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One of the premises of Serilog is that since it models log events as, well, events, it’s possible to do the kinds of interesting things with them that you’d normally associate with CEP and libraries like Rx.
In practice, working with raw Serilog event data isn’t always that much fun. When you associate data with a log event using Serilog:
Log . Information ( "Hello, {Name}!" , name );
… properties like Name are attached to the log event as LogEventPropertyValue objects, where a value may be a ScalarValue as in this case, a StructureValue (key/value pairs), a SequenceValue (array of values), and so-on. This re-encoding of property data is an important part of Serilog’s design, but it’s not a great API to write everyday code against.
Even simple predicate-based fiters, when written by hand, have to deal with a lot of machinery:
Log . Logger = new LoggerConfiguration () // ... . Filter . ByExcluding ( evt => { LogEventPropertyValue name ; return evt . Properties . TryGetValue ( "Name" , out name ) && ( name as ScalarValue )?. Value as string == "World" ; }) // ...
That’s a substantial effort just to compare two strings. It’s also not something that can be easily encoded in a configuration file. Frankly, I’m a little bit peturbed that we’ve made it nearly four years without a better way to do this kind of thing :-)
What I’d really like to write is more along the lines of:
. Filter . ByExcluding ( "Name = 'World'" )
A filtering DSL will work nicely with Serilog’s XML and JSON configuration providers, too:
<add key= "serilog:Filter:ByExcluding.expression" value= "Name = 'World'" />
Now, it just so happens that Superpower makes it easy to parse little languages like this, and between Seq and my other projects I had enough bits and pieces of related code that gluing together a reasonably complete implementation wasn’t too hard. Definitely a suitable warm-up to get 2017 kicked off after the Christmas break!
The rest of this post introduces Serilog.Filters.Expressions, including a few pointers to interesting parts of the codebase and a quick benchmark.
Serilog.Filters.Expressions
This new package implements Filter.ByExcluding(expression) and Filter.ByIncludingOnly(expression) as extensions to Serilog’s configuration syntax.
You can install it with:
Install-Package Serilog.Filters.Expressions -Pre
The extension methods are in the Serilog namespace, so everything should just work:
Log . Logger = new LoggerConfiguration () . Filter . ByExcluding ( "Name = 'World'" ) . WriteTo . LiterateConsole () . CreateLogger ();
Filter language
I chose to implement the SQL-style filtering syntax used with Seq because it’s already well-thought-out and reasonably familiar. I’m as lukewarm about SQL as the next developer, but when it comes to data-oriented tasks, SQL really still is king. SQL’s single-quoted strings are also nicer to embed in C# string literals, which I suspect will be a pretty common occurrence.
The example in the project README gives you a pretty good sense of the flavour of it:
@ Level = 'Information' and AppId is not null and Items [ ? ] like 'C%'
Logical operations such as and , the string syntax, is not null and like are bread-and-butter SQL.
AppId and Items are properties attached to the log event either in the message template or through enrichers. The @Level property corresponds to LogEvent.Level ; all the direct properties of LogEvent are available using the @ prefix.
Finally, Items[?] is a “wildcard comprehension”. The ? means any: Items[?] like 'C%' evaluates to true if any element of the Items collection starts with C . Substituting * instead of ? would test whether all elements of the collection start with C . Thanks to some mind-bending tree transformations these bake down to LINQ-style Any() and All() calls. If Items contains objects, rather than just strings, you can instead write Items[?].Name like 'C%' and so-on.
The table below is a reasonably complete description of what’s supported:
Category Examples Literals 123 , 123.4 , 'Hello' , true , false , null Properties A , A.B , @Level , @Timestamp , @Exception , @Message , @MessageTemplate , @Properties['A-b-c'] Comparisons A = B , A <> B , A > B , A >= B , A is null , A is not null Text A like 'H%' , A not like 'H%' , A like 'Hel_o' , Contains(A, 'H') , StartsWith(A, 'H') , EndsWith(A, 'H') , IndexOf(A, 'H') Regular expressions A = /H.*o/ , Contains(A, /[lL]/) , other string functions Collections A[0] = 'Hello' , A[?] = 'Hello' (any), StartsWith(A[*], 'H') (all) Maths A + 2 , A - 2 , A * 2 , A % 2 Logic not A , A and B , A or B Grouping A * (B + C) Other Has(A) , TypeOf(A)
The implementation
Let me be the first to say that this code carries some scars as a result of its hasty assembly. The various pieces came from other projects and some corners were cut when making them work nicely with Serilog. In particular, the test cases are a bit light, and some parts are more complex than they’d otherwise need to be. With that out of the way - I hope there are a few examples in there to learn from, and I’m looking forward to suggestions (and PRs) for improvements.
LoggerFilterConfigurationExtensions
Starting from the outer API surface, LoggerFilterConfigurationExtensions integrates filtering into the Serilog LoggerConfiguration system.
public static LoggerConfiguration ByExcluding ( this LoggerFilterConfiguration loggerFilterConfiguration , string expression ) { var filter = FilterLanguage . CreateFilter ( expression ); return loggerFilterConfiguration . ByExcluding ( e => true . Equals ( filter ( e ))); }
(I’ve snipped out argument checks and condensed the code where possible for the post.)
You’ll notice that the result of evaluating the compiled filter is an object - not necessarily a Boolean . Comparing with true means we’ll consider everything else - null , 123 , 'Hello' and so-on, to be effectively false .
FilterExpressionTokenParser
Zooming in, the parser works in two parts. First, the tokenizer breaks the expression into individual tokens. Second, the token parser constructs an abstract syntax tree (AST) out of the expression.
This is all using Superpower, which was built primarily to improve on Sprache’s error reporting for Seq 3.4. There are a few more Superpower examples out there, but probably none as complete as the one implemented here.
An experimental aspect of Superpower’s design allows small, reusable text parsers to be shared between the tokenizer and the full parser. Check out FilterExpressionTextParsers to see some of these.
The AST
The AST is implemented by subclasses of the abstract FilterExpression class, like FilterPropertyExpression (represents a reference to a property of the log event) and FilterCallExpression (a call to a function such as Contains() , or the underlying function behind an operator like = ).
You can see the various kinds of nodes in the Serilog.Filters.Expressions.Ast namespace.
Notice that there are AST node types like FilterLambdaExpression that don’t appear in the concrete syntax. These support a number of transformations that are applied to the AST before it’s finally compiled using the System.Linq.Expressions machinery.
Transformations
The filter you write isn’t necessarily the filter that is ultimately executed. I mentioned earlier how wildcard comprehensions get transformed down into Any() and All() calls. There are a few more of these kinds of transformations included in the code.
For example, it’s much more expensive to match a string against a regular expression than it is to compare two numbers. If these appear in an expression like A = /H.*/ and B = 1 then it makes sense to evaluate the B = 1 test first. That’s the job of FilterExpressionCostReordering . This and a few other transformations are based on the abstract FilterExpressionTransformer<T> base class, which provides the scaffolding necessary to make a pass over an AST and convert it into another representation.
One thing I like about this model is that each transformation is a modular, standalone piece of code. The trade-off is that there are implicit dependencies between the transformations - each expects the tree to be in a certain state, produced by its predecessors. Most of the transformations run in the FilterExpressionCompiler.CompileAndExpose() method, where the order of execution is made explicit.
Compilation
The most exciting-sounding part of the process is probably the least surprising. Eventually, we get a FilterExpression AST that corresponds closely to the C# code we’d write in order to evaluate an expression. In the LinqExpressionCompiler class, AST nodes are swapped for corresponding nodes from the System.Linq.Expressions AST, and Compile() turns the result into an executable delegate.
Trying to figure out what code should actually run brings the problem of representation to the fore. When we get the raw data from a LogEvent , it is represented as ScalarValue , StructureValue and so-on. But literals in the filtering expression are strings and numbers. When we compare them, it’s desirable to compare like-against-like - text should be represented either as string or ScalarValue , for example, not a mix of both.
In Serilog.Filtering.Expressions, the values operated on by the generated code obey the following rules:
If the value is scalar, whether a literal or a property value, it’s converted into its underlying type before being operated on
The underlying values are converted into decimal if they’re numeric, string if they’re text, or passed through as-is if the’re a temporal type like DateTime or TimeSpan (though there are few operators that can be applied to these latter temporal values in the current version)
if they’re numeric, if they’re text, or passed through as-is if the’re a temporal type like or (though there are few operators that can be applied to these latter temporal values in the current version) StructureValue , SequenceValue and DictionaryValue are passed around as-is
, and are passed around as-is The absence of a value, or the result of an unrepresentable computation like 1 / 0 , is represented by the special Undefined.Value object
Calls to Representation.Represent() are inserted in a few places to make this happen.
These few rules keep the built-in operators straightforward to implement, and avoid most unnecessary conversions. Since we don’t have a schema with type information for the property values, some boxing overhead is unavoidable (though I think there are still places where this could be removed).
Execution
There’s one small remaining detail; internally, values are represented according to the rules in the last section - as values, as StructureValue s and so-on. When the value of an expression has been computed however, it’s nice to get that value in a form that is independent of these implementation concerns.
FilterExpressionCompiler wraps the compiled delegate and calls Representation.Expose() to turn things like SequenceValue into regular arrays, StructureValue into dictionaries, and Undefined.Value into null .
Benchmarks
The tool that made the biggest impact on my development workflow in 2016 was undoubtedly BenchmarkDotNet. If you haven’t tried it out - it’s for microbenchmarking what xUnit.net is for unit testing - a drop-in solution that gets out of the way and mosty “just works”. I rarely start a new codebase now without adding a BenchmarkDotNet harness. Performance might only matter in 1% of the code, but in that 1% measurement beats guesswork every time.
The solution has only one benchmark currently, ComparisonBenchmark . This tests how long it takes to compare a log event property ( A ) with a constant value ( 3 ). Here are the interesting bits.
public class ComparisonBenchmark { Func < LogEvent , bool > _trivialFilter , _handwrittenFilter , _expressionFilter ; readonly LogEvent _event = Some . InformationEvent ( "{A}" , 3 ); public ComparisonBenchmark () { // Just the delegate invocation overhead _trivialFilter = evt => true ; // `A == 3`, the old way _handwrittenFilter = evt => { LogEventPropertyValue a ; if ( evt . Properties . TryGetValue ( "A" , out a ) && a is ScalarValue && (( ScalarValue ) a ). Value is int ) { return ( int )(( ScalarValue ) a ). Value == 3 ; } return false ; }; // The code we're interested in; the `true.Equals()` overhead is normally added when // this is used with Serilog var compiled = FilterLanguage . CreateFilter ( "A = 3" ); _expressionFilter = evt => true . Equals ( compiled ( evt )); Assert . True ( _trivialFilter ( _event ) && _handwrittenFilter ( _event ) && _expressionFilter ( _event )); }
Just like a unit test fixture, benchmarks in BenchmarkDotNet live in classes that have methods decorated with various attributes. In this case, there’s no per-benchmark setup code to run, so the constructor gets everything ready to go. We want to do as much work as we can outside the benchmark itself, so that ideally the benchmark methods invoke only the precise code we’re interested in.
Here, we’ve created three different predicates - a trival true one that just demonstrates how much overhead the delegate invocation machinery entails, a handwritten test to determine if the log event carries A == 3 , and an expression-based one that we’re interested in.
The benchmarks themselves look like this:
[ Benchmark ] public void TrivialFilter () { _trivialFilter ( _event ); } [ Benchmark ( Baseline = true )] public void HandwrittenFilter () { _handwrittenFilter ( _event ); } [ Benchmark ] public void ExpressionFilter () { _expressionFilter ( _event ); }
Notice that the handwritten version is annotated with Baseline = true ; this instructs BenchmarkDotNet to show other timings relative to it. Since the handwritten code is what we’re replacing, it’s interesting to know how the expression-based filtering performs relative to it.
Dynamically-generated code is practically never as fast as the handwritten version compiled and optimized alongside the application. For tiny chunks of code this is especially true: the few additional method calls, conversions and boxing allocations done by the dynamic version quickly add up when compared with the bare minimum version.
My goal was to get within an order-of-magnitude of the handwritten version; 10× slower is about as much overhead as I’d be prepared to pay vs. writing the filter myself.
Here’s the output:
BenchmarkDotNet.Core = v0.9.9.0 OS = Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0 Processor = Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3720QM CPU 2.60GHz, ProcessorCount=8 Frequency = 2533308 ticks, Resolution=394.7408 ns, Timer=TSC CLR = MS.NET 4.0.30319.42000, Arch=64-bit RELEASE [RyuJIT] GC = Concurrent Workstation JitModules = clrjit-v4.6.1586.0 Type = ComparisonBenchmark Mode=Throughput
Method Median StdDev Scaled Scaled-SD TrivialFilter 1.5038 ns 2.0923 ns 0.07 0.05 HandwrittenFilter 38.1024 ns 0.7464 ns 1.00 0.00 ExpressionFilter 236.4340 ns 9.3174 ns 6.29 0.27
This run was performed on my laptop under battery power, so it’s not as accurate as possible, but certainly validates that we’re within the same order-of-magnitude as the handwritten filter. Win! Although the library has inherited a number of optimizations from the parent codebase, it hasn’t yet been optimised at all in the log-event-filtering role, so I have no doubt that there’s plenty of room left for improvement.
Summing up
While this was a fun little project to get the year kicked off, I think it’s a pretty substantial improvement on the status quo of filtering in Serilog. I hope you’ve enjoyed poking into a few of the gory details!
Have a great 2017 :-) |
Hillary Clinton’s speech last week on the Islamic State at the Council on Foreign Relations has received more praise than parsing, benefiting from the contrast to the shameless fear-mongering of Republican presidential candidates. But sounding better than the cacophony coming out of the GOP ship of fools is a low bar. On the question of whether her strategy makes sense, the speech falls dramatically short. Ad Policy Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
Clinton pitched the speech as a more hawkish strategy than President Obama’s, calling for a “new phase” that would “intensify and broaden our efforts to smash the would-be caliphate.” More planes, more strikes, more targets, more support for the Kurds. More exhortation to our allies to join the cause. Praying for a new Sunni awakening.
In reality, much of her strategy continues the president’s. Like the Obama policy, it will fail because it ignores the limitations of the narrow American-led coalition Washington has assembled. As it fails, the pressures to add more US troops will grow. Clinton announced her opposition to returning “100,000 American troops in combat in the Middle East,” but suggested she is open to adding to current forces if needed.
Read the full text of Katrina’s column here. |
A HIGH-powered alliance of top Australians has unveiled a new national sporting flag and plans to use it to gatecrash major sporting events.
Ausflag will push for sporting bodies and fans to embrace the green, gold, blue and white flag - still featuring the Southern Cross - and even want it to be raised as the official flag in Olympic Games medal ceremonies.
The not-for-profit group's directors include businesswoman Janet Holmes a Court, former Australian of The Year Patrick McGorry, television journalist Ray Martin and author and former Wallaby Peter FitzSimons.
The new flag is pitched at sporting events only, but the group hopes to use it to help change attitudes and eventually knock the Union Jack off the official flag with another design.
It is pointing at Fiji's recent moves to change its flag and the recent debacle at the London Olympics when Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand all shared the podium looking almost identical with the Union Jack on their flags.
"Britain, Little Britain and Littler Britain," Ausflag chairman and former NSW Nationals MP Robert Webster said.
Mr Webster, who compares the Union Jack's placement to Google letting Apple feature in its advertising, said there was a reluctance to wave the official flag at events and fans instead used inflatable kangaroos.
"This new design is a sporting flag, but our aim eventually is to change the Australian flag," he said.
But the Australian National Flag Association, which supports the current design, said it was a shame that each national day triggered a call for a new flag.
"It's unnecessary," ANFA spokesman Bert Lane said. "Even from a sporting point of view, we have had athletes going to the Olympics every time with this current flag."
Ausflag is calling for sponsors to help bankroll promotions and distribution and plans to roll it out at major international sporting events such as cricket, tennis, rugby league and rugby union.
Martin said the directors all had their own opinions on the best flag design but the end concept had their main points of agreement no Union Jack and the presence of green and gold.
"I'm just tired of Australians wrapping themselves in the Australian flag and all you can see is the Union Jack," he said.
Mrs Holmes a Court said the group had some money but would soon move to a campaign mode.
"It would be lovely if we had a flag of our own that doesn't reference anybody else's flag," she said. |
The United States embassy in the U.K. is apparently promoting President Trump's "winter White House" on its official webpage, sparking renewed concerns about Trump's potential conflicts of interest. "Trump is not the first president to have access to Mar-a-Lago as a Florida retreat, but he is the first one to use it," reads the article, which was originally published on ShareAmerica, the Department of State's "platform for sharing compelling stories and images that spark discussion and debate on important topics like democracy, freedom of expression, innovation, entrepreneurship, education, and the role of civil society."
"By visiting this 'winter White House,' Trump is belatedly fulfilling the dream of Mar-a-Lago's original owner and designer," the article goes on, claiming its builder, Marjorie Merriweather Post, "willed the estate to the U.S. government, intending it to be used as a winter White House for the U.S. president to entertain visiting foreign dignitaries."
Hillary Clinton's former national spokesman, Josh Schwerin, criticized the webpage on Twitter: "The State Department is spending money to promote Mar-a-Lago," he tweeted. "Can we really continue to ask a coal miner in [West Virginia] or a single mom in Detroit to pay for promoting Mar-a-Lago?"
The Mar-a-Lago club's initiation fee doubled to $200,000 after Trump was elected, and Trump's frequent visits have been criticized as a potential conflict of interest by many observers. "Trump has an incentive to host an event at Mar-a-Lago (personal financial gain) that runs directly counter to what would be best for the country's security (hosting the event at the White House or an otherwise secure location)," writes The Atlantic. "Not only that, part of the appeal of Mar-a-Lago is that guests will have a front-row ticket to see Trump at work." Jeva Lange |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government’s main code-making and code-cracking agency now works on the assumption that foes may have pierced even the most sensitive national security computer networks under its guard.
“There’s no such thing as ‘secure’ any more,” Debora Plunkett of the National Security Agency said on Thursday amid U.S. anger and embarrassment over disclosure of sensitive diplomatic cables by the web site WikiLeaks.
“The most sophisticated adversaries are going to go unnoticed on our networks,” she said.
Plunkett heads the NSA’s Information Assurance Directorate, which is responsible for protecting national security information and networks from the foxhole to the White House.
“We have to build our systems on the assumption that adversaries will get in,” she told a cyber security forum sponsored by the Atlantic and Government Executive media organizations.
The United States can’t put its trust “in different components of the system that might have already been violated,” Plunkett added in a rare public airing of NSA’s view on the issue. “We have to, again, assume that all the components of our system are not safe, and make sure we’re adjusting accordingly.”
The NSA must constantly fine tune its approach, she said, adding that there was no such thing as a “static state of security.”
More than 100 foreign intelligence organizations are trying to break into U.S. networks, Deputy Defence Secretary William Lynn wrote in the September/October issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. Some already have the capacity to disrupt U.S. information infrastructure, he said.
Plunkett declined to comment on WikiLeaks, which has started releasing a cache of 250,000 diplomatic cables, including details of overseas installations that officials regard as vital to U.S. security.
Official have focussed publicly on Army Private Bradley Manning, who is being detained at a Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, as the source of the leak.
NSA, a secretive Defence Department arm that also intercepts foreign communications, conceives of the problem as maintaining the availability and assuring the integrity of the systems it guards, rather than their “security,” she said.
NSA — which insiders jokingly used to say referred to “No Such Agency” — also focuses on standardization and auditing to hunt for any intrusions, Plunkett said. She referred to the development of sensors for eventual deployment “in appropriate places within our infrastructure” to detect threats and take action against them.
Mike McConnell, a retired Navy vice admiral who headed the NSA from 1992 to 1996, told the forum he believed no U.S. government network was safe from penetration.
A third-party inspection of major computer systems found there was none of consequence “that is not penetrated by some adversary that allows the adversary, the outsider, to bleed all the information at will,” said McConnell, director of national intelligence from 2007 to 2009 and now leader of the intelligence business for the Booz Allen Hamilton consultancy. |
A Quebec court has ruled that Telus must reimburse customers more than $2.6 million for text messaging fees that the mobile phone carrier collected between 2008 and 2011.
The Quebec Superior Court ruling on a class-action suit against Telus says the Vancouver-based carrier unlilaterally changed the terms of contracts for 177,425 customers in Quebec and began to charge 15 cents per incoming text message.
If the ruling stands, each customer would be reimbursed about $15. Telus says it's reviewing the court decision and may appeal.
The company says it notified customers of the price change "well in advance" and offered the customers bundles with flat rates that included unlimited incoming texting.
The court said that under Quebec law, consumers must know exactly how much they will pay for services under a contract they have signed. |
Massachusetts on Friday became the third state in the nation to cover transgender medical services, including gender reassignment surgery, as a standard benefit in its government health plan for lower-income and disabled people.
The administration of Governor Deval Patrick also moved to prohibit private insurers from denying coverage for gender reassignment surgery or other treatments medically necessary for patients who are transgender, saying that would constitute sex discrimination.
The Patrick administration will strongly recommend similar reforms to the Group Insurance Commission, which provides coverage for thousands of state and municipal employees and their dependents.
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“I am proud to be part of a Commonwealth that puts equality as its top priority,” Patrick said in a statement. “Massachusetts is a leader in health care, where we make the tough decisions for the good of our communities, and where discrimination, of any kind, will not be tolerated.”
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Only two other states — California and Vermont — have Medicaid programs guaranteeing treatment for gender dysphoria, a condition in which there is a pronounced difference between patients’ feelings about their gender and their physical sex characteristics, according to Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, a Boston-based organization providing legal services for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.
Related Links 3/14: Gender therapy access pushed
“This announcement is really historic because I don’t think there is a state that has announced in one fell swoop, this comprehensively, that medical care for transgender people is essential,” said Bennett H. Klein, a senior attorney for the group. “It’s not very often that we see moments we can point to as groundbreaking . . . and this is one of them.”
Andrew Beckwith, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, disagreed with the shift, saying that surgery is not an appropriate treatment for gender dysphoria. Beckwith’s group opposes abortion and same-sex marriage.
“In what other case does the medical profession go along with a mental disorder to the extent of radical surgery on the body instead of treating the underlying mental health issue?” he asked. “Instead of giving them the treatment they’re demanding, we should give them the treatment they need. That’s the ethical responsibility for health providers.”
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In a policy statement earlier this month, though, the American Medical Association wrote, “The only effective treatment of [gender dysphoria] is medical care to support the person’s ability to live fully consistent with one’s gender identity. Efforts to change a person’s gender identity are futile and, like sexual orientation change efforts, can have a disastrously negative impact on the patient.”
The state policy shift follows a May decision by the federal Department of Health and Human Services to end a 1981 ban on coverage for gender reassignment surgery under Medicare, insurance that covers those 65 and older, though the ruling did not apply to state Medicaid programs such as MassHealth.
Last week, the Boston City Council unanimously supported an ordinance guaranteeing access to gender reassignment surgery for municipal employees and their dependents.
Joseph G. Murphy, the state’s insurance commissioner, said a number of businesses provide similar coverage for employees. Three of the state’s largest private insurers — Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and Tufts Health Plan— offer plans covering gender reassignment surgery to companies that request them.
Lora Pellegrini, president of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, said in a statement that the cost of providing transgender health services is unknown. She said that with any new mandate, there must be a consideration of whether it conflicts with the Commonwealth’s goal of containing health care costs.
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“While this, like other mandated benefits, may be well-intentioned, ultimately, the costs will be borne by individuals and employers, particularly small businesses, exacerbating the challenges they already face with the rising cost of health care,” Pellegrini said.
Andrew Cray, a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., said research shows coverage for transgender treatments entails a minimal increase in health care costs for insurers and policy holders.
“We’re talking below 0.2 percent,” he said. “Part of that is because the transgender population is small, but also because many of these resources are only used one time, with the exception of hormone therapy, but that’s a low-cost treatment.”
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., prohibit private insurers from excluding coverage for gender dysphoria treatments, Cray said.
And in extending coverage for gender reassignment treatments to employees, Massachusetts follows the State of California as well as municipal governments in San Francisco; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; and the District of Columbia, Cray said, as well as more than 200 private-sector employers.
In San Francisco, where coverage for city workers has been mandated since 2001, claims for gender reassignment surgery averaged 7.4 per year in the first five years, he said.
No reliable estimates exist for the number of people who are transgender living in Massachusetts or how many might seek surgery under the new policies, Murphy and transgender rights advocates said.
The Williams Institute, a think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law that researches sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy, estimated in 2011 that 0.3 percent of adults in the United States were transgender, which would amount to about 20,000 people in Massachusetts.
More on LGBT issues:
Priyanka Dayal McCluskey of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com . Follow him on Twitter @jeremycfox |
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Avijit Roy’s Dying Dream
By Adeeb Chowdhury
Two years ago today, radical assailants ambushed a man and his wife returning from a book fair, launching a brief yet bloody attack that left a mutilated corpse in its wake. Machetes and meat cleavers had flown through the air, seeking the life of a man who had dared to disbelieve. The Dhaka soil found itself drenched in the blood of a couple who had fallen prey to the tides of religious fundamentalism on the rise across Bangladesh, strangling the secular values of the national constitution and trampling on the core liberties of the human race as they gained power. At the hands of fanatics seeking a dark, tyrannical future of Bangladesh—predicated on rage, vengeance, narrow-mindedness, arrogance, scientific illiteracy, and cowardice—Avijit Roy had attained martyrdom, his death embodying the defining principles of the social progress that Bangladesh had the potential to achieve: intellectual integrity, reason, compassion, and courage.
However, as screams of horror etched the evening air and the attackers fled the scene of their crime, it was not just Avijit Roy that lay slaughtered at the hands of fundamentalism. This attack left another death in its wake, a death whose final screams echo profoundly to this day—the death of the bright, progressive vision of Bangladesh. The death of the liberal values at the basis of the nation. The death of the protected freedom of speech. The death of this nation’s own potential scientific revolution. The death of our hopes that Bangladesh may elevate the principles that guide us to democracy.
Avijit Roy had a dream, a vision for what Bangladesh had the potential to be. As we look back on the two years that have passed since his martyrdom, we must ask ourselves, have we come closer to achieving that dream? Have we made significant progress, as a nation, to realizing the vision of Bangladesh that the scholarly hero of reason had maintained to his death?
Depressingly, the answer is a resounding “no.” In fact, this nation has apparently slipped back even further from that dream, staggering back into the dark, dismal vestige of radicalism and conservatism and haplessly losing its grip on the values of liberty, dignity, and progress. In a nutshell, the situation is bad and it’s on the track of getting steadily worse—unless efforts are rejoined to combat the rise of degenerative fundamentalism.
In the wake of Avijit Roy’s slaughter, a series of more writers, publishers, and activists have come under the blow of radicalism. They have been compelled to leave the nation, seeking asylum in other countries with the help of PEN International and other concerned organizations, exiled by the rising tides of terror. Meanwhile, Bangladeshi authorities themselves have yet to take any significant steps to combat the silencing of its writers, observing complacently as its bright minds are driven out. Instead, the nation’s government has even resorted to victim-blaming, accusing secular authors of “harming religious sentiments” as if it somehow justified the attacks that cost them their life and safety. In 2016, the Prime Minister herself condemned the bloggers’ writings, vilifying their “filthy words” and claiming they are “unacceptable”, avoiding governmental accountability in these matters. In other words, efforts to fight the suppression of free speech are being replaced by baseless accusations aimed at the victims of radicalism, casting the secular writers in the role of the villains who foolishly and stubbornly provoked religious groups, bringing their death upon themselves.
Fundamentalism has even seeped into the national education system—continuing the cycle of indoctrination imposed upon the youth. National curriculum books have been infested with teachings promoting illiberal ideals, such as replacing typical texts with religious references. The example for the letter “O” in Bangla used to be “ol”, a type of yam, but now it has been converted to “orna”—a “modest” article of clothing girls are expected to wear. A grand total of 17 stories and poems by non-Muslim writers were forcibly removed. This startling regress, noted with concern by The New York Times, demonstrates Bangladesh’s worrying shift towards intolerant conservatism—draining out diversity from its curriculum. It is saddening to see that in such pressing times, the government is buckling under pressure from fundamentalists and giving in to the unfounded demands put forward by fringe groups like the Hefazat-e-Islam—signifying the lack of a focused effort towards achieving progress on a national level.
What is the most effective way to control what the people of a country believe? Control what they read, think, and discuss. That seems to be the plan as Islamist groups work to suppress “secular” and liberal material, cutting off the supply of progressive books and stifling the blood flow of freethinking. The 2017 Ekushey Book Fair proved to be a case in this point, banning all books penned by Avijit Roy and his nasty gang of crooked freethinkers. This renowned book fair has only fueled the rise of radicals, satisfying their warped desires by forbidding the distribution of books promoting social progress. We are stabbing ourselves in the foot as we attempt to stagger forward.
Avijit Roy’s dying dream is being trampled underfoot. Not just by radicals, not just by fundamentalists, not just by terrorists—but by the people of Bangladesh itself, serving as silent bystanders as ravagers rip apart our constitution, ridding the nation of the guiding principles of secularism and liberalism. The government is supposed to be a protector, a guardian of the people against barbarism—but our national leaders have become accomplices in the crime, shifting the blame to bloggers and writers for exercising free speech. The government has made the fatal crime of lending more importance to satisfying fundamentalist groups and appealing to religious masses, rather than protecting the basic liberties enshrined in international human rights law.
It is still possible to preserve Avijit Roy’s dying dream, to revitalize his vision for this nation. One avenue we can take to accomplish that mission is to return the spotlight on education—eradicating the vestige of dogma. Allowing children to explore fresh ideas, rather than relying solely on long-held beliefs, and to understand the value of innovation and critical reasoning. Bangladesh is in dire need of a new generation of citizens that utilize the tools of the mind and foster appreciation for diversity and dialogue.
Avijit Roy put forth a vivid and daring dream for Bangladesh’s future. A dream that elevated the values of education, science, and reason. A dream that allowed for free speech, diversity, and critical thinking. A dream that antagonized darkness and dogma. A dream that emphasized the role of logic and compassion, rather than tradition and faith, in the progress that Bangladesh has the potential to make.
On the evening of February 26, 2015, the sun set on the mutilated corpse of Avijit Roy, an icon of freethought. Don’t let the sun set on his beautiful vision for this country as well. |
The post-Super Bowl edition of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” was on the low side of recent shows airing after the game, but it also delivered the franchise’s biggest audience ever.
The live episode drew a 7.9 rating in adults 18-49 and 21.14 million viewers. That’s slightly better than the last post-Super Bowl telecast on CBS, an episode of “Elementary” in 2013 (7.8, 20.8 million). “Elementary,” however, had the smallest audience after the Super Bowl in a decade. Not coincidentally, both it and “The Late Show” had fairly late start times; Sunday’s telecast began at 10:54 p.m. ET.
In “Late Show” history, Sunday’s show delivered its biggest total audience ever and the best adults 18-49 and adults 18-34 ratings (7.5) since David Letterman’s CBS debut in August 1993.
Airing at 12:37 a.m. ET, “The Late Late Show with James Corden” drew a 1.7 in 18-49 and 4.97 million viewers. The 18-49 rating is on par with a post-Super Bowl “Late Late Show” in 2013, while the total audience and 18-34 rating (1.6) were up a bit from that.
Time zone-adjusted ratings for the game will be released later Monday. |
Universal and Warner Bros. are having discussions with theater chains about possibly limiting the amount of time between a film’s theatrical release and its debut on home entertainment platforms.
Bloomberg first reported that studios had engaged in talks with exhibitors about shortening the period of time in which films are exclusively on the big screen. The studios are looking for ways to bolster home entertainment revenue, which is suffering from an 18% decline in DVD sales. The talks are the clearest sign yet that windowing, the industry term for the amount of time a film is in theaters, is going to be hotly debated in the coming months and that a major change in release patterns could take place as early as next year.
Spokespeople for Warner Bros. and Universal confirmed that the studios are having discussions with theater owners about shortening release windows, but offered no additional comment. In a presentation this week at the Credit Suisse conference on technology, media, and telecom, Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara said that he was having “constructive conversations” with the exhibition community.
“If you start with the consumer, they’re telling us very clearly they want it [earlier],” he said. “That’s where all the pirating is occurring, right? And so we have to meet that demand with a legal solution. And so as I’ve said, we’re trying to work with our partners on the exhibition community.”
The studios have yet to determine whether or not the films will be just higher-priced rentals or will be available for purchase. Bloomberg reported that the time frame being weighed is two weeks to a month and that the price being considered is between $25 and $50. Insiders say that the price is likely to be on the higher end of that range and that a month delay between a film’s theatrical opening and its home entertainment bow is the most likely scenario. Theater owners would get a cut of the revenue in exchange for agreeing to the new windows.
Getting theater owners on board could be a challenge. In 2011, exhibitors were up in arms after news broke that several studios had a deal with DirecTV to rent several releases eight weeks after they landed in theaters. A plan to offer “Tower Heist,” a 2011 Eddie Murphy comedy, on demand for $59.99 some three weeks after its debut was scuttled by Universal after theater chains threatened to boycott.
It’s not clear if other studios are also having discussions with theater owners. One major player, Disney, is not involved in this push to shrink windows. That makes some sense, as Disney has emphasized making tentpole films such as “Star Wars” and “The Avengers,” that tend to do sizable business in theaters.
The issue of windowing was reignited earlier this year after Variety broke the news that Screening Room, a startup from entrepreneurs Sean Parker and Prem Akkaraju, wanted to offer new releases for $50 in the home at the same time as they open in theaters. As part of their pitch, the company would give users access to an anti-piracy-equipped set-top box that transmits the films and will give customers 48 hours to watch the movies.
Screening Room has not factored heavily into these latest talks with exhibitors, insiders say. Part of the reason is that the studios are not interested in giving one platform exclusive rights to content. They want the films to be available on iTunes and other retailers. |
Explore 1.2 billion taxi rides
Mapbox Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 30, 2016
By Hannah Judge
Last year the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission released a massive dataset of pickup and dropoff locations, times, payment types, and other attributes for 1.2 billion trips between 2009 and 2015. The dataset is a model for municipal open data, a tool for transportation planners, and a benchmark for database and visualization platforms looking to test their mettle.
MapD, a GPU-powered database that uses Mapbox for its visualization layer, made it possible to quickly and easily interact with the data. Mapbox enables MapD to display the entire results set on an interactive map. That map powers MapD’s dynamic dashboard, updating the data as you zoom and pan across New York.
View full-screen demo
See the full MapD blog post to learn how it computed and visualized the dataset.
To show how travel corresponds to regional retail activity — a common business intelligence use case in real estate, finance, and advertising — MapD spatially joined the pickup and dropoff locations to every store within 30 meters.
Say you’re a big box retailer scouting a new store location. You can use MapD and Mapbox to view taxi trips to and from your existing stores, see where potential customers live, and identify underserved areas. You can also visualize how these trips have changed over time to understand retail trends.
As an example, here’s every trip from a Target store in NYC.
Database solutions like MapD aren’t just making queries faster, they’re making it possible to ask new types of questions. Mapbox puts these questions and their answers on a map that’s as fast as your data.
Need fast maps to identify outliers, find high-performing territories, or spot new opportunities? Drop us a line at enterprise@mapbox.com. |
While the groundbreaking for Banc of California Stadium was the highlight of Los Angeles Football Club’s event on Tuesday, some other news tidbits were dropped over the course of the day.
One of those was the status and plan for LAFC’s training facility. While a recent report linked the MLS expansion side to a potential site in Tustin, as part of a very ambitious sports and entertainment complex, club president Tom Penn provided an update of sorts regarding the training facility search.
“No there’s other [sites aside from Tustin],” Penn told reporters immediately after the groundbreaking. “We’re actively engaged in some other conversations and Tustin could still be something in the future, with a big bold academy plan, a multisport venue, there’s a lot of really cool opportunities.”
Penn, who mentioned finding and establishing a training facility for the club as one of the next priorities for LAFC, was asked if the search for a training facility was focusing on an Orange County location or a site closer to Los Angeles.
“I think [LAFC’s training facility] will be in Los Angeles,” he responded.
Time will tell, of course, but that’s the latest update on the search, and Penn sounds like an LA location is leading the race at the moment, with the Tustin plan possibly being a development for several years from now, if it’s still an option.
We’ll continue to keep track of this and other stories related to LAFC in their run-up to 2018.
What do you think? Leave a comment below! |
As a multi-hub London joins the Eid-al-Fitr (literal translation Festival of Fast-Breaking) festivities that mark the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. Eid is a time of celebration and great religious significance for Muslim communities across the world who gather for a day of unity and forgiveness. To add to the festive atmosphere everyone wears their best clothes and then the party begins!
Local Prayer Times for London:
This year, London’s Eid Festival takes place on 2nd August in Trafalgar Square. The event is free and includes a food festival with cuisines from South Asia, Egypt, Lebanon, Indonesia, live music, performances and celebratory activities. For children, there will dedicated activities such as face-painting, calligraphy and henna.
‘Muslims in London and across the world are fasting for the blessed month of Ramadan and spending time in prayer and contemplation. When it ends, comes a time of happiness and celebration, as well as forgiveness and unity. I hope that Londoners from all communities will take the opportunity to join our festivities in Trafalgar Square. Eid Mubarak!’.
Mayor of London Boris Johnson, 2013
Many restaurants across London offer the special Iftar menu during Ramadan as well as great venues for Eid celebrations. Below are some recommendations from our Reservations Director, Azhar Mian:
Ishbilia: 8-9 William Street, Knightsbridge SW1
Assaha Village: 29-31 Craven Road, Bayswater W2
Al Sultan:51-52 Shepherd Street, Mayfair W1
Ranoush: 86 High Street Kensington
Noura: Mayfair, Knightsbridge & Belgravia
Tell us what you think at mail@maykenbel.co.uk |
The Philadelphia Eagles worked out four free agent players earlier this week. This isn’t unusual; it’s normal practice for teams to host these visits in order to have an emergency list of available players ready to go if injury occurs.
Here’s a look at the players the Eagles were working out, via Howard Balzer.
Center
Anthony Fabiano - 24 years old. 6-1, 303 pounds. Undrafted in the 2016 NFL Draft out of Harvard. Played four games and made one start with the Cleveland Browns last season. Spent a week on Washington’s practice squad earlier this month.
Cornerback
D.J. Killings - Great name. 22 years old. 5-10, 187 pounds. Undrafted in the 2017 NFL Draft out of UCF. Had seven tackles and two passes defensed in the preseason. Waived by New England via injury settlement earlier this month. Here’s a good article with more info on Killings. His college teammates referred to him as a “genius.”
Damian Swann - 24 years old. 6-0, 189 pounds. Fifth-round pick in the 2015 NFL Draft out of Georgia. Played in seven games and made two starts with the New Orleans Saints in 2015. Finished with 20 tackles and four passes defensed. Suffered multiple concussions. Struggled in the preseason this summer.
Offensive tackle
Givens Price - Great name. 22 years old. 6-4, 310 pounds. Undrafted in the 2016 NFL Draft out of Nebraska. Spent most of his rookie season on the Arizona Cardinals’ practice squad before appearing in one game with them.
...
I wouldn’t make too much out of these workouts. The Eagles are just evaluating some depth options. Maybe we’ll see one of these players pop up on Philadelphia’s practice squad at some point this season. |
If you are from North Carolina, or a surrounding area, you have definitely heard of Cheerwine. Called the "Nectar of North Carolina," this hyper-carbonated, cherry-flavored soda may just course through Carolinians' veins. But, up until a few years ago, almost no one else had ever heard of it.
Cheerwine celebrated its 95th birthday in 2012, making it the longest-running soft drink company to be owned and run by the same family. Today, Cliff Ritchie, the great grandson of inventor L.D. Peeler, helms the company. But where did this wild cherry concoction begin? The story begins in 1917, when Peeler bought out a bankrupt beverage company out of Kentucky, and brought it back to his home state of North Carolina. Soon after, Peeler bought the syrup formula from a Saint Louis salesman for a "unique cherry flavoring," and Cheerwine was born. Although Cheerwine contains no actual wine, it is a deep burgundy color that wouldn't be out of place in a wine glass. If you want to keep things classy, that is.
The soda, like Michigan's Vernor's, has a rabid cult following. In 2011, The New York Times wrote a piece investigating a sudden boom in sales, that brought Cheerwine out of the Carolinas into such far-flung locales as New York City, Japan and England. The boom is as-yet unexplained, except for the possibility that after tasting it once, you tell everyone you know that they have to try it. At least that was our experience.
You can find retailers that sell Cheerwine, or order up a case on the company's website. |
ROCK HILL, S.C. -- Police say former major league outfielder Danny Clyburn Jr. has been shot and killed in his South Carolina hometown.
Lancaster police say officers found the 37-year-old Clyburn in the front yard of his home around 2 a.m. Tuesday.
Police say witnesses told them they saw Clyburn arguing with 36-year-old Derrick Lamont McIlwain shortly before Clyburn was shot. Police say McIlwain turned himself in to authorities later Tuesday and was charged with murder.
It wasn't known if McIlwain had an attorney.
Clyburn was a second-round pick of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1992 and played parts of three seasons in the majors with the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the late 1990s. In 41 games and 109 at-bats, he hit .211 with four homers and eight RBIs. |
S.F. supervisor widens proposal on locking guns left in vehicles
Ashok Karki, Anju Paudel and Apar Karki pass by the Pier 14 memorial for Kathryn Steinle who was fatally shot on July 1 as she walked along the pier with her family. Ashok Karki, Anju Paudel and Apar Karki pass by the Pier 14 memorial for Kathryn Steinle who was fatally shot on July 1 as she walked along the pier with her family. Photo: Cameron Robert, The Chronicle Photo: Cameron Robert, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close S.F. supervisor widens proposal on locking guns left in vehicles 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
Both regular citizens and law enforcement officers who carry guns in their cars would have to keep the weapons in lock boxes or in the trunk when they park their vehicles in San Francisco, under a proposal being introduced Thursday by Supervisor David Campos.
The legislation follows a string of high-profile gun thefts from cars around the Bay Area, most famously the June 27 theft of a firearm from the personal car of a federal Bureau of Land Management ranger in San Francisco. The gun allegedly was used four days later by an immigrant without legal standing in the fatal shooting of Kathryn Steinle as she walked on Pier 14.
Campos and several fellow supervisors said at the time that San Francisco’s sanctuary city laws were not to blame for the tragedy, that the real issue was the proliferation of easily accessible guns.
In September, Campos introduced legislation requiring off-duty local law enforcement officers to secure their guns in lock boxes or locked trunks when they park their cars. The policy was already in place for on-duty officers.
On Thursday, Campos will introduce amendments to his legislation at the Board of Supervisors Public Safety Committee meeting that would broaden the rule to any person who has a gun in a car in San Francisco.
Guns must be locked up
Anyone who leaves a gun in a parked car would have to place it in a lock box or locked in the trunk. Failing to do so would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail or a $10,000 fine.
“This is one of those things where it seems like a no-brainer,” Campos said. “We’ve seen a number of incidents where firearms are ending up in the wrong hands because people aren’t storing them properly when they leave them in their vehicles. That’s a real problem.”
Campos’ office worked with Allison Anderman of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence to craft the legislation. She said more than 10,000 guns were stolen in California in 2012 and that many are likely sold on the black market and used to commit crimes.
She said Campos’ proposal may seem obvious, but she believes it would make San Francisco the first city in California to adopt such a law. She said there are federal and state laws regarding how guns are transported in vehicles, but very few about their safe storage in parked cars.
“There is a gap in addressing how people store a gun in an unattended vehicle,” she said. “That’s why it’s so important that local and state lawmakers make it perfectly clear to gun owners of what they must do when leaving their guns in their cars.”
Police Chief Greg Suhr supports Campos’ legislation, and last month issued a bulletin to his department spelling out in detail how all officers must secure their firearms safely.
The SFPD wasn’t able to provide statistics immediately on how many guns are stolen in the city each year — or, more specifically, how many are taken from cars. But the department is struggling with a huge uptick in car burglaries in general.
Car break-ins spike
In the first six months of 2015, there were a reported 11,917 car break-ins in the city — a 47 percent spike from the same time period the year before. The real number of break-ins is likely higher because many frustrated car owners don’t bother reporting the crime.
Several high-profile gun thefts from cars have taken place in the Bay Area in recent months, including one from UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennett’s car on Aug. 21 as she jogged at a park in Richmond.
Later in August, a Hayward police officer had his pistol stolen from a parked car in Oakland. Last month, a gun belonging to an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer was stolen from his personal car in the South of Market neighborhood.
A gun allegedly used by three drifters in early October to kill a backpacker in Golden Gate Park and a massage therapist on a Marin hiking trail was stolen from an unlocked car parked near Fisherman’s Wharf.
Campos’ legislation is one of three laws in a package dubbed “Solutions, not Scapegoating” that was introduced by progressive supervisors after the Steinle killing.
In addition to Campos’ gun legislation, the package includes a resolution to stop “needless” transfers of people from other jurisdictions’ custody. It is due to be discussed in committee early next month.
Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, who is charged in Steinle’s killing, was transferred to San Francisco at the Sheriff’s Department’s request from a federal lockup in Victorville (San Bernardino County) on a 20-year-old warrant for a $20 marijuana deal. He was eventually released by Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi.
A third piece of the package has already passed the Board of Supervisors and calls for the sheriff not to comply with the federal Priority Enforcement Program, which asks that law enforcement officers notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement before releasing immigrants who are in the country illegally.
NRA may push back
Campos said the guns-in-cars legislation is not intended to shift attention away from the issue of illegal immigration and San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy, which limits enforcement of federal immigration laws. It’s also not meant as a slap at gun rights enthusiasts, he said, though he added he wouldn’t be surprised if the National Rifle Association pushes back.
“If we’ve learned anything about the gun lobby in this country, it’s how extreme it is,” he said. “Even something that’s modest and common sense is likely to be opposed.”
Heather Knight is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: hknight@sfchronicle.com
Twitter: @hknightsf |
Chris Lane, CTV British Columbia
The BC SPCA is offering up cats for half the usual adoption price in response to an overwhelming number of felines in their shelters.
Cheap cats are available at shelters across the province from July 18 to 31. Adoption fees vary by region, but they’re all currently half the normal price – an exceptional deal, according to SPCA general manager of operations Bob Busch.
“The BC SPCA’s average cost to care for a cat during its stay is $784,” said Busch, while adoption normally costs less than $100.
Busch said the SPCA’s costs include food, shelter, spaying or neutering, identification tags, vaccinations, and other medical treatments and care.
Shelters are filled to capacity, but Busch said a summer influx of felines happens every year. The BC SPCA takes in more than 15,000 cats annually.
To keep cat populations in check, the Maple Ridge SPCA is also offering reduced prices for spay and neuter surgeries.
Rabbit adoption fees are also 50 per cent off right now to help find homes for roughly 80 of them in the BC SPCA’s care.
For more details, visit your local SPCA branch or the organization’s website. |
NEW YORK -- Just three days before the International Olympic Committee is expected to decide which city will host the Summer Games in 2020, an expert familiar with the organization told The Huffington Post Wednesday evening that it seems increasingly likely the IOC will choose the Spanish capital of Madrid.
“To my astonishment, it seems like it’s going to be Madrid,” Wolfgang Maennig, a professor of economics at Hamburg University, told HuffPost.
Maennig, an expert in sports economics, is in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at a sports business symposium. Not coincidentally, representatives of the national Olympic committees are also currently in Buenos Aires, meeting to decide where the Summer Olympics will be held seven years from now.
Maennig said he met with two Olympic officials, including the president of a national delegation he declined to name, and both said Madrid was quickly pulling away as the favorite to host the Olympic Games over candidate cities Istanbul and Tokyo.
“I talked today to the president of a national federation and people are still afraid of Syria and even Iraq, even though that was years ago, affecting Turkey,” Maennig said on Wednesday. “There are also many concerns about the level of radiation in Japan.”
Maennig's report contrasts with other popular perceptions swirling around the IOC's decision. In June, organization officials issued preliminary scores for the three candidate cities, and both Madrid and Tokyo were in close contention, with Istanbul a dark horse. The officials' scoring was done based on visits prior to the civil unrest that gripped Turkey in June.
Prior to Wednesday, some forecasters were giving a slight edge to Tokyo, seemingly playing down fears Japan might be experiencing elevated levels of radiation as a result of a 2011 nuclear disaster. Further bolstering that city's case, Japan's prime minister said early Monday he would fly to Buenos Aires to personally explain how radiation levels were not an issue for Tokyo. The Japanese Olympic delegation is already at the summit doing a full-court press to push Tokyo's case. According to Reuters, the group "dangled dollar signs in front of the IOC" Wednesday, arguing that Japan is the most economically stable host country of all the candidates.
But fears of radiation remain, Maennig said.
Maennig, who has attended every Olympic Games since 1984 when he competed in rowing, said his personal preference would be Istanbul. As an economist, he has researched the effects hosting the Olympics have on a country’s economy and believes Turkey would greatly gain from the event.
“My personal view is that Istanbul would benefit the most because it’s not a well-ordered city, even though it’s an incredibly important city to Europe historically,” Maennig said. “But of course, they lost their credibility with the protests.”
Madrid has bid for the Olympic in the last three rounds and was the runner-up to host the 2016 games, behind Rio de Janeiro. |
Every October for the past five years (2006 to 2011), the boys and I have attended the Fall edition of The Single Malt & Scotch Whisky Extravaganza that’s been held at The Union League in Center City Philadelphia. During our 2011 excursion to this event, we noticed a significant drop off in the number of whisky brands that were represented and were somewhat frustrated by this, especially when we noticed that attendance for this event was significantly up (you can read my recap of this event by clicking here). After reading reviews of the Fall 2011 DC, Boston, and San Fran Extravaganza events, and hearing about all of the whiskies that didn’t make it to Philly (Diageo Distiller’s Editions and The Balvenie Tun 1401 Batch #3 were especially missed), we were determined to get to Manhattan so that we could find out first hand what we were missing.
Attending a whisk(e)y event in Manhattan has been on our radar for quite some time, but the timing of the events (WhiskyFest, WhiskyLive, and the Whisky Guild Cruise) has always been in direct conflict with our work, vacation, or family event schedules. After receiving an email from the Society in February, and seeing that the Spring event in Manhattan would be on May 10th, I checked my calendar and decided to take a chance by planning to attend this event. I emailed The Usual Suspects to see if there was any interest, but unfortunately, most of them weren’t able to make it. Thankfully, Limpd was as intrigued as I was, so we made our reservations in late April and planned to make a day of the event, i.e. get to Manhattan in time for lunch and a couple of drinks, head to the event, stop for one more drink on our way back to Penn Station, and then head home.
About one week before the event, I was informed that I would need to attend a budget meeting from 3 to 5PM on the day of the event. Once again, my plans to attend a Manhattan whisky event were being tampered with! Staying positive is not one of my strengths, and by the time Thursday morning rolled around, I was getting seriously annoyed. This montage from “Clerks” (pardon the expletives, but I think they’re appropriate this time around) sums up how I was feeling on the morning and early afternoon on the day of the Extravaganza…
Although my budget meeting went as poorly as can be expected, I was out of there by 3:45, which enabled me to catch a 3:50 PATCO train back to New Jersey. Limpd picked me up at the station and drove us to Trenton. We caught the 5:28 Amtrak train, and by 5:40, we were enjoying some Sam Adams Boston Lager in the bar car. Our train arrived at Penn Station on time, and by 6:35, we were taking advantage of the perfect Spring weather and walking to the Roosevelt Hotel. We were at the Extravaganza at exactly 7PM.
Once we were checked in, we wasted very little time and took a quick stroll around the room to see what we’d be drinking over the next two hours. We immediately noticed that there were several whisky brands that we’ve never seen at one of the Philly Extravaganzas, i.e. anCnoc, Balblair, Compass Box, Longmorn, Old Pulteney, and Usquaebach (sadly, The Balvenie, Glenfiddich, Yamazaki, and Hibiki were not in attendance).
Since our goal when we attend these events is to try as many new whiskies as possible, we headed straight for the Balblair table to sample the three expressions that they brought to the event. After speaking with their Brand Ambassador, he recommended that we start with their 2000 vintage, then move on to their 1991 vintage, and then end with their 1989 vintage. Although the pours were small, we walked away with a very positive first Balblair experience.
Our next stop would be The Classic Malts table where we would be guided through some very interesting Speyside whiskies by Gregor Cattanach, a former Global Brand Ambassador for the Evil Empire. Err… I mean Diageo. We spent quite a bit of time at The Classic Malt table and managed to try a Clynelish 14, an Auchroisk 20 (pronounced Oth Rusk), and a Glen Spey 21. Gregor was incredibly accommodating and walked us through each expression, as well as giving us a brief lesson on Scottish pronunciation. He then proceeded to call me a “name dropper” for mentioning the Brian Cox Scotch pronunciation videos that we wrote about back in June of 2011. Thankfully, Gregor would prove to be the rule, rather than the exception, i.e. he wasn’t the only Brand Ambassador that would make us feel at home.
Since we had quickly worked our way through six whiskies within 45 minutes, we decided to take a short break for food. Much like the Philly event this past Fall, the food stations were located just outside of the main event area. Although there was nothing particularly special about the food, what we had was well prepared, and would prove to be a perfect accompaniment for our drinking adventures. We needed food that would satisfy and line our stomachs, and that is exactly what was offered (roast beef and roast turkey sandwiches, pasta, salad, and a few desserts). Within ten minutes, we were back in the main room for more whisky.
