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Women overweight or obese prior to getting pregnant were more likely to have a child who is autistic or with behavioural problems, according to a new review by a team of researchers from Duke University Medical Center and Virginia Commonwealth University. The review pooled the results of 32 studies, looking for a possible link between whether a woman was overweight or obese before she became pregnant, and neurodevelopmental disorders like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in their children. The causes of these conditions, aside from possible genetic factors, currently are not well understood. Increased Risk The study found that overall, mothers who were overweight before they became pregnant had about a one-third increased risk of having a child with ADHD, and a 10% increased risk of having a child with autism spectrum disorders, compared with normal-weight women. If the mothers were obese, the risks were slightly higher (two-thirds and one-third increased risk). Although this is a useful review, it does have limitations. The findings are based on observational studies that varied widely in their studied populations, how they assessed weight status and neurodevelopmental outcomes, and the other factors taken into account. It’s possible that genetics, health, lifestyle and other family environmental factors could have played a role in the likelihood of having a child with one of these conditions. Therefore, the studies aren’t able to prove there’s a direct link between these disorders and women who were overweight or obese before falling pregnant. But the various risks of being overweight or obese are well established. Mother’s Weight And Child Behavioural Conditions The researchers carried out a systematic review followed by a meta-analysis. They looked at existing evidence to investigate the association between mothers being obese or overweight before they were pregnant, and neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD or autism spectrum disorders in their children. The prevalence of child behavioural and developmental conditions in western countries is rising, but the causes are poorly understood. Antenatal exposure to environmental toxins and maternal stress and nutrition have been suggested as possible causes in previous research. This study looked at the possible link with a mother’s weight. Systematic reviews are the best way of gathering the published literature on a topic to look for a potential association between an exposure and an outcome. The difficulty is that the findings of a systematic review are only as good as the studies the researchers include as part of their analysis. As the studies included in this research are observational, it’s difficult to account for many other factors that could have had an influence on the findings. Basic Results Pooling data from 22 cohort studies looking at being overweight, mothers who were overweight before becoming pregnant were more likely to have a child with one of the conditions being investigated (odds ratio [OR] 1.17, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.11 to 1.24). From 25 cohorts that included obese women, obesity before pregnancy was associated with an even greater increase in risk of having a child with one of the conditions (OR 1.51, 95% CI: 1.35 to 1.69). More specifically, mothers who were overweight before pregnancy were more likely than normal-weight mothers to have a child with: ADHD (OR 1.30, 95% CI: 1.10 to 1.54) autism spectrum disorders (OR 1.10, 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.21) cognitive or intellectual developmental delays (OR 1.19, 95% CI: 1.09 to 1.29) There was no link between a mother being overweight and having a child with emotional or other behavioural problems. Mothers who were obese before pregnancy were even more likely to have a child with these conditions: ADHD (OR 1.62, 95% CI: 1.23 to 2.14) autism spectrum disorders (OR 1.36, 95% CI: 1.08 to 1.70) cognitive or intellectual delay (OR 1.58, 95% CI: 1.39 to 1.79) emotional or behavioural problems (OR 1.42, 95% CI: 1.26 to 1.59) Conclusions The researchers concluded that: “Results show that children born to mothers who are overweight or obese are at a higher risk of neurodevelopmental problems, including ADHD, ASD, greater emotional and behavioural problems, and cognitive delay.” They say that a critical next step could be to start looking at biological causes for the links, such as maternal obesity possibly influencing inflammation levels during a child’s development in the womb. The causes of conditions such as ADHD and autism spectrum disorders remain largely unknown. But we do know that being overweight or obese has adverse health effects. If you’re planning to have a baby, taking steps to lose weight (if you’re overweight) before conceiving could benefit both you and your baby, as well as reduce the risk of complications during pregnancy. The work was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Sanchez, C. E., Barry, C., Sabhlok, A., Russell, K., Majors, A., Kollins, S. H., and Fuemmeler, B. F. (2017) Maternal pre-pregnancy obesity and child neurodevelopmental outcomes: a meta-analysis Obesity Reviews, doi: 10.1111/obr.12643 Image: Wellcome Images |
Front Behav Neurosci . 2014; 8: 99. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00099 PMCID: PMC3971163 PMID: 24723864 Common mechanisms of pain and depression: are antidepressants also analgesics? ,1,2 ,3,* ,1 ,1 ,4 and 3 Tereza Nekovarova 1Institute of Physiology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic 2Department of Zoology, Ecology and Ethology Research Group, Faculty of Natural Science, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic Find articles by Tereza Nekovarova Anna Yamamotova 3Department of Normal, Pathological and Clinical Physiology, Third Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic Find articles by Anna Yamamotova Karel Vales 1Institute of Physiology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic Find articles by Karel Vales Ales Stuchlik 1Institute of Physiology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic Find articles by Ales Stuchlik Jitka Fricova 4Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Pain Management Center, First Faculty of Medicine and General University Hospital, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic Find articles by Jitka Fricova Richard Rokyta 3Department of Normal, Pathological and Clinical Physiology, Third Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic Find articles by Richard Rokyta Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer 1Institute of Physiology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic 2Department of Zoology, Ecology and Ethology Research Group, Faculty of Natural Science, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic 3Department of Normal, Pathological and Clinical Physiology, Third Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic 4Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Pain Management Center, First Faculty of Medicine and General University Hospital, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic Edited by: Tomiki Sumiyoshi, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Japan Reviewed by: Riccardo Torta, University of Torino, Italy; Yasushi Kajii, AbbVie, Japan *Correspondence: Anna Yamamotova, Department of Normal, Pathological and Clinical Physiology, Third Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, Ke Karlovu 4, 120 00 Prague, Czech Republic e-mail: zc.inuc.3fl@otomamay This article was submitted to the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. Copyright © 2014 Nekovarova, Yamamotova, Vales, Stuchlik, Fricova and Rokyta. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Abstract Neither pain, nor depression exist as independent phenomena per se, they are highly subjective inner states, formed by our brain and built on the bases of our experiences, cognition and emotions. Chronic pain is associated with changes in brain physiology and anatomy. It has been suggested that the neuronal activity underlying subjective perception of chronic pain may be divergent from the activity associated with acute pain. We will discuss the possible common pathophysiological mechanism of chronic pain and depression with respect to the default mode network of the brain, neuroplasticity and the effect of antidepressants on these two pathological conditions. The default mode network of the brain has an important role in the representation of introspective mental activities and therefore can be considered as a nodal point, common for both chronic pain and depression. Neuroplasticity which involves molecular, cellular and synaptic processes modifying connectivity between neurons and neuronal circuits can also be affected by pathological states such as chronic pain or depression. We suppose that pathogenesis of depression and chronic pain shares common negative neuroplastic changes in the central nervous system (CNS). The positive impact of antidepressants would result in a reduction of these pathological cellular/molecular processes and in the amelioration of symptoms, but it may also increase survival times and quality of life of patients with chronic cancer pain. Keywords: chronic pain, depression, antidepressants, default mode network, neuroplasticity, stress, cytokines Introduction Chronic pain is a complex syndrome which affects thinking, mood and behavior, and it can gradually lead to complete psychological and social isolation of the patient; therefore it can have a significant impact on everyday human activities, limiting independence and significantly interfering with interpersonal relationships. Mechanisms underlying chronic pain are different from those of acute pain. Chronic pain could lead to permanent changes of brain structures and functions and these changes could affect also brain processes not directly connected with pain itself (Baliki et al., 2008). Depression is a psychiatric disorder with various symptoms and is often accompanied by unexplained painful somatic symptoms. In patients with somatic symptoms, especially in primary care, depression is frequently overlooked. On the other hand, psychiatrists do not pay enough attention to somatic or pain symptoms in patients with depression. Depression can precede pain or pain can precede depression, forming a linked dyad sharing common mechanisms (Blackburn-Munro and Blackburn-Munro, 2001; Chou, 2007). As argued by Torta and Munari (2010), depression may reduce the pain threshold and sensitize pain perception. Conversely, chronic pain may lead to an altered emotional state and finally to depression. The concept of pain has changed dramatically over the last 30 years. As knowledge and understanding of pain have increased, the concept has gradually morphed from a one-dimensional concept to a multi-dimensional concept. In 90th Melzack (1999, 2001) postulated the existence of a pain neuromatrix, which can be thought of as a genetically determined neural network that is significantly modulated by stress, affective and cognitive processes (Iannetti and Mouraux, 2010). The pain neuromatrix is an integration of sensory, interoceptive, affective, and cognitive components and the resulting experience of pain is always dependent on their interactions (Klossika et al., 2006; Wiech et al., 2008; Simons et al., 2014). Various studies particularly emphasize the relationship between pain and emotions (Rhudy, 2009; Kamping et al., 2013). In addition, pain is affected by endogenous opioids, and the endocrine, immune and autonomic systems (Blackburn-Munro and Blackburn-Munro, 2003; Chapman et al., 2008). This network is constantly under the control of many other factors including the state of attention, anxiety, and expectation; previous experience, learning, personality traits, cultural effects, etc., play important roles. Therefore, we can rationally assume that neuroplastic and cognitive processes have critical roles as links to emotional processes associated with patient suffering. We will summarize intersections between chronic pain and depression mechanisms at different levels of complexity, i.e., brain networks (default mode network), neurotransmitter systems and neuronal plasticity. We will demonstrate that both chronic pain and depression can lead to stable changes in brain structure and function and that these changes are manifested in the patient’s experience, emotion and cognition. There is high comorbidity between chronic pain and depression in severe disorders and there is also a clear link between chronic pain and depression at the level of experience. Chronic pain can induce depression and depression can manifest as pain. In this study we suggest that the association between depression and chronic pain is not just at the level of experience, there may also be a common neural substrate, which could be therapeutically manipulated to improve overall quality of life for patients with both conditions. Default mode network as a mechanism of self-reference, nodal point of depression and chronic pain Neither pain, nor depression exists as an independent phenomenon per se; they are highly subjective inner states, created by our brain and formed by our experience, cognition and emotional arousal. The default mode network is a network of interacting brain regions and subsystems that show consistently greater activation during “resting” states compared to external, directed tasks (often referred as “task-induced deactivation”) (Shulman et al., 1997). The brain regions involved in these self-referential processes are inversely correlated with the fronto-parietal regions that are typically associated with cognition (Fox et al., 2005). The default mode network consists of a set of regions in the cerebral cortex—medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex and connected ventral precuneus, medial temporal lobes, and the superior frontal and parietal cortices. The default mode network has an important role in the representation of a person’s mental state and “internal mentation”, i.e., the introspective mental activities spontaneously emanated by the human brain (Andrews-Hanna, 2012). Such “self-referential thoughts” are necessary to perceive the inner bodily or mental states—including pain and depression. Self-referential processes have been repeatedly shown to be abnormal, and self-focus is increased in people suffering from depression (Lemogne et al., 2012). Moreover, it has been shown that increased self-focus in depressed individuals may be a predictor of major depressive episodes and chronic depression (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000). Grimm and her colleagues demonstrated that abnormally increased negative self-attribution, as a hallmark of increased self-focus in major depressive disorders, might be mediated by abnormal neural activity in subcortical-cortical midline structures linked to the default mode network (Grimm et al., 2009, 2011). There is increasing evidence that the default mode network has a pivotal role in neuronal activity underlying major depressive disorders (Greicius et al., 2007; Xueling et al., 2012; Zhu et al., 2012; Guo et al., 2013; Wenbin et al., 2013) and also in late-life depression (Alexopoulos et al., 2012; Andreescu et al., 2013) and therefore it could serve as a potential biomarker of depressive disorders. Considering the very high relapse rates of patients after a major depressive episode, Li et al. (2013) hypothesized that abnormal default mode network connectivity might persist even after recovery. They have suggested that default mode network functionally dissociates into two subsystems—connectivity in the posterior sub-network is normalized after antidepressant treatment, whereas there was persistent abnormal connectivity in the anterior sub-network. The above mentioned observations are in accordance with the findings of Marchetti et al. (2012) who propose specific imbalances in the default mode system which could represent a residual neural “depressive scar” that was affected by the severity of previous depressive episodes; it was also suggested that it could be used as a predictor of future depressive episodes. Chronic pain is associated with changes in brain physiology and anatomy. It has been suggested that neuronal activity underlying subjective perception of chronic pain may be divergent from the activity associated with acute pain. Some studies have indicated that chronic pain can also affect cortical areas unrelated to pain (Apkarian, 2008; Cauda et al., 2012; Hashmi et al., 2013). Prolonged experience with chronic pain represents a form of emotional learning, shifting from sensory to hedonic neuronal circuits (Farmer et al., 2012). Chronic pain is often accompanied by cognitive and behavioral impairment and decreased quality of life. Increased anxiety, depression and sleep disruption are manifested as an affective association of chronic pain. Moreover, clinicians often observe that these additional effects deepen the patient’s suffering and the effects persist even after the pain is reduced by therapy and the source of nociceptive activity has disappeared (Mansour et al., 2013). Various studies emphasize the complexity of chronic-pain processes that affect large circuits and stimulate extensive reorganization of cortical function and structure (Apkarian et al., 2009; Apkarian, 2011). Some authors propose that the structural impairments that accompany chronic pain can also influence functions of the default mode network. Baliki and his colleagues demonstrated that patients suffering from chronic back pain displayed reduced deactivation of various default mode network regions during a simple visual attention task, even though the performance of the patient group and control were the same (Baliki et al., 2008). Similar results were obtained in studies by Tagliazucchi et al. (2010). It is important to point out that these studies demonstrated that alterations of the default mode system, in chronic-pain patients, might influence brain mechanisms responsible for processing information unrelated to pain. Napadow et al. (2010) demonstrated alternating levels of intrinsic connectivity within multiple brain networks in fibromyalgia, which is a central chronic pain syndrome associated with widespread and spontaneously fluctuating pain. This study showed greater connectivity in the default mode network and in the right executive attention network (in contrast to the default mode network, in which the fronto-parietal executive attention network is involved in cognitive processing associated with working memory and attention). It suggests that fibromyalgia pain might be mediated by alternating activity levels in the central nervous system (CNS) (hyperexcitability) more than by peripheral pathological sensations. A study by Loggia et al. (2013) revealed that greater clinical pain in patients with chronic low back pain at baseline was associated with greater connectivity between the default mode network and insula (brain region involved in pain processing) and decreased connectivity between the default mode system and the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (involved in brain inhibition). Moreover, baseline pain correlates positively with the level of connectivity between the default mode network and the right insula; while increased clinical pain, induced by physical maneuvers, is correlated with changes in this connectivity. These results suggest that resting default mode connectivity may also encode the severity of clinical pain. More and more evidence indicates that chronic pain can, at some point, become a sensation that is spontaneous and independent on any external stimuli. Therefore, the default-mode-network perspective could offer fresh insights into the study of chronic pain. Moreover, since the default mode network is deeply involved in self-referential processes and subjective experience, it could represent a nodal point that is common for both chronic pain and depression. Neuroplasticity Neuroplasticity involves molecular, cellular and synaptic processes that modify connectivity between neurons and neuronal circuits. They are modulated by behavioral, sensory, cognitive and emotional experience, and are also influenced by pathological states and chronic pain or depression. It is important to stress that transient, but repetitive functional changes induced by pain or depression can lead to more permanent changes. Accordingly, long-lasting interference with the normal activity of the default mode network could initiate plastic changes that could lead to irreversible structural and functional changes of the default mode network. Patients suffering from serious disorders are under chronic stress, associated with a loss or change in social status, loss of positive expectations, feelings of discomfort, etc. This emotional situation induces a spiral of complaints and stresses mediated by neuronal changes which in turn can lead to alterations in other brain functions and structure. Stress is a common biological denominator connecting patient suffering on the one hand, and emotion, cognition and neuroplastic substrates on the other hand. Stress profoundly affects synaptic form and function (Popoli et al., 2011; Sandi, 2011). Stress is also a well-accepted etiological factor in depression. Stress induces the release of glucocorticoids (GC) that significantly impact hippocampal functions with the potential to enhance or suppress neuroplastic processes. Stress gives rise, by means of the limbic system and activation of the reticular formation, to increased production of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). A feedback loop from the periphery is maintained by the inhibitory effects of GC on CRH production. This feedback involves several types of glucocorticoid receptors, located mostly inside the hippocampus. Overproduction of CRH leads to overproduction of ACTH and, later on, to overproduction of GC. Such a situation occurs after a hippocampal lesion or during chronic stress. Stress also leads to a reduction in brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)—one of the most predominant neurotrophic factors in the adult brain—in the hippocampus and increases it in the amygdala (Höschl and Hajek, 2001; Finsterwald and Alberini, 2013; Hayley and Litteljohn, 2013). While there is strong evidence linking BDNF to stress and depression, other neuronal growth factors are also involved, most notably glial cell-line derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and nerve growth factor (NGF; Hayley and Litteljohn, 2013). Stress modulation of synaptic plasticity is mediated via activation of mineralocorticoids and GC receptors and exert direct effects on neurons and glia cells and also increase glutamate release in the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and amygdala (Sandi, 2011). It has been shown that elevated levels of corticoids influence learning processes (Bodnoff et al., 1995). Stress events also disrupt long term potentiation in the hippocampus (Shors et al., 1997), which is a key structure for declarative memory (Hölscher, 1999). Pre-clinical and clinical studies have demonstrated that stress and depression can lead to reductions in the total volume of the adult hippocampus. These structural changes may not necessarily be permanent. The degree of volume reduction can provide information regarding treatment effectiveness or response to treatment (Arnone et al., 2013; Hayley and Litteljohn, 2013). Repeated stress also produces alterations in brain plasticity in animal models; however, the relevance of hippocampal changes to behavioral changes is still matter of debate. For example, the granule cells of the dentate gyrus are significantly affected via a decreased rate of neurogenesis following prolonged stress (Radley and Morrison, 2005). In contrast, chronic antidepressant treatment up-regulates hippocampal neurogenesis, and therefore could block or reverse the atrophy and damage caused by stress. Some studies have also demonstrated that neurogenesis is required for the actions of antidepressants in behavioral models of depression (Warner-Schmidt and Duman, 2006). The hippocampus is a target for the effects of GCs and stress, which in turn, could influence its ability to regulate the HPA axis. Chronic GC administration at artificially high levels induces apical dendritic retraction and debranching in rat CA3c pyramidal neurons (Woolley et al., 1990; Watanabe et al., 1992), while longer exposure to GC results in more substantial hippocampal damage, such as neuron death, gliosis, and atrophied perikarya in the principal layers, most notably in the CA3c region (Sapolsky, 1985). Repeated stress exerts effects similar to GCs on dendritic remodeling in the CA3. One key feature of prolonged stress is the change in dendritic spine number and morphology of hippocampal formation (medial prefrontal cortex). Such structural synaptic changes may be compensatory in response to glutamatergic and calcium-induced toxicity in these neurons during prolonged periods of stress. Since repeated stress also induces apical dendritic retraction in the CA3, this could have significant consequences for the total synaptic population. In contrast, antidepressants oppose dendrite atrophy and increase apoptosis markers induced by stress in the hippocampus (Silva et al., 2008). Corticoids affect various neurotransmission systems. They potentiate efflux and inhibit re-uptake of glutamate and increase N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor expression. Furthermore, they decrease expression of neurotrophic factors (Smith et al., 1995) and decrease activity of the GABA-ergic system. Glutamate influenced activity of NMDA receptors and the concomitant decrease in GABA-ergic inhibition leads to calcium influx, followed by depolymerization of cytoskeletal proteins, autolysis and eventually neuronal death (Höschl and Hajek, 2001). With regard to stress induced structural and functional changes in the hippocampus, in particular reduced hippocampal volume, recent studies have indicated reductions in neurogenesis as well as changes in glial density and reductions in the complexity of dendritic arbors that participate in the volumetric decrease (Hayley and Litteljohn, 2013). Alterations in neurobiological properties can result in faulty communication between the hippocampus, amygdala and cortex, which gives rise to disturbed processes of emotionality (Carballedo et al., 2011). However, future studies are needed to assess the potential contribution of volumetric changes in default mode. The negative effects of stress on hippocampal synaptic plasticity can be reversed by GC antagonists and monoamine antidepressants (Holderbach et al., 2007). Chronic stress can also affect the expression of AMPA and NMDA subunits and various synaptic proteins (Silva et al., 2008), while antidepressant treatment opposes these changes (Martínez-Turrillas et al., 2007; Barbon et al., 2011). Chronic stress promotes pyramidal dendrite retraction in the medial prefrontal cortex by the mechanism of NMDA receptors (Martin and Wellman, 2011). Additionally, tianeptine, an selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drug with unexplained antidepressive effects, modulates NMDA receptor function in the hippocampus (Kole et al., 2002). Similarly, some studies point to the antidepressive effects of NMDA antagonists (Berman et al., 2000; Zarate et al., 2006; Li et al., 2010). In addition, monoamine systems that represent typical targets for antidepressants are also required for plasticity modulation under stress. While an obvious logical link between synaptic plasticity and cognition exists, less well understood is the potential for altered synaptic plasticity to disrupt emotional memory, which may be relevant regarding mood disorders. Regardless, the prefrontal cortex-hippocampus-amygdala circuits are likely dysfunctional in depression (Marsden, 2013). It has been suggested that this leads to decreased cognitive control of emotion, resulting in persistent negative emotional reactivity (Murrough et al., 2011). Stress-induced neurobiological cascades could represent a critical common pathway underlying the biological and psychological characteristics of the default mode of patients suffering from serious disorders. The neuroplasticity hypothesis of depression shows decreased synaptic plasticity in hippocampal circuits and elevated synaptic plasticity in emotional networks including the amygdala (Nissen et al., 2010). Moreover, reduced hippocampal volume may correlate with impairment of cognitive functions in patients with a major depressive disorder (Frodl et al., 2006). There is a huge body of evidence demonstrating the neuropsychological and cognitive deficits associated with depressive disorders. Such deficits have been found in various areas including attention, information processing, memory, verbal fluency, executive functions and psychomotor speed (for review see Austin et al., 2001; Castaneda et al., 2008; Lee et al., 2012). Although the clinically beneficial effects of antidepressants are well known their direct impact on cognitive (intellectual and psychomotor) functions in less understood. The clinical effects of antidepressants on cognitive functions, both in healthy volunteers and in patients, were reviewed in papers by Amado-Boccara et al. (1995) and Gorenstein et al. (2006). In 2008, Monleon et al. extensively reviewed the effect of antidepressants on memory in animal models. When assessing the cognitive effect of antidepressants in subjects suffering from depression, it is, in theory, necessary to separate the specific effects on cognition from overall clinical improvement. Another methodological difficulty may be discrepancies between subjective assessments of one’s own state and results from neuropsychological testing (Amado-Boccara et al., 1995). Monleón et al. (2008) proposed that memory traces should be understood not only as an individual experiences, but also as genetic and epigenetic phenomena. From this point of view, each neural system has its own memory and antidepressants can affect each of these systems. Antidepressants may promote new memories (new neuronal patterns) at the same time that they impair older ones (Monleón et al., 2008). Strong arguments for the role of antidepressants in