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Bitcoin cash is resurgent today, despite some controversy over the cryptocurrency’s listing on the Coinbase exchange. As per data source CoinMarketCap, the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency by market value is up 64 percent over the last 24 hours, and set a lifetime high of $3,816 soon before press time. That follows a previous high of $3,813 set around 02:00 UTC. Notably, the price of the cryptocurrency rose sharply soon before Coinbase announced support for bitcoin cash (BCH) transactions on its platform yesterday. However, trading in BCH was quickly suspended and existing orders were canceled due to claimed “significant volatility.” Meanwhile, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has responded to allegations of insider trading over the timing of the price rise by stating that the company will be conducting an investigation into the matter and will take appropriate legal action if employees or contractors are found guilty. Following the announcement, BCH made a retreat from the record highs, however it is always hard to make any definite link with news flow and the move looks more like a healthy technical pullback. With BCH/USD trading set to resume today on Coinbase’s GDAX trading platform, BCH may soon be looking at fresh record prices. Bitcoin cash The above chart (prices as per Bitfinex) says the bulls are in control, courtesy of the rising channel breakout, and positively biased (upward sloping) 5-day and 10-day moving averages (MA). The relative strength index (RSI) shows overbought conditions, but shows no signs of topping out as yet. View The base looks to have shifted higher to $2,400. The ascending 5-day and 10-day MAs are likely to ensure that dips are short-lived. As a result, prices could extend the rally to $4,055 (127.2 percent Fibonacci extension). Only two consecutive day-end closes below $2,400 would abort the bullish view. The outlook for BCH/BTC also remains bullish. BCH/BTC chart The above chart (prices as per Bitfinex) shows: A bullish rising channel breakout and a sharp rise to BTC of 0.2298 yesterday – the highest level since Nov. 13. The RSI shows room for another leg higher in BCH/BTC. The 5-day and 10-day MAs are curled up in favor of the bulls. View Clearly, the pair looks set to topple the Nov. 13 high of BTC 0.2561. However, the sharp retreat from BTC 0.2298 to BTC 0.1866 indicates short-term bull market exhaustion. Hence, a sideways action around BTC 0.18 cannot be ruled out. Only a close (as per UTC) below BTC 0.09 (Dec. 16 low) would abort the bullish view. Disclosure: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Coinbase. Stopwatch image via Shutterstock |
by “He was a documented gang member,” say the Anaheim police of Manuel Diaz, a 25 year old unarmed man they shot dead around 4:00 pm Sunday. They shot him in the buttocks as he ran, and as he stooped to his knees in someone’s yard they followed up by a bullet to the back of his head. Then they handcuffed their immobile quarry with a bloody face and a hole in his skull (as described by a 17 year old neighborhood resident), and searched his pockets before sending him to the hospital to die within three hours. As I understand it, California law states: “Any person who actively participates in any criminal street gang with knowledge that its members engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal gang activity, and who willfully promotes,furthers, or assists in any felonious criminal conduct by members of that gang, shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail for a period not to exceed one year, or by imprisonment in the state prison for 16 months, or two or three years.” It does not say that gang membership in itself is illegal, or that documented gang members may be shot on sight. According to Associated Press, “The shooting sparked a melee in the neighborhood as some threw rocks and bottles at officers who were securing the scene for investigators to collect evidence.” Evidence for a drug deal presumably. But his sister Lupe Diaz said on the day of his murder that Manuel had been “just hanging out with friends,” adding “There is no explanation. It’s not fair.” Neighbor Yesenia Rojas (34) who received a welt on her stomach after the police attacked her with a bean bag Sunday, calls him a “good person” and asks, “Why kill this man?” (She’s the woman with the stroller whose grandson was nearly attacked by the K-9 police dog in the now-famous video.) Even if he was involved in a drug transaction, and even if he were known for such activity in the neighborhood, how could his murder not produce outrage? A melee is a skirmish, brawl, free-for-all. Is that what happened? It’s not what the video shows. That’s not what the 22 photos posted on the Orange County Register site show. The AP coverage continues: “Sgt. Bob Dunn, the department’s spokesman, said that as officers detained an instigator, the crowd advanced on officers so they fired bean bags and pepper balls at them.” Yeah, like this? I don’t see any attack on police. I see maybe a dozen woman and children approached by cops with rifles drawn and shooting bean bags and pepper spray (and maybe rubber bullets) at close range. One sobbing woman mentions seeing a person throw a water bottle at police before a police dog attacked her and her baby. Could it be that the cops angered at verbal and symbolic expressions of outrage “were provoked” to do what they clearly do in the video? And that that’s what produced statements of defiance? And after darkness set in, such symbolic actions as blocking a street with a dumpster filled with paper on fire? The two officers involved have been placed on paid leave. You can bet your life they wouldn’t have been, had there not been a “melee” or two and a PR nightmare for the police department. Nor would the police department and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office have announced separate investigations of the incident, or Anaheim mayor Tom Tait said be asking California’s attorney general to assist in that. These are minimal measures to contain the natural outrage. A video of a police statement carried on the Orange County Register site tells us a lot of how the police view these things. “About 4 pm this afternoon,” says the spokesman, in a pleasant upbeat voice, “uh, two of our officers were on patrol here in the 600 block of North Anna Drive in the center alley. They attempted to make contact with three subjects. Uh, during that contact the subjects fled, uh, a foot pursuit ensued. During that foot pursuit one of our officers encountered, uh, one of the males they had been chasing and an officer involved shooting occurred. Only one person was hit during that officer involved shooting. That was the person that we were chasing, a male. He was transported to the hospital and at this point I don’t know what his condition is. So at this point the investigation is ongoing. There were two additional, uh, male suspects in the alley at the time this foot pursuit began. Uh, at this point we will be conducting an investigation to try to identify who those males are. This is still a very active crime scene. Anyone that saw anything or witnessed this that has not spoken to police this is welcome call and remain anonymous the Anaheim Police Department…” “Attempted to make contact with three subjects…” What does that mean? Attempting to see what they were doing? Attempting to arrest them? Attempting to harass them? The language is so mundane and friendly sounding. Why did they flee? A niece of Diaz, Daisy Gonzalez (16) told reporters that her her uncle probably ran from the two officers because, “”He (doesn’t) like cops. He never liked them because all they do is harass and arrest anyone.” Is that not a very common feeling, particularly among Blacks and Latinos, in cities throughout the country? Isn’t the fear totally justifiable? “A foot pursuit ensued.” Notice how the passive voice leaves agency out of it. Why not just say, “The two policemen chased him?” And why “an officer involved shooting occurred”? As though there were no real people involved here. Like the officer didn’t really do anything but was just “involved” by something fated to happen. Like for some reason a tree fell down. Why not be honest and say: “The officers chasing him shot him to death, from the back, as he ran?” “He was transported to the hospital and at this point I don’t know what his condition is.” Why not mention that he’d been deliberately shot in the brain and was unlikely to survive? And why not mention that he was unarmed? “This is still a very active crime scene.” Well yes, at least in the sense that, while no weapons have been found there, armed police continue to criminally harass people. “Anyone that saw anything or witnessed this that has not spoken to police about this is welcome call and remain anonymous the Anaheim Police Department.” (Am I being to picky in noting that “that” ought to be “who” or “whom” when we are talking respectfully to people?) Feel welcome to fink, people, to help us get those who ran away successfully and who we want for reasons we don’t need to explain to you. Trust us, we know who’s good and bad. The real crime here is obviously the murder of an unarmed young man charged with no crime, murdered for running terrified through a crowded neighborhood at 4:00 in the evening, in full view of the people. A crime compounded by a police attack on those people with rifles and a police dog. (I suspect the claim made Monday that the dog broke free from restraint and his trainer is mortified by what happened is more PR damage control. What was a police dog doing there in the first place?) It was not (apparently) caught on tape, like the Rodney King beating. But the vicious assault on men, women and children just hanging out outside on a warm summer late afternoon, leaving welts, bites and scratches sending a few to the hospital should be equally infuriating. It’s just another statement of the impunity the police feel. However poorly paid (and they are); however closely they resemble the criminals they’re hired to hunt down and control, they are in the end the enforcers of a system which because it cannot satisfy human needs makes humans hard to control without guns and dogs, fear and repression. Tuesday City Hall was surrounded with five or six hundred protesters, facing off against 250 police who arrested 24during seven hours of what AP calls “confrontations.” The protests were peaceful all afternoon—until the police moved into arrest someone around 6:30 supposedly threatening them with a gun. But like Diaz on Saturday, he had no gun. As on Saturday, unwarranted police action led the crowd to pelt the police with rocks, the weapon of the weak, of the intifada. Police spokesman Dunn explained that some of the rock throwers appeared to be outsiders “who were prone to violence and wanted to incite” violence. We’ve heard this before many times. The angry people (according to AP, citing Dunn) “took over an intersection, and a splinter group walked to the scene of one police shooting and back, throwing rocks, vandalizing cars and throwing a Molotov cocktail that damaged a police car… Throughout the night, knots of protesters spread through downtown, setting fires in trash cans and smashing windows of businesses, including a Starbucks… There also were reports that a T-shirt store was looted… A gas station was shut down after reports that some protesters were seen filling canisters with gas. Police used pepper balls and beanbag rounds. Twenty adults and four minors were arrested…” We need more than a melee, more than a riot. To end the routine abuses of the cops we need conditions that don’t require cops, at least not cops who are outsiders charged with earning their collar by training their guns on youth, occupiers comparable to foreign troops in Afghanistan and Iraq who drop bombs almost as sport. We need conditions that allow for community self-policing based on values of kindness and respect. We need to replace the hurling of water bottles with demands for revolution. GARY LEUPP is Professor of History at Tufts University, and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, (AK Press). He can be reached at: gary.leupp@tufts.edu |
The Way it Works The AIR Graffiti Touch proves to be a versatile entertainment and promotional product due to its software. The AIR Graffiti Software natively integrates with touch screens, DSLR cameras, printers and other hardware components. Hardware integration can be done in a form of a mobile vertical pod, as part of an existing stand or a custom build in a personalized size and shape. The software contains a built-in, user-friendly interface with countless features to allow for creative and fun experiences. The AIR Graffiti Touch takes high-quality photos of participants with an animated countdown, allows the loading of custom images, background removal and replacement with a green screen, graffiti-style drawings, photo-stamping using static and animated stamps, the application of photo filters, name-signing, on-site printing, online sharing, interactive games, and more. The unforgettable AIR Graffiti Touch experience offers the participant a unique and personalized keepsake souvenir. The concept of the AIR Graffiti Touch is to set it up as an open air photo booth and offer its advanced features as a creative station where guests can design, paint, stamp, and sign subjects corresponding to the event’s theme. |
Rich men in South Africa who bribe schoolgirls for sex with phones and cheap shoes are a main driver of the highest HIV rates in the world In the young women’s play a schoolgirl comes home and tries to tell her mother what she has learned in class. “HIV!” yells her angry mother, to the giggles of the audience. “This is talk for the poorest people. Only poor dirty people have HIV.” The mother is just as dismissive when she hears from a neighbour that her daughter has been seen getting into a car outside school, the car of a known “blesser” – local parlance for a kind of sinister sugar daddy. The two dozen or so girls in the audience lean forward in their plastic chairs, in rows on a sandy dirt floor under a tarpaulin stretched across walls of a half-built house, and nod in recognition as the plot turns to the daughter and her blesser, a shiny-suited older man with a smartphone and a persuasive manner who bestows on her the gift of a fake designer handbag. To cut an energetically acted drama short, he ends up leaving her both pregnant and HIV positive after a few nights out, before raping another girl who resists his charms. Prince Harry and Elton John urge redoubling of efforts against HIV/Aids Read more The blessers phenomenon, which began in the richer suburbs of Johannesburg, 100km away from this little town of Temba, is seen as a major threat to South Africa’s poorest girls by experts who blame the culture for a rise in HIV infections. At 7 million, the country already has the highest number of people in the world living with HIV. “A lot of young women growing up in poor single-mother households in rural areas are prey to all the social ills,” said Phinah Kodisang. “The common thread of young women here is that they want to find a way out of poverty.” Kodisang is from SoulCity, which runs 1,000 Rise clubs, groups to help girls navigate the obstacles littering their lives and which are supported by the government, and the Global Fund, which was set up to fight Aids. “The girls are constantly preyed on, they look up to an older man who makes promises,” Kodisang said with some bitterness. “Some of them come into the villages when school is coming out and pick on a pretty girl who is barefoot; they know she has no money. “Unfortunately, none of them are offering school uniform or school fees. They are offering cheap shoes or nice hair to a girl who would love something to make her feel special.” Generally married, always older, blessers are men who use their money to control young women. The term has become so entrenched that there are four “levels” of blesser: at the lowest level the man offers mobile phone data cards and visits to drinking clubs. Then there’s gifts or much-coveted hair extensions. At the highest levels phones, cars and trips abroad are offered. Professor Salim Abdool Karim, director of the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research, told last week’s International Aids Conference in Durban that intergenerational sex, led by blessers, was driving HIV infection rates. The centre looked at how the HIV virus was being spread in KwaZulu-Natal – a province badly hit by the epidemic. “More than three out of every five young women acquired HIV from a man in his 30s,” said Karim. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Members of regional RISE Clubs perform in scenes to raise awareness of the dangers of ‘blessers’ in their area. Photograph: Jonx Pillemer/(RED) Not quite prostitution, not quite sugar daddy, sometimes paedophilia, the blessers culture has taken off on social media but also in schools. And the power dynamics make it difficult for young women to demand safe sex. In Temba, the Rise girls moved their seats into a circle to talk about how they can resist. Vaientia, 15, said she and her friend were locked in a classroom by a teacher. “He wouldn’t let us out until my friend gave him her phone number. She said no but eventually she gave him the wrong one. He was angry and confronted her and she had to give him her real one. Then he was ringing all the time, morning, noon and night and saying dirty things to her. You can’t tell anybody. Who can you tell? Maybe he will give you bad marks.” Vaientia took matters into her own hands. “I went to the teacher and I told him that if he wasn’t stopping this then me, myself, I will go and find someone who will beat him.” Asked who among them had been approached sexually by a teacher, arms shoot up and the young women start jostling to tell their experiences. “I didn’t report it, I just ignored him. There are no people to report to and he would kill me,” said Lerato. “Some teachers say, ‘I will give you high marks’,” said Lindiwe Baloyi. “I had a teacher who wanted to take me to lunch and have sex.”Some schools do try to tackle the issue said Glory, 14: “In my school we had two teachers like this. One impregnated a girl and one girl was raped. Those teachers were thrown out of school. School talk to us now about how blessers work.” In a country where sex has become a transaction between the poor and the richer, the young and the older, every week around 2,000 women aged 15 to 24 contract HIV. They are now the largest at-risk group, with those aged 15 to 19 up to eight times more likely to be HIV positive than boys. The Rise young women learn about HIV and the benefits of education, in a place where the odds are stacked against them. Rates of rape and domestic violence are higher than those of unemployment (running at 26%) and school drop-outs. Back-street abortions kill and damage dozens every year. Rudo, an 18-year-old from Randfontein, said she let her parents think she worked as a beautician, to explain her elegant nails and braided hair. “My first blesser just gave me clothes, but I left school because he would call me to him in the daytime and beat me if I didn’t go. This one is number four blesser and a better level than before. I don’t worry about safe sex because I know he is only married and me. But I think the schoolgirls should be protected from blessers.” South Africa’s health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, last month announced a campaign to raise opportunities for young women and tackle “the men who are infecting and impregnating them”., saying those from poorer backgrounds were most at risk of being exploited by blessers. At the launch, during which deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa chanted: “Down with blessers! Down with sugar daddies!”, the government promised to “wean” women away from blessers. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Young women of the “Famous Divas” Rise Club in Temba. Photograph: Jonx Pillemer/(RED) But Ditshego, of the “dating” firm Blesserfinder – whose slogan is: “Money is always a factor in relationships, this is just an upfront and honest way of dating for our modern times” – says until that happens demand will go on rising. Nelly Shamase, a writer for the Mail & Guardian, said Johannesburg’s northern suburbs were now “blesser central”. “The two decades since the advent of democracy have seen a steady mushrooming of nouveaux riches in the black community. Political connections and better opportunities have monetarily emancipated a number of black men. And what’s one of the things that some of these men like to do? Bless their women with shopping sprees, overseas trips, pampering sessions. “Certain educated women of all ages hop on the blesser train and move in blesser circles where the blessed socialise and compare lifestyles.A joke doing the rounds is that blessers are the main reason why the air route to Dubai and back is so profitable – everybody knows that blessers love to spoil their women with trips to the United Arab Emirates.” But, for Temba girls, blessers offer simpler things. “For the poor communities, it’s a mobile phone, a pair of jeans, a hairstyle. It’s difficult when they are offered things they don’t have, and the admiration of a richer man in his flashy car,” said Kodisang. “But no ability to demand safe sex.” As the Aids conference ended on Friday, Unaids chief Michel Sidibé said: “To the blessers, there is only one level I want: zero level, zero tolerance for men who put adolescent girls at risk.” |
Story highlights U.S. manufacturing lost 4 million jobs over past 10 years, accounts for only 12% of GDP Writers: Germany recovered quickly from the economic crisis by keeping its skilled work force German industry is 25% of its GDP, they write, and focuses on high-quality goods Writers: German industry has unions, offers high wages and is its most successful sector As Germany continues to rise as lead survivor -- and decision-maker -- in the European Union's economic mire, the U.S. would do well to take a lesson from the country's economic model, particularly in manufacturing. Losing 4 million jobs over the past 10 years, U.S. manufacturing has hovered at roughly 12% of America's GDP, less than half its percentage in the 1950s. In Germany, however, manufacturing is well on its way toward 25% of GDP. President Barack Obama's pledge this week to lower manufacturing sector taxes to 25%, and January's U.S. manufacturing growth numbers , the highest in seven months, will certainly help stem the tide. But, clearly, a word to the wise is in order. With America experiencing the highest income inequality since the Great Depression , a gap that mushroomed primarily in the past 30 to 40 years because of trade, tax and labor policies, the answer is in our workers. Consider U.S. trade policies, which undermined America's working class through the outsourcing and offshoring of U.S. manufacturing and the erosion of labor protections. Consider its tax policies, which moved wealth from the majority to the minority, thanks to tax loopholes such as low capital gains and dividends taxes, thus favoring nonlabor wealth creation. Michael Shank Thorben Albrecht Consider its labor policies, which failed to increase minimum wages for the majority of America: Minimum wage is worth less now -- adjusted for inflation -- than it was in 1968 when the inequality trend started to take off. The way America has treated its workers has helped to create a highly precarious socioeconomic reality: One out of every two Americans is in poverty or low-income. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, roughly 50 million Americans are living below the poverty level and surviving on an average annual income of less than $22,500 for a family of four. Another 100 million Americans are living in the low-income bracket, living on average annual income of less than $45,000 for a family of four -- hardly the American dream. Couple these trends with the devastating financial crisis, which hurt those whose wealth was in basic stocks and first-time home purchases -- as opposed to the wealthy who invested in insurance-backed securities, derivatives and credit default swaps -- and you've bottomed out America's working class. This is where the United States can learn from Germany. How Germany stayed economically healthy, while maintaining a strong working class, might offer a lesson or two for America's woes. Unlike the U.S., Germany recovered quickly from the economic slump in 2009, mainly because German industry managed to keep its skilled work force during the crisis. This was possible because the German government sponsored short-time work, or a reduction of working hours, thus avoiding layoffs. This measure was possible only where decent wages and management-union trust existed, what Germans call a "social partnership". Even now, despite some growth in nonunionized companies and income inequality, the export-oriented manufacturing model of social partnership is strong. Those who believe unions, high wages and workers rights are a burden for business should consider that this sector has been Germany's most successful. Exports, mainly manufacturing, grew by 2.3% (even with 2009 data included), higher than the average growth rate of the German economy over the past 10 years at 1.1%. Here's how they did it: Instead of trying to outcompete global markets in cheap goods, German industry specialized in high-quality products and kept its share in a growing global market, as other European countries, Japan and the U.S. lost shares to China. The German manufacturing strategy is based on making existing products better again and again, or as a Mercedes ad put it: "We are inventing the car. Since 1886." This strategy is possible only with highly skilled and highly motivated workers and requires managers who promote a constant evolution of improvement in products and processes. This change-oriented management is successful because strong union representation on the shop floor, in the form of "work councils," and on supervisory boards ensures that workers' interests are always considered. In the face of global competition, German manufacturing workers' representation remains strong. It has proved to be successful because it has incorporated the knowledge of workers and their representatives, countering change with fewer conflicts. Contrast this with Germany's services sector, where wages are much lower and the power of unions is much weaker. Growth, not coincidentally, is much weaker, too. Politicians across the Atlantic, but particularly in Washington, would be well-advised to take a look at the German manufacturing sector. The U.S. is only facing increasing global competition. If America wants an economic tide that lifts all boats, the answer is in its workers. |
Banks as Secret Keepers NBER Working Paper No. 20255 Issued in June 2014 NBER Program(s):Corporate Finance, Economic Fluctuations and Growth, Monetary Economics Banks are optimally opaque institutions. They produce debt for use as a transaction medium (bank money), which requires that information about the backing assets - loans - not be revealed, so that bank money does not fluctuate in value, reducing the efficiency of trade. This need for opacity conflicts with the production of information about investment projects, needed for allocative efficiency. Intermediaries exist to hide such information, so banks select portfolios of information-insensitive assets. For the economy as a whole, firms endogenously separate into bank finance and capital market/stock market finance depending on the cost of producing information about their projects. Acknowledgments and Disclosures Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w20255 Published: Tri Vi Dang & Gary Gorton & Bengt Holmström & Guillermo Ordoñez, 2017. "Banks as Secret Keepers," American Economic Review, vol 107(4), pages 1005-1029. citation courtesy of Users who downloaded this paper also downloaded* these: |
Image copyright AFP Image caption In previous interviews, Neymar, 24, has denied any wrongdoing Spanish prosecutors have called for Brazil and Barcelona football star Neymar to be tried for fraud. The prosecutors, from Spain's top criminal court, allege Neymar and his father hid the true value of the player's multi-million-euro transfer from Santos to Barcelona. A Brazilian investment fund that owned 40% of Neymar's sports rights argues it was deprived of its full share. In previous interviews, Neymar, 24, has denied any wrongdoing. Barcelona said it paid €57m (£43m) for Neymar in 2013, with the player's parents, Neymar da Silva Santos and Nadine Goncalves da Silva Santos, receiving €40m and his former club, Santos, €17m. But investigators say the fee was closer to €83m and Barcelona concealed part of the deal. The club also denies any wrongdoing. Success on the pitch The Brazilian third-party investment fund, DIS, alleges it was financially harmed by the transfer when it received €6.8m of Santos's €17m fee and argues it was deprived of its full share. Neymar and his parents, along with Barcelona's ex-President Sandro Rosell and President Josep Maria Bartomeu, had all given statements at an earlier court hearing in February. Speaking to O Globo TV in Brazil in February, Neymar said: "Before saying nonsense - that we hid this, or hid that - they should prove it. "My father is doing everything to ensure that I can just focus on playing football. He handles the books. But in the moment when you see someone you love suffering, it starts to hurt." Neymar and his father also face accusations in a separate case of defrauding the Spanish tax office, while the player faces a tax evasion investigation in Brazil. He denies wrongdoing. Neymar's move to Barcelona FC has been a big success on the pitch. The striker became part of a goal-scoring trio with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez. In 2015, Neymar helped the club win five trophies and came third in the Fifa Ballon d'Or competition. He also scored in the Uefa Champions League final against Juventus. He won the Spanish league and cup double with Barcelona in 2016. |
My mother in law called it; she said, “those are your Bandera heroes, trying to force Ukraine into the European Union.” The Western Ukrainians don’t seem to realize that joining the EU would mean the destruction of Ukrainian farming, the introduction of GMO’s, and the forcing of Ukraine to accept Muslim and African “refugees.” Fortunately, Putin saved Ukraine. Excellent article on the whole affair by Israel Shamir below: What really happened in the Ukrainian crisis Putin scores a new victory in the Ukraine By Israel Shamir It is freezing cold in Kiev, legendary city of golden domes on the banks of Dnieper River – cradle of ancient Russian civilisation and the most charming of East European capitals. It is a comfortable and rather prosperous place, with hundreds of small and cosy restaurants, neat streets, sundry parks and that magnificent river. The girls are pretty and the men are sturdy. Kiev is more relaxed than Moscow, and easier on the wallet. Though statistics say the Ukraine is broke and its people should be as poor as Africans, in reality they aren’t doing too badly, thanks to their fiscal imprudence. The government borrowed and spent freely, heavily subsidised housing and heating, and they brazenly avoided devaluation of the national currency and the austerity program prescribed by the IMF. This living on credit can go only so far: the Ukraine was doomed to default on its debts next month or sooner, and this is one of the reasons for the present commotion. A tug-of-war between the East and the West for the future of Ukraine lasted over a month, and has ended for all practical purposes in a resounding victory for Vladimir Putin, adding to his previous successes in Syria and Iran. The trouble began when the administration of President Yanukovich went looking for credits to reschedule its loans and avoid default. There were no offers. They turned to the EC for help; the EC, chiefly Poland and Germany, seeing that the Ukrainian administration was desperate, prepared an association agreement of unusual severity. The EC is quite hard on its new East European members, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria et al.: these countries had their industry and agriculture decimated, their young people working menial jobs in Western Europe, their population drop exceeded that of the WWII. But the association agreement offered to the Ukraine was even worse. It would turn the Ukraine into an impoverished colony of the EC without giving it even the dubious advantages of membership (such as freedom of work and travel in the EC). In desperation, Yanukovich agreed to sign on the dotted line, in vain hopes of getting a large enough loan to avoid collapse. But the EC has no money to spare – it has to provide for Greece, Italy, Spain. Now Russia entered the picture. At the time, relations of the Ukraine and Russia were far from good. Russians had become snotty with their oil money, the Ukrainians blamed their troubles on Russians, but Russia was still the biggest market for Ukrainian products. For Russia, the EC agreement meant trouble: currently the Ukraine sells its output in Russia with very little customs protection; the borders are porous; people move freely across the border, without even a passport. If the EC association agreement were signed, the EC products would flood Russia through the Ukrainian window of opportunity. So Putin spelled out the rules to Yanukovich: if you sign with the EC, Russian tariffs will rise. This would put some 400,000 Ukrainians out of work right away. Yanukovich balked and refused to sign the EC agreement at the last minute. (I predicted this in my report from Kiev full three weeks before it happened, when nobody believed it – a source of pride). The EC, and the US standing behind it, were quite upset. Besides the loss of potential economic profit, they had another important reason: they wanted to keep Russia farther away from Europe, and they wanted to keep Russia weak. Russia is not the Soviet Union, but some of the Soviet disobedience to Western imperial designs still lingers in Moscow: be it in Syria, Egypt, Vietnam, Cuba, Angola, Venezuela or Zimbabwe, the Empire can’t have its way while the Russian bear is relatively strong. Russia without the Ukraine can’t be really powerful: it would be like the US with its Mid-western and Pacific states chopped away. The West does not want the Ukraine to prosper, or to become a stable and strong state either, so it cannot join Russia and make it stronger. A weak, poor and destabilised Ukraine in semi-colonial dependence to the West with some NATO bases is the best future for the country, as perceived by Washington or Brussels. Angered by this last-moment-escape of Yanukovich, the West activated its supporters. For over a month, Kiev has been besieged by huge crowds bussed from all over the Ukraine, bearing a local strain of the Arab Spring in the far north. Less violent than Tahrir, their Maidan Square became a symbol of struggle for the European strategic future of the country. The Ukraine was turned into the latest battle ground between the US-led alliance and a rising Russia. Would it be a revanche for Obama’s Syria debacle, or another heavy strike at fading American hegemony? The simple division into “pro-East” and “pro-West” has been complicated by the heterogeneity of the Ukraine. The loosely knit country of differing regions is quite similar in its makeup to the Yugoslavia of old. It is another post-Versailles hotchpotch of a country made up after the First World War of bits and pieces, and made independent after the Soviet collapse in 1991. Some parts of this “Ukraine” were incorporated by Russia 500 years ago, the Ukraine proper (a much smaller parcel of land, bearing this name) joined Russia 350 years ago, whilst the Western Ukraine (called the “Eastern Regions”) was acquired by Stalin in 1939, and the Crimea was incorporated in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic by Khrushchev in 1954. The Ukraine is as Russian as the South-of-France is French and as Texas and California are American. Yes, some hundreds years ago, Provence was independent from Paris, – it had its own language and art; while Nice and Savoy became French rather recently. Yes, California and Texas joined the Union rather late too. Still, we understand that they are – by now – parts of those larger countries, ifs and buts notwithstanding. But if they were forced to secede, they would probably evolve a new historic narrative stressing the French ill treatment of the South in the Cathar Crusade, or dispossession of Spanish and Russian residents of California. Accordingly, since the Ukraine’s independence, the authorities have been busy nation-building, enforcing a single official language and creating a new national myth for its 45 million inhabitants. The crowds milling about the Maidan were predominantly (though not exclusively) arrivals from Galicia, a mountainous county bordering with Poland and Hungary, 500 km (300 miles) away from Kiev, and