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Wake Up America - Share Pat's Columns! Before the lynching of The Donald proceeds, what exactly was it he said about that Hispanic judge? Stated succinctly, Donald Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over a class-action suit against Trump University, is sticking it to him. And the judge’s bias is likely rooted in the fact that he is of Mexican descent. Can there be any defense of a statement so horrific? Just this. First, Trump has a perfect right to be angry about the judge’s rulings and to question his motives. Second, there are grounds for believing Trump is right. On May 27, Curiel, at the request of The Washington Post, made public plaintiff accusations against Trump University — that the whole thing was a scam. The Post, which Bob Woodward tells us has 20 reporters digging for dirt in Trump’s past, had a field day. And who is Curiel? An appointee of President Obama, he has for years been associated with the La Raza Lawyers Association of San Diego, which supports pro-illegal immigrant organizations. Set aside the folly of letting Clinton surrogates like the Post distract him from the message he should be delivering, what did Trump do to be smeared by a bipartisan media mob as a “racist”? He attacked the independence of the judiciary, we are told. But Presidents Jefferson and Jackson attacked the Supreme Court, and FDR, fed up with New Deal programs being struck down, tried to “pack the court” by raising the number of justices to 15 if necessary. Abraham Lincoln leveled “that eminent tribunal” in his first inaugural, and once considered arresting Chief Justice Roger Taney. The conservative movement was propelled by attacks on the Warren Court. In the ’50s and ’60s, “Impeach Earl Warren!” was plastered on billboards and bumper stickers all across God’s country. The judiciary is independent, but that does not mean that federal judges are exempt from the same robust criticism as presidents or members of Congress. Obama himself attacked the Citizens United decision in a State of the Union address, with the justices sitting right in front of him. But Trump’s real hanging offense was that he brought up the judge’s ancestry, as the son of Mexican immigrants, implying that he was something of a judicial version of Univision’s Jorge Ramos. Apparently, it is now not only politically incorrect, but, in Newt Gingrich’s term, “inexcusable,” to bring up the religious, racial or ethnic background of a judge, or suggest this might influence his actions on the bench. But these things matter. Does Newt think that when LBJ appointed Thurgood Marshall, ex-head of the NAACP, to the Supreme Court, he did not think Marshall would bring his unique experience as a black man and civil rights leader to the bench? Surely, that was among the reasons Marshall was appointed. When Obama named Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, a woman of Puerto Rican descent who went through college on affirmative action scholarships, did Obama think this would not influence her decision when it came to whether or not to abolish affirmative action? “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” Sotomayor said in a speech at Berkeley law school and in other forums. Translation: Ethnicity matters, and my Latina background helps guide my decisions. All of us are products of our family, faith, race and ethnic group. And the suggestion in these attacks on Trump that judges and justices always rise about such irrelevant considerations, and decide solely on the merits, is naive nonsense. There are reasons why defense lawyers seek “changes of venue” and avoid the courtrooms of “hanging judges.” When Obama reflexively called Sgt. Crowley “stupid” after Crowley’s 2009 encounter with that black professor at Harvard, and said of Trayvon Martin, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” was he not speaking as an African-American, as well as a president? Pressed by John Dickerson on CBS, Trump said it’s “possible” a Muslim judge might be biased against him as well. Another “inexcusable” outrage. But does anyone think that if Obama appointed a Muslim to the Supreme Court, the LGBT community would not be demanding of all Democratic Senators that they receive assurances that the Muslim judge’s religious views on homosexuality would never affect his court decisions, before they voted to put him on the bench? When Richard Nixon appointed Judge Clement Haynsworth to the Supreme Court, it was partly because he was a distinguished jurist of South Carolina ancestry. And the Democrats who tore Haynsworth to pieces did so because they feared he would not repudiate his Southern heritage and any and all ideas and beliefs associated with it. To many liberals, all white Southern males are citizens under eternal suspicion of being racists. The most depressing thing about this episode is to see Republicans rushing to stomp on Trump, to show the left how well they have mastered their liberal catechism. |
Hey there all you gorgeous, wonderful people! I’m back (kinda)! Before I share this wondrous White Bean & Portobello Stew, I’ve got some stuff to talk about. I’ve probably drafted this post in my head about 9 times a day for the last 2 months. It was going to be much longer but I ended up deleting more than half of it. The writing of it was very helpful for me, though. I should probably start by telling you what I’ve been up to since the last time I posted over 3 months ago. That’s definitely the longest I’ve ever been from the blog, but 2015 has been a doozy of a year for Chris and I. After our last (long and stressful) show ended, we were hoping to have some downtime to hang out and relax but life had other plans. Since April, Chris’s father had a stroke; Chris lost his brother, Mark, to esophageal cancer; we underwent a complete kitchen renovation that took much longer than expected and had many errors along the way; a dear friend of mine, a man who was like a second father to me, passed away; ten days later, our beloved pup, Samantha, passed away; we adopted two new dogs, both of whom came with their own set of special “needs”; we underwent an office remodel (which is still going on); one of our dogs ran away; more family drama happened that I can’t go into here; and during this whole time, I’ve been working on my newest book (!!!!!!!!!) (which I’ll tell you about in a minute). And now we’re back at work on that same show that ended last April. And that’s just the last 6 months. I was going to go into detail about these things and tell you how things went down, but as it turns out, I’m not emotionally capable of going into it. Suffice it to say, there’s been a shit-ton of bummers in our house. It’s been really fucking sad, if I’m being honest. Around the time that we learned that Samantha’s kidney’s were failing (she’d been dealing with congestive heart failure for over two years), about 2 weeks before she passed away, my Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis began to flare up. I knew it was due to stress, but my hair was beginning to fall out more than usual, getting out of bed each morning was damn near impossible. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I felt overwhelmed with everything. When it didn’t fade after a month, I made an appointment to see my endocrinologist. I figured we’d need to alter the dosage of my medication. Imagine how surprised I was to hear that my TSH levels were right were they needed to be, the best they’d been so far! When I went over my symptoms with her, she said “It sounds like you’re depressed.” A little thought bubble appeared over my head, replaying all the events of the last few months and all of my symptoms in a montage set to some pretty dramatic, instrumental music. Duh. I’m no stranger to depression. I’ve dealt with it off and on since my teens, but I’ve been free of it for about 8 years. This feeling hopeless and sad and overwhelmed all the damn time. It was like walking into a house you haven’t been to in years and it’s been completely re-decorated. It takes you a few minutes, but soon you’re like “Heeeeeyyyyy. I’ve been here before.” I’d blown off social invitations simply because I couldn’t deal with talking to people. I would often crawl into bed in the middle of the day because everything was so “ugh.” I stopped blogging because the idea of writing a blog post was just too much. The things I love about blogging- the ability to help people and make an impact on their lives, the creative outlet, the community, became things I wanted no part of. I stopped answering emails unless they were urgent. I wanted to be an anonymous hermit. Truth be told, sometimes I still feel this way. There are a few of things that are helping me get through this. The first thing is that I’m letting myself be depressed. I let myself feel all the feelings. I don’t get upset over the fact that I’m having them. I just let myself have them. Second, I remind myself that, like everything, this is temporary. And the last thing is having compassion for myself. I have a tendency to lose patience with myself when I’m being anything less than positive and productive, but I’ve been working on that. Amey Matthews led a talk about compassion at the last VVC and one of the things she said really stuck in my head. You know how sweet and positive and loving you are when you talk to dogs (or cats, if you swing that way)? The way you rub their head and tell them they’re a “Good Girl.” Why don’t we do that with other humans, including ourselves? I began to imagine what I would do if my one of my dogs were mopey. Would I get frustrated at them for feeling that way? Would I tell them they needed to be happy? No. I would rub their belly and tell them everything was going to be okay because they’re a good puppy and I loved them. So that’s what I’m doing with myself (minus the belly rubbing part). I’ve also learned a few things about myself during this time. For the last few years, just as all bloggers do, I’ve put a ton of time and energy into Keepin’ It Kind because I love it. I really do. I love this space where I get to share food and stories with you and make the world a more positive place. And I absolutely adore all you wonderful people who take the time to read the posts (like this long-ass one!) and comment and email me. With that said there’s a lot of pressure that comes with food blogging to always come up with the coolest new thing that incorporates all the current food buzzwords that you see everywhere on Pinterest, like “Buffalo,” “Pumpkin,” “Pizza,” “Fudge,” and more “Pumpkin,” as well as words like “Healthy,” “3-ingredients,” “One Bowl,” and “Life-Altering.” There’s pressure to “post at least 2 to 3 times a week,” “get more exposure,” “have more followers,” and “have pinnable images.” There’s pressure to attend every single event and be seen and network and chronicle all of it on Instagram while you’re at it. While I try to keep it real and use my own voice and just be myself, I’ve certainly succumbed to all of these pressures at times. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But every time, it takes me a little farther away from why I started blogging- to help people make more compassionate choices when it comes to their food, to make veganism fun and tasty and approachable. You kind of get sucked into the whirlwind of it all and soon, while you’re still doing your own thing, your way, you might not be doing it for the same reasons you did when you started. Don’t get me wrong- I love all the friends I’ve made since I began blogging and I am so grateful for all of the opportunities that have come my way because of it. When all of this LIFE happened, though, I felt guilty that I had to neglect the blog. Then I felt bad because I simply didn’t have the motivation to work on it. I felt a resistance to go back to that whirlwind. Jay-Z says in one of his songs “I’m not a business man, I’m a Business, man!” I’ve learned that I do not have that in common with Jay-Z (among many other things, I’m sure). I am not a Business. I am not a brand. Keepin’ It Kind is kinda/sorta a business/brand that I can set my own hours, my own deadlines, and my own rules with. If my life is crazy hectic with home stuff, family stuff, work stuff, LIFE STUFF, then it’s okay if I don’t post something for awhile. I don’t have to bury myself with one more thing to do on the weekends. When I post, it needs to be something I’m excited about, not something I feel I have to do. I am a business woman (a generous statement), not a Business, woman! And that’s okay. Going forward, I can’t promise to post things on a regular basis, though I would like to. I’m actually wrapping up the recipe development portion of the new book (2 more re-tests and I’m done!!!!), working full-time, trying to find my missing dog (which is, while I’m being an honest, an absolute nightmare) (UPDATE 11/11/15: Buster has been found! Read all about his recovery here!) , and will be engulfed in shooting the book on the weekends until early next year. I would like to say I’m one of those super bloggers that can do it all, but alas, I am not. I need time to breathe. Cuddle with my husband. Read a book. Walk my dog(s) (hopefully, it will be plural again soon). Live. So if I go awhile without posting again, know that while I would love to be here blogging and I will blog again, I’m busy living at the moment. Whew! Thank you. I needed to get all of that out. Thank you for listening/reading. And now let’s move on to more happy, positive things. The Book! So yes! I’m working on a new cookbook! Hooray! I’ve been planning/developing since early this year and was able to dive into recipe development in June. I’m about to wrap up all the testing (I just have a couple more to go!) before I can turn them over to recipe testers so if you’re interested in testing recipes for this book, stay tuned for a post about that in a few days! We’ve shot a couple chapters already and we’ve still got 111 more recipes to shoot because just like But I Could Never Go Vegan!, this book will also have pictures for every recipe. This book is a follow-up to But I Could Never Go Vegan! but while I don’t want to give away the farm just yet, I can tell you that it is more family-oriented. It’s NOT a book to help you help your family go vegan. It will help make sharing a table with your non-vegan family members a little more peaceful and dare I say, delicious. It will also help omnivores cook tasty meals they can share with vegan family members. And also, anyone can use it to just make damn good food. The recipes, for the most part, are simpler than the recipes in But I Could Never Go Vegan! and they’re all gluten-free or have gluten-free alternatives. I’ve been sharing pics of some of the recipes on Instagram. Check out the pics and follow for more pics to come! The Recipe! I couldn’t just pop in, throw all this news at you and leave without sharing a recipe, right? This stew is one of my most favorite recipes from my first book, But I Could Never Go Vegan!. It’s so hearty and comforting, which is pretty much perfect this time of year. The portobello chunks add a nice meatiness to it and it actually reminds me of the (far from vegan) stews my dad used to make when I was a kid. Yay for a bowl of hot, steamy comfort! Print White Bean & Portobello Stew + Catching Up + BIG NEWS! Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 40 minutes Yield: serves 6 to 8 Recipe from But I Could Never Go Vegan!: 125 Recipes That Prove You Can Live Without Cheese, It’s Not All Rabbit Food, and Your Friends Will Still Come Over Dinner, copyright © Kristy Turner, 2014. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, The Experiment. Available wherever books are sold. Ingredients 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil 2 leeks (white part only), halved lengthwise and thinly sliced 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 carrot, chopped 1 celery rib, chopped 4 portobello mushrooms, sliced into ½-inch (1 cm) wide strips 1 tablespoon liquid aminos 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage 1 teaspoon fennel seeds 3 cups (525 g) cooked great Northern beans (see page 8) or two 15-ounce (425 g) cans, rinsed and drained 4 cups (1,000 ml) vegetable broth (chicken-flavored vegetable broth is best here; see tip) 1 cup (250 ml) water 1 teaspoon white miso 1 teaspoon liquid smoke Salt and black pepper to taste 3 cups (40 g) roughly chopped kale Crusty French bread or Southern Biscuits (page 233 in But I Could Never Go Vegan!), optional Instructions Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the leeks and garlic and sauté for 2 to 3 minutes, until fragrant. Add the carrot and celery and sauté for another 2 to 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms, liquid aminos, rosemary, thyme, sage, and fennel seeds. Sauté for 3 to 4 minutes. Add the beans, broth, water, and miso. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and cover, leaving the lid open a crack. Simmer for 25 to 30 minutes. When some of the liquid has reduced and the vegetables are tender, add the liquid smoke, salt, and black pepper. Fold in the kale and cook just until the kale begins to wilt, then remove from the heat. Serve warm, with bread, if desired. Leftovers can be chilled in an airtight container up to 5 days. Notes Tip: You can purchase vegan broths that are chicken or beef flavored. They do not contain animal products, but they are seasoned to taste like their non-vegan counterparts. 3.1 Thank you all again for your continued support. If you donated to Help Find Buster, please know that you have truly touched our hearts. Your kind emails and messages in recent weeks and months have been so helpful during this rough time. I love you all. And I’m not just saying that. Photography by Chris Miller |
The annual survey of willd flowers by the charity Plantlife found plants that can tolerate high levels of nitrogen from the artificial fertilisers used in farming, like the common nettle, cow parsley and lords-and-ladies, are flourishing. But more delicate species that need ancients woodland or open glades, like wood sorrel, meadow clary and lady's slipper orchid, are struggling. The charity claim every county in the UK is losing, on average, one species of wild plant every two years. Plantlife are so concerned about the state of the country's wild flowers, the charity is launching a more extensive survey this year to try and find out where plants are in danger. Volunteers are being asked to look out for 99 species in an assigned grid square, including rare plants like bogbean, cowslip and cornflowers. Plantlife has been carrying out a survey of around 500 people for the last 10 years. At the moment the most common top ten plants are: common nettle, cleavers, cow parsley, ribwort plantain, greater plantain, hawthorn, lesser celandine, bluebell, red clover and herb-robert. The charity hope that more than 1,000 people will take part this year, enabling botanists to work out which plants are in danger. Sue Southway, Wildflowers Count Survey Officer, said one in five of Britain’s wild plants is threatened with extinction because of the intensification of agriculture, climate change and pollution. She said the count will not only look at endangered species but common flowers like speedwell, coltsfoot and poppies. "We need to count them because they are indicators of how healthy our countryside is," she said. Simon King, the BBC Springwatch presenter and vice president of Wildlife Trusts, said it was more important than ever to protect wildflower meadows in the British countryside. “To gaze, walk, or lie in a wildflower meadow is to be at one with the natural world in the most intimate of ways. You are accepted. You are part of the palette of the life bustle, and the experience is at once uplifting and humbling,” he said. |
CORVALLIS, Ore. - There were 2,785 fans at Goss Stadium at Coleman Field on Saturday afternoon. It's doubtful that any of them could have expected they would be fortunate to witness history when they stepped into the stadium. That they did, however, as Drew Rasmussen became the first Oregon State pitcher to throw a perfect game in Oregon State's 3-0 victory over Washington State. According to the Pac-12 media guide, it's just the fourth perfect game in league history, and first since Washington State's Joe McIntosh in 1973. Rasmussen, a freshman, faced 27 batters, recorded 10 strikeouts and needed just 103 pitches to shut down the Cougars. The Beavers (17-5 overall, 3-2 Pac-12 Conference) played perfect defense behind him, and Oregon State will go for a sweep Sunday after witnessing a rare feat. "Unreal," Rasmussen said. "It's been an unreal day. It's been awesome. It's been so much fun. Not much more I can say. Pretty surreal right now. It was a fun game and I had a lot of help behind me and let's go get a series sweep tomorrow." Rasmussen recorded six of his outs by fly ball and 11 by ground balls. Of his 10 strikeouts, six came against the top four batters in the Cougars' (12-10, 1-4) lineup, including two apiece to No. 2 Wes Hatten and No. 3 Ian Sagdal. Leading up to Saturday's game, there had been five no-hitters in school history, with three coming under head coach Pat Casey. The last, thrown by Jace Fry against Northern Illinois last season, saw the left-hander walk two. In 2011, Josh Osich threw a no-hitter at UCLA, and came close to a perfect game, but issued a 3-2 walk. The win pushed Rasmussen to 3-0 this season, and his earned run average dropped to 1.36. He's walked five to 40 strikeouts in 39 2/3 innings. The Beavers didn't manage much offense against Washington State starter Joe Pistorese, but made it count. KJ Harrison singled home a run in the first for a 1-0 lead, then watched as OSU manufactured two runs in the seventh. Michael Gretler singled through the left side for the second run of the game, and the next batter, Trever Morrison, squeezed in the third run. Pistorese was on the short end of the perfect game as he also went the distance but took the loss to drop to 3-2 on the year. He allowed five hits and three runs - one earned - while striking out six and walking two. Jeff Hendrix reached on an infield single to extend his hit streak to a season-long 12 games. The teams meet for the series finale Sunday at 1:05 p.m. PT. The game will air live on the Pac-12 Networks. Fans can also follow the game via the Beaver Sports Network and TuneIn. |
Picture Segment Description SCENE 1 Ronald Grump, the Grouch building tycoon, approaches Oscar with a new idea - a two-story can-dominium called "Grump Tower." In exchange for Oscar giving up his property to build the tower, Grump gives him a spot in the tower, as well as three bags of trash. Maria thinks it's a rotten deal, which only encourages Oscar further. Cartoon A cat makes noise with a telephone, typwriter, trumpet, and piano. When the cat leaves, the devices come to life, and when he comes back, they all sound at once, frightening the cat. (First: Episode 0844) Muppets An Anything Muppet asks another "Is this the D train?" A subway train then arrives, letting out several letter Ds. (EKA: Episode 2040) Cartoon The word entrada tries to run through a wall, then runs through the entrance. (EKA: Episode 0987) Cartoon A boxer explains the letter "B". (First: Episode 0006) SCENE 2 Maria brings Luis to the newly-constructed Grump Tower. Oscar loves the upgrade and introduces his neighbors - Ronald lives next door, and the third set of cans belongs to the Gruffy family. Oscar even uses his second-floor can as a space for Fluffy and Slimey to live, until Ronald points out a clause in his contract - no pets! Oscar can't bear to part with them and wants the tower torn down. Ronald considers this option...for 40 bags of trash! Animation In stop-motion, blocks stack and arrange themselves to form zoo cages, arches, and a whole city. (First: Episode 1459) Film A metal crane and a real crane look alike. (EKA: Episode 2179) Cartoon Gloria, a rambunctious little girl, sings the alphabet song while an adult gives her instructions. (First: Episode 0010) Muppets Simon Soundman sounds out the word "call", and then demonstrates some calls of his own - including a bird call, cow call, pig call, and telephone call. (remake) (EKA: Episode 2163) Cartoon A girl tries to lure her cat out from under the chair so she can pick him up. Artists: The Hubleys (EKA: Episode 0721) Cast Charlie Chaplin (Maria) falls in love with a painting at the art museum. (EKA: Episode 2269) Cartoon "Measurin', Measurin'" - a song about tools that are used to measure. (EKA: Episode 1952) SCENE 3 Ronald wants his trash, but Oscar can't give up his trash; it's all he has. Suddenly, the rest of the adults come by with 20 bags of trash. "And there's more trash where that came from," Maria tells Ronald. Cartoon A man counts 40 stars at night. (EKA: Episode 2243) Muppets Every time Ernie tries to recite a poem about the number 12, it switches itself around to the number 21 (and vice versa). Film A man makes a shadow puppet of a laughing man. (EKA: Episode 1845) SCENE 4 The adults and kids count the rest of the trashbags as they walk down Sesame Street. However, when they reach Grump Tower, they find they only have 39. Maria takes Ronald's contract, crumples it up and throws it into a paper bag, making 40 bags of trash! A defeated Ronald sinks into his can. Film Megan goes to the doctor and gets a cast on her arm so it can heal. (EKA: Episode 1288) Film A group of kids enter a door marked ENTRADA. (EKA: Episode 1297) Muppets Old West: Clementine breaks the bad news to everyone: Bad Bart is coming to town to "give someone what they deserve"! She says he will come when the cow moos four times. They listen for it, and first hear a train toot four times, then a dog bark four times, and finally the cow. Bad Bart steps into the saloon, looks for the bartender, and reminds him that last week, he ordered sarsaparilla, but the bartender didn't have it, so he went to another town to get it, and kept him waiting. Bad Bart forgot to pay the bartender for it, so he gives the bartender what he deserves: some coins. (EKA: Episode 2358) Animation D / d (drums and drumsticks) (EKA: Episode 2326) Muppets Snuffy shows Big Bird the cloud costume he's going to wear in his Snufflegarten class's upcoming pageant about the sky, and even sings the song that accompanies it, while Big Bird imagines him as a cloud. (EKA: Episode 2222) Muppets Ernie & Bert — At night, Ernie gets creative inspiration to write a poem about what he likes, but has trouble with finding a word that rhymes with "dirt". Cartoon Things that are same and different. (First: Episode 0805) Film Human and animal babies learn to walk. (EKA: Episode 2124) Muppets Three Anything Muppets (including George) individually try to sell lemons, water, and sugar. After all of their businesses fail, the three cooperate to start a lemonade stand. (First: Episode 0335) Cartoon Small letter b (ball/bat) (First: Episode 1131) |
Japan’s energy policy is now at its most critical juncture since the inception of nuclear power in 1966. Nearly 16 months after the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station — the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl — Japan’s nuclear policy has finally started to transform. Japan’s energy policy is now at its most critical juncture since the inception of nuclear power in 1966. Nearly 16 months after the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station — the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl — Japan’s nuclear policy has finally started to transform. After much delay, on June 20 the Japanese Diet enacted a bill to create a new independent regulatory commission for nuclear safety. The government decided to establish the commission to bolster Japan’s nuclear safety standards after facing acute criticism that the system in place during the earthquake and tsunami failed to appropriately and effectively respond to, or even prevent, the nuclear crisis. Currently, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency is housed under the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry — which promotes nuclear energy. The new agency is expected to combine safety and regulatory functions and be completely separate from organizations that promote nuclear power. The new commission is scheduled to be online by September. However, while promoting the bill for the new nuclear regulatory body, the Diet also — more stealthily — amended Japan’s Atomic Energy Basic Law by inserting language that connects Japan’s nuclear power policy to “security.” This amendment generated a lot attention from the public and major media outlets, causing significant controversy inside and outside Japan and reigniting questions about Japan’s avowed commitment to being a non-nuclear weapon state. South Korea is especially concerned, asserting that the revision will pave the way for Japan to develop nuclear weapons. While it is unlikely that Japan will use nuclear energy for military purposes (Japanese law limits the use of nuclear energy to peaceful purposes), this strong negative reaction clearly shows the deep-rooted distrust many neighboring countries still harbor toward Japan. And sending the wrong signals will only continue to foment that distrust. When questioned about the amended language, Nuclear Disaster Minister Goshi Hosono responded that “the word ‘security’ precisely means the prevention of nuclear proliferation.” Of course, if the true intention of revising the Atomic Energy Basic Law is to enhance nuclear security and nonproliferation, why not say so explicitly? Or why not say that nuclear policy should “contribute to international security” instead of “national security”? The ambiguity only leaves room for further debate — which is why Japan should take an unequivocal stance on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, one that clearly demonstrates its intention with the implementation of an actual policy. Without precise language in the Atomic Energy Basic Law, Japan’s nonproliferation and disarmament credentials will only weaken and Japan’s relations with neighboring countries will only further deteriorate. The good news, however, is that Japan is at a moment of truth. The unprecedented disaster at Fukushima has given Japan a pathbreaking opportunity to review its long-term nuclear policy and to unmistakably demonstrate its commitment to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. After intense study of the fuel cycle, and almost eight months of deliberation, the Japan Atomic Energy Commission submitted its recommendations to the Energy and Environment Council. The council then laid out three scenarios for the future of Japan’s energy policy, with three different nuclear energy shares in the nation’s total power supply by 2030. All three scenarios reduce the country’s reliance on nuclear energy: The first drops nuclear power to 0 percent, the second to 15 percent, and the third to 20-25 percent. Under scenario one, all nuclear spent fuel would be directly disposed of and buried underground; in scenarios two and three, both reprocessing and direct disposal methods would be used. The government is scheduled to release the back-end nuclear fuel-cycle policy in August when it determines the final ratio of nuclear power in the total energy supply. The Energy and Environment Council is holding extensive public hearings on the three scenarios at 11 sites across the country, inviting public comment on their website and via letters; the council is also holding an opinion poll in early August. Additionally, and particularly notable, the government plans to introduce “deliberative polling,” which will incorporate discussion meetings with respondents in an effort to reflect public opinion in the new energy policy. But, while these well-planned initiatives to get the general public involved in the decision-making process for the nuclear share of the energy supply are important, the way that public opinion is reflected in the specific policy on spent fuel management is still unclear. The nuclear spent fuel management policy options that the Energy and Environment Council will attach to each of the three options on nuclear energy ratios are uncertain — leaving the implication that the government does not want to completely give up a reprocessing option. That’s a mistake: If Japan is serious about reducing its reliance on nuclear energy, moving away from its reprocessing policy is the necessary first step. Asking the public to weigh in on the proportion of nuclear energy to be used but obscuring how those opinions will be reflected on fuel-cycle policy undermines the transparency the government is attempting to create. Japan has long been a nuclear disarmament advocate, but it has also been criticized for keeping its latent nuclear weapon development capability alive with a huge amount of separated plutonium. Japan has accumulated enough plutonium to begin nuclear weapon production. This must stop immediately. Japan’s reprocessing policy is long overdue for a change. By the end of 2010, Japan possessed 44.9 metric tons of separated plutonium — 9.9 metric tons within the country and 35 metric tons at reprocessing plants in Britain and France. Though the nuclear fuel stockpile being held abroad is technically slated to return to Japan for use in domestic nuclear facilities, the fuel is accumulating faster than it is being used, leading some to point out that the material is de facto providing Japan with a latent nuclear weapons capability. Meanwhile, Japan is in the testing phase of a domestic reprocessing plant; once that plant becomes commercially operational, it will separate and stockpile up to eight metric tons of plutonium annually — enough to produce 1,000 nuclear weapons. Proponents of reprocessing assert that it is essential for an energy-poor Japan to efficiently use its uranium resources to maintain recycled indigenous plutonium sources for energy security. But in Japan, perpetuating the use of nuclear energy, the world most dangerous energy source, is no longer valid after Fukushima. Besides, if Japan stops reprocessing, it will definitely weaken other countries’ — especially South Korea’s — arguments for domestic reprocessing technology development. Ultimately, accumulating separated plutonium only increases proliferation concerns and decreases Japan’s ability to be a leader in nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. Since the advent of the nuclear age, perhaps no other country has had a more intricate connection with nuclear energy — both militarily and peacefully — than Japan. Japan’s decisions on nuclear policy will have a significant impact on regional and global nonproliferation efforts. That’s why creating forums for people to exchange opinions, using precise language in policy efforts, and taking steps to promote disarmament are all so crucial. Japan’s nuclear policy is at the turning point, and both its citizens and government are vital to determining how successful that policy will be. |
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office has expanded its probe of the city of Bell, widening the investigation from a scandal over inflated salaries to include allegations of voter fraud and possible conflicts of interest involving city businesses. Bell City Council members have taken a lot of heat this month after it was revealed that many of them had inflated their salaries to $96,000 a year for part-time elected positions, with one city staff member banking nearly $800,000 a year. L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley -- who's also the Republican nominee for state attorney general -- said yesterday that prosecutors have been gathering information on Bell since March, but was mum on the specifics of the voter fraud and conflict of interest allegations. He did describe the investigation as "multifaceted, rapidly expanding and full-fledged," the Los Angeles Times reports. According to a Times source, prosecutors are looking at absentee ballots from the March 2009 City Council elections. That election has already drawn the interest of other investigators -- including the FBI and secretary of state -- after a former councilman and ex-police sergeant alleged voting irregularities. The ex-councilman charged that the city's election commissioner had falsified ballots, and the ex-officer said Bell policemen had handed out absentee ballots, told residents who to vote for, and in some cases collected the ballots. The county D.A.'s probe was initially thought to only be targeting four Bell City Council members who were making close to $100,000 a year, accrued through big stipends the officials received for serving on city commissions. Many of the commissions would reportedly hold meetings for just a few minutes a month, or in tandem with other meetings. Cooley says his office is looking into these claims as well. Reports of the salary inflation by the Times led to public outcry within the city of Bell, and led to several officials announcing Monday that they'd take a 90% pay cut. To add to the council's troubles, State Attorney General (and Democratic gubernatorial nominee) Jerry Brown has also subpoenaed documents from the city going back to 2003, and the state's top fiscal officer has begun a review of the city's financial documents. See Bell residents hit the streets in protest --> |
Brian Jones was found dead in 1969 The death of former Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones is to be reviewed following new evidence, it has been revealed. Police in Sussex were handed new information connected to the musician's untimely death 40 years ago. Mr Jones, was found dead at the bottom of a swimming pool at a house in Cotchford farm, Hartfield, East Sussex. An inquest recorded a verdict of death by misadventure but speculation continued that he was murdered. A spokesman for Sussex Police said the force had been handed documents connected with Jones's death, prompting the review. But he added it was too early to launch a fresh investigation. He added: "These papers will be examined by Sussex Police, but it is too early to comment at this time as to what the outcome will be." Jones, who was 27 when he died, was a founding member of the Rolling Stones. |
Share Created by a Minnesota company called Ideal Conceal, the first product created by the startup is a handgun that can be disguised as a smartphone inside a case. Built into a single frame, the grip of the double barreled, .380 caliber pistol folds down and locks into place when opened. When closed, the trigger and trigger guard are completed covered by the grip, thus offering up the appearance of a standard smartphone case. There’s also a clip to attach the handgun to a belt, but in the disguised smartphone form. Similar to the size and shape of a smartphone, the folded Ideal Conceal can be easily slipped into a pants pocket or purse when not in use. Of course, anyone carrying the pistol will need to check state and local laws related to concealed carry regulations. All 50 states have passed regulations regarding carrying concealed firearms, some of which require a permit from the government. Detailed on the company site, the creator of the pistol writes “The idea for Ideal Conceal follows the present-day demand for handguns that people can carry on a day to day basis, in a manner that makes carrying a gun easy to do. From soccer moms to professionals of every type, this gun allows you the option of not being a victim.” At this time, the pistol is still being developed by Ideal Conceal and isn’t in production as of yet. The creator of the smartphone-styled handgun, Kirk Kjellberg, believes the the pistol will be available by mid-2016 and has set a $395 MSRP for the weapon. Detailed within an interview with CNNMoney, Kjellberg has already received roughly 2,500 emails from people that want to purchase the pistol. Assuming all interested parties purchase at least one pistol, that would generate nearly one million in sales for the company in 2016. |
