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The dataset generation failed
Error code: DatasetGenerationError
Exception: ArrowInvalid
Message: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 283
Traceback: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 153, in _generate_tables
df = pd.read_json(f, dtype_backend="pyarrow")
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 815, in read_json
return json_reader.read()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1025, in read
obj = self._get_object_parser(self.data)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1051, in _get_object_parser
obj = FrameParser(json, **kwargs).parse()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1187, in parse
self._parse()
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1403, in _parse
ujson_loads(json, precise_float=self.precise_float), dtype=None
ValueError: Trailing data
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1997, in _prepare_split_single
for _, table in generator:
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 156, in _generate_tables
raise e
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 130, in _generate_tables
pa_table = paj.read_json(
File "pyarrow/_json.pyx", line 308, in pyarrow._json.read_json
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 154, in pyarrow.lib.pyarrow_internal_check_status
File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 91, in pyarrow.lib.check_status
pyarrow.lib.ArrowInvalid: JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 283
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1529, in compute_config_parquet_and_info_response
parquet_operations = convert_to_parquet(builder)
File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1154, in convert_to_parquet
builder.download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1029, in download_and_prepare
self._download_and_prepare(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1124, in _download_and_prepare
self._prepare_split(split_generator, **prepare_split_kwargs)
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1884, in _prepare_split
for job_id, done, content in self._prepare_split_single(
File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 2040, in _prepare_split_single
raise DatasetGenerationError("An error occurred while generating the dataset") from e
datasets.exceptions.DatasetGenerationError: An error occurred while generating the datasetNeed help to make the dataset viewer work? Make sure to review how to configure the dataset viewer, and open a discussion for direct support.
pred_label
string | pred_label_prob
float64 | wiki_prob
float64 | text
string | source
string |
|---|---|---|---|---|
__label__wiki
| 0.524601
| 0.524601
|
Red Headed And Famous
I just wanted to take a moment out of this blog to celebrate Lindsay Lohan.
I'm so proud of her. You don't understand. This girl has been through so much in regards to addiction and the constant media scrutiny and I was sitting at home when I realized I haven't heard anything from Lindsay recently. She is getting her life together and I'm overwhelmed. I am genuinely so happy for her. Go Lindsay.
There needs to be more Lindsay Lohan love on the internet and that's what I'm here for. People kept trying to bring her down, but here she is stronger then yesterday.
It's no secret that she's sexy as hell. I've never seen her Playboy spread, but you know it's good. Any shoot that doesn't require a vaginal plug is one that I'm here for.
Lindsay Lohan is the childhood actress to my heart. What iconic Disney movie hasn't she been in, except for most of them? The remake of The Parent Trap. It's life, how did she not win an Oscar? She was in Herbie Fully Loaded, which sounds like an awesome mixtape.
Then, there was Life Size. Tyra Banks was there. Their making a sequel. What more do you need. It's a cult classic. Her and Jamie Lee Curtis switched bodies in Freaky Friday. After seeing her mother's vagina it's no wonder that Lindsay turned to drugs. I would as well.
Never forget the iconic Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. It had a young Megan Fox. I saw it in theaters and no one was there. I watched it with the twins in St. Louis. It's an amazing movie. It was overshadowed by the iconic status of Mean Girls, but what wouldn't be? Tina Fey is in talks to turn it into a musical. @ Broadway. Please don't ruin it.
Lindsay has had some serious roles. She played Elizabeth Taylor on Lifetime. And, despite what anyone tells you I Know Who Killed Me is the best movie in existence.
She also had that singing career, which was really not that good. But, it was Lindsay Lohan. It was a little personal. It was a little raw. She never really had any hits, but she had that deep, throaty voice, that was sexy as hell. She had a spoken word part on a Duran Duran song recently. I need Lindsay Lohan to return to pop music.
I don't think Lindsay Lohan is over. I think she's far from it. She's young and she has vitality and there's nothing American's like more than a comeback. Take Britney Spears. She's still our goddess. American's have a fascination with tearing people down and having them build themselves back up.
This is also the first Snapshot Saturday, I've ever had on a natural born redhead, so right here right now you are reading history in the making. I've only been blogging for two years. It was bound to happen eventually.
Lindsay Lohan is the perfect person to initiate this blog with auburn hair. The most iconic redhead since Annie that the world has ever seen.
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cc/2023-06/en_head_0040.json.gz/line7
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__label__wiki
| 0.616499
| 0.616499
|
Aesculus chinensis Bunge
Chinese Horse-chestnut
A tree 80 to 90 ft high; young shoots glabrous or minutely downy; winter buds resinous. Leaves composed of sometimes five, usually seven, leaflets, which are narrow-oblong or obovate, 5 to 8 in. long, about one-third as much wide, tapering to a fine point, shallowly and evenly toothed, the stalk 1⁄6 to 5⁄8 in. long. Panicle 8 to 14 in. long, and 2 to 4 in. wide at the base, narrowing gradually to the top, the basal one-fifth naked. Flowers on glabrous stalks, white, 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. across; petals four; stamens rather longer than the petals. Fruit truncate or slightly indented at the top, subglobose, 2 in. in diameter, rough, but not spiny.
Native of N. China, and although known to botanists for over seventy years was only introduced in 1912. It was collected near Pekin by Purdom, and from seeds sent by him to the Arnold Arboretum plants were raised and distributed. The tallest of these at Kew is now 33 × 13⁄4 ft (1966) and no longer suffers from late spring frosts, as it did when young. For many years A. turbinata was grown on the continent as A. chinensis, and even figured under that name, but the true plant is absolutely different.
A. wilsonii Rehd. – This tree was introduced by Wilson from Szechwan and Hupeh, China, in 1908. It was first considered to be A. chinensis, to which indeed it is very closely allied. It may be distinguished from A. chinensis as follows: Leaflets longer stalked, not generally so tapered at the base, but rounded or even slightly heart-shaped there; more downy at first beneath (but in both species becoming glabrous); veins more numerous (up to twenty-two pairs), forming at their junction with the midrib a more obtuse angle than in A. chinensis. Flower-stalks more downy. Fruit ovoid to pear-shaped, with a mucro at the apex, and, according to Rehder, with the husk only half as thick as in A. chinensis. Seed larger, with the scar (hilum) covering about one-third (one-half in A. chinensis). A. wilsonii has a more southern distribution. Racemes up to 16 in. long.
It flowered at Caerhays in June 1934. The tree there, raised from W. 200, is 48 ft high, with 48 ft diameter of spread (1966).
These two chestnuts, with A. indica, belong to a distinct section of the genus (Calothyrsus), but A. indica has broader panicles with less crowded, more erect branches, larger flowers, and broader petals.
From the Supplement (Vol. V)
The tree at Kew remains the same height as when measured in 1972 (34 ft) and is 21⁄2 ft in girth (1981). It was planted in 1913. Other examples, almost certainly of the same date and provenance, are: Myddelton House, Enfield, Middx., 20 × 21⁄2 ft (1976); Aldenham House, Herts., 36 × 21⁄2 ft (1976).
On a visit to China in 1979, Roy Lancaster saw two trees by the West Lake, Hangchow, in Chekiang province, the larger 60-70 ft high and 6 ft in girth at breast-height. They were in flower, ‘the slender tapering cylindrical panicles, up to 16 in. long, leaning out or gently ascending from the shoot tips. The white petals were exceeded by the stamens, and the overall effect of some hundreds of inflorescences was staggering’ (The Garden (Journ. R.H.S.), Vol. 105 (1980), p. 122, with colour photograph). As Mr Lancaster suggests, this species must need a continental climate to thrive.
A. wilsonii – The tree at Caerhays, Cornwall, now measures 62 × 71⁄2 + 51⁄4 ft (1984); another example, at Melbury, Dorset, in the Pleasure gardens, is 70 × 51⁄2 ft (1980).
Aesculus
Aesculus arguta Buckl.
Aesculus californica (Spach) Nutt.
Aesculus × carnea Hayne
Aesculus + dallimorei Sealy
Aesculus flava Soland.
Aesculus glabra Willd.
Aesculus glabrescens
Aesculus glaucescens Sarg.
Aesculus hippocastanum L.
Aesculus indica (Camb.) Hook.
Aesculus × mutabilis (Spach) Schelle
Aesculus neglecta Lindl.
Aesculus octandra
Aesculus parviflora Walt.
Aesculus pavia L.
Aesculus × plantierensis André
Aesculus splendens Sarg.
Aesculus sylvatica
Aesculus turbinata Blume
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cc/2023-06/en_head_0040.json.gz/line8
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__label__wiki
| 0.568615
| 0.568615
|
Aralia elata (Miq.) Seem.
Japanese Angelica Tree
Dimorphanthus elatus Miq.; A. canescens Sieb. & Zucc.; A. chinensis var. mandshurica (Maxim.) Rehd.
A deciduous tree 30 ft or more high, with a few stout branches; more often a shrub renewing itself by sucker growths from the base; young growths very thick (over 1 in. in diameter), pithy, and armed more or less with spines. Leaves doubly pinnate, often 3, sometimes 4 ft long, two-thirds as wide; composed of numerous ovate, taper-pointed, short-stalked leaflets, from 3 to 5 in. long, 2 to 3 in. wide, toothed; dark bright green and slightly hairy on the veins above, paler and always downy beneath, often much so, and especially on the midrib and veins; stalks somewhat prickly. Flowers small, whitish, produced in August and September in numerous globose umbels 3⁄4 to 11⁄4 in. across, the whole forming a huge panicle 1 to 2 ft long and from half to nearly as much through; flower-stalks covered densely with down.
Native of Japan, Korea, Manchuria and the Russian Far East; introduced about 1830, and perhaps the finest of all hardy shrubs with foliage of its particular type. It is hardy enough in all but the coldest parts of the country, but still is seen at its best in the milder places. Near Falmouth there was a good specimen about 30 ft high, and as much in the spread of its branches, the main trunk 10 in. thick. In its ordinary shrubby state it makes an admirable ornament for a sheltered lawn, peculiarly effective at flowering time. Easily propagated by taking off small suckers or even pieces of root, potting them, and establishing them in heat.
cv. ‘Aureo-variegata’. – Leaflets with a broad and irregular margin of golden yellow.
cv. ‘Pyramidalis’. – Leaves rather smaller than in the type, and growing erect instead of spreading.
cv. ‘Variegata’. – Leaflets irregularly margined, sometimes more than half covered, with creamy white; also known as albo-marginata. This form, and ‘Aureo-variegata’, are amongst the most effective and beautiful of all variegated shrubs. Both are increased by grafting on to the common form, but owing to their sparse production of suitable propagating material both remain rare and expensive.
The plant grown as A. chinensis var. mandshurica (Maxim.) Rehd. is now considered to belong to A. elata and to be not even varietally distinct from that species. It was probably introduced from Manchuria by Maximowicz around 1860-5, and is said to be hardier than the introduction from Japan.
A. elata was long grown in gardens as A. chinensis L., and not altogether wrongly so, for the two species are very closely allied, and if they were to be merged it would be under the latter name, which is by far the older.
A. chinensis L. – This species has a wide range in China from Yunnan to Manchuria, where it overlaps with A. elata. It differs from that species in the following group of characters: stems less spiny; leaflets finely and closely toothed; main axis of inflorescence longer, producing an elongated, conical panicle (in A. elata the main axis is scarcely developed and the inflorescence umbrella-shaped). The leaflets of A. chinensis are usually sessile, but this is not an altogether reliable character.
In its typical form the species has the leaves downy beneath, and this is perhaps not in cultivation. But A. chinensis var. nuda Nakai, with leaves glabrous beneath (except on the veins), was introduced from China to the Arnold Arboretum in 1919 and thence to Kew in 1926. The plant there died in 1952 and has not been replaced.
A. spinosa L. Hercules’ Club. – A native of the south-eastern United States, and very similar to A. elata. These two afford one of many instances of an extraordinary similarity between a plant native of N. America and another of N. Asia, which are yet not absolutely identical. In this case A. spinosa is distinguished by the leaflets being more glaucous beneath and much less downy, sometimes quite glabrous beneath, and by their being more distinctly stalked. The stems, too, are better armed with prickles. This American species is not so hardy and vigorous as the Asiatic one, and the two seen in juxtaposition are quite distinct. It is extremely rare in cultivation, but is represented in the Kew collection.
Although these species make finer foliage when grown in rich than in comparatively poor soil, the latter is, I think, to be preferred if healthy, long-lived plants are desired. In rich soil the wood, always soft and very pithy, becomes especially so, and renders the plants very liable to injury by winter cold.
[No species article available]
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cc/2023-06/en_head_0040.json.gz/line9
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__label__cc
| 0.72276
| 0.27724
|
Call for Applications for the Artist-in-Residence-Programme 2016
In co-operation with KulturKontakt Austria, the Austrian Federal Chancellery makes available 50 residencies in Austria (Vienna and Salzburg) for the year 2016.
The residency is designed to offer an opportunity to familiarise oneself with the Austrian art scene and cultural environment and to make contact with Austrian artists. Residents are expected to complete a project during their stay.
During their stay, the artists in residence will be made familiar with the art scene and
cultural environment. Activities on offer include visits at galleries, studios and museums, contacts to the literature and publishing sector, as well as access to Vienna’s or Salzburg’s music life. Whenever possible, the residents will receive free tickets for art and book fairs, performances at the Tanzquartier Wien, the international ImPuls Tanz dance festival and other events.
During their stay in Salzburg, the artists in residence will be taken care of by KunstvereinSalzburg.
There is the possibility of participating actively in the Artists-in-Residence-go-to-School-Programme of KulturKontakt Austria (the programme includes reading events and workshops at Austrian schools).
This call is open to artists whose permanent place of residence is outside of Austria and who have completed their training. Austrian citizens cannot apply for this programme. A basic working knowledge of German or English is required. The age limit for applicants is 40 years, i.e. the applicants’ date of birth has to be after the 31 December 1975.
Artists who have already participated in artist-in-residence-programmes organised by
KulturKontakt Austria, the Austrian Federal Chancellery or the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, the Arts and Culture are not eligible for participation.
You are urgently requested to heed the sector-specific information on the following pages!
Applications can be submitted for only one of the following disciplines:
* Visual arts
*Art photography
* Video and media art *
* Interdisciplinary arts **
* Composition
* Literature
* Literature for children and young people
* Literary translation
Arts and cultural education ***
*For organisational reasons, the programme cannot accept applications from the film sector (shorts, feature film, documentary, avant-garde or experimental film, etc.).
**Interdisciplinary arts. This sector is open to artists who work in an interdisciplinary manner involving two or more artistic disciplines or a combination of art and a scientific discipline (e.g. natural science). This concerns projects at the interface between art and science which, as a function of their quality and model character, are conducive to the development of new thematic fields in art and culture.
*** Arts and cultural education. For an application in this sector please consider that arts and cultural educators are responsible for the pedagogic part of an exhibition, concert, theater etc. and in charge for the communication between the audience and the artists or the art. Arts and cultural education can take place in a variety of settings, including arts education in formal and non formal educational institutions and educational programmes in cultural institutions.
Length of stay varies as a function of the artistic discipline:
* Residency of 3 months for visual artists, art photographers, interdisciplinary artists,
composers, video and media artists
* Residency of 1-2 months for writers and literary translators
* Residency of 1 month for arts and cultural educators
The artists in residence will be selected by sector-specific expert juries.
The grants are funded by the Austrian Federal Chancellery within the framework of its Artistin-Residence-Programme. KulturKontakt Austria acts as an advisor and provides organisational support.
Sector-specific application requirements
Visual arts, photography, video and media art, interdisciplinary arts
The grant is designed for individuals who have completed their artist training and/or have been working as free-lance artists for at least five years. Whereas students are not eligible for application, post-graduate students are welcome.
For organisational reasons, the programme cannot accept applications from the film sector (shorts, feature film, documentary, avant-garde or experimental film, etc.).
Interdisciplinary arts. This sector is open to artists who work in an interdisciplinary manner involving two or more artistic disciplines or a combination of art and a scientific discipline (e.g. natural science). This concerns projects at the interface between art and science which, as a function of their quality and model character, are conducive to the development of new thematic fields in art and culture.
Applications may involve interdisciplinary projects which, for instance
* Combine artistic or cultural issues with approaches, perspectives and strategies from fields of science,
* Approach phenomena from an artistic and a scientific perspective and focus on the
interfaces between these perspectives,
* Create new momentum for innovative developments at the interface between art
and science.
The application portfolio has to be submitted before the deadline in five copies (only copy able documents, no originals), each application portfolio in its own labelled envelope.
It is not possible to submit applications per email.
An application portfolio contains mandatorily the following documents according to the following order:
1. a completely filled-in and signed application form,
2. portrait photograph,
3. CV and/or artist resume,
4. a motivation letter (no more than 1 DIN A4 page) specifying current artistic interests and projects,
5. a description of the project to be carried out during the stay in Austria; projects with some reference to Austria will be preferred (1 DIN A4 page max.),
6. a letter of recommendation (e.g. from a university institution, an art college, a gallery or other institution related to art and culture etc.),
7. information about all previous residencies, study visits and traineeships abroad,
8. documentation of previous artistic work (portfolio), meaning a representative cross
section of no more than 10 pages (no catalogues, no photo books, no posters, no
originals!); in case of video and media artists: no more than 1 DVD with a max.
presentation time of 10 min.
Submissions are to be sent as of now until no later than September 15, 2015 (date of postmark) to
Bundeskanzleramt Österreich
Abteilung II/6
Concordiaplatz 2
The submission must be clearly marked with “Artist-in-Residence – Visual arts”!
In case of questions please send an email to: charlotte.sucher@bka.gv.at
Telephone enquiries at 0043 (0)1 53115 – 206860
The juries will only consider complete applications (documents relating to items 1 to 8 in the order specified). The applicants will be informed in writing about the receipt of their application and the result of the jury session.
Application documents will not be returned!
The required application form is available on the website of the Austrian Federal Chancellery
at www.kunstkultur.bka.gv.at and on the website of KulturKontakt Austria at
www.kulturkontakt.or.at.
What can be expected from the residency?
Residencies are provided in Vienna or Salzburg.
Accommodation subject to availability, either in an apartment at the Schloss Laudon
Parkdependance (14th district), a room in a flat in Vienna’s 3rd or 9th district or an
apartment at Salzburger Kunstverein in the City of Salzburg.
The assignment of accommodation in Vienna is made by the residency provider.
Unfortunately, individual preferences cannot be taken into account.
Use of a community studio in Vienna’s 2nd district, at Schloss Laudon or at the
Salzburger Kunstverein.
Contribution to cost of living expenses of € 800 per month; in case of absence
exceeding 7 days, a pro-rata share of cost-of-living expenses will be paid.
One-time contribution to art supplies of € 300 for visual artists and composers.
Travel expenses will not be paid nor refunded.
The cost of translation for one sample text (no more than 10 pages at 1800 characters
each) from a foreign language into German for writers.
Accident and health insurance; insurance cover excludes chronic disease and dental
For the duration of the stay and depending on the place of accommodation, residents
are provided with a mobile internet connect stick including SIM-card or WLAN for the
duration of their residency. Notebooks will not be provided.
For the duration of the stay, a cell-phone with a one-time prepaid credit in the amount
of € 40 will be made available to the residents.
Residents will also receive monthly passes for public transport in Vienna or Salzburg for the duration of their stay.
Regular cleaning service for the living quarters and change of bed-linen and towels will be provided weekly or monthly, according to the place.
