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What's the most badass thing you've ever seen a man do? Crack a cinder block with his fist? Catch a crossbow bolt with his bare hands? Chew bubble gum with his ass cheeks? Well take that shit and multiply it by about a thousand, and you'll have the kind of things that other species do in their everyday routine. We're talking about creatures like the... 6 The Mantis Shrimp's Fists of Death The mantis shrimp lays claim to owning the fastest and tastiest arms of the water bound kingdom. If Chuck Norris lived under water, he would drown and die. And a mantis shrimp would punch a hole in his carcass. Those tiny boxing gloves aren't for gardening. The speed of the mantis shrimp's punch is delivered at some 50 mph. Keep in mind the shrimp is doing this in water. If you've ever stupidly wrestled with friends at the beach, you realize how your devastating roundhouse winds up moving in slow motion as you slosh through the surf. Think how strong you'd have to be to punch through the water as fast as a moving vehicle. Continue Reading Below Advertisement Wait, What? The mantis shrimp's power comes from the two club-like arms it keeps behind its head. It locks those arms in place allowing energy to build up in the muscles. For an added "fuck you" there's an organic spring mechanism in the joint that adds extra force. So when the local shrimp from Cobra Kai start shit, the mantis shrimp unleashes the force of the muscle which, when combined with the added oomph from the uncoiling spring, means the weapon is released at an acceleration which can reach 10,000 times the force of gravity. That's kind of like being punched by Mike Tyson in his prime, if his outstretched arm was attached to a meteor as it entered the atmosphere. How Badass is That? In captivity, the shrimp have been known to punch through aquarium glass, totally fucking up people's rugs. In fact, the punch of the mantis shrimp is so fast, it actually lowers the pressure of the water in its path which--conveniently for a badass sea-ninja who fancies some pre-cooked crab--boils the water around the punch. Steven Seagal's probably only done that once or twice at best. |
The the 26th annual national competition Monday night. It is the second year in a row an Oregon team has won the contest. The competition brought together 1,400 high school students from 45 states and the District of Columbia to test their knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The last time a Grant team went to nationals, in 2011, the team placed seventh in the nation. Last year, Grant finished second in the state to Lincoln High School, which went on to win the national competition. The 2013 Grant team includes: Leah Alpern, Claire Eldredge-Burns, Dylan Tingley, Nina Greene, Jacob Sutter, Jake Stein-Ross, Kendall Wynde, Kathleen Kohl, Lauren Meininger, Jane Crabtree, Anna Learn, Emily Turner, Gaelen Snell, Mac Larsen, Miriam Kohn, Alan Chan, Madeleine Kaczmarowski, Ada Harris, Austin Shaff, Nate Grein, Anayeli Nieves-Alvez, Emily Olson, James Knudsen, Morgan Grover, Annelies Cowan, Daniel Thatcher, Grace Williams, Ricky Rojas-Echenique, Adam Penrose, Halley Steiner, Parkes Kendrick, Ella Ben-Zaken, Mariah Shriner, and Simon Swifter. The team is taught and coached by Grant teacher David Lickey. For daily NE news and events, follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. -- Larry Bingham |
Televangelist Pat Robertson on Monday reviewed the case of a shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that left at least seven dead and came to the conclusion that places of worship were being attacked because “people who are atheists, they hate God.” Robertson opened Monday’s 700 Club broadcast with the news that there had been a mass shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek. “What is it?” the TV preacher wondered. “Is it satanic? Is it some spiritual thing, people who are atheists, they hate God, they hate the expression of God? And they are angry with the world, angry with themselves, angry with society and they take it out on innocent people who are worshiping God.” “And whether it’s a Sikh temple or a Baptist church or a Catholic church or a Muslim mosque, whatever it is, I just abhor this kind of violence, and it’s the the kind of thing that we should do something about,” he added. “But what do you do? Well, you talk about the love of God and hope it has some impact.” U.S. Attorney James A. Santelle on Monday said that the man who murdered six people in Wisconsin before being shot himself was 40-year-old Army veteran Wade Michael Page. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) identified Page as a neo-Nazi who led a racist white-power band. SPLC’s Heidi Beirich told the Journal Sentinel that there was “no question” that the suspect was part of the white supremacist movement and had attended “hate events” around the country. Reports also indicated that Page had a number of tattoos, including one that said “9/11” and a Celtic knot, which is commonly used a symbol of the Christian Holy Trinity. There is no evidence that Page was an atheist. Watch this video CBN’s The 700 Club via Right Wing Watch, broadcast Aug. 6, 2012. |
Alex Lipman's political career started over a cocktail, a plate of gnocchi, and a sensation of cold fear at the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency. Coming down from the stress of exams, Lipman, a 30-year-old law student at DePaul University, was out to dinner with friends in late May when the conversation turned to the contentious presidential election. Trump was the presumptive Republican nominee, and stories of his unorthodox views and offensive behavior—his proposals to ban Muslim immigration and to build a wall along the southern border, his comments denigrating women and suggesting Mexicans are rapists—had Lipman's dinner companions in a state of panic and dismay. "There was this overwhelming fear that rights across the board were about to be destroyed," Lipman recalls. Before that dinner, politics interested Lipman but weren't an animating force in her life. "These policy conversations, conversations about representation, didn't really exist in my world before this cycle," she says. "I'm about to graduate, and I was trying to figure out what I was doing with my life." She's still planning to practice law at a firm, but when she took note of her peer group's anxiety about the election and their fresh interest in politics—as well as her own—she started crafting an addendum to her plan: She would run for a position as an alderwoman, the equivalent of a city council member, in her hometown of Chicago. Trump's victory in November solidified her decision. An anti-Trump demonstration, 2016 Getty Images It's an uphill battle: While Lipman is left-leaning, she will run as an independent in a city dominated by hierarchical Democratic politics. But she believes the unpredictable results of this last election demonstrate that she, too, can overcome the obstacles of funding, party backing, and playing by the political rules. "If I have the willpower and a decent enough message that constituents believe in and agree with, it doesn't matter if I have the money or the connections or if I'm fighting the Democratic machine here in Chicago," she says. Watching Hillary Clinton's near win and Bernie Sanders' insurgent campaign also gave her hope that both women and grassroots efforts can succeed. Trump made her angry, but fury is not what drove her to run. "It wasn't outrage," she says. "It was empowerment." Trump made her angry, but fury is not what drove her to run. "It wasn't outrage," she says. "It was empowerment." Lipman is one of a critical mass of women across the U.S. shocked into action by the 2016 presidential election—and, as a result, some are angling to get their names on a ballot in the coming years. Women are standing up in other ways, too: Building on a rich history of women taking to the streets to call for everything from the vote in the 1910s to equal rights in the '60s and reproductive rights in the '80s, in January, millions of women participated in the Women's March on Washington in D.C. and in cities all over the country and around the world to stand up for their rights. Organizations from Planned Parenthood to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are seeing influxes of donations—Planned Parenthood received some 80,000 donations in the days after the election, and at the ACLU, whose website crashed on November 9 from so much interest, donations were up 7,000 percent within a week of the election. But, according to groups that train and promote female candidates, what's unprecedented is the number of women throwing their hats into the political ring. "On November 8 and in the wee hours of the morning of November 9, like 4 a.m., my phone was buzzing off the nightstand," says Diane Fink, executive director of Emerge Maryland, a Frederick County, Maryland–based organization that helps Democratic women run for office. "It was women saying, 'I want to do something.'" Emerge saw applications to its candidate training program double. "That was a shock," Fink says. "We expanded our class because of it." (Emerge typically caps its candidate training class at 15; this year, it went up to 23.) Feminist icon Gloria Steinem Yale Joel/The Life Picture Collection/Getty Images At She Should Run, a nonpartisan organization in Washington, D.C., that also assists women considering entering politics, the response has been similarly overwhelming. "What we heard from women throughout the cycle is how disgusted they were about the discourse that was taking place around politics, and especially the misogyny we were seeing front and center," says Erin Loos Cutraro, the group's cofounder and CEO. "Since Election Day, we've seen over 4,500—and counting—women step up. To give you context, we usually see about 100 or so women come into She Should Run each month. It's quite remarkable." On November 9, Lipman and millions of American women like her woke up to a new normal: a country where the president-elect is a man who has bragged about groping women, calls women who challenge him pigs and dogs, sexualizes and sometimes humiliates women he finds attractive, and who ran a campaign many found shockingly misogynistic. The difference between the percentage of men who voted for Trump and women who voted for Clinton was 24 points, the biggest gender gap in 44 years. And women of color rejected him especially forcefully: Just 8 percent of African-American women and 26 percent of Latina voters cast ballots for Trump. "There has been an awakening after this election, an awakening that we are now all living in a Donald Trump country," says Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily's List, which endorses and raises money to support pro-choice Democratic women. "And these women, particularly young women, realize they are the ones who are going to have to stop this. And they are rolling up their sleeves and saying, 'Put me to work.'" But no matter your party choice, "We need women involved and running—this needs to be about more than supporting or not supporting the president," says Lauren Leader Chivée, CEO and cofounder of All In Together, a nonpartisan women's organization that works to advance female leadership. "All In Together has always been committed to helping women of both parties do that, but it does feel like the response lately is, 'I get it now; tell me what to do and I'll do it.'" Monica Weeks has her sleeves rolled up. "After the election, I was like, I have to do something. I can't not," says Weeks, a 29-year-old Cuban-American. "And it can't just be volunteering. It needs to be a real action." She and her husband have started talking about moving from their current home in Washington, D.C., back to Weeks' home state of Florida, where she feels more connected to the Cuban-American community and thinks she could make a bigger impact. That's their first priority for 2017: Make a plan, including sketching out a timeline, for Weeks' run for a local position in Miami. "It's really daunting to think about," Weeks says. "But for me, I see this as part of my civic duty. My way of giving back to society is helping with women's rights." March for Women's Equality in Washington, April 1989 Barbara Alper/Getty Images Weeks works as a photographer and an interior designer, and while she has long supported women's rights, electoral politics have held much less appeal—some of her views don't fit into neat ideological boxes, and she values authenticity and the ability to speak her mind freely. "I thought I'd be more powerful and have my voice heard more outside of Congress, because I always thought I would have to compromise my values in order to be in politics," she says. "I love House of Cards, but it's like, Oh, my God, do I have to be this terrible of a person to do well in politics?" This election changed that equation. She watched women like Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Nevada Democrat Lucy Flores, who lost her congressional bid, fight for what they cared about without selling out. "There are more badass women coming out and giving me more hope," Weeks says. She admires Clinton as well, she says, "but a lot of what inspired me to do this was fear and, frankly, anger." She also thinks she's uniquely positioned to convince skeptical voters to support her and the policies for which she would advocate, including reproductive rights, education, and preserving the Affordable Care Act. "A lot of my family voted for Trump," Weeks says. "And I think what I bring is an empathy and an understanding of what 'those people' feel, but I'm also able to talk to them and say, 'This is why I think these policies are better for our community.'" The forces driving many of the women who run are exactly what Weeks describes: a combination of anger at the election results, passion for the issues they care about most, and a deep dedication to the next generation. "A theme coming from women who are stepping up for the first time is outrage, not just at the direction this country is going, but also at the overall rhetoric and environment that we have created for women and for girls," says She Should Run's Loos Cutraro. "We have a lot of women with daughters or girls in their lives who want and expect their voices to be heard, and want to be a role model." When she was still toying with the idea of running for alderwoman, a turning point for Lipman was watching an anti-Trump ad that showed women and girls looking in the mirror as clips of Trump play in the background. "I'd look her right in that fat ugly face of hers," he declares in one of them; in others, he says, "She ate like a pig," and evaluates women based on their breast size. Lipman choked up watching that ad, and even describing it months later and imagining what it must feel like for little girls to hear their president speak so contemptuously about women, her voice wavers. "It's not, 'Wow, you're a douche bag,'" she says. "It's, 'Wow, you are the face of the entire United States.'" Wherever she can, Lipman wants to counter that message and change the narrative. According to Emerge Maryland's Fink, this is very much a female thing. "Women run because of a desire to make change, and something they see needs to be fixed," she says. "Men tend to run because of power." "Women run because of a desire to make change, and something they see needs to be fixed. Men tend to run because of power." Wanting to fix what's broken is Marion Johnson's story. The 29-year-old grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and now lives in Durham, where she works at the North Carolina Justice Center. "The issue that really got me 'radicalized' was the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality," Johnson says. Trump's entire candidacy revolted her, but as a young African-American woman, she also didn't see Clinton as a candidate reflective of the full scope of her concerns. "In some ways, I did feel inspired by Clinton, and in other ways, I don't relate to her," Johnson says. "She is a woman and we went to the same undergrad [Wellesley], so there's that connection, but she's older, she's white, she's rich—so I felt like in so many ways I'm voting for someone who doesn't know what it's like to be me. And then I realized that the only person who understands that is me, and so I should run for office." Johnson is now considering running for city council or another local position where she can influence the policies that directly affect her neighbors—things like affordable housing and police accountability. In conversations with colleagues and friends, she's heard from other women who are thinking about running, too. "We're realizing that it's important to have somebody who understands our lives as women representing us," Johnson says. "And the best person for that job would be ourselves." It's not just liberal women making this calculus. Aly Higgins, a 26-year-old Washington, D.C., resident originally from New Hampshire, says she had long toyed with the idea of running for office, but this past election was a turning point. "People are realizing that if they want to make a change, they have to step up and start seeking it," Higgins, a registered Republican, says. She adds that Trump's win was emboldening in the sense that "it showed you that anyone can do this." On election night, she waited for the results to come in at an event with Elise Stefanik, a 32-year-old Republican congresswoman from New York; watching a fellow Millennial woman who represents the issues Higgins also cares about—a strong national defense, a balanced budget, states' rights—pushed Higgins to really consider following in Stefanik's footsteps. "This year on both sides, there weren't enough women who ran, and Congress is not representative of our population," Higgins says. She's working with She Should Run and the Republican PAC RightNOW Women to figure out next steps. "It is so important that we have more women at the table." "This year on both sides, there weren't enough women who ran, and Congress is not representative of our population." The question political parties and women's organizations are now asking is how to sustain this energy. It's not just that many more women want to evolve into successful politicians; women who have no interest in running for office themselves are also giving money and volunteering to help put other women in positions of power, creating a wave of political sisterhood that could influence elections for years to come. "We've seen an incredible uptick in women and men, but mostly women, donating," says Schriock, of Emily's List. "Over 60 percent were first-time donors." At an anti-Trump protest 2016 Thomas Dworzak/Magnum Photos According to Bob Bland, one of the organizers of the Women's March on Washington, "One of the reasons why I got into [organizing the march] in the first place was to help to make leadership more representative in this country. With equity in leadership, we will experience equity in society." Getting women out marching was just the first step; organizers are now trying to funnel women into the political pipeline, or at the very least keep them politically engaged in an environment where many women find politics offensive and taxing. Both the Democratic and Republican Parties say they want to cultivate a new generation of leaders. But young women interested in political careers, or even involvement, are at a greater disadvantage. They're saddled with all of the usual reasons women don't run for office—a lack of confidence in their own skills and their ability to raise money, fear that their private lives will be put under a microscope or that they will be scrutinized for their looks, as well as an absence of institutional support and political connections—plus the reality that women under 35 are in the busy stages of building their lives. Focusing on their careers, getting married, and raising children doesn't leave much time, let alone money, for campaigning. For Amanda Litman, a 27-year-old self-described "campaign hack" in New York (she was the Clinton campaign's e-mail director), the Democratic Party's sluggishness in investing in young people after the election has been particularly infuriating, especially given the current vacuum in Democratic leadership. Despite the fact that Millennial voters trend left, many of the most prominent progressive figures—Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton—are all grandparents over age 65. "Right after Election Day, there was a lot of conversation about the future of the Democrats," she says. "Part of that conversation included building the next generation of talent"—but it didn't go anywhere, and party higher-ups quickly moved on to other matters. "I started thinking, The party is in shambles, there's no leadership, they're rebuilding infrastructure, and there is no outside group that exists to support people under the age of 35 to run for office." So she decided to start one. The first problem to address, Litman says, is that the way the party recruits is backward: "They focus on the seat first and ask, 'Who do we know we could get to run?' And that limits them to the people they know, who tend to be old white dudes." Campaigns are expensive and often turn into full-time jobs, which is why so many candidates are older and retired, or lawyers whose firms will keep them on the payroll. An Emerge Maryland Class, December 2016 To counter that, Litman's group, which is still in the process of starting up, would meet young people where they're at, through ads on Facebook and social media, and cultivate political talent where it resides, then channel those candidates into competitive races. It would fundraise and financially support young candidates. And it would offer a fellowship program providing contenders with a monthly stipend to cover expenses while they're out of work, on the campaign trail. When she tweeted about her idea, she says she received "an avalanche of responses." It's not that young people aren't interested in the electoral process; it's that people at the top of the organized party structures have too often seen Millennials as a voting block, not as potential leaders. But as much as she believes a Trump presidency will be a catastrophe, his unlikely rise rewrote the political playbook. "The usual path to politics has been blown to smithereens," Litman says. "This is a chance for young women and young people broadly to do their own thing. It's terrifying, but also freeing." Alex Lipman, who is planning her run for alderwoman in Chicago, is already taking advantage of this new political landscape. She has a website, is learning about how to fundraise, and is honing her campaign pitch. The election isn't until 2019—"But," she says, "I'm ready to go." This article appears in the March issue of Marie Claire, on newsstands now. |
In an interview with the Sunday Times, actress Thandie Newton commented on the limited roles available to her, as a woman of color, in the UK. She said: “I love being here, but I can’t work, because I can’t do Downton Abbey, can’t be in Victoria, can’t be in Call the Midwife — well, I could, but I don’t want to play someone who’s being racially abused. I’m not interested in that, don’t want to do it … there just seems to be a desire for stuff about the royal family, stuff from the past, which is understandable, but it just makes it slim pickings for people of colour.” She’s not the first non-white actor to make this observation. David Oyelowo told the BBC: “We make period dramas in Britain, but there are almost never black people in them, even though we’ve been on these shores for hundreds of years. It’s frustrating, because it doesn’t have to be that way.” Oyelowo says he even suggested a historical drama based on a black character to a U.K. executive at one point, but was told: “…’if it’s not Jane Austen or Dickens, the audience don’t understand.’ I thought, ‘Okay, you are stopping people having a context for the country they live in and you are marginalising me. I can’t live with that. So I’ve got to get out’.” Actor Idris Elba also chimed in, talking to the Guardian, on the limited roles in British historical costume film and TV: “There’s definitely a particular lens on the type of period dramas that we make. You tend to see stories about well-to-do Victorians and not the stories outside London, the history of Bradford, Birmingham, Newcastle. Make period pieces more diverse. Look at England’s multicultural history. There’s a lot more stuff to unearth in period drama. I’m not a massive fan of it.” The British Film Institute has research on the issue, and the numbers don’t lie. Between 2006-2016, of the films produced in the UK, 59% did not have any black actors in a named character role, and 80% of historical dramas in this 10-year period featured not one single black actor. The problem is not isolated to the United Kingdom by any means. A University of Southern California study found that of 2014’s top 100 films, 73.1% of all characters were white, and only 17 of those top movies had non-white lead or co-lead actors. When these stats come up in relation to historical costume movies and TV shows, there are a number of predictable reactions, such as: “But there are already historical movies about / starring people of color — look at 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Roots (1977), and that one was even remade in 2016!” “Don’t you care about historical accuracy? It’s not like there were any people of color at Versailles with Marie-Antoinette!” And that’s when I know we’ve got some work to do, because those reactions are misinformed at best. I’m not claiming to be perfect or have all the answers, but I’m a researcher by trade and there’s plenty of info out there we can dig up and chew on before we say this is no big deal. So let’s get to it. Existing Roles for POC in Historical Films/TV Are Limited About the existing roster of historical films featuring people of color (POC) — how would you like it if you always saw yourself reflected on screen as a slave? Like, all the time, in every ye old timey movie and TV series. That’s it! That’s the only history you get. How’s it feel? Pretty shitty, actually. No matter how “uplifting” the final scene is, 99% of the story is “my ancestors were human chattel” — which gets really old to watch, and, as an actor, gets super-old to play. Oh, I nearly forgot, the other role available is a domestic servant (aka a paid slave). See also, The Help (2011), The Butler (2013), and everyone’s favorite Gone With the Wind (1939). While all the white girls are admiring Scarlett’s fabulous frocks, the African-American girls are stuck with “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies!” English-language historical movies and TV shows that include Latinos and Asians don’t fair much better. Stereotypes like the Latin lover and the submissive China doll or manipulative Dragon Lady dehumanize people of color and are frankly just bad storytelling. And do we even need to talk about Hollywood’s crappy portrayal of Native Americans as “injuns” in countless Wild West flicks? Ugh. So while there are some historical movies that include people of color, doing so in cliched, stereotypical roles doesn’t do actors or audiences any favors. Both U.S. and U.K. producers have occasionally made biopics and other realistic films like Bessie (2015) and The Tuskegee Airmen (1995). They’re few and far between and tend to focus on 20th-century entertainers, athletes, and war stories. When Hispanics were 23% of frequent U.S. moviegoers in 2016 (yet 18% of the population), African-Americans were 15% of moviegoers (12% of the population), and Asian-Americans and other people of color were 11% of moviegoers (8% of the population) according to Motion Picture Association of America data, it’s a shame to have so little accurate, interesting, relevant history onscreen. As of 2010, non-Hispanic whites account for only 63.7% of America’s population, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at our film and TV screens. POC Existed Throughout All of History Historical costume movies and TV series tell stories that are either based on real events (the life of Queen Victoria) or they’re fiction events set in a past time (based on a book, like Pride and Prejudice, or written originally for screen, like Downton Abbey). None of these have to exclude people of color automatically just to be “historically accurate.” Yes, I realize that most of the frock flicks we discuss — certainly the English-language productions made in the U.S. and U.K. — draw on European history pre-World War II. But there was still a lot of contact between Europe and Africa, the Middle East, and Asia before the mid 20th century. Immigration to America before World War II tended to be more controlled, by both geography and by law, with immigration peaking between the 1880s-1910s. Also, America was home to native tribes and Mexicans, considering how today’s California was part of Mexico as late as the 1840s. Point being, there’s a lot more opportunity for integration in historical dramas, and little excuse for historical shows to be so incredibly lily white. While slavery is part of the history of race relations, and should be addressed in historical film and TV, there’s a wide range of history that can be told, even in British costume dramas. As the prologue to one of the most famous books on the topic sums up: “Black people — by whom I mean Africans and Asians and their descendants — have been living in Britain for close on 500 years. They have been born in Britain since about the year 1505. