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SIEM REAP, 4 January 2017: Cambodia has commissioned a Chinese consortium to build a new international airport at Siem Reap. Phnom Penh Post reported the Chinese state-run Yunnan Investment Holdings Ltd (YIHL) will build a new USD880 million airport about 50 km from Siem Reap. The agreement, signed by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An and YIHL chairman Sun Yun during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the Kingdom in October, grants a joint investment consortium formed by YIHL, the Yunnan Construction Investment Group and the Yunnan Airport Group an exclusive 55-year build, operate, transfer (BOT) concession on the new airport. Construction of the greenfield airport on 700 hectares of land provided by the government is expected to take three years, the report said. The plan is to build a 4E class airport, with the possibility of expanding to 4F compliance, which means the airport could accommodate long-haul aircraft. Once operational, YIHL’s Siem Reap Angkor International Airport would replace the existing airport at Siem Reap, which is operated by Cambodia Airports, a company majority owned by France’s Vinci Group. Cambodia Airports currently holds a concession to operate international airports serving Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville until 2040. A committee has been appointed to negotiate a sooner end-date for Cambodia Airport’s franchise on Siem Reap’s airport and to discuss suitable compensation for the company. The government decided to relocate Siem Reap’s airport after a report issued by UNESCO in 2010 said the current airport was located too close to Angkor Wat and Bayon temples, the report added. Vibrations from aircraft taking off and landing at the airport were damaging the foundations of the temples at the World Heritage site. Siem Reap welcomed 1,734,791 international visitors for the first 10 months of 2016, a 2% increase from 1,701,134 visits, during the same period in 2015, according to Ministry of Tourism’s Statistics and Tourism Information Department’s data. |
Not just for war: how drones can be used for good As technology advances and becomes safer, we will see increasing numbers of UAVs and robotic aircraft being used for civilian applications, says Salah Sukkarieh (centre). It's becoming rare to see or hear coverage of combat and conflict without the mention of unmanned "drones" and their use in targeted killings. The subject rated a mention in last year's US presidential debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney - in which Romney supported Obama's use of drones on terror targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. US senator Rand Paul held the Senate floor for almost 13 hours earlier this month to discuss the potential for the use of lethal drones on American soil. It is an extremely emotive topic. With all forms of technology, its value depends on its use and who is using it. And so it is with drones, which over the past 10 years have enjoyed an ever-growing presence in civilian applications. What's in a name? The term "drone" is hardly ever used these days by those who work on their development. The origin of the term is unknown: some say it is because of the low, humming noise they make; others say its based on experiments conducted in Britain in the 1930s. The original term was "pilotless airplane", which then moved on to "drone", and then to "remotely piloted vehicles" (RPV) in the 1970s, and "unmanned aircraft" (UMA) in the 1980s. Currently, the most popular term is "unmanned air vehicle" (UAV); if one wants to consider the whole system (including communication, ground station and supporting human roles) it's an "unmanned air system" (UAS). "Robotic aircraft" (RA) is another term bandied around to represent the growing trend in developing UAVs with greater levels of situational awareness and intelligence. Confusion will linger for some time. Civilian applications The Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap published by the US Department of Defence suggests almost US$20 billion has been devoted to UAS since 2005. As with other technologies, the significant amount of spending the military has put towards new platforms, autopilots, better on-board battery systems and smaller surveillance systems has had a positive impact on UAVs in civilian applications. Ten years ago, if a university wanted to develop UAVs for civilian applications, the development of the platform, electronics, flight-control laws, sensor, ground station and its software and communication all had to be done in-house, tending towards a multi-year, multi-million dollar program. Today, this whole system can be purchased as an off-the-shelf UAV platform with auto take-off and landing, up to a four-hour flight duration, along with imaging sensors, for less than A$100,000 - ready to use. Even cheaper platforms with less capability can be obtained for A$40,000. And let's not forget the latest trend in multi-rotor UAVs that can be bought and flown the next day for A$2,000-A$10,000 (albeit with only a few minutes of flight time and a low sensing capability - but sometimes the sensor can be worth more than the UAV platform). Arguably, the media's growing interest in "drone journalism" could be seen as a good thing, although this could be a double-edged sword. In 2011, Nine Network's 60 Minutes came under fire after screening footage taken by an "unmanned surveillance drone" over a detention camp on Christmas Island. We can expect to see much more of this. UAVs and robotic aircraft are currently being used for tracking animals, weather monitoring, detecting and tracking poachers, and in agriculture to measure the health of trees and soil. For the applications mentioned above, small UAV systems are used, however sophisticated. But there have been direct purchases of what are "off-the-shelf" military platforms used for combating drug trafficking, and bushfire monitoring. Australian-specific uses UAVs for civilian applications have a proud history in Australia. In fact, for many years, Australia has had some of the most liberal aviation rules for these systems. Our best known example is the Laima UAV - built, tested and flown by the Melbourne-based company Aerosonde. In August 1998, it was the first robotic aircraft to fly across the North Atlantic. The original concept was conceived by the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre in Melbourne, with the objective of building a UAV that could collect weather data. There are ongoing trials to use UAVs to chase criminals, for search and rescue, and in mining, invasive weed detection and agriculture: Restrictions There are many restrictions already in place on UAV technology to prevent its misuse. The two main ones relate to the autopilot and the capability of those in ultimate control of the platform. The autopilot comprises of sensors (usually accelerometers, gyroscopes and GPS) and algorithms that can estimate the position, velocity and attitude of the platform. Those estimates are then sent to the flight control algorithms that both stabilise the platform and provide the guidance laws for motion between different locations. With increasing sensor accuracy, and better flight-control laws, one can develop very-high precision flight manoeuvres. For this reason, autopilots are restricted through ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) agreements. As for who is allowed to fly a UAV for civilian purposes, the best place to start is our own Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA). CASA has been recognised as being forward-thinking by many similar bodies around the world, and has allowed Australia to advance this type of technology more than many other countries. The Civil Aviation Safety Regulations Part 101 outlines the approval steps required for an individual or organisation to develop, test and use any UAV for civilian applications. Gaining approval to use a UAV in Australia - even remotely close to any civilian population - involves extensive hurdles. As illustrated by the examples above, almost all civilian UAV use in Australia is undertaken away from populated regions. But as the technology advances and becomes safer, we will see increasing numbers of UAVs and robotic aircraft being used for civilian applications. So keep your eyes on the skies - you never know when a UAV might be coming to help you! Salah Sukkarieh is a professor in robotics in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies. Media enquiries: Katie Szittner, 02 9351 2261, 0478 316 809, katie.szittner@sydney.edu.au |
Films such as Food Inc and Fresh do a wonderful job teaching audiences that food can be hazardous to our health depending on how it was raised, grown or processed. Medical experts, like Dr. Kessler, remind Americans that the quantity of what we put in our mouth is just as important as the quality of our food. But what are the effects of our appetite on the environment or the rest of the world? For starters, we won't need to worry about eating too many fish sticks or McDonald's fish sandwiches because—quite simply—there will be no more fish to eat. End of the Line a documentary inspired by Charles Clover's book of the same name, takes a terrifyingly look at the rampant and illegal overfishing that is quickly depleting the world's oceans. Based upon recently unearthed data, scientists claim we will see the end of most seafood by 2048. Bluefin tuna, valued as one of the world's top game fish and a delicious meal, is well on its way toward imminent extinction à la the dodo, thanks to restaurants like Nobu (which still serves it on its menu) and companies planning to profit by selling the fish frozen, long after the last bluefin tuna has been caught from the sea. Even if you find it difficult to liken fish to the beautiful giant panda or other cuddly endangered species, consider the fact that many developing and third world populations depend upon fish for survival. Recently I asked Mr. Clover why this issue has received so little press and there's any hope that my grandchildren will have the chance to know what “fishy,” tastes like. LM: In the film, you mention that as a fly fisherman, you became curious about overfishing after noticing a decline in the salmon population on the River Dee in Wales. Do you still fish? CC: Yes, I was there last weekend. LM: Do you still eat fish? CC: I do. LM: Which fish do you eat? CC: The ones I mention at the end of my book that reproduce rapidly -- which are pretty much those on the “fish to eat” list. One has confidence that the populations are not harvested at a rate where they could be endangered. I brought some mackerel, which I caught myself, back from Scotland last weekend. I'll eat herring. There are loads of shellfish that you can eat. I get very worried about farmed fish. LM: How would you compare End of the Line with other food-related documentaries that have come out recently such as Food Inc. or Fresh? CC: I haven't seen Food Inc. yet, and I'm not sure it's been released over here, so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage on that one. But I know Eric Schlosser's book, so I know what it must be about. From what is said of it and what I have seen of it online, Food Inc. is a story that we already know told very well whereas, I think for many people, The End of the Line tells a story they wouldn't know. There is also the feeling that we're more about a global environment than about the “Me, me, what do I put in the temple of my body?” [Schlosser]'s about. I get a lot of questions, only in America, asking, “Why didn't you talk about pollution when you talk about the sea?” We don't talk about pollution because pollution is old hat. There is this problem of mercury, but the bigger problem is that the fish that contain the mercury are dying out, so it's going to be less of a problem for you in that you're not going to be able to eat them. We don't take this issue lightly, but this is the difference between American and European audiences. It's easy to say to a European audience that we are overfishing our fish, partly because we're doing it domestically so much more than you are, but American audiences are always hung up on the pollution aspect, which is actually a story that's been going since the 50s. It's not a new story. It's not a story about how we're going to survive the centuries as a human race, which the overfishing story is. This is a new story. LM: One of End of the Line's most shocking claims was that if we continue fishing the way we do now, we would see the end of most seafood by 2048. How did conditions become so dire without prior media coverage? CC: It's been in the scientific publications. It's been in Science and Nature. The reason is, it was told late. It was only told in 2001 that the world catches had peaked around 1989 and were going down because the Chinese had been overstating their data. The Chinese government overstated world fish catches, and there is a probability that they also overstated the farmed fish that they harvest. So the assumption that we should just progress seamlessly from wild fish to farmed fish is probably wrong. We probably need the oceans to produce our fish for the foreseeable future, and the reality of farmed fish in the west is that it's produced from wild carnivorous fish. You haven't closed the circles as far as a sustainable system is concerned if you're still unsustainably harvesting small fish to feed farmed fish, and that's what I find most disturbing. That “five pounds of wild fish to make one pound of farmed fish” conversion rate is a new figure and came out of one of the world's top aquaculture experts—and it's far worse than anybody thought. If it takes five pounds of Peruvian anchoveta to make one pound of farmed salmon it makes you wonder for a whole host of reasons, both developmental—are we taking away from poor people in the developing world—and also ecological and wasteful, of whether we should be eating these fish. LM: One of the most disheartening aspects of the film was the repeated failure of governments to enforce sustainable catch limits or punish illegal fishermen or fishermen that are exceeding their limits. CC: It's a failure of governance on national, regional and international scale. It really does lower your faith in government that they have screwed this up so definitively. There are places where it turned out rather better than others. There are regional fishing councils in the United States where you're doing it better than anywhere else in the world, other than Iceland, New Zealand and maybe bits of Australia. But by and large this is a desert of bad governance and a result of bad governance. LM: Do you have any hope that governments will work together toward effective change, or does this need to be a grassroots movement? CC: I've never seen governments sit up as a result of a film more than with this film. We have been invited to meetings on Downing Street and the Prime Minister's wife talked about it on Twitter—few documentary films have ever done that. We have been invited to debate with the European Union Commissioner of Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, Joe Borg. But unless there is a popular movement that tells governments that citizens want to retain the sea and have it managed as they want to manage it and not as the vested interests want to manage it, [overfishing][no need for square bracket] is going to get worse. Back to the 2048 claim, the film is a discussion of whether that is correct or not—it's not just a parroting of that figure. The difference between what we had done and what Al Gore did in “An Inconvenient Truth” is we include the arch critics of Boris Worm who say you can't infer what Worm does from the data within the argument. If you look at our website, Worm and Hilborn subsequently went on to publish a paper together three weeks ago answering the question that people ask in the film which is, everyone accepts it's pretty bad, it's just a question of how bad is it? We have much more of a consensus here than the global warming people have—everyone from one end of the spectrum to the other thinks that we're in the shit. LM: Exactly. As you point out in the film, fishermen no longer expect to pass on their profession to their children or grandchildren. Even without the scientific data, it seems self-evident that the fish are declining. CC: With that being true, I am a farmer's son, and I am not a farmer. Industries change, economies of scale change, and efficiencies change. There are too many sentimentalists in the world who think that fishermen should always be able to go on from one generation to another when it might not be sensible to do so. But in countries where it's all there is, like West Africa, I find it deeply disturbing that they can't continue when they are not using particularly ravaging methods; it's just they have a lot of people, and no one's managing the fishery properly. The worst case scenario is the South Java sea where there is a load of people—Java is one of the most overpopulated islands in the world—and there are people who fish beyond the economically viable point simply because they are hungry and have nothing else to do. That's when the fish have no chance for recovery, and it's a terrible tragedy. Your only management is the cyclone. LM: Your book, End of the Line, was published in 2006. With regards with the global over fishing problem, what are the greatest changes that have occurred over the past three years? CC: With regard to policy or actually going wrong in the sea? LM: Either. CC: We decided to make the film focus upon bluefin tuna about two and a half years ago. At that time, people were still talking about the Mediterranean population as being bigger than the Western population that you've got off the United States. Quite clearly, what has happened in the two years in which we were developing the film, is that population has been wiped out by rampant illegal overfishing. That is a very, very big development because it's an example of governmental failure on international scale by some of the most developed countries in the world, the US and EU included. They worked together in this and they completely screwed up. They could not get Iccat [the U.N.'s International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas] to do the right thing; they didn't try hard enough; they allowed the vested interests to talk; they allowed the Japanese tuna traders to run the show through their influence money and their very dubious connections; and that is a total indictment of the way we run the sea. We picked the bluefin tuna because it was the worse thing going on. We ended up finding that we were filming the last buffalo roundup, and we were slightly appalled. If you look at the figures in the report on our website that I filed on June the 7th from Roberto Mielgo, who is a star of the film, he's done an analysis of the tuna on the Japanese market. Thirty-three percent of them are below the illegal catch limits, so how the hell they ever got exported, let alone got imported, I do not know. If what's in the Japanese market is what's in the sea—and it's safe to assume it is—the population collapsed in 2007. There are no mature spawners left. It's absolutely horrifying what has happened over these last three years. It is what we're campaigning about and will go on campaigning about because it is a disgrace. I co-wrote an open letter with Prince Albert of Monaco on June the 5th of this year, and we proposed that the bluefin tuna should be taken out of the hands of this obviously incompetent body Iccat and regulated by Cites, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Since then, President Sarkozy of France has backed us. Ironically, France has the biggest fleet in catching bluefin tuna—they are the ones who have the expertise, but they are also rampantly illegal. In a lot of southern French ports, there are fishermen, French Algerians mostly, who don't seem to obey the law and who are very stroppy. Sarkozy has been at war with them for some time and can't control them—he's tried to get tax off them, they refuse; he's tried to get them to decommission their boats, they refuse; and now he just says, Right, well, let's get an international ban, and I'm going to be the first to back it. You have got to take your hat off to Sarkozy. He is quite a different man from the École Normal Supérieure-type smooth turnout of French presidents. France, Britain, Germany and Holland are saying, it can no longer be business as usual with the bluefin, which means a total ban on international trade, but we still wait to hear what the US is going to do. It's a risk, because the US has a domestic catch, but the domestic catch gets exported in ice overnight to the Japanese market. LM: Isn't blue fin tuna still on Nobu's menu? CC: Yes, in New York and on four other continents. That is what is a disgrace. Our minister says it's a disgrace. What does yours say? LM: I don't think they say anything. CC: I think you should ask them. LM : Last thing I wanted to touch on briefly was how you said the Japanese—Mitsubishi, in particular—is simply freezing the bluefin tuna so they will have a future supply for when all the supplies run out. |
Editor's note: With offseason work across the league coming to an end, the focus shifts to the steamy summer workouts ahead. To get you fully primed for the preseason and beyond, Sporting News provides in-depth looks at all 32 teams leading into training camp. Today: Cleveland Browns. Prediction: Fourth, AFC North. Up next: NFC North The Browns change regimes almost as often as they change quarterbacks. The brass is considering a new opening day quarterback for the seventh straight year. Rob Chudzinski is the fourth head coach since 2008. Michael Lombardi is the fourth general manager in the same time frame. Is it any wonder the Browns’ best record the last five years is 5-11? Is there a shred of sanity in the fact Joe Thomas and D’Qwell Jackson are the only players who have spent more than five years in Cleveland? That said, the latest changes make sense. The Browns weren’t going anywhere under Pat Shurmur. New owner Jimmy Haslam rightfully brought in executives to suit his style. Of course, Haslam is under investigation by the FBI for allegations of fraud—yet another potential hurdle for the organization. It makes no sense to predict anything more optimistic than growing pains for the latest edition of the Browns. BREAKOUT PLAYER WR Greg Little Everyone will be watching deep threat Josh Gordon (after he finishes his two-game suspension), including opponents’ No. 1 cornerbacks, which will clear the way for Little. The trend began late last year, when Little took advantage of favorable matchups for 22 catches in the last five games. The combination of Gordon, Norv Turner, experience and talent will make Little a dangerous player. SCOUT'S TAKE LT Joe Thomas “Joe Thomas is incredible. The biggest thing about him is his consistency. Maybe that’s not a tough-guy term, but it’s what a good offensive lineman has to have. There’s a right way to do your footwork, and that’s the way he does it every time. He doesn’t necessarily have a powerful build, but he’s got plenty of size and strength, and he knows exactly how to use it. You won’t find anybody better and more consistent at protecting the passer. He’s no mauler as a run blocker, but he doesn’t need to be because he knows how to move people and get the job done. He’s as good as it gets.” INSIDE THE HEADSET Chudzinski preaches an “attack-style offense.” As offensive coordinator in Carolina last year, his Cam Newton-led scheme was balanced; the Panthers had 462 runs and 490 passing attempts. Chudzinski is a go-for-it guy on fourth down. He won’t have as big an influence on the defense because that’s coordinator Ray Horton’s baby. VIEW FROM THE OTHER SIDELINE An opponent breaks down the Browns “We’re in a tough division. You don’t see many blowouts, and the Browns were in all of the division games last year. ... You’ve gotta like Trent Richardson. He’s a player, and he has a good offensive line. Richardson isn’t way different than Ray Rice, but I think Ray can catch the ball a little more effectively. As far as their running style, Trent is more of a bruiser. ... We’ve always thought their O-line was as solid as any in the division. ... "Not having the continuity of the other teams has hurt them. You don’t know quite what to expect with the latest guys coming in, although I know a lot of them, and they’re good people. ... I like Jabaal Sheard as a player, forgetting about the scheme. He might be called an outside ’backer or whatever this year, but I guarantee you that when a pass is coming he’ll be rushing from defensive end. ... Like any quarterback who hasn’t been in the league long, (Brandon) Weeden has to prove he belongs. His arm belongs. He seems to feel the rush and get the ball out, but he has a ways to go.” OFFENSE Dink-and-dunk is dead. Whoever plays quarterback for Chudzinski and coordinator Norv Turner must prove he has the right mind along with the arm to whiz the ball downfield. Chudzinski and Turner, who worked well together in reversed roles in San Diego, favor a power running game behind a lead blocker to set up play-action passes. The West Coast offense just didn’t work in Cleveland last season, and the quarterbacks are well suited for the new offensive style. QUARTERBACKS Brandon Weeden made it through spring practice with a tenuous grip on the starting job. Cleveland signed Jason Campbell as a nothing-to-lose option, and he was sharper than Weeden in some OTA work. Weeden, though, outperformed Campbell in minicamp, just before players headed for summer break. The Browns should give Weeden a year to prove his disjointed rookie season was owed largely to being miscast in a West Coast offense; he has more than enough arm to zip the vertical routes Chudzinski and Turner love. Campbell has more experience than Weeden, including valuable time on two previous teams that used offensive principles similar to Turner’s. Campbell’s record as an NFL starter is 31-40, but at 31, he is just two years older than Weeden. Campbell is more athletic than Weeden and has the same arm strength. Weeden’s edge comes in having more upside. Campbell seems to be more of a game manager type. GRADE: D+ RUNNING BACKS Trent Richardson apologists say his poor yards-per-carry average in 2012 (3.6 on 267 attempts) was an aberration, the result of two knee surgeries, broken ribs and rookie adjustments in an atmosphere of erratic play-calling. The guess is Richardson, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2012 draft, will improve in his second year, but it’s unclear whether the 5-9, 230-pounder will live up to his billing. Richardson flashed a relentless running style, but neither his speed nor his elusiveness proved good enough. He did, however, compete fiercely near the goal line, making second and third pushes that translated into 11 rushing touchdowns, but he also produced far too many runs of a yard or worse. He must be quicker to the hole and more decisive on cuts. If Richardson gets hurt again — an ostensibly minor leg strain knocked him out of minicamp — Cleveland will roll with a committee. Montario Hardesty is an adequate all-around back coming off a decent season (271 yards, 4.2 average). If Richardson stays healthy, Hardesty might see the field less than Chris Ogbonnaya, a crafty receiver and above-average blocker. Trade acquisition Dion Lewis (5-8, 195 pounds) offers a third-down option. Turner has a knack for setting up runs with a fullback, and the Browns have Owen Marecic, a fourth-round pick in 2011. He has been OK as a blocker but must quit dropping dump-off passes. GRADE: C+ RECEIVERS It’s reasonable to expect each returning receiver on this unit to become more productive, but until that happens, this group is no match for a decent secondary. Gordon, who had a 50-catch, 805-yard rookie year in 2012, projects as the No. 1 wideout, but he has been suspended for two games for using a banned substance. Considering he sat out the 2011 college season and is only 22, there’s reason to expect significant improvement if he handles the suspension well. Gordon is big (6-3, 225), fast and naturally elusive. Big, athletic Greg Little (6-2, 220) is similar to Gordon. He was a second-round draft pick in 2011 who hadn’t played college ball the previous year. He led the team in receiving as a rookie, then adjusted to the arrival of Gordon in 2012, when he caught 53 passes for 647 yards. The Browns signed 6-5 David Nelson, who was emerging in Buffalo before an injury-marred 2012, and traded for Dolphins slot receiver Davone Bess. They also have Travis Benjamin, a certified burner who showed promise as a rookie last season and was a minicamp star. Chudzinski is a former tight end and Turner is tight end-friendly, so there is the potential for this position to be emphasized in the offense. The problem is with personnel. Jordan Cameron has ideal athleticism, but his production at USC and through two NFL seasons has been negligible. Free-agent pickups Kellen Davis and Gary Barnidge are competent blocking tight ends who have been low-watt pro receivers. GRADE: C OFFENSIVE LINE This is Cleveland’s strength. Thomas, 28, has gone to the Pro Bowl in each of his six seasons. Alex Mack is a former first-round pick who has emerged as one of the league’s better centers. Right tackle Mitchell Schwartz exceeded expectations as a high second-round draft pick. But two things need to happen for the Browns to have one of the NFL’s better lines. First, Thomas, Mack and Schwartz must stay healthy. All three are intelligent technicians who excel as pass blockers, and Thomas and Schwartz don’t run block with brute force but are effective with leverage and footwork. But tackle Oniel Cousins is a Baltimore castoff, and there is no clear-cut backup center. The good news is Thomas, Mack and Schwartz have never missed a start in a combined 176 games. Second, guard play also must improve. Shawn Lauvao is an adequate right guard with room to grow as a third-year starter, but left guard is shaky. Jason Pinkston played well as a rookie in 2011 and was six games into his second season when a blood clot was discovered in his lungs. Veteran John Greco started the rest of the season. Pinkston is back and appears to be healthy, but Greco won favor among coaches in the spring. GRADE: B+ DEFENSE Whereas the change in offensive scheme figures to be healthy, the jury is out on the new defense. Dick Jauron’s 4-3 played better than the roster and circumstances dictated in both 2011 and 2012. New coordinator Horton, brought over from Arizona, brings in a 3-4 that required expensive free-agent additions and will have returning front seven producers learning new roles. Horton’s plan is to apply blitz principles inspired during his time with Pittsburgh defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau. DEFENSIVE LINE Switching to a 3-4 might not be a major problem for the defensive line. Sixth-year pro Ahtyba Rubin spent the last two years as a 4-3 tackle, but before that he played as a nose tackle in Rob Ryan’s 3-4 scheme. Rubin, who is versatile and coachable, became so good in the role he pushed former Pro Bowler Shaun Rogers out of the starting lineup. The new coaches have committed to making Rubin an defensive end because they judge third-year pro Phil Taylor best suited for nose tackle in this scheme. Taylor, a former first-round pick, is also big and athletic enough to be a dominant 3-4 end. Horton likes to move his linemen around and create mismatches, and he will have all of his starters ready to play any of the three spots. Free-agent pickup Desmond Bryant (6-6, 310) was a 4-3 tackle in Oakland, but he has an ideal build to blossom as a 3-4 end and the athleticism to cover in certain situations. Last year’s draft translated into quality depth. Sixth-rounder Billy Winn held up and was a pleasant surprise; he has starter potential as a 3-4 end. Third-rounder John Hughes has the bulk and talent to play 20 quality snaps, mostly at nose tackle. GRADE: B LINEBACKERS The team spent a No. 6 overall draft pick on LSU defensive end Barkevious Mingo and is all in with turning him into an outside pass-rushing force. He proved in spring workouts he can cover and play the run while standing up as a 3-4 outside linebacker. This group will make or break the defense, and so many things must go right for it not to be a weakness. Team captain D’Qwell Jackson is the rock, an eighth-year pro who has produced in 3-4 and 4-3 schemes. Jackson’s weakness is fighting off guards who get through the line of scrimmage, which is bound to happen more often in a 3-4. Craig Robertson, formerly undrafted, is emerging as the other inside linebacker after a surprising stint on the outside in last year’s 4-3 scheme. 2012 Round 4 pick James-Michael Johnson is trying to carve out a role, but the jury is out as to where he fits in the new scheme. Pricey free agent Paul Kruger must adjust to a new team and a more expansive role at outside linebacker than he had in Baltimore. He broke through as a pass rusher in 2012, and that included 4.5 sacks in the postseason, but he must prove himself as a run defender. Third-year pro Jabaal Sheard will maintain the edge-rushing duties he performed well as a starting 4-3 end the past two years, but he must learn how to play standing up while helping in coverage as an outside linebacker. How Mingo will be rotated with Sheard and Kruger is a key mystery. Veteran Quentin Groves, a former second-round pick, was a key free-agent pickup. He is a quality player and an insurance policy if Sheard struggles with the transition. Groves spent last season in Arizona with Horton and will help his new teammates learn the scheme. GRADE: C SECONDARY Losing cornerback Joe Haden to a four-game suspension was a huge factor in Cleveland’s 0-5 start last season, but he has matured and should have a big year. Haden’s fluid movements and tangible confidence make it easy to see why he was the No. 7 pick in 2010. Teams will throw away from Haden no matter who starts at the other cornerback. Buster Skrine is one of the fastest corners in the league, but his instincts are suspect. Free-agent pickup Chris Owens has the quickness and experience to play nickel back. Johnson Bademosi was sensational on special teams and could play his way into a role. Third-round draft pick Leon McFadden has the ball skills and athleticism to push for a starting job. When strong safety T.J. Ward arrived in 2010, he talked about giving Cleveland the kind of juice division rivals received from Troy Polamalu and Ed Reed. He is starting to live up to his potential. Ward is a fierce hitter in the box and has started making more impact plays in coverage. At free safety, the Browns will have their third starter in three years. Tashaun Gipson was a nice surprise as an undrafted rookie in 2012. He figures to hold off rookie Jamoris Slaughter, who is working his way back from Achilles’ surgery. GRADE: C SPECIAL TEAMS Pro Bowl kicker Phil Dawson and Pro Bowl returner Joshua Cribbs were strong locker room presences, and losing them will hurt. At kicker, Shayne Graham was signed to replace Dawson. Lewis might return kickoffs, but he was mediocre in a 2011 trial with Philadelphia. Benjamin returned three punts last year, and he took one 93 yards for a TD. Spencer Lanning, who has a big leg but is unproven, was signed to replace punter Reggie Hodges. GRADE: C- BOTTOM LINE Haslam is hoping new coaches and a new personnel team can reverse a losing culture that has produced three five-win and two four-win seasons the past five years, but it’s a daunting task. Weeden needs to make a big jump, which is not out of the question given Turner’s experience. The running game needs to excel, which could happen if Richardson stays healthy. On defense, the team must get big play from Kruger and career years from high draft picks such as Haden, Ward, Taylor and Sheard. Flirting with .500 in 2013 is optimistic for this team. |
As promised, I commit to it. Is Dream Theater, an undefeated ghoul of prog arena, on its knees? The band is set to release brand new self-titled album on September 24th and Prog Sphere was one of the first to have it featured as streaming. While the topic is still hot (and it’s going to be for quite some time), it felt right to come up with a special that shows where actually this album stands comparing with some of other “flagships” released in 2013. Maybe “compare” is not a right word to use, as there are 5 progressive albums selected by yours truly that are slightly topping the NYC proggers. Shall we begin? I am not going to make any lists in here, it’s always ungrateful doing so, methinks. Instead I’ll just give a space to five albums that can beat-the-sh*t-out-of new Dream Theater. Oh gosh, I shouldn’t be that harsh. Circle of Illusion – Jeremias – Foreshadow of Forgotten Realms Progressive rock operas, and rock operas in global, do not seem to be a thing (anymore) nowadays. Jeremias is described as a progressive rock opera for 21st century. If this description makes a sour smile on your face, make sure to remove it immediately, because this album brings badly needed excitement and inventiveness on a dull progressive metal scene, while not risking anything. This is a bombastic, symphonic straight hitter that doesn’t suffer of any pre-configurations. Its joker is that you actually didn’t expect it and when it hits you once, it already wins all over you. You can listen to the album here. Leprous – Coal The third album by Norwegians sees the band evolving rapidly, becoming one of the leaders of (if-that-exists) new wave progressive metal bands. In general, I dismiss anything labeled with “new wave”, but this is not to be considered a genre label, but to show that progressive metal in 2013 knows how to be different. And that’s what Leprous serve with Coal. Organic, non-predictive sound that speaks a lot within eight numbers the album is comprised of. Alessandro Bertoni – Keystone Many will say that it’s easy to produce a great album when you have a great line-up around. Well, that’s not always true. Alessandro Bertoni gathered great line-up, that’s true. Brett Garsed, Ric Fierabracci and Virgil Donati are well known to the broad prog and jazz masses, and Bertoni had definitely a tough task to justify the attention he received. Keystone is a prog-fusion album that is quite focused on the subject. Fully instrumental, it’s an album that puts melody and groove in a mix that is kind of unconventional for this genre. Therefore, it’s positively different. And that makes it stands out. Listen to the album at this location. Haken – The Mountain UK progressive rockers are back with their third album and their story is quite similar with the Leprous story. Though, they walk the (not so much) different roads, these bands are colliding in terms of innovation and prowess to experiment and bring something unusual. The Mountain is a record that is heavily grounded in 70′s progressive rock, but Haken established their own sound already with previous two albums and with the new one they are transforming to a leading prog force. Omb – SwineSong This Israeli band emerged on the rocks of already established Amaseffer and Reign of the Architect, employing the band members from this two bands. Although it would be unfair to label them as progressive metal strictly, they are largely based on the mentioned genre expanded by avant-garde sound, what is setting them on a whole new level. Plenty of interesting vocal harmonies, vocals coming all the way from cleans to growls and all that heavily spiced with precise rhythm section and astonishing guitarwork of Yuval Kramer. Stream it here. Besides these five albums, there are lot more of them that maybe deserved to be found here. I will mention new albums from Virgil Donati, Maschine, Scale the Summit, Volto!, etc. To summarize, it’s clear that none of these albums will be welcomed as Dream Theater‘s Dream Theater, but just so you know – there is a lot more going on under the surface. Share this: Facebook Twitter Google Pinterest Reddit Digg Email LinkedIn StumbleUpon Tumblr Pocket Print |
