagle.
According to Bill Sheehan, the Hackensack Riverkeeper, "In the high grounds of Laurel Hill, you can still hear gamecock and pheasants. These birds weren’t brought in here for hunting. They’re real natives, born and bred in the Meadowlands."
Phragmites, the tall marsh reeds with feathery-plumed tips, are omnipresent, prospering in the oft-polluted places where most plants can’t survive. It wasn’t always like this.
Only 200 years ago, half of the Meadowlands was covered by a white cedar forest, much of which was burned down because it provided cover for bandits and pirates. The remaining forest died out when the Hackensack River was dammed upstream, resulting in an invasion of salt water.
While nature has been able to bounce back repeatedly from man’s carelessness, "The Rock" of Laurel Hill was nearly eradicated permanently. Before 1960, it had already survived decades of serving as a prison, mental asylum, poorhouse, hospital and graffiti canvas.
In the early 1960s, however, Hudson County leased Laurel Hill to a traprock quarry, which proceeded to demolish three-quarters of it within five years, lowering its height by 50 feet in the process. The remainder would have soon followed if not for the vibrating of the Turnpike when the blasting got too close. It was certainly a new role for the New Jersey Turnpike: guardian of nature.
A path carved from the boulders leads to the top of Laurel Hill. Amazingly enough, this is ancient volcanic rock, pushed up an estimated 180 million years ago. This five-minute hike brings a view that was shared by Continental Army soldiers who used it as a lookout point during the Revolutionary War.
Below, the greens of windswept reeds and phragmites are intersected constantly by the twisting, interlocking Hackensack and Passaic Rivers, canal drainages, raised highways and railroad tracks. The 360-degree view reveals 32 square miles of wide-open flatlands bordered in the distance on all sides by the densely populated areas of northern New Jersey and New York City.
After the near-destruction of Laurel Hill, it stood fallow with hardly any human intrusion through the 1970s and 1980s. As the economy rebounded in the 1990s, there was far more pressure to develop the land. "At that point, we basically threw a park in front of the bulldozers," says Sheehan. In 1997, Laurel Hill County Park was born.
Laurel Hill is an important habitat for pheasants, falcons, muskrats, herons, egrets and even the occasional bald eagle.
Canoeing and pontoon tours are now offered by the Hackensack Riverkeeper for close-up views of the thriving wildlife, twisting channels and the occasional floating tire, reminders of a bleak past giving way to a hopeful future. Last summer, more than 1,000 people took part in these eco-cruises, and Sheehan expects growth to continue as awareness spreads among the public, which has thus far shown a somewhat surprising interest in rediscovering a piece of nature which had been given up for dead years ago.
Lately, jetskis and even swimmers are appearing in the Meadowlands, as dumping has been outlawed and the cleaning process accelerated. "At this point in time, swimming is not advisable," says Sheehan. "But a big part of my mission as Hackensack Riverkeeper is to make sure these waters become swimmable again."
For some, it’s swimmable now. A muskrat paddles across the rain-filled roadside gully and then ambles across the road. It resembles a small beaver except for its narrow tail. Like beavers, muskrats build lodges out of sticks, twigs, cattails and bulrushes, reinforcing them with mud. These lodges have underwater entrances, and the hardy muskrat can hold its breath for up to 15 minutes.
The muskrat is a highly adaptable creature, and its plight in the Meadowlands has actually improved over the years, since the generations of former muskrat hunters have largely abandoned the trade. But muskrats aren’t the only sizable animals that have carved out a niche in this altered, semi-natural environment. The northern diamondback terrapin, red fox, snapping turtle, raccoon, rabbit, skunk, opossum and blue crab, all animals that do well living close to people, have adapted nicely to the rapid changes of the Meadowlands.
Thirty years ago, there were virtually no fish and no recreational fishing, according to Sheehan. There were 100 species of birds in the Meadowlands, but few of them built their nests there. Now, thanks to the Clean Water Act and the work of people like Sheehan, the Meadowlands hosts 265 species of birds, 63 of which nest there, and of those, 12 or 13 are threatened or endangered in New Jersey as a whole. Sheehan does not exaggerate when he says, "The Meadowlands had bottomed out ecologically, but now the estuary is alive with an amazing amount of biodiversity."
The Hackensack Riverkeeper
Hackensack Meadowlands Partnership
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Duchesne, Utah
Not to be confused with Duchesne County, Utah, the county in which the city is located.
Duchesne (/duːˈʃeɪn/ doo-SHAYN) is a city in and the county seat of Duchesne County, Utah, United States.[3] The population was 1,690 at the 2010 census,[4] with an estimated population of 1,801 in 2014.[5]
Looking SouthEast and down on Duchesne, January 2009
Location in Duchesne County and the state of Utah
Coordinates: 40°9′52″N 110°24′2″W / 40.16444°N 110.40056°W / 40.16444; -110.40056Coordinates: 40°9′52″N 110°24′2″W / 40.16444°N 110.40056°W / 40.16444; -110.40056
Named for
Duchesne River
• Land
• Water
• Estimate
713/sq mi (275.3/km2)
UTC-7 (Mountain (MST))
UTC-6 (MDT)
49-20340[1]
www.duchesnecity.com
GeographyEdit
Duchesne is located just west of the junction of the Strawberry and Duchesne rivers in the Uintah Basin of northeastern Utah. The Duchesne River drains the southwest slope of the Uinta Mountains, and the Strawberry river drains the eastern slopes of the Wasatch Range and is connected to Strawberry Reservoir. The two rivers combine at Duchesne, and the Duchesne River continues east to join the Green River at Ouray, Utah.
Native stands of cottonwood trees and willows grow along the river banks, while sagebrush and rabbitbrush fill the un-irrigated bench tops. Alfalfa is the main cultivated crop of farmers in the area.
Via highway, Salt Lake City is 114 miles (183 km) to the west, Vernal is 58 miles (93 km) to the east, and Price is 54 miles (87 km) to the south.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.5 square miles (6.5 km2), all of it land.[4]
18 September 1776 The Dominguez–Escalante Expedition came from the east where they crossed Blue Bench and descended into the valley north of the present-day town of Duchesne. "We ascended a not very high mesa [Blue Bench] which was level and very stony, traveled about three quarters of a league including ascent and descent, crossed another small river [Duchesne River] which near here enters the San Cosme (Strawberry River), named it Santa Caterina de Sena, and camped on its banks." "Along these three rivers we have crossed today there is plenty of good land for crops to support three good settlements, with opportunities for irrigation, beautiful cottonwood groves, good pastures, with timber and firewood nearby."[6]
1822–1840 French Canadian trappers Étienne Provost, François le Clerc, and Antoine Robidoux entered the Uintah Basin by way of the Old Spanish Trail and made their fortunes by trapping the many beaver and trading with the Uintah tribe. From these French Canadian trappers the Duchesne River and ultimately Duchesne City received its name.
