Dataset Preview

Duplicate

Split (1)

train

The full dataset viewer is not available (click to read why). Only showing a preview of the rows.

The dataset generation failed

Error code:   DatasetGenerationError
Exception:    ArrowInvalid
Message:      JSON parse error: Missing a closing quotation mark in string. in row 119
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 119
              
              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 dataset

Need 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__cc	0.735911	0.264089	Green Flag Success! We have just been notified that we have been awarded our 4th Green Flag the Travel Flag Well done to all on the Green Schools Committee and all of the children and families for their efforts to make this a reality! The 2019/2020 academic year marks the 23rd year of the Green-Schools programme in Ireland. Despite the temporary closure of schools in March, the dedication of schools to submit their Green Flag application after a two-year effort to create sustainable environments in their schools was both poignant and exceptional. The Green-Schools staff who have been recently processing applications have been overwhelmed by the high standard and inspired by the positive actions taking place all over the country. During May, 750 schools were awarded the Green Flag for their work on the themes of Litter & Waste, Energy, Water, Travel, Biodiversity and Global Citizenship, with 61 schools receiving the Green Flag for the first time. Green-Schools wishes to congratulate all Green-Schools students, school staff and families who helped schools in achieving and renewing the Green Flag 2020! Join in on the celebrations virtually from today May 25-29th for a week of #GreenFlag2020 celebrations! We will have lots of video messages throughout the week from Green-Schools Officers, Environmental Awareness Officers and Sponsors who are all so proud of your wonderful achievements! Green-Schools 2020 SavingsThe collective efforts made by schools across Ireland culminated to impressive environmental savings across waste, energy, water and transport, and positive impacts were made towards biodiversity, global citizenship, and the marine environment. In 2020 schools diverted 2,500 tonnes of waste from landfill, and saved an impressive 592 million litres of water, 4.4 million litres of heating oil and over 29 million units of electricity. Throughout the year students contributed to lowering traffic related emissions at the school gate by walking, cycling and scooting to school. To promote active travel, a total of 4000 students received cycle training and 1100 spaces were created for bike and scooter parking. The installation of new vegetable gardens and bird feeders improved students’ knowledge of the importance of biodiversity, and 2799 native trees were planted by students. Schools around the country learnt of the hazardous effects of climate change and marine pollution on our Oceans, with over 86% of schools participating in #2MinuteBeachCleans. On completion of the Global Citizenship themes, schools tripled their knowledge about global issues such as food origin and FairTrade, and 79 % of schools increased their knowledge on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Green-Schools Global Citizenship School of the Year Awards 2020Join us on this page and social media on Friday May 29th at 12.00pm noon for the celebration of the Green-Schools Global Citizenship School of the Year Awards 2020! Drum roll please… we are very excited to announce the National Winners of The Global Citizenship School of the Year Award. This is the second year of the competition. We were blown away by the standard of applications this year and it was very difficult to choose a winner. They are all truly amazing examples of Global Citizenship Schools. In the video below you can check out the regional winners and the overall National winners , see some of their fantastic work and hear from our sponsors Irish Aid too. Enjoy and well done to all of our fantastic Global Citizenship schools!	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line2
__label__wiki	0.621812	0.621812	2PDF.it Da fattura elettronica a PDF online Converti file P7M CodeGuru Srl Via Traversa Pistoiese, 83 59100 Prato (PO) Italy Owner contact email: staff(at)2pdf.it Among the types of Personal Data that this Application collects, by itself or through third parties, there are: Cookies and Usage Data. Users are responsible for any third-party Personal Data obtained, published or shared through this Application and confirm that they have the third party’s consent to provide the Data to the Owner. The Data is processed at the Owner’s servers location (Germany), Owners’ offices (Italy) and in any other places where the parties involved in the processing are located. Depending on the User’s location, data transfers may involve transferring the User’s Data to a country other than their own. To find out more about the place of processing of such transferred Data, Users can check the section containing details about the processing of Personal Data. Once the retention period expires, Personal Data shall be deleted. Therefore, the right to access, the right to erasure, the right to rectification and the right to data portability cannot be enforced after expiration of the retention period. The Data concerning the User is collected to allow the Owner to provide its Services, as well as for the following purposes: Analytics. Users can find further detailed information about such purposes of processing and about the specific Personal Data used for each purpose in the respective sections of this document. The Data concerning the User is collected to allow the Owner to provide its Services, as well as for the following purposes: - Provide the services of the Application, - Transactional communications (password recovery, subscription renewal, new functions …), - Marketing communication about the Application, - Analytics, - Displaying content from external platforms, - Transfer data to purchase processor, - Data transfer outside the EU. Google Analytics is a web analysis service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google utilizes the Data collected to track and examine the use of this Application, to prepare reports on its activities and share them with other Google services. Place of processing: United States – Privacy Policy Privacy Policy – Opt Out. Opt Out. Privacy Shield participant. Google Fonts is a typeface visualization service provided by Google Inc. that allows this Application to incorporate content of this kind on its pages. Personal Data collected: Usage Data and various types of Data as specified in the privacy policy of the service. Place of processing: United States – Privacy Policy Privacy Policy . Privacy Shield participant. Gravatar (Automattic Inc.) Gravatar is an image visualization service provided by Automattic Inc. that allows this Application to incorporate content of this kind on its pages. Please note that if Gravatar images are used for user profile image User address or parts of it may be sent to Gravatar - even if the commenter has not signed up for that service. Personal Data collected: email address and Usage Data. Place of processing: United States – Privacy Policy Privacy Policy. Paddle.com is a software reselling service used to process subscription payments. Please note that we transfer to Paddle.com email addresses on the beginning of the subscription purchase process. Place of processing: United Kingdom - Privacy Policy Data transfer outside the EU The Owner is allowed to transfer Personal Data collected within the EU to third countries (i.e. any country not part of the EU) only pursuant to a specific legal basis. Any such Data transfer is based on one of the legal bases described below. Users can inquire with the Owner to learn which legal basis applies to which specific service. Data transfer to countries that guarantee European standards (this Application) If this is the legal basis, the transfer of Personal Data from the EU to third countries is carried out according to an adequacy decision of the European Commission. The European Commission adopts adequacy decisions for specific countries whenever it considers that country to possess and provide Personal Data protection standards comparable to those set forth by EU data protection legislation. Users can find an updated list of all adequacy decisions issued on the European Commission’s website. Personal Data collected: various types of Data. Receive their Data and have it transferred to another controller. Users have the right to receive their Data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format and, if technically feasible, to have it transmitted to another controller without any hindrance. This provision is applicable provided that the Data is processed by automated means and that the processing is based on the User’s consent, on a contract which the User is part of or on pre-contractual obligations thereof. The User’s Personal Data may be used for legal purposes by the Owner in Court or in the stages leading to possible legal action arising from improper use of this Application or the related Services. We use “cookies” on this site. A cookie is a piece of data stored on a site visitor’s hard drive to help us improve your access to our site and identify repeat visitors to our site. For instance, when we use a cookie to identify you, you would not have to log in a password more than once, thereby saving time while on our site. Cookies can also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our site. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information on our site. Some of our business partners may use cookies on our site (for example, advertisers). However, we have no access to or control over these cookies. The Owner reserves the right to make changes to this privacy policy at any time by giving notice to its Users on this page and possibly within this Application and/or - as far as technically and legally feasible - sending a notice to Users via any contact information available to the Owner. It is strongly recommended to check this page often, referring to the date of the last modification listed at the bottom. Information collected automatically through this Application (or third-party services employed in this Application), which can include: the IP addresses or domain names of the computers utilized by the Users who use this Application, the URI addresses (Uniform Resource Identifier), the time of the request, the method utilized to submit the request to the server, the size of the file received in response, the numerical code indicating the status of the server’s answer (successful outcome, error, etc.), the country of origin, the features of the browser and the operating system utilized by the User, the various time details per visit (e.g., the time spent on each page within the Application) and the details about the path followed within the Application with special reference to the sequence of pages visited, and other parameters about the device operating system and/or the User’s IT environment. Small sets of data stored in the User’s device. Privacy Policy Termini di servizio © Copyright 2023 2pdf.it All Rights Reserved - Ideato e realizzato da CodeGuru Srl.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line4
__label__wiki	0.773112	0.773112	Tag Archives: Abbas Kiarostami CAPSULE: LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE (2012) March 11, 2013 Jesse Miksic Leave a comment DIRECTED BY: Abbas Kiarostami FEATURING: Tadashi Okuno, Rin Takanashi, Ryo Kase PLOT: Akiko is a young female student moonlighting as a call girl; her pimp sends her on an assignment in the suburbs, where her client, Takashi, is an elderly professor who doesn’t seem terribly interested in her carnal services. When he deigns to drive her back to the city the next day, he begins to take on an unexpectedly intimate role in her life, becoming personally involved in her troubled relationship with Noriaki, her possessive boyfriend. WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The weirdest thing about Like Someone in Love is that it eschews the most predictable filmmaking conventions: a traditional narrative arc, gratifying resolution, and explanatory coherence. This results in a powerful film, but not one that breaks dramatically with film language or narrative logic. It’s a moody, sensitive character study with the rhythms of an art film, not a groundbreaking work of cinematic weirdness. COMMENTS: Like Someone in Love doesn’t have much of a traditional narrative arc, and it doesn’t play much with our expectations… as a result, there’s a pronounced lack of suspense and release, a tendency to eschew those kinds of narrative pleasures that normally attend these things we call “movies.” In a way, it feels more like a self-contained art object, a constellation of characters and relationships that’s designed to intrigue the active mind. There’s nothing so radical about the film that it should de facto qualify for the Weird Movies list. Its organic rhythms and intentional ambiguity should be familiar to anyone who’s seen some art films. On its own merits, though, it’s a masterful work of cinema, an ideal case study in style, technical proficiency, and unified vision. One of the great things about Like Someone in Love is how it demonstrates the strength of this kind of ambiguous, minimalist filmmaking: within its naturalistic treatment of its subjects, it creates huge fertile spaces for the proliferation of symbolic meanings and psychological resonance. It’s shot painstakingly, with the camera always intensely aware of its space. Doorways, reflections, confined interiors, obstructions, and the space outside the frame: all these become Kiarostami’s playthings. In his control of objects and the camera’s eye, he is reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick, whose style was similarly deliberate, ostensibly naturalistic, but profoundly self-aware. The result of this high level of control is that many objects take on cosmic symbolic (or psychological) significance. Windows and glass are especially important to this story, protecting various characters from outside forces, allowing them to maintain their distance and their illusions. Telephones are also rich in meaning, providing vectors and blind spots where each character’s defenses can be penetrated. Cars? Another symbol with apparently endless significance: Takashi’s car is one of his domains of safety and control, and Noriaki seems to have an unusual power over cars, being a mechanic himself. As an “art object,” Like Someone in Love is not merely an assemblage of these kinds of thematic adornments. It also has weight and substance to it, especially in its complex characters and their occasional poignant moments. One of the earliest scenes is an extended car ride to the suburbs, as Akiko watches the city lights slide by and listens to a series of phone messages from her grandmother. The power in this lengthy scene is tremendous, and I can’t hope to describe its emotional effect. It has the touch of a genuinely brilliant filmmaker. A great deal of the film concerns the difference between the young and the elderly, which Takashi evokes when he talks about “experience.” The young people in the film—Akiko and Noriaki—are swallowed up by ambitions and pretenses and delusions, and their attitudes contrast sharply with that of Takashi, who faces the world with a wealth of patience and composure. These characters are rendered richly in gestures and pauses and hesitations, and in this regard, Kiarostami recalls the work of Ozu, who often addressed this theme, and did it with many of the same tools. These characters are drawn into mysterious constellations of authenticity and deception and mistaken identity. In this regard, Someone in Love feels like Certified Copy, Kiarostami’s last film. Both films dealt with the fluidity of identity and the shifting of roles, and even as both films hinged on a broad self-imposed deception, both seemed to find a deeper truth in the lie. Regarding Like Someone in Love, this prompted Richard Brody of The New Yorker to suggest the following thesis: “Love is a lie, but it’s one that’s best not to ask questions about.” Brody’s attempted thesis statement is one excellent way of reading the film, but it’s certainly not the only one. One of the best things about this curious, multifaceted cinematic work is that it’s about many things at once, even as it seems to be a simple, if oblique, story fragment about love and mistaken identity. It may not be among the weirdest films, but I would certainly count it among the best. “It’s odd in a film when you can’t imagine what the next shot is going to be, where a character’s ‘arc’ is going to leave him or her, whether you’re watching a drama or a tragedy.”—David Edelstein, Vulture (contemporaneous) 2012Abbas KiarostamiArthouseDramaJapaneseMinimalistRecommendedRyo Kase CAPSULE: CERTIFIED COPY (2010) June 25, 2012 Alex Kittle Leave a comment FEATURING: Juliette Binoche, William Shimell PLOT: A French antiques dealer and an English author spend a day together in rural Tuscany, discussing (and often fighting about) art, philosophy, and family. As the hours pass it becomes apparent that these supposed strangers may share a much deeper relationship. WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: While there is definitely a turning point that makes for a very weird, confusing moment, most of this film is well-acted arthouse drama. The questionable nature of the lead characters’ relationship is the only thing about it that’s strange, and in the end it proves to be a comment on the sad nature of a failed marriage. COMMENTS: Bickering about art, literature, and everyday life while they move around a scenic Tuscan village, the central characters of Certified Copy initially act much like you’d expect a couple in a European arthouse movie to act. They meander through beautiful scenery laced with antique sculptures and architecture, surrounded by jolly tourists and locals who at times provide fodder for their good-natured arguments. They sip cappuccino at a cute cafe. They speak in English, French, and Italian. They visit a museum. At first James (played by opera singer William Shimell) primarily discusses his most recent book, called “Certified Copy,” and Elle (the incomparable Juliette Binoche) talks about her family, especially her problematic teenage son. After a conversation with a nosy but well-meaning cafe server, Elle suddenly becomes furious with James, and he gradually takes on the role of her absent husband. Whether James really is her husband remains unclear, though it seems possible that these characters are play-acting at this relationship, creating a copy of the missing thing in keeping with their discussions of copies versus originals. James takes on a role and Elle goes along with it, eventually regressing to the giddy romantic girl she was when they married 14 years prior, attempting to understand where their relationship fell apart and perhaps rekindle their long-lost passions. Their conversation continues to wax and wane, moving through lighthearted observations and dark memories, always ambiguous enough to keep the viewer at a distance despite the intimate handheld camerawork. This is very much an actor’s movie, with Binoche and Shimell shining equally in the lead roles. He is sharp and quiet, always speaking logically and with a cold, intelligent air. She is bright and volatile, shifting from laughter to tears in the blink of an eye as her expressive face betrays a web of complex emotional struggles. His stoic presentation, rarely shaken except for one telling scene at a restaurant, is a perfect foil for her changeable nature. They take turns being sympathetic or aggressive, and while they have so many points of contention it’s a wonder they ever (maybe) had a romantic connection, their chemistry is strong enough to make whatever love they may have shared believable. It is the mystery surrounding the sudden, unexplained shift in James and Elle’s characters that marks Certified Copy as something special, and keeps its audience focusing closely on every word, every knowing look. Is their relationship just a copy of the real thing, a therapeutic performance piece for Elle? Do they still love one another or are they blinded by nostalgia? Is the medium of film itself only capable of showing copies of true events, shadows of true emotions? Kiarostami does not reveal what is real or unreal, and it is up to us to wade through the wandering dialogue and gorgeous cinematography to find our own truth. CRITERION SPECIAL FEATURES: The Criterion release includes a new interview with Kiarostami discussing the film, the making-of documentary Let’s See “Copia conforme”, a booklet with an essay by film critic Godfrey Cheshire, and the director’s rare 1977 feature The Report in its entirety. “Kiarostami is like a magician who shows you how he does it and still leaves you mesmerized. There’s an effrontery to his method… The film is not so much about reality and fantasy but about deepening levels of reality.” –Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor. 2010Abbas KiarostamiAmbiguousArthouseDramaFrenchItalianJuliette Binoche	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line5
__label__cc	0.730453	0.269547	All Sondhi Limthongkul Authors > Shf Std > Sondhi Limthongkul Sondhi Limthongkul quotes “We are fighting against a traitor who sells the country to the Singaporean government.” Sondhi Limthongkul quote “This is just the beginning.” “We have successfully organized this protest that was held peacefully and without any incidents.” “When he said 'No,' we can't resist, otherwise there would be clashes.” “He is very arrogant, insulting other people and running the government as a one-man show. He is worse than a tyrant.” “We will fight until we win.” “I'd like to encourage people around the country to come here and make it the biggest demonstration in the country's history.” “Our Monday protest will have more people joining from the provinces.” “March 5 will be the day of reckoning.” “We have believed all along that it's people power that will help achieve our objective.” Submit a New Sondhi Limthongkul quote << Sonali Kulkarni quotes Sondra Duncan quotes >>	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line9
__label__cc	0.726164	0.273836	<< < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 > >> 2009-11-05 - video clip: 5 min 02 sec Boot Slaves - Mistress January Seraph lies half naked on the sofa tired from a day of dungeon play, she puts her boots at the face of her attendant slave and orders him to worship them Stocking Slaves - Mistress Chelsea is lazing at the pool side while having her slave girl attend to her, smelling and worshipping on her white stockings while she lies flat and takes a rest 2009-11-04 - 27 photos Stocking Slaves - Mistress Johanna has had a tired day at the lounge and sits on top of her pool table ordering her foot slave to lick her shoes clean before