A Steady, Upward Course Elder Henry B. Eyring Brigham Young University – Idaho Devotional September 18, 2001 As President Bednar has said, I have come under assignment from the First Presidency to talk about the future of this institution. But I know enough about it to know that I need to talk first to the students because the Lord cares about you and would want me to recognize what has always been recognized at Ricks College, that the institution is largely determined by you. And more than that, it's more than what I say or what even the teachers say; things happen here directed by the Lord in a rather specific way for your benefit. A word about the lovely music. This choir has sung from the place where a choir sang the day I was inaugurated as the president of Ricks College. As they sang, somehow that came back to me again. I was touched then as I was now, not just by the beauty of your voices but by the faith. And I realized that I wasn't the only one in that room who was touched that day. Just a month or so ago, I was on assignment and I was in an airport in San Francisco, waiting between planes. I saw a man that I thought I recognized, and I realized that he probably was having trouble recognizing me, too. It had been a number of years. He was the dean of the graduate school at Stanford University when I left that faculty to come here to become the president many, many years ago. I remember being surprised that he came to my inauguration, knowing how busy he was. I recall that somehow in the moments of the inaugural party, moving about, I saw him. I encountered him that day, and he was crying. He expressed gratitude for having been here. When I met him in the lounge in San Francisco recently, his first words were: "I've retired now. I'm living in Montana." Then he wanted to tell me about a bishop of the Church that he had met. So of all the things that he would remember about me, he remembered the feelings of the gospel of Jesus Christ that he'd felt. He has not joined the Church yet, but he felt something here that you've felt. And I wanted you to know that as much as we thank the singers and those who prepared the music, what happened here today has been happening here for generations. That is, the Spirit of the Lord comes and touches people; and you've been in such a place and in such a moment today. You will years later, just like the dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, remember that there was a spirit here today. Now the other thing I was impressed with is that you were asked to raise your scriptures. I felt as you did that to make a promise to you that I know will be fulfilled because it has been fulfilled for me in the last few days. We live in a time of increasing difficulty and change. Many of us have felt some things that led us to the scriptures. In the last few days, I have found things I had never seen there before because, in my extremity, the Lord showed me things that He had prepared long ago to help me. I'll make you a promise: If you will, in the next few hours and days, go to the scriptures, you will, as you read them (pick them anywhere that you're led to read) see scriptures speaking to you as if it was the voice of God, as if He knew your needs and your concerns; and He will tailor that to you, and it will be a witness to you that He knows you and that in that set of scriptures that you lifted above your head is a means by which He can guide you and comfort you. I promise you, you'll have that experience—and it will be very personal—in the next few days. Now, in the past few days our world changed. We were forced to look into the face of terrorism, not in a work of fiction or through television news clips of another nation. We saw it in our own land. That has brought anxiety and it will force changes in our lives. Some of the changes will be small. For instance, I drove to Rexburg this morning because I could attend more of a meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles than if I spent two hours clearing security at the airport. Some changes will be larger. Those in the National Guard and the Reserves may be called away from their families and their normal lives. I have a son and his wife who live with their six children in a country where there are personal risks. Those risks may now increase. His career depends on taking a series of international assignments. Should he change careers? What should he teach his children about risks and fear? We have two other sons, both former students at Ricks College, who work in an industry already hard-pressed by a faltering economy. They live in Boston. They flew the very flights that were involved in the tragedy this last week often, but by the blessing of heaven were at home on that day. Now there is a possibility that what happened in New York and Washington will further depress the economy and the capital markets. What changes should they consider? What should they teach their children about the future and uncertainty? Each of us finds ourselves asking: "What other parts of my world that I thought were stable have now become uncertain?" No wonder that you and I have heard and read so often in the last few days "everything has changed." But at least two things will help us take courage and find direction. First, change is part of life. For instance, growing up and growing older are adventures in change filled with uncertainties and surprises. And second, God, through prophets, prepared us to expect changes to accelerate in the world. Do you remember the words from section 45 of the Doctrine and Covenants, verses 26-27: "And in that day shall be heard of wars and rumors of wars, and the whole earth shall be in commotion, and men's hearts shall fail them, and they shall say that Christ delayeth his coming until the end of the earth. "And the love of men shall wax cold, and iniquity shall abound." Although we face an increase in challenges, there is another change sweeping the earth. It is a flood of opportunity. The steady flow of invention is an example. A generation ago there were no small computers. But now university campuses connect them with fiber-optic cable, and that cable may be replaced soon by wireless technologies. There are now tens of thousands of people taking BYU courses through Web technology. There was no Web a few years ago. The cell phones, which figured so touchingly in the tragedies of last week, did not exist a generation ago. The list of powerful and helpful new technological miracles goes on and on, and the rate of innovation is accelerating. We will live for better or for worse with rapid change and the uncertainty it brings. You and I want to make that change work for the better for us and not for the worse. We could learn much of how to do that from what has been done at this school in the last year. The people here have set an example for us worthy of our support and our emulation. Now I move away from my text for a moment. I've written this out because I wanted to be sure that I had the opportunity to share it in advance with President Hinckley—which I did—but I have felt at this moment that I needed to move away from that to speak to you so that you'd be sure to understand what this means for you. This is a world of change. Both the increase of difficulty (and that's coming—the scriptures make that clear and the prophets have made that clear) and the increase of opportunities will bring tremendous change. What I intend to do is to describe to you the miraculous way in which this institution has done what you must do. I need to be very clear, and here it is. Most of you, with caring parents, have at least once or twice as you left the house heard these words, "Remember who you are." Some of you remember hearing it with pain. "Oh, Mother. There you go again." Or, "Oh, there's Dad acting like a dad again." Remember who you are. What I'd like to suggest to you is that they were telling you the right thing, but it assumed you had asked and answered a question correctly to know who you really are. Now think of the difficulty. One of the reasons it didn't work for some of you, by the way, is that you went out and did dumb things remembering who you were because you remembered "I know who I am. I'm a crazy, mixed-up teenager, still trying to figure out who I am; and I remember, yeah, I remember who I am." And of course, then it doesn't work very well, does it? If you remembered "Oh, yeah. I'm the captain of the football team," or the basketball team, or something else, it might have helped a little bit. Or "I'm an example to my brothers and sisters." I don't know what it was, but I'll just tell you this-answering that question well and wisely will determine whether or not [you progress] in a world where you must make changes (some because there are opportunities you will have taken advantage of, some just in the course of life, some because of difficulties-many reasons). You're going to change tremendously and the world around you is going to change. The purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to change you so that you're not trying to resist change. You're trying to have change take you where the Lord wants you to go. How you answer the question of who you are will determine almost everything. What I will now read to you, carefully prepared and seen by the prophet of God, is a description of the process that this institution has gone through and why the way they have done it has led the Lord to tell them who they are in such a way that even though they change, the part of them that God would have stay the same will stay the same. Now, I just have to quickly say that each of you, individually, has had messages sent to you throughout your life, just as this institution has had messages sent to it about what the Lord sees as special and distinct. I had the experience, as a young boy growing up in New Jersey, of reading the scriptures in school, before the Constitution was interpreted to say that was illegal. So, in the Princeton Township School they used to have, every day, a student pick a scripture to read. And every time I was ever asked, I always read the same scripture. The poor kids in the class had to listen to it over and over again when my turn came because, for some reason, I had been told, "This is for you; this is about you." And so every thirty days, or however many students there were, my turn would come and I would read from chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians the same verse: "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; . . . charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up" (1 Corinthians 13:4). That is a beautiful description of Paul. And I had been told as a little boy, "This is about you. And this is about the good life you will sometime have in a family." Now, this was when I was a little, little boy. I was thinking about the New York Yankees, not about a family. Years later a patriarch put his hands on my head. Gascoe Romney (the grandfather, by the way, of Mitt Romney, who's the one running things in our Olympic efforts in Utah) put his hands on my head and gave me a blessing. He didn't know me. He had no way to know about that scripture. He described to me the home that I might someday have exactly as I had seen it every time I heard that scripture as a little boy. And so I am eyewitness that God is speaking to you. He really is. He knows who you are—each of you distinct, each of you with some possibilities of great contribution and a good life—and He is trying always to tell you who you are. What I will now describe, as I return to this text, is the miraculous thing that has happened here—where the Lord has guided this institution and will guide it in such a way that although there will be tremendous change, the personal deep and spiritual characteristics of the place will not only not be lost, they will be enhanced. Here they were forced to learn about rapid change. Fifteen months ago, without warning, they were told that the two-year Ricks College was to become the four-year BYU-Idaho. What they have done since then is miraculous, and it is a two-fold miracle. First, there is the miracle in how much they have done. In those fifteen months they created a detailed plan, hired new faculty, received conditional accreditation status which could have taken years, and then launched this venture, BYU-Idaho. And change will not end. The phrase "rethinking education" is not to be only a slogan for the transformation from a two- to four-year status, the school is to be a place of educational innovation—permanently. The second part of the miracle is the way they have made the changes. The people who serve here have found a way to make changes—great and rapid changes—that will enhance, not replace, the best of what the school has always been. Because of that, I can with confidence make you a promise. When you return in some distant future, you will find great innovation has become commonplace, and yet, amidst all the changes, the school will have retained and enriched the basic characteristics that blessed your life. Let me tell you how that has happened in the last fifteen months and why I am so confident that it will continue. It is worth your hearing because it could be applied in our personal lives. Each of us wants to live in a world of change where our personal reaction to it is not only productive but where it enhances the best of what we are. We could begin where those who lead the school did. They took the words of living prophets as their guide. President Hinckley chairs the Board of Trustees. On June 21 in the year 2000, he read a brief announcement to the media in Salt Lake City. The text is less than a single page. It has only twenty-one sentences in it, yet in the faithful way the people here followed that guide lays the basis of my optimism about the future. One of the shortest sentences in the announcement is this one: "Adjustments to its mission will be minimal." Now, think for a moment of the rush of pride that might come into a human heart on being told your two-year college was to become a "university," and not an obscure university. The announcement read: "The new four-year school will be known as Brigham Young University-Idaho, with the name change designed to give the school immediate national and international recognition." That could tempt, in fact it would tempt, most people to make a minimal adjustment in the mission of the school to look more like the secular schools whose praise we might want. But the mission statement submitted to the accreditation agency in the plan entitled, "Substantive Change Prospectus for the Addition of Degree Programs at a Higher Level" was not changed at all. These could be the words of President Thomas E. Ricks or Principal Jacob Spori or any of the leaders from the beginning. The first goal, stated boldly and plainly in the prospectus, is to "build testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and to encourage living its principles." That choice to put the Savior and His purposes first is the primary basis of my confidence in the future. Every innovation, every change, will be measured against this test of the heart. How would this proposed change build testimony and true conversion to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in the heart of a student? True conversion comes by gaining sufficient faith to live the principles of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Some potential and proposed innovations will help that to happen. There will be other innovations proposed that would be less helpful or might even hinder. The cumulative effect of change here will be to build testimony and accelerate true conversion. Another effect of that goal will be to bring here only teachers who have the Savior and His goal in their hearts. That choice to put the Savior at the center led to the other key choices made in the transition and will assure that those choices will endure. For instance, President Hinckley said in the announcement: "BYU-Idaho will continue to be teaching oriented. Effective teaching and advising will be the primary responsibilities of its faculty, who are committed to academic excellence. "The institution will emphasize undergraduate education and will award baccalaureate degrees; graduate degree programs will not be offered. Faculty rank will not be a part of the academic structure of the new four-year institution." Only people who put the Savior first and take His life as their model could do that, since it is so foreign to so much of what goes on in universities. There are good people who think that it's impossible to have academic excellence without, in time, adding graduate programs. And most faculties so treasure the marks of personal status that they would be puzzled by a university without faculty rank. But there will be outstanding undergraduate education, even with those apparent paradoxes. President Hinckley, in the press conference after his announcement, said, "It will be just as good a teaching institution as we can make it." That will happen because the Savior is and will be the great exemplar. He was a teacher. His work and glory was to lift others. He taught His disciples not to set themselves as being better than others, but to be the servants of all. Only a faculty who believe those things could see a blessing in serving without academic rank. Only a faculty with hearts set on the Savior could believe that they could keep growing as teachers in their changing and challenging fields without graduate programs. Only those with faith that the Savior will help them would respond with enthusiasm to President Bednar's vision of the future for this faculty: "In my mind the overarching theme for all of our scholarly work at Brigham Young University-Idaho should be inspired inquiry and innovation. Let me repeat that: inspired inquiry and innovation. We are not like other institutions of higher education; we have access to the gifts of the Spirit, which cannot be quantified nor counted. There are simply things we cannot adequately define and describe about the process of teaching with the Spirit. But, nonetheless, we should be excellent scholars, and our scholarship should be focused on the processes of learning and teaching. We will not be a recognized and highly regarded research institution in the traditional sense of that term. We will, however, emphasize a wide range of scholarly endeavors and excel in and play a pioneering role in understanding learning and teaching processes with faith and hard work, and in the process of time." That pioneering role as a leader in understanding learning and teaching will come to pass. I, as a servant of Jesus Christ, testify to you that I know that will happen. Even with these apparently humble and even paradoxical standards of what we will be and who we will be, that miracle will occur and this institution, in the world, will become a place that people know of because of the insights that will come as we come to understand the teaching and learning process here. I so testify. The school will enhance another of its characteristics which will carry it safely through turbulent times, and it will come from showing students by example how to live with great faith. That characteristic is frugality. Listen again to the words of President Bednar speaking to the faculty and staff during this time of change: "There is a responsibility to be prudent in the management of the resources, and there are places where we need to improve. If there is an example of use it up, wear it out, making do, or do without, we are that place. If we ever lost that, we would be in trouble. So we need to be careful what we ask for." Now those of you who are young don't understand all that was in that statement. I was the president of Ricks College. I couldn't understand. I couldn't understand why the Brethren were always coming to me, the men who lead the Church, when I was the president, saying: "What more can we do for you? What more can we do for you?" I didn't understand that. I now do. They knew this place, and they knew we wouldn't ask. They knew we'd make do. Listen to President Bednar: "I think, for example of the word Spartanism. All of us who have read Greek history know there are some aspects of Spartan culture that are not noteworthy nor praiseworthy nor of good report." That was plagiarism from Paul. No, that was plagiarism from the thirteenth Article of Faith. Excuse me; my Primary was limited. We didn't have Primary in New Jersey in the mission field, and I didn't get that. "There are, however, some things we are to be pursuing. As I define the word Spartanism, it refers to rigorously self-disciplined and self-restrained. That is part of the spirit of Ricks at Brigham Young University-Idaho—simple, frugal, or austere; courageous in the face of pain, danger, or adversity." I need to say I read every document I could get my hands on to prepare this for President Hinckley's approval. And I read it worrying. I thought, you know with all the change that's going on there, they're going to lose their way. I want you to know (as a former president of Ricks College, as someone who came here as a young man and tried to find my way, and now as the commissioner of education and as a member of the Quorum of Twelve), I wept as I read the things that President Bednar said to this faculty during his period of time—knowing, first, that he was raised up for this task; but secondly, that the very things the Lord had told me, and told me over and over again, he said in better words than I could have said them, and that's why I am quoting President Bednar so much here in this talk; it is not to flatter him. I want you to know that the Lord revealed to him some things that are true and are permanent and will guide this institution. Now that was the end of the quotation from him. I say this now for myself: I am not sure where the Spartans got those characteristics, but I know why they are possessed by true disciples of Jesus Christ. Latter-day Saint pioneers came to this place for the Lord. They built this school in their poverty. The first principal, Jacob Spori, housed his family in an unheated grain storage shed in his first winter because that's all they had. The people here have treated all they had as the Lord's and always counted it as enough. And they have used it as if it was the offering of the poorest widow to her Lord and to His Kingdom. Nor have they felt badly treated when the Lord asked them to take less and yet give more. Because of that faithful obedience and sacrifice, I certify the Lord has poured out His Spirit here. There will be a practical benefit, in turbulent times, from that frugality borne of faith. There will come times when the Lord's prophet will ask us to do more with less. Knowing that will come, we must and will find ways to improve and to innovate that require little or no money. We will depend more upon inspiration and perspiration to make improvements than upon buildings and equipment. Then hard economic times will have little effect on the continuous innovation that will not cease at this school, even in the most difficult times. The true disciples who have served here have believed that if they were frugal and faithful the Lord will provide enough to do His work. They have rarely deserved the chastening in chapter 6 of the Prophet Joseph Smith's translation of Matthew: "Why is it that ye murmur among yourselves, saying, We cannot obey thy word because ye have not all these things, and seek to excuse yourselves, saying that, After all these things do the Gentiles seek. "Behold, I say unto you that your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. "Wherefore, seek not the things of this world but seek ye first to build up the kingdom of God, and to establish his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you" (JST, Matthew 6:36-38). President Hinckley expressed confidence that frugality was here and would endure when he said in his announcement: "With some additions and modifications, the physical facilities now in place in Rexburg are adequate to handle the new program. Undoubtedly, some changes to the campus will be necessary. However, they will be modest in nature and scope." He also said: "Of necessity, the new four-year institution will be assessing and restructuring its academic offerings. Predictably, the school will need to change and eliminate some long-standing and beneficial programs as the school focuses upon key academic disciplines and activities." Now, President Hinckley has long experience in education—long experience— so he knew how remarkable it was to pay such a tribute to this place. He said there would be focus, not a growth and spread, in the academic offerings. He expected that people would willingly sacrifice what they do best and love most for what the Lord wants even more for our students. He expected that people here would find ways to make the physical space already in place sufficient to do more for more students. Listen to this from his announcement and consider the tribute he was paying with his confidence: "BYU-Idaho will operate on an expanded year-round basis, incorporating innovative calendaring and scheduling while also taking advantage of advancements in technology which will enable the four-year institution to serve more students." The expectation is clearly that inspired and frugal people will find ways to bless more students at ever lower cost per student. That has been true at some times in the past. It will be true in the future, whatever the turbulent times ahead will bring. For those characteristics to endure, the students—you and those who follow you—must play a major part. It is their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His restored gospel and their obedience to His commandments that will put Him at the center of the school. Their faith will largely determine whether we learn here by study and also by faith. As we do, we will attain academic excellence. We will not attain academic excellence without that faith of yours as students and those that follow to learn by study and by faith. It is your frugality and their frugality, their willingness to make due with a little less, that will set a tone for the campus. Their sacrifice, your sacrifice, will bring down the blessings of heaven as it always has. The students will learn from example how to keep on a steady upward course in times of great change. They will see leaders and teachers and staff members for whom the Savior and His kingdom are at the center of their lives. From that example, I make a prophecy. Now listen carefully. From that example they—you—will become life-long teachers in their families, in the Church, and in their work, and they will bless others wherever they go by what they have learned about innovating with scarce resources and treating all they have as if it were the Lord's. You can imagine the joy of an employer or a Church leader when such a graduate arrives. The graduates will be at personal peace by having kept the commandments. They will be natural leaders who know how to teach and how to learn. They will have the power to innovate and improve without requiring more of what money can buy. Those graduates of BYU-Idaho will become—and this is a prophecy that I am prepared to make and make solemnly—those graduates of BYU-Idaho will become legendary for their capacity to build the people around them and to add value wherever they serve. Each of us can follow the example we have seen here. We can follow a steady upward course in a world of change without fear, welcoming the opportunities. The way is a simple one, clearly marked. It is to keep our eyes and hearts fixed on that which is unchangeable. We must have an eye of faith fixed on eternal life. That life, the greatest of all the gifts of God, is to live in glory forever in families in the presence of our loving Heavenly Father. It takes a focused eye. Listen. Alma, chapter 5, verse 15: "Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal [life]?" For our eyes to be focused on eternal life, we must have unwavering confidence and our hearts fixed on the Savior. He said, in 3 Nephi, chapter 9, verses 14-15: "Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me. "Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are. I was with the Father from the beginning. I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified his name." Our hearts, fixed on Him and His work, will keep us on course, however the wind blows. We will follow His prophet. We will see the greatest work of our lives as nurturing others as the Savior did. We will see the potential in others as He sees it. We will treat every resource that comes into our hands as a trust from Him. We will see our victories as a gift from Him and so be proof against pride. We will not fear because we will know we are on His errand. Now, you young people, I need to commend you and warn you, if I may. A number of you dressed carefully to come to this meeting, not for me but for the Lord. A number of you were quiet at the beginning, not for me or for President Bednar but for the Lord. A number of you in this room, I know, have been praying. I have felt that. One of the joys of coming to Ricks College has always been for me to know that I would go into a room where people of faith would be praying that the Holy Ghost would be poured out. Every time I come, I always have a confirmation that that's happened again. One of the reasons that we can prophesy about the academic excellence that will be here is you will do that same thing in classes. And those that follow you will do it in classes. You will do it in the evenings. You'll pray for the blessings of heaven to come down upon your teachers. You'll pray that you'll be taught by the Holy Spirit. The prayer that I've felt in this room is one of the things that has made this institution worthy of the trust that has been given it by the prophet of God. I want you to know that, that I know that about you. Now, in addition, I would suggest this: The very fact that you dress nicely, I understand, at least is partly true because somebody may have said something to you. One of your friends may have suggested, "Why don't we go dressed a little better for that meeting today." Those of you in this room who did that (and I don't know how many there are; there may be just a few who said, "Why don't we do a little more so that the Spirit of God . . ."—you may not have used these words, but what you were saying was "Let's go to that meeting in such a way that we might bring down the powers of heaven"), those of you in the room that had the courage to do that, to try to influence the persons around you, I'll make you a prophecy. I will simply tell you: The day will come that that capacity to influence people around you for good will have you singled out as one of the great leaders in whatever place you're in. They will not quite know why, but you will know that the reason you are being singled out is not because of your innate gifts as a leader but because you have done what the Savior would do—learned how to, and did, reach out to those around you to try to lift them, to help them to be better even when it might be a little bit difficult and you might not have been received very well. Another thing that I will say to you. I've mentioned so much about frugality. You might say, "Brother Eyring, that's an awful thing to say. We go first-class in the Church. Why would you talk about that? I mean, heavens, we want to make it as fancy as we can." I would only say this to you: You want to have a beautiful campus. You want to have a beautiful place that you live in someday in your family. You want to have things as nice as you can have them. But I'll tell you something. One of the things that you do is to always look at every nice thing you have as God's and treat it very, very carefully. This campus will be beautiful because you don't think it's yours—you think it's His, and you'll care for it that way. In addition, you will not ever, ever ask for more than you need. You will always say, "Is there a way, with more effort, more faith, more innovation, that I could do the things the Lord wants without asking for more of the resources that are in scarce supply even in a Church that appears to have great resources, as we do. But the needs are great, and the opportunities are tremendous for what can be done. I want you to know that the reason those people from the Board of Education used to say, "Hal, isn't there something more we could do for you up there at Ricks College?" is that they were almost afraid we wouldn't ask; that we might run just a little too lean, just a little too hard, trying to do the best we could with what we had; just afraid we might overdo it because that's who we were. I testify to you this beautiful campus that you see now is the reward from a loving God and His Board of Education that said: "We know those people. We know what they're like. They're out of a pioneer heritage, and they don't think that the things they have mean much. It's what they are. And they think they can do a very great deal without very much." Now I testify to you that that blessing is both a practical one and a spiritual one. It's practical because then the Lord will provide when we do need something, and He'll provide generously because He trusts us. But it has another benefit as well. I testify to you that that spirit of sacrifice, that spirit of trying to give just a little bit more and ask a little less brings down the powers of heaven. And all of this great future that we're speaking of at this institution will depend upon miracles regularly occurring, where students learn more than you thought you could learn. Some of you have already been praying for that miracle. It will come. Do your homework, by the way; don't just pray. I've tried. Straight revelation in a mathematics examination—it does not work very well. It's better to have studied the work ahead of time. We'll do both, but that kind of a blessing will come. You will be learners. Your teachers will teach better than their natural capacities would ever allow them to do because the powers of heaven will come down. They will come down because of your faith. Remember my little talk to you about frugality is an example of your faith. It's not the only way. But it's one way in which you'll say, "Look, we know that with the help of heaven we can do more than anybody could imagine with the resources that we have. We know that with the help of heaven even those of us who thought we couldn't learn mathematics can learn mathematics or learn a language. We know that that's possible." The miracle that President Bednar spoke of and that I promised you—that this will become a place renowned for its understanding of teaching and learning—will have to face the very problem he, under inspiration, pointed out in his talk to the faculty. We can't "quantify the gifts of the Spirit." We don't know how that works. We probably never will write academic papers about how that works. But we will be able to do things here that will amaze the world in terms of the rate and the quality of learning, and we will learn ways about how that is done that will apply in other places in the world, but never quite as well as they apply here. That's a little like the people who say, "Could I borrow your family home evening manual? I want to have a family like yours." And the answer is, "It ain't in the manual." The manual is a reflection of what it is that happens in those family home evenings. It will be that way here as well. We will have a spiritual outpouring, because of your faith and the faith of the faculty and those who lead here, that will lead us to be legendary in terms of our capacity to teach and to learn and in our capacity to innovate without needing the resources that others have to have in order to be the remarkable contributors you're going to be. And that's going to follow you everywhere you go. I hope I live long enough to someday meet some employer who employed one of you and says, "Where did that come from? I've never had such a person. Why people just flock around that person. And they want to follow. They don't have to be led; they're seeking to go where that person wants to go. And they come up with new ideas. I don't know where that comes from. They seem to find a better way, and the budget doesn't go up. I can't understand it." And I'll smile and say, "Well, come with me to Rexburg." And I may not be able to show it to you, and I may not be able to prove it to you, but you'll feel it. There will be a spirit here, I so testify, because of the love of God for all of His faithful children. And those blessings will be poured out here in rich abundance. Now, I leave you my blessing. I leave it to the faculty, and I leave it to the students who are here as well. I bless you that every day you are here—including the faculty who may be here for a long time and some of you I don't know how long, but awhile—I bless you that every day, if you will ask in prayer to be shown where the hand of God intervened in your life that day, I bless you that you will see that. It will be made manifest to you. That you will see that He is leading and guiding and lifting you, and that He knows you. I bless you. I bless you with confidence that if you will review the day at the end of the day and then pray and ask, you will have revealed to you evidence that the hand of God was lifting you and this institution. I so bless you. I further bless you that you may have the capacity to influence others. I bless you that you will be a lifter, a teacher, and a leader. I so bless you in your families, in the Church, and in wherever place you may go to serve. Now I leave you my testimony. The most precious gift I have. And that is this. I bless you to know that what I speak now is the truth. There is a loving Heavenly Father. He has been watching us today as He always watches us. He knows you. He has known you and has nurtured you. He has a plan for you as He has a plan for this institution of what it might become if it can just have revealed, both to the institution and to you, who you really are. Oh, He loves you! He knows you. He smiles down upon you. I so testify. He wants you to come home again to Him, I so testify. And He's provided a Savior, Jesus Christ. He lives. I know He lives. The Savior is resurrected. He is in one place at a time because He is a resurrected being, but He is aware of us and all of our Heavenly Father's children. And for all of them, He atoned for their sins and broke the bands of death, I so testify. Gordon B. Hinckley is a living prophet of God. I testify to you that in the years ahead, whatever difficulties may come, whatever opportunities are there, God will provide a living prophet. If you will listen, listen and believe like a child the way those who lead this institution did at this time of transition, if you will do that, whatever the transitions are in your life, you will not only retain the goodness that God has been so helpful in building into you, it will be enhanced. I testify to you that's true. I pray that I may see you again sometime. I pray that I may come back to this place again sometime and know that when I see you and when I come here I will have seen the blessings of God come down on faithful people who've allowed Him to shape them to the great opportunities that He has before you and before this place, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. |
SHARE THIS SHARES By Alastair Reed, Renaud Thillaye, Policy Network The European Commission has just set out bold ambitions for a digital single market but achieving the buy-in of member states for pan-European reforms will be challenging as deep differences remain on issues of regulation. More worryingly, Europe faces far broader issues preventing businesses of all types from reaching scale, something which is especially inhibiting tech businesses. Tackling these politically fraught issues could ultimately have more of a bearing on the ability of European businesses to compete with those in Silicon Valley. The EU has been talking about a digital single market for fifteen years now. The Lisbon Strategy prompted the eEurope Action Plan 2002 which had three key digital goals (access, skills and use of the internet) that remind of the three areas in today’s new strategy. The Europe 2020 strategy has its Digital Agenda for Europe ‘flagship initiative’; and in 2011, the Digital Single Market was one of twelve initiatives that were part of the Commission’s Single Market Act I, an attempt to accelerate market integration in a few key sectors. These strategies have all been characterised by bold ambitions and objectives, many of which have proven challenging to meet. The Competitiveness Council set out in May 2012 to complete the digital single market by 2015, something pledged again last year by EU heads of states and governments.[1] But most of the measures in the latest strategy are not set be introduced until at least next year, and will take far longer to be fully implemented.[2] This highlights the EU’s wider problem of the rhetoric-action gap, evident in other parts of the Single Market such as energy, whereby grand objectives are thwarted by resistance from member states and inter-institutional disputes. Indeed, the Commission follows instructions to set out an agenda demanded by heads of states of governments, who often pay lip service to the need to address the deep regulatory divergences that cut across them. The recent DSM Strategy focuses primarily on removing legal and technical barriers to cross-border online trade, geo-localised restrictions on cross-border access to content (copyright) and the uncoordinated deployment of new technology (spectrum policy). This gives the impression that merely technical issues prevent the emergence of pan-European digital and telecom operators. Yet this masks deeper philosophical disagreements and a lack of mutual trust between member states. This has been particularly obvious on two pieces of legislation which have now dragged along for two and three years respectively: the Connected Continent regulation, which aims to create a single market for telecoms, and the General Data Protection Regulation, which seeks to harmonise data protection rules. The ambitious deadlines set out in the DSM strategy risk once again being missed since, like in other areas, member states are obstructing harmonised regulation and single supervision, even when under great pressure (such as with the Banking Union). On digital regulation, member states have gone ahead with unilateral regulatory initiatives, for instance the Netherlands on network neutrality. France will soon be debating a digital act (‘loi numérique’) that will include new regulation on open (public) data, the right to be forgotten and class actions against large corporates. Rather than pursuing fully-fledged harmonisation, a more pragmatic approach would be to improve the inter-operability of national legislation and to rely on mutual recognition. Where common rules are necessary, the EU should avoid stifling the key strengths of the digital economy, namely the use of data, the part of non-neutrality behind algorithms and advertising, and the reliance on US platforms to develop new applications. However, beyond the imperative for harmonisation are a broad range of reforms required for Europe to boost its competitiveness and seek a greater digital uptake throughout the economy. This includes policies on research and innovation, openness to competition, access to funding, the capacity to use technology and digital literacy. As the Commission points out, 39% of EU citizens have only low or no digital skills and about one fifth (18%) of the EU population has never used the Internet.[3] Only one in five companies use paid cloud services in the EU, and in 2014, only 23% of European companies were investing in business sensors, a simple way to learn from data about their costumers and the productivity of their organisation.[4] Above all, European tech companies are losing out to their US rivals. Of the 32 major global digital platforms identified by Commissioner Oettinger, all but five are American and only one is European (Spotify). This is symptomatic of the lack of dynamism in the European economy, rather than any specific digital policies. Europe is failing to scale up businesses of all types, whether app designers or traditional manufacturers. The US has higher levels of business births and deaths, and a higher proportion of businesses growing and shrinking rapidly. Most big EU corporates have consequently been around for most of the past century; whereas in the US many top corporates, such as tech giants Facebook and Google, have barely been around for a decade. This dynamism not only creates good new jobs but also reallocates resources to more productive purposes and increases competition and choice for consumers. Making it possible for digital firms to operate more easily across the EU, as the DSM strategy is focused on, will help businesses in those sectors to reach scale in Europe first. But economic reforms, such as the Capital Markets Union, can be just as important. Our recent report on ‘Supporting investors and growth firms’ found that the US has respectively three- and five-times the level of business angel and venture capital investment than Europe, which gives early-stage US companies a major advantage. As with harmonisation though, member states have strong incentives to oppose such reforms. The ’winner-takes-all’ global nature of digital markets will destroy types of jobs and modes of employment, and threaten long-established incumbent firms championed by national governments. Politicians still lack convincing narratives about the place of creative destruction in the future economy, and they have not yet fully thought its social implications through. Also, the increasing importance of network effects and human capital risk sucking the top jobs, entrepreneurs and ideas to a single dominant cluster, as has been the case in the US with Silicon Valley. This is the logic of a true digital single market. Yet are member states ready to choose between Dublin’s Digital Hub, Paris’ Cap Digital or London’s Tech City, not to mention the dozens of Silicon Valley wannabes popping up in Amsterdam, Berlin, Oulu, Lisbon and Riga? If Europe is to challenge the dominance of the US, it needs more than a few legal tweaks to increase cross-border e-commerce. Europe needs to understand and embrace a whole new digital and entrepreneurial culture. [1] http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/143478.pdf [2] http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/intm/130520.pdf [3] http://ec.europa.eu/priorities/digital-single-market/docs/dsm-swd_en.pdf, p.69 [4] http://www.pwc.com/us/en/advisory/business-digital-technology-trends-sensors.jhtml |
You'd think that since the “47%” meme hasn't worked out so well, Fox would have dropped it by now. But, like that old definition of insanity, they keep doing the same thing and expecting new results. Only now it's the 60% of Americans who approve of President Obama's job performance, despite the “dismal” economy, who are the “takers.” On Fox & Friends this morning, the Curvy Couch Crew gnashed their teeth over the the fact that President Obama is riding high in popularity even as the economy shrank in the last quarter for the first time since 2009. Steve Doocy said about the economic news: How could it be unexpected? All you've gotta do is look at what's about to happen. We're about to decimate the national security. There's a possibility the 1.2 million security jobs could be lost in this country, plus all the regulations placed on businesses with the Affordable Care Act. It's shocking that the number isn't worse. Then with his clown face, Doocy sneered that White House spokesman Jay Carney isn't blaming George Bush now. “He just blames the Republicans in general.” Brian Kilmeade, noting that the stock market is up, but consumer confidence down, cried out, “But the president's approval rating is 60%! It's like he's impervious to numbers!" Doocy made sure to throw cold water on the stock market rise. He said the market is up because “the Fed is pumping all this dough every month, billions and billions of dollars into the economy. And the unemployment number – you know, it's just under 8% but it would be much higher if you factored in all the people who simply said, 'I can't find a job. We give up!'” Having established the economic gloom and doom, they then turned to the question of why President Obama is so popular. Of course, they could have done a teensy bit of research and discovered that the country received his second inaugural address very favorably. Despite Fox News' best efforts. Or that, as Nate Silver recently pointed out, Obama “has at least a slim majority of Americans in his corner” on most of the issues he raised, including guns, climate change and immigration. Also despite Fox's best efforts. Instead of facts, Doocy opined that the “mainstream media” is responsible for Obama's popularity because it has not reported enough about how “dismal” the economy is. He added, “It's the same thing in the run up to the election. The number one story affecting the most Americans: the economy. But instead, what do we get? We got the 47%, war on women. We got the binders, we got everything except what really matters.” You mean like Benghazi? Or birtherism? You didn't build that? Or how the polling was not accurately predicting Romney's victory? Gretchen Carlson wasn't convinced. She said, “People will write books about this for years on end how the popularity of this president remained so high and yet the economy remains relatively dismal.” So, without bothering to lift a finger to come up with any actual data, they turned to their audience for “answers.” Previously Carlson had said they had received “different thoughts” from viewers as to why the president is still so popular. First, Carlson summarized by saying, “Some people said that it's because, you know, a lot of people now are in situations where they're receiving government handouts and so they like to see a president in power who believes in continuing to do those types of programs.” Then they posted some individual emails and/or tweets reinforcing that view: Ever heard the saying, 'Don't shoot Santa Clause?” If you do not work, you had no increase in payroll deductions. If you're here illegally, you have the same rights as legal citizens and now everyone is going to be granted legal status.” (from “Charley”) That's easy, It is because he hands out welfare like we hand out candy to kids at Halloween. Groceries, cell phone, gas, house, TV and any other thing you can think of... without having to put an effort to get off the couch and get a job. Why not like that person? (from “Scott”) However, Carlson did dig up a tweet from Republican Senator John Thune responding to Jay Carney's remarks and asking, “What planet do these guys live on?" Um, maybe the one where S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating because of Republican "brinksmanship." But you probably won't hear much about that on Planet Fox News. |