The first hour went by very quickly, so we picked up the pace and worked our way around the room to see what else we needed to try. I had the Compass Box Hedonism and Peat Monster, Glenmorangie Artein and Signet, Highland Park 15, Laphroiag 10 Cask Strength, The Macallan Fine Oak 15, Aberlour A’Bunadh #38, Knappogue Castle 12, Usquaebach Old Rare Superior Blend and 15 Year Old Blend, and Scotch Malt Whisky Society Cask No. 36.54 (they call it “A cheeky treat for afternoon tea”). Along the way, we managed to chat with each of the Brand Ambassadors, and they all proved to be extremely friendly and knowledgable (or perhaps it was just the booze dancing).
What impressed me most about the New York event was how the Brand Ambassadors and pourers managed the crowd. There were several tables that were very crowded (it was four deep at the Compass Box table), but they managed to get everyone a drink in a timely fashion AND still keep the conversation flowing as they entertained questions from the attendees. The fact that we were able to try so many whiskies and have a few conversations within a two hour span made all of the travel and pre-event aggravation well worth the trip.
After the event, we walked back to Penn Station and make a quick stop at the bar at Keens Steakhouse for one more drink. As I have mentioned in several posts, the bar at Keens is one of my favorite destinations whenever I’m in New York. Great service, great food, great atmosphere, and a RIDICULOUSLY huge whisky menu are what keep me going back. While the whisky selection was incredibly tempting, we decided to just have a beer before our train. We stayed for about an hour and played the “Had it, had it, had it!” game as we marveled at the whisky selection. We also played “Guess what the bartender is making!” as he crafted several cocktails for a couple at the far end of the bar. Apparently, a Blanton’s Old Fashioned was quite popular that night.
We returned to Penn Station by 10:45 and had just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat at what I thought would be a gastronomic mistake at the end of an otherwise fantastic evening, i.e. we ordered a half a dozen tacos from Taco Bell. Thankfully, we survived the tacos and had an uneventful ride home on Amtrak.
With the exception of the pre-trip work drama, our maiden voyage to the New York Extravaganza was a complete success. Beautiful weather, perfectly timed train travel, fantastic whiskies, good food, and the opportunity to speak with some very nice people. Who could ask for anything more?
But wait! I’m not done yet…
Below are some photos from our travels. Cheers! |
London is full of European graduates doing admin jobs, so an HR director told me a few weeks ago. It’s a theme I’ve heard a lot over the past couple of years. Bright young Europeans are coming to the UK and doing jobs for which they are overqualified. This not surprising, given the economic problems in some EU countries but that’s not the whole story. Working in London is good for the CV and helps people get better jobs when they go back home. One Spanish graduate told me that working in the UK is almost a pre-requisite for getting a good job in Spain. If you haven’t worked abroad, she said, employers think less of you. A stint in London, then, is almost becoming an extension of a young person’s education.
So much for the anecdotes, though. Is there any evidence behind this?
I spotted this chart in last week’s OECD report on immigration.
Since the recession, the UK’s over-qualification rate among non-native highly educated workers has risen by one of the highest rates in the OECD. This suggests that a lot of well-educated people have found work in the UK but in relatively low skill jobs.
A recent report on skills by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that, during the last decade, the number of highly qualified workers in Europe rose faster than the number of highly skilled jobs.
It also found that, compared to the rest of Europe, the UK had a relatively high number of graduates overqualified for the work they were doing.
Last year, research by the CIPD found that over half the graduates from the old Eastern Bloc countries were employed in low-to-middle skill work.
It also pointed out that EU migrants are concentrated in the 25-34 age band. In other words, most come to the UK when they already have some work experience. Graduates from the EU arrive here work-ready with good qualifications and, usually, excellent English.
Most of the employers surveyed in the CIPD study said that they did not recruit migrant workers as a way of paying lower wages or avoiding training investment. Nevertheless, the report concludes that the increase in the number of graduates from the EU has made competition harder for Britain’s youngsters.
[T]he evidence in this report suggests that, particularly in low-skilled jobs, the availability of EU migrants, especially those from EU8 nations, has added to the competition facing young UK-born workers. This report shows that EU8 migrants are disproportionately represented in low-skilled jobs and are likely to have more employment experience and to be better qualified than young UK-born workers going for the same type of employment. The competition for jobs in the low-skilled segment of the labour market has been amplified by the squeeze in the number of mid-level-skilled jobs that exist in the UK. At a Resolution Foundation event earlier this year, Andrea Salvatori presented some findings from his work on job polarisation. He looked at the change in the composition of occupational groups over the past 3 decades. There are more graduates doing middle skill jobs now than there were 30 years ago while “non-graduates have also seen a major shift in the distribution of their employment from middling to bottom occupations.” Not only are there fewer mid-level jobs but a lot of those that used to be done by non-graduates are now filled by people with degrees. Those without degrees are finding the competition tough. As Tony Dolphin pointed out last year, it is becoming very difficult for people without qualifications to maintain their position on the skill ladder. Mid-skilled workers who lose their jobs initially try to find a comparable job that makes full use of their talents. Some succeed but, because of the shrinking number of mid-skilled jobs, many do not. They do not have the qualifications to move up the skills ladder, so eventually they are forced to move down it and compete for low-skilled jobs. For young people with little work experience, it’s even harder. This comment in the CIPD report is telling: Some employers expect oven-ready young people who leave school pre-equipped with the self-management and employability skills to immediately succeed in the workplace. Or, as one HR manager told me recently, “You can get graduates with excellent English and 2 years work experience willing to do clerical jobs. And they’re good at them. What’s not to like?” There’s a lot not to like, says the CIPD: Put simply, we have too many low-road employers in the UK, competing on low cost and not enough who are building competitive advantage through enhanced leadership and management capability, effective work organisation, job design and smart learning and development interventions. A couple of months ago, I wrote about some remarks Alison Wolf made about the impact of immigration on training, noting that the decline in training investment coincided with the rise in immigration. According to the most recent UKCES data, training spend per employee and per person trained is now lower in real terms than it was in 2005. Maybe she’s onto something. After all, why go to the bother of training people when you can just grab a work-ready graduate?
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Monitoring: Mary Rucker [null]
Vienna, Virginia, United States
11:10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
Thursday, June 5th, 2014
3:10 Coordinated Universal Time
Thursday, June 6th, 2014
Rewind—
Hannah had been perfect. Her discovery couldn’t have been arranged more perfectly: a kid gets superpowers and makes a beeline for somebody who everyone knows is willing to shell out a million dollars for proof of the supernatural. Rucker thought it’d be a good idea to check out James Randi, and sure enough it had paid off. She hadn’t even needed to follow up on any of the other groups like his, just surveil his house for a few days and pretend to be surprised when a teenage girl walked up to his door.
After that, searching for the other children was more annoying than it was anything else. Maybe it was because they had better powers and, unlike Hannah, there were obvious applications to what they could do and they didn’t have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find a way to benefit. Simon had discovered an apocalypse and Austin was fighting house fires. God only knew what the other kids were spending their time.
Or maybe it was that they didn’t feel like they had a deadline, the way that Hannah did. Even Simon had just been trying to figure out whether he was losing his mind, but Hannah seemed to think that every second she couldn’t take care of her siblings personally, they only managed to stay alive through sheer chance.
Speaking of which, Mary wasn’t happy that their next two finds were based on luck. Locating Austin could be ascribed a little bit to hard work, but nobody else has been making the news (or even conspiracy blogs, so far as PALATINATE could tell) so it really came down to Austin being flashy enough to get noticed. And Simon’s appearance on Austin’s doorstep was pure serendipity. Rucker can’t count on that to carry them any further but–in one last stroke of fortune–there’s one last thing working out in Rucker’s favor.
Fundamentally, the problem confronting them is about numbers. Huge numbers. There were more than four million babies born in the year 2000. Four million and a few tens of thousands. Assume, for the sake of convenience, that there was an equal spread in births across the whole year, and stick with the idea, at least for now, that it’s too statistically unlikely for all three of your data points to be January 1st births and that this has to mean something, and you’re left with a little more than eleven thousand candidates. “Thousands” is much better than “millions,” but it’s still a daunting project to handle them all in a reasonable period of time. Every minute Rucker and PALATINATE spent dallying is one less minute between the world and its possible end.
So, step back and add one more criterion to the search parameters. Rucker doesn’t, after all, need to find every superpowered kid in the world, and trying to recruit outside the country would probably run them into problems anyway, at least at this juncture. Less than five percent of the world’s population resides in the United States, which brings the target population down from the thousands to under a couple of dozen–as it turns out, it might be reasonable to spread a year’s births equally across that year, but it’s also incorrect. Put simply, there are just too many people are busy having sex on New Year’s to be having kids then.
Twenty-eight children.
(Rucker is very grateful that there are computer programs to handle the work of poring over all those birth records, and tries not to think about the possibility that there’s an unlisted or wrongly-registered child out there somewhere. It’s bad enough that none of them appear to be named Kasprzak or Martinez.)
From the time that all that was hashed out and the children were located, it was a matter of watching over them until the wheat could be sifted from the chaff. According to the files that are in her hand, though, it looks like April and Peter think that they’ve confirmed one.
(According to the coffee in her other hand, it’s been a long night and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.)
Let’s see what you’ve been up to, Mary thinks as she opens up Olivia Garcia’s folder.
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Crews move the primary payload for space shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission into the Payload Changeout Room on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The space shuttle Endeavour was supposed to launch today (April 29) at 3:47 pm ET, but take-off has been rescheduled for Monday (May 2) at 2:33 pm ET. Last-minute mechanical problems caused the delay, but the shuttle can't simply launch as soon as engineers are done fixing them.
The shuttle only has a narrow slot of time in any given day during which to depart, called the "launch window." Because the orbit of the International Space Station – Endeavour's target – moves slightly from one day to the next, the shuttle's optimal launch window changes daily, typically moving up earlier in the day.
To determine the launch window for Endeavour's STS-134 mission, there are several critical factors scientists consider. Launch delays have ripple effects for the entire mission's timeline, particularly the shuttle's rendezvous and docking times at the International Space Station. [Infographic: How Endeavour Was Built from Spare Parts]
The limited amount of fuel onboard the shuttle means the docking times are calculated based on the station's location above the launch site at Kennedy Space Center here in Florida.
The space station flies over the space center twice a day for about 10 minutes at each pass. Shuttle launch times are set to when the angle of Earth's rotation will allow the orbiter to slip into the same plane that the space station is flying in. Those times shift with each passing day.
For example, the space shuttle Endeavour is now slated to lift off at 2:33 pm ET on Monday, 74 minutes earlier in the day than on its original launch target.
The shift keeps Endeavour on track for its arrival at the station while both fly 220 miles (354 km) above Earth traveling at 17,500 mph (28,164 kph) two days after launch.
But there's more than just orbital mechanics involved in finding an optimal launch window.
Additional variables include the astronaut crew's sleep cycle, where the shuttle's external tank and solid rocket boosters will be released, wind and other weather forecasts on launch day, possible abort scenarios, mission-specific requirements, and even desired re-entry and landing times.
Last but not least, since the Columbia tragedy, NASA has installed many more cameras on the ground around the launch site and onboard each shuttles in order to monitor its condition during launch. This means the launch window must occur during the day to ensure good lighting for all those cameras.
When launches are delayed, their new liftoff time takes all these factors into consideration. |
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Across the country, fast-food workers in about 150 cities are walking off the job in their largest effort yet to push for higher wages. All of this comes as a new report exposes how fast-food CEOs have not just saved money by paying workers low wages, they’ve also used the government to subsidize their own million-dollar salaries with taxpayer dollars. That’s because a loophole in the tax code lets companies deduct the costs of performance-based executive pay.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Sarah Anderson. She wrote the report, “Fast Food CEOs Rake In Taxpayer-Subsidized Pay.” She’s with the Institute for Policy Studies. Sarah, how does it work?
SARAH ANDERSON: Well, this is a perverse loophole in our tax code that essentially means that the more corporations pay their CEO, the less they pay in taxes. And that’s because there is this loophole that allows companies to deduct unlimited amounts from their corporate income taxes for the expense of executive pay, as long as it’s so-called performance pay—so, stock options and other bonuses that are configured in a way to qualify for this tax loophole. And what it means essentially is that ordinary taxpayers are subsidizing excessive CEO pay.
And we looked in this report at how much the top six fast-food corporations are benefiting from this tax loophole, and it was really astounding. The most extreme example was the CEO of Yum! Brands. That’s the company that runs the KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut chains. And their CEO, just in the past couple of years, has raked in $94 million of this so-called performance pay, and that translates into a tax benefit for Yum! Brands of $33 million.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Y-U-M.
SARAH ANDERSON: Yes, again, the chain that runs KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. And I think that the point that we’re trying to raise here is to follow on to what Camille was talking about very beautifully, which is how much ordinary people have a stake in this fight around fast-food wages. As it is now, wages in that sector are so low that more than half of workers in that industry have to rely on public assistance. And I think they’ve done a beautiful job of helping people understand that point, that this low-wage model is a burden on taxpayers. And what we’re trying to add here is an understanding of how taxpayers are also subsidizing pay at the top of the corporate ladder.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And when you talk about the CEO of Yum! Brands, it also highlights why so many of these CEOs—why their performance pay is so much higher or bigger than their actual annual salaries in most cases. Could you talk about that, particularly, how the—the emphasis at the top levels of corporate America more on bonuses and options than on actual salary?
SARAH ANDERSON: Exactly. Yeah, well, there is a cap on the tax deductibility of executive pay at a million dollars. But that doesn’t cover the performance pay. So what they tend to do is give CEOs somewhere around a million dollars’ worth of salary and other non-performance-based pay, pay that you just get automatically, and then structure the rest of it in a way so that it can qualify for this tax deduction. It’s called performance-based pay, but there’s been a lot of research done to show that even when a CEO is performing miserably, they can still rig the rules and qualify for this performance-based compensation.
AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this year, McDonald’s offered its employees budgeting advice that actually revealed how impossible it is to make a living working for them. Its online tool provided a sample monthly budget from McDonald’s. It was based on someone working two jobs. Then, when a McDonald’s worker in Chicago called the company’s McResources, 1,800—the 1-800 number, seeking help, she was advised to seek government assistance. The worker was Nancy Salgado, a single mother, 10-year McDonald’s employee, who made the Illinois state minimum wage of $8.25. She recorded the call. This is a clip.
McDONALD’S McRESOURCE LINE: McResource Line. How can I help you?
NANCY SALGADO: Hi, I’m Nancy. I wanted more information about some help that I need.
McDONALD’S McRESOURCE LINE: I can give you a number that will be helpful. You can ask about things like food pantries. Are you on SNAP? SNAP is Supplemental Nutritional Assistance—food stamps. Do you have kids? Are you single?
NANCY SALGADO: Yeah. Yeah, I have two kids.
McDONALD’S McRESOURCE LINE: Yeah. You would most likely be eligible for SNAP benefits.
NANCY SALGADO: You know, I’m rationing food. I didn’t know about this.
McDONALD’S McRESOURCE LINE: You know, it’s a federal program. Federal money comes down to the states, and the states administer it.
NANCY SALGADO: What about, like, the doctor, if necessary?
McDONALD’S McRESOURCE LINE: Did you try to get on Medicaid?
AMY GOODMAN: After an online budgeting tool revealed McDonald’s pays its entry-level workers too little to afford essential expenses like food, water and clothing, McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson said the company does not exploit its workers.
DON THOMPSON: We have legislators and many people that will determine whether or not, you know, minimum wage should be raised. And every time, if minimum wage is raised, we have always been an above-minimum-wage employer, and we’ve always provided opportunity. For us at McDonald’s, whatever legislations comes, those will come, our franchisees, our system will abide by any of those legislations. We’re about providing opportunity.
AMY GOODMAN: There you have the CEO of McDonald’s. Sarah Anderson, your response?
SARAH ANDERSON: They’re exploiting workers, and they’re exploiting taxpayers. It is completely absurd to have highly profitable corporations steering their workers towards public assistance instead of paying them the wages that they need to make ends meet. And they’re doing it, as I said before, at both the bottom and at the top end. They’re taking taxpayer money to prop up this ridiculous business model that is based on exploiting the rest of us taxpayers. And that’s why we all have a fight in this—we all have a stake in this fight.
And for this perverse loophole that supports excessive CEO pay, there is such a simple fix for it. All we have to do is get rid of the exemption in the tax deductibility cap for executive pay for this performance pay. And there’s a bill that’s been introduced in the Senate by Senators Reed, Jack Reed, and Blumenthal. And it’s just such a no-brainer to fix this loophole that right now means that ordinary taxpayers are subsidizing the pay of people like Don Thompson at McDonald’s and David Novak at Yum! Brands, who are out there fighting to keep worker wages so low that they have to rely on public assistance.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you mentioned earlier that your report cited about a half-dozen top companies. What are those other companies, so that our viewers and listeners would know?
SARAH ANDERSON: Yeah. Yeah, well, we’re just looking here at the publicly held companies that are required to report their executive pay. And so, that limited us somewhat, but the top ones are McDonald’s, Yum! Brands, Wendy’s, Dominos and Dunkin’ Brands, the ones that run Dunkin’ Donuts.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to end with Bill Maher on this very subject.
BILL MAHER: Due to the fact that most fast-food workers—whose average age, by the way, now is 29; I’m not talking about kids—are on some form of public assistance, which is not surprising—when even working people can’t make enough to live, they take money from the government, in the form of food stamps, school lunches, housing assistance, daycare. This is the welfare that conservatives hate. But they never stop to think, if we raise the minimum wage and force McDonald’s and Wal-Mart to pay their employees enough to eat, we, the taxpayers, wouldn’t have to pick up the slack. This is the question the right has to answer. Do you want smaller government with less handouts, or do you want a low minimum wage? Because you cannot have both. If Colonel Sanders isn’t going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to. And I, for one, am getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Bill Maher. And, Sarah Anderson, we want to thank you very much for being with us, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. We’ll link to your report, “Fast Food CEOs Rake in Taxpayer-Subsidized Pay,” at democracynow.org.
When we come back from our break, Jeremy Scahill joins us. His film, Dirty Wars, has just been shortlisted for an Oscar. We’ll talk about drone attacks around the world and also the new news organization that he’s establishing with Glenn Greenwald and the founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar. Stay with us. |
You heard the word “scary” used a lot this week, that and much more. Not from the usual scolds. Or Democrats. The loudest alarms came from desperate, panicked Republicans, warning of the man who is destroying the Party of Lincoln before our eyes.
“The man is evil,” said Stuart Stevens, a chief strategist for Mitt Romney in 2012. Romney himself called Donald Trump a fraud on Thursday.
But as much as these “too little, too late” wake-up calls are appreciated, it’s time to place the blame for the elevation of a tyrant as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee where it belongs — with the people. Yes, you. Donald Trump’s supporters know exactly what he stands for: hatred of immigrants, racial superiority, a sneering disregard of the basic civility that binds a society. Educated and poorly educated alike, men and women — they know what they’re getting from him.
This idea that people are following Trump only for the celebrity joy ride, that if they just understood the kind of radical, anti-American ideas he advocates they would drop him, is garbage. If the pope couldn’t dent Trump, Romney surely will not. |
Grover Norquist is all the rage right now, with a growing number of congressional Republicans saying they won't be bound by the pledge they signed with Norquist to resist any and all tax increases.
But just who is Grover Norquist?
Our great colleague Jason Horowitz profiled the anti-tax advocate in July 2011.
Below are some highlights, and we encourage everyone to peruse the entire piece, which is well worth the read:
The sacred texts from which Grover Norquist draws his political power are hidden in a secret fireproof safe.
“I keep the originals in a vault, in case D.C. burns down,” said Norquist, referring to the pledge that his organization asks politicians to sign, vowing to “oppose any and all efforts” to raise taxes. “When someone takes the pledge, you don’t want it tampered with; you don’t want it destroyed.”
For more than two decades, signing Norquist’s pledge has been an almost religious rite of passage for Washington Republicans.
The 54-year-old president of Americans for Tax Reform is Washington’s anti-tax doctrinal watchdog, his stature derived from the faith of his Republican signatories. He is using all of his authority to prevent GOP leaders from giving an inch on taxes as President Obama and congressional leaders seek a historic compromise to raise the debt ceiling and bring down the deficit.
Since he first collected the signatures of Jack Kemp, Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich 25 years ago, Norquist has prepared for this very clash, enlisting about 95 percent of the Republican members of Congress in the crusade against tax increases. Along the way, he has become one of Washington’s most visible and idiosyncratic characters: a zealous, self-promoting tax scourge who presides over a weekly meeting of conservative power brokers and dabbles in stand-up comedy.
...
The stakes for the anti-tax orthodoxy have never been higher, he argued. “If the entire Republican Party decides, ‘Okay, this once we’ll trade a tax increase for something,’ then the pledge would be meaningless,” he said, discounting the suggestion that such a break would dilute his own power. Instead, he calmly predicted that the White House will give in on spending because Boehner and the GOP congressional leadership are “in line.”
“The speaker has never voted for a tax hike, and he never will,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Boehner. “Like Mr. Norquist, he has always fought for lower taxes, and a smaller, less costly government in Washington."
...
Norquist likes reading about himself. In his headquarters’ library, opposite the 100-plus copies of his own book (“Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives”), are shelves reserved for tomes in which he is quoted. A hallway is lined with framed newspaper and magazine stories about him. One is in Japanese. In his executive office, decorated with a green lava lamp, a Janis Joplin poster (“a high point of Western civilization,” he said) and stuffed “Sesame Street” Grover dolls, another floor-to-ceiling bookcase holds titles including a 1994 comic book called “Taxpayers’ Tea Party” in which he is depicted. He plucked a copy of Ralph Nader’s“Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us” out of the stacks, because, he said, “I’m a major character in it.” The green tags on the pages, he explained, mark every time his persona appears.
Norquist is also a frequent and combative presence on television. As he offered a tour of his office, he asked his communications director to confirm an in-studio radio interview at 10 p.m. with Jim Bohannon.
His hunger for the spotlight extends to less likely stages, as well. Last year, his political and family humor earned him third place behind White House speechwriter Jon Lovett and Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) in the “D.C.’s Funniest Celebrities” contest. He said he specialized in Steven Wright-style one-liners. (“When midgets play miniature golf, do they know?” he deadpanned.)
Norquist is better known for more controversial lines, such as saying he wants to shrink government enough so that he can “drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” Being willing to speak in absolutist, brook-no-dissent sound bites has made him extremely valuable to political media built around conflict.
And all that attention is highly valuable to Norquist, who depends on the media to magnify the fate of pledge-breakers. For instance, when President George H.W. Bush lost in 1992 to Bill Clinton after breaking his “read my lips” vow not to raise taxes, “I didn’t have to buy ads — CBS, NBC and ABC told everybody,” Norquist said.
However much he likes to describe himself as a man of peace, letting the pledges work their own magic, his organization has sometimes taken matters into its own hands. His office prominently features posters, once displayed in Metro stations, targeting Republicans who refused to take the pledge. “There are times,” he boasted, “when we’ll call everybody in the congressional district and let them know that one guy signed the pledge and one guy didn’t.”
Last month, Norquist’s hold on Republicans seemed to slip when he faced an insurgency from conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.), who led 34 of 47 Senate Republicans in a vote to reduce the deficit by eliminating $6 billion in ethanol subsidies. Norquist, who is opposed to government support for ethanol but more opposed to any whiff of a tax increase, spoke of the eventual defeat of the bill, which he considered a test run for the current negotiations, in triumphant terms.
“We had Coburn boxed in, and we beat him,” he said, explaining that the failure of the challenge was important “because if Coburn is trying to make the case that it’s okay to raise taxes, that might confuse some people about the nature of the world."
...
In January 2009, Norquist moved the Americans for Tax Reform headquarters from Dupont Circle to the old Verizon building downtown. The selling point was a large space on the sixth floor where he could house the sprawling Wednesday meeting, which has become a main event for conservative lawmakers, lobbyists and policy wonks. Rows of stadium seating that can accommodate nearly 200 guests surround a large oval table.
“I sit here,” Norquist said, his hands on the chair at the table’s head.
Norquist has never been bashful. The oldest son of a Polaroid engineer and a nursery school director, he volunteered for Richard Nixon as a 12-year-old. He graduated from Harvard and Harvard Business School. As executive director of the College Republicans, he worked with Jack Abramoff, who was later ensnared in a lobbying scandal, and Ralph Reed, who would go on to lead the Christian Coalition. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan’s administration picked Norquist to run Americans for Tax Reform, an outside group funded by individual and corporate donors to help pass a tax overhaul.
Norquist has reciprocated by deifying Reagan, despite the fact that the president raised taxes several times. He runs the Reagan Legacy Project, which led the charge to rename National Airport and has stamped Reagan’s name on more than 100 schools, highways, gardens, missile silos and roundabouts around the world. He suggests, half-seriously, that “there is space for one more” on Mount Rushmore.
But Norquist’s main mission is keeping his members devout.
In his airy meeting room, he pointed to a scoreboard-size sign listing the 2010 signatories to the Taxpayer Protection Pledge and expressed confidence that he will “eventually” bring the six Republican House members yet to sign into the fold.
“When there are active primaries,” he said, “that’s the easiest time to get people.” |
Brandon Phillips hitting 7th, Joey Votto 2nd for Reds
Brandon Phillips and Joey Votto take vastly different hitting approaches. (Photo: USA Today/Frank Victores)
MONTREAL — Reds manager Bryan Price put Joey Votto in the second spot of the lineup and Brandon Phillips in the seven hole for the Reds' final two exhibition games on Friday and Saturday in Montreal, and he hinted strongly that the two will stay in those spots when the season begins on Monday.
Price has dodged questions about his lineup construction all spring, but was a little more forthcoming with the season just days away, saying there's "a chance" the Opening Day lineup will have the same eight as Friday's.
The starting eight position players for Friday, and presumably Monday, is Billy Hamilton in center field, Votto at first, Todd Frazier batting and playing third, Devin Mesoraco catching and batting cleanup, Marlon Byrd in left field batting fifth, Jay Bruce in right batting sixth, Phillips at second batting seventh and Zack Cozart eighth, playing shortstop.
Minor leaguer Marquez Smith was the designated hitter on Friday and Cozart will bat ninth with Brayan Pena as the DH on Saturday. There will be no DH when the Reds start the season at home against the Pirates on Monday.
"We may enter the season with something similar to what you're seeing here in Montreal," Price said. "If I need to make adjustments during the year, I'll certainly do that."
However, he had plenty to say about Phillips batting seventh and Votto second — so much so that they don't seem to be a passing fancy.
"There's a lot of things that go into it and try to make sure we're putting ourselves in the best situation to be productive throughout the lineup, one of the reasons Brandon is hitting seventh is he's going to have some guys in front of him, which, I think, is a better environment for him than hitting leadoff or maybe hitting second," Price said. "Joey's been a guy who is an extra-base guy and high-on-base guy, it's wonderful to have him and Billy sitting ahead of Todd and Devin and Marlon and Jay. There could be some subtle tweaks when we face a right-handed pitcher, but right now the next three starters are lefties, so there's a chance this could be an Opening Day lineup here against a left-handed starter."
The Blue Jays started Mark Buehrle on Friday and are scheduled to start lefty Daniel Norris on Saturday before the Reds face Pirates' left-hander Francisco Liriano on Opening Day.
The next two games feature right-handers, Gerritt Cole and A.J. Burnett on the mound for the Pirates. The Reds could flip-flop Byrd and Bruce against right-handers.
Votto started 23 games in the two-hole last season and put up some of his best numbers there in his injury-shortened season. He hit .265/.430/.446 with three of his six home runs in the second hole. Many theories speculate that the most productive spot for the best hitter on a team is second, and it's something the Angels have done with Mike Trout, the Twins with Joe Mauer and the Red Sox with Dustin Pedroia. Since his debut on Sept. 4, 2007, Votto has the highest on-base percentage (.417) and second-best batting average (.310) in baseball.
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Phillips batted no lower than sixth last season and has only started one game at the No. 7 spot since 2006, when he mostly hit there during his first season in Cincinnati. His last start in the seventh spot came in 2010.
"I just think we need that type of bat in that spot, it gives us an opportunity to give us credibility throughout the lineup and an understanding that it's still an extremely important spot in our lineup if we're going to have some authority one-through-eight," Price said. "I think there's going to be plenty of opportunities for Brandon to drive in runs in that exact spot. It doesn't mean he'll be there all year, it means he has a chance to start the season with what I believe will be plenty of opportunities to drive in runs and be a productive performer for us."
Price said he's talked to all the players individually about what to expect, so Phillips' sudden drop to seventh shouldn't be taking him by surprise.
"I've talked with all of our hitters, at different points in time, there's an understanding and appreciation that spots in the lineup are all valuable and all important, and the one thing I think we need, first of all, is someone who will embrace that spot," Price said. "I won't say it's a coveted spot, I think coveted for a lot of guys is three-four, or three-four-five, that being said, when you look at the guys hitting ahead of you, Mesoraco's not just a guy who is a nice offensive player, he's a high on-base guy, Marlon has a great history as a great offensive performer that you can anticipate being on base and Jay Bruce, we know is going to have a much better year than he did in 2014. That's a nice trio of hitters leading up to hitting seventh."
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The BBC's new director general Tony Hall says staff should have spoken up about the catastrophic Digital Media Initiative (DMI).
The utopian media storage project cost the BBC almost £100m since 2010 (and some £81m before then) before it was formally abandoned in May, with the corporation opting to use off-the-shelf software tools instead.
"The thing that worried me most about DMI is the fact that people said we knew all about that, but no one said. That's a problem of culture where fingers are pointed and people don't feel they can own up and say something's wrong," said Hall in an interview, we learn from Ariel, the BBC's staff mag.
Shifting the blame to the workers, rather than the management, for the project's failings is odd – since the DMI's shortcomings were widely known. The only deliverable the BBC will keep is the Fabric archive database, which was far slower and harder to use than the systems it replaced. "Research that would have taken an hour now takes four," notes one producer.
"Once thirty desks had been provided for the 'concept team' on the ground floor of the Broadcast Centre, back in 2007/8, you knew nobody else in broadcasting would be daft enough to embark on this sort of venture," noted one former BBC manager back in February 2011.
BBC projects which cost above £50m require the approval of the BBC Trust, which has a statutory duty to the licence fee payer. "I do not think there has been a single meeting of the Finance Committee [since January 2009] where the subject of DMI in its various guises has not been discussed," Trust appointee Anthony Fry told the Public Accounts Committee in February 2011.
“A number of releases have been successfully delivered and initial feedback from users has been very positive,” the Trust claimed in its response to the audit office’s report on the DMI in 2011. "In the context of the DMI being a complex and cutting edge IT project, the Trust considers this is something of which the BBC should be proud."
BBC management Bill Garrett, the BBC's head of technology in 2010, told the BBC Trust in May 2012 – a full year before DMI was axed – that the project was off the rails and the National Audit Office may have been misled.
Hall told Ariel this week:
I want an organisation that can take risks and do things that are difficult, and learn from our mistakes as opposed to 'You made a mistake, out you go'.
But there isn't much danger of that. The sole fall guy for DMI, chief technology officer John Linwood, who has been suspended on full pay since May while a review is conducted, was paid £140,000 in bonuses on top of his £280,000 per annum salary.
Bootnote
According to a staff survey by the BBC Club at its Archive Centre in Perivale "the 3 most popular classes were Pilates, yoga and meditation". Much needed, no doubt. |
Oh! how many are lost by indulging their sight! – St. Alphonsus de Ligouri If your eye offends you, pluck it out. – Jesus
We live in a hyper-sexualized, even pornified culture, and if you’re a man who wants to be pure, you’re going to be involved in a constant warfare against lust. Everything from toothpaste commercials to weight loss ads have some sort of sexual spin. After all, as they say, sex sells.
Then there is the rampant immodesty in women’s dress (even in church, sadly), including mini-shorts, crop tops, and leggings worn as pants. Popular TV shows are filled with graphic sex, and celebrities dress in see-through clothing—that is, when they aren’t releasing nude photos of themselves.
Now, these temptations are so powerful because they involve our sight—one of the most potent of our senses, especially for us men. What we see is indelibly etched into our memories, and we can never truly un-see anything. Additionally, our sight has a powerful connection to what we want. Radio ads will never be as effective as TV ads, because hearing simply isn’t as strong a sense as sight.
Today I want to talk about an ancient Catholic practice that can help us combat temptations to lust: Custodia occulorum, or custody of the eyes.
What is it
At its most basic level, custody of the eyes simply means controlling what you allow yourself to see. It means guarding your sense of sight carefully, realizing that what you view will leave an indelible mark on your soul.
Many of the saints, in their zeal for purity, would never look anyone in the face. “To avoid the sight of dangerous objects, the saints were accustomed to keep their eyes almost continually fixed on the earth, and to abstain even from looking at innocent objects,” says St. Alphonsus de Liguori.
Now, staring at the floor at all times is a bit extreme for most of us, but it does demonstrate the seriousness with which the saints viewed the importance of purity. They teach us that is simply impossible to allow hundreds of immodest images into our minds, however innocently, and remain pure.
Of course, to the modern mind, this guarding of the eyes is rather quaint and even ridiculous. How prudish, many would think, to think that we should exercise any control over what we see. And yet, if we care about our souls, we have no other option.
How to Practice It
The best place to begin practicing custody of the eyes is in the things which we can control, such as movies, magazines, or television shows. If your favorite TV show has a sex scene every 5 minutes, you need to cut it out of your life. It’s not worth the temptation. In short, don’t consume things that are occasions of sin. Carelessly putting yourself in spiritual danger in this way is a grave sin itself, so take it seriously.
It’s actually rather easy to edit what you consume. But what about the things we can’t control, such as the immodestly dressed woman walking past you? This takes far more prayer-fueled discipline and practice. That said, here are some suggestions.
First, if you’re struggling with the way a woman is dressed, immediately look at her face. I don’t care how beautiful a woman is, it is essentially impossible to lust after someone’s face. The face is the icon of each person’s humanity, and it is far easier to respect a woman’s dignity when you’re looking at her face and not her body.
Second, it may just be appropriate to stare at the floor sometimes, especially if there’s no other way to avoid temptation. This doesn’t have to be the norm, but if the situation warrants it, it is foolish not to do so.
Third, avoid places you know are especially problematic for you. For most men, the beach is a problem. Dozens of women in tiny bikinis is just too much. If that’s the case for you, avoid the beach.
Finally, fast and pray. This should go without saying, and yet I am always amazed that men think they can control themselves without God’s help. It simply isn’t possible. We always need grace in the battle against concupiscence, and if we trust in ourselves and our own willpower, we will do nothing but fail.
Conclusion
Yes, temptation is everywhere, but we are not helpless victims. We must take the need for purity seriously, and that means guarding carefully what we allow ourselves to see. Through prayer, fasting, and practice, we can learn to take control of our eyes and avoid temptation. This isn’t quaint and archaic—it’s basic to spiritual survival.
Let us call upon our most pure Lady and her chaste husband St. Joseph, begging their intercession for our purity.
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Don’t quit your shuddering just yet. Live burial is not unheard of; it has always been a real (albeit distant) possibility. Indeed, it’s conceivable the first burials of humans were accidental, live ones: Ill and wounded hunters were left in caves with the entrances sealed off to keep out wild animals while the rest of the hunting parties continued after their prey. It was hoped that once the victims had regained their strength, they would push the barriers out of the way and rejoin the group. Some died in those caves, however
Example: [Percy Russell, 1906]
PREMATURE BURIAL To die is natural; but the living death
Of those who waken into consciousness,
Though for a moment only, ay, or less,
To find a coffin stifling their last breath,
Surpasses every horror underneath
The sun of Heaven, and should surely check
Haste in the living to remove the wreck
Of what was just before, the soul’s fair sheath,
How many have been smothered in their shroud!
How many have sustained this awful woe!
Humanity would shudder could we know
How many have cried to God in anguish loud,
Accusing those whose haste a wrong had wrought
Beyond the worst that ever devil thought.
The still-living have been consigned to an eternal dirt nap often enough that fears of premature burial are based on fact as much as on lore. Numerous cases of interments and almost interments dot history.
In the first century, the magician Simon Magus, according to one report, buried himself alive, expecting a miracle — a miracle that didn’t happen. On Iona, in the sixth century, one of St. Columba’s monks, Oran, was dug up the day after his burial and found to be alive. Legend has it when he told his fellows he had seen heaven and hell, he was promptly dispatched and re-interred on grounds of heresy. And the 13th-century Thomas a Kempis, the reputed author of the great devotional work The Imitation of Christ, was never made a saint because, it was said, when they dug up his body for the ossuary they found scratch marks on the lid of his coffin and concluded that he was not reconciled to his fate.
In the late 16th century, the body of Matthew Wall was being borne to his grave in Braughing, England. One of the pallbearers tripped, causing the others to drop the coffin, thus reviving the dear departed. Wall lived on for several more years, dying in 1595. He celebrated his ‘resurrection’ every year.
In the early 17th century, Marjorie Elphinstone died and was buried in Ardtannies, Scotland. When grave robbers attempted to steal the jewelry interred with her, the deceased surprised the heck out of them by groaning. The robbers fled for their lives, and Elphinstone revived, walked home, and outlived her husband by six years.
Marjorie Halcrow Erskine of Chirnside, Scotland, died in 1674 and was buried in a shallow grave by a sexton intent upon returning later to steal her jewelry. While the light-fingered sexton was trying to cut off her finger to retrieve a ring, she awoke. In her additional years of life after her first burial, she went on to give birth to and raise two sons. No one knows what happened to the sexton.
The 17th century saw a number of premature burials. Collapse and apparent death were not uncommon during epidemics of plague, cholera, and smallpox. From contemporary medical sources, William Tebb compiled 219 instances of narrow escape from premature burial, 149 cases of actual premature burial, 10 cases in which bodies were accidentally dissected before death, and 2 cases in which embalming was started on the not-yet-dead.
Some instances were especially heartbreaking. In the 1850s, a young girl visiting Edisto Island, South Carolina, died of diphtheria. She was quickly interred in a local family’s mausoleum because it was feared the disease might otherwise spread. When one of the family’s sons died in the Civil War, the tomb was opened to admit him. A tiny skeleton was found on the floor just behind the door.
[British Medical Journal, 1877] A correspondent at Naples states that the Appeals Court has had before it a case not likely to inspire confidence in the minds of those who look forward with horror to the possibility of being buried alive. It appeared from the evidence that some time ago, a woman was interred with all the usual formalities, it being believed that she was dead, while she was only in a trance. Some days afterwards, when the grave in which she had been placed was opened for the reception of another body, it was found that the clothes which covered the unfortunate woman were torn to pieces, and that she had even broken her limbs in attempting to extricate herself from the living tomb. The Court, after hearing the case, sentenced the doctor who had signed the certificate of decease, and the Major who had authorized the interment each to three month’s imprisonment for involuntary manslaughter.
A recent “not quite all the way over the line yet” news story comes from 1993:
Sipho William Mdletshe might as well be dead, as far as his fiancee is concerned. Declared deceased after a traffic accident in Johannesburg, South Africa, Mdletshe, 24, spent two days in a metal box in a mortuary before his cries alerted workers, who rescued him. But Mdletshe is heartbroken, because his fiancee, who also was hurt in the crash, doesn’t believe his story and refuses to see him. She thinks he’s a zombie who returned from the dead to haunt her.
In 1994, 86-year-old Mildred C. Clarke spent ninety minutes in a body bag in the morgue at the Albany Medical Center Hospital before an attendant noticed the bag was breathing. She’d been found sprawled on her living room floor, cold and motionless, with no detectable heartbeat, breath, or other signs of life. She was also as stiff as a board. The coroner didn’t have to think twice about declaring her dead. She apparently did not agree with his verdict, and, with care, lived a week longer.
Okay, so it happens. But how common an occurrence is it?
In 1896, T.M. Montgomery, who supervised the disinterment and moving of the remains at the Fort Randall Cemetery, reported that “nearly 2% of those exhumed were no doubt victims of suspended animation.”
These days, getting accidentally buried alive in the United States or Canada borders on the impossible. Embalming procedures will finish off anyone not quite all the way through the Pearly Gates, and the families of deceased citizens of both those countries overwhelmingly opt to have their loved ones embalmed.
(Contrary to popular belief, embalming is not mandatory in the United States. Corpses carry little disease risk — we pose a much greater threat to the public health while we’re still breathing, bleeding, and shedding skin. Proof of this lack of danger is found in the Centers for Disease Control’s study into the risk factors inherent to workers in the funeral business — they found those who deal with cadavers have no greater mortality rate than the general population, nor does their occupation appear to hold special danger of infection.
Moreover, despite the claims of the funeral industry, normal embalming does not kill all disease-causing organisms in a cadaver. One study found common pathogens (including the tuberculosis bacillus) still present in 22 of 23 cadavers within 24 to 48 hours of embalming. Other infectious organisms are virtually unaffected by normal embalming, including those that cause anthrax, tetanus and gas gangrene.)
There have been deaths by embalming. In 1837, Cardinal Somaglia was taken ill, passed out, and was thought to have died. Preparations were begun immediately to embalm this very important church official. When the surgeon/embalmer cut into the chest to instill embalming materials, he could see the cardinal’s heart still beating. Worse, at this point, the cardinal awoke from his stupor and wisely pushed the knife away from his chest. His effort was to no avail, though — the chest incision killed him.
Sometimes the presumed corpse’s ‘still living’ status is only discovered when someone sets about to perform a post-mortem. A 1996 newspaper article reports:
In 1984, a post-mortem examination was being conducted in a mortuary in New York. When the pathologist made the first cut the “corpse” leaped up and grabbed him by the throat. The pathologist died of shock.The case of Daphne Banks, who was pronounced dead on New Year’s Eve [1995] but showed signs of life when she got to the mortuary, is by no means unique. From the time of Plato to the present there are many well-documented accounts of the dead coming back to life. The Reverend Schwartz, a missionary, was brought back to life by hearing his favourite hymn played at his funeral. The mourners were surprised to hear his voice from the coffin joining in the singing. Nicephorus Glycas, the Greek Orthodox Bishop of Lesbos, laid in state in his church for two days while mourners filed past his coffin. Suddenly he sat up and demanded to know what everybody was looking at.
The discovery that a corpse still has some life left in him isn’t a new phenomenon:
[Stowe’s Annals, 1587] The 20 of Februarie [1587], a strange thing happened to a man hanged for felonie at Saint Thomas Waterines, being begged by the Chirugeons of London, to have made of him an anatomie, after he was dead to all men’s thinking, cut downe, throwne into a carre, and so brought from the place of execution through the Borough of Southwarke over the bridge, and through the Citie of London to the Chirugeons Hall nere unto Cripelgate: The chest being opened there, and the weather extreme cold hee was found to be alive, and lived till three and twentie of Februarie, and then died.
One of the most famous of such cases is that of Anne Greene who, after being hanged for a felony on 14 December 1650, was sent to the anatomy hall to be used for dissection. She awoke and lived on for many years afterwards.
Rapist-murderer William Duell was hanged at Tyburn in November 1740 and taken for dissection. The assistant noted the deceased was breathing and had a faint pulse. Although he was in great pain, two hours later the dead man was sitting in a chair drinking wine. He was sent back to prison and later exiled for life.
Around the same time, Professor Junkur of Halle University received a sack with the body of a hanged criminal to be used for dissection. The body was dumped in his house after dark when the professor had already gone to bed. During the night, the professor was awakened by the figure of a naked and shivering man holding an empty sack. The professor decided to help the man escape further punishment and some years later encountered him on the street, a wealthy merchant with a wife and two children.
Not every anatomist was so kind-hearted. The Newgate Calendar quoted the surgeon who worked on an eighteenth century German criminal as saying:
I am pretty certain, gentlemen, from the warmth of the subject and the flexibility of the limbs, that by a proper degree of attention and care the vital heat would return, and life in consequence take place. But when it is considered what a rascal we should again have among us, that he was hanged for so cruel a murder, and that, should we restore him to life, he would probably kill somebody else. I say, gentlemen, all these things considered, it is my opinion that we had better proceed in the dissection.
Okay, so it was (and still is) possible to be buried alive or to meet your maker on a post-mortem table. The prospect is chilling, and numerous people have gone to great lengths to make sure it doesn’t happen to them. The practice of ‘waking’ the dead (having someone sit with the deceased from the time of death until burial in case he ‘wakes up’) began out of this concern. Especially in bygone days when a number of illnesses could cause the sufferer to slip into a coma and thus make it appear all life functions had been snuffed out, the danger of overly hasty interment was real. (Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre short stories, most notably “Premature Burial,” certainly helped increase such fears among the general populace.)
Some went so far as to specify in their wills they wanted special tests performed on their bodies to make sure they were actually dead. Surgical incisions, the application of boiling hot liquids, touching red-hot irons to their flesh, stabbing them through the heart, or even decapitating them were all specified at different times as a way of making sure they didn’t wake up six feet under. Some opted for being buried with the means to do themselves in, and guns, knives, and poison were packed into coffins along with the deceased.
The screams of a young Belgian girl who came out of a trance-like state as the earth fell on her coffin so upset Count Karnice-Karnicki, Chamberlain to the Czar and Doctor of the Law Faculty of the University of Louvain, that he invented a coffin which allowed a person accidentally buried alive to summon help through a system of flags and bells. Patented in 1897, this hermetically-sealed coffin had a tube, about 3.5 inches in diameter, extending to a box on the surface. The tube was attached to a spring-loaded ball sitting on the corpse’s chest. Any movement of the chest would release the spring, opening the box lid and admitting light and air into the coffin. To signal for help, a flag would spring up, a bell would ring for half an hour, and a lamp would burn after sunset. Similar “life-signaling” coffins were patented in the United States.
Those old-fashioned devices might sound quaint and out of place in modern society, but concern over live burial has prompted the redirection of newer technologies to take the place of red flags and whistles:
Evangelist Mary Baker Eddy has long been rumored to have been interred along with a functioning telephone. That bit of popular lore likely grew out of a misremembering of the circumstances of her burial. After she died at her home in Boston, in December 1910, her body was kept at the general receiving vault at Mount Auburn Cemetery in nearby Cambridge for several months while her monument was being constructed. Because she was a world renowned figure and there was some fear of thievery, a guard was hired to stay with the body until it was interred and the tomb sealed, and a telephone was installed at the receiving vault for his use during that period. There was never a phone at the monument, inside or outside.
The same rumor is associated with Aimee Semple McPherson, another famous evangelist. She was buried in 1944 in Los Angeles’ Forest Lawn Memorial Park. McPherson used a telephone on the stage of her Angeles Temple to keep in contact with her radio crew during sermons, and this may have contributed to the rumor. More likely, people confused her with Mary Baker Eddy.
In 1995 a $5,000 Italian casket equipped with call-for-help ability and survival kit went on sale. Akin to beeping devices which alert relatives to an elderly family member’s being in trouble, this casket is equipped with a beeper which will sound a similar emergency signal. The coffins are also fitted with a two-way microphone/speaker to enable communication between the occupant and someone outside, and a kit which includes a torch, a small oxygen tank, a sensor to detect a person’s heartbeat, and even a heart stimulator.
Those worried about premature burial would do well to consider Point #10 of “Short Reasons for Cremation,” a 12-point pamphlet circulated in Australia at the turn of the century: Cremation eliminates all danger of being buried alive.
History does record some instances of deliberate live burial. It was a method of execution employed in Roman times for vestal virgins who broke their vows of chastity, and some medieval monks and nuns were also thus punished for the same crime. Plutarch described the process for vestal virgins:
. . . a narrow room is constructed, to which a descent is made by stairs; here they prepare a bed, and light a lamp, and leave a small quantity of victuals, such as bread and water, a pail of milk, and some oil; so that body which had been consecrated and devoted to the most sacred service of religion might not be said to perish by such a death as famine. The culprit herself is put in a litter, which they cover over, and tie her down with cords on it, so that nothing she utters may be heard. They then take her to the Forum… When they come to the place of execution, the officers loose the cords, and then the high priest, lifting his hands to heaven, pronounces certains prayers to himself before the act; then he brings out the prisoner, being still covered, and placing her upon the steps that lead down to the cell, turns away his face … the stairs are drawn up after she has gone down, and a quantity of earth is heaped up over the entrance to the cell … This is the punishment of those who break their vows of virginity.
Medieval monks and nuns who broke their vows of chastity were often walled into small niches, just barely large enough for their bodies. They also were given a pittance of food and water, and the grim benediction Vade in Pacem (Depart in Peace).
Some have been buried alive to serve the dead in the next life. In Africa, for example, two live slaves (a man and a woman) were interred with each dead Wadoe headman. The man was given a bill-hook to use to cut wood for fuel in the next life, and the woman cradled the dead chief’s head in her lap. In 1849, an observer at the funeral of King Thien Tri of Cochin, China, reported that along with rich and plentiful grave goods, all of the king’s childless wives were entombed with his body, thus guaranteeing he’d be henpecked throughout eternity but would at least get his meals on time. |
Washington (CNN) Republican Senators continued their forward march to reshape the judiciary Wednesday, holding hearings for six federal judgeships while also aiming to discredit the nonpartisan review board that has cast doubt on the qualifications of some of President Donald Trump's young and often deeply conservative nominees.
With more drama than the typical judiciary confirmation hearing, the session before the Senate judiciary committee spotlighted the strategy of Trump and his partners in the majority party to seat nominees at a faster clip than previous administrations and had Democrats crying foul.
"I think this rush to rubber-stamp President Trump's nominees, many of whom have been extreme and many objectively unqualified, has diminished the Senate's constitutional duty," Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said.
Trump has so far nominated 62 men and women to fill federal judgeships, with four powerful appellate judge positions already approved by the Senate. At this point under the past administration, the Senate had only confirmed two of then-President Barack Obama's appellate nominees.
The candidates, if approved, will serve for lifetime terms and hear important federal cases, offering Trump an opportunity to implant a lasting legacy on the judiciary.
"When the history books are written about the Trump administration, the legacy will be the men and women confirmed to the trial bench," Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said Wednesday.
Some of Trump's nominees for the postings have drawn scrutiny for their qualifications.
Brett Talley, a 36-year-old attorney with a legal resume in Alabama and at the Department of Justice has practiced law for only three years and never tried a case. He was advanced out of the committee last week on a party-line vote for a position on an Alabama district court bench.
Talley is one of four of Trump's nominees who have received a rare "not-qualified" rating by the American Bar Association, which has been vetting federal judicial nominees since the Eisenhower administration. Talley's not-qualified rating, as well as the rating of Trump's nominee to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, were unanimously decided -- a demerit that's only been given two other times since 1989, according to ABA records.
No nominees put forward by Obama received the negative rating, though the Obama administration allowed the ABA to make its review before officially nominating a candidate, whereas the Trump administration has presented nominees before the arrival of a rating. Seven nominees out of the 330 put forward by George W. Bush, who, like Trump did not wait for an ABA score, were deemed not-qualified.
But Republicans on Wednesday slammed the ABA as a biased organization that could not be relied upon to rate the nominees.
"I think the notion of a non-ideological organization has been belied by the conduct of the ABA over the years. The ABA today is an openly liberal advocacy group," Cruz said, citing public positions the group has taken on abortion rights and gun control.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee's ranking member, defended the organization and its Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary.
"I've been on this (Senate judiciary committee) for 25 years now and candidly, I have valued these opinions. If I disagree with them that's fine. But I know I'm not a lawyer and I know it is a group of lawyers from the most prominent association of lawyers who are doing some evaluation," Feinstein said. "What are we afraid of?"
Feinstein also pointed out that the ABA has so far deemed 49 of Trump's nominees either qualified or well-qualified, despite their rightward bents.
Appearing before the Senate committee, Pamela Bresnahan, the chair of the ABA's vetting group, stood by the not-qualified ratings.
"I've been a trial lawyer for 37 years and my biggest fear is to go in front of a judge that doesn't know the rules and hasn't become familiar with the rules," she said of Talley.
The six nominees before the panel Wednesday all received qualified or well-qualified ratings from the legal group, but did not escape a grilling from Democrats for their conservative beliefs.
Texas Supreme Court Justice Don R. Willett, a nominee to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, was on the defensive when quizzed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal on past comments made during a political campaign in Texas.
"I was certainly touting the support of pro-life leaders and organizations and pro-family leaders and organizations. I own that. I was running a partisan, judicial (campaign)," Willett said. "My personal views, Senator Blumenthal, they do not affect my judicial views."
Willett, known in certain circles for his prolific tweeting, also sought to clarify a 2014 post relating a female transgender teenager who would be allowed to play on a girl's softball team to the former Yankees star Alex Rodriguez.
"The tweet was a kind of off-kilter attempt at levity that missed the bullseye," Willett said, promising to "absolutely" have an "open mind" to a transgender person appearing in his courtroom.
In an interview, Leonard Leo, an adviser to the President on judicial nominations, pushed back on the criticism of the candidates.
"There's no question many of the nominees are young, but they're extraordinarily talented for their age, and that's an important point to make," Leo said.
"Yes, they're conservative in the sense that they believe in the Constitution as it's written, and they believe that courts have a certain very defined role in our society, which is to interpret the law rather than to make it up. It's not that they're politically conservative. This isn't about politics," he said. |
Pay attention to whom you share your intimate energy with. Intimacy at this level intertwines your aural energy with the aural energy of the other person. These powerful connections, regardless of how insignificant you think they are, leave spiritual debris, particularly within people who do not practice any type of cleansing, physical, emotional or otherwise. The more you interact intimately with someone, the deeper the connection and the more of their aura is intertwined with yours. Imagine the confused aura of someone who sleeps with multiple people and carries around these multiple energies? What they may not realize is that others can feel that energy which can repel positive energy and attract negative energy into your life.