In principle, a presentation of works may be arranged towards the end of the
residency.
No financial support can be provided for the production of catalogues, translations,
book releases and performances.
Residents may not bring other people (family members, friends, acquaintances, etc.) or pets to the residency. Only residents may spend the night at the accommodation.
Compliance with the house rules of the residency is of the utmost importance.
You created this PDF from an application that is not licensed to print to novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com
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cc/2023-06/en_head_0040.json.gz/line11
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__label__wiki
| 0.529358
| 0.529358
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Omaha’s Groundbreaking Bakery – the Iten-Barmettler Factory
Today is National Cookie Day! Did you know that Omaha was once home to “America’s most modern bakery”?
In 1932, it was announced that the National Biscuit Company and the Iten Biscuit Company would merge in order to fully occupy the Midwestern market. Otto Barmettler, an Omahan, was named Vice President of the new conglomerate, whose headquarters would be in Omaha. The National Biscuit Company (later known as NABISCO), established in 1898 and employing 25,000 workers, was the largest baking company in the world.[1]
They set to work building a state-of-the-art new facility at 30th and Taylor Streets in North Omaha. It was said to be “America’s most modern bakery” – building construction cost $800,000 and a custom oven was purchased for $56,000. It was brought to Omaha in eight freight cars. Located in the heart of the factory, it was partitioned into six individually operated ovens so production could continue if technical problems arose.[2]
Postcard. The Iten-Barmettler Biscuit Company Headquarters, ca. 1939. Image courtesy of the Douglas County Historical Society.
The investment in the new 85,000 square-foot facility was done with one goal in mind – automation. Every step in the production process, from mixing to frosting to carting baked goods around the factory, was done on a massive scale using specialized machinery. Upon opening, the factory had impressive output – just over 3 million crackers per day or 1.5 million cookies per day.[3]
Page from Iten’s Handy Helper, offering suggestions for using Iten brand crackers, ca. 1936. Courtesy of the Douglas County Historical Society.
The Iten-Barmettler Company’s presence in Omaha was short-lived – they sold the factory to Merchants Biscuit Company in 1940 only five years after it was completed. Merchants stayed in Omaha a little longer, and had a strong presence during two international events. During World War II, the factory was a large employer. Even after the war, it seems they only employed women on the production floor. During the Cold War, the Merchants Biscuit Co. gained attention as the production facility for an experimental University of Nebraska-developed product called the Nebraskit. A compact cracker that packed 850 calories and high protein levels, it became a must-have item for fall-out shelters.[4]
Merchants closed in 1962, and over the next 38 years, the plant saw a succession of several other local manufacturing names: Orchard and Wilhelm Furniture Co., Central States Tool and Die Works, U.S. Mills, Erewhon Inc. In 2000, it was acquired by the Omaha Public Schools and retrofitted with classrooms to hold students during large-scale renovations of other school buildings.
The building still stands, just a few blocks south of the DCHS library.
[1] “Baking Companies Unify Operations.” The Oak Creek Times. September 8, 1932, p. 3.
[2] “$800,000 Iten-Barmettler Plant Opens; Can Bake 3,123,200 Crackers A Day.” The Omaha World-Herald. December 16, 1936, p. 5.
[4] Peters, Chris. “In Cold War America, the ‘Nebraskit’ was the choice snack for nuclear fallout shelters.” The Omaha World-Herald. August 3, 2019. https://omaha.com/archives/in-cold-war-america-the-nebraskit-was-the-choice-snack-for-nuclear-fallout-shelters/article_1323886f-d4a3-5acf-a350-9941559088b3.html
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cc/2023-06/en_head_0040.json.gz/line13
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__label__cc
| 0.650004
| 0.349996
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Talks given on the Military Commissions Act
On January 11 and 24, 2007, Coalition for Peace Action (Central Bucks) and Upper Bucks for Democracy co-hosted Cristi Charpentier and Shawn Nolan, of the Federal Defender's Office, E.D. Pa., and recently returned from Guantánamo, where they have been working with detainee clients. They spoke about the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006, the denial of habeas corpus, and the dangers they pose for U.S. Constitutional law and basic human rights.
Charpentier: “So my answer [to question] is that the Military Commissions Act does not afford the detainees a fair trial, and the Congress would have been better off to take heed from what the Supreme Court was truly telling them in the decision of Hamdan, which is that if you aren't going to use the civil courts, which is where I practice, use the Code of Military Justice. We have things in place. And so you as involved taxpayers—or else you wouldn’t be here, you as involved citizens, you know, should really hear that.”
Nolan challenges the administration’s claims about who is imprisoned at Guantánamo and whether U.S. treatment of detainees accords with U.S. and international law. “It’s outrageous. This is a classic study of government out of control. They go on TV and say, ‘We don’t torture,’ but they do!” He also disputes the government’s claim that “these are the worst of the worst.” According to Seton Hall Law School Professor Mark Denbeaux's analysis, “only 5 percent of the detainees were captured by United States forces. 86 percent of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance.” Many had been turned in by bounty hunters responding to U.S. leaflets dropped over Afghanistan promising “wealth and power beyond your dreams . . . millions of dollars.”
“They’ve been stripped of habeas corpus, and they can’t challenge their detention,” Nolan says. “Some of them have been there five years. There’s no due process.”
Charpentier and Nolan participated in the Guantánamo teach-in on October 5, 2006, at Temple University's Beasley School of Law. Charpentier grew up in Doylestown and graduated from CB West. Raised in the area, Nolan graduated from Lansdale Catholic High School.
Posted by Bucks Blogr at 11:23 AM
Jimmy Carter re Israel/Palestine
Expert on terrorism sheds light
Talk on MCA on Wednesday, January 24, 7:30 p.m. i...
Mary Robinson, champion of human rights
Talk on MCA on Thursday, January 11, 7 p.m., and W...
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cc/2023-06/en_head_0040.json.gz/line15
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__label__cc
| 0.647763
| 0.352237
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Haverford's Independent Student Newspaper
Students’ Council Minutes
Safety Briefs
Opinions Policy
The Consensus Podcast—Episode 2: Work, Service, Burnout: A Conversation with Mike Elias and Maurice Rippel
By Staff on February 21, 2019 |
The Consensus Podcast
Produced by David King and Noah Connors
The second episode in The Haverford Clerk’s podcast series, The Consensus. On this episode, David King ’20 interviews Mike Elias, Dean of Student Engagement and Leadership Initiatives, and Maurice Rippel ’19, Students’ Council Co-President. They discuss student work, service, and burnout.
David King: Hello, and welcome to The Consensus, a podcast brought to you by the Haverford Clerk, Haverford’s online newspaper. I’m your host, David King. Thanks for being with us. On today’s episode, I speak with Mike Elias, Dean of Student Engagement and Leadership Initiatives, and Maurice Rippel, Students’ Council Co-President, about the difference between student work and student service, apathy on campus, and student burnout. Check it out. We hope you enjoy.
David King [D.K.]: OK. Good morning, and welcome to The Consensus. My name is David King, and today, I am here with Maurice Rippel and Mike Elias to talk about student work, student service, and student apathy at Haverford. So, Mike and Maurice—would you introduce yourselves?
Maurice Rippel [M.P.]: Hey, is this Maurice.
D.K.: [Laughs] What’s your position on campus?
M.P.: Oh, um, on campus, I’m one of our Student Council Co-Presidents, and I’ve had the pleasure of working across campus on different projects, um, sometimes also with The Clerk.
Mike Elias [M.E.]: Hi everyone—Mike Elias, I’m one of the Advising Deans, and I’m also the Dean for Student Engagement and Leadership Initiatives.
D.K.: Mike, so you’re on the Task Force for Work and Service, right?
M.E.: Yes.
M.E.: Can you tell us a little bit about what that means.
M.E.: Yeah. So, Jennifer Barr from the CCPA and I are co-chairing the Task Force. I think there’s been a lot of conversations among students—and frankly, from my office and from Career Services as well—about, from my end more about leadership and preparation for professional opportunities outside of Haverford, and how students’ leadership helps them, sort of, develop those skills. And from the CCPA as well, thinking about how the work opportunities on campus, and in some cases, some of the service opportunities, are actually giving students really strong professional skills. I think the bigger context of this Task Force, though, is to take a very large, comprehensive look at the way that we’ve been hiring students, and that, I think, entails a lot. It entails wages, we’re looking at whether the amount of work students are doing across all the different employment positions at the college is equitable,are the hiring practices consistent, are students even being asked to submit resumes? Do all the jobs actually get posted? Because currently they’re not. And so, I think what’s happening is there’s a there’s some discrepancies between not only how students are finding the positions they have, but then what the experience in those positions look like, and we need to start working from both, I think, from a hiring manager perspective, and then from a student perspective, of how we start to create more transparency and also equity across the board. And then the second part is: how do we define service, and what is the difference between where students are doing work for the college, and where they’re participating in service that’s on behalf of the college or the external community as well.
D.K.: Right. And we’ll touch on that just a little bit later in this episode. Maurice, so, give me give me a little bit of a sense of how you’re approaching this issue.
M.P.: I think my background is—where I really stand on this issue is, about where burnout comes from—I think burnout comes from not having a sense of direction or having a sense of everything that’s required of you in a position when you get into it. I’m not sure what you’re supposed to be sort of learning while in it. Um, so I remember for me as a first-year student, the transition alone to the academics was already rigorous, and admittedly, I was also pretty disorganized. At the same time, I still found myself getting involved in Honor Council, and I took an Exec Board position on that, which took up a lot of my nights. And those nights that I wasn’t serving on trials, I had a couple of jobs on campus, one of those primarily was working as a Campus Safety and security escort. And so, I think from all of that going on in the background, and then just trying to adjust the academics, I began struggling in my classes. I think there was, one point, when I failed seven, eight Italian quizzes in a row. And at the same time, I just became increasingly frustrated with the work that I was doing on Honor Council, which felt like I wasn’t going anywhere. Um, you know, making the rounds to different affinity groups, and trying to get a planning resolution passed, all of this in my freshman year, to the point where I was like: “What am I really doing?” I got really fed up with how my work seemed to be going on campus, and it felt like yeah, it felt like I was like: “Why am I doing this work?” “What am I getting from it?”
D.K.: Mike, you want to respond on that one?
M.E.: Yeah yeah yeah. So this originally started from Maurice and I having a back-and-forth via text, when he was writing something—and you know, I think Maurice, what you’re talking about is the sort of lack of clarity in terms of being able to—number one—to sparse what you needed to do for employment purposes, right, to collect money, and in service. And then […] what service is defined as. And you know, I see it a lot, where I think about the job perspective and a development perspective students get, and rightfully so, there’s a lot of opportunities on campus the students dive right into it without I think really inventorying: “What am I doing?” “Why am I doing it?” “What am I getting out of it?” And in some cases, some of the things that we consider a service or like participating in the college governance system in some way are actually really good professional opportunities and just good skill building opportunities for students that I don’t know their thinking through. That’s not to say that you’re also a student will need to have some form of employment but I almost feel like there’s we’re giving the students, in some cases, there’s too many options and what it’s just, it’s just creating over-involvement and then leading to some sort of burnout, and then that inventory process of like: “What do I need to do in order to earn a paycheck?” And then “What do I need to do to actually advance this thing I’m thinking about?” I’m trying to do in this initiative trying to do at Haverford. They get too, sort of, I think, closely related.
M.R.: I agree Mike, and I think something that I needed to realize at the end of my freshman year, was that because of my background, and because I needed to work on campus, but I did have a desire to make this place better. I had to think critically about: “What are the ways in which I could do both right?” So, for me, that led to working on The Clerk and being able to write and edit articles while, at the same time, focusing on issues that were really important to me on campus, and really important to the communities that I was coming from, and led to work eventually on Students’ Council, which thankfully is—as you said—because it is really a professional opportunity as well, to get to operate within the shared governance structure of the college. It’s also a paid opportunity for me because my financial aid status and so it really required, I think, critically think about ‘What did I want to get out of a position?’ And also like “Could this position sort of also meet some of my basic needs financially and professionally?”
D.K.: Right. So, it seems like we’re coming back to this issue of where to draw the distinction between student service and student work. Between employment, and sort of volunteer—stuff that is necessary for this college to run, and for students to be engaged, and for us to advance ourselves in a positive direction. So, Mike, from the viewpoint of the administration, what would you say is the main distinction between those two? if it’s not just payment-based.
M.E.: Yeah, yeah. I want to clarify though, it’s viewpoint from me. I want to speak collectively for my colleagues.
D.K.: Right that’s a great clarification.
M.E.: But I think there’s a couple of things happening here. I think part of it is that the demographics of our student body have drastically changed over time, and quite rapidly even from 2012 or ’13. I think the governance structures that that we have in place that are like sort of like the foundational, traditional ways in which self-governance operates here, or the ways in which we involve students in the operations of the college in some cases have not adapted. I think—actually I’d make an argument that in some cases, we could actually consolidate some of the committees and the structures that we have, to not only move the student initiatives forward in a more efficient way, but also cut down on the amount of different committees that students are serving on, that are sometimes—this is another piece—unclear about what they’re getting into, until they do it. Right? So, the Clearness Committee—they’re doing a fantastic job—but the Clearness Committee pops up this year, and that that is a significant amount of work that’s not paid. That is a part of the governance and student advocacy at the college which, again, students are participating in the Committee and they’re doing really important work, but the reality is: Did they have an expectation about how much time and investment it would take before they start? And so, then there’s also the dynamic of—we’ve also grown in terms of the departments and the staff that we have here as well to create larger systems of support. And so, now, we have this really interesting dynamic where a department is hiring a student to serve a specific role in the office and it’s paid. And then when students start an initiative, I think it’s hard for them to differentiate between, like: “I’m starting this initiative, and it’s going to benefit the college in this way.” Right? But the college isn’t necessarily asking the student to do that—it’s a student-driven project. And so, I think that that needs to be teased out a little bit more and discussed a little bit more because it’s not as if we don’t want our students contributing those really unique opportunities and developing the community and really specific ways. But that I think is where some of the work-slash-services getting muddled slightly.
D.K.: Right.
M.E.: On top of the fact that there are way too many, sort of, student governance structures that, I think, are actually limiting our ability to solve some of the community issues faster.
D.K.: Yeah. Yeah that makes sense. Maurice, do you want to say something to that?
M.R.: Yes. Yeah, I think I just really want to highlight something that Mike said, which was I think that it’s a really Haverfordian thing to do, for students to actually take on more work in a role than it actually requires sometimes.
[All Laugh]
M.R.: And I think it stems from that whole intention of wanting to make this place better which is a beautiful thing—it’s something that I’m guilty of too—but I think some of it also comes from, once again, not knowing what the expectations are or not knowing fully right now what the goals are, that you have, when you enter into an opportunity. As a result, you try to make it something that works better for you or it makes sort of sense toward, like, what your vision of the things should be, right? So, I’m thinking about Customs specifically, and I’m thinking about: “At its core, what is it?” And so, as a CP, I remember like thinking about—as a CP, I should be at hall sessions, I should be at, you know obviously my serve during Customs Week, but then after that I’m like: “Do you have to go to every hall dinner, for example?” “Do you have to go to every hall trip to Philadelphia?” And all those additional things that I think people do because they love this place—because they love their hall. Whatever comes with an opportunity. But, actually, what actually are the requirements of the thing? And, as a result, it ends up with students not always taking time for themselves or, it leads to some of that burnout I think, when you’re essentially overcommitted to a thing. And so, something I think your office is already doing a great job of ,Mike, is like delineating: “What are the expectations?” “What does it look like, potentially, hourly for Customs, and roles, and responsibilities—things like that?”
D.K.: So, Mike, I want to ask you a follow up to that. So, when you see people burning out, when you see people becoming disenchanted—because I assume that your office, particularly, sees that a lot.
M.E.: [Laughs]
D.K.: So, with people not sort of being willing to serve with or for the school anymore, in a position that’s not compensated. How do you respond? How do you re-emphasize the importance of the work that they’re doing?
M.E.: I hear two questions in that one question. The first is like: “How am I actually working with that student?” And I think it takes time, to sort of, tease out an inventory—how many things they’re actually doing—which I think from my end sometimes it’s nearly impossible to know, until the student just starts to share—and then trying to understand where they’re putting their energy; where their energy feels most valuable. And so, you know—if they’re involved in five different committees, and they’re on our Honor Council or something—like where can you commit the most amount of time to feel like you make the most impact? On the burnout question, the second part of what I heard your question is actually very interesting. I’m not shy about the fact that I feel like we actually create more confusing processes here to get projects to move forward than is necessary. We’re a campus of 1300 students, max, right now. We have 150 people in Customs. There’s 130 student organizations, there’s 18 people on Students’ Council, JSAAPP has a full committee, Honor Council is a massive size. If you inventory all the ways our students are involved—we have 142 people involved in the club sports program—You’ve actually, and not counting athletes, or counting athletes, I mean, that’s got to be most of the student body. And so, what we’re doing is, I think, we’re in an effort to create more mechanisms of community engagement, we’re actually dispersing conversations out so far across campus that it’s taking time. It’s taking longer than it should to actually just move something forward. So, you know when a students burned out, and I’m thinking: “I’ve seen you at, you know, four or five different meetings this week, and the same conversation has come up with five different committees.” Then, my thought is: “Why are we not just having this conversation in one shared space?” Because, in some cases, students are actually going to different spaces or groups or meetings or whatever asking for the same things. And it’s just taking a long time for it to give back to the mechanism that will move it forward.
D.K.: So, you mentioned earlier um this idea of maybe centralizing some of these conversations, some of these committees, um, Maurice, as someone involved actually in student government, as someone who’s taken up many of those positions, and had, sort of, those disparate conversations all over again.
M.E.: Maybe too many!
D.K.: All right.
M.R.: Never too many [Laughs].
D.K.: You know I’m one of those people who really does appear in all five of those meetings having the same conversation in the week. What are your thoughts on this? How do we get to a place where we’re not, so much, just having the same conversations, but we are centralized and centered around particular issues as a campus and we can have real unity, in a sense?
M.R.: Yeah. It’s a good question, David. I think I want to first highlight that students have more agency in this than they may immediately think—in regards to burnout, in regards to the fact that these conversations are really happening in these silos. And so, I think it goes back to: “How can we think about changing our present structures to fit the needs of the modern students?” I think, in addition to all those things that, Mike, you just highlighted about clubs, and sports, and varsity athletics, etc, .ike there is a substantial part of this population that’s also working on top of this and things like that. And so, I think we need to think about how like for example does it make sense that students are involved in 30 plus committees? Or the roles of Students’ Council for example we’ve been interrogating this year about does the current structure make sense and I think it’s on every student group to be having those individual conversations within themselves, to think about:“What is the work that we’re actually doing in our roles, and what makes more sense going forward, as our campus changes increasingly?” So, something we’ve thought about, in particular, is changes to the budget—and the budgeting process—is something Mike and I have talked about. Something Students’ Council has been working on, is like, with elections, I’m thinking about: “Is the reason we’re having trouble getting people to run for different things—is it rooted in, because of the workload. that, you know, it takes to be an Honor Council? Is that why juniors and seniors particularly not running? And, if so, what can we do to change that?” Or is it the fact that like the role the elections coordinator and some of the work behind that is it’s a massive load. So, does that need to be shifted? So, interrogating where it is that the issues coming from.