1900–1905 Leases were arranged with the Ute tribe through the Indian agent "Major" H.P. Myton to provide pasture for sheep in and around where Duchesne city is located now. A story passed down from Mrs. William J. Bond about her Father Joseph W. Thomas discusses the area. "During the winter of 1901 - 02, he (Thomas) hauled supplies from Heber to the now Duchesne area, to the sheep herd camp of John E. Austin, a brother-in-law. Together with three herders, Mr. Thomas tended sheep on the West bench (D-hill) near the (Theodore) cemetery site. They moved the herds to the East desert for the winter months. The indians had quite a village where Duchesne is now. It was a winter camp and in spring they scattered. A fence was stretched across the Indian Canyon as pasture for the horses that grazed there on 8" and 10" salt grass. Seguesee Jack (Ute tribe leader) refused settlers (sheep herders) permission to trespass the village site. The Indians feared the sheep would eat the good grasses." [7]
1905–1906 On June 7, 1905 the Secretary of the Interior directed the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to select one or more tracts of land in the Uintah Reservation suitable for townsites, so they might be reserved as such under the statutes of the United States.[8] Three sites were designated, which are the current sites of Duchesne, Myton, and Randlett. A month later President Theodore Roosevelt approved the selections and declared these lands reserved as townsites. On August 28 the US government opened up the Uintah Basin to settlement of land they had acquired from the Ute Indians under the allotment act of 1891. "Land lotteries" were held in Vernal, Provo, Price, Grand Junction, Colorado, and Vernal, where each person was given a ticket with a number. On August 28 numbers 1 through 111 were allowed to make their claim. On August 29 the next 111 people could make their claim and so on. 60 people, 46 adults and 14 children settled on the townsite that is now Duchesne and called it by its first name, "Elsie" (Glen). Government surveyors laid out the streets, and the survey was accepted by the government on 18 October 1905. The first cabin was built by Charles Dickerson and Charles Ragland in October 1905. A.M. Murdock with the help of a few men put up a large circus tent to act as a trading post and post office. The name of the town was changed to "Dora" for a short time, after Murdock's 23-year-old daughter, then changed once again to "Theodore", in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt. On September 15, 1905, Robert Duchesne Marsh was the first "white" child born in the townsite. The first winter was harsh, and the residents were living in tents or other temporary shelter. When spring came the high water of the Duchesne River overflowed its banks, flooding the town. Many of the homesteaders' dreams died after the first winter, and they sold their claims off for next to nothing. Judge M. M. Smith recalls, "One man asked me to write out a relinquishment for him, remarking, 'I must either give up my claim or my wife. She won't live here.'" Dikes were quickly built up but washed away, and some of the town was under 2 feet (0.61 m) of water until June. Tents and houses were moved around to avoid the flooding problem before the next spring.
The flooding continued annually until 1910[9] when $5,000 was finally given to make the four river cut-offs needed to fix the problem. In 1906 the first bridge was built by Wasatch County across the Duchesne River in east Theodore.
1907–1914 The men of Theodore organized the Boosters Club, and the women organized the Standard Bearers in 1907. Both groups became a forceful factor in the early development of the town. With the flooding of the rivers every spring, the Boosters club was finding it hard to attract people and business to the "muddy" little town. The Boosters Club raised $500 to build a bridge across the Strawberry River at the mouth of Indian Canyon. The bridge was completed in 1908, and later replaced by the state in 1914. In 1908 A. M. Murdock took down the tent and built the first store, barber shop, and post office, the "Pioneer Supply". A town hall was built by the citizens in 1907. After the flooding issue was resolved the town grew quickly. In 1910 the population of "Theodore" was 929.[10] The town's first newspaper, The Duchesne Record, started publication April 8, 1909. By 1910 the citizens had decided to change the name to "Duchesne". The post office kept the name "Theodore" until the town's petition to change the name was acknowledged on May 5, 1911. The town was incorporated in 1913, and A. M. Murdock was the first mayor.
On July 13, 1914, "Wasatch County was divided and Duchesne County was created." Duchesne was made the county seat on Nov 5, 1914, by popular vote of the citizens of the county.[11]
The name "Duchesne" is taken from the name of the river that runs through town and may have been named by fur trappers in the 1820s in honor of Mother Rose Philippine Duchesne, founder of the School of the Sacred Heart near St. Louis, Missouri, although other theories as to the name exist.
A photograph dated 1909, showing the A. M. Murdock Pioneer Supply Store and post office at Theodore, Utah (which was located approximately where Kohl's Market stood in Duchesne in 1991) appeared in a postal history magazine in 1992.[12] The Theodore post office operated from 1905 through 1913, when it was renamed Duchesne.[13]
AmenitiesEdit
Duchesne Library
Two community parks, which include slides, swings, picnic tables, a football field, and baseball diamonds
Boardwalk along the Strawberry River, with a great view of surrounding scenery
Ice skating pond, seasonal and located behind the library
Duchesne County Fair Grounds with covered rodeo arena
Duchesne County Centennial Event Center, 2000 seat indoor arena, multiple conference rooms with seating up to 300
RecreationEdit
Duchesne City and the surrounding area plays host to some of the best camping, fishing, boating, hunting, hiking, water skiing, and ATV riding in the state. 4 miles (6 km) to the west of Duchesne city is Fred Hayes State Park. Starvation Reservoir is the base of the state park. Located on the Strawberry River, it was created as part of the Central Utah Project and is a great fishing and boating lake with stocks of rainbow trout, smallmouth bass, walleye, yellow perch, and Utah chub. The current catch and release state record[14] for walleye and Utah chub are held at Starvation. The reservoir has 3,500 acres (14 km2) of surface area and is great for boating. There are four boat ramps; the largest is at the marina which also hosts RV parking, boat docs, camp sites, hot showers, and an RV waste dump. Activities at Starvation Reservoir include the annual Starvation Walleye Classic and Desert Bass Busters Club Tourny.
On the banks of the Strawberry River that runs through town is a boardwalk that not only has beautiful views but also is great to fish from. Other great stream fishing can be had on the Duchesne River and Rock Creek.
The High Uintas wilderness area is 30 miles (48 km) to the north and boasts great camping,hiking, and fishing. ATV riding is permitted within city limits. The Yellow Stone and Reservation Ridge ATV trails are located with 20 miles (32 km) of town.
Duchesne sits at the junction of three wildlife management units and is home to world-class big game hunting. Mule deer, pronghorn antelope, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, black bear, and mountain lion can be observed within miles of town.
TransportationEdit
Duchesne sits at the junction of U.S. Route 40, U.S. Route 191, and State Route 87. US-191 from Duchesne to Helper is designated the Indian Canyon National Scenic Byway.[15]
Duchesne Municipal Airport (Airnav U69)[16] is located 2 miles (3 km) northeast of town on the Blue Bench. The airport has a 5,800 by 60 ft (1,768 by 18 m) asphalt runway. Runway edge lights are medium intensity available from dusk - dawn, activate MIRL RY 17/35 & PAPI 17/35 - CTAF. Wind indicator is lit. Attendance is ON CALL. Services are available by request (435) 738-2464 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Mon - Fri; after hours call (435) 738-5538.
The proposed Uinta Basin Rail project would build a new railroad line into Duchesne for transporting oil drilled in the area.
Points of interestEdit
Grave of William Long, aka Harry Longabaugh, aka "the Sundance Kid". Research[17] is underway that may prove that the Sundance Kid did not die in Bolivia in 1908 but returned to his family in Utah and bought and operated a farm 2 miles (3 km) east of Duchesne until his death in 1936. He is buried in the Duchesne City cemetery.[clarification needed][18]
Pope Museum: Home of Duchesne pioneers Fred and Marie Pope. Museum contains miniature, true to scale, vehicles that depict the life style of the early settlers of the Uintah Basin. Museum is located at 370 West 100 North.