promotion of new “memory” traces, through neurogenesis, suggest the role of neurotrophic factors in the etiology of depression and its treatment. Both acute and chronic stress decrease levels of BDNF expression in the hippocampus and conversely, chronic (but not acute) administration of most classes of antidepressants increase BDNF expression in the hippocampus (Nestler et al., 2002). The pathophysiology of major depressive disorders could also involve GDNF, which plays a role in the development and function of hippocampal cells. GDNF is a neurotrophic factor in the transforming growth factor-b-family (Michel et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2011). Increasing numbers of studies have demonstrated the significant role of neurotrophic factors in the transmission of both of physiologic and pathologic pain. Neurotrophins (including BDNF and NGF) can act as a pathogenic pain mediator and are known to be increased in several painful conditions. When administered, they lead to pronounced mechanical and thermal hyperalgesia (Obata and Noguchi, 2006; Siniscalco et al., 2011). BDNF is part of synaptic plasticity and central sensitization in a spinal cord. It contributes to the development and continuation of neuropathic pain by activation of NMDA receptors (NR2B-containing NMDA) in the dorsal horn (Geng et al., 2010). Melemedjian et al. (2013) emphasized the role of protein kinases as essential mediators of the maintenance of a centralized chronic pain state. Molecular mechanisms of chronic pain, as with neuronal changes in depressive states, parallel memory engram encoding in the CNS. However, the above mentioned role of BDNF in depression and chronic pain is even more complicated by the fact that BDNF may have antidepressive or pro-depressive functions, depending on the brain area and circuits (Racagni and Popoli, 2008). Berton et al. (2006) have shown that infusion of BDNF into the nucleus accumbens exerts a pro-depressive-like effect in rodent stress models and blockade of BDNF function in the nucleus accumbens exerts antidepressant-like effects. A more integrated approach to chronic pain and depression could facilitate a more efficient therapy. For example the animal model of antidepressant activity supports the hypothesis that impaired cognition is an element of depression and treatment with drugs enhancing cognitive performance can help alleviate depression (Knapp et al., 2002). Therapeutic strategies focused on modulation of synaptic plasticity and biological pathways common for stress and pain might prove useful for developing novel treatments for those suffering from cancer pain and associated diseases such as depression. Emotional distress is significantly higher in patients with chronic pain. Pain and depression, especially associated with tumors, can lead to serious mental and physical stress in patients (Rokyta et al., 2009). Pain is conceptualized as chronic stress and coping strategies play an important role in those experiencing cancer pain. Poor coping strategies may lead to a worsening of pain which will lead to an increase in depression. A recent study, among patients with metastatic breast cancer, found that both pain and obsessing over pain exacerbated depression (Badr and Shen, 2014). On the other hand, patients with lung cancer using a repressive coping style (an effort to inhibit negative feelings through an overly positive view of life) reported lower pain intensity and lower levels of depression (Prasertsri et al., 2011). In the short-term point, this technique may represent a convenient strategy, but for the long-term, repressive coping is not an efficient mood-regulation strategy since it can intensify anxiety dysfunction (Geraerts et al., 2012). Pain suffering is closely related to psycho-neuro-immunological changes (Rittner et al., 2008); treatment with antidepressants has been shown to normalize immune parameters (Neveu and Castanon, 1999; Rokyta et al., 2009). This integrated treatment could also help increase the patient’s overall quality of life, going beyond the specific clinical target. Common neurobiological mechanisms of pain and depression Pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-6, IL-1β and TNF-α may directly modulate neuronal activity in the peripheral and CNS (Ozaktay et al., 2006). Proinflammatory cytokines modulate hippocampal neurogenesis and therefore they can affect the mood. An increased production of proinflammatory cytokines has repeatedly been described in depressive patients (Maes et al., 1997; Connor and Leonard, 1998; Müller, 2013; Bai et al., 2014). Cytokines such as IL-1β, TNF-α and IFN-γ seem to contribute to the pathophysiology of depression by stimulating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis (Rosenblat et al., 2014), thus activating monoamine reuptake (Raison et al., 2009), and decreasing production of serotonin through increased activity of indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO; Müller and Schwarz, 2007). A meta-analysis performed on patients meeting the DSM criteria for major depression has shown higher concentrations of the proinflammatory cytokines TNF-α and IL-6 in depressed subjects compared to control subjects (Dowlati et al., 2010). Similar associations between depression and C-reactive protein (CRP), IL-6, and, to a lesser extent, IL-1 have been found in patients with cardiac disease or cancer (Howren et al., 2009). A recent study by Breitbart et al. (2014) demonstrated an association between depression and IL-6, but not with other cytokines, in patients with pancreatic cancer. Moreover, IL-6 was not significantly associated with other measures of psychological distress (anxiety and hopelessness) or with symptoms of distress (pain, fatigue, and sleep quality). Evidence supports the possibility that peripheral inflammatory responses manifest themselves in the CNS in a process known as neuro-inflammation. Therefore the treatment of depression with anti-inflammatory drugs looks like a promising way of targeting more mechanisms. Two individual studies (Müller et al., 2006; Nery et al., 2008) and one meta-analysis (Na et al., 2014) have shown that adjunctive celecoxib combined with antidepressants produced a rapid-onset antidepressant effect and was more effective than placebo combined with antidepressants. In the pathophysiology of pain, cytokines cause hyperalgesia, reduce the pain threshold, sensitize afferent nociceptive neurons and increase the frequency of discharges in nociceptive A-delta and C fibers. All these factors contribute to central sensitization, which is manifested by secondary hyperalgesia and/or allodynia (Zhang and An, 2007). In inflammatory pain, IL-1β increases the cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) dependent production of prostaglandin E 2 (PGE 2 ), calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP; Samad et al., 2001; Neeb et al., 2011) and substance P (Jeanjean et al., 1995), all are factors that induce hypersensitivity. On the other hand, experimental results demonstrate that the neuropeptides substance P and CGRP induce nociceptive sensitization by enhancing IL-1β production in keratinocytes (Shi et al., 2011; Wei et al., 2012). Celecoxib was the first COX inhibitor with well-defined COX-2 specificity (Tindall, 1999). In animal studies it has been shown that inhibition of spinal COX-2 not only reduces prostaglandin production but also endocannabinoid breakdown (Telleria-Diaz et al., 2010) and expression of purinergic P2X 3 receptors in the dorsal root ganglia (Wang et al., 2010). These results provide evidence that the pain suppressive effects of COX-2 inhibitors may be mediated either by the endocannabinoid system or by down-regulation of receptors for ATP or both. Neurotransmitter systems that are used to control pain overlap with those which are considered to be the main pathophysiological mechanisms in depressive disorders, i.e., serotonergic, noradrenergic, and glutamatergic systems. It has been repeatedly demonstrated, in depressive patients, that there are decreased levels of serotonin metabolites in the cerebrospinal fluid, particularly in patients after suicide attempts (Asberg et al., 1976; Jokinen et al., 2009; Chatzittofis et al., 2013). Tryptophan depletion (a method of lowering brain serotonin, used as a model of depressive disorders) not only worsens depressive symptoms (Fields et al., 1991; Booij et al., 2005; van Steenbergen et al., 2012) and also can increase the sensation of pain (Schwarz et al., 2003; Supornsilpchai et al., 2006; Wei et al., 2010). The system of antinociception operates primarily through serotonin 5-HT1A and 5-HT2 receptors; the stimulation of 5-HT3 receptors, which are found in the periphery, has pronociceptive effects (Campbell et al., 2003). However, conflicting results follow from both experimental and clinical observations after identical intravenous routes of application of similar doses of 5-HT3 antagonists. While tropisetron, studied in a human model of acute pain induced by intracutaneous electrical stimulation, led to significant analgesic effects (Bandschapp et al., 2011); ondansetron was ineffective in suppression of mechanical allodynia and spontaneous ongoing pain in peripheral neuropathy (Scott et al., 2006; Tuveson et al., 2011). The SSRI, fluoxetine, which is widely used in the treatment of depression, also has anti-inflammatory properties. Experimental data have shown that fluoxetine inhibits lipopolysaccharide-induced release of nitric oxide (NO) and PGE 2 in murine serum (Su et al., 2012) and NO and PGE 2 production by connective tissue cells (Yaron et al., 1999). Although SSRIs are less potent for treatment of chronic pain, paroxetine, due to its inhibitory effect on P2X 4 receptors, was found to be effective in suppressing tactile allodynia in a neuropathic pain model in rats (Nagata et al., 2009). Dysfunction of the noradrenergic system is another pathophysiological characteristic of depression. Noradrenaline levels are decreased, especially in patients who react positively to treatment with noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (Booij et al., 2003). Conversely, depletion of noradrenaline can cause a relapse of the disease (Delgado and Moreno, 2000; Ruhé et al., 2007). In connection with pain, the mechanism proposed for the analgesic effect of antidepressants is the strengthening of descending serotonergic and noradrenergic systems of antinociception by inhibiting the re-uptake of serotonin and noradrenalin and increasing their availability in the spinal cord. Many experimental and clinical studies with clonidine or medetomidine have demonstrated that the antinociceptive effects of noradrenaline are mediated by α2–adrenoceptors (Kawasaki et al., 2003; Grosu and Lavand’homme, 2010; Blaudszun et al., 2012). The effect of some antidepressants, especially in neuropathic pain, can also be mediated via the opioidergic system, however, the opioid system appears to be involved in the mechanism of action of antidepressants that only have anti-hyperalgesic action (clomipramine and milnacipran), but not in those with stronger antinociceptive effects such as duloxetine (Wattiez et al., 2011). In a recent study by Bohren et al. (2013), a novel mechanism of antidepressant action was described. They demonstrated that the peripheral nervous system was essential for the anti-allodynic effects of nortriptyline in animal models of neuropathic pain, and acted peripheral β2-adrenoceptors and local inhibition of TNFα production. Beside these neurotransmitters, substance P is another molecule which participates in the modulation of pain. Substance P is a mediator of C fibers and contributes to central sensitization, depending on the activity of the noradrenergic system. If noradrenergic neuronal activity or the levels of noradrenaline decrease, the increased release of substance P is expressed as hyperalgesia (Jasmin et al., 2002). Depressed patients also had elevated levels of substance P and its level correlated with the severity of clinical symptoms (Bondy et al., 2003). The dopaminergic system, in terms of pain, has received much less attention, although stimulants like amphetamine or methamphetamine are highly effective analgesics (Yamamotová et al., 2011; Yamamotová and Šlamberová, 2012). Pain is modulated by D2 receptors, particularly within the mesolimbic dopaminergic system and the nucleus accumbens, hence in the “reward system” of the brain (Franklin, 1998; Altier and Stewart, 1999; Wood, 2006). Both in chronic pain and depression hyperalgesia can results from central sensitization as a consequence of plastic changes in the nervous system. Activation of glutamate NMDA receptors is an essential step in both initiating and maintaining central sensitization, also called the “wind-up” phenomenon (Latremoliere and Woolf, 2009). A study by Klauenberg et al. (2008) demonstrated, for the first time, a considerably enhanced wind-up ratio in depressive patients that was independent of ongoing pain. Wind-up is a physiological process in the spinal cord mainly caused by temporal summation of C-fiber evoked responses that generate a progressive increase in activity of second-order neurons. Consequently, wind-up is increased in some processes with enhanced spinal cord excitability. Ketamine, the non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonist, prevents the wind-up phenomenon and suppresses not only pain but also depression. It acts rapidly and is effective for treatment-resistant patients (Dowben et al., 2013). A recent study showed that a single intravenous dose of ketamine improved depression in 64% of patients within 24 h of administration (Murrough et al., 2013). However, evaluation of antidepressant response showed that not all patients respond to ketamine treatment and that the duration of the antidepressant effect varies across studies (Browne and Lucki, 2013; Sos et al., 2013; Gálvez et al., 2014). Although the precise mechanisms underlying its antidepressant effects are not fully known, acute administration of ketamine increases BDNF levels in the rat hippocampus. The increase of hippocampal BDNF levels induced by ketamine might also be necessary to produce a rapid onset of antidepressant action in rats (Hayley and Litteljohn, 2013). It should be noted that ketamine also induces rapid and potent anti-inflammatory effects that can be relevant to its antidepressant potential (Hayley and Litteljohn, 2013). Are antidepressants more than adjuvant analgesics? A number of studies have demonstrated frequent co-occurrences of depression and pain, as well as their additive effects in several domains of quality of life in oncological patients (Kroenke et al., 2010). However, the question remains: How do antidepressants affect chronic pain and what is the mechanism of action? Over the last few years we have performed two pilot studies concerning the efficacy of antidepressant treatment in patients with chronic cancer pain and non-cancer pain (Rokyta et al., 2009). Antidepressants were indicated in both groups of patients either for psychiatric comorbidity (depression) and/or neuropathic pain. None of the patients had been treated with antidepressants before entering the study. The investigation started with 40 patients; 20 non-oncological patients and 20 oncological patients. The most frequent diagnosis in the non-oncological group was low back pain and failed back surgery syndrome. Oncological patients were diagnosed as follows: breast carcinoma, carcinoma of the prostate gland, urinary bladder and kidneys, orofacial cavity and larynx, uterus, gastrointestinal tract and pancreas, lung cancer and leukemia. Therapy for both groups of patients consisted, most often, of administration of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and tramadol. As necessary, the above mentioned drugs were used in combination with: opioids, anti-epileptics, antidepressants (fluoxetine and tricyclic antidepressants). Although there was no difference in the intensity of pain in non-oncological patients with respect to adjuvant therapy with antidepressants, the surviving oncological patients that used antidepressants reported lower pain intensity than oncological patients not taking antidepressants (Figure ). Despite the small number of patients, it is interesting that out of 10 patients treated with antidepressants, survived seven, while out of 10 patients not treated with antidepressants, only three patients survived. However, further research with homogeneous diagnostic groups is needed to establish and confirm the observed relationships. Open in a separate window Another our finding was that chronic pain patients taking antidepressants had, regardless of diagnosis, higher levels of gamma globulin compared to patients not treated with antidepressants (Rokyta et al., 2009; Figure ). A similar observation was described by Van Hunsel et al. (1996) who followed patients with depression and found, as we did, that depressive patients have low levels of gamma globulin, which rose significantly, after antidepressant treatment. The fact that immune and endocrine systems are closely related in patients with cancer even at the time when patients were informed about their diagnosis was confirmed by a negative correlation between cortisol and CD4 lymphocytes and a positive correlation between cortisol and CD3 lymphocytes. Moreover, patients with a malignant diagnosis had lower cortisol level than patients with a benign diagnosis (Křikava et al., 2007). Open in a separate window Some research observations indicate that depressed patients treated with antidepressants undergo a normalization of immune parameters (Neveu and Castanon, 1999). Normalization of serum cortisol was shown in patients with severe chronic pain treated with opioids (Tenant and Hermann, 2002). From these clinical studies, it is not possible to conclude whether antidepressants and/or opioids have a direct effect on the immune and endocrine system or whether their supposed effects resulted from improved mood. Opioid peptides are found in many leukocyte subpopulations including lymphocytes, monocytes, and granulocytes circulating in the peripheral blood. Neurokinin substance P is one of many factors that influence migration of opioid-containing leukocytes. NK1 receptor antagonists seem to act peripherally by directly inhibiting the recruitment of opioid containing leukocytes to sites of inflammation (Rittner et al., 2008). Although opioids are frequently used for the treatment of severe pain in patients with cancer, chronic morphine treatment can also have serious negative effects on tumor growth. Morphine stimulates angiogenesis-dependent tumor growth via stimulation of endothelial NO and COX-2 production (Gupta et al., 2002). Administration of celecoxib together with morphine in murine breast cancer model not only prevented promotion of angiogenesis, tumor growth, metastasis and mortality but also led to better analgesia than with morphine or celecoxib alone (Farooqui et al., 2007). Similar potential therapeutic effects were observed for lumiracoxib by Fox et al. (2004) in a model of bone cancer pain in rats, which were attributed to its anti-hyperalgesic activity. Other antidepressants have also been studied in animal models of cancer. For example, Fang et al. (2012) found that in vivo chronic mirtazapine treatment inhibited tumor growth and prolonged the survival of colon carcinoma-bearing mice. The IFN-γ levels in tumors of mice treated with mirtazapine were significantly higher, while TNF-α expression was lower than in untreated mice. On the other hand, antidepressant pretreatment with desipramine or fluoxetine increased metastasis formation in mice with melanoma, shortened survival, decreased splenocyte anti-tumor natural killer cell cytotoxicity (in vitro), and IFN-γ production (Kubera et al., 2011). One question arising from our study concerns whether the higher mortality seen in the tumor pain patients without antidepressants was a coincidence or whether it suggested some protective function associated with antidepressants. Meta-analyses from human and animal studies have concluded that several antidepressants have a significant positive association with cancer protection, while others have shown a negative association; the effect seems to be dependent on the type of cancer and the type of antidepressant (Steingart and Cotterchio, 1995; Lussier et al., 2004; Walker et al., 2011, 2012; Bielecka and Obuchowicz, 2013; Jahchan et al., 2013). Knowledge regarding the role of antidepressants in cancer progression or suppression is essential for choosing the proper treatment and clinicians who wish to use antidepressants in cancer treatment need to take into consideration the type of antidepressant, type of tumor, type of anticancer therapy, as well as the patient’s age, phase of cancer and others factors (Bielecka and Obuchowicz, 2013). It is not possible to unambiguously declare that only one source of the depressive state in oncological patient has a direct relation between depression and pain. There are many different aspects to oncological diseases and their treatment. Depressive states may be caused not only by pain, but also by decreased quality of life, worsening of cognitive functions (Baudino et al., 2012), difficulties accompanying oncological treatment such as gastrointestinal distress and fatigue, and poor life perspectives. However, we assume that both depression and pain, even though they are experienced in highly subjective ways, are deeply grounded in the neuronal and physiological substrate and therefore can, even if only indirectly, interact on this basis. Chronic pain may alter different systems, including the emotional state and gradually lead to depression, conversely depression affected cognition and perception and may lead to pain sensitization (Torta and Munari, 2010). Conclusion Our working hypothesis supposes that depression and chronic pain produce common negative neuroplastic changes in the CNS. The positive impact of antidepressants would result in a reduction of these pathological cellular/molecular processes and in the amelioration of symptoms, but it may also increase survival times and quality of life of patients with chronic cancer pain. The benefits go beyond prolongation of lifespan because they are also linked to an improvement in the quality of life of treated patients. These effects represent the most important aspects of antidepressant treatment. After careful validation of both experimental and clinical results, this approach could be ready for clinical practice in a relatively short time, especially in oncology, algesiology and psychiatry. Author contributions Richard Rokyta, Karel Vales, Anna Yamamotova and Tereza Nekovarova made substantial contributions to the conception of the paper and are co-responsible for formulation of the hypothesis. Karel Vales contributed mainly to the part of the manuscript concerning neuroplasticity, Anna Yamamotova, Richard Rokyta and Jitka Fricova contributed mainly to the part of the manuscript concerning neurobiological substrate of pain and depression and to the part concerning mechanisms of antidepressants. Tereza Nekovarova contributed mainly to the part focusing on default mode network. Ales Stuchlik critically reviewed the manuscript. Conflict of interest statement The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. |
Hello and welcome to a special MANFLU edition of Ask 411 Wrestling! I am your writer, Mathew Sforcina, and as you might have guessed from the specializes of this week’s edition, I indeed have the MANFLU. You have to write it like that to stress just how bad it is. MANFLU! Anyway, that explains the slight delay for this week’s edition, which I do apologies for, but, you know… MANFLU! Anyway, got a question for when I’m not diseased? [email protected] is where you should send it. Then wash your hands. Can’t be too careful. I mean, really, do you even know where BANNER has been? Zeldas! Check out my Drabble blog, 1/10 of a Picture! Better stock up on hand sanitiser before visiting there too… Me On Twitter~! http://www.twitter.com/411mania http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv http://www.twitter.com/411music http://www.twitter.com/411games http://www.twitter.com/411mma Feedback Loop Henderson Peabody: I would be surprised if you got that reference, it’s another famous ‘Sforcina In-Joke Maybe A Dozen People Will Get’. In this case, that’s the name of a rookie down here in Australia. Four Buyouts And A Funeral: I’ll discuss the WWE being bought out in the column proper. The Trivia Crown I come from a wrestling family and I share something with a current champion in a sport somewhat different from mine. I’ve been honored by two wrestling organizations, including a Hall of Fame induction. Between my most notorious feuds, there are some with WWE Hall of Famers, including winning a recognized World Title (at least at that time) from one of them, which then I lost it to a former WWE star and TNA trainer. A former boxing world champion was in the corner of one of my opponents in probably the most unusual wrestling match I’ve had. One of my biggest rivals and real life friends is someone who has wrestled with shadows and have worked as a trainer for WWE and WCW, including helping three former world singles and tag team champions in WWE and WCW and a former UFC champion. Oh, and I’m certainly not a fan of Robocop. Who am I? Nova Scotia Guy has the answer. I come from a wrestling family (brothers The Beast, Bobby Kay, and Rudy Kay) and I share something with a current champion in a sport somewhat different from mine (last name Cormier shared with Daniel Cormier in UFC). I’ve been honored by two wrestling organizations, including a Hall of Fame induction (Stampede Wrestling Hall of Fame and Cauliflower Alley Club). Between my most notorious feuds, there are some with WWE Hall of Famers, including winning a recognized World Title (at least at that time) from one of them (won WWC Universal Heavyweight title from Carlos Colon), which then I lost it to a former WWE star and TNA trainer (TNT/Savio Vega). A former boxing world champion was in the corner of one of my opponents in probably the most unusual wrestling match I’ve had (vs. Invader #1 with Hector Camacho). One of my biggest rivals and real life friends is someone who has wrestled with shadows (Bret Hart) and have worked as a trainer for WWE and WCW, including helping three former world singles and tag team champions in WWE (Mark Henry, Edge, and Christian) and WCW and a former UFC champion (Ken Shamrock). Oh, and I’m certainly not a fan of Robocop. (See Video) Who am I? You are Maritime wrestling legend Leo Burke Who am I? I once held a position of authority in one of the big three, as well as a title here or there. I’ve feuded with someone who is currently persona non grata in a company in said company, a feud that ended with someone leaving the aforementioned company. My PPV debut lasted less than five minutes. I’ve feuded and won tag titles with current WWE commentators. I twice gave away a title, and also won a title the same night someone was given that title. One of only three men to have achieved something (well, four, if you include that kicky flippy guy), I am who? Getting Down To All The Business So, the buyout of WWE topic got a bit of discussion. And I think there’s a bit of confusion as to where I was coming from, due to my not making a certain point clear. Sean sent in a nice recap of the issue at hand. Love reading the column, but I disagree with your take on what happens when Vince dies, because despite WWE being a publicly traded company, the McMahon family still owns the majority of WWE stock and hence, still control the company. It’s the same reason why Jamie Packer or Lachlan Murdoch end up in control when their fathers’ die, because the family owns enough equity to keep control of the company. My understanding with WWE stock is that there are two kinds. The first is just an ordinary type of share and this what is traded on the market. The second type, is almost exclusively owned by people called McMahon and each one is worth ten times what the normal shares are worth. Vince controls enough of this type of share to effectively still own something like 75% of the entire company. There are enough of this type of share that it doesn’t matter how many of the normal shares end up in the hands of one owner, Vince still owns more than 51% of the company. So, as long as Vince leaves all those shares to Steph in his will, then HHH and Steph stay in charge. The issue comes if he doesn’t. But I would bet that any stock owned by people called McMahon now, will still be owned by someone called McMahon after Vince dies, because he will want to keep it in the family. The good thing would be if he split it 50/50 between Shane and Steph and then it would be up to Shane to decide if he wanted it to stay in the family or whether he sells. So it doesn’t matter how many suits there are at the big office in Stamford, if they aren’t called McMahon they ultimately won’t get a look in on the big decisions once Vince karks it. Unless Vince has sold a lot of stock type B recently then he still owns enough to pass on control of the company. All the stock ownership info is publicly available. That’s how I found this out a few years ago. Neil also pointed that out. But Ed asked about it directly, In last week’s Ask411, you said, very confidently, that once Vince McMahon is gone and Triple H and Stephanie take over, that within a year or less, WWE would be bought out by another conglomerate. Why are you so positive this is what will occur? OK, so first things first, because I didn’t make this too clear: I’m not predicting a hostile takeover. I am fully aware that that would be impossible under the current rules as to how the company’s shares are set up, at the end of the day a couple of the McMahons would have to sell out. And that’s what I’m predicting. I’m predicting that once Vince is chosen to defend the galaxy after getting a high score on a vector graphics arcade game put in a trailer park for some reason, once Vince is off saving us the whales from the Ko-Dan Empire, then StepHunter will get a phone call. (I will get that over dammit.) Anyway, StepHunter will get an invitation to bring the family down to Disney World, for argument’s sake. They’ll all have a lovely time, they’ll meet all the cartoon characters they want, and