M.E.: I think part of it is also the positions are just ambiguous, and we do nothing to educate students when they get here about what they’re like. So, I imagine being relatively new to the community, and you just get an email calling for, you know, a rep to a committee, and first of all, you don’t know what the committee particularly does, and you also don’t know why you need a first year, or a sophomore, or junior, or senior rep, you’re just like: “Wow.” I mean, I don’t know why I would—if I was a student—put myself in that position. I don’t know why I would apply, because I actually don’t know what it would do. And that’s where I think we get really that’s where it creates like a logjam, because we’re, you know—I’m trying not to pick specific groups, because I don’t want them to feel like—if a committee is meeting and then a committee needs a rep from somewhere else, and that rep needs to go back to Council, and then Council discusses it and goes back to that committee, then that rep goes back to another committee…What’s happening is it’s taking us an entire semester to basically acclimate people to these positions, and by the time they get acclimated to it, in some cases, their time in the position is up. And so, we’re just cycling people through roles and there is never—and there’s also not like a convening, besides Plenary. And I think what’s happening with Plenary is like, people are having these conversations in so many other different places, that by the time the community convenes, they don’t necessarily want to rehash it all again. So, I don’t know, there needs to be a reorganization of the governance model that allows students to either—when you’re going to participate in something like Clearness Committee, that you know the commitment you’re about to jump into, and that know it’s going to be time intensive. And if you’re not, there should be an opportunity for students to be able to go to—like they did [with] the Town Hall—and just basically be present for 45 minutes and say: “I’m frustrated with this; or this is working; or this is not,” and then rely on the actual governance—the student governance body of the college—to be able to advocate and mobilize things. It’s the same with Plenary. A student should be able to go up in Plenary and make a policy proposal that’s a value-based statement, right? Like: “I think that the college should do a better job of ‘insert whatever.’” Right? That’s a value-based statement. And what that does is it challenges the committees that exist to go back and resolve that, and to ensure that the systems that we have to resolve that, work. And so, I don’t know, that’s so sort of a little bit of a side tangent, but…
D.K.: Yeah, no, I think that’s a great point, Mike. Maurice did you want to say something on that?
M.R.: Yeah, I think something that sort of goes along with that is the question of institutional memory—or lack thereof, rather. I think a big thing that we don’t have at Haverford is just really a means or mechanism to know, like sort of, what Mike was saying: What is the expectation? What is the role? What is the time commitment? When I take on this position to something like Students’ Council President, can be it’s even closer to work anywhere from five to 15 hours a week. And so, like, you know you don’t have a sense of what that could look like theoretically until you see I think something that the president’s last year and off council did really well was having transition docs prepared for us, and letting folks know like: “This what’s going to be the expectation; This is what I did week to week; This is a sense of the projects that I was able to undertake; These are the people that I talked to.” And I think more of that, passed down between, you know Co-Heads of a club to the next Co-Heads, and team captains to future team captains, Presidents to future Presidents. And it’s something that also can help with, sort of, avoiding some of that burnout, and whatnot.
M.E.: We’ve been talking with the VPs a lot too, about the way that we actually put—because don’t forget there’s also students on college committees that are not just student-based committees—and you know it’s…
D.K.: Sorry, can you give an example for that?
M.E.: Yeah—like the Education Policy Committee, CSSP, CER—those where it’s a blend of faculty, staff, and/or students. And the Co-VPs make the calls for those positions. You know, every year, they’re constantly in like, a race, to try to figure out if a committee, if a college committee still wants students there, and if they do, how many they want, and what those students doing, so they can run appointments properly. It occurred to us that—number one—that needs to be assessed pretty heavily. But, number two—we should actually do it the opposite way. So, if you have a college committee that you want a student on, then we should—instead of them going and reaching out to every one of these committees—they should put a call out at the beginning of the semester and say: “Dear faculty and staff, if you have a committee, tell us.” Right? So, almost like the way we register for clubs and orgs, we can start to imagine that list will start to get cut down a little bit. It will also keep good records of what committees are standing from semester- or year-to-year. And then we can be intentional about the students that we actually call, and give them expectations to what they’re about to do, instead of being—in some cases they get on one, and it’s actually a lot of work; Other cases they get on it, and they’re—I imagine that they’re like: “What am I’m doing here?”
D.K.: Right. Yeah that’s good that’s a great point, Mike. I think what we’ve been touching on a lot throughout this episode, and something I want to wrap up with is the idea that on both sides—from the side of the college administration and from the side of the students—there is a sense of mutual responsibility that the college has some responsibility to its students, and the students have some responsibility to college. And those responsibilities are filled in different ways—someare compensated, some are not, some are volunteer-based, some are committee-based. But I want to really try and clarify with you guys what that responsibility is. What is the responsibility of the college to the students, and what obligation do the students have to the college? If any?
D.K: So Maurice, do you…
M.R.: I was about to say: “Mike can start with that one.”
M.E.: All right, all right. So, this might come out kind of choppy, but I am going to try to hash this out. There’s obviously a shared-governance model. I think there are components of the institution that were very clearly student-generated, right?Like the Clearness Committee came out of a Plenary proposal. That’s a student initiative that, obviously, the college supports, because it has to do with their experience here…Wait, just to clarify, you want me to define between ‘work’ and ‘service,’ or just where does the shared responsibility lie?
D.K.: Yeah. What’s the responsibility on both ends. So, you’re coming from the administration standpoint. So, what do you feel is the responsibility of the college administration to its students?
M.E.: I’ll talk about my—the way I approach my job is to think about being an advocate and being able to properly support the student experience here. The reality is that, in many different ways, I need students to share and vocalize what their experience is like in order to be able to respond, or advocate, or support them appropriately. To me, self-governance means that students have that ability to be able to form a committee, be on a college committee, walk in my office and say: “Hey, you know, the international student population on campus is growing, and we need a space to meet. We need a space to gather regularly.” Right. To me, that does not happen everywhere. I want to, I want to suggest that this place is very unique in the way that students have that opportunity. So, let’s use that example. Students bring that to, really anybody: Students’ Council, my office, another administrator, whatever. It’s our responsibility to discuss that and determine the feasibility, financial means, whatever space to make that happen. Where I think the line split on that is that the students have advocated for themselves—within their right, in the self-governance model—to bring this to our attention, right? We’ve all clearly recognized that it’s a need. I would not go back and ask those students—I mean, they’re always going to do some like preliminary: tell me a space that you’d be interested in, what do you need to spend, financial costs, whatever—but I’m not going to necessarily completely rely on them to mobilize the entire project. And I think that’s where it gets unclear, right? Because, for example, the Facilities Fund is a great example. Students proposed to the Facilities Fund to initiate projects on campus. That is not a paid position. Those are students advocating for college finances to support a project they’re interested in. That’s different than if my office wanted to start a podcast, and set aside financial resources to be able to hire several students in that position and say they we’re running a podcast, right? And I think that’s where we have to keep having this—it’s not clear cut, it’s sort of gray area—but I think that’s where we need to be more thoughtful about where we hear a student issue a need and where we’re able to not only put resources but then how we’re working with students in a way that isn’t necessarily dumping all the work back onto them if it, in fact, is not a job. Because they’re advocating for their experience, and that’s different than my office hiring them.
M.E.: Does that makes sense?
D.K.: Yeah. Maurice, from the side of the students, what is the responsibility of students to college?
M.R.: I think something that’s kind of inherent within the Honor Code is the idea that every student is sort of somewhat expected to serve. If at the very least to go to Plenary, to be engaged, to thoughtfully think about the resolutions, to speak to them, and to vote accordingly. And it’s something that I think that, yeah—we’ve seen over the past couple Plenaries that there’s been—I don’t know how to articulate this—We’ve talked a little bit about this David, but it’s been a conversation. [Pause]. I think that, yeah, it’s on every Haverford student to be sort of involved at that sort of core, basic level. What we’ve seen though—with the fact that, between elections, and what we’ve seen with most service participation on committees, or lack thereof, has been, I think a shift in our understandings of what student involvement to the college looks like. And I think it means that we, as students, have to, once again, re-interrogate—and I’ve said this earlier—like, what it means to serve at Haverford. And, at the end of the day, committees won’t change—at least student-driven committees won’t change—unless we take it to Plenary and change them. The hours and expectations on government structures such as Honor Council or Students’ Council won’t change unless we’re the ones to drive those sorts of changes. And we have the means for doing that at Plenary. I think furthermore, more broadly, I think students are expected—one, to be students first. And I want to really emphasize that: You’re here, first and foremost, to do well in your classes—to get your degree, and eventually to go on to a job. And so, even though other things that students take on may be really integral to your identity, and really integral to who you are and your experience on campus, it’s also important to recognize that I think not everything should be on you. And so, whether that means talking with your Dean, whether that means collaborating with your peers, or whether that means knowing when to take steps back, knowing when you actually do have to take your academics first and foremost, before being able to go on to other things. So, I think it does take a lot of individual commitment to assess, and think about, what can I do, and what do I need, but I think that that also is a pretty big part. Obviously, you’re a student first, and then, like after that, there’s also these sort of these other inherent parts of the Haverford student experience and engaging where you can, according to your ability.
D.K.: Maurice and Mike, thanks so much for you time.
M.E.: Thank you, David.
M.R.: Thank you, David.
David King: Thanks for listening to this conversation with Mike Elias and Maurice Rippel. We hope you liked it. Stay tuned for more content from The Consensus. In the meantime, check out The Clerk’s website at www.haverfordclerk.com. This episode was recorded by David King and produced by Noah Connors. The Editor-in-chief of The Clerk is Ali Rosenman, and our music was written and recorded by Mattias Lundberg.
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Alim F. Kemalov Sc.D., professor of Federal Kazan University, director of research and production center "Inventa"
Ruslan A. Kemalov Ph.D., assistant professor of heavy oil and natural bitumen Kazan Federal University
Elena N. Kotel'nikova Sc.D., professor of Department of Crystallography of the Faculty of Geology, St. Petersburg State University
Oleg V. Lukyanov Head of technology development department "Chemical Treatment of Wells" Business Unit of "Mirrico" group company
Addresses of the "Exposition Oil & Gas"magazine
The central office
Naberezhnye Chelny, Republic of Tatarstan, Mira, 3/14, Suite 145
ul. Narodnogo opolcheniya, 38/3, Suite, 212
801 Three island blvd., Suite 217 Hallandale Beach, 33009
Hilden, Germany
+49 (1577) 958-68-49
© «Exposition Oil & Gas», published since 2006
@runeft
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Review: Reprobation - Undoing Creation
Undoing Creation
Label: Forever Underground
Reviewed by: Michel Renaud
Rated 3/5 (60%) (4 Votes)
On a label named "Forever Underground", you can be sure that the bands won't sound anything like Nightwish. :) Reprobation is a brutal death metal band with lyrical content that's very much into gore - not that I could figure that out from the vocals, which are essentially incomprehensible and of the "I partied too much before recording the vocals and I started puking during recording and we didn't have enough studio time to re-record, so there" variety - in other words, very deep, guttural vocals, sometimes sounding like a bunch of disgusting burps. Not my thing, but there are some people out there who love this type of vocals, and I'm sure they'll be pleased by the vocal work on this album. :)
Musically this is mostly fast-paced brutal death, kind of a mix of influences from Incantation and Morbid Angel, while the slower parts give more of an Immolation feel. I didn't find anything that really caught my attention, however - it's well-played, but not outstanding, pretty much average to slightly above average stuff for the most part. There are a few occasional riffs that stand out a bit, but not long enough to really distinguish this from your usual death metal album. There's a couple of short spoken "sketches" between some of the songs, the one with the visit from a couple of Jehovah Witnesses is pretty funny.
If you're looking for something completely different, you'll have to look elsewhere. But if you're looking for a good death metal album that's high on gore and blasphemous content (just don't lose that booklet!), this is for you.
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NIXSolutions: Google Generally Ignores Links in Widgets
As you know, Google has a clear negative opinion regarding the use of links in widgets for site promotion (since 2016). Webmasters know that the use of such a technique can lead to search engine sanctions. In addition, sanctions for artificial links can also be imposed on a site where such widgets are present.
However, some of John Mueller’s recent remarks suggest with a high degree of probability, that today Google simply ignores these links and does not penalize sites in any way for using them, says SearchEngines.
Muller responded to a question from a webmaster on Twitter that, on the one hand, links in widgets are contrary to Google’s recommendations for webmasters, and on the other hand, it is not difficult for a search engine to recognize these links.
“Yes, these are links, they can be counted, but this does not mean that they have any value.”
If Google ignores links in widgets, then it automatically treats them as nofollow, so they are neither good nor bad. This means that buying such links is a waste of money and does not help in promoting the site. But this also means that no search engine sanctions for using this technique are threatened.
To a direct question about the threats to the site in the case of using links in widgets, Mueller answered very evasively, repeating that they are contrary to the guidelines for webmasters and are considered a form of unnatural linking.
“We algorithmically work to ignore unnatural links or treat them appropriately. We may also apply manual penalties for unnatural links. I wouldn’t call a widely used link building scheme like this “harmless”.
Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable noticed a change in tone with which the Google spokesperson talks about this link technique and punishment for it. NIXSolutions notes that it looks like Google has made some serious progress in identifying such links since 2014, when this problem arose, and has really stopped counting them.
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Here we have listed some of the recent performers that we have promoted at North Shropshire Folk which demonstrates that we have many of the best musicians in the folk world at our gigs.
December 2022 Awake Arise
In an unmissable collaboration, five of the English folk scene’s most inventive artists bring you Awake Arise – A Christmas Show For Our Times; celebrating the riches of our varied winter traditions and reflecting upon the hope and resilience in music and song that can bring joy to us all in the darkest season.
Award-winning trio Lady Maisery (Hannah James, Rowan Rheingans and Hazel Askew) have produced ‘some of the most exquisite, thrilling vocal harmony work in the English folk scene’ (The Guardian), for nearly a decade.
The beguiling musical partnership of Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith complete the powerful line-up, bringing the outstanding vocals, sensitive instrumentation and powerful social conscience that has won them widespread critical acclaim.
Featuring traditional songs, folk carols, spoken word and newly written music to galvanise and brighten this darkest season, Awake Arise is a warm gift to the wintertime from five of the most engaging and celebrated performers on the English folk scene.
True to the reputations of both acts as out-spoken voices on the folk scene, this collection is also a rallying cry to embrace the power of collective endeavour as a vital support during times of hardship and loneliness. In this most uncertain of winters, Awake Arise is more than just a great night out; these are essential songs which remind us who we are and why we matter to each other.
November 2022 Calan
We welcome the return of Calan who played for us in 2018.
CALAN are a multi award-winning Welsh folk band comprising of five virtuoso musicians formed after they met at a folk music course in Sweden. They won international acclaim at the world-renowned Inter-Celtic Festival in Lorient, France, where they would eventually become the first Welsh ensemble to win the coveted International Band Trophy. In April 2019, they were voted Best Band at the inaugural Wales Folk Awards.
Calan are: Bethan Rhiannon (accordion, vocals, clog dancing); Patrick Rimes (fiddle, Welsh bagpipes); Angharad Jenkins (fiddle); Sam Humphreys (guitar); and Shelley Musker-Turner (harp). Since they were formed the band has played to audiences numbering from 40 at a garden fete to 26,000 at Fairport Convention’s Cropredy Festival in Oxfordshire, but perhaps the most visible was their televised performance from a packed Royal Albert Hall alongside Sir Bryn Terfel and Sting.
www.calan-band.com
October 2022 Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith
Jimmy Aldridge & Sid Goldsmith are one of the most celebrated duos to have emerged onto the British folk and acoustic scene in recent years. Their combination of outstanding vocal work, sensitive instrumentation, and a powerful social conscience has brought them widespread critical acclaim. The songs themselves are always given centre stage but they are brought to life with stunning musical arrangements and vocals. There is an integrity that shines through their performances and a common thread of political struggle, resistance, and justice. To be a great folk singer, you have to be a great storyteller, as Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith are clearly aware. The duo are both fine singers and multi-instrumentalists
May 2022 The Outside Track
Winner of 'Best Group' in both the Live Ireland awards and the Tradition In Review awards, The Outside Track are one of the top Celtic acts in the world. They were 'Best Live Act' nominees in the MG Alba Scots Traditional Music Awards, and won the German Radio Critics Prize, for their album Flash Company. Live Ireland called them, 'Among the top bands in the world - stunning on every cut!'.
The Outside Track’s marriage of Celtic music, song and dance has been rapturously received around the world. Hailing from Scotland, Ireland, and Cape Breton, its five members are united by a love of traditional music and a commitment to creating new music on this as a foundation. They blend fiddle, accordion, harp, guitar, flute, whistle, step-dance and vocals with breathtaking vitality. Their blend of boundless energy and unmistakable joie de vivre has won them a large following around the globe.
April 2022 Dan Walsh
BBC Folk Awards Best Musician nominee Dan Walsh combines ‘virtuoso playing and winning songwriting’ Describing what Dan does is no easy task but at the heart of it is British, Irish and American folk music delivered with a healthy dose of funky grooves – all performed with his unique and dazzling take on clawhammer style banjo helping to challenge all preconceptions about the instrument. Add to all that poignant songs, astonishing musical departures and lively humour and the result is a truly memorable live show which has wowed audiences across the world from intimate seated rooms to huge dancing crowds in festival fields.
Dan is one of the UK’s leading lights in melodic clawhammer banjo. Clawhammer banjo refers to playing with the back of the index or middle finger nail in a downstroke movement while the thumb concentrates principally on the 5th string which is a drone string but also picks other strings using a technique called drop thumbing. The hand assumes a claw like shape while the movement comes primarily from the elbow. The style is a very old one used primarily in American Old Time music though players like Ken Perlman, Michael J Miles and others have experimented with other genres using the technique. The good thing about the style is it can cover lead, chords and percussion all in one so it makes a great solo style.
Dan has recorded five albums to much critical acclaim and he is an in demand performer with a hectic touring schedule in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and throughout Europe. He has also released two banjo tablature books. This unique and eclectic musician has stunned audiences across the world.
February 2022 The Jeremiahs
The Jeremiahs is an Irish folk band that comprises four musicians who have come together with the common goal of writing, composing and performing folk songs and music. They have travelled extensively, bringing their music far and wide and are heralded as a live band not to be missed. With a wonderful mixture of newly composed songs and tunes in the folk genre and a well selected catalogue of older folk songs, they are sure to rouse all the emotions.
Hailing from County Dublin is singer Joe Gibney on vocals. On fiddle, viola and vocals is County Cork’s Niamh Varian-Barry (formerly of Solas). On flutes and whistles is the French born Julien Bruneteau and on Guitar is Dublin born James Ryan.
Winners of the 2015 Best Vocal & Instrumental Album Live Ireland. Male Vocalist of the Year 2015 Chicago Irish American News. Winners of the 2015 Christy Moore Songwriter Showcase. Winners of the 2013 Ballyshannon Folk Festival Showcase
October 2021 Jack Rutter
Jack Rutter, folk singer, bouzouki player, multi instrumentalist is one of Britain's finest traditional singers.