LMFAO, The Band, Sends Cease And Desist Over LMFAO, The Beer from the smh dept It's been quite clear over the past two years or so that the alcohol industry, and specifically the craft beer industry, has a massive trademark problem. The simultaneous and wholly related explosions of both the sheer number of craft brewers in existence and the unprecedented interest in craft brews has resulted in more threatened legal action than anyone could have anticipated. At the heart of the issue is the cultural practice of giving specific brews funky, funny, derivative and pop-culture-based names. Because of the number of brews being developed, these names often are met with concern by a secondary party who holds a trademark on something similar. Most often, these disputes come from other breweries. But not always. Sometimes, indeed, they come from the strangest of places. Take the case of Pigeon Hill Brewing Co.'s latest offering, the LMFAO Stout. You already know where this is headed, don't you? The latest case in a string of trademark disputes involving West Michigan craft beverage producers didn't come from a company in the industry, but rather from a pop music group. The band, which bills itself as an “entertainment phenomenon,” alleges that Muskegon-based Pigeon Hill Brewing Co.’s LMFAO Stout infringes on its trademarked name, according to a cease-and-desist letter sent on Aug. 11. The letter caught executives at Pigeon Hill off guard as the brewery had researched potential trademark violations in the craft beverage space prior to labeling its beer, said Michael Brower, a co-founder at the brewery. “We have a very famous mark,” Thilo Agthe, the attorney representing LMFAO, told MiBiz. “We have to be very careful in policing how that trademark is used and by whom. It’s possible that customers that purchase (LMFAO Stout) might associate that with the band.” Agthe declined to comment on whether the group had specific evidence of customer confusion related to Pigeon Hill’s beer, citing the attorney-client privilege. Pigeon Hill settled on the name for its LMFAO Stout, which stands for “Let Me Fetch An Oatmeal Stout,” after soliciting input from social media to crowdsource the beer’s name, Brower said. Yes, LMFAO, the band, sent a cease and desist to the brewery over LMFAO, the beer, claiming that consumers might somehow think that the band was now in the brewing business. You see, in today's permission culture, that the brewery actually took the step of searching to see if anyone had a trademark on LMFAO for alcoholic drinks doesn't really matter. Because LMFAO, the band, saw an opportunity for relevancy and jumped on it.I can't honestly say that I've ever heard of attorney-client privilege being used as a shield for providing evidence of a trademark dispute in this way. Probably because it makes about as much sense as me putting my dog in front of a computer and shouting at her to make me a pizza. The whole point of a trademark dispute of this kind rests on customer confusion, real or possible. The proper answer to the question of "Why the hell are you bothering with this?" isn't "Haha I can't tell you because I'm a lawyer."And we've seen more than enough of this "We must protect our trademark" excuse used in these types of disputes. A mark owner is bound to police the use of their markand. It is most certainly not bound to police every instance of the words or phrases being used by anyone in any commerce forever and ever amen. Especially when it's been demonstrated clearly that the use by the brewery, in this case, has literally nothing to do with the band.Yeah, that isn't what LMFAO stands for and they know it. That said, what LMFAOstand for has been around long before the pop band decided to utilize it for their name. I would expect any action brought by the band to be dismissed with haste. Filed Under: band, beer, lmfao, music, trademark |
FOURSCORE and seven years ago, our fathers — and also, our mothers. I love mothers, too, because we need our mothers — brought forth on this continent a huge nation, a great, amazing country dedicated to the proposition that we can beat any weak losers who are bad, bad guys and totally overrated, believe me. Now, it just so happens we are in a horrible, stupid war. They’re killing us. Just killing us. I would sue for peace, because when I sue I never settle, but if it had been up to me we never would have been here to begin with. I would have negotiated, and I wouldn’t have risked the country over a few slaves, who some of them might be good people — I had some nice African-American ladies working for me, and they were very dependable ladies — but it’s dumb to risk the whole country for political correctness. It really is. The blacks love me, by the way. Frederick Douglass has been to my house. So, here we are in front of you beautiful people of Gettysburg, and you are a very good-looking group of people. You know, I went to business school near here so I know Pennsylvania, believe me. I love the people of Gettysburg, and I can tell you are embarrassed about what our country has become. Do you see these Amish people buggying around with their very unattractive women in their sad outfits? Please, who would even date these women? |
History of Kawaii Smileys In 1986, Japanese users began using a particular kind emoticon. Known as the kaomoji, early internet practitioners in Japan didn’t think that one should have to tilt their heads to the left to see what emotion someone was trying to portray. Most of the time, they weren’t really cute — because characters were limited, you’d often only see stuff like (*_*) and other dead-looking faces. The use of asterisks as eyes was, though, particularly different from the internet standard at the time (the standard :-) face). Later, when individuals actually wanted to get across a dead guy, they’d use “X”‘s, like in the case of this face: X_X. After some time, people began to get more creative with portraying what they wanted with a horizontal face. Dashes were given to show contempt (-_-) or sleepiness [combined, we get “unimpressed”]. Similar to the ‘mushroom-butt cheek’ in anime, using /// gave a feeling of blushing. Sometimes, in certain anime, one can see the artist actually draw three lines onto the face of the subject. This is an example of one media following another! Who would have ever thought that something as simple as little kawaii text faces would have so much cultural sway? Different ASCII techniques came into existence, and suddenly the world began seeing things like braces {^_^} and carrots >o< . An apostrophe is often used to portray a sweat drop, like in (^_^'), similar to its anime roots. This time around, kawaii smileys followed anime as a medium. The Western (English-speaking) world had really caught on by this point! As instant messaging became very popular, "hug" emoticons like (>^^)> started to rocket in popularity. These kinds of characters became known as “kirbys,” an ode to Nintendo’s lush, pink, and oh-so-squish-able mascot. Also around this time, the emoticon expanded from base emotions into portraying gesticulations too. t(o_ot), for example, was used as a way to show the middle finger — it essentially meant “f**k off!” Also, we began to see ‘vampire’ compositions that used commas and periods as ‘snake eyes’ and ‘fangs’ (i.e. ;..;). With time and more ASCII additions, people began to mix languages to make emoticons that could portray things never before seen online. For example, the small “wa” in this character: ôヮô and the accented “o”‘s hail from both Finnish and Japanese. Once more language packs became more available to everyone, we began to see really interesting results. Brazilians, for example, figured out that accent marks could be used a wide range of “eyebrow” emotions, like ò_ó or ó_ò. The simple tilt of the slant above the accented “o” serves to create an entirely opposite effect. More obscure languages, like Kannada, allowed for unexpected and particularly specific emotional portrayals. This character’s eyes were made from Kannada letters: ಠ_ಠ. It often is used to portray disapproval. Once Westerners had a mastery of the Japanese smileys and the Japanese had a good grasp on the Western smileys, we began to see rich opportunities for even more creative masterpieces. Parenthesis were often dropped altogether in the style of the new ‘international’ mixtures. Here, the long face (^_________________^) using lots of underscores was born. This was namely used on blogs and in IM chat rooms to emphasize that one was “really happy” (or, in the opposite context, really bored or really sad). Because these emoticons take up so much more space than usual, they are often regarded as more “spammy” than their counterparts. Today, people are wildly creative with their creations. And as new languages with new symbols are beginning to populate the internet, we will only see cooler and more creative smileys! This website is the place to find them. If you spot a face that I have not included, please submit it using the email link above. Also, try to make some emoticons on your own; who knows, you just might come up with the next ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) that has every forum and comments section laughing. Thanks for all the love and support! I made this site because the blogs or other places where you can normally find kawaii emoticons or smileys for free are too cluttered and unorganized. There are even places out there that will try to charge you money for them! I think that’s dumb. If you find any more good smileys, or if you want to reach out to me for any other reason (comments, suggestions, etc.), you can email me here. It might take me a while to respond because I don’t check this site all too often! Please feel free to share this page with anyone who would like it. Thanks! xoxo |
IBM and development partner Samsung announced they've developed a process to manufacture a type of non-volatile RAM that is up to 100,000 times faster than NAND flash and never wears out. The two companies collaborated to develop next-generation magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) using spin-transfer torque (STT) technology, which would lead to low-capacity memory chips for Internet of Things sensors, wearables and mobile devices that currently use NAND flash to store data. IBM and Samsung published a paper in IEEE Magnetics Letters outlining how they scaled STT MRAM down to 11 nanometers for the first time by using 10 nanosecond pulses and just 7.5 microamperes — "a significant achievement." IBM NAND flash on average takes one millisecond to write data compared to MRAM's 10 nanoseconds -- meaning MRAM is 100,000 times faster than NAND flash on writes and 10 times faster on reads, said Daniel Worledge, the senior manager of MRAM development at IBM Research, in an email reply to Computerworld. "This is important because it now falls into the sweet spot compared to other memory technologies and this level makes it viable to manufacture," Worledge said. "This could never be done with in-plane magnetized devices — they just don't scale," Worledge said, referring to an earlier version of Spin Torque MRAM. "While more research needs to be done, this should give the industry the confidence it needs to move forward. The time for Spin Torque MRAM is now." Spin-torque MRAM can be used for a new type of working memory in ultra-low power applications. For example, it can be used in IoT or mobile devices, where it uses very low power when it's on and storing information, and when it's not actively being used, it uses zero power because it's not volatile. Worledge said he doesn't believe that IBM's STT MRAM will replace DRAM anytime soon, but he said it can easily replace embedded flash, since MRAM is easier to embed, is faster and has unlimited reads and writes. IBM Each cell of a Spin Torque MRAM array contains one transistor and one tunnel junction. The tunnel junction is composed of a fixed magnet whose north pole always points up, and a free magnet whose north pole points up or down, when storing a "0" or "1." "If you look at flash memory, which is what you use in your digital camera, it can only be written about 10,000 times before it wears out. That's fine for taking photos, but if you were to use it as a working memory, it would wear out in less than a second," Worledge said. MRAM doesn't wear out because spin torque technology uses a tiny current to switch a bit from a zero to a one and vice versa. Data is stored as a magnetic state versus an electronic charge, providing a non-volatile memory bit that doesn't suffer wear-out or data-retention issues associated with NAND flash technology. Unlike NAND flash, spin-torque MRAM technology transistors don't need to be erased first before being rewritten with new data, which also greatly simplifies chip design and reduces overhead. IBM, with a partner, plans to optimize the MRAM's engineering parameters for mass production in as little as three years. IBM has expertise in magnetic materials and devices, and in MRAM circuit design, which will accelerate the path to products for its partners. IBM has been working on developing MRAM chips for 20 years. Prior to the latest development, the company could not scale down the technology enough to make the chips financially viable for manufacturing. In a new blog, IBM stated that "MRAM is an ideal technology for always-on devices, such as IoT sensors, mobile devices and wearable electronics, because it offers more storage and longer battery life. In addition, since MRAM uses standard transistors, and is compact and robust, it's more easily embedded on the same chip as logic and other functions, compared to flash memory. Therefore many semiconductor foundries are considering replacing embedded flash with embedded STT MRAM at the 28nm size and below." IBM An image taken with an electron microscope of an MRAM and 11nm junction. The tunnel junction is composed of a fixed magnet whose north pole always points up, and a free magnet whose north pole points up or down, when storing a "0" or a "1." There are new memories technologies in various stages of commercial development that are poised to replace NAND flash as a non-volatile storage medium - meaning data remains even after the power is turned off. Among the top candidates being developed are Memristor, or Resistive Random Access Memory (ReRAM), Phase Change Memory (PCM), Ferroelectric Random Access Memory (FeRAM), and MRAM. Out of the list of new memories, only FeRAM and MRAM account for "a reasonable market share and they are quite commercialized in the market," according to a report by MarketsandMarkets. IBM is not alone in its development of MRAM. In 2011, Hynix Semiconductor and Toshiba Corp. formed an MRAM development partnership. That same year, Samsung acquired Grandis Inc., a Milpitas, Calif., maker of STT MRAM technology. At the time, however, the technology was too expensive to mass produce. That changed as chips were miniaturized and processes become more standardized. In April, semiconductor maker Everspin Technologies announced it was shipping samples of the industry's most dense MRAM chip, which could replace standard DRAM for write-caching operations. The chip, with up to 1 gigabit of capacity, was the company's third generation of MRAM and is aimed at replacing persistent DRAM on servers and storage arrays. In essence, Everspin's MRAM could act as the first tier of storage in a storage array or server, protecting data not yet stored on a mass storage device, such as NAND flash or hard disk. Everspin's MRAM uses a 40nm and 28nm size transistor compared with IBM's new 11nm cell. Everspin Everspin's 256Mbit ST-MRAM chip. One of the largest markets for higher speed, lower power and longer lasting non-volatile memories like MRAM is the IoT The IoT includes vehicles, buildings and the sensors within them, which are enabled by network communications governed by computers. For example, smart thermostat systems use Wi-Fi for remote monitoring and can detect when people are in certain rooms and adjust temperatures accordingly to save power. The IoT market alone is expected to grow from $1.9 trillion in 2013 to $7.1 trillion in 2020, according to industry research firm IDC. Because IoT systems are often powered with batteries or are constantly monitoring and communicating, it's important that the power they consume remains low. IBM and Samsung's MRAM sips power; it's able to write a bit of data with just 7.5 microamps, which allows IBM to use very small transistors enabling a very dense chip. Its write-error rates are also exceptionally low. For every billion bits (gigabit) written, there is less than one error, Worledge said. Previously, the only MRAM that could achieve such as low error rate were produced using 100nm process technology, Worledge said, ten times larger than IBM's transistors. "MRAM can be scaled to very small dimensions. The basic building block - a magnetic tunnel junction - can be made as small as 11 nanometers in size," Worledge said. "That means we could make very dense and fast MRAM chips in the future that can be used as fast cache memory in IBM servers." Eleven nanometers is about 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Worledge said he could not comment about when an MRAM product would reach the market. "IBM's role is to do research and development to lead the way to new products, which our partners will manufacture," he said. |
Buy Photo Rick Peyser speaks about his career at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters at home in Underhill on Friday, May 15, 2015. (Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)Buy Photo Story Highlights Keurig's former director of advocacy left last year because of reduced funding to help farmers. Rick Peyser said he was also told to cut two of his four staff members. Keurig says its commitment to social advocacy remains strong. Peyser points out Keurig no longer commits 5 percent of pre-tax income to advocacy. Rick Peyser, the man most responsible for the social conscience of Keurig Green Mountain, is making a cup of coffee with a Chemex brewer, the antithesis of the K-Cup made famous by Keurig. Standing in the kitchen of his Underhill home, with a cinematic view of Mt. Mansfield off the back porch, Peyser slowly and patiently pours hot water into the simple brewer, letting it drip through the coffee grinds. Peyser probably could have whipped out a dozen K-Cups by now, but he's in no hurry. "I'm not philosophically opposed necessarily to Keurig," Peyser said. "I just like the aroma of this method and other methods where you fill the kitchen with the smell of coffee. The K-Cup brews a decent cup of coffee, but I wasn't impressed by the aroma." Peyser recognized the convenience of K-Cups, but missed the ritual of the Chemex brewer. "If I don't have four or five minutes a day to enjoy the aroma of good coffee, then there's something wrong with my schedule," he said. He's got time now. One year ago, Peyser gave notice at Keurig Green Mountain after nearly 27 years working at the company that was Green Mountain Coffee Roasters when he was hired in 1987 by Founder Bob Stiller. At the time he left, Peyser was director of social advocacy and supply chain community outreach. He left, he said, because Keurig's values no longer aligned with his. Keurig spent $55.7 million on social and environmental programs in 2014, nonetheless Peyser is concerned about Keurig's future support for coffee farmers in Central America and elsewhere. The company has long been renowned in the industry for its philanthropy in coffee country. "I don't want to be the cranky old guy in the corner saying, 'That's not the way we used to do it,' but to be honest, things really became about shareholder value," Peyser, 65, said. Good for the world Beginning in mid-1990s, Peyser was instrumental in creating the outreach programs for coffee farmers that would allow Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to emblazon its semi-trailers with the slogan, "We realized good coffee could be good for the world," and actually mean it. Stiller supported Peyser's efforts wholeheartedly. The founder instituted an unprecedented policy of committing 5 percent of pre-tax income to doing good. That would amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars at first, and eventually tens of millions of dollars to help farmers and others in the supply chain, both domestically and overseas. Larry Blanford, the company's second CEO starting in 2007, picked up where Stiller left off, supporting his policies. But today, Peyser said, the 5 percent commitment has quietly gone away. Keurig no longer talks about it, he said, whereas previously that commitment had been mentioned at every opportunity. Peyser also saw funding for his projects reduced. The change came, Peyser said, after Blanford retired in November 2012, and was replaced by former high-ranking Coca-Cola executive Brian Kelley. "I remember being in a meeting with Brian Kelley and Brian said, 'Gee, that 5 percent is a lot of money,' and he was right, it was a lot of money," Peyser said. "But my feeling was that it had always been a lot of money. It was a commitment the company had made. This is the way we do business. We're committed to our communities, both here and where our raw materials come from." In addition to the 5 percent commitment, Green Mountain Coffee was also paying a premium for Fair Trade coffee, which bumped the overall expense on philanthropy to considerably above 5 percent. Kelley took note. "So what happened was the company decided, 'We're not going to talk about the 5 percent any more, we're going to talk about the whole ball of wax, including the Free Trade premium,'" Peyser said. Dan Cox, owner and president of Coffee Enterprises in Burlington, and a former Green Mountain Coffee executive who worked with Peyser, said the company's generous nature was part of its appeal for consumers. Green Mountain Coffee was the "go-to" company for everything from responding to emergencies such as tsunamis, to helping Nicaraguan farmers deal with diseases like coffee rust. Rick Peyser meets with Mayan women coffee farmers, in Sotzil, El Quiche, Guatemala, to discuss a food security project funded by Green Mountain Coffee. (Photo: Courtesy) "The history of Green Mountain Coffee is a three-pronged approach," Cox said. "One, great products; two, great profits; three, give back. That third leg is really important because that's why people buy us. It's the same approach Ben & Jerry's and a lot of companies take." It's not the approach, however, that major investors take, Cox said. "What the investment community says is, 'I want to make money. I just want to see quarter-over-quarter profits, new products, and market dominance,'" he said. "That's what big shareholders want." Related:Keurig 2.0 flopped, can it rebound? 'Here's some seeds, plant a garden' Over time, Keurig's policy evolved to committing some amount of money to social and environmental programs depending on its own financial performance, not a flat allocation of 5 percent, according to Peyser. "Which I understand, but it made it difficult, because for most of the programs we were supporting, such as combating food insecurity, we need time," Peyser said. "It's not a question of going into a community and saying, 'Listen, here's some seeds, here's how you plant your garden, see 'ya.'" Asked to comment on Peyser's assessment of Keurig's changing approach to social outreach, the company provided a written statement from Monique Oxender, chief sustainability officer: "Sustainability has been an essential element of Keurig Green Mountain's culture, values and business performance for over 32 years. Keurig has been and remains a leader in the area of assisting coffee farmers and source communities, an area Rick was instrumental in developing." Oxender went on to praise Peyser's work and vision. She said the company's charitable work continues in new ways. "As our business has grown in size and scope, we have expanded our approach and broadened the lens of our sustainability programs." Keurig has announced four areas of focus related to sustainability practices: "Resilient Supply Chain, Sustainability Products, Thriving People and Communities, and Water Stewardship." Keurig also points out that the $55.7 million the company spent on social and environmental programs and investments in fiscal 2014 represents almost 6 percent of pre-tax income, which includes the Fair Trade premium. "By establishing a long term view of sustainability, we are making responsible choices which maximize our impact across more of our business initiatives," said Suzanne DuLong, vice president corporate communications. "The rationale is to invest as needed and where needed." But Peyser said the 6 percent Keurig spent in 2014 is significantly less than the company would have spent were the 5 percent commitment still in place, in addition to the Fair Trade premium. Peyser's analysis of publicly available numbers shows that nearly 60 percent of the total of $55.7 million is attributable to the premium. He estimates that the commitment to spending pre-tax earnings on philanthropy is down to less than 3 percent. In terms of the dollars spent on "supply chain communities," the tiny hamlets and villages in Central America where the small coffee farmers live, Peyser said an analysis of Keurig's sustainability reports show the company spent $10 million in 2012, $10.5 million in 2013, and $8.9 million in 2014. Rick Peyser in Sidamo, Ethiopia, for a conference on specialty coffee. Sidamo is one of the leading coffee-growing communities in Ethiopia. (Photo: Courtesy) "So it's down," he said. Dan Cox is also the founder of Grounds for Health, a Williston-based nonprofit that screens and treats women for cervical cancer in developing countries, and especially in coffee country. Cox said Keurig gave the organization $300,000 yearly for three years before dropping its contribution by two-thirds to $100,000 last year. Keurig is still deciding how much it will give next year. The nonprofit's entire budget is about $1 million, Cox said. Cox said he can't complain about an organization giving him $100,000, "But then again, why drop it? Weren't we doing the work?" To its credit, Cox said, Keurig warned him three years ago that it would be re-evaluating the company's $300,000 annual commitment after three years. The final straw for Peyser came when he returned from his last trip to Central America for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in spring 2014 to find an email from Monique Oxender instructing him to cut two of his four staff members. "Maybe I was just hopeful, or maybe I was in denial," Peyser said. "But I got to the point where I felt like I was spending a lot of time trying to keep things whole and then worrying even about my staff." Keurig said today the company has a three-member supply chain outreach team. "In addition we had added sustainability team members focused on our four practice areas as we continue to invest in our sustainability programs," the company said. Meet the Coffee Kids When he was hired by Bob Stiller in 1987, Rick Peyser was 37 years old and had just left a company called Gardenway, the predecessor of both Country Home Products and Gardener's Supply. Peyser's first day of work at Green Mountain Coffee was Oct. 19 — Black Monday, when the stock market crashed, dropping by 508 points, nearly 23 percent. "A little ominous I guess," Peyser said. Still Peyser dove into his job as mail order maven, working directly for Stiller, who was just down the hall. The company only had about 35 employees in Waterbury. Stiller had started Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in Waitsfield with a retail coffee shop that attracted the attention of skiers. Rick Peyser rakes coffee beans on a drying patio in a small hamlet in western Honduras called Capucas. Peyser was volunteering with the Winrock International, a foundation started by Winthrop Rockefeller. (Photo: Courtesy) A market for the mail order business sprung up when skiers returned home, and wanted Green Mountain Coffee shipped to them. Stiller started adding retail stores — at one point the company had a dozen, including one in Illinois —and moved the roasting facility to Waterbury. Peyser started using the retail stores to grow his mailing list. "Anyway, a year later, I was literally licking stamps — I don't mean figuratively, I mean literally licking stamps — when Dan Cox, who was our vice president of sales, invited me into a meeting," Peyser said. The meeting Cox invited Peyser to attend in 1988 was with Bill Fishbein and Dean Cycon. Fishbein, who owned a coffee shop in Providence, R.I., had founded a nonprofit, with the help of Cycon and others, called Coffee Kids. Fishbein traveled to Guatemala to see where his coffee came from, visiting many small-scale coffee farmers. His fledgling nonprofit was aimed to improve the quality of life for those farmers. Fishbein was shocked by the level of poverty he had seen. "Bill Fishbein handed me a brochure," Peyser remembered, "The brochure showed pretty graphic poverty." Four years later, in 1992, Peyser took his own trip with fellow Green Mountain Coffee employees to a coffee estate in Costa Rica. "We were way up high, you could see mountains 40 miles in the distance, it was beautiful, just beautiful," Peyser said. "If you looked down from the veranda there was a kidney-shaped swimming pool surrounded by manicured coffee plants." Now Peyser had contending visions in his head. "I had these two worlds of coffee, the image in Costa Rica and the Coffee Kids brochure," he said. "Which is the real world here? It tortured me." Welcome to Fort Apache In 1995, Peyser returned to Latin America for a week-long trip in Guatelmala and Chiapas, Mexico that finally put everything into focus. This trip was on his own dime, at the invitation of the owner of an organic coffee company in San Diego. Peyser visited an estate in Guatemala that rivaled the estate he had see in Costa Rica. Only this estate was fortified against a civil war that was raging in Chiapas at the time. "They opened the gate like we were going into Fort Apache," Peyser remembered. Buy Photo Rick Peyser makes coffee as he speaks about his career at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters at home in Underhill on Friday, May 15, 2015. (Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS) It was upon leaving the compound that the true situation in coffee country became clear for Peyser. "I don't think we were 100 yards from that gate when on the right side of the road there was a pole barn," Peyser said. "There was a little stream running alongside the front of the pole barn where Guatemalan women dressed in their very colorful outfits were washing their clothes. Families were living in this pole barn. That's where the workers on the estate lived." The image is vivid for Peyser 20 years later. "I came back from that trip totally moved," he said. "You know how people talk about a life-changing experience? That was it for me." Now Peyser began his education in earnest. For the next five years he used his vacation time every year to travel to Mexico — the first year in Chiapas and the following years in Oaxaca — to attend language school. He paid for the trips himself. "It was something I wanted to do and felt I needed to do for my job," Peyser said. "I don't regret it at all. I felt like I was investing in myself. I wanted to be able to communicate directly with farmers." Even though he was paying for the trips himself, Green Mountain Coffee was supportive, Peyser said, giving him extra time to visit projects the company was funding in supply chain communities. Peyser began to form some of the relationships the company still has today. 'We will do Fair Trade' About a year after Green Mountain Coffee went public in 1993, Peyser was tapped to oversee the company's public relations, another job, like mail order, he had never done before. Peyser's first public relations coup was to get Green Mountain Coffee involved in Fair Trade, which provided a minimum floor price on beans for coffee farmers to guard against significant drops in the market. He remembers a meeting to hear a pitch from a Fair Trade advocate. Some were against the idea. Internal battles broke out. Why get involved, just to put a seal on Green Mountain Coffee bags? Bob Stiller settled the matter, decisively. "Bob put his fist down on the table, and said, 'We will do Fair Trade,'" Peyser said, banging his fist on his kitchen table. "I was so happy. I'd never seen Bob put his fist down on the table for anything. He's just not that kind of guy." Sure enough, Green Mountain Coffee soon found itself paying significantly more for Fair Trade coffee than the market price, which had naysayers shaking their heads. "But the silver lining in this was all of the sudden Fair Trade caught on fire," Peyser said. "This is exactly why you needed Fair Trade. These farmers were struggling. We got all kinds of great press. Whatever that differential was we were paying it was making a difference for those farmers, and it also put the company in a positive light." Dream job In 2006, Stiller's last running the company, Peyser got his dream job — director of social advocacy and supply chain community outreach. A long title that described everything that was important to Peyser. "When I got out of bed in the morning, honestly I couldn't wait to get to work," Peyser said. Peyser wasted no time in revealing one of the dirty secrets of the specialty coffee business. Small-scale coffee farmers were not only poor, they were starving for significant stretches of the year. "When this role came in 2006 I thought I had a pretty good sense of what was going on in these farming communities, in the households," Peyser said. "At the same time I recognized this was my own experience, kind of anecdotal. If I'm going to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at that time, which grew into millions of dollars, I wanted to make sure we were not just hitting the target but that we were really hitting what would benefit the company and the farmers." "I wanted to be right in the dead center of that bull's-eye." Peyser hired CIAT, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, based in Cali, Colombia, to find the center of the bull's-eye. "We asked them to design a questionnaire we could use to get a sense of what was going on not at the coop level but at the household level, right down to the farmer," Peyser said. The resulting questionnaire had 22 questions on everything from family size to levels of education and farm information. "Then it was about life," Peyser said. "Have you ever thought about migrating? Have you ever thought about doing something other than coffee? Did you have any health problems in your family last year? Did you have any periods of extreme scarcity of food in your household and if so, what did you do about it?" Rick Peyser chats with coffee farmers in Capucas, Honduras, near a drying patio for coffee beans. (Photo: COURTESY) Peyser asked CIAT to look at Green Mountain Coffee's supply chains in Nicaragua, Guatemala and two states in Mexico. He dove into the interview process himself. His first interview was in a tiny hamlet in Nicaragua. "I still remember there was a card table with a blue-and-white checked tablecloth, and a woman sitting across from me who had a little pocket in her skirt," Peyser said. Peyser made his way through the questions. "I get to the last question about periods of extreme scarcity of food in your house and tears start to well up in her eyes and she starts to cry," Peyser remembered. "She takes out this yellow wash cloth and she's wiping her tears away. She said she and her family had three to four months of extreme scarcity of food in their house." Peyser questioned her further. Had they fallen on hard times? "She said, 'No, it happens every year,'" Peyser said. The woman explained that the coffee harvest starts at the end of October and usually ends in February. By May all of her earnings from coffee were depleted, and the prices of staples like corn and beans were going up because the harvest doesn't come in until fall. Peyser asked the woman how she coped. One of three ways: eat less; eat different food that might be growing on their land, like bananas or other fruits; or borrow from friends, neighbors or relatives, creating a cycle of debt year after year. "Anyway, I'm thinking maybe her family is an exception," Peyser said. "The next guy comes in. I get to that last question. Same answer. I heard the same answer all week long." As a result of Peyser's groundbreaking work, a movement took hold in the specialty coffee industry, called "The Thin Months," or "Los Meses Flacos," with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in the center of efforts to help. The general idea was to encourage coffee farmers to diversify their crops beyond coffee to generate cash and help feed themselves. The payoff for Peyser came on his last trip for Green Mountain Coffee in 2012 to visit Juana and Cesar Vaye in Nicaragua. Peyser had last visited the couple in 2008, when Juana had started making marmalade from fruit trees on the property to sell in the local market. The couple earned $3,000 to $4,000 annually from coffee, which meant three to four months of extreme scarcity for them and their four children. In 2012, Juana took Peyser through the coffee fields to another field of passion fruit trees with fruit hanging heavy on wires connecting poles like a vineyard. Juana told Peyser the fruit was bringing in $700 to $800 a month, double the couple's coffee earnings. The family had closed the window on the thin months, with food on the table all year long. "It made my day," Peyser said. Diverging values Rick Peyser visits a health program being managed by Save The Children and funded by Green Mountain Coffee in Aceh, Sumatra. (Photo: Courtesy) Paul Comey joined Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in March 1986 as a consultant, hired by Founder Bob Stiller to deal with an air pollution problem the company had with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Comey had experience designing clean-burning wood stoves. Comey went on to become vice president of engineering, then vice president of environmental innovation at Green Mountain Coffee. Stiller also gave Comey responsibility for corporate social responsibility, or CSR, which put Rick Peyser under his management. Comey left the company in March 2013 after Brian Kelley took over as CEO. He didn't want to deal with another CEO, he said. Comey said it had been hard enough to make the transition from Stiller, to whom he was close, to Larry Blanford. "After Larry realized I was a straight shooter it worked out great," Comey said. "Larry had the interests of the company at heart. He got the corporate social responsibility aspect. He wasn't a huge proponent of it but he understood the company was founded on it, it worked, and shareholders liked it." Comey believes Keurig is dialing back its spending on the kinds of projects Peyser championed because it has become more of a technology company than a coffee company. He says that's reflected in the name change and in the increasing importance of the company's "hub" in Burlington, Massachusetts, where Keurig was founded before Green Mountain Coffee Roasters bought the company in 2006. "The Keurig guys know what they're doing and they execute well," Comey said. "There's no question the center of gravity is shifting to Massachusetts. It started to shift when I was there. When Brian came on board it accelerated." "We used to be about coffee. Now we're about innovation." Meanwhile, Rick Peyser is now doing for Lutheran World Relief what he used to do for Green Mountain Coffee. Peyser is senior relationship manager for coffee and cocoa for the Baltimore-based nonprofit dedicated to providing "lasting solutions to poverty, injustice and human suffering." Dan Cox said that as soon as Starbucks heard about Peyser joining LWR, it donated $350,000 to the organization. "That's the kind of credibility this guy brings to the game," Cox said. Peyser is philosophical about his departure from Keurig Green Mountain. "I felt my internal clock was ticking," he said. "I needed to make a decision whether I wanted to stay in an environment where good work could still be done but I wasn't jumping out of bed feeling the way I had when my values were aligned." "My values were tolerated, but they weren't the same as the company's. We just diverged." Read or Share this story: http://bfpne.ws/1LmqXY2 |
A five-year-old boy spent his fifth birthday party mourning the loss of his beloved dog after it was shot and killed with an assault rifle by an Oklahoma police officer - despite it being on the other side of a fence. Eli Malone and several other children had gone inside for birthday cake on Saturday when they heard a loud bang, looked out the window and saw his dog Opie bleeding on the ground. Eli's mother, Vickie Malone, said her son then cried to her saying, 'there's something wrong with Opie.' Scroll down for video A five-year-old boy is still mourning the loss of his best friend after his family's beloved dog (shown after the shooting) was shot and killed by an Oklahoma police officer with an assault rifle during his birthday party An emotional Eli Malone is still grieving the loss of his dog Opie. The three-year-old American Bulldog Pit Bull mix was shot by a Wynnewood police officer on Saturday during his party Beloved dog Opie was shot dead during Eli Malone's birthday party At the time of the shooting, the officer was serving a warrant for a man named Shon McNiel from a 10-year-old case listing the family's house (shown above) as the suspect's last known address The adults at the home ran outside near where the fence surrounds the family's yard and found the three-year-old American Bulldog Pit Bull mix 'kicking and gasping for air,' according to FOX 25. The officer, identified by family members as Wynnewood police officer Josh Franklin, used a high-powered rifle he got from his car to put the 90-pound dog down, the station reported. As the children looked on from the window, the officer, who Malone said showed no remorse, reportedly fired two more shots from the rifle. Malone's son and Opie's owner, Rio Youngblood, said he asked the officer, 'Why'd you shoot my dog?' the New York Daily News reported. 'He walks slowly out to his car gets an AR-15 and points it at the dog and pulls the trigger,' Youngblood told the Daily News. 'He fires another round and it ended my dog's life. He lowered his head and drove off.' The dog then lied on the ground covered by a towel for more than an hour before another officer arrived at the scene to collect statements from the family. 'The kids were all watching through the window,' Malone told the Daily News. The officer initially told the family the dog tried to attack him through the fence but did not offer any other reason for the shooting, according to the family. Wynnewood Police Chief Ken Moore told the station the the dog charged the officer and that the shooting was justified. Moore described the dog as vicious and said it attacked the officer coming around the corner of the house, according to FOX 25. Vickie Malone, Eli's mother, (shown above) said after hearing a loud bang, the adults ran outside near where the fence surrounds the family's yard and found Opie 'kicking and gasping for air' The officer, identified by family members as Wynnewood police officer Josh Franklin, used a high-powered rifled he got from his car to put the 90-pound dog down The officer reportedly told the family the dog tried to attack him through the fence but did not offer any other reason for the shooting. Wynnewood Police Chief Ken Moore told the station the the dog charged the officer and that the shooting was justified Video courtesy: KOKH However, video footage following the shooting shows Opie lying on the ground near the fence, not the house, with his head surrounded by blood. 'The dog cannot jump the fence,' Malone told the Daily News. 'The gates to our yard are tied with wire and shoe string. 'The dog could maybe have gotten his head through the fence but he wouldn't have been able to open it.' Moore noted he had not seen the video footage and said that before the officer shot the dog, the officer had tried to once kick it off of him. At the time of the shooting, the officer was serving a warrant for a man named Shon McNiel from a 10-year-old case, listing Malone's house as the suspect's last known address, according to FOX 25. The family said the officer did not show them a warrant after he told them he shot Opie. 'He said that he was looking for Shon McNiel,' Malone told the Daily News. 'I said, "There's no one here named Shon McNiel. Who the hell is Shon McNiel?"' Following the ordeal, the family is still grieving the loss of their dog with Malone noting the incident has left some of the party's youngest guests not wanting to go outside to play anymore Eli stands above with a marker at a memorial made in honor of Opie Moore said at the time the officer was serving a warrant which gave him legal authority to be on private property. Court records indicate McNiel's last known address was not Malone's house but instead a home on a nearby street, according to FOX 25. Malone and her children have lived at the house for a year and told Fox 25 the officer who shot Opie had previously responded to calls at their address in the last year, and was aware of the dog. 'Officer Franklin had been to the house twice before,' Youngblood, who described the dog as 'amazing with kids' told the Daily News. 'Opie was chained on the front porch. They knew Opie was here, too.' Following the ordeal, the family is still grieving the loss of their dog with Malone noting the incident has left some of the party's youngest guests not wanting to go outside to play anymore. Youngblood said his son Vrylend is also still grieving Opie's death. 'I came outside last night and he's on the trampoline. He said, "I'm singing to Opie's heart. I miss him,"' Youngblood told the Daily News. Meanwhile, the family is still waiting for an explanation and apology from the police department. |