then while the daughters are off having high tea with Leia and Female Thor, StepHunter will sit in nice chairs, and be told how wonderful WWE is, how they put smiles on families’ faces, and how they’ve turned wrestling into wholesome family entertainment which is wonderful, and Connor’s Cure is great, so on and so forth. They’ll be shown how Disney has the best in live event management and thus could run the day to day stuff a lot more efficiently, and how cross promotion would be wonderful, perhaps offered roles to Steph as new Chief Ombudswoman for Women across the entire Disney empire, while Triple H would become head of creative for WWE, and then they’d be shown a check with a whole lot of zeros on it. And then they’d flip them off and leave, apparently. The reason I’m so confident WWE will get sold off is that I don’t think Shane is coming back to run the joint, I’m fairly certain StepHunter is being groomed for that. But the thing is, WWE isn’t presented as a family operated business anymore. It’s a corporate conglomerate. And corporate conglomerates get bought and sold all the time. So do family run businesses, yes, but once you’re over that first hump, it’s a lot easier. WWE makes a decent amount of money, gets reasonable ratings and at one point got really good ones. It gives you a whole lot of interesting and unique stars, can reinvent itself on a dime, is known all over the world, has TV and live events, and has a bunch of other unique selling points as a commercial product, which is what they are now. That’s why I think they’ll be sold once Vince is gone, because while Hunter loves the business and Shane is like his dad, StepHunter has shown that as a duo, they are corporate first, wrestling second. And the corporate thing to do is, when offered a big ol’ check and a cushy job somewhere else, you sign on the dotted line. Now, yes, if for some reason Vince hasn’t updated his will or changes his mind as he’s lifted up into a Starship and he puts Shane back in charge then all bets are off. But I, personally, feel that StepHunter will sell out sooner or later. I might well be wrong about them, and I’m not saying this is a bad thing. But with their influence, WWE has gone corporate. And there’s only one outcome that way. Now, as for who, I don’t think there’s any real comparisons to be made in the past. The Disney/WCW tapings were great for WCW in the sense of saving them money, they just ran into problems with the NWA and Sid, neither of which seemed to have gotten back to Disney as being disastrous. Likewise WCW in the Turner empire, that was bought partly out of loyalty from Turner for the product that helped solidify his Superstation nationwide and also because by buying it he made sure he had four hours of high rating programming locked in, which more than made up for the cost of running the company. If WCW was only losing six million a year in 2001, and Jamie Kellner fell down a flight of stairs at some point, they would still be around probably. But that’s the real kicker. I bet you, somewhere deep in the Comcast actuary pit, there’s a file. Some young intern is tasked to updating it every few months, and in that file is a fairly simple equation. This is how much it costs the company to get all of WWE’s programming on our networks, and this is how much we get out of it. This is how much we estimate it would cost to buy WWE out. This is how much we’d make off WWE, plus how much we save now we don’t have to pay for the programming. Thus, this is how much time it would take to make back our investment. Once that last number gets low enough, and Vince is learning how to enter healing status, an offer will be made. But again, I’m not a business guru, and this is all conjecture. You want a serious business opinion, go back in time and convince JP Prag not to leave. Actually if you could do that anyway, that’d be awesome, cheers. Anyway, Someone Whose Name I’ve Lost Even Though They Just Sent This In Because MANFLU wants to know about the man called Steve Sting. With the WWE mentioning that Sting has defeated nine former WWE Champions it got me to thinking “How many World Champions has he beat?” I think the WWE Champions he beat in WCW where Hogan, Savage, Flair, Hart, Nash, Sid, Austin, Foley, and Big Show. Pretty sure WWE doesn’t acknowledge TNA wins, but that would include at the least RVD, Hardy, and Angle. Beat former WHC’s Goldberg and Booker T Not sure if he ever faced Guerrero, Benoit, Jericho, or Mysterio in WCW cause when they first came in they where down the card and by the time they moved up he was in the rafters. Any ideas? Well let’s see. First off, I’ll go down the list of WWE Champs and see which ones Sting has beaten, see if that doesn’t get our magic 9, then go from there. Sting beat the following men at at least these events… Big Show: WCW Great American Bash ‘98 Bret Hart: WCW Nitro Oct 18th ‘99 Hulk Hogan: WCW Superbrawl VIII Jeff Hardy: TNA Victory Road ‘11 Kevin Nash: WCW Millennium Final Kurt Angle: TNA Bound For Glory ‘07 Mick Foley: WCW Beach Blast ‘92 Randy Savage: WCW Nitro Jun 7th ’99 (DQ) Ric Flair: NWA Starrcade ‘89 Rob Van Dam: TNA Sacrifice ‘11 Sid Vicious: NWA Halloween Havoc ‘90 Steve Austin: WCW Great American Bash Tour ‘91 Day 40 The Iron Sheik: NWA Wrestlewar ‘89 So take out Savage, that’s still twelve. Take out the three he beat only in TNA, and voila, that’s your nine. So what about World Heavyweight Champions not listed above? Booker T: WCW Spring Stampede ‘00 Chris Benoit: WCW Nitro Sep 20th ‘99 Christian: TNA Impact Dec 28th ’06 (Three Way Nightstick on a Pole match) OK, what about WCW Champs? Jeff Jarrett: WCW Nitro Jun 5th ‘00 Lex Luger: WCW Superbrawl 2 Scott Steiner: TNA Impact Jun 30 ‘11 Vader: WCW Starrcade ‘92 NWA Champs? Abyss: TNA Against All Odds ‘07 AJ Styles: TNA Turning Point ‘08 Barry Windham: NWA Clash Of The Champions 3 (DQ) Masahiro Chono: NJPW Live Event Sep 19th ‘96 Rhino: TNA Genesis ‘09 Shane Douglas: WWA Sydney May 21st ’03 (Three Way) The Great Muta: NWA The Great American Bash ‘89 TNA leftovers? Bobby Roode: TNA Impact Jul 16th ‘07 Bully Ray: TNA Impact Aug 29th ‘13 Eric Young: TNA Impact Apr 11th ‘06 James Storm: TNA Impact Mar 31st ‘08 Magnus: TNA Impact Jul 22nd ‘09 Mr. Anderson: TNA Impact Jul 11th ‘11 Samoa Joe: TNA Bound For Glory 4 … ECW? Bam Bam Bigelow: WCW Live Event Jun 27th ’99 (Three Way) Matt Hardy: TNA Impact Apr 19th ‘11 Mike Awesome: WCW Thunder May 2nd ‘00 So 37 world champions. 35 if you don’t count DQs. Sting has beaten 35 world champs. There you go. Truly a Great Career. OK, let’s go from in-depth counting to Raza. Now we all know what state the current WWE Product is in. Let alone other things, there is not single star WWE is having who can brought maximum pop like Hogan, Austin, Warrior, Rock, Undertaker used to have in their primes. Today, Cena, the biggest so called baby-face (to me is a glorified jobber) is even by fans, who showed there dis-interest in Reigns also. Taker and Rock are part timers (even they too are not received well great level these days). Dean Ambrose failing as trying to be a new ‘the Rock’. Randy Orton is on/off as a face. Only Bryan could be an exception but unfortunately we are not sure as to whether we would see him wrestle again? So I don’t understand why WWE haven’t created a solid baby face like Goldberg or Austin? Ambrose is what the current writing team would do with Austin, not Rock. Reigns is the guy trying to be the new Rock. And that’s the problem, in that apart from the overarching “WWE Wants WWE Over, Not Any One Guy” issue that means everyone that didn’t get big in the past won’t be getting big now, WWE now can’t seem to work out how to make a solid babyface hero. Well no, they know, on some level. I’m not saying the writing team is incompetent, I’m sure they know that the way to get a new babyface superstar is to have them win all the time and be awesome and not do silly stuff but instead kick ass and take names, I’m sure they are aware of that. But they can’t do that, since all babyfaces have to smile and not care about wins or losses and be nice and also can’t win all the time, they have to trade wins and can’t overshadow Cena or Orton or Reigns, of course, can’t have that… WWE hasn’t made a solid babyface hero because they have chosen not to, pretty much. Cena’s working just fine and Reigns will be there any day now, just you wait, we’ll get him over, absolutely… Secondly, booking antics of Kevin Nash in WCW during late 90s have always been discussed but I don’t know as to why he made booker back then in the first place. He neither married boss’ daughter nor have a past similar experience of booking things? He was just another wrestler He didn’t marry the bosses’ daughter, but he was a very good friend of Eric Bischoff. Ever since jumping to WCW and helping them become the numbers one and two brands in wrestling in the nWo and WCW, Nash had been pitching ideas and giving suggestions about booking. Given that Nash was one of their main stars and seemed like a creative guy, these suggestions were taken warmly, although the outcomes weren’t always for the best as viewed by an outsider, if you forgive the term. Anyway, he has a track record in the company of being a guy who is somewhat reliable and creative, and Eric Bischoff was burnt out creatively and personally at a point somewhere in late 98, the exact date is debated. Either way, Nash didn’t immediately go from talent to boss, he was brought in in late 98 as part of the nebulous booking committee that WCW had had running for a few years under Bischoff after Hogan went on break, i.e. ‘retirement’. But then Nash quickly grew in position and power as he seemed to have a good head on his shoulders and shot down a few ideas like hotshotting Nash/Goldberg on Nitro and such. And then, again at a point that may or may not have been before Starrcade 98, Nash, as being the freshest creative mind they had, was given the book while Bischoff went on holiday with his daughter in France for several weeks. So the thing is, by most accounts Nash is right in the sense that he wasn’t head booker/guy in charge until after Starrcade 98. But he was part of the booking committee that decided Nash over Goldberg, plus he had Bischoff’s ear a lot too. Like a lot of stuff online, saying ‘Nash booked himself to end the Streak’ is technically inaccurate but the general complaint/point is basically true, in that while Nash didn’t officially be the guy in charge and make that call, he sure as hell didn’t fight against it or stop it, which he could have done at the time, arguably. Not that many people in that position would, but still. Thirdly, at around WM XII Undertaker did wear an intriguing face protecting mask/gear, as per storyline he was heavily crushed by Yokuzuna and Mable but what was the real reason? The mask that The Undertaker wore in 1995 was worn, in kayfabe, because of an attack by Yokozuna and Mabel on Monday Night Raw where they attacked him with several shots to the head and face. This led to an injury to The Undertaker’s face. In reality, Yokozuna and Mabel on Monday Night Raw where they attacked him with several shots to the head and face did in fact lead to an injury to The Undertaker’s face due to Mabel’s sloppy legdrops actually breaking Undertaker’s orbital bone. Fourth, what was a the original plan post Royal Rumble 2015, was Reigns was supposed to crush Lesnar at WM31 or things changed to due to poor perception of Reigns by fans or Lesnar extended his contract and particularly why they Placed Reigns and Bryan at Fastlane 2015 when we could have had Lesnar-Bryan at WM31? The original plan was for us fans to realise we’ve all been stupid dum-dums, and that while Bryan is ok, Roman Reigns is in fact super mega awesome and that we should all cheer for him instead since he’s just such a god among men, and then after he crushed Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania he’d lead us to the promised land where everyone cheered who WWE decided we should cheer that week, and we were all WWE fans instead of wrestling fans and life was good. *Infinitesimal amount of a Chandler* When most people decided that, actually, we didn’t like Reigns and would prefer Bryan, thank you, they ran Fast Lane to show that Reigns was better than Bryan and then had Bryan come out and put over Reigns as the second coming to try and get everyone onto the Reigns bandwagon. And they still don’t quite know what went wrong there, for some reason. Lesnar’s contract had nothing to do with the match itself, if he hadn’t renewed the contract then maybe Reigns would have won full stop but I doubt it, given the reaction. WM31 was all about going with Rollins since Reigns just was not working. And finally, is it true that coincidentally WCW started to blow-off with the debut of Goldberg i.e ratings started flipping as he started getting momentum? Wikipedia has a chart up now showing the ratings war. Goldberg debuted September 22, 1997. That was deep in WCW’s 82 weeks on top. He won the US title on the April 20, 1998 edition of Nitro, which was the week after the one where Raw beat Nitro for the first time after those 82 weeks. Then Raw won/tied up to the week of the 6th of June where Goldberg beat Hogan to win the World Title live in Nitro. The two sides would trade wins for a few months, then Nitro won the 26th of October 98 war (thanks in part to broadcasting Goldberg/DDP and Hogan/Warrior from Halloween Havoc the previous night due to the 3.5 hour PPV fiasco. That would be the last time Nitro would win (outside of weeks Raw didn’t run). So you could say that Goldberg rose up during WCW’s victory, then when he got the US title was when they faltered, then after winning the world title WCW held on for a bit then Goldberg’s reign led to WCW dying. You could say that, and it’s somewhat accurate. But correlation sure as hell does not mean causation. Ed has a hypothetical. I have a hypothetical question. Suppose…. a tv-company, has a millionaire behind it (like Turner), wants to bring back wrestling on television. They have all the money they want, but don’t want anything to do with Vince McMahon and company. (So basically recreate a WCW-like competitor to WWE, not TNA levels bad, but an alternative to WWE like you suggested this week). Do you think they could build up a company (within a short time) that could compete with WWE, not directly per se (llike the monday night wars), but as a company? I have the feeling that no matter what it would fail. Maybe in the years after WCW folded it was possible, but to me it seems these days there aren’t that many credible headliners left, not under contract of WWE. What would the roster look like if you had to choose? (can’t use anyone from current WWE, but 1 performer (not Cena).) Really curious on your take! Not on WWE’s scale and not in a short time, but it’s possible, yes. The main issue is that WWE has trained a generation of fans to expect wrestling to be presented and look a certain way. Part of the reason TNA had so much money issues is having to keep a certain level of presentation and look to stay on par with WWE, a lot of people expect wrestling to look like WWE/MMA does and thus getting a casual fan to take a chance on a show that looks like ROH or CHIKARA is hard, unless it’s totally different like Lucha Underground. So if you were insistent on a WWE level product off the bat, you’d need a billionare to afford the high set up costs to get everything going from scratch. WWE had time to slowly but surely bring in new stuff, they didn’t have to pay for the LED set and the LED screens and all the branded stuff all in one go, they could spread the costs across weeks and months and years. And yes, you couldn’t go in with expectations of challenging WWE off the bat with main event stars, simply because anyone well known enough to challenge WWE is either on staff or over the hill. So there’s just no way you could do it off the bat. You’d need to go in and expect a long, slow build. You’d need to get some good bookers and put on a long term plan, to not expect to make any serious indent against WWE for years at least. You build your company and your stars up, and maybe, just maybe, in a few years you might start to make inroads. So what would the roster be? Well if you give me one guy from WWE, I take Paul Heyman to head creative, thank you. I get Jim Ross on commentary, and then everyone else has to be new and unknown to the big leagues. Because that’s the kicker, everyone on the roster should be talented but for the most part unknown to the mainstream fans, so that my new company becomes the only place to find these new guys easily. You’d have to go around the world and cut deals with companies around the world, like Jarrett did, so as to be able to bring in talent from Japan, Mexico, Australia and so on. Cut a deal with NJPW, Nakamura, Tanahashi, Okada, all the big names. Go to AAA, get Pentagon Jr, get Drago, so on. Yes they’ve been in Lucha Underground, but point still stands. Get the best of the US indies, Willie Mack, whatever Nitro wants to call himself, Sabre Jr, Young Bucks since they’d be expected. Then get anyone relatively unknown in the US that’s overseas, starting with 95% of the female wrestling scene in Australia and build from there. And then you present a down to earth show where the angles are simple and well told with great wrestling, and then whenever someone gets jerked around by WWE, your Ryders, your Sandows, when they get pissed, send out feelers, let them know they have an option. And you’ll probably still fail/get bought out in a few years by WWE, but hey, worth a shot. PR, I think, has two questions. 1) I was watching the first RAW aired and I noticed in the chart presented by a model RAW-Real Awesome Wrestling. Then, was that the concept for Raw by the time? When did ther start to change this and focus inside the development of Raw as a trademark? That wasn’t the concept of the show, that was just a ring card. There were a bunch of them in the early days of Raw, ‘Raw Girls’ who would occasionally get up and walk about the ring with ‘witty’ statements like “Open wide and saw RAW” and the like. It was a really lame version of the Nitro Girls, where instead of dancing and putting on a show, they’d just walk around with the cards and… you’d cheer? 2) Whispers and rumors last year centered the WWE pursuing a genuine evil /heel by the time, Mr. A-ROD, but, apparently, all was just that, rumor ans smoke. Do you think the WWE missed a chance to involve both, A-ROD & The Yankees, in a series of programs such as Royal Rumble, or even Wrestlemania/Summer Slam? What would be the impact, if such thing have had happened, even with Torrie Wilson, engaged to A-ROD? Thanks a lot First time I’d heard of them. And I dunno, I’m not really sure what WWE could do here. I doubt A-Rod would be interested in physical contact, since he’s not a fan and thus wouldn’t be eager to do anything. Plus what angle would you run? A-Rod and Sand-Rod V Cena and Derek Jeter for captaincy of the Yankees? The Yankees being, as I understand it, the most hated team in the MLB by everyone who isn’t a New Yorker doesn’t really lend itself to being babyfaces, even with a natural heel like A-Rod involved. But hey, perhaps someone below has an idea on how they could have worked out a storyline. I will, instead, bring this MANFLU edition of Ask 411 to a close. Next week back to normal, hopefully. … MANFLU! |
Featured Image: Skull of specimen MCP-PV-1600-T (holotype of Probelesodon kitchingi) in lateral view. From Martinelli et al. (2017). Papers (All Open Access): Proofs and Pre-Prints: Lokiarchaea are close relatives of Euryarchaeota, not bridging the gap between prokaryotes and eukaryotes (PLOS Genetics) Community Events, Society Updates, and Resources: Diversity in Paleontology Workshop GoFundMe (Link) SVP 2017, August 23–26, Calgary, Alberta (Link) SVPCA 2017, September 12–15, Birmingham, England (Link) New and Views: Animals and Anatomy: Museums, Methods, and Musings: Featured Folks and Fieldwork: The rise of the Necromancer: A profile of the Master of Death, Dean Lomax (Green Tea and Velociraptors) Fossils in trees: David Bapst (RS Publishing Blog) Arts, Books, Culture, and Fun: Explore Mesozoic Ecosystems with Gabriel Ugueto (LITC) Chicago’s Field Museum Welcomes JURASSIC WORLD: the Exhibition! (Dave’s Dinosaurs) Do you have some news, a blog, or something just plain cool you want to share with the PLOS Paleo Community? Email it to us at paleocommunity@plos.org, tweet it to us at @PLOSPaleo, or message us on Facebook. |
Harris Gruman (from left), Deb Fastino, and Lew Finfer, the founders of Raise Up Massachusetts, are in their biggest battle yet: A 2018 constitutional amendment referendum — to raise taxes on millionaires and funnel that cash to transportation and education. They’ve helped raise the minimum wage. They passed a ballot initiative giving employees up to 40 hours of sick time per year. And now they’re engaged in their biggest battle yet: A 2018 constitutional amendment referendum — given a preliminary green light by the Legislature this year — to raise taxes on millionaires and funnel that cash to transportation and education. Advertisement At a time when a no-new-taxes Republican governor is ascendant and the state Democratic Party is in a defensive crouch, Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition of community, faith, and organized labor groups, is at the vanguard of the liberal fight against economic inequality. Get Metro Headlines in your inbox: The 10 top local news stories from metro Boston and around New England delivered daily. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here Opponents frame Raise Up as a front group for public-sector unions — from teachers to MBTA drivers — trying to sneakily squeeze more money out of taxpayers for profligate Beacon Hill spending under the guise of forcing the rich to pay their fair share. But the leaders of Raise Up, founded in 2013, reject that argument and say Massachusetts, one of the wealthiest places on earth, cannot truly thrive when the gap between the top 1 percent and everyone else is so vast. Harris Gruman, a top union official and a co-chairman of the group, said Massachusetts is in the midst of moral crisis: a crisis of work, communities, and the faith we have in ourselves as a society. “Raise Up is really about rebuilding all of that, bringing that all together, becoming Norway, in a sense — using our resources,” said Gruman. Advertisement Gruman, a 57-year-old Somerville resident and state political director for the Service Employees International Union, helps run Raise Up along with a faith-based organizer and a social justice activist. They represent scores of groups, from UU Mass Action, which organizes Unitarian Universalists on social justice issues, to the Massachusetts Nurses Association, a union. Lew Finfer, 65, a longtime Dorchester resident and another co-chairman, has been a community organizer since 1970. For the last quarter-century, Finfer, who is the director of Massachusetts Communities Action Network, has been engaged in faith-based organizing, bringing together church, synagogue, and other religious groups in social justice efforts. Deb Fastino, 51, who lives in Fall River, is a co-chairwoman of Raise Up. She’s also the executive director of Coalition for Social Justice, which engages in advocacy and political action, and a board member of Family Values at Work, a national network pressing for paid leave laws. Raise Up’s goal, they said in interviews with the Globe, is threefold: Raising wages and benefits for the poorest workers; more heavily taxing the very rich; and using that new money to improve education and transportation. By gathering enough signatures for a ballot push, Raise Up helped pressure the Legislature to pass an incremental minimum wage hike in 2014; the floor will be lifted to $11 per hour in January. Advertisement And it backed a successful 2014 ballot initiative to mandate that workers be able to earn and use up to 40 hours of sick time annually — time that is paid if their employer has 11 or more employees. The group spent more than $1.3 million during that campaign, primarily funded by unions, such as those affiliated with SEIU and the Massachusetts Teachers Association, state records show. Raise Up’s new initiative would impose an additional tax of 4 percent on annual taxable income in excess of $1 million starting in 2019. (Currently, Massachusetts’ income tax rate is 5.1 percent for all income levels.) And the new tax would be tied to inflation, so the levy would continue to apply only to very wealthy people. The state Department of Revenue has estimated if there is not an exodus of wealthy people from Massachusetts, the tax measure could bring in as much as $2.2 billion annually, a massive new influx of cash. Advocates see their push through the lens of income inequality, which is particularly pronounced in the state. Boston, a recent Brookings Institution analysis found, has the highest rate of income inequality among the country’s biggest cities. In the group’s private polling and focus groups, Gruman said, Massachusetts residents were crystal clear that they support increasing taxes on the very rich as long as the new money is dedicated to the areas that matter to them. They told interviewers that having a reliable way to get to work and being able to get a college education without lifelong debt are key to their economic security. Raise Up’s efforts are supported by strong majorities of residents in opinion surveys. And backers point to the 157,000 signatures collected in the effort to put the millionaires’ tax on the ballot: One third collected by unions, one-third by religious groups, one third by community organizations, and none by paid canvassers. However, Massachusetts voters have previously rejected five proposals to change the Constitution to allow for a graduated state income tax: 1962, 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1994. And there are several simmering disputes about the millionaires’ tax effort. Opponents say the Legislature, rather than being mandated to actually spend the money from the new tax on transportation and education, could spend it on anything. And they say that Raise Up is effectively a front group for Democratic Party-aligned public sector unions that stand to benefit from a massive infusion of new tax dollars. Chip Faulkner, the communications director for Citizens for Limited Taxation, which vociferously opposes the millionaires’ tax, said he sees Raise Up as a new iteration of his low-tax group’s longtime foes: The Massachusetts Teachers Association. “They go way back, the MTA. They were our main opposition in 1980,” he said, referring to the fight over Proposition 2½, which limits property taxes. Faulkner added that he sees the group’s top officials, including MTA president Barbara Madeloni, as actually leading the millionaires’ tax charge. “It’s the same old group with a different face. They just changed their masks,” he said. “But we expected that.” The Massachusetts Teachers Association, which spent millions of dollars trying to defeat Republican Governor Charlie Baker in his 2014 race, has donated $75,000 and more than $389,000 worth of staff time to the millionaires’ tax effort, state campaign records show. But Madeloni strongly rejected the supposition that Raise Up is a front group for teachers and other public sector unions, and said opponents are trying to deny and undermine the people-driven power of the wide-ranging coalition. “We work arm-and-arm with community organizations, faith organizations. One of the beautiful things about it is that it is all of us working together,” Madeloni said. “It is what democracy looks like.” And Fastino, the Raise Up co-chairwoman, said she believes advocates have finally framed a tax question in a way that will be victorious. “I think the process of thinking through how to do it, make it more clear, tying it to something people care about — transportation and education,” she said. “I think that we have a winner this time.” Joshua Miller can be reached at joshua.miller@globe.com |
The Engine Control Unit is a vital part of every car made in the last 40 years or so, but unlike just about every other electronic device, open source solutions just don’t exist. [Andrey] is trying to change that with rusEfi, a project that hopes to bring together hardware, software, and engines in one easy to use package. He’s even designed Frankenstein, a full ECU ‘shield’ for the STM32F4 Discovery dev board. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen [Andrey]’s adventures in building an ECU. An earlier board was also powered by the STM32F4 Discovery, and he actually drove his 96 Ford Aspire around using this homebrew ECU. It was only firing on two cylinders, but that was only a loose solder connection. Of course building an ECU from scratch is worthless without the proper firmware that balances and engine’s fuel economy and performance. This sort of testing must be done empirically and [Andrey] has a Kickstarter going for the development of this firmware and some dyno time. No rewards, but it’s worth chipping in a buck or two. I did. Videos below. |
