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AGLAE Association
A.G.L.A.E. stands for "Association Générale des Laboratoires d’Analyses et d'Essais" which means General Association of Analytical and Testing Laboratories. This is a non-profit-association, governed by the French law of 1 July 1901.
Founded on 16 December 1993 by various laboratories (regional, public, private, industrials, water companies…), the Association aims to improve analyses, especially chemical, microbiological and biological, in the fields of the environment and medical biology.
AGLAE is accredited by the French Accreditation body Cofrac for the provision of proficiency testing (No. 1-1664). Scope available on www.cofrac.fr
Find out more about AGLAE
More than 1200 laboratories where test samples are distributed, with 30% international
Around 250 tests per year
More than 10000 parcels sent per year
The structure of the Association
AGLAE, as an Association, comprises a general Assembly, an Administration Board and an Executive Committee, to which a Technical Committee adds. These entities manage the Association from an administrative point of view.
Should you wish to join the General Assembly, please contact us.
The practical implementation is conducted by permanent staff members: the team.
More precisely:
The General Assembly gives the general directions of the Association.
The Administration Board makes the major decisions of management in accordance with the guidelines of the General Assembly. It is elected by the General Assembly.
The Executive Committee is the subgroup of the Administration Board.
The Technical Committee consists of members from the Administration Board, staff members and other people qualified in specific analytical fields.
The team gathers the permanent staff members of the Association.
Find the list of the members of the Administration Board.
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For days we have been reading about tiger woods and his now notorious escapades
May 19th, 2011 admin
For days we have been reading about Tiger Woods and his now notorious escapades. He has had the time of his life with his fame, fortune, and frolics. News is now coming out that Elin Woods, the estranged partner of Tiger, is seeking a divorce. The reason mentioned is that Tiger refuses to enroll in rehab after his transgressions. Elin has sought sole custody of their two children, along with 50% of Tiger’s estimated $600 million fortune. The figures of his estimated fortune are most likely real and will not send Tiger on a leather hunt for personal loans, but instead, spend some money hiring a lawyer to sort matters out for him.
Paying Big Bucks for Services Rendered
Looking at the demands, one might think that Elin is perhaps trying to make some extra cash out of Tiger’s fortune. Of course, the question should be asked whether she deserves any of it. Most people would definitely answer with a resounding YES. Here is lady who gave Tiger everything she had and stayed with him in the worst of his times, and she was never a public figure unless Tiger chose her to be. She cared for the children and was happy to be the wife of a public figure. No doubt she enjoyed the benefits that came along with his fame, but she never demanded them. But now that she has been thrust into public glare for the wrong reasons, she has decided to make her demands known. The amount she wants is bigger than most people can even think about earning in their entire lives, but it is one heck of a paycheck that Tiger now must write.
What of Tiger?
He will lose about 50% of whatever he has accumulated over the years. Though he will still not require a personal loan, it is sure to make a dent in the fortune he built up. Half of his wealth will go to his wife and does not include the costs that legal procedures will bring in. It is assumed that he will have a huge bill for legal services, but we can bet that he can afford it without the assistance of loans.
A Star Will Shine
Public memory is short. Tiger Woods was, and will ever be, known for the game he made popular, rather than for the affairs he had. Looking back, another public figure in the real estate world was in the news for similar reasons.
Donald Trump’s affair with Marla Maples was splashed on the front pages of most publishers when he was at his height. The divorce cost Donald close to $10 million, but people no longer remember Donald for his numerous affairs. They still know him for the real estate empire he built and continues to do so, as well as for the popular television series “The Apprentice”. Tiger will also return to the game once again. Sponsors who are now shunning him will be back in line, waiting for Tiger to sign on the dotted line. Even if he never makes the kind of money he commanded earlier, he will still make enough to keep him away from any personal loans. Perhaps the only one forgotten in this matter will be the tigress who will have to remain satisfied with the early pickings she got.
2009’s Shots Stick in Memories
Опубликовано в рубрике Audi Метки: cash, estimate, map, page
« How to make penis longer naturally also how to make my pennis bigger and enlarge penis signup
When a marriage starts to unravel, it’s often hard to face it »
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Autumn 5760 / 1999, no. 8
Russian Jews in Search of the Jewish State
By Anna Isakova
Having reached the Promised Land, Russian-speaking immigrants find themselves alone in their quest for Jewish civilization.
Over the past decade, approximately 800,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union have come to Israel, where they have joined nearly 200,000 Russian-speaking Jews who immigrated during the 1970s and early 1980s. All told, roughly one-sixth of Israel’s population speaks Russian today. For most of these immigrants, Russian remains their principal language of day-to-day life—their language of journalism, commerce and culture. An entire Russian-speaking world has been created in Israel, yet few people outside of that world have any idea what it contains.
Russian-speaking Israelis live, for the most part, in a cultural bubble that allows outside influences to enter, but does not enable these immigrants to participate meaningfully in the cultural life of the country in which they have settled. This Russian subculture contains two discernible streams, whose members view themselves as having been rejected by the Israeli mainstream, and are sufficiently occupied with their own affairs that they have little interest in breaking down the enclave’s walls. What may be called the “Jewish” stream consists of Russian-speaking Zionists, whose opposition to the Soviet Union reinforced their Jewish identities, and who now seek to plant Jewish cultural roots in the land of their forefathers. The members of the “Russian” stream, on the other hand, participate in—indeed, are at the forefront of—a worldwide Russian-language culture, and are perpetuating the dissident ethos that emerged during the Soviet era. For the second group, the future seems assured: With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian dissident exile has become a Russian diaspora, whose culture interacts and flourishes in concert with that of a free Russia. As for the first group, however, continued isolation could spell its demise: There is only so long that a Zionist culture can survive without having any real interaction with the mainstream intellectual and artistic life of the Jewish state.
For Zionists, the dismantling of the walls separating Russian- and Hebrew-speaking Jews should be of special interest. At a time when many of Israel’s leading cultural figures regularly show an indifference, if not antipathy, to Zionism, and when diaspora Jewry has downgraded the cause of Israel’s survival in order to tend to its own, the creative Jewish nationalism that thrives within the Russian community is especially significant. Indeed, it may be that the future of Zionism depends on today’s Russian-speaking Israelis. But for anything to come of this possibility, a concerted effort will have to be made, by intellectuals on both sides of the divide, to breach the hardened walls.
The most striking feature of Russian-language culture in Israel is its size. The Absorption Ministry lists no fewer than six hundred professional writers, a similar number of artists and sculptors, and an equally large contingent of journalists who have arrived in Israel from the former Soviet Union in the last decade alone. The number of professional musicians is even greater, and there are hundreds of movie actors, directors, producers and other film professionals, and even dozens of circus performers. Russian-language theater, too, is flourishing in Israel: In addition to the acclaimed Gesher theater group, there are many active Russian-language dramatic groups, many of which are of a high caliber. The choreographers and dancers who came to Israel could fill more than a few ballet troupes, while the vocalists could man several opera companies.
This wealth of talent has translated into a wide array of cultural events, such as an annual songwriting festival held on the shores of the Sea of Galilee near Tiberias, at which guitar-wielding songwriters perform their works as the audience sings along. This year, the festival’s organizers limited the number of participants to six thousand, in order to preserve the event’s intimate atmosphere. Russian rock performers were asked not to take part; no doubt they will soon get a festival of their own.
Literary activity is also flourishing. The Russian community in Israel supports six major publishing houses, as well as countless independent publishers of individual works. Tel Aviv and Jerusalem each boast about twenty Russian-language bookstores, and almost every city in Israel has at least one Russian bookstore, as well as several Russian-language lending libraries. The activities organized under the auspices of the Russian library in Jerusalem are comparable in scope to those of Beit Ariela, Tel Aviv’s main public library. Hundreds of volumes in Russian—even a Jewish encyclopedia—have been written since the first great wave of Soviet immigration in the 1970s. Dozens of academic textbooks, atlases and guidebooks, as well as translated and original literary works, have been published. In addition to music, theater and literature, there are also innumerable art exhibitions, cultural events, lectures and conferences that take place on a daily basis within the Russian enclave. Such events are well publicized by several daily national newspapers, and by numerous local papers and periodicals that serve the Russian-speaking community.
The volume of Russian-language cultural activity in Israel is far greater than most Israelis imagine; yet size alone does not begin to capture the Russian bubble’s unique cultural makeup—that of an immigrant people, caught between their Russian and Jewish heritages, and between these traditions and their Israeli surroundings. To understand the inner workings of the Russian bubble one must look at the community’s origins—what these immigrants were looking for, and what they found, when they arrived in Israel.
The Russian-speaking community in Israel came in two waves, corresponding to the two periods in which emigration from the Soviet Union was possible: First, in the 1970s, under Premier Leonid Brezhnev, when the Soviets allowed the rate of Jewish emigration to reach as high as 50,000 per year; and during the 1990s, in a far greater wave which began shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union and continues to this day. Despite the time lag between the two waves, these immigrants quickly became integrated on a cultural level: They now take part in the same cultural frameworks, professional organizations and political parties. Moreover, both groups maintain a link to current Russian culture. Integration has increased over time, as more of the immigrants from the 1970s who once avoided Russian-language activities have begun to take part, and as the newer immigrants have joined established institutions such as the Russian-language press, which was founded in the 1970s.
When Jews began to arrive from the Soviet Union in the 1970s, many Israelis expected them to play an active role in the Labor Zionist movement, whose social and intellectual roots went back to Russia, and which had drawn on the teachings of Marx, as well as of Russian Labor Zionists such as Ber Borochov and A.D. Gordon. The revolutionary romanticism on which many Israelis were raised had not yet faded, it was thought, despite the disastrous legacy of Communism.
These expectations were quickly dashed, to the disappointment of many kibbutznikim and socialists, and of the Israeli Left in general. No less disappointed was Israeli academia, grounded as it was in socialist ideas. Disappointed, too, were those Israeli cultural figures who advocated socialist Realism, and that portion of the Israeli public that grew up with the Soviet ethos, the songs of the Red Army Choir and literary works such as Alexander Bek’s Volokolamsk Highway. The Israelis quickly learned that not only was their own “Russian” culture alien to the new immigrants; it was an object of loathing: Marx was anything but a hero to the new immigrants, who had been the subject of attempts to put his teachings into practice. Bek, the Red Army Choir and other symbols were reviled for the artificial pathos that the official Soviet culture promoted. The immigrants read the works of anti-Soviet dissidents like Alexander Solzhenitzyn and Varlam Shalamov, writers such as Mikhail Bulgakov and Andrei Platonov, and the poet Joseph Brodsky, who rebelled against Soviet esthetics; and listened to singers such as Vladimir Wissotsky and Bulat Okudzhava, who disseminated their songs of freedom on homemade cassettes. Their heroes were the dissidents who dared oppose the “Evil Empire”—as they called their country of birth, years before Ronald Reagan’s famous speech.
It was not only the ideology of socialism prevailing in Israel that the new immigrants despised. They also rejected its esthetic code, which had had a significant impact on Israeli arts. In the eyes of the Russian-speaking intellectuals who came to Israel, anything reminiscent of Soviet culture was not worthy of being taken seriously. The only cultural debate in which they participated that related in any way to the Soviet Union pitted anti-Soviet culture and what we may call a non-Soviet, Russian culture, which simply paid no heed to the Soviet experience. In this contest, the second view eventually gained the upper hand.
For Russian intellectuals, no value was higher than freedom of expression and the independent application of the individual’s creative powers. They reacted to Israeli intellectuals—whom they saw as employing art in the service of left-wing ideology—in much the same way as they had reacted to their old enemies in the Soviet establishment. Thus it should be no surprise that in the 1970s, the encounter between the Israeli cultural elite and the new immigrant intellectuals quickly foundered. A wedge was driven between the immigrants and the native Israelis, and the first walls of the Russian enclave were erected.
Even today, the Israeli cultural establishment is still influenced to a great degree by the esthetics of politicized art. Yet this by itself cannot explain why the cultural divide between Russian- and Hebrew-speakers in Israel has widened over the past generation, especially as Israeli popular culture has become less socialist, to the point that today it can be characterized as post-modern, even nihilist in nature. Rather, the alienation persists because, in the eyes of the immigrants, mainstream Israeli culture is actively resistant to influence from other traditions, including Jewish tradition. “Hebrew culture” is seen by the immigrants as obsessively doctrinaire: First it tried to create the new, socialist Jew, devoid of any connection to his recent past; and now it relates to cultural myths only in order to shatter them. The immigrants have discovered that not only does Hebrew culture mean a rejection of the rich Russian heritage—which some are willing to accept as the price of absorption—but it also means a rejection of the Jewish heritage. And they cannot fathom the demand to unload their Jewish cultural baggage, after they have fought all their lives for the right to carry it.
For its part, the Hebrew-language cultural establishment has taken little notice of the immigrants since the initial disappointment. Russian Jews in Israel live, work, fight in wars and vote in elections as Israelis, yet the products of their creative spirit remain unknown to the general public. Over the past decade, the constant growth in demand for Russian-language culture has produced many new outlets for cultural expression in the immigrants’ native language. Thus, if in the 1970s the new immigrants made some effort to remove the barriers to entry into Israeli society, in the 1990s they feel little need to do so. The Russian bubble has become a permanent fixture of the Israeli landscape.
From the beginning, there have been two cultural streams within the Russian-speaking community in Israel. On the one hand, many artists and intellectuals have focused their efforts principally on developing Jewish themes; on the other, many have made a name for themselves within an international Russian diaspora, which has been a natural extension of their dissident activities prior to immigration.
In Israel, the term “Silent Jewry” (yahadut hadmama) was commonly used to describe the Soviet Jews, referring to Jewish voices silenced by the Communist regime; Jewish identity, it was widely believed, had been virtually erased during the years of Soviet rule. Today this expression is frequently recalled among former-Soviet immigrants, few of whom accept it as a reasonable depiction of what took place during the long decades of Communist oppression. Most Soviet Jews preserved important aspects of their Jewish identity over the years: They kept family trees, knew the origin of their names and, to a lesser degree, were aware of the great and ancient Jewish culture that had preceded Hitler and Stalin. The Russian-Jewish culture that had developed in remote areas beyond Leningrad and Moscow, to say nothing of the areas of dense Jewish population in the time of the Czars, was wiped out after World War II; yet it enjoyed a revival during the 1960s, when the writings of Sholom Aleichem, Y.L. Peretz and other Jewish writers were translated and published in Russian. At the same time, after years of effort by the Soviet government to downplay the Holocaust, Soviet Jews began finding ways to express the memories they had retained of their Jewish heritage. It is true that their compositions were limited to samizdat, the underground press, but this medium quickly filled with poetry and prose on Jewish themes. As a result, only the most isolated Jews were completely cut off from their national roots.
Of course, this does not mean that Soviet Jews received anything that could be called a comprehensive Jewish education. Jewish history was not taught in schools, and few families celebrated Jewish holidays. There were some who managed to live a traditional lifestyle, but these were the exception. Those who came to Israel in the 1970s had, for a generation, been almost completely unexposed to Jewish living. Their grandparents had been well-versed in Jewish tradition, their parents had chosen assimilation as the safest option, while they, the children, chose to initiate a return to the fold, building on memories of their grandparents.
The immigrants of the 1990s are somewhat different in this regard. For many of them, not one but two generations have passed since the Soviets made it impossible to live as a Jew. Moreover, most of the leading figures of the Jewish revival of the 1960s left the Soviet Union in the 1970s, leaving the Jewish community behind to initiate a revival of its own. Over the years, the flow of information from Israel grew through private communications, Jewish groups such as Habad became active in the Soviet Union, refuseniks studied and taught Hebrew and disseminated original and translated materials sent back by the immigrants of the 1970s. Thus when Russian-Jewish intellectuals arrived in Israel in the 1990s, they possessed a greater base of Jewish knowledge, if not identity, than had those who immigrated two decades earlier.
Today, Jewish culture within the Russian bubble is broad and varied. One of its major creative achievements is the publication of a Russian-language Jewish encyclopedia. Combining translated articles with numerous original entries, the project continues to be an important focus of Jewish intellectual activity within the Russian community, spawning a variety of discussion groups and lectures, and focusing interest and debate on Jewish themes. Another important outlet has been the Russian-language quarterly Twenty-Two, published in Jerusalem since 1978. Twenty-Two carries academic articles and original literary works by Russians in Israel, translations from Hebrew and other languages, and reviews of new works from the former Soviet Union and the Russian diaspora. Though its importance has waned in recent years, this journal has placed Judaism and Zionism at center stage since it first appeared. By the 1990s, numerous periodicals had sprung up on Jewish topics, and the literary supplements of the daily papers are likewise rich in Jewish content. Interest in Judaism is expressed in the popularity of books such as The Seventh Hunger by Elli Luxemburg, and of works by Yaakov Tzigelman and many others. In poetry, Michael Gendelev wrote the popular “Ode to the Conquest of Tyre” (in the context of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon), as well as similar works. In the plastic arts, the group Alef and the painter Michael Grobman have made names for themselves through artwork that focuses on Jewish themes. The recent rise to prominence of Vestnik, a journal of the Jewish University in Moscow that publishes academic research on Jewish themes, marks a revival of the Jewish spirit in Russia as well. Russian-speaking Jewry has quietly become one of the most active centers of Jewish and Zionist creativity in the world.
But if Russian-language culture in Israel has been spurned by the local elites and has had to fend for itself when addressing Jewish themes, there is one area in which Russian immigrants in Israel have been full partners in a larger project: The vast world of Russian-language culture. During the long decades of Soviet rule, Jews played a prominent role in the shaping of the anti-Soviet and non-Soviet cultures. Dissidents opposed ideological repression in the name of freedom of conscience and the right of Soviet national groups to develop their cultures freely. For some, Zionism became an important vehicle for expression, and the worlds of Zionists and dissidents in the Soviet Union sometimes became so entangled as to be indistinguishable. The same people who inveighed against the Soviet regime also weighed in on Jewish topics. For Jews who left the Soviet Union at that time, it was as important to expose the plight of Jews in the Soviet Union as it was to spread the word about the Evil Empire.
When Russian immigrants to Israel learned that the local cultural establishment was uninterested in what they had to offer, they quickly discovered a highly attractive, Russian alternative. The main conduit for such expression was Russian-language radio stations operating in the West, which had broadcast dissident truths to those caught behind the Iron Curtain. Exiled “White Russians,” anti-Bolsheviks who emigrated to the West following the Revolution or World War II, were the original force behind these activities. Gradually they were joined by Jewish émigrés from the 1970s who had difficulty finding a niche in Israel. Radio stations such as the BBC and the American-German Radio Liberty became a meeting ground in which former Soviets in Israel could participate in Russian cultural discourse. Indeed, until the collapse of the Soviet Union, these “voices”—the term used both in and out of the Soviet Union to describe the stations—were the leading intellectual forces behind the creation of a free Russian culture.