Three mothers speak to News24 about the unique challenges that come with raising a family and being a sex worker. Watch. WATCH Cape Town – Cobblestones that "break their shoes" and an air-conditioning system that keeps things a tad on the icy side – those are some of the hardships female Members of Parliament face every day, they told sex workers while comparing notes in Parliament on Wednesday. As sex workers detailed some of the tribulations they face in their jobs – including rape, murder, and having their children taken away from them – ANC MP and Gauteng ANC Women's League provincial chairperson Patricia Chueu pleaded with them not to be angry that their demands were not being met immediately. Chueu said in the meeting with the multi-party women's caucus that the sex workers had to understand that the MPs worked under equally unsatisfactory conditions. The sex workers were calling on MPs to accelerate the process of decriminalising their job, as the process was taking too long "while they were dying". Chueu was at pains to explain the bad working conditions the female MPs were also subjected to. "Our working conditions are not good. You come to work, you feel very ill, every time you [have a] blocked [nose] because of the air conditioner here. This was a male structure, this Parliament," she said, wrapped in a fleece blanket to protect herself against the offensive air conditioner. 'It's not just you' But not only were they constantly cold, she complained, they also had to contend with the cobblestones that make walking around Parliament's precinct difficult. "You walk on the pavement, your shoe goes off every day in that pavement and we have been complaining about it since 1994 when we came here. So it's not just you," she told the sex workers, who had earlier broken down in tears as they described their working conditions to the MPs. "Our working conditions were not ideal," the MP said, but they "were still there" to do their job. "We are still talking about it [our hardship], even today," she said. The fight for women's rights was being won, bit by bit, she said. "We will get there. Because we are also lobbying other people to help us ensure that the rights of women are being given to them." Work frustrations When it came to women's rights, she said, men would not give in easily, as it sometimes took privileges away from them. "All of these rights are still coming, we will try and push as much as we can, but when we change offices, other people come in and are relaxed," she said. Everyone has their frustrations at work, including MPs, she told the sex workers. "I can even tell you about some of the discussions we have here. Including the programming of our schedule in Parliament, which does not suit us as women," Chueu said. It was good, however, for women to talk about their frustrations to each other. The women's caucus had presentations from the Commission for Gender Equality, Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce and the SA Law Reform Commission on the decriminalisation of sex work. |
Share It’s been more than six months since Windows 8 was launched last October, so how is Microsoft’s controversial operating system doing with consumers? According to Tami Reller, the company’s chief marketing and financial officer, more than 100 million Windows 8 licenses have been sold since launch – up from 60 million in January. In fact, Windows 8 is now on-pace with equaling Windows 7’s record as Microsoft’s fastest selling operating system. However, the Redmond-based company isn’t exactly busting out the champagne to celebrate just yet. “I feel very good about that number, but [it’s] not good enough,” Reller told GeekWire. Microsoft seems to blame the slow uptake of Windows 8 on the minimal number of touch-based devices available at launch. “If there had been more touch devices in the market, it would have been even more,” Reller said to ZDNet. There will be over 2,400 new Windows 8 and RT devices available this year, so we’ll see if her theory proves true. In our opinion, the forthcoming update to Windows 8 (codenamed Blue) will probably help move even more copies of the operating system when it is released later this year since it should address some of the problems users are having with the new platform. Reller also clarified that this 100 million number includes copies that are sold to manufacturers to pre-install on new computers, as well as upgrades to Windows 8 like the $15 offer for consumers who bought a new device between June 2012 and January 2013. Because that particular promotion ended in February, Reller noted that most of the 40 million licenses sold between January and April have been for new computers that shipped, which is not the same as the actual number of Windows 8 PCs that are sold or the number of users who actually use the new operating system (rather than wipe and install with a different OS). Though she wouldn’t say whether this number counts RT licenses as well, Reller did confirm that it excludes the volume-licenses that large businesses typically buy from Microsoft, so the number isn’t artificially inflated in this sense. On the app store front, Reller seems more upbeat that the Windows Store has increased by six-fold since launch, which has “already passed what iOS had in store, in its first year of app development,” Reller in a Microsoft blog post. The company has recorded over 250 million app downloads in the past six months, with almost 90 percent of its app catalog being downloaded each month. According to MetroStoreScanner, the Windows Store now offers 67,908 apps, up from 40,000 in January. In other words, Microsoft wants to assure you that Windows 8 isn’t quite the flop that Vista was and that the company is listening and slowly making improvements along the way. Is this too little too late for the software giant to woo back customers? |
Building An Antibiotic To Kill Bad Microbes While Sparing Good Ones Antibiotics can save lives, but sometimes they can work too well. Most antibiotics can't tell the difference between good and bad bacteria. That means the medicines kill helpful bacteria in your gut while they're obliterating the bacteria making you sick. The helpful bacteria make up what's known as your microbiome. Damaging the microbiome can cause a number of health problems, including making people more vulnerable to infections from other bacteria such as Clostridium difficile, which can cause debilitating diarrhea and be difficult to treat. Researchers are working on an antibiotic that targets specific, harmful bacteria while sparing the microbiome. A group from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., is testing an experimental drug, Debio 1452, that targets the bacteria that cause staph infections. Staph bacteria include dangerous strains of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, common causes of skin infections that can spread in hospitals. The study was published online by Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in early May. Historically, antibiotics were designed to kill as many bacteria as possible. But not this one. "The idea was to develop a drug against staph, not against anything else," said the leader of the study, who works in the infectious disease department at St. Jude's. "This type of approach to antibiotic discovery and development is not very common." The antibiotic targets a protein that is common to all staph bacteria. This protein, called FabI, isn't found in many other types of bacteria. When FabI is disrupted by Debio 1452, the structure of the bacterial cell is compromised. The scientists working on the drug compared the microbiomes of mice treated with Debio 1452 or commonly used antibiotics, such as clindamycin and amoxicillin. The microbiomes in mice that received Debio 1452 didn't change much. In contrast, the microbiomes of mice treated with the other antibiotics were significantly depleted. Once the mice were taken off antibiotics, their microbiomes began to return to normal. After two days, the microbiomes of the mice that were treated with Debio 1452 bounced back almost completely. The populations of good bacteria in the mice on the other antibiotics took up to a week to recover. It took even longer, up to 20 days, for the diversity of bacteria to return to normal. The quick return in the variety of gut bacteria after Debio 1452 is important, the scientists say, because their diversity could be as important or more than their total number. "All in all I am very enthusiastic about this," says Michael Gilmore, the Sir William Osler professor of ophthalmology, and microbiology and immunobiology at Harvard Medical School. "Staph is a good target because it is so common and the treatment will usually be right." But, Gilmore says, better ways are needed to diagnose patients to make sure a targeted antibiotic is the right choice. The latest results, of course, apply only to mice. Although Debio 1452, being developed by Swiss drugmaker Debiopharm Group, has completed preliminary safety and effectiveness testing in human, the drug would have to successfully pass larger clinical trials in humans and be approved by the Food and Drug Administration before doctors could prescribe it. Even if all the studies go perfectly, a drug wouldn't reach the market for years. |
Oglas Sporazum med Slovenijo in Cernom o podelitvi statusa pridružene članice kot predhodne faze članstva je bil podpisan decembra lani v Ženevi. Sporazum določa pravice in obveznosti Slovenije kot pridružene članice in po navedbah vlade pomeni ključen korak v nadaljnjem razvijanju sodelovanja na področju fizike delcev, ki bo Sloveniji prineslo številne dodatne koristi in ugodnosti v širšem smislu, tako na področju znanosti kot tudi izobraževanja in gospodarstva. Že v času pridruženega članstva pa bo raziskovalcem in podjetjem na voljo poln dostop do raziskovalne infrastrukture in tehnoloških projektov, ki potekajo v Cernu, poleg tega pa to prineslo tudi uporabo in ustvarjanje izdelkov visoke tehnologije v družbi vrhunskih strokovnjakov z vsega sveta. Ženevski Cern, ustanovljen leta 1954, je osrednji svetovni laboratorij za fiziko delcev in sodi med najbolj elitne znanstvene institucije na svetu, saj uporaba njegovih zmogljivosti pogosto povzroči razvoj novih tehnologij. Glavni namen organizacije je zagotavljanje raziskovalne infrastrukture - pospeševalnikov protonov, antiprotonov, težkih ionov, elektronov in pozitronov. |
The consensus among B.C. voters is clear: there is no consensus. With 41 per cent of the vote, the B.C. Liberals secured 49 per cent of the seats on election day. The Green Party got nearly 17 per cent of the vote, three seats, and seemingly 100 per cent of the power. article continues below Green Party leader Andrew Weaver seems intent on using that power to introduce electoral reform to an electorate that has already had the pleasure. Twice in recent memory, voters roundly rejected changing a bizarre system that values voters in Peace River South nearly four times more than votes in Saanich North and the Islands. If there was a referendum, many of us might well favour a move to proportional representation – but there needs to be a referendum. The Green Party’s showing was remarkable, and their ability to pull votes from both NDP and Liberal supporters may indicate a widespread appetite for a change from politics as usual and an end to corporate and union campaign donations. However, 17 per cent is still a country mile from a mandate. As such, we’d recommend a more proportional response from Weaver. And if we are going to introduce proportional representation in this province we need to have a debate that elucidates just how British Columbians with the good sense to live outside Metro Vancouver will be represented. Unless the seat counts change next week (which could very well happen) the Green Party is poised to play king for the next term. Like all new kings, we hope they keep their heads. What are your thoughts? Send us a letter via email by clicking here or post a comment below. |
MARK PAGEL Evolutionary Biology, Reading University, England; External Professor, Santa Fe Institute, NM WE ARE LEARNING TO MAKE PHENOTYPES We all develop from a single cell known as a zygote. This zygote divides and becomes two cells, then four, eight and so on. At first, most of the cells are alike, but as this division goes on something wondrous occurs: the cells begin to commit themselves to adopting different fates as eyes or ears, or livers or kidneys, or brains and blood cells. Eventually they produce a body of immense and unimaginable complexity, making things like supercomputers and space shuttles look like Lego toys. No one knows how they do it. No one is there to tell the cells how to behave, there is no homunculus directing cellular traffic, and no template to work to. It just happens. If scientists could figure out how cells enact this miracle of development they could produce phenotypes—the outward form of our bodies—at will and from scratch, or at least from a zygote. This, or something close to it, will happen in our lifetimes. When we perfect it—and we are well on the way—we will be able to recreate ourselves, even redefine the nature of our lives. The problem is that development isn't just a matter of finding a cell and getting it to grow and divide. As our cells differentiate into our various body parts they lose what is known as their 'potency', they forget how to go back to their earlier states where, like the zygote, all fates are possible. When we cut ourselves the skin nearby knows how to grow back, erasing all or most of the damage. But we can only do this on a very local scale. If you cut off your arm it does not grow back. What scientists are learning bit by bit to do is how to reverse cells back to their earlier potent states, how to re-program them so they could replace a limb. Every year brings new discoveries and new successes. Cloning is one of the more visible. At the moment most cloning is a bit of a cheat, achieved by taking special cells from an adult animal's body that still retain some of their potency. But this will change as cell re-programming becomes possible, and the consequences could be alarming. Someone might be able to clone you by collecting a bit of your hair or other cells left behind when you touch something or sit somewhere. Why someone would want to do this—and wait for you to grow up—might limit this in practice but it could happen. You could become your own "father" or at least a very grown up twin. More in the realm of the everyday and of real consequence is that once we can re-program cells, whole areas of science and medicine, including aging, injury and disease will vanish or become unimportant. All of the contentious work on 'embryonic stem cells' that regularly features in debates about whether it is moral to use embryos in research exists solely because scientists want a source of 'totipotent' cells, cells that haven't committed themselves to a fate. Embryos are full of them. Scientists aren't interested in embryonic stem cells per se, they simply want totipotent cells. Once scientists acquire the ability to return cells to their totipotent state, or even what is known as a 'multi-potent' state—a cell that is not quite yet fully committed—all this stem cell research will become unnecessary. This could happen within a decade. School children learn that some lizards and crabs can re-grow limbs. What they are not taught is that this is because their cells retain multi- or even toti-potency. Because ours don't, this makes car crashes, ski accidents, gun shot wounds and growing old a nuisance. But once we unlock the door of development, we will be able to re-grow our limbs, heal our wounds and much more. Scientists will for once make the science-fiction writers look dull. The limbs (and organs, nerves, body parts, etc) that we re-grow will be real, making those bionic things like Anakin Skywalker gets fitted with after a light-sabre accident seem primitive. This will make transplants obsolete or just temporary, and things like heart disease will be treatable by growing new hearts. Nerve damage and paralysis will be reversible and some brain diseases will become treatable. Some of these things are already happening as scientists inch-by-inch figure out how to re-program cells. If these developments are not life changing enough, they will, in the longer-term usher in a new era in which our minds, the thing that we think of as "us", can become separated from our body, or nearly separated anyway. I don't suggest we will be able to transplant our mind to another body, but we will be able to introduce new body parts into existing bodies with a resident mind. With enough such replacements, we will become potentially immortal: like ancient buildings that exist only because over the centuries each of their many stones has been replaced. An intriguing aspect of re-programming cells is that they can be induced to 'forget' how old they are. Aging will become a thing of the past if you can afford enough new pieces. We will then discover the extent to which our minds arise from perceptions of our bodies and the passage of time. If you give an old person the body of a teenager do they start to behave and think like one? Who knows, but it will be game-changing to find out. BRIAN GOODWIN Biologist, Schumacher College, Devon, UK; Author, How The Leopard Changed Its Spots THE ORGANISM ITSELF AS THE EMERGENT MEANING I anticipate that biology will go through a transforming revelation/revolution that is like the revolution that happened in physics with the development of quantum mechanics nearly 100 years ago. In biology this will involve the realisation that to make sense of the complexity of gene activity in development, the prevailing model of local mechanical causality will have to be abandoned. In its place we will have a model of interactive relationships within gene transcription networks that is like the pattern of interactions between words in a language, where ambiguity is essential to the creation of emergent meaning that is sensitive to cultural history and to context. The organism itself is the emergent meaning of the developmental process as embodied form, sensitive to both historical constraint within the genome and to environmental context, as we see in the adaptive creativity of evolution. What contemporary studies have revealed is that genes are not independent units of information that can be transferred between organisms to alter phenotypes, but elements of complex networks that act together in a morphogenetic process that produces coherent form and function as embodied meaning. A major consequence that I see of this revelation in biology is the realisation that the separation we have made between human creativity as expressed in culture, and natural creativity as expressed in evolution, is mistaken. The two are much more deeply related than we have previously recognised. That humans are embedded in and dependent on nature is something that no-one can deny. This has become dramatically evident recently as our economic system has collapsed, along with the collapse of many crucial ecosystems, due to our failure to integrate human economic activity as a sustainable part of Gaian regulatory networks. We now face dramatic changes in the climate that require equally dramatic changes in our technologies connected with energy generation, farming, travel, and human life-style in general. On the other hand, the recognition that culture is embedded in nature is not so evident but will, I believe, emerge as part of the biological revelation/revolution. Biologists will realise that all life, from bacteria to humans, involves a creative process that is grounded in natural languages as the foundation of their capacity for self-generation and continuous adaptive transformation. The complexity of the molecular networks regulating gene activity in organisms reveals a structure and a dynamic that has the self-similar characteristics and long-range order of languages. The coherent form of an organism emerges during its development as the embodied meaning of the historical genetic text, created through the process of resolving ambiguity and multiple possibilities of form into appropriate functional order that reflects sensitivity to context. Such use of language in all its manifestations in the arts and the sciences is the essence of cultural creativity. In conclusion, I see the deep conceptual changes that are currently happening in biology as a prelude and accompaniment to the cultural changes that are occurring in culture, facilitating these and ushering in a new age of sustainable living on the planet. CARLO ROVELLI Physicist, Université de la Mediterrané (Marseille, France); Author, Quantum Gravity AND IF THE BIG CHANGE DIDN'T ARRIVE? I grew up expecting that, when adult, I'd travel to Mars. I expected cancer and the flu—and all illnesses—to be cured, robots taking care of labor, the biochemistry of life fully unraveled, the possibility of recreating damaged organs in every hospital, the nations of the Earth living prosperously in peace thanks to new technology, and physics having understood the center of a black hole. I expected great changes, that did not came. Let's be open minded: it is still possible for them to come. It is possible for unexpected advances to change everything—it has happened in the past. But—let's indeed be open minded—it is also possible that big changes would not come. Maybe I am biased by my own research field, theoretical physics. I grew up in awe for the physics of the second half of the XIX century and the first third of the XX century. What a marvel! The discovery of the electromagnetic field and waves, understanding thermodynamics with probability, special relativity, quantum mechanics, general relativity... Curved spacetimes, probability waves and black holes. What a feast! The world transforming every 10 years under our eyes; reality becoming more subtle, more beautiful. Seeing new worlds. I got into theoretical physics. What has happened big in the last 30 years? We are not sure. Perhaps not much. Big dreams, like string theory and multi-universes, but are they credible? We do not know. Perhaps the same passion that charmed me towards the future has driven large chunks of today's research into useless dead-end dreams. Maybe not. Maybe we are really understanding what happened before the Big Bang (a "Big Bounce"?) and what takes place deep down at the Planck scale ("loops"? space and time loosing their meaning?). Let's be open to the possibility we are getting there—let's work hard to get there. But let's also be ready to recognize that perhaps we are not there. Perhaps our dreams are just that: dreams. Too often I have been hearing that somebody is "on the brink of" the great leap ahead. I now tend to get asleep when I hear "on the brink of". In physics it is 15 years that I hear that we are "on the brink of observing supersymmetry". Please weak me up when we are actually there. I do not want to sound pessimistic. I just want to put a word of caution in. Maybe what really changes everything is not something that sounds so glamourous. What did really change everything in the past? Here are two examples. Until no more than a couple of centuries ago, 95% of humanity worked the countryside as peasants. That is, humanity needed the labour of 95 out of 100 of its members just to feed the group. This left happy few for doing everything else. Today only a few percent of the humans work the fields. A few are enough to feed everybody else. This means that the large majority of us, including me and most probably you, my reader, are free to do something else, participating in constructing the world we inhabit, a better one, perhaps. What made such a huge change in our lives possible? Mostly, just one technological tool: the tractor. The humble rural machine has changed our life perhaps more than the wheel or electricity. Another example? Hygiene. Our life expectancy has nearly doubled from little more than washing hands and taking showers. Change comes often from where it is not expected. The famous note from the IBM top management at the beginning of the computer history estimated that: "there is no market for more than a few dozens of computers in the world". So, what is my moral? Making predictions is difficult, of course, especially about the future. It is good to dream about big changes, actively seek them and be open minded to them. Otherwise we are stuck here. But let us not get blinded by hopes. Dreams and hopes of humanity sometimes succeed, sometime fail big. The century just ended has shown us momentous examples of both. The Edge question is about what will change everything, which I'll see in my lifetime: and if the answer was: "nothing"? Are we able to discern hype from substance? Dolly may be scientifically important, but I tend to see it just as a funny-born twin-sister: she hasn't changed much in my life, yet. Will she really? JONATHAN HAIDT Psychologist, University of Virginia; Author, The Happiness Hypothesis FASTER EVOLUTION MEANS MORE ETHNIC DIFFERENCES The most offensive idea in all of science for the last 40 years is the possibility that behavioral differences between racial and ethnic groups have some genetic basis. Knowing nothing but the long-term offensiveness of this idea, a betting person would have to predict that as we decode the genomes of people around the world, we're going to find deeper differences than most scientists now expect. Expectations, after all, are not based purely on current evidence; they are biased, even if only slightly, by the gut feelings of the researchers, and those gut feelings include disgust toward racism.. A wall has long protected respectable evolutionary inquiry from accusations of aiding and abetting racism. That wall is the belief that genetic change happens at such a glacial pace that there simply was not time, in the 50,000 years since humans spread out from Africa, for selection pressures to have altered the genome in anything but the most trivial way (e.g., changes in skin color and nose shape were adaptive responses to cold climates). Evolutionary psychology has therefore focused on the Pleistocene era – the period from about 1.8 million years ago to the dawn of agriculture — during which our common humanity was forged for the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. But the writing is on the wall. Russian scientists showed in the 1990s that a strong selection pressure (picking out and breeding only the tamest fox pups in each generation) created what was — in behavior as well as body — essentially a new species in just 30 generations. That would correspond to about 750 years for humans. Humans may never have experienced such a strong selection pressure for such a long period, but they surely experienced many weaker selection pressures that lasted far longer, and for which some heritable personality traits were more adaptive than others. It stands to reason that local populations (not continent-wide "races") adapted to local circumstances by a process known as "co-evolution" in which genes and cultural elements change over time and mutually influence each other. The best documented example of this process is the co-evolution of genetic mutations that maintain the ability to fully digest lactose in adulthood with the cultural innovation of keeping cattle and drinking their milk. This process has happened several times in the last 10,000 years, not to whole "races" but to tribes or larger groups that domesticated cattle. Recent "sweeps" of the genome across human populations show that hundreds of genes have been changing during the last 5-10 millennia in response to local selection pressures. (See papers by Benjamin Voight, Scott Williamson, and Bruce Lahn). No new mental modules can be created from scratch in a few millennia, but slight tweaks to existing mechanisms can happen quickly, and small genetic changes can have big behavioral effects, as with those Russian foxes. We must therefore begin looking beyond the Pleistocene and turn our attention to the Holocene era as well – the last 10,000 years. This was the period after the spread of agriculture during which the pace of genetic change sped up in response to the enormous increase in the variety of ways that humans earned their living, formed larger coalitions, fought wars, and competed for resources and mates. The protective "wall" is about to come crashing down, and all sorts of uncomfortable claims are going to pour in. Skin color has no moral significance, but traits that led to Darwinian success in one of the many new niches and occupations of Holocene life — traits such as collectivism, clannishness, aggressiveness, docility, or the ability to delay gratification — are often seen as virtues or vices. Virtues are acquired slowly, by practice within a cultural context, but the discovery that there might be ethnically-linked genetic variations in the ease with which people can acquire specific virtues is — and this is my prediction — going to be a "game changing" scientific event. (By "ethnic" I mean any group of people who believe they share common descent, actually do share common descent, and that descent involved at least 500 years of a sustained selection pressure, such as sheep herding, rice farming, exposure to malaria, or a caste-based social order, which favored some heritable behavioral predispositions and not others.) I believe that the "Bell Curve" wars of the 1990s, over race differences in intelligence, will seem genteel and short-lived compared to the coming arguments over ethnic differences in moralized traits. I predict that this "war" will break out between 2012 and 2017. There are reasons to hope that we'll ultimately reach a consensus that does not aid and abet racism. I expect that dozens or hundreds of ethnic differences will be found, so that any group — like any person — can be said to have many strengths and a few weaknesses, all of which are context-dependent. Furthermore, these cross-group differences are likely to be small when compared to the enormous variation within ethnic groups and the enormous and obvious effects of cultural learning. But whatever consensus we ultimately reach, the ways in which we now think about genes, groups, evolution and ethnicity will be radically changed by the unstoppable progress of the human genome project. ANDY CLARK Philosopher and Cognitive Scientist, University of Edinburgh; Author, Supersizing the Mind CELEBRATORY SELF RE-ENGINEERING What will change everything is the onset of celebratory species self re-engineering. The technologies are pouring in, from wearable, implantable, and pervasive computing, to the radical feature blends achieved using gene transfer techniques, to thought-controlled cursors freeing victims of locked-in syndrome, to funkier prosthetic legs able to win track races, and on to the humble but transformative iPhone. But what really matters is the way we are, as a result of this tidal wave of self- re-engineering opportunity, just starting to know ourselves: not as firmly bounded biological organisms but as delightfully reconfigurable nodes in a flux of information, communcation, and action. As we learn to celebrate our own potential, we will embrace ever-more-dramatic variations in bodily form and in our effective cognitive profiles. The humans of the next century will be vastly more heterogeneous, more varied along physical and cognitive dimensions, than those of the past as we deliberately engineer a new Cambrian explosion of body and mind. LEO CHALUPA Ophthalmologist and Neurobiologist, University of California, Davis CONTROLLING BRAIN PLASTICITY In the 1960s movie "The Graduate" a young Dustin Hoffman is advised to go into plastics, presumably because that will be the next big thing. Today, one might well advise the young person planning to pursue a degree in medicine or the biological sciences to go into brain plasticity. This refers to the fact that neurons are malleable throughout life, capable of being shaped by external experiences and endogenous events. Recent imaging studies of single neurons have revealed that specialized parts of nerve cells, termed dendritic spines are constantly undergoing a process of rapid expansion and retraction. While brain cells are certainly capable of structural and functional changes throughout life, an extensive scientific literature has shown that plasticity in the nervous system is greatest early in development, during the so-called critical periods. This accounts for the marvelous ability of children to rapidly master various skills at different developmental stages. Toddlers have no difficulty in learning two, three and even more languages, and most adolescents can learn to ski black diamond slopes much before their middle-aged parents. The critical periods underlying such learning reflect the high degree of plasticity exhibited by specific brain circuits during the first two decades of life. In recent years, developmental neurobiologists have made considerable progress in unraveling the myriad factors underlying the plasticity of neurons in the developing brain. For instance, a number of studies have now demonstrated that it is the formation of inhibitory circuits in the cortex that causes decreased plasticity in the maturing visual system. While no single event can entirely explain brain plasticity, progress is being attained at a rapid pace, and I am convinced that in my lifetime we will be able to control the level of plasticity exhibited by mature neurons. Several laboratories have already discovered ways to manipulate the brain in ways to make mature neurons as plastic as during early development. Such studies have been done using genetically engineered mice with either a deletion or an over-expression of specific genes known to control plasticity during normal development. Moreover, drug treatments have now been found to mimic the changes observed in these mutant mice. In essence this means that the high degree of brain plasticity normally evident only during early development can now be made to occur throughout the life span. This is undoubtedly a game changer in the brain sciences. Imagine being able to restore the plasticity of neurons in the language centers of your brain, enabling you to learn any and all languages effortlessly and at a rapid pace. The restoration of neuronal plasticity would also have important clinical implications since unlike in the mature brain, connections in the developing brain are capable of sprouting (i.e. new growth). For this reason, this technology could provide a powerful means to combat loss of neuronal connections, including those resulting from brain injury as well as various disease states. I am optimistic that these treatments will be forthcoming in my lifetime. Indeed a research group in Finland is about to begin the first clinical study to assess the ability of drug treatments to restore plasticity to the visual system of adult humans. If successful this would provide a means for treating amblyopia in adults, a prevalent disorder of the visual system, which today can only be treated in young children whose visual cortex is still plastic. — Still there are a number of factors will need to be worked out before the restoration of neuronal plasticity becomes a viable procedure. For one thing, it will be necessary to devise a means of targeting specific groups of neurons, those controlling a function that one wants to attain enhanced plasticity. Many people might wish to have a brain made capable of effortlessly learning foreign languages, but few would be pleased if this were accompanied by a vocabulary limited to babbling sounds, not unlike those of my granddaughter who is beginning to learn to speak English and Ukrainian. LAURENCE C. SMITH Professor of Geography and Earth & Space Sciences, UCLA WEST ANTARCTICA AND SEVEN OTHER SLEEPING GIANTS In the classic English fable Jack and the Beanstalk, the intrepid protagonist risks being devoured on sight in order to repeatedly raid the home of a flesh-eating giant for gold. All goes well until the snoring giant awakens and gives furious chase. But Jack beats him back down the magic beanstalk and chops it down with an axe, toppling the descending cannibal to its death. Jack thus wins back his life plus substantial economic profit from his spoils. Industrialized society has also reaped enormous economic and social benefit from fossil fuels, so far without rousing any giants. But as geoscientists, my colleagues and I devote much of our time to worrying about whether they might be slumbering in the Earth's climate system. We used to think climate worked like a dial — slow to heat up and slow to cool down — but we've since learned it can also act like a switch. Twenty years ago anyone who hypothesized an abrupt, show-stopping event — a centuries-long plunge in air temperature, say, or the sudden die-off of forests — would have been laughed off. But today, an immense body of empirical and theoretical research tells us that sudden awakenings are dismayingly common in climate behavior. Ancient records preserved in tree rings, sediments, glacial ice layers, cave stalactites, and other natural archives tells us that for much of the past 10,000 years — the time when our modern agricultural society evolved — our climate was remarkably stable. Before then it was it was capable of wild fluctuations, even leaping eighteen degrees Fahrenheit in ten years. That's as if the average temperature in Minneapolis warmed to that of San Diego in a single decade. Even during the relative calm of recent centuries, we find sudden lurches that exceed anything in modern memory. Tree rings tell us that in the past 1,000 years, the western United States has seen three droughts at least as bad as the Dust Bowl but lasting three to seven times longer. Two of them may have helped collapse past societies of the Anasazi and Fremont people. The mechanisms behind such lurches are complex but decipherable. Many are related to shifting ocean currents that slosh around pools of warm or cool seawater in quasi-predictable ways. The El Niño/La Niña phenomenon, which redirects rainfall patterns around the globe, is one well-known example. Another major player is the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC), a massive density-driven "heat conveyor belt" that carries tropical warmth northwards via the Gulf Stream. The THC is what gifts Europe with relatively balminess despite being as far north as some of Canada's best polar bear habitat. If the THC were to weaken or halt, the eastern U.S. and Europe would become something like Alaska. While over-sensationalized by The Day After Tomorrow film and a scary 2003 Pentagon document imagining famines, refugees, and wars, a THC shutdown nonetheless remains an unlikely but plausible threat. It is the original sleeping giant of my field. Unfortunately, we are discovering more giants that are probably lighter sleepers than the THC. Seven others — all of them potential game-changers — are now under scrutiny: (1) the disappearance of summer sea-ice over the Arctic Ocean, (2) increased melting and glacier flow of the Greenland ice sheet, (3) "unsticking" of the frozen West Antarctic Ice Sheet from its bed, (4) rapid die-back of Amazon forests, (5) disruption of the Indian Monsoon, (6) release of methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, from thawing frozen soils, and (7) a shift to a permanent El Niño-like state. Like the THC, should any of these occur there would be profound ramifications — like our food production, the extinction and expansion of species, and the inundation of coastal cities. To illustrate, consider the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The water stored in them is enormous, enough to drown the planet under more than 200 feet of water. That will not happen anytime soon but even a tiny reduction in their extent — say, five percent — would significantly alter our coastline. Global sea level is already rising about one-third of a centimeter every year and will reach at least 18 to 60 centimeters higher just one long human lifetime from now, if the speeds at which glaciers are currently flowing from land to ocean remain constant. But at least two warming-induced triggers might speed them up: percolation of lubricating meltwater down to the glaciers' beds; and the disintegration of floating ice shelves that presently pin glaciers onto the continent. If these giants awaken happen our best current guess is 80 to 200 centimeters of sea level rise. That's a lot of water. Most of Miami would either be surrounded by dikes or underwater. Unfortunately, the presence of sleeping giants makes the steady, predictable growth of anthropogenic greenhouse warming more dangerous, not less. Alarm clocks may be set to go off, but we don't what their temperature settings are. The science is too new, and besides we'll never know for sure until it happens. While some economists predicted that rising credit-default swaps and other highly leveraged financial products might eventually bring about an economic collapse, who could have foreseen the exact timing and magnitude of late 2008? Like most threshold phenomena it is extremely difficult to know just how much poking is needed to disturb sleeping giants. Forced to guess, I'd mutter something about decades, or centuries, or never. On the other hand, one might be stirring already: In September 2007, then again in 2008, for the first time in memory nearly 40% of the later-summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean abruptly disappeared. Unlike Jack, the eyes of scientists are slow to adjust to the gloom. But we are beginning to see some outlines and unfortunately, discern not one but many sleeping forms. What is certain is that our inexorable loading of the atmosphere with heat-trapping greenhouse gases increases the likelihood that one or more of them will wake up. ALISON GOPNIK Psychologist, UC, Berkeley; Author, The Scientist in the Crib NEVER-ENDING CHILDHOOD The world is transforming from an agricultural and manufacturing economy to an information economy. This means that people will have to learn more and more. The best way to make it happen is to extend the period when we learn the most — childhood. Our new scientific understanding of neural plasticity and gene regulation, along with the global spread of schooling, will make that increasingly possible. We may remain children forever — or at least for much longer. Humans already have a longer period of protected immaturity — a longer childhood — than any other species. Across species, a long childhood is correlated with an evolutionary strategy that depends on flexibility, intelligence and learning. There is a developmental division of labor. Children get to learn freely about their particular environment without worrying about their own survival — caregivers look after that. Adults use what they learn as children to mate, predate, and generally succeed as grown-ups in that environment. Children are the R & D department of the human species. We grown-ups are production and marketing. We start out as brilliantly flexible but helpless and dependent babies, great at learning everything but terrible at doing just about anything. We end up as much less flexible but much more efficient and effective adults, not so good at learning but terrific at planning and acting. These changes reflect brain changes. Young brains are more connected, more flexible and more plastic, but less efficient. As we get older, and experience more, our brains prune out the less-used connections and strengthen the connections that work. Recent developments in neuroscience show that this early plasticity can be maintained and even reopened in adulthood. And, we've already invented the most unheralded but most powerful brain-altering technology in history — school. For most of human history babies and toddlers used their spectacular, freewheeling, unconstrained learning abilities to understand fundamental facts about the objects, people and language around them — the human core curriculum. At about 6 children also began to be apprentices. Through a gradual process of imitation, guidance and practice they began to master the particular adult skills of their particular culture — from hunting to cooking to navigation to childrearing itself. Around adolescence motivational changes associated with puberty drove children to leave the protected cocoon and act independently. And by that time their long apprenticeship had given children a new suite of executive abilities — abilities for efficient action, planning, control and inhibition, governed by the development of prefrontal areas of the brain. By adolescence children wanted to end their helpless status and act independently and they had the tools to do so effectively. School, a very recent human invention, completely alters this program. Schooling replaces apprenticeship. School lets us all continue to be brilliant but helpless babies. It lets us learn a wide variety of information flexibly, and for its own sake, without any immediate payoff. School assumes that learning is more important than doing, and that learning how to learn is most important of all. But school is also an extension of the period of infant dependence — since we don't actually do anything useful in school, other people need to take care of us — all the way up to a Ph.D. School doesn't include the gradual control and mastery of specific adult skills that we once experienced in apprenticeship. Universal and extended schooling means that the period of flexible learning and dependence can continue until we are in our thirties, while independent active mastery is increasingly delayed. Schooling is spreading inexorably throughout the globe. A hundred years ago hardly anyone went to school, even now few people are schooled past adolescence. A hundred years from now we can expect that most people will still be learning into their thirties and beyond. Moreover, the new neurological and genetic developments will give us new ways to keep the window of plasticity open. And the spread of the information economy will make genetic and neurological interventions, as well as educational and behavioral interventions, more and more attractive. These accelerated changes have radical consequences. Schooling alone has already had a revolutionary effect on human learning. Absolute IQs have increased at an astonishing and accelerating rate, "the Flynn effect". Extending the period of immaturity indeed makes us much smarter and far more knowledgeable. Neurological and genetic techniques can accelerate this process even further. We all tend to assume that extending this period of flexibility and openness is a good thing — who would argue against making people smarter? But there may be an intrinsic trade-off between flexibility and effectiveness, between the openness that we require for learning and the focus that we need to act. Child-like brains are great for learning, but not so good for effective decision-making or productive action. There is some evidence that adolescents even now have increasing difficulty making decisions and acting independently, and pathologies of adolescent action like impulsivity and anxiety are at all-time historical highs. Fundamental grown-up human skills we once mastered through apprenticeship, like cooking and caregiving itself, just can't be acquired through schooling. (Think of all those neurotic new parents who have never taken care of a child and try to make up for it with parenting books). When we are all babies for ever, who will be the parents? When we're all children who will be the grown-ups? John D. Barrow Physicist, Director, Millennium Mathematics Project, Cambridge; Author, 100 Essential Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know A VERY VERY GOOD BATTERY LAWRENCE KRAUSS Physicist, Director, Origins Initiative, Arizona State University; Author, Hiding in the Mirror THE USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AGAINST A CIVILIAN POPULATION "With Nuclear Weapons, everything has changed, save our way of thinking." So said Albert Einstein, sixty three years ago, following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings at the end of World War II. Having been forced to choose a single game changer, I have turned away from the fascinating scientific developments I might like to see, and will instead focus on the one game changer that I will hopefully never directly witness, but nevertheless expect will occur during my lifetime: the use of nuclear weapons against a civilian population. Whether used by one government against the population of another, or by a terrorist group, the detonation of even a small nuclear explosive, similar in size, for example, to the one that destroyed hiroshima, would produce an impact on the economies, politics, and lifestyles of the first world in a way that would make the impact of 9/11 seem trivial. I believe the danger of nuclear weapons use remains one of the biggest dangers of this century. It is remarkable that we have gone over 60 years without their use, but the clock is ticking. I fear that Einstein's admonition remains just as true today as it did then, and I that we are unlikely to go another half century with impunity, at least without confronting the need for a global program of disarmament that goes far beyond the present current Nuclear Non-Proliferation, and strategic arms treaties. Following forty years of Mutually Assured Destruction, with the two Superpowers like two scorpions in a bottle, each held at bay by the certainty of the destruction that would occur at the first whiff of nuclear aggression on the part of the other, we have become complacent. Two generations have come to maturity in a world where nuclear weapons have not been used. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has been largely ignored, not just by nascent nuclear states like North Korea, or India and Pakistan, or pre-nuclear wannabies like Iran. Together the United States and Russia possess 26,000 of the world's 27,000 known nuclear warheads. This in spite of the NPT's strict requirement for these countries to significantly reduce their arsenals. Each country has perhaps 1000 warheads on hair trigger full alert. This in spite of the fact that there is no strategic utility at the current time associated with possessing so many nuclear weapons on alert. Ultimately, what so concerned Einstein, and is of equal concern today, is the fact that first use of nuclear weapons cannot be justified on moral or strategic grounds. Nevertheless, it may surprise some people to learn that the United States has no strict anti-first-use policy. In fact, in its 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, the U.S. declared that nuclear weapons "provide credible military options to deter a wide range of threats" including "surprising military developments." And while we spend $10 billion/yr on flawed ballistic missile defense systems against currently non-existent threats, the slow effort to disarm means that thousands of nuclear weapons remain in regions that are unstable, and which could, in principle, be accessed by well organized and well financed terrorist groups. We have not spent a noticeable fraction of the money spent supposedly defending against ballistic missiles instead outfitting ports and airports to detect against possible nuclear devices smuggled into this country in containers. Will it take a nuclear detonation used against a civilian population to stir a change in thinking? The havoc wreaked on what we now call the civilized world, no matter where a nuclear confrontation takes place, would be orders of magnitude greater than that which we have experienced since the Second World War. Moreover, as recent calculations have demonstrated, even a limited nuclear exchange between, say India and Pakistan, could have a significant global impact for almost a decade on world climates and growing seasons. I sincerely hope that whatever initiates a global realization that the existence of large nuclear stockpiles throughout the world is a threat to everyone on the planet, changing the current blind business-as-usual mentality permeating global strategic planning, does not result from a nuclear tragedy. But physics has taught me that the world is the way it is whether we like it or not. And my gut tells me that to continue to ignore the likelihood that a game changer that exceeds our worst nightmares will occur in this century is merely one way to encourage that possibility. |
