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Resolution of Praziquantel
Michael Woelfle, Jean Paul Seerden, Jesse De Gooijer, Kees Pouwer, et al
http://www.mendeley.com/research/resolution-praziquantel
CiteULike 130 Apr 15:16 UTC
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Mendeley 6901 May 04:10 UTC
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ORCID02 May 02:02 UTC
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http://doi.org/10.4155/cli.13.128
http://doi.org/10.1586/eri.12.70
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Europe PMC Citations 1730 Apr 10:26 UTC
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{"type"=>"COMMENT", "annotationUri"=>"info:doi/10.1371/annotation/182930a6-8c3a-41c6-beeb-77d9f666cae4", "title"=>"Resolution?", "body"=>"Sirs,\n\nThe report on the progress made to find a convenient route for preparing industrial-scale quantities of levo-praziquantel is an interesting academic exercise which in isolation appears to be a significant step forward for schistosomiasis treatment. However the concept of development of this isomer seems to disregard the context in which schistosomiasis control takes place and, in particular, it omits to mention the following points: \n\n- there are insufficient quantities of quality-assured praziquantel to treat those who should receive it; as a result, over half of all people in sub Saharan Africa at risk have never been treated, and regular treatment reaches less than 20% of those who should receive the drug according to WHA resolution 54.19 of 2001”\n\n- affected populations would not be able to pay for praziquantel even if enough quantities were available today; this no-market situation makes most manufacturers uninterested in producing praziquantel; it is unlikely that the situation would be different if a convenient route to produce levo-praziquantel existed; \n\n- most praziquantel currently made available to populations in need is either donated by Merck-Serono, procured through privately donated funds or more recently funded directly by a two governments (USA and UK); it is possible that an increase in the price of praziquantel would reduce these commitments. \n\nIt is within this context that the hypothetical advantages of levo-praziquantel and the small progress made during the past 10 years in developing viable economic and ecological ways for its production should be weighed. In addition, if and when such a new synthetic route becomes available, several years and important resources would be required to overcome non-clinical testing, clinical trials and other necessary regulatory steps before levo-praziquantel could be safely used in populations affected by schistosomiasis. \n\nIt is extremely important to ensure that any additional research effort should not divert much-needed resources from providing praziquantel - a safe medicine of proven efficacy - to populations in need. Finally, an amendment is needed to the Acknowledgements: racemic praziquantel was donated by Merck Serono S.A.; the World Health Organization's Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases was simply a conduit. \n\nValerio Reggi, Denis Daumerie, Dirk Engels, Lorenzo Savioli - Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland\nAlan Fenwick - School of Public Health, Imperial College, London, UK\n", "isRemoved"=>false, "created"=>"2011-09-26T15:25:13Z", "lastModified"=>"2011-09-26T15:25:13Z", "creator"=>{"userId"=>"135883"}, "highlightedText"=>"", "competingInterestStatement"=>{"creatorWasPrompted"=>true, "hasCompetingInterests"=>false}, "parentArticle"=>{"doi"=>"info:doi/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260", "state"=>"published", "journals"=>{"PLoSNTD"=>{"journalKey"=>"PLoSNTD", "eIssn"=>"1935-2735", "title"=>"PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases"}}}, "replyTreeSize"=>0, "mostRecentActivity"=>"2011-09-26T15:25:13Z", "replies"=>[]}
{"type"=>"COMMENT", "annotationUri"=>"info:doi/10.1371/annotation/8e5ce476-8a01-4540-9c08-efc380ef8e16", "title"=>"Great job for opening big science for looking to resolve big problems in neglected diseases", "body"=>"I was really excited on my field after reading this interesting paper. In addition, after knowing that a open forum was open for the interested scientific, I immediately revised the comment on Nature Chemistry. Great job!!! TDR has a page that is indicating that there is a need for applying excelent science to resolve neglected diseases that are affecting a huge numbers of persons and pharmaceutical interests are not sufficient for pushing these kind of efforts. However, these kind of efforts are showing us that there is a good opportunity for share common feelings in order to help to resolve this kind of problems.\n\nI wonder how is the pharmacological action of the enantiomer versus the racemic compound. Other helminths are treated clinically with the same drug. One example are Taenia solium parasites and maybe a good way for evaluating this question is performing in vitro assays in parasite models. Our group is ready for that. \n\nYours \n\nDr. Javier Ambrosio\nMicrobiology and Parasitology Department\nSchool of Medicine\nUniversidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico\nMexico city.", "isRemoved"=>false, "created"=>"2011-11-17T15:22:59Z", "lastModified"=>"2011-11-17T15:22:59Z", "creator"=>{"userId"=>"60369"}, "highlightedText"=>"", "competingInterestStatement"=>{"creatorWasPrompted"=>true, "hasCompetingInterests"=>false}, "parentArticle"=>{"doi"=>"info:doi/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260", "state"=>"published", "journals"=>{"PLoSNTD"=>{"journalKey"=>"PLoSNTD", "eIssn"=>"1935-2735", "title"=>"PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases"}}}, "replyTreeSize"=>0, "mostRecentActivity"=>"2011-11-17T15:22:59Z", "replies"=>[]}
{"id"=>"351703949532868609", "text"=>"@mwpeczuh @OSDDMalaria Not sure there's a how-to, but this was our 1st one: http://t.co/V8X2PRVsJd", "created_at"=>"2013-07-01T14:08:50Z", "user"=>"MatToddChem", "user_name"=>"Matthew Todd", "user_profile_image"=>"http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/1417112463/LA_from_Twitter_normal.JPG"}
{"id"=>"363430271888011265", "text"=>"@all_isee @victoriastodden Oh, yes, we did that direct link between papers and data here, right? http://t.co/V8X2PRVsJd Paper<->Lab book", "created_at"=>"2013-08-02T22:45:03Z", "user"=>"MatToddChem", "user_name"=>"Matthew Todd", "user_profile_image"=>"http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/1417112463/LA_from_Twitter_normal.JPG"}
{"id"=>"641180132565196800", "text"=>"Talk at #ECTMIH2015 on #praziquantel disappointingly doesn't cite the relevant open source project http://t.co/wN37TpORN8", "created_at"=>"2015-09-08T09:23:50Z", "user"=>"MatToddChem", "user_name"=>"Matthew Todd", "user_profile_image"=>"http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/459301747970682882/21LQ-k33_normal.png"}
{"id"=>"705568467080994816", "text"=>".@cdsouthan @B_resnick Lovely stuff! But sure, open drug work from 2010 https://t.co/wN37Tpxgoy and Synaptic Leap 10 y ago other precedents", "created_at"=>"2016-03-04T01:40:06Z", "user"=>"MatToddChem", "user_name"=>"Matthew Todd", "user_profile_image"=>"http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/459301747970682882/21LQ-k33_normal.png"}
{"id"=>"718314202612547585", "text"=>"@MikeDFrench @elimin8schisto For sure, as are Cipla and the Paed PZQ Consortium. See https://t.co/V8X2PSd47N Will enantiopure be enough..?", "created_at"=>"2016-04-08T05:47:06Z", "user"=>"MatToddChem", "user_name"=>"Matthew Todd", "user_profile_image"=>"http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/459301747970682882/21LQ-k33_normal.png"}
{"id"=>"718315420063809536", "text"=>"RT @MatToddChem: @MikeDFrench @elimin8schisto For sure, as are Cipla and the Paed PZQ Consortium. See https://t.co/V8X2PSd47N Will enantiop…", "created_at"=>"2016-04-08T05:51:56Z", "user"=>"MikeDFrench", "user_name"=>"Michael French", "user_profile_image"=>"http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/695319975242899456/v1vF94KI_normal.jpg"}
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Figshare 7003 May 21:18 UTC
{"files"=>["https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/733115"], "description"=>"<p>Two resolution approaches to enantiopure PZQ discovered through A) open science and B) contract research.</p>", "links"=>[], "tags"=>["approaches", "enantiopure", "pzq", "discovered"], "article_id"=>403468, "categories"=>["Chemistry", "Infectious Diseases"], "users"=>["Michael Woelfle", "Jean-Paul Seerden", "Jesse de Gooijer", "Kees Pouwer", "Piero Olliaro", "Matthew H. Todd"], "doi"=>"https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.g002", "stats"=>{"downloads"=>1, "page_views"=>11, "likes"=>0}, "figshare_url"=>"https://figshare.com/articles/_Two_resolution_approaches_to_enantiopure_PZQ_discovered_through_A_open_science_and_B_contract_research_/403468", "title"=>"Two resolution approaches to enantiopure PZQ discovered through A) open science and B) contract research.", "pos_in_sequence"=>0, "defined_type"=>1, "published_date"=>"2011-09-20 00:57:48"}
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{"files"=>["https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370337", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370364", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370400", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370470", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370523", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370554", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370576", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370619", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370656", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370697", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370734", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370753", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370784", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/370820", "https://ndownloader.figshare.com/files/371010"], "description"=>"<div><h3>Background</h3><p>Praziquantel remains the drug of choice for the worldwide treatment and control of schistosomiasis. The drug is synthesized and administered as a racemate. Use of the pure active enantiomer would be desirable since the inactive enantiomer is associated with side effects and is responsible for the extremely bitter taste of the pill.</p> <h3>Methodology/Principal Findings</h3><p>We have identified two resolution approaches toward the production of praziquantel as a single enantiomer. One approach starts with commercially available praziquantel and involves a hydrolysis to an intermediate amine, which is resolved with a derivative of tartaric acid. This method was discovered through an open collaboration on the internet. The second method, identified by a contract research organisation, employs a different intermediate that may be resolved with tartaric acid itself.</p> <h3>Conclusions/Significance</h3><p>Both resolution procedures identified show promise for the large-scale, economically viable production of praziquantel as a single enantiomer for a low price. Additionally, they may be employed by laboratories for the production of smaller amounts of enantiopure drug for research purposes that should be useful in, for example, elucidation of the drug's mechanism of action.</p> </div>", "links"=>[], "tags"=>["praziquantel"], "article_id"=>133166, "categories"=>["Cancer", "Chemistry"], "users"=>["Michael Woelfle", "Jean-Paul Seerden", "Jesse de Gooijer", "Kees Pouwer", "Piero Olliaro", "Matthew H. Todd"], "doi"=>["https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s001", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s002", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s003", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s004", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s005", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s006", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s007", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s008", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s009", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s010", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s011", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s012", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s013", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s014", "https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260.s015"], "stats"=>{"downloads"=>26, "page_views"=>13, "likes"=>0}, "figshare_url"=>"https://figshare.com/articles/Resolution_of_Praziquantel/133166", "title"=>"Resolution of Praziquantel", "pos_in_sequence"=>0, "defined_type"=>4, "published_date"=>"2011-09-20 00:52:46"}
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Relative Metric 44242910 May 16:22 UTC
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F1000Prime 213 Jan 12:04 UTC
F1000Prime | Further Information
{"year"=>2014, "month"=>5, "doi"=>"10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260", "f1000_id"=>"13328002", "url"=>"http://f1000.com/prime/13328002", "score"=>2, "classifications"=>["new_finding", "technical_advance"], "updated_at"=>"2014-05-26T08:33:28Z"}
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{"year"=>2017, "month"=>7, "doi"=>"10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260", "f1000_id"=>"13328002", "url"=>"https://f1000.com/prime/13328002", "score"=>2, "classifications"=>["new_finding", "technical_advance"], "updated_at"=>"2017-07-31T08:40:46Z"}
{"year"=>2017, "month"=>10, "doi"=>"10.1371/journal.pntd.0001260", "f1000_id"=>"13328002", "url"=>"https://f1000.com/prime/13328002", "score"=>2, "classifications"=>["new_finding", "technical_advance"], "updated_at"=>"2017-10-30T08:40:50Z"}
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Country Showdown Songwriting Contest Entry 70
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Just a child
"Just A Child" is from the album titled "It's My Dream"
Written by: Amy and Courtney Pitzer
Artist: Courtney...
Artist: Courtney Pitzer
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Country Showdown Songwriting Contest Entry
Amy Pitzer
It's My Dream
"It's My Dream" is the lead single from the album also titled "It's My Dream"
Written by: Amy and Courtney...
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AR-15 News
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Springfield Armory SAINT Pistol in 300 BLK
Springfield Armory® Announces SAINT™ Pistol in .300 BLK
Heavier-hitting round in Springfield Armory’s popular AR pistol platform
GENESEO, IL, April 30, 2018 – (AR15Vault.com) – With the success of Springfield Armory’s SAINT AR-15 Pistol in 5.56, more people than ever are requesting variations to the original version. The newest iteration in .300 BLK harnesses the power of this proven round for increased capability and versatility in a combat-grade platform.
The SAINT AR-15 Pistol features a rugged SB Tactical SBX-K forearm brace to reduce size, stabilize recoil, and enhance accuracy in one or two-hand shooting. A 9-inch CMV barrel with a 1:7 twist and A2 flash hider makes the SAINT AR-15 Pistol small, fast, and ideal for CQB. The barrel is Melonite® treated inside and out to be as durable and more accurate than chrome lining.
Built with high-end features throughout, Springfield Armory’s exclusive Accu-Tite™ tension system increases the tension between the upper and the lower receivers, ensuring an ideal fit and reducing movement. The upper and lower receivers are forged Type III hard-coat anodized 7075 T6 aluminum.
The slender, M-Lok compatible handguard features Springfield Armory’s exclusive, patent-pending, rock-solid proprietary attachment system, with four attachment points anchoring it to the barrel nut. Under the handguard is Springfield’s pinned multi/mode adjustable gas block that will reliably cycle supersonic and subsonic ammo, suppressed or unsuppressed. The crisp, enhanced nickel boron coated GI single-stage trigger is paired with a Bravo Company trigger guard. The smooth-operating heavy tungsten buffer system, GI style charging handle, and Bravo Company Mod 3 pistol grip are all well-proven in previous SAINT rifle models.
To ensure durability, the M16 BCG’s bolt is precision-machined from Carpenter 158 steel, shot peened, magnetic particle inspected and finished in super-hard Melonite®. This combat-grade SAINT pistol carries a Magpul Gen M3, 30-round magazine.
The compact design is the perfect complement to the .300 BLK round making the SAINT AR-15 Pistol an ideal choice for home defense. At just 27.75 inches long, and weighing only 5.9 pounds, this new AR pistol in .300 BLK from Springfield Armory delivers a lot of power in a small, fast-handling package.
MSRP: $989.
The SAINT AR-15 pistol is available in two configurations:
SAINT AR-15 Pistol – 5.56 (ST975556B)
www.springfield-armory.com/products/saint-ar-15-pistol-5-56/
SAINT AR-15 Pistol – .300 BLK (ST909300B)
www.springfield-armory.com/products/saint-ar-15-pistol-300-blk/
For more information about the new SAINT AR-15 Pistol in .300 BLK, please visit www.springfield-armory.com.
About Springfield Armory®
In 1794, the original Springfield Armory was designated as our national armory by General George Washington, and began manufacturing muskets for the defense of our young, free Republic. This monumental institution went on to serve as a think tank for developing innovative firearms concepts and producing some of the most storied rifle platforms in our country’s history. The Armory functioned as a firearms supplier for every major American conflict until 1968 when the government sadly closed its doors. In 1974, two centuries after its inception, Springfield Armory Inc. in Geneseo, IL revived the iconic heritage of the Armory to carry on its legacy and restore the Springfield Armory name.
Springfield Armory Inc. engineers, manufactures and assembles their legendary M1A™, 1911, 911 .380 and SAINT® AR-15 lines of firearms in Geneseo, Illinois. Since 2001, Springfield Armory has enjoyed a strategic, collaborative partnership with the state-of-the-art factory in Croatia working hand-in-hand to develop and engineer the multiple award-winning line of XD® polymer pistols that have become staples in the US marketplace. We strive to honor this responsibility as guardians of the original Springfield Armory legacy by manufacturing the highest quality firearms to enable responsible citizens to preserve their right to keep and bear arms in the defense of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
With an unmatched emphasis on craftsmanship, performance and exceptional customer service, our mission is to forge superior firearms and provide the tools necessary to defend individual freedoms and equality for those who embrace the rights and principles secured by our Founding Fathers. For more information, please visit us at: springfield-armory.com.
Categories Pistols, Press Releases Tags Bravo Company Manufacturing - BCM, Magpul, SB Tactical, Springfield Armory
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Homepage / Apps / Bumble App Users
Bumble App Users
By Roma PajenkaPosted on January 8, 2021
Bumble for Android is a female-first dating app that helps users of all genders find friends, relationships, and networking connections. Pros. For dates, friends, or networking: On Bumble, you can. The positions opened to Bumble users in summer 2019, and thousands of people applied before the June 14 deadline. Muller came up with an idea to create a travel dating show and wanted to partner.
Bumble app can be downloaded like any other application
Bumble is probably the most popular app among my friends after Tinder, mostly because it's female-led. But with just over a million monthly users, it's a lot less popular than the options above.
Bumble app users. The women-first dating app reached 2 million users last December. With women-first features, Bumble has witnessed women making the first move over 15 million times. In comparison to women users globally, women in India are sending twice the number of messages on Bumble. Also, 32% of women users in India use more than one mode on Bumble. Bumble launched a photo verification tool in September 2016 to ensure that users of the app were the same people in their profile pictures. To be verified, users are asked to submit a selfie of them performing a specific pose; the picture is reviewed by a real person who ensures the user is the person in the profile pictures. [35] Bumble is the number one dating app for users in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maryland. On average Bumble users earn more than users of other dating apps. According to some estimates Bumble has 20 million users, and it continues to add more than 50,000 new ones per day.
Bumble and Badoo, the largest dating app in the world, together have a base of 600 million users. They were previously overseen by MagicLab, a London-based holding company founded by Russian. Bumble users can delete the app from their phone, of course. But to delete their accounts, users must do so on the Bumble app, and they can’t access that without first clicking the “I agree. Bumble is an online dating app and a social network that encourages women to feel empowered as users make meaningful connections. Whether Bumble users are looking for friends, increasing their professional network, or finding love, Bumble is one of the most vocal dating apps that advocates for integrity, kindness, equality, confidence, and respect.
Buzz Humble is not a dating site and is neither endorsed, nor sponsored by, nor affiliated with the dating app Bumble. We exist solely for our users to find out if some is cheating on them by using the specifc dating app. Find a specific person on Bumble with geo location search. Bumble was first founded to challenge the antiquated rules of dating. Now, Bumble empowers users to connect with confidence whether dating, networking, or meeting friends online. We’ve made it not only necessary but acceptable for women to make the first move, shaking up outdated gender norms. Bumble offers a variety of features to its users to help facilitate matches, meetings, and friendships. One of the unique aspects of Bumble is that it’s not just a dating app; users can switch to Best Friend Forever (BFF) mode and be matched with people of the same sex looking for friendship, or the networking mode which matches people looking to make business connections.
The Golden Globe-winning actress Sharon Stone has revealed she was bumped from the dating site Bumble because other users had reported her profile, not believing it to be genuine. This statistic presents the share of active Bumble dating app users in the United States as of June 2020. During the measured period, it was found by App Ape that 32.9 percent of Android Bumble. The app is believed to have 55million users worldwide and 72 per cent of users are under the age of 35, according to business statistic firm DMR. There have been 850million matches, and 5,000.
Expert Bumble Tip #2: According to in-app data, users with 6 photos get the most right swipes. Like Tinder, Bumble allows you to search for matches based on distance, age range, and gender. Profiles can include up to six photos, a short About Me section, and some background information like education and job title. Bumble is not known as a marketplace for hookups: Less than 4% of men and less than 1% of women on Bumble are looking for a hookup. New connections are formed every day: 25% of Bumble users went on a first date with someone they met on Bumble in the last month. Bumble User Stats. Bumble users are what most marketers dream of, well-educated, and generally well off. These young women who drive Bumble are engaged and empowered by the app. 11. Bumble has one of the highest proportions of female users. Of all the Bumble users, 46.2% of them are female, higher than Tinder, Match, POF, etc.
It knew about its own app (7% to 8% of Bumble users were kicked off for behavior that violated its policies, a figure that the company says has remained steady for years), but it didn’t have. Date virtually from home More than 100 million people have registered on Bumble to create meaningful relationships, find online friends and make purposeful connections. Bumble is a dating app that allows you to make new connections, whether you’re looking for a partner, to make new friends, or to expand your professional network. Making the first move on Bumble could change your life!
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1. Solsbury Hill 2. Far Cry 3. Nobody's Fault But Mine * 4. White Room * 5. Fortunate Son 6. No Quarter 7. Sympathy for the Devil 8. Hotel California 9. Helplessly Hoping 10. Norwegian Wood 11. I Heard It Through the Grapevine 12. Ten Years Gone 13. Old Man (Look At My Life) 14. Piano Man 15. Rocket Man * 16. Bad Moon Rising 17. Under Pressure 18. Seven Nation Army * 19. Achilles Last Stand 20. Run Through The Jungle/The Chain 21. The Needle and the Damage Done 22. All Along the Watchtower, part 1 23. All Along the Watchtower, part 2 * 24. Midnight Rider
Full-page index
Transformers - All Media Types
Hound/Original Character
Hound (Transformers)
Trailbreaker (Transformers)
Beachcomber (Transformers)
Prowl (Transformers)
Jazz (Transformers)
Original Cybertronian Character(s)
Original Female Character(s)
Soundwave (Transformers)
Thundercracker (Transformers)
Alternate Universe - Dark
Government Conspiracy
MUFON
Size Kink
Size Difference
Macro/Micro
Sticky Sexual Interfacing
Transformers don't have sex
Transformers don't have genitals
Transformers don't really have genders either
Except for Hound
Hound has issues
Adrenaline addiction
Dom/sub Undertones
Top!Hound
Bottom!OFC
Alien Cultural Differences
Alien Gender/Sexuality
Alien Culture
sex shaming
Drinking to Cope
Gunshot Wounds
Medical Jargon
Medical Mystery
Robot Surgery
Robot Feels
Kink Negotiation
Canonical Character Death
Implied/Referenced Character Death
Battle Scenes
happy-ish ending
riding off into the sunset
← Previous Work Part 3 of the Of Bruises and Backroads series Next Work →
kisupure
Sequel to "Bushwhacked".
Astrid's plans for a peaceful new start in Alaska - her life in California all but upended after the accident that Hound rescued her from - get thrown out the window when BREME, the Bureau for the Regulation of Extraterrestrial Machine Entities, a powerful and esoteric government organization that Hound had never mentioned before, makes an offer that she really can't refuse. So now, the two are trying to figure out how to just get through the day as a couple despite the US not officially recognizing that the Autobots exist, all while working for a lawless government agency on a classified project they barely know anything about. But something terrible is in the works: some mechs in the Starscream-led Decepticon ranks are planning a mutiny, and no life is too valuable to get between them and their escape from Earth.
(Oh, and chapters with sexytimes marked with an asterisk, if you're into that sort of thing. Weirdos.)
A note for new readers: this is a G1-inspired AU. Characterization is as close to the original cartoon as I can manage, but note that this ain't your grandpa's giant alien robots from Cybertron! It's decidedly... more cynical. Alt modes have been updated, robot tech and skillsets clearly delineated, and if you're skipping Bushwhacked (which I suspect some of you are; also, why would you? there's so much cute flirting there) then you'll at least want to check out ch 8 for this AU's origin story.
If you're expecting conjunx enduras, spike/valve, or older fanon like spark merging or plug n' play, then you might be in for some disappointment, because I don't follow any of those conventions. The fact that Hound is the only Autobot in possession of an artificial sex organ is pretty much one of the primary driving forces of the plot, so... you've been warned lol.
The Autobots are a military organization, and I write them suchly. They have their quirks, and they have their fun, but they are all professionals and maintaining the chain of command isn't just important to them, it's second-nature. In my head, everyone has a rank and a job title. Everyone's adherence to some sort of structure and protocol may frustrate you, but that's just how they are here.
The other thing is that the Decepticons are led by Starscream here, as Megatron is MIA. They are also disciplined and structured (the relevant ones at least) and... scary as fuk. No hijinks here. Sorry not sorry.
Chapter 1: Solsbury Hill
In which we are re-introduced to our heroes. Astrid reflects on how she had imagined living in Alaska would be versus how things actually turned out. They head to Autobot Headquarters to mark her official start as a government agent.
"I still can't quite believe it," she says, looking out over the 3500-some square-foot facility that she and Hound were to now start calling home. It gives her an eerie feeling, almost; like something being made official by moving in. Something she doesn't quite know how to react to yet.
She blinks a few times and smiles a little, shaking her head. The whole affair of getting here was nothing but a flurry of papers, meetings, and men in black suits driving unmarked cars. She signed and initialed thick stacks of documents, sworn to secrecy, promising that everything she knew would be gone if she stepped out of line. It's all so overwhelming.
The Autobot always tried to be there when she was communicating with BREME, the Bureau of the Regulation of Extraterrestrial Machine Entities, a US government agency that doesn't officially exist. He's much better suited to handling these situations by virtue of a few things, and for that, she's eternally grateful.
Hound nods, glancing about the space for himself. "Me neither," he agrees. There's an excitement in his voice.
From this day on, the two of them are operating out of an old warehouse in a dumpy corner of Anchorage. The neighborhood is industrial, and there are practically no full-time residents to speak of, aside from a few homeless. The nearest grocery store is a ten-minute drive, which Astrid isn't too thrilled about, but she supposes that it's a small sacrifice for getting to share a home with her Cybertronian partner.
The accommodations are admittedly spartan. Cinder-block walls painted white, bare concrete for a floor, and exposed ducting along the 20' ceiling are defining features of the "home". What was once the offices upstairs was converted into two rooms and a bath, and beneath that is a small kitchen, couch, and TV. That's the west end of the building. The east side consists of living and working spaces for Hound: an energon tank and dispenser, a berth ergonomically designed for his shape, wash racks, and a work station. The areas are divided up by large barriers of wood and sheet rock on heavy casters so that he can rearrange them if the desire ever strikes.
For all intents and purposes, the warehouse looks like any other work/sleep environment. Aside from, of course, the size of some of the furniture.
Hound's shoulders slack some, and he looks down at her. "You sure that you're okay with this, though?"
Astrid takes a bit of the inside of her cheek between her teeth and absentmindedly chews on it. This isn't exactly what she'd imagined when... well, this isn't something she could have ever imagined. The move to Alaska was supposed to be more or less simple. She'd rented a house on the outskirts of town while she would get back on her feet doing something, and in no time would have the money to buy a house to call her own. Yeah, that lasted all of three weeks. Once day Hound came home and mentioned that he'd been talking with some government folks... the rest is history.
She scrunches up her face and shakes her head again. "It'll just take some getting used to is all."
The look in his optics is one of suspicion, but he's not one to be too persistent. Astrid hopes he doesn't worry himself sick about it; she was telling the truth.
He changes the subject. "How are you feeling about next week?"
"Oh," she murmurs, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth and tucking a lock of dirty blonde hair—she hasn't gotten it cut since the accident—behind her ear. "Right, I almost forgot about that."
Hound laughs. "Forgot! How could you possibly forget about a trip to Autobot headquarters to meet my commanding officers?"
"Hey," she says, shooting him a playful, but tired, look. "In my defense, I've been a little preoccupied here."
The green mech kneels down, chest now eye-level with her, and he places a few fingers on her shoulder since his hand is too wide. "I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I've honestly forgotten what it's like to be a civilian. All this crap is normal to me."
A civilian. But is she's not a civilian anymore though, is she? The world she lives in now isn't anywhere near the one she lived in just a few months ago.
Few people that dealt with Autobots, she'd quickly learned, were even allowed to retain their civilian status. As soon as you get caught up in the dealings of aliens, the government is on your ass. Forever. But her case is even more complex as that; she was a government employee now too. She was told to say that she works for US Fish and Wildlife Services, and even the job description isn't dissimilar to what she'd be doing if she actually worked for them, but right now her ass belongs to BREME. In exchange, she gets something resembling a life with Hound.
Nobody held a gun to her head and forced her to make what she later realized is a Faustian bargain, but for now, it doesn't seem terrible. The worst part is the secrecy.
Astrid's half of the bargain is this: play environmental impact advisor and liaison with the EPA should they come knocking during BREME's project in the wilderness, and in return, she gets medical benefits, guaranteed job security, and a pension. Oh, and complete legal immunity. That is… immunity from civilian courts. It's not something that she ever wants to figure out.
Thinking all of this through for the umpteenth time, she gets a small headache and decides that she needs to go for a ride.
"I'm going out," she announces, turning around and heading for the bright yellow road bike hanging from a hook beside the door. She bought it after arriving in Anchorage, at the behest of her physical therapist. Astrid wound up taking to it like a fish to water. "I need some fresh air."
"Can I drive you?" the Jeep offers. "Getting out sounds like a good idea."
She looks up from where she crouches next to the bike as she checks the tire pressure. "Rock-crawling?"
He smiles. "How'd you know?"
The wind slicing through the holes in her helmet, whipping her hair behind her, is pure bliss. She powers along the coastal trail, hitting her first mile mark in no time.
Why can't everything be as simple as riding a bike? Going only as fast and far as your legs can pedal you, as slow as your hands can break? With nobody but you to set the pace, steeper, unpaved terrain would be nothing but voluntary. She frowns and shifts to a higher gear.
Off to her right, a pod of orca whales surface and send misty plumes up into the air in short, powerful bursts. She stops pedaling and coasts as she watches in awe for a few brief moments. Astrid will never going to get sick of that part of being here.
What she was already sick of, though, was worrying about meeting Hound's "family". With no idea what to expect, she entertains all sorts of scenarios, most of them nerve-wracking. Are they all like him? What if they're not? What will they think of me? What if most of them don't actually like humans that much and act more like… well, robots?
She decides that for all his talk of routine and normalcy, Hound has to be feeling similar.
"Not everyday you bring home a human girlfriend," she mutters under her breath, gripping the bullhorns under her palms a little tighter.
The other half of the situation is that Astrid is seeing her family again for the first time in months. They're meeting her in Portland for dinner; her parents, sister, and brother-in-law timed a four-day weekend with her trip so they could all talk about her crazy life in stereo. Because hearing about how much of a weird screw-up she is is something she has always just loved.
Now, though, she's a weird screw-up with secrets. Talk about icing on the cake.
"Just get through the next two weeks," she half-breathes, half-chants. Legs pump harder to pick up the pace, maybe to make her elevated heart rate seem warranted.
Hopefully the Jeep is having a better time out in the hills.
Late next Thursday night, Hound and Astrid drive over to the cargo facilities at Ted Stevens International. The days are still long, and the stars just beginning to come out, so they have to keep their errand on the down-low.
"Good evening, Mr. Wells," Hound says as he drives up near to the airstrip, maintaining vehicle mode to avoid catching the attention of wandering eyes. The BREME suit stands there beside an unassuming cargo plane and her crew.
"Good evening, Hound," replies this Mr. Wells. His hands are clasped together in front, and when Astrid disembarks from the driver's side seat, he nods at her. "Ms. Schneider."
She returns the nicety.
"Your flight will be 3 hours," he informs the each of them, pausing as a red-eye takes off in the distance. "You'll be arriving at about 2:15, by my watch, and you're to report to us upon arrival at AHQ. All briefing and questioning that transpires during your visit will be on record with us. Got that?"
"Yes, sir," Hound affirms. Astrid just nods.
"Have a good flight," he says. "And good luck, Schneider- you're in for a world of surprises when you get there." Mr. Wells gestures then toward the plane, where one of the ground crew waves the Jeep forward with a lighted baton. He drives up the gangway with Astrid close behind.
"Watch your step, ma'am," the crewman calls out, before he and another go around to begin signaling the pilot.
Hound transforms behind her; the space is just tall enough to accommodate him, but he kneels down to gently grasp her arm.
"This isn't a commercial plane," he says, and she lets him bring her close as the hatch slowly lifts up with a mechanical whine and closes. "It's going to be a bumpy ride."
She looks around at the dimly lit hold. "Where the hell do I sit?"
"You can go up front if you want," the mech offers, gesturing toward a door at the head of the space.
"And if I don't want to?"
A smile spreads on his faceplates. "Then you'd better hunker down with me." He pulls her down with him until she's nestled between his legs. "Don't want you to go flying during takeoff. That'd be bad."
"Probably," she grins. The grin turns into a yawn. "So, this not being a commercial plane and all… I take it the trip will be loud, cold, and generally miserable?"
Hound looks away and nods. "I tried asking if they could schedule a normal flight for you to coincide with mine, but..."
Astrid scoffs and leans against his thigh. "Buncha cheap bastards."
"Tell me about it. I did bring you a little something to make the ride a little more comfortable, though."
"Oh?" She perks up and looks at his bright, warm optics above her.
He reaches behind him and produces a pillow, like pulling a coin from behind someone's ear. And moreover, it's her pillow. "Grabbed you one of these..." He does it again with the other hand, and this time reveals an old blanket. "And one of these."
Astrid reaches for them, and he slowly lowers them to her. "Oh my god," she gushes. "You are amazing!" She wraps herself in it, cushioning herself against the hopelessly cold, hard floor. Those rivets are going to be the end of her, she decides.
They were moving during the entire exchange, and are now, she guesses, on the runway.
"Where are we?" she asks.
Hound bends down to peek out of one of the few portholes in the side of the craft, and confirms her guess.
It's only a few minutes later that they take off, and a few minutes after that when they arrive at their cruising altitude.
It's loud, yes, and cold, and generally miserable. But Hound seems to raise his surface temperature so that she has something warm to snuggle up to, and she finds herself at eye-level with his pelvic plates. Coincidence? she muses to herself. Her lips press together in a mischievous simper, and her eyes lazily follow the yellow striping flowing inward and downward along the front of his plates, starting at the sides and terminating at the counterweight between his legs.
She bites her lip and her smile grows toothy. Counterweight. Astrid turns the word over in her head. I mean, that's what it is, but…
But nothing. Not once has she ever looked at that peculiar piece of anatomy and not likened it to man-bulge. Not even the very first time that he transformed in front of her.
Astrid's hand, sturdy from years of working the outdoors though always slim and lithe compared to his, reaches out and brushes against the yellow. She immediately perceives a jolt from under her fingers.
"What are you-?" she hears from up above.
The human tilts her head up and to the side, meeting his eyes as she draws little swirls along the side of his hard angles. "Oh, nothing… don't mind little ol' me down here."
She leans in, opening her mouth and brushing the pad of her tongue along one of those yellow stripes. She can hear the buzz of electricity under the plating. Hound shifts under/around her… to get more comfortable? To get away? Knowing him, somehow both.
Astrid gets her answer in the form of a very large hand on her back. Encouraged, she weaves her hands into the slight gap at his thigh and perceives the slightest buck in return.
"You're about to join the mile-high club," she laughs before diving in for more.
A few hours later, and it's the landing that wakes her up.
Astrid's cradled in his folded legs like a bird in a nest- she always woke up with a crick in her neck whenever she slept on him like that, though. It might sound sexy on paper, but "my boyfriend's body is hard as steel" has its definite downsides. In fact, the two of them had a running joke for a while that referenced duct-taping pillows to his arms and legs. They came surprisingly close to attempting it.
Before long, they're taxied into their spot and the gangway is lowered.
Astrid is only half-awake- her normal bedtime is quite often before midnight as the morning hours are her favorite. The human-shaped Jeep surrounding her gives her a light nudge to make sure she'll get up on her own two feet.
"I'd carry you, but..."
She winces and shakes her head, stepping off the blanket so that the mech can send them back into subspace. "No PDAs yet," she grunts.
He chuckles a bit and transforms mid-step, disembarking the cargo plane as an avocado-hued SUV that looks like it can drive to Everest base camp. There's hubub going on around her as she works her way down the ramp, but at this hour, everything's just noise. She trudges to his passenger side and the seat is reclined as far as it will go for her.
"How far is AHQ?" she asks, falling back asleep as he pulls away from the tarmac, the gentle thrum of his alien engine like a warm blanket.
"About an hour out of town," he softly explains.
"You know," she continues, drunk on fatigue now, "You could read off the fuckin' phone book with your cabin-voice and it would be auditory bliss."
The engine chokes, and his laughter fills up the space. "Auditory bliss, huh?"
"Auditory bliss."
"If you don't get to sleep already, then I'll start reciting prime numbers. Don't tempt me."
"Whoa," she mumbles into the seat belt. Her voice is getting smaller with ever word. "Let it be known that such is the… the wrath of Hound..."
If he did start prattling off numbers after that, then she didn't remember.
It's almost 4am by the time the two drive past the security gate at AHQ, and Astrid is out.
So out, in fact, that she never feels the second pair of large hands very carefully lifting her out of the front seat at Hound's direction so that he may transform and carry her in. Nor does she feel herself getting wrapped up in the blanket again, or her face being covered so that the lights inside don't bother her.
She sleeps like the dead until 10, when there's a knock on the door.
The sound doesn't actually register at first. She sort of groans and rolls over. But the interruption is insistent.
Knock, knock.
"Hey, 'Id?" came a vaguely familiar voice. "You up and kickin' yet?"
Her surroundings begin to come into focus, and for a few precious seconds, she's thrown into the twilight zone of disorientation. Where the hell am I?
The room is huge and she feels to be about the size of a small dog. There's something that looks like a desk; another thing that looks like a chair; shelves; a panel of transparent green stuff with things in it. Large things. Metal things.
She comes-to a bit more and remembers the drive to… ah yes, this is AHQ then. Ok.
"Beachcomber? That you I hear?" the human calls out.
The door beyond the foot of the berth she was laying on slides open and in steps a familiar blue face.
"Groovy," he says with a lopsided smile. "You remember this old cat. How's it hangin'?"
It was an odd question to ask someone as they're just waking up from a dead sleep, but, well, cultural differences and all that.
"Been alright… meeting up with my folks this trip. Should be a blast." That last sentence was dripping with sarcasm.
"Keen-o," he murmurs in that way of his, leaning against the jamb. "Well your hip machine went off to some morning gigs. Told me to get you up 'coz sleeping in makes you feel like a graveyard."
She snorts. "Yeah, yeah it does."
"This pad is what we classy chassis like to call the Ark, by the by. Pretty funky, ain't it?"
"Weird," she says, eyeing her surroundings again. "Neat, but weird. You guys have anything in the way of amenities… my size?"
"Totally," he drawls, stepping over to help her off the berth. The drop is only about 6 feet, but it's too early to prove anything. Astrid steps into his hand and he lowers her the rest of the way. "Joint is pretty cubesville, though. We don't get many humans around here, and if we do, they don't stick around to party. Stay outta hotels in town, usually. Can't blame 'em! Wouldn't wanna be no Quentil quail around here, that's for sure."
"Quentin quail?"
"Y'know… someone small and young and-"
Astrid covers her face and stifles back a laugh. "Beachcomber, I think that's slang for jailbait."
"Hey man, you know that's not what I meant! You humans are pretty, well..."
She holds up her hand and laughs in her throat. "I get it, I get it. Even a middle-aged man is young enough to get you guys into trouble."
The blue mech laughs. "See? You dig me."
"How many of you are stationed here right now?"
'Oh, I dunno… few dozen machines. I don't usually hang here, so I'm outta orbit."
She keeps careful pace with his long strides; to her, it's a powerwalk, and to him, probably more like a scurry. "And… you all know to watch where you step, right?"
"Hm?" Beachcomber does something with his foot that puts it just about in her path, and she jumps. "Syke!"
"Oh my god, Beacomber! I swear..."
He chuckles, continuing along his original trajectory. "You've got nothin' to worry about, little lady. Most of us could see you comin' from a mile away."
"Well, that's a relief." Mostly. It's unsettling to learn that most of the Autobots have a number of Hound's imaging capabilities.
"Just keep clear of the big yellow one," he says in a lower voice. "He doesn't get on with any cat, really, not just humans."
Astrid nods, wondering how many yellow mechs there are in AHQ that she might have to keep her eye on.
"Now through here's the little cats pad," he says, stopping and gesturing at an Astrid-sized corridor. The opening comes up to the tops of his legs. "Got no idea where everything is, but rooms and stuff should be labeled all square-like, y'know?"
She wants to shower, and realizes that she doesn't have her bag. Crap… Hound was the last one to have it.
"Do you remember seeing a blue and orange bag in the room, by any chance?"
Beachcomber rubs his face and thinks for a second. "I think I did," he decides. "You need it?"
She nods, and he offers to go back and get it for her. In the meantime, she ventures further into the shabby space. Very underwhelming, she confirms as she looks out over a cheaply and sparsely furnished communal kitchen space. Astrid strolls over to a white plastic toaster on the formica countertop and inspects it for a moment. You'd think BREME could afford to not shop at Walmart, she muses, pushing it against the backsplash again.
The area seemed heavily used… at one point. The fluorescent lighting overhead makes a loud buzzing noise as though it's going to fail at any moment. There are scuff marks on the laminate flooring, and a small piece taken out of the edge of the laminate break room table, revealing the chipboard inside. The place has seen some action. But not anymore? BREME liaisons wouldn't suddenly start staying in hotels because the "cancel" button on the toaster broke and the fridge was full of expired food. They clearly had the means to keep this place in top shape, but it was apparent that there was no longer any interest.
"Wonder if the hot water even still works," she mumbles to herself.
"This it?" Beachcomber calls from where the mech and human hallways meet, setting her duffel on the floor.
"Perfect, thank you!"
"Well, I'm outta here," he says as she approaches to gather her things. "I got your main squeeze on the horn and let him know that you were over here."
"Hey Beachcomber?"
"Mm?"
"Could you try and keep um… his and my thing on the down-low? Especially around here..."
"No sweat," he smiles. "Your secret is safe with me. I'll catch you on the flipside!"
"See ya."
Breakfast is old, freezer-burned burritos of unknown origin, and the shower water is warm. It's about all she can ask of a place like this.
As she towels off, her ears catch someone whistling. She stops and strains to hear what the tune is, but can't quite make it out. She throws fresh clothes on and, bag in hand, heads back out to where she was, following the sound. Astrid half-expected to see someone sitting at the table enjoying a cup of Nescafe, but she's alone. The sound, as it turns out, is coming from the larger hallway outside. And as soon as she spies a pair of green and silver legs, she knows who it is.
"Alright, I give up. You have no lungs, no windpipe, no saliva… how are you making that sound?" The human walks up to the Jeep, meeting his blue gaze.
Hound purses his lips together and out comes the wolf whistle of all things. "That's for me to know and you to find out," he teases. "Did you sleep well enough, I hope?"
She shrugs. "Well enough. You know, I was wondering, though… where is everyone? Beachcomber said there were like, 30 or 40 of you here and so far this whole place seems deserted."
"Everyone's downstairs. The basement levels is where all the excitement happens around here," he explains and begins to walk. "There's really just temp quarters and emergency deployment up here."
She nods.
"I was thinking you could meet some of the crew before our thing with Prime and Prowl later," he suggests. She can tell that he really wants her to.
"The crew?"
"Yeah! Some of my old buddies. A few of us go way back."
"And what's 'way back' to you? A hundred-thousand years?"
"Well… a couple of them I met while fighting in the old wars."
Astrid rolls her eyes and laughs. "Alright, spare me the details. I didn't get enough sleep for this sort of thing."
They head further into the complex, passing a number of enormous doors with bizarre markings beside them.
"Is that Cybertronian?" she asks, gesturing toward one.
Hound stops and looks at the plaque beside one of the doors. "Yeah," he says, voice distant. "Weird, huh?" Why would his native writing system seem weird to him? Maybe he was looking at it from her point of view.
They round a few more corners, Hound keeping his paces slow and measured for her—something he learned to do early on in their friendship—and she sees keypads beginning to appear next to the doors. Locks.
After a few more moments, the two arrive at an elevator. It's gargantuan; the biggest elevator she's ever seen by far. As they step in, she guesses that the car is several stories high and wide enough to accommodate four or five Hounds standing shoulder to shoulder. Why did it need to be so tall..? Beachcomber is about Hound's size, maybe a few feet shorter, but it never occurred to her that maybe, while Hound is the standard size of an Autobot, he is far from their biggest.
The thing shudders to life and they head down, down.
She stares out straight ahead, hand loosely grasping at some bit of something on the side of his leg.
"It'll be fine," he reassures her as the car comes to a stop. "Nobody here bites. Promise."
The doors open, and her eyes are as wide as dinner plates.
They step out of the elevator and into a cavernous room maybe 50 feet tall and with at least a 5000 square foot area, and styled like a rec room. To her left there's a massive screen with last night's football game on, and a crowd of five mechs crowded around it on hard seating. Someone wearing a red jersey fumbles the ball at the 5 yard line and the bots jump up, yelling at him.
To her right are some tables and what looks suspiciously like a bar, and behind it, something that looks suspiciously like a still. A blue and white mech stands behind the counter and dispenses something into a metal can; it's dark and thick, like motor oil.
A few heads turn to see who arrived, and Hound gets a few nods from strange faces before they go back to what they were doing before. One or two gazes linger on her for a moment, curiosity writ on their faces, but she isn't spectacular enough to merit inquiry, so they too return to what they were doing.
One mech, though, leans back in his chair and calls out to them with a lopsided grin on his face. "Who you got there, Hound?" This one is big, black, and silver, with a visor instead of eyes.
"Come on," he says to her before striding over to his own seat. "Trailbreaker! I want you meet my new partner in crime, Astrid. She's on the project with me in Alaska."
She cranes her neck to try and see the both of them at the same time, very suddenly aware of how big everyone's legs and feet are around here, and not sure how to feel about it.
But the new mech leans down and reaches out with his hand, one bigger than Hound's, which she takes in some semblance of a handshake. "Nice to meet you!" he says. "All you need to know about me is that I love a good drink, good company, and a good joke."
"Soon-to-be government agent," she says with a laugh.
He straightens up. "Why don't you set her up on the bar here, Hound? Let's have a conversation like normal folk."
"Sure," she shrugs when he turns to her with a questioning look.
He bends down, palm up, and she steps into it. Normally this would be a more intimate interaction, but circumstances being what they are, they have to play normal.
...not that any of this is particularly normal.
She's deposited onto the counter. "I feel like I should start dancing," she jokes; the others laugh along, but she's not entirely sure if the implications of the cultural reference really hit home.
Other bots sitting at the bar begin to notice her now, and a small black and red one sitting on the other side of the Jeep leans in closer. "Windcharger, Astrid. Astrid, Windcharger," he introduces them.
"Welcome to the Ark," he said, lifting up a cube of purple stuff in a small toast, taking a sip. "Couldn't help but overhear... so you and Hound are partners now?"
"Yeah, they have you working with BREME, huh?" Trailbreaker piped in.
"Hm?" Another mech, who was sitting on the other side of Trailbreaker, became interested in the situation, it seemed, when BREME was mentioned. "We've got a human visitor? How come nobody told me!"
This one stands up to catch a glimpse at the woman standing on the bar, trying to see out from behind the black mech's bulky form. He, too, sports a visor, and has a mostly white body with black, red, and blue accents. It looks like he turns into something expensive.
Astrid just waves as he gives up and walks around Trailbreaker to get a better look. "Sorry Jazz," Trailbreaker grunts. "But I'm not moving. Not even for Primus themself!"
"Yeah, yeah," he good-naturedly dismisses with a wave of his hand. "Can the lip over there, would ya?"
"Like hell I will," he retorts, taking a gulp of energon. "This beauteous mouth is my greatest weapon. I've been told my humor is quite disarming."
"Quite the wordsmith," the mech named Jazz says in a low voice, thumbing at Trailbreaker as though he weren't sitting right next to him. Hound laughed, and so too did Astrid. "So you're Hound's girl, huh?" he asks. "Put 'er here." Jazz, too, stuck out his gigantic hand for a shake.
"Well, I uh..." Astrid glances over to the Jeep for some kind of hint as to what she should be telling these guys.
"His girl!" howls Trailbreaker. "You just going to sit there and take that? You gotta stick up for yourself a little bit around Jazz. He can get vicious." He leans in, smiling widely.
Astrid feels herself turning beet red, and laughs nervously. Fortunately, Hound quickly butts in.
"C'mon, guys," he says, trying not to sound like he's overcompensating. "We're just work partners."
"Famous last words," Jazz jests with a wink in his voice, then returns his attention to her directly. "So what're you two going to be doing up there anyways? Wait, wait, let me guess… baby bird inspector. No… tree doctor. You're a tree doctor, aren't you?"
The human can't help but laugh at the mech, and Hound does too. "God, I wish!" she replies. "But no, just playing the role of environment analyst. I get to kiss the EPA's ass through this whole process… BREME is powerful, but its public agencies that have popular clout on their side. They do everything by the book. Y'know, or so they say. Either way, no one wants to be the person to explain to the National Parks Board why Denali suddenly became a superfund site."
"I guess this parks stuff is pretty damned important around here," Trailbreaker says, gulping down the last of his drink and setting the empty metal can next to her. It's about the size of a 5-gallon bucket from the hardware store.
"Well, being the wise, humble people we are, if we never passed the parks act, our country would probably consist of nothing but strip mines and suburban housing tracks! Gotta take what wilderness we can get these days."
"Imagine that, though," Jazz muses aloud. "Pure energon, right here on Earth."
Hound scoffs, and Astrid is almost inclined to agree. "Yeah but who says we'll ever see a single tic² of it? Whatever BREME says is law."
Jazz lays a hand down on Hound's shoulder. Astrid watches, and realizes that his arm had traveled some 10 feet to complete the gesture. "Aw, c'mon, man. BREME's not all that bad. They've got some good folk workin' for 'em."
Hound appears to consider this. "Yeah, I guess… they were nice enough to set us up with a place to..." But he pauses. "...to work together."
Astrid glances around to see if anyone else noticed, and her eyes wind up meeting Trailbreakers. She could have sworn that the corner of his mouth turned up and a pair of optics behind the visor flashed in a knowing sort of way.
"No way," says another voice that she hasn't heard yet. A mech walks behind the crowd of bots now standing at the bar and stops when he catches a glance at the human now sitting there. Getting used to this kind of behavior now, Astrid just smiles and waves at the newcomer. He eventually pushes his way past Jazz and Hound to get a better look. "Hey! This that human you ran into trouble with over in Nevada not long ago! What's she doing here?"
Hound rolls his eyes, and Astrid shakes her head with a smile. "Yes, this is her. Why don't you introduce yourself? She understands English."
"Oh, right!" This new bot is black and silver, with red horn-looking things sticking out form the front of his head. She's surprised to see whole car doors protruding out of his backside. "Hey, name's Bluestreak," he says. "We heard all about your tussle with those slaggin' hunters back in June. What was it like as… as a human? You get into any good fights? Any blood?"
"Hey, hey, hey, now," Trailbreaker interrupts, pushing him back with a big hand. "We're not done hearing about her new job with Hound, yet. You'll have plenty of time to get your gossip stories later, kid."
She spies Hound trying to suppress laughter as Bluestreak makes a strange hand gesture and emit a few odd sounds before stepping back to let the original discussion finish up.
"And watch your language!" the black mech barks with a grin.
All the bots laugh at Bluestreak's expense, but she quickly realizes that's nothing outside of routine for them all.
"So tell us about that energon," Trailbreaker encourages once the laughter subsides. "They don't tell us anything around here, unless they want us to do something. Carrots and sticks, that's all they give us."
"Yeah, that's the impression I'm getting when it comes to government agencies," Astrid chuckles, beginning to be more at ease with this group. "Um..." she begins, noticing that Hound is standing as close to her as he possibly can, his hand down on the counter-top next to her. Is he subconsciously being... possessive? Astrid giggles inwardly at the thought, then continues as best she can. "I mean, it's basically like I said. I take a sample here, a sample there, try and make sure we don't accidentally kill every bear in the park. Of course I'm only one person, though, and I'm definitely not a biologist, otherwise I'd say they actually gave a damn! Honestly, though? I think I'm just there to absorb some heat and do some damage control if something goes wrong. And something probably will go wrong."
The bots nodded a bit.
"Well, welcome to the club," Trailbreaker says, grabbing Jazz's drink out of his hand and holding it up. "To being used for nefarious designs and not being able to do a damn thing about it!"
A mech in some other part of the space shouts "hear, hear!" in response, and everyone laughs.
The black mech attempts to take a swig of the stolen drink, but Jazz is quick to snatch it back up again. At that he motions for the blue and white Autobot behind the counter, who has been silently listening the whole time, to get him another. He does so without a word.
"Alright, alright, Bluestreak here—we like to call him BS for short, you know—is chomping at the bit to hear about your earlier adventures, so you might as well tell that one."
"Not often you hear this sort of thing from the human's mouth," he says in his defense.
"From the horse's mouth," Astrid corrects.
Bluestreak twists up his face. "That doesn't make any sense."
"It's an idiom, kid," Trailbreaker says, working his way through his second drink. "It's not supposed to make sense."
Astrid and Hound—who has been there, done that already—are full of belly-laughs. Her face starts to hurt from laughing. She looks over at the green mech, though, who shoots her a knowing glance. You know what details to leave out, it says.
I most definitely do.
"Alright, alright." The human turns to the barkeep and asks him to hand her an empty "glass". She turns it over, and as expected, makes a perfect seat. "So. The story starts last year, actually, some time in September. I'd learned that some of my friends were planning on doing a week-long camping trip in Yosemite in the spring. I knew that I had to go join them, and I figured what better way to meet up than to hike all the way in and grab a Greyhound on the way back, right?
"I'd only ever done 4-day weekend trips before at the most, and the only times I'd ever go solo was for basic overnight hikes. Use the buddy system. That was something my parents drilled into my head from pretty early on. Unfortunately the trip was biting off more than I could chew, and I should have known better than to insist on going even after the super wet winter we had. And my lapse in judgment nearly cost me my life when, to no one's surprise, a washed-out hillside came down on me about 50 miles in."
Optics brightened and mouths fell agape.
"Crushed one of my legs, broke a half-dozen bones, and the worst part was that I couldn't get anything out of my pack. For three days I was stuck there, unable to reach my food or my second water bladder, baking under the hot sun. I swear to god, I thought I was going to die. In fact, I was sure of it. That is… until the afternoon-"
"Morning," Hound quietly corrects. "It was about 11:30."
Astrid continues with a little smile on her face. "That is, until mid-morning on my third day under those fucking rocks, when I heard helicopters. I'd been pretty delirious for an entire day by then, slipping in and out, so I never really saw what happened, but not long after that someone pulled me out, and all I remember is that the hands seemed really big for some reason..."
The human went on from there.
It takes a little over half an hour to tell the whole thing in sufficient detail. Hound give his perspective at certain points, and the both of them are careful to give the romantic undertones a wide berth. As far as the others are concerned, he never even returns to get smashed with her after the depressing Portland skirmish.
"Vector Sigma," Trailbreaker exclaims when she's done. "Now, see, this woman here is keepin' it real. Next time an Autobot complains about humans being an inferior race, you hold him against the wall and tell him her story."
Jazz nods. "Some of us could use some remindin' sometimes, that's for sure."
Bluestreak looks dumb-struck. "Wow! That's amazing that your little organic body can take so much. And those Xeno-Hunters? Boy am I glad you got the chance to kick their sorry tailpipes all the way to jail! They're nothing but trouble around here."
"Yep, she handled the situation very well," Hound says, beaming. Just then a raucous series of cries erupt from the bots watching the game, which is now apparently over. Some proceed to stand up, stretch some, and bid the others farewell as they go back to work. The channel is changed to a rerun of House. Seeing the game end, the Jeep takes it as a cue to turn to the group and bid a quick farewell. "On that note, we should probably get going... got a meeting with Optimus and then Prowl later."
"Oh, well you definitely wouldn't want to see you get on Prowl's slag-list," Jazz light-heartedly quips as Hound bends down a bit, motioning for her to get back into his hands so he can lower her to the floor.
"Nice meetin' you, Astrid!" Trailbreaker said, giving her a little bit of a salute once she's back on the ground again. "Hope to see you around again before you leave."
"Don't worry, we'll catch you guys again," Hound says. "I wanna know what you crazy slags have been up to, as well."
"Slags?" Jazz says, turning back to the black mech with feigned indignation. "Three months with a girl and he comes back using language like that. Tsk tsk."
Hound laughs and waves them away.
"Nice meeting you all!" Astrid calls back as they head for the elevator again. Once they're back inside its relative privacy, Hound crouches down to get closer to her eye-level.
"See, they all liked you," he says with a smile before beckoning her to meet him halfway for a kiss, and then rises up again just in time for the doors to open.
The metal on this level isn't the sleek, brushed silvery aluminum-looking stuff that the upper basements are made of. The elevator is made of the same material, as is the area just outside where they step out. But the paneling beyond that is a coppery sort of orange; a strange and unearthly metal that just serves to remind Astrid where exactly she is and who she's dealing with.
"Which one are we meeting first?" she asks in a near-whisper.
"Optimus Prime," Hound replies, slowly navigating the place before coming up to a closed door. It's... massive, she notices, gulping. Some 7-8 feet higher than Hound, she thinks.
Well, it's only fitting for the leader of the Autobots to be that big...
She doesn't even notice Hound kneel down beside her, and grasp her hands, which turns out she is mindlessly wringing together. Only looking up a little now, his eyes meet hers. Even in her most stressful moments, that soft blue light always seems to be able to calm her down.
"It's going to be alright," he says softly, not taking his eyes off her. "Prime's the kindest, wisest, and most compassionate being you'll ever meet. Now just take a deep breath..."
Astrid does as she's told, and then lets it out
"Better?"
She nods, and Hound smiles, putting his free hand against her cheek. "This'll be quick, I promise."
"I know, it's just... nevermind. Let's get this over with." She puts on a determined face and looks him straight in the eye.
Hound stands up again and knocks. The sound reverberates in her bones, it feels like. The door slides open with the soft hiss of pneumatics. Hound stops in the doorway, turning and motioning for her to enter before him, so she gathers up every ounce of courage and professionalism she has in her, and steps over the wide threshold.
Astrid fights hard against the urge to let her mouth fall open upon entering. In the middle of the room, smaller and clearly designed for minimal occupancy, is an enormous desk that rises some 10 feet from the floor. She can only guess at what covers its surface after catching glimpses of things that Hound had called data pads. But from behind the desk he rises, looming like an elegantly orchestrated moving tower of metal painted red and blue. She sees pieces of vehicle on him too; some kind of commercial freight truck, she guesses, from the shapes of the windows that adorn his chest and the size of the tires that line the sides of his legs. So, a humble leader.
His face is almost entirely obscured by some kind of featureless mask, but the blue of his eyes are unmistakable as they shine brilliantly down at her.
"Welcome to the Ark, Ms. Schneider," he says, his voice commanding, yet kind, in a fatherly sort of way. "My name is Optimus Prime, Autobot commander. Why don't you two have a seat?"
They do, and door hisses shut behind them.
[1] The Bureau of the Regulation of Extraterrestrial Machine Entities, founded in 1991
[2] 2.8 Earth ounces.
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Home » Online Exhibits » After ENIAC: Important Milestones and Fascinating Innovations During the Last Fifty Years of Computing Research at the University of Pennsylvania
After ENIAC: Important Milestones and Fascinating Innovations During the Last Fifty Years of Computing Research at the University of Pennsylvania
This exhibit was researched and written by Nicholas G. Heavens, University Archives Summer Research Fellow, 2000-2002. He is an undergraduate at the University of Chicago and has been a University Archives Summer Research Fellow for the last three years. Much of this exhibit is based on his research of the history of computing at Penn in the summer of 2000.
1. John G. Brainerd
2. Saul Gorn and the University Computer Center (UCC)
3. World’s First Spelling and Grammar Checker
4. Birth of COBOL
5. “Medicine before Automation”
6. Breathing into the PDP-12
7. Aravind K. Joshi
8. Bubbleman
9. Projects, Computer Languages
10. Aurora Testbed Initiative
11. IRCS Improves Sorting of Search Engine Results
ENIAC Patent Trial Collection
ENIAC Trial Exhibits Master Collection
Not many universities can claim to have seen the genesis of a technological revolution. The University of Pennsylvania was indeed fortunate to have been the site where the world’s first large-scale general purpose digital computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC), was built. Yet the history of the granddaddy of all modern computers has overshadowed much of the research and innovation that has occurred at Penn since the construction of ENIAC. Many brilliant researchers still walk through the halls of the Moore Building, whose dark basement once held the vast immensity of vacuum tubes and wires that was ENIAC. Indeed, innovative computer researchers walk through all of the Schools of the University of Pennsylvania.
While moving through this exhibit, take a look at some of the people, places, and ideas that have shaped the University’s use of all kinds of computer hardware and software.
John G. Brainerd, 1966
Saul Gorn, UNIVAC-1, 1950s
Bennett Hall, 1956
Get more image details
Remington-Rand Univac check presentation, 1962
William S. Middleton, 1918
5. “Medicine before Automaton”
Breathing into the PDP-12
Aravind K. Joshi
“Bubbleman,” software
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, 1956
David J. Farber
10. Aurora Testbed Initiatives
Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, logo
1. John G. Brainerd »
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Kakitagawa Brewing Information
Kakitagawa Brewing is the brewery for the brewpub for the bar Numazu Craft, based in Numazu, in Shizuoka, Japan. The brewery started in October 2016 with the ethos of “slow beer, slow life” after the head brewer, Tetsuya Kataoka, decided to leave Baird Beer, also located in the area, to start up his own brewery. In November 2017, brewing equipment …
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Arch Brewery is a Japanese brewery located in Iwakuni, in Yamaguchi, Japan. It was established in November 2017, by two brothers/owners, Masahiro Yanagi and Shojin Yanagi after graduating university in different prefectures. Before opening Arch Brewery, the pair of them visited breweries across Japan and trained at Iwami Bakushu in Shimane. One of the aims of Arch Brewery is to …
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Zakkoku Kobo Brewery, sometimes known as Zakkoku Kobo Microbrewery, is a Japanese brewery located in Ogawa-machi, in Saitama, Japan. The brewery was started by Baba Isamu in 2004 and focuses on using locally, organically grown grains where possible in the beer. This came about because he had too many grains after harvesting. The solution he came up with was that …
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West Coast Brewing is a Japanese brewery located in Mochimune, in Shizuoka, Japan. West Coast Brewing is located in the coastal area of Yoso, in Suruga-ku, Shizuoka, in a new tourist facility that was renovated from a building that was previously used as a tuna processing plant, with the building being left unused for more than a decade since the …
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Nomcraft Brewing is a Japanese microbrewery located in Aridagawa, in Wakayama, Japan. The brewery is run by three people: Ben Emrich from Portland, Adam Baran from Chicago, and Takumi Kaneko, a PR manager from Aichi. Due to a local event in Osaka, Adam became interested in Aridagawa because of the Portland Fair being held in Hanshin Department Store, Osaka. It …
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Yggdrasil Brewing is a brewpub and brewery located in Hiratsua, in Kanagawa, Japan. Yggdrasil Brewing opened in August 2018; however, their first on-site beers came later in 2019. Yggdrasil Brewing is owned and run by Davido Gardamoto, Yggdrasil Brewing takes its name from the fictional tree that appears in Nordic mythology”Yggdrasil”. Davido, from Brittany, France and loves heavy metal and …
Kobo Brewery Information
Kobo Brewery is a small microbrewery out in Toyama city, in Toyama, Japan. The brewery opened in 2017 when Jiri Kotynek, perhaps better known as Kochas, left Nihonkai Beer Club and started up Kobo Brewery with his friend Boris Priesol. Located at the base of Mt Tate, Kobo Brewery, which is sometimes stylized as KOBO Brewery, craft brews aim to bring …
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Brewccoly is a craft beer microbrewery located in Akita city, in Akita, Japan. The brewery started operations in November 2018 after opening the taproom earlier on in the year in March 2018 and since then they’ve grown to be one of the largest brewpubs in the Akita area. The name stems (excuse the pun) from the owner, Tsutsui-san, making a …
Monkey Mountain Brewing Information
Monkey Mountain Brewing is a micro craft beer brewery based in Oita, in Kyushu, Japan. The brewery started operations in February 2019. Monkey Mountain uses British and German malt and American, British, and German hops uses locally sourced mountain water for their beers. The system used at the time of writing is 100 to 120 liters at a time and …
Akari Brewing Information
Akari Brewing is a Japanese microbrewery located in Imaichi city, in Tottori, in Japan and the brewery started out in May 2018. The area around Akari Brewing was developed as a castle town around Kano Castle during the Sengoku period. It’s name then changed to Shikason from the early Meiji era, then renamed Shikano-cho, Ketaka-gun, and was transferred to Tottori …
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Top Sports in Britain
The Most Loved Sports in Britain
Football is the Most Popular Game in Britain
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Monthly Archive:: March 2020
Greatest English Footballers of the Last 20 Years (Part 4)
Ashley Cole Arsenal fans may consider Ashley Cole as Judas, but the left-back player has won nine trophies since moving to Chelsea in 2006. Needless to say, the Gunners
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Wayne Roone Wayne Rooney really should be ranked higher on this list. In fact, he has the potential to become England’s greatest player ever, but the Manchester United footballer
The English national team may do everything and still despair on its own countrymen, but it’s fair to say the country of football has nurtured a number of world-class
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The biggest football teams in the UK all time (Final part)
The biggest football teams in the UK all time (Part 2)
The biggest football teams in the UK all time
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tax district: translation
Same as taxing district.
tax — 1 vt [Medieval Latin taxare to assess for taxation, tax, from Latin, to assess, value, fix] 1: to assess or determine judicially the amount of (costs of an action in court) 2: to levy a tax on tax the corporation tax capital gains tax·er n tax 2 … Law dictionary
district — dis·trict n: a territorial division (as of a nation, state, county, or city) for administrative, judicial, electoral, or other purposes: as a: an administrative unit esp. of a town or city established for the performance of a special governmental … Law dictionary
district — One of the territorial areas into which an entire state or country, county, municipality or other political subdivision is divided, for judicial, political, electoral, or administrative purposes. State ex rel. Schur v. Payne, 57 Nev. 286, 63 P.2d … Black's law dictionary
Tax increment financing — Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, is a public financing method which has been used for redevelopment and community improvement projects in the United States for more than 50 years. With federal and state sources for redevelopment generally less… … Wikipedia
tax court — n often cap T&C: a court having jurisdiction over questions of law and fact arising under the tax laws of a government; specif: the federal court hearing tax cases Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of Law. Merriam Webster. 1996. tax court … Law dictionary
District Valuer — (DV) England, Wales The manager of an individual unit within the Valuation Office Agency (VOA). There are eight geographical units in England and Wales. One of the functions of the office of the District Valuer is to investigate valuations… … Law dictionary
tax authority — UK US noun [C, usually plural] TAX, GOVERNMENT ► an organization with official responsibility for collecting taxes: »If you have more than one property, you must notify the tax authorities in writing. Spanish/UK/US etc. tax authorities » The… … Financial and business terms
District of Columbia's At-large congressional district — Current Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) Area 68.3 mi² … Wikipedia
tax base — n 1: a sum (as the total assessed valuation of property in a county) used as the basis of taxation 2: the source of tax revenue for a governmental body change the tax base of a school district to reduce the property tax burden Merriam Webster’s… … Law dictionary
tax roll — n: a record of the properties in a taxing district that includes the taxes due and paid on each property and is sometimes combined with a record of assessed values Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of Law. Merriam Webster. 1996 … Law dictionary
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azizonomics
Economics, Technology, Futurism
May 11, 2013 by John Aziz
The Long Run
Niall Ferguson’s misunderstanding of Keynes led me to the question of how humans should balance the present against the long run?
It’s hard for us primates to have a real clue about the long run — the chain of events that may occur, the kind of world that will form. In the long run — the billions of years for which Earth has existed — modern human civilisation is a flash, a momentary pulsation of order imposed by primates on the face of the Earth — modern cities, roads, ports, oil wells, telecommunications and so forth built up over a little more than a century, a little more than two or three frail human lifespans.
Human projections of the direction of the future are notoriously unreliable. Professional futurists who devote careers to mapping the trajectory of human and earthly progress are often far wide of the mark. And in the realm of markets and economics, human projectional abilities are notoriously awful — only 0.4% of money managers beat the market over ten years.
As humans, our only window to the future is our imaginations. We cannot know the future, but we can imagine it as Ludwig Lachmann once noted. And in a world where everyone is working from unique internal models and expectations — for a very general example, Keynesians expecting zero rates and deflation, Austrians expecting rising rates and inflation — divergent human imaginations and expectations is an ingredient for chaos that renders assumptions of equilibrium hopelessly idealistic.
A tiny minority of fundamental investors can beat the market — Keynes himself trounced the market between 1926 and 1946, for example by following principles of value investing (like Benjamin Graham later advocated). But like in poker, while virtually everyone at the table believes they can beat the game in the long run — through, perhaps, virtues of good judgement, or good luck, or some combination of the two — the historical record shows that the vast majority of predictors are chumps. And for what it’s worth, markets are a harder game to win than games like poker. In poker, precise probabilities can be assigned to outcomes — there are no unknown unknowns in a deck of playing cards. In the market — and other fields of complex, messy human action — we cannot assign precise probabilities to anything. We are left with pure Bayesianism, with probabilities merely reflecting subjective human judgments about the future. And in valuing assets, as Keynes noted we are not even searching for the prettiest face, but for a prediction of what the market will deem to be the prettiest face.
This means that long run fears whether held by an individual or a minority or a majority are but ethereal whispers on the wind, far-fetched possibilities. It means that present crises like mass unemployment have a crushing weight of importance that potential imagined future crises do not have, and can never have until they are upon us. As the fighters of potential future demons — or in the European case, self-imposed present demons — suffer from high unemployment and weak growth in the present (which in turn create other problems — deterioration of skills, mass social and political disillusionment, etc) this becomes more and more dazzlingly apparent.
But in the long run, the historical record shows that crises certainly happen, even if they are not the ones that we might initially imagine (although they are very often something that someone imagined, however obscure). Human history is pockmarked by material crises — unemployment, displacement, failed crops, drought, marauders and vagabonds, volcanism, feudalism, slavery, invasion, a thousand terrors that might snuff out life, snuff out our unbroken genetic line back into the depths antiquity, prehistory and the saga of human and prehuman evolution. While we cannot predict the future, we can prepare and robustify during the boom so that we might have sufficient resources to deal with a crisis in the slump. Traditionally, this meant storing crops in granaries during good harvests to offset the potential damage by future famines and saving money in times of economic plenty to disburse when the economy turned downward. In the modern context of globalisation and long, snaking supply chains it might also mean bolstering energy independence by developing wind and solar and nuclear energy resources as a decentralised replacement to fossil fuels. It might mean the decentralisation of production through widespread molecular manufacturing and disassembly technologies. In the most literal and brutal sense — that of human extinction — it might mean colonising space to spread and diversify the human genome throughout the cosmos.
Ultimately, we prepare for an uncertain future by acting in the present. The long run begins now, and now is all we have.
Posted in Current Affairs | Tagged decentralisation, ferguson, Hayek, humanity, Keynes, keynesianism, ludwig lachmann, nassim taleb, solar energy, the long run | 24 Comments
December 26, 2012 by John Aziz
Taleb on Overstabilisation
It’s nice to know that Taleb is preaching more or less the same gospel that I am.
Via the NYT:
Stabilization, of course, has long been the economic playbook of the United States government; it has kept interest rates low, shored up banks, purchased bad debts and printed money. But the effect is akin to treating metastatic cancer with painkillers. It has not only let deeper problems fester, but also aggravated inequality. Bankers have continued to get rich using taxpayer dollars as both fuel and backstop. And printing money tends to disproportionately benefit a certain class. The rise in asset prices made the superrich even richer, while the median family income has dropped.
Overstabilization also corrects problems that ought not to be corrected and renders the economy more fragile; and in a fragile economy, even small errors can lead to crises and plunge the entire system into chaos. That’s what happened in 2008. More than four years after that financial crisis began, nothing has been done to address its root causes.
Our goal instead should be an antifragile system — one in which mistakes don’t ricochet throughout the economy, but can instead be used to fuel growth. The key elements to such a system are decentralization of decision making and ensuring that all economic and political actors have some “skin in the game.”
Two of the biggest policy mistakes of the past decade resulted from centralized decision making. First, the Iraq war, in addition to its tragic outcomes, cost between 40 and 100 times the original estimates. The second was the 2008 crisis, which I believe resulted from an all-too-powerful Federal Reserve providing cheap money to stifle economic volatility; this, in turn, led to the accumulation of hidden risks in the economic system, which cascaded into a major blowup.
Just as we didn’t forecast these two mistakes and their impact, we’ll miss the next ones unless we confront our error-prone system. Fortunately, the solution can be bipartisan, pleasing both those who decry a large federal government and those who distrust the market.
First, in a decentralized system, errors are by nature smaller. Switzerland is one of the world’s wealthiest and most stable countries. It is also highly decentralized — with 26 cantons that are self-governing and make most of their own budgetary decisions. The absence of a central monopoly on taxation makes them compete for tax and bureaucratic efficiency. And if the Jura canton goes bankrupt, it will not destabilize the entire Swiss economy.
In decentralized systems, problems can be solved early and when they are small; stakeholders are also generally more willing to pay to solve local challenges (like fixing a bridge), which often affect them in a direct way. And when there are terrible failures in economic management — a bankrupt county, a state ill-prepared for its pension obligations — these do not necessarily bring the national economy to its knees. In fact, states and municipalities will learn from the mistakes of others, ultimately making the economy stronger.
It’s a myth that centralization and size bring “efficiency.” Centralized states are deficit-prone precisely because they tend to be gamed by lobbyists and large corporations, which increase their size in order to get the protection of bailouts. No large company should ever be bailed out; it creates a moral hazard.
Consider the difference between Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, who are taught to “fail early and often,” and large corporations that leech off governments and demand bailouts when they’re in trouble on the pretext that they are too big to fail. Entrepreneurs don’t ask for bailouts, and their failures do not destabilize the economy as a whole.
Second, there must be skin in the game across the board, so that nobody can inflict harm on others without first harming himself. Bankers got rich — and are still rich — from transferring risk to taxpayers (and we still haven’t seen clawbacks of executive pay at companies that were bailed out). Likewise, Washington bureaucrats haven’t been exposed to punishment for their errors, whereas officials at the municipal level often have to face the wrath of voters (and neighbors) who are affected by their mistakes.
If we want our economy not to be merely resilient, but to flourish, we must strive for antifragility. It is the difference between something that breaks severely after a policy error, and something that thrives from such mistakes. Since we cannot stop making mistakes and prediction errors, let us make sure their impact is limited and localized, and can in the long term help ensure our prosperity and growth.
Posted in Economics | Tagged antifragility, black swans, centralisation, decentralisation, instability, nassim taleb, new york times, paul krugman, reality, stability | 27 Comments
September 23, 2012 by John Aziz
The Next Industrial Revolution
Large, centrally-directed systems are inherently fragile. Think of the human body; a spontaneous, unexpected blow to the head can kill an otherwise healthy creature; all the healthy cells and tissue in the legs, arms, torso and so forth killed through dependency on the brain’s functionality. Interdependent systems are only ever as strong as their weakest critical link, and very often a critical link can fail through nothing more than bad luck.
Yet the human body does not exist in isolation. Humans as a species are a decentralised network. Each individual may be in himself or herself a fragile, interdependent system, but the wider network of humanity is a robust independent system. One group of humans may die in an avalanche or drown at sea, but their death does not affect the survival of the wider population. The human genome has survived plagues, volcanoes, hurricanes, asteroid impacts and so on through its decentralisation.
In economics, such principles are also applicable. Modern, high-technology civilisation is very centralised and homogenised. Prices and availability are affected by events half way around the world; a war in the middle east, the closure of the Suez Canal or Strait of Hormuz, an earthquake in China, flooding in Thailand, or a tidal wave in Indonesia all have ramifications to global markets, simply because of the interconnectedness of globalisation. The computer I am typing this into is a complex mixture — the cumulative culmination of millions of hours of work, as well as resources and manufacturing processes across the globe. It incorporates tellurium, indium, cobalt, gallium, and manganese mined in Africa. Neodymium mined in China. Plastics forged out of Saudi Crude. Bauxite mined in Brazil. Memory manufactured in Korea, semiconductors forged in Germany, glass made in the United States. And gallons and gallons of oil to ship all the resources and components around the world, ’til they are finally assembled in China, and shipped once again around the world to the consumer. And that manufacturing process stands upon the shoulders of centuries of scientific research, and years of product development, testing, and marketing. It is a huge mesh of interdependent processes. And the disruption of any one of these processes can mean disruption for the system as a whole. The fragility of interconnection is the great hidden danger underlying our modern economic and technological paradigms.
And even if the risks of global trade disruptions do not materialise in the near-term, as the finite supply of oil dwindles in coming years, the costs of constantly shipping so much around and around the world may prove unsustainable.
It is my view that the reality of costlier oil is set over the coming years to spur a new industrial revolution — a very welcome side-effect of which will be increased social and industrial decentralisation. Looming on the horizon are technologies which can decentralise the means of production and the means of energy generation.
3D printers — machines that can assemble molecules into larger pre-designed objects are pioneering a whole new way of making things. This could well rewrite the rules of manufacturing in much the same way as the rise of personal computing discombobulated the traditional world of computing.
3D printers have existed in large-scale industry for years. But at a cost of $100,000 to $1m, few individuals could ever afford one. Fortunately, improved technology and lowered costs are making such machines more viable for home use. Industrial 3D printers now cost from just $15,000, and home versions for little more than $1,000. Obviously, there are still significant hurdles. 3D printing is still a relatively crude technology, so far incapable of producing complex finished goods. And molecular assembly still requires resources to run on — at least until the technology of molecular disassembly becomes viable, allowing for 3D printers to run on, for example, waste. But the potential for more and more individuals to gain the capacity to manufacture at home — thereby reducing dependency on oil and the global trade grid — is a huge incentive to further development. The next Apple or Microsoft could well be the company that develops and brings home-based 3D printing to the wider marketplace by making it simple and accessible and cheap.
Decentralised manufacturing goes hand-in-hand with decentralised energy generation, because manufacturing requires energy input. Microgrids are localised groupings of energy generation that can vary from city-size to individual-size. The latter is gradually becoming more and more economically viable as the costs of solar panels, wind turbines (etc) for energy generation, and lithium and graphene batteries (etc) for home energy storage fall, and efficiencies rise. Although generally connected to a larger national electricity grid, the connection can be disconnected, and a microgrid can function autonomously if the national grid were to fail (for example) as a result of natural disaster or war.
Having access to a robust and independent energy supply and home-manufacturing facilities would be very empowering for individuals and local communities and allow a higher degree of independence from governments and corporations. Home-based microgrids can allow the autonomous and decentralised powering and recharging of not just home appliances like cooking equipment, computers, 3D printers, lights, and food growing equipment, but also electric vehicles and mobile communications equipment. Home-based 3D printing can allow for autonomous and decentralised design and manufacturing of useful tools and equipment.
The choice that we face as individuals and organisations is whether or not we choose to continue to live with the costs and risks of the modern globalised mode of production, or whether we decide to invest in insulating ourselves from some of the dangers. The more individuals and organisations that invest in these technologies that allow us to create robust decentralised energy generation and production systems, the more costs should fall.
Decentralisation has allowed our species to survive and flourish through millions of years of turbulent and unpredictable history. I believe that decentralisation can allow our young civilisation to survive and flourish in the same manner.
Posted in Economics, Musings | Tagged 3d printing, autonomy, complexity, decentralisation, libertarianism, microgrid, resources, solar energy, solar power, wind | 105 Comments
September 3, 2011 by John Aziz
The Shape of Global Parasitism
A couple of days ago Buttonwood over at The Economist touched on my favourite topics: the growth of the Western service industry, the death of Western manufacturing, and the deep interconnectedness of the global economic system. His hook was that most claims of parasitism are at best not-straightforward, and at worst are unfounded. From The Economist:
Are all manufactured goods intrinsically superior to services? Would you rather have a wig or a haircut? Just as there is only so much food we can healthily consume, there is only so much physical stuff we need. We have service-dominated economies because people like to consume services from TV programmes through video games to leisure activities like eating out. When General Motors sells a car, the chances are that it is selling it to someone who works in the services sector; so who is the parasite in this situation?
At the national level, we can say that most countries cannot produce all the things they need (or at least desire). Britain, for example, needs food from abroad. So it needs industries that can export stuff in order to generate the earnings that pay for imports. Here the bankers start to look a lot more valuable; Britain’s invisible earnings from financial services are highly valuable.
A more realistic question might be “would I rather have a factory making hair clippers, or a cabal of lawyers, financiers and bureaucrats who readily declare themselves too-big-to-fail and hose themselves down in taxpayers’ liquidity?”
Posted in Economics for the Jilted Generation, International Relations | Tagged antifragility, buttonwood, climate change, decentralisation, economist, eliot spitzer, fragility, global warming, globalisation, localism, nassim taleb, robustness, too big to fail | 25 Comments
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Last edited by Meztigore
Sunday, April 19, 2020 | History
1 edition of The Way It Is found in the catalog.
The Way It Is
Published 1984 by Darling Downs Institute Press .
Passenger 9 Adult () Senior (65+) Young adult () Child () Infant in seat (under 2) Unaccompanied minors., Opens in a new window. Traveling with infants., Opens in a new window. For groups of 10 or more, contact Group & Meeting Travel., Opens in a .
Memoir of Charles Follen Folsom
THOMASONS county of Middlesex year book and almanack for 1959.
Youth in the skies and other poems
Real Estate Closing Deskbook
Totemism And Exogamy
Travels with Charley
Death customs
The Limbo Line
Janko Hrasko a Ine Slovenske Rozpravky
Favorite Fairy Tales Told Czechoslovakia
God of reason
So dear to my heart.
When memory dies
Nature as material
The Way It Is Download PDF EPUB FB2
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This book began as a collection of podcast transcripts— a simple attempt to satisfy listeners who wanted a written version of my weekly homage to Paul Harvey’s, The Rest of the Story. But that seemed like a lazy way to write a book.
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Early Years in Machine Translation
Memoirs and biographies of pioneers
W. John Hutchins
Hardbound – Available
ISBN 9789027245861 (Eur) | EUR 130.00
ISBN 9781588110138 (USA) | USD 195.00
e-Book –
Buy from our e-platform
ISBN 9789027283719 | EUR 130.00 | USD 195.00
Machine translation (MT) was one of the first non-numerical applications of the computer in the 1950s and 1960s. With limited equipment and programming tools, researchers from a wide range of disciplines (electronics, linguistics, mathematics, engineering, etc.) tackled the unknown problems of language analysis and processing, investigated original and innovative methods and techniques, and laid the foundations not just of current MT systems and computerized tools for translators but also of natural language processing in general. This volume contains contributions by or about the major MT pioneers from the United States, Russia, East and West Europe, and Japan, with recollections of personal experiences, colleagues and rivals, the political and institutional background, the successes and disappointments, and above all the challenges and excitement of a new field with great practical importance. Each article includes a personal bibliography, and the editor provides an overview, chronology and list of sources for the period.
[Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 97] 2000. xii, 400 pp.
Publishing status: Available
https://doi.org/10.1075/sihols.97
Acknowledgements. Cyrillic transliteration
The first decades of machine translation: overview, chronology, sources
Warren Weaver and the launching of MT: brief biographical note
Erwin Reifler and machine translation at the University of Washington
Lew. R. Micklesen
Early research at M.I.T.: in search of adequate theory
Victor H. Yngve
Machine translation at Harvard
Anthony G. Oettinger
The Georgetown project and Leon Dostert: recollections of a young assistant
Muriel Vasconcellos
Is FAHQ(M)T possible? Memories of Paul L. garvin and other MT colleagues
Christine A. Montgomery
The early days of GAT-SLC
Michael Zarechnak
Machine translation: just a question of finding the right programming language?
Antony F.R. Brown
From Serna to Systran
Peter Toma
My early years in machine translation
Winfred P. Lehmann
David G. Hays
Martin Kay
Gilbert W. King and the USAF Translator
Translation and the structure of language
Sydney M. Lamb
Pioneering MT in the Soviet Union
Olga S. Kulagina
Machine translation and formal linguistics in the USSR
Igor Mel’čuk
My memoirs of MT in the Soviet Union
Tat'jana N. Molosnaja
MT in the former USSR and in the Newly Independent States (NIS): pre-history, Romantic era, prosaic time
Raimund G. Piotrovskij
Machine translation: early years in the USSR
Jurij N. Marcuk
The beginnings of MT
Andrew D. Booth and Kathleen H.V. Booth
R.H. Richens: translation in the NUDe
Karen Sparck Jones
Margaret Masterman
Yorick Wilks
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel: a philosopher’s contribution to machine translation
Silvio Ceccato and the correlational grammar
Ernst von Glasersfeld
Early MT in France
Maurice Gross
Bernard Vauquois’ contribution to the theory and practice of building MT systems: a historical perspective
Christian Boitet
Pioneer work in machine translation in Czechoslovakia
Zdeněk Kirschner
Alexander Ljudskanov
Elena Paskaleva
Memoirs of a survivor
Hiroshi Wada
Locations of photographs
Participants at US conferences
Weaver, Reifler, Yngve, Oettinger
Dostert, Garvin, Zarechnak, Toma
Brown, Lehmann, Lamb
Participants at USSR conference; Mel’č uk, Mološnaja, Reformatskij
Marčuk, Piotrowski, Booth
Richens, Masterman, Ceccato
Sgall, Wada, Vauquois
“It follows the growth of an intellectual community with international scope from the beginning, even in the cold war era. It is the very best source for finding out what really went on in the early years of this field that is rapidly growing in importance with the growth of the internet.”
“It is the very best source for finding out what really went on in the early years of this field that is rapidly growing in importance. [...] It holds several important lessons and deserves close study by people involved in public policy as it impacts and is impacted by science and technology.”
Victor H. Yngve, University of Chicago
“It holds several important lessons and deserves close study by people involved in public policy as it impacts and is impacted by science and technology.”
“Although the book is a compilation of articles from the original MT pioneers, [...] that cover the time span from the early 50s, until the mid 70s, this is not a limit because most of today's commercially available MT systems are based on the linguistic techniques and technologies that were designed and implemented during that period.”
Jörg Schütz, IAI in Machine Translation, Spring 2004
“Those of us who have endured conference presentations in which eager authors present long-discarded Machine Translation (MT) theories as the latest and greatest ideas should welcome a book which puts previous research in perspective.”
Winfield Scott Bennett, OnePage, Inc., Denville, N.J.
“In capturing and preserving this impressively wide-ranging collection of reminiscences, John Hutchins has made a huge and enormously valuable contribution to our understanding of the ideas, personalities, and external forces that shaped the early development of machine translation and computational linguistics and that set in motion many of the activities in those areas that are still ongoing today. I heartily recommend this book not only for readers engaged in those or related fields, but also for anyone with an interest in the history of science.”
Warren J. Plath
Cited by other publications
No author info given
2019. In Machine Translation and Global Research: Towards Improved Machine Translation Literacy in the Scholarly Community, ► pp. 97 ff.
Abbas, Rasha Hassan & Firas Abdul Elah Abdul Kareem
2019. Text Language Identification Using Letters (Frequency, Self-information, and Entropy) Analysis for English, French, and German Languages. Journal of Southwest Jiaotong University 54:4
Agirre, Eneko
2020. Cross-Lingual Word Embeddings. ByAnders Søgaard, Ivan Vulić, Sebastian Ruder, Manaal Faruqui (University of Copenhagen, University of Cambridge, DeepMind, Google Assistant). Morgan & Claypool (Synthesis Lectures on Human Language Technologies, edited by Graeme Hirst, volume 37), 2019, 132 pp; paperback, ISBN 9781681735725; ebook, ISBN 9781681730646; doi:10.2200/S00920ED2V01Y201904HLT042. Computational Linguistics 46:1 ► pp. 245 ff.
Delisle, Jean
2003. L’Histoire de la Traduction. FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 1:2 ► pp. 1 ff.
Folaron, Debbie
2019. Digital World Communication аnd Translation. Slovo.ru: Baltic accent 10:3 ► pp. 9 ff.
Green, Spence, Jeffrey Heer & Christopher D. Manning
2015. Natural Language Translation at the Intersection of AI and HCI. Queue 13:6 ► pp. 30 ff.
Johnson, Roger G.
2010. In History of Computing. Learning from the Past [IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, 325], ► pp. 26 ff.
Kalantzis, Mary & Bill Cope
2020. In Adding Sense,
Lennon, Brian
2014. In A Companion to Translation Studies, ► pp. 133 ff.
Martin-Nielsen, Janet
2010. ‘This war for men’s minds’: the birth of a human science in Cold War America. History of the Human Sciences 23:5 ► pp. 131 ff.
Vidhu Bhala, R. V. & S. Abirami
2014. Trends in word sense disambiguation. Artificial Intelligence Review 42:2 ► pp. 159 ff.
Wang, Hongfei
2014. In 2014 5th International Conference on Digital Home, ► pp. 226 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 08 january 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
History of linguistics
BIC Subject: CF – Linguistics
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number: 00062138 | Marc record
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Best films time
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Home » Movies » VOTD: How Disney's 'Aladdin' Should Have Ended
VOTD: How Disney's 'Aladdin' Should Have Ended
This weekend brings Disney’s remake of their 1992 animated classic Aladdin to theaters. If the early buzz is to be believed, the movie is surprisingly better than the marketing has indicated so far, though with only 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s clearly not impressing everyone.
But before you get to this updated version of Aladdin, it’s time to look back at the original Disney version to see how it should have ended. Because if you think about it, Aladdin shouldn’t have really had a problem with being a real prince and marry Princess Jasmine. He really doesn’t understand how wishes from genie’s work. Find out how Aladdin should have ended below.
How Aladdin Should Have Ended
Gotta give Jamie Costa some credit for not only doing a great impression of Robin Williams as Genie, but also all the various impressions that he does of celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Prince, and also a fine Mrs. Doubtfire. Plus, he does a fantastic job of recreating several lines from the original movie.
Anyway, Aladdin shouldn’t really have had such a confrontational third act, because there’s nothing that says he’s not a prince. In fact, as Jasmine so astutely points out, he became royalty without doing anything to earn it, which is exactly what every person born into a royal family does. So he’s in good company.
Will the new Aladdin have the same conflict for the titular street urchin? Or do things come to a head in a different way? Find out when the movie hits theaters on May 24, 2019.
'Godzilla vs. Kong' Release Date Bumped Up Two Months from May to March
A 22-year-old Twitch streamer who earns over $200,000 a year shares how she got her start and the biggest misconceptions about making it big in streaming
What Can We Expect After the Pandemic?
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Millersville, MO
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History of The Sikeston Depot: When Sikeston, Missouri founder John Sikes first envisioned his city of the future more than 140 years ago, he knew...