In addition, monthly and quarterly literary journals and other Russian-language publications sprung up in Europe, mostly under the leadership of the dissidents. Many of those who immigrated to Israel in the 1970s took part, as is clear from picking up almost any issue from the 1980s. In the Spring 1982 issue of Continent, a thick quarterly published in Paris by the dissident Vladimir Maximov, seven of the twenty-eight contributors were Israelis. Four of the main contributors to the quarterly Syntaxis, which was published by the prominent dissident Andrei Sinyavsky, were living in Israel. Two Israelis were even regular contributors to Grani, a journal that was a stronghold of traditional, non-Jewish Russian culture. The prominence of Jewish immigrants from the 1970s in the world of Russian culture meant that those who came to Israel in the 1990s were already familiar with the cultural achievements of their predecessors through publications that had found their way to the Soviet Union from Europe, the United States and Israel.
With the fall of the Soviet empire, dissident and non-Soviet culture has become dominant in Russia as well. Russian-language culture has become an empire, as a result of Russia’s new openness and the presence of large, widespread Russian-speaking communities all over the world. Today, a Russian-language writer in Israel can publish his works in their original language in the United States, Germany, England, France, Cyprus and even Australia. In 1997, Alexander Goldstein, a writer living in Tel Aviv, won the two most prestigious literary prizes in Russia. Russian-language newspapers in Israel publish articles by Jewish and non-Jewish journalists who live in Russia and in the West.
In the spring of 1998, a world conference on contemporary Russian literature was held in Jerusalem. The speakers, both Jews and non-Jews, included the foremost Russian intellectuals from around the world, from universities in the United States, Switzerland, Germany, France, Russia and Israel. The relatively small auditorium in Jerusalem overflowed with an audience eager to hear every word. To Israeli eyes, the sight was more than a little surreal. But the backdrop of Jerusalem’s Old City did not seem out of place to the visiting participants: The Russian-speaking community in Israel has established itself as an integral part of worldwide Russian culture.
Two distinct paths, Jewish and Russian, lie before the Russian-speaking Jews in Israel. These two options are not seen by the immigrants as necessarily contradictory; many are active in both arenas. Still, the size and quality of the recent immigration to Israel has tipped the scales in favor of the Russian alternative. In the past, intellectuals who came to Israel placed a clear emphasis on their Jewish identity, which intensified in proportion to how long they had been in the Jewish state. Today, the size of the Russian-speaking community in Israel, and the relative ease of communication with their counterparts abroad, has strengthened the link between Russian-speaking Israelis and the Russian cultural world.
At the same time, the revival of the Jewish community in Russia and the reopening of Jewish educational institutions there have reinforced the connection to Russian culture. The possibility of being heard by both Russians and Jews in Russia—while not being heard by anyone in Hebrew-speaking Israel—works against the Israeli and Jewish identity of Russians living in Israel. They need not take part in the building of a Jewish state, or concern themselves with the troubles of the Jewish diaspora in America or elsewhere. The importance of these trends is evident: Israeli intellectuals of Russian origin once saw themselves first as Jews, and then as Israelis. Today, a great number of them see themselves principally as Russians.
If these trends persist, it is fair to say that the Jewish side of Russian immigrant culture in Israel will fade over time; indeed, this has already begun to happen. Caught between an indifferent Israeli establishment and a rejuvenated Russian civilization, Jewish thinkers and artists who want to express themselves as Jews find themselves without allies and without the heroic ethos that accompanied Zionist and Jewish activity under the Soviet regime. As long as they fail to penetrate the culture of the Jewish state, they will come to feel ineffectual, superfluous and, in the end, embittered.
It was once believed that the Jewish state’s Russian roots could provide a basis for integrating Russian immigrants into Israeli culture. This belief was foolish, for it ignored the sentiments and experiences of the immigrants themselves. But there was always another possible basis, one that was barely explored: The Jewish heritage, and the common commitment to the establishment and maintenance of a thriving Jewish state. These shared interests could serve as the impetus for joint cultural and intellectual projects, for the betterment of Jewish and Zionist culture on both sides of the divide. For this to happen, a concerted effort is required. Israeli intellectuals who are committed to fostering the country’s Jewish identity must seek out the participation of Russian-speaking writers and artists, and try to understand and even participate in the culture of the Russian enclave itself. Russian cultural figures have to overcome decades of habitual avoidance of Hebrew culture—by searching for like-minded Hebrew-language groups and publications, by involving themselves more actively in Israeli public life, and by mastering the Hebrew language and expressing themselves within the Hebrew culture, as did the many waves of immigrants before them.
As the State of Israel enters its second half-century, it is precisely its Jewish character which remains undefined, and which is under constant assault from both within and without. At such a moment in history, the contribution of Israel’s Russian-speaking Jewish writers and artists could be critical in determining the future of the country.
Anna Isakova’s columns appear regularly in the Russian- and Hebrew-language press in Israel. She lives in Jerusalem.
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The twentieth century's greatest liberal was anything but a pluralist
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Strategy Musings
Beyond Microeconomics and Macroeconomics: The Need for Indian Social Economics
Economics has been a fascinating social science that has accompanied the industrial revolutions. The first formal organization of economic thought, albeit in a political setting, is attributed to Adam Smith (1776) for his book “An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”. Alfred Marshall’s text book “Principles of Economics” (1890) laid the foundation to the microeconomic branch of economics. The adverse economics of the Great Depression of the 1930s spurred the development of macroeconomic thought. John Maynard Keynes’ book “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money’ provided new perspectives of macroeconomic thought. Over the years, almost every aspect of human endeavour got its own economics perspectives; from industrial economics to welfare economics, for example. Microeconomics and macroeconomics, however, continue to be the more dominant streams of economics to date.
Microeconomics deals with the economic behaviour of individual markets, firms, entities and individuals, focusing on matters such as, but not limited to, production, cost, scale and efficiency; supply, demand and equilibrium; scarcities, surpluses and elasticity of demand and supply, costs and prices, and theories of firm and industrial organization. Macroeconomics deals with the issues of economy from the top, focusing on matters such as national income and output; jobs and unemployment; price inflation and deflation; savings, investment and consumption. Flow of money and business cycles as well as economic growth, international trade and international finance are some of the other considerations. It studies the impact of monetary policy and fiscal policy. Monetary policy is implemented by the central banks to control the liquidity in the economic system to ensure economic stability. Fiscal policy relates to the use by the governments of revenues and expenditures, along with savings and taxes to influence economic growth.
Indian scenario
India, ever since its independence in 1947, has been following established economic theories to drive economic growth. The socialistic pattern of development curtailed free market economics until 1991 but the macroeconomic liberalization thereafter gave a new upward drift to the Indian economy. Regardless of the economic system, monetary policy followed by the Reserve Bank of India and announced in its periodic policy reviews, and the fiscal policy followed by the Central government and effected through the annual union budgets influenced the investment and consumption patterns of the society. The sensitivity of the markets to banking liquidity and interest rates and to tax and allocation policies has been only increasing with years. In addition, budget times have also become important periods for economic reforms and policy stimulation measures, including export-import policies, industrial development policies and poverty alleviation programmes.
India has been home to some of the sharpest economic brains. Amartya Sen, Amit Mitra, Arvind Panagariya, Ashok Desai, Bibek Debroy, Bimal Jalan, C Rangarajan, D R Gadgil, D Subbarao, I G Patel, J C Kumarappa, Jagdish Bhagwati, Jairam Ramesh, Kaushik Basu, Manmohan Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Nanabhoy Palkhiwala, Omkar Goswami, P C Mahalanobis, Raghuram Rajan, Subramanian Swamy, V K R V Rao, Y K Alagh and Y V Reddy are some of the well-known names. Several political leaders including Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, and several finance ministers from C D Deshmukh and T T Krishnamachari of the yesteryears to P Chidambaram and Arun Jaitley of current years have been economically savvy leaders. Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation, had articulated his own brand of Gandhian economics targeted at economic self-sufficiency and growth of cottage and small industries which is relevant even today.
Intriguing India
Although the phrase “Incredible India” has been coined only a few years ago, India has always been incredible. The scientific and technical thought that went into the centuries old Indian heritage of Ayurveda, Yoga, Astronomy, Architecture (especially temple and palace architecture) was indeed phenomenal. Post-independence too, India demonstrated rare pluck to construct its own massive dams, build its own heavy industry, establish its own banks and financial institutions, develop its own educational infrastructure and creates its own aerospace infrastructure. India may not have gained global competitiveness but the country certainly acquired the capability for self-sufficiency that is rare amongst the emerging markets. In all this, adoption of micro and macroeconomics to an Indian context, in a somewhat serendipitous manner, played a role. India’s development may have lagged behind its true potential but a base has certainly been laid for more accelerated development if right constructs are developed and relied upon.
At the same time, India has indeed been an intriguingly bipolar country characterized, for example, by paradoxes such as massive educational level but meagre skill level, strong penchant for growth but constraints all the way, vibrant democratic culture but strong vestiges of feudalism, and phenomenal wealth generation but continued acceptance of poverty. Economic growth with social equity has been the avowed objective of parties and governments alike but togetherness in fulfilling the growth with equity objective has been missing. The paradox of incredible growth potential constrained by intriguing plurality of thought makes one wonder if India can benefit to the requisite degree only by Western economic thought or would require a distinctly Indian economic constructs that are tailor-made to solve indigenous socio-economic problems without losing the global contexts. Even issues like quantitative stimulus or directed subsidies are not discussed and framed with objective economic thought that addresses India’s issues in a customized manner.
India’s success would lie in enhancing agricultural productivity with sustainable crop economics, improving technological innovation with rapid commercialization, developing infrastructural sinews with meaningful capital productivity, expanding manufacturing capacities with global competitiveness, rural and urban renewal with protection of ownership interests, and creation of jobs with minimal migration pains. Economic policies and administrative actions of the successive governments have tried to provide policies and budgets with incentives and subsidies to tackle some of the above needs individually, depending on the political perspectives. Most of these have been based on established macroeconomic and microeconomic approaches which are buffered by Indian socio-economic and cultural compulsions. Given that all of these cumulatively have not helped India reach its full potential, it is time that economic models that specifically address India’s development concerns are created.
India’s socio-economic needs would require an Indian social economics theory (and practice) that addresses the typically Indian issues of (i) agrarian economics, (ii) infrastructure economics, (iii) Make in India economics, (iv) renewal economics, (v) employment economics, (vi) migration economics, and (vii) behavioural economics. The reason for focussing on the first six aspects is fairly obvious; if well-researched and well-modelled economic theory is developed on these aspects, not only better economic policies that stimulate gross domestic product and higher per capita income can be developed but also they can be better implemented with widespread support. These aspects which are independent as well as integrated can together provide better socio-economic development in the country. All of these will, however, need to be supported by a solid understanding of Indian behavioural economics with perspectives that are regional as well as national. The seven branches of Indian social economics are discussed below.
(i) Agrarian economics
India, despite decades of industrial development and the recent burgeoning of service economy, is still an agrarian economy. The potential for capacity expansion and productivity in agricultural production and distribution is impacted by crop economics on one hand and irrigation economics on the other. Economic models which assess the impact of crop mix on food grain and commodity self-sufficiency and the impact of dams on year-round crop patterns are required. The microeconomics of India’s debt ridden small farmer are affected by spot prices and distribution margins. While farm subsidies mitigate the burden to some extent, an in-depth study of crop economics for individual and national sustainability is required. Similarly, the economics of dams and reservoirs are also poorly understood. There is no reason why major irrigation projects like Polavaram (in Andhra Pradesh) had to hang fire for decades; economic modelling of irrigation projects could stimulate better allocations or encourage setting up of special purpose vehicles.
(ii) Infrastructure economics
That India has lagged behind all the developed nations and key emerging economies in infrastructure development is well known. The NDA government has admitted that the public-private collaboration model has not had much impact, and needs redefinition. Most private sector infrastructure firms carry huge levels of debt from public sector banks. The economics of infrastructure development in the Indian context are unique with long lead times and slow returns even after project completion. From the project conceptualization stage through the project appraisal stage the economics of each infrastructure project need to be understood not merely in terms of the internal rate of return for the project but the overall economic uplift because of the multiplier effects of infrastructure projects. The study of infrastructure firms should be a special branch of microeconomics while budgeting of such projects should be a special branch of macroeconomics with appropriate monitory and fiscal policies to support.
(iii) Make in India economics
With India’s low wage costs, large talent pool, frugal engineering and mass mobilization capabilities, the world should embrace Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India mantra enthusiastically. There are two caveats: India should evaluate and propose objectively to the investors the sources of economic advantage of Make in India strategy in respect of each industrial activity. Secondly, India should evaluate and propose for itself the role of India’s large domestic market in leading to globally competitive production. Typical economic thought teaches us that high-end niche products subsidize low-end mass products. In the Indian economic milieu, it could be the other way around; India’s bottom of the pyramid can provide huge scale economics which can be leveraged for global products. Tata Motors’ success with JLR is a corporate level economic behaviour of this theorem. There is a need for a more rigorous understanding of the unfolding Make in India economics.
(iv) Renewal economics
India has an enormous need, and hence offers immense potential, for rural and urban renewal. There is no habitat that can be excluded from the renewal paradigm. Yet, renewal is not easy in India. The way the residual government of Andhra Pradesh is scrambling to build a new capital on a zero base as a multibillion dollar venture is proof of the developmental needs. However, as illustrated by the same example, any distributed renewal or new development – urban or rural – has several implications for overrunning current land use and community avocation practices, in spite of such renewal being essential. On the face of it, continuous renewal offers the most economical way of developing habitats in a distributed manner relative to big bang new constructions. Only when the economics of renewal are understood can the overall spatial planning in India, including development of smart cities and smart villages, can be brought to global standards, consistent with the Indian socio-economic imperatives.
(v) Employment economics
India needs jobs for the democracy to work in a positive manner. The unemployment rates of India varied between 5 and 10 percent historically, and is currently trending at 5. 2 percent. This may be better than the Euro region which is trending at 11.2 percent but is only comparable with US and UK (trending at 5.5 percent) and worse than China and South Korea at 4.1 percent and less. More than gross employment, underemployment and overemployment as well as skill-need gaps are causes for concern. Underemployment is characterized by people performing jobs of lower level than they are capable of (for example, just digging trenches rather than building reservoirs). Overemployment is characterized by more people than required performing the same job (for example, three or more people manning a toll plaza post). Skill gap is characterized by an individual failing to work to a national or international standard (for example, a painter failing to prepare a surface prior to painting). The elimination of underemployment and overemployment and investment for skill development have economic implications that need a uniquely Indian thought.
(vi) Migration economics
Urbanization is a concomitant of economic development, universally. Migration of people from rural areas to urban areas is also a natural accompanying phenomenon. However, unplanned and under-resourced migration causes urban squalor and triggers urban unrest. India has an additional dimension of people migrating from States of lower per capita income or lower economic activity to other States perceived to be better. The economics of migration with people chasing minimal employment tend to be mirages. Real economics would occur when economic activity moves into regions where people reside, and touch their lives directly. Large scale industrialization or large scale mining of natural resources with necessary caveats is one solution. More importantly, such underdeveloped regions should be stimulated with a small and micro enterprise start-up culture that brings soft economic touch to indigenous evolution and promotes self-sustainability. It must be a form of Gandhian Economics whereby the well-to-do regions and people act as trustees for the underdeveloped regions (be it, Bastar forests, Idukki river bed or Manyam agencies). Migration economics needs to be a uniquely Indian requirement.
(vii) Behavioural economics
Behavioural economics as is well understood is the study of the impact of psychological, social, emotional and cultural factors on economic decisions made by individuals and institutions, and the consequences for microeconomic and macroeconomic factors like costs, prices, savings and investments. Standard economic theory suggests that as long as individuals understand the economic consequences of their decisions they take decisions that are in their best self-interests. The reality is that individuals (and even institutions) suffer from biases and transient perceptions and do not necessarily have self-control and objectivity. Given the plurality of the Indian society and the lack of insightful literacy for vast sections of population (at all levels of the population pyramid) and the divisive nature of political discourse, economic decisions tend to be inappropriately made or even appropriate decisions tend to get stalled. We have seen earlier that there is a paucity of economic theories that are tuned to India’s indigenous problems. This inadequacy coupled with the vast mosaic of Indian behaviours makes it mandatory that Indian version of behavioural economics is urgently developed.
Indian social economics
The country is in need of an integrated Indian social economics thought which applies all the established disciplines of economics including, in the main, micro and macroeconomics, to develop economic principles that are uniquely relevant to India to enhance capacities, capabilities and effectiveness in the areas of agriculture, infrastructure, manufacturing, renewal, employment, migration and behaviours. These are typically Indian issues on which everyone is agreed in terms of the overarching goal of economic growth with social equity. However, lack of directed and issue-specific economic thought has prevented due progress and fulfilment of potential. India does have its general and applied schools of economics. Every premier college or institution has a department of economics. There are also specialized institutions like Madras School of Economics, National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), Institute for Social and Economic Change and so on.
The established schools and centres, however, have not been focussed on analysing economic issues that need to be specifically addressed in India. Nor has there been an effort to develop economic principles that guide public policy and governance at central and state levels. While several case studies have been conducted, there has been no specific vision to develop an India-specific economic theory. Intellectuals and administrators are more focused on variations in known policy measures and instruments rather than develop India-specific prescriptions. Now that the NDA government is keen to establish new centres of higher education and research and the States are also keen to participate in such higher educational initiatives, it would be appropriate to establish Indian Institutes of Social Economics and Research in the principal geographical regions of the country to develop India-specific economic thought and practice with a board of economists with Indian and indigenous passion.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on March 8, 2015
Posted by cb@strategy at 12:01 AM
Labels: Development Economics, Economic Policy, Indian Economists, Indian Economy
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DragonWins Home Page
BBC Over Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
(Last Mod: 27 November 2010 21:37:21 )
NOTE: WORK VERY MUCH IN PROGRESS
Bookmarks on this page
Overview of Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
GPS Gold Codes
GPS Modulation
BBS over DSSS Simulation
Most of the examples that exist for the concurrent code based BBC encoding and decoding algorithms use pulse-based radios as the underlying physical layer. However, that is only one of the three dominant categories of spread spectrum with the others being frequency hopping and direct sequence. The application of BBC to frequency hopping is straightforward and won't be explored here, but whether BBC even can be applied to direct sequence spread spectrum (DS/SS) is not at all obvious. That's what this portion of the website is all about.