The government had also promised the new commission would be run by a judge or a person with equivalent qualifications. But Mr McIntosh said the two men, who will begin their new roles on January 1, were eminently qualified after ''an exhaustive and extensive process'' to appoint them. ''With these two candidates we have got it absolutely right.'' Stephen O'Bryan. Credit:Michael Clayton-Jones But the announcement was undermined a short time later as a report by Ombudsman George Brouwer was tabled in Parliament unleashing fresh criticisms of the new system. Mr Brouwer said the scheme would ''lead to an ineffective integrity scheme'' that would hamper the Ombudsman's ability to investigate and report. He said he found it ''particularly puzzling'' that no attempt had been made by the government to deal with the concerns of senior legal figures that the new commission would only have powers to investigate ''serious corrupt conduct'', excluding grave offences such as misconduct in public office. It follows a letter sent by Mr Brouwer last month to Mr Baillieu warning the new regime represented a ''significant backward step for public sector accountability'' in Victoria that would undermine his independence - potentially violating the state constitution. Mr Baillieu said ''of course'' he did not agree with the criticisms, suggesting the concerns raised by Mr Brouwer were unlikely to be addressed. Mr Brouwer's 10-year contract is due to expire in March 2014. Asked if he would continue in his role until the end of his contract, a spokeswoman declined to comment. She said only that the issues raised in the report ''are for the Parliament to consider. They will need to be worked through over time.'' Labor seized on the report, calling on the government to delay the final legislation for the new commission until February next year to provide more time to deal with Mr Brouwer's concerns. Mr O'Bryan is a lawyer with 30 years' experience. He was called to the bar in 1983 and was appointed Senior Counsel in 2003. Mr O'Bryan said he would tackle the new role ''without fear or favour''. Mr Brett, who was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1996 and has more than 35 years' experience in the law, said the powers of the new integrity bodies he would be monitoring ''are potentially very invasive, very intrusive, very far reaching''. ''It is of enormous importance that those powers are exercised properly and it is my function to oversee the manner in which they are exercised and ensure that they are exercised properly,'' he said. The legal community welcomed the appointments. The chairman of the Victorian section of the International Commission of Jurists, Glenn McGowan, SC, said both men were very well regarded in legal circles. But he said the positions were not enviable ones and both lawyers would be taking a significant pay cut. ''The scuttlebutt around the place is that they've had trouble filling these spots,'' Mr McGowan said. ''One possible reason for that is they're fixed-term appointments, there's no pension attached, unlike judicial appointments. The other is they're very high-profile and will invite some nasty reactions from people you're investigating and might have consequences for your family, so it's not a particularly popular position to be seeking. Loading ''The only reason I think they were thinking about [appointing] ex-judges was because they wouldn't be upset about the lack of pension because these guys they've appointed, will do their, whatever it is, five-year stint and then try and come back to the bar and perhaps struggle to pick up their practice again so it's a big ask for a barrister.'' With JANE LEE, STEVE BUTCHER |
Welcome back to our proactive exercise of filling our trade binders with gold, jank and junk from Magic the Gathering’s™ infamous reserved list. Our goal, is to collect, play and stash cards that will never be reprinted by Wizards of the Coast® barring a complete meltdown or apocalypse of the game of Magic itself. The best part about our monthly exercise? We will be getting our cards by simply spending $1.00 per day. That, in itself, is groovy. This month’s edition of MTG Reserved List treasures for our EDH collection will center around the golden age version of [card]Karn, Silver Golem[/card]. The Legendary Artifact Creature known as Karn is a peculiar card with regards to the reserved list because it has been reprinted twice. Available on the market today is the original Urza’s Saga rare, but there are also two foil versions of the card available at a higher price. In 1999 Wizards printed a foil version of the card as an Arena League promo and in 2010 Karn was reprinted as a foil in From the Vault: Relics. Wizards of the Coast™ was able to reprint premium versions of Karn due to a loophole in the Reserve List Policy; a loophole that was closed in 2010. This situation bodes very well for Commander players and collectors alike as we can get have a foil version of Karn in the old school brown artifact tone, the modern day artifact gray, or simply pick up the original non-foil Urza’s Saga copy. With that, let’s get started on this month’s treasures that are within your grasp to own and hold! We have no cash to roll over from last month, as we spent our entire allowance on [card]Volrath’s Stronghold[/card] and [card]City of Shadows[/card]. No worries, let’s take a look at this month’s treasure and where we can put our monthly allotment of $30! Remember, the goal of the exercise is to buy reserved list cards today so we can use them tomorrow. Here are the rules of the game: [spoiler title=’Rules for Budget Reserved List Collecting’] If you would like to start from the beginning, here is the first article: Reserved List Cards for EDH Commander #1 – Academy Rector. Magic’s reserved list contains a hand selected lot of cards that will never be reprinted and their scarcity grows with every passing day. While I do not want to discuss the politics or conundrum that is Magic the Gathering’s™ reserve list policy, I do want to discuss obtaining deck building pieces that are on this list. This article series strives to get reserved list cards into our decks or binders today, because who knows what the price may be tomorrow. I hope you enjoy this collecting exercise aimed at being proactive instead of reactive to price increases and buyouts. Our monthly budget will be $30. That is the equivalent of $1.00 a day (cue the Sara McLachlan music). Most players would spend way more than that on daily habits such as nicotine sticks, fast food, or buying a daily latte, cappuccino, sugar coffee thingy at Starbucks. Condition of the cards will not be too important since we are simply wanting a single copy of each card so that we can play it in our EDH decks. That is the main reason for wanting the reserve list abolished right? So we can play with the cards? Very well then. Since prices do tend to fluctuate, I will use the pricing for this article series as Lightly Played or Near Mint. With that being said, you may be able to save a couple of bucks by digging into the Moderate and Heavily Played cards. Pricing evaluation will be theoretically based on purchasing cards at TCG Low or Ebay for Lightly Played cards. In my opinion, TCGPlayer and Ebay are the cheapest place to buy singles but if there is a cheaper place to look, please comment below. We will round prices up to the nearest dollar for ease of balancing our budget. Not all pricing will be exact, but we’ll definitely be in the ballpark. We will target at least one card every month that is highly playable. There is a lot of cannon-fodder on the reserve list. We want to get cards that could see a buyout at anytime and can be viable in our Commander decks. In December, we will celebrate the holidays by at least adding $50 to our $30 budget. We should ask our friends and family for holiday gift cards or simply treat ourselves to $50 in solid EDH investments. We deserve it! Shipping and Handling will not be calculated. We are rounding up our dollar amounts and most shipping is either free or minute. Occasionally we will “piggy bank” some of our funds. ie: float a few dollars over to the next month so we can purchase some of the more expensive cards on the reserve list. [/spoiler] What to Buy on the Reserve List for EDH [card]Karn, Silver Golem[/card]: As a commander, [card]Karn, Silver Golem[/card] brings with it an interesting ability. We can animate any ordinary, non-creature artifact into a ground pounding rusty beast with power and toughness equal to it’s mana cost. Did you ever dream of swinging at your opponent’s with a 6/6 [card]Staff of Nin[/card]? How about controlling the board and winning the game with a 6/6 [card]Ward of Bones[/card] as a win condition? Did you know that Karn’s ability can ignore the Crew cost and send a 5/5 Flying [card]Skysovereign, Consul Flagship[/card] into battle with no one behind the wheel? Karn can also tinker with your opponents. In response to [card]Damnation[/card] we could tap {1} and bring a [card]Gilded Lotus[/card] to life just in time to be buried in the creature purge. Maybe you don’t want Karn as your Commander? How about including him as part of the 99 in [card]Muzzio, Visionary Architect[/card] or [card]Breya, Etherium Shaper[/card]? I’m sure you could come up with some epic synergies, so be sure to leave a comment with your brewing ideas! At the time of this article, you can pick up a Lightly Played copy of the Urza’s Saga version of [card]Karn, Silver Golem[/card] for approximately $6. However, if you have a little extra to spend this month, I highly encourage you to pick up the From the Vault version for $8 or get the Arena Promo for about $17. Myself, I was super excited to receive my Arena Promo Karn in the mail a few days ago. Having a foiled copy of a reserve list card is a fantastic treasure to own! [card]Al-abara’s Carpet[/card]: What can I say? Collecting a timeless antique from Magic’s early expansion sets (Legends, Arabian Nights or Antiquities) is one of the main reasons I love this card game. Playing a card like [card]Al-abara’s Carpet[/card] is like sleeving up a piece of history. Mechanically speaking, however, time has not been too kind to [card]Al-abara’s Carpet[/card]. The rules text simply boils down to it being a bland artifact with an expensive partial-[card]Fog[/card] ability. The carpet itself costs five mana, plus it costs another five mana to activate. And, unlike [card]Angus Mackenzie[/card], this ancient piece of cardboard only prevents damage done to us from non-flying creatures. While there are very few decks that could find a use for an artifact like this, we could certainly find a home for it in a Karn EDH deck. [card]Karn, Silver Golem[/card] can turn the carpet into a 5/5 ground-pounder and swing in with some of the happiest imagery I’ve ever seen on a magic card. Check out that smile! Who wouldn’t want to turn this sideways as an attacker and sing the Aladdin tune… “a whole new world…“? Plus, its that a Genie in the artwork? Heck yeah. Where was I, oh yeah, using this in Karn. Aside from being a mindless attack cog in the Karn machine, we could abuse the ability in conjunction with [card]Unwinding Clock[/card], [card]Sol Ring[/card] and [card]Mana Vault[/card] and protect ourselves every turn from non-flying creatures. Outside of a colorless EDH deck, I suppose we could team this up with [card]Archetype of Imagination[/card] or [card]Gravity Sphere[/card] to keep the dirt off of our jersey. For some odd reason, this magical artifact has been ticking up in price and is becoming scarce on websites such as TCGPlayer and Ebay. Slightly Played and Very Good Condition English copies are still available on Card Kingdom and Star City Games for about $7-$9, so do your research to find the best deal. We will put a $10 Price tag on this for the purpose of our exercise and to allow for potential shipping costs. When my [card]Mana Web[/card] arrived in the mail I sent a picture of it to my buddy Corey. His response? Fun… Not.. I had to look at the card again. Is it really that bad? Nah, not at all. For 3 mana we get an artifact that simply recommends that our opponents should be careful about how they use their mana because once the faucet is on, it won’t shut off. [card]Mana Web[/card] will slow our friends down on their turn or prevent them from performing shenanigans on our turns such as counterspells and targeted removal. Mana Web is another treasure with the supply drying up. Get this on TCGPlayer in Lightly Played condition while you can for about $6.50. Our Price: $7 Our final card of the day is [card]Scorched Ruins[/card]. With Scorched Ruins we sacrifice two lands and use our land drop to have a resource that taps for four colorless mana {cccc}. While this is definitely an unconventional way to mana ramp, it does get the job done. If mana sources were eggs, however, we have definitely put them all in one basket. Getting hit with a [card]Strip Mine[/card] or [card]Acidic Slime[/card] could hamper our efforts to be competitive in a game of EDH. However, in playgroup that is light on land destruction [card]Scorched Ruins[/card] could be a gem! Pair this up with [card]Flagstones of Trokair[/card], [card]Life from the Loam[/card] or [card]Splendid Reclamation[/card] and if your playgroup didn’t have targeted land destruction before, they will the next time you play. If we run this in a Karn Commander deck, we should definitely include [card]Crucible of Worlds[/card] and [card]Drownyard Temple[/card] to help recoup the lands we lost to [card]Scorched Ruins[/card]. Sellers on TCGPlayer have these at about $5.50 as of the time of this article. Our Price: $6 Another great month of collecting cards that will never be printed again! This month we spent $29 so we will carry over $1 to next month. Whether or not you decide to build an EDH deck like Karn or if you can find other uses for these four gems is up to you. For now, they are on your way to your mailbox and will be available to you when you decide when you find a deck to put them in. What did you think? Are you excited about this month’s pickups? Where could you see Karn, Al-abara’s Carpet, Mana Web or Scroched Ruins used outside of a Karn EDH deck? Would you like to see Karn highlighed on a future EDHREC: Non-Basically Speaking article? What would you like to see as our next reserved list card to add to our collection? Let’s discuss in the comments below! On to the next! —wallyd Share this: Reddit Twitter Facebook Google Tumblr |
Posted on · Unfortunately, we haven’t found the time to use our telescope much this last year or two, so we have decided the funds would be more useful than some awesome optics gathering dust in the closet. We hope to pickup a compact unit geared towards astrophotography in the future, but for now we will be happy to have some extra funds in our pocket. I am putting the following up on craigslist shortly, but friends get first crack if you’re interested–assuming we don’t have to ship. ORION SkyQuest XT10i IntelliScope w/ upgrades and extras $800.00 All items are like new and have been taken care of very well. The pictures are of the actual items being sold. Included: Bags (a) Orion carrying case for optics tube (b) Bag for eyepieces and accessories Upgrades (c) Intellisystem for computerized object location (d) Upgraded Moonlight focuser with adapters for both eyepiece sizes Eyepieces/Barlow (e) Zhumell ED 2x Barlow lens with adapters for both eyepiece sizes (f) 30 wide angle eyepiece (g) Meade QX Wide Angle 20mm eyepiece (h) Explore Scientific 6.7mm eyepiece This is everything you need to make the most of a 10” telescope viewing experience. Please contact me if you have any questions. |
O ne of Monocle's recent editions is an education special looking at the sharpest schools, some pioneering teachers, tech stars and bikes for the new term. Anand Kumar and his Super 30 initiative is the only entry from India in the select list. He has found mention in the category 'Class act-globe Top 20 teachers' for the way he has been able to groom students from the poorest sections of the society consistently over the last ten years. Apart from Anand, others to find place in the list include names like NeilTurok, Pierre Keller, Munir Fasheh, Sarah Elizabeth Ippel and others from different parts of the globe. According to Monocle magazine, due to his revolutionary teaching and commitment to the cause, Anand is as popular as any Bollywood star. Click NEXT for more |
Once you’ve been to enough concerts, you come to the unfortunate realization that they can’t all be great. It’s painful, standing at shows watching an artist try but fail, an audience disengage. But once you’ve seen enough live music, you can also feel very quickly when you’re in for a treat. When the music starts and everything clicks — the sound and lights, imagery and atmosphere, artist and crowd. These are the nights where faces are beaming and hearts are full, and the power of music is no question at all. When this happens, everyone in attendance can’t help but know. And last Saturday night, it happened. Godspeed You! Black Emperor took control of Toronto’s Danforth Music Hall in a way I haven’t seen in too long. The performance was mesmerizing, a packed house glued to the stage. The sound projected through those many speakers was so surreal that everyone just stood together listening, being blown away. The eight musicians in Godspeed You! are masters of their crafts, their instruments alive with emotion. With percussionists, guitarists, bassists and a violinist — it’s a small, but mighty strong, symphony. To hear the band lock-in is a thrill. Quiet beginnings build to epic heights. The musicians layer on top of one another, intensely focused on creating a sound that soars. As a witness, you’re gifted rock-infused orchestra songs of 10+ minutes that shake you to the core. There are no lyrics — no vocals at all — yet the audio lacks nothing. The band hardly moves on stage, yet you can’t look away. Behind them is a split screen, showing hypnotizing visuals of branches and birds, tunnels and train tracks, dark landscapes for you to explore in and get lost. The images dance with the notes and punctuate the spaces between, establishing a carefully-crafted world enclosed by the concert hall walls. The fullness of sound, the wonder of imagery — it’s art that forces you into the moment while letting your mind run free. And wow, did this Toronto crowd respond. We stood in silence, phones forgotten in pockets. Immersed in the ride, in awe of what music can do. There. What a pleasure to be there when it happens. Thank you, Godspeed You! |
With more than 7,500 undergraduate and graduate students earning degrees at spring commencement ceremonies, UC Davis has reached a new milestone — more than 250,000 living alumni. “As we preside over joyous commencement ceremonies for UC Davis students destined to make their mark in the world, we take pride in how our university, students and alumni continue to achieve true excellence,” said UCD Interim Chancellor Ralph Hexter. He noted that the university is a globally respected public research university with a growing reputation for scholarship, service and a commitment to diversity. “UC Davis now has more than a quarter of a million alumni living in California, across the United States and around the globe,” said Rich Engel, assistant vice chancellor for alumni relations and executive director of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association. “This milestone is an especially significant accomplishment because our alumni — who go on to feed the world, innovate and build a more sustainable future — are well-known for having an important impact on our economy and society. Together, our alumni change the world and are eager to help future generations of Aggies do the same.” A few notable alumni include: * Tre Borden, MBA 2011, art consultant and producer: Borden calls himself a “placemaker” and specializes in art curation, specifically installations that challenge conventional thinking of how certain areas should look. He’s focused on changing the perception that his hometown of Sacramento is a boring government town. * Diane Bryant, 1985, executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center Group at Intel Corp.: The Data Center Group is the fastest growing and most profitable division at Intel and is responsible for the products and technologies that fuel servers, storage and network infrastructure, making both the internet and cloud computing possible. * Tracy Caldwell-Dyson, Ph.D. 1997, astronaut: During her 2010 mission, where she spent six months on the International Space Station, Caldwell-Dyson served as flight engineer, made her first spacewalk and carried out a variety of science experiments. * Tani Cantil-Sakauye, bachelor’s 1980, J.D. 1984, chief justice, California Supreme Court: Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye is the 28th chief justice of the state of California. She was sworn into office on Jan. 3, 2011, and is the first Asian-Filipina American and the second woman to serve as the state’s chief justice. * Sir Chung-Kong Chow, 1974, chairman, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited: As chairman of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, or HKEx, Chow is responsible for guiding the long-term vision and strategy of the stock exchange. He played a pivotal role in a revolutionary new venture that opened the door for the rest of the world to trade with mainland China. * Stephen Robinson, 1978, former astronaut and current UC Davis professor: In his career at NASA, Robinson logged more than 1,156 hours and 19.8 million miles in space, including more than 20 hours of “extra-vehicular activity” or spacewalks. He has flown on four space shuttle missions: on the shuttle Discovery, in 1997, 1998 and 2005; and on the shuttle Endeavor in February 2010. * Richard Rominger, 1949, former California secretary of agriculture: In 1977, recognizing Rominger’s agricultural leadership at the regional and state level, Gov. Jerry Brown appointed him to head the California Department of Food and Agriculture. He served as the agency’s director until 1982. In 1993, Rominger was appointed by President Bill Clinton to become deputy secretary and chief operating officer of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In that post, among many other duties, he oversaw the establishment of national standards for organic farming. * Bill Sullivan, 1972, former CEO of Agilent Technologies: Agilent Technologies is a leading laboratory partner to its customers in environment, energy, pharmaceutical, life sciences, diagnostics and academic research markets. Ranked as one of the most sustainable companies in the world, Agilent has successfully partnered with UCD in creating a publicly available genetic database of the most common food-borne diseases and developing new techniques for analyzing breast milk. * Joseph Tam, Ph.D. 1969, founder of DiagCor Bioscience Inc.: Tam is considered to be the person responsible for bringing biotechnology to Hong Kong. In 2003, during an outbreak of SARS in Honk Kong, Tam and a colleague used his patented flow-through hybridization technology to rapidly develop a test for definitive genotyping of the disease-causing virus. * Martin Yan, bachelor’s 1973, M.S. 1977, renowned chef: Yan is a celebrated host of more than 2,000 cooking shows, and he enjoys distinction as a certified Master Chef, a highly respected food consultant, a professional instructor and a prolific author of dozens of cookbooks. — UC Davis News |
+ 13 Architects Guz Architects Category Houses Area 1505.0 m2 Project Year 2009 Photographs Patrick Bingham Hall Text description provided by the architects. The project demonstrates how technology, planning and design can be applied sensitively to generate a comfortable, luxurious, yet sustainable family home. Photovoltaic cells and solar water heaters are employed together with design for passive cooling and cross ventilation to reduce energy usage. Irrigation tanks and roof gardens collect and recycle rainwater; and the use of materials such as recycled teak and artificial timber adds warmth without compromising the finite resources of our environment. The house is laid out around a central water court that forms the focal point of the project. Lushly planted roof gardens surround this and add to the effect that nature is evident in every part of the house. Although the house is high tech – using state of the art EIB systems, photovoltaic cells, security systems – these are integrated discreetly and work with the natural environment of the house rather than against it. This integration of technology and nature deserves special mention in a compelling design that could realistically become the model for sustainable living. |
While other art publications sing the praises of the rich and powerful, we like to look at those who are largely overlooked (or worse, exploited) in order to understand the real state of the art world and its discontents. So, here you have our annual assessment of those below the most powerful. And yes, we’ve finally unhitched the powerless list from the now predictable power rankings that clamor for our attention in the fall. Here’s to hoping you’re not on it! 1 – Unpaid Interns: Yes, they’re still on this list, and they’ve even jumped 10 spots to take the lead. When respectable art publications, like the for-profit Artforum, have no problems blantantly advertising for unpaid internships, then we have a problem. Thankfully, the British Museum backtracked after it briefly advertised an unpaid position that sounded a lot like a real job. The awful stench of unpaid internships has contaminated every level of the art world, from for-profit galleries, art fairs, artist’s vanity projects, well-endowed nonprofit museums (like Crystal Bridges), and even nonprofit publications like Brooklyn Rail, which barely pays anyone, depending on an army of free talent. This has to stop. 2 – Performance Artists: Still no market, eh? :( 3 – Undigitized Archives: The past year has seen a watershed of institutions releasing their digitized archives into the public domain for our viewing and scholarly pleasures. If your materials aren’t digitized and they’re locked behind a ton of fees, you’re being a cultural hoarder. 4 – Parents: Keep your kids off the art!!!!!!! 5 – Purists: Marina Abramović’s Adidas commercial, Ryder Ripps’s OK Focus, Miley Cyrus’s five-foot bong and exhibition at the V Magazine office, DIS magazine’s DISown boutique at Red Bull Studios, Doug Aitken’s Station to Station with Levi’s … artist-celebrity-gallery-“critique”-corporate partnerships suggest that Ben Davis’s theory of full complicity with capitalism is here to stay. We used to just call it “selling out” and move on. 6 – Monogamous Artists: One gallery, one dealer, or one city is a bad sign for an artist. In the age of global saturation, when artists are expected to be ubiquitous, they can’t stand still. They need to spread themselves around — you know, play the field. Btw, how’s your Beijing or Berlin representation going? 7 — Artworks: This year, if people weren’t punching art, snapping fingers off ancient statues for selfies, breaking an Ai Weiwei vase, trying to upstage it (link NSFW), or ignoring the art while they use it as a prop (looking at you Beyoncé and Jay Z) then they were taking things called #artselfies. In other words: @artfuckr Love your duck-face, lol!! Wait, is that a Serra behind you? #whoa #artselfie #arty #artsy #sculpture #serra #rustedsteel #menmakingart #shipyards #didsomeonegetkilledbyaserrasculpture? #museum #theworld #peopledoingtypicalthings #100intentionallyenvyprovokingdays #killmenow 8 – Artists Fighting Gentrification: What ever happened to artist Jules de Balincourt and company’s artist-owned studio project? Is anything happening at all? As 5Pointz is transformed from a graffiti hub to a bland condo perfectly perched beside MoMA PS1, the prospects for abating gentrification seem slim. Will neighborhood art communities in New York and other major cities have time to form and prosper before they’re forced to move on in what feels like the perpetual search for cheap rent? Or how about those artists who’ve worked to organize and fight developments, and then a more famous and accomplished artist comes by — with no connection to the neighborhood — to strategically change the conversation and allow the developer to do what he or she wants? Nothing seems to be working. 9 – Art Critics: A perennial favorite, art critics may have dropped a few spots, but they were still crushed this year by Jeff Koons in New York, Paris, and probably a dozen other locales where he was showing his baubles. Negative reviews are apparently meaningless to collectors, while art advisors and young artists certainly aren’t listening to warnings about the dangers of zombie formalism. At this point, can’t we just replace critics with Instagram anyway? 10 – Artists in War Zones, Occupied Territories, or simply “Arab”: You’d think an artist would be on top of the world if they were invited to show at the New Museum or to speak at New York University, but ask artist Khaled Jarrar, poet Amjad Nasser, or all the exiled Syrian artists, who not only have to cope with the harsh realities of war, a security state, or loss, but often also get pigeonholed into spokespeople for their community whether they like it or not. Have any conflict-related art we can show? And don’t bring your food to the Conflict Kitchen! 11 – Oscar Murillo’s Collectors: They can’t even stop themselves from crying at their own parties. Wait until the artist’s auction returns start to dip. As a friend told us during this year’s Miami art fairs: “No crying on the yacht!” 12 – Vivian Maier: As people continue to fight over her legacy and the copyright of her artwork, it’s only natural that our thoughts turn to the artist herself: what did she want? Sadly, we’ll never know, but we can only hope that her legacy is safe. 13 — Mid-level Art Galleries: Even though this a perpetual problem, the pace of closings appears to have accelerated. With DCKT and Dodge’s shutterings in New York, Perry Rubenstein’s bankruptcy in LA, and a wave of gallery closings in SF, we’re wondering who is next to fall prey. This phenomenon is also impacting spaces on the periphery, as we witnessed with various Bushwick galleries this year (including Regina Rex and Harbor)that were forced to abandon their Bushwick identities when they got kicked out of 1717 Troutman. 14 – Native Americans: After centuries of invasion, infection, dehumanization, massacre, exile, and humiliation, you’d think American Indians would have a slightly easier time controlling their symbols for sports teams, fashion labels, or impersonation. We guess not. 15 – Artists’ Foundations: Robert Rauschenburg’s estate is allegedly being plundered by its own trustees (they want to make $40,000/hr), and the perpetual limbo of the ART act suggests that artists’ foundations, which often provide grants and supports to other artists, won’t be seeing any of their multibillion-dollar auction market returns. Sorry, Bob. On the positive side, there was more of a chance of the bill passing this year (3%, according to GovTrack.us) than in 2012 (when it had a 1% chance), so that’s (very little) progress. 16 – The US Legal System: Sincere apologies from the art world for the hours and hours anyone had to spend listening to, recording, arguing, and debating the Knoedler case, the Perelman lawsuit, and dozens of other expensive arguments between rich people. 17 – Creative Activists: How is it that protesters can get arrested for simply projecting a nonoffensive image on the facade of a nonprofit art museum on public land? Last September, three men associated with the now infamous Illuminator were charged with “illegal advertising,” and all of us were shocked. New York, like most US cities, selectively prosecutes “illegal advertising,” preferring to go after artists and graffiti writers while largely ignoring corporations and businesses doing the same thing. This double standard tells you what city leaders value more. 18 – Laborers in the Persian Gulf States: Gulf Labor, artist Molly Crabapple, and others have been at the forefront of challenging and reporting on the abysmal labor conditions of migrant slaves, er, workers, building the newest cultural outposts in the UAE (the Louvre, the Guggenheim, NYU) and Qatar. Ninety human rights groups are calling for reforms. We’re waiting. 19 – Museum Vandals: The infamous “Prada Marfa” vandal Joe Magnano got into a lot of trouble after he offered his artistic reaction to Elmgreen & Dragset’s installation in the Texas desert (he was forced to pay over $11,000 in damages). Then there were the two vandals at the Jeff Koons show at the Whitney Museum. Maybe we’re just getting used to them, but vandals (for better or worse) appear to be losing their ability to grab headlines the way they used to. 20 – Female Artists: Did Art Basel Miami Beach depress the hell out of you because of the lack of art by women at the main fair? Yeah, us too. Honorable Mentions – Art Historians: If your job wasn’t already underappreciated enough, leave it to US President Obama to make an awkward comment about art history as something our economy may not need at the moment. Thankfully, Obama apologized after art historian Ann Collins Johns called him out, but then Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio made it clear he thought art history was an undesirable degree. Ugh. — #Postinternet Artists: Those not selected by Lindsay Howard for the Paddle ON! auctions with Tumblr and Phillips: you need to come up with a new name for whatever it is you do, losers. |