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Asia Foundation Announces YBM Support to Expand Let’s Read! in Asia
Seoul, December 19, 2017 — The Asia Foundation today announced a donation from one of Korea’s largest publishing and education companies, YBM, Inc., to expand the Foundation’s Let’s Read! digital libraries initiative. The regional platform brings open-sourced books in local languages to children in underserved communities in Asian countries, helping to improve access to books and literacy to families impacted by poverty, conflict, or gender discrimination. The Let’s Read! platform currently includes a digital library web app, pioneering translation tool, and free Android e-reader app available on Google Play.
Across Asia, the children’s book genre is severely underdeveloped and the situation is unlikely to change unless a larger pool of writers, illustrators, and particularly editors are provided the professional development to produce high quality, local content. The contribution from YBM will help initially scale the Let’s Read! Editor Training Modules in five Asian countries—Cambodia, Nepal, Indonesia, Thailand, and Laos.
Participants at a Let’s Read! hackathon in Cambodia.
YBM’s support will create, test, and implement training modules and equip editors with best practices in writing and editing children’s books. A critical component of the Let’s Read! initiative, editors with knowledge of local language and culture can then train and guide teams of writers and illustrators to produce a stream of high quality books.
YBM believes in the investment in language proficiency,” said Min Sunshik, Vice Chairman of YBM, Inc. “Together with our long-time partner in Korea, The Asia Foundation, we are committed to addressing the severe shortage of children’s books in underserved communities and helping promote the love of reading among young children.”
“We are grateful for YBM’s support for the Editor Training Modules and helping us expand Let’s Read! across the region,” said Dylan Davis, country representative of The Asia Foundation in Korea. “By empowering creative talent in local communities, we can help inspire literacy, transform lives, and improve national development outcomes.”
Over the years, YBM has supported notable projects with The Asia Foundation in Korea, including sponsoring Korean journalists for the prestigious Harvard Nieman Fellowship.
The Asia Foundation is a nonprofit international development organization committed to improving lives across a dynamic and developing Asia. Since 1954, The Asia Foundation has supported Korea’s dramatic development from an aid recipient to a donor nation whose advanced economy and robust democracy are considered models for others. Today, the Foundation is uniquely positioned to work alongside the Korean government, NGOs, and corporations on development programs and knowledge exchanges.
Read more about the Foundation’s work.
For media inquiries, please visit our News Room. Engage with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Related locations: Korea
Related programs: Books for Asia
Related topics: Let's Read
Previous in news« Asia Foundation Expresses Sadness Over Passing of Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, Former Trustee, Grantee and Friend
Next in newsThe Asia Foundation’s Vietnam Country Representative Receives Distinguished Service Award from Vietnam Ministry of Culture, Sport & Tourism »
Read our latest news, or insights from our blog.
Amy Ovalle, Vice President, Global Communications
amy.ovalle@asiafoundation.org
Eelynn Sim, Director, Media & Strategy
eelynn.sim@asiafoundation.org
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Asquith Boys High School
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The Information Technology Curriculum Framework has been developed in response to the needs of the industry and to provide training and education opportunities for the full range of HSC students. Students will be able to acquire a range of technical, personal and organisational skills valued both within and beyond the workplace. They will also acquire foundation skills and knowledge related to functional areas within the information technology industry. Through study in this subject, students will gain experience that can be applied to a range of contexts including work, study and leisure and which can be used in making informed career choices.
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An industry curriculum framework for the Higher School Certificate describes the range of units of competency that have been identified as being suitable for the purposes of the Higher School Certificate. A course within an industry framework describes how the available units of competency must be arranged to gain unit credit towards the award of the Higher School Certificate. The qualifications within the Information Technology Training Package are based on and comply with the content and structural rules of the Information Technology Competency Standards
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Water equivalent hydrogen estimates from the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse (Bradbury Landing to Yellowknife Bay): Results from the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive mode experiment
C. G. Tate, J. Moersch, I. Jun, D. W. Ming, I. Mitrofanov, M. Litvak, A. Behar, W. V. Boynton, L. Deflores, D. Drake, B. Ehresmann, F. Fedosov, D. Golovin, C. Hardgrove, K. Harshman, D. M. Hassler, A. S. Kozyrev, R. Kuzmin, D. Lisov, A. Malakhov
R. Milliken, M. Mischna, M. Mokrousov, S. Nikiforov, A. B. Sanin, R. Starr, A. Varenikov, A. Vostrukhin, C. Zeitlin
The Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) experiment on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover Curiosity is designed to detect neutrons to determine hydrogen abundance within the subsurface of Mars (Mitrofanov, I.G. et al. [2012]. Space Sci. Rev. 170, 559-582. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11214-012-9924-y; Litvak, M.L. et al. [2008]. Astrobiology 8, 605-613. http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/ast.2007.0157). While DAN has a pulsed neutron generator for active measurements, in passive mode it only measures the leakage spectrum of neutrons produced by the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) and Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR). DAN passive measurements provide better spatial coverage than the active measurements because they can be acquired while the rover is moving. Here we compare DAN passive-mode data to models of the instrument's response to compositional differences in a homogeneous regolith in order to estimate the water equivalent hydrogen (WEH) content along the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse in Gale Crater, Mars. WEH content is shown to vary greatly along the traverse. These estimates range from 0.5. ±. 0.1. wt.% to 3.9. ±. 0.2. wt.% for fixed locations (usually overnight stops) investigated by the rover and 0.6. ±. 0.2. wt.% to 7.6. ±. 1.3. wt.% for areas that the rover has traversed while continuously acquiring DAN passive data between fixed locations. Estimates of WEH abundances at fixed locations based on passive mode data are in broad agreement with those estimated at the same locations using active mode data. Localized (meter-scale) anomalies in estimated WEH values from traverse measurements have no particular surface expression observable in co-located images. However at a much larger scale, the hummocky plains and bedded fractured units are shown to be distinct compositional units based on the hydrogen content derived from DAN passive measurements. DAN passive WEH estimates are also shown to be consistent with geologic models inferred from other MSL instruments, which indicate that fluvial/lacustrine activity occurred at certain locations (e.g., Yellowknife Bay).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2015.09.002
Mars, surface
10.1016/j.icarus.2015.09.002
Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of 'Water equivalent hydrogen estimates from the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse (Bradbury Landing to Yellowknife Bay): Results from the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive mode experiment'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
landing Physics & Astronomy
albedo Physics & Astronomy
hydrogen Earth & Environmental Sciences
neutrons Physics & Astronomy
estimates Physics & Astronomy
water Physics & Astronomy
Mars Earth & Environmental Sciences
experiment Earth & Environmental Sciences
Tate, C. G., Moersch, J., Jun, I., Ming, D. W., Mitrofanov, I., Litvak, M., Behar, A., Boynton, W. V., Deflores, L., Drake, D., Ehresmann, B., Fedosov, F., Golovin, D., Hardgrove, C., Harshman, K., Hassler, D. M., Kozyrev, A. S., Kuzmin, R., Lisov, D., ... Zeitlin, C. (2015). Water equivalent hydrogen estimates from the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse (Bradbury Landing to Yellowknife Bay): Results from the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive mode experiment. Icarus, 262, 102-123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2015.09.002
Water equivalent hydrogen estimates from the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse (Bradbury Landing to Yellowknife Bay) : Results from the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive mode experiment. / Tate, C. G.; Moersch, J.; Jun, I.; Ming, D. W.; Mitrofanov, I.; Litvak, M.; Behar, A.; Boynton, W. V.; Deflores, L.; Drake, D.; Ehresmann, B.; Fedosov, F.; Golovin, D.; Hardgrove, C.; Harshman, K.; Hassler, D. M.; Kozyrev, A. S.; Kuzmin, R.; Lisov, D.; Malakhov, A.; Milliken, R.; Mischna, M.; Mokrousov, M.; Nikiforov, S.; Sanin, A. B.; Starr, R.; Varenikov, A.; Vostrukhin, A.; Zeitlin, C.
In: Icarus, Vol. 262, 01.12.2015, p. 102-123.
Tate, CG, Moersch, J, Jun, I, Ming, DW, Mitrofanov, I, Litvak, M, Behar, A, Boynton, WV, Deflores, L, Drake, D, Ehresmann, B, Fedosov, F, Golovin, D, Hardgrove, C, Harshman, K, Hassler, DM, Kozyrev, AS, Kuzmin, R, Lisov, D, Malakhov, A, Milliken, R, Mischna, M, Mokrousov, M, Nikiforov, S, Sanin, AB, Starr, R, Varenikov, A, Vostrukhin, A & Zeitlin, C 2015, 'Water equivalent hydrogen estimates from the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse (Bradbury Landing to Yellowknife Bay): Results from the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive mode experiment', Icarus, vol. 262, pp. 102-123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2015.09.002
Tate CG, Moersch J, Jun I, Ming DW, Mitrofanov I, Litvak M et al. Water equivalent hydrogen estimates from the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse (Bradbury Landing to Yellowknife Bay): Results from the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive mode experiment. Icarus. 2015 Dec 1;262:102-123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2015.09.002
Tate, C. G. ; Moersch, J. ; Jun, I. ; Ming, D. W. ; Mitrofanov, I. ; Litvak, M. ; Behar, A. ; Boynton, W. V. ; Deflores, L. ; Drake, D. ; Ehresmann, B. ; Fedosov, F. ; Golovin, D. ; Hardgrove, C. ; Harshman, K. ; Hassler, D. M. ; Kozyrev, A. S. ; Kuzmin, R. ; Lisov, D. ; Malakhov, A. ; Milliken, R. ; Mischna, M. ; Mokrousov, M. ; Nikiforov, S. ; Sanin, A. B. ; Starr, R. ; Varenikov, A. ; Vostrukhin, A. ; Zeitlin, C. / Water equivalent hydrogen estimates from the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse (Bradbury Landing to Yellowknife Bay) : Results from the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive mode experiment. In: Icarus. 2015 ; Vol. 262. pp. 102-123.
@article{853aa05e972f4e17988b9dccba1f5245,
title = "Water equivalent hydrogen estimates from the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse (Bradbury Landing to Yellowknife Bay): Results from the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive mode experiment",
abstract = "The Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) experiment on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover Curiosity is designed to detect neutrons to determine hydrogen abundance within the subsurface of Mars (Mitrofanov, I.G. et al. [2012]. Space Sci. Rev. 170, 559-582. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11214-012-9924-y; Litvak, M.L. et al. [2008]. Astrobiology 8, 605-613. http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/ast.2007.0157). While DAN has a pulsed neutron generator for active measurements, in passive mode it only measures the leakage spectrum of neutrons produced by the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) and Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR). DAN passive measurements provide better spatial coverage than the active measurements because they can be acquired while the rover is moving. Here we compare DAN passive-mode data to models of the instrument's response to compositional differences in a homogeneous regolith in order to estimate the water equivalent hydrogen (WEH) content along the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse in Gale Crater, Mars. WEH content is shown to vary greatly along the traverse. These estimates range from 0.5. ±. 0.1. wt.% to 3.9. ±. 0.2. wt.% for fixed locations (usually overnight stops) investigated by the rover and 0.6. ±. 0.2. wt.% to 7.6. ±. 1.3. wt.% for areas that the rover has traversed while continuously acquiring DAN passive data between fixed locations. Estimates of WEH abundances at fixed locations based on passive mode data are in broad agreement with those estimated at the same locations using active mode data. Localized (meter-scale) anomalies in estimated WEH values from traverse measurements have no particular surface expression observable in co-located images. However at a much larger scale, the hummocky plains and bedded fractured units are shown to be distinct compositional units based on the hydrogen content derived from DAN passive measurements. DAN passive WEH estimates are also shown to be consistent with geologic models inferred from other MSL instruments, which indicate that fluvial/lacustrine activity occurred at certain locations (e.g., Yellowknife Bay).",
keywords = "Cosmic rays, Mars, Mars, surface",
author = "Tate, {C. G.} and J. Moersch and I. Jun and Ming, {D. W.} and I. Mitrofanov and M. Litvak and A. Behar and Boynton, {W. V.} and L. Deflores and D. Drake and B. Ehresmann and F. Fedosov and D. Golovin and C. Hardgrove and K. Harshman and Hassler, {D. M.} and Kozyrev, {A. S.} and R. Kuzmin and D. Lisov and A. Malakhov and R. Milliken and M. Mischna and M. Mokrousov and S. Nikiforov and Sanin, {A. B.} and R. Starr and A. Varenikov and A. Vostrukhin and C. Zeitlin",
doi = "10.1016/j.icarus.2015.09.002",
journal = "Icarus",
T1 - Water equivalent hydrogen estimates from the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse (Bradbury Landing to Yellowknife Bay)
T2 - Results from the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) passive mode experiment
AU - Tate, C. G.
AU - Moersch, J.
AU - Jun, I.
AU - Ming, D. W.
AU - Mitrofanov, I.
AU - Litvak, M.
AU - Behar, A.
AU - Boynton, W. V.
AU - Deflores, L.
AU - Drake, D.
AU - Ehresmann, B.
AU - Fedosov, F.
AU - Golovin, D.
AU - Hardgrove, C.
AU - Harshman, K.
AU - Hassler, D. M.
AU - Kozyrev, A. S.
AU - Kuzmin, R.
AU - Lisov, D.
AU - Malakhov, A.
AU - Milliken, R.
AU - Mischna, M.
AU - Mokrousov, M.
AU - Nikiforov, S.
AU - Sanin, A. B.
AU - Starr, R.
AU - Varenikov, A.
AU - Vostrukhin, A.
AU - Zeitlin, C.
N2 - The Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) experiment on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover Curiosity is designed to detect neutrons to determine hydrogen abundance within the subsurface of Mars (Mitrofanov, I.G. et al. [2012]. Space Sci. Rev. 170, 559-582. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11214-012-9924-y; Litvak, M.L. et al. [2008]. Astrobiology 8, 605-613. http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/ast.2007.0157). While DAN has a pulsed neutron generator for active measurements, in passive mode it only measures the leakage spectrum of neutrons produced by the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) and Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR). DAN passive measurements provide better spatial coverage than the active measurements because they can be acquired while the rover is moving. Here we compare DAN passive-mode data to models of the instrument's response to compositional differences in a homogeneous regolith in order to estimate the water equivalent hydrogen (WEH) content along the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse in Gale Crater, Mars. WEH content is shown to vary greatly along the traverse. These estimates range from 0.5. ±. 0.1. wt.% to 3.9. ±. 0.2. wt.% for fixed locations (usually overnight stops) investigated by the rover and 0.6. ±. 0.2. wt.% to 7.6. ±. 1.3. wt.% for areas that the rover has traversed while continuously acquiring DAN passive data between fixed locations. Estimates of WEH abundances at fixed locations based on passive mode data are in broad agreement with those estimated at the same locations using active mode data. Localized (meter-scale) anomalies in estimated WEH values from traverse measurements have no particular surface expression observable in co-located images. However at a much larger scale, the hummocky plains and bedded fractured units are shown to be distinct compositional units based on the hydrogen content derived from DAN passive measurements. DAN passive WEH estimates are also shown to be consistent with geologic models inferred from other MSL instruments, which indicate that fluvial/lacustrine activity occurred at certain locations (e.g., Yellowknife Bay).
AB - The Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) experiment on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover Curiosity is designed to detect neutrons to determine hydrogen abundance within the subsurface of Mars (Mitrofanov, I.G. et al. [2012]. Space Sci. Rev. 170, 559-582. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11214-012-9924-y; Litvak, M.L. et al. [2008]. Astrobiology 8, 605-613. http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/ast.2007.0157). While DAN has a pulsed neutron generator for active measurements, in passive mode it only measures the leakage spectrum of neutrons produced by the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) and Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR). DAN passive measurements provide better spatial coverage than the active measurements because they can be acquired while the rover is moving. Here we compare DAN passive-mode data to models of the instrument's response to compositional differences in a homogeneous regolith in order to estimate the water equivalent hydrogen (WEH) content along the first 200 sols of Curiosity's traverse in Gale Crater, Mars. WEH content is shown to vary greatly along the traverse. These estimates range from 0.5. ±. 0.1. wt.% to 3.9. ±. 0.2. wt.% for fixed locations (usually overnight stops) investigated by the rover and 0.6. ±. 0.2. wt.% to 7.6. ±. 1.3. wt.% for areas that the rover has traversed while continuously acquiring DAN passive data between fixed locations. Estimates of WEH abundances at fixed locations based on passive mode data are in broad agreement with those estimated at the same locations using active mode data. Localized (meter-scale) anomalies in estimated WEH values from traverse measurements have no particular surface expression observable in co-located images. However at a much larger scale, the hummocky plains and bedded fractured units are shown to be distinct compositional units based on the hydrogen content derived from DAN passive measurements. DAN passive WEH estimates are also shown to be consistent with geologic models inferred from other MSL instruments, which indicate that fluvial/lacustrine activity occurred at certain locations (e.g., Yellowknife Bay).
KW - Cosmic rays
KW - Mars
KW - Mars, surface
U2 - 10.1016/j.icarus.2015.09.002
DO - 10.1016/j.icarus.2015.09.002
JO - Icarus
JF - Icarus
|
cc/2021-04/en_middle_0066.json.gz/line2747
|
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| 0.525637
| 0.474363
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Read “Girls at War,” a short story by Chinua Achebe
Posted on July 28, 2020 July 20, 2020 by Biblioklept
“Girls at War”
The first time their paths crossed nothing happened. That was in the first heady days of warlike preparation when thousands of young men (and sometimes women too) were daily turned away from enlistment centres because far too many of them were coming forward burning with readiness to bear arms in defence of the exciting new nation.
The second time they met was at a check-point at Awka. Then the war had started and was slowly moving southwards from the distant northern sector. He was driving from Onitsha to Enugu and was in a hurry. Although intellectually he approved of thorough searches at road-blocks, emotionally he was always offended whenever he had to submit to them. He would probably not admit it but the feeling people got was that if you were put through a search then you could not really be one of the big people. Generally he got away without a search by pronouncing in his deep, authoritative voice: ‘Reginald Nwankwo, Ministry of Justice.’ That almost always did it. But sometimes either through ignorance or sheer cussedness the crowd at the odd check-point would refuse to be impressed. As happened now at Awka. Two constables carrying heavy Mark 4 rifles were watching distantly from the roadside leaving the actual searching to local vigilantes.
‘I am in a hurry,’ he said to the girl who now came up to his car. ‘My name is Reginald Nwankwo, Ministry of Justice.’
‘Good afternoon, sir. I want to see your boot.’
‘Oh Christ! What do you think is in the boot?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
He got out of the car in suppressed rage, stalked to the back, opened the boot and holding the lid up with his left hand he motioned with the right as if to say: After you!
‘Are you satisfied?’ he demanded.
‘Yes, sir. Can I see your pigeon-hole?’
‘Christ Almighty!’
‘Sorry to delay you, sir. But you people gave us this job to do.’
‘Never mind. You are damn right. It’s just that I happen to be in a hurry. But never mind. That’s the glove-box. Nothing there as you can see.’
‘All right sir, close it.’ Then she opened the rear door and bent down to inspect under the seats. It was then he took the first real look at her, starting from behind. She was a beautiful girl in a breasty blue jersey, khaki jeans and canvas shoes with the new-style hair-plait which gave a girl a defiant look and which they called—for reasons of their own—‘air force base’; and she looked vaguely familiar.
‘I am all right, sir,’ she said at last meaning she was through with her task. ‘You don’t recognize me?’
‘No. Should I?’
‘You gave me a lift to Enugu that time I left my school to go and join the militia.’
‘Ah, yes, you were the girl. I told you, didn’t I, to go back to school because girls were not required in the militia. What happened?’
‘They told me to go back to my school or join the Red Cross.’
‘You see I was right. So, what are you doing now?’
‘Just patching up with Civil Defence.’
‘Well, good luck to you. Believe me you are a great girl.’
That was the day he finally believed there might be something in this talk about revolution. He had seen plenty of girls and women marching and demonstrating before now. But somehow he had never been able to give it much thought. He didn’t doubt that the girls and the women took themselves seriously, they obviously did. But so did the little kids who marched up and down the streets at the time drilling with sticks and wearing their mothers’ soup bowls for steel helmets. The prime joke of the time among his friends was the contingent of girls from a local secondary school marching behind a banner: WE ARE IMPREGNABLE!
But after that encounter at the Awka check-point he simply could not sneer at the girls again, nor at the talk of revolution, for he had seen it in action in that young woman whose devotion had simply and without self-righteousness convicted him of gross levity. What were her words? We are doing the work you asked us to do. She wasn’t going to make an exception even for one who once did her a favour. He was sure she would have searched her own father just as rigorously.
When their paths crossed a third time, at least eighteen months later, things had got very bad. Death and starvation having long chased out the headiness of the early days, now left in some places blank resignation, in others a rock-like, even suicidal, defiance. But surprisingly enough there were many at this time who had no other desire than to corner whatever good things were still going and to enjoy themselves to the limit. For such people a strange normalcy had returned to the world. All those nervous check-points disappeared. Girls became girls once more and boys boys. It was a tight, blockaded and desperate world but none the less a world—with some goodness and some badness and plenty of heroism which, however, happened most times far, far below the eye-level of the people in this story—in out-of-the-way refugee camps, in the damp tatters, in the hungry and bare-handed courage of the first line of fire.
Reginald Nwankwo lived in Owerri then. But that day he had gone to Nkwerri in search of relief. He had got from Caritas in Owerri a few heads of stock-fish, some tinned meat, and the dreadful American stuff called Formula Two which he felt certain was some kind of animal feed. But he always had a vague suspicion that not being a Catholic put one at a disadvantage with Caritas. So he went now to see an old friend who ran the WCC depot at Nkwerri to get other items like rice, beans and that excellent cereal commonly called Gabon gari.
He left Owerri at six in the morning so as to catch his friend at the depot where he was known never to linger beyond 8.30 for fear of air-raids. Nwankwo was very fortunate that day. The depot had received on the previous day large supplies of new stock as a result of an unusual number of plane landings a few nights earlier. As his driver loaded tins and bags and cartons into his car the starved crowds that perpetually hung around relief centres made crude, ungracious remarks like ‘War Can Continue!’ meaning the WCC! Somebody else shouted ‘Irevolu!’ and his friends replied ‘shum!’
‘Irevolu!’
‘shum!’
‘Isofeli?’
‘Mba!’
Nwankwo was deeply embarrassed not by the jeers of this scarecrow crowd of rags and floating ribs but by the independent accusation of their wasted bodies and sunken eyes. Indeed he would probably have felt much worse had they said nothing, simply looked on in silence, as his boot was loaded with milk, and powdered egg and oats and tinned meat and stock-fish. By nature such singular good fortune in the midst of a general desolation was certain to embarrass him. But what could a man do? He had a wife and four children living in the remote village of Ogbu and completely dependent on what relief he could find and send them. He couldn’t abandon them to kwashiokor. The best he could do—and did do as a matter of fact—was to make sure that whenever he got sizeable supplies like now he made over some of it to his driver, Johnson, with a wife and six, or was it seven?, children and a salary of ten pounds a month when gari in the market was climbing to one pound per cigarette cup. In such a situation one could do nothing at all for crowds; at best one could try to be of some use to one’s immediate neighbours. That was all.
On his way back to Owerri a very attractive girl by the roadside waved for a lift. He ordered the driver to stop. Scores of pedestrians, dusty and exhausted, some military, some civil, swooped down on the car from all directions.
‘No, no, no,’ said Nwankwo firmly. ‘It’s the young woman I stopped for. I have a bad tyre and can only take one person. Sorry.’
‘My son, please,’ cried one old woman in despair, gripping the door-handle.
‘Old woman, you want to be killed?’ shouted the driver as he pulled away, shaking her off. Nwankwo had already opened a book and sunk his eyes there. For at least a mile after that he did not even look at the girl until she finding, perhaps, the silence too heavy said: ‘You’ve saved me today. Thank you.’
‘Not at all. Where are you going?’
‘To Owerri. You don’t recognize me?’
‘Oh yes, of course. What a fool I am… You are…’
‘Gladys.’
‘That’s right, the militia girl. You’ve changed, Gladys. You were always beautiful of course, but now you are a beauty queen. What do you do these days?’
‘I am in the Fuel Directorate.’
‘That’s wonderful.’
It was wonderful, he thought, but even more it was tragic. She wore a high-tinted wig and a very expensive skirt and low-cut blouse. Her shoes, obviously from Gabon, must have cost a fortune. In short, thought Nwankwo, she had to be in the keep of some well-placed gentleman, one of those piling up money out of the war.
‘I broke my rule today to give you a lift. I never give lifts these days.’
‘Why?’
‘How many people can you carry? It is better not to try at all. Look at that old woman.’
‘I thought you would carry her.’
He said nothing to that and after another spell of silence Gladys thought maybe he was offended and so added: ‘Thank you for breaking your rule for me.’ She was scanning his face, turned slightly away. He smiled, turned, and tapped her on the lap.
‘What are you going to Owerri to do?’
‘I am going to visit my girl friend.’
‘Girl friend? You sure?’
‘Why not?… If you drop me at her house you can see her. Only I pray God she hasn’t gone on weekend today; it will be serious.’
‘Because if she is not at home I will sleep on the road today.’
‘I pray to God that she is not at home.’
‘Because if she is not at home I will offer you bed and breakfast… What is that?’ he asked the driver who had brought the car to an abrupt stop. There was no need for an answer. The small crowd ahead was looking upwards. The three scrambled out of the car and stumbled for the bush, necks twisted in a backward search of the sky. But the alarm was false. The sky was silent and clear except for two high-flying vultures. A humorist in the crowd called them Fighter and Bomber and everyone laughed in relief. The three climbed into their car again and continued their journey.
‘It is much too early for raids,’ he said to Gladys, who had both her palms on her breast as though to still a thumping heart. ‘They rarely come before ten o’clock.’
But she remained tongue-tied from her recent fright. Nwankwo saw an opportunity there and took it at once.
‘Where does your friend live?’
‘250 Douglas Road.’
‘Ah! that’s the very centre of town—a terrible place. No bunkers, nothing. I won’t advise you to go there before 6 p.m.; it’s not safe. If you don’t mind I will take you to my place where there is a good bunker and then as soon as it is safe, around six, I shall drive you to your friend. How’s that?’
‘It’s all right,’ she said lifelessly. ‘I am so frightened of this thing. That’s why I refused to work in Owerri. I don’t even know who asked me to come out today.’
‘You’ll be all right. We are used to it.’
‘But your family is not there with you?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Nobody has his family there. We like to say it is because of air-raids but I can assure you there is more to it. Owerri is a real swinging town and we live the life of gay bachelors.’
‘That is what I have heard.’
‘You will not just hear it; you will see it today. I shall take you to a real swinging party. A friend of mine, a Lieutenant-Colonel, is having a birthday party. He’s hired the Sound Smashers to play. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.’
He was immediately and thoroughly ashamed of himself. He hated the parties and frivolities to which his friends clung like drowning men. And to talk so approvingly of them because he wanted to take a girl home! And this particular girl too, who had once had such beautiful faith in the struggle and was betrayed (no doubt about it) by some man like him out for a good time. He shook his head sadly.
‘What is it?’ asked Gladys.
‘Nothing. Just my thoughts.’
They made the rest of the journey to Owerri practically in silence.
She made herself at home very quickly as if she was a regular girl friend of his. She changed into a house dress and put away her auburn wig.
‘That is a lovely hair-do. Why do you hide it with a wig?’
‘Thank you,’ she said leaving his question unanswered for a while. Then she said: ‘Men are funny.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘You are now a beauty queen,’ she mimicked.
‘Oh, that! I mean every word of it.’ He pulled her to him and kissed her. She neither refused nor yielded fully, which he liked for a start. Too many girls were simply too easy those days. War sickness, some called it.
He drove off a little later to look in at the office and she busied herself in the kitchen helping his boy with lunch. It must have been literally a look-in, for he was back within half an hour, rubbing his hands and saying he could not stay away too long from his beauty queen.
As they sat down to lunch she said: ‘You have nothing in your fridge.’
‘Like what?’ he asked, half-offended.
‘Like meat,’ she replied undaunted.
‘Do you still eat meat?’ he challenged.
‘Who am I? But other big men like you eat.’
‘I don’t know which big men you have in mind. But they are not like me. I don’t make money trading with the enemy or selling relief or…’
‘Augusta’s boy friend doesn’t do that. He just gets foreign exchange.’
‘How does he get it? He swindles the government—that’s how he gets foreign exchange, whoever he is. Who is Augusta, by the way?’
‘My girl friend.’
‘I see.’
‘She gave me three dollars last time which I changed to forty-five pounds. The man gave her fifty dollars.’
‘Well, my dear girl, I don’t traffic in foreign exchange and I don’t have meat in my fridge. We are fighting a war and I happen to know that some young boys at the front drink gari and water once in three days.’
‘It is true,’ she said simply. ‘Monkey de work, baboon de chop.’
‘It is not even that; it is worse,’ he said, his voice beginning to shake. ‘People are dying every day. As we talk now somebody is dying.’
‘It is true,’ she said again.
‘Plane!’ screamed his boy from the kitchen.
‘My mother!’ screamed Gladys. As they scuttled towards the bunker of palm stems and red earth, covering their heads with their hands and stooping slightly in their flight, the entire sky was exploding with the clamour of jets and the huge noise of homemade anti-aircraft rockets.
Inside the bunker she clung to him even after the plane had gone and the guns, late to start and also to end, had all died down again.
‘It was only passing,’ he told her, his voice a little shaky. ‘It didn’t drop anything. From its direction I should say it was going to the war front. Perhaps our people are pressing them. That’s what they always do. Whenever our boys press them, they send an SOS to the Russians and Egyptians to bring the planes.’ He drew a long breath.
She said nothing, just clung to him. They could hear his boy telling the servant from the next house that there were two of them and one dived like this and the other dived like that.
‘I see dem well well,’ said the other with equal excitement. ‘If no to say de ting de kill porson e for sweet for eye. To God.’
‘Imagine!’ said Gladys, finding her voice at last. She had a way, he thought, of conveying with a few words or even a single word whole layers of meaning. Now it was at once her astonishment as well as reproof, tinged perhaps with grudging admiration for people who could be so light-hearted about these bringers of death.
‘Don’t be so scared,’ he said. She moved closer and he began to kiss her and squeeze her breasts. She yielded more and more and then fully. The bunker was dark and unswept and might harbour crawling things. He thought of bringing a mat from the main house but reluctantly decided against it. Another plane might pass and send a neighbour or simply a chance passer-by crashing into them. That would be only slightly better than a certain gentleman in another air-raid who was seen in broad daylight fleeing his bedroom for his bunker stark-naked pursued by a woman in a similar state!
Just as Gladys had feared, her friend was not in town. It would seem her powerful boy friend had wangled for her a flight to Libreville to shop. So her neighbours thought anyway.
‘Great!’ said Nwankwo as they drove away. ‘She will come back on an arms plane loaded with shoes, wigs, pants, bras, cosmetics and what have you, which she will then sell and make thousands of pounds. You girls are really at war, aren’t you?’
She said nothing and he thought he had got through at last to her. Then suddenly she said, ‘That is what you men want us to do.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘here is one man who doesn’t want you to do that. Do you remember that girl in khaki jeans who searched me without mercy at the check-point?’
She began to laugh.
‘That is the girl I want you to become again. Do you remember her? No wig. I don’t even think she had any earrings…’
‘Ah, na lie-o. I had earrings.’
‘All right. But you know what I mean.’
‘That time done pass. Now everybody want survival. They call it number six. You put your number six; I put my number six. Everything all right.’
The Lieutenant-Colonel’s party turned into something quite unexpected. But before it did things had been going well enough. There was goat-meat, some chicken and rice and plenty of home-made spirits. There was one fiery brand nicknamed ‘tracer’ which indeed sent a flame down your gullet. The funny thing was looking at it in the bottle it had the innocent appearance of an orange drink. But the thing that caused the greatest stir was the bread—one little roll for each person! It was the size of a golf-ball and about the same consistency too! But it was real bread. The band was good too and there were many girls. And to improve matters even further two white Red Cross people soon arrived with a bottle of Courvoisier and a bottle of Scotch! The party gave them a standing ovation and then scrambled to get a drop. It soon turned out from his general behaviour, however, that one of the white men had probably drunk too much already. And the reason it would seem was that a pilot he knew well had been killed in a crash at the airport last night, flying in relief in awful weather.
Few people at the party had heard of the crash by then. So there was an immediate damping of the air. Some dancing couples went back to their seats and the band stopped.
Then for some strange reason the drunken Red Cross man just exploded.
‘Why should a man, a decent man, throw away his life. For nothing! Charley didn’t need to die. Not for this stinking place. Yes, everything stinks here. Even these girls who come here all dolled up and smiling, what are they worth? Don’t I know? A head of stockfish, that’s all, or one American dollar and they are ready to tumble into bed.’
In the threatening silence following the explosion one of the young officers walked up to him and gave him three thundering slaps—right! left! right!—pulled him up from his seat and (there were things like tears in his eyes) shoved him outside. His friend, who had tried in vain to shut him up, followed him out and the silenced party heard them drive off. The officer who did the job returned dusting his palms.
‘Fucking beast!’ said he with an impressive coolness. And all the girls showed with their eyes that they rated him a man and a hero.
‘Do you know him?’ Gladys asked Nwankwo.
He didn’t answer her. Instead he spoke generally to the party: ‘The fellow was clearly drunk,’ he said.
‘I don’t care,’ said the officer. ‘It is when a man is drunk that he speaks what is on his mind.’
‘So you beat him for what was on his mind,’ said the host, ‘that is the spirit, Joe.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Joe, saluting.
‘His name is Joe,’ Gladys and the girl on her left said in unison, turning to each other.
At the same time Nwankwo and a friend on the other side of him were saying quietly, very quietly, that although the man had been rude and offensive what he had said about the girls was unfortunately the bitter truth, only he was the wrong man to say it.
When the dancing resumed Captain Joe came to Gladys for a dance. She sprang to her feet even before the word was out of his mouth. Then she remembered immediately and turned round to take permission from Nwankwo. At the same time the Captain also turned to him and said, ‘Excuse me.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Nwankwo, looking somewhere between the two.
It was a long dance and he followed them with his eyes without appearing to do so.
Occasionally a relief plane passed overhead and somebody immediately switched off the lights saying it might be the Intruder. But it was only an excuse to dance in the dark and make the girls giggle, for the sound of the Intruder was well known.
Gladys came back feeling very self-conscious and asked Nwankwo to dance with her. But he wouldn’t. ‘Don’t bother about me,’ he said, ‘I am enjoying myself perfectly sitting here and watching those of you who dance.’
‘Then let’s go,’ she said, ‘if you won’t dance.’
‘But I never dance, believe me. So please enjoy yourself.’
She danced next with the Lieutenant-Colonel and again with Captain Joe, and then Nwankwo agreed to take her home.
‘I am sorry I didn’t dance,’ he said as they drove away. ‘But I swore never to dance as long as this war lasts.’
She said nothing.
‘When I think of somebody like that pilot who got killed last night. And he had no hand whatever in the quarrel. All his concern was to bring us food…’
‘I hope that his friend is not like him,’ said Gladys.
‘The man was just upset by his friend’s death. But what I am saying is that with people like that getting killed and our own boys suffering and dying at the war fronts I don’t see why we should sit around throwing parties and dancing.’
‘You took me there,’ said she in final revolt. ‘They are your friends. I don’t know them before.’
‘Look, my dear, I am not blaming you. I am merely telling you why I personally refuse to dance. Anyway, let’s change the subject… Do you still say you want to go back tomorrow? My driver can take you early enough on Monday morning for you to go to work. No? All right, just as you wish. You are the boss.’
She gave him a shock by the readiness with which she followed him to bed and by her language.
‘You want to shell?’ she asked. And without waiting for an answer said, ‘Go ahead but don’t pour in troops!’
He didn’t want to pour in troops either and so it was all right. But she wanted visual assurance and so he showed her.
One of the ingenious economies taught by the war was that a rubber condom could be used over and over again. All you had to do was wash it out, dry it and shake a lot of talcum powder over it to prevent its sticking; and it was as good as new. It had to be the real British thing, though, not some of the cheap stuff they brought in from Lisbon which was about as strong as a dry cocoyam leaf in the harmattan.
He had his pleasure but wrote the girl off. He might just as well have slept with a prostitute, he thought. It was clear as daylight to him now that she was kept by some army officer. What a terrible transformation in the short period of less than two years!
Wasn’t it a miracle that she still had memories of the other life, that she even remembered her name? If the affair of the drunken Red Cross man should happen again now, he said to himself, he would stand up beside the fellow and tell the party that here was a man of truth. What a terrible fate to befall a whole generation! The mothers of tomorrow!
By morning he was feeling a little better and more generous in his judgements. Gladys, he thought, was just a mirror reflecting a society that had gone completely rotten and maggotty at the centre. The mirror itself was intact; a lot of smudge but no more. All that was needed was a clean duster. ‘I have a duty to her,’ he told himself, ‘the little girl that once revealed to me our situation. Now she is in danger, under some terrible influence.’
He wanted to get to the bottom of this deadly influence. It was clearly not just her good-time girl friend, Augusta, or whatever her name was. There must be some man at the centre of it, perhaps one of these heartless attack-traders who traffic in foreign currencies and make their hundreds of thousands by sending young men to hazard their lives bartering looted goods for cigarettes behind enemy lines, or one of those contractors who receive piles of money daily for food they never deliver to the army. Or perhaps some vulgar and cowardly army officer full of filthy barrack talk and fictitious stories of heroism. He decided he had to find out. Last night he had thought of sending his driver alone to take her home. But no, he must go and see for himself where she lived. Something was bound to reveal itself there. Something on which he could anchor his saving operation. As he prepared for the trip his feeling towards her softened with every passing minute. He assembled for her half of the food he had received at the relief centre the day before. Difficult as things were, he thought, a girl who had something to eat would be spared, not all, but some of the temptation. He would arrange with his friend at the WCC to deliver something to her every fortnight.
Tears came to Gladys’s eyes when she saw the gifts. Nwankwo didn’t have too much cash on him but he got together twenty pounds and handed it over to her.
‘I don’t have foreign exchange, and I know this won’t go far at all, but…’
She just came and threw herself at him, sobbing. He kissed her lips and eyes and mumbled something about victims of circumstance, which went over her head. In deference to him, he thought with exultation, she had put away her high-tinted wig in her bag.
‘I want you to promise me something,’ he said.
‘Never use that expression about shelling again.’
She smiled with tears in her eyes. ‘You don’t like it? That’s what all the girls call it.’
‘Well, you are different from all the girls. Will you promise?’
‘O.K.’
Naturally their departure had become a little delayed. And when they got into the car it refused to start. After poking around the engine the driver decided that the battery was flat. Nwankwo was aghast.
He had that very week paid thirty-four pounds to change two of the cells and the mechanic who performed it had promised him six months’ service. A new battery, which was then running at two hundred and fifty pounds was simply out of the question. The driver must have been careless with something, he thought.
‘It must be because of last night,’ said the driver.
‘What happened last night?’ asked Nwankwo sharply, wondering what insolence was on the way. But none was intended.
‘Because we use the head light.’
‘Am I supposed not to use my light then? Go and get some people and try pushing it.’ He got out again with Gladys and returned to the house while the driver went over to neighbouring houses to seek the help of other servants.
After at least half an hour of pushing it up and down the street, and a lot of noisy advice from the pushers, the car finally spluttered to life shooting out enormous clouds of black smoke from the exhaust.
It was eight-thirty by his watch when they set out. A few miles away a disabled soldier waved for a lift.
‘Stop!’ screamed Nwankwo. The driver jammed his foot on the brakes and then turned his head towards his master in bewilderment.
‘Don’t you see the soldier waving? Reverse and pick him up!’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said the driver. ‘I don’t know Master wan to pick him.’
‘If you don’t know you should ask. Reverse back.’
The soldier, a mere boy, in filthy khaki drenched in sweat lacked his right leg from the knee down. He seemed not only grateful that a car should stop for him but greatly surprised. He first handed in his crude wooden crutches which the driver arranged between the two front seats, then painfully he levered himself in.
‘Thank sir,’ he said turning his neck to look at the back and completely out of breath.
‘I am very grateful. Madame, thank you.’
‘The pleasure is ours,’ said Nwankwo. ‘Where did you get your wound?’
‘At Azumini, sir. On tenth of January.’
‘Never mind. Everything will be all right. We are proud of you boys and will make sure you receive your due reward when it is all over.’
‘I pray God, sir.’
They drove on in silence for the next half-hour or so. Then as the car sped down a slope towards a bridge somebody screamed—perhaps the driver, perhaps the soldier—‘They have come!’ The screech of the brakes merged into the scream and the shattering of the sky overhead. The doors flew open even before the car had come to a stop and they were fleeing blindly to the bush. Gladys was a little ahead of Nwankwo when they heard through the drowning tumult the soldier’s voice crying: ‘Please come and open for me!’ Vaguely he saw Gladys stop; he pushed past her shouting to her at the same time to come on. Then a high whistle descended like a spear through the chaos and exploded in a vast noise and motion that smashed up everything. A tree he had embraced flung him away through the bush. Then another terrible whistle starting high up and ending again in a monumental crash of the world; and then another, and Nwankwo heard no more.
He woke up to human noises and weeping and the smell and smoke of a charred world.
He dragged himself up and staggered towards the source of the sounds.
From afar he saw his driver running towards him in tears and blood. He saw the remains of his car smoking and the entangled remains of the girl and the soldier. And he let out a piercing cry and fell down again.
Posted in short storyTagged Chinua Achebe, Full Text, pdf, Short Stories
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https://biologos.org/resources/how-did-god-create-the-ingredients-for-life
How did God create the ingredients for life?
Miracles & Divine Action
This is the fourth video in a series of short videos to help introduce topics for those new to the Christianity and science conversation. See entire series.
Watch in Theater Mode
So how did God bring about the diversity of life we see on earth today? First he needed a place where life could survive—a planet that is just the right distance from the sun, and full of the right kinds of elements. God orchestrated this through physical processes that scientists have come to understand quite well. And many of these appear to have been fine-tuned so life could exist.
At the beginning of the universe, there were no galaxies or stars or planets, just hydrogen and helium atoms randomly distributed through space. But the gravity pulled big clumps of these atoms together to form stars. The strength of gravity had to be precisely tuned for that to happen. If it had been just a tiny bit stronger, it would have pulled all the matter in the universe back into one giant ball; if it had been just a tiny bit weaker, the atoms would have spread out so far from each other that stars could never have formed. As it is, God ensured that the strength of gravity is just right so that stars could form and provide the energy needed for life to exist.
So the first stars were composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium atoms, but other natural forces besides gravity cause them to fuse into the other elements we need for life. For example, all the life we know of is based on carbon. To get one atom of carbon, you need three atoms of helium. Under normal circumstances, it is extremely rare for three helium atoms to fuse into a carbon atom. But inside a star the forces are so precisely balanced that there is lots of carbon produced from helium collisions. When the first stars ran out of fuel, they spewed their elements back into space. And gravity brought the atoms together to begin the process again. But this time, there were lots of other elements too that could gather into planets around a star; and at least one of those—our Earth—was positioned perfectly so that life could develop.
There are many other laws and constants in nature that had to be precisely tuned for the universe to support life. God could have brought all this about in an instant if he had wanted to. But the evidence we find today in the things he created points to the conclusion that he did it through these natural processes over long stretches of time.
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2. Is God the Creator?
3. What about the Bible?
5. How Old is the Earth?
6. How Evolution Works, Part 1
8. What is Genetics?
9. What Happens to Christian Theology if Evolution is True?
10. What's the Point?
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How Asia reopened after COVID, #4: Taiwan remains top performer despite loophole threat
By Chuck Chiang | May 8, 2020, 6:30am
With B.C. now looking at a potential slow opening of the economy as soon as mid-May after the COVID-19 outbreak peaks, what may the path forward look like - and what are the potential pitfalls?
As COVID-19 first struck Asia in February, many Asian countries are now dealing with those questions as they are about 1-2 months ahead of the Canadian pandemic timeline. As such, Business in Vancouver is taking a closer look at a number of countries in Asia on how they dealt with the same re-opening questions that’s now facing B.C.
In some ways, Taiwan is similar to Singapore. Both places were hailed as early examples of how governments should handle the threat of a contagious disease like COVID-19, and both were lauded for keeping initial new daily cases to under 30 for much of February and March.
So when Singapore saw its daily count surge past 1,000 in April due to it overlooking its migrant workers population, observers were equally nervous that a loophole somewhere could ignite a second wave in Taiwan.
That loophole came on April 18, when news broke that a Taiwanese naval ship was allowed to dock in the southern port city of Kaohsiung on April 9 after a visit to Palau, with crew members allowed to disembark on April 15.
At least 28 of those sailors would test positive for COVID-19, fueling speculation that the military did not report infections on the ship before docking. By the time the sailors were recalled into quarantine on April 18, they have already visited 90 locations in 10 Taiwanese cities, officials said.
“I didn’t know there was this loophole,” said Jerome DuBois, a Vancouver native now living in Kaohsiung with his wife and three children. “Now we know… Everyone -without exception - was supposed to do 14 days home quarantine when returning from overseas, except soldiers.”
But that’s where the similarities with Singapore ends. Whereas Singapore is now firmly in the throes of a second COVID wave, Taiwan saw its daily new cases spike on April 18 with 22 - then saw it drop right back into single digits (2) the next day. For almost an entire week - from April 26 to May 1 - the island did not see a single new COVID case.
In fact, Taiwan - with a population roughly the same size as Australia at 24 million - has a grand total of 440 cases of COVID (and six deaths) since the outbreak began in January despite being situated off the mainland Chinese coast. Australia, for comparison, has 6,896 cases to date and 97 deaths.
“They moved very early and very aggressively,” said Jeff Reeves, vice president of research at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. “They imposed travel restrictions from mainland China very quickly, and they instituted very early aggressive contact tracing using technology and smart apps to inform Taiwan citizens about the potential risks if you were in contact with certain people.
“There’s lots of information being pushed out through society.”
The level of public comfort due to the high level of transparency is readily apparent to DuBois, who said Taiwan never shut down. His son and elder daughter go to school like always, he noted, and malls remain open.
“The gyms are still packed,” he added. “We own and operate a small business, and our sales numbers are still pretty close to pre-COVID-19. The main difference is that there are protocols in place that make us feel safe… The combination of mask, temperature checks and hand-sanitizing has become normal almost everywhere.”
Similar to South Korea, Taiwan uses mobile platforms and contact tracing to identify those who are infected and the places they’ve visited, warning and tracking people who are potentially exposed until they are proven to have tested negative. This allowed most places to stay open for the duration of the pandemic - and allowed for a quick, focused response when mini-outbreaks like the navy sailors case happens.
Allowing businesses and restaurants to stay open wasn’t simply an economic consideration, DuBois added; it was a social necessity in a place like Taiwan.
“We don’t have much personal space here,” he said. “Night markets are packed shoulder-to-shoulder, and so are all the malls. Also, the Taiwanese are social by nature, so they are always gathering in large groups. In fact, some of my friends have never even used their kitchen as they always eat out.”
What has proven to be the most effective - ironically because it was derided in the West as unnecessary at best and counterproductive at worst - is the use of face masks. Before the World Health Organization changed its tune in early April (with Canada following suit), experts in North America recommended against the wearing of masks in public.
“Asia never bought into that narrative, and Taiwan had a heavy push to have those face-mask-wearing measures in place,” Reeves said. “There was a very early adaptation to wearing masks in public spaces because that was easy to instill among the population. There was already a culture of people avoiding the potential of infecting others by wearing face masks.”
Such examples may explain why a loophole in Taiwan did not turn into a second COVID wave as it did in Singapore. The buy-in on the national disease-fighting effort was total, DuBois said, so much so that when a face-mask shortage was initially reported in February, no one panicked.
“Since everything was so transparent, we all waited calmly,” he said. “And soon enough we could show our healthcare card and be guaranteed to obtain masks. We are now able to do this at any convenience store, and even at automated mask vending-machines… Any questions we had were always answered.”
As for lifestyle changes post-COVID and fears of second wave, DuBois said the only major shift is the lack of international travel. He added his confidence has not been shaken by the naval ship incident in April.
“I know know holes exist everywhere, but I’m still very confident and feel safe,” DuBois said. “… With transparency, it also ensures efficiency - because when you show all your cards, you better have a good hand!”
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ADESINA, Femi
Home Biographees ADESINA, Femi
Admin, December 11, 2018 September 29, 2020 , Journalist, Media, 0
ADESINA
Femi Adesina is a Nigerian journalist and government official, serving as the Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari. Femi Adeshina started his career in journalism as a writer for Radio Lagos, he then later joined Vanguard Newspapers. Adesina wrote for Vanguard Newspapers and National Concord Newspapers before joining The Sun Newspaper, where he rose to editor-in-chief. He also served a two-year term as president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors. Although re-elected for a second term as Guild president, Adesina stepped down after receiving his government appointment. He also stepped down as editor-in-chief of The Sun. Adesina was sworn-in as special adviser on media and publicity to Buhari on August 31, 2015 alongside Babachi Lawal, who was appointed Secretary to the Federal Government of Nigeria. He was named Editor of the Year for 2007 by the Nigeria Media Merit Awards.
Name of Spouse Mrs. Nike Adesina
Number of Male Children 1
Number of Female Children 1
Oluwatobi
Profession Journalist
Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari
Previous Appointments:
– Features Writer, Radio Lagos;
– Features Writer, Vanguard Newspaper;
– Features Editor, Weekend Concord, National Concord Newspaper;
– Title Editor, National Concord Newspaper;
– Member, Editorial Board, Nigerian Tribune;
– Title Editor, The Sun Newspaper (now Daily Sun);
– Executive Director, Daily Sun;
– Deputy Managing Director, Daily Sun;
– Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief, Daily Sun;
– President, Nigeria Guild of Editors.
University of Ife (now known as Obafemi Awolowo University), Osun State; Lagos Business School, Lekki, Lagos State.
– Winner, Editor of the Year Award by Nigeria Media Merit Award, 2007.
Femi Adesina is a Pastor in Four Square Bible Church and an Executive Member of the Full Gospel Business Fellowship.
Last Update Tue 11, Dec 2018
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DOGARA, Hon. YakubuMABOGUNJE, Prof. Akinlawon Ladipupo
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0800 433 2885 (Office Freephone) 07885 990201 (Office Mobile)
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Module 5 - taught by Michael Patrick BA Hons, BTAA, BTUK, BAuk
Module 5 - Saturday, January 23, 2021
Michael Patrick - Chelsea, London - 23rd & 24th January 2021
Whether you’re a supporter or just a football fan, a trip around Chelsea FC Stamford Bridge is a fascinating insight into the workings of a grand football stadium. You can go on a guided tour, have a nose around the home and away dressing rooms, feel the thrill of walking through the players’ tunnel to the pitch, and learn about the history of the club in the museum.
Bed and breakfasts near Chelsea FC Stamford Bridge not only give visitors easy access to the football but also the calm and upmarket attractions of Fulham. With an array of shops from high street names to luxury retailers, great restaurants and a huge selection of pubs, you’ll never be short of things to do.
This class is hosted at Chelsea Football Club , SW6 1HS
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Solar Energy India, Solar Power India, Solar Energy Project, Solar Power Plant
Solar Energy India Blog about Solar Energy utilization for Power especially about FAQs such as Solar Energy Subsidies? What is Solar Energy? Myths about Solar Power? What is Solar Power Project? What are key components of Solar Power Project? What is Solar Photo Voltaic? Technology details about Solar Energy and Solar Photo Voltaic. Policy and related matters about Solar Energy in India etc.
Solar Energy : Why the sudden interest?
India has been witnessing a steady rise in the installation of Solar Energy projects in the last few years. Focus has been primarily on Photo Voltaic (PV) Solar Power projects rather than on Solar Thermal. Utility scale projects have dominated the Indian Solar scenario with very few rooftop Solar projects up till now.
Fig. 1 Solar Rooftop Target India (State-wise)
While everyone agrees that a Solar-rich developing Country like India should consider Solar Power generation as a serious competitor to grid power., it is only recently that the Solar boom can actually be seen on the ground.
The net installed Solar power capacity in the Country is at 5000 MW (Jan 2016) which is 1/4th the erstwhile target of National Solar mission by 2022. With the new target of 100 GW (1,00,000 MW) by 2022 these are certainly interesting times for Solar Power in India. What with a huge target of 40,000 MW for rooftop Solar with each State being given a target to achieve the same as seen above).
Major factors that are contributing towards the sudden interest in Solar Energy Power Projects in India are as follows :
Reduced cost of project execution : The EPC cost for Solar project was in the range of INR 8 Crores per MW till a few years back. Recently the EPC cost for the projects have come down to about INR 5.5 Crores per MW. This could be further brought down using imported equipment or even major equipment linked with credit. In this the major factor has been the price of PV modules which has witnessed a significant downtrend globally as can be seen in Fig. 1 below. Moreover the price of PV modules is expected to come down further towards the end of 2016 - primarily attributed to Chinese oversupply. Also with increasing competition the price of Inverters has also come down. With the introduction of innovative business models such as reduced pricing EPC model the EPC costs could be brought down further.
(Contact us today to know more about reduced pricing EPC model)
Fig. 2 Global Price Trend in PV Cell prices
Ease of Financing + Various Financing Options : There were limited financing options for Solar Projects. Recent spike in demand is also backed by the fact that several investors are looking at India as a Country for long-term Solar asset development. In addition to 100% BOO financing there are various other options including Leased model, reduced percentage (in the range of 5% to 8%) debt financing etc.
There are certain Government bodies which offer reduced interest rate loans for Solar Power Projects with holiday period and extended loan period for better returns. As Solar Projects are now covered under PSL i.e. Priority Sector lending there are relaxed norms for getting project loans for Solar for kW (household level) upto MW (commercial level).
Increase in grid power prices : Grid power prices have been on the steady rise across India mainly for Industrial plants and Commercial facilities (see fig below). This has led to increased viability of Solar projects. Earlier Solar projects were viable for captive consumption for grid prices above INR 6.0 per kWh. However now the viability of Solar projects for captive consumption comes in for grid prices as low as INR 5.0 per kWh.
Going by the past trend and considering other major factors such as economic growth in the Country and the financial health of the DISCOMs the grid prices will continue to rise significantly in the foreseeable future., thereby consistently improving the commercial viability of Solar projects.
Fig. 3 Power Tariff in Major States of India
Government support : The Government support for Solar Power Projects has increased in recent times owing to the revised ambitious targets. For eg. the 80% Accelerated Depreciation is a sought after benefit by businesses who set off their taxes in existing businesses by investing in Solar Projects. In fact many of the companies which were planning for Solar Projects on 3rd party funding are now looking at investing in these project themselves., primarily driven by the fact that equity is paid back in 2 years merely by considering 80% Accelerated Depreciation.
In addition to the same there are various tax benefits including 10-year tax holiday on revenues from Solar, Electricity Duty waiver, Discount on wheeling charges etc.
[Others are reading : Solar Energy Job and Business Opportunities]
Renewable Purchase Obligation : The Solar RPO or the Renewable Purchase Obligation was introduced quite a while back but was not being taken seriously up until now. However with the new regime and the revised Solar target it is very much likely that the Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) would be strictly enforced with heavy penalties for non-compliance. Several reputed Companies, who were not earlier taking RPO seriously, are now looking to fulfill the same as can be seen in the REC market.
Sooner or later many of the Obligated Entities have realized that investing in a Solar Power Project is a better business decision than to buy RECs which are merely certificates to fulfill an obligation. If the Renewable Energy Bill becomes an Act then a non-complying entity could be penalized upto INR 1 Crore and also INR 1 Lakh per day for continued violation.
Owing to the above reasons it is believed that the Solar Power Projects in India would continue to see a significant uptrend in the coming times. Going forward Solar rooftop projects are expected to dominate the scene while the number of Utility scale projects continue to rise steadily backed by Government schemes such as VGF (Viability Gap Funding).
Do let us know your comments or feedback in the comments section below.
Updates of 05th April 2016
All along the articles have been focusing the green-energy aspect of a Solar Power Plant. Which is undoubtedly the best reason for going Solar. Additionally there is another important aspect which requires attention.
Water, another scarce natural resource is depleting much faster than one could imagine. While there is enough water on the planet, majority of it is not potable. Most of the conventional power plants use water from natural sources such as rivers and springs which are potable water. Due to this a vast majority of population across the Globe does not have access to clean water.
Fig. 4 Water used by various types of Power Plants
As one can see Solar PV is a clear winner in terms of water required to generate power - way ahead of conventional power plants. This is a significant differentiating factor considering the water conditions today. Minimal quantity (less than 1/2 litre per MWh) maybe required in case of some Solar Projects for cleaning of panels., however no water is required for operation of PV Solar power projects.
Enerco Energy Solutions LLP has been a pioneer in the field of Solar Energy especially for manufacturing plants across India including highly reputed Companies in manufacturing sector. We offer end-to-end Techno-Commercial Solution including :
1. Techno-Commercial Project Evaluation and Site Study.
2. Execution of PV Solar Projects on EPC basis (reduced pricing model).
3. Financing of Solar Power Projects on BOO / BOOT / RESCO basis.
4. Debt Financing of Solar Power Projects at reduced interest rates (%).
5. Optimizing output of Solar Power Projects.
6. Trading of Solar PPAs and Renewable Energy Projects (including Wind).
7. Solar Park Development (Land Acquisition, Govt. Liaison, Clearances etc.).
8. Strategic Investment and Diversification Advisory Services.
To know more - simply visit us on www.econserve.in or write into us on solar@econserve.in .
Posted by Enerco Energy Solutions LLP at 04:12
Labels: Nehru Solar Mission, PV Solar India, PV Solar Power Project, Solar Energy India, Solar Growth India, Solar Power India, Solar Power Project
Mr. S. Dhanashetti 23 February 2016 at 04:53
Interesting article indeed. Could you please advise how do you see Solar prices shaping up in the near future?
Enerco Energy Solutions LLP 23 February 2016 at 04:57
The Solar prices have come down significantly in the recent past and are now expected to cool-off at these levels. In fact as per an International Journal there could be a rise in cost of Solar Power project execution - mainly attributed to high demand. FOREX is another factor which decides the price of the major components in a PV Solar project.
Hence it is extremely difficult to predict the prices as of now but as it appears the price is not likely to slide significantly from these levels in the near future.
EESL
Very interesting Article. To make more meaningful It is better to show some comparison costing sheet for various available sources at present & future scenario for Large scale Industries.
What are the financing options do you offer?
Enerco Energy Solutions LLP 2 March 2016 at 07:50
We provide the following :
1. 100% investment in project.
2. Partial investment in project.
3. Debt financing in project (low interest rates of 5% to 8%).
4. Leased financing model.
Also there are other models we could work on as we have several investors who are looking to invest in Solar / Wind and other types of projects.
Raghavan 5 April 2016 at 21:40
The new point regarding water requirement is fantastic. Always enjoy reading your posts.
Raghavan
Enerco Energy Solutions LLP 26 September 2016 at 00:11
Thank you very much Sir.
With falling PV prices - where do you see the cost for PV installation in the months to come?
PV prices in India have seen a fall in 2016 and is expected to see fall slightly more till December 2016. This would be primarily attributed to Chinese modules flooding the Indian market. However with the increased requirement of Domestic Content in Government projects the prices will stabilize in 2017 as per the recent data.
It is a good time now to enter into a Solar project.
T. Ganesh 15 November 2016 at 00:03
What is the implication of Demonetization on Solar Sector in India?
T. Ganesh
Enerco Energy Solutions LLP 15 November 2016 at 20:09
We are still studying the impact of the same.
Prima-facie the sector could suffer a bit in the short-term for self-invested projects. But medium to long-term prospects look very good.
We are publishing a Report on the same very soon. To express your interest simply send a mail to solar@econserve.in with the subject "Report on Solar Trends in India 2016-17"
Enerco Energy Solutions LLP
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Swim Teams Sweep Yellow Jackets
The only thing louder than the Eagles players and fans cheering Saturday, Nov. 12 was the unspoken message the UMW swim team delivered in their sweep of Randolph-Macon: team camaraderie and hard work are the keys to winning.
Courtesy of Clint Often
By ANDY LEONARD
Last year, Randolph-Macon did not have a men’s swim team, but this year they fielded nine male swimmers to compete against Mary Washington’s team of 28. As one might expect, the men soundly won, 126-71. Among the top finishes were the 200 medley and freestyle relay teams, with times of 1:39.17 and 1:31.44.
Despite a close finish last year on the women’s side, the Lady Eagles also won rather convincingly, 129-73. The team had several first place finishes, including, the 200-yard medley relay team of junior Lindsay Ancellotti, sophomore Amber Kerico, senior Kelly Scott and sophomore Jessica Singer at 1:54.39. Ancellotti and Scott also took individual wins, with Ancellotti winning the 100 butterfly at 1:01.99 and Scott taking the 100 backstroke at 1:02.62. In her first time competing since hip surgery, senior Megan DeSmit pushed through her pain to win the 100 breaststroke at 1:10.35.
Senior captain Allie Beckenstein attributes both the men’s and women’s success to their ability to buy into their second year head coach Abby Brethauer’s system.
“[Brethauer] came to a team that had old traditions, and needed to make her own,” Beckenstein said. “It took the team awhile to get used to things, but now we’re seeing the payoff both in and out of the pool.”
Part of Brethauer’s new system is using the CrossFit program for dryland training. The entire team, including the coaches, wake up at the crack of dawn to run, do pull-ups and perform other brutal workouts to get their bodies into tip-top shape.
“Even though CrossFit is really challenging, it’s also a lot of fun,” senior Kristen Sotzing said. “It forces us to overcome new challenges together each day.”
Beckenstein echoed Sotzking’s praise of the new, intense training method.
“There are people who can whip out ten pull-ups now who couldn’t even do one at the beginning of the season. It’s been rewarding,” Beckenstein said.
This might seem like enough training for some, but not for Brethauer’s swim team. After a couple of rough losses to Washington& Lee University and York College, the Eagles are working to strengthen their team identity.
“The team had a wake up call after those losses,” Sotzing said. “We can’t only think of our individual performances. So much of this sport is about camaraderie.”
Beckenstein and the other captains now require everyone on the team to be standing and cheering on the pool deck for their fellow swimmers while they aren’t competing.
“Even if people wanted to rest their legs for their event we told them they had to stand,” Beckenstein said.
In addition to cheering, the team gets together the night before competition to bond. Before their meet against Randolph-Macon, the Eagles went out for food and were told to discuss with a partner the hardest thing they had overcome in their life. Bonding activities and CrossFit have had an invaluable effect on the team, Beckenstein said.
“The bonding coach has us do gives a sense of trust and unity that makes us want to work harder and win,” Beckenstein said.
The swim teams have an unannounced Invitational in early December, but their next home meet won’t be until Jan. 14 when the Eagles host Salisbury University and Marymount University at 1 p.m.
Tags: swimming
Previous Cross Country Seasons End in Texas
Next Fantasy Football Corner
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Validity of a questionnaire measuring the world health organization concept of health system responsiveness with respect to perinatal services in the dutch obstetric care system
Jacoba van der Kooy1,
Nicole B Valentine2,5,
Erwin Birnie1,3,
Marijana Vujkovic1,
Johanna P de Graaf1,
Semiha Denktaş1,
Eric AP Steegers1 &
Gouke J Bonsel1,4,5
The concept of responsiveness, introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO), addresses non-clinical aspects of health service quality that are relevant regardless of provider, country, health system or health condition. Responsiveness refers to “aspects related to the way individuals are treated and the environment in which they are treated” during health system interactions. This paper assesses the psychometric properties of a newly developed responsiveness questionnaire dedicated to evaluating maternal experiences of perinatal care services, called the Responsiveness in Perinatal and Obstetric Health Care Questionnaire (ReproQ), using the eight-domain WHO concept.
The ReproQ was developed between October 2009 and February 2010 by adapting the WHO Responsiveness Questionnaire items to the perinatal care context. The psychometric properties of feasibility, construct validity, and discriminative validity were empirically assessed in a sample of Dutch women two weeks post partum.
A total of 171 women consented to participation. Feasibility: the interviews lasted between 20 and 40 minutes and the overall missing rate was 8%. Construct validity: mean Cronbach’s alphas for the antenatal, birth and postpartum phase were: 0.73 (range 0.57-0.82), 0.84 (range 0.66-0.92), and 0.87 (range 0.62-0.95) respectively. The item-own scale correlations within all phases were considerably higher than most of the item-other scale correlations. Within the antenatal care, birth care and post partum phases, the eight factors explained 69%, 69%, and 76% of variance respectively. Discriminative validity: overall responsiveness mean sum scores were higher for women whose children were not admitted. This confirmed the hypothesis that dissatisfaction with health outcomes is transferred to their judgement on responsiveness of the perinatal services.
The ReproQ interview-based questionnaire demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties to describe the quality of perinatal care in the Netherlands, with the potential to discriminate between different levels of quality of care. In view of the relatively small sample, further testing and research is recommended.
The debate on the organization of perinatal care in the Netherlands has intensified over recent years. The Dutch perinatal health care system has come under pressure since the national perinatal mortality rates were shown to be among the highest in Europe [1]. This system can be regarded as a sequential chain of health care services, each dedicated to a different phase of the perinatal experience: antenatal care, birth and post partum care. Antenatal, birth-related and post partum care are provided by different caregivers with different responsibilities, for different risk groups, and in different settings. In the Netherlands independently operating community midwives provide care for low-risk pregnant women (primary healthcare) while gynecologists provide in-hospital care for high-risk women (secondary care). All women receive post partum care by a community midwife.
The performance of perinatal care is often judged by its endpoints such as clinical outcomes and costs. However, quality of care literature supports the view that non-clinical aspects of quality are important too, and affect clinical outcomes [2]-[4]. Better service quality is thought to increase compliance with medical treatment and to improve the transfer of information and appropriate utilization of health care [5]-[8]. Governments of Western countries increasingly acknowledge the importance of the non-clinical aspects of quality of care and incorporate these when the provision of care is monitored [9],[10].
Sofar, no attempts have been made to evaluate the non-clinical aspects of the Dutch perinatal care system such that not only the heterogeneity in the quality with respect to different perinatal services is identified, but also that international comparisons with other obstetric care systems are possible [11]-[13]. The concept of responsiveness, introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000, seems apt to this task as it was specifically developed to refer to patients’ experiences when interacting with health care providers. The concept reviews eight predefined domains relevant to non-clinical aspects of service quality regardless of provider, country, health system or health condition. Responsiveness is defined as “aspects related to the way individuals are treated and the environment in which they are treated during health system interactions”, encompassing the notions of both non-clinical quality and patient experience [14]. The concept excludes the financial and clinical domains of quality and focuses on a set of non-clinical domains that reflect respect for human dignity and the client orientation of the care process and setting. While these domains may influence health outcomes, health outcomes are not part of the responsiveness concept. The relevance of an independent set of non-clinical domains to health systems performance is supported by the discipline of medical ethics and in human rights law, which argue that responsiveness features of a health system are important in their own right [14]-[16]. The concept of responsiveness aims to support measurement of service quality in an internationally comparable way and to enable quantitative trade-offs between non-clinical aspects of service quality and clinical outcomes [14]. The concept of responsiveness aims to capture information on the non-clinical quality of the patient’s actual experience in contrast to patient satisfaction questionnaires. Literature has shown that expectations may strongly influence patient satisfaction, which makes international comparisons of non-clinical service quality challenging since expectations are in turn influenced by economic and political influences [17]-[20].
Adopting the responsiveness concept, the Responsiveness in Perinatal and Obstetric Health Care Questionnaire questionnaire (ReproQ) was developed by adapting the existing generic World Health Survey questionnaire responsiveness module into a questionnaire dedicated to maternal experiences during perinatal care. The aim of this study is to investigate the psychometric properties of the ReproQ.
The WHO developed a survey, which was administrated between 2000–2001 under the auspices of the Multi-Country Survey Study on Health and Health Systems Responsiveness (MCS Study) and again in 2002–2003 under the World Health Survey (WHS) [14],[21]. The concept of responsiveness, containing eight domains, was identified in WHO’s review of the patient satisfaction and quality of care literature [15].
Several questionnaires and related studies relevant to responsiveness domains were used, such as the Community Tracking Study [22], Picker Survey [23], QUOTE study [24] and the CAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Study) [25].
Although there are many overlapping aspects with patient satisfaction questionnaires, the concept of responsiveness is different on several points; where patient satisfaction generally covers both medical and non-medical aspects of care responsiveness focuses only on the non-clinical aspects of the health system. Where patient satisfaction represents a complex mixture of perceived need, individually determined expectations and experience of care, responsiveness evaluates individual’s perceptions of the health system against ‘legitimate’ expectations – referring to standards that can be applied everywhere or ‘universally’ [15].
The ReproQ was developed between October 2009 and February 2010, and its questions were derived from these WHO questionnaires.
The ReproQ questionnaire was developed to assess the responsiveness outcomes of perinatal health care system in the Netherlands and is based on the same eight domains identified in WHO’s review, i.e. Dignity, Autonomy, Confidentiality, Communication, Prompt Attention, Social Consideration (labeled initially as Access to Social Support or Access to Family and Community Support), Quality of Basic Amenities, and Choice and Continuity.
These domains are claimed to be of universal importance in all health systems, during any client-system interaction (including personal and non-personal health services) and for the population’s interaction with insurers and other administrative arms of the health system. While it is recognized that persons may differ regarding the relative importance of each domain, and that specific domains may be of extra relevance in particular health care interactions, it is assumed that the quality of any health care interaction is sufficiently covered by these eight domains [14].
The ReproQ asks the same questions for the three phases of perinatal care: antenatal phase (the period from the onset of pregnancy until the onset of delivery), birth phase (actual delivery) and post partum phase (covering the first ten days after childbirth). Rather than pointing to a single event, or the last visit (as in the WHS), we selected to focus questions on women’s judgments for all antenatal visits as done for the MCS Study. The ‘last’ visit approach has better recall but is easily biased by a particular incident. We wanted to review the experience as a whole and thought the multiple visit approach more suited to this. A similar argument applied to the decision to focus postnatal maternity care questions on all visits. For the birth phase, it seemed appropriate to focus questions on the single event of ‘delivery’. Within this framework, the setting and professional items where adapted to the perinatal care in the obstetric care system (e.g. ‘doctor’ was translated into ‘midwife’ or ‘gynecologist’). If two different health care professionals could be involved (e.g. ‘midwife’ and ‘nurse’ during delivery), similar questions within each domain were repeated for each health care professional separately.
Each phase was covered by the above mentioned eight domains, with 2–7 items per domain. The standardized response mode consisted of 5 options: ‘very good’, ‘good’, ‘moderate’, ‘bad’, and ‘very bad’. The ReproQ consisted of 104 questions on responsiveness (25 antenatal, 40 birth, 39 postpartum phase) and 29 questions for maternal and health care characteristics.
Questions from the WHO questionnaire were translated into Dutch according to a predefined protocol. First, questionnaires were translated by the research team. Expert meetings consisting of gynecologists, midwives, nurses, public health experts and researchers were held to judge the translation and comprehensiveness of the item list. Many among these professionals had working experience in English speaking countries. Next, backward translation of each question was then performed and comparison was made with the original English questionnaire. Improvements were made and final consensus was reached on each question.
The completeness of domains was judged in terms of being comprehensive (are all non-clinical areas covered, which clients and professionals put forward either as positive experience or negatively as complaint), and in terms of being balanced (have all domains included about equal importance). For each domain the candidate pool of items was checked whether each item fitted to the domain definition sufficiently. As this could differ per phase, this was discussed for each phase separately (e.g. the item ‘quality of the food’ during antenatal visits was excluded). Finally we asked the experts to check whether all the domains would remain valid under ongoing and anticipated organizational changes in perinatal care. All experts agreed on the final list that the stated requirements were met.
Finally six primiparous and multiparous pregnant women were invited to judge the feasibility of the draft version of the questionnaire. Since we adopted an existing concept and adapted existing questions from an extensively studied source questionnaire towards a perinatal context, we invited the judgement of these six women in the final stage. They were first asked to conduct a brainstorm on important non- clinical aspects of perinatal care. Next, the ReproQ was evaluated to see whether its domains covered these issues. All items were discussed separately including their meaning and understandability. The original domain structure proved to be comprehensive, as judged by the stakeholders. Small textual improvements were made in the item questions as a result of this meeting Table 1.
Table 1 Shows the eight domains and items for the antenatal phase
Study population and data collection
Study approval was granted by the Medical Ethical Committee, Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, no MEC2012207.
To investigate the psychometric properties of responsiveness questions for each phase, women were recruited from three midwifery practices in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, between February 2010 and March 2011 (all women, regardless their health utility, receive post partum care by a community midwife in the Netherlands). Women or their partners were required to speak and understand Dutch sufficiently. Written informed consent was obtained.
The survey was administered in the form of face-to-face interviews two weeks after delivery. Face-to-face interviews were chosen since this method enhances participation, in particular by those with low education and migrants and since this method was also chosen in the WHO survey. A randomly selected subset of women was invited by their own midwife for study participation. The interview took 30 minute face-to-face interview with an independent interviewer. The interviews were conducted by ten trained independent interviewers and usually performed at the respondent’s home. Each interview covered all three phases of the maternal perinatal experience. Interviewees were invited to respond to all questions, yet never forced to. Of the different interview modes, face-to-face interviews were chosen as this mode reduces non-response, and possibly also non-response bias. The face-to-face mode was also the preferred one used for a large number of the MCS Study countries and in the World Health Survey.
Data handling and analysis
Records were regarded ‘missing at the record level’ if all scores of all phases were missing. If women had responded partially, the responses were evaluated per phase.
If all the items of one phase were missing, this record was excluded from the analysis of that phase. This implies that occasionally respondents were excluded from one phase while they were included in the analysis of other phases. Missing items were excluded from analysis.
We investigated the responsiveness questions’ psychometric properties stratified for the antenatal phase (the period from the onset of pregnancy until the onset of delivery), the birth phase (actual delivery) and postpartum phase (covering the first ten days after childbirth). The data were analysed with Statistical Package of Social Sciences version 20.0 for Windows (IBM Corp. Released 2011. IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 20.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp).
Sumscores
Unweighted sumscores per domain were calculated and transformed into 1–10 scale scores to enhance comparability among domains with different numbers of items. Transformation was done as score =1 + 9* ([sumscore – lowest sum possible)]/[largest sum possible – lowest sum possible]). E.g., a domain that contains 3 items each with a 5-point response mode, displays a possible score range from 3 to 15. The transformed sumscore would then be 1 + 9* ([sumscore - 3]/[15 – 3]). If sumscore in an individual would be 11, her transformed score would be 1 + 9*([3]/[3]) = 1 + 9*(8/12) = 7. This transformation procedure was repeated for each domain in each phase separately.
The following psychometric properties of the ReproQ were evaluated: feasibility, construct validity, and discriminative validity. Feasibility was expressed as rates of missing items per domain. The literature provides little indication of acceptable survey response rates or inappropriate non-response rates. We selected missing item rates below 20% as acceptable as done for another study [21]. In addition, we compared missing rates per item for each phase to identify problematic single items. Furthermore, we compared missing rates per domain by age, education, race, communication and health utilization to check for biases by social groups.
Scores per domain, expressed as transformed 1–10 scale scores, and scores per item, given in 1–5 scale scores, were described in terms of mean, SD, range, floor and ceiling effects, and percentiles.
Reliability was assessed as internal consistency by using Cronbach’s alpha. Amidst varying standards in the literature, we considered 0.70 to be an acceptable alpha coefficient [26].
Average inter-item, average item-own scale and average item-other scale correlation were assessed with standardized correlation coefficients, with acceptable correlations defined as Pearson’s correlation coefficients (r) >0.40 [27]. We expected higher average inter-item and average inter-own scale correlations compared to average inter-other scale correlations.
Discriminative validity was assessed by comparing subgroups expected to differ in terms of responsiveness. It was hypothesized that women whose child was not admitted to the hospital would report better responsiveness outcomes than women whose child was hospitalized. The rationale behind this hypothesis is that women with less good clinical outcomes would be more critical on the non clinical aspects of care given. Differences in overall mean sum scores (adding all domains) were calculated and tested with Student t-tests per phase.
Construct validity was assessed as the domain structure of factor loadings obtained with exploratory factor analysis using the maximum likelihood method with oblique promax rotation of factor loadings, extracting eight (fixed) factors. This was done to explore whether the original domain structure relevant to the generic responsiveness concept was present after adapting the responsiveness concept to perinatal services. The average inter-item correlations were 0.49 for the antenatal phase, 0.58 for the birth phase and 0.63 for the post partum phase. Average inter-item correlations were relatively low for the domains ‘Prompt Attention ‘and ‘Quality of Basic Amenities’. The item-own scale correlations for each phase separately were considerably higher than most of the corresponding item-other scale correlations. The overall average item-own scale correlation was 0.56 for the antenatal phase, 0.68 for the birth phase and 0.73 for the post partum phase.
Of a total of 274 women who were identified for study participation 94 women could not be reached or they declined the invitation; many women could not be reached using the cell phone number they had provided; we were unable to differentiate with limited means whether they refused the call, changed phone number, or had provided the wrong number. Other reasons for non-participation included lack of time, and feeling at unease of having a stranger visit their home. 180 women (66%) agreed to be interviewed. Of these seven interviews (7/180, 4%) were cancelled and two interviews (2/180, 1%) were discontinued because the respondents did not speak Dutch with sufficient fluency and no translator could be made available. The remaining 171 interviews were used for analysis. The interviews took between 20 and 40 minutes. Table 2 describes the characteristics of the participants.
Table 2 Characteristics of the participants
The mean maternal age was 31 years (95% CI 30.3–31.7). The majority of mothers were primiparous (57%). A substantial proportion of mothers was of non-Dutch origin (43%) or lived in underprivileged neighborhoods (51%). Few had low education (4%) or were single (18%). Approximately 11% spoke weak/poor Dutch as judged by the interviewer. Referral to gynecologists had occurred in approximately 55% of women. Post partum hospital admission had occurred in 26 (15%) of all newborns.
Table 3 describes the missing rates per domain for each phase separately. The table also describes the maximum missing rate per item for that domain. The results for four women, with no response in the birth care phase, were excluded.
Table 3 Missing item values and the maximum percentage missing per item, for each domain and perinatal phase
The average item missing rate over all phases was 8% (1,349 out of 17,624 questions). Missing rates per domain were all below the predefined threshold of 20%. Average missing rates across domains were highest in the birth phase (8%). Maximum item missing rates per domain ranged from 1.8% to 11.1% for the antenatal phase, from 5.3% to 31.6% for the birth phase, and from 5.3% to 14.6% for the post partum phase (see Additional file 1: Table S6 Appendix table for detailed description of all items). The highest item missing rate was for two questions relevant to the birth phase: ‘Able to be referred to a medical specialist during birth care’ (31.6%) and ‘Consideration of home situation when planning appointments/examinations during birth care’ (22.8%). Item missing pertained mainly to the birth care phase and rates were higher among women of Dutch origin. There were no differences in missing rates by age, educational level and health utilization.
Table 4 displays the transformed scores per domain and phase (1–10 scale). Mean transformed scores were negatively skewed (7.1–8.4) as were the median scores (7.2-7.8). Floor effects were observed for up to 0.6% of women responding to a set of items in a particular domain for a particular phase, while ceiling effects were observed for up to 24% of cases. Mean scores and ceiling effects differed most across the domains in the antenatal phase and least across the domains in the post partum phase.
Table 4 Mean (SD) transformed score, range, percentage floor and ceiling response, and Cronbach's α for each domain and phase
The Cronbach’s alpha ranged from 0.57-0.82 for the antenatal phase, from 0.66-0.92 for the birth care phase and from 0.62-0.95 for the post partum phase. For all phases the domain ‘Quality of Basic Amenities’ had lowest alphas.
Mean overall sum scores were higher for women whose child was not admitted after childbirth: 61.8 (sd 7.4) versus 58.3 (sd 5.1) (p = 0.02) in the antenatal phase; 61.9 (sd 8.4) versus 57.9 (sd 7.7) (p = 0.06) in the birth phase; and 62.1 (sd 9.2) versus 55.2 (sd 13.0) (p = 0.01) in the post partum phase.
Eight factors corresponding to the domain structure of the WHO responsiveness concept explained 69% of the variance in the antenatal phase, 69% in the birth phase and 76% in the post partum phase. Table 5 shows the final results of the oblique promax rotated factor loadings of the birth phase (the patterns of the antenatal and post partum phase were similar). Items that were expected to belong to one domain are outlined. The rotated solution of grouped items generally confirmed the hypothesized domain taxonomy within the birth and post partum phase. For the antenatal phase however, the hypothesized domain taxonomy was less evident with regard to ‘Social Consideration’ and ‘Choice and Continuity’, which appeared to be associated with other domains.
Table 5 Promax rotated factor solution for the birth phase
With the support of both patients and health care providers, we adapted the WHO’s concept of responsiveness and the World Health Survey responsiveness module into the ReproQ instrument to measure responsiveness in the Dutch obstetric care system antenatally, during childbirth and post partum. ReproQ was administrated in a face-to-face interview context and appears to be a potential instrument for reporting perinatal service quality from the client's perspective. The perinatal responsiveness items grouped in the original eight domain based structure found in the World Health Survey and the World Health Survey questionnaire and appeared to be comprehensive, as judged by the experts. The ReproQ demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties to describe the responsiveness outcomes of perinatal care in the Netherlands, with preliminary evidence on the questionnaire’s ability to discriminate between levels of non-clinical quality of care.
Particular strengths of adapting an existing WHO responsiveness concept and measurement approach are noted first. The eight domains were adopted a pre-existent conceptual structure that was identified in WHO’s review of the patient satisfaction and quality of care literature, which also included the examination of different survey instruments [15]. During this review, it was noted that the domains value is supported by human rights law which argues that the responsiveness features of a health system are important in their own right [14]-[16]. In contrast to patient satisfaction questionnaires, the concept of responsiveness aims to capture the patient’s actual experiences, since literature has shown that expectations strongly influence patient satisfaction. Expectations may be influenced by economic influences, political influences, prior experiences and socio-demographic characteristics [17]-[20]. Fourthly, the WHO concept of responsiveness represents an universal concept (e.g. suitable for developing and developed countries, different ethnicities, different care systems) which allows valid comparisons across different countries, ethnicities or health care systems [14],[28]. The Responsiveness concept is challenged by a number of issues. Firstly, although responsiveness aims to measure the patient’s actual experience, it is still disturbed by at least some extent of ‘subjectivity’. Secondly, capturing responsiveness by a limited number of questions with fixed answering categories is quite challenging. Combining qualitative research and different (quantitative) survey techniques, one can produce a richer, more valid, and more reliable findings than when adopting qualitative or quantitative methods alone [29].
In spite of the existing strengths of the Responsiveness concept and measurement approach, our study contributes to addressing some of the challenges of the Responsiveness concept and its measurement approach. This includes whether it can truly be adapted to specific areas of health systems, like perinatal care, and elicit participation from specific groups of user interacting with specific health service. In particular, we found that users of perinatal services were interested in participating in the survey on non-clinical aspects of their care experience. Participation rates were equal or higher than the participation rates found in other perinatal satisfaction studies [30]-[32]. Participation rates were equal to participation rates found in surveys measuring similar domains of quality of care, and better than obtained by WHO’s Multi-Country Survey (MCS) study administered in the Netherlands in 2001 (59%) [21],[25],[33]. Comparisons are made with the MCS Study that was conducted in the Netherlands in 2001 as the questionnaire contained multiple items for each responsiveness domain, whereas the subsequent World Health Survey only contained one question per domain [14],[21].
An optimal data collection method includes one with an explicit trade-off balance between cost and errors including nonsampling error, coverage error, nonresponse error and measurement error [34]. To ensure data quality we chose face-to-face interviews with an independent interviewer for data collection. Compared to self-administered forms face-to-face interviews perform better in terms of non-sampling and non-response error but may perform worse when sensitive questions are asked and are more costly [35]. Internet or web surveys are less costly and more time efficient but also have limitations especially including coverage error [36],[37]. Mixed-mode approaches, combining the best of both worlds (being less costly and having less error than in a unimode approach) are very promising and should be considered [38].
The average item missing rates across domains was 8%, which according to literature can be considered acceptable. Within the framework of the MCS study, slightly lower overall missing rate was reported (5.0%) [39]. However, our survey dealt with a group of women who were extremely occupied with the challenging demands of new life, being interviewed post partum. Our survey focused on three phases of a specific health event, which may have been more cognitively demanding than the MCS study, which focused on reporting on an average experience in the previous 12 months, and was shorter (on average 25 minutes) [32],[40],[41]. As found in the MCS, the domain missing rate was highest for the domains of ‘Autonomy’ and ‘Choice and Continuity’ which are typically cognitively demanding domains. Across phases of perinatal care, the missing rate was highest for birth phase. But in general we found the proportion of missing rates per item to be similar across items. There were two items in the birth phase that had notably higher missing rates. Most likely this is the consequence of these items pointing to service events that do not always taking place. For this paper we excluded them from the analysis. We do not feel this hindered our ability to test the ReproQ psychometric properties, but have noted difficulties with these items for future surveys. Alternatively, when not all women experience all the events that can occur, different responsiveness scores may be presented for certain service events that occurred as well as in absence of those events.
The transformed scale scores were satisfactory. A floor effect was almost absent as is frequently the case in negatively skewed assessments of self-reported health or self-rated experiences of (maternity) care [30]-[32],[42]. There was surprisingly less skewing towards use of the most positive category (ceiling effects) compared to other surveys e.g. in the MCS [32],[40],[41]. Comparisons of the domain scores across the three phases showed a non-uniform pattern, suggesting that respondents judged each phase separately as was intended by the questionnaire design.
Within each phase and for all domains, the questionnaire’s internal consistency was good. Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients in ReproQ were similar compared to the CAHPS and WHO surveys [21],[25], except for the domain ‘Quality of Basic Amenities’ which showed poor alphas in all phases. This domain contained questions about sanitary hygiene, comfort of waiting room and quality of food. It can be argued that these elements of basic amenities were too diverse to achieve internal consistency (see Table 5) and one might improve reporting of results from the questionnaire by analyzing these items separately. The Pregnancy and Childbirth questionnaire (PSQ) covering personal treatment patient satisfaction outcomes for the antenatal and birth phase [43] showed higher Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients for the antenatal phase (0.89 vs.0.73) and for the birth phase (0.86 vs. 0.84). However, no predefined domain structure was used.
Overall, the taxonomy of domains from the WHO concept and measurement approach held for the adapted items in the ReproQ across all phases, although this taxonomy was weaker in the antenatal phase. This could possibly be due to factors such as; recall bias introduced by assessing all phases together, contamination by pregnancy outcome, focusing on one particular event or the heterogeneity in measurements since antenatal care consists of multiple visits. Underlying patterns are still to be explored. One may consider presenting a questionnaire on the antenatal phase within the antenatal phase, separately from a questionnaire on the birth and post partum phase. The total explained variance for the birth phase was higher in our study compared to the PCQ [43] (69% vs. 56%) as for the antenatal phase (69% vs. 53%).
The ability of the instrument to discriminate between good and less good experiences will be of paramount importance for its future use. We found some promising test results. The respondents clearly expressed different opinions on their experiences in the different phases of perinatal care. The non-uniform pattern of domain scores across the three phases suggested that respondents judged each phase separately as was intended by the questionnaire design. Furthermore discrimination between women whose infants were admitted to hospital subsequent to birth, was reflected in the lower sum scores across all phases. However, to test the difference in mean responsiveness of the birth phase between the mothers whose infant was hospitalised and the mothers whose infants were not hospitalised (mean difference: 3.8, pooled SD 6.5), at least 194 mothers had to be included in the analysis (type I error = 0.05 (two-sided), power = 0.80, control/case-ratio: 6/1). This implies that different responses on antenatal sum scores may reflect a true outcome on non-clinical aspects of care or may be contaminated by pregnancy outcomes. This again stresses the need to present a questionnaire on the antenatal phase separately.
Test-retest reliability was not performed in this stage. Reasons were to avoid the already large burden for the participants and to avoid associated potential recall bias effects due to having at this time a too demanding interview.
Overall, our study found that ReproQ demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties to describe the responsiveness outcomes of perinatal care in the Netherlands, with preliminary evidence supporting the questionnaire’s ability to discriminate between levels of non-clinical quality of care.’ In general, psychometric properties were in line with results obtained for other survey instruments that have been tested and promoted as part of quality assessment effort. In conclusion, given the lack of comparable instruments and the overall favorable study results, we feel that this unique adaptation of the WHO responsiveness questionnaire to evaluate the various phases of perinatal care has been relatively successful. With some minor adaptations as suggested throughout the discussion we believe that this questionnaire can be used to evaluate the quality of perinatal care in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
MCS:
Multi-country survey
WHS:
World health survey
PSQ:
The pregnancy and childbirth questionnaire
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Bedirhan T, Üstün SC, Villanueva M, Bendib L, Çelik C, Sadana R, Valentine N, Ortiz J, Tandon A, Salomon J, Cao Y, Xie WJ, Özaltin E, Mathers C, Murray CJL: WHO Multi-country Survey Study on Health and Responsiveness 2000–2001 GPE Discussion Paper 37. . 2001., [http://www.whoint/responsiveness/papers/gpediscpaper37pdf]
Vujkovic M, Birnie E, Bonsel GJ: Maternal postnatal care utilisation in Rotterdam 2008–2009. The Rotterdam Public Health Authority Report (GGD Rotterdam Rijnmond) (in press). 2011.
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Truijens SE, Pommer AM, van Runnard Heimel PJ, Verhoeven CJ, Oei SG, Pop VJ: Development of the Pregnancy and Childbirth Questionnaire (PCQ): evaluating quality of care as perceived by women who recently gave birth. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol. 2014, 174: 35-40. 10.1016/j.ejogrb.2013.11.019.
Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Division of Obstetrics & Prenatal Medicine, Room Hs-408, Rotterdam Erasmus, CA MC, 3000, The Netherlands
Jacoba van der Kooy, Erwin Birnie, Marijana Vujkovic, Johanna P de Graaf, Semiha Denktaş, Eric AP Steegers & Gouke J Bonsel
World Health Organization, Social Determinants of Health - Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, Family, Women’s and Children’s Health, Avenue Appia 20, Geneva, 1211, Switzerland
Nicole B Valentine
Institute of Health Policy and Management, Erasmus University Rotteram, Rotterdam, DR, 3000, The Netherlands
Erwin Birnie
University of Applied Sciences, Midwifery Academy Rotterdam (Verloskunde Academie Rotterdam), Dr. Molewaterplein 40, Rotterdam, GD, 3015, The Netherlands
Gouke J Bonsel
Department of Public Health, Rotterdam Erasmus, CA MC, 3000, The Netherlands
Nicole B Valentine & Gouke J Bonsel
Jacoba van der Kooy
Marijana Vujkovic
Johanna P de Graaf
Semiha Denktaş
Eric AP Steegers
Correspondence to Jacoba van der Kooy.