Direct sequence spread spectrum (DS/SS), which is at the heart of code division multiple access (CDMA) used in such applications as GPS and some cell phone networks, works by modulating an information signal with a pseudorandom bit stream. In essence there are two independent data sources, the information bit stream and the pseudorandom bit stream, that modulate each other. Just as a traditional narrowband receiver might lock onto a carrier and extracts the information that is modulating it, a DS/SS receiver locks on to the pseudorandom bit stream and extracts the information that is modulating it.
The pseudorandom number (PRN) sequences used by GPS are not m-sequences, but are instead Gold code sequences. In general, Gold codes are generated by adding (modulo-2) two carefully chosen m-sequences. The result is a family of codes that have good cross-correlation properties at the expense of the very good autocorrelation properties exhibited by m-sequences.
For the purposes of this discussion, we will only consider the Gold codes used by the GPS C/A code. These codes are generated using the m-sequences produced by the following modulus polynomials:
By delaying one of the generators relative to the other, 1023 different Gold code sequences can be generated. The nominal hardware implementation of the GPS PRN generators can generate a subset consisting of 45 (possibly 55) of these. Of this set, 32 are assigned to satellites and an additional 5 are assigned to ground control stations although, for some reason, two of the ground station channels are assigned identical PRN sequences.
The GPS C/A signal carries data at 50 bps. The data is spread by that satellites Gold code at 1.023 chips/sec. Since the sequence is 1023 chips long, the sequence repeats every millisecond. The signal is modulated using Bi-Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) at a carrier frequency of 1575.42 MHz. The signal bandwidth is, roughly, 2 MHz and the nominal processing gain is approximately 20,460 (43 dB).
To demonstrate the theoretical feasibility of of using traditional Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum as a substrate for a BBC-encoded channel, a simulation was performed in which a number of randomly chosen offsets of a pseudorandom number sequence were used. The sequences for all of these offsets were added and the resulting signal PSK modulated. The receiver then swept through the received signal performing a correlation for all possible offsets. The simulation was performed using an ANSI-C compliant program.
The following view graphs summarize the results.
The program included the ability to add white Gaussian noise to the signal at a specified power level. The following data was generated using a signal-to-noise ratio of 100dB. In other words, essentially noise-free. What this shows is the degree to which the transmitted offsets rise above the spurious levels in the non-transmitted offsets due to autocorrelation effects. Since one of the primary applications of this approach is GPS, the actual Gold Code pseudorandom sequence for GPS satellite #10 was used for these simulations. Thus the simulation takes into the account the relatively poor autocorrelation performance of the short Gold Codes actually in use by the GPS system.
To demonstrate how well the distinct offsets can be picked up in a signal buried in the noise, the following data is for a signal-to-noise ratio of -30dB, meaning that the noise has 1000 times the power of the total transmitted signal (which is spread across the ten offsets used). None-the-less, the offsets stand out clearly, although a couple of non-transmitted offsets have sufficient energy in them that they would be likely to recovered as marks by the discriminator, although recall that the BBC algorithms are specifically designed to be highly tolerant to false marks.
The following is the set of source code files needed to reproduce the above data. There is no claim at this point that the code is well documented.
bbc/dsss/bytes.c
bbc/dsss/bytes.h
bbc/dsss/dirtyd.c
bbc/dsss/dirtyd.h
bbc/dsss/gps.c
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Reviewed by Danya Rumore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Moser and Boykoff address the question of what successful adaptation would look like by delving into the various definitions of success (including the economic, political, institutional, ecological, and social dimensions) to help shed light on the complexity of the situation.
Successful Adaptation to Climate Change: Linking Science and Practice in a Rapidly Changing World, Edited by Susanne Moser and Maxwell Boykoff, Routledge, 2013, 331 pp.
Planning and preparing for the impacts of climate change are among the most pressing concerns of the 21st century. However, while the importance of climate change adaptation is increasingly clear, there is little clear guidance on what “successful adaptation” means. What should planners, policy-makers, and other professionals working on adaptation aim to accomplish? How should we as a society judge our success in managing the risks associated with climate change? What tools, techniques, and processes are crucial to effective adaptation? These are the questions that adaptation scholars and practitioners take up in Susanne Moser’s and Maxwell Boykoff’s edited volume Successful Adaptation to Climate Change.
Through case studies ranging from adaptation efforts in the San Francisco Bay area to risk communication efforts in the Mekong Region, the authors explore the tricky terrain of adaptation. They don’t try to provide a single, concrete answer to the question of “What is adaptation success?” Rather, the contributors try to help readers understand the challenges and opportunities inherent in adaptation decision-making. They make clear that “adaptation success” is context-specific and socially defined. And, they provide encouraging evidence that effective solutions can be found.
With fresh examples and interdisciplinary research from across the world, Successful Adaptation to Climate Change offers a thorough if not entirely comprehensive view of the adaptation landscape. The book’s chapters take on issues spanning from science-policy interactions to effective communication and engagement, drawing on empirical data and experiences to infer lessons learned. From the case studies, a number of valuable themes emerge, such as the importance of meaningfully engaging those likely to be affected by climate change impacts and adaptation decisions; the need for more effective decision-support systems that can feed relevant science and information into planning and decision-making; and the necessity of institutionalizing systems for monitoring, evaluating, and learning from adaptation practice. Perhaps the most striking take away for many readers is the conclusion that—as explicitly stated by Lisa Dilling and Rebecca Romsdahl in their chapter on “Promoting adaptation success in natural resource management through decision support”—investing in people and effective institutions is likely to be as important to successful adaptation as investing in scientific data and technical tools.
Successful Adaptation to Climate Change, while very accessible, is largely academic in tone and provides more in the way of big picture guidance than specific advice for those facing on-the-ground decisions. Hence, it is likely to be more relevant for academics, students, and those working at the science-policy interface than for most planners and policy-makers. However, in providing one of the most comprehensive overviews of adaptation concerns, research, and action on the ground to date, the book has valuable lessons for anyone working to support effective adaptation.
no comments | posted in Climate Change, Land Use Planning, Risk, Science & Technology, Sustainable Development
Reviewed by Isabelle Anguelovski, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
This book, co-edited by Hernan Casakin and Fátima Bernardo, looks into the role of place identity in shaping a person’s perception, understanding and appreciation of their physical environment.
The Role of Place Identity in the Perception, Understanding, and Design of Built Environments, Edited by Hernan Casakin and Fátima Bernardo, Bentham Science, 2012, 231 pp.
How are place attachment, sense of belonging, and place identity relevant to the experience of residents, urban planners, and architects in the built environment? A number of disciplines ranging from environmental psychology, geography, urban sociology, architecture, or urban planning have engaged at length with the concept of place identity – that is the part of our personal identity through which people express their belonging to a specific place. However, to date little attention has been paid to the relationships between identity, place, and urban design and planning. This is an important gap in theory, empirical research, and practice-oriented work that the wide diversity of chapters in The Role of Place Identity in the Perception, Understanding, and Design of Built Environments attempt to fill.
Not only does this volume provide insights into the diverse ways through which people experience their city or neighborhood and the ties they weave with it despite disruptions, change, and new developments. The authors also offer in-depth analysis about place (re)creation over time and the specific role of architects, developers, and policies (such as overcrowding ordinances, zoning, urban renewal and redevelopment) as they affect the identity of a place and the local value it has for residents. This intellectual concern is particularly relevant in a context of urban globalization, competition, integration, homogenization, and architecture’s obsession with modernism, together with demands for urban design originality and differentiation.
A few chapters (13,14) analyze those tensions very nicely as they uncover the multiple ways in which architects reshape cities and neighborhoods, and how many new projects and buildings create anonymity, vacuum, and disconnection for traditional residents. As place identity becomes reshaped, the built environment is at risk of losing its vitality and livability. Most of the authors also propose concrete recommendations for creating more holistic and deeper approaches to urban design through a variety of nicely documented cases studies – from the design of welcoming and useful spaces for elderly residents in Israel (Chapter 8) to the protection and enhancement of public spaces in informal settlements in Colombia (Chapter 7).
Despite these compelling insights, the volume is bit repetitive in regards to the theoretical frameworks or definitions offered in each chapter. It would also gain from an Introduction and Conclusion bringing all the chapters together and providing greater cohesion to the volume. It reads more like a – rich and detailed – collection of essays than a true edited volume with an original argument. The argument is not new that urban designers must understand people’s experiences of and expectations from places when they develop, (re)develop, or rebuild them. The book only alludes to the numerous conflicts and forms of contestation that arise over place transformation and place identity disruption, and how urban planners, designers, and architects confront these movements and conflicts. How does place identity in the built environment becomes reshaped and reasserted in light of resistance?
no comments | posted in Cities & Infrastructure, Land Use Planning, Sustainable Development
Reviewed by Lawrence Susskind, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr Brian Stone, Jr. provides new information about the disastrous heat island effects created by urban centers and prescribes various policy frameworks to help correct this increasingly urgent situation.
The City and the Coming Climate: Climate Change in the Places We Live, by Brian Stone, Jr., Cambridge University Press, 2012, 187 pp.
In his incredibly important book, Professor Brian Stone and his team at Georgia Institute of Technology show in no uncertain terms that CO2 emissions are not the only cause of climate change. Thus, reducing CO2 emissions won’t address the heat waves and frightening heat island threats that kill more people than any other climate-related risk each year. The “loss of trees and other vegetative cover combined with the emission of waste heat from industries, vehicles and buildings” is causing dangerous heat island effects in cities all over the world. Climate science has tended to ignore the fact that cities are getting hotter than the countryside that surrounds them. And adaptation strategies that don’t reduce the causes of urban heat islands are beside the point.
In an easily accessible but scientifically scrupulous way, Stone explains why climate skeptics no longer have any basis for doubting that human actions are the cause of current worldwide temperatures increases. And, he provides persuasive modeling evidence to show that temperature increases in cities represent a serious health hazard.
Stone argues for (1) broadening the definition of climate change to encompass land-surface drivers; (2) a regional scale approach to monitoring and explaining temperature changes; (3) a commitment to forest protection and reforestation, particularly in developing countries like Brazil and Indonesia; and (4) adaptive mitigation (e.g. ways of reducing climate change impacts that help cities achieve other objectives at the same time).
In my view, Stone doesn’t get the international relations behind climate change treaty-making right; and, because he doesn’t put climate change treaty-making in the broader context of other global negotiations (e.g. perpetual North-South disagreements, the difficulties of getting any country to relinquish any of it sovereignty, enforcement problems with all international law, the principle of differentiated responsibility that was the key to getting developing countries to sign the original 1992 Framework Convention, etc.), his proposed reforms are less than compelling. Nevertheless, after reading this book it is impossible to think about climate change as a problem we can pass on to future generations. Cities need to do something now. Moreover, we don’t need international mandates to force us to implement land-based mitigation. The health and welfare of current residents depends on cities restoring vegetation and reducing (and capturing) the thermal radiation created by urban development.
no comments | posted in Cities & Infrastructure, Climate Change, Energy Efficiency, Land Use Planning, Sustainable Development
Reviewed by Kathleen Araújo, Harvard University
In this book, Joanna Lewis, provides a detailed account of China’s role in the global climate change situation and the innovative measures they are taking towards a greener future.
Green Innovation in China: China’s Wind Power Industry and the Global Transition to a Low Carbon Economy, by Joanna I. Lewis, Columbia University Press, 2013, 304 pp.
Recent international challenges, like the global recession and sovereign debt crises, may have caused some people to miss a subtle, but important development – China has become a leader in “newer” forms of renewable energy. The Asian energy technology latecomer (widely known for installing one coal-fired power plant a week) has created top-ranked wind and solar energy industries in recent years, leading some national policy-makers from other countries to ask how their own domestic efforts to do the same could be so quickly outpaced. In her book, Green Innovation in China, Georgetown University Professor of Science, Technology and International Affairs Joanna Lewis begins to answer this question by examining the rise of the Chinese wind industry.
In a well-researched argument, Lewis makes the case that China is becoming a hub for global innovation with domestic and foreign wind technology firms. Drawing upon interviews, policy documents, and energy data, she details the way in which China transformed itself from a country with no real experience in wind turbine manufacturing to one which can produce state-of-the-art wind technology systems and now leads in cumulative installed wind capacity. Acknowledging that conventional indicators, like R&D spending or patents, can be insufficient to capture the science and technology learning dynamics in play, she argues that licensing and government policy support were critical. She also includes discussion of issues like trade secrets, quality control, and slow grid connection, then speculates that intellectual property rights will probably become more important to Chinese companies as they becomes increasingly vested in wind technology exports. As a China policy consultant and scholar, Lewis brings an unusual, embedded perspective to her closing evaluation of competition and cooperation between the United States and China – the world’s largest energy consumers, greenhouse gas emitters, and economies.
While this book is accessible to a broad audience, it will be particularly valuable for policymakers and industry decision-makers interested in emergent technology markets. Broader questions about the efficacy of the World Trade Organization or debates about China’s role in global technology transfer leave ample room for a sequel. For now, though, those wanting to deepen their understanding of green jobs measures, intellectual property issues in emergent technology markets, or strategic partnering with China will not want to miss what Lewis has to say.
no comments | posted in Energy policy, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Development
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Administration Events Featured National
Remarks by Vice President Harris on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
December 6, 2021 December 6, 2021 K. Alston Bipartisan Infrastructure, Vice President-elect Kamala Harrris
THE VICE PRESIDENT: (Applause.) Hello, everyone. Hello. Hello, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Please have a seat. Please have a seat.
It is wonderful to be back in North Carolina.
Chanda, I want to thank you for your skill, for your knowledge, for showing us around today, and — and just increasing our enthusiasm and excitement for what’s happening here in this state and around the country — both because of the skilled workers who actually make it all come together but also because of the innovation that we are seeing every day, and certainly here at this facility.
I want to thank Secretary Pete Buttigieg — where are you? — there you are — for joining me today and for serving our nation as the Secretary of our Department of Transportation. You’ve been doing extraordinary work, and thank you for that.
Also traveling with me today is Congresswoman Alma Adams. And I want to thank you, Congresswoman. I will say, to your home state, that I see the Congresswoman in the halls of Congress, in the White House; she is always fighting for the people of her district and the people of North Carolina, whether the cameras are on or the cameras are off. (Applause.) So thank you for your leadership. Thank you.
And of course, Governor, it is always good to be with you. It is always good to be with you.
And, Mayor, thank you for hosting us.
So, this is a day that we are celebrating — as we will continue to do — the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
And, North Carolina, you know well: Leaders like Congresswoman Adams, like Governor Roy Cooper, like Mayor Vi Lyles, like all of the state and local elected officials who here today — leaders like Senator Richard Burr and Senator Thom Tillis — all made it possible for me and the President to turn the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal into the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Because of their work, because of our work together, America is moving again. Because ultimately, that’s what infrastructure is all about: getting people moving.
You know, the way I see it, infrastructure gives people what they need to get where they need to go. That’s my definition of infrastructure: help the people get where they need to do.
And so think about the buses that are around us, the bus that’s behind me.
People rely on public transportation for all kinds of reasons: to get groceries, to get to school on time, to get to work on time, to get to church on time.
For millions of Americans, public transportation is part of their day every day. And a bus stop within walking distance can make all the difference versus a bus stop you have to walk for half an hour to get to.
And we all know what it means for someone to miss a bus by just one minute and that it can mean being at least an hour late for work.
All of these are issues that we will address by paying attention to the need to put resources into our public transit systems.
And we all know that we just — we’re on one these beautiful electric railcars, but we all know what it’s like to be on a — on an outdated railcar. We are talking about that, in terms of the frequency that it might break down and the frequency with which it needs repair.
In states across our nation, public transportation is not as fast or as frequent, as safe or as healthy as it can be.
And people who use public transportation for their commute often spend much more of their time in transit — time that they could be spending with friends and family, helping their children do their homework; time they could spend running essential errands or even relaxing after a hard day at work.
And there is a major repair backlog in our nation: 24,000 buses, 5,000 railcars, 200 stations that are in need of work. Thousands of miles of tracks, signals, and power systems in our country need to be repaired.
We need to get to fixing all of these things. We need to get this fixed and done.
So, North Carolina, public transit is a good — public good, and that is why we are investing in it.
With our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we will make the largest-ever investment in public transit in our nation’s history.
North Carolina alone will receive $910 million for public transit over the next five years. (Applause.)
And, Governor Cooper, I want to thank you for always being such a very strong and powerful advocate for the needs of this state.
And for here in Charlotte, Mayor, well, you are doing extraordinary work upgrading your bus system with more connections, more frequent service, and more electric buses. And I know that the funding that we are delivering will help with all of that important and good work.
And here is the bottom line: World-class cities like Charlotte deserve world-class transit systems. (Applause.) And this law is going to help you build those systems.
On top of public transit, our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will also make the most significant investment to fix our roads and bridges in 70 years.
And I don’t need to tell this group of leaders that across North Carolina there are more than 3,000 miles of highway that need to be repaired — highways like I-85. Look at the people nodding. (Laughter.)
In addition, our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will modernize our ports and our airports. Among other things, think about what that will mean, not only for the passengers who need to get where they need to go, but also it will help reduce the supply chain bottlenecks that families are experiencing right now.
We will also, with this law, replace lead pipes so that every American can get — have clean drinking water, so that our babies are not drinking toxic water, which in many cases will have irreparable damage to their ability to learn.
With this work we have done together, we will expand broadband in rural and urban areas. (Applause.) Which I know — and, again, the Governor and I have talked about this — is a big issue for the people of this state.
And why do we do this? We do this work so that every American can have affordable and accessible high-speed Internet connections to do the work that we know, certainly during the course of the pandemic, became so necessary — whether it is allowing our children to have access to the Internet to get their homework done.
You know, long gone — I will speak to a certain generation of people that includes myself — long gone is Encyclopedia Britannica. (Laughter.) They need to have access to the Internet to be able to excel and reach their God-given capacity.
Let’s think about access to high-speed Internet for our small businesses and how that helps and is a necessity for them to be able to do their important work.
Let’s think about high-speed Internet and access for the purposes of telemedicine so that folks in rural communities can have access to the kind of care that they deserve and need.
In addition to all of that, and importantly, this law will put millions more Americans to work in good-paying jobs and good-paying union jobs — jobs like a fellow I met by the name of Jeff Bird has.