natives of the capital refer to the Maidan gathering as a “Galician occupation”. Like the fiery Bretons, the Galicians are fierce nationalists, bearers of a true Ukrainian spirit (whatever that means). Under Polish and Austrian rule for centuries, whilst the Jews were economically powerful, they are a strongly anti-Jewish and anti-Polish lot, and their modern identity centred around their support for Hitler during the WWII, accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of their Polish and Jewish neighbours. After the WWII, the remainder of pro-Hitler Galician SS fighters were adopted by US Intelligence, re-armed and turned into a guerrilla force against the Soviets. They added an anti-Russian line to their two ancient hatreds and kept fighting the “forest war” until 1956, and these ties between the Cold Warriors have survived the thaw. After 1991, when the independent Ukraine was created, in the void of state-building traditions, the Galicians were lauded as ‘true Ukrainians’, as they were the only Ukrainians who ever wanted independence. Their language was used as the basis of a new national state language, their traditions became enshrined on the state level. Memorials of Galician Nazi collaborators and mass murderers Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych peppered the land, often provoking the indignation of other Ukrainians. The Galicians played an important part in the 2004 Orange Revolution as well, when the results of presidential elections were declared void and the pro-Western candidate Mr Yuschenko got the upper hand in the re-run. However, in 2004, many Kievans also supported Yuschenko, hoping for the Western alliance and a bright new future. Now, in 2013, the city’s support for the Maidan was quite low, and the people of Kiev complained loudly about the mess created by the invading throngs: felled trees, burned benches, despoiled buildings and a lot of biological waste. Still, Kiev is home to many NGOs; city intellectuals receive generous help from the US and EC. The old comprador spirit is always strongest in the capitals. For the East and Southeast of the Ukraine, the populous and heavily industrialised regions, the proposal of association with the EC is a no-go, with no ifs, ands or buts. They produce coal, steel, machinery, cars, missiles, tanks and aircraft. Western imports would erase Ukrainian industry right off the map, as the EC officials freely admit. Even the Poles, hardly a paragon of industrial development, had the audacity to say to the Ukraine: we’ll do the technical stuff, you’d better invest in agriculture. This is easier to say than to do: the EC has a lot of regulations that make Ukrainian products unfit for sale and consumption in Europe. Ukrainian experts estimated their expected losses for entering into association with the EC at anything from 20 to 150 billion euros. For Galicians, the association would work fine. Their speaker at the Maidan called on the youth to ‘go where you can get money’ and do not give a damn for industry. They make their income in two ways: providing bed-and breakfast rooms for Western tourists and working in Poland and Germany as maids and menials. They hoped they would get visa-free access to Europe and make a decent income for themselves. Meanwhile, nobody offered them a visa-waiver arrangement. The Brits mull over leaving the EC, because of the Poles who flooded their country; the Ukrainians would be too much for London. Only the Americans, always generous at somebody’s else expense, demanded the EC drop its visa requirement for them. While the Maidan was boiling, the West sent its emissaries, ministers and members of parliament to cheer the Maidan crowd, to call for President Yanukovich to resign and for a revolution to install pro-Western rule. Senator McCain went there and made a few firebrand speeches. The EC declared Yanukovich “illegitimate” because so many of his citizens demonstrated against him. But when millions of French citizens demonstrated against their president, when Occupy Wall Street was violently dispersed, nobody thought the government of France or the US president had lost legitimacy… Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State, shared her biscuits with the demonstrators, and demanded from the oligarchs support for the “European cause” or their businesses would suffer. The Ukrainian oligarchs are very wealthy, and they prefer the Ukraine as it is, sitting on the fence between the East and the West. They are afraid that the Russian companies will strip their assets should the Ukraine join the Customs Union, and they know that they are not competitive enough to compete with the EC. Pushed now by Nuland, they were close to falling on the EC side. Yanukovich was in big trouble. The default was rapidly approaching. He annoyed the pro-Western populace, and he irritated his own supporters, the people of the East and Southeast. The Ukraine had a real chance of collapsing into anarchy. A far-right nationalist party, Svoboda (Liberty), probably the nearest thing to the Nazi party to arise in Europe since 1945, made a bid for power. The EC politicians accused Russia of pressurising the Ukraine; Russian missiles suddenly emerged in the western-most tip of Russia, a few minutes flight from Berlin. The Russian armed forces discussed the US strategy of a “disarming first strike”. The tension was very high. Edward Lucas, the Economist’s international editor and author of The New Cold War, is a hawk of the Churchill and Reagan variety. For him, Russia is an enemy, whether ruled by Tsar, by Stalin or by Putin. He wrote: “It is no exaggeration to say that the [Ukraine] determines the long-term future of the entire former Soviet Union. If Ukraine adopts a Euro-Atlantic orientation, then the Putin regime and its satrapies are finished… But if Ukraine falls into Russia’s grip, then the outlook is bleak and dangerous… Europe’s own security will also be endangered. NATO is already struggling to protect the Baltic states and Poland from the integrated and increasingly impressive military forces of Russia and Belarus. Add Ukraine to that alliance, and a headache turns into a nightmare.” In this cliff-hanging situation, Putin made his pre-emptive strike. At a meeting in the Kremlin, he agreed to buy fifteen billion euros worth of Ukrainian Eurobonds and cut the natural gas price by a third. This meant there would be no default; no massive unemployment; no happy hunting ground for the neo-Nazi thugs of Svoboda; no cheap and plentiful Ukrainian prostitutes and menials for the Germans and Poles; and Ukrainian homes will be warm this Christmas. Better yet, the presidents agreed to reforge their industrial cooperation. When Russia and Ukraine formed a single country, they built spaceships; apart, they can hardly launch a naval ship. Though unification isn’t on the map yet, it would make sense for both partners. This artificially divided country can be united, and it would do a lot of good for both of their populaces, and for all people seeking freedom from US hegemony. There are a lot of difficulties ahead: Putin and Yanukovich are not friends, Ukrainian leaders are prone to renege, the US and the EC have a lot of resources. But meanwhile, it is a victory to celebrate this Christmastide. Such victories keep Iran safe from US bombardment, inspire the Japanese to demand removal of Okinawa base, encourage those seeking closure of Guantanamo jail, cheer up Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, frighten the NSA and CIA and allow French Catholics to march against Hollande’s child-trade laws. *** What is the secret of Putin’s success? Edward Lucas said, in an interview to the pro-Western Ekho Moskvy radio: “Putin had a great year – Snowden, Syria, Ukraine. He checkmated Europe. He is a great player: he notices our weaknesses and turns them into his victories. He is good in diplomatic bluff, and in the game of Divide and Rule. He makes the Europeans think that the US is weak, and he convinced the US that Europeans are useless”. I would offer an alternative explanation. The winds and hidden currents of history respond to those who feel their way. Putin is no less likely a roguish leader of global resistance than Princess Leia or Captain Solo were in Star Wars. Just the time for such a man is ripe. Unlike Solo, he is not an adventurer. He is a prudent man. He does not try his luck, he waits, even procrastinates. He did not try to change regime in Tbilisi in 2008, when his troops were already on the outskirts of the city. He did not try his luck in Kiev, either. He has spent many hours in many meetings with Yanukovich whom he supposedly personally dislikes. Like Captain Solo, Putin is a man who is ready to pay his way, full price, and such politicians are rare. “Do you know what is the proudest word you will ever hear from an Englishman’s mouth?”, asked a James Joyce character, and answered: “His proudest boast is I paid my way.” Those were Englishmen of another era, long before the likes of Blair, et al. While McCain and Nuland, Merkel and Bildt speak of the European choice for the Ukraine, none of them is ready to pay for it. Only Russia is ready to pay her way, in the Joycean sense, whether in cash, as now, or in blood, as in WWII. Putin is also a magnanimous man. He celebrated his Ukrainian victory and forthcoming Christmas by forgiving his personal and political enemies and setting them free: the Pussy Riot punks, Khodorkovsky the murderous oligarch, rioters… And his last press conference he carried out in Captain Solo mode, and this, for a man in his position, is a very good sign. Israel Shamir reports from Moscow for the Counterpunch, comments on the RT and pens a regular column in the biggest Russian daily KP. He can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net [Language editing by Ken Freeland] |
I visited someone in the hospital yesterday. Having survived a car accident, he sustained multiple fractures in major bones. This hurts. He was prescribed Dilaudid.I entered his room mere moments after his lunch tray had arrived. It was a generous array of mac-and-cheese, green beans, beef-and-barley soup, corn muffin, orange gelatin dessert, coffee, and beer. Budweiser beer. It stood there pertly in its sturdy snow-white-and-cherry-red can. "You have a beer," I said. "It just came on the tray," he said. "I didn't ask for it. The doctor ordered it." I was unwilling to believe this. First of all, he has a tendency to lie. Second, what doctor orders beer? What purpose could it serve? I spent two weeks in January with my mother in another hospital, and never saw a beer. They gave her chicken teriyaki, French toast, chocolate poundcake, salmon steak. I was touched by the kindness with which these meals were prepared by kitchen staff who called ahead of time to ask which menu items she preferred, although she could not tell them, so I chose. She was dying. She was out of her mind. She had no idea what this food was or who I was. She believed I was her friend Elizabeth. She nibbled the corners of her sheet, thinking it was pie. She had refused nearly all food for seven years but ate her hospital meals lustily because she believed she was someone else or perhaps herself long ago and far away. Potatoes au gratin, hot cocoa, sweet-and-sour carrots. It was not a fancy hospital. But still. This is a different story, but the point is: No beer. Yesterday I snapped a picture. Then he cracked open the can and gulped it down between forkfuls of beans. He said a Bud came with his breakfast too. After leaving, I called the hospital to ask: Are patients really given beer? A friendly kitchen staffer told me it was true: Doctors sometimes order beers for patients who are going through withdrawal. The kitchen staff places on the trays whatever doctors order, and sometimes they order beer. A lot of patients get it, said the staffer, because doctors think they need it. Not usually throughout their whole stays, but at least at first. Ohhhkay. So beer is a kind of comfort food to certain patients, and doctors decide. Beer-by-prescription has a controversial history in America. The New York Times reported on March 11, 1921: "Leading breweries in the metropolitan district announced yesterday that they were ready to supply the legitimate trade with all of the real beer required for medicinal purposes, under a decision of former Attorney General Palmer." Yet eight months later, President Warren Harding signed the Willis-Campbell Act, which prohibited doctors from prescribing beer and other alcoholic beverages to patients. Mariah Carey was investigated by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services four months ago after TMZ reported that she had imbibed beer in Cedars Sinai hospital while breast-feeding her newborn twins Moroccan and Monroe. According to the New York Daily News, Carey's husband "recounted in several interviews how a nurse told the couple that the yeast from a Guinness, a dark beer, can help breast-feeders ... TMZ reported that Carey did indeed drink the alcoholic beverage -- and the hospital staff was well aware of it." Carey was cleared of child-endangerment charges after a DCFS visit "in which Carey's lawyer was reportedly present, the singer again explained that she was following hospital advice when she drank the beer and that it wasn't done in secret." Chapter 270, section 5 of the General Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts prohibits giving or delivering alcoholic beverages to hospital patients "except under the direction of a physician." While talking with the friendly kitchen staffer yesterday, I asked for a final clarification. "So the doctors at this hospital," I ventured, "prescribe Bud?" "Not Bud specifically," she said. "Just beer." Images courtesy of Kristan Lawson. |
Nvidia Nvidia on Tuesday gave gamers a hint of what's to come with its new Maxwell architecture. The graphics chipmaker unveiled its updated GeForce GTX 750i and GeForce GTX 750 graphics processing units (GPUs), which are aimed at the midrange graphics market. The chips are 50 percent faster than their predecessor -- Kepler -- and twice as energy efficient, thanks to the inclusion of Maxwell. The graphics chips are the first time the architecture has hit the market. The low power consumption of the chips means users don't need special power connectors for them. They also run quietly, which allows them to be used in smaller PCs. Nvidia is traditionally known for making GPUs found in computers and game consoles, but that business faces an uncertain future as the PC market struggles. Last year, PC shipments posted their worst-ever drop of 10 percent, according to Gartner. In the fourth quarter alone, PC shipments slid 6.9 percent year over year. Despite the weakness of the computer market, Nvidia has managed to post strong GPU sales. The release of its newest chips based on Maxwell should help it even more as PC gamers upgrade their systems. In particular, the gamers buying mid-range graphics that the GeForce GTX 750i and GTX 750 fall into typically upgrade their machines every four years, Nvidia said. Currently, Nvidia's GeForce 550 Ti -- based on Fermi, the architecture from 2010 that preceded Kepler -- is the most popular GPU in its class, according to Steam data. That means those gamers could be looking to upgrade their systems with the Maxwell chip. While Maxwell is much better than Kepler, it's an even bigger bump over Fermi. The new chips are four times as power efficient as Fermi GPUs and twice as fast. |
When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket. We shall be able to witness and hear events--the inauguration of a President, the playing of a world series game, the havoc of an earthquake or the terror of a battle--just as though we were present. When the wireless transmission of power is made commercial, transport and transmission will be revolutionized. Already motion pictures have been transmitted by wireless over a short distance. Later the distance will be illimitable, and by later I mean only a few years hence. Pictures are transmitted over wires--they were telegraphed successfully through the point system thirty years ago. When wireless transmission of power becomes general, these methods will be as crude as is the steam locomotive compared with the electric train. |
AMSTERDAM – English Championship title contenders Queens Park Rangers are attempting to extend the stay of US defender Oguchi Onyewu. The 31-year-old, who has yet to see the field since signing for the third-place side four weeks ago, is on a three-month deal with a club option to extend. It is not yet clear whether the extension under discussion would keep "Gooch" at Loftus Road through the end of the season, or if there is any competing interest for his services. When contacted by MLSsoccer.com, a QPR spokesman would only state that Onyewu remains on a short-term contract at this time. However, manager Harry Redknapp recently hinted that he would like the American to stick around a while longer. "I need cover," Redknapp told reporters last week. "[Onyewu] is a good lad and there are so many games coming, so you never know with injury." The boss was able to see defender Nedum Onuoha return to action in their 1-1 draw at Reading 10 days ago, but lost veteran center back Richard Dunne on the same afternoon. Though already out of the Capital One Cup, QPR have yet to begin FA Cup play on top of the 31 games remaining on their league schedule. Currently two points off the top of the table in England's second tier, QPR go back to work with Saturday's visit from cross-town rivals Charlton. Meanwhile, Onyewu will be looking for game time to bolster his shot at representing the US national team in what would be his third World Cup next summer in Brazil. |
Jason Heyward is a special player. While it may seem like he's been around for quite some time, the kid is still only 22-years and continues to adjust to Major League Baseball. On Opening Day he was hitting home runs, not playing beer pong and staying up late cramming for final exams, like you'll find most guys his age doing. Expectations were raised even higher in 2011 after a phenomenal rookie season. Despite the strong start to the year, multiple injuries kept him from playing at the level he is capable of when healthy. Thanks to being raised the right way by his parents, working hard every single day and keeping a positive attitude, Heyward is more than ready to have a big season, as baseball scribe Peter Gammons reports. "With the help of my parents, I realized that the only way to cope with disappointment is to overcome it with hard work," Heyward says. "Performance comes from work and dedication, belief and strength. Words and excuses get you nowhere." So, following up a rookie season in which he was compared to Aaron with a year in which his shoulder would not let him answer suspicions, Heyward has quietly worked to get back to where everyone thought he was headed when he felt that pop last March. Work, not words. "I know a lot more now than I did then," Heyward says. "Especially what it takes. Go work, and when you're tired, work some more. It's all so I do what I love to do, and that's play baseball." And the Braves know full well that a healthy Heyward is far more significant of a return than anyone or anything they might have received in the trade or free-agent market. Should Jason Heyward play up to his potential in 2012, the Braves immediately become one of the favorites in the National League. This is a team that came up one game short last year and one can only think how things would have turned out with a healthy No. 22 in right field. With players reporting to Spring Training in less than a month, all eyes will be on Heyward, his re-tooled swing and his shoulder. It may just be the biggest story of the upcoming season. |
In the final season of the amazing TV show The Office, Andy Bernard drops one of the most heartbreaking lines of all time when he says “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good ol’ days before you’ve actually left them”. Folks, right now, we are in the good ol’ days of FC Cincinnati. This is a sports story that will live on in this city for generations. In fact, this is a tournament run that will be forever remembered in the history of the U.S. Open Cup around the country. An upstart team in Cincinnati, in only its second year, went on a run that included defeating two MLS clubs and the best the NASL had to offer to make it to the semi-finals. What FC Cincinnati just did is what every single lower division club has hoped for since at least 1996. That is a victory in and of itself. The world took notice of this team. MLS Commissioner Don Garber and USSF President Sunil Gulati were in attendance last night. That is not normal. Regardless of the score line, this team exceeded even the most optimistic goals. |
What are Russian occupation forces preparing? InformNapalm international volunteer community detected occupation forces of the Russian Federation practicing crossing of water obstacles with a pontoon bridge and assault amphibious vehicle PTS-2 at the Uspenske reservoir (near Uspenka village, Lutuhinsky district of Ukraine). Dmitry Tymchuk, the coordinator of the Information Resistance group repeatedly reported on his Facebook page about the Luhansk Peoples’ Republic (LPR) terrorists drilling an offensive on Ukrainian Forces involving an assault water crossing. One of these posts was published on June 17, 2016: Two “motorized rifle brigades” of the “2nd LNR Army Corps” vigorously practice an offensive involving an assult crossing operation. While monitoring militant activity on social networks, InformNapalm volunteers found evidence of these drills. Pro-Russian terrorists posted these photos of the Russian occupation forces “training exercises” in water crossing on social networks in July, 2016 (on different days by different persons). OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine wrote in the report based on information received as of 19:30, July 4, 2016: “At a training site in “LPR”-controlled Uspenka, the SMM observed near a lake four to five pontoon trucks loaded with pontoons, two military cranes used as assembly kit for pontoons and ten IFVs (BMP). The SMM assessed the situation as preparation for a pontoon bridge crossing exercise“. Background information: For reference: Assault Amphibious Vehicle PTS-2 is used for crossing of large water obstacles (rivers, lakes, sea gulfs and estuaries) by army personnel, vehicles, artillery pieces and other military equipment. PMP Floating Bridge is a mobile pontoon system designed by the Soviet Union to construct floating bridges across water obstacles. Sections of the floating bridge can be used as ferries for transporting personnel and equipment over water obstacles. Social media accounts of the terrorists provided InformNapalm with a wealth of photo evidence. On this photo, behind a gunman, there are three KrAZ-255 PMP carriers (marked with green arrows). A red arrow marks an unidentified piece of military equipment (please write to us in the comments if you are able to identify it). It should be noted, that other Russian terrorists took photos with the same KrAZ-255 pontoon carriers in November, 2014. The photo below shows vehicles from Luhansk, allegedly “lost” by Ukrainian army in 2014. Unfortunately the exact shooting location is unknown. The quality of new photos is not good enough to compare the equipment for an exact match. Other photos from the pages of the terrorists for the same period: Photos above suggest that there is a permanent field training center of the Russian terrorist forces in this square. Here are visual examples of this equipment in action. KrAZ-255 PMP Carrier Amphibious vehicle carrying equipment Gradual increase of the fire density on Ukrainian positions by the Russian terrorist forces together with practicing of the water obstacle crossing point to the aggressive plans of Russia for further escalation of the conflict in the East of Ukraine. Will Russian terrorists risk an assault crossing of Siversky Donets river and other water obstacles in the way of further creeping occupation? Or is it just an imitation of activity to slow morale deterioration of the personnel? Time will show. However, due attention should be paid to these facts to ensure that Ukrainian forces have the right equipment to foil the aggressor’s plans at any time. This publication was prepared by Vidal Sorokin, a volunteer of the InformNapalm international community. (CC BY) Information specially prepared for InformNapalm.org site, an active link to the authors and our project is obligatory for any reprint or further use of the material. We call on our readers to actively share our publications on social networks. Submission of materials investigations into the public plane is able to turn the tide of battle information and confrontation. |
Judi Dench is the latest name to be linked to Star Wars Episode 7 (Picture: Getty Images) Judi Dench is rumoured to be up for the role of Mon Mothma in Star Wars Episode 7. The actress, 79, has been tipped by Big Shiny Robot to play the rebel leader who helped co-ordinate the attack against the second Death Star. As with most Star Wars rumours this should be taken with a healthy dose of salt but it does fit in with a cryptic tweet from El Mayimbe of Latino Review. The writer tweeted: ‘HINT: A nominee currently on the awards circuit (including tonight) is up for a major role in STAR WARS EPISODE VII. Who can it be?’ MORE: JJ Abrams: Star Wars Episode 7 script is finished – full steam ahead Will JJ Abrams be casting Judi Dench in the new Star Wars film? (Picture: AP Photo/Lucasfilm) A whole host of actors and actress have been linked to Star Wars Episode 7 with JJ Abrams recently confirming that he has been in talks with Jesse Plemons even though the Breaking Bad star denied the rumours over the weekend. Advertisement Advertisement But JJ revealed: ‘He is one of the actors that we’ve talked to but it’s not often that I read about actors that I’m going to be meeting. ‘I get to read articles about actors who are going to come in. And so I get to see someone and say, ‘Oh, I read that I was going to see you!” Star Wars Episode 7 is due out on December 18, 2015. |
OPTIONS: Opinions varied on whether a new cable would reduce broadband charges for consumers or raise their data caps. Southern Cross Cable's near monopoly over international internet traffic appears to be dangling by a thread. After years of failed ventures and dashed hopes, Hawaiki Cable chief executive Remi Galasso said his company was just a few weeks away from confirming it would build a competing US$300 million (NZ$350m) cable linking New Zealand and Australia to the United States. The former Alcatel-Lucent executive said Hawaiki had secured a major New Zealand company to be its equity partner and an Australasian bank willing to provide debt financing. All that remained was for Hawaiki to convert some "letters of intent" it already had from customers into firm contracts and "complete the bank process to unlock the funds". "This is not a piece of cake. We are dealing with large organisations, but I am confident the finishing line is a few weeks away," Galasso said. Hawaiki would then put into effect the contract it had with United States supplier TE SubCom to lay the the 13,127 kilometre-long cable, which should be ready by March 2016, he said. The cable would have a total capacity of 25 terabits on four fibre-pairs, sufficient to carry four million HD movie streams simultaneously, with a quarter of that, 6.4tbps, on the New Zealand to US leg. Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Paul Brislen said that would be tremendous. Opinions varied on whether a new cable would reduce broadband charges for consumers or raise their data caps, he said. "The way Southern Cross talks, the international component of any internet-provider (ISP) charge is minuscule, and the way the ISPs talk it is the one thing that stops them offering really large data caps. Time will tell who is right and who is blowing smoke." But a new cable was needed in case there was ever a major outage on the Southern Cross Cable, he said. The risk of anything affecting Southern Cross' twin landing points in Auckland was low but the impact would be huge, he said. "It is very important we have a second company operating." Southern Cross Cable is half-owned by Telecom. SingTel owns 40 per cent and US carrier Verizon 10 per cent. Hawaiki's cable would land in Whangarei and in Oregon in the United States, running via Hawaii. A partner for its Sydney landing point is expected to be announced shortly. Australian companies iiNet and TPG Telecom, as well as Orcon and Voyager in New Zealand, have publicly announced they would buy capacity on the cable. Galasso said he could not comment on speculation the US Defence Department also intended to buy capacity to link its Marine Air Ground Task Force base in Darwin back to the US. Galasso did not believe success would adversely impact a separate proposal by Telecom to lay a new cable, the Trans Global Access (TGA) cable, between New Zealand and Australia in conjunction with Vodafone and Telstra. That investment, estimated at about $100m, has been awaiting head-office approval from Telecom's joint venture partners. Instead, he said the two cables would be complimentary, as customers could use one as a back-up. "My view is two new cables will be built, Hawaiki and the TGA cable," he said. |
GMPGL day one ends Livestream Watch live video from BeyondTheSummit on www.twitch.tv Watch live video from MineskiTV on www.twitch.tv Gallery Click on picture above for more pictures Last update: 20:20 local time Groups The eight teams are divided into two groups, wherein there will be a best-of-one round robin. The top two teams per group will advance to the playoffs. The group stage will be finished within the first day. Team M W D L P Titan 3 3 0 0 9 AMD Mski 3 2 0 1 6 JoeNet 3 1 0 2 3 Arcanys 3 0 0 3 0 Matches and results Team M W D L P Dreamz 3 3 0 0 9 XctN 3 2 0 1 6 Impervious 3 1 0 2 3 Departure 3 0 0 3 0 Matches and results The second day will be consumed by the double-elimination playoffs. It will start with a best-of-three crossover series. All games on the upper-bracket will be best-of-three, while all the games on the lower-bracket will be one-game matches. Venue and Tickets The GMPGL Finals will be held in the Philippines, as the tournament concept originated from the Gigabyte-supported league of Mineski. The venue will be in SM North Edsa, the third largest shopping mall in the whole world. The games will be played on two different venues within the mall. The general playing area will be on the Cyberzone, while the stage matches will be played in the Skydome. While the games on Cyberzone will be shown over a big screen for free, the stage matches will be having paid tickets due to its very limited sitting capacity. 1,000 non-VIP tickets will be sold per game for the stage matches for PHP 20 (.47~ USD), which means fans can choose which match they are interested in seeing. There will also be 60 VIP tickets to be sold per day, which cost PHP 1,000 (23.25~ USD). The VIP tickets allow a more unique and pleasurable viewing experience; front-row seats, free Starbucks drinks and a GMPGL Finals shirt and a 'personal butler'. What exactly the butler will be able to provide is still unknown. |
San Franciscans, brothers, sisters, folks of all genders, today we mourn: SFist is gone. The beloved local news site was part of Gothamist, a national network of community-focused blogs. All of the blogs were shut down summarily today by billionaire republican Joe Ricketts, a despicable Trump-backer whose name sounds distinctly like a terrible skeletal disorder (see: rickets) who will now go down in history as a colossal jackass for depriving cities of needed local news. “Today, I’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue publishing DNAinfo and Gothamist,” Ricketts wrote in a web post to Gothamist readers. “Reaching this decision wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t one I made lightly.” In what is surely no coincidence, Gothamist and DNAinfo’s reporters and editors voted to unionize just last Thursday. Today, 115 reporters and editors lost their jobs, according to the New York Times. Ricketts also shut down his website DNAinfo, which he started in 2009. Both DNAinfo and Gothamist reportedly net more than 15 million visits monthly. Ricketts bought Gothamist in March, according to Politico, but a mere eight months later, claims DNAinfo and Gothamist couldn’t “crack the code” to profitable neighborhood storytelling. “While we made important progress toward building DNAinfo into a successful business, in the end, that progress hasn’t been sufficient to support the tremendous effort and expense needed to produce the type of journalism on which the company was founded,” he wrote. Gothamist debuted in 2003, according to Politico, and was founded by Jen Chung and Jake Dobkin. Locally, SFist was co-founded in 2004 by Eve Batey, Rita Hao and Jackson West. “I am definitely surprised,” Batey told me, when reached by phone. Batey calls herself a “founding writer” of the site, which was entirely volunteer-run until Brock Keeling became its first full-time editor “about” seven years ago, Batey recalled. “It was Brock Keeling who really took SFist into the big time,” she said. SFist’s bread and butter was aggregation of local stories spun with wit, humor and a dash of snark that made staid news palatable for San Franciscans. That’s huge. I can tell you that as a journo who often deals with in-the-weed news, it’s great to have a fellow outlet that can take a lighter point of view. Because the more voices trumpeting the news, the better. But SFist did more than put a fun spin on others’ stories, it also dug out its own. Batey pointed to its outing of former-Mayor Gavin Newsom’s press secretary, Peter Ragone, who used fake names on various blogs and news sites to defend Newsom — and often lighting journalists on fire (figuratively) to do so. Worse yet, SFist’s archive is now inaccessible. “I wrote about the 49ers for NINE years for that site,” wrote Daisy Barringer, who wrote Daisy Does the Niners for SFist. “Every single article is gone. I have literally nothing to show for my hard work.” Still, SFist’s unique wit and style cannot be undersold. “SFist has been a funny, beautiful, honest voice for San Francisco,” said freelancer-about-town Beth Spotswood, whose own hilarious, insightful writing has graced many San Francisco publications. Spotswood said, “I think Eve Batey was huge in developing that, and championing that” uniquely SFist voice. SFist may be gone, Batey noted, but the two staffers and trove of freelancers who made it sing will likely still report in San Francisco. “Joe, you better watch your ass!” she said, good naturedly. I hope she’s right. Those writers have done a great service for San Francisco time and again. Pour one out for SFist tonight. On Guard prints the news and raises hell each week. Email Fitz at joe@sfexaminer.com, follow him on Twitter and Instagram @FitztheReporter, and Facebook at facebook.com/FitztheReporter. Click here or scroll down to comment |
The sci-fi age has already begun – judging by the number of super gadgets that manifest boundless informative capacities, are small and handy and look eminently innocuous! The new Bluetooth headset is designed along these lines and flaunts an undoubtedly sci-fi name the Orb. To begin with what you see is a sophisticated modern-style silver ring that proffers features like showing caller ID, calendar data and voice-to-text info. The Deluxe model will be fitted with an easy-to-read FOLED display, which stands for flexible organic light emitting diode. When you need to use it in its proper capacity, you take it off and activate it by breaking the ring into an S-shaped snaky object that can be comfortably fitted on your ear. We owe this flash of sheer sci-fi genius to the cooperation between Hybra Advance Technology Inc. and AbsolutelyNew Inc., that are preparing the Orb for release next year in two editions – sans display (base version) to be retailed at $129, out in January, and with the FOLED display (Deluxe), out in April, retail price $175. Source of the images: popgadget.net. |