EAPS, SD and GJB were coordinators and guarantors of the study. GJB, EB, MV and JvdK designed the study. JvdK, JPdG, NBV and EB conducted the study (collected data and analysed data). All authors contributed to the interpretation of the results and writing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Additional file 1: Table S6.: Appendix Missing values, mean(SD), range, percentage floor and ceiling given for each item separately. (XLS 1 MB)
van der Kooy, J., Valentine, N.B., Birnie, E. et al. Validity of a questionnaire measuring the world health organization concept of health system responsiveness with respect to perinatal services in the dutch obstetric care system. BMC Health Serv Res 14, 622 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-014-0622-1
Psychometric properties
Perinatal care
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Home » Ammunition » The Rise and Fall of the .25 ACP
The Rise and Fall of the .25 ACP
By Oleg Volk Published on January 22, 2020 in Ammunition
By the standards of 1905, the 6.35x16mmSR (AKA .25 ACP) was a tiny miracle. Using a semi-rimmed case, this cartridge could fit both revolvers and semi-auto handguns.
History of the .25 ACP
Loaded from the start with smokeless powder, it duplicated the ballistic performance of .22 LR rimfire and 5.75mm Velo-Dog loads while improving on both in substantive ways.
Compared to unjacketed . 22LR, it was more reliable in semi-auto pistols and produced less muzzle flash, being optimized for two-inch barrels. Compared to the centerfire Velo-Dog case, it was more compact.
While 50-grain FMJ is rightly considered marginal for self-defense, at least the high-quality 1905 FN Vest Pocket (1908 Colt Vest Pocket in the U.S.) was reliable, reasonably accurate and carried 6+1, again improving on the Velo-Dog revolvers.
At the time, no comparably small .22 semi-auto pistols even existed. In England, Webley began production of 25s in 1906.
Tiny Pistol, Big Reputation
While larger .25 ACP pistols have been made since, like the 1910 Mauser with a 3.3-inch barrel and the Soviet Korovin with 2.7-inch barrel, the subcompact form was the reason for the very existence of the .25 ACP.
Almost all major gun makers have produced something in that caliber. With the chamber pressure barely above that of rimfire and a stronger centerfire case designed for optimal extraction, this was an easy cartridge to make reliable in small carry weapons.
Magazines for .25 ACP are more efficient than for .22 LR, usually holding one more cartridge in the same-sized box.
Due to the diminutive size and weight, the Vest Pocket Pistol and its even smaller 1927 Baby Browning successor were informally known as “Ladies’ Browning.”
Besides the defensive uses, it received some notoriety in 1918 when a woman representing a competing socialist group tried to assassinate Lenin with one, scoring three hits and achieving a reliable stop (but failing to kill the target).
Although the . 25 ACP was never seriously considered for military use, a few countries issued pistols in that caliber to officers who used the guns more as badges of rank than as weapons.
That said, numerous American soldiers carried these tiny pistols as backups, with several reporting successful during the Korean War.
Used to larger guns, Chinese and North Korean soldiers failed to inspect boot tops and small pockets, allowing captured GIs to shoot their way out of brief captivity.
Beginning of the End
The first blow to the popularity of .25 ACP came in 1968, when the U.S. banned most small pistols from import.
Domestic manufacturing eventually filled the need, but not all American-made 25s were of high quality, leading to the perception that it was a bad choice.
Jennings, Raven and other similar low-grade cast zink designs were often so loosely made as to make them unsafe due to striker slipping off the sear. The double-action Budischowsky TP-70 improved on those designs considerably.
The benchmark Browning Baby was eventually cloned, first by Bauer, then by Precision Small Arms—the latter still in production. Taurus and Beretta both produce tip-barrel models. Seecamp continues to produce a tiny .25 as well.
However, after the mid-1990s, the .25 ACP had been relegated to a niche-within-a-niche for several reasons.
Why the .25 ACP Ultimately Failed
The first reason is the price of ammunition, which was around five times higher than that of comparable-quality rimfire ammo.
While centerfire primers are more reliable, the price makes extensive practice more costly, as well as makes the lower-priced 25s less attractive than budget 22s.
The second is the growing perception of the cartridge as not merely marginal, but as inadequate.
The size of a typical criminal has grown steadily as nutrition improves, so the bullet that was slightly effective against a skinny 120-pounder lacks penetration for stopping a thug twice that size.
There’s also a greater awareness of the anecdotal failures to stop, leading to .32 ACP and .380 ACP, becoming the preferred choices for the pocket pistol. And that leads us to the third reason: Kel-Tec pistols.
Starting with the P-32 and followed by P-3AT, Kel-Tec invented locked-breech pocket pistols. The P-32 is actually lighter than many blowback 25s, and its slightly larger size makes it easier to control.
Ruger, S&W and others have followed with their own clones and original designs, giving consumers plenty of options in the subcompact category.
Tilt-barrel locked-breech spreads recoil over a much longer period than blowback, producing softer recoil with less weight.
Why Haven’t Gun Makers Fixed the .25 ACP?
For one, the grip size of the Baby Browning and similar pistols is actually too small for most people’s hands. For another, the .25 ACP simply lacks the energy to even penetrate (much less produce deep-enough wounds) with expanding ammunition.
A notable suicide case involving a .25 ACP Velo-Dog revolver had the victim shoot herself twice in the temple before getting through the skull.
The only better-performing cartridge with a truncated cone 35-grain brass bullet was banned by ATF as “armor-piercing.”
Ultimately, the .25 ACP was, historically, a caliber of last resort. Today, the .25 ACP remains viable for deep cover or as a backup, but better choices exist for most tasks in the same weight and price range.
Have you used .25 ACP? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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Oleg Volk
Oleg Volk is a creative director working mainly in firearms advertising. A great fan of America and the right to bear arms, he uses his photography to support the right of every individual to self-determination and independence. To that end, he is also a big fan of firearms.
Categories: Ammunition Tags:
6.35x15mmSR
Automatic Colt Pistol
Baby Browning
centerfire pistol cartridges
John Browning
Ladies Browning
semi-rimmed cartridges
The Mission of Cheaper Than Dirt!'s blog, The Shooter's Log, is to provide information—not opinions—to our customers and the shooting community. We want you, our readers, to be able to make informed decisions. The information provided here does not represent the views of Cheaper Than Dirt!
Max Blancke says:
I have several .25 acp pistols. My favorite is a 1913 Walther model 5. It is wonderfully made, and small enough to carry invisibly in the summer when wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
Of course it has very limited stopping power, but it allows me to always follow the first law of unarmed combat, which of course is- Never be unarmed.
And of course in an emergency, a .25 in your waistband is much more useful than a .45 back home in the vault.
To Badge 211,
I am glad you survived. I have not seen many, if any, survive a chest shot from a .45. None come to mind. Fortunately for you, no major vessels were struck. I agree with you on shot placement, but in my comment to S Walls below, I point out that for the majority of people, it is difficult, if not nearly impossible, to maintain focus on the objective when there is a live fire crisis; not to mention that statistically, most shots in most shootings are misses, because adrenaline is seldom our friend in this type of crisis.
No, I don’t believe in any magic bullet. For me, it is about the size of the bullet and the energy transfer that can enlarge the hole the bullet makes. Larger bullets create larger holes. Larger holes allow more blood loss. More blood loss means increased lethality from exsanguination. Smaller bullets, while having the potential to be fatal, create smaller holes, which allows the victim more time to act before they bleed out. That is great if the victim is a good guy; but, it is not so great if it is a bad guy intent on evil.
Again, I am glad you survived.
To Steven Walls,
I have always been amazed how people who have never seen a real gunshot wound victim, or have never been shot at, know so much about what it is like. I have been in both those situations. Most of what people think about a shooting goes out the window when the reality of the situation rears its ugly head. It is seldom, even remotely so, as portrayed on television. It is traumatic to all involved, sometimes even for family members of the shooter.
There is a reason that Police officers who are involved in shootings fire so many rounds. In an article entitled “NYPD GUNFIGHT STATISTICS 1990-2000”, the results of an 11 year study showed only a mean hit percentage of 15% for the period. 1998 had the highest at 25% and 2000, the lowest at 9%. (Source: http://www.theppsc.org/Staff_Views/Aveni/OIS.pdf) See, page 4.
About twenty to twenty five years ago, in Oklahoma City, (I knew all the officers involved) there was a shooting involving several officers who entered a restaurant and encountered a suspect who was wanted for murder. He was not going to be taken alive and he wasn’t. BUT, even though all shots were at close range, (at least forty rounds were fired,) well fewer than half the shots fired by the officers struck the dude. This was at a distance of between five to seven yards. Fewer than half! Let that sink in.
People who talk about shot placement in a crisis when they have never been there are talking out of their nether regions. When you draw a gun in a real life crisis for the first time, you get tunnel vision, time slows down, and your reality is completely altered. Even seeing the target and the sights to get a decent bead or thinking about what you are doing is a challenge. Unless you have spent hours and hours (and even more hours) practicing with your weapon, you will go back to default behavior and it will probably be all the wrong behaviors that appear. And hitting a moving target…? Give me a break! It’s not like television. Be prepared to toss your cookies when it is all over.
There have been two Police shootings in the Oklahoma City area in just the last couple of years, (one was this month) where no one was injured. Can you do better at shot placement than trained Police officers? Probably not!
That being said, when you mention the .357 for personal protection, you are not taking into consideration that the reason that most Police Departments moved away from that caliber years ago is there is too much overpenetration and there were too many collateral damage casualties. If you shoot at someone and an innocent bystander dies or is injured because of overpenetration, you will probably be sued and lose everything. That is, IF you are not charged with at least manslaughter and go to prison. You may experience both.
In Oklahoma, we have the ‘Make My Day’ and ‘Stand your Ground’ laws. IF you are JUSTIFIED in drawing your weapon and kill someone who is a threat, you will not be charged, nor can you be sued by the family of that person. If you are not, be prepared to do some time and be sued by the victim or his family.
For those who have never been there, consider the hunter who gets his very first shot at a deer. There is adrenaline flowing at that time. Frequently, adrenaline will make one miss or get a less than perfect shot placement. In a life or death encounter, it is worse.
As I said in the beginning, I am amazed at how many people know so much about things they have never seen or been through. It is not something to be desired. To quote from the movie, Unforgiven, “It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have.” It also takes a part of you, an innocence that will never be reclaimed. That is but one reason why so many of the veterans among us have PTSD.
Frogdaddy says:
@BO
Great story(s). You certainly have me rethinking.
I own a TP-70 that was mentioned above. As much as it’s a novelty type gun for me I do like taking it out plinking every so often. Even when I’m out and about it makes for a great summer gun when I’m not able to conceal a larger weapon. I will probably keep it in my collection unless I come across something I really like.
Why do you show a .25 ACP pistol and an M1 enblock clip loaded with .30 – 06 ammo? Is someone going to attempt to load that clip into that tiny pistol? BAAAAAAAAAAAAAWAAAAAAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!
We have, among other caliber pistols, a Beretta Jetfire. I have only fired it once it is pretty accurate at 15 yards or less. What I have read about .25 ACP is it’s an assassin’s weapon. You shoot the victim in the head and, similar to a .22 LR, it can penetrate penetrate the skull going in and then does not exit. It ricochets around inside your cranium doing catastrophic damage to your brain. I don’t like the weapon, but as a last resort? Also, it was a gift, so…
CupAJoe says:
I’ve had several pocket guns from time to time, when I was between.357’s. I’ve had mixed success with them on the range. Of the two I’d rather have a .25 than a .22 due to an incident I had once with the extractor of the gun deciding to become the firing pin and it blew a hole in my table. I confirmed it in a controlled environment where the gun would empty the magazine with a single trigger pull due to the extractor setting off the rimfire primers.
Leonard Stephen Feinman says:
Al Capone had a son named Sonny Francis. He lived away from the limelight, and he was well-liked. He worked as a union man for the Longshoreman’s Union at the Port of Miami.
I was managing a gun store he frequented. One night he brought in this old Colt .25ACP and said it belonged to his father. The blueing was gone, but it was in very good condition. He wanted to reblue it, and I advised him it was a collector’s piece and should leave it alone.
I also remember the day he came into the store and told us he had been a victim of a home burglary and all of his guns were stolen. Somebody stole a piece of history.
Charles Strassner says:
My wife has been fond of the Raven .25 as a plinker. Stupid auto spell check changed my earlier comment from plinker to plunger.
In 1983 I purchased my first handgun. It was advertised as regular price $79 on sale for $39. It was a Raven .25 ACP nickel finish with white plastic grips. My wife has been fond of it as a plunger. It has never had a malfunction other than the cheap cast metal firing pin breaking after 100s of rounds. I was surprised that a local gun shop had replacements available for this cheap pistol decades later.
My father carried a WWII era FN in .25 that found its way back with him in ’47. Not being a gun guy he would seldom shoot with us so I never saw this one in action. Rarely he would fire a few rounds for function and have a trusted neighbor test a few more and clean the piece for him. Working in a rough area he would often have that .25 in his pocket. In 1984 Pop used his to avoid a mugging; two hits center mass at 5 feet. The would be robber ran away. The key is ran away; not towards the weapon. Man stopping power: None. Robbery stopping power? This time enough. I have no idea what happened to that piece, suspect he never tried to get it back after the investigation. Years later I became friends with man who had been shot with a .25. Kevin had one round bouncing around inside his ribs doing much damage. Multiple surgeries over 18 month’s time. He always said that hit did not stop him from fighting in the moment but did stop his desire to start the next one.
I have a ‘44 CZ Duo that I absolutely enjoy. It’s not something I’d daily carry by any means but it’s easy to handle and fun to shoot. I would use it as a backup, no questions asked.
stephen walls says:
Have a titan .25 had for 35 yrs I knew its limits and that it is required to be shot to a very specific spot to down people of todays size,the spine and the throat are two and the eyes another this shows this as old sayings is a belly botton gun meaning very close and as defense. I still keep this as that is a real possibilty today as punks jump people. to the 1911 and gun in 4- are the only killer modern ammo makes that untrue and a.357 will hit and damage right with the .4- .Many graves are filled with the proof that the round is fatal but to survive the shotee to hit back is clearly bullet placement not caliber to think body hits mean down and out is the last mistake you make.Just be aware todays fine legal practioners and laws make the fatal shot in defense is treated just like initiating a murder not defending yourself muliple rounds are considered too much defense and used agianst you make one work be prepared or don’t do it.
Chet Ward says:
I can’t believe the bad rap these guns are getting! Some 25s might be unreliable but you cannot paint all of these 25s with the same brush.
I have a nice collection of Colt 25 hammerless. All of the 25s in my collection were manufactured in 1920s and 30s. These guns are reliable, safe with Colts grip safety and concealable. Spend some time at the range and you will become proficient with these Colts.
A well placed 25acp round will kill an intruder just as dead as a 9mm. The Colt 25 is reliable, smooth and concealable. Vest pocket Colts are well made Colts with excellent pedigree. They deserve a pat on the back instead of a kick in the butt.
Matt in Oklahoma says:
In the early 90s I obtained a Raven 25 and smoothed our the edges and its run fine ever since. My mother still carries it to this day. She refused to let me upgrade her.
Badge 211 says:
To Bo, above…
Your observations are yours and I’m not saying you didn’t see what you saw. Here is my experience. I’ve worked in Law Enforcement since 1974 and am still active duty. I’ve been a firearms instructor since 1989.
I was a patrol sergeant, on duty, at 0200 hrs of July 4, 1992. I was shot in the chest under my right nipple. Accorde to my surgeon, Dr. Joel Hendrix, the bullet traveled an oblique angle and stopped in the top of my liver, an inch from my spine. It entered my lung cavity and passed between two lobes of the lung, doing no damage to the lungs. It passed through the diaphragm and came to rest in the top of the liver near my spine. The Doctor told me, after the surgery, that the bullet did Little damage and there wasn’t much internal bleeding. The bullet had entered between my ribs..
Dr. Hendrix told me that had he known for certain how little damage the bullet had done he could have put two stitches in the bullet hole, put a Bandaid on it and sent me home. He said his surgery did more damage to me than the bullet. The bullet is still in my liver because the Doc could feel it but observed so little bleeding from the wound path in the liver that he decided to leave it in—the liver is a Ph neutral organ and the scar tissue has insulated it so that no lead leaches out. Blood tests over the years have confirmed this.
I was shot by one of my officers. He was armed with a 5” barreled Colt 1911 Government model in .45 ACP. His ammunition was Federal Hydra-Shok, 230 grain. My officer missed the bad guy and hit me. I, was using the same ammo, the same lot number and all. My shot hit the bad guy in the chest, passing through his 5th rib, destroying the right atrium of his heart, and exited his body through the 8th rib in back. He was armed with a Savage 12 gauge pump. He died at the scene.
There you are, two folks, at similar distances, shot by the same ammo—.45 ACP, 230 grain. According to statistics at that time, folks shot in the chest cavity with .45ACP Federal 230 grain Hydra Shok are stopped 92.78% of the time. It didn’t stop me. As soon as I felt the bullet hit, I covered it with my palm in case it was a sucking lung wound (it wasn’t but I had no way of knowing at the time). It never knocked me off my feet. I backed out of my position and remained in control of the officers at the scene. I called for an ambulance and directed the officers with specific assignments. I then asked one of the officers who had come from an assisting agency to take me to the hospital and passed command to one of the senior officers at the scene. I walked in to the ER on my own.
My observation: I like 45 caliber ammo but there is NO magic bullet that is 100% effective. None. I’ve seen one man die from a leg wound from a 9mm ball round—his artery severed. I was surprised when I found a guy still alive from an execution style gunshot wound to the back of the head from a .357 magnum where the muzzle was placed at the back of his head—the skull was never penetrated! Imagine his headache the next day.
These day I carry 9mm instead of .45, not because of anything superior about the caliber. I was involved in five deadly force incidents as a patrol sergeant and am convinced shot placement is far, far more critical than the caliber. I can qualify, and have qualified with full .44 Mag loads, so recoil isn’t an issue for me. The truth I had to face is that my shot to shot recovery is faster with 9mm and I am more accurate in a shorter time frame with it than I am with the .45 ACP. I am glad we are all free to choose our own platforms and calibers but I caution against thinking any caliber or bullet design is the One and Only.
.25 acp is a cheap gun
Under powered and immensely inaccurate is a well earned reputation.
It’s one of those pistols that will get you into trouble but can’t get you out
I see you mentioned the Raven .25 . I purchased one of these back in late 1980’s For the purpose of teaching my 2 young sons to shoot . Accuracy was within acceptable range at 25 feet and recoil was minimal enough for a 8 and 5 year old to easily handle . Well , after a divorce the Raven was put away and not used until around 1990 when I sold it to a friend. A month r 2 later the friend to me that when he was racking the slide the entire slide flew off . This never happened when I was teaching my sons . I told hm to bring it back to me and gave him his money back . I looked the pistol over inside and out , I found nothing broken at all . I tried to see if I could duplicate the problem and low and behold I could . It appears when you rack the slide if you pull it back with a upward direction the slide will fall of when moving forward to chamber a round . Like when your breaking it down for cleaning . WOW ! I don’t see how they were allowed to even be sold . I’m Glad it didn’t happen when I was teaching my sons .Moral of the story , Don’t BUY CHEAP BRAND FIREARMS !
The .25ACP for the most part, needs to ride off into the sunset. It’s woefully insufficient for any task, even in a decent pocket pistol. The author mentioned the Ravens, of which I had one in .25 and one in .22LR back in the mid 80’s. The .22, call it a fluke, actually functioned better than the .25. The .25 was a Jam-o-matic new out of the box. I didn’t have the FTF and FTE issues with the 22. I fired a buddy’s wee Beretta awhile back, and although it functioned much better than the Ravens, 10-15′ was about as far away as you could go to keep any reasonable accuracy. In Ballistic Gelatin, the .25ACP and the .22LR perform about the same with an average of 9-11 inches of penetration. Which doesn’t meet the FBI’s suggested depth of a minimum of 12″ and a max of 18″ penetration. Depending on the clothing barrier you’d encounter, like denim or leather, and it would penetrate even less.
Cost of .25ACP ammo is ridiculously high. Reloading for it is a right pain in the posterior. The only reason to keep one, is if it’s one of the turn of the century pocket pistols for a collection. I certainly wouldn’t recommend buying a Raven, Jennings or Jiminez Zinc Cast Paperweights.
Those that want to carry one for self defense, go right ahead. I’ll stick with my PPK in .380ACP as a backup. The .25ACP finished its life in the ranks of calibers found in Saturday Night Specials.
Paul Moshay says:
About 1958 or so I was working at a gun shop in West Los Angeles and they got in a Bernadelli 25ACP and also a 22LR version. They are much smaller and lighter than the Colt pistol and are very well made in both the fit and finish. I bought the 25ACP one, though I should have bought both of them, the 25 is much cheaper to shoot. Paid all of $21 for it. It has a 2inch barrel and came with both a 6 shot and an 8 shot magazine. I have never shot it as yet and probably never will, for me it is a novelty gun just to own. There is only one smaller 25ACP and it is a German pistol but I have forgotten the name.
My folks gave me a Bauer stainless .25 (a Browning copy, mentioned above) as a graduation gift from training as a MI state trooper when I was 22 years old. I carried it as a tertiary backup every day in uniform thereafter. I found mine to be unerringly reliable and reasonably accurate, and occasionally used mine to take squirrels and rabbits while I was off duty. I am now 65, still have it, and will likely leave it to my grandson.
I have seen some people who were hit by .25 ACP rounds shake off their discomfort, and others drop dead in their tracks. I never had reason to use mine in the course of work, but I found it to be a comfort. Say what you will, I don’t want to get hit by a .25 round. They are ‘way better than nothing.
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paul bertan says:
I owned a Walther ? 0 .25 German Officers Pistol.
Despite how hard I held it with both hands. the barrel
would up pointing up after shot so where did the bullet go ?.
JohnnyL says:
That was my result. Could explain why there were so few suicides? SmilE
The .25 has killed a lot of people. But, in my experience, as a retired ER nurse (I am 69), it was usually the person who was using it for self-protection who got killed. I cannot begin to count how many shootings I have worked, but it is well into the triple digits. And there is one case comes immediately to mind. I believe it was in 1978 or ’79, I was working in an inner city ER in Oklahoma City when AmCare, the then local EMS, brought in a guy who had been shot 5 times in the chest with a .25. There were three slugs that were stopped by the man’s sternum (One of the slugs fell out on the table as we were cutting his clothes off. The other two slugs missed the sternum and penetrated the left side of his chest between the ribs, where they ricocheted of ribs all around the inside of his chest. We discovered that fact when we cracked his chest. In the course of all that ricochet, the slugs punched holes in his aorta and his pulmonary arteries, right and left. He bled out and died, but OCPD informed us that after being shot, he beat the shooter to death with his bare hands. (He was a big dude.)
OCPD was pleased with the outcome. Both of the decedents were know to them and had rap sheets as long as I am tall. The reason for the entire incident was a drug deal gone bad. The officer told us that this left them with two fewer former felons walking the streets of Oklahoma City, and from his perspective, it was all good.
In the course of a 30 plus year career as an ER RN, this was not the only case where I saw first-hand that the .25 caliber (not to mention .32, .380, even some 9 mm) are about as dangerous to the shooter as they are to the intended target. I have seen multiple victims, shot with each of those calibers, who even though mortally wounded, went on to kill the shooter before they succumbed to their wounds. The 9 mm has been known to kill the attacker, but, I have taken care of more than one person who, after being shot with a 9, went on to do major damage to the shooter. About 25 years or so, ago, a man killed an OCPD officer AFTER being shot multiple times with the department issued 9 mm service weapon before being stopped by another officer at the scene.
I have heard people talking about studies that show the ballistics of these calibers are more than adequate to kill or at least slow down the attacker. I have yet to talk to anyone who actually participated in a shooting with these calibers who said anything good about them, because most of them were in the next trauma room being treated beside the shooter. And the M.E. never told us what these guys thought about their choice for a self-defense round… because they were dead.
I have said before, and I will say it again, I carried a 1911 when I was overseas way back in the early 70’s and I never saw anyone hit with a .45 that was able to discuss anything beyond that hit. I cannot say that for any caliber that does not start with a 4. I have owned .38’s, 9 mm’s , .357’s, and I let them all go. I now own handguns in .22 (for plinking, and varmints, such as raccoons that get into my deer corn feeders), .44, and .45, several, in fact, more than one of them bears the designation of 1911.
In my experience, as a shooter, a hunter, a retired ER nurse, and a former Army medic on a SAR/ Recon team overseas, I have seen too many GSW’s to trust my life or the lives of my family to something that has a high probability of failing to stop an attack at the time it is needed most. I realize that I haven’t seen every gun-shot victim, but I have seen enough to get a good idea of what works and what doesn’t. Remember, the time to realize the weapon you are carrying is inadequate is days before you draw it and not after you pull the trigger. It is too late then.
Ed vitkauskas says:
My deuch workerfort about 100 yrs old is so accurate my friends don’t believe my until I show them. Misfires about every 1000th round. Goes through frig and car doors
Is the weapon you mentioned a rifle, pistol, or automatic? I notice I am a lot more accurate with a longer barrel.
I have a WAFFENFABRIK MAUSER A.-G.OBERNDORF A. N. Mauser – 6,35 that I inherited from my dad. I missed shooting Expert by one point when I was in the Corps so I know how to shoot but with this pistol not was I not able to hit a 55 gal. drum top at 50 feet and it has jammed on a couple of occasions. After my dad and I attempted to fire the little gun and obtained the same results we decided the only thing this gun was for was to attempt suicide before capture. I say attempt in conjunction with the report stated in your article above. I do enjoy the gun despite the minor flaws stated and enjoy cleaning it often (like I have been firing it, not) I would like to get the grip replaced with an original copy since mine has a large section missing from the lower back.
My Sundance w rechargeable laser RULES
Donald Lownds says:
All that being said. I love my multiple Colt .25 ACP’s made in the early 1970’s. They are not only unique in caliber but a beautiful example of Colt manufacturing. My EDC is a .380 but I wouldn’t hesitate to trust my little Colt in a pinch.
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The Shooter’s Log
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Cultivating Toronto’s topiary curb appeal
January 18, 2019 January 18, 2019 / Metrolinx
Gardeners of the Gardiner quietly tend to Canada’s best known branded entryway.
It’s a hill like no other.
Sure, there are important roads and highways that splinter off from Hwy. 401, and cut into the downtown core. And you can make a case for coming at it from the water and see the CN Tower loom into view.
But if Toronto has a front door to the world – about half the population are foreign-born – it’s built against the Gardiner Expressway. But then, someone has to be responsible for keeping up that curb appeal.
In this case, it’s the gardeners of the Gardiner.
For the past three decades, there’s been a dedicated group, along with their partners and corporate sponsors, responsible for the topiary displays on the hillside to the north of the Gardiner, just before you enter the busy downtown section. Well over 350,000 people – and as many as 500,000 – pass by the line of 11 logos each day.
Those travelers drive along the expressway as well as, even closer to the embankment display, see it go by from inside GO Trains that move past every 15 minutes. The land the signs rest on is owned by Metrolinx which partners with Hillside Media Communications Ltd., the firm that tends to the landmarks.
“You get the eye contact,” says David Klein, manager of Hillside Media. “If they’re not on their phones, they’re looking out the windows.”
Klein is standing on the Sunnyside Pedestrian Bridge over the Gardiner, on a chilly day, looking eastward down the line of logos embossed in greenery. They run from Roncesvalles Ave. to Dowling Ave., adjacent to the GO Transit Lakeshore West rail line. Today it’s a well-groomed stretch, almost a kilometre long. Even during the winter months, when everything seems to be painted in tones of grey and brown, the hillside signage is kept clean and even snow is routinely blown off the corporate logos.
A section of the hillside of the Gardiner sits neglected back in the 1980s.
A portion of the hillside seen recently, the grass is well tended and a corporate logo for CGI is clean and well tended.
But three-decades ago, this was a wasteland. Trash built up, along with debris from past constructions. A nearby hotel billboard that read “Treat your best gal” seemed to ignore the eyesore beside the main artery into Toronto.
“No one was taking responsibility (for the area),” recalls Toronto historian and long-time newspaper columnist Mike Filey.
“It was a place for papers and junk to gather.”
As the city was preparing for the 1988 G7 Summit of world leaders, Gerry Mahoney – who would often drive by the section – proposed turning it from a wasteland to a marquee display. To do that meant carting away 23 tonnes of garbage, and bringing in corporate sponsors like Manulife Financial. Soon after, others, including CN, Deloitte and FedEx, joined to have their emblems etched in marble chipped stone and green yews – the 1,500 to 2,000 small, hearty shrubs used in each logo. Flowering crabapple trees are lined like sentries just above.
These many years later, Mahoney still works in the greenhouse that grows the plants, including daffodils and 15 varieties of native Toronto wild flowers, for the displays. The idea is to have constantly changing colours, few falling leaves and slow growth.
Stacey Greenberg, manager of national sponsorships for Deloitte, says the company is proud of having space on the hill for 25 years.
“Being a part of the Hillside Topiary is an effective way to reach our clients and support our branding efforts,” she explains in an email exchange. “This landmark is viewed by hundreds of thousands of people each day as it is located at the gateway to Toronto.
“We are additionally pleased that the Hillside displays are unique and environmentally friendly.”
No pesticides are ever used on the hill.
Carved into a corner of Parkdale, the topiary arrangements are unique around the world – using a natural canvass of a hillside that slants at the perfect angle to the rail-line, expressway and Lake Ontario just beyond.
“We’re a bit of an oasis here,” says Klein. “And we even have our own ecosystem, because we’re so close to the lake.”
David Klein stands on a pedestrian overpass near the corporate logo hillside he watches over.
But a remarkable curb appeal takes a constant vigil against all the elements.
The 2013 ice storm that closed the CN Tower and saw 40,000 Ontario residents without power also destroyed 60 per cent of the topiary’s plants.
Then there’s the cat-and-mouse game played with graffiti artists who tag nearby walls. Crews jump in to cover over the illegal spray-painting quickly, but it’s a constant battle.
While staff, and those who manage the strip, provide the green thumbs which work throughout the year, Klein says it’s partners, including Metrolinx, as well as the corporations that trust their good names to the topiary artists, who deserve the credit.
That recognition couldn’t be prominent.
Story by Thane Burnett, Metrolinx Manager of Editorial Content
Blog, Community benefits, Community relations, design excellence, GO expansion, GO Transit, The Link, Uncategorized
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BIOGRAPHY EVENTS ︎ ︎
︎ ︎
Octavia Art Gallery, Houston | Opening Reception: April 9, 2020 The Pre-arranged Marriage of Pablo, & Other Scenic Viewpoints, Octavia Art Gallery, Houston, 3637 West Alabama, Suite 120, Houston, TX, On view: April 9–May 16, 2020.
Octavia Art Gallery, New Orleans | Opening Reception: March 7, 2020.The Pre-arranged Marriage of Pablo, & Other Scenic Viewpoints, Octavia Art Gallery, New Orleans, 700 Magazine Street, Ste. 103, New Orleans, LA, On view: March 7–28th, 2020.
Lecture:
Coral Springs Museum of Art, Museum Collection and Recent Acquisition & a Survey of Works by Raul Vega, Coral Springs Museum of Art, 2855 Coral Springs Drive, Coral Springs, Florida 33065, November 30, 2019–March 7, 2020, Artist Reception: Thursday, December 12 @ 6 pm
Helander Book Signing/Open House, Saturday, October 26, noon-5pm On view: Tuesday, October 22 - Saturday, October 26. *This exhibition is partially supported by the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County.
High Line Nine Galleries (Chelsea) | Opening Reception: October 24, 2019, 5–8 pm, “New Collage Works and Paintings” by Bruce Helander, High Line Nine Galleries (Chelsea), 507 West 27th Street, Manhattan, NY.
Guest Curator:
Fritz Gallery, Palm Beach
Steven Manolis Solo Show, “Palm Beach Light”, Fritz Gallery, 211 Royal Poinciana Way, Palm Beach, FL 33480 On view: April 4–21, 2019, Opening Reception: April 4, 2019.
Coral Springs Museum of Art
Jill Krutick “Lyrical Abstraction”, Coral Springs Museum of Art, 2855 Coral Springs Drive, Coral Springs, Florida 33065. On view: March 16–May 18, 2019, Opening Reception: March 21, 2019.
Hubert Phipps “Journey Continued”, Coral Springs Museum of Art, 2855 Coral Springs Drive, Coral Springs, Florida 33065, March 16–May 18, 2019. Opening Reception: March 21, 2019.
Hubert Phipps – Jill Krutick, Coral Springs Museum of Art, 2855 Coral Springs Drive, Coral Springs, Florida 33065, On view: March 16–May 18, 2019, Opening Reception: March 21, 2019.
Center for Creative Education
Shalini Nopani, Christopher Fay, Hope Kahn | The Sallie & Berton Korman Gallery at Center for Creative Education, 425 24th Street, West Palm Beach, FL 33407 (Northwood Village). On view: March 16–March 30, 2019, Opening Reception: March 16, 2019.
Bruce Helander “Art isn’t the only place that you need a good line” City Place Cultural Council, Pop Up Gallery, Rosemary Avenue, Palm Beach, FL 33480, March 14, 2019 @ 6:00PM
2/16-5/5/19
Morton Kaish “An Eye for Nature”, Paintings and Prints, Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, 253 Barcelona Rd. West Palm Beach, FL 33401. On view: Feb 16–May 5, 2019.
Hubert Phipps & Craig McPherson, Marjorie S. Fisher Gallery at Center for Creative Education, 425 24th St, West Palm Beach, FL 33407. On view: February 9–March 17, 2018, Opening Reception: Friday, February 9, 6–8:30pm.
Fritz Gallery, Palm Beach | Opening reception: February 1, 2019 Bruce Helander Solo Show, “New Works”, Fritz Gallery, 211 Royal Poinciana Way, Palm Beach, FL 33480. On view: February 1–16, 2019.
1/11-1/14/19
Paul Fisher Gallery
Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary: Booth PB600. On view: January 11–14, 2018.
A Conversation with Artist Bruce Helander, “Collage Mirage”, Culture & Cocktails, The Colony Pavilion, 155 Hammond Avenue, Palm Beach, FL 33480, January 7, 2019, 5pm.
Elizabeth Thompson “Forty Years of Painting”, Coral Springs Museum of Art, 2855 Coral Springs Drive, Coral Springs, Florida 33065. On view: December 1-March 2, 2019, Opening Reception Dec. 6, 2018.
Cultural Council of Palm Beach County
Bruce Helander lectures on his latest book: Chihuly “An Artist Collects”, Cultural Council of Palm Beach County, 601 Lake Ave, Lake Worth, FL 33460. March 17, 2018, 2pm.
Bruce Helander lectures on his latest book: Chihuly “An Artist Collects”, Center for Creative Education 425 24th Street, West Palm Beach, FL 33407-5401, February 17, 2018, 2pm.
Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art
Bruce Helander lectures on his latest book: Chihuly “An Artist Collects”, Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, 1 E Las Olas Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301, January 27, 2018, 2pm.
The Society of the Four Arts
Bruce Helander lectures on his latest book: Chihuly “An Artist Collects”, The Society of the Four Arts, 2 Four Arts Plaza, Palm Beach, FL 33480. December 18, 2017, 2:30-3:30pm.
Manolis Projects
Art Basil Week | Opening Reception: December 9, 2017 7–10:30 pm, Manolis Projects Group Show,, Manolis Projects, 335 NE 59th Street, Miami, FL 33137.
Judi Regal Solo Artist Exhibition, Coral Springs Museum of Art, 2855 Coral Springs Drive, Coral Springs, Florida, 33065. On view: December 2, 2017–March 3, 2018, Opening Reception: Tuesday, December 6, 6:00–8:30pm.
presents J. Steven Manolis their first annual “Art Basel Miami 2016 Artist of the Year Award”. Helander, the Author, will be lecturing on the book. Books & Books, 265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, FL 33134, Friday December 2, 7:30–9pm.
Manolis Projects Salon Grand Opening, 335 NE 59th Street, Miami, FL 33137. This is a group show with both Bruce Helander and noted arts’ writer Anthony Haden-Guest speaking Saturday, December 3, 2017 from 7:30–10:30pm.
University of So. Dakota, Warren M. Lee Center for Fine Arts
J. Steven Manolis, Solo Artist Exhibit, University of South Dakota, 414 E Clark St, Vermillion, SD 57069. August 21–October 9, 2017, Opening Reception: Friday, October 6th 3–5pm.
Arcature Fine Art
Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary Art Fair: Booth 650, Bruce Helander “Orange Is The New Black”, On view: January 12-15, 2017.
J. Steven Manolis, Solo Artist Exhibit, Coral Springs Museum of Art, 2855 Coral Springs Drive, Coral Springs, FL 33065. On view: December 3-February 28, Opening Reception: Thursday, December 8, 6–8:30pm.
Bruce Helander Lectures at MAXALTO for Steven Manolis. J. Steven Manolis has been honored with a solo show at MAXALTO at their 4141 NE 2 Street “Miami Design District” location. Thursday, December 1, 2016, 5–8pm.
11/30–12/4/16
Bruce Helander “Special Projects” “The Last Day of the Spinx”, On view: November 30-December 4, 2016.
Paul Fisher Projects/Wynwood
Group Show The Ogetti Bilding, 48 N.W. 25th Street, Miami. On view: November 30–December 4, 2016.
at Art Concept: Booth 302, Group Show, Bayfront Park in Downtown Miami, 301 Biscayne Blvd at Chopin Plaza, Miami, FL 33131. On view: November 30–December 4, 2016.
8/4–8/7/16
Tansey Contemporary
Art Aspen 2016, Tansey Gallery, Booth: B16, On view: August 4–7, 2016.
Momentum: Joseph Conrad-Ferm, Coral Springs Museum of Art, 2855 Coral Springs Drive, Coral Springs, FL 33065. On view: June 16–Aug 27, 2016.
Yuroz: Symbiosis, Coral Springs Museum of Art, 2855 Coral Springs Drive, Coral Springs, Florida 33065. On view: March 12–May 28, 2016
“Color Matters” J. Steven Manolis, The Paul Fisher Gallery, 433 Flamingo Drive, West Palm Beach, FL 33401. On view: February 12–March 9, 2016.
2/4-2/27/16
Three The Art Way, Fine Art Exhibition | featuring Jerry Rabinowitz, Edwina Sandys and Kathryn Adele Schumacher, Curated by Bruce Helander, Marjorie S. Fisher Gallery at Center for Creative Education, 425 24th St, West Palm Beach, FL 33407. On view: February 4–February 27, 2016.
Opening Reception: June 10, 2016 Aspen Ice Garden, Rodeo Ryder & Other Wild Pictures, Tansey Contemporary, 652 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
12/5/2015-2/27/16
New Paintings: Sandra Muss, Coral Springs Museum of Art, On view: Dec. 5, 2015–Feb. 27, 2016.
Bruce Helander presents: Picasso in Three Dimensions | The Museum of Modern Art is presenting a once-in-a-lifetime survey of Picasso’s sculptures. Bruce Helander will discuss this extraordinary opportunity to explore a rarely seen, but vital aspect of Picasso’s long and prolific career. 1AN Symposium, Presented by CONTEXT and One Art Nation. The CONTEXT | Art Miami Pavilion Midtown | Wynwood Arts District, 2901 NE 1st Avenue, Miami, FL 33137.
10/8-10/11/15
Art Silicon Valley/San Francisco, Oct. 8–11, 2015 www.artsvfair.com
9/12-11/21/15
A Survey of Works: Melinda Trucks, Coral Springs Museum of Art. On view: Sept. 12–Nov. 21, 2015.
© BRUCE HELANDER 2020
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Hrungr
Twitter Guru
ღ N-Special
More coffee...? More coffee.
Staff Mini-Profile Theme: Hrungr
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem
Origin: Hrungr
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem
Starfield Jun 11, 2018 2:57:02 GMT c_cat, Heimdall, and 7 more like this
Post by Hrungr on Jun 11, 2018 2:57:02 GMT
Last Edit: Jun 11, 2018 3:04:19 GMT by Hrungr
linksocarina
Always teacher, sometimes writer
Teaching Mode Activated
PSN: LinksOcarina
Starfield Jun 11, 2018 2:57:29 GMT
Post by linksocarina on Jun 11, 2018 2:57:29 GMT
A whole lot of nothing...
Jun 11, 2018 2:57:29 GMT linksocarina said:
Yep... but I think this gives us an hint of the level of fidelity they're aiming for.
slimgrin727
I don't stir, I work the material.
Starfield Jun 11, 2018 3:00:39 GMT AnDromedary likes this
Post by slimgrin727 on Jun 11, 2018 3:00:39 GMT
If anyone can do a space exploration game it's Bethesda. And you bloody know it.
luketrevelyan
Nov 9, 2017 17:54:50 GMT
Starfield Jun 11, 2018 3:00:45 GMT via mobile
Post by luketrevelyan on Jun 11, 2018 3:00:45 GMT
I think I heard single player, yay! Do we know anything else?
Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2018 3:06:16 GMT
I sat through 90 minutes for fuck all great going Bethesda
Starfield Jun 11, 2018 3:09:05 GMT Hrungr likes this
Jun 11, 2018 3:06:16 GMT officerdonnz said:
Well we know it's a thing.
Iakus
Starfield Jun 11, 2018 3:12:17 GMT Hrungr, c_cat, and 4 more like this
Post by Iakus on Jun 11, 2018 3:12:17 GMT
Jun 11, 2018 3:00:45 GMT luketrevelyan said:
That by itself puts it ahead of Bioware's announcement...
Jun 11, 2018 3:09:05 GMT slimgrin727 said:
There is that I guess.
They also mentioned "Next-Gen" IIRC...
CHRrOME
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect Andromeda
Prime Posts: 666
Prime Likes: 112 ish
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect Andromeda
112 ish
Post by CHRrOME on Jun 11, 2018 3:16:06 GMT
Sad they didn't show a bit more as in something. I assume this is 2019? especially when Todd said they were working on this for years.
RIP old BioWare - 1995-2016. I used to be a fan, now I'm just toxic.
Jun 11, 2018 3:15:04 GMT Hrungr said:
Did they? don't remember. When is the PS5 and XTWO supposed to release again?
Jun 11, 2018 3:16:49 GMT CHRrOME said:
There's a lot of conflicting information on that. I don't think we have anything reliable right now.
I assume Starfield is aimed for 2019... but with that teaser? I dunno. I just wanna believe it is for 2019.
Starfield Jun 11, 2018 3:23:41 GMT LogicGunn likes this
2019 would be my guess as well. But that might be... November 2019.
Oh yeah, if it is released in 2019, it's definitely Fall of 2019. October-November window.
Starfield Jun 11, 2018 4:03:51 GMT Heimdall, linksocarina, and 1 more like this
Some good Fallout/Starfield/Elder Scrolls conjecture here from Mike Laidlaw @mike_Laidlaw
Probably not a fresh take, but whatever. Let's talk about Fallout 76 for a minute, yeah? Specifically: Why didn't they make a proper sequel?
This is all based on my conjecture and some experience making RPGs, no insider insight.
I think we can take as a given that if Starfield and Elder Scrolls are presented as core single-player games, they are going to be in the same vein as the core Fallouts and Elder Scrolls games. Content-heavy, utterly massive worlds.
Presumably, Starfield has been in the works for some time, and has only recently hit it's production arc where the company is comfortable committing to its eventual release. That suggest to me that there's a team cranking on lots and lots of quests for it.
Also, it's going to be all-new art assets by default as it's not just a new IP, it's a new genre entirely. So we can assume design and art teams are largely allocated to its production, likely with a smaller incubation team working on the next Elder Scrolls.
It's also fair to assume that a sci-fi game would have different needs in terms of engine, and note that it was presented as "next generation" which strongly suggests an engine overhaul.
So that's the engineering team largely committed, right?
Now it's fair to pause and say "But why Starfield? Why not just make more Fallout core game?" Well, I see it as a diversity play. Arguably all the people who are going to be "into" Elder Scrolls or Fallout are into it. There's lots.
But franchise fatigue is a very real thing, and people will tend to drop off between releases if rushed. So a third major new IP is a breath of fresh air, and a chance to pull even more people into the "Bethesda net" as it were (Yes, deliberate)
Not to mention that the company is clearly committed to spinoffs (mobile, cards, etc) which makes a third IP another huge potential market for those as well.
Which brings us back to "Why 76?"
Well, first, it's reusing assets, reusing engine, reusing setting and concepts.
This makes it relatively "cheap" to make in terms of raw asset generation. Further, by moving to a large system-based experience and letting emergent player action be what generates the stories, the cost of quest generation and so on goes way, waaaaay down.
In turn, this keeps the folks on Starfield and Elder Scrolls on them, while a smaller team works on 76.
Arguably, you could very easily (and probably correctly) say that this puts us in a place where you never had a choice between 76 or a full Fallout game. You had a choice between 76 and...waiting. A long, long time.
BUT, I think there's another reason they're making it too, and it's so apropos that it's about a vault, because they were fundamentally experiments, and I think 76 is one too.
Aside from the very-different MMO experiment with ESO, Bethesda has very little experience with making their style of game co-op. And any scientist will tell you an experiment changes only one variable.
In this case the variable is the co-operative play. The setting, gameplay, visual style? All are proven successful. So there's one big change at play: co-op mechanics and co-op storytelling. This is their test. In a way, we're all entering the vault program by playing.
We're all Vault Dwellers now.
pbs.twimg.com/media/DfYdnsxVMAA0uFh.jpg
Starfield Jun 11, 2018 5:01:23 GMT via mobile Heimdall likes this
Sure. But a teaser for something we knew was coming for years now is not enough to entice me anymore.
Kappa Neko
...lives for biotic explosions. And cheesecake!
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda
Oct 18, 2016 21:17:18 GMT
kappaneko
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda
Starfield Jun 11, 2018 5:43:57 GMT via mobile Hrungr and Heimdall like this
Post by Kappa Neko on Jun 11, 2018 5:43:57 GMT
Disappointing. Yes.
Reminds me of that first Skyrim tease though.
I'm just relieved this is really coming. And it's not some mobile game. (Right?!)
Just to have confirmation there is something new and potentially amazing coming is... good.
Was worried for a while that space exploration game was a pipe dream somebody made up and sold it as a reality.
So this means the rumors that have been going round about what MAY be in this game could be true. THAT alone keeps me excited.
But yeah, Fallout 76 it is in the meantime. Maybe...
Last Edit: Jun 11, 2018 5:44:46 GMT by Kappa Neko
I was just here. Where did I go...?
Well, time to CSI:BSN this thing...
i.imgur.com/Lmi0nnz.jpg
Larger image:
It looks like there are crew quarters under the solar panels, so I'm guessing might be our ship and not just a warp-capable satellite. Maybe something we build upon during the game?
Jun 11, 2018 5:55:21 GMT @tzeenchianapostrophe said:
Aug 5, 2016 14:59:26 GMT Hrungr said:
Hmmm... I would have guessed that it's some kind of an observation platform. But the bottom half does look like an engine. Strange design. But I suppose it'll be awhile before we hear more.
Well, it's definitely not the Normandy.
It looks more like a real-world theoretical ship design.
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Feb 8, 2017 5:13:37 GMT
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Post by Psychedelic on Jun 11, 2018 6:28:59 GMT
Is it supposed to be a ship at all? I thought that whatever jumped to FTL was just passing by close to the satellite. But I do agree it looks 'old' for a sci-fi setting, more like the current state of technology and not something futuristic like the designs in ME for example. Wonder what that means for the time frame of Starfield.
"Pets are always a great help in times of stress. And in times of starvation too, o'course."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
KaiserShep
Glorious Star Lord
I sense you judge me, yet have no right to.
Starfield Jun 11, 2018 6:39:21 GMT Nikhilty likes this
Post by KaiserShep on Jun 11, 2018 6:39:21 GMT
Even with no real glimpse into what we’re getting, just the idea of a Bethesda-made SP-focused game set in space gives me serious hunger pangs for a space opera-ish RPG. There’s so few of them out there as it is, so I’m excited that we’re getting another one at all.
Art stuff in there! -> robthedoodler.deviantart.com and my Tumblr blog -> doodleofboredom.com
Jun 11, 2018 6:28:59 GMT Psychedelic said:
That was my thinking as well whatever went to FTL was just passing by.
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect Andromeda
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect Andromeda
Post by ApocAlypsE on Jun 11, 2018 9:22:53 GMT
This looks more like a modern style spacecraft, like 20-30 years into the future, something like Interstellar maybe? I expect it to be harder Sci-Fi than Mass Effect for example. The cylinder is about 50 meters across it seems, and the living quarters are pretty cramped. I guess the method for gravity would be self-rotation and relying on centrifugal force. The planet on the background has visible shores and clouds, it could be Earth but I don't recognize the continent. Also there is that orange hue, but I guess its for artistic purposes.
You gotta rise up, like a phoenix through, some mother f***ing flame!
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‘Taxpayers deserve better.’ Coun. Joe Magliocca apologizes as council approves audit of his expenses
CTVNewsCalgary.ca
Jordan Kanygin CTV News Calgary Video Journalist
@CTVJKanygin Contact
Published Monday, February 24, 2020 9:20AM MST Last Updated Monday, February 24, 2020 9:46PM MST
CALGARY -- Calgary city council has voted unanimously in favour of launching an investigation into Coun. Joe Magliocca’s expenses dating back to 2017.
Magliocca appeared in council and said he supports the investigation but then excused himself from the discussion and did not vote on the matter.
The Ward 2 councillor issued another apology Monday morning, three weeks after first apologizing for making "mistakes" on expenses he submitted from the 2019 Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Quebec.
As first reported by Postmedia, receipts through a Freedom of Information request show Magliocca expensed $6,400 while at FCM, more than double what some of his colleagues claimed for the trip. The councillor also claimed to have dined with guests who say they have never met Magliocca.
"Taxpayers deserve better and I am deeply sorry," Magliocca said in a statement Monday.
"I have reviewed all my past expenses since the 2017 Election and have voluntarily repaid my alcohol-related expense I submitted," the statement read. He also encouraged his colleagues to do the same.
The statement does not say the exact amount Magliocca plans to repay, but one document shows the councillor paid back at least $2,640 to the city on Feb. 14.
Magliocca posted online detailed receipts from 2017 and 2018. He says he plans to post the detailed receipts from 2019 soon.
Hundreds of pages of receipts show a range of expenses, including alcohol, meals and a Christmas dinner for his city staff.
For example, a series of seven different receipts submitted from the March 5 to 8, 2018 FCM meeting in Laval, QC shows Magliocca expensed $341.61 on vodka, wine, beer and food at the Hotel Sheraton Laval. The posted receipts do not say who, if anyone, was at the meetings with the councillor.
The city’s auditor will lead the review of Magliocca’s meal and alcohol expenses after the city’s integrity commissioner recused himself because he himself dined with the councillor on the taxpayers’ dime. The auditor will also look into whether any policies need to change to better oversee how councillors’ expenses are tracked and approved.
“What we’re striving for here with this notice of motion is to address some of those policies to see if they’re dated and to make sure we bring our standard in line with what our citizens expect,” said Coun. Jyoti Gondek, who put forth the initial motion.
The auditor could not provide a cost for the investigation and wouldn’t say how long it would take.
Coun. Joe Magliocca speaks in council chambers on Monday.
14 of 15 Calgary council members call for forensic investigation of Magliocca's expenses
Council ends closed door meeting with integrity commissioner, votes to keep discussion confidential
'A crisis of confidence': Farkas and Chu push for forensic audit of city councillor expenses
Magliocca co-sponsors urgent motion seeking details on his own expenses
Motion to call for limit on number of city councillors who attend future FCM meetings
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What’s wrong with (Miami) art criticism?
A few years ago I was on a panel of Miami arts writers at Locust Projects with Anne Tschida, Omar Sommereyns, and a few others (my qualifications seemed a bit sketchy, but it was certainly a good discussion). Probably the biggest takeaway from the (sizable!) audience was that they were clamoring for more local arts coverage and, in particular, criticism.
Since then, as other locally-oriented writing has flourished, art criticism remains stuck in a rut. The New Times continues to regularly run criticism by Carlos Suarez De Jesus. But the Miami Herald hasn’t had a full-time art critic for years (I hear Elisa Turner has a blog somewhere on the Art Circuits site, but good luck finding it. South Florida Daily Blog lists four “Art Blogs,” but they are mostly dedicated to listings and brief descriptive posts. The notable exception is Artlurker, which has been running surprisingly substantial art reviews by a number of writers since 2008. But Art Lurker has been averaging one or two posts per month, so not sure what’s going on there.
Meanwhile, the art scene is flourishing — art schools are pumping out MFA and BFA art majors, artwalk is a huge monthly cultural event, and there are more galleries and private collections open to the public than ever. So what’s happening? Where’s the criticism?
I think the explanation is perfectly explained by a George Orwell quote I heard yesterday (on the Slate Culture podcast). Orwell apparently had written a scathing review of a book by Stephen Spender, only to meet him at a party and end up liking him quite a bit. Smitten with guilt, Orwell wrote the man a letter in which he said,
[W]hen you meet anyone in the flesh you realize immediately that he is a human being and not a sort of caricature embodying certain ideas. It is partly for this reason that I don’t mix much in literary circles, because I know from experience that once I have met and spoken to anyone I shall never again be able to show any intellectual brutality towards him, even when I feel that I ought to[.]
Now look at the Miami arts community — exactly to the extent that someone is involved and interested to where they might be willing/able to write some criticism, they’re hanging out with the artists and gallerists they’d need to be critical of from time to time. The scene is just not large enough that you can have a few dozen friends and another few dozen acquaintances and still have most of the scene left to impartially cover. I was talking to Misael about this, and he pretty well said as much about why he doesn’t write criticism. (By the way, all this probably applies to other art scenes — I’m addressing Miami because that’s what I know.)
Franklin Einspruch used to write some great criticism at ArtBlog.net. But Franklin was pretty well recognized as being in the camp of the Miami AbEx’ers, so his constant rear-guard action as all things PoMo was sort of taken in stride.
One solution of course is to write anonymously. Artlurker actually started out at least in part as anonymous. But in the long run it’s not sustainable for most people. One of the payoffs that seems to be a necessary reward for consistent blogging is a level of name recognition and attention. Too, anonymous or pseudonymous criticism is inherently less credible.
I still think there’s a role for a site of one or two consistent writers (hello, art/art history majors at UM, FIU, et al.) that pursues advertising more aggressively than Artlurker has. A financial reward would be a decent motivation to take a page from Orwell’s book and stay away from associating closely with the folks in the art scene, the better to show it intellectual brutality when necessary.
Update: Leyden pointed out just as I was posting this: A new golden age for art criticism? at the Knight Arts blog. A promising title — but it doesn’t offer any solutions! It just says we need a golden age of art criticism. Still, there’s a way forward here: a few people interested in writing criticism start a site (maybe mix in some other sort of coverage), and apply for a Knight grant to jump-start them. Would make it much easier for them to attract advertisers with the Knight name behind them, and tide them over before the site is self-sustaining.
Posted on August 17, 2011 by Alesh Houdek. Posted in Art, Miami
Susan Page admitting that she had a dream
MAM video blog
10 thoughts on “What’s wrong with (Miami) art criticism?”
There has been an increase in writings by websites such as Art-slant, Mutual Art, hopefully Artlog will be next. These help get the word out. The other options for Press are Art Papers, Art Pulse and Art in America. They actually have had reviews of Miami Galleries at semi regular intervals. El Neuvo Herald has the most consistent art features.
GetSmart says:
I think part of it is the lower levels of education in South Florida. Both in the quantity and quality.
Squathole says:
Good essay.
Whenever I read art criticism — “rarely” overstates it — I find myself wondering whether the writer even knows what “aesthetics” is, let alone cracked a book about it. Too often, art crit boils down to a combination of historical reset and personal preference, which is neither insightful nor entertaining.
Effective criticism assists audiences’ appreciation and knowledge of the specific work of art addressed, and art generally — a tall order, which may be another reason there seems to be a shortage.
alesh says:
Whoa, check out the Update.
Art-slant looks interesting, but even though it says “MIAMI,” I’m not finding any locally-oriented criticism on there. Maybe I’m just not looking hard enough…
swampthing says:
melancholy alienated, Elisa Turner’s ramblings…
artcircuitsartcentric.blogspot.com/
Where is our brown knight?
swampspace.blogspot.com/2011/08/augustus
One entity, skilled at jumping through bureaucratic flaming hoops and daft at bending over backwards into a pretzel, will be awarded the prestigious arts journalism challenge 2012. Perhaps then a thorough literary dissection will follow, a harvest of the significant from our glut of MFA’s.
Oh boy, I hope so!
Chuck Strouse, editor Miami New Times says:
Great start to a discussion. I can tell you one thing. We at Miami New Times are committed to better covering the art scene — not only in the print edition but on our arts blog, Cultist. We most certainly have a long way to go and would appreciate folks’ thoughts. Since 2000, the place has become a whole different scene. We wanna fan the flames.
I think the New Times goes a great job in print, and in putting its money where its mouth is (in terms of having an actual art critic on payroll, and paying its other writers to cover the arts). Where there’s room for improvement right now is on the way this coverage is organized on the website.
There’s an “ARTS” dropdown menu with options for Arts Home, Cultist, Arts & Eats, and Theater. Theater seems like a legit thing to have there. Arts & Eats looks like an advertising section, which I’d happily ignore.
My problem is the division between “Arts Home” and Cultist. Seems to me that you’d want to see articles from both incorporated into a single section, with the ability to filter by subject. I presume the distinction is “Here’s stuff that’s ONLY on the web” and “Here’s stuff that’s ALSO in the print edition,” but as someone who’s looking at the site, I don’t see why I should care about this particular distinction, much less be forced to navigate two completely different areas of content because of it.
But don’t mind me(!), I’ve been complaining about this blog/article dichotomy amongst print publications moving to the web for at least five years.
There’s about 10% of art criticism in Cultist, and to get to it you have to dig between posts about trashy reality shows, Sartorialist copycat and celebrity gossip. Cultist indeed.
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US Supreme Court Temporarily Allows Mothers to Obtain Abortion Pills Without In-Person Visits
By Editor on October 12, 2020 No Comment
Photo Credit: Joe Ravi
WASHINGTON (USA Today) – The Supreme Court ruled on a temporary basis Thursday night that women seeking to end their pregnancies with medication do not need to visit a [physical facility], given the COVID-19 pandemic.
The action was a setback for the Trump administration, which had sought to reinstate a 20-year-old policy following lower court rejections. The justices ordered the government to make its case in more detail before a federal trial court, a process that could take six weeks and extend beyond Election Day.
The court gave little reason for its action other than a desire to develop “a more comprehensive record.” But it hinted that during the review process, “relevant circumstances” could change. That could mean an easing of COVID-19 risks which, in turn, may allow the policy to be reinstated.
Continue reading this story >>
US Supreme Court Temporarily Allows Mothers to Obtain Abortion Pills Without In-Person Visits added by Editor on October 12, 2020
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Night Two of The Republican National Convention
CNN OUTPERFORMS MSNBC, ABC NEWS & CBS NEWS IN TOTAL VIEWERS AND DEMOS 25-54, 18-34 FOR SECOND STRAIGHT NIGHT
CNN Digital Sees 34 Million Unique Visitors on RNC Day 2
On NIGHT TWO of the Republican National Convention (RNC), CNN topped MSNBC, ABC News and CBS News in total viewers and in the key demos adults 25-54 and younger viewers (18-34) for the second straight night. CNN’s digital platforms had strong numbers yesterday, as the most watched and most used news and information brand in the world.
10pm Hour: Broadcast and Cable News coverage / Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, First Lady Melania Trump
FNC: 1.635 among adults 25-54/370k in 18-34/7.908 million total viewers (10-11:15pm)
NBC News: 684k among adults 25-54/133k in18-34/2.495 million total viewers (10-11:13pm). Lead-in by highly rated America’s Got Talent.
CNN: 615k among adults 25-54, 216k in 18-34 and 2.126 million total viewers (10-11:15pm). CNN is up from RNC Night One in all demos.
ABC News: 561k adults 25-54/128k in 18-34/2.097 million total viewers (10-11:13pm)
CBS News: 362k among adults 25-54/105k in 18-34/1.515 million total viewers (10-11:11pm)
MSNBC: 392k adults 25-54/61k in 18-34/1.877 million total viewers (10-11:15pm)
8:30-11pm Hours: RNC Program Cable News Coverage
FNC averaged 1.483 million among adults 25-54 and 364k in 18-34. In total viewers, the network had 7.565 million.
CNN attracted 600k among adults 25-54 and 207k in 18-34. In total viewers, CNN attracted 2.064 million.
MSNBC had 365k among adults 25-54 and 55k among 18-34. In total viewers, MSNBC posted 1.723 million.
Cable News Prime Time (8-11pm)
In prime time last night, CNN averaged 575k among adults 25-54, +56% more than MSNBC’s 369k; FNC had 1.407 million. Among younger viewers (18-34), CNN had 188k, +227% ahead of MSNBC’s 58k while FNC averaged 339k. Among total viewers, CNN had a +10% advantage over MSNBC, attracting 1.981 million vs. MSNBC’s 1.801 million; FNC had 7.248 million.
CNN Digital saw 34 million unique visitors and 14 million video starts across its desktop, mobile and OTT devices on Day 2 of the 2020 Republican National Convention. Digital multiplatform unique visitors are up 26% versus Day 2 of the 2016 RNC and up 8% versus Day 2 of the 2020 DNC. Digital multiplatform video starts are up 16% versus Day 2 of the 2016 RNC and up 8% versus Day 2 of the 2020 DNC.
Competitively, CNN was the #1 digital news source on Day 1 of the 2020 RNC, outranking all competitors, and surpassing #2 BBC by 10.6 million visits and #3 Fox News by 11.2 million visits (Day 1 data is the most current available for digital competitive rankings, which is published by SimilarWeb). CNN ranked as the #1 digital news source throughout the week of the 2020 DNC, according to the data published by SimilarWeb.
CNN’s live stream saw 753k total day live starts and 248k 8:30-11pm convention live starts on CNN’s owned platforms (CNN.com, Edition.CNN.com, CNNgo on OTT apps & CNN mobile apps for iOS and Android; CNN’s convention coverage was not live streamed on social properties). The live stream peaked at 54k during First Lady Melania Trump’s speech at 10:45p.m – up 23% versus Day 1 of the 2016 RNC.
CNN saw 33k users live stream the average minute of the convention programming from 8:30-11pm (equivalent to the way TV ratings are calculated). TV plus digital live streaming produced a combined average audience of 2.097 million total viewers. Digital viewing added a 1.6% lift to CNN TV P2+ average audience.
The audio of the convention also streamed on CNN’s channels on SiriusXM, Radio.com and TuneIn Radio.
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Cindy Sheehan Gives a Memorial Day Speech at her Son's Grave
Cindy's Memorial Day Speech
Posted by Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox at 7:58:00 AM
Speaking Truth to Empire w/Dan Yaseen (May 2017 Edition)
https://soundcloud.com/speaking-truth-to-empire/170517-speaking-truth-to-empire-medea-benjamin
On "Speaking Truth to Empire" on KFCF 88.1 Free Speech Radio for Central California, Dan Yaseen interviews Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange. Topic of discussion includes worsening famine in Yemen caused by Saudi/US war. She is a human rights advocate, an author and a peace & justice activist. She has worked for social justice and human rights in Asia, the Americas, and Africa for over 30 years.
Posted by Unknown at 9:30:00 AM
UPCOMING ON The People Speak w/Cindy Sheehan: Veganism and Liberation Guest: Bob Linden
Broadcasting Date:
Tuesday, May 30, 2017 06:00 pm (Pacific)
9:00 pm (Eastern)
Bob Linden
Veganism and Liberation
BBS RADIO
Live Talk Radio Station 2
Listen-in Only phone line: 605-475-1600
Problems with the line try 716-748-0144
Call-in to interact when live with the program hosts and guests:
Toll Free 888-429-5471 in the US/Canada or Direct 323-744-4841
Guest Website:
http://www.goveganradio.com
Radio Host/Animal Rights/Environmental and Health activist
Guest Biography:
Bob Linden, vegan for 29 years, animal lover and dog-spoiler, is the host and executive producer of the listener-supported non-profit production GO VEGAN RADIO WITH BOB LINDEN (www.GoVeganRadio.com) – the first-ever mainstream-media vegan animal liberation, health, and environmental program, now broadcasting for 12 years, having been heard on the Air America radio network, CBS and Clear Channel radio stations, XM, iTunes, TalkStreamLive, www.stitcher.com/GOVEGAN), with archives at www.GoVeganRadio.com and syndication starting soon on the Genesis Communications Network, the fastest growing radio talk network in the world – where Bob’s program will become its first “food” show.
Prior to vegan animal liberation activism, Bob was Program Director and on-air at many successful rock, jazz, and world music radio stations around the country including CD-101 New York, JAZZY 100 Washington D.C., KIFM San Diego, LOVE 94 Miami, The Sound in Seattle, KKLZ Las Vegas, STAR 106 San Antonio, and z-92 Omaha.
Bob’s activism, community involvement, and promotional and marketing efforts have been featured on the CBS Evening News, CNN, in the New York Times, AP, UPI, and elsewhere. He was named Program Director of the Week by Billboard Magazine and received ADDY awards for writing the best radio commercial in Nebraska one year, as well as for TV spots and billboard campaigns.
Bob was honored to receive the “Shining World Hero Award” d from the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association.
He is a graduate of Queens College of the City University of New York and Stuyvesant High School and PS 152 in Manhattan.
John Pilger Returns to the Soapbox (SOAPBOX PODCAST MAY 28, 2017)
GUESTS: John Pilger
TOPICS: US Imperial Hanky Panky (Pilger)
Chelsea Manning is Free (Greer)
On The Soapbox this week, Cindy chats with journalist/filmmaker John Pilger about a wide variety of issues pertaining to US imperial/global hanky-panky and his new film The Coming War with China.
Cindy also interviews Evan Greer who is a close associate of Pvt. Chelsea Manning who was recently released from seven years of
federal incarceration for a courageous act of whistleblowing.
"For our Freedom and Other Stuff" by Cindy Sheehan
Casey's boots in the American Friends' Service Committee
Exhibit: Eyes Wide Open
This weekend is the 13th Memorial Weekend since my son Casey was killed in another US war for profit and global domination.
Memorial weekend is a "double whammy" for me because not only am I assaulted with "red, white, blue," gross displays of nationalism, and proclamations of "we honor them because they made the ultimate sacrifice;" but Casey's birthday was May 29th and it always falls on our around Memorial Day. Although, now 38 years in the past, as a mother, the labor's struggle of bringing him into this world and the joy of the culmination of that hard work is still fresh in my mind. As soon as his head emerged from me, he was crying and all eight pounds and two ounces of him were perfect; Tears are pouring from my eyes thinking about it. My body fed and nourished him inside and outside the womb and his sweet spirit and cheerful presence fed and nourished my soul for 24 years until he was wrenched from me for evil purposes.
I can't abide cable news and its devotion to Empire, so I usually put on local news in the morning to hear about weather and local happenings which is occasionally sprinkled with devotion to Empire, but not as bad as CiaNN, Faux News, or MSNBCia (for example). Predictably, today the local news was also spewing forth nationalistic bullcrap.
This morning, as I sipped my coffee and checked my overnight load of email, one local station was showing Cub Scouts putting flags on the graves of veterans at a cemetery in Sacramento. Not all veterans, or those killed in action, are buried at military cemeteries. Casey is buried here in Vacaville at the town cemetery. So, on Memorial Day, flags are placed at the grave of each veteran to distinguish between veterans and "norms" like us.
One leader of a Cub den was interviewed and asked why he was out there so early to do this and he actually said, he was there because many soldiers died for "our freedom, and other stuff." Well, the "freedom" part is a baldfaced lie, but that Cub leader probably doesn't know that because we here in the Empire of Lies have been conditioned our entire lives to believe that one essential fabrication: if the young people of the US weren't sacrificed on the altar of profit and if they didn't go and murder other people in foreign lands, then we wouldn't be "free."
"Free" in the United Police States of America?
One nation, Under Surveillance?
"Free" in the nation that incarcerates more of a percentage of its citizens (mostly people of color) than any other in the world?
Leave me a mother's indulgence to expand upon the "other stuff" of the Cub leader's imagination, as a matter of fact, I can do no better than to quote Major General Smedley Darlington Butler in War is a Racket:
“Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. The was the "war to end wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason. No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United State patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure".
Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month!
All that they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill...and be killed”
― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
With sadness, I watched those darling, young Cub Scouts (Casey achieved rank of Eagle Scout) being force-fed patriotism and its even more terrible cousin, nationalism. As a recovering "good American" myself, I was a Girl and Boy Scout Leader, so, I can only imagine after they the little ones were finished with their task, they gathered for pizza or donuts and made a fun day out of it with carnivals and parades.
A few weeks after Casey was killed in Iraq was his birthday and Memorial Day. Casey's dad and I were invited to the cemetery where he is buried to participate in a service. I was in the stands in a place of "honor" with mothers whose sons had been killed in Vietnam. They weren't as distraught as I was, but they didn't look very "honored" to be there, either. Shortly after that, I embarked on my public career to not allow my grief to be "honored" but to shove it in the faces of everyone who supports war without having even the tiniest inkling of the profound despair US military mis-adventurism causes. Consequently, I was never again invited back to one of those "celebrations."
So, on Casey's birthday, I will do what I do every year since the first one: Go to where he is buried with tears on my face, remove the bloody flag of Empire from his grave and re-dedicate my life to ending the Empire.
In Casey's name and for his legacy.
Memorial Day by Anthony Freda
Image by Anthony Freda
Is human sacrifice really dead?
Or, are our wars religio-political rituals in which the precious, sacred lives of our young people are sacrificed at the altar of "democracy and freedom" by order of the new priest class?
22 U.S. veterans commit suicide a day. I would categorize these deaths as Assisted suicides.
Why are so many brave soldiers and veterans killing themselves?
Are they coming to the realization that they were never fighting for freedom and democracy as they were told?
Are they learning that the pretexts they are given as justification for endless war are actually warped, historical narratives designed to manufacture their consent?
Have they accepted the fact that the true, imperial geopolitical strategies at play are hidden from them and that their sense of patriotism has been cynically manipulated by those who benefit from enriching and empowering the military industrial complex?
Are they becoming aware that a complicit media uses psychological techniques to promote endless war as the inevitable solution to every crisis, ignoring and hiding the fact that these wars accomplish nothing but death, chaos and the empowerment of the very enemy they have ostensibly been sent to destroy?
Are they killing themselves not only because they have experienced the horrors of wars, but also the even greater horror of knowing that their criminal government sent them into harm's way on false pretexts and that those in power place
No value on their sacrifices or even their lives?
Anthony Freda
www.AnthonyFreda.com
Watch: Student Activist Clashes With Tucker Carlson Over Venezuela Opposition
"Dakotah Lilly, a leader of Students & Youth for a New America in New York City, defended Venezuela on a national US TV news broadcast. Appearing with Tucker Carlson, on a nightly program with 3 to 4 million viewers across the USA, Lilly called out the FOX news host for his blatant distortions of the harsh situation facing the Bolivarian Socialist Republic. Lilly pointed out that Venezuela is facing a wave of terrorism and food hoarding, and that while everyone acknowledges that reforms are desperately needed, neoliberalism is not the answer."
Dyln Namm, MintPressNews
TONIGHT! John Pilger and Evan Greer on TPS w/Cindy Sheehan
Listen tonight:
6pm Pacific
9pm Eastern
(and everything in-between)
CLICK IMAGE TO LISTEN
GUEST ONE: JOHN PILGER
TOPIC: THE HOT MESS OF THE US EMPIRE/CHINA
GUEST TWO: EVAN GREER
TOPIC: PRIVATE MANNING'S RELEASE AND GOING FORWARD
The 19th of May: California Independence Day by Cindy Sheehan
Since my son Casey was killed in Iraq on 04/04/04, I have consistently taken steps to remove myself from the government of the USA: I stopped paying income taxes (how can I fund more murder after I essentially funded the murder of my own son?); I sold my car; dumped my house; and vocally oppose just about everything America does. Unfortunately, I still have a passport and I feel like, not only do I want to live in California, my surviving children (5th generation Californians) and my five grandchildren (6th generation Californians) live here, so I need to live here.
Also, why should I be forced to "love it or leave it?" Mostly, almost all the people who can afford to be so mobile and move around the world are the people who create untenable conditions for the rest of us, anyway.
Having written the above, you can imagine that I was extremely excited when I saw that there was a renewed interest in California Independence! I quickly contacted leadership of the movement and became involved myself and am now on the board of the California Freedom Coalition.
On May 19, 2017 we joyfully, yet with a sense of gravitas, filed paperwork in Sacramento at the office of the Attorney General to put California Independence in front of Californians in the form of a ballot initiative. Right now, we are awaiting final approval (around 50 days) to begin collecting signatures for this historic and righteous effort.
In front of Cal Capitol. Cindy Sheehan (Young Lady), Steve Gonzales of CFC
As with the first American Revolution in 1776 (an effort which few colonists supported, at first, so the "Patriots" also had to wage a battle to win the "fence-sitters" over), it has become "self-evident" to some of us here in California that the US government (USG), way across the country in Washington, DC does not represent us, or our values, in anywhere near a competent, or even, humane way. We feel like we are treated as vassals to unrestrained capitalism and war. Even California's federal contingent that are sent to DC are a club of millionaires who have lost touch with California and the average Californian. How else are reps like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) and Nancy Pelosi (D) able to constantly vote for wars, war funding, and work to protect out of control US regimes and corporate interests?
While California is one of the leading economies in the world, there is still an appalling unemployment and homeless problem. Following the trajectory of the US, California's good, manufacturing jobs have fled for greener pastures and what's left for us: service jobs or the military. Californians send billions to the USG to support US military adventurism, and while we mostly don't support the wars, our young people and families pay the highest and irredeemable prices in war deaths, injuries, and the deepest cut: suicide.
If left in the Republic of California, what we here in the state could do with our human, natural, and financial resources, is almost limitless. Similarly, the potential of a free California to lead the world in peace, education (the wealthy state of California consistently rates in the bottom 10% in education in the US), meaningful and full-employment with good wages and benefits, sustainable energy production, clean agriculture, clean water, clean air, etc; unleashes what my colleague in the movement Tim Vollmer has called, the "sociological imagination."
There have been independence movements in California since before it was quickly absorbed by the USA (because of the discovery of massive amounts of gold) in 1850 and it is only a matter of time before we are again successful.
We, the patriots and matriots of Californian Independence not only want a healthier country to live in, we also feel that if California does become independent from the bloody US Empire, it will ultimately deal a death blow to that Empire. Without California, the US will have to scale back its sick habit of regime change/carnage around the world, or perish. I would rather have the US voluntarily follow California on a much more peaceful and sensible path for humanity, but if it perishes, that is fine, too. Anything to stop the Empire's reign of terror around the world.
This is in no way a rightwing "Free State of Jefferson" movement (CalSplit) that wants to add another state to a nation that has, beyond a shadow of any doubt, demonstrated its psychopathic tendencies. We don't advocate for an independent California to further separate the rich and the poor, but to retain the beautiful diverse nature of our state; and to elevate everyone in equality and prosperity (some people will have to de-elevate, but, that's only a matter of time, too).
However, this is also not a "liberal" initiative that only wants to skedaddle because Trump is the current CEO of Murder, Inc; only to return to again beg for scraps from our "master's" table when a Democrat assumes that position. This is an a-partisan effort that strives to leave the divisions of the US behind and join as Californians of all demographics to put the power and future of California back where it rightfully belongs: in our hands and in our communities.
I was honored to be asked to sign the "California Declaration of Independence," and the significance of this was not lost on any of us.
We are working hard for success and we all know that it will happen and it will be good for everyone (except the 1%, at first), but we wondered how did the signers of the Declaration of Independence feel on the sweltering day (it was also hot in Sacramento on 19 May) of 4 July, 1776? I am sure, like we, they were optimistic, excited, and a little fearful of what terror would be unleashed by the major Empire of that day.
Nothing can be achieved without people willing to take the risks of ridicule, demonization, marginalization, or worse. We won't become free until we demand freedom. As the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass stated in 1857, "power concedes nothing without a demand."
Some things are worth fighting for and the very future of sustainable life on this planet is the thing we are fighting for. If the USG cannot be stopped, then the rest of us will be.
Join us in this very worthy struggle!
California Freedom Coalition
"Russiagate" Conspiracy Theory: A Pretext to a Coup by Anthony Freda
I am not a supporter or defender of Trump, I Am a supporter and defender of Truth.
When political operatives in the Deep State collude with the discredited, but still oddly influential mainstream media to destroy someone, this dastardly duo cannot be stopped.
Even by arguably the most powerful person in the world.
The same intelligence agencies and media who lied us into the Iraq War now tell us the president is colluding with Russia.
There are plenty of reasons to resist Trump. His continuation of Obama's illegal spying campaign and Hillary's hawkish foreign policy are good places to start.
The "Trump-is-a-Russian-Stooge-and-Putin-Hacked-the-Election" conspiracy theory has been widely disproven as there has not been one iota of evidence to support the narrative.
The tall tale is a conjured, faux scandal designed to undermine the president's legitimacy (According to Julian Assange) and lay the pretext for impeachment.
The Machiavellian scheme is going brilliantly according to plan as the lies are repeated ad-nauseum to a gullible and receptive public.
In a feeding frenzy of vitriolic and politically motivated yellow journalism, the corporate fake news masters vomit up a daily menu of Russophobic and NeoMcarthyistic headlines written to misinform the populace and foster support for a coup.
It does not matter to the conspiracy theorists that Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) said publicly on May 4 that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has seen no evidence of collusion between Donald Trump's campaign aides and Russian officials, or that the former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on May 8 that he still has not seen any evidence of any kind of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian foreign nationals.
Putin himself recently addressed the increasingly volatile state of affairs in American politics, saying that pushers of the ‘Russian conspiracy theory' are either "stupid" or "dangerous and corrupt."
"You know what surprises me? Those who are destabilizing the internal US political situation using anti-Russian slogans either don't understand that they are bringing this nonsense in on their own side, and then they are just stupid, or else they understand everything, and then they are dangerous and corrupt people."
Trump clearly has enemies in his cabinet leaking to the press. I don't recall the MSM reporting any high-level private conversations of Obama or Hillary in the last eight years, and now it happens every day. They refused to report the misdeeds of Hillary revealed by Wikileaks and actively worked to obfuscate her sins.
The MSM ignores the facts that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were paid by Russia, or that Democratic National Committee computer expert Seth Rich was the one who leaked DNC emails, sending 44,000 DNC emails to Julian Assange at Wikileaks.
The idea that the Trump administration is colluding with Russia becomes even more absurd in light of the anti-Russian and even provocative stances and policies the president is advocating.
Is he strengthening the US military to help Russia?
Is he empowering the coal industry to help Russia?
Only profound cognitive dissonance can explain how one can conclude that he is working with Russia, but trying to destroy them at the same time.
Candidate Trump promised to pursue detente with the Kremlin and have a less adversarial relationship with Putin than Hillary Clinton, who compared Vladimir to Hitler.
I wish Trump kept his promise and took a more diplomatic stance with Russia to avoid the whole pesky nuclear Armageddon that the Russophobes seem to be cheering for.
Inverted reality seems to be what the public yearn for in the age of fake news.
The media and Deep State may just have their dream of impeaching and deposing Trump come true. What comes next is hard to predict.
Civil War II? Impeachment of the next dirty Russian traitor, President Penceski!!??
(I hear he likes Russian Dressing)
#CalExit May 19th March in Sacramento
March on the Capitol - May 19th!
TWO days to go...
Volunteers are geared up, T-Shirts look awesome, the initiative is complete. We are ready to go!
If you plan on attending the event, please join us for a conference call this evening (Wed May 17). Reach out to calfreeco@gmail.com for more details.
Join us along with internationally known peace activist Cindy Sheehan as we file a new California Independence initiative with the state. The CFC will be hosting a lunch at 12:00p on May 19th at the State Capitol park. All are welcome to join.
We will be in the Park, near the Fish Pond, across the street from Starbucks at the corner of 12th and L streets.
RSVP and follow the event on Facebook for more information:
The CFC has announced full support of California HB 562 Single Payer Healthcare for all. We hope to march in solidarity on May 19th with Healthy California and the California Nurses Association.
For more information, including transportation options to/from Sacramento, please contact: Steve Gonzales calfreeco@gmail.com.
CaliforniaFreedomCoalition.com
Posted by Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox at 10:18:00 PM
DNC Staffer Murder Cover-Up by Anthony Freda
Julian Assange has suggested before, it was not the Russians who leaked verified email evidence of DNC malfeasance, it was staffer Seth Rich.You know, the same guy who also just happened to be murdered soon after Wikileaks published the damning information.
Now there is evidence that Rich was in contact with Wikileaks.
During a subsequent television interview in August, Wikileaks Julian Assange appeared to confirm that Rich was the source for the DNC leak, dismantling the claim that Russia was responsible for the leak.
Rod Wheeler, a private investigator hired by the Rich family, has now stated that Rich’s laptop contains proof that he was in contact with WIkileaks before his death and that DC Police were ordered to cover it up.
“I have a source inside the police department that has looked at me straight in the eye and said, ‘Rod, we were told to stand down on this case and I can’t share any information with you.’ Now, that is highly unusual for a murder investigation, especially from a police department,” said Wheeler.
Rich was murdered in a posh area of Washington DC on June 8 last year but the killers did not steal anything from the victim, making the police’s explanation that the incident was a robbery and murder doubtful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4ThaTgH6V8
In an apparent attempt to distract from this powerful news, The Washington Post published a dubious story on President Trump leaking classified information to the Russians less than an hour after the bombshell news broke that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was in contact with Wikileaks and that DC Police were ordered to cover it up.
ROL, USA NEWSLETTER #102 (MAY-JUNE 2017)
NEWSLETTER #102
(CLICK ABOVE IMAGE TO READ)
INCLUDED ARTICLES:
Commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution: The October Revolution and the Working Class of Russia and the World Achieve Unprecedented Victories: Part 2 of 2 Part Series by RAY LIGHT
Outrage at the World’s Number #1 Terrorist by CARL PAPPOS and PAT KELLY
REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZATION OF LABOR,USA (ROL,USA) AND CINDY SHEEHAN'S SOAPBOX DENOUNCE AND CONDEMN PRESIDENT TRUMP'S CRIMINAL MISSILE ATTACK ON THE SOVEREIGN STATE OF SYRIA
USA: Hands off California (SOAPBOX PODCAST 5/15/17)
Tim Vollmer
Shankar Singam
California Independence Movement
#CalExit
March to the Capitol on May 19th!
The original Calexit petition (16-0011) was withdrawn on April 17th.
A new initiative will be filed on May 19th.
The California Freedom Coalition (CFC) is fully behind this new initiative.
Cindy Sheehan (the famous activist who directly challenged George W Bush) has joined the CFC Board of Directors.
12:00p Meet for a CFC hosted lunch at the State Capitol Park (exact location TBD)
Press and other activists will be invited.
2:30p We march to the AG office 1300 I St, Sacramento, CA 95814
3:00p File the initiative
Possibly more press interviews
5:00p Join Nurses March
We are going to march to the California Attorney General's Office to refile the petition and we are hoping you will join us.
We need to show them how serious we are about re-gaining our full franchise and voting rights!
The CFC is announcing full support of California HB 562 Single Payer Healthcare for all. We hope to march in solidarity on May 19th with Healthy California and the California Nurses Association.
Follow the event on Facebook for more information:
For more information, including transportation options to/from Sacramento, please contact: Steve Gonzales calfreeco@gmail.com
Cindy Sheehan Gives a Memorial Day Speech at her S...
Speaking Truth to Empire w/Dan Yaseen (May 2017 Ed...
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A Critical Media Analysis of “Friends” Essay
In the 1990s there was a resurgence of the “all-American sitcom”. Situation comedies have been a popular form of television since the media was developed. They are characterized by two camera shots, singular sets that are only viewed from a few angles and a cast of (hopefully) hilarious characters. In the 1990s popular sitcoms included: Friends, Drew Carey Show and Seinfeld. These were all popular American television programs portraying America. But portraying what vision of America? Look at the cast of Friends: Ross, Chandler, Joey, Rachel Monica, and Phoebe: all white characters.
Why don’t these characters have any minority “friends”? What happened to programs such as the Cosby Show or the Fresh Prince? Why were (and why are) all-white television shows so popular in America and what happened to minority-based shows? Today’s television depicts popular white America while leaving out minorities. The lack of ethnicity on television shows, such as Friends, gives America an inaccurate idea about minorities. Americans live in a society where ethnicity is frequently depicted as sinful.
People are not shocked to see minorities being arrested or convicted on the news. Frequent viewings of the “news magazine” Dateline reveals a pattern of African-American and Mexican men being labeled as murderers. What would be the public’s reaction if they went to watch television and saw six minority “friends” on a show just after watching an all-white neighborhood rioting on a news program? Friends reinforces the humorous “all-American” lifestyle. Six white, unmarried, young Americans live together and grow their relationships with one another.
The cast poses all the qualities that people enjoy. Number one, the characters are all beautiful or handsome. Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, and Lisa Kudrow are all irresistible female actresses while Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, and Matt LeBlanc are all good-looking actors. They all fit into the mainstream glamour of today’s media. People look up to and imitate popular actors and actresses as these. Remember the rush to copy Jennifer Aniston’s haircut? People frequently quote Matt LeBlanc’s character Joey: “How you doin’? Viewers revel in the romantic relationships of these characters, longing for Rachel to chase down Ross at the airport; longing for someone to chase them down at the airport. Television shows like Friends create a sort of dream-world, or alternate reality, that viewers long to escape to and copy in their own lives. The biggest issue with viewers trying to copy the world of Friends is that this show is incredibly white. The group of “friends” are never seen with any minorities. They hang out at a cafe/bar in a large city.
On occasion, if you pay close attention, you just might see an African-American or Mexican -American in the background. In one episode Joey has a part in a play. When the scene was over I had counted three minorities’ heads in the background, while I didn’t have enough time to count the crowd of whites. In the same episode, Rachel finds a new boyfriend (guest Ben Stiller) who is also white. Thus, all relationships portrayed on Friends are of white couples. This strongly reinforces the immorality of interracial relationships.
People in society today do not see a homogenous portrayal of all-white society as they walk down a city block. Near the end of the series, Ross did begin a relationship with a fellow scientist, an African-American woman. The relationship was comedic and short-lived. While this is a step toward including minority characters on an all-white show, it should be seen as an exception and not true inclusion. This is not to say that the prominence of all-white sitcoms meant there were no sitcoms representing minorities. Several smaller broadcast stations and cable stations in the 1990s featured sitcoms with all-black casts.
While these shows were championed by many critics and viewers alike, this is just another form of segregation. On one station at 8pm a viewer can see an all-white show, and on another station at 8pm the viewer can see an all-black show. What is missing is the integrated sitcom. Friends was popular because the cast was funny, pretty and relatively successful. Even if some of the characters did not have powerful, high-paying jobs, they lived like they did. Is it realistic for a struggling actor or coffeehouse server to live in large, Manhattan apartments?
No, but the viewer doesn’t apply that type of logic to the show. Instead, the viewer just processes the nice apartment, funny and beautiful group of friends. These descriptions are then associated with white people. While white people have always had prosperity and superiority applied to their characters throughout American history, Friends simply reinforces this, it does not redefine it. However, a critical viewer should look at this role of Friends and expect more from a popular show in the 1990s. Remember the saying “it’s the 90s”?
That very phrase was meant to prove how forward-thinking, liberal and progressive the era was. Yet the television shows proved otherwise. As a viewer of popular American television, I myself have come to the conclusion that these shows impact the viewers directly and indirectly. We copy the clothing and hairstyles we see. We internalize the preference of being white. We copy the catch phrases. We internalize the idea that white people hang out with white people on powerhouse NBC and that black people hang out with black people on the weakling CW.
Television’s functional role is to play what the public wants to see, and ratings tell the stations what they want to see. However, television also reinforces values and interprets them. Viewers will have the value of white people hanging out with white people reinforced, while minorities stay hidden. With this one can come to the conclusion that television displays a lack of ethnicity. Americans of all races can have an unjust idea about ethnicity and how races interact with each other.
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IndiGo announces furlough for senior employees for three months starting May
IndiGo's CEO, Ronojoy Dutta ensures that level A employees, who form a majority of its workforce wouldn't be impacted.
In addition, given the gradual buildup of capacity, I am afraid we have to take the additional painful step of implementing a limited, graded leave without pay program for the months of May, June, and July, wrote Indigo CEO to the staff members.
India's major airline, IndiGo on Friday announced a 'leave without pay' doe senior employees from May to July, 2020.
“While we had paid employee salaries in full for the months of March and April, I am afraid that we are left with no option but to implement the originally announced pay-cuts from the month of May 2020,” CEO Ronojoy Dutta writes to staff in a letter.
“In addition, given the gradual buildup of capacity, I am afraid we have to take the additional painful step of implementing a limited, graded leave without pay program for the months of May, June, and July,” he added.
This announcement comes after the airline had rolled back a proposed salary cut last month. "This leave without pay will range from 1.5 days to 5 days depending on the employee group. While doing so, we will make sure that Level A employees, who form a majority of our workforce will not be impacted," he said.
Aviation is one of the most impacted sectors amidst the COVID-19 led lockdown. Other airlines like GoAir on Thursday extended its leave without pay program for employees till May end.
Indian airlines have not generated any revenue since March 24, when the lockdown was announced, as all flights were suspended. According to Crisil, domestic airlines are expected to lose ₹17,000 crore this fiscal year.
On March 19, Dutta had announced, "I am personally taking a 25 per cent pay cut, SVPs (senior vice presidents) and above are taking 20 per cent, VPs (vice presidents) and cockpit crew are taking a 15 per cent pay cut, AVPs (assistant vice presidents), Bands D along with cabin crew will take 10 per cent and Band Cs five per cent."
Ronojoy Dutta
pay cuts
leave without pay
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View: RBI and the art of managing conflicts amid Das' easy monetary policies for 2021
The phrase 'stretched valuations of financial assets’ is euphemism for 'asset price bubbles’ because no central banker can afford to utter the `B’ word and be crucified for eroding the wealth of the masses, although the majority of the population is untouched by the paper wealth.