Theodore Cemetery: Early pioneer cemetery that functioned from 1906 until January 1914. John Jacobs was the first burial. 41 early settlers are buried here. The cemetery was abandoned because of the difficulty of digging graves in the cobblestone-laden soil. The cemetery was recently restored, and a large monument with names and information is located on the north end of the cemetery. Located on "D" hill, take the dirt road on the west end of town up the hill and turn east at the top. Travel east 300 yards to the monument.
Father Escalante Monument: North of Highway 40 on east entrance of town
Early Duchesne Settlement Monument: 130 West Main on north side of the road
War Memorial, World War I monument, World War II monument, Korean War monument, Vietnam War monument, Desert Storm monument: all located at 150 West Main.
Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne Monument: by front entrance of the Pope Museum.
SchoolsEdit
Duchesne has one public elementary school and one public high school. The schools serve all of Duchesne City as well as the communities of Bridgeland, Utahn, Strawberry, and Fruitland. Duchesne has hosted grades 1 through 8 since 1905. The first school building was built in 1907.[19] In 1921 ninth grade classes were added. Other classes on the 10th grade level were added through the late 1920s. On May 17, 1931, Duchesne High School held a graduation ceremony for four students that composed the first senior class. The current structure was built in 2004-2005. The facility has two gymnasiums, one college-sized basketball court and one smaller gymnasium left from the 1965 structure. English department with classrooms and separate writing lab. Science department with classrooms and separate lab. Utah State University provides onsite distance education classes at the school so all students have the opportunity to graduate from high school with an associate degree. Wood and metal shops. Auditorium, lunch room, and administrative offices.
Duchesne High school colors are blue and white; the mascot is the eagle. Duchesne High School sponsors a men's football team, men's and women's basketball teams, men's wrestling, women's volleyball, as well as a track and field team and cross country team. Duchesne added mens baseball in the 2017-18 school year. Duchesne High competes in the 2A division of the UHSAA in all activities but Football which competes in 1A. Men's teams have won state titles in boys basketball (1989), football (2006, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013,2016), wrestling (1981, 2008, 2015), boys cross country (1994, 1998) and boys track and field (1993, 2004, 2005). The women's drill team, named the Talons, has won fifteen (2004-2018) consecutive state championships.
Duchesne Elementary serves grades K–6.
Duchesne High School serves grades 7–12.
ChurchesEdit
Duchesne city and the surrounding area is served by three organized churches.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has two chapels located at 130 South 300 East and 901 North 500 East.
The First Baptist Church is located at 592 East 400 South.
The Catholic Church has a small mission office on West Main Street. The Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha mission is under direction of the Saint Helen Parish in Roosevelt, Utah.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a seminary located at 181 North 200 West.
IndustryEdit
In 1948 oil was found in the Uintah Basin but not developed until the early 1970s. Duchesne city is located in the area of vast oil and natural gas reserves spanning the northeast corner of Utah and extending into western Colorado. As prices for crude rise, oil industry jobs open up in the town but also disappear when crude prices fall. Although reserves are vast, oil production is stifled to almost 50% of capacity by lack of transportation of the paraffin rich crude. Currently crude is only transported to refineries in the Salt Lake city area using trucks. Pipelines can not be used because of the high wax content of the crude. Currently(2019) a study is being conducted on feasibility of a rail line passing through Duchesne to allow transport of the crude to bigger markets.
Duchesne has benefited from the water resources of the Duchesne and Strawberry rivers that flow close to the town. The Central Utah Project was active in the area for 20 years and provided good jobs from 1967 to 1987. A recent expansion to the water treatment plant northwest of town will start supplying culinary water to the community of Roosevelt some 30 miles (48 km) away.
Duchesne is home to a number of heavy machine and steel manufacturers. A wide variety of products and parts are manufactured, including underground cranes, shield haulers, rifle barrels, steam locomotive parts, drill collars, turbine parts, gears, sprockets, and splines for the oil fields, steel mills, coal mines, trona mines, power plants, other machine shops, manufacturers and other industries in many capacities. Products are shipped both domestically and to Canada, Mexico, South America, Australia, and Europe.
Agriculture has always been a mainstay for many Duchesne residents and surrounding communities. The vast amount of federally owned and leased lands have given cattle ranchers and sheep ranchers good grazing for over 120 years in the area. Overgrazing in the early 20th century has led to reform in the grazing areas and a steady decline in sheep and cow production throughout the area. Small family farms are the mainstay.
Duchesne has always been rich in its rugged beauty and tourism. Thousands are drawn during and warmer months to enjoy boating on Starvation Reservoir, fishing on the Strawberry and Duchesne rivers, and camping in the High Uintas.
1920 700 −24.7%
1960 770 −4.2%
1970 1,094 42.1%
1990 1,308 −22.0%
Est. 2017 1,779 [20] 5.3%
U.S. Decennial Census[21]
As of the census[1] of 2010, there were 1,690 people, 797 households, and 601 families residing in the city. The population density was 893 people per square mile. There were 550 housing units at an average density of 238.8 per square mile (92.3/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 98.01% White, 0.0% African American, 0.37% Native American, 0.0% Asian, 0.0% Pacific Islander, 1.64% from other races, and 0.0% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.57% of the population.
There were 797 households out of which 44.67% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 63.82% were married couples living together, 8.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.1% were non-families. 22.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.97 and the average family size was 3.55.
In the city, the age distribution of the population shows 31.88% under the age of 18, 14.45% from 18 to 24, 21.72% from 25 to 44, 20.81% from 45 to 64, and 10.15% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 28 years. For every 100 females, there were 11.6 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $46,318 and the median income for a family was $58,009. The per capita income for the city was $20,262.
2015Edit
As of 2015 the largest self-reported ancestry groups in Duchesne, Utah are:[22]
Largest ancestries (2015)
"American"
ClimateEdit
Duchesne has a cold semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSk).
Climate data for Duchesne, Utah (1981–2010)
Average high °F (°C)
(−0.1) 38.4
Average low °F (°C)
(−13.2) 14.2
Average precipitation inches (mm)
(14) 0.59
(17) 10.09
Average snowfall inches (cm)
(0.51) 0.0
Source: NOAA[23]
Utah portal
List of cities and towns in Utah
High Uintas Wilderness
Fred Hayes State Park
Uinta Mountains
^ a b "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on 2013-09-11. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
^ "US Board on Geographic Names". United States Geological Survey. 2007-10-25. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
^ "Find a County". National Association of Counties. Archived from the original on 2012-07-12. Retrieved 2011-06-07.
^ a b "Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (G001): Duchesne city, Utah". American Factfinder. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved January 12, 2016.
^ "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2014". Retrieved June 4, 2015.
^ Father Escalate journals
^ Mrs. Wm. J. Bond Contributes an Early Story, Duchesne city Library[unreliable source?]
^ A PROCLAMATION, By the President of the United States of America., July 31, 1905. Proclamations. 34 Stat., Part 3, 3139.
^ The Duchesne Record, July 22, 1910, Pg 1, column 3, "The Work Starts in Theodore"
^ 1910 US Census
^ The Duchesne Record, Sept 4, 1915, "Roll Call on the 10th Opening Anniversary"
^ Robertson, A. Lee, and Pack, Dennis H. "The Theodore, Utah, Post Office: A Remarkable Portrait", in La Posta: A Journal of American Postal History, July 1992, pp 40-41. West Linn, Oregon: La Posta Publications. ISSN 0885-7385.