Arkansas State Rep. Justin Harris and his wife held a press conference to address the fallout related to his adoption of three young girls. Harris put a 6-year-old girl he adopted in the care of a man who later sexually abused her. (KARK 4 News) The sisters were supposed to be moving out of neglect and chaos and into the stability of their forever home. For one of those girls, however, Arkansas Rep. Justin Harris’s house came to represent something very different: a temporary stopping point on the way to some place much, much worse. A series of stories by the Arkansas Times revealed that Harris — a day-care owner, a vociferous defender of his Christian faith and a prominent figure in the state’s Republican Party — put two young girls he adopted in the care of a man who later sexually abused one of them. More shocking still: What Harris did, unofficially giving away an adopted child, is not illegal in Arkansas. It is known as “rehoming,” a name that describes a practice more common in pet adoption. The extralegal practice is highly controversial — “a monstrous act,” according to adoption advocate John M. Simmons. Though no one can say for sure, child advocates believe that rehoming is relatively rare in the United States. Those adoptive parents who do it, advocates say, are gambling with the well-being of at-risk children whose entire life experiences have been characterized by abandonment, separation, grief and often abuse. “There’s probably no greater trauma than thinking you have found a forever family and finding that’s not the case,” said Sandy Santana, interim executive director of Children’s Rights, an advocacy organization based in New York. “The foster kids are coming into the foster system because they have been abused or neglected. They’ve already experienced trauma; they’ve experienced separation from their birth parents.” Moving from home to home “compounds the trauma and the loss, and the grief,” Santana said. How exactly things could go so wrong for the girls once they were placed in the care of the Harris family is a study in failure at all levels. The three sisters taken in by Justin and Marsha Harris had already lived with a toxic mixture of neglect and abuse. The girls were at one point placed in the care of methamphetamine users, according to the Times. And throughout their childhood, police had documented sexual abuse in their home, which experts say can be a strong signal for potential predators. The scrutiny-free practice of rehoming opens the door to children becoming victims once again. An extensive Reuters and NBC News report in 2013 laid out the series of events that often plays out online, where parents use message boards and Facebook groups to find new families for their unwanted adopted children: Many of the online posts say the unwanted children have physical or mental disabilities. In the group Reuters analyzed, more than half were described as having some sort of special need. About 18 percent were said to have a history that included sexual or physical abuse. Such descriptions could serve as a beacon for predators. … Especially at risk are children described as troubled and lacking a consistent parental figure, says Eric Ostrov, a Chicago-based forensic psychologist who evaluates sex offenders. Those depictions, Ostrov says, would be a “tremendous lure.” Faced with the allegations before they were published by the Arkansas Times, Harris first became defensive. “It’s evil,” he told the Times. “No weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you,” he added, quoting a Bible verse. Later, at an emotional press conference, Harris placed the blame squarely on the state health services department, which, he said, refused to help when he and his wife struggled with the girls they had adopted. State officials also did not act when they learned that the Harrises had given the girls to another family, according to the Times, until it was too late. Rep. Justin T. Harris walks in the House chamber at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock on Feb. 12. (Danny Johnston/AP) Yet others involved in the case say that the Harrises knew the girls had mental and emotional challenges due to past trauma but insisted on adopting them anyway, the Arkansas Times reported. Both sides agree that the Harris family was approached to adopt three girls by their biological mother. After several months with the eldest girl, who was 6 at the time of the trial period, the Harrises did not finalize her adoption due to her behavioral issues, Harris said at a news conference last week. But around March 2013, he and his wife formally adopted the girl’s two younger sisters, according to the Arkansas Times. Months later, according to the Harrises, they were struggling to cope with the mental and behavioral challenges presented by the two girls, particularly the older one, who was 4 at the time. According the Arkansas Times, people who knew the family, including a former babysitter, say that the Harrises kept the 4-year-old locked in a room and monitored her with cameras because they believed she was possessed by demons. The babysitter told the paper that the family hired “specialists” to perform an exorcism. A lawyer for the Harrises, Jennifer Wells, denied to the Arkansas Times that “exorcisms and telepathy” are part of the couple’s beliefs. She said that instead they used a controversial book on “therapeutic” parenting to help deal with the adopted children. Cheryl and Craig Hart, foster parents who had taken in the two younger girls before they were adopted by the Harrises, said the state lawmaker and his wife shouldn’t have been surprised by the girls’ behavior, according to the Arkansas Times: The Harts said that a local team working on the adoption — including themselves, [Department of Health Services] caseworkers, adoption specialists, CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) and therapists from Ozark Guidance, a mental health provider — made the Harrises fully aware of the girls’ history of neglect and sexual abuse and cautioned them that they were unprepared to handle children from such a background, especially considering their home included young boys. The former DHS employee confirmed this account. At his news conference last week, Harris rattled off a litany of offenses that brought his family to a breaking point. One of the girls, he said, killed a family guinea pig, harmed a pet hamster, screamed in her room for eight hours straight and collected sharp rocks that she said would be used to kill the entire family, including her three adoptive brothers. The Harrises made the boys sleep in their bedroom and away from the girls. “At this point, we again reached out to DHS for help, and then we were threatened with possible abandonment charges and potentially losing our own boys,” Harris said. And so Harris chose to take matters in his own hands near the end of 2013. Marsha Harris was friends with a woman named Stacey Francis, and Justin Harris believed Francis and her husband, Eric, would be a “perfect solution” to a seemingly intractable problem. “As a dad, it was fight or flight,” Harris told KTHV in an interview. “The whole way through, we thought everything was perfect. We checked on them, took them to the doctor.” Eric Cameron Francis pleaded guilty in November to three counts of sexual assault in the second degree. (AP Photo/Benton County Jail) There is no question, however, that it became a perfect nightmare. While caring for the two girls, Eric Francis was employed briefly at Growing God’s Kingdom, the Christian day-care owned by Harris. But by January 2014, Francis had been fired for “poor work attendance,” the Arkansas Times said. One day that same month, with Stacey Francis out of town, Eric Francis acted. By then, the 4-year old girl Harris had adopted and then given away was 6. Months later, the Francises transferred the girls to yet another family. Police only learned that Eric Francis had raped the girl because of an anonymous tip. In November, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Years ago, no states had explicit prohibitions against rehoming. But recently, Wisconsin, Colorado, Florida and Louisiana have passed laws addressing the practice. Startled by the Harris case, Arkansas could be next. In the last week alone, lawmakers have filed two bills seeking to outlaw the practice, according to KTHV. It is a good step, advocates say, that could help protect some of the most vulnerable children and underscore the importance of preparing families for the challenges of foster children before adoption. “This is not the norm in adoption; most families do well,” said Megan Lestino of the National Council for Adoption. There are times when families are unable to cope with the challenges of caring for children adopted through the foster system. But typically, those cases should involve family services officials and a judge who makes the final decision about custody of the child, Lestino said. “In reality, when they are doing it in these illegal ways, what it is is child abandonment and neglect,” Lestino said. |
CLOSE Lebron James inks lifetime deal with Nike USA TODAY Sports LeBron James is Nike’s first lifetime client in the company’s 44-year history. (Photo11: Steve Mitchell, USA TODAY Sports) Merry Christmas, LeBron James. Nike is your Santa Clause this holiday season. According to a person with knowledge of the situation, James' lifetime shoe deal that was revealed on Monday is worth significantly more than the $500 million that has been speculated in some media reports and — at the current rate of sales — is also worth more than $30 million on an annual basis. The person spoke to USA TODAY Sports on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the financial terms. While an exact figure hasn't been disclosed, it’s quite clear that King James — who at 30 years of age became Nike’s first lifetime client in the company’s 44-year history — is the sneaker king of the NBA. James’ deal comes after a string of huge-money shoe deals that have set a new standard in the market, with Portland Trail Blazers’ star Damian Lillard signing a deal with an eight-year base that can be worth well over $100 million, Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant signing a 10-year, $300 million deal with Nike four months later and the Houston Rockets’ James Harden signing a 13-year, $200 million deal with Adidas in August. The Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry extended his deal with Under Armour to 2024 in September, though the terms of the deal have not been disclosed. James, the two-time champion and four-time MVP whose Cleveland Cavaliers are currently 14-7, discussed his lifetime deal in an Uninterrupted video. Follow Sam Amick on Twitter @sam_amick. |
FRANKFURT--Rising exports propelled Germany's trade balance to its highest surplus on record in July, a sign that foreign demand is underpinning economic growth in Europe's largest economy. Germany's trade surplus, adjusted for seasonal swings and calendar effects, swelled to 22.8 billion euros ($25.6 billion) in July from a revised EUR22.1 billion in June, the federal statistical office said Tuesday. That was the highest surplus since records began in January 1991, and above forecasts of EUR22.3 billion in a survey of economists by The Wall Street Journal. Adjusted exports swelled by 2.4% from the preceding month to EUR103.4 billion--a record monthly value--while imports rose 2.2% to EUR80.6 billion. The current account balance, a broad measure of an economy's international financial position, showed an unadjusted surplus of EUR23.4 billion in July, well above economists' forecasts of a EUR21.5 billion surplus. By comparison, the current account surplus in July last year was EUR20.6 billion. Write to Nina Adam at nina.adam@wsj.com |
If you’d like to see what VR is like, here’s your chance. The Facebook Virtual Reality Roadshow is in Philly. Last week, they were over at the Franklin Institute. The trailer pulled up outside Dilworth Park Wednesday morning for a four-day run. ICYMI, Facebook owns the VR company Oculus. This roadshow is part of their push to fold in immersive?experiences? with the social media interactions users know them for. Before entering the “pod,” visitors are handed Samsung Gear VR headsets, powered by Oculus, for a demo. Tour manager Kevin Tichenor says they’re hoping to reach the uninitiated, to give folks their first VR try. The roadshow is hitting 28 cities through January. Here in Philly, visitors are welcome from noon to 8 p.m. today and Thursday, and from noon to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Teens from ages 13 through 18 need to be accompanied by an adult; kids younger than 13— no dice. The free demo lasts roughly two to three minutes, and visitors can leave with prizes in hand and souvenir GIFs sent to them. |
9 May - Victory Day Massacre - Mariupol', Ukraine - 1 DEAD + 4 WOUNDEDMaidan supported national guard (sponsored by USA) killes unarmed civilians in Mariupol', Ukraine, who were on the street march for Ukrain federalisation. About 200 unarmed civilians, Ukraine citizens on the street. Kiev's new nazi army (from "right sector") shooting unarmed people.You can see a guy on knees beind wounded in the head, an old guy in a suit shot in the leg and fall, a reporter with camera shot in the stomach (the guiy in blue top, in the begining of video), one more wounded in the leg, and one guy shot dead in the head, all from AK-47.Also you can see two government provokers in the crowd, one trying to hand out molotoff's (no one in the croud has any weapons) the guy with the camera tells him to fuck off and not provoke more victims, and one guy with small pistol, also making himself visible, so then people would say civilians also had weapons.Today more than 20 civilians were shot dead on the streets of Mariupol', 17 wounded in hospitals. Please pray for their souls.UPDATE (please read): my dear LL fellows! After I read some comments, I feel like I need to clear some things out, because many people live in countries, who have their mass media controlled so hard for a long time, that you don't have any chance to find the truthful information on TV or newspapers. We all go to internet and to LL to SEE the truth for yourself.Many people saw a guy on 2:05 handing out molotov's in the crowd, and a guy with a handgun. You can also see, that none of them get shot, and people are not taking molotovs, telling them NOT TO PROVOKE and fuck off. That is because there are prokers working in this eastern Ukranian cities, to make regular citizens look like armed terrorists, so the nazi national guard will have an excuse to shoot at the crowd.This cituation happend right after the national guard destroyed the local police department, who were ordered to start shooting at the 9th of may WW2 Victory Day parade. The police refused the order, and the national guard came in and destroyed the whole building from BTR, BMP, RPG and AK fire, The building was set on fire, more than 20 police officers were shot and burned alive. Videos of that are here and on youtube.This crowd gathered to the news that their hometown is being destroyed, and the police officers are being killed by nazi's and released criminals, who were armed by the new Kiev government and named the "national guard". You can clearly see that most of the crowd, except for provokers from Kiev, who need massive casualties to scare the people off, are NOT ARMED, and are facing armed nazis with their hands above their hands. They just cannot believe that in the 21 century of internet and hitech such horrors can be happening in their peaceful hometown!You can clearly see that NONE of the SHOT VICTIMS on the video are armed,and 99% of the crowd aren't armed either. Military started shootingregular, unarmed people, who live in this city, long before 2:05. Iunderstand, that there are viewers amomg you, that will cry aboutPutin's propoganda untill they will be shot by thier own national guardon the street of their hometown, and that makes me sad, that peoplecan't see the obvious changes in the world. This will not pass you by,and there won't be a chance to skip or pass this just because you livein the USA. This will happend to each of us.I ask you not to be prejudice, and to gather information from different points of view, so you can understand what's realy happening. There is no truth in any media, that has CENSORSHIP, just like TV, press, even internet. Get at least one totaly different oppinion before you decide what is truth. Trust only what you see, keeping in mind who is showing you the video.I understand that the fact that this is uploaded by a russian makes many of you think, that it is jusy plain propaganda. It is not. I'm a regular person, who cares that the whole world knows the truth about what realy is going on in Ukrain, because I feel that YOUR OPINION CAN CHANGE THE CITUATION. It is enough that you know, that this can and will happened to you, so act accordingly.Thanx to LL to making truthful media possible! (I though they will delete this vid, because it will be quite hard to explain for the US government to its people where the hell their taxmoney are going. This video was deleted by youtube. Thanks for letting people find out the truth) |
MongooseIM 2.1.0: stronger platform for better chat experience 2017-11-02 by Nicolas Vérité A great dilemma for app makers is whether to develop their chat in house, or buy an off-the-shelf solution (“Make-Or-Buy Decision”). Between these extremes the MongooseIM platform provides a flexible set of software components paired with services to fit companies’ specific strategies. It solves the problem of asset building when it comes to chat or instant messaging experiences. What used to be MongooseIM standalone server has pivoted to a platform with MongooseIM 2.0.x series. We started offering new components (backend/server and frontend/client), on top of which you can quickly and efficiently build your solution. The 2.1.0 release is the next chapter of this story, as we deliver a solid iteration with more components that address even more IT challenges, and stronger than ever code base and documentation. Executive summary: one significant leap forward With the version 2.1.0, the MongooseIM platform has climbed one step higher in the ladder: Code and documentation efforts have produced a better platform for you to build on The new Push Notifications and STUN/TURN components are delivering stronger consistency in your IT Our Tide continuous load testing infrastructure guarantees a focus on faster operations The following versions on the roadmap will offer geo clustering, IoT and chatbots. A stronger platform, for all MongooseIM code and documentation, for your staff Techie crowds, like craftsmen and operations teams, have to assess and handle ever increasing complexity. We have built means to fluidify your experience on code, and administration fronts, binding them all with documentation! Code attention, for better craft and operations** Code quality, style, and consistency has received a lot of attention: we delivered various improvements, maintenance, refactoring, on top of which we paid technical debt, and obviously added even more tests. For some highlights, we have: Achieved Erlang/OTP 20 compatibility, Added full text search for MAM (Message Archive Management), Implemented XMPP pipelining, Delivered Erlang distribution over TLS, Built accumulators, message metadata for fine-grained inspection and traceability, Accepted a JSON Web Token authentication contribution, Improved MAM, MUC light, and our REST APIs. Benefits: This considerable effort has produced an even more reliable codebase, fit for mature product teams, and for large scale production systems. Documentation love, for better view and understanding Our 2.1.x series has seen vast documentation improvements. We have reviewed, maintained, and updated the technical content, the structure, and the phrasings, as well as augmented the graphical content. We have applied the art of craftsmanship to the doc! As a result, we have greatly improved the overall configuration literature, added some missing pages on some modules, extended existing ones: everything now leads to comprehensive configuration and architecture reference. Please browse it on: https://mongooseim.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ Figure 1: the MongooseIM platform documentation Some examples of the most visible outcomes: Newcomers may follow our three main tutorials (or “HOWTOs”): Developers will love our REST API entries: Sysadmins and devops should like the authentication section revamp: Benefits: As a consequence, it is now easier to find and use what you are looking for. All features should be covered and properly documented. Future-proof The code is ready to process intensive traffic and the documentation will help you to configure it to do so. We have a stronger basis for longer term improvements, additions, and customisations. MongoosePush & MongooseICE, for your infrastructure CTOs and architects constantly looking for more efficient alternatives, please welcome two new components in the MongooseIM platform: MongoosePush and MongooseICE. MongoosePush: flexible push notification architecture MongoosePush is a server sending push notification to APNS (Apple Push Notification Service) and FCM (Firebase Cloud Messaging, by Google). This new component gives you another choice to address iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android devices (smartphones, tablets). MongoosePush can be used with the XEP-0357 specification, implemented in the MongooseIM server. It comes as an addition to our existing solutions: the mod_http_notifications module to send push notification to a generic HTTP-based API, and the mod_aws_sns module to send push notifications to Amazon’s AWS SNS (Simple Notification Service). Benefits: This flexible push notification architecture covers a large range of infrastructure and business needs, with more convenient integration and consistent technology. MongooseICE: network binary streaming MongooseICE is a STUN and TURN server. In technical terms, this helps you traverse NATs and relay streams. In simpler terms, it helps you stream voice, video and screen sharing over networks with proxies and firewalls. Benefits: With the Jingle protocol implemented in the MongooseIM messaging platform, it becomes much easier to add voice and video calls to an instant messaging application. High-density platform Both MongoosePush and MongooseICE are coded in the increasingly popular Elixir language, that is based on the same BEAM virtual machines that Erlang uses. They are both published under the same open source Apache 2.0 license. And finally, they both can be used as a standalone server, outside the scope of a MongooseIM platform. Figure 2: the MongooseIM platform schema of software components Please check our source code repositories: Benefits: MongoosePush and MongooseICE contribute to an stronger conversational experience, and provide coherence in your infrastructure, consequently optimising it. Tide: Continuous Load Testing, for your trust and growth Founders and business leaders on route to scale and growth can sleep confidently now. Over the last months, we have built a highly valuable component in the MongooseIM platform: our Tide infrastructure and process, for continuous load testing. Tide for granular, daily load tests We are testing the performance impact of any code change. Precisely, Tide deploys MongooseIM clusters which are put under high load, by simulating huge amounts of client connections and traffic. It does all this in an automated and continuous way, for each PR and twice every night, like a tide that washes the shore again and again, repeatedly. Benefits: Every code change is now covered with various tests, which include load tests, so that no negative impact goes undetected. Visualise the performance evolution over time Tide is “semi-private” which means that although only MongooseIM team may start custom tests, every MongooseIM pull request on GitHub is load tested, and the results are public to everyone! Go an take a look at all the graphs available on: http://tide.erlang-solutions.com/public Figure 3: performance improvements over time of MongooseIM with Tide Benefits: Thanks to Tide, we are now able to graph the evolution of the MongooseIM platform’s performance over time. Ready for high-growth and business scaling Tide helps us and thus helps you to be confident and in control of the scalability of the system. Once again MongooseIM aspires to lead by example and make way for future breakthroughs. Roadmap Let’s briefly examine our plans for the future. 2.1.x production phase The 2.1.0 version is available immediately, and ready for a production upgrade. Our next release will be version 2.1.1, it will bring bugfixes, optimisations and even more document improvements. In other terms, we will deliver everything that we could not pack in 2.1.0. 3.x preview: planetary scale Next on the list is the 3.x series in 2018. It will introduce deployments on a planetary scale, with geodistributed clusters. That is an intercontinental architecture that allows services to operate in any region. Clients / apps can connect with low latency to a local cluster, which is interconnected with all other clusters for global routing. It is different than simple federation that offers inter-domain routing: we offer routing within the same unique domain. This will be released in two phases: 3.0.x series will bring real-time planetary scale, and 3.1.x series will extend it with archive functionality. 4.x anticipation: (re)connect bots and humans The 4.x series will (re)connect bots and humans through conversational interfaces. We’re hoping to fuel the next great IoT breakthrough as well as help creating the next generation of chatbots. Participate! Share your biggest pain points on your journey to app and business building, so that we can work together on how to solve them efficiently. We suggest you to: |
I’ve been predisposed to like Edge of Spider-Verse #2 for a long time. When the Robbi Rodriguez design for Spider-Woman (a.k.a. Spider-Gwen) was released, I fell in love. It was sleek, cool, and blended both classic and new elements. It popped in a way that most new costumes and re-designs never do. Everything from the functionality to the color scheme worked just right. Then a batch of preview pages were released and I fell in love again. The two-page origin, the teenage characterizations, and facelifts to classic characters were all spot on. Rodriguez’s load, raucous energy poured off the pages. They were good, damn good, but only a small sample of an entire comic book. Now the issue is here and I can’t help but falling in love once more. Edge of Spider-Verse #2, the debut of Gwen Stacy as Spider-Woman is an almost perfect superhero comic. The biggest flaw is that there’s no guarantee of Jason Latour and Robbi Rodriguez creating an ongoing series to follow this issue. The issue is pure rock and roll. I didn’t get past page one before I felt the need to get up and turn on some music. I opted for the album One by One by the Foo Fighters. Your mileage may vary on that selection, but I recommend something loud that makes you want to move. Make sure it has lots of drums too. I make that recommendation because the entire issue is built around music. Music has been structured into the plot and the very feel of the comic. The story starts at a rehearsal of The Mary Janes, a garage band with lead singer MJ and drummer Gwen Stacy. Rodriguez places the music into the story in the form of lyrics and the “DUN DUN DUN” of Gwen’s drums. Those elements scream on the page written and colored like they were on the cover a 90s punk album. They’re so loud that they shake with the volume of the amps and drum set. It’s impossible to read these pages and not want to turn up the volume of your favorite rock band. That musical motif visually evoked by Rodriguez is structured into the fabric of this issue. It surfaces and resurfaces creating an important theme that helps to inform who Gwen is and what she is feeling. It’s not just one cool trick; it’s a fundamental aspect of the comic’s language. Rodriguez and Latour set an eight-panel origin into the middle of this rehearsal. It’s an exercise in economy, selecting the right moments to establish who Gwen is and what the status quo is like. Latour is able to convey what he needs to in a few brief exchanges of dialogue, rather than bogging down the story in expository captions. That origin also helps to establish that Gwen is not a direct analog to Peter Parker. She’s not even close. Latour writes Gwen as her own person. She may possess the old Parker luck, but her attitude and personality are vastly different. Extroverted, musically oriented, and a little uncouth, she reads like a brand new character because she truly is. Key elements of the Spider-Man mythos remain. Great power and great responsibility are still there, but the journey to reach that still inspiring concept is a vastly different one. It is restructured to reflect on modern themes and choices about education and work. The other notable changes in this alternate Spider-Verse are exciting as well. A surprising figure has replaced Wilson Fisk as The Kingpin. The shock is half of the fun, so I won’t spoil it here. However, that twist alone leaves open a world of stories and other surprising changes that can only be hinted at in these pages. Latour and Rodriguez provide re-designs for two other significant Spider-Man characters: Captain George Stacy and another classic villain. Rodriguez has altered Stacy to be a much sturdier figure, closer to Commissioner Gordon in appearance than the the Silver Age incarnation of the character. His changed appearance reflects a change in his personality too. Rather than the frail looking and wizened mentor of the 1970s, he is a strong, capable father figure. His frame and mass strikes a dichotomy with the thin, wiry figure of Gwen. Their designs highlight a key conflict of the comic. The Stacys are simultaneously opposed and aligned, seeking to do good, but set against one another by their roles as vigilante and law-enforcement. Rodriguez’s revamp of a classic villain is not quite as visually invigorating as Gwen’s, but is still effective. Design, body language, and colors clearly inform the characters abilities and attitude. Even without any hints as to who this character is, it would be easy to guess in spite of some drastic changes. The climax of the issue does parallel a classic Spider-Man sequence though, the climax of Amazing Spider-Man #33, the final part of “If This Be My Destiny…!” That issue is, if not the best single issue of a superhero comic ever, at least the best Spider-Man comic ever. It embodies the heroic core of the character in a striking series of panels where Peter Parker forces himself to do the impossible purely because he must in order to protect those he loves. It’s responsibility, power, determination, and adolescence fused into a big operatic visual metaphor. |
Here are some photos of the Duchess of Cambridge out and about in London today. This is her second event in 24 hours – last night she made an appearance at a reception at Buckingham Palace. This morning, Kate made a trip to Ronald McDonald House Evelina London, which is “home away from home” for families of children being treated at Evelina London Children’s Hospital. The Ronald McDonald House just opened, and Kate not only met with staffers, she met with some of the sick kids and their families too. For the visit, Kate wore a new-to-us Rebecca Taylor suit in a blue tweed. The jacket alone retails for $495, so I imagine the entire suit is probably $1000 or thereabouts. I honestly thought this was a repeat, but it’s not. Kate has worn blue tweed before, in a similar hue – she’s repeatedly worn the same blue tweed Missoni coat (she’s worn it as a coat-dress) to several events over the years. But this isn’t a coat, it’s a real suit. And I feel sort of meh about it. I mean, at least it’s not a miniskirt and at least it looks somewhat professional, so I’ll give her that. The fringed ruffle on the skirt is killing my soul a little bit though. So twee. Also: her posture is SO BAD. Other style notes… after being praised for going with a more natural and “dewy” makeup look a month ago, it seems like Kate is back to doing raccoon eyes for day events. And I have no idea what’s happening with her hair in these photos. |
Mango: load up with carbs and reduce fat at the same time Athletes who want to stock up on carbohydrates before or after a workout, but are worried about increasing their fat reserves, may want to try eating mango. Nutritionists at Oklahoma State University discovered that mango delays the growth of fat layers. Mango & carbohydrates In the world of nutrition it's only fundamentalists who still regard fruit as equivalent to a heap of simple sugars. Anyone who's followed the science news in the past decades will know that fruit not only contains minerals and vitamins but also phyto-compounds which improve the body's ability to deal with carbohydrates. At the turn of this century Nigerian researchers discovered that these substances are also found in mango plants [Phytother Res. 2001 Aug; 15(5): 456-8.] [Phytother Res. 1999 Sep; 13(6): 504-7.], which could be why traditional healers in Nigeria use extracts of the leaves of mango trees against diabetes-2. Study The researchers did an experiment in which they fattened up mice for eight weeks with a high-fat diet. Some of the mice were given food that contained 1 or 10 percent freeze-dried mango; other mice were given fenofibrate or rosiglitazone mixed with their feed. Fenofibrate lowers cholesterol and triglycerides; rosiglitazone makes cells more sensitive to insulin via PPAR-alpha cells. Doctors use both of these substances to combat the negative health effects of overweight. These additions did not alter the balance of fats, carbohydrates and sugars in the animals' feed. Results The high-fat diet inhibited the growth of lean body mass and stimulated the growth of fat layers. But when mango was added to the high-fat diet, the mice in this group developed the same body composition as the mice in the control group – which had been given normal food [AIN-93M] - and they didn't grow fat. The animals that got food consisting of only 1 percent freeze-dried mango reacted particularly well: the mango reduced the glucose concentration. This may be because components in mango boost the production of adiponectin, which raises the glucose uptake of muscle cells. Conclusion "A low-dose freeze-dried mango was more effective in a lowering blood glucose concentration than the hypoglycaemic drug, rosiglitazone (50 mg/kg diet), in mice consuming a high fat diet", the researchers conclude. "Moreover, freeze-dried mango, similar to rosiglitazone, favourably alters body composition by reducing the percentage of body fat." Sponsor The research was partly financed by the American National Mango Board, which also published the results on its website. [mango.org] Click on Nutrition Professionals and then Nutrition Resources. Source: Br J Nutr. 2011 Nov;106(10):1495-505. More: Anthocyanins in blueberries: more muscle and less fat 26.11.2011 Grapefruit flavonoid naringenin helps muscles' glucose uptake 12.04.2011 Cinnamon piles the glucose on in the muscles 09.02.2011 |
July 23, 2012 at 8:35 AM UPDATE, 4:10 p.m. | The Seattle Fire Department estimates the cleanup of an ammonia leak at the Darigold plant on Rainier Avenue South will continue until 9 p.m. tonight. Firefighters are still pouring water on a frozen and broken ammonia pipe as it continues releasing dangerous levels of ammonia, according to a fire department release. As of this afternoon, ammonia levels at the evacuation perimeters are considered safe, the department said. An ammonia leak at the Darigold milk processing plant on Rainier Avenue South has caused the evacuation of the building and has snarled traffic in the area. A Seattle Fire Department spokesman Kyle Moore said that at 7:35 a.m. workers inside the plant at 4058 Rainier Ave. S. “reported a large boom and saw a large cloud. They immediately evacuated.” “We shut off a two block perimeter, evacuated a strip mall and a daycare center,” Moore said. When haz-mat crews went inside the plant they had trouble seeing because of a dense fume cloud, Moore said. Just before 9:30 a.m., haz-mat crews found that the plant is still contaminated by ammonia fumes. Moore said that they’re trying to ventilate the facility. Haz-mat crews aren’t sure when workers will be able to return inside. Metro is asking that passengers who use routes 7 and 9 to use bus stops south of South Alaska Street or north of South McClellan Street. This post will be updated when new information is available. |
For those who missed the story, a 77-year old retired pharmacist – Dimitris Christoulas – has shot himself to death in front of the Greek Parliament in Syntagma Square, protesting the degradation of his country. It is a call to arms, a poignant moment in Europe's unfolding drama, reminiscent of the Buddhist self-immolations of south-east Asia that so captured world attention. His suicide note refers to the Quisling regime of George Tsolakoglou under Axis occupation in World War Two. We have entered perilous waters in Europe. Greece is not an isolated case. Variants of the Greek tragedy are unfolding in a string of countries as they embark on similar policies of self-feeding contraction, as will become clear over the next two years. Spain's youth unemployment is already 50.5pc. – UK Telegraph/Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Dominant Social Theme: This death is shocking. We are so sorry! (Nothing will change, though) … Free-Market Analysis: We have often written that the power elite's reaction to the Internet Reformation is one that will not be entirely successful. The suicide of Dimitris Christoulas may perhaps support this contention. We see and hear, as do you … And we have watched what we call the Internet Reformation unfold over time and the elite's reaction to it. At first there was indifference. Now there is something approaching panic, in our view. The dynastic families that want to run the world – and already apparently run the world's central banks – have traveled the route that they took after the advent of the Gutenberg Press, which also enlightened the masses about the Way the World Worked. They have tried to co-opt the expanding illumination without much success thus far. They've used a series of false-flag intermediaries, in our view, including perhaps Julian Assange, Anonymous and, in aggregate, Occupy Wall Street. This is analogous to the apparent use of Martin Luther and John Calvin to split the Catholic Church long ago. There's even some anecdotal evidence of support for Oliver Cromwell and his activities in deposing British royalty for a generation. But ultimately, the elites of the day were REACTING to the Gutenberg Press much as they are, from our point of view, nowadays. The escalating responses to the Internet are quite in line with this. The elites generally use war, economic depression and authoritarianism to keep order during stressful times, though ordinarily they prefer to use dominant social themes. These fear-based promotions are intended to frighten people into accepting globalist solutions and generally to establish internationalism. But they are not working so well in this era of the Internet. And so … as we have noticed, the elites have grown increasingly brutal. Certainly, having built up the EU they are busy creating increased centralization. We figure this is the REAL reason for austerity. The Greeks are being pounded on as an example to others. But beyond this the misery spreading throughout the PIGS is real. The idea generally is to make people in the West so miserable that they will not be able to object to the "new world order" the elites have in mind. Where does the death of Dimitris Christoulas fit into all of this? Well … it's being covered intensively by the mainstream press, which means there's some sort of elite promotional angle to it. We figure the promotion is simply more of the same. It's part of the kind of dialectic that the elite likes to establish to control the conversation and manipulate society toward desired ends. On the one side you have vicious austerity and on the other you've got people offing themselves. Now, perhaps the idea is to reach a middle ground where the Greeks will exist as a cowed and miserable people, just not miserable enough either to rebel or commit suicide en masse. But here's the thing: There's no evidence that the suicide of this poor man was staged that we can see, or that the stinging suicide note he left is a forgery. And even if both the suicide and letter were somehow the product of elite manipulation, we'd still argue the result is the same. The elites are playing catch-up. They've been exposed via the Internet just as the Gutenberg Press exposed their machinations and manipulations so long ago. The elites of the day used that exposure to try to make changes in society that worked to their benefit. But there's no doubt, from what we can tell, that those reactions were accommodative. The elites didn't desire a Renaissance. Nor did they desire a New World or a small "R" republican "united States." The elites, in our view, neither anticipated nor welcomed the phenomenon that has become the Internet. They have dealt with it as best they can and have apparently speeded up their plans to achieve globalism as a result. Within this context, the death of Dimitris Christoulas enlightens us. There is probably no doubt that his death will be manipulated – and is already being manipulated – for purposes of reinforcing an "austerity" dialectic. But manipulations only go so far. At some point the anger is real and the truth is not to be gainsaid. This may be one of those moments. Evans-Pritchard, despite his soft-peddling of the Greek situation in this article, writes eloquently about the death itself: The event has happened, and such events have consequences … The structure of monetary union is the root cause of this deepening crisis, since it shuts off the usual solutions: the policy mix of fiscal and monetary contraction under way simultaneously in countries containing 140m people is making it even worse … Much hope is being placed on belt-tightening, and on root-and-branch reforms that will take five to 10 years to bear fruit. Mr Christoulas has alerted Europe that civil society will not wait. The elites can practice damage control – as they are doing – while simultaneously plunging the world into war and depression. But ultimately the Internet remains, along with its illumination. It is a process, not an episode. It will not likely be stilled, redirected or ameliorated. It will run its course. The powers-that-be have by now realized this, though that has only spurred them to redouble their efforts. But at some point reality will set in. They will probably have to take a step back. They may have no choice. There are billions who are not elites and only a few who are. And some of those who are not are likely willing to die to change things. This is likely a fearful prospect for the elites. Updated on date of publication. After Thoughts They do not sleep well at night, either. |