For the last several years, the south eastern portions of South Carolina have remained a frequent hub for observation of mysterious lights in the night sky. Reports of colorful, illuminated spheres of light have both made headlines in the news, as well as having drawn attention from UFO enthusiasts around the country. Among the more widely circulated reports of these illuminations, objects seen off the coast of the Myrtle Beach area, as well as numerous descriptions of aerial illuminations further inland, have garnered the attention of researchers hoping to determine if there could be some variety of natural phenomenon, or perhaps even a military presence, that could exist as a source for the lights. Recently, South Carolina’s unexplained illuminations became the focus of a night time video that has begun making rounds on the web, which appears to show a large, orange orb of light being escorted by what the camera operator says were likely military jets. What does the footage represent, and is there an ongoing military presence over South Carolina that may have led to reports of some of these strange lights in the sky? The footage, taken my Mr. Milton Finch, was captured on the evening of January 15, 2014, at approximately 7:50 in the evening, local time, near his home in St. Stephen, South Carolina. Below is a segment where the video is featured, with commentary, on a recent edition of the UFO Planet vignette, beginning at 16:07: Mr. Finch, with whom I correspond frequently, shared the following about his observation: I suddenly felt the urge to go outside. I asked my wife to get the night vision video equipment. I went outside and looked to the north. The moon was full. Little or no wind. Clear for the most part. I witnessed an orange sphere that de materialized from sight. My wife came out and we were both looking north. I began video taping the event and scanning the northern sky. We then noticed some bright flashing lights to the north. Three at first. Then right behind the three flashing lights, we spotted an orange sphere. It was followed by a smaller red light or sphere. That was followed by another flashing light. The flashing lights were noticeably smaller than the larger orange and slightly smaller red spheres. They were proceeding slowly to the west. The duration of the event was about 10 and a half minutes of video. “The orange sphere was about the size of an aspirin,” Milton says, noting that it was very apparently round in shape. “We lost sight of the objects due to trees to our west,” Milton related further. “Also, there has been a good amount of military aircraft in the skies this evening. More than usual.” The video and subsequent report were featured at the UFO Stalker website, where Mr. Finch also shared details about the encounter. There are small airports at Summerville and Mount Holly, located to the north and northeast of St. Stephen, respectively. The largest and most heavily-trafficked airport nearby is the Charleston International Airport, which is located parallel to Joint Base, an Air Force outpost with which it shares runways. Joint Base, under the command of the 628th Air Wing, features an engineering complex allocated under the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR), which is purportedly the largest single employer in the Charleston area. Joint Base is also the busiest surface port in the defense transportation system located anywhere in the United States. Based on this information, the presence of varieties of aircraft in the region that appear to be advanced or of official origin might be expected, due to the heavy traffic at Joint Base. Have you made similar observations of strange aircraft, particularly in southeastern South Carolina? Feel free to share your own experiences in the comments section below, or email me directly with your story. |
When 14-year-old Elsie Frost was murdered in an unexplained, violent attack on a Wakefield towpath in 1965, her family were thrown into a period of intense shock and grief. For Elsie’s younger brother, Colin, and her elder sister, Anne Cleave, those feelings have never faded away, but the passage of 50 years has allowed many of the unsolved questions about the murder to clarify in their minds. This summer, hundreds of strangers across Britain have joined renewed efforts to find out what happened to Elsie Frost in broad daylight that October Saturday afternoon. An investigation into the “cold case” carried out by BBC radio journalists has caught the imagination of listeners and is giving birth to new theories. West Yorkshire police have agreed to review the evidence. “I want to thank listeners for the feedback,” Colin said last week. “It has made us realise we are not alone on this. It has been quite emotional, and these are very rapidly moving sands.” Listeners to Radio 4’s Saturday early morning programme iPM, sister of the weekday PM show, have heard a series of bulletins on the progress of research carried out by the show’s producers and journalist Jon Manel. So far they have established an earlier time of death and the existence of five closed files on the case at the National Archives in Kew. Serial's second season set for autumn with third to follow in 2016 Read more Social media commentators and Twitter users have described coverage of the case as “mesmerising” and “compelling”, and several crime-solving websites have taken up the cause. The growing public interest mirrors the popularity last year of the American Serial podcasts, hosted by Sarah Koenig, about the 15-year-old homicide conviction of teenager Adnan Syed, and it has prompted the BBC to release the iPM episodes as separate podcasts this weekend and to set up a website page devoted to the case. The fatal stabbing happened as Elsie returned home from an afternoon’s sailing practice with a club using a lake in a neighbouring disused quarry. Her body was found by a man out walking with his young children. No one was convicted of the crime, although one suspect was charged following the coroner’s inquest. The subsequent trial fell apart in early 1966 because of a lack of evidence. “Elsie was a bright girl and very, very pretty,” Anne Cleave has recalled. “I feel she would have outshone both of us.” Her brother told listeners that he thinks of his lost sister every time he ties his shoelaces because she taught him how to do it in their kitchen that autumn, when he was six. He has painful memories of the police arriving at the house to deliver the bad news. Manel, who admits that he is now obsessed with the case, aims to find out whatever he can and to follow all leads. It is not an attempt to solve the crime. “When Anne came to us, we said we would start trying to speak to as many people as we could. We will go wherever it takes us, but I have no idea where that will be,” he said. Although Manel and his colleagues have editorial control, Colin and Anne are forewarned about the content of each update before it is aired. “I speak to them several times a week and they understand that one day we might end up broadcasting something they don’t like. Our results are coming to us in real time, just as they did for Koenig on Serial, but our listeners are able to contribute as well as to comment on it,” said Manel. Facebook Twitter Pinterest A crime scene reconstruction of the murder of 14-year-old Elsie Frost in Wakefield in October 1965. Photograph: Peter Price/Mirrorpix Inspired by the radio reports, several listeners have made independent freedom of information (FoI) requests for documents held in secrecy until 2030 or, in the case of one file, 2060. This is not unusual in a murder case, where files are protected because they contain personal information about people surrounding the case or because their release could hamper any future police investigation. Yesterday, in a decision taken by Anne and Colin “out of respect for Elsie’s dignity”, the pair announced that they had withdrawn their own FoI request. They were prompted by fears that the details of their sister’s death would become accessible to a wider public, but they are already wondering if they should reverse that decision. “In a few months we have gone a long, long way,” Colin told presenter Eddie Mair. During that time the former local MP, David Hinchliffe, has come forward to speak about his memories of the case and its impact on Wakefield. He was interviewed by police as a 16-year-old and questioned about a sheath knife that he owned, a weapon common among boys at the time. The mood in the town changed with the murder, he believes, and the shadow has never quite lifted. He has since talked with Anne and Colin about plans to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their sister’s death this October. They hope to release 14 white doves, one for each year of her life. The BBC investigation has also revealed that Elsie’s clothes were offered back to the family and subsequently destroyed. As a result, there is little hope for a forensic breakthrough. The inquest file uncovered by Manel has also provided a contemporary account given by Elsie’s sailing instructor, John Blackburn, who told police he was out on the lake with her until shortly before her body was discovered. Anne said last week that thinking again about the crime had been difficult after years spent trying to distract herself. She is driven, though, by a need to answer some of the questions. “It is not about retribution,” she said. Manel believes his work on the case is as much about the impact of the crime on the family and the town as about finding a murderer. “People quite often ask me now where this will end, and the truth is that we don’t know.” The influential Serial podcast, which became one of the most widely downloaded English-language programmes of all time, certainly made a difference to the safety of the conviction against Syed for murdering his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, in Baltimore, Maryland. Public interest in that unfolding case, coupled with the work of Koenig and her radio team, led to a formal review of the case, which is due this summer. |
adidas Jabbar Hi “The Blueprint” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar didn’t know what he did to his opponents? Of course he did. The 3x NCAA Champion, 6x NBA Champion, 19x All-Star and the league’s all-time leader in both blocks and scoring is as accomplished as it gets on the court. It’s his pedigree as a person and a philanthropist that round out the roundball legend. The adidas Jabbar Hi “The Blueprint” celebrates both the man and his legacy, drawing from insight provided by the current crop of NBA elite. The Blueprint theme corresponds to the best answer given when describing Kareem and his career, while the shoe’s story is told via the artistic interpretation of Morning Breath. Actual Tyvek blueprint paper constructs this colorway, complemented by white contrast stitching. The name’s of the players asked about Abdul-Jabbar are printed on the right footbed, with their corresponding answers about him listed on the left footbed. Peep the schematic layout and detailed images of the adidas Jabbar Hi “The Blueprint” below. Look for these to launch during All-Star Weekend on February 14th at select adidas accounts and online at adidas. adidas Jabbar Hi “The Blueprint” Release Date: February 14, 2014 |
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: Today’s FCC vote on net neutrality comes just as community radio advocates are actually celebrating a major victory on Capitol Hill. On Saturday, the Senate approved the Local Community Radio Act, one day after its passage in the House. The bill will open up more of the radio dial for Low Power FM, with the FCC now mandated to license thousands of new stations. The measure repeals legislation that limited most Low Power FM stations to rural areas because large broadcasters claimed interference with their signals. In a statement, the Prometheus Radio Project hailed the bill’s passage as, quote, “the first major legislative success for the growing movement for a more democratic media system in the United States.” It now heads to the White House for President Obama’s signature. For more on the Local Community Radio Act, we’re joined here in New York by Hannah Sassaman, longtime organizer at the Philadelphia-based Prometheus Radio Project. Welcome to Democracy Now! While we’ve heard about a major setback for media democracy advocates — HANNAH SASSAMAN: Yeah. AMY GOODMAN: — you have — are enjoying a major victory. HANNAH SASSAMAN: Yeah, it’s really exciting, Amy, that at the 11th hour of the 111th Congress, that a bipartisan team of senators, of Congress members, realized that community radio was something that was long in coming, that so many people were fighting to get these stations in their cities in an era of media consolidation, when companies — frankly, like AT&T, like big broadcasters like Clear Channel — take so many of our voices off the air and just promote commercialism and just promote whatever their agendas are. This is an opportunity to truly put local people on the FM dial. AMY GOODMAN: So, explain what happened. You’ve been fighting for this for 10 years. Prometheus Radio Project has been in this for the long haul. HANNAH SASSAMAN: Sure. AMY GOODMAN: Explain who was holding it back and how you trumped the National Association of Broadcasters. HANNAH SASSAMAN: So, for 10 years, community groups have tried to get on the FM dial all over the country, but in 2000, when the FCC established the Low Power FM radio service — noncommercial 100-watt stations meant to put true community voices on the air — the NAB and other big broadcasters convinced Congress to limit Low Power FM to only very rural areas. So there wouldn’t be a Low Power FM in a city like Philadelphia, where the school district applied. The closest one would be in a city like Altoona, many hundreds of miles away. New Orleans didn’t get any stations. The closest LPFM is in Opelousas, Louisiana, licensed to a civil rights organization. So, for 10 years, after a $2.2 million congressionally mandated Federal Communications Commission study proving that there was no interference from these 100-watt voices on the FM dial, we fought, we built a coalition as diverse as the Christian Coalition and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, we got bipartisan senators and Congress members to support it. And by getting thousands of calls in from truly grassroots people into these senators’ offices, the NAB would try to get a senator to organize a secret hold blocking the bill. So time kept on running. We kept on worrying that we would lose. But then we would get everyone, from local Catholic leaders in Alabama to high schools in Wyoming, to call those senators, and they said people really want this service. There is no technical problem. The senators dropped their holds. The NAB was forced to negotiate. And now there’ll be thousands of stations around the country. AMY GOODMAN: Now, explain exactly what LPFM is, Low Power FM. HANNAH SASSAMAN: Sure. So, across the United States, there are full-power stations, you know, commercial stations, there’s public radio, and there’s something called Low Power FM. These are stations that broadcast about three to five miles, power of a light bulb, 100 watts. They are always local. You can’t really own one 5,000 miles away; you have to own one in your community. They’re always licensed to nonprofit community organizations. And you have to put some local content on the air. They’re truly meant to ameliorate what happened in Minot, North Dakota in 2001, when a train went through town in the middle of the night, it derailed, it poured a poison gas cloud over the town. When the police tried to alert the emergency alert system, it didn’t work, because all six stations in town were owned by Clear Channel. They were being run on autopilot. And a huge amount of damage was done. So, Low Power FM is meant to put truly community voices on the FM dial. And now people around the country should get very excited, because we can now get ready to apply for these stations in our own communities, for civil rights groups, environmental organizations, immigrants groups. It’s a very exciting time. AMY GOODMAN: How do people apply for these stations? HANNAH SASSAMAN: So the FCC will open up what’s called a licensing window. We’re not sure exactly when. We at Prometheus are very excited to be working at the FCC to make a window happen as soon as possible. But now is the time to organize your group to think about what a community station can truly do in your town. I love thinking about the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in San Antonio. They fought to make sure that the golf association doesn’t build a course over their pure aquifer. They fought to protect the right to protest in the streets of San Antonio, and people are working across color lines, across gender lines, across class lines in that city. A local community radio station right there at the Esperanza Center will revolutionize their ability to make change. That’s what I’m hoping that the people of this country are ready to do. AMY GOODMAN: NAB is run by the former senator Gordon Smith. HANNAH SASSAMAN: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: Who were this senators who were secretly putting holds on this? HANNAH SASSAMAN: It was pretty interesting. Senator Smith and his friends at the NAB talked to Senator DeMint, Senator Coburn, Sessions of Alabama, both senators from Wyoming, Cornyn of Texas. But every single time those senators heard from local people, from, you know, local community leaders to the Red Cross, they would say, “Wait, people want this,” and they’d call up the NAB and say, “We’re dropping that hold.” This is a grassroots victory for media reform and for community organizing everywhere. AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Apparently NAB now says they’re going to throw a party for the low community radio activists? HANNAH SASSAMAN: Well, they want to gather us all together. It was — the thing is, Amy, is that when you look at radio, I think that the NAB thinks about everything from iPods to, you know, a Bluetooth, and they’re like, “Wait, free and local broadcasting — are we going to die? Are we on the outs?” When, if they sat down and thought about it, they could look at new Low Power radio stations and think about truly revitalizing their medium. We look forward to celebrating that with them. AMY GOODMAN: Well, Hannah Sassaman, I want to thank you very much. When is this bill being signed? HANNAH SASSAMAN: Well, we’re waiting anxiously to find out, but we’re assuming in the next few days. And then, local community radio for everyone. AMY GOODMAN: Hannah Sassaman, longtime organizer with the Prometheus Radio Project, thanks so much for being with us. HANNAH SASSAMAN: Thank you, Amy. |
It is Sunday afternoon, I have the two kids strapped into the Mooney and I am about to push the throttle forward… but WAIT, before we go there, we need to take a quick jump back in time, to 2001. My wife and I moved to San Diego around that time. Between med school and exams (that’s her, I am simply not that smart) we decided to take a trip to San Felipe, in Mexico. We got in the car and drove for five hours, and when we arrived had so much fun we promised to do it again the very next month. That was 10 years ago. Then life started and brought three beautiful children, which automatically shrunk our travel endurance to a maximum of two hours. Nature simply didn’t design little children to sit still for five hours, and after the sixth stop in a span of 30 minutes you realize that it is going to be a nightmare. Now fast forward to few years ago: my neighbor Bob tells me that he is going to the airport and at first I thought he was going on vacation, but it turns out he is a retired airline pilot who spends his days flying little airplanes around. He offered to take me up and I immediately jumped at the opportunity. We went to Brown Field (KSDM) to get gas, and what do you know… Mexico is just over the horizon. Then, while in the air, it hit me! An airplane! That is the solution to all of my vacation problems: I simply need to get a license, buy a plane and take the family on a vacation… How hard can that be?! Well… hard… and not for the reasons you think. After I got my license and bought my plane, I was still flying alone, and the biggest problem was not the time, it was not the money, it was my wife. For the next few years I heard first hand of every single crash that happened around the world. I mean the woman was a magnet for newspaper articles and YouTube crash videos! Who knew there is so much STUFF out there with people killing themselves and their loved ones? I was losing the battle every single day; San Felipe now looked farther than ever. I can tell you at every dinner with friends and family the flying “issue” would come up, and since I was the only pilot in a 100 mile radius (which is sad as it is) I was fighting 10-15 people who were bombarding me with crash questions and “you are crazy” comments. All the while my wife listened to the hysteria growing around the table. I made sure to answer every question with an intelligent answer, I never shrugged and I never let it get to me. You have a question? BRING IT! Looking back I can tell you that it was anything but fun, however I think it was essential to what was coming next. Then, after a while, something started to change. I think the breaking point was when I came back from a day (flying) trip to San Felipe and told her about all the places we visited many years ago. I could see that the tide was changing and that things were starting to make more sense. Maybe this flying thing was not such a bad idea after all. Then the “how long will it take” questions started to pop up. “How long will it take to fly to San Felipe? How about to Monterey?” We all know that driving for seven hours (compared to three hours flying) is not going to happen. So a few weeks ago I offered (for the 100th time) for her to come fly with me (since the weather is perfect and the wind is calm) and to my surprise I got a YES! I have to tell you that she was nervous at first, but once we got to cruising altitude she enjoyed every minute of it. When we landed she said (and I quote), “I would like to go again next weekend.” Success! And now we go back to our Sunday. I have the big kids in the Mooney, strapped in, taking 28R and ready to go, I push the throttle in and all of those past few years, all the discussions, the dinners, the comments, the hysteria, all simply fade away as we defy gravity and take to the air. It was truly an amazing experience to share flying with my kids and is something that I will remember for the rest of my life. I am here to tell you that it was all worth it. Stick with it, be patient and your day will come as well. San Felipe here we come! |
Warning: long post! Abstract: Neil deGrasse Tyson has argued that Isaac Newton’s religious views stymied his science, preventing him from discovering what Laplace showed a century later – that the planetary orbits are stable against perturbation. This conclusion is highly dubious. Newton did develop perturbation theory, and applied it to the moon’s orbit. His lack of progress is explainable in terms of his inferior geometrical, rather than algebraic, approach. Laplace built on the important work of Clairaut, Euler, d’Alembert and Lagrange, which was not available to Newton. Laplace’s discovery was not definitive – computer simulations have showed that the Solar system is chaotic. And finally, Newton does not give up on science and invoke God at the first sight of ignorance, saying rather “I frame no hypothesis”. His “Reformation” of the Solar System is plausibly not supposed to be miraculous. I conclude that scientists (myself included) are terrible at history. Introduction I’ve got a lot of time for Neil deGrasse Tyson, who is doing a wonderful job of bring the excitement and importance of science to the general public and to the next generation in particular. Despite its seeming disconnect from everyday life, astronomy is an important way to get people into science. Plenty of people who are now solving all manner of important problems in our society got interested in science via astronomy. (Incidentally, I was a dinosaur nerd first. Put me in a science museum and I’m going straight for the fossils.) I have a problem, however, with this clip (It’s long; I’ll quote the relevant bits below). In it, Tyson discusses a famous story about a conversation between physicist Pierre-Simon Laplace and Napoléon Bonaparte in 1802. Here is a passage from A Budget of Paradoxes by Augustus De Morgan (1872, p. 249-50), which is the earliest account that I can find. The following anecdote is well known in Paris, but has never been printed entire. Laplace once went in form to present some edition of his ‘Systeme du Monde’ to the First Consul, or Emperor. Napoleon, whom some wags had told that this book contained no mention of the name of God, and who was fond of putting embarrassing questions, received it with — ‘M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator.’ Laplace, who, though the most supple of politicians, was as stiff as a martyr on every point of his philosophy or religion … drew himself up, and answered bluntly, ‘Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothese-la.’ (I had no need of that hypothesis.) Napoleon, greatly amused, told this reply to Lagrange, who exclaimed, ‘Ah! c’est one belle hypothes ; ca explique beaucoup de choses.’ (Ah, it is a fine hypothesis; it explains many things.) Did it Happen? No eyewitness reports Laplace’s zinger. We don’t get this story from Napoleon, Laplace or Lagrange. The only person in the room whose account we have is the British astronomer William Herschel, and he does not record the story above, but rather notes that “Mons. De la Place wished to shew that a chain of natural causes would account for the construction and preservation of the wonderful system. This the first Consul rather opposed.” There is even evidence that Laplace opposed this anecdote, demanding its deletion from a forthcoming publication shortly before his death in 1827. (Source. p. 111.) So the story is at least suspect. Laplace’s agnosticism needed a pithy parable, it seems, and someone obliged. The story should not be told without at least some sort of caveat. Tyson’s Version Napoleon was into the physics, the engineering and the material science of war. And so he immediately summoned up the five-volume production of Laplace and read it through, cover to cover. He called in Laplace and – I have the exact quote here – asked him what role God played in the construction and regulation of the heavens. That’s what Newton would ask. Laplace replies ‘Sir, I had no need for that hypothesis.’ A few details to note. Tyson says: “I have the exact quote here”. No, he doesn’t because no one does. The story is at best hearsay. Even our dubious version of the story from De Morgan has Napoleon being informed about Laplace’s book “by some wags” and saying to Laplace “they tell me” that the book doesn’t mention God. So Tyson’s “cover to cover” detail is doubtful. Note also Tyson’s version of Napoleon’s question. The earliest versions of the story have Napoleon asking about the absence of God from the book, not God’s role in the whole scheme of things. This exaggerates the scope of Laplace’s supposed answer. Stephen Hawking appreciates this point: “I don’t think that Laplace was claiming that God does not exist. It’s just that he doesn’t intervene, to break the laws of Science.” Tyson’s Analysis Let’s assume for the moment that the story is at least reflective of some conversation between Laplace and Napoleon. I’m particularly interested in the moral that Tyson draws from this episode. Tyson claims that Newton (1642-1727) should have discovered what Laplace (1749-1827) did – that that the combined pull of the planets on each other do not destabilise their orbits – but was hamstrung by his theism. What concerns me is, even if you’re as brilliant as Newton, you reach a point where you start basking in the majesty of God, and then your discovery stops. It just stops. You’re no good any more for advancing that frontier. You’re waiting for someone to come behind you who doesn’t have God on the brain and who says “that’s a really cool problem, I want to solve it.” And they come in and solve it. But look at the time delay – this was a hundred-year time delay. And the math that’s in perturbation theory is like crumbs for Newton. He could have come up with that. The guy invented calculus just on a dare, practically. When someone asked him why planets orbit in ellipses and not some other shape, and he couldn’t answer that, he goes home for two months and comes back: out comes integral and differential calculus, because he needed that to answer that question. This is the kind of mind we’re dealing with in Newton. He could have gone there but he didn’t. His religiosity stopped him. Could Newton have anticipated Laplace? You should be immediately suspicious of Tyson’s account for this reason: Newton and Laplace weren’t the only two physicists on the face of the planet in the 17th and 18th century. Even if Newton was held back, what’s everyone else’s excuse? Did everyone catch Newton’s God-bothering disease, and only Laplace found the cure? Hardly. Here’s a few relevant historical details. A. Newton did develop a theory of perturbations. Tyson’s “he could have gone there but didn’t because of religion” is immediately derailed by the fact that Newton went there. Here is historian William L. Harper, quoting Newton: … Newton developed this method in an effort to deal with the extreme complexity of solar system motions. … The passage continues with the following characterization of the extraordinary complexity of these resulting motions. “By reason of the deviation of the Sun from the center of gravity, the centripetal force does not always tend to that immobile center, and hence the planets neither move exactly in ellipses nor revolve twice in the same orbit. There are as many orbits of a planet as it has revolutions, as in the motion of the Moon, and the orbit of any one planet depends on the combined motion of all the planets, not to mention the action of all these on each other. But to consider simultaneously all these causes of motion and to define these motions by exact laws admitting of easy calculation exceeds, if I am not mistaken, the force of any human mind.” (Wilson 1989b, 253) It appears that shortly after articulating this daunting complexity problem, Newton was hard at work developing resources for responding to it with successive approximations. The development and applications of perturbation theory, from Newton through Laplace at the turn of the nineteenth century and on through much of the work of Simon Newcomb at the turn of the twentieth, led to successive, increasingly accurate corrections of Keplerian planetary orbital motions. [emphasis added] Indeed, Newton developed two perturbation methods, one of which “corresponds to the variation of orbital parameters method first developed in 1753 by Euler and afterwards by Lagrange and Laplace.” B. Newton didn’t have the right tools Why did Newton not achieve what Laplace did a century later? We have seen that it is not from want of trying. He was primarily interested in calculating the moon’s orbit, which is unavoidably a three-body problem: one cannot meaningfully simplify the problem by considering only the Moon and the Earth. Newton applied his method to the Moon, but not successfully. The first edition of the Principia notes: “These computations, however, excessively complicated and clogged with approximations as they are, and insufficiently accurate, we have not seen fit to set out.” Later editions remove this comment entirely. Newton was obviously dissatisfied with his calculation. Why was Newton’s calculation unsuccessful? Was he too busy “basking in the majesty”? Historians have a more mundane explanation. The first successful derivation of the Moon’s apsidal motion (or rather, of most of it) was announced some sixty years later, by Alexis-Claude Clairaut, in May 1749. Euler obtained a derivation in good agreement with Clairaut’s by mid-1751. … Jean le Rond d’Alembert published a more perspicuous derivation, with the degree of approximation made explicit, in 1754. Success came for Newton’s successors only with a new approach, different from any he had envisaged: algorithmic and global. The Continental mathematicians began with the differential equation, the bequest of Leibniz. Further, From Newton to d’Alembert, the essential theoretical advance in lunar theory consisted in the decision to start from a set of differential equations, while relinquishing the demand for direct geometrical insight into the particularities of the lunar motions. Chris Smeenk and Eric Schliesser (highly recommended!) conclude: Newton also faced a more general obstacle: within his geometric approach it was not possible to enumerate all of the perturbations at a given level of approximation, as one could later enumerate all of the terms at a given order in an analytic expansion. It was only with a more sophisticated mathematics that astronomers could fully realize the advantages of approaching the complexities of the moon’s motion via a series of approximations. This is one of the most surprising things to the modern physicist about Newton’s Principia: having invented calculus, Newton doesn’t really use it. He thought that geometry was more insightful, more fundamental. This prohibited Newton from developing the analytic tools needed to incorporate the perturbations of the other bodies in the Solar System into his model, and – crucially – to evaluate the accuracy of his approximations. Moreover, Newton’s version of calculus is actually rather clunky compared to Leibniz’s, which was being used on the Continent. Obviously, if Newton’s approach is floundering on the three-body problem (Sun, Earth, Moon) and a few centuries of observational data, the problem of the stability of all the planets in the Solar System into the indefinite future cannot be attacked with much confidence. C. Laplace had some help The idea that Newton could have come to the conclusions that Laplace did is extremely doubtful. We have already seen that his methods are not quite up to the task. Further, note the mathematicians who worked on the problem of perturbations to planetary orbits before Laplace: Clairaut, Euler, d’Alembert, and Lagrange. These are the greatest mathematicians of their age; Leonard Euler is arguably the greatest mathematician of all time: “Read Euler, read Euler, he is the master of us all.” That quote, incidentally, is from Laplace. Euler was a devout Christian and a Lutheran Saint. Apparently, having “God on the brain” didn’t prevent him – as it didn’t prevent Newton – from working on this scientific problem. So, I think we can safely say that if Leonard Euler attempts to solve a mathematical problem and fails, the problem is a difficult one. And he took the problem very seriously: when Clairaut successfully applied perturbation theory to the Moon’s orbit, Euler described “this discovery as the most important and profound which has ever been made in mathematics.” But these mathematicians didn’t merely make failed attempts; they laid the foundations for Laplace’s work. Joseph-Louis Lagrange, in particular, is crucial: Though traditionally given credit for establishing the stability of the solar system, it is only after Lagrange’s work that Laplace made his first major contribution to the theory of the stability of the solar system. Jacques Laskar gives Lagrange equal credit, referring to the “Laplace-Lagrange stability of the Solar System“: Laplace and Lagrange, whose work converged on this point, calculated secular variations, in other words long-term variations in the planets’ semi-major axes under the effects of perturbations by the other planets. Their calculations showed that, up to first order in the masses of the planets, these variations vanish. Newton, of course, was a mathematical genius. But we can hardly blame him for not being smarter than Clairaut, Euler, d’Alembert, Lagrange and Laplace combined. D. The Solar System and the General Scholium Did Newton ignore the problem of the stability of the Solar System so that he could call upon God as an explanation? Well, we have already seen that he did not ignore the problem at all. Further, Newton developed his perturbation methods in 1685-6, according to Michael Nauenberg. The definitive statement of his theological conclusions drawn from physics comes in the General Scholium, an essay appended to the end of the second and third editions of the Principia in 1713 and 1726 respectively. With 40 years of reflection on the problem of the perturbations of the orbits of the planets and their theological implications, what does Newton have to say about God’s intervention in the universe? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Newton states that “This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.” This is about the creation of the whole physical order in the first place, not about God intervening in the laws of nature to perform a miracle: “In him are all things contained and moved; yet neither affects the other: God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies; bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God.” In the Scholium, Newton notes a major gap in scientific knowledge: Hitherto we have explain’d the phænomena of the heavens and of our sea, by the power of Gravity, but have not yet assign’d the cause of this power. Here is a golden opportunity for Newton, facing a scientific gap in our knowledge, to invoke God as the very power of gravity itself. His famous response: But hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phænomena, and I frame no hypotheses [hypotheses non fingo]. For whatever is not deduc’d from the phænomena, is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. For a fellow who is supposed to be looking for any gap in scientific knowledge as an excuse to insert the direct intervention of God, Newton’s doing it all wrong. Interestingly, Newton seemingly appeals to the intervention of God in a single sentence in Opticks, published in 1704. For it became [God] who created them to set them in order. And if he did so, it’s unphilosophical to seek for any other Origin of the World, or to pretend that it might arise out of a Chaos by the mere Laws of Nature; though being once form’d, it may continue by those Laws for many Ages. For while Comets move in very excentrick Orbs in all manner of Positions, blind Fate could never make all the Planets move one and the same way in Orbs concentrick, some inconsiderable Irregularities excepted, which may have risen from the mutual Actions of Comets and Planets upon one another, and which will be apt to increase, till this System wants a Reformation. This is a puzzling passage, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it seems out of place – the context is about God’s sustaining of the “wonderful Uniformity in the Planetary System”. Mentioning “inconsiderable Irregularities” somewhat undermines Newton’s point. Secondly, nowhere in Newton’s corpus can we find the calculations to sustain this claim, even though (as we noted above) he had pioneered perturbation theory. How did Newton convince himself that the mutual attractions of the planets increase the irregularities of the Solar System? We don’t know. Thirdly, why is this not mentioned in the General Scholium? If this is Newton’s great scientific proof of God’s intervention in the world, why does it not appear in his most famous essay on God, at the conclusion of his scientific magnum opus? In light of its absence from the Principia, it is difficult to know how much weight Newton placed on this particular argument. Finally, it is difficult to know exactly what Newton was thinking. It is, after all, a single sentence with no further comment. Leibniz, for example, responded to this passage in November 1715: According to [Newton’s] Doctrine, God Almighty wants to wind up his Watch from Time to Time: Otherwise it would cease to move. He had not, it seems, sufficient Foresight to make it a perpetual Motion. Nay, the Machine of God’s making, is so imperfect, according to these Gentlemen; that he is obliged to clean it now and then by an extraordinary Concourse. … I hold, that when God works Miracles, he does not do it in order to supply the Wants of Nature, but those of Grace. In response to Leibniz, Samuel Clarke argues in 1716 that Newton is not appealing to a miracle or a suspension of the laws of nature: … the word correction, or amendment, is to be understood, not with regard to God, but to us only. … But this amendment is only relative, with regard to our conception. In reality, and with regard to God; the present frame, and the consequent disorder, and the following renovation, are all equally parts of the design framed in God’s original perfect idea. In other words, Newton’s “reformation” would be entirely natural, part of God’s orderly sustaining of the universe, rather than a violation of its laws. (I recommend this article for more details). Newton is not committing the God of the gaps fallacy, because he does not see a gap. E. The Solar System is not stable Finally, Laplace and Lagrange’s demonstration of the stability of the Solar System was shown by later scientists to be inconclusive. Henri Poincaré established that it was impossible to produce exact solutions to the equations of motion in the n-body problem, where n is bigger than 2: approximate solutions by means of infinite series are the only viable solutions. Moreover, these series generally diverge, making them useless for prediction over infinite time. Laplace and Lagrange’s calculation is informative but not decisive. Since Poincaré, computer simulations have shown that the orbits of the Solar System are chaotic over timescales of a few billion years. So the “Laplace solves it” part of Tyson’s story has a problem: Laplace didn’t solve it. Conclusion: Scientists suck at History What historians do is read primary sources, in the original languages as much as possible, consider all the characters involved, trying to understand their context, their influences, their personal lives and their professional motivation. Nuance, nuance, nuance. What amateurs do – myself included – is read secondary sources, skim for interesting sections, pick favourites, judge anachronistically, and hope that an amusing anecdote or two can summarise an entire cultural milieu. (Huxley vs Wilberforce is a great example.) We want simple stories of progress, pithy quotes and heroes who look like us. The historian Steven Shapin, reviewing Steven Weinberg’s recent book “To Explain the World”, gives the view from his discipline of scientists who attempt to write history. There’s a story told about a distinguished cardiac surgeon who, about to retire, decided he’d like to take up the history of medicine. He sought out a historian friend and asked her if she had any tips for him. The historian said she’d be happy to help but first asked the surgeon a reciprocal favor: “As it happens, I’m about to retire too, and I’m thinking of taking up heart surgery. Do you have any tips for me?” To illustrate the point, we can retell our story to make Newton the hero. Inspired by God’s providence, he argued correctly that the Solar System is ultimately unstable and was beautifully vindicated by modern computer simulations. Laplace (cue the villainous music), desperately seeking to avoid God, promotes the idea that the Solar System is perfectly stable, allowing his agnosticism to hold back the progress of science and delay the discovery of long-term chaos among the planets by Poincaré and modern physicists. We can even make Lagrange the hero, since he is at least as important as Laplace in the scientific study of the Solar System. Lagrange is there with Napoleon – so the story goes – to counter Laplace’s myopic inference that, since God doesn’t poke the planets moment by moment, He is not needed. Shall we immortalise Lagrange’s answer to Napoleon, rather than Laplace’s? This is whig history – the heroes of the past are the people who, for whatever reason, believe something like what I believe now. Why does Tyson venerate Laplace, the agnostic? Because Tyson is an agnostic. That’s all the story proves. Neil deGrasse Tyson on Newton (Part 2) is here. Advertisements |
Image caption The aircraft had been flying at 4,000ft when the incident happened A passenger aircraft had a narrow miss with an unidentified object over Glasgow, a report has revealed. The Airbus A320 was making its final approach to Glasgow Airport on 2 December when an object passed about 300ft underneath it. The pilot of the aircraft said the risk of collision with the object, which did not show up on radar, had been "high". A report by the UK Airprox Board said investigators were unable to establish what the object had been. The A320 was flying with its landing lights on, in clear conditions and at an altitude of about 4,000ft above the Baillieston area of Glasgow, when the pilot and non-flying pilot saw an object "loom ahead" at a range of about 100m. Cockpit transcript The Airprox report included a transcript of the conversation that took place between the aircraft and the controller at 12:55: A320: "Glasgow Approach [A320 C/S]" EGPF: "[A320 C/S] pass your message" A320: "Er yeah we just had something pass underneath us quite close [1255:30] and nothing on TCAS have you got anything on in our area" EGPF: "Er negative er we've got nothing on er radar and we're n- not talking to any traffic either" A320: "Er not quite sure what it was but it definitely er quite large [1255:40] and it's blue and yellow" EGPF: "OK that's understood er do you have a an estimate for the height" A320: "Maybe er [1255:50] yeah we were probably about erm four hundred to five hundred feet above it so it's probably about three and a half thousand feet." The object passed directly beneath the aircraft before either of the crew members had time to take avoiding action or had "really registered it". But they both agreed that it appeared to have been blue and yellow or silver in colour with a small frontal area, but "bigger than a balloon". The pilot asked the controller at Glasgow Airport if he was "talking to anything in the area" as he had "got quite close" to a blue and yellow aircraft, travelling in the opposite direction, which had passed just below him. The controller stated that he was not talking to anyone else in that area and that nothing was seen on radar. Search action was taken with no result and the A320 pilot stated his intention to file a report to Airprox, which investigates near misses. Air traffic control said they had no trace of any other objects in the area at the time of the incident, although the radar at Prestwick did spot an "unidentified track history" 1.3 nautical miles east of the A320's position 28 seconds earlier. Once the aircraft had landed, the pilot told the Glasgow Aerodrome Controller: "We seemed to only miss it by a couple of hundred feet, it went directly beneath us. Wherever we were when we called it in it was within about 10 seconds. Couldn't tell what direction it was going but it went right underneath us." Members were unable to reach a conclusion as to a likely candidate for the conflicting aircraft Airprox Board report When asked if he thought it may have been a "glider or something like that" the pilot replied: "Well maybe a microlight. It just looked too big for a balloon." The Airprox report concluded: "Investigation of the available surveillance sources was unable to trace any activity matching that described by the A320 pilot. Additionally there was no other information to indicate the presence or otherwise of activity in the area." The report said the Airprox board had been of the opinion that the object was unlikely to have been a fixed wing aircraft, helicopter or hot air balloon, given that it had not shown up on radar. It was also thought that a meteorological balloon would be radar significant and unlikely to be released in the area. A glider could not be discounted, the report said, but it was unlikely that one would be operating in the area because of the constrained airspace and the lack of thermal activity because of the low temperature. Similarly, the board believed that a hang-glider or para-motor would be radar significant and that conditions precluded them, as they did para-gliders or parascenders. The report stated: "Members were unable to reach a conclusion as to a likely candidate for the conflicting aircraft and it was therefore felt that the board had insufficient information to determine a Cause or Risk". |
Blink and you might have missed it. The Bush brand is back in vogue on the campaign trail. Former U.S. president George W. Bush watches before the start of the MLB American League baseball game between the Texas Rangers and the Chicago White Sox in Arlington, Texas April 30, 2013. REUTERS/Mike Stone Five years and two months after George W. Bush left the White House scorned by most of the country and his own party, Bush administration alumni and family of the 43rd president are in high demand this midterm election year. Some leading Republican groups and candidates have eagerly solicited their help while others have embraced Bush's legacy with renewed enthusiasm. Even a vulnerable Democrat recently sought to align himself closer to Bush than to President Obama. The renaissance is a result of an Obama malaise, Republicans say, as well as a fluid Republican Party without a clear leader in which there is a premium on experience. "The Bush brand is making a comeback because the hope and change promises that President Obama made never came true," said Ron Bonjean, a veteran Republican strategist who worked in Commerce Department under Bush. "The feelings of many Americans that Obama has seriously bungled the economy, health care and foreign policy has created a yearning for something better." The latest member of Bush's presidential orbit to make an entree into midterm politics is his former secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. Rice appears in a new ad for the conservative super PAC American Crossroads defending Alaska Senate candidate Dan Sullivan (R). Sullivan is a former Bush State Department official who has emerged as the leading Republican in the race to take on Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska). Rice, who was Bush's national security adviser during his controversial decision to invade Iraq, has gradually begun to play a bigger role in politics after returning to academia in 2009. She is set to boost House Republicans by headlining a Wednesday National Republican Congressional Committee fundraiser. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R), brother of the 43rd president and potential 2016 contender, has also recently raised his 2014 profile. He appeared in a Chamber of Commerce commercial for now-Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) earlier this year. The ad came at a crucial time when Jolly lacked the funds to mount a robust positive ad campaign of his own. Jeb Bush is also a huge fundraising draw because of his deep donor network. He plans to raise money for New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) this week. Meanwhile, his son George P. Bush is the Republican nominee for land commissioner in Texas. Elsewhere, congressional candidates have tied themselves to the Bush White House. Ed Gillespie, White House counsel under the 43rd president, is running for Senate in Virginia. His introductory video included photographs of the two together. Facing a tough race in a conservative West Virginia district, Rep. Nick Rahall (D) recently told The Hill newspaper, "I probably have supported George Bush more than I have Barack Obama." Much of the public still blames the former president for the nation's economic troubles, polling shows. So he's still somewhat ripe for Democratic attacks in a presidential election. And Jeb Bush could face serious problems appealing to the broad electorate. But in a more limited midterm electorate in which Obama is looking more and more like a liability at the moment and the GOP is increasingly bullish about strong turnout on their side, some Republicans say, the Bush legacy can be an asset. "The Bush fatigue that is still prevalent in much of the Republican Party is really at the presidential campaign level; it doesn’t extend to mid-term endorsements. Candidates would be wise to seek out a Condi Rice especially with the foreign policy problems on our hands under Obama," said conservative strategist Keith Appell. George W. Bush has yet to make a campaign appearance even as polls last year showed his image was on the mend. Since leaving office he has kept a deliberately low profile. He was mostly absent from the 2012 campaign trail and isn't expected to be a prominent figure in this year's campaign. But being associated with the former president is not the political liability it was in the immediate wake of the Bush administration's closing chapter in 2009, when he wrapped up his presidency with a dismal approval rating against the backdrop of a troubled economy and an unpopular war in Iraq for which the public held him mostly responsible. Obama ran in 2008 as the anti-Bush. A competent leader who could get the country moving again and turn the page on what many voters saw as a disastrous period in American history. In 2014, running as the anti-Obama has become the dominant Republican campaign strategy, given the incumbent's low approval rating. There is clearly room now under that GOP tent for a name that was once banished. |
Gamgee Tissue is a surgical dressing invented by Dr. Joseph Sampson Gamgee in Birmingham, England, in 1880. Gamgee Tissue has a thick layer of absorbent cotton wool between two layers of absorbent gauze. It represents the first use of cotton wool in a medical context, and was a major advancement in the prevention of infection of surgical wounds. It is still the basis for many modern surgical dressings. The name is a trademark of Robinson Healthcare Ltd, based in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, UK and has been since 1911. Tolkien [ edit ] In Birmingham, "Gamgee" became the colloquial name for cotton wool, which possibly led to the character name (Sam Gamgee) in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The connection is not certain: in Appendix F to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien mentions, but at the same time denies, the reading of Gamgee as a pun relating to the name of Sam's wife, Rosie Cotton. He further elaborates the 'real' Westron names of which 'Gamgee' and 'Cotton' are translations. However, in the same section Tolkien also addresses hobbit (which was certainly created first and translated afterward, as described in Tolkien's own comment on the initial writing of The Hobbit) and Brandywine (an obvious English pun on the Elvish Baranduin, 'justified' as translation of a similarly alcoholic pun in Westron). In this context we may suspect that the Professor is speaking tongue-in-cheek; the Gamgee entry is phrased such that it can be read as a poker-faced, academic way of pointing out that the joke is there, whether or not he intended it. References [ edit ] |
Toyota, the world’s biggest auto-maker, is recalling 6.39 million vehicles world-wide because of various faults, it announced Wednesday. The recall, which applies to 27 models in five different regions of the world, is the second-largest in the Japanese automaker’s history, Reuters reports. “Toyota is not aware of any injuries or fatalities caused by this condition,” the company wrote in a statement about the recall in North America, where more than 1.3 million cars are being called back. The faults include steering problems that could keep the airbag from deploying, an engine starter risk that could be a fire hazard and a driver’s seat defect that could cause the seat to slide forward in a crash. The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now The glitches were found in 27 different Toyota models, including RAV4, Corolla, Yaris, Matrix and Highlander, that have all been sold globally. Toyota issued a recall of 7.4 million cars in 2012 and a recall of 2.1 million vehicles earlier this year. Contact us at editors@time.com. |
The San Francisco Giants have long peddled a charming fiction about their ballpark, billing it as the “the first privately financed ballpark in Major League Baseball since 1962.” That would be a fact worth commending if it were at all true, but according to a study conducted by urban planner Judith Grant Long, it’s a big fat lie. Via Baseball Prospectus: To see why, let’s take a closer look at the Giants’ Pac Bell Park (now SBC Park, and soon to be AT&T Park if the latest merger-related rumors are true). The widely reported $15 million in public funds—used to relocate a public transit facility that was in the way of the ballpark—was just the tip of the iceberg, it turns out. Long estimates $33 million in value for the land itself, donated by the local government for the cause at no cost to the Giants; $25 million worth of municipal fire, police, and garbage services; and $83 million in forgone property taxes, because despite being privatedly owned, the stadium nonetheless receives a full property tax exemption. So it’s more than a little galling to see the Giants, who were gifted a waterfront property in the most booming real-estate market in the country, seeking a tax break from the city. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the team is preparing to argue in front of the San Francisco Assessment Appeals Board that the value of their stadium has somehow dropped to $158 million, and that their property taxes should be cut in half as a result. Who knows where the Giants pulled that $158 million figure out of, but it differs wildly from the $407 million that city Assessor-Recorder Carmen Chu valued the property at in 2014. Giants general counsel Jack Bair told the Chronicle that Chu retroactively raised the team’s property taxes by 97 precent in 2011, and has continued to raise it in subsequent years. This makes me want Carmen Chu to be in charge of setting the property tax rates for every baseball stadium in America. Photo via AP |
Another exploit has been found in the Adobe Flash player 10 and Adobe Reader 9 and 10, this makes the second in the past month. This exploit come in via a Microsoft Office document with an embedded flash file. All versions of Adobe flash player 10 are effected on all operating system platforms – Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and Solaris. Updated 4/14 Opening an infected file can cause your system to crash and possibly allow the hacker to gain control of your computer. There are reports that hackers are already trying this out and sending emails with embedded Flash files (.swf). Emails indicating they originated from the American Bar Association with the subject line (Antitrust Source Newsletter) have been found to be circulating already. At this time Adobe does not have a time-line for a patch to be available. Until such time that Adobe has a patch available we are urging our readers to be very careful opening Office documents with .SWF attachments. Since this is a Zero-Day exploit even the Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware programs do not have a definition to protect against this one. Microsoft has urged users of Excel 2000, 2003 and 2007 to download and install the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) to help protect against malicious threats within excel documents. Excel 2010 is not vulnerable to this type exploit because of DEP (data execution prevention) You can get more information on EMET here Additional information on this exploit can be found at the following pages: www.Adobe.com www.Computerworld.com Update: 4/13 6:00PM Adobe has stated that they will have a patch available by the week of 4/15 that will update all versions of the Adobe Flash Player to block this exploit and a patch for Adobe Reader X and older to be available the week of 4/25. Be sure to upgrade your software as soon as the patches are available. Update: 4/14 7:30AM The update for Adobe Flash Player has start to push out, we had machines in our office update this morning. Run your internet application (internet explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Etc.) and you should now be prompted to update your player. You can also go to Adobe.com and get the update from there. |
Barbara is a passionate writer and animal lover who has been professionally blogging for over 10 years and counting. Two teenage friends — Aaron, 19 and Jamal, 17 — were driving around together through Kaufman County, Texas. As they passed the car beside them, the hormonal boys couldn’t help but notice the attractive young woman sitting in the backseat of the car. At first, Aaron and Jamal tried to make eye contact with the pretty blonde. But that’s when they noticed her mouthing something to them. They swore it looked like she was saying “help me” in such a way that the male driver wouldn’t hear her. Aaron and Jamal instantly switched from smitten to concerned. Their gut instincts told them she was in the process of being kidnapped by the driver. Not only did the teens call the police, but they continued to trail behind the suspicious car so as not to lose sight of the terrified woman. In the harrowing 911 call below, you can hear Aaron describing to the dispatcher what’s going on in real-time: “Yes, I’m on the highway. I’m witnessing a robbery. Not a robbery, a kidnapping. It’s me and another guy. So we’re checking out the girl in the backseat because we’re like, ‘OK, she’s kind of attractive’, and then all of a sudden the guy is turned back, looking at us.” Thanks to Aaron and Jamal’s quick-thinking, police were able to track the vehicle down. That’s when the horrifying story unfolded — that 37-year-old Charles Atkins Lewis kidnapped the 25-year-old woman at gunpoint and forced her into his car. Lewis was charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery. After the rescue, Aaron and Jamal were able to meet the woman whose life they potentially saved. “I would describe it as the best hug I have ever gotten,” he said. Please SHARE this incredibly heroic story with your friends on Facebook! |
One in four middle-aged American women are taking anti-depressants. One might ask: Is there something wrong with our society, when a quarter of our women have to be pumped full of drugs, just to make it through the day without slitting their wrists in a bathtub? Unlike illnesses caused by viruses and bacteria, depression is something the human body does to itself. The clinically depressed brain chooses to skimp on dopamine and serotonin production, because it believes – based on the previous reproductive payoffs of thousands of generations of evolution – that doing so is adaptive. There are several possible evolutionary explanations for depression, such as the psychic pain hypothesis: According to the psychic pain hypothesis, depression is analogous to physical pain in that it informs the sufferer that current circumstances, such as the loss of a friend, are imposing a threat to biological fitness, it motivates the sufferer to cease activities that led to the costly situation, if possible, and it causes him or her to learn to avoid similar circumstances in the future. Proponents of this view tend to focus on low mood, and regard clinical depression as a dysfunctional extreme of low mood. The Analytical Rumination Hypothesis: This hypothesis suggests that depression is an adaptation that causes the affected individual to concentrate his or her attention and focus on a complex problem in order to analyze and solve it. One way depression increases the individual’s focus on a problem is by inducing rumination. Depression activates the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which increases attention control and maintains problem-related information in an “active, accessible state” referred to as “working memory,” or WM. As a result, depressed individuals have been shown to ruminate, reflecting on the reasons for their current problems. Feelings of regret associated with depression also cause individuals to reflect and analyze past events in order to determine why they happened and how they could have been prevented. Another way depression increases an individual’s ability to concentrate on a problem is by reducing distraction from the problem. For example, anhedonia, which is often associated with depression, decreases an individual’s desire to participate in activities that provide short-term rewards, and instead, allows the individual to concentrate on long-term goals. In addition, “psychomotory changes,” such as solitariness, decreased appetite, and insomnia also reduce distractions. For instance, insomnia enables conscious analysis of the problem to be maintained by preventing sleep from disrupting such processes. Likewise, solitariness, lack of physical activity, and lack of appetite all eliminate sources of distraction, such as social interactions, navigation through the environment, and “oral activity,” which disrupt stimuli from being processed. And the Social Navigation/Niche Change hypothesis: The social navigation or niche change hypothesiscombines the analytical rumination and bargaining hypotheses and suggests that depression, operationally defined as a combination of prolonged anhedonia and psychomotor retardation or agitation, provides a focused sober perspective on socially imposed constraints hindering a person’s pursuit of major fitness enhancing projects. Simultaneously, publicly displayed symptoms, which reduce the depressive’s ability to conduct basic life activities, serve as a social signal of need; the signal’s costliness for the depressive certifies its honesty. Finally, for social partners who find it uneconomical to respond helpfully to an honest signal of need, the same depressive symptoms also have the potential to extort relevant concessions and compromises. Depression’s extortionary power comes from the fact that it retards the flow of just those goods and services such partners have come to expect from the depressive under status quo socioeconomic arrangements. (Here’s a TED talk that appears to cover most of the above.) What’s obvious to any student of social dynamics, is that the complex of behaviours associated with clinical depression – hunched shoulders, weak eye contact, avoidance of social interactions – are all low-status ‘tells’. The obvious conclusion is that what we call depression is the human body’s subconscious way of saying: You Suck. More specifically, depression is a means by which the body signals to itself that something is wrong with its current approach to life. Remember, your body is your best friend. When it hurts you, it’s trying to create a catalyst for behavioural changes. Of course there are some people whose malfunctioning neurochemistry renders them naturally prone to depression. Similarly, there is also a small percentage of people with glandular disorders that predispose them to obesity. But when such a huge fraction of a population develops a problem in such a short period of time – as we see in both the obesity and depression epidemics – the most obvious explanation is that it’s environmental. So, of the 30 million or so Americans currently on anti-depressant drugs, the vast majority are healthy and functional human beings, whose brains have subconsciously concluded that their current behaviour is self-destructive. Rather than acknowledge this wake-up call and make positive changes, mentally ill Americans are treating the symptoms of their unnatural and unhappy lives. So, the question shifts: Why are so many women acting in a way their brains perceive as counterproductive? The attentive reader will recall the title of this post: Feminism Is Causing The Depression Epidemic Now, study this picture well. We will return to it. On a biological level, Humans are survival and replication machines. Our brain rewards us with positive emotions when it perceives our actions as adaptive; otherwise, it punishes us with pain. The modern American woman is placed in a double-bind that guarantees she will be susceptible to depression in her middle age. She can either follow the feminist ‘Empowerment’ script, and spend her childbearing years focused on her career and a series of casual relationships, or she can pursue motherhood. The subconscious core of the barren thirty-five year old empowered woman does not care that she just made Senior HR Adviser and upgraded her condo with a new sofa set and designer cat-scratch post. In the eyes of the gods of biomechanics, she is as great a failure as has ever lived. The career-climbing women who manage to squeeze out a child or two in between pilates class and their second Venti medium roasts are not much better off. In our ancestral environment, before the invention of subsidized daycare and baby formula, a woman who saw her child for only an hour or two a day was doing something seriously wrong. And what of the women who actually recognize that motherhood is a more rewarding vocation than the meaningless paper-shuffling that 90% of them would be doing in a ‘real’ career? They’re vulnerable as well. Humans are social creatures, and the fairer sex is especially sensitive to their approval or rejection by the tribe. We are all wired to pay close attention to the values of the high-status men and women in our world, and conform our behaviour to their expectations. Our modern tribal leaders are the media celebrities, academics, journalists, and other arbiters of public opinion. Unless one makes a strong and conscious decision to disassociate with mainstream American culture, he or she will subconsciously measure themself by their approval. For the married stay-at-home American mother of 2013, the message sent by America’s high-status elite is clear: Fuck You, traditional mothers. Getting married, having children, loving them, and prioritizing their happiness and success over your own self-actualization is a rejection of Feminism at the most basic level. Walking this path will spare the modern woman the psychic torment of reproductive failure. But unless she unplugs herself from mainstream media, and social circles influenced thereby, she will suffer the sting of social rejection, right in the paleomammalian complex. The key prediction of the Feminism -> Depression hypothesis is that women who prioritize family, and do so in an environment that supports their choice, will be happier. Well wouldn’t ya know it? Dutch women are among the happiest in Europe: “In 2001, nearly 60 per cent of working Dutch women were employed part-time, compared to just 20 per cent of Canadian women. Today, the number is even higher, hovering around 75 per cent. Some, like Van Haeren, view this as progress, evidence of personal freedom and a commitment to a balanced lifestyle. …Dutch women appear deaf to the siren call of the workplace. Asked whether they’d like to increase their hours, just four per cent said yes, compared to 25 per cent of French women. And while across the Channel, British media are heralding the resurgence of feminism—last weekend, some 500 women crowded into a feminist training camp, UK Feminista, to be trained in direct action and activism—in Holland, women like Van Haeren baldly proclaim no further need for the movement. “Feminism wasn’t necessary anymore by the time I grew up,” she says. “In my eyes, it was a thing of the past.” The relationship between personal lifestyle choices and the socio-economic standing of women has been under the microscope in Holland ever since the publication of Dutch Women Don’t Get Depressed in 2008. Ellen de Bruin, who patterned her book after Mireille Guiliano’s bestseller French Women Don’t Get Fat, began by defining the stereotypical Dutch woman: naturally beautiful with a no-fuss sense of style, she rides her bike to fetch the groceries, has ample time with her kids and husband, takes art classes in the middle of the week, and spends leisurely afternoons drinking coffee with her friends. She loves to work part-time and does not earn as much as her husband, but she’s fine with that—he takes care of the bills. The book went on to note that Dutch women rank consistently low, compared to those in other Western countries, in terms of representation in top positions in business and government—and rank consistently near the top in terms of happiness and well-being. In fact, just about everyone in Holland seems pleased with the status quo; in 2009, the Netherlands ranked highest of all OECD countries in terms of overall well-being.” In stark contrast, the handsome lads over at r/TheRedPill had a good laugh over this thread at rival Social Justice Warrior sub-forum r/TheBlue Bill, in which an endless parade of feminists, manginas, and assorted members of the volunteer thought police revealed their long histories with a never-ending schedule of anti-depressants: Didn’t find out until after my suicide attempt that the antidepressant I was on.. I took Buspar for several weeks before I realised it was the reason… Zoloft is making me see things out of the corner of my eye that aren’t there… Have you ever tried any tricyclics? I’ve had experiences with SSRIs that were similar to what’s already been described in this discussion, but had a fairly good experience with the one tricyclic I tried… I’m on Pristiq, I believe that’s related to Effexor? And on it goes. If only there was some sort of internet community devoted to truth, self-improvement and healthy relationships, that they could turn to, with a minimum of ego suppression. Now, I have a real treat for you. Here’s another excerpt from the article above: “Others, however, view it as an alarming signal that women are no longer seeking equality in the workplace. Writer and economist Heleen Mees, for example, argues that the stereotypical Dutch woman has become complacent. “Even at the University of Amsterdam—the most progressive university we have—I had a 22-year-old student say, ‘Why is it your business if my wife wants to bake cookies?’ and the female students agreed with him! I was like, what’s happening here?” Mees runs an organization called Women on Top that strives to push more Dutch women into ambitious career paths. Its slogan is “Out with the part-time feminism!” and it points to part-time work as a major factor in a lingering pay gap. Then there’s the matter of principle. “I think highly educated women have a moral obligation to take top positions, to set an example by their choices,” says Mees. “When women just stay at home or work part-time, they don’t reach the top, and they set bad examples for their daughters and daughters’ daughters.” Understandably, the notion that there’s a correlation between women’s relative powerlessness and their happiness rubs people like Heleen Mees the wrong way. Yet others frame the correlation differently, arguing that Dutch women have smashed the vicious circle of guilt that traps other Western women, to embrace a progressive form of work-life balance.” Note that this article was written in 2011. Does the name Helen Mees ring any bells? Ah yes. That would be the same Helen Mees recently charged with stalking Citigroup’s chief economist: “The Dutch economist was arrested July 1 after allegedly sending more than 1,000 e-mails to Buiter over a two-year time period… He’s had a past history of disconnecting Ms. Mees and then reconnecting with her… “What can I do to make it right? Shall I lick your b–s?” she said in one X-rated epistle… In another, she told him: “Hope your plane falls out of the sky.” Her angry rants allegedly included Buiter’s wife and children. Prosecutors say she targeted his family even after she was told to stop… Buiter received a snapshot of Mees pleasuring herself and another creepily depicting dead birds, according to court papers… Mees is looking for new jobs after she was shunned from NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service because of this case.” One is left awestruck at the gall of such a sad, broken, shell of a woman, dedicating her life to haranguing happy Dutch mothers and wives into mimicking her own poor life choices. Recall the picture above – the set jaw; skin cracking in defiance of who knows how many thousands of dollars spent on over-promising lotions; the dead eyes. I wonder what sort of all-you-can-eat buffet of SSRI chemical cocktails we might find in the bathroom cabinet of Ms. Mees? But for all her years and related flaws, Helen Mees is not a bad looking 45-year old. Surrounded by a happy, healthy family, she would have been a fine demonstration of Solomon’s Proverb 28: A woman can age beautifully: “A good woman ages beautifully. When I look at my wife, I see the most gorgeous woman in the universe. Her wrinkled hands got that way by keeping up with my two boys and working hard for them while I was on the road. The lines under her eyes are from years of shedding tears for me when I was at war, and those wrinkles on her brow are from decades of worry for me and my two sons. It was her legs they held on to when they were learning to walk, her lap was where they learned to read, and her breasts were their first nourishment. The first kiss those boys ever received was from her lips, and God willing, my last kiss will be from her lips.” But Helen Mees knows that no strong man will ever say anything like that about her. And this is the fire that fuels her perverted desire to lead other women into her own unenviable situation. Truly, this is the psychic fuel that powers so much of the feminist movement: Angry lesbians and childless rejects, desperately trying to convince young women to share in their unhappiness. As Susan Walsh put it: The women who write about sex for Jezebel are damaged. And they want you to be the same way. Susan was writing about sex positive feminists attempting to destigmatize STDs, but the same logic applies to feminists discouraging fat-shaming, slut-shaming, lookism, and so on. Feminists are broken. They either cannot or will not fix themselves. Thus, their goal is to convince whole women to voluntarily destroy themselves. Solving the depression epidemic will be simple, if not easy: When Feminists are mocked and jeered in the street; when wives and mothers are celebrated for their service to their families and to posterity; when this country is filled with happy, healthy women who look upon the shrieking social justice warrior set with pity and contempt; when all of this comes to pass, American women will find themselves free of the need to find their happiness at the bottom of a jar of pills. |