On some level, what you’re about to read is the most schizophrenic of all Paste blind tastings. Approaching “sour beers” or “wild ales” for this style of tasting is like venturing into a quagmire of conflicting styles and substyles—you’re just hoping to find your way out again, when all is said and done. Every beer just raises further questions about which other beers should be included. Fruited vs. neutral? Kettle sours vs. barrel-aged sours? Different strains of bacteria and wild yeast? How do you compare all of them to each other? And what of other “sour beer” styles that are now better defined in the American market, such as Berliner weisse or gose? In the end, the only way is to make a decision and stick with it. This is a large tasting, and a wide-ranging one that includes beers from some of the country’s most sought-after sour beer producers. It includes many styles of beer, brewed with a dizzying array of fruits, spices, barrels and strains of funk-forward yeast and bacteria. Some of these beers bear a passing resemblance to each other. Others are so uniquely bizarre that we barely knew what to do with them. It’s perhaps easiest to simply state which types of beer were NOT included: Saison/farmhouse ale, Berliner weisse and gose. There are plenty of tart saisons, but as you probably recall, we just blind-tasted 116 of them last month. Berliner weisse and gose, on the other hand, are so well established now on their own that each of them really deserves its own tasting—something that we will address in the August tasting, which will tackle gose specifically. Everything else that is tart in the world of beer can be found in this tasting. Flanders red ales and oud bruins are alongside dry-hopped American kettle sours, which are alongside oak-aged fruited sours and other beers freshly dumped from whiskey or tequila barrels. You might say that the only other requirement is that the beer must be sour—or at least claim to be. So let’s get started, and let the best tart beer win. A Note on Beer Acquisition As in most of our blind tastings at Paste, the vast majority of these sours were sent directly to the office by the breweries that choose to participate, with additional beers acquired by us via locally available purchases and the occasional trade. We always do our best to reach out to breweries we’re aware of that make exemplary versions of particular styles, but things always do slip through the cracks. We apologize for a few significant omissions that we couldn’t acquire, either due to seasonality or market shortages. There will never be a “perfect” tasting lineup, much as we continue to try. Rules and Procedure - As explained above, this is exclusively a tasting of sour/wild ales, largely determined by how the breweries chose to label their products. Nothing labeled as “saison/farmhouse ale, berliner weisse or gose” was admitted. There was no ABV limit. When in doubt, we simply allow a brewery’s marketing to define a beer’s style, and expect them to stick to the designation they’ve chosen. - There was a limit of two entries per brewery. The beers were separated into daily blind tastings that approximated a sample size of the entire field. - Tasters included professional beer writers, brewery owners, brewmasters and beer reps. Awesome, Paste-branded glassware is from Spiegelau. - Beers were judged completely blind by how enjoyable they were as individual experiences and given scores of 1-100, which were then averaged. Entries were judged by how much we enjoyed them for whatever reason, not by how well they fit any kind of preconceived style guidelines. As such, this is not a BJCP-style tasting. The Field: Sours/Wild Ales #s 143-51 This was, at times, a confusing and difficult tasting for our judges. Tackling a lineup every afternoon that has beers made with 10 different varieties of fruit can be a perplexing experience for one’s taste buds, and some of the results were unexpected. There were relatively unheralded breweries that performed exceptionally, and some brewers considered among the best in the world that missed out on the ranked portion of the list. In short, it was a good example of the kind of results that make blind tastings so interesting. The best beers in this tasting were often the ones with some semblance of balance. There are a disproportionate number of beers in The Field that missed out on the top 50 because on some level they were just too bombastic—often too tart, without any balancing quality to rein in all that acid. Rule of thumb: “bile” is not the kind of quality you want to evoke in a fruited sour. If it seems like something that would be best used to shine up tarnished old pennies, your sour beer might be getting away from you a little bit. But at the same time, there are many ways to make an exemplary beer—balance may be one of them, but others you can’t help but love for the purity with which they channel specific flavors. There are examples here that succeed both with bombast and subtlety. As ever, the following beers are simply listed in alphabetical order, which means they are not ranked. I repeat: These beers are not ranked. Adirondack Puree: Tart Cherry Avery Ginger Sour Ballast Point Sour Wench Beachwood Blendery Coolship Chaos Black Project Supercruise Boneyard Gooze Cruise Boulevard Love Child #8 Braxton The Pot Calling the Kettle Sour Braxton Yesterday’s Headlines Breakside B-Sides # 4 Brewery Vivant Angelina Burial Fall of the Damned Burlington Beer Co. You Can’t Get There From Here (Strawberry Rhubarb) Burlington Beer Co. You Can’t Get There From Here (Blackberry, Black Currant) Calicraft Zinfandel Sour Ale Carton Brewing Co. Dune Fruit Carton Brewing Co. Monkey Chased the Weasel Casa Agria Heritage Gold Cascade Brewing Apricot Ale Cerebral Brewing/TRVE Brain Transplant Cigar City Lactobacillus Guava Grove Creature Comforts Triangulation Destihl St. Dekkera Vuile Blonde Destihl Synchopathic Sour Dogfish Head Alternate Takes #5 DuClaw Sour Me This Epic Oak and Orchard (Blueberry, boysenberry, black currant) Finch Beer Co. Tacocat Firestone Walker SLOambic 4 Hands Brewing Co. Kriek Four Quarters Brewing Sour 47 Fulton Beer Culture Project Series One Funkwerks Luminoso Funkwerks Raspberry Provincial Goose Island Gillian Goose Island Lolita Grand Teton Sour Brown Great Raft You, Me and Everyone We Know 002 (peach) Great Raft You, Me and Everyone We Know 004 (pluot) Green Flash Nouveau Tarte Green Flash Passionfruit Kicker Half Acre Pennon Henniker Brewing Co. Sour Flower Henniker Brewing Co. Queen Pollyana Hi-Wire Brewing Blackberry Sour The Hourglass Brewery Violet Indeed Brewing Co. Lucy Ipswich Ale Brewery Bramble On Ipswich Ale Brewery Cranberry Beret Iron John’s Copper Sky Jester King Spon (Apricot & Peach) Kelsen Lucious Sour Brown Lagunitas Aunt Sally Lagunitas Dark Swan Lindemans Cuvee de Rene Kriek Lost Abbey Framboise de Amorosa New Belgium La Folie Night Shift Ever Weisse NoDa Boba Brett Sour Project NOLA Out Tequilya Odell Brazzle Odell Green Coyote Ommegang Pale Sour Ale Orpheus Brewing Like a White Curtain Blowing in the Draft From a Half-Opened Window Beside a Chair on Which Nobody Sits (Yes, this is the actual beer name.) Oud Beersel Bzart Lambiek Perennial Artisan Ales Savant Beersel pFriem Family Brewers Peche Prairie Apricot Funk Quest Brewing Co. Funkscursion Rhinegeist Hurricane Rodenbach Fruitage Samuel Adams Grand Cru Samuel Adams Stony Brook Red Short’s Anni Ale 13irteen Silver City Foxy Lady Sixpoint Stun Gun Ska Brewing Co. Pink Vapor Stew Societe The Thief Straight to Ale Paramecium Sun King Afterparty SweetWater Cambium Thirsty Bear Isidore’s Transfiguration Three Taverns Blueberry Inceptus Timmermans Kriek Lambic Track 7 Chasing Rainbows Troegs Freaky Peach TRVE Red Chaos Upland Brewing Co. Cherry Upslope Dry Hopped Wild Ale Vanberg & DeWulf LambickX Wicked Weed Angel of Darkness Wild Heaven Beer Joni Yards Brewing Co. Pynk Next: The rankings! Sour/Wild Ales #s 50-26 |
We have poured a lot of love into creating our recipes and choosing the best ingredients to make Make Cheese Inc a success. That success has translated into demand and fanfare that has frankly, taken us by surprise! With renewed energy and devotion, we now want to share our story and vision for healthy eating with a wider community of cheese lovers! It's our passion to bring our message of artful living through healthy homemade cheese to everyone with the same desire. By bringing cheese making into your own kitchen, you learn about where your food comes from while eating the most freshest cheese available. Mozzarella making party! When we began just over a year ago, our focus was on handcrafted, handmade vintage-style packaging. While very well received by our customers, it has meant a great deal of time is spent on creating the packaging, and less time available to spread learning material to our growing cheese community! To reach our growth objectives, we need to refocus our time to meet the needs of a growing business. Translation: time for package outsourcing! We will use the capital raised here to invest in professional packaging design and outsourced production that is ready for a wider retail market, while still serving our core online business. With the time we save in efficient package production, we can move our time and attention to creating video tutorials that will take some of the mystery out of cheese making for our devotees, and spread the message of good cheese to all the good people out there! Mozzarella Kit - supplies included Feta Kit WHAT IS A CHEESE KIT? A Cheese kit lets you make cheese at home by using regular store-bought milk (skim, 1%, 2%, 3.25%). Milk can be goat or cow milk. The kits come with everything you need to make multiple batches of cheese. All you will need is the milk. 1 gallon (4L) of milk makes 1 batch of cheese (roughly 1 lb of cheese). You don't get preservatives. You do get the experience of making your own fresh, delicious cheese. Here's an example of what's inside a kit: An easy to follow-recipe Rennet (Microbial based/vegetable) Culture (shipped and must be promptly stored in the freezer on arrival) Salt Thermometer Cheese cloth A plastic polypropylene cheese mold Calcium Chloride Some kits will include more than one culture and additional supplies like: aging mats, perforated aging paper or cheese wax. Aged Cheddar WANT TO BUY ONE? Here on Kickstarter you can "preorder" a kit. By your purchase, you are helping our mission of giving everyone access to information on the art of cheese making. You are also helping us pay the startup costs of this new design project. When you select a pledge from the options on the right, you are ordering something that is not made yet. Your credit card will be charged for it on Dec 12, once everyone's orders are in. Then we will take your order along with everyone else's order and money to the manufacturer and they will make all of the packages! Yours will ship to you or your giftee in March. Holiday Gifts Our new kits will not be ready to ship by the holidays, but your giftee's cheesey experience will start on Dec 24. If you tell us you are pre-ordering as a gift, we will send a personalized 'welcome-to-the curd community' holiday card to your loved one before December 24. KICKSTARTER REWARDS We have taught many courses on cheese making and now Kickstarter will give us the boost we need to provide more information to people in the form of video. Because let's face it, learning any new skill is made easier by video support. All you Kickstarter supporters will receive the links to watch all of our video tutorials online and special discounts for future e-learning workshops. SHIPPING INFORMATION DON'T FORGET TO PLEDGE FOR SHIPPING, OR WE CANNOT DELIVER YOUR REWARD! Time: Make Cheese Inc will ship kits in March. All other such as The Teacher Unit Plan, the Fundraiser Package and the 'Mozzarella Cheese Night' with friends package will be shipped in February. Add shipping to all purchases: For the cream cheese kit and mascarpone kit: Please add: $10 shipping within the continental US, $8 for Canada, $25 Hawaii, and Alaska. International shipping please add $30. For the aged Cheese kit with Press: The press and kit weighs approx.10 lbs. Please add $35 within the continental US, $30 for Canada, $40 Hawaii, and Alaska. International shipping please add $45. For teaching unit plan, fundraiser kit and cheese night: Please add $20 within the continental US, $20 for Canada, $30 Hawaii, and Alaska. International shipping please add $30. For all other kits: Please add $15 within the continental US, $12 for Canada, $25 Hawaii, and Alaska. International shipping please add $30. Disclaimer The pictures of the kits are the original version of the kits. Changes to improve the look, the recipes and the packaging will most definitely occur before you receive your Cheese Kit! Please contact us if you have questions.FAQs: What if I have problems making cheese? Who do I talk to? Email us anytime with any type of question. We would be happy to help. Pictures: A young Brie - creamy and buttery Feta - The kit will give you up to 30 batches Rennet Tablets - microbial tablets turn liquid milk into curd. |
Hillary Clinton on Tuesday morning took a swipe at Donald Trump's performance at the first presidential debate. "Anyone who complains about the microphone is not having a good night," Clinton told reporters aboard her plane. The former secretary of state was referring to Trump's saying after Monday night's showdown at Hofstra University in New York that he had been given a "defective mic." The Republican presidential nominee went as far as to speculate to reporters that it may have been "on purpose." Clinton on Trump: "Anyone who complains about the microphone is not having a good night" https://t.co/6OZtrfIwim https://t.co/lJRDrUHp00 — CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 27, 2016 Clinton also responded to Trump's allusion to during the debate to Bill Clinton's sex scandals. "He can run his campaign however he chooses," she said when asked about Trump floating the idea of injecting her personal life into the debate. The Democratic presidential nominee said she felt "positive" about her debate performance. A CNN/ORC instant poll showed she was seen to have won handily, with 62% of respondents saying she emerged victorious compared with 27% for Trump. |
Just after Netmarble acquired Marvel Contest of Champions, it has a big headache on its hands in the form of a player revolt. South Korea’s Netmarble acquired the Vancouver studio of Kabam, the maker of the Marvel game, in a transaction that closed last week. The studio launched a Patch 12.0 for the game, and it triggered an outburst of anger from players, who vented on sites such as Reddit. And those once loyal fans who generated more than $450 million in revenue for the game are quite mad. “There are massive bugs across numerous characters that makes it seem like the game was not properly tested prior to this 12.0 update being released. You now have thousands of players flooding review boards, support pages, forum pages, Netmarble’s pages etc.,” said Scott Donelle, one of the players, in an email to GamesBeat. “As well as Apple support and Google play support demanding refunds by the droves.” In a statement, Netmarble’s Kabam said, “Marvel Contest of Champions recently released a new game update as part of our ongoing efforts to maintain a balanced gameplay experience for all players. It was a substantial update, to address current imbalances and support larger future plans. However, the result was a game that changed more than we anticipated in a very short period of time. We’ve heard the players loud and clear and are taking their feedback seriously. We are in the midst of prepping a new update that will address the biggest problems and our players’ concerns. Players can visit the Marvel Contest of Champions blog later today for more information on the upcoming changes.” The company also posted a blog message for players. Some of the fans still remember when Kabam faced a big player revolt for its Dragons of Atlantis game in 2013. Here’s one of the videos where the complaints are laid out. |
(Mashable) -- Two social media heavyweights -- Lady Gaga and Zynga -- will partner for GagaVille, an offshoot of social game FarmVille. GagaVille, a uniquely designed neighboring farm to FarmVille, that sports unicorns and crystals, according to Zynga, launches May 17. GagaVille visitors will get a first listen to unreleased songs from Gaga's album "Born This Way," available May 23. The full album also comes bundled as a free download when you buy a $25 Zynga game card at Best Buy. The deal also includes a "Words With Gaga" contest in Zynga's mobile Words With Friends game. Playing the designated Gaga word of the day -- which will be announced on Gaga's Facebook Page each day -- will give players the chance to win concert tickets and a signed copy of "Born This Way." Zynga is also giving players limited edition Lady Gaga virtual items on RewardVille that can be used across Zynga games. Such a deal had been predicted after Gaga and Zynga collaborated on an earthquake relief effort for Japan in March. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Zynga and Gaga were in discussions about a tie-in effort. See the original article on Mashable.com © 2013 MASHABLE.com. All rights reserved. |
One of the main themes in the Clanking Ruin is exploration and discovery - often of the strange technomagical devices and creatures left behind by the inhabitants of the Machine City. Many such items are destroyed or in ruin, and only of real interest to collectors or the truly obsessed. But some number of such things have survived the intervening centuries since the destruction of Zistorwal more or less intact. Naturally, if they are going to be found, they are going to be found by adventurers. And just as naturally, items of utility, especially weapons, are likely to be found in the hands of creatures hostile to the adventurers - or at least hostile to the adventurers' notion that such items are "available". Below are two such items. Both are weapons, and both have the capacity, if not carefully controlled in the game, to change the landscape of weapons and warfare in the world. Here are a couple of ideas on how to give you players a taste of such weapons, even allow them to own and use them, without starting an arms race. 1. First and foremost, control the quantity available. OK, this seems like a no-brainer. But if you have enterprising players, who might have contacts or skills that allow replication, it can be tricky. They could find a single item, and turn around and create dozens or hundreds, then use, or sell them, becoming powerful or rich overnight. The mind boggles as your campaign spirals out of control . . . But you have control. Just as you controlled the number that were found in the first place, you can control how easy (or difficult) it is to reproduce something. For an item that blends Zistorite magic and technology, the folks capable of cranking out replicas are likely to be few and far between. And if items are recreated, they are probably going to be expensive to make, might not work as well or reliably as the original, might require exotic ingredients or components. In my Clanking Ruin, I have things called Manuforges, which essentially are technomagical easy bake ovens that take in raw materials, and spit out mechamagical items. But they need the raw materials, AND they need a Manufacturing Scroll - the blueprint for the item to be produced. Manuforges also tend to be very large, heavily guarded, inconveniently located, owned by someone else, sentient, or some combination of the above. All of the above argues against mass-production being an easy way to wealth and power for the PCs. 2. In the same vein as number one, make sure that the "thing" uses ammuntiion, charges, or some other resource that the players do not have constant access to. In Runequest, the attribute POWer, which every PC has, is the measure of how many spells you can cast. If you allow PCs to use POWer to use your new item, then they get to decide how often it is used. If the ammunition is specially produced or limited in some way (see number 1 above again for ways to do this), then the the PCs will think more about how they use the item, or accept that they will run out of this resource. If the item uses charges, make sure than the charges come in a form that you can maintain some control over. In my game, a lot of mechamagical items use "Machine Grade Crystal" an abberation created by the Zistorites in imitation of the more widely known power storage crystals. MGC is essentially a onw use power storage crystal, machine crafted and shaped to fit into many mechamagical items. This means that there is no easy way to power such items without it. And no one knows how to make MGC anymore. So you control the supply. Even if your players decide to get into the MGC manufacturing business, you are the one in charge of how that is done, and what the PCs have to do to make it happen. 3. Control of Information: Mechamagical items are the products of another way of viewing magic, even of comprehending the cosmos. It should be difficult to wrap your head around how they function. Player characters who become interested in recreating mechamagic should expect a fairly steep learning curve to figure things out. In my game, no one made their Mechanisms check when trying to figure out how the Machine Grade Crystal could be removed from the Arc Cannon (see below) so they don't yet grasp that it is a reusable resource. You might also reduce their ability with magic that depends on their current worldview. So a cultist of Orlanth who gets into the notion of mechamagic might find it harder to cast cult spells, or similar, since she is moving away from the Orlanthi paradigm. 4. Competition: I don't mean others doing the same thing, although that is always possible. I am referring more to others wanting the same thing and what they are prepared to do about it. So in a campaign that has the Lunars as a major foe (like mine), being too open about your use of mechamagical superweapons is likely to get you a rapid and aggressive conversion pitch from the local Lunar authorities - probably one you can't refuse without serious consequences. If not the Lunars, then maybe the local Orlanthi hate the idea of people using the same technomagic that their ancestors fought a ten year war to destroy. Or a band of powerful brigands likes the idea of being supplied with the item, and extorts some, or steals them. If nothing else fits, it could be that those whacky and enigmatic dragonewts just don't like the notion of trumped up monkeys having this kind of power and decide to intervene. So the PCs cannot use these item constantly without attracting the wrong kind of attention. By now, it should be clear that there are ways for you to retain control of things, even while you let your players have some fun with some new toys. And you want them to have fun with them. So here are the promised items: Arc Cannon: This weapon can emit a targeted line of lightning up to 10 yards distant, doing 3d6 to the first target it strikes. Armor Points count, but metal armor only protects for 4 AP. The weapon is 4 ENC, so fairly bulky. and uses Machine Grade Crystal as its power source. When found, Arc Cannons often have a single stick of MGC in theiir charge port. Roll 1d8 for the number of charges. Secondary Arc: On a special, the shooter can choose to have the arc carry on to a second target, rolling again to hit, with the same possible result for a special. An Arc Cannon is a two-handed weapon for anyone of SIZ 20 or less, and uses machine grade crystal as its energy source. Ammunition: Machine Grade Crystal Armour Points/ Nit Points: 4/6 Attacks Starting Attack Range Damage Specials Arc Cannon STR + DEX % 10 Yards 3d6 Secondary Arc Mostali Heavy Bolt Thrower This is a type of crossbow developed an age ago by the Mostali. Certain of them still use it, especially those who have not continued to develop more advanced devices. Among these are the devolved clay dwarf cannibals found in the ruin of the Legion of Purification. Ammunition: 5 Bolt Drum - specially constructed bolts and drum AP/ HP: 4/ 8 Combat Starting Attack Range Damage Special Heavy Bolt Thrower STR+DEX% 10/40 1d12 Impale The thrower is constructed to accept, and load from a cartridge, capable of storing 5 specially constructed bolts. It takes 1 round to fully load a cartridge with bolts. The weapon may not be shot without a cartridge – you cannot shoot a single bolt by loading it directly, there is no channel for the bolt. Changing out bolt cartridges takes one round, plus any time taken to stow the empty cartridge. The cartridges will not accept standard bolts – only specially constructed ammunition. Ratchetted Reload: the weapon must be cranked to load with up to five shots worth of mechanical energy. Loading this energy takes 1 Round per shot: to a maximum of 5 shots for 5 rounds of ratchet cranking. Each bolt thrower includes 20 bolts (custom-made for the weapon) and 2 Drums. 1 Drum is filled with 5 Sulfur bolts Doing 1d8 bonus fire damage if they penetrate armor. If you don't like the sulphur bolts, don't use them. These should definitely be in short supply. |
WASHINGTON -- The White House said it intentionally left the murder of six million Jews out of its statement marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day because it was trying to be inclusive. "Despite what the media reports, we are an incredibly inclusive group and we took into account all of those who suffered," White House director of strategic communications Hope Hicks told CNN on Saturday. “It is with a heavy heart and somber mind that we remember and honor the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust. It is impossible to fully fathom the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror," said the statement attributed to President Trump. “Yet, we know that in the darkest hours of humanity, light shines the brightest. As we remember those who died, we are deeply grateful to those who risked their lives to save the innocent." “In the name of the perished, I pledge to do everything in my power throughout my presidency, and my life, to ensure that the forces of evil never again defeat the powers of good," Trump added. "Together, we will make love and tolerance prevalent throughout the world.” Statements from past administrations have recognized the six million murdered Jews and others killed by the Nazis. Vice President Joe Biden in 2015, for example, issued a statement "remembering the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust and the millions of Poles, Roma, LGBT people, and so many others whose lives were extinguished by the Nazi regime." White House chief of staff Reince Priebus told NBC this morning that he recognizes the extermination of Jews is "what the Holocaust was about and it's a horrible event." "And, obviously, a miserable time in history that we remember here at the White House. And certainly we'll never forget the Jewish people that suffered in World War II, and obviously still incredible wounds that remain in a time in history that was of great, incredible, horrific magnitude. And everyone's heart here is impacted by the memory of that terrible time," Priebus said. "And so, for the record, that's the case." Priebus said "certainly we don't mean any ill will to anybody; I don't know about regret... we acknowledge it, we acknowledge the horrible time of the Holocaust." He insisted the administration was "not whitewashing anything" by omitting any reference to Jews from the statement. "I mean, everyone suffering in the Holocaust including, obviously, all of the Jewish people affected in the miserable genocide that occurred, is something that we consider to be extraordinarily sad and something that can never be forgotten and something that, if we could wipe it off of the history books, we could. But we can't. And it's terrible," Priebus said, stressing again that the White House doesn't "regret the words" used. "I mean, I don't know what more to tell you." |
Here’s how I see it. Even if the researchers themselves only wanted to understand the biological basis of homosexuality, the data obtained would tell us much more. If we know the “cause” of homosexuality, then we also know the “cause” of heterosexuality. Comparing the physiology of “gay brains” to “straight brains” allows us to better understand both. There was a time when many people assumed that there was no other “biological” possibility than heterosexuality – that no particular brain structures or functions were involved in sexual orientation per se. Now it is generally agreed that different sexual orientations result from brain differences and furthermore, that those brain differences are innate. This is a major leap in understanding. If the research indicates that homosexuality is not a choice, then it also indicates that heterosexuality is not a choice. Everyone’s sexual orientation has a genetic, anatomical, and physiological basis. The research objective is to understand the biology of sexual orientation – in anybody and everybody, not only gay people. And not just people either – the other mammals too. Sexuality is ancient. The hypothalamic and limbic brain regions involved in sexual behavior are far more ancient than people and are likely much the same in all mammals. So the study of gay and lesbian people is basic biology.Additionally, by comparing transsexual brains to typical brains, we can eventually understand the neuroscience of sexual identity and know the anatomical and physiological basis of a person’s sexual sensibility of self, whether female, male, or intersex in identity. Once more, the objective is to understand the biology of sexual identity in all people, and likely other mammals as well. Again, this is biology, and it is why the study of innate “core sexuality” is so fascinating to me.*This essay was originally written by me as a comment to a post on another blog |
Meet the Dynastor darius darius, a harmless caterpillar with astounding survival skills. In order to avoid being attacked by predators during its pupal stage (when the larvae transform into butterflies or moths), the helpless creature takes on the form of a rather menacing snake! Native to Trinidad, the shape-shifting D. darius often mimics the head of a Gaboon pit viper, successfully fooling even the toughest of its predators. After it sheds its final layer of skin, the caterpillar enters its pupal stage, and its chrysalis takes the shape of a viper’s head. The transformation lasts 13 days, during which time this mimicry is its only line of defense. To make the appearance even more believable, the scary-looking chrysalis hangs on the underside of forest leaves at a carefully selected angle. Photo: Andreas Kay We’ve seen caterpillars mimic snakes before, like the Hemeroplanes triptolemus that copy the deadly creatures and also snap at potential predators, but the D. darius pupa is something else. Apart from its realistic impression of an alert viper, this creature has another trick up its sleeve – it is able to sense the world outside and react appropriately from inside its cover. So when a predator approaches, the pupa can sense movement and swing its shell back and forth, creating the illusion of a moving snake that’s ready to attack. Photo: Andreas Kay “The explanation may be that the predator itself turns and flees after suddenly coming face-to-face with a realistic ‘snake’ that waves violently back and forth, as does the pupa of Dynastor Darius when disturbed, ” Annette Aiello and Robert Silberglied wrote in Life History of Dynastor Darius in Panama. Photo: Andreas Kay According to Earth Touch News, “These elaborate defenses are not really all that surprising when you consider that caterpillars are pretty much just juicy protein sausages whose main life function is to become even bigger, juicier protein sausages. These voracious feeders are preyed upon by everything from birds to people and require powerful defenses if they are to have any hope of surviving.” Photo: Andreas Kay Well, it may not be surprising, but I’d still say it’s pretty darn cool! Photo: Andreas Kay Photos: Andreas Kay/Deviant Art |