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries thousands of black youngsters were brought to this country against their will as domestic slaves. Other black people came here of their own accord and stayed for a while or settled here.” — Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain, Peter Fryer From the division of Moors that defended Hadrian’s Wall in the third century C.E., including an Ethiopian solider who mocked the emperor, to the group of African entertainers and servants at King James IV of Scotland’s court in Edinburgh around 1504-13 — there’s plenty of interesting fodder for movies and TV shows in pre-slave trade eras that’s still historically accurate. There were enough Africans in Tudor England, being “baptised, buried, and recorded in parish records in London, Plymouth, Southampton, Barnstaple, Bristol, Leicester, Northampton, and other places across the country” noted History Extra, that it may have played into Queen Elizabeth‘s controversial 1596 letter ordering these “blackamoores” be deported (political forces may also have been at play, Moors being aligned with England’s enemy, Spain). If you’re saying “pix or it didn’t happen,” check out the People of Color in European Art History Tumblr for images of people of color everywhere from Black Madonnas from the 8th and 10th centuries C.E. to the crowd scenes of Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s peasant life scenes of Netherlands in the 1560s. If we can use art to document froofy dresses and hats, surely we can use it to document POC in history, right? Isn’t that historically accurate enough? It Shouldn’t Be Hard to Tell Inclusive Stories As I’ve said before, historical costume movies and TV shows aren’t documentaries (unless labeled as such), they’re entertainment. They have to tell a good story. So if producers don’t want to mine actual history, it’s easy enough to start with fiction and adapt that. This may be where the greatest opportunity for inclusion lies, and if you think about it, this is where our most beloved historical costume movies and TV shows come from. Jane Austen and Charles Dickens film/TV adaptions aren’t telling actual history, so why not cast actors of any race in the stories? It’s been done with Shakespeare (see Sophie Okonedo as Margaret of Anjou in The Hollow Crown, 2016, for example), and it works just fine. This is sometimes called “color-blind casting” or simply “non-traditional casting” where the race or ethnicity of the actor is not germane to the character he or she is playing. Pride and Prejudice would work with a diverse cast just as well because it’s a love story and a comedy of manners; nothing about the characters requires them to be a certain race or ethnicity. You can watch Bride and Prejudice (2014), a Bollywood-ized modern Indian version, and you’ll see that the story translates just fine. And really, if you can add zombies to Pride and Prejudice, why not people of color and do a better job of it? Then there’s original stories created for film or TV, which aren’t beholden to either historical figures or a book’s premise. Consider Downton Abbey, but instead of Mr. Pamuk dying suddenly when he and Mary shag, they fall in love and want to marry all proper and legit. His sister comes over from Turkey and starts breaking hearts among the London gentry. Maybe his mother is a recurring character who matches wits with the Dowager Countess. As a diplomat negotiating Albanian independence in London and son of a minister for the Turkish Sultan, Pamuk’s character could have lent many opportunities to explore British colonialism from different points of view, while still showing off all the fabulous costumes and houses we all love. Integrate the Abbey from the highest level in the first season, instead of randomly have Rose get a crush on a black jazz singer in season four, which kinda felt like “oh noes, Julian Fellowes is placating someone’s complaints.” Or how about a fantasy-tinged historical show a la Outlander? Sure, that’s based on a book, but why shouldn’t a person of color time-travel back to the 16th-century court of Elizabeth I or 18th-century pre-Revolutionary France and interact with real historical characters as well as invented characters? The modern POC character could be treated very differently in each period — sometimes standing out, other times blending in, depending on the time, place, social status, political situation, and more. The TV series Timeless does some of this with Rufus and plays the concept of a 21st-century black man time-traveling for laughs. I don’t mind that it’s humorous, but he could be more than just a sidekick. These are just a few ideas, and hey, Hollywood, BBC, anyone else who’s reading, if you use them, I’d like a screen credit and royalties, kthx! Honestly, it’s not that difficult to try and come up with new stories to film that are historically accurate (or as historically accurate as anything else that’s currently being filmed, let’s get serious). We have a running series of articles on actual historical people, and a few books, that are just as interesting as the same old topics that are constantly recycled for historical costume movies and TV shows. So y’all should know by now that there’s plenty of real history that The Powers That Be are ignoring when they make historical movies and TV shows. One problem is that movie/TV production is expensive and the business is conservative; they don’t like to risk their money on anything that isn’t tried and tested and guaranteed to make money. However, historical films starring people of color do make money. Hidden Figures (2016) cost $25 million to make, and it’s earned over $214 million worldwide as of this writing. For comparison, Jackie (2016) cost $9 million and earned a bit over $11 million worldwide, and Hacksaw Ridge (2016) cost $40 million to make and earned $163 million worldwide. All of these mid-20th-century historical films were praised by critics, so it seems an equal comparison. Clearly, a film about African-Americans — yet not about slavery — can be a big money-maker. TV may have a lower bar for production, especially these days with streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and others making their own series. And more new drama and comedy shows are being made today than in previous years. Over the past decade, the number of scripted TV shows being produced rose by 137%, and 455 scripted shows aired on broadcast, cable, and online services in 2016, according to Variety. We’ve seen a few Amazon “pilot season” episodes of historical series (Casanova, The Last Tycoon, Z: The Beginning of Everything), but only one so far (Z) has been made into a full season. This should be the area where producers experiment, takes risks, and explore new stories, including more inclusive historical costume dramas. If they do, will you watch? Share this: Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Reddit Tumblr Like this: Like Loading... |
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of violent clashes during which mobs of U.S. servicemen, off-duty police officers and civilians brawled with young Latinos and other minorities in Los Angeles. The June 1943 riots took their name from the baggy suits worn by many minority youths during that era, but the violence was more about racial tension than fashion. What Is a Zoot Suit? During the 1930s, dance halls were popular venues for socializing, swing dancing and easing the economic stress of the Great Depression. Nowhere was this more true than in the uptown Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem, home of the famed Harlem Renaissance. Style-conscious Harlem dancers began wearing loose-fitting clothes that accentuated their movements. Men donned baggy trousers with cuffs carefully tapered to prevent tripping; long jackets with heavily padded shoulders and wide lapels; long, glittering watch chains; and hats ranging from porkpies and fedoras to broad-brimmed sombreros. ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website The image of these so-called “zoot suits” spread quickly and was popularized by performers such as Cab Calloway, who, in his Hepster’s Dictionary, called the zoot suit “the ultimate in clothes. The only totally and truly American civilian suit.” ‘A Badge of Delinquency’ As the zoot suit became more popular among young men in African American, Mexican American and other minority communities, the clothes garnered a somewhat racist reputation. Latino youths in California known as “pachucos”—often wearing flashy zoot suits, porkpie hats and dangling watch chains—were increasingly viewed by affluent whites as menacing street thugs, gang members and rebellious juvenile delinquents. ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website ADVERTISEMENT Thanks for watching! Visit Website Wartime patriotism didn’t help matters: After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II, wool and other textiles were subject to strict rationing. The U.S. War Production Board regulated the production of civilian clothing containing silk, wool and other essential fabrics. Despite these wartime restrictions, many bootleg tailors in Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere continued to make the popular zoot suits, which used profligate amounts of fabric. Servicemen and many other people, however, saw the oversized suits a flagrant and unpatriotic waste of resources. The local media was only too happy to fan the flames of racism and moral outrage: On June 2, 1943, the Los Angeles Times reported: “Fresh in the memory of Los Angeles is last year’s surge of gang violence that made the ‘zoot suit’ a badge of delinquency. Public indignation seethed as warfare among organized bands of marauders, prowling the streets at night, brought a wave of assaults, [and] finally murders.” The Zoot Suit Riots Begin In the summer of 1943, tensions ran high between zoot-suiters and the large contingent of white sailors, soldiers and Marines stationed in and around Los Angeles. Mexican Americans were serving in the military in high numbers, but many servicemen viewed the zoot-suit wearers as World War II draft dodgers (though many were in fact too young to serve in the military). On May 31, a clash between uniformed servicemen and Mexican American youths resulted in the beating of a U.S. sailor. Partly in retaliation, on the evening of June 3, about 50 sailors from the local U.S. Naval Reserve Armory marched through downtown Los Angeles carrying clubs and other crude weapons, attacking anyone seen wearing a zoot suit or other racially identified clothing. In the days that followed, the racially charged atmosphere in Los Angeles exploded in a number of full-scale riots. Mobs of U.S. servicemen took to the streets and began attacking Latinos and stripping them of their suits, leaving them bloodied and half-naked on the sidewalk. Local police officers often watched from the sidelines, then arrested the victims of the beatings. Thousands more servicemen, off-duty police officers and civilians joined the fray over the next several days, marching into cafes and movie theaters and beating anyone wearing zoot-suit clothing or hairstyles (duck-tail haircuts were a favorite target and were often cut off). Blacks and Filipinos—even those not clad in zoot suits—were also attacked. The Rioting Spreads By June 7, the rioting had spread outside downtown Los Angeles to Watts, East Los Angeles and other neighborhoods. Taxi drivers offered free rides to servicemen to rioting areas, and thousands of military personnel and civilians from San Diego and other parts of Southern California converged on Los Angeles to join the mayhem. Leaders of the Mexican American community implored state and local officials to intervene, but their pleas met with little action. One eyewitness, writer Carey McWilliams, painted a terrifying picture: “On Monday evening, June seventh, thousands of Angelenos … turned out for a mass lynching. Marching through the streets of downtown Los Angeles, a mob of several thousand soldiers, sailors, and civilians, proceeded to beat up every zoot-suiter they could find. Street cars were halted while Mexicans, and some Filipinos and Negroes, were jerked out of their seats, pushed into the streets, and beaten with sadistic frenzy.” Some of the most disturbing violence was clearly racist in nature: According to several reports, a black defense plant worker—still wearing his defense-plant identification badge—was yanked off a streetcar, after which one of his eyes was gouged out with a knife. Aftermath of the Zoot Suit Riots Local papers framed the racial attacks as a vigilante response to an immigrant crime wave, and police generally restricted their arrests to the Latinos who fought back. The riots didn’t die down until June 8, when U.S. military personnel were finally barred from leaving their barracks. The Los Angeles City Council issued a ban on zoot suits the following day. Amazingly, no one was killed during the weeklong riot, but it wasn’t the last outburst of zoot suit-related racial violence. Similar incidents took place that same year in cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit. A Citizens’ Committee appointed by California Governor Earl Warren to investigate the Zoot Suit Riots convened in the weeks after the riot. The committee’s report found that, “In undertaking to deal with the cause of these outbreaks, the existence of race prejudice cannot be ignored.” Additionally, the committee described the problem of juvenile delinquency youth as “one of American youth, not confined to any racial group. The wearers of zoot suits are not necessarily persons of Mexican descent, criminals or juveniles. Many young people today wear zoot suits.” Sources: A Brief History of the Zoot Suit: Smithsonian.com. Zoot Suit Riots: Pomona College Research Library [online]. Remembering the Zoot Suit Riots: California Historical Society. Los Angeles Group Insists Riots Halt: The New York Times. Youth Gangs Leading Cause of Delinquencies: Los Angeles Times. Accessed via web.viu.ca. The Los Angeles “Zoot Suit Riots” Revisited: Mexican and Latin American Perspectives. Richard Griswold del Castillo, San Diego State University. |
ES Football Newsletter Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account Harry Kane is confident he and Dele Alli can work their magic for England as well as Tottenham. Kane leads the Premier League scoring charts this season with 21 goals, seven of which have been created by Alli. The 19-year-old has registered seven goals and 11 assists for Tottenham in his first full season at the club, while Kane has added two assists to his 24 goals in all competitions. Barring injury, the pair will be included in the England squad for Euro 2016 and will use the friendlies against Germany and Holland to push for a place in Roy Hodgson’s starting XI for the tournament. Competition for places in the final 23-man party is fierce but Kane believes he and Alli can reproduce their club form for the national team. He said: “It depends whether we play together, which is up to the manager and who he picks, but we do have a great understanding and I think people have seen that this season. He is a great player, as everyone has seen. As a striker, when you make the runs, it’s perfect if you have a player who can get on the half-turn and play the ball forward quickly. That’s what Dele has done this season. In Pictures: Tottenham vs Bournemouth 8 show all In Pictures: Tottenham vs Bournemouth 1/8 Hurri-Kane Harry Kane gets off the mark after just 44 seconds. 2/8 Spurs support Fans head to White Hart Lane for Sunday's Premier League clash. 3/8 Shiny happy people One Tottenham supporter's rather spectacular hat. 4/8 Sunday sun White Hart Lane looking fresh on the first day of spring. 5/8 Getting ready Kane looks confident in the warm-up. 6/8 Finishing touches Christian Eriksen tries a few last-minute trademark free kicks. 7/8 Too good Bournemouth's resistance lasted just 44 seconds as Kane slid in to finish. 8/8 Top scorer Kane was overjoyed at opening the scoring early on, with the goal seeing him lead the Premier League scoring charts. 1/8 Hurri-Kane Harry Kane gets off the mark after just 44 seconds. 2/8 Spurs support Fans head to White Hart Lane for Sunday's Premier League clash. 3/8 Shiny happy people One Tottenham supporter's rather spectacular hat. 4/8 Sunday sun White Hart Lane looking fresh on the first day of spring. 5/8 Getting ready Kane looks confident in the warm-up. 6/8 Finishing touches Christian Eriksen tries a few last-minute trademark free kicks. 7/8 Too good Bournemouth's resistance lasted just 44 seconds as Kane slid in to finish. 8/8 Top scorer Kane was overjoyed at opening the scoring early on, with the goal seeing him lead the Premier League scoring charts. “For my second goal against Bournemouth on Sunday, he turned, saw my run, played the ball perfectly into my path and I was able to finish it off. “It’s not just with Dele. Kyle Walker set me up for my first goal against Bournemouth. We have a great bunch of English lads at Tottenham so we just have to see which team is picked and go from there.” Kane and Alli are two of five Tottenham players in Hodgson’s squad for these matches, with Walker, Danny Rose and Eric Dier also included. The quintet are playing a central role in Spurs’s push for a first League title since 1961. They are five points behind leaders Leicester and have successive games against Liverpool (April 2) and Manchester United (April 10) when domestic action resumes after the international break. Christian Eriksen believes Tottenham can maintain pressure on Leicester until the end. He told the club website: “We’re keeping a bit of pressure on Leicester and they don’t have the feeling that they are so far ahead of us. “It’s a big difference between eight points and five points and we’ve kept it at five — hopefully the gap will be even smaller next time.” |
Wet Seal is an American teen clothing retailer headquartered in Foothill Ranch, California. It carried low, budget or economy priced brand name and company-designed apparel and accessories. The company was founded in Newport Beach, California by Lorne Huycke in 1962 as "Lorne's." The "Wet Seal" name comes from a comment Lorne Huycke made during a fashion show commenting that a model wearing a bathing suit looked like a "wet seal."[3][4] The company was incorporated as Wet Seal in 1990.[5] History [ edit ] In 1995, Wet Seal acquired 237 Contempo Casuals stores from the Neiman Marcus Group. Contempo Casuals would continue to use its own name until 2001, when the remaining stores were converted into Wet Seal stores. The company then launched the Arden B. brand in November 1998 and changed most of the remaining Contempo Casual names to Arden B. In June 2010 the Blink by Wet Seal concept was announced.[6] As of November 22, 2006, Wet Seal had 428 locations in 48 states and Puerto Rico.[7] By 2014, the company had 478 Wet Seal stores and 54 Arden B stores. Also in 2014 Wet Seal announced that it would close all the Arden B stores by 2015.[8] The Wet Seal, Inc. and its subsidiaries operated as a specialty retailer of apparel and accessory items for women in the United States. It operated three mall-based chains of retail stores under the Wet Seal, Arden B, and Blink by Wet Seal brands. The company's Wet Seal stores offered apparel and accessories for teenage girls. The Arden B. stores provided feminine, contemporary collections of fashion separates and accessories until 2015. Blink stores focused on denim products for the same teenage girl market as Wet Seal, but with store sizes of 1,600 square feet (150 m2) versus the 4,000 square feet (370 m2) of Wet Seal.[6] It also operated Web-based stores, which included www.wetseal.com that offered Wet Seal merchandise; and www.ardenb.com, which offers Arden B apparel and accessories. As of January 30, 2010, the company operated 504 retail stores in 47 states, including 424 Wet Seal stores and 80 Arden B stores. The Wet Seal, Inc. was founded in 1962 and is based in Foothill Ranch, California. The chain made a failed attempt to purchase County Seat in 1996.[9] Wet Seal typically served the same audience and competed with Forever 21, and Charlotte Russe.[10] In 2013, Wet Seal laid off 35 employees, mostly at the headquarters due to competition from Forever 21 in order to save $3.8 million a year.[11] In 2013, Wet Seal reached a $7.5 million settlement with minority plaintiffs who charged that the company directed managers to fire African American employees who they thought did not fit the company's brand image which is the "Armani look, white, blond hair and blue eyes."[12] 2015–17: Bankruptcy and liquidation [ edit ] In January 2015, due to increased competition in the teen clothing sector, Wet Seal shuttered a number of stores despite previously indicating to employees that the outlets would stay open. Employees responded to this termination procedure by posting signs in the front windows outlining the way that Wet Seal management communicated the closures to staff and the relatively paltry compensation received.[13] Share price of the company's stock WTSL dropped to $0.06.[14] On January 16, 2015, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California.[15][16] On January 27, 2017, Business Insider and other news outlets reported that Wet Seal was closing all of its stores immediately and terminating all staff and employees,[17] part of an American retail phenomenon of store closures known as the retail apocalypse. The brand was acquired by Gordon Brothers.[18] It is now operating as an online-only retailer. |
It was once thought that BMW was the German marque better suited to making corner carvers, and Mercedes-Benz was the brand which specialized in luxurious people carriers. Nowadays, it’s hard to make sense of where the two brands stand, since their offerings are so vast and generally capable, but nothing from BMW has the edge the sharpened version of Mercedes’ popular AMG GT has. In fact, the hardcore AMG GT R has the ability to outrun a 991-generation Porsche 911 GT3, which, given its hard-edged reputation, should have no problem with a typical AMG. Unlike some of the porkier offerings from Mercedes’ in-house tuner, the AMG GT R is a real weapon on the track, and shares some of its makeup with the racing version. Like the Porsche 911 GT3, it uses rear wheel steering to offer a level of precision that most couldn’t associate with those classic, long-hooded proportions. A massive diffuser at the rear offers incredible stability at speed (see 3:55 for a real demonstration of trust), and the low-speed traction is aided by the AMG GT’s electronic differential, as well as a nine-stage traction control system inherited from the AMG GT3 racing car! With 585 horsepower and 476 lb-ft driving the rear wheels, people would assume that every corner would turn into a tire fry. Big torque is managed through calibration; the motor revs and produces power like a normally-aspirated AMG should, but there’s not much else holding it back if you discount that traction control system. Mind you, the system is only accessible when the ESP is disabled, so the guys at AMG were clearly interested in intruding as little as possible with the driving experience. Making good use of the power, the GT R is able to gobble up straights and accelerate with respectable traction and minimal throttle cut—little corner-exit slides are managed with a hint of opposite lock. It’s still a complicated, heavy car, and that shows when it’s put up against the all-around performer which is the 911 GT3, against which it’s—almost imperceptibly—lazier. We’re talking shades of grey here, but there’s no getting away from the weight advantage the Porsche holds over the Benz. The rear-engined GT3 ekes out gaps in the technical sections where traction is everything. The transaxle setup in the Benz can’t compete, the torque delivery is more brutal, and the car is slightly less manageable when the rears eventually let go. However, the Porsche seems to suffer to match it in terms of front-end grip in the more technical sections of the Nordschleife. Since Sport Auto’s chief test driver Christian Gebhardt is not shy of testing the limits of the front axle by using strong steering inputs and deftly managing understeer through slower corners— ?t=1m59s”>his onboard lap with the GT3 at the ‘Ring supports that—he’s able to illustrate the distinction here. It’s at the left-right flick at Adenauer Forst (2:16 in the Benz’s onboard footage) that the difference in front axle strengths is best seen. Into the corner, arriving at high speed from the preceding Fuchsröhre section, the Porsche is instantly limited by its understeer, and reluctant to turn in, which, having to keep some steering lock on for longer, is made worse by the right-hand flick at the exit of the complex. The front axle is overwhelmed, and the Porsche loses lots of time here, where the Mercedes does a quick flick-flick, keeps the mid-corner speed up, and relies on that incredible motor to fire it down the following straight. As speeds increase, it’s the Porsche which looks more inviting; more controllable and more precise. While the Mercedes has an edge in slower corners, that incisiveness is lost in the faster stuff. It’s deflected over bumps, and not as predictable as the Porsche, which is aided by the rear-engined willingness to rotate in the quick stuff. It takes a sensitive pair of hands, but the GT3 allows the driver to thread the needle when the GT R becomes a comparatively blunt tool. https:// ?t=4m3s Being a relatively fast course with lots of straighter sections, a torquey powerplant goes a long way, hence the AMG’s better time. Nevertheless, the car which looks to offer more in terms of driver involvement is the Porsche, and probably the better machine to try and whittle lap times down with. Yet, for a company better known for their luxurious sedans, the Benz is far from a pumped-up Riviera cruiser. |
Chattanooga-based Unum said it is outsourcing some "high-volume, transactional processes," leading to the elimination of some financial positions. Unum has contracted with EXL, a firm with headquarters in New York City, but with employees throughout the world, including many in India. Unum officials said, despite the move, that its local employment is remaining steady. A Unum employee whose job was cut said that this month Unum "eliminated 36 finance jobs and there will be more to come. They are giving employees three to six months to find a new job or collect severance at their end dates. They are outsourcing finance functions to an Indian-based company called EXL. "Unum employees are to work with the Indians in a 'knowledge transfer'. There will be two types of training sessions: for those who kept their jobs and for those who are losing their jobs. There will also be cultural sensitivity training for U.S. employees. "The IT Department is next." Unum's Mary Clarke Guenther said, "We did eliminate a small number of transactional roles in our finance area, and those employees will all have three to six months to find other jobs with the company. With attrition and the creation of new roles, we hire about 100 people a month throughout the company. We’re hopeful internal employees will be able to fill some of these positions. "The work that is being outsourced involves high-volume, transactional processes. The company we’ve hired to handle those processes specializes in that kind of work. They can bring superior technology and efficiency to those processes. "Our employment in Chattanooga has remained relatively constant for the last decade, hovering between 2600 and 2800 employees. In the last two years, the number is actually trending upward. Given the size of our company, the ways we constantly evolve to meet customer expectations, and the ongoing fluctuation of roles in different business areas, a snapshot from this kind of shift would never offer a complete or accurate picture." EXL was incorporated in April 1999 in Delaware by a group that included Vikram Talwar and Rohit Kapoor. EXL earlier this year was named " a Top 10 Outsourcing Service Provider" by the Information Services Group (ISG), a leading technology insights, market intelligence and advisory services company. |
What a difference a decade makes. Last week, the Presbyterian Church (USA) became the latest Christian denomination to affirm marriage equality, after a ratification vote in the Palisades presbytery on Tuesday night pushed the number of affirming presbyteries over 51 percent—thus making marriage equality official doctrine. With this move, the PC (USA) joins the Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Church of Christ, Conservative and Reform Judaism, Quakers, and Unitarian Universalists in affirming and supporting LGBT people. The Presbyterians bring us ever closer to the tipping point of a majority of mainline Christian churches affirming LGBT people, including marriage equality. In fact, even those denominations that have not affirmed marriage equality all have strong, vocal minorities, advocating for change within them. But while observers might be asking themselves “Who’s next?” the changes to come will likely be more cultural than doctrinal. The United Methodist Church is the only major mainline church left that could vote for marriage equality. They will continue to struggle to do so, however, since their voting delegation is global, with an increasing percentage of delegates coming from countries that have yet to affirm the existence of LGBT people, much less marriage equality. That means major American churches yet to affirm marriage equality are likely to do it more through cultural change within the denomination than by formal vote. Despite the Southern Baptist Convention being so large (and conservative), the major decision making happens on a church-by-church basis. Evangelicals have even less centralized structure, so change is also going to come person-to-person, and church-by-church. That will take more time, but likely make the change stronger and more permanent. On the flip side, we see the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchical structure, meaning that any change is going to come from the top down. While it seems unlikely that the Roman Catholic hierarchy is going to change its views on marriage equality anytime soon (despite quotes from Pope Francis like “Who am I to judge?”), a majority of Catholic lay people in the United States support marriage equality meaning that the changing of hearts and minds has already happened. The hierarchy is out of step with what everyday Catholics believe. Hardly any of this religious support for marriage equality was even imaginable a mere 15 years ago. I remember working in the movement to make the Lutheran Church more affirming to LGBT people. In 2001, the focus was on allowing LGBT clergy to serve openly. Marriage equality was not yet on anyone’s radar. In the church’s tradition of “prayerfully considering” controversial issues, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America created a study on human sexuality. What was initially established as a four-year study stretched into eight years of conversation, Bible study, prayer, and incremental votes that moved the church into a place where, finally in 2009, it was ready to affirm not only committed, life-long same-gender relationships, but also clergy who were in such relationships. Likewise, in 2003 when former Bishop Gene Robinson was consecrated as the first openly gay bishop in any mainstream denomination, no state had marriage equality. The unprecedented election of someone who was openly LGBT was a huge deal, and caused him to face international rejection from many. Eventually, though, Robinson became the Ellen Degeneres of faith leaders, ushering in more openly LGBT leaders, and making the issue much less contentious over his tenure as bishop. Since then, the country has experienced incremental steps backward and forward in regards to marriage equality. Today, as we witness the Supreme Court potentially strike down the few remaining state bans on marriage equality, nearly 2,000 faith leaders from all 50 states signed a brief that argues that the freedom to marry will, in fact, affirm religious liberty in the United States. Churches have had a part in making that shift in society not just substantively, but stylistically—in terms of how change has taken place. When I was advocating for LGBT equality in the Lutheran church, we spent considerable time and energy investing in relationships with one another. We listened to their hopes and fears, we told stories of our own lives, and we talked about our future together as a church. When it came time to vote for further LGBT inclusion, people weren’t voting on an idea; they were voting on the relationships that had been built, and on a shared vision of how we could all be a church together. That same principle applies in our society as well. People support marriage equality because they have seen that it provides the basic protections for their friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers. They support it because they have invested in relationships with LGBT people to learn about their lives. The converse is true, where those personal, even spiritual, relationships are absent, we see LGBT people’s livelihoods threatened by backlash: religious exemptions that roll back protections, denial of benefits to married couples, and so on. Yet even within churches that still reject LGBT people, hearts and minds in the pews are starting to change faster than church policies or the preaching coming from the pulpit. That is because people in the pews are listening to that preaching while thinking about their friends, family, and neighbors who are LGBT and living full, productive lives. No matter how the Supreme Court rules, the trend of Christianity increasingly affirming LGBT people, their lives, and their relationships will continue. That will continue to happen because LGBT people and their allies of all faiths will continue to share their lives and accelerate acceptance among their friends and family, leading America to a place of LGBT acceptance. |