Ranking the next 32 head coaches, in order of likelihood for the 2016 season and beyond, has been an exhaustive exercise. The list was put together based on the testimony of 24 sources, including agents, current and former assistant and head coaches, current and former scouts, three plugged-in reporters and seven current and former front office leaders who have experience hiring and firing head coaches (the opinions of these decision makers weighed heavier in the rankings than others). I asked the panel of NFL minds their opinion about each candidate, and how they viewed each candidate’s standing in the football community at large. In this, several wild cards emerged. Among the most disagreed upon coaches: Darrell Bevell (Seahawks), Frank Reich (Chargers), Hue Jackson (Bengals), Kyle Shanahan (Falcons) and Doug Marrone (Jaguars). The reasons are discussed below in the candidate bios, which also include a brief summary of each coach’s schematic signature, or M.O., which was put together by The MMQB’s film-study guru Andy Benoit (with an assist from Sports Illustrated’s college football reporter Andy Staples). The decision to list Adam Gase as the top candidate comes with a caveat: the difference between he and Patriots coordinator Josh McDaniels was so negligible, we switched their names five times during the process. Both have exemplary coaching backgrounds, both interviewed with numerous teams last year and both turned down head-coaching jobs. Where they land as head coaches will ultimately depend not only on a team’s preference, but their individual goals. It should go without saying that much will change between now and next offseason, when a handful of these men will be hired (six or seven, on average). If, for instance, the Eagles win the Super Bowl behind a record-breaking offense, coordinator Pat Shurmur could vault into the top five. If Jay Cutler is a disaster under Adam Gase’s tutelage in Chicago, the coordinator could conceivably fall out of contention for 2016. Remember: This is an unscientific study of something that cannot be studied in a scientific way. As one evaluator I spoke with said, “Lots of different lists around the league. We have owners and GMs that wouldn’t realize Vince Lombardi would be good if he was sitting in front of them!” A few notes about the list: There are nine coaches in our top 32 who identify as black. In the NFL, there are five current head coaches who are black. Several of our sources noted being black could be a résumé booster, as teams work toward diversity and seek leaders who can best relate to majority-black rosters. There are 13 coaches in our top 32 who previously held head-coaching jobs. Our sources held differing opinions on so-called “retreads,” with some suggesting names like Mike Smith and Mike Shanahan should be removed from consideration while others valued their experience. The biggest question we heard about former head coaches: How have they changed since their last gig? There are five college head coaches on the list. Their place here indicates a league-wide perception that these men are NFL candidates, and would leave their jobs in the near future under the right circumstances. In other words, these aren’t simply the five best college coaches available regardless of desire. In terms of coaches with offensive background vs. defensive background, 20 of our 32 prospects come from offensive assistant coaching backgrounds. In the NFL, there is a 50/50 split. Not surprisingly, the Seahawks lead the league in potential head coaches according to our poll, with three (Darrel Bevell, Tom Cable and Kris Richard). The Chargers, Patriots, Bears, Colts and Lions each boast two on the list. TIER 1: ON THE CUSP These are the coaches who are on track to field multiple job offers in 2016, whether they want them or not. In our research, we found the most agreement regarding the top three candidates: Bears OC Adam Gase, Patriots OC Josh McDaniels, and Lions DC Teryl Austin. After those three, each of the following four candidates had supporters who consider them next, and a handful of critics who don’t. Though there are typically between five and eight coaching openings in a given year, we didn’t set out for eight names—we organically arrived at this many Tier 1 candidates through interviews. 1) Adam Gase, Chicago, offensive coordinator Age: 37 College: Michigan State Pro experience: 12 years, two as a coordinator (Denver 2013-14) Résumé: At the moment, Gase holds all the cards. He was Peyton Manning’s preferred coach and, despite being younger than the QB, was far from the yes-man that many of Manning’s coordinators become. This offseason, he reportedly turned down the 49ers job because he wouldn’t be allowed to pick his own defensive coordinator. Instead, he followed John Fox to Chicago, leaving behind a legendary QB to work with a middling one. Two burning questions we heard about Gase: Can he dominate the interview phase after interviewing “young” in the eyes of some? And, perhaps more importantly, how will he manage and cultivate Jay Cutler at this crossroads in the quarterback’s career? M.O.: Absorbed a lot of Mike Martz’s philosophies in 2006-07 as an assistant under the mad offensive genius. Like Martz, prefers an aggressive passing game above all else. * * * 2) Josh McDaniels, New England, offensive coordinator Age: 39 College: John Carroll Pro experience: 14 seasons, two as head coach (Denver 2009-10) Head coaching record: 11-17 (0-0 playoffs) Résumé: The No. 1 candidate in the eyes of many was fired during his second season as the head coach in Denver, after Week 13 in 2010. His run with the Broncos began inauspiciously, in 2009, when the team owner fired personnel bosses Jim Goodman and his son, Jeff, shortly after McDaniels was hired. Now, after pushing the envelope with New England’s record-breaking offense, McDaniel is holding out for a team with solid management structure. Word is, he was humbled sufficiently by his first experience as a head coach, leading many to believe he could follow mentor Bill Belichick’s career path. M.O.: Can adjust offensive approach with success on a week-to-week basis as long as he has a quarterback who can manage games from the pocket. Has become very shrewd with quick drop-back passing concepts. * * * 3) Teryl Austin, Detroit, defensive coordinator Age: 50 College: Pittsburgh Pro experience: 11 seasons, one as coordinator (Detroit 2014) Résumé: Austin took the reins of a middling Lions defense and transformed it into one of the best in football, doing so without Nick Fairley for eight games. He impressed in interviews with the 49ers, Bills, Bears and Falcons; known as a coach with a strong pedigree who engenders loyalty from his players. Said one evaluator of Austin’s interview with his club: “Smart, principled, thoughtful, thorough.” M.O.: In first year as a coordinator, did not employ the multifarious defensive front concepts learned in Baltimore, where he was a DBs coach. His experience showed in the newfound diversity (and success) of Detroit’s coverages last season. * * * 4) Jim L. Mora, UCLA, head coach Age: 53 College: Washington Pro experience: 25 seasons, four as head coach (Atlanta 2004-2006, Seattle 2009) Pro head coaching record: 31-33 (1-1 postseason) College experience: Four years, three as head coach College head coaching record: 29-11 (2-1 in bowl games) Résumé: Half the panelists interviewed by The MMQB independently used the same word to describe Mora: hothead. A handful of those polled wouldn’t consider him in the upper echelon of candidates for that reason. The son of an NFL coach brought a defensive background into head coaching stints in Atlanta and Seattle, where his teams were neither defensively stout nor especially successful. Mora clashed quickly with Seahawks management and slammed CEO Tod Leiweke on his way out after one season. Yet his arrival at UCLA has revived the program into an annual top-10 force. Experience is on his side. M.O.: A 3-4 guy who has had to use a lot of nickel in the spread- and pass-happy Pac-12. He probably wouldn’t have to change much given how pass-happy the NFL has become since he left. * * * 5) Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M, head coach Age: 50 College: Purdue College experience: 27 seasons, seven as head coach (Houston 2008-11, Texas A&M 2012-present) College head coaching record: 63-28 (4-1 in bowl games) Résumé: The hottest name in college coaching in 2011 backed up the hype with three winning seasons in the SEC and three bowl wins, including a shellacking of his former mentor and boss, Bob Stoops, in the 2013 Cotton Bowl. Though he was a four-year starting linebacker at Purdue, Sumlin has been schooled in offense from the beginning of his coaching career at Wyoming. For three winters now, Sumlin has turned down NFL teams and committed to the Aggies, yet teams still have reason to believe he would be interested in the right job, because he’s addicted to new challenges. M.O.: Sumlin runs an Air Raid offense, but the differences between what he ran at Houston with Case Keenum at quarterback and at Texas A&M with Johnny Manziel suggest he would build around the players he inherited at the next level. The question is whether he’d insist on playing at such a high tempo in the NFL. * * * 6) Pep Hamilton, Indianapolis, offensive coordinator Age: 40 College: Howard Pro experience: 10 seasons, two as coordinator (Indianapolis 2013-present) Résumé: Hamilton, a former quarterback at Howard, was handed a gift with Andrew Luck and has done everything to maximize the once-in-a-decade talent. Indianapolis’ offense improved dramatically in his second season as coordinator, finishing sixth in points and third in yards (despite a pass-protection challenged offensive line). Concerns over Hamilton’s lack of experience, and whether he can replicate recent production with a QB other than Luck, could push Hamilton back into a three-year plan. M.O.: Appears reticent but is actually brimming with confidence. There were times last season when he schematically embarrassed opposing defensive coordinators with clever downfield route combinations, often involving the tight end. * * * 7) David Shaw, Stanford, head coach Age: 42 College: Stanford Pro experience: Nine seasons College experience: 11 seasons, four as head coach College head coaching record: 42-12 (2-2 in bowl games) Résumé: NFL folks seem to believe Andrew Luck’s former coach is another guy who would be open to the right opportunity. His representatives notified teams last December he wouldn’t be entertaining any pro offers and that he would remain at Stanford, where he played receiver for Dennis Green and Bill Walsh. Yet NFL sources believe Shaw could be wooed with the promise of a talented young passer. But, said one evaluator, “It might just have to be Luck.” The biggest on-field knock on Shaw is the notion that he’s too conservative, but his coaching record speaks for itself. M.O.: Shaw is one of the few college coaches who still runs something close to an NFL offense, and he proved himself by building upon the foundation Jim Harbaugh left by winning two Pac-12 titles. If you’re his GM, plan to draft a lot of tight ends. * * * 8) Frank Reich, San Diego, offensive coordinator Age: 53 College: Maryland Pro experience: Seven seasons, one as coordinator (San Diego 2014) Résumé: The former NFL quarterback is still learning from an offensive-minded head coach (Mike McCoy), but Reich is a rising star. With another season of play-calling and another resurgent year by Philip Rivers, Reich could have a head-coaching job next offseason. A one-time pastor after leaving the NFL as a player in 1998, Reich has been impressive in interviews, though some wonder if he lacks the demeanor of a head coach. M.O.: Former quarterback, but his strong suit could very well be in instructing wide receivers. Has a good grasp for teaching passing concepts, which is vital in today’s NFL. TIER 2: BUILDING A CASE This categorization can mean any number of things: either the candidate is a young coach (Kyle Shanahan), a veteran coordinator whose window is closing (Ray Horton), or a former head coach who could be given a second chance (Scott Linehan). The men in this tier share one thing: they have significant prospects for 2016, provided they thrive in their current roles. 9) Doug Marrone, Jacksonville, offensive line coach Age: 50 College: Syracuse Pro experience: Nine seasons, two as head coach (Buffalo 2013-2104) Head coaching record: 15-17 Résumé: Our No. 1 wild card in evaluation. One decision maker said Marrone would be No. 1 on his list if he were hiring a coach in 2016. Another decision maker said he was shocked the former Bills coach wasn’t hired in 2015. And still others have questions about his reasons for leaving Buffalo after one season and the way he carried out his plan. “The fraternity of owners did not like how he handled the last situation,” said one source. “Doug’s version of how it went down doesn’t agree with the ownership’s.” On the field, the former Syracuse lineman and head coach turned the Bills around from 6-10 to 9-7, with QB Kyle Orton as a starter. M.O.: A run-oriented coach who featured a rudimentary passing attack in Buffalo. Was it a function of his football beliefs or the QBs he had to work with? * * * 10) Sean McDermott, Carolina, defensive coordinator Age: 41 College: William and Mary Pro experience: 16 seasons, six as coordinator (Philadelphia 2009-10, Carolina 2011-present) Résumé: Was named interim DC in 2009 following the death of legendary coordinator Jim Johnson to cancer, and then saw his unit give up 377 points in 2010, a franchise-worst going back to 1974. But Ron Rivers brought the former All-Conference safety to Carolina, and in three seasons, the defense went from last in the league in DVOA (Football Outsiders’ measure of efficiency over the course of a season) to third in 2013. Carolina’s been churning out playmakers since he arrived, from Greg Hardy to Luke Kuechly to Thomas Davis. M.O.: A Jim Johnson disciple, McDermott espouses a zone-based scheme with personnel wrinkles and knows how and when to bring heat. He’s done so selectively but effectively in Carolina, where he’s been one of the league’s better in-game defensive play-callers over the last two years. * * * 11) Pat Shurmur, Philadelphia, offensive coordinator Age: 50 College: Michigan State Pro experience: 15 seasons, two as head coach (Cleveland 2011-12) Head coaching record: 9-23 Résumé: Another Browns refugee, Shurmur had interest from the Bills and Raiders this offseason and should garner more after a successful Year 3 in Chip Kelly’s system. He returned to most teams’ radar after Nick Foles’ unbelievable 2013 season, in which he threw 27 touchdowns and just two interceptions. Our most plugged-in sources rated him higher than others did, though several respondents indicated poor relationships with players. Doesn’t mean he can’t be a head coach. M.O.: His two-year tenure in Cleveland really wasn’t long enough to offer a full illustration of his head-coaching abilities. And little-known secret: it’s Shurmur, not Chip Kelly, who oversees most of the passing game concepts in Philadelphia. (Kelly is a running game guy.) * * * 12) Hue Jackson, Cincinnati, offensive coordinator Age: 49 College: Pacific Pro experience: 14 seasons, one as head coach (Oakland 2011) Head coaching record: 8-8 Résumé: A true wild card on this list, Jackson is an imminent hire in the eyes of some and a bust in the eyes of others. He started his career at Pacific—Pete Carroll’s old stomping grounds—as a graduate assistant in 1987 and made it to the NFL in 2001 as Washington’s running backs coach. His lone head-coaching gig, with the Raiders in 2011, lasted one 8-8 season before he was fired by new GM Reggie McKenzie. Jackson knows how to play the media game and has built a marketing machine around his candidacy for several years, but his first season as coordinator failed to bring about measurable change in the play and production of fourth-year starter Andy Dalton. M.O.: A proven, respected leader with better-than-adequate play-calling acumen. And hails from a Bengals organization that asks a lot of its assistants, which has helped many men move up the ladder, including Jay Gruden and Mike Zimmer. * * * 13) Greg Roman, Buffalo, offensive coordinator Age: 42 College: John Carroll Pro experience: 17 seasons, five as coordinator (San Francisco 2011-14) Résumé: The fast-rising coordinator has almost two decades of pro experience under his belt (despite having never played in the league) and a monumental test ahead of him. Infamously instructed to “take a hike” by the daughter of Niners general manager Trent Baalke on Twitter, Roman is well-liked in league circles despite a disastrous 2014 season. He takes the Bills job under defensive-minded head coach Rex Ryan, with the challenge of competing in the AFC East, with either Matt Cassel or EJ Manuel as his starting quarterback. M.O.: Arguably the best running game architect in football today. And he knows it. If that confidence and intelligence translates into strong leadership, he could be some team’s diamond in the rough. * * * 14) Darrell Bevell, Seattle, offensive coordinator Age: 45 College: Wisconsin Pro experience: 15 seasons, 10 as coordinator (Minnesota 2006-10, Seattle 2011-present) Résumé: Despite going from a 38-year-old Brad Johnson to Tarvaris Jackson to Gus Frerrote, Minnesota’s offense improved dramatically in production in his first three years as OC, from 2006-08. In Seattle, Bevell was lukewarm on drafting Russell Wilson, yet he built a game plan around his strengths to win Super Bowl XLVIII. The final play of last year’s Super Bowl had a cooling effect on his reputation as a rising star. Also, there’s a reason Seattle defensive coordinators seem to get plucked for head-coaching jobs every year and Bevell has remained in place—some of our respondents doubted his coaching intangibles. Said one evaluator: “Nice guy, but I don’t see the ‘it’ or presence it takes to be a head coach.” M.O.: From Tarvaris Jackson to Russell Wilson, Bevell’s QBs consistently lead the league in play-action. Even as Russell Wilson has matured into one of the NFL’s best, over 30% of his throws came off play-action, more than everyone but Alex Smith. * * * 15) Rob Chudzinski, Indianapolis, assistant head coach Age: 47 College: Miami Pro experience: 11 seasons, one as head coach (Cleveland 2013) Head coaching record: 4-12 Résumé: Cut his teeth at Miami in the early 2000s and had his football worldview shaped by All-World college tight ends Bubba Franks, Jeremy Shockey and Kellen Winslow Jr. “Chud” spent a year in pro football hell (Cleveland) in 2013 and emerged 4-12 and jobless. Before that he was the offensive coordinator who helped Cam Newton reach record-breaking heights as a rookie passer. Unlike others on this list, Chud’s current role doesn’t quite lend to a breakout season the way a coordinator’s would. M.O.: One of the original visionaries of two-tight end offense, which has since swept across the league and become the norm. You have to figure his gut-punch from Cleveland and relatively stress-free two years as a miscellaneous assistant in Indy has only taught him more about the world of pro football. * * * 16) Joe Lombardi, Detroit, offensive coordinator Age: 43 College: Air Force Pro experience: Nine seasons, one as coordinator (Detroit 2014) Résumé: Vince Lombardi’s grandson took his first coordinator job last year and showed he has a ways to go after being outclassed by Carolina’s Sean McDermott and the No. 27 coach on this list, New England’s Matt Patricia in near shutouts. Lombardi was schooled under Sean Payton in New Orleans and found many of those concepts transferable to the Detroit roster. Matthew Stafford’s year-to-year improvement could make Lombardi a Tier 1 candidate in the coming years, and a Super Bowl would immediately make him an in-demand candidate. M.O.: You have to wonder how his last name would sit with owners. Selling point? Or unnecessary burden of expectation? So far, he’s quietly moved up the NFL ranks and now orchestrates a fairly diverse system in Detroit, emulated in certain areas after the one he learned in New Orleans. * * * 17) Kyle Shanahan, Atlanta, offensive coordinator Age: 35 College: Texas Pro experience: 11 seasons, eight as coordinator (Houston 2008-09, Washington 2010-13, Cleveland 2014) Résumé: Another wild-card candidate; one evaluator said he wouldn’t consider the ninth-year coordinator, while others put him at the top of the second tier. Shanahan is still a bit of an unknown and would benefit tremendously from a strong 2015 by the Falcons’ offense and quarterback Matt Ryan. The former Texas receiver has forever brushed off charges of nepotism (Mike, his father, ranks 24th on our list) during stops in Tampa, Houston, Washington and Cleveland. His first coordinator job came in 2008, at age 29, but his breakout season was 2012, when he and his father fashioned an offense that helped Robert Griffin III become the rookie of the year. In league circles, he’ll get a pass for the struggles of Johnny Manziel in Cleveland. M.O.: Runs a unique zone-based system that does wonders for a mobile quarterback and, in a variety of ways, lifts burdens off the offensive line. RG3’s struggles in Jay Gruden’s system really highlighted how well Shanahan did working with the undeveloped QB in Griffin’s rookie season. * * * 18) Vic Fangio, Chicago, defensive coordinator Age: 56 College: East Stroudsburg Pro experience: 28 seasons, 15 as coordinator (Carolina 1995-98, Indianapolis 1999-2001, Houston 2002-05, San Francisco 2011-14) Résumé: The longest-tenured coordinator on this list, Fangio has led units for the Panthers, Colts, Texans, 49ers and now the Bears. His latest task is a monumental one: Turn a porous, poorly stocked Chicago defense into something worthy of a contender. Fangio has staunch supporters in his head-coaching bid, including a vocal one in Bruce Arians. But he seems to be only seriously considered for coordinator posts (he was passed over for the 49ers job by one of his subordinates, Jim Tomsula). The defense he revamped in San Francisco was average before he arrived, so would a similar job on this team get a foot in the door? M.O.: Has thrived running a variety of schemes with a variety of personnel. In NFL circles, he’s considered one of the most respected defensive strategists. * * * 19) Scott Linehan, Dallas, offensive coordinator Age: 51 College: Idaho Pro experience: 12 seasons, three as head coach (St. Louis 2006-08) Head coaching record: 11-25 Résumé: The former Idaho quarterback spent the first half of his career in the college ranks coaching quarterbacks and wide receivers before landing with the Vikings in 2002. By 2006 he earned the Rams head job, which he held for three miserable seasons. After that, he schooled Matthew Stafford and developed Calvin Johnson in Detroit before taking over as the passing game coordinator and now offensive coordinator in Dallas. Linehan had a heavy hand in a prolific running offense in 2014 and Tony Romo’s most accurate passing season as a pro (69.9% completion rate). Several respondents suggested that Linehan might not have the personality to be a head coach. M.O.: Was told to simplify the offense and run the ball in his first year with the Cowboys, both of which go against his natural inclination. Did a tremendous job, but some guys are better coordinators than head coaches. (Don’t forget, they are two very different jobs.) * * * 20) Jim Schwartz, free agent Age: 49 College: Georgetown Pro experience: 22 years, five as head coach (Detroit 2009-13) Head coaching record: 29-52 (0-1 playoffs) Résumé: Schwartz began his NFL career as a scout under Bill Belichick in Cleveland, from 1993-96, and followed the team to Baltimore, where he coached the linebackers. He spent the next decade of his career in Tennessee before finally landing a head-coaching job with the then-moribund Lions. Last year he helped the Bills improve in nearly every statistical category on defense, but new coach Rex Ryan brought in a coordinator to run his preferred 3-4, not Schwartz’s 4-3. A man with a league reputation for burning bridges, Schwartz is probably not on Jim Harbaugh’s holiday card list. M.O.: For old-school attitude and 4-3 zone-based defense, he’s your guy. Incorporated a few more pressure concepts into his scheme as the Bills’ defensive coordinator, showing the capacity to change with the times. * * * 21) Eric Mangini, San Francisco, defensive coordinator Age: 44 College: Wesleyan Pro experience: 17 seasons, five as head coach (New York Jets 2006-08, Cleveland 2009-10) Head coaching record: 33-48 (0-1 playoffs) Résumé: Mangini became the youngest head coach in the NFL when the Jets lured him away from New England after one year as the Patriots’ defensive coordinator. Though Mangini and GM Mike Tannenbaum laid the foundation for two straight AFC Championship Game appearances, the Jets fired him after missing the playoffs despite an 8-3 start with Brett Favre. Two straight 5-11 seasons in Cleveland submarined his immediate coaching future, but after two seasons in television and two seasons coaching tight ends, he’s back as a coordinator. Perennial dysfunction in Cleveland’s front office helps his case, and his temperament has apparently cooled. M.O.: Has spent the past two seasons quietly coaching tight ends. Working on “the other side of the ball” like that has done wonders for expanding some coaches’ minds. A lot will hinge on how he does as a defensive play-caller this season. Expect aggression and diversity from his 3-4. * * * 22) Ben McAdoo, New York Giants, offensive coordinator Age: 37 College: Indiana (Pa.) Pro experience: 11 seasons, one as coordinator (New York Giants 2014) Résumé: It’s been quite a prolific rise for the one-time high school assistant, whose first NFL job came in 2004 as a quality control guy for the Saints. Having never coached quarterbacks, he worked with Aaron Rodgers from 2012-2013 before taking the coordinator job last season in New York, at age 36. Despite a 6-10 finish, Eli Manning turned in the most accurate and productive passing season of his career with McAdoo calling the shots. M.O.: Very telling that a two-time Super Bowl winning quarterback in his mid-30s was willing to change his mechanics for a first-time offensive coordinator. #Respect. * * * 23) Tom Cable, Seattle, offensive line Age: 50 College: Idaho Pro experience: Nine seasons, three as head coach (Oakland, 2008-10) Head coaching record: 17-27 Résumé: Cable’s offensive line expertise, honed at Cal in the mid-90’s, has produced top-10 rushing attacks at nearly every NFL stop. He never held a coordinator role before landing the Raiders job four games into the 2008 season, when he replaced Lane Kiffin. The Raiders went 8-8 in Cable’s second full season, and undefeated in the AFC West, but Hue Jackson replaced him in 2011. In Seattle, where he’s coached the line since, he’s become the rumored coordinator-in-waiting. There was also that time he, then the head coach in Oakland, reportedly broke an assistant’s jaw with a punch in 2009. Said one source: “If he hadn’t punched a guy, he’d be a head coach by now.” M.O.: Questions will be asked about character from his days with the Raiders, but that’s ancient history now. A blocking connoisseur who doesn’t believe in changing things up; he’d rather just line up and out-execute opponents. * * * 24) Mike Shanahan, free agent Age: 62 College: Eastern Illinois Pro experience: 29 seasons, 20 as head coach (Oakland 1988-89, Denver 1995-08, Washington 2010-13) Head coaching record: 177-143 (8-6 playoffs) Résumé: Considered an offensive revolutionary once upon a time, Shanahan’s one-cut, zone running system has turned marginal backs into Pro Bowlers throughout most of his career. Winning two Super Bowls in the late 1990s cemented John Elway’s legacy, and it also gave Shanahan job security rarely seen in modern pro sports. Just one playoff win over the next decade with Broncos finally sealed his fate in Denver. He then lasted four seasons in Washington before an ugly divorce in 2013, and hasn’t returned to football since, despite reportedly interviewing for the Oakland job this offseason. M.O.: See Kyle Shanahan’s M.O., and just tack on a few decades of experience. (Then decide for yourself if those few decades are a sign of wisdom or antiquation.) * * * 25) Ray Horton, Tennessee, defensive coordinator Age: 55 College: Washington Pro experience: 21 seasons, four as coordinator (Cardinals 2011-12, Cleveland 2013, Tennessee 2014-present) Résumé: Prior to his coaching career, Horton spent 10 seasons as a corner and safety in the NFL, and then spent the next 16 seasons coaching defensive backs for several teams, including the Steelers under Dick LeBeau. After coordinator stints in Arizona and Cleveland, he followed Whisenhunt to Tennessee in 2014. He will attempt to improve a defense that yielded the fourth most points per game (27.4) in the league last year. Word is, Horton interviews poorly and can have a bristly personality. M.O.: The gutsiest blitz-caller in the league a few years ago didn’t have the talent to run his full 3-4 scheme with the Titans last season. While he’s excelled the past few years, what do we make of Dick LeBeau’s arrival in Tennessee (something Horton reportedly was on board with)? TIER 3: SOMETHING TO PROVE These coaches fall into two categories: former head coaches with long-term obstacles to overcome, and young prospects. 26) Jim Harbaugh, Michigan, head coach Age: 51 College: Michigan Pro experience: Six seasons, four as head coach (San Francisco 2011-14) Head coaching record: 49-22-1 (5-3 in playoffs) Résumé: Harbaugh’s return to college isn’t a reflection of his ability to succeed in the NFL, but can he get along? On this list, his reputation most closely resembles Mora (which may scare some teams away from the UCLA coach). Still, Harbaugh’s football acumen is immaculate: His 49ers appeared in three NFC championship games in his four years behind offensive and defensive fronts befitting his personality. Said one former general manager: “You could put him No. 1 or 36. He is an acquired taste.” M.O.: A master delegator who aims to get his money’s worth from assistants. The question is how brash leadership style meshes with a team. (And how long a team can tolerate it.) Some might see similarities to Bill Parcells in this regard. * * * 27) Matt Patricia, New England, defensive coordinator Age: 40 College: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Pro experience: 11 seasons, three as coordinator (New England 2012-present) Résumé: GMs will tell you not to over evaluate Belichick underlings, or coordinators who work on the same side of the ball as the head coach, but we heard Patricia’s name come up in enough interviews to include him. He’s been with the Patriots as long as he’s been in the NFL, which is probably why you’ve never heard of him. After the 2011 defense allowed the most scrimmage yards in the NFL, Patricia was promoted to coordinator. Last year was a breakout season for the young assistant. To become a head coach, said one evaluator, he’ll have to overcome an image problem: “He looks like a mountain man.” M.O.: Personality is a virtual unknown due to Patriots’ tight media restrictions on assistant coaches. Has thrived using a variety of schemes and player packages, many of them man-coverage-based. Let’s see how he does with an inexperienced secondary this year. * * * 28) John Pagano, San Diego, defensive coordinator Age: 48 College: Mesa State Pro experience: 13 seasons, three as coordinator (San Diego 2012-14) Résumé: Chuck’s younger brother began as a quality control coach in 2002 and has spent his entire career with San Diego under three different head coaches. Since taking the defensive coordinator position in 2012, he’s managed a respectable defense that, in 2014, jumped to fourth in the league in passing yards allowed per game (214.2). The success of older brother Chuck has done nothing to hurt John’s status. Quietly, this Pagano is a rising star in coaching circles. M.O.: There are high-level offensive coaches who will tell you he’s the toughest defensive coordinator in the league to play chess against. Through in-game play-calling, he’s maximized every ounce of talent on San Diego’s defense. * * * 29) Kris Richard, Seattle, defensive coordinator Age: 35 College: USC Pro experience: Three seasons Résumé: Seahawks defensive players swear he’s the next in an assembly line of head coaches to emerge from the Seattle coordinator spot. A former third-round draft pick of the team in 2002, Richard took the coordinator job vacated by Dan Quinn’s hiring in Atlanta. Because Richard is entering his first season as a pro coordinator, this is largely a projection. M.O.: It’s not a coincidence that so many low-round and undrafted cornerbacks have flourished in Seattle’s rudimentary system. Someone has been teaching technique to the Richard Shermans and Byron Maxwells. If Seattle’s defense prospers in 2015 like it has the last two years, Richard could be well on his way to becoming a head coach. * * * 30) Mike Smith, free agent Age: 55 College: East Tennessee State Pro experience: 16 seasons, seven as head coach (Atlanta 2008-14) Head coaching record: 67-49 (1-4 playoffs) Résumé: Smith spent 17 seasons in college before landing a pro job in 1999 with the Ravens, coaching the defensive line. Named the Falcons’ head coach in 2008, Smith spent his first draft pick on Matt Ryan, who quarterbacked four postseason finishes in five seasons. A 10-22 record over the last two seasons resulted in Smith’s firing, but shaky clock management in crucial spots accelerated the fall. M.O.: Ran his course in Atlanta, but it was one of the more impressive courses in the franchise’s history. The question is whether he’d want a straightforward, execution-based approach like he had as a D coordinator in Jacksonville, or if he’d go with the more complex, disguise- and pressure-oriented approach that he allowed his D coordinator, Mike Nolan, to employ toward the end of his Atlanta tenure. * * * 31) Vance Joseph, Cincinnati, defensive backs Age: 42 College: Colorado Pro experience: 10 seasons Résumé: A former University of Colorado standout, Joseph spent several years coaching defensive backs at his alma mater before San Francisco offered him the same position in 2005. The Bengals blocked Denver’s interview request for Joseph for their defensive coordinator position in 2015. M.O.: Not known to most fans, but definitely known to coaches throughout the league. After another successful year for Cincinnati’s secondary—a secondary that wasn’t always healthy—his name popped up on interview lists this past offseason. * * * 32) Anthony Lynn, Buffalo, running backs, assistant head coach Age: 46 College: Texas Tech Pro experience: 15 seasons Résumé: Forced to retire early due to neck injuries, Lynn began his coaching career in Denver as a special teams assistant. Three teams later, Lynn coached the Jets’ running backs for all six years of Rex Ryan’s tenure. When Ryan was hired in Buffalo, Lynn followed. Ryan preached ground-and-pound, and Lynn was at the heart of its execution. M.O.: Running backs coaches aren’t typically considered for head-coaching positions, but his job title in Buffalo includes “assistant head coach” for a reason. He’s a teacher of the game who sticks up for his guys. Follow The MMQB on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. [widget widget_name="SI Newsletter Widget”] |
When diplomatic officials in Jerusalem recently surveyed the list of 21 countries that make up UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee (WHC) in an effort to see who might soften the blow of yet another anti-Israel resolution, there was little there to give much hope. The list did not include any of those countries that Israel traditionally can count on for diplomatic assistance and cover in international forums. The US only has observer status on the body. Australia was not on the committee, nor was Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, nor any of those small pro-Israel Pacific Island states such as the Marshall Islands, Palau and Micronesia.Instead, of the 21 countries on the WHC, there were three Arab countries (Kuwait, Lebanon and Tunisia), five states with no diplomatic ties with Israel (the three Arab countries plus Cuba and Indonesia), and fully eight majority-Muslim nations.No country on the list jumped out as one that would buck the group-think and take a stand for Israel.And then Croatia and Tanzania stepped forward.Croatia seemed a somewhat logical choice. Jerusalem has good relations with Croatia, the last country to join the EU. It is numbered among those former Soviet-bloc countries inside the EU which – when that 28-member organization splits on its Israel votes – usually casts a ballot either with Israel, or abstains (as opposed to countries like Malta, Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, Sweden and – often – France, which generally vote against). As such, Zagreb was a logical go-to address for Jerusalem.But Tanzania? Who saw that coming? Since when does Jerusalem have such sterling ties with that east African country? Since, well, the election last October of a new president, John Magufuli. Since that time, he has made clear that he is keen on putting the country – which according to estimates is about 60% Christian and 30% Muslim – on a different track. As a staunchly believing Christian, he sees Israel as a natural ally and – since assuming office – has sent Israel strong signals of an interest in significantly upgrading ties.Tanzania’s foreign minister was one of the seven African leaders Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met at a summit in Uganda last July, and Dar es Salaam expressed interest in opening an embassy in Tel Aviv.On Wednesday, Tanzania proved its mettle.According to diplomatic officials, Netanyahu spoke in recent days to both Magufuli and Croatian leaders and explained the need to act against the motion. And they did.It was Croatia and Tanzania – again, not countries Israel generally turns to for diplomatic assistance – that forced a secret vote on the issue at the WHC meeting in Paris on Wednesday.By so doing, they infuriated the Palestinians and their supporters in the body who wanted to ram the resolution through by “consensus.”But instead of a consensus on a motion that expunges any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount by only referring to it by its Arabic names, the resolution passed by a vote of 10 to 2, with eight abstentions and Jamaica not in the hall for the vote.A similar text was adopted by UNESCO’s Executive Board two weeks earlier by a vote of 24 to 6, with 26 abstentions and two no-shows.It is obvious why the Palestinians wanted a consensus – that would have reinforced the impression that the international community was of one mind on the issue. Equally obvious was why Israel wanted a vote, because it wanted to demonstrate that the automatic, reflexive anti-Israel majority in the UN was beginning to crumble.And chipping away at this automatic, anti-Israel bloc at the UN has emerged in recent months as a high-priority element of Netanyahu’s foreign policy. He spoke of it publicly for the first time at the Paris climate conference last November, when he said he expected countries who are friendly to Israel to reflect that friendliness in votes in international fora.The time has come, Netanyahu told reporters then, for the friendship and cooperation of countries with good bilateral ties with Israel to come out in votes in international institutions.“You will hear this [demand] more and more – this is our natural expectation.”He repeatedly spoke about this during his visit in July to Africa, saying that one of his aims by going to the continent was to widen “our circle of ties. If we succeed in making inroads with the 54 countries of Africa, the automatic majority against Israel would fall by the wayside.”And then he repeated this goal in September in a speech to the UN’s General Assembly.“What I’m about to say is going to shock you: Israel has a bright future at the UN,” he stated at the outset of his address. “When it comes to Israel at the UN, you’d probably think nothing will ever change, right? Well think again. You see, everything will change, and a lot sooner than you think. The change will happen in this hall, because back home, your governments are rapidly changing their attitudes toward Israel. And sooner or later, that’s going to change the way you vote on Israel at the UN.”CASUAL OBSERVERS may think that the twin UNESCO votes this month on Jerusalem belie Netanyahu’s rosy prediction.And, let there be no mistake, Israel did indeed lose both votes.And it lost those votes after putting up a serious diplomatic fight.But still, what is also clear from those votes is that the number of countries that can be counted on to reflexively raise their hands in votes against Israel is shrinking. Or as one diplomatic source said, “there is an important consensus of countries that don’t like this, and that is significant.”When the UNESCO Executive Board voted in April on an anti-Israel Jerusalem resolution, 33 countries voted in favor, six against, 17 abstained and two were absent. All told, 33 – or a majority of the 58-member body – voted for the measure.Just six months later, the Palestinians could not muster a majority in the same body on a similar measure, with more countries – 34 – either abstaining, voting against or not showing up, than voting for the resolution.That same pattern repeated itself this week as well, when more countries didn’t vote for the resolution (11), than who did (10).By comparison, a similar – but even more harshly written resolution – passed in the WHC last year by a larger margin, with 13 voting for it, and eight either abstaining, voting against, or not present. And the overall composition of the WHC last year was more favorably inclined toward Israel.Five years ago this month, when then French President Nicolas Sarkozy led a successful push to have UNESCO accept “Palestine” as a full member state, then Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP that the Palestinians would use their newfound status not to promote matters of education, culture and science – which are the ostensible aims of the organization – but rather to “hijack” the organization as a vehicle for anti-Israel propaganda.Every meeting, every forum, every event, he said, will be used by the Palestinians to attack Israel. His words were prescient, and the reason UNESCO has turned into one of the central battlegrounds against Israel has to do with the Palestinian status in that organization, the only UN organization where it is a full member state.In other organizations, other countries can – on their behalf – promote anti-Israel Palestinian resolutions, and they do so on a regular basis. But it can be done even more frequently when the Palestinians themselves are a full member of the organization.However, if the Palestinians had hoped to use these measures time and again in UNESCO to reinforce the notion of Israel’s isolation, the recent votes have boomeranged, showing that more and more countries – some of them, like Tanzania, third-world countries that the Palestinians could count on for diplomatic support in the past – will no longer reflexively do their bidding.The trend that emerged from this month’s votes at UNESCO supports Netanyahu’s thesis that the situation inside international organizations is changing. While this change might be a slow train, not an express, it is -- at long last -- at least on the tracks. Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>> |