“I always say, never sleep with someone you wouldn’t want to be” – Lisa Chase Patterson
I believe the original author of the above passage is Lisa Chase Patterson. How she described the intimate nature of exchanging energy with another during sex is something that I’ve been lecturing friends about for years. It was nice to see someone else discussing it as well.
We are all physical beings, but we are also so much more than that, including ‘energetic beings’. When you get intimate with anyone you merge with their energy. It doesn’t matter if it is OBE (astral) sex, physical sex, or oral sex — anytime you are intimate with another person (or people) you absorb some of their energy and they absorb some of your energy.
If you have sex with positive, loving, uplifting people – that wonderful energy is absorbed and uplifts you. If you have sex with negative, pessimistic, unstable, depressive people – that energy will have you crashing down and uninterested in day-to-day life. (Among other ways. We are all unique after all) Keep in mind that if this person sleeps with a variety of people, they absorb their energy. A married man or woman has absorbed their spouses energy and will mix it with your energy if you are the other man or woman. It’s vice versa.
So the next time you jump into bed with someone or want to hook up for OBE sex – keep in mind that unless they cleanse their energy on a regular basis, you will be getting intimate with whomever they have been intimate with.
Oh, and just so you know, this isn’t a new discovery. Christians often call this connection ‘Soul ties’. It is also widely discussed in the study of Tantric Sex.
As we accumulate unwanted energies in daily life, regular aura cleansing supports health and well-being. Like psychic dust bunnies, we go around collecting debris on our aura, until we finally do something to cleanse it…
It is the same with personal hygiene. If you do not bathe, your body will become dirtier and dirtier. Gradually the smell becomes unbearable. Eventually, your body even becomes a breeding ground for disease and bacteria. If you do not cleanse your aura, your spiritual energy system will also become ‘dirtier and dirtier’. Eventually you become unpleasant for others to be around (though they may not consciously understand why). Your energy system then begins to attract lower vibrations which are also unhealthy for you and others.
In modern culture, we expect people to take care of their personal hygiene by bathing regularly, if not daily. But we are not yet so spiritually evolved!
Cleansing your Aura
Just like washing your hands cleans one part of your body and washing your face takes care of another… different approaches to aura cleansing will support you in clearing different aspects of your energy system. Some aura clearing approaches are more lightweight–in terms of personal hygiene– like changing your clothes, or putting on deodorant. They are still useful, but they can’t replace bathing! Other methods of aura cleansing go much deeper–equivalent to having a good scrub-down, or going for a detoxifying spa treatment.
Options for Cleansing…
Bathing with Epsom Salts
Water helps wash away dirt, both physically and energetically. Adding Epsom Salts to your bath stimulates the flow of your own energy and also draws minor psychic debris out of your aura.
Swimming
Submerging yourself in water helps cleanse your aura. As ocean water contains salt and minerals, it is especially useful for drawing minor psychic debris out of your aura.
Sunlight
Gentle exposure to sunlight stimulates the flow of your own energy. Some lower vibrations cannot exist with exposure to bright light.
FOUR MOST POWERFUL APPROACHES TO AURA CLEANSING…
1. Aura Meditation
Even basic meditation helps you relax and release. Aura meditation works directly with releasing unwanted energies through grounding, clearing your aura, energy channels and chakras. One of the most powerful ways to cleanse and care for your aura is energy-based aura meditation.
2. Aura Healings
In an aura healing, the healer supports you in cleansing unwanted energies out of your system. The healer assists you in grounding out psychic debris, releasing blocks and helps you get your own energy flowing. If you’d like to find out more about Aura Healing, I highly recommend you research Reiki. If you’d like to experience it yourself, I recommend you look for a Reiki healer in your area)
3. Aura Readings
Often we confuse other people’s energy with our own energy. When we mistake foreign energy for our own, we do not want to release it. We hold on to it because we think it is us! In a clairvoyant aura reading, a reader can help you identify your own energy and discern foreign energy. When you recognize an energy is not you, it is much easier to release.
4. Feeling your Emotions
When your emotional energy is blocked, it creates congestion and back-up throughout your spiritual energy system. This makes it easy to get stuck with unwanted energies. Allowing yourself to feel hidden emotions creates a release of energy. This movement and flow supports you in cleansing psychic debris.
____________
Other Options for Aura Cleansing…
Wind
Standing with an open body posture in a strong wind supports you in releasing unwanted energies. As sea breezes contain moisture, salt and minerals, ocean winds are especially beneficial for aura cleansing.
Gardening or Being in Nature
Through gardening and being in Nature, you come in direct contact with the earth. This helps you get grounded and release unwanted energies out of your system.
Creativity
Creating something you’re enthusiastic about gives you a ‘creative high’. These surges of creative energy stimulate the flow of your own energy and support you in releasing blocks and unwanted energies.
Here is the source of the information on Aural Cleaning. If you’d like to find out more about aura healing, energy healing, and distant healing, I highly recommend you check out the rest of the website: Aura Cleansing and more
***The first half of this article was written by Allie Theiss and excerpt from: http://allietheiss.com/ sharing-intimate-energy |
New Record: Driving Across the US in Less Than 29 Hours
Three men, a souped-up Mercedes, 2,813 miles of American roadway, a bedpan, and a dream.
Ed Bolian, and his team, obliterated a cross-country driving record this month, racing from New York to LA in a heart-pounding 28 hours 50 minutes.
That's 11 hours faster than Google maps says it should take, and nearly 3 hours faster than the previous record set in 2006 of 31 hours and 4 minutes.
"Honestly, I was so shocked at how much we had beat our target and previous record," Bolian, a 27-year-old Lamborghini dealer from Atlanta told ABCNews.com.
Ed Bolian, 27, at the Red Ball garage in New York City, from which he left on Oct. 19 for a record-breaking cross country drive.
"It was just unbelievable. It was cathartic and amazing. But mostly, I was just shocked," he said upon arriving at LA's iconic Portofino Hotel, the historic end of cross country speed attempts since the 1970s, when Brock Yates created the "Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining Sea Memorial Trophy Dash," better known as the Cannonball Run.
For Bolian, the drive was ten years in the making the and fulfillment of a teenage dream, after meeting Yates, the iconic autoracer and journalist.
But planning, he said, began in 2009 when he first set his mind to find the right car and outfitting it with enough of the latest technology to outsmart cops, outrun traffic and outlast any changes in weather.
Bolian outfitted the Mercedes with two extra fuel tanks.
Starting with a Mercedes CL 55, chosen less for its top speed than a suspension sturdy enough to carry extra fuel, Bolian added two 22-gallon auxiliary fuel drums to the car's existing 23-gallon tank. Those 67 gallons of gas are heavy, weighing nearly 400 pounds.
In the cockpit of the car is a veritable electronics store featuring scores of devices, many of which aided the team in what Bolian called "countermeasures."
Among those countermeasures were a CB radio, radar detector, police scanner, laser jammer and a switch that could deactivate the car's lights.
The car's cockpit.
On top of that, the car was outfitted with two GPS devices and a mobile Internet connection that allowed the team to consult traffic and weather apps and websites.
There was also that bedpan, insurance against any unnecessary stops.
For all of Bolian's money, effort and planning, in the weeks leading up to the run, he realized he was missing two critical items - a co-driver and a navigator.
"To be honest," Bolian confessed, "much of the drama happened before trip. I knew I needed to convince someone to do something dangerous and illegal. I didn't secure a co-driver until about six weeks before, or a support passenger until 18 hours before we set out."
Bolian reached out to Dave Black, a friend and former customer from the Lamborghini dealership, to share duties for the grueling drive. He reached out to friends across Facebook looking for someone willing ride in the back, spotting for police and calculating fuel usage, before hearing from Dan Huang.
"When we got to New York and I explained all of the procedures and exactly what it was going to take, I thought for sure these guys were going to get on a plane and head back to Atlanta," Bolian said. It didn't help that during a test run of the car, the team was pulled over for driving the wrong way down a one-way street.
The first person to set a speed record for driving cross country was Edwin "Cannonball" Baker in 1933. In the 1970s, Yates and others inaugurated the Cannonball Run in Baker's honor and as a protest against new federal speed limits initiated in the wake of the oil crisis.
Driving West, into the sunset.
That race was traditionally run from the Red Ball Garage in Manhattan to the Portofino in Redondo Beach, Calif.
"There's no governing body for outlaw street racing. That's the whole idea," Bolian said. "But there is an unwritten rule book and we wanted to mirror as closely as we could that chapter of American automotive history. We wanted to mirror the cannonball start and end point."
The team, buzzing with excitement and adrenaline, pulled off the starting line in New York at 9:56 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19.
"Then we sat in traffic for 15 minutes trying to get out of the city," Bolian said.
From there it was a surprisingly smooth ride, at an average speed of 98 mph, whipping through the heartland along a route that "mostly followed I-40."
The car's max speed was 158 mph.
The final readout.
For legal reasons, Bolian is vague about the exact course they took, but an independent GPS company was hired to track the run and confirm the accomplishment.
"We were unfathomably fortunate," he said. "We had no accidents, no traffic, no weather, no major construction. We wanted this to be a benign use of highway. We didn't want to hurt anyone, we didn't want to get hurt and we didn't want to get arrested."
With the exception of one FedEx truck "that tried to merge on top of us, and another truck that tried to block us … we didn't really have any problems," Bolian said.
From left: Dave Black, Ed Bolian and Dan Huang
On Sunday, Oct. 20, at 11:46 p.m., Bolian and his team arrived at the Portofino Hotel, 28 hours and 50 minutes after they left the Red Ball Garage in New York.
"I know someone will try to beat the record. And that's the fun. But for now, I'm enjoying it," Bolian said. |
The Brooklyn Nets have signed free agent guard Spencer Dinwiddie.
Dinwiddie has appeared in 46 career NBA games over two seasons with the Detroit Pistons (2014-16), recording averages of 4.4 points, 2.7 assists and 1.4 rebounds in 13.3 minutes per game. He has also appeared in 29 games over three seasons in the NBA D-League with Detroit’s affiliate, the Grand Rapids Drive, and Chicago’s affiliate, the Windy City Bulls, registering averages of 15.8 points, 6.5 assists and 3.5 rebounds in 33.9 minutes per game. In nine games with Windy City this season, Dinwiddie averaged 19.4 points, 8.1 assists and 3.7 rebounds in 37.4 minutes per contest. The California native was selected 38th overall in the 2014 NBA Draft by Detroit after a three-year career at the University of Colorado.
Brooklyn’s roster now stands at 15 players. |
Photos: Craig Thomas/Tallboy Images for Stereoboard.com (c) 2014
Perhaps it’s not stated enough, but it’s important to wear the right shoes. Stepping on stage at Bristol’s Trinity on Monday night, for the first date of a whistle-stop UK tour, AWOLNATION’s Aaron Bruno was struck by just that thought.
With his footwear fit for skating but not Moonwalking, he settled into his rhythm a little slower than he might have liked. But, in truth, the gig was always likely to feel a little like rediscovering something that was once second nature.
“It was our first show back in the saddle,” Bruno said the following afternoon. “I’ve been doing a lot of writing and getting ready for the second record to come out, whenever the hell that is, so it was nice to get the band back together and play a show. I walked on stage and thought to myself: ‘Oh fuck. I’m the singer of this band. Shit, I gotta entertain people.’ So I just let it go.”
That sophomore record has been a topic of discussion for the band’s many admirers for some time. Bruno’s first under the AWOLNATION moniker, ‘Megalythic Symphony’, was a sleeper hit of rare proportions following its release in the spring of 2011, propelled by the Billboard chart-dominating single, Sail.
It’s called the ‘difficult second album’ for a reason, as Bruno is all too aware. He’s been holed up on a ranch for most of the winter with a makeshift studio, some great California waves and his writing for company, with his pursuit of bigger and better piling weight on shoulders not used to that kind of burden.
“There’s going to be a lot of anticipation for the follow-up record and I’ve never had this kind of pressure before,” he said. “Every record I’ve ever put out in my life was the debut album. I’ve made a bunch of debut albums. This is the first sophomore record I’ve made, when really it’s the sixth or seventh I’ve made if you count all the other bands, from my first punk rock band when I was 16 up until now. It’s absolutely terrifying.
“I think that’s good, though. Before I was always the underdog. I had a lot to say, I had a chip on my shoulder and I wanted to prove everybody wrong. That happened, so I don’t really have that kind of chip on my shoulder. It’s a different one. It’s just the horror I feel of failure.
“I like to think that Sail is my Creep. At least in America, no-one knows any other songs off ‘Pablo Honey’ besides Creep. And then ‘The Bends’ came out and it was such a beautiful record. And after that, ‘OK Computer’ completely changed music. So, hopefully this follow up is something inbetween ‘The Bends’ and ‘OK Computer’, artistically speaking of course. That meets ‘Thriller’, meets Refused’s ‘The Shape Of Punk To Come’. All in one. By the way, it sounds nothing like any of those things. But that’s the spirit I’m going for.”
Bruno’s policy of isolation followed a ferocious touring schedule for the band’s last record, allowing him a little bit of space to reflect on an unexpected smash hit and the freedom to open the songwriting vault full-time after snippets were pulled together on the road.
“I find that when the songwriting process becomes too calculated I don’t do my best work,” he said. “It’s when I’m feeling good and open, and something just comes out of my hands on the piano or guitar, synthesizer or drum beat. Or a piece of paper where lyrics just pour out of me.
“I moved into a barn on a privately owned ranch north of Santa Barbara in California, where there’s no cell service at all. I lived on top of the barn, in this one bedroom shoebox sort of situation. The only things that were around were my lady, my buddy who owns the place and a bunch of cows and horses. I definitely gave my soul a rest from modern technology and society.
“That was one of the best times in my whole entire life and it was only then that I was able to look back and reflect on the achievement of the first record and get focused and ready, pretty pissed off about what I needed to do next.”
Despite the odd press report dropping the ‘concept album’ bomb, Bruno is considered when discussing the record’s overriding themes. Like ‘Megalythic Symphony’, listeners can expect something that is tied together, if not entirely in a narrative sense, then by mood.
“There’s a bit of a story I’m telling,” he said. “You know, what is a concept album? Every album has some sort of concept, right? I don’t know if I should be so brave as to call it a concept album. There is definitely a theme. The first one, I don’t know if I’d call it a concept album necessarily, but it definitely had a commonality in the feeling of the record.
“This one follows that path. It’s certainly weirder, I think. But then again, when I made the first record, nothing sounded like it and people thought I was nuts. I certainly didn’t think Sail was going to be the massive, platinum smash hit that it became.”
If ‘Megalythic Symphony’ was Bruno discovering some uncomfortable things about what had gone before him, then its follow up has a slightly more personal focus. It is, in part at least, about how the outside world can’t change some of the incontrovertible truths inside us, for better or worse.
“I went through a break up so, you know, blah blah blah, break up songs and all that kind of stuff, and I have a new relationship, so there’s a lot about self-reflection and love,” he said. “The first was a lot about how the world was and my discovery of how often and how much we’ve been lied to growing up. History is written by the victors, right? So, I think that we barely know the half of it. And I don’t know anything, by the way. I think that’s the secret, to acknowledge that we know nothing. Then you can start to learn something.
“I feel like I tackled that on the first record. This one seems to be more about human relations and how, after all this success, I don’t necessarily feel more complete as a human being, or better off necessarily. I still feel the same insecurities I felt before, I still have the same confidence I had before, the same sadness. It’s all the same, just coming from a different position. I have a platform now. I know that people will hear it. Before, all I ever wanted was a chance to be heard. Now I have that, so we’ll see what I do with it.”
To check out more of Tallboy Images' AWOLNATION live shots, head here.
AWOLNATION Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Wed May 28 2014 - BIRMINGHAM Institute
Thu May 29 2014 - MANCHESTER Academy
Fri May 30 2014 - LONDON O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire
Sat May 31 2014 - NORWICH Waterfront
Click here to compare & buy AWOLNATION Tickets at Stereoboard.com.
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Copyright As Censorship: San Francisco Eviction Lawyer Uses DMCA Takedown To Censor Protest Video
from the because-that's-what-copyright-does dept
...he began asking to meet in person in order to be “presented as human, multi-dimensional.” I pointed out that issuing a takedown notice without contacting me first didn’t really offer me that same benefit of the doubt. I asked if he’d actually watched the video, which he didn’t confirm but instead indicated that he’d objected to the characterization of the incident in the description, complained about other videos of the event (which can’t be found on YouTube, suggesting he may have issued additional claims) and asked to be sent a copy.
Bornstein promised that if I agreed to meet he would consider dropping the matter, but when I made it clear that I reserved the right to publish a story before the meeting, he replied he’d then have to contact copyright counsel. While not directly stated, the implication was clear that if I agreed to hold the story until after meeting with him, he’d agree to drop the claim.
When I pointed out that a story was already online, along with the video, he rescinded the offer. However, seemingly confused over the difference between copyrights and privacy rights, he seemed intent on arguing that I wasn’t acting as a legitimate reporter for having attended the event and filmed the protest without notifying the firm first.
Right now the issue of housing in San Francisco is a big local topic -- and while I tend to agree that theissue is the regulations limiting the building of new housing in and around the city, the fight has gotten quite nasty at times. It often seems to focus on two issues (neither of which are the true cause of the problem): local evictions for longtime tenants, and tech workers. You can certainly understand the frustration, even if it's mostly misguided. Still, even given that, this seems like a clear abuse of copyright law by some of the lawyers who have been helping train people to conduct those evictions: using a bogus DMCA takedown to hide a video of a protest of one of their training sessions.Jackson West attended one of the sessions and video taped people protesting it at a seminar given by lawfirm Bornstein & Bornstein. You can see the video below via Vimeo:However, you cannot see it on YouTube, because Daniel Bornstein issued a bogus copyright notice over the video.The full article is worth reading, as it includes West calling up Bornstein to talk about things and Bornstein appearing to offer to trade meeting in person for pulling the takedown notice. No matter where you stand on the issue of evictions in SF, hopefully everyone can agree that issuing a bogus copyright notice to delete a video of people protesting you is not okay. Hell, even if you think Bornstein is doing the right thing in helping evict people, hopefully you'll still agree that abusing copyright in this manner is simply wrong.In West's account (which is, obviously, just his side of the story), Bornstein doesn't seem to understand copyright laws:Just because you object to the "characterization" of the event, it doesn't magically give you the right to abuse copyright law.Later in the story, there's an "update" when West goes to meet with Bornstein. After a dispute about whether things are on or off the record, Bornstein trots out another non-copyright, but still bogus, reason for issuing the copyright takedown, claiming West is not "a legitimate reporter."That doesn't really have anything to do with privacy rights either -- and even if it did, it still doesn't give Bornstein (a lawyer, remember) the right to abuse copyright law to takedown the video.Yet again, we see copyright being abused for the purpose of censorsing content someone doesn't like.: As noted in the comments, YouTube has put the video back up...
Filed Under: censorship, copyright, daniel bornstein, dmca, evictions, housing, jackson west, san francisco
Companies: bornstein & bornstein, youtube |
Buy Photo Traffic drives past the Lofts at Clifford Brown Walk, an 80-unit affordable housing project in a former warehouse in the North East area of Wilmington, on Nov. 12. Development is focused on reviving the neighborhood near the Brandywine Creek. (Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)Buy Photo
Wilmington development efforts for years focused on the Christina River, transforming the industrial wasteland southwest of downtown into a bustling neighborhood with high-rise apartments, rows of restaurants, a hotel and amenities, including a wintertime skating rink.
Now, city officials are hoping to put a new emphasis on another neighborhood positioned on a different Wilmington waterway with plenty of under-utilized land and proximity to downtown — this time, along the Brandywine, in the northeastern part of the city. They see an area ripe for revival, and point to developers investing in chic lofts, senior housing and townhouses as what could be the start of a trend.
The emphasis is on the area east of Market Street to the 11th Street Bridge, including the Brandywine Village neighborhood. The area is home to many longtime residents and businesses, but Peg Tigue, a vocal member of the Old Brandywine Village community organization, said it hasn't received the same attention as other parts of the city.
"We call ourselves 'the other river' because nobody knows we are there,” she said.
Buy Photo Trey Wiseman installs cabinets at the Lofts at Clifford Brown Walk on Nov. 12. A former abandoned warehouse is being turned into 80 affordable housing lofts along the banks of the Brandywine in Wilmington. (Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
North Market Street once housed rows of stores serving residents, although buildings now are dilapidated after sitting vacant for years. Hermalee Laylor-Christie, who has owned Top Choice Caribbean Restaurant in the 2000 block of North Market Street for about 20 years, said most of the businesses around her have closed. Any business opening in its place usually doesn't last, she said.
Laylor-Christie said there is so much opportunity on North Market because it is a main thoroughfare into the city, but people rarely stop to shop or pick up food.
"People have been back and forth but they don't stay long any more," said Laylor-Christie, as she sat one recent evening talking to the women at Shear Collection Salon next to her restaurant.
Mel Green, who owns the salon where Laylor-Christie was visiting, said there are obvious issues with the block that deter the thousands of people that drive by each day from stopping.
"Parking is an issue. The lighting, it goes and comes and people don't want to walk around 'cause they think it is dangerous," Green said.
City officials are looking to drive business growth and spark home ownership by making public investment in infrastructure. Repaving sidewalks, restriping asphalt, maintaining medians and planting flowers are on the list. Additionally, the city is seeking to acquire properties.
The city has already invested in color-changing LED lighting on the smoke stack at the Brandywine Pumping Station, a 1906 structure at 16th and Market streets.
"We want it to look like Boathouse Row in Philadelphia," said Tigue, whose group helped organize the project, similar to the boathouses outlined in white lights along the Schuylkill River.
A new Dollar General store also recently opened in the 1900 block of Market Street.
Another key piece is the conversion of the Cathedral Church of St. John at Concord Avenue into 53 units of housing for individuals 62 and older. The church closed in 2012 and the Ministry of Caring, a nonprofit that provides health and social services support to those in need, stepped in.
The organization operates other senior living facilities in the city, but officials see this project as more than just providing a place to live for low-income seniors. Brother Ronald Giannone, founder and executive director of the Ministry of Caring, said the influx of new residents to the neighborhood once the project is complete should attract businesses.
The area is important because it is a gateway to the city, he said.
Buy Photo Brother Ronald Giannone, of the group Ministry of Caring, left, and the Rev. Wayne Wright, Episcopal bishop of Delaware, tour Cathedral Church of St. John on May 26. Giannone is converting the complex into housing for income seniors. (Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
“We really need this to be the spark that gets the fire going for creating a new life in Brandywine Village,” he said.
A greenway also part of focus
The patchwork of investments targets one of the most historically significant parts of the city. Just north from the center of Wilmington, the area now referred to as Old Brandywine Village was defined by the flour mills that lined the waterway, and the homes and shops that prospered there.
Saving that history became a goal of architects, historians and residents in the 1960s even as change and race riots tore apart the rest of Wilmington. The group worked to save and restore historic buildings dating to the 18th century and in the 1980s an architect sought to transform one of those old mills, William Lea & Sons Inc, into the Superfine Lane condos. The area seemed to be a historic community on the rise.
But in the 1990s, that investment fell out. Stores closed and no new vendors replaced them. Crime crept into the edges of Old Brandywine Village and the neighboring Price's Run neighborhood.
The Riverfront Development Corp. was formed in 1995 after a task force formed by Gov. Michael Castle issued a report detailing its vision for the future of the Brandywine and Christina rivers.
The mission was for the RDC to foster development by acquiring land, acting as a developer, helping private developers to find financing and managing construction. Attention to date has focused on development of the Christina riverfront, a former industrial tract that now includes Frawley Stadium, the Russell W. Peterson Urban Wildlife Refuge, Delaware Children’s Museum, the Westin Wilmington, several restaurants, a movie theater, housing developments and a river walk.
Wilmington Mayor Dennis P. Williams last week announced a city proposal to construct a 4,000-seat arena attached to the Chase Center on the Riverfront, a convention facility operated by the RDC. The city estimates the expansion would cost $25 million.
Williams is running for re-election and one of his challengers for the Democratic nomination is Mike Purzycki, executive director of the Riverfront Development Corp. The primary is in September.
Williams last month said the RDC needs to pay more attention to the Brandywine area outlined in the state mission. He said they city sees potential in the neighborhood.
"I think that is going to be a big boom," he said.
Purzycki said the RDC's focus at the moment is protecting its investment along the Christina, and driving new investments. He said the RDC doesn't have plans to focus development along the Brandywine "any time soon."
"It is not likely that we can start moving too far out of the main development area right now," he said.
Buy Photo Wilmington City Councilman Darius Brown stands in front of formerly abandoned warehouse being turned into 80 affordable housing lofts along the banks of the Brandywine on Nov. 13. (Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
City Councilman Darius Brown, whose district includes the east side of the Brandywine where it meets the Christina River, said the area is in need of investment to stabilize communities that are on the edge of being destroyed by violence and disinvestment.
"We can walk two blocks that have issues and drugs and crime, and then all of a sudden come to a street that is stabilized because there are homeowners there who are invested in the neighborhood and drive away the crime," Brown said.
Jaehn Dennis, president of the Vandever Avenue Civic Association, said something needs to be done about the number of vacant properties because crime is driving away the few homeowners who are left, including him.
“It is enough,” Dennis said. “In the '70s and '80s it was really vibrant but with the drugs, the crime – people just moved out.”
A block from Dennis' house on 17th Street is the H. Fletcher Brown Boys and Girls Club, one of the few areas with green space that backs up to the Brandywine. Part of the focus from city officials is centered on expanding access and green space along the waterway, offering added value to residents, who might not otherwise see the Brandywine until they cross one of the bridges that spans it.
Tigue said making the waterway a focus is important to the surrounding neighborhoods. Tigue said she swoons over the breathtaking views of the creek as it snakes past her condo in the Superfine Lane community.
"You should come up and see the views," she said. "There is really no other place like it."
Creating a greenway along the river is a priority, said city Planning Director Leonard Sophrin. He also envisions a small, two-lane road along the river to encourage use of the open space.
“Further north, the relationship between neighborhoods like Trolley Square, the Highlands and Midtown Brandywine are defined by their relationship to the park and the Brandywine,” Sophrin said. “It needs to become this added value for the other neighborhoods along the river.”
Sophrin said the city is looking at the former site of Diamond Salvage Yard, which backs up to the Boys and Girls Club, to preserve as open space.
A few new residential developments are also looking to capitalize on the Brandywine and its views. The Lofts at Clifford Brown Walk across the river will have several units overlooking the water.
Buy Photo A redevelopment project in Wilmington's North East area at the formerly abandoned warehouse is being turned into 80 affordable housing lofts along the banks of the Brandywine. (Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
The 80 one- and two-bedroom apartments in The Lofts are converted from a former warehouse at 14th Street and Clifford Brown Walk. The structure was built in 1917 as a warehouse to store goat skins for the New Castle Leather Co. and was later used as a lithographic printing shop.
Keeping with its industrial history, the apartments have brushed metal finishes, tall ceilings and walls of large windows. The building will also have modern finishes like skylights, a gym, lobby and private, secured parking. The apartments will lease for $865 a month for a one bedroom and $950 a month for a two bedroom.
The $19 million project is funded through historic and low-income tax credits as well as a construction loan. Computer- and phone-maker Apple Inc. purchased between $4.5 million to $6.5 million of the tax credits, said Patrick Duffy, CEO of Chatham Bay, the project developer. Duffy said Apple came to Chatham Bay offering to help finance a project.
"I was very surprised to receive that call," said Duffy, who said because of an agreement with the company he could not say how much they contributed to purchase tax credits or why they had an interest in the project.
Duffy said like any other project, it is important to have other developments nearby.
“Other developers will hopefully follow suit,” Duffy said.
The area is attractive because of the need for moderately priced apartments for young professionals who work downtown, Duffy said. The building is income-restricted for those making 60 percent the average median income in the city. The company is looking to double down on its investment with other projects nearby, though Duffy declined to give specifics.
Just around the corner, the Inter-Neighborhood Foundation is focusing on those who want to lay deep roots in the neighborhood with a home ownership project of eight new townhouses.
The project, called Walnut Place, replaces a vacant lot with homes that will go for between $152,090 and $165,000. Construction began in October and is expected to be complete by summer.
Homeownership is important to stabilize neighborhoods that have struggled with vacant lots, blight and crime, said Brown, whose district encompasses the northern area of the East Side and the Old Brandywine Village and the Price’s Run neighborhood on the northern side of the Brandywine.
"I find that the desires of residents are the same no matter where they live: they want quality housing and a safe neighborhood," Brown said.
Buy Photo Demolition begins on the original Walt's Flavor Crisp Chicken restaurant at Vandever Avenue and North Pine Street in Wilmington. (Photo: Doug Curran/Special to the News Journal)
Creating opportunities for residents again
Investment by Habitat for Humanity of New Castle County and the Wilmington Housing Partnership in the last few years also has transformed blocks along Vandever Avenue, which runs parallel to the Brandywine.
“Before we started working in this neighborhood, we would not be standing here,” said Kevin Smith, CEO of Habitat for Humanity,
Walking up to the corner of 22nd and Lamotte streets, Smith remembered the crime and drugs that plagued the neighborhood years ago. But in mid-November, the neighborhood was quiet. Neighbors waved at Smith from their driveways as he passed through the Mill Stone development, 21 homes Habitat built in three stages and completed in 2013.
In the last year, there hasn’t been any gun violence in the vicinity, but a block up the street, where Habitat hasn’t begun its efforts, there have been four shootings.
The Rev. Sandra Ben, of Praying Ground Community Church at 41 E. 22nd St., said as the homes were renovated, criminals began to see that people were checking the streets and it drove them away.
Since the development was completed, Habitat has bought up dilapidated homes or vacant lots nearby, finding homeowners to settle in those neighborhoods. Smith estimates Habitat has already invested $4.1 million in the neighborhood.
“Nonprofits like us and the housing partnership, their role is to be the instigator,” Smith said. “You start developing enough property and others start to care.”
Further east along Vandever Avenue, the Wilmington Housing Partnership is expanding its development to the former home of Walt’s Flavor Crisp chicken shop at Pine Street, where four townhouses will be built in place of the large, vacant storefront.
Buy Photo Councilman Darius Brown says opportunity is everywhere in the 3rd District where investments can stabilize the neigbhorhood such as these abandoned homes. (Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
Brown, the councilman, said he hopes the investment from Habitat and the Wilmington Housing Partnership will continue, but also that new, private investors will see the value in the open land overlooking the Brandywine to bring in new residents and a better life for the ones that already live there.
“We are creating opportunities for residents again,” Brown said, as he drove past blocks with a majority of boarded up homes. “These neighborhoods have been negatively impacted over the years with disinvestment so with these continued projects we have to show that we are continually making efforts.”
Contact Jenna Pizzi at jpizzi@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2837. Follow her on Twitter @JennaPizzi.
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/1HAgHLC |
Ouya-exclusive first-person puzzler Polarity is heading to PC, one-man studio BlueButton Games has announced.
Better yet, it's adding Oculus Rift support.
Our Dan Whitehead reviewed the vaguely Portal-inspired puzzler upon its original Ouya release where he noted that while it couldn't best Valve's comedy classic, "there are still moments of ingenuity that come incredibly close to the best puzzles that GLaDOS threw at you."
Polarity developer Craig Littler - who's previously worked on Forza Horizon and MotorStorm: Pacific Rift - explained to me that he actually wanted to make Polarity a permanent exclusive for Ouya, but he would have required at least a little more money to broker such a deal. "I tried to negotiate with Ouya to remain exclusive but they were fairly resistant to change and as such I think there will be plenty of devs who just use them as 'another platform' rather than committing to them exclusively.," he said.
It's hard to know if Littler was expecting too much or if Ouya was being stubbornly strict, but the indie developer said he "wasn't asking for much" to stay monogamous to the fledgling platform. "We discussed it and didn't really work for either of us," he explained.
That being said, Littler bears no ill will towards the platform holder and he realises he's not exactly Tim Schafer and Polarity isn't exactly Broken Age. "I understand their motivations, my game is hardly a blockbuster but by the same token I want as many people to play it as possible so I can fund my next project."
"I always thought the Ouya was an exciting platform, and something I wanted to support and the best way to do that would be to make an exclusive game for it," he added. While this didn't work out as he'd hoped, it's hard to argue with his plan B of bringing it to PC and attracting a larger audience, ala other Ouya-exclusive TowerFall which is likewise heading to PC.
Littler is currently hoping to get Polarity on Steam, so if it looks like your cup of tea go ahead and vote for it on Steam Greenlight. |
Miamians have turned being stupid into an art form. And what a beautiful work of art it is.
The Miami metropolitan area is the 47th dumbest city out of 55 major U.S. areas, according to the Daily Beast's annual "Smartest Cities" survey.
Miamians received an IQ score of 61.65, which is slightly above the intelligence of a kindergartner but slightly below the smarts of a lab chimpanzee. But at least we are hotter than the chimp.
Boston was declared the smartest city in America, but what else is there to do in Boston besides read? On the other end of the spectrum is Las Vegas. Apparently constant blinking lights and loud sounds kill brain cells at an alarming rate.
The Daily Beast determined their smart matrix by looking at things like the number of libraries available, investment to intellectual culture and other factors too complicated for the Miamian mind to comprehend.
It also looked at the number of bachelor's and graduate degrees in the area, but everyone knows the only degrees that count in South Florida are the ones on that thing that keeps the temperature.
What's that thing called again?
Oh yes, a therm-o-meter.
And it also appears we are getting dumber by the year. Last year, Miami ranked 39th, which is only mildly mediocre.
An interesting tidbit that we don't quite know what to make of is that Miamians have bought 2,642,000 adult non-fiction books this year.
Is Dr. Seuss non-fiction? |
It’s probably best to preface this piece with a warning: if you are reading it while listening to music on your Beats by Dre headphones, this is about to get uncomfortable.
A video from YouTube’s Marques Brownlee is getting a lot of attention this week, after the tech guru dropped some serious knowledge about the popular headphone brand. Laying into the popular product as diplomatically as possible, Brownlee states that,
64 percent of the expensive headphones people are buying are Beats by Dre. Clearly [their strategy] working… The more people think your product is worth, the more they’re willing to pay for it. And with the celebrities wearing them all over the place, all the time, the design, the fashion statement it makes, the premium unboxing experience, even the custom spots in stores all over the country that separate it from the rest, that’s why they’re able to charge $300 for these, when I’d be willing to bet they cost less than $150 to make… Here’s my bottom line… a $300 pair of headphones is not necessarily twice as good as a $150 pair of headphones, in fact it probably isn’t, especially of the $300 pair is spending so much on marketing and their image. So if you’re going to buy a pair of headphones, and all you care about is, not just the fashion, but the design, and the unboxing experience, and the name, and the reputation of the company, then Beats by Dre are great.
Harsh. Yet Brownlee knows what he’s talking about when he says he’s “willing to bet” that the actual value of the headphones is at odds with their price. The viral clip has over a million views, but that’s just par for the course where his channel is concerned. However, Brownlee’s not all doom and gloom—he suggests the Audio-Technica M50 as a better alternative to Beats where sound quality is concerned.
It’s true that Audio-Technicas are not quite as sexy as Beats by Dre are, but Brownlee’s complaints regarding Beats are about more than misconceptions. What the rise of Beats ultimately symbolizes is the way image is becoming the most important part of popular entertainment, especially where music is concerned.
To give credit where credit is due, the business strategy behind Beats has indeed been an inspired bit of genius. Their deal with Apple was monumentus; when your company gets acquired for $3 billion, you must be doing something right. And as Brownlee mentioned, their specific sections, particularly in Apple Stores, have literally set them apart from their competitors. It’s no wonder that 50 Cent has partnered with Intel in an attempt to emulate his former mentor in the audio game, but so far, Beats remains uniquely unmatched in the premium headphone market.
As Brownlee also mentioned, this is directly tied to Beats’ engagement with celebrities. Endorsements from upcoming hip-hop royalty like Kendrick Lamar may seem a given, but pop stars like Ed Sheeran and Ellie Goulding have hopped on the Beats bandwagon, too. And Beats presented the music video for Jessie J, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj’s “Bang Bang” just last month.
However, Beats’ celebrity endorsements also go beyond music. While recording artists are certainly the most natural candidates to endorse their products, plenty of athletes have done Beats promotional spots, too.
Of course, celebrity products and endorsements are usually a dubious trade at best. Dre might be the exception, in that his product is actually related to what he’s famous for (would anybody have predicted that world champion boxer George Foreman would eventually become known for selling grills?), but most stars who hawk stuff don’t have any stake in what they’re hawking. To illustrate this, The Verge ran an expose of sorts in 2012 about celebs who have done cell phone commercials for phones they don’t use in real life, and for a bonus piece of irony, here’s a picture of Dr. Dre wearing a pair of Audio-Technicas.
However, Dre isn’t really applicable here, because he does have a major stake in Beats. (After all, his name is in the title.) His net worth after the Apple sale? $800 million, making him the richest rapper in the world. One could argue that Dre is the product. It’s not dissimilar to the Jordan brand at Nike. You have a legend in their field, who puts their name on something directly related to said field. Then, you get other celebrities in that field (or vaguely related arenas) to shill for your product too. Charles Barkley even got his own Nike shoe based off Michael Jordan’s success, which begs the question, how long will it be before we see the special line of Beats by Eminem?
Yet the irony here is that the closer Dre is connected to Beats, the less the company is based on his ability as a musician. Because like the Air Jordan brand, Beats are as much about buying something that’s cool as they are about buying something that’s functional (which isn’t to say the Air Jordan line of basketball shoes aren’t very good—they are.)
Like many celebrity products, it’s all to to do with the idea of being famous. This is a common thread in everything from Air Jordans to Tom Hanks’ new typewriter app. What’s being sold isn’t the product, it’s the person behind the product (and to be fair, this happens to work especially well if the person is as well-liked as Hanks is). Or in some cases, it’s what that person represents. Beats by Dre represents the idea that you can listen to music the same way your favorite artists do. On the other hand, lifestyle websites like Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop and Blake Lively’s Preserve represent the idea that you can live like a movie star—even if you aren’t rich and famous.
The conundrum that arises from this where music is concerned is that looking like a musician actually has nothing to do with music. This ostensibly makes Beats another lifestyle brand, in that as headphones, their look trumps their sonic quality.
According to some, this is exactly what’s wrong with modern music; the record business is all about the shiny spectacle going on around the music, but has nothing to do with the music itself. Ted Gioia at The Daily Beast caused a stir for essentially saying as much in March, when he declared that music writing has turned into lifestyle writing.
Technical knowledge of the art form has disappeared from its discourse. In short, music criticism has turned into lifestyle reporting… When Harry Connick, Jr. recently used the word ‘pentatonic‘ on American Idol, his fellow judge Jennifer Lopez turned it into a joke. And, indeed, what could be more humorous than a musician of Connick’s stature trying to talk about musical scales on a TV reality show? Yet football announcers not only talk about ‘stunts’ or the ‘triple option’ but are expected to explain these technical aspects of the game to the unenlightened… In my many years as music scribe, I’ve never encountered such a huge gap between the skilled and the unskilled, the talented and the wannabes.
But critics aren’t the only group one can level this argument against. Consumers who would rather look the part of the audiophile than take the time to participate in active listening are possible culprits in this as well. Again, this is the primary malfunction with Beats—that they are marketed more for individuals who want to look like music-lovers, instead of people who really spend time listening to music. A perfect summation of this divide may have been the Jimmy Kimmel segment, wherein he asked attendees at SXSW what they thought of fake bands, and got responses from all of them, apparently too afraid to look out of the loop.
With all that on the table though, it would still make you look like an asshole if you went around judging people with Beats by Dre. Whatever your definition of a poser is, it isn’t nearly as annoying as listening to someone who thinks they know everything shout “POSER!” at other people. And besides, image is an important part of modern music. Even curmudgeonly old Gioia admits, “Certainly non-musical factors also deserve attention from critics… who knows, maybe waving a foam finger or dressing like a robot warrants a paragraph or two, even if it’s little more than a gimmick.
To go back to Brownlee’s initial review, the main thing with Beats is to know what you’re getting before you go in. They might be tantamount to a lifestyle choice, but there’s nothing wrong with trying to look cool. Advanced audiophiles know they can do better, but for the rest of us, choosing between pretty colors holds its own appeal.
Photo via gonzalo baeza/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) |
The so-called “Christmas Tree tax” had all the makings of a grand political theater.
After the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved Tuesday a 15-cent tax on fresh Christmas trees, some conservative Republicans fired back at the Obama administration.
A “Grinch move,” Rep. Steve Scalise (R) of Louisiana told Fox News.
"A marketing slush fund for the Christmas tree industry,” Sen. Jim DeMint (R) of South Carolina said in his blog.
So on Wednesday, the day the Christmas tree tax was to take effect, the Obama administration delayed it.
Have Christmas tree buyers been spared another onerous tax? Hardly.
The 15-cent tax per tree was going to be levied on growers and importers, not consumers. The monies would have gone to a new Christmas Tree Promotion Board, which would fund a national campaign promoting the sale of fresh Christmas trees. The USDA has launched similar campaigns for other agricultural products, including beef, pork, poultry, and dairy. The end product would have been ads along the lines of the “Got Milk” or “Beef: It’s what’s for dinner” campaigns.
“This program was requested by the industry in 2009,” the National Christmas Tree Association stated in a press release. Some 90 percent of Christmas tree growers who responded to two industry-wide surveys were “in favor of the program.”
“The program is not expected to have any impact on the final price consumers pay for their Christmas tree, “ the association added.
The impetus for the ad campaign is increased competition for the Christmas tree industry. According to the USDA, the sale of fresh trees dropped from 37 million in 1991 to 31 million in 2007. Meanwhile, artificial tree sales nearly doubled to 17.4 million from 2003 to 2007.
The new fee was an effort to curb those losses.
Nevertheless, the move generated serious political backlash.
The fee is a “ludicrous political misstep,” Senator DeMint wrote in his blog. “The $2 million the Obama Administration expects the tax to raise will not reduce the deficit or cover needed government services."
"I can tell you unequivocally that the Obama administration is not taxing Christmas trees,” retorted White House spokesman Matt Lehrich. “What's being talked about here is an industry group deciding to impose fees on itself to fund a promotional campaign. That said, USDA is going to delay implementation and revisit this action." |
The Remix Mini was an inarguable Kickstarter success. The Jide team went looking for just $50,000 and ended up with more than $1.5 million.
The promise Jide made was a cheap Android device that would serve as “a full PC.”
Beneath the pebble-shaped matte plastic exterior is a 1.2GHz quad-core Allwinner processor, 16GB of storage and 2GB of RAM. Nothing that’s going to blow anyone away, but that’s part of the reason it’s just $70.
On the back, there are two USB 2.0 ports, an ethernet port, a HDMI out and a headphone port.
However, the real charm of the Remix Mini is the forked Android Remix OS, not the hardware bundle. It’s based on Android 5.1, but brings a whole lot more to the table in terms of traditional desktop use.
What this means is that you get a familiar feeling OS, but one that’s far better suited to being a desktop machine than Google’s own Chrome OS.
You get access to a number of Remix-specific apps from the Remix Store, but you also have direct access to Google Play to download all the normal apps you’d usually use.
Basics
Setting up the Remix Mini is simple. Plug in the (provided, but probably too short) HDMI cable, plug in the power and you’re done.
You’ll then need to work your way through the set-up process. It went smoothly but did take about 10 – 15 minutes in total through system updates and a few other things.
It all worked though, there were no hiccups in the process.
In fact, I was surprised to find that I had no problem at all in unplugging the USB adapters for my wireless keyboard and mouse and plugging them straight into the Remix Mini. Again, they worked with no issues at all straight away.
The unit doesn’t support 5Ghz WiFi networks and the size adjustments I made during setup to ensure the whole screen was displayed weren’t reflected when it first started up. Even having never used Remix OS, it only took 30 seconds to find the correct option to fix that, though.
You’ll need to spend a bit of time deciding which apps you want to install – I’m testing the unit plugged into my TV, so media-related apps might make most sense, but seeing as Jide is touting the Remix Mini as suitable for work too, I decided to write this article on it.
You can access all your installed apps in the lower left corner of the taskbar – it’s all very familiar feeling for desktop users.
On the right side of the taskbar, you’ll find the time/date, Wi-Fi settings and access to a few other settings.
It’s also where you access your notifications.
Workhorse
For me to do that, I had to install a whole bunch of apps, including my password maanger, Slack, a photo editor, Google Drive (that one doesn’t come pre-installed – but Mail, YouTube and Chrome do) and a few other things.
I also added in the Sonos controller; you need music when you’re working, after all. And Twitter, just in case I felt like I was being too productive.
The Sonos controller was the first real issue. While the app installs and works just fine, the way in which it pops up dual room controls to allow you to control volume levels independently seemed to be appearing off-screen somewhere. It still allowed for master volume control of all speakers, so wasn’t a huge problem, but might be a sign that some apps might have a few minor incompatibilities.
While writing in a Web browser, downloading and lightly editing photos, and using Slack and Twitter aren’t too demanding, the Mini did still struggle a little when switching between apps. It’s important to stress that they never actually crashed, but the screen did go black a couple of times. A spokesperson for the company told me that the team will be rolling out a software update next week, so there’s clearly still a few little things to work out. It certainly didn’t stop me from getting on with this article though.
You can resize each app window to fit multiple side-by-side, or in any other arrangement you might want, just don’t expect everything to happen instantly if you’re running multiple apps and frequently switching between them.
Winding down
Whether or not the Mini makes most sense to you as a work machine or a media player probably dictates where and how you’ll use it, though it’s small enough to carry around with you in a bag if you happened to want a desktop PC you carry around with you.
If you’re using it hooked up to a TV, as I am here, you’ll probably want to use it for streaming things like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video.
This is where I hit another snag. I’m based in the UK, and the BBC’s iPlayer service and streaming in HD on YouTube worked just fine (it supports displays of up to 4K) but Netflix wouldn’t load any titles.
The app loaded fine, the menus loaded fine, episode/movie selection worked fine but it won’t actually connect and stream anything on my Netflix right now. Once again, I don’t expect this to be an issue in the near future, and can’t say if it’s a general issue or one specific to me just yet.
For the services that did work, playback worked well – and having a keyboard and mouse attached made it a lot easier than, say, searching a Roku or Amazon TV streaming device via a tiny remote control.
I haven’t even considered using it for gaming yet, so we’ll have to see how that pans out in the future.
Is it actually useful?
If you’re looking for something to replace your desktop computer, you’re going to have to realign your expectations a little. The Remix Mini is a $70 device that arrives ready to go out of the box, with a custom version of Android that works unbelievably well as a ‘desktop’ OS.
Finding your way around is intuitive, regardless of which platform you’re coming from – and that’s quite an achievement.
It doesn’t make it any less frustrating in those moments when the screen hangs for a second, but just let me repeat, this is essentially a desktop PC you can carry around in your bag with no effort at all. All you need is a screen with an HDMI socket at your destination.
In trying to be a productivity device as well as a media streamer, the Remix Mini runs the risk of falling into the trap of being ‘jack of all trades, but master of none.’
It just about escapes this with its logical OS and acceptable hardware performance, though it would perhaps be nice to see a few more features as part of the native OS that are geared towards people who want to use it as a media device primarily. Even without this, you still have access to the whole of Google Play to fulfil your needs, of course.
$70 isn’t even a night out. It’s a pizza and a couple of drinks, and for that reason alone, it’s hard to hold the Remix Mini’s foibles against it.
Whether or not that value-balanced patience wins out over the frustration in the long-run remains to be seen.
It’s available to buy now from Jide’s website for US customers and will be available via Amazon before the end of the week. It’ll be headed to the UK “shortly,” a spokesperson said.
➤ Remix Mini [Jide] |
6. Speaking at a livestock auction barn in Iowa, Hillary Clinton said she expected voters to inspect her, and offered:
A) “You can look inside my mouth if you want.”
B) “You can take a gander at my withers.”
C) “You can examine the stock I came from.”
7. Ratcheting it up in New Hampshire, Romney charged Giuliani with being:
A) A person in a glass house who throws stones
B) A rolling stone who gathers no moss
C) A twice-divorced, thrice-married ferret-hater
8. Giuliani retorted that Romney was:
A) A person in a glass house who throws stones
B) A rolling stone who gathers no moss
C) A flip-flopping ferret lover
9. Somewhere along the line, reporters have noticed, Hillary Clinton dropped:
A) Bill
B) The Celine Dion theme song
C) The black pantsuit
10. Texas Gov. Rick Perry endorsed Rudy Giuliani by comparing him to:
A) A great stallion with one sore hoof
B) A pickup truck with one undesirable option
C) A great date with bad breath
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11. BEYOND BARBRA AND OPRAH: Match the candidate with the celebrity backer.
A) “Nature Boy” Ric Flair
B) Kevin Bacon
C) Forest Whitaker
D) The Osmonds
E) Melissa Gilbert
F) Merle Haggard
G) Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling
H) Pat Sajak
I) Sean Penn
1) Hillary Clinton
2) Barack Obama
3) John Edwards
4) Rudy Giuliani
5) Dennis Kucinich
6) Mike Huckabee
7) Fred Thompson
8) John McCain
9) Mitt Romney
12. When asked if he ever inhaled, Barack Obama said:
A) “I’m not going to talk about what I did as a child.”
B) “That depends on what the definition of inhale is.”
C) “That was the point.”
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13. In Iowa, John Edwards drives:
A) The Man-of-the-People Express
B) The Main Street Express
C) A beat-up sedan formerly owned by his father, the millworker.
14. Among the special interest groups running political ads in Iowa were two nursing associations that said that if Dick Cheney “were anyone else, he’d probably:
A) ... be having Christmas dinner alone.”
B) ... be dead by now.”
C) ... be under indictment.”
15. Mike Huckabee compared his fast rise in the polls to:
A) The miracle of the loaves and the fishes
B) The parting of the Red Sea
C) The battle between Chuck Norris and David Carradine in “Lone Wolf McQuade”
16. In speeches for his wife, Bill Clinton makes fun of the idea that Hillary had a plot to become president that boiled down to:
A) Save Arkansas, then the nation, then the world.
B) Go to a state I’ve barely seen and marry some pale politician who has a $26,000 salary and a $42,000 debt.
C) Help Bill into the White House, endure endless crises and unimaginable embarrassment. Then it’s my turn.
ANSWERS: 1-C, 2-B, 3-C, 4-B, 5-B, 6-A, 7-A, 8-A, 9-B, 10-B, 11 (A-6, B-3, C-2, D-9, E-4, F-1, G-8, H-7, I-5), 12-C, 13-B, 14-B, 15-A, 16-B |
CHENNAI: With the third longest coastline in the country, it’s no wonder surfing is the new wave in Tamil Nadu. At the ongoing India Surf Festival , which is on till February 9 in Odisha and is host to surfers from India and abroad, Tamil Nadu has the largest contingent.The festival, organised by the Orissa State Surfing Association and supported by the Odisha tourism department and the Surfing Federation of India, began on February 7 at Puri. At the festival, one of the largest in the country, there are more than 60 participants. Sixteen of them are from Tamil Nadu.And surfers from TN seem to be raking in the prizes too at the competitions. “Of the eight finalists in the stand-up paddling contest, where participants have to paddle to a marker and to the finish, six were from Tamil Nadu,” says Balaji Thangavel, president of the Surfing and Water Sports Association of Tamilnadu.There are two schools here that teach surfing –– Kallialay Surf School in Auroville near Puducherry and the recently opened Bay of Life in Kovalam, near Chennai. Mamallapuram, a coastal town in Kancheepuram, has several fishermen-turned-surfing instructors. More schools will come up soon, says Thangavel.The state association, which is recognised by the Surfing Federation of India, a national governing body, plans to train more fisherfolk in surfing. “We are planning to train five young fishermen from each coastal district,” says Thangavel, who is at the Odisha festival.Including fisherfolk and the local community is important in promoting the sport, says surfer Showkath Jamal, one of the founders of Bay Of Life. “No one knows the sea better than the people who live by the coast. Some of them who learnt the sport from tourists are excellent surfers,” says Jamal.Also, surfing supplements their income and provides a source of earning when there is no fishing. Appu, a 20-year-old hotel management student, is a fisherman-surfer, and one of the winners at the Odisha festival. “I learned to surf three years ago on a plank of wood. Some foreign tourists gave me a surfboard and I have been surfing since then,” says Appu, who alternates fishing with the surfing classes in the mornings. “I have a regular source of income now,” he says.Along with surfing lessons, the schools and the association are trying to educate people on the importance of conserving the environment. At Bay of Life, vehicles or equipment that pollutes the environment is not used and students are told about the importance of not littering, says Jamal.The association is, meanwhile, formulating a set of guidelines and standards to be followed by schools across the state, says Thangavel. But before that, it plans to conduct a ‘discovery of waves’ along the coastline in May. “We may not have the largest coastline in the country, but we have some of the best waves –– at Manapad in Tuticorin, Kanyakumari, and Mamallapuram. But there are more beaches waiting to be discovered,” he says. |
Councillor vows to have Belfast Zoo handed over to Assembly control BelfastTelegraph.co.uk An Ulster Unionist councillor has declared he will make it his mission to offload Belfast Zoo to the Northern Ireland Assembly. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/councillor-vows-to-have-belfast-zoo-handed-over-to-assembly-control-34177573.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/article34177568.ece/09176/AUTOCROP/h342/2015-11-07_new_14383845_I1.JPG
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An Ulster Unionist councillor has declared he will make it his mission to offload Belfast Zoo to the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Chris McGimpsey says the zoo, currently run by Belfast City Council, loses almost £2m a year.