MC Govardhana Rangan
Mumbai: Shaktikanta Das is no Alan Greenspan.
In 2002, the legendary former Fed chair said: ``It was very difficult to definitively identify a bubble until after the fact – that is, when its bursting confirmed its existence.’’
Come 2021, this is what the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das had to say: ``The disconnect between certain segments of financial markets and the real economy has been accentuating in recent times. Stretched valuations of financial assets pose risks to financial stability.’’
After a record rally in financial assets in the past 10 months, some are beginning to wonder as to what’s happening. The latest Financial Stability Report of the RBI brings to fore the inherent conflicts in the economy and what the RBI itself is doing. Simply, policy makers are caught between the devil and the deep sea.
Governor Das’ worry about financial asset valuation, expressed for the third time in the past few months, is in a way caused by the incessant running of printing presses across the world. The only panacea central banks have for every crisis since the Long Term Capital Management blow up in the '90s when Greenspan was the Fed Chairman is to slash rates and flood the market with cash. When the pandemic struck, the playbook was the same.
Greenspan’s bubbles is the new norm. As he was blamed for sowing seeds of asset price bubbles, central bankers now are sowing seeds of financial instability.
“Congenial liquidity and financing conditions have shored up the financial parameters of banks, but it is recognised that the available accounting numbers obscure a true recognition of stress,’’ warns Das. It is also a fact that RBI decides rates and liquidity.
While bond traders and borrowers celebrate the ever falling interest rates, bankers like Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, and the Bank For International Settlements have warned of the risks of running banks at ultra-low interest rates where depositors are punished and banks’ profitability is squeezed.
The FSR’s admission that banks numbers do not reflect the true picture should worry. But the contrast as well as the unpredictability comes up when it simultaneously states that the `worst is behind us’ and `the recovery path remains uncertain.’
There are enough caveats in the report to show that neither the economy nor the financial system is out of the woods. Although the importance of financial stability has been put forth, the likely increase in bad loans due to extreme stress raises questions on whether the market is factoring in adverse outcomes.
To be sure, the methodology has been changed from applying 3 Standard Deviation in the July test to assess extreme stress to 2 Standard Deviation in the current one, which has been the practice.
Latest stress tests using 2 Standard Deviation indicate bad loans could surge to 14.8 percent by September 2021, which was forecast to be 14.7 percent for March 2021 under 3 Standard Deviation. This exhibits the difficulties in assessing the impact of the pandemic triggered wall of liquidity and the moratorium.
The adverse scenarios used in the macro stress tests were stringent conservative assessments under hypothetical adverse economic conditions so the model outcomes do not amount to forecasts, the report said.
One of the adverse fallouts of excess liquidity and low rates is investors beginning to `chase the yields.’ When credit markets froze after the implosion of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., non-banking finance companies blamed the mutual funds, which in turn blamed enormous inflows post demonetisatiion. The FSR shows how investors are running to money market mutual funds when deposit rates began to slide, taking their share to 39 percent of total assets of debt funds.
Something unusual happened during the pandemic when the debt market was in a tug-of-war with the RBI, forcing the Governor to call for a `competitive’ market and not a `combative’ one.
The record low rates for government borrowing may have helped government and traders, but the risk is building up in banks’ bond portfolios. When rates turn there could be a demand for another round of forbearance on mark-to-market provisions.
Though Greenspan is remembered for his assessment on how central banks can’t identify asset price bubbles, the fact remains that he did so with his `irrational exuberance’ comment in 1996, but his folly was not pricking the bubble.
Das last week took a baby step in normalization of liquidity operations to pull up overnight interest rates to his desired levels. The Monetary Policy Committee has affirmed easy monetary policies through 2021 to sustain growth revival. But given the FSR warning, would Das taper his easy policies?
The jury is out on that.
Shaktikanta Das
IL&FS
Demonetisatiion
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Technology news for Kiwi CFOs and financial decision-makers
Hitachi vows to improve DX in Asia’s real estate sector
Hitachi is committed to work alongside Asia property management firm Frasers Property to drive digital transformation within the real estate industry in Asia Pacific.
Each firm will invest up to S$50 million to develop the industry; of which the addressable market could reach US$82 billion by 2025, according to Hitachi’s own research.
The two companies will explore opportunities to help accelerate digital transformation for the Frasers Property Group and the real estate industry, starting with Singapore, Thailand and Australia.
The two companies could also potentially co-develop and invest in new services designed to better the real estate industry.
“We are excited to collaborate with Frasers Property and work with a partner who shares our belief in contributing to a sustainable society,” says Hitachi APAC vice president and CEO of in charge of regional strategies, Kojin Nakakita.
“Through Hitachi’s Social Innovation Business, we will draw on our operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) expertise to jointly develop new go-to-market solutions and improve the lives of people and happiness with Frasers Property.”
The companies explain that they hold a common belief that digital transformation and technology will driver future business operating models.
The technical and commercial teams in Hitachi Asia, the Frasers Property Group and Japanese financial institutions have been working closely to develop a new multi-generational approach to provide technology and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution for the real estate industry.
“Both parties will draw upon their strengths and resources to jointly explore ways to future-proof Frasers Property Group’s current property portfolio in a sustainable manner,” the companies explain.
“This comes at the back of a project already initiated to look at the design of smart city services for facility management operational systems for the One Bangkok development, Thailand’s first fully integrated district that is built on people-centric principles and a focus on environmental sustainability and smart city living.”
Frasers Property group CEO Panote Sirivadhanabhakdi says, “The real estate industry is rapidly evolving. That means we must find ways to redefine the experiences of our customers.”
Frasers Property Group also aims to make cities more accessible, make it easier for customers to do business, as well as delight residents, hospitality guests and retail shoppers.
“Today’s announcement represents the first of many collaborations we are exploring to help accelerate digital transformation for Frasers Property. We are delighted to collaborate with Hitachi and to share our real estate and local market knowledge and networks.”
Digital transformation pressures drive big spike in global microservices adoption
Modern apps power innovation for APAC enterprises - VMware report
Hitachi Digital transformation / DX Real estate
Former Silver Peak, Symantec exec joins Quantum
Quantum Corp has announced the appointment of Rick Valentine as the company’s new senior vice president & chief customer officer, joining Quantum's executive leadership team. More
The acceleration highlights wide recognition that the world cannot afford the human and economic cost of another pandemic.More
Samsung Electronics names new Southeast Asia & Oceania boss
“I am pleased to return to Southeast Asia and Oceania, and lead one of the vibrant leading hubs for Samsung Electronics globally."More
Why effective ROI messaging is critical for driving sales and adoption
ROI-focused communications can help with the approval for unbudgeted purchases and give customers the ability to proceed with two competing projects instead of choosing between them, writes Gigamon CFO Dave Arkley.More
Gartner: The character traits CIOs will need to have in 2021
“CEOs are looking for executives who are capable of weathering crises."More
Organisations unprepared for IT needs of the future - IBM
Organisations are not prepared for the future IT needs of the business and nearly all are moving to advance their transition to cloud infrastructure.More
Mastercard ups the digital payments game with latest launch
Mastercard has launched its Cloud Tap on Phone payment technology, and the first live pilot of its Cloud Point of Sale acceptance technology.More
2021: the year of a boom in fintech payment innovations
As businesses across the globe assess how they will bounce back and upscale their capabilities, there will be opportunities for the acceleration and adoption of fintech innovation in the B2B space.More
The company will be enhancing their smart contract software to allow other organisations interested in launching their IEO using an easier way to create and modify their smart contracts without needing a programmer.More
Women in tech: Broken rung constrains progress
While the glass ceiling is cracking, the progress is constrained by a broken rung.More
Big data and analytics solutions to total $22.6 billion in APAC for 2020
The report further states that 74% of enterprises intend to maintain or increase investments in BDA solutions in 2021.More
Microservices-based applications rely on key-value or NoSQL databases - study
“The change of application architecture into microservices significantly impacts the data layer supporting these services."More
Kiwi tech sector grows, boosted by game development and local IT companies
“We are seeing sectors like the game developers growing exports at exponential rates, local IT companies working through the night helping other sectors rapidly become more digital."More
Blockpass and Chainlink team up to deliver new solution to blockchain ecosystem
The possibilities created by this are expansive and will entail multiple services for proving age, geography, and investor classification, amongst others, Blockpass states. More
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Home / Tuition & Costs / Team USA
Team USA athletes like Olympic silver medalist Alex Ferreira, can qualify for low, in-district tuition as they pursue their dreams. PC: Stephanie Stocking
Tuition Break For Team USA
Olympic and Paralympic athletes can receive in-district tuition
More than 60 Olympic and Paralympic athletes have attended Colorado Mountain College. To honor them and support future dreams, the college offers in-state tuition for those training on Team USA.
Once a Team USA athlete qualifies for in-state tuition at the college, they can then qualify for in-district tuition by residing within the district for a minimum of 32 days.
CMC’s in-district tuition runs from $85 to $125 per credit hour – among the most affordable tuition rates in the state. Out-of-state tuition at CMC runs from $466 to $506 per credit hour, so the savings can be significant for athletes who move to train in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
A bill passed by the Colorado General Assembly in 2017 allows colleges to offer in-state tuition to athletes training in Colorado with an elite program approved by the U.S. Olympic Committee. They will receive the in-state rate regardless of where they might otherwise have residency.
Elite Athlete In-State Tuition / How to Apply
If you are participating in a Colorado-based elite-level training program approved by the United States Olympic Committee and a National Governing Body of an Olympic, Paralympic, Pan American or Parapan American sport, you may be eligible to receive in-state tuition, regardless of your permanent residency.
To receive this classification:
Complete the Team USA In-State Tuition Athlete Verification Form icon name="file-pdf" class=" ered"]
Submit form to ACE.edu@usoc.org to obtain your NGB and USOC approval
Submit the signed form to the Admissions Office by the first day of class each term (see Academic Calendar)
New Team USA In-State Tuition Athlete Verification Forms must be signed each term
Megan Walther
Athlete Career Coach
ACE.edu@usoc.org
More about Team USA’s Athlete Career Education Program
“I think this [tuition plan] is really phenomenal. I’m glad to be at CMC. I’m just grateful.”
- Alex Ferreira, current CMC student, Olympic silver medalist and X Games gold medalist in men’s ski superpipe
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Expert Reviews for the Newest Albums
in Rock, Alternative, Hip-Hop, EDM, and More
Damaged Bug – Hubba Bubba
by Jon Hadusek
Thee Oh Sees have a new record called Drop coming out in April, but John Dwyer has insisted that its release will be followed by a hiatus for the band. It’s ostensibly so Dwyer can get situated in his new home in Los Angeles, as he left the hyper-gentrified San Francisco just as friend and contemporary Ty Segall did months prior. But even with Thee Oh Sees on hold, Dwyer isn’t one to rest his musical chops; rather, he installed a Tascam 388 in his house, picked up some drum sticks, plugged in some analog synths, and made something.
Hubba Bubba is Dwyer’s debut under the moniker Damaged Bug, and while its electro stylings are far from Thee Oh Sees, the songs share the same recognizable pulse and general craziness. While the shifting rotation of bandmates in the past likely meant a large stake in the direction of Thee Oh Sees, here he’s on his own, no one else there to filter ideas through. The resulting record is a collection of hit-and-miss pop experiments — fully formed songs sitting alongside demo-quality throwaways and psychedelic bleep-bloop Wurlitzer noodlings.
For about half of Hubba Bubba, Dwyer sings in a contrived post-punk monotone that subdues his vocal melodies and does his songs no benefit. On opener “Gloves for Garbage”, fuzzy chords tangle with a sugary synth line before everything upbeat and cheerful is muted by Dwyer, who comes in sounding groggy. “Rope Burn” and “Eggs at Night” follow suit, juxtaposing danceable backbeats with lazy croons. Even worse are the instrumental sections (“Catastrophobia”, “1-2 an Airplane”), which come off as indulgent filler.
Hubba Bubba hits a nice groove on its B-side, when Dwyer stops trying to be Kraftwerk and Suicide and actually sings. The ultra-catchy single “Photograph” and the rising crescendos of “Hot Swells” are fine pieces of songwriting — vibrant, psyched-out, and above all, memorable. Closer “Wasteland” is perhaps the strongest moment, as Dwyer takes the bass line from “Baba O’Riley” and cuts straight to the heart of that song with his own blunt, revised lyrics: “What am I here for? I have to know/ I see a wasteland outside of the door.” Here, the monotone vocals feel applied and give the song an added emotional weight.
Hubba Bubba is a record that realizes its potential as it plays, starting off unsure and wavering before closing with its best tracks, which sound confident and self-assured rather than anachronistic and forced. Dwyer’s always been one of those learn-on-the-job musicians who puts songwriting above technical proficiency, so it’s not surprising to hear some undeveloped, underwritten material on this first Damaged Bug release. But the inconsistency brings down the album as a whole and makes it a difficult front-to-back listen.
Essential Tracks: “Photograph”, “Wasteland”
Listen to “Mother of Dragons”, Big Boi’s contribution to the Game of Thrones mixtape
Album Review: Trust – Joyland
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You are here: Home / Government Contracting News / Pentagon one step closer to awarding new $11 billion health records deal
March 9, 2015 By AMK
Pentagon one step closer to awarding new $11 billion health records deal
The Defense Department has narrowed down the list of contenders vying for a chance to upgrade its health records system to the tune of up to $11 billion over ten years.
The Defense Department has narrowed down the contenders competing for its massive Healthcare Management System Modernization contract, potentially worth up to $11 billion over a decade.
According to a Feb. 19 presolicitation notice, DOD’s procurement team has established a “competitive range” for the DHMSM contract, leaving only bids from three teams remaining.
DHMSM Procurement Contracting Officer Matt Hudson confirmed to Nextgov the Pentagon has set a range that eliminates some teams; however, he could not confirm which “due to the sensitive nature of the acquisition process.”
However, multiple sources with knowledge of the competitive range confirm that three bidding teams — Computer Sciences Corp., partnered with HP and EHR developer Allscripts; Leidos and Accenture Federal; and IBM and Epic Systems — fall within the competitive range.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/02/pentagon-one-step-closer-awarding-new-11-billion-health-records-deal/105954/
Additional details also available at: www.nextgov.com/defense/2015/02/pentagon-narrows-down-battle-multibillion-dollar-health-records-contract/105906
Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: competitive range, DoD, health records
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What Do Dreams Really Mean?
Why do we dream what we dream?
Can you feel if someone is dreams about you?
Can dreams come true?
Do dreams reveal hidden truths?
Are bad dreams a sign?
What your dreams are telling you?
Is it true if you see someone in your dream they miss you?
Are dreams your subconscious?
Why do people appear in your dreams?
Do dreams last 7 seconds?
Why do we forget dreams?
What does it mean when you dream about someone sexually?
Is it good or bad to see snake in dream?
Can blind people dream?
Dreams appear to be influenced by our waking lives in many ways.
Theories about why we dream include those that suggest dreaming is a means by which the brain processes emotions, stimuli, memories, and information that’s been absorbed throughout the waking day..
Dream Contact Their thoughts regarding you might be strong enough to transmit to you and manifest in a visual form when you dream. Your dreams may show you what they are thinking, or what kind of vibe their thoughts have; much of the time, however, a dream with someone in it doesn’t give you a lot of detail.
Some experts suggest that dreams may include events that a person has not necessarily thought through while awake. … However, some dreams come true without any intervention or “post-dream” action that could have been controlled by the dreamer or anyone who knew the content of the dream.
Consistent throughout the study is the thread that dreams do play a role in the waking lives of most people. They come from within and, thus, contain “hidden truths” that could be useful in real life, or so most of us believe. The researchers end their report by cautioning that dreams can cause a bit of mischief.
Violent dreams can be a warning sign As if nightmares weren’t bad enough, a rare sleep disorder — called REM sleep behavior disorder — causes people to act out their dreams, sometimes with violent thrashes, kicks and screams.
We have access to very deep knowledge in there, and we’re sleeping through it most of the time. Dreams tell you what you really know about something, what you really feel. They point you toward what you need for growth, integration, expression, and the health of your relationships to person, place and thing.
Dreams really only tell you about one particular person – you. That you have thought about that person in your dreams means something to your unconscious mind, and usually thinking about it for a couple minutes will give you the reason(s) why. … It is more likely that you miss the person you were dreaming about.
Dreams are just electrical impulses occur in our brain that taps into random images from our subconscious mind. Meaning, sometimes our dreams are nothing but random images, and other times, it is our subconscious mind trying to share with us something.
People and Characters in Our Dreams as Symbols Most of the time, the people in our dreams are actually symbols. They can be symbols for a specific thing or even our own emotions. Dream Examples: Dreaming of a distant cousin may symbolize feeling distant in situations in life.
The length of a dream can vary; they may last for a few seconds, or approximately 20–30 minutes. … The average person has three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven; however, most dreams are immediately or quickly forgotten. Dreams tend to last longer as the night progresses.
WE FORGET almost all dreams soon after waking up. Our forgetfulness is generally attributed to neurochemical conditions in the brain that occur during REM sleep, a phase of sleep characterized by rapid eye movements and dreaming. … The dreaming/reverie end involves some of the most creative and “far out” material.
“Dreaming, in general, reflects the person’s waking states, concerns, worries, desires, etc. … An individual who desires someone who is ‘off limits’ may experience sexual dreams about that person because it’s the brain’s way of experimenting with the idea without actually following through with it.”
According to professional dream analyst and author Lauri Quinn Loewenberg, snakes — a common dream archetype — typically represent a person in the dreamer’s life who exhibits low, dirty, toxic, or poisonous behavior. However, they can also represent something related to health or healing.
People who were born blind have no understanding of how to see in their waking lives, so they can’t see in their dreams. But most blind people lose their sight later in life and can dream visually. Danish research in 2014 found that as time passes, a blind person is less likely to dream in pictures.
Quick Answer: Was Noah’S Ark Found?
When was Noah’s Ark? Many attempts have been
Is There A Spray To Get Rid Of Rats?
Will Apple cider vinegar keep rats away? An apple cider
Question: Do You Say Philippines Or The Philippines?
What is the most dangerous city in the Philippines?
Do Protestants Believe In Purgatory?
What are the 7 levels of purgatory? Seven terraces
Quick Answer: What Are The Best Companies To Work For In The Philippines?
What is the best company in the Philippines?
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Belief 1
Mathematics 1[remove]
Non-Reductionist theory 1[remove]
Physics 1[remove]
University of Notre Dame Press 1
Language: English remove × Subject: Mathematics remove × Subject: Non-Reductionist theory remove × Subject: Physics remove ×
The Myth of Religious Neutrality, Revised Edition: An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Belief in Theories
Roy A. Clouser
Reductionism, Science--Theory reduction, Philosophy and religion, Theory (Philosophy), Religion and science
Written for undergraduates, the educated layperson, and scholars in fields other than philosophy, The Myth of Religious Neutrality offers a radical reinterpretation of the general relations between religion, science, and philosophy. This new edition has been completely revised and updated by the author.
© University of Notre Dame
Copyright for most content is held by The University of Notre Dame. Reproduction of all or any portion of content constitutes a violation of copyright. You must …
Non-Reductionist theory, Philosophy, Ethics, Psychology, Theory, Physics, Belief, Religion, Mathematics
University of Notre Dame Press
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Contested election worries as voters head to polls
An “I Voted” sticker on Ogdensburg, N.Y. resident Yvonne Griffith’s jacket on Nov. 8, 2016. Staff photo.
By Maggie Parkhill
OGDENSBURG, N.Y. — With Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton expected by most national polls to win Tuesday’s presidential election, concerns that Donald Trump or his supporters may not accept the election result are fresh in the minds of voters.
“We just hope there’s no backlash,” said Yvonne Griffith, a resident of Ogdensburg, outside a polling station on Ford St. after she voted in the morning with her husband.
Ogdensburg resident Yvonne Griffith, with her husband Richard, outside a polling station on Nov. 8, 2016. Staff photo.
Wearing an “I VOTED” sticker, Griffith said she is happy the election is finally ending, adding that it has been a long campaign with negativity on both sides.
“We hope that everyone accepts the results, and that there aren’t any problems,” said Richard Griffith, her husband.
Trump has said he may not accept election results if he loses, hinting that he feels the election has been rigged against him. Trump has asked voters to watch for instances of voter fraud at polling stations.
A Republican election official said things have been going smoothly at the Ford St. polling station, with no signs of violence.
“They’re playing nice,” said Bob Long, a retired counsellor and a registered Republican, of the voters coming there.
But Long said he’s not ruling out the potential for violence after the results come in.
“No matter who wins, in the next two months you might have disturbances,” he said. “People are that ticked off about it.”
Featured, Ogdensburg, Polling Stations
Maggie Parkhill
← How the American Electoral College works
Podcast: Morning update →
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Home › Homelessness and mental health
Homelessness and mental health
Resisting psychiatry
Community-based organizations
Angela Browne
Vol 11, No.2
This article illustrates self-help alternatives for psychiatric survivors. Discuses implications of a medical model which perpetuates negative values and stereotypes about psychiatric survivors.
http://www.cwhn.ca/sites/default/files/PDF/Healthsharing/1990_Healthsharing_Vol_11_No_2_Spring.pdf
Aboriginal women’s initiative: women’s wellness journey manual
Aboriginal women
Aboriginal women and homelessness
Homeless women and health
Women and racism
Translated Title:
L’Initiative pour les femmes autochtones : manuel du cheminement pour le mieux-être des femmes
Northern Ontario Women’s Services Outreach and Partnership Enhancement (NOWSOPE)
YWCA Sudbury & YWCA Canada
A manual for agencies, groups, or individuals interested in hosting a Women‘s Wellness Journey for Aboriginal women. Developed in consultation with Aboriginal women and using the seven Grandfather teachings, the Journey addresses the specific needs of Aboriginal women who are homeless and experiencing other challenges, such as mental health issues and addictions.
YWCA Canada
Order Information:
Available online.
http://ywcacanada.ca/data/publications/00000054.pdf
http://ywcacanada.ca/en/publications
Winnipeg street health report 2011
Homeless people and health
Women and homelessness
Suzanne Gessler
Christina Maes
Main Street Project
Presents the results of a 2010 survey on the physical and mental health status of 300 homeless people in Winnipeg. Found that women have quite different health care needs than men. For example, 15% had given birth while homeless, almost half of the women were victims of sexual assault, and 25% of the women had not had a Pap test in three years.
http://mainstreetproject.ca/winnipeg-street-health-report.pdf
Supportive housing needs of women with mental health issues
Housing and mental health
Women and housing
Social Policy Research Unit (University of Regina) and the Regina YWCA
Regina, SK.
Examines the supportive housing needs of women with mental health issues who do not easily fit into many of the existing programs.
http://intraspec.ca/ReginaWomenHousing_Kowalchuk.pdf
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Daily History Reader
DailyHistory.org
Home › French History › The Quasi-War between France and the United States
The Quasi-War between France and the United States
By Sandvick on July 3, 2019 • ( 0 )
Battle between L’Insurgante and the USS Constellation during the Quasi-War. The Constellation won the battle and captured L’Insurgante.
The XYZ Affair was a diplomatic incident between French and United States diplomats that resulted in a limited, undeclared war known as the Quasi-War. U.S. and French negotiators restored peace with the Convention of 1800, also known as the Treaty of Mortefontaine.
In the late 1700s, the final French Revolutionary government, the Directory, was experiencing problems financing its European wars. Many leaders were also angry that the United States had concluded the Jay Treaty with Great Britain in 1794. Consequently, in 1796 French leaders decided to issue an order allowing for the seizure of American merchant ships, carefully timed to catch as many as possible by surprise.
US diplomats respond to French Piracy
President John Adams dispatched three U.S. envoys to restore harmony between the United States and France—Elbridge Gerry, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and John Marshall. These commissioners, like others of the Adams administration, viewed France as a center of decadence and intrigue and the rampant intrigue and factions of the Directory made it difficult for the Americans to accomplish their mission.
Read the rest of the article at DailyHistory.org
‹ The United States and the Suez Crisis in 1956
The Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation ›
Categories: French History, United States History
Tags: History of the Early Republic
How did the Bubonic Plague make the Italian Renaissance possible?
The Consequences of Yellow Journalism
What were the social factors that led to the Renaissance in Italy?
How did the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588) change England?
Death on the Kansas Prairie
How did World War II Lead to the Cold War?
Third Wave Feminism
How a Reporter Uncovered the FBI’s Secret Use of a Famous Photographer to Infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement
The Iraq War and the Inevitability of Ignorance
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The Deterioration of US/Japanese Relations at the turn of the 20th Century
Did the Volga German Colonies Vanish?
Robinson Crusoe – Historical person?
Playgrounds through the Years
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The British and the American navies on the Great Lakes were eliminated. Why?
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Beyond The Booth 019: Davide Squillace, the art collector
by: Christina Hernandez Feb 15, 2019
Beyond the Booth is a feature dedicated to the hidden side of artists that exists outside electronic music— a side rarely discussed with those outside their immediate circle. We venture “beyond the booth,” so to speak, and dive into their deepest passions that tie into their unique personalities. After some self-introspection, each participant then returns to the booth, providing an exclusive mix for the Dancing Astronaut audience.
For the better half of two decades, Davide Squillace has served as a groundbreaker in the house world, building a longstanding reputation for his fierce dedication to the scene and in bringing electricity into each of his sets. His residency at Circoloco over the past 12 years and multiple appearances at notable venues and festivals like Ushaia, Watergate, BPM, and Epizode festivals have driven in his reputation as a DJ and producer who continually pushes his boundaries in the ways he performs and creates music. Crosstown Rebels recently hosted his long sought-after Once Upon A Time in Napoli album, which was praised for its clean production and club appeal. Now, he’s pushing his boundaries further as part of a new electronica supergroup Better Lost Than Stupid alongside his colleagues Matthias Tanzmann and Martin Buttrich.
Squillace certainly has quite the packed musical schedule; that said, he remains committed his other love of visual art outside the studio. A connoisseur of haute art, the producer can be considered a collector by now, and even launched his Blended series as a way to combine his two passions into one. Curious to dig deeper into the other side of his artistry, we invited him onto Beyond The Booth for a discussion on fine art and current goings-on. He also crafted a special house mix for us to enjoy on the side.
Which love came first – art or music?
Actually I consider art as a whole and music as form of art. As sapiens we have always needed music to dance to, images to refer to. We are constantly creating content for our very demanding persona.
How did you get into the fine arts arena, and when did you start becoming serious about curation?
My grandfather was an art collector and so I have always been inspired by my surroundings. In my grandma house as well as there were pieces of art in different forms everywhere, it was maybe a natural process. I’ve never even thought about myself as a curator, but apparently here we are trying to give a meaning to ideas.
Which era of art is your favourite? – ie, impressionism, modernism, etc….
I love the avant-garde of the 20th century including dadaism, futurism, pop art of the 60s but also conceptual contemporary arts.
Is there also a preferred region of the world with your favourite art, aside from your home of Italy? Such as East Asia, Europe, America, etc. Why are you drawn to art coming from this place the most?
I think art from the Anglo-Saxon world. Modern and contemporary art from America and England but I also love the minimal aesthetics from Japanese culture. Modern and Ancient.
On that note, tell us a bit about the first piece of art that you ever bought. What did it look like, and what drew you to buying it?
Guido Schlinkler. Its a bomb shaped sculpture with razors all around.
Now tell us about the piece of art you’ve collected that you’re most proud of, and the journey it took to procure it!
A piece by Fabian Marti. It’s quite a funny story as I bought it from Giangi Fonti Gallery and it arrived with what I thought it was an imperfection on the installation, and I was like FUCK….it happens that was exactly the way the artist decided to install it.
You’ve planted yourself firmly in the art space thanks to your Blender event series. What sparked inspiration to explore the 3D medium? And what were some key components that got this project off the ground?
I have always wanted to create something from the events where I have been playing. I have always dreamt to be able and transform people’s emotions into art. My music, clubbers response and technology would have created the Blender art series. Originally we set up a collaboration with Belgian artist Fredeick De Wilde that is a master in producing data driven art. Then we created a software that was able to read audience data and use it live and interactively in order to output some sculptural forms. Later we had printed the resulting shapes with 3D prints. Today I wouldn’t do the same for Blender. The beauty of the projects is in fact its “blending” quality.
Are you planning to expand upon the Blender series in any type of way, or further explore the use of 3D technologies in your shows?
It is a possibility! Yes, But we are considering to work with the clubbers experience as such rather then develop my very own idea of visual arts.
Tags: art, Better Lost Than Stupid, beyond the booth, collector, Davide Squillace, Exclusive Mix, fine art
Categories: Features, Music
Dzeko dishes out unremitting heat in exclusive mix for Dancing Astronaut [Q&A]
You’ve heard of a school for ants, now get ready for a record store for mice—Ricotta Records
Berghain to temporarily re-open as art gallery for Berlin-based artists
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Brand Related
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Industry Trivia
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Tengzhong In Advanced Talks To Purchase Hummer
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Filed under: Brand Related
June 2, 2009.
Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co., Ltd (Tengzhong) and General Motors Corp. today confirmed details of their proposed transaction, pursuant to which, Tengzhong, a major industrial machinery group, will acquire the rights to the premium off-road Hummer brand, along with a senior management and operational team. It will also assume existing dealer agreements relating to Hummer's dealership network. It is contemplated that Tengzhong will, as part of the transaction, enter into a long-term contract assembly and key component and material supply agreement with GM. In an earlier statement, GM said it expects the deal if successful to secure more than 3,000 US jobs. The final terms of the deal are subject to final negotiations.
Sichuan Tengzhong logo.
Based in the Chinese province of Sichuan, Tengzhong is a privately-owned company and a leading domestic manufacturer of road, construction and energy industry equipment. It will expand into the premium off-road vehicle segment through what will be a strategic acquisition for Tengzhong and a catalyst for Hummer's growth in the U.S. and around the world.
"The Hummer brand is synonymous with adventure, freedom and exhilaration, and we plan to continue that heritage by investing in the business, allowing Hummer to innovate and grow in exciting new ways under the leadership and continuity of its current management team," said Yang Yi, CEO of Tengzhong. Mr. Yang continued, "We will be investing in the Hummer brand and its research and development capabilities, which will allow HUMMER to better meet demand for new products such as more fuel-efficient vehicles in the U.S."
Hummer will continue to maintain its headquarters and operations in the U.S., and will continue to be managed by its existing leadership team. The team intends to expand HUMMER's dealer network worldwide, particularly into new and underserved markets such as China.
"Today Hummer is a globally recognized brand with excellent growth prospects, both in terms of new markets and new products for our existing markets," said James Taylor, Hummer chief executive officer. "With Tengzhong's investment and strong support, we will be able to make our visions a reality. This transaction, if successful, will secure more than 3,000 U.S. jobs, and allow us to embark on a more aggressive global expansion, ensuring a successful future with our new partners."
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of this year and is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Financial terms of the agreement will not be disclosed at this time.
Credit Suisse is acting as exclusive financial advisor and Shearman & Stearling is acting as international legal counsel to Tengzhong on this transaction. Citi is acting as financial advisor to GM.
(source: GM)
Hummer related emblems
Hummer commercials
Hummer HX : 2008
Hummer H3T : 2004 350-horsepower, turbocharged version of GM''s new Vortec 3500 inline five-cylinder.
Hummer H4 : 2005 Beach Blanket Hummer.
Hummer H2 : 2003 (yes, I know it's big)
Hummer sale agreement reached Deal could secure more than 3,000 jobs
Sichuan Tengzhong China.
Sichuan Tengzhong is the new owner of Hummer
Sichuan Tengzhong withdraws its proposed acquisition of Hummer
Hummer Official site.
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CHELSEA/esque
A Blue World In Black And White
About CHELSEA/esque
CHELSEA/action
CHELSEA/faces
CHELSEA/heroes
CHELSEA/land
CHELSEA/shapes
Tales From Cloud Six
Posted on July 28, 2013 by Chris Axon
Chelsea vs. Queens Park Rangers : 29 April 2012.
I had been floating on clouds – or possibly way above the clouds – since Barcelona on Tuesday. It was now time to reconvene back at The Headquarters for the more prosaic game against our local neighbours and irritants Queens Park Rangers. I will waste no time in trying to excuse my lack of relative enthusiasm for this match; no amount of self-imposed hype would manage to lift this game up in my estimations. After Tottenham at Wembley and then a double dose of Barca Fever, this was decidedly hum drum.
For the second time this season, in fact, an encounter with QPR was making me feel a little anxious. I wasn’t concerned about our performance on the pitch. I was more concerned about the actions of a small but noisy fragment of our support who might – I did not doubt – spoil the day with some chants (well, one in particular) aimed at Anton Ferdinand.
You know which one.
I was hoping that our supporters would replicate the fine show of wholesome support for the team which we witnessed in the FA Cup game at Loftus Road. No silliness. No ammunition for the massed ranks of the Chelsea haters in the media to have a pop at us. I was hopeful. Or at least until I remembered the nasty shouts made by some of our supporters at Wembley during the Hillsborough silence.
I just hoped for our fans to show true support not only for the club but for John Terry, too. But without any bile or unpleasantness.
Throughout this season – and if I am truthful, before it began – I have sensed that this might be a season in which I might develop a different relationship with my club. I’m not sure why. Maybe the new manager. Maybe a season of treading water. Maybe a season in which my support might be tested. Maybe even a year in which I lose that desire. As much as these match reports have been a record of Chelsea’s successes and failures on the pitch this season, they have also possibly tried to demonstrate how sometimes my strength of support and feeling for the club has sometimes varied. I’ve also tried to think more objectively about what I get out of the match day experience. I’ve tried to push my boundaries. I’ve constantly asked questions of myself.
“Why do I want to drive to Norwich on a bleak winter day?”
“Why do some sections of our support rile me?”
“What is my relationship with the club?”
“Do I often get more fun out of the social side of football than the actual football?”
“What would I do if I lost that desire to go to games?”
I’ve stuck with it this season. It hasn’t always been easy. I’ve made mistakes along the way; maybe I came down on the wrong side of the AVB debate. Maybe I should have trusted the club more. Maybe I should have trusted the club less.
Questions. Questions.
Throughout it all, I’ve almost been expecting a cataclysmic event which might prompt me to take a step back and take a long look at it all; the obsession, the craziness, the support, the whole nine yards. Well, I needn’t have worried. The early season promise under AVB gave me hope. The CPO share offer galvanised our support and made me so proud to be a Chelsea supporter. I stuck with AVB and tried my very best to support him. I even tried to understand the forces at work within the camp which lead to a players’ revolt. It has been a crazy season but I’ve stuck with it.
And here we all are everyone. We are gasping from an incredible two week period, the like of which our football club has rarely seen before. Not only is this changing Chelsea team heading to Wembley for our fourth FA Cup Final in six seasons, but we are also heading to Munich for our second Champions League Final in five years.
It really is incredible.
Glenn collected me at 8.45am and was full of stories about local roads being flooded after the high rainfall and high winds which have battered this land of ours of late. Glenn collected Parky at 9.15am and we were London-bound. For the second successive Chelsea game, I was able to relax and have a few drinks before the game. Talk was of the two cup finals, but mainly of Munich. I get a deep warm glow just thinking about it. The traffic was atrocious nearing Hammersmith and Glenn wasn’t parked up until 11.45am. There was a sizeable line outside The Goose, awaiting the doors to open at midday. On the walk to the pub, a passing car had soaked us with water from a deep puddle in the road. I have no doubt the driver was a bitter Fulham fan. It was typical that my designated drinking day had coincided with only an hour’s worth of supping time. Oh well. After Tuesday, maybe it was just as well. Two lads from Bristol soon commented –
“You were pi55ed in Barcelona, weren’t ya?”
The whirlwind hour involved three pints of Peroni and a typically frantic period spent chatting to various mates. I chatted to Mike and Frank – my partners on that merry pre-match on Tuesday in Barcelona – and also several other NYBs. Some old friends, some new friends. Things were so rushed. It wasn’t as enjoyable as I had hoped due to the time constraints. I chatted briefly to my mates in The Bing and Munich was the centre of attention. Tell me if I am boring you. A few mates wryly commented that “we’re playing in the Cup Final in six days and yet everyone is talking about Munich.” In our parlance, there is still only one cup final that can rightly be called “the” Cup Final.
Alas, one friend was notable by his absence. On Saturday, Jesus had travelled back to his home on the Mexico / US border and he will be missed. He has enjoyed the time of his young life these past three months and I only wish he could have found a way to stay – and get tickets – for the two finals. I spoke to him on Friday and we planned to meet up at some juncture on the impending US Tour.
I left Parky at the bar to order “one last pint” and departed for The Bridge. The drizzle had continued but my main concern was getting in on time. At the bottom of the steps for the Matthew Harding Stand, the supporters were faced with a wait. Drat.
https://www.facebook.com/video/video…50846964697658
My watch was ticking. We had heard the last strains of “The Liquidator” and we then fell silent in the knowledge that we had missed the kick-off. It doesn’t happen very often.
Then, a roar out of nowhere and it was obvious that a goal had been scored. The noise, though, seemed relatively subdued and we all wondered if – horror! – the away fans were the ones celebrating. By the time I had reached my seat, I had heard the name “Sturridge” mentioned a few times and so I could relax. Phew.
Glenn was sat next to Alan and me again for the first time in ages and it felt right. I was keen to ask Alan if there had been any nonsense from Chelsea fans in the pre-game routines involving Anton Ferdinand. Thankfully, apart from a few schoolboy jeers, there was no racist stuff – implied or otherwise. Alan did say, though, that dear Anton made a point of jogging down to our corner and gesturing to the crowd. I guessed this was done to get a reaction, but nothing untoward apparently happened.
Top marks, Chelsea.
What then happened in that first half just typified our incredible self-confidence and joie de vivre at the present time. There had been talk in the pub of the derby with QPR being a massive let-down; the phrase “after the Lord Mayor’s Show” was used more than once. We couldn’t have been more wrong. What a goal fest in the rain. Fernando Torres loves the rain in April doesn’t he? He loves getting his socks grey with mud, he loves the puddles and he loves plundering goals against soon-to-be-relegated London rivals.
But first, a John Terry header, close in from a corner. John doesn’t miss from there. As he celebrated, running calmly towards us in the corner, he patted his chest and gestured to the adoring fans. I first took this to mean “calm down, don’t let the Anton Ferdinand stuff take over here” but it could just as easily have meant “so sorry for Barcelona – I can’t smile when I know I have let you down.” Maybe it was a mixture of the two.
And then, the Fernando Torres Show.
I was chatting to Alan about Munich (…sorry) during the sweet build up to our third goal. A sublime pass from Sturridge found an on-rushing Nando who adeptly rounded Paddy Kenny and slid the ball home. It was a super move and the crowd were in heaven. Soon after, an almighty faux-pas from Kenny presented Torres with a guilt-edged chance to score again. With a natural extension of his right leg, he whipped the ball into the net and we screamed once more. This time, The Kid celebrated down below…snap, snap, snap.
Chelsea 4 QPR 0 and only 25 minutes had been played.
The drizzle gave way to periods of sun…this was proving to be a lovely, lovely day.
At half-time, Neil Barnett paraded ex-Chelsea and Aston Villa player Kenny Swain to the four stands. Swain and I share something very special. On Saturday 16 march 1974, Ken Swain made his Chelsea debut as a substitute in the Newcastle United game. On that spring day over 38 years ago, I made my debut too. Swain was a good player for us, often playing upfront alongside Steve Finnieston in the 1976-1977 promotion campaign. He was latterly used at right back by Aston Villa, where he won back-to-back League Championship and European Cup medals. By the West Stand, Neil asked for all spectators to sit down and I wondered “where’s he going with this…” He announced that a Chelsea fan called Daniella from Ireland was on her hen party, dressed in a bridal gown, and asked her to stand up to receive some applause. She not only received some applause, but some choruses of “Celery” too.
As Neil led Ken Swain past the QPR fans, they typically shouted “Who are ya? Who are ya? Who are ya?” and Neil, for once, was on the money –
“He’s won the European Cup – and you don’t know who he is? I don’t know…”
In the second-half, it was just a party. A further Torres goal was the icing on Daniella’s Wedding Cake. A fantastic ball from Mata was played into space and Torres nimbly timed his run to beat the offside trap. His slow and studied finish was a classic Torres goal and reminded me so much of his many strikes in Liverpool red. His celebrations took him on a run down past the inhabitants of Parky Land in the south-west corner.
Alan pointed towards Torres and said :
“See that monkey running down the tunnel? He’s just hopped off of Torres’ back.”
“That same monkey could have got a place in Geoff Hurst’s team, Al.”
“Blimey. Don’t mention Danny Blanchflower. He would have been captain.”
I howled with laughter.
By now, some of the Rangers fans had gone back to each others’ sisters houses in Ealing and Greenford. It was time for the songs to be sung –
“Anton – what’s the score?”
“We’re going to Germany – you’re going to Barnsley.”
“Fcuk off – to the Championship.”
“He’s got bird 5hit – on his head.”
“One di Matteo.”
Frank came in for a little stick as he took a succession of second-half corners, but he just seemed to be laughing. QPR tried to annoy him by suggesting that Christine Bleakley exhibited equine characteristics.
What a load of pony.
This was a great Chelsea performance on an energy-sapping pitch. Full marks to Michael Essien, who put in his best performance for ages. Credit too, for Jose Bosingwa who has found a new lease of life at centre-back. Alan couldn’t resist a laugh though –
“It looks like he’s marking the centre-forward, but his positional sense is so bad, he’s actually marking the left winger.”
The appearance as substitute of Sam Hutchinson provided another good news story on an enjoyable day in the Chelsea story of this season.
The last Chelsea goal was pummelled home by Florent Malouda.
Cisse – he of the ridiculous hair cut – nabbed a consolation goal and we even sarcastically applauded it.
Another Chelsea win, another three goals for Fernando Torres, another Blue Day.
Next Up : Newcastle on Wednesday, Liverpool on Saturday, Liverpool on Wednesday, Blackburn on Saturday, Bayern on Saturday…five games to go. The end is in sight, but let’s relish these moments. I know I said all of these things two years ago, but these really are the times of our life.
Let’s enjoy every minute of them.
This entry was posted in Season 2011-2012. and tagged 2011-2012, Fernando Torres, John Terry, Kenny Swain, Queens Park Rangers, Sam Hutchinson by Chris Axon. Bookmark the permalink.
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Clearscapes
Amy Padnani Q&A with Amy Padnani
part of a series on Space
Raleigh host
Vaishali Patel
Mr. Schuster is a founding principal of Clearscapes, a multi-disciplinary design firm in downtown Raleigh. A significant focus of Clearscapes’ work has been the revitalization of important historic structures, along with museums, theaters, art centers across the State, and University buildings. Notable area projects include the Raleigh Convention Center, Marbles Kids Museum and IMAX Theater, Pine State Creamery on Glenwood South, Hudson on Fayetteville Street, and the Contemporary Art Museum in the Warehouse District. Under Steve’s guidance, Clearscapes has won over 50 local, regional, and national design awards and has been featured in over 100 publications.
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Moved to Raleigh in June and visited our first Creative Mornings in July. Great talk and gave us things to visit and look forward to in the city.
Anthony Price • Sep 9, 2013
Date Jul 26, 2013
2 Lovely Attendees
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Connecticut Critics Circle
In Support of Theater in Connecticut
CT Critics Circle Members
Killen Award
The Revisionist – Review by Bonnie Goldberg
If you earn your living composing poetry, penning prose or dispensing literature, experiencing a writer’s block can be a crippling concern. If your muse is gone and you’ve hit the wall, you might be desperate enough to try anything to coax the words back. If you are a young American man named David, you might pack a bag, hop a plane and seek the inspiration of a complete change of scenery in the company of a relative even if you haven’t see her in decades, That is what desperation can feel like.
West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park is encouraging you to climb into David’s head as you watch Jesse Eisenberg’s unusual journey “The Revisionist,” the New England premiere of a puzzling drama being offered until Sunday, April 29. Carl Howell’s David has a deadline to meet and he’s already six weeks late. He has rejected a cabin in the woods and writing retreats as possible solutions to his dilemma. He must revise a science fiction book he has written, “Mindreader,” that comments on society and the real world. An escape, to a cousin’s small apartment in Poland, seems to be the answer he seeks.
Cecilia Riddett’s Maria is ready to welcome David with open arms. A little sprite of a woman, she craves family and can’t wait to spoil him with a roasted chicken dinner (he’s a vegetarian), a tour of the city (he’s too busy) and stories about all the family portraits that grace her walls (he knows none of their shared relatives).
To say David is ungrateful, selfish and rude and unappreciative of her efforts is an understatement, yet Maria cheerfully keeps trying. She even invites her friend Zenon (Sebastian Buczyk) to come and help her in her desire to make David feel loved. For a lady who holds family so dear, Maria finds it hard to understand David’s apathy. She is delighted he has “come to bring blood back into the house,” and she is even kind to the telemarketers who continually call on the phone.
Sasha Bratt directs this intriguing encounter that reveals who the true revisionist is in the stories being told. For tickets ($25-40), call Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Road, West Hartford at 860-623-5900 ext 10 or online at www.PlayhouseOnPark.org. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
Upcoming events include a Play Reading on Tuesday, April 24 ($10), the 19th Annual Mayor’s Charity Ball on Saturday, May 12, a cool kids musical “Polkadots” May 12-20, a Comedy Night on Saturday, May 19 ($15) and a Young Professionals Night Out on Thursday, June 28 from 6-7 p.m. ($20) during the running of “In the Heights” (June 13-July 29).
You may find yourself revising the whole meaning of your family members after a visit with David and Maria and Zenon. A stiff glass of vodka may help.
© 2016 – 2020 Connecticut Critics Circle. All Rights Reserved.
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Contributed Content Member Voices
Studying Unformed Objects: The Provocation of a Compositional Mode
From the Series: Studying Unformed Objects
Photo by Carmen Jost, licensed under CC BY NC SA.
By Kathleen Stewart
Publication Information Expand
Cite As: Stewart, Kathleen. 2013. "Studying Unformed Objects: The Provocation of a Compositional Mode." Member Voices, Fieldsights, June 30. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/studying-unformed-objects-the-provocation-of-a-compositional-mode
A real is a tangle of elements thrown together in a radical composition. In nonrepresentational theory and new materialism, objects are lines of action and mood etched across the sensations, vibrations, movements, and intensities that comprise both experience and states of matter. The subject and the social, too, are part of the ongoing becoming of worlds written in whatever is emerging in circulations or resting in stone or the facades of strip malls.
A compositional writing worlds object-reals. It becomes a nimble associational register of connections and differences, materials and noumena, coagulations and diffusions in order to keep up with the distributed agencies of what’s throwing together and falling apart.
The social-material world as a composition is a world made of entities that are not simply present and knowable but prismatic, flickering, and gathered into lines, angles of light or motion, for people who are attuned to them, or identified with them, or hostile to their existence, or tired of them, or excited to see their outline on the horizon, or sharply excluded from them (Stewart 2010). The social and material are not mere actualities but infrastructures of affect, potentiality, energetics, attunement, orientation, and atmosphere (Stewart 2011).
An object, in such a world, is a compositional node. Take, for example, the way Sarah Messer (2005, 1) begins her eclectic ruminations on what she calls Red House: New England’s oldest continuously lived-in house, or so she says.
Before the highway, the oil slick, the outflow pipe; before the blizzard, the sea monster, the Girl Scout camp; before the nudist colony and flower farm; before the tidal wave broke the river’s mouth, salting the cedar forest; before the ironworks, tack factory, and the shoe-peg mill; before the landing where skinny-dipping white boys jumped through berry bushes; before hay-field, ferry, oyster bed; before Daniel Webster’s horses stood buried in their graves; before militiamen’s talk of separating; before Unitarians and Quakers, the shipyards and mills, the nineteen barns burned in the Indian raid – even then the Hatches had already built the Red House.
Here, Red House is a matter-form worlding landscape and event. A perspectival agency in which things jump into relation but remain unglued. Lines of contact radiate out from it in a prismatic structure of etchings and refrains. What comes into view is an ecology of paths in which any object or angle can be sent into a spin. History, here, literally accretes. Energies distribute across a field of subjects-objects-bodies-trajectories-affects.
The world according to Red House as a compositional node is the forms and forces of emergence and concrescence itself, of accrual and loss, of potentiality and its incomplete capture in the actuality of this and that. Red House, and everything it leans into, become phenomena lifted out of the realm of killed off things. Sarah Viking’s writing meets Red House’s registers of difference, singularity, motion and transduction like two parallel magical coloring books spreading qualities and scenes across a cartography. Its more-than-representationality veers off the critical track of tacking perception, context and cause onto an order of representations located nowhere in particular or in some paranoid hyper-place like the state or regional prejudice. What happens instead is the throwing together of the phenomena of wood and water, territory, mood, atmosphere, and sensory charge in the labor of a worlding.
People, rivers, time, and space pop with significance like the raised knap of corduroy or a paper doll cut out of a dreamworld. Representational things—things that were once named, perhaps written down, perhaps in some momentary consensus or, just as likely (to say the least) through some kind of trickery, manipulation, or accident, and then somehow metastasized into circulation—are raised, incised, made singular and charged, turned into an ether that reminds us of something or a weight like a diffuse headache induced by a shift in the barometric pressure. Their sensory/noumenal registers activate what Erin Manning (2011, 41) calls the more-than: “the ineffable amodality of experience that activates the contours of the event toward a moving, an encountering, a being-moved in a complex ecology of practice."
Space stretches out and pulls in as an immediate surround; time speeds and slows, simultaneously pausing on a still life and zooming through eras as if epochs were clouds casting shadows on the edifice of the shape-shifting house, like a realist film fast-forwarded through great arcs of history-in-itself or place-in-itself. The array of objects pulled into a legibility prompt curiosity and care about the potentialities in the things that happen, their resonances, habitations, and passing or enduring impacts.
What was it like when the white boys . . . when the horses . . . ? What was an Indian then, or a Unitarian, or a Hatch? What else happened here? Under what spell did things happen or half-happen or start to happen and fail? What is the river whose mouth was broken or the field then infused with marsh water? What are the river and the field doing now? What was it like when people and things gave up, or faltered, wore out, or started up again because of something?
My provocation is to draw theory, through writing, into the compositional attunement through which people and things venture out into reals. Reals are not the kind of thing that an order of representation simply organizes as truth and dominates but “transversal arrays of qualities or activities which, like musical refrains, give order to materials and situations, human bodies and brains included, as actions undertaken act-back to shape muscles and hone senses” (Anderson and Harrison 2010, 8). This is not the work of imagination on dead matter but a “mattering (that) is about the (contingent and temporary) becoming-determinate (and becoming-indeterminate) of matter and meaning” (Barad 2010, 254).
The point is that a world is always other than its representation, or what we know of it. Reals, built out of difference and repetition (Deleuze 1994), composed of potentiality and loss (Berlant 2011), lean toward entities that are both present and absent: atmospheres, affects, virtual memories, hauntings. These are themselves moments of endurance (or not), instants of the holding together of the disparate itself (Doel 2010). Being in some worlding is a corporeal and incorporeal capacity to be in a continuous variation of matter and event, one that sets off questions of discernibility (Seigworth 1998). These are the lines of thought and feeling a compositional node like Red House pulls into view and sets spinning.
Anderson, Ben, and Paul Harrison. 2010. "The Promise of Non-Representational Theories." In Taking Place: Non-Representational Theories and Geography, edited by Ben Anderson and Paul Harrison, 1–36. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate.
Barad, Karen. 2010. "Quantum Entanglements and Hauntological Relations of Inheritance: Dis/continuities, Spacetime Enfoldings, and Justice-to-Come." Derrida Today 3, no. 2: 240–68.
Berlant, Lauren. 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1994. Difference and Repetition. Translated by Paul Patton. London: Athlone.
Doel, Marcus A. 2010. "Representation and Difference." In Taking Place: Non-Representational Theories and Geography, edited by Ben Anderson and Paul Harrison, 117–30. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate.
Manning, Erin. 2011. "Fiery, Luminous, Scary." SubStance 40, no. 3: 41–48.
Messer, Sarah. 2004. Red House: Being a Mostly Accurate Account of New England’s Oldest Continuously Lived-In House. New York: Viking.
Seigworth, Greg. 1998. "Houses in Motion." Antithesis, no. 9: 9–24.
Stewart, Kathleen. 2010. "Afterword: Worlding Refrains." In The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, 339–53. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
_____. 2011. "Atmospheric Attunements." Environment and Planning D 29, no. 3: 445–53.
Back to Series Description
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Number of extreme wave events exceeding 4m in oceanic regions, 2008–15
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand
Dublin Core Metadata XML PDF
ISO 19115/19139 Dublin Core
Environmental Reporting, Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand
Extreme wave indexes estimate the occurrence of extreme wave events in coastal and oceanic waters. Extreme wave indexes estimate the number of times a significant wave height exceeds one of three threshold values for at least 12 hours in 24 marine regions. The three wave-height thresholds are four metres, six metres, and eight metres.
This indicator estimates the exceedances of wave-height thresholds for each year from 2008 to 2015 in oceanic regions around New Zealand.
Significant wave height is a measure of the ‘typical’ wave height in a place over a time period. It is four times the standard deviation of the water surface if, for example, you were to measure water moving up and down a jetty piling for an hour. The largest individual wave will typically have a height around twice the significant wave height.
We use three wave-height thresholds because of the regional variation in extreme wave events. In general, the north experiences less exposure to consistently strong winds, and the waves generated by them, than the south. Four-metre tall waves are considered extreme in the northern-most parts of New Zealand but are more common in the south. For the southern-most parts of New Zealand, eight-metre waves better represent extreme wave events.
This dataset relates to the number of extreme wave events exceeding the four metre threshold in oceanic regions.
We only include wave events where the relevant height threshold was exceeded for a minimum of 12 hours. This means that there was both a high tide (when overtopping and damage to coastal infrastructure, for example, is most likely) and a low tide during an event.
We estimate extreme wave indexes for 24 regions around New Zealand, comprising 18 coastal and six oceanic regions. The 18 coastal regions cover the area from the shoreline to 100km from the coast and correspond to those used by the MetService for marine weather forecasts. The six oceanic regions cover New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
The indexes were generated using NIWA’s operational wave forecasting model (NZWAVE-12). This model has a 12km resolution and models wave heights using:
- wind from NIWA’s NZLAM-12 weather forecast model
- swell from NIWA’s global wave forecast model
For more information on methodology, including limitations, please refer to Gorman (2016).
-55.949296 160.609831 -25.888259 -171.200739
https://data.mfe.govt.nz/layer/53503-number-of-extreme-wave-events-exceeding-4m-in-oceanic-regions-200815/
MARINE-Biology
FAUNA-Vertebrates
ECOLOGY-Habitat
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Breaking News* - Mainstream Media
Lauren Rosenberg sues Google, blames faulty Google Maps
Thread starter Renae
Turn right at the next intersection and continue for 3 miles. Oh, and watch out for any oncoming traffic.
A California woman is suing Google after she was hit by a car while following directions provided by Google Maps on her cell phone, according to AOL News.
Lauren Rosenberg says that the Google Maps BlackBerry application told her to use Deer Valley Drive -- a highway also called Utah State Route 224 -- to walk from one Park City address to another.
However, the directions did not tell her that there were no sidewalks along Deer Valley Drive, which, Rosenberg alleges, led to her being struck by traffic.
"As a direct and proximate cause of Defendant Google's careless, reckless and negligent providing of unsafe directions, Plaintiff Lauren Rosenberg was led onto a dangerous highway, and was thereby stricken by a motor vehicle, causing her to suffer severe permanent physical, emotional and mental injuries," according to the complaint filed in Park County district court.
Read more: Lauren Rosenberg sues Google, blames faulty Google Maps directions after being hit by car in Utah
The saddest part is that she'll probably win huge $$
rivrrat
Goddess of Bacon
So, when she saw there was no sidewalk and kept walking anyway, that's supposed to be Google's fault?
****ing retarded. This lawsuit is the epitome of how people in this country absolutely refuse to take responsibility for themselves and their own actions. Every goddamn thing must be someone elses fault because god ****ing forbid someone actually use their own goddamn brain to think FOR THEMSELVES.
Tucker Case
Everywhere and nowhere
MrVicchio said:
She's suing becaus eit didn't proivide a warning? Maybe she should sue her EYES. They failed to provide her with a warning that there were no ****ing sidewalks.
VanceMack
MSG Benavides TAB
She should win...and be given a few hundred thousand...and then be forced to live in a cardbox somewhere and be spoonfed jello and never be allowed near a light switch or candles because obviously she is too stupid to operate such things safely. We must protect her from her own dumb ass.
****ing Californians...
Educating the Ignorant
http://www.debatepolitics.com/news-...y-google-maps-directions-after-being-hit.html
News of the Weird... yesterday.
zimmer said:
Oh....
FilmFestGuy
Slightly Liberal
Yeah...This is a dumb b!tch and her suit will be dismissed. It makes the news and it costs a little time and money - but she'll spend more than anyone else will when it gets dismissed.
Jetboogieman
Somewhere in Babylon
Somewhere in Babylon...
Some people really need their ****ing head checked...
Dispenser of Negativity
Newburgh, New York and World 8: Dark Land
Buy a GPS you dumb bitch!
Catz Part Deux
Redneck Riviera
Of course this happened in Deer Valley, where people have more money than brains. I've actually been on this road. She was probably walking right on the road, there is a cliff on one side of it with a pretty steep drop, and the other side is clean up against the side of the mountain. What a maroon.
This is what happens when your phone is smarter than you are.
FWIW, I have this app on my droid. It's designed for driving directions, not walking directions. It never mentions sidewalks or pedestrian issues.
Erod
Catz Part Deux said:
This cracks me up every time I read it. LOL. I even say it out loud now, "You're such a maroon!"
I don't know why that is so funny to me, but it is.
Libertarian - Left
So she's suing because she blindly trusted a machine instead of using the human brain? I mean, sure I guess she could sue. But I certainly hope she doesn't win. Machines can be wrong, and if one leads you someplace you may think dangerous; then you're going to have to find another way. Use your head, sheesh.
Ikari said:
Use their head? What, are you insane? People can't be expected to do that. Especially not in THIS day and age. I mean, the government MUST oversee all of Google's maps and ensure that they list every single pothole and crack in the sidewalk. They must specify any hazard at all, and should also designate where every lightpost and telephone pole is. I mean, we wouldn't want people to just run right into them, would we? The maps should also tell people the exact moment it's going to rain, otherwise, someone MIGHT get wet. They could slip and fall on the wet ground! And then whose fault would that be?? Google's fault, of course! Duh. And the government's fault too for not ensuring the protection of it's citizens!
/end sarcasm
While I was in Mexico, we noticed that in the middle of most of the sidewalks were these huge holes. They were deliberate holes, some had trees planted in them, some had drains, some had electrical connections. They were like a foot deep. We laughed and remarked about how such things would never fly up in the US. I mean, those ever present holes actually required that one look where they are walking and step around or over them. And Americans, as a whole, cannot be expected to do such things. We chuckled about how there would be lawsuits galore if just one of those holes existed on some sidewalk in the US. Amazingly, though... in Mexico, people actually were capable of stepping over or around them.
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Dede Cummings
book design | writing | poetry
Spin Cycle: a memoir
Design Samples
The Dede Cummings Agency & Associates
Mountain to Mountain:
A Journey of Adventure and Activism for the Women of Afghanistan
We love Shannon, her book, the work she is doing and we are contributing to the film, Afgan Cycles, a documentary film about the Afghan Women’s National Cycling Team! Here is a quote that sums up the book which Dede sold to Daniela Rapp at St. Martin’s Press.
“Shannon makes Afghanistan come alive on a personal level that no news story can ever replicate. I biked with her up mountains, hung out with her colleagues, visited schools, and constantly connected with real people, both local and foreign. The most passionate pages take place in women’s prisons, where the women are jailed for ‘adultery’…because they were raped. The most poignant, heart-pumping pages are when Shannon shares her own deepest darkest secret. This book is a winner….and so is Shannon.” —Rita Golden Gelman, author of Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
Red Sunshine
Dr. Kimberly Allison diagnoses breast cancer for a living. But as a 33-year-old healthy new mother, she never expected to be looking at her own malignant cells under the microscope. Red Sunshine is a memoir about her sudden journey from physician to patient and her attempt to make the most of this terrifying and unexpected ordeal. An uplifting story of survival, Dr Allison shares all the intimate details of her emotional journey with both humor and honesty.
Preemie: Lessons in Love, Life and Motherhood
In this riveting, honest, and often humorous memoir, Preemie chronicles the journey of one tiny baby’s tenacious struggle to hold on to life and the mother who ultimately grew with her. I love this book, and Kasey is my agency’s second author! To learn more about Kasey and to read her blog, visit www.kaseymathews.com.
David’s Inferno
David’s Inferno combines intensely personal reminiscences of a two-year nervous breakdown with contemporary insights on how major depression manifests, is diagnosed, and treated—by David Blistein with a Foreword by Ken Burns.
A Woman of Science: An Extraordinary Journey of Love, Discovery, and the Sex Life of Mushrooms
Dr. Cardy Raper bas a memoir that we love here at the agency. She wrote it at age 88!!! Cardy just started a new blog. She is amazing! Cardy initially self published her book with us, and then Dede sold it to Andrew Flach at Hatherleigh Press.
Brave Parenting: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide to Raising Emotionally Resilient Children
A parenting book by Krissy Pozatek: Sold to Josh Bartok of Wisdom Publications, out in 2014. Because we cannot control the whole world, cushion our child’s every step, and remove every obstacle from his or her path, we need to give our children the internal resources to surmount their own barriers. Krissy’s new book is a must for parents, young and old!
Magnificent Obesity: One Woman’s Journey towards Hope and Healing
Sold to Hatherleigh Press, distributed in partnership,with Random House. Martha Moravec’s book, Magnificent Obesity, was featured in Biographile, a newsletter from Random House that showcases their latest memoirs and biographies. We are so proud of this courageous woman!
Publicist, Dede Cummings, and debut author, Tim Weed at Mocha Joe’s!
DCDesign continues to make beautiful books (our recent Jane Mead design is an award winner) and publicize fabulous authors, like Tim Weed’s new book, Will Poole’s Island, which was featured at the Nantucket Book Festival, and Tim will also be reading at the Burlington Book Festival and the Brattleboro Literary Festival.
MORE PUBLISHING NEWS!
A head’s up that one of our agency author’s, Bob Litwin, has a new book “LiveThe Best Story of Your Life: A World Champion’s Guide to Lasting Change” that will be published today by Hatherleigh Press and distributed in partnership with Random House. Bob Litwin is an 18-time US National Champion, formerly ranked #1 in the world in senior tennis and is in the Eastern Hall of Fame. Bob has been coaching highly influential people both on the court and in the office for years. If you are looking to change absolutely anything in your life, this book can help you do it instantaneously. This tool is faster and more effective than therapy and it’s simple, we’ve been using it our whole lives without even realizing it.
We also have a hot-new book out there in the museum/erotic product design world called OBJECTS OF DESIRE: A Showcase of Modern Erotic Products and the Creative Minds Behind Them by creators Rita Catinella Orrell and Jason Scuderi. Dede was the literary agent for this book that had interest from MOMA, Princeton Architectural Press and many others, eventually sold to Schiffer Publishing with a splashy launch party at Babeland in Soho/NYC.
Author Rita Catinella Orrell is an award-winning design journalist based in New Jersey. She curates the product design blogs designythings.com and architects-toybox.com. Designer Jason Scuderi is an award-winning designer, art director, and illustrator based in Brooklyn, New York. His work can be seen at jasonscuderi.com.
We are proud of the sale for style maven and one of the up and coming books in the field—Desha’s Peacock’s first book, Sweet Spot Style: The Style You Crave on a Budget You Can Afford. We sold Desha’s book to Skyhorse last year, and it is already in its second printing! Congrats to Desha, and grab a book and transform your home, apartment, all on a budget!
Katina Makris, agency author with Skyhorse. Photo by Jeff Woodward—the best photographer!
And we are thrilled to have made a two-book deal with Skyhorse editor, Abigail Gehring, for Katina Makris, author of Out of the Woods: Healing Lyme Disease Body, Mind & Spirit! Out in 2015!
DCdesign Agency also packages books for authors wishing to self-publish. One such author’s self-published book, Dr. A’s Habits of Health, has sold over 500,000 copies!
One of o ur newest published authors is Alyssa Holmes, a Vermont native and herbalist whose book (with Dede) is called The Medicinal Gardening Handbook. It was published by Skyhorse in May, 2014. Alyssa was approached by Dede to write this book, and her knowledge and work in the field is phenomenal! Plus, she and Dede are next door neighbors!
Gateless Gate Writing Retreat founder, Suzanne Kingsbury, and Dede Cummings at the coastal Rhode Island retreat sharing a laugh!
Many of the upcoming writers and authors here are a tight knit group and a number of us write in the fabulous writing salon (and retreats) of book shaman, and author of The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me, Suzanne Kingsbury!
Thank you for reading our page, and please come back and check for updates. Submissions can be emailed to us at dcdesignteamvt@gmail.com. It usually takes 6-10 weeks to get through the manuscript. We only take on work we absolutely feel passionate about; otherwise we can’t represent a writer the best way possible. We also like to drink double tall lattes, IPA’s, margaritas, hike, walk, run, cycle, spin, and laugh a lot!
NEW ASSOCIATE AGENT SPOTLIGHT!
Desmond Peeples is a writer and performance artist born and based in Vermont. He is the founding editor of the arts magazine Mount Island, an editorial assistant at Green Writers Press, and a graduate of Goddard College. His tastes are eclectic, but he loves a well-developed quirk. He is interested in representing literary fiction, speculative fiction, unusual sci-fi/fantasy and magical realism/slipstream, historical fiction, provocative YA and children’s lit, writing with strong queer themes, nonfiction with social justice themes, graphic novels, and uniquely-voiced poetry collections. He is very unlikely to represent romance novels, self-help books, sports-themed writing, or anything that seems to lack a sense of critical consciousness.
Please submit a query and a sample chapter pasted right into the email. We prefer electronic submissions and thank you for supporting our work and the amazing authors we represent!
Dede Cummings, literary agent, author, publishing + designer
Home Office located in West Brattleboro, Vermont 05301 | 802-380-1121
dcdesignteamvt@gmail.com
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Home > Agricultural Research Division > Panhandle R&EC > 94
Agricultural Research Division of IANR
Panhandle Research and Extension Center
Performance of small-seeded common bean from the second selection cycle and multiple-cross intra- and interracial populations
Shree P. Singh, Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tiopical
Carlos A. Urrea, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Albeiro Molina, Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical
J. Ariel Gutierrez, centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical
Canadian Journal of Plant Science, 1992, 72(3): 735-741, https://doi.org/10.4141/cjps92-089.
Twenty experimental lines of small-seeded common^bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) of Middle American origin from the second cycle of selection (SCS) in multiple cross intra- and interracial populations were evaluated with two control cultivars from the first cycle of selection (FCS) derived from single-cross intraracial populations and three standard controls at three locations for 3 yr (1988-1990) in Colombia. A 5 x 5 lattice design with four replications was used. Each plot consisted of four rows, 5 m long in the first year and 7 m long in the next 2 years. To develop experimental lines in both selection cycles, visual mass selection for seed yield and/or resistance tb diseases in individual plants and plant-to-progeny rows was practiced in early generations. The F2 and F3 were managed by the single-pod bulk method followed by the single plant harvests (F4 or F5), progeny tests (F5 or F6), and seed increases (F6 or F7). The F4- or F5-derived lines were tested for seed yield in F7 or F8. Thirteen lines from the SCS outyielded both control cultivars from the FCS and one standard control. However, only two lines, A 785 and A774, from the SCS outyielded the best standard control, cultivar Carioca, by an average of 7.77o. Both lines were derived from interracial populations involving high-yielding parents possessing positive general combining ability for seed yield. Most improved lines from the SCS possessed higher yield per day and higher disease resistance. No apparent changes were recorded in days to maturity and 100-seed weight for high-yielding lines. Late-maturing lines usually had lower yield and yield per day.
Panhandle R&EC Website
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Concerns about meat supply bottlenecks are growing in retail
June 28, 2020 by Rito Saha
“As a precautionary measure, Lidl has been buying its fresh meat temporarily from other meat suppliers in its supplier network since Monday as a precaution,” a spokeswoman said on request. Lidl is still in talks with Tönnies.
Aldi Süd and Nord continue to purchase various meat products from Tönnies. “However, no goods are currently being delivered to us from the Rheda-Wiedenbrück location,” the companies said. “In order to avoid delivery bottlenecks due to the current situation, we are working closely with our suppliers to ensure the supply of the corresponding meat products at the usual high level,” it continues.
In general, there is a great deal of uncertainty in the grocery trade when and how strongly the plant closure at Tönnies will affect the supply of shops with meat products. “We currently see no changes in meat in terms of range and prices, which are the result of the closure of the Tönnies slaughterhouse,” said a Rewe spokesman when asked. But he also added: “As we see it, it cannot currently be reliably predicted how the closure will work.”
Products from the Tönnies factories are sold under numerous brands. As a supplier, Tönnies is behind the Aldi own brand “Meine Metzgerei” as well as the Lidl brand “Landjunker”. Other brands on the market that include meat from Tönnies include Redlefsen, Böcklunder and Gutfried.
Edeka emphasizes that Verbund attaches great importance to regional diversity. This applies in particular to the meat and sausage range. “We have diverse relationships with regional producers and slaughterhouses throughout Germany and are therefore independent of the company Tönnies,” said an Edeka spokesman.
Trade is already further with the exit from the work contracts
However, since the assortment differs from market to market and is strongly tailored to local customer requirements, it is difficult to give a general answer to the extent to which the markets use meat from Tönnies.
The occurrences at the Tönnies plant in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, however, have generally increased the desire in retail to look not only at animal welfare but also at the working conditions in the slaughterhouses. “We welcome Tönnies and Westfleisch’s decision that with their announced action plan they want to emphasize their responsibility towards all their employees and society in the future,” said Aldi. The two slaughterhouses had announced a cautious exit from the controversial work contract practice.
The trade is already much further there. For example, the large slaughterer Wilhelm Brandenburg, which belongs to Rewe and has 2900 employees, only has eight percent contract workers in its core business. They would only be used “where it was previously not possible to fill the domestic job market”.
Wilhelm Brandenburg had already hired around 270 employees at the Frankfurt site at the beginning of last year, who had previously worked through contract and temporary employment agencies. Since the company is bound by the area tariff, this was coordinated with the NGG union and the works council.
The large-scale discounter Kaufland announced that it had started reducing the number of contracts in its meat plants years ago. The last two contracts are currently being converted. The company offers employees permanent contracts.
Kaufland and its sister company Lidl have announced that in future they will completely do without work contracts in their own factories and with suppliers of fresh meat and fresh poultry – at least in the core areas of slaughtering, cutting and packaging.
More: The slaughter industry faces a turning point after the Corona outbreaks
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Accountability, Hugo Swire
Swire gets his hands in yet another iffy-sounding money-making business pie – this time in Malaysia
“Whilst Foreign Secretary the front runner in the present Conservative leadership race appeared mainly concerned with selling weapons on behalf of British business, barking at visiting Malaysian dignatories “Aren’t you interested in buying arms?” in lieu of a more conventional welcome. To which the answer has so far been a sensible no.
The question is how will trade and investment flow if Boris takes charge? Brexit to one side (having to an extent performed its purpose in making him leader) it seems likely that Johnson will soon respond to some of the financial interests which supported his rise. These include businessmen behind what is termed as the ‘Commonwealth Agenda’, keen to revive what they see as the UK’s special ties with countries such as Malaysia.
Barely known in the UK, but long since recognised as a key promoter of this agenda and also of former prime minister Najib Razak is Lord Jonathan Marland, who set up a two pound limited company called the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council and appointed himself as Chairman after stepping down from a short stint as a working peer in the Department for Energy in 2014.
The Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council (CWEIC) has a ‘small secretariat’ at the Malborough House headquarters of the Commonwealth according to its website and Marland has hired the former Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire (from the Swire commercial family and previously in charge of Malaysian matters) to be his Deputy.
The focus of CWEIC is concentrated on channelling foreign money into the UK as per a new so-called ‘Commonwealth Partnership Programme’ signed last week with the well-known off-shore haven of Jersey purportedly designed to:
“.. unlock opportunities for Jersey to increase its visibility and access to key decision makers in priority Commonwealth markets through CWEIC’s extensive cross-border networks and in-country expertise.
Lord Marland said: “I am delighted the Government of Jersey is strengthening its partnership with CWEIC. Together we will continue to support the ambitions of the Government of Jersey to increase trade across the 53 members countries of the Commonwealth.”
Senator Gorst [of Jersey] said: “I hope … CWEIC’s support will maximise opportunities and encourage UK-based programmes or inward delegations to visit Jersey.”
As readers of Sarawak Report may be aware Lord Marland likewise claims he was the driving force behind the massive investment of Malaysian public money into London’s most costly ever development project at Battersea Power Station during his short term as a minister:
I think the only legacy [of his role] that… lasting legacy will forever exist would be Battersea Power Station which I was the minister responsible for getting that going… it is fascinating seeing the towers coming down and going back up again which I was utterly insistent upon and actually getting the Malaysians, they were brilliant, they are still. …
Q: What do you regard as your big achievement in office?
LM: .. I think opening trade relationships with some of the biggest countries in the world which had completely died. I mean, Malaysia for example, you know, the amount of Malaysia monies coming in… Getting those relationships going and then buying into British. [Lord Marland]
As testimony to his role Marland attended the earth-turning on the project in 2013 together with private developers SP Setia, former PM Najib Razak (Malaysian Government concerns Sime Derby and EPF already owned 60%), former PM David Cameron and the then London Mayor Boris Johnson.
Swiftly, the major shareholder of SP Setia, Liew Kee Sin, managed to sell out his stake in the company to the Minister of Finance (also Najib) controlled fund PNB the following year at what could only be described as a surprisingly advantageous price of RM3.95 for each of his 67 million shares, which was RM1.00 above the market rate.
Having cashed out so handsomely Liew was perhaps equally surprisingly permitted to remain as Chairman thanks to the acquiescence of the new publicly owned shareholders. Meanwhile he transferred most of the SP Setia staff to a new company under his control, namely the now burgeoning property development company Eco World, which soon got down to a number of rival developments next door to Battersea itself in London.”
http://www.sarawakreport.org/2019/07/will-britains-boris-boost-business-for-malaysia/
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East Boston Student Starr Desmond Awarded Four-year Full Tuition Scholarships to Attend Berklee
by John Lynds • August 28, 2015 • 0 Comments
Zumix graduate and East Boston resident Starr Desmond was one of 13 young musicians from underserved communities in Boston and across the U.S. who were awarded four-year full tuition scholarships to attend Berklee at an emotional presentation at the Berklee Performance Center this month.
Desmond, a talented vocalist and piano player who has attended Zumix for 13 years, was presented the scholarship by Berklee president Roger H. Brown, Berklee vice president of education outreach and social entrepreneurship Lee Whitmore, founder of Berklee City Music J. Curtis Warner, Jr., and dean of City Music Krystal Banfield.
Desmond’s scholarship came at the conclusion of the Berklee Five-Week Summer Performance Program, the last hurdle for scholarship winners to clear before beginning their college careers. The event was emceed by actor and comedian Sinbad, the scholarship presentation came
“We’re so proud of Starr for not only getting accepted to Berklee College of Music, but also for receiving a full scholarship! Starr has been coming to ZUMIX for 13 years,” said Zumix Executive Director and Founder, Madeleine Steczynski. “We’ve seen how hard she has worked to achieve this goal. We’re sure she’ll do great things at Berklee and can’t wait to see her grow as a musician and a young woman.”
Desmond’s teacher and mentor at Zumix, Ed Meradith, who wrote a letter of recommendation for the young music protege’s Berklee application said he has worked with her for over 10 beginning at the old Zumix building on Maverick Street on an old upright piano.
“We would laugh at how dusty that old upright was no matter how much you cleaned it up,” said Meradith. “Starr has studied piano with me over ten years, in that time I’ve seen her grow from a shy, happy kid to a confident happy young woman. Along the way, her mother was always there for her and always supportive of everything Starr wanted to do; maybe because Starr wanted to do creative things. All throughout these ten years Starr also studied dance. I think dance really helped her to acquire confidence. To know how to move in a room,how to be “present” and how to use space.”
Meradith said as Desmond got older, she got much more immersed in her music.
“She also started studying voice with Brandon Allen at Zumix, and on the suggestion of Madeliene (Steczynski) we started writing songs,” said Meradith. ” Starr had been working on writing a book in her spare time, so I was confident she’d be up for songwriting. Starr is very engaged in the creative process, and broad in her talents — be it music, dance, fashion, social justice, etc She is the kind of student one likes to have — she has worked hard consistently with an emotional balance that belies her age.”
Starr recorded an original song “Home” which was featured an d performed at Zumix’s annual “Run To The Beat” fundraising event and in December of 2013 was chosen to perform at the Christian Science Center’s “Community of Caring” event, where she performed “Home” as well as an anti-bullying song, a new original entitled “Stand Up.”
“She sang with the Zumix Acapella group at Mayor Marty Walsh’s Inauguration, has performed at the Boston Public Library, has continued to write, record, perform, and study,” said Meradith. “I know she’s going to do great things and I’ve been lucky to have worked with her.”
Desmond just completed her second Berklee music summer program, Berklee City Music.
Berklee City Music, a program that delivers high-quality contemporary music education instruction to youth from underserved communities at no or low cost. The Berklee City Music Network is an association of 47 community organizations that serves over 28,000 students in the U.S. and Canada each
Zumix graduate Starr Desmond at the piano inside Zumix’s Firehouse.
Desmond recently received a full four year scholarship to Berklee School of Music.
Since its inception, Berklee City Music has awarded 236 four-year full-tuition scholarships totaling over $13 million.
Desmond and the other scholarship recipients are among 122 teens who were enrolled in the five week summer performance program on City Music scholarships.
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Intermediate-plus
The Doll by Jan Carew
Books To Learn English
Mr. Brown’s house is not far from the center of the city. But despite this, he has a nice small garden with lots of flowers. Mr. Brown likes sitting there for hours, resting after a long day. He would just sit and look at the bright flowers. His work is far from home, he has to go there by bus. Mr. Brown has almost no friends. He returns from the office and sits in his garden, lonely and sad. One day he decides to go home on foot: the day is hot. He wants to take a walk. On the way, Mr. Brown sees the store – old things are being sold there, and the man decides to stop by. He examines the goods and sees an old doll with a very sad face. Mr. Brown thinks this doll is as lonely as he is. He buys it, even though he is an adult who does not play with dolls.
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Mr Brown lived near the center of town, but his small house had a garden. Mr Brown liked his garden very much. It had a lot of flowers and they were pretty in summer – red, blue and yellow. Mr Brown liked sitting there in the evenings and at weekends.
But he had to work, too, Mr Brown worked in an office. It wasn’t near his house, so he often went to work on the bus. He came home on the bus, too.
Mr Brown was a lonely man. He didn’t have many friends, and he didn’t talk to many people. And so he was sad and often bored.
One very hot day, Mr Brown walked home. He didn’t want to go on the bus that day. He wanted a walk in the warm sun. In one street there was a small shop. Mr Brown looked in the window.
There were very old things in the window, and Mr Brown liked old things. He went into the shop.
‘Good afternoon,’ said the man in the shop.
‘Good afternoon,’ said Mr Brown. ‘Can I look round the shop?’
‘Please do.’
Mr Brown looked at the things in the shop. He saw an old doll with a sad face. It wasn’t a pretty face, but Mr Brown liked it. The doll was a little old man with white hair and black clothes.
Mr Brown thought, ‘Perhaps the doll is lonely, too.’
He asked, ‘How much do you want for this old doll?’
The man thought. ‘Oh, that. Three pounds,’ he said.
Mr Brown wanted the doll. Why? He didn’t know. But he wanted it. Three pounds was a lot of money for an old doll, but Mr Brown paid it. He went out with the doll in his hand.
He looked at its face. ‘Is it smiling?’ he wondered. ‘No,’ he thought. ‘It’s only a doll. He said to it, ‘I’m going to take you home.’
The doll didn’t answer – it was only a doll. So why did Mr Brown speak to it? Because he was lonely. He put it in his case with his papers from the office.
Mr Brown was tired now, so he got on the bus. The man came for Mr Brown’s money and Mr Brown bought a ticket.
Suddenly, somebody on the bus spoke. ‘Go away!’ said the person. ‘You stupid man. Go away!’
Everybody on the bus looked at Mr Brown. ‘Did he say that?’ they wondered…
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Meet The Children Of Philip DeFranco And Lindsay Jordan Doty
Home » Celebrity Babies » Meet The Children Of Philip DeFranco And Lindsay Jordan Doty
Published On: January 28, 2020 Binesh Shrestha
Philip DeFranco and is better-half Lindsay Jordan DeFranco are two popular YouTubers and proud parents of two children. Image Source: Philip's Instagram.
Sharing A Special Bond
A Brotherly Bond
A Heart Warming Message from Dad
Philip DeFranco’s Children Name Meaning
Philip DeFranco, a sensational Youtuber, tied his knot with his longtime girlfriend, Lindsay Jordan DeFranco, on March 7, 2015. Together the couple is proud parents of two lovely sons Philip “Trey” DeFranco III and Carter William DeFranco.
Philip DeFranco’s son Philip James “Trey” DeFranco III was born in 2014 before his parents exchanged their vows, whereas Carter William was born in 2017 after Lindsay and Philip were married. So, let’s get to know more about Philip’s two little toddlers.
We all know how cool Philip is on his video, but did you know he is equally cool in real life? He is a handsome man with a charming personality, says his wife, Lindsay. Well, Lindsay is a traveling blogger so, it’s her husband Philip who takes care of his two little men. According to mom Lindsay, her two little boys are quite close to their dad. They love spending time with him and enjoy his company. He feeds them, takes them to park, school, and also give his younger son potty training.
Philip and his eldest son enjoying time together. Image Source: Philip’s Instagram.
Furthermore, Philip shares such adorable pictures of his boys on his Instagram. He has been seen dressing up his boys like their favorite character, Batman. Whenever the family is out traveling, Philip is seen carrying his son Carter on his shoulders. His two boys share an equally lovely bond with mother Lindsay. Whenever she is home, she spends her time with her two boys and beloved better-half. She reads her boys some books and also gives them a big hug when going to bed.
Lindsay Jordan Doty’s sons share a special bond with one another. Whenever their parents are not around, elder brother Philip is seen taking care of his little brother Carter. The two brothers are like two sides of a coin totally different from one another but equally important to each other. The brothers can also be seen swimming with dad Philip sometimes or walking beside mother Lindsay. Like their mother, they also love traveling and horse riding.
Philip’s two little toddlers share quite a special bond. Image Source: Philip’s Instagram.
In addition to that, both the brothers can be seen playing football at the backyard of their house and occasionally at the park. Elder brother Philip has also been featured in numerous videos with his father. The dynamic duo of father Philip and son Philip have shooted a lot of challenge videos and some quiz too.
As mentioned above, Philip is a rather cool and bold natured person, but deep down, he is a caring and sensitive dad. After he and his wife Lindsay welcomed their second son, Philip wrote a heart-touching letter to his infant son. He wanted to let little Carter know that despite being only less than 48 hours of meeting him, he meant a world to him. He further added that before his eldest son was born, his wife was the most important person in his life, but after meeting his son, his perception of life changed.
Philip DeFranco spending some much needed time with his little son Carter. Image Source: Philip’s Instagram.
In addition to that, before his second son was born, his wife and eldest son were the most important people in his life, but that was soon to change. After his youngest son, Carter was born, Philip knew now his two sons and his lovely wife were the people that matter the most in his life.
Philip DeFranco’s son Philip James “Trey” DeFranco III’s first name Philip is of Greek origin, meaning friend, lover. As for his middle name James, it is of Hebrew origin, meaning supplanter.
Little Carter William DeFranco’s first name is of Old English origin, meaning one who transports goods. Whereas his middle name William, it is of English origin, meaning Resolute protector; will.
Click on Entertainment, Celebrity Babies, YouTubers, and Movies & TV Series, for more articles or just follow eCelebrityMirror.
Carter William DeFrancoCelebrity BabiesCelebrity CoupleCelebrity MarriageCelebrity RomanceLindsay Jordan DeFrancoPhilip "Trey" DeFranco IIIPhilip DeFrancoPhilip James "Trey" DeFranco III
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Audrey Ottevanger Takes the Helm at ECOMMPAY APAC
Leading payment service provider ECOMMPAY is proud to announce the appointment of Audrey Ottevanger as Director and Head of APAC.
“I’m excited to join ECOMMPAY to help grow and expand the business in APAC through acquisition and partnerships,” shares Audrey. “The offering of global payment services, which include alternative payment methods in APAC, Europe, and the CIS region combined with tailored solutions can help eCommerce players reach new markets and global buyers with ease.”
Audrey joins ECOMMPAY with more than 17 years of professional experience in brand marketing, business development, market expansion, and partner management under her belt. Having worked in senior management roles at global brands such as PayPal and Braintree, Audrey is a key talent in digital payments. She was with PayPal for nearly eight years, rising from managing sales and partnerships teams to Country Manager of Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Most recently, she was instrumental to Braintree’s expansion into Asia.
She now turns her attention to solidifying ECOMMPAY’s presence within the region.
ECOMMPAY engineers bespoke online payment solutions for clients worldwide. The company’s advanced payment gateway facilitates an omnichannel payment process, combining acquiring capabilities, alternative payment methods, proprietary risk management, and technological innovation within a single, seamless integration.
Headquartered in London, the international payment service provider and direct bankcard acquirer opened its Singapore office in 2015 and now has seven offices globally, employing more than 500 payment experts, of which 200 are dedicated IT specialists. The Authorised Payment Institution is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (license 607597) and holds both Visa and Mastercard Principal Membership.
TAGS: #PRESS-RELEASES
ECOMMPAY expands its Open Banking payments solution to Europe
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Volume 0, Issue 1 (2011) ECOPERSIA 2011, 0(1): 1-12 | Back to browse issues page
Alam N, Olsthoorn T N. Sustainable Conjunctive Use of Surface and Ground Water: Modelling on the Basin Scale. ECOPERSIA. 0 (1) :1-12
URL: http://ecopersia.modares.ac.ir/article-24-6782-en.html
Sustainable Conjunctive Use of Surface and Ground Water: Modelling on the Basin Scale
Naveed Alam *1, Theo N. Olsthoorn2
1- Department of Water Management, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
2- Department of Water Management, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, Delft
Abstract: (11072 Views)
Farmers in the Indus basin, Pakistan have generally switched to groundwater for additional water supplies due to the irregular supply of irrigation water; currently over 50% of the agricultural land in the basin is at least partially irrigated by tube-wells. These wells pump fresh groundwater, which essentially is the result of massive leakage from irrigation canals into the originally saltwater aquifer since the inception of modern irrigation around 1870. Resalinization of the aquifer now threatens long-term prospects of this new groundwater resource. Since building new dams has become ever more complicated, water resources planning now focuses on sustainable conjunctive use of surface and ground waters. The paper evaluates the raising of the Mangla dam, its effects on long-term groundwater balance and water-logging using an irrigation-economic model. It suggests guidelines to optimize the surface and sub-surface reservoirs by considering the farmerschr('39') action in response to government policies. Recently the Government of Pakistan decided to raise the height of the Mangla dam to substantially increase the storage capacity of the basin. This decision was based on basin-wide modelling of conjunctive use by using the General Algebraic Modelling System (GAMS)-based Indus Basin Model Revised (IBMR), which was updated for this purpose in 2000 and supplied with new data in 2002. The results of the analysis reinforced the decision to raise the dam height by 9 m instead of 12 m, which would increase water availability by 68% in the basin. One of the objectives of raising the dam height was to increase the sustainability of beneficial groundwater use in the basin by saving about 2 km3/a of groundwater abstractions.
Keywords: GAMS, Groundwater, IBMR, Indus basin, Sustainable conjunctive use
Full-Text [PDF 2304 kb] (4984 Downloads)
Received: 2010/09/15 | Accepted: 2010/11/13 | Published: 2011/02/20
* Corresponding Author Address: Delft
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home Blog Historical ECRL images added to Minnesota Digital Library’s Minnesota Reflections
Historical ECRL images added to Minnesota Digital Library’s Minnesota Reflections
East Central Regional Library is excited to announce that its first digital collection is live in Minnesota Digital Library’s Minnesota Reflections, courtesy of the Digital Public Library of America’s Public Library Partnerships Project.
ECRL’s contribution to Minnesota Reflections provides insight into the oldest existing regional public library system in Minnesota. The collection includes images used in ECRL’s history book, East Central Regional Library: Fifty Years of Connections, 1959-2009 by Marilyn McGriff, of ECRL. These photographs include library buildings (past and present), retired library services such as the bookmobile, and ECRL staff members over the years. The images illustrate the role ECRL has played in our communities and contribute to a greater understanding of rural library services in the state from 1959 on.
Browse the full collection here:
http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm/search/collection/p16022coll54
About Minnesota Digital Library:
Minnesota Digital Library (MDL) provides access to unique digital collections shared by cultural heritage organizations from across the state of Minnesota.
Minnesota Reflections is the first online project of MDL. It is a collection of more than 215,000 photographs, postcards, maps, documents, letters, and oral histories depicting the history of Minnesota. Begun in 2003, Minnesota Reflections includes digital content from more than 157 participating organizations including historical societies, special archives, universities and colleges, and public libraries from across the state who have shared their original materials with the MDL.
About Digital Public Library of America:
Officially launching on April 18, 2013, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) aims to provide free public access to digital content in order to create a common resource for libraries and patrons of all types across America. DPLA links in one place digital collections from organizations such as the Library of Congress, New York Public Library, Minnesota Digital Library, and more.
Content available via DPLA includes the written word, works of art and culture, records of America’s heritage, and efforts and data of science. DPLA aims to make the collections more easily discovered and more widely usable and used. Users can search and scan through millions of items, including by timeline, map, virtual bookshelf, format, subject, and contributing partner.
About the Public Library Partnerships Project:
DPLA has collaborated with MDL in the Public Library Partnerships Project (PLPP), funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The purpose of the PLPP is to provide digital skills training for public librarians across MN, encourage and facilitate participation in MDL and DPLA, and create online exhibitions showcasing their content. This training was designed to reach public libraries, such as ECRL, with unique local or regional history collection collections that want to share their content with a broader audience but may not have the resources to do so.