Resurrection College Prep High School View Full Caption Resurrection College Prep High School NORWOOD PARK — Resurrection College Prep High School is putting out an open invite for adults to join in a night of cocktails, food and prizes to benefit the school, 7500 W. Talcott Ave., on Saturday. Attendees will be able to enter auctions or raffles with prizes as high as $10,000, including an autographed poster from pop star Shawn Mendes' Dec. 9 visit to the school. Raffle proceeds will go toward a scholarship for students who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford the school, according to an announcement for the event. The gala will feature Blackhawks hall of famer Tony Esposito as a "celebrity guest." Two of the school’s "most prestigious awards" will be presented at the event. The Renaissance Award will be given to alumna Dr. Leanne Weidemann, and the Charity & Truth Award will go the Rev. Britto Berchmans from St. Paul of the Cross parish. Attendees can register for the gala or buy raffle tickets at the Resurrection website. The gala is set for 6 p.m. Saturday at Cafe La Cave, 2777 Manheim Road in suburban Des Plaines. Tickets are $150. |
A broad and powerful coalition of governors, attorneys general, coal companies, electric utilities and business groups such as the United States Chamber of Commerce will file suits contending that the rules, put forth under the 1970 Clean Air Act, represent an illegal interpretation of the law. They will also petition to delay implementation of the rule until the case is argued in federal court. “The president’s illegal rule will have devastating impacts on West Virginia families, and families across the country,” Attorney General Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia said in a statement. Mr. Morrisey, whose home state’s economy is heavily dependent on coal mining, is expected to play a lead role in the multistate lawsuit. States and companies may be hedging their bets. In Georgia, Gov. Nathan Deal’s administration plans to sue the E.P.A. At the same time, the governor, a Republican, has also instructed his director of environmental protection, Judson H. Turner, to begin crafting a plan to comply with the rules. “The governor of Georgia said to me, ‘Whatever action may be taken on the legal front, we’ll need to develop a plan that works for Georgia,’ ” Mr. Turner said. If Mr. Obama’s plan survives the legal challenge, Mr. Turner added, “we’ll have the confidence that we’ll put a plan for Georgia together that’s better than a federal plan.” Similar dynamics are playing out in many other states that are suing over the rules, said Vicki Arroyo, the executive director of the Georgetown University Climate Center, which focuses on state-level climate policies. “It’s really rare to find a state that just says, ‘Hell no,’ ” she said. The rules assign each state a target for reducing its carbon pollution from power plants, but allows states to create their own custom plans for doing so. That rule is designed to encourage states to make major changes in their electric power sectors — for example, to shut down coal-fired power plants and replace them with wind and solar power. It is also designed to encourage states to enact so-called cap-and-trade systems, under which they would place a cap on carbon emissions and create a market for buying and selling pollution credits. States have to submit an initial version of their plans by 2016 and final versions by 2018. States that refuse to submit a plan will be forced to comply with one developed by the federal government. |
Really, truly: what is happening in Detroit is more important to you than the Zimmerman jury sequestration details. Or the Rolling Stone cover. Or any of the other things that have been distracting us lately. What’s going on in Detroit could steal our families’ financial security. It could radically alter what our lives are going to be like, here in New Hampshire, when we can’t work any longer. Here’s the short version: four months ago, the Republican Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, named bankruptcy lawyer Kevyn Orr to be “emergency financial manager” of the City of Detroit. Yesterday, Attorney Orr filed a petition in federal court to have the city declared bankrupt. What’s he looking for? High on his list: debt relief from the city’s obligations to its current and future retirees. This is where you need to start watching, really closely. Depending on which accounting method is used, Detroit’s pension systems are either 91.4% funded or 69.3% funded. The New Hampshire Retirement System “presently has a funded ratio of 56.1 percent.” Yes, Detroit’s pension funds are in a lot better financial condition than ours is. Yet Attorney Orr says their unfunded liability is too large, and he has asked a federal court to give the public employer “relief” from its retirement obligations. Sound familiar? Down in West Virginia, thousands of people have been protesting a bankruptcy judge’s decision to let Patriot Coal off the hook for its retirees’ benefits. And in Oklahoma, American Airlines retirees are waiting to see if a bankruptcy judge will let their employer renege on long-promised benefits. Yes, using bankruptcy to evade pension obligations has been a problem in the private sector for decades now. But just last month, it became a problem for public sector employees, too. During bankruptcy proceedings for Stockton, California, a federal judge ruled that the city could use bankruptcy to relieve itself of the obligation to provide retiree health benefits. “The liability for retiree medical benefits is estimated by the parties to be in the hundreds of millions.” Stockton retirees are having to settle for a single lump sum payment of $5.1 million. That’s barely pennies on the dollar, for a debt owed to people who spent their careers in public service. And now Attorney Orr is trying to take Detroit down that same path toward “debt relief”. Think it couldn’t happen here? Think you can rely on the 1984 constitutional amendment, Article 36-a, that was meant to protect New Hampshire public workers from raids on our retirement benefits? Probably City of Detroit workers thought their 1963 constitutional amendment would protect their retirement benefits, too. What’s really going on here? During the 2007-2008 Wall Street meltdown, public pension systems across America lost more than a trillion dollars in value. Yes, that’s “trillion” – with a “T”. And now that our pensions are a trillion dollars underfunded, they’re being attacked as “unaffordable”. (Aren’t you glad Bill O’Brien isn’t still Speaker of the NH House?) Any guesses on how many other Republican governors and mayors will soon be trying to “restructure” their way out of obligations to public sector retirees? ———— Back when I worked for Republican politicians, they truly believed in the sanctity of contracts (such as employers’ contractual obligation to pay long-promised retirement benefits). In fact, when they talked about “core functions” of government, the enforcement of contracts was right up there at the top of the list. After all, how can the economy function if parties aren’t required to live up to their contractual obligations? Perverting the bankruptcy process to obtain “relief” from contractual obligations… well, that wasn’t anywhere in the playbook, back when I worked for Republicans. ———— Can’t help but notice… The very same day that 30,000 Detroit public workers learned their financial future was on the chopping block, thanks to losses from the 2007-2008 Great Recession… …over there on Wall Street, the Dow hit another record high. Liz Iacobucci is the former Public Information Officer for the State Employees’ Association of New Hampshire, SEIU Local 1984. Over the past three decades, she has served in government at the federal, state and municipal levels; and she has worked for both Democratic and Republican politicians. Like this: Like Loading... |
1.0.7 Beta Here’s a new Banished beta for the modding community to test out. It adds 10 mod-usable resource flags and resource limits. It also adds the ability to add these limits to the game windows that use them, such as the status bar, limits, and town hall production/graph. It also has a new memory allocator that doesn’t have a hard limit on system memory used. If you use these, please let me know how they work out. Thoughts, bugs, crashes, etc. Email support @ shiningrocksoftware . com Downloads Without further ado, here’s the beta mod kit: BanishedKit_1.0.7.170212.Beta.zip Be sure to check out the documentation. There’s a new section on using the resource limits and a new example mod that enables them all. Here’s a patch for 1.0.6 to 1.0.7.170212 Beta BanishedPatch_1.0.6_To_1.0.7.170212.Beta.zip Note that you need to apply the patch to version 1.0.6. Previous versions of the game won’t work with this patch. Once downloaded, just unzip the archive into the folder where you have Banished installed. This is usually C:\Program Files\Shining Rock Software\Banished\. As always the Beta is up on Steam. If you are using Steam, go into your game library and right click on Banished. Select properties, and then in the windows that opens, select the BETAs tab. Select the drop down and pick Beta Test for 1.0.7. With either the patched version or steam beta, the base game won’t change (except for a few minor bug fixes), but they’ll let you run mods generated with the new mod kit. Again, let me know how this build works out. Enjoy. |
Special Olympics Australia raids bank accounts of local branches to keep struggling organisation afloat Updated Special Olympics Australia (SOA), the official sporting body for athletes with disabilities, is in dire financial trouble and has raided the bank accounts of regional offices to keep the organisation running. The local branches, made up of volunteers and parents of athletes, are shocked and demanding answers. Central Coast branch Chair Marilyn Caruana has been involved with the club for 15 years. She said all regional SOA branches were called in for a meeting on the weekend of November 8 and told by that Monday half their fundraising money would be gone. "Monday morning it was gone, Monday morning it was just electronically taken so there's nothing you can do ... you couldn't have done anything about it," she said. "I didn't even know they could take our bank account. I thought it was only our local bank account and I've been chairperson for six years and I didn't know that they owned that bank account." Do you know more about this story? Email investigations@abc.net.au. The volunteers were told that more than $1 million was lost in the Asia Pacific Games held last December and they now needed their money to keep the organisation afloat. In a letter obtained by the ABC, SOA chief executive Nicola Stokes stated the "debt was a result of a breakdown of communication between the Asia Pacific Games Organising Committee and the SOA Board". What exactly happened is unclear, but in a bitter letter exchange after the Saturday meeting, Rex Langthorne, a former board member and a member of the Games Organising Committee, wrote to the current Chair of of SOA, Nigel Milan. "The strategy to just take funds as opposed to asking for assistance seems to have backfired somewhat," Mr Langthorne wrote. "Another option that should have been considered is to arrange a bank overdraft to manage cash flow needs using members' funds as collateral to secure such a facility." Mr Milan, the former managing director of SBS shot back: "I was surprised and disappointed to receive your correspondence in regards to the regional chairs meeting ... The Board and I find it difficult to accept the position you are taking in seemingly abdicating all responsibility for the financial situation SOA is in, given you were not only the Acting CEO from the June 14, 2013 to the 10th of February 2014 you were also on the Games Organising Committee for the Asia Pacific Games." Mr Milan added: "Rex, I am in no way suggesting that the Asia Pacific Games financials disaster is all of your making, indeed I have gone to pains to say that the truth of the situation is a total governance failure of the whole of the organisation and all of us involved bear some responsibility but your 'anyone but me' approach pays you no credit." Mr Langthorne was not the only one unhappy about the meeting. Ms Caruana told the ABC that she feels that they have been "bullied" by SOA. "I found it very underhanded really, if they had of let us know that they were doing it ... or if they had of let us know that they were in debt we might have been able to give a levy or something," she said. The SOA also told the regional chairs that forensic accountants would be brought in if the regions tried to take money out of the accounts before Monday. "The words 'dictatorial' and 'authoritarian' and 'unilateral' spring to mind at the moment," wrote one volunteer in an email. The ABC contacted all 69 regional offices to ask for a comment, but only Ms Caruana would speak publicly. Most declined because they were told if they spoke to the media they would lose their accreditation, others feared that if they spoke out SOA might not allow their children to compete in future events. Ms Stokes denied that any threats had been made. "I feel that it was interpreted that way. We got some feedback on that. It certainly wasn't intended. It is quite standard way that we have one point of contact for the media. Of course if they want to speak to the media they can," she said. Fundraising programs to be reviewed The SOA's annual report shows the organisation ended the last financial year with more than $15 million in fundraising revenue. The financial statement also shows that $12.2 million was raised via the gift voucher program which is run by an independent company called the APPCO Group. SOA only retained $500,000, while over $7 million went to the APPCO Group for fundraising expenses. The APPCO Group is currently being investigated by the NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing for its fundraising tactics. Ms Stokes said SOA was now reviewing all fundraising programs run by the organisation, including that of the APPCO group. The APPCO Group said in an email "that Appco Group do not wish to provide a comment/response for the story". Local volunteers like Ms Caruana fear the financial problems could stop donations from local businesses and individuals. "I always say to them that the money that you donate goes to all our athletes on the Central Coast, none of it goes off the coast. It all stays with our local athletes," she said. "Now I'm not sure whether I can say that because that won't be the truth." SOA is the only avenue for intellectually impaired athletes to compete in world class events. "Without the SOA we don't have a vehicle for the children to compete in. We were angry at first but by the end of the meeting we realised we had to hand over the money for the SOA to survive. It's absolutely essential for the SOA to get out of debt," one volunteer told the ABC. "I am absolutely passionate about Special Olympics and making sure that people with intellectual disabilities are able to get out and enjoy the things that every other normal regular person can do," Ms Caruana said. Ms Stokes maintained that the future of SOA looks bright. "I think the important point is we are here for the athletes. They do such a wonderful job," she said. "They demonstrate what people with an intellectual disability can do if they are supported by an organisation such as SOA, which is made up with parents and volunteers who week in week out provide these sporting opportunities for these athletes so they can achieve their personal best, not only in sport but in life and I'm very proud to be part of that organisation." In a statement to the ABC, Mr Milan wrote: "There is no doubt the past year has been a painful and difficult time for the Special Olympics organisation in Australia. "We are now taking the necessary steps to ensure a sustainable future for the organisation and the athletes we serve. "We have taken on board the learnings from the Asia Pacific Games so that the financial loss incurred in 2013 is never repeated. Future Games Organising Committees will now be comprised of 50% Special Olympics Australia representatives, to strengthen financial governance. "The other step we have taken is to cut operating costs so that we live within our means and can continue to provide opportunities for Australians living with an intellectual disability, to participate in sports training and competition and achieve their personal best." Topics: paralympics, nsw First posted |
Your teams on the go or at home. Personalize SI with our new App. Install on iOS or Android. Court statistics and conventional logic suggest that Tom Brady has only a slim chance of obtaining another hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit or a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. The odds for a typical litigant in Brady’s shoes would likely be about 1%. Brady is anything but the typical litigant, though, and his case has proven especially ripe for debate. Two federal judges (Chief Judge Robert Katzmann of the Second Circuit and U.S. District Judge Richard Berman) have ruled in Brady’s favor while Judges Barrington D. Parker, Jr. and Denny Chin of the Second Circuit have ruled for the NFL. Brady’s case presents contentious applications of law to facts, which are the very kinds of cases that fare better in obtaining new hearings. The fact that some of the country’s most prominent attorneys are involved in the case only amplifies its significance. Brady’s case becomes more relevant to judges if it is regarded as emblematic of larger trends in law. His odds for a new hearing increase if the judges conclude that the four-game suspension to start the 2016 season is less about a bizarre equipment controversy and more about whether a union member has been treated unlawfully by management in a disciplinary matter. On Tuesday, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and Kenneth Feinberg filed separate amicus curiae briefs. The AFL-CIO and Feinberg briefs urged the 13 active judges on the Second Circuit to rehear NFL Management Council et al. v. NFL Players Association et al. (aka Brady v. NFL). Both briefs contend that the ruling by Judges Parker and Chin undermines basic principles of law and should be reversed so as to avoid impact on future cases. The limitations of amicus briefs Before considering the arguments by the AFL-CIO and Feinberg, it is worth acknowledging that amicus briefs are of limited impact. Amicus briefs are filings by non-parties or “friends of the court” who purport to possess an interest in an appeal. Unlike filings by the actual parties in a case, judges have the discretion to completely disregard amicus briefs. For that reason, the amicus briefs filed on Tuesday—just like the amicus briefs filed last Wednesday by the New England Patriots and a group of scientists—should be viewed with appropriate caution. 13 active judges on the Second Circuit will have an opportunity to review all of the amicus briefs, but these judges are under no obligation to factor them into their decision-making. Still, amicus briefs filed on behalf of Brady can only help the quarterback. As discussed last Wednesday, the Patriots filing an amicus brief that expressed an interest adverse to the NFL was stunning and likely will be considered by the judges. The brief signed by the group of neutral scientists who contend Deflategate is completely explainable through Ideal Gas Law should also catch the judges’ attention, especially those who believe Brady has been treated unfairly. Similarly, the AFL-CIO and Feinberg briefs will supply more motivation for judges when it comes to granting Brady a new hearing. Why the AFL-CIO weighing in matters The AFL-CIO is the nation’s largest federation of labor unions. It represents 12.2 million workers—including teachers, plumbers, pilots and, through the NFLPA, professional football players—across 57 national and international labor organizations. As the AFL-CIO stresses in its amicus brief, the AFL-CIO has a “significant interest” in how unionized employees are treated by management in disciplinary matters. More specifically to Brady’s case, the AFL-CIO demands that the “proper standard for judicial review of decisions” be applied when those decisions are “rendered pursuant to arbitration procedures.” With Brady, his “arbitration” was in the unusual, but collectively bargained form of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell serving as the arbitrator. The AFL-CIO insists that Goodell, while serving as the arbitrator (rather than as NFL commissioner) disregarded “basic procedural fairness” and “acted arbitrarily” in upholding Brady’s four-game suspension. As has been written on numerous occasions, Goodell made several moves in his review of Brady’s matter that raise serious questions about Goodell’s capabilities as an arbitrator. For example, Goodell appeared to inexplicably change the rationale for Brady’s punishment. The Wells Report found that Brady was merely “generally aware” that other Patriots employees may have altered footballs. But Goodell later portrayed Brady as an active culprit who approved, consented and induced those employees to alter footballs. The AFL-CIO contends that Goodell’s actions as the arbitrator run afoul of case precedent dictating that arbitrators should not devise new theories of fault. Normally the arbitrator in a labor-management dispute is both neutral and new to the dispute; Goodell was neither. The AFL-CIO’s arguments for Brady are not new, but the willingness of the AFL-CIO to raise them is notable. By depicting the Brady case as one related to the core principles of labor management relations, the AFL-CIO seeks to help Brady overcome the concern that his case is too exceptional to warrant a rehearing. If the judges view the Brady/NFL dispute as a self-contained controversy within the unique and flawed universe known as Article 46 of the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, then the Brady case is less likely to be considered relevant to conventional labor management disputes and the judges will be less willing to rehear the case. Why Kenneth Feinberg weighing in matters Feinberg may be the most influential voice yet to speak up on behalf of Brady. Feinberg is a legendary figure in legal circles, particularly among those connected to “fund distribution,” which refers to allocation of settlements to victims of large-scale harms. Feinberg has been entrusted with determining formulas that most fairly compensate victims of some of the worst incidents in recent history. He undertook this duty in assessing claims by victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the Boston Marathon bombings. In this capacity Feinberg acts as a neutral arbitrator. In 2014, I had the opportunity to interview Feinberg regarding his role in the Ed O’Bannon v. NCAA case and specifically his plans to form the Former College Athletes Association, a group that would negotiate name, image and likeness rights on behalf of former college athletes. Feinberg has no personal or reputational stake in whether Brady wins or loses, nor does he have a connection to the NFL or the NFLPA. In truth, you might expect someone of Feinberg’s stature to view getting involved in Deflategate as a net negative: no one on either side of this controversy has looked particularly good, and Feinberg has an impeccable reputation to protect. But as Feinberg explains in his amicus brief, he believes that the enforcement of Brady’s suspension would trigger consequences well beyond sports. He contends it would destabilize the system of arbitration in the Unites States and that it would make it harder for Feinberg and others like to him to carry out their duties. Feinberg asserts that the public’s “trust and confidence in arbitration” would be “fundamentally eroded” if Goodell can impose his “own brand of industrial justice” and “act with bias.” In one of the harshest characterizations of Goodell to date, Feinberg describes Goodell as acting “simply beyond the bounds” of permissible conduct by arbitrators. Goodell’s decision, Feinberg contends, has “no credibility,” reflects deep “bias,” and imposed suspensions for equipment violations when in the past such violations only triggered fines or mere warnings. Feinberg cites other criticisms of Goodell, including that the commissioner was so “one-sided” that “it cannot be the result of good faith mistake.” These and other critiques, Feinberg contends, threaten the public’s belief in arbitration as a viable form of dispute resolution. This is a key argument because it communicates to the judges that Brady’s case goes well beyond the limited world of professional football and into the very prevalent world of arbitration in America. Michael McCann is a legal analyst and writer for Sports Illustrated. He is also a Massachusetts attorney and the founding director of the Sports and Entertainment Law Institute at the University of New Hampshire School of Law. McCann also created and teaches the Deflategate undergraduate course at UNH. He serves on the Board of Advisors to the Harvard Law School Systemic Justice Project and is the distinguished visiting Hall of Fame Professor of Law at Mississippi College School of Law. He is also on the faculty of the Oregon Law Summer Sports Institute. |
Skype - a freemium voice-over-IP service and instant messaging, which is used by people across the world to connect with their love ones would soon be used by the Maharashtra prison department. This would be done to produce undertrials before the court in the wake of low police escort personnel availability leading to delay in criminal trials. A trial run was conducted at the Arthur Road jail and Taloja prison, linking both the central prisons via Skype. The internet-based programme is mainly pegged against the present method of producing undertrials through video-conference to reduce the telephone bills. A state home department official said, "Skype is a cost-effective service and we already have had a discussion with the National Informatics Centre, to work out a way to ensure that there is no third party intrusion in this service being used by the department." The trial project ended in the last week of February. Over the years, the prison department has been contemplating the use of this service. Arthur Road jail superintendent, VD Borkule said, "Apart from it being cost-effective, in several parts of the state there is a problem of load shedding and the use of Skype is the best alternative option to tackle this problem. This is a good idea." At the moment, 54 prisons and 146 courts are linked through video-conference facility in the state. In the last three months ending February 2014, over 10,000 undertrials were produced before the courts through video-conference. Approximately, the telephone bill via video-conference is around Rs15,000 per month. The government will check the financial viability before the implementation of this service, said the home department official. Last week while hearing a public interest litigation, the Bombay high court suggested to the state to set up special cells attached to the prisons, which would exclusively be employed for escorting undertrials to prison and would not be burdened with any other bandobast duties. |
On paper, the San Francisco 49ers defense is in shambles. Aldon Smith, Patrick Willis, Justin Smith, Chris Borland and Ray McDonald are all gone. They added Darnell Dockett in free agency, but he's coming off a serious knee injury. This year's first-round pick, Arik Armstead, looks to be more of a long-term project rather than a day one starter. It's going to be vital that Tank Carradine and last season's backups step up big-time in 2015 if that defense has any chance of living up to the high standards of play they've set for themselves. Carradine was one of those luxury draft picks that the 49ers have been so adept at accumulating lately. This kid was a fucking terror his last season at FSU, coming home with 11 sacks on the year. Unfortunately, he tore up his ACL at the end of the season, so it wasn't likely he would play right away, if at all, during his rookie year. The 49ers spent a second-round pick on him in 2013 anyway, knowing that had he never been injured he would've probably been a top-10 pick. Besides, the team was already stacked, so it wasn't like they needed Carradine that year anyway. They could be patient and wait until he was 100 percent healthy knowing that he had tons of potential. After missing his rookie year, the investment the 49ers put into Carradine started to pay off last season. San Francisco headed into 2014 still pretty stacked along the defensive line. It took Carradine a while to break into the line up. After getting his feet wet in Week 2, Carradine was a regular part of rotation by Week 10. Carradine flashed quite a bit in those last seven games. He did a great job of getting full extension with his arms when he took on offensive linemen and controlling them before coming off to make a play. He also showed some nice quickness and the ability to turn his hips as a pass rusher. That eventually paid off with three sacks in the final three games. Is Tank Carradine going to make everybody forget about Justin Smith this year? Highly unlikely. But he could be productive enough that at least 49ers fans aren't openly pining for Smith all season. I expect him to be fully confident in his knee now and ready to unleash the uncanny athleticism of a man his size. Justin Smith was a special dude, physical as all hell and a non-stop wrecking ball. I don't think Carradine will be that kind of player, but I expect him to provide a lot of pressure inside as a pass rusher and be hard to move in the running game. With more playing time, Carradine's production should skyrocket. |
Jokes about Harambe are actually illegal racist attacks on black people, according to residential advisers (RAs) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass). In an email message posted online Monday, UMass RAs Colleen and Ryan (their last names aren’t included in the email) warn that any additional Harambe jokes will be interpreted as a hateful direct assault on UMass blacks. The line of reasoning is based on the fact UMass has a special affinity housing program for black students. As it happens, this housing program is called Harambee, which in Swahili means “the point where people pull together.” Because of this coincidence, Colleen and Ryan warn that Harambe jokes are completely unacceptable, since they “misrepresent” the “positive connotations” of the affinity hall. “[Harambe comments] are not only derogatory but also micro-aggressions to some UMass Students,” the message says. “Any negative remarks regarding ‘Harambe’ will be seen as a direct attack to our campus’s African American community. Please be careful what gets written on your whiteboards, as well as what gets written on them. If you are not the one writing these remarks, please let us or the RA on duty know.” (RELATED: When George W. Bush Met Harambe’s Mom) Besides warning against micro-aggressing blacks, the RAs also make the remarkable claim that the popular #DicksOutForHarambe meme is a form of “sexual assault” that may violate federal law. “Using popularizes [sic] phrases/hashtags which ecnourage the exposition of body parts runs the risk of being reported as a Title IX incident,” the message says, referring to the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools receiving federal money. “These are are sexual assault incidences that not only get reported to Community Standards, but also to the Dean of Students. Needless to say, it is a very serious incident — especially for a first year student!” The message concludes by encouraging students to police the community for the offensive Harambe-isms so they can be reported. Despite the RAs worry, conventional definitions of sexual assault require some kind of physical touching, meaning the mere repetition of a popular meme would not qualify. In any case, the warning appears to have fallen on deaf ears. “We will stand by our friend [Harambe] no matter the consequences,” UMass student Jarod Sasdi told Campus Reform. He said the RAs had their judgment “clouded” by a lack of knowledge of Harambe and what he represented. Send tips to blake@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. |
The Baltimore Ravens accepted the NFL's invitation to coach in the Pro Bowl because most of the Denver Broncos' staff was being let go. Now, a small chunk of the Ravens' staff is headed to Denver with former offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak. So, how are the Ravens going to coach at the Pro Bowl? John Harbaugh is keeping around a couple of soon-to-be Broncos coaches -- Rick Dennison (quarterbacks) and Brian Pariani (tight ends) -- for another week. "They've earned this trip out here, so they're part of our family for this week," Harbaugh said. Dennison will call plays for the offense along with senior offensive assistant Craig Ver Steeg. "We've got a coaching staff still in place," Harbaugh said. "It's not the most complicated in the world, I promise you that. It's not like it's going to be hard to put that together." New offensive coordinator Marc Trestman and quarterbacks coach Marty Mornhinweg won't be in Arizona for the Pro Bowl. |
Tyrone Harris is accused of exposing himself to two women in their 60s in five days. A 29-year-old Hamden man is accused of exposing himself to two women in their 60s in a five-day span. A 68-year-old woman was standing by her vehicle around 2 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 1 at Circular Avenue and Church Street when a man exposed himself to her. Police identified the suspect as Tyrone Harris, 29, of Hamden, arrested him at his Bank Street home and charged him with public indecency, breach of peace and simple trespass. Police responded to Chester Street at noon on Friday to investigate public indecency and learned that Harris had gone into a backyard, walked onto the back deck and exposed himself to a 66-year-old woman who lives there. Police again arrested Harris at his Bank Street home and charged him with public indecency, breach of peace and simple trespass. Video The World Records of the 2016 Rio Olympics He was held on a $5,000.00 bond for the first incident, and is scheduled to appear in court in Meriden on Aug. 17. He was detained on a $5,000 bond for the second charges and he’s scheduled to appear in court in Meriden on Aug. 19. |
"I'm not going to manage somebody else's budget. It would be simply stupid," Löfven told Dagens Nyheter ahead of the crucial vote. Löfven's new government will present their first budget proposal on Wednesday. The previous Alliance coalition will submit a rival budget as will the Sweden Democrats. It's expected that the Sweden Democrats' budget will be rejected immediately but the nationalist party could make things difficult for Löfven by voting for the Alliance's centre-right budget proposal, giving it more votes than the government budget. Such a scenario could lead to a snap election just months after Sweden went to the polls in September. Löfven told Dagens Nyheter that a fresh election was a possibility over the budget issue. "It's not the first choice but you can't rule it out. We just had an election so that's why I mean we all must think. The voters have given us a result and as we see the playing field I think the electorate expect us to handle the situation," said Löfven. The Social Democrat-Green pact can also choose to resign and allow the speaker of the parliament to start a new round to elect another government. However, it is more likely that Löfven will push for negotiations with the Alliance parties and potentially have a broader coalition going forward. "They (Alliance) were very clear during the election campaign that they didn't want any organized cooperation with the Sweden Democrats. And that is why we must think beyond block boundaries," said the Prime Minister. Meanwhile the nationalist Sweden Democrats party has stated they have already made their decision on how they will act during the budget vote. Press secretary Martin Kinnunen told Dagens Nyheter on Tuesday afternoon that they made their minds up a week ago, with absentee party leader Jimmie Åkesson having the final say. Åkesson is currently on extended sick leave and is not expected to return to the Swedish parliament until early next year. Sweden's parliament will vote on the new budget on Wednesday. TT/The Local/pr |
This year has begun with a bit of a bang for solar funding, with the first Mercom Capital Group Corporate Funding report of 2017 revealing steep increases in venture capital (VC) funding, debt funding and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the sector. Over the first quarter (Q1) of the year, the amount of corporate funding in the solar industry reached $3.2 billion, which is double that recorded in Q4 2016 ($1.6 billion). On a year-over-year (Y-o-Y) basis, that increase is 15%, up from $2.8 billion raised in Q1 2016. Mercom Capital’s analysis includes all VC funding and public market and debt financing, and finds that the increase on the lows of Q4 2016 is largely due to more debt financing activity. “Corporate funding never reached $3 billion in any of the quarters in 2016,” says Mercom Capital CEO and founder Raj Prabhu. “M&A activity was also strong, with several large deals. Solar public companies also had a good first quarter.” By sector, global VC finding – within which Mercom includes private equity and corporate venture capital – reached $585 million, which was a 78% increase on Q4 2016 ($329 million), albeit across the same number of deals. Compared to last year’s Q1, VC funding was also higher (up from $406 million), although the number of deals was one lower (22 vs. 23 for Q1 2016). The vast majority of VC funding in Q1 2017 went to solar downstream companies, with the nine recorded deals generating $548 million of the total amount that changed hands. The standout VC deal was the $200 million raised by ReNew Power Ventures, with Greenko Energy Holdings following on $155 million. A VC deal by Hero Future Energies was the third-largest ($125 million), with Silicon Ranch’s in fourth, at $55 million. There was a slight sequential contraction in solar public market financing, with Q1 2017 registering $461 million over 13 deals, down from $615 million in 13 deals recorded in Q4 2016. However, activity Y-o-Y was way higher: in Q1 2016 a mere four public market financing deals raised just $94 million. Debt financing comprised the bulk of the quarter’s $3.2 billion transaction volume, with 25 deals registering $2.2 million in funds – a drastic increase on Q4, when just 10 deals raised $610 million. Again, solar downstream companies accounted for the bulk of the debt financing activity. General funding amid the large-scale solar sector in Q1 2017 held steady at $2.6 billion across 33 deals (Q4 2016 saw $3 billion in 38 deals), while for the residential and commercial sectors solar funding activity was $630 million worldwide – which was a sizable drop on the $1.5 billion registered across eight deals in Q4 2016. M&A activity amounted to 29 transactions, up from 20 in Q4 2016 and 14 in Q1 2016. The Mercom data also tracked 233 mew large-scale solar project announcements in Q1 2017, comprising a total of 12.7 GW of new solar capacity globally. |