One of my many goals with this First Pull Project is to promote weightlifting, especially in Canada. With that in mind, I am quite pleased to have had the chance to interview Mr. Kobaladze whose achievements are nothing short of spectacular. George is an outstanding lifter who has been lifting for 24 years (In Canada and Georgia) and currently holds the records in the 105+KG category (174snatch/226 clean and jerk/400kg total). He won a bronze medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and 2011 Pan Ams, a silver medal at the 2012 and 2013 Pan Am championships, and ranked 11th at the 2013 World’s. Before we get started, here is a video of George clean and jerking a Canadian senior record of 226kg at the 2013 Canadian Championships Getting started & Georgia 1. With First Pull, I have many goals, but one of them has always been to promote Canadian Weightlifting. Now, I can say that I have interviewed the two best lifters of Canada, you and Christine Girard. So, thank you so much George for taking the time to answer my questions. I think that you actually started weightlifting in Georgia. How old were you when you started and how did you get started? It was my father who introduced me to weightlifting. A thing has to be said right away, my father, Jimsher Kobaladze, was a huge man and physically very strong. Even though he wasn’t a professional athlete, he was lifting some impressive weights back then and a lot of people admired him. So growing up, I really looked up to my father who accompanied my first steps into weightlifting. Then one day my father called a well-known weightlifting coach based in Ckhinvali (Georgia) Ivane Grikurov. I still remember that telephone conversation, Grikurov was mentioning the talent of one of his new disciples, and the fact that he could already predict great results. I guess my father was very impressed because the following day we got to the gym in Ckhinvali. That is when serious training started. I was 13 years old. 2. Kakhi Kakhiashvili is Georgian as well, but lifted for Greece. Was he a role model that made you want to train in weightlifting as well? If not, did you have anybody you were looking up to? Kakhi Kakhiashvili was a role model for many athletes, including me. He is a remarkable weightlifter and a very nice person. I feel really lucky I could train with an athlete of his caliber. I can say that I had the chance to learn from quite a few extremely talented lifters. When I started training in that gym, there were at least five or six athletes able to lift 200 kilos and more. 3. Who coached you over there? How did the training sessions planned by that coach look like? I trained under Avtandil Gahokidze and the national team coach was Ivane Grikurov, both very experienced people. Our regular training sessions consisted of two exercises developing the technique followed by pulls and squats. Then we built on frequency: we trained twice per day, nine to ten training sessions per week, less intensity on Thursdays and Sundays off. As for the individual training plan, it depended on each athlete’s needs. 4. When I interviewed Norik Vardanian, he said that in Armenia, the training atmosphere is extremely serious and goofing around is not tolerated. Was it the same in your Gym in Georgia? When we were in preparations for a competition and there were only a few weeks left, the atmosphere was really serious because that was the stage when we were lifting heavy weights. But the rest of the time, training atmosphere was more relaxed. 5. As you got started, what was the emphasis of your training? I came to weightlifting after having practiced other sports (soccer, boxing…). So the aim was to take advantage of skills and strengths acquired in those sports and transfer them into basic strengths for weightlifting. We focused on technical segments, on lifts, on snatch and clean-and-jerk movement. 6. Georgia was part of the URSS, starting from 1921. Weightlifting was such a popular sport in the Soviet Union, with many athletes receiving Order of Lenin medals for instance. They developed a specific method for weightlifting (that varied a bit amongst coaches) and introduced many ideas for sport training such as periodization, long term athletic development, sport classes (Master of sports, etc.) As you got started in weightlifting in Georgia, did you feel the soviet influence in the methods and ways of training? You sound better informed in all kind of medals of the soviet era than I am. Frankly speaking, for me, it was rather the transition following Georgia’s independence that marked my sports career and life over all. Times were tough, everything was to be rebuilt, including infrastructures in sports. Endless issues had a significant impact on training and competition. Just to mention an example, finding a heated gym was a reason for happiness those days. Was there a soviet influence on our training system? Yes, definitely. Our coaches were all soviet school disciples. On the other hand, were our coaches able to make that implemented system work in those conditions and were athletes really able advance in that transition context? 7. Following this, how is technique seen (what makes it good or bad) and taught in Georgia? People believe when you master the good technique, you are able to lift much heavier weights, and the opposite with the bad technique. The good technique is probably the one displayed on different pictures that surround us on our gym walls plus all the movements that are adapted differently by each of us. No need to reinvent the wheel, because in every country we have the knowledge of how to do the good movement. Besides, I have already seen elite athletes who had not exactly a perfect technique, but they showed strong performance in world competition due to other factors, like a strong will. Current training 8. I know you are presently training full time. But there were times after immigrating to Canada when you had to work in the day and train at night. Was it hard to mix work and training like that? It is clear that it was not possible to show a great performance in sports while combining work and training. At that point, my goal was just to keep in shape. On the other side, coming to the gym after work, was a big necessity for me, in the weightlifting hall I felt like at home. It reminded me to my father who told me once that he was coming to the weightlifting gym to relax. That’s the stage in my life when I discovered that my father and I had many things in common. 9. When comparing Canada and Georgia, what would you say are the biggest differences in training/programming, equipment quality and training atmosphere? When I was still in Georgia, we had to train with the equipment inherited from the soviet times. Barbells passed through repairs quite often, but we continued using them. Nowadays gyms are much better equipped. Eleiko and Werksan barbells have replaced the old ones. Training conditions have changed a lot. As for differences in training, I would say that Georgian young lifters are taught at a very early stage a lot of variations of technical exercises, which, in my mind, helps to decrease the injury potential later. 10. Many coaches in Quebec really stress the importance of competitions. Often, a new athlete just starting has to compete at the following regional or club competitions. Was it like that in Georgia as well? Back then funding was scarce and it was not possible to organize too many competitions. Our coaches tried to do their best to make us compete, our gym was being turned into competition site and we could not be happier! Competitions are important, they motivate the athlete to progress. It allows to build-up confidence. It starts with a small competition in the gym where you train, you go on with regional or club competitions and then one day you are selected for the nationals or the world championships. 11. We have many hard working athletes in Quebec. Many women lifters are slowly approaching World’s caliber (or are there) and male lifters like Pascal Plamondon are doing pretty well. What do you think we are lacking that would improve our international rankings? Or, put another way, what do you think would help us improve our rankings? At the Pan American championships that will be held before the Olympic Games in Rio we will have a stronger male lifters team than we had at the 2012 Pan American championships previous to London Games. Yes, definitely we have many talented male and female lifters and I hope the male team will win at least one quota place for the 2016 Games! To have these results improved, we need more support, including media support. We need to exchange experience with athletes and coaches coming from countries where weightlifting is very popular. Our medals in international competitions should bring more funding and then funding is going to lead to more medals and improved world rankings. 12. You are now coaching if I’m not mistaken. How do you enjoy it? How do you see the coaching process? Finally, what do you put emphasis on in your coaching and programming? I enjoy coaching a lot actually and I am very glad that I have the chance to coach. My disciples are young lifters, members of the club Géants de Montréal. My goal is to teach them the basics through different exercises and physical activities. Even though I focus on making them enjoy the sport first of all, I also teach them technical movements. I hope to open my own weightlifting club one day and share my experience and skills with young athletes who will be able to make Olympic dreams come true. And here is George doing 1 power clean + 1 front squat + 2 Jerks with 200kg Goals and competitions 13. You have been lifting for a long time. At the 2009 World’s, you totaled 378kg. At the 2011 World’s, you added a few kg by totaling 389kg. Last World’s, in 2013, you totaled 397kg. Although you are getting close the 40 years old mark, you still improve steadily years after years. Considering most people’s total tend to lower as they age and yours is actually going up, I think it’s amazing. What do you attribute your improvements to? I went through a very long recovery period after an injury I had many years ago. I did not want to accept that I would never be able to practice my sport again. I started training again, barbells were much lighter than they used to be before my injury, but I persisted and results started going up slowly. I want to thank my spouse for being a very supportive person and always believe in me. My four-year old son, Luca, is the greatest gift I could have wished for. So I can say without any doubt that it is my family that motivates me to continue and make progress. 14. What is your training plan and frequency like at the moment? We are at the beginning of March, there are about 3 weeks left until the first competition of the year (La Classique Haltérophile Québecoise, March 29). I enter the final stage of preparations, I lower volume and focus on heavy weights. 15. What’s your goal total for the 2014 Commonwealth Games? I aim for the gold medal at the 2014 Commonwealth and I don’t think too much about the total. Maybe because like many other athletes I am a little bit superstitiousJ. 16. Every time I have seen you at a competition, I have always been amazed by how calm and focused you are. What’s going on in your head come competition day? It has been 24 years that I am practicing this sport and I would dare say that is a good experience. But honestly, I am still stressed out at every competition as if it were my first one. 17. Diet wise, what is the diet of a 105+kg lifter like? Let’s put it this way: I never skip breakfast, lunch or dinner! I am also careful about my sugar intake. 18. What do you think of my efforts with First Pull to promote and discuss weightlifting? I congratulate you for the initiative of creating this site and for promoting weightlifting. As you know there is not much media coverage for this sport in Canada. We probably need more similar initiatives so that people can learn about our efforts, results in competitions and upcoming events. Thank you for being interested in my sports career. I am very grateful for the opportunity you offered me to share my thoughts and experience with a larger audience. 19. Thanks again for doing this interview. It is well appreciated. Do you have any final words? I wish all the athletes to achieve their dreams. Best of luck to our weightlifters and that their efforts pay off. I also want to encourage people to come and cheer our Canadian weightlifters at regional and national competitions. |
A brother kidnapped, a hometown lost. PBA Asian import Michael Madanly flees war-torn Syria and dreams to rebuild again Published 7:19 PM, June 13, 2015 MANILA, Philippines – Unlike every other Filipino living in the Metro, the capital’s ungodly traffic does not bother Syrian basketball player Michael Madanly. In fact he sees a beauty in it, because it achingly reminds him of home. “Everything is close,” he said of Manila, a bustling metropolis 5,285 miles away from his hometown of Aleppo in Syria. “Even the traffic, even the way they drive.” Madanly, 34, is the Asian import of the NLEX Road Warriors in the Philippine Basketball Association, a veteran swingman who made a name for himself in the 2007 FIBA Asia Championship as the leading scorer. Emerging from the shower rooms one afternoon after a light practice, the 6-foot-4 Madanly called back to one of his NLEX teammates inside and said goodbye. He said his hellos to the utility staff cleaning up. It was clear he was quite comfortable here. What many locals complain about in this country, Madanly appreciates. And what is generally good, seems even better. More importantly, the food favors his palate. “Our country is very similar to the Philippines and everything like food is good,” he said. “Even those bad things are the same.” Memories are all Madanly has left of Aleppo. One of the oldest cities in the world and the largest in Syria, Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has descended into destruction and war between various rebel groups, including terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS. The ancient city where Madanly grew up and fell in love with basketball was one of the first to fall when the rebels came to seize control in 2012. He does not know if he will ever see it stand again. “Before 2011 everything was great. My country was one of the best countries in all of the world – safe, secure. I would never think to leave the country before,” Madanly recalled a happier, peaceful time. “I’m the best player [in Syria] since 2003, I was the MVP there. So they treated me like a foreigner, not as a local. I was happy with my hometown, living there. The atmosphere was nice. The fans are like a family there. Our team is a champion. I had everything there.” Then without warning, it all turned into a nightmare the country has yet to wake from to this day. “After 2011, after the war started there, I thought something bad is gonna come,” he recalled. “I had a vision that this has never happened before. We started seeing something really weird things like kidnappings, killings. Stuff we never faced before.” Brother for ransom Watching sparingly from a safe distance, it is sometimes too easy for most of the world to overlook the ravaging wars in the Middle East. But for Madanly, the war hit too close to home to simply ignore. “My brother was also kidnapped,” he shared, “in the beginning, for 10 days.” With mounting threats to peace looming in 2011, Madanly left Syria and his lucrative 7-year contract with the Al-Jalaa Club he grew up with for a stint in the Chinese Basketball Association, or CBA. His parents and his brother stayed behind, but not for long. Terrorists held his brother captive during the intial wave of attacks. Madanly said there was no particular reason why his brother, a manager at a factory then and with no military or government ties, was taken. Likely, Madanly rued, it was because of their faith. “We are Christian and this revolution has a very, very Islamic face. We Christians are the minority there,” he explained. “If you read about it or if you go to Syria you will see this is Islamic terrorists revolution, it’s not human revolution, it’s not for freedom, it’s not for democracy. It’s for getting Islamic State,” Madanly further lamented, his frustration layering every word. “We are the target, the Christians are a big target for them. Either they kill us or we have to convert to be like them, or we have to pay money to them every time. Like taxes to stay alive.” Madanly’s family paid his brother’s ransom and quickly fled after that, leaving all of their possessions, real estate, and their entire life behind. “They said it was a revolution but it’s not a revolution,” he said. “It’s a bunch of terrorists that we’ve never seen in the country. The whole country was very secure and very safe, now you see people there carrying guns.” PBA Asian import Michael Madanly shares his dream for his home Aleppo, Syria. He escaped just as the terrorists came pic.twitter.com/LBefAkU1gr — Jane Bracher (@janebracher) June 13, 2015 Refuge in basketball Once Madanly set foot in China, it was non-stop international play for him. The prolific scorer saw action for 3 teams in the CBA, the most recent one being the Jilin Northeast Tigers. Madanly propelled Jilin from 16th place all the way to 5th in the 2014-2015 season of the CBA – where only the bottom 6 of the 20 teams are allowed to have Asian imports – before making his way to the PBA. As unrest continues to rattle his home country, there is refuge in basketball. “Basketball is my life. I’ve played basketball since I was 9 years old with the same Al-Jalaa team,” Madanly shared. Basketball was not Madanly’s first sport. He came knocking on the Al-Jalaa Club’s door as a child saying he wanted to play football, the most popular sport in Syria. But Al-Jalaa had only basketball teams, so Madanly made the switch. It was a blessing in disguise on many levels. He excelled in the sport and won multiple championships both for Al-Jalaa and the Army team, for which he played 3 years as a form of mandatory military service. He also represented Syria with the national team. “The hunger for the game and love for the game is what’s making me wake up and wait for sunrise to come and be excited for practice,” Madanly spoke of his daily motivation. “This game grew up with me every day. [I’ve been] playing for 23 years.” The war has also taken its toll on the sport Madanly loves, with Al-Jalaa’s arena, gym and other facilities destroyed. Most of the clubs from other cities have also shut down as terrorists invaded. The Syrian League has been cut down to size, as is the national team, which lost its chance to play at this year’s FIBA Asia Championship in China. “In some cities the situation is good like in the capital Damascus, the situation is perfect,” Madanly explained. “They also have teams there and they’re playing. So they’re making a league in Damascus City only. It’s a very, very small league. Just to keep basketball alive.” Madanly is far away from home, but he hopes basketball can somehow spur peace. And like the average kid escaping a troubled life, he finds a semblance of comfort on a basketball court – no matter where it is. “My whole feelings from inside change when I come to the basketball court, doing the thing I love to do,” he said. “It’s the love for the game.” Search for a new home After surviving the kidnapping, Madanly’s brother flew to California, while his parents are now based in Amsterdam. When they fled, none of them considered it would be for good. “When I first left I thought it was only going to be for a couple of months, but it’s been 4 years,” said Madanly, who also recalled being told the war would last 10 years. With the way things are playing out in Syria and as ISIS and other terrorist groups continue to rise, the chances of returning home look slim. “Everything,” Madanly responded when asked what he misses most about Syria. “It’s home, it’s where you lived your life. All the memories, all the great times, bad times, everything was there. I miss everything.” “I want to go home so bad. But I can’t,” he said almost desperately. But the harsh truth is “there’s no sense to go back” for Madanly because there is nobody left. His family and friends are all scattered across the globe, seeking refuge in other nations. “I’m not happy. I’m okay. Still thinking, watching the news and seeing what’s going on,” said Madanly, who shuttles between Amsterdam and Lebanon during offseasons. “We watch the news, contacting our friends and making sure they are okay.” After having his life unexpectedly and forcibly uprooted, Madanly is in search of a place to build once again. “We want to have kids,” he bared the dream he and his wife have. “But the last 4 years was very complicated. We kept moving around. We have two bags that we keep packing every 6 months and we go to a different country. It’s tough to have kids for us.” There is hope in Amsterdam, however, with Madanly’s parents there. But in just a few months, he finds there might also be hope here. “Me and my wife were talking about it last night,” Madanly shared. “We were saying we can live forever in the Philippines. It’s like home. It’s like very, very close to our country.” Manila, to Madanly, is seemingly the second coming of Aleppo, the home he lost and will probably never get back. “I’ve been to the United States and in Europe, we do not like those disciplined places,” he said thoughtfully. “We want it here. The chaos. The way you guys live, you go out every day. There is life.” – Rappler.com |
Written by: Dan When it comes to my emotions, I try not to show them publicly too often, but nonetheless, I’m an emotional guy. I don’t necessarily believe in gender roles, and I certainly don’t believe that men shouldn’t be brought to tears. In fact, at my co-writer Pat’s wedding this past June, I shamelessly let my eyes well up watching him and his beautiful bride’s eyes lock on to each others and the love they shared for each other at that moment was just beautiful. When I was moving to go to Penn State, I knew it was going to be a bitch. I’m very close with my family and the lump had been growing in the back of my throat for weeks in advance. The day of the move, I got in the back of my parents’ car and had already said goodbye to my brother and sister, my sister-in-law, my two nephews (I now have four) and, perhaps the toughest of them all, my dog. So yeah I was already a wreck. I brought my college football kickoff edition of ESPN the Magazine and started reading an article about Georgia State starting up its football program. I can still remember reading about Bill Curry taking over as the head coach, the Samoan Muasau brothers who were once homeless playing together, the Alabama transfer, QB Star Jackson. All of these interesting individuals converging in Atlanta to join a start-up football team in the FCS. For the half hour or so that it took me to read the article, of the 3.5 hour drive from Erie to State College, it took me away from the feeling of impending doom of leaving my family. Of course, it didn’t take long to get over missing them. I still jumped at the opportunity to see them every month-six weeks, but my time at Penn State was invaluable for a myriad of reasons. My current “Good old days”, that I so often wish I could go back to. A turn around that at the time of moving in, I never expected. Just like that Georgia State team I read about that day – unexpected. After a 6-5 season in 2010, the Panthers of Georgia State got progressively worse. 3-8 in 2011, 1-10 in 2012, 0-12 in its first season in the FBS in 2013 and 1-11 in 2014. Last season, Georgia State pulled in six UAB transfers when its football program inexplicably folded, and then restarted within six months. Many felt the first game of the season would show them a lot, when they played another new FBS addition, Charlotte, and the Panthers lost 23-20. After its first game in November, Georgia State was 2-6, with wins against New Mexico State and Ball State, both bottom 10% FPI teams and an embarrassing loss to FCS Liberty. Then the unexpected happened. Three big wins in a row against Texas State, South Alabama and Troy, and a gigantic win over 21 point favorite rival, Georgia Southern. In its third year in the FBS, Georgia State reached a bowl game. The Panthers went on to lose the Autonation Cure Bowl to San Jose State, but going from startup FCS program, to FBS doormats, to a 2-6 team in November that could have easily packed it in, to turn it around and make a bowl game shows a shit ton of grit. Now, head coach Trent Miles has a bigger job on his hands, sustaining. The Panthers get a ton of quality experience back this season, 17 starters and experienced depth from 2015. But they lose their best player in quarterback Nick Arbuckle, who was at times phenomenal last season going for 63.2%/4,368/28/12 and added six touchdowns on the ground. Now it will be up to Miles and offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski (Yes that Jeff Jagodzinski), to find a capable replacement, but the pickin’s are slim experience-wise. Four quarterbacks are all vying for the gig, and among them is a combined 2/14, completion/attempt ratio. Last season’s top backup, sophomore Emiere Scaife, attempted eight passes and completed none of them in garbage time last season. Scaife is a big-bodied pro-style QB. Obviously, Scaife going 0/8 does anything but guarantee him the starting nod this season, and three other options are competing. Utah grad transfer, Conner Manning has two years of eligibility still, but earned next to no game reps at Utah, playing behind four-year starter Travis Wilson. Manning went 2/6 for 28 yards and an interception in his only game action in 2014 when Utah was getting throttled by Arizona, but he at least has the last name going for him. Another transfer, junior Brett Sheehan from South Alabama, is eligible after sitting out in 2015. And redshirt freshman, Aaron Winchester is a dual-threat. Quarterback is a competition I expect to go deep into the summer, but goodness, whoever can claim the spot has a huge luxury of a ton at his arsenal. Georgia State loved throwing the ball last season, throwing 496 times, good for 20th in the country. Running the ball however, was a different story as the Panthers only ran the ball 407 times for 1,260 yards, which ranked 126th. Without Arbuckle, the Panthers would be wise to run the ball a lot more, and they certainly have options. Four running backs, each of which had at least 49 carries, but none had more than 89 return to the roster this season. Behind a line that returns three starters, and another tackle with starts under his belt, you can absolutely expect the four backs to carry more of a load this season. An inexperienced QB’s best friend is a seasoned receiver, and Georgia State returns four of its top five receivers from last season, including sophomore Penny Hart who had a phenomenal freshman season last year of 71/1099/8 and senior Robert Davis who went for 61/980/6. Senior tight end Keith Rucker returns after a 39/522/6 as does junior Todd Boyd 25/296/2. Whoever wins the quarterback battle will certainly have the luxury of a good, experienced receiving corps. The defense, returns a lot of starters and experience from 2015. It struggled to keep the offense within striking range much of the season, until November rolled around and it only let up 17.8 points a game. If the defense can build off of November and keep the momentum going, there’s a ton of pieces to keep an eye on, and each unit has playmakers. Though the defense does lose its best player, linebacker Joseph Peterson, the defense was good against the run last season and has enough experience behind him, they shouldn’t notice too much. The front 7 will absolutely have to do better at getting to the quarterback, as they only registered 18 sacks and 14 QB hurries last season. The secondary let up a good amount of yards last season, but a lot of that can be contributed to the opposing quarterback having a lot of time in the pocket. That said, the secondary was very opportunistic getting their paws on 36 passes, and coming down with 14 interceptions. Losing safety Tarris Batiste (83 tackles, 6 pass breakups, 4 interceptions, 6.5 tackles for loss) and corner Bruce Dukes (9 pass breakups, 1 interception) combines for the biggest unit hit on the team in 2016. But again, if the pass rush can get to the quarterback, and it should more often, a big weight will be off the secondary’s shoulders, and there are still playmakers in this unit. The season will revolve around quarterback play. The defense should improve from a season that was rough for the first seven weeks last year, but still managed to rank 5th in the Sun Belt for yards allowed over the season in 2015. And from the vast experience coming back, the Panthers absolutely should improve on defense. The beginning of the season isn’t easy, and an opening game home win against Ball State is almost needed, because the next three weeks are all away at Air Force, Wisconsin and Appalachian State. From there, the Panthers should see a favorable spread in the rest of the matchups, minus Georgia Southern, but most of those are toss-ups. |
In 1940, the anthropologists Jane Richardson and Alfred Kroeber examined pictures of catalogues, magazines, and drawings dating back to the 1600s in an attempt to find trends in the cuts and styles of women’s dresses. What they produced were fascinating graphs of evolving social mores, with periods of plunging necklines quickly succeeded by buttoned-up decades of modesty, and vice-versa. One particularly entertaining chart shows generally Amish-length skirts throughout history — save for a racy, rapid shortening during the libidinous 1920s. Skirt lengths by decade, from 1600 to 1940. (Richardson and Kroeber) In 1976, University of Washington economist Dwight E. Robinson sought to apply the same technique to fashion trends in the opposite sex—specifically, in men's “facial barbering.” For the study, published in the American Journal of Sociology, he examined the period between 1842 and 1972, the years of continuous weekly publication of the Illustrated London News. Since this was the “world’s most venerable pictorial news magazine,” it would serve as his sole source. With the acknowledgement that the “gentlemen of the News” were largely limited to prominent members of society, he set about counting the frequency with which five different facial hair styles appeared: sideburns alone, sideburns and mustache, a beard (“any amount of whiskers centering on the chin,” in case you were confused), mustache alone, and clean-shaven. He excluded pictures of royalty, models, and non-Europeans, and gathered about 100 images for each year. |
(Reuters photo: Jonathan Ernst) To the very end, President Obama opted for giving a grandiose speech. Barack Obama formally ended his presidency the way he came in, talking to adoring fans about how lucky we are to have him in our lives. Indeed, given the hand-wringing over how Obama’s successor is all about entertainment and theatrics, it was somewhere between ironic and absurd to watch the outgoing president hold a campaign rally for his “farewell address.” Advertisement Advertisement And yet, we’ve become so inured to this kind of self-serving pomp and circumstance that no one seems to care. From what I can tell, no liberal commentators minded at all, and most conservative reviewers went straight to the substance — or lack thereof — of Obama’s remarks. I’ll get to that. But it’s worth pointing out the gaudy grotesquerie of the spectacle, because it highlights not only how low we have sunk but the depths to which we may yet plunge, given how Obama helped further transform the presidency into a totem in the culture wars. The first presidential farewell address, and the standard for all to follow, was given by George Washington. It was “given,” not delivered, in that it was written out and published as a letter to the American people in the American Daily Advertiser under the title “The Address of General Washington to the People of the United States on his declining the Presidency of the United States.” Advertisement EDITORIAL: No, You Didn’t Advertisement James Madison helped write the first draft toward the end of Washington’s first term. When Washington decided to run for a second term, it was put aside. When he opted not to run for a third term, he gave it to Alexander Hamilton to revise. With a bullpen of writers like that, it’s no wonder that Washington’s farewell ranks among the great works of literary statecraft, but the most remarkable thing about it was that it was given at all. To voluntarily relinquish power — power Washington never wanted in the first place — for the benefit of democracy was one of the most radical acts of political humility in history. During the Revolutionary War, King George III asked the American painter Benjamin West what Washington would do if he won independence for the colonies. West replied, “They say he will return to his farm.” Advertisement RELATED: Obama’s Last Lament George was stunned: “If he does that,” the king replied, “he will be the greatest man in the world.” Advertisement Few presidents dared to invite comparisons to Washington until the populist egotist Andrew Jackson opted to write his own letter to the American people. It was the longest presidential farewell ever, coming in at more than 8,000 words. Of course, the era of radio and television necessitated — or created the perception of necessity — that presidents address the people directly. Whether that amounted to progress is for others to decide. But until Obama, it never occurred to a president to deliver a televised farewell address from anywhere but some dignified official venue (mostly the Oval Office, but sometimes the House chamber or even West Point). Obama, who has said he’d love to run for a third term if he weren’t barred from doing so (thanks to FDR’s flouting the Washingtonian tradition of serving only two terms, forcing Congress to amend the Constitution), went a different way. He did the next best thing and held a campaign rally as if he were running again. Obama is never more comfortable than when he’s in front of an audience that already agrees with him and shares his stunning self-regard, which helps explain why his was the longest televised presidential farewell ever. The whole speech seemed written to be the final chapter of The Collected Speeches of Barack Obama, which is why he concluded by referencing his 2008 “Yes We Can” speech. Advertisement #related#No wonder the substance of Obama’s farewell was a high-flown rehash of his greatest hits. He spoke again of Congress being “dysfunctional” in the abstract, but what he surely meant is that Congress isn’t working properly when it declines to do what he wants it to do. Hence the insinuation that disagreement with his views on climate change is contrary to the “spirit” of America and the Enlightenment. He called for a “new social compact” that was indistinguishable from his legislative agenda and insisted that the essence of democracy is the commitment “that we rise or fall as one.” That is not the spirit of democracy at all; it’s the spirit of the “tribalism” and “nationalism” he’s come to disparage. But that has always been the spirit of Obamaism. When people agree with him, that’s democracy working. When democracy rejects his counsel, that’s the bitter Bible-clingers rejecting the better angel of his nature. Editor’s Note: The original version of this column incorrectly stated that “until Obama, it never occurred to a president to deliver a televised address from anywhere but the Oval Office.” See Jonah Goldberg’s correction, here. |