Jack grew up in the Holme Valley area of West Yorkshire, a place steeped in a wealth of traditional song, and following a BSc degree in Countryside Management at Newcastle University has forged a highly successful career playing music across the UK and Europe. In addition to his acclaimed solo work, he has become a highly sought after collaborator for a host of the biggest names in folk music such as Seth Lakeman, Sam Sweeney and Jackie Oates as well as playing in the celebrated instrumental trio Moore Moss Rutter
December 2019 A Winter Union
A WINTER UNION - Jade Rhiannon (Vocals, Shruti Box), Katriona Gilmore (Vocals, Mandolin, Fiddle), Jamie Roberts (Vocals, Guitar), Hannah Sanders (Vocals, Guitar, Dulcimer) and Ben Savage (Vocals, Dobro, Guitar).
Five leading lights of the British roots scene join forces to create a festive folk band like no other. Expect soaring harmonies and exquisite musicianship as the 5-piece blast through a repertoire of brand new, specially written songs, fresh arrangements of traditional carols both well-loved and little-known, and seasonal classics from both sides of the Atlantic.
Originally formed in 2015 for a one-off yuletide concert, A Winter Union returned in 2016 for more shows including London’s Cecil Sharp House and a live session on BBC Radio 3. This year brings the band’s first line-up change with BBC Folk Award nominees Gilmore & Roberts joining members of The Willows and Hannah Sanders.
November 2019 and 2016 Daoiri Farrell
A former electrician, who decided to become a musician after seeing Christy Moore perform on Irish TV, Dublin-born traditional singer and bouzouki player Daoirí (pronounced ‘Derry’) Farrell has been described by some of the biggest names in Irish folk music as one of most important singers to come out of Ireland in recent years.
After a promising debut album, ‘The First Turn’, back in 2009, Daoirí spent several years studyin
g traditional music and performance at respected colleges across Ireland. While at the University of Limerick, Fintan Vallely introduced him to the singing of the late Liam Weldon, an encounter that was to prove formative to his sound and his approach to folk song.
Daoirí had cut his teeth as a singer in Dublin’s famous Góilin Singers Club and at other sessions across the city, many of which he still visits regularly. Following his studies he quickly found work accompanying artists including Christy Moore, as well as a list of names that sounds like a who’s who of folk music: Dónal Lunny, Martin Hayes, Dennis Cahill, Alan Doherty, Danú, Dervish, Julie Fowlis, Arty McGlynn, The John Carty Big Band, Kíla, Sean Keane, Gerry O’Connor (Banjo), Gerry O’Connor (Fiddle), Lankum and more. In 2013 he won the All Ireland Champion Singer award at the Fleadh in Co. Derry, and in 2015 won the
prestigious Danny Kyle Award at Celtic Connections in Glasgow with the line-up FourWinds.
Daoirí finally stepped into the limelight in his own right, launching his own solo live career at Celtic Connections, in January 2016. In May the same year he was invited to fly to Manchester to do a live session on the BBC Radio 2 Folk Show with Mark Radcliffe just a week before his first UK tour. His name was suddenly everywhere and festival and show dates started to stream in from across the world.
His long-awaiting follow-up album to ‘The First Turn’, ‘True Born Irishman’ was released in October 2016. The following spring his won two BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards – Best Traditional Track and Best Newcomer – and performed with a six piece line-up at the awards ceremony at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
He has since performed in Australia, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, The Czech Republic, USA, Portugal and more and played festivals including Cambridge Folk Festival, Milwaukee Irish Festival, Vancouver Island Folk Festival, the National Folk Festival of Australia and many more. In 2018 he toured the UK with Transatlantic Sessions and recorded his next album with Dónal Lunny in the producer’s chair. His new album was released in February 2019.
October 2019 and 2017 The Leylines
We welcomed back the The Leylines who entertained us wonderfully n 2017.
West-country collective established in 2013, with a genre-defying, eclectic sound that ranges from traditional folk to full blown festival rock. The Leylines are: Steve Mitchell (Vocals/Guitar), Hannah Johns (Violin), Dan Thompson (Electric Guitar), Sean Booth (Bass) and Dave Burbidge (Drums).
The Leylines was founded by a group of musicians in Weston-super-Mare (via Bristol), wishing to combine their individual musical styles into something that isn’t quite folk, sort of punk, 100% heart-pounding revelry. This unique sound, combined with Steve’s lyrics centred around life on the road and the state of society, has launched the band into the heart of the live music community and made them firm favourites of the festival circuit.
The band released their debut album, ‘Along The Old Straight Track’ in June 2016, produced by Sean Lakeman, recorded at The Metway studios in Brighton and mixed by Al Scott. With this team on board, inevitably the record has drawn strong comparison to the likes of The Levellers, Mad Dog Mcrea and Ferocious Dog, whilst remaining an album by a band which have forged their own sound and identity.
In the following years The Leylines went on their first of many national tours, and were booked for Glastonbury Festival, where they performed six sets in as many days. They also played stages at Beautiful Days, Goldcoast Oceanfest, Something To Smile About Festival, The Godney Gathering and Big Feastival, as well as many other music festivals across the UK.
The band then released their second studio album Recover Reveal, in March 2019.
Starting work on it almost immediately after the release of ‘Along The Old Straight Track, their second record was nearly three years of honing and crafting, with a number of tracks crowd-tested at numerous venues and festivals across the UK. The result is a collection of sincere, straight-from-the-heart performances, constructed with care, and played with passion.
The Leylines then took Recover Reveal across the country, before heading into festival season to play everyone’s foot stomping favourites from both their albums.
With a fiercely loyal and ever-growing fan base, The Leylines guarantee to have their audiences up on their feet – and they will be having as much fun as their audience while they’re doing it!
September 2019 Tannara
Bold, creative, and original; Tannara (Owen Sinclair, Robbie Greig, Becca Skeoch and Joseph Peach) have established themselves as one of the UK’s most interesting and unique contemporary folk groups.
Formed in 2014, the band came about as a natural extension of the four members’ love of making music together. Fuelled by this, they’ve covered considerable musical ground over the past five years. With a background in Scotland’s native traditions, their ceaseless musical development is a melting pot of ideas, genres and sounds: From indie rock to electronica, as well as Scotland’s vibrant and diverse folk scene. Unafraid to experiment, their music is an electrifying
meeting place for a world of sounds: Punchy and clean, riotous and gritty, tender and honest. On fiddle, harp, guitar, accordion and vocals, Tannara make an intensely considered musical world which is uniquely theirs. Their debut album “Trig” was released in 2016. Produced by Rachel Newton, their first offering as a band was a raw, joyous, reflection of a band finding its sound. It was received to great acclaim, from critics and audiences alike. Described by Living Tradition Magazine as “Simply Outstanding”, it was longlisted for “Album of the Year” at the 2016 Scots Trad Music Awards, the same year in which the band were nominated for “Up and Coming Artist of the Year”. From open air festivals, to intimate housconcerts, and everything in between, the band love playing live. A fact that’s reflected by their so far busy schedule of performances and radio appearances across Europe, with highlights including Cambridge Folk Festival, and Festival Interceltique de Lorient, a performance described as “Fiery and Graceful” by The Herald.
The year ahead will be the biggest yet for Tannara, with the release of their second album “Strands” at Celtic Connections Festival 2019. The album represents a significant development for the band, who’ve spent the past two years writing and recording it.
Josie Duncan and Pablo Lafuente
2017 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award Winners Josie Duncan and Pablo Lafuente are a vocal/guitar duo like no other. Calling the Isle of Lewis and Glasgow/Spain home, it's no wonder their music doesn’t focus on one place or on one of the many strands of Scotland’s web of traditions. They are well travelled, and well versed in music from across the land. On guitar and vocals in Gaelic, Scots and English, their music is a round tour, where centuries old ballads meet Gaelic Puirt A Beul, songs from the mines and cotton mills, as well as some original writing. Josie's voice, crystal clear with its slight island twang, is equally at home in any of these domains. Accompanied by Pablo's dynamic, sensitive guitar playing, they illuminate the lyrics. Their music, at times sparse and haunting, at others driving and all consuming, leaves audiences stunned. They are both accomplished musicians in their own right. Josie is a recent graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where she studied with some of the masters of the Scottish and Gaelic traditions. She has toured extensively, performing at festivals and venues in Europe, Canada and America. Her other projects include a collaboration with innovative Gaelictronica band Inyal, and Blasta, a showcase of singers of the Isle of Lewis commissioned by this year's Festival Interceltique de Lorient. Pablo's experiences are no less varied. Of Spanish origin, he has put down cultural roots in Scotland, exploring the tradition to its deepest core. Since completing his studies of guitar and fiddle at the National Centre for Excellence in Traditional music Pablo has been in high demand, playing, recording and touring internationally with artists including: The Outside Track, Barluath, Sketch and Spanish Gaita extraordinary Anxo Lorenzo. Since joining forces in 2016 Josie and Pablo have taken the scene by storm, quickly becoming one of Scotland’s most in-demand live acts at festivals and venues across the country and in 2017 were nominated for ‘Folk Band Of The Year’ at the ‘MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards’. In their short time together they’ve delighted the audiences of BBC Radio 2, Celtic Connections, BBC Proms In The Park, Cambridge Folk Festival, Sofar sessions, and a host of venues across Scotland.
March 2019 Jackie Oates
Jackie Oates is a singer and fiddle player hailing from Staffordshire. Her unique treatment of English ballads and songs, and pure, haunting singing style has established her at the forefront of the new English folk revival.
Since appearing as a finalist in the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards 2003, she has performed extensively at festivals and venues across the country and beyond, in a solo capacity and with her band. She was a founder member of Northumbrian group and Mercury nominated Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, Jackie is now a permanent member of the folk super-group The Imagined Village as well as touring in her own right.
In 2008 she released her second album ‘The Violet Hour’ which was followed by a swathe of glowing national reviews, with the album going on to be one of Mojo’s top ten folk albums of the year.
Megson, February 2019
Three times nominated in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and double winners of the Spiral Earth Awards Megson draw heavily on their Teesside heritage to create a truly unique brand of folk music. The husband & wife duo bring an infectious mix of heavenly vocals, lush harmonies and driving rhythmic guitars. Comprising Debs Hanna (Vocals, Whistle, Piano Accordion) and Stu Hanna (Guitar, Mandola, Banjo) Megson have gained fame on the British folk scene, not only for their arresting & intelligent songwriting, but for their exquisite musicianship and northern humour. As fRoots Magazine puts it ‘if you don’t like the music here then you have a problem’ .
Calan, December 2018
It’s 10 years since the masters of Welsh folk released their debut album – Bling. It’s fair to say that during those ten years they’ve blasted their way through the old traditions giving a fresh and contemporary sound to traditional Welsh music. Credited for their sparkling melodies, foot-tapping tunes and spirited and energetic performances of Welsh step dancing, they’ve taken Welsh traditional music to international audiences. Following the release of Bling in 2008, which attracted four-star responses from the critics, the five-piece have played to big audiences and rave reviews at concerts and festivals around Britain, USA, Australia and Europe.
Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts November 2018 and March 2014
We welcome back contemporary folk/acoustic duo Gilmore & Roberts combine award-winning songwriting withastounding musicianship and their trademark harmonies to create a powerful wall of sound. Nominated three times at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Katriona Gilmore (fiddle, mandolin) and Jamie Roberts (guitar) met while studying at Leeds College of Music and released their debut album in 2008.
Since then, the duo have toured Canada and mainland Europe, played some of the UK’s biggest acoustic festivals, toured with folk rock legends Fairport Convention and won countless accolades for their genre-spanning work.
Lucy Ward October 2018
Lucy Ward is an award winning singer-songwriter from Derby. She plays guitar, ukulele and concertina but considers her voice to be her first instrument.
After getting her first guitar at the age of 14, Lucy ventured into acoustic clubs, it was there that she first heard the traditional music that she now loves. Captured by the lyrics and stories of traditional song Lucy delved further into the world of folk music, visiting clubs and sessions up and down the country before getting booked to play gigs in her own right. In 2009 Lucy reached the final of the BBC Young Folk Award and she hasn’t looked back since!
After winning the Horizon Award for best newcomer at the 2012 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Lucy’s career has gone from strength to strength establishing her as one of the hottest performers on the UK Folk scene, pulling a full capacity audience for her Cambridge Folk Festival debut.
Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith September 2018
Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith are one of the finest duos to have emerged onto the British folk and acoustic scene in recent years. Their combination of outstanding vocal work, sensitive instrumentation, and a powerful social conscience has brought them widespread critical acclaim.
In the main they play traditional music that originates from the British Isles on guitar and banjo, the combination this and their great vocal harmonies are really superb. Their performance of these songs is top notch and they are genuinely a real joy to listen to…In short, they’re brilliant!
The Outside Track April 2018
A stunning synthesis of virtuosity and energy, The Outside Track’s marriage of Canadian, Scottish and Irish music and song has been rapturously received around the work. Hailing from Scotland, Ireland and Cape Breton, its five members are united by a love of traditional music and a commitment to creating new music on its foundation. Using fiddle, accordion, harp guitar, flute, step-dance and vocals, these five virtuosos blend boundless energy with unmistakeable joie de vivre. The line-up comprises Teresa Horgan, Mairi Rankin (Beolach), Ailie Robertson (Live Ireland Winner, BBC Young Trad finalist), Fiona Black (BBC Fame Academy Winner) and Cillian O’Dalaigh.
Jim Moray March 2018 and 2003
A welcome return of Jim Moray. After ground-breaking and award-winning albums, including winner of BBC Radio 2 Folk Album of the Year 2003 (Sweet England) and Mojo Folk Album of the Year 2008 and 2010 (Low Culture and Modern History), Jim now finds himself hailed as a pivotal influence by a new generation of folk musicians. Jim’s latest album Upcetera places the narrative element centre stage, with supple soaring vocal leading the listener by the hand through strange old stories.
MOORE MOSS RUTTER February 2018
A series of remarkable gigs has heightened the sense of anticipation around the reunion of Tom Moore, Archie Churchill-Moss and Jack Rutter in the trio that won them the 2011 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award. Now seven years on, having toured with with some of the biggest and best acts in contemporary folk music, they now reconvene to release their third album together. Widely regarded as three of the best players of traditional folk amongst a precociously gifted generation, their finely-crafted arrangements wield a rare potency. Their music features new compositions as well as ancient traditional material from Britain and Europe, this record focuses on their own movements from the countryside to large cities and the contrasts that come into play. Liberally sprinkled with a modern electroacoustic grit, this trio has as much to do with contemporary music as it does with folk or baroque.
Jack Rutter plays Atkin and Martin Guitars, Tom Moore plays a Rod Ward Violin and Archie Churchill-Moss plays a Castagnari Melodeon
December 2017 The Melrose Quartet
Melrose Quartet are truly an all-round folk act, with both tight a capella harmony and energy-packed instrumentals. They comprise leading English musicians Nancy Kerr (2015 BBC Folk Singer of the Year), James Fagan, Jess & Richard Arrowsmith with twin fiddles, guitar and bouzouki, melodeon and four strong voices. The band present a bold take on old and new English songs and tunes, with a powerful treatment of traditional material alongside some of the best modern song-writing in the folk world. They reliably delight and tantalise their audiences with the infectious warmth and sparkle these four seasoned musicians feel when they unite.
In concert, Melrose Quartet perform a diverse repertoire, featuring music from their acclaimed debut album ‘50 Verses’ . There are carousing chorus songs, lively dance tunes, ancient stories and modern pieces written in celebration of everything from weddings & birthdays to issues that affect all of our 21st century lives. This is music for everybody.
November 2017, November 2014, April 2009, October, 2005, 2003, and 2002
The Paperboys
So how do you like your musical cocktail? If it is shaken, not stirred then catch the Paperboys whilst you have the chance. This acclaimed Canadian-based band serves up a heady blend of country-folk-celtic -bluegrass-rock with a bit of traditional Mexican music thrown in for good measure. It defies labelling but hey, who cares, it is just brilliant music! Those of you who have seen this amazing band on their previous gigs here at Whitchurch will know what we mean.
The Paperboys are renowned for their energetic live performances and have wowed festival goers the world over. They create a buzz wherever they play . Lead singer is Tom Landau who is the only current band member to have been there from the start. Born in Mexico to a Ca nadian mother of Irish ancestry – thus accounting for at lest two of his musical influences - he later moved to Canada where he founded the Paperboys in 1992.
To say their music is versatile is to put it mildly and they have successfully blended many influences that recall bands like Horslips, the Waterboys and the Pogues.
Songs from the band’s fifth studio album, The Road to Ellenside, include Tom Landa’s richly
expressive vocals backed by a combination of whistle and flute (Geoff Kelly is amazing), banjo, percussion, guitar and not to mention the jarana, a small Mexican guitar which Landa plays to great effect. The excellent musicianship creates a sound that fills the venue and the overall effect is exhilarating. The distinctly Celtic flavour that emerges time and time again sets the overall tone for the evening.
Click here to see the Paperboys website
April 2017 and 2013 FAUSTUS
FAUSTUS came together in 2006 as an evolution of the award winning band Dr. Faustus. They made an eponymous debut album in 2008, produced by Stu Hanna and released by Navigator Records, which saw them nominated as the Best Group in the 2009 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Touring saw them headlining at festivals, as well as playing sell-out concerts at arts centres and clubs. After a two year break they returned in 2011 and released the new album ‘Broken Down Gentlemen’ (Navigator Records) in spring 2013. Faustus are three of the leading lights of their generation: Benji Kirkpatrick (Seth Lakeman Band, Bellowhead), Saul Rose (Waterson:Carthy, Whapweazel) and Paul Sartin (Bellowhead, Belshazzar’s Feast). They have a plethora of experience between them, brought together here in a virtuosic display of musicianship and testosterone. Rooted deeply in the English tradition, in 2007 they received a 75th Anniversary Award from the English Folk Dance and Song Society.
’One of Britain’s outstanding folk bands.’
**** The Guardian
March 2017 Chris Wood
At the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2006, the Best Original Song category was won by Chris Wood and storyteller Hugh Lupton for "One in a Million". He was also nominated in three other categories: Best Album (for The Lark Descending), Best Traditional Track ("Lord Bateman"), and Folk Singer of the Year.
In 2009, the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards recognised Wood as 'Folk Singer of the Year', and Trespasser was also recognised as Album of the Year.
In March 2009, Chris took part in the Darwin Song Project, a multi-artist songwriting retreat organised by the Shrewsbury Folk Festival to create songs that had a "resonance and relevance" to Darwin. A CD was released in August 2009.
In 2011, Chris again tasted success at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, where he was recognised as Folk Singer of the Year as well as winning Song of the Year for his song "Hollow Point", from The Handmade Life, a song about the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005.
In 2012, the singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading asked him to appear as support act on the British leg of her Starlight tour.
FEBRUARY 2017 AND 2009 Megson
Three times nominated in the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards and double winners of the Spiral Earth Awards Megson draw heavily on their Teesside heritage to create a truly unique brand of folk music.
The husband & wife duo bring an infectious mix of heavenly vocals, lush harmonies and driving rhythmic guitars. Comprising Debs Hanna (Vocals, Whistle, Piano Accordion) and Stu Hanna (Guitar, Mandola, Banjo) Megson have gained fame on the British folk scene, not only for their arresting & intelligent songwriting, but for their exquisite musicianship and northern humour. As fRoots Magazine puts it ‘if you don’t like the music here then you have a problem’ .
Summer 2016 saw the release of their much anticipated new studio album GOOD TIMES WILL COME AGAIN gaining them much critical acclaim. “One of the most original political folk sets of the year. Ewan MacColl would have been impressed.” said The Guardian. “Relevant, thought-provoking songs that would make Woody Guthrie proud” said Acoustic Magazine. While folk broadcasting legend Mike Harding described it as “One of the top albums of 2016.”.