culture This New Art Exhibit Will Help You Embrace Winter Come January, Ice Breakers will stretch along Queens Quay from Yonge to Bathurst. By the time winter rolls around, the image of throngs of tourists and locals roaming the waterfront starts to give way to a starker picture of stillness. Ice Breakers, an interactive showcase of public art, is determined to alter our perception of an empty, dreary winter landscape by coaxing us out of hibernation mode. The sprawling exhibit, which will stretch along Queens Quay from Yonge to Bathurst streets in January, features a collection of public art works that reference the commercial history of the harbour. It builds on the success of Winter Stations, which lures seasonal shut-ins and outdoor enthusiasts to the Beaches, with its scenic beauty of towering installations fashioned from lifeguard posts that are set against an icy, grey backdrop. Ice Breakers is a collaboration between architectural firm RAW Design and the Waterfront Business Improvement Area. Following the tradition set by its predecessor, each work featured in Ice Breakers is playful response to its surrounding context. Leeward Fleet, set to be displayed in Canada Square, recalls a portrait that has long since faded from our collective memory: colourful ice boats floating on the harbour, once carrying commercial goods and ferried people to and from the Toronto Islands. Aaron Hendershott, one of the artists behind Leeward Fleet, says they drew direct inspiration from photos discovered in the Toronto Archives’ online database during research for the project. “[The ice boats] were an important part of the harbour’s cultural and economic heritage,” he says. “It was how people got to and from the islands.” The result is a sculptural interpretation of the ice boats, which will be mounted on a revolving platform—think of it as a “giant Lazy Susan,” Hendershott says. The idea is to have the sails powered by prevailing winds and passing pedestrians. Hendershott sees projects, such as Winter Stations and Ice Breakers, as part of wave of efforts designed to get the public to appreciate the winter, even in the face of its brutal might. The exhibit runs from Jan. 21 through to Feb. 26, 2017. |
Here are four great tools for recording screencasts on GNU/Linux: Open Broadcaster Software byzanz istanbul recordMyDesktop Open Broadcaster Software OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is the heavy-weight of screencasting tools. It supports multiple platforms: GNU/Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It can be used for more than recording, you can use it with YouTube or Twitch to stream videos live. You can include your webcam as a source for a more engaging presentation or just have the code on display. Byzanz Byzanz is a command-line tool. You can set options like the duration and delay of the recording. It can record into GIF or OGV/OGG formats. Istanbul Istanbul is a GUI-based tool. It sits in your tray and all you have to do is click on it to start recording. Click again and it stops recording and you can save the video. recordMyDesktop recordMyDesktop is a great little tool that has a GTK and Qt frontend. |
Michael Reid is the Executive Director of Muaythai Ontario. He is one of a few core people who has worked tirelessly to create the premier amateur organization for Muay Thai in the province. Episode 8 guest Kru Jen is the President of Muaythai Ontario, and also one of the key players in the birth and development of MTO. Michael and Jen join us to talk about the recent Provincial Championships, the legalization of Muay Thai in Ontario, the longterm vision for the organization, and the recent Adam Hunter controversy. This is a podcast worth sharing to spread knowledge of what’s in store for fans of Muay Thai in Ontario. Visit www.muaythaiontario.org to learn more, and support our Junior National Team at muaythaicanada.org/national-team/ [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/332842421″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /] |
Fox News contributor Monica Crowley says that America committed “national suicide” by re-electing President Barack Obama because tax rates will probably go up on the top earners in the country. During a Thursday segment about Obama’s fiscal cliff “ultimatum,” Fox Business host Lou Dobbs wondered where was the “coordinated action and rhetoric” from Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and other conservatives to block the tax hikes on the rich. “But here’s the thing, you can’t win them all so you’re going to see higher taxes on the wealthy,” one panelist noted. “And Boehner knows this so he’s probably going to sit back and let this thing backfire. And we’re looking at higher taxes, no growth, no jobs, fake interest rates. And in two years, I think the Republican Party comes back stronger. Tea party 2.0.” “From a conservative perspective, November 6 was a national suicide,” Crowley asserted. “There is a very thin, fine, red line between us and total destruction of the American idea. That thin, red line was the Republican Party. If this party also commits suicide, this will be catastrophic.” Dobbs concluded by promising a future segment to discuss why “Republicans are having trouble with only two areas: one — winning elections and — the other — governing.” Watch this video from Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs Tonight, broadcast Dec. 6, 2012. (h/t: Media Matters) |
It’s been a year since it was reported that former Moscow 5 gaming team owner Dmitry “ddd1ms” Smilianets had been arrested in a global operation by the FBI’s cybercrime units. The Russian was finally charged Thursday, along with three fellow countrymen and a Ukranian, for running a sophisticated hacking organization, reports AP. Smilianets is being charged with being part of an organization that stole and sold “at least” 160 million credit and debit card numbers and penetrated computer networks of more than a dozen corporations around the globe, including NASDAQ, 7-Eleven, JCPenney, Dow Jones, and more, resulting in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. “NASDAQ is owned,” wrote Aleksander Kalinin, one of the the members of the ring, in January 2008, after hacking his way into administrative access on the stock exchange’s network. The methodical attack took more than six months to complete. Online payment processing companies were hard hit in particular. Heartland Payment Systems Inc. alleged $200M was lost to the hackers, while Global Payment Systems claims $93M in losses. Visa apparently lost 800,000 card numbers to the group as well, but no loss figures were available. The hacking group included Smilianets, 29, Vladimir Drinkman, 32, Aleksander Kalinin, 26, Roman Kotov, 32, all from Russia, and Mikhail Rytikov, 26, from Odessa, Ukraine. Smilianets is charged with being the group’s “information salesmen.” He was arrested while in the United States sightseeing, his lawyer told the Associated Press. However, last year, an official statement on Moscow 5’s website said he was arrested in Amsterdam by Dutch police. Fellow suspect Drinkman is in custody in the Netherlands awaiting extradition while the others remain at large. Smilianet’s arrest spelled doom for Moscow 5, known as M5. Founded in 2001, M5 boasted world class teams in popular games such as Counter-Strike 1.6. Following the arrest, the team originally claimed it would carry on despite their founder’s ill fortune. They promised that their Dota 2, League of Legends, and Counter-Strike teams would continue to attend tournaments around the world. By January 2013, the team had run out of funding and was disbanded. Photo via goodgame.ru |
For the first time, USC scientists have mapped out a neuroreceptor. This scientific breakthrough promises to revolutionize the engineering of drugs used to treat ailments such as Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. The team produced the world's first high-resolution images of the α7 (Alpha 7) receptor, a molecule responsible for transmitting signals between neurons -- particularly in regions of the brain believed to be associated with learning and memory. Using the image, scientists will be better equipped to design pharmaceuticals specifically to interact with the receptor, instead of blindly using a trial-and-error approach. "A lot of interest in this work will come from pharmaceutical companies," said corresponding author Lin Chen, professor of biological sciences and chemistry at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "They really have no clear picture of this. They don't know how or why [their drugs] work." The high-resolution image will also help neuroscience researchers study how these receptors receive and transmit neuronal signals, a question that has puzzled researchers for decades. The article, co-authored with scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, appears in Nature Neuroscience this month. The findings follow up on Chen's earlier landmark achievement, deciphering the inner workings of a nicotine receptor in 2007. Developing an image of the α7 receptor was no simple task, which is partly why it has taken until now to achieve this despite the wide interest in the understanding the receptor's structure. Attempts to decipher neuroreceptors have been ongoing for 30 years. "This has been a longstanding challenge," Chen said. The challenge is twofold, he said. It is difficult to obtain enough receptor protein for structural analysis, and the flexible nature of these receptors makes them difficult to crystallize -- a necessary step for high-resolution imaging. The biologist's usual go-to method to study such molecules -- growing a large quantity using molecular cloning -- failed to produce enough correctly structured α7 to study. "You can't study it directly in its natural form, so you have to engineer it," Chen said. In the case of α7, Chen's collaborator, Dr. Steve Sine from Mayo Clinic, engineered a chimera, a Frankenstein molecule sharing about 70 percent of its structure in common with the α7 that reacted to stimuli in the same way that natural α7 does. The next step was to form crystals with these proteins for high-resolution study. This turns out to be particularly difficult for neuronal receptors because they are intrinsically flexible -- they need to bind to a neurotransmitter, a small molecule that acts as a messenger in the nervous system, and transmit the signal across the protein body. Moreover, these receptors are decorated with sugar molecules that add further flexibility to the system. The crystallization of α7 was a painstaking process carried out by Shu-xing Li, the first author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow in Chen's lab. For every hundred crystals obtained, only one or two were good enough for structural analysis. Li had to sort through hundreds of crystals to collect enough data for structural analysis. "In a sense, these crystals are probably among the world's most expensive crystals, certainly more expensive than diamond," Chen said. "But considering the rich information we can get from these crystals about human neuronal receptors, and the potential impact on drug development that can benefit human health, they are worth the effort." Funding for this research came from USC and the National Institutes of Health. |
Essendon crash: Four US citizens on board, family says golfer was on trip of a lifetime Updated An American man who was among five people killed when a plane crashed into a Melbourne shopping centre was on a "once in a lifetime" trip in Australia, his family says. The plane crashed and burst into flames at the DFO shopping centre in Essendon, in Melbourne's north-west, just after 9:00am on Tuesday. In a Facebook post, Denelle Wicht said her brother Greg De Haven had been killed on his way to play golf with friends. "My handsome athletic big brother was killed today in a plane accident while on his 'once in a lifetime' trip to Australia," she wrote. "It was a charter flight with two of his friends flying to another island to play golf." Family also used social media to pay tribute to another victim of the crash, Texas lawyer Russell Munsch. Mr Munsch worked at law firm Munsch Hardt in Austin. The US embassy in Canberra confirmed four people on board the flight were US citizens. "We extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who died in today's tragic crash," a spokeswoman said. "The US Embassy in Canberra and US Consulate in Melbourne are working closely with local authorities. "We stand ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance to the families of the victims. "Out of respect for the privacy of the families, we have no further comment." The plane's pilot, Max Quartermain, also died in the crash. He was the co-owner of Corporate and Leisure Aviation, which owned the plane. The company's website said Mr Quartermain had over 38 years of charter experience and "an impeccable safety record". Topics: disasters-and-accidents, accidents, air-and-space, essendon-3040, melbourne-3000, united-states, vic First posted |
by Consider this. The United States government doesn’t know who’s responsible for the so-called acoustic attacks on its embassy personnel in Havana. Then consider this. Cuban president Raúl Castro didn’t simply claim his government had nothing to do with the incidents, he did the unthinkable and invited the FBI to investigate. FBI agents haven’t been able to figure it out. Neither have American acoustics specialists or medical experts. Even Canada’s Mounties, whose own diplomats reported similar attacks, are stymied. Despite the fact no one has identified either culprit or cause, the Trump administration is pre-emptively creating conflict with Havana. Why? And who benefits from that? On October 3, the State Department announced it was expelling two-thirds of Cuba’s Washington embassy personnel, less than a week after it announced it was withdrawing sixty per cent of its own diplomats from Havana, and warning Americans against traveling there. The department called the moves “reciprocity,” but didn’t explain for what, since the Cubans haven’t expelled anyone. The State Department insists it isn’t blaming the Cuban government for the attacks; it’s simply trying to protect American diplomats and tourists. Ironically, the U.S. Foreign Service Association, representing American diplomats around the world, opposes Washington’s directive. So do travel companies and airlines ferrying eager American visitors to the island in increasing numbers. So presumably do Americans generally, the majority of whom support improving relations with Cuba. While over 600,000 Americans visited Cuba last year, it’s worth noting not one has so far complained of symptoms similar to those reported by the diplomats. Some context may be useful here. Late last year, U.S. diplomats in Havana began reporting hearing loud grinding, ringing noises inside areas of their homes and experienced the sensation that their bodies were vibrating. They claimed to suffer nausea, headaches and hearing loss. U.S. government officials now say some have been diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injuries. Twenty-one American and at least five Canadians diplomats and/or their families have been affected. In the absence of evidence about who did what and why, media have been rife with speculation. At first, the most popular assumption was that the Cuban government must be targeting these diplomats. This is now considered unlikely, since the first of the so-called attacks occurred at a time when bilateral relations were beginning to improve, and Cuban president Raúl Castro has consistently favored improving relations with the United States. Likewise, given that Canada and Cuba have traditionally maintained solid ties, there would have been little advantage for the Cubans in rocking that diplomatic boat. That led to other theories: “rogue elements” in the Cuban security forces; officials inside US intelligence services keen to resort to Cold War times; Russians eager to bolster their own relationship with their erstwhile ally while sowing discord between the US and Cuba; maybe even Donald Trump himself, anxious to deflect attention from his own many domestic and international challenges. We don’t know. And perhaps we never will. Or maybe the truth will only be revealed 30 years from now after sufficient time has passed and intelligence agencies (from whichever country is involved, if they are involved) finally release the pertinent documentation. So what do we really know? Well, we certainly know who is already working overtime to twist these unexplained events to their ideological advantage: anti-Cuba hawks in Washington and Miami. Still nursing their wounds from the Obama administration’s 2015 reset on relations with Cuba, they are eager to reassert their own hardline views on US policy. The Trump White House — which has talked tough on Cuba but done relatively little so far to scale back actual policy changes implemented during the Obama era — seems eager to do the hawks bidding under cover of protecting US diplomats. On Sept. 15, five right-wing Republican Senators, including virulent anti-Cuba Florida Senator Marco Rubio, sent an open letter to Secretary Rex Tillerson, asking him to “immediately declare all accredited Cuban diplomats in the United States persona non grata and, if Cuba does not take tangible action, close the U.S. Embassy in Havana.” Two days later, Tillerson — who has since come close to putting a full checkmark beside their first demand — told CBS the State Department has shuttering the embassy “under evaluation… It’s a very serious issue with respect to the harm that certain individuals have suffered.” It is indeed a very serious issue — which is exactly why Washington shouldn’t allow its response to be hijacked by baseless arguments of self-interested Senators eager to turn back the political clock, and a president paying back his political commitments to the wealthy Cuban-American lobby. Over five decades were wasted after the Washington broke diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961. The reopening of diplomatic relations just two years ago was a victory for common sense—but sadly is now in danger of being overturned because of self-seeking politics and ignorance. John Kirk is Professor of Latin American Studies at Dalhousie University. He is the author/coeditor of 16 books on Cuba. His most recent book is Healthcare without Borders: Understanding Cuban Medical Internationalism (2015), and he is the coeditor of “The Evolution of Cuban Foreign Policy under Raúl Castro” (to be published in 2018). For many years he was the Editor of the Contemporary Cuba series with the University Press of Florida, and is now the Co-editor of the new series on Cuba published by Lexington Books. Stephen Kimber is a Professor of Journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax, CANADA, and the author of nine books, including the award-winning What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five. |
The Chicago Fire Soccer Club announced today the signing of forward Cristian Nazarit on a free transfer. The 20-year-old striker comes to the club from Colombian Primera A side Independiente Santa Fe and will be available for selection by Fire Head Coach Carlos de los Cobos for the Chicago Fire – Vancouver Whitecaps match at TOYOTA PARK this Saturday, May 7 at 7:30 p.m. CT (CSN). Per league and team policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed. “Cristian brings a wealth of talent and experience to the Chicago Fire,” said Fire Technical Director Frank Klopas. “The Colombian target forward has pace, strikes the ball well and is able to play with his back to goal. His size and offensive abilities make him a positive addition to our team.” Nazarit began his professional career with Colombian side America de Cali in 2007, where he appeared in 13 matches before transferring to Independiente at the beginning of 2008. While with Los Cardenales, Nazarit appeared in 42 matches, scoring 16 goals in the process. Nazarit has played a large role in the Colombian youth national team setup, helping Colombia qualify for the 2007 FIFA U-17 World Cup in South Korea. The Cali, Colombia product led his nation with six goals in the CONMEBOL qualifying tournament held in Ecuador before scoring three more at the World Championships later that year, helping the young side to the Round of 16 where they eventually fell to tournament champions Nigeria. Following the tournament, the young striker was invited to train with the Colombian national team, by then head coach Jorge Luis Pinto, but never appeared in a match. In 2009, Nazarit was again part of the roster as Colombia attempted to qualify for the 2009 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Egypt. Joined by fellow Fire defender Yamith Cuesta, Nazarit scored one goal in the tournament, but Colombia missed out on qualifying for the tournament by one point. In addition, Croatian midfielder Marko Maric has been placed on the disabled list. Maric suffered a left deltoid sprain in the second half of the Chicago Fire – Portland Timbers match on April 14. Name: Cristian Nazarit Position: Forward/Midfielder Height: 6’1” Weight: 170 lbs. Date of Birth: August 13, 1990 Place of Birth: Cali, Colombia Hometown: Cali, Colombia Citizenship: Colombia Last Club: Independiente Santa Fe (COL) Acquired: Signed on May 4, 2011 |
Bob Harper is in recovery after suffering from a heart attack, PEOPLE confirms. The 51-year-old Biggest Loser trainer and host was reportedly working out at a New York City gym two weeks ago when he collapsed. A doctor exercising at the gym performed CPR before Harper was moved to a nearby hospital, where he remained unconscious for two days, according to TMZ. He was released from the hospital after an eight day stay. The personal trainer, who has a series of workout DVDs and online programs on Daily Burn, along with his work on The Biggest Loser, said that his heart attack was due to genetics, and his mom died early from a heart attack. Harper posted a photo of a candle on Instagram last Wednesday, with the caption, “My word of the day… LUCKY.” Harper became the host of The Biggest Loser in Sept. 2015, ahead of the show’s 17th season. NBC has not announced the next season of the show at this time. |
SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - India has agreed to a Chinese demand to demolish a remote army position near their de facto border in the Himalayas, Indian sources said, as part of a deal to end a standoff that threatened to scupper slowly improving relations. Traders shout slogans during a protest against China in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad May 3, 2013. REUTERS/Amit Dave Indian and Chinese soldiers faced off 100 meters (330 feet) apart on a plateau near the Karakoram mountain range, where they fought a war 50 years ago, for three weeks until they reached a deal on Sunday for both sides to withdraw. The tension had threatened to overshadow a visit by the Indian foreign minister to Beijing on May 9. China’s Premier Li Keqiang is expected to visit India later this month. India said up to 50 Chinese soldiers set up camp in its territory on the western rim of the Himalayas on April 15. Some Indian officials and experts believed the incursion signaled Chinese concern about increased Indian activity in the area. The Chinese camp was in an area India said was 19 km (12 miles) beyond what it understands to be the border in the Ladakh region of Kashmir, a vaguely defined line called the Line of Actual Control, which neither side agrees on. Details of the deal have not been made public and there were differing versions about what had been dismantled. A source with direct knowledge of the decision making in New Delhi said India agreed to take down a temporary metal-roofed shelter in the Chumar area, further south along the disputed border. The source said the dismantled shelter had been erected in Chumar shortly after China set up camp on the plateau. However, an official from the Indian army’s northern command said India had taken down more permanent structures from Chumar. “The bunkers in Chumar were dismantled after we acceded to Chinese demand in the last flag meeting. These bunkers were live-in bunkers,” the army officer told Reuters on Tuesday. China won the border war they fought in 1962, which soured relations for decades, but ties between the Asian giants have been improving. China is India’s top trade partner and the two occasionally hold joint military exercises. India has been beefing up its military presence for several years on the remote Ladakh plateau, building roads and runways to catch up with Chinese development across the border in a disputed area known as Aksai Chin The decision to agree to the Chinese demand followed heavy criticism of the Indian government over its handling of the incident by the opposition. An official in India’s Defense Ministry said on Monday the deal to end the standoff was “quid pro quo” and said China had also demanded India take down listening and observation posts in the Chumar area, which is close to a Chinese road through Tibet. The source in New Delhi denied India was dismantling anything more than the border shelter. |