^ Helbock, Richard W. (1998) United States Post Offices, Volume 1 - The West, p. 196, Lake Oswego, Oregon: La Posta Publications.
^ http://wildlife.utah.gov/fishing/recfish.php
^ http://www.utah.com/byways/
^ http://www.airnav.com/airport/U69
^ Deseret News, Tuesday Dec. 16, 2008 "Is Sundance really buried in Duchesne"
^ http://www.sundancekidhenrylong.com
^ Historical marker located at 150 West Main Street, Duchesne, 4-inch (10 cm) round plaque on back of monument.
^ "Population and Housing Unit Estimates". Retrieved June 9, 2017.
^ "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. Archived from the original on April 26, 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
^ https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/15_5YR/DP02/1600000US4920340%7C1600000US4964670
^ "NOWData - NOAA Online Weather Data". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved May 5, 2013.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Duchesne, Utah.
The Uintah Basin Standard and archives of other local papers
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Duchesne,_Utah&oldid=905700197"
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Published on Qantara.de - Dialogue with the Islamic World (https://en.qantara.de)
Home > Imams against sex-selective abortion
Azerbaijanʹs struggle to promote the value of girls
Imams against sex-selective abortion
Azerbaijan is struggling to change the mind-sets of families aborting female foetuses. Imams who have weighed in on the issue have become indispensable in up-ending this practice. Experts say the country urgently needs to implement an action plan or it will face dire consequences. Ayse Karabat reports from Baku
Azerbaijan ranks second in the world, after China, in the number of sex-selective pregnancy terminations. A conversation between Qantara and the inhabitants of a womenʹs shelter in Baku, the countryʹs capital, merely confirmed the reality.
"I had two daughters already. My husband had threatened to leave me if the third one was a girl. When I found out that it was a girl, I did not go to get an abortion initially, I tried to provoke a miscarriage instead. I was hospitalised," one woman said in the meeting room of the three-story shelter, which hosts 30 women.
Almost all the women there have similar stories. Theyʹve been forced or felt obliged to have abortions at least once in their lives because they were pregnant with girls. One woman took a different path. "I had three girls and one boy. When my fifth, a girl, was born, my husband forced me to give her up for adoption. I had to. Then I had another child – it was a boy. We kept him."
Mehriban Zeynalova, chairperson of the Clean World Aid to Women Public Union NGO and the manager of the shelter, told Qantara that sex-selective abortion is a huge problem in the country. "But women here are not aware that they actually are victims of this problem. They don't make official complaints for being forced into sex-selective abortions," Zeynalova said.
Troubling times ahead
According to demographic and health surveys of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Azerbaijan, approximately one in two pregnancies in the country is terminated through abortion. Azerbaijani laws permit abortion up to 12 weeks into pregnancy. Women can also request it up to 22 weeks – under specific financial or social circumstances.
Talking up the value of girls in a patriarchal society: sociologist Javid Shahmaliyev has been taking part in projects designed to tackle the issue since 2010. "We talk to them in the teahouses, we talk to them in the mosques. We raise awareness among religious leaders. Even though Azerbaijan is a Muslim country, Islamic ideas are not that known, so we tell people what Islam says about the value of girls. The co-operation of the religious leaders and imams has brought tremendous results"
The UNFPAʹs reports underline that in Azerbaijan the ratio of boys to girls was 116 to 110 at the beginning of the 2010s, although the biological norm in the world is 105 boys to 100 girls. In 2016 this number declined to 114 boys, but is still high.
"If such an increase in the number of men and boys continues, the country will soon face a negative impact including, for example, a wider gender gap in education, a reduction in the proportion of women in the labour market and masculinisation in all spheres of public life. Such masculinisation will impede the promotion of women and lead to increased levels of crime, including human trafficking," the UNFPAʹs report warned.
The same report indicated that son preference is strong and clear among both men and women from different generations, socio-economic backgrounds and regions in the country. Sons are preferred as "assets" since they can contribute to the family, while daughters on the other hand are regarded as "liabilities".Talking man-to-man
Sociologist Javid Shahmaliyev has been taking part in projects designed to tackle the issue and promote the value of girls since 2010. Over the last three years, however, heʹs been faced with a very challenging task: re-educating the male representatives of this patriarchal culture.
"There are several awareness programmes throughout Azerbaijan that are either social media or event-based. But there are some people, especially those in rural areas, who either donʹt have Facebook or are unlikely to attend such events. They can only be convinced if you speak to them face-to-face. Weʹve been going from one teahouse to the next, talking to them man-to-man," explained Shahmaliyev.
Overcoming initial resistance: Talking about the Prophet Muhammad who had no son but a daughter, named Fatima, is a good way to capture peopleʹs attention, says Quliyev."We tell them there is no difference between the pre-Islamic tradition of burying girls right after they are born and sex-selective abortion. We also tell them that the Koran specifically mentions daughters as being bearers of good news"
He added that at the beginning it was difficult to gain their attention and respect, but over time, as instructors, they have been able to develop ways of communicating with them.
"They would consider talking about abortion, but because it is a taboo, we talk to them instead about the value of girls. We talk to them in the teahouses, we talk to them in the mosques. We raise awareness among religious leaders. Even though Azerbaijan is a Muslim country, Islamic ideas are not that known, so we told people what Islam says about the value of girls. The co-operation of the religious leaders and imams has brought tremendous results."
Daughters as blessings
One such imam who tackles sex-selective abortions is Oktay Quliyev. He participates in awareness projects and uses his weekly TV programme on a national channel to convince people that the practice is wrong. At the beginning, he said, he faced resistance from society, but talking about the Prophet Muhammad who had no son but a daughter, named Fatima, was a good way to capture peopleʹs attention.
"We mention verses from the Koran that prohibit the pre-Islamic tradition of burying girls right after they are born. We tell them there is no difference between this tradition and sex-selective abortion. We also tell them that the Koran specifically mentions daughters as being bearers of good news."Quliyev suggested that banning abortion and prohibiting revealing the sex of the foetus to the parents during pregnancy, the way South Korea did during the 1990s when it was facing sex-selective abortions, could be one way of tackling the issue.
But most of the Azerbaijanis surveyed, including sociologist Shahmaliyev and activist Zeynalova, believe that bans would not be provide an answer to the problem, as the UNFPA report also indicates.
According to the report there was wide consensus amongst the government officials and others interviewed that bans are not the answer. First, they would be very difficult to enforce, as doctors can just give a different reason for conducting the abortion. Second, they run the risk of pushing women to have abortions under less safe circumstances. Besides, technological developments are making it ever easier to detect the sex of the foetus early in pregnancy.
Rather than bans, what Azerbaijan society needs is a large-scale action plan. Indeed a measure to this end is actually ready and awaiting governmental approval.
Implementing the action plan
Elnur Suleymanov, the head of a department at Azerbaijanʹs Labour and Social Protection of Population Ministry, said that the efforts of imams, groups and ministries are important, but insufficient when it comes to tacking the problem.
"We have prepared an action plan with the UNFPA. We are asking other state institutions for their opinions on this plan, which is based on raising awareness and running campaigns aimed at gender equality. This plan will present a comprehensive roadmap for effective intervention strategies to reduce sex-selective abortions; it will have its own budget, executive committee and measures. We need it to protect the future of our society."