In the first stage of PLPP, MDL offered training sessions in creating and maintaining digital content to 31 individuals representing 22 public libraries around Minnesota in 2014. East Central Regional Library staff members receiving the training were Carla Lydon, Assistant Director, Sarah Hawkins, Resource Librarian, Nancy Dunbar, Cambridge Branch Librarian, and Carolyn Avaire, Hinckley Branch Librarian.
In the year since the training, the work has been done behind the scenes. ECRL proposed projects for digitization, MDL assisted us in selecting appropriate materials from our collection, and the items were sent to MDL to be digitized and organized.
By participating in PLPP, ECRL has strengthened its relationship with MDL, improved the digitization knowledge of our staff, preserved materials to provide a lasting record, and allowed ECRL to showcase its history and services in a format we wouldn’t otherwise have been able to do, on a state and national level.
Other PLPP contributions from across the state include a 1930 plat book of Polk County by the Fosston Public Library, portraits of Duluth mayors, master plans for county parks from the Washington County Park Board, and materials from the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board.
PLPP wraps up this month, but we’re not done yet. Stay tuned for another ECRL collection in MN Reflections and new online exhibitions to be featured on DPLA!
Sarah Hawkins, Resource Librarian
TAGS: digital libraries Digital Public Library of America DPLA MDL Minnesota Digital Library PLPP public library partnerships project
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Items where Author is "Abrahams, Jan Pieter"
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Merg, Andrea D. and Touponse, Gavin and van Genderen, Eric and Zuo, Xiaobing and Bazrafshan, Alisina and Blum, Thorsten and Hughes, Spencer and Salaita, Khalid and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Conticello, Vincent P.. (2019) 2D Crystal Engineering of Nanosheets Assembled from Helical Peptide Building Blocks. Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English), 58 (38). pp. 13507-13512.
Gemmi, Mauro and Mugnaioli, Enrico and Gorelik, Tatiana E. and Kolb, Ute and Palatinus, Lukas and Boullay, Philippe and Hovmöller, Sven and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2019) 3D Electron Diffraction: The Nanocrystallography Revolution. ACS central science, 5 (8). pp. 1315-1329.
Latychevskaia, Tatiana and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2019) Inelastic scattering and solvent scattering reduce dynamical diffraction in biological crystals. Acta Crystallographica Section B-Structural Science Crystal Engineering and Materials, 75. pp. 523-531.
Clabbers, Max T. B. and Gruene, Tim and van Genderen, Eric and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2019) Reducing dynamical electron scattering reveals hydrogen atoms. Acta crystallographica. Section A, Foundations and advances, 75 (Pt 1). pp. 82-93.
Merg, Andrea D. and van Genderen, Eric and Bazrafshan, Alisina and Su, Hanquan and Zuo, Xiaobing and Touponse, Gavin and Blum, Thorsten B. and Salaita, Khalid and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Conticello, Vincent P.. (2019) Seeded Heteroepitaxial Growth of Crystallizable Collagen Triple Helices: Engineering Multifunctional Two-Dimensional Core-Shell Nanostructures. JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY, 141 (51). pp. 20107-20117.
Moradi, Mina and Opara, Nadia L. and Tulli, Ludovico G. and Wäckerlin, Christian and Dalgarno, Scott J. and Teat, Simon J. and Baljozovic, Milos and Popova, Olha and van Genderen, Eric and Kleibert, Armin and Stahlberg, Henning and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Padeste, Celestino and Corvini, Philippe F.-X. and Jung, Thomas A. and Shahgaldian, Patrick. (2019) Supramolecular architectures of molecularly thin yet robust free-standing layers. Science Advances, 5 (2). eaav4489.
Wallin, Cecilia and Hiruma, Yoshitaka and Warmlander, Sebastian and Huvent, Isabelle and Jarvet, Juri and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Graslund, Astrid and Lippens, Guy and Luo, Jinghui. (2019) The Neuronal Tau Protein Blocks In Vitro Fibrillation of the Amyloid-beta (A beta) Peptide. Biophysical Journal, 116 (3, Supplement 1). 306a.
Blum, Thorsten B. and Filippidou, Sevasti and Fatton, Mathilda and Junier, Pilar and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2019) The wild-type flagellar filament of the Firmicute Kurthia at 2.8 Å resolution in vivo. Scientific reports, 9 (1). p. 14948.
Thomas, Brijith and Dubey, Rajeev K. and Clabbers, Max T. B. and Gupta, Karthick Babu Sai Sankar and van Genderen, Eric and Jager, Wolter F. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Sudholter, Ernst J. R. and de Groot, Huub J. M.. (2018) A Molecular Level Approach To Elucidate the Supramolecular Packing of Light-Harvesting Antenna Systems. Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany), 24 (56). pp. 14989-14993.
Tinti, Gemma and Fröjdh, Erik and van Genderen, Eric and Gruene, Tim and Schmitt, Bernd and de Winter, D. A. Matthijs and Weckhuysen, Bert M. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2018) Electron crystallography with the EIGER detector. IUCrJ, 5 (Pt 2). pp. 190-199.
Clabbers, Max T. B. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2018) Electron diffraction and three-dimensional crystallography for structural biology. CRYSTALLOGRAPHY REVIEWS, 24 (3). pp. 176-204.
Clabbers, Max T. B. and Gruene, Tim and Parkhurst, James M. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Waterman, David G.. (2018) Electron diffraction data processing with DIALS. Acta crystallographica. Section D, Structural biology, 74 (Pt 6). pp. 506-518.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Clabbers, Max and van Genderen, Eric and Blum, Thorsten. (2018) Electron tomography of radiation sensitive 3D nano-crystals in imaging and diffraction mode. Acta Crystallographica A-Foundation And Advances, 74. E83.
Clabbers, Max and Gruene, Tim and van Genderen, Eric and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2018) Experimental and computational reduction of dynamical electron scattering allows visualizing individual hydrogen atoms. Acta Crystallographica A-Foundation And Advances, 74. E426.
Wallin, Cecilia and Hiruma, Yoshitaka and Wärmländer, Sebastian K. T. S. and Huvent, Isabelle and Jarvet, Jüri and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Gräslund, Astrid and Lippens, Guy and Luo, Jinghui. (2018) The Neuronal Tau Protein Blocks in Vitro Fibrillation of the Amyloid-β (Aβ) Peptide at the Oligomeric Stage. Journal of the American Chemical Society. pp. 8138-8146.
Matheson, John and Moldovan, G. and Kirkland, Angus and Allinson, Nigel and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2017) Testing and Comparison of Imaging Detectors for Electrons in the Energy Range 10–20 keV. Journal of Instrumentation, 12 (11). C11016.
Yin, Qu and Liu, Zunfeng and Laroche, Fabrice and Zhou, Xiang and Shao, Ningning and Lin, Bencai and Wang, Run and Yuan, Ningyi and Ding, Jianning and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2017) A Novel Capturing Method for Quantification of Extra-Cellular Nanovesicles. Journal of nanoscience and nanotechnology, 17 (2). pp. 908-913.
Nederlof, Igor and van Genderen, Eric and Clabbers, Maddox E. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2017) Electron Crystallography of Protein Nano-Crystals. Acta Crystallographica Section A: Foundations And Advances, A73. a297-a298.
Su, Jian and Wang, Hongyan and Wu, Kunkun and Liu, Zhongsheng and Yin, Qu and Wang, Run and Lv, Wei and Yin, Shougen and Liu, Zunfeng and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2017) Neutravidin-Mediated Extraction of Isolated Small Diameter Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes for Bio-Recognition. Journal of nanoscience and nanotechnology, 17 (5). pp. 3588-3596.
Clabbers, Max T. B. and van Genderen, Eric and Wan, Wei and Wiegers, Emiel L. and Gruene, Tim and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2017) Protein structure determination by electron diffraction using a single three-dimensional nanocrystal. Acta crystallographica. Section D, Structural biology, 73 (Pt 9). pp. 738-748.
Wang, Run and Boleij, Marissa and Yin, Qu and Galjart, Niels and Lin, Bencai and Yuan, Ningyi and Zhou, Xiang and Tan, Ming and Ding, Jianning and Liu, Zunfeng and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2017) Purification of Biotinylated Proteins Using Single Walled Carbon Nanotube-Streptavidin Complexes. Journal of nanoscience and nanotechnology, 17 (2). pp. 926-931.
Nikolopoulos, Stavros and Galanis, Athanasios S. and Vallcorba, Oriol and Eggeman, Alex and Das, Partha Pratim and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Rauch, Edgar and Midgley, Paul and Gemmi, Mauro. (2017) Random electron diffraction tomography for structure analysis of pharmaceuticals. Acta Crystallographica A-Foundation And Advances, 73. c980.
Wallin, Cecilia and Kulkarni, Yashraj S. and Abelein, Axel and Jarvet, Jüri and Liao, Qinghua and Strodel, Birgit and Olsson, Lisa and Luo, Jinghui and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Sholts, Sabrina B. and Roos, Per M. and Kamerlin, Shina C. L. and Gräslund, Astrid and Wärmländer, Sebastian K. T. S.. (2016) Characterization of Mn(II) ion binding to the amyloid-β peptide in Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, 38. pp. 183-193.
Luo, Jinghui and Wärmländer, Sebastian K. T. S. and Gräslund, Astrid and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2016) Cross-interactions between the Alzheimer Disease Amyloid-β Peptide and Other Amyloid Proteins: A Further Aspect of the Amyloid Cascade Hypothesis. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 291 (32). pp. 16485-16493.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2016) Electron nanodiffraction for structural biology. Acta Crystallographica A-Foundation And Advances, 72 (a1). s6.
Luo, Jinghui and Wärmländer, Sebastian K. T. S. and Gräslund, Astrid and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2016) Reciprocal Molecular Interactions between the Aβ Peptide Linked to Alzheimer's Disease and Insulin Linked to Diabetes Mellitus Type II. ACS Chemical Neuroscience , 7 (3). pp. 269-274.
Tiiman, Ann and Luo, Jinghui and Wallin, Cecilia and Olsson, Lisa and Lindgren, Joel and Jarvet, Jϋri and Per, Roos and Sholts, Sabrina B. and Rahimipour, Shai and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Karlström, Amelie Eriksson and Gräslund, Astrid and Wärmländer, Sebastian K. T. S.. (2016) Specific Binding of Cu(II) Ions to Amyloid-Beta Peptides Bound to Aggregation-Inhibiting Molecules or SDS Micelles Creates Complexes that Generate Radical Oxygen Species. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 54 (3). pp. 971-982.
Clabbers, Max T. B. and van Genderen, Eric and Nederlof, Igor and Li, Yao-Wang and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2015) Electron crystallography of 3D nano-crystals. Acta Crystallographica A-Foundation And Advances, 71. S405.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and van Genderent, Eric and Nederlof, Igor and Clabbers, Max and Li, Yaowang. (2015) Electron diffraction and imaging of 3D nanocrystals of pharmaceuticals, peptides and proteins. Acta Crystallographica A-Foundation And Advances, 71. S103.
Luo, Jinghui and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2014) Cyclic Peptides as Inhibitors of Amyloid Fibrillation. Chemistry - A European Journal, 20 (9). pp. 2410-2419.
Luo, Jinghui and Wärmländer, Sebastian K. T. S. and Gräslund, Astrid and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2014) Alzheimer Peptides Aggregate into Transient Nanoglobules That Nucleate Fibrils. Biochemistry, 53 (40). pp. 6302-6308.
Luo, Jinghui and Mohammed, Inayathulla and Warmlander, Sebastian K. T. S. and Hiruma, Yoshitaka and Graslund, Astrid and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2014) Endogenous Polyamines Reduce the Toxicity of Soluble A beta Peptide Aggregates Associated with Alzheimer's Disease. Biomacromolecules, 15 (6). pp. 1985-1991.
Luo, Jinghui and Wärmländer, Sebastian K. T. S. and Gräslund, Astrid and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2014) Non-chaperone Proteins Can Inhibit Aggregation and Cytotoxicity of Alzheimer Amyloid beta Peptide. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 289 (40). pp. 27766-27775.
Luo, Jinghui and Wärmländer, Sebastian K. T. S. and Chien-Hung, Yu and Muhammad, Kamran and Gräslund, Astrid and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2014) The Aβ peptide forms non-amyloid fibrils in the presence of carbon nanotubes. Nanoscale, 6 (12). pp. 6720-6726.
Abelein, Axel and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Danielsson, Jens and Graslund, Astrid and Jarvet, Juri and Luo, Jinghui and Tiiman, Ann and Warmlander, Sebastian K. T. S.. (2014) The hairpin conformation of the amyloid beta peptide is an important structural motif along the aggregation pathway. Journal of Biological Inorganic Chemistry, 19 (4-5). pp. 623-634.
Liu, Zunfeng and Voskamp, Patrick and Zhang, Yue and Chu, Fuqiang and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2013) Capture of unstable protein complex on the streptavidin-coated single-walled carbon nanotubes. Journal of Nanoparticle Research, 15 (4). A 1582.
Nederlof, Igor and van Genderen, Eric and Li, Yao-Wang and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2013) A Medipix quantum area detector allows rotation electron diffraction data collection from submicrometre three-dimensional protein crystals. Acta Crystallographica. Section D, Biological Crystallography, 69. pp. 1223-1230.
Luo, Jinghui and Zwier, Raphael and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2013) An efficient nanolitre-volume multi-channel device for highly viscous materials used in membrane protein crystallization. Journal of applied crystallography, 46. pp. 829-831.
Luo, Jinghui and Yu, Chien-Hung and Yu, Huixin and Borstnar, Rok and Kamerlin, Shina C. L. and Gräslund, Astrid and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Wärmländer, Sebastian K. T. S.. (2013) Cellular Polyamines Promote Amyloid-Beta (A beta) Peptide Fibrillation and Modulate the Aggregation Pathways. ACS Chemical Neuroscience , 4 (3). pp. 454-462.
Luo, Jinghui and Yu, Chien-Hung and Yu, Huixin and Borstnar, Rok and Kamerlin, Shina C. L. and Gräslund, Astrid and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Wärmländer, Sebastian K. T. S.. (2013) Cellular Polyamines Promote Amyloid-Beta Peptide Fibrillation and Modulate the Aggregation Pathways. Biophysical Journal, 104 (2). 389A.
Luo, Jinghui and Wärmländer, Sebastian K. T. S. and Gräslund, Astrid and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2013) Human lysozyme inhibits the in vitro aggregation of Aβ peptides, which in vivo are associated with Alzheimer's disease. Chemical Communications , 49 (58). pp. 6507-6509.
Nederlof, Igor and Li, Yao Wang and van Heel, Marin and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2013) Imaging protein three-dimensional nanocrystals with cryo-EM. Acta Crystallographica. Section D, Biological Crystallography, 69. pp. 852-859.
Luo, Jinghui and Otero, Jose M. and Yu, Chien-Hung and Wärmländer, Sebastian K. T. S. and Gräslund, Astrid and Overhand, Mark and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2013) Inhibiting and Reversing Amyloid‐β Peptide (1–40) Fibril Formation with Gramicidin S and Engineered Analogues. Chemistry - A European Journal, 19 (51). pp. 17338-17348.
ten Bruggencate, Filip and Laroche, Fabrice and Zhang, Yue and Song, Guoqiang and Yin, Shougen and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Liu, Zunfeng. (2013) Visualizing the localization of transfection complexes during graphene nanoparticle-based transfection. Journal of Materials Chemistry B, 1 (46). pp. 6353-6358.
Liu, Zunfeng and Galli, Federica and Waterreus, Willem-Jan and Meulenbroek, Elisabeth and Koning, Roman I. and Lamers, Gerda E. M. and Olsthoorn, René C. L. and Pannu, Navraj and Oosterkamp, Tjerk H. and Koster, Abraham J. and Dame, Remus T. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2012) Single-walled carbon nanotubes as scaffolds to concentrate DNA for the study of DNA-protein interactions. ChemPhysChem, 13 (6). pp. 1569-1575.
Meulenbroek, Elisabeth M. and Thomassen, Ellen A. J. and Pouvreau, Laurice and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Gruppen, Harry and Pannu, Navraj S.. (2012) Structure of a post-translationally processed heterodimeric double-headed Kunitz-type serine protease inhibitor from potato. Acta Crystallographica. Section D, Biological Crystallography, 68 (Pt 7). pp. 794-799.
Waterreus, Willem-Jan and Skubák, Pavol and Sikharulidze, Irakli and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and de Graaff, Rudolf A. G. and Pannu, Navraj S.. (2011) Advances in the CRANK software suite for automated crystal structure solution. Acta Crystallographica A-Foundation And Advances, 67. C659.
Nederlof, Igor and Georgieva, Dilyana and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2011) Electron diffraction of submicron 3D protein crystals. Acta Crystallographica A-Foundation And Advances, 67. C228.
Jiang, Linhua and Georgieva, Dilyana and Nederlof, Igor and Liu, Zunfeng and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2011) Image processing and lattice determination for three-dimensional nanocrystals. Microscopy and Microanalysis, 17 (6). pp. 879-885.
Pannu, Navraj S. and Waterreus, Willem Jan and Skubák, Pavol and Sikharulidze, Irakli and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and de Graaff, Rudolf A. G.. (2011) Recent advances in the CRANK software suite for experimental phasing. Acta Crystallographica. Section D, Biological Crystallography, 67 (Pt 4). pp. 331-337.
Liu, Zunfeng and Jiang, Linhua and Galli, Federica and Nederlof, Igor and Olsthoorn, René C. L. and Lamers, Gerda E. M. and Oosterkamp, Tjerk. H. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2010) A Graphene Oxide center dot Streptavidin Complex for Biorecognition - Towards Affinity Purification. Advanced Functional Materials, 20 (17). pp. 2857-2865.
Jiang, Linhua and Liu, Zunfeng and Georgieva, Dilyana and Kuil, Maxim E. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2010) A novel approximation method of CTF amplitude correction for 3D single particle reconstruction. Ultramicroscopy, 110 (4). pp. 350-358.
Liu, Zunfeng and Galli, Federica and Janssen, Kjeld G. H. and Jiang, Linhua and van der Linden, Heiko J. and de Geus, Daniël C. and Voskamp, Patrick and Kuil, Maxim E. and Olsthoorn, René C. L. and Oosterkamp, Tjerk H. and Hankemeier, Thomas and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2010) Stable Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube-Streptavidin Complex for Biorecognition. Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 114 (10). pp. 4345-4352.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2010) The strong phase object approximation may allow extending crystallographic phases of dynamical electron diffraction patterns of 3D protein nano-crystals. Zeitschrift für Kristallographie - Crystalline Materials, 225 (2-3). pp. 67-76.
de Geus, Daniël C. and van Roon, Anne-Marie M. and Thomassen, Ellen A. J. and Hokke, Cornelis H. and Deelder, André M. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2009) Characterization of a diagnostic Fab fragment binding trimeric Lewis X. Proteins: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics , 76 (2). pp. 439-447.
de Geus, Daniël C. and Thomassen, Ellen A. J. and Hagedoorn, Peter-Leon and Pannu, Navraj S. and van Duijn, Esther and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2009) Crystal Structure of Chlorite Dismutase, a Detoxifying Enzyme Producing Molecular Oxygen. Journal of Molecular Biology, 387 (1). pp. 192-206.
Meulenbroek, Elisabeth M. and Paspaleva, Keti and Thomassen, Ellen A. J. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Goosen, Nora and Pannu, Navraj S.. (2009) Involvement of a carboxylated lysine in UV damage endonuclease. Protein Science, 18 (3). pp. 549-558.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Jiang, Linhua and Sikhuralidze, Irakli and Nederloff, Igor and Zandbergen, Henny and Georgieva, Dilyana. (2009) Macromolecular Electron Crystallography. Acta Crystallographica A-Foundation And Advances, 65. S7.
van Haren, Jeffrey and Draegestein, Katharina and Keijzer, Nanda and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Grosveld, Frank and Peeters, Pieter Johan and Moechars, Dieder and Galjart, Niels. (2009) Mammalian Navigators are Microtubule Plus-End Tracking Proteins that can Reorganize the Cytoskeleton to Induce Neurite-Like Extensions. Cell Motility and the Cytoskeleton , 66 (10). pp. 824-838.
Waterreus, Willem-Jan and Pannu, Navraj and Skubák, Pavol and Sikharulidze, Irakli and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and de Graaff, R. A. G.. (2009) Recent Advances in CRANK. Acta Crystallographica A-Foundation And Advances, 65. S160.
Jiang, Linhua and Schaffitzel, Christiane and Bingel-Erlenmeyer, Rouven and Ban, Nenad and Korber, Philipp and Koning, Roman I. and de Geus, Daniël C. and Plaisier, Jasper R. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2009) Recycling of Aborted Ribosomal 50S Subunit-Nascent Chain-tRNA Complexes by the Heat Shock Protein Hsp15. Journal of Molecular Biology, 386 (5). pp. 1357-1367.
Jiang, Linhua and Georgieva, Dilyana and Zandbergen, Henny W. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2009) Unit-cell determination from randomly oriented electron-diffraction patterns. Acta Crystallographica. Section D, Biological Crystallography, 65. pp. 625-632.
de Geus, Daniël C. and Thomassen, Ellen A. J. and van der Feltz, Clarisse L. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2008) Cloning, expression, purification, crystallization and preliminary X-ray diffraction analysis of chlorite dismutase: a detoxifying enzyme producing molecular oxygen. Acta Crystallographica Section F, 64. pp. 730-732.
Zovko, Sandra and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Koster, Abraham J. and Galjart, Niels and Mommaas, A. Mieke. (2008) Microtubule plus-end conformations and dynamics in the periphery of interphase mouse fibroblasts. Molecular Biology of the Cell, 19 (7). pp. 3138-3146.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Georgieva, Dilyana and Jiang, Linhua and Zandbergen, Henny W.. (2008) Prospects for structure solution by electron diffraction of three-dimensional protein crystals. Acta Crystallographica A-Foundation And Advances, 64. C75-C76.
Paspaleva, Keti and Thomassen, Ellen and Pannu, Navraj S. and Iwai, Shigenori and Moolenaar, Geri F. and Goosen, Nora and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2007) Crystal structure of the DNA repair enzyme ultraviolet damage endonuclease. Structure, 15 (10). pp. 1316-1324.
Plaisier, Jasper R. and Jiang, Linhua and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2007) Cyclops: New modular software suite for cryo-EM. Journal of structural biology, 157 (1). pp. 19-27.
Schaffitzel, Christiane and Oswald, Miro and Berger, Imre and Ishikawa, Takashi and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Koerten, Henk K. and Koning, Roman I. and Ban, Nenad. (2007) Erratum: Structure of the E-coli signal recognition particle bound to a translating ribosome (vol 444, pg 503, 2006). Nature, 448 (7157). p. 1076.
Georgieva, Dilyana G. and Kuil, Maxim E. and Oosterkamp, Tjerk H. and Zandbergen, Henny W. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2007) Heterogeneous nucleation of three-dimensional protein nanocrystals. Acta Crystallographica. Section D, Biological Crystallography, 63. pp. 564-570.
Kuil, Maxim E. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Marijnissen, Jan C. M.. (2006) Nano-dispensing by electrospray for biotechnology. Biotechnology journal, 1 (9). pp. 969-975.
Schaffitzel, Christiane and Oswald, Miro and Berger, Imre and Ishikawa, Takashi and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Koerten, Henk K. and Koning, Roman I. and Ban, Nenad. (2006) Structure of the E. coli signal recognition particle bound to a translating ribosome. Nature, 444 (7118). pp. 503-506.
Thomassen, Ellen A. J. and van Veen, Harrie A. and van Berkel, Patrick H. C. and Nuijens, Jan H. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2005) The protein structure of recombinant human lactoferrin produced in the milk of transgenic cows closely matches the structure of human milk-derived lactoferrin. Transgenic Research, 14 (4). pp. 397-405.
Ness, Steven R. and de Graaff, R. A. G. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Pannu, Navraj S.. (2004) CRANK - New Methods for Automated Structure Solution. Acta Crystallographica A-Foundation And Advances, 60. S16.
Ness, Steven R. and de Graaff, Rudolf A. G. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Pannu, Navraj S.. (2004) CRANK: new methods for automated macromolecular crystal structure solution. Structure, 12 (10). pp. 1753-1761.
van Roon, Anne-Marie M. and Bink, Hugo H. J. and Plaisier, Jasper R. and Pleij, Cornelis W. A. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Pannu, Navraj S.. (2004) Crystal structure of an empty capsid of turnip yellow mosaic virus. Journal of Molecular Biology, 341 (5). pp. 1205-1214.
Thomassen, Ellen A. J. and Pouvreau, Laurice and Gruppen, Harry and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2004) Crystallization and preliminary X-ray crystallographic studies on a Kunitz-type potato serine protease inhibitor. Acta Crystallographica. Section D, Biological Crystallography, 60 (Pt 8). pp. 1464-1466.
Bos, Ineke G. A. and Lubbers, Yvonne T. P. and Eldering, Eric and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Hack, C. Erik. (2004) Effect of reactive site loop elongation on the inhibitory activity of C1-inhibitor. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta - Proteins and Proteomics, 1699 (1-2). pp. 139-144.
van Roon, Anne-Marie M. and Pannu, Navraj S. and de Vrind, Johannes P. M. and van der Marel, Gijs A. and van Boom, Jacques H. and Hokke, Cornelis H. and Deelder, André M. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2004) Structure of an anti-Lewis X Fab fragment in complex with its Lewis X antigen. Structure, 12 (7). pp. 1227-1236.
Hilge, Mark and Siegal, Gregg and Vuister, Geerten W. and Güntert, Peter and Gloor, Sergio M. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2003) ATP-induced conformational changes of the nucleotide-binding domain of Na,K-ATPase. Nature Structural Biology, 10 (6). pp. 468-474.
Leliveld, Sirik R. and Zhang, Ying-Hui and Rohn, Jennifer L. and Noteborn, Mathieu H. M. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2003) Apoptin induces tumor-specific apoptosis as a globular multimer. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 278 (11). pp. 9042-9051.
Leliveld, Sirik R. and Dame, Remus T. and Mommaas, Mieke A. and Koerten, Henk K. and Wyman, Claire and Danen-van Oorschot, Astrid A. A. M. and Rohn, Jennifer L. and Noteborn, Mathieu H. M. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2003) Apoptin protein multimers form distinct higher-order nucleoprotein complexes with DNA. Nucleic Acids Research, 31 (16). pp. 4805-4813.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Thomassen, Ellen A. J.. (2003) Mechanism of thrombin's enigmatic sodium switch revealed. Structure, 11 (4). pp. 363-364.
Leliveld, Sirik R. and Noteborn, Mathieu H. M. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2003) Prevalent conformations and subunit exchange in the biologically active apoptin protein multimer. European Journal of Biochemistry, 270 (17). pp. 3619-3627.
Zhang, Ying-Hui and Leliveld, S. Rutger and Kooistra, Klaas and Molenaar, Chris and Rohn, Jennifer L. and Tanke, Hans J. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Noteborn, Mathieu H. M.. (2003) Recombinant Apoptin multimers kill tumor cells but are nontoxic and epitope-shielded in a normal-cell-specific fashion. Experimental Cell Research, 289 (1). pp. 36-46.
Bos, Ineke G. A. and Lubbers, Yvonne T. P. and Roem, Dorina and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Hack, C. Erik and Eldering, Eric. (2003) The functional integrity of the serpin domain of C1-inhibitor depends on the unique N-terminal domain, as revealed by a pathological mutant. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 278 (32). pp. 29463-29470.
Thomassen, Ellen and Gielen, Geriit and Schutz, Michael and Schoehn, Guy and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Miller, Stefan and van Raaij, Mark J.. (2003) The structure of the receptor-binding domain of the bacteriophage T4 short tail fibre reveals a knitted trimeric metal-binding fold. Journal of Molecular Biology, 331 (2). pp. 361-373.
Koning, Roman and van den Worm, Sjoerd and Plaisier, Jasper R. and van Duin, Jan and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Koerten, Henk. (2003) Visualization by cryo-electron microscopy of genomic RNA that binds to the protein capsid inside bacteriophage MS2. Journal of Molecular Biology, 332 (2). pp. 415-422.
Kuil, Maxim E. and Bodenstaff, E. René and Hoedemaeker, Flip J. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2002) Protein nano-crystallogenesis. Enzyme and Microbial Technology, 30 (3). pp. 262-265.
Bos, Ineke G. A. and Hack, C. Erik and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (2002) Structural and functional aspects of C1-Inhibitor. Immunobiology, 205 (4-5). pp. 518-533.
Hoedemaeker, Flip J. and Siegal, Gregg and Roe, S. Mark and Driscoll, Paul C. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (1999) Crystal structure of the C-terminal SH2 domain of the p85 alpha regulatory subunit of phosphoinositide 3-kinase: An SH2 domain mimicking its own substrate. Journal of Molecular Biology, 292 (4). pp. 763-770.
Jin, Lei and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Skinner, Richard and Petitou, Maurice and Pike, Robert N. and Carrell, Robin W.. (1997) The anticoagulant activation of antithrombin by heparin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 94 (26). pp. 14683-14688.
Shirakihara, Yasuo and Leslie, Andrew G. W. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Walker, John E. and Ueda, Takashi and Sekimoto, Yoshinori and Kambara, Minoru and Saika, Kouji and Kagawa, Yasuo and Yoshida, Masasuke. (1997) The crystal structure of the nucleotide-free alpha 3 beta 3 subcomplex of F-1-ATPase from the thermophilic Bacillus PS3 is a symmetric trimer. Structure, 5 (6). pp. 825-836.
Elliott, Peter R. and Lomas, David A. and Carrell, Robin W. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter. (1996) Inhibitory conformation of the reactive loop of alpha(1)-antitrypsin. Nature Structural biology, 3 (8). pp. 676-681.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Buchanan, Susan K. and van Raaij, Mark J. and Fearnley, Ian M. and Leslie, Andrew G. W. and Walker, John E.. (1996) The structure of bovine F-1-ATPase complexed with the peptide antibiotic efrapeptin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 93 (18). pp. 9420-9424.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Leslie, Andrew G. W. and Lutter, René and Walker, John E.. (1994) Structure at 2.8 Â resolution of F1-ATPase from bovine heart mitochondria. Nature, 370 (6491). pp. 621-628.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Kraal, Barend and Clark, Brian F. C. and Bosch, Leendert. (1991) Isolation and stability of ternary complexes of elongation factor Tu, GTP and aminoacyl-tRNA. Nucleic Acids Research, 19 (3). pp. 553-556.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Van Raaij, Mark. J. and Ott, Guenther and Kraal, Barend and Bosch, Leendert. (1991) Kirromycin drastically reduces the affinity of Escherichia coli elongation factor Tu for aminoacyl-tRNA. Biochemistry, 30 (27). pp. 6705-6710.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Acampo, J. J. C. and Kraal, B. and Bosch, L.. (1991) The influence of tRNA located at the P-site on the turnover of EF-Tu·GTP on ribosomes. Biochimie, 73 (7-8). pp. 1089-1092.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Vandenberg, Mirjam and Van Batenburg, Eke and Pleij, Cornells. (1990) Prediction of RNA secondary structure, including pseudoknotting, by computer simulation. Nucleic Acids Research, 18 (10). pp. 3035-3044.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Acampo, Jeannine J. C. and Ott, Günther and Sprinzl, Mathias and Degraaf, J. Martien and Talens, Anneke and Kraal, Barend. (1990) THE INTERACTION BETWEEN AMINOACYL-TRANSFER RNA AND THE MUTANT ELONGATION FACTOR-TUAR AND FACTOR-TUBO. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Molecular Cell Research, 1050 (1-3). pp. 226-229.
Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Kraal, Barend and Bosch, Leendert. (1988) Zone-interference gel electrophoresis: a new method for studying weak protein-nucleic acid complexes under native equilibrium conditions. Nucleic Acids Research, 16 (21). pp. 10099-10108.
Pleij, C. W. A. and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Van Belkum, Alex and Rietveld, Krijn and Bosch, Leendert. (1986) The Spatial Folding Of The 3' Noncoding Region Of Aminoacylatable Plant Viral RNAs. Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, 32 (10D). p. 274.
Van Belkum, Alex and Abrahams, Jan Pieter and Pleij, Cornelius W. A. and Bosch, Leendert. (1985) Five pseudoknots are present at the 204 nucleotides long 3' noncoding region of tobacco mosak virus RNA. Nucleic Acids Research, 13 (21). pp. 7673-7686.
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Down with (discriminating) systems
Blogs | Privacy and data protection | Artificial intelligence (AI) | Profiling practices | Surveillance and data retention
Amidst a particularly hectic time for digital rights policy in Europe, there remains a large elephant in the room.
By EDRi · September 10, 2020
Europe is still pulsating with the repercussions of sustained global uprisings against racism following the murder of George Floyd. As the EU formulates its response in its upcoming ‘Action Plan on Racism’, EDRi outlines why it must address structural racism in technology as part of upcoming legislation.
Much of the discussion surrounding the ‘social’ side of technology focuses on the promise of a range of benefits that stem from digital innovation. The EU’s ongoing consultation on its AI legislation consistently reiterates the ‘wide array of economic and social benefits’ artificial intelligence can offer.
As our European societies increasingly wake up to the existence of structural, racial inequality, we have to ask ourselves, who will really feel the benefits of innovation? And what are the costs on human dignity and life that automated decision making systems will bring? What impact do they already have on existing systems of racism and discrimination?
AI presents huge potential for exacerbating racism in society, at a scale and to a degree of opacity unlike discrimination perpetuated by humans. Automated decision making has often been portrayed as neutral and ‘objective’, when in fact they neatly embed and amplify the underlying structural biases of our societies.
For example, increasing evidence demonstrates how new technologies developed and deployed in the field of law enforcement differentiate, target and experiment on communities at the margins. Another example is the increased use of both place-based and person-based “predictive policing” technologies to forecast where, and by whom, a narrow type of crimes are likely to be committed, that repeatedly score racialised communities with a higher likelihood of presumed future criminality. Such systems include the Dutch Crime Anticipation System, and the UK’s National Data Analytics Solution (‘NDAS’).
The various matrixes (the Gangs Matrix, ProKid-12 SI, the NDAS) dedicated to monitoring and data collection on future crime and ‘gangs’ target Black, Brown and Roma men and boys, highlighting discriminatory patterns on the basis of race and class. Not only do such systems infringe on the presumption of innocence and the fundamental right to privacy, they codify the notion that if you are of a certain race, you are suspicious and need to be watched. Predictive policing systems cause redirecting of policing toward certain areas, increasing the likelihood of, often fatal, encounters with the police.
Over-surveillance already occurs towards racialised groups, and undocumented people. In Europe, undocumented migrants are generally unable to avail themselves of data protection rights. This vulnerability is heightened due to the development of mass-scale, interoperable repositories of biometric data to facilitate immigration enforcement.
How can we address structural racism perpetuated through technology and the digital space? With the Action Plan on Racism and upcoming legislation on the Digital Services Act and artificial intelligence (AI), EDRi argues that the link between racism and technology cannot be ignored. In order to make sure that the ‘benefits’ of technology are felt by all of our societies equally, the EU must apply a racial justice lens to its future digital legislation and policy.
In our briefing ‘Structural racism, digital rights and technology’ EDRi calls on the EU to prevent abuses towards racialised communities by legally restricting impermissible uses of artificial intelligence, such as predictive policing, biometric surveillance, and uses of AI at the border.
There are numerous examples of this to draw from. In 2019, the city of San Francisco banned the use of facial recognition technology by police after racial justice activists highlighted the harmful impacts of the technology. This year, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism recommended that Member States prohibit the use of technologies with a racially discriminatory impact. EDRi member Foxglove, working with the Joint Council on the Welfare of Immigrants took legal action and forced the Home Office to end its use of a racially discriminatory visa algorithm. There is a growing international consensus that racism perpetuated through technology must be halted with radical measures. The EU must follow suit.
Structural Racism briefing https://edri.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Structural-Racism-Digital-Rights-and-Technology_Final.pdf
AI recommendations paper https://edri.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AI_EDRiRecommendations.pdf
Ban Biometrics Paper: https://edri.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Paper-Ban-Biometric-Mass-Surveillance.pdf
Foxlgove: https://www.foxglove.org.uk/news/home-office-says-it-will-abandon-its-racist-visa-algorithm-nbsp-after-we-sued-them
PICUM and Statewatch (2019) “Data Protection, Immigration Enforcement and Fundamental Rights: What the EU’s Regulations on Interoperability Mean for People with Irregular Status“ https://www.statewatch.org/analyses/2019/data-protection-immigration-enforcement-and-fundamental-rights-what-the-eu-s-regulations-on-interoperability-mean-for-people-with-irregular-status/
(Contribution by Sarah Chander, Senior Policy Advisor, EDRi)
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FI/SV/EN
The Finnish National Opera and Ballet performance database
Elli Vallinoja
Show by productions
Albert Herring Feb 19, 2010: Emmie
Albert Herring Mar 2, 2010: Emmie
Albert Herring (Kuhmo, Rovaniemi) May 28, 2010: Emmie
Albert Herring (Kuhmo, Rovaniemi) Jun 1, 2010: Emmie
Albert Herring (Muurame) Jun 8, 2011: Emmie
Juha Dec 2, 2011: I Kesätyttö
Juha Dec 13, 2011: I Kesätyttö
Albert Herring (Oulu) Nov 20, 2012: Emmie
Die Fledermaus Nov 28, 2014: Ida
Die Fledermaus Dec 4, 2014: Ida
Die Fledermaus Dec 17, 2014: Ida
Die Fledermaus Jan 9, 2015: Ida
The Phantom of the Opera Sep 4, 2015: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Sep 15, 2015: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Oct 1, 2015: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Oct 10, 2015: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Nov 7, 2015: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Nov 12, 2015: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Dec 14, 2015: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Jan 8, 2016: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Jan 23, 2016: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Feb 5, 2016: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Feb 20, 2016: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Mar 3, 2016: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Mar 31, 2016: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Apr 2, 2016: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera Apr 16, 2016: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera May 5, 2016: Meg Giry
The Phantom of the Opera May 21, 2016: Meg Giry
Die Fledermaus Jan 21, 2017: Ida
Ihmepoika A Apr 7, 2017: Äiti / Talonmies
Mestarien Messissä - Koodi ilolle 2017 Sep 28, 2017: Solisti
Madama Butterfly Jan 26, 2018: Kate Pinkerton
Madama Butterfly Feb 2, 2018: Kate Pinkerton
Madama Butterfly Feb 10, 2018: Kate Pinkerton
Il trovatore Mar 23, 2018: Ines
Il trovatore Apr 3, 2018: Ines
Il trovatore Apr 11, 2018: Ines
Parsifal May 16, 2018: Flowermaidens
Parsifal May 16, 2018: Four Esquires
The Phantom of the Opera Dec 1, 2018: Meg Giry
Thaïs Feb 8, 2019: Myrtale
Thaïs Feb 13, 2019: Myrtale
Djurens planet Mar 15, 2019: Joy
Carmen Sep 6, 2019: Mercédès
Carmen Sep 11, 2019: Mercédès
Concert Sep 20, 2019: Solisti
Carmen Oct 3, 2019: Mercédès
Djurens planet Oct 30, 2019: Joy
Djurens planet Nov 1, 2019: Joy
Djurens planet Nov 12, 2019: Joy
Ariadne auf Naxos Jan 24, 2020: Dryade
Ariadne auf Naxos Feb 4, 2020: Dryade
Ariadne auf Naxos Feb 13, 2020: Dryade
Il trovatore Sep 11, 2020: Ines
Il trovatore Oct 1, 2020: Ines
Please note that the data on the page may be incomplete, because performance details have been recorded in different ways at different times. For some performances there is no performer information at all, particularly in the case of guest performances out of town. Generally, the performance details for a dancer show all the roles performed by that dancer on stage as of 1 August 2012. If the dancer appeared in multiple roles in a single performance, the dancer’s name is given more than once in connection with that performance. For performances before 1 August 2012, however, a dancer’s name is principally only given once for each performance.
Finnish National Opera and Ballet
Helsinginkatu 58
p. +358 9 4030 21
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Tag: bicycle-friendly
Author SuzannePosted on May 11, 2020 Categories Climate Change & Energy, Land Use, TransportationTags bicycle-friendly, safety, walkable community
Seattle will permanently close 20 miles of residential streets to most vehicle traffic
Michelle Baruchman, THE SEATTLE TIMES
Nearly 20 miles of Seattle streets will permanently close to most vehicle traffic by the end of May, Mayor Jenny Durkan announced Thursday.
The streets had been closed temporarily to through traffic to provide more space for people to walk and bike at a safe distance apart during the coronavirus pandemic.
Now the closures will continue even after Gov. Jay Inslee’s stay-at-home order is lifted.
Over the next couple of weeks, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) will replace the temporary closure signs on the so-called Stay Healthy Streets with permanent markings, guiding drivers to other routes.
The program, which has rolled out in phases, has been implemented in the Aurora-Licton Springs, Ballard, Central District, West Seattle, Greenwood, Othello, Rainier Beach and Beacon Hill neighborhoods.
Residents, delivery drivers, garbage and recycling workers, and emergency response vehicles can continue to use the streets, but no through traffic is allowed.
“Our rapid response to the challenges posed by COVID-19 have been transformative in a number of places across the city,” SDOT Director Sam Zimbabwe said. “Some of the responses are going to be long lasting, and we need to continue to build out a transportation system that enables people of all ages and abilities to bike and walk across the city.”
More streets could be closed to through traffic in the coming months, depending on community demand. SDOT will evaluate streets based on whether they reach dense areas, allow people to stay close to home and keep parks from getting crowded, among other factors.
Read more at https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/seattle-will-permanently-close-20-miles-of-residential-streets-to-most-vehicle-traffic/?amp=1
Author SuzannePosted on April 12, 2020 May 19, 2020 Categories TransportationTags bicycle-friendly, pedestrian safety, Slow Streets, walkability
74 Miles of ‘Slow Streets’ in Oakland
James Brasuell, PLANETIZEN
Suddenly, cars aren’t the first priority on 10 percent of the roadway in Oakland, California.
“Cars will soon be banned from 74 miles of Oakland’s residential streets during the coronavirus-inspired shelter-in-place, a move bicycle advocates wish would happen in other cities,” report Allie Rasmus and Lisa Fernandez.
“The emergency measure, called ‘Oakland Slow Streets,’ will banish motorized vehicles from 10% of the roadway space in Oakland,” according to the article.
Update: cars will not be entirely banished from the streets. Rather, cars will be required to travel at no faster than 10 mph while giving priority to pedestrians and people on bikes, according ot additional information reported by Roger Rudick.
The Oakland Slow Streets program moves Oakland far into the lead of the national trend of cities blocking cars from streets to allow more space for pedestrians and people on bikes. Minneapolis previously opened 18 miles of streets.
Rachel Swan provides additional coverage of the Oakland Slow Streets program in a paywalled article for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Read more at https://www.planetizen.com/node/109038?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-04132020&mc_cid=ee266900eb&mc_eid=50ff5c2bfe
Author SuzannePosted on October 7, 2019 October 9, 2019 Categories TransportationTags bicycle-friendly, Jennings crossing, pedestrian safety, SMART, SMART station, walkability
State rail regulators to decide fate of Santa Rosa’s Jennings Avenue SMART crossing
State rail regulators in San Francisco are set to vote Thursday morning on Santa Rosa’s request to restore a ground-level pedestrian and bicycle pathway over the railroad tracks at Jennings Avenue.
The city has sought the return of the historic east-west crossing in northwestern Santa Rosa since receiving the California Public Utilities Commission’s approval to build it in September 2016. It is seeking a two-year extension to work out a deal for it with Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, which now owns the rail right of way. A legal arbitrator for the state agency last month recommended granting the request to construct the footpath through September 2021, stating that the city’s plan for added enhancements met public safety requirements.
SMART, the North Bay’s commuter rail agency, opposes a ground-level crossing at Jennings Avenue, citing ongoing safety concerns.
In 2015, two years before the launch of service, SMART fenced off the pathway, which dates to at least the early 20th century.
SMART previously supported the city’s plan to build an overcrossing at the location, submitting a letter of support as part of a regional transportation grant application for $8 million toward the $9 million project. Santa Rosa ultimately reverted back to a ground-level crossing, noting the access challenges for disabled people and the overcrossing’s general incompatibility with the neighborhood. It returned the grant funding.
SMART submitted [a] letter in support of the city’s updated plans before reversing course once passenger service started. SMART did not return a request for comment Monday about the Public Utilities Commission’s upcoming vote on the crossing. If approved Thursday, the two-year extension would place the ball back in the court of SMART and the largest city along its rail line, leaving the two entities to come to an agreement over the long-disputed issue.
Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10147543-181/state-rail-regulators-to-decide?sba=AAS
Author SuzannePosted on November 27, 2018 December 1, 2018 Categories Climate Change & Energy, Sustainable Living, TransportationTags bicycle-friendly, pedestrian safety, school commute, walkable community
Programs encourage Sonoma County high school students to ditch car commutes
SONOMA COUNTY GAZETTE
Efforts to shift school commutes away from single-rider trips to more sustainable modes of transportation, such as walking, bicycling, carpooling, and public transit are making a difference at 12 Sonoma County high schools.
“Since September 2017 the Safe Routes to School pilot program has seen measurable increases in active and alternative forms of transportation among students at participating high schools,” said Kelly Elder, Public Health Division manager at the Sonoma County Department of Health Services (DHS).
The two-year pilot program is coordinated by DHS and funded by the Caltrans’ Active Transportation Program, aims to increase physical activity among high school students and decrease greenhouse gas emissions related to vehicle trips.
The Department collaborated with the Center for Climate Protection to implement youth leadership trainings at 12 local high schools, while W-Trans, a traffic-engineering consultant, received funding to assess walking and biking infrastructure around the schools.
“Our team has gathered information on walking and bicycling to and from school, and we led walking audits in the spring to identify critical pedestrian and bike safety issues,” said Principal, W-Trans, Steve Weinberger.
Read more at https://www.sonomacountygazette.com/sonoma-county-news/sonoma-county-high-schools-reduce-carbon-footprint-during-commute
Author SuzannePosted on October 16, 2018 November 2, 2018 Categories Land Use, TransportationTags bicycle-friendly, endangered species, Roblar Road quarry, traffic
Sonoma County mulls changes to controversial quarry project
Sonoma County supervisors Tuesday revived one of their most controversial land-use debates, examining potential changes to a planned quarry west of Cotati that has been in the works for a decade and a half.
Quarry developer John Barella wants to alter some of the conditions the county imposed when it narrowly approved his project off Roblar Road eight years ago. The Board of Supervisors last year hired a consultant to study Barella’s proposed changes and is now considering a draft of the resulting environmental analysis.
Much of Tuesday’s discussion centered around a 1.6-mile stretch of Roblar Road that would be used hundreds of times daily by large trucks hauling aggregate from the quarry. Barella’s team says the original county requirement to widen the road to 40 feet proved unworkable and proposed constructing a road that’s 32 feet wide instead.
The proposal prompted safety concerns from some supervisors and community members, particularly since the road is used by cyclists.
Supervisor Shirlee Zane, the only current board member who was in office when the project was approved, called for further road improvements that would slow traffic and better accommodate bicycles.
Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8845302-181/sonoma-county-mulls-changes-to
Author SuzannePosted on July 30, 2018 August 2, 2018 Categories TransportationTags bicycle-friendly, SMART, walkability
Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit officials resist new Santa Rosa crossing
Kevin McCallum, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Local passenger rail officials have told Santa Rosa they’re putting the brakes on plans for a $2.3 million rail crossing near Coddingtown Mall, but they’re saying very little publicly about their apparent reversal.
Top Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit officials recently informed Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Coursey and other city officials that they are concerned about the safety of a proposed crossing for pedestrians and bicyclists at Jennings Avenue.
That’s a major about-face for SMART officials, who supported the crossing two years ago before state utility regulators and told Santa Rosa officials publicly they felt the crossing — which would block pedestrians from crossing the track when a train approaches — would be perfectly safe.
“We were told that circumstances had changed,” Mayor Chris Coursey said. “If they no longer support building the Jennings crossing, it would be extremely disappointing.”
Jennings Avenue used to cross over the tracks in an east-west direction, but at some point decades ago the crossing was blocked off for vehicles and the street now dead-ends at the track. Area residents continued to cross the tracks there in relative safety as rail service over the ensuing decades was sporadic or nonexistent.
When SMART began testing trains on the line in 2015, it fenced off the area and directed pedestrians and bicyclists to cross a quarter-mile north at Guerneville Avenue.
Read more at http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8569281-181/sonoma-marin-area-rail-transit-officials
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EMEI
Epidemiología Molecular de Enfermedades Infecciosas
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Association of CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism with mortality in shock septic patients who underwent major cardiac or abdominal surgery: A retrospective study
27/12/2018 11/11/2018 por Salvador Resino
Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29426837
Authors: Maria Angeles JIMÉNEZ-SOUSA a, d (¥); Pilar LIU b (¥); Luz Maria MEDRANO a; Amanda FERNÁNDEZ-RODRÍGUEZ a; Raquel ALMANSA c; Esther GOMEZ-SANCHEZ b; Lucía RICO c; Mario LORENZO b; Alejandra FADRIQUE b; Eduardo TAMAYO b, d (*); Salvador RESINO a, d (*).
(¥), Maria Angeles JIMÉNEZ-SOUSA and Pilar LIU contributed equally to this work.
(*), Eduardo TAMAYO and Salvador RESINO contributed equally to this work.
Current affiliations: (a) Unidad de Infección Viral e Inmunidad. Centro Nacional de Microbiología. Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Majadahonda, Spain. (b) Departamento de Anestesiología y Reanimación, Hospital Clínico Universitario, Valladolid, Spain. (c) Unidad de Investigación Médica en Infección e Inmunidad. Hospital Clínico Universitario-IECSCYL, Valladolid, Spain. (d) Group of Biomedical Research in Critical Care Medicine (BioCritic), Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valladolid. Universidad de Valladolid (Spain).
Correspondence and reprint requests:
Salvador Resino; Centro Nacional de Microbiología, Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Campus Majadahonda); Carretera Majadahonda- Pozuelo, Km 2.2; 28220 Majadahonda (Madrid); Telf.: +34 918 223 266; Fax: +34 915 097 946; e-mail: sresino@isciii.es
Maria Angeles Jiménez Sousa; Centro Nacional de Microbiología, Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Campus Majadahonda); Carretera Majadahonda- Pozuelo, Km 2.2; 28220 Majadahonda (Madrid); Telf.: +34 918 2223278; Fax: +34 915 097 946; e-mail: majimenezsousa@yahoo.es
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism and death related to septic shock in white European patients who underwent major cardiac or abdominal surgery. We carried out a retrospective study in 205 septic shock patients. The septic shock diagnosis was established by international consensus definitions. The outcome variable was the death within 28, 60 and 90 days after septic shock diagnosis. The CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism was analyzed by Agena Bioscience’s MassARRAY platform. The genetic association analysis with survival was selected a recessive inheritance model (GG vs. AA/AG). One hundred thirteen out of 205 patients (55.1%) died with a survival median of 39 days (95%CI=30.6; 47.4). Patients with rs2569190 GG genotype had shorter survival probability than rs2569190 AA/AG genotype at 60 days (62.3% vs 50%; p=0.035), and 90 days (62.3% vs 52.6%; p=0.046). The rs2569190 GG genotype was associated with increased risk of septic shock-related death in the first 60 days (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR)=1.67; p=0.016) and 90 days (aHR=1.64; p=0.020) compared to rs2569190 AA/AG genotype. In conclusion, the presence of CD14 rs2569190 GG genotype was associated with death in shock septic patients who underwent major surgery. Further studies with bigger sample size are required to verify this relationship.
Key words: CD14; septic shock; major surgery; SNPs; survival
Sepsis is a major cause of death from infection, although mortality from sepsis has decreased due to improved supportive care and evidence-based guidelines for diagnosis and timely intervention 1,2. Besides, septic shock kills a large number of patients in hospitals, mainly in intensive care unit (ICU) 1-3. In general terms, sepsis is a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by altered host response to infection; and septic shock is a subset of sepsis with circulatory and cellular/metabolic abnormalities, which has been related to higher risk of dying 4.
In many cases, the stabilization of the clinical condition in septic patients is reached by the use of anti-infective treatments together to aggressive organ failure supports 1. Nevertheless, these patients are susceptible to ICU-related complications, which have a notable repercussion on their early and late prognosis 5,6. Thus, multiple organ failure caused by the primary infection could mainly explain early deaths and ICU-related complications such as nosocomial infections and mesenteric ischemia could lead to late deaths5. The dysfunction at the molecular level is reflected significantly by the outcome of these patients. In sepsis, the vascular endothelium is considerably affected, appearing changes in the mitochondrial functionality because of the repeated hypoxia episodes. This mitochondrial damage may induce a series of cellular and pathophysiological dysfunctions, increasing the chances of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) and death 7.
Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or endotoxin plays a major role in initiating the typical septic inflammatory cascade with overproduction of proinflammatory cytokines 8. LPS is the major component of the outer membrane of gram-negative bacteria, but LPS may also trigger inflammation in gram-positive and fungal sepsis due to the release of excessive amounts of gut-derived LPS during intestinal hypoperfusion 9,10.
CD14, together with toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and lymphocyte antigen 96 (LY96, also called MD-2), may bind LPS resulting in NF-kB activation and the production of proinflammatory cytokine 11. In this regard, there are a high number of genes, which are induced by NF-kB, that are implicated in the cellular response against infection and promote the synthesis of pro-inflammatory mediators. Additionally, several microRNAs have been involved in the NF-kB activity and modulation of the immune response, resulting in a worsening of the sepsis with developing of MODS and death. Additionally, several microRNAs have been involved in the NF-kB activity and modulation of the immune response, resulting in a worsening of the sepsis with developing of MODS and death 12.
CD14, a 53–55kDa glycoprotein, is expressed on the surface (mCD14) of myeloid cells (monocytes, macrophages, and neutrophils) and non-myeloid cells (endothelial and epithelial cells) 11. CD14 may also be found in a soluble form (sCD14), which apparently derives from the secretion of CD14 or from proteolysis of mCD14 11. Both mCD14 and sCD14 are critical for LPS-dependent signal transduction. Besides, CD14 may also participate in immune cell activation by gram-positive cell-wall components 13-15. The role of CD14 and the inflammatory response are essential to eradicate primary infections and prevent the acquisition of secondary infections in patients with sepsis 16. However, CD14 also has a pivotal role in initiating and perpetuating the pro-inflammatory response during the course of sepsis 17.
A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) detected at position -159 in the promoter region of the CD14 gene (rs2569190) has been related to Sp protein. The presence of a T at -159 decreases the homology between the CD14 promoter GC box and the Sp consensus sequence. 18, leading to subsequent increases in CD14 production 18,19. Thus, the rs2569190 SNP increases the level of pro-inflammatory response following LPS stimulation because it could modulate the transcriptional activity of CD14 19,20. The CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism has been related to susceptibility to sepsis, as well as the outcome of sepsis 17, but there are controversial results due to the small sample size and the heterogeneity of the patients included in the previous studies.
In this study, we analyzed the relationship between the CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism and death in European septic shock patients who underwent major surgery.
Patients and study design
We performed a retrospective study in 205 patients who developed septic shock after major cardiac or abdominal surgery. All patients were white European older than 18 years and were attended at the Hospital Clínico Universitario of Valladolid (Spain) between April 2008 and November 2012.
The study was carried out according to the Declaration of Helsinki and patients gave their informed consent for being enrolled in the study. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Hospital Clínico Universitario (Valladolid) and Instituto de Salud Carlos III (Majadahonda).
We included a control group of 257 patients who underwent major cardiac or abdominal surgery and only developed SIRS 37. Control group had similar age and gender compared to patients group. They were attended at the same hospital between 2008 and 2012.
Besides, allelic and genotypic frequencies of CD14 rs2569190 for healthy subjects were collected from the 1000 Genomes Project website (http://www.1000genomes.org/home) in order to compare these frequencies to those obtained from our study. This database covers a wide number of common human genetic variation detected by next generation sequencing in multiple populations 21. We select the IBS population which involved 107 individuals.
Control group and IBS population were used to compare the allelic and genotypic frequencies of CD14 rs2569190 with those obtained from our study.
Major surgery was called to a surgical procedure in which the patient was under general anesthesia and respiratory assistance due to the patient was not able to breathe independently. Epidemiological and clinical data were collected from medical records: age, gender, type of surgery, prior comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, liver disease, cardiomyopathy and cancer. In all cardiac surgeries, cardiopulmonary bypass was performed. Severity of sepsis was evaluated by using two ICU scoring systems calculated within the first 24 hours after diagnosis: Acute Physiology and Chronic health Evaluation (APACHE II score) 38 and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA score) 39.
The septic shock diagnosis was carried out by using the criteria established by the SCCM/ESICM/ACCP/ATS/SIS International Sepsis Definitions Conference 37. According to clinical findings, infection could be either documented or presumed. In those cases where the presence of infection was strongly suspected without microbiological confirmation, two clinicians with a large experience discussed and reached a consensus diagnosis based on clinical and laboratory results.
DNA genotyping
Genomic DNA was extracted from whole blood using High Pure PCR Template Preparation kit (Roche Diagnostics GmbH, Mannheim, Germany). CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism was genotyped at the Spanish National Genotyping Center (CeGen; http://www.cegen.org/). Genotyping was performed by Agena Bioscience’s MassARRAY platform (San Diego, CA, USA) using the iPLEX® Gold assay design system. Duplicated samples were included on each plate to check for technical replicates and negative and positive controls were used on each batch to exclude DNA contamination and ensure a technically correct laboratory process.
Outcome variable
The outcome variable was the death, censuring at different time points after septic shock diagnosis: 28 days (early mortality), 60 days (middle mortality), and 90 days (late mortality).
Nonparametric tests were used for the description of the study population: Mann-Whitney U test was conducted for continuous variable and chi-squared/Fisher’s exact test for categorical variables. For the genetic association study, Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses were performed to compare the mortality during the first 28, 60 and 90 days according to the presence of CD14 rs2569190 GG genotype. Statistical analysis was carried out in accordance with dominant, recessive and additive models. These analyses were assessed according to the goodness of fit evaluated by Akaike information criterion (AIC) value and Bayesian information criterion (BIC).
Follow-up was censored at different time points: 28, 60 and 90 days. The Kaplan-Meier product-limit method at 28, 60, and 90 days and Log rank test were used to estimate and compare survival probabilities. Cox regression analyses were used to study the association between CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism and the mortality during the first 28, 60, and 90 days after diagnosis of septic shock. Each Cox regression was adjusted by the most important clinical and epidemiological co-variables, allowing to avoid the over-fitting of the regression. CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism was included by forced entry (Enter algorithm) and the most significant co-variables were selected by stepwise algorithm (at each step, co-variables are considered for entry or removal: a p-value for entry and exit of 0.15 and 0.20, respectively). The co-variables used were age, gender, type of surgery, (cardiac or abdominal), elective surgery (emergency or scheduled), comorbidities (obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)), liver disease and neoplasia), smoker, and high alcohol intake, antibiotic treatment, peritonitis and APACHE-II score. All statistical analyses were carried out by using the IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 21.0 (IBM Corp, Chicago, Armonk, NY, USA). All p-values were two-tailed and statistical significance was defined as p<0.05. Moreover, HWE analyses was performed by Haploview 4.2 software, considering equilibrium when p>0.05.
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article. The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of septic shock patients at the moment of septic shock diagnosis and stratified by CD14 rs2569190 genotype are shown in Table 1. In brief, 63.9% were male, the median age was 73 years and 54.6% and 44.9% of patients had hypertension and heart disease, respectively. Regarding the surgery, 40% of patients were underwent cardiac surgery and 63.4% of surgery were urgent. The most predominant pathogens were gram-negatives (52.7%). Regarding site of infection, 46.8% and 47.3% of patients had peritonitis or pneumonia, respectively. When the population was divided taken into consideration CD14 rs2569190 genotype under a recessive genetic model, we did not find any significant differences between groups.
Table 1. Summary of epidemiological and clinical characteristics of septic shock patients who underwent major surgery according to CD14 polymorphism.
CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism
Characteristics All Patients AA/AG GG p-value (*)
No. patients 205 152 53 –
Gender (male) 131 (63.9%) 100 (65.8%) 31 (58.5%) 0.341
Age (years) 73 (63; 79.5) 72 (63; 79.7) 77 (67.5; 79.5) 0.137
Prior or pre-existing conditions
Smoker 36 (17.6%) 27 (17.8%) 9 (17.0%) 0.897
Alcoholism 15 (7.3%) 9 (5.9%) 6 (11.3%) 0.194
Obesity 30 (14.6%) 18 (11.8%) 12 (22.6%) 0.055
Diabetes 26 (12.7%) 17 (11.2%) 9 (17.0%) 0.275
Heart disease 92 (44.9%) 71 (46.7%) 21 (39.6%) 0.372
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 36 (17.6%) 24 (15.8%) 12 (22.6%) 0.259
Hypertension 112 (54.6%) 81 (53.3%) 31 (58.5%) 0.513
Chronic kidney disease 30 (14.6%) 23 (15.1%) 7 (13.2%) 0.733
Cancer 48 (23.4%) 31 (20.4%) 17 (32.1%) 0.084
Liver disease 9 (4.4%) 6 (3.9%) 3 (5.7%) 0.600
Cardiac (versus abdominal) 82 (40.0%) 62 (40.8%) 20 (37.7%) 0.696
Emergency (versus scheduled) 130 (63.4%) 97 (63.8%) 33 (62.3%) 0.840
Severity indexes
SOFA score 9 (7; 10.5) 9 (7; 10) 9 (7; 11) 0.510
APACHE II score 16 (14; 19) 16 (13; 19) 17 (14; 21.5) 0.060
Gram-positive 102 (49.8%) 81 (53.3%) 21 (39.6%) 0.087
Gram-negative 108 (52.7%) 78 (51.3%) 30 (56.6%) 0.507
Fungus 41 (20.0%) 34 (22.4%) 7 (13.2%) 0.151
Catheter bacteraemia 70 (34.1%) 55 (36.2%) 15 (28.3%) 0.297
Surgical site infection 49 (23.9%) 35 (23.0%) 14 (26.4%) 0.618
Urinary tract infection 24 (11.7%) 15 (9.9%) 9 (17.0%) 0.165
Endocarditis 10 (4.9%) 8 (5.3%) 2 (3.8%) 0.665
Peritonitis 96 (46.8%) 72 (47.4%) 24 (45.3%) 0.793
Pneumonia 97 (47.3%) 69 (45.4%) 28 (52.8%) 0.351
Values are expressed as absolute count (percentage).
(*), P-values were calculated by Chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test for categorical variables and Mann-Whitney test for continuous variables. Statistically significant differences are shown in bold.
Note that patients may have had more than one organism cultured.
Abbreviations: SOFA, sequential organ failure assessment; APACHE, acute physiology and chronic health evaluation; CD14, cluster of differentiation 14.
Frequency of the CD14 polymorphism
The frequencies of CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism in patients and control groups (patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) and healthy subjects from the Iberian populations in Spain (IBS) 21) are shown in Table 2. The CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism was in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) (p>0.05) and showed missing values <5%. Significant differences in allelic and genotypic frequencies were not found among groups.
Table 2. Frequencies of alleles and genotypes for CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism in septic shock patients compared to Iberian populations in Spain from 1000 Genomes Project data (http://www.1000genomes.org/1000-genomes-browsers) and SIRS patients.
SNP IBS population SIRS patients Septic shock patients p-value (a) p-value (b)
No. 107 259 205
HWE (p-value) 0.149 0.768 0.238
Alleles G 51.4% 51.2% 48.8% 0.939 0.660
A 48.6% 48.8% 51.2% – –
Genotypes AA 29.9% 24.1% 28.5% 0.235 0.765
AG 43.0% 49.4% 45.9% 0.294 0.629
GG 27.1% 26.5% 25.9% 0.988 0.812
P-values were calculated by Chi-squared test: (a), differences between IBS population and septic shock patients; (b), differences between SIRS patients and septic shock patients.
Abbreviations: SIRS, patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome; IBS, Iberian populations in Spain; HWE, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium; CD14, cluster of differentiation 14.
CD14 polymorphism and septic shock-related death
For the genetic association study, a recessive inheritance model (GG vs. AA/AG) was selected, due to it was the model that best fit to our data. The survival probabilities at different time points (28, 60, and 90 days) after septic shock diagnosis are shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Survival probabilities at 28, 60, and 90 days (Kaplan-Meier product limit method) for CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism in septic shock patients who underwent major cardiac or abdominal surgery.
Points censoring All Patients rs2569190 AA/AG rs2569190
GG P-value
(log-rank test)
28 days 36.1% 32.9% 45.3% 0.095
Abbreviations: CD14, cluster of differentiation 14; p-value, level of significance.
One hundred thirteen out of 205 patients (55.1%), died with a survival median of 39 days (95%CI=30.6; 47.4). Patients with CD14 rs2569190 GG genotype had higher death probability than CD14 rs2569190 AA/AG genotype at 60 days (p=0.035), and 90 days (p=0.046) (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Survival analysis (Kaplan-Meier curve) regarding to CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism in septic shock patients who underwent major cardiac or abdominal surgery. P-values were calculated by log-rank test (Kaplan-Meier curve).
The death risks at 28, 60, and 90 days obtained by Cox regression for the CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism are shown in Table 4.
Table 4. Risk of death regarding CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism in septic shock patients who underwent major cardiac or abdominal surgery.
Univariate Multivariate
HR 95%CI p-value aHR 95%CI p-value (*)
The first 28 days
rs2569190 GG 1.50 0.92; 2.45 0.101 1.55 0.95; 2.53 0.077
Emergency surgery 1.86 1.00; 3.46 0.049
APACHE-II score 1.04 1.00; 1.08 0.067
Peritonitis 2.28 1.35; 3.85 0.002
Heart disease 1.97 1.20; 3.22 0.007
Liver disease 1.91 0.82; 4.47 0.133
(*), P-values were calculated by Cox regression adjusting for the most important clinical and epidemiological characteristics (see statistical analysis section).
Abbreviations: CD14, cluster of differentiation 14; HR, hazard ratio; aHR, adjusted hazard ratio; 95%CI, 95% confidence interval; p-value, level of significance.
The CD14 rs2569190 GG genotype was related to bigger adjusted risk of death related to septic shock at day 60 (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR)=1.67; p=0.016) and day 90 (aHR=1.64; p=0.020) than CD14 rs2569190 AA/AG genotype.
Finally, the risk of death regarding CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism was separately assessed for patients underwent cardiac and abdominal surgery. In patients underwent cardiac surgery, the CD14 rs2569190 GG carriers had higher risk of death related to septic shock during the first 60 days [aHR=2.26 (95%CI=1.08; 4.82); p=0.029] and 90 days [aHR=2.07 (95%CI=1.01; 4.29); p=0.049] than CD14 rs2569190 AA/AG carrier; whereas CD14 rs2569190 GG carriers who underwent abdominal surgery did not have any significant association with mortality related to septic shock during the first 28, 60 and 90 days after diagnosis.
The genetic variation at genes of innate immunity may have influence on the occurrence of sepsis and death 22,23. In this study, we found a relationship between CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism and mortality in European septic shock patients who underwent major surgery. Specifically, patients with CD14 rs2569190 GG genotype had increased risk of death related to septic shock, suggesting that CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism may have an important function in the pathogenesis of septic shock. To our knowledge, this is the first report describing these findings in patients who underwent major surgery, while remaining consistent with observations in critically ill patients with medical conditions 24,25 or burn injury 26,27.
To date, discrepant results have been described for the association between CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism and sepsis and death. 17.
In 2013, a meta-analysis of Zhang et al. 17 suggested that the CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism could not be a relevant risk factor for sepsis and mortality because only weak associations were found in Asian populations and septic shock patients. They found that patients with AA/AG genotypes had a tendency towards higher risk of death than patients with GG genotype 17. However, our results are not consistent with this meta-analysis, since we observed a beneficial effect of the AA/AG genotype on septic shock survival in European people. Note that the meta-analysis by Zhang et al. did not provide information about the association of CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism with septic-shock survival in European populations. This was probably due to the low number of sepsis mortality-related studies included in the meta-analysis, which precluded the stratification by ethnicity 17. In addition, other specific studies have associated CD14 rs2569190 G allele with higher risk of sepsis and death in people of European origin, which may support our results 18,26-30.
The A to G polymorphism at position-159 in the promoter region of the CD14 gene (rs2569190) could cause differential activity in promoter constructs. In this context, rs2569190 G allele seems to be implicated in down-regulation of CD14 transcription and lower expression of mCD14 and circulating levels of sCD4 19,20. With this in mind, previous reports suggest that the biological correlation of the CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism with the survival in patients with A-allele could be attributed to the strongest pro-inflammatory response among patients, consequence of higher CD14 expression 19,20,31-33. This assumption is consistent with the increasingly prevailing opinion that the major problem of sepsis patients is the predominant state of immunosuppression characterized by a reduced pro-inflammatory status and increased anti-inflammatory response 16. In our study, assays for determination of mCD4 or sCD14 could support the effect observed for CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism, however CD14 values were not available in our study.
Additionally, sCD14 level has been recently described as a novel marker for postoperative mortality in elective cardiac surgery patients, showing implication at different times (30-day, 6-month and 2 year-mortality) 34. In our study, we observed an effect of CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism at 60 and 90-day mortality. As the mortality is a cumulative variable, a more limited number of patients suffering death at 28-day mortality compared to 60- and 90-day mortality was found, which may have decreased the statistical power of our analysis. However, we found a trend of association in the multivariate model (p=0.077), which would be in concordance with previous findings described by Mansur et al., who found that CD14 rs2569190 may act as a prognostic variable for the short-term outcome due to its association with 30-day mortality in patients with sepsis 29.
In this study, we were not able to carry out a study to decipher the mechanisms underlying this association because we did not have access to other samples of these patients. However, we carried out an in silico study for assessing the regulatory features of this polymorphism taking into account chromatin state of the region surrounding variant, regulatory elements overlapped with variant, and variant’s potential target genes. We used rVarBase database 34, which uses experimentally supported regulatory elements from ENCODE and other data resources to make relevant annotation. We found that rs2569190 polymorphism, located within the promoter of CD14, influence the chromatin states in different cell lines such as neutrophils, monocytes, natural killer cells, T cells and B cells from peripheral blood as well as hepatic cells from the liver. Keeping this in mind, we stress the importance of further investigations to study the mechanisms that could be influencing the association of CD14 rs2569190 with septic shock-related death.
We compared frequencies of CD14 rs2569190 alleles and genotypes between septic shock and SIRS patients recruited in this study and healthy people obtained from IBS. No significant differences among groups were observed, indicating no bias for the distribution of CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism in our study. In addition, a particular strength of this study lies in the fact that there not were baseline differences in clinical and epidemiological variables according to CD14 rs2569190 genotypes (AA/AG vs GG). Despite this, we included the clinical and epidemiological variables into the multivariate Cox-regression analysis, and CD14 rs2569190 GG genotype remained a significant risk factor for mortality in 60 days and 90 days. In addition to the CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism, we observed several factors that were related to death such as emergency surgery, APACHE-II score, peritonitis, and heart disease. However, although we evaluated an elevated number of known variables influencing sepsis, other factors not included in this study could have an important role in this issue. Besides, other genetic variants could synergistically act with CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism, participating in the occurrence of death in septic patients. These factors could be other previously described SNPs within the inflammatory-related genes that have been related to death 36.
In addition, note that CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism could also influence other sepsis types. In fact, we also investigated the association between CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism and severe sepsis by using a small cohort of 43 patients who developed severe sepsis after cardiac or abdominal surgery (data not shown), finding an association between CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism and 90-day mortality (p=0.033). This underlines the probable role of CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism on the other sepsis types, but, further analysis with bigger sample size would be needed to corroborate such association.
Finally, it should be stressed that this retrospective study has a relatively small sample size, which could increase the number of false positives or negatives. Complex human diseases, such as sepsis, are under the control of many genes that contribute with modest individual effects. The sample size could be an important issue in this regard, since only big effects would be detected in small populations. However, our cohort was homogenous because we only included septic shock patients, without including other stages of sepsis. We also carried out a follow-up study and survival analysis, which are often much more sensitive to detect statistical associations in cohort studies. Besides, the fact of finding a significant association at different times even when CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism is studied in combination with other important prognostic factors, reinforces the role of this polymorphism on septic shock-related death. However, further studies with bigger sample size would be needed to corroborate such association. Moreover, in our study, the association of CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism with mortality related to septic shock was only observed in patients underwent major cardiac surgery; whereas patients underwent abdominal surgery did not show any significant association. In this setting, note that the reduced sample size of surgery groups could influence the different pattern observed between cardiac and abdominal surgery. Besides, the association should also be investigated in different racial groups. Finally, other CD14 polymorphisms could provide interesting information and thus, they should also be evaluated in further studies.
In conclusion, CD14 rs2569190 GG genotype was associated with mortality in patients with septic shock who underwent major surgery. The CD14 rs2569190 polymorphism could allow an improved management of death risk in septic shock patients. Further studies with bigger sample size are required to verify this relationship.
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The authors thank the Spanish National Genotyping Center (CEGEN-PRB2-ISCIII) for providing SNP genotyping services (http://www.cegen.org). It is supported by grant PT13/0001, ISCIII-SGEFI / FEDER. We also acknowledge the patients in this study for their participation.
AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS:
Funding body, ET and SR.
Study concept and design: MAJS, PL, ET, and SR.
Sample collection: LR and RA.
Patients’ selection and clinical data acquisition: ET, PL, EGS, ML, and AF.
Sample preparation, DNA isolation and genotyping: MAJS, LMM, and AFR.
Statistical analysis and interpretation of data: SR.
Writing of the manuscript: MAJS and SR.
Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: LMM, PL, AFR, and ET.
Study supervision: SR.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST DECLARATIONS
This work has been supported by grants given by Instituto de Salud Carlos III (grant numbers PI15/01451 to ET), “Gerencia de Salud, Consejería de Sanidad, Junta de Castilla y Leon” [grant number GRS 463/A/10 and 773/A/13 to ET], and PFIZER [grant number CT25-ESP01-01 to SR]. MAJS, LMM, and AFR are supported by “Instituto de Salud Carlos III” [grant numbers CD13/00013, CD14/00002, and CP14CIII/00010; respectively].
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In literature, character is a term used in reference to a verbal representation of a person, particularly the inner self of the person which influences behavior, thought and speech. The interaction of circumstance and character are captured by literature through action, dialogue and commentary. These interactions are livened by literature through presenting characters that are worth rooting for, loving and taking care of. However, there are characters that make the audience laugh, hate or dislike. This essay presents the procedure of writing a character analysis essay.
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Common topics in Character Analysis Essay include completeness of context, literary characters, character appearance, and character presentation. The essay helper must also focus on the role which the characters play, protagonist and villain, main themes of the story, the background of the characters, the character’s personality, and character transformation.
Writing a Character Analysis Essay
For a character analysis essay, the character to be analyzed is normally assigned to the student. However, in the event that the character is not assigned, the writer needs to choose only those characters playing a key role in the story. Characters that appear flat in the sense that they are either bad or good with no complex motivations to take into considerations may not be ideal for character analysis. The writer also needs to read and re-read the story so as to understand it fully as well as all the characters. While reading, it is important to notice each place that the character appears and take into concern the following:
How is the character (characters) described by the authors?
How does the character relate with others?
What is the role of the character in moving the story forward?
What challenges does the character undergo?
Which words are used to describe the character?
The other aspect of character analysis assignment is to pay a closer attention to the ethics of a character. This is in terms of whether the character makes unjust or just choices. For instance, there are characters who make choices which are morally correct only when it is convenient for him or her to do so. However, there are those who can stick to their principles even when life is at a compromise.
Outline for a Character Analysis Essay
The following outline should be used when writing a character analysis essay
a) Provide background to the story
b) Introduce the author and title
c) Thesis statement (state the traits of the character and how they influence the story)
2. Presentation of the Character at the Story’s Beginning
a) Identified traits of the character
b) The impact of these traits on the story
c) How does the character’s trait portray him or her?
3: The transformation of the character in the story?
Describe your character
Consider changes in beliefs, attitudes, self-concept, the character’s actions
The impact of this transformation on the character
How the character’s trait influence the story
4. A Description of the Character at the Story’s end
a). What are the character’s traits at the end of the story?
b). How does the trait influence the story?
What does the character’s experience teach the readers and what are your general feelings towards that character?
In summary, it is necessary for a writer to study many diverse aspects of a character as possible when writing a character analysis paper. Further, just like any other essay, a character analysis essay ought to be written in an organized manner. Nonetheless, a character analysis essay is a simple task and which should not have many hurdles. Yet, this is only true if a professional essay writer is concerned. If you can't call yourself that, don't worry. Just formulate a write my essay request, buy essay from our pros, and you are good to go.
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Rains Challenge State's Hay Crop
The information presented on this page was originally released on August 22, 1997. It may not be outdated, but please search our site for more current information. If you plan to quote or reference this information in a publication, please check with the Extension specialist or author before proceeding.
MISSISSIPPI STATE -- You've got to make hay while the sun shines, but Mississippi producers have not seen many clear skies at key hay cutting times.
Despite a late start, many state farmers were completing the second or third cutting of the hay season by the middle of August with hopes weather will allow one more. Mississippi's hay production probably will reach just 90 percent of normal levels.
Dr. Pat Bagley, head of the North Mississippi Research Center in Verona, said a very wet spring postponed the first hay cutting about a month until the middle of June for much of the state.
"The tonnage was up some for the first cutting because we essentially cut two crops at once, but the quality was down because of the hay's maturity," Bagley said.
Bagley said the best hay crops are typically the first and the last cuttings. Shorter, cooler days tend to produce better quality forage, but less quantity because it grows slower.
Rick Simmonds has been producing hay for 20 years on his land in Noxubee County. Rains this year have made it the hardest year he's ever had for making hay.
"I never got caught up putting up hay," Simmonds said. "Since the middle of May, we've always had a field that needs cutting."
The soaked ground made it difficult to get haying equipment in the fields without rutting them. Rains also damaged the cut hay and washed away fertilizers added to fields. However, the rains were very good for growing his bermudagrass.
"We're going to get our four cuttings this year, despite a little late start on the season," Simmonds said. "We're making as much hay as we ever did, maybe more, but the quality is hurting when it gets rained on after being cut."
Hay prices around the state are average for this time of the year. Simmonds is getting $2.75 per square bale of good quality hay. Bagley said in-state sales are averaging $20 a round bale bought in the field.
Bagley recommended people buy hay now if they know they'll need it this winter.
"Everybody who has hay feeds the best hay first, so the longer the winter gets, the worse the quality of hay available, and the higher the price," Bagley said.
Fertilizing after each cutting is essential for good production.
"For maximum hay production on a good four-week schedule, growers must add nitrogen. Adding little or no nitrogen means they will cut hay every eight to 10 weeks," Bagley said.
"Non-fertilized hay has 6 to 8 percent crude protein, while a well-fertilized pasture runs 14 to 16 percent crude protein," Bagley said. "That means you don't have to supplement the cows in the winter with protein. It's much cheaper to put nitrogen on the pasture than to supplement cows."
Bagley said producers should sample each cutting to determine the quality of the hay. Each farmer has a $100 yearly state credit for testing, allowing three samples to be taken at no cost. The test results show hay quality and what supplements specific groups of cattle need.
Bill Maily, Hinds County extension agent, said his county is expecting a slightly above average crop and hopes for a fifth cutting. Analysis of the county's hay also looks quite good.
"The quality of the first cutting was a little lower because it got wet after it was cut," Maily said. "But the second, third and fourth cuttings look good. Most area farmers will not have to feed too many supplements to their cattle this winter."
Released: August 22, 1997
https://extension.msstate.edu/news/feature-story/1997/rains-challenge-states-hay-crop
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Homecollege-basketball
Drake is the most underrated team in college basketball
Drake Bulldogs guard Roman Penn (12) dribbles the ball up court. (Photo by Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire)
Andrew Champagne
Every March, a mid-major college basketball team inevitably shows up and spoils the postseason hopes, dreams, and aspirations of traditional powers. Most of the time, this is the culmination of years of team-building, finding the right puzzle pieces overlooked by major programs, and using them the right way.
Drake has been unbeatable
There’s perhaps no better example of this than what we’re seeing from the Drake Bulldogs. The Missouri Valley Conference squad has started the season on a 13-0 tear that has included a season-opening, 80-70 drubbing of Big 12 stalwart Kansas State. 11 of their 12 wins since then have come by double-digits, including 73-55 and 86-55 victories over a Southern Illinois team that was previously 7-1 on the 2020-21 campaign.
— College Basketball Bonanza (@CollegeBonanza) November 25, 2020
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In mid-major news, Drake is taking it to Kansas State with a lead on the road thanks to this explosive first half finish. 🔥🤯 pic.twitter.com/jSKN7QOGKQ
The Bulldogs have plenty of experience on the roster, which includes four seniors and five juniors. Their emergence shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise, as the team won 20 games a season ago and went an impressive 14-2 at home.
The Bulldogs have been lights out on offense
How have they gotten off to such a torrid start? Simply put, they’ve dominated on both ends of the floor. On offense, Drake has shot better than 53% from the floor and an even 43% from three-point range while recording assists on nearly half their baskets. The Bulldog defense has held opponents to a 38.8% clip from the field, and opponents have converted less than 32% from deep. They do the dirty work, too, and have out-rebounded opponents by nearly 10 boards per contest.
pic.twitter.com/0XiooshU9n
— Drake Basketball (@DrakeBulldogsMB) January 5, 2021
3:47 | 2nd
7️⃣6️⃣ - Bulldogs
4️⃣3️⃣ - Salukis
This has been a fun game.#DSMHometownTeam pic.twitter.com/0XiooshU9n
The Missouri Valley Conference is the real deal
The Missouri Valley Conference is no stranger to Cinderella teams. Loyola Chicago famously made the Final Four a few seasons ago, and the league was where Wichita State initially rose to prominence before departing for the American Athletic Conference.
It’s a tough group, and Drake will certainly have to work for a conference championship. Loyola Chicago is 7-2 and gave No. 12 Wisconsin a competitive game earlier this year, while Missouri State made up for a late start by winning six of its first seven contests. Southern Illinois is 7-3 even after last weekend’s sweep, and 6-3 Bradley dropped a 54-53 heartbreaker to No. 14 Missouri just a few weeks ago.
Drake could be headed to the Big Dance
Still, it certainly seems like the road to a Missouri Valley Conference title goes through Des Moines, Iowa. The Bulldogs have not appeared in the NCAA Tournament since 2008, when they were knocked off by Western Kentucky in overtime. However, not only do the Bulldogs seem to have what it takes to make it back to the Big Dance, they may also be talented enough to win a few games and make their first Sweet Sixteen since 1971.
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Home News Irish News
‘Lovely people’ — Tributes flow in for husband and wife, 90s, who died days apart
Tributes are flowing in for a husband and wife who died days apart as they were described as ‘lovely people’ by those who knew them.
Sean and Brid O’Toole from Baltinglass, Wicklow, died earlier this week and family and friends are now in mourning.
Mr O’Toole’s death was first announced on January 10 after he had been receiving treatment in Balinglass Hospital.
Tributes are flowing in for a husband and wife who died days apart as they were described as ‘lovely people’ by those who knew them. Pic: RIP.ie
The 97-year-old’s wife Brid, who is 95, was also in the care of staff at the hospital when she died less than 48 hours later on January 12.
Notices on RIP.ie noted that a private family funeral was held in Baltinglass for on Wednesday for the husband and wife, who once owned a shop in the area and who were the subject of a number of tributes online.
Baltinglass GAA Club posted a tribute to Mr O’Toole who was a former player turned club president following his death, but tributes then included Brid following news of her death.
Sean and Brid O’Toole from Baltinglass, Wicklow, died earlier this week and family and friends are now in mourning. Pic: RIP.ie
Noreen Keegan Kavanagh wrote: ‘On behalf of Blessington GAA I would like to offer condolences to Baltinglass GAA and the O’Toole family on the passing of your club President Sean O’Toole and his wife Bríd.
‘Ar dheis Dé go raibh a h’anamacha.’
Another tribute for the couple read: ‘Deepest sympathy to John Martin and extend O’ Toole family on the loss of your beloved mother and Father.
‘They were both lovely people and will be greatly missed by all knew and loved them. May the Rest In Peace.’
A third person said: ‘Sean & Brid. Happy childhood memories, calling in for sweets on the way home from school to the cupla focail taught by Brid over the years during your stay with us at BCH, always a true lady & gentleman.
‘Always a smile to greet us every morning, a pleasure to know & care for. You will both be sadly missed. Condolences to John, Emer, Martin, Pauline & all the family.’
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Six Nations 2020: 6 to Watch
Tim Etheridge in International Rugby, Rugby Union, Six Nations January 25, 2020 January 23, 2020 841 Words
It’s that time of year again: the Six Nations is just one week away! This season will see 4 of the 6 nations going into the tournament with new head coaches as everybody looks to move on from the 2019 Rugby World Cup and begin a 4-year build towards glory in France in 2023.
It has become a custom of mine to look at each nation’s squad ahead of the tournament to pick out one player per team that is not widely known on the international scene, but that you should keep an eye on this season. Do you think I missed someone? Let me know in the comments.
England come into the tournament with 8 uncapped players in their squad, but I think the one most likely to have an impact on this Six Nations is Ben Earl. The 22-year-old covers the entire back row and with no specialist number 8 in the squad, I think that he has a very good chance of making the shirt his own throughout the tournament. He has been developing well at Sarries for a couple of seasons, but this has truly been his breakout season and after 8 rounds of Premiership Rugby action, he is the top try scorer (6) and joint 2ⁿᵈ (but top among just forwards) for clean breaks (12). While combining him with Tom Curry and Sam Underhill may leave a back row with limited international experience, it is one that should never be taken lightly.
So this is a bit of a difficult one as France have selected a whopping 19 uncapped players, but due to Top 14 rugby not being available to watch in the UK currently, I have had limited opportunity to see these players in action. Matthieu Jalibert and Louis Carbonel create a great trio of young fly halves along with Romain Ntamack. For this pick, I have gone with Camille Chat, who is a little more experienced with 26 caps to his name, but has often been second fiddle to former captain Guilhem Guirado. Already and experience international but now given the chance to come out of his shadow, Chat has a chance to show his quality and become the man at hooker for the next 2 World Cup cycles.
If Andy Farrell wants to be taken seriously as Ireland’s new head coach, then Conor Murray’s tenure as Ireland’s starting scrum half will be coming to an end, with John Cooney taking over the number 9 shirt. The Ulster halfback is one of the form players in Europe at the moment, with 5 tries and a super-reliable boot leaving him the top point scorer from the Champions Cup pool stages. Murray and Johnny Sexton are not getting any younger and it feel like this could be the moment that Cooney establishes himself as the man for this World Cup cycle.
So regular readers will know my love for Jake Polledri and after good performances in the World Cup, this will be the moment that he truly breaks out into an international superstar. The Gloucester back row can play at flanker or number 8 and will be a fantastic replacement for the departing Sergio Parisse. Polledri is deceptively strong and hard to put down – it is vary rare that he will go backwards in contact – but he also has good pace to exploit any gap that opens in front of him and will cause problems at the break down too.
Judging by his form in 2019 and the early weeks of 2020, Gregor Townsend must seriously be regretting leaving Rory Hutchinson out of his World Cup squad. The Northampton centre is capable of slotting in at either 12 or 13 and brings and incredible attacking talent to the team. He has the potential to have the same positive impact that Huw Jones had when he first came into the Scotland squad and should be one of the players they build around over the coming years.
I really wanted to pick Louis Rees-Zammit here and also want to give an honourable mention to Nick Tompkins, but there is a player who I have loved watching for a couple of years and is now eligible for Wales: Johnny McNicholl. The Scarlets star is an exceptional attacking talent either at wing or fullback, finishing in the top 5 for tries scored in the Pro14 for the last 2 seasons – despite Scarlet’s struggles last season! Already 29, he will not be around long term, but I expect him to quickly establish himself as a key part of the Wales squad for the next 4 years.
While watching the Six Nations is always fun anyway, one thing that has really improved it for me the last couple of seasons has been doing fantasy rugby with my friends, and I’m opening the opportunity for you to join in too!
I am running a fantasy rugby league on The Rugby Magazine’s website, and you are all welcome to join. There is no buy-in and no prize, this is just for fun. You can join the league here and use the Unique Token b6c1e40d48e6
Ben Earl
Camille Chat
Jake Polledri
John Cooney
Johnny McNicholl
Rory Hutchinson
Tim Etheridge Big fan of sports, Star Wars and the Schmoedown. Follow Eyes on the Ball for sports and Schmoedown thoughts and The Canon Padawan for Star Wars talk
Six Nations 2020: The England Squad
Six Nations 2020: Wales v Italy
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Our Poll Shows That Buttigieg’s Post-Debate Bump Is Still Just His Base
Nov. 26, 2019 , at 11:49 AM
By Laura Bronner and Maddie Sach
Filed under 2020 Election
Pete Buttigieg had a strong debate performance, but he’s still struggling to diversify his base.
The past few weeks have been pretty good for South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg: His polls are on the upswing in Iowa, he’s getting more media coverage, and he even led in a New Hampshire poll. It seems that he carried this momentum through the fifth Democratic debate as well. According to our FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, he saw the largest increase in the number of people considering supporting him, going from 26 percent before the debate to 32 percent afterward.
But where did that 6-point increase come from?
To answer this, we looked at a few metrics in our poll, which surveyed the same group of respondents before and after the November debate. One of the indicators we considered is how support shifted among respondents who prioritized the top five issues in our poll, which were health care, the economy and jobs, wealth and income inequality, climate change, and discrimination. As you can see in the table below, Buttigieg gained potential supporters among voters who prioritized all of the top 5 issue areas — he is the only candidate for which this was true. His gains were not marginal either, mostly around 5 percentage points.