giving her sweaty stockings feet a nice and cooling sniff Feet-Slave - Mistress January Seraph rubs her tired stockings feet on her slave's laps after a day of walking with them, she orders him to peel off her stockings with his feet as she enjoys making life a little harder for him before he appreciates the worship of her bare feet Feet-Slave - Foot worship to the Mistress is one of the most important tasks for a slave girl as it represents submission and pleasure for her Mistress, she takes Mistress Emily Marilyn's feet in her hands and starts sucking on each and every toe while her Mistress rests her soft soles on her slave girl's face Boot Slaves - Mistress Paris Kennedy rests her platform boots on the laps of her slave boy and gets him to shine them with his tongue, then she decides a better position for him would be on the floor under her boots to continue the boot licking service for her Boot Slaves - Mistress January Seraph is tired after a day of shooting outdoors and relaxes on the couch while her slave comes before her asking if he should be doing anything, she orders her boots to be licked clean while she lazes and take a rest FootDom United - Princess Snow's pampered lifestyle with 2 maids - Part 4 Now with 2 maids attending to Princess Snow, life has got so much better or so pampered, usually Snow would have to take a step up before she can get up onto her rather high bed, but today onwards, she enters the room and steps on the back of her maid january to get up onto her bed , and sits in front of her 2 kneeling maids as she orders her shoes off to give her tired bare feet a nice foot massage. As usual she loves to Stocking Slaves - Mistress Johanna has her foot slave under her feet at all times that's the position he shall be in while she reads a magazine, and if he is lucky which he is in this case, he gets to smell and taste on his Mistress's stockings feet Feet-Slave - Mistress Ariel X is enjoying an erotic foot worship from her slave girl kneeling before her as she sniffs on her toes before sucking on them and licking all over her soles Gallery (50 pics) Video clip (94 mb 5 min 00 sec) Video clip (111 mb 5 min 15 sec) Video clip (73 mb 10 min 07 sec) Video clip (112mb 4 min 57 sec) Video clip (74mb - 10 min 11 sec) Video clip (95mb 5 min 03 sec) Video clip (48mb - 6 min 04 sec) Bonus Video clip (48mb - 6 min 04 sec) Video clip (117mb - 9 min 34 sec) Video clip (107mb - 13min 36 sec) Bonus Video clip (135mb - 11min 05 sec) Bonus Video clip (102mb - 6min 56 sec) Video clip (120mb - 15 min 14 sec) Comment from one of our members I've joined several foot worship sites over the years and this is definitely the best foot site i ever joined, I have to thank you for the variety of scenes and girls involved, and the huge amount of content you have offered. Thank you so much for making feet-slave.com, you made my day! Bonus Video clip (79mb - 10 min 01 sec) Video clip (33.4mb - 3 min 1 sec) Footdom united home Femdom Forum Femdom links $ Affiliate program $	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line20
__label__wiki	0.58901	0.58901	UNM Newsroom / News / New Mexico EPSCoR, UNM researchers awarded grant for research Indigenous-based STEM education New Mexico EPSCoR, UNM researchers awarded grant for research Indigenous-based STEM education By Brittney Van Der Werff September 04, 2020 Categories: Front Page Faculty News School of Architecture & Planning Community & Regional Planning The National Science Foundation has awarded researchers at New Mexico Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (NM EPSCoR), The University of New Mexico (UNM) and partner institutions a total of $739,619 in research grants to address the under-representation of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines and workforce. The Cultivating Indigenous Research Communities for Leadership in Education and STEM (CIRCLES) Alliance builds on existing partnerships with tribal communities and tribal colleges in six states in the western half of the U.S. (New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) to develop a collective strategy for increasing the engagement, involvement, and success of AI/AN students in STEM. Selena Connealy Selena Connealy, Education and Outreach manager for NM EPSCoR, will serve as Principal Investigator (PI) for the New Mexico portion of the Alliance, along-side co-PI Lani Tsinnajinnie, assistant professor of Community and Regional Planning at the UNM School of Architecture, Water, and Natural Resources. “We are so pleased to be part of this Alliance along with our EPSCoR colleagues across the five other states," said Connealy. "Here in New Mexico, this project will give us an opportunity to strengthen our relationships with AI/AN communities and also with the organizations and institutions that support AI/AN STEM education.” Lani Tsinnajinnie “The CIRCLES Alliance looks to increase the knowledge gained by the combined effort of states that will collectively engage and impact AI/AN communities through conversation, interviews, and relationship building with the tribal entities in each state. We recognize that a different framework is needed for AI/AN students that recognizes and incorporates the unique traditional knowledge, sense of place, rights of sovereignty, and culture of Indigenous peoples,” said Aaron Thomas, overall lead for the Alliance and director of Indigenous Research and STEM Education and associate professor of Chemistry at the University of Montana. Through the CIRCLES Alliance, researchers at the University of Idaho, Central Wyoming College, UNM, NM EPSCoR, Black Hills State University, North Dakota State University, and the University of Montana will build on strong, existing partnerships with tribal communities and colleges to study promising practices and areas of greatest need in STEM education for AI/AN students. The project will look to develop AI/AN-based STEM education activities for K-12 and higher education students, as well as become a model for partnering with tribal communities to advance Indigenous-based STEM education. Ultimately, the project aims to support tribal communities in producing a STEM-ready workforce to meet their communities’ unique economic development needs. “With 10.5 percent of the nation’s AI/AN population residing within our project’s six states, we are poised to make a meaningful, collective impact across our region while generating results and approaches that can be scaled nationally,” said Thomas. UNM archaeologist Patricia Crown named 2022 AAAS Fellow 95 is the new 30: UNM researcher embarks on new study NSF project to explore new solutions for longer-lasting, affordable batteries UNM chemistry department unveils state's largest Periodic Table of Elements display	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line29
__label__wiki	0.806863	0.806863	‘Mountains and Waterways’ next art show at HACC-Lancaster Campus Lancaster artist presents gesso and ink on paper LANCASTER – Carol Galligan of Lancaster brings her visual interpretations of Tsaoist philosophies in the next art show, “Mountains and Waterways,” Aug. 15-Sept. 30, at the Lancaster Campus of HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College. A reception for the artist is scheduled for 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 25, in the Art Space, in the East Building of the campus, 1641 Old Philadelphia Pike. Central to her work is the Tao – the philosophy that there is an unknowable source and guiding principle of reality and the process of nature which is to be followed for a life of harmony. “’The Tao Te Ching’ by Lao-tzu, a Taoist sage, explains the meaning of the ‘way’ and ‘virtue,’” said Galligan. “Chinese poets have always known that which is of greatest importance often lies far beyond words.” Galligan said her work reflects the influence of another book, “Daughters of Emptiness, poems by Chinese Buddhist Nuns.” In traditional China, the mountains were revered as the home of spirits and immortals and became the site of Taoist and Buddhist monasteries. The residents write of the Great Void which melts to form rivers and waterways and thickens to form mountains and hills. Vapor becomes mists and clouds and the visible “Chi” or “breath” of nature. Galligan is an adjunct instructor at HACC, Franklin and Marshall College, Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, Vermont College in Montpelier and the Lancaster Museum of Art. Her work has been shown in exhibitions at colleges, universities, museums, and commercial galleries in New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Most recently Galligan received the 2011 Rottler Award for Excellence in Visual Arts from the York Art Association. She is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in studio art. Hours for the Art Space are 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday. For more information contact Cindy Rose, humanities assistant professor at the HACC-Lancaster Campus, 717-358-2841 or e-mail at cwrose@hacc.edu. Other articles in Lancaster Campus: Employers Invited to HACC’s 20th Annual Spring Job Fair HACC Learners Benefit from New Programs, Services Local and Internationally Known Artists Showcase Works at HACC HACC, NCC Sign Agreement to Create Opportunities for Cardiovascular Technology Programs	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line30
__label__wiki	0.81065	0.81065	british actors under 40 Ian Somerhalder. Actress \| Atonement. Michael Caine. Jack O'Connell was born in Alvaston, Derby, England, to Alison J. He has always enjoyed movies of all types. Robert discovered his ... Jensen Ross Ackles, better known as simply Jensen Ackles, was born on March 1, 1978, in Dallas, Texas, to Donna Joan (Shaffer) and actor Alan Ackles. Jack O'Connell. By Richard Price for the Daily Mail. Benedict Cumberbatch. I don't write for the NY Slimes, or Washington Compost, but this'll still probably be better than theirs, haha. I googled "British actors under 40" and the one that struck me as the most Bond was Harry Lloyd from Game of Thrones. He is an actor, known for Yellowstone (2018), American Sniper (2014) and The Magnificent Seven (2016). Jensen grew up in Richardson, Texas, together with his older brother, Joshua, and a younger sister, ... Actor \| For a group of talented black actors, including Idris Elba and David Harewood, they felt they had a better chance of getting decent roles in Los Angeles. They have one child. 5. Jared Padalecki was born in San Antonio, Texas, to Sherri (Kammer), a teacher of English, and Gerald Padalecki, a tax accountant. He is an actor and comedy writer. Just. Romola Garai. His parents, Jeanne (Martyn) and Ronald Worthington, a power plant employee, moved the family to Australia when he was six months old, and raised him and his sister Lucinda in Warnbro, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia.... Alexander Johan Hjalmar Skarsgård was born in Stockholm, Sweden and is the eldest son of famed actor Stellan Skarsgård. He is an actor and director, known for The Help (2011), Up in the Air (2009) and Beside Still Waters (2013). His theater credits include Wendy Wasserstein's "Third" directed by Daniel Sullivan (Lincoln Center, NYC), Neil LaBute's "The Distance From Here" directed by David Leveaux (Almeida at King's Cross, London) and Tom ... On the big screen, Chatwin recently appeared in Warner Bros.' Dax Shepard-directed feature, CHIPS, in which he stars opposite Vincent D'Onofrio And Michael Pena. Here's every single one of them. With a promising new series, Riley's star is quickly on the rise.Riley Smith has most recently been cast to co-star in the CW's up and coming hit Nancy Drew. He was raised in Rockland, Massachusetts, attending Hebrew school as a child and graduating from Rockland High School in 1995. He is an actor, known for Reign (2013), Battlestar Galactica (2004) and Endgame (2011). 3. This Canadian/American artist already established a career in modeling and commercial acting when his love for art lead him behind the camera to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena for Film Directing and Photo. He has been married to Sophia Adella Luke since April 4, 1999. His parents are Italian immigrants, originally from Trentino, Northern Italy. She is an English actress-writer-director who has worked extensively ... 2. He has been married to Courtney Renee Raborg since January 4, 2003. His ... 2. Actor \| Unbroken. He has one sister named Rebecca and a half-sister named Stacy. His ancestry includes English, German, Finnish, Scottish, and ... Trey Farley was born on July 1, 1975 in Manila, Philippines. Best Male Actors Under 40 yrs old. 3. For most of his formative years, his father was an acclaimed actor in Europe but had not yet ... Christopher Robert Evans began his acting career in typical fashion: performing in school productions and community theatre.He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Lisa (Capuano), who worked at the Concord Youth Theatre, and G. Robert Evans III, a dentist. His father, Charles John Cooper, who was of Irish descent, was a stockbroker. Lucas's family quickly noticed, when he was at a very young age, that he had an affinity for ... Jack Yang has devoted the last 8 years of his life to acting, modeling and film. Mike Vogel was born on July 17, 1979 in Abington, Pennsylvania, USA as Michael James Vogel. This list of the best English actors working today ranks the top male Hollywood actors hailing from England, both from the big screen and on television. From the age of four, Josh knew that he wanted to be an actor. He is the brother of actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, who played his sister in Donnie Darko (2001). (And by "British… 40. Hayden grew up in Markham, Ontario, with siblings Kaylen, Hejsa, and ... Nico Tortorella is a native of Chicago Illinois. He was previously married to Alyssa Campinella. The Australian actor Alex O'Loughlin was born in August 1976.Alex started out his film career in 2004, when he starred in Oyster Farmer (2004) as Jack Flange. He spent most of his childhood growing up in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. In 2009 they played the character Razor in ABC Family's film "Twelve". 5. His great-grandfather, Armand Hammer, was a prominent tycoon and philanthropist who ran the company Occidental Petroleum for many decades. Henry's father, Colin Richard Cavill, a stockbroker, is of ... Chris Lowell was born on October 17, 1984 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. He is of Polish (father) and German, English, Scottish, and French (mother) descent. He is also known for playing Okwe in Dirty Pretty Things... An actor for all seasons and all kinds of roles (from dark, difficult characters to more loving ones) Paul Dano has an extensive body work that includes working with directors such as Paul Thomas Anderson, Steve McQueen, Dayton & Ferris, Ang Lee, Denis Villenueve and Paolo Sorrentino; acting with ... Iwan Rheon (born 13 May 1985) is a Welsh actor, singer and musician, best known for portraying Ramsay Bolton in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011), Simon Bellamy in the E4 series Misfits (2009) and Ash Weston in the ITV sitcom Vicious (2013).Rheon was born in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire. PeopleMaven is a people search engine. He attended Xavier High School and enrolled himself at the Stella... Ed Speleers was born on April 7, 1988 in Chichester, England as Edward John Speleers. They have one child. Carrying talent, the requisite good looks, and plenty of on-screen charisma, Jay Hernandez was born in Montebello, California, to Isis (Maldonado), an accountant and secretary, and Javier Hernandez, Sr., a mechanic. It's Floyd/Zeppelin. The series is set ... Xavier Samuel was born on December 10, 1983 in Hamilton, Victoria, Australia. His ... Ben Foster was born October 29, 1980 in Boston, Massachusetts, to Gillian Kirwan and Steven Foster, restaurant owners. He is the son of homemaker Linda and manufacturing engineer Rick. Actor \| England is home to many great actors and actresses from all the biggest fandoms. While studying film directing at NYU he interned for Wes Anderson who gave him his first feature film role as Bill Murray's loyal intern "Nico" in The Life Aquatic with ... Actor \| His godmother is actress Jamie Lee Curtis. Michael was raised in the town of Killarney, Co. Kerry, in south-west Ireland, where his family moved to when ... Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch was born and raised in London, England. If he's not top 5, then your mom. With his breakthrough performance as Eames in Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller Inception (2010), English actor Tom Hardy has been brought to the attention of mainstream audiences worldwide. Co-creator of "Morning Knight, Inc." with actress/writer/director Marianna Palka. His mother is an acting coach, actress, singer and concert pianist, while his father was an artist, set designer, opera singer and actor. They lived in several small towns until they finally settled in Tampere. His middle name, Bakari, means "noble promise" in Swahili. Another fine British actor who made a late-in-life breakthrough, Tom Wilkinson was best known as a TV bit-player until he scored an unexpected Oscar nomination for … He is the son of Donna (Wilson), a secretary, and Thomas Ray Gosling, a ... Tom Welling is probably best known for playing Clark Kent on the hit television series Smallville (2001).He was born Thomas Joseph Welling in Putnam Valley, New York, to Bonnie and Thomas Welling, who is a retired executive for General Motors. Chocolate Coffee Loaf, Bedlington Terrier For Sale Los Angeles, Bob Kersee Date Of Birth, Hyundai Blue Link In Creta, Red Door Apartments, Captain Blood Colorized, Ford Ecosport 2014 Specs Philippines, Bmw F800gsa For Sale, Speech Therapist For Adults Near Me, Houses For Sale Hanmer, british actors under 40 2020	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line38
__label__wiki	0.555446	0.555446	Ethos and Vision In leading Twyford CofE High School, my aim is to sustain an intellectually vibrant community which is true to its Christian identity whilst being inclusive and looking outward to the world. Twyford is a school characterised by high academic standards and a disciplined approach to study, but also a place where curiosity, creativity and community service are central to every child's experience. We are wholly committed to supporting the holistic development of students and promoting a positive approach to self-awareness and self-regulation as a core element of wellbeing. Twyford CofE High School is part of Twyford Church of England Academies Trust and our curriculum has been designed to support students of all abilities to be ambitious in their progression through school and on to future pathways. We offer an extensive extra-curricular programme which extends the school day and sustains breadth beyond taught courses and exam syllabuses. Teachers are very aware of the needs of students with SEND and care is taken to ensure access to the curriculum for these students. 6.6% of students in years 7-11 have EHC plans and there is an additionally resourced provision specialising in the support of Speech and Language development / ASD students. Careful thought has been given to the design of the Curriculum, ensuring all students complete a full NC KS3 programme and are encouraged to take facilitating subjects amongst their course choices at GCSE. The ambition of the school’s approach takes into account experience of progression pathways at post-16 and post-18. The school is very proud of achieving a 100% progression rate, with no students falling into the NEET category (Not in Education, Employment or Training) at post-16. This is thanks to a well-developed approach to Careers, Information, Advice and Guidance which closely aligns with the Pastoral Programme designed to deliver PSHE within the context of the strongly articulated Christian values of the school (see Ethos and Vision tab above). Twyford is a comprehensive school with a roll of just over 1600, including a Sixth Form of approximately 600 students. The sixth form offers a wide range of A-Levels however, as part of the Twyford CofE Academies Trust, students also have the option of progressing to a technical T-level curriculum, majoring on Digital Production, Design and Development or Laboratory Science at its partner school Ada Lovelace. Support with college applications, including some taster sessions, are arranged from Year 10 onwards for students wishing to study other specialist subjects. The majority of students from the sixth form progress to university taking a wide range of routes including competitive courses such as Medicine and Engineering at Oxbridge and top Russell group universities. We are equally proud of the students from our successful creative and technical post-16 offer (Music & Music Tech/Graphic Design/Art/Photography/Film and Drama) who go on to practical courses and training places in the creative industries. Mrs Karen Barrie Twyford became a church School in 1981, when the London Borough of Ealing sold the premises to the London Diocesan Board. The present School came into being largely as a result of a determined campaign by a group of local parents, a number of whom are still involved in supporting the School. In its 2012 Ofsted Inspection Twyford was praised as being an Outstanding School, at which the pastoral support and monitoring, the relationships between staff and students and the leadership of the school are all excellent. Developing Twyford to be the outstanding school it is today has been a great joy. The Twyford Trust takes as its motto: ‘I have come that you should have life and life in all its fullness’. The text is taken from John chapter 10 verse 10 and from this the Trust has created the 10:10 Ethic which is the principle that informs all Trust schools – irrespective of their different individual identities, intakes or admission criteria. We believe that there are three Core Values in our 10:10 Ethic: All individuals have God-given gifts which they can develop for the good of others All individuals do bad things sometimes but that it is not acceptable to believe that anyone has to stay in a ‘bad place’ All individuals can find their valued place within community The 10:10 Ethic is also often articulated as having the following positive disciplines: Know yourself Be an agent for good Understand weakness Accept Support Engage Fully At Twyford we wish to instil a love of learning. The curriculum is broad and balanced. The core subjects of Mathematics, English and Science provide a very secure foundation for progress. With each intake of new Year 7 students we aim to build immediately on their achievements at Key Stage 2. Setting in Maths, Science and Languages starts in Year 7 and in other subjects in Year 8. As students move up the school, their available options become increasingly varied. Our language curriculum is very well developed - at KS3 students study either French or Spanish with able linguists (half the year group) also studying Latin. In Year 8, more able linguists are offered German as a second modern foreign language. All students are then encouraged to study at least one Modern Language at GCSE (they choose from French, German or Spanish). Many take more than one language at GCSE and some elect to study Latin as an extra subject. At KS3 pupils have the opportunity to take part in a wide variety of trips to Normandy, Madrid, Black Forest and Verulamium. At KS4 the school organises trips to Barcelona and Paris and at KS5 students are supported to arrange bespoke exchange visits with students in France, Spain and Germany. In addition, our teachers have developed privileged links with primary schools across the borough and help to train teachers to teach French and Latin at KS2. All students take ICT, History, Geography, Music, Drama, PE, Art and Religious Education. Religious Education GCSE is taken one year in advance of other subjects and our success rate in this subject is particularly high. All students have ICT lessons and use computers as a learning tool in many subjects. A full programme of Personal, Social and Health Education and Citizenship is also followed by all students. As a Specialist Music College Twyford has a well established reputation throughout the local community. In 2011 it has been the lead partner within the newly established Ealing Music Partnership providing support with the development of ensemble music and music teaching across the Borough. Twyford's extensive programme of over 20 extra curricular ensembles has led to collaborations with BBC Songs of Praise, The World Service, The English Chamber Orchestra, The Mayor of London, St Paul's Cathedral, Ealing Youth Orchestra, The Royal Opera House, The Royal Albert Hall, Jazz FM, Trinity College, Streetaction, Inspire-works and Music for Youth. More recently the school organised and hosted the Ealing Youth Music Prom in association with Ealing Youth Music and amazing event featuring acts of over 500 students from 17 different schools across the borough. The Arts have a very high profile at the school. In Drama and Music students learn confidence in performance which enriches their ability to learn in all other subjects. The school also has an excellent reputation for a wide range of sports. PE lessons cover Netball, Gymnastics, Dance, Football, Hockey, Basketball, Cricket, Rugby and Athletics; with each sport entering teams into borough competitions.