Gov. Paul LePage told a Boston-based radio talk show host Monday night that he is considering running against U.S. Sen. Angus King in 2018. It was difficult to determine whether LePage, Maine’s Republican governor, was serious when he was asked by Howie Carr, a well-known conservative radio talk show host, if he was going to run against King, an independent. “After his real profile in courage, I’m considering it,” LePage told Carr. When asked to elaborate on his response, LePage said it was a reference to King’s switching his political support from independent Eliot Cutler to Democrat Mike Michaud late in last fall’s gubernatorial race. “I just thought it was a horrible thing to do,” LePage said in the interview. LePage’s comment came near the end of a 17-minute interview with Carr that touched on a wide range of topics, including whether his siblings voted for him in the last gubernatorial election. Asked if the governor was serious about a possible run for the Senate, Brent Littlefield, LePage’s political strategist and adviser during the 2014 gubernatorial campaign, did not directly answer the question. “Howie Carr is a successful author and entertainer. The governor is focused on economic growth, jobs and prosperity through a lower tax burden in Maine,” Littlefield said. Scott Ogden, a spokesman for King, said the senator was unavailable for comment Monday night. In Monday’s radio interview, LePage joked with Carr as they touched on multiple topics. When asked if he thought he was the most conservative governor in the United States, LePage replied, “Oh, I think so.” LePage, in response to another question, said he has not spoken to Michaud since the November election, but said he has spoken with Cutler. “We exchanged notes. I think Eliot is a pretty bright guy,” LePage said. Carr, who grew up in Portland, asked the governor if any of his siblings who still live in Maine – he is the oldest of 18 children – voted for him in November. “I doubt it,” LePage said. Share |
coming home at noon on a crappy, rainy, san francisco day, i wasn't expecting much. got out of the uber pool car and instantly got splashed by a passing car. great. open my gate and look forward to getting out of my wet jeans, i see a package with yellow tape all over and in my head go... "now what?" i guessed it was from my reddit secret santa and, yep, it was! and the best part? it came from a fellow maker of things. there's nothing better than receiving a gift made by hand from someone who also appreciates people who make things by hand. so here it is, u/simsalapim... your gift of a star-map-wall-lamp-something, proudly displayed on my home office wall, under my calvin and hobbes paintings. |
Syrian President Bashar Assad, shown on Aug. 31 in Damascus, is said to be confident that the U.S. and its allies will soon seek his partnership in an international coalition against terrorism. (Sana/EPA) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s hold on power is looking less certain than his recent assertions of victory suggest, as America snubs his appeals for a partnership, Islamic State militants inflict defeats on his troops and his own Alawite constituency shows signs of growing discontent. Far from looking invincible, the man who blamed terrorists for the rebellion against him instead is at risk of being cast as the leader under whose watch they flourished and who now can’t do anything to check — much in the way Iraqi leader Nouri al-Maliki was held to account for the fall of the city of Mosul. The shift does not appear to have registered with Assad, who remains confident, his supporters say, that the United States and its allies will soon be forced to seek his partnership in an international coalition against terrorism. President Obama is expected to spell out his own strategy for confronting the Islamic State in a speech Wednesday that will prioritize Iraq, seemingly deferring yet again any effort to confront the mess that Syria’s war has become and leaving Assad in place for the foreseeable future. Neither the Islamic State militants concentrated in the north and east of Syria nor the more moderate, Western-backed rebels pose any immediate military threat to Assad’s grip on power. Iran and Russia show no signs of wavering in their support for his regime. It seems that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s boasts are more shaky and his approach may be about to backfire. (AP) Yet there is also a growing recognition in Washington and allied capitals that the breathtaking militant gains require a broader approach to the underlying grievances that fueled their ascent, U.S. officials and diplomats say, refocusing attention on Assad’s role in the brutal suppression of the Sunni-dominated revolt against his rule. In the weeks since Assad’s triumphant claim that he had prevailed over his foes after his victory in tightly controlled elections, his boasts seem more shaky and his approach may be about to backfire. A string of humiliating defeats inflicted on the Syrian army in the northeastern province of Raqqah last month suggested that Assad, like many in the region and beyond, had underestimated the gathering strength of the former al-Qaeda affiliate. The Syrian government refrained from confronting the Islamic State throughout its year-long rise to power, which conveniently sustained the narrative that extremism was the only alternative, according to Syrians who speak regularly to members of the regime. The three bases lost in the fighting had little strategic value, but the manner of the defeat jolted Assad’s supporters. Scores of captured soldiers seized from one base were dragged through the desert in their underwear before being shot. About 50 officers from another were beheaded, their severed heads spiked on poles and their decapitated bodies strewn around the streets of the city of Raqqah for pedestrians to step over and film with their cellphones, according to videos posted on YouTube. The images of the captured Syrian soldiers have triggered a rare eruption of outrage among Alawites, the minority sect to which Assad belongs — directed as much at Assad as at the perpetrators. Several Facebook pages have sprung up expressing Alawite unhappiness with Assad, mostly for being too soft on his opponents. Five Alawites have been detained for their involvement in the dissent, but the pages have continued. One, called Where Are They, focuses on Alawites who have disappeared during the fighting and whom the regime is accused of making scant effort to locate. “We will no longer trade our blood in order for you to keep your rusting chair,” said one of the postings on the page, addressing Assad. “You cannot close our mouths. We have had enough.” Alawites are not about to join the overwhelmingly Sunni opposition and see no obvious alternative to the current regime, said Joshua Landis, a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma. “There is a lot of anger. The massacres in Raqqah were very humiliating and depressing,” he said. “This is not tantamount to the collapse of the regime. It is not an Alawite revolt.” But the complaints speak to a growing awareness of the conundrum in which Alawites find themselves as the war drags on. Having backed Assad steadfastly throughout the rebellion, they have no choice but to stand by him or risk annihilation at the hands of an ever more radicalized Sunni force that regards their faith as pagan. The fate of the Yazidis in Iraq resonates, Landis said. However, Alawites have also paid a heavy price in blood for their loyalty and see no end in sight to the war that Assad insisted he was winning. At least 110,000 members of the security forces and the local militias created to support them have been killed since the rebellion began, a disproportionate number of them Alawite, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The minority sect, loosely affiliated with the Shiite branch of Islam and concentrated in the mountains along Syria’s northwestern coast, comprises 10 to 12 percent of the country’s pre-war population of 24 million. If the casualty figures are true, it is the equivalent of the United States losing 9 million of its men. There is no family that has not lost a son, and some have lost more. Towns and villages are strung with portraits of the dead. At funerals, which take place daily, tales of furious encounters between government officials and grieving relatives are commonplace, said Maher Esber, a Beirut-based activist with Syria’s minority Shiite community. “There’s a sense of desperation. The regime tells them it is winning but on the contrary we are getting into a worse situation with no sign of light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. The concerns of the families illuminate another looming reality for the Assad regime, as the war, far from winding down, seems merely to be entering a new and potentially more dangerous phase. After three years of fighting, the army is depleted and tired. Assad is indebted to local militias trained and funded by Iran, as well as to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, for his government’s most important victories. Many of the Iraqi Shiite militias who also helped have gone home to fight the Sunni extremists on their own turf. The government sustains its efforts to repress the rebellion by bombing communities that oppose it from afar, further fueling the grievances that enabled extremism to thrive. Even if the United States wanted to partner with Assad to defeat the extremists, “it’s not clear what he would bring to the table,” said Jeff White, a defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “What we’re seeing is the overall, uneven degradation of the regular military forces,” he said. “They’re becoming less and less capable over time.” That is partly why Syria is so eager to join forces with the United States in the international coalition that Obama is seeking to build against the Islamic State A new strategy has been adopted under which the Syrian government intends to focus its energies only on retaking areas it is capable of holding, according to Salem Zahran, who runs a pro-government news organization and regularly meets with members of the regime. Meanwhile, it is counting on U.S. support to eventually help it retake the parts of the country it can’t defend, he said. “There will be a second phase of the strategy, in Raqqa, which will take place in cooperation with America,” he predicted. But Obama has indicated that he has no intention of partnering with Assad, stressing instead the need for an increase in support for Syria’s moderate rebels. “I don’t see any scenario in which Assad somehow is able to bring peace and stability to a region that is majority-Sunni and has not so far shown any willingness to share power with them,” Obama told reporters late last month. Western diplomats say the bigger policy debate is not over whether to cooperate with the Syrian president but how to increase pressure on him to compromise when he believes he has become indispensable. A new U.N. envoy, Staffan de Mistura, is expected to visit Damascus this week in an attempt to revive the failed Geneva peace process, which is aimed at negotiating a transition away from Assad’s rule, U.S. officials say. But Assad feels that his position is stronger than ever, now that the Islamic State’s ascent has proved to the world that he was right about the threat posed by terrorists, according to Zahran. “The regime believes what Obama is saying is just for media consumption,” he said. “After he called for the fall of the criminal regime, he can’t turn round completely and cooperate with Assad. But in time he will. He will have no choice.” Suzan Haidamous contributed from Beirut. |
Isabella d’Este giovane in un ritratto di Tiziano del 1534. Nella mano sinistra si intravede un piccolo libro (The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202 / DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH) Il 22 aprile 1516 – mezzo millennio fa – a Ferrara fu pubblicata la prima edizione dell’Orlando furioso di Ludovico Ariosto ed erano dieci anni che a corte se ne parlava. Ariosto era stato abile ad alimentare l’attesa – aveva creato molto hype, si direbbe oggi – rifiutandosi di fornire altre anticipazioni o di fare sbirciare il suo lavoro dopo avere ingolosito Isabella d’Este, che era una grande lettrice, leggendogliene di persona alcune parti per un paio di giorni. Proprio una lettera della marchesa Isabella al fratello don Ippolito datata 3 febbraio 1507 è la prima testimonianza certa che messer Ludovico stava lavorando al poema: La ringracio de la visitacione et particularmente di havermi mandato il dicto m. Ludovico per che, ultra che ‘l me sia stato accetto, ripresentando la persona di S. V. R. ma, luy anche per conto suo mi ha adduta gran statisfactione, avendomi con la narratione de l’opera che’l compone, factomi passar questi dui giorni, non solum senza fastidio, ma cum piacere grandissimo. Due anni dopo Ariosto continua a preparare il successo, facendo girare a corte, ma con discrezione e solo ai suoi mecenati, il poema che nel frattempo è cresciuto e ha quasi preso la forma di un libro. In un biglietto del 5 luglio 1509 il duca di Ferrara Alfonso d’Este chiede al fratello – sempre don Ippolito d’Este, cardinale della città – di mandargli «quella gionta che fece m. Lud. co Ariosto a L’Innamoramento d’Orlando». La gionta era la prima stesura dell’Orlando furioso, inizialmente concepito proprio come aggiunta all’Orlando innamorato di Matteo Maria Boiardo, molto popolare in quegli anni e rimasto incompiuto per la morte dell’autore. Il poema inizia infatti dalla fine del poema di Boiardo, uno dei primi ad avere messo in forma di libro il racconto delle gesta dei paladini di Francia che circolavano da decenni nelle città del nord Italia attraverso i racconti e le canzoni di menestrelli e saltimbanchi. Il successo dell’Orlando di Boiardo aveva aumentato la voglia di sapere come andava a finire. Proprio come sarebbe accaduto nell’Ottocento con i feuilletton e accade oggi con le serie tv, il piccolo embrionale pubblico delle corti della Pianura padana, a cui si aggiungeva un certo numero di borghesi arricchiti e alfabetizzati, aspettava con trepidazione nuovi episodi. Lo storico della letteratura Corrado Bologna scrive nel saggio Orlando furioso di Ludovico Ariosto che all’inizio del Cinquecento si assestò «un mercato più largo, raggiunto e solleticato dalla nuova industria editoriale – immediatamente smaliziata e abilissima nel far leva sull’indotto pubblicitario del mercato sempre autorigenerantesi mediante la diffusione dei libri di cavalleria. Le vicende amorose dei paladini, in testa quelle contrastate e appassionanti dell’eroe eponimo di tanti libri, Orlando, finirono per dominare il mercato per un buon quarto di secolo, da Boiardo ad Ariosto». L’abilità di un artista sta anche, e forse soprattutto, nella capacità di vendere la propria immagine e la propria opera, concedendola e negandola in modo da alimentare l’attesa. Via via che il libro prendeva forma e la pubblicazione si avvicinava, Ariosto si fece più sparagnino, negando ogni ulteriore anticipazione perfino a Francesco Gonzaga, duca di Mantova e marito di Isabella, la prima ad ascoltare qualche verso del libro. Il 14 luglio 1512 Ariosto gli scrisse una lettera diplomatica e astuta, molto simile nel tono elegante e cortese a quella con cui, oggi, uno scrittore geloso del proprio lavoro si rifiuta di fare leggere il suo libro prima che lo giudichi pronto: … me è stato fatto fatto intendere che vostra ex.tia haveria piacere de vedere un mio libro al quale già molti di (continuando l’invenzione del conte Matheo Maria Boiardo) io dedi principio. Io, bono et dedicassimo servitore de Vostra Signoria, alla prima richiesta la haveria satisfatto, et hauto de gratia che quella si fusse degnata legere le cose mie, s’el libro fusse stato in termine de poterlo mandare in man sua. Ma, oltra che il libro non sia limato né fornito anchora, come quello che è grande et ha bisogno de grande opera, è anchora scritto per modo, con infinite chiose e liture, e trasportato di qua e de là, che fora impossibile che altro che io lo legessi: e de questo la Ill. ma Signora Marchesana sua consorte me ne po’ dar fede, alla quale (quando fu a questi giorni) a Ferrara io ne lessi un poco. Passarono altri quattro anni e finalmente il libro fu stampato. Lo stampatore era Giovanni Mazzocco di Bondeno, un comune a 18 chilometri da Ferrara che Mario Soldati avrebbe definito il centro ideale della pianura Padana. Cinquantaquattro anni prima, nel 1562, a Bondeno era arrivato un tale Ulrich Pursmid, tedesco, probabilmente un allievo di Gutenberg, che aveva sottoscritto da un notaio un contratto per la produzione di opere a stampa. Nel 1464 proprio a Bondeno fu stampato il primo libro a caratteri mobili uscito in Italia, Meditazioni della Passione di Cristo Parson Scheide, ed è probabile che a Bondeno si sviluppò uno dei primi distretti editoriali italiani. Dal frontespizio è evidente però che la cura della prima edizione dell’Orlando furioso è incomparabile con quella dei libri che già due decenni prima Aldo Manuzio pubblicava a Venezia. La prima tiratura fu di 1.300 o 2 mila copie (le stime degli storici della letteratura non sono concordi). Frontespizio della prima edizione Il libro era composto da 40 canti in ottave con rima ABABABCC dedicati «allo illustrissimo e reverendissimo cardinale donno Ippolito d’Este suo signore». Donno Ippolito – che a differenza di sua sorella non amava le storie – non ne fu granché impressionato: ma il libro, ancora prima di essere letto, venne giudicato più bello di quello di Boiardo. In una lettera del 5 maggio mandata da un tal Ippolito Calandra a Federico Gonzaga, Ariosto appare mentre trasporta la prima cassa di libri dell’Orlando furioso freschi stampa. Non eri l’altro in questa terra mess. Ludovico Ariosto, gentilhomo ferrarese, quale à portato una capsa di libri la quale à composto sopra Orlando, ch’è quasi tanto volume come l’Innamoramento di Orlando, et lui l’à intitulato l’Orlando furioso, quale è un bello libro, più bello che l’Innamoramento di Orlando. Lui ne ha donato uno all’Ill.mo S.v.ro patre et uno a madama v.ra matre et uno al R.mo Cardinale; li altri li vole fare vendere. Sei anni dopo un altro Gonzaga, Francesco, che doveva avere problemi di vista e che in quel momento si trovava su un campo di battaglia, chiede allo stesso Calandra di mandargli subito una copia della seconda edizione: Hyppolito. Mandane Orlando furioso, l’Innamoramento d’Orlando et Morgante Madzor, advertendo tutti siano di bona stampa et di lettere un poco grossette et ben legibile… Dopo avere omaggiato i potenti con le prime copie, l’intenzione di Ariosto è quella di vendere e distribuire il libro, attività di cui si occupa personalmente non fidandosi degli intermediari. Nel 1520 si lamenta in una lettera di avere ricevuto soltanto 6 lire mantovane per le vendite a Verona, molto meno di quanto si aspettasse, e pretende che i libri ancora invenduti gli vengano riportati in modo da poterli spedire – quindi vendere – di persona. L’Orlando furioso diventa di moda e si diffonde anche al di fuori della pianura Padana. Alcuni atti notarili dimostrano che Ariosto, per esempio, cedette in esclusiva a un cartolaro di Ferrara cento libri per rivenderli nella zona e che incaricò il nobile genovese Lorenzo da Ponte di occuparsi delle vendite a Genova. Ariosto scrisse anche personalmente al marchese di Mantova per ottenere l’esenzione dal pagamento del dazio sulla carta sia per la seconda edizione del 1521 che per quella del 1532. Ariosto fu uno dei primi a capire l’importanza della diffusione e a intuire che esisteva un pubblico più largo di quello delle corti. Si occupò di portare il libro in altre città e di trovare nuovi canali di vendita, allargando il commercio anche ai cartolari, non solo ai librai. Stabilire il prezzo a cui il libro fu venduto è difficile, perché probabilmente non c’era un prezzo fisso e per le differenze di cambio tra le monete. Si sa però che i libri erano molto cari e che durante il Cinquecento quelli a stampa costavano quanto, e a volte di più, dei manoscritti. I libri erano così preziosi che spesso venivano impegnati al Monte dei pegni, dati a garanzia per i prestiti e pignorati in caso di mancato pagamento. Una Bibbia luterana stampata in Germania nel 1534 costava come un mese di stipendio di un operaio. Altrove si trova la notizia che un libro di diritto valeva quanto un paio di buoi. È plausibile, cioè, che un libro costasse quanto un oggi un MacBook o un iPhone. Tiziano, Ritratto di Ariosto, 1515 La seconda edizione dell’Orlando furioso fu stampata da Giovanni Battista de la Pigna di Ferrara nel 1521. Seguì una seconda ristampa di Niccolò da Gorgonzola. La tiratura – più limitata dell’edizione del 1516 – probabilmente fu intorno alle 500 copie. Conteneva 11 ottave in più e altrettante erano state cancellate, ma l’impianto era rimasto sostanzialmente inalterato. Dal 1516, per i successivi sedici anni, Ariosto non fece altro che rivedere e limare il poema, con l’obbiettivo di allargare il suo pubblico, rendendo la lingua sempre più universale. Le parole di derivazione latina o lombardo-emiliana furono sostituite una per una da parole dell’uso volgare toscano sulla base dei primi dizionari e grammatiche stampate in quel periodo e delle Prose della volgar lingua di Pietro Bembo – forse il più importante libro di linguistica italiana mai pubblicato – con cui Ariosto entrò in contatto almeno dal 1518. L’altra operazione fondamentale di Ariosto fu introdurre nel canone dell’innamoramento di Orlando l’ingrediente della pazzia d’amore, pochi anni dopo l’uscita dell’Elogio della follia di Erasmo da Rotterdam e un secolo prima che Cervantes ne facesse il centro del Don Chisciotte. Il tema dell’amor cortese si modernizzò, passò dal registro sentimentale a quello ironico e psicologico, più vicino ai moderni romanzi, allineandosi ai gusti del pubblico di cortigiani e borghesi che incominciava a formarsi. Per ritrovare il senno di Orlando, Astolfo vola fino alla luna. Per sedici anni Ariosto lavorò l’Orlando furioso dall’interno, inserendo episodi, interi canti, cancellando versi o riformulandoli in modo che fossero più chiari e comprensibili, con l’obbiettivo di tenere dentro tutto il mondo e tutti quanti – non è un caso che l’inizio dell’Orlando furioso sia un elenco, molti secoli prima che gli elenchi diventassero una moda letteraria – e di staccarsi dalla tradizione da cui proveniva per diventare nuovo. All’inizio della prima edizione del 1516, gli amori sono “antiqui”. Di donne e cavalier li antiqui amori, le cortesie, le audaci imprese io canto… Nell’ultima del 1532, che contiene il chiasmo più famoso della letteratura italiana, sono soltanto amori. Le donne, i cavalier, l’arme, gli amori, le cortesie, le audaci imprese, io canto… Per l’ultima edizione, che fu tirata in circa 2.800 copie, ci vollero 400 risme di carta. I canti sono 46, i versi 38.736. Nella prima erano 32.944 per 40 canti. Non è una gran differenza. Ariosto non cercò di allungare il libro, anzi fu piuttosto attento a contenerne la lunghezza. Buttò molto di quello che aveva già scritto. Il suo impegno fu editarlo per migliorare il ritmo e la lingua in modo da farli durare. L’edizione del 1532 ha moltissime varianti – l’italianista inglese Conor Fahy ha contate 287 – perché Ariosto interrompeva continuamente la stampa in tipografia, cambiando e correggendo parole e versi, come se il lavoro di scrittura non potesse avere mai fine. L’attesa per l’uscita era ancora altissima ma il 6 luglio, a 57 anni, Ariosto morì di enterite, un’infezione all’intestino tenue, e la morte evidentemente frenò promozione e vendita. Molte copie rimasero invendute, racconta Corrado Bologna «a dimostrazione una volta di più della liason perversa, accentuata dalla propaganda politico-culturale, tra interesse per il libro e mitografia dell’autore». Nel 1533, poco prima di morire, messer Ludovico stava progettando una quarta edizione, insoddisfatto dell’ultima. In una lettera a suo fratello Galasso, Ludovico scrive di essere stato «mal servito e assassinato» dal tipografo, il cui lavoro evidentemente aveva deluso le sue attese. Nello stesso anno Galasso pubblicò un’altra edizione, quella che nel corso dei decenni successivi avrebbe continuato a essere letta e venduta. In qualche decennio Ariosto, che era stato una delle prime star della letteratura, diventò un classico. La storia editoriale dell’Orlando furioso è la storia di come una tradizione soprattutto orale – quella delle gesta dei cicli bretone e carolingio – si trasformò progressivamente – attraverso un lavoro di revisione, limatura, aggiunta, promozione e diffusione da parte dell’autore – in un libro a stampa, e forse nel primo romanzo moderno. Le prime 19 stanze dell’ultimo canto sono una lunga dedica a persone che Ariosto sentì il bisogno di citare – come si fa oggi nei ringraziamenti finali dei libri, solo che in questo caso i lettori entrano dentro il libro come se ne facessero parte, come personaggi – una sfilata interminabile di persone e facce, e donne, uomini, in cui, per la prima volta nella storia della letteratura, compare il pubblico. |
Show full PR text The Toyota Mirai Brings the Future to Your Driveway Fuel Cell Electric Sedan Marks Turning Point for Zero-Emission Vehicles Range and Refuel Time Compete with Traditional Internal Combustion Engines World-Class, 360 Degree Ownership Experience Available for Sale or Lease in California Beginning Fall 2015 November 17, 2014 2016 Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell Sedan Product Information TORRANCE, Calif., (Nov. 17, 2014) – For the second time in a generation, Toyota has re-imagined the future of mobility. The Toyota Mirai is a four-door, mid-size sedan with performance that fully competes with traditional internal combustion engines – but it uses no gasoline and emits nothing but water vapor. The groundbreaking fuel cell electric vehicle is powered by hydrogen, re-fuels in about five minutes, and travels up to 300 miles on a full tank. Mirai will be available to customers in California beginning in fall 2015, with additional markets tracking the expansion of a convenient hydrogen refueling infrastructure. Powered by an industry-leading fuel cell electric drivetrain and supported by an exceptional 360-degree ownership experience, Mirai marks a turning point for consumer expectations for a zero-emission vehicle. Making its Mark with Performance In its basic operation, a fuel cell vehicle works much like a battery electric vehicle. But instead of the large drive battery, Mirai's fuel cell stack combines hydrogen gas from tanks with oxygen to produce electricity that powers the electric motor. Toyota's proprietary fuel cell stack represents a major leap forward in performance, delivering one of the world's best power outputs of 3.1 kW/L at a dramatically reduced size that fits under the front driver and passenger seats. The system provides Mirai with a maximum output of 153hp, accelerating from 0-60 in 9.0 seconds and delivering a passing time of 3 seconds from 25-40 mph. What's more, thanks to fuel cell technology's versatility and adaptability, the Mirai offers performance options that go well beyond a traditional automobile. In fact, the vehicle will be offered with an optional power take off (PTO) device that enables Mirai to serve as a mobile generator in case of emergency. With the PTO accessory, Mirai is capable of powering home essentials in an average house for up to a week in an emergency – while emitting only water in the process. Safe and Reliable Transportation Toyota began fuel cell development in Japan in the early 90s and have developed a series of fuel cell vehicles, subjecting them to more than a million miles of road testing. In the last two years alone, fuel cell test vehicles have logged thousands of miles on North American roads. This includes hot testing in Death Valley, cold testing in Yellowknife, Canada, steep grade hill climbs in San Francisco and high altitude trips in Colorado. The Toyota-designed carbon fiber hydrogen tanks have also undergone extreme testing to ensure their strength and durability in a crash. This extended legacy of research and development is reflected in Mirai's safety and reliability. At Toyota's advanced Higashifuji Safety Center, the vehicle has been subjected to extensive crash testing to evaluate a design specifically intended to address frontal, side and rear impacts and to provide excellent protection of vehicle occupants. A high level of collision safety has also been achieved to help protect the fuel cell stack and high-pressure tanks against body deformation. Mirai will also feature a broad range of standard onboard safety technologies, including vehicle pre-collision, blind spot monitor, lane departure alert, drive start control and automatic high beams. Focused on the Consumer Toyota believes that outstanding vehicle performance must be matched by an exceptional ownership experience. And Toyota is committed to delivering on that promise. When it hits the market in 2015, customers can take advantage of Mirai's $499 per month/36 month lease option, with $3649 due at lease signing, or purchase the vehicle for $57,500. With combined state and federal incentives of $13,000 available to many customers, the purchase price could potentially fall to under $45,000. The vehicle will be matched by a comprehensive, 360-degree Ownership Experience offering a range of services, including: 24/7 concierge service, with calls answered by a dedicated fuel cell representative; 24/7 enhanced roadside assistance, including towing, battery, flat tire assistance, trip interruption reimbursement, and loaner vehicle; Three years of Toyota Care maintenance, which covers all recommended factory maintenance, up to 12,000 miles annually; Eight-year/100,000-mile warranty on fuel cell components; Entune and three years of complimentary Safety Connect, including hydrogen station map app; and, Complimentary hydrogen fuel for up to three years. Building a Convenient Refueling Infrastructure In addition, Toyota continues to support the development of a convenient and reliable hydrogen refueling infrastructure. Research at the University of California Irvine's Advanced Power and Energy Program (APEP) has found that 68 stations, located at the proper sites, could handle a FCV population of at least 10,000 vehicles. Those stations are on their way to becoming a reality. By the end of 2015, 3 of California's 9 active hydrogen stations and 17 newly-constructed stations are scheduled to be opened to the general public, with 28 additional stations set to come online by the end of 2016, bringing the near-term total to 48 stations. Nineteen of those 48 stations will be built by FirstElement Fuels, supported by a $7.3 million loan from Toyota. The company has also announced additional efforts to develop infrastructure in the country's Northeast region. In 2016, Air Liquide, in collaboration with Toyota, is targeting construction of 12 stations in five states – New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. |
As I am sitting here at work, posting on my blog, when I really should be doing actual work, my mind wanders to this time two years ago… Snowmageddon. A term coined for the snow storm that hit Atlanta in January 2011. Snowmageddon meant the city of Atlanta was shut down for practically a week… Snowmageddon meant two years ago today I was not sitting at my desk at work, I was sitting at home enjoying my fourth day in a row of no school. Our wonderful southern city was hit with more or less, six inches of snow, which is nothing to seasoned snow northerners. However, with a city who rarely sees snow, or low temperatures to this extent, our mere six snow plows barely made a dent before above freezing temperatures finally melted away the storm. As a teacher, and a salary paid employee, I was thrilled with the possibility of a snow day. We had only been back to work for three days, Christmas break was barely in the past, I was just beginning to remember my new students’ names, when snow showed up in the forecast. Our school district builds two bad weather days into every calendar year. Two penalty free days off of school, and I was hoping we would see those two days go to use. I had no idea my wish would more than come true. As usual the night before a possible snow day, I got everything ready for work. In an attempt not to jinx a possible non-workday I always plan as if work is happening. It’s difficult to sleep those nights, the urge to hop out of bed and scurry to the window, hoping to see white falling from the sky, is indulged once or twice before morning. Finally, my alarm went off, I rolled out of bed and made my final assessment. The ground was covered, and snow was still pouring from the sky. My excitement grew, but I refused to allow it to take over until the school closing list scrolled to Newton County on the morning news. As soon as I turned on the TV I realized it was official, no schools in the area were in session, no one would even be able to go to work. Nick and I had a snow day on our hands, and after snoozing for a few hours longer, I was ready to start our day. We bundled up, dug out our flexible flyer sled, corralled the pups into leashes, and went out the door. I hadn’t seen snow like this in years. It was everywhere! The streets, sidewalks, and lawns blended into a solid sheet of untouched snow. As we made our way down the street I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for disturbing the sheet of white with our stomping, frollicking, and running around. However, soon after we began our trek my thoughts began to shift to the sledding slopes the Candler Park golf course would be transformed into. A recent move placed us three and a half miles away from our favorite sledding spot. However, we decided there was no better way to enjoy the snow than to take a nice stroll before sledding. Halfway there we both had a new appreciation for what a couple of miles actually was, but it was still worth it. The city was closed. I had never seen the streets so empty, and things so quiet. We took turns sledding down the middle of typically busy streets, and eventually, we arrived to our destination and the sledding began. Few things are better than the feeling of flying down a hillside. You are barely staying on as people, plants, and moving objects fly past you. You realize how the seemingly endless hike to the top of the hill is worth it for this feeling. We took turns riding down the many hills of the park, and with practically every ride down Jake was right on our tail. Chasing us on the sled was his new favorite past time, while periodically being distracted by the excitement of fellow sledders, skiers, and children around us. After a couple of hours we were worn out, frozen, damp, and shades of pink and red all over. It was time to go home. The walk to the park felt long, and after hours of running up and down hills the walk back felt like an eternity. We were all cold and ready to get home. We were a slow moving group as we made our way through town, but with every step we took we were making progress, we were a step closer to home. That mantra was on repeat in my head, Nick and I were silent, keeping our focus on the next landmark we were trying to pass. About halfway to the house Jake quit. He sat down, and refused to go any further. No amount of coaxing, cooing, or pulling would move him from his spot. We finally gave in and traded off carrying him, and by trading off I really mean Nick carried him 3/4 of the way. Another quarter of the way home Nick’s arms gave out. Jake couldn’t be carried anymore, but every time he hit the ground he would lay down and refuse to move. We tried putting him on the sled, but he wouldn’t stay on his own. Eventually I had to sit on the sled, hold Jake, and Nick had to pull us the rest of the way home. It was nice to no longer have to walk, but it was no easy task trying to keep us on that sled for another half mile. We barely made it to our front door, and we all collapsed into a pile as soon as the heat hit us. We slept very well that night. I was excited to find out another snow day was awaiting me. Each day passed with movies, relaxation, and prep for the next day of work, and each day I received an e-mail, phone call, or read on the news another day of school was cancelled. A solid week went by with temperatures staying below freezing. My initial joy of snow days began to sour as I realized make up days were in my future. My winter break disappeared, I was about to face another eleven straight weeks of school with no break. It was a bittersweet week of snow, but I will never forget how the city looked. How a six inches of snow and ice shut down a city for a week. Videos of people sledding down Peachtree Street flooded YouTube, I never tired of watching the traffic cams as they scanned a snow covered, empty I-85, I-285, the downtown connector, and I-20. It was surreal. It is something I may never witness again, which worth making up a few extra days of work anytime. SUPPLIES Visual journal Rubber cement Scissors Scrapbook paper India ink Book pages Printed photographs Gesso HOW TO This visual journal page is a collage of photographs I took over the course of the week off. I wanted to take pieces of things that happened during the week and create a scene that reflected everything. Which involved sifting through many pictures, cutting out sections of them, and piecing them back together. I began by creating the sky. I wanted a stormy, but bright sky, and ended up finding scrapbook paper with interesting colors and texture. I ripped it up and glued it down. I wanted to recreate the front of my house, which meant I needed to included the many trees that surround us. I decided to create silhouettes of the trees using India ink, and quickly painted them around the scene. Once the ink dried I added dots of gesso in the sky for snow. Next, I began creating the ground. I ripped up any white, snow sections of my printed photographs and began gluing them down. I covered the entire bottom two thirds of the page before I moved on to the cut out pictures. I took our house and carefully cut it out, and glued it to the right hand page. I added our stairwell to create depth. On the left side page I cut out pictures of our snow covered rocking chairs, an old fireplace, the only thing standing from a burned down house, and of course our puppies Jake and Kody. After playing with the composition I glued everything down. To create even more depth I ripped up smaller pieces of white and overlapped areas of my glued down pictures, such as the puppies’ paws and the bottom of the house. In reality if these were sitting in snow, the snow would cover the very bottom, and I wanted to replicate that look. After I finished it looked a little bland. The white caused everything to blend together, and I decided to add pieces of ripped up book pages to emphasize areas. The brown contrasted well with the white, and my page was complete. CHALLENGE Create a wintery page for the wintery season. Reflect on your favorite snow day or how you have never seen snow, be creative, and interpret it to your liking! Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed my snow post for the chilly month of January. If you have an urge please like, tweet, comment, share, and subscribe! I can’t spread the word about my blog without you! [subscribe2] |