Ayse Karabat
© Qantara.de 2019
The UNFPA in AzerbaijanAbortion in Afghanistan: Trying to break a major societal tabooFighting forced marriage in Kyrgyzstan: Bride abduction is not coolDesperate measures: Pakistani women seek abortions as birth control
Source URL: https://en.qantara.de/content/azerbaijans-struggle-to-promote-the-value-of-girls-imams-against-sex-selective-abortion
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USS Maryland (BB-46)
For other ships with the same name, see USS Maryland.
USS Maryland (BB-46) underway in 1935
Name: Maryland
Namesake: State of Maryland
Ordered: 5 December 1916
Builder: Newport News Shipbuilding
Laid down: 24 April 1917
Launched: 20 March 1920
Sponsored by: Mrs. E. Brook Lee
Commissioned: 21 July 1921
Decommissioned: 3 April 1947
Nickname(s): "Old Mary" and "Fighting Mary"
Honors and
awards: 7 Battle Stars
Fate: Sold for scrap, 8 July 1959
General characteristics [1][2]
Class and type: Colorado-class battleship
Displacement: 32,600 long tons (33,100 t)
Length: 624 ft (190 m)
Draft: 30 ft 6 in (9.30 m)
Speed: 21.17 kn (39.21 km/h; 24.36 mph)
Complement: 1,080 officers and enlisted
8 × 16 in (406 mm)/45 caliber guns
12 × 5 in (127 mm)/51 caliber guns
4 × 3 in (76 mm)/23 caliber guns
2 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Belt: 8–13.5 in (200–340 mm)
Barbettes: 13 in (330 mm)
Turret face: 18 in (460 mm)
Turret sides: 9–10 in (230–250 mm)
Turret top: 5 in (130 mm)
Turret rear 9 in (230 mm)
Conning tower: 11.5 in (290 mm)
Decks: 3.5 in (89 mm)
Aircraft carried: 4 × floatplanes
Aviation facilities: 2 × aircraft catapults
USS Maryland (BB-46), also known as "Old Mary" or "Fighting Mary" to her crewmates, was a Colorado-class battleship. She was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the seventh state. She was commissioned in 1921, and serving as the flagship of the fleet, cruised to Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil.
She is most notable for her service in World War II. She was present on Battleship Row during the Attack on Pearl Harbor, and was lightly damaged by Japanese bombs. Returning to duty in 1942, she saw service in the Pacific War, first supporting the rest of the fleet at the Battle of Midway, and then patrolling the Fiji Islands to guard against Japanese incursion. Next, she went on the offensive, commencing shore bombardments in the Battle of Tarawa and later in the Battle of Kwajalein. During the Battle of Saipan she took torpedo damage to her bow, necessitating repairs and refits. She then participated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf where she was hit by a kamikaze. She took another kamikaze hit at the Battle of Okinawa, and was under repair at the end of World War II.
After service in Operation Magic Carpet, she was decommissioned in 1947, and sold for scrap in 1959. She received seven battle stars for World War II service.
2.1 Inter-war period
2.2 Attack on Pearl Harbor
2.3 Supporting patrols
2.4 Battle of Tarawa
2.5 Battle of Kwajalein Atoll
2.6 Battle of Saipan
2.7 Battle of Leyte Gulf
2.8 Battle of Okinawa
2.9 Post-war
Construction[edit]
Main article: Colorado-class battleship
Hull of Maryland under construction c. 1917
Maryland was one of four dreadnought battleships of the Colorado class to be constructed. Her keel was laid down on 24 April 1917, by Newport News Shipbuilding Company of Newport News, Virginia. She was launched on 20 March 1920, and sponsored by Mrs. E. Brook Lee, daughter-in-law of U.S. Senator from Maryland Blair Lee; she was commissioned on 21 July 1921, with Captain C.F. Preston in command.[1] She was the third ship named for the state of Maryland. The first Maryland was a sloop commissioned in 1799 and the second Maryland was an armored cruiser commissioned in 1905.[3]
Maryland had an overall length of 624 feet (190 m). She had an extreme beam of 97.5 feet (29.7 m) and a mean draft of 30.5 feet (9.3 m). She displaced 32,000 long tons (33,000 t). Her armor was 18 inches (460 mm) at its maximum thickness. Her designed speed was 21 knots. Her crew complement consisted of 58 officers and 1,022 men.[4]
Maryland's main battery consisted of eight 16-inch (406 mm)/45 caliber Mark 1 guns in four double turrets (two in a superfiring pair forward, two in a superfiring pair mounted aft of the main superstructure) that were capable of firing 2,110 pounds (960 kg) armor-piercing (AP) Mark 3 shells, later upgraded to 2,240 pounds (1,020 kg) Mark 5.[5] Her secondary battery consisted of twelve 5-inch (127 mm)/51 cailber guns as well as four 3-inch (76 mm)/23 caliber guns. She was also armed with a pair of 21-inch (533 mm) submerged torpedo tubes.[4] She was outfitted with a new type of seaplane catapult and the first 16-inch guns mounted on a U.S. ship.[1]
Service history[edit]
Inter-war period[edit]
Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes (at left) and Admiral Hilary P. Jones, Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet on board Maryland in August 1922, during her cruise to Rio de Janeiro to participate in the Brazilian Centennial Exposition
Following her commissioning, Maryland undertook an East Coast shakedown cruise.[1] Shortly thereafter, Maryland was made flagship of Admiral Hilary P. Jones.[6] Maryland found herself in great demand for special occasions. She appeared at Annapolis, Maryland, for the 1922 United States Naval Academy graduation and at Boston, Massachusetts, for the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill and the Fourth of July.[7] From 18 August to 25 September, she paid her first visit to a foreign port transporting Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes to Rio de Janeiro for Brazil's Centennial Exposition. The next year, after fleet exercises off the Panama Canal Zone, Maryland transited the canal in the latter part of June to join the battle fleet stationed on the west coast.[1] She continued to be a flagship until 1923 when the flag was shifted to Pennsylvania.[6]
She made another voyage to a foreign port in 1925, this time to Australia and New Zealand. Several years later, in 1928, she transported President-elect Herbert Hoover on the Pacific leg of his tour of Latin America.[7] She was overhauled in 1928–1929, and the eight 3-inch anti-aircraft guns were replaced by eight 5-inch/25 cal guns.[8] Throughout these years and the 1930s, she served as a mainstay of fleet readiness through tireless training operations.[1] She conducted numerous patrols in the 1930s.[6]
In 1940, Maryland and the other battleships of the battle force changed their bases of operations to Pearl Harbor.[7] She was present at Battleship Row along Ford Island during the Japanese attack on 7 December 1941.[1]
Attack on Pearl Harbor[edit]
Main article: Battleship Row
Main article: Battle of Pearl Harbor
Maryland alongside the capsized Oklahoma during the attack on Pearl Harbor, as West Virginia burns in the background
On the morning of 7 December, Maryland was moored along Ford Island, with Oklahoma to port, connected by lines and a gangway. To her fore was California, while Tennessee and West Virginia were astern. Further aft were Nevada and Arizona. The seven battleships, in what is now known as "Battleship Row," had recently returned from maneuvers. Many of Maryland's crew were preparing for shore leave at 09:00 or eating breakfast when the Japanese attack began. As the first Japanese aircraft appeared and explosions rocked the outboard battleships, Maryland's bugler blew general quarters.[6]
Seaman Leslie Short—addressing Christmas cards near his machine gun—brought the first of his ship's guns into play, shooting down one of two torpedo bombers that had just released against Oklahoma. Inboard of Oklahoma, and thus protected from the initial torpedo attack, Maryland managed to bring all her antiaircraft (AA) batteries into action.[1] The devastating initial attack sank Oklahoma, and she capsized quickly, with many of her surviving men climbing aboard Maryland to assist her with anti-aircraft defenses.[6]
Aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, with Maryland near the top of the photo, shown along with several other sunken battleships
Maryland was struck by two armor-piercing bombs which detonated low on her hull.[9] The first struck the forecastle awning and made a hole about 12 ft (3.7 m) by 20 ft (6.1 m).[9] The second exploded after entering the hull at the 22 ft (6.7 m) water level at Frame 10.[9] The latter hit caused flooding and increased the draft forward by 5 ft (1.5 m).[9] Maryland continued to fire and, after the attack, sent firefighting parties to assist her compatriots, especially attempting to rescue survivors from the capsized Oklahoma.[7] The men continued to muster the AA defenses in case the Japanese returned to attack. In all, two officers and two men were killed in the attack.[6]
The Japanese erroneously announced that Maryland had been sunk, but on 30 December, the damaged ship entered Puget Sound Navy Yard for repairs just behind Tennessee.[10] Two of the original twelve 5 -inch/51 cal guns were removed and the 5-inch/25 cal guns were replaced by an equal number of 5-inch/38 cal dual purpose guns.[8] Over the course of the next two months, she was repaired and overhauled, receiving new fighting equipment. Repairs were complete on 26 February 1942.[1] She then underwent a series of shakedown cruises to West Coast ports and the Christmas Islands. She was sent back into action in June 1942, the first ship damaged at Pearl Harbor to return to duty.[10]
Supporting patrols[edit]
Maryland in February 1942, after the completion of her repairs
During the important Battle of Midway, Maryland played a supporting role. Like the other older battleships, she was not fast enough to accompany the aircraft carriers, so she operated with a backup fleet protecting the West Coast.[1] Maryland stood by on security, awaiting call from other ships if she was needed, until the end of the battle. At the end of the action around Midway, Maryland was sent to San Francisco.[10]
Thereafter, Maryland engaged in almost constant training exercises with Battleship Division 2, Battleship Division 3, and Battleship Division 4 until 1 August, when she returned to Pearl Harbor for repairs, her first time in the harbor since the Japanese attack. She departed Pearl Harbor in early November with Colorado, bound for the forward area.[11] On 12 November, King Neptune came aboard Maryland to initiate her "pollywogs" for the line-crossing ceremony. Maryland steamed for the Fiji Islands where she patrolled against Japanese incursion. The two battleships acted as sentinels to guard against Japanese advance to prevent Japanese forces from threatening Australia. During this duty, the two battleships conducted frequent sweeps for Japanese forces.[10]
In early 1943, with the success of the Solomon Islands campaign, Allied forces went on the offensive. In February 1943, Maryland and Colorado moved to New Hebrides, operating off of Efate.[11] Intense heat there proved difficult and unpleasant for the crew. She then moved to Espiritu Santo to guard against Japanese incursion, but heat and heavy rains plagued this tour of duty.[10] Maryland and Colorado stood out of Aore Island Harbor in August. During a five-week overhaul at Pearl Harbor's shipyard, several 40 millimetres (1.6 in) AA guns were installed on the top decks and foremast as protection against anticipated Japanese air raids in future operations.[10]
Battle of Tarawa[edit]
Rear Admiral Harry W. Hill, who used Maryland as his flagship during the Battle of Tarawa
Departing the Hawaiian Islands on 20 October 1943 for the South Pacific, Maryland became flagship for Rear Admiral Harry W. Hill's V Amphibious Force and Southern Attack Force in the Gilbert Islands Invasion.[1] Also aboard her were Major General Julian C. Smith, commander of 2nd Marine Division, General "Howling Mad" Smith, commander of the Marine landing forces, and Colonel Evans Carlson, commander of Carlson's Raiders. Maryland returned to Efate Island staging area, where she joined a large task force preparing for an assault on Tarawa.[12]
The battle of Tarawa commenced on 20 November. In her first offensive action of the war, Maryland's guns opened fire at 05:00, destroying a shore battery with five salvos on the southwestern point of Betio Island in the Tarawa Atoll. At 06:00 she commenced a scheduled shore bombardment to soften up Japanese defenses ahead of the landings.[11] Maryland moved closer to shore to attract Japanese fire and locate artillery emplacements, in the process raking Japanese gun emplacements, control stations, pillboxes and any Japanese installations she could spot. At 09:00 as Marine landing forces encountered heavy Japanese resistance and began taking casualties to emplaced crossfire, Maryland provided covering fire to eliminate several Japanese machine gun nests. Her scouting plane then began to cover the progress of the Marines' assault, with Maryland providing artillery support. The plane was damaged and pilot wounded in this action.[12]
After three days of covering the offensive on Betio Island, she moved to Apamama Island to guard Marine landings there.[11] Marines met with only light resistance from 30 Japanese soldiers there, and two prisoners were brought to Maryland. On 7 December, Maryland left Apamama Island for Pearl Harbor. After a brief stopover there, Maryland left for San Francisco for repairs.[12]
Battle of Kwajalein Atoll[edit]
Maryland steamed from San Pedro, California on 13 January 1944, rendezvoused with Task Force 53 at Lahaina Roads for two days of loading ammunition, refueling, and provisioning ahead of a new operation supporting the Marshall Islands campaign.[11] On 30 January 1944, she moved to support landings on Roi Island, along with Santa Fe, Biloxi, and Indianapolis, which formed the Northern Support Group of TF 35.[12]
In the predawn hours of 31 January, the ships began a bombardment of Kwajalein Atoll, the opening moves of the battle of Kwajalein.[11] Maryland destroyed numerous Japanese stationary guns and pillboxes. In the course of the battle, she fired so much that she split the liners in the guns of Turret No. 1, putting it out of action for the rest of the day. On 1 February, she continued her attack on Japanese positions as the U.S. landing forces advanced. She became the flagship for Admiral Connally for the next two weeks, resupplying and refueling many of the smaller ships in the operation until she departed with a task unit of carriers and destroyers on 15 February 1944, steaming for Bremerton Navy Yard, where she underwent another overhaul, with her guns being replaced.[12]
Battle of Saipan[edit]
Two months later, Maryland sailed westward on 5 May, joining Task Force 52 headed for Saipan.[11] Vice Admiral Richmond K. Turner allotted TF 52 three days to soften up the island's defenses ahead of the assault. Firing commenced at 05:45 on 14 June. They quickly destroyed two coastal guns, then began bombarding Garapan, destroying ammunition dumps, gun positions, small boats, storage tanks, blockhouses and buildings. She then turned her guns to Tanapag, leveling it in heavy bombardment. The invasion commenced 15 June, and Maryland provided fire support for the landing forces.[12]
Maryland in Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, 10 July 1944, showing torpedo damage she sustained during the battle of Saipan
The Japanese attempted to counter the battleships through the air. On 18 June, the ship's guns shot down their first Japanese aircraft, but on 22 June, a Mitsubishi G4M3 "Betty" medium bomber flew low over the still-contested Saipan hills and found Maryland and Pennsylvania. The Japanese plane dropped a torpedo, opening a large hole in Maryland's starboard bow. The attack caused light casualties, and in 15 minutes she was underway for Eniwetok, and from there she steamed for the repair yards at Pearl Harbor (in reverse the whole time so as not to do further damage to her bow[13]),[1] escorted by two destroyers. Two men were killed in the attack.[12]