According to a controversial new analysis by the Washington Post, Trump voters were motivated by “racism” more than a number of other factors in their presidential ballot choice last November. The incendiary piece, titled “Racism motivated Trump voters more than authoritarianism” was written by Thomas Wood, an assistant professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, and proposes to examine the results of the latest American National Election Study (ANES) regarding voter attitudes. Mr. Wood bases his skewed conclusions on a series of assumptions that reveal deep misunderstandings regarding the nature of racism, as well as Wood’s own profound racial biases. To begin with, Wood only analyzed the opinions of white voters—his own racially biased choice. How black voters feel about whites, or what motivated many blacks to vote for Trump is disregarded as irrelevant to his study. Yet, in looking at racism, why would an objective examiner only look at the attitudes of whites? Second, in the four questions looked at by Wood, racism is never actually addressed. Instead, Wood employs a “symbolic racism scale” that interprets people’s views on programs like Affirmative Action as concealing a hidden racism that is never overtly expressed. Wood said that these attitudes are “coded as more racially biased.” If Wood were to employ serious academic standards regarding statistical analysis, he would start with a definition of racism—the key concept he is attempting to explore. If he had done this, however, it would have destroyed the entire thesis he is trying to advance. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, racism is “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” The report that Wood proposes to interpret does not actually address racism at all, and to suggest that it does is academically dishonest. The four statements considered by Wood bear this out. The first statement reads: “Irish, Italians, Jewish and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors.” To agree or disagree with this statement implies a judgment regarding how minorities have historically overcome prejudice in the United States as well as an opinion regarding how black Americans should overcome racial prejudice in their own case. Many Americans, both black and white, believe that affirmative action programs imposing racial quotas are ultimately damaging to blacks and bring society farther away from Martin Luther King’s dream of a colorblind America. People’s opinions on racial favoritism—viewed by many as reverse discrimination—do not make them racists. The second statement reads: “Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve.” This very poorly worded sentence may mean different things to different people. Many—both black and white—would take issue with a blanket concept of what blacks “deserve.” What, after all, do blacks or whites or Hispanics or Asians “deserve”? Was having the first black president of the United States a question of what blacks “deserve”? Do blacks and whites deserve different things? No matter how one reads the intentionally ambiguous assertion, however, agreement or disagreement with it cannot be construed as “racism.” There is more implied racism in the question itself than in one’s agreement or disagreement with it. The third statement reads: “It’s really a matter of people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites.” While this blanket statement cannot possibly be completely true or completely false, it expresses an assessment of what it takes to get ahead in America. One’s basic belief or disbelief in the fundamental importance of hard work as being a key to economic success does not make a person a racist. According to Merriam Webster’s definition, in fact, it is racist to believe that race is the “primary determinant” of people’s capacities. Therefore, making race more important than hard work for personal advancement would be an indicator of racism, and not the other way around. If one thing was shown by last November’s election, in fact, it was that many Americans—both black and white—believe that despite their hard work, they cannot seem to get ahead. The final statement reads: “Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class.” Agreeing or disagreeing with this assertion implies an evaluation of the socio-economic environment in the United States and how much of a role race plays in economic improvement. One could agree heartily with this statement and still be a racist; one could disagree with it and not be a racist. One’s opinion on the present state of affairs has nothing to do with racism and should not be equated with it. It must finally be noted that nowhere in Mr. Wood’s purported “analysis” does the question of electoral motivation even come up. He unscientifically concludes that Trump voters are “motivated” by racism despite the fact that they were not even asked why they voted for Trump in the first place. As any serious academic knows, correlation does not imply causality. So not only is “racism” nowhere implied by the survey, motivation to vote one way or the other is conspicuously absent as well. This sloppy analysis is unworthy of an assistant professor at Ohio State University; worse still, it is ultimately destructive and inflammatory. It is socially and morally irresponsible to stoke racial tensions with demagogic propaganda pieces posing as “analysis.” Real racism is too important a social evil to be demeaned in this way and treated with such superficiality and disrespect. The Washington Post owes its readers an apology for publishing such a deeply insulting and discriminatory piece. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome |
Shakhtar manager Mircea Lucescu was not a happy man after watching his side go down 4-0 in the Bernabéu, a result he blamed on the referee. The 71-year-old answered just one question in his post match press conference and then left the room. What do you think of the result? "The result changed in the first 30 minutes. It's difficult to accept what happened. We had good control of the ball, we were creating chances and then an error cost us dearly and Madrid scored. Then the second goal was the sending off. I want people to respect us but unfortunately when we play the big clubs in Europe the same thing always happens to us. Against Manchester City, Juventus... There are two ways to referee, and two different ways for us. For us, as an inferior team, they pull out cards and for the big teams they don't, they just give them warnings. Furthermore, the penalties were non-existent, especially the first. It hit his back. It's incredible." "The second penalty hit Carvajal's hand first and then our player, that's what the players told me. The referee was under a lot of pressure from the spectators and he solved everything like that so it's easier to play. It's a shame. I didn't think this would happen. Madrid are a big club and it makes me sad to have to say these things. We had the initiative and in any case we congratulate them for the victory. And I find it painful to make comments on the work of the referees. These referees should not be in the Champions League. We weren't shown respect and Real don't need this kind of assistance. It reminded us of the match against Barcelona, when they scored against us in the final minute. These types of clubs don't need any help from the referees. I don't know what else to say. With 10 players it is very difficult against Madrid." |
Visit the Buttons & Badges page to download Contact Lenses buttons. Water and contact lenses don’t mix Many people who wear contact lenses do not know that contact lenses and water are a bad combination—even when showering, swimming, or using a hot tub 1-4. Water can introduce germs to the eyes through contact lenses Water can cause soft contact lenses to change shape, swell, and stick to the eye. This is uncomfortable, and can scratch the cornea (the clear dome that covers the colored part of the eye), which makes it easier for germs to enter the eye and cause infection. Most water is not germ-free. There are many different kinds of germs in water that can cause eye infections, but a particularly dangerous germ—an ameba called Acanthamoeba—is commonly found in tap water, lake water, well water, and other water sources 5. This germ can cause a very severe type of eye infection called Acanthamoeba keratitis, which is often very painful and difficult to treat—sometimes requiring a year or more of treatment 6-8. Although rare, this type of infection can result in the need for a corneal transplant, or blindness 9, 10. Keep contact lenses away from all water For contact lens wearers, it is best to remove lenses before showering, swimming, or using a hot tub—and contact lenses should never be rinsed or stored in water 1, 2, 11, 12. It is also important to wash and dry hands well before handling lenses 13-15, and to clean contact lens cases with solution rather than water to avoid contaminating the lenses with germs found in water. For those who are actively involved in swimming or other water sports and concerned about being able to see well enough without wearing lenses, prescription goggles may be a good option—or possibly even a different form of vision correction, such as laser eye surgery. Throw away or disinfect contact lenses that touch water If water touches contact lenses for any reason, take them out as soon as possible. Throw them away, or clean and disinfect them overnight before wearing them again. This may help to reduce the risk of infection, but these recommendations are not based on scientific testing. The safest option is to keep contact lenses away from all water. References |
REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino Funny how this "Santa Claus" rally that I predicted wouldn't happen this year didn't. The last time this happened was in 2007 and 2008 — the last years the stock market crashed. I've been looking at how low oil prices will be the first trigger in the next crisis. Although it helps consumers a bit, low prices kill the $1 trillion QE-driven fracking industry that's been such a stalwart of this bubble economy. And it's already causing junk bonds to fall further in value, as energy-related bonds have been as high as 20% of that market recently. But the second and biggest trigger I've been warning about is China's unprecedented real estate bubble collapsing ... Recall the Japanese at the top of their stock and real estate bubble in 1989. They were buying real estate hand-over-fist, from Pebble Beach to Rockefeller Center to London. Then, after bidding them up, they ended up selling those holdings at big losses. The Chinese make the Japanese look prudent! Chinese buyers are bidding up the high end of the top coastal cities in English-speaking countries like they'll never go down and like they can't get enough. We're talking Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Auckland, Singapore, San Francisco, L.A., Vancouver, Toronto, New York, London ... These markets are considered "Teflon-proof." They're not! In fact, they're some of the greatest bubbles that exist today. China's leading cities — like Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen — are up 700% or more since 2000! Guess what happens when the bubble wealth in real estate that has built up in China finally collapses? So does the capacity of the more affluent Chinese to buy real estate around the world. And these are the guys who have by-and-large been driving this global real estate bubble at the margin on the high end! Bear in mind that Chinese real estate has been slowing and prices falling for over a year. That is precisely why China's stock market bubbled up 160% in less than one year. When Chinese investors realized they could no longer make easy money in the real estate bubble, they turned to stocks. And after the dumb money piled in, the Shanghai Composite stock index fell 42% in just 2.5 months! What did the Chinese government do? What any government in denial would do — buy its own stock market with hundreds of billions of dollars! That's what the U.S. government did when its stock market crashed in late 1929. And sure enough, China's stocks are following the same pattern to a tee: Economy & Markets If that pattern continues, the Shanghai Composite could peak in its bear market rally by mid- to late-January, as high as 4,100 — if it lasts that long. Then it would collapse again, with the next target between 2,000 and 2,400 ... and its ultimate target at 1,000. Yes, an 80%-plus crash ultimately ahead! After that first crash, Chinese investors already pulled back on their speculation in markets like New York and London. When you doubt your own economy, you feel less OK about speculating in others. It'll only get worse when their stock market drops dramatically again. But broader, look at the steady decline in residential investment in China since 2010. This is the leading indicator of China's slowdown, which is greatly understated by its government-manipulated statistics. It's gone from about 34% in 2010, down to near-zero in 2015 year-to-date: Economy & Markets China is going down. The China Beige Book (which is much more accurate) recently showed that, across the board, economic conditions are unraveling. There will be no soft landing in China. It will bring down the entire world's unprecedented debt and real estate bubble. And it's only a matter of time, and likely only a month away at this point. Now's the time to get out of real estate ... and stocks ... and everything but the safest Treasury bonds and AAA corporates. The best buys on these are likely to occur if we get a brief spike in rates into the first half of 2016, as I covered in the November issue of Boom & Bust. Be on alert. |
Oh man, this is great Tidewater Women’s and LGBT Primary Care in Norfolk, Virginia countered the daily harassment of women seeking services by the usual foamy-mouthed suspects by blaring an audio book excerpt about evolution. “We are apes and the descendants of apes,” the speaker says. “We’re the descendants of rat-like primates, who were the children of reptiles, who were the spawn of amphibians, who were the terrestrial progeny of fish, who came from worms, who were assembled from single-cell microorganisms, who were the products of chemistry. Your daddy was a film of chemical slime on a Hadean rock and he didn’t care about you; he was only obeying the laws of thermodynamics.” Demonstrators fretted that the recording was played loudly enough to disrupt their attempts to “minister” to women seeking treatment at the clinic. “We were telling them that their baby was made in the image of God, and what was going on that day was that God’s image was being destroyed,” said Don Karns, who shot the footage. And them Christians is just outraged.No, asshole, you are harassing people who have serious things going in in their lives and depsite your alleged love of Jeeeeee-sus, you are truly evil scum haranguing people who need aid and comfort. This, of course, gave me another idea... |
Dec 3, 2016; Durham, NC, USA; Duke Blue Devils guard Luke Kennard (5) shoots and makes a three point shot in the first half of their game against the Maine Black Bears at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark Dolejs-USA TODAY Sports NBA: 5 Most Disappointing Teams So Far In 2016-17 by James D. Tillman III With a team full of injuries, Luke Kennard stepped up for the Duke Blue Devils in the first month of the season Luke Kennard turning into arguably the most complete offensive player in the nation from a mere spot-up shooter as a freshman isn’t the surprise, rather it’s that he made the jump this season. Jayson Tatum, Marques Bolden, Frank Jackson and Harry Giles stole the headlines in the offseason. Duke landed two of the top three recruits in 2016 to land the top recruiting class for the second time in three years. Junior guard Grayson Allen also became a preseason All-America and the favorite to be the player of the year at season’s end. Injuries hit Duke hard, to say the least. Only four players have played in all 11 games during Duke’s 10-1 start and the Blue Devils are still not fully healthy. Players such as Amile Jefferson, who is averaging a double-double, stepped up in midst of all the injuries, but none more so than Luke Kennard. As previously mentioned, it’s not a surprise that Kennard is capable of being a 20-points-per-game scorer at the college level. He finished ahead of LeBron James and second in Ohio high school basketball history with 2,977 career points. Kennard also scored a ridiculous 38.1 points per game as a senior, while shooting 59.3 percent from the field, 49 percent from three and 89 percent from the line. Those are numbers that even James had to acknowledge. All of that became an afterthought last year, though. For the betterment of the team, Kennard only took 9.3 shots per game and became mostly a spot-up shooter from three — 51.3 percent of his shots came from behind the arc. With all of Duke’s injuries this season, Kennard rose to the occasion. He leads the team in scoring at 20 points per game, ranks second in assists with 3.2 per game and is third in rebounds and steals at 6.1 and 1.2 per game, respectively. He’s shot himself into the national player of the year conversation and currently is acting as Duke’s top scoring option over Grayson Allen. He leads the team with 13.5 shot attempts per game and is still an extremely effective scorer. This season, Kennard is shooting 52 percent from the field and 40.9 percent from three, which is more than an eight percent increase in each category from his freshman season. Although, Kennard’s impact on Duke this season goes beyond improved shooting. Despite Kennard rarely being praised for shutdown defense, his offense makes up for it. As a sophomore, he’s playing with the ball in his hands more often, which is helping him get back to being an all-around threat like in high school. He still attempts six threes per game, but just 44.6 percent of his shots come from behind the arc this season. It’s telling of his more balanced offensive attack. He’s getting into the lane, which helps his shooting percentage, and is showing why he’s arguably the most prolific scorer to ever come out of the state of Ohio. Kennard’s ability to knock down shots from anywhere on the court mirrors what many expected Allen to do this year. In a way, Duke now has two Grayson Allens in terms of their versatile offensive repertoire and aggressiveness on that end. Allen’s superior athleticism became known with his tomahawk dunk over UNLV, but both can score from seemingly anywhere on the court. What separates Kennard from other elite scorers, though, is his willingness to pass. Kennard attempting double-digit shots in all but one game and 15-plus shots in five games this year shows his aggressiveness as a scorer, but he doesn’t force bad shots because he has great court vision and trusts his teammates. His 3.3 assists per game and the fact that he’s recorded four-plus assists just four times this year doesn’t do justice to that aspect of his game. However, it’s not a coincidence that more shots open up for him when he looks for his teammates. Kennard shoots 54.7 percent from the field when recording at least four assists this season, compared to 50.9 percent when he records three or fewer. Through the first month of the season, Kennard’s stats are everything basketball junkies love. He impacts the game in all areas and is one of the most effective scorers in the nation. That being said, while beating up on team bad teams looks good on the stat sheet, it really matters how he performs against tough competition. According to CBSSports, Duke only owns the 67th toughest schedule in the nation and their opponent’s record ranks 80th with a .568 winning percentage. Even though it’s far from the toughest schedule in the nation, the Blue Devils have still played three ranked teams — Kansas, Rhode Island and Florida. Against ranked teams, Kennard ups his production. Here’s a look at his numbers against ranked teams and unranked teams: Ranked Opponents: 25.0 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 3.3 APG, 70.3 FG%, 68.8 3P% Unranked Opponents: 18.1 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 3.3 APG, 45.9 FG%, 32.0 3P% For one, it shows how consistently well he rebounds for a guard, but it also shows that Kennard stepped up as a scorer in all three games. Sure, he scored 35 points on 11-of-16 shooting against Maine and recorded 20 points and six rebounds against Appalachian State. But shooting better than 70 percent against Kansas and Rhode Island and scoring 29 points on 11-of-16 shooting against Florida exemplifies his leadership role as Duke’s top option. Against Duke’s most recent ranked opponent, Florida, Jayson Tatum had a breakout game with 22 points, but with Allen shooting 2-of-10 from the field and 1-of-5 from three, Kennard is who stepped up the most in Duke’s win. He got into the lane, used screens to get open from three and created shots for himself. Plus, Kennard always seemed to make a big shot or assist whenever the Gators started to get close in the second half. Three times in the second half, Kennard answered a Florida bucket that cut the Duke lead to single digits, scoring eight points in the process. He also assisted on an Amile Jefferson basket that gave Duke a 12-point lead after Florida cut the lead to 10. Still, with Tatum quickly becoming a major part of Duke’s offense, Giles returning before Christmas, and Allen scoring a game-high 34 points against UNLV, as a way to say he’s back and healthy, Kennard likely won’t be able to maintain his 20 points per game average. The once-projected sixth man will stay in the starting lineup and will have as big of an offensive role as anyone on Duke this season, but he’s no longer the only healthy elite scoring option. Even if his numbers start to decline as the season goes on, the two-time Ohio Basketball High School Player of the Year is in the national player of the year conversation through one month and will continue to be a top priority for any team playing Duke. |
In the past, I’ve loved the idea of radishes more than actually eating them. They are so beautiful with their vibrant pink outside and vivid white inside, that I want to like them, I really do. And every year, since they grow so fast and can be planted so early, I sow a few rows in my garden. Inevitably though, I pick them with the best of intentions of using them in a salad (which is “meh” not my favorite), and find them in the bottom of the crisper drawer 2 months later, all shriveled up like little pink walnuts. It’s a vicious cycle that seems to repeat itself every year. But not this year peeps, not this year! I finally discovered the wonder that is roasted radishes! Who knew you could cook them up like potatoes, and that they would transform from crunchy and hot/bitter, to soft and luscious – with virtually no net carbs??? Apparently, some of you knew because you commented over on the IBIH Facebook page about how you’re all roasting radishes ALL THE TIME, and I’m wondering why none of you shared this VITAL information with me before?!?! What is up with that? I thought you people had my back!?! But I ain’t even mad, because now I know, and I’ll cruise through the rest of my life knowing I can make these any time I feel the urge. And I will – a LOT! [pinterest text=”Pan Roasted Radishes, a perfect low carb side dish – ibreatheimhungry.com” layout=”horizontal” image=”http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/radishessmall-679×950.jpg”] Another bonus? Besides being low carb, radishes are dirt cheap! AND they are super good for you! Radishes are loaded with vitamins and minerals, protect against many cancers and diseases, and can even help with urinary tract infections – who knew???? You can roast these in the oven, or in a pan on top of the stove – it doesn’t get a whole lot easier than this for a low carb recipe. You can also season them any way you’d season potatoes or other root veggies – I chose lemon and chives, but parsley, rosemary or thyme would work just as well. They even look like red bliss potatoes when cooked which is kind of cool! MY LATEST VIDEOS MY LATEST VIDEOS [pinterest text=”Pan Roasted Radishes, a perfect low carb side dish – ibreatheimhungry.com” layout=”horizontal” image=”http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/radishes4small-700×583.jpg”] So, if like me, radishes weren’t your favorite veggie, then it’s time you gave them another chance! You won’t be sorry! Pan Roasted Radishes (Low Carb & Gluten Free) ★★★★★ 4.7 from 3 reviews A delicious and versatile low carb side dish! Yield: 2 servings Ingredients 2 cups radishes, quartered 2 Tbl butter 1 Tbl lemon zest 1 tbl chopped chives (or other fresh herb) salt and pepper to taste Instructions Melt the butter in a medium saute pan. Add the radishes and toss to coat. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until softened and golden brown. Remove from heat and add the lemon zest and chives. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Alternatively you could roast these in olive oil in a 375 degree (F) oven for about 35 minutes. Then add whatever seasonings you prefer. Notes Approx. nutrition info per serving: 122 calories, 12g fat, 2.75g net carbs, 1g protein Nutrition Serving Size: 3/4 cup cooked radishes [pinterest text=”Pan Roasted Radishes, a perfect low carb side dish – ibreatheimhungry.com” layout=”horizontal” image=”http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/radishes5small-700×489.jpg”] For more great low carb recipes, download The Gluten Free Low Carber today! |
A train arrivals board shows canceled trains along the East Coast from Washington, D.C., to New York on May 13, 2015. An Amtrak crash the day earlier snarled train schedules. (Photo: JUSTIN LANE, EPA) WASHINGTON -- Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx launched an investigation Friday into whether five airlines gouged travelers on ticket prices after an Amtrak crash in Philadelphia. "The idea that any business would seek to take advantage of stranded rail passengers in the wake of such a tragic event is unacceptable," Foxx told reporters at a breakfast organized by the Christian Science Monitor newspaper. "This department takes all allegations of airline price-gouging seriously, and we will pursue a thorough investigation of these consumer complaints." The airlines – American, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest and United – denied charging unfair ticket prices for travelers after the May 12 crash, which closed the passenger rail line in the popular Northeast corridor for days. American and Delta each said they added capacity – flights and larger planes – after the crash. "We are cooperating with the DOT and are confident that there will be no finding of wrongdoing by American," Casey Norton, an American spokesman, said. Norton said the carrier's fare structure remained the same. Trebor Banstetter, a Delta Air Lines blogger, wrote that the airline cut fares and added capacity with more flights and larger planes in the Northeast after the Amtrak crash. Delta cut its highest fares in half on shuttles between Boston, New York and Washington, to about $300 each way, Banstetter wrote. Delta also honored Amtrak tickets for travel between the cities and waived change fees on shuttle flights between the cities, Banstetter wrote. Brad Hawkins, a Southwest spokesman, said the airline has nonstop service in four of the 28 route segments under investigation. "We received the letter from the DOT this morning following their announcement and will cooperate in the agency’s investigation," Hawkins said. The department is reviewing northeast routes from Washington's Dulles and Ronald Reagan George Washington National, Baltimore-Washington International, Philadelphia, New York area's Newark, John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia, Long Island MacArthur, Bradley in Connecticut, T.F. Green in Rhode Island and Boston airports. The investigation will compare prices in the time span from April 28 to May 11 before the crash with prices from May 12 to 26 after the crash. "The question is whether this was beyond the pale," Foxx said. "We will find that out." The investigation is separate from the Justice Department inquiry into potential collusion among airlines into general airline pricing. Justice investigates crimes and Transportation investigates consumer complaints, Foxx said. The investigation is being conducted under the department's power to investigate unfair and deceptive practices among airlines. Foxx said he couldn't specify what fines might be levied if unfair practices are confirmed. Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., requested the investigation. Murphy also asked the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate higher prices in the days after the train crash, including a $2,309 ticket from New York’s LaGuardia to Washington. “This evidence, as well as anecdotal evidence from my constituents, raises troubling questions about possible market distortions at play,” Murphy wrote the agencies on May 19. “If this drastic and sudden increase in ticket prices is an effort to make money from desperate travelers impacted by this tragedy, you should fully exercise the enforcement powers vested in your agencies.” Letters requesting information went to airlines Friday and Foxx set no firm schedule for resolving the inquiry. Foxx didn't detail what evidence the department collected beyond Murphy's complaint, but more information has prompted questions. "We expect the answers to returned promptly," Foxx said. "We have sufficient evidence to be concerned about it." Other airlines also said they would cooperate with the investigation. "We received the letter and we will cooperate fully with DOT, and are confident no wrongdoing will be found," said United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy. "JetBlue has received a letter from the U.S. Department of Transportation related to its investigation and we will cooperate fully," said spokesman Doug McGraw. Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1RXJYEl |