May 31, 2017 | 12:56am President Trump, angry over what he continues to call the “ fake news” hampering his agenda , is going to take the lead role in getting out his message, the White House said Tuesday. “He’s always proven that he is the best messenger not just for what he wants to articulate but that the American people resoundingly chose him as their president,” said spokesman Sean Spicer at his daily press briefing. “He understands the frustrations and concerns and values of the American people, and he is probably the best person to communicate that.” The statement came after Trump’s communications director confirmed he’d be leaving after just three months on the job and as the administration contemplated a major staff shake-up. His decision followed reports that Trump had grown increasingly frustrated by his communication team’s handling of the investigation into Russian meddling in the US election. In a combative press conference, Spicer said the president also was distressed by the continuous flow of “fake news” from the media. “He’s frustrated, like I am and so many others, to see stories come out that are patently false, to see narratives that are wrong and fake news. When you see stories get perpetrated that are absolutely false, that are not based in fact, that is troubling, and he’s rightly concerned,” he said. Asked for examples, Spicer only noted one — a tweet from a BBC reporter that mischaracterized Trump’s interaction with the Italian prime minister at the G-7 meeting that was retweeted by a reporter from The New York Times but never published. pic.twitter.com/6pXbBlfvof A short clip that sums up this G7 summit: look who has chosen not to hear a translation of his Italian host's speech #G6 — James Landale (@BBCJLandale) May 27, 2017 Spicer then abruptly stopped taking questions. Numerous reports said the president was losing patience with Spicer , Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, top strategist Steve Bannon and even son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is also involved in the Russia probe. Trump, according to sources, was unhappy that Kushner, who is married to First Daughter Ivanka Trump, had been linked to the probe. But the president was unlikely to fire a family member. “He’s not doing well. He’s in shock. He just takes it too personally,” a pal told the paper about Priebus at the White House. Meanwhile, Trump loyalists from the campaign such as Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie could soon be back on board as the president looks to find a team he can feel comfortable with. Trump senior counselor Kellyanne Conway was also expected to resume a larger public role. Trump has privately and publicly pinned most of the blame for his administration’s rocky start on the White House’s communications strategy. Spicer insisted that Trump was not unhappy with his press shop. “I think the president is very pleased with his team, and he has a robust agenda,” he said. |
by Quadruple.Digits » Sun Jun 21, 2015 6:00 am TURN 1 Apollyon as played by Apollyon metal appreciation mode magic metal guitar Zupponn as played by Zupponn Zupponn & co. Weapons & Supplies Thug Guy as played by Ultrashmirt Heavy Gatling Gun 1x loot Dodger the Scoutmaster as played by Quantumsurfer Duerer as played by Durer The Traveller played by devincp Clockwork Knight as played by Brickguy, currently defaulting I was going to do a full 360* head turn but gratuitous photography is gratuitous. Halberd Large Shield x2 loot Scratch as played by Scratch had hate Warhead as played by Warhead Ahimaen (NPC Daemon, Warhead ally) has joined the game. Necro Axe Alexander Daylik as played by Legomc Silvadream as played by Silverdream Revenant as played by M220 Truff Smasheadkiller as played by lawmaster both Truff has slain Damaged Space Robot. +100 pts. Angry Fire Wizard as played by Lordintype Captain Jaws as played by Alex Jaws has slain Secret Agent. +100 pts. Don't mind the dirty big red measuring stick. Forgot to move it. Sir Sporktimus as played by Sir Sporktimus Major Natalya as played by Natalya Piltogg as played by piltogg Vami as played by VamiIV "Yay!" really do "Or am I…" Truff: "TRUFF HAMMER SMASH!" The Traveller's Evil Clone as played by Raggmopp General McFadden as played by Trent099 NEW ARRIVALSThe Traveller's Evil Clone as played by RaggmoppGeneral McFadden as played by Trent099 Leaderboard: Loot cannot be gained by looting bodies, unless the dead characters had a positive loot balance. Character Status: END TURN 1 SEND ORDERS FOR TURN 2 NOW This took way too long. But hey, exams are over now.We pick up the story:Activating his, he commences air guitar and headbanging.It's super effective!Apollyon now hasZupponn gets down to work.is now open for business.Zupponn & co. Weapons & Supplies has its first customer!Whilst Zupponn is finding the appropriate wares for his customer, the thug guy takes Zupponn's cloak, all sneaky-like, and replaces it with his cap.Zupponn doesn't notice and returns with the wares.The transaction proceeds smoothly. Zupponn procures another box to hold the loot.Thug Guy now hasZupponn now has. +50 pts.She stays exactly where she was.Duerer begins fighting his way to the newly established weapons shop.Unfortunately for Dodger, Durer disrupts her Holographic Decoy.Unfortunately the barrel is now being protected by Zupponn & co. Weapons & Supplies. So instead the Traveller activates his Laser Wrench as a Nova Sword.As for his suitcase, he thinks he can spot it over there. And that looks suspiciously like the shifty chap who nicked it in the first place - yes him, the one with the cap. Who does he think he is, some sort of secret agent? The nerve.It takes stock of its surroundings.It heads off towards the shop.Zupponn makes another sale.Clockwork Knight now hasandZupponn now has. +50 pts.Scratch takes a shot at the peach standing on the table.Darn it, you forgot to pack your silencer.Unfortunately, the peach justto be a dodgy maytriks guy. Youdodgy maytriks guys.However, maytriks dodgyness doesn't mean incredible balance. The peach falls over.So Scratch goes and takes his trenchcoat.Summoning more undead, Warhead finishes his spell."Ah, Ahrimaen. I trust you have my axe?""Lord Warhead, I don't see why you couldn't just carry it in those pockets of yours.""It'd have set off the metal detectors.""Ah."Warhead now hasAlexander moves towards Zupponn & co. Weapons & Supplies. This is quite simple for him, as he just has to follow in Durer's wake.Silvadream activate's the glove's expansion matrix.He then shield-bashes Natalya.Revenant tries some fancy gun-kata.He fails miserably - not a single hit, let alone a casualty."TRUFF SMASH!"And so he did.Triple critical onhitting and damage annihilated the robot. He never had a chance."I AM BEST OF ORK! BOW BEFORE TRUFF!"Deciding his trusty Fire Stick isn't enough, Angry Fire Wizard barters with Zupponn.As he has no acceptable loot on him, Zupponn refuses to make the sale.Angry Fire Wizard decides to vent.But Zupponn's being stubborn, and no further weapons are forthcoming. Zupponn begins rebuilding.Jaws gets to business.He also takes a shot at the po-po, but misses.Sir Sporktimus gives the ninja what-for.It ends in a stalemate.Major Natalya won't take nothin' from no-one.Surprisingly, Silvadream has really bad armour rolls, and takes one point of damage.Natalya then gets mission control to send her a shield and heavy blaster, since they couldn't find her rifle.Piltogg goes to the bar……and orders a kamakazi.There is no punchline.Vami: "Hey, Rody…"Rody: "Step away from the bar, son."Vami: "As I was saying, you're dead, Rody."Neko: "Rody's dead? Does that mean I can be the barkeep?"Vami: "Sure, why not."Rody: "I guess I could use the help."Neko:Rody: "But I'm not dead!"Vami: "Prove it."Piltogg: "I'm still waiting."Rody: "Neko, can you serve him? Don't mind that guy, Vami."Vami: "Well, he's pretty armless, isn't he?"Rody: "That wasbad, even for your standards."Vami: "Points for trying?"Rody: "Anyway, I'm not dead; you could say I'm just… differently alive. Wehave cloning facilities. And with the number of alternate kanons that converge here, I'm surprised you're making a deal of it. I mean, you're not a robot or anything."Vami:Rody: "And Truff's not a real ork, though he thinks he is…"Rody: "So yeah. I decided I wanted to be part of this, so here I am. Suck it up, princess. Can I get you something to drink?"Neko has joined the game (currently NPC, protected under the Barman and Band Act (1999))(if he doesn't turn up, he'll just default to NPC.)-------------------------Zupponn: 100 pts (x2 loot)Truff: 100 pts (x1 NPC kill)Captain Jaws: 100 pts (x1 NPC kill)Point Award Scheme:50 per loot obtained100 per NPC kill (no points for killing your own summoned creatures)150 per PC killLoot can only be obtained through sales/acquisitions/loot drops. A character does not need loot to make a purchase, but loot shall be given to the seller regardless. Characters with loot making a purchase will lose the respective amount of loot. In other words, everything in shops is free, but those selling get points for each sale. The Dungeon Master (me, QuadDigits) reserves the right to prevent a sale (see Angry Fire Wizard, who already had/has a decent weapon and didn't need another).-------------------------Silvadream: -1 HP (1 remaining)Damaged Space Robot: DeadSecret Agent: DeadAll characters not assed in character status are in peak condition.-------------------------All characters who do not receive orders will revert to self-preservation: No actions, only self-preservation and reactions against those who attack them.Hopefully turn 2 won't take another three months.Also signups are still open. |
Forget the nemesis system, loot boxes, or the well of charisma that is Talion of Middle-Earth, the element of the new Shadow of War game that I’m currently most torn on is its ancient poetry mini-game. In the midst of this game full of bloody orc combat, in between moments of interrogating and decapitating your enemies, you can find words of ancient text and then take those words to regional temples where you may then fill in the blanks. This is no card game in the middle of a sprawling Star Wars adventure. It’s no fishing diversion plopped into a Zelda. This is a poetry game in the middle of an otherwise perpetually violent Lord of the Rings epic. It’s optional, it’s odd, it’s… great that they did this? Ridiculous? Filling out this poem got me an awesome purple-class legendary item, so do factor that in. That’s the proper reward for poetry scribes like me and Talion here. |
Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C Introduction The Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C is a fast standard prime lens that offers a maximum aperture of f1.4. It offers the equivalent angle of view as a 45mm lens on an APS-C camera and 60mm on Micro Four Thirds. The Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C features a rounded 9 blade diaphragm which creates an attractive blur to the out of focus areas of the image. It has a minimum focusing distance of 30cm /11.8in and a maximum reproduction ratio of 1:7, while the stepping AF motor ensures a silent, high-speed AF function. The Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens is currently available for £299.99 / $339.99 in the UK and the US, respectively. Ease of Use Weighing in at a mere 140g and measuring 7.3cm in length, the Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C is a very compact lens given its fast f/1.4 aperture. As seen in the photos below, it complements a camera like the Sony A7R II very well. The Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens mounted on a Sony A7R II The Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens mounted on a Sony A7R II The Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens mounted on a Sony A7R II Build quality is excellent given the affordable price tag. The lens has a plastic shell with a mixture of metallic parts and a new compound material, TSC (Thermally Stable Composite), used inside. It also incorporates a brass bayonet mount that's supposed to be more durable. The optical elements are made of high-grade glass. The focus ring is wide enough given the size of the lens and ridged for easier grip. The Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens alongside the Sony A7R II Side of the Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens Front of the Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens Rear of the Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens In terms of features, the Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C offers all the basics that you need from a standard prime lens. The main exception is the lack of built-in Vibration Reduction, although the very fast maximum aperture of f/1.4 makes up for this. Front of the Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens Rear of the Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens Focusing is usefully internal and manual focusing is possible when set via the camera body. Full-time manual focus override is also available at any time simply by rotating the focus ring. The Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C ships with a good quality plastic circular-shaped lens hood. It accepts 52mm filters. The Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens in-hand The Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens fitted with the supplied LH586-01 lens-hood Focal Range At the 30mm focal length the angle of view is 50.7 degrees. Field of view at 30mm Focusing The Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens has a fairly wide focus ring. There are no hard stops at both ends of the range, making it more difficult to set focus at infinity. Polariser users should be pleased that the 52mm filter thread doesn't rotate on focus. When it comes to auto-focusing, the Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C zoom is a pretty quick and reliable performer, taking about 0.20 seconds to lock onto the subject when mounted on the Sony A7R II that we tested it with. We didn't experience much "hunting", either in good or bad light, with the lens accurately focusing almost all of the time. It's also a very quiet performer, thanks to the built-in stepping AF motor, which makes this lens well-suited to video recording. Chromatic Aberrations Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as purple or blue fringes along contrasty edges, can be detected in quite a lot of our sample shots - this is definitely one of the Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C's weak points in terms of image quality. Vignetting With the lens set to its maximum aperture of f/1.4, there is some light fall-off in the corners. Stopping-down to f/4 virtually eliminates this. Macro The Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C isn't claimed to be a macro lens, but it delivers reasonable performance nonetheless. It has a minimum focusing distance of 30cm/11.8in and a maximum magnification ratio of 1:7. The following example demonstrates how close you can get to your subject, in this case a Compact Flash memory card. Close-up performance Bokeh Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc. In the Sigma 30mm F1.4 DC DN C lens, Sigma employed an iris diaphragm with nine rounded blades, which has resulted in quite nice bokeh in our view. We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective, so we've included several 100% crops for your perusal. Sharpness In order to show you how sharp this lens is, we are providing 100% crops on the following page. |
AARP is targeting 11 GOP senators, including key centrists, to oppose the House-passed healthcare bill that would raise premiums for seniors. The ad campaign expands a May effort that ran ads targeting five senators, calling for the House-passed American Health Care Act to be scrapped. The expansion comes at a pivotal time as Senate leadership hopes to vote on a healthcare bill by the end of July. AARP is targeting Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Joni Ernest and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Dean Heller of Nevada, Rob Portman of Ohio, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker of Tennessee, and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. The list includes some key centrists who will be critical to the GOP leadership's hopes of passing its own version of the American Health Care Act before Congress' August recess. Heller and Flake are up for re-election in 2018. Heller, Portman and Capito are pushing leadership for a seven-year phaseout of Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. AARP, the nation's biggest seniors lobby, has been opposed to the American Health Care Act for some time, angry over a proposed change to premiums for senior citizens in insurance plans on the individual market. Obamacare allowed insurers to charge seniors three times the amount they charge a younger person. The American Health Care Act would increase that to five times. "Our members and other Americans over age 50 are very worried about legislation that would raise their premiums through what is, in effect, an age tax," said AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond. It is not clear what pieces of the legislation the Senate will keep, including the age-rating ratio. AARP also derided problems with Medicaid and hurting "protections for people with pre-existing conditions." A controversial last-minute amendment to the legislation, which passed the House last month by a 217-213 vote, let states opt out of community rating mandate. States could get a waiver that would let insurers charge sicker people more money. House Republicans say that $23 billion included in the legislation for high-risk pools could help offset any increases. A recent estimate from the Congressional Budget Office said that money wasn't enough to offset major increases for people with pre-existing conditions such as cancer or diabetes. |
Assessing the Momentum of the Bike Movement in South L.A., a Year and a Half On We’ve known for a while what NPR and the League of American Bicyclists appear to just be figuring out: namely, that people of color ride bikes and are doing so in ever-increasing numbers. In fact, people of color have been on bikes for years, especially in lower-income communities. Spend a day touring South L.A. and you will see tons of folks on all kinds of bikes, many of whom have been riding for some time but have probably never filled out a survey to that effect. So, it is hard to find recent affirmations that people of color are indeed on bikes all that interesting. What is interesting, however, is the increasing diversity of the groups and reasons they ride, their tendency to use bicycles as a vehicle to advance unique forms of social justice, and what the growing recognition of their presence means for their ability to lobby for investment in their communities. Most importantly, and despite their diverse motivations, the abundance of riders have coalesced into a loose “movement” here in South L.A. that draws its inspiration and strength from the community itself. Although we saw a temporary boost in momentum last year, when the launch of a collaborative USC-based mapping project caught the attention of the press and occasionally enticed outsiders to explore the area, the South L.A. movement was and continues to be a truly home-grown effort. The fact that the clubs and other mobility-related initiatives have flourished in size, number, and scope of activities since the conclusion of those projects and largely absent external assistance, speaks to the vibrancy of the foundation in which they are based. If there were any doubts that a movement was afoot, conversations with participants in the South L.A. Peace, Love, and Family Ride & Fair on Saturday would have quickly put them to rest. If a diversity of groups was what you wanted, you could have chosen from the women of She Cycles 2 (a road cycling group of women of color founded in 2010), Coolass Mike Bowers and other supporters of 1000bikes (an org. that puts bikes in the hands of foster kids and families), members of the Real Rydaz looking to do more community-oriented work, members of the Biz-e-Bee Bikers (a new group out of Gardena), the World Riders (a group of older riders that formed last year), or Shuntain Thomas and members of We Are Responsible People (WARP), the club behind the event. Or, you could have gawked at the growth spurt in groups like the East Side Riders (ESRBC) and Los Ryderz, who have significantly deepened their commitment to what they do over the past year and often collaborate to broaden their reach. These days, there is almost no community event or meeting in the area where you will not find the ESRBC on hand to offer free basic bike repairs or to lobby for a healthier community. Los Ryderz, on the other hand, have redoubled their efforts to help youth, with founder and president Javier Partida dedicating just about every free moment he has to mentoring and coming up with new activities and routes for the club to explore. Together, the groups have been active in setting up ghost bikes and leading memorial rides for fallen cyclists. Apparently feeling that that was not enough commitment, Partida and John Jones III (pres. of ESRBC) put together an informal kickball league as a way to build community within the South L.A. bike groups and beyond. The importance of what all these groups are doing goes well beyond simply raising the visibility of folks of color on bikes (although that is important, too, as the Black Kids on Bikes have shown). Speaking with Jones, for example, he noted that working with Los Ryderz had turned out to be a unique way to improve black-brown relations. A number of the younger male riders grew up bullying others or being bullied because of race and/or participating in gang-related race “riots” at their schools (in which, regardless of affiliation or past beefs, Latino and black gang members band together with members of their own race to fight against the other). Other riders — women and girls included — have experienced disparagement at the hands of someone from another race because of wider tensions in the community. Those past experiences sometimes make working together a challenge, as misunderstandings can sometimes arise among group members. But Partida’s and Jones’ unwavering dedication to cultivating mutual respect somehow continues to prevail, setting an important example of how to build bridges within communities where they are scarce. Also noteworthy with regard to the rise of a South L.A. movement has been a growth in the engagement of cyclists (or the use of bikes as an organizing tool) by local non-profits, community organizations, and the city. The South L.A. Mobility Advisory Committee, for example, boasts members from a variety of organizations as well as interested community stakeholders who are all dedicated to lobbying for policy that is appropriate to the specific mobility needs, habits, and aspirations of the communities they represent. While most of the participants (myself included, full disclosure) are cyclists, our ties to organizations focused on housing, education, health, pedestrian issues, and policy means that cycling events we host are understood as opportunities for more comprehensive engagement with both the community and the environment of the streets to which we hope to bring improvements. Planners working on the bike plan and health and wellness issues have also taken time out of their weekends to join in on bike tours of the area, participate in community meetings, and set up shop at events (as they did this past Saturday). Their willingness to do so has made the city feel more accessible to some of those from communities that are more accustomed to seeing the city as distant and unresponsive. That doesn’t mean that the deeper communication and outreach issues on the city’s part have magically been fixed, of course, or that the community immediately gets all the changes they want to see (sadly), but it is a major step forward. At the event this Saturday, Lys Mendez’ and David Somers’ accessibility allowed for people to go beyond what Angelenos across the city are generally eager to tell planners, namely that they care about potholes, road repairs, trash removal, and better transit service. Jobs, safety, curbing prostitution and gang activity, youth centers, access to healthy and affordable food, and parks were on a lot of people’s minds. So were questions about what kinds of changes they could expect to see in their communities. Young, under-employed barbers sitting outside their shop, for example, recounted the challenge of finding steady work and their desire to see more legitimate businesses come into the area. Without some external investment in the area, they felt, the area was doomed to remain run-down. Many speaking with me and representatives from Community Health Councils gestured across the street, calling out the massive, garbage-strewn vacant lots there as being particularly irksome. And with good reason: one of the lots was home to a swap meet building that burned to the ground during the 1992 riots. In 2008, the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) finally began eminent domain proceedings against developer Eli Sasson, who has sat on the land for the past twenty-odd years. But, the proceedings were abandoned with the dissolution of the CRA, serving as a lesson to residents and business owners to be careful about getting their hopes up about investment coming into their neighborhood. Given that many of the folks stopping by the booths were on the bike ride and thus not from the immediate area, translating respondents’ needs in an applicable way or sustaining their interest in promoting those causes in the Manchester Square area will prove tough. Still, the exercise was useful in that it got people thinking about how their commitment to participating in more activities like bike tours and resource fairs could help elevate their own communities. More recently formed groups like the World Riders, for example, were very pleased to make the acquaintance of representatives from the LACBC and planners, and appeared intrigued by the proposition of incorporating policy activism into their club’s mission — it wasn’t something that had been on their radar before. Finally, but possibly most surprisingly, there were a handful of people at the fair that found out about the event via ads in the traditionally black papers, Our Weekly and the LA Sentinel. That victory — orchestrated by the very capable (and persistent) PR ladies of Azcona + Rodgers — was particularly unexpected because of the reluctance of those outlets to promote other bike-related events or group activities in the past. Past efforts to engage them usually went nowhere or, as in one club’s experience, ended with the group being told what they were doing was not relevant to the community. Nevermind that the group was feeding the homeless and doing a community clean-up. Apparently, the fact that they were a bike club that used bikes to get to the clean-up site and distribute the food was what made them irrelevant. So, the willingness of the papers to publish a promo of the event, and of a few of their readers to check it out, might be a signal that the cultural tide is shifting and riders of color are being seen as more mainstream in their own communities. People certainly do love to see groups of riders of color going through their neighborhoods (see a photo essay here) – they wave, smile, and shout out encouragement while hanging out the windows of their homes or cars. Now, if we only could get people to be that excited when they see a lone cyclist. At present, drivers in the area are sometimes kinder to stray dogs that wander into the street than cyclists. That said, the movement is genuinely gaining ground in the area. Bike shops are popping up all over the place (even, surprisingly, at auto repair shops) and people from the community are getting to know the clubs by sight or from community events. A number of residents have spoken of how heartening it is to see young people choosing to make a positive commitment to the community, especially in areas where the streets tend to play host to gang activity, crime, or prostitution. Some even say it has inspired them to think about getting on a bike and joining in the fun, which is perhaps the most important marker of success. It means the clubs’ activism has helped them begin to think of the often contested streets of their own neighborhoods as places they, too, can reclaim as sites of recreation and community. So, yes, hooray for the growing visibility of cyclists of color. But let’s also give them recognition for their commitment to leveraging that visibility to transform their communities into safe, healthier, and more peaceful places for everyone. |
While President Donald Trump has tried to promote a message of unity since his Election Night victory in 2016, many people who work within the government have been less than charitable about him. One such person was a Colorado Secret Service agent who allegedly wrote a post on Facebook implying that she wouldn’t take a bullet for Trump — and who was then placed on paid leave, Fox News reported. Kerry O’Grady, the special agent in charge of the agency’s Denver bureau, wrote on Facebook in October 2016 that Trump would be horrible for America, expressed her support for Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and said, “Hatch Act be damned” — a reference to the law that prohibits people like herself from engaging in political activity. “I would take jail time over a bullet or an endorsement for what I believe to be disaster to this country and the strong and amazing women and minorities who reside here. Hatch Act be damned. I am with Her,” she wrote. So a Secret Service agent implies that she would rather see the president of the United State be gunned down than do her job, and the only thing that happens to her is paid leave? Well, she might just get her wish for jail time. If a Secret Service agent had said this about Obama, the racially-charged mobs would still be calling for his/her prosecution and the agent probably would have been fired on the spot. The Washington Examiner noted that the paid leave indicated that the Secret Service was taking the investigation of the agent seriously — though it didn’t explain why action wasn’t taken sooner. The Hill noted that O’Grady would have been the agent who coordinated presidential trips to the Denver area, so her suggestion that she wouldn’t protect the president was quite serious. It’s utterly ridiculous that while this agent is being investigated she is still being paid. The agency should have suspended her without pay while investigating her post. Our tax dollars shouldn’t support someone who will openly proclaim that she won’t do her job. Like us on Facebook – USA Liberty News Share this on Facebook and Twitter and let us know what your reaction to this was. What do you think should happen to this agent? Scroll down to comment below! Source: conservativetribune.com |
President tells defence minister not to open flight recorder without ‘foreign experts’ and says whatever the findings, incident was still a ‘stab in the back’ Putin: 'foreign experts' will examine black box from jet shot down by Turkey Moscow has recovered the black box of the Russian jet downed by Turkey and will analyse it with foreign specialists, President Vladimir Putin has said. Turkey downs Russian jet: what do we know? Read more “I ask you not to open it for the time being,” Putin told Sergei Shoigu at a meeting where the defence minister received the black box, Russian news agencies reported. “Open it only together with foreign experts, carefully determine everything.” Moscow and Ankara are at loggerheads over the 24 November downing of a Russian jet on Turkey’s border with Syria, sparking fury and economic sanctions from the Kremlin. Shoigu said the territory where the Russian jet was shot down had been “liberated” by Syrian special forces, allowing them to recover the black box from what had been a rebel-held area. Putin said an analysis of the black box would help determine the downed jet’s flight path and position, which Ankara and Moscow have furiously disagreed upon. Turkey says the Russian jet strayed into its airspace and ignored repeated warnings, while Moscow insists it did not cross from Syria and has accused Ankara of a planned provocation. But Putin warned that no black box findings could assuage Moscow’s anger at Ankara over the incident. “Whatever we learn [from the black box] won’t change our attitude to what the Turkish authorities did,” the Russian strongman said. “We used to treat Turkey not only as our friend but also as an ally in the fight against terrorism, and nobody expected this low, treacherous stab in the back.” |
Hello youse. On the board game scene, there’s always a great deal of buzz. Indeed, the industry depends on buzz – be it the mindless drone-buzz of pre-release hype or the more alluring summer’s day busy-buzz of post-launch word-of-mouth. Buzz is what makes a game hot, while silence is what makes a game not. Today we take a look at a few upcoming games that are making people startle and dash away because they think there might be a wasp in the room. INIS Matagot have a game called Inis that is about becoming the king of an ancient territory back in the old ancient Celtic times of things long ancient. It’s a good old-fashioned area control game, which means that players are moving their units around a map, claiming domination of areas by majority control. In Inis, there are three different victory conditions, expanding beyond the standard domination path, and there are also ways to quicken the path towards the completion of objectives through card-play. There’s drafting of cards full of special powers, hand-management, a light smattering of deck-building. It seems like Inis is a real grab-bag of modern mechanics. But it’s the Celtic theme that really seems to set Inis apart, with gorgeous and unorthodox artwork that really catches the eye. It’s no wonder that there’s a lot of buzz around this one, with early word being that this is a very, very strong game. SEAFALL There’s been a lot of buzz around Seafall for a very long time, and it’s no wonder. Seafall is a Legacy game, meaning that it is a game that develops over time into something different, as new mechanics are unlocked and folded into play. I’m someone who really loved Risk: Legacy back in the day, the first game to run with the whole Legacy concept, and I really enjoyed all the debate around how that game worked. In Risk: Legacy, as players made choices, cards were removed from the game completely (by being torn up) and the board itself was written on with ink pen and customised with stickers. Some players hated this notion – particularly board gamers who viewed their hobby from a collectors perspective. They simply hated destroying parts of their game. But the Legacy system was a success regardless, and Pandemic: Legacy won over even more people with its developing storyline built on a rock-solid game system that almost every player was familiar with. Seafall is interesting, though. It’s a Legacy game built from scratch. It’s not a Risk or a Pandemic, so there’s no familiarity to lean on. Here, players have to learn a new game system, then watch as that changes into something new over time. And that’s what makes Seafall so buzzy right now. That pre-release buzz is changing into something with a very different tone as players start to discover exactly what is going on within this game. Some players are expressing early disappointment over how the game plays, but soldiering on to see if things are shaken up a bit a few hours down the line. Other players are expressing excitement that this is the first time that a heavier, more ambitious game has been given this Legacy treatment. (I’ll hopefully be taking a look at this game soon, but Legacy games are tricky ones to review. They take a lot of time to play out to completion, and really need to be enjoyed over multiple sessions with the same group of people. But I’ll try my best to get some kind of first impressions over to you all, at least.) VAST: THE CRYSTAL CAVERNS Vast: The Crystal Caverns is a game that has created a lot of buzz throughout convention season, as people have had an opportunity to see how this game works. You see, there’s this cave, and in this cave there is a dragon. And into this cave comes a knight, to slay the dragon. And also in that cave is a gang of goblins, keen to kill any invading knights. And there’s this thief too, trying to steal enough treasure to break a sinister curse. Players can take control of the dragon, the knight, the goblins, the thief or the cave itself, in a game that is hugely asymmetric and ambitious. Each role plays differently, and has completely different objectives. As the Knight, players explore the cave, trying to find the dragon and slay it before it can escape. As the dragon, players will try to wake the creature up and liberate it from the cave – but not before eating as many goblins as possible. The player in control of the goblins, meanwhile, is using the darkness of the cave to create ambushes for the knight, as their goblin tribes attempt to kill him. The thief player is trying to keep a low profile, while stealing treasures from cavern vaults and pickpocketing from other players. Then there is the player controlling the cave. The cave player is expanding the caverns, laying out treasures, and then collapsing the cavern in an attempt to completely destroy the caves before any other player’s objectives are complete. The most impressive thing about this game is that it attempts to give each player not only a different victory condition, but also a different mechanical approach to playing the game. It’s very much the kind of game that will have to prove that it can deliver on its promise on the table, but that early buzz suggests that it does. I’m excited to get a hold of this one. There’s a very nice review by Tom and Melody Vasel right here that you might want to look at. Go see ’em. What upcoming games are you buzzing about? Or would you like to buzz about something you’re playing right now? I’m still buzzing about Mansions of Madness: Second Edition. It’s an absolute thrill. It makes me go BZZZZZZZT. BZZZZZZZZZZZ! |
Less than a week after becoming available, Asus' EeeBook X205 neo-notebook already has some competition. Say hello to the latest version of Acer's Aspire E 11, which costs almost exactly the same, at $199.99, and is superficially not all that different from the Asus machine. Like the EeeBook X205, the Aspire E 11 has an 11.6" 1366x768 display, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of solid-state storage, and Windows 8.1 with Bing pre-installed. Acer has gone with a dual-core Celeron N2840 processor instead of the quad-core Atom Z3735, though, and it seems to have opted for a smaller battery. Acer quotes a run time of only five hours for the Aspire E 11, compared to 12 hours for the EeeBook X205. Finally, the Acer system is a little heavier, at 2.84 lbs instead of 2.2 lbs. Since these two notebooks cost basically the same, I'd say the EeeBook X205 is probably the better buy here. The Aspire E 11's arrival does, however, tell us that Asus isn't the only player trying to bring netbooks back into style. Perhaps we'll see more contenders at $199 as the holidays approach. By the way, the Aspire E 11 is also available in several other variants, which have more RAM and mechanical storage instead of eMMC flash. Prices for those other models start at $249.99. (Thanks to Liliputing for the link.) |
She was paralysed from the waist down at the age of 21 and thought she might never walk again. But Kelly-Marie Stewart defied the odds when she got married last month at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire, walking down the aisle without her crutches and relying only on her father's arm for support. The 31-year-old newlywed and mother-of-one, who married James Lovelady, lost the use of her legs in 2005 after contracting rare disease of the nervous system, Guillain-Barre Syndrome. She went on to become the first disabled actress to play a main part in Hollyoaks. Kelly-Marie Stewart (left) walked down the aisle with only her father's (right) arm for support on her big day despite being left paralysed ten years ago Clutching her father's arm, the bride made her way down the aisle smiling and laughing as she caught the eye of loved ones in the congregation. In a video produced by Capture Your Moments, she is also seen walking around with the support of her new husband, a company director she dated for four years, and even dancing on the spot. Some patients with Gauillain-Barre Syndrome - a disease which causes the immune system to attack the spine and nervous system - recover some movement and feeling over time, as in the case of Kelly-Marie. She went through months of gruelling neurological physiotherapy to build enough strength to walk down the aisle, and said she wasn't nervous about it beforehand. The 31-year-old newlywed and mother-of-one, who married James Lovelady, lost the use of her legs in 2005 after contracting a rare disease of the nervous system called Guillain-Barre Syndrome Linking arms with her father for support, the bride made her way down the aisle smiling and laughing all the way to the altar Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, Kelly-Marie said: 'I got emotional walking with my dad. I wanted to surprise him as well as James. 'We only invited close friends and family, so everyone in that room were people who had thought I’d never get out of the wheelchair, they were the people who had been on that journey with me for the last ten years.' For her big day - Kelly-Marie, who played Hayley Ramsey in the Chester-based soap until she fell pregnant in 2010 - wore a white tulle-enhanced gown with a jewel-encrusted bodice and a veil. Her groom donned a grey morning suit with a white corsage. Kelly-Marie, pictured kissing her husband at the altar, went through months of gruelling neurological physiotherapy to build enough strength to walk down the aisle For her big day Kelly-Marie wore a white tulle-enhanced gown with a jewel-encrusted bodice and a veil A representative for Capture Your Moments wrote: 'Kelly has overcome a very traumatic time in her life to become the wonderful women she is today and along with James, who is also a super person. 'I am sure their future will be one great long journey of happiness.' Kelly-Marie was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome when she 21, after noticing pins and needles in her feet. In 2009, she told the Daily Star: 'I went in to hospital for tests and two days later I was paralysed from the waist down. It happened so quickly, it was incredibly frightening. Kelly-Marie, pictured at the British Soap Awards in 2010, was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome when she was 21, which left her paralysed from the waist down. She has since built up enough strength to walk using crutches Some patients with GBS, a disease which causes the immune system to attack the spine and nervous system, recover some movement and feeling over time - as in the case of Kelly-Marie, pictured in 2009 Kelly-Marie, who played Hayley Ramsey (left) in Hollyoaks until she fell pregnant in 2010, was the soap's first disabled lead character 'But I was lucky, some people are paralysed from the neck down. At least I still have the use of my upper body.' At first Ms Stewart was wheelchair-bound but after years of strength building training, she moved to crutches. In the run-up to her wedding, she prepared by using only one crutch to get around. |