December 2016 and May 2014 Belshazzar's Feast
In 1995 Paul Hutchinson (accordion) and Paul Sartin (oboe, violin and vocals) shared a musical passion borne out of the desire to earn sufficient money to support their extravagant lifestyles. Their amazing musicianship coupled with wry humour stunned audiences around Europe and the States. After a brief sabbatical, they’re back! If you like Mozart, Beethoven, Elvis Presley and The Spinners avoid them – you have been warned!
Paul Sartin is a member of BBC Radio 2 Award-winning big band Bellowhead and English music trio Faustus. He combines his busy performing career with teaching and outreach work, at St Edward’s School in Oxford and for community organisations, most notably Live Music Now and SuperAct. He dabbles in academia, recently assisting on a number of publications of old tune manuscripts, and regularly deputises with the Choir of Winchester Cathedral, where he gets to wear a dress to work.
Paul Hutchinson is a member of the innovative and progressive folk trio, Hoover the Dog as well as Okavango – the collaboration between Hoover the Dog and Fluxus (Belgium). Paul is also a seasoned accordion tutor for Folkworks, Hands On, British Council (in Czech Republic and Belgium), Birmingham Conservatoire and University of Limerick. His favourite colour is pink.
Belshazzar’s Feast start with traditional folk music, add a touch of classical and jazz, throw in a bit of pop and music hall, and top it off wry humour for a unique live experience. In November 2009 they released ‘Frost Bites’, the follow up to the successful ‘Food Of Love’. ‘Frost Bites is a collection of winter and Christmas material and its release was followed by a national tour. Belshazzar’s Feast received a coveted nomination for the Best Duo Award at the 2010 BBC Folk Awards.
September 2016 and March 2015 O'Hooley and Tidow
Belinda O’Hooley & Heidi Tidow are regarded as lionhearted trailblazers of contemporary music and songwriting. Having the originality and skill to invite comparison with the most celebrated harmony duos, from early Simon and Garfunkel to the iconic Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Belinda and Heidi’s powerful, deeply moving, and at times spine-tingling performances are infused with an honesty and empathy that will disarm even the hardest of heart.
Their album 'The Hum' was voted the Folk Album of 2014.
Boundless songwriting and exquisite harmonies that truly shine’ * * * * * Guardian
May 2016 Sam Carter Trio
Since Sam Carter released his debut album Keepsakes in 2009, there has been a mounting excitement about this songwriter, guitarist and singer. At the time he was an Emerging Artist In Residence at The Southbank Centre in London and has since supported Bellowhead on a UK tour, performed in the Middle East and UK with the British Council’s Shifting Sands project, played to thousands as part of the all-star line-up for the tour ‘The Lady: A Homage To Sandy Denny’, performed on major venue and festival stages in his own right and walked away with Horizon Award for best newcomer at the 2010 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
‘The finest English-style finger-picking guitarist of his generation’ Jon Boden
April 2016 Stick In The Wheel
Stick In The Wheel's debut album From Here is a raw, fresh take on English Folk music. Their now-trademark abrasive delivery of both original and traditional tracks, is not bland retroism, or empty nostalgia, but a voice linking now to then. Addressing issues that still have relevance today, re-visiting traditions long-lost, as well as those disappearing right before us, in a way that has more in common with Sleaford Mods than with Bellowhead. The band is spearheaded by Nicola Kearey's fierce uncompromising vocal delivery, accompanied by Fran Foote's harmony vocal and underpinned by sparse taut arrangements. Brought up in the thriving culture of working class London and cutting their teeth in its diverse musical landscape (Dobro player Ian also producing music for GhostPoet, Context and for labels such as XL, Brownswood and Cosmic Bridge), they now bring those influences and attitudes to their traditional music
December 2015 The East Pointers
The East Pointers are three young men whose talent and penchant for traditional Celtic tunes of decades past greatly belie their respective ages. And while each member of the freshly formed trio – banjoist/vocalist/step-dancer Koady Chaisson, fiddle player/vocalist Tim Chaisson, and guitarist/vocalist Jake Charron – is an accomplished musician in his own right, their recent union is a testament to their shared output being, to borrow a common adage, greater than the sum of its parts.
The cousins Chaisson hail from Prince Edward Island, Canada, part of the sixth generation of a heralded legacy of fiddlers and folk musicians. Tim tours the world as a performer/songwriter with a pop and country-tinged take on contemporary folk, with Koady often at his side or supporting other touring trad acts with his banjo, bass, and six-string. Jake, on the other hand, is based in Ontario and has strummed, plucked, and played piano alongside a laundry list of award-winning performers from around the globe.
When Jake would visit PEI with any of his collaborators or the Chaissons were passing through Ontario on tour, a late-night kitchen party was sure to follow – fiddles and friends, guitars and Guinness, banjos and bad jokes. As their trunk of traditional and original tunes – some with an Irish influence, some Scottish, others rooted in the Maritimes – started to fill up, the trio realized it was time to put some to tape and take them on the road.
The East Pointers’ slew of tunes carries a diverse mix of influence, but regardless of their age or origin, what they all share in common is the undeniable ability to get hands clapping, feet stomping, and bodies of all ages bouncing in harmony.
November 2015 - Merry Hell
Founded in their native North West of England, Merry Hell is an eight-piece folk-rock band with a history, a pedigree and a bright future. In four short years they have risen to become festival favourites, their first two albums finding favour with critics, broadcasters and music fans alike. They are continuing to develop an enviable reputation for the quality of their song writing, recorded work and live performances.
The band was forged in the smouldering embers of 90s Folk/punk band, The Tansads. Following an emotional series of reunion concerts in 2010, its members chose to tread the boards under a new name, 'Merry Hell', in order to reflect their new impetus, new hopes and, most importantly, new songs. While Merry Hell retains a nucleus of five former Tansads members, brothers John, Bob and Andrew Kettle (guitar, mandolin and vocals respectively), along with keyboard player, Lee Goulding and drummer Andy Jones, the addition of vocalist, Virginia Kettle (wife of John), has helped create a new identity, purpose and spirit, in their music. She took little persuading to trade in her solo singer-songwriter past for a future in the band. Her prolific, ingenious and insightful song writing is one of the focal points of Merry Hell's recordings and live performances – her presence has perfectly complemented a group which has taken particular pride in penning original material (Bob, John and Lee have also been consistent contributors of new songs).
October 2015 - Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker
Double BBC Radio 2 Folk Award nominees Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker infuse ageless stories of love and loss with their exquisite command of many instruments.
Whether interpreting words centuries old or singing her own authentic lyrics, Josienne's jewel-like voice finds the nuance in the simplest phrase and sends it, effortlessly, straight to your heart. Ben's musical tact and flair for arrangement provide the perfect setting, allowing the song centre-stage.
Josienne was born in Sussex and Ben, in Evesham. It was after studying in London, and utterly by chance, that they met in July 2009. Together they have resolutely forged their own path through traditional music.
The live performance is a thing of delight - enchanted reviewers have spoken of shimmering cathedrals of sound - and its purity will stay with you long after the last note fades.
Critical recognition soon followed, along with the Isambard Folk Award, and the FATEA Award for Best Album and Female Vocalist of the Year, and the Spiral Award for Best Duo.
October 2015 Rua Macmillan Trio
Originally from Nairn, in the Scottish Highlands, fiddle player Rua Macmillan is one of the brightest of the current generation of rising stars to emerge from one of the very best. Having graduated with a B.A. (Honours) in Scottish Music from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 2008, he has already toured extensively throughout Europe and the U.S.
In February 2009, Rua was awarded the prestigious title of BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year. The following summer he performed at Cambridge Folk Festival, the UK’s biggest folk festival.
His eponymous trio includes the redoubtable Tia Fyles from Oban, a guitarist whose solid talent is reminiscent of the young Massie and Adam Brown from Cambridge whose mastery of bodhran is astonishing. So here we have three precocious virtuosi. What could possibly go wrong?
May 2015 Philip Henry and Hannah Martin
Winners of the 2014 BBC Radio Two Folk Award for Best Duo, Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin are one of the most exciting and innovative duos to appear on the folk/roots/acoustic scene in recent years. With a rapidly expanding following and a truly unique sound that effortlessly spans many genres, the duo have been touring constantly for the past three years, winning new fans of all ages wherever they go. Festival appearances have included regular Glastonbury slots; all the major folk festivals including mainstage slots at Sidmouth Folk Week; Broadstairs; Warwick; Shrewsbury; Gate To Southwell; Shepley Spring; Priddy; and a constant presence on the greenfield festival circuit, at events such as Larmer Tree (mainstage); Sunrise Celebration (mainstage); and Green Man.
April 2015 Gren Bartley Band
Gren Bartley is a prolific and exceptional songwriter. Releasing a new album in the Spring of 2015 from renowned producer Gavin Monaghan (Robert Plant, Ryan Adams, Nizlopi, Ocean Colour Scene etc...), the new record builds further on the reputation from the previous two albums out in the last two years.
Gren is truly the future of folk songwriting, using his influences from folk and world music traditions to bring something unique to this modern day troubadour. He is an artist not to be missed. Showcasing his “phenomenal” guitar playing and poetry driven lyrics, the Gren Bartley Band's stunning harmonies, driving percussion and intricate string arrangements for cello and violin, have been captivating audiences across the UK
February 2015 Chris Sherburn and Findlay Napier
Chris Sherburn is one of the best anglo-concertina players in the UK. He is renowned for his great playing and mighty craic! He is also well known for his longstanding musical partnership with Denny Bartley. They toured worldwide and released numerous albums. They formed band extraordinaire “Last Night’s Fun”, and it was here Findlay and Chris met. In recent years Chris has also toured extensively with Bella Hardy. Findlay Napier is a Scottish singer, guitarist and songwriter based in Glasgow. After attaining his BA in Scottish Traditional Song Findlay formed a traditional folk band called Back of the Moon which performed all over the world and released three albums. They were awarded ‘Best Up and Coming Act’ at the Trad Music Awards in 2003 and ‘Folk Band of the Year’ in 2005.
The Carrivick Sisters
The Carrivick Sisters are one of the UK's top young bluegrass and folk acts. Twins Laura and Charlotte perform their original songs and instrumentals along with a few carefully chosen covers on guitar, mandolin, fiddle, dobro, and clawhammer banjo. Their busy touring schedule is rapidly building them a reputation for engaging and entertaining live performances with tight sibling vocal harmonies and multi-instrumental virtuosity. Having grown up in South Devon, an area rich in folk lore and legends, much of their original material is inspired by their local surroundings and history.
As well as touring all over the UK, the Carrivick Sisters have performed at major festivals in Canada and mainland Europe. They have released four CDs ("My Own Two Feet" - 2006, "Better Than 6 Cakes" - 2007, "Jupiter's Corner" - 2009, and "From the Fields" - 2011) to much critical acclaim, with "From the Fields" having been played on national radio. Their fifth, "Over the Edge" is due for release on the 7th of October 2013.
“I am very impressed by The Carrivick Sisters, one of the best young duos I’ve heard. The girls sing and play as one and their work is characterised by great musicality. They are not only very talented instrumentalists and singers but they write really good songs as well.” - Ralph McTell
“A superbly talented pair o’ lasses” - Mike Harding, BBC Radio 2
“ …their already formidable multi-instrumental skills and songwriting maturing at such a steep curve they’ll soon be orbiting far beyond anyone else.” - Q Magazine ****
”Carrivick Sisters are pick of the crop.” - The Telegraph
Jackie Oates and Tristan Seume
Jackie Oates is a singer and fiddle player hailing from Staffordshire. Her unique treatment of English ballads and songs, and pure, haunting singing style has established her at the forefront of the new English folk revival. Since appearing as a finalist in the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards 2003, she has performed extensively at festivals and venues across the country and beyond, in a solo capacity and with her band. She was a founder member of Northumbrian group and Mercury nominated Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, Jackie is now a permanent member of the folk super-group The Imagined Village as well as touring in her own right.
‘Oates has emerged as a frontrunner among the new generation of Brit folkies, marked out by the purity of her voice…An exquisite piece of chamber folk……makes for an atmosphere of rare enchantment’ The Observer
‘Standing out from English folk’s remarkable new wave, Oates has the finest voice of them all…Saturnine shows Oates at the top of her game’ Independent On Saturday [album of the week].
As a soloist, accompanist, writer and session musician, Tristan Seume is one of the UK’s leading acoustic guitarists. Strongly influenced by folk, jazz and country, he has released two instrumental solo albums, You Just Know and Middle Child, featuring a mixture of original compositions, traditional tunes and a few choice covers. Tristan also plays guitar and bouzouki with BBC folk award-winning singer, Jackie Oates in her band, appearing at arts centres and festivals across Europe.
For many years, he has been a contributor to two of the UK’s biggest selling guitar magazines, Guitarist and Guitar Techniques, and lectures at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford, Surrey as well as at the annual International Guitar Festival in Bath.
“Seume’s superb fingerpicking talent and ease of drifting between styles drives you to a state of listening compulsion” – Acoustic Magazine
“I believe he is one of the finest of the new acoustic generation” – Acoustic guitar legend, Gordon Giltrap
Bella Hardy
Bella is one of the finest young folk acts around, singing unaccompanied ballads, or entwining her hypnotic voice with her own fiddle accompaniment to breathtaking effect. Three times nominated in the BBC Folk Awards, she has a voice marked as '...mesmerising' and '...faultless'. Her songs touch on both the fantastical, storytelling elements of Kate Bush and the lovelorn song writing craft of Carole King, ranging in subject matter from fairytales to English working class history via childhood nostalgia, myths, murder and the human condition.
Bella Hardy and her 'Bright Morning Star Christmas Show' - four star review from the Times described this Christmas collection as 'a quiet, unassuming treasure trove'. Contemporary folk musician, singer, songwriter and winner of best original track 'The Herring Girl' BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2012.
Tyde
Seth Tinsley, Guitar and Vocals Heather Gessey, Fiddle and Vocals Andrew Waite, Accordion
Seth, Heather and Andrew formed the trio Tyde in April 2008 whilst on tour in Madrid as members of Folkestra the North-East regional youth folk ensemble based at The Sage Gateshead . In July 2008 they played in the first and only Folk Prom at the Royal Albert Hall and by December they were playing in the finals of the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Awards.
Whilst playing at Warwick Folk Festival in 2009 they were approached by Mrs Casey Music and by Christmas their first album, Tyde, had been recorded. With CD in hand, and on the back of an acoustic coffee break performance at the Association of Festival Organisers Conference, a full summer of festivals and folk clubs followed in 2010. After much critical acclaim for their first album and year touring, recognised by PRS for Music as one of the years hardest working bands, 2011 was similarly hectic with another summer full of festivals and club appearances.
Tyde's music is really dynamic with a unity of playing rarely seen on the live music scene. Centred in English tradition but with a contemporary edge, Tyde deliver modern, punchy, danceable tunes, carefully arranged songs and intricate, emotional slow sets and as to the bands song writing skills there is really something remarkable going on. It’s the mixture of raw energy, prodigious musical ability and clever, fresh arrangements that make Tyde something different.
Over the spring 2012 Tyde have been recording their second album, 'The Hidden Spoon', which was released in February 2013.
Tyde have recently linked up with a new agent, Hannah Bright, at Haystack Music and are looking forward to touring with the new album in the spring and another summer of festival performances across the country in 2013.
"If you get the chance to see them live then take it - you won't be disappointed" Folk Radio UK.
Faustus
Nominated in the 2009 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, the Faustus truimvirate are three of the leading lights of their generation: Saul Rose (Waterson;Carthy, Whapweazel), Benji Kirkpatrick (Seth Lakeman Band, Bellowhead) and Paul Sartin (Bellowhead, Belshazzar’s Feast). They have a plethora of experience between them, brought together here in a virtuosic display of musicianship and testosterone. Rooted deeply in the English tradition, in 2007 they received a 75th Anniversary Award from the English Folk Dance and Song Society.
‘Frill-free folk music, superbly and tastefully performed . . . a folk essential’
**** Sunday Times
‘Dynamically fascinating to watch, entertaining and intriguing. Their ability to switch from song to tune, from instrument to voice, from traditional tune to modern arrangements made seeing them again a necessity’Folk and Roots
‘Superb playing; lovely arrangements; great material’Living Tradition
Benji: Son of the famous folk melodeon and accordion player John Kirkpatrick, Benji Kirkpatrick a key member of folk big band Bellowhead who have appeared regularly on Later with Jools Holland and have been enjoying sell out tours throughout 2011. Benji also plays with the Seth Lakeman Band who shot to fame when Seth’s album ‘Kitty Jay’, featuring Benji, was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2005. The follow up to ‘Kitty Jay’, ‘Freedom Fields’ has sold more than 100,000 copies and led to a hectic touring schedule and sold out shows in the UK and beyond. Benji’s has also performed with numerous other artists including Oysterband, John Jones and Maddy Prior (Steeleye Span), and has also found time to release three solo albums.
Saul: Saul Rose was a long time member of Waterson:Carthy, winning two BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards with Waterson:Carthy’s album ‘Broken Ground’ and eventually forming a successful duo with Eliza Carthy. The double album ‘Red Rice’, of which Saul was an integral part of the ‘Rice’ half, was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 1998. More recently Saul has joined Whapweasel, played in Ruth Notman’s band, and re-launched his duo with hammered dulcimer player with Maclaine Colston and in summer 2009 he joined Jim Moray’s regular band. He has played on several albums as a guest, including Jackie Oates’ album ‘Hyperboreans’, Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy’s album ‘The Gift’ and the soundtrack for the film ‘Morris- A Life With Bells On’. He was nominated for the Musician of The Year award in the 2010 BBC Folk Awards and in 2011 took the part of Songman in the West End play War Horse.
Paul: Paul Sartin is also a member of BBC Radio 2 Award-winning big band Bellowhead along with Benji, as well as award-nominated duo Belshazzar’s Feast. He is also director of the Andover Museum Loft Singers, is a consultant for the charity Live Music Now and is a composer of note with recent compositions including ‘The Hartlepool Monkey’ for Streetwise Opera, ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’ for the Central School of Speech and Drama, and ‘Changing Landscapes’ for Broadstairs Folk Week.
Faustus came together in 2006 as an evolution of the award winning band Dr. Faustus, when Tim Van Eyken and Rob Harbron left to pursue other projects. They made an eponymous debut album in 2008, produced by Stu Hanna and released by Navigator Records, which saw them nominated as the Best Group in the 2009 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. Subsequent touring saw them headlining at festivals, as well as playing sell-out concerts at arts centres and clubs.
Tom McConville with David Newey
Tom McConville, primarily known as The Newcastle Fiddle Player, is one of the leading fiddle players of our time. A virtuoso musician and fantastic singer, his rich and warm voice makes his interpretation of traditional and contemporary songs greatly admired by singers throughout the world.
In great demand as a performer, session musician and teacher, playing the fiddle is his lifelong passion and he has achieved every player’s dream of creating his own unique, instantly recognizable sound.
His live performances combine a rollercoaster of musical delights from fast, rhythmic dance tunes - through beautiful slow airs and of course, great singing - all presented with his inimitable sense of humour and style.