An engineer who was left paralysed and disfigured after an acid attack allegedly carried out by his jealous ex-girlfriend died in a euthanasia clinic 15 months later having decided he could not face a life of pain, her murder trial has been told. Berlinah Wallace, 48, told Mark van Dongen: “If I can’t have you, no one can,” before pouring sulphuric acid over him, a jury at Bristol crown court was told. Van Dongen, who had begun to see another woman, suffered 25% burns, lost a leg, his left eye and most of the sight in his right eye and was left paralysed. He applied for euthanasia in Belgium, which was approved after three consultants examined him. It was decided his was a case of “unbearable physical and psychological suffering” and he died in January this year aged 29. In a highly unusual case, prosecutors have charged Wallace with murder despite the victim having died with medical assistance, because they say the acid attack led to his death. The court was told that Wallace carried out the attack after viewing graphic images of acid attack victims on the internet. She denies murder and applying a corrosive fluid. Adam Vaitlingam QC, prosecuting, said the attack took place at 3am on 23 September 2015. He said: “The defendant had bought a bottle of sulphuric acid online from Amazon. As Mark was sleeping in bed, she poured the acid into a glass.” She woke him and threw the acid at him, it is claimed. “It covered his face and parts of his upper body and dripped on to his lower body as he moved,” said Vaitlingam.“Covered in burning acid, Mark ran out into the street in his boxer shorts, screaming for help.” The court heard that the couple had a five-year-relationship and lived together but Van Dongen, a Dutch national, began seeing another woman in August 2015. Shortly before his death, Van Dongen told colleagues that Wallace had been violent towards him but the day before the attack he and Wallace exchanged messages in which they said they loved each other. Van Dongen said: “I love you, I always have. I’m truly sorry for what I’ve done, we need to work on our relationship. You and me are meant to be. I’ve always known that. I will treat you as you deserve to be treated. You are my princess.” Wallace replied: “It means a lot hearing these words. You are the love of my life. God does not make a mistake in this. I love you with all my heart.” On the evening before the alleged attack, the couple planned to cook dinner together but he went out to see his new girlfriend, Violet Farquharson, the court heard. When he returned to Wallace’s flat in Bristol at 10pm she left and said she would stay in a hotel, but she returned in the early hours and allegedly carried out the attack. Van Dongen was rushed to Southmead hospital in Bristol and asked paramedics to “please check that my girlfriend is OK”, fearing Wallace could target Farquharson next. Vaitlingam said: “They could see Mark had severe burns – they said it looked as though he had had grey-coloured paint poured over him and that the acid had burned through the top layer of skin.” Dr Rachel Oaten, an emergency consultant, said Van Dongen caught sight of himself in a mirror and screamed: “Kill me now, if my face is left looking like this. I don’t want to live.” He was kept in an isolated ward in intensive care for six months before being moved to a burns ward, spending a total of 14 months at Southmead. Vaitlingam said: “Sometimes he said he wanted to live, at other times that he wanted to die.” His father hired an ambulance to take him to Belgium, where doctors there confirmed he would be paralysed for life and need maximum doses of pain relief. He successfully applied for euthanasia. After the alleged attack, police found Wallace sitting on the sofa in the living room and noted there was a glass beer mug on the floor next to a piece of cloth and what appeared to be an artist’s paintbrush. Vaitlingam said: “The defendant was asked what the substance was that had injured Mark and she said: ‘Acid. I was using it to distress some fabric,’ and indicated to the glass, cloth and paintbrush on the floor.” In a police interview Wallace claimed Van Dongen had assaulted her and she had poured the liquid over him as a response to his aggression. “She said it was he who had poured the acid into the glass, encouraging her to drink it with her tablets, but that she had not realised it was acid,” Vaitlingam said. “When she threw the contents of the glass over him, she believed it was water she was throwing.” |
Lindsay Lohan $1 Million Offer from Sex Toy Company Lindsay Lohan -- $1 Million Offer from Sex Toy Company 's genitals are a friggin' gold mine -- because Playboy's million dollar baby has just received ANOTHER million dollar offer from a sex toy company ... TMZ has learned.The honchos from an adult entertainment company calledhave fired over a letter to Lohan's reps ... hoping to seal a deal with the actress which would allow the company to take a mold of LiLo's lady parts to produce "authentic" Lindsay Lohan sex toys.Shockingly, the practice of genital molding is not that uncommon in the world of adult entertainment ... loads of XXX actresses -- including Jesse Jane and "Nailin' Palin" star Lisa Ann -- have copied their private parts for sex toys.We're told Lindsay hasn't seen the offer yet ... but sources close to the actress tell us, "She would never accept such an offer for any amount of money."As TMZ first reported, Lindsay is going full frontal for Playboy ... but only agreed to the deal because she felt the photos would be "tasteful." |
Bitcoin advocates have long tried to ditch the cryptocurrency’s reputation as a means to untraceably pay for illegal mind-altering substances. Paying for legal mind-altering substances may be a good first step. While Microsoft now accepts Bitcoin for some digital purchases and ATMs are popping up that can quickly exchange Bitcoin for cash, buying lunch or a car with the digital currency seems far off. But your next drink can easily be bought with Bitcoin now. Seattle startup Hotspot is adding Bitcoin support to their drink deals app today. Users can now pay for discounted drinks with Bitcoin just as easily as if they were using a credit card in the app. But this isn’t just to help cryptocurrency enthusiasts spend their digital money, it’s also a way for the Hotspot’s bar and venue partners to take home some extra cash as well. “One of the big things that we realized pretty early is that these businesses … [have] 10 to 15 percent margins and anywhere between 3 to 4 percent of that goes toward credit card processing,” Hotspot co-founder and CEO Jasjit Singh said. “That, we thought, was pretty egregious.” Bitcoin, Singh said, allows bars to pay between half a percent and one percent on fees, meaning that they can keep more of their already slim margins for rent, paychecks and other costs. And for merchants, this is an easy way to start accepting Bitcoin as well, even if they don’t really know what Bitcoin is, since Hotspot is handling transactions from both credit card and Bitcoin users. “We just give them cash,” Singh said. “A lot of our partner venues are not maybe as technically inclined as we are, and so they just see more money than they would have otherwise [since the credit card fees aren’t being taken out]. We take care of all of the converting Bitcoins to dollars and so on.” Hotspot is working with payment processor Braintree to enable the Bitcoin transactions, which are now available at all Hotspot partner venues. At launch, users will be able to connect Coinbase wallets, thanks to Braintree’s partnership with the Bitcoin wallet service. Hotspot’s current model lets its 7,000 users pay for discounted drinks at about 60 venues across Seattle. However, the app is also organizing ongoing open-bar get-togethers, where users pay a $10–$15 entrance fee through the app, which means you may be able to pay for a whole evening out with just cryptocurrency. Hotspot is also working with a few partner venues to let you pay your whole tab through the app soon, cutting down on the risk that you’ll leave your credit card at the bar. It’s all part of their mission to reduce the friction between venues and their customers. Hotspot is available on iOS and Android. Seattle users can get a free drink through the app if they sign up through Hotspot’s website. It’s only available for use in Seattle for now. |
A local imam is grateful for a show of respect towards the Muslim community after a Qur’an was ripped up and stomped on during a heated school board meeting last week. About 80 protesters showed up to a board meeting last Wednesday to demonstrate against providing religious accommodations at schools, specifically space for Muslim students to pray as a group on Fridays. The practice, called Jummah, has been recently targeted by critics who want it to be banned. A copy of the Qur'an was destroyed at a Peel district school board meeting last week. ( Facebook ) One protester at the meeting ripped up a copy of the Qur’an and then stomped on it. “For the Peel District School Board to go out of the way to at least take care of the Qur’an until they’d reached out to someone, that was something the whole community really appreciated,” said Shaykh Omar Subedar. “They could have just picked it up and thrown it away. But instead, they took great care in putting it together to the best of their abilities.” Article Continued Below Subedar said he will be burying the Qur’an at an undisclosed location. Brian Woodland, director of communications for the Peel board, said an email was sent to several imams asking what should be done with the Qur’an. “My director asked us to reach out to imams on two fronts – first to apologize for what happened and to express our condemnation of what we saw, and in a second email to ask what is the right choice in terms of the torn Qur’an,” Woodland said. “We do not see a need to comment further on this despicable act.” Subedar said the local Muslim community is still full of emotion after last week’s meeting. “For this to happen here in Peel, and all these protests, it really hurts because we’ve spent so much time trying to build bridges, trying to build relations and now it feels like we’ve gone 20 to 25 years back,” Subedar said. The morning after the meeting, two provincial ministers spoke out in support of schools providing space for Muslim students’ Friday prayers. Article Continued Below Subedar hopes that the community will work together to fight against those he says are trying to divide it. “We’ve been working together for all these years, we’ve accomplished so much, why do we want to tear everything apart and undo all the good,” he said. “Working together is going to make us progress, not working against each other.” With files from Kristin Rushowy Read more about: |
Family is housed in Lambeth Palace grounds as part of new scheme enlisting help of communities and charities A Syrian family has been housed in an empty property in the grounds of Lambeth Palace, the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has confirmed, as he and the Home Office launched a scheme to encourage members of the public, community groups, faith groups, charities and businesses to sponsor refugee families resettling in the UK. The full community sponsorship scheme is intended to help the government fulfil its commitment to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees in the UK before 2020. About 1,800 refugees have been resettled so far, less than 10% of the total. Over the past year there have been numerous ad hoc and sometimes chaotic efforts by community groups and members of the public to provide aid to refugees waiting to come to the UK. Donations of food, clothing, books and household goods, plus offers of accommodation in spare rooms, have overwhelmed social action groups. Launching the scheme at Lambeth Palace, the home secretary, Amber Rudd, said: “The response of the British public to the refugee crisis has been one of overwhelming generosity and many have been moved to make kind offers of assistance.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Justin Welby at Lambeth Palace. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters She said the sponsorship scheme was “a groundbreaking development for resettlement in the UK and I wholeheartedly encourage organisations that can help to offer their support”. Asked why it had taken 10 months for the Home Office to establish a scheme whereby offers to help refugees could be taken up, Rudd said: “We have to be absolutely clear that we’re doing everything correctly and safely. This is about families, about children – and however much we want to move quickly, we can’t compromise safety at any point. “We have now the structure and the architecture for trying to channel people’s extraordinary goodwill, wanting to help people … I hope we’ll see a great stepping forward and acceleration of this so we can actually deliver on it. But it was right to take the time to get it right.” Welby said there had been “no sense of delay from the Home Office or the government”. Special care needed to be taken with families who had had traumatic experiences. “It’s got to be got right at the beginning or you open your way to further tragedy in the future,” he said. Sponsoring organisations must have the agreement of local authorities and set out a comprehensive plan for settlement in order to apply to join the scheme. Sponsors will provide housing, help refugees access medical and social services, arrange English tuition and support refugees in finding work. 'This is what I'm meant to be doing': the vicar welcoming Muslims to church Read more A “help refugees in the UK” page on the gov.uk website will allow members of the public to offer support. People will be able to choose from a range of donation options, including clothing, baby equipment, outings and the use of vacant housing, which must be self-contained and available for at least 12 months. Rudd said that careful checks were carried out on refugees who could be resettled by the UN and the government. “I hope that we’ll be able to reassure people who are kind enough to open up their houses and to raise funds in their communities that we won’t take any risk with security, and those checks will keep people safe.” Lambeth Palace, Welby’s home and his administrative headquarters as archbishop of Canterbury, is the first community group to be approved to receive a refugee family. Welby first offered a cottage in the grounds of Lambeth Palace as a home for a family from Syria last September. “It is an enormous privilege to welcome a family to live in a cottage in the grounds of Lambeth Palace,” he said. The scheme “presents churches and other civil society groups with the opportunity to provide sanctuary to those fleeing war-torn places”, he added. Rudd, who met the family on Tuesday, said all four children, aged between four and 10, told her they wanted to be doctors. She said: “That will be a great help to our national health service in some years to come, to have four new budding doctors. I’m really moved by the experience of meeting them and hearing from them firsthand about what a really important and exciting change it is for them.” Welby said it had been a lot of work to reach this stage, but it had been an extraordinary partnership with the Home Office and Lambeth council. He added: “It’s a great privilege to be involved with this.” Lambeth Palace declined to give any further details about the family. The Refugee Council chief executive, Maurice Wren, welcomed the announcement, saying: “This scheme helps harness the eagerness and determination of the public to welcome refugees into their communities. Hopefully, it can also become a way for more refugees of all nationalities to reach the UK safely and legally in the future.” But he added: “It must be complemented by a much wider, compassionate and comprehensive response from the government to addressing the global refugee crisis which prioritises giving more refugees safe passage here, particularly those who are desperate to join their loved ones.” Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster and leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales, said: “This innovative scheme will enable everyone to get involved with welcoming refugees, offering a very real and tangible way for people to help new arrivals settle into their communities.” The government has agreed to take up to 3,000 vulnerable children and their relatives directly from refugee camps in the Middle East and north Africa, on top of the 20,000 refugees under the vulnerable persons resettlement (VPR) scheme. More than 160 local authorities have signed up to accept refugees. |
1. She is a TRUE TOMBOY if her boots have real scuffs and dirt on them from wearing them on the farm, out in the bush, mudding, hunting or fishing. She might be a DECEITFUL DAMSEL if her boots look like new, because likely she only bought them to wear to a country concert or to wear to the local county fair. 2. She is a TRUE TOMBOY if she can get up and throw her hair up in a ball cap to head out for the day. She might be a DECEITFUL DAMSEL if this ball cap is a brand new, spotless Bass Pro Shops hat that looks like it’s never seen a speck of dirt in its life! 3. She is a TRUE TOMBOY if she not only wants to go four-wheeling with you, but already has her own gear – or better yet, her own quad! She might be a DECEITFUL DAMSEL if she spends more time snap-chatting and instagraming the day instead of enjoying the ride. 4. She is a TRUE TOMBOY if she knows how to shoot a gun. She doesn’t need your help, or to show her how it works, or which ammo to use. She might be a DECEITFUL DAMSEL if she wants you to take pics of her holding the gun, shoots it once, then whines about how loud it is. 5. She is a TRUE TOMBOY if the idea of a perfect date to her is cruising down back roads in your (or her) pick-up truck, fishing on the lake, a bon fire, or sitting on the tailgate under the stars. She might be a DECEITFUL DAMSEL if she says she wants these things but then in your truck she puts the window up so it won’t mess up her hair, goes fishing but can’t bait a hook, complains about the bugs, or sits staring at her phone the whole time to find the perfect filter to use for her new FB profile pic of the bon fire, you know, to prove howcountry she really is. 6. She is a TRUE TOMBOY if she can drive a vehicle with a manual transmission, you know, the ones where you change the gears yourself? If she can drive a tractor that is a BONUS. She might be a DECEITFUL DAMSEL if she says she can do these things and has done them many times before, you know, back when, that one day, many years ago…when it never really happened…so you never should count on her to actually do this if you haven’t seen it happen first hand. 7. She is a TRUE TOMBOY if she goes or has gone hunting, with the guns and gear to prove it, she will also know when ducks, deer and turkeys are in season. She might be a DECEITFUL DAMSEL if she says she loves hunting, but all her camo is pink. 8. She is a TRUE TOMBOY if her jeans have rips and holes in them from wear and tear. She might be a DECEITFUL DAMSEL if she bought them that way at Abercrom-Hollist-Eagle. 9. She is a TRUE TOMBOY if she would love to get a manicure but knows it won’t last long because she works with her hands, or she’s outdoors, on the farm, playin’ in the dirt. She might be a DECEITFUL DAMSEL if she always has a perfect manicure and never gets dirt under her fingernails. 10. She is a TRUE TOMBOY if she can be one of the guys, hang with the guys and be on their level but also understands when guys just need to have ”guy time”. She might be a DECEITFUL DAMSEL if she will hang with the guys, but has little to add to the conversation, and complains if you want to spend time with just the guys without her sometimes. |
AT&T's data plan just got a lot more forgiving. Today, the company announced that starting January 25th, any AT&T customers in the Mobile Share Value system will be able to carry over unusued data to the next month. Since most users tends to fluctuate widely in data use from month to month, that will give users significantly more flexibility in data usage and a much better chance at avoiding overage fees. The Mobile Share plan already allows different users to share the same pool of data, so allowing the data to rollover will add an even larger buffer. "We’re saying thanks to our more than 50 million plus Mobile Share Value subscribers," said AT&T Mobility CEO Glenn Lurie. The news comes on the heels of a similar announcement from T-Mobile, which unveiled its Data Stash plan just last month. "I think this is going to be something that's really going to shake up the industry," T-Mobile CEO John Legere said at the announcement. AT&T has also been making waves at CES, announcing on Monday that it will be the first carrier to support the WebRTC program. |
The 'Duck Dynasty' star will receive the "Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award" at the annual event that draws high-profile conservatives. Fourteen months after he sparked a major controversy for making remarks widely perceived as anti-gay, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson has been named the recipient of a free-speech award from Citizens United, an organization routinely disparaged by Hollywood liberals. Robertson will receive the "Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award" at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, which is better known as CPAC and is one of the biggest annual events for prominent movers and shakers on the right. Sourcing the Bible, Robertson said in a GQ magazine interview that homosexuality and same-sex marriages were sinful, causing a firestorm of criticism from the political left, and on Dec. 18, 2013, A&E announced he had been indefinitely suspended from Duck Dynasty. After a fierce backlash largely from conservatives, the network lifted its suspension. "Even when the entire mainstream media demanded he disavow his beliefs and attempted to have him fired from his own hit show for expressing these beliefs, he stood firm in his faith,” Citizens United president David Bossie said. Bossie's group is most famous for Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that blocking the airing of the group's documentary film Hillary: The Movie was a violation of free speech. The FEC had argued, unsuccessfully, that the movie should adhere to laws governing political advertising, given that it was a critical look at Hillary Clinton scheduled for release when she was seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. president. Citizens United partnered with Breitbart News Network in the creation of the award, which is named after Andrew Breitbart, the conservative new-media entrepreneur who died in 2012. "When one does not have the freedom to speak out loud and anywhere what one believes, freedom is dead," said Robertson, who is set to receive his award at CPAC on Feb. 27 in National Harbor, Md. The Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award was created more than a year ago, and the first one went to conservative radio host Mark Levin, given to him last year, also at CPAC. Email: Paul.Bond@THR.com |
As of today several nominees have been removed from the Shorty Awards. Myself in the blogger category(who was beating Kotaku), Milo Yiannopoulos in the journalist category, Mike Cernovich in healthy living. Oddly developer Jennifer Daww’s place slid to fourth in gamer AFTER the competition, PC master Race slid to 5th. I will update this as new information comes in but it’s worth watching Opie and Anthony talk about the Shorty’s. I’d definitely be interested in hearing from the shorty’s themselves why a blogger that talks about everything from good deals, diy projects, corruption in state, finance, journalism, minority issues to women’s issues in the media would be quietly removed without notice from a competition about blogging. Long story “short” it’s designed purely to part fools from their money. This competition in no way represents the best, or excellence in it’s categories, or the peoples choice. These people are the SilverString Media(people that pulled the strings of GamerGate with the “Gamers are dead” and PR tour & even Law and Order episode to shame them) of MSM. Muck Rack is Produced by Sawhorse Media, who happens to also be the main Shorty Awards producer. Now Muck Rack, an agency that links Journos to PR agencies (if it seems familiar its because SSM is the exact same shit)has for Co-Founder Burt Herman, who also Co-founded Storify (yes, one big circlejerk). The guy mostly follows Left wing Media Journos and Agencies, his main base of operations is San Fran (no wonder) and is also connected to the NYT people, while some of his contacts seem legit, there are others… well, Noah Chestnut from Buzzfeed is one weak link, though so far he doesn’t seem connected directly to any particular aGG person, the Media that has smeared our faces is another story, as his Muck Rack “agency” have linked people from the NYT, editors and other staff possibly, so there’s enough to start thinking into digging deeper first and then deciding whether or not to contact them at all or just start a full blown campaign against them (though more as a secondary target, this is MSM, people Like Stephen Fry seem to be into the Shorty Awards “Academy” (though it is not clear whether or not they actually do any judging) so it might be a tough one to bring down. Still I’d like to thank everyone that voted for me and hope I can contribute to finding out whats going on here to prove why I earned these votes. So far it seems Brianna Wu(who was chosen by the “academy” has spoken against PC master race and other nominees has at least one friend among the judges https://archive.today/jjdUs) Corrupt Journo/Judge @ selenalarson wrote this 3 weeks ago: https://t.co/aKKwq6vd00 Also plugged Wu in their book https://t.co/FydMmsM7GN other references to the Shorty Awards being rigged: http://scepticsbook.com/2010/03/05/shenanigans-subterfuge-and-the-shorty-awards/ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2435500/posts http://emptyage.honan.net/mth/2008/12/the-shorty-awards-are-a-sham.html vote buying? http://www.techgoss.com/Story/1107S14-Twitter-Awards-Rigged.aspx For me, someone that mainly became active on the net to expose corruption and talk about issues, to have people attack me offline, persevere through all of that, find my voice, establish channels, partnerships and presence to be silenced again is like being re-victimized. Will the web EVER be a safe place for minorities to speak out? |
Prominent Japanese/American director Steven Okazaki is set to shoot “Mifune: Last Samurai,” a high-profile feature docu on Toshiro Mifune, the most prominent actor of Japan’s golden age of cinema. Mifune made nearly 170 movies, 16 of which with Akira Kurosawa. He won the best actor award twice at Venice, in 1961 for “Yojimbo,” and in 1965 for “Red Beard,” both directed by Kurosawa. Principal photography will start in Tokyo on September 19, with other locations including Los Angeles and San Francisco. “Last Samurai” will feature rare archive footage and interviews with key Japanese actors and filmmakers who worked with Mifune such as Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyoko Kagawa, Yuzo Kayama, and others. “I’m particularly excited about filming Kanzo Uni, who choreographed many of Mifune fight scenes,” Okazaki enthused. “His claim to fame is that he was killed by Mifune more times than anyone, around one hundred and fifty times, four times in one movie.” “I want to convey to younger audiences how extraordinary Toshiro Mifune was for his time,” Okazaki said. “Before him there were no non-white movie heroes with stature and international appeal. This was before Bruce Lee or Jet Li or Shaft or Antonio Banderas. In fact, Clint Eastwood’s cool, take-no-shit character came from Mifune.” Related Film Review: 'One Nation, One King' Hollywood Pays Tribute to Bernardo Bertolucci: 'Forever a Leading Light in World Cinema' The docu, conceived as being primarily for theatrical release, will focus mainly on Mifune’s samurai films, most of them made by Kurosawa. It will focus on some of Kurosawa’s greatest period films such as “Seven Samurai ” (1954); Hiroshi Inagaki’s “Samurai Trilogy” (1954-56); “Throne of Blood” (1957); “Yojimbo” (1961), and “Red Beard” (1965); but will also include other pics not by Kurosawa. Kurosawa and Mifune transformed the “chanbara film,” the period sword fighting movie, into bold, provocative narratives that explored individuality versus power and repression in Japanese society. Okazaki won the 1991 Academy Award for “Days of Waiting” (Best Documentary/short subject) and an Emmy for “White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagazaki.” The producers of “Last Samurai” are Toshiaki Nakazawa (“13 Assassins,” “Sukiyaki Western Django” and Yukie Kito (“Tokyo Sonata,” “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,” with Rikiya Mifune, who is Toshiro’s grandson, also involved. The production company is Toichiro Shiraishi’s C.A.L. Ltd. With financing from Toshiaki Nakazawa’s Sedic International. |