VN:F [1.9.22_1171] please wait... User Rating: 5.0/5 Festivals, festivals, festivals by Jen (follow Jen on Twitter: @JenBarnes207) Summer, summer, summer, summer, summer! If you keep repeating it- it will come! June is full of free bubbles, rooftops, festivals and outdoor events so let’s hope the weather cooperates. As always, some of my fellow BrokeinLondoners have some more ideas for you in the Free Entertainment in London section. #1 International Give a Bubble Day | 13th June London has seen it all now. We not only have pillow fights, but we have International Give a Bubble events, too. Embrace your inner child as you blow 100,000s of bubbles with strangers in Hyde Park to create a magical bubble-filled world. Bubble guns are encouraged- as are beach related costumes. When: 13th June, 1pm-330pm Where: South Side Serpentine Bridge #2 The United Nations International Yoga Day | 21st June That’s right- FREE YOGA on the summer solstice! Starting from 6am there will be 80 free yoga and meditation classes for you to take part in (don’t worry- you don’t have to be there at 6am!). The day is free but register online beforehand! Bring your friends and salute the sun- your body will thank you. When: 21st June, All Day from 6am. Where: Alexandra Palace, London N22 7AY #3 Bold Tendencies: Richard Wentworth | All Month Bold Tendencies is back for the summer with a new commission by Richard Wentworth titled ‘Agora’. The painted abstract design weaves across the roof in metallic paint, reflecting the weather above. As always, Franks will provide you with summer refreshments once you’ve explored the art and the Derek Jarman Garden is worth a wander. When: All Month Where: Bold Tendencies, 95a Rye Lane (the roof), London SE15 4TG #4 Greenwich and Docklands International Festival| From 26th June Every single event at the Greenwich + Docklands International Festival is 100% free. That’s 9 days of seriously spectacular theatre, dance and music right on your doorstep. Don’t miss 451 at Bethnal Green Gardens on the 27th and Dancing the City in Canary Wharf on the 29th. Full listings can be found online. When: From 26th June Where: Across Greenwich & Docklands- view website for event locations. #5 World Naked Bike Ride in London | 13th June Well- it’s back! You can once again cycle through London naked with hundreds of strangers (or you can just line the streets to watch). The World Naked Bike Ride has 6 starting points in London, but everyone comes together at Westminster Bridge to cycle the remaining miles to Wellington Arch together. Take off your clothes and jump on your bike- you know you want to! When: 13th June Where: Westminster Bridge to Wellington Arch #6 Serpentine Pavilion 2015 | 25th June Every summer brings with it a new pavilion on the lawn of the Serpentine Gallery, and this year’s Serpentine Pavilion is a total psychedelic treasure designed by Spanish architecture studio SelgasCano. It will be there all summer, but you’ll definitely want to say that you saw it first! When: From 25th June Where: Serpentine Galleries, Kensington Gardens, London W2 3XA #7 Pride in London| 20th-28th June Pride in London is a week-long series of events culminating in a fabulous parade that runs from Baker Street to Whitehall on the 27th June. The theme this year is Pride Heroes and throughout the week there are loads of events to enjoy. Check the website for full details, but I’m sure you’ll find the perfect way to be involved. When: 20-28th June Where: Across London #8 BP Big Screens | 10th June Love opera? Don’t love opera? Never tried opera? Head to Trafalgar Square on the 10th of June to watch one of Puccini’s most famous works: La Boheme. It’s a story of love, lust, sickness and death- Boheme has it all! It’s a proper soap-opera. Bring blankets and pillows because it’s a long one! When: 10th June, 730pm Where: Trafalgar Square #9 More London Free Festival | From 3rd June More London Festival is now famous for free live music and fringe theatre along the riverside. There’s something for everyone in June: Pride & Prejudice, Live Sports and even a cycle surgery on the 24th if your bike needs a tune-up! This year there’s a pop-up restaurant as well so it makes a perfect night out. When: From 3rd June Where: The Scoop, More London Riverside between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, London, SE1 2DB #10 City of London Festival | From 22nd June The City of London Festival is a great way to introduce yourself to some of the city’s most lovely bits of architecture as well as enjoy some free performances. Make sure you don’t miss out on a performance in St Pauls – if you’ve never been in before it’s the perfect excuse to go inside and check it out. When: From 22nd June Where: Across the City of London — You may also want to check out the Vauxhall One Summer Screen 2015. |
Today’s Flight Plan Right around the start of AviatorCast, I was reading a book called “The Killing Zone: How and Why Pilots Die”. Quickly, I was overtaken by this book. At this time I consider it to be required reading for all pilots, especially newly branded pilots. At that time I reached out to Dr. Paul Craig, the author of the “The Killing Zone” and a number of other titles. My message to him was simply one of admiration, and I also asked him if he’d want to come on the show. He responded with a ‘yes’. Ever since, I’d been waiting for this episode to finally come up. Through his research, Paul has come up with some of the most intriguing conclusions in aviation training today. He proved that: TAA (technically advanced aircraft) really have nothing to do with efficient training, scenario based training REALLY works, an aviator can get a private with instrument quicker when the course is combined, and a competency based program does a great job turning out ready aviators. Of course, all of this is a body of work that was done outside his proven theories present in The Killing Zone. In the Killing Zone, Dr. Craig works diligently and masterfully to present this proven data and accident report breakdowns with a conversational and immersive writing tone. I found myself up until 4am a couple nights, totally engrossed in this material. What defines ‘The Killing Zone’? What does the title mean? The Killing Zone, as you will find out, is a proven stage of vulnerability for pilots. Pilots are most vulnerable under 1000 hours. However, it’s the hours between 100 and 350 where the accident and fatality rates spike tremendously. And, it has largely been this way for 30 years, the span of Paul’s data. This book is a treasure. You really can’t pass it up. As soon as you hit play on this podcast, you’ll realize just how easy going, knowledgable, and forward thinking Paul is. I immensely enjoyed this interview, and hope you will do the same. Useful Links The Killing Zone: How and Why Pilots Die Access to Flight (Private and Instrument Combined) TAA (Technically Advanced Aircraft) SBT (Scenario Based Training) Paul’s University Aviation Program Paul’s Page at ASA (a great aviation publication company) Other Books from Paul Craig Credits Dr. Paul Craig Huge thanks to Dr. Paul Craig for coming on the show. I speak on behalf of all of us at AviatorCast when I say it was quite an honor. Paul, thanks for your wonderful contribution to aviation. You’ve no doubt left an impact on this aviator’s mind. I can only imagine the thousands of others that are affected by your work. Thank you! Music Big thanks to Atrasolis for providing the great music for our podcast. Please check them out on their Facebook Page or SoundCloud and get the music you’ve heard for free. Crew Major thanks to the amazing Angle of Attack Crew for all their hard work over the years. Our team works incredibly hard, and they’re very passionate about what they do. Now What? iTunes Subscribe Want to get regular updates through iTunes? This is the easiest way to automatically download your podcast, and take it on the go. Make sure to SUBSCRIBE HERE. Email Signup Want us to let you know via email when episodes of AviatorCast are released? We can do that, too. SIGNUP ABOVE. Get Started Today! Want to get started with some of our video training? Go to our main page and signup for Aviator90 (our basic and free course) or other pay products we have. Transcript [transcript] This is AviatorCast episode 11, where we keep the blue side up! Calling all aviators, pilots and aviation lovers and aviation lovers, welcome to AviatorCast, where we close the gap between real aviation and flight simulation. Climb aboard, buckle up and prepare for takeoff. Here’s your host, Chris Palmer. Chris: Welcome, welcome, welcome aviators. You’ve landed at AviatorCast. My name is Chris Palmer. Some would call me a geek, they may be right and I’ll accept that title, so long as I still get to dock at an airplane, act as pilot in command, and slip the surly bonds of Earth. The rare air up there is my home. I’m the founder and owner of Angle of Attack, a flight simulation training company which is bringing you this podcast today. AviatorCast is a weekly podcast where we talk about the spirit of the aviator. We believe flying is an artform, one that we have to continually practice and master. This mastery is gained through a focus on continual learning, human factors, humility and a commitment to excellence. Each episode of AviatorCast will have real flight training and flight simulation topics or an interview with an inspirational and influential aviator. Our desire and mission is not only to create awesome aviators, but also bridge the gap between real aviation and flight simulation. Show notes, transcript, community discussion and links for this episode can be found by simply going to AviatorCast.com. So welcome to this, the 11th episode of AviatorCast. I’m very overjoyed that you’re here. This has been a great time so far and we have an awesome show lined up for you today. I’m really, really excited about this show and I think you guys will be too because we’ve alluded to it quite a few times already. So before we get into that, let’s hear a review from pilot23364 from the United States. He gives us five stars and says “Chris does a great job of keeping the listener interested with his laidback and conversational style. I’m a commercial pilot who has been flying for several years and the topics covered so far have really been a great refresher. Chris covers one real world aviation topic and one flight simulation topic per episode. I think all pilots and prospective pilots should subscribe. So thank you so much for that review. Much appreciated. That was left on iTunes. You can also review us on iTunes if you enjoy this show and it is a doozy let me tell you. We are absolutely honored today to have Dr. Paul Craig join us. Dr. Craig is the author of many aviation books, one of which we talk a lot about on the show called “The Killing Zone: How and Why Pilots Die.” Paul is a forward-thinking aviation educator that has made a tremendous impact on aviation safety and training through his seasoned career and I’m so excited to have him on the show with us today. I think his work is just tremendous and I really love the conversational and informative style of his writing. So I hate to make you hold short any longer or even clear you to line up and wait, so you’re cleared for takeoff. Now, hangar talk with Dr. Paul Craig. Now, a special hangar talk segment… Chris: Alright everybody, we are welcoming Dr. Paul Craig with us today, how are you Paul? Paul: Very good. Thanks for having me Chris. Chris: Yeah, it’s an honor. We have talked about your book The Killing Zone quite a bit. I think it’s brought up every episode we have here at AviatorCast. We’re definitely honored to have you here. We want to get to know you a little bit first so why don’t you tell us a bit about your background, how you got started with flying, kind of the medium stuff you did in your flying career and where you’re at now so people can get an idea of who you are and what you’re about. Paul: Well thanks Chris and thanks so much for having me. It’s a pleasure and it’s an honor for me as well. But you know, nobody in my family was a pilot. I was not exposed to aviation at all really growing up. My father was a businessman, he travelled some so I’ve gone to the airport, but nothing about actually flying. Then when I was, I think I was a junior in high school, there was an English teacher at my school. I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He was an English teacher but he was also a private pilot and I don’t know how he did it but he figured out some way to convince the principal I guess to offer an aviation science class as an elective, and to be honest I did not know it was but I guess I needed a science elective so I took the class. Essentially, it was sort of like a private pilot ground school and the guy was terrific. I remembered that in the spring semester, he wanted us to do three projects and we had to choose three projects off a list of eight things to do, and five of the eight things were like term paper or sort of things, people might not wanted to do, but the other three were discovery flights or introductory flights at three local airports. So nobody wanted to write those papers so we all went off and took introductory flights and that’s when I first get behind the yoke of a small airplane and one of those kind of things. I went up on that flight and really never came back down. Chris: Yeah, just like a lot of us. Paul: So I owe a lot to that teacher. In fact, he’s still around and I’m still in contact with him. He made us a promise that if anybody ever actually got a pilot’s license which seem like a farfetched thing to dream at that time, that we would have to come back and take him for a flight. Well, it did happen. I’ve lost track of him there for a while when I was in college and a little few years after that, but eventually I did hook back up with him and I did pay my debts. I [inaudible-00:06:14] that statement that says as pilots we have our debts to pay. I certainly paid mine with my high school teacher and I got a picture of him when I, well he’s long since retired now, but it was really the thing that got me going and lots of people have a story like that. Sometimes it just takes a little push. Chris: Certainly does, yeah that’s great. And where from there? How did you get into… I’m guessing after that point you got into a college program or what did you… Paul: I did. Actually, I’m a professor now at Middle Tennessee State University but I went to MTSU. I mentioned I grew up in Nashville so it was nearby. So I graduated and I became a flight instructor. I wanted to be a flight instructor but I also wanted to teach at the college level, and so I looked around to see where I might be able to do both things and I ended up in North Carolina. I taught at a community college in North Carolina for about nine years and kind of really earned my strides. At first, I was the department head but that’s only because I was the only one there, and I was the flight instructor and the ground school teacher all in one. When I got there, I think we had 11 students and as I said, I left nine years later to return to MTSU and I think the program had over 150 students at that point. It was a great experience for me and I learned a lot of things. Then as I said, I came back to MTSU as the chief flight instructor. Eventually, joined the faculty and was a department chair for a while and now I’m a professor of aerospace. I teach as I specialize in the flight instructor class, and I tried to do research projects and write some books occasionally. Chris: Yeah, it sends like from there, your career got pretty varied. When did you start writing your books? Paul: Well I had a few, when I was a flight instructor and still looking for a college job, teaching job, I had written some articles on flight instruction, various aspects of flight instruction. I had sent them in and had a few of them published, you know, plane and pilot magazine and flying magazine and so forth. And so at one point I thought “Maybe what I should do is just kind of like combo all those together in like column chapter and maybe this could be a manuscript.” Well, that’s not really a good idea but at that time I didn’t know that. So I sent a bunch of those into different publishers, got many rejection letters. And then one day, a guy by the name of Tom Morsinger called me up, I didn’t know him, and he said that he’d take a look at one of my manuscripts and he said something like “You know, we really enjoyed your conversational style of which you’re writing and all and we think it’s very interesting,” and I’m getting all excited right. But then he said “But we’re not going to publish what you sent us.” “Then why do you put me on a hook like that?” And he said “Well, we’re kind of a conservative company. We tried to go into the field and see what the market needs and then we get somebody who we think can speak to that, to write about it, and we’re interested to know if you would like to do one of the projects.” At that time, it was TED books and then later became Carter Mcgraw-Hill. So I said yes and after about two or three projects like that, I started thinking a little selfishly maybe that “Well, who are these gurus that are out there in the world telling pilots what they need to read. I’m out here everyday, maybe I should be pitching some ideas.” From that point on, I think most of the titles were of my own ideas. But that’s really how it started, almost by accident. Chris: Great. Yeah, I really love that. Can you, I don’t know if you list off in your head. What books have you actually written and what are the basic subjects of those books? Paul: My first one was called “Be a Better Pilot” and the name kind of speaks for itself. It’s trying to increase the airmanship of pilots. This was about 20 some odd years ago. That was the idea. That gist of it was to try to look at various areas that pilots could increase their professionalism, I guess airmanship. I did one on stalls and spins and stall-spin prevention. You might know who Bill Kershner was, he passed away about three years ago, but he was probably the preeminent aerobatics and spin instructor, and he lived in Tennessee and I got to know him and my experience and time spent with him is extremely valuable now looking back on it. And so I actually went and he’s like the expert of spins at that time, and I actually went and asked permission if it would be okay if I will write the book, because I didn’t want to step on his toes. It was like going to see Yoda. He said “No, the more information out there the better. It can only make aviation safer,” so he was very supportive. I wrote a multiengine flying book. I’m a multiengine instructor myself and it’s always been an area that’s a difficult subject for pilots sometimes especially in the aerodynamics area, single engine aerodynamics of a multiengine airplane, one of those. I wrote a book called “Pilot in Command” which, I’m probably giving away too many secrets. It was actually a rewrite of my doctoral dissertation. Nobody in their right mind would read a doctoral dissertation if they didn’t have to. So it was a research project that I had done while I was finishing that degree, and by this time, I had a really good relationship with the publisher and I said “Yeah, I got this idea to rewrite this into more of a conversation style as opposed to a more formal style that a dissertation would be written in.” And that was really based on a research project where we took pilots and put them in real world scenarios in a simulator and let tips fall where they may, and that was a very interesting project and I really enjoyed putting that into a book form that people might actually read. I did a project when I was in college graduate school where I was supposed to do some curriculum improvement, so I picked the navigation class. I’ve taught navigation but there doesn’t seem to really be a good navigation book that covers it the right amount. In most books, it will be a chapter on navigation then there are other books that are like more than you need for primary training, so I tried to put something together for my college class and when the class was over with, I just didn’t want to put it on the shelf, so that became another book. It became “Air Navigation Essentials.” Very basic. Actually it mentions GPS but it’s really pre-GPS in the book. And then the two editions of The Killing Zone that you mentioned before which we can talk about some. But really, they just kind of reflect what I was thinking about at that time and I don’t know… my English teachers, they just would roll over in their grave if they realize that somebody who could hardly get out of an English class has had the chance to write these books, but I don’t really think of it like that. Chris what I do is I just sit down at the computer and I just pretend that it’s just you and me. I just think it’s you and me on a Saturday afternoon at the hangar and it’s raining so we can’t go flying so we’re going to talk about something, and so I just simply have a conversation with the keyboard. That’s why these books are not textbooks. Well, I guess one of them sort of is but, the Access to Flight book probably is, but the others are really not, and they’re not meant to be. People don’t read textbooks for pleasure. Chris: Yeah, I know they don’t. No matter what the subject matter is. Paul: Exactly. Chris: You know, that’s what I actually really love about your writing style and what attracted me to it instantly, was just the conversational style. But not only that, all of which you talked about is backed up with data or accidents reports which is really interesting. You’re not just sharing opinions but you’re actually backing it up with data, so it’s nearly undisputable. In the sense of The Killing Zone, it is nearly undisputable that there’s an area there where pilots are getting in more accidents if you will. Paul: Well that’s correct. You know, I’m not completely thrilled with that title. I think my title was actually The Danger Zone. I guess maybe we got talked into that by the publisher to make it a little bit more sensational, but it still is true and you pointed out. There are two editions of the book. In the first book, I wrote in I guess the year 2000. I took the data from 1983 to 1999. I pick 1983 simply because that’s the year I became a flight instructor. I just wanted to take a look and see what all that happened during the years that I had been a flight instructor and just take a look to see. And as you said, there’s a zone that the accidents show where pilots are the most likely to be involved in an accident. You have to be careful with statistics, especially accident statistics. I always try to caution people about this. Accidents, while they are rare, they don’t happen a lot, so in a pure statistical sense, these accidents would be called outliers. They’re not in the normal group. So a statistician would immediately throw out the outliers and not consider them. But when there are accidents, that’s what we do consider, so it’s really not a statistically sound thing to do to just look at the accidents because you’re only looking at the unusual things. And so, you have to kind of look at the numbers for what they’re actually telling you. When we look at just raw numbers, and of course raw numbers are sometimes deceptive because you could for instance have 100 accidents one year, and then 200 the next year, and you would think that the second year would be more dangerous or less safe year. But maybe not. Maybe flying took place four times as much, and so the exposure to the risk was greater in one year and the accident rate might have been less. So you have to kind of be careful when you deal with accidents statistics for all those reasons. But nevertheless, the information is still there and it’s still important to know that as I look through the statistics and I was dealing with fatal accidents and gosh I hope readers pay close attention to the part where I say just how respectful that I am about this, and that we are not in any way trying to cast judgments, say “Well this person did something wrong.” What we’re trying to do is learn from this and try to make it better for the next group or the next person along. I picked from 1983 forward because these were the years I was instructor, so I take this really personally. These are the years that maybe I could’ve done something. I couldn’t have stopped all these accidents because I didn’t all these people, but you see, what I’m saying is as a fraternity of flight instructors, this is our job. So these were actually personal failings. To me, it’s very powerful because if you have a fatal accident, we lose someone who is a fellow pilot, someone who’s in our, not necessarily our profession but certainly in our love of aviation. That’s what I always try to caution people. We deal with a very delicate subject. As I did the numbers, it came out pretty clear. Student pilots are extremely safe. They have very low accident rates, and so we have to at least make the assumption that part of the reason they’re safe even though they have less experience than others, is that the flight instructor’s influence has got to be included. A flight instructor does have veto power over a solo flight or a solo cross country flight, and what I tried to do with my students is I let them make the decision and then see if we agree and if we don’t agree, then we talk about it. Most of the time, we do agree and that helps them learn to make these decisions but after they become private pilots, the accident rate or the accident numbers increased markedly so and stayed that way until pilots attain an area of flight error experience of around, it was around 350s when it started to taper off. So that was the zone right there and it’s kind of a scary thing to think that the way to get experience is to get out there, yet there are some who have not survived that zone of time when they were trying to gain experience for whatever reason. That was really the discovery I guess at that time. And then 12 years went by and I’m thinking you know, between 2000 and 2011, just think of all the things Chris that have happened in aviation since then. You’ve been a pilot there in that same period of time. With automation and autopilots and GPS and moving maps and all the things that are with us now that weren’t with us during that 1983 to 2000 period of time. So I wanted to go back and revisit this and just see what has happened in those years. Has automation in any way improved the situation? And so the second edition of the book, I guess the headline is that things are better. There have been fewer accidents in total. But sadly that gap, that zone still exists. There are still more accidents in raw numbers that take place in that zone, that 50 to 350 range, even though the total number is down. I guess that’s a success but my job as a flight instructor on a personal basis and I guess my job on a larger basis with the books is to try to train out the next accident and try to make it so that the next accident doesn’t happen. And that’s a difficult. Actually it’s impossible to tabulate because you can’t count the accident that never happened. Chris: Right yeah. Paul: So you can never go back really and say “Well because we said this or because we did that or because we taught this or we wrote this, that 10 accidents didn’t happen. You’ll never know. So you just do the best you can and you hope for the best. Chris: Right, year. That’s exactly something I pointed out to someone else when I was discussing this with them, is yes we have all these accident data but we don’t have any data showing an accident that was prevented because someone read a book or because someone read an article or because they went up and did more training than they were supposed to for their biannual flight review. We can’t measure those things and that’s one of the catch-22s about being a pilot, is you just have to watch out for yourself constantly, and one word that I use even in the intro to the show is humility, just knowing that you have to stay ahead and you’re not invulnerable and you shouldn’t be macho and all those things. So yeah, definitely you got to stay ahead of that. So, you did this new version largely because, or rather the second edition largely because of the introduction of TAA or as the FAA calls them, technically advanced aircraft, but one thing that I really enjoyed and one thing that I really believed in with flight training is scenario-based training or SBT. Tell us a little bit about the study that you had done with TAA and SBT and what you learned from that, just kind of summarizing what you shared in the book. Paul: Yeah, I’ll be happy to. I’m a university professor so in addition to teaching classes, my primary responsibility is to go out and see if I can seek out some research funding. And so I was successful about 10 years ago working with NASA, and people say “NASA? I thought you have to do with airplanes, not go to Mars or something.” But remember, the first A in NASA is aeronautics, so they were very in the situation, and so my proposal that we were able to fund and successfully complete, was when the technically mass aircraft were just coming out and our school was purchasing some airplanes and we were going to try to equip them with glass cockpit, it turned out to be G1000 system. And so my strategy was to try to find out what new things should we start tseaching when we have technically advanced aircraft that we haven’t before. This is just a technology shift that’s common in many walks of my life. I always say there was a time in my life when I knew how to change the ribbon on a typewriter, but that’s just not a skill that I need anymore and it’s not a skill I should be teaching, otherwise I’m just wasting somebody’s time. So what things are going to be like that in aviation? What things are tried and true but still obsolete that we need to shift and what things that we never even of yet, should we start teaching right away? So I came up with a strategy to use a scenario-based training system and used glass cockpits and start with a new group of students and just see what would happen. I guess it’s been about 10 years ago but the freshmen class came in and I let them know that they were going to be the ones that we’re going to fly the new airplanes with the new cool electronics and avionics and then we would just see what happened. I used, we’re a Part 141 school and there’s a little known portion of 141, I don’t remember the right number, but it said something like this, that if you can convince the FAA that your way of teaching is as rigorous as theirs, then you can get it approved as accepted. I was working with the folks at FAA headquarters in Washington as part of this grant, and so they were instrumental in helping nudge my local FSDO into approving the syllabus, and the syllabus included not only scenarios but competency-based, so it had no minimum flight times, and I still to this day don’t… pretty sure that the guys at the national FSDO didn’t know what they were approving but they were being told to. Just observe how pilots were going to fly and we did this is with a combination syllabus for private and instrument all at once. In other words, they stayed student pilots all the way until the day they became private instruments in one check ride. And I had to get an exemption from the FARs to do that because back then, you had to be a private pilot in order to be eligible for the instrument rating. Because of this research that was changed, now the regulation reads that it can be done either way. Traditionally what you do when you try to see if you’ve made any improvements in pilot training is you see if the flight hours that he students are flying are less or more. But in this example, we weren’t really counting flight hours. It was a competency-based syllabus so the student met the standards of a particular lesson, they moved on, and when they went through all the training, we didn’t care how many hours they had when they went for a check ride. Just we want to know “were they confident?” So we weren’t able to compare apples to apples that way, so to determine if we were doing any better, what we did was, you know, all flight schools have a backroom that has a filing cabinet full of old dusty training records right? So we went and dusted those things off and we went through about the previous 10 years of our private and instrument training and tried to discover how many times did a student during those years have a set back and we define a setback as any time the student came up to like lesson 12 and they haven’t made the completion standard for lesson 12, so they had to repeat lesson 12 again. They didn’t go straight to lesson 13. And we eliminated times when people were gone for a summer break or Christmas holidays, things like that, so that to be a natural setback, and we discovered that our students in those years from zero hours to instrument rating had on average about 12 setbacks. In other words, 12 times that they had to repeat a lesson at least one time because they’d hit a learning plateau or they’d hit a roadblock of some kind. Now think about that, 12 setbacks is a lot of money and it’s a lot of frustration. Every pilot who’s in training has had one of those days right, where the wheels kind of came off and they drove home from the airport saying “I’m not ever going out back there again.” Chris: Yeah definitely. Paul: Every pilot can relate to this. Twelve times was a lot I thought but that was the average. So after one year’s time of doing our scenario-based, competency-based glass cockpit training, the students from zero to instrument rating, their average setbacks was three. So it had dropped from 12 to 3 and that’s several thousand dollars saved and lots and lots of frustration saved. So we thought that we were kind of on to something but remember we bit off a lot more than we thought we could chew. We were having technically-advanced aircraft and we were having scenario-based training. So although I had my hunch, I couldn’t know for sure with proof with data to back it up which one was making the improvement. Was it the syllabus or was it the airplane? So the next year, we did another experiment to try to answer that question, and this time, we took our students that were moving through the program into the instrument rating and we let them fly the new airplanes with the glass cockpit but with the old syllabus. So we waited another year and we counted everything and we watched everything and we observed flights. And of course, if the number of setbacks stayed low, then we would have evidence that it was the technically advanced aircraft that was making the big difference because that’s what was different between the two. But if the setbacks were to return, then it would tell us that the different syllabus, the scenario-based syllabus was the one making the difference because that was the thing that was different the next year. Well guess what? The setbacks returned, and they were pretty close to 12 again. And so that gave us some evidence to make the statement that flight instructors really, really matter and the syllabus that you use really, really matters and if you use a scenario-based training approach that puts the pilot in real-word situations, they’re far more prepared to make those decisions on those situations when they’re on their own and outside of training because they’ve done it before inside of training. So although I think that the technically advanced aircraft are terrific and we don’t want to go back, I think that it’s the way you teach. It’s not the equipment alone, it’s not the electronics alone that makes the difference, and so I guess you could teach scenario-based training with a fleet of J-3 Cubs and come out okay. That was our experience with it and now, the check ride, the practical test standard has enhanced language about using scenarios in the check ride and we were listed in the federal register as the research that helped them make the decision to go in that direction. And Chris, let me say this while we’re on the topic. There were some back then and maybe some still today that felt like that if you were in favor of scenarios, that that somehow made you opposed to maneuver training. And really, that’s not true. You still have to be able to land in a crosswind, and you still have to be able to fly the airplane and handle emergencies and all those things. So we’re certainly not against that, but we tried to put these things in real world scenarios where, for instance, one we did was I’d ask a student to… I would pose as a friend of theirs and I’d actually bring a camera with me. We’d fly out to some places and I need to take a picture of this house. Could you fly around the house and I’m going to take photographs as we go around it. And as we were going around it, I would say things like “Hey, could you get a little lower? Because I’m just not getting the angle of the shot I need. And this wing is in the picture. Could you kind of yaw the plane back so I could get a better angle with a full frame?” And so I’m attempting the patient. You see, I’m doing the turnaround the point right? Chris: Right, exactly. Paul: Okay, but I’m attempting the student to go lower than they should. I’m attempting the pilot to fly in an unsafe, maybe uncoordinated way and this is exactly what his buddy is going to do after the check ride and he’s a private pilot. He’s going to go out and do this because he wants to show his friends how cool this is and they’re going to want to take pictures of their house. So we’re still teaching the skills but now the pilot is seeing it in a real world example, and you know, we’re pilots, we get bored very easy. If we don’t have a reason for doing it, we don’t want to do it. The reason we’re pilots in the first place is we love a new challenge every single day. If you and I were to take off and fly a cross country and then tomorrow we went and did the same flight, it wouldn’t be the same flight really. The wind is different, the weather is different. There’s all going to be things that are going to be a new challenge for us. That’s where people say “But why do you like to fly?” and sometimes it’s hard for us to put our finger on that, but part of the reason is it provides us that challenge that’s everyday different. I have respect for people who work on the assembly line and do the same thing day after day, hour after hour, but it would drive me crazy. And so, this need to have an application for our knowledge is part of being a pilot, so we think the scenario-based training just goes with our personality and I think the students really, well I know the students really respond to it well and like it better, but it doesn’t mean we don’t teach basic stick and rudder. We’ll never get away from that. Chris: Right. Yeah, that always has to be the base. You know, this is obviously directly related to The Killing Zone in a literal sense just because when you get your license and you’re going out and you’re actually taking passengers for the first time, these are the types of scenarios that these people will be going