Nancy Kerr and James Fagan
One of the most established and respected duos on the folk scene, Nancy Kerr and James Fagan are winners of the 2011 BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Duo (and previous winners of 2003 Best Duo and 2000 Horizon Award.) As well as being great exponents of their instruments (fiddle, viola and guitar-bouzouki) both are regarded as fine and influential singers. 2010 marked the 15th year of this electrifying duo. In that time they have toured full-time and headlined festivals throughout the UK, Ireland, Europe, Australia, Japan and Canada. Wherever they play, Kerr and Fagan make new friends and fans, as their love of live performance is tangible and affirming. Consistently great live shows and five highly respected albums, plus their recent collaborations with Robert Harbron and The Melrose Quartet, have cemented their reputation as one of the classiest acts in acoustic music.
Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman
Kathryn Roberts (Vocals / Piano / Woodwind) and Sean Lakeman (Guitar) are two of the British folk scenes most accomplished performers, Kathryn and Sean have graced stages the world over in a number of guises, however, the intimacy and strength of passion shown as a duo, combined with an eclectic repertoire ensures a rare treat for any listener.
With a story that includes music making with the likes of Seth Lakeman, Cara Dillon, Levellers, Kate Rusby and Show of Hands, Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman have established themselves as pillars of modern British folk
February 2013 Jim Moray
December 2012 Maz O'Connor
October 2012 Chris Sherburn and Denny Bartley
April 2012 Hannah James & Sam Sweeney
March 2011 Bob Fox and Billy Mitchell
February 2011 Calan
December 2010 Spiro
November 2010 Kerr, Fagan and Harbron
September 2010 and May 2004 Malinky
May 2010 Jez Lowe and the Bad Pennies
March 2010 Kerfuffle
November 2009 Megson
October 2009 and February 2006 The Unthanks
November 2006 - Tim Van Eyken with his band
November 2006 and March 2004 - Last Nights Fun
September 2006 - 2Pauls (formally known as Belshazzars Feast)
April 2006, November 2004, February 2002, April 2001 and March 2000 - Flook
March 2006 and January 2004 - John Spiers and Jon Boden
February 2006 Rachel Unthank and the Winterset
September 2005 - Acoustic Strawbs
April 2005 The Emily Smith Band
January 2004, February 2002 - Hoover the Dog
September 2004 - Kathryn Tickell Band
May 2004 - Malinky
December 2003 - Firebrand
November 2002 - Kevin Dempsey and Joe Broughton
May 2002 - Casey Neill Trio
April 2002 - Bob Fox and Vin Garbutt
October 2005 - The Queensbury Rules
November 2004 - Dulaman
October 2003 - Day One Song
Feb 2002 - Joe Brindley
Feb 2002 and June 1991 - Hoover the Dog
November 2001 - Tarras
September 2001 - Pierre Schryer
September 2001 - Belshazzars Feast
December 2000 - Waterson: Carthy
November 2000 - Bob Fox
June 2000 and September 1999 - Cross O'th Hands
April 2000 - Tower Struck Down
April 2000 - The Honey Thieves
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Cal Poly Pomona Team Advances Innovative Energy Storage Research Project
A team of engineering students and faculty at Cal Poly Pomona are progressing on research and development of a low-cost energy storage system using biproducts of desalination, an innovative project funded by Southern California Gas Company’s Climate Champions program that has the potential to enhance the availability of clean and sustainable power in California.
The project could be a solution to environmental and economic challenges the desalination industry is facing in concentrate management while scaling up a low-cost energy storage solution to pair with an increase in intermittent renewable energy generated through solar and wind. The project is an example of the university’s learn-by-doing approach and commitment to environmental responsibility for which the polytechnic university is known.
During the desalination process, minerals (including salt) are removed from a target substance, such as desalination concentrate. The project will repurpose the collected salt to store thermal energy. Solar-thermal power plants are among potential beneficiaries of the technology.
“Our students are developing a demonstration of the thermal storage concept,” says Dr. Reza Baghaei Lakeh, project leader and associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering. “At this point, they’ve optimized the lab-scale demo and will continue testing over the next few months.”
Composed of graduate and undergraduate students — including several military veterans supported by Veterans to Energy Careers — the student team will grow to as many as 20 members. They will design, fabricate and conduct a field test during a demonstration of the proposed thermal storage system in Brawley, California.
Based on positive feedback from the research and industry community, Dr. Lakeh and his students have formed an early-stage startup that supports the student efforts at Cal Poly Pomona while focusing on scaling up the technology to a level visible to investors. They have filed a provisional patent and secured funding to perform a pilot demo in Brawley, California, inside the CalEnergy Geothermal Powerplant in collaboration with Sephton Water Technologies Inc., Santa Clara University and Townson University in Maryland.
The potential impact of the technology is significant. The product could potentially help reduce the cost of energy storage for solar-thermal power plants, provide power generation shifting – which involves increasing use of clean natural gas and renewable energy while reducing use of relatively dirty and expensive coal-fired power plants -- and dispatchability (the availability of electricity on demand) for geothermal power plants. It could also help any industry that requires process heat, which is the application of heat during industrial processes, such as the making of steel, paper, and glass.
“I’m enjoying the collaborative environment,” says George Lockwood, a junior in mechanical engineering and a Marine Corps veteran, who is interested in the sustainable energy industry. “I have the opportunity to learn from students who have diverse background knowledge and experience, while simultaneously making new connections. I’m gaining valuable experience I can talk about in future job interviews.”
The Cal Poly Pomona team will continue its lab work and use the experience to design the pilot demo, scheduled to start in August and continue in 2023. The team also plans to publish results in international conferences to spread awareness about low-cost and durable energy storage systems. This could be an especially meaningful pathway for California, which is targeting 100 percent renewable energy for its power grid by 2045.
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ILHAN OMAR_A TERRORIST IN CONGRESS
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ISIS and ISIL Islamic State – Threats to Whom, How Big and Who Should Kill it?
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“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us
guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act”.
“Patriotism means standing by your country. It does not mean
standing by your President or any other public official.” Teddy
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny.
When the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
ISIS and ISIL Islamic State Threats – Threats to Whom, How Big and Who Should Kill it are the topics of this article. This article concludes the right decision is to kill ISIS/ISIL because of its threat. However, it is not an immediate threat to the U.S. and it is not U.S. responsibility to do the killing. Therefore, it disagrees with the Obama decision to
bomb with U.S. forces. It would be better to bomb ISIS with Saudi Arabian forces using their 300 F-15s and their Air Forces.
First, definitions – ISIS is an Islamic Caliphate state that covers the geography of Iraq and Syria. ISIL is an Islamic Caliphate state the covers a Levant or larger area. A Levant could be the recreation of the Persian (Iran) empire or a Turkish empire or a variation thereon. The threat is the creation of a Caliphate, which is a religious state
with one religious leader that has both religious and secular power. The power will extend beyond national boundaries. To envision what is happening, think in terms of the Roman Popes about 1200 AD when they had large armies and controlled Europe through religious beliefs and armed destruction it you did not follow the Popes’ rulings.
Is there a need to kill the Islamic State (IS)? If there is, who will do it? The ISIL is trying to create a Sunni Caliphate. Most agree that the IS practice of beheading innocent people who question their state and its motives is evil and should be addressed as such. This article addresses the open question how the IS state could be killed and
who should do it.
In the Mideast, the state boundaries are often not as important as tribal boundaries. The important boundaries are religious tribal areas. After World War I, the British and the French drew the current boundaries. They were established to protect British
Petroleum protecting British interests and TOTAL (CFP) that represented French oil interests. They cut across tribal boundaries but protected the oil companies. Below you will find a map of showing the ISIL / ISIS
advances. They could not have advanced this fast and far if the Sunnis, as a tribe did not already occupy Western Iraq and they were well funded with money and equipment.
The Mideast is a conglomeration of Semite-tribes. Let us examine
Semite Tribes Migration
what this means. In Saudi Arabia, one has the Sunni Wahhabi, which is the religion to which the Kings of Saudi Arabia adhere. This
religion allows the Kings to be “pure” in their religion, but
also allows the very rich Saudis to “play” about the secular world. In Syria, you have the Alawite tribe in the majority. The Alawite practice a form of Shiite religion and for this reason Iran, which is Shiite in its leadership, supports Syria. Iraq is now controlled by the Shiites but has a large contingent area in the Western part of Iraq that is Sunni. This area has been taken over by the ISIL radical Sunnis. They are ethnic cleansing the area of Christians and Shiites with atrocities in a manner much worse than occurred in Serbia.
Origin of the ISIL
Now let us look at ISIL. ISIL is a recent conglomeration of Sunni Islamic extremists born in Syria among the “rebels”. Research on the internet reveals an interesting story on these psychopaths – anyone who beheads another is from a
different age or a psychopath in my book. I will briefly outline the history of the modern ISIL.
The U.S. created this “Frankenstein” monster and now it must be killed. On September 3, 2014, Retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney admitted: “We Helped Build ISIS.” This was achieved through the overthrow of Libya, the African country that had the highest
Muslim standard of living in 2010 before the US and NATO troops invaded and killed its King. For the Muslim population, life was better before his death. The history is below:
• Zbigniew Brzezinski was directly involved in the funding and arming the Islamic extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to weaken the Soviets. Ten years of war collapsed the Soviet Union. However, the U.S. used the Mujahedin extremists to displace the Soviets. Reportedly, Brzezinski is also Obama’s handler.
• This Afghanistan operation is no secret anymore. Officially, the US government’s arming and funding of the Mujahedeen was a response to the Soviet invasion in December of 1979. However, in his memoir entitled ‘From the Shadows’ Robert Gates, director of the CIA under Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior, and Secretary of Defense under both George W. Bush and Barack
Obama, revealed that the US actually began the covert operation 6 months prior, with the express intention of luring the Soviets into a quagmire.
• Al-Nusra and ISIS are ideological and organizational decedents of these extremist elements, Mujahedeen, that the US government made use of thirty years ago.
• In Iraq, the US created a breeding ground for these extremists by invading Iraq in 2003. The vacuum of power left by removal of Saddam Hussain created AlQaeda in Iraq. From this sprang the ISIS in Syria. Had it not been for Washington’s attempt at toppling Assad by arming, funding and training shadowy militant groups in Syria, there is no way that ISIS would have been capable of
storming into Iraq in June of 2014.
• With funding provided by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, a Libyan arsenal was smuggled to Syria via Turkey (a NATO ally) in what Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist, Seymour Hersh described as “rat lines” in orde r for the West to use its jihadist Arab proxies to take down the Assad regime. As o f now, IS has reportedly about a 30% penetration of Syria.
• The Benghazi Scandals center around arms smuggling. Chris
Brave Men of Integrity
Stevens served as the US government’s liaison to the Libyan rebels since April of 2011. With Ambassador Stevens’ death, the
administration hoped that any direct US involvement in that arms shipment was buried, and Washington would continue to claim that they had not sent heavy weaponry into Syria. I am cynical of our government in this area since I believe that this was the reason the U.S, military was told to “stand down” rather than provide support when the attacks started 11
September 2011. This conjecture will be proven or unproven with the current Congressional inquiry in process. (1,2,3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
• In June of 2014, ISIS made its entry into Iraq from
ISIL in Action
Syria, capturing Mosul, Baiji and almost reaching
Baghdad. The Internet was flooded with footage of
drive-by shootings, large-scale death marches, and
mass graves. In addition, it showed any Iraqi soldier
(Shiite) that was captured was executed.
• ISIS in Syria and Iraq seized large quantities of American military equipment . They took entire truckloads of humvees, helicopters, tanks, and artillery from Syria and added to this hoard with Iraqi Sunni defections. They photographed and videotaped themselves and advertised what they were doing on social media. However, Washington did not try to stop them in clear violation of military
regulations calling for the destruction of military equipment and supplies when friendly forces cannot prevent them from falling into enemy hands . As a result, the ISIS carried this equipment out of Syria into Iraq where they used it in the invasion. (8)
US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens had served as the US government’s liaison to the Libyan rebels since April of 2011. He was killed in September 2011. With Ambassador Stevens dead, any direct US involvement in that arms shipment was buried, and Washington would continue to claim that they had not sent heavy weaponry into Syria. The US military had the means to strike these convoys of equipment leaving Syria but they did not stop the flow from Syria into Iraq. Think about it. U.S., military equipment
supplied to the insurgents in Syria illegally via the Benghazi/Turkey pipeline and justified because they could cause the removal of Assad were now being moved to Iraq by Sunni radicals (ISIS) – our stated enemy – to fight Iraqi loyal Shiites who are supplied with U.S. equipment and advisers. The Gods of war must be laughing.
Why would the U.S. do that?
It is Obama again. Though Obama plays the role of a weak, indecisive, liberal president, this is just a facade. Some presidents, like George W. Bush, relied on overt military aggression. Obama gets the same job done, but with covert means. This is not surprising considering that Zbigniew Brzezinski is reported to be his mentor.
On every level, no matter how you dice it, ISIS is a product of US government’s twisted foreign policy. (9)
ISIL / ISIS Source of Strength
The ISIL core got its weapons from the Syrian rebels that were given to them illegally by the U.S. gunrunning started at Benghazi. Subsequently we had two Secretary of States, Hillary Clinton and Bob Kerry who wanted to send the rebels more arms to “remove Assad”. Thus, the U.S. created this “monster” with our irrational international policies. The ISIL army is a diverse group of multinationals. Some characterizations are that –
1. They are dependent upon outside resources;
2. Their location is in the desert;
3. For 1,000 years, the Sunni Arabs from the Northwest have fought for control of the Islamic State area;
4. The Kurds on the north have a home in the mountains and want a Kurd nation and some oil;
5. The Turks have arbitrated between the two warring tribes of Sunni and Shiite for centuries. For instance, in 1801, the Sunni Wahhabis invaded Iraq, which is very similar to today’s invasion of the ISIL. In Iraq, the Wahhabis inflicted horrible things on the Shiite population that even exceeded today’s barbarisms. In response, the Turks nearly wiped out the Saudi Sunni Wahhabis.
In the Wall Street Journal, a recent article (10) relates the current form of barbarisms being practiced by the ISIL in Iraq. In the front page article it reports that in Mosul which is ISIL occupied territory, that
“Stonings to death for adultery”, and “executions, amputations, lashing in public squares regularly on Fridays.” They urge that all including children should watch.
US Position
This war is a local tribal and religious war and the US should not be there. There are no American interests served by being there. When we entered, we did not do so in a manner to win the respect of the Arabs who like to see strength. It is the reason that they behead people. This proves that they are in charge. We are now reaping the results of our leaderless diplomacy of two Secretary of States that are tolerated not admired by the Arabs.
Problem Defined
The U.S. now has a problem. We are there and the ISIL have resorted to a seventh century practice of beheading. This is not civilized. It is a throwback to another era. To modern civilization, we now have a rabid animal on our hands – ISIL. What does one do if one faced with a rabid animal? For instance, if a squirrel, dog, fox or a wolf becomes rabid, what does one do? You must kill it. It seems to me that if in fact, the ISIL is beheading reporters and others that disagree with them, then the civilized nations of the world must kill this rabid animal called ISIS or ISIL However, there is one caution. Because of informed analysis of the videos, some people simply do not believe the beheading video. (11) The video can be seen here. If it is a fake as this referenced article states, then our fascist government is trying to get Americans to enter another theater of war without Congressional debate or approval. I note that the second “beheading” of a reporter does not have any videos that I can find on the internet. Infowars reports that the Sotloff Video is controlled and released by the Bradley, Matt. The same group that released the fake Osama Bin Laden videos. (12) Specifically,
“The Group responsible for discovering Steven Sotloff video is an intelligence asset specializing in war on terror propaganda.”
In 2007, SITE, Search for International Terrorist Entities,
provided fake Osama bin Laden videos that were released by the White House. SITE has ties to the John Hopkins School
of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) where Paul Wolfowitz was dean before he left and created the Bush doctrine along with Richard Perle. It was titled, “A Clean Break” and was
prepared for Netanyahu. The study called for (1) the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and (2) waging a proxy war against Assad in Syria.
A second video that no one can see and analyze is very suspicious because no one can see it and the source is suspect. I note that both the John Foley and the Steven Sotloff beheading videos are timed precisely before the Obama ISIS speech on 10 September 2014. Nonetheless, for our purposes in this
article, we assume it is not a fake, the beheading took place, and then this poses a question of what should be done. This is the position that the U.S. has taken.
What is “IS”?
The “IS” is an abbreviation for the Islamic State that that these tribal members want to create in Western Iraq. It is a dream
of creating a Sunni 7thCentury nation run by (12) Sharia law. It is a religious state. Why in western Iraq? Many tribal Sunnis live there; therefore, the ISIL simply says, “Come join us” and by the way, we will pay you well. Their IS Army consists of the Syrian rebels who revolted against the Alawite regime of Syria and the Assad family. It also has many Ba’athists Sunni from the Saddam Hussein’s army who ran the war against the U.S. as well as the resistance movement after we took over the country. These men are now the commanders of this new IS army. Finally, we have jihadists from all over the world who have come “home” to fight for their beliefs of a Sunni Caliphate. The modern leadership of the IS have looted every area that they took over and emptied the banks of hundreds of millions of dollars. The result is that the IS army is well paid and gaining recruits. The scene portrayed in the movie, “Lawrence of Arabia”, where the tribes looted Bagdad comes to mind when one tries to envision what is going on.
The conclusion that one quickly reaches about the above situation is that many of the “bad” people are in one place. This composite set defines the rabid animal that must be killed. A 7th century Caliphate does not fit the modern world.
In 2006, the Sunni tribes supported the Ba’athists against the Americans. As a result, the Shiite death squads were turned loose and did the job of killing the Sunnis. The Sunnis soon asked for a deal with the Americans. The press called this “the Sunni awakening”. Now we need another “Sunni awakening” called an “IS awakening”.
Wahhabism and the Islamic State
I am indebted to an excellent article on this subject by Alastair Crooke . You can view his World Post article dated 3 September 2014, here – “You Can’t Understand ISIS If You Don’t Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia”. I will briefly summarize the philosophy of his article so that you can get some idea of what is going on in the Mideast.(13)
The dramatic arrival of Da’ish (ISIS) in Iraq has surprised many in the West. A number have been horrified by its violence and its ability to draw recruits from Sunni youth. Another surprise is the fact that Saudi Arabia kings appear to be indifferent to this threat to their throne. Unfortunately for the U.S., that “indifference” may be faked because the Kings are relying on the 1971 agreement that Nixon and Kissinger put together to price
oil in dollars but in return, the U.S. would provide military protection for the King. Saudi Arabia’s ruling elite are divided. Some applaud ISIS for showing Sunni strength in creating a new Sunni state and applaud the ISIS strict Salafism ideology. Other Saudis are fearful, and recall the history of the revolt against Abd-al Aziz by the Wahhabis (13)
Ikhwani, which nearly imploded Wahhabism and the al-Saud in the late 1920s. These Saudis are disturbed by the radical doctrine of ISIS and are beginning to question a number of Saudi Arabia’s directions. Saudi Split Philosophical Directions
Saudi Arabia’s internal tensions over ISIS can only be understood by recognizing the duality that lies at the core of the Kingdom’s doctrinal makeup that is based on its historical origins. Ibn Saud links one strand to the Saudi identity directly to Muhammad ibn Abd alWahhab who was the founder of Wahhabism and the use of his radical exclusionist puritanism. Prior to alignment with Abd al-Wahhab, Ibn Saud was a minor leader fighting and raiding Bedouin tribes in the deserts of the Nejd.