The Concern Although endemic to North America and having an important role in forest ecosystem processes, the most recent outbreak of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) shows impacts on forest structure and ecosystem processes that are acute and widespread. The current outbreak may heavily impact water runoff, water quality, nutrient cycling, forest regeneration and regrowth, native and non-native plant communities, soil chemistry and wildlife habitat. Landscape-scale outbreaks of mountain pine beetle afflict pine species, particularly lodgepole (Pinus contorta), ponderosa (Pinus ponderosa), Scotch (Pinus sylvestris) and limber pine (Pinus flexilis), and are often associated with an array of interacting disturbance variables including fire damage, drought, prolonged mild winters, interspecific and intraspecific competition, and synergistic interactions between other native and non-native insects and diseases. The beetles often spread through a “mass attack” strategy, depositing eggs which hatch inside the host tree. Additionally, the beetles transmit blue stain fungus (Grosmannia clavigera) which clogs the tree's xylem and reduces its ability to transmit water from the soil to the canopy [1-2]. In 1996, the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region initially detected the mountain pine beetle outbreak in northern Colorado, including the Arapaho-Roosevelt, Medicine Bow-Routt and White River National Forests. By 2010 the beetle had spread across the western United States, encompassing approximately 2.5 million hectares (6.1 million acres) of pine forest. Of this total, 1.6 million hectares (4 million acres), or approximately 66% of the spread, is located in Colorado and southern Wyoming [3]. The number-one priority for the region is post-outbreak mitigation. However, limited funding has hampered progress. While general aerial detection surveys including aerial sketching have effectively measured the rate of spread, they are unable to quantify the effects of beetle mortality on the forest overstory, are not replicable and do not provide spectral capabilities for analysis [4-5]. Furthermore, detailed aerial surveys including aerial digital photography, airborne videography and heli-GPS surveys are often prohibitively expensive. The use of legislative acts to address bark beetle outbreaks and collaboration with communities of interest has become a key approach to the Forest Service’s management strategy. Effective detection and mapping of beetle mortality across multiple scales is urgently needed to assist in determining high risk areas in need of mitigation and restoration. Accurate baseline maps displaying the abundance of tree species across the landscape have become a necessary tool for addressing the array of important and often overlapping concerns of land managers, policy-makers and the public. The Science The DEVELOP team at Fort Collins Science Center (DEVELOP/FCSC) started with detailed data from 74 quarter-acre, fixed radius forest plots, collected by the Forest Service in 2008, which contained detailed information about the species abundance within each plot. DEVELOP/FCSC used the quarter-acre plot data in conjunction with NASA’s Earth Observing Systems (EOS), and a Boosted Regression Tree (BRT) model to create a preliminary forest cover classification model of Fraser Experimental Forest. This forest cover classification model was subsequently calibrated with field validation methods including assessment of fifty-two 7.2 meter, fixed radius forest plots and 60 roadside observations stratified across the study site that were collected in 2012. A second model was run with adjusted parameters and validated with an independent dataset comprised of a mixture of 2008 and 2012 forest plots. The NASA EOS data used for this project included selections of Landsat 5 imagery, with four scenes selected that could be immediately downloaded (05/08/1994, 06/12/1995, 03/26/1996 and 07/03/1997). DEVELOP/FCSC interns applied the Landsat 5 calibration [6] to the images to estimate Top of Atmosphere Reflectance for each scene. Subsequently the team derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Tasseled Cap (TCAP) Transformation. Field data were separated into “test” and “model” samples, the latter of which were used to generate different model runs, and the former used to verify the predictions. Twenty percent of the 74 quarter-acre plots catalogued in 2008 were withheld in addition to 20% of the fifty-two 7.2 meter validation plots collected in 2012, resulting in an independent dataset to test against the second model. A BRT model was run, creating a mathematical relationship between the prepared predictor variables and known lodgepole and spruce-fir abundance (by percent composition) in order to predict abundance across the landscape. After running the model, the DEVELOP/FCSC team classified and interpreted the results. The 0.0 – 1.0 decimal outputs of the BRT model were generalized into classes of abundance (1 – 3) for lodgepole pine and spruce-fir. These classes were then added together to produce a single-layer output describing species dominance and abundance for each pixel on the first map (Figure 1). The decimal values of the abundance classes represent some percentage of species abundance on the landscape. Anything <= 0.15 was considered to be “not present” and thus = 0. Each color represents a specific combination of abundance values created when the rasters were summed. For example, orange areas indicate pixels with an identifier value of 300, meaning those areas consist of >55% lodgepole. Similarly, a light green area with the legend name of “Lodgepole-Spruce/Fir” indicates pixel values of 320 or 310 (lodgepole dominant with some spruce/fir). The medium green “Lodgepole\Spruce/Fir” class represents table values of 220, where either class type could be dominant. This lack of precision in the classification was one of the reasons for doing a second reclassification model. Over 100 field observations were used to validate the first model, achieving >70% accuracy using a single month of Landsat imagery (July 1997) and 2008 USDA Forest Service data. But numerous non-conifer validation points including aspen and human disturbance sites noticeably padded the model’s accuracy. Figure 1. Map output of first BRT model run showing classification of species abundance across FEF The threshold levels were adjusted for the second model including an increased upper bound of >90% abundance and the addition of Landsat 5 scenes from 1994, 1995 and 1996. The second model iteration produced a second map (Figure 2), with more precise classes based on new thresholds and eliminated ambiguity in class names. Figure 2. Map output of second BRT model run showing classification of species abundance across FEF R-squared outputs used to evaluate the forest cover classification model showed results lower than expected. Both models showed consistently low predictive capabilities based solely on the predictor variables used. Assessing the R-squared values of both models in concert with the ranking of predictor variable importance revealed the need for additional variables for the next round of model runs. None of the individual species model runs could explain more than 20% of the variance with solely the predictors used, which was inconsistent with the relatively “good” performance resulting from the visual interpretation and error matrix assessment. This necessitates bringing in important categorical datasets including soil layers and additional Landsat 5 imagery that spans all seasons of an expanded set of years. This project has carried on into the current Fall 2012 DEVELOP term. The DEVELOP/FCSC team will pursue a final model with additional predictor variables with >80% accuracy. The Benefit This project demonstrated the utility of BRT modeling in concert with Landsat imagery to create a fine resolution forest cover classification model with limited predictor data, and acts as an important baseline for subsequent model calibration by future NASA DEVELOP teams. Ultimately this methodology can be a useful decision support tool for resource managers and community members affected by mountain pine beetle. The decision support tools, including forest cover classification maps, modeling methodologies and field methods tutorials, were delivered directly to the resource managers. Furthermore, all methods and remote sensing resources will be available to interested community members through the ColoradoView website, and the team will share the project results at the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco, CA in early December 2012. References [1] Safranyik, L., and Carroll, A.L. 2007. The biology and epidemiology of the mountain pine beetle in lodgepole pine forests. In “The mountain pine beetle: A synthesis of biology, management and impacts on lodgepole pine”. Safranyik, L, and Wilson, B. (eds.) pp: 3-66. [2] Amman, G.D., McGregor, M.D., and Dolph, R.E. Jr. 1990. Mountain pine beetle. Forest Insect & Disease Leaflet, 2. United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service. Retrieved from: http://www.barkbeetles.org/mountain/fidl2.htm. [3] USDA Forest Service. 2010. Region 2 Forest Health Aerial Survey Highlights for 2010. Retrieved from: prdp2fs.ess.usda.gov/detail/r2/home/?cid=stelprdb5253133 [4] Wulder, M.A., Dymond, C.C., White, J.C., Leckie, D.G., and Carroll, A.L. 2006. Surveying mountain pine beetle damage of forests: A review of remote sensing opportunities. Forest Ecology & Management, 221: 27-41. [5] USDA Forest Service FHTET. 2004. Aerial Detection Overview Surveys Futuring Committee Report. Forest Service Forest Health Technology Enterprise Team. FHTET-04-07. [6] Chander, G., Markham, B.L., and Barsi, J.A. 2007. Revised Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper Radiometric Calibration. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, Manuscript (GRSL-00031-2007). Editor’s Note: The DEVELOP National Program is a capacity building internship sponsored by NASA’s Applied Sciences Program that provides interns the opportunity to learn about NASA Earth Science and the practical applications of Earth observations. |
MARWAN bin Radwan Mirdad says PM Nawaz Sharif, while travelling to Saudi Arabia, did not indicate the purpose of his visit —INP ISLAMABAD: Acting Saudi ambassador Marwan bin Radwan Mirdad has denied that Pakistan is mediating between Saudi Arabia and Qatar over their diplomatic row. Speaking at a press conference at the Saudi embassy here on Thursday, the Saudi charge d’affaires said Pakistani “prime minister did not say he was mediating”. He was speaking through a translator. He rejected media reports about the Pakistani mediation effort as untrue. “Whatsoever is in the media is not correct,” he said. Says Kuwait and Sudan are making reconciliation efforts Last week Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif travelled to Jeddah on a daylong trip along with Army Chief Gen Qamar Bajwa. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and Adviser to the PM on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz accompanied them. The acting ambassador’s statement puts the prime minister in a potentially embarrassing position. The PM’s Office had, in a statement before Mr Sharif’s departure on the mediation mission, said: “Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif will visit Kingdom of Saudi Arabia today in context of the emergent situation among Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.” The crisis in the Gulf started late last month with the hacking of the website of the Qatari news agency and peaked when Saudi Arabia and its allies Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates severed ties with Qatar over allegations of promoting extremism and terrorism and hindering efforts to contain Iran. The Saudi diplomat said the crisis happened because Qatar had been persistently violating a 2014 accord between Qatar and GCC countries. Although the 2014 accord, which had then paved the way for resumption of ties between Qatar and its neighbours, is not public, it is said to be a commitment by the signatories about non-interference in each other’s affairs, cooperation on regional issues and ending support for extremist groups. Mr Marwan said Mr Sharif, while travelling to Saudi Arabia, did not indicate the purpose of his visit. The acting envoy separately noted that Kuwait and Sudan were making reconciliation efforts. Pressed by the media, he said: “There is, however, a possibility that the issue could be discussed in some future meeting. Leadership of both countries is currently in Makkah.” As per media reports, the prime minister’s mediation effort was not encouraged by the Saudi royal family. Saudi king Salman bin Abdul Aziz had told Mr Sharif that “the fight against extremism and terrorism is in the interest of all Muslims and the Ummah”. The Saudi government usually does not acknowledge Pakistani endeavours for resolving disputes in the Gulf. PM Sharif had undertaken a similar effort last year to reduce tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran in the aftermath of execution of Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr. However, soon after PM Sharif’s visit to the two countries, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al Jubeir had denied Pakistani mediation between his country and Iran. The Foreign Office and the Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of the military, did not respond to queries about Mr Marwan’s claim. Published in Dawn, June 23rd, 2017 |
"You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship." ―Yoda [src] Meditation was a mental technique performed by living beings. By meditating, Force-sensitives could reach a deeper state of relaxation, making them easier to connect with the Force with a clear mind.[1] This technique, which consisted of opening a connection to the Force, was something even the eldest of Jedi Masters studied over a lifetime.[2] On the other hand, whereas the Jedi meditated to quiet their minds and connect with the Force, Sith Lords meditated to concentrate their anger, their fear, and their hatred into a pure point of ruthless power within them.[3] As meditation was to have a stronger and more direct connection with the Force, it could sometimes affecting one's surroundings without the practitioner's conscious control, usually causing surrounding objects, or even the practitioner themselves to levitate. [4][5] The basics of Jedi meditation were to focus on whatever emotions were uppermost in one's mind, to be honest with oneself about the feelings one experienced and their effects. Then, one was to let each emotion go—the goal being to make of oneself an empty vessel that the Force would be able to fill.[2] Appearances Edit Sources Edit Notes and references Edit |
"AANP - nobody knows what it means, but it's provocative." Burnley 2-1 Spurs: Four Tottenham Observations 1. Dreadful I don’t mind admitting that my eyes bled profusely on watching 90 minutes of that rot. Never mind losing a perfectly winnable game to a team drifting along in the nondescript rushes; the quality of the fare was utterly dreadful. From the off it reminded me of my days playing amateur level Old Boys football on pitches boasting barely a blade of grass, in which the ball spent the majority of the game either rising into or dropping from orbit, with barely more than three passes strung together at any one time. Thus was the brand peddled yesterday by our heroes. I must confess to having surveyed proceedings from the comfort of the AANP sofa rather than the Burnley terraces, so could not testify with any first-hand knowledge to the actual conditions faced, but the tellybox gave the distinct impression that something of a gale was blowing, and to say our lot struggled to adapt would be to submit a pretty robust entry for Understatement of the Year. If there was a five-yard pass on offer, one of our mob could be relied upon to misplace it; if the ball was in the vicinity, you could bet your life on one of our mob miscontrolling it. ‘Sloppiness’ seemed to be epithet on everyone’s lips, and Burnely, understandably enough, lapped it up. There were intermittent periods in which we patiently shuttled the ball back in forth in search of a nook or cranny, but on the whole our heroes simply did not get into gear, and hardly created a chance all match. Gallingly, once we equalised, and with around half an hour to eke out a winner, we barely made it to the Burnley penalty area. 2. Refereeing Decisions The mantra here at AANP Towers has long been to do the chivalrous thing by refereeing decisions, and accept them with stiff upper lip and not a mumbled word of dissent. And while Our Glorious Leader had the air of a man with a meaty list of quibbles come the final whistle yesterday, and thrust himself into the face of the officials to suggests as such, I was more inclined to shrug the whole thing off as part of life’s rich tapestry. Getting down to the meat and veg, it seemed to this untrained eye that for the corner that led to the opening Burnley goal, one might objectively opine that the ball came off the Burnley player last. Be that as it may, the ref awarded a corner, and a corner is therefore what it was. For the throw-in that led to the equalising lilywhite goal, one might subjectively opine that the throw was taken from the wrong spot, the sort of call which is very much open to interpretation, and tends to be waved on as long as nothing of note accrues. Be that as it may, the ref deemed it perfectly above board, and perfectly above board is therefore what it was. That’s the AANP tuppence worth, and the eagle-eyed will note that both teams benefited to the tune of one pretty fortunate decision each, which some might suggest is enough to render all pedantry pretty null and void. Far more bothersome to the AANP eye was the defending that allowed Burnley to score from their corner; or the general manner in which our football petered away to nothing for the 25 minutes or so after we’d equalised. This game was not lost because of refereeing decisions, dash it. 3. Foyth: No Obvious Signs of Improvement One is generally reluctant to chide the honest young troops sent out each game to try their damnedest, because nobody drops a catch on purpose, to coin a cricketing phrase. However, there are inspirational mantras, and then there is Juan Foyth. In time the earnest young bean might morph into the second coming of the blessed Ledley; but in the here and now the chap bears the hallmarks of one has been removed from the oven still decidedly uncooked in parts, and it showed, yet again, yesterday. Be it complacency, poor judgement, naivety or just plain ineptitude, Foyth seemed to blend equal measures of the satisfactory and the suicidal into his defending, and those proportions are pretty much doomed to failure in the unforgiving world of Premier League centre-backery. Just about every Foyth appearance is characterised thus, risky Cruyff-turns mixed with egregious errors. Poch’s faith in his youthful charges is to be lauded, but Foyth’s propensity for the groan-inducing is becoming one heck of a cause for concern. 4. Kane: A Machine On the bright side, Harry Kane returned, and without looking at his rapier-like best, was nevertheless, in occasional bursts, quite the handful. This being the occasion that merited it, he dropped deep to spread passes hither and thither, and his long-distance effort in the second half had the regulars going a little misty-eyed. As for his goal, it was Kane of the very highest order – somehow running with the ball with pace and purpose without ever looking like a natural, and then finishing clinically before the watching masses had truly registered that a chance had officially been created. The chap is an absolute machine. He recovers from injury as one would expect a machine to do; and once on the pitch he hares around and does that for which is he employed with pretty ruthless efficiency. It was all for naught yesterday, but with Chelsea and Arsenal looming a fit and goalscoring Kane is a most welcome addition. Spurs 3-0 Dortmund: Five Tottenham Observations 1. Rip-Roaring Stuff – After An Ominous Beginning Heavens above, who saw that coming? This being AANP Towers, the mood ahead of kick-off was, naturally enough, about as gloomy and pessimistic as these things come, what with one thing (Kane and Dele absences) and another (Dortmund being 5 points clear in Germany). And that first half did little to brighten the mood. Our lot approached it as something akin to the early stages of a chess match, in which a lot of harmless toddling is done in defence, but no incisions of note are made (bar the dreamy Moura volley out of the blue). I suppose it made for terrific viewing for fans of centre-backs, as Our Glorious Leader indulged in his own private game of stuffing as many as he could onto the pitch, but the net result was a heck of a lot of sideways passing between the back three, as Dortmund stepped back and squeezed every last inch of space out of midfield. The lilywhite cup did not overfloweth with attacking options. Moreover, whereas the sum of our endeavours was a countless stream of sideways passing between Messrs Sanchez, Toby and Foyth, Dortmund hit upon the idea of racing into the gaps behind our full-backs and letting that scamp Sancho ooze with the menace of a chap with his finger on the trigger. As the protagonists trooped off for half-time refreshment, the chin-stroking amongst the paying public was of the lugubrious variety. 2. A Love Note To My Best Mate Jan Goodness knows what pearls of wisdom were imparted at half-time, but I suggest they be recited every morning in classrooms and offices across the country, by law and as a matter of urgency. “Tactical tweak” seemed to be the buzzword, although I must confess that here the mechanics of the thing were rather lost on me, as the only alteration I spotted was the slightly physics-defying move of having our wing-backs both drop deep into a back-five, to counter Sancho and his whirring legs of wizardry, and simultaneously to push those same wing-backs right up the throats of Dortmund, to act as auxiliary wingers. So, in effect, fielding thirteen players. Whatever the nature of the sorcery, it worked. Our heroes flew out of the traps, and once Dortmund had altered their game-plan to accept 1-0 we stumbled upon the brainwave of scoring enough goals to take the tie away from them. As seasoned visitors to this parish may be aware, whether he knows it or not Jan Vertonghen is what I consider a bosom-friend, our paths having crossed a couple of times in the last year. I am therefore modestly willing to accept the credit for his transformation from solid, dependable centre-back to flying, all-action winger, and, no doubt benefiting from my inspiration, the chap delivered an absolute belter of a performance out on the left. Be it harassing the life out of the Dortmund right-back – thereby forcing him and his chums onto the backfoot – making himself available, intercepting or swinging an array of crosses into that sensitive spot in the penalty area that has goalkeeper and centre-backs nervously looking at one another for a spot of authoritative command, Vertonghen ticked the boxes like a man possessed. And then chipped in with the ghosting run and finish of a seasoned striker. 3. Sonny Delivers Yet Again The absences of Kane and Dele had weighed heavily upon my heart pre-match, and little I saw in the first half changed that sentiment, but where there is Sonny there is hope. Admittedly there was not an uninhabited ounce of turf for him to excitedly buzz into in the first 45, but this is a chap who emerged from the womb scampering into space, so it was little surprise that his enthusiasm remained undimmed by the first half travails. Naturally he was the catalyst for the second half rout, and while Llorente has done his bit, and the stars of Moura and Lamela intermittently burn bright, it is Sonny who has embraced the role of General Saviour Of Our Skins in the absence of Kane. Mercifully there now follows a 10-day intermission, at least half of which I would expect Son to spend simply asleep, because the chap has run himself into the ground for us ever since presumably running himself into the ground for his country. 4. Sissoko The Elder Statesman It is a sign of the times that in our biggest games we can now fairly confidently shift our glances to the right in expectation of another towering performance from Sissoko, and he will deliver. In the lamented absence of Dembele, he is now emerging as the sort of chap who can pick up the ball inside his own half and set off on an irresistible gallop. What he lacks in aesthetic finesse, he more than makes up for in effectiveness, and at various points he trotted out his usual blend of in-possession forward strides and out-of-possession harrying. For all the talent in our team, we still occasionally look a little short of those types who will grab the nearest bayonet, sprint to the front-line and lead by example, even more so in the absence of Kane, but Sissoko is beginning to emerge as one of those dependable bods, an elder statesmen to whom others can turn and goggle. 5. Winks Steps Up Young Winks has earned himself the occasional critical arching of the eyebrow from this quarter in recent weeks, for being a little too risk-averse and light on carpe-ing the nearest diem. Last night, however, he nailed absolutely every bullet point on the job description. He made it a matter of professional obligation to keep possession in the first half, when others around him were becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of options and occasionally sending passes awry; and then in the second half he straddled the line perfectly between playing safe and pushing us forward. With a little more space within which to operate in the second half, he was always the first option available to our centre-backs, and once in possession took a leaf out of the Christian Eriksen Book of Picking Appropriate Passes, be they short ones backwards or of the more adventurous variety further north. To do all this against a team of pretty illustrious ilk was thigh-slapping stuff – and indeed, that sentiment can apply to just about every member in lilywhite. It might not have been flawless – Messrs Foyth and Aurier will presumably have mumbled a prayer or two of thanks for some lucky escapes – but that second half in particular was fabulous, sensible and devastatingly effective stuff. Like what you read? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon… Spurs 3-1 Leicester: Five Tottenham Observations 1. Skipp With various A-listers still quarantined, and Dortmund looming fast into view, Poch yet again dipped into his box of selection tricks, and this term emerged with young Master Skipp in midfield, with Sonny and Llorente upfront. Now young Skipp may in time prove to be world football’s natural heir to Andres Iniesta, but this afternoon’s performance was not the one to secure him amongst the pantheon of greats. In theory I suppose he did little wrong, for every time one of our number were in possession around the centre circle, young Skipp would station himself about three yards away and demand the ball. While this was a noble enough approach to life, in practice it actually served precious little benefit. At best he would receive the ball while practically standing on top of the passer – and while facing the opposite direction. Play was not spread, pressure was not relieved, life’s problems were not solved. In his defence poor old Skipp drew the short straw, for that spot on the left of the midfield diamond has proved a tricky one to fill to date for even more seasoned pros. Sissoko seems to have mastered the art on the right – and peddled an impressive line in Messi-esque gliding dribbles today, as if to emphasise the fact – but an equivalent on the left is lacking. Leicester had the better of things in midfield, and for all his youthful scampering Skipp did little to impose himself upon proceedings. Better luck next time. 2. Lloris And The Rarest of Rarities A penalty save from Hugo Lloris is about as rare in these parts as a left-footed unicorn, but credit where due, our resident last line of defence picked an excellent moment to perform this particular party trick. Leading we may have been, but Leicester were jousting away with the best of them, and would have been good value for parity if not a lead. At 1-0, conversion of the penalty might have swung the thing pretty ominously towards our visitors, and I for one can hold up my hands and confess I had written off the spot-kick as a fait accompli, and was already contemplating a final half hour with scores level and pressure mounting. Frankly, in all my years of Spurs-gazing I do not recall seeing Lloris diving into the right postcode when facing a penalty, so I don’t mind admitting I gawped and blinked and rubbed the eyes once or twice before digesting what had transpired. (As an aside, the award of the penalty itself seemed pretty dashed soft when one compares and contrasts with the similar meeting of limbs that brought about Sonny’s yellow card in the first half. The inconsistency between the two calls prompted no end of grumbling at AANP Towers, but life – and particularly refereeing decisions – will send us these crosses to bear, so best we all just shrug the shoulders and take it with a philosophical smile.) 3. Danny Rose Brings Back The Slide Tackle Come hail or shine, Danny Rose always blusters around the field as if personally aggrieved at the circumstances in which he has been thrust, and typically with a particular axe to grind against his opposing right-sided attacker. The attitude is refreshing, as that level of aggression is not really something one would associate with the Tottenham Hotspur of years gone by. Kyle Walker used to possess it in spades, and it generally meant that irrespective of whatever else was happening in the broader geographic area, he was not about to lose his own personal duel. Frankly we could have done with some of it in midfield today, but that’s a chapter for another time. Entertainingly, Rose’s general foul mood resulted in him deciding that today would be the day to unleash sliding tackles at every given opportunity. It made for some pretty nostalgic viewing, as slide tackles seemed to go the way of all flesh at around the same time as cassettes and shell suits. It was gloriously retro stuff, not least for the looks of outrage etched across the faces of the Leicester nobility deposited on terra firma. 4. Poch On The Defensive Where normally we hog possession but find ourselves up against a nine-man defence, or super-human ‘keeper, or some combo of the above, today we rather forgot our lines, and spent as much of the game fending off Leicester thrusts as performing those of our own. As hinted at above, our midfield were at times outfought, not helped by a defence that seemed oddly keen to dabble in the porous. With Skipp failing to impose himself, and Llorente offering his trademark lack of mobility, we occasionally looked like we were down to nine men. Thank heavens for the stand-out moments of brilliance. Eriksen’s delivery for our first, and precision finish for the second, sandwiching a couple of critical Lloris saves, pretty much won the thing. Amidst it all, Our Glorious Leader seemed to take an oddly low-key perspective on things, making as many defensive substitutions as the rules permitted as he sought to protect what he had, in a remarkable departure from the all-action-no-plot approach to life. Hard to fault the approach I suppose (not that that will stop me trying), not least because ultimately we won, but also because the switch to a back-three made sense when Vardy appeared; while the replacement of Llorente with Wanyama, while a little more dull and sensible than the Moura alternative, simply made it more difficult for Leicester to claw things back in the final ten minutes. 5. Making The Best of Life Without Kane and Dele Having kept a careful eye on these things I can confidently suggest that this was the umpteenth time we have eked our victory this season without playing particularly well, and most satisfying they typically are too. How the devil we are doing it is something of a curiosity. It would be a mangling of the English language to suggest that we have coped with ease with the absences of Kane and Dele, but we have found ways to edge past Newcastle, Watford and now Leicester. Be it wringing every last drop of value out of Llorente, relying on random moments of Eriksen brilliance or simply pinning the weight of the world upon the dependable shoulders of Sonny, we muddle through. All that said, I would be pretty amazed if we emerged in credit from the first leg of the Dortmund joust, but in the league at least this has been a pretty critical and thoroughly impressive run of Kaneless success. Like what you read? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon… Spurs 1-0 Newcastle: Four Tottenham Observations 1. Sonny Saves The Day Again As will be familiar to those who regularly stop by these parts, the AANP take on the midweek win against Newcastle brought peltings with rotten fruit in the Comments section, for the admittedly reckless decision to omit from the list of the venerated Son Heung-Min. With that in mind, and given that the lively young bean scored the critical goal yesterday, it seems only right to shower him with all manner of praise. In truth however, through no particular fault of his own, he was a little muted yesterday. The spirit was as willing as ever, as he buzzed hither and thither, and even when at a standstill his legs appeared slightly blurry with movement. Newcastle, however, had been up all night poring over their homework notes, with the result that they swarmed all over Son like he was a homing beacon, and for much of the game he was crowded out. Mercifully, the chap is fleet of foot, and it is to his credit that he conjured from pretty much nothing a yard of space yesterday, and did not wait for a second invitation to leather the heck out of the ball. Having flown around the world twice, and been out on his feet at the conclusion of the Newcastle match, Sonny’s contributions, particularly in the absence of Kane and Dele, have bordered on the super-human, injecting moments of inspiration when we have needed them most. 2. Vertonghen’s Exciting Day Out Our Glorious Leader sticking to his principle that to play a wing-back in consecutive games would be madness of the highest order, and with Davies still absent injured and young Walker-Peters too dashed right-footed, there was a rare day out on the left flank for AANP’s close chum Jan Vertonghen. As social experiments go it made for interesting viewing. Nature having decreed that any and all useful output should emanate from the chap’s left stem, he was at least appropriately balanced for left-backery. However, Vertonghen is a man of pretty lengthy proportions, sinewy and elegant, well-designed for tackle and stretch, and not necessarily the obvious pick for lung-busting runs along the flank, with chest thrust and muscles throbbing, a la Danny Rose. It meant that the fellow did not necessarily look entirely at ease as he set about trying to make a fist of the role, life’s accelerations and bursts not coming entirely naturally to the chap. Not that his team-mates gave the mildest hang about his travails, for the Player X-to-Vertonghen routine seemed a pretty well-rehearsed one, and pretty swiftly became the option of choice as Newcastle barricaded the various other routes to goal. To his credit, Vertonghen beavered away as instructed, and while his crosses missed as regularly as they hit, he had a decent amount of joy, and gave our heroes a viable option throughout. His eventual replacement by Rose nevertheless made sense as we switched to 3-5-2 in the closing stages, Rose being more genetically disposed to go hurtling down the flank. All told, the use of Vertonghen as left-back is probably not going to be nailed on for generations to come as the tactical ploy of choice, but for a random joust against a Newcastle mob set upon deep, deep defence it was at least moderately successful. 3. Llorente’s Impact, Again Having lambasted Llorente whenever the opportunity has presented itself in recent weeks – and on several occasions when no such opportunity has existed, but the urge has simply become too strong – lovers of irony were in their element yesterday as I bemoaned the unfortunate egg’s absence throughout. With our lot camped outside the Newcastle box, and the entire Newcastle lot camped within, the case for airborne crosses was pretty compelling, and the stage seemed set for Llorente to peddle his wares. Alas, the pairing of choice was Moura and Son, whose prowess on terra firma is unfortunately not matched by any particular renown in the air. A couple of decent headed chances popped the wrong side of the posts, and by and large we were kept at arms length by the massed ranks of Newcastle bodies. Not to criticise Poch for this particular call, mind. Llorente has been used on a near-constant basis since Kane’s untimely departure, so there was some sense in rotating him out. And one might opine that the plan actually worked to perfection, given that the chap then set up Son’s goal when he was ultimately introduced. 4. Late Goals When Most Needed So for the umpteenth time this season our heroes have come up with a late, late goal send us all home with a sentiment somewhere on the scale between relief and buoyancy. Much more of this and folk will start accusing us of having mettle and grit and not bottling our affairs. More serene, comfortable victories would obviously be preferable, but I must confess to a little thrill at the manner in which we can now enter the final furlong still needing a goal but with an underlying sense that actually we might dashed well go and grab one from somewhere. We almost certainly will not win a trophy this season, but it appears that another string is being added to the lilywhite bow, as we have now become one of those teams who can eke out goals in the dying embers. Like what you read? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon… Spurs 2-1 Watford: 1. The Many Twists and Turns of the Llorente Soap Opera If Fernando Llorente had been hoping for one of those quiet, drama-free nights that flits swiftly from the memory, he was in for quite the shock. When the incorrigible old bean contrived to knee the ball over the bar from practically underneath it, the hills were alive with the sound of groans, curses and around thirty thousand palms simultaneously slapping foreheads. For his own part Llorente did the honourable thing and duly adopted the pose of a man doing his level best to be swallowed up by the earth. More broadly, the omens were not particularly cheery, our heroes still being one goal in debit. The thought began to crystallise that if we were going to escape from this particular hole the odds appeared heavily stacked in favour of us doing so despite rather than because of the gangly fellow. And yet, fast forward fifteen minutes or so and the chap was galloping off to the touchline in celebration, face contorted and fist clenched. He may have cut a pretty calamitous figure for much of his Tottenham career, but loft the ball towards his upper regions and Llorente will tend to find a way to plant a header into the net. The curiosity in amongst all of this is that the ten lilywhites around him, while presumably having met him at some point, nevertheless seem utterly oblivious to the fact that Lorente is not, never has been and never will be Harry Kane, and just continue to play as if he is. They ignore his limitations – namely his stunning lack of mobility – and indeed his strengths – all that aerial muck – and instead whizz around the pitch as normal, and tell him to keep up if he can. Which he can’t. The net sum of all this is that for much of the binge we play almost as if a man short. When a cross finally was lobbed onto his head, the blighter scored. Makes one think a bit, what? 2. Poch’s Changes Going back to the beginning, it was another one of those dirge-like first half knocks, which suggests that some of the wiring is not quite right at HQ. Bar young Sonny, whose effervescence from the off was rather eye-catching, there was a distinct lack of movement and general urgency in that first half. Not for the first time in recent weeks, Our Glorious Leader therefore took a sip or two from the chalice of half-time tinkerings, and with Lucas Moura introduced, and Sissoko drawing the short straw of right wing-back, things pretty immediately assumed a much rosier hue. In truth, Sissoko hardly looks at ease in any position on the pitch, so right wing-back was as reasonable a shout as any other, and the chap did all that was necessary, including delivering the perfectly serviceable cross that resulted in Llorente’s one-yard moment of horror. Further credit to Poch for recognising that there was more to be gained from introducing a more bona fide crosser onto the right, and accordingly shoving Trippier into action; and even his gambit of Lamela-for-Vertonghen was surprisingly – and pleasingly – proactive, for a man who has spent several years carefully cultivating his image as one firmly welded to the laissez-faire principle of letting matters take their own course during play without dreaming of injecting any tactical interference. The changes ultimately worked, but if one were to quibble – and let’s face it, the interweb exists for precious little other reason – one might politely opine that we would have been better off by beginning in such manner rather than falling behind and adjusting like the dickens. 3. Moura For all the nuanced alterations, it was Moura’s introduction that really turned the thing on its head and blew all our skirts up. Where Son had previously ploughed an effervescent but pretty lonely furrow, Moura’s direct running noticeably achieved the double-whammy of shoving fresh handfuls of problems at a Watford defence used to the markedly less mobile threat of Llorente, whilst simultaneously giving our lot a wealth of fresh options, either in the penalty area or attacking from rather deeper districts. He might not have scored or directly created a goal, but there were certainly hints of the early-season Moura who merrily ran riot at Old Trafford, and with Messrs Kane and Alli still some distance away from being fully paid-up members of the parish, his was a welcome return. 4. Rose, The Useful Alternative Attacking Option The ever-feisty Danny Rose also caught the eye, as he often does. In the second half in particular he seemed rather to enjoy the self-assigned task of trying to dribble past as many yellow shirts as he could spot, at one point beating a man and then re-tracing his steps purely for the purpose of finding the same man and beating him again. All of which would have served little purpose, but he did at least have the courtesy to sail in a few crosses at the end of it all, or at least attempt to do so. More often than not they brought corners, but in the final throes it brought Llorente’s goal, and as such he did precisely that for which he was put on God’s green earth. Aside from such direct involvement, it was also notable how often we resort to the diagonal switch of play, from the right or centre to the feet of Rose stationed wide left, when the well of creative ideas runs dry and all in lilywhite simply mooch around with gormless faces and shrugging shoulders. Where Walker-Peters is forced to cut back onto his right, and Davies’ attacking talents are somewhat limited, Rose time and again offers a viable alternative against the deep-lying defensive units. 5. Late Comebacks: Becoming A Habit, Would You Believe? Mercifully our persistence paid off, and not for the first time. Time and again our heroes are finding ways to drag themselves back into games and produce late wins when the outlook has been decidedly gloomy but five or ten minutes earlier. It will not win us a trophy any time soon, nor can we be considered credible title challengers, but one does get the impression that another box is being ticked this season. Like what you read? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon… Palace 2-0 Spurs: Four Tottenham Observations 1. Different Cup Tie, Same Pattern I’m not sure where the viewing public stand on this, but personally I’m not a fan of our recent trend of turning in pretty rotten first half performance and giving ourselves two-goal deficits and whatnot. Something about the whole approach strikes me as rummy, and few would argue that it mades life a dashed sight more complicated than it needs to be. Nevertheless, our heroes were at it again this afternoon. Admittedly this first half was a step up from that against Chelsea on Thursday, as on this occasion we did actually acquaint ourselves with the ball. Near-monopolised the thing in fact. But with Dier and Skipp sitting in front of the back three, the well of creativity through the middle was absolutely bone dry. Those in lilywhite having therefore been instructed that the route to salvation lay in the form of young Walker-Peters on the left, the ball was obligingly shoved over to the lad on regular occasions in the first half, to do with as he pleased. Alas, nature has decreed that Walker-Peters’ left foot is predominantly for balance and aesthetics, so crosses to the head of Llorente were at a premium, as he simply cut back onto his right foot and pottered around in that little corner of the pitch, and for all our huff and puff, chances were at a premium. 2. The Life And Increasingly Trying Times of Kieran Trippier These are odd times to be Kieran Trippier. Cast the mind back to the halcyon summer of 2018, and the fellow was starting to emerge as something of a national treasure. A personal highlight at AANP Towers, was the focus with which he stepped up to take his penalty vs Colombia, marching up to the spot with the look of a man whose head was about to explode due to the intensity of his concentration levels, before slapping the ball with military precision into the top corner and marching back again, cranial explosion still very much on the cards. The whole glorious episode gave the impression that if one’s life were to depend on a man burying a penalty, Trippier’s name would be up there on the list, not far behind the likes of Messrs A. Shearer and H. Kane. Fast forward six or so months and the chap’s stock has taken something of a tumble, no doubt about it. Aberrations both in and out of possession have become distressingly commonplace. And now, as if to emphasise the point to any kindly onlooker still inclined to give the poor bean the benefit of the doubt, he even makes a complete pig’s ear of a penalty that one suspects would have made quite the difference to things. Nobody misses these things on purpose, of course, but that moment was of the utterly avoidable ilk that has one slapping one’s thigh and wondering what the dickens else might go wrong. 3. Lamela Since returning from his latest injury Lamela has been rather heavy on bluster while delivering precious little in the way of end-product – bar a neatly taken penalty, which I suppose ought not to be underestimated in these troubled times. Today however the bouncy young imp received the message loud and clear, and entered the fray choc full of strut and tricks, injecting a hitherto unseen energy into our activities from a central position of which he clearly approved. Whereas in the first half those in possession tended to pause, and stroke chins, and ponder a handful of life’s great mysteries before doing anything with it – and even then doing little more than passing sideways – Lamela’s compass was pointing very decidedly northwards, and every time he received possession he hared off towards the Palace goal. The effect was invigorating. Whether directly from Lamela’s size nines, or just taken by the general principle he brought with him, the team as a collective upped their zest and urgency. The combo work between Lamela and Trippier out on the right was also pretty niftily done, but alas, as with everything we tried, it all come to nought. 4. Foyth There are some situations in life one would rather shift to the poor unfortunate standing at one’s side. Being chased around town by a shape-shifting cyborg killer, for example, or idling one’s way down a path only to realise and enormous boulder is rolling along in hot pursuit. And to that list I think I would add having the slippery eel Zaha racing towards you, with nothing in the way of a safety net other than a vast expense of greenery. In such circumstances I was rather impressed with the young man, for caught on the counter a couple of times, as we inevitably were, I was rather inclined to fling my hands skywards and accept the worst. Foyth, however, took the opportunities to display that he is made of sterner stuff, and kept his eye on the ball, stopped Zaha in his tracks and got on with things. Admittedly it amounts to barely a shimmer of light behind the pretty stormy-looking clouds that gather about the place, but it made for a pleasant surprise, particularly given Foyth’s general penchant for occasional defensive clangers. So a chastening few days, littered with bad luck, individual mistakes and injuries littered in every dashed corner you care to look, but such is the nature of the beast. Three winnable games approach, nine points from which would be one heck of a fillip. Like what you read? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon… Chelsea 2-1 Spurs: Five Tottenham Observations 1. The First Half: As Rotten As I’ve Seen The first half was just about as rotten as we’d all feared. We Spurs fans are rarely the most optimistic breed at the best of times, but with our three leading lights absent and Llorente as the nominated focal point, the mood pre-match was one of undiluted dread, a sentiment that proved entirely justified in an opening 45 that was dross of the highest order. Most of that period was spent simply haring around in the slipstream of the Chelsea lot, barely laying a foot on the ball and generally giving the sense that an almighty thrashing was in the post and on its way. Llorente seemed to pick up where he left off against Fulham, seemingly unable to find a team-mate if his life had depended on it, and he received precious little support from a midfield that seemed to view the ball with the gawking confusion of a group of wide-eyed innocents being introduced to it for the first time. One rather felt for Eriksen, who stood head and shoulders above his teammates, but who all too often tiptoed his way around numerous snapping ankles only to look up and find that not a soul was in the vicinity to offer support. Or that Llorente was there, which essentially amounted to the same thing. 2. The All Action Second Half The transformation amongst our mob in the second half was of the sort normally reserved for cartoon characters with little concern for realistic plot devices. Our Glorious Leader, for so long a manager who seems to have treated a football match as a cinematic experience to be enjoyed passively and in a silent spirit of non-interference throughout, took it upon himself to switch to a back three, which gave Danny Rose in particular the licence to hare upfield with the sort of zeal that one would rather not argue with. And aside from the tactical change, the whole bally gang of lilywhites took to the second half with a frenzied determination if not exactly to strategically out-manoeuvre Chelsea, chess-like and subtle, then at least with a frantic spirit of all-action-no-plot frenzy that seemed to rely upon living by the sword and dashed well dying by it too. It was marvellous fun, albeit pretty wearing stuff for the nerves. 3. Llorente’s Moment of Redemption. Good Egg. The first half might have gone on for several days and we would not have got anywhere near scoring; but within five minutes of the second half we had done the business, and I think only those of the most heartless dispositions could have failed to feel some pleasure for Senor Llorente. I’m quite happy to admit that I was amongst the most vocal in chiding the wretched chap at the weekend for his buffoonery, so his perseverance last night was worthy of some grudging admiration; but his headed goal merits a far more sincere slap on the back and splash of the good stuff. A combination of brute force and bravery, when it would have been easy for him to sulk and mope and just give up on the whole dashed thing, it was impressive stuff (even if the hope it thereby provided did ultimately make the eventual defeat all the more galling). 4. Gazzaniga Passing Although there was a deflection en route that perhaps messed with his mechanics, I was not exactly bowled over by Gazzaniga’s attempt to repel Kante’s goal; but the chap’s distribution is fast becoming one of the more impressive sights to behold. We’ve seen it from him a few times now, this inclination to volley the ball from his hands deep into the heart of a panicky opposition defence, and Gazzaniga was at it again last night, niftily straddling that line between a hopeful, moronic punt and a devilishly identified and executed ping of a wonder-pass. The pass that set Eriksen free on the right very nearly created The Best Goal Ever – Llorente, in one of life’s more unsurprising developments, failing to make a clean connection with Eriksen’s cross. Then Gazzaniga set Moura free on the inside left, and the ensuing volley was only a few inches away from being another goal the aesthetics of which would have flown through the roof. Lloris presumably retains the edge for his instinctive shot-stopping, but Gazzaniga’s passing is one heck of a string to his bow. I look forward to his next foray in the FA Cup on Sunday. 5. Injuries Ultimately it was not to be, and we might as well have exited the competition at the first hurdle (although I think the win at the Emirates did a world of good, so silver linings and all that muck). The sight of Davies limping off after half an hour actually caused me not a jot of upset – as, it might surprise my public to know, I’ve never been the most ardent supporter of the young bean – but the principle of another day bringing about another injury is about as much as any sane chappie can bear. The lunacy of the summer transfer policy is not just an elephant in the room, it’s an entire herd of the things. Almost every one of our players who went to the World Cup has since picked up some form of injury, and we have barely had a week free of a midweek fixture. The official party line of not buying players who cannot improve upon the current starting eleven is being exposed as utter tosh with each passing day, for we simply need additional players just to take to the pitch. If no better players can be bought, buy players of equal quality and field them instead, rather than fielding the same honest souls every game until they literally break. Alas, there seems little likelihood of any of this changing, and frankly we seem more likely to sell than to buy this month. It’s a dreary append to an oddly glorious failure. Like what you read? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon… Fulham 1-2 Spurs: Five Tottenham Observations 1. Grinding It Out – Again Credit where due. Traditionally our lot have never really gone in for the business of knuckling down and sweating out every last drop, preferring the fancy stuff when it suits, and capitulation when it doesn’t. This season however we have dragged ourselves back in the dying embers of three Champions League games, won a stack of Premier League games without playing remotely well in the early months – and now a last minute winner when bereft of our three leading scorers, and having last our another leading attacking light during proceedings. No doubt we’ll be accused of choking again the next time someone sneezes out of turn, but this was the latest in a string of impressive displays that suggests that some stern stuff resides deep within the cores of our troops. 2. The Tragic Llorente I suspect I might be in a minority of one on this particular point, but I’ve always been rather fond of Llorente. Always cast a rather admiring eye at his ability to cushion an arriving ball into the path of a chum with the delicacy of one of Venus’ suitors giving it their tenderest work. Admittedly there’s not much else to his game, but his cushioned lay-offs were always top-notch. Alas, I counted but one of those against Fulham – arriving in the 79th minute – and with his heading compass woefully awry there was not a dashed thing to commend about his lumberings. As a Plan B in the final ten minutes of a cup game, shoved on alongside Kane, he has some merit; as the focal point from first toot to last, the poor blighter offers all the threat of a rabbit in headlights – rooted to spot, limbs incapable of shifting him from point A to point B, a look of utter dread etched across his features. Bar the occasional headed flick, Llorente offered nothing. He did not drop deep to partake in any build-up play; he did not hare off into channels; he did not hold up the ball; and I don’t recall him at any point collecting the ball with his feet. Given that at the best of times he traipses around the pitch like a weary farm-beast just waiting to be put out of his misery, one imagines the own-goal did not help his confidence. I suppose the charitable stance is to excuse him on the grounds that none of the above have ever exactly been listed on his CV as attributes, and one can hardly expect him to do that of which he is physically incapable. The pointed counter-argument is that he is a professional footballer – and a striker at that – and therefore dashed well should be able to offer a handful of those assets normally found in a target man. 3. The Other Ten: Politely Ignoring Llorente Throughout In a charming sort of way, playing with Llorente reminded me of those schoolboy games in which some poor young scab is picked solely because the teacher recognises the name, having taught his older sibling. Everybody was too polite to admit openly that he was utter tripe, but they all knew it. No particular blame attached to the other ten, who played gallons of football that was neat and tidy and patient – and some that was even effective – but from the off there was a sense of a team playing with ten men. The sorry conclusion to it all was that out there on the pitch our heroes pattered along with things while ignoring Llorente as respectfully as was possible, and seemingly actively avoiding any opportunity to lob a cross towards him; while here at AANP Towers yours truly sat with head in hands, muttering a choice variety of curses as the game serenely passed the wretch by. If this is a sign of things to come – we field Llorente, simply ignore him and continue to play our usual intricate way but in effect without a striker – I would prefer we put the Spaniard out to pasture, and field a youngling of the ilk of Kazaiah Sterling instead. 4. Dele Alli, All Our Hopes Rest On Y- Oh There was something wonderfully predictable about Dele Alli’s headed goal, but it was no less delightful for it. The young bean seems to have perfected the art of ghosting in at the back post to nod the ball in, and all with an appearance of effortless ease that must have Senor Llorente casting all manner of envious glances in his direction. In recent seasons I have been inclined to give young Dele quite the bashing. Too much frippery and not enough substance, has been the gist of the charges. To his credit, the young fish has been poring over my words religiously, and this season has done his level best to win back my approval. For this I graciously applaud him. His marvellous technique is now applied to the greater good, if you get my drift, looking to unpick the opposition rather than drifting off on his own little meandering game of nutmegging as many passers-by as possible. Given the hopeless efforts of Llorente alongside him, much seemed to depend on Dele, both today and in future weeks with sterner tests to come, so the sight of him shuffling to the bench and adopting the gloomy disposition of a man whose hamstring has just gone ‘ping’ was fairly crushing stuff for all concerned. Where the dickens we go from here is anyone’s guess, but logic dictates that Llorente might get another bash at things. One suspects that back at Casa Pochettino, away from the gaze of the cameras, our glorious leader is lamenting this necessity, and wondering whether he ought to dig out his size nines and start in attack against Chelsea. 5. Winks’ Moment of Glory Not the likeliest of heroes, but a fairly deserving one, I suspect you’d agree, for it was an honest, if fairly unspectacular day’s work. Young Winks never wants for eagerness; and if that faint praise sounds a tad damning it was rather meant to be – having been a fully signed up member of the Winks Fan Club in seasons gone by, his doings in recent weeks have left me a tad underwhelmed, and I’ll explain precisely why. As often as not, when he picks up the ball, his instinct has been to pivot back towards the safety of home, and pass the thing sideways or backwards. It is all something of a contrast to his earlier days in lilywhite, when he seemed to have a more adventurous streak to his DNA. The safety-first approach undoubtedly has its merits, and is often enforced upon him, as the deepest lying midfielder – but as indicated, has left me a couple of notches short of being truly whelmed. Today seemed to be a welcome return to the more forward-thinking Winks of yesteryear. This was partly helped by the obliging hosts admittedly, who did little to pressurise him when in possession. Nevertheless, whether passing the thing or taking the initiative himself and setting off on a northbound gallop, he generally contributed his tuppence worth to the cause in proactive fashion. And once Dier was slung on alongside him he pretty well took the hint that the shackles were off and he had licence to poke his nose further forward – and poke his nose he duly did, and with some aplomb. Spurs 0-1 Man Utd: Four Tottenham Observations 1. A Heartening Performance Curses are naturally flowing pretty liberally around the white half of north London, but here at AANP Towers we’re actually sipping the early-evening double whisky with a generous dollop of equanimity. The wound of defeat obviously cuts deep, and so on and so forth – but after the laboured 90 minutes against Chelsea, and a first half here in which there was a collective air of legs ploughing through quicksand, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the rip-roaring stab of things made by our heroes in the second half. No doubt about it, every lilywhite out there this afternoon looked utterly drained – and have done for a few weeks now – and I’m pretty sure I saw several of them being scooped up off the turf and carried off at the denouement. Yet despite that, we kept beavering, making enough presentable chances to win a couple of games and frankly appeared to have a few bursts more energy than our opponents who were supposedly freshly sunned and rested. Moreover, I was secretly rather chuffed that we kept our heads and continued to probe in those closing stages, rather than blindly whacking the thing north and offering up prayers. Up against a deep United defence-and-midfield I had wondered in the first half how the devil we were supposed to break them down at all. As it happened we did so on around a dozen occasions in the second half alone. 2. Our Finishing. Too Close To The Keeper, Don’t You Think? Bunting is being decked and champagne sprayed around the United keeper, and one understands the sentiment, for the chap wasn’t allowed to catch his breath before sticking out another limb and keeping the good ship Hotspur at bay. And far be it for me to deny the fellow his fifteen minutes, but I can’t help thinking we made his job a heck of a lot easier by firing most of those shots within his wingspan. I trust my public will forgive me if I don’t list and analyse each individual chance separately, as I’m not sure the abacus has been invented that can track that sort of thing, but certainly both Kane and Dele shot at him rather than the corners when clean through, and one or two of the other less straightforward opportunities might also have been more emphatically tucked away. Just one of those things I suppose. On another day – and there have been several of them in the past month alone – we might have hit the corners and been four or five up. Such is the rummy nature of life. 3. Poch’s Tactical Switch And while immersing ourselves in rather pointless crumbs of comfort, a begrudging nod in the vague direction of Our Glorious Leader. One of the few sticks with which the sunny chap is ever beaten is his perceived inability to roll up his sleeves midway through a game and do some first-rate tinkering. Come half-time today however, and with the likeliest form of attack having thus far been The Hopeful Alderweireld Punt, Poch duly tinkered away like the best of them, and produced more of a 4-2-3-1, of sorts. Now the prosecution might well make the point that his hand was rather forced by the injury to Sissoko pretty much bang on half-time, and a jolly compelling point it would be too. I’m nevertheless inclined to give Poch the benefit of the doubt however, for he might have stuck with the midfield diamond and watched on gloomily. Instead, Sonny went left, Davies was kept firmly under lock and key within the back-four – where many a cynic might observe he is far better placed – Eriksen sat deeper, and the outlook pretty instantly became a heck of a lot sunnier. 4. Squad Depth (Lack Thereof) As alluded to above, one can only really applaud the efforts of the chaps out on the pitch, who appeared pretty much to use up their final bubbles of oxygen and every last ounce of energy in hammering away at the United door. The unhappy fact remains, however, that the slew of crunch fixtures shows neither sign of abating nor adopting any less crunch. On top of which, the cast members themselves are now, rather inevitably, beginning to drop like flies. The hooking of Sonny for yet another international tournament seems rather heartless, as he’s only just got over the jet-lag from the previous one, but into every life some rain must fall I suppose. The injuries are just a plain nuisance, and no less annoying for being so utterly predictable. Winks and Sissoko seem to have partnered each other for around a dozen games in a row, so the sight of muscles twanging away mid-game was greeted with as many philosophical shrugs as gloomy grimaces. Kane also seemed to exit the stage in far worse health than he entered, having taken a royal clattering in the dying embers of the game, and with Dier still not fit, Wanyama now just a picture on a Missing Person’s poster, Moura apparently injured and Dembele eyeing up the exit door, the whole carefully constructed and delicately held-together structure does look set to come tumbling down at any point. Oh that we were minded to shell out a few quid in the transfer market, what? The party line remains that no signings will be made if they cannot improve the starting eleven, which sounds suitably bland and professional; but the argument grows stronger by the day that simply recruiting a few extra bodies of precisely the same quality would be no bad thing, if it allows for one or two of our mob to catch their breath between games. Frankly there seems to be more chance of the sun exploding, which means we can potentially look forward to Skipp and Winks behind a front two of Lamela and Llorente in weeks to come. Like what you read? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon… |
The KRDK-TV mast is a television transmitting tower in Traill County, North Dakota, United States. At 2060 ft (628 m), it is the fifth-tallest structure in the world, shorter by 3 ft (1 m) than the KVLY-TV mast, which stands 5 miles northeast. Located 3.5 miles (6 km) northeast of Galesburg, North Dakota, it was completed in 1966, to replace the station's previous mast, a 1,085-foot (331 m) tower 15 miles (25 km) northeast of Valley City, North Dakota (or southwest of Pillsbury) which was sold to KOVC, an AM radio station. The antenna transmits at 100 kW for KRDK-TV (formerly KXJB-TV) of Valley City/Fargo; the station and tower are owned by Major Market Broadcasting. Collapses [ edit ] The mast has fallen and been rebuilt twice. The first collapse occurred at 9:08 A.M. February 14, 1968 when the rotor of a Marine helicopter severed some guy-wires; all four aboard the helicopter were killed in the mishap.[1] The television station was off the air for eight days, finally resuming broadcasts from their previous (KOVC) tower. A replacement mast of the same height as the one destroyed was completed in four and a half months. The second mast fell during an ice storm which hit the area on April 6, 1997, subjecting it to wind gusts of 70 mph and causing at least four inches (100 mm) of ice to accumulate on the structure, resulting in the structure's failure at 6:09 P.M. . Cable programming was resumed by 8:34 and broadcasts by 3 P.M. the following afternoon through coordination with other affiliates; a 735-foot (224 m) temporary tower was completed and resumed broadcasts by July 10. This tower, known as KXJB-TV Mast 2, still stands next to the full-height mast. Work began on replacement of the full-height mast with a more durably-built structure on April 1, 1998, and had reached the tower's previous height by July 30. That day members of the construction crew affixed a four-foot (1.2 m) flagpole to the top of the tower, making the structure's height effectively 2064 ft (629 m), or one foot higher than the KVLY mast (the flagpole was later removed). Broadcasting for Channel 4 was switched to the new mast on August 15. Gallery [ edit ] 224 metres tall KXJB-TV mast 2 in foreground and KXJB-TV mast in background Base of the towers, the large KXJB-TV mast is in the background A section of the network of supporting guy wires View from about one mile Structures of similar height [ edit ] See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] Coordinates: |
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