Buttigieg gained among voters who prioritize …
Change in the share of respondents considering supporting each candidate before and after the fifth Democratic debate by which issue respondents said was most important to them, per a FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll
The economy and jobs
Wealth and income inequality
Racism, sexism, discrimination
Biden +1.9 +0.8 +2.4 -2.6 +3.0
Sanders +1.3 -2.9 +3.1 +0.5 +0.6
Warren +0.5 -2.3 +0.3 +2.5 -5.7
Buttigieg +5.0 +4.8 +5.7 +6.3 +3.7
Harris +5.3 +2.2 +2.2 +6.2 -3.0
Yang +1.7 +0.0 +0.8 +1.3 -0.2
Booker +3.7 +1.8 +1.6 +3.5 -0.4
Klobuchar +0.8 +1.3 +1.2 +3.1 -1.1
Gabbard +0.1 +0.6 +0.7 +0.4 +0.5
Steyer +3.8 +1.3 +0.7 +1.2 -0.3
Showing the top five issues out of a set of twelve respondents could choose from. Uses respondents’ pre-debate answer for which issue is most important. From a survey of 3,786 likely Democratic primary voters who were surveyed between Nov. 14 and Nov. 18. The same people were surveyed again from Nov. 20 to Nov. 21; 2,077 responded to the second wave.
When respondents were asked to rate candidates’ chances of beating President Trump, Buttigieg gained ground there as well, earning a post-debate average of 49.5 percent, 3 points higher than his pre-debate average. He still trails former Vice President Joe Biden (67.5 percent after the debate), Sen. Bernie Sanders (58.5 percent) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (57.8 percent), but notably, he was the only one of these four candidates who gained in this metric — the other three either lost ground or saw no change.
But if Buttigieg was hoping his high debate marks would help him diversify his base of support, that hasn’t happened yet. The demographic cross-tabs in our poll show that he mainly made inroads among groups where he already enjoyed a disproportionate amount of support, like the college-educated, white voters and older voters. He had little success winning people over among groups where he has tended to struggle, like with black and Hispanic voters.
Buttigieg’s gains were mostly confined to his base
Share of respondents considering supporting Buttigieg in a FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll, broken down by demographics
pre-debate
post-debate
65+ 36.6% 44.5% +7.9
50-64 30.1 37.8 +7.7
College or higher 34.2% 41.6% +7.4
Some college 23.9 28.4 +4.5
High school or less 17.9 22.0 +4.1
White 34.5% 42.4% +7.8
Black 12.2 15.9 +3.7
Hispanic 17.4 16.3 -1.1
Only groups with a sample size of 200 or more were included. From a survey of 3,786 likely Democratic primary voters who were surveyed between Nov. 14 and Nov. 18. The same people were surveyed again from Nov. 20 to Nov. 21; 2,077 responded to the second wave.
This lack of diverse support may be a part of why Buttigieg is struggling to gain traction outside Iowa and New Hampshire and continues to sit at about 8 percent nationally, far behind the other three front-runners in the race. And if Buttigieg can’t appeal to people outside his existing base, he might have a hard time getting his numbers up any higher.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: Has public opinion shifted on impeachment?
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Laura Bronner is FiveThirtyEight’s quantitative editor. @laurabronner
Maddie Sach is a politics intern at FiveThirtyEight. She studies Quantitative Social Science at Dartmouth.
2020 Election (1164 posts) 2020 Democratic Primary (709) Polls (450) Iowa Caucus (140) Pete Buttigieg (134) 2020 Democratic Debates (105) 2020 Democratic Primary Debates (70)
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info@fayetteiowa.com
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Council Meeting Minutes 1-2-18
REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Tuesday, January 2, 2018 at 7:31pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Roll call: Present - Council members Cowley, Larson, Nefzger, Tucker and Wulfekuhle.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Nefzger, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 12/18/17, the claims list of 12/19/17 – 1/2/18, and the approval of a liquor license for the Fayette Opera House, if approved from the State of Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Tucker, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes to approve, carried.
Mayor Wenthe presented the council committees, boards and representatives. The council committee appointments are: Finance – Cowley (Chair), Nefzger, Larson; Personnel – Nefzger (Chair), Tucker, Wulfekuhle; Safety – Larson (Chair), Cowley, Wulfekuhle; Streets & Sidewalks – Wulfekuhle (Chair), Larson, Tucker; Police – Mayor Wenthe (Chair), Nefzger, Tucker; Mayor Pro-Tem – Nefzger.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane gave a brief update on the Flood of 2017 status.
Police Chief Pisanti gave a brief report to the council.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Cowley, to discuss a request from Wanda Sargent at 401 W. Water Street to make payments on her past-due water bill. Sargent was not present at the meeting, but had stopped at Fayette City Hall earlier today and paid half of the past due bill. Sargent advised she is working with Northeast Iowa Community Action (NEICA) to pay the other half. The representative that Sargent is working with at NEICA was not in the office today so McGrane could not reach out to verify any information. After a brief discussion, moved Nefzger, seconded Cowley, to give another 24 hours or until Thursday, January 4th morning before turning the water off for Sargent to pay the other half of the bill and to find out if Sargent is working with NEICA and a status of when the payment would be received by the city. All ayes, carried.
Moved Tucker, seconded Nefzger, to table discussion with representatives from RFSW on the FY17 City Examination.
Moved Larson, seconded Nefzger, to consider and approve hosting a City Finance 101 Workshop. After discussion, moved Tucker, seconded Nefzger, to host a City Finance 101 Workshop in Fayette on Monday, January 22nd, with back-up dates of January 30th or 31st at 6PM or 6:30PM, depending on the availability of the speaker. All ayes, carried.
Moved Larson, seconded Cowley, to consider changing the time of regular city council meetings. After discussion, moved Larson, seconded Wulfekuhle, to start the process of changing all regular city council meetings in the future to be held at 6PM and to change the next city council meeting on January 15th to 6PM. All ayes, carried.
Moved Larson, seconded Nefzger, to clarify Holiday Pay for Full Time and Part Time employees. After discussion, moved Tucker, seconded Cowley, to start the process of changing Section 3.2 Holidays in the Personnel Policy by adding “Part-time employees shall not be entitled to any holiday pay”. All ayes, carried.
Moved Larson, seconded Cowley, to discuss and consider the conditional offer from American Tower Corporation on the land they lease from the City of Fayette. After discussion, moved Larson, seconded Cowley, to take no action on the offers at this time. All ayes, carried.
Moved Tucker, seconded Larson, to discuss and consider accepting the CDBG grant money for the downtown project. After discussion, moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle, to accept the grant and continue to move forward with the project. Four voted aye, Larson nay, motion carried.
Moved Larson, seconded Cowley, to discuss and take action on the storm water drainage system violation by Chris Matt and Matt Properties, LLC at 105 W. Madison Street along King Street. After discussion, moved Larson, seconded Wulfekuhle, to have the city wait until spring to fix the ditch due to the frozen ground, but Matt will still be liable for the costs. All ayes, motion carried.
There being no further business, moved Nefzger, unanimous, to adjourn at 8:27pm.
Council Meeting Minutes 12-18-17
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, December 18, 2017 at 5:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Roll call: Present - Council members Larson, Nefzger, Tucker and Wulfekuhle. Absent – Kragnes.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Nefzger, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 12/4/17, the claims list of 12/5/17 – 12/18/17, and the November 2017 Financial Reports. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
Treasurer's Balance for Fund Accounts as of November 30, 2017: Total November Receipts: $125,747.92 (General $40,488.75; Streets $15,454.50; Employee Benefits $21,071.09; LOST $15,013.40; TIF $13,134.66; Bolger $112.88; Library Fund $1,493.48; Water $4,526.75; Sewer $4,734.91; Sewer Fund $9,575.50; Storm Water $142). Total November Disbursements: $89,869.65 (General $36,865.54; Employee Benefits $11,440.57, Bolger $46.25; Library Fund $669.16; Debt $4,010.56; Water $9,018.12; Sewer $27,819.45). Treasurer’s Balance: $2,886,325.43.
Moved Larson, seconded Tucker, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes to approve, carried.
Mayor Wenthe informed the council he had included some information on the last Fayette Community email asking for volunteers for different work groups in reference to the Creative Placemaking recommendations. He has the first agendas ready for each work group and is hoping the first set of meetings will be held in January. Upon Mayor Wenthe’s request and the Fayette Fire Departments recommendation, moved Larson, seconded Wulfekuhle, to reappoint Jason Rohde as Fayette Fire Chief for 2018. All ayes, carried.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane would like the council to consider hosting a City Finance 101 training in Fayette for city of Fayette board members, department supervisors, crew chiefs, council members, etc. The Iowa League of Cities would put on the training, which will give the participants tools to understand government financial information to assist with purchases, budgeting, projects and safeguarding the assets of our community. The cost of the training is $500. The council recommended choosing some dates to host the training and place it on the next council agenda to discuss.
Police Chief Pisanti advised that there is nothing new to report.
Moved Tucker, seconded Nefzger, to approve the Fayette Community Library Board Minutes from November 8, 2017. All ayes, carried.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Larson, to have Maggie Burger with Speer Financial, Inc., the city’s Financial Advisor, give a presentation on Fayette’s finances. Maggie explained that the State Revolving Fund (SRF) now requires the use of a Financial Advisor. The SRF is acting as an underwriter, meaning they are the ones buying bonds, and they can no longer provide financial advice. Instead, we must depend on someone else such as a Financial Advisor. Since the SRF is forcing the use of a Financial Advisor, they will pay the Financial Advisor fee, up to $4,000. As of July 1, 2018, Fayette’s actual value for debt limit calculation is $46,641,962 (total assessed value, no rollback is figured into this). The state code says cities can borrow up to 5% of this amount, which means Fayette’s legal debt limit for FY18 is $2,332,098. As of this month, the city does not have any General Obligation debt outstanding. The city currently has revenue debts (which do not count against the debt capacity), which would include water, sewer and storm water. The city does have outstanding rebate agreements, which would be TIF rebate agreements. This amount does count against the debt capacity, which is $198,354. That leaves the remaining legal debt margin of $2,133,744. Speer Financial recommends cities to never borrow more than 80% of what the total debt capacity is. That leaves 20% available for emergencies, which is $466,420, leaving a legal debt margin of $1,667,324. Maggie put together an analysis of Fayette’s water and sewer utility systems. The council has a 2% rate increase each year for water and sewer which is good as Maggie recommends assuming a 2% increase in expenses each year as prices for everything goes up. The water utility fund system is currently not bringing in enough money to cover all the expenses and the water tower loan, so we are drawing down on cash balances. Since the water tower loan will be paid off this fiscal year, the water system fund will start getting caught back up. Overall, the sewer system fund seems to be keeping up, but the water system fund is not, but will hopefully start next fiscal year. If we have any future water projects within the next ten years or so, our water rates will probably not be enough to cover the costs of a revenue loan. Maggie also provided some financial examples for a few different projects, including the Downtown/Main St. project and the Water St. project. The examples included some estimates on how much the tax rates would need to increase to cover the project.
Council Meeting Minutes 12-4-17
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, December 4, 2017 at 7:33pm in the ICN Room at the Fayette Community Library pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Roll call: Present - Council members Larson, Kragnes, Nefzger, Tucker and Wulfekuhle.
Prior to this meeting, at 6:30PM, the mayor and council held a work session to discuss rezoning the property at 503 W. Water Street from residential to commercial, B-2 Restricted Business District.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 11/20/17, the claims list of 11/21/17 – 12/4/17, and the October 2017 Financial Reports. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
Treasurer's Balance for Fund Accounts as of October 31, 2017: Total October Receipts: $325,331.44 (General $160,029.20; Streets $11,500.99; LOST $8,117.82; TIF $15,324.55; Bolger $66.61; Library Fund $349.36; Water $62,669.70; Sewer $56,223.04; Sewer Fund $9,575.50; Storm Water $1,474.67). Total October Disbursements: $132,391.14 (General $92,079.38; Bolger $2,500; Library Fund $430.99; Water $15,135.84; Sewer $21,674.93; Sewer Lining $570). Treasurer’s Balance: $2,850,497.16.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes to approve, carried.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane reported that he attended a Budget Workshop in Independence on Nov. 28th to prepare for the up-coming budget. He also met with Library Director, Annette Butikofer, to work through Library finances and reports.
Police Chief Pisanti advised that a recent burglary occurred in town but it was an isolated incident.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to discuss the Fayette Personnel Committee minutes. All ayes. Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve and adopt the Fayette Personnel Committee minutes from November 6, 2017. All ayes, carried.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Larson, to discuss the Fayette Planning & Zoning Commission minutes. All ayes. Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve and adopt the Fayette Planning & Zoning Commission minutes from November 9, 2017. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to discuss rezoning 503 W. Water Street from residential to commercial, B-2 Restricted Business District. All ayes. After discussion, no motion was made to rezone.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to consider and approve hiring a City Maintenance Worker. All ayes. Nefzger advised the search committee met, conducted interviews and unanimously agreed to offer Tyler Spece, from Fayette, the position. Tyler is experienced with heavy equipment, maintenance of equipment, welding and is close to getting his CDL. Nefzger advised it is the search committee’s recommendation to offer the City Maintenance Worker position to Tyler Spece at a wage of $38,350/year (wage scale #8, $18.4375/hour). Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to hire Tyler Spece as the City Maintenance Worker. All ayes, motion carried. Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to amend the last motion and hire Tyler Spece as the City Maintenance Worker at $38,350/year ($18.4375/hour). All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to introduce Resolution 2017-18. This makes the following changes to the job description for the City Maintenance Worker: 1) the worker reports to the Public Works Director or Designee; 2) takes out “road grader” from the Equipment Used to Perform Job section; c) adds the following to the Minimum Experience/Training required: Air Break Endorsement within thirty (30) days of hiring [for the CDL], Grade 1 Water Distribution, Grade 1 Water Treatment and Grade 1 Wastewater Treatment within eighteen (18) months of hiring. Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve and adopt Resolution 2017-18: Revising and updating the job description for the City Maintenance Worker. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to introduce Resolution 2017-19. This addresses changes to the City Personnel Policy, Section 3.9 Reimbursable Expenses. The change takes out “the allowance for lodging and all meals shall not exceed $115.00 per day” and replacing it with “the allowance for lodging shall not exceed $115.00 per day, unless previous approval from a Supervisor or Mayor. Actual cost of meals not to exceed $8.00 morning, $15.00 lunch, $25.00 evening, or $48.00 per day, (alcohol excluded) except meals when part of the registration package. Miscellaneous gratuities up to 15% on meals only will also be reimbursed.” Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to approve and adopt Resolution 2017-19: amending Resolution 2017-14, City Personnel Policy, by changing part of Section 3.9 Reimbursable Expenses. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Larson, seconded Kragnes, to discuss and take action on the Storm Water Drainage System violation by Chris Matt and Matt Properties, LLC at 105 W. Madison Street. McGrane advised Matt has not returned the ditch as the Council requested. McGrane spoke with an attorney and had a Notice of Violation drawn up. The Council needs to determine the penalty if the violation continues and have the notice served to Chris Matt. Moved Larson, seconded Kragnes, to serve the Notice of Violation to Chris Matt stating if the ditch is not returned to its previous condition after ten (10) days of service, the City will take the necessary action to cure the violation; assess the expense, loss, and damage against Matt and his real estate; and assess a civil penalty in the amount of $500.00 and $750.00 for each day that the violation continues. All ayes, motion carried.
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, November 20, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Moved Tucker, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 11/6/17, the claims list of 11/7/17 – 11/20/17, and the Annual Financial Report for FY17. It also included the Abstract of Votes for the City Election on November 7, 2017, certified by the Fayette Co. Supervisors, with the following abstract of votes: Mayor – Andrew Wenthe 154, Wade Whitcher 9, scattering 9. City Council – Matt Cowley 170, Nancy Wulfekuhle 141, Amy Tucker 135, Curtis Larson 112, Patricia Nefzger 107, Tiffany Kragnes 105, Tiffany Stouffer 90, scattering 4. Total number of voters in this election was 203, which is 25.41% of the 799 registered voters in the City of Fayette. All terms are for two years and take effect January 1, 2018. The election cost for the City of Fayette was a total of $645.22. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Kragnes, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes to approve, carried.
Upon Mayor Wenthe’s request and the Fayette Fire Departments recommendation, moved Tucker, seconded Larson, to appoint Kole Alber and Aaron Swearingen, both from Randalia, to the Fayette Fire Department. All ayes, carried.
Upon Mayor Wenthe’s request, moved Larson, seconded Wulfekuhle, to reappoint Steve Post to the Fayette Board of Adjustment. All ayes, carried.
Mayor Wenthe advised Kris McGrane and him met with Alex Soderquist with Hawkeye Telephone Company to get an update on the fiber optics they ran through Fayette. The fiber has been run through town and they will be providing the city with a proposal in the future. The proposal will give the city the option to lock in on a fixed rate for internet services for City Hall, Police and Ambulance. We can discuss other options, such as running fiber to the Fire Department, in the future as well. One benefit of having fiber ran through town is the opportunity for an internet or phone provider to offer services to businesses and residents.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane reported that he has been busy learning how to complete the Annual Urban Renewal Report and the Annual Financial Report. He has also attended a Personnel meeting, Planning and Zoning meeting and the two Creative Placemaking Action Plan Presentations. Fayette City Hall will be closed on Thursday and Friday, November 23rd and 24th. The next city council meeting will be in the ICN Room at the Fayette Community Library on Monday, December 4th at 7:30PM. There will be a council work session prior to the meeting at 6:30PM, also in the ICN Room, to discuss the rezoning request of 503 W. Water Street.
Police Chief Pisanti advised he attended a training last week.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to adopt the Fayette Community Library Report from November 8, 2017. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss the status and take action of the storm water drainage at Madison and King Streets. All ayes. McGrane updated the council that the drainage ditch along the west side of the property located at 105 W. Madison St. has not been dug out yet. A letter was sent to Chris and Kelly Matt/Matt Properties, LLC stating the ditch needed to be dug out by November 15th. McGrane and Pisanti will be reaching out to the attorney to confirm the city is taking the proper steps in enforcing the City Code. Kragnes also requested asking the attorney if the city can take action by digging out the ditch and billing Matt’s, to hopefully prevent any storm water drainage issues in the Spring.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss the gravel path on the south side of 400-500 Wadena Road. All ayes. Larson had heard there may have been some lack of communication between Bret Lau and Upper Iowa University (UIU) regarding the gravel path that UIU put in to assist students in getting to the 500 Wadena Road facility. After a brief discussion, the council requested Chief Pisanti make contact with both parties to communicate and find out if there are any issues.
Moved Tucker, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss the Creative Placemaking Action Plan. All ayes. During discussion, Kragnes and Tucker advised they would be interested in communicating and working with the Opera House Board while Wulfekuhle and Larson would assist with the Housing aspect of the plan. The council will continue to have discussions and updates on this topic.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss the Annual Urban Renewal Report for FY 2017. All ayes. McGrane advised the report shows the TIF rebate agreements the city has and the outstanding amounts owed. Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve the adoption of the Annual Urban Renewal Report for FY 2017. All ayes, carried.
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, November 6, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 10/16/17, the claims list of 10/17/17 – 11/6/17, and the September 2017 Treasurer’s/Clerk’s Report. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
Treasurer's Balance for Fund Accounts as of September 30, 2017: Checking $1,307,887.74; Savings $242,957.08; Investments $1,128,876.14; Library Memorial $9,982.57. Total September Receipts: $122,191.68. Total September Disbursements: $126,460.38. Bank Balance: $2,689,703.53.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes to approve, carried.
Mayor Wenthe advised he emailed out the Fayette Housing Report to the council members to look over. The report will be highlighted when Zach Mannheimer will give a presentation at UIU at 3:30pm and another presentation possibly at the Opera House at 6:30pm on Tuesday, Nov. 14. More details will be announced.
Upon Mayor Wenthe’s request, moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to reappoint Amy Tucker, Becki Wissmiller, Linda Tenney and Wade Whitcher to the Recreation Board. All ayes, carried. Wenthe advised the council needs to appoint one more member to the Recreation Board. If anyone has any recommendations, contact Wenthe.
Upon Mayor Wenthe’s request, moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to reappoint Melle Starsen and Tim Wulfekuhle to the Planning and Zoning Commission. All ayes, carried.
Upon Mayor Wenthe’s request, moved Tucker, seconded Larson, to reappoint Pat Whelan to the Fayette County Waste Management. All ayes, carried.
Upon Mayor Wenthe’s request, moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to hold the December 18, 2017 regular council meeting at 5:30pm instead of 7:30pm. All ayes, carried.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane reported that he attended a training for Data Tech (the new accounting software) in Waverly. The city is currently accepting applications until Nov. 15 for a City Maintenance Worker to replace Rick Briggs. The Fayette Ambulance Service was awarded the Volunteer EMS Service of 2017 and some members will be accepting the award on Nov. 11 in Des Moines. A planning and zoning meeting is scheduled for Nov. 9 to discuss rezoning for a Dollar General Store. The final day for leaf pick-up will be Monday, Nov 13 and the last day the Fayette Yard Waste Site will be open for this year is Wednesday, Nov 15.
Police Chief Pisanti advised Halloween night went smooth. The winter parking ordinance is in effect right now. The police are trying to educate people about the ordinance for the first couple weeks by placing red stickers on the cars that are in violation. The police will be doing extra patrols for the election tomorrow.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Kragnes, to approve the Fayette Community Library Board Minutes from October 11, 2017. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss Bernie Scroggins request to make payments on his water bill. All Ayes. Scroggins explained his last water bill (September 2017) was $656.29 and he’s unaware what caused it. Scroggins has already made a $200 payment. After discussion, moved Nefzger, seconded Kragnes, to let Scroggins make monthly payments of $42 for the next 12 months to pay off the remainder of his September 2017 bill and waive any late fees for the next 12 months. Scroggins will be responsible for paying any future bills in full before the due date. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Larson, seconded Kragnes, to discuss new building incentives. All Ayes. The council discussed looking over and updating the current building incentive programs. Council members Kragnes and Wulfekuhle will research some options as well as incentives for home buyers and housing rehab. They will come back to the council in December with ideas and recommendations.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve contract change order #1 from Bacon Concrete LLC for work completed on the Cardinal Park Flood Repairs project. The change order decreases the price of lime by $674.08 and increases the price of red ball diamond aggregate by $896.40. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve partial pay estimate of $39,046.25 from Bacon Concrete LLC for work completed on the Cardinal Park Flood Repairs project.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss digging out the ditch along Mechanic Street at 105 W. Madison St. with Chris Matt. Mayor Wenthe informed the council that a letter was sent to Chris Matt about digging the ditch out by Nov. 15. Wenthe had spoken to Matt who requested to be placed on this council agenda to discuss it with the council, but Matt was not in attendance.
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, October 16, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 10/2/17, the claims list of 10/3/17 – 10/16/17, the renewal of a liquor license, outdoor service and Sunday sales to Down Town Lounge and the renewal of a native wine permit and Sunday sales for Pavo Blue/Upper Iowa University. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes to approve, motion carried.
Upon Mayor Wenthe’s request and the Fayette Fire Departments recommendation, moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to appoint Jason Niles and Keegan Clark, both from Fayette, to the Fayette Fire Department. All ayes, carried.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane reported to the council that Public Works Director Jerry Hildebrand and McGrane met with Jerald Ballanger (Ia Dept of Homeland Security & Emergency Management) on Oct. 11th to discuss and update the flood damage progress. McGrane attended an “On-The-Road” Budgeting, Examinations and Accounting for Municipalities training at UIU on Oct.12th. Bacon Concrete has started working on repairing Cardinal Park Sports Complex flood damages. McGrane advised there was some minor damage to the bridge on South Main Street from the flood that was recently discovered. It has been pointed out to Ballanger and Hildebrand is working on getting estimates. McGrane advised the council of a few up-coming city notices including: Leaf pick-up will begin on Monday, Oct. 23rd and will take place on Monday’s (weather permitting) [Citizens may place their leaves on the City parkway or right-of-way near the street], Fall Clean-Up Day will be Thursday, Oct. 19th, and the city will be flushing hydrants on Tuesday, Oct. 24th (weather permitting) beginning at 7AM. McGrane also presented the compliance review results from the recent IPERS audit to the council.
Police Chief Pisanti advised the department has been working on quite a few cases and the new police vehicle should be here this week.
Moved Tucker, seconded Kragnes, to approve the Fayette Community Library Board Minutes from September 13, 2017. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss and receive an update from Sam Whitehead, the Fayette County Economic Director. All Ayes. Whitehead advised: He has been scheduling meetings with entrepreneurs interested in starting a new business with consultants to discuss, free of charge, business plans and ideas and Whitehead has helped at least two clients out of Fayette; He has been working with Robert Wolf who met with Mayor Wenthe and Admin. McGrane to discuss regionalism and connecting communities across NE Iowa and discussed a community project proposal that was discussed that the city may partake in the future; He met with Wenthe, McGrane and Folsom Developments about redeveloping our housing strategies; He has been helping with working on a workforce road map project that is a study of our labor-ship and how to attract more people to our area; He is waiting to hear back from a Federal EEA grant; He was on the planning committee for the STEM Festival in Oelwein last week and he made sure that North Fayette Valley was included; He reminded the council that there are revolving loan funds available for GAP financing for people looking to start a business and are falling a little short on financing: He heard there may be a need for an area investment network and if there are any local investors to contact Whitehead.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to receive an update from Amy Tucker about the Fayette Hazard Mitigation Plan. Tucker shared a few updates to the plan including addressing storm water/flooding drainage. Tucker also shared the Turkey River Watershed Flood Reduction Plan. If anyone has suggestions they should contact Tucker.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss appointing Housing Committee members for the CDBG Owner Occupied grant. McGrane can notify the community through emails if anyone is interested in serving on a Housing Committee to contact Fayette City Hall.
Moved Larson, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss Ordinance 497 – Amending Fayette city code section 69.08 parking regulations: No parking zones by adding sub section 13. No parking on east side of Mechanic Street from West Madison Street to West Jay Street, third and final reading. Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Larson, to approve the third and final reading and adopt Ordinance 497. On roll call, Larson, Tucker and Wulfekuhle ayes, Kragnes and Nefzger nay, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to introduce Resolution 2017-16. Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve and adopt Resolution 2017-16: City Street Financial Report for FY 2017. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to introduce Resolution 2017-17. Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Kragnes, to approve and adopt Resolution 2017-17: Authorizing submission of a CDBG Application to the Iowa Economic Development Authority and the Expenditure of Funds for a CDBG General Application for Owner Occupied Housing Rehabilitation Program. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, October 2, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Roll call: Present - Council members Kragnes, Larson, Nefzger, Tucker and Wulfekuhle.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 9/18/17, claims list of 9/18/17 – 10/2/17, the August 2017 Treasurer’s/Clerk’s Report, and the renewal of a beer permit for Gavins IGA. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
Treasurer's Balance for Fund Accounts as of August 31, 2017: Checking $1,294,892.53; Savings $242,887.21; Investments $1,128,876.14; Library Memorial $8,924.62. Total August Receipts: $65,922.92. Total August Disbursements: $102,146.81. Bank Balance: $2,675,580.50.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Tucker, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes to approve, motion carried.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane reported to the council that he met with Danielle Huffine with IPERS for an audit on Sept. 21st. Fayette Library Director Linda Adams, Assistant Library Director Annette Butikofer and McGrane attended the Fayette County Supervisors meeting on Sept. 22nd to discuss future funding of the libraries throughout the county. Jeremy Lockard and Bryce Bentley with Ridihalgh Fuelling Snitker Weber & Co. were at city hall Sept. 26th – 28th conducting the on-site portion of the city exam. McGrane advised he is still working with the insurance company for the Pre-Treatment Plant in reference to the flooding. McGrane informed the council that there is a good chance that Bacon Concrete would start working on Cardinal Park this week.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss the Fayette Community Library 2017 Iowa Public Library General Information Survey. Wenthe highlighted a few items in the report.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss Ordinance 497 – Amending Fayette city code section 69.08 parking regulations: No parking zones by adding sub section 13. No parking on east side of Mechanic Street from West Madison Street to East Jay Street, second reading. Moved Larson, seconded Wulfekuhle, to waive the third reading of Ordinance 497. Larson, Tucker and Wulfekuhle aye, Kragnes and Nefzger nay, motion carried (on 10/6/2017 discovered the motion failed because it must pass with a three-fourths vote). Moved Larson, seconded Tucker, to approve the second reading and adopt Ordinance 497. On roll call, Larson, Tucker and Wulfekuhle ayes, Kragnes and Nefzger nay, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to introduce Resolution 2017-15. Moved Tucker, seconded Kragnes, to approve and adopt Resolution 2017-15: A resolution awarding the Cardinal Park Flooding Project to Bacon Concrete LLC out of Postville, Iowa, in the amount of $41,629. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Mayor Wenthe advised the council that Upper Iowa University had withdrawn their request to seek approval of closing the 200 block of S. Main St. between State St. and Clark St. from 4PM to 11:30PM on Saturday, Oct. 28th, for a post-game bash for UIU’s Homecoming celebration due to not being able to get all community partners on board.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Kragnes, to discuss approving a CDBG Housing Rehabilitation grant. Lori Brockway with Upper Explorerland Regional Planning Commission discussed details about the grant with the council. Brockway informed the council that there is no longer a city match. If the city is awarded the grant, then homeowners in Fayette that meet low to moderate income requirements may apply for a forgivable loan for housing projects such as electrical, roof, windows, lead hazard reduction, plumbing, heating, etc. The cost to the city would be $1,500 for Upper Explorerland to prepare, help manage and apply for the grant. Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve and adopt the grant writing agreement and approve the expenditure of $1,500 for the grant. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss replacing the automatic alarm dialer at the pre-treatment plant. McGrane explained that the current automatic dialer is malfunctioning. Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve the purchase of a new alarm dialer for the wastewater treatment plant from Automatic Systems Co. in the amount of $2,275 plus any taxes, fees and permits that are necessary. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Kragnes, to discuss monthly transfers from the Sewer fund to the Sewer SRF Sinking fund. McGrane explained this was suggested from the auditors as an easy way to meet the SRF Sewer Revenue Bond contract requirement of maintaining 110% of the annual debt service (or payment). McGrane recommended transferring $9,575.50 each month, starting with July 2017, as that amount is 110% of $104,460 (which is the city’s largest annual payment in fiscal year 2029) divided by 12 months. The annual payments fluctuate slightly each year, by using the largest payment amount, the city will not have to change the monthly transfer amount each year. The city will make the annual payments out of the Sewer SRF Sinking fund. Moved Nefzger, seconded Kragnes, to approve monthly transfers of $9,575.50 from the Sewer fund to the Sewer SRF Sinking fund starting from July 2017 and lasting until the Sewer Revenue Bond is paid off. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Larson, seconded Nefzger, to have Amy Tucker provide an update from the Fayette Hazard Mitigation meetings. Tucker advised she has been attending some of the Fayette County Hazard Mitigation meetings and briefly explained what has been discussed at the meetings. Tucker advised she was hoping to have an updated document to share with the council, but she hasn’t received it yet and will provide an update at the next council meeting.
At 8:02pm, moved Tucker, seconded Kragnes, to go into closed session per Iowa Code Section 21.5(1)(j) to discuss the purchase or sale of real estate only where premature disclosure could be reasonably expected to increase the price the City would have to pay for that property or reduce the price the City would receive for that property. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
At 8:13pm, moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to get out of closed session. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Council Meeting Minutes 9-18-17
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, September 18, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 9/5/17 and the claims list of 9/6/17 – 9/18/17. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
Moved Tucker, seconded Nefzger, to approve the amended agenda, moving item 8G to 8I, adding 8G – consideration and awarding the Cardinal Park Flood Repairs to Bacon Concrete LLC out of Postville, Iowa and adding 8H – consideration and discussion to apply for a CDBG Housing Rehabilitation grant. All ayes to approve, motion carried.
Upon Mayor Wenthe’s request and the Fayette Ambulance Services recommendation, moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle, to appoint Austin Steil and Caitlin Himes to the Fayette Ambulance Service. Steil is currently an EMT and Himes will be a driver, but is considering going through EMT school. Both passed background checks. All ayes, carried. Wenthe also wanted to thank the Fayette Recreation Board for hosting another successful Music in the Park last night.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane reported to the council that City Hall will be busy the next few weeks getting water bills prepared and mailed, gathering and uploading information to the FEMA website to get financial assistance from the July flood, preparing and submitting the annual street report and preparing for an IPERS audit and the city exam later this week and the following week. McGrane attended the Housing Study Focus Group along with a few other Housing Study meetings on 9/5 and 9/6, met with Jerald Ballanger (Ia Dept of Homeland Security & Emergency Management) for a Scoping Meeting for FEMA funds on 9/13 and 9/14 and met with area City Administrators on 9/14. McGrane and Public Works Director Jerry Hildebrand are still working with the insurance company for the Pre-Treatment Plant damage due to the flood. A retirement reception is planned for Library Director Linda Adams on 9/27 from 5PM-7PM at the Fayette Community Library. The Friends of the Library will have refreshments available.
Police Chief Pisanti wanted to thank everyone for their participation with Watermelon Days. There were no reported incidents or crimes during the event.
Moved Tucker, seconded Larson, to approve the Fayette Community Library Board Minutes from August 9, 2017. All ayes, carried.
Moved Larson, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss Ordinance 497 – Amending Fayette city code section 69.08 parking regulations: No parking zones by adding sub section 13. No parking on east side of Mechanic Street from West Madison Street to East Jay Street, first reading. Moved Larson, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve the first reading of Ordinance 497. On roll call, Larson, Wulfekuhle and Tucker ayes, Nefzger nay, carried.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Larson, to consider vacating the alley in between the 700 and 800 blocks of S. Main Street and Washington Street. City Attorney, Pat Dillon, advised some of the pros and cons of vacating the property. Dillon mentioned it is hard to get property back once it is vacated, most of the time cities don’t give up property unless there is a specific reason, if the property is a burden or causing problems for the city or the town is not planning on growing in that direction those are reasons to vacate the property. If the city does vacate the property, it is recommended that the city maintains an easement for future utilities if something changes and the city needs to get access to that area. After further discussion, the council took no action.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Larson, to consider and approve Dave Buchholz placing a portable building at 233 S. Main Street. Buchholz was present to inform the council of his plan to place a red, 10x16 portable building on the south side of the current station. The 16 foot side would face S. Main Street and the building would be to store inventory for Buchholz’s business. Moved Nefzger to refer this to the Board of Adjustments. After further discussion, Nefzger withdrew her motion. Moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle, to have the City Attorney review the city code to find out if a variance is required. All ayes, carried.
Moved Larson, seconded Wulfekuhle, to consider and approve Jeff Scott replacing sidewalk and adding a curb at 246 S. Main Street. Wenthe advised the plans have changed since the council packet was put together and McGrane passed out an updated diagram. Scott no longer wants to put a curb at 246 S. Main Street, just leave it as it is because it will be an entrance and exit to a parking area. Scott would like to change the last parking space in the 200 block of S. Main Street, on the west side in front of Scott’s Pharmacy to a handicap parking spot. Moved Tucker, seconded Larson, to accept Scott’s second plan and place a handicap parking space in the suggested space. All ayes, carried.
Moved Larson, seconded Nefzger, to consider and approve the purchase of a mower as budgeted to replace the old mower. Public Works Director Hildebrand advised this mower is used for the lagoons, the sports complex, the Frisbee golf area and the welcome to Fayette’s signs. Hildebrand received a bid from Baumler Implement (West Union) for $2700 and P&K Midwest, Inc. (Sumner) for $2890. Moved Larson, seconded Nefzger, to approve the purchase of a new mower. All ayes, carried.
Moved Larson, seconded Wulfekuhle, to consider and approve replacing the chlorinator. Hildebrand advised the current chlorinator is about 25 years old and has been acting up. Hildebrand received a quote from J&R Supply, Inc. (East Dubuque, IL) for $1770. After discussion, moved Larson, seconded Nefzger to purchase a new chlorinator. All ayes, carried.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss Resolution 2017-14: Amending the city personnel policy, section 2.19a Residency requirements. Nefzger recommended updating the residency requirements by expanding the requirements to police officers. City Attorney Pat Dillon advised the trend is going away from requiring employees to live in town unless there is a compelling need. Dillon recommended to the council if they decide to adopt a residency restriction policy, it should be very broad due to the trend of the economy. A smaller residency restriction makes it harder to recruit future employees and the council cannot look at this as an economic development engine, it has to be rationally connected to their performance. Dillon also stated that some employees, including the Police Chief, have contracts with the city. The residency requirement in the personnel policy would be for employees that do not have a performance contract or that have a contract but it doesn’t mention any residency requirements within the contract. After discussion, moved Tucker, seconded Nefzger, to approve Resolution 2017-14, which would give the police chief, public works director and assistant public works director up to two years from time of employment or appointment to reside within the City of Fayette or within one mile of the Fayette city limits. Police officers, other than the police chief, must reside within a 20-air mile radius of the Fayette city limits within two years of employment or appointment. It also clarifies the principal place of residence as that place where an employee actually lives and which the employee declares as the employee’s home with the intent to remain there indefinitely. On roll call, Tucker, Nefzger and Wulfekuhle aye, Larson nay, carried.
Moved Tucker, seconded Nefzger, to discuss changing the ATV and UTV city code. Adam Hildebrand had presented the council with a few suggestions to the city code. Currently snowmobiles, ATV’s and UTV’s are all grouped together in the same code section and Hildebrand suggested separating them. He would also like the council to consider letting people drive ATV’s and UTV’s on city roads within the daylight hours. After discussion, moved Nefzger, seconded Larson, to research and look at the entire section of this code to update it, including fines and fees. All ayes, carried.
Moved Tucker, seconded Wulfekuhle, to consider and award the Cardinal Park Flood Repairs to Bacon Concrete, LLC, out of Postville, Iowa. McGrane explained to the council that Fehr Graham was hired to assist with repairing Cardinal Park due to the extensive amount of damage. Fehr Graham was the engineer when the park was built and had all the information. Due to FEMA regulations, the city needed at least three different bids for the project in order to be able to get financial help from FEMA. Fehr Graham put together an estimate of $41,990 and sent it out for bids. Earlier today we held the bid opening and the bids received were: Bacon Concrete LLC, Postville - $41,629; Leslie Lauer & Sons, Inc., West Union - $43,566.71; and Super Landscapes, West Union - $75,757. Fehr Graham recommends the council award the bid to the lowest bidder, Bacon Concrete. Public Works Director Hildebrand advised Bacon Concrete worked on the cement flood wall in town and did a good job. After discussion, moved Tucker, seconded Nefzger, to award the construction contract for the Cardinal Park project to Bacon Concrete LLC out of Postville, Iowa, per their proposal. All ayes, carried.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Larson, to discuss applying for a CDBG Housing Rehabilitation grant. McGrane explained the city was awarded a CDBG Housing Rehab grant years ago to help Fayette residents who are below 80% low and moderate income (LMI) make housing repairs such as repairing or replacing roofs, doors, windows, electrical, etc. In the past, the city had to have a match to the funds, but that has since went away. The grant could help about 6 homeowners in Fayette. The cost to the city would be $1500 for Upper Explorerland to write the grant, submit and help manage the program. If the council is interested, the next step would be to invite Lori Brockway with Upper Explorerland to a future council meeting to help answer any questions. Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Larson, to invite Brockway to a future council meeting to get more details. All ayes, motion carried.
At 8:29pm, moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle, to go into closed session per Iowa Code Section 21.5(1)(j) to discuss the purchase or sale of real estate only where premature disclosure could be reasonably expected to increase the price the City would have to pay for that property or reduce the price the City would receive for that property. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
At 8:41pm, moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle, to get out of closed session. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Tucker, seconded Nefzger, to direct Administrator McGrane to follow up with what was discussed in the closed session. All ayes, carried.
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Tuesday, September 5, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 8/21/17, claims list of 8/22/17 – 9/5/17, the June 2017 and July 2017 Treasurer’s/Clerk’s Reports, the June 2017 Budget Report, and the Outstanding Obligations Disclosure Statement Report for FY2017. The total debt for the city ending 6/30/17 was $1,616,535.50. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
Treasurer's Balance for Fund Accounts as of June 30, 2017: General $213,868.81; Streets $305,948.29; Debt Service $18,732.67; Water Utility $235,735.90; Water T&A $22,183.34; Sewer Utility $219,463.90; Landfill/Recycling $2,708.27; Yard Waste $5,229.67; Bolger Fund $225,731.89; TIF $51,749.62; Local Option Tax $8,078.58; Storm Water $10,994.18; Downtown Project ($29,715.04); Franchise Fees $48,920.48. June Receipts by Fund: General $61,692.09; Streets $108,191.12; Debt Service $13,565.96; Water Utility $4,083.72; Water T&A $1,010; Sewer Utility $5,269.17; LF/Recycling $894.61; Yard Waste $188.72; Bolger $37,333.18; TIF $71.90; Local Option $16,157.16; Storm Water $130.31. Total Receipts $248,587.91. June Disbursements by Fund: General $145,618.99; Streets $13,466.99; Water Utility $119,660.46; Water T&A $6,606.73; Sewer Utility $93,636.02; LF/Recycling $80.00; Yard Waste $6,661.76; Bolger $1,245; TIF $5,409.26; Local Option $94,596.40. Total Disbursements: $486,981.61. Investments: $1,291,619.01. Bank Balance $2,624,743.56. Balance with Library Funds $2,714,455.44.
Treasurer’s Balance as of July 31, 2017: Checking $1,324,160.77; Savings $242,815.03; Investments $1,128,876.14; Library Memorial $9,309.81. Total July Receipts: $181,664.29. Total July Disbursements: $188,446.43. Balance: $2,705,161.75.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss Frank Atchison water bill for 308 E. State Street. Atchison was not present. After discussion, no action was taken.
Mayor Wenthe advised the council that a few housing focus groups took place today and more will take place tomorrow. This is part of the business and cultural development study that UIU and the City of Fayette partnered together to strengthen our community. City Administrator/Clerk McGrane and Wenthe attended a FEMA/Ia Homeland Security & Emergency Management Public Assistance Applicant Briefing on August 31st.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane reported to the council that he attended the UIU Resource Fair on 8/24 to encourage new students to use fayetteiowa.com as a resource for city information, local businesses, and activities/events. McGrane also attended the UIU Haunted Hayride meeting on 8/29 and it was decided to hold their event on the same night as our town trick-or-treating and Maple Crests Halloween event to hopefully bring more people to Fayette that evening. McGrane advised at the Fayette Co. Advisory Committee meeting on 8/30 it was reported that NEIA Community Action Corp. is anticipating to start building the new house at 104 King St. in the Spring of 2018. McGrane also informed the council that the Fayette Community Library has posted and published the help wanted ad to hire a new part time assistant librarian.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to get an update on Kevin Lehs property at 516 W. Water St. Lehs was not present at the meeting. Nefzger advised she spoke to Lehs and he moved the pile of dirt, moved and stacked the pile of bricks and tiles, and he has an individual coming in to do some tuck-pointing to the house. Chief Pisanti advised he spoke to Lehs about a week and a half ago and advised him of the nuisance abatement ordinance. Lehs said he would take care of it and he did.
Moved Larson, seconded Kragnes, to consider and take action on the storm water drainage at Madison and King Streets. Wenthe, Tucker and Public Works Director Hildebrand met with Chris Matt on 8/29. Their recommendation would be a two-phase approach. Matt recently placed an additional drain at this location. The first phase would include rerouting the storm water, lowering the tile on Matt’s property, and move forward with the construction work to hopefully address the storm water issue. If phase one does not help, then move to phase two which would be to dig out the ditch at this location to hopefully capture the storm water and hold it a little longer before it drains across the road. After discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approach Matt about returning the ditch to the original condition. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to consider inspecting or replacing the city-owned Rohn 25G tower. The city has received a few rough estimates from Tri State Tower. McGrane received specific information from the Fayette County E911 Coordinator about what they currently have on the tower which he forwarded to Tri State Tower to get a more accurate estimate. McGrane is still waiting to get an estimate from another company. McGrane attended the Fayette County E911 meeting on 8/23 and the committee did approve to pay for half the cost of a tower inspection up to $1500. Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to table. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to review updates of the Fayette Flooding from July 22nd, 2017, timeline. Wenthe advised the council of the latest updates and information including designated FEMA funding is currently frozen due to the disasters in Texas and possibly in Florida to assist them. The city will get reimbursed however it may not happen as quickly as originally planned. McGrane advised he is continuing to work with the insurance company for the pre-treatment plant flood damage.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss parking issues in the 500 block of Mechanic Street near the North Ridge condos. After discussion, moved Larson, seconded Wulfekuhle, to change the ordinance to make the east side of Mechanic Street from E. Jay St. to W. Madison St. no parking any time. Three ayes, Kragnes and Nefzger nay, motion carried.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Kragnes, to discuss a housing assessment with Glenn Lyons and Marilyn Arber with 571 Polson Developments. The city and UIU have a contract with Zach Mannheimer and McClure Engineering to get some revitalization ideas. Lyons and Arber were contacted by Mannheimer to take a look at Fayette’s housing market. They are looking at the economic & demographic data and are meeting with some individuals & focus groups while they are in town for a couple days. After they are finished with their research they will provide a preliminary analysis that will include if there is a reasonable demand for either ownership housing for single families or rental apartments. If there is, they will start to look at sites and a feasibility analysis that they could do a preliminary analysis on. If there doesn’t appear to be a strong enough demand in either of those options, they will help us to start conversations about what will it take to create or enhance that demand.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to consider changing the days and/or the hours of the Fayette Yard Waste Site. Larson advised he was approached by a couple people in town about doing something different with the hours of the Yard Waste Site. After discussion and different options were discussed, no action was taken.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to consider surveying the property lines for the Open Air Market. McGrane advised a property owner next to the Open Air Market recently inquired about putting up a structure on their property. In doing some research, it was discovered that the city may not have a survey of the lot lines for the Open Air Market and there are some conflicting maps that show where the lot lines are. The Open Air Market is a flood buy-out area so nothing can be built on the property. Fehr Graham Engineering provided a cost estimate of $1,150 to take a survey of the entire Open Air Market area. Moved Larson, seconded Nefzger, to contact the owners of the property next to the Open Air Market to ask if they would want to pay half the cost of the survey. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to consider an extension of Officer Ben Davis living outside the city limits. Davis was granted a waiver to the residency requirement for one year when he was hired and that time has now passed. After discussion, moved Tucker, seconded Wulfekuhle, to provide Officer Ben Davis one more year from his hire date (making it a total of two years) to find residency in the Fayette city limits. Three ayes, Kragnes and Larson nay, motion carried. The council requested to have Davis attend the next regular city council meeting.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to discuss the FY2017 ending balances and transfers to and from savings and budget transfers. McGrane explained the auditors require council approval for the end of the year transfers, even though this is policy and discussed during budget meetings. The funds remaining on June 30th are put into savings for equipment, vehicles or projects for the following fiscal year or transferred out of savings to help cover extra costs accrued. McGrane explained there was one more local option sales tax deposit on June 30th that was not accounted for when McGrane made the bank transfers on that same day. He will make those transfers in the current fiscal year. Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve the ending balances and transfers. All ayes, motion carried.
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, August 21, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 8/7/17, the claims list of 8/8/17 – 8/21/17, and the renewal of a liquor license for Shiner’s Bar and Grill. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Fayette citizen John Kelly informed the council on the damage he received from the wastewater that backed-up due to the heavy rains on Jul. 22. He asked the council if there was any warning system in place to notify citizens. Mayor Wenthe advised his understanding was the fire department drives around town with their lights and sirens on warning citizens when the Volga River is going to breach its banks and flood the town. Wenthe is not aware of any warning for wastewater possibly backing-up in resident’s homes. The city can look into different alert systems for future circumstances.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Larson, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes to approve, carried.
Mayor Wenthe provided a list of Fayette students interested in a North Fayette Valley (NFV) school activity bus. Amy Tucker advised she had one high school student contact her that was interested in the bus, too. Wenthe will contact NFV Superintendent Duane Willhite to let him know about our findings.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane advised the council he had met with Greg Huff with the Iowa Rural Water Association for their annual visit, attended the NEIA Local Housing Trust Fund meeting, and met with Doug Jones for the city’s annual IMWCA audit over the last few weeks. McGrane advised a citizen had inquired at the last council meeting if the cities insurance would cover the cost of the damage to residents due to the wastewater back-up in basements and the insurance does not cover that type of damage. The first day to file nomination papers to run for mayor or city council is 8/28/17. The last day to file is 9/21/17. Nomination papers and candidate affidavit forms are available to pick up at Fayette City Hall or you can print them off at www.sos.state.ia.us, but the nomination papers must be filed with the Fayette County Auditor’s office in West Union. McGrane also reminded the council the next council meeting will be on Tues., Sept. 5 due to Labor Day. City hall will be closed on Labor Day.
Police Chief Pisanti informed the council that UIU move-in day is Wed., Aug. 23, so there will be some heavy traffic around town that day.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss the Fayette Recreation Board minutes from Aug. 14, 2017. Tucker highlighted a few of the items in the minutes and encouraged anyone to share their ideas with the Recreation Board members. Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve the Fayette Recreation Board minutes from Aug. 14, 2017. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss the Streets Committee minutes from Aug. 16, 2017 and consideration and action of storm water drainage at the corner of Madison and King Streets. Wulfekuhle highlighted a few of the items in the minutes. Public Works Director Jerry Hildebrand had informed the Streets Committee that Doug Egeland thought he could fix the culverts and make them safer for around $6,500. It was questioned if Chris Matt had permission to fill in the ditch at 105 W. Madison St. The city can look into it. After further discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to proceed with checking with the property owner of 105 W. Madison St. to see what they can do to assist with the storm water drainage and proceed with any recommendations that Public Works Director Hildebrand would have. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to discuss the timeline and updates from the Fayette flooding on Jul. 22, 2017. Mayor Wenthe gave an update on the progress from the flooding.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to consider and take action of hiring a Financial Advisor. The council was provided a few agreements/proposals from PFM Financial Advisors LLC and Speer Financial, Inc. McGrane explained both companies sent a representative up to meet with him in person over the last week. PFM presented two proposals, one for $5,000 to specifically work on the study for the downtown project and the other for $7,000 to work on the study as well as a full one year retainer for other reports or requests the council may request. Speer’s proposal did not include a cost for the study or project because they would charge for their services if the city decided to take out financing for the project. PFM would also have an additional charge on top of their fees if the city decided to take out financing. After further discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to hire Speer Financial, Inc. to present to the council their financial advice for financing the downtown project and W. Water Street. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to consider vacating the alley in between the 700 and 800 blocks of S. Main St. and Washington St. A citizen would like the council to consider vacating the alley at this location. McGrane explained he discovered the city had vacated some of the alleys in Fayette around twenty to thirty years ago that were no longer used. The city offered portions of the alley to adjacent property owners at the property owners cost. John Kelly advised the council that the city may want to research if that specific alley is the only access to one of the old railroad property parcels. After further discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to have the city attorney present the costs of vacating the property and the future legal issues or risks there may be for vacating the property to the council. All ayes, motion carried.
At 8:33pm, moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to go into closed session per Iowa Code Section 21.5(1)(j) to discuss the purchase or sale of real estate only where premature disclosure could be reasonably expected to increase the price the City would have to pay for that property or reduce the price the City would receive for that property. All ayes, motion carried.
After returning to open session, moved Nefzger, unanimous, to adjourn at 8:48pm.
The City Council of the City of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, August 7, 2017, at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 7/17/17 and the claims list of 7/18/17 – 8/7/17. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Renee Voshell informed the Mayor and Council about a bible reading event she is planning that will take place at Klock’s Island Park, the Open Air Market Park and a gazebo outside Maple Crest Manor Nursing Home and Assisted Living. The reading will be from 7AM to 8PM on both Friday, Sept. 15th and Saturday, Sept. 16th. Anyone interested in reading a portion of the bible at this event or has any questions may contact Kathy Thomas at 563-880-4091, Barb Hackmann at 563-880-8362 or Renee Voshell at 563-608-5518. The Mayor and Council appreciated her informing them about the event and requested City Administrator/Clerk McGrane to include the information in an upcoming community email so the public is aware.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Kragnes, to add action item 7C under New Business regarding Madison and King Streets storm water drainage. All ayes, motion carried. Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes, motion carried.
Mayor Wenthe reported that he had inquired with Duane Willhite, North Fayette Valley (NFV) Superintendent, about how many students in the Fayette area would be necessary to have an activities bus that would transport students to and from Fayette to West Union. Wenthe requested McGrane to inform the public through an upcoming community email to contact City Hall, the Mayor or a Council member if they would have a need for an activities bus in Fayette. Wenthe advised if the school would not be able to offer the service, maybe the Fayette Recreation Board could help.
City Admin/Clerk McGrane reported to the council that he attended 18 classes at the Iowa Municipal Professionals Institute and Academy in Ames between July 17th and 28th. McGrane has been preparing for upcoming audits and reviews for IMWCA and IPERS. The exterior, underside of the water tower was cleaned in July, as the council had budgeted for. Fayette Library Director Linda Adams had turned in her letter of retirement to the city. Her last day will be on September 29th, 2017. Adams was hired on November 21st, 1988, and has served the citizens of Fayette for almost 29 years.
Police Chief Pisanti informed the council that the Fayette Police Dept. has completed its first week of the contract with Upper Iowa University (UIU). Fayette Officer Waid has almost completed his Field Training.
Moved Tucker, seconded Larson, to approve the Fayette Community Library board minutes from July 11, 2017. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Kragnes, to discuss Fayette flooding from July 22nd, 2017. Mayor Wenthe and McGrane provided a timeline to the council of the events of the flood which included the estimated damage of approximately $80,000 of city property, meetings with Iowa Homeland Security & Emergency Management Department (IHSEMD) and clean-up process. Wenthe advised the IHSEMD is hoping to provide all the details to the President of the United States so he will consider declaring a disaster. If the President does declare our area a disaster, then the city may be able to receive up to 75-90% of approved city expenses being reimbursed for flood repair and replacement of damaged facilities and areas. Tucker asked that since the storm sewer system couldn’t keep up with all the rain water, causing multiple drains to back-up, if there was anything the city could do to help prevent this in the future. Larson commented that once the system is full of water, then there’s no place for the water to go. Public Works Director Hildebrand advised that the city pumps were pumping the whole time during the flood at over 1,000 gallons per minute. Hildebrand advised that most basements that were backed-up and flooded was due to the sewer lines not being able to keep up with all the rain water and not from the river flooding. In 2014 when the river flooded the sewer plant, no one in town had reported to Hildebrand that they had any sewer back-up in their basements. It was also discussed that residents who have sump pumps should not have them pumping down their sewer drains. Hildebrand informed the council that the pre-treatment lift station, the lagoons and well number 3 all have back-up generators if the power would ever go off in a situation like this. David Orr advised his mother lives on Mechanic St. and she had wastewater backup in her basement. Orr wanted to know if the cities insurance company would pay for damages. Wenthe advised we will look into it. The council discussed other options and citizen suggestions due to the flood.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Kragnes, to discuss the consideration of hiring a structural engineer to inspect the city owned Rohn 25G tower. McGrane advised AC Skyways/Allamakee Clayton Electric Cooperative had inquired about placing an antenna on the tower to provide wireless internet to the community. McGrane contacted Brenda VandeVoorde, the Fayette County E911 Coordinator, to inform them of the discussion since they have an antenna on the tower that is used for emergency services. VandeVoorde inquired with their Engineer and they did not recommend adding anything new to the tower until an inspection was done. The Engineer advised the life of a tower like this is 25 years and it is in its final years. Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to have the tower inspected to determine the capacity and status of the tower as well as research the cost of replacing the tower. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss Madison and King Streets storm water drainage. Public Works Director Hildebrand advised the council the storm sewer that is under the road is in need of repair or replacement and would recommend the issue be referred to the Streets Committee to look into it. Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to refer the storm water drainage at Madison and King Streets to the Streets Committee. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to discuss the consideration of hiring a municipal or financial advisor to provide financial options to the council for the downtown and Water Street project. McGrane advised the city was awarded $350,000 of the $500,000 for the CDBG Community Facilities & Service Grant to be used for storm sewer system improvements in downtown Fayette on Main St. as part of the $3,015,012 Downtown Project. We were not awarded the CDBG Water/Sewer grant. We were also awarded a SRF Water Resource Restoration Sponsored Project which would provide 10% of the SRF wastewater loan amount (approx. $31,900) for the project. McGrane felt it was in the best interest of the city to hire a Municipal Advisor to research the financial options if the council wanted to move forward with this project. Once the council understands the options, then they can decide if they want to move forward with the project or not. Moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle, to obtain a scope of practice and cost estimate from a few different advisors for this project. All ayes, motion carried.
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, July 17, 2017 at 7:30pm in the ICN Room at the Fayette Community Library pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Prior to this meeting, at 6:30pm, the mayor & council held a work session and public meeting to discuss the rental housing code draft ordinance.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 7/3/17, the special meeting minutes of 7/10/17 and the claims list of 7/4/17 – 7/17/17. Roll call, all ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes to approve, carried.
Mayor Wenthe advised the council that the City Administrator, Kris McGrane, is at clerk and finance school for two weeks learning about his duties as a clerk and government finances.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane had prepared a report to the council that stated Todd Granberg, co-owner of Rite Price Office Supply in Oelwein, donated a copy machine/scanner/printer to the Fayette Fire Department on July 6th. Mayor Wenthe thanked Rite Price for the donation of the copy machine.
Police Chief Pisanti introduced to the council the new full time Fayette Police Officer, Anthony Landis.
Moved Tucker, seconded Kragnes, to approve the Fayette Community Library Board minutes from June 7, 2017. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve the Board of Adjustments minutes from July 6, 2017. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Tucker, to swear in Anthony Landis as a full time police officer.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to discuss hiring Brian J. Waid. Chief Pisanti advised the council that Waid is from Charles City and he is a certified police officer. Waid has already passed the MMPI. Moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle to conditionally offer Brian J. Waid a full time police officer job at a salary of $37,000 per year, based on Waid successfully completing the physical agility test & fingerprinting/background investigation, with a tentative starting date of Monday, July 24th, 2017. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to waive the residency requirement for Brian Waid for one year to give him time to find a residence in the corporate limits of the City of Fayette or within one mile of the Fayette City limits. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Tucker, seconded Nefzger, to discuss the approval of the change of scope authorization from for Fehr Graham – 2017 Water System Improvements project. Moved Nefzger, seconded Kragnes, to approve the change of scope authorization form for Fehr Graham for the 2017 Water System Improvement project of $2,750 increase for a total of $6,750. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Tucker, seconded Larson, to discuss the annual review proposals. Moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve hiring Ridihalgh, Fuelling, Snitker, Weber & Co. to perform the city of Fayette’s annual review for FY2017. Four ayes, Larson nay, motion carried.
There being no further business, moved Nefzger, unanimous, to adjourn at 7:50 pm.
Special Council Meeting Minutes 7-10-17
The City Council of the City of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, July 10, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to approve the agenda. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss the consideration of hiring a new police officer, purchase a new police vehicle and purchase police equipment. Police Chief Pisanti advised the council the Police Committee met last Thursday, July 6th, and interviewed a couple applicants for the two available full time police officer positions. Both applicants had submitted applications last year when the department was going through the hiring process for the open full time position and recently submitted applications again. Two other applicants have submitted applications but neither are certified. The city is still accepting applications until July 15th. One of the full time police applicants, Anthony William Charles Landis, is currently a Fayette County Sheriff’s Office deputy. Landis is currently from Westgate, Iowa, has graduated from the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy and is fully certified. The Police Committee recommends the council hire Landis as a full time Fayette police officer. Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to conditionally offer Anthony William Charles Landis a full time police officer job at a salary of $37,000 per year, based on Landis successfully completing the MMPI and medical/physical exams, with a tentative start date of Monday, July 17th, 2017. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to waive the residency requirement for Anthony Landis for one year to give him time to find a residence in the corporate limits of the City of Fayette or within one mile of the Fayette City limits. Four voted aye, Larson nay, motion carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve a lease agreement for a 2017 Ford Explorer and install the Fayette Police Department’s current radio and repeater equipment from the 2007 Ford Explorer for a cost of $36,699.43. All ayes, motion carried.
Moved Tucker, seconded Nefzger, to approve the Fayette Police Department to purchase two Glock firearms at a price of $604 each to be used by the two new full time officers. The firearms will be maintained by the city and will be treated as other city owned police equipment used by full time officers. All ayes, motion carried.
The City Council of the City of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, July 3, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Roll call: Present - Council members Kragnes (via speakerphone), Larson, Nefzger, Tucker and Wulfekuhle.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Larson, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 6/19/17 and the claims list of 6/20/17 – 7/3/17. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Bill Dohrmann wanted to inform the Mayor and Council how much he appreciated the city services. Dohrmann wanted to thank the Fayette Ambulance Service crew members and Fayette Police Chief Rich Pisanti for their help and cooperation with getting his wife, Sue, back to the area and assisting during her funeral.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Larson, to add action item 8C under New Business regarding contract change order #2 and partial pay estimate #2 for the 2017 Water Improvements project and approve the agenda as presented. All ayes, carried.
Upon Mayor Wenthe’s request, moved Tucker, seconded Nefzger, to appoint Andrea Scott to the Library Board, replacing Jeff Butikofer who resigned. Scott will finish Butikofer’s term and serve on the board until June 30, 2020.
City Administrator/Clerk McGrane advised the council that he has been continuing to get data entered into the new accounting and payroll software to be ready for the new fiscal year. On June 27th, Amy Tucker, Police Chief Pisanti and McGrane attended the Fayette Hazard Mitigation Public Meeting. Joel Holden’s last day at the Fayette Community Library was June 30, 2017. Holden started about 3 years ago and worked approximately 20 hours a week under a national program that compensated him. The City of Fayette was awarded $350,000 for the CDBG Community Facilities & Services Grant.
Police Chief Pisanti informed the council the department is continuing to work on the nuisance abatement project around town. They started on one side of town and had about 20 cases they were working on. They have been notifying property owners of the violations and have been getting a good outcome as citizens are taking care of the issues right away. No citations for nuisance abatement issues or for long grass/weeds have been issued yet. Pisanti also advised the council that the police have been educating citizens about the current fireworks ordinance as they come across people with fireworks. The current ordinance requires citizens to fill out a fireworks permit at Fayette City Hall, at no cost, and provide proof of insurance.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Larson, to discuss the approval of partnership for the city of Fayette to provide police services to Upper Iowa University. Chief Pisanti presented the council with information about the contractual law enforcement services that would be provided to UIU for the annual cost of $97,500 per budget year with a 2% annual inflation rate for each additional year of the contract beyond the first year. The city will hire two new full time police officers. The annual cost that UIU will pay the city includes the entire cost of the salary and benefits for one full time officer and 50% of the salary and benefits for the other full time officer. One officer will be stationed at UIU and another officer will split duties between the city and UIU. A supplemental startup cost necessary to purchase/lease a new police vehicle with required equipment will be paid for by UIU. If either the city or UIU terminates the agreement for law enforcement services, each of the parties agree to be responsible for paying all costs associated with the termination, including worker compensation, liability claims and employee separation payments. The agreement will commence on August 1, 2017 and terminate on June 30, 2020, with the option to extend the term by mutual agreement of both parties. Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Tucker, to approve the partnership for the city of Fayette to provide police services to UIU. Four voted aye, Larson nay, motion carried.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Tucker, to discuss the annual review proposals. The city received proposals from the Office of Auditor of the State of Iowa, Hacker Nelson & Co. PC and Ridihalgh Fuelling Snitker Weber & Co. After discussion, moved Nefzger, seconded Tucker, to contact Ridihalgh Fuelling Snitker Weber & Co. to find out if they would consider decreasing their cost estimate since they have worked with the city previously and have the cities previous records. Four voted aye, Larson nay, motion carried.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss contract change order #2 and partial pay estimate #2 for the 2017 Water System Improvements project. Contract change order #2 will decrease the total amount of the project by $13,233.30, making the total project cost $98,076.45. Partial pay estimate #2 is for $50,821.49. After discussion, moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Nefzger to approve contract change order #2 and partial pay estimate #2 for the 2017 Water System Improvements project. All aye, carried.
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, June 19, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Moved Tucker, seconded Kragnes, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 6/5/17, claims list of 6/6/17 – 6/19/17, the May 2017 Treasurer’s/Clerk’s Report & Budget Report, and the renewal of a liquor license for The Pumper. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Treasurer's Balance for Fund Accounts as of May 31, 2017: General $297,795.71; Streets $211,224.16; Debt Service $5,166.74; Water Utility $351,312.64; Water T&A $27,780.07; Sewer Utility $307,830.75; Landfill/Recycling $1,893.66; Yard Waste $11,702.71; Bolger Fund $189,643.71; TIF $57,086.98; Local Option Tax $86,517.82; Storm Water $10,863.87; Downtown Project ($29,715.04); Franchise Fees $48,920.48. May Receipts by Fund: General $37,199.79; Streets $11,565.08; Debt Service $634.60; Water Utility $4,654.14; Water T&A $2,496.96; Sewer Utility $5,171.24; LF/Recycling $1,023.13; Yard Waste $196.07; Bolger $2,957; TIF $252.06; Local Option $6,915.67; Storm Water $146; Franchise Fees $3,425.92. Total Receipts $76,637.66. May Disbursements by Fund: General $28,993.44; Streets $14,450.76; Water Utility $11,033.54; Water T&A $507.53; Sewer Utility $8,094.85; Yard Waste $5,478.99. Total Disbursements: $68,559.11. Investments: $1,309,664.03. Bank Balance $2,863,137.26. Balance with Library Funds $2,952,849.14.
Moved Wulfekuhle, seconded Kragnes, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes to approve, carried.
Mayor Wenthe advised the council that Jeff Butikofer resigned from the Library Board due to a conflict of interest regarding a potential candidate for the Library Director position. The City Council needs to consider a replacement. Annette Butikofer was offered and accepted the Library Director position. On June 15th, the Mayor spent the day with Zach Mannheimer meeting with different groups and individuals and touring the town as part of the Creative Placemaking Economic Assessment study. Wenthe would like to encourage all the citizens to shop local and support the businesses that we do have as that is the first step to seeing improvements in the community and with economic development. Fayette has a lot of things that we should be proud of and we should help promote these things.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane reported to the council that he attended a NEIA League meeting on June 6th, a housing meeting on June 12th, had an annual visit with Black Hills Energy personnel on June 13th and attended the Steering committee meeting on June 15th.
Police Chief Pisanti informed the council that he attended a training to prevent violence against women last week. The cost was covered by a grant and UIU. The department is wrapping up on the unpaid, over-due tickets project. Out of 61 unpaid tickets, only 19 are left unpaid and letters have been sent out to address the last 19 tickets. The department started a code enforcement or nuisance abatement sweep around town this week. The sweep will address issues such as abandoned vehicles, trash piles and tall grass. They will also inform residents on the importance of displaying their house numbers so they are visible from the road.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to discuss the Fayette Community Library Board minutes from May 10, 2017. Annette Butikofer accepted the Library Director position and will start on approximately August 1st. Linda Adams will retire the end of September. After a brief discussion, the council was wondering if the Library Board had an idea of when they would hire an assistant librarian. Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to introduce Alex Soderquist, the General Manager at Hawkeye Telephone Company (HTC), to discuss running fiber optic lines through Fayette. HTC runs fiber optic lines all over Fayette County and NE Iowa. It was proposed to them by Community Digital Wireless (CDW) to run fiber optic lines to a cell tower just north of the city of Fayette so CDW can provide fixed, wireless internet service to the city of Fayette residents, hopefully within the next year. Fixed, wireless internet is where an antenna is placed on top of a cell tower and a resident puts an antenna on top of their home or business to receive internet connection. The internet service is reasonably fast and is usually less expensive than other services. HTC currently has fiber optic service at the cell tower just south of Fayette. The current preliminary plan is to run the fiber optic lines from the tower south of Fayette, along Klock Rd/Washington St into town, run a line to UIU so they can take advantage of the service, head west along W 7th St, then north through town, behind the downtown district, over to city hall, police dept, fire dept and ambulance garage, then north to the cell tower. Soderquist is also hoping to include in the plan to run a line to the NFV school and Fayette Community Library. When they build the fiber optic line, they do not have the ability to provide a service line to every business, but they do prepare for future options and investments for other companies that may want to come in and take advantage of the fiber optic line. Since HTC is a small company with a small staff, they are unable to provide fiber optic services to multiple customers throughout NE Iowa, but they like the idea of spearing new interventions into towns where services are not available. Currently there are no plans for offering fiber optic service to residents, however, the cities infrastructure can still take advantage of fiber optic service. HTC is currently working with other providers and companies to try and have them come up to the NE Iowa area to provide the fiber optic service. Soderquist wanted to introduce himself and let the council know they are currently in the middle of preliminary planning to do this type of work. The cities advantage would be to have fiber optic run to places they felt would be useful. HTC just finished getting West Union city hall connected to fiber optic. HTC tries to provide a discounted rate at a fixed cost for cities who use the service. As an example, HTC charges the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office and West Union city hall a fixed rate of $70 per month. HTC typically offers a full 1GB service, that is 1,000MB up and 1,000MB down, unlimited usage, HTC provides support via IT networking capabilities. They are also hoping this would help bring in future business opportunities and are hoping to have the fiber optic line in the ground before the end of October. Their work and construction is done by a local contractor, West Union Trenching. They would trench and lay the fiber optic lines in the cities right-of-way through town. When Soderquist has completed his plan, he will come back with specific details as well as options for the city to take advantage of the service.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to introduce the third and final reading of Ordinance 493 – Amending the code of ordinances of the city of Fayette, Iowa, by repealing and amending sections 92.02 of water rates and 99.02 of sewer service charges under chapters 92 and 99. The ordinance increases water and sewer rates by 2% on all rate levels to keep up with inflation, continue with improvements, replacing water and sewer lines, and replacing water meters. The minimum sewer charge will increase from $59.09 to $60.28 per quarter. The minimum water charge will increase from $38.01 to $38.77. The rate increase will begin on September 1, 2017, which is billable in December 2017. All the water and sewer rates shall automatically increase 2% per year on June 1 unless changed by resolution of council. Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve the third and final reading of Ordinance 493. On roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to introduce the third and final reading of Ordinance 494 – Amending the code of ordinances of the city of Fayette, Iowa, by repealing and amending section 106.09 of landfill fee under chapter 106. The ordinance increases the landfill fee by $0.25 per quarter. The increase is due to Fayette County increasing the landfill cost by $1.00 per person, per year starting in July 2017. The rate increase will begin on July 1, 2017, which is billable in September 2017. Moved Tucker, seconded Kragnes, to approve the third and final reading of Ordinance 494. On roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Nefzger, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss and review Ordinance 484 – Rental Housing Code. After discussion, Kragnes suggested inviting the community and landlords to a special meeting to discuss the new updates to the draft code that City Attorney Pat Dillon suggested. The council agreed to hold a meeting on July 17th at 6:30PM, an hour before the city council meeting.
The City Council of the City of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, June 5, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Roll call: Present - Council members Kragnes, Larson, Nefzger and Tucker. Absent – Wulfekuhle.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 5/15/17 and the claims list of 5/16/17 – 6/5/17. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes, carried.
Mayor Wenthe informed the council that Upper Iowa University hired Superlandscapes to repair the wooden bridge on the rec trail between Fayette and the Volga River Recreation Area. They had finished repairing it before Memorial Day weekend. UIU will take care of the bill. Zach Mannheimer will be back in Fayette on June 15 to meet with more people and local groups as he continues the Creative Assessment for Fayette. The Fayette Fire Department will be touring UIU with some of the UIU facility staff this week so the department can be more prepared for any fire-related emergencies.
City Administrator/Clerk McGrane advised the council that Lance Butikofer, NFV student, met with Public Works Director Jerry Hildebrand and they installed the Little Library at the Open Air Market on June 2. Data Technologies installed the new accounting & payroll software and did on-site training with McGrane and Deputy Clerk Sellers on May 16, 17 and 18. Ray’s Excavating started the 2017 Water System Improvements project on Madison & Jones Streets on May 17. The look-out tower that UIU paid for is completed along the rec trail.
Police Chief Pisanti informed the council the department will be attending a training at UIU this week on critical incidents. Mayor Wenthe praised Chief Pisanti for handling a recent emergency at UIU with a student. Wenthe advised he heard many positive comments about the way the incident was handled and the positive outcome.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss American Tower Corp. conditional offers on the land lease for the cell tower. The city attorney recommended the city not negotiate at this time since there are still quite a few years left on the lease. After a brief discussion, the council agreed to not accept an offer at this time.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson to discuss the Fayette Rec Board minutes from May 25, 2017. Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson to approve the minutes. All ayes, carried.
No motion to discuss bringing fiber-optic services into Fayette for businesses with Alex Soderquist, Hawkeye Telephone Company, as he was not present.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to consider purchasing three replacement police radios. Chief Pisanti told the council during a recent emergency call, one of the police handheld portable radios malfunctioned. He has used the radio that failed for about a year and half. The new handheld radios cost $310 each from Fayette Electronics. The department currently has 3 handheld radios that they rely on, so the new radios would replace these. Moved Tucker, seconded Kragnes, to purchase 3 police handheld radios for a total of $930. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to consider purchasing a snow blower and rotary broom for the John Deere, as budgeted for FY2017. John Deere in Oelwein quoted a total of $4,675 and John Deere in Sumner quoted a total of $4,187.29 for both items. Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to purchase the snow blower and rotary broom from John Deere in Sumner for a total cost of $4187.29. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to consider contract change order number 1 from Ray’s Excavating LLC for work completed on the 2017 Water System Improvements project on Madison and Jones Streets. The order included an increase in cost of $34.00 for increasing the culvert. Moved Larson, seconded Kragnes, to approve change order number 1. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to introduce the second reading of Ordinance 493 – Amending the code of ordinances of the city of Fayette, Iowa, by repealing and amending sections 92.02 of water rates and 99.02 of sewer service charges under chapters 92 and 99. The ordinance increases water and sewer rates by 2% on all rate levels to keep up with inflation, continue with improvements, replacing water and sewer lines, and replacing water meters. The minimum sewer charge will increase from $59.09 to $60.28 per quarter. The minimum water charge will increase from $38.01 to $38.77. The rate increase will begin on September 1, 2017, which is billable in December 2017. All the water and sewer rates shall automatically increase 2% per year on June 1 unless changed by resolution of council. Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve the second reading of Ordinance 493. On roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Tucker, seconded Kragnes, to introduce the second reading of Ordinance 494 – Amending the code of ordinances of the city of Fayette, Iowa, by repealing and amending section 106.09 of landfill fee under chapter 106. The ordinance increases the landfill fee by $0.25 per quarter. The increase is due to Fayette County increasing the landfill cost by $1.00 per person, per year starting in July 2017. The rate increase will begin on July 1, 2017, which is billable in September 2017. After discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve the second reading of Ordinance 494. On roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to introduce the first reading of Ordinance 495 – Amending the code of ordinances of the city of Fayette, Iowa, by adding regulations for a grass, weeds, vines and brush code as chapter 52. After receiving many complaints about multiple over-grown lawns throughout town, Chief Pisanti and Administrator McGrane felt a specific chapter to help enforce the issue was needed. The city attorney reviewed and supported the new chapter. The ordinance requires owners to cut their grass, weeds, vines and brush when it exceeds approximately eight inches in height or which are obnoxious or unsightly. For the first violation in each calendar year, the property owner shall be notified and will have five days to correct the condition. If the property owner fails to maintain the property after notice, the work will be done by city employees or by a contractor and billed to the property owner. For subsequent violations on the same property in the same calendar year, a written notice will not be sent to the owner. The work will be done by city employees or by a contractor and again billed to the property owner. Failure to pay shall result in the cost being assessed against the property for collection in the same manner as a property tax. After discussion, moved Nefzger, seconded Larson, to waive the second and third readings of Ordinance 495. All ayes, carried. Moved Tucker, seconded Larson, to approve the first and final reading and adopt Ordinance 495. On roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to introduce the first reading of Ordinance 496 – Amending the code of ordinances of the city of Fayette, Iowa, by repealing and amending section 50.02 (10) of nuisance abatement procedure under Chapter 50. The ordinance modifies weeds, brush to read: Dense growth of all weeds, vines, brush, grass, other botanical growth or other similar vegetation in the City which constitutes a health, safety or fire hazard or which are obnoxious or unsightly. It also refers to Chapter 52, the new grass, weeds, vines and brush code. After discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Larson to waive the second and third readings of Ordinance 496. All ayes, carried. Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve the first and final reading and adopt Ordinance 496. On roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to introduce Resolution 2017-13. After a brief discussion, moved Tucker, seconded Kragnes, to approve and adopt Resolution 2017-13: A resolution considering grass and weeds longer than 8 inches in height and debris to be a nuisance and obnoxious to the public. It also establishes the following rate for city actions taken to abate nuisances: $250 for mowing, per lot, plus $50 per hour for each hour over the first hour spent on mowing and cleaning of the property, and cleaning of debris shall be assessed at a rate of $100 per hour. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to discuss the City of Fayette’s position with fireworks. After discussion, the council decided to stay with our current policy at this time.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to consider a written RFP to engage a CPA firm to perform the City’s required annual examination for the year ending June 30, 2017. After discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to write and release an RFP to engage a CPA firm to perform the City’s required annual examination. All ayes, carried.
The City Council of the city of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, May 15, 2017 at 8:03pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Roll call: Present - Council members Kragnes, Larson, Tucker and Wulfekuhle. Absent – Nefzger.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve the consent agenda consisting of the regular meeting minutes of 5/1/17, claims list of 5/2/17 – 5/15/17, the April 2017 Treasurer’s/Clerk’s Report & Budget Report, and the renewal of a liquor license for Aramark/Upper Iowa University. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Treasurer's Balance for Fund Accounts as of April 30, 2017: General $289,589.36; Streets $214,109.84; Debt Service $4,532.14; Water Utility $357,692.04; Water T&A $25,790.64; Sewer Utility $310,754.36; Landfill/Recycling $870.53; Yard Waste $16,985.63; Bolger Fund $186,686.71; TIF $56,834.92; Local Option Tax $79,602.15; Storm Water $10,717.87; Downtown Project ($29,715.04); Franchise Fees $45,494.56. April Receipts by Fund: General $110,995.25; Streets $9,643.69; Debt Service $2,730.36; Water Utility $42,933.22; Water T&A $625; Sewer Utility $66,830.16; LF/Recycling $14,111.61; Yard Waste $2,719; Bolger $1,120; TIF $14,028.10; Local Option $6,915.65; Storm Water $1,500.21; Franchise Fees $1,649.69. Total Receipts $275,801.94. April Disbursements by Fund: General $30,541.28; Streets $8,583.83; Water Utility $6,928.43; Water T&A $225; Sewer Utility $16,111.65; LF/Recycling $14,957.71; Yard Waste $226.57; Downtown Project $729.05. Total Disbursements: $78,303.52. Investments: $1,285,593.66. Bank Balance $2,855,058.71. Balance with Library Funds $2,946,462.68.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to approve the agenda as presented. All ayes to approve, carried.
Administrator/Clerk McGrane reported to the council that he has continued to work with Data Technologies preparing for the installation of the new accounting & payroll software. The installation & training will take place on May 16, 17 & 18 at Fayette City Hall. Kluesner Construction filled cracks in the streets around town on May 8th. Ray’s Excavating is scheduled to start the 2017 Water System Improvement project on Madison & Jones Streets on May 17th. Fayette’s spring clean-up day is scheduled for May 24. People can visit www.fayetteiowa.com or call City Hall for more information or to notify the clerk of items they would like picked up. Fayette City Hall will be closed on Monday, May 29 for Memorial Day.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss Resolution 2017-11. After a brief discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to approve Resolution 2017-11: A resolution of appointment and compensation schedule to Patrick B. Dillon of Dillon Law, PC, for City Attorney of Fayette, Iowa. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Larson, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss the American Tower Corporation conditional offers on tower. After discussion, the council would like to present the offers to our city attorney to review and try to find out what other communities in a similar situation are doing.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss repairing the wooden bridge on the recreational trail. The city did not receive any other bids for the project. Mayor Wenthe informed the council that currently Upper Iowa University owns this portion of the trail because it is outside the city limits. When the trail is completed, the Fayette County Conservation will take over the ownership. The trail is not considered completed until the last portion between Jade Road and the Volga Recreation Area is paved. UIU and the city of Fayette worked on the trail project together. UIU was recipient of the funds and the grant. UIU helped with a portion of the matching funds and the city of Fayette received a REAP grant to use for some of the matching funds. UIU received another grant to put up a look-out tower along the trail and covered the matching funds. It is not the cities obligation to repair the bridge, but it could be something the city of Fayette chooses to help with. After further discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to table.
Moved Tucker, seconded Kragnes, to discuss the Fayette Community Library Board minutes from April 12, 2017. The council asked where the library advertised for the open Library Director position. McGrane advised the position was posted at the library, city hall, the bank and the post office and could not remember if the library advertised anywhere else, but he could find out. The council would like to find out all the places where it was advertised and if it was not published in any of the local newspapers, to ask the Library Board to consider advertising it in a local newspaper or two and maybe some websites. Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss Laura Albert’s with Helping Services request in adopting Resolution 2017-12. Laura was unable to make the meeting, but had provided information to the council and spoke to Amy Tucker earlier about the Resolution. The resolution is to encourage people to not use tobacco products at city parks and on trails. Violators would be asked to refrain from using tobacco or leave the grounds when using tobacco and there would be no fine. Helping Services would provide the city signs to place in parks and along the trails. After discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to approve Resolution 2017-12: A resolution establishing a tobacco-free parks and trails policy for the city of Fayette, Iowa, amending the proposed resolution to state “Any person found violating this policy will be asked to refrain from tobacco use or leave the grounds to use tobacco” and to exclude Klock’s Island campground area from the resolution. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to discuss bringing fiber-optic services into Fayette for businesses. McGrane informed the council Mr. Soderquist was unable to make tonight’s meeting and will reschedule. Moved Kragnes to table.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss the release of mortgage to James & Linda Tenney, Document #2012 1671, in the Fayette County, Iowa, Recorder’s Office. Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to release the mortgage. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to release the mortgage to Shirley Smith, Document #2012 1670, in the Fayette County, Iowa, Recorder’s Office. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to introduce the first reading of Ordinance 493 – Amending the code of ordinances of the city of Fayette, Iowa, by repealing and amending sections 92.02 of water rates and 99.02 of sewer service charges under chapters 92 and 99. The ordinance increases water and sewer rates by 2% on all rate levels to keep up with inflation, continue with improvements, replacing water and sewer lines, and replacing water meters. The minimum sewer charge will increase from $59.09 to $60.28 per quarter. The minimum water charge will increase from $38.01 to $38.77. The rate increase will begin on September 1, 2017, which is billable in December 2017. All the water and sewer rates shall automatically increase 2% per year on June 1 unless changed by resolution of council. After discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to approve the first reading of Ordinance 493. On roll call, Kragnes and Tucker ayes, Larson nay, Wulfekuhle abstained, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to introduce the first reading of Ordinance 494 – Amending the code of ordinances of the city of Fayette, Iowa, by repealing and amending section 106.09 of landfill fee under chapter 106. The ordinance increases the landfill fee by $0.25 per quarter. The increase is due to Fayette County increasing the landfill cost by $1.00 per person, per year starting in July 2017. The rate increase will begin on July 1, 2017, which is billable in September 2017. After discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to approve the first reading of Ordinance 494. On roll call, all ayes, carried.
There being no further business, moved Kragnes, unanimous, to adjourn at 9:17pm.
The City Council of the City of Fayette, Iowa, met Monday, May 1, 2017 at 7:30pm in the Fayette City Hall pursuant to law and rules of said council, Mayor Wenthe presiding.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to approve the agenda as presented. Wulfekuhle asked to move item 6A, City Attorney Proposals under old business, so it is the last thing on the agenda. Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson to approve the amended agenda. All ayes to approve, carried.
Upon Mayor Wenthe’s request and the Fayette Ambulance Services recommendation, moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to appoint Autumn Weaver and Mason Bantz to the Fayette Ambulance Service. Weaver and Bantz are planning on going through EMT school. Both passed background checks. All ayes, carried.
City Administrator/Clerk McGrane informed the council that one of the Fayette ambulances hit a deer this past weekend on the way to a call. No one was injured and the insurance company has been contacted. The crew will primarily be using the second ambulance for calls. The city of Fayette received a check from Black Hills Energy in the amount of $2,000 to show their support and help fund the cities portion of hiring Zachary Mannheimer for the Community Placemaking Economic Assessment. McGrane received a $330 scholarship to help pay for some of the classes that he will be taking at the Iowa Municipal Professionals Institute & Academy in Ames this July as he works towards the City Clerk and City Finance certifications.
Police Chief Pisanti advised the council the department assisted with the North Fayette Valley (NFV) prom this past weekend that was held at UIU. The department is preparing for UIU graduation this weekend and are working with some of the students as the students organize an off-campus party to help keep them under control.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to introduce NFV student Lance Butikofer and his math teacher, Brooke Lodge, as they inquire about constructing and placing a Little Library in a Fayette Park. Butikofer advised the council that NFV students and himself are building Little Library’s in shop class and would like to place them throughout the school district. A Little Library is a place where people may exchange books for free. Anyone may take a book or bring a book to share in the Little Library. Butikofer would like to place a Little Library at Cardinal Park in Fayette. After further discussion, the council recommended he place the Little Library at the Open Air Market because it may get utilized more. The goal is to have the Little Library finished and in place before the end of the current school year. The NFV school has one community service day a year, so they will not be able to manage or monitor the Little Library on a regular basis, that will be up to the community. Moved Larson, seconded Kragnes, to let Lance Butikofer construct and place a Little Library at the Open Air Market. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to discuss approving a Freedom Rock be placed in the City of Fayette. Moved Kragnes, seconded Nefzger, to approve placing a Freedom Rock in the City of Fayette. All ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to discuss American Tower Corporation’s three different conditional offers on the land they lease from the City of Fayette. After a brief discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to table until the next meeting when more information can be provided and the council can review the current lease.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss repairing the wooden bridge on the recreation trail. Mayer Wenthe advised the bridge was washed out on the east end and is getting worse. Wenthe called West Union Trenching and they referred it to Superlandscapes. Superlandscapes provided a bid. After a brief discussion, the council would like to see more than one bid for the project. Wenthe would like the bridge repaired by June 30, 2017 because the DOT will be coming out to look at the entire trail this summer. The council requested McGrane to seek additional bids, including placing a post on Facebook, and present them at the next council meeting.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss Resolution 2017-10. After a brief discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to approve Resolution 2017-10: A resolution of support for Fayette County to affiliate with the Northeast Iowa Regional Housing Trust Fund Program as a participating county. Roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Tucker, to introduce the third and final reading of Ordinance 492 – Amending Fayette City Code Chapters 62.12 General Traffic Regulations, Penalties, and 63.12 Speed Regulations, Penalties, by increasing the penalties and fines. The ordinance increases the $75 and $50 fees in Chapter 62.12 to $100. These fines would include stop sign violations, expired insurance, not wearing a seat belt and other violations in Chapter 62. In Chapter 63, Speeding Regulations, the fees would increase from $75 to $100 for 1-10 miles per hour (mph) over the posted speed limit; $85 to $110 for 11-15 mph over the posted speed limit; and $95 to $125 for 16-20 mph over the posted speed limit. Moved Kragnes, seconded Wulfekuhle, to adopt and approve the third and final reading of Ordinance 492. On roll call, all ayes, carried.
Moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to discuss the city attorney proposals. The city received proposals from Hofmeyer and Hanson, PC of Fayette, Dillon Law, PC of Sumner, Brick Gentry, PC of West Des Moines, and Meyer Law Firm of Mason City. Larson advised he felt Dillon Law was one of the least expensive, close to Fayette and experienced as he represents other area cities. Tucker advised she was impressed with the proposal Dillon provided and how it outlined what he has done for communities that are similar to Fayette. Kragnes advised that it looked like Dillon had a good plan in place if there are any conflicts, is experienced to handle ordinance violations, and that his fees were reasonable. After further discussion, moved Kragnes, seconded Larson, to move forward in hiring Dillon Law, PC as the new city attorney. Four voted aye, Nefzger nay, motion carried.
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Therapy & Support Groups | Fenway Health: Health Care Is A Right, Not A Privilege. Therapy & Support Groups – Fenway Health: Health Care Is A Right, Not A Privilege.
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency, our hours of operation at 1340 Boylston Street and Fenway: South End have changed.
1340 Boylston Street – Monday – Friday 8:00 am – 5:30 pm; Saturday 9:00 am – 1:00 pm. Telehealth and in-person appointments 617.927.6000.
Fenway: South End – Monday – Friday 8:00 am – 5:30 pm. Telehealth and in-person appointments 617.247.7555.
We have also consolidated clinical staff from the Sidney Borum, Jr. Health Center to 1340 Boylston and the South End. Borum patients can continue to call 617.457.8140 to make appointments at one of those locations or for telehealth services.
Medical and Behavioral Health telehealth visits may occur outside of these hours.
Group Psychotherapy Program and Support Groups
Fenway Health offers a variety of short-term, skill-based psychotherapy groups, longer-term psychotherapy groups, and support groups. Whether longer-term or short-term in nature, group therapy is a very effective form of treatment. Years of research prove that group therapy can be just as effective as individual therapy, and in many instances, even more effective. Group therapy will give you the opportunity to better understand yourself, interact with and get support from peers who share similar problems, improve your interpersonal relationships and help you grow as an individual. Our short-term, skill-based groups give you the added benefit of acquiring education and skills that will help you cope better with specific emotional and/or behavior problems. Group psychotherapy is reimbursed by most insurance plans.
Our short-term, skill-based groups typically run for 10 to 12 weeks and are designed to empower you with knowledge, teach you skills and offer you support so that you can feel and function better.
Our longer-term psychotherapy groups are also designed to help you cope and function better while you work on achieving your own personal treatment goals.
Our free-of-charge support groups are not psychotherapy groups, but are designed to provide supportive discussions, education, and to foster a sense of belonging and camaraderie among participants. Some of these are run outside of the Behavioral Health Department, through partners in other areas of Fenway Health.
Short-Term, Skill-Based Therapy Groups
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Group for Anxiety
For anyone who struggles with anxiety, social phobia, or panic attacks, this weekly therapy group uses CBT techniques to teach members tools for decreasing anxiety and taking control of worry. A commitment to daily mood and thought tracking and relaxation practice will be required as part of the group. The group runs in the evenings, at both Fenway 1340 and Fenway South End locations, and will meet for 8-10 sessions. For more information on the Fenway 1340 group, please contact Tfawa Haynes at 617.927.6223. For more information on the Fenway South End group, please contact Meghan McGrath, LICSW at 617.927.6187.
Compulsive Sexual Behavior
For gay or bisexual men who are struggling with out of control sexual behaviors, this skilled based therapy group is designed to empower individuals with knowledge and skills, peer support, and improved motivation to make healthier choices and positive changes regarding sexual activity. Groups are offered at both the 1340 Boylston Street and Fenway: South End locations.