The second strand to the Saudi identity relates to King Abd-al Aziz’s subsequent shift towards statehood in the 1920s. In order to influence Britain and America, he curbed Ikhwani (Wahabi) violence by accepting institutionalization of Wahhabi beliefs. As a result, he captured the petrodollar gusher in the 1970s. He used some of the money to channel the Ikhwani evangelizing efforts away from the Saudi Arabia home towards
export — by diffusing a Cultural Revolution, rather than creating a violent revolution throughout the Muslim world. The Mosques in Europe and the U.S. were built with this evangelizing money.
This Arab “cultural revolution” was no docile reformism. It was a revolution based on Abd al-Wahhab’s Jacobin-like hatred for deviations from the pure Muslim religion that he perceived all about him. In Jacobean fashion, he used it as a call to purge Islam of all its heresies and idolatries. This means he killed any non-believers and non-followers. Origin of Abd al-Wahhab’s Views
The American journalist, Steven Coll, described how this austere 14th century scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1791), despised –
“The decorous, arty, tobacco smoking, hashish imbibing, drums
pounding Egyptian and Ottoman nobility who traveled across
Arabia to pray at Mecca.”
In his view, these were not Muslims; they were imposters masquerading as Muslims. Nor, indeed, did he find the behavior of local Bedouin Arabs much better. They aggravated him because they honored saints and by their practice of erecting tombstones. To him, this behavior, Abd al- Wahhab denounced as “bida” — forbidden by
God. Like Taymiyyah before him, Abd al-Wahhab believed that the period of the Prophet Muhammad’s stay in Medina was the ideal period for Muslim society that all true Muslims should aspire to emulate. This is the definition of Salafism.
Taymiyyah had declared war on Shi’ism, Sufism and Greek philosophy. He spoke out, against visiting the grave of the prophet and the celebration of his birthday. He felt such behavior represented imitation of the Christian worship of Jesus as God by his definition – idolatry. The importance of Taymiyyah beliefs is that Abd al- Wahhab assimilated all this teaching, stating that “any doubt or hesitation” on the part of a believer in respect to acknowledging this particular interpretation of Islam should deprive the man of his property and his life.
One of the principles of the Wahabi doctrine was “takfir”, under which Abd al-Wahab could designate fellow Muslims as infidels if their activities in any way encroached on the sovereignty of the King. Abd al-Wahhab denounced all Muslims who honored the
dead, saints, or angels. Wahhabi Islam’s other beliefs are that there is a ban on any prayer to saints and dead loved ones, pilgrimages to tombs and special mosques, religious festivals celebrating saints, the honoring of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, and even prohibits the use of gravestones when burying the dead. In short,
any Christian practices. To give a clear idea of his radical 7th
century beliefs, ponder the following quotation.
“Those who would not conform to this view should be killed, their wives and daughters violated, and their possessions confiscated.”
Abd al-Wahhab demanded conformity. He asserted that all Muslims must individually pledge their allegiance to a single Muslim leader (a Caliph, if there were one). Those who would not conform to this view should be killed. The list of apostates meriting death included the Shiite, Sufis and other Muslim denominations. Abd al-Wahhab did not consider any of these Muslim sects to be Muslim at all.
Observe that up to this point, Wahhabism and ISIS have the same beliefs. The ISIS rift emerges later from the subsequent institutionalization of Muhammad ibn Abd alWahhab’s “three doctrines of (1) One Ruler (king), (2) One Authority (Wahhabism), (3)
One Mosque (control of the Word)”. Now the difference – – – ISIS denies the three pillars on which the whole of Sunni authority presently rests. This makes ISIS, which in all other respects conforms, to Wahhabism, a deep threat to Saudi Arabia. The King is not the one ruler of the Arabs and he is not the Caliph. The ISIL want to establish an ISIS state with a Caliph who would not be loyal to any King. This is a religious state.
Brief History 1741-1818
Abd al-Wahhab’s advocacy of his radical views led to his expulsion from his own town –and in 1741, he finally found refuge under the protection of Ibn Saud and his tribe. What Ibn Saud perceived in Abd al-Wahhab’s novel teaching was a weapon or the means to overturn Arab tradition and convention. It was his path to seizing power. His strategy was to instill fear and bring peoples who he conquered into submission. He could continue raiding neighbors and robbing them of their possessions as he had in the past. Now, he could do it with the idea of martyrdom under the banner of jihad. It granted
immediate entry into paradise. They conquered inhabitants of the peninsula and gave a limited time for conversion. By 1790, the Alliance controlled most of the Arabian Peninsula and they repeatedly raided Medina, Syria and Iraq. Their strategy was simple and used by the ISIS today. Bring conquered people into submission. They ruled by fear. In 1801, they attacked the Holy City of Karbala in Iraq and massacred at least 5,000 men, women and children. These were Shiite Muslims. They destroyed all their shrines including that of the Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad.
In 1803, Abdul Aziz then entered the Holy City of Mecca, which surrendered under the impact and threat of terror. This also happened in Medina. Abd al-Wahhab’s followers demolished historical monuments and all the tombs and shrines in their midst. By the end, they had destroyed centuries of Islamic architecture near the Grand Mosque. In November of 1803, a Shiite assassin killed King Abdul Aziz (revenge for the massacre at Karbala). His son, Saud bins Abd al Aziz, succeeded him and continued the conquest of Arabia. However, the Turkish Ottoman rulers could no longer just sit back and watch as their empire was devoured piece by piece. In 1812, the Ottoman army reconquered Medina, Jeddah and Mecca. In 1814, Saud bin Abd al Aziz died of fever. The Ottomans, however, took his son Abdullah bin Saud, to Istanbul, where he
was tortured and executed. A visitor to Istanbul reported, “Seeing him humiliated in the streets of Istanbul for three days, then hanged and beheaded, his severed head fired from a canon, and his heart cut out and impaled on his body”. These people are brutal and barbaric.
In 1815, the Egyptians while acting on the Ottoman’s behalf crushed the Wahhabi forces. In 1818, the Ottomans captured and destroyed the Wahhabi capital of Dariyah. The first Saudi state was no more. The few remaining Wahhabis withdrew into the desert to regroup, and there they remained, quiescent for most of the 19th century. The message here is that Wahhabi believers must be crushed by killing. They do not use reason and will not negotiate. These are zealots of the first order of magnitude.
The ISIS and History
The founders of ISIS remember their origin and their “glory”. The 18th century Wahhabism roared back into life when the Ottoman Empire collapsed amongst the chaos of World War I. We just did not take cognizance of this fact. In the 1900s, the politically astute Abd-al Aziz, who, launched the Saudi “Ikhwan” in the spirit of Abd-al Wahhab and united the Bedouin tribes, led the Al Saud. The Ikhwan
was a reincarnation of the committed armed Wahhabist “moralists” who almost succeeded in seizing Arabia in the early 1800s. In the same manner as earlier, the Ikhwan again succeeded in capturing Mecca, Medina and Jeddah between 1914 and 1926. Abd-al Aziz, however, began to feel his wider interests threatened by the
revolutionary “Jacobinism” exhibited by the Ikhwan. The Ikhwan revolted — leading to a civil war that lasted until the 1930s, when the King had them put down by killing all of them. Again, the message is that the Wahhabi must be crushed. They do not negotiate.
For this king, (Abd-al Aziz), oil was being discovered in the peninsula and it was changing everything. Britain and America were courting Abd-al Aziz, but at the same time were inclined to support Sharif Husain as the only legitimate ruler of Arabia. The Saudis needed to develop a more sophisticated diplomatic posture. As a result, Wahhabism was forcefully changed from a movement of revolutionary jihad and theological takfiri purification, to a movement of conservative social, political, theological, and religious da’wa (Islamic call). Most importantly, it was used to justify the institution that upholds loyalty to the royal Saudi family and the King’s absolute power.
Oil Wealth and Wahhabism
With oil wealth, the Saudi goals were to spread Wahhabism throughout the Muslim World, thereby reducing the number of forms of Muslim beliefs into a single creed. Billions of dollars were — and continue to be — invested in this soft power of ideas.
Westerners looked at the Kingdom and its wealth and by the apparent modernization. They chose to presume that the Kingdom was bending to modern life — and that the management of Sunni Islam would bend the Kingdom to modern life. On the one hand,ISIS is deeply Wahhabist. On the other hand, it is deeply radical since it rejects the King as the leader.
However, in spite of the King’s efforts, the Saudi Ikhwan approach to Islam did not die in the 1930s. It retreated, but it maintained its hold over parts of the system. As a result, you have the duality that we observe today in the Saudi attitude towards ISIS. On the one hand, ISIS is deeply Wahhabist. On the other hand, it is ultra-radical. It could be seen essentially as a corrective movement to contemporary Wahhabism.
The important point to note is that the ISIS is a “post-Medina” movement: it looks to the actions of the first two Caliphs, rather than the Prophet Muhammad himself, as a source of emulation, and it forcefully denies the Saudis’ claim of authority to rule.
As the Saudi monarchy blossomed in the oil age the “Ikhwan approach” enjoyed — and still enjoys — the support of many prominent men and women and sheikhs. As one example, Osama bin Laden was the representative of a late flowering of this Ikhwani approach. Who are they? The Muslim Brotherhood (Iqwan Muslimeen), the oldest and largest Islamist group was founded in Egypt in 1928. The Ikhwan have affiliates in 70 countries. The Muslim Brotherhood’s goal is a global “caliphate” ruled by Islamic law. A caliph is a successor to the Prophet Mohammed, a sort of Pope and king combined.
A significant difference between the Shiite and the Sunni beliefs center about who can become a Caliph. According to the Shīʿites, who call the supreme office the “imamate”, or leadership, no caliph is
legitimate unless he is a lineal descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. The Sunnis insist that the office belongs to the tribe of Quraysh (Koreish), to which Muhammad himself belonged.
Interestingly, for many Arabs today, ISIS undermining of the legitimacy of the King’s legitimacy is not seen to be problematic, but rather a return to the true origins of the Saudi-Wahhab roots.
In the collaborative management of the region by the Saudis and the West in pursuit of their many goals, western politicians have highlighted their chosen reading of wealth and modernism of Saudi but they chose to ignore the Wahhabist impulse.
As a result, the radical Islamist movement was perceived by Western intelligence services as being effective in toppling the USSR in Afghanistan — and in combating out-of-favor Middle Eastern leaders and states. However, they ignored the basic beliefs of the Ikhwan movement.
Many were surprised when Prince Bandar’s Saudi Western mandate to manage the insurgency in Syria against President Assad suddenly Shiite allies. We should not be surprised. We know little about Wahhabism. The Sunni extremists called ISIL do not believe that the Shias are Muslim. Why should one expect that “moderate” insurgents in Syria would become rare? We should never have expected that moderates would evolve in a community that kills anyone that does not accept their beliefs. Simply stated, why could we imagine that a doctrine of “One leader, One
authority, One mosque: submit to it, or be killed” could ever ultimately lead to moderation or tolerance? As the Turks found out in the early 1800s, we will find out there is only one-way for this movement to become controlled. Its followers have to be killed. The U.S. could do it but should they? I do not believe that it should unless we are “suckered” into it by the Saudis and the Europeans. It is more in the interest of the Saudi Kings for them to do it. I doubt that they
will without “urging” from the U.S. The problem is that the U.S. seems to be under the control of “war mongers” in D.C. that only seem to understand one word, “attack” rather than the proper word, “think.”
How Does One Eliminate the ISIL
I got the idea for this approach from the Angelo Codevilla article, Why The Islamic State Must Be Killed and What It Will Take. (14) This goal to be accomplished can be achieved in a three-step process. (1) Cut off the financial support. (2) Use air strikes to eliminate all the military strategic targets. (3) Let the Iraqi death squads kill the ISIS on the ground. In addition, only if necessary, use U.S. Special Forces to clean up those that are escaping. This is a Genghis Khan approach but is necessary against a rabid animal.
Now let us examine this approach. First, Cut off the supplies feeding the IS army and tell them to stop selling the ISIS oil. Use US diplomacy to shut all arms support from the nation of Turkey. This is where the supply lines stem from. The ISIS sells its oil through Turkey. Inform Turkey, Qatar, and Islamic world, that the U.S. will have zero economic dealings with Turkey or any other country that has dealings with the IS. All supplies and armaments are coming from Turkey today and the current policy of Turkey appears to be they will support anything that is Muslim. Second, get the Saudi’s and the Jordanian Air Force to strike the military targets. The Saudis’ have 300 F-15s and
they should attack the ISIL because the IS state is a direct threat to the Saudi Kingdom. U.S. AWAACs could be used to direct the attacks. The U.S should tell the Saudis to “fight” and use their Air Force or we will stop supplying parts and trainers for their Air Force. There is no need for the U.S. to be involved with ground troops. Use of ground forces would confuse and redirect the hatred to the U.S. Third, alert the Iraq government to unloose the Shiite death squads to kill the Sunni ISIL rebels. Not many will be left after the Shiite death squads enter into the battle. The net result of this would be that the evil people would be annihilated and peace would return to the Mideast. The country borders of Iraq and Syria would again be secure because they would mostly contain one tribe. Iraq would be Shiite. The Kurds may finally get their nation. ISIL and the IS dream state would be dead – – – for a period. Saudi Arabia would be Sunni. Some will say, “This is too harsh”. To that I say, “Is it worse than beheading?” Is it worse than living under Sharia law with women degradation and with Religious judges? Further, if nothing is done, then the general slaughter continues and eventually the cancer of ISIL will attack Europe and come across the sea to attack America. It is more rational to kill it
now when it is concentrated in a small area and we can use “alliance” resources to do the job.
10 September 2014 – The President’s Address
This is written before the 10 September address. I don’t know what he will say. On 9 September 2014, there was an invited editorial by Ryan Crocker in the Wall Street Journal that gives a clue. (15) The Journal usually telegraphs a message ahead of a presidential address. Mr. Crocker is Dean of the Bush School of Government at Texas A & M. The two parties generally coordinate their positions with one another since they have the same fascist masters. In this instance, the Military Industrial Complex and the Zionist / Israel banking complex. I realize that this is a strong statement but I believe the record supports this view. Now, let’s us see what he proposes.
First, he proposes that the “Qaeda Versions 6” is a threat. It is a threat, but in my belief, it is a threat to the King of Saudi Arabia and to Israel more than to the U.S. However, in 1971, the U.S. committed to protect the King for keeping oil sold only in dollars. Mr. Crocker further states that they are better organized, equipped, funded, experienced and that since 6,000 carry U.S. passports they could come to U.S. and threaten the U.S. They could not do this if we did not let them back because they were fighting with an enemy of the U.S. and thus have lost their rights to citizenship. Thus, I conclude that this article is a propaganda piece. This is briefly, what he proposes.
1) Airstrikes will have to be increased. Note: He assumes that the U.S. will fly these missions. When we do, we violate Iraq and Syrian airspace – acts of war. In addition, this should require a Senate Congressional mandate. I doubt if he will ask for that.
2) ISIS targets in Syria will have to be struck also. Note: We violate Syria airspace.
3) Special Forces ground troops will have to be added to “loyal” ground troops. Note: This implies that some Iraq forces (Sunni dominated) will not be “loyal” to Iraq bur rather to ISIS.
4) Special Forces ground troops will have to be added in Syria as well. Presumably, these forces will be used to train new recruits that will fight Assad as well as the ISIS.
5) We must continue high-level political effort to get the Iraqis to form an “inclusive” government of Sunni, Iraqi and Kurds. Note this implies that they would have to be loyal to the State of Iraq over their tribal loyalties. This would be a first.
6) Finally, we must use American “leadership” to insure that this effort is not seen as a Muslim-Christian confrontation. This “president personally must step forward and show the world that we can and will move decisively, collectively and immediately.” Note: the White House could have drafted
this policy. I highlighted “personally” since it should have said “the U.S.” if the man sitting in office were truly Presidential.
The President would have to subjugate the fact that this is a Christian nation in order to accomplish this goal. The net result of this type of strategy would be the furtherance of the apparent White House and fascist driven policies in the Mideast. The U.S. would lose treasure and people but the military industrial complex and banker complex would
cheer. The Democratic Party, the bankers and the military industrial complex would cheer since it is a continuance of spending. The establishment needs a war as cover for the impending financial collapse.
The President’s Speech
President Obama’s national address was clear and followed the six points above almost verbatim. Specifically, after stating the nonsense, “ISIL is not Islamic” (Point 6 above), he made four of the above six points.
1. The U.S. would bomb ISIL targets in Iraq and Syria. (1 and 2 above)
2. The U.S. would support troops on the ground that are fighting. (3 and 4 above).
3. Increase counter terrorism to prevent ISIL attacks. (3 and 4 above).
4. Provide humanitarian assistance to civilians. (Point 6 above).
Note that he did not mention that the number one nation threatened by ISIL and ISIS is Israel and the number two nation threatened is Saudi Arabia. This paper proposes an approach to killing the ISIL and thereby eliminating ISIS as a “rabid wolf”. The paper’s approach is to do it with Arab forces not U.S. forces. The President’s approach of doing it with U.S. forces means that the war will continue, expand and eventually U.S. troops will be on the ground.
My conclusions are that:
• The Mideast population is a set of Semite tribes, which include Israel that are in a religious civil war.
• The Sunni dream of a Caliph with both religious and secular power is being reborn in the ISIS / ISIL and being created by the Al Qaeda / ISIL extremist terrorists.
• The ISIS terrorist origin was Afghanistan where the U.S. created it to fight and eliminate Russia. The U.S. was successful but they created a monster. It was reborn in Iraq and called Al Qaeda. The Al Qaeda joined the Syrian terrorists (Sunni) against the Assad (Shiite) and eventually became so purist in their religious beliefs – kill all Jews, all Christians, all Shiite that do not convert and provide no allegiance to the Saudi (Sunni) King – that Al Qaeda threw them out for being too vicious and too purist. They took weapons and went to Iraq.
• The U.S. illegally supplied arms to the Syrian terrorists; coordinated those shipments via Turkish freighters at Turkish ports and directed this operation from Ben Ghazi by Ambassador Stevens, a CIA asset. They covered their actions
with a secret program called “No Footprint”.
• Our President if not Muslim in beliefs is Muslim in support. He does nothing to offend the King of Saudi Arabia. He gets the U.S. to fight the King’s battles for the King.
• John McCain is the “God Father” of the ISIS / ISIL covert movement. (16)
“The real god father of ISIL is U.S. Senator John McCain, their mentor and father figure, the man who has met with them encouraged them, and interceded in getting them money, weapons and military training. . . . Weapons for ISIL are tracked through Turkey, up to the Black Sea ports, traded through transit routes through Georgia and backtracked to arms dealer ties to Israel, the CIA, MI6 and France.”
• The nation of Turkey is critical in the Mideast
o They are Muslim and primarily Sunni.
o They refuse to allow American forces use their bases for troops or aircraft to attack ISIS who are Sunni extremists.
o They have received all of their military weapons and training from the U.S. because they are a NATO country. We have provided these weapons as Foreign Aid.
o Currently, they provide supplies and money to the ISIL. They sell the oil from ISIL that the ISIL has stolen from Irag and then tried to steal from the Kurds. This supplies the ISIL with food, supplies and money to pay their troops and to buy more weapons.
• The Beheadings are possibly Psyops and were performed by intelligence agencies – probably of the U.S. and UK. (17). They are used to inflame the people to “kill” the new enemy and start another war. The Psyops use:
° Very professional camera use, editing software and skills displayed in the videos provided on the first “beheading”.