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line46
__label__wiki	0.807025	0.807025	Home > NEWS > Stars on TV / Buzz IU Opens Up to her Difficulties in Family Life Before Debuting Singer IU shared her hardships before she debuted in the recent episode of "Healing Camp." Jul 8, 2014 09:51 AM BST TAGㆍIU (Photo : KpopStarz) In the July 7th episode of SBS "Healing Camp," IU shared her hardships and trials in her family life before her debut. In an all-out interview, she frankly revealed that there was a great strain put on her at an early age when pressures financially resulted to difficult times for her family. She stated, “My father’s business project failed, and it meant that various members of my family ended up living in different places.” The singer was reminded that her reaction to a traumatic occasion when her mother asked her if she would prefer to live with her, or to go to stay with her father. “I told her I’d rather live alone than live with her,” IU said. “And it’s something I regret saying to this very day.” IU got to debut in a musical at the age of 15, when she released the mini album “Growing Up.” The singer is featured on a track for g.o.d’s comeback album, “Chapter 8.” Here is the video of IU's interview.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line47
__label__wiki	0.628914	0.628914	The Ax-Files - A Review of Stephen Donaldson’s Mystery Novels Gavrielle Perry (last updated: January 28 2004) UK: buy at Amazon US: buy at Amazon Omnibus edition of first three books UK: buy at Amazon US: not available UK: buy hardback at Amazon US: buy hardback at Amazon UK: buy paperback at Amazon US: buy paperback at Amazon The First Bit In his "Man Who...." series, Stephen Reeder Donaldson, giant of fantasy/SF, takes a rather unexpected incursion into the mystery genre. The books trace the story of Mick "Brew" Axbrewder, struck-off private investigator, and his partner Ginny Fistoulari. The books are set smack in the centre of some of the hoariest clichés of mystery fiction - the hardboiled alcoholic private eye, the mystery weekend where real murders occur - but are given a distinctly Donaldsonian twist. The first three books were initially published under the pseudonym Reed Stephens, and were out of print before being reissued under Donaldson's name. For the last book, Donaldson drops the pseudonym, and by the looks of things it's the last one in the series. Biting The Hand That Reeds You I feel very, very bad about this. When I couldn’t find the third in the series, Stephen Donaldson, who doesn’t know me from a lesser spotted gerbil, very kindly sent me the book from his own stock. (Name-dropping on a cosmic scale or what?) This was stupendously nice, and I wish I could repay him by giving the books a favourable review: I was certainly expecting to, as some of his other works are amongst my favourites of all time. But like these books, despite my best efforts, I cannot. If you feel faint at the sight of blood, read no further. Read At Your Own Risk This review contains major spoilers for all four books. You have been warned. THE MAN WHO KILLED HIS BROTHER The Man Who Killed His Brother kicks off the Axbrewder series. Mick "Brew" Axbrewder, a drunk racked with guilt after his accidental shooting of his brother, tries with his partner and sometime lover Ginny Fistoulari to find his vanished 13-year-old niece and solve a series of deaths of girls in similar circumstances. The book’s set in what seems to me, in my happy ignorance as a non-American, to be a vaguely New Mexican-ish town, Puerta Del Sol, which is dominated by a crime lord known with astonishing hokiness as El Señor. Unsurprisingly for a Donaldson opus, the plot’s a tad convoluted, but in essence Brew and Ginny discover that secretary of the school board Julian Kirke is implicated in press-ganging these girls into a prostitution ring and disposing of them when they’re no longer of use, during the solution of which Ginny gets her left hand blown off while holding a bomb out of a hospital window. No, really. In the middle of all this Brew saves a young Spanish woman from being raped and gets entangled with the Spanish community in general and El Señor’s outfit in particular. All of the Spanish stuff seems like pretty much of a gigantic red herring, but not so - Donaldson has a master plan which took several more books to work out. This man cannot write anything self-contained. (All right, then, except the short stories.) I’ve Been This Way Before I’d love to have had the chance to have read the first three books without knowing who the author was, as I’d like to know whether I’d have guessed it was Donaldson. I certainly hope I would have, as the books fairly shout their author from the rooftops. Donaldson prides himself on being able to vary his style to suit the particular piece, and there’s no doubt that he pulls this off here, but despite this there’s no mistaking the Donaldsonness of it all. First, there’s the themes. On unpacking the first book from its box, I roared with laughter - the cover line is "He’s a private eye with a public shame". I think this alone would have been enough to have tipped me off as to who the author was, so intense has his interest been in the concept of shame in his works. Here, Brew is driven by the shame of killing his brother, Ginny is driven by the shame of being less then a woman after she loses her hand, plus a buncha other pathological stuff. Brew is a flawed hero, as usual, on a journey towards redemption, as usual, and Ginny, as usual, is a strong woman but with some significant vulnerabilities. Another dead giveaway is the amount of suffering the characters go through, both physical, getting separated from body parts and ventilated by bullets, and psychological - in this book, Brew is racked with shame, Ginny is anxious and under stress, Lona is in pain, and on and on. And if these weren’t enough to give the game away, there’s the harping in this book on the theme to which Donaldson returns constantly: rape. Alathea and the other girls suffer multiple rapes; Brew prevents a rape; and there’s a slew of rape references: "...a violation as bad as any rape" "Next time, just ask me to rape the rest of their kids. It’d be easier." "The sun...gave the day a glare of futility - everybody in the city could go crazy, rape each other and drop dead, and it wouldn’t make one damn bit of difference to the sun" Some of the character depiction, too, occasionally reminds the reader of other of Donaldson’s characters, particularly from the Gap: Donaldson’s description of Ginny as "mad enough to chew steel" could have been lifted right out of a description of Min, and "it was a shark’s grin - eager and dangerous" sounds very reminiscent of Nick. And this phrase, changed to the third person, could have come direct from Angus: "Sometimes I wanted to kiss [her nose] so bad I had to grit my teeth. Now I wanted to hit it." Need I add, too, that there’s some obligatory clenching and unclenching going on. Ug-lee I greatly disliked all the Axbrewder books, but for different reasons each time. In this one, what I hated above all else was the incredibly unpleasant nature of the subject material. Alathea, Axbrewder’s niece, is thirteen years old when she is kidnapped and forced into prostitution and heroin addiction, as a string of other girls have been before her. She manages to escape the fate of her predecessors, who all ended up dead, but after what she’s been through it doesn’t seem like much of a deliverance. In addition, despite Brew and Ginny’s sleuthing efforts, Alathea manages to get away from her captors entirely as a result of her own efforts, which psychologically is pretty unsatisfying - okay, Brew and Ginny find the culprits, but Alathea had to rescue herself, and they couldn’t save her before her escape from an experience which (understatement extraordinaire) will scar her for the rest of her life. At the end of the book, her doctor is quoted as saying of Alathea, thirteen years old, heroin addicted, raped multiple times and still in a coma: "He thinks she’s going to be all right." I feel sooo much better now. As well as the fate of poor Alathea, there’s a truly sickening passage near the end of the book where one of the bad guys tortures the father of one of the girls with accounts of how much he enjoyed his thirteen year old daughter’s sexual favours, and Ginny’s hand being blown off is no moment of sunshine either. It’s not that this stuff is wrong per se (although it’s damned ugly), but to me it’s wrongly placed - entirely too dark for the genre as the worst part, Alathea’s ordeal, is unleavened by the catching of the criminals. The whole point of mysteries is that whatever's wrong in the fabric of the universe is put right by the end: it's a very moral genre in that respect. Donaldson doesn't repeat this mistake in the later books. Look Out Behind You! The sheer obviousness of the plot of this book is awe-inspiring. If you can’t guess the bad guy in this, you’re dumber than a bag of Klingons - the villain is the most cardboard I’ve seen in an æon, so black he’s virtually twirling his moustachios. (The only thing that might put you off the scent is a conviction that no-one so obvious could possibly really be the baddie.) The guy enslaves his secretarial staff in a reign of terror and utters such winsome opinions as "all women are bitches" and "by the time they reach junior high, all the girls in this town are nothing but little whores": he doesn’t have a single redeeming feature. I defy you to read this bit of dialogue and tell me you couldn’t guess from it that the speaker is the villain: "His voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through all the work noise in the room....he handled the paper gently enough, but in some strange way his manner made the movement look like an act of violence. ‘Type it again," he said. "This time, get it right.’ His voice was sarcastic enough to draw blood." (This sounds, by the way, very like a line from the Gap referring to Nick: "His voice wasn’t loud, but it slid down her spine like the tip of a blade..." Only Donaldson could make a typo this gothic.) The melodrama isn’t limited to the stock villain: other plot points also ladle it on, particularly the bomb scene. I mean, come on! A guy sneaks into a hospital room dressed as a doctor, but instead of clearing the room and quietly suffocating Alathea as any self-respecting murderer would, he plants a bomb? That might go off while he was still in the hospital? That might detonate accidentally while he was carrying it? It reminds me of those old Batman eps where the Joker instead of just shooting the guy ends up suspending him over a tank of shark-infested custard. And if that weren’t bad enough, Ginny electing to hold the bomb out the window - in her hand - totally defies belief. I could when reading this scene immediately think of half a dozen less galactically stupid ways of dealing with the bomb than this, and while Donaldson sheepishly acknowledges this at the beginning of the next book by having Brew ask himself why he didn’t think of using his belt to hold the bomb, this really isn’t good enough. (And again it’s incredibly ugly.) Besides all this, doesn’t it seem a little odd that Ginny’s hand is severed so neatly? I’m no physicist, but I would have thought that the blast, taking the line of least resistance back through the open window, would have done more to the rest of her than cover her with plaster dust. El Señor’s ordering of alcohol to be poured down Brew’s throat also stretches credibility to the breaking point; then there’s the cobwebbed plot device "meet me in the deserted x, and I’ll tell you everything - before I kill you." Good grief! Is anybody still using that? None of this stuff is necessarily wrong in itself, but to work it has to satisfactorily answer the question "why?", which it resoundingly fails to do. So, what else is there not to like? Let me count the ways. The Hangst Of It All Donaldson’s naming, usually his great strength, goes horribly wrong here. "Brew" Axbrewder is such an ugly name that it continually assaults the ear (my ex-husband called him "Brew Axe-Murderer"), and Ginny’s surname also has an unpleasant impact (fistula?). About the only names that do work are Alathea’s and Lona’s (Alathea’s mother, whose name accurately conveys her widowed state after being relieved of her husband by her brother-in-law). Many of the other names are nothing short of bizarre. I know Americans often have strange names, but Treddus Hangst? Martha Scurvey? Lawrence Smithsonian? Connie MOUSSE? Puh-leeeze. The cheesiness of El Señor I’ve already mentioned, but it pales into insignificance before the priceless name of the nightclub - El Machismo! - which brought tears to my eyes. If it wasn’t for the fact that Donaldson never seems to treat his work with anything less than utter seriousness, I’d conclude he was seriously taking the piss. (Incidentally, I haven't seen the reissued version, but my spies tell me that in it some of the names have been changed to make them less baroque: Ted for Treddus, for example. Huh.) Yeah, Right The whole thing’s just so damned unlikely. You could say this about a lot of plots, obviously; it depends on the skill of the writer as to whether the reader is willing to swallow events as presented, and Donaldson never succeeded in suspending my disbelief. It’s hard to say exactly why this is: it’s probably an amalgam of a number of factors. Certainly the high melodrama strains credibility, and the cardboard villain doesn’t help either, especially when he has dialogue as phoney as: "Stick around - we’ll put our feet up, have a few drinks, and tell each other secrets." The fact that one of the baddies, Rinlassen, only appears very late in the piece so that we know nothing and care less about him also contributes. Rinlassen’s evilness is, if possible, drawn in even broader strokes than that of the main villain, and his function of obligingly explaining the outstanding plot issues before getting bumped off is so obvious that I mentally picture him with "exposition device" tattooed on his forehead. There’s never any explanation, either, for why these guys are so evil - they’re just bad to the bone and that’s it. This Is A Job For Supereditor Technically, the book is flawed in a number of ways. Pacing, normally one of Donaldson’s strengths, is seriously off here - Ginny’s hand being blown off feels like the climax of the book, yet there’s a heap of stuff to get through after that, much of which is hard to take in as we’re still reeling from what happened to Ginny. As I’ve already said, exposition is sometimes clumsy (the school principal laboriously and gratuitously explaining the school’s computer system to Brew and Ginny is a further example of this). There’s one obvious error which bespeaks careless editing: a car is referred to as a "Citröen-Maseratti" (yes, with two t’s). Dialogue is frequently stilted, and secondary characters are either one-dimensional (the villains) or skipped altogether (Alathea), the latter being a very serious mistake indeed. We first meet Alathea in her absence, and when she does appear in person she’s in a coma, so her deliverance falls pretty flat; it also gives the entire book a curiously gratuitous feel, as we can care about Alathea’s fate only in the abstract. Now Read On The fact that Donaldson plants stuff in this book which won’t be paid off till later books creates problems for the first-time reader: the expectation of the genre is that each book is more or less self-contained, so that much of the Spanish stuff planted here which will be paid off in the later books seems like an irrelevant distraction. Genre fiction has conventions which are often quite restrictive, and the author violates them at his peril. Which One Was He Again? As well as the stock secondary characters, even the main characters here never believably come to life. Efforts at characterisation are frequently hamfisted: Brew’s chief distinguishing trait, his size, is hammered with tiresome repetitiveness, and I gritted my teeth (or, more fittingly, clenched my jaw) when Brew referred every time to Ginny’s car, an Oldsmobile, as "the Olds": this was an artificial and maddening device whose irritation factor increased with exposure, of which there was plenty - three references per page in places. Brew’s alcohol-soaked self-pity - "She wanted me to quit drinking. Completely. Forever. That was something I couldn’t do. I wasn’t worth it" - rapidly becomes extremely tedious, especially when it’s hammered home repeatedly. (The shooting, incidentally, was five years before. Get over it, dude.) Ginny is marginally more interesting, as while she does engage in yawnsome recriminations over Brew’s transgressions, she at least has some drive, although any character allowing her hand to be distributed over the greater metropolitan area is not going to keep my respect for long. Overall, though, neither really captures the interest, and you end up reading faster and faster so that the whining will stop. Of All The Bars In Puerta Del Sol, She Had To Walk Into Mine The entire scenario is heavily clichéd: you’ve seen a million films, you’ve read a million novels. Now this has to be deliberate: nobody could write a novel about an alcoholic private eye, especially with the hard-boiled tone Donaldson uses, without consciously tipping his or her cap to the tradition of the genre. But because it is a cliché, the reader expects a lot to overcome the hoariness of the situation: the use of the cliché as a base for an innovative new direction, an inversion of what’s expected, or whatever. While Donaldson undoubtedly gives the novel his own twist, nevertheless the material never rises above the clichéd situation. This was perhaps the most serious disappointment of the book for me. Overall, the combination of unlikely, melodramatic plot, dull characters and an uninvolving mystery meant that to my astonishment I found that this book was actually boring, something I never expected to feel about a Donaldson work. I doubt had I not known it was a Donaldson that I would have read on to the end. THE MAN WHO RISKED HIS PARTNER After disliking The Man Who Killed His Brother so heartily, I picked up the next one in the series with hope - surely this one would be an improvement? Alas, it was not to be - this book made me begin to regard the first as a masterpiece. I found the plot of this one so tedious and lacking in credibility that I can’t even bring myself to give a summary. Suffice it to say that Brew and Ginny are hired as protection by Reg Haskell, banker, who turns out after an increasingly dull series of twists to be himself the bad guy. In case Ginny’s hand being blown off wasn’t stupid enough, Brew gets shot in the gut after being dragged by Ginny outside Reg’s house within range of a bullet. From Bad... I disliked this book so much I hardly know where to start. Firstly, the book starts with a cheat. Donaldson is balancing the demands of a continuing series with the need for closure at the end of each book in the series, and the only way to achieve both in this instance is through some very unsatisfactory sleight of hand. At the end of The Man Who Killed His Brother, Donaldson implies a rapprochement between Brew and Ginny: "I walked over to Ginny, bent down to her. Gave her the best kiss I had in me...she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back. Hard. When we stopped I was grinning like a crazy man..." However, the beginning of The Man Who Risked His Partner instantly belies this rosy implication: Brew and Ginny are living together, but mostly because Ginny apparently decides that after the loss of her hand she needs someone to take care of her, and the situation between them is an armed standoff. Brew and Ginny swap places in this one, and it’s Ginny’s turn to wallow in her own misery, feeling ugly, undesirable and bitter at the loss of her hand. It isn’t any more interesting than when Brew does it, either. In case you hadn’t noticed that she’s not exactly proceeding about her business with a smile on her lips and a song in her heart, Donaldson helpfully underlines this whenever possible: "She’s going to pieces in front of you." "Right in front of me, she was coming apart at the seams." Just to make sure, Donaldson drags out the anvil: "We’ve traded places...now I’m the one who sits around and drinks." Ouch! Where did that come from? ...To Worse The plot itself simply defies belief. Donaldson uses the feeble excuse of Ginny’s disintegration to push her into some highly unbelievable behaviour in order to move the plot forward: she gets drunk at Haskell’s house when she’s supposed to be guarding him, which I don’t buy for a minute, and her dragging Brew outside so that he can get shot is the most specious plot device I’ve ever seen. Reg Haskell (pronounced "Regg", which annoyed me all the way through) is appallingly drawn: his character never makes any sense at all. He gives Brew and Ginny an ever-changing series of explanations for why he needs their protection: there are so many of these that by the time the real one comes along the reader couldn’t care less. Donaldson tries to paint Haskell as irresistible to women, but the reason for this really is a mystery, as he invariably comes across as a prize jerk. His dialogue is unbelievably phoney ("it was new and exciting and dangerous"), and his reactions to situations are so bizarre that I wouldn’t have been surprised if at the end he was beamed up to the mothership: for example, after telling Brew and Ginny he doesn’t want them to speak to a certain character, Haskell on finding out they couldn’t talk to him instead of being relieved "managed to look crestfallen". What? After a valet parker is blown up (yes, more explosives), Haskell is "grinning like a little boy after a successful raid on the cookie jar" - perhaps the most stupid villain alive, although not as stupid as Brew and Ginny, who take about a book longer than the rest of us to figure out what the hell he’s up to. The main plot point, that Haskell is in fact a gambler, is so transparent that I was dumbfounded when it was presented as a revelation: in fact I had to go back and check, so convinced was I that Donaldson must have spelled it out in so many words. Well, he doesn’t quite, but if you can’t guess from this on page 45: "He had to go away for a business trip one weekend, and when he came back he was excited. He said he’d gotten involved in some kind of investment and made a lot of money", you’re definitely playing a few kings short of a deck. In case that’s not enough, though, Donaldson points out that Haskell is a member of Jousters, a bridge club whose members play for high stakes, and even tosses in a scene at the club showing Haskell’s winning playing methods. (Donaldson, clearly a bridge player himself, throws in a self-indulgent and mind-numbingly dull card scene which is entirely gratuitous and, if you don’t play bridge, completely devoid of meaning. Ian Fleming he ain’t.) When the great discovery actually comes out, Brew muses: "‘Where do you think he goes to invest his money over the weekend? He goes to...Las Vegas.’ That surprised me in several different ways at once." Surprised you? Babe, if you had a licence you should be handing it in. But At Least There’s...Oh, No, There Isn’t As well as the bizarre villain and the transparent and tedious plot, none of the rest is any good either. There’s an incredibly silly, extraneous and annoying subplot involving a woman inexplicably hooked on Reg and her hilariously cartoony boyfriend, a mercenary, whose wild-eyed stalking of Reg hardly seems characteristic of a professional killer. Characters’ reactions are way overboard for the situation: "‘Watch your mouth, sucker, I said.’ Ginny said, "Heel, Brew.’ She sounded amused. I had my hands locked into fists so I wouldn’t hit her." (Bit over the top, isn’t it? What a guy.) There’s a money laundering explanation that clunks horribly, and Donaldson shows off his strange dental obsession (I’d give my back teeth, she still made my back teeth hurt, I gave him a grin full of teeth and malice, the last one straight out of the Gap). And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, capping it all off is the lurid melodrama of Brew struggling around Puerta Del Sol righting injustice with his guts full of lead. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. Sigh. Donaldson has planted himself here so firmly at the extremes that there’s nowhere else to go, and the balance tilts inexorably from high drama to risibility. (Ginny, incidentally, reminds me even more of Min in this one: her features are described as looking as if they were moulded over iron, not bone, and "the muscles at the corners of her eyes were clenched white", the latter containing an extra bonus "clench" as well.) While the first book had a lot of faults, this one, by virtue of its dreadful plot and characterisation, is awe-inspiringly terrible. It’s so hard to pick just one of these books, but of the four this might be very well the worst, by a (broken) nose. THE MAN WHO TRIED TO GET AWAY The third outing in the series, The Man Who Tried To Get Away, is set right in the heart of traditional mystery territory: the murder camp. Brew, still only approximately in one piece after his shooting, and Ginny are hired as private investigators "for the insurance" and to give the guests a thrill that there are professionals on the job: they take the job to get away from continuing bogeyman El Señor, who here and in the next book has pretty much become a McGuffin. The camp takes place in an isolated spot in the mountains, and it won’t astonish you to know that bad weather cuts it off completely, also bringing the phone lines down (why doesn’t anyone ever have a cellphone in these situations?) Much to nobody’s surprise, the murders become real and Brew and Ginny must find the killers before they all end up getting bumped off. The three books are supposed to run on from each other fairly closely in time, but in fact this one, published in 1990, was written some years after the second, which was published in 1984: the first was initially published in 1980, and it contains many markers that place it at this time, from the controversy over introducing a computerised records system to the quaint pre-AIDS-era "swinging singles apartment block". I don’t know what broke the drought, but I really wish it hadn’t. How Very Tarantino Okay, now this one is a deliberate and overt homage: Donaldson makes this obvious by his knowing references "You know, this is like one of those locked room puzzles" "That’s the way they do it in most novels", not to mention two proselytising lectures on the nature of the mystery novel. But acknowledging the source just isn’t enough - a cliché with a few self-parodying references is still a cliché. Have The Two Of You Considered Counselling? Again, this novel is full of horrible things. Perhaps most importantly, the relationship between Brew and Ginny is at its most tiresome here: as Brew says, "everything was twisted". You said it, buster. The novel once more starts with a cheat - The Man Who Risked His Partner ends with a state of peace between them ("I put my arms around her and welcomed her back") and in addition Brew is safe for the moment because of the heat on El Señor, but when The Man Who Tried To Get Away begins mere days later, Ginny’s recovery makes Brew resent her all over again and he starts getting phone calls saying someone’s out to get him. Their relationship at this point is just plain stupid: Ginny pretends to reassure Brew, and he pretends to believe her, which makes no sense at all. Ginny’s pretence is "to save him stress": yeah, right - being afraid an assassin’s after you and being told not to worry your pretty little head about it is the ultimate in relaxation. Ginny then arranges this job to whisk Brew out of the clutches of El Señor, but Brew, the big lunk, doesn’t want to leave the hospital as he hates being "nursemaided" and resents Ginny for the fact that she’s protecting him. What, he’d rather be dead? This man is too stupid to live. Frankly, by this stage I was kinda hoping El Señor himself would burst through the door and put us all out of our misery. The high angst continues, getting increasingly irritating as it goes along. Brew discovers they’d been recommended for the job by Lawrence Smithsonian (sic), whom neither of them has any reason to trust. But does he tell Ginny? Nah, he’s far too macho for that. "After all, why was I here? Not to get away from El Señor - that was Ginny’s concern for me, not my reason for coming. I was here to protect her from El Señor. And to start taking care of myself. So I wouldn’t be vulnerable to her." Brew continues to hammer this specious protect her/protect against her theme (which again is familiar from the Gap) until you want to scream "Patch it up or get out!" There’s a new but no more interesting twist in the relationship later: jealousy. Brew gets a crush on Queenie, a female guest, and Ginny briefly gets entangled with a guy who later turns out to be one of the murderers. (Some PI you are, babe.) In between his heart going pit-a-pat over Queenie, Brew moons pathetically: "she didn’t love me anymore, and she couldn’t treat me like a real partner, but she was still Ginny Fistoulari." I felt like kicking him in his wounded stomach myself for his hangdog self-pity, especially when for no discernable reason other than it being useful for the plot he stops taking his antibiotics, ending up with a massive and well-deserved infection. I was hoping he’d die of it, but I suppose that was too much to ask. Are You Sure It Wasn’t The Butler? So, Brew and Ginny are annoying, but that doesn’t matter because of the brilliant plot, right? Wrong - the plot falls down all over the place. The most heinous crime is the lack of a convincing reason for the murders (apart from the ones carried out by the professional killer. Confusing, no?). Donaldson’s favourite theme of the emotional cripple returns here in spades: in the first book, it was Brew, stuck in a guilt loop over the shooting of his brother, who filled this part, and in the second, mourning over the loss of her hand, it was Ginny; in this one, they both join in the chorus together with the murderers, whose incredibly pointless modus operandi is to find emotional cripples, sleep with them then do them in for, apparently, the fun of it. Any book in the reading of which the reader, having discovered whydunnit, exclaims "That’s all?" has lost the plot somewhere along the way. In addition, the notion of the murderers carrying out their nefarious deeds in this setting is impossible to swallow - in such an isolated place there’s a very limited number of suspects and they couldn’t possibly have hoped to get away with it. Reeson, the so-called professional killer, doesn’t make a great fist of it either; if I were trying to murder someone, I think I could do better than shooting someone who was holding someone else in front of them, not to mention putting rat poison down the chimney. (I swear I am not making this up.) The puzzle at the end, too, is as dull as one of those "two trains are approaching each other..." things. There are a couple of charming sentences in there that effortlessly capture the essence of the plot’s silliness: "One of them’s a hit man who’s after me. He shot Cat and you, and broke Simon out of the wine cellar, and put rat poison down the chimney. The other killed Mac and doped Cat’s drink and stabbed you." Bwa-hahahahahaha! Who needs Prozac? These sentences are an instant ticket out of depression. It’s Because I, Um..... Donaldson has the characters doing stupid things in order to move the plot forward: for everyone to be safe, all they have to do is stay together in one room, as they all agree. But do they follow their own eminently sensible advice? Not a bit of it - they split up, thus enabling Ginny to get stabbed. Houston, short and weedy, flings himself combatively at the six-foot-whatever hulking Brew. The characters lock the suspected murderer in an isolated place when they could easily have restrained him where they could see him, thus inevitably allowing the real murderer to kill him. Brew outs the killer, a professional in these matters, to his face. Smart. So it’s weak on the fundamentals, but it’s also weak on the little points, too: Brew and Ginny are supposed to be there for "security", but all they ever do in that line is request that some guns be locked away (about which such a heavy-handed fuss is made that you can see the signals for miles). Ginny punches Brew in his wounded stomach, which while I admit the considerable provocation is pretty unlikely behaviour. And by the way, isn’t her shooting a guy in the face for breaking her nose a bit over the top? Brew's no better, either. At the point where he hits Ginny with all the force he can muster he and I parted company permanently. The guests know that two of their number are actors and two PI’s, but they don’t know who: despite the need to conceal their identities, Ginny introduces herself and Brew, after having their names all over the paper in the El Señor affair, by their real names. Smithsonian drops Brew and Ginny in it in the previous book, and after finding Smithsonian set them up for this job, does Brew grab Ginny and beat a hasty retreat? Oh, noooooo. He can handle it. (As if.) Ginny in hanging around with a guy whose machismo constantly exposes them to danger clearly has a death wish. The guests are all over each other before they even reach the camp - in the minibus yet! Very likely. Some of the names are eyebrow-raising - the most smirksome is Cat Reverie, not to mention a woman whose chief distinguishing characteristic is her religion who’s named (clunk!) Faith. None of the characters breathe, and some are drawn very crudely: Houston is a walking cliché of a Texas good ol’ boy and Queenie’s so relentlessly nice she’s like a tidal wave of saccharine. Donaldson can’t resist the odd bit of proselytising: "She doesn’t have much patience for men who like to blow away innocent animals and call it sport". Hell, I couldn’t agree with her more, but I don’t have much patience with having this kind of lecture shoved at me. There was a mini-sermon on gambling in the previous book, too, which annoyed me just as much, even though I’ve been to Las Vegas three times and only ever put two quarters in a slot machine. (I got five back, too. I’m thinking of retiring on it.) The tone of the book is curiously uneven - from angst factor ten at the beginning, there’s a lighter, almost humorous tone when they get to the camp that sits oddly with the rest of the agonyfest. Some of the dialogue is lurid beyond belief, from Sue-Ann’s phoney dialogue à la Reg Haskell ("we’ll all have loads of fun"), the murderer’s completely unnatural: "Come over here any time you feel the need to get away. We’ll do our best to tell each other the truth" through Lara’s squirmy "If you let me, I would sell my soul for you" to Cat’s completely over the top: "I like men. No...that’s not quite right. I like strength. I like muscle and toughness." Strewth. I know she’s supposed to be one of the actors, but steady on. The one I can barely read without peeking at it through my fingers, though, is "She wanted you to be male. She wanted to revel in your maleness. That made her a woman, a real woman." This kind of stuff just about gets by in the SF/fantasy works, but here it just makes me want to crawl under the sofa. Presumably the Gap series was somewhere around at the time this came out, and there’s quite a lot of leakage in this one. Any of the following would feel quite at home in the Gap: "By this time, Reeson’s scowl looked positively joyous." "They must have been clenched before.." "Her voice sounded like her pallor, like she’d used up her courage a while ago." "Even Maryanne nodded, doing her best not to laugh - or to wail." "His eyes were full of fight instead of ruin." Surprise! There’s a rape reference: "What kind of people do you think come to my mystery camps? Rapists?". Given that the remark is in reference to guns being locked up, this hardly seems appropriate. And again comes the theme of violence towards women; not only does Brew smack Ginny around, but one of the characters is involved with a sadist: "When he’s scared, he wants to do things to me...what he wants to do hurts. It hurts a lot. Sometimes I think it’s going to be more than I can bear." There’s that weird dental thing again: "She was steady and straight, and I liked her so much my back teeth hurt". Well, my back teeth hurt, too, but for an entirely different reason. THE MAN WHO FOUGHT ALONE Well, here we are again. The fourth book in the series, and this time it's published under Donaldson's name instead of the Reed Stephens pseudonym. In what strikes me as a pretty cynical marketing exercise, nowhere on the jacket does it mention that the book is part of a series. The ploy is clearly designed to catch those of Donaldson's SF and fantasy fans - the majority, from my experience - who don't know about the Reed Stephens books, and frankly, it stinks. Although Donaldson puts in a bit of backstory about Brew shooting his brother, on its own the book just doesn't make enough sense. If I'd bought this in the expectation of a stand-alone novel, I'd be feeling pretty puzzled, not to mention ripped off. (Actually, I didn't buy it at all. I was reluctantly planning to buy the softback when the hardback popped up on the new release shelves at the library. Lucky, eh?) So what's it like, then? Well, at the beginning I was feeling quite optimistic: it was less baroque than the earlier books, and although the familiar teeth-gnashing irritation with Brew came flooding back after the first few pages, the book bade fair to be a step up on the other three. But alas, this was not to last. It's bad. It's very bad. And like the first three, it's bad in its own unique way. And Not A Lot Of People Know That Write what you know. That's what they say, isn't it? And in the main, it's good advice. Placing your novel against a background you're familiar with can add a richness of texture it's hard to get any other way. But. But, but, but. What the how-to-write books hardly ever mention is the potential downside: if you're too much in love with your "what you know" background, it can end up overrunning the book. Even worse, your own fascination with the material may blind you to the fact that it won't necessarily be quite as gripping for the reader. And that's a large chunk of what's wrong with this book. Donaldson, a student of Shotokan, is clearly spellbound by the martial arts scene. Fair enough: it's interesting stuff. But there's just far too much of it here: the plot is constantly stalled in neutral as character after character laboriously ladles on the exposition. The opening scenes at the tournament are a particularly egregious example of this. Brew obligingly trots about asking endless questions, but the fact that the answers come from several different people can't disguise the fact that all that's happening is one long lecture. I was hoping that once the initial dollops of exposition were out of the way, we could get on with the book. Sadly, though, it goes on and on and on just about through to the end, most of it connected to the plot tangentially at best. And as well as the information overload, there's a profoundly irritating arc that Brew goes through. First, he spends a lot of time wondering why anybody would want to get involved in martial arts. Then he gets involved in a fight, some of the blows he receives hurt and he starts thinking there might be something in it after all. Finally - good God, what a surprise - he ends up as a convert. It's all so predictable it makes you want to hurl the book across the room. The "bridge is fun, so a bridge-playing scene is bound to be interesting" fiasco in The Man Who Risked His Partner was bad enough, but at least that was short. This suffocates the entire book. The Plot Thinnens As you'd expect, so much time devoted to martial arts description doesn't leave a great deal of space for an actual plot. And what there is of one is lousy. As a mystery, it's an utter failure: the bad guy's obvious from very early on, which makes the whole thing fairly pointless. Even more unforgivably, Donaldson has him explaining everything, for absolutely no reason, to Brew at the end. Gah! And if that weren't bad enough, many of the plot events are unlikely to the point of risibility. Despite being afraid for his life, Brew agrees to go somewhere unknown at night with Sternway just so that Sternway can "show him where he gets his credibility". Um... The big fight scene in the dojo at the end is as spurious as it is improbable. And there are far too many "put up yer dukes" scenes, most overblown and dull to boot. I dunno, maybe it's a girl thing, but all that macho stuff just make me want to giggle - when I'm not yawning, that is. There are other plot annoyances, too. Brew's assumption on no evidence that Ginny is sleeping with Marshal is exasperating, as are his "intuitions" that he doesn't share with the reader. The fight club scene was very unfortunate given the recent movie covering the same ground. And how come when Brew continues to go for his gun after being told to freeze by the police he doesn't get shot? Overall, the plot's transparent, stagnant and loaded down with unnecessary exposition. There's too much yapping; what action there is isn't interesting enough; and very little of it passes the believability test. Not a good look. Ees Just Zis Guy, You Know? It's ironic that martial arts are about "perfection of character", because Donaldson's characters here are staggeringly weak. As I said in my review of his Gap books, by Orson Scott Card's "milieu, ideas, characters, events" taxonomy Donaldson seems most interested in ideas, but that doesn't mean he can't write character: some of his characters in other works are among the most vivid I've ever read. Here, though, that's just not happening. Brew, the narrator, is pretty much as he was in the previous books: self-dramatising and riddled with self-pity. It's often hard to like the lead characters in Donaldson's books, but here it's for entirely the wrong reasons. I couldn't stand Brew three books ago and I still hate him now. The gut wound he got two books back is still around, but here it's gradually healing and he manages to be effective against the bad dudes in spite of it (spot the Thematic Significance!) He finishes up about as balanced as he's ever going to get, but I'd still avoid him at a party: he'd either bore me into a coma or I'd end up throttling him. As for Brew's relationship with Ginny, which has formed the backdrop to all of the books, it's been poorly handled all along and this book is no exception. After all the Olympic-level angsting we've been through about it, in this book it's as if Donaldson's suddenly got as tired of it as the rest of us. Where the killers' motivation in the previous book was a "is that all?" moment, here Brew and Ginny's relationship gets the honours. Unfortunate, not to mention psychologically unsatisfying. Ginny appears only in silly cameos, Brew while occasionally flagellating himself about her doesn't let that stop him from getting involved with someone else, and Donaldson ties it all up at the end in a neat little let's-be-friends package which must have mystified the reader under the impression the book was a stand-alone. Not with a bang, but a whimper. So to speak. As with the previous mysteries, the secondary characters don't seem even slightly real, and their motivations and actions are frequently nothing short of bizarre - when they're not so generic you can't tell