A question said to be sent by a 12-year-old girl quickly drew on two of the country's geopolitical conflicts, asking who Putin would save first if both Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko were drowning. While calling it a difficult question, he appeared to condemn both leaders, saying "if someone is determined to drown you can't help them." "I would say, you cannot save someone who has decided to drown. But of course we are ready to lend a helping hand and friendship to any of our partners, if they want to take it," he said, according to a transcript on the Kremlin's website. Later, when probed about his personal life, he said he understood the interest but didn't want to broadcast the details, joking that he otherwise risked moving foreign exchange rates and oil prices. The call-in program comes ahead of elections for the Russian parliament Duma slated for September 18. While Putin's presidency isn't up for review, it will be an opportunity to test the popularity of his ruling United Russia party led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as the country's population suffers the effects of low oil prices and extended western sanctions including high inflation and negative economic growth. With additional reporting by CNBC's Matt Clinch Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. |
The death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro prompted expressions of respect in other parts of the world and measured responses from governments that saw the devoted socialist as a threat. U.S. President Barack Obama noted that while “discord and profound political disagreements” marked the relationship between the United States and Cuba for nearly six decades, Americans were extending “a hand of friendship to the Cuban people” during their time of grief. Fidel Castro, former Cuban president and revolutionary, has died at age 90. ( ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP/Getty Images ) “History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him,” Obama said. While spending the Thanksgiving weekend in Florida, where the announcement of Castro's death early Saturday brought Cuban exiles into the streets to celebrate, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter to share a thought that proved pithy even for the medium: “Fidel Castro is dead!” Article Continued Below Trump elaborated on his initial tweet later Saturday, calling Castro “a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades.” Trump says Castro left a legacy of “firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.” Elsewhere in world, Castro was honoured and mourned by many present and former national leaders. Pierre Trudeau was welcomed to Cuba by Fidel Castro for his historic 1976 visit. ( FRED CHARTRAND / the canadian press ) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose father Pierre Elliot Trudeau was a close friend of the Cuban leader, called Castro a “legendary revolutionary and orator,” but also acknowledged that Castro was a controversial figure. In a telegram to Cuban President Raul Castro, Fidel's 85-year-old brother, Pope Francis offered “my sense of grief to your excellency and family.” Francis broke from the Vatican's usual practice of having the secretary of state send official condolences. In a mark of the esteem the pope held for Castro, whom he met during a visit to Cuba last year, Francis signed the telegram himself. Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country was Cuba's main ally and supporter during the Soviet era, called Castro “a sincere and reliable friend of Russia” who had built “an inspiring example for many countries and nations.” Chinese President Xi Jinping said Castro “made immortal historical contributions to the development of socialism around the world.” Article Continued Below “With his death, the Chinese people have lost a close comrade and a sincere friend,” Xi said in a telegram to Raul Castro, state broadcaster CCTV reported. “His glorious image and great achievements will be recorded in history forever.” Castro meets with Pope Francis in Havana on September 20, 2015. The Pope has reached out to Raul Castro and offered his condolences for his brother's death. ( HO / afp / getty images ) United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he had vivid memories of meeting Castro in January 2014 and having “a lively discussion that covered developments around the world as well as sustainable development and climate change.” “Under former President Castro, Cuba made advances in the fields of education, literacy and health,” Ban said. “I hope Cuba will continue to advance on a path of reform and greater prosperity. Salvador Sanchez Ceren, the president of El Salvador, said he felt “deep sorrow ... of my friend and eternal companion, Commander Fidel Castro Ruz.” Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto tweeted that “Fidel Castro was a friend of Mexico, promoting bilateral relations based on respect, dialogue and solidarity.” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro recalled Castro's departure from Mexico on the yacht Granma with his brother Raul and several dozen supporters to start their revolution. “Sixty years after the Granma sailed from Mexico, Fidel sails toward the immortality of all those who fight their whole lives,” Maduro tweeted. “Onward to victory, always!” A statement from the Spanish government hailed Castro as “a figure of enormous historical importance.” Then Cuban President Fidel Castro and then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev exchange documents during a treaty signing ceremony in 1989. ( GARY HERSHORN / reuters ) “As a son of Spaniards, former president Castro always maintained close relations with Spain and showed great affection for his family and cultural ties,” the government statement said. However, there were shouts and insults in Madrid as a small crowd composed of both pro- and anti-Castro supporters met in front of the Cuban embassy. Turkey's foreign ministry commended the “legendary leader of the Cuban Revolution” for “instituting many deep reforms in his country from health care to education, art to science.” “The struggle to which he dedicated his life echoed not just in Cuba but across the world, and has awakened respect even in other political camps,” the ministry said. “His words 'another world is possible' reflect the shared longing of billions of people from Latin America to Asia, from the Middle East to Africa.” “India mourns the loss of a great friend,” Indian Prime Minister Nerendra Modi said on Twitter. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras tweeted: “Goodbye, commandante. Until the peoples' eternal victory.” “Fidel Castro in the 20th century did everything possible to destroy the colonial system, to establish co-operative relations,” former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was quoted as telling the Interfax news agency. Ammar al-Moussawi, who is in charge of international relations for Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group, lauded Castro as “a historic symbol whose life was a lighthouse to all revolutionaries around the world.” Guyanese Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo said Castro shared his island's resources with any nation that dared ask for help. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says he has fond memories of his visit to Cuba in 2002. ( RAFAEL PEREZ / reuters ) The Castro government sent thousands of doctors and nurses to work in remote Caribbean areas where local and other foreign medical personnel had refused to go, Nagamootoo said. “His and Cuba's contribution to humanity and the Caribbean is unmatched by any other nation in terms of brotherly and sisterly relations. He was an international gift to humanity,” he said. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said he and his wife Rosalynn “remember fondly our visits with him in Cuba and his love of his country.” The couple visited Cuba in 2002, long after Carter left office. While most of the official remembrances were complimentary, a few emphasized less-flattering views of the late leader. Ed Royce, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said, “No one should rule anywhere near as long as Fidel Castro did.” “His legacy is one of repression at home, and support for terrorism abroad. Sadly, Raul Castro is no better for Cubans who yearn for freedom,” Royce said. “I hope his death can start a freedom revolution in Cuba,” Denmark's Foreign Minister Kristian Jensen said. “Any demise is sad. In this case I believe that it can bring something good.” Peter Hain, a former member of the British Cabinet and anti-apartheid campaigner, tempered praise for Castro with criticism of some aspects of his long rule. “Although responsible for indefensible human rights and free-speech abuses, Castro created a society of unparalleled access to free health, education and equal opportunity despite an economically throttling USA siege,” Hain said. “His troops inflicted the first defeat on South Africa's troops in Angola in 1988, a vital turning point in the struggle against apartheid.” Meanwhile, in Miami, Cuban exiles celebrated. Within half an hour of the Cuban government’s announcement of the death of the 90-year-old revolutionary leader, cheers were heard in Miami’s Little Havana. Thousands of people banged pots, waved Cuban flags and whooped in jubilation. “Cuba si! Castro no!” they chanted, while others screamed “Cuba libre!” |
Hey howdy heyGuess which movies I saw today!! I made this very fun to do crossoverStrangely enough I've never done a crossover beforeBut I came across this fun contest that makes those who join do something like a crossover. We are supposed to draw Disney characters in a halloween costume and I came up with thisThis was very much fun to do! I used copics to colour this drawing. I'm not so good at shading with copics yet. I'm too afraid to ruin the drawing so the colours are pretty flat. I still like this drawing though. Copics are still a bit new to me.It was a real pain in the but to get these poses right. I had to put a lot of effort into this to get some dynamic action into the drawing. That's always something I struggle withMade for the contest of |
WITH over 58,000 people in our shelter system every night, and thousands more sleeping on the streets, concern about homelessness in New York City has reached a fever pitch. We must attack this challenge on every front: through construction of more housing with on-site services, expanded federal support for homeless families and improvements in city-run shelters. But the best solution to homelessness is preventing it before it even occurs. More than two-thirds of the people in our shelters are families with vulnerable children, and the most common cause of their homelessness isn’t drug dependency or mental illness. It’s eviction. If we can slow the pace of evictions, we will make a major dent in the homelessness crisis. Evictions have reached epidemic proportions in New York City. The number of families forced from their homes by court order has been rising steadily for the last 10 years, and is now close to 29,000 per year. Countless thousands more are leaving under duress midway through eviction proceedings. Many end up with nowhere to go and are forced to turn to homeless shelters. The sky-high pace of evictions is exacerbated by our profoundly unequal judicial system. Unlike those in criminal cases, New Yorkers in housing court have no right to counsel. The result: Only 10 percent of New York City tenants who appear in court have attorneys to help protect their rights. In stark contrast, close to 100 percent of landlords do. It’s hard to overstate just how badly this skews the results of eviction proceedings in favor of owners. |
Editor's note: With the field of prospects set for the 2015 NFL Draft, which players are most likely to put on a show at the NFL Scouting Combine, pro days and private workouts in the weeks and months ahead? We've culled the scouting reports of NFL Media draft analyst Lance Zierlein to find out which prospects are the most freakish athletes in this year's draft. Here are the top 12 (listed in alphabetical order). Full scouting reports by Zierlein are available here. Vic Beasley, OLB, Clemson Particulars: 6-foot-3, 235 pounds Zierlein's take: Explosive athlete who's always first off the snap. True edge bender who can torque hips and shoulders to turn corner. Has ankle flexion to dip and slalom around corner at difficult angles to block. Former running back with quick feet and fluid hips. Able to change directions and burst to target. Possesses potentially lethal spin move, but doesn't use it enough. Particulars: 6-5, 307 Zierlein's take: Former high school basketball player with great foot quickness. Moves like a tight end in space with an ability to zero in on targets and finish them in the screen game. Elite change-of-direction talent and knee bend. Gets depth with smooth, fluid kick-slide and does a good job of mirroring. Sammie Coates, WR, Auburn Particulars: 6-2, 213 Zierlein's take: Outstanding combination of size and speed. Good acceleration off the snap for a receiver with his length. Can take top off defense and open up the underneath. Will beat bold cornerbacks over the top if they wait to turn and run. Forces cornerbacks onto their heels and gets easy, open looks on dig routes. Makes easy in-cut with maximum separation. Ability to win big plays vertically. Jalen Collins, CB, LSU Particulars: 6-2, 198 Zierlein's take: Rare combination of height, weight and speed. Has the foot quickness and twitch to trigger on demand. Uses soft, bouncy feet to change direction and drive instantly on throws. Will make plays outside of his area and has speed to come across field to chase down a loose running back or receiver. Leaper with the ability to challenge and win 50/50 throws. Phillip Dorsett, WR, Miami Particulars: 5-10, 183 Zierlein's take: Takes the top off the defense and throws it in the trash. Elite explosiveness. Gets to top speed quickly and is a seamless glider on crossing routes, leaving man-to-man defenses in his wake. Mind-boggling big-play production, with half of his catches going for 25-plus yards in 2014. More than just a vertical receiver and has the blazing feet and stop-start to beat zone coverage for big plays. Particulars: 6-4, 264 Zierlein's take: Freakish athlete with chiseled frame. Outstanding power with ability to rag-doll tight ends at will. Should be an above-average edge-setter. Good transition from playing run to rushing quarterback in play-action. Explosive closing burst. Willing thumper when he has a shot on running back. Can drop into space and play zone. Raw but learning, with huge growth potential as a player. Particulars: 6-6, 225 Zierlein's take: Imposing physical specimen with outstanding height, weight and speed numbers. Smooth, effortless strides to chomp up cushion and blow by overconfident corners. Runs routes with forward lean and can activate second gear when he chooses. Rare catch radius with ability to pluck would-be interceptions and turn them into catches. Duke Johnson, RB, Miami Particulars: 5-9, 206 Zierlein's take: Has lightning in his feet. Has hips and feet to stop and start without stalling. Rare ability on stretch plays to hit cutback lanes that other backs can't get to. Changes direction without breaking stride. Has second gear around the corner and can erase the angles. NFL Now delivers a non-stop video stream highlighting the next generation of NFL talent in preparation for the 2015 NFL Draft. Start using it now! Marcus Mariota, QB, Oregon Particulars: 6-4, 219 Zierlein's take: Quick-twitch quarterback. Rare straight-line speed for the position. Defenses must account for ability outside the pocket. Able to make off-balance, difficult throws. Can uncork throws quickly and without resetting feet when necessary. Quinten Rollins, CB, Miami (Ohio) Particulars: 5-11, 193 Zierlein's take: Four-year basketball player. Seamless transition to football field as a cornerback. Has point guard's foot quickness and hip fluidity. Good leaper. Attacks the ball and receiver at high point. Good instincts and overlaps to make plays beyond his territory. Shaq Thompson, OLB, Washington Particulars: 6-1, 228 Zierlein's take: Unmatched diversity in this year's draft. Played outside and inside as a linebacker and took snaps at safety against Stanford. Long, with athleticism and movement of running back playing linebacker. Like a magnet to the ball while pursuing in space. Second gear to finish the chase. Fluid enough in space that safety could be a position consideration for the right team. Can be used as emergency No. 3 running back on game day. Maxx Williams, TE, Minnesota Particulars: 6-4, 250 Zierlein's take: Straight-line wheels to beat linebackers and safeties. Accelerates to top speed quickly on crossers and speed outs. Speed to chew up cushion and open a throwing window over the top. Will threaten seam and dominated defenders on wheel routes. Red-zone winner. Can do damage after the catch and shows playmaking aptitude with tight end screens. Extends and goes all out for the catch. Got a foot inbounds on three circus catches. Follow Lance Zierlein on Twitter @LanceZierlein. |
While Odell Beckham Jr. hasn’t been an active participant at Giants practice (hamstring) since July 22nd, the rookie wide receiver was altogether missing from the premises on Monday afternoon. Star-Ledger beat writers Conor Orr and Jordan Raanan have reported, according to sources with knowledge of the injury, that Beckham was undergoing tests on his lingering hamstring issue — the results came back negative. He is expected to miss at least another week of practice time, and Beckham will be a no-go for Sunday night’s Hall of Fame Game. Unfortunately, Giants Nation will have to wait a while to get their first taste of “eye candy” Odell: Hamstring injuries, even apparent minor ones, need to be handled with kid gloves. It’s when a player pushes the “tweak” too soon that the word “tear” can enter the equation. The Giants desperately want to get their prized prospect back on the practice field, but they understand recovery is the utmost priority. Still… that understanding hasn’t prevented Tom Coughlin from venting his frustrations: “It’s more than that,” Coughlin said after Sunday’s practice. “We’re trying to put a team together. We saw too much of that in the spring.” “He actually looks pretty good out there moving around,” Coughlin said. “We just hope it’s a real short period of time.” “We’re not going to let him go if he’s in danger of hurting himself. That’s all there is to it,” Coughlin said. “I can stand here and fight all I want. It’s not going to matter.” In time, the talent and versatility of Beckham will translate into productivity on the field. That is IF he can remain on it for any extended period. Six weeks away from the season opener, however, the former LSU standout has work to do in order to climb up the depth chart and supplant WR3 Jerrel Jernigan. Not to mention climbing out of coach Coughlin’s doghouse. Unless you get style points for snatching punts one-handed, Beckham hasn’t done himself any favors to this point in camp. |
WARNING: Graphic content. A horrific axe attack at a service station on Stanmore Rd, Enmore, has been caught on CCTV. The following video depicts a violent and distressing attack and may be distressing to some viewers. NOTE: The Press Council found this article did not breach its Standards of Practice. Read the full adjudication here. EXCLUSIVE: The woman who police allege carried out the 7-Eleven axe attack, is a transgender unionist once named Karl. EVIE Amati, who police allege carried out the terrifying axe attack on two early morning customers at the Enmore 7-Eleven last weekend, is a transgender union employee who used to be known as Karl. The 24-year-old, who police claim is the person caught on CCTV swinging an axe at a woman buying milk and a man buying a pie at 2.20am last Saturday, transitioned to female four years ago. News.com.au exclusively revealed the CCTV footage which showed a blonde entering the 7-Eleven carrying a long-handled axe and then attacking Ben Rimmer, 32 and Sharon Hacker, 43, as they queued at the cash register. On Facebook in April 2012, when she was still posting as Karl, Ms Amati invited friends to “Karl’s 20th birthday drinks” and complained about her phone not working, signing off as “an irate-as-f*** Karl”. In June 2012, she declared on her page that Evie Amati “thinks he has wanted to be a girl for a while now and wants to act more publicly feminine. Thoughts? Comments? Insults?” The comment attracted a stream of positive responses from family, friends and colleagues where Ms Amati worked as an organiser for the Community and Public Sector Union. She discussed composing a “coming out” email to announce her transition to work mates at the union, which is based in Haymarket near Sydney’s Chinatown. News.com.au can also reveal that Ms Amati was a university student studying US foreign policy and comes from a large Italian-Australian family. She was also a drummer in a punk rock band called Everything I Own is Broken, which performed at a union function With the two other musicians in the band that played in Sydney, Newcastle, Byron Bay and Brisbane in 2013 and 2014, Evie Amati appeared to perform as a male and then later as a female. On Facebook in September 2012, she announced she would be starting hormone therapy, writing, “Today I gained approval to start hormone replacement therapy. Trans ftw! Boobs: here I come!” Following Ms Amati’s arrest in Enmore shortly after the attacks at the 7-Eleven, she requested in Parramatta Bail Court that she be given access to two hormonal drugs commonly used by people who transition from male to female. Ms Amati, who is currently in custody after being refused bail, has been charged with intentionally causing grievous bodily harm. Ms Amati asked the court that she be supplied with the oestrogen booster Progynova, and Spractin, a testosterone suppressor. News.com.au understands that Ms Amati is being held in Silverwater Women’s prison and will have access to health care while on remand in custody. In October 2012, Ms Amati said on Facebook “I am trans”. She also discussed on Facebook taking inspiration from US punk band Against Me! lead singer Tom Gabel, who is now known as Laura Jane Grace. The terrifying video of the axe attack, which police allege was carried out by Ms Amati, shows the bloody rampage second by second as it takes place inside the 7-Eleven at Enmore, in Sydney’s inner west, in the early hours of last Saturday. At 2.19am a blonde wearing black shorts and singlet and carrying a long-handled black and red axe strolls casually into the convenience store. Sharon Hacker, who has distinctive long-coloured dreadlocks, is at the cash register paying for milk. After strolling in, the young woman who police later allege is Evie Amati, disappears down the first aisle of the shop and reappears after Ben Rimmer has emerged from an aisle to pay for a meat pie. Her back to the camera, the blonde woman has a knife protruding from the back pocket of her shorts. The woman chats casually for several seconds with Mr Rimmer, who at one point touches the axe and appears to make a joke. At 2.20:44am, the woman swings the axe and brings it down on Mr Rimmer’s head. He collapses backwards across the shop floor. Four seconds later, the woman brings the axe down on the back of Ms Hacker’s head and she collapses through the door as the woman swings the axe again and brings it down. Then the woman steps over Ms Hacker and strides out onto the bitumen parking bays and away. Mr Rimmer, who is in a pool of his own blood, tries to get himself together while Ms Hacker manages to pull herself up to stagger back into the shop. As police and paramedics are called to the bloody scene at the 7-Eleven, bystander Nathan Wood says he chases the axe-wielding woman down the street until she allegedly swings the axe again at the person behind Mr Wood. Police converge on Stanmore Road and a short time later a police dog allegedly finds Ms Amati lying in the front yard of a property along the road. Evie Amati is listed to appear for mention in Central Local Court on Thursday. |
18-year-old Shea Glover performed a very interesting social experiment for her Chicago high school project last spring. She asked students and teachers to let her take their picture for a project. Some of them she knew. Most of them she didn't. As she filmed them, she captured their reactions when she revealed the purpose of her project: taking photos of things that she finds beautiful. What follows is an astounding variety of reactions. Some were touched. Some were embarrassed. Some got defensive, like they couldn't believe that a stranger could say that without alterior motives. Most broke out into a tearful smile, like they had been waiting forever for someone to tell them they were beautiful. But what's so powerful about the video is that none of them seem to initially believe her. Yes, they're caught off-guard by the camera, and yes, it's normal to be hesitant when a stranger compliments you, but it's still shocking that all of these beautiful people don't seem to think it's natural for someone else to notice their beauty. Tell someone they're beautiful today. As the video proves, you might be surprised by how they react. |
Jay Z is set to hold a "get out the vote" concert for Hillary Clinton in Ohio aimed at mobilizing black voters, three sources told BuzzFeed News on Monday. On Tuesday, the Clinton campaign officially announced the concert would be held in Cleveland on Nov. 4, just four days before the election. "Jay Z will be joined at the concert by special guests to encourage unity and urge Ohioans to support Clinton by voting early or on Election Day," the Clinton camp said in a statement. Tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis from Friday. The concert — perhaps the centerpiece of the “closing argument” strategy built to turn out this group — is a major coup for the Clinton campaign, which has struggled to excite young black voters. It's a key part of the coalition they need to build to defeat Trump in several battleground states, but especially Ohio where she has trailed more consistently than in most swing states. High turnout among younger voters of color would make it virtually impossible for Trump to win. Senior Democrats, meanwhile, have signaled publicly that Clinton has indicated staff should do whatever it takes to turn out young black voters and the concert is viewed as one of the last major voter mobilization moves the campaign will make before election day. In 2012, he performed a show along with Bruce Springsteen in Columbus for President Obama's reelect campaign, at which the president spoke. Jay Z himself has been particularly outspoken on police violence, an issue of importance to young voters going to the polls. He's a validator on the issue, who's interpolated references to Trayvon Martin in a well-received freestyle, and more recently, after the killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, released statement a song via his streaming service Tidal called “Spiritual.” A Democratic source familiar with the concert said they wouldn't be surprised if Cleveland Cavaliers star Lebron James made an appearance after endorsing Clinton earlier this month. Jay Z and Beyoncé long ago endorsed Clinton and chopped it up with Bill Clinton during the Philadelphia Music Festival on Labor Day weekend. The Clinton campaign has a series of concerts in the works in the remaining weeks of the campaign aimed at turning out voters. The National, Ohio natives, will play in Cincinnati next month, and Jennifer Lopez, whose pop tune "Let's Get Loud" often plays at Clinton rallies, is doing a similar GOTV concert in Miami, Florida aimed at Latino voters on Oct. 29. |
October 8, 2014 at 5:26 PM Update at 11 a.m.: A similar crash occurred at the same parking-garage entrance on Second Avenue near Union Street a week ago, according to cyclist Steve Klusman of North Seattle, who was headed to his job in Pioneer Square. “Coming down Second Avenue, I was so happy when I got to the new protected bike lane,” he recalled in a phone interview this morning. A car turned left in front of him. “I crashed into them, did a flip on the hood, and landed on the pavement.” Klusman said he wound up with bruises and scrapes, as well as a bent bike frame. Police records confirm a low-speed crash happened there at 8:36 a.m. Oct. 2; the driver said she had difficulty seeing cyclists and pedestrians because of parked cars, said police spokesman Drew Fowler. Klusman says an officer ruled the crash “no-fault,” which couldn’t be confirmed yet by SPD. Klusman said he now rides on Western Avenue going south, and bikes Second Avenue only in the northbound, uphill direction. Also, the city says it removed 65 feet of on-street parking Wednesday to improve sight lines — more than the 50 feet the Seattle Department of Transportation mentioned earlier. The SDOT still maintains that the new bike lane, on the left side of the street, is intended to be an “8-80 facility,” safe enough for use by all ages. “That is the purpose of making these modifications on Second Avenue.” The “8-80 Cities” meme, used worldwide by urbanist planners, was inspired by Enrique Penalosa, former mayor of Bogota, Colombia, who built a huge bus-rapid transit corridor and 200 miles of bike paths. “A bicycle lane that cannot be used by an 8-year-old is not a bike lane,” he declared at a Discovery Institute event in Seattle in 2006. Original post: A car-bike collision Wednesday morning has caused the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) to remove a few Second Avenue parking spaces, in hopes that drivers and cyclists will see each other more clearly. The crash occurred at 8:13 a.m., on the left side of Second Avenue between Pike and Union streets. Medics responded, and police say the female cyclist suffered hip pain but not serious injuries. The city has since eliminated 50 feet of street parking, next to a parking-garage entrance where the crash happened, said SDOT spokesman Rick Sheridan. In addition, some kind of warning signs will be added, reminding cyclists to slow through that block, he said. A half-hour after the crash, some cyclists were accelerating downhill at of 25 mph or more. Even when the bike signal is green, such speeds can be dangerous if a driver or pedestrian makes an error and suddenly enters the bikeway. SDOT opened the new separated bike lane Sept. 8, featuring distinctive bicycle signals, at a cost of up to $1.5 million, as a safety experiment to encourage more cycling. It replaced a notorious bike lane next to general traffic, where injuries happened about once a month. Dongho Chang, the city traffic engineer, revised the traffic signals a few days later to reduce confusion, and said he will monitor and tweak Second Avenue as issues arise. |