through, and because of this lack of scenario-based training, this is had to prove but it’s very, very likely that this is directly related to the reason why you have such a spike in the accident rate in that timeframe, because this decision-making hadn’t been really driven into the students when they were pilots. It just seems like it’s directly related in that sense. Paul: Well of course I agree. Anything that we practice, we get better at. And so we practice landings so we get better at it. We practice our takeoffs or maneuvers, we get better at it. We should also practice our decision making. The difference between, people always say “Good flight instructors have always presented things to students.” You’ll be flying along and the instructor will say “Okay, let’s pretend there’s a line of thunderstorms in front of us now, and we’re going to have to figure out what to do,” so the student decides to divert to a different airport or maybe turn around and go back to the airport where they came from. And when they do that, then they’re showing their skills at how to navigate a new course or set a new course, and that’s a good skill to have. But in the real world, it’s a different thing, because in the real world, you would have had a reason to be going on that flight in the first place. Chris: Right. Paul: Right? In other words, let’s say you were going to a family reunion or your grandmother’s 80th birthday, and the whole family is gathering and you’re going to fly there. So now when you’re in route, if you see if a lot thundershowers, it’s not as easy a decision just to go somewhere else or to turn back because people are expecting you to be there. So the pressure of the real world is going to be much different than the training world. And so, sure you call it a successful lesson when you just divert to an airport and land, but you missed the whole point about the consequences of not making that flight, and the pressure that will be on the pilot. There is no pressure if you’re just pleasing your instructor by diverting, but you’re going to disappoint your whole family if you don’t make it to this flight, so put yourself in that situation. You’re going to be more likely to press ahead and try to make it through because that’s the consequences of you not making through are pretty great in your mind as opposed to just a training environment thing where you’re just trying to get this lesson taken care of so you can move on. You’ve got to put people in that spot so that they can practice disappointing people sometimes if it’s not safe to go, and put them in a situation where they can actually practice the decision-making in an area where there are actual consequences involved. Chris: Yeah, and that’s very difficult, especially for new pilots that maybe even with a father figure on board, they feel like they’re not necessarily the pilot in command, that they still have their dads in there that will tell them to do things and he’s kind of the authority figure, but when you’re the pilot in command, you are the boss of your airplane and what you say goes and that’s the way it is. That’s one thing that not only we learn through books and through what people say, but we have to learn through experience. It’s just one of those things you have to experience and do for yourself. Paul: Yeah I agree. On occasion fly, my university president around the different meetings and occasions, my university president is my boss’ boss’ boss’ boss, I’m like seven or eight grounds below, and the first time they flew with me, I had this conversation with him. I said “Now, I know you’re the university president and that whatever you say goes, but once we close this door on this airplane, then there’s no meeting that’s so important that you have to go to that we’re going to risk our safety, and if you’re good with that, we’ll have a fine relationship. If you’re not good with that, then you need another pilot.” I guess I was at the point, maybe I was even tenured, maybe I was at the point where I could say something like that to the president, but you’re right, it could be a lot of pressure especially if it’s a boss, somebody’s hired you to do a job and that job is to get them home for the holidays, it’s difficult to tell them that you can’t do it. So there’s lots of extenuating circumstances that can turn really, really good pilots into poor decision makers. Chris: Right, and you know, a perfect, actually almost exact example of this is the Polish president that crashed the entire aircraft full of diplomats that the pilots went minimum because someone else is in the cockpit essentially telling them to try to do the approach. Obviously, some other things come into play and we can Monday morning quarterback but it’s just one of those situations where there was a lot of pressure for them to get there and just very, very difficult. Paul: Well that’s why I’m very sympathetic to these pilots that are involved in these things because there probably was great pressure involved. They didn’t handle it very well but nevertheless, there are lots of things in life we don’t handle that well, but the stakes are just higher. Chris: Yeah, exactly. Great. So I think we’ve touched on The Killing Zone a lot. A couple of followup questions I want to talk about before we move on to kind of our final subject here on The Killing Zone is, what has reaction been since you’ve written this book? What are other pilots saying? What kind of feedback are you getting from the aviation community as a whole? Paul: Well I’m happy to say that it has been very positive. There is a lot of discussion about the style I guess of the book and how it is very conversational as opposed to buying a textbook or a book of that nature, so I’ve been really encouraged by what I’ve been able to hear. I get emails and phone calls frequently about it. You said earlier that it’s hard to know if something that you might have said in a seminar or written in a book might have helped another pilot and prevented an accident. There’s this one little anecdotal case. I have a friend now, his name is Allan, he lives in Toronoto. He sent me an email and he said that he was going to be visiting Nashville and he wanted to know if he could take my wife and I out to dinner. This guy is a total stranger and so I’m saying “Well, okay.” So we picked a public case so just in case, you know. So we met him and he said “I want to take you out to dinner because I took with a friend of mine who is a private pilot and we got in the air a little too high and the stall horn went off, and somehow I remembered from one of your books that if you put the nose down just enough to gain you enough airspeed without hitting the ground, you’ll be able to accelerate with a flying speed to make a normal takeoff.” So he took the airplane from his friend and missed the fence at the end of the airport and made a normal climb-out and he claims that I helped him avoid an accident. So I guess that’s one. That’s one time when you can say. But no, Allan is a great guy and we stay in touch now all the time. So I don’t get a lot of things like that but I do get lots of feedback on the book itself and how we try to not only look at an accident. This is not a book of just retelling of accidents. It’s to try to show what things can we know, what things can we learn that would put us in a safer or stronger position if we ever find ourselves in that same spot. So yeah I’m very thankful for the feedback I get. Sometimes they’ll ask me a question and I’ll have to kind of go back and find it in the book myself. I was on an accreditation visit once and there were some students at a university that I was visiting, and they were kind of huddled over in the corner at this reception with faculty members, were mingling around and finally they got up the nerve I guess and they came over and said “Dr. Craig, we need to ask you a question about this book…” and they said “On page 276 of this book, it says…” of course didn’t remember what was on page 276 and I said “Guys, I probably wrote that at 2 o’clock in the morning 10 years ago. You’re going to have to give a minute to catch up here.” But it is a lot of fun and I’m just happy that they’re well received. Chris: Yeah. I’ve really enjoyed it and like I said, I’ve mentioned it on almost every show I’ve had since I’ve read the book just because it’s had such a big impact and to the extent where I think it should be almost required reading for people going through their training. Paul: Well thanks for those kind words. Chris: Yeah, no problem. So one last question before we move on. A lot of our listeners are using simulators at home, not only to stay fresh but to get familiarized with the aircraft before they even get into the cockpit with a certified flight instructor and start their training. How useful do you see home simulators not only in staying fresh but in staying familiar and things of that nature? Paul: Well I think it’s a terrific breakthrough. Nothing is going to replace the sensation of flying. Your body doesn’t feel the movements and the acceleration of being in an airplane. But that’s not what these things are for. Those sensations will be gained and learned within the actual plane but just the familiarization of the cockpit and the layout and terminology and the phraseology that you would use, that you can come to a flight lesson having already experienced these things is extremely important. One of my son’s friends and I were talking and I was talking about flying into I think Washington DC’s national airport, and he said “Yeah, I’ve done that. Of course, I’ve done it on the computer.” He was talking like he’d really done it. But in his mind he’d experienced it at some degree. No, I think it is a wonderful tool. I think not only for recurrent training to stay fresh as you said, but also in initial going just so it’s not quite, the unknown of some of those things is removed. When we did our first experiments and lessons with glass cockpits, we realized that there’s a lot of I guess what’s been called knobology involved which means in my day if you got a new fancy gizmo for the airplane, you’d take off and mess with it while you’re in flight. Well that’s probably not a safe thing to do. With the new glass cockpit systems, softkeys and so forth, there’s a lot of just practice and making sure you can turn this knob or push that button to get to the screen you want. I’m always going to the wrong screen, having to back up. It was real important to do more time on the ground and not try to do all that while we’re also flying. So a home-based simulator that has that ability, I’m telling you, they’re more helpful and useful now than they would have been 10 years ago simply because of that. Chris: Yeah, you know. Especially for new pilots now, the millennials if you will, they are almost, they’re at a big university or a modern school, they’re almost always getting into technically advanced aircraft and they’re kind of the digital babies if you will anyway, so they need to be familiar with that kind of technology, and they are from the outset. I think also in this topic on The Killing Zone and what we talked about before, is there’s also those core skills, those core decision-making skills that are just a part of an aviator. They started all the way back with Charles Lundberg and before and the Wright Brothers, and those are still very much prevalent today. There’s one quote, I use it a lot, I really love it from Orville Wright. He said “It’s possible to fly without engines, but not without knowledge and skill.” I just always really love that and I think it really wraps it all together. Paul: I love that, and you know, Charles Lindberg was a flight instructor too. And a quote from him and I’m sure it’s not a direct quote, but he said “An airplane is a wonderful piece of machinery because it can teach two lessons at once. It can teach a primary lesson to the student but an advanced lesson to the instructor.” Nothing is more truer than that as far as I’m concerned. You learn so much on every flight and that’s what feeds us. That’s what makes it so exciting for us I think. But you’re right about the millennials, and one of the research questions we had originally was FAA wanted to know, should you have to have like an endorsement or maybe even a new license for glass cockpit. Is it so different that we have to have a whole another license to go by. The recommendation from our research was that no, you didn’t have to do that. In fact, it wasn’t unusual for these people to get in an airplane that had computer equipment. In fact, to me, it’s an airplane with a computer in it. To them, it was sort of a computer with an airplane around it. Does that make sense? Chris: That’s good. Paul: So like everything in their life was computerized, so why wouldn’t an airplane be? They look at you like you had two heads when you mentioned that this is supposed to be unusual. This isn’t unusual to them. It was comfortable. So no, there’s no need for a whole another license or another endorsement for use of glass cockpit. Then the question came “If you’re always learning glass, can you go the other way? Can you train in glass cockpit and then transition backwards to a round-dial airplane. Can the image and the attitude of the airplane, the position of the airplane that the picture of a glass cockpit gives you, can it be reproduced by using the round dials or is the picture just so apparent that you can’t form it on your own. Well our experience has been that it goes both ways, that the situation awareness that a glass cockpit can provide, you’ve seen what it’s supposed to look like so when you fly round-dials, you know you look for. It’s had to search for something when you don’t know what it is. I think that it’s been a great benefit for pilots this increase in technology no matter what airplane you fly. Chris: Yeah. I would say that’s true even in my own experience because I was lucky enough to fly a 1956 Bonanza and then we upgraded it to a 2008 Bonanza at the time, and I didn’t really bother, because I lived in the Rocky Mountains, I didn’t really bother getting my instrument rating in the old Bonanza just because I couldn’t fly enough for the mountain terrain and all that stuff, so we would get an icing or whatever else if there was instrument conditions so I didn’t bother. But once we got the new Bonanza, I got a course at flight safety and got to know the systems really well on the airplane and also the G1000. The G1000 in many senses taught me a lot about instrument flying. Yes, I had my rating. Yes, I was flying instruments and doing so in actual conditions, but the system alone did teach me a lot about that picture that you talked about and it is something that I could go back to a basic six type of aircraft and have that picture in my head about how everything is working, the transitions work, how to smooth things out if you will from one set to the next, so definitely. Paul: Yeah. I agree. I think it’s a great thing. Chris: Alright. So let’s wrap up with your latest and greatest. You have taken this private pilot instrument combined and you’ve recently released this with ASA Publications in a program called Access to Flight. So this is a private pilot instrument combined. Essentially when the pilot goes takes the check ride, they are not taking a check ride for a private pilot alone, but rather for private and instrument. So tell us, how this process works, what this program is like, and what kind of results you’re seeing come from a combined course like this which honestly, I’m a huge believer and especially when we’re looking at the number one accident cause being VMC into IMC, it just seems like a no-brainer that we’re going this direction with training. Paul: I agree. This can be done either part or combined. It can private standalone followed by instrument standalone or combined either way. But the reason that we went ahead and did this approach with a private instrument combined is it is TAA-driven. They’re technology, when you think about it, those systems really kind of do turn night into day with what you can see in the cockpit with the primary displays and multifunction displays, it turns IFR into VFR. And so it’s a blended thing, and there may be a time soon enough where there’s, we don’t think of it as two different things. It’s just flying and we’re going to fly in a weather that’s safe but we’ll fly IFR it’s safe and it won’t be something that’s seen as two separate things in the future. At least that’s a possibility. Access to Flight was actually initiated working in conjunction with Cirrus Design. They had used that in their own training in the United States and across the world and as you said, Aviation Supplies and Academics is the publisher of the book. They’re just such great people to work with. Essentially, and this is what I alluded to before, there is one textbook out there with my name on it I guess, because this is sort of a textbook but it has chapters both of private data or private information that you consider private pilot information and instrument information and it comes with a syllabus. It both comes in a student version and in the instructor version, that takes a pilot and instructor through flight lessons all the way from the first introductory flights to the instrument rating. And they’re all scenario-based. There are lots of scenario samples in there for the instructor. The instructor edition has tips and things to enhance the instructor’s presentation. As I said, it’s very flexible. It could be used for someone who’s just interested now in getting the private portion of it done, but as I said, if you’re going to fly in an airplane that has these electronic marbles, then it’s almost a shame, it’s almost like watching only black and white television shows on the colored TV. You’d want to use your whole capability and that makes a natural integration to instrument flight. I think it’s also been well-received and the instructor edition and the pilot edition got syllabus with all tips and things to guide you through one lesson to the other. It’s not to replace an instructor. The most important safety tool you ever have is your flight instructor. So great flight instruction is always required to produce good safe pilots, but this is a backup for that instructor, to help them so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Chris: Right, yeah. When did you guys release this package? Paul: Chris it’s been a couple of years. It’s not been that new. It’s probably been I guess 2012. Chris: Okay, great. Are you seeing a lot of… I know that your university has adopted this private pilot instrument combined. I don’t know if you guys were still doing that, but how many schools out there are doing this sort of thing? Paul: I don’t know a number to be honest. We have done it and we’ve also incorporated commercial pilot scenario-based training for our curriculum and because it is also competency-based, there is no minimum flight time on that as well. So a person, they go for their commercial check ride whenever they’re ready and sometimes that’s less time than you normally see. We’re a part 141 school so you could get a commercial on 190 hours typically, but our average is down around 165, 170, and some of that includes maybe 20 hours of simulator time. Chris: Right. Paul: And let me say that our goal was not necessarily to cut down the flight time. Our goal was do this in a way that was efficient and produce safe pilots and that they would enjoy. The fact that it’s been less time has just been icing on the cake, but of course the students love that part because it’s cheaper for them to do it. And so now we have scenario-based training that goes all the way to commercial. You know, I think that initially, the scenario-based idea was under the FITS program, FAA-Industry Training Standards. It was not something that was a law. It was a recommendation because laws take a long time to change. So now, I think FITS was sort of a proof of concept idea. It was to see would this work, would there be any benefits to it, how would the students like it, would it produce solid pilots or improve the pilot quality. So now I think we’ve transitioned. FITS is still around but now, since the scenario idea is part of the check ride in the practical test standard, we’ve moved to more of an application of scenarios as opposed to what FITS was sort of just a trial in pilot project as it were. So I think that we’ve seen in the last seven or eight years that translation from a trial, a test project to a standard operative procedure pretty much. Chris: Right. So are you convinced this is the way the future, this scenario-based training, the combined instrument private sort of thing? Paul: I think the scenario-based training is the highlight. If a person doesn’t want to do a combination private instrument, then that’s not a deal-breaker for me, that’s their preference. But I always think the scenario-based training matches how we train better. You train for the real world so you’re ready for it when we you get there. But I became more convinced just from reaction of the students. They really do see a reason to do these things, and students are the first to say “Why are we going to go out and do…” and you name the maneuver, fill in the blank, and sometimes the answer is well it’s because it’s on the syllabus. We sort of have to do that. Well that’s not really a good reason. I remember once, I asked this, a student pilot to do a turnaround the point on a stage check once and he did have a very good job. There were strong winds and he took care of it, perfectly handled the wind rift, and so I just said “Why exactly would we do such a maneuver?” and what he told me was that was really just a practice for later on when they would do holding patterns in the instrument training world, and I’m saying “That’s not really the answer that I was looking for.” That’s not the real reason. So in other words, that person had learned a maneuver but not had been taught any application whatsoever. He did not know why he was doing it. And so therefore anytime you ask a pilot to go memorize something, they’ll do it but they won’t remember it very long and when it comes down to, they’ll get pilot written test, but when it comes down to actually applying it, if all they’ve ever done is memorize stuff, it just doesn’t work. You cant’ make the association from just learning a fact and how you’re going to put those facts together with five other facts to handle a situation that comes up. So I just think, the way to go that is the most applicable to what the students need and it’s great that the students like it. Chris: Yeah, definitely. I do like that it’s competency-based too rather than a rating mill, just getting people through their ratings. It’s actually teaching them the correct principles which is so important in the initial stages especially going back to what we see with The Killing Zone. Paul: Yeah, I certainly agree. Chris: So now, we are where we are. Where do you think aviation training is going in the future? Paul: You know, it’s going to be always important to fly the airplane, to maintain the skills of a pilot, the skills involved with just the airmanship, but I think that the knowledge base is going to continue to grow. I mean, I have a book of pilot knowledge that pilots like in the 30s would have used and it’s 50 pages… Chris: Right. Paul: And now our books are hundreds of pages. So I think that if you love to fly, if you want to learn to fly, then work with an instructor who really knows the stick and rudder skills. I fly off an airport that has only one runway so our students have to learn how to land in the crosswind. We don’t have a second runway to go to in case the wind is perpendicular. I don’t see that ever changing but the environment we fly in will probably change. I was in a meeting one time where a guy asked a question about the future. He says “In 20 years, will there be such a thing as VFR? In 20 years, will there be such a thing as uncontrolled airspace?” And I don’t know the answers to those two things. I can say that I hope there is just from my own standpoint. What will be the effect of unmanned vehicles? Will there be a time where pilots are not allowed to fly because it’s more accurate to fly an unmanned vehicle from the ground. They’ll have to have restricted areas where pilots can go out and fly around and like now we have areas where only unmanned planes can fly. Gosh I hope it doesn’t get to that. I think challenges are always going to be there. But I like to look at it positively. I think the additional technology that we have available to us is just incredible. I think the job of pilot has shifted some from simply a manipulator of controls, to information manager. The idea, the fact that in your onboard systems now, you can probably figure out what time sunset will be in Stockton, California tonight. Well that might be really good information but maybe not while I’m shooting an instrument approach in Nashville. So I have to be able to… it used to be that you didn’t have enough information to make good decisions. Now you have too much. Now you have to be able to decipher and prioritize what is necessary now and what do I need to make a good decision at this point. As that information explosion takes place, I think more skills will be more necessary in that area to be able to look at an array of information and data and zero in on what you need right now to make a good decision about things. I think the future is going to be that. We’re going to have to talk to our future pilots about how to divide and conquer the available information that we have in the cockpit and it’s a good thing because having more information is not bad. It’s just using it in a prioritized and proper way I guess. Chris: Yeah, definitely. There’s new stuff all the time. We’re looking at ATSB now that’s becoming very prevalent in every airplane because iPads are becoming prevalent, and it’s rapidly changing. And then there’s the recent announcement from Garmin that you can now get SVT synthetic vision on an iPad on their Garmin pilot app. It’s all stuff we have to manage we have to make sure that it doesn’t get in the way of that golden rule of flying which is aviate, navigate, communicate. Paul: And when you think about it, aviation and aviation training didn’t really change very much for about what, 70 years there? The things we taught in 1999 would have been pretty close to the same lessons in the same airplanes, in some cases, the exact same airplanes as we had done 20 years before that. And then in the last 10 or 15 years, this has all happened and it’s happened so quickly that it’s a big challenge for us to stay up with it. And we are the leaders of this. Pilots and flight instructors. The FAA is first to tell you that they’re just not nimble. They can’t keep up with the rate of change, so we have to take it upon ourselves to make good decisions and safe decisions in how we use the equipment, because I think overall it’s a good thing, but like anything, we have to be able to use it wisely. Chris: Definitely. Well, I think we’re out of time. I really appreciate you being here. Is there anything you want to say to our listeners before we sign off here? Paul: Well, if you’re a person who is new to flying or contemplating starting your flying lessons, you’ve just got to go for it. I mean, there’s just nothing more satisfying than piloting an airplane and seeing that view and especially if you’re young. I soloed when I was 16 and when I soloed, man this is the biggest thing that happened in my whole life. I had driven a car but that’s just you live long enough to do that. It really will make you a better decision-maker in all of your life. But I mean, where in life can you be in charge of something like we are in an airplane? I can’t think of any place or any part of my life where I’m actually in charge of anything completely, and so it’s a very empowering thing to do. So jump in this with us and we’re going to need your help to manage all of the new technologies to come, and especially young folks who do this, are naturals with technology. We need you more than anybody to help us figure out how to make this application of technology work and remain safe, so come and join us. Chris: Great, well thank you so much for coming on the show and everybody, I will put some show notes with links for the different things we’ve talked about, different acronyms that you may not be familiar with and also the books that Dr. Craig has written, and we really appreciate you being her Paul and we’d love to have you back on sometime if the opportunity arises, and we definitely appreciate all the hard work that you’ve done and we wish you the best. Paul: Well Chris, you deserve congratulations too. What you’re doing is just fantastic and you’re using the technology and the new media to get the word out, so you’re my hero today. Chris: Appreciate that. Thank you so much. Paul: Thanks. Chris: Yeah, see you. Wow, a huge thanks to Dr. Paul Craig for coming on the show. It was truly enjoyable and I just really love his insights into training, and you can tell that with the work that he’s done and the work that he continues to do that he just does a tremendous job and really sees things for how they are. I just love the competency-based stuff that he does, the scenario-based stuff that he does, and I’m a true believer that his book The Killing Zone should be required reading for any new pilot. It is that good, and I encourage you to pick it up today. I’ll have a link for that in the show notes. Again, a huge, huge thanks goes out to Dr. Paul Craig for joining us on the show. If you’d like to leave him your personal thanks, please feel free to do so either through email with me@AviatorCast.com or comment on this episode on AviatorCast.com. So that does it for this show. We’d love to hear your thoughts. You can truly shape this show and the topics we provide. Take a quick 2-minute survey at survey.AviatorCast.com. That is a new thing so you probably haven’t heard it before. Again, that’s survey.AviatorCast.com. It would be very much appreciated and we can continue to provide really great interviews and topics for you especially with the type of ideas that you gives us. So if you want to be a part of the AviatorCast community or leave a comment, you can go to AviatorCast.com to join in there or write me directly at me@AviatorCast.com. Say you don’t want to miss an AviatorCast episode, no worries. You can subscribe through email at AviatorCast.com on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, or SoundCloud. We are in a lot of different locations. We’d also love to get an honest review from you on iTunes. This helps others learn about AviatorCast so they can enjoy it as well. If you’d like to check out our training products, head to flyaoamedia.com. Start with the basics for free with Aviator 90, learn instrument flying and more with AviatorPro, or even fly many of the world’s most popular jets virtually with our training products for the 737, 747, 777 and MD-11. Again at flyaoamedia.com. Many thanks also go out to the Angle of Attack crew for all of their work to make these episodes possible and all they do outside of AviatorCast. We have a tremendous crew with us here in Angle of Attack and I just want to recognize them for the integral part that they have in making things happen with Angle of Attack and with AviatorCast. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of AviatorCast. We are truly grateful to have you here, part of our community, and so engaged for this wonderful passion for flying things. Until next time, throttle on! Related [/transcript] |
Yet the intent of Congress in passing the law, as laid out in the House Judiciary Committee Report to Congress, is hard to ignore. Noted Kagan: "We have a whole series of cases which suggest the following ... that when Congress targets a group that is not everybody's favorite group in the world, that we look at those cases with some -- even if they're not suspect -- with some rigor to say, do we really think that Congress was doing this for uniformity reasons, or do we think that Congress's judgment was infected by dislike, by fear, by animus, and so forth? I guess the question that this statute raises, this statute that does something that's really never been done before, is whether that sends up a pretty good red flag that that's what was going on." What was going on, precisely, in 1996? Let's take a look at the section of the report in question, explaining a rationale for DOMA (I've italicized the red flags I see): H. R. 3396 ADVANCES THE GOVERNMENT'S INTEREST IN DEFENDING TRADITIONAL NOTIONS OF MORALITY There are, then, significant practical reasons why government affords preferential status to the institution of heterosexual marriage. These reasons -- procreation and child-rearing -- are in accord with nature and hence have a moral component. But they are not -- or at least are not necessarily -- moral or religious in nature. For many Americans, there is to this issue of marriage an overtly moral or religious aspect that cannot be divorced from the practicalities. It is true, of course, that the civil act of marriage is separate from the recognition and blessing of that act by a religious institution. But the fact that there are distinct religious and civil components of marriage does not mean that the two do not intersect. Civil laws that permit only heterosexual marriage reflect and honor a collective moral judgment about human sexuality. This judgment entails both moral disapproval of homosexuality, moral conviction that heterosexuality better comports with traditional (especially Judeo-Christian) morality. As Representative Henry Hyde, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, stated during the Subcommittee markup of H.R. 3396: ''[S]ame-sex marriage, if sanctified by the law, if approved by the law, legitimates a public union, a legal status that most people...feel ought to be illegitimate.... And in so doing it trivializes the legitimate status of marriage and demeans it by putting a stamp of approval...on a union that many people...think is immoral.'' It is both inevitable and entirely appropriate that the law should reflect such moral judgments. H.R. 3396 serves the government's legitimate interest in protecting the traditional moral teachings reflected in heterosexual-only marriage laws. That is one heck of a statement of congressional intent -- and one made even more notable by Salon's revelation during the Lewinsky scandal in 1998 that Hyde had, as a married man in the 1960s, had an extramarital affair. That story? "This hypocrite broke up my family," a j'accuse against Hyde by the husband of the woman Hyde had had an affair with, Fred Snodgrass. In the piece, Snodgrass's daughter also relays her mother's opinions, observing of Hyde, "She knows she wasn't his first [mistress] and she wasn't his last." |
by rebecca Crybaby: The Expat Tantrum I never used to cry. I mean, first I never used to cry in that slightly unhealthy maybe-you-need-a-little-therapy-and-some-getting-in-touch-with-your-feelings way. Then I never used to cry in that hipster I’m-your-sassy-best-girlfriend way. Then I never used to cry in that pragmatic it’s-just-how-I-am way. Now I cry at the drop of a hat. I have the frustration tolerance of an overtired two-year old who had Cocoa Pebbles for both breakfast and lunch and Wants. Them. For. Dinner. I cry about my dry cleaning getting lost, my telephone bill being exorbitant, and my dentist running 40 minutes late. I tear up at PTA meetings, at the car mechanic, and the police station. Last week I was on the phone with a vendor negotiating some details of a contract and we disagreed about the conditions in one of the clauses. The conversation was getting heated, though remained—I thought—cordial, until out of the blue the vendor announced he felt under attack, wasn’t used to clients treating him this way, and that I should take my business elsewhere. At which point I very professionally began to sob. With him on the phone. Mortifying, wracking, nose-blowing sobbing. And I remembered a scene that once when down when my son was a toddler and we were driving home late from a birthday party. He piped up from the backseat, “Mamma, what’s a thaw?” And I said, “A what, sweetie?” “A thaw.” “A thaw?” “No, a THAW!” And I kept asking him to repeat himself and telling him I couldn’t understand his question, and he kept repeating the same word and getting increasingly agitated until I finally said, “Hey, mister, no yelling at Mamma, please. I don’t like getting yelled at.” At which point he began to sob. Desperate, pathetic, heart-breaking sobbing. So awful that I had to pull over, climb into the backseat with him, and figure out what the question was to calm him down. (“Is it a toy? Is it something we eat? Is it an animal?” “No, Mamma! It’s the little light that does twinkle, twinkle in the sky!”). I recently got an email from a fellow expat here in Italy who stumbled upon my blog. She wrote, to summarize, “You seem so upbeat about expat life. I am having a really hard time. What’s the matter with me?” And I felt terribly guilty, because I recall those months after having my first child when I was reading all the books and magazines about how wonderful motherhood was while I spent my days alternately crying and raging and felt like somehow I was doing something wrong was being denied boarding on the Happy Mom Express. So, I’m going to step away from the sunny schtick for just a second and talk honestly about the dark side of expat life. And to PL: There’s nothing the matter with you. It’s tough sometimes. Keep the faith, kiddo. I’m Tired Remember that adage about Ginger doing everything Fred did, but backwards and in heels? Well, that’s what my days are like. All the craziness that being a working mother who is active in the community and full of social commitments entails–but in a second language. And I’m not bilingual, so expressing myself in Italian still requires concentration, lucidity, and energy. It’s exhausting, frankly. There are times when I get to end of the day mentally devastated, which means that any tiny glitch seems like A Big Effing Deal. I’m Frustrated Sometimes I just simply don’t have the linguistic and cultural finesse to express myself how I’d like. I accidentally step on toes, I offend, I come off as too aggressive or too indifferent, or I can’t get my message across. Or, on the flip side, I sense that I am losing in translation a subtle shading that I just can’t manage to put into focus, like a flickering shadow right outside my field of vision. And the harder I try, the more elusive it seems until I am so discouraged and overwhelmed I go into nuclear meltdown. I’m Lonely There is much existential solitude in being an expat, even when I spend my day surrounded by people. I certainly have dear friends who are Italian, there will always be some cultural gaps that no amount of affection or familiarity can bridge. I also have dear friends who are fellow foreigners, but the expat diaspora is varied and saying that the mere fact of being two Americans living in Italy is enough foundation to build a friendship is like saying that the mere fact of possessing double X chromosomes means that women world-over are united in loving sisterhood (whereas there are, honestly, many bitches out there I would love to slap. Coulter, watch your back.) or the mere fact of holding a passport from the same nation should have kept the Serbs and Croats from going at each other’s throats. When you feel like you are von Trier in a nation of Spielbergs, the tears can sometimes come easily. I’m Treated Like a Two Year Old I speak Italian like a third grader, and not the sharpest knife in the drawer third grader. So, inevitably, I tend to get treated like a third grader, and not the sharpest knife in the drawer third grader. Which is galling, because I consider myself pretty sharp (in an obtuse sort of way), rather articulate (in a bad speller sort of way), and relatively capable (in a screw-up sort of way). It puts my teeth on edge to have people—with kind intentions, make no mistake—explain the obvious to me slowly and using simple words. Because it’s humiliating. And humiliated people are often not the most even-keeled. See: long world history of social uprisings. I’m Second-Guessing Myself Sometimes I look at my life and wonder what it is exactly I’ve been doing over the past 17 years while all of my friends back in the States seem to have been busy building fabulous careers in amazing places using the latest electronic gadgets. My only solace is the knowledge that they look at me and wonder what they’ve been doing over the past 17 years while I’ve been busy building a fabulous career in an amazing place while not slave to the latest electronic gadgets. Seriously, Italy can be a tough place to have a rewarding career even if you are Italian, fluent, well-connected, and big time lucky (even Pier Luigi Celli (the former director of the RAI) advised his son to leave Italy in an open letter citing nepotism and lack of prospects for young professionals. If Celli Jr. can’t land a decent job here, the rest of us truly are chopped liver.). It’s hard to feel like you are spending your time spinning your wheels and perhaps Italy isn’t all you dreamed it would be, even if the food is fabulous. So why am I still here? The truth is that my experience has been, despite all the whining and crabbing above, ultimately rewarding. It’s a challenge, but so are most gratifying things in life–from building a lasting relationship to being a good parent to making a difference as a volunteer to having a successful professional or creative life. There are days when the fatigue and frustration and loneliness wash over me in pounding waves and I find myself coughing and sputtering for air, but those days are rarer. Most days my glass is half full and I’m able to look back at everything I’ve learned and everything I’ve accomplished since I moved here in 1993 and think, “Damn, girl.” And then I get a parking ticket. Sob. |