So Jeff Bird is a line design technician that I met with in New Hampshire. His skill and his important work is to attach fiber to utility poles to keep up with the demand for high-speed Internet.
Jobs like Walter Coty has. So, Walter — I met with him — he’s a construction inspector. And what he does is he works to get clean water to families in California.
Jobs like Leslie Kilgore has. So, Leslie is an engineer I met with in High Point, North Carolina, whose team is building electric school buses.
In creating jobs, in investing in what people need to get where they are going, our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will make our country more competitive. It will make our communities more prosperous. And it will deliver on our administration’s commitment to equity.
And as significant as it is, as historic as it is, our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is part one of two.
Part two of two is our Build Back Better Act.
The President and I know that families are stretched thin. And we take that very seriously. And we have designed the Build Back Better Act to build, to help address the reality of the needs of everyday folks who just need a little support.
Let’s take, for instance, the issue of prescription drug costs.
It is simply not right that seniors are going into debt to pay for their medication. (Applause.) It is not right that because they can’t afford their prescription, they cut pills to try and extend it and, in so doing, expose themselves to greater illness. It’s just not right. So our Build Back Act — Build Back Better Act — will bring down prescription drug costs.
It’s just not right that parents are being forced to quit their jobs to care for a member of their family. And so our Build Back Better Act will bring down both childcare costs and eldercare costs.
I can’t tell you the number of families and individuals I have met with around our country who are in what we call the “sandwich generation” — individuals who are raising their young children while they are also giving care to their elder relatives. And what that means, in terms of how they must divide up the responsibilities of their day, requiring two different sets of skills — probably with the exception of food preparation — two sets of skills that are required to balance those obligations. We should be helping people.
And so, it’s not right that families have to choose to either buy groceries or pay for healthcare, to either fill up their tank or pay their rent. And so our Build Back Better Act will bring down healthcare and housing costs also.
What we are doing with Build Back Better is saying we need to meet the needs of working families, and we must address the current and immediate needs while not neglecting the needs that are quickly becoming a crisis for us. And that brings me to the issue of the climate crisis, and the need we also have at this very moment to address it directly.
The climate crisis is an existential threat, and it demands our immediate action.
So with Build Back Better, we will make an historic investment to help families weatherize their home, businesses to produce clean energy, and our nation to reduce emissions.
The climate crisis is not slowing down and neither can we.
The House passed our Build Back Better Act just before the holiday — before Thanksgiving — and the President and I are confident that the Senate will do the same very soon. (Applause.) Yes.
And it bears noting: This bill is fully paid for and will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year. (Applause.)
And we are determined to get it passed and bring down costs for you and the people of our nation.
So, I will conclude with this: In many ways, our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and our Build Back Better Act embody our character as a nation.
They demonstrate — when you think about the details of it — they demonstrate exactly who we are, because we are believers through and through. We see what can be, unburdened by what has been. And we have faith — we have faith in what is possible and what can be. And we have determination — the determination it takes to bring a better future to bear.
So, as we move forward, let us believe in our people and invest in our people. And always, let us believe in what we can do when we stand together.
Thank you all very much. God bless you. And may God bless America. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you.
END 12:18 P.M. EST
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Hampton University Department of Architecture Chair, Robert Easter, to be Inducted into the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows →
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Leo Gerard, Single Payer, Highmark and the Corporatist Labor Movement
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By Staff Writer for Corporate Crime Reporter
If you want to know why the single payer movement is having trouble breaking through in the United States, look no further than Leo Gerard.
From 2001 to earlier this year, Gerard was the president of the United Steelworkers of America.
Then earlier this month, just a few months after retiring as head of the union, Gerard joined the board of Highmark Health.
How can it be that a major American union leader who says he supports Medicare for All single payer, who says he grew up under a single payer system in Canada and “knows the benefits,” who wrote earlier this year that “with a single-payer system like Medicare for All, every American would have the safety and security of health insurance” — how can it be that a professed single payer supporter would join the board of one of the largest health insurance companies in the nation?
A company that is a dedicated opponent of single payer?
A company that would be wiped out under a single payer system?
How can that be Leo Gerard?
“There are all kinds of single payer,” Gerard said when we reached him this week. “Haven’t you been watching the Democratic debates? There are different ways of doing it. I’m going to be the labor voice on the board of directors. Highmark is there now. I don’t know if the single payer thing will come to pass.”
Will you be a voice for single payer on the board of Highmark?
“I’m done with you,” he says.
Rank and file union leaders say that Gerard is symptomatic of a dysfunctional single payer movement and a corporatist union movement.
Ed Grystar is with the Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Single Payer Healthcare.
“Gerard has previously done TV commercials for Highmark. He now sits on their board,” Grystar said. “This is incompatible with supporting Medicare for All.”
“Especially when support for Medicare for All is rising, why would a retired union president give credibility to an insurance company that is opposed to single payer?” Grystar asks.
“There are over 500 unions that have endorsed Medicare for All. Why not use his time to publicly organize labor support for single payer?”
“Single payer means just that. One payer and the elimination of private health care insurance companies. They provide nothing of value to the health care delivery system. Tens of billions of dollars can be saved and utilized for patient care with their elimination. Health insurance companies are a dead weight on the system. They don’t comfort the sick or take care of the injured.”
Dan Kovalik was an associate general counsel at the United Steelworkers Union for 25 years before his retirement earlier this year.
Kovalik says that Gerard has always been close to Highmark.
“As president of the union, he even did television advertisements for Highmark. He has been endorsing them for years,” Kovalik said.
“It creates the appearance of impropriety. It is troubling. The labor movement is corporatist. It has been for a long time. It has been more focused on getting along with the companies instead of fighting them.”
“Highmark doesn’t employ steelworks. It’s non union and will never be union. The unions never have pushed for single payer. They didn’t even push for a public option. The unions have never aggressively supported it.”
Kovalik said that “President Richard Nixon would have green lighted single payer, but the AFL-CIO actively opposed it.”
“The unions are still negotiating employer based health care. That is one thing they can sell when they are organizing. That is one thing that prevents them from having full throated support for single payer. Unions were not even willing to push for even the public option. They didn’t want to offend anyone. If Bernie Sanders is pushing Medicare for All, the unions will rhetorically go for it. But if Joe Biden becomes president, they won’t push for it. They value their access to people like Biden, they won’t jeopardize that. Some of it is that the unions are so weak that they tend to overvalue access to institutions. Which is why Leo continued to do ads for Highmark and is now on the Highmark board. Part of it is feeling you have access to power.”
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» Co-op Community Fund
» Funding
» Merry Christmas
» Remembrance Sunday 2020
» Poet’s Corner
» Devonport Park – as youv’e never seen it before
Friends of Devonport Park
The People's Park
Groups Within The Park
Park News
Historic Devonport park is a treasure. It is Victorian and grade II listed. Established in the late 1850s it was the first park dedicated for public recreational use in any of the three towns (Devonport, Plymouth, Stone house). The parkland at that stage arced fully around Devonport, hence the term often used – “Devonport’s Green Arc”. Originally under military control, the land, immediately outside the town’s garrison walls, was used for training army personnel. The Army continued to use the land for many decades even after it was designated public parkland – initially to continue their practice drills, but eventually for recreational use.
Blending in with the community, Devonport’s military bands provided music regularly from the bandstand – afternoon music in the park was very popular.
It can be seen from this photo that sheep grazed freely upon Devonport Park right up until the first world war.
The architect responsible for designing the lodge and other park structures was Alfred Norman of Plymouth, with Messrs Arnold & Son and George Perkins being responsible for the construction work.
The Doris Gun, is probably the most well-known of the park’s features. The gun was captured from the Boer war and brought home to Devonport aboard HMS Doris. The ship’s crew subscribed to have the gun set as a monument in honour of their colleagues killed in the war – it was installed in its present site amidst a local ceremony in 1904. In 2007 the gun was professionally restored and now looks very attractive.
The Napier Fountain, is visible from Fore Street, being located just a few yards from the lower lodge; It is commonly called the Napier Fountain or the Napier Memorial. It was erected in honour of Admiral Sir Charles Napier (1786-1860) and paid for by royal marines and sailors who respected the work he carried out on their behalf; they each gave up one day’s pay.
During the 20th century the structure fell into disrepair and several of the artefacts/statuettes disappeared. The basin was removed by museum staff around 2005/2006, for protection. The whole structure was finally restored in 2011.
The Sicilian Fountain is located near the front of the Higher Lodge, within the Rose Garden.
The Great War Memorial The memorial to the brave residents of Devonport who lost their lives in WWI, commonly called the Great War, was erected in the park on 14 March 1923; it is located near the Exmouth Road entrance.
This memorial was unveiled by Field Marshall Lord Methuen GCB, SCMG, GCVO, and is sometimes referenced locally as ‘The Methuen Memorial’. Many local dignitaries were present at the ceremony such as businessmen, Police, Armed Forces personnel, the British Legion, Nurses, the Mayor of Plymouth and Lord St Levan. It was Lord St Levan, chairman of the memorial committee, who gave an address … “it would serve to point the path of duty to those who come afterwards should they receive a similar call”.
The memorial is a 33 ft high granite column designed by Mr C Cheverton and built by Mr J B Hunt of Plymouth. The column has a lantern and cross upon the top. Lower down there is a marble statue of Victory. On the plinth is a bronze plaque with relief lettering and the Devonport Coat of Arms. A second bronze plaque, on the opposite side, has the emblems of the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Flying Corps. The inscription on the memorial reads … “To the immortal memory of the citizens of Devonport who fell in the Great War”.
On 9 November 1998 the memorial became a Grade II listed structure. In keeping with the rest of Devonport park’s restoration project in the millennium decade, the figure of Victory was restored, in 2007.
A 1920s postcard of the memorial published by Abrahams of Devonport.
The Higher Lodge, is a substantial two-storey refreshment pavilion (today, converted for use as an residential home) with elaborate cast-iron verandahs and balconies, and a central ornamental gable and weathervane. The refreshment pavilion and rose garden formed part of Meyer’s alterations to the park ( 1895, 1914). Until the 1890s this formal area of the Park was still a part of the ‘Dock Lines’- occupied by the Granby Bastion. The Rose Garden, the Sicilian Fountain and the distinctive Higher Lodge, (originally a Park pavilion building) are among the improvements made after 1894. Civic pride was represented by the prominent display of the Devonport coat-of-arms – still on show today.
The Lower Lodge, is located at the Fore Street entrance to the park; it is a grade II listed building. This building, dated 1858, was designed by Alfred Norman of Devonport in the style of a Swiss lodge.
The Gas Cleansing Centre is located at the north-east corner of the park, near Exmouth Road. A Cleansing and Decontamination Station was built in 1941 during WWII, in case of gas attacks, the building was probably never used for that purpose. It languished unused for several years, but for the last decade had been used by the Plymouth Model Railway Club and is now currently used by a national company that run Stiltskin’s Soapbox Children’s Theatre.
Air Raid Shelters, Devonport Park has 5 known shelters providing refuge for up to 1,200 from WWII.
The Galatea Obilisk is visible from Fore Street, being 50 metres west of the Lower Lodge, but you may need to peer as sometimes it becomes hidden by bushes.
The Chatham Vase is said to represent famous Britons who opposed the Spanish; it is located within a small fenced garden, just ten metres north of the Lower Lodge.
Upgrade of Devonport Park
£3.294 million of funding was awarded to Plymouth City Council by the Heritage BIG Lottery Fund, although the total cost of the restoration exceeded £5 million. This was a joint bid involving Plymouth City Council and Devonport Regeneration Community Partnership. The funding was used to transform the park and restore it to its former beauty. Much work has been carried out throughout the years, such as the restoration of the lower lodge, a modern new play area and a purpose-built Cafe which includes sport changing facilities and a community room.
The bandstand, although was not part of the original lottery bid but, the public, as shown in several consultations run by the by the friends, supported the idea and so the Friends bid for £50,000 of funding to enable work to start. After successfully demonstrating the public’s support for a bandstand, the HLF agreed that the contingency fund from the original bid could be used to complete the work. The Victorian design chosen, is quite a close match for the original structure, dismantled in the 1950’s.
Co-op Community Fund
Remembrance Sunday 2020
Devonport Park – as youv’e never seen it before
Recent Activity Update
Planting of commemorative trees
Radford Park
Bowls players wanted
Day 2 at Ferry Field
Ferry Field
Mayflower 400
Supporting the Friends
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Tag: California Money Transmission Act
The California Money Transmission Act: Boon to Consumers or Bane to Innovation?
By James Mariani*
Recently California passed the Money Transmission Act (CA MTA), which some believe to be a threat to innovation in Silicon Valley and the death knell for certain types of startups.[1] The CA MTA “prohibits a person from engaging in the business of money transmission in California or advertising, soliciting, or holding itself out as providing money transmission unless licensed [] or exempt from licensure,”[2] thus expanding California’s previous money transmission regulations and licensure requirements in broad terms while assigning regulation and licensing authority to the California Department of Financial Institutions (DFI).[3] The Act now applies to domestic money transmitters and includes stored value device issuers, as well as other businesses that offer new types of alternative payment and mobile applications.
II. Background
Money transmission laws date back to 1936 in California after money transmitter businesses were created to take advantage of a new market of immigrants wishing to send money back to their native land.[4] Regulations were originally designed to prevent money laundering, fraud, and other financial crimes, however after the events of September 11, 2001, the financing of terrorist activities jumped to the forefront prompting many states to pass money transmission laws. Congress responded with its own legislation, passing the USA PATRIOT Act, which among other things, amended 18 U.S.C. § 1960 criminalization of acting as an unlicensed money transmitting business in a state that requires such a license, by making the mens rea requirement one of general intent. The District of Columbia and 48 states have similar money transmitter laws, however none seem to be experiencing the uproar and criticism experienced in California.[5] This can most likely be attributed to two issues: the CA MTA is broader and has more expensive licensing requirements than what is typical among the states and California has an environment of unique, highly entrepreneurial channels and a large startup volume.
III. The California Money Transmission Act
The CA MTA provides that “a person shall not engage in the business of money transmission in this state, or advertise, solicit, or hold itself out as providing money transmission in this state, unless the person is licensed or exempt from licensure . . . .”[6] Based on findings that the failure of money transmission businesses to fulfill their obligations would cause harm to consumers and the state while undermining public confidence and general welfare, the legislature designed the act with the purported purpose of protecting the interest of persons in the state who use money transmission services, of providing for the safe and sound conduct of the business of licensees, and to maintain public confidence in licensees.
“Money Transmission” is defined broadly to mean selling or issuing payment instruments, selling or issuing stored value, or receiving money for transmission.[7] A “payment instrument” is defined as an instrument for the transmission or payment of money or monetary value, whether or not negotiable, excluding issuers who also redeem the instrument for goods or services provided by the issuer.[8] “Stored value” means monetary value representing a claim against the issuer that is stored on a digital or electronic medium and accepted as means of redemption for money or as payment for goods or services excluding cards issued by businesses that also redeem the card for goods or services provided by the issuer.[9] Finally, “receiving money for transmission” broadly includes any transaction where money or monetary value is received for transmission within or outside the United States by electronic or other means—thus possibly including certain novel mobile payment applications and emerging payment platforms that are not offered by banks or other regulated depository institutions.[10]
These broad terms change existing regulations in several ways. First of all, the Act combines three existing license regimes—traveler check issuers, money order sellers, and foreign money transmitters—into one. Secondly, it newly subjects domestic money transmitters and stored value, or open loop, issuers to licenses. Finally, it criminalizes engaging in money transmission in California without a license. It is important to note that this law applies to anyone who engages in its prohibitions in California or for California residents.
1. Licensure Requirements
Just as the CA MTA’s defining prohibition is seemingly broad and open-ended, likewise are its license requirements, which are more demanding than what is typical among the states.[11] A license is only attainable by a corporation or limited liability company and is issued by the Commissioner of the California Department of Financial Institutions (Commissioner).[12] An application requires a nonrefundable $5,000 fee along with a multitude of specified information provided “in a form and in a medium prescribed by the [C]ommissioner.”[13] This section also includes a catchall provision entitling the Commissioner to “any other information the [C]ommissioner requires with respect to the applicant” as well as the ability to waive or replace specified information requirements.[14] The Commissioner is authorized to conduct an examination of an applicant, at the applicant’s expense, and then approve its application if certain specific findings are made including that “the financial condition of the applicant is otherwise such that it will be safe and sound for the applicant to engage in the business of money transmission,” the applicant and its agents are of good character and sound financial standing, it is competent, its plan affords reasonable promise of successful operation, and it is reasonable to believe the applicant will be compliant once licensed.[15] In addition to the broad terms of authorizing a license, § 2036 provides a supplementary and powerful catchall phrase entitling the Commissioner to “impose on any authorization, approval, license, or order issued pursuant to this chapter any conditions that he or she deems reasonable or necessary to the public interest,” including exemptions from the license requirement.[16]
a. The Net Worth or “Sound Financial Standing” Requirements
When designing the CA MTA, the California legislature found that “the failure of money transmission businesses to fulfill their obligations would cause loss to consumers, disrupt the payments mechanism in this state, undermine public confidence in financial institutions doing business in this state, and adversely affect the health, safety, and general welfare of persons in this state.”[17] Based on this concern, the legislature added large security deposit requirements in order to ensure that licensees were of sound financial standing in order to prevent the failure of money transmission businesses and weed out “fly-by-night” company applicants.[18] The security requirement however is ambiguous and broad—as is the trend throughout the Act—providing that as a security, a licensee will deposit cash, securities, or a surety bond in “such amount as the [C]ommissioner may find and order from time to time as necessary to secure the faithful performance of the obligations of the licensee . . . .” If a licensee sells or issues payment instruments or stored value, then it must maintain securities or a surety bond of at least $500,000 or 50 percent of the California average daily outstanding payment instrument and stored value obligations up to $2,000,000. A licensee that engages in receiving money for transmission must maintain a security or surety bond in an amount greater than the average daily outstanding obligations for money received for transmission in California ranging from $250,000 to $7,000,000. The security, money, bonds, and their proceeds are deposited with the State Treasurer and “shall constitute a trust fund for the benefit of persons in California” who were customers of the licensee in the event of its failure.[19]
b. Other Post-license Compliance Requirements
In addition to the security deposit requirements, the CA MTA also includes several regulatory compliance provisions such as paying an annual $2,500 fee (among other conditional licensee fees);[20] filing audit reports and specific informational reports—including total volume of activities, transactions, obligations, etc.;[21] and providing consumers with certain disclosures, notices, and records.[22]
2. Noncompliance Penalties
The Commission has yet to exercise its enforcement capabilities, but they are broad and powerful as presented in the statute. The CA MTA authorizes the Commissioner to suspend or revoke a license if “the Commissioner finds that a licensee or agent of a licensee has, among other things, violated the provisions of the CA MTA or engaged in fraud or unsound practices . . . .”[23] If a money transmitting business fails to attain a license and conducts business regardless, it could be faced with heavy civil penalties, criminal penalties, or both. Also frightening is the possibility that the CA MTA may, in conjunction with § 1960 of the USA PATRIOT Act, result in an unknowingly unlicensed money transmitting business being guilty of committing a federal general intent crime. This fact is exceptionally worrisome, as many companies may not realize that they require a license due to the Act’s ambiguity. Also, the expensive licensing requirements can be crippling to some startups that are unable to afford the license requirements. As this Act only recently went into effect, it is difficult to predict the scope of the possible enforcement actions, the weight of their ensuing penalties, or how such actions will play out.