With an around-the-clock effort by the shipyard workers, Maryland was repaired in 34 days, departing on 13 August. She then embarked for the Solomon Islands with a large task force, anchoring in Purvis Bay off Florida Island for two weeks before steaming for the Palau Islands on 6 September.[12] She then joined Rear Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf's Western Fire Support Group (Task Group 32.5; TG 32.5). Firing first on 12 September to cover minesweeping operations and underwater demolition teams at the opening of the Battle of Peleliu, Maryland again conducted shore bombardment supporting the landing craft as they approached the beaches on 15 September.[11] Four days later, organized resistance collapsed, permitting the fire support ships to retire to the Admiralty Islands at the end of the month.[1]
Battle of Leyte Gulf[edit]
Maryland steamed for Seeadler Harbor, Manus where she was assigned to the 7th Fleet under Admiral Kinkaid. The fleet sortied 12 October, and Maryland joined Task Group 77.2, which was the gunfire and covering force for the invasion of Leyte.[11] She, along with four other battleships and numerous cruisers and destroyers, steamed into Leyte Gulf on the morning of 18 October. Maryland took position between Red and White Beaches and began bombarding them ahead of the invasion, which began at 10:00 20 October. Securing the beaches quickly, Maryland then took up a sentinel position in Leyte Gulf to guard the beaches against Japanese counterattack by sea.[12]
For the next several days, Japanese forces launched air raids to counter the incursion. These included the first widespread use of the kamikaze suicide attack. Several days later, U.S. submarines in the South China Sea spotted two Japanese forces on approach: five battleships steaming toward San Bernardino Strait, and another force of four Japanese carriers in northern Luzon.[14]
Maryland in 1944
On 24 October, Maryland, West Virginia, Mississippi, Tennessee, California, and Pennsylvania sailed to the southern end of Leyte Gulf to protect Surigao Strait with several cruisers, destroyers, and PT Boats. Early on 25 October, during the Battle of Surigao Strait, Japanese battleships Fusō and Yamashiro, with their screens, led the Japanese advance into the Strait.[11] At 03:55, the waiting Americans ships launched an ambush of the two Japanese battleships, pounding them with torpedoes and main guns. Torpedoes from the destroyers sunk Fusō.[1] Continued attacks by the task force also claimed Yamashiro. A few of the remaining Japanese ships then fled to the Mindanao Sea, pursued by Allied aircraft.[14]
Following the victory, Maryland patrolled the southern approaches to Surigao Strait until 29 October; she then steamed for the Admiralty Isles for brief replenishment and resumed patrol duty around Leyte on 16 November, protecting the landing forces from continued Japanese air attacks.[11] On 29 November, during another Japanese air attack, a kamikaze aircraft surprised and struck Maryland. The aircraft crashed into Maryland between Turrets No. 1 and 2, piercing the forecastle, main, and armored decks and blowing a hole in the 4-inch steel, causing extensive damage and starting fires. In all, 31 men were killed and 30 wounded in the attack, and the medical department was destroyed but still functional.[14]
The battleship continued her patrols until relieved on 2 December, when she sailed with two heavily damaged destroyers for repairs.[11] She reached Pearl Harbor on 18 December, and was extensively repaired and refitted over the next couple of months.[14]
Battle of Okinawa[edit]
Maryland at sea in early 1945
After refresher training, Maryland headed for the western Pacific on 4 March 1945, arriving Ulithi on 16 March. There she joined the 5th Fleet and Rear Admiral Morton Deyo's Task Force 54 (TF 54), which was preparing for the invasion of Okinawa. The fleet departed on 21 March, bound for Okinawa.[14]
Maryland was assigned targets on the southern coast of Okinawa to support a diversionary landing, which would distract Japanese forces away from the main landing on the west coast.[11] Japanese forces responded with several air raids, with two of Maryland's radar picket destroyers being struck by kamikaze planes, with Luce sinking. On 3 April, she was moved to the west coast invasion beaches to assist Minneapolis in destroying several shore batteries. Following the land invasion, she remained with the support force off Bolo Point providing artillery support for the invading troops.[14]
Maryland continued fire support duty until 7 April, when she steamed north to intercept a Japanese surface force with TF 54.[11] The Japanese ships, including the Yamato, came under constant U.S. air attacks that day, and planes of the Fast Carrier Task Force sank six of the 10 ships in the force. At dusk, a kamikaze loaded with a 551 lb (250 kg) bomb crashed the top of Turret No. 3 from starboard. The explosion wiped out the 20 mm mounts and caused a large fire. The 20mm ammunition ignited from the heat, causing further casualties.[1] In all, 10 were killed, 37 injured and 6 missing following this attack. Maryland remained on station for the next week and continued her artillery support mission through several more air raids. Turret No. 3, damaged but usable, remained silent for the remainder of this mission.[4]
On 14 April, Maryland left the firing line at Okinawa and escorted several retiring transports. They steamed via the Mariana Islands and Guam to Pearl Harbor,[1] and she reached the Puget Sound Navy Yard at Bremerton on 7 May for extensive overhaul.[11] All of her 5 in guns were removed and replaced by sixteen 5 inch/38 cal guns in new twin mounts.[8] Turret No. 3 was repaired and the crew quarters were improved. She completed repairs in August, leaving for tests and training runs just as Japan surrendered, ending the war.[4]
She next entered Operation Magic Carpet fleet.[4] During the remaining months of 1945, Maryland made five voyages between the west coast and Pearl Harbor, returning more than 8,000 servicemen to the United States.[1]
Post-war[edit]
Maryland in Puget Sound Navy Yard in August 1945, after the end of World War II
Arriving at Seattle, Washington on 17 December, Maryland completed her Operation Magic Carpet duty. She entered Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on 15 April 1946, and was placed in commission in inactive reserve on 16 July.[4] She was decommissioned at Bremerton on 3 April 1947, and remained there as a unit of the Pacific Reserve Fleet. Maryland was sold for scrapping to Learner Company of Oakland, California on 8 July 1959.[1]
On 2 June 1961, Governor of Maryland J. Millard Tawes, dedicated a monument to the memory of Maryland and her men. Built of granite and bronze and incorporating the bell of "Fighting Mary", this monument is located on the grounds of the State House in Annapolis.[15]
Awards[edit]
American Defense Service Medal with "FLEET" clasp
Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal with seven battle stars
The Maryland received seven battle stars for World War II service.[1]
Pearl Harbor-Midway: 7 December 1941
Gilbert Islands operation: 13 November – 8 December 1943
Marshall Islands operation: Occupation of Kwajalein and Majuro Islands: 28 January – 8 February 1944
Marianas operation: Capture and occupation of Saipan: 11 June – 10 August 1944
Western Caroline Islands operations: Capture and occupation of southern Palau Island: 6 September – 14 October 1944
Leyte operation: Leyte landings: 1 October – 29 November 1944
Okinawa Gunto operation: Assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto: 24 March – 30 June 1945
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s DANFS Maryland (BB-46).
^ Gardiner & Gray 1985, p. 118.
^ Mooney 1981, p. 256.
^ a b c d e f Vreeken 1997, p. 13.
^ DiGiulian, Tony (22 April 2015). "United States of America 16"/45 (40.6 cm) Mark 1". NavWeaps.com. Retrieved 9 June 2016.