He said the council should not have to be spending so much to maintain the attraction.
"I understand that roughly, Belfast Zoo loses £1,990,000 every year - about £40,000 a week," he said.
"That's what the ratepayers of Belfast throw away on the zoo. How many times have you gone to committee to try and get five grand for this pensioners' group or ten grand for that playgroup and you can't? And every week we throw away £40,000." He said if the zoo is to continue operating, it should be funded by Stormont.
"We are told the benefit of Belfast Zoo is that it's one of the great tourist attractions of Northern Ireland, and I accept that totally. Belfast Zoo, on the figures, is a great tourist attraction for Northern Ireland, not solely for Belfast," he said.
"Belfast City Council should make the decision to jettison Belfast Zoo, and it should be saying if it's great for the people of Northern Ireland then let the Assembly or some other six-county-wide body take it over."
Mr McGimpsey said this is an issue he plans to pursue and raise repeatedly, despite admitting he knows it may be unpopular in some quarters.
He said: "Belfast Zoo is something that I'm strongly opposed to. I'm strongly opposed to all zoos. I think they perpetrate cruelty and believe the only way to resolve that issue is to close zoos."
Alliance councillor Nuala McAllister said she was against closing the zoo but said it would be worth exploring other funding sources.
Belfast Zoo is one of the oldest visitor attractions in Northern Ireland. First opened in 1934, it attracts around 250,000 visitors a year.
It is home to more than 140 species of animal, including Asian elephants, giraffes, sea lions, penguins, ring-tailed lemurs, apes, monkeys, Malayan tapirs, giant anteaters, Malayan sun bears, Visayan warty pigs, Barbary lions and Sumatran tigers. The zoo also carries out important conservation work and takes part in over 90 European and global collaborative breeding programmes which help to ensure the survival of many species under threat.
Last year Ards Borough Council attempted to challenge whether it should fund a similar attraction - Exploris Aquarium in Portaferry, arguing that while it is in their council area they could not afford the £600,000 it costs to run it each year.
Councillors proposed closure, privitisation or an investment from Stormont.
However, Exploris was saved from closure after the Department of the Environment pledged to invest £900,000 in the facility.
Belfast Telegraph |
Realizing the Senate is highly dysfunctional, the Los Angeles Times editorial board has called for the Senate rules to be reformed. The editorial, though, doesn’t want the Senate to adopt the proven solution of just eliminating the filibuster because they want the filibuster to retain its “legitimate and historic place.” From the LA Times:
One response would be to eliminate the filibuster altogether. As a Senate rule, it can be changed by the majority party, and Democrats could eliminate it (though, of course, Republicans would almost certainly filibuster such a move). That, however, would also do away with the filibuster’s legitimate and historic place. Rather than eliminating the rule, the better approach would be to amend it in such a way as to preserve the ability for minorities to fight against one-party steamrolling while scaling back the filibuster’s capacity for obstructing everything.
This is simply stupid. There is no legitimate reason for allowing the minority, the party which lost the recent election, to have a veto in the Senate. The founders never intended a Senate minority to have such awesome power over basic legislation. The Constitution clearly stated the few very important issues that should require a super majority in the chamber; everything else was intended to be a simple majority vote.
The idea that without a filibuster a majority in the Senate is going to steamroll our system is laughable. A senate majority is already checked and balanced by the House, the President and the judiciary. If a party does manage to dominates multiple elections allowing them to gain full control, they should be able to enact the agenda they run on. That is how democracy is supposed to work.
If people really think that there is a legitimate role for a filibuster in a functional legislature, they should then be advocating for it to be adopted at the state level. To date though I have basically found no one who thinks creating a filibuster in their state senate would improve their state government. In fact just two years ago the LA Times editorial board advocated for eliminating a super majority requirements in California. |
The familiar telephone seems the least likely thing you'd associate with the supernatural, but over the years, there have been literally hundreds of reports of ghosts ringing up people, and that is the subject of this collection of Strange But True tales: phone calls from the dead...
In 1969, a New Jersey rock musician named Karl Uphoff received a phone call from his grandmother; nothing unusual about that you might think, but Karl's Gran had passed away two days earlier. Karl was eighteen at the time of the phantom call, and there had always been a special bond between him and his Gran, who was deaf. She used to phone up Karl's friends and ask: 'Is Karl There?' but because she knew she wouldn't be able to hear the reply, Karl's Gran would then say, 'Tell him to come home at once.' Karl's friends were always irritated by the deaf old woman's constant calling, and used to tell Karl he shouldn't have given his Gran their phone numbers.
One day Karl's Gran passed away and the teenager was naturally upset, but he had no leanings towards spiritualism, and obviously never expected to hear from his Gran ever again. But Karl was wrong. One evening in 1969, Karl was with his friends in the basement of an apartment in Montclair, New Jersey, when the mother of his friend came down and said that Karl was wanted on the phone. When Karl went upstairs he talked to the old woman and realised he was talking to his Gran, who had recently died. Before he could ask her how she could talk to him when she was dead, the woman hung up. Many more calls followed, but on each occasion, when Karl's Gran was asked how she was still able to communicate, or what the 'other side' was like, the old woman would hang up. In the end, the calls stopped, but Karl felt that his Gran was still watching over him.
Another chilling phone call from beyond the grave allegedly occurred in Wilmslow, Cheshire in 1977, when a young woman named Mary Meredith received a call at her home from her cousin Shirley in Manchester. Mary shuddered when she heard Shirley's voice on what sounded like a bad line, because only minutes before, Mary had received a telephone call from her aunt telling her of Shirley's tragic death in a car crash just an hour ago. Again, before the phantom caller could be questioned, she hung up.
In 1995, a radio station in Liverpool, England featured a medium named James Byrne who came on a phone-in show each week. Mr Byrne was a psychic who claimed he could convey messages from the next world, and was a very popular guest. In fact he was so popular, callers would jam the switchboard at the station whenever he was on air. One woman named Mrs Wilson of Ellesmere Port rang the radio station, desperate to get in touch with James Byrne because her grandfather had died a year ago and she wanted to know if he had any messages for her. Unfortunately, Mrs Wilson couldn't get through to the medium because the lines were jammed solid, and so she just sat back and listened to Mr Byrne on the radio show. Around 10 o'clock that night, just as the News At Ten news programme was starting, Mrs Wilson's phone rang. The woman answered the call, and a familiar, but distant-sounding voice said, 'Look love, I'm all right. It's great over here; I'm with your Grandmother and all the other nice people who have passed on.'
Mrs Wilson was naturally astounded, for she recognised that the caller was her late grandfather. 'Granddad - is that you?' she muttered. Her legs felt weak.
'Yeah love. Now listen: stop living in the past and reminiscing. Go forward. I'm still around looking over you. I've got to go now love. Give my love to the kids. Bye.' said the old man's voice and it faded away until Mrs Wilson could just hear the purring tone.
Mrs Wilson wondered if someone was perpetrating a sick joke, so she dialled 1471 on the phone in order to get the caller's number. But the automated voice on the line quoted Mrs Wilson's own number. In other words, the call had originated from her own telephone. Mrs Wilson had no extension, and was therefore convinced that her grandfather had somehow called her from beyond the grave to let her know he was okay.
In the late 1980s, a Manchester woman in England named Sadie lost her husband in tragic circumstances. Her husband left her a considerable amount of money in his will, and Sadie and her 7-year-old daughter Abigail subsequently moved to a graceful old cottage just outside Sandbach. The landlord asked for a modest sum as a deposit on the cottage, and Sadie wondered why the rent was so low on such a desirable rustic residence. She and Abigail gave the dusty cob-webbed place a good spring-cleaning, and later had it decorated. Sadie fell in love with the peaceful rear garden, which had a sad-looking weeping willow in the middle of its neglected lawn. Three months after moving into the Cheshire country house, Abigail excitedly told her mother one December evening that she had just seen 'a kind old woman' in a long black dress standing beneath the willow tree, smiling at her. Abigail said the woman waved once and faded away.
Abigail was a quiet, honest child who was not in the habit of imagining things and embroidering fanciful stories, so Sadie was a little unnerved by her daughter's tale of the ghostly woman. However, there were no further sightings of the phantom, although many strange things did occur at the cottage not long afterwards.
One night, Abigail said she felt dizzy. Sadie put her daughter to bed earlier than normal and surmised that the girl was just over-tired, as she had risen earlier than normal that day and had helped out in the garden, digging the weeds. Sadie decided she would have an early night herself, and retired to her bedroom with a book. An hour had passed when there was a knock at the door of the cottage. Sadie was naturally alarmed and wondered who could be calling at 11 pm. She went downstairs to the hall in her slippers and night-gown and nervously asked who was there.
A well-spoken man replied that he was a doctor and that he had been called out to examine a girl named Abigail.
Sadie unbolted the door and opened it. A tall grey-haired man stood on the doorstep carrying a briefcase. He looked at a card in his hand and said, 'You are Sadie?' and he apparently knew Sadie's surname.
Sadie explained that she had not called him out, but invited the physician indoors anyway. She took him up to Abigail's bedroom and the doctor gave the child a quick examination. He pointed out the rash on Abigail's arms and after shining his penlight torch in her eyes, he told Sadie it looked as if Abigail had the symptoms of meningitis. The doctor drove the girl and her shocked mother to hospital where Abigail was positively diagnosed as suffering from the potentially fatal condition. Because the brain disease was caught in its early stages, the antibiotics and other medicines luckily overcame the life-threatening condition.
But who had contacted the doctor to call him out to Abigail? Sadie was really puzzled by that mystery. She didn't have an idea at the time, but something later happened which gave her a good idea who the eerie helper was.
In 1989, a handsome middle-aged man called at Sadie's cottage. He said his car had ran out of petrol and he asked the widow if she could possibly lend him a few pounds so he could go and fill his can at the filling station down the road. The man offered to leave an expensive-looking watch as a security and promised he'd return later to repay Sadie. Sadie kindly gave the sincere-looking man a five-pound note and he seemed very grateful. He walked off to the filling station with his can and loaded it with petrol, then returned to his Ford Fiesta, which was parked up at a lane near to Sadie's cottage. When the man had emptied the can of petrol into the Fiesta's fuel tank, he went over to the cottage and gave the widow the change from the five-pound note she had lent him. The man said he would set off right away to get the money he owed her, and although Sadie told him that wouldn't be necessary, the man left. He returned about six that evening with a bunch of carnations and the money he owed Sadie. The cottager was flattered, and when she accepted the roses, the man kissed her hand then turned, ready to walk away. Sadie suddenly said to him: 'Wait; you forgot your wristwatch.'
The man said 'Oh yes,' and walked back up the path to her.
Sadie said to the man, 'Come in and have a cup of tea.'
It had been quite some time since Sadie had had some male company, and she did find the man attractive. Over a cup of tea he told her that he was from Middlewich and that his name was Tim. In the course of the long conversation that stretched until 9 pm, Tim said that the girl he had gone steady with for four years had recently left him for someone else, and that he was now wary of getting involved with the opposite sex again. Sadie advised him not to become a recluse because of his experiences with one girl, and hinted that she was still looking for someone too. Sadie was almost forty but looked about thirty-five. Tim said he was twenty-six. Sadie thought the age gap between them wasn't too big, and she and Tim ended their chat that evening by swapping telephone numbers.
Two days afterwards, Sadie telephoned Tim but got a steady disconnected tone. She wondered if the young man had only given her a 'dead' number just to appease her. She didn't know what to think, but she hoped she would see or hear from Tim again. A few days later, the phone in Sadie's cottage started to ring. Abigail picked it up as Sadie was racing towards it. The girl said, 'It's for you Mum.'
Sadie grabbed the receiver and said :' Hello?'
Tim didn't reply. It was the voice of an old woman, and she said some horrible things about Tim from Middlewich. She said he was a bigamist and a confidence trickster who knew about the large amount of money that had been left to Sadie by her late husband.
Sadie was stunned by the claims and a little heartbroken. She asked the caller to identify herself, and the old woman told Sadie that her landlord would provide her with that answer. Tim paid another visit to Sadie one Sunday evening in the following week. This time he brought more flowers and a bottle of wine to the cottage. Sadie asked Tim about the strange telephone call she had received and what the anonymous old woman had said. When Tim heard about the caller's allegations about him being a bigamist and a conman, the young man suddenly got up, put on his coat, and left the cottage without saying a word. Sadie never set eyes upon Tim again, and several months later she learned from a neighbour that Tim was regarded as a rather shady character who had spent six months in prison for fraud. He was also rumoured to have two wives; one in Crewe and another in Chester. He was also currently living with a mistress in Middlewich.
When Sadie's landlord visited her one day, she told him about the mysterious old woman who had telephoned with her strange tip-offs. The landlord seemed very nervous all of a sudden. Sadie told him that the uncanny caller had said that the landlord knew her identity.
In the end, the landlord said that previous occupants in the Sandbach cottage had reported seeing the ghost of an old woman. The former tenants had also told him of creepy late-night nuisance calls from an old woman who gave advice and warnings. The landlord said he initially thought the stories were just exaggerations and excuses to leave without paying the rent. Sadie promised her landlord she would not move out because she regarded the ghost as helpful and harmless. The landlord then told Sadie that an old spinster named Enid had died at the cottage five years back. She had lived in the cottage for some twenty years, and was something of a recluse. There were rumours that she had been jilted in her youth and had never bothered with men again. The only thing she lived for was the back garden. One afternoon she was found dead beneath the willow tree in the garden she had so lovingly tended. The coroner ruled that Enid had died from a massive stroke, but within months, the new tenants at the cottage reported seeing the spectre of an elderly woman crossing the lawn in the back garden one moonlit night. The landlord confessed that he also glimpsed Enid's shade one wintry evening. He saw her glide across the snow-covered lawn, but when he went to investigate, there were no footprints in the virgin snow.
The ghost hasn't phoned for a while, but whenever the phone rings, Sadie often wonders if its Enid calling. Sadie still hasn't found Mr Right and although Abigail is now married, her mother doesn't feel lonely, because she knows Enid is always around somewhere.
Are you expecting any phonecalls tonight?... |
Vandals Allegedly Tampered With the ‘Try God’ Billboard Along the Mass Pike
The Catholic Radio station that put up the original sign said at least now they are getting some extra attention.
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A large billboard along the Massachusetts Turnpike, advertising a Catholic radio station, was allegedly defaced by vandals last week, according to the manager of the talk show promoting their services.
Last Friday, listeners of 1060 AM WQOM Catholic Radio called the station management and reported that the black billboard that read “Try God,” and advertised the station’s AM dial, had its message altered to say “Try God. The other WHITE meat.”
Chris Kelley, who manages the Catholic Radio broadcast, said “it’s very sad” that someone would deface the “uplifting message” encouraging people to turn their radio dials to the station. “This is clearly not a circumstance of some teenagers with spray paint. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make it appear that the new text was a real billboard message,” Kelley said of the sign, which stands along I-90 in Brighton.
The “Try God” campaign is running in the Greater Boston area through September 22. The purpose of the campaign is to reach a broad cross-section of the Boston community, according to a statement from the radio station. There are 23 billboards up around Boston on major highways including 93 North in Medford, and 93 South in Dorchester.
Although troubling, Kelley tried to look at the bright side of the situation. “This act, however, is an indication that the ‘Try God’ billboard campaign is attracting attention and making people reflect on the role of God in our lives,” he said, spinning the act of vandalism into a positive message. “That attention is the silver-lining and a sign that the campaign already has been successful.”
Kelley admitted he didn’t understand what the alleged vandals were trying to convey by adding the words “The other WHITE meat” to the plain text on the sign, but Scot Landry, host of The Good Catholic Life radio program at the station said he would guess it is an act against people of faith. “This act of vandalism was certainly not a prank. It should cause us to reflect on the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that hostility is increasing against the practice of faith and against religious expression,” he said. “People of faith, including Catholics, contribute so much to the fabric of our society in the Boston-area, through social service organizations, hospitals, schools and in little acts of service in every community. The message of ‘Try God’ is a hopeful one as it invites everyone, in some way, to connect with a faith community and participate in building a civilization of love.”
There was no indication that any of the other signs along major highways were tampered with.
As of Monday morning, the billboard along the Massachusetts Turnpike had been fixed to reflect its original message.
The announcement about the vandalism on the Archdiocese of Boston’s official Facebook page elicited varying responses, including prayers for those who were behind the gag. Others, however, had a different message for the alleged pranksters: “Hope that person enjoys their little comedy skit while roasting marshmallows in hell,” one person wrote. |
One of the most significant moments in my life came one afternoon about five months ago, when I was volunteering in an elephant sanctuary in Thailand. I was tidying the park as part of my duties when I came across a beautiful, solitary elephant with a badly deformed front leg. Concerned as to why she was alone and curious about her physical health, I asked a guide.
Kabu was 26 years old, like me. She had been rescued about a year before but sadly never settled with a herd. She had been used for the illegal logging trade since infancy, pulling huge weights up and down steep mountain ravines. During one of these tortuous journeys, a log came loose, rolled into her and badly broke her leg. Forced to continue working, her injury never healed. When Kabu was finally rescued she was weak and traumatised. When she arrived at the park she had tears rolling from her eyes – from relief, said the guide.
Why the Guardian is spending a year reporting on the plight of elephants Read more
Wanting a photograph with her, I stood next to her, as I had done with the other elephants. I was not prepared for what happened next; Kabu mirrored my movement and leant into me. As she moved in closer, I could feel her sheer strength against my body. This gave me a sense of safety and security, so I pressed against her further as if to hug her. Moving closer towards her head, I looked into her dark eyes for several moments, and rubbed the top of her trunk. As she looked back at me, I was amazed. Here was an animal who had gone through unspeakable horrors, yet was still willing to trust and give affection to a human.
We were in the Elephant Nature Park (ENP), a 250-acre sanctuary for rescued Asian elephants like Kabu, founded by award-winning conservationist Lek Chailert (known as the “elephant whisperer”). Chailert was born in a mountain village in northern Thailand and grew up in a family that owned an elephant. From a young age, she was devoted to their care. She witnessed the traumatic circumstances in which many Asian elephants live and set about creating safe spaces for them.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest An elephant is chained while performing in Yangon zoo during a special celebration in front of a crowd. Photograph: Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty
It is a little-known fact that Asian elephants are even more endangered than their African cousins. Perhaps just 50,000 are left. In Thailand there are about 6,000, half of which live in captivity. The ancient tradition of capture and domestication not only raises welfare problems, it is also a strain on the dwindling wild stock. On top of this many, some Asian elephants are subjected to a centuries-old domestication ritual known as “the crush”, which breaks the spirit of a baby elephant to make it submit to human control.
Here was an animal who had gone through unspeakable horrors, yet was still willing to trust a human
Animal rights groups report that some elephants in the south-east Asian tourism industry – whether being used for riding or appearing to calmly paint pictures in the street – have gone through some form of the crush. In the most extreme examples of the crush wild calves are separated from their mothers and tied in a pen so constrictive it cannot move or lie down. This treatment may last for several weeks, and observers describe cases where food, water and sleep are restricted, and injuries are inflicted on the animals.
Elephants are highly sentient, evolved animals, who form lifelong relationships with their families. Anyone who has spent any time with these beautiful creatures cannot doubt their sensitivity and intelligence, and the risk of lifelong damage from treatment such as the crush. Some elephants become withdrawn or behave aggressively towards humans – both examples of how psychological damage can be manifested.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sangduen ‘Lek’ Chailert, the founder of Chiang Mai’s Elephant Nature Park, sings lullabies to the elephants in her care.
The ethos of the ENP sanctuary, surrounded by rainforest and rivers, is for rescued elephants to roam completely free, for them never to work and to live out their lives in peace, happiness and fun. They form new family bonds, and some even have calves. While it is still visible how much pain and suffering these animals have endured – some are blind and others are too emotionally unpredictable to interact with humans – most of the elephants are relaxed and enjoy their freedom. ENP largely raises money through sponsorship and tourism. Visitors can stay for one day, or volunteer for up to two weeks (as I did).
And how had I ended up here? A few months earlier I had been sitting in therapy, wrestling with conflicting urges to harm myself or to help myself. After experiences of abuse in my childhood, I began self-harming before I was 13. At this particular moment I was wrestling with hallucinations and beliefs that by hurting myself the disturbing images would go away. This time, however, I realised there could be another solution. I needed to do something life-changing, something that would take me out of my own head and into the world.
Anyone who has spent any time with these beautiful creatures cannot doubt their sensitivity and intelligence
I didn’t initially know where to go. But after some research I found the Elephant Nature Park. Being a vegan and animal advocate, I felt it had the right ethos. While both my therapist and my wife were encouraging, they did have some concerns. Would I be well enough to travel far away? Would I be able to stay safe if I encountered anything that triggered urges to self-harm? What if being in such an environment were disheartening as opposed to inspirational, as I hoped? Although I was giddy with excitement about my grand adventure, I had to admit that these were concerns I shared.
It took an overnight train ride from Bangkok to reach Chiang Mai province in northern Thailand, near the border with Burma. On the first day, everyone met at the ENP office in Chiang Mai city centre for registration and transport to the sanctuary itself. Our minivans were equipped with DVDs about how not to get trodden on by an elephant, something which had fleetingly crossed my mind before but was now crystallised as a legitimate possibility.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Elephants are highly sentient, evolved animals, who form lifelong relationships with their families.’ Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters
Upon arrival, 50 or so excitable individuals waited to be paired up with roommates and organised into our volunteering groups. They were a lovely group of various ages from all over the world.
Our first task was unloading the watermelon truck and filling up the “elephant kitchen”. We each got into single file, passing along watermelons from the van to the many giant shelves that housed the elephant food. I was hit with the heady aroma of sweet fruit, and willed my body to adapt to the heat while shifting the heavy loads.
Why the Guardian is spending a year reporting on the plight of elephants Read more
My first elephant encounter was in fact rather unexpected; a sneaky trunk peeking around from the back of the kitchen, curious to identify any chopped up pieces of fruit ready for eating. I instantly knew that this was going to be a wonderful fortnight.
The volunteering itself focuses on providing care for the elephants such as bathing, food preparation (I have seen enough watermelons to last a lifetime), and accompanying them to the vets. Volunteers also look after the park; scooping poop (there is a proper technique to this; shovel from the back of the pile, lift up from the centre) tidying shelters and planting trees.
All of us as volunteers were incredibly touched to have the opportunity to stay here and look after the elephants. My group of new friends and I would come together each meal time with new stories and experiences to share, and certain times of day became graced with new importance: 3pm, time to help bathe the elephants; 4pm, feeding time opposite our own dinner table. It would be unrealistic to say that I did not experience intrusive thoughts or that my hallucinations stopped outright, but I felt no need to act upon them, and my happiness far outweighed any negative emotions. The routine and the socialising was important, but the fact that I was helping these amazing creatures was by far the most important factor.
I think being in such an environment was therapeutic for all. There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that animal assisted therapy can have a real impact on the social and psychological wellbeing of those struggling from both physical and psychological problems. I have a degree in psychology, and being here highlighted to me that there is a need for more formal studies to be conducted to build up the evidence base.
I have returned from ENP with a renewed sense of wanting to face and survive my own pain, actively working towards giving up self-harm. Although I have had challenging moments, I have not self-harmed once since coming back and I am approaching a year free of self-harm altogether. Kabu continues to be a source of inspiration. If an elephant can go through the crush and survive forced labour without giving up hope and trust, then there is no reason why I cannot overcome my own trauma.
Jake Dorothy lives in Cardiff, United Kingdom, with his wife and rescue cat. He works as a mental health trainer and volunteers for LGBT victim support.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised this article, the Samaritans in the UK can be contacted on 116 123, Lifeline in Australia on 13 11 14 and in the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1800 273 8255. |
Classical liberalism is very unlike the other ideologies out there such as socialism, nationalism or the centrist mix between the two (national socialism). All these other ideologies are collectivist and they typically adhere to a big welfare state with high taxes and massive government intervention. Classical liberalism represents individualism and therefore requires an entirely different mindset. Those who “convert” from a collectivist ideology to a classical liberal position very rarely change their minds because they represent something fundamentally different. It does however happen, and here is an example of it.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5BoC5qSgbA[/youtube]
A video blogger from Norway tells about his conversion from classical liberalism to communism and then finally ending up in a national socialist position smack in the center of Norwegian politics.
What I find interesting about this video is the reasons he cites for changing his mind, and these reasons are largely economic and factually based. This gives me hope because all the reasons he cites are falsehoods. That is, he has been told marxist myths and economic falsehoods and this has led him to conclude that laissez-faire leads to a bad society. I will therefore respond to the consequentialist reasons in detail. By showing him that the things he has been told are utterly wrong, I hope to re-change his mind back to classical liberalism.
Myth #1: laissez-faire leads to a “race to the bottom”
This guy tells us that without unions the wages and working conditions in society for most people would fall, even back to the level seen in the early parts of the industrial revolution. This is a version of the Marxist “iron law of wages” or “the race to the bottom” as it is sometimes also referred to. The economic principle underlying this iron law can be summarized as follows:
Capital accumulation in a free society (by a minority of capitalists) puts a downward pressure on wages and working conditions because the capitalists get in an ever better negotiation position.
This sounds somewhat plausible, except that it is exactly 180 degrees 100% wrong. In fact, the exact opposite is true and can be stated as follows:
Capital accumulation in a free society (even by a minority of capitalists) puts an upward pressure on wages and working conditions because the capitalists get in an ever worse negotiation position.
This is not immediately obvious and so it needs an explanation. To make this really easy to understand it is best if we start with a super-simple economy consisting of only two products: wheat and cotton. These are continuously produced and demanded by the people participating in the economy. To make it even clearer what is going on we will make it a barter economy. No money is involved, only exchange of goods.
Every year 1 ton of cotton is produced for sale, and 1 ton of wheat is produced for sale. What will roughly the exchange rate between cotton and wheat be? Roughly 1:1. You need approximately 1 kg of cotton to get hold of 1 kg wheat. Totally 1 ton of cotton is exchanged for 1 ton of wheat. So what happens to the exchange rate between cotton and wheat if the amount of wheat produced per year is doubled? Well, since there is now half as much cotton for sale as wheat the exchange rate will be roughly 1:2. In other words, you now need 2 kg of wheat to buy 1 kg of cotton. The price of cotton relative to wheat has risen.
Why? Because wheat has now become a less rare commodity. There is more wheat on the market to be sold and so the producers of wheat now come in a worse negotiation position relative to the cotton producers. In general: the more common a commodity is, the weaker the negotiation position of that commodity, and thus the lower the price it commands.
Let’s now switch our example to the two most important goods in society which are continuously produced, sold and consumed: labor and capital. In a capitalist society the population (and hence labor) growth is pretty low, perhaps around 1%. The accumulation of capital in a capitalist society, however, is much greater, perhaps 5%. So roughly speaking every year capital becomes about 4% less rare than labor. Roughly speaking then there is 4% more capital chasing labor every year, and hence the price of labor — wages — will be pushed up roughly 4% every year. Some of that wage increase is taken out in the form of more vacation, and some is used to improve working conditions.
Essentially this means that labor unions have done virtually nothing to improve working conditions and wages of the working class. All average wage increases are due to capital accumulation and productivity increases, and it is fairly easy to prove this. In Norway around a third of all workers are unionized in the largest union known as the National Union. (Landsorganisasjonen) However, a significant portion of workers are not unionized at all and for some mysterious reason they experience exactly the same wage growth and improvement in working conditions as the unionized workers.
This has greatly annoyed the National Union because the unions believe that they are the cause of wage increases. They are therefore calling the non-unionized workers “free riders” because they allegedly benefit from the agreements negotiated by the National Union. But that is awfully strange, isn’t it? Think about it. Why on earth would businesses be so generous as to simply raise the wages of people who are not in a position to demand a higher wage simply because some other people were in that position? Why do that if they don’t have to? To this the unions have no answer.
But we have already answered the question above: they do have to raise the wages of the non-unionized workers because when there is more capital to chase the limited labor available the businesses are in a worse negotiation position and must pay more for work. This explains all general wage increases.
Myth #2: Child labor, low wages and horrible working conditions were created by capitalism
In the first part of the 19th century there were loads of Oliver Twists running around in the streets of London and other cities. Child labor was common, working conditions were horrible, hours were long and wages were very low compared to what we are used to today. According to an unholy alliance between the upper class feudal lords and Marxists it was capitalism that created these conditions. Yes, you heard me right. The upper class supporters of feudalism were against capitalism and blamed it for poverty. In fact, they hated capitalism, they hated the industrialists who had not inherited their wealth and they wanted to go back to the good old days when all the workers were happily working in the fields of the feudal lords out in the country side.
Hmmmmmm. Doesn’t that strike you as…odd? Why did the filthy rich people who inherited wealth and legal privileges to own land and serfs strongly oppose capitalism? Well, here is a clue: the farmers left the country side voluntarily to take jobs in the city. Why did they do that? Because the industrialists paid so much better wages than the feudal lords. The lords found that they were unable to compete with these industrialists and so they used their significant influence over the culture to slander the industrialists. They did this by painting life in the country as a peach and the work in the cities as horrible and underpaid.
But if that were true, why did the farmers flee the countryside voluntarily to become factory workers in the city? The truth is that there was just as much child labor, hard work and horrible working conditions in the 18th century farm as there was in the factories in the cities. The difference was that industrialists were paying much better, and as capital accumulated the payment increased more and more.
In fact, they paid so much more after a while that child labor was abolished altogether! Imagine that. For 10.000 years there had been child labor in Britain, and then only 50 years after the industrial revolution child labor was mostly gone. The parents now earned so much that they could afford to keep their children at home and send them to school and get an education. And it was entirely due to capitalism. The bad working conditions, child labor and low wages were a remnant of the feudal past inherited, but was displaced by a better life for all in a matter of only 50-100 years. So capitalism did not create poverty, child labor and bad working conditions. On the contrary, it abolished them.
Conclusion
Hopefully I have presented powerful arguments that the labor unions have done nothing to improve living standards whereas capitalism, the accumulation of profit and the competition between capitalists is the real reason for our improved lives. It does not matter if the capital is owned by a few or by many so long as it is legal for all to own and accumulate capital and to use it peacefully. Then capital will tend to accumulate among those who are good at making capital accumulate. This benefits all because it maximizes capital accumulation in society, and hence maximizes wage increases and benefits to all. |
Former New York state Senate leader Dean Skelos, left, and his son Adam Skelos leave federal court, Friday, Dec. 11, 2015, in New York. Skelos and his son were convicted Friday of federal extortion charges, marking the second time in a month that one of Albany's most powerful politicians was run out office following a case that put the state capital's political culture on trial. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) ORG XMIT: NYRD111 less Former New York state Senate leader Dean Skelos, left, and his son Adam Skelos leave federal court, Friday, Dec. 11, 2015, in New York. Skelos and his son were convicted Friday of federal extortion charges, ... more Photo: Richard Drew Photo: Richard Drew Image 1 of / 23 Caption Close Skelos, son guilty on all charges 1 / 23 Back to Gallery
Albany
For the second time in as many weeks, New York state government was rocked by the corruption conviction of a politician who mere months ago was one of the state's three most powerful elected officials.
Former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his son were found guilty Friday afternoon on all eight federal charges filed against them by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara. The convictions stemmed from the Long Island lawmaker's efforts to secure income and benefits for his 33-year-old son, Adam, from politically connected businesses.
The verdict followed the Nov. 30 conviction of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and marks the end of an unprecedented year that saw both leaders of the Legislature arrested and then tossed out by their conferences.
In a brief statement, Bharara said the back-to-back convictions "beg an important question – how many prosecutions will it take before Albany gives the people of New York the honest government they deserve?"
That release joined a blizzard of calls for fundamental reform of what federal prosecutors contend is a runaway pay-to-play culture at the state Capitol, enabled by sleepy ethics enforcement and campaign finance laws seemingly designed to encourage shadowy flows of money from those seeking to influence legislation.
In a statement similar to one issued after Silver's conviction, Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised to pursue unspecified reforms, and placed the responsibility for their progress on the Legislature.
"There can be no tolerance for those who use, and seek to use, public service for private gain," Cuomo said. "The justice system worked today. However, more must be done and will be pursued as part of my legislative agenda. The convictions of former Speaker Silver and former Majority Leader Skelos should be a wake-up call for the Legislature and it must stop standing in the way of needed reforms."
The verdict against Skelos was read just after 2 p.m. on the second day of deliberations by the jury.
The lawmaker's felony conviction resulted in his immediate expulsion from the Senate. Within the hour, his official Senate website was shut down and his name was scraped from the window of his longtime office on the ninth floor of the Legislative Office Building — a swift erasure seen after Silver's conviction, as well.
Skelos' expulsion reduces the Republican conference to a bare 32-member majority. Though only 31 Republicans now serve in the Senate, Simcha Felder, a Brooklyn Democrat, has conferenced with the GOP since his election in 2012. The Republicans also have allied themselves with a band of five independent Democrats, under the leadership of Sen. Jeff Klein.
Cuomo has already called for an April special election to fill Silver's Assembly seat, and it's likely that date will also be used to find a replacement for Skelos, who was first elected to the Senate in 1984.
Sentencing is set for March 3. Both men, who remain free without bail, face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each fraud and extortion count and 10 years for each bribery charge.
The lawmaker and his son were arrested on May 4, just over three months after Silver's arrest, to answer a federal complaint that alleged they conspired in a years-long effort to trade legislative favors for personal and political benefits.
Bharara described the scheme as an effort to "monetize" Dean Skelos' considerable power and influence as the chamber's GOP leader, a post he held for almost seven years.
More Information Another leader found guilty Some of the reactions to the conviction of Dean Skelos: "Unfortunately, Skelos will still be eligible for a taxpayer-funded pension despite his felony convictions and overtly tarnished record. This is shameful, and our constituents deserve better accountability and ethical standards from Albany. The state is currently paying out roughly $531,000 per year to corrupt state officials." — GOP Assemblyman Dan Stec of Queensbury "Keep going Preet. I hope the best is yet to come. Every New Yorker deserves better." — GOP Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin of Schaghticoke "We have two choices. Business as usual, or passage of the Moreland Committee recommendations, especially public financing of elections. There is no way to wipe off the stain of corruption with cosmetic changes. A genuine change in how elections are run must be priority number one. — Bill Lipton, New York director for the Working Families Party "Thin ethics reform measures will likely not solve the problem. Significant political and structural reforms are necessary to change this environment. That process starts with every New Yorker getting more involved in holding their elected officials accountable." — Reclaim New York, a good-government group "Personally, I am (a) strong supporter of term limits for all elective offices. ... So many of the problems in Albany stem from career politicians who became part of the business as usual crowd and who, frankly, have served for far too long. — Adele Malpass, chair of the Manhattan Republican Party. "The trials of Dean Skelos and Sheldon Silver have laid bare Albany's cauldron of corruption. This is Albany's Watergate moment and, just like Congress did in the 1970s, we must seize this opportunity to restore the public trust." — Democratic Sen. Brad Hoylman, Manhattan.
The complaint alleged that Skelos doled out political favors and influence in an effort to benefit the environmental technology company AbTech, which secured a $12 million contract for a stormwater-remediation system in Skelos' power base, Nassau County, and Glenwood Management, a powerful real estate development company that has financial and personnel ties to AbTech. In return, Adam Skelos received payments of more than $200,000, and Dean Skelos and his conference received considerable political donations from Glenwood, whose centenarian owner Leonard Litwin is the state's most generous political contributor.
Executives and lobbyists for Glenwood and AbTech were given non-prosecution agreements by Bharara's office in exchange for their cooperation.
Two additional charges of extortion and solicitation of bribes related to Adam Skelos' no-show employment by a Long Island medical malpractice insurance company, a job secured at the request of his father, were added in a superseding indictment handed down in July.
Some of the most damning evidence against the father and son were drawn from wiretaps, in which father and son chatted with each other and a long list of lobbyists, business executives and lawmakers. In one conversation between the two, Adam Skelos complained that his father couldn't give him "real advice" on the AbTech deal because "you can't talk normal because it's like (expletive) Preet Bharara is listening to every (expletive) phone call. It's just (expletive) frustrating."
"It is," Dean Skelos replied on the recording.
The Senate's Republican majority conference tossed him from power a week after his arrest. Sen. John Flanagan, also from the conference's powerful Long Island caucus, rose to take the top job in the chamber. In his own statement Friday, Flanagan said he was "deeply saddened" by the verdict.
"... I take this situation very seriously and am determined to work with my fellow legislators to swiftly and completely restore the public trust," he said.
Flanagan will have his work cut out for him: Skelos was the fourth leader of a Senate majority conference to face a federal corruption indictment in the past decade — though he was the first leader to face charges while still in power.
His predecessor as leader, Joseph L. Bruno of Brunswick, was convicted of honest services fraud almost exactly six years ago, only to have the verdict erased by a U.S. Supreme Court decision that pruned back the statute used by prosecutors; he was acquitted in 2014 at the end of his second trial. Bruno resigned in 2008, six months before his arrest.
Former Sen. Malcolm Smith, a Democrat who led the chamber for the first half of 2009, was convicted in February of trying to bribe his way to the 2013 Republican nomination for New York City mayor.
Another Democrat, Pedro Espada Jr., was convicted of raiding a health care nonprofit he ran. His claim to the title of "majority leader" was largely cosmetic, and was conferred on him by the bare Democratic majority in an effort to end the five-week Senate coup crisis in July 2009 — a Republican scheme carried out in part by Skelos.
Sen. John Sampson of Brooklyn took the title of "conference leader," but functioned as majority leader from July 2009 until the Democrats lost their narrow majority in 2010; he remained the leader of the minority conference through 2012. Sampson was convicted in July of obstructing justice and lying to federal investigators.
Skelos' onetime deputy conference leader, Sen. Thomas Libous of the Southern Tier, was convicted of lying to the FBI in June in another case that turned on a powerful father's effort to boost the career of his son. Libous, who is battling terminal cancer, was sentenced to house arrest in late November.
The Empire Center, which keeps a database of salary and pension information on public employees, estimated that Skelos' state pension was likely to total an annual payout of almost $96,000.
Efforts to change the state constitution to strip public pensions from those convicted of corruption related to their duties was demanded by Cuomo in the wake of Silver's arrest. That initiative was ultimately stymied by disagreements between the Senate and the Democrat-dominated Assembly, though negotiations are likely to continue when the Legislature returns to Albany in January.
mhamilton@timesunion.com • 518-454-5449 • @matt_hamilton10 |
Being asked if Jairus Byrd requested a trade. No. Would he welcome one in the right situation? At this point, I believe he would. — Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 21, 2013
I know the San Diego Chargers are very near the salary cap. I know that Marcus Gilchrist has supposedly looked better at strong safety than he looked at cornerback. I still think Tom Telesco should pick up the phone to see what it would take to get Jairus Byrd away from the Buffalo Bills.
The situation is such that the Bills put the franchise tag on the Pro Bowl free safety, but Byrd had been reluctant to sign without a guarantee that the Bills won't franchise him again next year (which Buffalo won't give him). Well, after holding out this long, Jairus finally gave in and signed his franchise tender today...but he doesn't appear to be happy about the situation either.
There's a few reasons why it would make sense for the Chargers to trade for Byrd:
Two Pro Bowl safeties are better than one, and would take a ton of pressure off of the cornerbacks.
With Byrd and Eric Weddle being able to play in the box or in centerfield, they could do a lot to fool opposing offenses by showing one look and switching to another when the ball is snapped.
Marcus Gilchrist could return to nickel cornerback, where he wasn't great but is probably better than Johnny Patrick. This group, which is injury prone and really low on depth, would welcome the addition of Gilchrist.
Jairus' father, Gil Byrd, is a Chargers legend. The fans of the team want to cheer for Gil's son. It would be an easy buy-in and a lot of jerseys would be sold.
Jairus is 26 years old and Weddle is 28. Having them both means the back-end of your defense is great for the next three years, at least, and Byrd can eventually take over for Weddle if they can't resign him.
It immediately moves the team from "We're hoping to be a winning team soon" to "We're going to win now, even if we need to do it on the back of our defense" mentality, which the fans would love.
Does the move make financial sense? Probably not. Telesco probably would scoff at the asking price too, which would undoubtedly be a high pick or two in addition to a contract extension. That being said (and I'm allowing myself to be a fan instead of an impartial observer on this one), go get Jairus Byrd! It'd be worth it just to watch how great him and Weddle could be together.
More from Bolts From The Blue: |
A day after learning Susan Fennell is the highest paid mayor in Canada, some Brampton residents are now asking questions about her overseas travel schedule. Fennell travelled to China in December, then visited India in January. She’s set to leave for the Philippines in a couple of weeks.
Brampton residents are questioning the international travel bill for Mayor Susan Fennell a day after they learned that she is the highest paid mayor in Canada. ( RICK MADONIK / TORONTO STAR )
“Are the costs of these trips yielding any returns?” asked Brampton resident George Startup. “Trade missions, in my opinion, fall within the jurisdiction of our federal or provincial governments,” Startup said. “Yes, municipalities could be involved, but not to this extent.” He echoed the concerns of a local citizens’ group, councillors and other residents questioning the cost to Brampton taxpayers to send the mayor and staff overseas.
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A spokesperson for Fennell replied to the Star in a statement. “Budget for the trade missions is approved by council,” the statement read. “The goal of these trade missions is to create opportunities to build long-term relationships with entrepreneurs and to encourage them to develop their next job-creating ideas here in Brampton.” Neither Fennell’s office nor city staff provided a breakdown of the costs for any of the trips. But a report to council last month shows the budgeted amount for the Jan. 2-17 India trip was $53,000, with the actual cost being $72,548. The extra amount was charged to the mayor and councillor expense budget. For international business trips, such as the trip to India, Brampton council has approved a separate annual budget of $123,000. The report went on to say that the cost of the airfare to send seven Brampton delegates to India was $27,607. That works out to about $4,000 a ticket.
The seven Brampton delegates to India included Fennell, a member of her staff, three councillors and two senior City of Brampton staff. Councillor Elaine Moore, who did not go on any of the trips, says that while council did approve an international travel budget to foster business, costs need to be kept in check.
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She questioned sending seven people to India. “There is nothing in the (approved) policy to limit participation,” Moore said. Perhaps sending the mayor and one staff member or just two senior staff is more financially responsible.” In response to the story about Fennell’s salary, the group Citizens for a Better Brampton, a watchdog organization that focuses on city hall, put out a news release that mentioned the mayor’s travel. “Her junkets around the world at taxpayers’ expense ... serve only to reinforce in the public’s eye that this Mayor exemplifies and enjoys her feeding frenzy at the public trough,” the release said.
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Government introduced new guidelines in 2013 to help young victims
NSPCC: Some cases collapse when victims do not have enough support
But only 989 of the cases, which include rapes, led to criminal charges
Figures show Met Police told of 7,205 serious sex attacks on under-16s
Fewer than one in seven child sex abuse cases probed by Britain's largest police force have led to criminal charges, figures have revealed.
Scotland Yard investigated 7,205 reports of serious attacks on under-16s between 2010 and October last year - just 989 of which (14 per cent) ended with a person being prosecuted.
Fewer offenders still were convicted after prosecutors, who were handed details by London's Metropolitan Police, tested cases against them through the courts.
Failed: One in seven child sex abuse claims in London end in prosecution, figures show (posed by model)
The figures, obtained by Mike Sullivan for the Sun on Sunday, show police success rates lagging despite a major crackdown on child sex abuse.
The Met reportedly brought in up to 100 extra officers in 2013 to tackle sex abuse cases including child exploitation and the threat of grooming gangs.
The shake-up was an attempt to improve the Met's controversial Operation Sapphire rape unit after it was accused of failings in previous years.
An IPCC report in 2013 found 'under-performing and over-stretched' officers in Southwark, south London, had encourage adult victims to retract their allegations to boost detection rates.
Today's figures are said to include rape, gang rape, child trafficking and sexual assault.
Changes: The Met Police reportedly brought in up to 100 extra officers in 2013 to tackle sex abuse cases
Last year the NSPCC warned child rape rates were even worse than official figures suggest because many cases are never reported to the authorities.
'Not all cases come to the attention of the police and, even if they do, they may decide it is not in the best interests of the child to investigate an incident as a criminal offence,' a spokesman said.
The charity previously said some child sex abuse cases were collapsing because children were being denied the support they needed to give evidence in court.
Claiming fewer than a quarter of 23,000 offences in 2012 ended in a prosecution, the charity said all children giving evidence should have an intermediary to help deal with 'hostile' questioning.
Responding to the call, the government issued new guidelines saying child sex abuse cases should only be dealt with by specialist prosecutors who ignore 'myths, stereotypes and prejudices'.
Victims must also be offered 'appropriate support' such as counselling and criminal cases should be heard in court with as few delays as possible, the guidelines added.
The Metropolitan Police did not immediately return requests for comment on today's figures. |
BRUSSELS (AP) — A Brussels Airlines plane heading to the Portuguese city of Faro took off from Brussels Airport on Sunday, the first passenger flight to leave the airport since suicide bombings on March 22 ripped through its check-in counters.
Security at the airport was tight with completely new check-in procedures for passengers.
Two other planes were scheduled to leave later Sunday — Brussels Airlines flights to Athens and Turin, Italy. The three flights were a test run for a European aviation hub that used to handle 600 flights a day and plans to slowly climb back to normal capacity.
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Arnaud Feist, the CEO of Brussels Airport Co., had said ahead of Sunday’s flights that they were a symbolic “sign of hope” following “the darkest days in the history of aviation in Belgium.”
On Sunday, he thanked employees for their courage, solidarity and the “impressive work carried out in so little time.”
“We are more than an airport … We are a family more bound together than ever,” he said at a ceremony at the airport.
“It will take time to accept what happened and more time to get over the pain,” Feist said as the flight for Faro took off. “But we will never forget.”
Damage to the airport was extensive when double suicide bombs exploded near its crowded check-in counters 12 days ago, killing 16 victims and maiming people from around the world. Another bombing that day on a Brussels subway train killed 16 other people. Both attacks were claimed by the Islamic State group.
Feist said Belgium’s biggest airport should be back around 20 percent of capacity on Monday and able to process 800 passengers an hour. He said Saturday that he hoped full service at the airport could be restored by the end of June or the beginning of July in time for the summer vacation season.
However, traffic may take time to return to its previous pace. Delta Airlines said on Saturday that it was suspending service between Atlanta and Brussels until March 2017.
New security measures at the airport aimed to minimize the chances of any repeat attacks.
Police on Sunday conducted spot checks of vehicles before they arrived. A large white tent was set up outside the terminal to screen travelers’ IDs, travel documents and bags before they were allowed to enter a specially built area for check-in.
A drop-off parking area outside the terminal was closed down and authorities said there would be no rail or public transport access to the airport for the foreseeable future.
The bombers entered the check-in area with suitcases packed with explosives and nails, and the resulting blasts collapsed the airport’s ceiling and shattered windows.
The attacks have prompted a wider discussion among aviation authorities in many countries over whether to impose routine security checks at the entry to airport terminals
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. |
Unity is a beer that is brewed annually as a celebration of the hard working brewers who have helped build the craft beer scene in Los Angeles. These brewers come together at a host brewery in a showcase of creativity and esprit de corps. For the previous five years, the creation of Unity has happened at Eagle Rock Brewery [ed note], but for LA Beer Week 2015 the collaboration is moving to the South Bay.
[Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the Official Guide to LA Beer Week 2015 published by Beer Paper LA. Look for the booklet covering the history and purpose of LABW, along with a calendar of events whereever you can find the paper.]
Unity Brew Day
The LA Brewers Guild — who organize LA Beer Week and oversee the Unity brand — held a vote to determine which brewery would host the Unity production, and Smog City Brewery was chosen. On one morning in May brewers and representatives from over a dozen Los Angeles Brewers Guild member breweries convened in Torrance to pitch-in to create the commemorative beer.
Unity, Smog City’s co-founder Jonathan Porter explains, is a drinkable promotion for both LA Beer Week and the young guild which now comprises nearly 30 member breweries. The style for the brew is usually determined by the LABW organizing committee, but this year there wasn’t time for the often protracted discussions about theme ingredients and beer styles for Unity. “There wasn’t a ton of input from the Guild on style,” says Porter. “We came up with the concept and pitched it to the Guild.”
The idea was to create a light, drinkable “tart saison,” though Porter says that, “The Federal government doesn’t like that designation, so now [we call it] a ‘tart saison-style ale.’” Instead of unique ingredients like tamarind and prickly pear that have been featured in past Unity brews, Smog City proposed a complex process for the beer. Porter explains:
“We like to think of it as a take on an Americanized farmhouse ale with our house blend of Belgian saison [yeast ] strains. We are doing a partial kettle souring technique to introduce that tartness: all natural acidity contributed by lactobacillus, and then we are blending that with a [second] batch that’s been brewed ‘the old fashioned way.’”
All of the guest brewers in Torrance were assisting with this “old fashioned” brew, and it was a busy day at Smog City Brewing. Besides the Unity brewing, a fresh batch of Coffee Porter was also being packaged in bottles and kegs, and the beer would be picked up by Stone Distribution that afternoon. There were also kegs to wash and Beer Week events to finish planning.
After the guest brewers knocked-out the batch and began to transfer it to the stainless fermentation tank, Porter drove the brewery’s forklift to Smog City’s barrel aging building located a block down from the main brewery. About one-third of the wort was brewed on the Friday before the collaboration brew day and transferred to a portable winemaker’s tank to sour over the weekend. This would be added to the freshly-brewed wort, but Porter first needed to get the tank back to the brewery. He strapped the winemaker’s tank to the forklift and there were a tense few moments as Porter drove the nearly six thousand pounds of beer down the middle of Del Amo Boulevard for a long block before turning left across the street and into the brewery’s parking lot.
“It’s a little harrowing,” Porter admits. “I just imagine a valve breaking off [of the tank] and beer spraying all over the road while cars splash through it. But really, it’s nothing to worry about,” he quipped.
The tank made it safely to the brewery, and the wort was blended and the yeast pitched. Bottles of Unity were filled at the beginning of June and they will be available at local retailers across Los Angeles in time for LA Beer Week, while a precious few kegs of the brew will make appearances at select Beer Week events.
“We really want to get this out as an LABW and LABG promotion,” Porter said. “The best way is to get it in as many hands as possible. It’s about spreading the word.”
Thoughts on Unity 2015
We had a chance to sample a bottle of the newest Unity on the eve of Beer Week’s Kickoff event, and then snagged a couple more glasses during the festival, and it is an impressive brew.
The lightly tart saison balances complexity with drinkability remarkably. It is both quaffable (especially when sweltering under LA’s summer sun) and dissectible. The sour-mash tartness is relatively clean and bright, and Smog City’s yeast blend produces plenty of fruity top notes alongside a wonderful peppery zing. There is a persistent bitterness in the finish that suggests citrus pith so strongly that you may expect that the beer was brewed with Meyer lemons. The hazy straw-gold ale has a medium body and a soft carbonation which adds to the drinkability. Stock up while you can, because while Unity had a larger bottling run than any other beer in Smog City’s history I don’t imagine this will sit on shelves for too long — especially once the word gets out on how perfect of a summertime brew it is. |
Crunchiness is the sensation of muffled grinding of a foodstuff. Crunchiness differs from crispness in that a crisp item is quickly atomized, while a crunchy one offers sustained, granular resistance to jaw action. While crispness is difficult to maintain, crunchiness is difficult to overcome.
Crunchy foods are associated with freshness.[1]
Relationship to sound [ edit ]
Crispness and crunchiness can each be "assessed on the basis of sound alone, on the basis of oral-tactile clues alone, or on the basis of a combination of auditory and oral-tactile information".[2] An acoustic frequency of 1.9 kHz seems to mark the threshold between the two sensations, with crunchiness at frequencies below, and crispness at frequencies above.
Crunchy food breaks at speeds faster than the speed of sound. The sound of crunching food is therefore "a tiny sonic boom".[1]
Examples [ edit ]
Crunchy foods include:
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ] |
In March 2011, Rose Candis had the worst lunch of her life. Sitting at a restaurant in Shaoguan, a small city in South China, the American mother tried hard not to vomit while her traveling companion translated what the man they were eating with had just explained: her adopted Chinese daughter Erica had been purchased, and then essentially resold to her for profit. The papers the Chinese orphanage had shown her documenting how her daughter had been abandoned by the side of a road were fakes. The tin of earth the orphanage had given her so that her daughter could always keep a piece of her home with her as she grew up in the U.S. was a fraud, a pile of dirt from the place her daughter’s paperwork was forged, not where she was born. Candis had flown thousands of miles to answer her daughter Erica’s question—who are my birth parents?—but now she was further from the answer than ever.
Almost exactly a year earlier, Liu Liqin had the worst day of his life. He was out on a temporary construction job, looking forward to lunch and his next cigarette break, when his wife called to tell him that their two-year-old son Liu Jingjun was missing. Liu rushed home and began a frantic but fruitless search for the boy. He and his wife called relatives, ran to the local police station to report Jingjun missing, and then fanned out through their city neighborhood calling the boy’s name and asking passers-by if they had seen anything. The police told him they couldn’t take the case because not enough time had passed since the boy had disappeared. Finally, late in the evening, Liu thought to check the footage from a surveillance camera at a building on the street outside his family’s apartment. Sure enough, when the video footage was queued up, in a small corner of the frame, Liu could see a man, face obscured, carrying little Jingjun down the narrow alley where the Liu family lives. I met Liu for the first time in that same alley; he had agreed to become the first subject of a documentary film I was making about kidnapped children in China. “Watching the man in the footage taking him away, I just...” Liu trailed off. “There’s really no way to describe that feeling.”