3. Who Requires a License?
The breadth of the CA MTA has stirred sizeable criticism and prompted many to ask who exactly requires a license. “A spokewoman from the DFI advised companies to ask themselves simple questions:”
Do you take funds/value from A and agree to pay them to B on behalf of A; and/or Do you take funds/value from A, and store it so that A can make purchases from third parties or take cash out at a later date.[24]
This answer however, is no less broad than the language of the statute. It could potentially cover a wide array of companies from Airbnb, for renting hosts’ rooms to travelers; to Apple, for taking money from customers and paying it to App developers; and to Zynga, for selling virtual currency. There has already been confusion between DFI and a company on the Act’s application; Airbnb believes the licensing requirements do not apply to them, and DFI believes the opposite. DFI has shown that it is willing to work with companies, like Square who didn’t even apply for a license until a year after the Act went into effect. This leniency though, might be temporary as the Act is relatively new and possesses penalties that are potentially crippling. When interpretations between a company and DFI differ on the law’s application, litigation might be required. In such cases, criminal enforcement and civil penalties may be at stake. If a money transmitting business does fail, the security bond requirements of the Act are supposed to make consumers whole, which may or may not justify the high compliance cost.
FaceCash is a startup that stopped doing business in California because it couldn’t afford the security deposit requirements. The company was unable to receive an exemption from the state and embarked upon litigation against California. The CA MTA cannot be enforced against FaceCash because it discontinued its business in California, but what if it had not? Companies that can’t afford the security deposits and aren’t sure whether the Act applies to them may be faced with asking themselves whether they should risk the potential penalties rather than try and comply with the Act’s high licensing requirements.
IV. Conclusion
The DFI publishes a list of the companies that currently are licensed under the CA MTA as a money transmitting business.[25] The best strategy for a company presently is to look at this list and determine if its business model is similar to those companies that require and have attained a license. If its business model is innovative, using the plain English test passed down by the DFI is the next best choice. However, until the scope of the Act’s enforcement and penalties are clearer, many startup companies will be dissuaded from conducting possible money transmission business and risking high penalties and possible criminal prosecution. In this sense, the CA MTA is detrimental to innovation, and a new, expensive burden for the many startups that make their home in California.
*J.D., College of Law, University of Illinois, expected 2013
[1] Money Transmission Act, Cal. Fin. Code § 2000 (West 2012); see Chris Hinyub, The Money Transmission Act: A Boon to Banks, a Bane of Small Businesses, IVN.us (May 25, 2011), http://ivn.us/2011/05/25/money-transmission-act-boon-banks-bane-small-businesses/ (“[T]he Money Transmission Act is designed to kill innovation.”); Owen Thomas, This Innovation-Killing California Law Could Get A Host of Startups in Money Trouble, Business Insider (July 11, 2012, 6:21 PM), http://www.businessinsider.com/california-money-transmitter-act-startups-2012-7 (“[Startups’] entrepreneurial impulse could be stifled by a surprisingly broad statute governing money transmission in California . . . .”).
[2] Marie Hogan, California’s New Money Transmission Law Sweeps Up, Joseph & Cohen (May 19, 2011), http://josephandcohen.com/2011/05/californias-new-money-transmission-law-sweeps-up/.
[3]Jonathan Pompan, California Enacts Sweeping New Law Targeting Money Transmitters, Venable LLP (Oct. 2010), http://www.venable.com/california-enacts-sweeping-new-law-targeting-money-transmitters-10-05-2010/.
[4] Andrea Lee Negroni, Risky Business: State Regulation of Money Transmitters, CLEAR News (Goodwin Proctor LLP, Bos., Mass.) Spring 2003, at 1–2, available at http://www.goodwinprocter.com/~/media/Files/Publications/Attorney%20Articles/2003/Risky_Business_State_Regulation_of_Money_Transmitters.ashx.
[5] Jonathan L. Pompan, Understanding the Relationship Between Money Transmitter Laws and Regulations and Debt Management Plans, Venable LLP (Jan. 20, 2012, 9:30 AM), http://www.aiccca.org/images/AICCCA%20Presentation%20-%20Understanding%20the%20Relationship%20between%20Money%20Transmitter%20Laws%20and%20Regulations%20and%20Debt%20Management%20Plans%20(January%2020%202012).pdf.
[6] Money Transmission Act, Cal. Fin. Code § 2030 (West 2012).
[7] Id. § 2003(o).
[8] Id. § 2003(q); see Hogan, supra note 2 (listing as examples: a check, draft, or money order).
[9] Fin § 2003(v); see Hogan, supra note 2 (distinguishing Visa gift cards, which are included; from cards issued by leading coffee chains, which are excluded).
[10] Fin § 2003(s); Hogan, supra note 2.
[11] See Pompan, supra note 9 (explaining that typical requirements for state licensing include “good moral character”, “sufficient financial responsibility”, “business experience”, “confidence of the public”, “a minimum net worth of [e.g.] $150,000”, and “3 years experience in money transmission or other related financial services”).
[12] Money Transmission Act, Cal. Fin. Code § 2031 (West 2012); Pompan, supra note 2.
[13] See Fin. § 2032 (listing specified information requirements from § 2032(c)(1)–(22)).
[15] See id. § 2033 (listing specific findings from § 2033(b)(1)–(5)).
[16] See id. § 2036.
[17] Id. § 2001(c).
[18] Id. §§ 2033, 2037; Danielle Rodabaugh, California Money Transmitter Company Closes, Possibly to Avoid $750,000 Surety Bond, Suretybonds.com (July 8, 2011), http://www.suretybonds.com/blog/california-money-transmitter-company-closes-possibly-to-avoid-750000-surety-bond/1411 (“The state established the high surety bond requirement to keep fly-by-night companies out of the market.”).
[19] Fin. § 2037; Pompan, supra note 2.
[20] Fin. § 2038. See § 2038(e)–(h) for additional conditional fees.
[21] Id. § 2039 (listing specific requirements for respective required reports); Pompan, supra note 2.
[22] Fin. §§ 2100–2106; Pompan, supra note 2.
[25] Directory of Money Transmitters, CA.gov, http://www.dfi.ca.gov/directory/mt.asp (last updated Sept. 5, 2012, 9:31:16 AM).
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PD Interview: Lucy Hanemann
Full Name: Lucy Elizabeth Hanemann
Home Town: New Orleans, LA
College and Major: Vanderbilt University, Majors: Political Science and Spanish, Minor: Sociology
1. What programs do you run?
Library, Women’s Exercise: Zumba, Adult English: Intermediate, and Small Business Development
2. If you had to pick one, which is your favorite and why?
Oh man, that’s hard. I guess I’d go with Adult English because it’s something that I honestly didn’t think that I could do before coming here. I had absolutely no confidence in myself that I could teach an English class, but for some reason I decided to take it on. It really doesn’t make sense why I made that decision…but it’s one of my favorites because of how much it pleasantly surprised me. Turns out, it’s pretty awesome having your own classroom of adults who really want to learn and who appreciate you for what you’re doing (I hope?). I’ve really gotten to know my students, and the classroom has gotten to be a really comfortable place where we learn but we also joke and have fun with each other.
A close second is Small Business Development though because of how much we’ve transformed the program this year to incorporate micro lending. The fact that people can now look to us for financial support in their business endeavors is just so cool to me! Ahh now I’m thinking of a million reasons why I love my other programs. I just don’t want to leave them out! Oh well, moving on…
3. How did you hear about Manna and what made you want to join?
Since Manna was founded at Vanderbilt, where I went to college, it has a huge presence on campus. Sophomore year at Vandy was my first experience with Manna, when I went on a spring break trip to La Ceiba, Honduras. After that, I did two more trips to the same place with Manna because I became so addicted. Then senior year, partially because I had no idea what to do with my life (that’s what studying poli sci, Spanish, and sociology will do for you), I decided to do Manna. I’ve always wanted to do something international for a year after graduation to get a different experience and get better at Spanish, and Manna was the best option available!
4. Is there something from your experience so far that has caught you off guard?
Yes. The amount of KFCs in this country is ridiculous. What a random fast food chain to latch onto! But other than that, there have been a lot of cultural shocks that we’ve had to get used to, like lack of personal space on public transportation. But there have also been some pretty amazing shocks, like the generosity and sense of community that Ecuadorians as a whole have. I’ve been taken aback by how friendly and helpful people here are, and not just our Ecuadorian friends, but also random people on the street who will stop to give you directions when you’re looking just the most lost!
5. If you could change one thing about our house, what would it be?
I’d probably fill in my bug pit. I guess I have to explain that now…Sooo, my bathroom has some sort of tub that’s really oddly shaped and is highly impractical. I don’t know if it has ever functioned, but I’m lead to believe that it never did because there’s also a pretty massive and unfinished part of the bathroom that’s set off from the rest. Maybe it was supposed to be a spa of some sort? I don’t know. But I do know that the walls are all unfinished, there are wires coming out of them, and there’s a door just leaning against the wall. It’s strange. But anyway, this tub thing is pretty much the worst because whenever it rains water leaks into it from the terribly constructed window on the ceiling above. AND roly poly type bugs crawl in from outside, drown in the water, then decompose in my tub. Do you see why it’s called the bug pit now? The result is that about every week I have to clean it out because it starts to smell reallyyyyy bad. P.S. it’s raining right now…
6. What is your favorite meal to cook for dinner?
Ha cooking! It’s not really my forte, but I do really love food! So, I’d have to say something really easy to make but at the same time equally delicious. Being a New Orleans gal, my preference is Zatarans jambalaya, straight from the box (conveniently my mom just donated about 15 boxes to the Manna house). The only extra thing you have to make is some chicken and/or sausage to throw in there!
Additionally, I’d like to give props to my best Manna cooking partner, Joey Teevens. Without him, I’m nothing in the kitchen. I like to believe that our dinners will be remembered throughout all of Manna history. See you on Saturday in the kitchen buddy!
7. What song is on repeat on your iPod at the moment??
Well, right now I’m planning my Zumba class for tomorrow. So, my iTunes is pretty Latino. Per Jenni’s request, I’m learning a new routine to No te veo by Casa de Leones. So I’ve had that on repeat pretty much all day. However, I took a little break just now to listen to Michael Jackson’s PYT. I don’t know why. Just feeling it.
8. What is your most cherished experience so far with our neighbor Cesâr?
I feel like I haven’t had as many funny interactions with Cesar as everyone else has. I don’t think he likes me as much. But I’d say that every time I hear “VECINOSSSS” from across the street, my heart skips a beat.
9. How much do you miss Gandalf? RIP
I’m not really one to disrespect the dead, but I really don’t like cats. That being said, for being a cat, Gandalf was a pretty good one. I’ll always be appreciative of the rat extermination services that he provided. Except when he brought the dead ones into the house, but I only saw that happen once. Overall, I guess I do miss that little booger!
10. What do you think is the best thing you will take away from your experience with Manna?
So much. First, I’ve gotten so much experience living and traveling in a foreign country, which makes you learn so much about the world and makes you so much more self-sufficient. Second, being able to have control over programs and getting this on the ground experience with a non-profit is a really great learning process. I’ve experienced first hand how a non-profit functions and what kind of work is needed to keep it up, running, and impacting a community. Third, and possibly most important, I’ll take away the amazing relationships that I’ve made here. We truly lucked out with such an awesome, fun, and hardworking group of program directors, and I have no idea what I’m going to do come August without having them constantly around me. I guess I’ll reach a point in my life where living in the same house with 8 of your best friends isn’t acceptable anymore, but I just don’t want to.
11. What impact do you hope to leave on Manna?
At the very least, I hope to leave the new Program Directors with some really good training and guidance on how to run our programs so that they can continue to expand year after year. But ultimately I’d like for the kids in the library to learn the difference between Polly and I and start calling me by my actual name. Maybe they’ll affectionately call one of the new PDs Lucy….a girl can dream.
12. What do you think of the calculated move by the United States government to not recognize the newly elected Venezuelan government of Nicholas Maduro? Is it possible that the US-Venezuelan relationship could worsen or is at absolute zero? What should be the US's next step?
The underlying issue here is the uncertainty with the legitimacy of the Venezuelan electoral process. Capriles demanded a recount of the votes, which Maduro agreed to do, but then reneged on this agreement, making the whole situation kind of sketchy. I think the move by the US government to not recognize Maduro and the new Venezuelan government is wise for right now. The US obviously doesn’t want to show its support for a potentially corrupt and illegitimate government, and the evidence right now does not prove that the election was won fairly.
The US is making a stance to fight to defend the vote and the opinions of the people of Venezuela, who are obviously not all happy given the riots that have happened in the country. The president’s absolute control over all institutions in Venezuela has gone on for too long, and it’s about time for this control to lighten up and for other people to be heard. Plus, it must be pretty hard for the US to take seriously a government who has captured a US citizen and thrown him in jail for trying to incite a Venezuelan civil war even though he doesn’t even work for the US government.
This move by Maduro is a pretty desperate attempt to turn his population even further against the US, which if successful could potentially worsen US-Venezuelan relations. But honestly, I don’t think it will and I don’t think things can get much worse. Never say never though because who really knows. I mean, the US hasn’t exactly proven false its imperialistic reputation, even now when they’re refusing to recognize the Venezuelan government, so I think even though the US is making a valid move, this could potentially worsen its relations with Venezuela. We’ll see what happens I guess!
13. Would you rather this interview be in video format?
Definitely not. You know how awkward I am. Multiply that by 10 and that’s what a video interview of me would be like. I’m not going to submit anyone to that level of discomfort.
Recent Developments in SBD
PD Interview: Polly Jean
Summer Interns
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Stop the Anne Arundel Nominating Commission's Undemocratic Practices
Posted by J.H. Snider | Feb 11, 2015
On Feb. 18, 2015, the Commission plans to vote on dozens of applicants using a voting rule allowing 27% of its members to veto a nomination.
Between now and July 1, 2015, Governor Larry Hogan will have the opportunity to appoint to the Anne Arundel Board of Education a majority (five of eight) of its adult members. In doing so, he will be limited to choosing from among those nominated by the Anne Arundel School Board Nominating Commission, which is required by statute to submit to him at least two nominees for each open seat.
On Feb. 18, 2015, the Commission will vote on dozens of applicants for two open seats–and it plans to use an undemocratic voting rule to do so.
The Maryland General Assembly allows the Commission to choose its own voting rule for choosing nominees. The Commission, which consists of eleven commissioners, has chosen a supermajority rule whereby an applicant needs the votes of at least eight commissioners to be nominated. That means, for example, that the four public union representatives (two from the teachers’ union, one from the administrators’ union, and one from the largest support staff union) can normally veto any candidate. When the Commission has a vacancy, as it currently does, only three votes (27% of the commission) are needed for a veto.
The Commission should change its voting rule to require only a simple majority, which is the largest majority legislative bodies typically use to approve, let alone merely nominate, a candidate for public office. This change would be easy to make because it would require no more than a simple majority vote by the commissioners–the same procedure they used to create the supermajority rule in the first place.
Arguably, the Commission shouldn’t stop there. Given its questionable democratic legitimacy, the Commission could reverse its existing voting rule and require only four votes to vet an applicant. Use of a minority voting rule is common when a public body engages in a two-step decision rule, such as when a court decides which cases to consider or the public collects signatures to place a referendum on the ballot.
From another perspective, four yes votes is actually a majority because five of the eleven commissioners are appointed by private entities such as the teachers’ and administrators’ unions. Indeed, the Maryland statute creating these commission seats may be a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause, which mandates that every citizen be entitled to one vote. For example, the Illinois Supreme Court found that a city council violated this constitutional provision when it delegated the election of local school boards to the parents of children enrolled in the schools.
The Commission knows its current supermajority rule lacks democratic legitimacy, which helps explain why it never included this critical rule in its bylaws and passed it at an obscure, poorly attended meeting. Since the rule was passed in 2008, I have never heard it publicly defended, even at the meeting at which it was passed. But many political practices persist even if they are too embarrassing to defend publicly. It is the public’s job to demand an end to them. In Hong Kong, for example, a proposed nominating commission that would give Beijing veto power over candidates for local government led hundreds of thousands of citizens to demonstrate in the streets.
Anne Arundel County Council members and Anne Arundel delegates to the Maryland General Assembly should write to Commission members requesting that they use no more than a simple majority voting rule to vet nominees. More than half the County Council’s budget goes to fund the Anne Arundel County Public School System, and the Council routinely sends resolutions to AACPS and other public bodies expressing its views. Some Commission members owe their appointment to the recommendations of General Assembly members and will not want to annoy their benefactors.
Regardless of what the Commission does, the General Assembly should pass legislation mandating that the Commission use no more than a simple majority to nominate an applicant. The bill introduced in the General Assembly on Feb. 6 to reform the School Board Nominating Commission should be amended to include such a provision.
In America, we call it “special interest politics” when a small minority can veto a candidate for public office. It may be impossible to eliminate special interest politics from our school board. But eliminating supermajority rules for the Commission that nominates its members would be a significant step in that direction.
Source: Snider, J.H., Stop the Anne Arundel Nominating Commission’s Undemocratic Practices, Anne Arundel Patch, February 11, 2015.
PreviousUpdate on the Anne Arundel County School Board Nominating Commission
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Home » Geography and Environment » Human Environment » Cities and Towns » Mountain Brook
City of Mountain Brook
Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce
Mountain Brook Art Association
Mountain Brook Schools
Emmet O'Neal Library
Christopher Maloney, Auburn University
Located in Jefferson County southeast of Birmingham, Mountain Brook was incorporated in 1942. It has a council/manager form of government and was the first city in the state to operate under that system. The city does have a mayor, but the city manager supervises city operations. Actress Courteney Cox is was born and raised in the city.