them apart. Marshal, for example, is improbably nice to Brew no matter what a sour bastard Brew is, and says he hired Brew and Ginny because of their knack of finding "real cases", which he's jealous of. Huh? Deborah is an even more unlikely character: after knowing Brew for approximately five minutes, she sits him down, freely confesses how she operates, gives him the Cat Reverie speech ("I like sex a lot... I like men who really are men" - as opposed to hamsters, presumably), then proposes a shag. Hmm, sounds more like the Readers' Letters column to me. The flirtation scenes that follow are, quite simply, excruciating. "She gave a throaty laugh that made me want to tear her clothes off"? Makes me want to tear his arms off. Brew refers to Deborah's "incomprehensible eagerness" for him: damned right it's incomprehensible. As with all the other relationships in this book, their relationship has no psychological truth to it at all. Brew's relationship with Bernie is also irritating. Brew is supposed to care enough about Bernie's death to go out of his way to find his killer, and there's a heart-tugging scene in Bernie's apartment with Brew making promises to Bernie's dead wife to reinforce this, but it just doesn't add up. Bernie is a sub-Chandler exposition device whom Brew's only actually met a couple of times, and all the staring at the dead wife's photograph seems vastly overblown. As for Sternway, he really crystallises what's wrong with the book's characters. With his high kicks, his feral grin and his "you cut me!" Sternway reminded me sharply at times of Nick Succorso, yet there's an ocean of difference between the two. Nick's a fascinating character, so real he leaps off the page, whereas Sternway, a tenth carbon, is simply unbelievable. Donaldson can do it, so why doesn't he? What else? Well, Donaldson's certainly keen to hit you over the head with the thematic stuff: he hammered on the sun/rain and light/dark metaphors until I wanted to scream. He also made the point three times that if Brew'd been back in Puerta Del Sol he would have been able to get information from his contacts. I heard you the first time! And I was annoyed by the names of the schools being in italics for no discernable reason, too. And what about the usual suspects? As with the previous books, the bizarre names are present and correct: Beatrix Amity, Cloyd (tee hee) Hamson, Carliss Swilley ... Now, get your notebooks out, because we're going to check off the list. Ready? Clenched? Tick. Wailed? Tick. Without transition? Oh, yeah. Tick, tick, tick. Rape, shame, threats, malice, ire, back teeth hurting, chagrin, bile, made me want to weep - they're all there. Donaldson prides himself on being able to vary his style, but his vocabulary's quite another matter. He does throw the odd new one in here, though, thrashing "strain" and "poster boy". Argh. Why go on? It's too depressing. The Bit At The End So, there you have it - four bad books by a writer nothing short of brilliant in other genres. My expectations were probably higher for these books than they would have been approaching someone else’s mysteries for this very reason, and the disappointment is consequently keener. Perhaps Donaldson’s brilliance elsewhere is the key reason for his failure here. His writing is all about extremes, and these books are no exception; this is often an uneasy fit with the mystery genre, as things that sit comfortably within his more operatic works often seem plain silly in a real world setting. The angst factor is just too high - and too sustained - to be believable, and characters whose traits engage the heart and mind completely in the world of the fantastic seem overdrawn and lacking in credibility in a world we recognise. Themes that have served him well elsewhere here seem overblown: they weigh down and smother the slightness of the material. Craftsman, stick to your lathe.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line54
__label__wiki	0.753264	0.753264	Page revised in October 2021. - Tongeren (Atuatuca Tungrorum) (heads of Ambiorix at Tongeren and of Julius Caesar at Arles) You may wish to see an introductory page to this section first. (left) Statue of Ambiorix, a Gallic chieftain who opposed Caesar's conquest of the region opposite the Collegiate Church of Our Lady; (right) interior of the church Tongeren is a town of the Bishoprick of Liege (a state of the Holy Roman Empire, similar to those at Cologne, Trier and Mainz) situated on a little river. This is a very ancient town, being the Tungrorum Oppidum of the Romans, and a very considerable place in their time. The town is mentioned by Julius Caesar, Tacitus and Pliny. (..) The great church is a handsome Gothic structure, and has a dean and twenty-two canons belonging to it. Thomas Nugent - The Grand Tour - 1749 Caesar, having divided his forces into three parts, he sent the baggage of all the legions to Aduatuca. That is the name of a fort. (..) The Sigambri (..) cross the Rhine in ships and barks; (..) they arrive at the frontiers of the Eburones, surprise many who were scattered in flight, and get possession of a large amount of cattle, of which barbarians are extremely covetous. Allured by booty, they advance further; neither morass nor forest obstructs these men, born amid war and depredations; they inquire of their prisoners in what part Caesar is; they find that he has advanced further, and learn that all the army has removed. Thereon one of the prisoners says (..) "In three hours you can reach Aduatuca; there the Roman army has deposited all its fortunes; there is so little of a garrison that not even the wall can be manned, nor dare any one go beyond the fortifications." (..) The Germans leave in concealment the plunder they had acquired; they themselves hasten to Aduatuca. (..) They endeavor to force an entrance and encourage one another not to cast from their hands so valuable a prize. (..) The Germans, despairing of taking the camp by storm, because they saw that our men had taken up their position on the fortifications, retreated beyond the Rhine with that plunder which they had deposited in the woods. (..) Caesar pointed out that fortune had exercised great influence in the sudden arrival of their enemy; much greater, in that she had turned the barbarians away from the very rampart and gates of the camp. Julius Caesar - The Gallic Wars - Book VI - Translated by W. A. McDevitte and W. S. Bohn Aduatuca or atuatuca was most likely a Gallic word for fortified camp; Tongeren was quoted in Roman sources as Atuatuca (or Civitas) Tungrorum, but this is unlikely to indicate that it actually stood on the site of the fort mentioned by Caesar. In the introductory page you can see some Pre-Roman gold coins which were found near the town. (above) Romanesque cloister adjoining the Collegiate Church; (below) details of its capitals Very early it was made a bishop's see (..); but the bishoprick was removed from hence to Maestricht, and afterwards to Liege and now the town has little or no vestiges of its former grandeur. Nugent Tongres is a very ancient city of 6000 Inhab. The principal Church was the first dedicated to the Virgin on this side of the Alps. The existing Gothic edifice dates from 1240, but the convent behind was built in the 10th or 11th cent., and is the eldest of the kind in the country. John Murray III - Hand-book for Travellers on the Continent - 1858 At Murray's time Tongeren was part of the Kingdom of Belgium which was created in 1830; today it is part of the Flemish Region, which is one of the components of the Federal State of the Kingdom of Belgium. Bishops of Tongeren are recorded in the IVth century and according to tradition the Collegiate Church was built on the site of a chapel of that period. Teseum Museum (Treasury of the Collegiate Church and Archaeological Site): (above-left to right) fragment of a Column to Jupiter portraying Helios; dedicatory inscription to Jupiter Dolichenus; altar to the Three Matrons; (below-left) evidence of hypocaust (heating system); (below-right) apse of a Roman basilica Highly advanced archaeological excavations under the Collegiate Church in 1999-2008 unearthed much more than the site of an early church as they found parts of a civilian neighbourhood in the centre of the ancient town which included a bath establishment, houses, a Column to Jupiter and altars similar to those which can be seen in many Roman towns along the Rhine. In September 2018 the site, which is very evocative, was open to the public. Teseum: townhouses with frescoes Two IInd century townhouses were identified and the lower parts of their walls still retained evidence of paintings. It is now generally thought that the town was founded by the Romans in Augustan age, perhaps 10 BC, as the capital of the region inhabited by the Tungri. The latter most likely replaced the Eburones, the rebellious Gallic nation of Ambiorix. Tacitus mentions Tungrian cohorts in the Roman legions. The economic development of the town led to the construction of proper urban houses which were decorated with typical Roman paintings on red and black backgrounds. Roman towers in Caesarlaan The construction of city walls in many Roman towns in Gaul is dated second half of the IIIrd century when a state of military anarchy weakened the defences of the Empire and even towns very far from the border were at risk of being raided. The walls protected a reduced part of the settlements, e.g. at Bagacum Nerviorum (Bavay) and Vesunna (Périgueux) and were usually built with materials from the abandoned neighbourhoods. The Roman walls of Tongeren instead surround a very large area and they do not show evidence of reused material. Roman walls; they are almost entire in the western part of the town The construction of the walls is dated early IInd century AD. They might have been built at the suggestion of Emperor Hadrian who visited the region in 122. In his many travels the Emperor inspected the legions, attended military exercises, e.g. at Lambaesis, and made recommendations for the defence of the Empire. Tongeren was relatively close to the Rhine border (see a map of the region) and it was linked by a road to Castra Vetera (Xanten), a key fortress on the river; the Emperor might have thought that Tongeren could provide a second line of defence. As a matter of fact the Romans did not develop a defence-in-depth strategy with tragic consequences in 406 when, profiting from the fact that the Rhine was frozen, bands of Vandals, Alans and Suebi crossed the river near Mainz and gained control of its western bank. They were followed by their whole tribes and they moved unopposed into the inner regions of Gaul. Tumulus at Koninksem, in the western outskirts of Tongeren There are also now remaining the ruins of some of their temples and other monuments of antiquity. Nugent Koninksem means king's residence and the name of the village most likely derived from two large burial mounds which are similar to that at Nennig in the Mosel Valley. They had most likely an external facing of stone, similar to those of the mausoleums of Cecilia Metella and Lucilio Peto in Rome; Koninksem retains also evidence of a Roman villa. (above) Partial reconstruction of a Roman temple near the walls; (below) what was actually discovered Don't miss the Roman temple site on Caesarlaan. Long ago, there was a impressive temple on the northern edges of the city. It was one of the most imposing buildings for miles around. We are not sure which Roman deity the temple was dedicated to, or whether it was used for the imperial cult. But we can still get a realistic impression of the original site from the archaeological remains. Tongeren Tourist Office Website The reconstruction, alas, does not invite the visitor to stop, rest for a while and ponder on mankind. Brussels Art & History Museum: octagonal column which was found near the eastern gate of the town (ca 200); it shows the road distances from Tongeren to: (left) Bonn, Koblenz, Boppard and Mainz, all along the River Rhine; (right) Reims and Bavay There was a road paved with stone leading to Paris near 200 miles in length, some parts of which are still to be seen. Nugent Tongeren was placed along a road linking Bavay to Cologne; another road linked it to the German towns south of Cologne. The distances were indicated in Gallic leagues corresponding to 1.5 Roman mile. The roads were initially built for military purposes, especially to help Roman troops to move across the forest Arduenna (Ardennes), which is the largest of all Gaul, and reaches from the banks of the Rhine and the frontiers of the Treviri to those of the Nervii, and extends over more than 500 miles. Caesar Gallo-Roman Museum of Tongeren: (above-left) decorative relief; (above-right) capital; (below) lead bar made at a mine belonging to Emperor Tiberius Tongeren has an excellent Gallo-Roman Museum which shows exhibits from prehistoric times to the establishment of the Kingdom of the Franks by Clovis in the late Vth century. One of the oldest exhibits of the Roman period and the only one to bear the name of an emperor is a lead bar which was most likely made in the Eifel mountains between Trier and Cologne which were mined by slaves of the Romans. Other exhibits show how the town was embellished with Roman architectural elements and decorations. Gallo-Roman Museum: (left) pedestal, most likely of a Column to Jupiter, showing Hercules Magusanus; (right) statue of Jupiter as a Roman commander from a column to the god Many of the Columns to Jupiter which were erected in Belgium, Germany and Britain were found along the main roads in villages which served as stations for the travellers. The columns were decorated with reliefs on the pedestal, or the shaft, or even on the capital (see an example at Cirencester), which portrayed other very popular gods, as if to cater for a variety of believers. The relief depicting Hercules with a staff, rather than with the usual club, was perhaps due to an association between his cult and that of local gods of the herdsmen, possibly Magusanus, because altars with dedicatory inscriptions to Hercules Magusanus have been found in many locations near the border of the Empire. Gallo-Roman Museum: wall paintings: (left) Bacchus and his panther in a typical posture; (right) a peacock The finest period of Civitas Tungrorum is usually set during the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161) when most likely the house and villas of the wealthiest citizens were decorated with floor mosaics (a detail of one of them can be seen in the image used as background for this page) and wall paintings. Gallo-Roman Museum: (above) painted tomb (IVth century); (below) lead coffin (IVth century); see a lead cinerary urn at Bavay and a coffin at Tournai During the second half of the IIIrd century the region experienced a series of raids by Germanic tribes which were facilitated by the creation of a Gallic Empire in 260-273 by Postumus, the commander of the army along the Rhine, and by the ensuing conflict with the central power. Roman control over Gaul was eventually restored, but the areas near the Rhine, including the region of Tongeren, were greatly impoverished, yet some of its citizens could still spend for the decoration of their graves. Gallo-Roman Museum: small exhibits: (left to right) a matron goddess; Eros and Psyche; apotropaic (evil chasing) amulet; dodecahedron; head of Bacchus/Dionysus Of the many small objects on display, one in particular puzzles the visitor. The following is its description in the excellent catalogue of the Museum: Over the years all kinds of theories have been considered in relations to this hollow bronze object and its twelve pentagonal faces. Is it a child's toy, a sword pommel or the finial of a sceptre? Was it an instrument that people used to decide the best time to sow according to the alignments of the planets? Or perhaps it is a mythic-religious symbol: a sort of die with which you can predict the future? Was the object used in the rituals of underground semireligious movements? (left) Moerenpoort (Gate of the Marshes - XIVth century), the only remaining medieval gate of Tongeren; (right) a view of the Beguinage from the top of the gate The Beguines were women who entered into a life dedicated to God, but without retiring from the world. In the 13th century they founded the béguinages, enclosed communities designed to meet their spiritual and material needs. The Flemish béguinages form architectural ensembles composed of houses, churches, ancillary buildings, and green spaces organized in a spatial conception of urban or rural origin, and are built in styles specific to the Flemish cultural region. They bear extraordinary witness to the cultural tradition of the Beguines that developed in north-western Europe in the Middle Ages. From the UNESCO documentation which supported the inclusion of 13 beguinages, including that of Tongeren, in the World Heritage List in 1998. XVIIth century houses of the Beguinage The béguinages formed miniature towns, enclosed by walls or surrounded by ditches, with gates opening to the "world" during the day. The béguinages were organized according to one of two models: one, the city type, reflecting on a smaller scale the model of a medieval city, with a plot set aside for the cemetery, or the square where the church is built (Lierre, Diest, Tongeren, etc). UNESCO Reliquaries in the Treasury of the Collegiate Church: (left) head of St. Pynosa, one of the virgins of St. Ursula; (right) head of St. Oliva; you may wish to see the Golden Room of the reliquaries at Ursulakirche in Cologne or the reliquary containing the skull of Charlemagne at Aachen, the nearest German town to Tongeren or a reliquary of Ursula at Castiglion Fiorentino Plan of this section: Atuatuca or Civitas Tungrorum (Tongeren) Augustodunum (Autun) Bagacum Nerviorum (Bavay) Burdigala (Bordeaux) Durocortorum (Reims) Mediolanum Santonum (Saintes) Turnacum (Tournai) Vesunna (Périgueux) Vindunum (Le Mans) Roman villa of Montcaret and an excursion to Laon	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line55
__label__wiki	0.816787	0.816787	You are here: China > Government > Liaison office of central gov't in HKSAR condemns intimidation against judge 0 Comment(s) Print E-mail Xinhua, May 31, 2021 The Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on Sunday condemned the criminal intimidation against a judge, saying the intimidator must be strictly punished. After handing down sentences on Jimmy Lai and nine other defendants who were convicted of organizing and inciting others to participate in an illegal assembly, Amanda Jane Woodcock, the judge in charge, received phone calls that threatened to harm her and her family. The intimidation against a judge is appalling and outrageous in Hong Kong, a place known for the rule of law, a spokesperson of the office said, stressing that it blatantly jeopardized the law and order, and harmed the public interests. The office firmly supports the judiciary in assuming their responsibilities according to the law and supports the police in taking resolute actions to safeguard the rule of law, the spokesperson said. After the national security law in the HKSAR took effect last year, many extremists and radicals who committed crimes during the social unrest have received the punishment they deserved, which helped restore peace and order in Hong Kong, demonstrated the rule of law, and responded to people's demand, the spokesperson said. Judges and other people working in the judiciary should be respected for their unbiased and selfless work, and their safety should be under good protection, the spokesperson said. Intimidation will not lead to fear but only stimulate the strong will of safeguarding the rule of law and the judiciary independence, the spokesperson said. The rule of law is one of the core values of Hong Kong as well as the cornerstone of its prosperity and stability, and judges should exercise judicial power independently, free from any interference, the spokesperson said. The spokesperson also called for concerted efforts from various sectors in Hong Kong to support the government in assuming their responsibilities and to safeguard the spirit of the rule of law. The Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on Sunday condemned the criminal intimidation against a judge, saying the intimidator must be strictly punished.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line57
__label__cc	0.552733	0.447267	Home News Followup: EPA announces its Clean Power Plan Followup: EPA announces its Clean Power Plan Published August 28, 2015 by Virginia Business The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled in August its Clean Power Plan, seeking reductions in carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants. While the plan made reductions more stringent overall, it relaxed requirements for Virginia power plants. Gov. Terry McAuliffe had appealed to the agency after proposals were released last year, saying that they did not take in account efforts already mounted in the commonwealth to reduce emissions. The plan announced in August gives states more time to come up with emission reduction plans and meet initial targets. The plan’s goal is to cut carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent by the year 2030, compared with 2005 levels. The plan rewards states and utilities companies that promptly expand their use of wind and solar power in generating electricity. While applauding some revisions in the plan, Dominion Virginia Power said it does not take into account that nuclear reactors generate about 40 percent of its power. Dominion Virginia Power is the state’s largest electric utility. The Wall Street Journal reported that energy industry groups and some states are expected to challenge the plan in court. Virginia Business reviewed the commonwealth’s changing mix of power generating sources in its August issue. The state’s utilities are moving more toward natural gas and renewable sources instead of coal-fired power plants.