The Monday evening group meets at 1340 Boylston Street. Contact David Todisco, LICSW at 617.927.6275 for more information.
The Thursday evening group meets at Fenway: South End. Contact Chris Medeiros, LMHC at 617.927.6107 for more information.
For anyone who struggles with PTSD related symptoms or anxiety related to childhood trauma this 16 week therapy group focuses on education about trauma recovery, how to express emotions effectively, and ways to decrease emotional charge stemming from trauma. The group will develop skills in sensory awareness techniques, breathing techniques, meditation, movement-base techniques, and various other expressive methods to help foster a sense of empowerment, improve sensory awareness, and release stress from the body. Openness to support other trauma survivors will be required as part of the group. For more information please contact Stacey Salyers by phone at 857.313.6853 or by email at ssalyers@fenwayhealth.org.
DBT Skills Group
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), developed by Marsha Linehan, (1993) focuses on learning and incorporating four types of skills: Mindfulness, Emotional Regulation, Distress Tolerance, and Interpersonal Effectiveness. While DBT was initially established to assist with decreasing symptoms related to Borderline Personality Disorder, further research has shown its’ effectiveness with other mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression. The purpose of a DBT skills training group is to acquire skills to assist individuals with creating a life worth living by decreasing intense reactions, reducing emotional chaos and managing distressing feelings. This skills-based group runs for 16 weeks on Thursdays from 1:30 p.m. – to 3 p.m. For more information, please contact Kim Lawrence, LICSW at 617-927-6454. Please note that this group meets via Zoom due to safety restrictions based on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Exploring Sexual Orientation Group
This is a short-term group for people of all gender identities for exploration and/or support of different expressions of sexual orientation. It is appropriate for people who:
may clearly be coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer or attracted to people of all gender identities
who may be uncertain and want to explore or better understand their sexual orientation
who are more certain about their sexual orientation but struggle with issues of acceptance/self-disclosure with regards to work, school, friends, family of origin and/or dating situations.
Please contact Denise Nunez at 617.927.6202 for more information.
Find Your Story: Narrative Therapy Group
The Find Your Story Narrative Therapy group was created for anyone who struggles with symptoms of anxiety, depression, or trauma and wants to better understand their relationship with their mental health challenges.
Narrative Therapy works through practices including externalization (working to understand that problems are separate from us, not part of us) and re-authoring (learning about our strengths, values, preferences, and self-agency.)
This group will allow participants to better understand how their mental illness impacts their life and support them in learning and growing through alternative skills and discovering understandings of themselves to increase self-esteem, self-compassion, and self-understanding. Participants are expected to share their own experiences and offer reflections and support to others throughout the group process.
This group is open to any individual age 18+. Participants DO NOT need to be Fenway Health patients but DO need to schedule an intake with group facilitator prior to joining group. This is a 12 session group which meets one day per week. There are two sections available:
Wednesdays from 2–3:15 PM
Thursdays from 5–6:15 PM.
This group is currently meeting in a telehealth setting. When in-person visits are made available again, it will be held at the 1340 Boylston Street location of Fenway Health.
For more information, please contact Joy Lochelt at: 617-927-6002.
LGBTQ+ Women of Color Process Group
Looking for a supportive and affirming space to share your experiences as a LGBTQ+ woman of color? Check out Fenway Health’s LGBTQ+ woman of color Process Group. This group will work to address and challenge social isolation felt by LGBTQ+ women of color, uplift personal identity and pride, and process the diverse LGBTQ+ Women of Color experience. We aim to empower participants to prioritize their emotional and mental wellbeing through exploring personal balance, self-care, and restoration skills. Open to self-identified LGBTQ+ women of color over the age of 21. Participants do NOT need to be Fenway Health patients. Groups will be held on Monday evenings at Fenway South End on the fourth floor. The start and group times to be determined.
For more information, please email Misty Cranston-Bates at MCranston-Bates@fenwayhealth.org
Group Schedule:
For those who want to break the cycle of problematic drug or alcohol use, Fenway offers a variety of Addiction Recovery and Wellness Program Services, including the following groups:
Suboxone Program Group
Sobriety Support Group
Relapse Prevention Group
Read more about Addiction Recovery and Wellness Program services
Violence Recovery Program Groups
Trauma Education Group
Relationship Skills Group
Male Survivor Group
Asylum Seekers Group
Read more about VRP services & groups.
Longer-Term Therapy Groups
This is an ongoing, open-ended group for people living with chronic pain. The group offers a supportive environment for people to share their experiences living with pain, as well as opportunities to learn and practice methods for coping with and managing pain. The group has a psychodynamic foundation, and will also incorporate psychoeducation and skills training, with a focus on cognitive therapies and mindfulness. Complementary therapies, such as gentle yoga and acupuncture, may also be included.
This group meets Tuesday afternoons at 1340 Boylston St. Please contact Jenna Cassoli, LICSW at 617.927.6237 for more information.
Anxiety and Depression Group for Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Individuals
This group is an ongoing, open-ended psychodynamic group for people who are Transgender or Gender Non-Conforming and struggling with anxiety and/or depression related to any anxiety spectrum or depression diagnosis or as an identified symptom of a clinical diagnosis including gender dysphoria.
This is an ongoing group with a psychodynamic foundation, but will includes elements of CBT, DBT and other skills-based practices. While gender identity stressors are a focus of the group, this is not a support group and members do need a clinical diagnosis, screening and intake on record to participate.
The Tuesday evening group meets at Fenway: South End at 142 Berkeley Street and the Wednesday evening group meets at 1340 Boylston Street. Please contact Melissa Grieco-Waters, LICSW at 617.927.6404 for more information on the Tuesday group and to arrange a screening. For more info on the Wednesday groups, please contact Sarah Eley at 857.313.6551 or SEley@fenwayhealth.org.
Gay and Bisexual Men’s Mood Disorder
An ongoing group for gay and bisexual men who struggle with mood disorders such as major depression, anxiety and bipolar illness. This group offers a supportive environment for members to share and cope with life issues that are affected by living with a chronic mood disorder.
The Thursday daytime group meets at 1340 Boylston Street.
Contact Melissa Brown, LICSW at 617.927.6013 for more information.
Men’s Mood Disorder Group (Mixed)
This is an ongoing, mixed group for men of combined ages, sexual, and gender expression who struggle with Mood Disorders such as Major Depression, Anxiety and Bipolar Illness. This group offers a diverse, confidential, safe, and supportive environment for members to bravely share and cope with life issues affected by living with a chronic Mood Disorder. Members will gain support, information, and motivation through mutual aid/validation to come out of isolation and help each other advocate for meaningful recovery.
The Tuesday daytime group meets at 1340 Boylston Street. Contact Tfawa Haynes, LICSW at 617.927.6223 for more information.
Seniors’ Group
Ongoing group for gay/bi men to discuss the challenges and rewards associated with aging including: Relationships, social isolation, sexuality, developing meaningful pursuits at this phase of life, managing health & illness, and creating (or re-creating) a life with meaning. Group meets Thursday daytime at the 1340 Boylston Street location. Contact Chris Medeiros, LMHC at 617.927.6107 for more information.
LGBT Cancer Support Group: A collaboration between Fenway Health and Facing Cancer Together
Cancer can be a terrifying and lonely experience. This weekly support group provides a safe space where LGBT people with cancer can meet others facing similar challenges, find comfort and companionship, and learn new ways to cope. Professionally run by a clinician with psycho-oncology experience. Services are offered at no charge to participants. Call Joyce Collier at 617.332.5777 for more information.
Gay/Bi Men’s Intimacy Group
Ongoing psychotherapy groups focusing on helping members develop deeper and more intimate relationships. Different groups meet on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at the Fenway South End location. For more information, contact Sixto Muñoz, LICSW at 617.927.6270; Jennifer Ruiz, MD at 617.927.6232; or Joy Lochelt, LICSW at 617.927.6002.
Men’s Intimacy Group
Ongoing psychotherapy group focusing on helping members develop deeper and more intimate relationships. The group meets on Wednesday evenings at the 1340 Boylston Street location. For more information, contact Frank Fleming, LICSW at 617.927.6277.
Grupo de Latinx LGBTQ en Español / LGBTQ Process Group in Spanish
Grupo abierto y culturalmente sensible para que la comunidad LGBTQ de habla Hispana explore cómo la raza/etnicidad, la orientación de género/sexual, la clase/condición social, la religión/espiritualidad, la cultura/tradiciones y la familia/sociedad influyen en usted y en nuestra comunidad.
Este grupo se reúne los miércoles por la tarde en el 1340 de la Boylston St. Póngase en contacto con Gerardo Moreno-Serrano, LMHC al 857.313.6512 para obtener más información.
Open/ongoing culturally sensitive group intervention for the Spanish speaking LGBTQ community to explore how race/ethnicity, gender/sexual orientation, social class/status, religion/spirituality, culture/traditions, family/society, and development stage have an impact on you and our community.
This group meets Wednesday afternoons at 1340 Boylston St. Please contact Gerardo Moreno-Serrano, LMHC at 857.313.6512 for more information.
Looking for a supportive and affirming space to share your experiences as a LGBTQ+ woman of color? Check out Fenway Health’s LGBTQ+ woman of color Process Group.
This group will work to address and challenge social isolation felt by LGBTQ+ women of color, uplift personal identity and pride, and process the diverse LGBTQ+ Women of Color experience. We aim to empower participants to prioritize their emotional and mental wellbeing through exploring personal balance, self-care, and restoration skills. Open to self-identified LGBTQ+ women of color over the age of 21. Participants do NOT need to be Fenway Health patients. Groups will be held on Monday evenings at Fenway South End on the fourth floor. The start and group times to be determined. For more information, please email Misty Cranston-Bates at MCranston-Bates@fenwayhealth.org.
Trauma Recovery for Survivors of Childhood Abuse
For anyone who struggles with PTSD symptoms related to prolonged childhood trauma (physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse), this ongoing weekly therapy group focuses on education about trauma recovery and how to build skills such as the ability to express emotions effectively and appropriately and ways to decrease emotional charge stemming from trauma. Competence to relate well to others and to enjoy relationships and community building within the group will be a focus. The group is created to foster a sense of empowerment to live one’s life to the fullest potential after experiencing prolonged childhood trauma. Openness to support other trauma survivors will be required as part of the group.
The group meets at Fenway South End on Mondays from 5:00 pm to 6.15 pm. For more information please contact Stacey Salyers at 857.313.6853.
Drop-In Groups
Support for Non-transgender Partners of Transgender People
The second Wednesday of each month from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m. at 1340 Boylston Street, 9th floor
This is a monthly drop-in night for non-transgender people who are in an intimate relationship with a transgender or gender non-binary person. (Relationship meaning: long-term, dating, casual, open or monogamous). The group will provide a space for non-judgmental and uninhibited conversation, support, and resources. Topics that may come up in the group are:
Changes in perceived identities
Shifts in feeling a part of my LGBTQ or straight community
Changes in sexual intimacy/comfort around bodies changing
How to be an ally to my partner
Handling disclosure: taking care of myself and also protecting my partner’s privacy
Being excited with and caring for my partner and also managing my feelings of loss, judgment, sadness or fear
Gathering of resources for continued support
This group meets monthly. The meetings will be held virtually. If you’re interested in joining, please first contact Sean Borger, LCSW, at 857.347.4969 or email sborger@fenwayhealth.org.
Monthly Drop-In Nights for Parents and Guardians of Transgender Young People
Sidney Borum, Jr. Health Center, 75 Kneeland Street, Boston, MA 2nd floor
1st Thursday of every month 7 to 8:30 pm. Facilitated by a pediatrician and a mental health clinician, this is a group to provide clinical information, resources, and community support to parents/ guardians of gender diverse young people.
ANSIN BUILDING: 1340 Boylston St, Boston, MA 9th floor
2nd Tuesday of every month 6:30 to 8 pm. A facilitated discussion group with special attention to concerns of parents/ guardians of young gender diverse children – all parents/guardians welcome.
No registration or RSVP is required to attend either group. Email transhealth@fenwayhealth.org with any questions.
Transgender Support Group
The first and third Tuesday of each month, from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. at 1340 Boylston Street, 9th floor.
Looking for safe space and supportive peers? Fenway Health offers two meetings of the Transgender Peer Support Group at 1340 Boylston Street each month. Open to all trans and gender diverse persons regardless of gender identity or expression, ages 18+.
No formal therapy will be provided. This group is not billed to insurance, and you do not need a mental health diagnosis to attend. Light food will be provided. For information, email transhealth@fenwayhealth.org.
Monthly Drop In Group for Parents / Prospective Parents who are Trans / Gender non-conforming / Non-binary
Meet with others who are parents or planning children to build support and community. Partners/spouses and young children welcome. No charge and no childcare provided. Facilitated by a non-transgender therapist and ally.
Held virtually on the last Wednesday of each month, 5-6:15PM.
See calendar for upcoming dates.
Please contact Elly Humphrey at 617.927.6019 or ehumphrey@fenwayhealth.org for more information or if you plan to attend.
Violence Recovery Program Support Groups
Interpersonal violence, in any of its forms, can be a very isolating experience. For this reason, the act of giving and getting support with others with similar experiences can be a powerful part of healing. Groups also offer a chance to learn information and explore skills that can help to better cope. For more information about any of the groups listed below, please call the Violence Recovery Program at 617.927.6250 or 800.834.3242.
The Trauma Education Group is a free, 9-week group for LGBT people who have experienced abuse, violence or other trauma. Discussions will focus on the effects and symptoms of trauma in general, as opposed to each individual’s traumatic story or memories. Groups are run two to three times a year at Fenway’s 1340 Boylston Street location.
The Relationship Skills group is for LGBTQ people who have experienced violence or abuse. The group will give participants a chance to explore communication, negotiation, expectation, systems of oppression and the influence of culture on relationships. The group meets for 8 sessions and focuses on all types of relationships, including friendships, family ties and romantic. This group is offered at the VRP’s Western MA office.
Independence House and The Violence Recovery Program of Fenway Health are joining together to offer a support group for all individuals who identify as men, live on Cape Cod, and are survivors of domestic and/or sexual violence. This is a 9-week group which gives participants information on healthy boundaries, self-care, safety, red flags and developing healthy relationships. This group is offered at the VRP’s Cape Cod Office.
The Asylum Seekers group is for LGBT people who have come to the United States seeking asylum due to identity-based persecution in their home country. The group will give participants a chance to share resources and knowledge about the Asylum process. Participants can be anywhere in the asylum process. This group is offered at Fenway’s 1340 Boylston Street location.
Support Groups for Health Promotion
Fenway Health offers free support groups for health promotion that are not therapy groups. These groups are designed to provide supportive discussions, education about healthier living, and to foster a sense of belonging and camaraderie among participants.
Bisexual and Bi-Curious Men’s Group
A free, drop-in, male-facilitated group for men (trans inclusive) who are bisexual or think they might be, meets the 2nd Tuesday of every month, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm, on Zoom, full details below. For more information, contact Charles Strauss at 857.523.8268 or Charles@CharlesStrauss.com. The group is free and confidential.
https://zoom.us/j/9534327654?pwd=TU1lN2ZLWTNSZnc5b1A0ZUM1ZldDUT09
Passcode: 7xdn3j
Long-Term Survivor Group for HIV+ Men
This peer-led group is for men who have been HIV+ for 10-30 years. It meets on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Tuesday of every month, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm. For more information, contact Ed Crane at 617-699-5476 or reejuv8@gmail.com. Sponsored by Fenway Health. Group meets in the Copley Square area. The group is free and confidential.
LGBT Aging Projects Support Groups
Bereavement Group – General Loss
For LGBT adults of any age who are experiencing the loss of a loved one (partner/spouse, friend, parent, family member etc).
Time: Thursday Evenings, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Groups start regularly. Call 857.313.6578 for more information.
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Courses
The LGBT Aging Project offers MBSR courses. One is co-hosted by Bristol Elder Services and held in Fall River on Monday mornings from 10:00 am – 12:30 pm. The other is co-hosted by North Shore Elder Services and held in Danvers on Wednesday afternoons 4:00 pm – 6:30 pm. Times may change based on the availability of local participants. This is a free course and open to any LGBT older adults.
To learn more about the MBSR program, please contact Bob Linscott at 857.313.6578 or blinscott@fenwayhealth.org.
To Become a New Patient
We Offer In-Person and Telehealth Appointments
7th Floor 1340 Boylston Street Boston, MA 02215
Monday - Thursday: 8:00 am - 7:00 pm
Friday: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm (acupuncture clinic runs 4:30-6:30 pm )
4th Floor 142 Berkeley Street Boston, MA 02116
2nd Floor 75 Kneeland Street Boston, MA 02111
Friday: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm (Walk-in counseling on Fridays from 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm )
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Home » General Information » Language Requirement
A Student’s Guide to the Language Requirement
Who Must Fulfill the Foreign Language Requirement?
All students pursuing degrees in the College of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers Camden must fulfill the foreign language requirement. This includes all Camden majors except those within the School of Business or the School of Nursing.
The requirement is three credits (one semester course) in a foreign language course at the 102 (Elementary II) level or higher, depending on placement.
Students must take the placement test in the appropriate language to determine which course to take. Information on placement testing is available here.
If you start with 101, the requirement takes two semesters to complete. If you place into a higher level course, the requirement only takes one semester to complete, although taking additional courses in the language of your choice may be extremely useful in many ways.
Read about the learning outcomes for the foreign language requirement.
World Languages and Cultures and the General Education Requirements
In addition to the courses that fulfill the foreign language requirement, the Department of World Languages and Cultures offers a number of courses that fulfill one or the other of the General Education Requirements, which are required in Business and Nursing as well as in Arts and Sciences. We offer or will soon offer courses in Art and Aesthetic Interpretation, Global Communities, Heritages and Civilizations, Diversity, Engaged Civic Learning, and Experiential Learning. Please consult the Schedule of Classes for full information.
For questions not answered here, contact the chair of the Department of World Languages and Cultures, Dr. James Rushing.
Department of World Languages and Cultures
405-407 Cooper Street
Department Secretary
Melinda Aviles, melinda.aviles@rutgers.edu
Dr. Tyler Hoffman, thoffman@camden.rutgers.edu
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Page last updated by World Languages and Cultures at 1:43 pm June 5, 2019 .
This page was printed from http://foreignlanguages.camden.rutgers.edu/general-information/language-requirement/ at 10:12 AM Sunday, January 17, 2021.
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Formerly Homeless Foundation Volunteers participate in making 750 Christmas Lunches
AKRON: Cuyahoga Falls developer Joel Testa asked family and friends for a gift on his 42nd birthday two weeks ago. He sent out a Facebook message requesting help to feed and clothe Akron’s homeless population during the holidays.
Testa and his wife, Mary, would shoulder most of the expense personally, yet on such short notice, pulling it together was a daunting task.
Soon, parents, aunts, uncles and cousins plus dozens of friends and Testa Co. employees stepped up to help. His daughter’s scout troop made scarves to donate to the project, and Acme Fresh Market donated gift cards to help defray the estimated $2,000 price tag.
Testa said he is passionate about changing the perception people have of the area’s homeless.
“Generally, people are afraid of the homeless,” said Testa. “The homeless are not lepers. Homelessness can happen to anyone.”
But Testa didn’t stop there. He wanted to give something special to as many of Akron’s homeless population as possible. He and his business partners at d.b.a., the restaurant he owns with Dante Boccuzzi and Morgan Yagi on the ground floor of Northside Lofts, prepared dinner for 50 homeless guests at the restaurant.
“Some of these people may never experience fine dining at a world-renowned restaurant,” Testa said.
Community Support Services (CSS) estimates there are 800 people living in Akron, bouncing from shelter to shelter each night or couch surfing in the homes of friends and relatives, Testa said. The nonprofit agency serves the mentally ill population in Summit County
“We currently have 355 more people than we have bed space for in the shelters,” he said.
Most of the men and women who were treated to the meal served on fine dinnerware and crystal sleep in makeshift tents set up in the woods or on the cold concrete outside a public building.
Chris Matthews, 28, has been living “here and there” on the streets for two years. He moved to a parking deck about a week ago, he said.
Matthews came to Akron to be near his brother, who has since moved away. His dream is to find a job and move to warmer weather in Baton Rouge, La.
Each day, he reports to the library and scours the Internet to find a job to pay for the bus fare.
Matthews said he appreciated what the group of people did for him and his homeless friends.
“They handed me a ticket and said it was for a four-star restaurant. I didn’t even know there was one in Akron,” he said.
Mark Courtney, 56, who sat near Matthews at a large table with family-style seating, said he has been homeless for about six years. He lives in a tent in the woods with his best friend, a large mastiff named Bear. They depend on a fire pit for cooking and heat.
While he appreciates a good meal, he said he never accepts well-meaning offers of dog food for Bear.
“I don’t need that much food, but I cook him a chicken every day,” he said.
Chef Torsten Schulz planned a four-course menu Sunday that included spinach quiche salad, potato leek soup, braised beef short ribs and a chocolate mousse desert. Diners were offered seconds and handed takeout bags with leftovers as they departed.
Testa estimated the dinner for 50 would run about $1,000 to be absorbed by the restaurant.
People need to feel they deserve to walk into a fine restaurant and be served, said Keith Stahl, director of residential services at CSS.
It is the first step in breaking the grip of homelessness, he said.
“A lot of the guys lose hope that life can get better for them,” Stahl said. “It’s such a wonderful thing for them to do.”
Earlier in the day on Sunday morning, more than 40 people gathered in the parking deck at Northside on Furnace Street to fill 500 sack lunches with peanut butter and jelly or meat and cheese sandwiches, granola bars, apples, pudding and juice boxes. Collected clothing was sorted and bagged, and homemade Christmas cookies were packed into the sacks and made ready for CSS volunteers to deliver.
Many of them stuck around to help serve the meal.
The city of Akron provided free trolley service to shuttle diners to the restaurant, and volunteers fanned out to offer rides to others who couldn’t make it to the pickup points.
Once word gets out, people will begin vying for a chance to participate, Stahl predicted.
“They will pay attention to it next time,” he said.
Kathy Antoniotti can be reached at 330-996-3565 or kantoniotti@thebeaconjournal.com.
By Joel Testa| 2014-01-01T21:29:21-05:00 January 1st, 2014|news|0 Comments
About the Author: Joel Testa
Akron Homeless enjoy early Christmas
Formerly Homeless Foundation 5K run and Pub Crawl
Formerly Homeless Foundation changing face of homeless
Foundation serves dinner to homeless at DBA restaurant in Akron
Akron homeless treated to four-star Christmas dinner
Email: donations@formerlyhomeless.org
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Will Entropy Define the New World Paradigm?
Anglo 5Headline NewsOpinions
By Matthew Ehret Last updated Aug 1, 2020
I recently wrote a lengthy analysis of lesser-known side to George Soros that I believe people who are serious about geopolitical topics should pay closer attention to if they wish to avoid falling prey to some very dangerous ideological traps being set in our path as we transition into a new world economic system.
You see, George Soros considers himself quite the philosopher and believes that through the tutelage of Karl Popper at the London School of Economics in the 1950s, he developed certain fundamental principles of economics. His economic theories are encapsulated in his General Theory of Reflexivity and is essentially a logical extension of Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics onto human self-organization.
George Soros and his guru Karl Popper
To describe this briefly:
In quantum mechanics, the act of observing a photon or electron changes that which is observed (since the photon striking the “observed object” and reflecting back to the eye of the observer affects that which is being observed). This phenomenon finds a parallel in the world of economics, where the act of thinking (and acting upon thoughts) changes both the economic systems itself as well as the thoughts and identities of those people operating within the “objective” system in question. While the founders of the field of quantum like Max Planck or Einstein saw no need to reject the belief in truth, reason or reality, the Copenhagen school felt that the “uncertainty principle” and “wave-particle duality” proved that there was no causality, no basic reality and that everything is just random and uncertain in its essence.
This is essentially the kernel of Soros’ “theory of reflexivity”.
In 2008, Soros teamed up with a group of upper level management oligarchs in order to put these theories into action in a three-phase plan led by his Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET).
In its first phase, INET aimed to prove that the neoliberal economic paradigm is wrong because it presumes the existence of rational actors and truthful ideas. Soros states both presumptions are not only wrong but are the very reasons why periodic economic crises occur.
Phase two promised to cultivate a global field of alternative theories that will offer solutions to the obsolete paradigm but which adhere to Soros’ key assumptions of 1) the non-existence of truthfulness, 2) the absolute enslavement of reason to irrational passions, and 3) the need for economists to strive for certainty and equilibrium.
While these assumptions may appear contradictory, as I explained in my previous paper, this contradiction only exists as long as you don’t think that Soros is not a liar.
The Young Scholars Initiative
Soros and his INET co-controllers like Lord Adair Turner and Rob Johnson believe that phase one is in the bag and that we are now in phase two which will be driven by INET programs like the Young Scholars Initiative.
This initiative features thousands of talented young economists under the influence of INET who are radicalized to take on the mission of reforming the world economic order under the mentorship of an enlightened old guard of hedge fund managers and technocrats. Youth who are processed through the INET program are fed with dreams of overthrowing the soul-less, collapsing neoliberal order with a new system based upon creativity, freedom and empathy. The attraction for intelligent young people is obvious.
The sad fact is that the definition of “creativity” which these kids are taught to cherish is not really creativity at all but rather just irrationalism with one set of standards for the masses and another set of inflexible standards for the social engineers and technocrats managing the world order from the top.
The Dismal Science
This dual standard is nothing new. Historically this has been the foundation of oligarchical systems of political economy for centuries and was exemplified by the “dismal science” of Malthus, Bentham and Mill of the 19th century. Just as today, 18-19th century British imperial political scientists pretended to support innovation, creativity and growth on the surface, while the intent of their models were always designed to keep their victims locked under the iron-fisted (invisible hand?) influence of a master class.
This elite always aimed to:
1) keep nations divided among themselves at all costs. The geopolitical expression of this aim were systems of zero-sum game thinking defined by the Hobbesian idea of “might makes right”.
2) keep the peasants under-developed and ignorant as possible. No questioning the invisible structures of the world system and certainly no creative discoveries that would change the rules of the game.
3) keep nations de-industrialized under cash-cropping procedures. No full spectrum economies allowed.
4) keep every slave’s mind focused only on avoiding pain and pursuing pleasures in the ephemeral “present” thinking never of the past or future in any meaningful way. The only creative acts permissible in this system must be governed by the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain and nothing more. In this worldview, morality is a useful social construct to regulate the plebs which the “enlightened elite” need not be encumbered with.
5) Justify it all by a devout belief in “equilibrium” as the absolute “good” and disequilibrium is the absolute “evil”. All means taken to advance the ends of equilibrium are ok.
These were the real reasons underlying the British Empire’s systematic destruction of Indian textile industries, their promotion of Chinese opium addiction and the promotion of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations as a “scientific” justification for keeping nations de-industrialized, unregulated and agrarian.
This philosophy was at the heart of Britain’s support of the slave power during the Civil War in the same way that it drove Britain’s partition of India after WWII into warring Muslim vs Hindu vs Sikh conflicts as well as their partitioning of the Middle East under Sykes-Pikot.
This philosophy is behind the controlled disintegration of the western nation state system today and it is what the late Maurice Strong (1929-2015) was referring to when he rhetorically asked in a 1991 interview:
“What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group’s conclusion is ‘no’. The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
If you have not guessed, Maurice Strong was a major force in recent history and leading architect of the the current Green New Deal agenda being promoted by the World Economic Forum, Soros’ INET and the City of London’s Mark Carney as a “Great Reset” of the world system.
Prince Charles and Mark Carney: Two lead figures promoted a Global Green Reset
Going a bit deeper
Since these misanthropic ideas are immensely influential, I think it is worth taking a few moments to shed light on their structure with a bit more effort than we might otherwise be accustomed.
Let’s do this by getting into the disturbed mind of a technocratically-minded billionaire obsessed with imposing structures of “equilibrium and stability” upon a world of chaos, irrationality and disorder. I think it would useful to start with a series of questions.
Question 1: What type of system do these technocrats believe they are controlling? Do they believe that the system is changing or not changing?
Answer: Soros says constantly that the system is changing. So let’s believe him for now.
Question 2: If it is changing, then is it changing for the better, or for the worse or randomly? Although your freedom may feel constrained by these three options, I promise you that these are the only choices you have.
Answer: Well if reason is assumed to be intrinsically enslaved to irrational passions (following the assumptions of Soros’ beloved Hume), then the discoveries required to keep humanity’s system of diminishing finite resources from running down and leading to collapses is impossible. The closed system will always thus consume more energy than it creates and just like the gasoline in a car engine, it will always tend towards a heat death.
Now, we have walked into another big idea that oligarchs are committed to: Entropy (aka: The 2nd Law of thermodynamics).
The Origins of an Entropic Idea
Wikipedia states that: “In a thermodynamic system, pressure, density, and temperature tend to become uniform over time because the equilibrium state has higher probability (more possible combinations of microstates) than any other state.”
Entropy exists as a statistical process in all CLOSED systems, and the term arose from the study of heat powered machines in the early 19th century led by Sadi Carnot. Carnot observed that a machine will always use more heat for work than it generates over time leading to a predictable winding down of its potential for action. A few years later, this idea was applied to gas theories.
To give a concrete example: Let us say you heat up a can of spray paint until it explodes.
In the first moments, there will be a LOW Entropy as the heated molecules bounce around hitting each other a lot. Lots of potential for change and singularities. With every passing moment after the can explodes, those molecules will tend to collide less and less as the heat distribution decreases, activity decreases and the molecules of the system “tend to become uniform over time” under increasingly higher and higher states of entropy. So far, everything is pretty straight forward and benign. The problems come in when entropy is universalized.
British Empiricist and general misanthrope Sir Arthur Eddington described entropy thus:
“The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.”
Now why would a leading scientist assert that the very disagreement a new theory may have with another theory (entropy) is itself proof that said new theory is embarrassingly wrong? Isn’t this a bit unscientific?
Well, let us treat that question with a higher question: Who ever proved that entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics is something which can be put onto the entire universe??
When we start looking at transcendental concepts like LIFE, MIND, or MORALITY we tend to find that entropy breaks down in the most devastating manner.
The Biosphere as a State of Anti-Entropy
Let’s start with Life.
Rather than seeing any evidence that living matter began at low entropy in a closed system within the pre-Cambrian epoch 500 million years ago and moved into states of increasing heat death/high entropy (aka: diminishing potentials for change)… we see just the opposite to be the case.
Observations show us that Life has evolved from relatively boring single celled organisms to ever more differentiated and complex systems of self organization both creating and consuming ever higher states of energy to perform work. Not only that but leaps from lower states of life from non-life to life, and from unconscious life to conscious life and from conscious life to self-conscious thinking life.
The great Russian biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky noted in his essay the Evolution of Species and Living Matter (1928) that the biosphere was itself an open system shaped by the intersection of cosmic radiation and internal radiations emanating from within the earth and was driven by a directed flow of creative disequilibrium towards higher states of anti-entropy. Vernadsky stated:
“the creation resulting from the evolution of new living forms, adapts itself to new forms of existence, augments the ubiquity of life, and enlarges its domain. Life penetrates thus, the regions of the biosphere where it had not earlier had access.”
Zeroing in on the mechanism driving this growth which he described in detail as the increased biogenic migration of atoms through the biosphere, Vernadsky stated:
“we see how, in the course of geological epochs, new forms of life appear. Their occurrence leads… to an acceleration of atomic current through living matter, and also provokes, within atoms, new manifestations, unknown of until now, along with the appearance of new modes of displacement”.
At a certain point in evolutionary history, a new phenomenon appeared with the rise of human reason which forever altered these biospheric mechanisms. Vernadsky described it as “the noosphere” saying:
“The noosphere is the last of many stages in the evolution of the biosphere in geological history. The course of this evolution only begins to become clear to us through a study of some of the aspects of the biosphere’s geological past.”
The Noosphere
Following a similar pattern observed in the evolution of biospheric systems, human/noetic systems defined by self-consciousness, creative reason, and free will also express a directed anti-entropic change, but in a more concentrated way. Comparing early tribal/cave dwelling societies with more advanced agricultural societies and comparing those societies with 16th century societies using water and wind power, to 18th century societies using steam power to 19th-20th century electricity-based societies to 20th-21st century atomic power-based societies, we find that humanity doesn’t become less complex but rather more complex and differentiated, as the noosphere grows. Unlike other animals, humanity’s carrying capacity is relative to the discoveries it makes (or fails to make) over time.
In his 1872 book Unity of Law, the great American System economist Henry C. Carey who understood the clash between open vs closed paradigms better than most economists today, eloquently described how humanity’s understanding extends itself ever more perfectly to the invisible forces of the universe with certain moralizing and uplifting effects which benefit all members of that society. Carey noted that by discovering the laws of nature ever more perfectly, nature itself became increasingly the servant to our minds as we develop sails, or telephones, and electric heating/cooling etc.
Extending this concept from villages to nations, Carey forecast the rise of a new paradigm:
“The great nations of the earth should each and all profit by development of the powers, mental, and physical, of each and every other; each and all growing in power for self-direction as each and every other more and more obtains power for controlling and directing the great natural forces; the harmony of all international interests being as perfect and complete as we know to be that of the individuals of which nations are composed.”
The devout Malthusian praying in the church of entropy will say that while the systems defined by life and mind may appear to exhibit anti-entropic properties, they are merely anomalies floating within an overarching dying universe. In this cynical view, every new baby is just a form of cancer needing to be kept under control by a Malthusian master class in order to slow entropy abysmal path to nothingness (aka: Heat death).
In response to such minds, Carey said:
“Of all contrivances for crushing out all Christian feeling and for developing self-worship, that the world yet has seen, there has been none entitled to claim so high a rank as that which has been, and yet daily is, assigned to the Malthusian Law of Population.”
For the current purposes of this article, I will leave out a deeper discussion into the anti-entropic nature of the universe beyond life and mind, since that requires more space that a short essay will allow, but suffice it to say, we have barely scratched the surface of our tiny corner of a solar system amidst an ocean of billions of suns within a milky way which itself orbits an array of other galaxies which we only began to discover a few generations ago. Anyone to speak absolutely about the nature of this universe might be skipping steps.
Max Planck Steps in
At the end of his 1935 Philosophy of Physics which extolled high praise on the directed evolution, harmony and creative growth of the universe, the great Max Planck tackled the problem of entropy in an interesting manner:
“The second law of thermodynamics, the principle of the increase of entropy, has frequently been applied outside physics. For example, attempts have been made to apply the principle that all physical events develop in one sense only to biological evolution- a singularly unhappy attempt so long as the term evolution is associated with the idea of progress, perfection, or improvement. The principle of entropy is such that it can only deal with probabilities and all that it really says is that a state, improbable in itself, is followed on an average by a more probable state. Biologically interpreted, this principle points towards degeneration rather than improvement: the chaotic, the ordinary and the common is always more probable than the harmonious, the excellent, or the rare.”
The fact is that the school of systems analysis that became the language for a revival for Malthus’s core closed system thinking in the post-WWII world increasingly embraced a certain school of statistical quantum mechanics which both Einstein and Max Planck did battle with at the ends of their lives due to the school’s total rejection of causality.
These new social engineers applied their theories to human self organization which stated that the 99% of humanity were like fish multiplying in a closed glass fish tank. Like the randomized stochastic activity of molecules hitting each other in the exploding spray can or gas tank, the fish may act however they feel and desire, as long as their action stays confined to the parameters of the glass tank.
The fixed rules of scarcity defined by the limits of the earth, resources, agricultural potential, energy access (and soon carbon quotas) are likened to the walls of the glass tank to be controlled by an elite class of alphas. So when Soros or any sociopathic billionaire loudly extolls the virtues of creativity, freedom and individuality while attacking the foundations of neoliberalism, keep in mind that they think of you as a fish in a glass tank and nothing more.
The cure for this misanthropic philosophy contaminating so much of the economic field today is found in the study of original works by Henry C. Carey, Max Planck and the great Vladimir Vernadsky who all insightfully recognized that mankind was destined for something much greater than imperialists can imagine.
In his essay “Some Words About the Noosphere” (1943), Vernadsky watched the ravages of WWII but saw a brighter destiny beyond the chaos:
“Now we live in the period of a new geological evolutionary change in the biosphere. We are entering the noosphere. This new elemental geological process is taking place at a stormy time, in the epoch of a destructive world war. But the important fact is that our democratic ideals are in tune with the elemental geological processes, with the law of nature and with the noosphere. Therefore we may face the future with confidence. It is in our hands. We will not let it go.”
Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and has authored 3 volumes of ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation
The author recently delivered a lecture “Destroying the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics”:
closed systemsdepopulationentropyhenry careykarl popperlincolnmalthusmatthew ehret
As the System Collapses, can America Rediscover its Cameralist Roots?
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The Politics of Thinking and Cultural Warfare Explored (Darwin, Kepler, Shakespeare…
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Schools to open, motorists urged to play it safe
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Fort Wayne Community Schools students and staff shouldn't be the only ones setting their alarms a bit early on Monday. With nearly 250 big yellow buses taking to the roads and thousands of students walking to bus stops or to their neighborhood schools, it would be well advised to everyone who needs to head out Aug. 22 to leave a few minutes early. The first day of school is very exciting and sometimes a little overwhelming for children who may not be paying as much attention as they should. Plus, our students and buses haven't been out for a few months, so motorists may have gotten use to cruising along without the extra traffic, said Superintendent Dr. Wendy Robinson. With this in mind, we are asking the community to join us in keeping a watchful eye out for our students. Helping keep kids walking to bus stops and schools safe has been a priority with City of Fort Wayne Firefighters, who will begin the ninth year of their FIRE (Firefighters Involved as Residential Eyes program next week. Developed and initiated by the City of Fort Wayne in 1996, FIRE has firefighters randomly patrolling neighborhood streets around FWCS elementary schools during the morning and afternoon hours when children are traveling to and from school. Cruising in their bright red pumper trucks, ladder trucks and other vehicles, firefighters provide a highly visible, adult presence to assist children and to deter crime. Firefighters are a trusted part of our neighborhoods, we are delighted they are contributing in yet another way to the good of the children in this community, said Dr. Robinson.
FWCS transportation officials are asking motorists to be extra watchful - and patient - Monday. And a reminder that when the stop arm of the bus is out, it means ALL lanes of traffic are to come to a complete stop. Do not begin moving again until the stop arm is back in place and the bus has started to roll. Last year more 24,399 students, or 77 percent of the district's enrollment were transported to and from class by school bus - compared to only 32 percent of students in 1978. During the 2004-05 school year, FWCS buses logged an impressive 3.6 million miles. Transportation officials are asking parents to help ensure a safe ride for everyone by discussing the following safety procedures with their children: When riding the bus... * Observe the same conduct as in the classroom. * Be courteous, use no profane language. * Cooperate with the driver. * Stay in your seat. * Do not be destructive. * Keep head, hands and feet inside the bus. * Do not yell or scream on board the bus. * If child has a problem, inform the bus driver or school official. While waiting at the bus stop... * Do not horseplay or act in a way that could cause harm to others. * Do not play in the street. * Do not throw things. * Arrive at the bus stop no more than 5 minutes prior to scheduled bus arrival. * When the bus arrives, line up in an orderly fashion, away from the curb and do not push or cut in line. * Stay back from the bus until it stops, and the driver signals it's OK to get on. Staying safe when crossing the street... * Always obey all traffic rules. Never cross against the light. * Look left, right, then left again before you cross. * Cross in a crosswalk. If there is no crosswalk, cross at the corner. * If the crosswalk has a WALK and DON'T WALK sign, only cross when the sign says WALK. In addition, the district would like to remind parents to check out the FWCS School and Bus Status web page where they can simply click on the school their child attends and, if they know the bus number, be able to check if it is running on time or if it is delayed by 15 minutes or more. The page is updated continually during the time buses are on the road, as bus drivers radio into dispatch where the page is updated. The FWCS School and Bus Status link can be found on the district's web site at: www.fwcs.k12.in.us
With nearly 30,000 students, Fort Wayne Community Schools is one of the largest school districts in Indiana. FWCS proudly allows families to choose any of its 50 schools through its successful school-choice program creating diversity in each school, including some with more than 75 languages spoken. FWCS offers seven magnet schools focusing on areas such as science and math, communication, fine arts or Montessori at the elementary and middle school level. In high school, students can choose from the prestigious International Baccalaureate program, Project Lead the Way or New Tech Academy as well as other rigorous academic and specialty training programs.
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Green future
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Recovery plans for a post-pandemic world have one key ingredient in common across the globe – sustainability. Keely Portway outlines how the telecoms sector is playing its not insignificant part
The plans for an economic recovery will undoubtedly need vast levels of public and private investment.
At a European level, the European Union has stated that, in order to start on the path to a recovery, there must be jobs created and immediate damage caused by the pandemic repaired. This is, crucially, while supporting the Union’s green and digital priorities. For the EU, its Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), reinforced by Next Generation EU recovery package (NGEU), will be the main tool.
The green agenda is a big deal when it comes to the anticipated recovery. EU president Ursula von der Leyen highlighted in her State of the Union speech that ‘the European Green Deal is our growth strategy’. As part of this, the European Commission (EC) plans a massive wave of renovation to modernise Europe’s buildings and critical infrastructure, including building one million charging points for electric vehicles and creating a million green jobs. The commission highlighted a more circular economy additionally has the potential to eliminate foreign dependencies, which also has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
‘The European Green Deal is our plan to make the EU’s economy sustainable,’ said von der Leyen. ‘We can do this by turning climate and environmental challenges into opportunities, and making the transition just, and inclusive, for all.’
Legal and above board
The European Green Deal provides an action plan to boost the efficient use of resources by moving to a clean, circular economy, and to restore biodiversity and cut pollution. The plan outlines the investments required and all the available financing tools. The target is to be climate neutral in 2050. Added von der Leyen: ‘We proposed a European Climate Law to turn this political commitment into a legal obligation.’
Reaching this target will require action by all sectors of the European economy, and measures will include investing in environmentally-friendly technologies; supporting industry to innovate; rolling out cleaner, cheaper and healthier forms of private and public transport; decarbonising the energy sector; ensuring buildings are more energy efficient and working with international partners to improve global environmental standards.
The EU has also stated that it will provide financial support and technical assistance to help those that are most affected by the move towards the green economy. The Just Transition Mechanism will help mobilise at least €100bn from 2021 to 2027 in the most affected regions.
Improved broadband connectivity, said the EU, will enable a more inclusive, resilient and innovative Europe. People will have smoother services to learn digital skills and gain access to more jobs and flexible working conditions. It will allow the connection of more objects and processing of more data, to better understand energy consumption and cut emissions in other sectors by 15 per cent.
The magic number
Most developed countries now either have or will soon have net zero targets for the next decades. As bandwidth increases in the fixed access arena, so will energy usage. Lise Fuhr, director general, European Telecommunications Network Operators Association (ETNO), believes that the telecoms sector is beginning to lead the way when it comes to a green recovery. She told the 2020 virtual Broadband World Forum: ‘Sustainability is at the forefront of the minds of investors, operators and politicians. The EU Green Deal is the most consequential policy plan the EU currently has.’
In addition to the EU’s carbon neutrality target of 2050, the EU added a stepping-stone interim target – by 2030 Europe must reduce its emissions by 55 per cent. ‘But what does that mean for the broadband or telecoms community,’ asked Fuhr. ‘Well, just a few days after setting this ambition, the EC also added some green measures to a recommendation aimed at reducing the cost of 5G and fibre rollout. More specifically, the commission wants operators to minimise the climate impact of data transmission. In this context it called for European governments to develop criteria for assessing the environmental impact of future networks and to provide incentives for operators to deploy environmentally sustainable networks.’
When it comes to what telecoms companies think of the European ambition, and how they can contribute, for Fuhr, the answer is clear. ‘This is where broadband professionals and telecom geeks like you come into play,’ she said. ‘First, after long discussions with the sustainability managers of our members, I am proud to say that ETNO has strongly welcomed and supported the European Green Deal. In June 2020, we published the Green Deal paper. Our friends and colleagues at the GSMA [the representative association of the interests of global mobile operators] did the same.
‘As an industry we are united in backing the carbon reduction ambition. That should make us all feel proud.’ Fuhr offered examples to emphasise her point. ‘For starters, many telcos committed to carbon neutrality targets that are more ambitious than the European ones – Telia Company, TDC, Telecom Italia, to name just a few. What’s more, most telcos are shifting to use more renewable sources of energy only. This includes KPN, Proximous and Telefonica.’
Having successfully reduced greenhouse gas emissions in its own operations, Telia Company announced the next step on its environmental journey in October – going climate neutral through offsetting its remaining emissions in 2020, two years ahead of the set target date.
The move is part of the environmental agenda launched in 2019, with the aim to achieve zero CO₂ and zero waste by 2030, including a climate neutral value chain. The focus is on absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions, with carbon offsets seen as a complement to limit environmental impact.
President and CEO Allison Kirkby said: ‘In parallel with the pandemic, the world continues to experience a climate emergency. We need to match the urgency of the situation with action and responsibility. Connectivity and digitalisation are part of the solution, and can speed up the transition into a low-carbon and circular economy. All ICT companies can contribute positively to such a transition, while taking responsibility for any negative environmental impacts.’
The offsetting will be made in the form of carbon removals, half of which are reserved for industrial removals, thereby supporting early stage technology and innovation for environmental protection. Sara Nordbrand, head of group sustainability elaborated: ‘The scientific community highlights the need to remove carbon from the atmosphere. This can be achieved through industrial removals (technical solutions such as biochar) or biological removals (such as planting forests or protecting them). We have decided to go for a combination of the two, to support both innovation and reforestation.’
Race to zero
Telefónica revealed its updated green agenda in June 2020, following its achievement of reaching a 50 per cent reduction in global CO₂ emissions the previous year. This was significantly ahead of its original target of 2025. Telefónica’s COO Ángel Vilá announced the new target: ‘Telefónica wants to support the Race to Zero campaign to accelerate the opportunity to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible. Digitalisation is essential to decarbonise the economy, and is part of the solution. The digital solutions we offer our customers, as well as the greater efficiency of our networks, are helping to reduce emissions.’
KPN went a step further, with the installation of a fibre optic network made using 90 per cent recycled plastic. The company claimed to be the first in Europe to experiment with the method, which means that only 10 per cent new plastic is then needed to manufacture the tube that houses the cable. In turn, the volume of plastics used will be reduced by approximately 50 per cent.
This was made possible thanks to a partnership with its cable vendor, in the development of a new 4.5mm cable in a 10mm tube, instead of the conventional 6mm cable in a 14mm tube. In addition, because the cable and tube are thinner, more of it will fit on a reel, reducing the number of wooden reels by an estimated 70 per cent. This will subsequently reduce the number of full-freight transports needed to realise the selected 11,000 connections by six.
This innovation was developed and tested in collaboration with other KPN partners including Allinq, Van Gelder Telecom and VolkerWessels Telecom. The trial is taking place in Buitenpost and Nijmegen Dukenburg, both in The Netherlands. Following a positive result, it will be rolled out across more KPN networks.
Joost Steltenpool, responsible for KPN’s fibre optic network, explained: ‘KPN has been committed to sustainability for years, and together with partners we are investigating how we can install fibre optic faster, more sustainably and with less inconvenience. Our ambition is not only to provide as many people as possible with superfast internet, we also want to do this in a sustainable way. Our customers want that too. This development makes a further contribution to this.’
Three-point plan
As well as improving the planet’s wellbeing, such measures will also help to aid a post-Covid recovery by reducing costs. Fuhr explained: ‘It’s not just about carbon emissions, but also about reducing OPEX. In an internal ETNOS study, we looked at data traffic from 2010 to 2018. Traffic increased by 1,100 per cent. But the emissions reduced by 40 per cent. This said, our industry has also put forward some very interesting suggestions on how the EC can accelerate and smooth the path towards much greener networks.'
ETNOS provided three of these key recommendations. First, before regulating, look at the market solutions and what has already worked. ‘This means,’ said Fuhr, ‘just don’t assume and impose anything on us, but rather incentivise us to innovate for network efficiency. ’The second was that the commission looks at the entire value chain. ‘If we agree that data traffic is the main driver of energy consumption in the networks,’ said Fuhr, ‘then the solution to make them less energy-hungry also goes through vendors and tech companies – which, by the way, are also stimulating consumption. Finally, the EC is making a series of funds and financial instruments available for the green deal. We believe that they should also match and meet the digital needs.’
Fuhr believes that the communications sector cannot be treated like any other. ‘We should be looked at as the key enabler of the European Green Deal,’ she stated. ‘Our networks, our services are the heart of the digital transformation. The transformation is a prerequisite for achieving climate targets. There is no green transport industry without digital applications, there is no green manufacturing without industrial internet. IoT for mobility can lead to savings in fuel consumption of up to 30 per cent. Our networks are the enabler. They are the core of what we described in our Green Deal paper, as a digitally-enabled value chain for a green economy.’
Fuhr had some final words of advice: ‘Be aware and be ready for the European climate ambition.’ She reiterated her beliefs that this is not simply a political matter, but rather ‘a plan for how to rewire the industrial fabric of Europe and make it greener.’ She advised: ‘If you haven’t already, make sure you check in with your sustainability team, and on a more regular basis. Telecom companies are probably doing more than you know to become even more efficient. What is more, greener networks will not only make your children proud of you, but also send a very strong signal to investors and analysts in the sector that you are doing all that you can to lower costs.’
Fuhr predicted Europe’s industrial sector is set for a diet made of digital tools. ‘This diet will make them stronger, more resilient, more productive and greener,’ she said. ‘Telecom companies are going to be a big part of the solution. I hope I leave you with a feeling of pride for working in the telecom industry. An industry that is an enabler of a greener future.’
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Pass the test
Large webscale internet content providers have undoubtedly been the wielders of power in recent years. The only thing greater for them, has been their hunger for data.
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FIFA Forums› Archived Boards› FIFA 17› Career Mode Stories
Sunderland A.F.C. || The Road To Redemption || Automatic Promotion!
Ahmer50x wrote: »
Going to be quite a climb. Good luck!
ale85bg
September 26, 2016 6:55AM edited September 2016
Chris wrote: »
Didn't lose money somehow. Won like $200 on the roulette wheel, which I blew on blackjack, made sure I kept the $20 I started with though haha
That's all important after all, well done!
Oh dear I replied at the Casino post and I totally missed the decision one... Sensible and very wise choice: I was getting impatient to see it, which is a good sign... It means that this story is growing on me.
I'll certainly be following you climbing back to the top.
ale85bg wrote: »
Thanks man, appreciated
After the departure of Sam Allardyce, and the ensuing financial turmoil, the next Sunderland manager had been left in doubt, with very few names actually being linked to the role. A miraculous return for Roy Keane was rumoured, however the doubts have been put to bed, with the club making an announcement late last night.
Former Sunderland under-21 manager, Chris Whitehead, has been given the reigns to the first team on a one year contract, with the option to extend it in the future, depending on performance. The Wearside born man Whitehead, has been with the club since 1990, when he was signed as a schoolboy at age 10. The promising goalkeeper had has career cut short at 16 due to injuries, but was put through coaching programs in order to keep a position at the club. Having progressed through the ranks at the Sunderland coaching system, the appointment seems like a very shrewd one.
Chris Whitehead was one of the few staff members who took a wage cut in order to continue on at the club, and one of his first jobs as manager will be to offload the players who don't wish to stay at the club. Whitehead's stature in the Sunderland ranks may encourage some of the more promising players to stay.
o ShifTyZz o
Interesting appointment. Good luck to him!
Here's hoping the more promising ones stay. Also surpised you got a manager who wanted to be there, I for one would just call it quits and look somewhere else without the hassle
theodom101
Good luck with this Mr Whitehead. Judging off his successes in past FIFA parallel universes, he should be back up to the top flight in no time
LennonLegend
165 posts Has Potential To Be Special
Career cut short at 16 years of age? He lost a whole leg?
Greenman019
2745 posts Fans' Favourite
September 26, 2016 10:43AM edited September 2016
Good long term appointment. Looking forward to the transfer update now. Should be pretty mad departure wise.
BistroXII
Good appointment and nicely woven into the story. He must love the club if he's been there for a long time and will strive hard to revive the club. Taking a pay cut says it all.
theodom101 wrote: »
Hahahaha yeah
LennonLegend wrote: »
I had to stop playing IRL because I broke my scaphoid numerous times playing in goal
Greenman019 wrote: »
Yeah haha it will be
BistroXII wrote: »
Yeah, it fitted nicely with the story
Good story developments so far, nice to see you are in League 2 so the climb back to the top flight will be a interesting one to follow for sure and the manager appointment is great, since he worked with the younger players he could focus on bringing a new core set of players through the youth academy that will be the next big thing
Ashy wrote: »
Thanks man, appreciate the commetns
Ahh man. Now I feel bad. Apologies.
Haha its alright
September 26, 2016 1:17PM edited September 2016
As we approach the start of the EFL League 2, Sunderland have been promptly offloading first team players as the club prepare to start life in the fourth tier of English football. All but two players, Billy Jones and Will Buckley, agreed to have their contracts transferred to Sunderland, after the new company was set up, allowing the club to benefit from their sale. A huge number of players have left the club, including first team players, such as Jermaine Defoe, Jan Kirchoff, and fan favourite Lee Cattermole.
However, Sunderland haven't been left completely without structure. Many promising young players, such as Jordan Pickford, Lynden Gooch, and Duncan Watmore have all committed their futures to Sunderland. The Wearside born Pickford was very vocal on twitter regarding his future, and about commitment to the club, which has made him an instant fan favourite. Paddy McNair is yet to commit his future to the club, with some of his comments worrying Sunderland fans who have been searching for stability, but he did however sign a one year contract with the new company.
On the players front, Sunderland will not be allowed to bring new players into the club until 2017, with a transfer embargo being placed upon the club for the remainder of the calendar year. A full list of departures can be found below:
Vito Mannone (Hull City) £2,000,000
Lamine Kone (Everton) £15,000,000
Patrick van Aanholt (Southampton) £3,500,000
Jan Kirchoff (Leicester City) £4,000,000
Fabio Borini (West Ham) £8,500,000
Lee Cattermole (Middlesbrough) £5,000,000
Jack Rodwell (West Brom) £4,000,000
Jermaine Defoe (Bournemouth) £12,000,000
Wahbi Khazri (Lyon) £10,000,000
Seb Larsson (Aston Villa) £1,000,000
John O'Shea (Hull City) £500,000
Jeremain Lens (Fenerbache) £7,500,000
Adam Matthews (Bristol City) £1,000,000
Seb Coates (Sporting CP) £4,500,000
Will Buckley (Brighton) Free
Billy Jones (Norwich) Free
Note: All the real life transfers of this season have been reserved and never happened in this story arc.
Post edited by Chris on September 2016
That's my last update of the night haha, like 3 in one day
So that includes loans that you brought in too they all didn't happen??
Cody22775 wrote: »
Yeah, here's a full list of the reversed transfers
Real Life Transfers Cancelled
Manquillo >> Atl Madrid
Adnan Januzaj >> Manchester United
Papy Djilobodji >> Chelsea
Steven Pienaar >> Released
Didier Ndong >> Lorient
Jason Denayer >> Manchester City
Victor Anichebe >> Released
Mika >> Sporting CP
So who is in ur squad now?
That's the next update, the new squad
Ahmer50x
26472 posts Player of the Year
How can you get a new squad w/ a transfer ban?
I didnt mean new as in new players, it was terrible wording by myself
So who takes the PL place?
Actually very good question, then who takes that teams place in their old league etc
Probably in the next update
I'd guess Newcastle as they were the best placed Relegated team. But I am a toon fan so . .
Guess we will have to wait and see
samlemahoney
I am enjoying this. I can't wait to read the updates.
Massive list of departures there. Hopefully it's the chance for Sunderland to start a new cycle with players who really believe in the project.
Virtual_K
I'm glad to see that Duncan Watmore aka "Little Red" (inside joke) committed to staying. I would wish you good luck, but dayam all those departures! Praise be, you need a miracle.
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Mr Selfridge : Mr Grove's medical news
Mr Grove's medical news
shalerbabe
» 4 years ago(April 04, 2016 10:28 AM) Reply |
Member since November 2015
Wow! Have to say I was shocked to hear of Mr Grove 's medical condition. Seems in these period pieces, there's always one person who gets the short stick. I mean, here's a man who lost 2 wives, both tragically, and is doing his best to raise all those kids, including little Ernest who is not his. True, true, he did cheat on his first wife with Miss Mardel, I fault him in that , although at the time he did seem true to Miss Mardel. I wonder how they are going to play out his storyline with the little time remaining.
While I'm mentioning Miss Mardel, I was surprised to hear she is in NY now - when did that happen? Did I miss something in the final episode of the third season???
"Sympathy doesn't butter the parsnips." - Mrs. Patmore
Re: Mr Grove's medical news
glennh69
No, you didn't miss anything. She was written out of the story during the "passage of time" between S3 & S4. There's a scene where Grove & Mr Crabbe are fly fishing (first or second episode of S4), and Grove explains that he & Miss Mardle mutually agreed to part ("make a clean break" are Grove's words) because it would've been far too much of a burden on her to be stepmother to 5 children.
By the reaction on Crabbe's face, he clearly doesn't believe for a moment that Grove is really "over" her. Folks in the UK already know the answer (since the series has already ended), but I would speculate she could possibly return during S4? --- due to Grove's critical medical condition.
» 4 years ago(April 04, 2016 01:40 PM) Reply |
Thank you - I thought I had missed something like she got married or had a job offer or something along those lines. I do remember the fly fishing scene but Mr Grove did t really say why she left England. Yes, passage of time - that's a good explanation of it.
Re: Mr Grove's medical news - Spoiler Alert
Bimmy56
according to IMDB, she comes back next week.
skoobydoo6789
I was sad to hear about Mr. Grove.
sherpa50
Isn't he Ernest's father?
randommovies2002
No, he's not. Did you miss the episode when Doris explained to Josie? Don't you remember how Doris died, and why Grove got so mad at Josie and blamed her for Doris's death, and Josie had to care for Ernest at her house, for a while?
Oops, evenings the above post…
I was confused for a moment.
justinemac
I am watching now but I missed Episodes 1 & 2 so I'm trying to catch up starting with episode 3. What is wrong with Mr. Grove? I saw him talking to Mr. Crabb but wasn't able to figure out what the exact illness is that he has.
Mr Grove has a brain tumor that has spread to his lungs and liver. The tumor is pressing on his spine, causing the leg weakness that he now uses a cane for. He initially tripped on some steps at home and just thought he had a minor fall with leg pain but the pain lingered and he saw a doctor, hence the newly found illness. Sad, indeed.
Thank you, Shalerbabe. I have since been able to watch the episode where he tells his daughter that he is ill - but I hadn't seen the incidents you mentioned, with tripping, and then getting diagnosed by his doctor.
That sucks! I liked his character. Ideally he & Josie should have been able to have a more traditional "happy ending." Seems it is to be short-lived. 😢
degrimstead-1
Anyone else have the thought that Mr. Grove is being selfish once again, in marrying Miss Martle as he is dying? She'll have to care for him as he slowly, painfully dies, and then be left to care for all his kids. The last we'd seen of her before she left, she'd forgiven him for shunning her so terribly and they appeared to be getting together. People on this board complained that she was being a dope to take him back. I have mixed feelings, but you gotta admit that - except for his medical condition, of course - the guy's done pretty much what he wanted when he wanted, regardless of others' feelings.
While I understand your perspective that he is being selfish, also keep in mind that Grove had no intention of contacting Josie in the States--it was Mr Crabbe who encouraged her to return. In addition, when she did arrive, Grove initially rejected the idea of her coming back into his life--presumably because it would be too painful of a journey for her.
Even just prior to their marriage (after he snaps at the kids), he discourages Josie from going through with the union because of the burden. Of course, he even utters the cliched line: "I don't deserve you".
It's abundantly clear in the script (to the point of exaggeration IMO), that he is "reformed", and it takes this threat to his mortality before he finally repents of his transgressions and realises what a treasure he has in Miss Mardle . . . somewhat contrived & maudlin, but such is the nature of a drama.
Agreed, glenn.
smasonnc
» 4 years ago(May 26, 2016 03:22 AM) Reply |
I just watched epidode 7 and he was still alive. Then in the flashbacks at the beginning of 8, Josie is saying he just fell asleep and in the episode, he's gone. How did I miss it? When was the part where Mr. Grove died?
» 4 years ago(May 26, 2016 02:44 PM) Reply |
Mr Grove died in episode #8, passing away while sitting out in his garden. Josie finds him.
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PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S - Your Thoughts
Thread: PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S - Your Thoughts
Nz17
What are your impressions of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X|S consoles? Prices? Controllers? Games? Which games would you play if you have or had one?
Nz17 Productions
News from the Sakura Wars
GAM Video Game Convention - Naples, Utah
gbpxl
I don't see the Series S lasting very long. I heard developers are frustrated with having to produce a game on three different platforms (PS5, Series S, Series X) versus two (PS4 and Xbox One). I don't know why anyone would opt for a "budget" console if they need the latest tech. If they were budget-conscious to begin with, I imagine theyd be more likely to stay with the PS4/Xbone or even just the PS3/360. I predict that the Series S will be dead by 2022.
The PS5 design isnt something Im a fan of. Its good theyre doing something different but man... just not a fan.
At this point I think naming conventions are awful. The numbering of the consoles just makes every previous gen seem dated. Telling someone you still play PlayStation 3 makes you sound like a dinosaur or that youre broke. I dont feel the way if I tell someone I still play GameCube
Last edited by gbpxl; 11-21-2020 at 10:56 PM.
Tupin
The excitement of a new generation definitely fades when most of the games are cross-generation releases.
kupomogli
Crono (Level 14)
I'm going to get a PS5 but it'll be April next year at the earliest. I decided I'm going to try and work off my backlog of PS4 and 3DS games or atleast as much as I can and I'm still picking up games I'm interested in. Not going to pick up any games cross gen with PS4 and by the time I do pick them up next year, they should be cheap. I'll be picking up all three Sony launch titles, the Miles Morales Special Edition with the original Spider-Man included, Demon's Souls, and Sackboy's Big Adventure(I don't like Sackboy, but this game looks really good.) It's the most effort that Sony themselves have ever put into a launch line up, and then next year they're releasing another five games.
I'm also glad that developers are starting to push framerates over graphics though. Faster framerate is more appealing because a smoother picture as well as less input lag. Seeing how well the PS5 does backwards compatibility as well is nice, games that can run at 60fps can actually meet that goal, so Until Dawn, Resident Evil Revelations 2, etc.
I technically do have one PS5 game since I did preorder Cthulu Saves Christmas from LRG, just won't be playing it for quite some time.
Everything in the above post is opinion unless stated otherwise.
Gameguy
Alex (Level 15)
Richmond Hill, Ontario (Canada)
Originally Posted by gbpxl
The numbering of the consoles just makes every previous gen seem dated. Telling someone you still play PlayStation 3 makes you sound like a dinosaur or that youre broke.
That's probably why they do it, to push people into buying new consoles instead of sticking with their old ones.
I also find the PS5 ugly to look at, I haven't paid much attention to the latest Xbox whatever so I can't remember what it looks like. Is it the box looking air purifier/humidifier thing, or was that just concept art that didn't make it to production? I just don't get excited for new games or hardware anymore.
Tron 2.0
I don't like the design for PS5 but i'm still interested in the console mostly for the demon's souls remake.Also coming from a long time fan of the souls series this is a must for me.
Still i didn't save up for one so i couldn't have bought one at launch even if i tried.Maybe next year at the latest i will still with demand out stripping it's supply who knows.
Last edited by Tron 2.0; 12-14-2020 at 05:40 AM.
Leo_A
I don't see the Series S lasting very long. I heard developers are frustrated with having to produce a game on three different platforms (PS5, Series S, Series X) versus two (PS4 and Xbox One).
They're not going to scuttle it anytime soon. Microsoft is committed to supporting people that have bought it, so Series S software support has to continue for a respectable amount of time. And because of that, they may as well continue to manufacture and sell the system.
At worst if it's just not selling well enough to justify maintaining a production line and retail partners don't want to stock it, they'll discontinue production. But their hands are tied for software support and they can't pull that plug anytime soon. People bought the Series S based on promises and MS isn't going to risk tons of bad publicity, disgruntled customers, and probably some class action lawsuits by cancelling support a few months after launch and leaving Series S owners as orphans. Whether or not developers like it, mandatory Series S support is going to be sticking around at least into the mid 2020's.
Considering the similarity that consoles have with PC hardware these days and how scaleable PC games have to be in order to run on a wide variety of systems with drastically varying degrees of horsepower, it's hard to imagine MS having two levels of power here is too much of a hindrance for developers. Heck, even console specific developers should be getting used to different tiers of power by now thanks to the Xbox One X and Playstation 4 Pro.
Last edited by Leo_A; 11-22-2020 at 07:05 AM.
I don't think the series S is going to last very long when the console is already running with worse textures, 1080p or less resolution in most cases, and stuff like "as low as 576p resolution." Yakuza Like a Dragon it runs at 900p in order to hit 60fps, a last gen title. Compare that to the PS4 who ran the PS3 version of Yakuza 0, another last gen title at 1080p/60.
Dirt 5's resolution mode runs at 60fps with something in the 1100s as the max resolution and the game already runs with a lot of textures being removed(Grass Gate returns.) The 120fps mode runs as low as 576p. Assassin's Creed Valhalla runs at 1080p/30. These are only launch games that are also cross gen, so nothing considerable compared to what we'd see in the future but it's already running poorly.
I said this prior to the release, but it's not like a PC where you can just scale back certain settings, they have to specifically develop for the hardware since just scaling back baked in features like shadows, AA, etc, isn't going to do anything. They have to specifically make sure they're running at solid performance, and in order to do this, developers might start making compromises for more powerful hardware and develop for the Series S and then put the effort into upscaling and increasing the other consoles features, this will just hold back game development, especially when other consoles have that much less work put into them when devs have to waste their time on the Series S.
I'm sure most people out there haven't purchased a Series S yet, Microsoft should cut their losses with it, give up to a specific point in time for people who bought one to get a refund, and then give the system a home beside E.T.
*edit* Microsoft won't cut their losses with it though, instead of losing hundreds of millions on whatever is currently produced, they'd rather pass those savings along to the devs that will be forced to work on the console and the publishers who are paying for development costs. If you ask me, this is going to hurt Microsoft more than help them if devs just stop bothering with the Xbox altogether because of the Series S. They don't get as much third party support compared to Playstation as is, and you can forget about a indie dev that can't afford to release on all three consoles as going with Xbox first.
Last edited by kupomogli; 11-22-2020 at 10:55 AM.
Originally Posted by Tron 2.0
Dark Souls 3 had a patch that I think is included on the Fire Fades edition that adds a 60fps cap, so on the PS4 since it can't hit 60fps it's essentially an uncapped framerate, but on PS5 it runs at 60fps according to Digital Foundry. So the entire Souls series excluding Bloodborne(30fps cap,) will run 60fps on the PS5. I don't like Sekiro, but unpatched it also has a 60fps cap so it can also run 60fps.
As for me, I like how the PS5 looks, I just don't care for how large it is. Well, I own a Space Heater PS3, a Jet Engine PS4, and I'll eventually own a Space Station PS5. *edit* I do prefer simple, but I think it looks good visually.
Steve W
DFW Metroplex, Texas
I just wish Microsoft would learn how to give their consoles good, memorable names. "Xbox". Good name. "Xbox 360". Again, good solid name that shows a progression between generations. "Xbox One". Um... shouldn't that technically be referring to the first generation console? No? I'm honestly not entirely sure what to call their consoles since they have such non-distinctive names. "Xbox One X"? "Xbox Series X"? Go screw yourself, Microsoft. How are they still in business with that complete and utter lack of originality?
Seems premature to label the Series S a commercial failure when I bet they've sold virtually all the inventory that they had on hand.
The true test will start to come next summer when if supply lines allow with this virus still very much an ongoing concern, inventory is hopefully replenished and people can actually buy a Series S or Series X any day of the week without special effort involved.
If we're seeing most people bite the bullet and spend extra for the Series X next year (Which is certainly my plan even though there's not a 4k tv in the house), the verdict will be in. But even then, I do believe as I've said that Microsoft's hands are tied here to a degree where software support is concerned.
For better or worse (And I'm personally of the viewpoint held in this thread that it's a mistake to have two drastically different tiers of power), Series S support will be part of developing on Xbox platforms for the next few years.
Originally Posted by Steve W
While I'm not fond of the name, I always figured the Xbox One name was in reference to their desire circa 2013 for their then new console to be the hub of your entertainment center.
The I believe now gone HDMI input (I only saw a HDMI output on the rear of the Series X) is an example of that push back then for the Xbox One to be front and center with everything you do on your television.
Originally Posted by kupomogli
Good to know there's been rumors going around that bloodborne will get a remaster.Still i don't what it is but the PS5 design makes me think of a ice cream sandwich.
Niku-Sama
Deadford, OR
i feel like M$ pulled a Wii U with the naming of their new consoles, they are too similar to previous gen, its going to confuse the masses who frankly dont pay attention to details which as we all know plays a big part in sales
Originally Posted by Niku-Sama
I really like the naming Sega used; Master System, Genesis, Saturn, Game Gear, Dreamcast, etc. They're all different, and Nintendo followed that trend after the SNES right up until the Wii U.
What does Sony have? There's the Playstation, Playstation, Playstation, Playstation, Playstation, and their portable systems the Playstation, and Vita. Whoever gets paid the big bucks to come up with creative names really deserves it.
At least with the games coming out for the PS5 there won't be any confusion for customers or retail staff. When a customer asks for Devil May Cry 5, you know they want it for the PS5, and are not wanting Devil May Cry 5 for PS4 which also exists. Same with Borderlands 3, No Man's Sky, etc. Definitely no confusion with Demon's Souls and Demon's Souls for PS3.
-"I'd like a copy of Demon's Souls please"
-"For which console?"
-"My son has a Playstation"
Clearly no problems whatsoever with parents buying games for their hipster children who own all generations.
And Microsoft; Xbox, Xbox, Xbox, and Xbox. I think that's all of them. I like how the third Xbox is further named the Xbox One, just to mess with people. Really the most recent one should have been named the Xbox Juan.
With Microsoft having started one generation later than Sony in the console world, there's no way they can use the simple numerical conventions. Their Xbox "2" (360) would've been competing against Sony's Playstation 3 and that just wasn't gonna work when customers want the product with the highest number attached to it. the only thing M$ could do is name the next console "Xbox 6" when the PS6 comes out
Next gen Microsoft should come out with the Xbox 9 and explain because it's the 9th iteration of Xbox. You've got the Xbox, the two versions of the 360, the three versions of the Xbox One, and the two versions of the Xbox Series. Then just start going Xbox 10, 11, 12, etc from there. They've got Sony beat on the numerical side at that point.
PlayStation Infinity
Xbox Infinity Plus One. Then shortened to Xbox One for simplicity.
RARusk
I know that Atari started using cat names so maybe go with dogs? Like the Xbox Schnauser, the Xbox Golden Retriever, or the Xbox Chiuhauha.
The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "save us!"......and I'll look down, and whisper "no."
Originally Posted by Gameguy
Playstation is numbered consecutively so its pretty easy to say PS# (#= what ever gen), when i worked retail from PS3 to PS4 transition it wasnt an issue when people came in for games
Wii to Wii U was a nightmare, and to some extent the Wii Mini. Different type of demographic for that one though but i think it was still the main reason for the Wii U's downfall.... the name
xbox is just all over the place
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King's Quest: Adventures of Graham [Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360]
By Nz17 in forum Computer Gaming
Thoughts on the Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest series
By Alpha2099 in forum Classic Gaming
Your thoughts on Disaster Report for Playstation 2
By Cmosfm in forum Classic Gaming
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LA Leisures
After the Nightwatch
sila diaries
California Elegance
TIES ON A FENCE
ArtSlant
AN EERIE TAKE ON LEISURE
by Catherine Wagley
Corina Gamma takes an unnerving look at LA recreation in her current solo exhibition at d.e.n. contemporary. A show of relatively small, sleek photographs of amusement parks could come off as a piquant gesture, especially with a whimsical title like (un)Restricted Pleasure. But Gamma’s discreet representations of carnival rides and suburban developments are compelling because of their sinister undercurrent.
Near the end of her first novel, The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf describes light as “Unbroken by clouds” and “falling through the empty air . . . almost like a chill white frost over the sea and the earth.” The only sound is “a slight but continuous breathing which never ceased, although it never rose and never fell.” Woolf’s chilling scene, which occurs near the end of a leisure voyage turned disaster, creates a tense picture that nicely mirrors the mood of Gamma’s work.
Gamma, who does not digitally edit her images, waits until the sky is completely uninterrupted by light or clouds. Then, on the bleakest days possible, she shoots her photographs and her videos. The resulting images evoke an unbroken feeling of emptiness, despite their deceptively light and colorful subject matter. What makes the show at d.e.n. contemporary particularly unnerving is the slightly audible creaking sound coming from the videos in the back of the gallery. At first, the sound seems to be the sound of the hinges of the cars that lethargically sways back and forth in Gamma’s video, Riding the Big Ferris Wheel. But when the looped audio briefly lapses into a carnival tune and visitors realize that they are listening to a violin improvisation. The calculated nature of the creaking violin makes the exhibition take on leisure even more eerie, turning the tropes of amusement—festive rides and carnival music—into a penetratingly lonely experience.
-Catherine G. Wagley
These photographs were exhibited at D.E.N. contemporary gallery in Los Angeles and at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont, NY.
Print sizes: 19 x 19 inches, 28 x 28 inches and 48 x 48 inches.
View video installation: Riding the Big Ferris Wheel
LA Leisures was last modified: July 9th, 2019 by corina
© 2020 - CORINA GAMMA
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New tools aid Coast Guard in port tracking
By Alice Lipowicz
New visualization tools are helping the Coast Guard develop situational awareness at the Port of Miami, but more assistance is needed to track small boats and noncooperative vessels, according to congressional testimony given this week.
The Homeland Security Department's Directorate of Science and Technology is funding the Visualization Tools for Situational Awareness and Emergency Response program, also known as Viz Tools.
The project is a proof-of-concept demonstration to correlate sensors and automated vessel-tracking information with advanced notification-of-arrival information and other port activity, Commander Karl Schultz, who heads the Coast Guard's Miami sector, testified at a field hearing Nov. 26 of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism. The hearing was held in Miami.
The visualization tool program ' along with Project Hawkeye, which is a sensor network surveillance project for Miami and other ports 'is serving as a test bed for Command 21, the Coast Guard's next large upgrade of its command centers.
Although the program is resulting in improved maritime domain awareness, there are still gaps. For example, the Coast Guard needs better information on the 170,000 registered small craft in Miami, Dade and Broward counties, Schultz said.
'The small boat threat ... continues to present technology and policy challenges and remains a primary maritime security concern,' Schultz said. 'Within [DHS], we are working closely with Customs and Border Protection to expand our efforts to secure the small maritime craft environment.'
In addition, Schultz said the Coast Guard still has a long way to go to managing all the information needed for daily operations and decision-making. This includes coordination of programs for tracking large vessels, such as the National Automatic Identification System, Advanced Notice of Arrival process, and the forthcoming International Maritime Organization's Long Range Identification and Tracking system.
Stephen Dryden, chief executive officer of the Mariner Group LLC, of Columbia, S.C., which is providing its CommandBridge software solution to address the need for situational awareness in the Viz Tools project, also testified at the hearing.
He said the objectives of Viz Tools are to develop and maintain situational awareness, identify threats rapidly, maximize assets and operational capacity to respond to the threat, and plan and manage the emergency response. Before Viz Tools, those standing watch had to achieve situation awareness by monitoring radars, harbor pilot Web sites, incoming messages, commercial media, weather and Coast Guard systems, he said.
Altough the visualization project is working successfully, Dryden agreed with Schultz that small vessels are a vulnerability. The ports need better sensor technology to track small boats and identify noncooperative vessels whose transponders for tracking through the Automatic Identification System are turned off. In some cases, however, the transponders are turned off accidentally.
With today's technology, ports fall short in their ability to track noncooperative vessels and small boats, Dryden said. Programs in development, such as the Coast Guard's Automated Scene Understanding project, may help mitigate those problems, he said.
Dryden also recommended additional aids to further improve situational awareness, including the integration of cargo and vessel information into Viz Tools, more coordination with local law enforcement agencies and improved long-range tracking of vessels.
Alice Lipowicz writes for Washington Technology, an 1105 Government Information Group publication.
Alice Lipowicz is a staff writer covering government 2.0, homeland security and other IT policies for Federal Computer Week.
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Continuation and collapse of homoclinic tangles
JCD Home
Global invariant manifolds near a Shilnikov homoclinic bifurcation
January 2014, 1(1): 39-69. doi: 10.3934/jcd.2014.1.39
The computation of convex invariant sets via Newton's method
R. Baier 1, , M. Dellnitz 2, , M. Hessel-von Molo 2, , S. Sertl 2, and I. G. Kevrekidis 3,
Chair of Applied Mathematics, University of Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany
Chair of Applied Mathematics, University of Paderborn, 33098 Paderborn, Germany, Germany, Germany
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
Received July 2012 Revised February 2014 Published April 2014
In this paper we present a novel approach to the computation of convex invariant sets of dynamical systems. Employing a Banach space formalism to describe differences of convex compact subsets of $\mathbb{R}^n$ by directed sets, we are able to formulate the property of a convex, compact set to be invariant as a zero-finding problem in this Banach space. We need either the additional restrictive assumption that the image of sets from a subclass of convex compact sets under the dynamics remains convex, or we have to convexify these images. In both cases we can apply Newton's method in Banach spaces to approximate such invariant sets if an appropriate smoothness of a set-valued map holds. The theoretical foundations for realizing this approach are analyzed, and it is illustrated first by analytical and then by numerical examples.
Keywords: Newton's method in Banach spaces, directed sets., Nvariant sets, set-valued Newton's method.
Mathematics Subject Classification: 65J15, 52A20, 37M99, 26E25, 54C6.
Citation: R. Baier, M. Dellnitz, M. Hessel-von Molo, S. Sertl, I. G. Kevrekidis. The computation of convex invariant sets via Newton's method. Journal of Computational Dynamics, 2014, 1 (1) : 39-69. doi: 10.3934/jcd.2014.1.39
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Impact Factor:
R. Baier M. Dellnitz M. Hessel-von Molo S. Sertl I. G. Kevrekidis
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Joe_Groff (Joe Groff) August 24, 2018, 4:36pm #1
The review of SE-0223: Accessing an Array's Uninitialized Buffer begins now and runs through Wednesday, August 28th, 2018.
Reviews are an important part of the Swift evolution process. All review feedback should be either on this forum thread or, if you would like to keep your feedback private, directly to me as the review manager via email or direct message on the forums. If you send me email, please put "SE-0223" somewhere in the subject line.
What goes into a review of a proposal?
The goal of the review process is to improve the proposal under review through constructive criticism and, eventually, determine the direction of Swift.
When reviewing a proposal, here are some questions to consider:
What is your evaluation of the proposal?
Is the problem being addressed significant enough to warrant a change to Swift?
Does this proposal fit well with the feel and direction of Swift?
If you have used other languages or libraries with a similar feature, how do you feel that this proposal compares to those?
How much effort did you put into your review? A glance, a quick reading, or an in-depth study?
Thank you for contributing to Swift!
Joe Groff
Review Manager
soroush (Soroush Khanlou) August 14, 2018, 12:48am #2
+1. This seems like a definite performance trap in Swift.
Yes. The code change is small and the benefits are worthwhile.
Yes. One of Swift's nicest features is its value type system. It yields code that is easier to reason about, with a tradeoff — sometimes values are copied around more than expected. This change is the best kind, because it gives us back that performance, without sacrificing the grokkable model.
I don't have experience with other languages at this level of depth.
I read the pitch thread, the proposal multiple times, and the implementation PR.
Karl (👑🦆) August 14, 2018, 2:04am #3
+1. I've wanted something like this for a very long time (e.g. to implement a concurrent map, where values are initialised in parallel). It's also very helpful for C interop. The API seems as clear as it can be.
Absolutely. Initialising an Array out-of-order is an important feature, but until now it's required intermediate results and copies.
I think the API is as clear as it could be.
As for the direction of Swift - I hope a similar API comes to other types with a well-defined binary format like String one day. I think this kind of pattern could probably fit with String.
C++'s std::vector has a (mutable, contiguous) data pointer, but AFAIK it cannot be used to reinitialise contents out-of-order or in a way which changes the number of elements.
Participated in discussion, read draft and final proposals, have wanted something like this for years (it's not top of the list, but it's definitely on there)..
SlaunchaMan (Jeff Kelley) August 15, 2018, 3:30pm #4
+1. Though I would probably find few places to use this in the user-facing iOS apps that I write on a daily basis, those places where I do need this type of performance-sensitive code would be helped by this new method.
Yes. Performance gotchas on hidden collection copies can be crippling.
Yes. I pulled down the example code into a playground and it felt completely natural.
The closest example I can think of is manually creating array buffers in C. The Swift version is definitely more verbose, but comes close to the feel of directly allocating the memory in C.
I read the proposal and downloaded the sample code into a playground, where I played with it a bit.
Patrick_Gili (Patrick Gili) August 15, 2018, 4:25pm #5
Joe_Groff:
The current implementation of Array makes it difficult to implement a great number of algorithms, and the impact is usually negative. I have implementations that could have been O(1) that end up O(n) due to the need to initialize the contents of an Array to enable the algorithm random access to the underlying storage. This proposal would remove this barrier to performant implementations of these algorithms.
Yes, for the reasons I state above.
This proposal would align well with other C-family languages.
I studied this in-depth and read the entire thread that lead to the proposal.
Response inline above.
Braden_Scothern (Braden Scothern) August 15, 2018, 5:44pm #6
Yes it fixes a lot of performance issues with Arrays.
It allows Swift to match the array initialization performance of other languages that allow you to access memory directly like C and C++.
I participated in the pitch phase, I read the final proposal, and have considered proposing this my self and just lacked the time.
griotspeak (TJ Usiyan) August 15, 2018, 9:43pm #7
+1 overall from me. This would have been helpful to me a few times that I can think of offhand.
I have not
I have read the proposal.
jawbroken August 16, 2018, 1:54am #8
The proposed functionality is useful and much safer than the current workarounds, which require extensive use of unsafe APIs to obtain similar performance. I participated in the pitch thread and I'm very happy with how the proposal turned out. The main remaining sharp edge is the inout initializedCount, which is easy to misuse by forgetting to set it on some return path, but there doesn't seem to be an alternative that preserves the other useful aspects like rethrows (see the pitch thread for details). These methods are clearly labelled as unsafe, so I think having this sharp edge is acceptable.
taylorswift (^) August 16, 2018, 5:56pm #9
in all honesty, no, but i believe it’s the best solution to a hard API-design problem, and that’s better than nothing
C, but C also doesn’t care about uninitialized buffers to begin with so obviously this is a step up
Been following it and providing feedback since it was first pitched
brentdax (Becca Royal-Gordon) August 20, 2018, 6:44am #10
I think it's a good design for a good idea. (I also think String might benefit from something like this, but that's somewhat more complicated and definitely severable.)
The one thing I would criticize: I'm not sure it's a good idea to make these members rethrowing. The "Guarantees after throwing" section reads like a hundred subtle memory safety bugs waiting to happen. Not making these members rethrow would force users to stop and think about their error handling, rather than blindly writing try and failing to catch the bug.
Probably. There are places where I might have used this API if it had been available already.
The most similar thing I can think of is the wonky -[NSData initWithBytesNoCopy:length:deallocator:] family of APIs. This approach seems vastly superior, since it doesn't complicate the management of the array's memory.
A quick read. I didn't participate in earlier rounds of discussion.
Joe_Groff (Joe Groff) August 20, 2018, 5:30pm #11
To everyone who contributed to this thread, thank you for your feedback! I will update this thread with the core team's decision when it happens. Meanwhile, discussion and further feedback is still welcome until final core team review happens.
hooman (Hooman Mehr) August 20, 2018, 6:12pm #12
I am +0.5 on this.
I will definitely benefit from the manual optimization opportunities enabled by this proposal, But:
I don't feel providing such manual optimization enablers is the right approach in general. I think we need deeper redesign of the compiler and standard library to reduce such bottlenecks and make them more reliably optimizable.
So, I welcome this addition, but I hope patching performance traps like this does not become the dominant approach in the language evolution.
I also second @brentdax's concern about rethrowing behavior.
jawbroken August 21, 2018, 1:44am #13
brentdax:
The problem here, pointed out in the earlier discussion threads, is that you will want to use these methods to implement stablyPartitioned(by:) and similar rethrows methods, and the only way to work around this (i.e. prove to the compiler that you will only throw if the closure is throwing) is to exploit a compiler bug. Though, now that I look more closely at the implementation of stablyPartitioned(by:) in the proposal, it seems like it might violate its own rules around throwing since I don't see where it deinitialises the elements if belongsInFirstPartition throws. Am I missing something, @nnnnnnnn?
hooman:
You're going to need a fairly heroic compiler to somehow realise that the straightforward (but slow) implementation of stablyPartitioned(by:), using only memory-safe APIs (e.g. filling two arrays then concatenating them), should be optimised to instead fill an array from both ends and meet at the right point in the middle. Nobody is proposing to add these methods instead of improving the optimiser, but there will always be cases that no reasonable optimisation will be able to handle.
Put simply: We need some kind of withActuallyRethrowing(_:do:) function anyway. We shouldn’t design this API in a dangerous way because that API doesn’t exist yet.
hooman (Hooman Mehr) August 21, 2018, 1:56am #15
jawbroken:
You're going to need a fairly heroic compiler...
I should have put standard library first in my response. I think we can do better in the design and implementation of key currency types and protocols to improve optimizability without too frequently patching things up by enabling manual optimizations that become necessary because of the shortcomings of the current design (both at the API level and internal data structure level). I think memory-safe API can be achieved at lower cost with better design, but to get there we need to look at the whole jungle instead of focusing on individual trees.
Okay, sure, but I'm not sure I see how it would be much safer. If belongsInFirstPartition throws inside the initialiser you're still going to need to catch the error, put memory into some reasonable state, juggle the error out of the closure and return the initialised count, then withActuallyRethrowing the error. So the only differences are that you've made it harder to forget to set an accurate initialised count (by presumably making it a return vale of the closure) while adding a significant complexity around handling the error, including the use of a new unsafe API with a different possible failure mode (withActuallyRethrowing).
Because you can no longer use the obvious, instinctive, and wrong solution of “just add try to get rid of the error�. If we could instead mark the closure so that it would need to contain a catch block rather than just propagating the error without additional logic, that might work too. But that would require a much larger and trickier language change.
palimondo (Pavol Vaskovic) August 21, 2018, 4:20am #18
This is, in my opinion, very well thought out and well written proposal that safely addresses an important performance deficit. The naming section deserves extra special kudos. Exemplary work @nnnnnnnn!
jrose (Jordan Rose) August 21, 2018, 5:40pm #19
I don't have much to contribute for a formal review (which is good since it's past the formal review period), but I am also very much in favor of adding this. The times I've needed it have all been out-parameters of imported C functions, where I was forced to initialize the array elements to some dummy value before use. Which isn't terrible (the value is usually zero), but still feels wrong.
My one bit of discomfort is Brent's point about rethrows. I was previously on the "it's important for composability" side but the hypothetical future withActuallyRethrowing (or whatever) is a better answer to that problem. The trouble is we don't know how far future that is, and therefore it may still be worth including this API with the additional sharp edges.
ahti (Lukas Stabe 🙃) August 21, 2018, 9:49pm #20
I haven't followed this proposal in detail, so if this doesn't make sense just ignore me: The rethrowing should only be a problem with the method, not the initializer, right? Would a potential consuming-self-attribute (plus returning self alongside the result after the access is done) help here, so that the array is not accessible if the function didn't return normally?
If that's the case it may be worth holding back that part of the proposal until we have a consuming attribute, and include just the initializer in the meantime?
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Super Pink Moon 2020
The Moon will appear full for about three days around this time, from Monday night through Thursday morning. According to experts, the full moon will reach its peak on April 7 at 10:35 pm EDT.
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Super Pink Moon is an astronomical event that occurs when the moon is closest to the Earth in its orbit, making it appear much larger and brighter than usual.
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A lunar eclipse of a full "Blue Moon" is seen above the ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier in Santa Monica, California, U.S., January 31, 2018.
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The "pink moon" is the name given to the full moon of early spring, named for the flower Phlox subulata, a common springtime flower.
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Polls & Awards
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HomeNews Citizenship and Defence Families
Citizenship and Defence Families
February 1, 2013 By admin2 No comments yet News
From 1 January, the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Defence Families) Act 2012 amends the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 to:
Enable family members of a person who is an Australian Defence Force (ADF) lateral recruit who has completed relevant defence service or who has died to be eligible for the relevant defence service residence requirement for Australian citizenship
Clarify definitions of completed relevant defence service (Members of the ADF and family members who complete relevant defence service are able to satisfy the residence requirement for Australian Citizenship in a shorter period of time than the usual four years.)
Clarify that a person undertakes service in the Permanent Forces or the Reserves only if the person is appointed, enlisted, or transferred into any of the Permanent Forces or the Reserves.
Types of visas for relatives to satisfy defence service requirements
From 1 January, the Australian Citizenship Regulations 2007 are amended to prescribe the type of visas required for a relative who migrated to Australia with a person who was recruited by the ADF to satisfy the defence service requirement (defined in section 23 of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 for the purposes of section 21 of the Act, which sets out the eligibility requirements for applying for Australian citizenship by conferral.
New Regulation 6A prescribes the following visas for the purposes of paragraphs 23(2)(a) and 23(3)(a) of the Citizenship Act:
Employer Nomination (Permanent) (Class EN) (Subclass 186);
Labour Agreement (Migrant) (Class AU);
Labour Agreement (Residence) (Class BV); and
Regional Employer Nomination (Permanent) (Class RN) (Subclass 187)
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Tag Archives: Ryan Bennett
An Impressive Start to the New Year
The quiz winners
Last October, the City ‘Orns team won the Watford Quiz Night (I am still not sure how that happened). Our prize was hospitality for the Wolves game on New Year’s Day. As I couldn’t find a taker for my season ticket, I released it. When I received the email acknowledging my ‘non-attendance’, it was all I could do not to respond to tell them that it wasn’t that I wouldn’t be attending, but I had a ticket for hospitality. Thankfully I was able to convince myself that that may come across as just a little obsessive.