Old Mill House in Mountain Brook
Mountain Brook, more formally called Mountain Brook City, arose from the Mountain Brook Estates community that was developed in the 1920s by Robert Jemison Jr., a successful real estate developer. He created Mountain Brook on the Shades Valley side of Red Mountain with an eye toward preserving the natural surroundings and environment for the enjoyment of the future residents, most of whom were likely to be wealthy Birmingham business leaders and their families. It was reportedly named, according to one account, after the Mountain Brook Store in Blount County. Jemison sold shares to individuals in Mountain Brook Estates, which enabled them to choose lots. The community was restricted to whites. Jemison also limited the types of businesses permitted to move into the community, forbidding hospitals, auto garages, veterinary services, and most businesses considered noisy or malodorous. Lacking access to the area's streetcar network, residents relied on automobiles, and the development was noted at the time for its paved roads and access to utilities, except for sewer services, which arrived many years later. After focusing on housing development in the community, Jemison turned his attention to building recreation centers, high-end retail shopping, schools, and the Mountain Brook Club. Many of the facilities and homes were constructed in the English Tudor style, with Italianate, French Norman farmhouse, Georgian, and Federal Revival styles being popular among the larger estates as well. One of the more noted early amenities was the Mountain Brook Riding Academy, which had a blacksmith shop and 60 stalls.
In the 1920s, the development suffered from the economic effects of the Great Depression, as nearby Birmingham was severely affected by the downturn. Some shareholders were forced to sell their shares, lots went undeveloped, and homes were boarded up. As Birmingham recovered during World War II, so did Mountain Brook, incorporating in 1942. Currently home to many Birmingham finance, education, healthcare, and administrative professionals and executives, Mountain Brook remains one of the wealthiest communities in Alabama.
According to 2016 Census estimates, the population of Mountain Brook was 20,532. Of that number, approximately 96.5 percent of the population identified themselves as white, 1.0 percent as Hispanic or Latino, 1.5 percent as black, 1.0 percent as Asian, 0.5 as two or more races, 0.3 percent as American Indian and Alaska Native, and 0.1 percent as Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. The city's median household income was $129,777, and per capita income was $70,735.
According to 2016 Census estimates, the workforce in Mountain Brook was divided among the following industrial categories:
Educational services, and health care and social assistance (27.3 percent)
Professional, scientific, management, and administrative and waste management services (21.4 percent)
Finance, insurance, and real estate, rental, and leasing (17.1 percent)
Retail trade (6.2 percent)
Manufacturing (5.5 percent)
Arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation, and food services (4.7 percent)
Wholesale trade (4.2 percent)
Other services, except public administration (4.1 percent)
Public administration (3.4 percent)
Construction (2.5 percent)
Transportation and warehousing and utilities (2.3 percent)
Information (1.2 percent)
Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and extractive (0.3 percent)
Public education in Mountain Brook is administered by Mountain Brook Schools. The system oversees four elementary schools, one junior high, and one senior high school.
As a suburb of Birmingham, Mountain Brook is close to some of the state's major institutions of higher learning; University of Alabama at Birmingham, Samford University, and Birmingham-Southern College. In addition, the historically black Miles College and Miles Law School, Birmingham School of Law, Jefferson State Community College, and Lawson State Community College provide other educational opportunities in the Mountain Brook vicinity. Southeastern Bible College, a nondenominational four-year college, also is located nearby.
Mountain Brook lies within an area bounded by Interstate 459 to the south and east, interstates 20 and 59 to the north, and U.S. Route 280 and State Route 38 to the south and west. Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport is located just a few miles to the north.
Events and Places of Interest
Country Club of Birmingham
The private Birmingham Country Club and Mountain Brook Club offer golf, swimming, tennis, and social activities for members. Nearby is Highland Park Golf Course, an 18-hole public facility. Just to the southwest is the Birmingham Zoo, and Crestline Park, Erskine Ramsay Park, and the Birmingham Botanical Gardens are located nearby. Within the city are Crestline Tot Lot, Jemison Park, Overton Park, Irondale Furnace Park, Canterbury Park, and an athletic complex located adjacent to Mountain Brook High School.
The Mountain Brook Art Association hosts an annual art show, typically in April at Crestline Elementary school featuring the two-dimensional works of local artists, and the city hosts a holiday parade in early December.
Barefield, Marilyn Davis. A History of Mountain Brook, Alabama & Incidentally of Shades Valley. Birmingham: Southern University Press, 1989.
Jefferson County Heritage Book Committee. The Heritage of Jefferson County. Clanton, Ala.: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2002.
Published: September 23, 2011 |  Last updated: June 24, 2020
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Video game number one hundred and ninety five: Blacklight Tango Down
Video game review number one hundred and ninety five in my 365 Games in 365 Days project is "Blacklight: Tango Down".
Much like Battlefield 1943, this is another multiplayer exclusive first person shooter on Xbox Live Arcade. Much like my review of that one from back in Feburary...I'm a not a fan. I am a firm believer in the fact that shooters like this one need an offline campaign to get you familiar with the game, and "ready" to play multiplayer.
Sure, I loved the Halo Reach Multiplayer beta, but that's because I've been playing Halo for years. I was familiar with the universe, and ready to jump in without any training. Even though there were new weapons and levels, I didn't need to "learn" it. Blacklight Tango Down is a brand new game, and getting immediately thrown into the multiplayer (with no option to learn anything first) is a big turnoff for me.
In my first match in this game, I went 8-19 (kills to deaths). My team still won by three points despite my piss-poor performance, so I was able to earn the "noob" achievement....but I don't really feel like I accomplished very much.
From time to time...I have "Halo parties" at my house. The folks that show up to these are generally big fans of the game, who bring their systems and sometimes their televisions. We hook them all up to a network and play some big 16 player matches. Without fail, there are always a few people who come to these parties who don't play Halo at all, they just like parties. They are usually the "easy kills", and a kill to death ratio of 8-19 would probably be pretty impressive for them.
Unless a game is awesome (like Call of Duty or something), I'm not comfortable jumping right into the multiplayer and getting owned. It would be like playing Street Fighter 4 in the arcades against someone who's awesome as you continued to lose your cash. I'd rather ramp my skills up before joining competitive modes. This game doesn't offer that...so I'm out.
Overall score? 4/10. For an arcade title, this is actually pretty robust as far as the multiplayer goes. Fairly nice graphics, but frankly....I'm not willing to spend any time with it. There's no campaign here, and if I'm going to play competitive multiplayer, there's nothing more compelling here for me than there is in a ton of games I already own (and would rather play). While I can appreciate what they're trying to do here, I don't anticipate playing this one again.
Achievement? I'm a noob.
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Hip Hop Africa
Music/Videos
Welcome to the companion website for Hip Hop Africa: New African Music in a Globalizing World, edited by Eric Charry (Indiana University Press, 2012).
Hip Hop Africa explores a new generation of Africans who are not only consumers of global musical currents, but also active and creative participants. Eric Charry and an international group of contributors look carefully at youth culture and the explosion of hip hop in Africa, the embrace of other contemporary genres, including reggae, ragga, and gospel music, and the continued vitality of drumming. Covering Senegal, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and South Africa, this volume offers unique perspectives on the presence and development of hip hop and other music in Africa and their place in global music culture.
All authors’ royalties earned from the sales of this book will be donated to artists and nongovernmental organizations (NGO) working to improve the lives of young Africans through music or dance. The recipients in our first years of publication are:
Abdul Kinyenya, on Insta
Abramz Tekya, on Linkedin
Moureen Kifuko Drichiru, aka Bgirl Key (founder of She is Hiphop), on Insta, on Linkedin, on CNN
Abdul and Abramz are both founding members of Breakdance Project Uganda. Bgirl Key is a member, teacher, and former student of BPU.
Purchase book at Amazon
Book cover photo credits: Ugandan B-Boy Abdul Kinyenya, founding member of Breakdance Project Uganda; crowd at performance of Senegalese hip hop group Tigrim-Bi (Dakar, 2010). Photos by Magee McIlvaine.
“an impressive collection of essays that fills a crucial gap in hip hop studies, popular music studies and ethnomusicology. Its diversity of themes, research methodologies, national idiosyncrasies, historical narratives, and an impressive discography and videography, make for a deep and valuable resource. Hip Hop Africa will be an important book for any future research on hip hop throughout Africa.” (Journal of World Popular Music, 2014)
“a welcome addition to the growing scholarly literature on African hip-hop music and cultures. . . . Readers will especially appreciate the contextualitzation of hip-hop music within a wider popular cultural context on the continent . . . The extensive bibliography in this collection will also offer the most voracious reader and researcher of hip-hop a large source for more data . . . offers rich historical material in understanding the historicity of hip-hop music in Africa.” (Journal of African Cultural Studies, 2013)
“an impressive collection of case studies from prominent ethnomusicologists and anthropologists . . . addresses the new frontiers and expressive cultural routes of hip hop, emphasizing the linguistic and cultural diversity that African urbanites have brought to bear on this global art form. . . . recommended for scholars and students with an interest in contemporary African popular culture and urbanism. Given the breadth of its content, it will be a particularly useful resource for graduate and undergraduate courses on global hip hop, African popular music, and urban African culture.” (Research in African Literatures, 2013)
“impressively details hip hop’s evolution throughout Africa . . . [and] presents important arguments in African hip hop scholarship, including discussions on African hip hop’s linkages with US hip hop, and debates over authenticity and imitation. . . . . The authors in the volume provide extensive background information on hip hop’s evolution throughout Africa . . . much of the volume’s strength lies in its examination of local hip hop scenes . . . a good look urban music in Africa . . . a solid contribution to scholarship on African hip hop. (African Studies Quarterly, 2013)
© 2022 Wesleyan University
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By Jamie Adair Game of Thrones August 8, 2017
Daenerys is No Hero
If you think Daenerys is a hero, you haven’t been paying attention. She might be the biggest villain on Game of Thrones and we don’t even know it.
Beautiful and highly sympathetic, Daenerys grew up hunted (not unlike Henry VII). Her silver-haired, narcissistic brother Viserys likely abused her (“Don’t awake the Dragon”) throughout her childhood. To further his own ambition, Viserys sold her at 13 years of age into a horse-trading-style diplomatic marriage. On her wedding night, somebody who didn’t even speak her language basically raped her.
In many ways, Daenerys is the ultimate mind f##k. We see things from her perspective, so we are automatically sympathetic. Yet Dany is often misguided. Just recently at Highgarden, she got so caught up in “unleashing her dragon” that she incinerated the helpless Lannister soldiers, recklessly killed Tarley father & son, and destroyed the grain she needs to feed her armies.
Much to many people’s scorn, several years ago I argued that Robert Baratheon was right to attempt to assassinate the newly married Daenerys Targaryen to prevent her from attempting to reclaim the Iron throne.
Robert Baratheon’s speech about the effects of a Dothraki invasion is likely an allusion to the Henry V’s raids during the Hundred Years’ War. © HBO.
Maybe I’m adopting the medieval mentality too readily, but I’ll say it again: If a conqueror sailed into Blackwater Bay and successfully put King’s Landing under siege tens of thousands would die. As I wrote in the article: A hurricane is brewing off shore. You have the chance to stop that storm from making landfall and killing thousands of people. Would should you do? This isn’t hard.
At the end of Season 6, Daenerys and Yara (Asha) set sail for Westeros with a fleet of ironborn invaders. Not to be sarcastic, but this isn’t exactly a Red Cross delegation. Daenerys is a conqueror. Regardless of what lies she tells herself, she’s not coming to help the people. She’s coming to rule. And blood will be the cost.
Madonna, is Khaleesi really your hero? Really Madonna? Really?
Historically speaking, conquerors don’t typically just politely ask cities to surrender. When besieged cities refuse to yield, would-be conquers don’t put hat in hand, shrug, and say, “Aw shucks. I guess I’ll go home now.”
No, conquerors attempt to get what they want through violence. Conquerors put cities under siege, and their armies drive swords through the chests of enemy guards, murder babies, flay townspeople, and rape the local women.
In ancient times, conquerors would then enslave some of the people in the conquered city and kill the others.
Dany rouses her armies with promises of war, conquest, and blood.
Although Daenerys has shown us that she won’t tolerate her armies raping women, battles and sieges mean that people will die.
Case in point: The World War II Siege of Leningrad killed 4.5 million people. The 1258 Siege of Baghdad butchered 2.5 million. On August 2, 216 BC, Hannibal’s one-day Battle of Cannae slaughtered 53,000 to 75,000 men.
Mirri Maz Duur, as portrayed by Mia Soteriou. © HBO.
Way back in Season, the Lhazareen village healer and maegi Mirri Maz Duur revealed the pain of even those who survive attacks when she spoke of the Dothraki’s attack on her fellow villagers, scoffing at Dany’s naïve claim to have saved her:
“Saved me? Three of those riders had already raped me before you saved me, girl. I saw my god’s house burn, there where I had healed men and women beyond counting. In the streets I saw piles of heads… the head of the baker who makes my bread, the head a young boy that I had cured of fever just three moons past. So… tell me again exactly what it was that you saved?”
Not Cool: Dany is Alexander the Great
Daenerys’ character likely draws on several historical figures: Elizabeth I, Cleopatra, Henry VII, and Alexander the Great.
Elizabeth and Cleopatra, the first two historical progenitors, were somewhat decent. The learned polyglot Elizabeth I generally promoted peace and her kingdom flourished – although her subjects celebrated her as the goddess of war (“Bellona”) after she “defeated” the Armada. Elizabeth, however, had her dark side.
After the Armada, some historians have argued that Elizabeth essentially left the sailors who won her victory unpaid in their ships to starve.
Elizabeth I: an ungrateful narcissist who ignored the starving sailors who saved her country? The defeated Armada’s storm-tossed ships are in the right background pane of this portrait.
We remember Cleopatra for not only her romances and willingness to protect the Egyptian people, but her marriage to her brother and, as Stacy Shift revealed, her love of knowledge.
Nonetheless, Daenerys’ last two historical inspirations — Henry VII and Alexander — were conquerors. Although history doesn’t tally how many people died so that Henry VII could sit on the English throne, blood certainly flowed at Bosworth Field.
Henry VII was the first Tudor king to adopt the dragon sigil. Henry’s son was glamorized wife-killer Henry VIII. Portrait by Sittow.
Like Daenerys, Henry VII was stuck across the Narrow Sea most of his life, on the run from a king. Even as a distant claimant to the throne, Henry’s life might not have been worth much if the Yorkists could have found him.
Yet, due to Henry VII’s own highly effective, lingering propaganda — coupled with the financial bounty his Bluebeard-esque son’s cavorting has landed upon modern-day England — Henry VII remains enshrined as a hero who founded a great dynasty.
Would you go home if it cost thousands their lives?
The various interests of his contemporaries live on in the analysis of his reign. An aristocratic taint lingers on to distort our analysis of the Tudor elder; he isn’t celebrated sufficiently for breaking the back of the nobility. (The overmighty noble caused wars and a weaker nobility ultimately helped pave the way for class equality.)
Henry VII placed debt-bonds on the nobles to protect his own hide, but this promoted peace and stability – a crucial and refreshing change for the English after the last century. Henry was also skilled, albeit not necessarily innovative, administrator, and his miserly ways left the treasury in superb shape when his spendy son inherited it. But, I digress. The bottom line is Henry was a conqueror – and I’d argue that from George RR Martin’s perspective that isn’t typically a good thing.
When we analyze historical subjects, we get caught up in the propaganda inherent in the primary sources and at least attempt to cast a critical eye towards them.
History should not be so siloed that we on one hand we blindly adopt the historical perspective in the primary sources (“history by the winners”) and yet write social histories about the pain of the peasants average man – as though overlord conquest and oppression are wholly unconnected to the pain of war-ravaged peasants and exploited subjects.
Alexander the Great in a mosaic.
Daenerys’ other progenitor – Alexander the Great – is remembered as one of the greatest rulers and conquerors the world has ever seen. One fan site even describes itself as “dedicated to the most charismatic and heroic king of all times.” Alexander is celebrated in countless Top Ten lists as one of the greatest rulers and conquerors (like the last one is something to be proud of). Titles of his biographies lionize him:
Alexander The Great: Great Leader and Hero Of Macedonia
Alexander the Great: Lessons from History’s Undefeated General
Alexander the Great: The Brief Life and Towering Exploits of History’s Greatest Conqueror
And my personal favorite: Alexander the Great: Man and God
History still sees conquest as a heroic trait, conveniently overlooking the number of people who died at these men’s hands.
This is a very loose accounting of Alexander the Great’s death toll at his biggest battles:
Battle of the Granicus 15,000
Battle of Issus 50,450
Battle of Gaugamela 53,500
Battle of the Hydaspes 23,310
Total 142,260
I’ve never seen any estimates of the total number of people who died as the result of all of Alexander the Great’s campaigns. Assuming that 7,000 of his soldiers plus the enemy combatants died for the other campaigns and Alexander slaughtered, say, a 1,000 townspeople each time he captured the city itself, his wars led to very crudely:
266,260 people who died
285,000 women, children, and men who were enslaved and sold
Compared to World War II’s death toll of 50-80 million, this may not sound like much. But, think about it: 551,260 people were irrevocably harmed for the glory of Alexander (well that and a whole lot of loot for his men).
All combined, Alexander the Great’s “harm toll” would be as though somebody blew the city of Florence Italy or even New Orleans, Louisiana off the map. It’s not insignificant.
Aren’t all lives supposed to be precious? Is it really fair to our historical ancestors – the everyday people Alexander harmed – to continue to swallow the propaganda of the time and not see him for what he was: another blood-soaked general? Should we continue to give history’s despots a pass because “that’s the way it was back then”?
While history may have only recorded one perspective – that of the victorious conqueror – what about attempting to at least acknowledge the perspective of his victims? We may not know the names of the soldiers and townspeople Alexander killed and enslaved, but chances are pretty high they didn’t see him as one of history’s greatest men.
Surely we should be characterizing Alexander the Great as a “brilliant general whose reckless disregard for human life caused untold suffering” – and not just “Alexander the Great was a brilliant general” full stop?
This is what George RR Martin is doing with Daenerys. He is messing with our minds by showing us her human side. He is building sympathy for this character the way a historical biographer unwittingly builds sympathy for her subjects – by showing us Dany’s childhood, her suffering, her kindness. And George gets close to Dany… by showing us her everyday life, from her point of view, he is subtly screwing with the narrative perspective the way movies like Reservoir Dogs did.