Earth is on the brink of a "mass extinction event" which could be equivalent in scale to the one that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, a landmark study by an international group of scientists has concluded. Researchers warned that deforestation, climate change, and overfishing have driven extinction rates to 1,000 times their normal level, Reuters reports. Duke University biologist and conversation expert Stuart Pimm says that "time is running out" to avert the threat of mass extinction. If the crisis is to be avoided, humans need to make large scale changes immediately, Pimm says. "When you look at the range of unsustainable things we are doing to the planet – changing the atmosphere, global warming, massively depleting fisheries, driving species to extinction – we realise we have a decade or two," Pimm warned. "If we keep on doing what we are doing by the end of the century our planet will really be a pretty horrendous place." The study compared historical extinction rates with contemporary data collected from around the world. "We can compare [modern data] to what we know from fossil data and what we know from DNA data… DNA differences between species give us some idea of the time scale over which different species are born and die. When we make those two comparisons we find that species are going extinct a thousand times faster than they should be." According to Pimm, the last time the planet faced such a significant extinction event was 65 million years ago, when, he says, a third to a half of all animal species on Earth died. "If we continue on our present course, that's how much we will lose," Pimm said. The report notes that with the right intervention, the crisis could yet be averted. Conservation, education and "targeted preservation efforts" could slow down extinction rates, the report concludes. |
Union Minister Smriti Irani accused Rahul Gandhi of being a "non-serious leader" Yogi Adityanath had earlier criticised Rahul Gandhi of not seeing "all-round development" by the BJP government Rahul Gandhi has been touring Gujarat while the Trio of Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath and Smriti Irani have been descending on Rahul's parliamentary constituency of Amethi in UP.Gujarat is poll-bound in the next few weeks, so Rahul's tour is perfectly understandable. But the Lok Sabha elections are nearly 18 months away, and the next UP assembly elections are more than four years distant. So why Amethi now? Clearly, only to draw attention away from Rahul's Navsarjan Yatra through delirious crowds in Modi's heartland of central Gujarat. Unable to stall the passage of the triumphant Congress caravan, the BJP Trio have run away from the field of battle in Gujarat to distant UP, resorting there to cheap jibes and baseless innuendo that have always been the Sangh Parivaar's stock-in-trade.Rahul Gandhi has been asking searching questions about declining growth rates; joblessness; the stagnation in agriculture; the consequences of demonetization; GST's impact on small, micro and medium businesses; the ever-spiralling petrol and other petroleum product prices in the face of sharply declining international crude oil prices; and Gauri Lankesh's assassination. Instead of answering these questions of vital national interest, the Trio have nothing more trivial to raise than the alleged Italian origin of Rahul Gandhi's glasses. The vacuousness of the charge would be risible but for its vulgar racial slur. Rahul respectfully calls Narendra Modi, "PM". Amit Shah abuses Rahul as "Shehzaada" ("prince" is the polite translation, a Muslim Prince is the underlying drum-beat).Rahul resorts to gentle wit. Alluding to Jay Amit Shah's company turnover soaring, allegedly from next to nothing before Modi/Shah became the nation's ruling duumvirate to Rs 80 crore within a couple of years of Father and Friend pole-vaulting to rulership, Rahul raises a laugh with his one-liner: "After BetiBachao, the PM has launched Beta Bachao"! Simply unable to match that, riposte for riposte, Shah can do no better than utter the blatant lie: "He always remembers Italy, but never Amethi".What's with this Italy obsession except narrow jingoism and filthy race prejudice - exactly the kind of obsessive Jew-baiting that drove Hitler and the Nazis from victory to hubris?Rahul makes the perfectly valid point that when youngsters take selfies, "the jobs are generated in China and not in India". He proceeds to the telling conclusion: "the Modi government has no focus on generating new jobs". It should be easily possible for the Trio to dilate on what their party and government are doing to hone in on the perceptive point made by Rahul at Berkley, that whereas 30,000 young people are entering the job market every day, employment opportunities available are limited alarmingly to just 450 jobs a day.Smriti Irani's response? "Rahul is a non-serious leader swinging from Berkley to Amethi". Is there either dignity or good sense to such a rubbishy charge?Rahul Gandhi stresses that "the goal of the education system" must be to "provide education"; yet, ever since he became CM Gujarat, Modi had seen educational institutions as designed to "make profit". Irani, of course, cannot be blamed for not seeing the point, perhaps because her own education record, as she proudly boasts, has been limited to a week at Yale, preceded by, um, something or other through a correspondence course at Delhi University, although she cannot quite remember when or in what subject she made the grade. But how does that matter when Destiny had determined that a Man from Gujarat, who initially claimed to have taken a BA from Delhi University and then an MA from his home university (in subjects never taught at Gujarat University), before confessing on Rajiv Shukla's TV show that he was not a graduate at all, was going to appoint her as A Suitable Girl to the post of Union Education Minister! Hence, not a word about Rahul's pledge to "put the focus back on education if the Congress is voted to power".Rahul states: "When the UPA was in power, crude oil cost $140 a barrel, which has been reduced to $50 now. But has this benefit been passed onto you? Is petrol cheap?" The crowd yells back, "No"!Instead of explaining why Jaitley has been raking in the bonanza while crushing the consumer with higher and higher tax and excise takings, Yogi Adityanath thinks Rahul cannot see the "all-round development" because, poor fellow, "it is not his fault but that of the Italian glasses he wears over his eyes". There you are: Italy once again! (Yes, this is the same guy who has obliterated the Taj Mahal from all official tourism brochures of the state he lords it over!)The Yogi thunders, "This land belongs to the people, the farmers of Amethi, and cannot just be grabbed by the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation as it is not the bapauti (heirloom) of any family". This is with reference to the 66-acre plot on which a bicycle factory was to be established by a company that went bankrupt. A local Congress leader, Akhilesh Pratap Singh, promptly explains that it is not the RGF but the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust (that has been providing eye-care to the needy in Amethi and runs North India's biggest eye hospital) that bought the land at an auction after the company was "declared bankrupt" by the Delhi High Court; the land was not "acquired" but leased from the UP State Industrial Corporation. Formalities to complete the auction proceedings were only completed in 2015 and plans are now being rolled out for utilizing the plot for purposes consistent with Trust's charter and the needs of the local community. To that clarification, the devout Yogihas no answer. Lies, lies, lies - and, of course, statistics.With facts and figures at his fingertips, Rahul asks about the slowing economy. "Now admit that you have failed. You had promised jobs. Where are those jobs?" The audience shouts back, "No jobs anywhere". In Amethi, the Trio are clueless. In the face of agricultural distress, the collapse of manufacturing, the investment famine, growing NPAs, they can only make the empty boast that the Modi government has launched 106 development schemes, and, ridiculously, that "Rahul baba" can't count up to 106. All Shah can pathetically plead is that "the people are aware of the development brought in by the BJP-ruled government". Are the people really so befooled?Are they not "aware" of the consequences, in their lived lives, of the devastating consequences of GDP growth rate having fallen by two percent to 5.7 per cent in official statistics; to 3.7 percent if the same parameters are used as were used till the Modi government changed these parameters; and to "near zero growth", says JNU Professor Emeritus for Economics, Arun Kumar , because surveys "carried out during the period of severe impact from demonetization" reported "a consistent decline of between 60-80% in the unorganised sectors of the economy" where "93% of the workforce" finds employment, followed by another bout of decline "after June when the GST-related impacts came into play", as evidenced by "the decline in credit off-take from the banks, fall in employment in the organised sectors of the economy, rise in demand for work under MNREGA, and the decline in investment in the economy"?Rahul Gandhi responded from Gujarat: "The BJP's development claim is nothing but a dream which is being run on TV. The money to run this dream comes from a few industrialists...they help only a handful of their industrialists". Touche!And why at Amethi did Amit Shah duck the question of the sudden phenomenal growth in the financial assets of his son, amounting, as Rahul Gandhi in Gujarat had said, to growth of "16,000 times" in just a year. "This is Modi-ji's 'Start-up India, 'Make-in-India'." Yet, added Rahul,"Modi-ji has gone silent". So, did Amit Shah at Amethi go silent. So did the Yogi. And so did Smriti Irani.The BJP is panicking. That is why there is no more talk of presenting the Budget at the beginning of the calendar year in January 2018. They know that they would have to reveal their empty pockets if they did. That is also why an early general election is on the cards, for fear that the deteriorating economic situation will only deteriorate further. That is why the Trio rushed to Amethi, hoping against vain hope that even if the BJP is defeated, they might be able to pluck a feather from Amethi to wear in their hair. It is an empty hope. Their days are numbered.Especially as the Congress president has now told NDTV, that Rahul is likely to take over "soon".(Mani Shankar Aiyar is former Congress MP, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.) |
Pope Francis proclaims Junipero Serra will become a saint Father Junipero Serra will become a saint, Pope Francis announced. Father Junipero Serra will become a saint, Pope Francis announced. Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Pope Francis proclaims Junipero Serra will become a saint 1 / 4 Back to Gallery Pope Francis says he will declare that Junipero Serra, one of the founders of modern California, is a Roman Catholic saint. Serra, who established nine of California’s 21 Spanish missions, is both a revered and a controversial figure in the state’s history. He is lauded for his saintly virtues, which included piety and a fierce determination to bring Christianity to the natives of California. But he has also been denounced by some American Indians because Spanish rule destroyed the Indian culture in California. They say the missions under his control were agents of Spanish imperialism, and that he mistreated native people. Serra is a major figure in the state’s complex history. “Serra is very important in the California story,” said UC Riverside Professor Steven Hackel, who is the author of “Junipero Serra: California’s Founding Father,” a biography published last year. His admirers have long campaigned to have Serra proclaimed a saint. On Thursday, they got their wish. While traveling from Sri Lanka to Manila by air, Pope Francis made a surprise announcement: “In September, God willing, I will canonize Junipero Serra in the United States.” The pope has scheduled a U.S. visit for the fall. He plans to visit Philadelphia and other cities, and there was speculation Thursday that he might come to California for the canonization ceremony. Serra is buried in the Mission San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel. The pope hailed Serra as “the evangelizer of the West in the United States,” and said he had waived the requirement that candidates for sainthood had been involved in verifiable miracles. Legendary figure Serra has been a subject of veneration among California Catholics. Pope John Paul II beatified Serra in 1988, and he has since been known as “Blessed Junipero Serra.” However, sainthood means that the Roman Catholic Church believes the person to be in the divine presence — in heaven — and that a person is worthy of devotion. It means that once the ceremony of canonization is performed, the humble Franciscan friar will be known as St. Junipero Serra and churches can be named in his honor. Serra’s name is already all over California. Streets, schools, mountains and even a freeway are named for him. The story of Father Serra and the missions is taught in California schools. Junipero Serra was born on the Spanish island of Mallorca in 1713 as Miquel Josep Serra Ferrer. He joined the Franciscan order as a young man and took the name “Junipero” in honor of St. Juniper, a companion of St. Francis of Assisi. He became a teacher and later a professor at a Franciscan college on the island. To the New World In 1749 he was assigned to service in Mexico and was in charge of missions north of Mexico City. In 1769, on orders of his superior and of the Viceroy of New Spain, he went to what is now California and established the Mission of San Diego de Alcala. San Diego was the first European settlement in upper or Alta California. Serra was president of the California missions and in his administration eight more missions were founded, among them Mission San Francisco de Asis in the present city of San Francisco. Serra was famous for his piety, his determination to convert the Indian people in California to Christianity and his administrative ability. His missions prospered, despite the long distance from the Spanish bases in Mexico. “He was a brilliant tactician in terms of marshaling his resources,” Hackel said. But, he added, Serra was also controversial, even in his own time. He quarreled with the civil authorities and with the military. “He also had an unstinting belief that he could convert the people he found in California to Christianity and lead them to wholly new lives,” Hackel said. “He was a missionary’s missionary.” Divergent views However, the Spanish attempts to turn the Californians into farmers and ranchers with European beliefs led to clashes. There were Indian rebellions, most notably at San Diego, the first mission, a turn of events that stunned Serra. In addition, the Spaniards brought diseases that had not been seen before, and the missionaries’ policies, which required that Indian converts live in the mission complex, decimated whole tribes. When the Spanish first settled in California, the Indian population was estimated at 300,000; when United States forces took it in 1846, the population had dropped by half. Many Indians blamed Serra, as the foremost example of Spanish imperialism. “The Serra story is a hoax that has been perpetrated for 200 years,” said the late Rupert Costo, a scholar of American Indian history who founded the American Indian Historical Society in San Francisco. Not all native people take this view of Serra. On hearing of the pope’s intention to canonize Serra, Andrew Galvan, who is an Ohlone and the curator of Mission Dolores in San Francisco, said the pope had made him “the happiest Indian in California.” He said Serra was a good person who served in a difficult time. “We shouldn’t use 21st century standards to judge events in the 18th century,” he said. But Vincent Medina, who is also an Ohlone Indian and Galvan’s cousin, strongly disagreed. Serra, he said, “was a leader of a disastrous genocidal system. I am not in favor of his canonization. “I am a practicing Catholic and a great fan of Pope Francis, but I am disappointed in what he did.” Carl Nolte is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: cnolte@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carlnoltesf |
Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. Fight Back! Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue Travel With The Nation Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine? Some people have a fixed, principled stance on intelligence leaks—transparency in government is always for the good, for example, or releasing classified intelligence is never appropriate. But for most of us, the difference between a courageous whistle-blower—who risks their career and freedom to expose some dark secret the government doesn’t want us to know—and a leaker—who undermines national security, may put people at risk and gives comfort to our adversaries—is a subjective one. Most people celebrate the release of information they want to see released and condemn leaks that reveal stuff that they don’t want revealed. It usually comes down to partisanship or ideology. You can call that hypocrisy, or you can chalk it up to human nature; it is what it is. Ad Policy In the days following The Intercept’s report revealing that the NSA had evidence that Russian military intelligence “executed a cyberattack on at least one US voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last November’s presidential election,” the debate over whether Reality Leigh Winner, the 25-year-old NSA contractor who allegedly sent the document to The Intercept—and was arrested only minutes after the piece was published—is a hero or a traitor seems muted compared to the noisy disagreements that followed Chelsea Manning’s or Edward Snowden’s revelations. That may be because of her lack of tradecraft, her own failure to protect herself as a source. While The Intercept has come under fire—from people like veteran national-security reporter Barton Gellman—for its role in Winner’s swift apprehension, Winner herself was one of only six people who had access to the document, and she alone had e-mailed The Intercept from her work computer. Gellman tweeted that Winner “would have been lead suspect no matter what.” But whatever mistakes she made in handling the documents, the public interest value of the material that Winner is accused of revealing seems obvious. Coming just days after Vladimir Putin hinted that Russia had hacked the election but then claimed that it could have been the work of “patriots” unaffiliated with the Russian government, The Intercept reported the first direct link to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency. And legal scholar Claire Finkelstein, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, explains that “what’s significant about this report is that we have moved from an awareness of Russian covert operations, some of which was the kind of thing that intelligence communities engage with all the time, to something that looks more like a cyber-attack. “It was designed to provide the Russians with techniques, information and the ability to directly manipulate election registration systems, and could have impacted the outcome of the 2016 presidential election,” says Finkelstein. “Whether they accomplished this or not, is another question. And most experts are not claiming that it changed the vote results. But I think the emphasis on results is overblown because the fact is that if they didn’t impact the results of this election, they might do so the next time.” The public has a pressing need to understand that threat. During his hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, former FBI director James Comey was asked whether “the Russian activity in the 2016 election [was] a one-off proposition, or is this part of a long-term strategy? Will they be back?” His reply: “Oh, it is a long-term practice of theirs. It’s stepped up a notch in a significant way in ‘16. They’ll be back.” So if the value of the information Winner made public were the sole criteria, she should probably be lionized in the same way that many people have lauded Edward Snowden. But there are other important questions that need to be asked when evaluating whether a leak of classified material is justified. First, could the leak put intelligence operatives or others in danger? That doesn’t appear to be the case here. The Intercept was careful to redact portions of the document that might have revealed the NSA’s “sources and methods.” Then, could the leaker have achieved the same ends going through normal channels? Stanford political scientist Scott Sagan, co-editor of Insider Threats, says that “many cases of insider attack—whether it’s a leaker, a spy or a saboteur—are done by highly disgruntled workers. There’s a lot that organizations can do reduce the effects of disgruntlement. One obvious thing that makes it less likely that insiders will act against an organization is to have the leaders of that organization be squeaky-clean. One possible motive in this case, or in other cases of leaking, is a concern that the people at the top of the administration are not letting justice be served in terms of having fair reviews and an impartial investigation into exactly what Russia has done.” According to the FBI, Winner, who pleaded not guilty to espionage charges this week, admitted to agents that she copied the document and sent it to The Intercept. She also told investigators that she was “mad about what she had recently seen in the media” and “wanted to set the facts right.” According to The Atlantic’s Aria Bendix, “Winner regularly tweeted about Trump—notably calling him a ‘piece of shit’ in February. Winner’s mother, Billie Winner-Davis, told The Guardian that her daughter was ‘not a fan of [President] Trump,’ but added that Winner wasn’t ‘someone who would go and riot or picket.’” So in her mind, Winner, rocked by the election like so many of us but with documents showing that the Russian government hacked into American elections systems, was battling fake news. Whether that belief was justified at the time hinges on when she sent the document. According to an FBI affidavit, it was “on or about May 9,” eight days before the appointment of former FBI director Robert Mueller as a special counsel charged with investigating possible collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign. On May 9, Winner had every reason to believe that those at the top were uninterested in pursuing the truth. The White House was obfuscating, calling it fake news and dismissing it all as a desperate attempt by Democrats to shift blame away from Hillary Clinton for losing an election she should have won. Two weeks earlier, Tim Mak from The Daily Beast had reported that the Senate’s investigation was underfunded and had no full-time staff and that the part-timers working the probe “do not have significant investigative experience.” He remarked that the investigation was moving much slower than previous ones that had taken “years to accomplish.” The House investigation was an obvious joke after Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) had discredited himself by running cover for Trump. He had recused himself a month before the FBI says Winner leaked the NSA document. Ready to Fight Back? Sign Up For Take Action Now But Mueller’s appointment on May 17 was a game-changer. Even those who have ideological or policy differences with the former FBI director acknowledge that he’s a tireless investigator who isn’t easily swayed by political pressure. During his testimony on Thursday, James Comey called Mueller “a dogged, tough person,” adding that “you can have high confidence that, when it’s done, he’s turned over all the rocks.” Claire Finkelstein says that the distinction between a leaker and a whistle-blower depends on the circumstances. “Sometimes a person blows the whistle by leaking,” she says. “In this case, I do think that given that we now have a special prosecutor in place, it would be most appropriate for someone who has security clearances to send their information to the investigator” rather than to the media. Scott Sagan was cautious to weigh in on this question as it relates to Reality Winner because “we don’t have all the facts,” but agreed in a general sense that Mueller should inspire confidence in the integrity of at least one of the ongoing investigations into “Kremlingate.” This means that Reality Winner acted at a time when a reasonable person could have concluded that the system wasn’t working, but then the appointment of Mueller overtook her actions. If the government’s case is right, that event took place during the three weeks or so that it took for The Intercept to receive the document and report, write and vet their story. So one can look at the question in one of two ways: Either Winner acted as a patriot trying to get the truth out to the American people, or she acted impulsively and ended up facing charges for releasing information that Mueller almost certainly has, and that would likely have come out in the end, had she honored her security clearance. An irony here is that, according to James Comey, had Donald Trump not tried to influence the FBI director, and then fired him when that failed, Comey would not have leaked an unclassified memo to The New York Times detailing Trump’s efforts and Robert Mueller likely would not have been appointed. That may be murky, but one thing is clear: Reality Winner is likely to have the book thrown at her by a Justice Department that’s been under heavy pressure from the White House to crack down on leaks. And as CIA whistle-blower John Kiriakou told ThinkProgress, that would “most certainly [have] a chilling effect” on other potential whistle-blowers. |
The Texas Rangers Might Be Finished Last winter, we produced a tweet which received strong attention by our modest standards. Via #Frazier trade, aggressive #WhiteSox move to within a mere 14 games of #Indians in projected AL Central. — NEIFI Analytics (@NEIFIco) December 16, 2015 What were the circumstances at the time? The Indians produced a humble 81-win season in 2015 in the not-so-daunting ALC, and through that date, had made no significant offseason additions. Three primary ingredients: 1) The 2015 Indians were an 89.6-win team via their Baseruns record. That of course does not mean by itself that they were an 89.6-win team by talent level, as this could easily have included some players having career seasons, more positive than negative variance on the health front, etc etc. It is, however, a simple and transparent indication that they were probably better than the 81-win team indicated by their record. 2) Ages. Versus their 2015 roster, they were gaining talent via aging alone. Or at least, not losing any. Lindor and Ramirez were squarely in the aggressive-growth ages, while the bulk of the core—Kluber, Carrasco, Kipnis, Allen, Gomes, Santana, Bauer—was in a collective zone where any real regression should not be expected. 3) Constraints. No one was leaving via FA, the farm system was in good enough shape (#13 overall in total value pre-2016, via NEIFI), and were burdened by relatively little in the manner of dead money. Which is to say they had no losses nor significant constraints or immobilities. So, what do we say of the Rangers? The reply to issue #1 is fairly obvious. The Rangers won 95 ballgames, but played 82-win baseball according to Fangraphs’ Baseruns (and other methods wouldn’t point towards a meaningfully different answer). Again, this may not perfectly represent their talent level, it’s merely a fantastic indication their talent level is nowhere near the 95 wins achieved in the regular season. Ages? Over 61% of the Rangers’ 2017 projected WAR comes from players on the wrong side of 30. Almost 30% (29.7%) comes from players 33 or older in 2017—Hamels (33.5 2017 age), Beltre (38.2), Choo (35.0). Keep in mind; that’s the 2017 projection of these players, which is already accounting for post-2016 aging loss—if anything, then, these percentages understate the skew of the Rangers age/talent distribution. In addition to these silent losses due to aging, the Rangers are having some very visible losses: Ian Desmond will have to be re-signed or replaced. Colby Lewis is a free agent, and the club has an option to bring back Derek Holland only at a price that’s far too high for the current view of his talent. The resurgent Carlos Gomez is free at the end of the season as well. Carlos Beltran won’t be back. Even if the latter four aren’t prime contributors, they still represent further 2016 wins that will need to be replaced. The 2017 Rangers are currently projecting at 77.5 wins. Sound ridiculous? As of now, this is a team set to give starting roles to Joey Gallo and probably at least three of Shin-soo Choo, Jared Hoying, Delino Deshields, and Ryan Rua. With no clearly valid rotation members after the top three (Hamels, Darvish, Perez). Will these holes all stand? Of course not. But this is indeed the station from which Texas will begin their offseason, and it’s a much more challenged position than which most of their competitors will be. And how about a bit further into the future than 2017? Joey Gallo’s value has declined greatly. What’s left of the farm system is unimpressive… post-Gallo, it’s pretty clear the Rangers collection is within the back of the pack. The aging problem is going nowhere, and indeed actually gaining momentum in the wrong direction. And both Lucroy and Darvish are free-agents at the end of next season—being able to afford both seems like a pipe dream, and wouldn’t seem to be enough to keep the 2018 ship afloat, anyhow. If we combine the present value of all baseball assets—the present economic value of each organization’s prospects, and the same for all of their players under contract (or implied contract, via arbitration) versus the market value of their talent through the controlled years… An ~$800m asset gap between yourself and your nearest rival is going to be tremendously difficult to overcome. Especially when said rival is already ahead of you in terms of raw present talent (the Astros will go into this offseason well ahead of the Rangers in that respect). This table includes the reality that the Rangers will only pay roughly a third of Fielder’s remaining contract, after the contribution of insurance and Detroit. Amazingly, the Elvis Andrus deal now looks basically fine. Choo remains an albatross. But the larger problem here is that the Rangers don’t possess massively positive assets. The most valuable player asset is Rougned Odor—a great asset, but weak as one’s top value—and as high as third place is the freefalling Gallo. Otherwise, it’s players who are neither good enough to be elite assets, nor young or inexpensive enough to have enormous gaps between the value of their talent and their cost. *** It’s amazing, the degree to which the narrative surrounding a franchise can be altered by a fleeting run of situational luck. There’s virtually no dispute to be had that this is an accurate and fair description of the Rangers’ 2016. Yet they are viewed as a team surging up the mountain, rather than one that is already teetering over the edge of the cliff, or perhaps already in freefall. This exact story has been played for us so many times in recent history. The 2007 Mariners were almost a mirror image of the current Rangers, leading to the famously ill-fated offseason that followed: the Bedard trade (shedding both Adam Jones and Chris Tillman in the process), and Silva signing, in the hopes of bolstering what they believed themselves to be post-2007—“an 88-win team”. The illusion cost Bavasi his job, and it cost the Mariners organization much more dearly than that. The definition of sound management, in baseball and elsewhere, is not being swayed by such illusions. It will be interesting to see the Rangers’ behavior this offseason. That behavior ought to be the same whether the immediate outcome is a World Series ring or an early exit. |
The Madras High Court on Thursday imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on a school teacher as punishment for pinching her student’s cheeks. The order was issued by the first bench of the High Court, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M Sathyanarayanan. In the 2012 incident, Rama Gowri, a teacher at Kesari Higher Secondary School in Mylapore, pinched the cheeks of a Class VII boy for not doing his homework and the boy sustained minor injuries. Advertising The boy’s mother Meharunnisa took the matter to the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) and a criminal case was filed against the teacher. During the hearing before SHRC, the teacher reportedly claimed that she had only twisted the boy’s ears. Her argument was that the boy’s cheeks were injured when he tried to move away while she was holding his ear. In May 2013, the commission imposed a fine of Rs 1,000 on the Mylapore school for violation of the boy’s human rights. The boy’s mother claimed that the school management delayed issuance of transfer certificate and decided to appeal to the High Court, demanding an increase in the quantum of compensation. She also filed a fresh complaint against the teacher before a magistrate court in the city. Advertising Meanwhile, calling all these multiple proceedings a harassment, the teacher moved the High Court. However, on Thursday, the High Court ordered her to pay a compensation of Rs 50,000 and approach the judicial magistrate court, Saidapet, where the case was pending against her. |
A pregnant woman has been confirmed as being among three people diagnosed with the Zika virus in New York City. There have been four other confirmed Zika cases in New York State, reports ABC 7. All the people diagnosed with the virus had returned to New York from countries where the Zika virus is ongoing. We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras. But authorities say there is limited chance of the virus spreading in the city as infected mosquitos, the main carriers of the disease, find it difficult to survive cold winters. New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said: "Because Zika virus is primarily transmitted by infected mosquitos, there is very limited chance of local transmission in New York during the winter. "Even so, the Department of Health is taking steps now to protect the health of all New Yorkers and to prepare for the warmer months when mosquitos will be active in New York." New York City Commissioner of Health Mary Bassett said people should be careful considering where to spend their winter holidays. She added: "This might be a good winter to think about a vacation in the Catskills." Shape Created with Sketch. The Zika virus - in pictures Show all 5 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. The Zika virus - in pictures 1/5 A three-month-old, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil. A rise in microcephaly cases is thought to have been caused by the spread of the Zika virus in affected countries Getty Images 2/5 A mother holds her baby who has microcephaly Getty Images 3/5 A five-month-old baby, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil Getty Images 4/5 A pediatric infectologist examines a two-month-old baby, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil Getty Images 5/5 A baby affected with microcephaly 1/5 A three-month-old, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil. A rise in microcephaly cases is thought to have been caused by the spread of the Zika virus in affected countries Getty Images 2/5 A mother holds her baby who has microcephaly Getty Images 3/5 A five-month-old baby, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil Getty Images 4/5 A pediatric infectologist examines a two-month-old baby, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil Getty Images 5/5 A baby affected with microcephaly The Zika virus is linked with the birth defect microcephaly, which sees children born with abnormally small brains, along with a neurological syndrome which can cause paralysis. The disease has spread across South and Central America with a handful of cases being reported in the UK, US and Germany. Zika is spread to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito and cannot be spread through everyday human-to-human contact. There is currently no known cure or vaccine. We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads. Subscribe now |
Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Merckx ( Dutch pronunciation: [ˈmɛrks]; French: [mɛʁk(s)]; born 17 June 1945), better known as Eddy Merckx, is a Belgian former professional road and track bicycle racer who is widely seen as the most successful rider in the history of competitive cycling. His victories include an unequalled eleven Grand Tours (five Tours of France, five Tours of Italy, and a Tour of Spain), all of the five Monuments, three World Championships, the hour record, every major one-day race other than Paris–Tours, and extensive victories on the track. Born in Meensel-Kiezegem, Brabant, Belgium, he grew up in Sint-Pieters-Woluwe where his parents ran a grocery store. He played several sports, but found his true passion in cycling. Merckx got his first bicycle at the age of three or four and competed in his first race in 1961. His first victory came at Petit-Enghien in October 1961. After winning eighty races as an amateur racer, he turned professional on 29 April 1965 when he signed with Solo–Superia. His first major victory came in the Milan–San Remo a year later, after switching to Peugeot–BP–Michelin. After the 1967 season, Merckx moved to Faema, and won the Giro d'Italia, his first Grand Tour victory. Four times between 1970 and 1974, Merckx completed a Grand Tour double. His final double also coincided with winning the men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships to make him the first rider to accomplish cycling's Triple Crown. Merckx broke the hour record in October 1972, extending the record by almost 800 meters. He acquired the nickname "The Cannibal", suggested by the daughter of a teammate upon being told by her father of how Merckx would not let anyone else win. Merckx achieved 525 victories over his eighteen-year career. He is one of only three riders to have won all five 'Monuments' (Milan–San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and the Giro di Lombardia) and the only one to have won them all twice or more. The other two are fellow Belgians Roger De Vlaeminck and Rik Van Looy. Merckx was successful on the road and also on the track, as well as in the large stage races and one-day races. He is widely thought to be the greatest and most successful rider in the history of cycling. However, Merckx was caught in three separate doping incidents during his career. Since Merckx's retirement from the sport on 18 May 1978, he has remained active in the cycling world. He began his own bicycle chain, Eddy Merckx Cycles, in 1980 and its bicycles were used by several professional teams in the 1980s and 1990s. Merckx coached the Belgian national cycling team for eleven years, stopping in 1996. In 2001, he played a large role in getting the Tour of Qatar organized to start in 2002. He co-owns the tour and also the Tour of Oman, both of which he still organizes. He is ranked as the all-time number 1 cyclist according to CyclingRanking[2]. Early life and amateur career [ edit ] Edouard Louis Joseph Merckx was born in Meensel-Kiezegem,[3] Brabant, Belgium on 17 June 1945 to Jules Merckx and Jenny Pittomvils. Merckx was the first-born of the family. In September 1946, the family moved to Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, in Brussels, Belgium in order to take over a grocery store that had been up for lease.[7] In May 1948, Jenny gave birth to twins: a boy, Michel, and a girl, Micheline. As a child Eddy was hyperactive and was always playing outside. Eddy was a competitive child and played several sports, including basketball, boxing, football, and table tennis. He even played lawn tennis for the local junior team. However, Merckx claimed he knew he wanted to be a cyclist at the age of four and that his first memory was a crash on his bike when he was the same age.[12] Merckx began riding a bike at the age of three or four and would ride to school every day, beginning at age eight. Merckx would imitate his cycling idol Stan Ockers with his friends when they rode bikes together. In summer 1961, Merckx bought his first racing license and competed in his first official race a month after he turned sixteen, coming in sixth place. He rode in twelve more races before winning his first, at Petit-Enghien, on 1 October 1961.[3] In the winter following his first victory, he trained with former racer Félicien Vervaecke at the local velodrome. Merckx won his second victory on 11 March 1962 in a kermis race. Merckx competed in 55 races during the 1962 calendar year; as he devoted more time to cycling, his grades at school began to decline. After winning the Belgian amateur road race title, Merckx declined an offer from his school's headmaster to have his exams postponed, and dropped out of school.[21] He finished the season with 23 victories to his name.[21] Merckx was selected for the men's road race at the 1964 Summer Olympics, where he finished in twelfth position.[22][23] Later in the season, he won the amateur road race at the UCI Road World Championships in Sallanches, France.[25] Merckx remained an amateur until April 1965, and finished his amateur career with eighty wins to his credit.[26][27] Professional career [ edit ] 1965–1967: Solo–Superia and Peugeot–BP–Michelin [ edit ] 1965: First professional season [ edit ] Merckx turned professional on 29 April 1965 when he signed with Rik Van Looy's Belgian team, Solo–Superia. He won his first race in Vilvoorde, beating Emile Daems. On 1 August, Merckx finished second in the Belgian national championships, which qualified him for the men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships.[31] Raphaël Géminiani, the manager of the Bic cycling team, approached Merckx at the event and offered him 2,500 francs a month to join the team the following season. Merckx chose to sign; however, since he was a minor the contract was invalid. After finishing the road race in 29th position,[33] Merckx returned to Belgium and discussed his plans for the next season with his manager Jean Van Buggenhout. Van Buggenhout helped orchestrate a move that sent Merckx to the French-based Peugeot-BP-Michelin for 20,000 francs a month. Merckx elected to leave Solo–Superia due to the way he was treated by his teammates, in particular Van Looy.[31] Van Looy and other teammates mocked Merckx for his various habits such as his eating, or called him names. In addition, Merckx later stated that during his time with Van Looy's team he had not been taught anything.[31] While with Solo–Superia, he won nine races out of the nearly 70 races he entered. 1966: First Monument victory [ edit ] In March 1966, Merckx entered his first major stage race as a professional rider, the Paris–Nice. He took the race lead for a single stage before losing it to Jacques Anquetil and eventually coming in fourth overall. Milan–San Remo, his first participation in one of cycling's Monuments, was the next event on the calendar for Merckx. There, he succeeded in staying with the main field as the race entered the final climb of the Poggio. He attacked on the climb and reduced the field to a group of eleven, himself included. Merckx was advised by his manager to hold off on sprinting full-out to the finish line until as late as possible. Three other riders reached the line with him; Merckx, however, beat them in the sprint. In the following weeks, he raced the Tour of Flanders and Paris–Roubaix, the most important cobbled classics; in the former he crashed and in the latter he had a punctured tire. At the 1966 UCI Road World Championships he finished twelfth in the road race after suffering a cramp in the closing kilometers. He finished 1966 season with a total of 20 wins, including his first stage race win at the Tour of Morbihan. 1967: Second straight Milan–San Remo and world champion [ edit ] Merckx opened the 1967 campaign with two stage victories at the Giro di Sardegna. He followed these successes by entering Paris–Nice where he won the second stage and took the race lead. Two stages later, a teammate, Tom Simpson, attacked with several other riders on a climb and was nearly 20 minutes ahead of Merckx, who remained in a group behind. Merckx attacked two days later on a climb 70 km into the stage. He was able to establish a firm advantage, but obeyed orders from his manager to wait for the chasing Simpson. Merckx won the stage, while Simpson secured his overall victory. On 18 March,[42] Merckx started the Milan–San Remo and was seen as a 120–1 favorite to win the race. He attacked on the Capo Berta and again on the Poggio, leaving only Gianni Motta with him. The two slowed their pace and were joined by two more riders. Merckx won the four-man sprint to the finish. His next victory came in La Flèche Wallonne after he missed out on an early break, caught up to it, and attacked from it to win the race. On 20 May, he started the Giro d'Italia, his first Grand Tour. He won the twelfth and fourteenth stages en route to finishing ninth in the general classification.