Rose Candis and Liu Liqin’s backgrounds could not be more different, but both parents have spent the past couple of years searching in China for the truth about their children. Both will do almost anything to get at it. And both have been stymied at almost every turn.
Child trafficking and its relationship to adoption in China is a serious problem, but also a deeply opaque one. It is a taboo topic for the Chinese government, which acknowledges the problem exists but also does not make public statistics about the number of children kidnapped or the number of children sold into adoption. Because of the implications for the tens of thousands of families in the United States and elsewhere in the West who have adopted children from China—Americans alone adopted nearly 3000 Chinese children in 2012—the topic is often taboo outside of China’s borders, too.
Neither child trafficking nor baby buying in Chinese international adoptions are widely studied. No one can say for certain how many children are kidnapped in China each year, or what percentage of them end up being put up for adoption domestically or internationally. But the problem is a lot more serious than most people know, as I have come to learn over the last few years. In the process of making a documentary film on the subject, my wife and I have spoken to dozens of parents of kidnapped Chinese children and adoptive parents in the U.S. who have come to believe their children were sold into adoption.
* * *
When Candis, an Ohio-based therapist (who asked that I use her pen name to protect the privacy of her daughter), decided to adopt a child, she chose China both because adopting from China can be a bit cheaper than adopting from other countries such as South Korea, and also because she thought the adopted Chinese kids she saw around the U.S. looked cute. “It was touted as the most stable program, the most above-board program,” Candis says of the way the agency she worked with advertised its Hague-certified process, developed over twenty years to connect dozens of children with new parents annually. “Certainly they never ever mentioned trafficking.”
Adopting a child from any country can feel like an endless process, especially for someone like Candis who at age thirty-six was extremely eager to become a parent. But when adoption day finally came, Candis didn’t see anything to raise suspicion. She felt an instant connection to her new daughter, and everyone at the orphanage seemed friendly and warm. It was, quite literally, a dream come true. “They really know how to put on a show,” she says. “The [orphanage] director took us to this lovely lunch and he stood up and talked and had tears in his eyes. He did a beautiful job.” Candis and her daughter went home ready to start their new life together.
Rose Candis says that at first, things went smoothly—at least, as smoothly as they can for a new parent of a young child. But at four years old, Erica began saying that she missed her birth mother. Then she asked, “Can you find her?” Candis genuinely didn’t know, so she started looking online, and found an organization called Research-China.org that helps parents look into the origins of their adopted Chinese children.
Brian H. Stuy, a father of three adopted daughters and the founder of Research China, looked at Erica’s documentation and gave Candis bad news: there seemed to be a good chance that Erica’s adoption was connected to a kidnapping scandal in Hunan province. The story rocked the U.S. adoption community in November 2005 when Chinese journalists reported that infants from Hunan and several other provinces were being sold to several major orphanages in China, and that the orphanages then lied about the children’s origins to adoptive parents. Looking at the numbers of adoptions coming from Erica’s orphanage, the Qujiang Social Welfare Institute, in Shaoguan’s Qujiang district, Stuy saw that adoptions dropped precipitously after news of the scandal broke and the government moved in to shut the trafficking down—a sign that the orphanage had been involved. He sent Candis a link to a news story about it. “I started freaking,” she said.
Most parents, Stuy says, stop there. But Candis wasn’t willing to give up: “I needed to know,” she told me. So she kept searching. She hired a researcher in China to put up posters in the area surrounding her daughter’s orphanage asking for information. Nothing came back, but Candis couldn’t stop. “I just kept calling Brian and Lan (Stuy’s wife and Research China’s researcher) every month,” she told me, laughing in retrospect at how single-minded she must have seemed. After nearly two years of persistence, Lan agreed to travel with Candis to China to see what they could dig up about Erica’s origin.
* * *
In the Shanxi city of Taiyuan, Liu Liqin was searching, too. The first week after Jingjun’s kidnapping, he and his wife barely slept. “We couldn’t tell day from night,” he said, “We really couldn’t tell the difference.” But days of scouring the streets and alleys near their house while relatives combed public transportation hubs throughout the city, produced nothing. The police offered little help. When Jingjun first went missing, police came but they told Liu and his wife, the boy would likely turn up at a relative or friend’s house and that they shold just search on their own. After Liu discovered the surveillance footage, the police took the case, but they failed to uncover any leads. Like most parents of kidnapped children, Liu has been told by local police to share any clues he finds during his own search with them, but in the absence of those clues, it is apparent to him the police will not do anything. Three years since he was kidnapped, Jingjun’s case remains open, but Liu says no one on the force is actively investigating it. (I called the local police station but the officer who answered refused to comment or transfer us to somebody who could).
As time went on, tensions began to pull at the Liu household. Liu and his wife had an older daughter, but their son was gone. They could not have any additional children; local family planning officials had asked Liu to undergo sterilization surgery after Jingjun’s birth. Having a son is of great importance in traditional Chinese culture, and the loss of the Liu’s only chance to pass on the family name hit hard. Friends and relatives began to urge Liu to leave his wife, whom they blamed for Jingjun’s loss, saying she wasn’t watching him carefully enough. “I tell them that’s not possible,” Liu says. “Did she want to lose our son? Of course not.”
Together with their seven-year-old daughter, a feisty girl named Jing, they have done nearly everything they can to get the word out about Jingjun’s kidnapping. They have been in local newspapers, on the local radio, and on television. The little boy is listed on dozens of missing children websites (non-profit sites run by parents and volunteers and funded mostly via donations), and his face is plastered on banners and posters that Liu and his family post around Taiyuan and other cities where their search leads them. When they hear about traffickers being arrested on television, Liqin often travels to wherever the men were arrested to speak with local police and see if he can find news about Jingjun. He links up with other local parents whose kids are missing to organize street rallies and impromptu gatherings where they hand out flyers and try to enlist the help of passers-by.
At one such rally I attended in Taiyuan, the parents simply parked the “ChildSearch Car”—a small truck covered with the images of scores of missing children and information about their cases—on a sidewalk near a busy intersection. It was an unusually clear day for Taiyuan—the city is generally buried under a thick haze of smog—and a weekend, so pedestrians were out in force. The families spread canvas banners with their children’s photos and stories on the sidewalk around the truck, and then stood behind them to answer questions and hand out flyers as passers-by began to stop to see what the fuss was about. At first, people seemed puzzled by the display, but the crowd grew. Liu and the parents walked around, chatting with people who had questions and passing out information. Even Liu’s young daughter was working, smiling and handing out flyers about her kidnapped little brother to pedestrians. “She remembers, even now she does,” said Liu of his daughter. “When she wakes up she says ‘Dad, I dreamed of my brother last night,’ and things like that. When we hear that, it’s devastating.” But on this day, she was all smiles, darting around the truck with another youngster other parents had brought to the event, taking advantage of the rare blue-sky day.
I bounced around the impromptu demonstration, taking photos and video while trying to keep a low profile so as to not to get any of the parents in trouble. Eventually, several police officers arrived at the rally and pulled a few of the parents aside. I figured the jig was up—and it was—but the police were friendly about it. There was no strong-arming, but the families did not have a permit for their activity, and like most local police in China, the authorities were sensitive to how street rallies like this look to outsiders. The police didn’t say anything to me, but my presence at the rally with a camera may have been part of the reason they stepped in and shut it down. In fact, the next day, police visited Liu at his apartment to ask why there was a foreigner at the event. Liu told them that I was just a tourist who happened to be passing through, and the officers left.
* * *
After Candis arrived in China with Lan, they traveled to Shaoguan and tracked down He Zaolin, the man who is listed on Erica’s paperwork as her “finder.” He was supposed to have come across her abandoned on Sheng Li Road in Shaoguan and turned her over to the orphanage. He agreed to have lunch with them and then, to Rose’s shock and horror, admitted candidly that he had never found any child. He was simply friends with one of the Qujiang orphanage’s directors—at the time, he said, he was the Director of the Civil Affairs Bureau in Qujiang District—so his name was used on the paperwork. The children, he said, were purchased in Hunan. He called his friend, the orphanage director, on the phone, and the director seemed to confirm this because then Mr. He repeated it: we bought these babies.
In a surreal twist, after lunch Mr. He took them to a local Buddhist temple, perhaps hoping that Candis would find some peace there. She spent the time wandering the grounds looking at statues of Guanyin—a Buddhist spirit often called the Goddess of Mercy—and wondering what she was going to tell her daughter. Then Lan suggested they go to the orphanage to see if they could discover anything further.
When they arrived at the orphanage, Candis immediately spotted one of the directors; not the man who had apparently just admitted buying her child over the phone, but the orphanage’s other director. Not knowing that Candis was aware of the truth, the director greeted her and offered to take her on a tour to the place where her daughter was found. “I wanted to fucking belt him,” she said, “But I wasn’t interested in going to jail, so I told him, ‘That won’t be necessary.’” He asked twice more, and Candis says she came inches from exploding and telling him she knew the truth. But still hoping that she might uncover more information, instead she quietly refused. So he invited them to dinner instead. She kept pushing for more information but by the end of the night, Candis was spent, and she and Lan hadn’t been able to uncover anything further about her daughter. “I went home that night and just sobbed,” she said.
Over the next few days, Candis tried everything, including trying to bribe some of the orphanage’s workers, to uncover more about her daughter’s origins. She talked with workers at the orphanage and even offered to pay one of them for more information, but nothing new came to light. She tried to pry more information out of He Zaolin, but he stopped answering her calls. Erica had been sold to the orphanage: that much was clear. But where she came from before, that was anyone’s guess.
The worst moment of the trip came later, in a Skype video chat conversation with Erica back in the U.S. ‘We’re not going to be able to find your birth mother,’ Candis told her. Her daughter’s face fell. “She just looked so dejected, and she just said, ‘Oh.’” Then Erica started crying. “It was just heart-wrenching that I could not be there with her. It was one of the worst things I've ever had to do. Really, really awful.”
* * *
In China, parents of kidnapped children like Jingjun soon discover that their missing child opens them up to a whole new world of problems. According to every parent we spoke to, police generally offer little more than cursory help when children disappear. Like Liu, most parents are told to look for their kids on their own. Many Chinese police stations won’t even consider accepting a missing person’s case until the child has been missing for a full twenty-four hours, according to the Shi Richeng, Lei Yong and several parents of kidnapped children we interviewed for our film. Unfortunately, in many documented trafficking cases, twenty-four hours after the abduction, the child is already hundreds of miles away. In Liu’s case and many others, halfhearted initial investigations quickly give way to apathy.
So, of course, parents conduct their searches and try to raise awareness by themselves, but often this puts them at odds with local law enforcement officials eager to put a muzzle on almost anyone who expresses discontent in public. Shi Richeng and Wang Yeye, two other parents of missing children from the Taiyuan area, both have been searching for their children for much longer than Liu Liqin, and both have been subject to extreme levels of police interference. Wang told us that police sometimes knocked on her door in the middle of the night, citing bogus phoned-in complaints of domestic abuse, asking her where she’d traveled recently, and telling her not to go anywhere without their prior approval. They also ordered her not to go to Beijing to appeal to higher authorities for help with her case. She went anyway, but found no help there.
Shi, a middle-aged worker from China's central Shanxi province whose son has been missing for more than five years already, has also been to Beijing. There, he was detained by police for a full day. “I was left hungry until 5:30 in the afternoon; they didn’t give us anything to eat,” he says. He was released in the evening, but he returned home no closer to finding his son than when he left, and more frustrated than ever about the police who were supposed to be helping him. “They’re using their energy to track parents,” he said, “if they spent that energy on solving the cases, what case couldn’t they solve?”
Unfortunately, the police are not the only people who aren’t helping. Liu says that, like most parents of missing children, he gets frequent messages from scammers trying to get him to pay large sums of money for information about his child’s whereabouts, information that ends up being fake. “They try to swindle you,” he says. “Sometimes they put your kid’s face on [a photo of] another kid’s body and say ‘This is your kid, I know where they are,’ but they’re actually just tricking you for money. There are many of these people.” And Liu knows that even if someone who comes across his son learns the boy has been kidnapped, they probably won’t say anything:
He’ll never know he was kidnapped and purchased, sold to others by human traffickers. It’s not possible. In our hometown when people buy wives, no one says anything. No one will say, ‘This one was purchased from here,” right? No one talks. And our child was so young, he won’t understand that it’s all fake.
Even when the child knows, it often doesn’t help. When Wang Qingshun, a Hangzhou vehicle salesman who was kidnapped and sold as a child, was handed over to his new “adoptive” family in Zhejiang, he went around telling everyone in the neighborhood that it wasn’t his real home, and that Wang Qingshun wasn’t his real name. He spoke with a different accent than the locals, to the point that he was difficult for his new family to understand. “Everyone knew I wasn’t from there,” he says, “Adults generally didn’t talk about it, but the children would talk about me, saying, ‘Oh, that kid was purchased,’ and things like that. When I was in kindergarten, I was suspended by the teacher multiple times. Why? It was not actually because I was naughty, it was because the other kids made fun of me and cursed me [for being purchased], so I would retaliate and hit them, sometimes I’d take things and break them over their heads.”
Wang says that everyone in his village knew that he was purchased, and yet not a single person reported the crime to police until over a decade later, when it was probably far too late to do anything about it. Sadly, his story is not uncommon. Parents of kidnapped children explain that part of the problem is that many people who might have information about trafficking don’t report it to police for fear that it can only result in trouble for themselves, and could potentially even invite retribution from local trafficking gangs.
* * *
When Candis returned to the United States, she knew she had to do something but she wasn’t entirely sure what. As her daughter continued to grieve what seems likely to be the permanent loss of her birth parents, Candis pondered what she could do to spread the word about fraud and trafficking in international adoptions from China. A family friend suggested that she contact her local congressman.
She did, but “he was not much help.” So she contacted another, but “they didn’t care.” She kept pushing, and eventually came across an organization that was pushing for Congress to broaden the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) to include sale for adoption in the U.S. government’s definition of trafficking.
Part of the problem is that as things stand now, Candis’ child was not trafficked, at least not according to U.S. law. Erica fits the first two conditions of a trafficked child laid out in the TVPRA (she was transported, and fraud and deception were involved) but not the third (the purpose of the deception was not to sell her into slavery, prostitution, indentured servitude or pornography). Some international organizations, including the United Nations, define trafficking more broadly. But for the U.S., a child could be kidnapped, transported, sold to an orphanage, and put up for adoption with false papers, and none of that would be defined as trafficking. A U.S. State Department official explained:
We believe the best available protections against the abduction and sale of children for purposes of intercountry adoption, bribery, fraud, and inappropriate financial gains are offered by the Hague Adoption Convention. China is a party to the Hague Adoption Convention. For all Convention adoptions, a U.S. consular officer must first review all pre-adoptive steps before a family can adopt or seek custody of a child in the Country of Origin. After the adoption is completed, consular officers must certify that all steps in the intercountry adoption process were done in accordance with the Convention and the Intercountry Adoption Act before a child may immigrate to the United States.
intercountry adoptions are sometimes mislabeled as “child trafficking” because of varying international definitions related to the two phenomena. Children made eligible for intercountry adoption may fall victim to bad actors engaged in criminal practices and questionable procedures. In the majority of these cases, however, the persons committing the fraud do not intend to exploit the child for purposes of commercial sex or forced labor and, consequently, do not meet the defining characteristics of human trafficking under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.
But Candis and others feel U.S. obligations under the Hague Convention are insufficient to combat the kind of scheme that lead to Erica’s adoption. So she has joined in the fight to amend the TVPRA to include “children bought for the purposes of adoption” to the legal definition of trafficking. For months, she spoke with congressional researchers and aides, trying to wrangle a public hearing with Congressman Chris Smith (Republican, New Jersey) and Senator Sherrod Brown (Democrat, Ohio), the co-chairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC). Despite a series of meetings with aides, hearings failed to materialize, and eventually Candis was told to wait until after the 2012 election was over.
“Part of me is like, ‘ugh, should I give up?’” Candis said. “But I’m not going to do that...I’m not going to give up.” In late February, she returned to Washington, D.C. for the third time in nine months. She showed our film to representatives of the CECC, and also met with representatives from the offices of Senator Mary Landrieu (Democrat, Louisiana) and Representative Steve Chabot (Republican, Ohio). She came back from the meetings without any tangible result but still optimistic that if she keeps pushing, eventually the TVPRA could be changed. “I plan on continuing to work on the hill and with the commission until the children who were victims of buying and selling get the support and validation they need,” she said.
At the same time, like the Liu family in China, she has struggled to spread the word to a community that, very frequently, simply isn’t interested in hearing about how their children might have been trafficked. A Yahoo adoption discussion group she was a part of “did not want to hear it,” she said. “There was a lot of dissension. Some would say, “Jesus wanted us to have [the children]; it doesn’t matter, they’re ours now.” Others sided with Candis, and the divide eventually became so wide that the group, which used to meet up in the real world at least once a year, hasn’t met in person in the more than twenty-four months since Candis returned from China. A local adoptive parent group didn’t want to hear about it either. Candis reached out to the national organization Families with Children from China (FCC), which has well over one hundred local chapters nationwide, and offered to share information with any parents who were interested. “Two people out of the entire FCC emailed me back,” she said.
“My friends who don't have adopted children are way more supportive than my friends with adopted children,” Candis says. From time to time, the issue becomes very personal. After her return from China, one couple told Candis they didn’t want their daughter to play with Erica for a while “because they didn’t want [their daughter] asking questions.” The real issue, Candis said, is that many parents are terrified that a thorough investigation into this issue could end in their losing their children. But she does not see that as a legitimate reason for rejecting what she believes is in the children’s best interests. “I felt scapegoated,” she said.
* * *
It is true that many in America’s adoption community do not want to talk about trafficking in China. I contacted nearly a dozen American adoption agencies that specialize in China adoptions for this story; all but one of them refused to comment or ignored the request entirely. The one person who did respond was Lisa Prather, executive director of A Helping Hand Adoption Agency, who said that “the term trafficking should never be used in the description of an adoption [and by using this term] the media is perpetuating erroneous propaganda,” since adoptions don’t meet the TVPRA definition of the term.
Of course, another reason the issue isn’t widely discussed is money. U.S.-China adoption is big business; U.S. Adoption agencies make thousands—Candis said it cost her nearly $20,000, and many adoption agencies publicly list prices in this range—for each child adopted from China, and Chinese orphanages generally receive a donation of at least $5,000 from the adoptive parents; Candis paid $3,000 but the mandatory fee has since been raised to $5,000 nationwide. On the American side, shutting down the China adoption program would lead to a big drop in revenue for many adoption agencies, and would shut down others completely. In China, orphanages make money for each child placed with adoptive parents, and since trafficked children often cost an orphanage around $500 to purchase, a quick overseas adoption can bring in a tidy profit.
In part because it is such an unpopular and sensitive issue in both countries, and in part because there are very few people doing serious research, it is extremely difficult to say with certainty to what extent Liu Liqin’s story overlaps directly with Rose Candis’. The U.S. State Department estimates that every year, around 20 thousand children are kidnapped in China, and some independent estimates are much higher. Tens of thousands of resolved cases, and the fact that many of those kidnapped are boys but very few boys are adopted internationally, indicate that many of those children are sold into domestic adoption. But we know that at least a few of them do end up getting adopted internationally. We know that of the children adopted internationally, many of them (like Erica Candis) may arrive overseas with doctored paperwork or origins that are otherwise unclear.
“I would say that fraud or trafficking is involved in more than three-quarters of all adoptions from China,” says Brian Stuy. Stuy is a controversial figure in the adoption field—parents have accused him of having an agenda (they think he wants the China adoption program shut down), and Research China does produce paid reports on the background of adopted children whose parents are interested in looking into it and have $50 (the average research fee) to spare. But he is also one of the only people who has done extensive statistical analysis and investigative fieldwork within China to determine which orphanages are involved in baby-buying, and to what extent. Stuy says cases like Candis’ are quite common, and that despite China’s proclamations in official media that it has dealt with the problem behind the trafficking in Hunan and other high profile scandals, baby buying and selling continues. In mid-January, a Chinese whistleblower posted shocking allegations about an orphanage in Guixi, Jiangxi province in Southeast China, that places many children internationally, accusing it of corruption, baby buying, and abuse. The case is still under investigation and it is not yet clear whether the allegations are true, but Susan Morgan, a mother to two adopted children from China including one who came from the Guixi orphanage, was still saddened when she read the news. “I've known for years that corruption is rampant in international adoption,” Morgan said, “[But] suddenly being faced with an anonymous whistle blower who cites corruption in your own child's orphanage is still shocking, especially when you've met some of the people accused.”
But Morgan fears interest in the story will peter out before long, in part because there are a lot of people who simply don’t want to hear it. “Most adoptive families, I feel sure, do not understand how serious the issue of baby buying is in China, and the ties it can have to child trafficking and kidnapping,” Susan said. “Of course, this is an issue that most adoptive parents do not want to explore, for obvious reasons.” They fear losing their children, and they fear the nightmarish legal battle their children could be dragged through if it was ever discovered that their children had biological parents who hadn’t truly given them up and actually wanted them back. That fear is both understandable and warranted—no one really seems to be sure what would happen in such a case if both sets of parents were unflinching in demanding the child stay with them—but American adoptive parents’ general disinterest in investigating corruption and baby buying in Chinese orphanages may be part of the reason why Chinese parents like Liu Liqin are still losing their children at a rate of dozens per day.
Although news of the Guixi scandal had yet to break when I spoke with Stuy, he made it clear that these kinds of scandals are small enough that they can be explained away by the adoption community as isolated incidents. “These little fires can be put out so easily,” he says, “what we need is for somebody to show that the whole country is burning.” |
"Echoes of Eridu is a fantastic addition to the action platforming genre." -Vinny Parisi, IGM
"Echoes of Eridu is the result of Mega Man fans making what they want to play, and the PAX East build I played proves they're doing a pretty bang-up job." - Anthony Swinnich, indiegames.com
"Echoes of Eridu ... is very much a celebration of everything that made Mega Man, and that genre and era of gaming, such a place of nostalgia and happiness for so many gamers." - Jacob Wood, Indie Hangover
(Vote for us on Steam Greenlight!)
ECHOES OF ERIDU is an action-platformer built to play like Mega Man X and replay like your favorite roguelikes. We're making a game that's co-op friendly and highly replayable while maintaining tight, satisfying action-platformer gameplay. It's targeting Windows first with plans to port to Mac/Linux post-release (and to consoles/handhelds from there).
These are the key features.
Action-platformer gameplay in the style of Mega Man X
Roguelike! (random levels, powerups, permadeath)
Full multiplayer! (online and local -- already both implemented!)
Pregame loadout system (unlock items to customize your play!)
Replayability is one of our core goals with Echoes; keeping the experience fresh is important to us. You get to choose from two (FOUR if we hit our 30k stretch goal!) completely different characters with their own playstyles. You get to play through entirely different levels every time you play -- the challenge set constantly shifts and you'll have to adapt to whatever the game throws at you.
The Story in Echoes is that S**t Has Gone Crazy and You're Our Last Hope. In the distant past (2045), a legendary inventor working for EZN, the world's largest online retailer, creates the Enterprise NeuroKinetic Intelligence (ENKI) to help with simple sorting jobs around the factory. ENKI gains sentience and accidentally starts a robot revolution. Fast forward to 2090. ENKI feels really, really bad about wiping out humanity, so he tries to empower the last few survivors to fight back (that's you!) by turning them into robo-man hybrids. ENKI resides in the ancient shipping facility of Eridu, floating high in orbit somewhere above Earth. If you can reach Eridu via a network of clumsily designed teleporters connecting EZN's various facilities, humanity might be safe -- for now.
ENKI has designed over 100 RoboSapient Alteration Blueprints for use in the ARSENAL (Automatic RoboSapient Equipment & Navigation Assistance Library). He's done a poor job of making sure the blueprints don't get lost, so you'll have to find them yourself to unlock their powers. You can select unlocked ARSENAL pieces at the start of a playthrough to radically change the way the game plays.
ENKI realizes that not all hybrids have great aim, so he's designed a weapon that shoots in every direction at the same time, but for awful damage. Want a giant plasma sword for an arm? Okay. You die a lot while running away, so he's made you a gun that shoots backwards. Want a mode that sets your max HP to 1 and makes you deal insane damage? There's an acc for that. We're pulling out as many stops as we can think of with the ARSENAL system. You're gonna like the way you play. I guarantee it.
We might be making too many items for this game. In addition to the over 100 ARSENAL unlocks, Echoes has over 100 special weapons and in-game passive pickups to collect in a playthrough.
At the end of every level, you'll get a new special weapon off of the boss. Maybe it'll stop time. Maybe it'll turn everything in the room into something else. Maybe it'll warp you into a different dimension, or just shoot fireballs. Who knows?
During levels, complete challenges in side areas to obtain powerful passives that alter your character and the way the game plays. Enter your insane hypermode at the drop of a hat, but only for half a second. Find a faerie helper who will make fun of you and also sometimes block shots. Pick up SO MANY SPEED ITEMS and dash in midair. Use your newfound powers to go find more!
A mild cow scientist who had nothing left to lose after her family was torn apart in the war. Nina traded half her humanity for a Buster arm full of vengeance, which seemed like a pretty good deal at the time. Not like there are many cows left to milk with her now-missing hand, anyway. Obliterates foes from range.
One of the few humans happy about the robot uprising -- Ace finally has an excuse to use his blade again. Previous occupation: unknown, but presumably involved slashing. Current occupation: known. Definitely involves slashing. Swiftly deals with adversaries up close.
BONUS CHARACTERS (The $30,000 stretch goal)
A simple smasher robot from ENKI's original facility, the JAM is too unintelligent to disobey. Uses its incredible mass to smash into foes, annihilating them and probably himself if you aren't careful. 40% dolomite by unit volume.
An insane man, turned into an insane half-man. Who is he, and why did ENKI choose someone who is clearly too old for combat? Blitz, an ancient man, attempts to make something of himself one last time. Uses a variety of carefully placed special weapons in battle to defeat foes at any range.
No journey into a dangerous future is complete without a look at some of the bad guys that make it great.
Bosses like the Iron Vanguard serve the unwavering will of ENLIL, Herald of the End. ENLIL's motives are unclear, but his potency is not; some of his robotic destroyers are pictured here.
Levels are built from chunks, chunks are built from bits, and bits are built by the Grand God of Randomness, srand(t). The short version here is that the game shifts from precise platforming to intense combat in a blink and does so in new ways all the time. Each level adheres to a certain mashup of themes with its own set of mechanics and enemies. You'll have an idea of what CAN come at you but no idea how it WILL.
If you do a little thought experiment and guess what would happen if Google or Amazon were able to research whatever it wanted for the next 40 years and then crumble, you might be able to guess some of our level themes:
an arctic data center (to save on cooling costs of course)
a nuclear power plant (to sate savage electricity needs)
a massive stone city in the sky (how else to ominously ship insane quantities of stuff across the globe?)
a deep-earth volcanic transmission center, using geothermal energy to move goods beneath the earth's surface
a high-orbit botanical research station, intended to yield shippable oxygen
at least one other unrevealed level!
Two of these are done! Help us flesh out the rest.
We're turning to Kickstarter for two major reasons.
First, we need funding to get to our release date in November. $20,000 doesn't cover the entire cost of the project, but it'll make up the deficit between what we've got and what we'll need to make it to release.
Second, we want to identify and build a community of like-minded folks who want to help give us feedback on how we're doing. Once we're in Early Access (or, if we're not Greenlit by then, a Desura equivalent), we intend to push builds out to our supporters frequently, and it's our hope that some of you will take us up on it and give us lots of feedback. We love any feedback that is comprised of 50% or fewer curse words.
If you've read this far, thanks! Here's a little info about us.
Here at Batterystaple, we're about replayable funtimes with your friends. We started in June of 2013. We'll stop when we starve.
Chris King, Founder/Developer, lived an ascetic lifestyle while working fulltime as a programmer for the five years prior to his journey to save and save and save in hopes that he could fund the dreams he's now trying to grasp. Dreamchasing is a phenomenal way to turn lots of dollars into cinders, so he's looking into how best to find more dollars to burn.
Zach Urtes, Art Director, was born and raised in Baltimore, MD. Zach completed a bachelors degree of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute for Illustration. He realized he wanted to make games while in his last year of school; talk about good timing. His interests mostly involve games, anime, or robots (or a combination of the three).
Bianca Ciotti, Marketing & PR Manager, is by day, a mild mannered marketing manager in DC, at night, a mild mannered marketing wizard for indie games. She joined the Echoes team in February 2014 in preparation for the big launch at PAX East. She enjoys cats, Korean food, and losing terrifically at board games.
Brandon Ellis, Composer, is a musician who grew up alongside the amazing game soundtracks of the 90's. He is constantly inspired by the incredible breadth of music in games, from upbeat and catchy chiptune tracks to calm and introspective orchestral pieces.
Austin Shannon, Sound Designer, has been involved in numerous anime, cartoon, and video game projects. Most recently he was the main sound designer on South Park: The Stick of Truth. He loves the outdoors and exploring fringe ideas.
$1, THE HELPFUL: A thank you on behalf of the team, posted on our website. Our thanks to you will remain there, enshrined, until the internet crumbles in the year 2090. Maybe you can count this as your good deed for the day.
$10/12, THE ESSENTIAL: A copy of our delicious game, likely in the form of a Steam key. We're projecting a November 2014 release on Windows. 100 Early Bird pledges are available for $2 less.
$20/25, THE CRITICAL: We're going to have a beta come Summer, and this'll get you right on into it. Also includes a key upon release. 100 Early Bird pledges are available for $5 less.
$35, THE ARTISANAL: In addition to beta access, you'll get a copy of the DIGITAL ART TOME, cataloging our journey from terrible eyesore programmer art to beautiful actual artist art. The TOME will include all the sketches/concept work we can dig up, and will only be available to backers at this level and above.
$50, THE AURAL: Everything above plus a copy of the soundtrack. When Mega Man's the feel you're going for, fitting music is about as important as the gameplay itself, and Brandon Ellis aka Cityfires is not one to disappoint. Your copy of the soundtrack will come when the game is released.
All pledges at the $100 tier or above include beta access, the Digital Art Tome, and a copy of the Soundtrack!
$100, THE MASTERFUL: Design your own in-game item! Items are subject to appropriateness (be tasteful!) and balance considerations. We'll get together with you shortly after the campaign ends to work on your item design.
Also, if you choose the $100 reward tier or above, we'll love you forever, admitting you into the circle of BATTERYSTAPLE ULTRAFRIENDS. (Note: admittance into BATTERYSTAPLE ULTRAFRIENDS confers no benefits whatsoever. Maybe we'll set up a special Thank You page in your honor.)
$250, THE INSIGHTFUL: Designing an item not really your cup of tea? How about an enemy instead? Sit with Zach and Chris (probably virtually, over Skype) and tell us what horrible monster you want to see skulking the halls of one of the remaining levels.
$500, THE GENEROUS: Maybe a measly enemy isn't enough to sate your savage thirst for design. Maybe you need to design one of our bosses to really feel like part of the process -- and now you can! Help us figure out what awful beast should destroy players at level's end.
$1000, THE RIDICULOUSLY GENEROUS: We've got two characters left to flesh out. Help us design one of them!
$5000, THE NO ONE IS GOING TO CHOOSE THIS TIER TIER: Seriously, no one is going to choose this. If you do, you can pretty much pick your own reward, as long as it doesn't cost us a bunch of money or our dignity.
Here's that Greenlight link again! If you've come this far, we'd love just a few more clicks. Thank you! |
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The area has gone 288 days since the last snow --the longest stretch in 85 years.
Extending that number much longer is threatened by a healthy chance of snow forecast for Friday. But if snow does not fall that day, Northeast Ohio's 291 days without snow will equal the second longest stretch of snowless days recorded in 1927 and give us a shot at the all-time record of 307 days that occurred in 1919.
The last appreciable snow fell at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport fell on March 5. Five inches came down starting the day before.
"We don't count dustings," said Sarah Jamison, National Weather Service hydrologist. "It has to be at least an inch, something you need to brush off your windshield."
Not surprisingly, 1919 is also the year for the latest first snow. It took until Feb. 8 that year for it to come down. And that was a single inch. Only 8.8 inches fell the rest of that winter season.
Typically, the first snowfall of the season in Ohio comes around Nov. 23. The National Weather Service said this year's wait ranks among the 10 latest in recorded weather history.
That brings us to Friday.
"It's like the weather looked at a calendar and noticed that Friday is the first day of winter," said Jamison. "This is a significant storm that is currently in the West that will get here Friday morning and continue through Saturday with at least 5-6 inches. We expect significant winds which will cause drifting."
Accumulation is expected to be the same inside and outside the snowbelt.
The big storms of the last winter season occurred on Feb. 11 and 12 with 4.7 inches and Jan. 13 and 14 with about 5.3 inches.
Today and Thursday are expected to be warm, with a high today in the mid 40s and near 50 on Thursday. But rain will start Thursday and the precipitation is expected to turn to snow Friday morning.
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PITTSBURGH – The first round playoff matchup between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Tampa Bay Lightning that kicks off tonight at 7pm is set to be an intriguing one.
In no other series this year can you say both teams have a legitimate chance of sweeping the other. The storylines on the ice are well-documented. Behind the bench, two new-era coaches will faceoff with X’s and O’s.
Tampa’s Guy Boucher is not your average bench boss. The owner of a master’s degree in sports psychology has not been afraid to challenge tradition in his first season. He and new GM Steve Yzerman have transformed the Lightning and taken the franchise back to the playoffs after a chaotic three-year hiatus.
Dan Bylsma of Pittsburgh brings an upbeat, yet relentless approach to the game that was chronicled in detail during the the HBO 24/7 series.
Like every sport, hockey coaches attempt to provide as much structure as they can to a team’s gameplan without suffocating creativity. In January we took a look at one example of Bylsma’s forechecking system and how a simple breakdown resulted in two losses to Boston.
Most teams also have set plays in place for turnover situations and the Penguins’ ability to transition from defense to the offensive attack is as quick as anyone in the league this year.
A big key to their success is personnel. On defense, Kris Letang can skate like the wind. Paul Martin has the rare ability to slow the game down to his pace and remain calm under pressure. Ben Lovejoy and Matt Niskanen have quick feet and the ability to make an accurate first pass to start the attack. Calling Zbynek Michalek‘s first pass ‘accurate’ would be an understatement. He can fire a laser-guided puck 100 feet across the ice right onto the tape of a teammate speeding up the ice, a skill that goes largely unappreciated for the shutdown defenseman.
On the offensive end, the Penguins also have a number of speedy forwards that aid in quick transition. A rash of injuries throughout the season slowly transformed the Penguins forwards into a small but fiery group. The ‘sandpaper’ style of play that accompanied players like Arron Asham was replaced by Chris Conner and other youngsters who were simply starving to get into the lineup.
But it’s not just the players. The Penguins under coach Dan Bylsma have quietly used a tweak in the rules to their advantage as well.
The purpose of the icing rule in hockey is to prohibit teams from blindly firing the puck down the ice whenever they’re in trouble or need a line change (You can read about icing here).
Under Section 10 Rule 81.5, standard icing can be waved off…
If, in the opinion of the Linesman, any player (other than the goalkeeper) of the opposing team is able to play the puck before it passes his goal line, but has not done so, play shall continue and the icing violation shall not be called.
A few seasons ago, in an effort to limit stoppages and maintain the flow of the game, the rule was expanded to include a referee judgment call from the offensive perspective as well:
The Linesman shall have discretion to wave off apparent icing infractions on attempted passes if those passes are deemed receivable (attainable). In order for the Linesman to wash out the icing for this reason, the receiving player’s stick must be on the attacking side of the center red line and he must be eligible to receive the pass (e.g. he cannot be in an off-side position and cannot be involved in a player change that would result in a too many men on the ice penalty if he were to play the puck).
The result of the tweak has been a net positive for the game. Referees have the ability to keep the action going as long as good intentions are displayed by the attacking team.
The Penguins have utilized this rule change in their transition game to create a lightning quick attack on opposing teams. Because the puck moves so quickly from one end of the ice to the other, Pittsburgh’s ‘regroup’ play usually can’t be seen on even the widest of HDTV’s. The diagram to the right is a simplified version of the common situation following a turnover.
As the puck moves from D1 to D2, the center (C) in the middle of the ice curls with the direction of the play and picks up speed. Meanwhile, the left winger (W1) positions himself to receive a pass from D2. Everything up to this point is standard protocol from youth hockey to the NHL.
Where the Penguins plan differs is instead of a normal crisp pass, D2 fires the puck at W1 along the ice.
W1 reads the pressure he’s getting from the opposing defenseman (XD1). If he has time to receive the pass, he catches it and begins to skate on the attack like normal.
But if XD1 attempts to limit his space and ability to receive the pass, W1 can conveniently let the puck fly right by his stick and into the offensive zone. The shot/pass is ‘deemed receivable’ by the referees and play goes on. At this point, the center is going full speed and is the first one to the puck almost every time.
________________________
Of course a Tampa-Pittsburgh matchup is a chess game between two Grandmasters, and Guy Boucher had the perfect counter-scheme: the 1-3-1.
Even though Tampa’s defensemen move fairly well for their stature, Boucher knew they couldn’t handle a puck moving from D1 to the far corner of the ice in a matter of seconds.
The Lightning countered the Penguins with a 1-3-1 system (see diagram) and kept a defenseman (XD2) sitting in front of their own net waiting for the puck to get shot down the ice. Unconventional, but makes sense in theory, right? The Lightning won fairly convincingly in the first matchup of the season 5-3.
Bylsma’s turn. Once the Penguins coach had a few periods of film to break down the 1-3-1, he had W1 start to deflect the puck off the boards past XD1 but not all the way down the ice as usual.
The Pittsburgh centers flew in and picked up the puck at full speed and created an unbelievable amount of 2-on-1 chances against the Lightning. The scoreboard reflected as much.
In November, the Penguins won 5-1. Two months later they won 8-1. Both teams used a fairly vanilla gameplan on March 31 when Tampa prevailed with a 2-1 win, but tonight we’ll finally get to see the next chapter in this playbook duel.
Boucher needs to find a way to counter the transition game of the Penguins if Tampa is going to prevail in the series. Few teams have been able to accomplish that task this season. With Pittsburgh’s speed up front and their ability to effectively send the puck 160 feet down the ice untouched on a regular basis, it won’t be easy for the Lightning either.
They’ll survive for a couple games but eventually run out of gas. After the lumbering Pavel Kubina has to turn and chase down Chris Conner two dozen times over the course of a series, he’s going to start cheating. At that point the Lightning are in trouble. It’s one of the biggest reasons why the Penguins are so difficult to play against and amazingly finished with the second most wins in the NHL.
If there’s one problem with this attack style by the Penguins, it’s that they rarely create scoring chances off the rush. The puck ends up in the corner or behind the net where the Pittsburgh forwards go to work. With Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby in the lineup, the offensive chances typically came when one of them decided to use their creativity. When the Penguins have gone into prolonged scoring droughts this season, it’s usually a result of forwards not taking charge.
If the likes of James Neal, Chris Kunitz and Tyler Kennedy commit to going to the net when the puck is on their stick, the Penguins will win the battle of attrition – and the series.
*Update after Games 1 and 2: Playoff Playbook – Lightning Looking to Lock Down Penguins
Other Notes:
~ Boucher has also used an unorthodox system in the defensive zone this year. Instead of players being assigned to certain areas on the ice, Boucher oftens asks the closest man to the puck to attack – regardless of position.
This eliminates a lot of decisions and grey areas that exist in the traditional defensive zone system, but if the Penguins can move the puck quickly the Lightning will suffer breakdowns. Here’s an example from the game in November:
~ James Neal (wrist) will be in the lineup tonight. Bylsma said he kept Neal out of the lineup Sunday as a precaution and knew he would be back and ready to go.
~ Pittsburgh’s playoff experience can’t be discounted. Boucher is still learning the ropes as an NHL head coach and has made a number of expected mistakes along the way. During a grueling stretch of games in February, instead of giving players more off-days to rest and recover, Boucher kicked up the practice intensity a few notches. His team ran out of gas and went into a slide down the standings.
The Penguins have been through it all with this current group. When Tampa inevitably faces adversity in this series, Boucher will need to push all the right buttons. Is he up to the task?
~ The ball will be in Dan Bylsma’s court to start the series as the Penguins have the ability to match Tampa’s personnel at home. Bylsma said he will continue to match the defensive pair of Zbynek Michalek and Paul Martin against the top line of Tampa. There’s only one problem. When Steven Stamkos, Martin St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier, Simon Gagne, and Ryan Malone are all so dangerous, how can one line be considered a ‘top line’? |
2010 studio album by Big Boi
Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty is the debut studio album by American rapper Big Boi, released on July 5, 2010, by Purple Ribbon Records and Def Jam Recordings. It is his first solo album as a member of hip hop duo OutKast. Production for the album took place primarily at Stankonia Recording Studio in Atlanta during 2007 to 2010 and was handled by several record producers, including Organized Noize, Scott Storch, Salaam Remi, Mr. DJ, and André 3000, among others.
The album's development was impeded by a dispute between Big Boi and his former label, Jive Records, over creative and commercial differences. Rooted in Southern hip hop, Sir Lucious Left Foot has been noted by music writers for its bounce and bass-heavy sound, layered production, and assorted musical elements. Its lyrics deal with boasting, sex, social commentary, and club themes, featuring Big Boi's clever wordplay and versatile flow.
Following a heavily delayed release, the album debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200, selling 62,000 copies in its first week, and spent 13 weeks on the chart. It also charted internationally and produced two singles, including the UK top-40 hit "Shutterbugg". Sir Lucious Left Foot received rave reviews from music critics, who praised its varied sound and Big Boi's lyricism, and was included in numerous year-end top albums lists. Big Boi promoted the album with an international tour in 2010. As of September 2010, it has sold 175,000 copies in the United States.
Background [ edit ]
Solo ventures [ edit ]
Released in August 2006, OutKast's sixth album Idlewild and the duo's musical film of the same name were met with a lukewarm reception from critics and audiences.[1][2] Amid break-up rumors,[3] Big Boi and André 3000 announced their hiatus as a duo and plans for individual career endeavours.[4][5] Unlike their fifth album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, which included a solo album by each member,[4] his album and André 3000’s own solo album will be sold separately.[6] They intend to continue work as a duo after each of their solo albums are released.[6] Prior to working on his solo effort, Big Boi had occupied himself with managing his Purple Ribbon imprint label and several acting roles,[5] including a supporting role as a drug dealer in the well-received,[7] coming-of-age film ATL and the lead role as a rap mogul in the critically panned comedy film Who's Your Caddy?.[8][9] In an interview with Vibe, he said that due to the Writers' Strike at the time his further work in film would be on hold and expressed plans for new music.[6]
After being approached by artistic director John McFall in 2007, Big Boi collaborated with the Atlanta Ballet company on a production entitled big.[10][11] As creative director, Big Boi recruited bandmembers, developed a story line, and worked with choreographer Lauri Stallings to put the project together.[11] The production received good buzz and ran for six performances in April 2010 at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta.[12][13] It featured him in a starring role as himself, a live band of musicians from the Purple Ribbon label, performances by Sleepy Brown and Janelle Monáe, and syncopated dance sequences set to OutKast hits and tracks intended for Big Boi's solo album.[10][13] In 2008, he ended his three-year "beef" with rapper and former Purple Ribbon artist Killer Mike.[14]
The album's title is derived from Big Boi's long-time moniker "Sir Lucious Left Foot".[15] In several interviews, he has explained part of it as a reference to the Southern slang phrase "gettin’ out on the good foot",[1] while describing the entire moniker as an indication of maturity, noting it as "my real grown-man persona" and "like my Luke-Skywalker-becoming-a-Jedi persona. Like, I'm just really serious about my craft, I've mastered it, and I'm very skilled at it, and I take pride in making this music".[16] He incorporated the nickname "Chico Dusty" to the album's title as a dedication to his late father,[17] Tony Kearse, who gained it while serving as a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force and Marines.[18][19] The spelling of luscious in the album's title, Big Boi's moniker, is intended to reflect on its distinctive pronunciation "loo-shuss", which according to Big Boi, is not "the girl name; you call a girl luscious, along the lines of voluptuous".[20]
Record label [ edit ]
In 2004, OutKast's original record label Arista Records was restructured under the Jive label group.[21] During their hiatus, Big Boi and André 3000 were pressured by Jive to produce an OutKast album instead of focusing on their solo work.[21] In July 2009, Big Boi left Jive Records,[22] following creative differences and the label's unwillingness to release and promote his solo album.[23] According to Big Boi, Jive gave him an ultimatum to shop the album elsewhere.[24] In an interview for GQ, he discussed his release from Jive and his discontent with the label for proposing he record a cover of rapper Lil Wayne's "Lollipop", stating "They told me to go in and make my version of Lil Wayne's Lollipop! I love that song... But how you gonna tell me to go bite another MCs style?... That's the highest form of disrespect ever. So that's when I wanted to get off Jive. And the only honorable thing they've done is allow me to do that".[23] Big Boi expressed that Jive viewed its intended singles as not "radio-friendly" and the album as "a piece of art, and they didn't know what to do with it".[25]
In an interview for MTV upon the album's release, Big Boi explained that most of its material had been finished while at Jive, stating "It's basically the same album. I could have been done, like, a year ago. But being that we were having creative differences — you know, every time they rejected what I was doing, I would go back in the studio and work on more stuff. The last two songs, 'You Ain't No DJ' and 'Be Still,' were the last two records, but everything else was already on there".[26] Despite his individual release, OutKast as a group remained signed to Jive.[23] After leaving Jive, Big Boi contacted record executive and Island Def Jam CEO/chairman L.A. Reid, who had originally signed OutKast to LaFace in 1992.[24][27] He played Reid a track from the album, "Fo Yo Sorrows", which persuaded him to actualize a contract for Big Boi.[24] Following two months of negotiations, Big Boi signed a three-album deal with Def Jam Recordings in March 2010.[24][28]
Recording [ edit ]
Sir Lucious Left Foot was recorded over a period of three years,[28] beginning on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 2007.[24] Big Boi has said that he "always start working on albums on Martin Luther King Day. It's a good luck charm".[29] The album was primarily recorded at Stankonia Recording Studio in Atlanta, Georgia, the studio used by OutKast for their previous albums.[17] Additional recording took place at The Dungeon Recording Studios, The Slumdrum Dreamhouse, and King of Crunk in Atlanta, Dungeon East Studios in Decatur, Georgia, Instrumental Zoo in Miami, Florida, and Kush Studios in Palm Island, Florida.[30] Big Boi discussed the Stankonia studio's environment in an interview for The Guardian, calling it "comfortable but gritty enough to get you in a state of mind of being raw and ready to kill stuff", while noting that the sessions were accompanied by "some candles, a little red light, maybe some crunk juice and a cigar; every now and then perhaps a little 'purple'".[17] While searching for a new record label, he completed recording for the album.[28] The album was mastered on May 27, 2010.[24]
In an August interview, Big Boi said that he planned to co-produce each of the album's tracks, with production also being handled by Organized Noize, Boom Boom Room Productions, Scott Storch, and Lil Jon.[31] Noted for using synthesizers, electric pianos, samplers, and drum machines in his music,[32] musician and frequent OutKast-collaborator Sleepy Brown contributed with production as a member of Organized Noize and with vocals to several tracks.[30] Big Boi has said that he incorporated various musical elements to the album, with "something from every genre, every funk, beat, loop, horn, whistle. We got it all on the record".[5] He has described Sir Lucious Left Foot as "a funk-filled extravaganza! You know, layers and layers of funk with raw lyrics and a lotta honesty".[15]
Big Boi also worked with other guest artists, including Jamie Foxx, T.I., and B.o.B.[33] André 3000 was to appear on three tracks,[33] and produce a track for Yelawolf.[34][35] Big Boi was introduced to Yelawolf's music through his younger brother and invited him to record after seeing him perform.[36] The track "Follow Us" features Vonnegutt, an act from Big Boi's Purple Ribbon label.[15] He originally proposed a rock-influenced track for Yelawolf, but was persuaded by him to send the instrumental for "You Ain't No DJ".[37] According to Yelawolf, he "wrote like 64 bars and turned in the huge verse",[36] which was edited down to 16 and eight-bar parts of his original verse for the finished song.[37] Big Boi also attempted unsuccessfully to collaborate with singer-songwriter Kate Bush, and managed to work with funk music pioneer George Clinton on "Fo Yo Sorrows", an experience he related to "Dorothy going to see the Wizard of Oz. He is the grandfather of funk; when George speaks, you listen. He's gonna give you that extraterrestrial funk; you gotta be thankful for the way he beams it down to you".[17] In an interview for Blues & Soul, he discussed working with the beat for "Shutterbugg" after producer Scott Storch had presented it, stating "[I] brought my band in – my guitar players, keyboard players, the talkbox – and we just pissed on it! You know, we put the P-Funk on it, and just commenced to lyrically destroy the track".[15]
Music and lyrics [ edit ]
Sir Lucious Left Foot features a layered and voluminous production, which Big Boi has described as "like someone's pushing you around the room".[24] Rooted in Southern hip hop, it contains a bounce and bass-heavy sound with dense TR 808-driven basslines,[38][39][40][41] live instrumentation, and backing vocalists.[42] Music writer Greg Kot calls it "a state-of-the-art Southern-fried party-funk album" and notes its bass-heavy sound as "full of surface charm, the type of music that is designed to sound big in a club, the soundtrack for a night of excess. But there’s very little conventional about these beats".[40]
The album's sound also incorporates diverse musical elements from various genres such as funk, soul, rock, dubstep, and electro music.[43][44][45] Houston Press writer Shea Serrano describes the album as a "new take on the traditional Southern rap sound. It's slow and fast, wonky and flimsy, lyrical and hook-driven".[46] Tom Breihan of Pitchfork Media perceives "1980s synth-funk" as its predominant musical element, but also finds each track musically varied, stating "New melodic elements flit in and out of tracks just as you start to notice them, and there's a lot going on at any given moment".[47] Big Boi has called the music "basically what you been getting from Outkast. Raw lyricism and the funkiest grooves you can lay your ears on."[48]
Big Boi's lyrics are playful and irreverent, with clever wordplay and boasts, while incorporating non-sequiturs, pop culture references, and tongue-twisters.[43][44][47][49] His rhymes are delivered through a fast, versatile flow and dexterous cadence.[43][47][49] Rolling Stone's Christian Hoard describes his flow as "inimitably slick and speedy".[50] Amos Barshad of New York notes his lyrics as "playful, but his flow is stern and unpredictable".[24] Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker describes the album's mood as "decidedly upbeat" and writes of Big Boi's rapping, "The musical DNA of 'Sir Lucious' lies in a simple strategy that Big Boi has used for years: he often raps in double time, no matter what the tempo of the song is. This means that even the slower songs [...] don’t drag—Big Boi uses the space in the beat to provide another rhythm with his words".[21] Frere-Jones describes him as "simultaneously forceful and careful" with his lyrics and compares his rapping technique to "the clatter of a machine, like a lawnmower, where secondary rhythms whisper underneath the main beat [...] Big Boi is never laid-back when he raps: he defines wide-awake".[21]
Thematically, the album's subject matter mostly concerns self-aggrandisement, sex, social commentary, and "the club".[21][42][47][51][52] Music writer Omar Burgess comments that the album finds Big Boi "vacillating between a shit-talking B-boy, social commentary spitting vet and a ladies man with a wandering eye".[42] Sarah Rodman of The Boston Globe notes "lissome rhyming about things frivolous and fraught" by Big Boi.[53] NPR writer Andrew Noz views that his "spiral of internal rhyme schemes and stop-and-go cadences [...] values style over substance but doesn't neglect writing, whether battling imaginary rap foes or offering advice on fiscal responsibility".[54]
Songs [ edit ]
"Tangerine" [41][44] The strip club-themed track features booming bass, Afro-polyrhythms, synth vamps, and reverbing guitar. Problems playing this file? See media help.