We have traveled so much of Daenerys’ journey with her that we won’t even see that she’s a monster until it is too late.
Daenerys is the Mother of Monsters
Drogon incinerates people in the fighting pit. © HBO.
Daenerys is the mother of dragons, and dragons are monsters. At a minimum, in the Targaryens’ world, dragons are agents of war. The son whom Dany would have borne (if she hadn’t traded his life away to save Khal Drogo) would have been the greatest conqueror the world have ever known. Chills.
By some assessments, the two greatest conquerors in history are Genghis Kahn and Alexander the Great. Imagine if Genghis Kahn and Alexander the Great had a son together? You’d have the most fearsome conqueror the world had ever seen. And that’s what the offspring of Daenerys (Alexander the Great) and Kahl Drogo (Genghis Kahn) was destined to be.
Not to be mean, but it was a good thing this never happened. Dany with Rhaego and Drogo. © HBO.
It’s Mirri Maz Duur, the wise woman and sorceress of Lhazar, who stops Dany’s baby (“Rhaego”) from being born alive and growing up to conquer the world. (She tricks Dany into sacrificing his life to save Drogo.)
Mirri awaits her death.
Ultimately, Daenerys exacts revenge from Mirri Maz Duur by burning her on Drogo’s funeral pyre.
It’s somewhat ironic that this wise woman — who opened Danerys’ eyes to the harm conquest caused and stopped Dany’s son from growing up into the ultimate war machine – is burned alive to give birth to an even greater threat: the fire from above, the world-destroying dragons.
And, in a way, this is fitting. The Dothraki represent the birth of war from the stone-age horse people. Alexander the Great and Genghis Kahn represent an institutionalization of this behavior. By the time of agriculture and birth of written history, waging war had become a way for leaders to say in power and employ the armies that kept them there.
Dany’s dragons represent war through unethical fiery warfare at a distance. The twentieth century mechanisms for waging war are mechanized and impersonal – planes that fly in the sky and burn villages to the ground with the drop of one bomb, submarines with their missiles, and nuclear bombs. It’s no coincidence that the showrunners likened Drogon to an F16.
Dany directs Drogon to destroys the loot train at Highgarden. © HBO.
Fighter planes enable wealthy nations to destroy thousands with the push of a button. And so the dragons represent a culmination in the evolution of a war machine: from the Proto-Indo European shepherds who first waged war against neighboring tribes to leaders with standing armies to fire power from above and other machinery, perhaps the ultimate evil.
Tell me again, is Daenerys — this woman who gives birth to war — such a hero? Do we think that’s where GRRM is taking this realistic and historically grounded story? We will all cheer when Dany takes King’s Landing in fire and blood?
Post-script: Dany’s redemption
I’ve grown somewhat fond of Daenerys. Although she treated hundreds of soldiers to an exceptionally painful death as they were burned alive, I think it’s possible she could redeem herself. Fundamentally, Daenerys has a good heart – and maybe Jon can show her the way. <Queue the chirping birds>
The problem is that Daenerys has come of age with Viserys and then the Dothraki: two parties who only ever cared about conquest. Maybe it’s too sweeping to say that conquest is always wrong. But, perhaps Daenerys needs to realize that war is rarely justified when it is just for one person’s glory. And I’m not sure that that will ever happen.
Jamie Adair
Jamie Adair is the editor of History Behind Game of Thrones, a website about the history behind George RR Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels and the hit TV show, "Game of Thrones."
Reply August 8, 2017
The Tyrion viewpoint shot in this episode is pretty much exactly the scene of Coriolanus outside Rome. He was driven out by the Roman people, and now he has brought the Goths back to kill them all.
I think the argument about Daenerys’ (or rather Tyrion’s) strategic failure to date is not necessarily intended to show her hubris, but rather a bald plot device to force her to marry Jon Snow. The burning of the wheat is probably a shortcut to a key point that occurs in the books via other paths. We have certainly seen the TV series taking some very short short cuts to get to some specific endpoints.
That aside, there is plenty of hint in ADWD that Dany will wage war in Westeros, with or without the Dothraki army (I’m inclined to go with the Second Sons instead), but definitely will burn a few with her dragons, following Aegon the Conqueror’s steps. Considering that GRRM is a diehard fan of Richard III, it’s hard to imagine that Henry VII is a hero in his story …
I’m curious about your thoughts on Jaime’s recent argument that, if Cersei brings peace and stability to the kingdom, who cares how many people she kills to get there? (BTW, Jaime has become quite a propagandist in the TV series.) Coming from a system where peace and stability literally kill average people, I do find this argument interesting.
I had thought about writing an article called “Is Cersei the hero?” One of my coworkers commented that she thought, “If Dany is turning into a villain, does that mean Cersei is a hero?”
Sure, Cersei has done many offensive and amoral things, but she has made tactical strikes (the Great Sept) and not actively declared war on anyone. While we may hate the twincest loving queen, she may actually be responsible for fewer deaths than Dany. (I’d seriously need to add this up but I think its possible.)
It could work if GRRM has written it, but it’s hard to make the argument work because the TV series are throwing logic and the world he carefully built out of the window. I cannot take it seriously because the TV plot of Cersei’s military victories is so callous and utilitarian and built on nothing. I don’t know where to begin to list all the absurdities. In fact, there are so many absurdities in only the recent battle sequence alone that listing them would take me two hours.
Ultimately, however, I blame GRRM.
Just thought of a point. Just because both battles in which Euron Greyjoy and Jaime/Tarley won were kept off screen (probably purely for $$$ reasons), it does not mean there was no casualty and collateral damage.
If we want to expand on the humanity and mercy in wars, the debate inevitably hits the wall on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and cannot stay within the context of the TV series.
I’m probably in a minority, possibly a minority of one, but I actually have a certain sympathy for Messrs. Benioff and Weiss – they probably thought they would have the 2 final books in the ASOIAF series to work from when they originally started adapting the series to the small screen (and GRRM did write an episode per season earlier – I think the last one he wrote was Joffrey’s death). As a person who knows the books and the show I don’t mind that the action has speeded up heading towards the end of the series. Even William Shakespeare has played a bit fast and loose with a timeline https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2015/10/double-time-othel
I know some people have felt that the later (mostly non-book inspired) series of the show have conceded to fan-service but book Jojen said that the wolves would come again, so I think it’s possible the Starks may regain Winterfell in the books. I don’t think that Cersei appearing to gain the upper hand at the start of season 7 is giving way to fan-service; I think a number of people would have preferred to see Dany go along with Yara’s plan in episode one and go full throttle on Kings Landing with all her might.
Good call on the similarities between Daenerys and Alexander the Great, Jaime. Didn’t book Dany have one boob hanging out because that was the way the Merenese noblewomen dressed? I heard a radio programme about Alexander the Great some time ago and remember it was referenced that he adopted the dress of some place he conquered (may have been Persian dress).
Reply August 10, 2017
On some level, I feel that GRRM’s stance is that “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. When power is sought (Dany) or taken (Cerci) it is bad, period. It may be varying degrees of bad, but it’s not pure. Jon, on the other hand, was named King in the North without desiring it, and chosen by his people to lead them. He is an unwilling participant, and has no qualms about sharing pwoer if it is in the interest of his people, unlike other self-proclaimed rulers. I get the feeling more and more that the endgame is to remove all “monarch-type” rule and have the people decide who they want to rule them, even if it means smaller kingdoms. (Perhaps GRRM is a Scottish nationalist sympathizer, given the North’s role in this story? Or even th many foreign colonies who struggled for independence?)
I also think that Varys clearly stated this idea when he went head-to-head with Dany. He told her, in no uncertain terms, that his loyalty was with the people, not any one leader. Although it appears he is helping her, he might be helping her wate a war which will eliminate those in power. Time will tell.
Even Britain, with its lengthy history of monarchs, succumbed to democratic rule.
I think Dany is still a bit childish in her obsession with everyone “bending the knee”. We also see this immaturity when she asks almost a complete stranger, “what would you do?” regarding major military operations. I am hoping against all hope that Jon will tell her to stop trying to force everyone to bend to her will and just work together with the people she wants to rule and they will come to love her if she is worthy (as they did in Essos).
In her defense of attacking with Drogon, she could have easily smote all the soldiers, but she didn’t. She did burn some to leave an entry point for her soldiers, but then went after the supplies, so the rest of the army ahead of them would be limited in their ability to advance. It is a classic military tactic, cutting off supplies. She also could have taken the three dragons, but she didn’t. I am not an advocate of war, but most people don’t look sympathetically on the Germans in WWII, and no one cried for them when they were defeated or lamented all the German soldiers who died, many of which were dragged into a story they did not support. In looking at her her motives and Cerci’s, neither one has a clear reason for why they want to rule the seven Kingdoms, Cerci to create a dynasty for herself and Jamie or Dany, just because she was born to the line. Neither one are worthwhile reasons for leading and both women are incredibly dangerous. They are both so out of touch with the people they will be ruling.
Jamie made an excellent point about the fickleness of the people, as long as their lives are calm, they won’t care how many had to die to get there. That might be the lasting message of the story for the masses. You need to participate because when you don’t, you don’t know hwo or how you will be ruled.
Hero is a fraught term, isn’t it? I take it that you are using it in the modern sense, as you seem to define it in opposition to the role of the villain. But in the classical sense, a hero is not defined by moral rectitude, but by martial prowess. In fact, the classical hero may have more in common with the modern anti-hero in that the famous classical heroes were defined by their character flaws, not their moral paragonity(sic- me).
It came to my mind considering your poll about the ethics of dragon fire because I was watching the film TROY recently as Hector offered to have a duel with Agamemnon and so forego the whole Trojan War. Of course, Agamemnon refuses since Brian Cox knows he would have no chance against Eric Bana, and then goes on to show that his motivation for refusing is that if even if he won a duel he would only get Helen back, as opposed to getting to sack Troy.
Setting that aside, however, it does raise another question such that while a heroic duel would definitely minimize general casualties, that doesn’t mean that it would necessarily be equitable. After all, why would you suggest a duel of champions unless your champion was stronger, and why would I agree if my army was stronger? Is it unethical for you to have a stronger champion, or for me to have a stronger army? You may say, it depends on the source of that strength. If the strength derives from unethical sources, then it would proceed that the strength itself is unethical, as in say your champion was stronger because he stole a magical weapon or my army wrongfully occupies a position of strength that it illegitimately conquered.
On the show, everybody makes a point that it would be wrong of Daenerys to burn King’s Landing to depose Cersei and kill all those civilians. On the other hand, isn’t it wrong for Cersei to hide out in King’s Landing and endanger all those civilians? If Dany were cruel enough to attack, then Dany would be at fault for their deaths, but Cersei would also be at fault for placing them in harm’s way in the first place, given that we assume most of the King’s Landing small folk would rather be alive than die for any particular monarch. Soldiers are not civilians, of course. Now, Dany’s soldiers are volunteers, and we may presume a significant portion of the Cersei’s are conscripts in some way or another. But I think it is a stretch to say that it is unethical to kill soldiers just because they may not be fighting entirely voluntarily; they still made the decision that they would rather try and kill you than risk being killed by their own rulers. I submit that Dany would have been ethically justified in attacking King’s Landing, despite the collateral damage, by the same arithmetic of avoiding the general suffering that resulted from the invasions of Casterly Rock and High Garden. The point that is made, however, is that it would not have had this desired aim as it would have made the rest of the Kingdom think she was a bloody tyrant without regard for the general populace, thus prolonging the war. This is the mistake that Cersei made when she bombed the Sept of Baelor. She may have eliminated her enemies of the moment, and she may be able to use the threat of Dany’s invasion to get people like the Tarleys to follow her, but if she did manage to prevail against Dany, what loyalty could she ever expect? Realistically, she has to keep a war going on in perpetuity to maintain her position, be it against Dany, the North, or whomever. Similarly, it turned out that if Robert Baratheon had never tried to assassinate Dany, then she never would have been set on the path to try and conquer Westeros.
Bringing it back around to the original topic, what makes Daenerys a hero in the modern sense of the word is that she does have a moral sense, or more properly, has developed one. Dany has gone from wanting to be Queen out of a sense of it being owed to her, to wanting to be Queen out of a desire to help the common folk. Dany is willing to spare even those who have fought against her. In Meereen, this backfired on her, but she was still willing to give the Tarleys a chance. The true test of her heroism would be in how she rules. Maybe that can be one of the spin-offs. It seems to have worked out in TV land for Victoria and the two Elizabeths…
Hi Pat – and welcome. This is a great comment. I especially like this point, ” On the other hand, isn’t it wrong for Cersei to hide out in King’s Landing and endanger all those civilians? ” I hadn’t thought of that.
So, yes, I do mean hero in the modern of colloquial sense.
So I agree that Daenerys has a moral sense about some things — e.g., experiences she can relate to such as slavery. But, what exactly motivates her to fight? To me, her main drive seems to be her sense of entitlement to the throne and her desire to go home. Her desire to help people break their chains or to change the system (“break the wheel”), seem to be much smaller, vaguer concerns.
Daenerys could turn out to a revolutionary — if she actually does try to change the system fundamentally — and revolutions often lead to hardship and chaos. Societies can’t change overnight.
Now, I agree that Daenerys does give people a chance and that she can show mercy. She is a far better, more benevolent ruler than most. But, fundamentally her drive is conquest.
Most people see Daenerys as a hero or a good guy, which is why I wrote the article. But, I can’t imagine that GRRM would see a conqueror as good. I could be wrong…
Your question about how GRRM intends us to see Daenerys (I didn’t know last week that Dany was insensitive to use!) is a good one. I think GRRM actually has quite different intentions in this regard than the TV show does. I think GRRM makes these characters less heroic in the books. Jon leaves the Night’s Watch after he is resurrected on the show, but trying to leave it is what gets him killed in the book. I struggle to recall anything specific to support my argument as regards Daenerys, but one relevant issue relates to the differing portrayals of Varys on the show and in the book. In the books Varys has yet to support Daenerys and all his machinations were leading to the Targaryen Pretender plotline that the show completely excised, which has always made puzzling out what Varys intended from moment to moment on the show a mystery to me. Did Tyrion even meet Daenerys in the books yet either? So the show has gone to some effort to have people tell us how great she is that the books have not done is I guess my point, which is also the case with Jon come to think about it. Now, some of this could just be the show getting ahead of the books, but my thesis is that GRRM’s books are about moral equivalence in a way the show only backgrounds.
Reply April 23, 2019
Rereading this comment again, I should also mention that I strongly agree with your point about Varys. I can’t quite wrap my head around the differences between book Varys and TV Varys. I can never get over the fact that Book Varys cut the tongues out of the mouths of his little birds.
Purely from the perspective of the book A Dance with Dragons, the best analysis of the Daenerys-in-Meereen storyline I have seen is The Meereenese blot (https://meereeneseblot.wordpress.com/2013/09/27/untangling-the-meereenese-knot-part-i-who-poisoned-the-locusts/) written by Adam Feldman. I strongly recommend this fascinating read.
(Below is entirely based on the book, not the TV series.) I have long held the opinion that people who laugh at or complain about Daenerys’ political strategy in Meereen are exactly the same people who think the US can invade Iraq the second time (2003) and come out victorious in a month. One has to be totally ignorant of the Middle East situation and recent history to believe that there is an objective solution to Meereen (or Iraq) somewhere out there that would make everything perfect for all parties involved, and Dany (or GWB or the Congress/Senate) should have been smart enough to figure it out. How about, there is no such solution?
Feldman’s analysis also makes the case that the arc of Dany’s story in Meereen is a struggle of the human heart, GRRM’s favorite subject, and this struggle is between her civilized (human) urges and primal (beast/dragon) urges. It so happened that I came to the same conclusion re-reading the final chapter (http://paperstand.blogspot.com/2015/07/re-reading-dance-with-dragons-final.html). In the end, under this condition, the beast wins.
Ironically, very few commentators have pointed out the parallel between Daenerys and Jon Snow throughout the entire ADWD (I can’t imagine why!). Both went through almost exactly the same arc and both experienced almost the same failure of leadership, each under a condition for which there is no solution.
Of course a solution either at the Wall or in Meereen could have been possible, but only with the use of deus ex machina, which has been abused copiously in the TV series lately. But GRRM doesn’t use deus ex machina, at least not without dropping bread crumbs at least 2 books before it happens.
Therefore it is only logical that both Dany and Jon Snow will come out of their rebirths fully embracing in their wild nature: Dany as the dragon and Jon the direwolf. Not some Messiah to humanity. Humanity and civilization are represented by the Lannisters, King’s Landing, and the Citadel, but not the Stark children who are all skinchangers descended from First Men or Targaryens who mind-merge with dragons. But I suppose this kind of misanthropic subtext is not good material for population consumption.
In the most recent interview (http://time.com/4791258/game-of-thrones-george-r-r-martin-interview/), GRRM made the suggestion that death changes a person, which he clearly meant Jon Snow’s death at the end of ADWD. There has to be a transformation, which makes the reborn person less human.
Joanna Daniels
You called it.
Reply June 11, 2019
I have no idea if you’re still seeing/responding to comments from such an old post, but yeah, kudos on totally calling this one!
Out of curiosity, is the reaction what you expected it would be? There are people who had various problems with the execution which I’m not looking to argue here, but I think it’s clear there are also a lot having problems with the actual, basic idea that Daenerys didn’t turn out to be a hero.
I hadn’t thought about how people would react to the “big reveal” that Daenerys is a villain. Once I figured out that “conquerors are never heroes”, my main thoughts to myself were things like “I’m not nuts, right? She’s a villain, right?” I was just focused on whether or not I was right and not what she was going to do next. (In general, if I can help it, I try not to guess how stories will end because I like to just go along for the ride.)
However, part of me was surprised that more people didn’t see the really big picture. I really think GRRM did this deliberately because he wants the controversy because he wants people to think critically about our perspective on history and war. Human history is one of conquest. IS this a good thing? I’d argue it’s not and I suspect GRRM would too. If that’s the case, why are we still okay with historians revering people like Alexander the Not-So-Great?
But I think most people are still missing the point and assuming that the showrunners are bad writers. I think some people don’t even realize that this storyline wasn’t D&D jumping the shark, it comes from GRRM and has been planned for 20+ years by all indications in the story. (With that said, I think Danys arc in the show would have been easier to follow with more episodes and build up.) Anyway, GRRM was subtly building this up as far back as AGOT. Well maybe that’s Monday morning quarterbacking, but I think it’s there.
I’m a bit stunned that people reacted so harshly to the reveal. I think the fan’s ultra harsh treatment of the show runners *partially* stems from people’s disappointment in Dany’s reveal/change among many other things.