I arrived in Watford at my usual time for a matchday but, unlike the bustle of a Saturday, the town was deserted. As Thursday was a workday, I decided to stay in Watford, so I dropped my bag at the hotel before heading to the ground. As I reached Market Street, the crowds increased but they were all wearing Wolves shirts and scarves and I realised that the away supporters’ coaches had arrived. As I was a little too early for the opening of the hospitality lounge, I went into the Hornet shop. I was looking for programme binders and searched high and low, but they were nowhere to be seen. However, I did find some oven gloves. For someone who rarely cooks and almost never uses the oven, I don’t know why I was so attracted to them, but they were a thing of beauty and I had to have them. I then found the programme binders, and all was right with my world. As I approached the till, I noticed the signs indicating “tax free” purchases. I asked the woman behind the counter if we really have that many tourists visiting Vicarage Road. Apparently, we do. What has become of football?
With Tommy Smith
I was not (quite) the first in the Horizons lounge and was quickly joined by Alice, so we bought a couple of bottles of wine for the table (one red, one white) and toasted the new year. Our party soon gathered. As well as the quiz winners, Mike Raggett was there celebrating winning the Supporter of the Season. He had brought Jacque as his plus one, so there was a good number of the West Herts contingent in attendance.
As part of the pre-match entertainment in the lounge there was an interview with Tommy Smith talking about the current squad and being very positive. When he was finished, he was invited to our table and stayed for a long chat about anything and everything. I liked his description of himself as a “lazy winger”, not quite the way that I remember him. He never fancied being a coach or a manager, so went into estate agency and the business seems to be doing really well. He seems pretty happy with life and is enjoying the ambassador/guest role as a way of staying connected with football. I still think of Tommy Smith as a youngster, after all we went to the same secondary school, but I left the school the year after he was born. It was a bit of a shock to realise that he will be 40 in May.
Team news was that Pearson had made two enforced changes with Dawson and Chalobah in for Mariappa (suspended) and Hughes (injured). So, the starting line-up was Foster; Femenía, Cathcart, Kabasele, Dawson; Capoue, Chalobah; Deulofeu, Doucouré, Sarr; Deeney.
The Rocket Men banner
We left the lounge in good time to find our seats, but the signs in the Upper GT concourse were somewhat misleading so we wandered around for a while before finding someone who could point us in the right direction. When we finally found the seats, they were in the front row of the new overhang at the end of the stand right next to the 1881 in the Rookery, so a great spot. I could see my family sitting in the middle of the Rookery and tried to attract their attention, but they were not looking in my direction and by the time I found my glasses to send a message they were in match mode and concentrating on events on the pitch.
As the teams came out, a RocketMan surfer banner featuring Elton and GT appeared over the centre of the Rookery. On a normal day, I would have been under it, so it was nice to see the revelation of a new banner for once. It was absolutely gorgeous. I was a little late snapping the picture, so it doesn’t do it justice.
We had been told that there was a strict dress code in the lounge regarding replica shirts, but I had brought mine with me anyway and, as we were sitting in a Watford section rather than in the Directors’ area, I decided to put it on to watch the game and felt a whole lot better.
Dawson on the ball
Wolves came into the game having beaten Man City and run Liverpool very close, so my hopes of getting anything out of the game were pretty low, but it would certainly give us an indication of how the team were developing under Pearson.
The first chance of note came in the 12th minute and fell to the visitors as Coady played Doherty in and, with only Foster to beat, he looked odds on to open the scoring, but Ben came to meet him and made the save. Jiménez then had a great chance and really should have scored, but his shot from the edge of the box flew wide of the far post. Watford’s first meaningful attack came as Deulofeu played the ball out to Femenía who put in a lovely low cross but there was nobody there to meet it. The Hornets threatened again as a shot from Deulofeu was blocked, the ball eventually found its way to Chalobah outside the box, his shot cleared the crossbar. The first caution of the game went to Dawson for a foul on Neto. The same two players then tangled in the Watford box, this time the referee booked the Wolves man for simulation. Needless to say, there was a VAR check for a penalty, but the man in Stockley Park upheld the decision.
Celebrating Deulofeu’s strike
Watford had their best chance of the game so far when Deulofeu found Sarr who hit a decent shot which was saved by Rui Patricio. We were not left to rue that miss for long as we took the lead a minute later. This time Sarr played in Deulofeu who shot across the keeper into the opposite corner. Cue mad celebrations in the posh seats. Watford were in the ascendancy at this point and a lovely move deserved more, but the Wolves defence prevented the shot. Then, from a throw, Deeney nodded the ball on to Deulofeu who could only shoot over the bar. There was a great chance to increase the Hornets’ lead just before half time when a lovely flick from Deeney found Sarr but he could only hit the side netting.
The guest at half time was Filippo Galli, but I am ashamed to say that I headed into the lounge for dessert and another glass of wine. I thought I was keeping an eye on the time, but suddenly the screen next to our table was showing the Wolves players coming back onto the pitch and so we had to make a rapid return to our seats.
Congratulating Doucoure
The visitors started the second half brightly as Neto broke forward but could only find the side netting with his shot. Then Jiménez tried a shot from distance, but it cleared the bar. Instead it was the Hornets who scored with their first shot of the half as Deulofeu went on a run and played in Doucouré whose shot took a slight deflection and beat Rui Patricio. It was lovely to see Abdoulaye score on his birthday, so very kind of him to give us all a present. My family had received the text with my location, so it was rather lovely to see them turn towards me so we could celebrate the goal together. The visitors made an early double substitution with Neves and Vinagre replacing Bennett and Jonny. Then there was disappointment for the home fans as Femenía, who has been brilliant lately, was forced to go off after tweaking a hamstring. There seemed to be some confusion on the bench regarding his replacement as both Holebas and Masina appeared to be readying themselves to come on. In the interim, Watford were playing with 10 men and Wolves were looking to pull a goal back. First Traoré fed Moutinho, who hit a low shot which Foster was down to gather. Then Vinagre tried his luck but, again, Foster was equal to it. The Watford fans were yelling for someone to put the ball out so that the substitution could be made and there was a sigh of relief when Kabasele belted the ball into the stand and Holebas finally took to the field.
Troy wants the ball
But, as soon as we were back to full strength, the visitors pulled a goal back, as Neto hit a shot from distance that took a wicked deflection and beat Foster. Wolves made their final substitution at the midpoint of the half, replacing the goalscorer, Neto, with Jota. The substitute was soon involved as an attempt to escape upfield was stopped when he was pulled back by Kabasele. The referee showed a yellow card, but the decision was referred to VAR which indicated that a red card should be shown and Kabasele was given his marching orders. I have to say that this is the most ridiculous use of VAR. The on-pitch referee had a good view of the incident and decided to book the player. The referee in Stockley Park viewed the same infraction and decided it was worthy of a red card. Had the original decision been a clear and obvious error? Would the on-pitch referee have made a different decision had they seen the same footage as the VAR? We have no idea, but the subjective decision of the VAR now overrules that of the man who is supposed to be refereeing the game. On this occasion they made the mistake of playing footage of the incident on the big screen and this prompted howls of anger from the Rookery. Interestingly the Wolves fans had been expressing their feelings about VAR while the incident was being reviewed. They cheered briefly at the decision and then continued with their original theme at which point the whole ground was singing “F*ck VAR”. Having expressed our frustration, we were then resigned to having 20 minutes left to play with 10 men.
The two goalscorers, Deulofeu and Doucoure
At this point, getting anything out of the game was looking very unlikely. Thankfully, we passed the first hurdle as the free kick resulting from Kabasele’s foul hit the wall and was caught by Foster. Unlike the Villa game when Pearson made a bold change after the sending off, his substitution on this occasion was more defensive as Masina took to the field in place of Deulofeu. As they had in the previous game, a photo of GT was shown on the big screen on 72 minutes, this time with Watford and Wolves badges superimposed. Many Wolves fans have very fond memories of GT and it had been lovely before the game seeing a number of them having their photos taken with his statue. The visitors created a great chance after the ball appeared to be going out for a goal kick, but Vinagre belted after it and managed to keep it in play before putting in a lovely cross for Doherty whose header looked sure to level the score but Foster got a hand to it and kept it out. Vinagre then had a chance of his own to draw the visitors level, but his shot was high and wide. The Wolves man threatened again with a dangerous looking cross that almost caught Foster out, but the Watford keeper was fouled by Jiménez to relieve the pressure, if only briefly.
Troy holding the ball up as the clock wound down
The fourth official indicated five minutes of time added on. At this time, it was all hands to the pump. The Watford faithful were in excellent voice urging their team on as they tried to run the clock down. Pearson tried to use up some time by making a substitution as Sarr was replaced by Pereyra. When the board went up, the Watford youngster was near the corner flag between the Rookery and the GT stands so, under the new law, should have left the field on that side of the ground, but Deeney was chatting away to referee which distracted his attention allowing the youngster to amble off at his own pace. Deeney had been trying to keep the ball in that area and was successful in winning a corner to waste some time. He was instructing the young ball boy to take as long as possible to return the ball when it went off and took a short corner himself with no attacking intent. Eventually he attracted the ire of the referee and was booked for his delaying tactics. With a minute of added time remaining, Traoré was fouled by Doucouré giving the visitors a free kick to the right of the box from our perspective at the other end of the ground. Capoue threw himself in front of the free kick which went out for a throw. The visitors tried to get the ball back in play quickly, but were penalised for a foul throw, much to the amusement of the home crowd. The visitors had one last chance to grab a point, but the shot from Neves flew over the bar and the final whistle went on an unlikely and very hard-fought victory for the Hornets.
The cheers were heartfelt and intense and, as I always do, I made sure to cheer every player off the pitch.
Pereyra makes a late appearance
We returned to the lounge and a celebratory glass or two of wine. It had been a terrific game and a very impressive win against a Wolves team who are very good indeed. Femenía had done a tremendous job in keeping Traoré quiet and we were under the cosh a bit after the double blow of his injury and the dismissal of Kabasele, but the team worked hard to keep their shape and were well worth the three points. Deulofeu appears to be a new player under Pearson, an arm around his shoulder has given him more confidence in both himself and his team mates to the benefit of all of us. Capoue was magnificent running the midfield and Chalobah put the disappointment of the early withdrawal on Saturday behind him to put in an assured performance. Birthday boy Doucouré was back to his best and topped it off with a goal.
It is hard to believe that, up until the Saturday before Christmas we were winless at home. We now have three home wins in a row and, given that the opposition included Man Utd and Wolves, that is very impressive indeed. Similarly, having been concerned that we were becoming marooned at the foot of the table, we are now only two points off safety and are looking up the table with some confidence. I have always thought this team were much better than the results indicated, but something was lacking. Nigel Pearson seems to have given them a confidence in their abilities and a resilience that was too often missing earlier in the season. There is a sense now that they playing as a team rather than as a collection of individuals and they now have the crowd back onside with them and football is fun again. It looks like being a very happy new year for the Hornets.
This entry was posted in Watford FC and tagged Abdoulaye Doucoure, Adam Masina, Adama Traore, Ben Foster, Christian Kabasele, Conor Coady, Craig Cathcart, Craig Dawson, Diogo Jota, Etienne Capoue, Gerard Deulofeu, Ismaila Sarr, Joao Moutinho, Jonny Castro Otto, Jose Holebas, Kiko Femenia, Leander Dendoncker, Matt Doherty, Nathaniel Chalobah, Nigel Pearson, Nuno Espirito Santo, Pedro Neto, Raul Jimenez, Roberto Pereyra, Romain Saiss, Ruben Neves, Ruben Vinagre, Rui Patricio, Ryan Bennett, Troy Deeney, Watford FC, Wolverhampton Wanderers FC on January 2, 2020 by franelynn.
The Battle for Seventh Place
Gathering for a corner
It has been a very stressful week. Work has been full on, with a number of important deadlines meaning that I was working long hours. But this game had taken on enormous importance, as it would surely be key in our fight with Wolves for seventh place, so it was never far from my thoughts. The importance was brought home when I woke with a jolt at 5am on Saturday, knowing that I had to be somewhere and stressing about how I would get there. When I was awake enough to realise that kick-off was at 3pm, so I had plenty of time, I calmed down a bit.
For once, I timed my journey perfectly. After having a quick chat with Mick, our Police liaison officer, at the Junction (he was confident of a win, I wasn’t), I arrived at the West Herts just after it opened. Our party was a little depleted due to commitments elsewhere, but there was still a good turnout at ‘our’ table. Glenn appeared with his sweets as usual but, as it was a Saturday, there was the extra treat of the delicious pork scratchings that he gets from his butcher which I had as dessert after a portion of jerk chicken. I left for the ground a little earlier than usual to pick up my tickets for the FA Cup Final. It was so good to have them in my hands at last.
Doucoure on the ball
Team news was three changes from Tuesday with Gracia again alternating his defensive options with Femenía and Mariappa in for Janmaat and Kabasele, we also had the welcome return of Holebas taking the place of Masina. Adam was terrific in the game against Southampton, but Jose would always be in my first XI. So the starting line-up was Foster; Holebas, Mariappa, Cathcart, Femenía; Pereyra, Capoue, Doucoure, Hughes; Deulofeu, Gray. I must say that I felt very reassured by the team selection.
The teams ran out to “I’m Still Standing” and I was left cold again. It is not growing on me, but at least you can hear it, unlike the Superman theme.
The game kicked off and some of our fans decided that this was a good time to goad Wolves after our cup semi-final win. I always think that pride comes before a fall, so the chants worried me greatly. There was a cagey start to the game, the first chance for either side came on 12 minutes when Deulofeu won a corner. The delivery from Holebas was deep and headed back by Capoue to Doucouré whose shot was blocked, the ball fell to Pereyra whose shot was also blocked. I must admit that, with the early disasters in the previous two home games, I was very happy when we got to 15 minutes on the clock without a catastrophic event.
Geri looking baffled at Jose’s secret instructions
The first shot on target didn’t come until the 21st minute when Neves tried a shot from distance, Foster was equal to it. The Hornets had a great chance to take the lead when Pereyra played a lovely ball to Deulofeu, but Geri slipped as he was about to take the shot and the chance was gone. Hughes did brilliantly to control a dropping ball, he found Deulofeu, but the shot was turned around a post for a corner, which Deulofeu played short to Holebas whose shot was terrible and flew well wide of the target. From my position in the Rookery, I thought that Wolves had taken the lead when a shot from Jiménez was cleared off the line by Capoue. I can’t have been the only one holding my breath waiting for the referee to indicate that the ball had actually crossed the line before it was cleared, but that indication didn’t come, and the game remained goalless. A lovely forward passing move involving Pereyra and Hughes finished with the ball with Deulofeu whose shot was blocked. Watford should have opened the scoring from the resultant corner which Holebas delivered deep to Pereyra, he crossed for Mariappa who headed back to Hughes, who had the goal at his mercy, but directed his header over the target. The opening goal came late in the half. From our vantage point, it appeared that the ball had gone out for a throw-in. The linesman on that side, must have seen the ball rolling past him, but felt the need to consult with the referee before giving a corner. The Hornets failed to clear from the corner allowing Jota to cross for Jiménez to head home and then celebrate by showing us the name on the back of his shirt, while our hearts sank. In retrospect I wonder if he lost the mask at Wembley. Watford should have hit back almost immediately as Hughes found Gray in the box, but he shot over the bar when it looked easier to score. In mitigation, Andre claimed that he had been fouled, but the referee was having none of it. Just on half time, Deulofeu played a neat one-two with Pereyra, but his shot was blocked.
Celebrating Gray’s equaliser
So we went into the break a goal down after a very even half of football that had been short on chances. In contrast to Tuesday, the half time entertainment was restricted to the schools’ penalty shoot-out. This was much more like it.
The second half started brilliantly for the Hornets as a mistake in the Wolves defence allowed the ball to break to Deulofeu, he tried to beat Patricio but the ball broke to Gray who found the net and sent the Watford fans wild. After we had finished celebrating, we then had the entertainment of watching other fans coming back after getting their half time refreshments. Their faces were a picture. Wolves had a half chance to regain the lead as Doherty crossed for Jota but the shot was well over the target. Deulofeu then played a lovely ball to Gray, but Boly muscled him off the ball and came away with it. Pereyra released Deulofeu who tried to chip the keeper, but Patricio made the catch. The first booking of the game went to Moutinho for barging Hughes over. Not wanting to be left out, Holebas then fouled Jota to get a yellow card of his own. Watford had a decent chance to take the lead as Doucouré headed the ball down to Pereyra, but the shot was wide of the near post.
Perayra prepares to take a corner
There were shouts for a penalty as a shot from Hughes appeared to be handled, but the referee wasn’t interested. That was Will’s last involvement in the game as he was replaced with Kabasele. Hughes had been terrific, absolutely everywhere, and deserved the ovation that he was given when he left the pitch. But the change in formation did not favour the Hornets and the next chance fell to Moutinho who tried a shot from distance that was deflected over the bar. The winning goal for the visitors seemed to come out of nothing. A long cross-field ball from Neves found Jota who finished past Foster. From the other end of the ground, it just looked unfortunate, but reports from those at the Vicarage Road end indicated that Foster should have done better with the cross. Others blamed Storm Hannah. Gracia was forced into a substitution bringing Success (!) on for Cathcart who had been limping for a while. I love Javi, but his substitutions on Saturday were interesting to say the least. Jota was booked for time wasting after kicking the ball away when Watford were awarded a free kick. It was amusing to see him trying to claim that he had been passing the ball back to Foster. The visitors made a late substitution bringing Cavaleiro on for Jiménez, who ambled off the pitch. There were shouts for a penalty from the Wolves fans as Kabasele brought Jota down in the box. It looked like a superb tackle from where we were and the referee agreed. There was a late booking for Capoue who then got involved in a spot of handbags. Nuno brought Gibbs-White on for Jota to waste a little more time. The final whistle went soon after, ensuring that Wolves left Hertfordshire with the three points and in pole position to finish in seventh place.
Capoue leaving Mapps to do the work at a corner 😉
Unlike on Tuesday, it was hard to be angry at the end of this game. The word that I heard repeatedly was “disappointing”. It had been a very even contest between two well matched teams and the best team on the day won the game. Again, we missed Deeney’s leadership. That harsh sending off has probably prevented us finishing as the best of the rest. However, we can only hope that the rest has done him good and he comes back to spearhead a barnstorming end to the season that finishes with him lifting the FA Cup.
After the game, my sister, Rose, insisted on going into the Hornet shop, having seen our Cate’s purchase of the cup final shirt placing GT in 1984 alongside Javi in 2019. We both emerged with the same t-shirt, probably the first time the three of us will have an identical item of clothing since our lovely Mum used to make our dresses in the 70s.
I know that the most important game is the next one, but now that seventh place looks impossible, all focus is on the Cup Final, which has to be the better way to qualify for Europe. Oh dear, there go those nerves again.
This entry was posted in Watford FC and tagged Abdoulaye Doucoure, Adrian Mariappa, Andre Gray, Ben Foster, Christian Kabasele, Conor Coady, Craig Cathcart, Diogo Jota, Etienne Capoue, Gerard Deulofeu, Isaac Success, Ivan Cavaleiro, Javi Gracia, Joao Moutinho, Jonny Castro Otto, Jose Holebas, Kiko Femenia, Leander Dendoncker, Matt Doherty, Morgan Gibbs-White, Raul Jimenez, Roberto Pereyra, Ruben Neves, Rui Patricio, Ryan Bennett, Watford FC, Will Hughes, Willy Boly on April 29, 2019 by franelynn.
Tears, Hugs and a Wonderful Win at Wembley
The pre-match display at Wembley
My build-up to the semi-final had been less than ideal as I had woken up in the middle of the night after the Fulham game with a streaming cold and felt rotten for the rest of the week. For this reason, it seemed sensible to have a quiet Saturday at home to prepare for the game. Big mistake. I don’t know how many times I checked the fixture lists to confirm that the game wasn’t actually on Saturday and I was missing it. I felt jumpy all day and settling down to watch the other semi-final didn’t help. Sadly, that game was a non-event. City scored early and that was it. It was a very dull game but provided confirmation that we would be playing for the chance to meet City in the final. My viewing on Saturday evening had to be carefully chosen and I opted for “I Believe in Miracles” the documentary about Clough’s Forest and their run to becoming European Cup winners. It was just brilliant and set me up nicely for the next day (after I watched the segment on the Premier League show featuring Gracia, Deulofeu and Luther).
So, finally, the day of the FA Cup semi-final dawned, and I was up bright and early and facing the dilemmas that come on the day of an important match. What top should I wear under my replica shirt? What mug should I use for my coffee? I was tempted to use my Hornets mug, but eventually plumped for the Luther8 one. It seemed only right. On social media in the morning there was a lovely exchange between Nigel Gibbs and Tony Coton about going to the game and the fact that they had bought tickets to be in with the fans. Legends, both of them. It had also been heart-warming to see Woking FC wishing us luck. It was where the journey began.
The 1881 Singing Section
After ensuring that my (regulation size) bag was packed with everything that I would need (don’t forget your tickets) and that my lucky seashell from Woking was still in my pocket, I left to catch the train to London. On the first leg from Windsor to Slough I noticed a guy looking at me, but assumed it was my loud scarf that had attracted his attention, so didn’t take much notice.
On arrival at Paddington, I spotted a flash of yellow, turned and realised it was actually the old gold of Wolves, so walked on. My journey to our meeting place took me past Marylebone, which was surrounded with Wolves fans. The first Watford scarves that I spotted were outside the designated pre-match pub and worn by the friends that I was meeting. We had arrived before opening time and quite a crowd was gathering, so we were thankful that Richard had booked a table for us. As we waited, some Wolves fans appeared and were absolutely lovely. None of us was confident of a win, but all thought that it would be a good game.
As our group gathered, it was an occasion to remember absent friends. Dee and Toddy were both with us on our last visit to Wembley and their absence was keenly felt. We hoped that the lads would do them proud.
Gomes and Deeney
After we had been fed and watered, we left in plenty of time to get to Wembley as I had one final ticket to drop off and, after an easy journey, we were outside Entrance P. I immediately bumped into Adam to hand over the ticket and then saw that the rest of our party, who had come from the Watford direction, were all in the queue just in front of us. At this point, all was right with my world.
As we took our seats, Farzana handed out the A4 bags that she had made from Watford FC curtains and we draped the Rocket Men and Golden Gomes banners in front of our seats. She had also knit Gomes and Deeney dolls, but sadly they were too large to bring into the stadium so had been left at home. As we waited for kick-off, it was lovely to see our Emma and Tim on the pitch representing Watford.
We then got to see the pre-match displays. The one planned by Wolves had been advertised the previous day and it had looked as though it would be impressive. When we got to our seats, we found yellow flags. I was concerned that they were a little too much on the amber side and it wouldn’t be a match for what Wolves had planned. Then the Watford crowd started waving the flags and the yellow, red and black display with the movement was absolutely fantastic and the energy meant that the Wolves display looked far too static.
There had been a lot of discussion about the possible team selection, especially the goalkeeping position. When the starting XI was announced, we found that Gracia had kept faith with Gomes and had decide to bring Gray in for Deulofeu after his terrific performance against Fulham. So the starting line-up was Gomes; Femenía, Mariappa, Cathcart, Holebas; Hughes, Doucouré, Capoue, Pereyra; Gray, Deeney.
The game started brightly for Wolves who had their first chance on 23 seconds with a shot from Otto that flew over the bar. Watford won an early corner, but Ruddy was up to punch it clear, Pereyra picked up the ball and put in a cross, but Ruddy made the catch. Wolves then won a free kick in a dangerous position after Hughes fouled Otto. Moutinho stepped up to take it and it landed on the roof of the net, much to my relief. The first booking of the game went to Saïss for a foul on Pereyra. Wolves threatened again as a cross from Otto was touched on by Jota, but they couldn’t get a shot away. Neves was the next to go into the referee’s book, again for a foul on Pereyra. Holebas took the free kick, but Hughes met it with a dreadful mishit shot that sent the ball ballooning away. Some nice passing between Gray and Pereyra led to the ball reaching Deeney on the edge of the area, but his shot was high and wide of the target. Watford should have taken the lead on the half hour as Deeney flicked the ball over to Gray who, with only Ruddy to beat, got his foot under the ball and it looped over the bar when it looked easier to score. That miss looked all the more costly as Wolves took the lead soon after. A shot from distance from Dendoncker was tipped over by Gomes. The resulting corner was played short to Jota who crossed for Doherty to head past Gomes. Wolves had their tails up now and threatened again as Boly found Jota who advanced and, thankfully, shot just wide. Watford then had a corner which they also took short, but Femenía’s cross was a comfortable catch for Ruddy. Gray had a chance to grab an equaliser just before half time, but this time Coady made the block when Gray looked sure to score. So we reached half time a goal down, feeling rather hard done by after what had been an even half of football.
Heurelho Gomes at Wembley
Luther was the Watford representative at half time. I still look back with sadness at seeing him walk around the pitch before the 1984 Cup Final, which came at the end of his gap year. We passed our time in the stands enjoying half-time samosas to keep our strength up for the rest of the game.
Wolves nearly had a great start to the second half as Saïss played a ball over to Jiménez, who beat the defence, but not Gomes who was down to make the block. Watford created an opening as Femenía crossed for Doucouré, but the Frenchman couldn’t make a firm connection, so his header looped wide. Jota then beat Cathcart (I know!!!) before crossing for Jiménez, but the shot was easy for Gomes. Deeney then got the ball just outside the box and played a low cross, but it was too heavy and flew past Gray and wide of the target. The first booking for the Hornets went to Cathcart for a foul on Jota just outside the box. Neves took the free kick which flew well wide of the far post. Watford then had a free kick in a dangerous position, Pereyra’s delivery reached Deeney who headed just wide. Watford had another decent chance to equalise as Pereyra played a through ball to Gray, but the shot was poor and over the bar.
Pereyra takes a free kick
Holebas received his booking of the afternoon for stopping a break by Jota. From the free kick, Jiménez took the ball down and poked it past Gomes to put Wolves two goals ahead. So frustrating to concede again after a really good spell for the Hornets. There was still half an hour to go, but it wasn’t looking good for the Hornets. We hadn’t taken our chances and it looked as though we would be punished for it. Gracia made his first substitution bringing Deulofeu on for Hughes. Soon after, while waiting for a throw-in, there was an announcement that a VAR check was underway for a red card. Nobody had any idea what this related to until my brother-in-law, who listens to the commentary during the game, said that it was due to Deulofeu putting his head into Moutinho’s face. It had looked rather innocuous from where we were sitting and, thankfully, the decision was not to show a card. There was another identical announcement soon after, I have no idea whether it was related to the same incident, but it was extremely irritating. Watford threatened again when Gray got on the end of a cross from Femenía, but again it was headed over the bar. There were then a number of half chances for the Hornets. Deulofeu put in a cross which Ruddy gathered under challenge from Doucouré. Holebas crossed again for Doucouré, but his shot was blocked. It had been a good spell, but we just didn’t look like we would get the breakthrough.
Deulofeu goes to celebrate with Deeney after the penalty
Then a throw-in from Holebas was knocked back to Deulofeu, it didn’t look particularly dangerous for the opposition until Gerry nonchalantly lifted the ball into the top far corner. It was a gorgeous goal out of nothing and suddenly it was game on with 10 minutes remaining. Watford’s next chance came from a corner, the delivery from Holebas was good, but it was headed behind for another corner. This one was flicked on by Deeney to Holebas, but his shot was blocked. Wolves made their first substitution as Bennett replaced Neves. Watford threatened again with a great cross from Kiko, but Ruddy just got to it. Then the ball fell to Holebas in a great position, but he blasted it over the bar. It wasn’t going to be our day. As Wolves made a late substitution, replacing Jota with Cavaleiro, I prepared myself for defeat. But, when the four minutes of added time was announced, I joined with my fellow Watford fans in roaring our encouragement to the team. Then, just as the four minutes were almost up, Deeney got the ball in the box and fell under a challenge from Dendoncker. Referee Oliver continued his habit of awarding late, dramatic penalties, but this one had to wait for the VAR review. I was beside myself at this point. After what seemed like an age, VAR confirmed the referee’s decision. Luckily, I was able to take a seat to watch it, as my legs were jelly. Troy’s weren’t, he stepped up and the ball hit the net in front of us and the crowd went properly wild. Screams and hugs and tears greeting the goal we thought would never come. The game restarted, but the whistle soon went for the end of normal time and we had earned ourselves another 30 minutes.
Holebas prepares for a corner
I have to say that we thoroughly deserved that. A draw seemed like a fair result, and surely the Hornets would have the momentum going into extra time. However, it was the Wolves side who had the upper hand in the early exchanges and the first goal opportunity came from a decent shot from Otto that Gomes managed to tip over. There was some bad news for Watford as Holebas went down injured. He tried to carry on, but eventually limped off to be replaced by Masina. I was concerned at this point as Holebas had been terrific. There was another booking for the Hornets as Capoue was cautioned for a foul on Dendoncker. Santo made another substitution as Traore came on for Moutinho. Then, in the last minute of the first period of extra time, Watford broke forward, Gray released Deulofeu who beat a defender before shooting into the far corner past Ruddy to send the Watford fans wild again. Wolves tried to hit back immediately, but their break was foiled by a great tackle from Mariappa. The resultant corner was easily gathered by Gomes. There was a substitution for each side as Vinagre replaced Otto for Wolves and Femenía made way for Janmaat for the Hornets. Wolves had a chance to level the game but the header from Jiménez flew wide of the near post. Then the goal hero, Deulofeu, picked up an injury and had to be replaced by Sema. Watford tried to consolidate their lead as Deeney got into the box and tried to lay the ball off to Doucouré, but the pass was intercepted. Then Traore tried a shot from a tight angle, but it was an easy catch for Gomes. Wolves had one last chance to take the game to penalties, and it was a great one, as Cavaleiro beat Mariappa and rounded Gomes, but Heurelho did enough to put the Wolves man off and he lost control of the ball allowing Mariappa to clear the danger. The whistle went to euphoria mixed with disbelief in the Watford end. There was a lot of tearful hugging among our group. I couldn’t quite believe what I had seen. Amelia was the clearest thinking as she commented that maybe they should rethink the Man of the Match award (that had been given to Jiménez some time before the end of normal time).
The family at the semi-final
After the game, there were rapturous celebrations both on and off the pitch. We stayed in the stand to cheers the lads on and witness their joy. It was lovely to see that this meant as much to the players as it did to us. The cheers of the fans who had remained in their seats were finally rewarded as the players came together to rush towards the crowd behind the goal. It was just joyous. We seemed to be there for an age, but it still took us a long time to leave the ground as we kept bumping into friends for more hugs and expressions of disbelief.
A number of us headed back to central London for a celebratory beverage and to raise a glass to Dee and Toddy who would have loved the day. There was nothing but pride in the team and what they had achieved against a very good Wolves side. The Wolves fans that we had met before the game had returned to the pub and, as they left, wished us well.
I stayed rather longer in the pub than was sensible, so missed the last train from Slough to Windsor. As the taxi dropped me off at the end of my road, I heard a voice. “Excuse me. Were you at Wembley today? Is that your car with the Watford stuff in the back?” It was the guy that I had seen on the train this morning. Turns out I am not the only Hornet in my small street in Windsor. Who knew?
Golden Gomes
A day later and I have still not quite come to terms with what I witnessed yesterday. To come back from two goals down against a team like Wolves shows the tremendous spirit in this team. They seem to be a group of players who love each other and the manager and that love has transmitted to the fans. This has been the best season that I can remember for decades and it will end with an FA Cup final at Wembley. As someone who has supported an unfashionable team for 40 years, I find it amazing that in that time I have been to six FA Cup semi-finals. On 18th May, I will attend my second FA Cup final and will be accompanied by a large group of family and friends. I have met so many lovely people while following the Hornets and it is really special to share these great times with them.
When Watford lost the Play-off final in 2013, my niece Amelia was in tears and I was devastated. Yesterday she was in tears again, but they were tears of joy and it made the day all the more special. Her Mum and I were at Villa Park for the semi-final against Plymouth and at Wembley for the final against Everton. Now we will all be at Wembley for this year’s final and we can dare to dream. Whatever the outcome, this season will live long in the memory.
This entry was posted in Watford FC and tagged Abdoulaye Doucoure, Adam Masina, Adama Traore, Adrian Mariappa, Andre Gray, Conor Coady, Craig Cathcart, Diogo Jota, Etienne Capoue, Gerard Deulofeu, Heurelho Gomes, Ivan Cavaleiro, Javi Gracia, Joao Moutinho, John Ruddy, Jonny Castro Otto, Jose Holebas, Ken Sema, Kiko Femenia, Leander Dendoncker, Matt Doherty, Nuno Espirito Santo, Raul Jimenez, Roberto Pereyra, Romain Saiss, Ruben Neves, Ruben Vinagre, Ryan Bennett, Troy Deeney, Watford FC, Will Hughes, Willy Boly, Wolverhampton Wanderers FC on April 8, 2019 by franelynn.
Back to Winning Ways at Wolves
Masina, Mariappa and Cathcart
Thankfully I chose the weekend of the Bournemouth game to travel to the Turks & Caicos for a week’s diving. Although I made the mistake of listening to the game, which was not a good start to the holiday. But it has to be said that, despite the recent poor run of results, this seemed to be the first bad performance of the season and it was good that the lads had the international break to give them time to recover. Since Watford’s downturn started after Javi won the Manager of the Month award, I was hoping that the curse would now transfer to Nuno.
A trip to Molineux evoked awful memories of our last visit which ended with one of our regular travelling fans, Nic Cruwys, fighting for his life following an attack after the game. Having previously witnessed an attack on the Watford fans’ coaches (which are generally used by families and the elderly), I was not looking forward to this trip. Our party decided to delay our arrival by meeting in our pre-match pub of choice in Birmingham instead. When I arrived early doors, Graham was already in place, but the pub was otherwise almost empty. Then, suddenly, there was an invasion of Morris Dancers. The bells were driving me crazy. Having thought we had found a quiet spot, the rest of our party arrived to find a dance taking place in front of our table. I couldn’t help reflecting on the irony that the two Morris dancers in our usual away crowd had decided to give this game a miss.
The Wolves Pyro Display
We left Birmingham in plenty of time to make the journey to Wolverhampton. On arrival at the station, we were met by a phalanx of police who directed us behind the station and on a rather circuitous route as they didn’t want Watford fans walking through the city centre. I must say that the route that we took seemed a little too out of the way for my liking, but there were police officers stationed at various points on the way and we arrived at the ground with no sign of any trouble.
Team news was that, in addition to the suspensions of Kabasele and Holebas, Deeney had picked up a minor injury and Gracia had decided to drop Gray to the bench, the replacements being Mariappa (who also captained the team), Masina, Deulofeu and Success. So the starting line-up was Foster; Femenía, Cathcart. Mariappa, Masina; Deulofeu, Hughes, Capoue, Doucouré, Pereyra; Success. Wolves were unchanged for the ninth game this season.
As the teams came out prior to kick-off, there were some very impressive pyrotechnics. Our pitch side seats meant there was a danger of scorching, my eyebrows may never recover. When it was over, we couldn’t see the pitch for the smoke. It seems that Wolves subscribe to the adage “no pyro, no party”.
Finding a shady spot to celebrate Capoue’s goal
As well as the overheating prior to kick-off, the stand had no leg room (I am 5ft6in and could not sit comfortably, even if the people in front had allowed me to do so) and was also bathed in bright sunlight, which made it incredibly difficult to watch the game. The first half chance of the match came as a free-kick from Neves was headed over by Masina. The resultant corner was met with a looping header from Bennett that was pushed over the bar by Foster. The second corner led to a quick break by the Hornets as Femenía hared upfield before finding Deulofeu whose cross was straight into the arms of the Wolves keeper, Patricio. After an even start that had been short on chances, Watford took the lead on 20 minutes. The move started with some really good work from Deulofeu before Doucouré played the ball out to Capoue who blasted a low shot from distance into the Wolves net. There was a momentary delay before the celebration as we couldn’t quite believe what we had seen. It was a terrific strike. We had hardly stopped bouncing when the second goal went in. Straight from the restart, the ball found its way to Pereyra on the left from where he effortlessly curled a shot over the keeper and into the opposite corner. Well, that was unexpected!
Man of the match, Capoue, lining up a free kick
Wolves seemed a bit shell shocked at that point and the next Watford attack finished with Success being taken out. The travelling Hornets were shouting for a penalty, but the referee indicated that the foul had been committed outside the area. It was in a dangerous position, but Deulofeu’s free-kick was disappointingly straight into the wall. The first booking of the game went to Neves after a foul on Hughes. Watford continued to dominate and some lovely passing around the Wolves box finished with Doucouré playing the ball back to Pereyra who curled his shot over the bar. There was a rare attack from the home side as Jiménez broke forward and got into a dangerous position, but his shot was poor and flew wide of the far post. After another lovely passing move involving Femenía and Hughes, the ball reached Doucouré whose shot was saved by Patricio dropping low to gather. The half time whistle went with the Hornets two goals ahead and in total control of the game. It had been an impressive half of football from the visitors. The two goals in quick succession had shocked the home side, but it had been a performance of assurance and skill.
Pereyra put in a shift at both ends of the pitch
Wolves made a substitution at the restart bringing Vinagre on for Jonny. Watford started the half well as Success latched on to a through ball and surged forward, but his shot was wide of the target. There was an early chance for the home side as Vinagre tried a shot, but Foster was down to block and the ball was cleared. Foster was taking his time to restart the game, which enraged the Wolves fans behind the goal who were already on his case for his West Brom connections. Ben couldn’t have cared less. Nuno made a second substitution on the hour mark bringing Cavaleiro on for Jiménez. Wolves had a half chance as, from a Moutinho free kick, Boly tried a backheel in the direction of the goal, but Foster was able to make the save. Watford made a rare second half break as Success found Doucouré whose shot was blocked. Hughes was the first Watford player to be cautioned after he pulled back Vinagre as he tried to escape upfield. Gracia’s first substitution saw Gray coming on for Deulofeu, who had run the first half, but had faded since the break. Wolves continued their attempts to break back as Moutinho tried a shot from distance that flew over the bar. The home side then made their last change bringing Traore on for Doherty. Gracia’s next substitution was a defensive one as Prödl replaced Success.
Pereyra and Gray preparing for a corner
At about this time, with 15 minutes to go, the sun disappeared behind the stand and I could finally see the game without having to shield my eyes or being blinded by the glare from my glasses. Wolves were getting closer to reducing the deficit as a cross from Vinagre was headed just over by Cavaleiro. It felt as though the Watford goal was leading a charmed life at this point, but the home side were incredibly wasteful as another free kick from a dangerous position was launched high and wide by Neves. Watford were still making occasional attempts to increase their lead, on this occasion a shot from Gray was blocked, so Hughes tried to score with a tackle, but Patricio was able to gather. With the clock running down, the next chance for Wolves to get something from the game fell to Costa who again directed his shot over the bar. Prödl’s appearance was short lived as he left the field limping and was replaced by Wilmot who was making his Premier League debut. Wolves had one last chance from a free-kick which was met by a glancing header that flew wide. The fourth official indicated four additional minutes, but they were painless for the Hornets who finished the game as deserved winners.
Ben Foster beaming after the final whistle
The post-match celebrations were very enjoyable. Clearly Ben Foster, who had been the target for dog’s abuse for most of the game, was delighted. His fist pumping was almost Gomes-esque! It was also lovely to see players coming over to the fans to present them with shirts, the first being Deulofeu who jumped the barriers to hand his shirt to a fan. But I must admit that the one that got to me was when Aidy Mariappa came over to Flora, one of our wheelchair fans. Aidy also jumped the barriers to reach Flora to hand her his shirt and have a chat with a beaming smile on his face. I had to wipe away a tear.
Before the game, the Watford fans I spoke to had all been of the opinion that a point would have been a good result, but nobody seemed at all confident of that outcome. That two goal first half minute decided the game but, despite the rearguard effort in the second half, Watford were in control for the full ninety minutes and Wolves never looked like getting back in the game. As good at the forward play was in the first half, and there were some absolutely gorgeous moves, the defensive performance in the second half was equally good, with some brilliantly timed tackling and a general sense that Wolves had nowhere to go meaning that they were reduced to long range efforts and set pieces. Deulofeu’s first start of the season was excellent, it was lovely to see him back. But the highlight for me was the fact that, although Capoue and Pereyra will be lauded for their goals, they both put in a shift at the back as well. It was a real team effort.
After the wobble in recent weeks, that was certainly a performance to put smiles back on the faces of Hornets fans and to give us renewed confidence for the rest of the season. Football is fun again.
This entry was posted in Watford FC and tagged Abdoulaye Doucoure, Adam Masina, Adama Traore, Adrian Mariappa, Andre Gray, Ben Foster, Ben Wilmot, Conor Coady, Craig Cathcart, Diogo Jota, Etienne Capoue, Gerard Deulofeu, Helder Costa, Isaac Success, Ivan Cavaleiro, Javi Gracia, Joao Moutinho, Jonathan Castro Otto, Jonny, Kiko Femenia, Matt Doherty, Nuno Espirito Santo, Raul Jimenez, Roberto Pereyra, Ruben Neves, Ruben Vinagre, Rui Patricio, Ryan Bennett, Sebastian Prodl, Watford FC, Will Hughes, Willy Boly, Wolverhampton Wanderers FC on October 22, 2018 by franelynn.
Norwich Down but No Thanks to Watford
The teams emerge
In contrast to the blazing sunshine of Sunday, I arrived in Norwich on a very muggy afternoon. I had a quick wander around the town and then headed for the pre-match pub to meet up with our much depleted party and the Norfolk ‘Orns. The pre-match beers in the sunshine, were very enjoyable and we had the added pleasure of cheering the team bus as it passed on its way to the ground. I must admit that, of the three teams still under threat, Norwich were my first choice for the drop, but I did have to feel sorry for the bloke in the pub who was begging Watford fans for mercy.
When we reached the turnstiles, we encountered a sniffer dog. I know that it is a no-no, but the hound was so adorable that I asked the handler whether I could pet it. She asked me, in return, if I would do her a favour and give the dog something to find. She explained that, when the dogs don’t find anything for a while, they get a bit bored and she wanted to make sure that her charge was still paying attention. So I was given a scent to put in my pocket and asked to come back in again. Once I was assured that this plant would not lead to my arrest, I did as she asked and, sure enough, the hound leapt up at me, identified the scent and was suitably rewarded and I got a doggy cuddle.
Team news was only the one change with Nyom coming in at right back and Prödl making way for Cathcart in the centre of defence. So the starting line-up was Gomes, Anya, Cathcart, Britos, Nyom, Jurado, Watson, Suarez, Abdi, Deeney and Ighalo. It was not a selection to quell the doubts of those calling for Quique’s head.
Celebrating the first goal
The travelling Watford fans started goading their counterparts early on with chants of “We are staying up.” And the game started rather well for the visitors as Troy had an early shot from distance that the Norwich keeper, Ruddy, just kept out. We took the lead on 11 minutes as a long ball from Britos was headed down by Deeney to Ighalo, Ruddy smothered his shot, but the ball broke to Deeney who finished into the empty net. At this stage, it looked as though Norwich could be in for a comprehensive defeat to send them down. That couldn’t have been further from the truth as, a couple of minutes later, an innocuous looking Norwich attack finished with Redmond exchanging passes with Naismith before scoring through the legs of Gomes. The home fans started singing “The Great Escape” at this point. Unbelievably, the home side were 2-1 up soon afterwards as Watford failed to clear the ball allowing Redmond to hit the post and the rebound was buried by Mbokani. Watford tried to hit back with a ball into the box that was gathered by Ruddy with Deeney challenging. There was an immediate counter attack which finished with a shot from Redmond that flew just wide. More lax defending from Watford allowed Redmond to hit the post again, on this occasion the follow-up from Olsson was kept out by a smart save from Gomes. At this point, there were boos ringing out in the away end.
Watson on the ball
Watford gifted Norwich a third in the 37th minute as Watson gave the ball away, Jurado failed to tackle when given the chance and Nyom slipped allowing the ball to run through to Hoolahan, whose cross looked unlikely to trouble the defence until Cathcart intervened to power it past Gomes. You’d have thought that the Watford team had a bet on Norwich to stay up. But, soon after the goal, it became apparent that that was out of their hands as a chant of “1-0 to the Sunderland” went up in the away end indicating Sunderland’s breakthrough against Everton. This was followed by “We are Premier League”. Hmm, not on the evidence of tonight’s showing. Watford attacked again as Watson crossed for Deeney but his shot was saved by Ruddy, and the flag was up anyway. The travelling Hornets continued to console themselves by goading the opposition. This time with “Burton Albion on a Tuesday night,” which sounded rather appealing to me. Norwich had a couple more chances before half time. First Hoolahan played a through ball to Naismith whose shot was saved by Gomes. Then the Watford keeper was called into action again to stop a long range shot from Hoolahan. The half time whistle went to boos from the away end. I never boo my team, but this was one occasion when I had sympathy with those who did.
At half time, I went to chat with Don. You know that things are not going well when even Don can’t find anything positive to say. Although he did manage a complaint about the ref, so I knew he was OK. Our summary of the first half was that the majority of the Watford players were on the beach.
Deeney crosses for the second Watford goal
Flores made a change at half time bringing Aké on for Nyom. There was a bright start to the second period as Anya played a ball down the wing to Deeney who cut back for Igahlo to score his fifteenth league goal of the season, which was also his first in the league since January. The Watford fans greeted the strike with, “We’re gonna win 4-3.” Flores made his second substitution to loud cheers as Jurado made way for Berghuis. Norwich nearly did us a favour as a long ball from Abdi was headed back towards Ighalo by Deeney and Bennett’s attempt to clear flew just over the bar. As it happened, it wouldn’t have counted as he was deemed to have been fouled by the Nigerian. Norwich scored their fourth just before the hour mark as Redmond played a through ball to Mbokani, who dinked it over Gomes. The Norwich fans were doing an impressive job of supporting their team despite knowing that Sunderland were three goals up against Everton, so their fate was sealed. Watford attempted to hit back as Berghuis found Abdi but the shot was just wide of the far post. Watson was booked for a frustrated tackle on Naismith and, soon after, made way for Guedioura. While Norwich’s first change saw Brady coming on for Hoolahan. The home fans continued their impressive support with a chant of “One Alex Neil”.
Berghuis, Guedioura and Abdi discuss a free kick
An extended period of possession for the Hornets finished with Abdi exchanging passes with Berghuis before hitting a volley straight at Ruddy. I thought that Norwich should have been awarded a penalty as Naismith was tripped in the box, but the referee waved play on. Soon after, the Scotsman was replaced by Odjidja-Ofoe and Jarvis came on for the excellent Redmond. Late in the game, Aké was booked for a stupid tackle on Mbokani. There was a great chance for Watford to strike back after Abdi was fouled on the edge of the box. But the ball was placed considerably further back for the free kick and Guedioura hit it into Row Z, summing up the evening. A cross into the Norwich box was met by the head of Anya but he could only direct it back to Ruddy. Then Deeney had one last chance to cut the deficit with a shot from outside the area that Ruddy spilled towards the goal, but managed to recover. In the last minute I, again, thought that we had conceded a penalty, but the trip was outside the area and the free kick was straight into the Watford wall. It was a relief when the final whistle went.
I usually take defeats in my stride and try to take positives from any game. But my patience ran out last night. The dedicated souls who travelled to Norwich took time off work, spent a lot of money on travel, tickets and, in many cases, hotels and were rewarded with an abject performance from a bunch of lads who looked like they were on holiday. I can take being beaten by a better team, but not such a sub-par performance from players who are so much better than that. I was so irate that, as Britos came over to offer his shirt to a fan I found myself shouting “It’s your pay packet you should be giving us, not your shirt”. To be fair, the young girl who went home with the shirt was very happy indeed. The most shocking aspect of the evening was the performance of the defence, which has been excellent for most of the season, but played like clowns on the evening. Even Gomes had a very rare off day. Deeney was the only player to come out of the game with any credit. I’m sure I will calm down by Sunday and, of course, I will be at Vicarage Road to support the lads in the last game of what has been a very successful season. I just hope they end on a high.
This entry was posted in Watford FC and tagged Adlene Guedioura, Alex Neil, Allan Nyom, Almen Abdi, Ben Watson, Craig Cathcart, Daniel Ivo Pinto, Dieumerci Mbokani, Gary O'Neil, Graham Dorrans, Heurelho Gomes, Ikechi Anya, John Ruddy, Jose Manuel Jurado, Mario Suarez, Martin Olsson, Matt Jarvis, Miguel Britos, Nathan Ake, Nathan Redmond, Norwich City FC, Odion Ighalo, Quique Sanchez Flores, Robbie Brady, Russell Martin, Ryan Bennett, Steven Berghuis, Steven Naismith, Troy Deeney, Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe, Watford FC, Wes Hoolahan on May 12, 2016 by franelynn.
Silencing the Canaries
Lloydy at City ‘Orns
On Thursday evening the City ‘Orns had their traditional Christmas curry. This year the usual delightful company was enhanced with a visit from Lloyd Doyley who, for many years, was sponsored by the group. He was in good form, he’s still training at Watford while he searches for a new club. He’s had offers, but is waiting for the right one. After chatting away all evening and submitting to an excess of photos, as we left the restaurant he asked if anyone wanted a lift back to Watford. What a sweetheart. One of our newer members declared that it was the best night of his year.
Back to Saturday and, having missed the last home game, it has been over a month since I was at Vicarage Road, so it was good to be back home. The West Herts was packed when I arrived, but it was good to see all the usual suspects and a special treat to see Tim and Jemima visiting from Norway. A number of our party are Norfolk ‘Orns, so this is a Derby game for them. The Canaries have also been a bogey team for us so, despite our relative positions in the table, there was no complacency in the pre-match discussions.
Ake taking a throw
Team news was that Gomes was fit to start, while Anya and Jurado came in for Paredes and Abdi. There was a lot of muttering about the inclusion of Jurado, who has not impressed to date, over Abdi and Guedioura who, it was said, were not being risked due to knocks that they had picked up at Villa. This caused much muttering, “If they are on the bench, they must be fit.” The starting line-up was Gomes, Aké, Cathcart, Britos, Nyom, Watson, Capoue, Jurado, Deeney, Anya and Ighalo. When Gomes’s name was read out pre-match, it was greeted with an even louder and longer cheer than usual. Norwich’s starters included former Watford loanee, Sebastien Bassong, who was given a good reception from the Hornet faithful. I was also interested to hear that the visitors had Rudd in goal in place of the more famous Ruddy. Do they share shirts?
The improvement of the ground by the Pozzos continues with the addition of a big screen over the Police control room at the Rookery end of the ground. Lucky me as, from my position in the middle of the Rookery, I can see both screens. I am spoiled.
Deeney waiting to take the penalty
The start of the game seemed to be dominated by the visitors but they only had one effort anywhere near the goal, a cross from Grabban that went begging. The first chance for the home side came when Watson hit a shot from distance that was deflected wide by Bassong. Soon after, a shot from Aké was blocked to shouts of ‘hand ball’, but the referee gave nothing. There were more pleas directed at the referee as Capoue put in a looping cross and Deeney went down under a challenge from Bennett but, again, play was waved on. Then Nyom played a lovely through ball to Anya, but he slipped as he put in the cross, so Rudd was able to gather the ball as Ighalo closed in. On 28 minutes Capoue played a ball to Ighalo in the box, where he became the meat in a Tettey-Bassong sandwich and the referee finally pointed to the spot. Rudd delayed the taking of the penalty for as long as he could but, when Deeney stepped up, he coolly put the ball to Rudd’s left sending the keeper the wrong way. Watford had a great chance to increase the lead as Deeney headed the ball down to Ighalo who broke free of the defence but was flagged offside. At the other end a ball into the box seemed to bounce past Gomes with a Norwich player closing in, but the keeper turned and gathered the ball. Watford looked to have increased their lead on 36 minutes as a Nyom cross was slotted home by Ighalo, but the celebrations were cut short by the linesman’s flag.
Deeney sending Rudd the wrong way
The next chance fell to Capoue, who is an absolute hero everywhere on the pitch except in front of goal, he tried a volley from outside the box which was way off target which he acknowledged to the Rookery. Ighalo’s harrying caused Rudd to make a poor clearance that went straight to Jurado, who passed to Deeney who tried to play it through to Anya, but the ball was cut out before it reached the Scotsman. A lovely period of pressing from Ighalo and Deeney frustrated the Norwich defence who could not find a way to get the ball out of their half, eventually Watson got involved and forced Olsson to concede a throw-in to loud applause from the Hornet faithful. Ighalo threatened the Norwich goal yet again in the dying minutes of the half but, again, Rudd managed to block. In time added on, Norwich had their first shot on goal as a Brady free kick was headed over by Bassong.
So we reached half time a goal ahead. Apart from the first few minutes, Watford had completely dominated, Ighalo should have had a couple of goals and Gomes hadn’t had a save to make.
During the break, Malky Mackay was on the pitch with his son, Callum, making the half time draw. He said nice things about both of his old clubs and predicted that we would both survive. He paid tribute to the Pozzos for what they have done since they came in and was also very complimentary about his fellow Glaswegian, Anya. There were a few boos from the back of the Rookery as his name was announced, but he received warm applause as he walked along the front of the Rookery.
Gomes in goal
There was a lively start to the second half. A quick throw from Ighalo set Anya up, but his shot was over the target. At the other end, Capoue and Cathcart both let a ball go over their heads under the assumption that Gomes would gather, but they hadn’t seen Brady lurking and there were huge sighs of relief in the Rookery when he shot wide. There was a worrying moment as Aké and Wisdom challenged for a header, the Watford man was knocked flying and fell very awkwardly. We could see his legs moving, but he was keeping his head and neck rigid and there was soon a stretcher on the pitch. Thankfully, on this occasion, it wasn’t required and Nathan was able to continue in the game. Almost immediately he showed that there were no ill effects as he went on a storming run down the left before putting in a great cross that Ighalo was unable to convert. Soon after, Jurado won the ball and broke clear, he found Ighalo who battled against a defender to get a shot in but the ball was deflected into the side netting. A Norwich break was stopped as Deeney bundled Brady over and was shown a yellow card for his trouble. A lovely passing move from Watford, including a trademark nutmeg from Capoue, finished disappointingly with a welly from Aké. Watson slid into a tackle on Olsson, he won the ball but the Norwich player fell over his trailing leg so Ben received a yellow card for what appeared to be a good tackle. From Brady’s free kick, Mbokani was challenging but Gomes caught the ball.
Capoue lining up in the box with Ake and Deeney
Capoue showed his skills again, taking the ball from between a Norwich player’s legs and disappearing up the field, he skipped past two players before playing a through ball to Ighalo whose shot was saved. Ighalo threatened again as he received a ball over the top from Deeney, he did well to get into position for the shot but it was rather weak and easily gathered by Rudd. A dangerous clearance from the Norwich keeper was gathered by Gomes as Brady challenged. Deeney played another ball over the top to Ighalo and this time the Nigerian’s shot was wide of the far post. Flores’s first substitution was to replace Anya with Paredes. A break from Ighalo was stopped as he was sent flying by Bennett who was booked for the offence. Watford’s second substitution saw Jurado replaced by Abdi. It has to be said that, after a ropey start, Jurado had grown into the game and put in his best performance to date. Watford’s next chance came as Aké played a cross field ball to Paredes, who crossed for Ighalo whose shot was saved by Rudd. Yet another chance fell to Ighalo and, yet again, Rudd blocked it. A rare threat by the visitors was wasted as a ball into the box was met with a back header by Jerome that went out for a goal kick, when Brady was lurking behind him in a more dangerous position.
Watson takes a free kick
Gomes gave us another worrying moment as he went down needing treatment but, thankfully, he was able to continue. Abdi had been a man possessed since he came on, putting in an uncharacteristically aggressive performance, and after a battling run down the wing alongside Brady his opponent was booked for a petulant push. In the last moments of the game, Ighalo took another tumble in the box, but this time the referee waved play on. There was a spell of pressure in the Watford area as we failed to clear but it finished with a looping ball into the area from Bennett that was easily gathered by Gomes. As Emma announced six minutes of time added on, my heart sank, but our nerves were soon calmed as Deeney found Ighalo in the box who worked his way into position and shot past Rudd. He thoroughly deserved his goal as he had been working his socks off and he celebrated by throwing his shirt away. I’m sure the booking didn’t faze him. Soon after, he was replaced by Guedioura and went up to shake the referee’s hand before he left the field. Bless his heart. Norwich never looked like striking back and the last goal chance of the game came when a poor clearance from Rudd reached Guedioura, he tried to chip the keeper who was out of his goal but the ball flew over the bar. It was worth trying.
Deeney and Britos ready for action
The final whistle went after the quickest 6 minutes of injury time that I have ever experienced. Despite the scoreline, it had been a convincing win. In the celebrations on the pitch, the Quique hugs were in evidence. First a very warm embrace for Gomes. Then he approached Harry Hornet, who dropped his drum like a brick in order to enjoy his hug. Well done to Flores for recognizing the incredible work that Harry does during games. The performances this season have not generally needed the addition of his entertainment, but he is always there in a quiet moment to make the crowd laugh and encourage them to cheer their team on.
The table on Saturday evening showed us in 9th place. Due to the number of games played at odd times, the position at 5pm on Saturday can be misleading but examination of the remaining fixtures for the weekend indicated that only Everton, playing on Monday, could overtake us, so we are guaranteed to be in the top half at the end of the weekend. I expected us to make a good fist of it this season, but this is beyond my wildest dreams.
This entry was posted in Watford FC and tagged Adlene Guedioura, Alex Neil, Alex Tettey, Allan Nyom, Almen Abdi, Andre Wisdom, Ben Watson, Cameron Jerome, Craig Cathcart, Declan Rudd, Dieumerci Mbokani, Etienne Capoue, Graham Dorrans, Harry Hornet, Heurelho Gomes, Ikechi Anya, Jonny Howson, Jose Manuel Jurado, Juan Carlos Paredes, Lewis Grabban, Martin Olsson, Miguel Britos, Nathan Ake, Nathan Redmond, Norwich City FC, Odion Ighalo, Quique Sanchez Flores, Robbie Brady, Ryan Bennett, Sebastien Bassong, Troy Deeney, Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe, Watford FC on December 6, 2015 by franelynn.
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Glucagon-like peptide-1: a potent regulator of food intake in humans
J-P Gutzwillerb,
B Gökec,
J Drewea,
P Hildebranda,
S Ketterera,
D Handschina,
R Winterhalderb,
D Conenb,
C Beglingera
aDivision of Gastroenterology and Department of Research, University Hospital, CH-4031 Basel, Switzerland, bKantonsspital Aarau, CH-5000 Aarau, Switzerland, cClinical Research Unit for Gastrointestinal Endocrinology, Philipps University of Marburg, D-35033 Marburg, Germany
Dr C Beglinger.
Background/Aims Studies in animals suggest a physiological role for glucagon-like peptide-1-(7–36)-amide (GLP-1) in regulating satiety. The role of GLP-1 in regulating food intake in man has, however, not been investigated.
Subjects—Sixteen healthy male subjects were examined in a double blind placebo controlled fashion.
Methods The effect of graded intravenous doses (0, 0.375, 0.75, and 1.5 pmol/kg/min) of synthetic human GLP-1 on food intake and feelings of hunger and satiety was tested in healthy volunteers.
Results Graded GLP-1 infusions resulted in a dose dependent reduction in food intake (maximal inhibition 35%, p<0.001 vcontrol) and a similar reduction in calorie intake (32%; p<0.001). Fluid ingestion was also reduced by GLP-1 (18% reduction, p<0.01). No overt side effects were produced by GLP-1, but subjects experienced less hunger and early fullness in the period before a meal during GLP-1 infusion at the highest dose (p<0.05).
Conclusions Intravenous infusions of GLP-1 decrease spontaneous food intake even at physiological plasma concentrations, implying an important role for GLP-1 in the regulation of the early satiety response in humans.
food intake
hunger and fullness score
cholecystokinin
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/gut.44.1.81
The physiological mechanisms that produce satiety after food intake have not yet been defined. Several peptides secreted from the gastrointestinal tract during eating have been shown to suppress food intake if given before meals.1-3 During recent years, the role of the preabsorptive release of gut peptides (especially cholecystokinin (CCK), bombesin-like peptides, and glucagon-like peptides) in the production of meal-ending satiety has been extensively investigated in animals.3-11
CCK and bombesin-like peptides have also been studied in humans.9 ,10 CCK, the first gut peptide proposed to act as a satiety signal,4 has received the major share of interest in human studies to date, with a dozen reports in the literature.
Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a biologically active product of the post-translational processing of the prohormone proglucagon, is released from enteroendocrine L-cells from the distal gut in response to food intake.12-14 Oral glucose is a stimulus for GLP-1 release, whereas intravenously applied glucose has no effect on endogenous GLP-1. Unexpectedly, later experiments in rats showed that GLP-1 reduced food intake in rats if administered intracerebroventricularly, but had no effect when given peripherally.8 Additional experiments with a specific GLP-1 receptor antagonist that acts specifically to block endogenous peptide and thus affects only physiologically active circuits showed that blockade of endogenous GLP-1 caused healthy already satieted animals to eat more; in fact, the animals more than doubled their food intake. The authors suggested therefore that GLP-1 is a physiological satiety factor.8 The effects of GLP-1 on food intake in humans are not known. Therefore the present study was designed to investigate the effects of intravenous infusions of synthetic human GLP-1 on food intake, meal duration, satiety, and feelings of fullness in healthy male subjects.
A randomised double blind four period latin square design was carried out in 16 healthy men aged 23.6 (0.5) years. The weight of all subjects was within the normal range considering their age, sex, and height.
Each subject gave written informed consent for the study. The protocol was approved by the human ethical research committees of the University Hospitals of Basel and Aarau. Before being accepted, participants were required to complete a medical interview, receive a full physical examination, and participate in an initial laboratory screening. None were taking any medication or had a history of food allergies, disturbances of carbohydrate tolerance, or dietary restrictions.
DOSE-RESPONSE CURVE TO GLP-1
Four treatments, separated by at least seven days, were performed in 16 subjects. The treatments were identical in design (fig 1) except for the intravenous infusion (5% glucose as placebo control or one dose of GLP-1); the order of the experiments was randomised. An identical standard meal was presented to the subjects on each occasion. The meal consisted of orange juice as an appetiser (480 kcal/l), ham sandwiches (60 g bread, 10 g butter, 25 g ham; 266 kcal per sandwich), more orange juice and chocolate pudding (172 kcal/100 g), and coffee with cream and sugar (coffee could be sweetened if desired; therefore both cream and sugar were optional: 12 g cream = 20 kcal, 4.5 g sugar = 18 kcal). No additional food or fluid was allowed during the study. At the end of the experiment, the amount of food eaten and the amount of fluid ingested were measured from which the total calorie intake (food and fluid intake) was calculated.
Daily time course of procedures.
Subjects were free to eat and drink as much as they wished, but the order of food intake had to follow the above schedule. To reduce the participants’ awareness of the amount of food being provided, food was served in excess.
On the day of the experiment, the subjects ate breakfast if this was their normal custom, but no snacks were allowed after 8 00 am. At 12 00 noon, an intravenous infusion of 5% glucose or one dose of synthetic GLP-1 (0.375, 0.75, or 1.5 pmol/kg/min, dissolved in 5% glucose solution) was started and continued for the duration of each experiment. Infusions were delivered by ambulatory infusion pumps through a Teflon catheter inserted into a forearm vein. Participants were able to sit, eat, stand, and walk comfortably while receiving infusions. At 60 minutes after the start of the respective infusion, the test meal was presented and participants were invited to eat and drink as much as they liked.
Beginning at 12 00 noon, the subjects scored their subjective feelings of hunger and fullness at 15 minute intervals throughout the experiments using a visual analogue scale of 0–10 and indicated the scores on a questionnaire. The scales and scores were designed as previously described.15-17 For example, a score of 0 for hunger indicated the subject was not hungry at all, 2 indicated slightly hungry, 5 indicated moderately hungry, 8 indicated very hungry, and 10 indicated absolutely ravenous.
The quantity of food eaten and volume of fluid drunk were measured. The time taken to complete the meal was also measured. From these observations, the average rate of food and fluid intake as well as the calorie intake could be calculated. In the periods before and after eating, blood was drawn at regular intervals in ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid tubes containing aprotinin (1000 KIU/ml blood) for glucose and hormone determinations. Adverse effects were assessed by the attending physician through close observation of the participants; in addition, after each experiment and after all tests had been completed, participants were asked whether they had experienced any adverse effects.
The GLP-1 infusions were prepared from a freeze dried synthetic powder. GLP-1 was purchased from Bachem (Bubendorf, Switzerland). The peptide was dissolved in 5% glucose containing 0.5% human serum albumin and prepared under aseptic conditions by the University of Basel Hospital Pharmacy. Aliquots of 50 μg/5 ml were stored at −20°C. Infusion solutions were prepared by diluting appropriate amounts of GLP-1 with 5% glucose containing 0.1% human serum albumin. Control solutions contained albumin in 5% glucose alone; they were indistinguishable in appearance from GLP-1 infusions.
The person in charge of the experiments was unaware of the respective treatment, thereby making it possible to deliver treatments in a double blind fashion.
PLASMA HORMONE AND GLUCOSE DETERMINATIONS
Glucose concentrations were measured by the hexokinase method. Plasma concentrations of insulin, CCK, GLP-1, and leptin were measured as depicted in fig 1. All hormone concentrations were determined by specific radioimmunoassay systems. For insulin and leptin concentrations, commercially available test kits were used.
Plasma immunoreactive CCK concentrations were measured by a sensitive radioimmunoassay17 based on the antiserum OAL656 which recognises the sulphated tyrosine residue of CCK8, but has no relevant cross reactivity with sulphated gastrin (<1%) and does not cross react with unrelated gastrointestinal peptides.18 GLP-1 was measured as previously described.1 ,19 ,20 The detection limit of the GLP-1 assay was 2 fmol/tube. The assay does not have any significant cross reactivity with gastric inhibitory peptide, pancreatic glucagon, glicentin, oxyntomodulin, or GLP-2. Intra-assay and inter-assay coefficients of variation were 3.4 and 10.4% respectively.
The amount of food eaten and the amount of fluid drunk, the corresponding energy intake, and the duration of food consumption were compared between the four treatments by one way analysis of variance using the general linear model procedure of the SAS software package.21 In the event of significant differences, analysis of variance was followed by the Newman-Keuls multicomparison test for pairwise comparisons.22 The same statistical procedure was used to analyse the results of GLP-1 induced changes in plasma hormone concentrations using area under the curve analysis.
Scores for hunger and fullness were compared at the different time points before and after the meal between the different treatments using multiple paired t tests with Bonferroni correction.22
EFFECT OF GRADED INFUSION OF GLP-1 ON FOOD INTAKE
Intravenous infusion of graded doses of synthetic human GLP-1 dose-dependently reduced the amount of food eaten and the amount of fluid consumed (p<0.001 and p<0.01 respectively; table 1). The maximal reduction in food consumption with the highest dose of GLP-1 (1.5 pmol/kg/min) amounted to 35% resulting in a decrease in calorie intake of 32% (p<0.001; table 1).
Effect of graded doses (pmol/kg/min) of human glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) or 5% glucose on eating behaviour in 16 healthy male subjects
Meal duration during GLP-1 infusions was also dose-dependently decreased compared with that with placebo and reached statistical significance at the highest dose (p<0.05). None of the participants reported any abdominal discomfort or side effects during any infusion of either dose. Furthermore, when questioned at the end of each experiment, none reported any adverse reaction.
EFFECT OF GLP-1 ON EATING BEHAVIOUR
Subjects experienced a reduced degree of hunger and a concomitant feeling of fullness in the period before the meal with increasing doses of GLP-1 infusions. However, the difference reached statistical significance only for the highest dose of GLP-1 with respect to hunger feelings (p<0.05–0.01; fig 2). No statistical differences were observed thereafter in hunger or fullness scores with any treatment after meal intake.
Subjective sensations of hunger (A) and fullness (B) experienced by healthy male subjects before and after food intake during intravenous infusion of 5% glucose (placebo) or one dose (0.375, 0.75, or 1.5 pmol/kg/min) of human glucagon-like peptide-1. Results are expressed as mean and SEM (n = 16). *p<0.05, **p<0.01 v control.
EFFECT OF GLP-1 ON HORMONE LEVELS
Graded doses of exogenous GLP-1 produced dose dependent increases in plasma GLP-1 concentrations (fig 3). The two lower doses produced plasma levels of 3.7 (0.6) and 5.0 (0.6) pmol/l respectively, which can be considered physiological postprandial plasma levels, whereas the highest dose of GLP-1 resulted in supraphysiological plasma concentrations.19 ,20
Immunoreactive glucagon-like peptide-1 (IR-GLP-1) measured in the plasma (pmol/l) in response to graded doses of intravenous GLP-1 or placebo in the preprandial period. Data are expressed as mean and SEM.
In the control experiment, glucose levels and insulin concentrations remained stable in the preprandial period. GLP-1 induced a dose dependent short lasting increase in blood glucose and plasma insulin concentrations; the results are depicted as an insulinogenic index in fig 4. Because changes in plasma glucose are invariably associated with changes in plasma insulin, the insulinogenic index, calculated as the quotient insulin/glucose, more appropriately reflects insulin release.20 Plasma CCK concentrations remained unaltered by any dose of GLP-1 in the preprandial period (fig 4). Finally, leptin levels did not change either with any dose of GLP-1 administered or after food intake (fig 5).
Insulinogenic index (insulin/glucose) and plasma cholecystokinin (CCK) levels (pmol/l) in response to graded doses of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) or placebo in the premeal period. Data are expressed as mean and SEM.
Leptin concentrations(ng/ml) measured in plasma in response to graded doses of intravenous glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) or placebo. Data are expressed as mean and SEM.
In animals, expression of GLP-1 receptors has been found in the hypothalamus, brainstem, and periventricular area, but not in the cortex.23 Furthermore, GLP-1 receptors have been found in the endocrine pancreas,24 adipose tissue,25and stomach.26 ,27 Moreover, nerves containing GLP-1 have been identified in the brain.28 ,29 As GLP-1 receptors have been shown to be present at sites at which administration of exogenous GLP-1 appears to cause satiety, experiments are now required to determine if the satiety effect of GLP-1 is physiological, and, if so, whether it is a major satiety factor. Recent animal data have provided experimental evidence that GLP-1 can function as a mediator of food induced satiety in rats and mice provided that it is administered directly into the brain. Injection of GLP-1 into the cerebral ventricles of fasted rats inhibited feeding, and this effect was blocked by the GLP-1 receptor antagonist exendin.9-39Furthermore, administration of exendin9-39 alone doubled food intake in satiated rats.8 ,14 These findings prompted the authors to suggest that GLP-1 is a potent physiological regulator of satiety. These initial observations were confirmed by Scrocchi and co-workers30 in normal mice; along this line of investigation, the authors postulated that GLP-1 is a physiological regulator of blood glucose and satiety. To ascertain the physiological importance of the peptide as a regulator of feeding behaviour, they generated mice with a targeted disruption of the GLP-1 receptor gene (GLP-1R). These GLP-1R−/− mice developed normally but exhibited increased levels of blood glucose following an oral glucose challenge together with attenuated levels of circulating insulin.30However, no evidence for abnormal feeding behaviour was observed in GLP-1R−/− mice, so the biological importance of GLP-1 as a neuropeptide remains controversial.
Based on this information, the purpose of this study was to examine the effect of intravenous administration of graded doses of synthetic human GLP-1 on eating behaviour and satiety in healthy male subjects in order to assess a possible physiological role for the peptide in the regulation of food intake. We were especially interested to test whether intravenous administration of the peptide was able to induce satiety effects. This idea was derived from previous studies showing that several peptides normally secreted from the gastrointestinal tract during eating are able to suppress food intake if given before meals.1-3 The results of the present study clearly show that a short term satiety effect can be induced by peripherally infused GLP-1; the results lend further support to the hypothesis that GLP-1 is an endogenous signal involved in the control of food intake in man. The lack of specific GLP-1 receptor antagonists that could be given to humans prevents us for the moment from deciding whether the effects produced by the exogenous administration of GLP-1 (as used in this study) are true physiological effects. However, we have clearly shown that GLP-1 decreases food intake; some of the effects were seen at plasma GLP-1 concentrations observed after a meal.19 ,20 ,31 Along these lines of investigation, Flint and co-workers32 have recently published a similar study. They examined the effect of a single dose of GLP-1 on subjective appetite sensations after an energy fixed breakfast and on spontaneous energy intake at an ad libitum lunch. GLP-1 enhanced satiety and induced early fullness compared with placebo. Furthermore, GLP-1 reduced energy intake. From these observations and our present results, we infer that the effects represent physiological effects of GLP-1.
The mechanism by which GLP-1 inhibits food intake is not clear and could possibly be the result of different actions. Does it mediate its effect directly by binding to peripheral or central receptors or does it act indirectly by releasing other satiety peptides? The questions cannot be answered at the present time as a demonstration of a direct action of GLP-1 would require experiments with a selective GLP-1 receptor antagonist specifically blocking endogenous GLP-1. Is the effect peripheral or mediated by central receptors? Does GLP-1 act as a hormone and does it cross the blood-brain barrier? Turtonet al 8 showed a potent effect on food intake in rats when GLP-1 was administered intracerebroventricularly, whereas intraperitoneal application of the peptide did not have any effect. This observation suggests but does not prove that the action of GLP-1 on food intake is mediated by central rather than peripheral mechanisms. On the other hand, there is experimental evidence to show that intraperitoneal injections of supraphysiological loads of GLP-1 into rats are insufficient to even lower blood glucose levels, indicating rapid degradation of the peptide in the abdominal cavity (P Berghöfer and B Göke, unpublished data). Also, there are experimental data showing that the effect of gut peptides such as CCK in regulating food intake is mediated through stimulation of afferent fibres of the vagus nerve.33 Along this line of argument, Wettergren and co-workers34 have shown that the inhibitory effects of GLP-1 on gastric acid secretion in humans depend on an intact vagal innervation of the stomach as the effect is lost after vagotomy.
Does GLP-1 inhibit food intake by stimulating the release of other peptides known to be involved in the regulation? In the present study, we have measured the effect of GLP-1 on CCK secretion and on plasma leptin concentrations, two peptides that have received a major share of attention with respect to this particular question. The results presented in this study show that CCK is not released after administration of graded doses of GLP-1 before the meal making it unlikely that CCK is the mediator of this response. Leptin, the product of the adipose specific ob gene, regulates food intake and energy expenditure in animals.35-37 No effect of leptin on short term satiety has been shown in humans as yet, but it has been proposed that the postprandial increase in GLP-1 stimulates adipose tissue to secrete leptin and suppress food intake. In our study, plasma leptin concentrations did not change even during a pharmacological GLP-1 infusion (fig 5), confirming the results of Shalev et al.38 The latter finding indicates that food intake suppression induced by GLP-1 is not mediated by leptin. Somatostatin, which has also been proposed to act as a satiety signal, was not measured here, but a previous study has evaluated the effect of intravenous GLP-1 infusion on plasma somatostatin concentration in healthy volunteers and did not show any alteration.39 GLP-1 is associated with gastric emptying in humans19 ,20; it is therefore possible that intravenous administration of GLP-1 activates neural circuits that may cause sensations of fullness by delaying gastric emptying. Additional experiments would be required to test whether changes in gastric function play a role in the suppression of food intake after GLP-1 infusion.
Finally, a non-specific action of GLP-1 can be excluded because no overt side effects were observed in this study. It is noteworthy that GLP-1 reduced food intake to a larger extent than other gut peptides under similar experimental conditions: the maximal reduction in the amount of food eaten was 35% with the highest dose of GLP-1 compared with a maximal effect of gastrin releasing peptide at a high pharmacological dose of 19%11 or a maximal dose of CCK (causing side effects in some volunteers) of 13%.9 A recent study has shown that therapeutic plasma levels of GLP-1 in healthy volunteers were achieved after a single buccal tablet.40 Although the bioavailability of buccal GLP-1 was low, the study indicates a potential therapeutic route of administration for GLP-1. Further studies are required to assess whether GLP-1 could provide a new therapeutic approach to the reduction of food intake in patients with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus who are overweight and patients with obesity.
In conclusion, we have shown that graded doses of human GLP-1 that produce plasma GLP-1 concentrations within the physiological range reduce intake of food in non-obese healthy male subjects. The mechanism of action requires clarification. Further investigation is needed to define the physiological role of GLP-1 in the control of human food intake and also to assess its therapeutic potential in reducing food consumption.
This work was supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant No 3200–40604.94/1).
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user login Admin Login
Grievance Redressal Online Portal
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Sharda University considers ‘grievance’ as a feeling of unfair and discriminatory treatment in matters of interpretation and application of policies, rules and procedures, laid down by competent authority.
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← Paul’s Preeminent PlayStation Plus Purge – Aaru’s Awakening
2018 Game Review Haiku, #37 – Subject 13 →
Life never really finds a way in LEGO Jurassic World
Posted on May 24, 2018 | 1 Comment
It used to feel good to hit 100.0% completion in these sundry LEGO games. It was a victory well-earned, through being meticulous and dedicated and clever. You go back into levels you already played, now with a crew of varying abilities and skills, and you’d do things you were unable to prior, truly experiencing everything the level had to offer. Alas, the last few LEGO games I’ve played, specifically LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, have turned it into a real chore. I’m saddened to say that LEGO Jurassic World is also now a part of this troublesome family, and methinks this just may be the way all future LEGO games go, so allow me to predict now that I will greatly enjoy my first few hours with LEGO The Incredibles, but will be busted by the end of it. Sigh.
You may recall that I actually already played through LEGO Jurassic World some years back. Well, that was the Nintendo 3DS version, and I found it…underwhelming. A part of me hoped that its bigger console version would remedy some of the issues I had with it on handheld, and it does, but that still doesn’t mean it’s the best of the bunch and not without its own set of problems. Mel and I played it together, and that’s always fun, but the grind after completing all the levels to get every last red brick, gold brick, piece of amber, minikit, dinosaur, worker in peril, vehicle, character, and photograph is beginning to wear on my mind.
LEGO Jurassic World, despite its name, covers the first four films in the series, with each movie getting a handful of levels–roughly about 5 or 6–as well as its own minihub area to run around on and dig up collectibles. These levels are bigger and better than the 3DS version, but there’s still too many sections involving running non-stop toward the screen as a dinosaur chases from behind, and these sections are even more frustrating if you miss a collectible. Other than those, the big moments in each movie are tackled and play out, more or less, as one might expect. Traveller’s Tales still infects the narrative with its kooky humor–they love bananas and pigs–but a lot of the dialogue is taken from the movie and its quality is noticeably poor, to the point that I’d rather have this take go back to the silent pantomimed style of earlier LEGO games.
My biggest issue, early on, with LEGO Jurassic World revolved around its hub world maps and how the developers never tell you that you need to interact with a computer terminal to open up fast-traveling waypoints. For a while, I just couldn’t travel to a map area quickly, and my only solution was to load up a level and then save and exit from it, which meant sitting through several loading screens just to pop up on my island of choice. You could say I goofed a bit on that, but the blame could also go on the developers as I don’t recall other LEGO games requiring this. Also, there are multiple layers to each map that you constantly have to click through to exit back to the main game. Not really ideal, when all I wanted to do was drop on a pin on the nearest red brick.
Y’know, a lot of people like to muse about future or potential LEGO games–myself included–and I’m coming to realize that not everything can fit the mold. For instance, I’ve seen a lot of clamoring for things like LEGO Jaws and LEGO James Bond. The problem is that, often times, there’s just not enough excitement there to warrant games in these franchises. For instance, say there was a LEGO Jaws, you would get a handful of named and well-liked characters to play as, but then you’d have to spend all your time unlocking upwards of 50 no-namers like Ben Gardner or Harry Meadows, and their abilities, unlike superheroes, would be beyond bland, like interviewing witnesses or using fishing rods. That happened here in LEGO Jurassic World, wherein I mostly played as only the main characters from the films via the top two rows of the character select screen and touched nobody else except for Mr. DNA and a dinosaur when a puzzle required it…because nobody else seemed all that exciting to control, and there’s next to no experimenting.
If you are nostalgic for things adjacent to Jurassic Park, I wouldn’t recommend this. If anything, watch the films again. I have recently and can continue to put them high up on a pedestal, beacons of fun storytelling and lovable characters. Sure, you don’t get to bounce around as an ultra cute and tiny velociraptor, but that’s probably the only noteworthy difference between the films and the games. Heck, go back and play Jurassic Park on the SNES if you want something super engaging and full of tension though, in my heart of hearts, I know that those first-person sections do not hold up.
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This entry was posted in entertainment, impressions, musings, nintendo 3DS, videogames, xbox one and tagged Achievements, completionist, dinosaurs, gold bricks, grinding, Jurassic Park, LEGO Jurassic World, races, red bricks, Traveller's Tales, velociraptor. Bookmark the permalink.
One response to “Life never really finds a way in LEGO Jurassic World”
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Cal's Blog
The more time that has passed since I entered into the ranks of professional adjunct faculty, the more I have acknowledged just how emotionally battered I left graduate school. After years of apparent friendship I felt betrayed by those who had challenged me, supported my development, assisted with financial aid opportunities and gave me space to grow my ideas about art and painting. They graciously shared advice and their own personal experiences which I cherished.
Over a period of 8 years the faculty and a select group of us grad students shared meals together, attended events and shows, had art-making jams for hours on end at the school and off campus. Art Hop was real back then. It was clique; I had finally found a tribe. There were amazing philosophical conversations and technical insights; everything graduate school was supposed to be including some unspoken, and at times, fierce competition among "the realists."
I was sadly naive. This academic and social euphoria began to wain as I began to ask harder questions about the curriculum; I got fewer invitations and harsher criticisms. I wasn't called and got stood up for dinners and was told to leave at group meetings. I was left with a traumatic dichromatic experience.
In school, I was constantly worried about my drafting and painting skills; the traditional painting style I cherished was so mechanically difficult to produce (my insecurities were legion) it seemed impossible to master them with any certainty. It was only later when I visited the Musée d'Orsay in Paris did I realize I had some super genuine skills. But back then at Fresno State it was easy enough for faculty to praise others who dripped and squeegeed paint on metal panels while criticizing us on a badly drawn hand or an idea that was "antiquated." There was a palpable double-standard. It was almost as if the instructors themselves were worried if their students got too good their job was threatened. It didn't make sense then and certainly doesn't now.
I lost my long-term drafting job in those last two graduate years and my wife and I had three little-ones at home. I was thankful to have a spouse who helped me source models, was my constant emotional champion and did the heavy financial lifting while I was unemployed and in school. My wife was a superstar, the breadwinner, pulling my parenting slack while I was furiously painting in the heat and freezing temperatures in the garage of our 2 bedroom apartment.
My wife helped plan all the niceties of my exhibition that I didn't have time to address or didn't have a good grasp on how to execute with a delicate touch; linen choices, food and dessert selections, flower bouquets, etc. The result was decadent. People said it was like a wedding reception and it was packed until closing. My exhibition partner to whom I shared the gallery space was a hugely skillful glass sculptor and filled the 3D space. It was beautiful and magical.
The more we struggled financially to produce the show and keep the lights on (the loans started at that time) and along with a family tragedy, the more I leaned into the belief that the painting room in the Conley Arts building was a safe and sacred place. I came to painfully realize veneers of faculty friendship there was only as thick as the course performance forms and pending tenure selections allow them to be.
I felt the need to always defend my realist bent, my belief that something bad had happened to the art world, especially in America post 1970. I didn't have the experience or aptitude to define what that something was. I did have the courage to write as much of my own independent study curriculum during my undergraduate and graduate career as allowed by the college. I knew there was more than what was being offered and I couldn't accept less.
I was very active in the Classics Department across the campus as a way to shore-up what I believed to be the art department's deficit. I routinely received praise from the classical studies instructors both for my knowledge and writing skills in areas of philosophy, history, warfare and arts of the antique. I was encouraged to double major and consider graduate school at Harvard. I had previously attended UC Irvine where an art history course like Renaissance Venice wasn't smashed into a 3 week chapter. I had been to Rome by this time, museum binged for three weeks in the Eternal City trying to further educate myself in ancient, Medieval and Baroque art. I studied ruins, old maps, parks, fountains and all I could there. I wrote badly translated letters for archaeological experts and met other like-minded travelers.
These experiences kept me asking "why and for more" than what payroll allowed at CSU Fresno's Art Department. Only further study and experience would finally reveal to me what that thing was. Fresno State never actually could quench my artistic thirst; it was a land-locked department by district intention and budgetary constraints. The building itself was a Brutalist structure which we all referred to as "the bunker."
I remember one of the semi-retired instructors telling me "there's too many politics here" and another instructor at a community college say "they keep asking me to come over to Fresno but its a bad work environment." Some instructors down the hall would refuse to speak to each other; something I consider today insane, petty and stupid as I am blessed to work with some fantastic peers at my own institution.
I kept trying to find the knowledge to become a wonderfully skilled and smart art creator on my own. I wanted to emulate heroes such as William Bouguereau, Jean-Leon Gerome, Thomas Eakins and the new-kids-on-block like Jacob Collins and his up-and-coming Derriere Guard (life before the Grand Central Academy/Atelier). It wasn't easy; Fresno State didn't even have figurative painting at the time let alone basic grad student studios like the CSUs in Southern California.
I considered moving to New York to attend the GCA and was tempted by the graduate work and faculty at CSU Long Beach (thanks Yu Gi; I chose a pose in honor of you) but couldn't decide such a fate for our children. I knew the liberal arts' jobs jokes and needed to finish this part of my life and get back into the real-world to have a real-world job.
It wasn't easy to ask the art department about its failings as the art department. It was a post-modernist/post-feminist institution circa 2011. They graded my papers and had control of my major GPA (at least one of them). After I completed enough credits for both drawing/painting AND sculpture emphasis they barely acknowledged it and the chair gave me, I came to discover "the paperwork shuffle." My degree to this day only states a singular emphasis. I recall being told they just "didn't do double emphases." I also recall the department changing the course catalog verbiage to include mandatory studio fees for independent study students (who didn't use the studios) after I raised the issue. Remember, whistle-blowers are typically punished.
My grad work eventually evolved into an examination of the seven deadly sins based upon Catholic teachings. I literally painted the emotion associated with the loss of grace and virtue those sins produced. It was a 1/2 modern figurative study in the manner of the work going on at the GCA and 1/2 illustrated Dante complete with Latin naming conventions. Half of the figures were male and half were female to demonstrate the equality of frailty between the sexes.
My position was, essentially, that those ideas/values and warnings of vice were not unique to the Church but had been passed down through the ages via the Humanities (classical literature, art, etc). Read any Greek or Roman tragedy. I took the position then, more so as I approach mid-life, that any willful abandonment of those values is an active and willful step into self-absorbed ignorance. Hubris will always strike you down and sin is the fastest way to get there. Its a road that only leads to moral relativism and sophistry.
Interestingly enough in the October 2019 edition of U.S. Catholic, Steven P. Millies, an associate professor of public theology and director of the Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago wrote a brief and well written article titled The Art of Peace drawing the same conclusions I wrote about in 2011.
For years after my graduation, (which faculty threatened not to sign off on) I posted my thesis at this website. I was so shell-shocked after my final review, following a hugely successful and heart warming public response from teens, adults and other teachers at my opening reception, I wanted the wider Internet the chance to also opine. The suddenly acidic criticism from my former teachers - yes some were inspirations to me - left me heartbroken and utterly in a state of confusion. This continued to hurt me for many years thereafter. My confidence was completely broken: I left school in a broken state when I should have felt completely triumphant. Were two-thousand years of experiences passed down through the ages really wrong? No, of course not but I was too close to the wound to feel any other way. I internalized the attack.
On Thursday, April 21st, 2011 my grad committee chairman wrote in reply my own worries about the content before the final thesis submission. The following is verbatim.
Definitely not humoring.
Yes its a tad argumentative, or really just opinionated but so what?
It's well written and clear and explains your ideas (which is the purpose right?) I'm very thankful for that. It doesn't follow the preferred layout of grad papers and I don't care about that either (not many of us do).
Maybe two sentences on why painting.
If [REDACTED] is your second committee member I could send it on to her after you make changes and explain that I think it's good. That'll work, she won't blast you with changes, etc.
She can save that for the ones that need it.
Let me know what you think. Its impressive.
On Sunday, May 8th, 2011 I recieved this in response after the other three committee members met, again verbatim:
It saddens me to say it, but there is no doubt that your paper reads as a political rant. You talk very little about your work, avoid mentioning your determination and reasons to reject and ignore contemporary art completely, never discuss any of the artists you hold up as examples of the art you admire but instead focus on ideas and arguments that you know are at best highly problematic and offensive to most. I wish you had avoided a political manifesto in this paper and also not bee so limited in your time here, it has held up your progress as a painter greatly.
So many sections of your paper are painful to read because you sound so bitter and angry. This was made far worse the second time with the added bonus of your reposes to [REDACTED] to take in.
I also think many people working in areas of the classics you discuss, would horrified to see their subject hijacked in such a vitriolic way.
To criticize multiculturalism by cheaply throwing it in with the Nazi's is very sad and very offensive to me.
By what standard is the USA 'the most just and successful nation in the history of earth'? - no mention of where this idea comes from? These ideas are not academic and certainly not what you should have addressed in this paper.
I don't think any of us want to spend any more time on this. If you print out two copies we can meet to sign off at 11:30/11:45 AM tomorrow (as I believe all three of us will be at school for a meeting at 12:00).
Let me know if you can make it.
[REDACTED]
The astonishing thing to me then and now as I read these letters from my former teachers is 1) the time it took for them to completely turn on me because of this paper (2 weeks and 3 days after years of friendship) and 2) the utter lack of close reading of the paper I submitted to them. Did years of research, citations, thousands of primary sources read and six rough drafts mean nothing beyond their own person opinions? Also interesting was the complete dismissal of my fourth and silent, adjunct committee member. Today I consider him the only one to support me. He remains a professional peer let alone a talented artist and inspiration.
Had I only discovered Roger Scruton those many years ago perhaps my written analysis would have been worse received but I would have avoided years of anguish and guilt made by those hateful faculty.
When I think back, I like to remember some of what they said to me in better days: "I wish we could just pay you to paint here all the time so the others could see you work."
Its been 8 years, 7 months, and 19 days (the day I posted this rant) and I can't quite yet say I forgive them. I will continue to search my heart for the grace to do so.
If anyone would like a copy of my so-called "political manifesto" it was called Vitruvius Exposed and can be requested from the Fresno State Art Department Graduate Archive.
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