Story highlights In a 5-4 decision, the high court likens taking a DNA sample to fingerprinting an arrestee In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia says the ruling establishes a "terrifying principle" Civil liberties groups worry about errors by overwhelmed lab technicians The Supreme Court has ruled criminal suspects can be subjected to a police DNA test after arrest -- before trial and conviction -- a privacy-versus-public-safety dispute that could have wide-reaching implications in the rapidly evolving technology surrounding criminal procedure. At issue in the ruling Monday was whether taking genetic samples from someone held without a warrant in criminal custody for "a serious offense" is an unconstitutional "search." A 5-4 majority of the court concluded it is legitimate, and upheld a state law. "When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment," the majority wrote. Law enforcement lauds genetic testing's potential as the "gold standard" of reliable evidence gathering, especially to solve "cold cases" involving violent offenders. But privacy rights groups counter the state's "trust us" promise not to abuse the technology does not ease their concerns that someone's biological makeup could soon be applied for a variety of non-criminal purposes. Twenty-six states and the federal government allow genetic swabs to be taken after a felony arrest and without a warrant. Each has different procedures, but in all cases, only a profile is created. About 13 individual markers out of some 3 billion are isolated from a suspect's DNA. That selective information does not reveal the full genetic makeup of a person and, officials stress, nothing is shared with any other public or private party, including any medical diagnostics. Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Hollingsworth v. Perry (2013): The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal over California's Proposition 8 on jurisdictional grounds. The voter-approved ballot measure barring same-sex marriage was not defended by state officials, but rather a private party. This ruling cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California to resume, but left open-ended the legal language of 35 other states barring same-sex marriage. Take a look at other important cases decided by the high court. Hide Caption 1 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – United States v. Windsor (2013): When her wife died in 2009, Edith Windsor, 84, was forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in estate taxes because her marriage was not recognized by the federal government's Defense of Marriage Act of 1996. The Supreme Court struck down the part of the law which denied legally marriage same-sex couples the same federal benefits provided to heterosexual spouses. Hide Caption 2 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012): The Supreme Court upheld most of the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration's health care reform law, on June 28, 2012. The decision determined how hundreds of millions of Americans will receive health care. Hide Caption 3 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010): Activists rally in February 2012 to urge the Supreme Court to overturn its decision that fundamentally changed campaign finance law by allowing corporations and unions to contribute unlimited funds to political action committees not affiliated with a candidate. Hide Caption 4 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Texas v. Johnson (1989): The Supreme Court overturned the decision that convicted Gregory Lee Johnson of desecrating a venerated object after he set an American flag on fire during a protest. The court ruled that Johnson (at right with his lawyer, William Kunstler) was protected under the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Hide Caption 5 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – United States v. Nixon (1974): When President Richard Nixon claimed executive privilege over taped conversations regarding the Watergate scandal, the Supreme Court ruled that he had to turn over the tapes and other documents. The ruling set a precedent limiting the power of the president of the United States. Hide Caption 6 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Roe v. Wade (1973): Norma McCorvey, identified as "Jane Roe," sued Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade over a law that made it a felony to have an abortion unless the life of the mother was in danger. The court agreed with Roe and overruled any laws that made abortion illegal in the first trimester. Here, McCorvey, left, stands with her attorney Gloria Allred in 1989. Hide Caption 7 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Miranda v. Arizona (1966): Ernesto Miranda confessed to a crime without the police informing him of his right to an attorney or right against self-incrimination. His attorney argued in court that the confession should have been inadmissible, and in 1966, the Supreme Court agreed. The term "Miranda rights" has been used since. Hide Caption 8 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Gideon v. Wainwright (1963): The Supreme Court overturned the burglary conviction of Clarence Earl Gideon after he wrote to the court from his prison cell, explaining he was denied the right to an attorney at his 1961 trial. Hide Caption 9 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Mapp v. Ohio (1961): The Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Dollree Mapp because the evidence collected against her was obtained during an illegal search. The ruling re-evaluated the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. Hide Caption 10 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Brown v. Board of Education (1954): Nathaniel Steward recites his lesson surrounded by white classmates at the Saint-Dominique School in Washington. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to separate students based on race. Hide Caption 11 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Korematsu v. United States (1944): Fred Korematsu, a Japanese-American man, was arrested after authorities found out that he claimed to be a Mexican-American to avoid an internment camp during World War II. The court ruled that the rights of an individual were not as important as the need to protect the country during wartime. In 1998, President Bill Clinton awarded Korematsu the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Hide Caption 12 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): Homer Plessy was arrested when he refused to leave a whites-only segregated train car, claiming he was 7/8 white and only 1/8 black. The Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" facilities for blacks were constitutional, which remained the rule until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Hide Caption 13 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857): When Dred Scott asked a circuit court to reward him his freedom after moving to a free state, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress didn't have the right to prohibit slavery and, further, that those of African-American descent were not protected by the Constitution. Hide Caption 14 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Gibbons v. Ogden (1824): This was the first case to establish Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce. The ruling signaled a shift in power from the states to the federal government. Aaron Ogden, seen here, was given exclusive permission from the state of New York to navigate the waters between New York and certain New Jersey ports. When Ogden brought a lawsuit against Thomas Gibbons for operating steamships in his waters, the Supreme Court sided with Gibbons. Hide Caption 15 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): In response to the federal government's controversial decision to institute a national bank in the state, Maryland tried to tax the bank out of business. When a federal bank cashier, James W. McCulloch, refused to pay the taxes, the state of Maryland filed charges against him. In McCulloch v. Maryland, the Supreme Court ruled that chartering a bank was an implied power of the Constitution. The first national bank, pictured, was created by Congress in 1791 in Philadelphia. Hide Caption 16 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Marbury v. Madison (1803): When Secretary of State James Madison, seen here, tried to stop Federal loyalists from being appointed to judicial positions, he was sued by William Marbury. Marbury was one of former President John Adams' appointees, and the court decided that although he had a right to the position, the court couldn't enforce his appointment. The case defined the boundaries of the executive and judicial branches of government. Hide Caption 17 of 17 The Obama administration has signaled its support. The case involves a Maryland man convicted of a 2003 rape in Wicomico County in the state's Eastern Shore region. Alonzo King Jr. had been arrested four years ago on an unrelated assault charge, and a biological sample was automatically obtained at that time. That sample was linked to the earlier sexual assault. King moved to suppress that evidence on Fourth Amendment grounds, but was ultimately convicted of the 2003 first-degree rape offense and was given a life sentence. The Fourth Amendment grants the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." Both King and his legal team turned down CNN's request for an interview. A divided Maryland Court of Appeals later agreed with King, saying suspects under arrest enjoy a higher level of privacy than a convicted felon, outweighing the state's law enforcement interests. That court also said obtaining King's DNA immediately after arrest was not necessary in identifying him, and that the process was more personally invasive than standard fingerprinting. But the high court decided in favor of the state. Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, and Samuel Alito. The issue of citizen privacy has been particularly acute since the 9/11 attacks. Federal and state governments have stepped up surveillance of suspected terrorists and their allies and of high-risk targets, like government buildings and shopping malls. The current conservative-majority court has generally been supportive of law enforcement in recent search and privacy disputes, but not always. The court last year ruled police could not place a GPS tracking device on a drug suspect's car for several weeks without first obtaining a search warrant. In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia said the majority's reasoning established a "terrifying principle." "The court's opinion barely mentions the crucial fact about this case: the search here was entirely suspicionless. The police had no reason to believe King's DNA would link him to any crime." Scalia added the state law "manages to burden uniquely the sole group for whom the Fourth Amendment's protections ought to be most jealously guarded: people who are innocent of the state's accusations," describing of the legal concept of innocent until proven guilty. He was supported by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan. Scalia's prior support of Fourth Amendment protections is well-documented, so his siding with three more liberal members of the court was not surprising. A 1994 federal law created a national database in which local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies can compare and share information on DNA matches from convicted felons, but courts have been at odds on just when such samples can be collected and the information distributed. In a brief filed by 49 states supporting Maryland, officials also said the information is secure, and retested when an initial "hit" is identified. After a warrant is issued for probable cause, another fresh DNA sample is taken and it is that test that is used to ultimately prosecute in court. Each initial test costs about $30. The Fourth Amendment requires the government to balance legitimate law enforcement interests with the privacy rights of individuals. A key area of concern in the high court was whether developing "Rapid DNA" technology would allow initial identification testing to be completed within about two hours. Currently it can take two weeks or more, depending on backlogs. Civil liberties groups worry inadequate testing by overwhelmed lab technicians can lead to errors, such as the one that sent Dwayne Jackson to prison for armed robbery. It was three years before a lab mistake was noticed, and the Nevada man was freed as an innocent man. DNA -- Deoxyribonucleic acid -- is a coded molecule providing a genetic map for the development of all known living organisms. By 2000, all 50 states and the federal government required DNA collection from convicted offenders, and that was soon expanded by many jurisdiction to criminal arrests. The number of offender profiles in federal Combined DNA Index System is now about 10 million, with more than a million arrestee profiles. Congress in December passed the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act, a grant program to help states pay for the expanded system. The 22-year-old woman was murdered in 2003, but her killer was not identified until three years later, after his conviction for another crime, when his DNA matched cold-case evidence found under the victim's fingernails. Her mother, Jayann Sepich, personally lobbied lawmakers for months to ensure passage. President Obama signed the bill earlier this year. "It's the right thing to do," he said in 2010, of expanding DNA swabs for arrestees. "This is where the national registry becomes so important." The case is Maryland v. King (12-207). |
SEOUL (Reuters) - For the boldest frontier market investor: North Korea is looking to raise $39 million from foreign investors to fund a new brewery in Wonsan, an eastern port city where leader Kim Jong Un has big development ambitions. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during the 4th National Conference of Veterans in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang July 26, 2015. REUTERS/KCNA The isolated country recently announced more than 100 separate projects seeking foreign investment in the Wonsan-Kumgang Development Zone, a mountainous region where leader Kim keeps palaces and a summer residence. “They’re looking at this as a new East Asian business and tourism hub,” said Michael Spavor, an independent consultant who is helping a Wonsan investment committee seek more than $150 million in foreign funds, including for the brewery. “It’s a nice area, it’s on the coast, and it has the same qualities and infrastructure that once made places like Shenzhen and Hong Kong such attractive investment zones,” said Spavor, who will lead a delegation of investors to Pyongyang next month to discuss the brewery and other projects. North Korea is home to over 20 special economic and development zones which use a grey market exchange rate to value the local currency and contain separate economic laws, even allowing foreign entities to sue the state in the event of a break of contract. Still, the impoverished country whose formerly Soviet-style planned economy is increasingly market-driven, does not have a strong record of attracting or protecting foreign investments. Egypt’s Orascom Telecom, which runs Pyongyang-based Koryolink - the country’s sole mobile phone network - has not been able to withdraw its profits from North Korea despite a subscriber base of 2.5 million, according to a first quarter regulatory filing. “Most foreign investments in North Korea have ended badly, but most of those people had very superficial understanding of the place and did not have insider connections,” said Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul. “Those who did, make good money, but tend to remain very silent about their success because they don’t want to attract attention - from any side,” he said. Many would-be investors are deterred by the isolation of the Pyongyang government, which is under heavy sanctions over its nuclear program and human rights record. “TASTES GREAT” Also up for grabs in Wonsan are a bus terminal, restaurants, petrol stations and the $90 million refurbishment of a faded pea-green government hotel on the water’s edge, according to documents seen by Reuters. The brewery aims to produce 50 million liters of beer a year: 20 million liters of draught beer, and 30 million liters in plastic bottles, the documents said. Poor infrastructure and rising demand mean many North Korean cities produce their own beers, although none sell as well as Taedonggang Beer, a lager produced in a factory made from old British parts that was personally ordered by late leader Kim Jong Il. It is often described as tastier than its lighter South Korean counterparts, a comparison which rankles in Seoul. “North Korean beer tastes great and despite the really big demand for it on the east coast, there’s no large-scale brewery in the region capable of generating the supply,” said Spavor. |
A while back, I swore off using adding print statements to my code while debugging. I forced myself to use the python debugger to see values inside my code. I’m really glad I did it. Now I’m comfortable with all those cute single-letter commands that remind me of gdb. The pdb module and the command-line pdb.py script are both good friends now. However, every once in a while, I find myself lapsing back into cramming a bunch of print statements into my code because they’re just so easy. Sometimes I don’t want to walk through my code using breakpoints. I just need to know a simple value when the script runs. The bad thing is when I write in a bunch of print statements, then debug the problem, then comment out or remove all those print statements, then run into a slightly different bug later., and find myself adding in all those print statements again. So I’m forcing myself to use logging in every script I do, no matter how trivial it is, so I can get comfortable with the python standard library logging module. So far, I’m really happy with it. I’ll start with a script that uses print statements and revise it a few times and show off how logging is a better solution. Here is the original script, where I use print statements to watch what happens: # This is a.py def g(): 1 / 0 def f(): print "inside f!" try: g() except Exception, ex: print "Something awful happened!" print "Finishing f!" if __name__ == "__main__": f() Running the script yields this output: $ python a.py inside f! Something awful happened! Finishing f! It turns out that rewriting that script to use logging instead just ain’t that hard: # This is b.py. import logging # Log everything, and send it to stderr. logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG) def g(): 1/0 def f(): logging.debug("Inside f!") try: g() except Exception, ex: logging.exception("Something awful happened!") logging.debug("Finishing f!") if __name__ == "__main__": f() And here is the output: $ python b.py DEBUG 2007-09-18 23:30:19,912 debug 1327 Inside f! ERROR 2007-09-18 23:30:19,913 error 1294 Something awful happened! Traceback (most recent call last): File "b.py", line 22, in f g() File "b.py", line 14, in g 1/0 ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero DEBUG 2007-09-18 23:30:19,915 debug 1327 Finishing f! Note how we got that pretty view of the traceback when we used the exception method. Doing that with prints wouldn’t be very much fun. So, at the cost of a few extra lines, we got something pretty close to print statements, which also gives us better views of tracebacks. But that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. This is the same script written again, but I’m defining a custom logger object, and I’m using a more detailed format: # This is c.py import logging # Make a global logging object. x = logging.getLogger("logfun") x.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) h = logging.StreamHandler() f = logging.Formatter("%(levelname)s %(asctime)s %(funcName)s %(lineno)d %(message)s") h.setFormatter(f) x.addHandler(h) def g(): 1/0 def f(): logfun = logging.getLogger("logfun") logfun.debug("Inside f!") try: g() except Exception, ex: logfun.exception("Something awful happened!") logfun.debug("Finishing f!") if __name__ == "__main__": f() And the output: $ python c.py DEBUG 2007-09-18 23:32:27,157 f 23 Inside f! ERROR 2007-09-18 23:32:27,158 exception 1021 Something awful happened! Traceback (most recent call last): File "c.py", line 27, in f g() File "c.py", line 17, in g 1/0 ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero DEBUG 2007-09-18 23:32:27,159 f 33 Finishing f! Now I will change how the script handles the different types of log messages. Debug messages will go to a text file, and error messages will be emailed to me so that I am forced to pay attention to them. # This is d.py import logging, logging.handlers # Make a global logging object. x = logging.getLogger("logfun") x.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) # This handler writes everything to a file. h1 = logging.FileHandler("/var/log/myapp.log") f = logging.Formatter("%(levelname)s %(asctime)s %(funcName)s %(lineno)d %(message)s") h1.setFormatter(f) h1.setLevel(logging.DEBUG) x.addHandler(h1) # This handler emails me anything that is an error or worse. h2 = logging.handlers.SMTPHandler('localhost', '[email protected]', ['[email protected]'], 'ERROR log') h2.setLevel(logging.ERROR) h2.setFormatter(f) x.addHandler(h2) def g(): 1/0 def f(): logfun = logging.getLogger("logfun") logfun.debug("Inside f!") try: g() except Exception, ex: logfun.exception("Something awful happened!") logfun.debug("Finishing f!") if __name__ == "__main__": f() Lots of really great handlers exist in the logging.handlers module. You can log by sending HTTP gets or posts, you can send UDP packets, you can write to a local file, etc. Finally, I’d like to point out that Mike Pirnat has some excellent slides (in PDF format) on logging using the standard python library here. |
Hurricane Jose has strengthened to a Category 3 storm on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale, the National Hurricane Center said Thursday. As of the National Hurricane Center's (NHC) 8 p.m. advisory, Jose was traveling west-northwest at a speed of 18 mph with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph and heading toward the northern Leeward Islands and should be expected there Saturday. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 35 miles from Jose's center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 115 miles. According to the National Hurricane Center, Jose is expected to produce 2 to 6 inches of rain in the Leeward Islands from Dominica to Anguilla. Ten inches of rain are possible in the northern Leeward Islands, from Antigua and Barbuda to Anguilla. The storm may cause additional life-threatening flooding. Surf and rip current conditions generated by the storm will likely affect portions of the Leeward Islands by Saturday. A hurricane watch has been issued for Antigua and Barbuda. Hurricane Jose path On Friday, Jose is expected to become a major hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center. At this time, it remains unclear as to where Hurricane Jose will make landfall. U.S. National Hurricane Center The path that Jose will take remains uncertain and forecasters have not specified where the storm will make landfall. Jose formed on the heels of Hurricane Irma which has claimed at least 10 lives after pummeling the Caribbean islands. |
The cash-strapped provincial government is banking on a bidding war between Canada’s largest telecommunications companies for its lucrative lottery business. As first disclosed on thestar.com Monday, Ontario Lottery and Gaming has unveiled the final stage of the sell-off of its $3.3-billion annual lotto trade. Insiders admit OLG has not maximized revenues from lottery sales because tickets are mostly still sold at corner stores and supermarkets instead of online. ( Steve White / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo ) Sources say both Bell and Rogers are expected to bid on the property , which means Ontarians could soon buy Lotto 6/49 tickets on their BlackBerrys and iPhones. Insiders admit OLG has not maximized the revenues it could make from lottery sales. That’s because tickets are sold mostly at corner stores and supermarkets to older customers instead of online, via smartphones or at big box retailers to more youthful demographics. Article Continued Below But the deep-pocketed telecom giants have the know-how and wherewithal to modernize the lotto business, making it easier to buy tickets in new ways. Rogers spokeswoman Jennifer Kett said “we don’t comment on rumours or speculation.” Officials from Bell did not return calls and emails seeking comment. The companies’ reticence to discuss the deal is not surprising. It is believed some pension funds may also bid — the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan already operates the National Lottery in the United Kingdom and the Irish National Lottery. In an email, OLG’s Tony Bitonti emphasized that “procurement involves information of a commercially sensitive nature.” “As a result, details of the RFP (request-for-proposal) documents and names of pre-qualified service providers will not be released while the process is ongoing,” wrote Bitonti. Article Continued Below “There will be no further communication about the RFP until a service provider is announced. OLG expects to announce the successful service provider in fall 2015,” he continued. Bitonti said no potential price-tag for the lottery could be disclosed because that’s part of the bidding process. It’s estimated that it could cost as much as $1 billion for a private-sector operator to upgrade the lottery infrastructure to enable smartphone sales and other initiatives. Ontario lags well behind countries in Europe, including the U.K., and American states like Illinois when it comes to digital lotto sales. Critics worry that gamblers will spend more on lottery tickets if they can buy them online. NDP MPP Catherine Fife said she’s “very concerned with the increase of youth and gambling addiction” and expressed unease with the plan. “The OLG should be looking at ways to make the system work better and increase convenience for customers to buy lottery tickets. However, this government is so desperate to come up with new revenue opportunities, they’re banking on hitting the jackpot on people who can swipe and tap their smartphones,” said Fife (Kitchener-Waterloo). Progressive Conservative MPP Vic Fedeli said “you can smell the desperation” from the governing Liberals, who have a $12.5 billion deficit. “This is pre-empting Ed Clark’s report,” noted Fedeli (Nipissing), referring to the TD Bank president and CEO who is studying the monetization of government assets and is expected to make recommendations later this fall. Government sources do not consider the move privatization, however, because OLG is merely seeking a contract with a service provider and would technically retain ownership and oversight of the lottery. Still, the gambling agency is under the gun to increase revenues to the treasury. It brings in about $2 billion annually and the province hopes to increase that to $3 billion. OLG’s lotto sell-off was originally announced in December 2012 by the government of then-premier Dalton McGuinty as part of a sweeping modernization of gaming. “The service provider will be responsible for recommending strategies to maximize the growth and success of the lottery business, developing products and marketing plans, operations, and process and cost optimization,” the Crown agency said at the time. “It will also serve as a single point of contact for OLG by being responsible for everything subcontractors do and ensuring they deliver on OLG’s modernization requirements,” the corporation said. “In the future, OLG will continue its role in the conduct, management and oversight of lottery. This includes setting the overall strategy for lottery, managing the market by approving channel strategies and approving products.” Correction- Sept 9, 2014: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Ontrario's annual lotto trade is a $1.3 billion business. It is a $3.3 billion business . Read more about: |
David Dodds looks at the extraordinary tale of Lutz Pfannenstiel, who represented 25 clubs and remains the only professional to have played in all 6 FIFA Confederations… Earlier this month I wrote a profile of Lutz Pfannenstiel and his charity Global United F.C. which appeared on In Bed With Maradona For the sake of brevity I excluded a lot of biographical information from that article, but his story is so interesting that I’ve decided to construct a more comprehensive account of his footballing life from the remaining notes and research I have. ~~~ Mercenary. Greedy. Financially-motivated. When you see a footballer who has played for twenty-five different clubs, you might be forgiven for thinking this. The game has no shortage of players who consider football a job, a way to pay the mortgage. But in the words of Lutz Pfannenstiel, the globetrotting German goalkeeper: “It’s nice to be rich. But it’s better to be wealthy in the head, wealthy in experience”. Pfannenstiel, who currently works for Bundesliga club TSG 1899 Hoffenheim as a scout, shaped his career with this mantra. During his twenty-year playing career, he played for twenty-five clubs in twelve different countries, and is the first—and only—player to have played in all six FIFA confederations. His career started off in Germany, where he played for the under-17 national team and was, by his own admission, considered “one of the best goalkeeper talents in Germany”. This attracted the attention of Bayern Munich, who wanted him to play for their second team. Despite the prospect of being promoted to the first team, and if he could live up to his reputation, to first choice, Pfannenstiel opted to move abroad to Malaysia. To many, the decision was baffling, but he had seen plenty of fellow goalkeepers wallowing away on the benches of top clubs after promising youth careers and didn’t want to end up like them. The plan was originally to spend time imposing a good goalkeeping work ethic on himself, to learn what it meant to be a professional footballer, and to continue his development with regular first-team football. After that, he would return to Europe—preferably Germany or England—and become one of the world’s greatest. The plan was going steadily. He was making regular starts, and eventually was scouted by Wimbledon, who at the time played in the Premiership. He didn’t end up making the first team, and moved on to Nottingham Forest, who were also doing well in the top flight. But after two consecutive seasons of not being able to break into the squad at Premier League clubs, Pfannenstiel came to realise that perhaps he was not yet ready for English football. He questioned whether he was good enough for Germany and France too, and thought that he would end up with more time on the bench than between the sticks if he continued signing with big clubs. The plan was revised. Pfannenstiel realised that if he was to become a regular starter, he would have to aim lower. And so a globetrotter was born. In any other profession, one would question someone whose CV contained so many employers, but Pfannenstiel had been unlucky. Bankruptcies, coach firings and finding himself surplus to requirement all forced moves. His desire to play constant first-team football also meant that he became restless during the off-season in countries where the league had long breaks for harsh summers or treacherous winters. This meant moving roughly every seven or eight months. Pfannenstiel has accumulated some interesting stories to tell over the years. Probably the most interesting, and indeed most harrowing, is about his time in Singapore. He was accused of conspiring with bookmakers to deliberately win games for his club Geylang United, and eventually sent to prison. Not only is he the first man to play on six continents, but probably also the first man to be sent to prison for being too good at football. In 2000 he was sentenced to five months, although thanks to intervention from the German embassy he was released early for good behaviour. During his imprisonment, he has described how he was “very close to madness” and “had suicidal thoughts”. In a 2001 interview, he told of the dire living conditions, the routine assaults he was subjected to by other prisoners—having his nose broken twice—as well as corrupt law enforcement officials. He also told of how he was nearly raped. After being released from prison in April 2001, Pfannenstiel took a job with Bradford Park Avenue to rehabilitate. He’d lost 16kg and much of his strength despite doing press-ups daily. He admitted he had nearly turned into the type of animal who was brutalising him in prison, and it took him six months to settle down again properly. Football, though, he claims, is what helped him get his life back on track. 2001 was also the year he anchored himself to a club for the longest stint. He moved to Dunedin Technical in New Zealand, where he remained for five years. During his time in New Zealand, he’s said to have stolen a penguin and kept it in his bath (before returning it to its proper home), and tracked down burglars who stole 2,500 euros, a Playstation, sunglasses and his beloved goalkeeper jersey from his home. An acquaintance had seen a man wearing his jersey, and Pfannenstiel liberated his jersey and the rest of his property personally from the thieves. Since the season in New Zealand was only six months long, and because he became characteristically restless during the off-season, he was loaned to clubs around the world. One of these clubs was English Conference side Bradford Park Avenue, where, one rainy afternoon on Boxing Day in 2002, Lutz Pfannenstiel died. In fact, he died three times. Or at least he stopped breathing and was clinically dead three times. He was injured making a save as a forward’s knee thumped him in the chest. He had originally got up to berate the referee for not handing him a free kick, but fell to the ground as his heart stopped. Pfannenstiel’s seven-month pregnant wife and his mother-in-law had rushed onto the pitch in concern, and thankfully, the Bradford Park Avenue physio was on hand to revive him three times, saving his life. His bad experiences weren’t limited to prison and death. In Thailand and Sri Lanka he played games in stadiums where cockroaches were infesting the changing rooms. He played in stadiums where the toilets hadn’t been cleaned since the 50s, and in Armenia he played in stadiums where the weather was so cold that the pipes had frozen and there was no running water or working toilets. Realising he was close to his record of playing on all continents, he craftily engineered a move to Brazilian side Clube Atlético Hermann Aichinger, with whom he fulfilled his dream of being able to play in the legendary Estádio do Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro. The final leg of his playing journey came in 2009, when he joined German-owned Namibian side Ramblers F.C, where he served as goalkeeper, goalkeeping coach, and technical director. By the time he retired in 2011 at the age of 36, he had played in Germany, England, the United States, Finland, Singapore, New Zealand, Norway, Canada, Albania, Brazil and Namibia. Pfannenstiel has also held a number of coaching roles, many of them while playing. He coached FC Bentonit Ijevan in Albania where he was also a player, served as the goalkeeping coach for the Cuban national side in 2008-9, was goalkeeping coach at Manglerud Star in Norway while he played for them and became the goalkeeping coach of the Namibian national team during his time at Ramblers before taking up his scouting position at Hoffenheim. The journey has not stopped there. In 2009 he founded Global United F.C., an international non-profit football club whose aims are to use football to spread the message about climate change and sustainable alternatives. Pfannenstiel drew on his experience around the world for inspiration when creating the organisation, and has visited many of the places visibly affected by climate change. Global United F.C. counts among its players a crop of retired professionals from around the world, including legends like Cafu, Chilavert, John Barnes and Henrik Larsson. Lutz Pfannenstiel may have played on all six FIFA-recognised continents, but he also has plans to add a seventh continent to his repertoire, with a Global United F.C. game planned in Antarctica in 2014. “The aim is to get a game going on an airstrip near one of the government research stations”, he said. “Can you imagine the impact that would have?” @DavidDodds7; @The_False_Nine Like this: Like Loading... |