"Turns Me On" has a comical beat and multiple vocals, including 1950s-styled vocals during a break in the song. "Follow Us" features fractured, Afrobeat guitar phrases, sleazy synthesizer, and a pop refrain by Vonnegutt. "Shutterbugg" has a robotic stutter, falsetto refrain, female whispers and described by The Guardian's Hattie Collins as "a futuristic, brain-crunching slice of jittery electro hop".[17] "Tangerine" features blunt lyrics concerning strip club themes and a lascivious guest rap by T.I.[39][40][43][44] The song incorporates various musical elements, including exotic Afro-polyrhythms, psychedelic instrumental effects, booming bass, tribal beats, synthesizer vamps, and slow, reverbing grunge rock guitar.[39][40][43][44] Tom Breihan notes that the song "somehow simultaneously sounds like strip-club ass-shake material and Funkadelic covering Morricone",[47] while music journalist Alexis Petridis writes that it "improbably burst[s] into something that most closely resembles a P-Funk take on the mid-60s Batman theme. The lyrics, meanwhile, come in a breathless blur of druggy non-sequiturs and pop-culture references, some of it frankly baffling".[43] "Fo Yo Sorrows" features funk musician George Clinton performing the hook and has been described as "a seamless blur of old school Atlanta bass, current-day glitch-hop and Funkadelic-style psychedelia".[54]
Several tracks on Sir Lucious Left Foot contain humorous skits with dialogue from additional vocalists,[47][55] including Chris Carmouche, Dax "Dirty Dr." Rudnak, Big Rube, Henry Welch, and Keisha Atwater.[30] Welch and Carmouche are featured in a skit at the beginning of "Be Still", in which they make a reference to "tea bagging".[56] Dax Rudnak concludes "General Patton" with a skit about a sex maneuver called "the David Blaine",[30] which according to the skit is "when you’re making love to someone from behind, then have a friend take over and you run to a window and wave at your partner".[57] In an interview for Time Out Chicago, Big Boi was asked whether he "[is] taking credit for this, or is this something people do?", to which he responded "Yeah, man! You know, man, they do it now!".[57]
Release and promotion [ edit ]
Release history [ edit ]
Big Boi's clash with Jive has essentially been an update on the oldest of music business disputes — between a label's commercial concerns and an artist's creative ones, tensions that have become more acute as the industry grapples with its current financial straits. — David Peisner, The New York Times[27]
Before his departure from Jive, Big Boi planned to release the album in 2008.[28] In January 2010, he announced a March 23 release through his Twitter account.[58] In April,[59] its release was pushed back to July 6 in the United States.[25] However, in June, Jive attempted to block its release, claiming that Def Jam could not issue songs featuring both Big Boi and André 3000, as OutKast was represented as a duo by the former label.[25][60] In a June 7 interview for GQ, Big Boi responded to a question concerning the blocking of his recordings with André 3000 for Sir Lucious Left Foot, stating "Au contraire! They cannot block it. Au contraire. Either they're going to do it the right way, or they're going to do it my way... The fans' thirst will be quenched. You know, I'm no stranger to that Internet, baby. So you already know what time it is. The thirst of the fans will be quenched".[23] On June 10, his website released the album's track listing,[61] which excluded tracks featuring André 3000.[23] Of his songs with André 3000, he told GQ, "We're gonna keep one of them for the next OutKast record".[23]
The album was made available for streaming at Big Boi's MySpace page.[62] Following leaks of several of its tracks, the album also leaked in its entirety to the Internet on June 29.[63] Prior to its official release, anti-piracy companies had estimated that his tracks were being downloaded approximately 45,000 times a day.[63] On July 1, Big Boi self-released his mixtape Mixtape for Dummies: Guide to Global Greatness as a free download through his website,[64] featuring tracks compiled by DJ X-Rated and DJ Esco from Big Boi's solo recordings and work with OutKast.[65] Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty was released by Big Boi's imprint Purple Ribbons label and Def Jam Recordings on July 5 in the United Kingdom and on July 6 in the US.[62][66] A deluxe edition of the album was released simultaneously in the US, with the inclusion of two bonus tracks and a second DVD of music videos for several songs.[67] Big Boi's official website store offered limited edition releases of the album, including the deluxe edition's two discs, ivory white vinyl LPs, a limited edition T-shirt, and a custom GoodWood chain.[68] In promotion of the album's release, Converse produced a special limited edition run of Chuck Taylor All-Stars shoes in August 2010.[69][70] The shoes were designed by Big Boi himself and feature the album title printed around the outer sides of the shoe's heel.[69] On the collaboration, Big Boi said in a statement "as long as I can remember music and Converse have gone hand in hand, so partnering up with them was a no-brainer".[70]
Singles [ edit ]
Amid his disputes with former label Jive, Big Boi leaked two recordings originally intended for Sir Lucious Left Foot as promotional singles to the Internet.[25] The album's first promo single, "Royal Flush" featuring André 3000 and Raekwon, had appeared on various web magazines and blogs in March 2008.[18] It received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group and was named the best song of 2008 by About.com.[71] Its second promo single, "Sumthin's Gotta Give" featuring Mary J. Blige, was leaked to the Internet along with its music video in June 2008.[18] The Boi-1da-produced track "Lookin' 4 Ya", featuring André 3000 and Sleepy Brown,[23] leaked onto the Internet on June 8.[72] The track's "Jedi Remix" version was released to East Village-based radio show Baller's Eve and subsequently onto the Internet in September 2010.[73][74] It features the original instrumental with two different verses from both Big Boi and André 3000.[74]
Big Boi leaked the album's first official single, "Shutterbugg", on April 6.[75] It was officially released as a single on April 26.[76] It was also issued on interactive music site MXP4, which enabled users to play with, mix, remix, and sing along with the track.[77] Its music video was directed by Chris Robinson and premiered on May 26.[78] The video's concept incorporates various scenes that accentuate different lines from Big Boi's lyrics.[79] On its concept, Big Boi said in an interview for MTV, "It goes with the rhymes. Chris Robinson was definitely onboard [with the concept]. What he took from the song was a lyrical, visual adventure. There's a lot of special stuff going on. He's freaking the visuals like I'm freaking the rhymes".[79] "Shutterbugg" spent two weeks on the US R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, peaking at number 60,[80] and it charted at number 99 on the US Hot 100 Airplay.[81] It also reached number 31 and spent four weeks on the UK Singles Chart,[81] and at number eight on the Deutsche Black Charts in Germany.[82] Rolling Stone named "Shutterbugg" the 14th best single of 2010.[83] It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group in 2010.[84]
"Fo Yo Sorrows", featuring George Clinton, Too Short, and Sam Chris, was released as a promotional single on June 8 on iTunes.[85] "General Patton" was also released to iTunes on June 15.[86] Its music video was released on June 13.[87] On August 26, Big Boi's website posted the track's "chopped and screwed" version as a free download.[88] The song "Tangerine", featuring T.I., was released to iTunes on June 29.[89] "Follow Us", featuring Vonnegutt, was released as the second official single on July 20 in the US and September 13 in the UK.[90][91] A music video for the song was directed by Zach Wolfe and released on July 1.[92] The track was remixed by Vonnegutt and released September 13 through Big Boi's website.[93] The track "You Ain't No DJ" received some airplay on Atlanta-based radio.[94] Its music video was directed by Parris in Atlanta,[36] and released virally on September 2.[95] The video features Big Boi in a red tracksuit and with a lightsaber in one scene,[96] guest rapper Yelawolf lounging on a couch, and several break dancers, while motions in the video's scenes are rewinded and sped up with film editing to accentuate cutting, mixing, and spinning by a DJ in the song.[95][97][98]
Performances [ edit ]
Big Boi performing on tour in Switzerland, 2010
Big Boi made promotional appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on July 7 and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on July 12, 2010, performing the album's lead single "Shutterbugg" on both shows.[99][100] He also performed its second single "Follow Us" on Lopez Tonight on July 14 and on Late Show with David Letterman on August 23.[101][102] Big Boi joined the line-up for the Pitchfork Music Festival during June 16–18 in Union Park, Chicago,[103] performing on the festival's third and final day.[104] He performed a set at Acer Arena in Olympic Park, Sydney on July 28 as part of the Australian-based Winterbeatz music festival,[105] and both Øyafestivalen in Oslo, Norway and the Flow Festival in Helsinki, Finland on August 14.[106][107] On August 18, he played a free show at Sobe Live in Miami, Florida, which MySpace Music broadcast live via Ustream.tv with the MySpace page of HP.[108]
Initially expected through the end of the year,[50] a supporting 20-concert tour for Sir Lucious Left Foot was announced by Big Boi on August 25.[109] His spokespeople confirmed that he would be performing material from previous OutKast albums in addition to songs from Sir Lucious Left Foot.[109] The tour began on August 26 at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Atlanta, Georgia and concluded on November 18 at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia.[109]
On September 2, Big Boi headlined with DJ mashup duo Super Mash Bros the Hawkapolooza, an event at the Memorial Union Iowa City, Iowa inaugurating the start of the college athletic season for the Iowa Hawkeyes.[110][111] He headlined New York University's annual Mystery Concert at the Skirball Center for Performing Arts in New York City with opening act Dr. Dog on September 7,[112][113] and performed at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. on September 8.[114] He was billed for the 2010 Epicenter music festival on September 25 at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California.[115] On October 28, Big Boi headlined the Yorktown Throwdown, a benefit show in support of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.[116] The concert featured electronic music duo MSTRKRFT and was held in the USS Yorktown lot at Patriot's Point in South Carolina.[116]
Reception [ edit ]
Commercial performance [ edit ]
The album debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week sales of 62,000 copies.[117] It also entered at number two on Billboard's Digital Albums and Tastemaker Albums,[118][119] and at number three on both its Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts.[120][121] It spent 13 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart,[122] and as of September 26, has sold 175,000 copies in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan.[123]
In Canada, Sir Lucious Left Foot debuted at number 20 on the Top 100 Albums chart.[124] In the United Kingdom, it entered at number 80 on the Top 100 Albums and at number 14 on the Top 40 RnB Albums chart.[125][126] In its second week, it fell out of the Top 100 Albums.[127] The album debuted at number 99 in Switzerland and at number 19 in Norway.[128][129] In Norway, it reached number 16, its peak position, in its second week on the VG-lista Topp 40 Album chart,[130] on which it ultimately spent eight weeks.[131] In Australia, the album entered at number 33 on the ARIA Top 50 Albums and at number five on the Top 40 Urban Albums chart.[132][133] In its second week, it dropped out of the Top 50 Albums chart.[134]
Critical response [ edit ]
Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty received rave reviews from contemporary music critics.[140] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 90, which indicates "universal acclaim", based on 33 reviews.[135] AllMusic editor Andy Kellman called it "one of the loosest, most varied, and entertaining albums of its time".[44] Entertainment Weekly's Simon Vozick-Levinson called the album "a stunningly realized solo debut".[137] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian praised its "kaleidoscopic range of musical influences" and Big Boi's lyrics.[43] Rob Harvilla of The Village Voice called it "fantastic, by turns triumphant, defiant, and gleefully crass [...] it feels triumphant and relieved and epic even if you discount the tortured backstory".[16] Seth Colter Walls of Newsweek stated "Big Boi makes the contemporary trappings of hip-hop sound funkier than just about anyone".[141] Adam Downer of Sputnikmusic called it "a brilliant record" and commented that "the beats are killer, the verses sick, the pacing perfect, and the skits are actually pretty funny".[55]
Los Angeles Times writer Ann Powers praised its music's "depth and complexity", adding that it "highlights his focused language skills within musical settings that touch upon rock, electro, dubstep and classical fanfare, grounded in a thick bottom that guarantees plenty of booty bounce".[45] Gregg Lipkin of PopMatters praised the album's "shifting tones and musical invention".[49] Sean Fennessey of Spin praised its bass-heavy tracks and called Big Boi "a deceptively elegant rhymer".[38] Rolling Stone writer Jody Rosen commented on Big Boi's performance, "He's got an inimitably slick and speedy flow and a personality bigger and more forceful than anything his producers can throw at him".[139] Pitchfork's Tom Breihan called the album "inventive, bizarre, joyous, and masterful" and stated "He just does so many things with his voice and cadence, letting his words fall over the snares one moment and fighting upstream against the beat the next [...] blissfully free of both old-man hectoring and drug-rap nihilism".[47]
In a mixed review, Andy Gill of The Independent felt it was "not as immediately engaging" as Big Boi's Speakerboxxx album, noting "a laziness about some of the rhyming".[142] While noting his boastful "lyrical slackening" as a minor flaw, Slant Magazine's Jesse Cataldo found Big Boi "consistently in fine, tongue-tying form" and described the album as "rigidly focused and almost uniformly strong [...] by-the-books hip-hop with just the right proportion of ingredients".[143] In MSN Music, Robert Christgau complimented the record's "pervasive albeit incoherent musicality" and observed "a succession of enjoyable songs with plenty to offer".[138]
Accolades [ edit ]
The album appeared on numerous critics' and publications' year-end top albums lists.[144] Chris Yuscavage of Vibe ranked it number eight on his list of the 10 Best Albums of 2010.[145] Paste ranked it number 37 on its 50 Best Albums of 2010 list, calling it "a massive, ambitious album shot through with knee-knocking beats and deft lyrical touches from Outkast’s swagger champion... [B]oth a trove of pop jams and a profound piece of artistic experimentation".[146] Nitsuh Abebe of New York named it the second best album of 2010 and called it "as forward-thinking as it was charming".[147] The A.V. Club ranked it number seven,[148] NME ranked it number 38,[149] PopMatters ranked it number 10,[150] The Guardian ranked it number 27,[151] The Wire ranked it number 15,[152] and Spin ranked it number 13.[153] Rolling Stone placed it at number 21 on its year-end albums list and called it "a nasty, future-funk odyssey, done the way George Clinton used to do it: stretched-out grooves, cavernous bass boom, gutbucket guitar and thick electro thump, all held together by Big Boi's whiplash rhymes and pimper-than-thou style".[154]
Time ranked the album number nine, with the publication's Claire Suddath writing that "It's an amalgam of beats, chants and raps mixed together with exacting precision. Big Boi deftly jumps between musical styles [...] and his raps come so fast, he seems to never pause for breath".[155] Pitchfork Media named it the fourth best album of 2010 and stated "[T]he sound of Sir Lucious Left Foot is an exercise in recognizing traditions and pushing them miles ahead. Big Boi crowns it all with a lyrical acumen so detailed and charismatic—acting as benevolent hustler, knuckle-dusting elder statesman, trickster smartass and street-level philosopher".[156] It was voted the sixth-best album in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 2010,[157] while 11 songs from the album were included in the poll's singles list, including "Shutterbugg" (number seven), "Shine Blockas" (number 95), and "Follow Us" (number 316).[158] In 2014, the album was named the 79th best album of the decade "so far" in a list by Pitchfork Media.[159]
Track listing [ edit ]
• (co) Co-producer
Sample credits
"Shutterbugg" contains elements of "Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)", written by Nellee Hooper, Beresford Romeo, Caron M. Wheeler, and Simon A. Law, and contains elements of "You Are in My System", written by David Frank and Michael Murphy.
"General Patton" contains a sample of "Vieni, o guerriero vindice" performed by Giorgio Tozzi, Coro del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Sir Georg Solti.
"Shine Blockas" contains a sample from "I Miss You Part I and II" written by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, as performed by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes.
Personnel [ edit ]
Credits for Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty adapted from liner notes.[30]
Musicians [ edit ]
Additional keyboards: Kevin Kendricks
Additional vocals: Keisha Atwater, Marché Butler, Chris Carmouche, Tamiko Hope, Dax "Dirty Dr." Rudnak, Too Short, Tiphanie Watson, Henry Welch
Background vocals: Debra Killings, Pooh Bear, Teedra Moses
Bass: Wallace Khatib, Debra Killings
Drum and music programming: Terrence "Knightheet" Culbreath, DJ Cutmaster Swiff, DJ Speedy, Jbeatzz, Mr. DJ, Organized Noize, Salaam Remi, Royal Flush, Scott Storch
Drum and synth programming: André 3000
Drums and music creator: Victor Alexander
Guitar: Craig Love, Donny "Poppa Doc" Mathis, Billy Odum, Mike Patterson, David Whild Horns: Hornz Unlimited – Jason Freeman, Jerry Freeman, Richard Owens, Kebbi Williams
Keyboard: Kevin Kendricks, Dave Robbins, William White
Lead vocals: Big Boi, B.o.B, Big Rube, Sam Chris, George Clinton, Cutty, Jamie Foxx, Neil Garrard, Gucci Mane, Joi, Khujo Goodie, Janelle Monáe, Sleepy Brown, T.I., Yelawolf
Organ: Kevin Kendricks
Percussion: Omar Phillips
Scratches: DJ Cutmaster Swiff
Spoken word: Big Rube, Dax "Dirty Dr." Rudnak
Talk box: Bosko
Vocals: Big Boi, Sleepy Brown
Production [ edit ]
Executive producer – Antwan Andre Patton (Big Boi)
Associate producers: Chris Carmouche, Jason Geter
A&R: Big Boi, Chris Carmouche for Purple Ribbon Entertainment
A&R administration: Tara Bryan
A&R operations: Leesa D. Brunson
Album coordination: Dee Dee Murray, Chris Carmouche
Marketing: Chris Atlas
Mastered by: Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Los Angeles, CA
Mastering assisted by: Joe Bazzo Management: Marcus T. Grant for The Collective
Art direction and graphic design: Alex Haldi for Bestest Asbestos
Cover and interior photograph: Jonathan Mannion
Hair: Robert "The Barber" Poller
Art & photography coordination: Tai Linzie
Package production: Doug Joswick
Legal counsel: Donald M. Woodard, Esq.
Business affairs: Randy McMillan, Antoinette Trotman, Ian Allen
Sample clearances: Eric Weissman Music Licensing Inc.
Charts [ edit ] |
The Ted Cruz campaign is pulling out the big guns to woo the evangelical voters of South Carolina. (I say “big guns” in the most Christian way possible.) Tony Perkins introduced Glenn Beck at a recent Cruz rally, holy-rolling his way through the whole speech.
Perkins came with hellfire and brimstone in no short supply, telling the crowd that because of who he is and where he works, he knows “America is in trouble.”
“If we’re honest with ourselves,” he said after a few awkward attempts at jokes, “we know that America needs prayer.”
It got worse and even more ominous:
We don’t have the latitude to get it wrong one more time. If we don’t elect a bold, courageous, godly leader in this next election, I’m afraid we may not have another election for our republic. That’s not hyperbole. That’s the reality based upon what this president’s policies have done to this nation.
Extra Doomsday-y!
In other parts of his speech, he talked about the ways in which “the left” have “decimated” the military, which probably didn’t sit too well with our armed service members serving overseas, but what do I know? There’s a reason (or 76) he’s the head of the Family Research Council and I’m not.
h/t RWW
[image via screengrab]
For more from the not-president of the FRC, follow Lindsey on Twitter.
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com |
Bidding for the RadioShack brand and customer data has ended, but not before Apple weighed in on the proceedings, saying that information collected during the sale of its own products should be left out of the deal.
A shuttered RadioShack store, via Ted Eytan.
The hedge fund Standard General was the top bidder with $26.2 million for RadioShack's brand name and customer data. The same firm bought out Radio Shack's 1,700 store leases in March, as noted by Bloomberg.But as the bidding process was underway in a Delaware bankruptcy court, Apple joined the proceedings with a filing of its own. Specifically, the iPhone maker argued that its agreements with RadioShack prevent customer data obtained from those buying Apple products from being resold.In order to gain an Apple reseller agreement, RadioShack allegedly waived any rights to the data of customers who bought Apple products, as detailed by Law360."In order to protect its customers' personal information, Apple oversees the collection and use of customer information collected by its retail partners, including RadioShack," Apple's filing with the court reads. "The reseller agreement between Apple and RadioShack protects information collected by RadioShack regarding purchasers of Apple products and prohibits the proposed sale of such information."Also joining was AT&T, who said that RadioShack "seemingly intends" to sell information obtained during the sale of AT&T devices.The judge overseeing the case must still approve Standard General's bid for RadioShack, as well as the exchange of accompanying customer data, including some 67 million physical addresses and 8.5 million email addresses. A hearing has been set for May 20.U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan L. Shannon did say last month that he would not approve the sale of any customer data he finds to be impermissible.The demise of RadioShack brings to an end a store that once catered to technology enthusiasts and hobbyists with hard-to-find gadgets, components and accessories. But as the retail space changed, and enthusiasts increasingly went online to buy products at inexpensive prices, RadioShack attempted to adapt and become primarily a smartphone reseller.That plan failed, however, leaving RadioShack with two straight years of losses and headed to bankruptcy court. Trading of the Texas-based company's stock was suspended on the New York Stock Exchange in February. |
• Teenage midfielder’s move to Scotland could be extended • Zelalem recently pledged his international allegiance to the United States
Gedion Zelalem has agreed a loan move from Arsenal to Rangers, initially until January but with the option for the teenage midfielder to stay for the season.
Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager, is keen to get his emerging players out on loan to in order to experience competitive football and Zelalem, who was 18 last January, is the latest to complete a temporary switch.
Isaac Hayden and Chuba Akpom have gone to Hull City; Danny Crowley to Barnsley; Jon Toral to Birmingham City and Serge Gnabry to West Bromwich Albion.
Zelalem made his debut for Arsenal as a 16-year-old in the FA Cup against Coventry City in January 2014 and he featured in the Champions League tie at Galatasaray last season.
The creative midfielder, who recently pledged his international allegiance to the United States, has talent and Wenger believes that he will benefit from playing in front of big crowds at Ibrox. Arsenal have not received a loan fee for Zelalem. |
VALLETTA (Reuters) - Malta goes to the polls on Saturday in snap elections that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat called as a vote of confidence to counter allegations of corruption.
Malta's Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Joseph Muscat addresses a party rally in Qormi, Malta, May 30, 2017. Malta goes to the polls in snap general elections called by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on June 3. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi
Opinion polls have pointed to a victory by Muscat’s Labour party but with a far narrower margin than in 2013, when Labour won by a landslide after 15 years in opposition.
The Mediterranean island nation with a population of 400,000, the European Union’s smallest state and holder of its rotating presidency, is enjoying the effects of one of the bloc’s best performing economies.
When Muscat, whose five-year term was to have ended next year, called the snap elections a month ago, he said they were vital in order to contest the corruption allegations he said risked creating uncertainty that could hurt the economy.
Muscat says his government has given Malta what he calls “the best times ever,” with GDP averaging growth of six per cent in real terms, unemployment at a record low of about 4 per cent, more job creation and rising wages and pensions.
“My duty is not just to protect myself but also to safeguard my country, and I will not tolerate a situation where jobs are lost because of uncertainty. We cannot allow uncertainty to slow the rhythm of Malta’s economic miracle,” Muscat said when he called the elections on May 1.
Before that, the opposition Nationalist Party had demanded that the 43-year-old Muscat step down over allegations of improper business dealings by his wife and some of his associates.
Daphne Caruana Galizia, 52, a widely followed blogger who first made the corruption allegations, has said documents in a small Malta-based bank showed that Michelle Muscat was the beneficial owner of a company in Panama and that large sums of money had been moved between the company and bank accounts in Azerbaijan.
The Nationalist Party has also produced documents which it claims show that Muscat’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, received kickbacks from the sale of passports under a controversial Citizenship by Investment scheme.
Opposition leader Simon Busuttil, 48, has also accused government minister Konrad Mizzi of receiving kickbacks from a power station project.
Muscat, Schembri and Mizzi have all denied the claims and have begun legal action against the accusers. Magistrates are investigating the allegations. Muscat has described the claims against his wife as the “mother of all lies”.
Last year, documents leaked in the so-called Panama Papers, which revealed holdings by foreigners in offshore companies, showed that Schembri and Mizzi owned companies in Panama. Both have denied any wrongdoing.
Busuttil, who is leading his Nationalist party into a vote for the first time, said the election is about principles.
“It is not enough that the economy is doing well. Money is not everything, our values, our principles come first. Honesty and integrity come first. We are not for sale,” he told an opposition rally last Sunday.
The Nationalists have allied themselves with the small Democratic Party, formed by two former Labour MPs. |
Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits a person to use an object only in the way it is traditionally used. The concept of functional fixedness originated in Gestalt psychology, a movement in psychology that emphasizes holistic processing. Karl Duncker defined functional fixedness as being a "mental block against using an object in a new way that is required to solve a problem".[1] This "block" limits the ability of an individual to use components given to them to complete a task, as they cannot move past the original purpose of those components. For example, if someone needs a paperweight, but they only have a hammer, they may not see how the hammer can be used as a paperweight. Functional fixedness is this inability to see a hammer's use as anything other than for pounding nails; the person couldn't think to use the hammer in a way other than in its conventional function.
When tested, 5-year-old children show no signs of functional fixedness. It has been argued that this is because at age 5, any goal to be achieved with an object is equivalent to any other goal. However, by age 7, children have acquired the tendency to treat the originally intended purpose of an object as special.[2]
Examples in research [ edit ]
Experimental paradigms typically involve solving problems in novel situations in which the subject has the use of a familiar object in an unfamiliar context. The object may be familiar from the subject's past experience or from previous tasks within an experiment.
Candle box [ edit ]
Candle box problem diagram
In a classic experiment demonstrating functional fixedness, Duncker (1945)[1] gave participants a candle, a box of thumbtacks, and a book of matches, and asked them to attach the candle to the wall so that it did not drip onto the table below. Duncker found that participants tried to attach the candle directly to the wall with the tacks, or to glue it to the wall by melting it. Very few of them thought of using the inside of the box as a candle-holder and tacking this to the wall. In Duncker's terms, the participants were "fixated" on the box's normal function of holding thumbtacks and could not re-conceptualize it in a manner that allowed them to solve the problem. For instance, participants presented with an empty tack box were two times more likely to solve the problem than those presented with the tack box used as a container[3]
More recently, Frank and Ramscar (2003)[4] gave a written version of the candle problem to undergraduates at Stanford. When the problem was given with identical instructions to those in the original experiment, only 23% of the students were able to solve the problem. For another group of students, the noun phrases such as "box of matches" were underlined, and for a third group, the nouns (e.g., "box") were underlined. For these two groups, 55% and 47% were able to solve the problem effectively. In a follow-up experiment, all the nouns except "box" were underlined and similar results were produced. The authors concluded that students' performance was contingent on their representation of the lexical concept "box" rather than instructional manipulations. The ability to overcome functional fixedness was contingent on having a flexible representation of the word box which allows students to see that the box can be used when attaching a candle to a wall.
When Adamson (1952)[3] replicated Duncker's box experiment, Adamson split participants into 2 experimental groups: preutilization and no preutilization. In this experiment, when there is preutilization, meaning when objects are presented to participants in a traditional manner (materials are in the box, thus using the box as a container), participants are less likely to consider the box for any other use, whereas with no preutilization (when boxes are presented empty), participants are more likely to think of other uses for the box.
Two-cord problem [ edit ]
Birch and Rabinowitz (1951)[5] adapted the two-cord problem from Norman Maier (1930, 1931), where subjects would be given 2 cords hanging from the ceiling, and 2 heavy objects in the room. They are told they must connect the cords, but they are just far enough apart that one cannot reach the other easily. The solution was to tie one of the heavy objects to a cord and be a weight, and swing the cord as a pendulum, catch the rope as it swings while holding on to the other rope, and then tie them together. The participants are split into 3 groups: Group R, which completes a pretask of completing an electrical circuit by using a relay, Group S, which completes the circuit with a switch, and Group C which is the control group given no pretest experience. Group R participants were more likely to use the switch as the weight, and Group S were more likely to use the relay. Both groups did so because their previous experience led them to use the objects a certain way, and functional fixedness did not allow them to see the objects as being used for another purpose.
Barometer question [ edit ]
The barometer question is an example of an incorrectly designed examination question demonstrating functional fixedness that causes a moral dilemma for the examinator. In its classic form, popularized by American test designer professor Alexander Calandra (1911–2006), the question asked the student to "show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer?"[6] The examinator was confident that there was one, and only one, correct answer. Contrary to the examinator's expectations, the student responded with a series of completely different answers. These answers were also correct, yet none of them proved the student's competence in the specific academic field being tested.
Calandra presented the incident as a real-life, first-person experience that occurred during the Sputnik crisis.[7] Calandra's essay, "Angels on a Pin", was published in 1959 in Pride, a magazine of the American College Public Relations Association.[8] It was reprinted in Current Science in 1964,[9] reprinted again in Saturday Review in 1968,[10] and included in the 1969 edition of Calandra's The Teaching of Elementary Science and Mathematics.[11] In the same year (1969), Calandra's essay became a subject of an academic discussion.[12] The essay has been referenced frequently since,[13] making its way into books on subjects ranging from teaching,[14] writing skills,[15] workplace counseling,[16] and investment in real estate[17] to chemical industry,[18] computer programming,[19] and integrated circuit design.[20]
Current conceptual relevance [ edit ]
Is functional fixedness universal? [ edit ]
Researchers have investigated whether functional fixedness is affected by culture.
In a recent study, preliminary evidence supporting the universality of functional fixedness was found.[21] The study's purpose was to test if individuals from non-industrialized societies, specifically with low exposure to "high-tech" artifacts, demonstrated functional fixedness. The study tested the Shuar, hunter-horticulturalists of the Amazon region of Ecuador, and compared them to a control group from an industrial culture.
The Shuar community had only been exposed to a limited amount of industrialized artifacts, such as machete, axes, cooking pots, nails, shotguns, and fishhooks, all considered "low-tech". Two tasks were assessed to participants for the study: the box task, where participants had to build a tower to help a character from a fictional storyline to reach another character with a limited set of varied materials; the spoon task, where participants were also given a problem to solve based on a fictional story of a rabbit that had to cross a river (materials were used to represent settings) and they were given varied materials including a spoon. In the box-task, participants were slower to select the materials than participants in control conditions, but no difference in time to solve the problem was seen. In the spoon task, participants were slower in selection and completion of task. Results showed that Individuals from non-industrial ("technologically sparse cultures") were susceptible to functional fixedness. They were faster to use artifacts without priming than when design function was explained to them. This occurred even though participants were less exposed to industrialized manufactured artifacts, and that the few artifacts they currently use were used in multiple ways regardless of their design.[21]
Investigators examined in two experiments "whether the inclusion of examples with inappropriate elements, in addition to the instructions for a design problem, would produce fixation effects in students naive to design tasks".[22] They examined the inclusion of examples of inappropriate elements, by explicitly depicting problematic aspects of the problem presented to the students through example designs. They tested non-expert participants on three problem conditions: with standard instruction, fixated (with inclusion of problematic design), and defixated (inclusion of problematic design accompanied with helpful methods). They were able to support their hypothesis by finding that a) problematic design examples produce significant fixation effects, and b) fixation effects can be diminished with the use of defixating instructions.
In "The Disposable Spill-Proof Coffee Cup Problem", adapted from Janson & Smith, 1991, participants were asked to construct as many designs as possible for an inexpensive, disposable, spill-proof coffee cup. Standard condition participants were presented only with instructions. In the fixated condition, participants were presented with instructions, a design, and problems they should be aware of. Finally, in the defixated condition, participants were presented the same as other conditions in addition to suggestions of design elements they should avoid using. The other two problems included building a bike rack, and designing a container for cream cheese.
Techniques to avoid functional fixedness [ edit ]
Overcoming functional fixedness in science classrooms with analogical transfer [ edit ]
Based on the assumption that students are functionally fixed, a study on analogical transfer in the science classroom shed light on significant data that could provide an overcoming technique for functional fixedness. The findings support the fact that students show positive transfer (performance) on problem solving after being presented with analogies of certain structure and format.[23] The present study expanded Duncker's experiments from 1945 by trying to demonstrate that when students were "presented with a single analogy formatted as a problem, rather than as a story narrative, they would orient the task of problem-solving and facilitate positive transfer".[23]
A total of 266 freshmen students from a high school science class participated in the study. The experiment was a 2x2 design where conditions: "task contexts" (type and format) vs. "prior knowledge" (specific vs. general) were attested. Students were classified into 5 different groups, where 4 were according to their prior science knowledge (ranging from specific to general), and 1 served as a control group (no analog presentation). The 4 different groups were then classified into "analog type and analog format" conditions, structural or surface types and problem or surface formats.
Inconclusive evidence was found for positive analogical transfer based on prior knowledge; however, groups did demonstrate variability. The problem format and the structural type of analog presentation showed the highest positive transference to problem solving. The researcher suggested that a well-thought and planned analogy relevant in format and type to the problem-solving task to be completed can be helpful for students to overcome functional fixedness. This study not only brought new knowledge about the human mind at work but also provides important tools for educational purposes and possible changes that teachers can apply as aids to lesson plans.[23]
Uncommitting [ edit ]
One study suggests that functional fixedness can be combated by design decisions from functionally fixed designs so that the essence of the design is kept (Latour, 1994).[24] This helps the subjects who have created functionally fixed designs understand how to go about solving general problems of this type, rather than using the fixed solution for a specific problem. Latour performed an experiment researching this by having software engineers analyze a fairly standard bit of code—the quicksort algorithm—and use it to create a partitioning function. Part of the quicksort algorithm involves partitioning a list into subsets so that it can be sorted; the experimenters wanted to use the code from within the algorithm to just do the partitioning. To do this, they abstracted each block of code in the function, discerning the purpose of it, and deciding if it is needed for the partitioning algorithm. This abstracting allowed them to reuse the code from the quicksort algorithm to create a working partition algorithm without having to design it from scratch.[24]
Overcoming prototypes [ edit ]
A comprehensive study exploring several classical functional fixedness experiments showed an overlying theme of overcoming prototypes. Those that were successful at completing the tasks had the ability to look beyond the prototype, or the original intention for the item in use. Conversely, those that could not create a successful finished product could not move beyond the original use of the item. This seemed to be the case for functional fixedness categorization studies as well. Reorganization into categories of seemingly unrelated items was easier for those that could look beyond intended function. Therefore, there is a need to overcome the prototype in order to avoid functional fixedness. Carnevale (1998)[25] suggests analyzing the object and mentally breaking it down into its components. After that is completed, it is essential to explore the possible functions of those parts. In doing so, an individual may familiarize themselves with new ways to use the items that are available to them at the givens. Individuals are therefore thinking creatively and overcoming the prototypes that limit their ability to successfully complete the functional fixedness problem.[25]
The generic parts technique [ edit ]
For each object, you need to decouple its function from its form. McCaffrey (2012)[26] shows a highly effective technique for doing so. As you break an object into its parts, ask yourself two questions. "Can I subdivide the current part further?" If yes, do so. "Does my current description imply a use?" If yes, create a more generic description involving its shape and material. For example, initially I divide a candle into its parts: wick and wax. The word "wick" implies a use: burning to emit light. So, describe it more generically as a string. Since "string" implies a use, I describe it more generically: interwoven fibrous strands. This brings to mind that I could use the wick to make a wig for my hamster. Since "interwoven fibrous strands" does not imply a use, I can stop working on wick and start working on wax. People trained in this technique solved 67% more problems that suffered from functional fixedness than a control group. This technique systematically strips away all the layers of associated uses from an object and its parts.[27]
References [ edit ] |
EXCLUSIVE: Starz has teamed with BBC to co-produce the limited series Howards End, based on the classic E.M. Forster novel with Oscar-nominated Manchester by the Sea screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan writing the TV adaptation. Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter), Matthew Macfadyen (Ripper Street) and Tracey Ullman (Tracey Ullman’s Show) have been tapped to star in the project, originally greenlighted by BBC One in December 2015. Hettie Macdonald (White Girl) will direct the four-part series that will air on BBC One in the UK and Starz in the U.S. Howards End will film in and around London.
Howards End explores the changing landscape of social and class divisions in turn-of-the-century England through the prism of three families: the intellectual and idealistic Schlegels, the wealthy Wilcoxes from the world of business and the working-class Basts. Playground is executive producing in association with City Entertainment and KippSter Entertainment.
Atwell will play Margaret Schlegel, Macfadyen will portray Henry Wilcox, and Ullman will play Aunt Juley Mund.
“Starz continues our commitment to bring quality drama to the screen with Howards End, and we’re delighted to once again work in partnership with the BBC and Colin Callender on this literary period piece,” said Carmi Zlotnik, President of Programming for Starz.
Callendar also is producing The Missing and The White Queen franchise for Starz — both back for second installments. He executive produces Howards End with City Entertainment’s Joshua D. Maurer (Papillon) and Alixandre Witlin (The Last Tycoon) and KippSter Entertainment’s David A. Stern (The Last Tycoon) as well as with Playground’s Sophie Gardiner (Eureka Street) and Scott Huff (The Missing) and Lucy Richer for the BBC. Laura Hastings-Smith (Hunger) is producing.
Said BBC executive producer Richer, “Kenneth Lonergan is one of our truly great contemporary voices, and his adaptation of this adored timeless classic will surprise and delight a whole new audience with its timely and relevant themes.” |
Public Company Accounting Oversight Board Agency overview Formed 2002 ; 17 years ago ( ) Headquarters Washington, D.C., U.S. Website pcaobus .org
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is a private-sector, nonprofit corporation created by the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 to oversee the audits of public companies and other issuers in order to protect the interests of investors and further the public interest in the preparation of informative, accurate and independent audit reports. The PCAOB also oversees the audits of broker-dealers, including compliance reports filed pursuant to federal securities laws, to promote investor protection. All PCAOB rules and standards must be approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In creating the PCAOB, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act required that auditors of U.S. public companies be subject to external and independent oversight for the first time in history. Previously, the profession was self-regulated. Congress vested the PCAOB with expanded oversight authority over the audits of brokers and dealers registered with the SEC in 2010 through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
The PCAOB has four primary functions in overseeing these auditors: registration, inspection, standard setting and enforcement.
Registered accounting firms that issue audit reports for more than 100 issuers (primarily public companies) are required to be inspected annually. This is usually around 10 firms. Registered firms that issue audit reports for 100 or fewer issuers are generally inspected at least once every three years. Many of these firms are international non-U.S. firms. In addition, the PCAOB annually inspects at least 5 percent of all registered firms that play a substantial role in the audit of an issuer but that do not issue audit reports for issuers themselves. In 2011, the Board adopted an interim inspection program for the audits of broker-dealers, while the Board considers the scope and other elements of a permanent inspection program.
In 2017, auditors began filing information on the names of engagement partners and other audit firms that participate in the audits of U.S. public companies. The PCAOB created a searchable database called AuditorSearch for investors and others to know more about who is leading and participating in audits through these filings, adding more specific data points to the mix of information that can be used when evaluating audit quality.
The PCAOB also adopted a new standard in 2017 to enhance the usefulness of the standard auditor's report by providing additional and important information to investors, such as the critical audit matters (CAMs) that auditors communicate to the audit committees of the public companies they are auditing. These are matters that are related to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements, and involved especially challenging, subjective, or complex auditor judgment. The CAMs requirement goes into effect in 2019 and 2020. Beginning in 2017, the updated auditor's report also includes the tenure of the auditor with that company.
Organizational overview [ edit ]
The PCAOB has five Board members, including a Chairman, each of whom is appointed by the SEC, after consultation with the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Secretary of the Treasury. Two Board members must be Certified Public Accountants.[1] If the PCAOB Chairman is one of them, he or she may not have been a practicing CPA for at least five years prior to being appointed to the board. Each member serves full-time, for staggered five-year terms. The Board's budget, approved by the SEC each year, is funded by fees paid by the companies and broker-dealers who rely on the audit firms overseen by the Board. The organization has a staff of about 800 and offices in 11 states in addition to its headquarters in Washington.
The PCAOB's current Chairman is William D. Duhnke III, who was sworn in on January 2, 2018, by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Previously, he served as Staff Director and General Counsel to three Senate Committees.[2] From 2011-2017, James R. Doty served as Chairman, a former SEC General Counsel and a former partner at the law firm of Baker Botts LLP.[3] He was preceded by Mark W. Olson, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The first Chairman in place at the PCAOB was former President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, William Joseph McDonough. The SEC first appointed William H. Webster to the position, a prominent lawyer and former Director of both the FBI and CIA. He resigned after several weeks and prior to the Board's first official meeting (as explained below).
Powers [ edit ]
Under Section 101 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the PCAOB has the power to:
register public accounting firms that prepare audit reports for issuers and broker-dealers;
set auditing, quality control, ethics, independence and other standards relating to the preparation of audit reports of issuers;
conduct inspections of PCAOB-registered public accounting firms;
conduct investigations and disciplinary proceedings, and impose sanctions, against registered public accounting firms and associated persons of such firms (including fines of up to $100,000 against individual auditors, and $2 million against audit firms);
perform such other duties or functions as the Board determines are necessary or appropriate to promote high professional standards among, and improve the quality of audit services offered by, registered public accounting firms and their employees;
sue and be sued, complain and defend, in its corporate name and through its own counsel, with the approval of the SEC, in any Federal, State or other court;
conduct its operations, maintain offices, and exercise all of its rights and powers in any part of the United States, without regard to any qualification, licensing or other provision of state or [municipal] law;
hire staff, accountants, attorneys and other agents as may be necessary or appropriate to the PCAOB's mission (with salaries set at a level comparable to private-sector self-regulatory, accounting, technical, supervisory, or other staff or management positions, as set out by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to attract the highly skilled and experienced professionals needed to oversee global accounting firms);
allocate, assess, and collect accounting support fees that fund the Board; and
enter into contracts, execute instruments, incur liabilities, and do any and all other acts and things necessary, appropriate, or incidental to the conduct of its operations and the exercise of its powers under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
Auditors of public companies are prohibited by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to provide non-audit services, such as consulting, to their audit clients. Congress made certain exceptions for tax services, which are therefore overseen by the PCAOB. This prohibition was made as a result of allegations, in cases such as Enron and WorldCom, that auditors' independence from their clients' managers had been compromised because of the large fees that audit firms were earning from these ancillary services.
In addition, as part of the PCAOB's investigative powers, the Board may require that audit firms, or any person associated with an audit firm, provide testimony or documents in its (or his or her) possession. If the firm or person refuses to provide this testimony or these documents, the PCAOB may suspend or bar that person or entity from the public audit industry. The PCAOB may also seek the SEC's assistance in issuing subpoenas for testimony or documents from individuals or entities not registered with the PCAOB.
The Board's Office of the Chief Auditor advises the Board on the establishment of auditing and related professional practice standards. [4]
Government oversight [ edit ]
Each of these powers is subject to approval and oversight by the SEC. Individuals and audit firms subject to PCAOB oversight may appeal PCAOB decisions (including any disciplinary actions) to the SEC and the SEC has the power to modify or overturn PCAOB rules.
Inspection reports [ edit ]
The PCAOB periodically issues Inspection Reports of registered public accounting firms. While a large part of these reports is made public (called "Part I"), portions of the inspection reports that deal with criticisms of, or potential defects in, the audit firm's quality control systems are not made public if the firm addresses those matters to the Board's satisfaction within 12 months after the report date. Those portions are made public (called "Part II"), however, if (1) the Board determines that a firm's efforts to address the criticisms or potential defects were not satisfactory, or (2) the firm makes no submission evidencing any such efforts.[5]
History [ edit ]
The PCAOB was created in response to an ever increasing number of accounting "restatements" (corrections of past financial statements) by public companies during the 1990s, and a series of high-profile accounting scandals and record-setting bankruptcies by large public companies, notably those in 2002 involving WorldCom and Enron, and the audit firm for both companies, Arthur Andersen. Prior to the creation of the PCAOB, the audit profession was self-regulated through its trade group, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The AICPA's Public Oversight Board was formally dissolved on March 31, 2002, though its members had resigned en masse in January 2002 to protest then-SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt's proposal for a new private auditor oversight body to regulate the profession (a proposal which would evolve into the PCAOB).
Appointment of Chairman Webster [ edit ]
The SEC named William H. Webster, to be the first PCAOB Chairman. He was a prominent lawyer and former director of both the FBI and CIA. This appointment was controversial, however, for while Webster was widely recognized for his integrity and intellect, two of the SEC's five Commissioners believed that SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt had not properly vetted the candidates or consulted with them on the appointment (and had previously agreed with them to appoint TIAA-CREF Chairman John Biggs as PCAOB Chairman). In one of the most contentious SEC public hearings, these two Commissioners (Harvey Goldschmid and Roel Campos) publicly criticized the process of the appointment (though not Webster himself). Webster nonetheless was approved by the SEC by a 3-2 vote to become the PCAOB's first Chairman. An audio recording of this contentious October 25, 2002 SEC public hearing at which Webster's nomination was approved (and debated) can be heard at here.
Just a few weeks after Webster was appointed to the PCAOB, however, another controversy erupted when newspapers reported that Webster had served on the board audit committee of U.S. Technologies, a high-technology company being investigated for accounting irregularities. Pitt, whose tenure as SEC Chair had already proven controversial, found himself in an untenable position. One of the claims made by Goldschmid during the rancorous October SEC hearing was that the candidates put forward by Pitt had not been properly vetted. Goldschmid's criticisms seemed prescient, and this, combined with other pressures, led Pitt to announce his resignation from the SEC on election day (Nov. 4, 2002). Webster himself announced his resignation from the PCAOB a week later -– less than three weeks after the PCAOB was set up.[6]
Constitutional challenge [ edit ]
In February 2006, the Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts, LLP (a small Nevada-based accounting firm) filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the PCAOB. According to the lawsuit, the provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act establishing the PCAOB violated the "Appointments Clause" of the U.S. Constitution, since PCAOB Board members should be viewed as "officers of the United States" because of the public purposes PCAOB serves, and, as such, must either be appointed by the President of the United States, with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate, or by the "head" of a "department", whereas PCAOB's board is appointed by the SEC, rather than by the Chairman of the SEC. The lawsuit also challenged the PCAOB as violating the Constitution's separation of powers clause, since the organization has quasi-executive, -legislative and -judicial functions.
On Aug. 22, 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the PCAOB as constitutional. The Court found that Board members are inferior officers not required to be appointed by the President, and that the President retains sufficient control of the Board via the SEC that the Board does not violate the separation of powers clause.[7]
The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari on May 18, 2009, to consider three questions:
Whether the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 violates the Constitution's separation of powers by vesting members of the [PCAOB] with far-reaching executive power while completely stripping the President of all authority to appoint or remove those members or otherwise supervise or control their exercise of that power, or whether, as the court of appeals held, the Act is constitutional because Congress can restrict the President's removal authority in any way it "deems best for the public interest." Whether the court of appeals erred in holding that, under the Appointments Clause, PCAOB members are "inferior officers" directed and supervised by the [SEC], where the SEC lacks any authority to supervise those members personally, to remove the members for any policy-related reason or to influence the members' key investigative functions, merely because the SEC may review some of the members' work product. If PCAOB members are inferior officers, whether the Act's provision for their appointment by the SEC violates the Appointments Clause either because the SEC is not a "Department" or because the five commissioners, acting collectively, are not the "Head" of the SEC.[8]
Free Enterprise Fund and Beckstead and Watts, LLP v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, et al., was argued on Dec. 7, 2009. In addition to the PCAOB, the United States (represented by Solicitor General Elena Kagan) also appeared as a respondent in the case and argued separately, defending the constitutionality of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Thirteen amici, ranging from libertarian think-tanks like the Cato Institute to managers of state public-employee pension funds, filed briefs in the case.[9]
On June 28, 2010, in a five-justice majority opinion written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, the Supreme Court found the appointment provisions of the Act to be constitutional, but struck down the for-cause removal provision. The Court did not accept petitioners' argument that the constitutional infirmity made all of the Board's prior activity unconstitutional; rather, it simply severed the for-cause removal clause from the rest of Sarbanes-Oxley, leaving the Board itself intact.[10]
See also [ edit ] |
In 2011, Ben Nunery and his daughter Olivia lost their wife and mother Ali to a rare form of lung cancer. Before Ben and Olivia moved in November 2013, Ben decided to honor his wife’s memory by recreating the wedding photos they’d shot in that very house with his now three-year-old daughter. Ali’s sister, photographer Melanie Pace shot the resulting collection of heartwarming and tear-jerking photos. Oh her blog, Melanie discussed the experience:
One of the things that hurts the most, is when I watch Olivia do things that Ali fantasized about before becoming a mom. She would talk about taking her future daughters to ballet and watching them spin till they giggled and fell down. Which is pretty much what happened…
It’s so hard to let go of the anger I constantly face because she’s missing these things. But I know she’s with her still watching and likely whispering in O’s ear, “Olivia, don’t forget to spot! Oliviaaa! You’re going to fall! You’re spinning too fast! Oliiiviaaa!” |
Travis Barker said his daughter predicted the nightmarish plane crash that claimed the lives of two of his friends and two pilots as she warned him 'the roof's gonna come off, Dad'.
In his new book - Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums - the 39-year-old Blink-182 rocker recalls how his daughter, Alabama, who was three at the time, was frantic about him leaving on that fateful day in September 2008.
He would later see in a picture of the aftermath of the crash that the roof of the private Learjet 60, which he was traveling on along with five other passengers, had been torn off just as his daughter, now nine, had predicted, according to the New York Post.
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Travis Barker revealed in his book that his daughter, nine-year-old Alabama (pictured with him above), predicted the tragic plane crash that claimed the lives of two of his friends and two pilots as she warned him 'the roof's gonna come off, Dad'
The accident occurred on September 19, 2008 when the jet's under-inflated tires blew out, causing the pilots to attempt to abort the landing, but it was traveling too fast
Barker has who has two children with ex wife Shanna Moakler - Landon, 12, and Alabama, nine
Barker, who already had a feeling something was wrong, said in the book that his daughter Alabama 'just kept saying, "The roof's gonna come off, Dad, the roof's gonna come off.'"
On September 19, 2008, the private jet he was travelling on blew out a tire and burst into flames.
After attempting to abort the landing, the Learjet 60 smashed through the fence of the South Carolina airport, ran across a highway and collided with an embankment on the far side.
Along with the two pilots, Barker's personal assistant Chris Baker and bodyguard Che Still, were both killed.
Still only took the flight last moment because Barker's ex-wife Shanna Moakler did not want to leave their kids behind.
The only other survivor was Barker's close friend and collaborator Adam 'DJ AM' Goldstein, who subsequently died in August 2009 of a drug overdose - a combination of cocaine and the drugs prescribed to him for dealing with the crash.
'I panicked. I pulled the handle on the emergency exit and kicked the door open. I jumped out — right into the jet wing, which was filled with fuel,' Us Weekly revealed in an excerpt from the book.
The Blink-182 drummer opened up about the Learjet crash which claimed the lives of two of his friends - personal assistant Chris Baker and bodyguard Che Still - and indirectly lead to the death of Adam 'DJ AM' Goldstein, who died of a drug overdose the following year
'My whole body got covered with fuel and caught fire, from my legs all the way to my back. I started running. As I ran, I took off my shirt, I took off my hat, I took off my shorts — but I couldn’t get the fire off me.
'I was naked, moving as fast as I could, holding my genitals — everything else was on fire — and I kept running, hoping that would put out the flames.
'At that moment, I felt like I was running for my family. I didn't care about anything except being with my kids, my father, my sister, Shanna...I didn't think I was going to survive.'
Barker, now the only living survivor, told the Post that he thought that he was 'going to die for sure' as the ordeal unfolded.
After the plane came to a halt, he shook Goldstein awake and had not realized yet that the two pilots, Still and Baker had already died.
He ran from the plane until Goldstein caught up with him who patted out the fire. The plane, he said, exploded about 60 seconds later.
Barker suffered third-degree burns on 65 per cent of his body, and spent 11 weeks in hospitals and burn centers undergoing 16 separate surgeries and numerous skin grafts.
Goldstein had reportedly sustained second and third-degree burns on his scalp and arms, according to the New York Post.
In his book, he also reveals how he has had a life-long fear of flying, and stated as a teen he was sure he would die in a plane crash.
The musician, who has two children with Moakler - Landon, 12, and Alabama - is currently dating singer Rita Ora.
Travis Barker has revealed harrowing details of his 2008 tragic plane crash in his new book, Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums |
A father was killed in front of his children on the Fourth of July in a tragic fireworks accident on Chicago's Southwest Side.Around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, 42-year-old David Griffin was lighting fireworks in an alley in the 2500-block of West 54th Street in the city's Gage Park neighborhood. His wife said he was with his young children at the time.When he went to check on a firework that didn't seem to be firing, it blew up in his face as it shot into the air, police and fire officials said."The fuse went off and it seemed like everything was going, and then the fuse sort of died, and he stuck his head over it and it went off," said Daniel Saenz, witness.Griffin suffered serious injuries to his head and was transported to Holy Cross Hospital. He died about 20 minutes after the accident. No one else was hurt.His wife and other relatives returned to the home Wednesday morning, overcome with emotion.Fernando Sotelo, Griffin's upstairs neighbor and family friend, said he worked as a security guard and will be remembered as a good father who was always looking out for others."It's dangerous around here. When there would be drive-bys, he'd come out and protect us. He was protective over this neighborhood," Sotelo said.Two other men were badly hurt in separate accidents involving fireworks over the holiday weekend. A man in his 30's suffered a critical injury in the 4300-block of West Cortez Street. The injury was specific to his hand, but bad enough to be considered critical.A man in his 40's also badly injured his hand Tuesday when a firework blew up as he was handling it in the 4600-block of West Belmont Avenue. |
UK retailer size? returns this winter season with yet another strong Nike collaboration. Doing what they are best known for, the retailer remixes a retro silhouette with the iconic colorway of another retro silhouette. Taking plenty of Nike ACG inspiration, size? worked on the Nike Air Huarache Light and gave it the much loves “Mowabb” color scheme, which was originally inspired by the canyons and natural landscape of the Moab in Utah. The vintage Air Huarache Light looks great in the light beige upper with blue and orange accents, sitting on speckled black outer sole. A great shoe for the season, the size? x Nike Air Huarache Light “Mowabb” is set for a release on October 31, priced at $144.
Previously the two brands worked on the Nike Tennis Classic AC and the Air Max 93.
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Words by David Fischer CEO & Publisher I am the founder of Highsnobiety.com. I started the blog right out of college in 2005 and I am still as passionate and involved as I was on the first day. While I do not write as much anymore, you will still find the occasional article on the site wi... |
B.C.’s main political parties sparred over forestry policies Monday, with the B.C. NDP leader attempting to hang mill closures and job losses in the sector on the government and the B.C. Liberals declaring that the opposition’s platform offers nothing new to the industry.
NDP leader John Horgan unveiled a four-page plan that hints at a promise to curb log exports and included initiatives to boost value-added wood manufacturing, to work more with First Nations, and to increase reforestation efforts that he argued have languished under the last decade-and-a-half of the B.C. Liberals’ tenure.
“The objective today was to highlight (that) in the last 16 years of B.C. Liberal rule, we’ve seen 30,000 fewer people working in a once proud forest industry,” Horgan said. “And 100-plus mills have closed in every corner of the province.”
Forestry remains a cornerstone industry in much of rural B.C., supporting some 60,000 direct jobs and generating $14 billion in exports in 2016, according to Ministry of Forests statistics.