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line58
__label__cc	0.701613	0.298387	PORT BAY HOTEL DISNEYLAND WebJan 19, · But Tuesday, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, who sits on the port’s board, pushed forward exploring the idea. Her motion — to form a committee that could include port members, the U.S. Coast Guard. Only a transport protocol such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) can indicate which port a packet should go to. TCP and UDP headers have a section for indicating port numbers. Network layer protocols — for instance, the Internet Protocol (IP) — are unaware of what port is in use in a given network connection. Jan 19, · But Tuesday, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, who sits on the port’s board, pushed forward exploring the idea. Her motion — to form a committee that could include port members, the U.S. Coast Guard. Newport Bay sits right on Lake Disney and was renovated in becoming a 4 key resort. View the latest prices & deals to Disney Newport Bay Club. WebOct 4, · This article lists the network ports that Configuration Manager uses. Some connections use ports that aren't configurable, and some support custom ports that you specify. If you use any port filtering technology, verify that the required ports are available. These port filtering technologies include firewalls, routers, proxy servers, or IPsec. Het hotel is gebouwd in een speciale vorm om de baai van Lake Disney, met zelfs een kleine vuurtoren. Het is het grootste hotel van Disneyland Paris en zelfs. For assistance with your booking at Disney's Newport Bay Club® feel free to contact us by using one of the options below. Read reviews and book securely on. Since port and starboard never change, they are unambiguous references that are independent of a mariner’s orientation, and, thus, mariners use these nautical terms instead of left and right to avoid confusion. When looking forward, toward the bow of a ship, port and starboard refer to the left and right sides, respectively. In the early days of boating, before ships had rudders on their . Jul 31, · A port is a term used to describe the process of taking a program that has been written for specific operating systems and moving it to another operating system. For example, taking a program written for Microsoft Windows and moving it to Linux. Set around Lake Disney, the hotel is styled with the charm of a mansion amid 's nautical Cape Cod theming. Kids Menu; Satellite/TV; Payable Laundry Service. Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced in the Douro Valley of northern Portugal. It is typically a sweet red wine, often served with dessert, although it also comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties. Other port-style fortified wines are produced outside Portugal – in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, India, South Africa, Spain, and the United States – but under the . noun (2) 1. chiefly Scotland: gate. 2. a.: an opening (as in a valve seat or valve face) for intake or exhaust of a fluid. b.: the area of opening in a cylinder face of a passageway for the working fluid in an engine. also: such a passageway. Nov 11, · Sure, port is perfect to sip by the fire or serve with (or as) dessert, but it’s also one versatile cocktail component. Port was created in Portugal as a way to preserve the country’s red wines during their long, hot journey down the river from the vineyards in the Douro Valley to the town of Porto, where they are stored in warehouses and then shipped around the world. Jan 19, · But Tuesday, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, who sits on the port’s board, pushed forward exploring the idea. Her motion — to form a committee that could include port members, the U.S. Coast Guard. WebThis is a list of TCP and UDP port numbers used by protocols for operation of network applications. The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) only need one port for duplex, bidirectional traffic. They usually use port numbers that match the services of the corresponding TCP or UDP implementation, if they exist. Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced in the Douro Valley of northern Portugal. It is typically a sweet red wine, often served with dessert, although it also comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties. Other port-style fortified wines are produced outside Portugal – in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, India, South Africa, Spain, and the United States – but under the . About Disney's Newport Bay Club · Hotel Room. You'll have a private room with all the hotel's amenities · Clean and Tidy. This stay has listed several different. WebOnly a transport protocol such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) can indicate which port a packet should go to. TCP and UDP headers have a section for indicating port numbers. Network layer protocols — for instance, the Internet Protocol (IP) — are unaware of what port is in use in a given network . noun (2) 1. chiefly Scotland: gate. 2. a.: an opening (as in a valve seat or valve face) for intake or exhaust of a fluid. b.: the area of opening in a cylinder face of a passageway for the working fluid in an engine. also: such a passageway. A place on a waterway with facilities for loading and unloading ships. b. A city or town on a waterway with such facilities. c. The waterfront district of a city. 2. A place along a coast that gives ships and boats protection from storms and rough water; a harbor. 3. A port of entry. WebA place on a waterway with facilities for loading and unloading ships. b. A city or town on a waterway with such facilities. c. The waterfront district of a city. 2. A place along a coast that gives ships and boats protection from storms and rough water; a harbor. 3. A port of entry. Definitely a pricier option when it comes to the Disney hotels, but I highly recommend it as a super convenient and clean option when read more. Disney Newport Bay Club is located beside Lake Disney®, just a 10 minute walk from both of the Disney® Parks and the Disney Village®. The hotel is also. Take the Magical Shuttle bus for your trips between Paris airports (Orly and Charles de Gaulle) and the Hotel Disney's Newport Bay Club®. Disney'S Newport Bay Club - Boasting a health club, an indoor swimming pool and a golf course, 4-star Disney'S Newport Bay Club Disneyland Paris is located. trehalose supplier thailand\|pizza hut wing street hays ks WebJan 19, · But Tuesday, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, who sits on the port’s board, pushed forward exploring the idea. Her motion — to form a committee that could include port members, the U.S. Coast Guard. Hotels Disneyland Paris, near to Disney Paris, close to Disneyland Paris, Bay Boutique is your first port of call for Disney gifts and holiday. Only a transport protocol such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) can indicate which port a packet should go to. TCP and UDP headers have a section for indicating port numbers. Network layer protocols — for instance, the Internet Protocol (IP) — are unaware of what port is in use in a given network connection. FRANCE - July 27, - Disney s Newport Bay Club Hotel in Disneyland Resort Paris. Harbor at Naantali, Finland royalty free stock image. Explore new places and choose your stylish accommodation at Radisson Blu Hotels & Resorts worldwide. Book your next stay with us! Disney's Pop Century Resort · Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort · Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge · Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa · Disney's Port Orleans. This is a list of TCP and UDP port numbers used by protocols for operation of network applications. The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) only need one port for duplex, bidirectional traffic. They usually use port numbers that match the services of the corresponding TCP or UDP implementation, if they exist. Only a transport protocol such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) can indicate which port a packet should go to. TCP and UDP headers have a section for indicating port numbers. Network layer protocols — for instance, the Internet Protocol (IP) — are unaware of what port is in use in a given network connection. Since port and starboard never change, they are unambiguous references that are independent of a mariner’s orientation, and, thus, mariners use these nautical terms instead of left and right to avoid confusion. When looking forward, toward the bow of a ship, port and starboard refer to the left and right sides, respectively. In the early days of boating, before ships had rudders on their . Nice hotel. Easy access via free shuttle from train station. Free wifi. Walking distance to the Disneyland parks. Web5 hours ago · The Port of South Louisiana's agreement to buy the former Avondale shipyard for nearly $ million was inked without discussions with other area port officials, civic leaders or Gov. John. Feel welcome to Fairmont luxury hotels and palaces. Book one of our rooms and enjoy exceptional comfort. Fairmont offers well-being spa, family or business. In Paris, Disneyland is a well-known tourist attraction. During the holidays, it is always busy with tourists due to its important events and activities. This is a list of TCP and UDP port numbers used by protocols for operation of network applications. The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) only need one port for duplex, bidirectional traffic. They usually use port numbers that match the services of the corresponding TCP or UDP implementation, if they exist. Nearby Attractions ; Disneyland Paris m ; The Disney Junior Dream Factory m ; Frozen A Musical Invitation m. Up to 4 FREE Nights in a Disney Hotel - available in most school holidays! Book your summer Florida holiday today and make memories that will last a.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line61
__label__cc	0.671544	0.328456	You are here: Basel Convention > Implementation > Country Led Initiative > Environmentally Sound Management > Overview Members of the EWG ESM Framework ESM Toolkit Expert Working Group Meetings and Webinars Developing guidelines for environmentally sound management The Framework for the environmentally sound management (ESM) of hazardous wastes and other wastes establishes a common understanding of what ESM encompasses and identifies tools and strategies to promote the implementation of ESM. At the time of the adoption of the ESM Framework at the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention, Parties saw the need for further action to be taken in order to promote and implement the Framework and ESM in general. The Conference of the Parties, in its decision BC-11/1 on Follow-up to the Indonesian-Swiss country-led initiative to improve the effectiveness of the Basel Convention, thus mandated an expert working group to further elaborate and implement actions on initial short-term work items as listed in annex II to that decision, within available resources, and to develop a work programme for additional priorities and key work items and actions for the implementation of environmentally sound management. The twelfth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, in its decision BC-12/1, welcomed the work undertaken by the expert working group, adopted its work programme, extended its mandate, and reiterated the invitation to parties and others to submit information on activities to ensure environmentally sound management of hazardous and other wastes. Successive meetings of the Conference of the Parties have considered, and where appropriate, adopted, the tools developed as part of the expert working group’s work programme, which now comprise the ESM Toolkit. Please click on the Infographic below for more interactive features	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line62
__label__cc	0.508447	0.491553	You are here: Basel Convention > Implementation > Public Awareness > Press Releases > OEWG 8 Press Release Basel Waste Solutions Circle UN experts consider new measures for end-of-life goods destined for recycling or recovery Basel Convention parties review global framework for environmental sound management of wastes and guidelines on e-waste and new persistent organic pollutants 4 October 2012, Geneva – More than 200 international waste management experts gathered last week to advance global measures to control the transboundary movement of hazardous and other wastes. The eighth meeting of the Open-ended Working Group of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal met from 25 to 28 September 2012, in Geneva. The Working Group adopted ten separate decisions aimed at strengthening implementation of the leading global treaty governing hazardous wastes. Considerable progress was made in a number of areas, including the further development of technical guidelines on e-waste and wastes containing persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Jim Willis, Executive Secretary of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions (UNEP), said: “The importance of having a strong, focused expert body for the Basel Convention was demonstrated once again last week, as participants grappled with a number of challenging issues on e-waste, ship dismantling, POPs-containing waste, end-of-life goods and the country-led initiative. The outstanding progress achieved is a testament to the dedication of participants to protecting human health and the environment from wastes, and to the excellent chairing skills of Jimena Nieto and Luay Al-Mukhtar.” Work progressed on technical guidelines for environmentally sound management of wastes containing persistent organic pollutants (POPs), with agreement on covering new POPs added in 2010 to the Stockholm Convention on POPs. The guidelines will further strengthen synergies between the two global conventions. Development of technical guidelines for the environmentally sound management of wastes consisting of, containing or contaminated with commercial octabromodiphenyl ether (hexabromodiphenyl ether and heptabromodiphenyl ether); commercial pentabromodiphenyl ether (tetrabromodiphenyl ether and pentabromodiphenyl ether);and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, its salts and perfluorooctane sulfonyl fluoride were included in the programme of work of a small intersessional working group. Experts reviewed technical guidelines on transboundary movements of e-waste, which will be further revised and considered for adoption by the Conference of the Parties, the highest governing body of the Convention, at its eleventh meeting (COP-11) in 2013. Proposals for new entries to the list of wastes contained in Annex IX to the Basel Convention submitted by Finland, Ireland, and the Netherlands were agreed to be forwarded to the Conference of the Parties for consideration at its eleventh meeting. As a follow-up to the Indonesian-Swiss country-led initiative to improve the effectiveness of the Basel Convention adopted at the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, held in Cartagena, Colombia in October 2011, a report on the interpretation of certain terminology to provide further legal clarity was considered. The Working Group decided that a first step towards achieving this goal was the development of a glossary covering key terminology under the Convention such as waste/non-waste, hazardous/non-hazardous waste, re-use, direct re-use, refurbishment, second hand goods, used goods and end-of-life goods. The Working group also recommended that COP-11 establish an intersessional group to undertake further work on this core issue under the Convention, including possible consideration of the various legally binding or voluntary options that could be adopted to achieve greater legal clarity. The Working Group also reviewed a study including options for dealing with the problem posed by the transboundary movement and disposal of used and end-of-life goods (“UELG”). These goods do not easily fit the paradigm of wastes to be permanently disposed of. The re-use or recycling of such goods can conserve resources and provide significant economic opportunity to both exporting and importing States. At the same time, export of used and end-of-life goods, especially when not accomplished for the purported purpose of re-use, carries risk to health and the environment, particularly in countries that lack the necessary capacity and infrastructure to manage them properly, including assuring environmentally sound management and disposal of any hazardous components. In addition, lack of clarity regarding the status of these goods under the Basel Convention, combined with divergent national approaches, has complicated efforts to effectively manage their transboundary movement. A legal analysis of the application of the Basel Convention to hazardous wastes and other wastes generated on board ships was considered by the Working Group. It reviewed for instance the relationship between the Basel Convention and the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 1973, as modified by the Protocol of 1978 as further amended by the Protocol of 1997 (MARPOL) and presented conclusions aimed at clarifying the application of the Basel Convention to such wastes. This matter will be further considered during COP-11. Other decisions taken at the meeting addressed promoting further development of the Basel Convention’s regional and coordinating centres, the progress in the implementation of the strategic framework and partnership programme. The 10-year strategic framework had been adopted at the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties in Cartagena, Colombia, in October 2011. The biennial meeting of the working group was held back-to-back with the second meeting of the Convention’s Technical Expert Group charged with completing development of a framework for the environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes and other wastes, held from 1 to 2 October 2012. The outcomes of the two meetings will help set the stage for the 11th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention, which will be held back-to-back with the conferences of the parties to the Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions during a two-week period from 28 April to 10 May 2013 in Geneva. These back-to-back conferences will be held for the first time in tandem with extra-ordinary meetings of the conferences of the parties charged with solidifying synergies among the three conventions. Note for editors: The Open-ended Working Group, one of the subsidiary bodies of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention, assists the Conference of the Parties in developing and keeping under continuous review the implementation of the Convention’s work plan, specific operational policies and decisions taken by the Conference of the Parties for the implementation of the Convention. It is mandated by the Conference of the Parties to advise the Conference of the Parties on issues relating to policy, technical, scientific, legal, institutional, administration, finance, budgetary and other aspects of the implementation of the Convention, including identification of the specific needs of different regions and subregions for training and technology transfer and to consider ways and means of ensuring the establishment and functioning of the Basel Convention Regional Centres for Training and Technology Transfer. The Working Group meets once every two years. The eighth meeting of the Open-ended Working Group was co-chaired by Ms. Jimena Nieto (Colombia) and Mr. Luay S. Al-Mukhtar (Iraq). Kei Ohno, Programme Officer, Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions (UNEP), Geneva, tel. +41 (22) 917 8201, e-mail:kohno@pops.int Michael S. Jones, Public Information Officer, Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions (UNEP), Geneva, tel. +41-22-917-8668; (m) + 41-79-730-4495, e-mail: SafePlanet@unep.org	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line63
__label__wiki	0.676175	0.676175	State rep candidate discusses her policies, goals By Scout on October 31, 2008 The Scout sits down with Republican Joan Krupa to get to the bottom of the issues in Illinois Editor’s note: The Scout sat down with Republican Joan Krupa. Below is a transcription of the interview. Democrat Jehan Gordan did not respond before press time. Joan Krupa is from Decatur and is running on the Republican ticket for state representative. Krupa received her bachelor’s degree from Bradley in education. She went on to teach first grade while working on her master’s degree in guidance and counseling, also at Bradley. In 1988 Krupa won a seat on the Peoria County Board, where she served until 1994. She serves as the CEO of the Heartland Community Health Clinic. Scout: How do you plan to fix Springfield? Krupa: We are in very, very serious trouble in terms of the budget and having the resources to cover essential services. We’re going into this year at least two billion in debt. We have Medicaid payments to providers who are behind as much as two or three months, or even longer. People are experiencing cash flow problems and [the government] can’t provide services for some of our most vulnerable citizens. We have the most under funded pension system in the United States. We have a governor who, in my estimation, if he shouldn’t be impeached he should be disciplined. And so all those kinds of budgetary problems are what I think give my rise to wanting to go and fix things in Springfield. Other than that, the two issues that I feel most passionate about are health care and education. We need reform and funding in areas for education. In health care, we have a system that’s broken where people who need help can’t get it. For the last six years I’ve been working very hard to provide that in our community, so I’d like to see that replicate across the state. S: What do you bring to the table, and why is it important? K: If you look at the Illinois budget, 80 percent of the budget is spent in the area of education and social services and health care and that’s where my whole career has been. I had 20 years in the field of education, teaching everything from college-age kids to preschool. I’ve been a director of adult education at the county jail. I’ve been a parent coordinator for 13 school districts, an elementary teacher, guidance counselor and I’ve taught English as a second language over seas. I have a broad background in education. When people talk about education reform, I’ve actually lived in the field so I have an insight that you don’t get by reading books or hypothesizing things. I’ve also worked heavily in social services. I worked as a director of a program in children’s homes called Good Beginnings, which works with pregnant and parenting teens. I was president of the Heart of Illinois United Way, so I have a lot of experience in social services and providing resources to social service programs. For six years, I’ve been working in health care at Heartland and at that program we grew from under a thousand patients to over 18,000 today. So I think you could say I have some experience on the ground in these areas. I ran two terms as a county board member and was unopposed in my third term. So I do have a history in public service. S: What is your stance on gay marriage? K: I’m for traditional marriage. I am a traditionalist in that regard. I am against civil unions also, and I believe that we only have about 10 states that have civil unions and we have a lot to learn from them. I’m not opposed to them because of the homosexuality necessarily. What I am opposed to is the possible misuse [of the system]. So I’ll come down on the conservative side on that. S: What is your stance on abortion rights? K: I am pro-choice. However, I am very conservative on the spectrum in terms of being a pro-choice candidate. For example, I obviously believe that women should have the right to a safe and legal abortion, but that it should be extraordinarily rare. And it shouldn’t be used as a form of birth control. I’m totally against partial birth abortions. My position is that the state