There have been a number of hot-button issues that have dominated the early Republican debates, and even the Democratic Party's lone debate, but none have arguably garnered more attention than marijuana. There may be far bigger issues at hand than marijuana, such as the U.S. economy, foreign relations, immigration, and Social Security, but the public has made it very clear that it expects the next president and Congress to lay out a path toward an eventual legalization of marijuana. The last three national polls -- Gallup, Pew Research, and General Social Survey -- have all shown that a slim majority of Americans share a favorable view of marijuana, and smaller, independent polls have suggested there is very strong support for the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. All told, given the above, we shouldn't be too surprised that nearly two-dozen states have legalized marijuana for medical use and another four states allow the currently illicit drug to be sold for recreational purposes. As President Obama has previously suggested, having residents of additional states approve the legalization of recreational marijuana could go a long way to pushing Congress's hand toward reforming federal marijuana laws. Three states that could legalize recreational marijuana in 2016 Although it's still completely up to debate, dependent on the number of signatures collected, and will generally vary state-by-state depending on the percentage of "Yes" votes required, here are three states that I believe are primed to legalize recreational marijuana in 2016. Please note that just because I believe these states are primed to legalize recreational marijuana, it doesn't mean it will necessarily be legalized. I'm merely pointing to possible points of expansion for the marijuana industry in 2016. 1. California California seems like a logical choice considering that the passage of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 (known as Proposition 215) allowed medical marijuana to be prescribed by physicians for the first time ever. As a marijuana revolutionary, and a noted progressive state, residents appear to be well in support of legalizing the drug across the board. According to CheatSheet.com via a Tulchin Research poll, almost two-thirds (65%) of respondents are in favor of its legalization. In 2014, the Marijuana Policy Project of California filed the appropriate paperwork needed to form a campaign committee and will work toward formally putting marijuana on the 2016 ballot. A "Yes" vote in California, which would be the world's eighth-largest economy if it were its own nation, could mean big money rolling into the marijuana industry and could set a precedent for other states to follow. Congress's ability to track the success of California in regulating its marijuana industry (if recreational legalization is passed) could serve to remove one of the many hurdles currently holding lawmakers back on Capitol Hill from changing their stance. 2. Nevada Already one of the 23 states to have legalized medical marijuana, the U.S. casino mecca could very well become a recreational-legal state following next year's elections. Led by the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Nevada, the 2016 recreational marijuana initiative is already on the ballot. At the moment Nevada is the only state to hold that distinction for 2016. The Coalition was tasked with collecting the required 101,667 signatures by Nov. 11, 2014 in order to get the initiative on the ballot by 2016. The group eventually turned in around 200,000 signatures, handily passing the total needed to put the measure in front of state legislators. With no action being taken by the Nevada legislature in 2015, the measure has been locked onto the ballot for Nevada residents to vote upon in 2016. As with most other states, Nevada's legalization will allow up to one ounce to be sold to adults ages 21 and up, and the tax revenue generated would be used to fund education within the state. 3. New York Like California, New York is another large and progressive state that would serve as the perfect testing point for state-level industry regulation. New York already has an established medical marijuana industry, albeit it's the state that most recently legalized medical marijuana, which it did in the summer of 2014. What makes New York the perfect point of entry for the recreational marijuana industry is that it isn't a referendum state. In layman's terms this means legislators don't have to put a marijuana initiative in front of New York residents in order to pass it. If a bill gets through the legislature and is signed into law, it goes into effect immediately. The Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act has already been introduced in the New York state legislature, but it's yet to gain the necessary traction to be turned into law. As Rolling Stone noted in June, current governor Andrew Cuomo has been the primary obstacle due to his general silence on the issue and varying stance on the drug over the years. However, with medical marijuana now signed into law, and Cuomo wanting to keep his constituents happy, a bill legalizing recreational marijuana is certainly on the table at this point. In addition to the aforementioned three states, the following states also have active coalitions looking to raise capital and obtain signatures to get recreational marijuana initiatives in front of voters or in front of state lawmakers by 2016: Maine, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Arizona, Vermont, Missouri, Wyoming, Montana, Michigan, Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Delaware. It's a pretty long list. Keep this in mind The marijuana industry has an abundance of expansion opportunities in 2016 and beyond, but it's important to keep in mind that even if recreational marijuana expands to a bunch of new states in 2016, marijuana business may still struggle to survive over the long run. The marijuana industry has an exceptional number of challenges that it's yet to overcome, and the only true recipe is for change at the federal level. Truth be told, no one is exactly sure when, or if, that'll ever happen. For instance, marijuana industries currently have minimal access to basic financial services. Checking accounts and lines of credit are extremely difficult to come by for marijuana businesses since the loopholes required for banks to service the marijuana industry are extensive. Banks would rather not risk the potential of getting caught on the wrong side of federal law, and therefore they have, for the most part, stuck to the sidelines. Marijuana businesses are also facing a very unfavorable tax situation. A provision within the U.S. tax code disallows marijuana businesses from taking deductions on expenses that normal businesses would be able to deduct. This means marijuana businesses are giving a lot of their profits back to the federal government in taxes, which makes expanding a difficult proposition. While I fully expect marijuana to remain a hot-button issue in the years ahead, it doesn't mean that marijuana will make for a viable long-term investment opportunity anytime soon. There still appear to be far too many federal obstacles in place, making marijuana among the riskiest investments imaginable. |
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said North Korea is open to direct talks with the US and passed that message on to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Russian news agencies reported that while speaking at a summit in Vienna, Austria Mr Lavrov noted the talks would likely be contingent on “security guarantees.” “We know that North Korea wants above all to talk to the United States about guarantees for its security. We are ready to support that, we are ready to take part in facilitating such negotiations,” Mr Lavrov said. We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras. “Our American colleagues, (including) Rex Tillerson, have heard this.” Experts have said repeatedly that Pyongyang may be basing its need for security guarantees on recent US treatment of Iran. In October, US President Donald Trump announced he would not re-certify a nuclear deal signed by Iran and six world powers - a signature foreign policy achievement by predecessor President Barack Obama. Despite the evidence provided by the United Nations on Tehran's compliance with the deal, Mr Trump said it was too lenient on Iran and that they had violated portions of it. It opened the door for harsher economic sanctions to be placed on the country, the mitigation of which was a key inducement for Iran to comply with the historic deal. The meeting between Mr Lavrov and Mr Tillerson took place the same day the United Nations made its first official visit to North Korea in six years. Tensions have continued to rise between Pyongyang and Washington. Late last month, North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) - the Hwasong-15 which is reportedly capable of reaching the east coast of the US. Shape Created with Sketch. North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Show all 13 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch 1/13 Pyongyang residents react after the news of the successful launch of the new intercontinental ballistic missile AFP/Getty Images 2/13 North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un signing an order to test-fire the newly developed inter-continental ballistic missile KRT via AP Video 3/13 A news broadcast displays Kim Jong Un's signed document AP 4/13 People cheer as they watch the news broadcast announcing Kim Jong Un's order to test-fire the new inter-continental ballistic missile AFP/Getty Images 5/13 Residents react after the document signing AP 6/13 Pyongyang residents celebrate Kim Jong Un's announcement AFP/Getty 7/13 Cheering Pyongyang residents react AP 8/13 To counter North Korea's missile test, South Korea fired missiles into the East Sea The Defence Ministry/Yonhap via REUTERS 9/13 The Hyunmu-2 missiles firing during the drill South Korean Defense Ministry vi 10/13 The exercise was carried out in an attempt to counter Kim Jong Un's order South Korea Defense Ministry via AP 11/13 The South Korean army continue to carry out military exercises AP 12/13 Where K-9 self-propelled howitzers were taking part in a drill Rex Features 13/13 US soldiers are also present in the border city of Paju AFP/Getty Images 1/13 Pyongyang residents react after the news of the successful launch of the new intercontinental ballistic missile AFP/Getty Images 2/13 North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un signing an order to test-fire the newly developed inter-continental ballistic missile KRT via AP Video 3/13 A news broadcast displays Kim Jong Un's signed document AP 4/13 People cheer as they watch the news broadcast announcing Kim Jong Un's order to test-fire the new inter-continental ballistic missile AFP/Getty Images 5/13 Residents react after the document signing AP 6/13 Pyongyang residents celebrate Kim Jong Un's announcement AFP/Getty 7/13 Cheering Pyongyang residents react AP 8/13 To counter North Korea's missile test, South Korea fired missiles into the East Sea The Defence Ministry/Yonhap via REUTERS 9/13 The Hyunmu-2 missiles firing during the drill South Korean Defense Ministry vi 10/13 The exercise was carried out in an attempt to counter Kim Jong Un's order South Korea Defense Ministry via AP 11/13 The South Korean army continue to carry out military exercises AP 12/13 Where K-9 self-propelled howitzers were taking part in a drill Rex Features 13/13 US soldiers are also present in the border city of Paju AFP/Getty Images It was the first test the hermit kingdom had conducted in two months, its 20th overall, and its seventh actual launch of a weapon. It also reportedly went approximately 2,800 miles (4,000 km) up into the atmosphere before landing in the Sea of Japan, according to South Korean and Japanese authorities. US Defence Secretary James Mattis said the latest missile did fly higher than previous ones. The launch came just one week after the US declared North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, imposing new economic sanctions on the country. North Korea was last on the state-sponsored terror list in 2008, under the George W Bush administration. It was removed that year in a bid to salvage a deal halting its nuclear development. Mr Tillerson said that attempt at negotiations "obviously failed." The latest missile launch also adds to mounting tensions between Mr Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who have traded jabs at each other - the US President called Mr Kim “Rocket Man” and he in turn called Mr Trump a “dotard”. We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads. Subscribe now |
SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - An Idaho man who killed a gay man by kicking him up to 30 times with steel-toed boots was sentenced on Wednesday by a federal judge to 28 years in prison, prosecutors said on Thursday. In February, Kelly Schneider, 23, of Nampa, pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime for attacking Steven Nelson last year at a remote wildlife refuge while repeatedly using a homophobic slur, acting U.S. Attorney for Idaho Rafael M. Gonzalez said in a statement on Thursday. “Steven Nelson was assaulted, and later died, because he was gay,” Gonzalez said. Schneider was also sentenced to 28 years in prison earlier this month on a state charge of first-degree murder in Nelson’s death, court records show. Schneider’s federal sentence will be served concurrently with the state sentence, U.S. prosecutors said. He is being held in an Idaho jail until authorities determine where he will serve out the remainder of his sentence. Schneider was contacted by Nelson the evening of April 27, 2016, after Schneider posted a shirtless photograph of himself in a solicitation for sex on the website backpage.com, federal authorities said. The pair met the next evening, when Schneider took Nelson’s money but did not engage in a sexual act, court records show. Before that encounter, Schneider told his friends that he was not gay and would not let anyone who was touch him, prosecutors said. Schneider had promised Nelson a sexual encounter when the pair went to an isolated spot within Deer Flat Wildlife Refuge in southwest Idaho on April 29, according to authorities. Instead, Schneider attacked Nelson at the wildlife area, kicking him 20 to 30 times with steel-toed boots while repeatedly using a homophobic slur, prosecutors said. Nelson did not resist throughout the assault and died of his injuries later that day, authorities said. |
Iraqi officials say a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of police recruits Tuesday, killing 50 people and wounding at least 150 others. The blast occurred Tuesday outside of a police station in the late dictator Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, about 130 kilometers north of Baghdad. Local officials blamed al-Qaida for the attack. Witnesses say the blast site was covered in blood and torn flesh, with pieces of clothing and shoes scattered around. Following the attack, mosques issued broadcast appeals for people to donate blood for the wounded. The attack was the deadliest in Iraq since the formation of a new government in December after a nine-month political stalemate. Recently, there have been a number of suicide bombings throughout the country as it struggles to emerge from years of war. On Monday, a suicide bomber attacked a convoy carrying the governor of Anbar province, wounding at least six people but not injuring the politician. Last month, a double suicide bombing near the government compound in Ramadi killed at least nine people and wounded about 50 others. Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters. |
Are you a fervent acolyte of the on-demand video streaming revolution and yet still yearn for some of the old-school television charm? OttoPlay is an add-on for Netflix (and YouTube and Hulu) that brings back the old channel surfing feel, letting you skip across “channels.” It may be more rewarding than normal recommendations, at least. OttoPlay comes as a Chrome extension, and once you’ve got it up and running in Google’s browser, head to your on-demand service of choice. Click the extension icon and a series of themed channels (kids, drama, comedy and so on) appear on the screen, spread across Netflix, Hulu and YouTube (if you’re outside the US you may run into access problems). Advertisement Of course, the layout of these different ‘channels’ into times and slots is just an illusion created by the app, but it’s an alternative way of seeing what’s available on your favorite services and finding something you might be interested in. Use the virtual remote on the right to flip through the channels or to focus on one service in particular. |
Self-styled "men's rights advocates" used their Reddit forum yesterday to organize a spam campaign against Occidental College's online sexual assault reporting system, possibly complicating the already-fraught reporting process for actual victims at the university. The campaign went down on r/MensRights, a subreddit for "those who wish to discuss men's rights and the ways said rights are infringed upon." In a post yesterday, user "ShitlordDon" linked to a "sexual violence reporting form" that the L.A.-based university made available to students as an anonymous way of tracking assault complaints. "You just fill out a form and the person is called into the office on a rape charge," ShitlordDon complained. "The 'victim' never has to prove anything or reveal their identity." Several redditors responded by encouraging each other to fill out the form with numerous false allegations. Most of those responses were promptly deleted by Reddit moderators, but were screenshot and published by one diligent "anti-misogyny" blogger: Many commenters on r/MensRights were bitterly opposed to the spamming move. "I can't believe y'all here are making false accusations to prove a point, and are getting upvoted for it," one commenter wrote. "I thought the [men's rights movement] was vehemently opposed to false accusations?" "Before everyone goes all torchy, how do we know anyone at Occidental actually responds to this, or how it is responded to?" asked one top-rated commenter. "Before harassing an institution over this, we should check our facts, or we become what we despise." In fact, the form alone does not appear to be sufficient to bring a rape complaint against an Occidental student, although it does streamline university assault reporting methods—a problem that the school has struggled to solve after admitting last October that it had underreported sex assaults on campus in recent years. But even that admission seriously underreported the school's alleged rapes, according to an investigation published earlier this month by the L.A. Times. Occidental is now one of several universities that could potentially face federal penalties for mishandling campus rape allegations under Title IX of the U.S. Code. Yesterday's spam campaign could complicate efforts to bring the college's assault procedures in line with those federal standards. As of Wednesday morning, it was not yet clear how many reports were actually filed with the university as a result of ShitlordDon's posting, or whether it had succeeded in disrupting reporting procedures for victims of attacks. A spokesman for Occidental told Gawker the university was in the process of gathering facts about the situation and would follow up with its findings in the afternoon; Gawker will update this post as details become available. Update: Occidental confirms to Gawker that it got jammed up by fake rape reports—not just from Reddit, but from 4chan, too. The bizarre full story is here. [Photo credit: Occidental College] |
This Quick Tip tutorial will show you how to make high tech style HUD rings in Illustrator. The same effect can be easily achieved in Photoshop with "Polar Coordinate". However, "Polar Coordinate" is not available in Illustrator. So we will be using a different approach here to achieve the same effect. We will be using the pathfinder tool and creating Art Brushes. We then use the brushes we created to make the HUD rings. Step 1 Open a new document in Illustrator. You can set it to the size you prefer to work in. In my case I have it set at 500px by 500px. Next turn on the grid (View > Show Grid) and set the Snap to Grid. Step 2 Use the rectangle tool (M) and turn off stroke and turn on fill to any color you like and start drawing any rectangular shape you would like to see in your HUD rings. Be creative, or you could follow what I have in the picture. With the grid and snap to grid functions turned on, you can easily just fill in the grid to the shape you desire. Fill the entire width of your canvas. Alternatively, you can fill in only half of the width of the canvas to get the half circle shape, however you must also fill in the remaining of the width of the canvas with rectangle shape with fill and stroke turn off. Step 3 Once you are done drawing the pattern you like, select all (Control + A) the rectangular shapes you have drawn to make up the pattern. Now use the pathfinder tool, click on 'Unite' (remember to hold down 'Alt' key when you click on 'Unite'), then press 'Expand'. Now you have just made your first pattern for your high tech style ring. If you have created a pattern that only fills up half the width of the canvas; when using the pathfinder tool; only select the rectangles with fill on. To use the pathfinder tool, you can go under Effect > Pathfinder, or press (Control + Shift + F9) to open the pathfinder tool palette. Step 4 Repeat Step 2 and 3 as many time as you like. In my case, I made a total of 7 different patterns. Step 5 Now select all (Control + A) your patterns and drag them into the brush palette. Alternatively, you can click on the "New Brush" button at the bottom of the brush palette. "New Brush" window will pop up. Now choose "Art Brush" and click OK. You can name your brush any name you like or leave it as the default name. Under Colorization > Method, choose "Tints" from the drop down menu box. Click OK, and now you have just created your own brush pattern. Step 6 Alternatively, you can choose to set each individual pattern as an "Art Brush". Once you are done, your brush palette should have something similar to the picture. If you have patterns that only fill up half the width of the canvas, don't forget to also select the rectangle with no fill and stroke on as well as the rectangles that you applied the pathfinder tool on when you create a new brush. Step 7 Now I recommend you save the brush you have just created by clicking on the folders button at the bottom left corner of the brush palette. Step 8 Now use the Ellipse tool (L), set it to no fill and set stroke to any color you like and the stroke size you like. Hold down Shift key to draw a perfect circle outline on the canvas. Hold down the Alt key as well if you want the circle to expand from the center. Step 9 With your newly created circle outline still selected, click on the brush pattern you have designed in the brush palette. Voila! You have just created your own high tech style HUD rings. You can change the color of the rings by playing around with the color palette. Now, if you have set each individual pattern as an Art Brush, you can create a few circle outlines and apply different brush pattern to each circle outline to your liking. Conclusion To finish off this tutorial, here are some pointers for future reference. If you have set individual pattern as individual brush, you can have as many patterns you want and create different style of HUD rings to your liking. I recommend you put each individual pattern in a separate layer as you create you own high tech HUD rings, so you can import it into After Effects later and animate each ring separately, and you can also assign different colors for each of the rings. With this technique, I was able to make some more complicated looking HUD rings to use in After Effects than creating it in After Effects with a masking technique. Thank you for reading this tutorial. I hope this technique is helpful. Further References |
In 2015 let’s smell the fear of the ruling class The struggle for radical change can leave us feeling burnt out, isolated and on the run. It’s an uphill struggle most of the time in which the agencies of the state and the hierarchies that it supports, including a grossly unjust economic system, appear to be forever in the ascendency. In 2015 we need to put the struggle we face in perspective and see some of the actions we take as the progress they surely are. We might not be victorious but we have won some battles and each win should spur us on. When we think of some of the actions taken against us it can be bewildering. In recent times the state has helped arm the police to new levels. They have the power to infiltrate movements and gather intelligence like never before. We’ve recently learned of their tendency to steal the identities of dead babies in order to infiltrate groups and disrupt campaigning. Meanwhile the state continues to legislate away communal existence and spaces. Bands of workers have been undermined by successive pieces of legislation whilst trade union bureaucracies now personalise struggle with the rise of individual casework. Neoliberalism is now a feature of the left and it affects the weaponry in its arsenal. Austerity has exacerbated our feelings of hopelessness as vital lifelines for people have been cut. Issues of housing, health and welfare have come to the fore as those at the margins of society suffer and the attacks protrude inwards towards the majority. Despite all of this our struggle continues; because of it. In fact, our struggle seems in fantastic health. We are hitting back. There is so much going on in terms of groups campaigning for those on benefits, fighting eviction, environmental issues and a host of other concerns that it’s hard to keep up. To add to this on occasion we’re winning. The Poor Doors protests, supported by Freedom News, have seen developer Redrow on the run. There has been some success too for the New Era estate campaign. Well planned and executed industrial action also gets results, such as the 3 Cosas campaign and other small scale activity. Sometimes you can even sense the fear of the ruling class. I recently telephoned a businessman on behalf of his workforce who he owes money. The last thing he was expecting was this simple phone call requesting negotiations. An individual with power over livelihoods came across as timid and scared simply because there are more of us than there are of him. His voice trembled and he stumbled over his words. It was empowering and it’s an experience I’ve had time and time again when I’ve come up against bosses not used to dealing with union activists. When the Tories talk about limiting union action further it’s because they fear collective action. The fact that we face the full force of the state at times is exactly because we have the power to exact radical change. When the police infiltrate a group it’s because they are fearful. And they should be fearful because we stand to change their cosy way of life. We should take heart from the fact that they fear us and will do anything they can get away with to harm our chances. It’s frustrating, dangerous and it can be demoralising but ultimately it is proof that we’re on the right tracks. So, whilst we should take heart we should not embrace it. It’s simply proof that people operating democratically and collectively still actually means something. The Poor Doors protests were a classic example of something starting small and getting more and more important. It built up from a handful of people to becoming a weekly street party with people dancing to the bands that turned up and ultimately it got recognition from the people with the power to make changes to the building (and there should be news on that front soon). The recent example of the love Activists taking over a disused RBS building near Trafalgar Square in London saw a classic example of ruling class fear. The organisers simply wanted to use an empty building to provide free meals to the homeless of Christmas Day. Instead they were illegally evicted and then barred from re-entering the building, contrary to a court ruling. They were then hassled and harassed on the street by the authorities, hell bent on preventing this fundamentally brilliant thing from taking place. It seems that capitalism can’t even allow collective good will at Christmas. See how quickly they move when people expose injustice and inequality. See how quickly they move when people simply try to provide the poor with some food. Obviously, the fact that we face such hostility means that we need to carry on organising effectively. We don’t win every battle and the general trend of neoliberal economics backed up by pliant politicians will continue for some time. But when we band together and we carefully choose our tactics we can sometimes pierce the neoliberal bubble. In 2015 we will know when they’re scared; it will be when they are acting against us because we are awesome. Jon Bigger |