Police launch appeal against sentence after Lakenheath man caught going 154mph on A11 is banned for 56 days Louie Howlett (left) leaving Bury St Edmunds Magistrates' Court A sentence appeal has been launched by police after a mechanic was disqualified from driving for 56 days – for doing 154mph on the A11. Share Email this article to a friend To send a link to this page you must be logged in. Louie Howlett, who was labelled an “idiot” by Norfolk police and crime commissioner Lorne Green, admitted going at more than twice the national speed limit on the southbound carriageway at Icklingham. Despite clocking the second fastest speed in Norfolk in the last five years, Howlett, 21, was given an eight-week ban and £365 in fines. After the case at Bury St Edmunds Magistrates’ Court, Insp David Giles from Norfolk and Suffolk roads policing unit lodged a request for a review of the sentence. He said: “There can be no excuses and I’m not condoning speeding at all, but we’re faced with a world here that someone can get caught four times doing less than 40mph and get a ban for far longer than someone doing 154mph,” he said. Had Howlett continued at the same speed without any impediments, he would have been in central London within half an hour, or pulling up at the quayside at Southampton in little more than 70 minutes. In court yesterday Howlett, of Lakenheath High Street, was asked by magistrates what was going through his mind at the time. He answered: “Not a great deal.” Sue Burton-Griffiths, chairman of the magistrates, said: “This really was a stupid thing to do. I hope you appreciate that fact, especially as you will be paying a lot of money for a long time.” Howlett was caught at 8.55pm on April 18 this year. Magistrates left the room to consider Howlett’s sentence, coming back with the 56-day ban and also handing him a £250 fine, plus additional costs bringing the total he owed the court up to £365. “I’m very sorry for what I’ve done,” Howlett told the court. He said he had some “issues” at home and worked as a mechanic at Gorse Motors in Barnham. Howlett was caught by a laser speed detector in an unmarked police BMW that was patrolling in the area. Insp Giles said the shortness of the ban did not send out the right message, describing it as a “shocking speed”. “He’s a young driver, an inexperienced driver. He’s a got a modified car, I understand, but police are trained to pursue people and enforce the law at a high speed,” he added. “I would have expected a year’s ban for that and going forward when he gets his licence back a retake of his driving test. I don’t think a £365 fine is at all significant.” This was Howlett’s first offence and he had a clean licence before his court appearance after four years of driving. How could someone be so stupid? Only a single incident has been recorded at a higher speed in Norfolk over the last five years, when a 36-year-old man was caught at 161mph on the A47 at West Walton. The highest speeds in Norfolk have been decreasing over the last few years, falling from that high in 2012 to 110mph clocked in the A11 last year, by a 42-year-old man. Lorne Green, police and crime commissioner for Norfolk, described Howlett’s speed as “absolutely outrageous”. “It is almost inconceivable how someone can be so absolutely irresponsible, not only for their own welfare but the welfare of everyone else on the road,” he said. “I think we need to educate by example. We will be unveiling a reinforced road safety campaign in the months ahead to try to provide graphic evidence to young people in particular what the consequences of reckless driving are. “Education, speed watch and random checks are effective but if there is an idiot out there who wants to go at 154mph there is not much one can do. How someone can be so absolutely stupid as to put their own life at risk is beyond me.” PCC calls for a change in the law for tougher punishments Suffolk’s police and crime commissioner Tim Passmore said he was “horrified” at the sentence and has called for changes in the law to punish these types of offences harder. “I have to say that I find this attitude by any driver grossly irresponsible. We’ve got to do something about this mentality of people and I would describe them as cavalier to put yourself and other people’s lives at risk. “These sentences have got to be reviewed because they’re completely inappropriate. This sentence (56 days) falls way, way short of what’s required. It’s not good enough but we’ve got to do more to make speeding as socially unacceptable as drink or drug driving. “This sentence doesn’t help at all. It comes across as a joke. Where’s the deterrent effect? “Sadly, we know from the data that the risk is greatest for young, male drivers under the age of 25, therefore the ones going to be involved in serious accidents and fatalities.” Mr Passmore said he was “right behind” moves to raise the potential sentencing powers for speeding, saying he will bring it up at the next meeting of the local Criminal Justice Board. He said the ban for speeding like this should be “months or years and not just a handful of days”. “My big concern is that it doesn’t send the right message out. It’s unjust. I’m horrified, I really am.” |
Al Pacino is just like us: He recently saw and loved Guardians of the Galaxy and wants to be in a Marvel film. The difference is that he may actually get his wish. Since Pacino's comments last weekend to Deadline at the Venice Film Festival — where he praised Guardians and said he'd be open to offers from Marvel Studios — speculation about whether it could actually happen has been making the rounds. Marvel has the budget to get just about anyone they want these days, and the more big-screen legends they can get in the billing, the better Marvel movies look to fans come July. It makes perfect sense that, if he was serious, Marvel's going to jump on an opportunity to cast Pacino like Tony Stark on a flight attendant. We don't see Pacino signing a multi-film deal with Marvel, though, especially given his age (74) and the recent comparable cameo-type roles of Robert Redford and Glenn Close in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy, respectively. Furthermore, Pacino's booming presence and resume are more tailored to a villain/supporting slot, so while it would be great to see him permanently cast the same way Samuel L. Jackson has been as Nick Fury, chances of this are slim. With that in mind, here are three ideas for Pacino and Marvel to discuss in that first meeting. J'Son of Spartax, Star-Lord's Dad The most obvious choice at this point. Another Guardians of the Galaxy film has already been announced, but without a cast, confirmed script, or anything else, that would mean Pacino isn't too late. J'Son is royalty, a fairly talented pilot, and smooth enough to get laid by women from earth, so we're assuming Pacino wouldn't be too far out of his element. He'd also have to play the role of distant/estranged father, also not a huge reach when you consider previous Pacino roles in films like Godfather Part III (though we'd prefer not to). MODOK Possibly the most ridiculous villain Marvel is considering putting in a film, MODOK (Acronym for "Mental/Mobile/Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing") is literally a giant talking head on a dangerous robot. Like Vin Diesel, Pacino would be doing most of the work in a room over the course of a few days, so it wouldn't require as much time and effort as a bigger role. We'd also expect to see this villain as a secondary threat, like a puppet to some larger villain. Captain America 3 writer Christopher Markus has mentioned his desire to squeeze MODOK in if at all possible, and if handled properly it could be the brilliantly funny section of a darkening Marvel thread. Old Tony Stark Comics have a habit of using time travel when they get bored with their current surroundings. We've seen that from X-Men, and the iconic The Dark Knight Returns comic from 1986 was all about the later years of a past-his-prime hero. Look at Robert Downey Jr., then look at Pacino, then back to Downey again. We're not sure how this fits into the canon, but if the Avengers gang gets jumped fifty years into the future in Avengers 3, how excellent would it be for them to stumble across Pacino the way Kirk happens upon Leonard Nemoy in Star Trek? The least likely of the group, this possibility is also the most entertaining to think about, especially since it would open up the Avengers roster to all sorts of second-wave characters as well as let sci-fi genius Joss Whedon play with time travel. |
Our production of the Verdi Requiem at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit on May 18, 2014 at 4:30 p.m. features the Community Chorus of Detroit and three outstanding guest choirs totaling 175 voices, symphony orchestra, and Metropolitan Opera-affiliated soloists, with Dr. Edward Maki-Schramm conducting. The concert commemorates the 16 performances of the Requiem at Terezin. “Apart from the performance of this great music, there is a profound social purpose in our concert presentation. In commemorating the Verdi Requiem performances by the WWII Terezin concentration camp prisoners, we want to promote greater awareness of this darkest history of the 20th century to the greater Detroit community; to use music as a means to stand – as a united community – for tolerance and human rights, and against prejudice; to build bridges across chronological, geographic, and cultural boundaries in the name of peace; and to give voice to the courageous Terezin singers who perished, but whose message lives on to speak to all of us today. This powerful music and the many special features in our program have the power to move us, the power to transform us, and the power to bring us together as a community.” --Dr. Edward Maki-Schramm Please visit our website for complete concert information: http://www.communitychorusofdetroit.com/. |
Mark V 'Hermaphrodite' (or 'Composite') Tank. The entry/exit doors can be seen below the "female" sponson. The "Female" tank[i] was a type of armoured fighting vehicle deployed during the First World War that carried multiple machine guns instead of the mix of machine guns and cannons mounted by the original Mark I tank. The prototype, nicknamed "Mother", and the first production models of what would become referred to as the Mark I were designed to carry two six-pounder guns and three machine-guns. Lieutenant-Colonel Ernest Swinton expressed the fear that tanks armed in such a way might be unable to protect themselves from attacks by large numbers of enemy infantry. In April 1916, it was therefore decided that half of the 150 tanks on order should be fitted with machine guns in place of the six-pounders. A new sponson was designed so that the tank could carry two Vickers machine guns, with their cooling jackets protected by armoured sleeves, on each side of the hull. Swinton's idea was that tanks should operate in pairs: a "destroyer"[ii] and a "consort" or "man-killing" tank, providing mutual protection. He stated that he then assigned the names "male" and "female" respectively. The designation "male" applied to those armed with six-pounder guns, whereas the "female" was the tank equipped only with machine guns. A consequence of these designations was that the prototype Mother became a "male" tank. The design of the female sponson allowed only a very small door, which made escape from the vehicle extremely difficult. From the Mark II onwards, a new design was introduced that was smaller, incorporated Lewis or Hotchkiss guns, and allowed for much larger doors. Both male and female tanks took part in the first tank action, on September 15, 1916, at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, part of the Somme Offensive on September 15, 1916. In 1918 it was decided that tanks should be 'hermaphrodite', simultaneously male and female, carrying both heavy armament and lighter machine guns. For the World War I tanks, this was achieved by fitting them with one sponson of each type. A mixed ability armament of the heavy gun and multiple machine guns also became common practice on turreted designs, without sponsons. This has become the standard model for tank designs since World War I and since then the terms "male" and "female" have been disused. The basic idea underlying the concept of female tanks was widely used in design of light tanks and the first British infantry tanks in the years leading to World War II. Some armour of the World War II period, such as the German Ferdinand tank destroyer, were exclusively 'male', having only their heavy gun. These were found to be susceptible to infantry attack and so a defensive MG was added in the improved version, the Elefant. ^ "Tank" was the codename given to the first British tracked armoured fighting vehicles. ^ Swinton's original proposed name for the tank was "Machine Gun Destroyer". |
Dingoes are Australian icons for all the wrong reasons. Maligned as baby snatchers and sheep killers, the outback’s free-ranging dogs are viewed by many as pests. Until recently, they have also taken the blame for the extinction of two of the Australian mainland’s former inhabitants: the Tasmanian tiger and its relative, the Tasmanian devil. Bert Roberts, a field ecologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, argues for “a pardon for the dingo” in last week’s issue of Science and points to recent evidence placing the blame for those extinctions squarely on humans, instead. For thousands of years, the Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus), a wolf-like marsupial with tiger-esque stripes, dominated mainland Australia’s food chain, along with the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii). Hitching a ride with humans from Asia, the wild dogs showed up about 4600 years ago, and tigers and devils disappeared from the Australian mainland roughly 2000 years ago, persisting in their namesake, Tasmania. In 1936, the last Tasmanian tiger or "thylacine" died in captivity, and devils are near extinction now as well, thanks to human hunting and a contagious cancer. Dingoes never made it to Tasmania, so people thought they must have out-competed and even eaten the native species for food on the Australian mainland. “It’s easy to see why, intuitively, the dingo was blamed for pushing the thylacine and devil over the brink on the mainland—a new large carnivore arrives in Australia, so surely things must have changed for the worse?” says Roberts. But that thinking, Roberts points out, is flawed. He cites an Ecology study published in September, where researchers at the University of Adelaide mathematically modeled three potential extinction drivers for the Tasmanian tiger and Tasmanian devil: humans (hunting or competing for food), climate change, and dingoes. Factoring in things like predation rates and predator and prey populations, the scientists simulated several ways extinction might have gone down, involving none, some, or all of the drivers at play. “The answer was surprisingly clear,” says Tom Prowse, an ecologist and a co-author on the study. Human population growth most likely drove the thylacines to extinction by competing with them for food. A drier climate may have also contributed to the species' decline. The other factors just weren’t as important, and dingoes actually had the smallest impact. Models can never tell us exactly what happened, but they can point to the most plausible version of history, explains Prowse. Humans started settling Australia about 50,000 years ago and have already been implicated in the extinction of at least 20 “mega-mammal” species – giant wombats, platypus species, and oversized echidnas—within 10,000 years. But Australian mammals clearly still felt the effects of humans in much more recent prehistory. Untangling the breakdown of human impact versus climate change in these earlier extinctions has been hard, so their modeling approach “gives scientists a new tool in the shed to go and dig for clues,” says Roberts. Despite their exoneration, dingoes still face a hostile relationship with humans. Early European settlers hated dingoes so much that in the 1880s they built a 3,488-mile-long fence across southern Australia to keep the wild dogs out of rangeland, where farmers grazed their cattle and sheep. Even today, dingoes are often shot or poisoned on both sides of the fence. “Our study should help demonstrate that dingoes should not be viewed as dangerous threats to wildlife but as an important component of the contemporary Australian ecosystem,” says Prowse. Dingoes and other top carnivores provide invaluable stability to ecosystems, according to another study in Science last week. Dingoes keep herbivores (such as rabbits and kangaroos) and smaller predators (like red foxes) in check, maintaining healthy populations of plants and smaller animals. The dingo fence actually created a natural field experiment, and scientists link some marsupial and rodent extinctions to the absence of dingoes. Ironically, thylacines also suffered unjust persecution from European settlers, who hardly knew what to make of the bizarre marsupial tiger-dogs. Every so often reports surface of thylacine sightings in remote Tasmania. “Although history tells us that species can be wrongly classified as extinct,” says Prowse. “I think that in all probability we have lost the thylacine forever.” As for the dingo, some scientists think that rampant crossbreeding between dingoes and domestic dogs will lead to the disappearance of pure dingoes within the next century. Pardoning the dingo—which the IUCN Red List now classifies as "vulnerable—might prevent it, too, from going extinct. |
The latest Coldwell Banker annual ranking of what big houses cost across the United States puts Wellesley at #10 — California markets account for the top 9. The definition of a big house here — 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms — might seem modest by Wellesley standards, but nevertheless, that’s what this ranking is based upon. The average cost for such a house in Wellesley is $1.1 million, according to the report, which surveyed some 51,000 similar-sized houses in about 2,000 markets nationwide. Tops on the list is Los Altos, with an average price of nearly $2 million. Surprisingly, New York and Connecticut didn’t have any markets on the top 10 list, with Greenwich leading the way in Connecticut with an average price of $924K. The brokerage firm also looked at the most affordable markets, and Cleveland topped that list at about $65K. |
National Collective has today announced details of a major cultural tour taking place all across Scotland this summer. A group of pro-independence artists will travel the length and breadth of Scotland, hosting musicians, writers, activists and more in cultural events throughout communities around the country in July. The tour will be one aspect of a month long Yestival, will bring art, music, film, spoken-word and cultural activism to every city in Scotland. The tour will appear in every Scottish city and travel through the Scottish Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, the Central Belt and the North East, and take in the Western Isles, the Highlands, Orkney and Shetland. This busy schedule will include a mixture of larger and smaller pop-up community events, with a few surprises along the way. There are local National Collective chapters in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Stirling, Inverness, Scottish Borders, Dumfries & Galloway, Argyll and Shetland. Ross Colquhoun, Director of National Collective, said: “Yestival will be a major cultural event at the centre of Scotland’s summer of independence and will be an exciting way of taking the Yes message directly to people in their communities. “After a Yes vote independence will seem totally normal. It will be hard to imagine anything else. But people need to have the confidence that it will work before they can put their cross next to Yes in September. “Of course creating that confidence is partly about economics and political preparation. But it is also about cultural confidence, about confidence in your community and its people, and about the basic democratic principle that Scotland should govern itself. “The Yestival tour will be about adding a bit of fun and imagination into the referendum campaign, and inviting the people of Scotland to dare to dream. We’re calling on all artists, writers and activists to join in, now’s the time.” Andrew Barr, a National Collective member who will be going on the tour, comments: “The Yes campaign has developed into a truly huge grassroots movement, and the dedication of independence supporters is pushing the polls towards a Yes in September. “Yestival will be whatever grassroots campaigners make of it. We want people to make the summer of independence colourful, diverse and engaging in your community as others do the same across the country. “We’re living history right now. There’s a real buzz around Scotland and that’s only going to build as we get closer to September.” 2013 Scottish Album of the Year winner and 2014 nominee RM Hubbert: “We’re living in a very exciting time. It’s been a long time since the Scottish people truly had a chance to influence our own future. We should celebrate this opportunity. Music, art and debate. What’s not to love?” Scottish folk singer (who featured in the Pixar film Brave) Julie Fowlis: “Yestival seems to be a great opportunity to showcase Scotland’s contemporary musicians, writers and artists and to maintain that strong artist perspective to the independence debate. That the tour is travelling across Scotland’s diverse and vibrant communities – urban, rural and island alike – is a story in itself.” Visual artist Craig Coulthard: “Scotland has the opportunity to shape its own future, to take responsibility for itself and to focus on the issues that matter most to its citizens. As an artist, I see the work of National Collective in engaging people in a contemporary, creative and open debate about Scotland’s future as admirable and inspiring. Yestival will provide the opportunity for people around the country to continue this debate at close quarters in an imaginative and enjoyable manner. It is a contemporary approach for a contemporary debate and one which can help to set standards for the future, in stark contrast to the fear and foostiness of other political movements.” Playwright and theatre director David Greig: “National Collective have been the inspiration of the independence debate so far. Their website is fantastic, publishing thought and ideas outside the party political spectrum. Their events are full of music, comedy, poetry and people being active and engaged with big political ideas. I was at one in Edinburgh and it was stowed out, people in their 70′s cheek by jowl with kids fresh out of school. Out of one idea – independence – they’re drawing complexity, imagination and grassroots engagement. It’s as far away from a party conference as you can imagine. They really are the spirit of the moment.” Find out more about Yestival and donate to the movement at nationalcollective.com/fundraising. Follow Yestival on Twitter. Read the full press release here. National Collective @wearenational Photograph by Alex Aitchison |
Nobody understands the highs and lows of international soccer better than Canadians. They support a team that rarely plateaus, but produces a revolving door of good and bad results. Mixed results at recent Gold Cups have been followed by quality World Cup qualifying wins. “I find that we’re too high and too low,” Canadian Soccer Association president Victor Montagliani told the Toronto Sun in Mexico City. “We get a half-decent result and people think it’s the the next generation. Then, we don’t get a result and we get caned, again.” The slim margins that exist in CONCACAF qualifying facilitate extreme shifts in public perception on a game-to-game basis. On four points through two Group A (Round 4) games, the Canadians were the talk of the town as recently as last week. Fans were hopeful Les Rouges would put on a performance against Mexico at BC Place. Instead, El Tri hung a 3-0 result on Canada which brought things into perspective. Mexico followed that up Tuesday night with a pedestrian 2-0 win over Canada in Mexico City. “I’m not going to say that having 55,000 fans (in Vancouver) wan’t great, but it’s about playing the right way and, ultimately, getting results with the senior team,” Montagliani said. “That has always been our focus.” From that perspective, last week’s home loss must be viewed as a disappointment when you consider the Canadians played better Tuesday night on the road at hostile Azteca Stadium. “There are teams in better positions than us and there are teams in worse positions,” Montagliani said. “I think we always knew it would come down to the last game or last two games.” A collision course with Honduras, to be exact. The question is whether head coach Benito Floro, whose career record with Canada sits at 7-10-9, can accomplish what Stephen Hart failed to four years ago, when Canada was embarrassed 8-1 in a must-not-lose match in San Pedro Sula. They’ll meet again in a do-or-die qualifier on Sept. 2. FLORO’S TENURE Floro’s current contract ends if Canada fails to advance to the hexagonal qualifying round for the fifth straight World Cup cycle. Montagliani says he hasn’t thought about a potential coaching change. “We’re in the present now,” he said. “It was about (this month’s qualifiers) and then it’s about the May friendlies.” More broadly, the CSA’s top boss pointed to a positive culture shift within the program that Floro helped orchestrate. “To be quite frank, we’ve been speaking English for 100 years in our country and it hasn’t done us every well,” Montagliani said, referring to the CSA historically. “It doesn’t guarantee results — we all know that — but it’s about changing the mindset of how we do things. From what I’ve seen through (Floro’s) 21/2 years internally, he has done that.” That said, there remains an external perception that hasn’t completely changed. Floro has been both revered and smeared by fans and media the past three years. “We’ve got to get results,” Montagliani added. “I guess time will tell. He’s going to be judged by that. But one of the criteria was to change the culture of our organization.” SPEAKING OF CULTURE Montagliani himself is hoping to change the culture within CONCACAF if he’s elected confederation president on May 12. The CSA’s top boss told the Sun earlier this year that he’ll bring his business experience to a confederation that has remained economically stagnant. “I’ve been traveling quite a bit,” he said. “The response has been quite positive. “There are no Gallup polls or exit polls (to see where I’m at).” The region needs a guy like Montagliani to come in and shake things up as the scandal-plagued confederation attempts to reinvent itself. DID SOMEONE SAY CHANGE? Floro told the Sun this week it’s more difficult to reach CONCACAFs final round of qualifying than it is to reach Russia 2018. “It should be the opposite,” Montagliani echoed. “It’s almost like trying to get promoted to the English Premiership, which might be harder than staying in it. You don’t have much margin for error.” As it stands, six teams — the top two finishers in each of three Round 4 groups — advance to CONCACAF’s final round of qualifying. From there, the top three automatically qualifying for the World Cup while the fourth-place finisher enters an intercontinental playoff. The criticism of the current qualifying path is there’s so little room for error during the penultimate round. Advancing to the final stage is often determined by one or two games. Montagliani left open the possibility that CONCACAF’s qualification process could change. “There have always been factors, the cost being one for the economically smaller countries,” he said. “The other thing was the amount of friendlies the U.S. and Mexico would traditionally play, which generated revenue.” Would CONCACAF be better served using a South American-style qualifying model that uses more games? “I think there’s some merit to that,” Montagliani said. WORLD CUP BID It’s time to put up or shut up for the CSA if it’s serious about hosting the 2026 World Cup. Montagliani expects preliminary aspects of the bidding process to begin this fall. “FIFA will come out with a laundry list of what needs to be done,” Montagliani said. “We’re going to have to put up our hand once we get it and then go from there.” BIZARRE BUT TRUE Canada can advance to the hexagonal even if it doesn’t score another goal. Back-to-back goalless draws against Honduras and El Salvador in September would be enough as long as Honduras doesn’t win in Mexico. The Canadians have scored just one goal during this qualifying stage. |
I just accessed the coinwallet.eu web site successfully. However, I note that the SSL certification does not show extended validation (green icon on Firefox) like one sees with respectable financial services, e.g. banks, Paypal, Coinbase, etc... If they had extended validation it would show that the certification authority has reviewed their corporate documents. This would show that they are an active business with physical existence, and a physical place where one can serve legal process on the company. For a financial business to operate without extended validation warrants suspicion. i not support coinwallet.eu because i think coinwallet.eu will not work for long time this can be hacked easily by many hacker i think money will not safe in this wallet there will be many risk in this wallet use this wallet at your own risk time will be tell about this wallet. Can we even confirm those guys are legit? I don't hear about ppl doing business with them. I just only heard of them being syndicated from the usual btc rag circuit - disclaimer: I'm not omnipotent nor omnipresent I don't know what is out there or what business presence they have elsewhere. I linked your reply here onto Reddit and decided to also give them a closer look. So far my findings:Their Address on the website is to Felicia Trading , which is a Virtual Office (Certainly No harm nor Foul, just info for everyone else). Looks like it costs them about £586 Per year to do business. Found the Lorem Ipsum Page and its confirmed:Selecting Cash In Mail Reveals the True Address (or at least a forwarder in Canada that suggests for you to mail envelopes of cash):Legit Businesses NEVER allow this because it places unlimited liability on them, their employees, the mail carrier, etc. You can mail cash, but if you attempt to take out an insurance claim against it, it will never be filed and it may be flagged and potentially confiscated. There are reasons that as seen on TV advertisements tell youCan't find any more info about that address listed except for that its maybe a business center with other businesses in the complex.What sort of Exchange lets you buy BTC but you CANT withdraw that purchased BTC? I opened several accounts and tried to send them my money. However, they never ever reacted.At least, they have in the KYC-section an important text:All you can do: Send them your Bitcoins. That's what I did (some dust). Since then, not a single support request was answered.Instead, they claim to work now with OkCoin, BitFinex, BitMex and TeraExchange, selling BTC-bonds to clients.Still convinced that this all is a fraud. I opened several accounts and tried to send them my money. However, they never ever reacted.At least, they have in the KYC-section an important text:All you can do: Send them your Bitcoins. That's what I did (some dust). Since then, not a single support request was answered.Instead, they claim to work now with OkCoin, BitFinex, BitMex and TeraExchange, selling BTC-bonds to clients.Still convinced that this all is a fraud. This is nothing other than a PR stunt to put them in the spotlight. Good or bad press bring traffic to their site and they bargain on this to bring in more business. I sometimes wonder if they would have appreciated the samekind of sobotage on their sites or service? Let's say someone launch a prolonged DoSS attack on their site and it goes offline for a few months... would that be appreciated by them?This could also just be a front for something else... Time will tell, if this PR stunt would backfire on them. to it just looks like a desperate attempt to get some publicity. which i think is just bringing them hatred. this is going to come back and bite them in the ass after some time though. i wonder if anybody or any group has any plan of performing some attack on their website just to get even because they technically are stress (testing) attacking bitcoin. Why would they need publicity? They are no real business, just some sort of scamming organisation.What really is weird how "journalists" from CoinDesk act in this case. This isn't journalism anymore, but becoming partner-in-crime.[edit]However, I've filed a formal request with the Canadian and British authorities, for Coinwallet is definitively violating the AML-laws, especially S.C. 2000, c. 17. So by now, the authorities should start an investigation regarding possible violations of the Anti-Terrorist-Act. to it just looks like a desperate attempt to get some publicity. which i think is just bringing them hatred. this is going to come back and bite them in the ass after some time though. i wonder if anybody or any group has any plan of performing some attack on their website just to get even because they technically are stress (testing) attacking bitcoin. |