It works remarkably well and I am quite happy with the results. It can hold a large amount of larp arrows(currently loaded with 15 but there is room for more) which suits me perfectly. Loaded with normal arrows it could probably hold almost 100 max. TOOLS & MATERIALS Alas, making it won't be possible with just duct tape, good will and whatever you found in the attic. I used 4mm moderately hard leather and I recommend the same. Its expensive BUT if there is a leather workshop nearby you can buy leftovers and then combine them into big pieces like I did. You will also need something to cut the leather good, a simple home scissors will break/blunt itself, although you can, if you combine it with a sharp knife. Rivets or very strong thread is necessary too. Hole punchers for the leather - either hand punch or hammer punches, whatever you can find. I have a hand punch and I decided on rivets for extra durability. KEY DESIGN POINTS Serious archery, requires serious investment in equipment. If you are only trying it out, even a pair of old jeans can be converted easily.I myself needed something better. Inspired by a hungarian horse archer master, I designed myself a new, high capacity hip quiver from proper leather.The top of the quiver has to be wide. That's where the belt passes through and since its a wide connection, you don't have to tie it to your hip - it stays put while you move around.The quiver itself must be flat, and roughly 60-70 sm long. Mine is 67sm long. You can make it as wide and with as many arrow slits as it fits you.Since the quiver is flat, the arrows have a hard time falling out. Its not impossible, but gravity alone is not enough. Here I am holding it upside down with no effect. Needs a good shake up for them to start dropping. |
United States Supreme Court case Bethel School District v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986), was a landmark decision[1] by the United States Supreme Court involving free speech in public schools. High school student Matthew Fraser was suspended from school in the Bethel School District in Washington for making a speech including sexual double entendres at a school assembly. The Supreme Court held that his suspension did not violate the First Amendment. Background [ edit ] On April 26, 1983, Matthew Fraser, a Pierce County, Washington high school senior, gave a speech nominating classmate Jeff Kuhlman for Associated Student Body vice president.[2] The speech was filled with sexual innuendos, but not obscenity, prompting disciplinary action from the administration.[3] Fraser's speech was as follows:[4] I know a man who is firm – he's firm in his pants, he's firm in his shirt, his character is firm – but most of all, his belief in you the students of Bethel, is firm. Jeff Kuhlman is a man who takes his point and pounds it in. If necessary, he'll take an issue and nail it to the wall. He doesn't attack things in spurts – he drives hard, pushing and pushing until finally – he succeeds. Jeff is a man who will go to the very end – even the climax, for each and every one of you. So please vote for Jeff Kuhlman, as he'll never come between us and the best our school can be. After appealing through the grievance procedures of his school, he was still found to be in violation of several school policies against disruptive behavior and the use of vulgar and offensive speech. These grounds later evolved to include obscenity at trial, but obscenity, according to Fraser, was not listed as grounds for his punishment in his initial hearing with school vice-principal Christy Blair. Fraser was suspended from school for three days as a result, was prohibited from speaking at his graduation ceremony, and his name was stricken from the ballot used to elect three graduation speakers. Fraser nonetheless was selected by a write-in vote which placed him second overall among the top three finishers, although Bethel High School administrators refused to accept the write-in vote as a valid result, and continued to deny Fraser the opportunity to speak at graduation. With approval from his parents and help from American Civil Liberties Union cooperating attorney Jeff Haley, Matt Fraser filed a lawsuit against the school authorities claiming a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech, and United States District Court judge Jack Tanner ruled in his favor. The school district then appealed to the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in Fraser's favor with a broadly worded opinion. The school district asked the United States Supreme Court to consider the case, and it agreed to do so. Opinion of the Court [ edit ] The US Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals in a 7–2 vote to reinstate the suspension, saying that the school district's policy did not violate the First Amendment.[5] Chief Justice Warren Burger delivered the Court's opinion, in what ended up along with the Gramm–Rudman decision (Bowsher v. Synar) to be the final case of the Burger Court era. Justices William J. Brennan and Harry Blackmun delivered concurring opinions, while Thurgood Marshall and John Paul Stevens dissented.[5] Though the Court distinguished its 1969 decision Tinker v. Des Moines, which upheld the right of students to express themselves where their words (or in that case, the wearing of a protest armband) are nondisruptive and could not be seen as connected with the school, Fraser limits the scope of that ruling, by prohibiting certain styles of expression that are sexually vulgar. See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] Further reading [ edit ] |
Advertisement Advertisement Massive spoilers Massive Spoilers have been leaked from several trusted sources over the past three days. "The Walking Dead" has seen an immense shift in tone these past three episodes. Now that the dust has settled from the traumatizing first episode of season 7, we will finally be able to see what Rick’s group has been up to. According to Reddit, Negan is going to be using Daryl as a tool to further assert his dominance over Rick. But everything that happens after episode four is far worse. Episode 5 In this episode, the show will bring viewers back to Sasha and Maggie. Last time we had seen them, they were setting off for the Hilltop on foot and alone, while Rick and what was left of his group retreated back to Alexandria. Advertisement Episode 6 Here we will learn what happened to Tara and Heath after they had left Alexandria to go on a supply run that was going to take a number of weeks. Tara still doesn’t know that Denise caught an arrow with her orbital socket and we may never know how she reacts to it. Spoilers have revealed that we will either see the death of Heath or Tara in this episode. If the comics are anything to go off of, it will most likely be Tara that dies in this episode as Heath is still very much alive in the comics. It has also been revealed that the two will come across the Oceanside community and this will cause the two groups to learn about each other and form a possible alliance. Episode 7 This may be the biggest spoiler of the season so far. Advertisement Top Videos of the Day Rick, by this time he comes back around to reality, will set in motion his plans to begin taking their lives back from Negan. It is unclear what his plan will be at this point and if the history of "The Walking Dead" is anything to go by, we won’t find out until the second half of the season. However, we do know that by the end of this episode, Rick will have set Alexandria on fire. The reason is unclear at this point but we still have episode 8 to look forward to before the first half of the season is over. Stay tuned for new episodes of "The Walking Dead." |
Four weeks into the season, we proudly present our first edition of the Eastern Conference Power Rankings. I have partnered with Evan Eyster (eeyster), who will cover the West, and we will be using the Elo Rating system to rank each conference. We believe this is the perfect time to release rankings because most clubs have played four matches, providing a solid basis for measuring performance. So, without further ado, here are the Eastern Conference Power Rankings! Remember, a team rated 1100 is considered an average team. For a more comprehensive version of what Elo ratings are and what they mean, check out this article. Rankings Rank Club Rating 1 New York Red Bulls II 1114 2 Louisville City 1108 3 Richmond 1107 4 Wilmington 1106 5 Charleston 1105 6 Toronto FC II 1105 7 Rochester 1104 8 FC Cincinnati 1101 9 Charlotte 1098 10 Bethlehem 1096 11 Harrisburg 1096 12 Pittsburgh 1096 13 FC Montreal 1083 14 Orlando City B 1081 Notable Going unbeaten through their first four matches, New York Red Bulls II sit atop the conference, with a win on the road over Louisville proving decisive. As for City, its big win over FC Cincinnati, secured second, and Richmond follows in third. The Pennsylvania clubs are tied at 1096 points each, but Bethlehem holds the tie-breaker, with six points in the season table. The two winless clubs, FC Montreal and Orlando City B, bring up the bottom of the rankings with 1083 and 1081 points respectively. OCB has the chance to move up, with its next three matches coming against Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and FC Montreal, all in the bottom four. What are your thoughts on the rankings? Which clubs do you think are poised to move up? Who has had the best start to the season? Let us know in the comments below! |
Andy Jaye hosted ITV’s Formula E programme for the Berlin round. He believes that the manner in which the sport includes fans, away from the track as much as on it, is a winning strategy to building a far-reaching fanbase for the future. “Berlin was terrific. There were some big moments and talking points and a lot of fantastic racing. The track was like a deluxe karting circuit, with 17 amazing turns. I thought there might be some real battery management issues but it turned into quite a tactical race. A few drivers managed to make it through the pack and there weren’t any of the big mistakes I’d expected to see. The drivers are all very bright. It’s pretty incredible to have a field full of racers with such different backgrounds but all underscored with great pedigree. You don’t need to explain who any of these guys are. The ITV team oozes professionalism. Alex Brundle is great fun on air. You just wind him up and let him go. Marc Priestly is such an insightful man. He’s been there, done it, got the t-shirt – and then he can eloquently tell you how to make the t-shirt! In the hour’s build up to ITV’s live race coverage, Trulli was the story of Berlin. He’s the one lap master, so it was no real surprise to finally see him right at the top after qualifying. It was a surprise, though, to see what happened in the race. It was a real shame to see him drop from first to last; I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen before to a driver of his calibre. Piquet delivered a sublime race, particularly when the indications from quali indicated that he was in trouble. It looked like he was going to leave Germany having lost to his countryman but, by 9pm, he was very much the victor. ABT aftermath We had the highlights show wrapped and sorted for Sunday morning. Then the di Grassi news dropped: disqualified for running a modified front wing and fairings. That changed everything. I was stunned. I had to dash back to the studio to rerecord segments. We had to drop a fair amount of analysis, the stuff that centred on di Grassi’s winning ways. The reaction has been divided. Some have said that the modifications wouldn’t have made any difference to the race performance; others have pointed out that breaking the rules is technically cheating. The whole point of Formula E’s first season is to have equally-matched teams. The only edge you’re meant to have is Fanboost, set up secrets and racing lines. Modifying your equipment is not cool. However, if nothing else, this incident has really brought out the character of Lucas di Grassi, who has declared openly that he intends to beat Piquet and Buemi on track. We’ve suddenly seen how much this new racing series means to the drivers. A lot of these guys race in other high profile series and you wonder how invested each driver really is in this formula. But this war of words and the body language shows that the drivers love it, that they’re desperate to win. Accessing a futureproof fanbase I’ve been hosting Channel 4’s racing coverage for years. I started off doing things like Formula Ford, British Formula 3, Ginetta, Caterham – you name it, if it’s been on Channel 4, I’ve been at a race track talking about it. The racing in Formula E has been top drawer so far. It’s really enjoyable. That’s the best testament to the new sport: you don’t have to wave the “green flag” every 10 seconds. You can stay with it because the racing is good – the fact that you can have a clear conscience while watching it, because of its environmental purpose, is even better. One of the things I really like about Formula E is the access. The whole ethos of Formula E is access, no restrictions, from Fanboost through to the DJs at trackside. I have a privileged position as a broadcaster that gives me access to teams and drivers in a way that the public doesn’t get. But in Formula E, you get this feeling that it’s open to all. The racing takes place on track but there’s so much more drama away from what happens between lights to flag, too. I love that Formula E teams, drivers and organisers are embracing it. I also host Speedway for Eurosport. Those fans are incredibly dedicated and loyal and up for their sport. You can see all their activity online as well as coming to the events. The speed, the dirt, the danger, the proximity of fans to the action, the spit and sawdust feeling: if you go, you can’t help but be bitten by the bug. I know Speedway is two wheels and not four, but I get the feeling the Formula E is nurturing that sort of future fanbase, who will support the series forever. Formula E isn’t targeting old men with money; they’re targeting kids with tablets and smart phones. Roll on Moscow I’m really looking forward to deputising again for Jennie Gow for the Moscow programme because, while London will undoubtedly be the big decider, Moscow could change the face of everything. We’ll see who can handle the pressure up there at the top – and who can’t. The track looks pretty crazy. There are major roads through the centre of the city that will need to be closed to accommodate the circuit. It’ll have all the drama we’ve seen from the racing, as well as the fantastic backdrop of the Kremlin. Incredible. It’s a real coup. Who to watch out for? Justin Wilson will be new into the Andretti team. He’s a fun racer and he’s the kind of guy who can just jump into any car and drive it fast. Antonio Garcia returns for NextEV TCR, so it will be intriguing to see how he fares. There are clearly three drivers who are pulling away from the pack when it comes to the drivers’ championship. In all likelihood they’re the ones who will show up again: Piquet, di Grassi and Buemi. I’d like to see a different podium though. Sam Bird is looking sharp. He’s had moments but he’ll feel like he wants to expand on that. D’Ambrosio benefited last time out from di Grassi’s exclusion but he drove a strong second, so I think we could see a good performance from him. Daniel Abt has also had some great moments, including a podium, and he’s signed a new deal. When you’re driving in the shadow of your dad – whether that’s because he’s a great driver or a famous pundit or a team owner – you want to show that you are more than what your dad did. If that was the podium in Moscow – Bird, Abt, d’Ambrosio – imagine how that would impact on London. Let’s call that the dream podium, the one that would shake up the whole championship and set up a grandstand finale to the first season. I can’t wait.” Follow Andy on Twitter: @andyjaye |
Israeli and Chinese officials signed a $400 million trade agreement during meetings on Wednesday, expanding trade between the two nations to $2.05 billion. The agreement was signed by Israeli and Chinese finance ministers during a meeting attended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang. “This is a very important agreement for expanding bilateral cooperation. China is a vast market and if we even slightly increase our market share here it will significantly help the Israeli economy,” Netanyahu said, according to the Prime Minister’s Office. Netanyahu also held a live video-chat with millions of Chinese Web surfers on Xinhuanet, China’s official news agency. Most of the questions revolved around Israel-China relations. Netanyahu told the online participants that he was “impressed by the development, progress and tremendous growth” of China since his last visit to the country, in 1998. Israel and China first established relations in 1992. Since then trade between the two countries has rapidly expanded, with China becoming a major purchaser of Israeli high-tech, military and agricultural goods and services. |
On the 4th of February 2015, these horrifying photographs of TransAsia Airways flight GE235 were published around the world. These appear to be some photos of the TransAsia ATR72 crashing over the roadway. via @missxoxo168 h/t @marker7193 pic.twitter.com/7WlvhVFI6j — Airline Reporter (@AirlineReporter) February 4, 2015 Just three minutes after take off and three nautical miles east of the airport, the aircraft crashed into the Keelung River after the flight crew lost control. The final report was released in English a few days ago and includes some very interesting analysis of the problem. Let’s start with a refresher of what happened that day. The aircraft was new, a ten-month-old ATR 72-600: a twin-engine turboprop short-haul aircraft popular with regional airliners. There were three pilots, two cabin crew and fifty-three passengers on board for the scheduled TransAsia Airways flight from Taipei Songshan Airport to Kinmen Airport. The flight crew consisted of two captains and a first officer, who acted as an observer. Their schedule that day was for two return flights from Songshan to Kinmen (four sectors). The first flight of the day departed Songshan at 07:44 that morning, arriving at Kinmen at 08:50. They departed Kinmen at 09:17 and arrived back at Songhsan at 10:12 to prepare for the second return trip. Flight GE235 departed at 10:45. The Pilot in Command was the Pilot Flying and sat in the left seat. The second captain was the Pilot Monitoring and sat in the right seat. The first officer had flown with another airline as an MD-82 captain and was transitioning to the ATR-72. He completed his training on the ATR 72-500 and it was noted that he would “need some time to get used to the 600, flying with an experienced captain is strongly recommended.” The first officer sat in the cockpit jump seat as an observer pilot as a part of his ATR 72-600 differences line training. There’s no evidence that the crew briefed or reviewed the engine failure procedure during the take-off briefing. The flight was due to depart Songshan at 10:45. The aircraft began the take-off roll on runway 10 at 10:51:39. Four seconds later, the Pilot Monitoring pointed out that the Automatic Takeoff Power Control System (ATPCS) was not armed. The ATPCS is part of the propulsion system. I’m not good on this kind of detail so here’s the exact description from the accident report. The automatic take off power control system (ATPCS) is one of the sub-systems of the propulsion unit. The ATPCS is designed to automatically feather the propeller during takeoff and approach if the engine torque decreased below 18.5 percent rated torque. The auto-feather logic and control circuits with interlock features provided arming control and prevented auto-feather of the operating propeller, once the auto-feather sequence for one of the propellers was initiated. The system also provided for relaying a ‘power uptrim’ (engine power increase) signal to the operating engine. The engine torque is a way of indicating engine power. If the engine torque is below a certain percentage, then the engine is no longer producing thrust. In this case, the propellers can be feathered in order to reduce drag, which means that the propeller blades are rotated to be parallel to the airflow. The point is that if one of the engines is no longer producing thrust, then on the ATR-600, the ATPCS will feather the engine automatically. The ATPCS will also (if I understand this bit correctly) provide maximum power to the alive engine (the ‘power uptrim’) of up to 10% torque. In this case, the ATPCS was not armed. According to a TransAsia crew training supervisor, if the ATPCS is not armed during the take-off roll, the flight crew should abort the take-off. However, in this case when the Pilot Flying heard that the ATPCS was not armed, he responded with, “Really?” And then, “OK, continue to take off.” The Pilot Monitoring repeated “We will continue.” A few seconds later, he said “Oh, there it is. ATPCS armed.” The aircraft then became airborne at 10:52:01. They achieved a positive rate of climb and retracted the landing gear. The autopilot was set to a selected altitude of 5,000 feet and an airspeed of 115 knots. At 10:52:34, the Songshan tower controller asked the flight crew to contact Taipei Approach. The aircraft had just started its right turn for the standard departure as it was climbing through an altitude of 1,000 feet. According to the flight data recorder, at 10:52:38 as the aircraft continued the right turn and was climbing through 1,200 feet, No. 1 engine began operating in an uptrim condition with its bleed valve closed. This was the beginning of an ATPCS sequence which would also auto-feather the dead engine: rotate the angle of the blades so that the propeller no longer encounters any resistance (which it needs when producing thrust). The master warning lit up as the No. 2 engine propeller angles began to advance. The engine warning display also lit up with a reference to the appropriate procedure: ENG 2 FLAME OUT AT TAKE OFF At 10:52:41, forty seconds after take-off, the autopilot was disconnected as the Pilot Flying called out, “I have control.” The aircraft climbed through 1,300 feet. The ATPCS sequence ended with the No. 2 engine propeller fully feathered. The Pilot Flying said, “I will pull back engine one throttle.” The Pilot Monitoring, correctly, replied with “Wait a second, cross check.” However, the No 1 engine power lever had already been retarded; it’s angle reducing from 75° to 66°. Both the Pilot Flying and the Pilot Monitoring announced heading mode (that is, the autopilot would keep the nose of the aircraft pointed in the direction set by the heading bug, not speed, level or lateral navigation) and continued. The aircraft was climbing through 1,481 feet and 106 knots. A heading of 092° was selected and the aircraft began turning left. At 10:53:00 the Pilot Monitoring was ready for the cross check. 10:53:00 Pilot Monitoring: OK, engine flame out check. Pilot Flying: Check. Pilot Monitoring: Check uptrim: yes. Auto feather: yes Pilot Flying: OK Pilot Monitoring: Watch the speed! The indicated airspeed had reduced to 101 knots. The Pilot Flying called “pull back number one” and the No. 1 engine power lever angle was retarded to 49°. The Pilot Monitoring said, “OK, now No 2 engine flameout confirmed.” This is the cross-check complete, with the No 2 engine correctly identified. “OK,” said the Pilot Flying. However, he didn’t increase the thrust on the No. 1 engine. The power lever angle remained at 49°. At 10:53:09, the flight reached its peak altitude of 1,630 feet. With one engine out and the other at reduced thrust, the aircraft couldn’t climb any further. The Automatic Flight Control System reverted into PITCH HOLD mode. The Automatic Flight Control System has a built-in protection (flight path angle protection) which is triggered if the aircraft does not have sufficient energy to continuing climbing on a minimum slope at the selected airspeed. If this condition is met for 20 seconds, then the Automatic Flight Control System reverts to PITCH HOLD mode. One second later, the stall warner sounded briefly. Pilot Flying: Terrain ahead. Pilot Monitoring: OK, lower… Observing Pilot You are low. At 10:53:13, the stall warning sounded for four seconds and the stick shakers activated. The stick shakers do exactly what it sounds like, they vibrate the pilots’ controls in order to warn them of an impending stall. Pilot Monitoring: Ok, push, push back. Pilot Flying: Shut… Pilot Monitoring: Wait a second…throttle, throttle! It’s this next action which seems unbelievable. It’s impossible to be absolutely sure which pilot had his hands on the controls but over the next two seconds, both power levers were manipulated. The No. 2 power lever angle was advanced to 86° and the No. 1 power level angle was retarded to around 35.5°, which is the idle position. At 10:53:18, the aircraft was descending through 1,526 feet in a continuous left turn with a 10-20° angle of bank. 10:53:19 Pilot Flying: Number one. Pilot Flying: Feather shut off. Pilot Monitoring: Number feather The stick shakers activated again. As the aircraft was now entering an aerodynamic stall, the automatic stick pusher kicked in, which pushes the stick forward to decrease the aircraft’s angle of attack. At 10:53:35, the Pilot Monitoring made a MAYDAY call to Air Traffic Control. The aircraft was now banking to the right. The flight crew tried twice to engage the autopilot. 10:53:53 Observing Pilot How come it becomes like this? 10:54:05 Pilot Monitoring: Both sides…lost Pilot Monitoring: No engine flameout, we lost both sides. 