There is a great daring in the heart of Luis Suarez . He is audacious on the field and audacious off it, as you would expect from any man who can bring the Rioplatense dialect into his defence when charged with being racially abusive. There is a great daring in the heart of Luis Suarez. He is audacious on the field and audacious off it, as you would expect from any man who can bring the Rioplatense dialect into his defence when charged with being racially abusive. Perhaps he is too audacious. He had attempted to manoeuvre his way out of Liverpool by talking about the life of persecution and torment he was suffering in England when the truth itself was a reasonable explanation: Suarez wanted Champions League football. When the only club that could provide this happened to be in England, Suarez, with his natural gift for dissembling, had to alter course. Liverpool met several performance objectives last season but challenging for a top-four place was not among them. They have an outside chance of a top-four place this season. Arsenal might not have much, but they have that. Liverpool have an audacious manager too, a man with the optimism of Pangloss who has asked Suarez to stay at Liverpool by stating that they are a bigger club than Arsenal. In many ways, Brendan Rodgers is right and in Brendan Rodgers' world, his view is indisputable. If there is no difference between winning and losing, then Liverpool is a much bigger club than Arsenal. If there is no difference between fourth, place with its Champions League spot, and seventh, with nothing, then Rodgers' claim is perfectly valid. There is a whole world out there committed to making language meaningless but it becomes a problem for Rodgers when, as he did in Melbourne last week, he tries to make a point to Suarez with his words. When he was asked in Australia about Suarez, Rodgers made his upbeat case, stating that it would be a mistake for Suarez to leave. "I know what we are trying to build and grow here, so why would you swap Liverpool to go to Arsenal? Don't get me wrong, Arsenal has a wonderful history in its own right, but Liverpool is one of the biggest clubs in the world. I am sure Luis will have seen the sheer size and status of the club here so we'll just see how it goes." Rodgers' problem is that he sounded as upbeat when, say, West Brom had beaten Liverpool at Anfield. Then he couldn't fault the players who had given everything and had played on the front foot. If everything is magnificent, then nothing is magnificent. Rodgers is busy constructing an alternative reality with his own performance objectives which are fine except that football always provides its searingly ruthless measurement. Suarez has delivered a judgment too which has revealed something pretty fundamental. Arsenal should not be considered a bigger club than Liverpool but it is an indictment of all that has happened in recent years at Liverpool that footballers with ambition can believe it is. Suarez is audacious and ambitious. He can respond to his own meaningless language as well as the meaningless language of others on the field where victory is all that matters to him. If he signs for Arsene Wenger, Suarez will alter the mentality at a club where they, too, have been committed to losing heroically or often simply losing. Of course, Suarez's possible arrival has raised other issues. Short of Suarez joining Manchester United, this may be his most audacious move as he reveals that much of what passes for principle in football is tribalism and that the only thing we can learn from those who stand on the high moral ground is that one day they will have a great fall. Arsenal fans who once viewed Suarez as an unprincipled sociopathic racist with a dark, dark soul have come to the conclusion in recent days that they were wrong and in fact he is a deeply misunderstood man with a good heart. More significantly, they have turned on those who continue to hold to those principles because there is now the opportunity of Arsenal spending money and that is the most important principle of all. Liverpool's owner John W Henry signalled the club's intention to be tough with his tweet wondering what they were smoking over at the Emirates. This hardline negotiating position might have been undermined slightly by the picture of Liverpool's managing director Ian Ayre in buoyant mood at an unidentified Melbourne location being carried shoulder-high by Robbie Fowler. Ayre is, of course, entitled to a night out. He did, however, look like a man those who might be smoking anything at all at the Emirates would wish to do business with. But they probably knew that anyway as he had helped sign Stewart Downing for £20m. Henry's tweet was a reminder that he is rarely heard from these days, which is a shame as he articulated a vision for Liverpool when he arrived which hasn't always been easy to spot since. In Melbourne, Rodgers echoed the view of some Liverpool fans that Suarez should show loyalty after all the support they gave him. Suarez will feel he already has. After all, they supported him because of what he was doing on the football field. If Jay Spearing, say, had committed the acts Suarez has over the past two years, he would already be a Blackburn Rovers player. Liverpool could have kept Suarez, not with demonstrations of loyalty which were really demonstrations of self-interest (and loyalty isn't much of a stretch if it mirrors your self-interest) but by challenging for trophies or at least fourth place. Liverpool were reminded of their popularity in Melbourne last week when 95,000 fans sang You'll Never Walk Alone with a profound and self-reverential melancholy usually reserved for a visit to a world heritage site. This melancholic nostalgia influences their stance on Suarez but they must offer more. Liverpool's challenge is to avoid becoming football's version of the musical We Will Rock You, a hugely popular tourist attraction which has no relevance to how we live today. A club with the best tunes but which has nobody who can sing them. dfanning@independent.ie Win One of Five Pairs of Tickets to Ireland v France - Click here Sunday Independent |
Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE holds slim leads in Ohio and Illinois and trails slightly in Missouri ahead of voting Tuesday, according to newly released surveys from the left-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP). ADVERTISEMENT Clinton, meanwhile, holds double-digit leads over Democratic presidential rival Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersPush to end U.S. support for Saudi war hits Senate setback Sanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' MORE in Florida and North Carolina, which also vote on Tuesday. Clinton tops Sanders by 5 points, 46 to 41 percent, in Ohio; 3 points, 48 to 45 percent, in Illinois; and trails by 1 point, 47 to 46 percent, in Missouri, according to the PPP polling of the open primary states. The former secretary of State holds a much bigger lead in Southern states, besting the Independent Vermont senator by 25 points, 57 to 32 percent, in Florida, and by 19 points, 56 to 37 percent, in North Carolina. Surveys in most states were conducted March 11 and 12, while those in North Carolina were conducted March 11-13. Clinton and Sanders faced off in a televised town hall debate Sunday night. Other polling released Monday from Quinnipiac University found nearly identical results in Florida and Ohio, with Clinton leading by 26 points in Florida, 60 to 34 percent, and by 5 points in Ohio, 51 to 46 percent. PPP conducted 627 interviews in Florida with a margin of error of 3.9 percent, 597 in Illinois with a margin of error of 4 percent, 839 in Missouri with a margin of error of 3.4 percent, 747 in North Carolina with a margin of error of 3.6 percent, and 502 in Ohio with a margin of error of 4.4 percent. |
Myths have a way of coming to resemble facts through repetition alone. This is as true in science and psychology as in politics and history. Today few areas of public health are more riven with unsubstantiated claims than the field of addiction. Alcoholics Anonymous has been instrumental in the widespread adoption of many such myths. The organization’s Twelve Steps, its expressions, and unique lexicon have found their way into the public discourse in a way that few other “brands” could ever match. So ingrained are these ideas, in fact, that many Americans would be hard-pressed to identify which came from AA and which from scientific investigation. Advertisement: The unfortunate part of this cultural penetration is that many addiction myths are harmful or even destructive, perpetuating false ideas about who addicts are, what addiction is, and what is needed to quit for good. In this chapter, I’d like to take a look at a few of these myths and examine some of the ways they impair efforts at adopting a more effective approach. MYTH #1: YOU HAVE TO “HIT BOTTOM” BEFORE YOU CAN GET WELL This common myth essentially says that an addict needs to reach a point of absolute loss or despair before he or she can begin to climb back toward a safe and productive life. The most common objection to this myth is simple logic: nobody can possibly know where their “bottom” is until they identify it in retrospect. One person’s lowest point could be a night on the street, while another’s could be a bad day at work or even a small personal humiliation. It’s not unusual for one “bottom” to make way for another following a relapse. Without a clear definition, this is a concept that could be useful only in hindsight, if it is useful at all. A bigger problem with this notion is the idea that addiction is in some fundamental way just a matter of stubbornness or stupidity—that is, addicts cannot recover until they are shown the consequences of their actions in a forceful enough way. This is a dressed-up version of the idea that addiction is a conscious choice and that stopping is a matter of recognizing the damage it causes. I have said it before, but it bears repeating: if consequences alone were enough to make someone stop repeating an addictive behavior, there would be no addicts. One of the defining agonies of addiction is that people can’t stop despite being well aware of the devastating consequences. That millions of people who have lost their jobs, marriages, and families are still unable to quit should be a clear indication that loss and despair, even in overwhelming quantities, aren’t enough to cure addiction. Conversely, many addicts stop their behavior at a point where they have not hit bottom in any sense. There is a moralistic subtext at work here as well. The notion that addicts have to hit bottom suggests that they are too selfish to quit until they have paid a steep enough personal price. Once again we get an echo of the medieval notion of penance here: through suffering comes purity. Addicts no more need to experience devastating personal loss than does anyone else with a problem. Yes, it can be useful when a single moment helps to crystallize that one has a problem, but the fantasy that this moment must be especially painful is simply nonsensical. Advertisement: Finally, the dogmatic insistence that addicts hit bottom is often used to excuse poor treatment. Treaters who are unable to help often scold addicts by telling them that they just aren’t ready yet and that they should come back once they’ve hit bottom and become ready to do the work. This is little more than a convenient dodge for ineffectual care, and a needless burden to place on the shoulders of addicts. MYTH #2: YOU MUST “SURRENDER” YOUR WILL TO GET WELL Here we have another pillar of the Oxford Group, AA’s theological forerunner, which preached salvation through surrender to God. In"Alcoholics Anonymous," this idea is implied, if not expressly stated, in steps 1 and 3, which respectively recommend admitting powerlessness and making a decision “to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.” The first problem with this idea is its overt religious flavor. I have covered the many ways that addiction is a problem of the mind and not of the spiritual soul. “Surrendering,” in the sense that addiction organizations commonly understand it, means abdicating power to a presence greater than oneself to attain guidance. It’s not surprising that many addicts chafe at this notion, not least because it requires a belief system that may not jibe with their own. Advertisement: A bigger problem is that surrendering is tantamount to agreeing that one is incapable of managing one’s own life. AA’s literature ties this idea once again to a moralistic adage: “Our whole trouble had been the misuse of will power.” Surrendering becomes a way to toss out a useful sense of selfhood or agency precisely when it’s needed most. And of course the very notion of surrender is problematic when viewed through the prism of a more psychologically sophisticated understanding of addiction. As I outlined in chapter 5, the emotion that precipitates addiction is helplessness. Addicts find certain forms of helplessness utterly intolerable, and the addiction is an effort to reverse that. Asking them to surrender their free will in response to this problem is diametrically opposed to what they need to do: feel empowered. As we saw in the first-person accounts in chapter 6, the dissonance created by this emphasis on surrender is one of the big reasons so many addicts don’t get better in AA. MYTH #3: COUNTING YOUR DAYS OF ABSTINENCE IS A USEFUL THING TO DO Advertisement: Enter any conversation about AA with addicts “recovering” in AA, and they will likely be able to tell you the precise number of years, months, and days they’ve been sober. This is an integral part of Alcoholics Anonymous and its offshoots: a tally system designed to discourage backsliding by turning sobriety into something additive, an ever-expanding reward system. The AA tradition of giving out tokens or chips for days of sobriety is intended to be a helpful reminder of what people have accomplished, and a way to discourage them from falling off the wagon. The dark side of this practice is what happens when addicts take a drink or slip in some way: they must go back to zero and lose everything they’ve gained. It’s obvious that this system can cause a great deal of pain, and the humiliations that come with it can be manifold. Giving up tokens and esteem feels like—is intended to feel like—wiping out all the hard work that has come before and starting over. The moralistic dimension of this is hard to miss; some recovering addicts even use the tsk-tsk acronym SLIP (for sobriety loses its priority). If you are in AA and slip, you cannot avoid feeling like a failure, because that’s exactly what the system is designed to tell you. Yet slips are hardly rare and not remotely apocalyptic. Most people will experience some lapses as they grapple with their addiction. This is completely predictable, given the fact that addictions arise from deeply personal emotions and experiences that can take months and years to work through. To suggest that having a drink or placing a bet should “undo” all the progress an addict has made to date is absurd. That progress happened. And its benefits are no less cumulative for the interruption. Advertisement: In fact, lapses can be turned into something useful, as I described in chapter 5. They can be a window into the personal nature of addiction that might guide addict and therapist toward a new understanding of what drives the behavior. If an addict’s efforts at sobriety have been unbroken until a particular moment, then it is always worth digging into that moment in some detail to understand what precipitated the relapse. People with addictions often feel empowered by this ongoing process of investigation and liberated by the insights it yields. MYTH #4: PEOPLE WITH ADDICTION ARE ALL THE SAME: “DRUNKS” This language is AA’s own, and lies at the heart of its one-size-fits-all treatment philosophy. In a sense, the word “drunks” is meant to be comforting, communal, a collective identity that defuses the terror of addiction and gives people a sense of belonging and a chance to laugh at their struggles. Unfortunately, the word is also reductive, and understandably disliked by many addicts. Its frequent use is designed to break down the barriers between group and self and to take down a peg those who come to meetings feeling that they don’t really belong lumped in with everyone else. Individual identity of this sort is frowned upon in 12-step culture; “drunks” gives everyone the same deprecating title and the same implied prognosis for recovery. It is not surprising that the word also serves the AA mission. Because this is a program where everybody receives the same treatment, it makes sense to call everyone by the same word. The word “drunks” also defines addicts by their addiction, further reinforcing the notion that addicts are somehow different from the rest of us, as if addiction is an innate quality rather than an acquired behavior. In the world of Alcoholics Anonymous, where alcoholics all supposedly suffer with the same character flaws and problems, addiction is not something you do, it’s something you are. Advertisement: The word thus ignores the tremendous variety of people who become addicts. Addiction appears within every possible socioeconomic level and in people who run the gamut of emotional health. To reduce this variety to just one word is to ignore the widely divergent experiences that can lead to addictive behavior. The core issues that lead to feelings of overwhelming helplessness, and thence to addiction, are as varied as the people who experience them. For some, this underlying distress may be about failing in competition; for others it may be about the loss of an important person, or an inability to protect themselves in a relationship. That all these people become “drunks” is almost beside the point. Their lives are what is significant. Using one word to describe them all shrugs off the individual treatment they require. (A corollary to this label is the notion that people with addictions are pleasure-seekers: “Drunks” are people who can’t keep themselves from the pleasure of getting drunk. But true addiction has almost nothing to do with a tendency to gorge on that which we find enjoyable; it persists long after the pleasure is gone.) MYTH #5: “ONE DAY AT A TIME”’ This famous slogan encapsulates the outside-in, behaviorally oriented nature of AA and its offshoots. AA members are constantly discouraged from thinking too far ahead, lest they become overwhelmed or disheartened. In a sense, this is an echo of the notion that addiction is innate—a steady and implacable force, not unlike gravity, that requires constant, effortful pushback. AA members do not speak of a cure because they view their addiction as fundamentally incomprehensible—not something to be understood and resolved, but something to be resisted. When addiction is seen this way, every day is more or less like every other day. Looking ahead offers no benefits. Advertisement: The notion of taking things one day at a time is also rather infantilizing, as it suggests that addicts cannot bear the burden of considering weeks or months without addiction. This would make sense if abstinence were like lifting weights or running a marathon: it’s useful to hang on to the “just one more” ethos to get through something that becomes increasingly difficult over time. But abstinence doesn’t have to feel that way. A more appropriate metaphor would be learning a new instrument: you may start out one note at a time, but before long you are learning minuets and sonatas. The biggest mistake with “One day at a time” is that it’s backward. One of the truly useful things about understanding addiction from a psychological perspective is that this view breeds a kind of precognition: people become adept at predicting when the urge will arise. In fact, thinking ahead is one of the most powerful tools in treatment, as it gives addicts a chance to head off their addictive urges long before those feelings actually occur. Purposely keeping one’s head down and refusing to think about the future is a formula for getting blindsided by powerful and unfamiliar feelings. Excerpted from "The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry" by Lance Dodes, MD, and Zachary Dodes. Copyright © 2014. Excerpted with permission by Beacon Press. |
Poland is fast becoming a hot bed of European mixed martial arts talent. With two Polish women stepping in for the first ever all-European UFC title fight earlier this month at UFC 205 and talented fighters on the rise; they certainly have plenty to shout about. One of the hottest teams in Polish MMA right now is Shark Top Team (STT) who are based out of Lodz, Poland. STT is home of UFC women’s strawweight title contender Karolina Kowalkiewicz as well as the former The Ultimate Fighter contestant and future KSW featherweight title contender, Marcin "The Polish Zombie" Wrzosek. The head coach at STT is Lukasz Zaborowski and recently he allowed FloCombat access to a training session with one of his most promising students, Adam Zajac (9-2-1). Zajac is currently fighting in the Russian Promotion Absolute Championship Berkut and is coming off the back of an impressive win back in February against Shamkhan Barakhanov. Zajac is looking forward to a big 2017 and is hoping he start to make a big impact on the European and world scene with some impressive victories. “I’m currently signed to ACB and after a disappointing first fight with them I showed that what I was worth in my second,” Zajac explained. “Since that last fight, I know I’ve just got even better. I’ve been working hard with my team improving in all areas and I know next time I get in the cage I’m going to show to everyone that I’m a force to be reckoned with in this middleweight division.” Zajac puts all of his improvements down to the works he’s been doing at STT and says that being surrounded by so many training partners who are achieving great things is a real inspiration for him. “People don’t understand why we are so successful here but it’s really quite easy,” Zajac said. “Everyone here is like family. We work hard in the gym and push each other to our limits, but outside of the gym we are also friends and hang out together. “We always watch each other’s fights, whether it’s with them there or watching it all gathered in the gym. We live and breathe each other’s success and disappointments and that is what makes us all so strong.” While Zajac is happy to celebrate the success of his other teammates, what he really strives for is his own success and he believes that 2017 will be his year to break through to the top of the ACB middleweight division and further onto the world scene. “With the improvements I’ve made recently there is really no reason why I can’t kick on a lot and make my presence felt,” Zajac said. “I would like to fight as soon as possible, but I know that ACB are planning a big event in Manchester in March so that is always an option. “To be honest, it doesn’t matter when I fight. I just know that whoever stands across from me next time I’m in the cage is in for a bad night and they are going to remember my name.” |
THOUSANDS of volunteers are hitting the streets today with raise funds for Special Olympics. THOUSANDS of volunteers are hitting the streets today with raise funds for Special Olympics. 4,000 volunteers take to the streets to raise funds for Special Olympics From 7am this morning, 4,000 volunteers took their bibs and buckets to 200 locations around the country to help ensure people with an intellectual disability can participate in sport. Organisers were hopeful that the fine weather in many parts of the country will boost the collection on what is the key fundraising day for the organisation. Matt English, CEO Special Olympics Ireland urged people to give what they can to support us. "Special Olympics does change lives," he said, adding that it gave people with an intellectual disability "dignity, self-confidence" and helped them become healthier. He said the organisation would not stop looking for volunteers and money until every one of the 42,000 people in the country with a disability were able to participate in sport". Currently, the organisation supports 11,000 athletes from 400 clubs to compete at local, regional and world level. Athlete Stuart Brierton, from Bray, Co Wicklow, is currently in training with his eye on the Special Olympics world event in Los Angeles next year. Stuart (15) competes in swimming, badminton and alpine skiing, and won three medals in South Korea. Asked what Special Olympics has done for him, Stuart said "I've got skill, confidence. I've got nerve". "And girlfriends," added his dad Tony, with a smile. Mum Karen said getting involved in Special Olympics had been an "amazing journey" for the whole family. Before that, it was difficult for Stuart to participate in sport as not everyone understood when he did something wrong. She said it was great to see how the athletes managed to communicate in South Korea despite not being able to talk to each other. "They did not need language. They were high five-ing and hugging each other. These were people who had never met each other before. It would lift your spirits," she said. The public can support Special Olympics on the day by donating to one of the on-street collectors or by texting the word SPECIAL to 50300 to donate €2. (100% of the €2 donation will go to Special Olympics Ireland). Donations can also be made on the Special Olympic's website. Online Editors |
Get the biggest Newcastle United FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Newcastle United may have been relegated to the Championship but Rafa Benitez’s decision to commit to the club and sign a redrawn three-year contract has ensured optimism and positivity has returned to Tyneside. That renegotiated contract handed the Spaniard full “control of footballing matters” at the club and Benitez’s decision to stay helped to greatly soften the painful blow of demotion. At his second unveiling, the 56-year-old spoke of his determination to achieve promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt, and he also promised to build a squad who were more than capable of performing in the Championship in 2016-17. The former Real Madrid, Chelsea and Liverpool boss is already well on his way to finalising the Magpies’ pre-season plans, and he has also started to sound out potential transfer targets for next season. Crucially, the Newcastle boss is determined to keep supporters firmly in the loop about all his plans at the club and to keep them abreast of the changes that are afoot. During the first half of The Chronicle’s exclusive two-part Q & A with Benitez, the Spaniard discussed what he has been up to since his appointment, his plans for the club’s training ground and Academy, when he expects to make a breakthrough in the transfer market and how he will deal with players requesting to leave. Here, in the second half, Benitez examines Newcastle’s budget for the summer, the type of player he will be looking to recruit ahead of the Championship campaign, whether he will dip into the foreign market, and the overwhelming love he has felt from Magpies supporters ever since he arrived and then again once he recommitted to the club... Question: What is the budget? And will that budget be buffered if players are sold? Benitez replies: “Again, I will say it is dangerous to talk about the budget. “If we talk about the budget in public then every club and every agent knows how much you have to spend. “That doesn’t help Newcastle United. “We have money to spend where we need to and we don’t have to sell, so we are in a very strong position.” Question: What type of players are you looking for? Seasoned Championship players? And in which positions? Benitez responds: “We have to think about the type of player who is best for the Championship, because everybody knows it is a very different league, more physical and it is tougher in different ways than the Premier League. “But also we cannot just focus on building a strong squad for the Championship, because we hope we will only be there for one season; we have to build a squad that we are confident can help us out of the Championship and then can perform also strongly in the Premier League. “Having experience of playing in the Championship can be important, but it is important to have a mix of players who can each bring different qualities to the team. “Mentality, experience, skill, determination, how everyone works together for the team, all these things are important. “I think I don’t need to talk about specific positions. “Our fans are very knowledgeable, they will know which positions we need to strengthen, just like we know. “We are working to strengthen positions in which we are weak, of course. “We have our priorities, we have our targets and we are making very good progress behind the doors.” Question: Will you be looking to dip into the foreign market as well? Will you be using your connections abroad? Benitez answers: “I don’t care where a player is from, just that he is the right player for Newcastle United and for the squad that we want to build. “I have good connections abroad and I am using those connections and working with Lee and with Graham [Carr], it is a good partnership and I said before we are making very good progress.” poll loading Have you been impressed by Rafa Benitez's plan in his Chronicle Q & A? 500+ VOTES SO FAR YES NO Question: What have you made of the reaction of fans since you committed to stay following relegation? Did the enormous support for The Chronicle’s petition surprise you? Benitez replies: “I knew about the Geordie fans before I came here, everyone in football knows about their passion and their support. “But it was incredible to experience it and to feel the love they have for the club and the welcome and support they gave me and the team. “They did not have an easy season but they are always supporting. “It was very emotional for me. “The fans make a very big difference - to me, to the team on the pitch, to the whole city. “They have been amazing, really amazing. “The fans are very special, they are what Newcastle United is about, they make the club what it is. “I want to give them joy and excitement and pride in their club, a reason to celebrate and to smile.” |
A sharp earthquake in central Oklahoma last weekend has raised fresh concern about the security of a vast crude oil storage complex, close to the quake’s center, that sits at the crossroads of the nation’s oil pipeline network. The magnitude 4.5 quake struck Saturday afternoon about three miles northwest of Cushing, roughly midway between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. The town of about 8,000 people is home to the so-called Cushing Hub, a sprawling tank farm that is among the largest oil storage facilities in the world. Scientists reported in a paper published online last month that a large earthquake near the storage hub “could seriously damage storage tanks and pipelines.” Saturday’s quake continues a worrisome pattern of moderate quakes, suggesting that a large earthquake is more than a passing concern, the lead author of that study, Daniel McNamara, said in an interview. “When we see these fault systems producing multiple magnitude 4s, we start to get concerned that it could knock into higher magnitudes,” he said. “Given the number of magnitude 4s here, it’s a high concern.” |
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