California’s Proposition 37, the awkwardly titled “California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act,” will come to us for a vote in November’s election. The proponents say, “You should have the right to know what is in your food.” That statement is hard to argue. Our food provides our bodies with energy to go about our day. We should know what we are eating. What will Prop 37 do? According to the Legislative Analyst, “This measure makes several changes to state law to explicitly require the regulation of GE foods. Specifically, it (1) requires that most GE foods sold be properly labeled, (2) requires DPH [California’s Department of Public Health] to regulate the labeling of such foods, and (3) allows individuals to sue food manufacturers who violate the measure’s labeling provisions.”[1] That’s it? That is hardly enough for people to make informed decisions. We can all agree that knowing what is in our food is rather a good thing. But passage of Proposition 37 does not give you all the necessary information to learn what really is in your food. If 37’s goal is to educate people about their choices (which it purports to do) it should be greatly expanded so that people are genuinely informed. Californians do need food labels that provide information about what is in their food. Here are just a few ideas for the labels: Notice: This food contains chemicals. It may be a failure of our schools or “No Child Left Behind” but basic knowledge of chemistry has faded from our memories. Otherwise why would we see ads for “chemical-free” food? Under my expanded version of 37, an apple would have a label listing its chemical components. Then we could say, “A serving of H2O, vegetable oils, sugars, starch, carotene, tocopherol (E306), riboflavin (E101), nicotinamide, pantothenic acid, biotin, folic acid, ascorbic acid (E300), hexadecanoic acid, stearic acid (E570), oleic acid, linoleic acid, malic acid (E296), oxalic acid, salicylic acid, purines, sodium, potassium, manganese, iron, copper, zinc, phosphorous, antioxidants, and chloride keeps the doctor away.”[2] I am sorry to tell you that all foods contain chemicals. There is no way around that. We can no more have chemical-free food than we can have oxygen-free air. Caution: This food contains toxic chemical pesticides and chemicals that are known to the State of California to cause cancer and/or mutations. All the vegetative stuff we eat, fruits, vegetables, spices, coffees, teas, and the like, contain chemicals, some of which are produced by the plant to ward off pests. In other words, the plant is producing its own natural pesticide. “Eating food is risky,” said the European Commission’s Chief Scientific Advisor Anne Glover, “Most of us forget that most plants are toxic, and it’s only because we cook them, or the quantity that we eat them in, that makes them suitable.”[3] Tomatoes contain benzaldehyde, caffeic acid, hydrogen peroxide, and quercetin glycosides. Orange juice and black peppers harbor d-limonene. The Brussels sprout, cabbages, cauliflower, collard greens, and horseradishes contain allyl isothiocyanate. And neochlorogenic acid lurks in apples, apricots, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cherries, coffee, kale, peaches, and pears. The list goes on. Dr. Bruce Ames says, “No human diet can be free of naturally occurring chemicals that are rodent carcinogens. Of the chemicals that people eat, 99.99% are natural….We eat roughly 1,500 milligrams of [plant produced pesticides] per day.” [4] Let us label a simple cabbage (courtesy of Dr. Ames’s paper published in the Proceedings of Natural Sciences) for only its 49 natural pesticides and metabolites: Glucosinolates: 2-propenyl glucosinolate (sinigrin), 3-methylthiopropyl glucosinolate, 3-methylsulfinylpropyl glucosinolate, 3-butenyl glucosinolate, 2-hydroxy-3-butenylglucosinolate, 4-methylthiobutyl glucosinolate, 4-methylsulfinylbutyl glucosinolate, 4methylsulfonylbutyl glucosinolate, benzyl glucosinolate, 2-phenylethyl glucosinolate, propyl glucosinolate, and butyl glucosinolate. Indole glucosinolates and related indoles: 3-indolylmethyl glucosinolate (glucobrassicin), 1-methoxy-3-indolylmethyl glucosinolate (neoglucobrassicin), indole-3-carbinol, indole-3-acetonitrile, and bis(3-indolyl)methane. Isothiocyanates and goitrin: alylisothiocyanate, 3-methylthiopropylisothiocyanate, 3-methylsulfinylpropylisothiocyanate, 3-butenyl isothiocyanate, 5-vinyloxazolidine-2-thione (goitrin), 4-methylthiobutylisothiocyanate, 4-methylsulfinylbutylisothiocyanate, 4-methylsulfonylbutyl isothiocyanate, 4-pentenyl isothiocyanate, benzyl isothiocyanate, phenylethyl isothiocyanate. Cyanides: 1-cyano-2,3-epithiopropane, 1-cyano-3,4-epithiobutane, 1-cyano-3,4-epithiopentane, threo-1-cyano-2-hydroxy-3,4-epithiobutane, erythro-1-cyano-2-hydroxy-3,4-epithiobutane, 2-phenylpropionitrile, alylcyanide,* 1-cyano-2-hydroxy-3-butene, 1-cyano-3- methylsulfinylpropane, and 1-cyano-4-methylsulfinylbutane. Terpenes: menthol, neomenthol, isomenthol, and carvone. Phenols: 2-methoxyphenol, 3-caffoylquinic acid (chlorogenic acid), 4-caffoylquinic acid, 5-caffoylquinic acid (neochlorogenic acid), 4-(p-coumaroyl)quinicacid, 5-(p-coumaroyl)quinicacid, and 5-feruloylquinic acid. Let’s be honest: if we saw this list on a label, we would politely replace it on the shelf and decline to buy it, wouldn’t we? Even if it were in the Organics section of the produce department. I am not trying to scare you; I am trying to make the point that all foods are made up of chemicals and some of those at high dosages have caused cancers in mice and rats. Dose makes the poison. Caution: This food was grown using toxic chemicals that are also known to the State of California to be toxic and can cause cancer. Organic growers use “natural” pesticides; one of the most common is copper sulfate (CuSO4), a herbicide and fungicide. Copper sulfate has “been shown to have chronic effects” at low doses, writes Christie Wilcox, a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Hawaii, “In animals, chronic exposure has led to anemia, stunted growth, and degenerative disease. Furthermore, copper sulfate has been shown to disrupt reproduction and development, including inhibition of sperm development, loss of fertility, and lasting effects from in-utero exposure. Copper sulfate is also mutagenic and carcinogenic.”[5] Other than that, it is perfectly safe to use and no problem. When we insist on organic foods being grown with “only” copper sulfate, we are keeping the grower from using other pesticides and herbicides that have a shorter shelf life and, dare I say it, may even be less harmful to the farmer. Copper sulfate is approved simply because it was the only herbicide available 100 years ago, and is therefore considered “natural”—not because it is inherently good. Notice: This organic food was produced in ways that exposed farm workers to poisons and may contain traces of the pesticide. Wash thoroughly. CuSO4 is two to ten times more poisonous than the synthetic alternative, chlorpyrifos, used in conventional farming. Christie Wilcox notes, “organic pesticides do make farmers sick. They do bioaccumulate. They do harm non-target species….[and] organic alternatives are applied in higher concentrations and more frequently because they’re less effective at controlling the species they’re meant to kill.” Other than that, they are perfectly safe to use and no problem because it is a natural chemical pesticide, right? So farmers have to risk developing unnecessary illness so I can feel righteous about the food I am eating. Notice: This certified organic food has no more nutritional value than conventionally grown food despite the higher price. Numerous scientific studies have found no difference in nutritional value between organically produced food and food produced using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Plants do not distinguish between chemicals they need for growth being provided by manure or fossil-fuel derived chemicals. Studies have borne out this fact time after time. I can understand skeptics not trusting government studies (“the study’s authors were paid by big ag!”), but have you ever heard of the Mayo Clinic being accused of taking sides? According to the Mayo Clinic, “No conclusive evidence shows that organic food is more nutritious than is conventionally grown food.” The Mayo Clinic is not alone. Not only do the British, French, and Swedish governments agree too. Here is what the UK’s Food Standards Agency says, “In our view the current scientific evidence does not show that organic food is any safer or more nutritious than conventionally produced food. Nor are we alone in this assessment. For instance, the French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA) has recently published a comprehensive 128-page review which concludes that there is no difference in terms of food safety and nutrition. Also, the Swedish National Food Administration’s recent research report finds no nutritional benefits of organic food.” It costs more due to lower yields and higher labor costs (and organically-certified food currently fetches a higher price); not because it is more nutritious. More is labor needed to produce organically-certified food (weeding and hoeing doesn’t come cheap, not to mention the damage tilling does to the microorganisms in soil). When you take into account the need to let organic fields go fallow, organic practices do not yield as much per acre as conventionally produced crops. Notice: This organic food may not be more flavorful than conventionally grown food. “Okay, now you have done it,” I hear you say, “That just cannot be true. I know it tastes better.” A 2002 report for the British Food Standards Agency said, “While there are reports indicating that organic and conventional fruits and vegetables may differ on a variety of sensory qualities, the findings are inconsistent.” In other words, they found mixed results: some experiments indicated that conventional tasted better, other experiments that indicated organic tasted better, others found no difference.[6] Better yet, do not take their word for it, do your own double-blind test. Pick out similar (e.g., store bought or garden grown but compare like with like) organically grown and conventionally grown fruit and vegetables. Then have someone else prepare and mark the underside of the dish. Then have another person serve them to you and your friends. Pick out the ones you think taste better. If you are like the participants in Penn & Teller’s test (available on YouTube, where they cut a banana in half and asked the participants which was organic), you will believe you can taste a difference. The participants in the test were told that one half was organically grown, the other conventionally grown. Most people decided they could tell a real difference between the two, when in fact they were taking bites of different halves of the exact same banana. It is difficult to measure the effect the mind has in effecting your perception of taste. That is why you must do a double-blind test. Caution: Wash thoroughly. Organic food may be higher in E coli and other pathogens that are hazardous to your health. According to a post on the Scientific American website, “Between 1990 and 2001, over 10,000 people fell ill due to foods contaminated with pathogens like E. coli, and many have organic foods to blame. That’s because organic foods tend to have higher levels of potential pathogens.”[8],[9] And as a side note, a recent study about the effects of San Francisco’s ban on plastic bags, emergency room visits for E. coli infections spiked and remained high as soon as the ban went into effect. While the regulators are concerned that an organic food touching a nonorganic food contaminates the organic food, I believe the concern should be in the reverse direction: should organic food touch my conventionally grown food, I would fear E. coli transfer. Notice: This meat contains hormones. While they may be natural, they are hormones. All animals (and plants) use chemicals to regulate their functioning in their environments. Notice: This food contains DNA and RNA. All food contains genes and its building blocks: DNA and RNA. We cannot have food without chemicals, hormones, and DNA and RNA. Food was living matter in the recent past, and you just cannot escape these components of living matter. ALL foods contain hormones, genes, and DNA and RNA, even certified-organic food. This should not need saying but it does; all food contains genes and its building blocks, DNA and RNA. A 2010 national study, 41 percent of young adults were not sure that the statement, “Ordinary tomatoes, the ones we normally eat, do not have genes whereas genetically modified tomatoes do” was false; 17 percent thought it was “probably false,” and only 42 percent knew it was “definitely false.” For the record, the statement is false. Caution: This food contains the result of cross-breeding; 10,000 to 300,000 recombined genes have changed and their responses remain, at best, a guess. While GE foods have had 1 to 3 genes replaced, standard cross-breeding rearranges 10,000 to 300,000 genes “depending on the species,” says Dr. Kevin Folta, an expert in Molecular Biology.[10] Caution: Amounts and types of proteins and metabolites present varies from plant to plant and may have been altered as a response to stress while growing in the field. According to Dr. Anastasia Bodnar of Biology Fortified, a website dedicated science-based information and fostering discussion about agriculture, “Two genetically identical plants grown in slightly different environments, such as different temperatures” will exhibit significantly different gene expression profiles and “even two identical plants in the same environment will have some differences.”[11] Notice: This certified-organic food needed more land than food grown with man-made fertilizers, genetically engineered foods, or pesticides. Organic farms average 70 percent to 80 percent of the yield of conventional farms. And organic farmers are losing ground as GE crops increase in usage because, according to a report by the National Research Council, “Crops with traits that provide resistance to some herbicides and to specific insect pests have benefited adopting farmers, by reducing crop losses to insect damage, by increasing flexibility in time management, and by facilitating the use of more environmentally friendly pesticides and tillage practices.”[12] While its supporters say, “It doesn’t cost anything to include information on a label,”[13] that is not quite true. California’s Legislative Analyst estimates that the requirement will cost us Californians (through increased taxes or budget cuts to other services elsewhere), “a few hundred thousand dollars to over $1 million annually.”[14] That’s just the state’s administrative costs; that estimate does not include the higher food prices you and I will pay for settlements of lawsuits against food companies allowed under this proposition, and the added time to print and place labels on food or restock the shelves with politically correct food (which, unless the food is organic, the store retailer (even a Farmer’s Market! will need get sworn affidavits for the food’s origin). Contrary to claims, it will cost quite a lot to label GE foods. Not to us in California or the U.S., mind you,because there will not be any GE to label. Everywhere GE labels have been introduced, GE food has not made it to the shelves. Good, right? Not necessarily if Peter Kareiva, the chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, is correct. Once the U.S. market is gone (as California goes, so goes the nation) there will be major repercussions throughout the developing world. “The stakes for the debate on GMOs could hardly be higher for nature, people and conservation,” Kareiva says. “Agriculture takes up more land and consumes more water than any other activity on Earth. And agriculture is bound to eat up even more land and water as the human population soon zips past 7 billion on its way to 9 billion by 2050. “At the same time, using technology to increase agricultural yields (meaning increases in the calories and nutritional value generated per acre of land) and increase efficiencies in ag’s water use would mean sparing land and water for nature. GMOs could play a crucial part in this equation. For example, recently published greenhouse studies reveal that genetically engineered cassava can store four times the amount of protein compared to regular cassava. Plants engineered for enhanced yields or improved nutritional value could be a boon to humanity and the planet.” So, while we may have the luxury to be selfish, choose USDA certified-organic and refuse GE, the rest of the world cannot. Which brings up another label: Notice: Due to Proposition 37, many African farmers cannot sell their produce here and, as a result, remain undernourished and impoverished. Prop 37 supporters will tell you that they are simply trying to shine a light on the truth about our food and that “Monsanto and some other chemical and agricultural biotech companies are desperate to keep the public in the dark about what is really in their food,” Gary Ruskin, an Oakland-based manager for the campaign, told Bloomberg news in an April 30 interview. But, it is they who do not want to illuminate the debate, otherwise they would have written Prop 37 to show what is really in your food and what your food choices really mean to our environment. Not really. Proposition 37 appears to be an old story: large companies lobbying the government to hobble their competitors and thus increase their own profits.[16] The proposition’s backers include Big Karma companies such as Mercola.com Health Resources LLC, Nature’s Path Foods Inc. and Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps All-One-God-Faith Inc.[17] All of which could see their bottom lines improved if Prop 37 is passed. The proposition’s drafter, lawyer James Wheaton, also stands to make tidy sums of money through lawsuits, just as he did following the passage of Proposition 65. And, Big Organic is licking its chops for a bigger share of profits. “The burning question for us all then becomes how—and how quickly—can we move healthy, organic products from a 4.2% market niche, to the dominant force in American food and farming?” Organic Consumers Association Director Ronnie Cummins wrote in an open letter earlier this month.[18] Once you know the truth (about GE and its opponents and natural chemicals and natural pesticides), it will set you free. Bon appétit. Disclosure: To my knowledge, I own no shares in any agricultural biotech company. I receive no compensation, other than lower prices at the market, from any biotech firms or organizations or any farming cooperative, organization, lobbyist, company, etc. Since I buy at Costco, I do eat and buy organic food. I also compost and recycle. Sources: Analysis by Legislative Analyst (https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/vig-public-display/110612-general-election/prop-37/prop-37-leg-analysis.pdf&sa=U&ei=jD81UMjmAZSr2AXb74DQAQ&ved=0CAUQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNH_AVCC5VkR4e3K8I-4WaFvXcvUgg) http://www.wijnne.com/we-love-chemistry-poster/ ”No risk with GMO food, says EU chief scientific advisor” http://www.euractiv.com/innovation-enterprise/commission-science-supremo-endor-news-514072 accessed 18 August 2012 “Our estimate of 1.5 g of natural pesticides per person per day is based on the content of toxins in the major plant foods(e.g.,13g of roasted coffee per person per day contains about 765mg of chlorogenic acid, neochlorogenic acid,caffeic acid,and caffeine; see refs. 22 and 23 and Table 2). Phenolics from other plants are estimated to contribute another several hundred milligrams of toxins. Flavonoids and glucosinolates account for several hundred milligrams; potato and tomato toxins may contribute another hundred, and saponins from legumes another hundred. Grains such as white flour and white rice contribute very litle,but whole wheat, brown rice, and corn (maize) may contribute several hundred milligrams more.”“27 natural pesticides that are rodent carcinogens are present in the following foods: anise, apple, apricot, banana, basil, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cantaloupe, caraway, carrot, cauliflower, celery, cherries, cinnamon, cloves, cocoa, coffee, collard greens, comfrey herb tea, currants, dill, eggplant, endive, fennel, grapefruit juice, grapes, guava, honey, honeydew melon, horseradish, kale, lentils, lettuce, mango, mushrooms, mustard, nutmeg, orange juice, parsley, parsnip, peach, pear, peas, black pepper, pineapple, plum, potato, radish, raspberries, rosemary, sesame seeds, tarragon, tea, tomato, and turnip. Thus, it is probable that almost every fruit and vegetable in the supermarket contains natural plant pesticides that are rodent carcinogens. The levels of these 27 rodent carcinogens in the above plants are commonly thousands of times higher than the levels of synthetic pesticides.”Ames, Bruce N., M Profet, and Lois Swirsky Gold, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 87, pp. 7777-7781, October 1990, Medical Sciences, “Dietary pesticides (99.99% all natural)” www.pnas.org/content/87/19/7777.full.pdf accessed 17 October 2010 Source: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/08/15/organic_myths_revisited/ accessed 23 August 2012 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11833635 accessed 23 August 2012 Local, organic, natural foods not always safer as many small farms are exempt from laws Associated Press http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/local-organic-and-natural-food-not-always-safer-as-smaller-farms-are-exempt-from-laws/2011/10/25/gIQAPoEhGM_story.html accessed October 26, 2011 http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2011/07/18/mythbusting-101-organic-farming-conventional-agriculture/ accessed 22 August 2012 “Tauxe et al. have reviewed foodborne disease and microbial pathogens associated with fresh produce in order to identify potential hazards and control strategies. Although the US Centers for Disease Control keep a national database on food poisoning outbreaks and their epidemiology, they have not yet specifically compared the microbiological risk of organically and conventionally grown foods. Tauxe et al. acknowledge that the increased use of manure rather than chemical fertilizers (by many farmers) may play a role in the increased incidence of poisoning from pathogens such as Salmonella spp. and E. coli 0157:H7, along with many other changes in food production and food consumption patterns. These authors also suggest that traditional composting practices (perhaps without a defined heat treatment) may now not be sufficient to render animal manure safe for use on vegetables with the advent of new pathogens such as E. coli 0157:H7. Hussein has recently reviewed the sources of E. coli 0157:H7 contamination on beef and dairy farms and also discussed management practices (for example, involving animal, manure, waterand diet-related factors) that may help to reduce the risk of contamination. Gagliardi and Karns209 reported that tillage practice, soil type, and method of pathogen delivery (e.g., from manure or from run-off) affect the movement of E. coli 0157:H7, and that soluble nitrogen may also increase the movement of this pathogen. Clearly, organic certifying agencies need to constantly review their standards for composting in light of the developing knowledge in this area of food safety.Bourn, Diane and John Prescott “A Comparison of the Nutritional Value, Sensory Qualities, and Food Safety of Organically and Conventionally Produced Foods.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11833635 accessed 6 January 2012 http://kfolta.blogspot.com/2012/06/more-frankenfood-paradox.html accessed 28 June 2012. Miller, J. D. (2012, Spring). Food: Shared, Prepared, Organic, and Genetically Modified. A Quarterly Research Report from the Longitudinal Study of American Youth, Volume 1 Issue 3, p. 5. “Under controlled growth conditions, they found no reproducible changes for the approximately 24,000 genes screened when comparing transgenic lines with their wild-type progenitor. Their conclusion was that the stable insertion of T-DNA did not cause detectable pleiotropic effects to the transcriptome. This finding was not obvious since, due to the gene density on the Arabidopsis genome, insertion could have been anticipated to cause major disturbances altering gene expression. Strikingly, under abiotic stresses (salt, drought, cold, and heat), the authors found approximately 8,000 genes (35% of the genome) with changed expression in both wild-type and transgenic plants.”“Evaluation of Genetically Engineered Crops Using Transcriptomic, Proteomic, and Metabolomic Profiling Techniques,” by Agnès E. Ricroch, Jean B. Bergé and Marcel Kuntz. http://m.plantphysiol.org/content/155/4/1752.long accessed 21 August 2012 National Research Council. “Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States.” National Academies Press. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12804 accessed 21 July 2012 Argument in favor of Proposition 37. www.sos.ca.gov/elections/vig-public-display/110612-general-election/prop-37/prop-37-arg-in-favor.pdf accessed 22 August 2012 “This measure would result in additional state costs for DPH to regulate the labeling of GE foods, such as reviewing documents and performing periodic inspections to determine whether the foods are actually being sold with the correct labels. Depending on how and the extent to which the department chooses to implement these regulations (such as how often it chose to inspect grocery stores), these costs could range from a few hundred thousand dollars to over $1 million annually.” [note: emphasis in the original text]“Analysis by the Legislative Analyst –Proposition 37.” https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/vig-public-display/110612-general-election/prop-37/prop-37-leg-analysis.pdf&sa=U&ei=jD81UMjmAZSr2AXb74DQAQ&ved=0CAUQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNH_AVCC5VkR4e3K8I-4WaFvXcvUgg accessed 22 August 2012 Kaskey, Jack “California Heads for Vote on Modified Food Labeling” Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-02/california-heads-for-vote-on-modified-food-labeling.html accessed 3 May 2012. “The petition for Proposition 37 was filed and launched by notorious trial lawyer James Wheaton . The corporations that back the initiative include Nature’s Path, which sells $300 million worth of organic cereals annually and has pledged $500,000 to the anti-science campaign and Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, a private company with revenues of $50 million annually derived from peddling organic soaps and has given $300,000. The biggest donor is Mercola Health Resources run by Chicago osteopath and self-styled alternative medicine guru Joseph Mercola, who promotes his sketchy supplements through his online health newsletter. Mercola has donated $800,000 to the campaign.”Ronald Bailey | August 14, 2012 “California Initiative Puts Profit Ahead of Science” – Reason.com http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/14/california-initiative-puts-profit-ahead accessed 14 August 24, 2012 For more on the company’s founder, see “Supplements: Not mystical anticancer magic” http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/05/supplements_not_mystical_anticancer_magic.php accessed 9 May 2012 Open Letter to the Organic Community: The California Ballot Initiative to Label GMOs https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/08/02-0 More Reading: “Genetically Engineered Plants and Foods: A Scientist’s Analysis of the Issues (Part I)” http://www.annualreviews.org/eprint/9Ntsbp8nBKFATMuPqVje/full/10.1146/annurev.arplant.58.032806.103840 “Hear no Evil, See no Evil: IOFGA oppose GE spud trials for fear they get the all clear.” https://skepteco.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/iofga-oppose-ge-spud-trials-in-case-results-are-good/ “Right to Know” Gimmick Becomes “Right to Sue” Trial Lawyer Payday http://www.consumerfreedom.com/2012/08/right-to-know-gimmick-becomes-right-to-sue-trial-lawyer-payday/ “GMO Labels and Ignorance” http://www.fancybeans.com/blog/2012/06/18/gmo-labels-and-ignorance/ “No One Expects the Organics Inquisition” http://normbenson.com/timberati/2012/08/15/no-one-expects-the-organics-inquisition/ Share this: Google Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Print More Reddit Pocket Pinterest Tumblr Email Like this: Like Loading... |
But many European health experts have taken a very different view: Yes, there are studies that show that if you fall off a bicycle at a certain speed and hit your head, a helmet can reduce your risk of serious head injury . But such falls off bikes are rare — exceedingly so in mature urban cycling systems. On the other hand, many researchers say, if you force or pressure people to wear helmets, you discourage them from riding bicycles. That means more obesity , heart disease and diabetes . And — Catch-22 — a result is fewer ordinary cyclists on the road, which makes it harder to develop a safe bicycling network. The safest biking cities are places like Amsterdam and Copenhagen , where middle-aged commuters are mainstay riders and the fraction of adults in helmets is minuscule. “Pushing helmets really kills cycling and bike-sharing in particular because it promotes a sense of danger that just isn’t justified — in fact, cycling has many health benefits,” says Piet de Jong, a professor in the department of applied finance and actuarial studies at Macquarie University in Sydney . He studied the issue with mathematical modeling, and concludes that the benefits may outweigh the risks by 20 to 1. He adds: “Statistically, if we wear helmets for cycling, maybe we should wear helmets when we climb ladders or get into a bath, because there are lots more injuries during those activities.” The European Cyclists’ Federation says that bicyclists in its domain have the same risk of serious injury as pedestrians per mile traveled. Yet the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recommends that “all cyclists wear helmets, no matter where they ride,” said Dr. Jeffrey Michael, an agency official. Recent experience suggests that if a city wants bike-sharing to really take off, it may have to allow and accept helmet-free riding. A two-year-old bike-sharing program in Melbourne , Australia — where helmet use in mandatory — has only about 150 rides a day, despite the fact that Melbourne is flat, with broad roads and a temperate climate. On the other hand, helmet-lax Dublin — cold, cobbled and hilly — has more than 5,000 daily rides in its young bike-sharing scheme. Mexico City recently repealed a mandatory helmet law to get a bike-sharing scheme off the ground. But here in the United States, the politics are tricky. SHAUN MURPHY, the bicycling coordinator of Minneapolis — which inaugurated the “Nice Ride” bike-sharing program in 2010 and expanded to St. Paul last year — has been pilloried for riding about without a helmet. “I just want it to be seen as something that a normal person can do,” Mr. Murphy explained to the local press this past summer. “You don’t need special gear. You just get on a bike and you just go.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story In New York, where there were 21 cyclist fatalities last year, the transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan , is always photographed on a bike and wearing a helmet. The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has nonetheless rejected calls by Comptroller John C. Liu for a mandatory helmet law when New York’s 10,000-cycle bike-share program rolls out next year, for fear it would keep people from riding. Still, the mayor says helmets are a “good idea,” and the city promotes helmet use through education and with giveaway programs. In the United States, cities are struggling to overcome the significant practical problems of melding helmet use with bike-sharing programs — such as providing sanitized helmet dispensers at bike docking stations, says Susan Shaheen, director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley . But bicycling advocates say that the problem with pushing helmets isn’t practicality but that helmets make a basically safe activity seem really dangerous. “The real benefits of bike-sharing in terms of health, transport and emissions derive from getting ordinary people to use it,” said Ceri Woolsgrove, safety officer at the European Cyclists’ Federation. “And if you say this is wonderful, but you have to wear armor, they won’t. These are normal human beings, not urban warriors.” In fact, many European researchers say the test of a mature bike-sharing program is when women outnumber men. In the Netherlands , 52 percent of riders are women. Instead of promoting helmet use, European cycling advocates say, cities should be setting up safer bike lanes to slow traffic or divert it entirely from downtown areas. “Riding in New York or Australia is like running with the bulls — it’s all young males,” says Julian Ferguson, a spokesman for the European Cyclists’ Federation. And that’s in part what makes it dangerous. (Many European countries do require helmet use for children.) In London , where use of a new bike-share program is exceeding all expectations, the number of riders in suits and dresses is growing, Mr. Woolsgrove says. And more Londoners seem to be leaving helmets at home. We may follow a similar pattern. In her study of nascent bike-sharing programs in North America — including Montreal , Washington and Minneapolis — Dr. Shaheen found that the accident rate was “really low.” A large majority of participants strongly agreed that they got more exercise since the program started. And helmet use in bike programs tended to be far lower than among the general public. Another study this summer found that only 30 percent of local riders using Washington’s Capital Bikeshare program wore helmets, compared with 70 percent of people on their own bikes, said John Kraemer of Georgetown University , the study’s author, who supports helmet use. Before you hit the comment button and tell me that you know someone whose life was probably saved by a bike helmet, I know someone, too. I also know someone who believes his life was saved by getting a blood test for prostate specific antigen, detecting prostate cancer . But is that sense of salvation actually justified, for the individual or society? Back in New York I strapped on my helmet for a weekend bike ride in Central Park. But I’m not sure I’ll do the same two years from now if I’m commuting to work on a mature Citi Bike system. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mr. De Jong, who grew up in the Netherlands, observes of Amsterdam: “Nobody wears helmets, and bicycling is regarded as a completely normal, safe activity. You never hear that ‘helmet saved my life’ thing.” |
Doctors managed to save the life of a 71-year-old man with two hearts who suffered dueling heart attacks. "We haven't ever seen anything similar to this case before," Dr. Giacomo Mugnai said in an interview with MSNBC. At first, doctors thought they had a typical case of cardiac arrest until they examined the patient more closely and noticed his unusual medical condition. It turns out that the man actually wasn't born with two hearts. His second heart arrived after an earlier medical procedure on his original heart. The procedure, a heterotopic transplant, is done to pair a new, healthy organ with a diseased one. "We see this in cardiac patients or kidney patients, sometimes," Dr. Rade Vukmir, professor of emergency medicine at Temple University and a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians, told MSNBC. "Surgeons might leave a kidney in place if it's too much trouble to take out, or if there is hope for recovery of a kidney, or a heart, after a period of time" of being helped by the new organ. The report first appeared in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, describing how the transplant team managed to merge the patient's new heart with his original, diseased organ. Of course, there's an inherent risk that if the transplant goes too well. "You can develop two independent heart rhythms, especially in a scenario where one heart gets a little better," Vukmir said. Which is apparently exactly what happened to the Italian patient. After being admitted to the hospital, doctors administered drug therapy in an attempt to correct his dysrhythmia, only to have the medicine shut down both of his hearts. Doctors then were able to successfully use a defibrillator to revive both hearts simultaneously. He's now reportedly doing well with his two functioning hearts. Other popular Yahoo! News stories: • Paralyzed snow mobile rider makes trip to South Pole • NYC police developing "electronic fisking" device • Florida police officers paid to drink alcohol, eat Doritos on the job |
This comedy of terrors begins when a jaded reporter is sent to investigate the Doancomb Inn, before print journalism becomes deader than the ghosts that haunt the hotel. As the tale unfolds, this scary-funny musical revue confronts everything from monsters, demons, sexy vampires, and the scariest thing of all, modern romance…. you’ll be dying to see it! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram for more updates! Triangle is committed to making our productions accessible to all. We are partnering with McCarter Theatre and the Office of Disabilities to bring in ASL interpreters to provide sign language-interpreted performances and/or printed scripts. Wheelchair seating is also available in all McCarter theaters. Please email triangle@princeton.edu to request any of these arrangements, or any additional support. Class of 1989: One free ticket per classmate! Class of 2019: One free ticket per classmate — beginning May! |
Sunday was the birthday of English beer writer Michael Jackson, who passed away in 2007. In his memory, Jay Brooks tweeted this quote. It's impressive because this quote is timeless. Just these few past years, we've heard Colin McDonnell of Hen House say "freshness breeds community," and we've seen the battle over locally made fresh beer that's brewing... and yet this quote stays above the fray, and with class. What Jackson has become known for, though, is getting involved in beer. Bryan Roth made reference in his writeup of Saison Dupont. Oddly enough, the beer might not have reached its iconic status without a little luck. Writer Michael Jackson, who called Saison Dupont “a down-to-earth classic of the style,” came to love the zesty, herbal brew while traveling through Belgium in the 1970s. At Jackson’s urging, Feinberg and Littlefield looked at a partnership with Brasserie Dupont and began importing Saison Dupont in the late 1980s through their company, Vanberg & DeWulf. At the time, the beer represented just 2 percent of Brasserie Dupont’s sales and was being considered for discontinuation. It was easily eclipsed by the brewery’s strong pale ale, Moinette. Saison Dupont was the reason I got back into craft beer. After drinking too many lagers with my bredren in London -- I couldn't dig on the cask ales at the time, they were too warm and flat -- Dupont came at me like looking like a lager but packing way more punch in the taste category. If there were a beer that I would attempt to save now, it would be this one. Of course, Jackson did it with his typical lyrical flare. Here's a passage from his trip to Belgium and Brasserie Dupont that does what the best travel and beer writing does: takes you to a place and sits you in it. When he opened a bottle for me to taste, the cork flew through the air. No sooner had one bottle appeared than another would be fetched. "Taste this," M. Rosier would suggest, every time I sought to probe the secrets of his beer. "In your view, just how should a Saison taste?" I would demand. "It must be a good, honest beer. It should have character. It is essential that it has soul," he would reply, with Gallic imprecision. "Here ... try this one." In their house character, Dupont's beers are full of life. with a rocky, creamy, head; a sharp, refreshing, attack; a restrained fruitiness; and a long, very dry, finish. Of course, we might make too much of this. That seminal piece is oft-cited and fairly strident for a piece of beer writing that otherwise reads more like a travel and review. In the beginning he says that "The integrity of several Belgian beer styles is in danger and some could vanish. Perhaps the most endangered is the Saison" and he ends with "Perhaps these breweries will in the future have a crack at a classic Saison. The style needs all the help it can get." And yet the only other article on his site tagged for 'saison' is a description of the style -- "Despite their typical strengths, Saisons usually have a citric, peppery, quenching, quality, due variously to hard water, heavy hopping, spicing or deliberate souring. They are usually amber to orange in colour, and often very quite dry" -- that doesn't spend a ton of time advocating for the beer. That's it! His guide to the best beers of Belgium didn't include mention of the saison as a style. He was plying his trade in the mid-90s and so the internet is not great at finding all of his pieces. He would have had to go back in and paste in his pieces later, probably, so maybe he didn't feel his other works on the saison were worthy. Hard to believe there wasn't anything in between Canon and Style Description, but there we are. His Great Beer Guide had two saisons in it. Anyway. He helped make the connection that brought Dupont to this country, and he wrote a piece urging the world to drink more saisons. That's enough to raise a glass of a great saison to him -- just a few days after his birthday, in true beery style -- and say a hearty thank you to the Beer Hunter. |
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