^ a b c d e f Vreeken 1997, p. 9.
^ a b c d Mooney 1981, p. 257.
^ a b c Breyer 1973, p. 230.
^ a b c d Wallin 1968, p. 192.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Mooney 1981, p. 258.
^ a b c d e f g h i Vreeken 1997, p. 11.
^ navyreviewer (15 March 2011). "Colorado class". Retrieved 15 April 2018 – via YouTube.
Breyer, Siegfried (1973). Battleships and Battle Cruisers 1905–1970. Doubleday and Company. ISBN 0-385-07247-3.
Cressman, Robert (2000). "Chapter VI: 1944". The official chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-149-3. OCLC 41977179. Retrieved 16 September 2011.
Gardiner, Robert; Gray, Randal, eds. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906–1921. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-907-3. OCLC 12119866.
Mooney, James (1981). Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, V. 4: L-M, Volume 4. Washington DC: Naval History Division.
Sauer, Howard (1999). The Last Big-Gun Naval Battle: The Battle of Surigao Strait. Palo Alto, California: The Glencannon Press. ISBN 1-889901-08-3. OCLC 40838824. – First-hand account of Maryland′s war service by a former officer of her crew.
Vreeken, Fred R. (1997). USS Maryland (BB-47). Paducah, Kentucky: Turner Publishing Company.
Wallin, Homer N. (1968). Pearl Harbor: Why, How, Fleet Salvage and Final Appraisal. Washington, D.C: Department of the Navy. ISBN 0-89875-565-4. OCLC 51673398.
"Maryland". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to USS Maryland (BB-46).
US Navy Historical Center USS Maryland gallery
MaritimeQuest USS Maryland BB-46 Photo Gallery
Photo gallery of Maryland at NavSource Naval History
DANFS photographs of USS Maryland (BB-46)
Colorado-class battleships
Preceded by: Tennessee class
Followed by: South Dakota class (planned) / North Carolina class (actual)
List of battleships of the United States Navy
Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in December 1941
6 Dec: HMS Perseus
7 Dec: USS Arizona, USS California, USS Cassin, USS Downes, Ha-19, M-16, M-18, M-20, M-22, USS Nevada, USS Oglala, USS Oklahoma, Sauternes, USS Shaw, U-208, USS Utah, USS West Virginia, HMCS Windflower
8 Dec: USS Penguin, HMS Peterel, Ravnaas
10 Dec: HMS Banka, USS Bittern, HMS Prince of Wales, HMS Repulse, Takao Maru, No. 10
11 Dec: Hayate, Kisaragi, HMS Lady Shirley
12 Dec: Awazisan Maru, HMS Moth, HMS Tamar
13 Dec: Alberico da Barbiano, Alberto da Giussano
14 Dec: HMS Galatea
15 Dec: Empire Barracuda, HNLMS O 16, U-127
16 Dec: U-557
17 Dec: Corregidor, Shinonome, U-131
19 Dec: HMS Neptune, HNLMS O 20, HMS Stanley, U-574
20 Dec: Emidio, HMS Kandahar
21 Dec: HMS Audacity, HNLMS K XVII, U-451, U-567
23 Dec: Montebello, Shuntien, U-79
24 Dec: Absaroka, HNLMS K XVI, USS Rochester, Sagiri, HMS Salvia
25 Dec: Empire Dragon, USS Sealion, HMS Thracian
28 Dec: DCH-1, U-75, Volo
Unknown date: HMS H31, USS Nereus, HMS Triumph
Other incidents
7 Dec: USS Maryland, USS Vestal
8 Dec: Awazisan Maru
10 Dec: Oigawa Maru, USS Sealion
11 Dec: HMS Jackal
16 Dec: HMS Thracian
31 Dec: Ruth Alexander
November 1941 January 1942
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=USS_Maryland_(BB-46)&oldid=904089686"
Ships built in Newport News, Virginia
World War II battleships of the United States
Ships present during the attack on Pearl Harbor
Maritime incidents in December 1941
United States Navy Maryland-related ships
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1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dnieper
< 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
←Dmitriev, Ivan Ivanovich
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 8
Dnieper
Dniester→
See also Dnieper River on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
8038261911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 8 — Dnieper
DNIEPER, one of the most important rivers of Europe (the Borysthenes of the Greeks, Danapris of the Romans, Uzi or Uzu of the Turks, Eksi of the Tatars, Elice of Visconti’s map (1381), Lerene of Contarini (1437), Luosen of Baptista of Genoa (1514), and Lussem in the same century). It belongs entirely to Russia, and rises in the government of Smolensk, in a swampy district (alt. 930 ft.) at the foot of the Valdai Hills, not far from the sources of the Volga and the Dvina, in 55° 52’ N. and 33° 41’ E. Its length is about 1410 m. and it drains an area of 202,140 sq. m. In the first part of its course, which may be said to end at Dorogobuzh, it flows through an undulating country of Carboniferous formation; in the second it passes west to Orsha, south through the fertile plain of Chernigov and Kiev, and then south-east across the rocky steppe of the Ukraine to Ekaterinoslav. About 45 m. S. of this town it has to force its way across the same granitic offshoot of the Carpathian mountains which interrupts the course of the Dniester and the Bug, and for a distance of about 25 m. rapid succeeds rapid. The fall of the river in that distance is 155 ft. The Dnieper, having got clear of the rocks, continues south-west through the grassy plains of Kherson and Taurida, and enters the Black Sea, or rather a liman or bay of the Black Sea, by a considerable estuary in 46° 30′ N. and 32° 20′ E. On this ramifying liman, into which the Bug also pours its waters, stand Nikolaiev and the fortified town of Ochakov. Navigation extends as far up as Dorogobuzh, where the depth is about 12 ft., and rafts are floated down from the higher reaches. The banks are generally high, more particularly the left bank. About the town of Smolensk the breadth is 455 ft., at the confluence of the Pripet 1400, and in some parts of the Ekaterinoslav district more than 1¼ m. In the course above the rapids the channel varies very greatly in nature and depth, and it is not infrequently interrupted by shallows. The rapids, or porogs, form a serious obstacle to navigation; it is only for a few weeks when the river is in flood that they are passable, and even then the venture is not without risk and can only be undertaken with the assistance of special pilots. It is from these falls that the Cossacks of the Ukraine came to be known as Zaporogian Cossacks. As early as 1732 an attempt was made to improve the channel. A canal, which ultimately proved too small for use, was constructed at Nenasitets in 1780 at private expense; blastings were carried out in 1798 and 1799 at various parts; in 1805 a canal was formed at Kaindatski, and the channel straightened at Sursk; by 1807 a new canal was completed at Nenasitets; in 1833 a passage was cleared through the Staro-kaindatski porog; and in the period 1843 to 1853 numerous ameliorations were effected. The result has been not only to diminish greatly the dangers of the natural channel, but also to furnish a series of artificial canals by which vessels can make their way when the river is low. Of the tributaries of the Dnieper the following are navigable,—the Berezina and the Pripet from the right, and the Sozh and the Desna from the left. By means of the Dnieper-Bug (King’s) canal, and the Berezina and Oginski canals, this river has a sort of water connexion with the Baltic Sea. In the estuary the fisheries give employment to large numbers of people. At Kiev the river is free from ice on an average of 234 days in the year, at Ekaterinoslav 270 and at Kherson 277. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica/Dnieper&oldid=9059757"
EB1911:Rivers:Europe:Russia
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