10:54:09 Pilot Flying: Restart the engine! The aircraft’s altitude was 545 feet with an airspeed of 105 knots. The Pilot Flying repeated, “Restart the engine” seven times. At 10:54:20, the No. 1 engine condition lever was moved out of the shut off position and the engine one high pressure speed increased to 30%. The time required to restart the engine is 25-30 seconds. The aircraft was at 400 feet with an indicated airspeed of 106 knots as it started to bank to the left. 10:54:27 Pilot Flying: Wow. Pulled back the wrong side throttle. The aircraft stalled and did not recover. The Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System sounded with PULL UP, PULL UP. The left bank angle increased from 10° to 80°. The left wing collided with a taxi driving on the overpass and then impacted the fence at the edge of the overpass. It continued to bank to the left and crashed into the Keelung river upside down. Four crew members and 39 passengers were killed in the impact. Thirteen passengers and one cabin crew sustained serious injuries and one passenger sustained minor injuries. All of the surviving passengers and crew were seated after row 10. They reported that as the aircraft crashed into the river, the middle-aft section separated. Some of the passengers were unconscious and woke to find themselves upside down in the cabin, restrained by their seatbelts, as the water filled the cabin. The taxi driver sustained serious injuries and the taxi passenger sustained minor injuries. The investigation discovered that the Pilot Flying had shown issues in training, failing his initial simulator check on abnormal engine starts. The instructor noted multiple issues, including that the pilot did not advance the power levels during a single engine approach go around. The technical review board discussed the pilot’s performance and allowed for an additional simulator session and recheck, which the pilot passed, which allowed for his promotion to captain. However, in the line training, his performance evaluations note some issues. Prone to be nervous and may make oral errors during the engine start 10 procedure; Insufficient knowledge leading to hesitations in “Both EEC Failure” and “Engine Failure after V1” situation during the oral test; Lack of confidence and being nervous while answering the Smoke procedure during the oral test; Incomplete check and execution of certain procedures; Hesitant when facing situations that require making decisions; and Flight planning should be improved. The Pilot Monitoring had no significant comments regarding his checks and training. The wreckage examination showed that there was no issues with either engine previous to the crash. They discovered that the issue with the No. 2 engine was solely the autofeathering of the No. 2 engine propeller by the the automatic take off power control system (ATPCS). The FDR showed that the ATPCS hadn’t armed correctly initially but that it had armed later in the take-off roll. The post-wreckage examinations showed that the left torque sensor (for the No. 2 engine) had compromised soldering joints which may have caused an intermittent discontinuity of the torque signal. The engine manufacturer (P&WC) had been aware of AFU-related technical issues causing uncommanded autofeather events since 2005 and proposed SBs starting from 2007. Investigation of the AFUs from those events revealed that some of the units exhibited cracks in the soldering of the J1 and J2 connectors. Those cracks were believed to have caused momentary electrical disruptions leading to an uncommanded autofeather. In response, the manufacturer issued various service bulletins and service information letters to operators recommending unit modification and/or information to address the AFU-related autofeather events. SB No.21742 advised that “Aging of the Autofeather Unit (AFU) electrical connectors and interconnect ribbon solder joints can lead to loss of torque signal”. The manufacturer recommended implementing the service bulletin actions before the AFU had accumulated 12,000 flight hours, or before 31 July 2010, whichever occurred last. The aircraft had less than 2,000 flight hours, much less than the 12,000 flight hours recommended by the engine manufacturer, thus the intermittent continuity failure does not appear to be simply caused by aging. Although the No. 2 engine may have been correctly producing power and the sensor would have picked up the correct torque reading, if the signal was interrupted, the ATPCS would become unreliable. Symptoms of an unstable torque signal include unreliable arming and inadvertent or uncommanded autofeathering. This is exactly why the take-off should have been rejected. However, the investigation discovered that there were no documented company policies, instructions, procedures or notices to flight crew that they should reject the take-off if the ATPCS did not arm. UPDATE: Dozens awaiting rescue after TransAsia Airways plane crash lands in #Taipei riverhttp://t.co/8OPytImDnQ pic.twitter.com/DyIQebdP4T — ST Foreign Desk (@STForeignDesk) February 4, 2015 Once in the air, the MASTER WARNING/CAUTION should have led the Pilot Monitoring to announce the warning and call out the item flashing: ENGINE 2 OUT ON FWS. The Pilot Flying’s response would have been to call out CHECK to acknowledge the failure. Instead, the Pilot Monitoring said, “Take a look” and never read out the item. As he began the failure identification process, the Pilot Flying retarded the No. 1 engine power lever as he said, “I will pull back engine one throttle.” Thus, the Pilot Flying was attempting to assess and respond to the situation without the input of the Pilot Monitoring, which led him to cancel out the additional power which the ATPCS had uptrimmed. Although the Pilot Monitoring asked him to wait, the Pilot Flying never announced that he had in fact pulled back the throttle. The flight crew failed to perform the appropriate failure identification procedure before the PF reduced power on the operative engine. This premature action led to confusion in the cockpit. The PM called for a cross check and an engine flame out check but the PF did not address those items. The PM subsequently called an auto feather and confirmed that ENG 2 flameout but the PF had already retarded PL1 to 22% torque. The aircraft stall warning system then activated and then confusion was prevalent as the PF called the shutdown of ENG 1. By the time the PM announced engine flameout on both sides and an engine restart was attempted, the aircraft was at an altitude from which recovery was not possible and a stall and loss of control followed. Reading through the transcript, it seems that the Pilot Monitoring understood that it was the No. 2 engine which was out but the Pilot Flying never appeared to be clear of the situation and repeatedly manipulated the No. 1 engine. By the time he said that he’d pulled back the wrong side throttle, it was much too late. A summary of non-compliance with SOPs and/or company expectations or non-conformance with safe practices identified during the occurrence flight included: Non-compliance with sterile cockpit rule during taxi; Did not brief engine out procedure during takeoff briefing; Did not comply with the undocumented company expectation to reject the take off if the ATPCS did not arm during the takeoff roll (ATR72-600 only); PF unnecessarily disconnected the autopilot after the master warning sounded; PF did not positively identify propulsion system malfunction before taking action; Crew did not perform the ENG 2 flameout at take off procedure correctly. The non-compliance with procedures deprived the flight crew of an opportunity to manage the emergency correctly and efficiently. Their actions further complicated the situation, substantially increasing their workload, and a manageable situation eventuated in a stall and loss of aircraft control. The repetitive and recurring non-compliance with SOPs identified again in this occurrence and by previous ASC investigations of TransAsia Airways ATR accidents (GE222) and serious incidents, indicated that non-compliant behaviors were an enduring, systemic problem and were consistent with a poor safety culture within the airline’s ATR fleet The report is very good and very readable but also very, very long. If you are interested in more of the detail, I recommend the English translation. I’m out of space now but the probable causes cover the various issues that the investigation looked into. Note that the pilot referred to as Captain A in the investigation was the Pilot Flying. An intermittent signal discontinuity between the auto feather unit (AFU) number 2 and the torque sensor may have caused the automatic take off power control system (ATPCS): Not being armed steadily during takeoff roll; Being activated during initial climb which resulted in a complete ATPCS sequence including the engine number 2 autofeathering. The available evidence indicated the intermittent discontinuity between torque sensor and auto feather unit (AFU) number 2 was probably caused by the compromised soldering joints inside the AFU number 2. The flight crew did not reject the take off when the automatic take off power control system ARM pushbutton did not light during the initial stages of the take off roll. TransAsia did not have a clear documented company policy with associated instructions, procedures, and notices to crew for ATR72-600 operations communicating the requirement to reject the take off if the automatic take off power control system did not arm. Following the uncommanded autofeather of engine number 2, the flight crew failed to perform the documented failure identification procedure before executing any actions. That resulted in pilot flying’s confusion regarding the identification and nature of the actual propulsion system malfunction and he reduced power on the operative engine number 1. The flight crew’s non-compliance with TransAsia Airways ATR72-600 standard operating procedures – Abnormal and Emergency Procedures for an engine flame out at take off resulted in the pilot flying reducing power on and then shutting down the wrong engine. The loss of engine power during the initial climb and inappropriate flight control inputs by the pilot flying generated a series of stall warnings, including activation of the stick pusher. The crew did not respond to the stall warnings in a timely and effective manner. The loss of power from both engines was not detected and corrected by the crew in time to restart an engine. The aircraft stalled during the attempted restart at an altitude from which the aircraft could not recover from loss of control. Flight crew coordination, communication, and threat and error management (TEM) were less than effective, and compromised the safety of the flight. Both operating crew members failed to obtain relevant data from each other regarding the status of both engines at different points in the occurrence sequence. The pilot flying did not appropriately respond to or integrate input from the pilot monitoring. The Findings Related to Risk are what I would call Contributing Factors: unsafe acts and conditions that made the accident more likely but would not have caused it on their own. The engine manufacturer attempted to control intermittent continuity failures of the auto feather unit (AFU) by introducing a recommended inspection service bulletin at 12,000 flight hours to address aging issues. The two AFU failures at 148 1,624 flight hours and 1,206 flight hours show that causes of intermittent continuity failures of the AFU were not only related to aging but also to other previously undiscovered issues and that the inspection service bulletin implemented by the engine manufacturer to address this issue before the occurrence was not sufficiently effective. The engine manufacturer has issued a modification addressing the specific finding of this investigation. This new modification is currently implemented in all new production engines, and another service bulletin is available for retrofit. Pilot flying’s decision to disconnect the autopilot shortly after the first master warning increased the pilot flying’s subsequent workload and reduced his capacity to assess and cope with the emergency situation. The omission of the required pre-take off briefing meant that the crew were not as mentally prepared as they could have been for the propulsion system malfunction they encountered after takeoff. TransAsia Airways (TNA) did not follow its own procedures when selecting and training pilot flying for upgrade. The TNA’s quality assurance processes had not detected that the command selection upgrade process had been compromised. TransAsia Airways (TNA) did not use widely available crew resource management (CRM) guidelines to develop, implement, reinforce, and assess the effectiveness of their flight crew CRM training program. While the TransAsia Airways (TNA) ATR72-600 differences training program was consistent with the European Aviation Safety Agency ATR72 operational evaluation board report and compliant from a Civil Aeronautics Administration regulatory perspective, it may not have been sufficient to ensure that TNA flight crews were competent to operate the ATR72-600 under all normal procedures and a set of abnormal conditions. The ATR72-600 differences training records for the GE 235 flight crew showed that Captain A probably needed more training on the single engine flame out at take off procedure. That meant if the differences training records were stored, adequately maintained and evaluated by appropriate TransAsia Airways (TNA) flight operations and/or quality assurance personnel, the TNA would have had yet another opportunity to review Captain A’s ability to handle engine out emergencies. Captain A’s performance during the occurrence was consistent with his performance weaknesses noted during his training, including his continued difficulties in handling emergency and/or abnormal situations, including engine flame out at take off and single engine operations. However, TransAsia Airways did not effectively address the evident and imminent flight safety risk that Captain A presented. The Civil Aeronautics Administration’s (CAA) oversight of flight crew training, including crew resource management (CRM) training, is in need of improvement. The systemic TransAsia Airways (TNA) flight crew non-compliances with standard operating procedures identified in previous investigations, including GE 222, remained unaddressed at the time of the GE235 occurrence. Although the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) had conducted a special audit after the GE 222 accident which identified the standard operating procedures compliance issue, the CAA did not ensured that TNA responded to previously identified systemic safety issues in a timely manner to minimize the potential risk. So both engines were perfectly fine. What brought the plane down? A known fault, an ignored procedure, bad training, followed by a complete failure of Cockpit Management Resources. I’m not sure how it could possibly have gone more wrong. The original report is available in English on the Aviation Safety Council site here: https://www.asc.gov.tw/upload/acd_att/ASC-AOR-16-06-001 EN.pdf. |
I laughed when I read back in August that Twitch was taking on Dark Souls. There’s no way they’re beating a huge, open game filled with treacherous geography and intense combat that depends on planning and careful timing. Well, Twitch beat Dark Souls, and now I’m not sure if we actually get to call the game hard anymore. They did get one caveat, though. The game did prove unplayable at first, as they had an impossibly difficult time with the game’s first boss, but a small change – turning the action game into a turn-based one – was all it took to get things back on track. When we look back at the 2D simplicity that is the original Pokémon, this is still pretty interesting to see despite the cheat. Over the course of 43 days, 8 hours, 14 minutes, and 23 seconds, Twitch beat the Asylum Demon, Ornstein & Smough, and Gwyn, the Lord of Cinder among others, dying 904 times (I’m pretty sure I’m close to that…). Now they’re onto Dark Souls II. I can’t wait to watch them fall into the pit in the middle of Majula over and over again. Maybe Dark Souls III isn’t off the table after it releases next April. |
Immigration Minister John McCallum – flanked by fellow federal cabinet ministers Jane Philpott, Harjit Sajjan, Ralph Goodale and Mélanie Joly – revealed the details of Canada’s plan to resettle 25,000 refugees fleeing war-torn Syria. Here’s what you need to know about the ambitious humanitarian plan: Who’s coming? The federal government has pushed back their earlier deadline to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of this year — now the aim is to have 10,000 in Canada by Dec. 31. The remaining refugees should be here by the end of February. The refugees will most likely come from camps in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. People who have not left Syria cannot be considered refugees. Many refugees fled Syria with just the clothes on their backs, and lack proper identification or passports, which makes Canada’s screening process difficult. People to be resettled in Canada have likely already been going through the screening process weeks or months in advance. Priority for government refugees will be given to families, women at risk, members of sexual minorities and single men only if they are identified as members of an LGBT community. How are they screened? Refugees are vetted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which determines which refugees are best for resettlement — usually women, families and those injured in conflict. They also look for security flags that would cause concern, namely affiliation with terrorist organizations. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale says Canada does additional screenings above the UN procedures, and CSIS is involved in that process. Refugees will have a security interview with visa officers, including document verification and gathering/checking biometric data, a health screening, and identification checks on departure and arrival. Any single hit on security checks and the refugee claim will be set aside, and officials move on to the next one. If any security or criminal concerns once here in Canada, Canadian Border Service Agency officers can intervene and have them deemed inadmissible, and possibly deported. How will they get here? Transportion will be carried out largely through private airline chartered flights. Military transportation will be used if neccessary. Where will they be going first? All refugees arrive in Montreal or Toronto for processing, then off to final destinations across the country. Where will they be resettled? There is no breakdown of province-by-province numbers. Three Syrian families arrived in Calgary on Monday through sponsorship by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary, in partnership with the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society. Mayor John Tory said he expects Toronto to take in between 2,000 and 2,500 refugees, but has not outlined where they will live. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard has said that province has put aside money to support 3,600 people. CFB Trenton is planning to take in 1,000 refugees, and CFB Valcartier in Quebec is expected to house up to 500. The CBC reports that armed forces bases in Quebec and Edmonton are freeing up space and winterizing housing units to take in refugees. Military transportation and housing on military bases are considered a last resort and the Liberals hope to move refugees straight to communities – but 6,000 military beds are available if needed. What are the costs? The total cost is estimated at $678-million over six years, with the bulk of money in the first two. Large costs associated with resettlement, and provinces will be asking for monetary assistance as well. When they get to communities they will receive various support, including health care, housing and language training. |
Grief: The mother of one of the victims of a gang-rape in Uttar Pradesh holds a schoolbook that belonged to her daughter. Credit:AFP The same night a 35-year-old woman, who had walked into a police station in the Sumerpur district seeking the release of her husband, was raped by station house officer Rahul Pandey when she refused to pay a bribe. Three constables stood calmly by, watching mute and unfazed by their senior officer’s behaviour. Then on Thursday morning came the discovery of a 16-year-old girl, also hanging from a tree, yet another victim of an apparent gang-rape. All of the women were from the lowest rungs of India’s caste system, while all of the alleged culprits were from the higher Yadav caste, traditionally a middle-ranking pastoral community. "These men act with a kind of depraved sense of impunity," Ranjana Kumari, a prominent women’s rights campaigner and director of the Centre for Social Research in Delhi, says. Outrage: Police use a water cannon to stop demonstrators from moving towards the office of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. Credit:Reuters "They act by ignoring the laws, and they are behaving that way because the men who run the state encourage them. Men know that no one will ever do anything to punish them. The chief minister, the bureaucrats, the police, they all take the same attitude, they do not care." To be sure, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav, who was branded India’s worst chief minister this week on the cover of the national news weekly magazine Outlook, has spent the last two weeks blithely dismissing the gang-rapes as a media beat-up. Yet the figures tell a different story. Since Mr Yadav led his Samajwadi Party to victory in state elections in 2012, a culture of rampant lawlessness, or "goonda raj", appears to have taken hold over the state. In the past two years there have been 10 rapes reported every day, more than 23,000 reported incidents against women and nearly 8000 kidnapping and abduction cases. On Thursday Mr Yadav, widely derided as the cat’s paw of his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, who is a former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and now a federal MP, spent the day trying to woo the crowd at a conference for international investors. "These rapes have little to do with sex, it’s all about caste,” Badri Narayan, of the Govind Ballabh Pant Social Science Institute and an expert on Dalit politics, says. "Rape is a tool of oppression, of punishment, of humiliation, and hanging women from trees serves as a warning to others." After Uttar Pradesh’s voters hammered Mr Yadav's political party in the recent national elections, giving it only five seats out of 80 while Narendra Modi’s BJP swept up 71, Professor Narayan says there has been an atmosphere of revenge. The victims, Professor Narayan says, belong to constituencies that were formerly held by the Samajwadi Party, and are believed to have voted either for the BJP or another alternative. "We don’t know exactly, of course, who the victims voted for, but that is the perception and now we have these thugs roaming the villages seeking vengeance, looking to punish the Dalits, and sending the message about who is really in control," he says. Vivek Kumar, another expert on caste politics from Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, believes that it is not just about how people might have voted. "Dalits are speaking up, asking for their rights, they want land reform, they want legal rights, and the Yadav caste feels threatened by that, and so they use rape and murder to stop the lower caste people from attaining those rights," he says. Despite the national media attention on the crimes, Professor Kumar expects similar incidents to increase. "This is a very large, very rural state with very few police officers," he says. "We are talking about hundreds of small villages and communities where women have basically no protection as soon as they step outside their door. I think we [will] see increasing rates of this kind of violence as the Yadavs try to assert and reinforce their control." As the novelist Meena Kandasamy wrote this week in the national magazine India Today: "Rape becomes a dangerous weapon of war in the hands of caste-Hindu men who use it to sustain a system that keeps intact their supremacy". S.R. Darapuri, a retired senior police officer who spent his career working across Uttar Pradesh, says the one thing that could help deter violence against women is a speedy and responsive justice system. However, he says, such a system does not exist in Uttar Pradesh. "Women walk into police stations and the police tell them to go away," Mr Darapuri says. "If the police do make an investigation report then they usually wait a few days until they know most of the evidence has been tampered with." If a case finally gets to court, Mr Darapuri says, then the culprit knows he has many ways to drag out the proceedings over years. "The culprit knows how poor the victims are, that they cannot afford to leave their homes and their land to be appearing in court, and the result is that in the vast majority of cases that get to court, the accused is acquitted," he says. Gobinda Pal, director of the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies in Delhi, says another problem for lower caste communities is their political fragmentation. "Unfortunately these lower caste communities in Uttar Pradesh are divided among themselves, which makes them even weaker," Dr Pal says. "Someone who makes a complaint knows that they are under constant threat, that might be only the beginning of more harassment, more threats. In India, power and caste are two sides of the same coin." This week, India’s new Prime Minister used his first speech to parliament to finally break his silence over the spate of rapes in Uttar Pradesh, and promise action. "Respecting and protecting women should be a priority of the 1.25 billion people in this country," Mr Modi said. "All these incidents should make us introspect. The government will have to act. The country won't wait and people won't forget." |
Even when they've made it big in the NFL, young football players aren't finished products. Players might peak earlier in this sport than others (looking at you, baseball), but it usually takes a few seasons at the professional level to become totally refined. And many, of course, never do. Fourth-year players are usually pretty polished and aren't likely to change much more, and rookies have yet to truly show us what they'll have to work on to succeed in NFL games. So let's look at the top second- and third-year players and analyze what they need to improve on in 2017 and beyond. Honorable Mentions Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports These are the guys who have been just so damn good that it's tough to find a flaw they "must" fix. But because no player is perfect, there's still something for them to work on... New York Jets DT Leonard Williams A strong, technically sound, run-stuffing defensive tackle who is coming off a seven-sack season in which he took just one penalty? This might be my biggest challenge yet. Could Williams get slightly lower at times? I guess. Does it matter? Probably not. Could he become a stronger pass-rusher by adding more moves to his repertoire? I suppose. Will not doing so prevent him from becoming a superstar? Nope. In fact, I'm pretty sure the primary reason why he sometimes goes long stretches without applying pressure is because that's not really his job most Sundays. The 23-year-old is going to be a perennial All-Pro regardless, but technically his pass-rush game isn't flawless. New York Giants S Landon Collins Collins did it all in his second season with the Giants. Five picks, four sacks, 125 tackles. That earned the 23-year-old a first-team All-Pro nod and nine Defensive Player of the Year votes (third behind Khalil Mack and Von Miller). He doesn't have to do anything to continue on his current path to stardom, but he did get beat quite frequently in coverage. He was rarely beat deep but was burned by a few receivers and tight ends and gave up a high percentage of completions in general. It's something he could benefit from working on. Arizona Cardinals RB David Johnson OK, here's a nitpick: Johnson isn't a superb blocker. He isn't bad, and he has improved. But it's not an area of strength, and it's something he could manage to get better at. For a dude who can run, catch and score as well as anyone in the game, that's about all I've got. Tennessee Titans QB Marcus Mariota Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports You could argue that Marcus Mariota's top priority should be getting and staying healthy, but that's not totally under his control. He missed four games due to separate knee injuries as a rookie in 2015 and broke his leg near the end of the 2016 campaign, so durability is a concern. But on the field, Mike B. Herndon of Music City Miracles noticed something interesting about the directional passing numbers listed for the Titans at NFL Savant: Mariota is the anti-Derek Zoolander of the NFL. He can't throw right. Per Herndon, Mariota completed just 52.5 percent of his passes to that side of the field last season, which was better than only Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers. "I believe Mariota’s struggles throwing to his right are real, and I think they are primarily caused by his footwork when throwing to his right," wrote Herndon. "When throwing to his left or over the middle he does a good job of getting his feet balanced and his shoulders pointed towards his target. This seems to break down a little bit when throwing to his right as he tends to leave his shoulders open and flick the ball to the outside which leads to some high throws as he is unable to get on top of the ball and drive through it." Mariota still completed 61.2 percent of his passes last season. Imagine how much better he could be if he could correct the problems he's had while throwing right. Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB Jameis Winston Chris O'Meara/Associated Press This is pretty straightforward and is not unusual. Jameis Winston has thrown 33 interceptions two years into his career. That number is too high, and it's a tad concerning that 18 of those picks came in his second season. Twenty-one of those picks have come in one-score games, which reinforces the notion that the 2015 No. 1 overall pick presses too hard at times in big moments. The good news is it's not uncommon for quarterbacks to deal with problems like these early in their careers. Just ask Peyton Manning. Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports Dak Prescott posted the highest qualified rookie passer rating in NFL history in 2016. As a result, you really feel like you're nitpicking by identifying a so-called flaw in his game. But if there's one thing the reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year can improve, it's his improvisation. I'm not referring to his ability to improvise when plays break down, because that didn't seem to be a major issue for him in 2016 (and it helped that plays rarely broke down in that offense). Instead, I'm talking about his ability to adapt when smart, strong defenses throw new and unexpected elements at him. For evidence, look at Prescott's two worst performances of the 2016 season, which came in back-to-back weeks against the Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants. "Against two coordinators who like to confuse a quarterback, Mike Zimmer and Steve Spagnuolo, Prescott struggled when defenses acted in an unusual manner," former NFL quarterback Sage Rosenfels wrote for The Score. "Both defensive coaches called multiple blitzes with defensive linemen dropping into coverage. This is known as a "zone dog." As a young quarterback, you focus so much on safeties and linebackers that many times you miss the subtleties of a defensive end who's light in his stance or a safety blitzing with zone-dropping players behind him. This higher level of football takes time to understand and master." That's something he and head coach Jason Garrett have surely been working on this offseason. Philadelphia Eagles QB Carson Wentz Matt Rourke/Associated Press A lot was made of a December report from Yahoo Sports' Charles Robinson that stated NFL evaluators saw issues with Carson Wentz's throwing mechanics, but Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer later reported those problems may have stemmed from soreness in his throwing elbow. McLane also reported the 2016 No. 2 overall pick "focused on footwork" this offseason, which is important because that was actually his most glaring flaw in 2016. As Bleacher Report's Doug Farrar highlighted in December, Wentz's footwork was often a mess while trying to navigate the pocket and deliver the ball while under pressure last season. Mechanical issues are a lot tougher to overcome than problems with decision-making or improvisation, so Wentz struggling with pocket mechanics is no joke. Los Angeles Rams QB Jared Goff Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press Jared Goff had a messy rookie season, and we're only talking seven games. But his biggest problem was probably his inability to get rid of the ball and make plays under pressure. And that's not surprising considering there were questions about how he reacted to pressure before he came into the league. Goff was sacked on 11.3 percent of his dropbacks, which was by far the highest qualified mark in the NFL. And that came after he took 81 sacks and lost 11 fumbles during his three seasons at Cal. New Pro Bowl left tackle Andrew Whitworth should help, but Goff simply has to be better under pressure. Dallas Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott Josh Lefkowitz/Getty Images Sadly, at this point, Ezekiel Elliott's largest (only?) issue is his behavior. ESPN's Adam Schefter reported the superstar running back could be facing a short suspension stemming from an alleged domestic violence incident last July. He's also facing a misdemeanor conviction for speeding, and he was allegedly involved in a fight at a Dallas-area bar earlier this month. Throw in an incident in which he pulled a woman's shirt down at a St. Patrick's Day party, and there have to be questions regarding his maturity. The trend is troubling. Promising careers have been ruined after similar patterns have developed. Chicago Bears RB Jordan Howard Nam Huh/Associated Press Like David Johnson (and most young running backs), Jordan Howard could improve his blocking. But it might be more pressing for the 2016 rushing title runner-up to work on his receiving skills. He caught just 24 passes in three years in college and dropped seven of the 50 passes thrown his way as a rookie, catching just 29. According to FoxSports.com, no other running back dropped as many balls. Howard told me last year that he knew he still had a lot of work to do, and his position coach at Indiana, Deland McCullough, noted Howard had the right mentality for continued improvement. "He's a guy who's never satisfied, who's continually growing and critiquing himself," McCullough said. "He'll never get the big head, and he'll just keep on coming. Because he knows he'll have to keep proving himself." Los Angeles Rams RB Todd Gurley Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports Todd Gurley was one of the best offensive players in football as a rookie in 2015 and one of the worst as a sophomore in 2016. What happened? He didn't have a lot of support from an offense that struggled to move the ball through the air and didn't have strong line play, but that was also the case in 2015. Looking at the tape, though, it often felt as though a seemingly frustrated Gurley was either failing to see holes or neglecting to wait for them to open up. His vision and his patience weren't there, and his primary priority this offseason should be to re-establish both of those traits. A new offense could help him get there, and it's promising that Gurley told Zig Fracassi of SiriusXM NFL Radio (via Jeremy Bergman of NFL.com) earlier this month that he's "definitely been loving" new head coach Sean McVay's system. Los Angeles Chargers RB Melvin Gordon Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports Melvin Gordon got too cute when he broke into the league in 2015, and his lack of aggression led to a poor rookie season in which he scored zero touchdowns on 184 carries. But he fixed that last year, hitting holes with intensity in a breakout sophomore campaign. Now, he just has to prove he can make it through a full season. He was placed on injured reserve after tearing the meniscus in his left knee in Week 15 of his rookie campaign and then sprained the PCL in the same knee in 2016, costing him three games. So durability is a bit of a concern, and something the solid young back could use a boost with. Miami Dolphins RB Jay Ajayi Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press Jay Ajayi's second NFL season was phenomenal. He was just the fourth player in NFL history to rush for 200-plus yards more than twice in a single season (the other three: Earl Campbell, O.J. Simpson and Tiki Barber). But he was often all-or-nothing, so he'd benefit from becoming more consistent moving forward. Rather astonishingly, the 24-year-old Boise State product rushed for fewer than 80 yards in 11 of his other 12 games, and he averaged less than 3.7 yards per carry in six of those outings. All in all, 49 percent of his 1,272 rushing yards for 2016 came in three games. In the others, he averaged just 3.7 yards per attempt. You can't take those special performances away, but right now, you can't expect them to take place every week. Oakland Raiders WR Amari Cooper Eric Risberg/Associated Press Of course, Jay Ajayi isn't the only young NFL star who could manage to be more consistent. The same applies to Amari Cooper, who has already become a regular Pro Bowler two years into his NFL career but has a tendency to disappear at times. In 2016, for instance, the former No. 4 overall pick was one of just three receivers to total more than 125 receiving yards in four separate outings, but he was also held to fewer than 50 yards on six occasions. He had just two catches in a big December game against Buffalo and caught just a single 28-yard pass two weeks after that. Receivers are going to have off days. Even the best of 'em. But Cooper has to find a way to reduce the number of disappearing acts. Kansas City Chiefs WR Tyreek Hill Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports Hill made NFL history as the first player to score at least three touchdowns in the roles of receiver, runner and return man last year despite the fact the 23-year-old was the 164th selection in the 2016 NFL draft. The draft-day slide came after Hill was arrested for assaulting his pregnant girlfriend and Oklahoma State dismissed him from the football program. He pleaded guilty to the assault in 2015 and was sentenced to three years of probation. And that is naturally his biggest issue, but it's in the past and he can't do much about it now. Instead, he can just stay out of trouble and work on his on-field strength. He's not exactly hard to take down once you get a hand on him, and it's pretty obvious blocking isn't his specialty. That's not what the Chiefs drafted him for, but it couldn't hurt for Hill to continue to add to his already impressive repertoire. Tennessee Titans OT Jack Conklin Mark Zaleski/Associated Press Jack Conklin was a first-team All-Pro while dominating all 16 games as a rookie at a new position (right tackle versus left, where he played in college) with the Titans. He took just three penalties and was somewhat surprisingly stellar in pass protection in addition to run-paving. That being said, I still saw a player who had a little bit of trouble with speed rushers (Cameron Wake and Joey Bosa, for example), sometimes resorting to sloppy footwork when seemingly overwhelmed by athletic players on the edge. Those growing pains come with being a rookie, especially in a new spot, but it is something he can work on. Baltimore Ravens OT Ronnie Stanley Gail Burton/Associated Press Ronnie Stanley lived up to his reputation as a refined, elite pass protector as a rookie in 2016, but the Notre Dame product came into the league facing questions regarding his ability to bully defenders and assert himself in the running game. And he didn't do much to quiet those who criticized his run-blocking skills. He also has to cut down on his penalties after taking eight in just 12 starts as a rookie, but that should come naturally if he can indeed become stronger (literally and figuratively) at paving the way for the Baltimore run game. Washington Redskins G Brandon Scherff Luis M. Alvarez/Associated Press Brandon Scherff is coming off a Pro Bowl sophomore season, primarily because he was dominant at opening up holes and protecting quarterback Kirk Cousins at right guard. Again, that's what they drafted him to do, so kudos. But there's always room for improvement, and the 2015 No. 5 overall pick could be more disciplined. He was penalized eight times (five holding, three false starts), which was tied for the fourth-highest total in the league at that position. His job is to cut down on the penalties in 2017. Indianapolis Colts C Ryan Kelly Darron Cummings/Associated Press Ryan Kelly's rookie campaign was a success. He started all 16 games, shoring up the middle of an offensive line that had been in search of that kind of stability for quite a while. But he's not a superstar yet, and in order to get there, the Alabama product has to become more consistent from week to week. He shined in Houston, Minnesota and Tennessee but struggled quite a bit against San Diego, Chicago, Kansas City and the new York Jets. Kelly appeared to realize as a rookie that he wouldn't get weeks off, which is a good sign. "Every week you've got to bring it," Kelly said after the season, per AL.com's Mark Inabinett. "I think that's something new at the NFL, too. At the college level, you might be playing an elite guy once every three or four weeks. It's every week in the NFL." Los Angeles Chargers DE Joey Bosa Gregory Bull/Associated Press Joey Bosa was the Defensive Rookie of the Year despite playing in just 12 games last season, so this is no easy task. The stud rusher had 10.5 sacks in those 12 outings, which is remarkable considering he wasn't with the team during training camp. When Bosa came into the league, there was concern that he wasn't the strongest tackler and might have trouble in run defense. I didn't see that at all in 2016. Instead, the primary "concern" on my end was the fact that he collected seven penalties in those 12 contests. Six came for jumping too early, which might be a reflection on his lack of prep prior to his rookie campaign. Still, Bosa has to make an effort to draw fewer flags in 2017. Jacksonville Jaguars DE Dante Fowler John Raoux/Associated Press This one's easy: Dante Fowler has to stay on the field and out of trouble. A torn ACL forced the 2015 No. 3 overall pick to miss his entire rookie season, and then he recorded just four sacks over 16 games in 2016. Year 3 isn't off to a much better start, as he was charged with misdemeanor simple battery and mischief two weeks ago. Now there is even more cause for concern after Greg Auman of the Tampa Bay Times reported the arrest was Fowler's second in the span of 16 months. We know he has the ability, but a football player not being able to compete for his football team is a fatal flaw. San Francisco 49ers DE DeForest Buckner Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press DeForest Buckner is physically marvelous, and as a rookie he frequently flashed the size, strength and athleticism that caused the 49ers to draft him seventh overall in 2016. But he came into the league a little raw, and it showed. His technique simply needs work. Balance, footwork, pad level, hand placement. He needs more polish. It didn't help that Buckner admitted to being "dead tired" at times as a rookie, per Matt Barrows of the Sacramento Bee. But it's a new year, and he's working in a new scheme (in which he'll at least face fewer double-teams). That combined with more experience should help the 23-year-old quite a bit. Atlanta Falcons OLB Vic Beasley John Bazemore/Associated Press Vic Beasley may have led the NFL in sacks as a sophomore in 2016, but the 2015 No. 8 overall pick out of Clemson quite simply needs to become a more well-rounded front-seven defender. In other words, he has to improve against the run. He doesn't excel at shedding blocks or making tackles in the running game. And while that might not be what Beasley was drafted to do, it would be nice for the Falcons to feel as though they could rely on him to be an asset every down. There's a chance he never becomes a strong run defender, but the goal should be to become more consistent and less of a liability in those situations. Chicago Bears OLB Leonard Floyd Nam Huh/Associated Press Leonard Floyd has a ton of natural talent, but he has to work on his body. Concussions are also a concern after the No. 9 overall pick suffered a pair of them as a rookie in 2016 (the second of which took him two months to recover from, according to Patrick Finley of the Chicago Sun-Times), but weight and muscle mass have always been a bit of an issue for him. The good news is he's put on weight this offseason, according to Adam L. Jahns of the Sun-Times, and it doesn't sound as though concussion symptoms have lingered into camp. Kansas City Chiefs CB Marcus Peters Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports Marcus Peters is one of just six players since the 1970 merger to record 14 or more interceptions two seasons into his career, and he's got two Pro Bowl nods to show for it. But the 24-year-old former first-round pick has also been flagged for 15 penalties thus far. It sometimes feels like he loses control, which is something that can't happen if he's going to continue to evolve toward superstardom. Jacksonville Jaguars CB Jalen Ramsey John Raoux/Associated Press Jalen Ramsey had an even bigger issue with penalties as a rookie, drawing 11 flags in 16 starts last season. And two were for unnecessary roughness, which indicates the 22-year-old wasn't just taking penalties because he wasn't up to speed early on. He needs to learn to rein himself in, and he should also work on his ability to make big plays. After all, the 2016 No. 5 overall pick has intercepted just five passes since enrolling at Florida State in 2013. New York Giants CB Eli Apple Julio Cortez/Associated Press Apple had a decent rookie season in coverage, but the Giants would probably like to see him make more plays on the football. His anti-ball hawk mentality was a bit of a knock on him coming out of Ohio State, and he intercepted just one pass in 14 games (11 starts) in 2016. That's after picking off only four passes in 28 games with the Buckeyes. To become a star, he'll still have to improve his coverage and tackling skills while cutting down on penalties. But those things usually come with experience. Making game-changing plays is a little tougher to learn. |
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - The militant group Islamic State’s Libya wing released a video on Thursday purportedly showing it blowing up two warplanes at an air base while its fighters paraded heavy weapons in a show of force. The video showed the group’s fighters manning a tank, firing a mortar gun and destroying the planes parked in front of a hangar at the base seized by the militants near the central city of Sirte. The authenticity of the video could not be verified. Militants seized Sirte’s military and civilian airport two weeks ago, expanding the area it controls by exploiting a security vacuum in the oil producer, where two governments are vying for power. The militants had earlier this week seized a power plant in Sirte, completing a gradual takeover of the city that it began in February by pushing back a force sent from Misrata loyal to a rival Tripoli government. In the video, a Sudanese fighter mocked the Misrata troops which have withdrawn from Sirte and vowed to take on Misrata, a western city. He had blown up himself in a suicide attack in April. Since the start of the year militants in Libya loyal to Islamic State have claimed responsibility for killing dozens of Egyptian and Ethiopian Christians and attacking Tripoli’s luxury Corinthia hotel, embassies and oilfields. Libya’s internationally recognized government has been working out of the east of the country since losing control of Tripoli and western Libya in August, part of turmoil gripping Libya four years after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi. The United Nations presented a new draft for a peace agreement on Monday to persuade the two sides to form a unity government after months of talks in Morocco. But Libya’s elected parliament, while favoring a political solution, rejected the draft, spokesman Farraj Hashem said in Cairo. He said the assembly, which is also based in the east, objected to the inclusion of a Tripoli-based rival assembly into a power-sharing deal. The proposal calls for a government of national accord. The eastern House of Representatives will be the only legislative body but the draft also calls for a consultative body, consisting of members of the Tripoli assembly. Both sides in the conflict are divided between more moderate forces and hardliners who favor a military solution. |
It seems entirely natural to despise bureaucracy and compare bureaucrats to capitalists, imagining that an anti-capitalist politics is also synonymous with anti-bureaucracy. In order for capitalism to function, after all, a vast bureaucracy is required––the rational distribution of exploitation, the maintenance of surplus, accumulation, militarism, and all of the institutional departments required for the machinery of capitalism to keep chugging along. From the smallest to the largest site of exploitation, some form of bureaucracy is necessary to manage value. The state is renowned for the level of bureaucracy it allows to develop. All capitalist institutions, to a greater or lesser degree, require bureaucratic management; the larger the institution, the more arcane its bureaucracy.And so it's entirely too easy to despise this bureaucracy and feel that this spite is politically motivated. Just the other day, for example, I was forced to [yet again] deal with the overly byzantine bureaucracy of the institution I work for and, as usual, was extremely frustrated. And since navigating these sorts of institutional labyrinths, because of my cognitive disability , fills me with an even higher level of anxiety and confusion than it would otherwise––sometimes an almost debilitating paralysis––I desperately want to believe that my frustration is politically motivated and that bureaucrats who are making my life difficult are class enemies.Perhaps the most famous piece of graffiti from the May 1968 uprising in Paris was the aphorismHere was the statement that equated capitalism with bureaucracy, a slogan for the angry rebels building barricades in the streets that felt almost as vital as the most important May 1968 slogan,. And all of us who have been inspired, most probably in our student youth, by May 1968 are usually aware of this violent demand to strangle capitalists with the viscera of bureaucrats.When one thinks of the paradigmatic, after all, one thinks of some nazi pencil-pusher managing fascist atrocity by stamping papers and filing forms. This is probably the image of thethe aforementioned graffiti had in mind during May 1968: the bureaucrat, the banality of evil, the fascist desk jockey, the adminstrator of capitalist irrational rationalism. And it makes sense to despise this sort of person, to want to eviscerate the functionary responsible for the system's logical management, and attack such a person in revolutionary graffiti.But I do not believe it is entirely accurate to simply classify bureaucracy and bureaucrats as synonymous with capitalism and capitalists. As much as a part of me chuckles at John Reed's comment regarding Zinoviev ("the cold face of bureaucracy"), and as much as bureaucracy and bureaucrats upset me to no end, when I really think about what bureaucracy actuallyI find it difficult to be snidely dismissive. There is something, I must admit, rather infantile about a politics that professesas one of its core tenets.While I agree that capitalist bureaucracy needs to go––and that there are bureaucrats within the vast machinery of capitalism who are clearly class enemies––I've been finding it increasingly difficult over the past decade to believe that the two terms are synonymous and that bureaucracy, as arcane as it might feel under capitalism, is in itself. To be ais not necessarily to be the same as the paradigmatic nazi bureaucrat anymore than being a soldier is synonymous with being an imperialist pig––there are, after all, cadre soldiers in peoples armies who should not be seen, by anyone who claims to be an anti-capitalist, as identical to the soldiers serving in, for example, the US Army. Yes there were fascist bureaucrats, but there were also fascist brown shirts––the chaotic shock troops that brought fascism into existence––who were everything that the fascist bureaucrat was not. Thus, to respond to the supposed evil of bureaucracy with the supposed good of anarchic revolt is politically bankrupt.Moreover, just as the forces of production that developed under capitalism are necessary, under more advanced social relations, to build capitalism, it seems pretty logical to accept that some form of bureaucracy is also necessary. Unless you're some sort of primitivist, it's pretty hard to imagine socialism without the technological advancements that the people have developed, through much struggle and bloodshed, throughout the long march of history. Similarly, it's hard to imagine how this society would function without some form of rational management that would entail––much to the distress of those of us who still think fondly on the May 1968 aphorism––what would otherwise be calledandThe vast redistribution of wealth that should happen under socialism would require (andrequired) that which we would call a bureaucracy. One cannot imagine such redistribution without rational management; to believe it will happen spontaneously or with affinity groups is utopian thinking. Nor does crowing aboutmean anything more than an empty slogan if you can't say how this self-management will produce the mechanisms necessary to: a) break-up capitalist social relations; b) produce the necessary avenues for post-capitalist management. And it would seem, as much as a small part of me shudders at the thought, thaton a vast and revolutionary social scale will mean the existence of a new type of bureaucracy… that is, if we understand bureaucracy to be the rational and institutional management of the social.One only needs to look at large organizations that have often found themselves at odds with capitalism, now and then, to understand the necessity of some form of bureaucracy. Take, for example, a labour union engaged in a strike––a limited example, for unions are also and often part of the labour aristocracy, but one that most leftists can wrap their minds around. No strike has survived without some form of bureaucratic management. While we would hope that such management is guided from a bottom-up approach, it is still necessary because everyone engaged in said strike, regardless of their utopian beliefs about self-management, still require people to be responsible for the daily and banal facts that allow a labour disruption to function. And a strike, it must be said, barely resembles the overthrow of capitalism––so if you need some sort of rational management for a very small disruption of business-as-usual, then it seems entirely logical to assume that you need a much greater rationality and management for a large-scale disruption.Even those anti-capitalist groups that profess utter disdain for bureaucracy end up producing their own form of bureaucracy in order to function and persist. Working groups, committees, "point people"… all of these assemblages are themselves a form of bureaucratic management because they are attempts to structure the unstructured, to produce a form of rational functionality so as to not collapse into chaotic dysfunction. Hopefully the kind of "unofficial" bureaucracy that results from this type of organizing will be better than the bureaucratic structures tied to capitalism but they are still, regardless of whatever label they give themselves, another form of bureaucracy.We would hope that structures evolving to liquidate capitalism would be organized enough to be ableliquidate capitalism. We would hope that they possess some sort of institutional memory, some rational permanence, some logical plan about goes beyond slogans about self-management so as to plant the seeds of concrete self-management. For if we look at capitalist society it is not difficult to see that its bureaucracy is very good at managing society according to the needs of capitalism and, because of this bureaucracy (and also because of its military, police, and other managerial institutions) has reproduced and mutated. And if a post-capitalist society is mis-managed, if it is allowed to fall apart because there is no managerial plan as to what this society should be in the first place, then our anti-bureaucratic morality means fuck all.Those of us who demonstrate a juvenile disdain for bureaucracy-qua-bureaucracy are most often those who spend most of our time enjoying things that vast and invisible bureaucracies make possible. We spend a lot of the time on the internet, for example, arguing with other leftists about bureaucracy and capitalism, but we generally don't seem to realize that the very existence of this internetthe very bureaucracy we despise. This does not mean that we shouldn't despise the class nature of this bureaucracy, only that we should argue that the management of the complex things we enjoy would be better if it was transformed.Bureaucracy might be a necessity but the bureaucracy under socialism cannot be identical to the bureaucracy under capitalism. So rather than simply assume that bureaucratic management is one of the ills of capitalism that cannot possibly exist under socialism, it is far better to imagine a transformed bureaucracy that, in the period of socialist class struggle, will potentially wither away along with the state. For it is utopian to imagine that everything necessary to produce socialism will happen spontaneously, that there will not need to be institutional memory and the dogged job of complex redistribution, accountability, checks and balances, records, and everything that requires the often invisible labour of bureaucrats.So rather than declare bureaucracy synonymous with capitalism––and thus, fuelled by our own terrible experiences of bureaucracy, argue that we won't be happy until we use bureaucratic intestines to lynch capitalists––we should instead try to figure out how bureaucratic management under socialism will be transformed into something that is guided by self-management and a mass-line. This way of thinking about the problem of bureaucracy, I believe, is more productive. |
I can categorically state that in all the years I’ve played videogames, I’ve never once encountered one that has as severe pop-in as Black Desert Online. For all the beauty of the game world and its characters, it’s marred by scenery, trees, characters and everything in between appearing out of thin-air right before your eyes. Even non-player characters often appear as totally black objects without texture or appearance and only render in once right next to them and no settings in the game serve to reduce the severity. What’s so frustrating about this is that Black Desert Online is an incredible game. I’ve waited years for it and there’s little, if anything, I dislike about it. And yet a game that prides itself on visual beauty is arguably only beautiful when you’re stood perfectly still. Before anyone suggests there must be something wrong with my system, there isn’t: 1. i5 2500K Overclocked to 4.5ghz 2. MSI GTX 970 3. 16 GB Crucial Ballistix 4. BDO installed on an SSD Even with absolutely everything on maximum, including High End Mode enabled, I get 55 frames per second. Does it stop the pop-in? Sadly not. In fact and logging in today, it seems worse than ever. What’s frustrating about this issue is the fact that Black Desert Online provides so many options, whether it’s customizing the HUD or even removing the lantern effect from players. Yet despite that, there’s no draw distance slider. I think this is a massive mistake by Pearl Abyss and I’m struggling to understand why. I know many might make the argument that Black Desert Online is an MMO and has much more to contend with than the likes of The Witcher 3. While that might be the case, a draw distance slider affects only me and my machine. My cranking up the graphics settings on Black Desert Online doesn’t add strain to Pearl Abyss’ hardware and neither will it have repercussions on their server system (I’ve asked some tech-savvy friends who confirmed the same). An example of Very High versus Ultra in Black Desert Online My pursuit of greater draw distance should be my choice and it if reduces my frame rate from 60 to 30 (or worse) that should be down to me. But as it currently stands, the pop-in in Black Desert Online is so jarring I’m actually struggling to concentrate and immerse myself in the game world. I shouldn’t constantly be distracted by an NPC with no texture coming into view, or a tree miraculously rendering in front of me. Instead, I should be looking at the horizon wondering where to go and what I should explore. I’ve no idea why Pearl Abyss have chosen to limit draw distance as heavily as they can as without blurring and vibrancy filters, Black Desert Online isn’t a technical marvel. In fact, it’s a rather generic engine that happens to look lovely thanks to some clever effects. Unfortunately the only means of attempting to even mitigate the poor pop-in is to use High End mode and even that does very little besides reducing your frame rate. I’ve not heard a single thing from Pearl Abyss about this issue, despite Black Desert Online being out in the wild for years. I’m hoping someone manages to provide such a feature, even if they won’t. Click here for a special Black Desert Online purchase offer available exclusively to Ten Ton Hammer viewers and play today! |
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