Horgan said he wants to require publicly funded construction projects, such as schools and hospitals, to “use as much of our engineered wood products as possible” in their designs to boost domestic demand. He argued that would go further than the B.C. Liberal government’s “wood-first” initiative of promoting wood in public projects.
And Horgan wants to see more consistency in applying the test for determining whether logs are surplus to domestic need so that fewer of them wind up on barges for markets offshore.
However, John Martin, the Liberal MLA for Chilliwack, argued that the existing auction process for logs does make sure that they are offered to domestic buyers first. He said the other NDP promises touch on initiatives the government is already working on.
“I thought it was an endorsement of what we’re already doing,” said Martin, who is parliamentary secretary to Forest Minister Steve Thomson.
Martin acknowledged that the industry has suffered job losses, but attributed that to the 2008-09 recession and collapse of U.S. housing starts. In response, he said government has succeeded in diversifying markets by expanding exports to China and South Korea.
The NDP staged its announcement outside the Brock Commons student-housing complex at the University of B.C., which is now the world’s tallest mass-timber building using made-in-B.C. engineered wood products that Horgan said is an example of the innovation the province needs more of.
Martin countered that it was the B.C. government that encouraged the innovation that went into Brock Commons’ construction, which it has continued through an innovation strategy.
depenner@postmedia.com
twitter.com/derrickpenner |
Improved anonymity: To outsiders and the fellow mixing participants observing the blockchain, CoinParty’s threshold transactions are indistinguishable from other non-threshold transactions. Thus, CoinParty’s mixing transactions are anonymous among all contemptuous transactions with the same value. We conduct a quantitative analysis on the blockchain to show that this increases anonymity by orders of magnitude.
Plausible deniability: In [9] the authors briefly mention deniability as one desirable property for mixings. CoinParty is first among related approaches for mixing Bitcoins to provide its users with plausible deniability.
No fees: CoinParty issues multiple small transactions that do not require transaction fees. Since CoinParty is run in absence of any trusted third party, i.e., a service provider, no mixing fees are charged either. Related approaches require at least transaction or mixing fees.
Applicability: CoinParty is fully compatible with the existing Bitcoin network. We evaluate a proof-of-concept implementation in a real-world network setting to show that CoinParty incurs only small overheads even when scaling to large numbers of participants.
Transaction fees. Unlike other decentralized Bitcoin mixing protocols, CoinParty does not bundle mixing transactions into one joint transaction with many inputs and outputs. Instead, CoinParty issues one transaction with one input and a few outputs per mixing input, i.e., n separate transactions. As of today, Bitcoin transactions smaller than 1 KB can be safely sent without fees [7]. Transactions in CoinParty do not exceed this size and would not require any transaction fees at all. If desired, transaction fees τ can be paid nevertheless. Input peers then commit at least ν +τ funds to Ti but only ν funds are transferred in the mixing transaction Ti ν→ Oπ(i).
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He’s grabbed the attention of many teens ever since his High School Musical debut back in 2006. A buff body, refined beard and boost of sexiness later and Zac Efron is the epitome of yummy man candy for many ladies around the world.
Let’s all just take a moment to realise how super-sexy Zac actually is. Here are 12 times when Zac Efron was hot…
When he donned this vintage, blonde look – UGH!
When his ocean blue eyes melted our hearts.
When he got down and dirty. Oh our eyes!
When he held this guitar. There’s something sexy about this.
When he done this thing with his eyebrows.
When he went fully nude in That Awkward Moment. So help us, God!
When he held this cat and it made us want to marry him.
When we wished he looked at us like this.
When he proved he could be a model. Hot damn!
When he rode this horse, flexed his muscles and we were forever thankful.
When he was on “Running Wild With Bear Grylls” and his arms were the star of the show.
This and every time he took his shirt off. Can Zac remain topless forever please?
On a scale of 1 – Zac Efron, how hot do these photos make you feel? |
If Benjamin Franklin had had his way, America's national animal would be the turkey, an animal he called "a true original Native of America."
And in his defense, there's certainly no shortage of turkeys to go around, which can't be said about a handful of countries around the globe with national animals that are decidedly less common — some even extinct. Other countries proudly boast emblematic critters that are straight-out bizarre, and, in some cases, mythical.
From the dodo to the Komodo dragon to folkloric winged horses, we've assembled a motley menagerie of unusual and/or threatened national animals to consider.
1. Unicorn (Scotland)
Despite its mythical and occasionally sparkly depiction, the unicorn represents purity, strength and independence. (Photo: godam07/Shutterstock)
It's a creature that's majestic, mythical and possesses the singing voice of Mia Farrow. It appears (chained) on the Royal Coat of Arms and is a symbol of purity, strength and independence. It's also often covered in glitter and found in close proximity to magical rainbows. How could anyone take issue with the national animal of Scotland being a unicorn?
Shocking but true, a small but vocal group of Scots want to do away the unicorn, the heraldic symbol of Scotland that's also served as the country's national animal since the late 1300s. And what do these campaigners suggest take the unicorn’s place? They're pushing for another elusive beast to be named as Scotland's national animal, this one they believe to be real (at least for tourism purposes): the Loch Ness Monster. Their argument for the unicorn to be replaced by a lake-dwelling cryptid that's most likely a very large catfish? "How many people visit Scotland to look for unicorns? Exactly."
2. Dodo (Mauritius)
The extinct dodo lives on through museums, stamps and statues in Mauritius. (Image: Biodiversity Heritage Library/flickr)
When you're a small island nation in the Indian Ocean and your most famous endemic bird is also the poster-animal for extinction, of course that bird would be your national animal. And although the dodo went, well, the way of itself circa 1662, the curious-looking flightless bird remains both a symbol of Mauritian pride and a potent reminder of the plight of endangered species across the globe threatened by human activity.
Although the story of the dodo — a cautionary national animal if there ever was one — is tragic (Dutch settlers on the island ate them, destroyed their habit and introduced predatory invasive species), the spirit of this hefty pigeon cousin lives on through Mauritian business names, stamps and public statuary. Today, the bird is a tourism mascot and the subject of a museum in Mauritius' bustling capital city of Port Louis, where visitors will find drawings and skeletons of the legendary Raphus cucullatus.
3. Okapi (The Democratic Republic of Congo)
The okapi struggles to survive in small parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Photo: Steffen Foerster/Shutterstock)
It's a donkey. It’s a baby giraffe. On second thought, it's an antelope. Or maybe a zebra half-covered in mud? No wait … what in the world is that?
Say hello to the okapi, one of Mother Nature's most confounding creations … an animal — a close relative to the giraffe, actually — so rare and so peculiar that it was long believed to be of mythical origin. This enigmatic ruminant with hair-covered horns, striped hindquarters and an obscenely long tongue even served as mascot for the now-defunct International Society of Cryptozoology. Of course, the okapi isn't a cryptid but a real species — and an endangered one at that. With a teeny-tiny range limited to the forests of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this skittish and solitary beast known as the "forest giraffe" has experienced steadily declining population numbers since the mid-1990s. Says Noëlle Kümpel, okapi specialist with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN): "Sadly, DRC has been caught up in civil conflict and ravaged by poverty for nearly two decades, leading to widespread degradation of okapi habitat and hunting for its meat and skin. Supporting government efforts to tackle the civil conflict and extreme poverty in the region are critical to securing its survival."
4. Komodo dragon (Indonesia)
The Komodo dragon is the deadly but endangered national animal of Indonesia. (Photo: Anna Kucherova/Shutterstock)
Much like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia's national animal is a creature so unusual that it was classified as a cryptid until not all that long ago. In 1926, Western scientists confirmed the existence of massive "land alligators" living on Indonesia's Lesser Sunda Islands — and the public's fascination with the plus-sized, meat-eating lizard now known as the Komodo dragon hasn't waned since.
The only reptile to appear on this list, the Komodo dragon is also perhaps the most fearsome national animal in existence. To put it lightly, this isn't the type of creature you'd want to encounter alone in a dark alley. Or anywhere. Ever. Considerable body weight, muscular tail, powerful jaws, long claws, razor-sharp serrated teeth, bacteria-laden saliva and the fact that it can run — and run real fast — makes contact with this giant lizard best avoided if possible. Although terrifying, attacks on humans are relatively rare as most folks living amongst this fork-tongued monster know to keep their distance.
5. Baird's tapir (Belize)
Also called the 'mountain cow,' Baird's tapir enjoys some protection in Belize in the Tapir Mountain Nature Reserve. (Photo: Eric Kilby/flickr)
Baird’s tapir, a weird-looking beast (think the odd-toed lovechild of a pig, a horse, an anteater and a hippo) that produces some seriously cute babies is both the largest indigenous land mammal in Central America and the national animal of Belize. It's also an endangered animal with less than 5,000 individuals estimated to be surviving in the wild.
The threats against Baird's tapir — aka the "mountain cow" — are not atypical: habitat destruction and poaching, which is illegal but not always enforced. And extremely low reproduction rate haven't helped to boost declining population numbers. In Belize, Baird's tapir enjoys a certain degree of protection within the Tapir Mountain Nature Reserve, a more than 6,000-acre reserve co-managed by the Belize Audubon Society that's home to a wide range of fauna, some of which, like Baird's tapir, are threatened.
6. Markhor (Pakistan)
The markhor is known for its twisty antler. (Photo: OZinOH/flickr)
Recently upgraded from endangered to near threatened on the IUCN Red List after decades of unchecked trophy hunting and habitat destruction, the imposing markor (Capra falconeri) is slowly but surely making a comeback.
Best known for sporting twisty, corkscrew-esque horns, the name of these super-agile wild goats comes from a Persian blend word that translates to "snake eater." While markhor certainly don't have a taste for reptiles — as far as the scientific community is concerned, they maintain a strictly herbivorous diet of grass and assorted vegetation — local legend has it that the goats have been known to hunt, stomp on and eat snakes. Others believe the name originates from the animal's distinctive horns, which are believed in traditional Asian medicine to have healing qualities. In addition to Pakistan, markhor can be found in the mountains of Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and northern India. Closer to home, these sure-footed ruminants can be found at the Los Angeles Zoo, the Calgary Zoo and Stone Zoo in Boston.
7. Takin (Bhutan)
In local lore, the takin is thought to be derived from skeletal remnants of a goat meat and beef lunch. (Photo: Valerie/flickr)
Relatively new as national animals go, the takin was named national animal of Bhutan in 1985. A relative of the musk ox, it's a rare and strange-looking critter for sure — seemingly "assembled from a variety of zoological sources" — and one appropriately designed to traverse Bhutan’s vertiginous topography, thriving best in rugged alpine environments of 4,000 feet or higher.
A revered animal, the origins of the takin are steeped in local mythology and date back to the 15th century when Drukpa Kunley, a sexed-upTibetan saint known as the Divine Madman of Bhutan, created the takin — or dong gysem tsey — out of the skeletal remnants of a goat meat ‘n’ beef lunch provided to him by villagers. Reanimated leftovers, basically. Today, these bamboo-munching beasts (large goat-antelopes, technically) are considered a vulnerable species and, outside of the Himalayas, can be found in a number of American zoos including the San Diego Zoo, the Cincinnati Zoo and Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo. The druk — "Thunder Dragon" — is Bhutan's mythical national animal and appears on the national flag.
8. Phoenix (Greece)
Another mythic creature, the phoenix is a symbol of rebirth. (Image: Fotokostic/Shutterstock)
While some might identify the national animal of Greece as the dolphin (which isn't incorrect), many more would say that the country's national bird — a mythical bird, at that — is the true national animal with the dolphin taking second fiddle. Mythical or not, both dolphin and phoenix are awesome creatures with roots in ancient Greek mythology. (Here's hoping that some of that rebirth-y phoenix mojo rubs off on modern-day Greece and as it continues to rise from the financial ashes.)
And Greece isn't the only country with a mythical national bird. Turul, a massive falcon that serves as divine messenger, has long served as a potent symbol of the Hungarian people. And in Portugal, the Rooster of Barcelos is the country's top emblematic chicken, its colorful likeness displayed front and center at touristy gift shops nationwide.
9. Chollima (North Korea)
Chollima, a winged horse from Chinese myth, makes of an imposing statue in the Pyongyang skyline. (Photo: Nicor/Wikimedia Commons)
Aside from the wide empty streets, socialist realist propaganda posters and the ghostly glass-and-concrete pyramid that positively soars into the sky, one of the first things that the limited number of Western visitors permitted to step foot in the Pyongyang, capital of the self-isolated hermit kingdom of North Korea, probably notice is the massive statue of a winged horse.
Said winged horse in none other than Chollima, a mythical creature of Chinese origin — a kind of hard-line communist take on Pegasus, if you will — that came to symbolize plans for swift postwar economic development introduced by Kim Il-Sung in the late 1950s. "Let us dash forward in the spirit of Collima!" was the reconstruction campaign's slogan. Decades later, Chollima remains an important — and rather ubiquitous — icon of North Korea. Perched atop Mansu Hill, the Chollima Statue at 150-feet-tall, is among the most imposing monuments in a city filled with imposing monuments. It's also usually appears on the tightly regulated itineraries of tourists.
10. The hedgehog, rabbit and wood mouse (Monaco)
Monaco wouldn't settle for just one national animal, so it picked three: a hedgehog, a rabbit and a wood mouse. (Photo: Claus Rebler; Mathias Appel; jans canon/flickr)
Oh, Monaco. Sweet, innocent, super-rich Monaco.
In a bitsy, billionaire-filled European principality best known for a beloved storybook princess named Grace, it only makes sense that the three national animals are the type of harmless, cute-as-a-button woodland critters that you might find singing to Snow White: a hedgehog, rabbit and wood mouse. Carved into the Mediterranean coastline on the French Riviera, this sun-drenched microstate-cum-jet-set playground famed for its glitzy gambling establishments and Grand Prix, has no distinctive fauna to call its own, which is why it would seem that they just went with the obvious and the inoffensive. Hey, it's better than Marcel, the baccarat-playing mole. The national animals of other European microstates, the Pyrenean chamois (Andorra) and the Pharaoh hound (Malta) included, are certainly no match against the menacing menagerie of Monaco.
10 national animals that are rare, unusual, endangered or completely nonexistent
Many countries have national animals that are endangered, a little weird or don't even actually exist. |
You’d have to be living under a rock to miss the active and accelerating Western elite propaganda campaign to promote miscegenation, particularly of the White woman-black man variety. So the question becomes, why are the elite doing this?
A Twatterer (@JamesGaius) gets to one of the prime motivations, in my opinion:
Perhaps that is why (((they))) promote miscegenation. Produces more rootless people who don’t understand populism.
The elite fear populist revolts, as they should, and they intuitively know that populism is racial identity by another name, so in their globalist whore minds it makes sense to decouple their current nation of residence from its racial roots. Miscegenation is a permanent and devastatingly complete decoupling, forever severing the race ties that emotionally bind a people to their land. In this way they hope the resulting mulatto mudslide (which they will not allow to pollute their own families, of course) will bury any idyllic sentiment for heritage America, ushering in a glorious epoch of transnational progressivism managed by a hyperwealthy technocratic asborger consortium selling low quality baubles and “upgrades” to a mass of deracinated morons unable to mount effective countermeasures to preserve an Historic America culture that is now more foreign to them than the farthest-flung corners of the earth.
Other, mutually reinforcing motivations for elite (and sub-elite) promotion of mongrelization:
virtue signaling for upper middle class peer approval
backwards rationalization to accommodate a family member who has miscegenated
suppression of natural feelings of disgust toward miscegenation
moral posturing by comfortably untested Christians eager to prove their godliness
necessity driven by sexual choices
ego assuaging driven by the past sexual choices of one’s current lover
hostile outsider subversion cultivated by historical grievance toward the majority native stock
feels good man
The elite promotion of miscegenation has had mixed results; succeeding in ostracizing opponents and creating a social expectation of full-throated approval, but failing (until recently) to significantly change what really matters: mate choice in the free and liberated sexual market.
The social expectation pro-miscegenation successes of the elite War Against Nationhood are seen in late stage America surveys showing consistent and high White support for homophilia and miscegenation. But these public surveys are like negatives of people’s true feelings. A public poll inquiring for opinions on what is essentially one’s social status in the modern sexual market is likely to produce the opposite of privately-held truths and behavior. In reality, every parent secretly fears their kid turning gay or marrying out of the race. Even the shitlib parents fear it, (though they would never admit it to anyone, including themselves, but they will feel a limbic eddy of revulsion just the same).
In contrast, the mate market failures of the elite miscegenation project are evident in the historically very low rates of interracial dating and intermarriage, especially between Whites and blacks. The heart and the loins are not easily moved to desire what they don’t.
HOWEVER, there is Census Bureau data that proves the aggressive, malevolent, and unrelenting elite promotion of miscegenation (primarily via TV, movies, advertising, and mass importation of nonwhite migrants altering the demographic equation) is beginning to have its intended effect on the real world, practical romantic choices of Whites. In 1980, the share of intermarriages from the total married population was 3.2%. In 2010 it hit an all-time high of 8.4%.
Despite the interracial dating and marrying trends, the raw numbers for White race preservationists still look manageable. In 2010, only 9% of American Whites outmarried to a nonWhite, the lowest intermarriage rate of all racial groups in the US, (keep in the dankest part of your mind, this says nothing about interracial patterns of premarital fucking). However, the trends are unmistakable, and intermarriage is rising relatively quickly for all races in America, including Whites for whom their share of newlywed intermarried couples rose from 8.9% in 2008 to 9.4% in 2010.
My thinking is that a large nation can tolerate some crossing of the jizz streams at the margins of society. What it can’t tolerate is a full-scale, weaponized, anti-White, pro-miscegenation propaganda assault that year by year carves out a higher share of Narrative-duped Whites willing to commit the ultimate disloyalty of abruptly ending their genetic, cultural and aesthetic lineage. Perhaps love can conquer all….or, more likely, a politicized love can temporarily soothe the misgivings and percolating regrets that inevitably follow in the wake of racial seppuku. |
At the start of April, we learned some really interesting news with regard to the San Jose Earthquakes — and Major League Soccer sports team out of California.
The news was that them team would “soon” be accepting bitcoin for everything from team merchandise to game tickets.
The day has come.
The team today announced that they are the first professional sports team to accept bitcoin payments at the Buck Shaw Stadium where the Houston Dynamo will be hosted on Sunday, the 25th of May.
This will mean that sports fans can purchase tickets, merchandise, and yes, even concessions at the 10,000-seat venue located at Santa Clara University.
“In the spirit of Silicon Valley, the Earthquakes are constantly looking for ways to innovate,” said Quakes club president Dave Kaval. “Coinbase’s bitcoin payment processor adds another cutting edge payment option that further streamlines the commerce experience for fans.”
Each point of sale (the ticket gate, merchandise store, and concession stand) will be equipped with a tablet running the Coinbase Merchant application. Bitcoin users can then pay for their items using the wallet of their choice.
And while the Earthquakes may have made history in becoming the first professional team to accept the emerging digital currency in-stadium, they aren’t the first to accept bitcoin.
That title goes to the Sacramento Kings, a NBA team that announced their support for bitcoin payments in January.
Could even more professional sports teams follow suit? Time will tell. |
This armorial, or gallery of coats of arms, shows heraldry employed by institutions of the European Union, as well as heraldry used by private and intergovernmental entities that are referred to as European.
Security and defence policy [ edit ]
Structure [ edit ]
Military Staff
Military Committee
Chairman of the Military Committee
Security and Defence College
Multinational forces [ edit ]
Union level [ edit ]
Nordic Battlegroup
"Ad omnia paratus"
Balkan Battlegroup
Hispano-Italian Battlegroup
Provided through Article 42.3 TEU [ edit ]
Gendarmerie Force
"Lex paciferat"
Corps
Maritime Force
"At Sea for Peace"
Rapid Operational Force (former)
Air Transport Command
"Integrated, Innovative, Effective"
Other 'European' defence cooperations [ edit ]
Finabel
"Reflexion serving military action"
Air Group
Movement Coordination Centre
Personnel Recovery Centre
"That others may live"
Police [ edit ]
Police Office
Cybercrime Centre
Academia [ edit ]
Academy of Sciences and Arts
Member states [ edit ]
National arms [ edit ]
Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Croatia
Cyprus
Czechia
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom
Arms of capital cities [ edit ] |
Download
Newest official build of the game. See changelog here: Nitronic Rush Update #5.
The initial release of Update #5 included an old version of Fzeroman’s CRUIS’N EGYPT level. This version (v.2012.12.21.2) includes the latest version!
If you have the previous version of Nitronic Rush installed (v.2012.06.19), use this small 2.2MB patch to install the latest update.
[ ! ] We’re getting reports that a small number of people are having performance problems after installing the patch. If you run into similar problems simply uninstall the game and reinstall it using the above installer.
Recommended System Specifications:
Windows 7 / Vista / XP
Xbox 360 Controller
High quality headphones/speakers
Medium to high end DirectX 9.0c compatible NVIDIA or ATI graphics card with at least 512MB of RAM
Dual core processor (Intel Core 2 Duo)
2GB RAM
1GB Hard Drive Space
*After playing the game, if you have any feedback please visit the our online feedback form to let us know that you think. |
The city of Franklin, Ohio, is set to remove and relocate a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in the wake of violence over the weekend in Charlottesville, Va., at a white supremacist rally.
According to a report by local news outlet Cincinnati.com, the statue is expected to be removed from its current spot on a right-of-way to a new location.
The decision has been cited as a "public safety hazard," but it comes in the light of protests over Confederate statues and monuments.
Franklin's acting city manager, Jonathan Westendorf, said in a statement the statue would be returned to Franklin Township in order to "avoid the creation of a public safety hazard" because the statue was sitting on a right-of-way on the Dixie Highway.
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"It's never been a problem in the past," Vice Mayor Carl Bray said, according to the news site. "I think we should leave it up."
The statue was reportedly built in the 1920s and has been a part of the community "without interruption," according to Franklin Township Administrator Traci Stivers.
Baltimore removed all four of its Confederate statues on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, while members of the Congressional Black Caucus renewed their calls to remove statues of Confederates from the Capitol.
Protesters also toppled a Confederate monument in Durham, N.C., on Monday.
President Trump addressed the issue during a press conference on Tuesday, in which he appeared to conflate former President George Washington with Lee.
“They were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” the president said, referring to the protest in Charlottesville, which was organized by white supremacists.
“This week it's Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?” he continued. |
According to corsica.hockey, of the 54 goaltenders who have logged at least 50 minutes in NHL games in the first month of the season, Bobrovsky ranks 12 th in 5v5 save percentage (93.92%) and ninth in save percentage in all situations (95.76%), all while facing the third most shot attempts against (432 in all situations).
"We know what Bob's going to bring us every night. He's been unbelievable," Sam Gagner said after the team's 4-0 win over Anaheim. "That gives us confidence in front of him to just go play our game."
Sergei Bobrovsky has been good enough during this initial stretch that it might just make you want to hug him.
To look at this another way, we can examine Bobrovsky's "Goals Saved Above Average" (GSAA); the focus of this measure is to look at how many more (or fewer) goals a goaltender saves compared to league average while factoring in the "danger zone" from where a shot attempt came.
Again according to Corsica.hockey, Bobrovsky ranks third among all goaltenders in 5v5 GSAA (5.02) and first in all situations' GSAA (7.79).
Bobrovsky has been a big part of the Blue Jackets' sixth-ranked penalty killing unit, too. Of the 16 goaltenders playing 30 minutes or more shorthanded, his save percentage is third-best (94.87%) and a second-best GSAA of 2.68.
The impact of this kind of a performance has not been lost on John Tortorella. The Blue Jackets' head coach was quick to praise his netminder as the team's week-long road trip reached its conclusion in Anaheim.
That game marked Bobrovsky's second shutout of the season and 14th of his career.
"(Bobrovsky's) been solid right on through," Tortorella said. "That's what we talked about in the third period, let's play for him a little bit here and try to help because he's bailed us out along the way."
Bailed out indeed. According to NHL.com, the Blue Jackets had a +1 goal differential putting them at seventh-best in the league headed into Saturday's games, despite only 18 goals for (24th).
This consistent high level of play is why Tortorella has turned to his No. 1 goaltender for all seven of the Blue Jackets' games so far.
But Bobrovsky, who says he remains focused on the moment while in net, is quick to remind anyone who asks that it isn't him alone on the ice. The season is young and 75 games await.
"I'm part of the team, and we go out in a game (together)," Bobrovsky said. "We all work hard together, we'll lose together, we'll win together and that's the thing."
All data from Corsica.hockey and current through Oct. 28 games played. |
6 years ago
(CNN) - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's re-election campaign is "working with the FBI" on how Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, obtained a recording of political aides meeting with McConnell and discussing opposition research on Ashley Judd, McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton told CNN Tuesday.
In the recordings, political operatives huddling at the senator's campaign headquarters in Kentucky, are heard discussing potentially attacking Judd's mental health, as well as her left-leaning politics, if she had decided to make a bid against McConnell, who's running for a sixth term in office next year.
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"Obviously a recording device of some kind was placed in Senator McConnell's campaign office without consent. By whom and how that was accomplished will presumably be the subject of a criminal investigation," Benton said in a statement.
"We've always said the Left will stop at nothing to attack Sen. McConnell, but Watergate-style tactics to bug campaign headquarters is above and beyond," Benton also said.
FBI spokesman Paul Bresson confirmed the investigation.
“We can confirm that Sen. McConnell’s office reported it and we are looking into the matter," Bresson said.
Judd mulled a decision to jump into the race but announced late last month she would not pursue a Senate bid "at this time," deciding to focus on her family instead.
It's common for political campaigns to plot their offensives, and the secretly-recorded audio of the February meeting gives a glimpse of how McConnell's campaign might have pursued their attack strategy if Judd became a candidate.
"She's clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced," one staff member said in the tape. Mother Jones did not disclose exactly how it obtained the audio. "I mean it's been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she's suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s."
Judd has been public about her struggles and tension within her family, which includes her country legend mom, Naomi Judd, and her sister, Wynonna. She has openly described herself as a three-time survivor of rape and wrote in her autobiography about her troubled past growing up around drugs, alcohol and divorce.
Her website talks about her 2006 decision to enter an "intensive in patient treatment program" at Shades of Hope, a rehabilitation center in Texas, for "unresolved childhood grief that manifest as depression and codependency."
Responding to the recent news, a spokesman for Judd described the meeting as "another example of the politics of personal destruction that embody Mitch McConnell and are pervasive in Washington DC."
"We expected nothing less from Mitch McConnell and his camp than to take a personal struggle such as depression, which many Americans cope with on a daily basis, and turn it into a laughing matter," the spokesman said in a statement.
At the McConnell meeting, staff members and advisers mocked some of Judd's previous writings and statements. While they touched on Judd's emotional history, the meeting mostly focused on her political views as their would-be ammunition. They highlighted her support and campaigning for President Barack Obama, as well as her support for same-sex marriage and cap-and-trade policies. In the meeting, they described her as "anti-coal," which would be a big liability for Judd in coal country.
Asked about the story on Capitol Hill Tuesday, McConnell repeatedly pointed to attacks on his wife's ethnicity in February by a liberal group, Progress Kentucky. The group apologized for the comments.
"As you know last month my wife's ethnicity was attacked by a left wing group in KY, then apparently they also bugged my HQ. I think that pretty well sums up the political left in Kentucky," McConnell said, though it was not clear if he was specifically blaming Progress Kentucky for the secret recordings. He also described it as a "Nixonian move."
McConnell declined to comment on the strategy session when pressed further by reporters.
David Corn, the author of the Mother Jones piece, wrote the tape was provided by a source who wished to remain anonymous.
"We were not involved in the making of the tape, but we published a story on the tape due to its obvious newsworthiness. It is our understanding that the tape was not the product of a Watergate-style bugging operation," he wrote in an update at the end of the story.
Meanwhile, Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Dan Logsdon denied any association with the recordings.
"I certainly do not know anything about how this may have happened. However, it's clear that this is the McConnell we all know - leading a negative, nasty campaign determined to lash out at his opponents since he doesn't have any accomplishments to point to," he said in a statement.
Benton, McConnell's campaign manager, insisted the recording was not leaked and noted the meeting was held "in a very private, closed, locked conference room."
The campaign office is located in a Louisville office building in a private suite on the second floor, according to Benton.
McConnell was meeting with a half-dozen, long-time McConnell aides.
"These are people who have been with McConnell for years," Benton said. ""This was like a family meeting."
The team did not find out about the existence of the tape until it was reported in the media.
According to the audio, McConnell largely stayed quiet during the meeting but opened up at the beginning, saying it's best to get a head start on the opposition research.
"I assume most of you have played the, the game Whac-A-Mole?" (Laughter.) This is the Whac-A-Mole period of the campaign…when anybody sticks their head up, do them out," he said, adding they planned to take a similar approach with the local newspaper The Courier.
Evidence of the preemptive approach was a web video McConnell's campaign released in February, attacking Democrats for not yet fielding a candidate to challenge the Senate minority leader. The parody attempts to depict President Barack Obama as being frustrated with the potential crop of Democratic contenders in Kentucky, including Judd.
Judd also saw attacks from American Crossroads, the conservative super PAC co-founded by Karl Rove. The group spent $10,000 on a web ad earlier this week, lambasting Judd for her declared allegiance to Obama, and her love of Tennessee, the state neighboring Kentucky where she's lived for years.
"This is just a fun way to kind of get under her skin a little bit and kind of show her what a campaign would really be like if she makes this decision," Jonathan Collegio, the communications director for American Crossroads, told CNN at the time.
- CNN's Carol Cratty contributed to this report. |
By Maria Tsvetkova MOSCOW (Reuters) - Two ancient monuments in the Syrian city of Palmyra were so badly damaged by Islamic State that they can only be rebuilt using substantially new materials, Russian officials said on Thursday. If that were to happen, many historians would view the monuments as mere replicas, shorn of the ancient heritage of the original structures. Recommended Slideshows 4 Pictures PHOTOS: Singapore's treasures star in NY Botanical Garden's 2019 Orchid Show 4 Pictures 36 Pictures Oscars 2019: Red carpet looks and full list of winners 36 Pictures 36 Pictures All of these celebrities have had their nudes leaked 36 Pictures More picture galleries 16 Pictures These photos of Trump and Ivanka will make you deeply uncomfortable 16 Pictures 4 Pictures Inside Brooklyn's Teknopolis is tech that makes us more human 4 Pictures 4 Pictures Inside The Strand's Fight Against Being Named a New York City Landmark 4 Pictures Experts from Russia's Culture Ministry have assessed the damage in Palmyra after the UNESCO world heritage site was recaptured from Islamic State in March. Retaking Palmyra was the first significant victory over Islamic State by Syrian forces with support from the Russian military. It was celebrated with a concert by Russian musicians in Palmyra's ancient amphitheatre a month after the battle. One of the symbols of Palmyra, the Greco-Roman Temple of Bel, founded in the first century, "can be hardly restored", the Russian experts said in a report presented on Thursday. "A recreation of the monument can only be made by its reconstruction using designs and photographs after preliminary clearing of the building's ground," the report said. Related Articles RuPaul, unfiltered Omar Sy: The 'Intouchable' man Omar Sy: An unlikely friendship This will require at least 3-4 years and "significant financing", the experts added, estimating that the rebuilding of another key monument, the Arch of Triumph, would be possible within 9-12 months. "After the re-creation of the monument it will 60-70 percent consist of new materials," the report said about the arch, whose vaults it said were "fully destroyed" by an explosion. Some original fragments of the nearly 2,000-year-old Temple of Baalshamin could be restored in 2-3 months, they said. A decision on which works will be rebuilt has not been made yet, Russian Deputy Culture Minister Vladimir Aristarkhov told a news conference also attended by the Syrian ambassador to Moscow. Aristarkhov called on other countries, including ones in the West opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, to take part in discussions on the restoring the ruins in Palmyra, including how such work would be funded. (Editing by Alexander Winning and Robin Pomeroy) |
SCOTLAND'S renewable electricity output was at record levels in the first three months of the year, leaving the country still on target to meet interim targets in efforts to be reliant on green energy.
A record 6,678 GWh of renewable electricity was generated by various schemes, an increase of more than 50 per cent from the same quarter in 2013, and 10.4 per cent higher than the previous record. It is primarily due to a record quarter of hydro output.
This is 9.2 per cent higher than the previous record quarter at the end of 2011. Wind generation is four per cent higher than at the end of 2013.
Green energy met a record breaking 46.5 per cent of gross electricity consumption last year, with the new figures confirming the pro-gress as it aims to meet 2015's interim target of being 50 per cent reliant on renewables.
Joss Blamire, senior policy manager at Scottish Renewables, said: "It is a very encouraging start to the year for renewables, and the figures also confirm the record amount of output we had in 2013. Renewables are now well on track to become Scotland's number one source of electricity."
Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said: "Last year was a record year for renewables generation in Scotland, but the initial figures for 2014 show that renewables generation continues to go from strength to strength, with the figures for the first quarter of 2014 setting a new record for renewables generation in Scotland.
Meanwhile Mr Ewing and his Westminster counterpart Ed Davey chaired the Scottish Island Renewables Delivery Forum in Glasgow yesterday.
Key decision-makers from industry and the public sector met to agree a timetable of practical actions to connect islands to the mainland transmission grid.
Highlands and Islands SNP MSP Mike MacKenzie said the talks had been positive and he was "optimistic that we will see further progress soon." |
That says 'Biang!'
That Xi’an Famous Foods sit-down restaurant we told you about is set to debut to the world on Sunday. It’s called Biang!, which manager Jason Wang tells us via e-mail is “an onomatopoeia for the sound of the noodle when it’s being pulled and whacked against a work surface. It’s a local dialect of Xi’an and Shaanxi province.”
A peek at the menu shows that many of Xi’an Famous Foods’s noodle dishes will be served (liang pi, cumin lamb), but there’s tons of new stuff too. Dishes making their debut include several salads, skewers of beef stomach or wheat gluten, a buckwheat pudding with spicy dipping sauce, and cubes of pig’s blood in a garlic-chile-vinegar sauce. So some new flavors for Western palates! If you want to see how all this tastes, the restaurant is giving half off meals on Sunday to anyone who RSVPs via Facebook then shows up and fills out a survey. Sign up for that here, and see the menu below.
Menu
Biang!, 41-10 Main St., nr. 41st Ave., Flushing |
A Toronto math tutor and his fiancée were arrested Tuesday in connection with a case of gang sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl last year. According to a released statement, the couple allegedly sexually assaulted the girl in the summer of 2014 at their North York home.
Kevin Chan, 32, and Kayla Drumonde, 23, are accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. ( Toronto Police )
The man, a math tutor affiliated with seven Toronto-area public and private schools, had previously taught the victim for a number of years at a private tutoring company. His fiancée also volunteered at the same location. The couple eventually befriended the girl and invited her over to their Lawrence Ave E. and The Donway East home several times leading up to the incident. Kevin Chan, 32, and Kayla Drumonde, 23, have each been charged with one count of gang sexual assault and one count of sexual interference.
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Police believe that there may be other victims because of the suspects’ connection with other schools. Chan has been affiliated with the following schools: Dr. Norman Bethune Collegiate from September 2000 to June 2001
Avondale Public School from September 2005 to November 2007
Willowdale Middle School from September 2008 to March 2009
Flemington Public School from March 2009 to June 2009
Light in the Attic Learning in 2011
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Spirit of Math in Markham and Toronto from September 2011 to August 2014
Mathnasium of Don Mills from November 2014 to present Anyone with information is asked to call police at 416-808-7474, or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-8477 (TIPS). |
Abdul Sattar Edhi runs a sprawling health charity from a Karachi slum, but that doesn’t stop the religious right condemning him for not saying his prayers
Even in Pakistan a cheap sofa covered with brown plastic is not most people’s idea of throw-restraint-to-the-wind luxury.
But Abdul Sattar Edhi, a legendary charity worker known for his asceticism, is still getting used to the two-seater that recently replaced the hard bench he sat on for decades in the corner of his office.
“I didn’t ask for it, it was given to me by my daughter,” he says. “I like simplicity, but I didn’t get angry with her.”
The dowdy piece of furniture does nothing to undermine the uncompromising frugality of the office of a man proud to own just two sets of salwar kameez, an everyday outfit in Pakistan.
The tiny room is accessed directly off an alley in a Karachi slum and has space for only a few desks for the handful of people who manage a sprawling, countrywide charity empire of more than 1,200 ambulances, hundreds of medical centres, graveyards and an adoption service for abandoned children.
Established in 1957 when Edhi took it upon himself to set up a tent hospital to look after the victims of a flu outbreak, it went on to become Pakistan’s most impressive social enterprise.
Its minivan ambulances are a common sight across Pakistan, particularly in the aftermath of all-too-frequent terrorist bombings.
Anyone can walk in off the street and pay their respects to one of the country’s most recognisable personalities, the frail old man with a long beard and cap who many Pakistanis argue should have received a Nobel prize years ago for his work.
Emergency callers can end up speaking to Edhi himself if he happens to pick up the phone. He rarely strays far, given that his bed occupies an even more humble back room behind his office.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest An Edhi Foundation ambulance outside the Edhi Free Kitchen. Photograph: Majority World/Getty Images
And yet not everyone likes and respects this saintly figure, who reckons he is about 90 years old.
In October last year eight men barged into the Edhi headquarters and smashed their way into a bank of strongboxes just a few feet away from where Edhi himself was dozing in his hospital-style bed.
One of the robbers kept a gun trained on a social worker, even though the frail man was no threat, as they proceeded to steal valuables held as a service for people unable or unwilling to use a bank account.
The more than £400,000 of cash was swiftly replaced by donations that poured in from a horrified public, although Edhi turned down a large gift from a man he dismissed as a “capitalist” and “big robber”.
The theft was a shocking moment for an organisation that is facing growing competition from Pakistan’s militant, religious right.
What we are doing should be done by the government and should be appreciated, but instead we are blamed
In January Hafiz Saeed, a cleric wanted by India for his alleged masterminding of the 2011 terrorist attack on Mumbai, announced his Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) was establishing a bridgehead in Karachi for the first time with a fleet of 15 ambulances.
FIF is the charity wing of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the parent body of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, regarded by some experts as one of south Asia’s most dangerous terrorist groups.
Unlike Edhi, Saeed uses the platform of his fast-growing charitable works to call for jihad against India and to create a parallel state that makes a point of being first on the scene when disasters strike.
Edhi says he is not worried, pointing out he has a 60-year head start on Saeed: “If he wants to become Edhi in two years, how is that possible?”
But he is hurt at his treatment by some of the country’s mullahs, who are jealous of his fundraising power and suspicious of his lack of sectarian or ethnic bias in attending to the people who turn to him for help.
“They call him an infidel saying that he does not say his prayers,” says his wife Bilquis, who, with her children, helps run the foundation. “What we are doing should be done by the government and should be appreciated, but instead we are blamed.”
The foundation has lost much of the annual charity it once scooped up during Eid al-Adha, when families would donate the skins of animals sacrificed on the day, which could then be sold for cash.
Armed robbers raid Karachi home of revered social entrepreneur Read more
As well as hardline Islamist groups, the foundation has lost out to the strong-arm tactics of what Edhi calls an “ethnic organisation”, a reference to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the dominant political party in the ethnically divided port city.
“There is more hostility towards us from the religious and political groups,” his wife complains. “Our strong cupboards used to be full – nobody would steal from us.”
But Edhi says he is unfussed by aggressive political parties or the mullahs’ claim that he is an atheist who will not be allowed into heaven.
“I will not go to paradise where these type of people go,” he smiles. “I will go to heaven where the poor and miserable people live.” |
In the hours after the announcement of the grand jury decision, a protester in Ferguson stands with his hands on his head as a cloud of smoke approaches. (Reuters)
The Michael Brown grand jury has spoken, declining to return charges against Officer Darren Wilson. The evidence that the grand jury reviewed has made available to the public and can be found here. Since I haven’t yet had an opportunity to review the voluminous testimony, in this post I discuss not substance, but procedure. Contrary to the complaints of some critics, the grand jury process was clearly fair.
Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch described the process that he used. The grand jury was one that a judge had previously selected, well before the shooting occurred. After the shooting, the grand jurors were asked to extend their service to hear the evidence. Prosecutors then called before the grand jury everyone they could that had evidence relevant to the case. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch summarized the process neatly:
The jurors — seven men, five women; nine whites, three blacks — did a job they couldn’t have dreamed they’d be doing in May, a job that none of them signed up for. They listened to two assistant prosecutors present physical evidence gathered by police investigators. They listened to Officer Wilson’s account of what happened. They listened to some 60 witnesses. They were instructed in what Missouri law says about what’s needed to bring various categories of homicide charges against a cop.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch announced on Monday the grand jury's decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting 18-year-old Michael Brown. (AP)
After this process, the grand jury decided not to return an indictment. Obviously not everyone agrees with the substance of the decision. But let’s consider the objections to the process. None of them hold water.
1. Using a Grand Jury Deviated from Normal Process.
A day before the grand jury’s decision was announced, Michael Brown’s family attorney raised the objection that the grand jury process was unfair because it was deviation from the normal process. “When you think about it, if this prosecutor is saying we’re just going to be fair, we’re not going to recommend any charges, that’s different from anything he’s done in his past 28 years with grand juries,” attorney Benjamin Crump argued. It turns out that at least part of this claim is untrue: McCulloch presented to the grand jury the full range of charges, from first degree murder to involuntary manslaughter. The only difference from normal process was, apparently, that the prosecutor did not make any particular recommendation — leaving the issue up to the grand jurors. But it is hard to understand how this had any ultimate bearing on the outcome. Of course, if McCulloch’s recommendation was against filing charges, then he would never have gone to the grand jury in a normal case. And if his recommendation was filing charges, then in the normal course a grand jury (or judge) would have had to review the evidence and would have been thrown out the indictment at the point.
2. The Grand Jury Took Too Long.
Remarkably some critics have said that the grand jury took too long to reach its decision. For example, several days before the announcement, the Rev. Al Sharpton said “[t]here’s no reason the grand jury should be taking this long. It is very suspect to us that the grand jur[y] . . . appear[s] to be improperly expanded to where it is about to prove or disprove the accused rather than seeing if there is probable cause to go to trial. That is not proper use of the grand jury.”
It’s hard to take this objection seriously. Obviously to review the number of witnesses that the grand jury did required considerable time. One can only imagine what critics might have said if the grand jury had made a decision more rapidly — without hearing all the evidence. Moreover, it is interesting that those (like Rev. Sharpton) who criticize the state process for taking too long have not also criticized the parallel federal investigation for taking too long.
3. The Grand Jury Got Too Much Evidence.
Perhaps the most remarkably criticism that has been made about the process is that the grand jury got too much evidence. Raul Reyes in an op-ed on the CNN’s website writes: “By dumping so much evidence on the grand jury, McCulloch may have overwhelmed them and led them to the wrong conclusion. In the process, he’s opened himself to charges that he was acting to protect Wilson.” File this criticism under the heading that no good deed goes unpunished. It takes a strength of the process — that the grand jury got all relevant information — and tries to manufacture a weakness. Of course, criminal juries regularly evaluate lots of information in multi-week trials involving far more information than the grand jury had in this case.
4. The Grand Jury Operated in Secret.
Some critics have criticized the grand jury because it operated outside of public view. For example, Susan McGraugh, a supervisor of the Criminal Defense Clinic at the Saint Louis University School of Law, complained before the announcement that “[i]t’s really a secret process . . . . At a time when there’s a lot of discussion going on about whether or not police officers and the way they operate are transparent, it really lends itself to these allegations of conspiracy between the police department and the prosecutor.” But grand jury secrecy is a well-established part of the investigative process — and required by Missouri law — for obvious reasons. Operating in secret, a grand jury can collect evidence and test the memory of witnesses against that evidence. If the grand jury operated openly, then it would be easy for witnesses to tailor their testimony to what other witnesses had said, making it difficult to determine the truth. And to extent that the objection is that police and prosecutors might have “conspired” together, if anything the grand jury would have served as a check on that process. In this case, for example, the grand jurors apparently asked the prosecutors to bring witnesses and information before then. Here again, it is hard to take the objection seriously, particularly when (as discussed below) the information that the grand jury received has now all been made public.
5. The Grand Jury Was Exposed to Pressure.
Other critics have argued that the grand jury was exposed to pressure, because when it went home each night after hearing evidence, it was aware of community unrest and other extraneous factors that might have lead it to not indict. But, if anything, the easy course for the grand jurors to have taken would have been to return at least some charge against Officer Wilson, such as a split-the-difference charge like involuntary manslaughter. A grand jury verdict in the face of considerable political pressure to charge is a demonstration of a commitment to the rule of law — something to be celebrated rather than condemned.
6. The Grand Jury Did Something That Grand Juries Ordinarily Don’t Do.
Ben Caselman at The Huffington Post has an objection styled as a factoid that “it’s incredibly rare for a grand jury to do what Ferguson’s just did.” He reports that in 2010, federal prosecutors sought charges in 162,000 federal cases, and yet grand juries declined to return an indictment in only 11 of them. This point confuses apples with oranges. It take as the apples a pool of cases where federal prosecutors had already screened the evidence for probable cause (or, more likely, reasonable likelihood of success at trial — see the next point below). Hopefully, if federal prosecutors are doing their jobs well, the number of these cases in which probable cause does not exist should be something close to 0% — as Caselman reports is the case. But Caselman then compares these apples to the orange of this case — a situation where a grand jury is investigating with no assurance that any criminal conduct is present. Obviously an investigation into a possible crime is never a sure thing — particularly in the area of police shootings, where the law gives officers some leeway for making split second decisions. The difference in the outcome with the Michael Brown investigative grand jury from a routine federal prosecution is hardly surprising.
7. The Grand Jury Misunderstood the Standard of Proof.
Some critics have alleged that the grand jury misunderstood (or was misinformed) about the “probable cause” standard for returning an indictment. But this grand jury was one that had already evaluated many criminal cases and thus would have had significant experience in applying the probable cause standard. Moreover, the dubiousness about whether the relatively low standard of probable cause was met in this case casts serious doubt on the viability of prosecuting Darren Wilson at trial. Indeed, if probable cause is debatable, ordinarily prosecutors do not file charges — even if they believe they can meet that minimal standard. For example, the National District Attorney’s Association recommends, as part of its standards for responsible prosecution, that “[a] prosecutor should file charges that he or she believes adequately encompass the accused’s criminal activity and which he or she reasonably believes can be substantiated by admissible evidence at trial.” If the grand jury’s decision about probable cause was even a close call, charges would not ordinarily be filed — should not be filed.
8. Robert McCulloch was Biased and Should Have Recused Himself.
The ad hominem argument that Robert McCulloch should have recused himself has resurfaced in the wake of the grand jury’s decision. For example, Raul Reyes wrote on CNN’s website that “[f]or the sake of impartiality, McCulloch should have let a special prosecutor take over the case,” explaining that McCulloch’s father was a police officer who, long ago, was shot in a shootout. For this criticism to have any bite, it would be necessary to take the next step and show how an “unbiased” prosecutor would have done something differently than McCulloch — a fact that seems dubious given the extensive evidence that was presented to the grand jury. In any event, the recuse argument lacks merit, as I explained several months ago.
9. The Grand Jury Evidence Shouldn’t Be Released.
Releasing the evidence that the grand jury heard seems to be desirable, as it increases the transparency of the process. But some critics have said that this is unfair that the evidence was released in this case. To be sure, a public policy question lurks about whether it generally makes sense to release grand jury information to the public, as this may make potential witnesses less likely to come forward in future cases. But for this particular decision, it is hard to see how releasing information after the grand jury’s decision somehow casts doubt on what it did earlier. And contrary to some suggestions, release of grand jury information has precedent in St. Louis County, as (according to St. Louis public radio) “in the past, after [a] grand jury had made its decision, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch has sometimes released information about the proceedings . . . . McCulloch [previously] released grand jury materials in a decade-old case involving the police shooting of two men in a car at a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant in Berkeley.”
In short, it is hard to see any valid objection to the grand jury procedures followed in this case. But there remains the important substantive question: Did the grand jury get it right — that is, was there insufficient evidence to indict? A fair answer to that question can only come from reading the testimony of 60 witnesses, something that critics of the grand jury’s decision have obviously not yet bothered to do. Yesterday I wondered whether the facts before the grand jury really mattered to some of the more vocal supporters of Michael Brown. Today I think it is becoming increasing clear that they don’t. For too many people, the issue of whether to indict Officer Darren Wilson was never about the process employed or the evidence collected. But fortunately, the prosecutors and the grand jury took a different tack. |
Kris Bryant hit two more home runs yesterday for the Chicago Cubs during the Will Ferrell extravaganza. He stands tall among prospects, ranking number one according to Kiley McDaniel. The FanGraphs Depth Charts have given him a conservative 100 games played, and he still manages to top 3 WAR. The ZiPS projections give him closer to a full season, and he tops four wins despite never having taken an at bat at the major league level. He is not even on the Cubs’ 40-man roster. Despite that inexperience, he is going to make the Cubs look very bad for sending him to the minor leagues to start the season. It brings back memories of the Los Angeles Angels in 2012 holding back Mike Trout in the minors to start the season, but Kris Bryant’s situation is very different from Mike Trout’s.
In 2012, Mike Trout, like Bryant today, was one of the very best prospects in all of baseball and likely ready to play in the majors, but the Angels sent him to Triple-A to start the season. The Angels started the season 6-14, recalled Trout from Salt Lake, went 83-59 the rest of the way, and missed the playoffs by four games. Looking back at Trout’s excellence now, it might be easy to draw the conclusion that the Angels likely make the playoffs with Trout for the entire season and that the Angels were manipulating Trout’s service time to save money. The former is impossible to determine, but the latter is highly unlikely.
Mike Trout did not begin his MLB career in April 2012. He was first called up in a forgettable 2011 where he hit .220/.281/.390 in 40 games and accumulated under 100 days of service time. At the beginning of 2012, the only way for the Angels to manipulate Trout’s service time was to keep him in the minors until nearly the All-Star break. The Angels’ decision might have been partly financial, in that they poorly evaluated the sunk cost of Bobby Abreu, but keeping Trout in the minors for 20 games gained the Angels nothing in terms of free agent years or arbitration status as far as Trout was concerned.
Kris Bryant is in a different situation. He has no MLB service time. As the FanGraphs glossary explains, the Cubs have a very easy way to get an extra year of service from Bryant before he can hit free agency.
A year of service time is equal to 172 days, and there are normally around 183 total days in the major league calendar. This means that if a team wants to keep a prospect from accruing a full year of service time, they simply need to leave that player in the minors for around 15-20 days out of the entire season.
If Bryant were to make the Opening Day roster or be called up within the first ten days of the season, he would have one full year of service time at the end of the season if he stayed up with the Cubs all year. This would set him up to be a free agent as a 28-year-old after the 2020 season. If the Cubs wait just a couple weeks, Bryant would likely receive four years of arbitration money as a Super-2 as opposed to the normal three, but the Cubs would retain his services for Bryant’s Age-29 season and delay free agency by an entire year. It is a somewhat cruel business decision transferring wealth from Bryant to the Cubs, but it is a decision the Cubs would be foolish not to make.
Bryant is not currently on the 40-man roster which allows the Cubs to call him up to Chicago slightly earlier than some other prospects. Players on the 40-man are technically sent down from the big league club at the start of the season. For a player on the 40-man, if the time a player is sent down amounts to less than 20 days, then those 20 days count as MLB service time. That provision helps players by preventing a team from manipulating service time such that a team could just send a player down to the minors for a few days.
The 20-day provision means that any player already on the 40-man roster must stay in the minor leagues for at least 20 days after the start of the season. Bryant has no such restrictions, meaning the Cubs could call him up April 18th, have him miss just ten games and then retain his services for an extra year. While the Cubs could contend for the playoffs this season and a full season of Bryant would likely help them in that regard, trying to project the difference between Bryant and Mike Olt or Tommy La Stella over 6% of the season yields very little.
The other option for the Cubs and Bryant is to agree to a contract extension. A contract would likely cover 2015-2021, the seven seasons the Cubs could have control over Bryant by keeping him in the minors for ten days. Jonathan Singleton signed a deal like that last year with Astros in June and he was immediately called up, avoiding any potential super-2 difficulties. Singleton’s teammate George Springer and the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Gregory Polanco discussed similar deals with their teams guaranteeing roughly $25 million, and included options for future seasons.
There are several problems with the Cubs reaching an agreement with Kris Bryant. First, Bryant’s agent is Scott Boras, who tends to encourage his clients to get to free agency as soon as possible, making a contract with options unlikely. The second reason might be even more important for Bryant. The financial stability that a long-term guarantee can provide can be a great reason to sign a contract. When Singleton was drafted, his signing bonus was just $200,000. The $10 million guarantee gave him great financial stability given an uncertain future. Kris Bryant does not need that kind of stability. Just 20 months ago, Bryant received a $6.7 million signing bonus after he was drafted. Bryant already has the financial stability that Singleton sought. Even with his extension it will take Singleton until 2017 to surpass Bryant’s signing bonus in earnings.
In order to avoid the headache associated with sending Bryant to the minors for a couple weeks, the Cubs would likely have to double the guaranteed money discussed with Springer and Polanco to get Bryant to sign. It is unclear even then if Bryant would sign a deal, and highly unlikely that the Cubs would commit that much money given Bryant’s bright, but uncertain future.