[46] He signed with Faema on 2 September for ten years worth 400,000 Belgian francs. He chose to switch over in order to be in complete control over the team he was racing for. In addition, he would not have to pay for various expenses that came with racing such as wheels and tires. The next day, Merckx started the men's road race at the 1967 UCI Road World Championships in Heerlen, Netherlands. The course consisted of ten laps of a circuit. Motta attacked on the first lap and was joined by Merckx and five other riders. The group thinned to five as they reached the finish line where Merckx was able to out-sprint Jan Janssen for first place.[50] In doing so, he became the third rider to win the world road race amateur and professional titles. By winning the race he earned the right to wear the rainbow jersey as world champion.[50] 1968–1970: Faema [ edit ] 1968: First Grand Tour victory [ edit ] Merckx's first victory with his new team came in a stage win at the Giro di Sardegna. At Paris–Nice, he was forced to quit the race due to a knee injury he sustained during the event. He failed to win his third consecutive Milan–San Remo and missed out at the Tour of Flanders the following weekend. His next victory came at Paris–Roubaix when he bested Herman Van Springel in a race that was plagued by poor weather and several punctures to the competing riders. During the twelfth stage of the 1968 Giro d'Italia , Merckx caught the leading group, passed them, and rode solo to the stage finish atop the Tre Cime di Lavaredo (pictured) in poor weather to win the stage and take the race lead. At the behest of his team, Merckx raced the Giro d'Italia instead of the Tour de France. He won the race's second stage after he attacked with one kilometer to go.[54] The twelfth stage was marred by rainy weather and featured the climbs of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo for the stage finish.[54] By the time Merckx had reached the penultimate climb, there was a six-man group at the front of the race with a nine-minute advantage. Merckx attacked and was able to get a sizable distance between himself and the group he left before he stopped to change his wheel in order to slow down due to orders from his team manager.[54] Merckx got back on his bike and caught the leading breakaway and rode past it to the finish, where he won the stage and took the race lead.[54] Merckx went on to win the race, along with the points classification and mountains classification.[54] In the Volta a Catalunya, Merckx took the race lead from Gimondi in the race's time trial stage and won the event as a whole. He finished the season with 32 wins in the 129 races he entered. 1969: A victory in Paris and injury in Blois [ edit ] Merckx opened the 1969 season with victories at the Vuelta a Levante and the Paris–Nice overall, as well as stages in each of the races. On 30 March 1969 Merckx earned his first major victory of the 1969 calendar with his win at the Tour of Flanders. On a rainy day that featured strong winds, he attacked first on the Oude Kwaremont, but a puncture nullified any gains he was able to establish. He made a move on the Kapelmuur and was followed by a few riders. As the wind shifted from a crosswind to a headwind with close to seventy kilometers left to go, Merckx increased the pace and rode solo to victory. The seventeen days after the Tour of Flanders saw Merckx win nine times. He won Milan–San Remo by descending the Poggio at high speed. Merckx saw victory again in mid-April at the Liège–Bastogne–Liège when he attacked with seventy kilometers remaining in the pouring rain. He began the Giro d'Italia on 16 May, stating that he wished to ride less aggressively than the year before in order to save energy for the Tour de France. Merckx had won four of the race's stages and held the race lead going into the sixteenth day of racing. However, before the start of the stage race director Vincenzo Torriani, along with a television camera and two writers, entered Merckx's hotel room and informed him that he had failed a doping control and was disqualified from the race, in addition to being suspended for a month. On 14 June, the cycling governing body, the FICP, overturned the month long suspension and cleared him due to the "benefit of the doubt." The Velodrome Eddy Merckx at Mourenx was named in honor of Merckx in 1999 due to his efforts during the seventeenth stage at the 1969 Tour de France Before starting the Tour, Merckx had spent a large amount of his time resting and training, racing only five times. Merckx won the race's sixth stage through attacking before the leg's final major climb, the Ballon d'Alsace, and then outlasting his competitors who were able to follow him initially. During the seventeenth stage, Merckx was riding at the head of the race with several general classification contenders on the Col du Tourmalet. Merckx shifted into a large gear, attacked, and went on to cross the summit with a 45-second advantage. Despite orders to wait for the chasing riders, Merckx increased his efforts. He rode over the Col du Soulor and Col d'Aubisque, increasing the gap to eight minutes. With close to fifty kilometers to go, Merckx began to suffer hypoglycemia and rode the rest of the stage in severe pain. At the end of the stage, Merckx told the journalists "I hope I have done enough now for you to consider me a worthy winner." Merckx finished the race with six stage victories to his credit, along with the general, points, mountains, and combination classifications, and the award for most aggressive rider. His next major race was the two-day race, Paris–Luxembourg. Merckx was down fifty-four seconds going into the second day and attacked eight kilometers from the finish, on the slopes of the Bereldange. Merckx rode solo to catch the leading rider Jacques Anquetil, whom he dropped with a kilometer remaining. Merckx won the stage and gained enough time on the race leader Gimondi to win the race. Fernand Wambst, who was regarded as a great derny driver, agreed to pace Merckx in the omnium events in Blois On 9 September, Merckx participated in a three-round omnium event at the cement velodrome in Blois where each rider was to be paced by a derny. Fernand Wambst was Merckx's pacer for the contest. After winning the first intermediate sprint of the first round, Wambst chose to slow their pace and move to the back of the race despite Merckx wanting to stay out in front for fear of an accident. Wambst wanted to pass everyone to provide a show for the crowd. The duo then increased their pace and began to pass each of the other contestants; however, as they passed the riders in first position, the leading derny lost control and crashed into the wall. Wambst chose to avoid the derny by going below it, but the leader's derny came back down and collided with Wambst, while Merckx's pedal caught one of the dernies. The two riders landed head first onto the track. Wambst died of a fractured skull as he was being transported to a hospital. Merckx remained unconscious for 45 minutes and awoke in the operating room. He sustained a concussion, whiplash, trapped nerves in his back, a displaced pelvis, and several other cuts and bruises. He remained at the hospital for a week before returning to Belgium. He spent six weeks in bed before beginning to race again in October. Merckx later stated that he "was never the same again" after the crash.[83] He would constantly adjust his seat during races to help ease the pain. Merckx stopped racing on 26 October to recuperate. 1970: A Giro–Tour double [ edit ] Merckx entered the 1970 campaign nursing a case of mild tendonitis in his knee. His first major victory came in Paris–Nice where he won the general classification, along with three stages.[83] On 1 April, Merckx won the Gent–Wevelgem, followed by the Tour of Belgium – where he braved a snowy stage and followed the day up with a victory in the final time trial to secure the title – and Paris–Roubaix.[83] In Paris–Roubaix, Merckx was battling a cold as the race began in heavy rain. He attacked thirty-one kilometers from the finish and went on to win by five minutes and twenty-one seconds, the largest margin of victory in the history of the race. The next weekend, Merckx attempted to race for teammate Joseph Bruyère in La Flèche Wallonne; however, Bruyère was unable to keep pace with the leading riders, leaving Merckx to take the victory. After the scandal at the previous year's Giro d'Italia, Merckx was unwilling to return to the race in 1970. His entry to the race was contingent upon all doping controls being sent to a lab in Rome to be tested, rather than being tested at the finish like the year before. He started the race and won the second stage,[83] but four days later showed signs of weakness with his knee as he was dropped twice while in the mountains. However the next day, Merckx attacked on the final climb into the city of Brentonico to win the stage and take the lead.[83] He won the stage nine individual time trial by almost two minutes over the second-place finisher, expanding his lead significantly.[83] Merckx did not win another stage, but expanded his lead a little more before the race's conclusion.[83] Before beginning the Tour, Merckx won the men's road race at the Belgian National Road Race Championships.[89] Merckx won the Tour's opening prologue to take the race's first race leader's yellow jersey.[89] After losing the lead following the second stage,[89] he won the sixth stage after forming a breakaway with Lucien Van Impe and regained the lead. After expanding his lead in the stage nine individual time trial, Merckx won the race's first true mountain stage, stage 10, and expanded his lead to five minutes in the general classification.[89] Merckx won three of the five stages contested within the next four days, including a summit finish to Mont Ventoux, where upon finishing he was given oxygen. Merckx won two more stages, both individual time trials, and won the Tour by over twelve minutes. He finished the Tour with eight stage victories and won the mountains and combination classifications.[89] The eight stage wins equaled the previous record for stage wins in a single Tour de France.[89] Merckx also became the third to accomplish the feat of winning the Giro and Tour in the same calendar year.[89] 1971–1976: Molteni [ edit ] 1971: A third consecutive Tour and second world championship [ edit ] Faema folded at the end of the 1970 season causing Merckx and several of his teammates to move to another Italian team, Molteni. The first major victory for Merckx came in the Giro di Sardegna, which he secured after attacking on his own and riding solo through the rain to win the race's final stage. He followed that with his third consecutive Paris–Nice victory, a race he led from start to finish. In the Milan–San Remo, Merckx worked with his teammates in a seven-man breakaway to set up a final attack on the Poggio. Merckx's attack succeeded and he won his fourth edition of the race. Six days later, he won the Omloop Het Volk. After winning the Tour of Belgium again, Merckx headed into the major spring classics. During the Tour of Flanders, Merckx's rivals worked against him to prevent him from winning. A week later, he suffered five flat tires during the Paris–Roubaix. The Liège–Bastogne–Liège was held in cold and rain conditions. After attacking ninety kilometers from the finish, Merckx caught the leaders on the road and passed them. He rode solo until around three kilometers to go when Georges Pintens caught him. Merckx and Pintens rode to the finish together, where Merckx won the two-man sprint. Instead of racing the Giro d'Italia, Merckx elected to enter two shorter stages races in France, the Grand Prix du Midi Libre and the Critérium du Dauphiné, both of which he won. The Tour de France began with a team time trial that Merckx's team won, giving him the lead. The next day's racing was split into three parts. Merckx lost the lead after stage 1b, but regained it after stage 1c due to a time bonus that he earned from winning an intermediate sprint. During the second stage, a major break with the major race contenders, including Merckx, formed with over a hundred kilometers to go. The group finished nine minutes ahead of the peloton as Merckx came around Roger De Vlaeminck during the sprint to win the day. After a week of racing, Merckx held a lead of around a minute over the main contenders. The eighth stage saw a mountain top finish to Puy-de-Dôme. Bernard Thévenet attacked on the lower slopes and Merckx was unable to counter. Joop Zoetemelk and Luis Ocaña went with Thévenet and wound up gaining fifteen seconds on Merckx. On the descent of the Col du Cucheron during the race's ninth leg, Merckx's tire punctured, prompting Ocaña to attack with Zoetemelk, Thévenet, and Gösta Pettersson. The group of four finished a minute and a half ahead of Merckx, giving Zoetemelk the lead. The following day Merckx lost eight minutes to Ocaña after a poor showing due to stomach pains and indigestion. At the start of the eleventh stage, Merckx, three teammates, and couple others formed a breakaway. Merckx's group finished two minutes in front of the peloton that was led by Ocaña's Bic team. After winning the ensuing time trial, Merckx took back eleven more seconds on Ocaña. The race entered the Pyrenees with the first stage, into Luchon, being plagued by heavy thunderstorms that severely handicapped vision. On the descent of the Col de Menté, Merckx crashed on a left bend. Ocaña, who was trailing, crashed into the same bend and Zoetemelk collided with him. Merckx fell again on the descent and took the race lead as Ocaña was forced to retire from the race due to injuries from the crash. Merckx declined to wear the yellow jersey the following day out of respect for Ocaña. He won two more stages and the general, points, and combination classifications when the race finished in Paris. Seven weeks following the Tour, Merckx entered the men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships that were held in Mendrisio, Switzerland. The route for the day was rather hilly and consisted of several circuits. Merckx was a part of a five-man breakaway as the race reached five laps to go. After attacking on the second to last stage, Merckx and Gimondi reached the finish, where Merckx won the race by four bike lengths. This earned him his second rainbow jersey. He closed out the 1971 calendar with his first victory in the Giro di Lombardia. This victory meant that Merckx had won all of cycling's Monuments.[23] Merckx made the winning move when he attacked on the descent of the Intelvi Pass. During the off-season, Merckx had his displaced pelvis tended to by a doctor. 1972: Breaking the hour record alongside a Giro–Tour double [ edit ] Due to his non-participation in track racing over the winter, Merckx entered the 1972 campaign in poorer form than in previous years. In the Paris–Nice, Merckx broke a vertebra in a crash that occurred as the peloton was in the midst of a bunch sprint. Against the advice of a physician, he started the next day being barely able to ride out of the saddle, leading Ocaña to attack him several times throughout the stage. In the race's fifth leg, Merckx sprinted away from Ocaña with 150 meters to go to win the day. Merckx lost the race lead in the final stage to Raymond Poulidor and finished in second place overall. Two days removed from Paris–Nice, Merckx was victorious for the fifth time at the Milan–San Remo after he established a gap on the descent of the Poggio. In Paris–Roubaix, he crashed again, further aggravating the injury he sustained from Paris–Nice. He won Liège–Bastogne–Liège by making a solo move forty-six kilometers from the finish. Three days later, in La Flèche Wallonne, Merckx was a part of a six-man leading group as the race neared its conclusion. Merckx won the uphill sprint to the finish despite his derailleur shifting him to the wrong gear, forcing him to ride in a larger gear than anticipated. He became the third rider to win La Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège in the same weekend. Despite a monetary offer from race organizers for Merckx to participate in the Vuelta a España, he chose to take part in the Giro d'Italia. Merckx lost four minutes over two and a half minutes to Spanish climber José Manuel Fuente after the Giro's fourth stage that contained a summit finish to Blockhaus. In the seventh stage, Fuente had attacked on the first climb of the day, the Valico di Monte Scuro. However, Fuente cracked near the top of the climb, allowing for Merckx and Pettersson to catch and pass him. Merckx gained over four minutes on Fuente and became the new race leader. He expanded his lead by two minutes through the stage 12a and 12b time trials, winning the former. Fuente got Merckx on his own as the two climbed together during the fourteenth stage. He and teammate Francisco Galdós attacked, leaving Merckx behind. Merckx eventually reconnected with the two on the stage's final climb. He proceeded to attack and went on to win the stage by forty-seven seconds. He lost two minutes to Fuente due to stomach trouble during the seventeenth leg that finished atop the Stelvio Pass, but went on to win one more stage en route to his third victory at the Giro d'Italia. Merckx entered the Tour de France in July where a battle between him and Ocaña was expected by many. He took the opening prologue and expanded his advantage over all the other general classification contenders, except Ocaña, by at least three minutes. Going into the Pyrenees, Merckx led Ocaña by fifty-one seconds. The general classification favorites were riding together as the race hit the Col d'Aubisque in the seventh leg. Ocaña punctured on the climb, allowing for the other riders to attack. Ocaña chased after the group but crashed into a wall on the descent and went on to lose almost two minutes to Merckx. Merckx was criticized for attacking while Ocaña had a flat, but Merckx responded that the year before Ocaña had done the same thing while the race was in the Alps. Merckx won the following stage, regaining the lead which he had lost after the fourth leg. During the next two major mountain stages, one to Mont Ventoux and the other to Orcières, he merely followed Ocaña's wheel. He won three more stages before crossing the finish line in Paris as the race's winner, thus completing his second Giro-Tour double in the process. Ernesto Colnago designed the bike Merckx used (pictured) during his hour record attempt to be similar to Merckx's track bike. The bike weighed 5.9 kilograms and saw two hundred hours put into its production. After initially planning to attempt to break the hour record in August, Merckx decided to make the attempt in October after taking a ten-day hiatus from criterium racing to heal and prepare. The attempt took place on 25 October in Mexico City, Mexico at the outdoor track Agustin Melgar. Mexico was chosen due to the higher altitude as this led to less air resistance. He arrived in Mexico on the 21st to prepare for his attempt, but two days were lost due to rain. His attempt started at 8:46 am local time and saw him finish the first ten kilometers twenty-eight seconds faster than the record pace. However, Merckx started off too fast and began to fade as the attempt wore on. He eventually was able to recover and posted a distance of 49.431 km (31 mi), breaking the world record. After finishing he was carried off and was quoted saying the pain was "very, very, very significant." 1973: A Giro–Vuelta double [ edit ] An illness prevented Merckx from taking part in the Milan–San Remo at the start of the 1973 calendar. During a span of nineteen days, Merckx won four classics including Omloop Het Volk, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and Paris–Roubaix. He decided to race the Vuelta a España and the Giro d'Italia, instead of racing the Tour de France. He won the opening prologue of the Vuelta to take an early lead. Despite Ocaña's best efforts, Merckx won a total of six stages on his way to his only Vuelta a España title. In addition to the general classification, Merckx won the race's points classification and combination classifications. Four days after the conclusion of the Vuelta, Merckx lined up to start the Giro d'Italia. He won the opening two-man time trial with Roger Swerts and the next day's leg as well. Merckx's primary competitor, Fuente, lost a significant amount of time during the second stage. He won eighth stage that featured a summit finish to Monte Carpegna despite Fuente attacking several times on the ascent. Fuente tried attacking throughout the race of the race, but was only able to make time gains on the race's penultimate stage. Merckx won the race after leading from start to finish, a feat only previously done by Alfredo Binda and Costante Girardengo. He also became the first rider to win the Giro and Vuelta in the same calendar year. The UCI Road World Championships were held in Barcelona, Spain in 1973 and contested on the Montjuich circuit. During the road race, Merckx attacked with around one hundred kilometers left. His move was marked by Freddy Maertens, Gimondi, and Ocaña. Merckx attacked on the final lap, but was reeled in by the three riders. It came down to a sprint between the four, of which Merckx came in last and Gimondi in first. Following the road race, Merckx won his first Paris–Brussels and Grand Prix des Nations. He won both legs of À travers Lausanne, as well as the Giro di Lombardia, but a doping positive disqualified him. He closed the season with over fifty victories to his credit. 1974: Completion of cycling's Triple Crown [ edit ] The 1974 season saw Merckx fail to win a spring classic for the first time in his career, in part due to him suffering from various illnesses during the early months. Pneumonia forced him to quit racing for a month and forced him to enter the Giro d'Italia in poor form. He lost time early in the race to Fuente, who took the race's first mountainous stage. Merckx gained time on Fuente in the race's only time trial. Merckx attacked from two hundred kilometers out two days later in a stage that was plagued by horrendous weather. Fuente lost ten minutes to Merckx, who became the race leader. The twentieth stage had a summit finish to Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Fuente and Gianbattista Baronchelli attacked on the climb, while Merckx was unable to match their accelerations. He finished the stage only to see his lead shrink to twelve seconds over Baronchelli. He held on to that lead until the race's conclusion, winning his fifth Giro d'Italia. Three days following his victory at the Giro, Merckx started the Tour de Suisse. He won the race's prologue and rode conservatively for the rest of the race. He took the final leg, an individual time trial, to seal his overall victory. After finishing the race, Merckx had a sebaceous cyst removed on 22 June. Five days following the surgery, he was scheduled to begin the Tour de France. The wound was still slightly open when he began the Grand Tour and it bled throughout the race. At the Tour, Merckx won the race's prologue, giving him the first race leader's maillot jaune (English: yellow jersey), which he lost the next day to teammate Joseph Bruyère. He won the seventh stage of the race, and regained the lead, through attacking in the closing kilometers and holding off the chasing peloton. He put five minutes into Poulidor, his main rival, after dropping him on the Col du Galibier. The next day, on the slopes of Mont Ventoux, Merckx rode to limit his losses after suffering several attacks from other general classification riders, including Poulidor, Vicente López Carril and Gonzalo Aja. He expanded his lead through several stage victories afterward, including one where he attacked with ten kilometers to go in a flat stage and held off the peloton to reach the finish in Orléans almost a minute and a half before the chasing group. Merckx finished the Tour with eight stage wins and his fifth Tour de France victory, equaling the record of Anquetil. Going into the men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships, Merckx anchored a squad that included Van Springel, Maertens, and De Vlaeminck. The route featured twenty-one laps of a circuit that contained two climbs. Merckx and Poulidor attacked with around seven kilometers to go, after catching the leading breakaway. The two rode to the finish together where Merckx won the sprint to the line, establishing a two-second gap between himself and Poulidor. By winning the road race, Merckx became the first rider to win the Triple Crown of Cycling, which consists of winning the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, and men's road race at the World Championships in one calendar year.[148][149] It was also his third world title, becoming the third rider to ever be world champion three times, after Binda and Rik Van Steenbergen. 1975: Second place at the Tour [ edit ] With victories at Milan–San Remo and Amstel Gold Race, Merckx opened the 1975 season in good form, also winning the Setmana Catalana de Ciclisme. In the Catalan Week, Merckx lost his super domestique Bruyère, who had helped Merckx to victory in years past many times, to a broken leg. Two days following the Catalan Week, Merckx participated in the Tour of Flanders. He launched an attacked with eighty kilometers to go, with only Frans Verbeeck being able to match his acceleration. Verbeeck was dropped as the race reached five kilometers remaining, allowing Merckx to take his third Tour of Flanders victory. In Paris–Roubaix, Merckx suffered a flat tire with around eighty kilometers left when a part of a leading group of four. After chasing for three kilometers, he caught the three other riders and the group rode into the finish together; De Vlaeminck won the day. Merckx won his fifth Liège–Bastogne–Liège by attacking several times in the closing portions of the race. Merckx's attitude while racing had changed: riders expected him to chase down attacks, which angered him. Notably, in the Tour de Romandie he was riding with race leader Zoetemelk as an attack occurred. Merckx refused to chase the break down, and the two lost fourteen minutes. Merckx contracted a cold and, later, tonsilitis while racing in the spring campaign. This caused him to be in poor form, forcing him to not participate in the Giro d'Italia. He then rode in the Dauphiné Libéré and was not on par with Thevenet, who won the race. At the Tour de Suisse, De Vlaeminck won the race as a whole, while Merckx finished second. He placed second in the Tour de France's prologue. The following morning's split stage saw Merckx put time on Thevenet by attacking with Francesco Moser, Van Impe, and Zoetemelk. In day's second leg, Merckx gained time on Zoetemelk. He won the stage six individual time trial and gaining more time on Thevenet and Zoetemelk. He won the next time trial into Auch as well. During the race's eleventh stage, Merckx sent his team to set the pace early on in the stage. Reaching the final climb of the day, Merckx was on his own as his team had been used to set the pace throughout the day. On the day's final climb to Pla d'Adet, he matched an acceleration by Zoetemelk. Thevenet then launched an attack, to which Merckx could not follow and saw him lose over two minutes. After the stage Merckx switched decided to mark Thevenet for the rest of the race and make an attack on the Puy-de-Dôme. While climbing the Puy-de-Dôme, Thevenet and Van Impe attacked. Merckx followed at his own pace and kept the two riders within a hundred meters. With about 150 m remaining, Merckx was prepared to sprint to the line, but was punched in the back by a spectator, Nello Breton. He crossed the line thirty-four seconds behind Thevenet and proceeded to vomit after catching his breath. The punch left him with a large bruise. During the rest day he was found to have an inflamed liver for which he was prescribed blood thinners. The stage following the rest day featured five climbs, Merckx felt a pain on the third climb in the area of the punch and had a teammate get him an analgesic. Thevenet attacked several times on the climb of the Col des Champs, all of which Merckx countered. Merckx retaliated by speeding away on the descent. On the start of the next climb, Merckx had his Molteni teammates set the pace and he distanced himself from his competitors before the start of the final climb. However, as Merckx began the final climb he cracked. Thevenet caught and passed him with four kilometers left. Gimondi, Van Impe, and Zoetemelk passed Merckx, who finished fifth and one minute and twenty-six seconds down. The following day, Merckx caught up with the leading breakaway and wanted to push ahead, but the riders chose not to participate in the pace making, leading Merckx to sit up and get caught. He lost two more minutes to Thevenet, who attacked on the Col d'Izoard. He crashed in the next leg, breaking a cheekbone, and gained some time on Thevenet before the finish in Paris. He finished in second place, the first time he had lost a Tour in his six starts. 1976: A record seventh Milan–San Remo [ edit ] He opened his 1976 season with his record seventh victory in Milan–San Remo. He followed with a victory in the Catalan Week, but suffered a crash in the final stage when a spectator's bag caught his handlebars, injuring his elbow. This injury plagued his performance throughout the spring classic season. He entered the Giro d'Italia but failed to win a stage for the first time in his career. He finished the race in eighth overall while battling a saddle boil throughout the race. Following the Giro's conclusion Merckx announced that he and his team Molteni would not take part in the Tour de France. He took part in the men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships and finished in fifth position. He ended his season in October after racing for most of August. He failed to win the Super Prestige Pernod International, a competition where riders were awarded points for their placements in certain professional races, for the first time since 1968. In the first two months of his off-season, Merckx spent the majority of his time lying down. Molteni ended their sponsorship at the end of the season. 1977–1978: Fiat France and C&A [ edit ] Fiat France became the new sponsor for Merckx's team and Raphaël Géminiani the new manager. He got his season's first victories in the Grand Prix d'Aix and Tour Méditerranéen. Merckx agreed to ride a light spring season in order to save himself for a chance at a sixth Tour victory. He took one stage at the Paris–Nice but had to withdraw from the race's final stage due to sinusitis. In the spring classics, Merckx did not win any races, with his best finish being a sixth place in the Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Before the Tour, Merckx raced both the Dauphiné Libéré and Tour de Suisse, winning one stage of the latter. He admitted his poor form and anxiety about aggravating previous injuries going into the Tour de France. He held on to second place overall for two weeks. As the race entered the Alps, Merckx began to lose more time; he lost thirteen minutes on the stage to Alpe d'Huez alone. On the stage into Saint-Étienne, Merckx attacked and gained enough time to move into sixth overall; he finished the Tour in the same position. In the time following the Tour, Merckx raced twenty-two races in a span of forty days before coming in thirty-third at the UCI Road World Championships's men's road race. Merckx earned his final victory on the road on 17 September in a kermis race. In late December, Fiat France chose to end their sponsorship of Merckx in favor of building a more French centered squad. In January, the department store C&A announced that they would sponsor a new team for Merckx after their owner met Merckx at a football game. His plan for the season was to race one last Tour de France and then ride several smaller races for appearances. He raced a total of five races in the 1978 calendar. His last victory was in a track event, an omnium in Zürich, on 10 February 1978 with Patrick Sercu.[176] His first road race came in the Grand Prix de Montauroux on 19 February. Merckx came to the front of the race and put in a large effort before swinging off and quitting the race. His best finish came in the Tour de Haut, where he managed fifth. He dropped out of Omloop Het Volk due to colitis and completed his final race on 19 March, a kermis in Kemzeke. Following the race, Merckx went on a vacation to go skiing. He returned from travel to train more, but by this point the team sponsor knew he was going to quit. Merckx announced his retirement from the sport on 18 May. He stated that the doctors advised him against racing. Retirement [ edit ] Eddy Merckx Cycles (factory pictured left) opened in 1980 and soon began producing bikes that were used by several professional cycling teams (a 1989 model used by 7-Eleven pictured right) in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Following his exit from racing, Merckx opened up Eddy Merckx Cycles on 28 March 1980 in Brussels. The initial workers that were hired for the factory were trained by Ugo De Rosa, a notable bike maker, before starting. The company almost went bankrupt at one point and was also caught up in a tax repayment controversy. Merckx would spend time giving input on the models as they were being produced. Despite the financial problems the brand became highly regarded and successful, being used by several top-level cycling teams in the 1980s and 1990s. Merckx stepped down as CEO in 2008 and sold most of his shares, but still tests the bikes that are created and has some input. Cycling journalist Sam Dansie believed that the fact that Eddy Merckx Cycles has maintained a presence as an elite bicycle due to its adoption of new methods over time. As of January 2015, the business is still based in Belgium and distributes to over twenty-five countries.[183] Merckx managed the Belgian national team world championships for eleven years, between 1986 and 1996. He acted as the race director for the Tour of Flanders for a brief period of time. He temporarily sponsored a youth developmental team with CGER Bank, a team that featured his son Axel. He helped organize the Grand Prix Eddy Merckx, which started out as an invitation only individual time trial event, later becoming a two-man time trial event. The event folded after 2004 due to riders' lack of interest. He played a pivotal role in getting the Tour of Qatar started in 2002.[185] In 2001 Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the former Emir of Qatar, reached out to Merckx and told him of his interest in starting a bicycle race to show off his country.[185] Merckx then contacted then Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) president Hein Verbruggen, who checked out Qatar's roads.[185] Following a successful inspection, Merckx contacted the Amaury Sport Organisation about working with him planning the race; they agreed in 2001.[185] Merckx officially co-owns the race with Dirk De Pauw and still helps to organize the race.[185][186] In addition, Merckx also helped Qatar secure the right to host the 2016 UCI Road World Championships, as well as designing the race route for the road race.[185][186] Merckx also co-owns and helps organize the Tour of Oman.[187] In 2015, Merckx said later that although he was not racing, he knew would still be involved with the sport "as a bike builder, first in the factory and now as an ambassador."[188] Personal life [ edit ] Merckx officially began dating Claudine Acou in April 1965. Acou was a 21-year-old teacher and daughter of the trainer of the national amateur team. Merckx asked her father for permission to marry her between track races. On 5 December 1967 Merckx married Acou after four years of courtship. She would often handle the press for her husband, who was shy. Claudine gave birth to their first child, Sabrina, on 14 February 1970. Merckx skipped a team training camp to be with Claudine for Sabrina's birth. Claudine later gave birth to a son, Axel, who also became a professional cyclist. Merckx was brought up speaking in Flemish, but was taught French in school. In 1996 Albert II of Belgium King of the Belgians, gave him the title of baron. In Italy, Merckx was given the title of Cavaliere. In 2011, he was named Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur by then French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris.[196] Merckx has become an ambassador for the Damien The Leper Society, a foundation named after a Catholic priest, which battles leprosy and other diseases in developing countries. He was blessed by Pope John Paul II in Brussels in the 1990s. Merckx is an art lover and stated that his favorite artist is René Magritte, a surrealist.[31] Salvador Dalí is another of his favorites.[31] Before starting the third stage of the 1968 Giro d'Italia,[198] Merckx was found to have a heart condition.[199] A cardiologist, Giancarlo Lavezzaro, found that Merckx had non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disease that has killed several young athletes.[198][199] In 2013, Merckx was given a pacemaker to help correct a heart rhythm issue.[199] The surgery was performed in Genk on 21 March and done as a preventative procedure.[199] Merckx stated that he never had any heart issues while racing, despite the fact that several males in his family died young of heart related problems.[198][199] In May 2004, he had an esophagus operation to cure stomach ache suffered since he was young.[200] In August, he reported that he lost nearly 30 kg after the procedure.[200] Legacy [ edit ] Merckx (pictured in 2010) was a successful cyclist on the road and on the track, with 525 victories to his credit over the course of his career. Merckx has been regarded by many as the greatest and most successful cyclist of all time.[3][26][202][203] He rode well in the Grand Tours and in the one-day classics.[204] He was a very good time trialist and climber.[23][202] In addition, Merckx showed great ability to race on the track.[202] He was known for racing style that consisted of attacking constantly, which came to be known as "la course en tête".[N 1] Attacking for Merckx was the best form of defence. He would spend a day in a breakaway and then make another significant attack the following day. Despite his constant attacking, he would occasionally ride in a defensive mindset, particularly when racing the Giro and facing Fuente. Merckx entered over 1,800 races during his career and won a total of 525.[3][149][202][204][209] Due to his dominance in the sport some cycling historians refer to the period in which he raced as the "Merckx Era." During his professional career, he won 445 of the 1585 races he entered.[26] Between the years of 1967 and 1977 Merckx raced between 111 and 151 races each season. In 1971, he raced 120 times and won 54 of the events, the most races any cyclist has won in a season. Merckx admits that he was the best of his generation, but insists it's not practical to compare across generations.[203] He is one of the three riders to win all five 'Monuments of Cycling' (i.e., Milan–San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and the Giro di Lombardia), the other two being Rik Van Looy and Roger De Vlaeminck.[23] He finished his career with nineteen victories across the monuments, more than any other rider and eight more than the rider with the second most.[23][149] He won twenty-eight classic races,[202] with Paris–Tours being the only race he did not win. The closest he came to victory in the race was sixth in the 1973 race. A lesser Belgian rider, Noël van Tyghem, won Paris–Tours in 1972[211] and said: "Between us, I and Eddy Merckx have won every classic that can be won. I won Paris–Tours, Merckx won all the rest."[212] While racing, he became the third rider to win all three Grand Tours in his career, a feat that has since been accomplished by more riders.[204] He holds the record for most Grand Tour victories with 11, along with the record for most stage wins across all three Grand Tours with 64.[209] He has completed the most Giro-Tour doubles in history with three.[204][209] He was the first rider to win cycling's Triple Crown which has only been accomplished one other time, by Stephen Roche in 1987.[23][202] He was also the first rider to win all three major classifications – the general, points, and mountains classifications – in one Grand Tour at the 1968 Giro d'Italia, and again at the 1969 Tour de France. This has only been done twice since by Tony Rominger and Laurent Jalabert. He shares the record for most victories at both the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France, with five wins at each. In those races he also holds the records for days spent in the race leader's jersey at 78 and 96 respectively.[213] For his career successes in the Giro d'Italia, Merckx became the first rider inducted into the race's Hall of Fame in 2012.[213][214] When being inducted, Merckx was given the modern-day trophy with the winners engraved until 1974, the last year he won the race.[213][214] At the Tour, he holds the record for most stage wins in its history, with thirty-four.[202][209] He was given the nickname "The Cannibal" by the daughter of Christian Raymond, a teammate of Merckx's.[203] Raymond had commented on Merckx not allowing anyone else to win, to which his daughter referred to Merckx as a cannibal.[203] Raymond liked the nickname and then mentioned it to the press. In Italy, he was known as "il mostro" (English: the monster). Dutch cycling great Joop Zoetemelk said "First there was Merckx, and then another classification began behind him."[26] Cycling journalist and commentator Phil Liggett wrote that if Merckx started a race, many riders acknowledged that they likely would be competing for second place. Ted Costantino wrote that Merckx was undoubtedly the number one cyclist of all time, whereas in other sports there are debates that go on about who is actually the greatest of all time.[26] Gianni Motta told of how Merckx would ride without a racing cape when it was snowing or raining in order to go faster than other riders. Even after his retirement, many subsequent stars still feel overshadowed by his fame and race results. Merckx befriended Fiorenzo Magni when he began racing for an Italian team.[220] He was criticized by opposing riders for his relentless pursuit of victory that prevented even lesser known riders from collecting a few victories. When told that he won too much, Merckx stated that "The day when I start a race without intending to win it, I won't be able to look at myself in the mirror." Doping [ edit ] Merckx (pictured during at 1969 Six Days of Milan) was involved in three separate doping incidents during his career. Merckx was leading the 1969 Giro d'Italia upon the conclusion of the sixteenth stage in Savona.[223][224][225] After the stage, Merckx traveled to the mobile lab that traveled with the race and conducted the drug tests.[N 2] Merckx’s first test came up positive for fencamfamine, an amphetamine.[223][224][225] A second test was conducted and also came up positive.[224][225] The word spread about Merckx's positive test while Merckx himself was still asleep.[225] The positive test meant Merckx was to be suspended for a month.[227] Race director Vincenzo Torriani delayed the start of the seventeenth stage in an attempt to persuade the president of the Italian Cycling Federation to allow Merckx to begin the stage.[225] However, the president was not in his office and Torriani was forced to start the stage, disqualifying Merckx in the process.[225] In the succeeding days, the UCI removed the suspension put in place.[224][225] From the start, Merckx claimed his innocence saying that "I am a clean rider, I do not need to take anything to win."[228] He maintains that his samples were mishandled.[224][225] After the incident, several conspiracy theories emerged including: the urine that tested positive was not Merckx's, a move to give Italian Felice Gimondi a better chance at victory, and Merckx had been given a water bottle with the stimulant in it. On 8 November 1973, it was announced that Merckx had tested positive for norephedrine after winning the Giro di Lombardia a month earlier.[233][234] Upon learning of the first test being positive in later October, he had a counter-analysis performed which also turned up positive.[233] The drug was present in a cough medicine that the Molteni doctor, Dr. Cavalli, prescribed to him.[233] Merckx was disqualified from the race and the victory was awarded to second-place finisher Gimondi.[233][234][235] In addition, Merckx was given a month suspension and fined 150,000 lira.[233][234] Merckx admitted his fault in taking the medicine but said that the name norephedrine was not on the bottle of cough syrup he used.[233] On 8 May 1977, Merckx, along with several other riders, tested positive for pemoline, a stimulant in Stimul, at La Flèche Wallonne.[236][237][238][239][240] The group of riders was charged by the Belgian cycling federation, and the riders were each given a 24,000 pesetas fine and a one-month suspension.[240] Initially, Merckx announced his intention to appeal the penalty, saying he only took substances that were not on the banned list.[240] Merckx's eighth-place finish in the race was voided. Years later, Merckx admitted he did take a banned substance, citing that he was wrong to have trusted a doctor. Due to Merckx's positive tests during his career, he was asked by the event organizers to stay away from the 2007 UCI Road World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.[241] The organizers stated that "[they] had to be role models", while Merckx wrote them off claiming them to be crazy.[241] Merckx was not alone, as several other riders were asked to keep their distance from the event.[241] Honours [ edit ] See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] Footnotes ^ This term was popularized by the eponymous film by Joel Santoni that documented Merckx's racing. ^ At the 1969 Giro d’Italia the top two in the general classification were drug tested after each stage, along with two other cyclists chosen at random. Citations Bibliography Eddy Merckx at Cycling Archives |
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