should stay out of it. This is a very personal decision between a woman, her doctor and her creator. And let’s keep the state out of it. S: What is your stance on energy policies, and how do you plan to make Illinois less dependent on oil? K: I am very pro looking at alternative resources, especially wind energy, which we have an abundance of in parts of the state. And I also like the idea of using fuels that are renewable. And we’re just on the beginning of knowing how to use our great soil and resources to provide that kind of thing. S: Would you support an amendment to the Illinois Constitution allow citizens to recall elected officials? K: I believe that we have a governor who deserves a recall, but I think that can come from a constitutional amendment. I don’t support throwing out the baby with the bath water, so to speak. I think we have a pretty decent constitution, but more than that the reason why I’m not in favor of a constitutional convention is because I think we can add provisions like recall. S: If elected, you’ll be a junior member of the Illinois House of Representatives. Do you already have contacts and relationships with those who you’ll be working with? K: First of all, as CEO of Heartland Community Health Clinic, I have developed very close relationships with people who are already there on both sides of the aisle. (State) Sen. Dave Kahler, for example, was part of my board and he was one of the ones we worked with to bring a federally qualified health center like Heartland to Peoria. So I already have a very close relationship with Kahler. So already I have a close connection with a central Illinois block. And in Springfield, people that live below I-80 have to work together because there’s such a confluence of power and clout above I-80, so we need collaborative association. S: What would you like to accomplish that Aaron Schock as a representative hasn’t? K: I think he represented this district extraordinarily well. I can’t think of anything that he didn’t try for the district that I would disagree with. In particular, he did a great deal for Heartland Community Health Clinic, and that serves 16,000 people that live in this district. He did a lot in terms of working for educational reform, particularly in special education, and I’d want to continue that. Jehan Gordon is from Peoria County and is running on the Democratic ticket. Gordon attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she majored in speech communication. Gordon also serves on the Pleasant Hills School District #69 School Board. Gordon has worked at Illinois Central College, coordinating retention programs. She also served as chairwoman at Peoria’s Promise, which is an initiative that encourages Peoria District 150 students to go to college. Q&A: Sitting down with new VP of Advancement Jason Petrovich Turning students into entrepreneurs Is Yik Yak going to Fizz-le out? Column: Navigating the end of a friendship Police Reports: January 27, 2023	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line66
__label__cc	0.543068	0.456932	Welcome Login or Register IronHorseFarms Marie Leathers \| Lakeside Properties Real Estate \| 231-350-0286 Email Marie \| Register Here \| Client Login Homes for Sale on Torch Lake $400,000 to $600,000 New Search Modify Search Save Search Saved Search Name: HouseTrack™ Email Updates - email me when new listings match this saved search. state:MI; property type:Single Family Home; price:$400,000-$600,000; body of water:Torch Lake; state:MI; property type:Single Family Home; price:$400,000-$600,000; body of water:Torch Lake; less... 4675 Old Orchard Drive 2 beds, 1 full, 1 partial baths \| Single Family Home 2,630 sq ft; lot: 3.03 acres Courtesy of City2shore Real Estate Northern Michigan, 231-839-0077 Map Save Unsave View Details Marie Leathers Lakeside Properties Real Estate 2423 N Main Street, P.O. Box 244 Central Lake, MI 49622 Email Marie Residential Lots & Land Any Any 1 or more 2 or more 3 or more 4 or more 5 or more 6 or more Any Any 1 or more 2 or more 3 or more 4 or more $400,000 No Min. $250 $500 $750 $1,000 $1,250 $1,500 $1,750 $2,000 $2,500 $3,000 $4,000 $5,000 $7,500 $10,000 $15,000 $25,000 $50,000 $75,000 $100,000 $125,000 $150,000 $175,000 $200,000 $225,000 $250,000 $275,000 $300,000 $325,000 $350,000 $375,000 $400,000 $425,000 $450,000 $475,000 $500,000 $525,000 $550,000 $575,000 $600,000 $625,000 $650,000 $675,000 $700,000 $725,000 $750,000 $775,000 $800,000 $825,000 $850,000 $875,000 $900,000 $925,000 $950,000 $975,000 $1,000,000 $1,100,000 $1,200,000 $1,300,000 $1,400,000 $1,500,000 $1,600,000 $1,700,000 $1,800,000 $1,900,000 $2,000,000 $2,500,000 $3,000,000 $3,500,000 $4,000,000 $4,500,000 $5,000,000 $7,500,000 $10,000,000 $15,000,000 $20,000,000 $600,000 No Max. $250 $500 $750 $1,000 $1,250 $1,500 $1,750 $2,000 $2,500 $3,000 $4,000 $5,000 $7,500 $10,000 $15,000 $25,000 $50,000 $75,000 $100,000 $125,000 $150,000 $175,000 $200,000 $225,000 $250,000 $275,000 $300,000 $325,000 $350,000 $375,000 $400,000 $425,000 $450,000 $475,000 $500,000 $525,000 $550,000 $575,000 $600,000 $625,000 $650,000 $675,000 $700,000 $725,000 $750,000 $775,000 $800,000 $825,000 $850,000 $875,000 $900,000 $925,000 $950,000 $975,000 $1,000,000 $1,100,000 $1,200,000 $1,300,000 $1,400,000 $1,500,000 $1,600,000 $1,700,000 $1,800,000 $1,900,000 $2,000,000 $2,500,000 $3,000,000 $3,500,000 $4,000,000 $4,500,000 $5,000,000 $7,500,000 $10,000,000 $15,000,000 $20,000,000 FREE AUTOMATED EMAIL UPDATES Sign in to take advantage of all this site has to offer. Save your favorite listings and searches – also receive email updates when listings you like come on the market for free! Contact Information NOT Shared Home \| Listings \| Mortgage Rates \| Schools \| Weather \| Relocation \| Buyer/Seller Info \| About Me \| Search \| Advanced Search \| Map Search \| Foreclosure Search \| IronHorseFarms \| Contact \| Open Houses ©2023, Northern Great Lakes MLS. All rights reserved. The accuracy of all information, regardless of source, is not guaranteed or warranted. All information should be independently verified. Information last updated on 2023-01-31 16:30:08. Real Estate Websites by iHOUSEweb \| Admin Menu	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line68
__label__cc	0.579918	0.420082	Jeske Park 211 Thoroughman Ave. Multiuse trail Ball Field Jeske Park Sculpture Garden To view current and past exhibits visit: http://jeskesculpturepark.com/ The Jeske Park Sculpture Garden is a seven-acre public sculpture park in the heart of Ferguson, Missouri. The Inaugural 2014 Jeske Sculpture Park Exhibition has brought together 10 artworks by 8 artists representing 7 states. The current exhibition will be on display for 2 years; at that time a new selection of sculptures will be chosen for display in the park. The vision for the park is for a public art experience that grows and changes with the community. In the wake of damaging tornadoes in 2011 and 2013, group of residents and officials wanted to do something positive for the community. The Jeske Park Neighborhood Association held a meeting where community members could present ideas and discuss future improvements to the park. Resident Bryce Robinson suggested a Sculpture Park and presented a plan to the City Council for consideration. The City Council endorsed the idea by passing a Resolution designating Jeske Park as a sculpture park. The Council then established, by Ordinance, a commission to make recommendations for improvements to the park and for the display of original artwork exhibitions. Friends of Jeske Park Sculpture Garden The "Friends of Jeske Park Sculpture Garden" is a 501(c)(3) non-profit which was founded by Bryce Robinson, Council Member Kim Tihen, and Mayor James Knowles. The "Friends of Jeske Sculpture Garden" organizes the call for artworks, raises funds and provides honorariums for the participating artists.The organization paid for the initial sculptures and was assisted by a generous donation from the Lions Club of Ferguson. Donations to the Park can be made payable to Friends of Jeske Park Sculpture Garden: C/O Ferguson City Hall The vision of Jeske Sculpture Park is much bigger than a single exhibition. With the success of the inaugural 2014 exhibition as a clear proof of concept, the Jeske Sculpture Garden Commission intends to seek greater resources and improvements for both Jeske Sculpture Park and the state of the Arts in the community. Future initiatives include the physical and artistic improvement of the central bridge and creek guardrails in the park. The group hopes to remediate the state of erosion and invasive species along the creek through consultation with naturalists and the planting of native species. Finally, the Commission intends to expand the presence of public art into Ferguson’s downtown business district, further expanding the notion of Ferguson as a destination for arts tourism. Dade Park Forestwood Park Hudson Park January-Wabash Park Lang-Royce Park Nesbit-Newton Park Robert-Superior Park Spring-Valley Park Wayside Park	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line73
__label__wiki	0.715165	0.715165	With the nearly empty Tokyo Olympic Games in sight, how much is the loss of domestic tourism? The worst Olympics in history are coming soon. In order to prevent and control the epidemic, as early as March, it was reported that Japan would not admit overseas tourists to the Tokyo Olympic Games. The seemingly simple phrase of "no overseas tourists" has not only cost Japan a huge amount of money, but also caused a major blow to the global tourism industry. Caiser Travel, the exclusive ticketing agent under the jurisdiction of the Chinese Olympic Committee for the Tokyo Olympic Games, is the first to focus on the Chinese market. Touellers are unable to get in, and prepaid ticket packages have triggered a wave of ticket refunds. Global travel information to Caesar tourism public relations responsible person to consult the relevant situation, Caesar Olympic project responsible person said: About the Tokyo Olympic Games refund related matters, the company is actively and steadily processing. In line with the original intention of protecting the personal rights and interests of tourists to the greatest extent, the company will deal with the appeals of each consumer who buys Olympic products one by one to ensure that the personal interests of consumers are protected. For guests who purchase tickets alone, tickets plus hotel, car and other packages, we will go through the procedures of refunding and unbooking according to the relevant cancellation policies. There is no clear solution to the unsubscription and refund policy of many overseas resources, which can only be provided after the end of the Olympic Games. In the meantime, we will actively communicate with the Tokyo Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games and various local tourism agencies in Tokyo, and try our best to shorten the refund process. According to public information, CAISAR Tourism has predicted that the Tokyo Olympic Games will attract more than 500,000 Chinese tourists to Japan to watch the games, and points out that the resulting ecological links such as catering, accommodation and travel will stimulate the consumption of users and enterprises, which will greatly boost the performance of CAISAR Tourism. Take a package launched by CAESA for example, "Live a Dream in Tokyo" -- 5 days and 4 nights free trip (ticket for group fencing competition + round-trip air ticket + travel accident insurance). The free trip project costs from 7,599 yuan per person, and the travel cost for tourists to Tokyo Olympic Games is not low. Judging from the amount of refund application on the Black Cat platform, it can be found that basically the amount of each refund involved is more than 10,000 yuan. In order to refund all the money in a short period of time, the pressure on Caesars Travel is self-evident. According to Kaiser's financial report for the first quarter of 2021, as of March 31, 2021, the total monetary capital of Kaiser Tourism was 16.1 million yuan. In fact, in addition to Caesar Tourism, there are more Chinese tourism enterprises in this Olympic investment "blood loss". The Beijing News once reported: the outside world estimated that Alibaba spent a total of about 800 million US dollars to get the TOP sponsorship for three consecutive Olympic Games; Then in 2019, based on the Tokyo Olympic Games, Alibaba also launched the Tokyo Olympic Games during the theme of "booking accommodation and sending event tickets" package. Now, Alibaba has announced that orders can be refunded without loss. The Tokyo Olympic Games had to give this to the heat of Japanese real estate investment added a fire, a large group of investors, individual investors flocked to the Japan open commercial real estate, overseas real estate buyers, according to a set of data network in the network in the first quarter of 2019 in Japanese real estate consulting index of 8933.3, up 1260.9%, year-on-year growth of 179%. Before the outbreak, hotel and homestay prices were expected to skyrocket during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The Nikkei Business magazine reported in December 2019 that the price of B&B in downtown Tokyo is expected to rise to 450,000 yen (28,800 yuan) during the opening ceremony of the 2020 Olympic Games on July 24 and 25. The price of B&B in downtown Tokyo may be only 20,000 yen (1,280 yuan) at ordinary times. With the arrival of the epidemic and the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics, the investment boom in Japan, which was triggered by the Olympic economy, has almost died down, and these players are likely to face the ground. According to Global Travel News, "Manzi B&B Street," which was a sensation in 2018, has also withdrawn from the Japanese market. In 2020, Japanese hotels are facing a wave of bankruptcy. According to a report released in January by Tokyo Shoko Research, a Japanese think tank, 118 hotels in Japan have declared bankruptcy in 2020, with a year-on-year increase of 57.3%. It is the first time since 2013 that more than 100 hotels have gone bankrupt in Japan, with more than 58 billion yen in debt resulting from the failure. It is not hard to see that the biggest "sufferer" of the Olympic Games is Japan. The Japanese government had high hopes for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. "I want the Olympics to be a trigger to wipe out 15 years of deflation and recession," Abe said bluntly as early as 2013. Hosting the Olympics can stimulate the local economy, which has become a global consensus since the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984. But those hopes have been dashed by the global outbreak and Japan's own failure to contain it. Overseas visitors were turned away and the Tokyo Olympics were nearly empty, costing the tourism industry a lot. According to the 21st Century Business Report, Japan had expected 8 million visitors for the Games, and assuming each person spent 文章,000 to $2,000 in the region, the total could reach more than $20 billion, plus the subsequent boost to manufacturing and the potential for the Tokyo Olympics to boost Japan's economy. While Japan has had one of its quietest Olympics yet, the tourism nightmare continues. Prev:India has seen 'retaliatory' tourism and experts fear a third wave of the disease Next:Summer exam, homestay ushered in the 'sweet period'?	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line74
__label__wiki	0.767548	0.767548	HomePressReleasesFerring and Rebiotix Present Positive Interim Phase 3 Results From Open-Label Study... Ferring and Rebiotix Present Positive Interim Phase 3 Results From Open-Label Study of Investigational Microbiota-Based Live Biotherapeutic RBX2660 at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) Interim analysis of the Phase 3 PUNCH™ CD3-Open-Label Study (OLS) showed positive efficacy and consistent safety with RBX2660 for up to six months in patients with recurrent Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) infection, adding to robust evidence of largest clinical development program in microbiome-based therapeutics Expanded inclusion criteria allowed for enrollment of patients with C. difficile infection typically seen in clinical practice, including those with a co-diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) An additional data presentation demonstrating the devastating impact of sepsis – a potential complication of C. difficile infection – through an analysis of nearly 500,000 U.S. Medicare claims was also highlighted at DDW Ferring Pharmaceuticals and Rebiotix, a Ferring Company, announced today the first presentation of interim data from a Phase 3 open-label study showing strong trends in efficacy and safety for investigational microbiota-based live biotherapeutic RBX2660 in reducing recurrent Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) infection over six months, consistent with previous findings in the comprehensive RBX2660 clinical development program. The study also enrolled patients diagnosed with co-morbid conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The patients enrolled closely reflect the recurrent C. difficile infection patients who healthcare providers treat every day. The results were presented at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2021, taking place virtually this year from May 21-23. “These data are significant because eligibility criteria for such studies are often rigid and exclude patients with potentially confounding co-morbid conditions. In contrast, eligibility criteria for the PUNCH CD3 open-label study were less restrictive, mimicking real clinical practice,” said Colleen Kraft, MD, MSc, Associate Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Ga., and presenting author. “This interim analysis supports the safety and efficacy of RBX2660 in reducing CDI recurrence in a patient population representative of standard clinical practice, including those with a co-diagnosis of IBD and/or IBS. The observed efficacy and safety are also consistent with other trials of RBX2660, with the sustained efficacy at six months suggesting a potential long-term benefit.” At the time of the interim analysis, 75% of participants whose treatment outcomes could be analysed (n=60) were free of C. difficile infection at 8 weeks. Among patients with treatment successes who also reached six-month follow-up (n=27), 74% remained symptom-free. About half (49%) of patients reported treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs). The most common TEAEs were gastrointestinal, and mild to moderate in nature. These preliminary findings build on, and are supportive of, the data from the Phase 3 PUNCH™ CD3 randomized, placebo-controlled trial, which were presented at DDW on May 21. The RBX2660 program is the largest and most robust clinical program ever conducted in the field of microbiome-based therapeutics, including six trials involving more than 1,000 patients. In addition to the interim six-month efficacy and safety seen in the PUNCH CD3-OLS, the Phase 2b double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial (PUNCH CD2) and the Phase 2 open-label study (PUNCH Open Label) showed clinical response for up to two years post treatment. “Our clinical program is the only one to capture consistent evidence over six clinical trials, repeatedly demonstrating the efficacy and safety of RBX2660,” said Ken Blount, Chief Scientific Officer, Rebiotix and Vice President of Microbiome Research, Ferring Pharmaceuticals. “The interim results of the PUNCH CD3-OLS, which encompasses rCDI patients that clinicians see in their daily practice, confirm the consistent safety we’ve seen with RBX2660 over the course of this development program. We believe RBX2660 could help tens of thousands of people who experience recurrent C. difficile infection every year – these data are a crucial demonstration of RBX2660’s potential.” Retrospective Study Shows Devastating Health, Financial Impact of Sepsis in CDI Patients In addition to the PUNCH CD3-OLS results, Ferring presented a second poster comparing the rate of death, healthcare resource utilization (HRU), and cost among U.S. Medicare beneficiaries with primary CDI (pCDI) and rCDI with and without sepsis – sepsis is a life-threatening medical emergency caused by the body’s extreme response to an infection and a common complication in patients with C. difficile infection. Overall, 41 percent of all patients had sepsis, which was more common in patients with rCDI than those with pCDI (45.1% vs. 39.2%, respectively). Patients with sepsis were more likely to die than those without sepsis (57.7% vs. 32.4%, respectively). Among those who died, C. difficile infection patients with sepsis, especially those with rCDI, had substantially higher rates of intensive care unit (ICU) use, longer hospital stays, and higher healthcare costs versus C. difficile infection without sepsis. Specifically: ICU use: (pCDI: 29% vs 15%; rCDI: 65% vs 34%) Hospital stays (pCDI: 12 vs 10 days; rCDI: 12 vs 9 days) Healthcare costs (pCDI: $34,841 vs $22,753; rCDI: $42,269 vs. $25,047) Costs for patients with sepsis who survived were lower but had a similar pattern compared to those without sepsis (pCDI: $10,093 vs. $4,930; rCDI: $12,013 vs. $5,707). “These data show that recurrent C. difficile infection and resulting complications such as sepsis have a devastating and potentially deadly impact on patients, and places a significant burden on the overall healthcare system,” said James Tursi, MD, Chief Scientific Officer, Ferring Pharmaceuticals USA. “Urgent action is needed to halt the unrelenting cycle of recurrence seen with this disease. We’re committed to further research that helps generate a greater understanding of the magnitude of C. difficile infection in order to help patients live better lives.” About RBX2660 RBX2660 is a potential first-in-class microbiota-based live biotherapeutic being studied to deliver a broad consortium of diverse microbes to the gut to reduce recurrent C. difficile infection. RBX2660 has been granted Fast Track, Orphan, and Breakthrough Therapy designations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The pivotal Phase 3 program builds on nearly a decade of research with robust clinical and microbiome data collected over six controlled clinical trials with more than 1,000 participants. About the microbiome and C. difficile infection The microbiome is a highly-diverse microbial community that plays an essential role in human health. There is a growing body of evidence that shows when there is a disruption of the composition and/or diversity of the gut microbiome, there may be an associated risk for serious illnesses, such as C. difficile infection. C. difficile is a bacterium that causes debilitating symptoms such as severe diarrhea, fever, stomach tenderness or pain, loss of appetite, nausea and colitis (an inflammation of the colon).1 Estimated to cause up to half a million illnesses and thousands of deaths annually in the US alone every year, C. difficile infection is considered an urgent threat to public health by the CDC and can lead to severe complications, including hospitalization, surgery, sepsis and death.1,2 C. difficile infection is often the start of a vicious cycle of recurrence, causing a significant burden for patients and the healthcare system.3,4 Theuse of antibiotics has been shown to disrupt the ecology of the gut microbiome, and are a predominant risk factor for C. difficile recurrence – occurring in up to 35% of patients after initial C. difficile infection diagnosis.5,6,7 After the first recurrence, it has been estimated that up to 60% of patients may develop a subsequent recurrence.8 About Ferring Pharmaceuticals Ferring Pharmaceuticals is a research-driven, specialty biopharmaceutical group committed to helping people around the world build families and live better lives. Headquartered in Saint-Prex, Switzerland, Ferring is a leader in reproductive medicine and maternal health, and in specialty areas within gastroenterology and urology. Ferring has been developing treatments for mothers and babies for over 50 years and has a portfolio covering treatments from conception to birth. Founded in 1950, privately-owned Ferring now employs approximately 6,500 people worldwide, has its own operating subsidiaries in nearly 60 countries and markets its products in 110 countries. Learn more at www.ferring.com, or connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. Ferring is committed to exploring the crucial link between the microbiome and human health, beginning with the threat of recurrent C. difficile infection. With the 2018 acquisition of Rebiotix and several other alliances, Ferring is a world leader in microbiome research, developing novel microbiome-based therapeutics to address significant unmet needs and help people live better lives. Connect with us on our dedicated microbiome therapeutics development channels on Twitter and LinkedIn. About Rebiotix Rebiotix Inc, a Ferring Company, is a late-stage clinical microbiome company focused on harnessing the power of the human microbiome to revolutionize the treatment of challenging diseases. Rebiotix has a diverse pipeline of investigational drug products built on its pioneering microbiota-based MRT™ drug platform. The platform consists of investigational drug technologies designed to potentially rehabilitate the human microbiome by delivering a broad consortium of live microbes into a patient’s intestinal tract. For more information on Rebiotix and its pipeline of human microbiome-directed therapies for diverse disease states, visit www.rebiotix.com, or connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. About DDW Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) is the largest international gathering of physicians, researchers and academics in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery. Jointly sponsored by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT), DDW is a fully virtual meeting from May 21-23, 2021. The meeting showcases more than 2,000 abstracts and hundreds of lectures on the latest advances in GI research, medicine and technology. More information can be found at www.ddw.org. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What Is C. Diff? 17 Dec. 2018. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/cdiff/what-is.html. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Biggest Threats and Data, 14 Nov. 2019. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/biggest-threats.html. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 24 June 2020. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/pdf/threats-report/clostridioides-difficile-508.pdf. Feuerstadt P, et al. J Med Econ. 2020;23(6):603-609. Lessa FC, Mu Y, Bamberg WM, et al. Burden of Clostridium difficile infection in the United States. N Engl J Med. 2015;372(9):825-834. Cornely OA, et al. Treatment of First Recurrence of Clostridium difficile Infection: Fidaxomicin Versus Vancomycin. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2012;55(S2):S154–61. Langdon A, Crook N, Dantas G. The effects of antibiotics on the microbiome throughout development and alternative approaches for therapeutic modulation. Genome Med. 2016;8(1):39. Leong C, Zelenitsky S. Treatment strategies for recurrent Clostridium difficile infection. Can J Hosp Pharm. 2013;66(6):361-368. Toranomon-Azabudai Project and Toranomon Hills Area Project in Tokyo Precertified under LEED ND and WELL Potential Impact of Takeda’s Dengue Vaccine Candidate Reinforced by Long-Term Safety and Efficacy Results	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line75
__label__cc	0.586917	0.413083	Bayesian and Frequentist Approaches for the Estimation of the Maximum Expected Earthquake Magnitude in Iran Document Type : Research Note Mona Salamat Mehdi Zare International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology 10.48303/jsee.2019.240807 The maximum earthquake magnitude plays a crucial role in different aspects of seismic hazard and risk assessments. Previous work by Salamat et al. [1] shows the divergence of the confidence interval of the maximum possible earthquake magnitude M(max )for high levels of confidence 1-α, in different seismotectonic zones of Iran. For this, M_(max ) is replaced by the maximum expected earthquake magnitude μ_t that is calculated for different predefined future time intervals〖 T〗_f. In this work, the frequentist and Bayesian approaches are applied to calculate the upper bound of the confidence interval of 〖 μ〗_t. The frequentist confidence intervals are calculated for the level of confidence 1-α=95% and 99%, and future time intervals T_f=30,50 years. In the Bayesian approach, the posterior distributions of the maximum expected earthquake magnitude are calculated for T_f=30,50 years and 90% confidence level. The stationary Poisson process in time and Gutenberg Richter relation are assumed as a statistical model for the magnitude distribution. In order to estimate μ_t in each seismotectonic zone, three different scenarios of M_max=8.5,9.0,9.5 are assumed. In order to find the influence of the declustering, all calculations are applied for both original and declustered catalogs. The results show, as long as the length of the time interval is short or moderate, different values of〖 M〗_max have a minor effect on the estimation of the maximum expected earthquake magnitude μ_t. Maximum Magnitude Frequentist approach Bayesian approach Ambraseys, N.N. and Melville, C.P. (1982) A History of Persian Earthquakes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kijko, A. (2004) Estimation of the maximum earthquake magnitude, Mmax. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 161(8), 1655-1681. Kijko, A. and Singh, M. (2011) Statistical tools for maximum possible earthquake magnitude estimation. Acta Geophysica, 59(4), 674-700. ZÃ¶ller, G. and Holschneider, M. (2015) The earthquake history in a fault zone tells us almost nothing about mmax. Seismological Research Letters, 87(1), 132-137. Salamat, M. Zare, M., Holschneider, M. and ZÃ¶ller, G. (2017) Calculation of Confidence Intervals for the Maximum Magnitude of Earthquakes in Different Seismotectonic Zones of Iran. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 174(3), 763-777. Holschneider, M., ZÃ¶ller, G., and Hainzl, S. (2011) Estimation of the maximum possible magnitude in the framework of a doubly truncated GutenbergâRichter model. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 101(4), 1649-1659. Gutenberg, B. and Richter, C.F. (1956) Earthquake magnitude, intensity, energy, and acceleration (second paper). Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 46(2), 105-145. Pisarenko, V.F. (1991) Statistical evaluation of maximum possible earthquakes. Izvestiya Phys: Solid Earth, 27, 757â763. Pisarenko, V. Lyubushin, A. Lysenko, V. and Golubeva, T. (1996) Statistical estimation of seismic hazard parameters: maximum possible magnitude and related parameters. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 86(3), 691-700. ZÃ¶ller, G., Holschneider, M., and Hainzl, S. (2013) The maximum earthquake magnitude in a time horizon: Theory and case studies. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 103(2A), 860-875. Pisarenko, V.F.A., Sornette, D., Sornette, A., and Rodkin, M.V. (2008) New approach to the characterization of Mmax and of the tail of the distribution of earthquake magnitudes. Pure and Applied Geophysics, 165, 847â888. Aki, K. (1965) Maximum likelihood estimates of b in the formula Log N=a - bM and its confidence limits. Bulletin Earthquake Research Institute, 43, 237-239. Mirzaei, N., Mengtan, G., and Yuntai, C. (1998) Seismic source regionalization for seismic zoning of Iran: Major seismotectonic provinces. Journal of Earthquake Prediction Research, 7, 465-495. Tavakoli, B. and Ghafory Ashtiany, M. (1999) Seismic hazard assessment of Iran. Annals of Geophysics, 42(6). Shahvar, M.P., Zare, M. and Castellaro, S. (2013) A unified seismic catalog for the Iranian plateau (1900â2011). Seismological Research Letters, 84(2), 233-249. Gardner, J. and Knopoff, L. (1974) Is the sequence of earthquakes in Southern California, with aftershocks removed, Poissonian? Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 64(5), 1363-1367. Hessami, K. and Jamali, F. (2006) Explanatory notes to the map of major active faults of Iran. Journal of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, 8(1). ZÃ¶ller, G., Holschneider, M., Hainzl, S., and Zhuang, J. (2014) The largest expected earthquake magnitudes in Japan: The statistical perspective. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 104(2), 769â779. Kagan, Y.Y. and Schoenberg, F. (2001) Estimation of the upper cutoff parameter for the tapered Pareto distribution. Journal of Applied Probability, 38, 158-175. ZÃ¶ller, G. and Holschneider, M. (2016) The maximum possible and the maximum expected earthquake magnitude for production-induced earthquakes at the gas field in Groningen, the Netherlands. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 106(6), 2917-2921. Volume 21, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1 Salamat, M., & Zare, M. (2019). Bayesian and Frequentist Approaches for the Estimation of the Maximum Expected Earthquake Magnitude in Iran. Journal of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, 21(1), 55-63. doi: 10.48303/jsee.2019.240807 Mona Salamat; Mehdi Zare. "Bayesian and Frequentist Approaches for the Estimation of the Maximum Expected Earthquake Magnitude in Iran". Journal of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, 21, 1, 2019, 55-63. doi: 10.48303/jsee.2019.240807 Salamat, M., Zare, M. (2019). 'Bayesian and Frequentist Approaches for the Estimation of the Maximum Expected Earthquake Magnitude in Iran', Journal of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, 21(1), pp. 55-63. doi: 10.48303/jsee.2019.240807 Salamat, M., Zare, M. Bayesian and Frequentist Approaches for the Estimation of the Maximum Expected Earthquake Magnitude in Iran. Journal of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, 2019; 21(1): 55-63. doi: 10.48303/jsee.2019.240807	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line77
__label__cc	0.713547	0.286453	Easterly's too weak When economists say they don't know much, I'm always sympathetic. But when they say we will never know anything, that's going too far. William Easterly presented an idea at the LSE tonight: "We don't know how to solve global poverty - and that's a good thing" (thanks to Andrea James for alerting me to this). Part of his logic is impeccable. He argues that democracy, freedom and self-determination are normative goods - and thus, even if we could solve development problems by imposing top-down, autocratic solutions, we should not. Later, he shows some tentative evidence that authoritarianism doesn't even provide economic benefits - at least there's no convincing evidence for it, and there's some to suggest the opposite. So far so good - it's nice to have an argument against the position that countries need (at least temporarily) an autocratic system to kick-start economic growth. The four examples that are often used to support this argument - Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and China - do not provide clear evidence at all, according to Easterly. But he jumps too far from here to a dangerous conclusion. Because autocracy does not work, he says, this means there are no universal solutions in development. We can only rely on local, patchwork approaches. I don't see how this follows. It's likely that there are still some universal principles - for example clear property rights, free primary education, certain kinds of infrastructure, or openness to foreign investment (or indeed the reverse) - which work everywhere. And while it's fair to say we should not impose these principles from the top, this doesn't mean we shouldn't argue for them, provide evidence and try to persuade people to adopt them. Just as there are universal discoveries in physics or biology - and indeed economic laws like supply and demand - which still seem to work even with no legal authority to enforce them, there may well be principles of growth and development which we can discover and recommend that poor countries adopt. If we can make a discovery in one place that will help people in another, it would be a dereliction of duty for us not to do so. The right answer is a blend. Any farmer knows that their strategy must be governed by local conditions - the flatness of the ground, the local weather, the indigenous animals and insects will all influence their choice of crop and how, where and when they plant it. But they can still take advantage of scientific discoveries - about fertilisers, temperature or crop rotation - which are made on the other side of the world and apply everywhere. Development is just the same. A mix of local and global discoveries will work. It's great that development economists recognise that paternalistic attitudes don't work. But we mustn't use this as an excuse to walk away from the responsibility we all share as humans to make the world a better place. Update: Easterly comments here on Dani Rodrik's argument: "democracy, globalization, the nation state: pick any two". Not sure that Rodrik is suggesting democracy and development are not compatible, but maybe I'll get a copy of the book when it's out. Andrea James development economics economics LSE William Easterly Min said… Leigh Caldwell:"But he jumps too far from here to a dangerous conclusion. Because autocracy does not work, he says, this means there are no universal solutions in development. We can only rely on local, patchwork approaches." Did he make a leap, or did he already believe that there are no universal solutions? From the point of view of the philosophy of science, you can make a good argument that a great deal of knowledge in the social sciences is contextual. IMO, that is so because of meaning. Much of human experience and behavior depends upon meaning, and meaning depends upon culture. For instance, property rights seem to be a human universal. But the meaning of property and the meaning of rights differs greatly between cultures. For an outside "expert" to come in and assume that his understanding of property rights is the only one, or the only correct one, and that the institutions that have grown up around property rights in his culture should be adopted by the people he is trying to help is not just paternalistic, it is bad science. Leigh Caldwell: "It's likely that there are still some universal principles - for example clear property rights". Easterly works in Africa, right? I do not know much about African cultures, but from what I hear sharing is more widespread than it is in Western cultures. I guess that makes property rights less clear than it is for us. But sharing is a human universal, too. Can we say that our mix of property rights and sharing is better than theirs? Or consider the view of property of some Native American cultures. Imagine a Kwakiutl economist advising us that our idea that "Defaults, insolvency and bankruptcy are key components of a market economy based on property rights" (James Tobin) is flawed, and that if we want to destroy property the Potlatch ceremony is a far superior way. Leigh Caldwell: "free primary education," I wonder if there are not some cultural assumptions in that phrase. (I don't mean to pick on you, Leigh.) Every culture gives its children free education. An Indian (from India) scholar told a group of us, "God must want children to be educated. He gave each of them two teachers, their parents." Free public education means that strangers teach children in schools run by the state or perhaps by outside organizations. Whatever good they may have done, the Indian Schools of New Mexico had an avowed purpose to destroy native culture. They outlawed speaking anything but English. In northern New Mexico in the 1970s there were efforts to revive the Tewa language by teaching it to school children, but the only native speakers were over 60. I do not believe that this kind of cultural imperialism is what you had in mind, but "free primary education" is not obviously an unalloyed good. Well, I have gone on too long. I originally planned to make some comments about science. Let me just say that perhaps Easterly is taking a more empirical approach than usual for economists. ;) Leigh Caldwell said… Hi Min I agree that Easterly already believes there are no "big" solutions. I think he's used this argument to try to bolster that belief, but (in my opinion) wrongly. Your argument about meaning and culture - a more fundamental philosophical point - makes a much better case than his. Two further points: property rights and free primary education were intended as examples of potential universals, rather than a firm assertion that those are definitely the right principles. Again your philosophical point stands - we mustn't make simplistic extrapolations from our culture to others. However, on practical grounds I would still defend the idea of broadly applicable principles. Naturally there are differences between cultures, and these may mean that nothing is literally universal. But in practice I think we will find that there are certain kinds of institutions and structures which are nearly always associated with economic development. Compare with this idea: I suspect that if we were to go to any other planet and find an intelligent, developed society we would discover that they have invented an integer counting system, the wheel, money and electrical transmission. I readily admit that I'd have a hard time fully proving this assertion, but I think it would be possible to demonstrate a high likelihood that such developments would occur. Clearly these things lie outside of the realm of provable, indisputable facts - but often what is disputable in theory is still, essentially, true in practice. Thanks, Leigh. Interesting reply. :) I do think that there are a number of human universals, which Easterly probably applies without thinking. ;) Leigh Caldwell: "I suspect that if we were to go to any other planet and find an intelligent, developed society we would discover that they have invented an integer counting system, the wheel, money and electrical transmission." When I read that my first thought was the Incas. Then I recalled the time when, as a youth, I met W. H. Auden. One thing he said was that he would like to reincarnated as an Anglican Bishop in the 19th century. I expect that he would have been happy without any of the things you mentioned. ;) PunditusMaximus said… Having read Easterly's book, I feel like he's a person with a lot of experience, but not much passion left for anything but taking things down. If W.H.Auden really thought a 19th century bishop would have been happy without integers, wheels or money, I'll read his poetry more cautiously in future :) The economics zeitgeist, 30 May 2010 Google GDP HIPerbolic discounting Do we ever make ANY difference at all? Economic flexibility or urban blight? How's the UK economy doing? Dublin up Not forecasting the coalition So who won? Resolving the democratic dilemma The economics zeitgeist, 9 May 2010 Behavioural politics: the story so far Behavioural politics, days 25-30 of 30	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line78
__label__cc	0.748619	0.251381	East Slavonic Language of Carpatho-Rusyn Lemko resurfaces on streets of Bieszczady September 13, 2007 Justyna Krzywicka 0 Comments Poland Although seemingly homogenous, Poland fosters ethnic minorities that have inhabited Poland’s territory for centuries. One of these ethnic groups is the Lemko minority. The minority is currently seeking to have all official administrative and street signs displayed in the Gorlice region in both the Polish and the Lemko languages. The Lemko Youth Organization, led by the Lemko poet Helena Duc in Krakow, filed a motion with the regional councils in the area to have these changes passed. Situated in the villages and towns of the south-eastern corner of Poland, the Lemko minority speaks an East Slavic language using a version of the Cyrillic alphabet. Belonging to the eastern branch of Orthodox Christianity, the Lemko minority group practices their religion according to the Byzantine Rite. Neither Ukrainian nor Polish, the Lemkos have fostered their own traditions and language that are still in existence today. The territory inhabited by this minority is closed in a triangle which includes the Beskid Sadecki, the Beskid Niski and the western edge of the Bieszczady Mountains. Onion-domed wooden churches mark the landscape of the area. The term “Lemko” originated in the 19th Century. Other terms for the minority used are Carpatho-Rusyns. This ethnic minority appeared in the mountainous region of Poland in the 15th Century. As a sheep-herding nomadic society, the Lemkos settled in what was an uninhabited and rugged area. A mix of eastern Slavs and Vlachs (Romanians) they fostered Balkan, Slavic and Byzantine Christianity customs. At the end of World War II, the official displacement of the Lemko minority commenced. Until then almost 100 percent of the population in the area was Lemko. Today as an official minority of Poland they are able to practice their religion, language and customs freely.Statutes passed allowing for the reinstatement of minority languages alongside the Polish language is a recent thing. According to the statute, the existence of dual languages is only possible if the majority agrees to such changes. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, this general acceptance is evident in the region The Polish majority has agreed to the implementation of Lemko signs as have the local governments. Local Poles in the area have accepted the changes wholeheartedly with no formal voices against the idea being heard. The signs will be written in Cyrillic and situated in various villages in the Lemko area. ← Poland quietly celebrates anniversary of agreements legalizing “Solidarity” Gliwice soldiers training for Chad mission →	cc/2023-06/en_head_0062.json.gz/line79

End of preview.

No dataset card yet

Downloads last month: 4