If the Cubs were to try to hold Bryant back until June to delay his arbitration, then it would be fair to call the franchise cheap. Getting an extra year of service time looks like a financial decision, but it is also a baseball decision. The Cubs are trading ten games in 2015 for a full season in 2021. The Cubs are going to look bad when they do not open the season with Bryant in the lineup. He is ready to help the Cubs now, and any reasoning the Cubs provide is just an excuse for the obvious. The Cubs want the extra year, and the way the system is set up, they are going to get it. For the Cubs fans in Des Moines, it might be best to circle April 17th on the calendar. That might be the only home game the Iowa Cubs get with Bryant in uniform. The rest of baseball can look to the 18th. |
Download FISCAL FACT No. 491: Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2015 Update (PDF)Download Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2015 Update (EXCEL)The Internal Revenue Service has recently released new data on individual income taxes for calendar year 2013, showing the number of taxpayers, adjusted gross income, and income tax shares by income percentiles.[1] The data demonstrates that the U.S. individual income tax continues to be progressive, borne mainly by the highest income earners.
Key Findings
In 2013, 138.3 million taxpayers reported earning $9.03 trillion in adjusted gross income and paid $1.23 trillion in income taxes.
Every income group besides the top 1 percent of taxpayers reported higher income in 2013 than the previous year. All income groups paid higher taxes in 2013 than the previous year.
The share of income earned by the top 1 percent of taxpayers fell to 19.0 percent in 2013. Their share of federal income taxes fell slightly to 37.8 percent.
In 2012, the top 50 percent of all taxpayers (69.2 million filers) paid 97.2 percent of all income taxes while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.8 percent.
The top 1 percent (1.3 million filers) paid a greater share of income taxes (37.8 percent) than the bottom 90 percent (124.5 million filers) combined (30.2 percent).
The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a higher effective income tax rate than any other group, at 27.1 percent, which is over 8 times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.3 percent).
Reported Income Decreased in 2013, but Taxes Increase
Taxpayers reported $9.03 trillion in adjusted gross income (AGI) on 138.3 million tax returns in 2013. While the U.S. economy grew in 2013, total AGI fell by $8 billion from 2012 levels. Furthermore, there were 2.2 million more returns filed in 2013 than 2012, meaning that average AGI fell by $1,131 per return. The most likely explanation behind lower AGI in 2013 is unusually high capital gains realizations in 2012.[2] Because the top tax rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends was set to rise from 15 percent to 23.8 percent in 2013, many high-income Americans realized their capital gains in 2012, to take advantage of low tax rates. As capital gains realizations fell to normal levels in 2013, overall AGI decreased. Accordingly, only the top 1 percent of taxpayers saw a decrease in income in 2013; all other groups saw their income increase. Despite the decrease in overall income reported, taxes paid increased by $46 billion to $1.232 trillion in 2013. Taxes paid increased for all income groups. The share of income earned by the top 1 percent fell to 19.04 percent of total AGI, down from 21.86 percent in 2012. The share of the income tax burden for the top 1 percent also fell slightly, from 38.09 percent in 2012 to 37.80 percent in 2013.
Table 1. Summary of Federal Income Tax Data, 2013 Number of Returns* AGI ($ millions) Income Taxes Paid ($ millions) Group’s Share of Total AGI Group’s Share of Income Taxes Income Split Point Average Tax Rate Does not include dependent filers. Source: Internal Revenue Service. All Taxpayers 138,313,155 $9,033,840 $1,231,911 100.00% 100.00% Top 1% 1,383,132 $1,719,794 $465,705 19.04% 37.80% $428,713 27.08% 1-5% 5,532,526 $1,389,594 $255,537 15.38% 20.74% 18.39% Top 5% 6,915,658 $3,109,388 $721,242 34.42% 58.55% $179,760 23.20% 5-10% 6,915,658 $1,034,110 $138,621 11.45% 11.25% 13.40% Top 10% 13,831,316 $4,143,498 $859,863 45.87% 69.80% $127,695 20.75% 10-25% 20,746,973 $2,008,180 $202,935 22.23% 16.47% 10.11% Top 25% 34,578,289 $6,151,678 $1,062,798 68.10% 86.27% $74,955 17.28% 25-50% 34,578,289 $1,843,925 $134,805 20.41% 10.94% 7.31% Top 50% 69,156,578 $7,995,603 $1,197,603 88.51% 97.22% $36,841 14.98% Bottom 50% 69,156,578 $1,038,237 $34,307 11.49% 2.78% $36,841 3.30%
High-Income Americans Paid the Majority of Federal Taxes
In 2013, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers (those with AGIs below $36,841) earned 11.49 percent of total AGI. This group of taxpayers paid approximately $34 billion in taxes, or 2.78 percent of all income taxes in 2013. In contrast, the top 1 percent of all taxpayers (taxpayers with AGIs of $428,713 and above), earned 19.04 percent of all AGI in 2013, but paid 37.80 percent of all federal income taxes. In 2013, the top 1 percent of taxpayers accounted for more income taxes paid than the bottom 90 percent combined. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid $465 billion, or 37.80 percent of all income taxes, while the bottom 90 percent paid $372 billion, or 30.20 percent of all income taxes.
High-Income Taxpayers Pay the Highest Average Tax Rates The 2013 IRS data shows that taxpayers with higher incomes pay much higher average income tax rates than lower-income taxpayers. The bottom 50 percent of taxpayers (taxpayers with AGIs below $36,841) faced an average income tax rate of 3.3 percent. Other taxpayers face much higher rates: for example, taxpayers with AGIs between the 10th and 5th percentile ($127,695 and $179,760) pay an average effective rate of 13.4 percent – four times the rate paid by those in the bottom 50 percent. The top 1 percent of taxpayers (AGI of $428,713 and above) paid the highest effective income tax rate at 27.1 percent, 8.19 times the rate faced by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers.
Taxpayers at the very top of the income distribution, the top 0.1 percent (with AGIs over $1.86 million), paid an even higher average tax rate, of 27.9 percent. The average tax rate of the top 1 percent of taxpayers rose significantly in 2013, from 21.9 percent in 2012 to 27.1 percent in 2013. This increase in the average tax rate of the 1 percent was largely due to several changes to the federal tax code, imposed at the end of 2012 as part of the “fiscal cliff” tax deal: a new 39.6 percent income tax bracket, a higher top rate on capital gains and dividends, and the reintroduction of the Pease limitation on itemized deductions.[3]
Appendix
Table 2. Number of Federal Individual Income Tax Returns Filed, 1980–2013 (in thousands) Year Total Top 0.1% Top 1% Top 5% Between 5% & 10% Top 10% Between 10% & 25% Top 25% Between 25% & 50% Top 50% Bottom 50% Source: Internal Revenue Service. 1980 93,239 932 4,662 4,662 9,324 13,986 23,310 23,310 46,619 46,619 1981 94,587 946 4,729 4,729 9,459 14,188 23,647 23,647 47,293 47,293 1982 94,426 944 4,721 4,721 9,443 14,164 23,607 23,607 47,213 47,213 1983 95,331 953 4,767 4,767 9,533 14,300 23,833 23,833 47,665 47,665 1984 98,436 984 4,922 4,922 9,844 14,765 24,609 24,609 49,218 49,219 1985 100,625 1,006 5,031 5,031 10,063 15,094 25,156 25,156 50,313 50,313 1986 102,088 1,021 5,104 5,104 10,209 15,313 25,522 25,522 51,044 51,044 The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 1987 106,155 1,062 5,308 5,308 10,615 15,923 26,539 26,539 53,077 53,077 1988 108,873 1,089 5,444 5,444 10,887 16,331 27,218 27,218 54,436 54,436 1989 111,313 1,113 5,566 5,566 11,131 16,697 27,828 27,828 55,656 55,656 1990 112,812 1,128 5,641 5,641 11,281 16,922 28,203 28,203 56,406 56,406 1991 113,804 1,138 5,690 5,690 11,380 17,071 28,451 28,451 56,902 56,902 1992 112,653 1,127 5,633 5,633 11,265 16,898 28,163 28,163 56,326 56,326 1993 113,681 1,137 5,684 5,684 11,368 17,052 28,420 28,420 56,841 56,841 1994 114,990 1,150 5,749 5,749 11,499 17,248 28,747 28,747 57,495 57,495 1995 117,274 1,173 5,864 5,864 11,727 17,591 29,319 29,319 58,637 58,637 1996 119,442 1,194 5,972 5,972 11,944 17,916 29,860 29,860 59,721 59,721 1997 121,503 1,215 6,075 6,075 12,150 18,225 30,376 30,376 60,752 60,752 1998 123,776 1,238 6,189 6,189 12,378 18,566 30,944 30,944 61,888 61,888 1999 126,009 1,260 6,300 6,300 12,601 18,901 31,502 31,502 63,004 63,004 2000 128,227 1,282 6,411 6,411 12,823 19,234 32,057 32,057 64,114 64,114 The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 2001 119,371 119 1,194 5,969 5,969 11,937 17,906 29,843 29,843 59,685 59,685 2002 119,851 120 1,199 5,993 5,993 11,985 17,978 29,963 29,963 59,925 59,925 2003 120,759 121 1,208 6,038 6,038 12,076 18,114 30,190 30,190 60,379 60,379 2004 122,510 123 1,225 6,125 6,125 12,251 18,376 30,627 30,627 61,255 61,255 2005 124,673 125 1,247 6,234 6,234 12,467 18,701 31,168 31,168 62,337 62,337 2006 128,441 128 1,284 6,422 6,422 12,844 19,266 32,110 32,110 64,221 64,221 2007 132,655 133 1,327 6,633 6,633 13,265 19,898 33,164 33,164 66,327 66,327 2008 132,892 133 1,329 6,645 6,645 13,289 19,934 33,223 33,223 66,446 66,446 2009 132,620 133 1,326 6,631 6,631 13,262 19,893 33,155 33,155 66,310 66,310 2010 135,033 135 1,350 6,752 6,752 13,503 20,255 33,758 33,758 67,517 67,517 2011 136,586 137 1,366 6,829 6,829 13,659 20,488 34,146 34,146 68,293 68,293 2012 136,080 136 1,361 6,804 6,804 13,608 20,412 34,020 34,020 68,040 68,040 2013 138,313 138 1,383 6,916 6,916 13,831 20,747 34,578 34,578 69,157 69,157
Table 3. Adjusted Gross Income of Taxpayers in Various Income Brackets, 1980–2013 (in Billions of Dollars) Year Total Top 0.1% Top 1% Top 5% Between 5% & 10% Top 10% Between 10% & 25% Top 25% Between 25% & 50% Top 50% Bottom 50% Source: Internal Revenue Service. 1980 $1,627 $138 $342 $181 $523 $400 $922 $417 $1,339 $288 1981 $1,791 $149 $372 $201 $573 $442 $1,015 $458 $1,473 $318 1982 $1,876 $167 $398 $207 $605 $460 $1,065 $478 $1,544 $332 1983 $1,970 $183 $428 $217 $646 $481 $1,127 $498 $1,625 $344 1984 $2,173 $210 $482 $240 $723 $528 $1,251 $543 $1,794 $379 1985 $2,344 $235 $531 $260 $791 $567 $1,359 $580 $1,939 $405 1986 $2,524 $285 $608 $278 $887 $604 $1,490 $613 $2,104 $421 The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 1987 $2,814 $347 $722 $316 $1,038 $671 $1,709 $664 $2,374 $440 1988 $3,124 $474 $891 $342 $1,233 $718 $1,951 $707 $2,658 $466 1989 $3,299 $468 $918 $368 $1,287 $768 $2,054 $751 $2,805 $494 1990 $3,451 $483 $953 $385 $1,338 $806 $2,144 $788 $2,933 $519 1991 $3,516 $457 $943 $400 $1,343 $832 $2,175 $809 $2,984 $532 1992 $3,681 $524 $1,031 $413 $1,444 $856 $2,299 $832 $3,131 $549 1993 $3,776 $521 $1,048 $426 $1,474 $883 $2,358 $854 $3,212 $563 1994 $3,961 $547 $1,103 $449 $1,552 $929 $2,481 $890 $3,371 $590 1995 $4,245 $620 $1,223 $482 $1,705 $985 $2,690 $938 $3,628 $617 1996 $4,591 $737 $1,394 $515 $1,909 $1,043 $2,953 $992 $3,944 $646 1997 $5,023 $873 $1,597 $554 $2,151 $1,116 $3,268 $1,060 $4,328 $695 1998 $5,469 $1,010 $1,797 $597 $2,394 $1,196 $3,590 $1,132 $4,721 $748 1999 $5,909 $1,153 $2,012 $641 $2,653 $1,274 $3,927 $1,199 $5,126 $783 2000 $6,424 $1,337 $2,267 $688 $2,955 $1,358 $4,314 $1,276 $5,590 $834 The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 2001 $6,116 $492 $1,065 $1,934 $666 $2,600 $1,334 $3,933 $1,302 $5,235 $881 2002 $5,982 $421 $960 $1,812 $660 $2,472 $1,339 $3,812 $1,303 $5,115 $867 2003 $6,157 $466 $1,030 $1,908 $679 $2,587 $1,375 $3,962 $1,325 $5,287 $870 2004 $6,735 $615 $1,279 $2,243 $725 $2,968 $1,455 $4,423 $1,403 $5,826 $908 2005 $7,366 $784 $1,561 $2,623 $778 $3,401 $1,540 $4,940 $1,473 $6,413 $953 2006 $7,970 $895 $1,761 $2,918 $841 $3,760 $1,652 $5,412 $1,568 $6,980 $990 2007 $8,622 $1,030 $1,971 $3,223 $905 $4,128 $1,770 $5,898 $1,673 $7,571 $1,051 2008 $8,206 $826 $1,657 $2,868 $905 $3,773 $1,782 $5,555 $1,673 $7,228 $978 2009 $7,579 $602 $1,305 $2,439 $878 $3,317 $1,740 $5,058 $1,620 $6,678 $900 2010 $8,040 $743 $1,517 $2,716 $915 $3,631 $1,800 $5,431 $1,665 $7,096 $944 2011 $8,317 $737 $1,556 $2,819 $956 $3,775 $1,866 $5,641 $1,716 $7,357 $961 2012 $9,042 $1,017 $1,977 $3,331 $997 $4,328 $1,934 $6,262 $1,776 $8,038 $1,004 2013 $9,034 $816 $1,720 $3,109 $1,034 $4,143 $2,008 $6,152 $1,844 $7,996 $1,038
Table 4. Total Income Tax after Credits, 1980–2013 (in Billions of Dollars) Year Total Top 0.1% Top 1% Top 5% Between 5% & 10% Top 10% Between 10% & 25% Top 25% Between 25% & 50% Top 50% Bottom 50% Source: Internal Revenue Service. 1980 $249 $47 $92 $31 $123 $59 $182 $50 $232 $18 1981 $282 $50 $99 $36 $135 $69 $204 $57 $261 $21 1982 $276 $53 $100 $34 $134 $66 $200 $56 $256 $20 1983 $272 $55 $101 $34 $135 $64 $199 $54 $252 $19 1984 $297 $63 $113 $37 $150 $68 $219 $57 $276 $22 1985 $322 $70 $125 $41 $166 $73 $238 $60 $299 $23 1986 $367 $94 $156 $44 $201 $78 $279 $64 $343 $24 The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 1987 $369 $92 $160 $46 $205 $79 $284 $63 $347 $22 1988 $413 $114 $188 $48 $236 $85 $321 $68 $389 $24 1989 $433 $109 $190 $51 $241 $93 $334 $73 $408 $25 1990 $447 $112 $195 $52 $248 $97 $344 $77 $421 $26 1991 $448 $111 $194 $56 $250 $96 $347 $77 $424 $25 1992 $476 $131 $218 $58 $276 $97 $374 $78 $452 $24 1993 $503 $146 $238 $60 $298 $101 $399 $80 $479 $24 1994 $535 $154 $254 $64 $318 $108 $425 $84 $509 $25 1995 $588 $178 $288 $70 $357 $115 $473 $88 $561 $27 1996 $658 $213 $335 $76 $411 $124 $535 $95 $630 $28 1997 $727 $241 $377 $82 $460 $134 $594 $102 $696 $31 1998 $788 $274 $425 $88 $513 $139 $652 $103 $755 $33 1999 $877 $317 $486 $97 $583 $150 $733 $109 $842 $35 2000 $981 $367 $554 $106 $660 $164 $824 $118 $942 $38 The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 2001 $885 $139 $294 $462 $101 $564 $158 $722 $120 $842 $43 2002 $794 $120 $263 $420 $93 $513 $143 $657 $104 $761 $33 2003 $746 $115 $251 $399 $85 $484 $133 $617 $98 $715 $30 2004 $829 $142 $301 $467 $91 $558 $137 $695 $102 $797 $32 2005 $932 $176 $361 $549 $98 $647 $145 $793 $106 $898 $33 2006 $1,020 $196 $402 $607 $108 $715 $157 $872 $113 $986 $35 2007 $1,112 $221 $443 $666 $117 $783 $170 $953 $122 $1,075 $37 2008 $1,029 $187 $386 $597 $115 $712 $168 $880 $117 $997 $32 2009 $863 $146 $314 $502 $101 $604 $146 $749 $93 $842 $21 2010 $949 $170 $355 $561 $110 $670 $156 $827 $100 $927 $22 2011 $1,043 $168 $366 $589 $123 $712 $181 $893 $120 $1,012 $30 2012 $1,185 $220 $451 $699 $133 $831 $193 $1,024 $128 $1,152 $33 2013 $1,232 $228 $466 $721 $139 $860 $203 $1,063 $135 $1,198 $34
Table 5. Adjusted Gross Income Shares, 1980–2013 (Percent of Total AGI Earned by Each Group) Year Total Top 0.1% Top 1% Top 5% Between 5% & 10% Top 10% Between 10% & 25% Top 25% Between 25% & 50% Top 50% Bottom 50% Source: Internal Revenue Service. 1980 100% 8.46% 21.01% 11.12% 32.13% 24.57% 56.70% 25.62% 82.32% 17.68% 1981 100% 8.30% 20.78% 11.20% 31.98% 24.69% 56.67% 25.59% 82.25% 17.75% 1982 100% 8.91% 21.23% 11.03% 32.26% 24.53% 56.79% 25.50% 82.29% 17.71% 1983 100% 9.29% 21.74% 11.04% 32.78% 24.44% 57.22% 25.30% 82.52% 17.48% 1984 100% 9.66% 22.19% 11.06% 33.25% 24.31% 57.56% 25.00% 82.56% 17.44% 1985 100% 10.03% 22.67% 11.10% 33.77% 24.21% 57.97% 24.77% 82.74% 17.26% 1986 100% 11.30% 24.11% 11.02% 35.12% 23.92% 59.04% 24.30% 83.34% 16.66% The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 1987 100% 12.32% 25.67% 11.23% 36.90% 23.85% 60.75% 23.62% 84.37% 15.63% 1988 100% 15.16% 28.51% 10.94% 39.45% 22.99% 62.44% 22.63% 85.07% 14.93% 1989 100% 14.19% 27.84% 11.16% 39.00% 23.28% 62.28% 22.76% 85.04% 14.96% 1990 100% 14.00% 27.62% 11.15% 38.77% 23.36% 62.13% 22.84% 84.97% 15.03% 1991 100% 12.99% 26.83% 11.37% 38.20% 23.65% 61.85% 23.01% 84.87% 15.13% 1992 100% 14.23% 28.01% 11.21% 39.23% 23.25% 62.47% 22.61% 85.08% 14.92% 1993 100% 13.79% 27.76% 11.29% 39.05% 23.40% 62.45% 22.63% 85.08% 14.92% 1994 100% 13.80% 27.85% 11.34% 39.19% 23.45% 62.64% 22.48% 85.11% 14.89% 1995 100% 14.60% 28.81% 11.35% 40.16% 23.21% 63.37% 22.09% 85.46% 14.54% 1996 100% 16.04% 30.36% 11.23% 41.59% 22.73% 64.32% 21.60% 85.92% 14.08% 1997 100% 17.38% 31.79% 11.03% 42.83% 22.22% 65.05% 21.11% 86.16% 13.84% 1998 100% 18.47% 32.85% 10.92% 43.77% 21.87% 65.63% 20.69% 86.33% 13.67% 1999 100% 19.51% 34.04% 10.85% 44.89% 21.57% 66.46% 20.29% 86.75% 13.25% 2000 100% 20.81% 35.30% 10.71% 46.01% 21.15% 67.15% 19.86% 87.01% 12.99% The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 2001 100% 8.05% 17.41% 31.61% 10.89% 42.50% 21.80% 64.31% 21.29% 85.60% 14.40% 2002 100% 7.04% 16.05% 30.29% 11.04% 41.33% 22.39% 63.71% 21.79% 85.50% 14.50% 2003 100% 7.56% 16.73% 30.99% 11.03% 42.01% 22.33% 64.34% 21.52% 85.87% 14.13% 2004 100% 9.14% 18.99% 33.31% 10.77% 44.07% 21.60% 65.68% 20.83% 86.51% 13.49% 2005 100% 10.64% 21.19% 35.61% 10.56% 46.17% 20.90% 67.07% 19.99% 87.06% 12.94% 2006 100% 11.23% 22.10% 36.62% 10.56% 47.17% 20.73% 67.91% 19.68% 87.58% 12.42% 2007 100% 11.95% 22.86% 37.39% 10.49% 47.88% 20.53% 68.41% 19.40% 87.81% 12.19% 2008 100% 10.06% 20.19% 34.95% 11.03% 45.98% 21.71% 67.69% 20.39% 88.08% 11.92% 2009 100% 7.94% 17.21% 32.18% 11.59% 43.77% 22.96% 66.74% 21.38% 88.12% 11.88% 2010 100% 9.24% 18.87% 33.78% 11.38% 45.17% 22.38% 67.55% 20.71% 88.26% 11.74% 2011 100% 8.86% 18.70% 33.89% 11.50% 45.39% 22.43% 67.82% 20.63% 88.45% 11.55% 2012 100% 11.25% 21.86% 36.84% 11.03% 47.87% 21.39% 69.25% 19.64% 88.90% 11.10% 2013 100% 9.03% 19.04% 34.42% 11.45% 45.87% 22.23% 68.10% 20.41% 88.51% 11.49%
Table 6. Total Income Tax Shares, 1980–2013 (Percent of Federal Income Tax Paid by Each Group) Year Total Top 0.1% Top 1% Top 5% Between 5% & 10% Top 10% Between 10% & 25% Top 25% Between 25% & 50% Top 50% Bottom 50% Source: Internal Revenue Service. 1980 100% 19.05% 36.84% 12.44% 49.28% 23.74% 73.02% 19.93% 92.95% 7.05% 1981 100% 17.58% 35.06% 12.90% 47.96% 24.33% 72.29% 20.26% 92.55% 7.45% 1982 100% 19.03% 36.13% 12.45% 48.59% 23.91% 72.50% 20.15% 92.65% 7.35% 1983 100% 20.32% 37.26% 12.44% 49.71% 23.39% 73.10% 19.73% 92.83% 7.17% 1984 100% 21.12% 37.98% 12.58% 50.56% 22.92% 73.49% 19.16% 92.65% 7.35% 1985 100% 21.81% 38.78% 12.67% 51.46% 22.60% 74.06% 18.77% 92.83% 7.17% 1986 100% 25.75% 42.57% 12.12% 54.69% 21.33% 76.02% 17.52% 93.54% 6.46% The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 1987 100% 24.81% 43.26% 12.35% 55.61% 21.31% 76.92% 17.02% 93.93% 6.07% 1988 100% 27.58% 45.62% 11.66% 57.28% 20.57% 77.84% 16.44% 94.28% 5.72% 1989 100% 25.24% 43.94% 11.85% 55.78% 21.44% 77.22% 16.94% 94.17% 5.83% 1990 100% 25.13% 43.64% 11.73% 55.36% 21.66% 77.02% 17.16% 94.19% 5.81% 1991 100% 24.82% 43.38% 12.45% 55.82% 21.46% 77.29% 17.23% 94.52% 5.48% 1992 100% 27.54% 45.88% 12.12% 58.01% 20.47% 78.48% 16.46% 94.94% 5.06% 1993 100% 29.01% 47.36% 11.88% 59.24% 20.03% 79.27% 15.92% 95.19% 4.81% 1994 100% 28.86% 47.52% 11.93% 59.45% 20.10% 79.55% 15.68% 95.23% 4.77% 1995 100% 30.26% 48.91% 11.84% 60.75% 19.62% 80.36% 15.03% 95.39% 4.61% 1996 100% 32.31% 50.97% 11.54% 62.51% 18.80% 81.32% 14.36% 95.68% 4.32% 1997 100% 33.17% 51.87% 11.33% 63.20% 18.47% 81.67% 14.05% 95.72% 4.28% 1998 100% 34.75% 53.84% 11.20% 65.04% 17.65% 82.69% 13.10% 95.79% 4.21% 1999 100% 36.18% 55.45% 11.00% 66.45% 17.09% 83.54% 12.46% 96.00% 4.00% 2000 100% 37.42% 56.47% 10.86% 67.33% 16.68% 84.01% 12.08% 96.09% 3.91% The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 2001 100% 15.68% 33.22% 52.24% 11.44% 63.68% 17.88% 81.56% 13.54% 95.10% 4.90% 2002 100% 15.09% 33.09% 52.86% 11.77% 64.63% 18.04% 82.67% 13.12% 95.79% 4.21% 2003 100% 15.37% 33.69% 53.54% 11.35% 64.89% 17.87% 82.76% 13.17% 95.93% 4.07% 2004 100% 17.12% 36.28% 56.35% 10.96% 67.30% 16.52% 83.82% 12.31% 96.13% 3.87% 2005 100% 18.91% 38.78% 58.93% 10.52% 69.46% 15.61% 85.07% 11.35% 96.41% 3.59% 2006 100% 19.24% 39.36% 59.49% 10.59% 70.08% 15.41% 85.49% 11.10% 96.59% 3.41% 2007 100% 19.84% 39.81% 59.90% 10.51% 70.41% 15.30% 85.71% 10.93% 96.64% 3.36% 2008 100% 18.20% 37.51% 58.06% 11.14% 69.20% 16.37% 85.57% 11.33% 96.90% 3.10% 2009 100% 16.91% 36.34% 58.17% 11.72% 69.89% 16.85% 86.74% 10.80% 97.54% 2.46% 2010 100% 17.88% 37.38% 59.07% 11.55% 70.62% 16.49% 87.11% 10.53% 97.64% 2.36% 2011 100% 16.14% 35.06% 56.49% 11.77% 68.26% 17.36% 85.62% 11.50% 97.11% 2.89% 2012 100% 18.60% 38.09% 58.95% 11.22% 70.17% 16.25% 86.42% 10.80% 97.22% 2.78% 2013 100% 18.48% 37.80% 58.55% 11.25% 69.80% 16.47% 86.27% 10.94% 97.22% 2.78%
Table 7. Dollar Cut-Off, 1980–2013 (Minimum AGI for Tax Returns to Fall into Various Percentiles; Thresholds Not Adjusted for Inflation) Year Top 0.1% Top 1% Top 5% Top 10% Top 25% Top 50% Source: Internal Revenue Service. 1980 $80,580 $43,792 $35,070 $23,606 $12,936 1981 $85,428 $47,845 $38,283 $25,655 $14,000 1982 $89,388 $49,284 $39,676 $27,027 $14,539 1983 $93,512 $51,553 $41,222 $27,827 $15,044 1984 $100,889 $55,423 $43,956 $29,360 $15,998 1985 $108,134 $58,883 $46,322 $30,928 $16,688 1986 $118,818 $62,377 $48,656 $32,242 $17,302 The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 1987 $139,289 $68,414 $52,921 $33,983 $17,768 1988 $157,136 $72,735 $55,437 $35,398 $18,367 1989 $163,869 $76,933 $58,263 $36,839 $18,993 1990 $167,421 $79,064 $60,287 $38,080 $19,767 1991 $170,139 $81,720 $61,944 $38,929 $20,097 1992 $181,904 $85,103 $64,457 $40,378 $20,803 1993 $185,715 $87,386 $66,077 $41,210 $21,179 1994 $195,726 $91,226 $68,753 $42,742 $21,802 1995 $209,406 $96,221 $72,094 $44,207 $22,344 1996 $227,546 $101,141 $74,986 $45,757 $23,174 1997 $250,736 $108,048 $79,212 $48,173 $24,393 1998 $269,496 $114,729 $83,220 $50,607 $25,491 1999 $293,415 $120,846 $87,682 $52,965 $26,415 2000 $313,469 $128,336 $92,144 $55,225 $27,682 The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 2001 $1,393,718 $306,635 $132,082 $96,151 $59,026 $31,418 2002 $1,245,352 $296,194 $130,750 $95,699 $59,066 $31,299 2003 $1,317,088 $305,939 $133,741 $97,470 $59,896 $31,447 2004 $1,617,918 $339,993 $140,758 $101,838 $62,794 $32,622 2005 $1,938,175 $379,261 $149,216 $106,864 $64,821 $33,484 2006 $2,124,625 $402,603 $157,390 $112,016 $67,291 $34,417 2007 $2,251,017 $426,439 $164,883 $116,396 $69,559 $35,541 2008 $1,867,652 $392,513 $163,512 $116,813 $69,813 $35,340 2009 $1,469,393 $351,968 $157,342 $114,181 $68,216 $34,156 2010 $1,634,386 $369,691 $161,579 $116,623 $69,126 $34,338 2011 $1,717,675 $388,905 $167,728 $120,136 $70,492 $34,823 2012 $2,161,175 $434,682 $175,817 $125,195 $73,354 $36,055 2013 $1,860,848 $428,713 $179,760 $127,695 $74,955 $36,841
Table 8. Average Tax Rate, 1980–2013 (Percent of AGI Paid in Income Taxes) Year Total Top 0.1% Top 1% Top 5% Between 5% & 10% Top 10% Between 10% & 25% Top 25% Between 25% & 50% Top 50% Bottom 50% Source: Internal Revenue Service. 1980 15.31% 34.47% 26.85% 17.13% 23.49% 14.80% 19.72% 11.91% 17.29% 6.10% 1981 15.76% 33.37% 26.59% 18.16% 23.64% 15.53% 20.11% 12.48% 17.73% 6.62% 1982 14.72% 31.43% 25.05% 16.61% 22.17% 14.35% 18.79% 11.63% 16.57% 6.10% 1983 13.79% 30.18% 23.64% 15.54% 20.91% 13.20% 17.62% 10.76% 15.52% 5.66% 1984 13.68% 29.92% 23.42% 15.57% 20.81% 12.90% 17.47% 10.48% 15.35% 5.77% 1985 13.73% 29.86% 23.50% 15.69% 20.93% 12.83% 17.55% 10.41% 15.41% 5.70% 1986 14.54% 33.13% 25.68% 15.99% 22.64% 12.97% 18.72% 10.48% 16.32% 5.63% The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 1987 13.12% 26.41% 22.10% 14.43% 19.77% 11.71% 16.61% 9.45% 14.60% 5.09% 1988 13.21% 24.04% 21.14% 14.07% 19.18% 11.82% 16.47% 9.60% 14.64% 5.06% 1989 13.12% 23.34% 20.71% 13.93% 18.77% 12.08% 16.27% 9.77% 14.53% 5.11% 1990 12.95% 23.25% 20.46% 13.63% 18.50% 12.01% 16.06% 9.73% 14.36% 5.01% 1991 12.75% 24.37% 20.62% 13.96% 18.63% 11.57% 15.93% 9.55% 14.20% 4.62% 1992 12.94% 25.05% 21.19% 13.99% 19.13% 11.39% 16.25% 9.42% 14.44% 4.39% 1993 13.32% 28.01% 22.71% 14.01% 20.20% 11.40% 16.90% 9.37% 14.90% 4.29% 1994 13.50% 28.23% 23.04% 14.20% 20.48% 11.57% 17.15% 9.42% 15.11% 4.32% 1995 13.86% 28.73% 23.53% 14.46% 20.97% 11.71% 17.58% 9.43% 15.47% 4.39% 1996 14.34% 28.87% 24.07% 14.74% 21.55% 11.86% 18.12% 9.53% 15.96% 4.40% 1997 14.48% 27.64% 23.62% 14.87% 21.36% 12.04% 18.18% 9.63% 16.09% 4.48% 1998 14.42% 27.12% 23.63% 14.79% 21.42% 11.63% 18.16% 9.12% 16.00% 4.44% 1999 14.85% 27.53% 24.18% 15.06% 21.98% 11.76% 18.66% 9.12% 16.43% 4.48% 2000 15.26% 27.45% 24.42% 15.48% 22.34% 12.04% 19.09% 9.28% 16.86% 4.60% The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line are not strictly comparable. 2001 14.47% 28.17% 27.60% 23.91% 15.20% 21.68% 11.87% 18.35% 9.20% 16.08% 4.92% 2002 13.28% 28.48% 27.37% 23.17% 14.15% 20.76% 10.70% 17.23% 8.00% 14.87% 3.86% 2003 12.11% 24.60% 24.38% 20.92% 12.46% 18.70% 9.69% 15.57% 7.41% 13.53% 3.49% 2004 12.31% 23.06% 23.52% 20.83% 12.53% 18.80% 9.41% 15.71% 7.27% 13.68% 3.53% 2005 12.65% 22.48% 23.15% 20.93% 12.61% 19.03% 9.45% 16.04% 7.18% 14.01% 3.51% 2006 12.80% 21.94% 22.80% 20.80% 12.84% 19.02% 9.52% 16.12% 7.22% 14.12% 3.51% 2007 12.90% 21.42% 22.46% 20.66% 12.92% 18.96% 9.61% 16.16% 7.27% 14.19% 3.56% 2008 12.54% 22.67% 23.29% 20.83% 12.66% 18.87% 9.45% 15.85% 6.97% 13.79% 3.26% 2009 11.39% 24.28% 24.05% 20.59% 11.53% 18.19% 8.36% 14.81% 5.76% 12.61% 2.35% 2010 11.81% 22.84% 23.39% 20.64% 11.98% 18.46% 8.70% 15.22% 6.01% 13.06% 2.37% 2011 12.54% 22.82% 23.50% 20.89% 12.83% 18.85% 9.70% 15.82% 6.98% 13.76% 3.13% 2012 13.11% 21.67% 22.83% 20.97% 13.33% 19.21% 9.96% 16.35% 7.21% 14.33% 3.28% 2013 13.64% 27.91% 27.08% 23.20% 13.40% 20.75% 10.11% 17.28% 7.31% 14.98% 3.30%
(1) For data prior to 2001, all tax returns that have a positive AGI are included, even those that do not have a positive income tax liability. For data from 2001 forward, returns with negative AGI are also included, but dependent returns are excluded. (2) Income tax after credits (the measure of “income taxes paid” above) does not account for the refundable portion of EITC. If it were included, the tax share of the top income groups would be higher. The refundable portion is classified as a spending program by the Office of Management and Budget and therefore is not included by the IRS in these figures. (3) The only tax analyzed here is the federal individual income tax, which is responsible for about 25 percent of the nation’s taxes paid (at all levels of government). Federal income taxes are much more progressive than payroll taxes, which are responsible for about 20 percent of all taxes paid (at all levels of government), and are more progressive than most state and local taxes. (4) AGI is a fairly narrow income concept and does not include income items like government transfers (except for the portion of Social Security benefits that is taxed), the value of employer-provided health insurance, underreported or unreported income (most notably that of sole proprietors), income derived from municipal bond interest, net imputed rental income, and others. (5) The unit of analysis here is that of the tax return. In the figures prior to 2001, some dependent returns are included. Under other units of analysis (like the Treasury Department’s Family Economic Unit), these returns would likely be paired with parents’ returns. (6) These figures represent the legal incidence of the income tax. Most distributional tables (such as those from CBO, Tax Policy Center, Citizens for Tax Justice, the Treasury Department, and JCT) assume that the entire economic incidence of personal income taxes falls on the income earner. |
By: Santiago Gonzalez Vallejo
Israel’s continued colonization of what remains of historic Palestine makes a Palestinian state nonviable. The PLO’s early dream of seeing a bi-national secular, democratic Palestine collided with Zionist racism, which has always has chosen in favor of conquest and the exclusion of Palestinians. From there, the Zionists used the colonies to deplete resources and bring Jews into the conquered areas -- in sum, putting the Jewish State of Israel ahead of any other consideration, which also makes the possibility of a circumscribed Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza unrealistic.
In 1988 in Algiers the PLO recognized Israel. Israel later recognized the PLO but not Palestine. For that reason, the Conference of Madrid and the Oslo Accords were made in bad faith on Israel’s part. Before that, in between, and afterward, the settlements have continued, along with other attributes of Zionism.
The same has happened with governments of Likud-Labour Party members (of Socialist International, which also welcomed the party of Ben Ali of Tunisia), Kadima and others, and also with Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr. and Obama. With the PLO of 1988, after the elections of Arafat and Abbas or during the current period of decay. And also with Felipe Gonzalez, Aznar or Zapatero, Delors, Santer, Prodi, Barroso and others.
Of course, some of responsibility for this vacuum lies with the PLO and the Palestinian Authority’s own leaders, mainly those affiliated with Fatah, and also with the rest of the organizations that did not secure democratic structures representing the totality of the Palestinian people.
At a minimum, the Palestinian insistence to not continue negotiations on an unending, continually revised “Peace Process ”, if colonization deepens with new settlements and extension of the Wall in the West Bank, helps to reveal the actual state of the situation. Europe, the United States, Russia, the United Nations, the Quartet, and the godfathers of Annapolis remain silent. Israel builds new settlements or extends previous ones, simultaneously with the evacuation and expulsion of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem and other places. The Palestinian Authority has effectively built its own wall, while Zionism advances. And those of Obama, Ashton and others remain as portrayed.
These days, public opinion, although mostly bored with an unending conflict, is assaulted by the events that exhaust headlines daily, making people forget the previous day’s news. One goes from the refrain that negotiations exist (thanks to the deceit of friendly mass media of the status quo and western values) for which there is a Peace Process, to the knowledge that Israel, as always governed by one Zionist government or another, continues making conquest and expulsion its hallmarks of identity.
This perspective has made Palestinian overseers look for a third way that allows them to not “leave the table of negotiations” (which do not exist). Rather they continue maintaining the farce, that Israel wants and the Quartet fronts for, that is to say that yes, that no, that I will not meet. The prime minister in the West Bank Salam Fayyad meets with some Israeli, but without ruining the playing cards and revealing that the Palestinian Authority is an empty shell that controls the police -- when desired –- of the Palestinian Bantustans. At the same time they keep with a diplomatic strategy consisting of requesting the recognition of Palestinian State, if possible, within the borders of the 1967 cease-fire, which are different and smaller than those that determined the partition of historical Palestine in 1947.
This tactic has seen a little success. It symbolically reinforces the Palestinian Authority and points to the Israeli occupation as the problem. The initiators of recognition of a Palestinian state were the Latin-Americans republics, beginning with Brazil, an actor that has entered on the international scene, is in the G-20, aspires to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council and has made other international movements of international autonomy, like the Turkish Brazilian plan and the condemnation of the Iranian nuclear industry. Recognition of a Palestinian state has been accepted with a cadence that had an informative continuity: Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile, without mentioning the borders.
The intention is to surpass the UN Security Council, in which there is fear of a veto by the United States and rubber-stamping by the other Quartet members, and then go to the United Nations General Assembly in order to isolate Israel.
That is where the Palestinian tactic has its greatest problem. On November 15, 1988, when the PLO Congress of Algiers recognized Israel, 104 states recognized Palestine. Israel, and the hypocrisy in the majority of those 104 governments (and the rest that did not recognize), have achieved a “normalization” by making the occupation that Palestinians are subjected to compatible with an increase of those same governments’ relations with Israel and treatment of Israel as a “normal” state.
The same nations of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay (new recognizers of a Palestine state) have signed an agreement with Israel through Mercosur, which accepts the application of the “internal” legislation of each state in determining the origin of products. And that is actually nothing symbolic, except to accept the colonies.
Spain has elevated the rank of the Palestinian diplomat. But Spain’s normalization with Israel, in the sense noted above, is lubricated by the budgetary arm of the Sefarad House of Israel. In this agreement Israel entered the OECD or the CERN, selling or buying arms and making other military agreements, avoiding the international reports of its own diplomats or modifying the norms of universal jurisdiction to prevent processes regarding crimes against humanity.
They are not protesting to Israel about the damage caused to their donations (the airport of Gaza, for example) or accepting that Israeli colonization is an element that disturbs ' negotiations', camouflaging its cynicism and hypocrisy in which Israeli-Palestinian negotiations exist, and rejecting the fact that these are only an alibi to continue advancing colonization, while a Palestine elite camouflages its own impotence.
So, without diminishing the good news that there are governments that indicate what is obvious -- that a Palestinian state should exist and that the marking of the 1967 borders would give it a minimum viability -- civil society must ask for coherence in their governments in commercial, military, scientific, sport matters, preventing that an occupying state like Israel be treated as “normal.”
The Campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, in the pattern of the struggle against racist South Africa is adequate. Not to buy Israeli products, to isolate Israel economically or in other areas is an adequate mechanism such that a catharsis in a society like that of Israel, that does not recognize the other -- the Palestinian and his suffering -- will take place.
Recognition of a virtual Palestinian state that only exists in Facebook does not worry Israel. If what is demanded, in practical terms, were the respect of the international rights, it would be the end of the occupation. And, yes, that is the objective. |
A Led Zeppelin reunion tour, backed by an astonishing amount of money put up by British billionaire Richard Branson, will never happen — because singer Robert Plant ripped up a contract that would have paid him about $300 million to play 35 concerts with the the legendary band in just three cities.
The information about the aborted Led Zeppelin reunion tour came from an exclusive report in Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper, which said that the 66-year-old Plant — who during the 1970s heyday of Zeppelin was one of the world’s most successful and recognizable rock stars — simply didn’t believe it was “the right thing to do.”
“They have tried to talk him round but there is no chance,” said an anonymous source said by The Mirror to be close to Robert Plant. “His mind is made up and that’s that.”
According to the Mirror story, the other two surviving members of Led Zeppelin — guitarist Jimmy Page, 70, and 68-year-old bass player/musical arranger John Paul Jones — had already signed their mega-contracts and were ready to set out on the tour, which would have taken them to London’s O2 Arena as well as Berlin and New Jersey.
But Plant just wasn’t into it.
Jason Bonham, the 48-year-old son of original Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, has also signed on to play drums as a salaried musician on the Zep reunion tour.
Led Zeppelin formed in 1968 and were considered the biggest rock act in the world through the early and mid-1970s. But they broke up in 1980 after John Bonham died in his sleep at age 32 following a heavy drinking binge.
Jason Bonham played drums with Led Zeppelin for the band’s one-off reunion performance during the Ahmet Ertugun Tribute Concert in 2007. Ertugun was the record label boss who signed Led Zeppelin to Atlantic Records, sight unseen, launching the then-unknown band’s meteoric career.
Branson, according to the Mirror, guaranteed the band more than $900 million to be split among the three original members, for the proposed Led Zeppelin reunion tour.
Plant’s share alone would have nearly tripled his current, already-formidable net worth, which is reported at $170 million.
According to the Mirror’s source, Page, Jones, and Bonham were stunned by Plant’s refusal to take part in the tour.
“It was a no-brainer for them but Robert asked for 48 hours to think about it. When he said no and ripped up the paperwork he had been given, there was an enormous sense of shock,” The Mirror quotes the source as saying. “There is no way they can go ahead without him.”
Led Zeppelin fans can still get their dose of the legendary band through an ongoing series of remastered reissues of the original Led Zeppelin albums, a project being coordinated by Page. |
Video: Man in Car Surrounded By Menacing Immigration Protesters Slowly Drives Through Mob, Gets Arrested
A man in a car who was trapped at an intersection by menacing SEIU protesters was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon after he slowly drove through the mob in an effort to escape. No one was reported injured in the Thursday incident, however an organizer claimed some had ‘bumps and scrapes’. The protest was in favor of extension of Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Central American countries.
The protest took place outside the office of Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) in Brea, California where bused in protesters gathered to deliver letters in favor of illegal immigrants.
The protesters reportedly blocked the intersection after their effort to meet with Royce’s staff were unsuccessful.
Video posted by UNITE HERE Local 11 shows a mob of menacing protesters surrounding cars at an intersection amid the sound of horns blaring. One car advances very slowly as protesters part except for one man who appears to be a marshal for the protest who stands in front of the car and then leans on the hood, refusing to get out of the way, as the car creeps forward. A heavy-set marshal is then seen taking a running leap onto the hood as other protesters beat on the car with sticks. The car accelerates a little to get away but pulls to a quick stop when ordered to by police in the intersection.
Police are seen surrounding the car to protect the driver from the mob. Some of the SEIU organizers can be heard yelling instructions in Spanish for protesters to back off.
The Los Angeles Times reported on the arrest.
“The alleged driver, 56-year-old Daniel Wenzek of Brea, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. He was booked and released pending further investigation, according to Lt. Kelly Carpenter of the Brea Police Department.”
KNBC-TV reported more on the protest.
Daniel Wenzek was accused of driving a 2013 Toyota Avalon through a line of about 200 protesters at Birch and Brea boulevards about 1 p.m., Brea police Lt. Darrin Devereux said. Wenzek was driving west on Birch at Brea when he leaned on his horn and attempted to drive through the crowd of activists at a slow speed, according to police and video of the incident provided by protesters. Some of the protesters jumped on the hood of the car and banged on the vehicle before police intervened, circled the car and made Wenzek stop and exit the Toyota. No one was seriously injured, Devereux said. The protesters did not stick around to file police reports so investigators encouraged any victims to call officers. One of the protesters, Andrew Cohen of Unite Here Local 11 labor organization, said he saw the incident developing and was frightened it would be a deadly confrontation similar to the one in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which a suspect drove at a high rate of speed into a group protesting a white supremacy organization’s gathering.”
The difference between this and Charlottesville is in that incident the driver of the car accelerated at a deadly, high rate of speed in to a crowd of protesters in the street. In the Brea incident, the driver crept through the intersection in an effort to free himself from a menacing mob surrounding him.
UPDATE via the AP:
Brea Police Chief Jack Conklin said none of the demonstrators sought first aid but the SEIU United Service Workers West union later released a statement saying six people were taken to a hospital for evaluation. The union helped organize the protest and President David Huerta said the four union members and two staff were “victims of what appears to be a deliberate and hateful crime.” Police disputed that. “I think he was trying to get through the crowd,” Lt. Adam Hawley said. “We don’t have any indication he was trying to harm somebody.”
The AP also reported: “Records show Wenzek was convicted in 2006 of committing lewd acts against a child under 14” |
Diego Simeone warned earlier in the summer that the departure of Arda Turan from Atlético Madrid was a big move for the club. However, the Argentine coach also believes he has the players to plug the gap left by the Turkish star. “Maybe we don’t have his quality, but we have hope and excitement of new players,” he said.
Amongst those is Óliver and ‘Cholo’ started work with the club’s youth product at the club’s Majadahonda training base several weeks ago. The coach and player spoke about his role in the squad at the start of the pre-season and on one hand the Atleti coach wanted to give confidence to the player, while on the other Óliver wanted to be convinced that he had a part to play. The midfielder even asked his coach if he should leave in search of more minutes on the pitch because his future at the Calderón did not seem clear.
Simeone was blunt in his talk with the midfielder: he told him he had no need to join anyone else and that he has confidence in his ability and that he thinks he is ready to play in his team. In short, he is at Atlético to replace Arda. Óliver came out out of the meeting with new hope and optimism.
How will he fit into the squad? Simeone knows he is a different and special player. He does not have a guaranteed starting role but the idea is for him to forge a partnership with Koke, providing a mix of long passes and final balls. |
Bus Éireann has admitted that it has been unable to pay some school bus operators because of the strike by its workers.
Almost 1,300 private operators provide services as contractors on behalf of Bus Éireann under the School Transport Scheme, transporting 115,000 children in the State to and from schools.
School bus operators who expected to be paid this week were not because the clerical staff were not there to process the application.
Bus Éireann said a technical solution will be put in place which will see contractors who were due to be paid last week receive their money next week instead.
The company added that its contract agreement with each school bus operator means that it must pay for services within 30 days.
“Payments made next week are well within this range,” Bus Éireann said in a statement.
However, school bus operator Eamonn Callery, who does school runs in Wicklow and Dublin, said the email private companies like his had received from Bus Éireann did not indicate when they would be paid.
He said the text and email sent by Bus Éireann to school bus operators stated: “The only delay is due to the absence of a number of staff due to industrial action. This is not linked to any other matter. Payments due this week will not be in the bank this Friday but will likely be delayed until next week. Again we apologise.”
Struggle
Mr Callery feared that if Bus Éireann workers do not return to work next Monday, school bus operators will start to struggle.
“I’m not satisfied about this. They are saying they are going to pay us, but they are not saying when. If we don’t get paid, I certainly will not be doing the school run after Easter.”
Mark Kerrigan, whose company Kerrigan Coaches does two school runs in Co Wicklow for Bus Éireann, said he normally delivers his invoices by hand to Bus Éireann in Broadstone, but will not pass the picket. Neither can he post the invoices because post office workers will not pass the picket either.
“I don’t blame the workers in Bus Éireann in any shape or form,” he said. “I’m looking for reassurances from the Department of Transport and/or the Department of Education that we will be paid.”
Mr Kerrigan said the email he had received from Bus Éireann was “very vague” and did not guarantee his staff when he will be paid.
He stated there was an urgency about it because the two-week Easter break starts next Friday week and, if invoices are not paid by then, many operators like him will not be returning to the school runs after Easter.
“The margins on the school run are so small that there is no room for error,” he said. |
WATCH: Lunatic Maxine Waters Shoves Reporter After Being Questioned About Obama ‘I’m Out to Impeach the President’
Saturday, Democrat Congresswoman Maxine Waters angrily shoved a reporter after being questioned about Barack Obama.
Reporter Michael Tracey and his cameraman approached Maxine Waters in order to ask a few questions and she went off on an unhinged rant. Nothing shocking here, what is shocking, however, was her shoving the reporter’s microphone for no reason.
Rep. Maxine Waters just shoved me and angrily stormed off as I asked her questions. (Not a violent shove but she initiated physical contact) — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 3, 2017
You can watch for yourself shortly — the questions were reasonable. Extremely suspect for a member of Congress to shove anybody. — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 3, 2017
It wasn’t “an assault” by any stretch but there’s no justification for escalating physical contact like that. — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 3, 2017
Here’s my camera guy Ty describing the Waters incident pic.twitter.com/kZYs4ZcDJP — Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 3, 2017
The following is a transcript of the back-and-forth between Tracey and idiot Rep. Maxine Waters:
Tracey: “You say Russia’s not our friend, was Obama mistaken to forge military cooperation with Russia in Syria and try to . . .” Waters: “Look, you and I have a different agenda, young man. I’m out to impeach this President – get that straight. I’m out to impeach the President. I’m not gonna be diverted by people who are Obama haters.
You can watch the full video below:
pic.twitter.com/1TnP5tZmvu here it is on video — TRUMP FOR PRISON (@TrumpysTaxes) June 3, 2017 |
Getty Images
If ESPN wonders why last night’s ratings were so bad, perhaps it should examine how many people turned off the TV after the fifth time Jon Gruden said the words, “turkey hole.”
An embarrassingly bad segment of ESPN’s Monday Night Football broadcast started when Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford made a nice throw downfield, finding a receiver in the Packers’ secondary. At first, Gruden appeared to simply be analyzing the play.
“Watch Stafford fit the ball in the hole between the corner and the safety,” Gruden said. “I call that the turkey hole. Don’t ask me why.”
But then it became clear that the “turkey hole” thing was a pre-planned segment, and Gruden and ESPN’s producers had just been waiting for the right moment. The cameras turned away from the field and went to the booth, where Gruden stood in front of a picture of a turkey and offered insight such as, “Let me show you what the turkey hole is. It’s the turkey hole.”
As fans at home wondered what was happening on the field, Gruden gave an Xs and Os illustration of the turkey hole. Can we get back to the game now? No. Gruden still wasn’t done. He also had videos to show.
“Let me show you some of this turkey hole,” Gruden said, as highlights were shown of quarterbacks past and present throwing into the area that Gruden called the “turkey hole.” We saw Brett Favre throw into the turkey hole. We saw Stafford do it in a previous game. We still didn’t know what was happening on the field in the game we had tuned in to watch.
So what had actually happened while Gruden was blabbering about the turkey hole? Oh, nothing much. Just a Lions fumble that the Packers recovered. No reason the fans watching the game would want to know about something like that when there’s turkey hole to discuss.
Finally, just as ESPN went to a commercial, play-by-play man Sean McDonough realized that something consequential had happened on the field while his partner had hijacked the broadcast.
“I think we’re going to have a replay review here,” McDonough said. “For the moment, they’re saying Green Bay ball.”
Sure enough, when ESPN came back from the commercial, the Packers had the ball.
“The ruling on the field is a fumble by Ameer Abdullah. Green Bay ball. We’ll show you another look at it right after this play,” McDonough said.
There were two problems with that: First, ESPN wouldn’t be showing us “another” look at it. We were still waiting for the first look. Through all that “turkey hole” nonsense, we still hadn’t seen Abdullah fumble. Secondly, even after the next play, ESPN still didn’t show a replay of the fumble. It was only after another play that ESPN finally went back and showed the fumble.
Football fans don’t ask for much when we turn on a game. We want to see what’s happening on the field, and we want reasonably knowledgeable announcers to fill us in on anything we might not be able to see with our own eyes. ESPN didn’t show us the fumble on the field, and the announcers didn’t tell us about it, either.
If Gruden and ESPN have any similar segments planned this season, I think I can speak for all fans when I say: Shove it up your turkey hole. |
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