° Access to the Internet from remote locations is not possible. Internet uploading capabilities, social networking capabilities are used but not detected by any intelligence agency.
° Professional Image Editing Software and Skills
° They know how to cut and splice sections of the images to produce the desired effect of disconnecting a head from a body.
° It is necessary to have a production department to do this editing with multiple camera angles, consistent daylight on their subjects and multiple cameras.
° They edit out any blood using Photoshop drop shadows of the head sitting on a corpse.
° ISIS / ISIL intelligence operations that are outwardly superior to CIA / Mossad.
° They formed quickly and became ISIL overnight with a clear mission to attack Iraq.
° They have hidden faces with British accents and never allow a single ISIL leader to be identified.
° Secrecy – no One knows who ISIS is.
° Secret data bases
° Secret material suppliers – There is an endless supply of Water, Food and Meals coming from Turkey but not admitted to by the intelligence agencies .
° Secret sources of money – Untraceable money and endless spending
° Intelligence services say they cannot identify bank accounts
° Raw bureaucratic power to control information – the second video was removed from the internet. It was provided by the company that supplied false Osama bin Laden videos and acknowledged as a CIA asset. Therefore, it probably is also false.
The conclusion is that the U.S. would be better off following the strategy defined in this paper using Arabian forces against Arabs rather than the one outlined by the President
in is speech. This is true if he were sincerely interested in American citizens. This paper’s approach is to let the Arab tribes fight their own wars
• Saudi Arabia to do the bombing with their 300 F-15s.
• Use stringent sanctions to stop Turkey from their support of ISIL.
• After the bombing, encourage and support the Shiite kill squads to mop up the Sunni ISIL in the same manner as they have in the past.
• Get the Kurds to participate with the Shiites in the cleanup and then possibly reward them with their own state.
The result of this would be the ISIL would be gone and most territorial boundaries would be intact. Further, the remaining Christians and Jews would be safe in the Mideast. Finally, we would avoid an expansion of the war.
______________________Footnotes__________________________
1 Hawranek, Joseph. “Analysis of Benghazi Cover Up”, jpfinancialeducation.com,
http://money.verticalrising.com/?p=12742
2 Hawranek, Joseph. Benghazi – Latest Information, Jpfinancialeducation.com,
3 Hawranek, Joseph. “Benghazi Exposure – ‘The Innocence of Muslims’”, jpfinancialeducation.com,
http://money.verticalrising.com/?p=13207Benghazi exposure – Video
4 Hawranek, Joseph. “The Benghazi Cover Up – A Judicial Watch Update”, jpfinancialeducation.com,
http://www.jpfinancialeducation.com/2013/11/the-benghazi-cover-up-judicial-watch.html
5 Hawranek, Joseph. “This is a Twist – 60 Minutes retracts, apologizes, for Benghazi report, CBS says it
was misled by a source.”, jpfinancialeducation.com,
http://www.jpfinancialeducation.com/2013/11/this-is-real-twist-news-for-cbs.html
6 Hawranek, Joseph. “Benghazi_60 Minutes_ A Question of Treason?”, jpfinancialeducation.com,
http://www.jpfinancialeducation.com/2013/11/benghazi60-minutes-question-of-treason.html
7 Hawranek, Joseph. “An Analysis of a Scandal: Fast and Furious/Benghazi- Gunrunning- A Question of
Treason”, jpfinancialeducation.com
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0LQShXlJ1CJMmQ3VTdmNHBvT2M/edit?usp=sharing
8 Sources and full transcript: http://scgnews.com/the-covert-origins-of-isis
9 See more at: http://www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/videos/911–false-flags/the-covert-origins ofisis.html#sthash.wbtfaUfE.dpuf
10. Bradley, Matt. “Cruelty Reigns Inside City Held by Militants” , Wall Street Journal, 28 August 2014, p.1.
11 Varghese, Johnlee. “6 Reasons Why James Foley Beheading Video Could be Fake”, International Business Times (India Edition), 25 August 2014
12. Nimmo, Kurt. “Sotloff Videos Found by Group Responsible for Releasing Fake Obama bin Laden Video” (Group connected to Homeland Security and Government Insiders), 2 September 2014.
13. Crooke, Alastair.”You Can’t Understand ISIS if you Don’t Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia.”,
World Post, 28 August 2014
14. Codevilla, Angelo. Why the Islamic State Must be Killed and What It Will Take, To The Point News, 26 August
15. Crocker, Ryan. “Islamic State is Getting Stronger, and It’s Targeting America”, Wall Street Journal, 9
September 2014, p.A17.
16. Duff, Gordon. “The Real God Father of ISIL is U.S. Senator John McCain,”Before its News, 13 September 2014,
17. Suarez, Bernie. The International Forecaster. “10 Signs That ISIS is a Scripted Psyop.”, 13 September 2014, pp. 6
ISIL ISIS ISIS Threat explained Wahabi 2014-09-19
Islamic Honor and Shame vs. Christian Beliefs
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https://www.powerengineeringint.com
Jo Bamford, the owner of UK bus manufacturer Wrightbus, has embarked on an initiative aimed at getting the country’s hydrogen market on its feet. The entrepreneur has partnered with investment company Vedra Partners to launch HYCAP, an investment fund aimed at investing in the green hydrogen economy to drive the UK’s energy transition. Informs www.powerengineeringint.com
HYCAP was launched with more than £200 million ($275.6 million) in capital sourced from UK businesses. The target is to raise £1 billion ($1.3 billion) to grow the UK’s green hydrogen production and supply capabilities and to create green jobs whilst helping the UK achieve its 2050 net-zero targets.
Jo Bamford said: “With the Government’s relentless pursuit of Net Zero targets and the publication of the damning IPCC report, it is our belief that hydrogen holds the key to reducing emissions – and there is a growing sense of urgency to act now.
“The UK has missed the boat on batteries, a sector dominated by China and the Far East, but we can be global leaders in the production and supply of hydrogen – an economy said to be worth $2.5 trillion in revenues by 2050.”
He said the timing for the launch of HYCAP is perfect considering the UK will be hosting the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Bamford said HYCAP will be able to secure more investors considering the time the fund has been launched, the climate crisis, and the growing popularity of the green hydrogen market.
Some 40 investment companies have already been identified who have the potential to invest in the green hydrogen market through HYCAP.
Mr Bamford, added: “We have also discovered that investors around the world match the ambitions of global governments in wanting green-focused funds which have a positive impact on climate change.”
Key reasons why investors are interested in the hydrogen market include; 70% of global GDP being linked to hydrogen country roadmaps, Hydrogen Council membership increasing almost five-fold since 2017, and the UK Government pledging to have 5GW of low-carbon hydrogen production by 2030.
World Hydrogen 2022 Summit and Exhibition to ...
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Umjetnost riječi
Časopis za znanost o književnosti, izvedbenoj umjetnosti i filmu
Recenzenti
Izdavačka etika
Izjava o izdavačkoj etici
The Art of Words: Journal of Literary, Theatre and Film Studies – is a peer-reviewed international scientific journal committed to promoting the highest ethical publication practices and to maintaining the integrity of scientific record. The journal was founded in 1957. For over fifty years, the journal has been publishing research papers, discussions, reviews, conference papers and annual bibliographies from the field of literary theory and literary history. It is a leading Croatian periodical anchored in literary studies, with well-established cooperation with other Europe-based institutions of higher education. The journal publishes research papers, reviews of relevant domestic and international books in the sphere of literary, theatre and film studies, as well as transcripts of relevant round table debates.
Considering its importance within the Croatian scientific community, the journal is dedicated to principles of academic transparency and integrity. These principles are maintained through publicly available information and open access to published articles, “double-blind” peer review, an Editorial Board whose members are experts in their respective fields, clearly designated conditions on the use of intellectual property and a dedication to the authenticity of scientific manuscripts and prevention of plagiarism.
The journal publishes exclusively unpublished papers. By submitting a manuscript the authors confirm that it is the result of their own original work for which they accept scientific and ethical responsibility (especially with respect to plagiarism, forgery of data, multiple reporting or publishing identical research results, abuse of authorship, or any other form of academic misdemeanor). Additionally, by submitting a manuscript, the authors confirm that the same manuscript has not been published or submitted for publishing elsewhere. Publication is free of charge for authors submitting the articles. Authors should acknowledge all sources of data used in the research and cite publications that have influenced their research. If the authors have used the work and/or words of others, they need to ensure that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Authors of submitted articles are obliged to participate in the peer-review process. If authors discover a significant mistake or inaccuracy in their published paper, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal editor and provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. The reviewers should respect the confidentiality of peer review and not reveal any details of the manuscript or its review, during or after the peer-review process, beyond those that are released by the journal. Reviewers should agree to review only manuscripts for which they have the subject expertise required to carry out a proper assessment and which they can assess in a timely manner. If a selected reviewer feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or within proposed time-frame, he/she should notify the editor and excuse himself/herself from the review process. The review of submitted manuscripts should be conducted objectively. Reviewers should point out relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Reviewers should not use information obtained during the peer-review process for their own or any other person’s or organization’s advantage or to disadvantage or discredit others. All reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors or the research funders connected to the manuscript. Reviewers should notify the journal immediately if they come across any irregularities, have concerns about ethical aspects of the work, are aware of substantial similarity between the manuscript and a concurrent submission to another journal or a published article, or suspect that misconduct may have occurred during either the research or the writing and submission of the manuscript.
The editor is responsible for everything published in the journal The Art of Words. The editor will ensure that all published papers and reviews of research have been reviewed by suitably qualified reviewers and that the peer-review process is fair, unbiased and timely. The editor preserves anonymity of reviewers. The editor has responsibility to ensure that all information regarding manuscripts submitted to the journal The Art of Words remain confidential. The editor ensures that each manuscript is initially evaluated by the editor, who may make use of appropriate means, to examine the originality of the contents of the manuscript. After the manuscript passes this test, it is forwarded to two reviewers for double-blind peer review, and each of them will make a recommendation to publish the manuscript in its present form or to modify or to reject it. The editor ensures that each received manuscript is evaluated according to its intellectual content without regard to authors’ sex, gender, race, religion, citizenship, etc. The editor cannot use unpublished materials disclosed in the submitted manuscript for his/her own research, without prior written consent of the authors.
The editor is always willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed. If mistakes are found in the article, the editor will promptly provide their retractions or corrections. A new editor will not overturn decisions to publish submissions made by the previous editor unless serious problems are identified. The editor will act if he/she suspects misconduct or if an allegation of misconduct is brought to him/her. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers. Editor’s decisions will not be affected by the origin of the manuscript, including the nationality, ethnicity, political beliefs, race, or religion of the authors. The decisions to edit and publish a manuscript will not be determined by the policies of governments or other agencies outside of the journal itself.
The editorial board is responsible for monitoring publishing ethics/preventing publication malpractice. The editor and the editorial board are maintaining the integrity of the academic record.
Unethical behavior is unacceptable and the journal The Art of Words does not tolerate plagiarism or fraudulent data.
The relations of the editor with publishers and owners are based firmly on the principle of editorial independence. The editor makes decisions on which articles to publish based on their quality and suitability for the journal, without interference from the journal publisher as well as according to intellectual and ethical standards instead of immediate financial or political gain.
In cases of suspected or alleged research or publication misconduct, the editor will first seek a response from those suspected of misconduct. If he/she is not satisfied with the response, he/she will ask the relevant employers or institutions to investigate. The editor will make all reasonable efforts to ensure that a proper investigation into alleged misconduct is conducted.
The editor and editorial board of The Art of Words will:
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cooperate with investigations and respond to institutions’ questions about misconduct allegations;
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Investigations into possible misconduct will generally be undertaken by the researcher’s institution and not by editors. If a journal has published unreliable or fraudulent information, the editor has a duty to correct or retract this. Therefore, even when faced with apparently strong evidence of misconduct (e.g. plagiarism or inappropriate image manipulation), and a clear need to correct the published record, the editor will liaise with institutions and ensure they are informed.
The editor follows the COPE guidelines on retractions. The editor will consider retracting a publication if:
there is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error);
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it constitutes plagiarism;
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← poetry watch
Cherry Point Pier Settlement: Additional Protection for Marine Resources →
Sun Smiling on Local Solar Industry
Jennifer Moon
by Jennifer Moon
It looks like a bright, sunny day for Whatcom County’s solar industry. Solarize Whatcom, a campaign led by Sustainable Connections in partnership with three local solar businesses — Western Solar, Ecotech Solar, and itek Enåergy — recently concluded with impressive results. The goal was 20-30 contracts. The result was 47 installations.
Beginning in February, Solarize Whatcom offered educational workshops and urged local homeowners and businesses to install solar panels. The campaign included the incentive that, for every contract signed for a solar panel installation, a solar panel would be donated to the Bellingham Food Bank which would reduce that agency’s operating costs.
Marcus Virta, a system designer with Western Solar, estimates these systems will offset more than 410,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year for more than 30 years. That equates to roughly 186 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
The three-month effort also brought significant economic benefits. According to Virta, over $1.2 million in “local money [was] spent on locally-manufactured solar equipment and services.”
As solar arrays appear on rooftops across the county, community solar is another option being embraced by some. Community solar helps those unable to install their own system to band together to invest in solar power. In partnership with the Port of Bellingham, itek Energy employees recently installed a community solar array at the waterfront, with component parts manufactured locally. According to itek, “Through the State’s Renewable Energy Production incentive, itek Energy employees will receive a yearly dividend from the solar energy produced for the life of the installation.” The production from this system is expected to approximate the amount of energy needed to power a dozen houses.
Ecotech Energy and Western Solar, both system designers and installers, and itek Energy, a panel and inverter manufacturer, have all seen tremendous growth in the past few years. Western Solar, for example, doubled its installed solar capacity between 2012 and 2014.As an in-state manufacturer of solar panels, itek, in particular, has benefited from the rapid growth in Washington’s solar industry. itek launched in 2011 with 15 employees. Today, it employs over 90 people. In 2015, itek products were the overwhelming choice of solar installers in the state.
These local growth trends are mirrored nationally. Over the past five years, the number of solar jobs in the U.S. doubled. In 2015, the solar industry generated 35,000 new jobs, a 20 percent increase in one year. The U.S. solar industry now employs more than 200,000 people. Growing solar demand and falling oil prices have upended the employment scene: estimates show the solar industry workforce now outnumbers that of oil rigs and gas fields.
The growth in our state’s solar industry has been aided by the Renewable Energy Production Incentive, enacted in 2005. This state incentive program, in combination with federal tax credits, has made the conversion to green power more affordable. Since its enactment, 10,000 homes and businesses in Washington have installed solar systems, creating 2,400 family wage jobs.
Still, the solar industry has its share of cloudy days. Perhaps the solar industry’s most significant challenges involve incentive policies and caps imposed by some state legislatures. For example, in Washington, there is a cap on incentive payments equal to the greater of $100,000 or 0.5 percent of local utilities’ taxable power sales. When incentive payouts approach the cap, payments to customers reduce. The incentive program had used only 30 percent of allocated funds in 2015, but Washington is now approaching the cap, and some utilities, including Puget Sound Energy, are expected to reach the cap in 2016.
The cap on incentives is a problem in other states as well. In Nevada, Elon Musk and his company, SolarCity, have been battling NV Energy, a utility owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. This conflict has also involved a cap, as well as rates paid to customers for net metering. New regulations passed last December benefiting NV Energy not only make it more costly to install solar panels but also impose costs on those who have already gone solar. SolarCity has laid off 550 of its Nevada workers as a result.
In our own state, the solar industry has worked to renew and revise the state’s incentive program for the past three years. In the past legislative session, this attempt took the form of House Bill 2346. In the end, the reform efforts failed for a third time, in large part due to the “Working Families Protection Clause,” a package of amendments introduced by Sen. Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale). The amendment effectively held renewal and revision of the solar incentive program hostage to Gov. Jay Inslee abandoning a carbon cap. Sen. Andy Hill (R-Redmond) said House Bill 2346 failed due to a lack of funds for solar subsidies.
Meanwhile, U.S. oil and gas subsidies continue at an estimated annual cost of about $7 billion. A recent study of the economic benefit of the solar incentive program conducted by Western Washington University’s Center for Economic and Business Research found that “each incentive dollar leads to $6.82 in payroll in the state and $15.84 in purchases from local installers, manufacturers and suppliers.” As the solar production becomes more competitive, the cost of producing solar energy, including subsidies, is reaching parity with oil and gas. In some states, it has reportedly already crossed that threshold.
If there’s any “picking winners and losers” being done, one wonders which side is the winner and which the loser.
Jennifer Moon is an independent researcher and writer living in Whatcom County. She holds a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Virginia.
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James F. Tivnan
James F. Tivnan, 73, husband of Karen J. (Cole) Tivnan of Manning Street, Ipswich, died suddenly in his home on Thursday, December 29, 2022 (unfortunately before he could enjoy his birthday cake).
Jim was born in Salem on December 29, 1949, son of the late John F. and Ruth E. (Talbot) Tivnan.
He was raised on Manning Street in Salem and attended Salem High School. He went on to attend and receive a Bachelors degree from Northeastern University, where he played on their hockey team, and a Masters degree from Bentley College.
After serving five years in the US Air Force during the Vietnam Era, he was honorably discharged as a 2nd Lieutenant. He was married on March 10, 1973 at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Peabody. He spent the bulk of his adult life in Ipswich where he and Karen raised three children.
He was active in the Ipswich Youth Soccer program as well as the Kiwanis Club.
Jim made his living as a numbers guy, working as a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) and doing taxes (at greatly reduced fees) for family, friends and clients - who often became friends. He also worked for a number of other companies as their numbers guy doing everything from proofreading to auditing but by far his favorite job title was Grandpa.
Family was everything to him and he would traverse many miles to spend time with them during summers, holidays and celebrations. He adored spending time with all his grandchildren - whether they were at playgrounds, swimming, performing at the theater or concerts; playing baseball, soccer or gliding across the ice.
He spoke the language of “Seinfeld,” was fluent in movie quotes and he loved to watch westerns. His cross-country driving was legendary as he was willing to drive his wife to Wisconsin or his daughter to Virginia or New Mexico at a moment’s notice. He also loved to travel and was always up for an adventure. His favorite place to be was heading out on a journey and he delighted in traveling throughout most of the United States with his wife and any children or grandchildren that he could fit in his car. In these later years his favorite destination has been camping in his RV at the KOA in Tamworth, N.H. with his grandchildren.
He will be remembered for his generosity and his humor. He could write letters that made the reader laugh out loud and he was quick to entertain his nieces, nephews, coworkers, relatives and friends with his famous humor.
In addition to his wife Karen of 49 years, he is survived by a son, Daniel J. Tivnan of Somersworth, N.H.; two daughters, Kelly J. Tivnan and her husband John Quinn of Middleton, N.H, Susan S. Spry and her husband Jeff of Wilmington and five grandchildren, Keegan, Dillon, Hazel and Ruth Quinn and Eleonore Spry. He is also survived by two brothers, Paul Tivnan of Missouri, Terrence Tivnan of Weston; three sisters, Mary Ellen Cullen of Danvers, Kathy Hayes of Peabody, Judith Tivnan Hall of Florida and many nieces and nephews. He was the brother of the late John M. Tivnan formerly of Woodbridge, VA. and Janice Higgins formerly of Peabody.
Private funeral arrangements are under the direction of the Whittier-Porter Funeral Home of Ipswich.
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