The problem with the TV series is that the battle of King’s Landing between Cersei and Daenerys makes no logical sense in the last 2 seasons. Obviously the latter will burn KL, but not because she suddenly goes berserk because unknown mental activities.
In the novels, GRRM has all but declared that Daenerys and *Euron Greyjoy* will fight over KL, and it will look nothing like the TV episodes. I heard GRRM himself read a chapter in TWOW about Euron Greyjoy (from Aeron’s perspective) 3 years ago. It was something straight out of horror fiction.
Reply September 23, 2019
If Westeros had a system of elections, and Daenerys had sought to take power by force, she would be in the wrong. In the absence of democracy, how would you remove a usurper without using force? I’m struggling to see why it would be legitimate for Cersei or King Robert to use force to take power, for Robb Stark to use force to carve out a kingdom for himself, or Jon and Sansa to use force to restore the Starks to power in Winterfell, or Arya to use force to avenge her family, but somehow illegitimate for Daenerys to do so. If your argument is purely pacifistic, then almost every main character is in the wrong. If it isn’t, then Daenerys is simply being held to a different moral standard to everyone else.
That’s a big reason why Daenerys’ character arc was so bad in the end. It just wasn’t honest for Tyrion (and through him, D & D) to argue that Daenerys’ murder of thousands of people flowed inevitably from her fighting slave dealers, and killing people who kidnapped her and threatened to rape her. Killing, in those circumstances, is entirely legitimate. Tyrion’s argument in effect, is that you should do nothing in the face of injustice, and not resist your rapist, an argument I consider immoral.
And, if Daenerys had never set out to win the Iron Throne, Westeros would have become a graveyard.
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The Queens Who Love Their Brothers: Cersei and Isabeau of Bavaria
An unfaithful power-hungry silver-tongued queen, who sleeps with her brother, bears an illegitimate heir to the throne, and acts as regent – who could this be other than Cersei Lannister? Surprisingly, it could also be Queen Isabeau of France (that is, the traditional interpretation of her). Born Elizabeth of Bavaria-Ingolstadt (c.1370), Isabeau (as the French called her) was the queen of France during the Armagnac-Burgundian phase of Hundred Years War. Isabeau is also famous for being the mother of two English…
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News //
Remote delivery of teaching extended for the remainder of Semester 2
The University had initially planned to deliver its activities remotely until the mid-semester break.
by Deaundre Espejo
Remote delivery of teaching at the University of Sydney has been extended for the remainder of Semester 2, with exams and graduations also proceeding online.
The University had initially planned to deliver its activities remotely until the mid-semester break but were prevented by ongoing restrictions caused by the Delta COVID-19 outbreak.
Current provisions for activities that require an on-campus presence or in-person components will continue.
While we can expect an easing of lockdown restrictions as NSW’s double vaccination rate approaches 70%, the University says its decision to continue with remote learning is due to operational and logistical challenges.
“[I]t is important to consider the challenges a sudden return to face-to-face teaching would pose for our teaching staff at this point in the semester, as well as the scale of the task of working through the logistics in regards to safety and other operational requirements,” said Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott in an all-staff email.
Although the University asserts that remote learning is temporary, several Vice-Chancellors have suggested that the move towards online delivery forced by COVID will give remote learning a more prominent role in higher education in the future.
Former USyd Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence said that online delivery was being used as an opportunity to develop USyd’s approaches to blended learning in the future. “These experiences will undoubtedly benefit our teaching and learning in the future, but we also know the value of face-to-face human interaction,” he said.
At the same time, the higher education sector is facing revenue shortfalls from declining international student enrolments, with 40,000 university jobs axed over the last year. This has raised concerns that forced online learning is a cost-cutting strategy that further deteriorates the quality of education.
The University notes that as restrictions ease, more students will be given “the opportunity to come to campus in COVID-safe ways, should they wish, without disrupting scheduled learning.”
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Scope and Content Note
United States Constitution draft annotated by Abraham Baldwin
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Repository: Georgia Historical Society
Creator: Baldwin, Abraham, 1754-1807.
Title: United States Constitution draft annotated by Abraham Baldwin
Extent: 0.05 cubic feet (2 oversize folders)
Identification: MS 1703
Abraham Baldwin was born on November 22, 1754, in North Guilford, Connecticut. Baldwin studied theology at Yale and graduated in 1772. Beginning in 1775, he served as a tutor at Yale until 1777 when he was appointed chaplain of the 2nd Connecticut Regiment and later brigade chaplain. After the Revolutionary War Baldwin studied law.
In 1784, Baldwin was admitted to the Georgia bar and moved to Augusta, Georgia, where he practiced law and began his political career. He was a member of the Commons House of Assembly that passed an act for the establishment of the University of Georgia in 1785. Baldwin served as the first president of the institution from 1786-1801.
Baldwin held a seat in the Georgia Assembly until 1789 and in 1785 he was elected to the Congress of the Confederation. In 1787, he served as one of four delegates from Georgia to the Constitutional Convention. The other delegates were William Few, Jr., William Houston, and William L. Pierce. Of the Georgia delegates, only Abraham Baldwin and William Few signed the United States Constitution.
During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Baldwin participated in two of the six "Grand Committees" that were assembled. The first committee was appointed on July 2 and was made up of one delegate from each state (known as the First Committee of Eleven). Other members of this committee included: Elbridge Gerry, Oliver Ellsworth, Robert Yates, William Paterson, Benjamin Franklin, Gunning Bedford, Luther Martin, George Mason, William Davie, and John Rutledge. The committee addressed the question of equal representation in the Senate.
On August 31, Baldwin was appointed to another "Grand Committee" (known as the Third Committee of Eleven). Other members included: Nicholas Gilman, Rufus King, Roger Sherman, David Brearly, Gouvernour Morris, John Dickinson, Daniel Carrol, James Madison, Hugh Williamson, and Pierce Butler. This committee addressed tabled issues and committee reports not yet acted upon. In addition to the two "Grand Committees," Baldwin also participated in discussions regarding the assumption of states' debts by the national government, the slave trade, and navigation acts.
Baldwin served five consecutive terms in the U. S. House of Representatives ending in 1799 and two consecutive terms in the U. S. Senate from 1799-1807. At the age of 53, Baldwin died on March 4, 1807, while serving as a U. S. Senator from Georgia. He is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
This collection consists of Abraham Baldwin's annotated draft of the United States Constitution printed during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. This version of the constitution was submitted by the Committee of Style on September 12, 1787, and was the second of two drafts printed for discussion by the delegates.
The printers, Dunlap and Claypoole, printed sixty copies of this draft. Text is printed on only one side of each leaf. Each leaf of the Baldwin draft contains handwritten marginalia and leaves 1-3 contain Baldwin's handwritten notes on the verso.
Thirteen other annotated originals of the Committee of Style printing exist. The Morgan Library, New York, holds the Committee of Detail draft annotated by Baldwin.
Baldwin, Abraham, 1754-1807.
Dunlap & Claypoole.
United States. Constitution.
Physical and Technical Access Restrictions
Original available by appointment only.
Unknown.
United States Constitution draft annotated by Abraham Baldwin, MS 1703, Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, Georgia.
Collection is open for research. Original available by appointment only.
Copyright has not been assigned to the Georgia Historical Society. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Division of Library and Archives. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Georgia Historical Society as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.
Encoding funded by a 2012 Documenting Democracy grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Oversize-Folder
1 United States Constitution draft, 1787 (Photocopy.)
2 United States Constitution draft, 1787. View images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4.
Online Inventory Contains Digitized Items
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Aktuelle Seite: Startseite // Freedom Theatre // The Siege
On Saturday, April, 4, 2020, at 16:20pm (Time Zone; GMT+3:00)
Directed by: Nabil Al-Raee & Zoe Lafferty
Performed by: Ahmed Al-Rokh | Ahmed Tobasi | Faisal Abu Al-Heja | Hassan Taha | Milad Qunebe | Rabi Hanani
About the play:
It is inspired by the real stories of a group of fighters who during the height of the second Intifada in 2002 took refuge in the Church of the Nativity, as the occupation army closed in with helicopters, tanks and snipers. Along with the fighters were some 100 priests, nuns and civilians. The siege lasted for 39 days, paralysing the center of Bethlehem and keeping tens of thousands under curfew.
Follow us to watch the play through this link:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1081030922265361
This show come on the 9th commemoration of the assassination of TFT founder Juliano Mer Khamis, the 14th anniversary of The Freedom Theatre, and 18th memory of Jenin camp invasion.
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2017.03.05 Sunday 14:00-17:00
Seminar: The Weather War
Minsheng Lecture
Jacob Dreyer
Kaimei Olsson Wang, Shi Qing, Mathias Lafolie, Sun Qidong, Sun Haiyan, Jason Hilgefort, Yu Hongyuan, Mats Bergart + Lars Bergström
Academic Host: Jacob Dreyer
Guests: Kaimei Olsson Wang, Shi Qing, Mathias Lafolie, Sun Qidong, Sun Haiyan, Jason Hilgefort, Yu Hongyuan, Mats Bergart + Lars Bergström
Date: March 5th 14:00-17:00
Location: Interactive Multimedia Room (2F) Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum
Bigert and Bergström’s first large-scale Asian exhibition opens at a time when smog has become a threat that endangers our everyday life, and at a time when the newly inaugurated president of the USA denies the very existence of climate change. The exhibition triggers many questions. We are very pleased to invite Jacob Dreyer, the Shanghai-based American writer and environmental activist, to chair a discussion with the artists and our invited guests from different walks of life. We hope this forum will contribute to some insightful reflection over Climate Change through the lens of art, science, urban development and eco lifestyle.
14:00-14:10 Opening
14:10-15:30 Speeches
15:30-15:40 Tea Break
15:40-16:40 Round-table discussion
16:40-17:00 Q&A
In the Air: a Curator's Statement
Speaker: Kaimei Olsson Wang
Art is around us like the air we breathe... This articulate over-estimated self-entertaining warning reminds me of how to breathe when the daily smog pollutes our breath and blurs our sight. It is at this time that what art can do becomes important. Can the relationship between art and what is happening in the world now, with the ability to touch history and the future with considerable sensibility, prove that art is able to change or influence people’s lives? This is why I bring B&B’s exhibition to China. I want to find answers to these questions and to understand through art works the problems faced by the world, the sense of crisis, and ways to regain our proximity to nature. .
The Weather War: Human obsession over Control
Speaker: Mats Bigert, Lars Bergström
The exhibition The Weather War organized by the Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum is based on the film The Weather War, which combines land art, performance, sculpture, and documentary together, and discussed human’s desire to control the weather through a series of historical allusions and modern events presented in the interaction of art and science. At the beginning of B&B’s creation, it paid attention to the relationship between man and society and the relationship between man and nature. Their creation is not only to express their own ideas, but also to think and ask about this society and the environment.
Climate Theatre: Anti-control System
Speaker: Shi Qing
As the object of observation, ‘climate’ is an unpredictable ‘anti-control’ system. Contemporary art also has the same characteristics: changes and exceptions. The concept of the ‘Climate Theatre’ came from the pioneering weather forecasting idea of the British scientist Lewis Fry Richardson during World War I: in a theatre spatial structure, the real-time calculation of the global weather is performed through the data analysis of more than 60,000 people. For the art, when it goes through the ecology, system theory, or even the early technological turmoil of network ideas, how to re-evaluate its complexity and uncertainty, will become the preconditions for the practice of their own work, rather than the superstition and control under some kind of pre-ideological ideology, as the artists do not need ‘weathermans’ to know ‘where the wind blows’.
Art Works: from Sweden to China, Can Art Make a Difference?
Speaker: Mathias Lafolie
As a professional drama director and professor from the Central Academy of Drama, and now serves as the Cultural Counselor of the Swedish Embassy, Mathias Lafolie will use his experience to explain his idea on cultural exchanges and artistic reflection of social issues.
Anthropocene and New World Image
Speaker: Sun Qidong
Anthropocene is considered as a new era when mankind has become a geological force that affects the global terrain and the evolution of the earth. We now witness the desertification of the earth, climate change and the disappearance of innumerable species, which may indirectly proclaim the future collapse. Anthropocene has thus now been reduced to a fantasy about the end of the world, rather than being viewed as a ‘picture’ of the future political and economic system. Nature and humanity are the core of modern Western thought. Pierre Huyghe’s Human Mask precisely provides a prophecy about their declination, which makes the familiar conceptual foundations of human and non-human life unsteady.
Eco-living in China
Speaker: Sun Haiyan
Faced with the outbreak of food safety, smog, water pollution, and poisonous land incidents, Chinese consumers ask: How can we get to the assured food, the blue sky, clean water, and clean land? On the other hand, they also start to think: as consumers, is it necessary for us to buy all the time? If we must buy, what kind of product do we need to support? In this context, more and more products in China have become ‘green’, and sustainable education has gradually emerged. At the same time, people begin to choose bikes again to find a way of living with nature. How far is the eco-living from us?
Urban development in China: New Climates, New Challenges
Speaker: Jason Hilgefort
Climate deterioration has become the most threatening issue faced by China’s current society. However, if we advocate the transformation of the economy and the sustainable development of urban space ecology, this problem can be solved. Over the past 35 years, China’s urban development and environmental systems have formed a complete set of knowledge and typology systems. What experiences of urban development are worth learning, sharing, and applying to new climate, cultural, and political realities? I think the art museum is a good place to broaden the imagination of the future and find possibilities.
Global Warming in the Shadow of American New Energy Policy
Speaker: Yu Hongyuan
Donald J. Trump has been the host of the White House for a whole month. Everyday international politics is full of news of this undisguised king of the country looking for ‘another truth’. How the fact that Trump was elected will influence the judgement and forecast of the United States and the world is a hot topic of global focus. His past attitude toward issues such as energy and climate change also made him controversial. Today, as the first climate conference after the Paris Agreement was successfully held in Marrakech, the climate document Paris Agreement was approved in most countries and is therefore binding by international law, confirming the fact that global warming is heating up and making effort to be against the climate change has become an international trend; at the same time, the Obama government has devoted itself to playing the role of a global leader in combating climate change in recent years and investing huge amounts of energy in the U.S. domestic clean energy sector to reduce carbon emissions from traditional fossil fuels and accelerate the transformation of energy structure. In this domestic and foreign context, Trump has repeatedly expressed in public, denying the fact of global warming, and threatened to lead the United States out of the Paris Agreement and cancel the domestic ‘green power plan’. He also claimed to reduce the renewable energy subsidies and would support the fossil energy industry to urge the United States to be completely independent of energy. Considering Trump’s political views on energy and climate change, and the important role of the United States in global mitigation actions, global climate governance will be likely to undergo a major reversal.
Academic Host
Jacob Dreyer, Shanghai based editor of economic and political sector of Palgrave International Press, is also an author and research scholar on contemporary Chinese social issues. Recently, he edited a special edition of Modern Weekly focusing on the topic of climate change mitigation. His articles are published in many well-known magazines such as LEAP, Foreign Policy, Architectural Review, the Atlantic and Domus.
Kaimei Olsson Wang graduated from Beijing Normal University and received the Master degree in Contemporary Art from Sotheby's Institute of Art. She lives in Sweden and engages in writing, translating and culture communication. In 2015 she established the Beyond Frozen Point film festival with Li Shanshan, that brings the video work in the North Polar region into China. She also curated a special section The Other North with Chinese films in the Tromsø International Film Festival. She is also an art writer and contributor for many art magazines in China and now works as an independent curator and art critic. She now lives and works in Stockholm and Shanghai.
Mats Bigert (born 1965) and Lars Bergström (b. 1962), a group of well-known artists in Swedish land art (B&B for short). They collectively created artistic works in the form of artistic combinations, involving land art, performance, video, sculpture, installations, and art films. Their works have been presented in several important international biennials and they are also commissioned for the public art projects in many Swedish and European cities.
Shi Qing, now lives and works in Shanghai. His creations are mostly in the form of installations, images, and performances; the topics are from ritual analysis, art politics, nomadic geography to the study of globalization, etc. Meanwhile Shi Qing participated in the organization and launch of multiple projects. In 2014, he established Radical Space, planned and organized Local Work, Inland Planning, Shanghai Redux and other projects.
Mathias Lafolie, Cultural Counsellor, Swedish Embassy. He was a professor and director at Central Academy of Drama, Beijing.
Sun Qidong now works as a curator and art critic for Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum; he got his MA degree in Aesthetics at the University of Strasbourg, France. Sun is involved in multiple activities in which he questions the relation between art and the economy. His researches focus on the creation of contemporary art, curatorial practice. As a curator, he has just organized Secret Garden: Nathalie Djurberg& Hans Berg, Do you wanna play with me and Non-figurative. In addition, he has participated in initiating the art project Invisible Elephant, as well as in publishing theoretical journal ZAZA.
Sun Haiyan, graduated from Baltic Business School, Kalmar University, Sweden with MS; from School of Economics, Fudan University, China with BA. As co-founder of Business Ecology magazine, Haiyan launched China’s first magazine which focuses on sustainability and green business and is currently the chief editor of the magazine. She has more than 15-year working experiences in China’s business media, such as Asian Business Leaders and 21st Century Business Review. She focuses mainly on the area of innovation, sustainability, and regional report. She published the book of The Age of Green Gold, together with co-author, Sun Yang, which became the 2010 recommendation book of Wenjin Awards, the National Library of China.
Jason Hilgefort, head of the UABB School, studied urban planning and design at the University of Cincinnati, USA, and completed a master degree in Architecture at the University of British Columbia. He has worked in New York (Ehrenkrantz Eckstut and Kuhn), Los Angeles (Behnisch Architects), and Rahul Mehrotra of GSD. Jason has won Europan 11 in Vienna. In addition, he also joined the FUR project. At the same time, he is also a contributor to the ‘architecture and beyond’ column of the uncube magazine.
Yu Hongyuan, is a professor and Director of Institute for Comparative Politics and Public Policy at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. He is also an honorary fellow of Center for International Energy Strategy Studies, Renmin University of China, a visiting fellow for Sustainable Developmental Research Center of China Academy for Social Science. He got his Ph.D. degree from Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2003, and Mphil degree from Renmin University of China in 2000. From 2011, he became the visiting fellow of Center for Strategic and International Studies in America (CSIS).
ONSITE & RELATED
All On Site
The Weather War
2017.04.16 14:00-15:00 closed
Last week: Come to the Weather War with the Curator
Minsheng Lecture: Reverse Earth System - Climate Change? Let’s talk about it!
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